The Immaculate Deception (39 page)

Oh I really wanted one. I was on the verge of drooling. Why’d I say I only wanted one doughnut?

“
I was born in Manchester, England. My family immigrated to Missouri, sir.”

“
I’m a Missouri boy too!” He eyed the pile of greasy wrapped goodies.

My mate laughed. “Yeah, I’d heard that somewhere. I’m from Ava.” He pushed the stack of burgers toward the President.

Mr. Truman unwrapped another and began orating. “I’ve been through Ava. Met the postmistress there when we were campaigning. Charming woman, Mrs. Siler…Eulah Siler… Jones! What’s wrong? Jones, are you choking? Can you speak?”

President Truman picked up the phone. “Operator! A man’s choking in my office! Get the doctor and an ambulance, quick!” Harry Truman dropped the phone and darted to the other side of his desk. He yanked my mate to his feet and slapped his back. Nothing came out. Again and again, President Truman used the palm of his hand to pound on the young man’s back while pleading, “Are you getting any air?”

I tried to run over and help. I knew the Heimlich maneuver. But there was some damned glass wall that I couldn’t get through.
Honey, honey, let me help you! Stop slapping his back! You’re just lodging it in deeper! Stop it!

Harry shoved his fingers into my mate’s mouth, trying to sweep out the burger. He couldn’t reach it. Agent Jones collapsed onto the carpet, convulsing on the presidential seal.

I beat on the invisible glass wall.

Help arrived. First on the scene was a White House maintenance man. He rolled Agent Jones on to his side and tried to sweep out his mouth. The maintenance man yanked a folding wooden tape measure from his tool belt. Breaking off a section, he shoved it between my mate’s teeth.

Two Marines marched into the Oval Office. They tried to stretch Agent Jones out while they held him down, battling the grand mal seizure.

The hysterical telephone operator arrived with a Secret Service agent. The White House physician scrambled in with his black bag. The President stammered out what happened. Mrs. Truman shoved in after the medics wheeled in a gurney. They worked on Agent Jones.

The White House physician rose up. “Time of death, eleven fifty-eight p.m.”

I fell to the floor in a hurricane of tears. I heard the “Donna” song.

~*~

I woke up Saturday morning drenched with perspiration, my pulse racing. I squinted at a round and jolly-looking face. “Wake up, darlin’. Come on now, sugar, you have a visitor.”

I focused on the jail matron. Oh God. Now I knew what he had meant. I was in jail and all alone. And he was dead. My mate was dead. I burst out in tears.

The bubbly matron said, “Your attorney is here… Sugar, what’s the matter now? Come on, things can’t be that bad
.
” She opened the door of the cell.

Sniffling, I followed her down the hallway but I was shocked by her big smile and her waving to the other inmates. I asked, “You enjoy your job, don’t you?” I wiped my eyes on my sleeve.

She turned my way. “Yes. Everyone is so nice here.”

Everyone is so nice in a jail?
“Really? I had no idea. I always thought jails were scary, depressing places full of angst and danger. Revenge plots and breakout schemes. Intimidation and power struggles.”

“
You watch too many movies, sugar,” she said.

Hmm…maybe so. I followed her into a conference room. I sat down on a hard chair at a table.

“
Keep your hands on top of the table, sugar.” She shut the door.

Roderick Meddlestein, my parents’ across-the-street neighbor for more than three decades, goose-stepped into the room. Dapper in his linen summer suit, he sat across from me and licked the point of his yellow number two pencil. He wrote
Donna Payne
on the top line of his notepad. He adjusted his glasses and looked at me. “Did ya do it?”

I threw my head back, balking at him. “Did I do what?”

“
Torch Little Mount Vernon.”

“
No!”

“’
Kay. Just thought we should get that outa the way. No need to waste time playin’ puss and rat. Now where were you Wednesday morning, August ninth?”

“
I was at my parents’ house.”

He dropped the pencil down and looked at me. “Go on.”

“
I’m executrix of Daddy’s estate—”

“
No, you aren’t.”

“
Huh?” I rubbed my eyebrow.

“
Nathan named me executor of his estate,” Meddlestein said.

I said, “Perry has his will. I’m executrix and he and Tammy are sole heirs. Perry told me to pay the creditors, put an ad in the legal section, put the house on the market, blah blah blah.”

“
The executrix does not handle the money, a court-appointed probate attorney does. Young Judge Payne knows that. Just when is the will that he has—when is it dated?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

He wrote something down. “Well, we’ll just have to see about this. Something has a stinky color to all of it. In the will I have, which I drew up in September of last year, Nathan left his entire estate to his wife Chloe.”

My heart was racing. What was Perry up to? Or, on the other hand, what was Meddlestein up to?

The attorney scratched his arm and continued. “What were you doing at your parents’ house Wednesday morning?”

“
I went through their papers, trying to find Daddy’s insurance policy. He told me right before he died that he had named me as beneficiary. He also told me he wanted me to have his Marilyn Monroe memorabilia that was stowed in the carport attic.”

“
So you got the insurance policy and mementoes and then what did ya do?”

“
No. I couldn’t find either. So I left.”

“
Neither one? Any idea why not? Who might have moved them?”

I exhaled. “Tammy enlisted a couple big friends of hers and a U-Haul truck. They cleaned almost everything out. I didn’t realize they’d emptied the attic too.”

“
So you then drove over to Tammy’s to confront her?”

“
No.”

“
Well, what time did you leave your parents’ house?”

“
I dunno. Around seven a.m., I guess. I was tired. I drove home. Perry called and I decided to go and see him. Afterward, I stopped at Giant. I went in and bought some tissues and a soda and smoked almonds. Then I went out and slept in the car.”

“
What kind of car do you have?”

