Extra Credit (26 page)

Kevin decided that remaining silent was the best way not to incriminate himself.

“What do you think, Crawford?” I asked. “I wanted to get some info on Sassy. If I got to see some creative interpretative dance while I was at it, all the better.”

Carmen stifled a giggle.

“Why did you lie about going to court?” I asked.

“Because I knew if I told you where I was going, you’d go there, too,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Which I guess it was. He looked helplessly at Carmen. “You talk to her.”

“Listen,
chica
. We’ve got this under control. Girl’s got some crazy background, and we’re going to try to have a nice chat with her, in a controlled setting, to see if we can figure out what she wants so badly and why she’ll do anything to get it.”

“She wants the money,” I said.

Carmen knew that, too. “Right—but it’s our job to figure out why and get her to lay off.” She pointed a finger at me, the French manicure impeccable; woman had a lot of style. Not my style, but style nonetheless. “Not yours.”

“Why do you think she allowed her headlining act to be advertised?” I asked. “Even if it did get canceled?”

Carmen raised an eyebrow at me. “Maybe to smoke someone out who might have some information about the money? Someone who wanted to see her? Talk to her?”

In other words, me.

Crawford chimed in. “Maybe because she’s dumb?” He arched an eyebrow in my direction.

Kevin was going to have some kind of seizure if we didn’t get out of the club, and he didn’t need to use words to tell me that. The lone trickle of sweat running down the side of his pudgy face was evidence enough. I slapped him on the back. “Ready, Kev?” I looked at Crawford. “See you at home?”

“See you at home,” he dutifully intoned. “Carmen and I will just finish up here and then call it a night. Don’t wait up.”

“I never do,” I said, sleep being as important to me as the air I breathed. I gave his hair a tousle as I walked past him, knowing that he hated that as much as my amateur sleuthing. “Later.”

Kevin left the club as fast as his legs would carry him and was standing by the car before I had even gotten through the front door. I took a whiff of the sleeve of my sweater and found it ripe with the smell of smoke and something else that was a combination of all odiferous and bad things. I was just about to remark to him about how bad our car ride home would smell when I saw someone come up behind him, unbeknownst to the terrified former priest, and put a long bare arm around his neck.

“Well, if it isn’t the lovely Sassafras Du Pris,” I said, sounding bolder than I felt.

In her ubiquitous heels, she stood a foot taller than Kevin, and was solidly built. Kevin’s eyes grew wider, and I felt bad that I had dragged him into this caper, even though he was a willing, if initially reluctant, participant.

Sassy’s voice wasn’t what I expected. Sure, it sounded southern, and yes, it was all lady, even though the look of her suggested “drag queen,” but it was higher and thinner than I’d thought it would be, more Minnie Mouse than Demi Moore. “Where’s that fucking money?” she asked.

“With the public administrator,” I said.

“Don’t mess with me,” she said.

I decided to keep her talking because that was my best shot at having Crawford and Carmen come into the parking lot before she did something stupid. Sassy, however, had other plans.

There were a lot of things that were shiny about Sassy—her nails, her hair, the bling around her neck and that hung from her ears. Oh, then there was the gun she pulled out from her jeans pocket and held against Kevin’s temple. That was the shiniest thing of all.

Thirty-Four

Of all of the things I had done in the name of getting to the truth, this had to be the dumbest. As I watched Kevin go from terrified to catatonic, looking like he was going to faint, I rued the day I ever thought I could have a reasonable conversation with a woman who was hell-bent on finding money we didn’t have.

“Just do what she says,” Kevin said when he saw that it wasn’t a done deal that I would follow her into a waiting van, parked at the far end of the lot under a light that had burned out long ago. My first instinct had been to run, but I knew enough about Sassy to know what she might be capable of; her reputation definitely preceded her. I followed Kevin’s sage advice and traipsed along after them, looking behind me to see if either Crawford or Carmen had emerged from the dingy, stinky club and would be inclined to save us, but the parking lot was vacant. The sound of our shoes on the pavement was the only sound in addition to the low rumble of the van, a vehicle obviously in need of a new muffler. I thought about my phone, locked up in the glove compartment of my car, and then thought longingly about the time machine I thought about constantly and always wished I had invented, the one that would transport me back to a time when I didn’t make rash, idiotic decisions, dragging my friends along for the dangerous ride.

