The Snow White Christmas Cookie (28 page)

“How you doing at your end?” Yolie panted as they worked their way slowly back across the beach.

“Okay…” Her shoulders and back were already starting to scream. “But I think he’s unconscious.”

“Probably just as well. Another ten seconds and he was going to be proposing to both of us.”

They made it across the beach and started their way up the narrow, twisting path. By now every single muscle in Des’s body was in agony.

“Need a break?” Yolie asked her when they reached the main path.

“No, I’m good,” she gasped. “Let’s get him in my front seat. I’ve got blankets in my trunk. I’ll run him straight to Shoreline Clinic. Faster than waiting for an EMT.”

“Deal. I’ll secure this scene, then run those two pieces of human filth in.”

They could see their cars now. Just another fifty yards and they’d be there. Not so far. Not so far at all. Not when her man’s life depended on it. And, hell, the last twenty feet was plowed pavement. Easy-peasy. They set him down gently on the passenger side of her front seat. Des pointed all of the heater vents in his direction and got the blankets out of the trunk and wrapped them around him. He was still unconscious. Also exceedingly pale—except for his ears and nose, which were bright red. She jumped in behind the wheel and slammed the door.

He stirred, blinking at her from inside of his blanket cocoon. “Y-You found me.”

“Of course I did.” She backed the cruiser up, spun it around and took off. “Think I was going to let you freeze to death out there?”

“H-How?…”

“Rut called from the Rustic to tell me you’d vanished. We followed your trail from there to the Yankee Doodle, where we found a whole lot of blood in Bungalow Six.” She eased off of the gas as she dipped under the Amtrak trestle, not wanting to jar him, then hit the gas again. Also her siren. “I was afraid it was yours, to tell you the truth.”

“It wasn’t.”

“After that we convinced Tommy the Pinhead to tell us where you were. Two large, angry black women with semiautomatic handguns can be very persuasive—especially if one of them is Yolie.”

She made a left onto Route 1 and punched it, veering around anyone and everyone in her path.

“Why’d they take my clothes?”

“Gigi thought it would be funny.”

“She needs to work on her sense of humor.”

“She’ll have plenty of time at York Correctional.”

“They teach comedy there now?”

“That was a joke, mister.”

“Sorry, I’m not … real with it.”

In fact, he’d passed out again.

She hit ninety mph as she tore across the Baldwin Bridge and then up Route 9 to the clinic. Night was settling in as she pulled up at the ambulance entrance with a screech.

Mitch awoke with a startled yelp, his eyes wide with fright.

She put her arm around him. “You okay?”

“I-I thought I was back in that trunk again with Casey. It was like that scene in
Out of Sight
with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. After he escaped from prison, remember? Except it was pitch-black and he was dead. And I’d much rather have been stuffed in there with J-Lo. She was hot in that movie. Not Yvette Mimieux hot, but plenty hot.”

She smiled at him. “You’re jabbering. Have I told you recently how much I love it when you jabber?”

“Des, my head hurts.”

“I know.”

“And my toes really, really ache.”

“Good. That means the nerves are still working. You won’t lose them.”

“
Lose
them?”

She got out, charged through the double doors to the ER and hollered, “Get some help here!”

A doctor and a nurse started toward her at once. Des had been in and out of the clinic a million times and was acquainted with the doctor, a brisk, efficient Asian woman named Cindie Tashima.

“What have we got here?” Dr. Cindie asked as Des and the nurse hoisted Mitch into a wheelchair, his eyes blinking from the entrance’s bright lights.

“This man’s suffered a head wound and is in and out of consciousness. He was left for dead out at Breezy Point with no clothes on. We’re talking possible frostbite, especially to his feet.”

“Take him into room four and start re-warming him,” Dr. Cindie ordered the nurse, who promptly wheeled Mitch away. “Since they took his clothes I’m assuming he had no ID on him.”

“Probably threw his wallet in a Dumpster somewhere.”

“So he’s a John Doe?”

“No, he’s a Mitchell Berger.”

Des provided an administrative aide with Mitch’s address, date of birth and the name of his insurance provider. Dr. Cindie checked his body temperature and blood pressure while the nurse and an orderly unzipped the parkas Des and Yolie had covered him with and peeled off the bloody sweatshirt and shower curtain. Des watched them through the open doorway as they started re-warming his hands and feet in disposable basins filled with warm water. Not hot. Hot water could be such a shock to the system that it caused heart damage.

