Death of a Russian Doll Page 18

  I shook my head. “I can’t imagine any of those sweet old people selling their drugs to Marya.”

  Mark shrugged. “You’d be surprised what some people will do for money.”

  “Then why cast more suspicion on it by accusing the pharmacist of shorting their prescriptions? And who was she selling these drugs to?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  “It would have to be someone she came into regular contact with. It’s not like she peddled them on a street corner. Ken was tracking her. He would have known.”

  “Possibly she acquired the drugs and sold them to a dealer.”

  I squinted. “I still can’t see all those old people selling … oh!” And the brainstorm hit.

  “Get up!” I told Mark, and then pushed him to the door. “I’ll be Marya. You be a customer coming to get her hair done.”

  Mark ran a hand through his hair. “What?”

  “Humor me.” I pushed his chair into the middle of the open space and said, “I’m ready for you now.”

  Mark started toward the chair, stopped, and then finished his walk with a decided wiggle. He eased into the chair, sat primly with his legs folded at the ankles, and fluttered his eyelashes at me.

  “First, Marya would ascertain what kind of cut the customer wanted.”

  “I was thinking maybe a bouffant.”

  “Would look lovely on you, I’m sure.” I held up a finger. “The next step would be to shampoo your hair.” I set up another chair a few feet away.

  “Do all your dates end up this way?”

  “Seriously, I think I’m onto something.”

  “Okay.” He pushed himself up and moved to the second chair. “I must warn you. I have a sensitive scalp.”

  “You know what you don’t have, though? A purse.”

  “It didn’t go with my shoes.”

  “But Mrs. Attenborough has a purse.”

  “Who’s Mrs. Attenborough?”

  “Right now, you are.” I looked around and found a vinyl Barbie and Skipper carry case and shoved it into his hands.

  “You can set your purse right there, Mrs. Attenborough.” I slid another chair next to his. “Or if you’d prefer I can hang it up in the back for you.”

  “Oh,” Mark said, sliding the purse onto the chair next to him.

  “Now lean back and close your eyes.”

  Mark slouched with his head dangling over the back of the chair.

  I stood between him and the purse and pretended to shampoo his hair. “I’m not sure exactly when she did it, maybe when the conditioner was in or something, but in that position, with the danger of getting product in her eyes, Mrs. Attenborough wouldn’t be able to tell if Marya rummaged through her purse. It makes more sense than all of her customers selling her their drugs.”

  “You know what?” Mark gave my arm a tug and pulled me closer, then kissed me. “See, that’s how all your dates should end.”

  “Why, Mrs. Attenborough!”

  * * *

  That game night might have been our best attended ever. True to Amanda’s prediction, Ken showed up. To my dismay, he’d brought Mad Max and Cujo with him. Ken’s appearance might have been the reason my father “took the night off” and came to game night, reminding me of when Ken had done the same thing once.

  Jack and Amanda were both there, as were most of our regulars, such as Lori Briggs and Glenda and her knitting needles. The one first-timer, sneaking in just as we were about to begin, was Lionel Kelley. He took a while to pick a seat and ended up with Lori Briggs at the table next to Glenda’s. Glenda had been a client of Marya; I’d seen her on the video. I wondered if he’d followed her in.

  Despite the attendance, game play was otherwise subdued. No one joined Ken and his sisters. I wasn’t sure if everybody stayed away because of the cloud of suspicion still over his head or if they didn’t want to face his guard dogs.

  Midway through his game of Scotland Yard, Lionel Kelley stood up slowly and winced. When nobody else seemed to notice that, he clutched his back, stooped over a little, and let out a pathetic sound, somewhere between a whine and yelp.

  “What’s wrong?” Lori asked.

  “My back,” Lionel said. “And rats! I forgot my pain meds.”

  Everybody just traded glances.

  Finally, Lionel asked, “Does anyone have anything?”

  Nancy rummaged through her purse and came up with a bottle of Tylenol. Someone else had Advil.

