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Authors: Rhonda Pollero

Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Fiction

Knock Off (10 page)

BOOK: Knock Off
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“Stunning watch,” I remarked. She had the Rolex Jubilee Presidential diamond bevel, and it was everything I could do not to drool.

“Thank you,” she replied graciously as the sound of sandals slapping across the floor pulled my attention away from the couple to the young woman joining them.

The daughter,
I decided. She had Hall’s light brown eyes and Meredith’s small build.

“Zoe, did you remember to lock the car?” Meredith asked in that rhetorical mother tone.

“Of course.”

Not “yeah,” not “uh huh.” This girl was polite and courteous. Probably a requirement in her school. I recognized the blue plaid jumper and crisp white shirt by the emblem embroidered on the breast pocket. Friends’ Academy of Palm Beach. One year at the prestigious high school cost more than all four years of my college education combined.

Dr. Hall retrieved the clipboard I’d dropped and handed it to me with a gracious smile. “Here you go, Miss . . . ?”

Our eyes locked for a split second. “Tanner. Finley Tanner. Thank you, Doctor.”

The receptionist said, “Mr. Dane is ready to see you.”

She pointed to the elevator bank. “His office is on—”

“We know the way,” Dr. Hall interrupted. “Thank

you.” He placed one hand at his wife’s back and the other at his daughter’s, then guided them across the lobby.

I waited until the doors closed on the compartment before gathering up my things. “I’ll be back as soon as possible,” I said, still pissed at having to get the employee version of a hall pass to leave the building.

I decided to drive to the courthouse for two reasons. It saved me the trouble of coming back for my car after filing the estate accounting, and I had some paranoid feelings that Margaret might be making notes on my activities.

My paranoia wasn’t completely unfounded. “Logging my calls,” I grumbled as I slipped behind the wheel. “Log this!” I scoffed as I pulled my phone out of my purse and dialed several numbers. I left messages for Liv, Becky, Jane, and Stacy Evans to call my cell until further notice.

I had to wait until I parked outside the courthouse to find Liam’s number. After programming it into my cell’s memory, I hit the SEND button and waited for his voice mail to answer.

“McGarrity.”

I felt every one of those four syllables tingle through my bloodstream and felt instantly guilty.
I have a boyfriend. I
have a boyfriend. He’s boffing his ex-wife.
Equilibrium restored.

“This is McGarrity,” he repeated, irritation creeping into his voice.

“Hi, it’s Finley Tanner.”

“Yeah?”

Obviously, he didn’t attend the Friends’ Academy. “First, I need you to call my cell phone from now on. Okay?”

“Why not? What’s the number?”

I repeated it from memory, then said, “I’ve got a release from Mrs. Keller, and I should have one from Mrs.

Vasquez in about two hours. Can we meet?”

“For what?”

It was my turn to be irritated. “So you can get an independent lab to see if any of them were drugged or poisoned or whatever. Remember?”

“I think you’re wasting your time.”

So what else was new? “Work with me here.”

I heard him sigh. “On what? The prelim on the car was a bust. If you ask me, Marcus Evans died in a car accident.

End of story. Tell the widow to put a period on it and move on.”

“It’s a little late for that,” I said. “Stacy knows other jurors have died. I told her.”

“Jesus, that was stupid.”

That rankled, and I felt instantly defensive. Although my inclination was to tell him to go to hell, I needed him.

“Well, I’m kind of new at this. Which is why I need you.

I’ll take care of getting the necessary releases, and you find me someone to run the tests. It’s called the spirit of team-work, like Starsky and Hutch, Cagney and Lacey—”

“Beavis and Butt-Head,” Liam added, his tone laced with humor. “I’m Beavis, in case you were wondering.”

“I’m not begging here. You’re getting paid.”

“Fine. I’ve got a—”

Don’t say it!

“Thing tonight. You get whatever you have together and I’ll swing by your place on my way home.”

“Okay. My address is—”

“I’ll find you.”

I stared at the dead phone and thought of more than just a few ways I wanted to tell him to go screw himself.

