Revenge of the Spellmans (7 page)

“Seen any good movies lately?” Dad asked.

Having endured what I believed was more than a fair amount of small talk, I reminded my father of our agreement at the bar the other day, and he reminded me of all the times I had broken my word. My plans for
the evening (searching David’s house) were derailed by Dad’s visit, but I wasn’t going to let him interfere with my sleep. I phoned Mom, who phoned Dad, and finally my father was on his way. I went to bed near one
A.M
. As I drifted off to sleep, I contemplated reasons why David might have a gun the way some people might count sheep.

M
y phone rang at dawn the following morning. I don’t know about you, but I like at least six hours of sleep a night.

“Hello?”

“Izzele. Morty here. I need a ride.”

“What time is it?”

“Six
A
.
M
.”

“Where do you need to go this early?”

“Nowhere. But at ten this morning, I have an appointment with your friend the dentist. I thought you could drive me.”

“Why are you calling me at six
A
.
M
.?”

“So you don’t make other plans. Can you drive me?”

“Sure. Okay.”

“Be here at nine,” Morty said.

“But your appointment is at ten.”

“I like to be early.”

“I don’t.”

“You know, the new Caddies have just come out. I could hop on over to the dealer this afternoon.”

“How would you get there?”

“I’d take a cab. And then I’d leave with a brand-new four-door sedan with my name on it.”

“I’ll see you at nine,” I said, and hung up the phone.

I tried to sleep in, but the universe was conspiring against my rest, or at least the Golden Gate Disposal and Recycling Company was. I can sleep through many things, but the piercing jingle of bottles smashing against one another is not one of them. By 6:45 I gave up on sleep.

“Isabel, what a pleasant surprise,” Daniel said when he saw me and Morty enter the examination room. Ex-boyfriend #9, Daniel Castillo, DDS, gave me a warm kiss on the cheek and asked what I was doing in his office.

“She’s my driver,” Morty said as he seated himself in the chair.

“Are you two related?” Daniel asked.

“No,” I replied.

“I’m her lawyer,” Morty said.

“Lawyer?” Daniel repeated, seeming confused.

“I kept her out of jail. She owes me.”

“Hey!” I shouted. “What about attorney-client privilege?”

“I’m confused,” Daniel said. “Are you now working for Mr. Schilling?”

“No,” I replied. “He’s just not allowed to drive anymore.”

“I still have my license,” Morty said, giving me the evil eye. “There has been no official ruling.” The last sentence was directed at Daniel.

“I see,” Daniel replied, deciding that further questions were probably a bad idea. “Shall we begin the exam?”

Daniel put the bib on Morty and angled the chair back.

“Can you do anything about his teeth-sucking?” I asked.

“Mr. Schilling, try to floss after every meal. Or at least once a day.”

“Ahhh onnn uck ayyy eeth,” Morty said while the scaler and mirror were in his mouth.

“What? I can’t understand you,” I said.

“He said he doesn’t suck his teeth,” Daniel replied.

“He also makes this weird clicking noise, like his dentures are loose or something.”

Morty once again mumbled something incomprehensible, and I turned to Daniel for translation.

“Can you go sit in the waiting room, Isabel?” Daniel asked.

“Is that what he said?”

“No. It’s what I said.”

Twenty minutes later, Morty left the exam room and immediately made that teeth-sucking noise.

I turned to Daniel for at least sympathy, but I got none. I guess dentists hear a wide variety of teeth-related noises all day long. I suppose you get used to it. Daniel said good-bye and gave me a list of family members who needed to make checkup appointments. He said something about getting together sometime; his wife
1
would love to have me over for dinner—the usual awkward ex exchange, although in this case I got a free toothbrush.

Upon exiting Daniel’s office, Morty insisted that I take him to the store to do his weekly grocery shopping. Having never gone to the supermarket with my ancient friend before and therefore not knowing whether his ten-minute study of the decaf coffee selection, his intimate dance with the grapefruit, and his long-winded discussion at the deli counter were the true habits of an old man whose wife was on the lam or whether it was payback, I let our four-and-a-half-hour excursion (door to door) slide for the time being. However, after I dropped Morty off at his house, I decided to do a little research to be certain how to cope with my new responsibility in the future. I dropped by Gabe’s skate shop.