  Lionel pushed them away. “I need something stronger.”

  With that, Ken shot my father a look, but Dad waved him off.

  Kelley practically hovered over Glenda, but she kept on knitting without looking up.

  “Ma’am?” he said. “Do you have any pain meds I could borrow? Or buy from you? I think the going rate for Oxycontin is eight bucks? One pill?”

  “Hank!” Glenda yelled, jumping from her seat. She waved the knitting needle toward Kelley, like an Olympic fencer parries with his sword. “Arrest this man!”

  At this my father cracked up.

  Ken jumped to his feet. “I might be suspended, but I can still make a citizen’s arrest. And if you’re not going to do anything about this, right here in your own shop—”

  “Hold your horses,” Dad told Ken. “I think I know what this is about.” He turned to Glenda. “Kelley was just testing you, I think, to see if you’d sell drugs.”

  “Me?” Glenda said. “A drug dealer?”

  Now the whole room was snickering.

  Lionel’s face grew red, and I almost felt sorry for him. He was only a little off from the truth.

  “No one thinks you would sell drugs,” I assured her. “But did you have some go missing?”

  She reclaimed her seat, but looked wary. Of Kelley or of the question? “There was that bottle that spilled out in my purse,” she finally said. “I never did find all of them. I had to go back to the doctor and he gave me a sample to last out the month.”

  “You didn’t sell them to Marya Young?” Kelley asked.

  “Hey!” Ken said. “What is this?”

  Dad looked at Ken. “Back at the station I asked you about your wife’s accounts and, in particular, your audit of the funds going in and out. You suspected something.”

  “But he just called my wife a drug dealer.” Ken advanced on Kelley, who stumbled backward.

  Dad hurried to place himself between them. “Knock it off!” He turned to Ken. “What he says doesn’t matter. What matters is the truth. Did you suspect your wife’s extra funds might have come from drugs?”

  Ken held his tongue, but his face betrayed the answer.

  Nancy and Grace jumped up. “I told you it was a bad idea to come here,” Nancy said, tugging on her coat.

  Grace picked up Ken’s jacket and handed it to him.

  Ken sent one last look toward me—a plea for help?—then his sisters hustled him out the door.

  Lionel paced, then turned back abruptly and wagged a finger at my father. “What I say does matter. Just wait until I crack this case.” And then he was gone.

  Lori, now missing her game partners, put down her clue sheet. “That means I win, right?”

  * * *

  The evening ended a bit early, and Mark stayed to help my father and me put everything back to rights.

  “This little theater performance tonight reminded me that I never finished telling you what I learned about Marya’s money habits,” Mark said. “Before Mrs. Attenborough most rudely interrupted.”

  “Since when do you report to my daughter?” my father said. “And who in the blazes is Mrs. Attenborough?”

  “Liz, you need to tell him your theory,” Mark said. “I think it’s a good one.”

  “Only if I can sit down.” Dad set up the chair he had tucked under his arm.

  I retold the theory, without the dramatic demonstration—or the kiss—and Dad bobbed his head.

  “Makes better sense than a lot of ideas that have been thrown around.” He turned to Mark.
“How does that jibe with what you’ve learned?”

  “As best I can narrow down, she bought cashier’s checks totaling twenty thousand dollars over the past few months.”

  “Twenty grand?” Dad said. “From drugs?”

  “Maybe not all of it. She was also robbing her hubby blind. There’s a lien on the house that I’ll bet he knows nothing about.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “And if she made some from selling whatever drugs she stole from her clients …” Mark said. “Not sure if that accounts for everything. Still working on it.”

  “But where did it all go?” Dad asked. “And does that have anything to do with who killed her?”

  “Twenty grand could be plenty of motive,” Mark said.

  But it didn’t answer the question. I stooped to pick up a game card that someone must have dropped.

  “Go back three spaces.” Story of my life.

