Hard Eight (18 page)

Okay, so she’s walking the dog. Or maybe she took the dog to the vet. I tried Dotty’s two closest neighbors. Neither knew what had happened to Dotty and the dog. Both had noticed they were missing this morning. The consensus was that Dotty and her family vacated the house sometime during the night.

No Dotty. No dog. No Jeanne Ellen. I had other names for the thing in my stomach now. Panic. Fear. With a touch of nausea from the hangover.

I went back to my car and sat in front of the house for a while, taking it all in. At some point I looked down at my watch and realized an hour had passed. I suppose I was hoping Dotty would return. And I suppose I knew it wasn’t going to happen.

When I was nine years old I persuaded my mom to let me get a parakeet. On the way home from the pet store the door to the cage came open somehow, and the bird
flew away. That’s what this felt like. It felt like I left the door open.

I put the car in gear and drove back to the Burg. I went straight to Dotty’s parents’ house. Mrs. Palowski answered my knock, and Dotty’s dog came running from the kitchen, yapping the whole way.

I dredged up my biggest and best phony smile for Mrs. Palowski. “Hi,” I said, “I’m looking for Dotty.”

“You just missed her,” Mrs. Palowski said. “She dropped Scotty off early this morning. We’re baby-sitting him while Dotty and the children are on vacation.”

“I really need to talk to her,” I said. “Do you have a phone number where she can be reached?”

“I don’t. She said she was going camping with a friend. A cabin in the woods somewhere. She said she’d be in touch, though. I could give her a message.”

I gave Mrs. Palowski my card. “Tell Dotty I have very important information for her. And ask her to call me.”

“Dotty isn’t in any kind of trouble, is she?” Mrs. Palowski asked.

“No. This is information about one of Dotty’s friends.”

“It’s Evelyn, isn’t it? I heard Evelyn and Annie were missing. That’s such a shame. Evelyn and Dotty used to be such good friends.”

“Do they still get together?”

“Not for years, now. Evelyn kept to herself after she married. I think Steven made it difficult for her to have friends.”

I thanked Mrs. Palowski for her time and returned to my car. I reread the report on Evelyn. No mention of a secret cabin in the woods.

My phone chirped, and I wasn’t sure what I hoped for . . .
a date was high on the list. Next might be news about Soder or a friendly call from Evelyn.

Close to last on the list was a call from my mother. “Help,” she said.

Then my grandmother got on the phone. “You gotta come over and see this,” she said.

“See what?”

“You gotta see for yourself.”

My parents’ house was less than five minutes away. My mother and grandmother were at the door, waiting for me. They stepped aside and motioned me into the living room. My sister was there, slouched in my father’s favorite chair. She was dressed in a rumpled long flannel nightgown and furry bedroom slippers. Yesterday’s mascara hadn’t been removed but had been smudged by sleep. Her hair was snarled and untamed. Meg Ryan meets Beetlejuice. California girl goes to Transylvania. She had the television remote in her hand, her attention glued to a game show. The floor around her was littered with candy bar wrappers and empty soda cans. She didn’t acknowledge our presence. She burped and scratched her boob and changed the channel.

This was my perfect sister. Saint Valerie.

“I see that smile,” my mother said to me. “It’s not funny. She’s been like that ever since she lost her job.”

“Yeah, we had to vacuum around her this morning,” Grandma said. “I came too close and almost sucked up one of those bunny slippers.”

“She’s depressed,” my mother said.

No shit.

“We thought maybe you could help get her a job,” Grandma said. “Something that would get her out of the
house, on account of now
we’re
getting depressed looking at her. Bad enough we got to look at your father.”

“You’re always the one with the jobs,” I said to my mother. “You always know when they’re hiring at the button factory.”

“She ran through all my contacts,” my mother said. “I’m left with nothing. And unemployment is up. I can’t get her a job boxing tampons.”

“Maybe you could take her along with you on a bust,” Grandma said. “Maybe that’d perk her spirits up.”

“No way,” I said. “She already tried being a bounty hunter, and she fainted the first time someone held a gun to her head.”

My mother made the sign of the cross. “Dear God,” she said.

“Well, you gotta do something,” Grandma said. “I’m missing all my TV shows. I tried to change the channel, and she growled at me.”

“She growled at you?”

“It was scary.”

