Cash & Carry (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 4) (7 page)

I laughed. “You already outstrip me in the vocabulary department. So how about the Washington state flower?” I pointed to the map, and Emmie sat cross-legged on the floor to tackle the complex corolla of the Pacific rhododendron with her pink pencil.

I briefly considered calling Arleta back. But then I thought better of it. There was no reason why the two secret missions going on at the Century Hills Memory Care Center couldn’t continue to run simultaneously.

CHAPTER 9

Yep. There it was. Simon Ramos. Now I had a complete name. And a little history. Something to go on.

Why, I didn’t know. Except that the memory of Simon Ramos had been bothering my dad to the point of extreme agitation for the past three days. That was enough for me.

There was a slight problem in that there was a Simon Ramos Senior and a Simon Ramos Junior in the San Francisco newspaper archives, both with ties to the bayfront unions. For all I knew there might be a Simon Ramos III running around in diapers too, as the family seemed awfully proud of the name. But I figured I could scratch anyone under the age of eighteen off my suspect list.

Another one of my phones lit up. Sometimes I feel like a switchboard operator.

“Got your note,” Hank said.

I tipped back in the chair and propped my feet on the corner of the desk. The complete black of nightfall out in the country when there’s also heavy cloud cover had masked the windows. I’d been working on my laptop in the glow from an unsteady lamp with a frayed cord, another relic of Mayfield’s days as a nursing home in the 1960s. Emmie had moved on to drawing a maze in her notebook. The Terminator, the recently rediscovered goat with his horizontally-slitted yellow eyes, featured prominently at the center of the maze.

“Wish you’d told me you’d been in a collision while you were here,” Hank continued. “I’m assuming you’re okay?”

“I’m feeling my age, now more than ever,” I replied.

“Join the club. Look, I have Salvador Pica here in my office. He’s our third shift dock supervisor, and he used to work at Ace Trailer Repair. I’m gonna turn the phone over to Sal now, and he can answer your questions.”

“Um, hello? Ms. Ingram-Sheldon?” A deep voice with the barest hint of an accent. He sounded a little nervous. Talking to the big boss can do that to a person.

“Hi, Sal. Please call me Nora.” I tried to sound reassuring and friendly. I’d had no idea one of my employees had previously worked for the trailer repair business. It was lucky but maybe not unexpected given the rather insulated labor pool in the area. But I’d have to tread carefully in case Sal had friends or relatives who still worked at Ace. And I didn’t want him to think he was in any kind of trouble.

I briefly explained how I’d made the acquaintance of one of Ace’s drivers and how I’d then introduced myself to Shane Bigelow and Rod Kliever at their office this morning. “Can you tell me what type of work they specialize in? They didn’t seem very busy,” I finished.

Nosy parker, that’s me. And I could immediately tell that I’d made Sal uncomfortable by the way his breathing changed. I would have preferred to be speaking with him in person so I could read his face, but maybe it was best for both parties to keep our distance.

“Uh, well, you don’t want to be involved in their business, Ms.—uh, Nora,” he said.

“Can you tell me why not?”

“Not everything they do there is completely legal, which is why I quit.”

“I understand, and I’m not surprised. Are the employees unionized?”

“Not officially. But they—Mr. Bigelow, I mean—has pretty close ties with a few of the local union reps.”

I was tentatively familiar with this territory, mainly from the bits of information I’d picked up while I was still living with my parents, listening to what little my dad shared about his job. Union networking is a labyrinth of relationships, and some—but certainly not all—of the most successful in that line of work had their hands in each other’s pockets. Favoritism, nepotism, and plain old greed—there were many ways to either hold an honest, hard-working guy back or promote the most proficient slackers. Which proved an endless source of frustration for my dad.

“Back to the illegal activity—would you be willing to give me details? I promise to keep the information confidential.”

“I was only there about three months—long enough to realize I didn’t like it and that things would not be improving.” Sal’s voice moved closer but became more muffled as though he was cupping the receiver with his hand. “Let’s just say not a lot of trailer repair goes on there. I know they have a parking lot full of damaged trailers, but there’s almost no rotation. The same ones just sit there, taking up space.”

Sal took a deep breath and continued. “Work is really sporadic — lots of days they’ll call and tell you not to bother coming in, then suddenly there’ll be a flurry with overtime for their favorite employees. There’s definitely an
in
group and an
out
group. I was part of the
out
group, and only got called in for one night shift where we loaded scrap metal into eight containers for sea shipment. We rolled the last one out of there before dawn, which is saying something since they had to be loaded pretty much by hand.”

Sal paused for a moment, but I held my questions at bay. He seemed to be warming to his story, and I wondered if it had been weighing on him, this situation he had disliked so much that he’d quit when local jobs were scarce.

“Some of that scrap metal looked awfully new to me. In fact, some of it looked like the new drum pulper that was supposed to have been installed at the paper mill that week. It got lost in transport or damaged or something, some big insurance claim, my cousin told me. He works on the finishing line over there at the mill.” Sal pulled away and coughed. “Just speculation on my part. So I guess that’s all I can say about that.”

“Thank you. I’m very glad you’re working at my terminal now,” I said.

“Me too, Ms.—uh, Nora. Me too.”

There was a slight scuffing noise as though Sal had scooted his chair back, then the soft thump of a door closing, and Hank came on the line. “Want the less favorable gossip?”

“Less favorable than insurance scams?” I sat up and dropped my feet to the floor with a clunk.

“Yeah. Sal’s an understated sort of guy. I’ve heard far worse around the lunch table. I just thought it would be better if not everyone knows you’re asking questions. Sal will keep his mouth shut.”

