Checked Out (16 page)

B
ack in the Coronado Investigations office, Phil worked at his computer under Sam Spade’s world-weary supervision, while Helen did their accounts. She watched the six o’clock news on Channel 77, wearing headphones so she wouldn’t disturb her partner.

Instead, he disturbed her. “I got it!” he yelled.

“Huh?” she said.

“Take off your headphones. Look what’s on the door of Trey’s truck.” Phil dragged Helen over to his computer, where the pickup truck door was enlarged and enhanced on the screen. Helen could see a stylized LCC and, under the letters,
LOHAN
CONSTRUCTION
CORP
.—
FORT
LA
UDERDALE
.

“This is going to be fun,” Phil said. “Trey used a truck owned by his father’s company.”

“What does LCC do?” Helen said.

“The company Web site says it has ‘affordable, furnished rental property in urban locations.’ That’s code for high-rent property in low-rent parts of town. I’ve seen those apartments. They have rickety, pressed-sawdust furniture, substandard appliances and a
million code violations, including no screens and flimsy hollow-core front doors.”

“So Trey with the fancy name is the son of a slumlord,” Helen said.

“And he’s dragged Daddy’s business into his theft,” Phil said. “I expect Mr. Coakley to hit the roof. It’s one thing for Trey to have his way with Coakley’s daughter, but rustling a man’s golf cart crosses the line.”

“Now I can’t wait for that TAR report,” Helen said.

“I’ll work on the request now,” he said. “We can’t move on the Coakley case until the pickup’s ownership is confirmed.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing Snake Boy arrested as an accessory,” Helen said. “I wonder which one stole the necklace—Trey, Ozzie or Chloe?”

“Could be all three,” Phil said, “but I doubt that Chloe will wind up in trouble with the law, no matter how guilty she is. What’s going on with our accounts?”

“It’s either good news or bad, depending on how you look at it,” Helen said. “Thanks to my two library cases plus the Kingsley job, we’ll have to make a bigger quarterly payment to the IRS. I’m figuring it out now.”

Helen put her headphones back on and was playing her calculator like a virtuoso when she heard the voice of Valerie Cannata on the TV.

The reporter said, “A stolen white 1991 Toyota Camry was returned to the same strip mall from which it was taken.” Valerie was on-screen, sleek and professional in a chestnut brown suit that made her red hair glow.

Helen tore off her headphones and turned up the sound. “Look at this, Phil,” she said. “A stolen white car.”

“So?” he said. “More than a thousand cars are stolen in Florida every year. Some of them are bound to be white.”

“But our ghost, Charlotte, was killed by a white car,” Helen said. “Listen!”

Valerie was in a landscaped parking lot next to a white Toyota. The woman with her was a perfect match for the car: Neither fat nor thin, old nor young, she was pleasantly average. So was her name: Mary Smith.

“The car, which the owner said she left parked in the lot three days ago,” Valerie said, “was covered with dust and dirt when it was taken. Now it’s been returned sparkling clean. Channel Seventy-seven talked with the car’s owner today.”

“I was coming into work at Julie’s Smoothies,” Ms. Smith said. “You could have knocked me down with a feather when I saw my car again. I thought it was gone for good. But it was back in the lot and back in the same spot where I’d left it. I haven’t washed my car in six months. But it was returned to me waxed and gleaming. Even the seats were cleaned. But it’s been in an accident.

“You know the strange thing?” Ms. Smith said. “Left inside my car was a pair of white cotton gloves. Who wears cotton gloves in Florida?”

“What kind of gloves?” Valerie asked.

“Cheap, flimsy cotton gloves,” Ms. Smith said. “I don’t know who would wear them, or why.”

“I do,” Helen said to Phil. “Librarians and bibliophiles wear cheap cotton gloves to examine valuable books.”

He shushed her so they could listen to Valerie’s story. Mary Smith was still talking about her clean car. “That car is a workhorse,” she said. “It’s not used to the white glove treatment.”