“Hey, Valerie,” I said. “Is there a problem?”

No response.

“I got an idea,” Grandma said. “Why don’t we give her a zap with your stun gun? Then when she’s out cold we can get the remote.”

I thought about the stun gun in my bag. I wouldn’t mind testing it. I wouldn’t even mind zapping Valerie. Truth is, I’ve secretly wanted to zap Valerie for years. I slid a look at my mother and was instantly discouraged.

“Maybe I can get you a job,” I said to Valerie. “Would you be willing to work for a lawyer?”

She kept focused on the television. “Is he married?”

“No.”

“Gay?”

“I don’t think so.”

“How old is he?”

“I’m not sure. Sixteen, maybe.” I hauled my cell phone out of my bag and called Kloughn.

“Wow, that would be great if your sister would work for me,” Kloughn said. “She could have all the time she wants for lunch. And she could do her laundry while she works.”

I severed the connection and turned to Valerie. “You have a job.”

“Bummer,” Valerie said. “I was just starting to get the hang of this depression thing. Do you think this guy will marry me?”

I did some internal eye rolling, wrote Kloughn’s name and address on a piece of paper, and gave it to Valerie. “You can start tomorrow at nine. If he’s late, you can wait for him in the Laundromat. You won’t have any trouble recognizing him. He’s the guy with the two black eyes.”

My mother did another sign of the cross.

I swiped a couple slices of baloney and a slice of cheese from the fridge and headed for the door. I wanted to get out of the house before I had to answer any more questions about Albert Kloughn.

The phone rang as I was leaving.

“Hold up,” Grandma said to me. “This here’s Florence Szuch, and she says she’s at the mall, and she says Evelyn Soder is eating lunch in the food court.”

I took off running, and Grandma was right behind me.

“I’m going, too,” Grandma said. “I got a right, on account of how it was my snitch that called.”

We jumped into the car, and I rocketed away. The mall was twenty minutes on a good day. I hoped Evelyn was a slow eater.

“Was she sure it was Evelyn?”

“Yep. Evelyn and Annie, and another woman and her two children.”

Dotty and her kids

“I didn’t have time to get my purse,” Grandma said. “So I haven’t got a gun. I’m going to be real disappointed if there’s shooting, and I’m the only one without a gun.”

If my mother knew my grandmother was carrying a gun around in her purse she’d have a cow. “First off,
I
haven’t got a gun,” I said. “And second thing, there won’t be any shooting.”

I hit Route 1 and put my foot to the floor. This brought me into the flow of traffic. In Jersey we think the speed limit is merely a suggestion. No one in Jersey would actually
do
the speed limit.

“You should be a race car driver,” Grandma said. “You’d be good at it. You could drive in them NASCAR races. I’d do it, but probably you need a driver’s license, and I don’t have one of those.”

I saw the sign for the shopping center and took the off-ramp with my fingers crossed. What had started as a courtesy to Mabel had become a crusade. I
really
wanted to talk to Evelyn. Evelyn was critical to ending the crazy war game. And ending the war game was critical to not getting my heart ripped out.

I knew every square inch of the mall, and I parked at the entrance to the food court. I wanted to tell Grandma to wait in the car, but that would have been wasted energy.

“If Evelyn is still there, I need to talk to her alone,” I said to Grandma. You’re going to have to stay out of sight.”

“Sure,” Grandma said. “I can do that.”

We entered the mall together and quickly walked to the food court. I watched the people while I walked, looking for Evelyn or Dotty. The mall was moderately full. Not jammed like on weekends. Just enough people to give me cover. My breath caught when I recognized Dotty and her kids. I’d memorized the photo of Evelyn and Annie, and they were there, too.

“Now that I’m here, I wouldn’t mind having a big pretzel,” Grandma said.

“You get a pretzel, and I’ll talk to Evelyn. Just don’t leave the food court.”

I stepped away from Grandma and the light suddenly dimmed in front of me. I was in the shadow of Martin Paulson. He didn’t look much different than he had in the police station parking lot, rolling around on the ground, trussed up in shackles and handcuffs. I imagine fashion choices are limited when you’re shaped like Paulson.

“Well, lookey here,” Paulson said. “It’s Little Miss Asshole.”

“Not now,” I said, moving around him.

He moved with me, blocking my way. “I have a score to settle with you.”