When the nurse handed Des the parkas Des said, “I’ll need the sweatshirt and shower curtain, too. How is he?”

“Conscious. And real anxious to talk to you about something.”

Des went into the room and said, “What is it, baby?”

“I-I forgot to tell you,” he murmured as Dr. Cindie examined his head wound. “When I was in Tommy the Pinhead’s trunk with Casey…”

“Is this about J-Lo again?”

“No, the tranny.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Which tranny?”

“Tommy drives a beat-up old black Trans Am, okay? And if you’re trying to find it here’s what to look for—he needs a new tranny real badly.”

“And you know this because?…”

“It kept revving and revving before it shifted into second with a real lurch. I smelled burnt rubber, too.”

Des didn’t bother to tell him they’d already located Tommy’s Trans Am. Just nodded and said, “A beat-up old black Trans Am with a bad tranny. Got it.”

“His Trans Am is toast, you know. When that tranny goes it’ll cost more to replace it than the whole car’s worth.”

She stared at him in disbelief, her pulse quickening. “I swear, sometimes you terrify me. You’ve got frostbite and a possible concussion.…”

“Definite concussion,” Dr. Cindie interjected.

“And yet you did it again.”

He frowned at her, his gaze slightly out of focus. “Did what?”

“Cracked my case.”

“I think I cracked a tooth. They were chattering so hard.”

“I’ll have a look at it in a second,” Dr. Cindie promised him.

Des bent down and kissed him. “I have to leave you for a little while. I’ll be back soon, okay?”

He didn’t answer her. Couldn’t. He was unconscious again.

*   *   *

The house was dark except for one light on inside. The porch light was out. Des rang the bell and stood there in the dark for a long time before she finally heard footsteps and the front door swung slowly open.

“Yes, what is it?” She peered out at Des from the darkened front hallway.

“I’m sorry to bother you again, Paulette, but I have more news for you. May I came in?”

Paulette stood there in taut silence for a moment before ushering Des inside, turning on lights as she led Des to the TV room, where Dr. Phil was in the process of stampeding his lame self into someone’s life. Des had always wondered who watched Dr. Phil. Now she knew. Dorset’s postmaster was still hard at work on the Carlo Rossi Chablis, a fresh gallon jug that was nearly full. The ashtray next to her recliner was crammed with cigarette butts.

“I seem to have lost track of time.” Paulette muted the TV as she slumped into her chair. “My phone rang a couple of times a while ago but I didn’t feel like answering it.”

“Paulette, have you eaten anything today?”

“I may have,” she answered vaguely, her eyes searching Des’s face. “What do you want to tell me?”

“This will be hard to take right on top of Hank’s loss but I’m sorry to say that we’ve just found Casey dead.”

The color drained from Paulette’s face. “Dead…” Her voice was a whisper. “What did … How did it happen?”

“He was stabbed to death at the Yankee Doodle Motor Court. We subsequently obtained information that his body had been left out on the beach at Breezy Point. We just found him there.”

“Oh, lord…” Paulette reached for a Merit and lit it with a disposable lighter, her hand trembling. “Who would
do
such a thing?”

“Tommy Stratton. We have him in custody.”

She shook her head, bewildered. “Why would he want to hurt Casey?”

“He claims that Casey’s been supplying him with prescription meds, cash and whatever else he could steal from Hank’s route. That Casey was our grinch.”

“And you
believe
him? That’s absurd. Hank was the grinch. You and I both know that.”

“Do we?”

“He confessed to it last night, didn’t he? I saw his confession with my own two eyes. He texted it to me before he killed himself.”

“He didn’t, actually,” Des said. “Kill himself, I mean. We were waiting for all of the forensics results to come back before we had this conversation with you but we believe that Hank was murdered last night—by a pair of killers who staged it to look like a suicide.”

“But he
apologized
to me. Sent me that text message.”

“Hank didn’t send it to you. His killers did.”

Paulette heaved a sigh of exasperation. “Des, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Why would anyone want to murder Hank?”

