The Curse of the Holy Pail #2 (23 page)

I picked up the white bakery bag and waved it gently in the air. "How about a cranberry scone?"

This time, the young man lowered his head slightly and widened his coal black eyes at me. I think it meant if I kept talking, he was going to shoot me.

"Odelia Grey?"

I jumped at the words, nearly spilling the coffee. It was the same confident voice I had heard on the phone. I turned toward it. Standing in the doorway that I assumed led to the bedroom area was another man, this one about my age. He was pale with freckled skin, bony, and no more than five foot eight or nine. More skin than hair adorned his head. Black horn-rimmed glasses and the large nose upon which they rested took up most of his angular face. He was dressed in designer jeans and a Polo shirt and resembled several professors I had in college. However, I reminded myself, most professors do not hide out in slums with bodyguards.

I sat frozen in fear. A bullet list of cold facts listed themselves vertically in my head:

• There were two of them, one of me.

• At least one of them had a gun.

• A forty-seven-year-old woman should know better.

• Greg will kill me if he finds out.

• He'll have to get in line behind Seth and Zee.

• Everyone will have to get in line behind Dev Frye.

• Who'll take custody of Seamus?

"Is that for me?" the man asked, pointing at the coffee.

"You Willie Porter?" I asked in return, trying not to shake too visibly.

He smiled. His teeth were straight and white behind thin, colorless lips. He held out his right hand to me. "Willie Porter, aka William Proctor. But I haven't used Proctor for a long time, so just call me Willie."

He didn't look like a Willie to me, but I took his hand anyway and shook it uneasily. He again eyed the coffee and I held out the tray to him.

"The large one's yours," I said, then added, "I brought scones, too." Immediately my fear was overcome with foolishness. This was hardly a tea party.

He laughed lightly, taking both the large cup of coffee and the pastry bag. "Thanks. Good to see you know how to follow instructions." He looked inside the bag. "The scones are a nice touch." He closed the bag and placed it on the coffee table.

He turned to the young man by the door and said something in Spanish. The kid said something back and they both laughed. The young man grinned at me, displaying crooked teeth. I felt my face grow hot. He and Willie exchanged a few more words in Spanish. Some I understood, most I didn't. Occasionally, they looked my way, studying me.

"I asked Enrique if he searched you," Willie told me. "But he said no, it would be too much like frisking his own mother."

I offered Enrique a weak, red-faced smile, not sure if I should be offended or flattered. He chuckled and said something else to Willie, who laughed hard enough to slightly slosh his coffee.

"Enrique thinks you're cute," Willie translated, "big and soft like his mama, but much more loco ... crazy."

After studying the young man for a moment, I leaned toward Willie and asked softly, "How do you say `bite me' in Spanish?"

The roar of laughter that came from Enrique let me know that no translation would be needed.

After further words from Willie, Enrique covered up his gun with a loose shirt grabbed from a nearby chair and slipped out the front door, leaving us alone.

Willie sat down on the sofa at the opposite end. He crossed one leg casually, ankle resting on knee, and took a big swig of his coffee. Like Enrique, he wore running shoes, but his were well worn.

"Very nice," he commented, indicating the coffee.

"Do you know how Sterling Price died?" I asked him.

"I heard poison." Willie took another big drink.

"Yep, oleander. In his coffee."

Willie froze, cup to his lips. He peered at me over the rim, made a decision, and swallowed.

"Let's just hope you're not the one who did it," he said to me with a smile.

I smiled back. "No, not me. Not my style." Though I had no doubt that there were thousands of people willing to line up to poison this man's java.

As soon as Stella Hughes left last night, I jumped on the Internet to see if there was anything on William Proctor that I should know about. Much to my surprise, there was quite a bit. There were a few photographs online of Proctor as well. All resembled the man in front of me.

