Let Sleeping Dogs Lie (13 page)

"Then you scratched up exterior door knobs and deadbolts with a screwdriver or something to make it look like the locks were picked."

 

 

She removed a Swiss Army knife from a cargo pocket. "At some house last year—I don't remember which—the front door swung open while I was gouging it."

 

 

McPhee chuffed and shook his head. "The surprise is that only one did. People spend serious cash on security systems, then go off and leave the doors unlocked."

 

 

"Maybe, but hardly anyone barricades a dog door. They forget it's there, I guess."

 

 

"Or think it's too small for a burglar to crawl through."

 

 

Seeing no tease or ridicule in his eyes, Dina went on, "Your ex-wife's afghan hound explains why the door I thought was Phil's was so big. If I'd had to squeeze through, I wouldn't have."

 

 

"My client gave me copies of the priors' police reports. Those houses must have been scouted in advance. Nobody's that lucky, that consistently." He paused, a hand rising to massage the back of his neck. "Tonight, you chanced it. I figured a one-night trap was a pipe dream, but the rain was too sweet for you to pass up."

 

 

She almost did, though. Gooseflesh rippled up Dina's arms, as it had when she'd toed off her wet slippers in the deHavens' pitch-dark mudroom. Creeping through the hotel-sized kitchen, then a breakfast alcove, dining room and on into the living room was like groping through a soundproof Halloween funhouse. The rain-speckled windows seemed to absorb every lumen of exterior light and shed none.

 

 

She'd wanted out. Wanted enough swag—just enough—to rescind her deal with God forever. Wanted the courage to push her socked feet into that maw of a hallway taunting her on her left.

 

 

Then the penlight she'd gripped, too afraid to switch on, squirted out of her gloved fist. It clattered like a gunshot on the slate floor, winking and rolling lazily away. As she lunged for it, a blinding beam of light outside impaled her. Her heart stopped; her mind shrieked, Get out, get out!

 

 

The flimsy slippers on her feet were still damp from the losing race with McPhee. They conjured the yin-yang emotions she'd felt when the judge granted her divorce: failure, the satisfaction that she'd tried her damnedest not to give up, relief that it was over, fear of what the future held.

 

 

What she didn't feel were the tears ambling down her face, until McPhee smudged them away with his thumb. "Why, Dina? Why'd you do it? And keep on doing it?"

 

 

She sniffed, wiped her nose on her sleeve, but couldn't meet his eyes. "To save my mother's life."

 

 

Hearing it, even at a whisper, sounded so ridiculously melodramatic, she expected him to laugh. No response at all freed her to pretend she was talking to herself and crying alone in the kitchen, as she had a hundred times before.

 

 

"My dad was a fighter. Cancer should have killed him years before it did, but he wouldn't give up. Neither would his doctors. The bills Dad's insurance, then Medicare, wouldn't pay—experimental treatments, drug therapies, you name it—kept piling up. Then the factory he worked in his entire life announced they'd funded the pension account on paper, but hadn't invested most of the money."

 

 

McPhee said, "Then they filed for bankruptcy protection."

 

 

"They did. We couldn't. The laws were changed, so medical debts don't count." Dina took a breath, then continued, "After Dad died, Mom sold the house, but after paying off a second and third mortgage, there was barely any equity left. Their savings were long gone, credit cards maxed out thousands above what they could have repaid, if Daddy was still employed.

 

 

"Mom had earned 'pin money,' she called it, doing alterations, selling crocheted throws and sweaters, but she never held a full-time job. Couldn't have kept it, if she'd found one, between taking Daddy to doctors, the surgeries, and caring for him at home."

 

 

Dina swallowed past the knot in her throat. "Now Mom's heart is failing, she's diabetic, hypertensive—a slew of things medication can't cure, but she'll die without it."

 

 

Jack said softly, "And you can't afford to buy it."

 

 

"Not since I maxed out my credit cards and the bank turned me down for a loan." A bitter chuckle slipped out. "Medicare covers most of her prescriptions, part of the time. It'd pay for them all, if Mom was sick enough for a nursing home. Real cost-effective, since she'd sooner die, than go to one."

