Chapter 21

 

I woke from a restless night filled with questions about the girls across the street. It didn’t help when the Corvette zoomed past our house somewhat after midnight, just as I’d been drifting off to sleep, reminding me I still wasn’t sure which twin had actually driven it to the river party earlier. I’d thought of phoning Donna Delaney with the skimpy information I had, but it seemed pointless. There really was nothing to report yet. I decided I might as well get an early start at the office, so I left Drake asleep under our nest of warm blankets and tried to be as quiet as possible as I showered and dressed.

The Victorian was dark and quiet when I arrived, with only the glow from a lamp on a timer at the front desk. I pulled into the parking area in back and called Freckles to follow me inside. We set coffee to brew and I opened the bag I’d bought at the drive-thru window at McDonald’s.

I know—I’m not supposed to be eating this stuff. A warm bowl of gooey, mushy oatmeal at home would have been the healthier choice. My inner critic finally shut up and I bit into my egg on a muffin. Freckles doesn’t care what I have for breakfast—she’ll take a tidbit of whatever is left.

Upstairs, with coffee mug in hand, I turned on my computer and noticed Ron had left a note in his scratchy handwriting stuck to my desk phone. I was to invoice the Lorrento account for the hours he’d put in yesterday tracking one J.L. Segal, supposedly the purchaser of the missing Super Bowl ring. Did he want me to set up a second account for Bobby Lorrento, or bill these hours against the retainer Marcie had paid? I set the note aside to ask him—it would be simpler to do it once than to do it wrong and have to backtrack.

It took me an hour to run an accounts receivable report, print clients’ month-end statements and stuff them in envelopes for mailing. One of these days I would look for a way to automate this more efficiently and send billing electronically, but for now I needed to review each client’s account before dunning them.

I had gathered the batch to set on Sally’s desk for the mailman when I heard sounds downstairs. It sounded as if Ron and Sally had arrived at the same time, and I walked downstairs to refill my empty mug and greet them.

“I saw your note about the Lorrento billing,” I told Ron. “Shall I wait until you’ve got the ring back or just accrue the hours every day?”

“Well, I thought this was going to be an easy one—look up the buyer, do a quick drop-in visit and offer cash. Bobby said to give him ten percent more than he’d paid for it. Which, I’ll tell you, is a sizeable chunk of change. I figure, what guy wouldn’t love to make ten percent on his money in a couple of days, right?”

I wasn’t at all sure how this answered my question, but I let him talk.

“I can’t find him. There are only a handful of Segals in Albuquerque, none with a name or initial J, but it didn’t take me long to call them all and inquire.”

“No luck, I’m guessing.”

“Right. So, I went statewide, which ate up the rest of the day, and still no luck.”

“Somebody who collects Super Bowl rings wouldn’t necessarily be local. Maybe the pawnshop guy put the word out—I don’t know … Craigslist or something?—and the buyer came to town on a mission.”

“Yeah. It’ll be impossible to track every Segal in the country, so I’m back at square one.”

I wished I could help him, but it sounded daunting and I had other things on my agenda today. I went back upstairs, really wishing I’d swiped that cell phone I found in the twins’ bedroom last night. It would contain a wealth of information and the girls would never guess their snoopy neighbor was responsible. Daddy would just buy another phone, and there probably wouldn’t even be a lecture about taking better care of their things. I doodled on the note Ron had left, realizing he’d never answered my question about the billing.

Across the hall Ron’s voice rose. “So, no address or anything?”

A long pause. He was apparently on hold because he began crushing paper and tossing the balls toward the trash basket. I knew this because I could hear them hit the wall each time he missed. The repetition began to irritate me.

I got up from my desk and walked to his doorway. “Can you just—?” I came to a halt when his attention turned back to his call.

“What’s the name on the card?” he asked. “Address? Really? You didn’t get an address?”

He was scribbling on a notepad and I could tell this wasn’t going the way he wanted it to. I started to turn away but heard his receiver drop back to its cradle.

“Charlie, can you give me a few minutes?”

Not really. “Sure.” I sat down in the chair across from his desk.