Then my thoughts immediately switched to assess my own shortcomings. Liam had mocked me, teased me, dismissed me, criticized me, and I was now more intrigued by him than ever. God, am I pathetic or what?

Snapping my phone closed with a little more pressure than necessary, I grabbed my stuff and my now tepid soda and headed toward the courthouse.

The midafternoon sun was strong, making the glass-over-street walkway connecting the building and the parking lot feel more like a greenhouse. Luckily, I’d opted for a simple, sleeveless cotton dress in one of my favorite shades of aqua, so I was immune to my brief foray into the swel-tering enclosure.

After a successful thirty-minute meeting with one of the clerks in the probate department, I could officially consider the final D’Auria accounting a done deal. Nothing left to do but send out the checks to the heirs and wait for the expressions of gratitude to come rolling in. That was a huge perk to my job. People love getting money for nothing, and when they do, even legendary tightwads discover generosity. So far the best thing I’ve received from a beneficiary was an all-expenses-paid week at the Atlantis Hotel on Paradise Island. Most of the time, though, it’s a nice fruit assortment or designer chocolates.

My next stop was Vital Records over on 45th Street. In a brilliant—at least to my mind—CYA move, I called Margaret. I knew good and well that the switchboard Caller ID would verify my location. I had to wait for official copies of the death certificates for Vasquez and Keller, so I asked her to see if anyone else in the office needed anything. Of course they didn’t, which I already knew, but it did give me the satisfaction of knowing I’d protected myself.

“I have a message for you,” Margaret said just as I was about to hang up.

“Yes?”

“Sam Carter called and asked that you return his call as soon as possible.” I heard the clicking of her fingernails against the keyboard. “I don’t have him listed in our client base.”

Bite me.
“He’s on the board of my renters’ association,”

I explained. Technically true, but Sam knew better than to involve me in association business. He knows I couldn’t give a flying fig about who is violating the assigned parking-spot rules, or who didn’t double-bag their trash. “Anything else?”

“Yes, Mr. Dane would like to know when you think

you’ll be back in your office.”

“An hour or so.”
I hope.
“I have one more stop to make, and I’d like to grab something to eat. It is almost two, and I haven’t had a thing all day.”
I hope you feel
guilty, you leftover-meatloaf-sandwich-eating witch.

“I’ll let him know.”

“Thank you.”

A few minutes later, I was back in my car, reading the death certificates as I started the engine. The only thing that popped was the fact that Graham Keller’s body was taken to JFK Hospital off Congress Street—which, coincidentally, was right on my way to Rosita Vasquez’s house.

Since I had medical releases tucked into my briefcase, I figured I might as well grab a copy of Keller’s medical records and put in a request for any blood or tissue samples.

Because I knew several of the records clerks, I was able to get the copies in under ten minutes. The lab request would take longer, though they promised they would respond to my request by Monday.

Now for the hard part,
I thought with a sense of dread as I worked my way through a neighborhood of modest homes in West Palm. Once I found the address, I parked at the curb in front of the Spanish-style home. The ghost of beautiful landscaping was overgrown now, possibly neglected in the three months since José had died.

An older-model Volvo was parked in the driveway, surrounded by an assortment of bikes, skateboards, and toys.

A cement statue of the Virgin Mary stood in the center of the small lawn, surrounded by a bed of white stones.

As I walked up to the front door, I heard children playing close by and soft, rhythmic salsa music coming from a nearby house. Mrs. Vasquez was waiting for me, holding open the screen door and greeting me with a cautious but warm smile. She had on shorts and a T-shirt from last year’s SunFest. Long ebony hair fell well past her shoulders. Her eyes were black and, like Martha Keller’s, per-manently stained with grief. Her skin tone was somewhere between caramel and café au lait.

The interior of her home was awash with bright color and framed photographs. One in particular caught my eye. “You?” I asked, hoping to break the ice.

“My Quinceanera,” she explained in heavily accented English. “My fifteenth birthday.”

I smiled, moderately familiar with the celebration. “Your dress is stunning.”

