An Affair to Dismember (29 page)

“We might as well leave,” said Spencer. “If she was around, we probably scared her off making so much noise.”

“I don’t pee loud!”

“I meant we spoke loudly,” he said. “We drove up loudly. Besides, I think she’s moved on. Let’s ask at the gas station. They might know.”

THE WORLD’S oldest man ran the gas station and the little post office that took up a corner in the shack.
His skin hung on him like it was trying to escape. He had few teeth and whistled when he spoke.

“Lulu Finkelstein. Sounds familiar,” he said. He stared out into space, as if he was counting dust particles. It would take him a long time. The shack was filthy.

Spencer was patient. He talked about the weather and gas prices and bought a bag of chips. “She lives up the road,” Spencer prompted. “Or maybe she’s moved away. I don’t know. I’d sure like to talk to her, though.”

“Like her, do ya?” the man asked with a wink. “She was a pretty one. You know, come to think of it, she did move. She told me a few years back if any mail come for her to forward it.”

“I don’t suppose you still have the forwarding address?” asked Spencer.

“I think it’s around here somewhere.”

IT TOOK awhile, but he found the forwarding address under the cash register next to old lottery tickets. We hopped back in the car.

It turned out that Lulu Finkelstein had gone from backwoods Unabomber to senior citizen suburbanite, living in a tract home in a neighborhood reserved for over-fifties and rife with golf carts.

“This isn’t half bad,” I noted as we drove through the streets of her neighborhood. The houses were newish, one-story ranches with large yards. “I wouldn’t mind living here. Pretty. Clean.”

Spencer didn’t agree. “A nightmare. Like Stepford Wives with jowls.”

“Huh. That’s funny. I figured you went for the Stepford Wives type.”

“I thought we were playing nice, Gladys.”

Lulu Finkelstein’s house was beige with white trim.
The front yard was covered in different species of cactus. She had a double garage and a big Welcome sign on the front porch.

“What do you think?” I asked Spencer. “Any booby traps?”

“I think Lulu has wisely hidden in plain sight, in a big crowd. Smarter this way. And more comfortable. Shall we?”

Spencer slipped his hand to the small of my back, steering me down the walk toward Lulu’s front door. “You do the talking. We’ll get better results,” he whispered in my ear, making the hair on my arms stand straight up.

He stopped dead in the middle of the walkway.

“What was that?” he asked.

“What?” I ducked, expecting an explosion or bullets to fly.

“Your eyes dilated.”

I looked away. “No, they didn’t.”

“I touched you, and your eyes dilated. Dilate them again.”

“I guess you’ll have to wait until I’m dead.”

Spencer smirked. “I have a feeling I won’t have to wait that long.” He studied my eyes, waiting for movement.

Despite all my attempts to remain calm and cool, my insides turned warm and mushy. “This is ridiculous,” I stammered. Spencer held my gaze.

“Thank you,” he said.

My hands flew to my face. “What? Did they do it again?”

“A man never makes a woman dilate and tells,” Spencer said. Seemingly satisfied, he steered me toward the door.

“What will I say to her?” I asked.

“How about hello, for starters?” He rang the doorbell.

Two seconds later, the door opened. Lulu Finkelstein looked nothing like I imagined. Instead of a drooling lunatic with bug eyes, wearing a sequined tube top, pink hot pants, and neon purple pumps, she was a class act. Lulu had long, curly brown hair pulled back in ebony combs. She was tall, about two inches taller than me, and she was slim but not skinny. She wore no makeup and looked younger than the requisite age for her neighborhood. She was barefoot in jeans and a light blue cotton V-neck sweater. Small gold hoops adorned her ears, and silver Hopi rings covered most of her fingers.

She greeted us with a warm, welcoming smile, and there was intelligence behind her green eyes.

“Yes? May I help you? Are you here to see the vases?”

“Lulu Finkelstein?” I asked.

Lulu shrieked and slammed the door, but Spencer stuck his foot inside, blocking it. Lulu ran deeper into the house.

“Leave me alone! I’ll call the police!” she screamed.

“I am the police, ma’am,” Spencer called from the front door.

“I fell for that before. I wish they would leave me alone!”

Spencer and I exchanged looks. He was right about her being a paranoid number.

