A Dose of Murder (5 page)

Tina Macaluso was a dead woman.

Okay, Tina Macaluso wasn't really a dead woman, but she'd soon be tucked neatly away in jail if I had anything to do with it, and I might get a Christmas bonus this year. Then again, I think in Goldie's Fraud Investigation 101, he'd said the DA didn't incarcerate most of the time. The money just had to be paid back.

According to her file, Tina had conned the Global Carriers Insurance Company out of $33,892.77. Wow.

And I planned to help them get every penny back. Sure, I'd like to see her butt in jail, but I'd settle with her getting caught and having to pay the money back. It rankled me that others got money so easily. From an insurance company, no less, and me without any coverage until after my probation. That alone made me feel driven to succeed with this case.

Although being the honest person that I was, I had to admit that I had no idea how to do it. Still, I wasn't going to let on to Fabio about my shortcomings. Goldie had offered to help, and I'd damn well take his offer.

With my toe, I lifted the knob that opened the drain and as the water ran out, I stood, toweled myself off and stuck on my robe. I padded to my room and looked out the window. Snowflakes skittered across the lawn. Although not a major storm, the roads would be slick. Still, I had work to do.

It was odd making my own hours. The urge to sit and watch the
Jerry Springer Show
with the morbid curiosity that draws one to rubberneck during a car accident had to be tamed by the stark reality of my bank account. Once dressed, I grabbed my purse. Time was of the essence, Fabio had said, and besides, he only paid “per job.” No salary. Ack.

Also, being a newbie on probation, I wouldn't get anything until the first assignment was completed. If I did a good job in a timely manner, I could get some interim pay from then on. It'd be only part of the payment for the full job, so I'd have something to live on until I made the big bucks.

More cases—more money.

Right now, I had nada.

I stuffed an old pair of binoculars that I'd used for bird-watching back in my nature-loving days of the eighties, a 35 mm camera with film from my cousin's wedding two years ago still inside (please don't get my mother started on that), and two chocolate power bars into my bag and looked at the video camera on the counter. A prehistoric elephant was smaller. Still, I couldn't buy anything new yet. Goldie needed all his stuff for a job he was working on, and couldn't stop since he was nearly finished. So, no loaners.

Okay, I'd wing it.

Adele was a whiz at getting personal info on the claimants, I'd found out through Goldie. She'd given me Tina's address and where she worked. Damn if Tina wasn't a nurse too. Small world. Goldie had said he'd start me out first thing on Monday with “on-the-job training” by working on this case with me. But that was days away, and that money thing wouldn't leave my thoughts.

Hey, what could it hurt to start on my own?

I let Spanky out and back in, gave him a hug and made sure he had enough water before going out the door.

Out in the parking lot, I climbed into my Volvo and drove out rather exhilarated. There was something mysterious, almost orgasmic about heading off to spy on someone—legally. My fingers danced across the steering wheel while the tires crunched along in the snow, and Frank Sinatra crooned on my favorite AM station. Wow. Who would have thought a non-nursing job could cause such excitement.

What a natural rush!

I reached over to my purse, dug out my cell phone and punched in Doc Taylor's number. Got his voice mail. Shoot. “I'm free for dinner Saturday. Call me.” No need to mention
that
was the real reason I'd called.

Snow had my windshield wipers going nonstop. Damn. It wasn't going to be the best of days for surveillance. Surveillance. Pauline Sokol on surveillance. My laughter mixed with Frank's singing as I turned onto Maple Avenue.

Hope Valley wasn't a metropolis, to say the least. But it was a decent-size town and had a decent-size hospital. A very ethnic New England town. Immigrants from Italy, Poland, Russia, Germany and several other countries had settled here. I can only assume they heard the name and thought it would bring them good luck and lots of hope. They remained in their little ethnic groups: Even the Catholic church in each neighborhood was attended by predominantly one nationality. Needless to say, the Sokol family belonged to the Polish one, Saint Stanislaus Church.

