Girl Undercover 4 & 5: Ariel & Financial Devil (8 page)

Finally the group scattered and I could get through. Pushing myself forth, I disappeared between the men, just out of reach of Hutchkins. I could hear him snarl something behind me. I got beyond the last man and was close to the exit. I swept aside the curtains that hid the entrance and dashed outside, almost knocking my head against the chin of a famous basketball player. He grabbed my shoulders to steady me, but I shook myself loose and continued past him and his friend. I ran up the street, away from FlashDancers.

“Stop that woman,” Hutchkins yelled behind me. I moved my legs faster, praying that no one on the street where people walked would do what he wanted. I was lucky; all they did was step aside, giving me room to get away. The road was full of cars, many of them cabs. I raised an arm and waved violently for one to stop for me.

My luck had returned completely because one slid up to me and I dove inside. Closing the door, I locked it and told the cabbie to drive me to 70th and Broadway, using as calm a voice as I could muster. He pulled back into the busy street and we were on our way.

Leaning back into the seat, I allowed myself to catch my breath for a few moments before I turned my head to see where Hutchkins was.

He was standing at the side of the road next to Fedora man, both of them shaking their fists at my cab. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling a little as the adrenaline that pumped through my veins started to subside. That had been one close call.

I found my phone in my purse that I had miraculously managed to bring with me in the midst of my escape and dialed George. I needed him to check if there was any truth to what Hutchkins had told me about his whereabouts this past Thursday. Given his violent reaction, I remained sure he’d lied and was Ariel’s murderer. Of course, that meant my gut had been totally off in thinking Janine had been involved. Or maybe they had done it together somehow. Unlikely, but still possible.

I held the phone close to my ear as I listened to ring after ring going through without George picking up. It finally went to voicemail. When the beep sounded, I left a message, telling him to call me back ASAP.

The cab stopped on my street fifteen minutes later. I paid the fare and exited, heading to my apartment building.

By the time I had taken a shower and removed the heavy makeup from my face, George had still not called. I was on pins and needles, waiting for him to get back to me. Not until I had verified that Hutchkins had lied about taking his mother to the hospital would I be able to relax.

After having paced my apartment for a few minutes, willing my phone to ring, I sat before my laptop and began Googling Charles Hutchkins. Maybe I could come up with some answers about him myself. For example, if I could determine that his mother was already dead, I’d know he’d lied. But without access to his social security number that had allowed George to dig up all the information he’d given me, I came up with nothing useful. I pondered calling Ian to ask him to do some digging; surely he’d easily find out the status of George’s parents at least, whether they were still alive. But before I could call him, I remembered that he was convinced the conspiracy was behind Ariel’s murder. The last thing I felt like doing was arguing about that with him, so I put the phone back down.

I popped a couple sleeping pills instead and went to bed, leaving my phone on my nightstand. When George called, I’d wake up and ask him to check Hutchkins for me.

George did call three in the morning.

“Hello,” I answered groggily, half asleep still.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, “I didn’t mean to wake you. I thought it was urgent from your message. I’ll call you back tomorrow.”

I sat up in bed. “No, no. I want to talk now.” I rubbed my eyes to wake myself further. “I spoke to Charles Hutchkins tonight. He claims he was in Philly the night of Ariel’s murder because his mother had twisted her ankle and needed to go to the ER for X rays. I think he’s full of it. Can you check if his mother’s even alive?”

“Sure, I just need to go to my computer. Hang on.”

I lay back on my pillow and had almost fallen back asleep when George was back on the line again.

“His mother is not only alive still, but she lives in Philadelphia.”

I was suddenly wide awake. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Unless she died in the last few days and the national registration hasn’t been updated yet. Do you know what hospital they went to?”

“Yeah, he claimed they went to Pennsylvania Hospital.”

“Okay. I’m gonna check his credit card statements again. Hold on.” There was a long pause, then George said, “Bingo.”

“Bingo what?”

“There is a charge of $750 to the Pennsylvania Hospital on Friday. My guess is the charge was made the day before or early Friday morning. So it seems your man’s telling the truth.”