Valerie smiled at the small joke, then turned serious. “Unfortunately,” she said, “Mary Smith was not able to take possession of her shiny car. So far, police have found a fingerprint on the steering column, and they’re looking for a match in the databases.”

“Phil,” Helen said, “that strip mall is about a mile from the Flora Park Library.”

“Which means?” Phil said.

“I don’t know,” Helen said. “I need to think on it.”

“You need a break,” he said. “And so do I. It’s time for the sunset salute. Let’s go have a drink by the pool. I’ll make the popcorn if you feed Thumbs.”

Thumbs demanded extra scratches with his dinner, and it was a good ten minutes before Helen and Phil carried out their drinks and a big bowl of popcorn.

Margery was the only one out by the pool that night. She wore ombre purple palazzo pants, a necklace of hot-pink and purple beads, and matching mules. Phil kissed her cheek and said, “As usual, you class up the joint.”

“Thank you,” Margery said, batting her eyelashes. Their landlady was an outrageous flirt. Phil lit her Marlboro. She inhaled and breathed out a long stream of smoke, like a friendly dragon.

“I made popcorn,” he said, stretching out in a chaise next to Margery. “I like your new renter, Markos, but I can’t take any more health food.”

“Then I won’t tell you popcorn is high in fiber,” Margery said, and grinned wickedly.

Helen piled popcorn on a plate and sat next to Phil. They sat quietly by the pool for several minutes, listening to the breeze ripple the turquoise water. This was Helen’s favorite time of day. Purple bougainvillea flowers floated on the surface. The setting sun gave the white apartment building a soft, pink glow. The only sound was the crunch of popcorn.

Phil finally broke the silence. “Where is everyone?” he asked.

“Markos is working nights, remember?” Margery said. “Peggy and Daniel are out to dinner again, so it’s just us on a Friday night.”

Margery raised her wineglass, then said, “Helen, how’s the search going for your ghost killer?”

“More questions than answers,” Helen said. “So far, Seraphina, our client’s good friend, suddenly gave her white Beemer to her son in college and bought herself a black Mercedes. Lisa the board president has had two accidents—and two rentals this week. The janitor’s white pickup and a white Chevy Impala owned by a librarian have both been in accidents, and so was a dirty white car. It was stolen, then returned all clean and shiny, with a pair of white gloves on the seat.”

“What kind of white gloves?” Margery asked. “Like the ones women used to wear in the fifties?”

“No, cheap, flimsy white cotton gloves,” Helen said. “The kind librarians wear when they examine rare books.”

“Other people wear gloves for work, too,” Margery said. “People who handle documents, mail, negatives. Event staff, inspection staff, even waiters wear white cotton gloves. Kids in the local high school band wear them for parades. The car could have been stolen by a kid after school.”

“I’m not convinced,” Helen said. “I think there’s a connection between those gloves and the library ghost’s murder, but I can’t get it to fit together.

“What I don’t understand is why there are so many accidents involving white cars.”

“There are a lot of accidents, period,” Margery said. “Florida’s one of the ten most dangerous states for drivers.

“South Florida is known for aggressive drivers who follow too close, make risky lane changes and speed like crazy. Even more dangerous are the road ragers—the angry morons who flash their lights if they think you’re driving too slow. Road ragers tailgate, flip off drivers, yell at them, even throw stuff.”

“Sounds like Saturday night on I-95,” Helen said. “But why am I encountering so many white cars?”

“People down here love them,” Margery said. “You have a white car. And by the way, where is it? I don’t see it in the parking
lot. You came home with Phil.” Margery didn’t miss much in her domain.

“It’s in the shop,” Helen said. “The brakes weren’t working right.”

“Well, you may have prevented one accident involving a white car,” Margery said. “How are you getting to work tomorrow?”

“I can drive Helen to the library,” Phil said.

“Why don’t you borrow my car?” Margery said. “It’s white.”