This time, Gabe was alone at the counter, doing something to a skateboard—no, I don’t know what. The closest I’ve come to skateboarding is smoking pot with someone who did.

“Izzele,” Gabe said, much to my annoyance.

“I’d hoped you’d stop calling me that.”

“It’s good to have hope. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

I leaned on the counter, suddenly feeling too tired to stand upright. “Have you ever been to a grocery store with your grandfather?”

“Sure. But it’s been a while. He hates going to the store. That’s why we set him up with an online delivery service. He just logs on to his computer.”

“I knew it!” I said.

“Huh?” Gabe said.

“Morty’s punishing me. I just spent three hours chauffeuring him to the dentist—we had to be early—and then an hour and a half in the grocery store, shopping for items that came to a grand total of forty-three dollars. Have you talked to your grandmother yet?”

I played along with Morty at the diner, but called Gabe with the inside scoop later that night. He agreed to intervene. “I’m afraid it’s not very good news,” Gabe replied.

Here’s Morty and Ruth’s conflict in a nutshell: For sixty years, Ruth Schilling, a sun worshipper at heart, lived in a city that is temperate but rarely toasty. She settled for yearly vacations in the desert or the tropics and bided her time. The Schillings made a deal. When Morty retired, they would move to a meteorological sauna. But when he turned sixty-five, he postponed his retirement another five years, then another five. Then he stuck a desk in their garage and took on a random client (like me) here and there—just enough to be able to claim he wasn’t officially retired. Ruthy eventually hopped on a plane to Miami with her mah-jongg tiles, jewelry, and resort wear, and told Morty that she’d either see him in Miami or see a divorce attorney. But Morty wasn’t budging and neither was Ruth.

Gabe and I compared notes and concurred that Ruth was 100 percent
in the right. We therefore agreed that our responsibility in this matter was to convince Morty of that fact.

On my way to the car, after leaving Gabe’s shop, I was poised to call Maggie and begin mediating the Rae situation when my mother phoned.

“I need you to come home right away,” my mother said, sounding professional but urgent.

“Is it an emergency?” I asked.

Long pause. “Sure. Why not?” she replied.

I arrived at the Spellman residence fifteen minutes later.

My mother held an official-looking envelope in her hands. I’d already waited five minutes for her breaking news, and my patience was waning.

“Mom, I have to be at work in an hour. Either spill the beans or let me go.”

My mother slid the envelope across the table. “You can’t tell anyone. No one has seen it yet.”

“What is it?” I asked, trying to place the return address.

“Rae’s PSAT scores.”

I opened it and studied the report. “This can’t be right,” I said.

SAT scoring has changed since my day, when 1600 was a perfect score. An essay question has been added, upping the total to 2000. Rae’s score was 1795 (really, really high).

“I thought the same thing,” replied my mom. “But I called the school. It was just a practice test, but the score is legitimate.”

Mom kept talking, but I wasn’t paying attention anymore.

“What was David’s score? Do you remember?” I asked.

“Fourteen-eighty,” Mom said.

“You are so weird, Mom. Why would you have memorized David’s SAT score?”

“I checked his file
2
this morning. Yours, too, Miss Ten-Fifty.”

In my defense, I was seriously stoned both times I took the SAT (and didn’t break into quadruple digits on the first outing). However, my sister’s score was shocking.

“If she is this smart, why is she scraping by with a B-minus average?”

“Good question,” Mom replied.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But there are going to be some changes around here.”

F
or someone officially off the job, my investigative endeavors had certainly picked up steam in recent weeks. Aside from the ongoing Ernie-Black’s-not-very-suspicious-wife case (on hold until the wife actually did something suspicious), there was the mystery of the gun found in my brother’s house, the mystery of my sister’s surprise PSAT score, and finally, the mystery of why Maggie Mason was willing to negotiate with my tyrannical sibling.

Since Henry refused to negotiate with Rae, I was forced to play mediator in their dispute. But first, let me provide you with some background on the new couple.

Henry Stone and Maggie met on the job. Well, sort of. They met in the empty corridors of the Bryant Street criminal court building, where Maggie was roaming the halls with the stunned, aimless bearing of someone who had given up searching for a solution to her troubles. She’d been cramming for a murder trial for five sleep-deprived days.