“Really? Wow… I could’ve sworn this guy had killed Ariel.”

“How about I give you his mother’s name and you can talk to her yourself to verify he was with her the entire night?”

“Yeah, maybe he just dropped her off and then went back to New York. He could’ve paid the hospital bill over the phone. What’s her name, address and phone number?”

George gave it to me and then we hung up. By the time I had fallen asleep again, the birds outside my window had begun to sing and it was almost time to wake up.

Chapter 7

I was sitting on my couch, eating a bagel and drinking coffee that I had picked up from a cart on the street, my head pounding due to lack of sleep when I received a text from Ian:
Call me when you get a chance. There is a new police report about Ariel’s case.

Swallowing the big chunk of bagel in my mouth, I put the coffee cup down and called Ian.

“That was quick,” he said, having answered after the second ring.

“Well, it sounded like it was something important in this report. What is it?”

“They got an anonymous tip about Janine Eastwood and investigated her. You don’t happen to know who this anonymous person is, do you?”

“Yeah, it was me. I thought I should give them a push in the right direction. What did they find? Does it look like she’s involved?”

“Not directly at least. According to the report, she has a solid alibi for the entire evening. She was at the opera with her husband and another couple.”

“Okay. Though I don’t know how solid it is. She could’ve left the opera and done it, couldn’t she? Strangling a person doesn’t take long.”

“That’s true, but the opera they went to was in Washington D.C. I think they would have noticed if she was gone hours.”

“Oh. Well, I guess it’s pretty solid then. I’m currently investigating someone else I think is the perp.”

“Really? Who’s that?”

“A guy Ariel used to train that stalked her and was thrown out of the club a year ago.” I proceeded to tell Ian the details of the story, including what had happened yesterday. “I’m planning to contact his mother today to see if he was actually with her the entire evening. He might’ve just dropped her off and paid the hospital bill over the phone.”

“You’re calling her?”

“No, I think I’ll get a much better response if I go there in person.”

“That’s probably true. You could also just leave another anonymous tip for the NYPD and they can do it for you. Much safer. After what you did to Hutchkins, I’m sure he’s looking for ways to take his revenge on you. The man sounds like he has a really bad temper. If he’s suspecting you’re on to him, he might not only have prepped his mother to give you the answers he wants, but he might also be waiting for you when you get there.”

“Don’t worry, I’m bringing my gun. I think I’ll be able to solve this case more effectively than the NYPD. If he’s prepped his mother, I’ll probably notice. I can also head to Pennsylvania Hospital and ask around there.”

“That sounds like a lot of work, Gabi. You should just leave it to the NYPD.”

“No, I want to do it.” I really did; in addition to feeling personally responsible, I enjoyed solving cases too much. Catching the bad guy had always given me tremendous pleasure. Even if Hutchkins might not be the one after all, I wanted to make sure I had covered all bases before I wrote him off. Besides, if Rolf had done as he promised, the NYPD would soon be doing their own investigation on Hutchkins anyway. I was just saving them some time. If it turned out Hutchkins had lied to me when I spoke to his mother, I’d leave the NYPD a message and inform them Hutchkins was their man.

“Okay, just be careful. See you at 11 a.m?” Ian had his training session scheduled for then.

“Absolutely.”

Twelve hours later I was on an express train to Philly. I had already placed a call to Hutchkins’ mother to check that she was at home, which she was. Considering that she was on crutches, chances were she’d still be there two hours after I’d called. Hopefully alone.

Martha Hutchkins lived in a house near the main train station, so it took me only twenty minutes to get there from the time I had left the train and found a cab. Her beige row house was situated in a shabby, low-income neighborhood where questionable characters hung on street corners, smoking cigarettes or panhandling. Making sure I had easy access to my gun that sat in its usual holster under my loose-fitting jacket, I made my way up to her front door and rang the doorbell. When no one came to open, I rang it again. And again and again. Finally, five minutes later, I gave up. The old woman was either not at home or couldn’t open the door. Another possibility was that she didn’t want to open it. She might be scared. Having seen the neighborhood she lived in, I couldn’t blame her. I walked to the sides of the door to see if I could spot her through one of the windows. I couldn’t see her anywhere despite getting good peeks through a couple of tall ones that were covered by the sheerest of white lace curtains. She must not be at home any longer. I sighed. Just my luck. Before leaving, I felt the door knob to check if it might be unlocked. Not so.

