Читать книгу Mistaken for the Mob - Ginny Aiken - Страница 8

“Are you satisfied now?” Dan glared up at J.Z.

J.Z. frowned down at the woman sprawled flat on the mall’s food-court floor. “Come on, lady. We aren’t playing games here—”

“Take her pulse, will ya?”

Dan’s expression gave him no alternative, so J.Z. went down on one knee, took the librarian’s wrist in his hand, and pressed to check for her heartbeat. To his surprise, it was weak and unsteady—just what one expected in a person who’d fainted.

He shook his head. “I told you she was good. I’ve never known someone who could faint on demand. I guess there’s always a first time for everything.”

Dan’s look of disgust hit him like a slap.

“Your compassion underwhelms me,” his partner said. “If you won’t help her, then at least give me a hand and keep this mob from crushing us.”

Only then did J.Z. notice the crowd that had gathered around them. Two sandwich-shop employees flapped their aprons in an obvious attempt to circulate air around Maryanne. A quartet of mall-walkers, senior citizens who exercised in the shelter of the covered mall, whispered among themselves, curiosity and pity in their lined faces. A maintenance guy stood to their right, both hands clasped around the mop’s wooden handle, the bucket-on-wheels contraption where it sat in danger of rolling and leaving him without support.

Heat rushed up J.Z.’s cheeks. “Okay, folks. We have it under control. Please move on so that we can take care of her.”

The onlookers dispersed, their backward glances full of reluctance, his sudden relief at their departure surprisingly strong. Did Dan have a point? Was he overreacting to everything about this woman?

“Think those weird guys there are some of them white slavers in the news?” asked a white-haired lady in lime-green sweats, her voice scissors-sharp as she resumed her laps around the shopping center.

J.Z. groaned. “That’s all we need.”

“What? For someone to report you for manhandling a helpless female? That’s probably what it looked like you were doing.”

“Look. I’m not going to drop the pressure on her. Sooner or later she’ll crack—”

“Either that, or she’ll crack up from your intimidation. Chill, man. You don’t even know she’s involved.”

He snorted. “Did you bother to read the profile we got last month? I’m telling you, the description fits her perfectly.”

“It also fits about fifty percent of the female population. That doesn’t mean they’re all mobsters, does it?”

“Don’t give me that. That fifty percent doesn’t have her kind of access to an old folks’ home where a bunch of seniors died after one of that fifty percent ordered their termination. And don’t forget the Laundromat’s demise.”

Maryanne’s eyelids gave a twitch. Good. She was coming to. But before he could say anything, Dan spoke.

“I’ll admit those e-mails look pretty bad, but any hacker can get into her account to cast suspicion on her.”

“Fine. Let’s assume that’s what happened.” J.Z. ran a hand through his hair. “Where’s the hacker who fits the profile? Who else has access? Who else is the typical ‘neighbor-next-door’ type who won’t raise suspicion? Who else does the dowdy, harmless librarian routine as well as Maryanne Wellborn?”

Dan’s ministrations were having results on Maryanne. Color seeped into her cheeks. With a split-second glance at J.Z., he asked, “Have you bothered to stake out the place?”

“Why would I need to?” J.Z. let his breath out in a gust. “We have the e-mails, the wealthy, dead seniors, the very dead—this time—Laundromat, and finally, her fingerprints on the IV stand. And she’s there, all the time, in and out to see her dad—or so she says. Doesn’t that stink rotten to you?”

“I’m going to tell you one more time,” Dan said through gritted teeth. “Appearances can be deceiving. There’s a reason why clichés become clichés. They have a bunch of truth to them, and her appearance, because it reminds you of your past, may be deceiving you.”

“So you want me to believe even the fingerprints are a coincidence.”

Dan shrugged, his attention on the librarian. “She could have moved the stand for a nurse…for Mat, himself. You can’t be sure what happened. You weren’t there.”

J.Z. belabored his point. “Give me a break. What are the chances all these deaths—especially a mobster’s—are unrelated and unconnected to the librarian who sends killer e-mails?”

Maryanne blinked.

J.Z. crossed his arms. “Well?”

Dan muttered, “Not now.”

“It’s as good a time as any,” J.Z countered. “There’s no such thing as coincidence. If something stinks like a skunk, looks like a skunk and skulks like a skunk, then more than likely it’s a skunk.”

When Dan ignored him, J.Z. bulldozed ahead. “That phony librarian look doesn’t fool me. I’ve spent my entire adult life smoking out mob scum. I’m going to bust her.”

Almost more for him than for his partner, he added, “Just because my father chose a life of crime doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore what’s staring me in the face. I’ve chosen to sop up crime, and that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to bring her in.”

Maryanne blinked. Male voices caught her attention.

“…skunk…mob…crime…”

What was going on? And why was she lying down?

“…I’m going to bring her in….”

Her head swam. Her stomach lurched. She had no idea where she was—Wait! She’d gone to the mall to pick up her phone, and there she’d found—

“You!” she cried when her eyes focused on the maniac who stood, Mr. Clean-style, over her. “What did you do to me?”

The boy-next-door blond one who hung around with the nutcase wrapped an arm around her shoulders and helped her sit.

“He didn’t do anything to you,” Dan said with a lethal glare for J.Z. Prophet. “That is, he didn’t do anything to hurt you. He has been pretty busy acting like an idiot, though, so I can see where you’d think he had.”

Maryanne shook off his arm. “Thank you, but I can get up on my own.”

She stood, and again the height difference between her five foot five and J.Z.’s six foot something threatened to intimidate her. As did the memory of Dan’s FBI badge.

Everything rushed back. “Okay. Let’s say you guys really are Feds and not some loony fakes.”

J.Z.’s scowl deepened. Maryanne ignored the urge to step back. She tried again. “Let’s just say you’re what you say you are. Why are you wasting your time on me? What real, live G-man would try to make a case out of a librarian, so-called mob pals, frozen yogurt and a new cell phone?”

“Great,” J.Z. said. “She’s even got the diversionary tactics down pat.” He met her gaze. “Playing dumb and going for the funny bone won’t get you anywhere.”

Maryanne gave him a pointed up-and-down look. “I see you speak from experience. You wouldn’t know funny if it ran up and bit you, plus you do a great dumb.”

“Look lady. We have evidence. And we have the corpses to go with it.”

Maryanne squinched her eyes shut. She shook her head to try and clear it, to try to make sense of what he’d said. She blinked a couple of times, looked from J.Z. to the mortified Dan and back at J.Z. again. She shook her head one more time.

It still made no sense. “Could you explain the corpses part a little better?”

He ran a hand through his dark hair, a gesture she’d seen him do on a couple of occasions, like when he’d stared at the box of computer stuff in total frustration.

“Fine,” he said after long minutes. “I guess you’re pretty good at dumb, too. Do the names Helmut Rheinemann, Toby Matthias, Muriel Harper, Audrey White, Carlo Papparelli and others ring a bell?”

With each name, Maryanne’s queasiness grew. A momentary sadness swept over her, but she couldn’t afford to let emotions cloud her thoughts. She had to keep a clear head.

“Yes, of course, the names ring a bell. They were all patients at the same nursing and retirement community where my father lives, and you know it, too. They…they all passed away recently. But why would you come after me?”