 

 

Dina took a sip of lukewarm coffee and set the mug aside. She looked up at McPhee. "Ever hear of the doughnut hole? And I don't mean the deep-fried, sugar-coated kind."

 

 

A hesitation, then a nod inferred the
why
he'd asked for was stitching together in his mind. "The euphemism somebody gave the gap in Medicare prescription coverage."

 

 

"Cute, huh? Like it's bite-sized and hardly rates mention. What's a measly three-thousand out-of-pocket dollars to bridge the so-called doughnut hole? Medicare
does
cover the first couple of thousand for a few bucks' copay. Once you've spent enough to close that gap, it goes back to covering the expense with the copay, again, till the end of the year."

 

 

Jack stared at her for a long moment, his expression grim and dubious. "So for your mother, that gap opens up in late spring and closes in the fall."

 

 

A statement, not a question. Dina didn't particularly care for the content or tone. "The middle of April, last year. That's when I applied for the loan. When the bank declined it, I
had
to get the money somehow. Then I scrimped all last winter, saving up for this year's doughnut hole. I almost did, when the cardiologist prescribed two new medications that cost nearly six hundred a month."

 

 

Claustrophobia is the fear of small, enclosed spaces. As Dina was distinctly aware, feeling trapped sometimes arises from within. "Mom can't be left alone for more than a few hours. She has dizzy spells. Has to eat at certain times. Takes meds by the clock and in a specific order, but I've worked as much as I could, wherever I could."

 

 

"Yeah. Grooming dogs part-time and delivering pizzas."

 

 

"Yes! And cashiering at a fireworks stand, a Christmas tree lot, a Little League concession. In the fall, I pick up walnuts and sell them to a huller, and—"

 

 

"Seventy-five grand, kid. That's the appraised value of the stuff you stole last year."

 

 

McPhee helped himself to more coffee, as if letting the number and his knowledge of it sink in. "So far this year, you've boosted damn near fifty."

 

 

Dina's lips parted. Her head wobbled, jerking from side to side.

 

 

He went on, "You had me chokin' up for a while there. Till I remembered the standard ten percent take-home from a fence would fill a doughnut hole as big as a wading pool."

 

 

Grade-school addition and multiplication netted a five-figured result—one as ludicrous as it was terrifying. Stealing was stealing, whether her share was $12,500 or less than half that amount.

 

 

"I didn't take anywhere
near
that much. I don't care if you believe me or not, it's the truth. I didn't take a dime more than I could earn."

 

 

Dina backpedaled, crossing her arms at her chest like a shield. "All right, I did.
Once.
$387.22 more last year, but I didn't keep it. I swear, I put every penny in an envelope and gave to the Salvation Army."

 

 

"Oh, puh-leeze." McPhee rolled his eyes. His chuckle branded her a fool and excepted him as a peer. "Next, you'll show me the receipt. No, wait. You would, but you stapled it to your tax return to claim a charitable deduction."

 

 

She pushed past him, slopping his coffee on his shirt. Damn shame, it wasn't hot enough to scald. A note to her mother was dashed off on the back of an envelope, then she grabbed her purse.

 

 

McPhee stepped in front of her. "Where do you think you're going?"

 

 

"The police station. Maybe a
real
detective won't believe me, either, but at least I won't have to listen to any more of your cocky amateur-hour bullshit."

 

 

His hand manacled her wrist. "That's three below-the-belts."

 

 

"Let go of—"

 

 

"You're not bluffing, are you?"

 

 

"Ya think?" Dina almost laughed. "Let's review. You have my ID, you know where I live, where I work, and you caught me shinnying out the pet door at your ex-wife's house."

 

 

"This is true." McPhee sighed and relaxed his grip. "Everything you've said is true, right down to that donated three hundred and change." A hint of a smile appeared. "Well, up to that 'cocky amateur-hour' remark."

 

 

"Before
that,
I told you I don't care if you believe me. I still don't."

 

 

"Don't start lying now," he warned. "Okay, I should've realized quicker that anybody with the brains to hang grand theft on a Medicare prescription gap wouldn't drag the Salvation friggin' Army into it." His grin widened. "And it wouldn't surprise me if you do have a receipt."

