It Takes Two to Strangle (2 page)

“I’m happy to see you looking so good mother,” Damon said.

She ignored the compliment. “I saw Bethany Krims today,” Lynne said and moved to pour Damon a cup of coffee.

“You know Bethany has never shown the slightest interest in me,” Damon replied and reached for the steaming mug his mother extended.

“I know. Which is why I don’t understand why you don’t start taking your relationship with Rebecca to the next level.”

Damon frowned and reversed course. “So where did you see Bethany?”

“Down at Cynthia’s.” Cynthia, who doubled as Damon’s citizens association vice president, owned a salon next door to Rebecca’s cooking school. The salon was doing its best to rival an old-fashioned barber shop as a place for exchanging information among Hollydale’s local women.

“Mrs. Chenworth asked her how serious she was with that attorney she’s been dating,” Lynne said. “Bethany told her they had parted company.”

Damon’s heart lurched, although he knew it was baseless. Bethany had been single on several occasions since Damon moved to Hollydale, but it hadn’t increased his chances with her. Not that he had ever summoned the courage to ask her out.

Two flights upstairs, Damon laid out the repair materials he had purchased earlier in the week and dug into the project for his widowed mother. Lynne met Jack while he was on a business trip to Michigan six and a half years earlier. Within months they were married and she moved from a quaint suburb of Detroit into Jack’s townhome in Hollydale. Damon was overseas at the time and only met Jack once before the wedding.

Damon spent seven years as a baseball player in Japan. After college, he knew he wouldn’t cut it as a professional in the States, so he moved sight unseen across the globe. He caught on with a farm club in Kyoto because they had a knuckleball pitcher and few players could catch a knuckleballer like Damon. When the pitcher, Masaso Kimura, was called up to the major leagues, he insisted that Damon be given a contract.

Despite his limited batting skills, it was during Damon’s tenure with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in Sapporo that he made enough money to be comfortably off. Damon had been in a one-for-fifteen slump, but on a windy Saturday afternoon, he connected with a fastball and drove it into the outfield corner. The ball took a strange ricochet off the back wall, allowing Damon to round the bases for his first ever inside-the-park home run. As he crossed home plate, Masaso ran out from the dugout and embraced Damon in an enormous bear hug.

The seemingly innocent gesture between the Japanese and American players caught the attention of a fan-favorite national sportscaster, and the next thing Damon and Masaso knew, they were cast as the poster boys of Kushiro Chewing Gum’s latest ad campaign. He didn’t consider himself exceptionally good looking, but his clear blue eyes occasionally drew him a second glance.

Once the Japanese public tired of seeing Damon and Masaso, and Damon was relegated to the minor leagues, he decided it was time to return to the States. Given the recent death of his mother’s second husband, Damon knew that she would appreciate the presence of her only child. He moved into an updated duplex three streets over from Lynne Lassard-Brown’s townhouse.

Damon knew he was in a unique situation. At thirty-one years of age, given his relatively frugal spending habits and chewing gum money, he didn’t actually have to get a job. Instead, at Rebecca’s suggestion, he volunteered at the Hollydale branch library. Damon wasn’t an avid reader, but this suggestion had appealed to him on two fronts. He could volunteer on a part-time basis and Bethany Krims spent a significant amount of time there.

“Have you eaten dinner yet, Damon?” Lynne asked, resting a hip against the inside of the bathroom doorframe.

“Rebecca let me have some leftover pie at The Cookery, so I’m fine.”

Lynne pushed aside a half dozen plastic razors and placed a bowl of Bing cherries on the bathroom vanity. “So how’s Rebecca?”

Damon scoured grout-laden hands under cool sink water. “She’s fine, except someone stole her credit card this afternoon.” He filled his mother in.

“That’s terrible,” Lynne said, nibbling on the end of a cherry stem. “I remember when your father was still alive, Damon. After I first starting using a credit card, he would tease me incessantly. He’d say ‘I wish someone would steal your purse, Lynne. I’m sure the thief would spend less than you do.’”

