Читать книгу Taking Out the Trash - Tristi Inc. Pinkston - Страница 6

Insistent pounding on the kitchen door pulled Estelle from a deep sleep. She stumbled down the hall and to the stairs, then across the kitchen.

“You don’t look so good,” Vera said by way of greeting.

Estelle muttered something equally uncomplimentary in return. She opened the fridge, shoved the plastic container in Vera’s hands, and turned to shuffle back upstairs.

“Cheesecake, while definitely wonderful, is not going to sate my curiosity.”

Estelle sighed and pulled out a kitchen chair. “I’m not awake enough for this.”

“Share this with me.” Vera, who knew Estelle’s kitchen as well as she knew her own, grabbed two forks and popped the lid off the container. Each friend took a bite, then Estelle sighed again.

“It’s a long story.”

“Well, I think I can guess part of it. Sam’s car is here, which means he’s not at work. And because Sam is...Sam, and it’s a workday, he would be at work if he had a choice. Plus, Andrew’s car is out back, covered by a tarp, which I guess is supposed to make it invisible or something, but it’s not working. I don’t see Andrew here either.”

“Correct as usual, King Friday.” Estelle took another bite before continuing. She’d never had cheesecake for breakfast before, but she might have to make a habit of it, now that she’d tried it.

“Andrew has been arrested, and Sam is undergoing further questioning.”

Vera almost dropped her fork. “What? But I thought Sam was the suspect. How did Andrew get dragged into all this? Wait a minute—the news said it was Senator Caldwell they found in your garbage. Oh, no. Andrew wasn’t interning for him, was he?”

Estelle explained how Andrew had changed internship positions recently, and Vera shook her head.

“This isn’t good.”

“Well, I’m sorry to say, it gets worse.” Estelle laid her fork on the table and pressed her fingers into her temples. “A body in a trash bin is suspicious, all on its own, but the body of a politician is ten times worse. As soon as the police got hold of the body, they sent it to pathology. They examined it from head to toe and found a puncture mark. They had reserved all the trash from our assigned garbage truck that day, and went digging through it. They found a syringe with traces of insulin still inside it, and the senator’s blood on the tip. And not only that...”

“Oh, you’re not going to say what you’re about to say.”

Estelle nodded. “Andrew’s fingerprints on it.”

Vera shook her head emphatically. “He’s diabetic. I bet there are hundreds of syringes with his fingerprints in garbage trucks all the way between here and D.C.”

“I know, but how many of those garbage trucks also held the body of a dead senator?” Estelle had been awake most of the night trying to come to grips with the situation and was now finally able to share it with Vera without breaking down, but it wasn’t easy.

“But there’s more,” Vera said.

“Yes, there’s a lot more, and it’s confusing and I’m trying to remember everything I learned last night. It’s all jumbled around in there, like yarn.”

“Don’t say yarn—I was supposed to call the Episcopalians last night and forgot.”

“Okay, I won’t say yarn. But do you still want to hear the story?”

“Of course. Sorry. I won’t interrupt again.”

Estelle snorted. She’d believe that one, sure enough. “Well, you remember the other day when Sam went to D.C. to meet with a client? Well, he stopped in and took Andrew to lunch. They ran into Senator Caldwell and Senator Beckham, who were having an argument on the sidewalk outside the senate building. Apparently, both men are up for reelection, so everything that happens right now on the political scene is very important. Andrew got pulled into their conversation a little bit, but then they saw Sam and excused Andrew to go on his way. Well, when the police questioned Beckham in connection with Caldwell’s murder, he said he’d seen Sam with Andrew, and that puts Sam as a possible accomplice to Andrew.”

“So Sam has been demoted from chief suspect to assistant suspect. That can’t be good for the ego,” Vera said.

“I just wish neither one of them were suspects.” Estelle crossed her arms on the table and buried her face in them. “I don’t know what to do.”

“What did you say? You’re all muffly in there.”

Estelle raised her head and repeated herself, then added, “We were at the police station until three a.m. They said things are piling up to look pretty damning.”

“Watch your language,” Vera said mildly. “You never know when Mabel will overhear. So what is all this that’s piling up? Okay, a needle with fingerprints is pretty damning, but that’s not big enough to be a pile.”

“Andrew...well, he’s made some pretty foolish choices. He helped Caldwell get some information about Beckham to sway an upcoming vote, and apparently he’s done a few other things to help Caldwell’s campaign. He’s been down at campaign headquarters nearly as much as he has the senator’s office, burning both ends of the candle, you might say, getting everything ready for November elections. And he has a mole in Beckham’s office, too.”

“A mouse in your kitchen, a mole in Beckham’s office—will the insanity never end?”

Estelle ignored her. That was the best thing to do sometimes. “Do you want a drink?”

“Sure.”

Estelle filled up two glasses with ice water and carried them to the table. “Maybe I’m just reading too much into it, because after all, these are my boys we’re talking about, but the police seem to think they’ve got their man, and I’m not sure they’ve investigated anyone else. Soon, I’ll be visiting my son through Plexiglass. And I don’t think they sanitize those phones very often.”

