Saturday Afternoon/Night
“WHOOPS! LETTY, I ALMOST FORGOT.” Ava reached into another shopping bag and pulled out a grass skirt. She waved it in the air. “Here’s your outfit for tonight.”
“That’s it?” Joe asked, waggling his eyebrows.
She batted at her son with the skirt. “She’s supposed to wear it over her bathing suit.”
“Oh, Ava, I don’t know,” Letty protested. “Can’t I just wear shorts and my Murmuring Surf shirt and a lei?”
“No, no,” Joe said. “You don’t get off that easy. If I go native, you go native.”
“He’s right, for once,” Ava said. “We all get dressed up for Aloha Bingo. It’s everybody’s favorite night. Even the Feldman girls come in costume.” She gave Letty what Joe called her patented Mom stare, then pulled a miniature grass skirt and a toy ukulele from the shopping bag.
“I got this for Maya. Isn’t this the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?”
Letty smacked her forehead. “I forgot Isabelle’s going out tonight. But Ava, I’m not sure about taking Maya to bingo.”
“Nonsense. It’ll be an early night. You know these old geezers. We start at six and play the jackpot game right at nine. You can have her back at your place and in bed by no later than nine fifteen. And tomorrow, you sleep in. Right?”
Joe and Letty exchanged an uneasy look, which Ava didn’t miss.
“What? What’s going on?”
“Tomorrow’s the day Evan Wingfield is flying down. He thinks he’s picking up Maya.”
The color drained from Ava’s face. “You won’t really let him get near her. Right?”
“Right,” Joe said. “But let’s not talk about it right now. I’m gonna run home and shower, but I’ll be back in time for bingo.” He started for the door, but Ava grabbed his arm.
“Don’t forget your shirt.”
Maya danced around the living area, twitching her hips and delighting in the way it made her ankle-length grass skirt swish against her bare legs. She strummed the plastic ukulele.
“Look at me, Letty. I’m Moana!”
Letty grabbed her phone and snapped a photo of her niece. Maya cheesed for the camera and twitched her hips again. Her niece loved playing dress-up, and she was particularly excited tonight, because Letty was also dressed up.
It had taken gulping down two glasses of wine for her to get up enough courage to don her most modest bikini and then slide the grass skirt down over her hips. She piled on three sets of beads from Maya’s junk jewelry trove and added two plastic leis in order to cover most of her cleavage, and then topped off the costume with an unbuttoned flowered blouse.
She was draping a plastic lei around Maya’s neck when she heard the putt-putt just outside in the breezeway.
When she opened the door, Isabelle’s friend Sierra was leaning the green scooter against the wall.
“Come on in,” Letty said.
“Hi, Sierra!” Maya called, twitching her hips and twanging her ukulele. “I’m a hula girl!”
“You’re both hula girls,” Sierra said, grinning at Letty and her niece. “You guys look totes adorbs. Aloha Bingo Night, right?”
“That’s right,” Letty said. “Where are you and Isabelle headed?”
“We’re just gonna hang out with some kids from school,” the teenager said. “We might go to the movies later. But what I wanted to say is, I emailed you something.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You know that piece of video where the dude in the ski hat comes into your sister’s apartment and they’re talking, but you can’t hear what they’re saying?”
“Right. The FBI’s tech guys are working on it, trying to figure out how to turn up the sound,” Letty said.
“Hah! Screw them,” Sierra said. “I figured it out. I mean, my friends and I did. I’m on this tech nerd loop with this kid in Albuquerque, he calls himself KDawg, and I think he’s in a band or something, so he knows about sound. He’s always messing with video and digital enhancement. I was mentioning on the loop about the problem I was having with the nanny-cam video, and he said if I sent it to him, maybe he could fix it. Anyway, I hope you don’t mind, but that’s what I did. I don’t really understand what or how he did it, but you can definitely hear more of what they’re saying now. Not all of it, but a lot.”
Letty threw her arms around the petite girl’s neck and gave her a hug. “Sierra, that’s amazing!”
“I didn’t really do anything. It was KDawg. Okay, so I gotta go. See ya!”
Letty watched the video once, then texted Joe. Better stop by my place before bingo. I’ve got something you need to see. ASAP.
Joe gave a low wolf whistle when he saw Letty standing in the doorway in her bikini top and grass skirt. “I take it back. I wish every night was Aloha Bingo Night.”
She flushed and tugged at the flower garlands around her neck. “Stop. I’m self-conscious enough.”
He was wearing navy board shorts and a T-shirt, with the Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned over it. With his dark hair and tan, he made a believable, even desirable islander, and he was brandishing two dinner plate–size hot-pink hibiscus blossoms.
“This one’s for you,” he said. Letty reached out to take it.
“Allow me,” Joe said, taking a step closer and tucking the flower behind her left ear. He trailed his fingertip lightly down her neck. “You smell good,” he whispered.
“Hi, Mr. Joe,” Maya said, brandishing her ukulele. “I’m Moana.”
“You are?” Joe feigned surprise. “I thought you were Elsa?”