  Chapter 19

  With Christmas only a couple of weeks away, Sunday proved a busy day at Well Played. Cathy was home for the day, but Amanda and Kohl were working. Dad had Kohl sorting through comics, dividing them up by universe, character, and date. He excelled at the task, even if he did stop occasionally to read. Then again, we were paying him in pizza, so not sure we had any right to complain.

  It was when I took the pizza box to the dumpster in the back alley that I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.

  “Hi, Lionel,” I said. An educated guess.

  “Hi, Liz.” He poked his head from his vantage spot in the walkway near the back of the barbershop. He gestured to the pizza box in my hand. “That empty?”

  I opened it up. “There’s sort of a piece left, but someone pulled all the pepperoni off.” Cup-and-char pepperoni, while not unique to the area, was all the rage. Whether it was the casing or the thickness or the way heat was applied from the top, those little cups of, well, pepperoni grease, with the crisp, almost bacon-y edges … Okay, I admit it. It was me who pulled them off the last piece.

  Lionel waved me over. “Beggars can’t be choosers. Bring it here.”

  I walked over to where he’d set his camp chair. On a portable table were a pair of binoculars, an insulated mug, and a box of Timbits. His open duffel bag was loaded with high-tech equipment his mother had purchased.

  “With Marya dead,” I said, “is there any point to watching the barber shop?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” he said, taking the slice. “But”—he tapped the top of his head—“I get paid by the hour either way. Who knows? Maybe some of Marya’s associates don’t know she’s dead.”

  “Lionel, it was plastered all over the news.”

  “Yes, but do Russians watch the same news?”

  “Probably. I don’t think there’s a special newscast for Russians. If Marya had associates, why would you think they would be Russian too?”

  “Instinct.” Kelley nodded sagely. “I can’t explain it, but it’s in the gut of many of us in law enforcement.”

  “You’re not in law enforcement,” I said. “You’re a private detective.”

  “Doesn’t mean I lost it,” he said. “Besides, I minored in Cold War studies in college. I’m wise to how they work.”

  “Didn’t the Cold War end when the Berlin Wall went down?”

  “That,” he said with a derisive roll of the eyes, “is what they want you to believe. Just watch. By the time this is all over, the Russians will figure into this somehow. Mark. My. Words.”

  * * *

  When Dad came home for supper that night, I mentioned my conversation with the xenophobic private eye.

  “We don’t have someone on it twenty-four/seven, but we’ve been watching the barber shop, too.”

  “For the Russians?”

  “For any associates who might go there looking for something. And Kelley’s idea might not be as far-fetched as you think.”

  “That Marya had connections with the Russian mob?”

  “That’s going a bit too far,” he said. “Nothing in our investigation so far leads us to believe that Marya had any connection to organized crime.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “But Anechka’s appearance raises questions. Why was she hiding out in that cabin?”

  “You haven’t been able to get anything out of her?”

  “No, and you wanna know why? Those two sisters of Young felt sorry for her and hired that same dad-blamed lawyer they hired for Ken. So, watching the barber shop to see if someone comes back looking for something is one of our best options. It’s why we haven’t released the crime scene yet, but don’t tell our barber friend.”

  “He’s a bit hot under the collar,” I admitted. “And frankly, I know how he feels.”

  “Ask yourself this,” he said. “Why was she killed there? It’s probably the biggest argument your buddy Ken has going for him. If he were to kill his wife, it would make more sense to do it in the privacy of his own home. Or up in that love nest of his.”

  “Quit calling it a love nest.”

  “Murder someone up there, and they might never be found. Look, I’m not saying cops don’t sometimes turn violent, especially in domestic situations. Sad, but it’s been known to happen. Maybe it’s the stress of the job—not that it excuses it.”

  “But Ken wouldn’t—”

  “Hold on,” he said, “if Ken were to kill someone, I think he’d be a whole lot smarter about it.”

  “So, you’re thinking it has something to do with the drugs?” I asked.

  Dad shrugged. “An addict begging for a cheap fix. Marya wouldn’t give it to him, or maybe they couldn’t reach an agreement. He strangles her with a hair dryer cord. Could happen. Especially if Marya was cutting hair in the front and dealing drugs in the back alley. Right under my nose.”