Sassy opened the back of the van, a cargo area with no seats; after that, she took Kevin’s brand-new iPhone, the one he loved so much, stomped on it with her high heels, and left it for dead in the parking lot. Apparently, Kevin hadn’t taken my advice and locked his valuables in my glove box. I looked at her. “Where are you taking us? And you do realize that we’ll be rolling around back there?”

She pushed Kevin into the van in response to my questions, and he fell in with a thud, banging his knee hard. It was at this point that I was grateful he had gotten so chubby; maybe the extra pounds would protect him—and me—as we were tossed to and fro around the metal-encased hold. As Sassy raised a hand to push me as well, I stepped up toward the van, grabbing both sides of the door and hoisting myself in; I didn’t need her help. I was an experienced kidnap victim. Once in the van, I looked around for something to hold, but there was nothing—just a strap hanging from the ceiling that wasn’t long enough for us to grab to keep from rolling around when she took a corner.

She leaned in and in her squeaky voice admonished us, “If you can’t keep quiet, I will kill you.”

Kevin trembled beside me, and I put a hand on his knee to calm him. “Don’t worry.”

Sassy jumped in the front seat and slammed the door, gunning the engine. Kevin looked at me, some color returning to his cheeks. “‘Don’t worry’?” he hissed through clenched teeth. “What would I have to worry about? A crazed stripper just held a gun to my temple, and God knows where she’s taking us. I bet it isn’t church, though.” He put his hands beside him to hold himself steady and dropped his head. “We’re going to die.”

“We’re not going to die,” I said, a confidence coming over me that had no legitimate source. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t think Sassy was going to hurt us. Well, at least not mortally. Kevin, on the other hand, didn’t look so sure.

After a harrowing ride through the streets of Yonkers and its environs, Sassy pulled the car over, coming to an abrupt stop that threw me against the opposite wall of the van. I didn’t have a watch and neither did Kevin, but it seemed like we had been driving around for over a half hour. Kevin managed to stay put when she came to a stop, having decided to stand and grab hold of the short strap dangling from the ceiling. After it was clear we were at our destination, I stood, rubbing my butt.

“That’s going to hurt tomorrow,” I said.

“If we even have a tomorrow!” Kevin said dramatically. It appeared that he was taking his anger about the situation out on me, a really uncool turn of events to me.

“God, when did you turn into such a drama queen?” I asked.

He sputtered, trying to come up with a response, but he had nothing.

I glared at him. “You had every right to say no when I asked you to come,” I said.

“Oh, I did?” he asked. He did a passable imitation of my voice and vaguely New York–tinged accent. “‘We’ll be home early. It will only take a few minutes. I just want to talk to her,’” he said. “That’s what I was supposed to say no to? Never in my wildest dreams would this happen,” he said, throwing his arms out wide to indicate the inside of the dingy van.

“Listen, you’re bored and unhappy with your new life and you came along for the ride. It’s not my fault,” I said as Sassy opened the back of the van. I peered out to see where we were; it looked like classic Westchester woodland, the kind where bodies were laid to rest, never to be found again. I shuddered slightly, hoping Kevin wouldn’t notice. Maybe I had been wrong about Sassy and her intentions.

“Oh, great,” he said. “Now we’re going to sleep with the fishes.”

I jumped off the end of the van and looked at Sassy. “Would you please tell him that we’re not going to sleep with the fishes?”

She shrugged. “You might.”

Kevin followed me out of the van. We stood at the edge of the parking lot, a light blinking on and off under a very dark sky, a bridge off in the distance; the van lights were still on, and they illuminated the hardened face of a woman who was probably once very pretty and who reminded me of someone else, someone whose identity wasn’t coming to me now. An actress? I studied her to get a sense of whether she really wished us any harm or just wanted to scare us into giving her information that we didn’t have.

If it weren’t for the circumstances, I would have commented on the gorgeous night and the dark silhouette of the trees around us, but I kept my mouth shut.

She waved the gun around menacingly, but to me, her heart didn’t seem to be in it. I decided to take control of the situation by offering up what I did know.

“Sassy, we do not have the money. After Chick died, it went to the public administrator, and it will be months, even years, before we find out who gets it.”