Well, since I had already traveled all the way to Philadelphia, I might as well head to the hospital Hutchkins had taken her to and see if I could find someone who could verify that he had been there with his mother all night. It was no way near as smooth a solution as talking to the old woman, but it was better than nothing. As I kept searching for hospital workers, I’d keep calling Mrs. Hutchkins to see if she was back home and I could have a chat with her at last.

I found another cab that took me to the emergency room at Pennsylvania Hospital. When I got out, I walked up to the long triage desk, grateful to see there weren’t many people in the waiting room at the moment. It shouldn’t take me too long to find someone who knew Mrs. Hutchkins and was aware what had happened to her. I would begin with the current triage nurse, a ruddy-faced woman with gray hair that reminded me of steel wool.

“Excuse me,” I said as I went up to her desk. She was writing something on a pad and looked up, revealing eyes as steely gray as her hair.

“Yes, how may I help you?” she asked in a voice that seemed too young for her face.

“Hi, my name is Lisa Jones and I’m helping out a woman who was given X rays here for her ankle last week and put on crutches. Her name is Martha Hutchkins. She thinks she lost her wedding ring when she had her X rays taken. Her son thinks so too, but he lives in New York, so he sent me.”

The woman behind the desk looked at me like I had a screw loose.

“Why would she have lost her wedding ring if she had X rays taken for her leg? She would not be required to take off a ring for a lower extremity exposure.”

This nurse was clearly no dummy. I was glad I hadn’t gone with the other option I had in mind—flashing my LAPD badge and telling her I was a detective with the Philly police department investigating a crime regarding Mrs. Hutchkins and her son. Surely, this woman would have asked to take a closer look at my badge and immediately noticed it was an LAPD one.

I smiled understanding and shrugged. “Yes, I know that, but Mrs. Hutchkins is a bit of a psychosomatic. She’s convinced having any metal on her body while having X rays taken would be harmful for her, so she insisted on taking it off. And then she misplaced it and asked me to go over here and ask around if anyone has seen it.”

“I haven’t heard anything about a wedding ring being found. What day was she here?”

“Last Thursday. From around eight p.m. till around one in the morning.”

“I was off that day. I can refer you to the nurse on duty that night.”

The smile on my lips grew.
Perfect.
“That would be so nice. Anyone who worked that night would be great to talk to. Maybe one of the nurses or the technician who did the X ray know something.”

The nurse opened a big appointment book and checked something on a page, then looked back to me. “Robert and Nancy are both working today. That’s our in-house radiologist and the nurse who helps him. They were both working Thursday night and took care of a Martha Hutchkins. I’ll ask them if they’ve found anything. It might take a while before I get hold of them though, so please take a seat.”

She pointed to a row of ugly orange chairs lined up against a wall where there were already a few people seated.

“That would be great,” I replied. “Thank you.”

I went over to sit on one of those chairs, though I had no plans staying there for very long. Instead, I would go look for a nurse named Nancy. It was a fairly common name, but I still doubted there was more than one nurse employed here with that name who’d also worked Thursday night.

Sitting down and picking up a magazine on a nearby table, I waited for the triage nurse to get back to whatever she had been doing. She had yet to lift a phone to call someone to ask for Robert and Nancy, so she was clearly not in a hurry to find them for me. Out of the corner of my eye, I checked out the double doors at the other end of the room that kept opening and closing as scrub-clad hospital staff passed through them. It must be the area where all the medical staff and patients were. Unfortunately, it looked like the only way to get in there was if you swiped a card against a box on the wall. I would need to find a way to slip through while others did. I noticed that the doors stayed open a few seconds after people went through, so if I hung around close to them, I should manage to get inside before they shut again.