overheated barracks-like building not far from the Metro North station. I’d had some trouble finding the place, tucked in as it was between a ceramic tile showroom and a beauty supply distributor. There were two molded plastic chairs, an oversized turquoise desk clearly purchased for a larger office, and the same basic wall clock that you’d see in any hospital or prison.
“Business is off,” she said. “Either people are staying faithful, or the still-rich guys have found better ways to cover their tracks. Alarming prospects for someone like me.”
Whatever the reason, it had Nina spending, in her own words, far too much time chasing down the imaginary bank accounts and safe deposit boxes of someone’s recently deceased granny.
“Half the county seems convinced the old dears socked something away and forgot where they put it, like that women who stashed all her savings in a mattress and then got Alzheimer’s and gave it to Goodwill. Don’t get me wrong-a client is a client.” She cut off her diatribe, her famous discretion finally kicking in.
I unzipped my jacket and unwound the scarf that that been wrapped two or three times around my neck. I swiped at my forehead with the back of my hand.
“I know. I keep it warm in here. I detest the cold. So what can I do for you? It isn’t Grandma’s jewels, is it? No, you don’t have that desperate hoping-for-a-pot-of-gold expression.” She searched my face. “You may actually be worried about something, Miss…” She glanced at the online registration form I had filled out and submitted from the library’s computer.
“Miss Turner, Miss T. Turner?”
All right, I’d been having a musical moment and hadn’t wanted to type in my real name on the online form. I smiled weakly. She looked at me as if she thought I was going to say I was searching for the rest of the Ikettes.
“That’s right,” I said, rearranging my scarf and my thoughts, “Thelma.” It was the only T name I could think of on short notice, other than Tina or Trixie-and I didn’t think I could pull that one off without pretending that I had a husband named Ed and we lived next door to the Kramdens. “My mother was very old-fashioned.” I rambled on stupidly about the name.
Nina Mazzo unstrapped her plain, tanklike watch and put it on the desk in front of her. I got the message.
“I want to find someone,” I said at last.
“Now we’re getting somewhere. Who?” she asked, sitting up straighter and poised to write on her yellow legal pad. “The father who abandoned you? Child you gave up for adoption? We have a very good success rate with cases of that nature.”
“No,” I said.
“Someone you need to subpoena? I have an extremely reliable operative who makes deliveries. Very high percentage there as well.”
I was encouraged that she had had so much experience.
“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know his name, what he looks like, or if he’s even a he.”
She put her pen down. The rest of the meeting went like a riff on the old Abbott and Costello routine “Who’s on First.” I was being intentionally vague, and she wasn’t inclined to reveal any of her methods. Why should she until I was a paying customer? She was deciding how much more time to waste on me when a young man as blank and unformed looking as a Secret Service man entered the office.
She said nothing, he nodded, and she buzzed him into a back office. “One of my operatives,” she explained. It was all very James Bond. I started to think that I had wasted both of our time. “Now back to you.”
After fifteen minutes of circular chat I decided to forgo the rest of my free (you do get what you pay for) consultation and let Nina Mazzo get back to searching for Grandma’s hidden millions. She wasn’t sorry to see me go, but I felt her eyes on me all the way out to the parking lot, where I had to wait for a forklift full of Italian tile to crawl by before I could drive off.
All I’d learned was that without a name, driver’s license, or description it was difficult to know where to start looking for someone. Most of Nina Mazzo’s clients were looking for the money. Quel surprise. What was I looking for?
In fact, what was I doing? I was playing with someone’s life. Someone’s hopes. I got back in my car, determined to get in touch with Grant and call the whole thing off; then I heard the echo of Grant’s voice telling me how much Caroline trusted me and needed me. Me. I hadn’t been needed for anything other than the perennial beds for a long time. And whether I liked to admit it or not, sometimes even they did just fine without me.
If it hadn’t been for Caroline, Dirty Business might have gone under. Our friendship had sneaked up on me when I wasn’t paying attention, like those extra five pounds or a bad habit that you don’t even realize you’re engaging in until you see yourself doing it in a reflection or a photograph. It hadn’t been easy striking off on my own. If I admitted it, I would have been lonely in Springfield without her and Babe.
I left the downtown decorating area and took the back roads home to my place, past my new favorite nursery, the pond, and the school where I voted. Not far from the school, I got trapped behind a school bus that had its hydraulic stop sign sticking out. A seemingly endless stream of children exited the bus and the driver waited for each of them to waddle off in their colorful puffy jackets and disappear into their homes.
I put the car in park and sat there thinking. If I couldn’t look for a who, maybe I should be looking for a why that would lead me to a who. And maybe it wasn’t cherchez la femme as much as it was cherchez d’argent. Perhaps I had learned something from Nina Mazzo. I called the Sturgis home. Grant answered on the first ring.
“It’s me. Listen, was there a reward offered for Caroline?”
I heard nothing, then a quiet “not as far as I know.”
Rats. That meant there had been no financial incentive for a stranger or a bounty hunter to track Caroline down and inform on her. On the other hand, that meant it had to be someone she knew, either here or back in Michigan. Grant listened in silence as I explained.
The schoolkids had vanished and the bus drove away.
“Grant, are you still there?’
“I’m here.”
“Have there been any new people in Caroline’s life lately? Anyone she might have shared her secret with?”
There was dead silence on the other end; then he answered in a monotone. “Mickey Cameron asked me the same question a few hours ago.”
“And?”
“You’re the only one she would have told. Only you. How could you do it?”
The crash of Grant Sturgis slamming down the phone rang in my ears until it was replaced by the sound of cars honking their horns at me to get moving.
Fourteen
It was true. I had befriended Caroline, I’d had drinks with her on more than a few occasions, I was a former television producer (read ambitious, unscrupulous wench), and I was getting a reputation in Springfield as an amateur sleuth and a busybody. And it was no secret I wasn’t rolling in dough. No wonder Grant Sturgis thought I’d informed on his wife. He probably thought I had sold her story for big bucks and was already casting the lead for the eventual movie of the week.
But I never had a chance to explain. To him or to anyone. Grant stopped taking my calls, probably on the advice of his attorney, and I noticed a distinct chill in the air at the Paradise Diner whenever I arrived. As we’d all learned when Caroline had been arrested, bad news travels fast in a small town. My phone had stopped ringing. The leaf cleanup jobs had evaporated. No one had said anything-they didn’t have to. The suggestion that I’d been the one to drop a dime on Caroline Sturgis had rippled through Springfield. That and the fall weather were enough to make me a pariah.
Some hard-liners must have secretly supported the tipster; once or twice I thought I saw a little smile from people who thought that I’d been the informer. One woman, Althea Tripplehorn, the self-appointed moral compass of Springfield, had even started a petition that all newcomers should somehow be vetted by the real estate agents who sold them their homes. A little thing like the Constitution didn’t bother Althea. I knew sex offenders had to
