Blown To Pieces (PTO Murder Club Mystery Book 2) (16 page)

“Hi, I’m Stephen. I’m a reporter for the
Lakeside Herald
. Do either of you ladies know what happened?” A man had popped out of nowhere and was holding a small digital recorder in our direction.

“Yes, it’s very sad.” Monica was all seriousness. “We,” she pointed to herself and then to me, “are on the Bee Creek Elementary PTO board, and we were here collecting donations for our raffle. The BTGs bowling team had offered to sponsor a raffle basket, but when we came to pick it up, the basket was...” She leaned closer and stage whispered, “on the cheap side. The guilt at having robbed the PTO of money to create and maintain a memorial garden for our murdered kindergarten teacher was too much for them. They started blaming themselves, and then they turned on each other.” Monica hung her head. “To think, this all could have been avoided if only they’d put a little more effort into their raffle basket.”

Good God, I hoped the reporter wouldn’t ask to see the cheap-ass basket in question.

Monica had a PhD in lying. I knew that once the story hit the presses, money and raffle baskets would start rolling in. Monica was good. I had to give her that.

The next morning, I sat at my desk scrolling through the medical records of each of the BTGs. So far, I’d found nothing out of the ordinary—no signs of physical abuse, not that I’d thought there would be. All of the BTGs hated each other and loved Big Tommy. It didn’t seem likely that one of them killed him, but crimes of passion happened every single day.

I was running out of leads. I still needed to go back to the Chili Parlor and check for meat invoices, but I really didn’t expect to find much. I had a hard time believing Big Tommy had been murdered over meat, but I guessed it was possible.

My desk phone rang, and I picked it up without checking the phone number.

“Hey, Mustang, it’s Lyle.”

Every molecule in my body wanted to roll its eyes. I’d forgotten I’d given Lyle a task.

I plastered on a fake smile, because it was easier to fake-like someone with a fake smile on my face. “What did you find out?”

“I don’t think we should donate any money to the Lakeside African Relief Fund.” He rustled some paper. “They only exist on paper.”

Duh, I could have figured that out. My cheeks quivered under the strain of my fake smile. “Why do you say that?”

“All of their 990s check out, but that’s it. There are no lists of donors, conflict of interest policies, compensation reviews, or written disclosures. And there are no who’s who lists; in other words, I can’t find any disqualified persons list, related organizations, or donor-advised funds.” Lyle droned on.

Was he even speaking English?

“Okay, so what does that mean in layman’s terms?” I wasn’t even sure I was as smart as the next layman.

“The charity is fake. I’d say that someone is using it to hide money or assets, only there aren’t any money or assets. It’s so strange.” Lyle sounded stumped. “As far as I can tell, the only thing this company does is hide people.”

“I don’t understand. Why would anyone want to hide people?” I had no idea what he was talking about. Lyle might be a pain in the ass, but he was thorough. He wouldn’t have called unless he’d checked and rechecked.

“That’s just it. I have no idea why anyone would want to hide people. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure it out. Maybe some sort of unofficial witness protection or human trafficking?” He sighed deeply. “If the Lakeside African Relief Fund had wanted to hide money from the IRS, they would have created fake people with large salaries and benefits and expenses. But these are all real people who appear to be volunteering in Africa...only they aren’t. Not one of these people has earned a penny since working for the charity.”

Did volunteers earn money?

“Presumably there is some cost of living, so a stipend, if not a salary, would be necessary. Only, these people have earned nothing. The Lakeside African Relief Fund has gotten no donations and isn’t affiliated with any other charity or company. It’s only a website with a list of names.” He rustled some more paper. “I checked each one of the names out, and they are real people, but on Facebook they all posted the same pictures.”

Lyle was on Facebook? I guess even the terminally dull have friends.

“It’s good that you checked all of this out before we donated to them.” The pitch of my voice went down, which was the universal signal that the conversation was over.

“How did you learn about the Lakeside African Relief Fund?” Lyle kept on going. Obviously, he didn’t get the whole pitch-goes-down-let-me-off-the-phone thing.

“Big Tommy.” Notice the vagueness when lying again. I’m a master.