When the trial was over—and her client was found guilty
1
—Maggie was looking forward to going home, crawling into bed, and staying there for a few days. The problem with that plan was her car: It wouldn’t start. After
a few failed attempts, Maggie exited her vehicle, opened the trunk, and pulled out a set of jumper cables. When she closed the trunk, she locked her keys inside. She didn’t panic until she realized that she’d also locked the car door behind her, with her briefcase and cell phone inside. Maggie returned to the criminal court building, figuring that between cops and criminals she could find someone to break into her car. Henry Stone found her first.

Maggie searched the hallway with the jumper cables tossed over her shoulders like a mink stole. She was exhausted and her heart wasn’t in the hunt. She sat down on a bench outside one of the many courtrooms and rested her eyes.

Henry approached the tired woman in the suit and jumper cables and asked if she needed assistance.

Henry borrowed a slim jim from the police department and broke into Maggie’s car. He gave her battery a jump start and Maggie gave Henry her card.

“I owe you,” she said.

A week later, they had their first date.

Five months later, I was meeting Maggie at a coffee shop across the street from her office at the Bryant Street courthouse to play mediator in her negotiations with my sister. I ordered a coffee and sat by the window, waiting for the two parties to arrive. Maggie waved at me from across the street.

On the surface, Maggie appears attractive, confident, and maybe a little conservative. As I watched her cross the street, her bearing made her almost a cliché of a high-achieving professional in her midthirties. Her gray suit and white shirt were tasteful but bland. What I liked most about Maggie was how the surface was so deceiving. Up close you might notice that she buttoned up her jacket so that you couldn’t see the wrinkled shirt beneath. You might also notice that even though her hair is a shiny dark brown, several thick strands of gray have begun to emerge and she seems in no hurry to cover up this fact, even though it’s the only solid evidence
that she’s past thirty. You might also notice that she’s a compulsive foot-tapper and that if she notices you noticing, she’ll try to stop.

Maggie apologized for being tardy and asked if I needed anything. I said no. Maggie suggested a refill and took my cup without further discussion. She placed her own order of a cappuccino, loaded it with three packets of sugar, and returned to the table with a giant oatmeal cookie.

“Help yourself,” she said as she broke off a large piece of the cookie. “I have to get all my sugar consumption in when Henry’s not around,” she explained, not that eating a cookie requires explanation.

“Agent Stone. Twelve o’clock,” I said, nodding my head at a man in split-toe oxfords hiding behind a newspaper.

Maggie turned and recognized her boyfriend’s impeccably shined shoes. Henry, overhearing our conversation, folded the newspaper and quickly approached the table for his final debriefing.

“Remember,” he said to Maggie at low volume, “always maintain eye contact. Otherwise she’ll sense weakness. Be clear on your nonnegotiable points. And don’t forget: The Marshmallow Rule
2
isn’t on the table. Good luck.”

Henry kissed Maggie on the cheek and returned to his concealed position in the corner.

Maggie checked her watch. Rae was already ten minutes late—a blatant sign of disrespect. Maggie dusted cookie crumbs off her skirt and then was distracted by another minor crisis.

“Damn it!” she said. The hem of her skirt was held together by a safety pin. “I wrote myself a note a couple weeks ago to fix that. Shit. Now I know why my boss was staring at my knees all morning. She thinks I’m a slob. ‘Nice skirt,’ she said. I actually said, ‘Thank you.’”

Okay, so Maggie is a little bit neurotic, but in the kind of way that makes neurotic sound more like a benign genetic characteristic, in the
vein of detached earlobes or tongue-rolling ability, rather than a personality disorder that might require psychiatric intervention.

I decided to offer Maggie a helpful suggestion. “Next time you’re at Henry’s place, just leave the skirt out. By morning, your hem will be as good as new.”

“I don’t like it when he touches my clothes,” she whispered. “You wouldn’t believe how many shirts of mine he’s ironed.”

“Really? I think I’d look at it as a perk. Kind of like dating a dry cleaner. Wouldn’t you make the most of that?”

“She’s here,” Maggie said, eyeing the front door.

Rae entered, wearing a black overcoat and a scarf. She looked older than I’d ever seen her before, almost like a sixteen-year-old. Her sandy blond hair was pulled into a messy ponytail and her girlish freckles had started to fade. She wore a stoic expression to mark the seriousness of this event. When the negotiations began, I had some trouble controlling my own amusement. Anyway, I recorded it all so I wouldn’t forget the details.