She laughed. Damon dried his hands and wrapped his arms around his mother’s sinuous body. Her warmth passed through him and he tightened his squeeze. Losing two husbands hadn’t been easy for her.

She broke away. A small tear trickled down her cheek and she hastily wiped it away.

Damon picked up her signal. “So mother, how did you manage to get nail polish in between the shower tiles?”

Ignoring the playful jab, Lynne kissed him lightly on the forehead and started down the stairs. “You’re going to give Rebecca five hundred dollars to cover the thief’s gift,” she said. It was a statement rather than a question. It gave Damon great comfort that she knew him so well.

Chapter 2

The following morning, a Tuesday, Damon arrived at the fairgrounds to meet the carnival caravan. He had taken the week off from his volunteer duties at the library to focus on the carnival and that Friday’s Fourth of July picnic. The temperature was expected to hover in the eighties but Bethany, who was the weatherperson for the evening news at one of the northern Virginia broadcast stations, had forecast a chance of rain later in the week.

Two dozen massive vehicles stampeded through the elementary school parking lot, gingerly down the adjacent grassy slope and onto the fairgrounds. Damon jogged after the parade. Lirim Jovanovic climbed down from the lead trailer and shook Damon’s hand. He wore the same tan hunting vest and jeans and his pores gave off the same scent.

Lirim introduced Damon to a heavyset man in his mid-forties who pounded the ground with his feet when he walked. Victor McElroy was the carnival’s self-entitled “money man” because he collected every dollar that came in and paid out every employee at the end of the week, all in cash. He also doubled as the fair’s pig racing announcer. Victor’s wide shoulders dwarfed his head and huge hands bore fingernails chewed to the nubs. His pallid complexion and scowl formed a boorish duet.

“If you have any trouble with anything, you don’t need to bother Mr. Jovanovic or Mr. Riley, just come to me,” Victor told Damon, glancing quickly at Lirim as he spoke.

Damon replied noncommittally, excused himself and re-climbed the hill to join Cynthia who had decided that her role as citizens association vice president entitled her to a peek at the carnival crew’s set-up.

Cynthia was a classic underachiever, but Damon liked her well enough. She inherited the salon five years earlier when her mother gracefully moved on to Hollydale’s assisted living center. But unlike her mother, Cynthia didn’t cut hair or paint nails. Rather, she spent countless hours every afternoon making sure the ladies of Hollydale had a bantering partner.

They spent a solid half hour in relative silence perched on the hood of Damon’s Saab, staring out at the transformation of the fairgrounds. Enormous metal structures were slowly being manipulated by teams of shirtless men into shapes that became recognizable as the Tilt-a-Whirl, the Scrambler and a massive Funhouse.

When two men started to unload stand-up video games onto dollies, Cynthia declared that everything looked to be in order and she was heading to the salon.

Damon strolled to the arcade tent where Jim Riley was talking to a gangly kid who stood six foot three and was as skinny as one of the poles holding up the tent. Jim introduced him as Skipper.

“Skipper might be young, but he’s a technical godsend,” Jim said. “He’s taking engineering classes at George Mason and fixes all of our electronics and hydraulics. Let me tell you, this kid is going to be my meal ticket to bigger things.”

Skipper reddened, but smiled.

Damon wondered what Skipper thought of being Jim Riley’s meal ticket, but asked Skipper instead, “Are you planning to stay with Big Surf or move on once you have your degree?”

“I want to design roller coasters,” Skipper said with a dreamy look.

Jim wandered away and Damon watched Skipper plug in a giant “Claw Machine” game. He used a key from a hulking chain dangling from his belt to open the front panel.

“Want to know how one of these works?” Skipper asked in a friendly manner, looking back over his shoulder.

“What do you mean? Don’t you just center the claw over the stuffed animal and try to grab it?”

“Nope. I control it right here with this little yellow box. Have you ever noticed how someone will have a toy in the claw and it’s moving upward and then all of a sudden, the claw just opens and the toy falls out?”

“Sure,” Damon admitted. “I just thought the grip wasn’t good enough.”