“No. Tonight I am Moana.” She twanged the ukulele strings for emphasis.
“I’m gonna kill Ava for giving her that thing,” Letty said.
Joe knelt down beside Maya and fastened the other hibiscus behind her right ear. “Now you’re a real island girl.”
“Ladybug, why don’t you go in the other room and draw a picture of Moana for Mr. Joe?” Letty said. “He doesn’t even know what she looks like.”
“Okay,” the child said, swishing her grass skirt as she walked away twanging her ukulele.
Letty gestured at the laptop computer on the table. “Pull up a chair.” She tapped some keys, and the first frame of the problematic video clip appeared.
“I’ve already seen this,” he objected.
“Isabelle’s friend Sierra shared this with one of her tech friends who’s good with audio. He somehow managed to amplify the sound. It’s still pretty patchy, but give a listen.”
At the start of the video clip, Tanya seemed hesitant, and almost alarmed at her visitor’s arrival. “Oh my God, Rooney!”
Letty looked at Joe. “So it was him.”
Rooney pulled Tanya to him, and after a brief hesitation, she crushed herself against him, and their kiss was so long and passionate, Letty wanted to look away.
The next bit of video was inaudible.
They finally separated. He looked around at the opulent surroundings, the marble floors, the massive rock-crystal chandelier, the floor-to-ceiling windows hung with silk draperies, and the over-the-top furnishings. He said something that was garbled, and then, “… you really lucked into a sugar daddy.”
Tanya pretended to pout. The first part of her sentence was inaudible, but it ended with her saying, “… worked hard for everything here. I damn well deserve all of it.”
Rooney’s laugh was low and somehow menacing at the same time. “Define ‘work.’”
“You’re still such a dick. You know that? How did you even find me?”
He was slowly walking around the room, taking it all in, mentally adding up the cost of such a place. His back was to the nanny cam hidden inside the stuffed elephant, and his answer was inaudible.
“No. Seriously,” Tanya insisted. “I need to know who else might try to find me up here.”
When Rooney turned around and smiled, Letty shuddered. He had the smile of a python. Even though she’d already viewed the video earlier, she leaned forward again to hear his response. The first part was garbled, but then: “… checked your IMDb page. Found out your agent’s name.”
“I don’t believe you. He’d never just give some random stranger my phone number.”
There was that same closed-mouth smile again. “You forget how good I am at what I do.”
Rooney caught Tanya’s hand in his and brought it to his lips. He kissed her open palm, and then she abruptly pulled away, walking far enough from the nanny cam that they could decode only part of her response.
“I’m still furious … And Chuck … leave me like that?… a week in jail!… threatening … federal prison … sick … puking up my guts every morning. It was the worst experience of my life.”
Rooney’s deep voice was much clearer as he spontaneously laid on the Irish brogue. “Aah, well, darlin’, we had no choice. Chuck and I, we’ve got a little history with the criminal-justice system, but you, on the other hand, had none. We knew with your pretty face and acting abilities, you’d find a way out of a jam.”
Tanya walked back into camera range. “Don’t start that phony Irish crap with me, Rooney. I know better.”
“And yet, here you are today.” He gestured around the room. “Not exactly a shitty motel room at the Murmuring Surf, is it, Tanya, my love?”
In the video, Maya darted into the room then, but stood staring, with her thumb in her mouth, at the stranger.
“Now who would this be?” Rooney asked. He bent down to touch the child, but Maya cowered behind Tanya’s legs.
“My daughter.” Tanya’s mood changed to belligerent. “What do you want, Rooney?”
“She’s darling,” Rooney said. “And a dead ringer for her beautiful mother. Who’s the father?”
Tanya, looking flustered, backed away. “… go now. Evan’s spying … finds out a man came to see me, he’ll use it against me in court.”
Rooney was circling the room. His next statement was so quiet the microphone didn’t pick it up. Joe and Letty leaned closer to the laptop, straining to hear.
“… loot. I want what’s mine, Tanya.”
He clamped his hand around her wrist, but she jerked it away from him. “Loot? You and Chuck took it all and left me behind, holding the bag.”
Rooney said something else inaudible. He stood inches away from Tanya, his jaw tight with tension.
“Goddammit, I told you, I don’t have it!” Tanya screamed.
Maya began to cry. “No, Mommy!” She clawed at Tanya’s leg and raised her arms to be picked up, but Tanya ignored her daughter’s cries.
Rooney said something, but Maya’s howls drowned it out. She ran toward the stuffed elephant, and from the dizzying camera angles it was obvious she was running up the stairs, dangling Ellie by one ear.
Letty closed the laptop and looked at Joe DeCurtis.
“A high school kid managed to make the audio work—when the FBI couldn’t?” he asked, shaking his head. “I don’t know whether to be frightened or annoyed.”
“You know what this means, Joe,” Letty said. “Rooney’s here, and he’s looking for that loot. He seemed pretty convinced Tanya had it. How much are we talking about?”