“P
hil, if we can figure out Chloe’s riddle, we may be able to close the stolen ruby necklace case tonight,” Helen said. “I think she and her boyfriend, Ozzie, are running a bling ring to fence stolen goods. If we catch them, I’ll never have to deal with the Coakleys again.”

After the sunset salute, the two private eyes had strolled over to Phil’s apartment, where he whipped up omelets with sharp cheddar. Thumbs, their six-toed cat, begged for a taste.

“Beat it, dude,” Helen told the big-pawed Thumbs, as she scratched his ear. “You’re a cat. You’re supposed to eat cat food.”

Thumbs went back to his bowl and resentfully crunched his dry food.

“Chloe’s sly,” Phil said. “What were her exact words?”

“She said she couldn’t tell me what she and her partner—I’m pretty sure that’s Ozzie—were doing without his permission.”

“Ozzie is Snake Boy?” Phil said.

“Right. Seraphina Ormond’s son, who’s going to college to be a herpetologist. Chloe said her partner wasn’t doing anything illegal. She worded it very carefully.”

“Which means she’s doing something illegal?” Phil said.

“That’s my guess,” Helen said. “Then Chloe said,
I’ll give you three clues: Rex, Crown, Jewel
.
Meet us there at nine o’clock any weekend night and you’ll know.
”

“Rex, Crown, Jewel,” Phil said. “They all have to do with kings and jewelry.”

“Maybe someone named Rex is buying stolen jewels,” Helen said.

“Where?” Phil said. “Is the address in those clues?”

“I don’t know. I was just brainstorming,” Helen said. “Chloe’s tricky.”

“She’s got a mean streak, too,” Phil said, “telling Ana the cook that she wanted boneless chicken when she really wanted a boiled egg.”

“She called a Mexican woman a beaner,” Helen said. “I’m surprised Ana didn’t quit on the spot.”

“Poor people with families don’t have that luxury,” Phil said. “You know better.”

“I do,” Helen said, and felt ashamed. How many low-paying jobs had she had when she was on the run from her ex-husband? She’d endured insults, long hours and low pay because she was desperate.

“Chloe has everything,” she said. “She’s pretty, her family’s rich and her parents are indulgent.”

“Maybe too indulgent. We’d better get working,” Phil said, checking his phone. “It’s eight ten and Chloe and her partner in crime start working at nine o’clock. Back to Chloe’s clues—Rex, Crown and Jewel. Jewel could be a woman’s name.”

“Rex could be a dog—or a dude,” Helen said. “Rex could be their fence.”

“Where?” Phil said. “He can’t stand on a street corner buying stolen goods—not in any neighborhood where those two white-bread suburbanites would hang out. They’re not street-smart
enough to sell in a tough area. They’d be skinned like bunny rabbits.”

“Jewel, Crown, Rex,” Helen repeated. “Rex. It could be a business name. Is there a pawnshop named Rex’s?”

Phil Googled the name on his iPhone. “Yes!” he said. “There’s a Rex’s Best Price Pawn in Peerless Point, and it’s on Jewell Road.”

“Is that near the Publix store off Federal Highway?” Helen said. “Next door to a Walgreens and a Starbucks?”

“Everything in South Florida is next to a Walgreens,” Phil said. “But that’s it. It’s eight forty-five. Let’s go.”

“Wait!” she said. “We figured out two clues, Jewel and Rex, but what about the third—Crown?”

“We’ll work on that tomorrow night if we’re wrong,” he said, and they hurried out to Phil’s Jeep. The sky was velvety black, but the night air was like being slapped with a warm, wet towel. There was no breeze to rustle the palm trees.

Helen was grateful the trip in the un-air-conditioned Jeep was short. Phil parked in the Walgreens’ lot next door to the L-shaped, pale green stucco mall, prettily landscaped with feathery palms and bright red flowering impatiens. Rex’s Best Price Pawn, Starbucks and a Chipotle Grill were straight ahead. Around the corner, Helen caught a glimpse of a liquor store, a designer consignment shop and, at the other end, Crowning Glory Hair Salon.

“Think the hair salon is Chloe’s Crown clue?” Helen asked.