“I’ve got my badge out, ma’am. I’m Spencer Bolton, chief of the Cannes Police Department. We’re here on a friendly visit. May we come in?”

I took a step toward the door, but Spencer blocked me with his arm. “Not yet,” he whispered.

After a long moment Lulu came back to the door, but she held a Taser in her hand. “Show me your badge,”
she said. “Hand it over slowly.” She studied the badge and nodded.

“Fine. You’re chief of police. How did you find me?” she asked.

“May we come in?”

“I suppose so.”

“Put down the Taser.”

She did and opened the door wide. Spencer remained polite and laid on a thick coat of charm. “Your home is lovely,” he said.

And he wasn’t lying. Outside, the house looked like most of the others on the street, but the inside was completely unique. Southwestern furniture and rugs decorated the living room, and in the corner sat a large loom with a colorful tapestry half completed. The walls were covered with large photographs of scenes of the Southwest, and the coffee table was covered with the most exquisite glassware I had ever seen.

“You can touch it,” Lulu said, sitting in a chair across from us. “I see you admiring the glass. Please, touch it. Enjoy. That’s why I made it.”

My hand went to a perfect hourglass. I turned it and watched the sand flow slowly from one side to another through the ice-blue glass.

“You have good taste,” she said, clearly pleased by my choice. “I made that one for my own fancy. Not much call for an hourglass these days. It’s a true hourglass, by the way. The sand takes exactly an hour to pass through.”

I reluctantly put it back down on the table. “It’s magnificent,” I said.

“Why did you run?” Spencer asked Lulu.

“Because you used my old name. I changed it years ago. Safe people know I changed it. Those crazy people sent you, right? Why did I run? I’ve been running for
years.” Lulu’s face turned grave, like her head had grown heavier.

“Which crazy people?” Spencer asked.

“You know which ones. Randy and Betty. They sent you, right? They have been stalking me for an eternity. I did everything to shake them. I thought I finally had. I guess I have to move again. Change my name again.” Lulu’s voice broke.

I was confused. I didn’t know what to believe.

“We have letters from you to them,” I started.

“They can’t be from me,” she said. “Believe me, I never contacted them. Well, sure, at the very beginning when this all started. The first week, I was upset that Randy broke it off, and I asked him to reconsider. A month later, after nonstop calls from Betty at all hours of the day and night, I called her and begged her to stop calling me and threatening me. But believe me, besides that, I never ever contacted them.”

“But we have letters,” I said. “Horrible letters where you threaten them.” Spencer pulled one out of his breast pocket and showed her.

“This is not my handwriting. I didn’t write this. I never wrote a word to them,” she said. “Look, they are crazy. Especially Betty. Randy used to call me and threaten me if I didn’t stop calling, even though I never called. Betty told him there was a strange woman calling and hanging up or calling and shouting obscenities at her. But I never called. I told him so, but he didn’t believe me. Either she was lying to him or he was lying to me. I told him she was the crazy one. I told him I never called, but he didn’t believe me.

“I stopped answering the phone. The calls to me were endless, though, mostly in the middle of the night. I hired a private detective to try to protect me and to contact them to ask them to stop. It made it worse. They sent blackmail letters. I didn’t get a restraining order
because they threatened to kill me if I did. Any attempt to ask them to cease and desist only made the harassment and stalking worse. I had to run and hide from them.

“Listen, I have letters from them. Actually, postcards. Hold on, I’ll get them for you,” she said.

After she left the room, I turned to Spencer. “What do you think?”

“I’ve heard stranger.” Which one was the lying, crazy stalker woman, Betty or Lulu? Lulu was the one who rigged booby traps and was now in the other room with a Taser. My initial vote for the lunatic should have gone to Lulu. But I had a theory brewing in my mind that said otherwise.

Lulu came back and handed Spencer the postcards.

“There,” she said. “Those are the ones I saved for evidence if I ever needed them. The rest I threw away because they upset me too much.”

Spencer showed me the first one. “Sucks to be you” was scrawled on a postcard featuring a photo of the Cannes town hall. The next one said, “Die, whore.”

“The handwriting is the same as on the letters to the Ternses,” Spencer said.

“It’s not my handwriting,” said Lulu with a desperate edge to her voice.