  “We need to improve security back there,” I said. “I realized the other night coming home from my date with Ian that you can’t see anything by the back door from the upstairs apartment.”

  “You used to hate when I just happened to see you come home from a date.”

  “That was when I was sixteen. And there’s a big difference between being a bit overprotective and cleaning your guns in front of the window.”

  “Well, guns must be kept clean.”

  “Every time I went out?”

  “You got me. Just putting a little fear of God into them.”

  “And a little fear of Hank McCall into them too.”

  He dropped the fork back onto his plate. “But why the concern now? Did Browning get fresh?”

  “Not exactly. Nothing I can’t handle.”

  Dad drummed his fingers on the table. “Those words don’t exactly reassure me, you know. You seeing him again?”

  “I think so,” I said. “Because of his surprise meet-the-parents stunt, I never got a chance to let him down gently.”

  “That’s important?”

  “If we still want him to fund our doll project, yes. Not that I think I’m going to leave him broken hearted.” I shared with him my theory of me cast in the role of nice-girl-who’ll-please- the-parents.

  “If you do go out with him again, let me know. The gun’s going to need cleaning sometime soon. But I’m sorry things didn’t work.”

  “I’m not. I can finally focus on one relationship that seems to have potential.”

  Dad jerked his head up. “Did I miss something?”

  “I told you I was seeing Mark.”

  “You told me you were seeing Mark, but I didn’t realize you were seeing Mark.”

  He stared at me. I quirked an eyebrow and stared right back. He opened his mouth several times to begin a sentence, but closed it again without uttering a word.

  “Let’s have it,” I said. “Is he a little old for me? No, I don’t think the age difference is that big at this stage. Am I ready for a relationship with someone in law enforcement? Maybe, especially since he’s basically an accountant. But it’s still early days.”

  Dad didn’t say
anything, just beat out a rhythm on the table. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Might not be too bad, at that. I always thought he was a good egg.”

  “Not a good toy name, though, huh?” I said, remembering Dad’s joy of welcoming “Chatty Cathy” to the family. Not that she’d been pleased that he’d pegged her as such during a formal toast at their wedding reception.

  He scratched his chin. “I don’t know. There’s Marx Toys. And they made a lot of great toys. And Baker. There’s the Easy Bake Oven, of course. Oh, and the baker from the Fisher-Price Three Men in a Tub.” Dad nodded. “Yeah, he’ll do nicely.”

  “Glad you have your priorities straight,” I said.

  * * *

  Early Monday morning, when I collapsed some spare boxes to take out for recycling, I thought of Lionel Kelley. Just in case he was still out back waiting for the Russian invasion, I decided to take him a cup of hot coffee. And maybe invite him in to check out some new My Little Ponies that came in via an estate sale. There was a mint-in-box “Fizzie,” one of the rarer twinkle-eyed ponies, and Kelley might be just the twinkle-eyed collector who’d appreciate it the most. As long as we let him carry it out in a plain, unmarked bag.

  I could make out his boots just protruding into the alley from his “secret” hidey-hole.

  “Lionel, I brought you a—”

  But he wasn’t in those boots, which were sitting next to his empty chair. His duffel bag of techno-gadgets, his coat and hat, and almost all the rest of his clothing were scattered throughout the passageway. And flush against the cold, brick wall, Lionel Kelley was suspended in his, well, underclothes. His hands were bound with rope and tied to a non-functioning security light, and his feet were dangling, not quite able to reach the ground. Duct tape covered his mouth, but he was conscious and wriggling and trying to say something to me.

  I ripped off the duct tape first and he screamed.

  “Liz. Down. Down.” The words were barely recognizable, he was shivering so badly.

  I looked for a way to get him down, tried to untie the ropes, but couldn’t budge the knots. Kelley’s weight had pulled them even tighter against his wrists. I ran back to the shop and retrieved the box-cutter.