“Could be,” Phil said. “What about the Regal Designer Consignment?”

“I could see Chloe selling stolen designer purses or clothes on consignment,” Helen said. “But do resale shops take jewelry? And why would she need her boyfriend? Besides, consignment sales take time. She’d have to wait for the money.”

“Chloe strikes me as someone who wants instant gratification,” Phil said.

Time seemed trapped in the thick, sticky night air. Helen
checked her cell phone clock, but the minutes refused to move. Finally, at 9:08, she said, “Look! A silver Acura’s pulling into the lot. Now it’s parking in front of the pawnshop.”

“Why is that important?”

“Chloe said she got her mother’s old silver Acura.”

“I see two people inside,” Phil said. “The driver looks like a cute blonde.”

“I think that’s Chloe,” Helen said.

“A bearded twentysomething male is setting next to her.”

“Ozzie,” Helen said. “Snake Boy. I’ll start recording video on my cell phone as soon as one gets out.”

Helen and Phil sat in the Jeep for three more sweaty minutes until Chloe hopped out, definitely dressed for a date in a short black sundress and ankle-strap sandals. She waved to Snake Boy, then flashed a lot of tanned leg as she strolled into Starbucks. Ten minutes later, she tripped out with an iced coffee and sat at an empty table.

“At least the light’s good here,” Helen said.

A small, sun-faded red Nissan slammed into the lot, bass speakers vibrating. The car parked one row down from the Acura.

A blond-banged boy slouched over to Chloe, his thin, pale face splotched with acne, his board shorts flapping around his skinny white legs.

“He looks younger than Chloe, maybe sixteen or seventeen,” Helen said.

“He’d have to be sixteen to have a driver’s license,” Phil said.

The pimpled stripling sat down next to Chloe and said something. She giggled and touched his arm with her pink manicured hand, then leaned forward to give him a better view of her nearly bare chest.

The boy turned red, but he also looked.

“Why is Chloe flirting with him?” Helen said. “Her boyfriend is in the car watching.”

“You said she has a mean streak,” Phil said. “That poor dude is definitely not in her league.”

“He’s also not on her radar,” Helen said. “There has to be a reason she’s turning up the heat.”

“There it is!” Phil said. “He just handed her a fat roll of bills.”

“Why’s he paying her?” Helen said. “Is she hooking?”

“Why would she need Snake Boy?” Phil said.

“Because he’s her pimp?” Helen guessed.

“No way I can see Chloe as a hooker,” Phil said. “Not with a high school kid. An older man with money, maybe. But she doesn’t have the patience to deal with awkward boys. Wait! She’s going back to the Acura.”

Now the pimpled boy was alone at the table with Chloe’s iced coffee, watching her legs as she climbed into the car. She handed Ozzie the bills. Helen and Phil watched Snake Boy count the money and shove it in his wallet. Then Ozzie got out and strolled around the corner. Chloe went back to her table and continued flirting with the nervous, fidgeting boy.

“Ozzie’s going to the liquor store,” Helen said. She craned her neck to see the liquor store’s name on the side. “Corona Liquor and Beer,” she said. “That’s the clue. Corona is a crown.”

“And a beer,” Phil said. “A double clue. Let’s see what happens next.”

After ten minutes, Ozzie came out with a case of Bud Light longnecks. He walked past Chloe and the pimpled boy and put the beer in the unlocked trunk of the red Nissan.

“I think Chloe and her boyfriend are buying beer for underage high school kids,” Phil said.

“That would make sense,” Helen said. “Chloe told me she and her mysterious partner didn’t have ‘a
job
job,’ and said,
Last Friday we made two hundred dollars
. She also said,
We can make a couple hundred every weekend. More during spring break and in the summer when school’s out
.”

“The scam is starting to come clear,” Phil said. “Let’s watch a little longer.”

By ten o’clock, Chloe had flirted with three more young men, who ranged from painfully shy to pathetically awkward. Each one handed her a wad of cash. Each time, she took it to Ozzie, and each time he bought a case of beer and stashed it in the awkward dude’s car. Then the freshly beered boys drove off and Chloe stayed at her table.