In his former life, Willie had been William Proctor, founder and chairman of Investanet, a dot-com company specializing in retirement plans and investments. Actually, Investanet specialized in fleecing honest citizens out of their hard-earned nest eggs with cooked books and double talk. William Proctor had disappeared just ahead of a federal raid, but not before embezzling about twenty-five million dollars in other people's money. He left his executives holding the bag and his employees high and dry without jobs. I remembered reading about the scandal at the time, but failed to connect it to the man mentioned in the American Executive article about the Holy Pail. It surprised me that the magazine itself didn't bring the connection to light. But maybe they didn't want to remind readers that some American executives were sleaze balls.

"Except for the connection to the Holy Pail, I didn't know who William Proctor was when you called yesterday, but I do now."

Scared as I was, I tried to appear casual about the whole thing. I doubted if the felon sipping coffee across from me would tell me anything of value if I appeared on the brink of emotional collapse, so I shed my nervousness as much as possible. Shifting around to face him, I curled one leg up under me and smoothed my skirt modestly over my legs. Anyone watching us would think we were old friends catching up over coffee.

"I'm curious. Why did you contact Price's office?" I asked. "Kind of risky, wasn't it? I mean, I assume there's a price on your head."

"Hmm, yes, there is-a big one. You going to turn me in, Odelia?" He appeared laid-back, not at all what you'd expect for a fugitive on the run.

I gave thought to what I should say and what I wanted to say, and decided on averaging them out. "I'd love to," I answered honestly. "But I'm sure I'd never get the chance. Either you'd stop me cold, one way or another, or you'd disappear like smoke in the wind."

Willie looked me over thoughtfully. "I like you, Odelia. You're smart and straightforward."

He tilted his head back and took another big swallow of coffee. I could see his throat muscles working in his neck. Frisked or not, he obviously didn't consider me a threat to his personal safety. Too bad I didn't have the same sense of security.

"I liked Sterling Price," he said, putting the paper cup down on the coffee table in front of us. "I only met him once, just before I sold him the Holy Pail. Decent sort, good businessman. I'm very sorry about his death."

He got up and went into the kitchen, returning with a pack of cigarettes, a cheap lighter, and a small ashtray. He offered me a cigarette. I declined. He lit up, took a long drag, and made an effort to blow it away from where I sat.

"Nasty habit," he said, before taking another puff. "Wife always wanted me to quit."

"You and your wife living in Mexico now? Where your boat was found?"

"You just never mind where my wife and I live these days, little mama." He chuckled and took another puff, considering me through the cloud of his exhale. "I asked you here, Odelia, because I want to help you find Price's murderer."

"Why?" I asked, looking directly at him with interest. "Just because he was a nice man and you once sold him a lunchbox?"

"Really," he answered with a chuckle, "you give me too much credit. I'm not that nice."

Somehow I knew that.

"This is about revenge, plain and simple. You see, the feds were tipped off about my company, hence my hasty disappearance. I had planned on running Investanet a few months longer, selling it lock, stock, and scandal to some sucker, and fading into the sunset. The whole thing about the boat was last minute."

"A whistleblower in your midst? How does that connect with Sterling Price?"

"Worse than a whistleblower, Odelia, a vicious, jealous woman." He winked at me, then continued. "There's an unknown collector trying to get his hands on the Holy Pail. Someone outside the usual lunchbox network, which can be very tight-knit. He's offering big money for it. I have no idea why"

I nodded. "Yes, I've heard that. It's up to one hundred thousand now." Pausing, I scrutinized Willie. "You sure you don't know who the collector is?"

He shook his head. "No, sorry. He never contacted me directly. But there is a woman hunting the box down on his behalf. Kind of a bounty hunter, if you will. I think you've met her."

I thought about Stella Hughes. "A flashy blond, mid-fifties, with a Marilyn Monroe figure?" I asked.

He gave me a big smile and stubbed out his cigarette. "That's Stella."

So Stella did know William Proctor, or at least he knew of her. "She contacted you, didn't she?"

"You could say that." He pulled back the drape slightly and looked outside as he spoke. The gesture seemed more something to do than out of nervousness.

"I hired Stella to work for me at Investanet. It was shortly after I obtained the Holy Pail. She had recently moved to California from the Chicago area. Unfortunately," he said, giving my hefty chest a quick glance, "I have an appetite for endowed women, especially blonds who throw themselves at me."