“Bring Handi-Wipes.”

“Thanks. You’re very comforting.”

Vera took a sip of her water. “I don’t think he’ll go to jail. This will all get resolved one way or another.”

“It doesn’t help that Andrew took a picture of the two senators arguing.”

“Why did he do that?”

“He didn’t know they were having an argument. He and Sam just saw them outside, and Andrew wanted a picture of the two men he’d been working for. So he took it with his cell phone as they walked up. Beckham told the police, the police saw the picture, and they think Andrew was gathering evidence of some kind. And I don’t even want to think about the trouble Andrew’s in for sharing information about Beckham with Caldwell. His future career in politics is ruined, even if nothing ever comes of this whole murder thing.”

“Oh, come on. Washington loves a scandal. He’ll be fine.” Vera fished an ice cube out of her glass and chewed it, putting Estelle’s nerves on edge.

“You’re going to break a tooth doing that.”

“Already have. But I’ve got good dental insurance. Now, you know what? It sounds to me like Beckham killed Caldwell and is pinning the whole thing on Andrew because he’s mad Andrew changed offices and did that whole ratting-him-out thing.”

“I’ve wondered that too.”

The two ladies sat in silence for a moment. “You know what we should do?” Vera asked after a few minutes.

“Get out the rest of the cheesecake?”

“Well, yes, but there’s more. You aren’t just going to sit there and take this lying down, are you?”

“It’s impossible to sit and lie down at the same time.”

“I’m going to ignore your randomly placed grammar lesson and make my point. We should investigate.”

Estelle fixed her friend with a look. Vera got the strangest ideas sometimes, and she wasn’t above dragging Estelle along for the ride. But there was quite a difference between going toilet papering in the middle of the night—which she had to admit, was actually kind of fun—and investigating a murder.

“What are you saying, Vera? You want us to play CSI and solve this thing?”

“I’m saying that if the police are eager to pin this on Sam and Andrew, maybe we should do what we can to make them a little less eager.”

Estelle thought about it for a minute. It was only lack of evidence keeping Sam out of jail, and Andrew was already in it. “I don’t know what we could do,” she said. “How could we possibly investigate this?”

“You have watched every lawyer show and crime drama on TV since the television was invented, and I’ve read every mystery novel written since the formation of the alphabet. There’s something to be said for being as old as we are.”

Estelle didn’t bother to point out the very glaring fact that television and novels are fiction, and they were dealing with real life. She also didn’t point out that sixty-four hardly qualified her for antique status because she knew Vera would just argue with her, and there was no way to win an argument with Vera.

“All right,” she said at long last. “What should we do first?”

“I don’t know, Mom,” Andrew said. His hair was rumpled and he looked ridiculous, wearing a jumpsuit that was two sizes too big. He hadn’t been taken to the large county jail yet, but was still being processed downtown. Estelle was glad for that—she had the chance to talk to him before he was taken even further away, and she could sit across a table from him to talk and didn’t have to use a phone. She feared it was only a matter of time, though, and wondered how tacky it would be to wear rubber gloves to the visiting room. He lowered his voice and leaned forward a little. “I’m not sure you should look into this.”

“Are they feeding you regularly?” she asked. “Your blood sugar’s fine, isn’t it?”

He waved her question away. “They have a nurse here. Now, we’re talking about you and Vera. You may think you’re today’s version of Cagney and Lacey, but you’re not, Mom. You’re too old and your hair’s not poofy enough.”

“Thanks. I think. Listen, we only have a few more minutes. Tell me where to start looking. Who should I talk to first?”

Andrew pushed his hair out of his face. “You can’t get into the senators’ offices. No way, no how. Civilians prowling around—especially the mothers and next-door-neighbors of a person arrested for murder—no. But you could probably...okay, I think I have it.”

“What?” Estelle leaned forward, ready to hear his idea.

“You could go volunteer at campaign headquarters. I know the guy who oversees the volunteers, and he could get you right in.”

“I don’t think I should use your name when I call him, though,” Estelle said. “We should keep your name out of this.”

“True,” Andrew said. “But at least you’ll know who to talk to.”

“How will volunteering at headquarters help you and your father?” Estelle asked.

“A lot of the people at the headquarters are also over at the office from time to time, or know the same people,” Andrew explained. “Remember how I told you I’d been working in both places?”

She nodded. “Okay, we’ll go volunteer. And son...there’s one more thing. Let’s not mention this to your father, all right? He’s so protective, and I don’t want him to worry...”

“You mean you don’t want him to stop you.”

“Yes, that too.”

“I don’t understand, Mom. Why not just let the police work this out? I didn’t do it, and Dad didn’t do it. They’ll figure that out eventually and we’ll be off the hook.”

Estelle had asked herself that very question no less than a hundred times in the two hours since Vera had suggested it. She gave Andrew the answer she had finally distilled for herself. “Because, Andrew, for the first time in my life, I’m afraid I can’t trust the police.”