“Tell me.” My head swam for a second from the sudden change in altitude, and then I realized I’d better take notes.

When Hank finished, my first reaction was that small towns aren’t idyllic. They might look that way to outsiders, but the crime rates are probably just as high, on a percentage basis, as in their larger counterparts. And in small towns, that increased your odds of actually knowing a criminal. 

Even though everyone seemed well informed about everyone else’s business, people were also so closely connected that hard, harmful secrets could also be kept—out of fear, concern, under threat whether explicit or implicit, especially when families’ livelihoods hung in the balance. For a while at least. Although, from Hank’s report, the grumblings had started.

Hank had rung off with a warning to be careful, to not be too obvious, although it was a little late for that considering the friendly barging-in Loretta and Emmie and I had accomplished earlier. I’d cringed inside and softly agreed to his procedural recommendations going forward. Hank had been shot last time I’d gone poking around where someone thought I shouldn’t have.

Clarice gave me the break I needed by tromping up the stairs with a tray laden with dinner—a finger food picnic under the eaves.

In many ways, my life since my wedding and Skip’s disappearance had been frightening. Okay, honestly—terrifying. I’d done—and survived—things I never would have imagined a few short months ago. But in many other ways it had been delightfully whimsical and provided a level of joy I also never would have imagined possible.

I mostly thought this while watching Emmie tuck into her food. Here we were in a musty old mansion, together—this little girl who wasn’t mine biologically but was as much a daughter as any little girl could be. Accompanied by Clarice, as fierce and stalwart a friend as there ever was. It was pretty much a Hallmark moment, for about twenty minutes.

Until Clarice announced it was bath time for Emmie and shot me a pointed look over her glasses. She knew what sequestering myself in the attic meant, what all the scribbled-on papers and Internet research foretold.

“I’ll be back,” she muttered as she stacked our empty plates.

oOo

And that’s how I spent the weekend, hermitted away in the attic. But it was a good use of time and brain power — and the most research I’d done since college.

The confusing question was how my dad was involved in all of this. As his Alzheimer’s had progressed, his clarity had decreased, but that didn’t mean that his random comments didn’t sometimes have elements of truth in them. The difficulty was picking out which ones and developing what connections, if any, there were between them.

Could my dad’s very shaky grasp of possible past indiscretions still get him in trouble? I didn’t think he was coherent enough to be a viable threat to anyone, but no one else knew him as well as I did, and there was no stopping whatever erroneous conclusions they might draw. I was fortunate the FBI was taking his situation seriously, but that was because a mobster had shown up at the care facility and engaged in some rather menacing intimidation tactics.

I drew a lot of lines and boxes and arrows on pieces of paper before I narrowed my options down to two. I could try to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to all my dad’s potential enemies that he was fully incapacitated, or I could divert their attention. Either way, I’d have to figure out who all had set their sights on my dad. It’s not like these people leave calling cards.

Well, they do, actually. The dismembered finger that had been dropped in a plastic bag and hung from the kitchen door handle came to mind. But not the kind of calling cards with calligraphed names and addresses on them.

And then there were Skip’s underworld connections and my list of Numeros. The crime world has a strict hierarchy, allegiances, and communications network that mimic, or maybe improve upon, what’s available to the average law-abiding citizen. And I was pretty sure that somehow my dad’s realm of past influence now overlapped with Skip’s.

It would even be fair to assume that Skip’s former money laundering clients would view my dad as an opportunity for leverage to get at Skip. They’d already lumped me in that category. Why not make it a family affair? I had to admit that was probably what I would do if I was in their shoes.

At least it gave me another angle. Might as well work them all.

So I spent more time hunting around for information on Mart ‘the Shark’ Zimmermann, the nonagenarian men’s clothier and opera supporter.

And got zip. Nada.

But there was no shortage of the stunning Angelica Temple splashed all over society pages and what seemed to be her favorite non-profit hobby, an economic development council for small businesses in the many bergs and hamlets tucked in and around the San Francisco metropolitan area. Lots of photos of her receiving petty awards from beaming merchant class folks on behalf of chambers of commerce, downtown associations, and the like. The presenters were usually middle-aged or older, balding men with significant bellies, and they usually had stupefied smiles mashed into their faces as though they were dazzled to be in her presence.

Or maybe I was a little biased. Or bitter. Or had been stuck out in the boonies in my flannel and hiking boots for too long. Or something.

But a woman like that could walk all over a planning commission or contractors’ board or homeowners’ association without one single male member realizing it. The few female representatives in those kinds of organizations also ran a serious risk of not recognizing the pervasiveness of the deception until it was too late.

I was chock full of stereotypes, but Matt’s description of Zimmermann’s illegal betting franchises rang in my ears when I saw what Angelica was parading through. So I gave him a call. He probably wasn’t doing anything else on a Sunday afternoon anyway.

“The mistress takes all, huh?” Matt chuckled.

“It’s a crazy hypothesis. I guess it just got debunked.” I sniffed. “No proof on the romantic side of things. It’s just that she’s very—” I had to probe for a sufficiently polite word, “active.”

“Hold on. I can ask the San Francisco office for some background, check her file—if she has one. Just give me a couple days.” It was a considerate backtracking on Matt’s part, but I could still hear the amusement in his voice.

“Just doing what you asked me to,” I huffed.

“Yep. Appreciate it.”

“But if you’re looking at files—”

“Out with it, Nora.”

“Can I see the files too? As a well-informed and somewhat linked civilian with parallel interests? I have a list.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Matt sighed. “Highly irregular. I’ll have to request permission, which most likely will not be granted. But hit me with your list.”

So I did. Half the names were a reach in the dark. But it didn’t hurt to try.