“A real shame what happened to him. He made one fantastic bowl of chili.” Lyle actually sounded sad...ish. Since he spoke in a dull monotone, it was really hard to tell. “I think we should put the raffle basket money into a memorial garden for Molly Miars. I know she was your friend.”

That’s what we’d planned to do, but I guess we hadn’t included him in that decision.

“Thank you. That’s a great idea.” I actually sounded grateful. I wouldn’t have taken Lyle as the thoughtful type. Actually, I did my best to not think of Lyle at all.

“Hey, I saw this story in the
Lakeside Herald
online about a fight over raffle baskets last night at High 5. What happened?” Lyle typed on a keyboard.

“Pretty much what the story said.” Not that I’d read it, but the reporter had seen the fight, so it had to be close to accurate.

“Oh my God.” Lyle’s monotone was slightly inflected. “I just checked out our PayPal online donation account. We have over ten thousand dollars in donations.” He typed some more. “Looks like most of the money was donated this morning.”

“What?” I put down the pen that I’d been using to doodle all over the back of yesterday’s daily closing sheet. “We have how much money?”

“We now have $10,578.12 to be precise. I guess that article about the cheap raffle basket put the word out.” Someone knocked on a door, and it sounded like Lyle pulled the phone away and said, “Come in.”

There was a mumbled conversation.

“Sorry, Mustang, but I have to go. Talk to you soon.” Lyle hung up.

Wow, had I really just had a semi-normal conversation with him?

Hell had just frozen over. A chill whizzed down my spine. Yep, it was cold in here.

My desk phone rang again. This time I glanced at the caller’s number. I didn’t recognize it—probably actual work that I needed to do.

I picked up the receiver. “This is Mustang, how may I help you?”

“I want the gold.” The voice sounded like Mike Tyson. I was pretty sure Mike Tyson hadn’t taken time out of his busy day to bother me about Molly’s gold.

Was the caller using a voice spoofer? Was it a he or a she?

“Are you talking about Molly’s gold?” Best to clarify. He might have the wrong number.

“Yes, I want Molly’s gold. I know you have it.” Mike Tyson’s voice was very lifelike—no mechanical hitches at all. Must be one of those purchased spoofers and not the free ones. I had a spoofer app on my phone that was supposed to make my voice sound like Queen Elizabeth, but it was more like Eeyore from
Winnie the Pooh
.

Wait a minute. I knew what was going on. “Very funny, Monica.”

She was the only one who knew about the note.

“This isn’t Monica. I want—”

“I know. Molly’s gold. I got it. Call me back in your regular voice. This Mike Tyson one is creepy.” I hung up.

Monica didn’t pull practical jokes very often...God bless her. She wasn’t very good at them.

My desk phone rang again. It was the same number.

“This isn’t Monica.” Mike Tyson was getting angry. “Don’t hang up on me again.”

Oops. Maybe this wasn’t Monica.

I sat up.

“Did the note come from you?” My heart rate slowed to a crawl, waiting for his answer. This might or might not be Big Tommy’s killer.

“Yes, and I want Molly’s gold.” Mike Tyson was persistent.

“Why do you think I have Molly’s gold?” I didn’t know why I was keeping him on the phone; it wasn’t like anyone was listening in and tracing the call.

“I know you have it. You have until noon today to bring it to the Chili Parlor. No cops. You’d better leave your boyfriend out of it.”

Was he talking about Ben? Ben wasn’t my boyfriend.

“Deliver the gold or else.” Mike Tyson’s voice sounded kind of high for me to take the threat seriously.

“Or else what?” Was he going to egg my house or chop off my arm? I needed to know the stakes.

“It will be bad...very bad.” Mike Tyson hung up.

“Very bad” didn’t sound like the words of a criminal mastermind. I should have been scared, but something about this was off. Was this Big Tommy’s killer? Had he been murdered over money? According to the IRS, he didn’t have any, but clearly he did.

According to the IRS, I don’t have any money either, but wait...I really don’t.

I called both Haley and Monica and left messages. I then texted them both a 911.

My cell rang. It was Monica.

I picked up the receiver. “It’s about time you called.”

It had been all of a millisecond.

“What’s the big emergency?” She sounded more harried than interested.

“Someone just called me asking for the gold.” I checked the clock on my phone. “I have a little over two hours to get it to him or else something ‘really bad’ is going to happen.”

