Nursery Crimes (18 page)

“I was hoping you might be able to help me with a case I’ve been investigating,” I said.

Al looked at me, eyebrows raised. I guess I’d never put it so bluntly before. The truth was unavoidable, however. I was investigating the murder of Abigail Hathaway, albeit unofficially.

“Has Al explained my terms to you?” Julio asked softly.

“One hundred dollars per hour, to be paid to your mother.”

“Yes. I usually require some proof of prepayment, but if Al can vouch for you, I will allow you to pay after we speak.”

“I can vouch for her,” Al said.

“Fine,” Julio replied.

“Okay, so here’s the situation,” I began.

It took about fifteen minutes for me to explain the entire history of Abigail Hathaway’s death, her husband’s affair, and the polyamorous computer club to Julio. He listened intently, never taking his eyes off mine. Initially it was disconcerting to have him staring at me so tenaciously, but I got used to it. I had never met anyone who sat as still and as quietly as Julio. Every once in a while he would nod at something I had said, or raise a quizzical eyebrow, asking, without words, for more information. Other than that, he was made of stone. Finally, when I had finished, he spoke.

“You should not have come here.”

“What?” I was confused and not a little irritated. I mean, I’d driven three hours when I could barely manage to sit in one place for more than five minutes without my back seizing up, and this little creep was telling me I shouldn’t have come? Wasn’t my money good enough for him?

“You have wasted your time and money.”

“And why would that be?” My voice came out stiffer and a little more prim than I would have liked.

“Because a computer-literate eight-year-old could have solved this problem for you.”

“Well, Julio, here’s the thing: I don’t happen to know
any computer-literate eight-year-olds, and my two-and-a-half-year-old can barely manage to surf the Barbie website. So you’re what I’ve got. Are you going to help me or not?”

“Yes. I will. But it is important for you to understand that this problem of yours is very easily solved.”

“I understand.”

“I am capable of much more demanding tasks.”

“I understand.”

“Despite that, you understand, my fee must apply.”

“I understand.”

“This is what you must do.” Julio then described to me how I could access Daniel Mooney’s account and trace his virtual steps. I have no idea if what he taught me was legal, but I decided not to worry about it. I took careful notes on Julio’s instructions, not trusting my pregnancy-addled brain to remember anything. After he had finished, he asked for a sheet of paper and carefully wrote out a bill for one hour’s work.

“Please deliver this to my mother with payment.”

I took the bill and put it in my briefcase with the legal pad on which I’d made my copious notes. I reached out my hand to Julio who shook it once again.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Applebaum,” he said.

“Ms. But you can call me Juliet.”

“Of course, Ms. Applebaum. It was a pleasure to assist you.”

“Thank you, Julio. Is there anything we can help
you
with? Do you need anything?”

Julio smiled faintly. “Unless you have in your pocket a presidential pardon, I think that no, there is nothing you can do for me.”

I smiled back at him. “Nope, fresh out of those. Sorry.”

“Ah, well. Until next time, then.”

“Hasta luego,”
Al interrupted, making no attempt at a Mexican accent whatsoever.

“
Hasta proxima vez
, Al,” Julio said.

He rose and with a fluid, almost elegant stride, walked over to the guard, indicating that he was ready to go back up into the prison.

Al and I gathered our things and executed the elaborate door ballet in reverse, once again waiting much too long to be buzzed through.

“So, private eye Applebaum, did you get what you needed?” Al asked once we had settled ourselves into his car and driven through the gates of the prison.

“Yup. I think so. Now we’ll just have to see if I can actually do this stuff on my computer.”

“Julio’s directions are usually pretty clear. Call me if you have any problems. Maybe my nine-year-old nephew can help you out.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny, Al. Hey, listen, if I give you the hundred bucks, will you deliver it to Julio’s mother?”

“Sure.”

I wrote Al out a check, balancing my checkbook on my stomach.

“Hey, Juliet, interested in some barbecued oysters?”

Of course I was. We stopped at a little roadside shack and prepared to feast. I wasn’t technically supposed to be eating oysters, but these were cooked, so I figured it was okay. Besides, there was no way I was going to sit and watch Al slurp up the contents of the oyster shells and lick sauce off his fingertips without having a plate of my own. I waited impatiently for my paper plate full of steaming shells drenched in spicy red sauce, and dove in headfirst when it arrived. As we gobbled our food, I brought Al up to date on my investigation. When I finished, he took a long draft of the one beer I had allowed
him to order, swallowed loudly, belched, and pointed a thick finger at me.

“You, girl, have found your calling.”

“What do you mean?”

“Investigation. Detection. Forget the courtroom crap. Figuring out who done it. That’s the fun part.”

“You know, I always enjoyed that part of it. You’re right.”

“You should hang out a shingle: “Juliet Applebaum, Private Eye.”

“You’re not the first person who’s said that. Anyway, stop worrying about my career and finish your food, man! Let’s get on the road.”

We ate quickly, racing to see who could consume more oysters. Al won. With a final belch, he pushed back his chair and got up.

“Lunch is on you, Detective,” he said.

I
got home in plenty of time to hang out with Ruby and Peter before dinner. We played a vigorous and cutthroat game of Hungry, Hungry, Hippos, in the midst of which I noticed that I was actually having a good time. While Ruby accumulated every marble in the game, as she always did through some innate power of control over plastic marble-devouring hippopotamuses, I brought Peter up to speed on what I had discovered. He seemed pretty impressed at my detective skills, and even promised to help me surf the Net for dirt on Daniel Mooney and Nina Tiger after Ruby went to bed.