Joe rubbed his jaw. “We estimated it could be close to a hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of stuff that they bought here. We do know they’d worked the gold-and-jewelry-buying scam over in Orlando and down in Lauderdale before moving up here when the cops there started investigating them. We searched the unit Tanya and Rooney were living in at the time. We found some odds and ends of sterling silver, a couple gold coins, but nothing of any real value, and definitely no cash. Chuck was living in the efficiency after my mom kicked him out, and we searched that too. Tanya swore up and down that she didn’t know Rooney and Chuck were swindlers, and that they’d actually victimized her.”
“You didn’t believe her?”
“Hell no,” Joe said. “I know she’s your sister and she’s dead and all, but I don’t think anybody ever victimized Tanya Carnahan. Unfortunately, she was able to sweet-talk an assistant district attorney into dropping the charges against her. The minute that happened, she was gone. And of course, she skipped out on her motel bill.”
“Oh God. I’m sorry…”
“It was almost worth it,” Joe said. “To get that son of a bitch Chuck away from Ava. If he’d hung around any longer, he would have bled her dry.”
Letty’s thoughts immediately strayed to the suitcase hidden under the bed that contained Tanya’s go-bag, and the wad of cash she’d stashed in it. Tanya had claimed it was her savings, but Letty had never really believed her sister had managed to save that much money from her faltering acting career.
Was the cash part of the loot from the gold-and-silver-buying scam? Whose money was it? Should she admit to Joe what she’d been hiding? Her head was starting to throb—either from the wine or the prospect of admitting to the crime of omission.
“Remind me again of how you figured out they were fleecing people?” she asked.
Joe toyed with the plastic lei around his own neck. “One of our guests here—a regular—pulled me aside one night, I think it was after a barbecue. She was mad and at the same time embarrassed, because she’d sold a piece of jewelry she’d inherited—her grandfather’s antique gold watch—to Rooney, who’d told her it was only worth the value of the gold, maybe three thousand dollars. Later on, after she confided to a friend what she’d done, the friend helped her look up the value of the watch on eBay. Turns out, it was a rare collector’s piece that was worth at least ten times what Rooney paid her. She didn’t dare tell her husband what she’d done, because the guy’s a real tight-ass, but the friend convinced her to tell me about the way she’d been fleeced.”
Letty considered the roster of Murmuring Surf regulars she’d come to know over the past month. “You’re talking about Trudi Maples, right?”
Joe’s silence convinced her she was right.
“I can just see Merwin throwing it up to her about getting ripped off,” Letty said. “He’d never let her live it down.”
“I can neither confirm nor deny,” Joe said. “I promised the victim that I’d keep her identity confidential.”
“Tanya told Rooney that she didn’t have the money. She pointed the finger at Chuck,” Letty said.
“And now Chuck’s dead,” Joe said, his expression grim.
Maya came skipping in from the bedroom, holding a piece of paper with a childish stick-figure drawing of a girl with long flowing hair and something approximating a grass skirt. “Here’s Moana, Mr. Joe,” she said, flourishing her picture.
“This looks just like you,” Joe exclaimed. He glanced at his watch. “Uh-oh. We’re late. If we don’t get over to the rec room this minute, Ava’s gonna be the one putting out a BOLO.”
“Joe?”
“You’re still worried about Rooney,” he said flatly.
Letty nodded toward Maya, who was standing in front of the mirror on the closet door, preening at her reflection as she plonked at the ukulele strings. “Do you think he knows he’s her father?”
He rubbed his jaw again. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he ran into you at Publix.”
“You don’t think he’d try…”
“No! I know this guy, Letty. He’s not looking to become Father of the Year. I think he’s here for the money. Maybe Chuck told him where to find it—before his unfortunate accident.”
Letty shuddered and pulled the blouse tighter around her shoulders.
“I think you need to think about moving, at least until we track Rooney down and lock him up for good.”
“Where would I go? Do you know what first and last month’s rent, plus utility deposits, cost for an apartment around here? I do, and I don’t have that kind of money. Besides, what would Ava say? Part of my deal with her is living on the property makes me accessible any time she needs me.”
“Okay. Hear me out. You and Maya could stay with me. Just for the short run. And I’m totally not trying to get in your, er … grass skirt.”
“You’re not?”
He grinned. “Okay, well, yeah, I mean, I am kinda trying, but I’m not a pig. My place is five minutes from here and it has two bedrooms. You and Maya could have my room, and I’d stay on the pullout in the room I use as an office. And I would totally respect your boundaries.”
Letty was watching Joe’s face as he made his case. He was so earnest, so … so unexpectedly kind. He was, she concluded, that rare thing. He was a good man. And he was damn fine-looking, too.
“Can we not do this tonight?” she asked. “After tomorrow, after you’ve dealt with Evan, I promise I’ll think about moving in with you for a few days.”
“Letty! Mr. Joe.” Maya was standing by the door. “Let’s go!” She swished her grass skirt. Joe swished his hips in imitation, and Letty swished hers. She went to the sliding glass door and checked the lock. She locked the window that led to the breezeway, and finally, after they were outside, she locked the front door.