“My aunt and mother worked for months on it,” she said.

Their efforts showed. Quinceanera dresses look a lot like wedding dresses—very white and very ornate. And in keeping with tradition, Rosita was posed in a formal por-trait.

“Sit,” she insisted, stopping to toss a stuffed toy onto the floor. “You are here about my José?”

I pretty much repeated what I had told Mrs. Keller. “I think— Excuse me,” I interrupted as I grabbed my ringing cell phone out of my purse. “Hello?”

“Finley, this is Stacy Evans.”

“I’m in a meeting,” I said, offering my uneasy hostess an apologetic smile.

“I won’t keep you. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve contacted the other jurors and told them to expect a call from you.”

I grimaced. “That might have been a little premature.”

“They could have information. Or be in danger themselves.”

“Mrs. Evans, I—”

“I faxed their phone numbers to your office. Let me know when you’ve completed the interviews. I won’t keep you any longer. Good-bye.”

Shit, shit, and double shit.
I flipped my phone closed and tried not to let my annoyance show. Margaret was logging my time, and Stacy was arranging my appointments. How had I managed to completely loose control of the situation?

Liam’s words played in my mind. He was right. As it had turned out, telling Stacy about the other jurors
had
been stupid.

I spent about twenty minutes with Rosita. I walked away with two things. A pair of signed releases and her insistence that José was not a careless man. While she seemed resigned that his death was an accident, she kept telling me over and over again that I should speak to Tomás Montoya.

He was José’s crew boss and was to have been there with him on the morning of the accident.

I returned to Dane-Lieberman with a bag of lukewarm French fries. I placed the sack on the clipboard while I signed in. I derived more than a little bit of childish pleasure when the grease drained through, staining the page.

The fax from Stacy was waiting on my desk, topped by a Post-it from Cami noting the time it had come through the machine. Again I felt the prickly sensation between my shoulder blades. Why was Cami suddenly cropping up all over the place? The logical answer was that she was bored.

The “I’m freaked out” answer is that she’s keeping tabs on me.

Was it really paranoia if everyone was, in fact, actually keeping tabs on me?

I spent a few minutes eating my fries while completing my timesheet. Then I e-mailed the spreadsheet of billable hours to the Accounting Department. Next I sifted through the boxes of transcripts and selected the ones I would take home for the weekend.

“I’m losing it,” I grumbled as I condensed the relevant bound volumes into a single white box. I never take work home, yet here I go. Not only was I going to meet Liam tonight, I had the Widow Whitley on Saturday, and now I was adding hundreds of pages of transcripts. Oh, yeah, and I was having brunch with Mom on Sunday. My friends were going shopping and to the beach. Could this weekend get any worse?

Even though it was after five o’clock, I took the time to copy the D’Auria estate stuff, print out the disbursement checks, and write the cover letters to the heirs. Since I was on an employee-of-the-month roll, I managed to get everything signed and sealed in time for the last express mail pickup of the day.

By the time I started loading my car, Margaret had already left for the evening. “Slacker,” I muttered on my second trip past her vacant desk.

Because of my late departure, the sun set before I reached my apartment. It wasn’t until I pulled into my parking spot that I remembered I was supposed to call Sam. Knowing him, he’d be pretty miffed by now.

I was tired and not looking forward to dragging the heavy box of transcripts and my briefcase and the medical files from my car to my apartment. I really didn’t want to add pissy attitude from Sam to my list of challenges.

I arrived at my door and forgot all about Sam. I forgot everything as I looked at the single sheet of paper nailed into place. My heart stopped as I read the words scrolled in bright red marker.

Do you want to die too?

Earning it is good, but having it

fall into your lap is so much easier.

Nine

One by one, like eyes blinking awake, lights came on in my apartment building. Then heads popped out of windows, making me feel like I was playing a giant version of the carney game Whack-A-Mole.

“You okay?” the unibrow guy in 4B called.

“What if she’s not? What can you do, Herman?” I

heard his wife whine. “Close the window before the bugs get in. You know I hate bugs.”

