A Quarter for a Kiss (4 page)

At first I didn’t recognize Stella. She was the only person in the room, a tiny blonde woman asleep in a chair in a corner, wearing a costume made entirely of faux fur. From her toes to her neck, she was fuzzy and brown, with a lighter brown furry circle at her tummy. I tried to reconcile that with the woman I had seen on her wedding day, wearing an expensive rose-colored silk suit.

“Stella?”

She sat up and then jumped up, racing over to grip me in a fierce, furry hug.

“Callie, Tom, I’m so glad you came!”

Then she burst into tears. I put my arm around her and guided her back to the chairs, where we sat.

“How is he?” I asked.

“They were able to repair the damage to his lung, but he’s lost a lot of blood. Right now he’s still unconscious and hooked up to a bunch of machines.”

“Are you here by yourself?” Tom asked.

“Yes. My sons said they’d come tomorrow. I can’t reach my daughter—she’s been traveling.”

Tom and I glanced at each other, and I wondered if he knew Stella’s three children. I had had the pleasure, if you could call it that, of meeting them at the wedding. All three seemed petty and spoiled and suspicious of the man who had stolen their mother’s heart. Stella was quite wealthy, and I think they saw Eli not as a companion for their mom in her golden years but as a threat to the nest egg that she was supposed to leave to them someday.

“It was all so fast,” she said tearfully. “Today—well, yesterday, I guess—was hug day at the home, and I—”

“Hug day?” I interrupted.

She gestured toward the seat across from us, and I turned to see a large teddy bear head and two furry paws sitting there, matches for the costume Stella was wearing.

“Every Friday afternoon I go to the local nursing home dressed as a teddy bear and give out hugs,” she explained. “It’s my ministry.”

“Your ministry?” Tom asked, and Stella looked at him defensively.

“Everybody needs hugs,” she said, “but when you’re old and alone, no one ever touches you. So I go in there dressed like a teddy bear, and I hug all of the old folks. For some of them, that’s the only hug they’ll get all week.”

Tom reached out and patted Stella’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I think that sounds wonderful.”

“Anyway,” she continued, “Eli always picks me up at five-forty so we can make it to the Speedy Sailor for the Friday Night Special. You can get crab cakes and a bowl of oyster stew for a dollar ninety-nine if you’re in your seat by six o’clock.”

“Wow,” I said, stifling a smile. Despite her healthy bank account, Stella was known for her eccentric money-saving habits.

“Yes, but this time we weren’t going to make it, and I was mad at Eli for making us late. I came out of the nursing home at five fifty-five, and he was just walking up the street toward me from where he had parked the car about half a block away. Then, all of a sudden, he just fell down onto the ground. I was getting ready to fuss at him for being late, and the next thing I knew he had collapsed.”

She went on to repeat the description she had given me earlier of the fall and then the distant gunshot and then the blood.

“Thank goodness we weren’t alone. I started screaming and people came running. Pretty soon an ambulance and the police were there too.”

“Were any other shots fired?” Tom asked.

“No, and the cops didn’t catch anybody. They weren’t even sure what direction the shot had come from. It’s a busy area, with a lot of buildings. I’m sure it could’ve been done from any number of places.”

“Do the police think it was just a random shooting?” I asked, leaning forward.

“The cops are presuming it was random,” Stella said. “But I know better.”

“What do you mean?” Tom asked.

“As soon as Eli got shot, he told me, ‘Nadine said he was coming. You have to call Tom Bennett. Show him my notes.’”

I looked at Tom, who seemed genuinely confused.

“Call me about what?” he asked. “What notes?”

“I don’t know. He just kept saying, ‘Promise me you’ll call Tom. Nadine was right.’”

“Nadine who?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Stella replied. “We don’t know anyone named Nadine.”

“Tom?” I pressed. “Do you know someone named Nadine?”

He shook his head no.

“He wanted you here too, Callie,” Stella said. “He was kind of talking out of his head, but he said only you would know where the notes are.”

I sat up straight, completely stumped. How would I know where his notes were? What notes? While we often spoke on the phone, Eli had never mentioned anything that even remotely gave me an idea about what was going on with him.

“Stella, why would I know where he kept something like that? He’s never said anything to me about any notes.”

She shook her head, the expression on her face one of desperation.

“Eli’s been up to something,” she said. “Some kind of investigation. For a while now.”

“Was he working for someone?”

“Not that I know of. It started a few months ago, down at our vacation house in the Virgin Islands. One day he said something about ‘running a license plate.’ Next thing I knew, he was going out on surveillance and talking about security systems and rounding up all kinds of odd little tools.”

“Tools?”

“Like, detective things. I don’t know. I wish I had paid more attention, asked more questions. He’d been so bored since he retired, but once this case got rolling, it’s like the old spark was back. I was just glad to see him so alive and active. I let him do his thing and I did mine.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, why didn’t I see what he was getting himself into? I should’ve been more involved.”

I pictured Eli at the height of his game, back when he and I worked together in his detective agency. Between cases, he always seemed sort of lost and depressed, but once we were on the trail of someone or something, it was as though every part of him came alive. I tried explaining that to Stella, tried to make her understand that he had always been that way, that none of this was her fault.

“But this time,” she cried, “whatever he was doing, he ended up getting shot! What if he dies, Callie? What if they come back again and try to kill him? You have to help us!”

She grabbed the box of tissues on the side table, pulled out a handful, and then bent forward and sobbed into them. Tom looked at me intently over the top of her head.

“First things first,” he said softly. “I’ll make some calls and get some round-the-clock security in here. Don’t you worry, Stella. No one’s going to get near Eli now.”