“Not the case. It’s the win-setting that I control with this box. If I position it to ten, the claw will hold on tightly to every tenth grab and let go of the other nine.”

“Really,” Damon said, a bit surprised. “That seems a little unfair.”

“I guess. But that’s the way these things are designed. If you ever want to win, just find yourself a nice inconspicuous spot to watch the machine. Count how many drops there are between wins and there you go. During the next cycle, wait out the drops and move in to play the game right before the next scheduled win.” Skipper beamed with his inside knowledge.

Despite his complicity in the Claw Game scheme, Damon decided he liked Skipper and his easygoing temperament.

Damon heard his name and looked up to see Gerry Sloman raise his hand in a wave. Damon bid Skipper farewell and made his way over to the Arlington County detective. Gerry was another person Damon genuinely liked. He was only a few years older than Damon and despite his determined nature, he had an appealing sense of integrity and a refreshingly understated air. Damon found his role as community police liaison more interesting than any other part of his job as citizens association president. Gerry, who had recently been promoted to detective, was his primary contact with the police.

A small gold cross dangled from Gerry’s neck. He was the only person Damon had ever known who converted from Judaism to Catholicism.

“What’s going on Detective?” Damon asked as he shook Gerry’s hand.

“I owe a favor to a friend in the commissioner’s office and he decided to cash it in. I have some paperwork for the carnival management to fill out. Any idea who that is?”

“I do,” Damon said. “There are two owners, Jim Riley and Lirim Jovanovic. Let’s see if we can track them down.”

Damon led Gerry to the far back edge of the fairgrounds. A line of silver trailers stood side by side like sardines in a newly opened can.

He asked a panting woman in a leopard-print skirt who was carrying an overstuffed laundry sack if she knew which coaches belonged to Lirim and Jim.

She pointed to a coach near the center of the line. “Mr. Riley shares that one with three other people. Mr. Jovanovic has the trailer at the end.” She moved her finger and directed it to the trailer closest to the elementary school. “He keeps it all to himself. Everybody else is four to a trailer, but he doesn’t like noise. He says he needs his peace to run things.” Her facial expression and tone suggested that she didn’t care for Lirim’s managerial style.

Damon and Gerry tried Jim’s trailer first without success. They strode to Lirim’s trailer at the end of the row, and Gerry rapped sharply.

“Don’t bother me now,” Lirim bellowed.

“Police here. I have some papers I need you to sign and I’m not coming back,” Gerry retorted.

“Hold on,” Lirim said. Twenty seconds later, the coach door swung open and Lirim brusquely waved them inside. They entered and Victor McElroy stood up from a table, shoving stacks of receipts into a large manila envelope.

Damon introduced Gerry to the men.

Lirim forced a smile. “Won’t you two gentlemen have a seat while I just have a last word outside with my accounts manager.”

Damon glanced around the inside of the coach. It was worn with years of hard living. Cigarette burns pockmarked the linoleum floor and a stained pea green two-seater sofa worn to the springs pushed up against a side wall. On the back wall stood a cramped kitchen area consisting of a narrow refrigerator devoid of embellishment, an electric cook-top range caked with grease and a scratched microwave oven. Across from the kitchen, the single upright wooden chair where Victor had been sitting was wedged under a scuffed table. Around a partial wall Damon could make out a bedroom, but it was dark.

Gerry took the chair at the table, which was a good move. If pressed to sit, Damon would be stuck on the sofa with its mystery stains.

Lirim returned and impressed a jocular attitude. “Sorry about the wait. Victor and I were just going through the receipts from last week’s fair in Burke Woods.”

While Gerry and Lirim tended to a half-inch stack of papers, Damon excused himself and stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. Descending the two front stairs, he saw Victor open a back door to the trailer next door—less than fifteen feet away. Victor tossed the manila envelope inward and kicked the door closed behind him.

Damon planned to meet Rebecca at the Fish Barrel in Hollydale for dinner that evening. The restaurant was housed in an attractive red-brick building along Hollydale’s main commercial street. Aided by an open architecture and tables made from a charming variety of finished knotty woods, it was neither pretentious nor tacky.