That night, Ruby seemed to sense that we wanted her to get to bed so we could get to work on the computer. First she needed an extra story. Then she needed another drink of water. Then she peed in her overnight diaper and
couldn’t stand the idea of sleeping in it. And so on. After the third trip to the bathroom, I threatened her with no candy the next day if she didn’t go to sleep once and for all. That got her. It’s amazing how quickly kids discover that candy is, in fact, the reason and purpose for human existence.

Peter and I settled ourselves in front of the computer and did our best to carry out Julio’s instructions. Honestly, I have no idea what we did. While I love using my computer, the technical details never remain in my brain for very long. I always have the same experience as when I took the bar exam. Walking in, the Rule Against Perpetuities was as clear to me as the nose on the proctor’s face. As soon as I’d filled in my last circle and lay down my number-two pencil, my brain flew open and promptly flushed away that and every other arcane law that remains on the books just to torment law students. They were gone, as if they’d never even been there.

Somehow Peter and I managed to follow Julio’s directions, and it didn’t take long to accumulate a list of aliases for both Daniel Mooney and Nina Tiger. We started with Nina and spent a couple of hours tracing her cyberfootsteps. I wasn’t surprised to discover that Nina, using different aliases, was an active member of a number of sex-based newsgroups. As “muffdvr” she explored her lesbian sadomasochistic side. As “kittyhowl” she was an expert on clitoral piercing. Most bizarrely, as “judyspal” she had a couple of hundred gay men convinced that she was one of them. All pretty weird stuff, but nothing particularly incriminating.

Finally, worried that spending too much time associating with the likes of Nina Tiger would kill our sex drives once and for all, Peter and I decided to explore Daniel Mooney’s seamy side. Like Nina Tiger, he had his own
bunch of aliases—“mchoman,” “boytoy2000,” and even his own transvestite alias, “GRrrrL.” The same kinky stuff as Nina, with the added twist that “GRrrrL” liked to pretend to be a pubescent girl and flirt with older men.

It didn’t take long to find the piece of evidence that would put Daniel Mooney behind bars for the murder of his wife.

D
ANIEL
Mooney’s failing as a murderer was that he had the sophistication of a twelve-year-old. Using the alias “dollparts,” and going no farther to cover his tracks, Abigail Hathaway’s husband had posted the following advertisement on a website called “Soldiers of Fortune”:

That was all, but it was everything. I immediately understood that Daniel Mooney had tried to hire someone to kill his wife. I hoped that Detective Carswell would understand the same. I’d been leaving him messages every couple of hours since two days before, when Audrey had come over to tell me about her suspicions about her stepfather, but Carswell still hadn’t called me back. I called him again anyway. He wasn’t at work. I
spoke to the desk sergeant, asking him to find Carswell and let him know that it was a matter of great urgency that he call me, at any time, day or night. I could tell I wasn’t being taken seriously and was pretty sure I wouldn’t hear from Carswell that night.

Peter didn’t go to work that night. Instead we crawled into bed together, both overcome with the enormity of what we had discovered. We lay side by side for a while, silently. Then, suddenly, I jumped.

“Oh, my God, Peter. Audrey. I don’t know if she’s still at her friend Alice’s. What if she’s home? What if she’s all alone with him?”

“Abigail’s daughter?”

“She could be in the house with him! What’s to stop him from killing her, too?”

“She’s probably at her friend’s. That’s where she told you she was going, right?”

“Yeah, but that was yesterday!”

“I’m sure she’s still there. And, anyway, there’s nothing we can do right now, Juliet. You called the detective.”

“Maybe we should call nine-one-one. Or Social Services. Or something!” I was panicking.

“And tell them what? That we think her dad’s a murderer because he was looking to chat with an experienced soldier on the web? No one would believe us. We need to talk to Detective Carswell.”

“You’re right. I know you’re right. But what if something happens to her tonight and we could have prevented it? I couldn’t live with myself. You didn’t see her, Peter. She’s so vulnerable.”

“Look, he has no reason to suspect that she knows anything. And anyway, he’d have to be a total moron to hurt her now, so soon after her mother’s death. That would
immediately draw attention to him. He won’t do it. It wouldn’t make any sense.”

“No, it wouldn’t. We’ll just have to hope that he acts sensibly.”

Peter and I slept little that night. Finally, at about 6:00
A.M.
, I couldn’t wait any longer. I picked up the phone and dialed the Santa Monica P.D. Miraculously, Detective Carswell was in.

To my surprise, he didn’t dismiss me right away. On the contrary, he took me much more seriously than I had expected and every bit as seriously as I hoped. Within half an hour he was on my doorstep, accompanied by another detective, a younger man who sported the same military haircut but wore, instead of a suit, a pair of khakis and a blue blazer. Kind of like an oversized Catholic schoolboy.

I showed the two into my kitchen and offered them coffee. They accepted.

“Ms. Applebaum, please tell us what you’ve discovered,” Carswell said, not patronizing me in the slightest. Finally.

I described my computer investigation. Carswell seemed impressed at my savvy.

“You figured out how to track his steps through all his various aliases?” he asked

I certainly wasn’t going to tell him about Julio.

“It’s really very easy,” I replied. “Any computer-literate eight-year-old could do it.”

“Still, I’m impressed,” he said, not quite grudgingly.

I smiled, feeling like I’d earned a gold star from my kindergarten teacher.

“We’d like to see the files you’ve downloaded,” the other officer said.

I showed them into my office and to my computer. The
ad, which I had not only copied into my hard drive but also bookmarked, was on the screen. The young detective sat down at my chair, pulled a couple of floppy disks out of his coat pocket, and proceeded to make copies not only of the ad but also of the many conversations of the polyamorous newsgroup. Then the two sat with me for another hour, taking notes, while I described in detail all my investigations of the past week. I left out Audrey’s visit to me, because I’d promised her that I wouldn’t tell them about her, and my meeting with Julio, because I didn’t want Al to get into trouble.