 

 

Dina searched a face that wouldn't send Tom Cruise running for a plastic surgeon. A twice-broken nose always had stories behind it, as would the pale crescent scar beneath his hairline. Worry creases striped his brow, but were fewer and shallower than his laugh lines.

 

 

Trust Me wasn't tattooed anywhere. There was scant reason for Dina to do so, other than his reticence to involve the police. Yet.

 

 

But why? Was a bounty paid, if his client was notified before the arrest? Was there a possibility the insurance agent could be persuaded not to press charges? Maybe a symbolic trade-off negotiated, like free office cleaning for the rest of Dina's life.

 

 

"I deal with cheats, scam artists, swindlers and worse," McPhee said. "In one case I worked, a father smothered his first-then his second-born to make it look like Sudden Infant Death Syndrome to collect the insurance. Convicted pedophiles are known to steal identities to get jobs in amusement parks, schools, day-care centers—anywhere with access to children."

 

 

He chucked Dina under the chin. "Constant exposure to the scum of the earth would turn a saint into a cynic. In other words, I wouldn't have made book on catching the Calendar Burglar tonight, but I sure as hell didn't expect to tackle Robin Hood."

 

 

"Get your hands off my daughter, mister."

 

 

Harriet Wexler stood in the hallway. Her rheumy eyes flitted from Dina to Jack McPhee. "As for you, Dina Jeanne, give him back his money. Every filthy dollar of it."

 

 

She raised her cane like an avenging Moses in flannel pajamas. "What you do out on street corners, I can't stop, but I'll sic the law on you, afore you'll bring your merry men
into my house.
"

 

 

 

9

"M
other of God, Mother! You think I'm a
hooker?
"

 

 

Jack bit the inside of his lip to keep a straight face.

 

 

Dina the dog groomer's sideline as the Calendar Burglar was still a bit of a stretch. Imagining her on the stroll in black cargos, a long-sleeved top, socks and cheap nylon house slippers was hilarious.

 

 

"I know you've been sneaking out and back in, late of a night, week after week." Mrs. Wexler snorted in disgust. "Being sick doesn't make me deaf, blind or stupid."

 

 

"Well, it doesn't make me a—"

 

 

"One day you're crossways about gas going up a nickel a gallon. The next, you bring home gadgets that cost more 'n the moon."

 

 

"A glucose monitor isn't—"

 

 

"It ain't pizzas you're delivering, girl. Haven't been, for who knows how long."

 

 

"And of all the possible explanations a normal person might come up with, you—
my own mother
—decide I'm a whore."

 

 

Jack took her first completed sentence as a cue. "No, she hasn't, Dina."

 

 

Both women turned on him, open-mouthed and blinking as though he'd arrived by parachute. "I have some good news and some bad news, Mrs. Wexler."

 

 

"Who the—?"

 

 

"The good news," he went on, "is you know your daughter isn't a prostitute, so that pretty much eliminates me as her john. The bad news is, she's a burglar and I'm Jack McPhee, the private investigator an insurance company hired to catch her."

 

 

Mrs. Wexler's withering gaze shifted from him to Dina, then lowered and raised in a head-to-toe examination of her daughter's all-black ensemble. Although several inches taller than Dina, the frail, wild-haired woman seemed to shrink with relief. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled lungfuls of oxygenated air. Slowly, she exhaled a joyous "Thank God."

 

 

Jack gave Dina a "See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" smile.

 

 

To her mother, Dina repeated, "Thank God?
Thank God?
Like it's okay to be a thief, but not a hooker?"

 

 

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Dina Jeanne." Mrs. Wexler shuffled toward the glider rocker in the living room. Coils in the plastic tubing following behind her revolved like a threads on a giant, invisible screw. "Of course it isn't okay."

 

 

"I think what your mother means is, there's a difference between selling somebody's jewelry, and selling yourself."

 

 

"Don't you put words into my mouth, young man." Mrs. Wexler fell into the chair, as much as sat down in it. One foot, then the other was hiked onto the ottoman. "Even if they're the right ones."