The front door opened, and an older couple walked in. “Carol, we’ve brought fish!”

The couple wore shorts, matching Hawaiian print shirts, and Top-Siders. The man carried a large red cooler. They froze when they saw Spencer and me. “Everything all right?” asked the man.

“They were looking for Lulu,” explained Lulu.

The man dropped the cooler and came toward us with a definite look of purpose on his face. Spencer jumped up and flashed his badge. “Hold on,” he said.
“Everything is fine. You need to stay cool. Why don’t you take a seat?”

The man stopped but didn’t take a seat.

“When will those crazy people leave you alone?” asked the woman.

“We’re here to clear up matters,” Spencer said.

“Randy Terns is dead,” I explained. Spencer shot me a look that said he wanted me dead, too.

“Thank God,” said Lulu, and broke into tears. The woman hugged her, and they cried together.

“Finally,” said the man. “Great news. I hope that means Carol is finally free now. I’m John Livingston, Carol’s—I mean Lulu’s—brother-in-law. That’s Maisey, her sister.” He shook Spencer’s hand. “Beer for everybody,” he announced. He went to the kitchen and came back with an armful of Heineken bottles. I took two.

“Not for me,” Spencer told me.

“I wasn’t offering you one. These are mine,” I said.

The room toasted Randy Terns’ death. After a moment, realization flashed on Lulu’s face.

“Hold on,” she said. “You’re not here to notify me of his death. You’re here because you suspect me.”

All heads turned toward Spencer.

“Well, the thought did cross my mind,” he said.

“We have a letter from you—or someone claiming to be you—a week before he was killed,” I said. “You threatened him because he was going to stop sending you money to keep your mouth shut.”

“My mouth shut about what?”

“The affair,” I said.

“Is this some kind of joke?”

“My wife and sister-in-law inherited a great deal of money when they were young,” explained John. “They don’t need any money.”

“And Lulu is an accomplished glassblower. She was an artist and started glassblowing a couple years before
and became successful quickly. Any one of the vases on that table is worth fifteen thousand dollars,” Maisey said.

“Maybe we can clear this up with examples of your handwriting. And your sister’s,” Spencer suggested.

Maisey rifled through her purse for a handwriting sample, and Lulu retrieved her shopping list. Neither was a match for the handwriting on the letters.

Spencer didn’t look convinced.

“When did Randy die?” asked Lulu. “I’m out of town a lot.”

And it turned out that she had been out of town when he died. She’d been in Venice, Italy, looking at glass for the past six weeks and had just returned the day before. She showed Spencer her passport. It cleared her not only of Randy’s death but of Jimmy the Fink’s and Chuck Costas’ as well.

“Well, Lulu, I can answer one of your questions now,” I said. “Your tormentor had to be Betty, not Randy. Randy thought you were blackmailing him. He was handing over money for years. Betty must have been forging the letters. She was blackmailing her own husband in your name.”

“It doesn’t surprise me. She’s a nutcase. She told him I called when I didn’t. So it’s not that big a leap for her to write letters and blackmail him in my name,” she said.

Randy had stopped paying the blackmail, and he’d gone to Uncle Harry to find his gang. Something had happened to make Randy stop paying and to make him switch his attention away from Lulu to his former partners in crime. I sighed.

It was disappointing that Lulu was not the homicidal maniac I’d thought she was. That meant there still was a killer on the loose, and I was possibly in danger.

“Ms. Finkelstein,” Spencer said, “there’s a matter of
explosives we need to discuss. We found deadly booby traps on your old property.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, and blushed a deep shade of red.

“I’m having it cleared out,” he said. “I’ll let it pass, considering what you’ve been through, but do me a huge favor and contact me if you hear anything from any member of the Terns family. I give you my word of honor, I will handle it, and you will have nothing left to fear in the future.” He gave her his card, and she walked us to the door.

Lulu snapped her fingers as if she’d forgotten something. “Just a sec.” She came back with the hourglass. “I want you to have it,” she told me. “A present, since you admired it, and I want to thank you for giving me such good news. I feel freer than I’ve felt in years.”

She hugged me, and John shook Spencer’s hand.

“Wait a minute,” Spencer said. “Aren’t you …?”

John nodded. “John Livingston.
The
John Livingston.”