After apparently hearing me scream, Sam Carter rushed to my side. The first thing out of his mouth when he saw the note was, “Geez, Finley. Who’d you piss off this time?”

“Today? Or just generally?” I asked, trying to make light of the situation even though my knees were still shaking.

Sam scooped up the contents of the box I’d dropped when I saw the note, shoving the binders inside while I struggled to insert my key into the lock. My hands were steady, but I kept looking around the parking lot, half expecting some hooded fiend to jump out and attack me.

Then I remembered this wasn’t a cheesy horror flick, and I began to relax. The bad guys had to be long gone.

Once the front door was open, Sam followed me inside, practically glued to my back as I went from room to room turning on every light possible.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Should you call the cops?”

I didn’t question my reluctance to involve the police, I went with my gut. “Probably just a prank.”
I hope.
“No one broke in.”

“No wonder, especially if they looked in the window and saw your horrid furniture. Taking this crap”—he paused, his face pinched in disapproval—“would be considered junk hauling, not stealing.”

My heart rate returned to normal. “Go grab my briefcase out of the back of my car,” I instructed.

“Do I look like the flipping doorman?” he demanded.

But he went. Taking instructions gracefully wasn’t one of Sam’s strengths. Which explained why he’d gone through jobs like I go through pantyhose. The difference was, Sam had saved, scrounged, and borrowed enough money to start up his own interior design company, knowing without doubt what he wanted. He might be a temperamental pain, but his work was amazing, so his business was growing quickly. Which meant he was extra-free with his opinions on my seriously-in-need-of-replacement furniture.

Sam played up his gayness. He thought it gave him that balance between sympathetic and sophisticated. People still assumed that his over-the-top flamboyance—in dress and gesture—came from having been forced to hide his “true” self in a prejudiced world in the past. In reality, Sam hailed from a large family in Philly that was completely accepting of his sexual orientation.

Yet, he really played it up. Like now. He was dressed in jeans and a cotton, button-down shirt—normal enough— but Sam added an ascot. Who, aside from the elderly members of the royal family, donned an ascot?

He was gone for thirty-one seconds. I timed him, staring at the door, waiting for him to return. Possibly a little more freaked out than I wanted to admit. After depositing my briefcase on the countertop with a loud thud, he ripped the note off the door and brought it inside.

I watched him smooth a hand over his perfectly coiffed hair. He used so much product, I was sure that when he died it would be from mousse poisoning. Or maybe inhal-ing too much hair spray. I wasn’t sure, but it would definitely be the first hair-care fatality on record.

Expertly styled hair aside, Sam was a really attractive guy. Tall, slim but not skinny, mid-twenties, blond, grayish-blue eyes, tanned, and intelligent. He loved shopping, had a great sense of color, and knew how to find a bargain. If it wasn’t for the whole sexual-preference thing, he’d be a great life partner. Wasn’t that how it always worked? The good ones were either gay or married. My mind flashed the image of Liam and his ex-wife in the throes of passion.

“What?” Sam asked, slipping onto one of two mismatched bar stools. “You look pale. Is it the note? Should we call the police, really?”

To report a non-divorce divorce?
I thought, still fixated on my mental image of Liam and his ex-wife.
Don’t think
that’s any more of a crime than the murders I can’t prove.

I shook my head. “I’m sure it was just a piss-poor joke.”

“Could be those little bastards in Three-C. I know they’re the ones that spray-painted ‘fag’ on my door last month. Not that their mother gave a damn when I confronted her.”

“You were crying when you knocked on her door,” I reminded him. “She was freaked out by your meltdown, but as I recall, she sent a check to you to cover the cost of re-painting.”

Sam sighed, not completely willing to give up the pouty look just yet. “They were tears of frustration,” he insisted, making each word sound as if he was delivering a Shakespearian soliloquy. “Because I am . . . unique, I’ve had to endure a great deal of teasing and taunting during my lifetime.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re so full of crap. You were never shunned by your friends and family. Jeez, Sam, you were even voted homecoming queen at your very inclusive, very forward-thinking high school. I don’t want to hear any ‘poor gay me’ stories. We both know you were only in tears because you hated the color of the spray paint they used.”