“Because he’d discovered what was really going on. He even told me so at the Post Office. Only I was too dense to grasp it.”

“Told you
what?
”

“That Casey was in a deep hole. I thought he meant a psychological hole. He meant a financial hole—a huge gambling debt. Hank knew the real deal. That’s why he was killed. The only thing we haven’t been able to nail down is the identity of Casey’s partner.”

Paulette furrowed her brow. “I thought you just said Tommy the Pinhead was his partner.”

“No, Tommy worked for the loan shark who Casey owed the money to. Someone else was helping Casey steal all of that stuff from Hank’s route. The same someone else who helped him stage Hank’s suicide scene last night. Someone who’s careful and shrewd. I don’t mean to cast aspersions on Casey but he was more of a follower than a leader, wouldn’t you say?”

“Well, yes. I suppose that he was a…” The doorbell interrupted her. “I wonder who
that
is.”

“I’m expecting company. Hope you don’t mind.” Des went to the front door and opened it. Grisky, Questa and The Aardvark were clustered out on Paulette’s front porch in the frosty cold, all three of them peering at her with mystified expressions. “Come on in, gentlemen.”

They came on in, Grisky’s eyes swiveling to take in the surroundings. “Shmokin’ hot train set,” he observed. “But what is up with all of those tubas?”

“Please follow me,” Des said, leading them back to the TV room, where Paulette sat, grief-stricken, staring at Dr. Phil on the muted flat-screen. “I’ve just informed Paulette that we found Casey. I was filling her in on what happened as best as I could.”

Grisky nodded grimly. “Terrible situation.”

“We’re sorry for your loss,” Questa said. “This must be an impossibly hard day for you.”

“Thank you,” Paulette said softly.

“If it’s any consolation,” Grisky said, “I can assure you that Lieutenant Snipes has both suspects in state police custody.”

Paulette looked at him curiously. “Both suspects?”

“Tommy had a helper,” Des explained. “Gigi Garanski.”

Paulette made a face. “I knew she was no good. I told him and I told him. But he wouldn’t listen. He just wouldn’t…” She trailed off with a sigh. “May I offer you coffee or something?”

“No, we’re good,” The Aardvark told her.

Then he and the other two men stood there waiting for Des to explain why she’d summoned them.

“I was telling Paulette that we don’t believe Hank committed suicide. Or that he was stealing his own mail. Hank was just an innocent bystander to this ugly mess. But he knew too much. He knew that Casey had a gambling problem. He knew that Casey owed Slick Rick Fontanella a lot of money. And he knew that to pay Slick Rick off Casey had resorted to stealing his mail. We’re positive that Casey was our grinch. But we don’t believe he acted alone. It’s simply not credible that Casey figured out a way to raid all of the mailboxes in the Historic District in broad daylight over a period of two weeks without ever being noticed. Casey was a part-time employee. He worked on Saturdays, period. And Inspector Questa has assured us that the Dorset branch of the U.S. Postal Service is a secure, well-run branch. Am I correct so far, Inspector?”

Questa nodded his huge head. “Correct. Casey Zander couldn’t have pulled this off on his own. We have too many security measures in place.”

Paulette stubbed out her cigarette, considering this carefully. “Then how could he have done it?”

“I’ve been giving that a lot of thought,” Des replied. “In my opinion the best way to steal Hank’s mail would be by pulling up a few minutes behind him in a second mail truck. Who better to steal the mail than another mail carrier? It would never occur to a resident or passerby that the second carrier was removing the mail as opposed to delivering it. Nor would they think twice if they noticed a second truck pulling up just after Hank went by. They’d just figure that you folks had so much volume during the holidays that you had to add an extra carrier.”

Paulette poured herself some more wine and took a sip. “I suppose they would,” she acknowledged.

Des shoved her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose. “Casey must have had a partner on the inside, Paulette. And the only way that any of this makes sense is if that partner was you.”

Paulette stared at her blankly. “Me?”

“You,” she stated. “And you were awful damned clever about it, too. You and your year-end Grumman LLV fleet readiness review.”

Questa frowned at her. “What readiness review?”

“Oh, it’s all very official, Inspector. She even carries around a clipboard with printed forms that have to be filled out.”

Questa said it louder. “
What
readiness review?”