My great-grandfather must have had the same idea when he arrived in the United States at the ripe old age of eighteen on the S.S.
Ethiopia
from Glasgow, Scotland, landing on Ellis Island. Not that he was Scottish. That was only his point of departure from Europe. He and his soon-to-be wife, Amelia, came from what they referred to as White Russia in Poland. Thus my very ethnic clan ended up in Hope Valley.

Hope Valley had some manufacturing left from the 1900s, a mall and—of great interest to me now—one of the biggest insurance companies in the country. Global Carriers was several blocks over and certainly the biggest outside the Hartford area. I turned down Pine Street, heading to the residential area Adele had told me about.

Tina Macaluso lived in a trendy New England subdivision near the Connecticut River. Houses in her neighborhood, circa 1700s, gave me the feeling that I'd driven back in time. The wooden structures were mostly saltbox style. No split-levels with aluminum siding like my folks' house. Nope. This neighborhood had ordinances that said residents had to comply with rules like no electric door openers, no chain-link fences and nothing that made them look as if they were in the twenty-first century.

I pulled up alongside a slate blue house and looked at the number. One hundred seventy-one. Macaluso's. Perfect.

I looked at my watch. I'd been there three minutes.

Now what?

Ack. I should have waited until Monday to come with Goldie, since I had no inkling as to what to do next. I popped a Celine Dion cassette into the tape deck, leaned back and waited. Normally I was a country buff, but hey, who didn't enjoy a little Celine once in a while?

A neighbor drove by in a silver Jaguar. Obviously this was the ritzier part of Hope Valley. She slowed alongside me and looked through the haze of snow. I smiled, leaned back. She moved on. Good. I sure didn't need any interference on a job. I had enough to figure out on my own.

After forty-three minutes and the two power bars, my feet hurt. Cold does that to little toes. I'd turned up the heater, but the outside temperature dropped in proportion to my increasing the controls. The only excitement so far was when the light in the upstairs room of Tina's house came on for a minute and then went off. Somehow I thought that wasn't going to do me any good.

I decided to “will” Tina to come out the door and do something stupid. Something that a person getting paid by Workers' Compensation shouldn't be doing with a “back injury.”

I shut my eyes to have that “will” thing work better.

An engine purred in my left ear. My eyes flew open. I turned to look out the window to my side, but could only see a blur of black through the frosted pane. I wiped off a circle and peeked out.

Shit!

I pulled back, then looked out again.

A black SUV of some sort was pulled up right next to me! Real close. That wasn't the part that had me pull back. Oh no. It was the occupant.

He sat staring at me. Not just any
he
. More a younger version of George Clooney—and hey, he'd been voted the star folks would want to come knocking at their door by a whopping 41.2 percent—so this younger version was no slouch. The guy, who was actually scowling down at me now, since his SUV towered over my Volvo, had the same look as George, only his hair was jet black without the sprinkles of gray.

From what I could see at this angle, and yes I did unabashedly peer up as high as I could, he wore a black ski jacket, black leather gloves and aviator sunglasses—also tinted black. I could picture him swooshing down some trail at Mount Snow. Maybe I should be more scared than excited, watching him stare at me like that.

And here I had thought
surveillance
was an orgasmic experience.

The window on his SUV slid open.

I opened mine. “Afternoon.”

“Need something?” The tone wasn't friendly, more like a what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here kind of tone. But that voice! Scratchy in a sensual sort of way with a wee bit of a laid-back tone thrown in. Had my insides a-quivering.

Did I need something from him! Be still my heart.

I had to once again face the fact that I wasn't a good liar. That was something I'd have to brush up on with Goldie. So, I looked at him. “Nope. Thanks anyway.” Then I shut my window and wouldn't allow myself to look back. He must live near Tina. God, I hoped he wasn't her husband. Then again, Tina was married to a doctor, and this guy looked too streetwise to be a doctor.

I convinced myself that he didn't even know Tina. Besides, I could spot a doctor a million miles away—and this guy was no doctor. What was I thinking? He had me all confused. I'd learned from Adele that Tina's husband was an orthopedic doc—go figure—and that she worked in his office.