“That, too,” he admitted with an impish gleam in his eyes. His expression turned slightly more serious as he tapped his forefinger on the note. “What about this, Finley? It gives me the creeps. You’ve been threatened.”

Raking my hands through my hair, I couldn’t decide what, if anything, I should do. Taking no action at all seemed like the path of least resistance, and one that I was familiar with. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” I said, trying to in-still a voice of reason into the situation. For both Sam and myself. My nerves were jumping, and my brain was going a mile a minute. I was scared. And, God help me, excited in a perverse way. Because if someone was threatening me, that meant my investigation was getting someone’s attention.

Now I just had to figure out what my next step might be.

“It can’t be ‘nothing,’ but it’s your call,” Sam said, like he was in charge. “What’s all this stuff?” He waved his hand in an arc over the things I’d brought from the office.

“Work.”

He blinked as if I’d just recited the atomic number of all the known elements in the universe. “You?” His brows drew together questioningly. “What gives, Finley? Your weekends are sacred to you. You must have really screwed up at work if they consigned you to a weekend in Paralegal Purgatory.”

I smiled. “My choice. I need to do some research on a case.”

“A case?” he parroted. “Your clients are all dead people.”

I spent a few minutes bringing him up to speed. Sam sat in complete silence until I’d finished. Then he gave a low whistle. “So how come Sara Whitley would wait all this time before turning into a cold, calculating killer? And why go after the jurors?”

A question I’d been asking myself for days now.

“And,” Sam continued, quite animatedly, “why not kill off the doctors and nurses who didn’t treat the postop infection in time?”

I didn’t have any real answers. Just gut feelings. “Maybe I’ll be able to figure that out after I meet with her tomorrow.”

“For the love of— Finley, you shouldn’t go meet her. At least not alone.”

I was touched by his concern. “Want to come with me?”

“I can’t. Which is kinda why I’ve been trying to reach you the past couple of days.”

“Sorry about that. I meant to return your calls.”

“I need you to take care of Butch and Sundance this weekend.” He must have read my mind because he added, “I’ve got to meet a new client. And it is only until Sunday night. Monday morning at the absolute latest.”

Butch and Sundance were Sam’s cats. They didn’t need watching, since their whole lives consisted of eating, sleeping, and licking themselves. Oh, yeah, and the whole gross litter-box thing. I found that completely disgusting.

“You know I’ll do it.” Tired of transcripts, widows, and the thought of all the reading ahead of me, I asked, “New client?”

“Kind of,” he hedged.

I grinned. “New man?”

“I’m not sure,” Sam admitted, clearly perplexed. “He’s totally hot, but I think he might be a switch-hitter. You know I’m not into the whole bisexual thing. Hell, how hard is it to pick a gender and stick to it?”

“What makes you think he’s into women?”

“He has pictures in his office.
Family
pictures. Kids, dog, the whole suburban package.”

I put on a pot of coffee. “Maybe he came out after he married. Or they could be nieces and nephews.”

“Then they should be labeled as such. I mean, he totally checked me out during our first meeting. He’s redoing an old cottage in the Upper Keys. Then he insists on personally taking me to said beach house for the weekend ‘to get a feel for the place.’ That all points toward him wanting me, right?”

“Sure. Or, just playing devil’s advocate, he’s a closeter who’s whisking you out of town so there’s no chance you’ll run into his wife and kids.”

“You are so not helping.”

“I just agreed to police cat poop for you. How is that not supportive?”

“Why are men so complicated?”

“Gee, aren’t you the one more qualified to answer that?” I didn’t wait for my state-of-the-art machine to stop spitting and sputtering. I grabbed a mug for myself, then turned and asked Sam, “Coffee?”

“No.” He slid off the barstool. “I’m going up to pack.”

“Good luck with He-She Man. Let me know how it

works out,” I called as Sam disappeared down the hallway and out the door. I followed a few seconds later, turning the latch on the lock and sliding the safety chain into place.