She looked confused but didn’t say anything.

“Did you kill Chick, Sassy?” I asked.

“No!” she said and then began crying, big, horrible sobs that came from the tips of her Lucite-heel-shod toes. “I loved him. I would never hurt him.”

Kevin had no idea what I was talking about, not knowing about the note we had found in Chick’s apartment. I waited to see if she had more to say.

“He divorced me. Right before he left. Everyone thought I left him, but it was the other way around. If it was up to me? We’d still be married.” She scratched at her head, and it became apparent that what I thought was a weave was really a wig. She stripped it from her head and threw it into a small stream right off the parking lot. Underneath all that synthetic hair was a lovely round head topped with a short pixie cut that made the really trashy Sassy look about ten years younger and closer to a teen than a middle-aged woman. “God, I loved him.” She looked at me beseechingly. “Is he really dead?”

“He’s really dead,” I said. I looked at Kevin, shaking uncontrollably beside me. I put my arm around him. “You have to believe us about the money because—”

“I’m a priest!” Kevin blurted out suddenly, finding his voice.

Sassy went to her knees like a sack of potatoes that had been dropped from a second-story window. “Oh, God!”

“Right! Oh, God!” Kevin said.

Standing there, I was reminded of a dog Max used to have, a giant, showy Afghan with the inexplicable name of Juniper who Max claimed was the toughest dog she knew. How she knew this was anyone’s guess, but to me, Juniper was all bark and no bite. Sure, she sounded some kind of weird alarm every time someone rang the doorbell, and yes, she would jump on top of you the minute you gained entry into the house, but her tail was always between her legs, and at her core, she was extremely docile. The attempted burning down of the house notwithstanding, Sassy seemed the same way to me—a physical oddity with a strange and loud voice, but not someone who would do more than jump on top of you if the situation called for it. I think in the years since she and Chick had separated, Sassy had lost a little of her sass. The gun, to me, was like Juniper’s teeth, big, shiny, and sharp but never to be used for anything that didn’t have to do with food.

She was overwrought at the thought that she had kidnapped a priest and stayed on her knees. The gun clattered noisily to the ground, and I lunged for it, grabbing it before Sassy had a chance to compose herself. She reacted too late; the gun was already in my hand and out of her reach by the time she realized she had dropped it. “Let us go and this will all be behind us, Sassy.”

“I need that money,” she whispered from her position on the ground.

“Why? Why do you need the money so badly?” Then I remembered something that immediately made me feel less sympathetic toward her. “Why do you need money so badly that you would break into my house and poison my dog?” I asked.

She looked up, and now that the bad wig was gone, I could see her face very clearly. She looked shocked. “I would never harm an animal.”

“My dog almost died,” I said.

She stood. “I’ll cop to trying to break into your car the other night and then breaking the window later, but I would never hurt your dog.” She looked at me, her head cocked. “Your husband is a big guy. Kinda stiff, though.”

“He’s a cop,” Kevin helpfully added.

For some reason, I believed Sassy was telling the truth about what she’d done. “Oh, jeez,” Sassy sobbed. “I know. First a cop and then a priest. Do I have luck or what?”

I didn’t really care if Sassy was unlucky; she was a pain in the ass and might have been the person who had set out to poison my dog. “Who poisoned my dog? Who broke into my house?” I asked her.

“I have no idea,” she said, going toward the front of the van. “Did Chick ever say anything about me?”

I thought back to the birthday party, the supposedly joyous event that had set all of this ridiculousness in motion. “He referred to you once as his ‘dear, sweet Sassy,’” I said.

She mulled that over, and ultimately it seemed to make her happy. “I don’t know. Something screwed him up. I don’t know what it was.”

“Drugs? Alcohol?” I asked, going for the usual suspects in the “screw up” department.

She shook her head. “No. That wasn’t it. I think he met someone else,” she said. “Why else would he have left me?”

Looking at her, and knowing a bit about her background, gave me about a hundred answers to that question even though we had just met. The fact that he had found one woman, perhaps two, was a bit of a stretch, but who was I to judge? Maybe she was right. I didn’t think we’d ever know. I think Chick was just your run-of-the-mill whack job. Frankly, I didn’t care. Spending so much time on the subject seemed like a waste to me.