“With the boss away, the young clerk who sold the ring made some fundamental mistakes. She put a name on the sales slip, no address, and she didn’t compare it to the name on the guy’s credit card. The name on the card was J. Livingston.”

I felt a smile coming on. “Ron, seriously? J. Livingston, J.L. Segal. You’ve been spoofed.”

His eyebrows pulled together.

“Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It was a bestseller book way back in the seventies.”

“How would I know that?”

Okay, so he doesn’t read much fiction. “The guy gave a fake name for the receipt, but it’s doubtful he could do that on a credit card, especially one with a high enough credit line to cover a ring like that. You’re not looking for a Segal, you’re looking for a Livingston.”

My brother surely would have figured this out. He’s a good detective, really. I think he was simply flustered by the dollar amount and fame of the lost item. A more experienced pawn clerk would have gotten better information and we’d be on the way to tracking the ring.

“All right,” Ron said, looking a little sheepish. “But Livingston isn’t exactly an uncommon name either, so it still looks like I’m back to square one.”

I felt badly about the roadblocks in his path, but I had my own path right now. After all, it was my brother who’d suggested he work the Super Bowl case and I take the mission of getting a photo of the Delaney twins together. My goal wasn’t going to happen with me here in the office, so I decided to head back to the home front and go back to old-fashioned surveillance. Goody.

It was becoming second nature to me, glancing up the street to see which cars were home at the Delaney place. Once I’d snapped that all-important photo, I really had to get a life.

This time, the red car sat in the driveway. I’d decided to quit being shy about showing up at their door. Why be cagey, when the request from their aunt was a legitimate one? I put Freckles in the house and walked over and rang the doorbell. No answer, but I wasn’t actually surprised. This had become the new format of my days. I rang a second time, to be certain, then walked around to the backyard.

As hoped, I found the garage side-door unlocked, so I went right on in, immediately wishing for my flashlight. The only light came from the space around the large roll-up door, and it was minimal. I picked my way through the same collection of junk as last night and, again, found the connecting door to the kitchen and opened it.

Not much had changed in the living and dining rooms, other than I noticed a pair of lace-up sandals kicked off near the front door, a little spill of dirt beside them. With no idea when the girls left or how long they would be away I made straight for the pink bedroom and looked on the nightstand. The cell phone was gone.

I patted the rumpled bedcovers and did a quick peek under each bed (horrific—you don’t want to know). The jeans and shirt the party twin had worn last night lay at the top of a pile of clothes on a chair. I picked up each item and shook it but no cell phone showed up.

Dammit, I knew I should have grabbed that thing last night. In the back of my mind I had the feeling if I could see the calls made from that phone I would somehow be able to figure out the locations of both girls, although the whole concept was a bit fuzzy to me.

I turned in a circle, studying the room. The clutter was so prevalent it was hard to focus on any one item, but I made myself give it a really hard look. Same with the adjoining bathroom where the vanity surface couldn’t be seen for the litter of hairbrushes, eye shadows, mascara tubes and lip-glosses. Two hair dryers, two sets of giant hot rollers, two lighted magnifier mirrors and a pair of electric flat-irons. I thought of my own single plastic compact of blusher and one tube of lipstick in the shade I’d always worn. I own a blow dryer, and somewhere in the depths of a drawer is a curling iron I rarely see. I think I’m definitely missing something in the girlie-genetics department.

My boggled mind tried to focus once again, but I still saw no cell phone.

I meandered back to the bedroom, resolved to give it one more go-over, when my own phone vibrated in the pocket of my jeans. My heart rate went into overdrive and I must have jumped a foot. I grabbed it before it could ring a second time and tapped the screen without looking.

“No one’s home over there,” Elsa said. “I saw Clover drive away about an hour ago.”

She was guessing as to which twin she’d seen, but I was busted nevertheless.

“I saw you go around to the backyard, but I don’t think anyone will answer the back door either.”

“Thanks, yeah, you’re right. Hey, I’m just checking out something over here. Can you keep watching a few more minutes and call me again if she comes back?”

She seemed tickled to be part of my detective work, and I felt somewhat reassured no one could walk in on me, as had almost happened last night. I set about giving the house a much more thorough search.