What are the chances? I finally find Evelyn, and I run into Martin Paulson, itching for a fight. “Forget it,” I said. “What are you doing here anyway?”

“I work here. I work at the drugstore, and I’m on my lunch break. I was falsely accused, you know.”

Yeah, right. “Get out of my way.”

“Make me.”

I pulled the stun gun out of my bag, rammed it into Paulson’s big belly, and hit the button. Nothing happened.

Paulson looked down at the stun gun. “What is that, a toy?”

“It’s a stun gun.” A worthless piece of crap stun gun.

Paulson took it from me and looked at it. “Cool,” he said. He turned it off, and then he turned it on. And then he touched it to my arm. There was a flash of light in my head, and everything went black.

Before the blackness turned back to light, I could hear voices, far away. I struggled to get to the voices and they became louder, more distinct. I managed to get my eyes open, and faces swam into view. I tried to blink away the buzzing, and I took an assessment of the situation. Flat on my back on the floor. Paramedics hovering over me. Oxygen mask over my nose. Blood pressure cuff on my arm. Grandma beyond the paramedics, looking worried. Paulson beyond Grandma, peeking at me over her shoulder.
Paulson
. Now I remember. The son of a bitch knocked me out with my own stun gun!

I jumped up and lunged at Paulson. My legs gave out and I went down to my knees. “Paulson, you pig!” I yelled.

Paulson ducked back and disappeared.

I was trying to get the oxygen mask off, and the paramedics were trying to keep it on. It was the attack of the geese all over again.

“I thought you were dead,” Grandma said.

“Not nearly. I accidentally came into contact with my stun gun when it was live.”

“Now I recognize you,” one of the paramedics said to
me. “You’re the bounty hunter who burned the funeral home down.”

“I burned it down, too,” Grandma said. “You should have been there. It was like fireworks.”

I stood and tested my ability to walk. I was a little creaky, but I didn’t fall down. That was a good sign, right?

Grandma handed me my shoulder bag. “That nice round man gave me your stun gun. I guess it got dropped in all the excitement. I put it in your bag,” she said.

First chance I got I was going to pitch the damn stun gun into the Delaware River. I looked around, but Evelyn was long gone. “I don’t suppose you saw Evelyn or Annie?” I asked Grandma.

“No. I got myself one of those big soft pretzels, and I had them dip it in chocolate.”

I dropped Grandma off at my parents’ house, and I went home to my apartment. I stood in the hall at the door for a moment before inserting the key in the lock. I took a deep breath, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. I stepped into the small foyer area, and I very softly sang,
who’s afraid of the big bad wolf
. . . . I peeked into my kitchen and felt a sense of relief. Everything was okay in the kitchen. I moved into the living room and stopped singing. Steven Soder was sitting on my couch. He was listing slightly to one side, holding the remote in his right hand, but he wasn’t watching television. He was dead, dead, dead. His eyes were milky and unseeing, his lips were parted, as if he’d been surprised, his skin was ghoulishly bloodless, and he had a bullet hole in the middle of
his forehead. He was wearing a baggy sweater and khaki slacks. And he was barefoot.

Criminey, isn’t it bad enough I have a dead guy sitting on my couch? Does he have to be freaking barefoot?

I silently backed out of the room, and out of my apartment. I stood in the hall and tried to dial 911 on my cell phone, but my hands were shaking, and I had to try several times before I got it right.

I stayed in the hall until the police arrived. When my apartment was swarming with cops, I crept back into my kitchen, wrapped my arms around Rex’s cage, and took Rex out of the apartment into the hall with me.

I was still in the hall, holding the hamster cage, when Morelli arrived. Mrs. Karwatt from next door and Irma Brown from upstairs were with me. Beyond Mr. Wolesky’s door I could hear Regis. Not even for a homicide would Mr. Wolesky miss Regis. No matter it was a rerun.

I was sitting on the floor, back to the wall, hamster cage on my lap. Morelli squatted next to me and looked in at Rex. “Is he okay?”

I nodded yes.

“How about you?” Morelli asked. “Are you okay?”

My eyes filled with tears. I wasn’t okay.

“He was sitting on the couch,” Irma said to Morelli. “Can you imagine? Just sitting there with the remote in his hand.” She shook her head. “That couch has death cooties now. I’d cry, too, if my couch had death cooties.”