He patted her arm, stood, and walked away, pulling out his cell phone by the elevator.

“It’s okay, Stella,” I assured her, slipping my arm around her shoulders. “Whatever Eli was doing, whatever got him into this mess, I promise you Tom and I will figure out what is going on.”

Three

By 3:00
A.M
. Stella was finally allowed to see Eli. They let her stay for exactly five minutes, and when she came back out, she was as white as a sheet. Apparently, her beloved husband was still unconscious, covered with tubes and wires and breathing through a respirator, his tenuous heartbeat flashing on a screen behind the bed.

“They said the next twenty-four hours are the most critical,” Stella told us. “They don’t know if he’ll make it to the morning.”

Once again, the thought of losing Eli made my stomach suddenly whoosh out from under me, like a giant drop on a roller coaster. Eli was always so full of life!
How could he possibly die?

At 3:30
A.M
. the private security Tom had hired showed up, a big, muscular man with a crew cut, wearing a suit and tie. He went with Tom to speak to the hospital staff and iron out the details of Eli’s protection, and while they were gone I had Stella give me of a list of things she wanted from home. She wasn’t going to leave the hospital anytime soon, and I thought she at least might like a change of clothes.

It was nearly 4:00
A.M
. by the time Tom and I drove out of there and headed toward Stella and Eli’s condominium. I was very torn, because a part of me wanted to be with Eli as well, but another part of me was anxious to get to the house to see if I could figure out where Eli might have stashed the “notes” he had spoken of. If he was still in danger, the best way we could protect him was not by sitting around in the waiting room and staring at each other but by unearthing whatever had gotten him shot in the first place.

The complex where Eli and Stella lived was an expansive community of pastel-hued buildings that lined both sides of a series of tidy, winding roads. The buildings looked so much alike—and there were so many of them—that if it hadn’t been for the giant street signs that marked every corner, we never would have found our way to their home. It was at the very end of the farthest street, in what had to be the priciest section of the entire community because of its proximity to the water. Careful to park in a “visitor” spot and not one of the assigned spaces, we got out of the car and headed up the walk. Theirs was an end unit, and by the light of the nearly full moon I could easily see around the side of the building to the wide sandy beach that lay beyond. Everything was so quiet and still I could even hear the gentle lapping of the waves in the distance.

Stella had given Tom a key, but when he tried to put it into the lock, the door simply swung open.

“What on earth?” Tom said as he reached inside and flipped on the light.

We gasped.

The living room had been completely destroyed, the couch torn to shreds, the drawers dumped onto the floor. Shards of glass littered the carpet along with dirt from a number of upended potted plants.

Tom moved forward as if to check out the rest of the house, but I grabbed his arm and held him back.

“No,” I whispered. “Someone could still be in there.”

I was thinking we could call the police from the car. We were just backing out of there when we heard the word “Freeze!”

Looking up, we saw a woman across the room, standing in the shadows, holding up what looked like a gun. Instinctively, Tom moved in front of me, his arms held out by his sides.

“What are you doing here? Who are you?” the woman demanded.

I squinted, looking closer, and realized the “gun” she held was simply a small black blow-dryer. I stepped forward, pushing Tom’s arm down and out of my way.

“We’re friends of Eli Gold,” I said calmly. “Who are you?”

She hesitated, the blow-dryer visibly trembling in her hands.

“I-I’m Jodi,” she said. “Stella’s daughter.”

Stella’s daughter? From what Stella had told us at the hospital, Jodi was on an extended trip and couldn’t be reached.

“We won’t hurt you, Jodi,” Tom said. “You can put down the gun.”

“It’s not a gun,” I said dryly. “It’s a blow-dryer.”

At that the girl lowered her arms and stepped forward into the light.

“I remember you from the wedding,” she said, looking at me.

“Is there anyone else here?”

“No,” she said, and I could tell she was near tears. “Where is my mother? What’s happening?”

“Have you called the police?” I asked, ignoring her questions for the moment.

“No, I just came in and saw all of this…” Her voice trailed off.

“I’ll do it,” Tom said.

He pulled out his cell phone, dialed information, and headed outside. As he asked for the number of the local police, I convinced Jodi to walk outside also, away from the crime scene, and wait on the sidewalk with Tom. Then I went back in by myself and walked carefully through the entire condo to view the damage that had been done. It was awful. Every single room had been destroyed. Obviously, someone had been here looking for something. If Eli had hidden his notes in this place, they were no doubt gone by now, whether that’s what the person was looking for or not.

I felt certain this confirmed that Eli truly was in danger, and that it had not been a random shooting. My guess was that he was on someone’s trail, and they had taken a drastic and potentially deadly step to stop him.

By the time I went back outside, Tom was off the phone, Jodi was pacing back and forth on the grass, and the security guard for the complex was just striding up the walk. He was a short, chubby man in a navy blue uniform, and though he carried no gun he did wear a badge pinned to his crisp shirt.

He seemed quite upset, and I realized he was afraid this incident might cost him his position. He kept wringing his hands and saying, “I told management this job is too big for one person!” Tom tried to calm him down by reassuring him that if someone wanted to break in somewhere badly enough, there wouldn’t be enough security in the world to stop them.

The police showed up about ten minutes later, and though they weren’t using their sirens, the flashing lights and the sounds of their voices roused some of the neighbors. A large crowd gathered on the front lawn, mostly made up of senior citizens in pajamas and slippers.

As they learned of Eli’s shooting and the break-in, they seemed to grow quite upset. I was glad to hear a small cluster of women decide to go to the hospital later in the morning to sit with Stella.