“
Mine was totaled. I was driving Daddy’s old gold Chrysler.”

“
I thought he sold that?”

“
Nah, Perry had it.”

“
Okay, so you slept in the Chrysler at the strip mall. Then what?”

“
Then I got arrested?”

“
For what?”

“
I dunno. She wouldn’t tell me.”

“
What?”

I couldn’t tell him about Dick and my suspicions about Fawn.
He’s a murderer and he’s after the counterfeit money. And Fawn is in on it. Honest, I’ve seen it in my dreams.
Yeah right, and then I’d be in Saint Christopher’s next. So instead, I opted for, “This lady cop, she knocked on my window and wanted to see my license and registration. I didn’t have the registration or insurance card for the Chrysler. She made me step out and open the trunk.”

“
What is the officer’s name?”

“
Fawn Fiddler. Of the Fairfax County Police Department. She’s the same lady that interviewed me about the disappearance of Officer Dick. She left me her business card that night. It’s in the cubbyhole over my desk in the living room.”

“
Officer Dick?”

“
Dick Fiddler. Officer with the Fairfax County Police. He lives across the street from me.”

“
Your address?”

“
One–three–one–two–seven Spyglass Street, Reston.”

Mr. Meddlestein made a note of that.

“
Can I get a drink? Diet Coke?”

He stepped over to the door and knocked on it. Bubbles the matron opened it. He asked her to bring me a soda.

Mr. Meddlestein sat back down. “Gloria wanted me to bring you a thermos of mango iced tea but I told her it wouldn’t be allowed. She sends her love.”

I squeezed his hand. “Thank her for me. Bless Mrs. Meddlestein.”

He pulled his hand away and picked the pencil up. “Now, oh yes, did you step out of the vehicle?”

“
Yes. And she frisked me.”

“
Sorry.”

“
A crowd formed. It was humiliating. The Chinese delivery guy, the cashier from Giant, the postmistress. That’s my neighborhood. I’ll be so embarrassed to shop there again. I won’t do it. I’ll drive into Herndon from now on.”

“
Did she find any weapons on you?”

“
No!”

“
Then what happened?”

“
I opened the trunk for her like she told me to.”

“
What was in the trunk?”

I exhaled. Oh I didn’t want to get into this.

Bubbles moseyed in and deposited a Diet Coke and a package of smoked almonds.

I said, “Thanks,” and smiled at her.

She nodded and left us alone.

I unscrewed the lid and took a long pull on the bottle. A little dribbled on my chin.

Mr. Meddlestein said, “What was in the trunk?”

I wiped my chin with the back of my hand. “Thanks for the almonds too.”

“
You’re welcome, Donna.” He smiled and then again pressed, “In the trunk?”

I swallowed hard. There was no way out of this. I took a deep breath. “Pages of uncut hundred-dollar bills.”

“
Really?” He leaned forward.

“
Really.”

“
Where’d you get ’em?”

“
I didn’t get ’em. But I know where they came from. About a week ago, I had discovered them stacked between the sofa and wall at Perry’s office. I pilfered three. I hid ’em in my big purse on the shelf in my foyer closet. Then, on Tuesday evening, I discovered the hundreds had been stolen. It freaked me out. I went to see Tammy because she’d called me telling me Perry was acting shifty. My sister said Perry asked her to open a bank account in one of her old names. Anyhow, Perry called me on Wednesday morning after I returned home from Little Mount Vernon. I went to see him at his office. The money was gone.”

“
Did you ask him about it?”

“
He was incoherent but he insisted that the same person that murdered his birth mother, Vera Blandings, stole the money.”

“
Who was convicted of her murder?”

“
No one as far as I know. But I know… I strongly suspect it was a teenaged Dick Fiddler.”

“
The policeman that lives across the street from you?”

I nodded.

“
What gives you this impression?”

Like I could really tell him about my dreams… Hey wait. I could tell him I’d done research through old articles and stories Daddy and Momma had told me and that his parents were counterfeiters. I rattled something out. Meddlestein made some notes and said, “Very interesting… Now back to your arrest.”

“
She kept reading me my Miranda rights but stopping on ‘You have the right to an attorney’. She must’ve stopped there five times and restarted.”

“
Odd. What did she charge you with?”

“
She never said. I’m assuming it is possession of counterfeit money. And I’m also assuming she and her ex-husband and current lover Dick Fiddler planted it to frame me.”

“
Why would they frame you?”

Good question.
Think, Donna, think
. I drank more soda and sucked on a salted almond. “To throw suspicion away from them. So they could be the heroes and then perhaps relocate to a tropical island somewhere and spend the rest of the bogus bucks.”

“
That sounds a little weak but it’s my job to establish motive. I’ll mull it over.”

“
Anyhow, she finally tossed me in the back of her squad car. Then she pussyfooted over to the trunk of Daddy’s Chrysler. Next thing I know, Officer Dick opens the other door. He tells me to come with him. So I did.”

“
Why?”

“
Because he yanked me out and manhandled me through the parking lot with a gun in my back.”

“
He did what?” He went wild scribbling notes.

“
Yeah, and then he walked over to the commuter lot with me and we hopped on a bus. He got off, I don’t know where. I was distracted by an old lady blabbering next to me… Hey, I’ll bet he paid her to do that. It was probably all a setup. I stayed on until the Vienna Metro station. I rode that into Union Station and hopped a train to Miami.”

Mr. Meddlestein said, “So let me get this straight. Did this policewoman tell you what you were under arrest for?”

“
No.”

“
Did she finish reading you your rights?”

“
No.”

“
And you were forced at gunpoint to leave the scene?”

“
Yes, that’s it. Now I think about it, the guys at the airport didn’t tell me what I was under arrest for, nor did they read me my rights either.”