“Like what?” Now Monica was interested.

“No idea. He said ‘something really bad.’ He hung up before I could get a qualifier. What do you think we should do?” I just couldn’t scare up enough scared to be scared of Mike Tyson.

“Do you think there’s a real threat?” Monica was a skeptic, just like me.

“Honestly, I don’t know. It sounded really amateurish. Whoever it was used a voice spoofer.” This felt like something Lucy and Ethel would dream up to get money so they could fix the bumper of Lucy’s car before Ricky found out she’d dented it.

“I guess we get Haley to bring us the gold, we drop it off, and then we watch to see who takes it.” Monica tapped something, probably a pencil, in the background. “Have you heard from Haley?”

“Not yet, but I think she had to take Daniel to the airport. He leaves today for Las Vegas.” I was sure Haley would call as soon as she got a free minute.

“Okay.” Monica drew out the word. “It looks like if I take a work call in my car on the way, I can meet you at eleven thirty at the Chili Parlor. All we need now is the gold, and then we’re...golden.”

“That was awful.” I shook my head. When Monica threw out a pun, it was usually tired and trite and terrible.

“On that note, I have to go. Nichelle is about to have a heart attack because I’m late for a conference call.” Monica hung up. Poor Nichelle, Monica’s assistant, had her hands full with keeping Monica in line.

The gravity of “really bad” was setting in on me. What if Haley had forgotten where she’d hidden the gold? What kind of “really bad” were we talking here?

I couldn’t call Ben, because that might trigger the “really bad.” Daman was out of town. And with that, I’d been through my entire list of badasses. I really needed to bring more badasses into my circle of friends. Maybe if I hung out at more biker bars or with bail bondsmen? Where did badasses hang out?

I guessed I could call my landlady, Astrid, but she was definitely crazy-assed, but in a sorta badass kinda way.

I paced back and forth in my office, which was kinda useless, being that my office is about twelve square feet. This must be how a goldfish feels swimming around in one of those tiny little bowls. I felt like I was both getting nowhere and hitting a wall.

I glanced at the clock on my computer. All of five minutes had gone by.

Assuming that Mike Tyson was Big Tommy’s killer, there was probably lots of “really bad” that he could come up with to do to me. Perhaps being a smartass isn’t my best choice when dealing with people; then again, it keeps me from killing those people, so it is the lesser of two evils.

I watched the clock on my computer as it finally rolled to the next number.

Where was Haley, and why wasn’t she calling me back?

Had she been in an accident?

I picked up my phone and 911-ed her again.

The minutes dragged by, reluctantly melting into each other. I still hadn’t heard from Haley.

At eleven I had no choice but to turn to plan B.

I didn’t actually have a plan B, but I was hopeful one would form.

I grabbed my purse and poked my head into the minions’ office. “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment, so I might take longer than an hour for lunch.”

Mellie nodded without looking up from her computer screen. She was deep in concentration. Jack waved with his free hand, the other holding the phone to his ear.

I ran out to Portia and slid behind the wheel. Plan B hadn’t mysteriously come to me, but I did have something I might be able to use to keep the “really bad” away.

I threw my car in reverse and headed to my house.

I called Daman. He was still out of town, but we’d been trading messages. With any luck, I’d get his voicemail.

“I was just thinking about you.” Daman’s Spanish accent and deep, sleepy voice made that sound really dirty.

“That’s funny. I was just thinking about you too.” Not in the same way, but, well...damn, now I was. “Did I wake you?”

“Yes, but it’s okay.” He must have rolled over, because I heard sheets crinkle in the background.

“I have a favor to ask...” I really didn’t know how to ask it.

“Anything, cariño.” I could hear the sexy smile in his voice.

“You know those diamonds that I found of yours?” I didn’t really think that he’d forgotten, but in case he had, a little reminder couldn’t hurt.

He was silent for a whole minute.

“You mean the ones we agreed you’d put back where you found them.” His voice had lost most of its sexiness.

We’d found a sack full of diamonds, along with the gold and stacks of cash, at Molly Miars’s house. “Here’s the thing. I couldn’t put them back, and anyway, I was wondering if I could borrow them.”