“Here comes another mark,” Phil said. “Let’s interrupt it when Ozzie comes out with the beer.”

Helen winced when the young man shambled up to Chloe. He was all knees and elbows, with an acne-pitted complexion and buzzed dark hair.

She crossed her legs, fluttered her eyelashes and threw out her chest.

The discombobulated boy blushed and dropped his wad of money on the ground, then scrambled to pick it up and bumped his head on the table. When he finally handed Chloe the cash, she rewarded him with a seductive smile, patted his shoulder and rushed off to the silver Acura, where Ozzie counted the bills, then headed for the liquor store. She joined the latest mark at the table again and resumed her flirtation.

“Oh, good,” Phil said. “Looks like Ozzie is buying a case of Heineken this time. My favorite. Let’s go.”

Helen and Phil stood at Chloe’s table. “Hello, Chloe,” Helen said. “You remember Phil.”

Chloe’s face went white.

“We figured out your clues,” Helen said. “Who’s your friend?”

“Uh, I’m Justin,” said the acne-pitted mark. His voice started low and turned into a squeak.

“Nice to meet you, Justin,” Phil said, introducing himself. “My partner, Helen, and I are private detectives. Are you old enough to drink?”

Justin’s eyes darted like a flock of sunset birds. “No,” he mumbled.

“How old are you?” Helen asked.

“Sixteen.”

“How much did you give Chloe for that case of Heineken?”

“Forty-five dollars,” Justin said, looking at his feet.

Ozzie was nearing the table with the beer when he stopped. “Hey, Ozzie,” Phil said. “Come on over and join the party.”

Ozzie looked like he might bolt, but Phil walked up and put his arm around Snake Boy’s shoulders. It looked friendly, but he was actually forcing him to come to the table.

“You don’t want to run, Ozzie,” he said, his voice low. “My partner and I have been taping your underage beer-buying scam for about an hour. We recorded times, faces and license plate numbers. And what we didn’t catch, the shopping center security cameras did.” He pointed to one over Chloe’s table.

“Now, Helen can use her cell phone to call the cops, or we can talk this out.”

“I didn’t do anything illegal,” Ozzie said. “I’m just buying beer.”

“For people too young to drink. And using another minor as an accessory. You’re looking at criminal charges and a five-hundred-dollar fine—minimum. You can both be charged.”

Chloe went a shade paler.

“Give Justin back his forty-five dollars, Ozzie.”

“What? I just bought the beer.”

“And you’re not selling it to a minor. Give Justin his forty-five dollars. Now.”

Ozzie peeled two twenties and a five off the bills in his wallet and dropped them on the table.

“Take the money, Justin,” Phil said. “You’ve got a few years before you can buy beer legally.”

Justin didn’t argue. He grabbed the forty-five dollars, ran to his clunker and roared out of the parking lot, tires screeching.

“Nice scam there,” Helen said. “That case of Heineken is twenty-four dollars, so you pocket about twenty bucks on that sale. More if they want cheap beer.”

“I only ask forty for the cheap beer,” Ozzie said.

“You’re all heart,” Phil said.

“Are you gonna tell my mom and dad?” Chloe asked in a small voice.

She doesn’t fear the police, Helen thought, but she is worried about her parents.

“Not if you shut it down,” Phil said. “Cops aren’t stupid. If we figured it out in an hour, they will, too. If I catch you selling to minors again, you won’t get a warning. I’ll call 911.”

“And give them this video,” Helen said, tapping her cell.

Chloe and Ozzie started for the Acura, but Phil grabbed the beer away from Snake Boy. “The Heineken stays with me,” he said. “It’s my fee for taking up my Friday night.”

When they were back in the Jeep, Helen said, “Tomorrow, we have to start over, looking for the stolen necklace again. This was a total waste.”

“Not entirely,” Phil said. “I got a case of beer.”