“Let me guess,” I said, a wee bit snarkily. “She made a mint and put it all into a orphanage for impoverished children?”
Dylan waved a dismissive hand. “Nah, that’s whores who have hearts of gold, not peelers.”
“Fine line,” I grumped. “So what did she do with her show-biz money?”
“Invested it. Property in Northern Alberta, just before things really started booming out there. I’m telling you, Tish McQueen is loaded. And from what I’ve read, she’s one shrewd business woman.”
“I wonder how she knows Mona. Mona doesn’t look like the stripper type.”
“Geez, I should hope not. She’s 70 now,” Dylan said. “Even if she had been a stripper once, she’d hardly look like one now.”
“Huh. You haven’t seen Tish yet,” I muttered. Stomach in, chest out. If it sat up any straighter I’d be leaning backwards. Oh, the hell with it. I slouched back into my normal posture. “What did you find out about Mona?”
He got that pensive look — that sexy, thinking-man, pensive look that drove me wild.
Drove me wild? Where the hell did that come from. Suspiciously, I looked into my wine glass.
“Mona Roberts,” he began. “Age 70. Widow of ten years. Homemaker. Married thirty-two years to the late Theodore Roberts of Brunswick, Vermont. He was in insurance sales and did quite well. Left Mona a tidy sum.”
“Did they have any kids?”
“Just one. A daughter. She’s still in Brunswick. Married with a teenage daughter.”
“So nothing much of interest on Mona, then?”
Dylan twisted his lips. “Not quite. The tidy sum that Theodore Roberts left Mona? It’s gone. And it went quickly — in the last two years.”
Interesting. “Where’s it going?”
Dylan took a sip of his wine. “Hospital bills. Her granddaughter’s been in and out of the hospital a dozen times over the last couple years. Cancer treatments.”
I felt a stab of sympathy for Mona. When she’d left this evening, Mother had packed her a plate of food for tomorrow. Mona had demurred, of course, but even I could tell it wasn’t real. How hard up was Mona Roberts? Hard up enough to steal?
Jesus, I hoped not.
“Big Eddie Baskin? No, wait! Let me guess.” I held up a hand before Dylan could answer. I was after all, Dix Dodd, people-reader, private eye extraordinaire. I’d impress Dylan with my great observational skills here. I scanned my memory banks on Big Eddie — good with the ladies, liked to be in charge, makes his way taking care of the things at the Wildoh…? “Got it! He ran a bordello.”
“Ah, no, Dix.”
“Close?”
“Not a bit. Big Eddie Baskin is retired from the US Army.”
“No shit?”
“No shit. He was a machinist.”
That of course would explain one of the little dangling charms hanging from the chain around his neck — amongst the ones of golf clubs, half a heart, and the obligatory horseshoe, had been one of a mini screwdriver and mini wrench.
“Clean record?” I asked.
“Choir boy,” Dylan responded. “Never married. No kids. Likes to bet on the ponies, but nothing too serious.”
Dylan proceeded to give me the 411 on the other people I’d asked him to check out.
Beth Mary MacKenzie, the pup of the crowd, was a mere fifty years old, though she looked a hell of a lot older. Of the group, she was the newest Wildoh resident. She’d taught school in Northern Alberta up until a year ago, when she’d retired and bought into the Wildoh.
“Fifty is young to retire,” I murmured.
“Not if you win the lottery.”
“Did she?”
“I couldn’t find any records of a win online, but not all winners get the press. If it wasn’t a giant one, who knows? Sometimes they just go for the … um … media friendly types for their promotions.”
I hated that, but Dylan was right. Beth Mary was one ugly woman. Unless she won a shitload of money, it probably wouldn’t have been newsworthy. A modest win — just enough for a comfortable future — could easily have gone under the radar.
“Or she might have inherited something. From my cursory search, I’m not seeing anything like that, but give me time. I’ll dig deeper.”
“Who’s next?”
I listened with greatest interest when Dylan brought up Harriet and Wiggie. And with the biggest disappointment also.
“He was a patent lawyer in a small Orlando law firm, and she—”
“—sucked the blood out of the rest of the clients?” I offered.
“She was his secretary for many years.”
“Kids?”
“Nope.”
“Financial woes?”
“Not that I can find.”
Crap.
Make that crap, crap, crap!
I’d been hoping for an ‘aha’ moment. For that one trigger to my intuition that would lead me along. Was I too close to this case? Too much at stake here?
“And what did you find out about Mom?”
He took a sip of his wine. “You didn’t ask me to check out your mother.”
“No, I didn’t. So what did you find?”
While I’d been sitting on the sofa bed, Dylan had maneuvered onto his side — leaning up on one elbow. Suddenly, he had eyes only for the wine in his glass. “Okay, so I did make some inquiries.”
“And?”
“She’s been doing quite well financially lately. Very well, in fact. In the last two months, over thirty thousand dollars has gone into her bank account.”
Well, that sucked. Mother received a small pension from a plan Dad and she had invested in many years ago. There was insurance money and of course, royalties from songs still trickled in. I racked my brain trying to think of any way in hell that thirty big ones could suddenly start popping into her account.
And my brain racked back … I didn’t like any of the possible answers.
By the look on Dylan’s face, I knew there had to be more. “What else?
“Your mother and Frankie Morrell had been fighting the night he disappeared. Loudly. Threats were uttered, on both their parts.”
I shook my head. Not good. I knew that my mother was not capable of committing a crime. Well, a serious crime. Katt Dodd was a good person. Honest as the day is long. The salt of the earth. She was my mother, for Pete’s sake! She was not a criminal. Not a thief and certainly not a murderer. No matter where the evidence pointed. But I was far from naive. In the eyes of others, the evidence, circumstantial as it was, did not bode well for Katt Dodd.
“Just want to get all the information on the table,” Dylan said. “Best way to protect your mom.”
He was right of course. “You know she’s innocent, right?”
“Absolutely,” he answered.
And bless him, I believed him.
Silence.
I’d pretty much been looking at him while we’d been talking. But now I caught myself staring into my wine. Staring into my thoughts. And somehow, now, drifting into the feeling of being so very close to Dylan Foreman.
When I looked at him again, he was looking back at me. Seeing me.
He set his glass on the end table, then reached for mine. Heart pounding, I surrendered it. He placed it beside his, then turned and hauled me down beside him on the bed. Gently. He never would have pulled me hard enough to lie down beside him if I hadn’t met him half way. But I went willingly. And there we were, face to face, body to body.
Come morning, I would probably blame it on the sagging middle of my mother’s pull-out couch, but right now I knew it was something entirely different. It was two magnetically charged bodies moving toward each other, following the immutable laws of physics. And sweet gentle Jesus, it felt good! I think I missed this the most about being celibate, the solidity of a male body beside me, the warmth of his breath on my skin, the feel of his heart thudding as hard as mine was.