After a few minutes I heard the crunching of snow and figured that he had driven off. I turned to see him pull up in front of the tan house next to Tina's. I switched my windshield wipers on full tilt. Through the now-clear windshield, I could make him out, using his cell phone. Damn. Now what? What was he doing here, ruining my surveillance? Why hadn't he just pulled into his driveway? This secluded neighborhood wasn't the kind of place one just tooled around in, so he must have had a reason for being there.

His damn car was a Suburban—long enough for a family of four to live in. Well, who cared? I had to be professional and concentrate on the job. Earn some money. That's what I'd do.

A next-door neighbor came out, looked from the black Suburban to my Volvo and walked to her mailbox. When she opened it and took out a handful of mail, I wondered if I should ask her if she'd ever seen Tina lifting something heavy—or who the heck Mr. Instant Orgasm was. But wait a minute. That didn't seem like a good idea. It could tip Tina off that the insurance company was on to her, and maybe have some half-crazed wife running out to slash my tires if Suburban over there belonged to her.

I couldn't afford new tires so I forced my hormonal imaginings to Dr. Taylor. Tried to picture him in my thoughts—naked. I waited a few minutes. Nothing. Somehow it didn't do the trick.

Although my car was now toasty warm from the heater, I realized that asphyxiation could come into play if I sat with the motor running too long. Also, not much of a mechanical wizard, I figured the tape player was sucking my battery's juices dry. So, I shut everything off.

Just then the front door of Tina's house opened. A heavy-set woman in a neon yellow parka, black leggings, and a furry yellow hat came out—with a shovel in her hands! I lunged across to the passenger side and pulled the binoculars from the bag. With my gloved hand, I wiped the frost from the window and wondered how “staker outers” kept their breath from fogging up the glass.

Then I shuffled around in the manila folder to find her picture. It wasn't a very good one where you could see her face, but she did look like a plus-size kinda gal. Had to be her.

A scraping called my attention back to Tina. The “injury” that had kept her from working the ortho clinic must have felt peachy today, because she was getting that walkway cleaner than my mother's dishes. Obviously a snowblower wasn't usable in this neighborhood, since the sidewalks were all crushed stone.

I leaned a bit closer. Tina looked familiar, but the damn hat kept falling forward and blocking her face. I zoomed in my vision by squinting. Wait a minute! Antonina Scarlucci! I'd gone to nursing school with her back in the late eighties. Talk about a small world. Of course, several of us had remained in Hope Valley after graduation. But to spy on someone I knew? Damn. I hated that, but then again, she was a criminal, in my book. I vaguely remember her cheating on a biology final, come to think of it.

That's right. I'd heard she'd married Donnie Macaluso, who was a doc. And, something to give me pause, Tina's family was rumored to have ties to the old Mafia. Gulp.

But I had a job to do.

Excitement had me fumbling between the front and back seats, where my gigantic video camera had fallen. I hoped it still worked. And, I hoped Tina couldn't see me or the dick of a microphone. I pressed the on switch, hefted it up on my shoulder, and started to mentally spend the money I'd get for this case when I hit
RECORD.

Tina shoveled away.

Occasionally I had to re-clean my window. But I was getting her on tape, so it didn't matter. The Workers' Comp claim would soon be dismissed. I'd have to get more evidence—something closer to prove it was Tina—because of the damn hat, but hey, this was a start.

Truthfully, she looked like a giant bumblebee. Much like the old
Saturday Night Live
clips of John Belushi. The giant bee shoveled until she reached the street sidewalk.

This investigating stuff was a piece of cake.

A tiny black battery flickered in the corner of my view.

Ack. I hadn't had time to charge the battery. Okay. Professionals don't panic. I zoomed in to get a clearer shot. She held the shovel in one hand, flipped her hat back with the other (Oh yes, there is a God!) and bent to shovel snow the plow had piled in front of her driveway. It had to be heavy! This was going to be—

Fuzz

Click
.

Black.

Black?

The video camera went black. Dead battery.

I leaned back, blinked my eyes since the strain of looking through the camera hurt, and cursed. Just like the proverbial sailor.

Professionals don't panic, I reminded myself again.