Appraisal for Murder (14 page)

“I do.” She seemed quite proud of them. “Usually people like them. A couple of times, when I wasn’t looking, someone erased my message and put another one.” She leaned against a counter and pushed her long hair, which she was wearing down today, behind her ears.

This interested me. “Like what?”

“Last week, I had something up there about making sure you think about what you say so you don’t hurt anyone, and someone erased it and wrote ‘make sure brain is engaged before marker is in hand.’ I thought that was rather rude.”

I thought it was funny, but didn’t say so.

“Did you decide if you’re going to the reunion?” she asked, as she rang up my envelopes.

“I think I will.”
As if
.

I stared at her. I could never quite figure her out. One minute she seemed like someone stuck in the time-warp Michael mentioned, and the next very insightful. “I suppose you’re right.” I picked up my envelopes. “See you next week, probably.”

FOR THE REST OF THE DAY I watched for Joel Kenner, whose picture I had looked up on his newspaper’s web site, but he did not come to afternoon tea. Not that I planned to meet him, but I had hoped to hide in the kitchen to eavesdrop on his conversation with whomever he sat with. Aunt Madge had not been too enthused about this.

I waited until past dusk to go for my jog. Since there would be few people on the boardwalk at that time I took Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy. I had them on long leashes, and planned to let them run on the beach a bit, unleashed. They were not very good jogging companions, as they tended to stop a lot to sniff the garbage cans or anything else that required their personal attention. However, they loved the boardwalk and beach, and I was growing very attached to them. Unfortunately, Jazz had still not warmed up to them. I left her in the kitchen with Aunt Madge since ‘the guys’ would be out.

We ran north first, but there were more restaurants at that end, and Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy thought the doggy bags people carried out were for them. We switched directions and were soon in a less crowded section; not that anything was truly crowded in late October.

I let them off the leash and they ran onto the sand. Miss Piggy immediately ran north and Mister Rogers ran south. “Hey, get your tail down here,” I yelled. She stopped, but it had nothing to do with my command. Something in the sand interested her. I’d have to watch what she had in her mouth when she rejoined me. Mister Rogers barked twice, and she ran toward him. So much for remembering who fed her.

They galloped ahead of me, which was what I liked. I could keep an eye on them. In their younger days they ran into the surf a lot, but now they keep away from it. Aunt Madge said they had jumped in one day when there were hordes of jellyfish floating about, and the dogs had not been fond of the experience.

I had gone about two blocks when someone stepped from behind a public phone booth, directly in my path. Joe Pedone.
Damn.
I realized there was a car with its engine running sitting in a parking space just off the boardwalk.
What is this, the movies?
I stopped, not wanting to run in the opposite direction because the dogs were far ahead of me.

“Thought you were pretty smart, didn’t you, talking to that cop about me?” He did not look remotely friendly anymore. I guessed Morehouse had talked to Pedone and wished he had told me he’d done that.

“It seemed like the thing to do. I can’t really afford more tires.”

He moved a couple steps closer, and I backed up. “We’re way past tires now.” He cocked his head toward the car and the door opened and two men got out. Robby stood next to someone who was a good six inches taller than he. However, Robby looked even shorter than his usual 5’10”, as he was somewhat stooped.

“What are you doing here?” I called to him.

“He’s not here to talk,” Pedone said. “He’s just a reminder of why you want to make payments.”

I was frightened and furious at the same time. How could this happen in Ocean Alley, on the boardwalk at eight-thirty p.m.? “You won’t hurt him, or me,” I said, more firmly than I felt.

“Of course not,” he said, smoothly. “Or your Aunt Madge, or your cute cat.” He let that sink in. “Because you’re going to start repaying some of your dear husband’s debts.”

“I want to be sure Robby’s okay. Let him come up here.” I really didn’t want to set eyes on this man who had ruined major aspects of my life, but I figured it was better to have him up here than down there. Not that I had some sort of plan. This was not the movies.

Pedone nodded and the other man pushed him forward. Robby walked unsteadily up the few steps to the boardwalk. His normally impeccable clothes were wrinkled and he had a bruise on his left cheek. Given the way he walked, I assumed he was stooped over because he’d been punched in the stomach.

“No!” I yelled, and pulled Robby back. The soft padding of numerous paws made me look over Pedone’s shoulder. Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy were running toward us on the boardwalk. They had no intentions of jumping anyone, of course, but Pedone didn’t know that. “Get him, guys!” I called, and pulled Robby closer to me.

My eyes followed him to the car, and as I turned back toward Robby I saw Scoobie just a few feet behind Robby, holding a good-sized piece of driftwood. He said nothing, but turned to walk away.