Okay, I thought, squirming a bit under this gaze, this fits the Stella Hughes I know.

"Don't tell me," I said, holding up one hand. "She wanted you to leave your wife and marry her, or run away with her-with the Holy Pail, of course."

"Of course," he said dryly. "Now, I may not be a Boy Scout, but I loved my wife and had no intention of trading her in for a chippie. When Stella started making a stink, I offered her money to disappear."

"But all she wanted was the Holy Pail, right?"

"Right. There's something about that lunchbox, something important, but damned if I know what it is. I think Stella knew, although she said she didn't."

"So you think Stella killed Sterling?"

He shook his head. "It's possible, but I doubt it. She's vicious and manipulative, but I never pegged her for being a killer. But I could be wrong. I was wrong about her before. Never dawned on me she'd do what she did.

"She finally threatened to go to my wife if I didn't give her the lunchbox. I flatly refused, mostly on principle. My wife already knew I had a mistress, so Stella's threat was no big deal. But I wasn't about to be threatened with blackmail for any reason, so I sold the box to Sterling Price just to teach her a lesson." He grunted. The sound came from deep inside his scrawny chest. "I should have just given her the damn thing and saved myself a lot of trouble."

And maybe Sterling's life, I mused silently, wishing Willie had done just that.

"She turned you in when you wouldn't cooperate, didn't she?" I asked.

"Oh, yes;" he said in amusement, coming back to sit on the sofa. "I don't know how or exactly when, but fortunately I had a friend inside the Securities and Exchange Commission. I found out just in time." He picked up his coffee and took another swig.

"Right after I relocated," he said, grinning as he said the last word, "I started looking closer into Stella's background. At first I was sure I'd find some business competitor behind her manipulations, or maybe even some disenchanted investor with his own plans for revenge. Instead, I discovered something much more intriguing." He looked at me expectantly, like he was waiting for applause.

I shrugged, clueless.

"Do you know who owned the Holy Pail prior to me?"

I nodded. "Someone named Kellogg or Fisher, I believe."

"Fisher," Willie said, "Ivan Fisher, out of Chicago."

I thought a minute. "Chicago? But you said that's where she was from."

"That's right. And guess who she was involved with while she lived there?"

Dread settled in the pit of my stomach like a bad taco. "Ivan Fisher?"

Willie's head went up and down. "He even married her."

I sucked in my breath. "He died in a car accident, didn't he?"

"Yes, but it's not what you think. Shortly before they were married, he sold the Holy Pail to me. The price then was a mere ten thousand dollars. Fisher was comfortable, but not wealthy like Price or me. He'd bought the box for less than a thousand a few years before."

Wow, I thought, that's what I call a good return on an investment.

Willie put his coffee cup back on the table, stretched his legs out in front of him and laced his hands behind his head. He chuckled again, as if reminiscing about the good of days.

"Now comes the best part," he said, throwing me a big grin. "Poor Mr. Fisher was in his fifties and had never been married before, so he wanted to do it proper. Right after they were married, he took his new bride on a big trip to Europe. Three weeks-Paris, London, Rome-all paid for by the sale of his extensive lunchbox collection."

"Including the Holy Pail?" I asked without needing to.

"Uh-huh," he replied with relish.

"And she didn't know?"

Willie shook his head. "Not until they got back. By then, the lunchbox was already in my collection in California"

"What about Mr. Kellogg?"

"That, I'm happy to say, was not Stella's doing. Kellogg died of a heart attack, plain and simple; had heart disease for years. Fisher bought the Holy Pail from Kellogg's son, Jasper, Jr."

I still didn't understand. "But you said she didn't have anything to do with Fisher's death."

"Not directly." He sat back up and rotated his head. I could hear the joints in his neck and shoulders pop with the movement. "According to my investigator, who interviewed Fisher's elderly mother, after Stella found out about the sale of the pail," he said, grinning over his little rhyme, "she tried to get him to buy it back, but poor Fisher refused. He had spent the money on his honeymoon and wasn't about to go into debt for a lunchbox. When Stella couldn't get her way, she walked out on him and moved to California, following the trail of the pail." He grinned again.