I went into the bedroom, took off my dress, adding it to the pile I needed to drop off at the dry cleaners, then changed into a pair of satin boxers and a camisole. Twisting my hair into a makeshift knot at the nape of my neck, I grabbed a silk demi-robe off the hook on the back of my door and returned to the kitchen.

Before I decided on my dinner options, I checked my wallet. Ten dollars was enough for a quart of Chicken Lo Mien plus tip. That along with the rest of the Lucky Charms would easily get me through the weekend. Especially if I humiliated my mother by asking for a doggy bag after brunch.

I called the Hunan Hideaway, placed my order, then sipped my coffee as I started reading the Vasquez medical reports I’d gotten on my way home. Maybe someone at the hospital had told someone else that I was asking around.

Then that someone told whoever put that flipping note on my door. It was hard to concentrate on medical jargon when I was distracted by the reality that someone had taken the trouble to threaten me. Then again, it could be nothing more than a practical joke. Someone from work, maybe?

Margaret had left before me. But I just couldn’t picture her sneaking over to my apartment and tacking a threat to my door.

Back to the medical reports. This sort of stuff is the main reason my degree is in women’s studies—nothing beyond the most remedial math and science required. I didn’t know what a
cc
was because, aside from drug dealers, only the medical profession used the metric system.

If I excluded the weights and measures, the ER notes from the morning José died seemed pretty straightforward.

There were some terms and abbreviations I didn’t fully understand. Still, I got the gist of what killed him. He’d sus-tained a crushing blow to the chest caused by the trunk of a palm tree. He’d been hit with sufficient force for the im-pact to break his rib, which then punctured a major ventricle in his heart. Not that the reports said it in normal words, but the bottom line was, José had bled to death from the internal injury.

Moistening my fingertip, I flipped through the paperwork to the intake form. Tomás Montoya’s signature was at the bottom of the admission sheet. His phone number was included, so I added that to my list of notes. Though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how Sara Whitley could make a tree fall on someone.

With my stomach growling as I waited for the delivery guy, I went and got my laptop. A few minutes later, I had a theory, if not an answer. Apparently, the variety and size of the Royal Palm José was planting was supposed to be “topped,” meaning basically all the fronds are stripped off so all the weight is in the root ball.

However, when I compared it to the newspaper photo of the scene, taken just a few hours after José’s body had been removed, the tree had a full canopy. Why would an experienced landscaper do something so risky?

Before I could even begin to guess, the doorbell chimed.

I thought my stomach would clap with unbridled joy.

Grabbing my wallet off the countertop, I went to the door, opening it only as far as the safety chain allowed.

Instantly, I realized two things. First, it wasn’t the short Korean guy who delivered my food. It was Liam. After that fact solidified in my brain, I realized I was dressed all wrong. The Korean guy wouldn’t have thought twice about catching me in my loungewear, but Liam was another story. He’d probably take it as a lame attempt at seduction or something.

“Hang on,” I said, shutting the door, tossing my wallet on the counter as I ran into my bedroom.

With limited time and options, I removed the boxers and pulled on a pair of jeans, no time for panties, and, besides, I’d be the only one who knew I was commando. My camisole had a built-in bra, but just to be on the safe side, I grabbed a hoodie from my closet and hurriedly slipped it over my head. Body armor.

Sliding the chain free, I opened the door as I willed my breathing back to normal. Untangling my hair with my fingers, I stepped to one side to allow him to enter. “Sorry, I forgot you were coming by.”

Liam was one of those guys who filled a space. I don’t know if it’s presence or sheer size, I just knew that I felt claustrophobic with him standing in the narrow hallway between my kitchen and my living room.

I also discovered something else. I couldn’t identify his cologne. It was subtle and masculine and completely distracting. Okay, confession time: olfactory failure wasn’t the only thing that had me carked. Liam’s complete disinterest dinged my ego. Apparently, I didn’t even rate so much as a passing once-over. I shouldn’t care, but I did.

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