TWO HOURS LATER, I was so frustrated with Robby I would have left him if I hadn’t already done that. He sat there, his black hair disheveled and Armani shirt untucked, moodily staring at the floor. He had refused to say anything to Sgt. Morehouse, who had now left the room, apparently hoping that I could encourage Robby to change his mind. Obviously, I rarely had a clue of what went on in Robby’s mind, so I had no methods to change it.

“They’ll be back even if he does, or someone else will. I can’t make them any madder than they already are.” He looked at his hands and almost whispered. “I like my fingers.”

I winced. I could tell Sgt. Morehouse that there was another witness to what happened, but I was pretty sure that Scoobie didn’t want to get involved. Why else would he have walked away? Still, I was certain he had been willing to clobber Pedone, and I was grateful.

The door opened and Sgt. Morehouse stood back to let Michael Riordan enter. The sergeant did not look happy. “Your aunt called him,” was all he said, and shut the door behind him.

I introduced Robby and Michael, and saw the questions in Robby’s eyes. Did I have a lover already?

“Why would Aunt Madge call you?” I asked.

Michael shrugged. “She probably knew I’d come, and Sgt. Morehouse told her she shouldn’t be here.” This much I knew to be true. Morehouse had personally come to the boardwalk and then driven the dogs home before continuing to the station with Robby and me.

Michael turned to Robby. “Madge and my mother were friends, and she just helped me with my mother’s funeral arrangements and such.” Robby murmured his sympathy and seemed relieved that Michael had not introduced himself as my beau.

“What are you going to do about all this?” he asked Robby.

“I don’t know,” he said, floor in his line of vision again.

“
Nothing
isn’t an option,” Michael’s tone was gruff. “They aren’t going to leave Jolie alone, and this is a lonely place in winter. She’d be an easy target.”

I started to say something about defending myself, thank you very much, but he didn’t give me a chance.

“You either roll over on these guys, or you find a way to give them back their money.”

Perhaps it was the firmness of his voice, but Robby sat up straighter and looked at him. “They won’t stop at me, and I don’t have eighty thousand dollars.”

I stood up. “Eighty thousand dollars! Who would lend you that much?” Even when I was making my big-time realtor salary, no one would have lent me that much money, unsecured.

He grimaced. “It started out at forty-six thousand, but these guys have higher interest rates and compound more often.”

Michael pressed him. “You must know something about them that would help the police.” When Robby didn’t answer, he said, “Kidnapping alone carries a pretty stiff sentence. You’ve got to work with the cops. If they can’t get at Jolie they’ll go for Madge or other people in your family. They’re pissed off now.”

“They were before,” he said, but something in his tone had changed. He was very fond of Aunt Madge.

Sgt. Morehouse opened the door again. “We don’t have time for a pity party.”

Robby stood, and he seemed to have new resolve. “I’ll tell you what I can, but if you let me walk away from here, they’ll kill me for sure if they find out.”

Morehouse nodded. “I’ve been making some calls. The prosecutor in Atlantic County is working on something big on Pedone’s boss. Seems like he lends money up and down the coast, and his tactics to get it back are usually a lot rougher than with you. The prosecutor can maybe work with the feds to get you in Witness Protection.”

Robby looked doubtful. “Testifying against a couple of guys who lend money to gamblers? That doesn’t sound like something that would interest the federal government too much.”

“I believe I said something big,” said Morehouse, emphasizing his last two words. “If there’s more to it than I know about, you can bet there’s more to it than you know.”

“Great, insult him,” I said.
Why was I defending Robby?

Morehouse cut him off. “We’ll handle it.” He opened the door wider, and Robby looked back at me as he walked out. He didn’t say anything.

We didn’t talk, and I stared out the car window as we drove through the familiar streets. The houses and small stores loomed like shadowy guards rather than the well-maintained businesses and homes that they were in daylight. The wind had come up and the brightly colored banners that flew in front of some of the homes whipped smartly. Idly I watched a fast-food bag blow across the street in front of us.

What could Robby have been thinking, borrowing that kind of money?
And how little did I know him if he had been so heavily in debt and never spoken to me about it? We’d been doing less together, but I had passed it off on our busy careers. Many nights I showed a property, went to a civic meeting, or had dinner with a potential commercial builder or lessee. But still, we did things with friends every weekend, and we never really fought.
What had I missed?

It was a moment before I realized that we had gotten to the Cozy Corner’s small parking lot and Michael had shut off the engine and opened his door. “I’ll say goodnight to your aunt and be off.”