Maris Soule

As The Crow Flies

CHAPTER ONE

“Here.” A silver-haired woman about my height but three times my width shoved a battered, black briefcase into my arms. “ You take this.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, shifting the cumbersome piece of luggage to a more comfortable position. “What’s in here?”

She gave a quick, furtive glance around the library meeting room, then stepped closer and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Something they want.”

Something heavy, I decided, and set the briefcase on the carpeting. “Who wants it?”

“Them.” Her pale blue eyes held a feverish glow that reminded me of the look my schizophrenic mother got when she was sure aliens had landed. “The ones he talked to. He told them if they want what he has in this briefcase, they’ll have to pay for it.”

My internal alert alarm went off, and I stepped back and glanced at the nametag on the woman’s cotton blouse. Ida Delaney. “Ida, that sounds like blackmail.”

“I know. And that’s why you have to help him. Help me.” Her chin began to quiver. “I know what happens to blackmailers. I’ve seen it on my afternoon shows. They get arrested or they get killed. I don’t know what I’ll do if they kill him.”

Just the idea of getting involved in another murder sent a shiver down my spine. “I can’t help you, Ida,” I said. “You need to go to the police.”

“No.” She shook her head, the loose-skinned wattle under her chin swinging back and forth. “No, I can’t do that. Donald said if I bothered them again, they’d make me go into a nursing home. I came here because the sign outside said you’d tell us how to protect ourselves.”

“From scams.” I thought I’d explained that during my talk. “Not from . . .”

I was going to say stupidity, but stopped myself and looked around, hoping to see either Emily Anderson, the librarian who had introduced me, or my grandmother, who had convinced me to talk to her senior citizens’ group.

At least two dozen gray-haired seniors had stayed after my talk, most of them now gathered around the refreshment table. I didn’t spot either the librarian or Grandma Carter in the group. My grandmother’s absence didn’t surprise me. My bet was she’d stepped outside for a cigarette. She hates all the No Smoking regulations Michigan’s lawmakers have come up with.

Well, I felt no pity for her today. Although summer wouldn’t officially start for another nine days, today’s weather was perfect—temps in the mid-seventies and not a cloud in the sky.

“The police think I’m crazy,” Ida whispered, bringing my attention back to her.

I knew from experience how that felt, but I had to agree with them in this case.

“Sometimes I get things a little mixed up,” Ida said. “But I really thought it was my house. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have crawled through that window. I mean, my gosh, I almost got stuck.”

“You crawled through a window into someone else’s house?” I tried not to smile, but picturing Ida Delaney squeezing her broad rear-end through an open window was more than I could suppress.

She frowned at me. “It wasn’t funny, and I really don’t see why they had to call the police. Donald told them it did look like the house I used to live in.”

“And who’s Donald?”

“My nephew.” She looked down at the briefcase by our feet. “I think he’s sorry he threatened them. He asked for way too much money.” She sighed, a look of sadness filling her eyes. “It’s all because he thinks he needs to hire someone to be with me when he’s gone. He worries that I’ll get lost if I go out on my own. But I found my way here. I saw the sign last week, and I remembered.”

She pointed out the window toward Portage Street, where for the last two weeks the marquee in front of the Washington Street Branch Library had announced my talk. Portage is a heavily traveled street, so in addition to helping Grandma’s senior citizens’ group, I hoped the publicity would gain me a few new clients. P.J. Benson’s Accounting and Tax Service has been in existence for six months, and all I can say is I’m glad my grandfather left me some money as well as his farm when he died.

Starting a home-based business wasn’t easy. What I needed were clients, not a situation where someone was trying to blackmail someone else. “Ida, much as I’d like to help you, I’m afraid I can’t. I’m a C.P.A., not a detective. You really need to contact the police.”

She frowned, a multitude of wrinkles gathering across her forehead and sagging downward. “But they’ll just . . .” She stared down at the briefcase, then back up at me. “Could you please just look? See if you can figure out what’s in there that someone would want?”

She asked so sincerely, I decided why not? If I found something, I would call the police. Even my crazy mother was right sometimes.

I was about to bend over and pick up the case when I heard the librarian’s voice. “Ida? Now, you’re not bothering Miss Benson, are you?”

“I need her help,” Ida Delaney said, looking to my right.

Emily Anderson came up beside us. I’d met Emily the day my grandmother brought me to the library to set up the talk, and then, again, a few hours earlier today, when I arrived to give my talk. Wearing gray pants and a flowered blouse, low-heeled pumps, and wire-rimmed glasses, she looked exactly as I expected a librarian to look. I guessed her age to be mid-forties, but she patted the older woman’s arm in the same way a mother might pat a child’s. “Ida,” she said, “I think P.J.’s talk should help all of us. Is your nephew here?”

Ida Delaney shook her head and looked down at the carpeting. “No, Donald doesn’t know I’m here.”

“In that case, how about if I give him a call, so he can come pick you up,” the librarian said, and then turned to me. “P.J., a couple of the ladies over at the refreshment table were telling me about phone calls they’ve received. You should go talk to them.”

I felt it was more an order than a suggestion, but I welcomed the excuse to escape. “I’ll do that,” I said, and took a step back, away from the two of them. The briefcase remained on the carpet. “I’m sorry I can’t be more help, Ida. Maybe Miss Anderson can help you.”

“But I . . .”

A peal of laughter from the refreshment table drowned out the rest of what Ida Delaney was saying. One of the women—an elegantly dressed blonde who looked too young to be attending a gathering of senior citizens—turned toward me. “Come join us, P.J.,” she said. “We’re telling stories about scams that haven’t worked.”

“Tell them our story,” a slender octogenarian with blue-tinted hair said.

“No, you tell it,” insisted the blonde. “It’s your story, Nita.”

“Well, okay.” The older woman grinned. “This all started a month ago when two men came to my house and told me they were going to be in the neighborhood resurfacing driveways. They said, since they would already be there, they could do my driveway really cheap. They also said, if I didn’t get it done soon, I was going to have major cracking. Now I figured I probably did need to have the driveway sealed, so I told them okay. But after they left, I started worrying about my decision, so I called my friend Grace.” She nodded to the blonde.

“I’m a real estate agent,” Grace supplied. “We hear all sorts of horror stories about shoddy workmanship, contractors who don’t finish a project or use substandard materials. As it turned out, the day Nita called, I’d talked to a client who had been scammed by these same men.”

“Rather than chastise me for my foolishness,” Nita continued. “Grace said ‘Great.’ And then she told me her plan.”

“And Nita played along beautifully.” Grace hugged the older woman.

“We got them.” Nita grinned at the others in the group. “Got them good.”

“What did you do?” one woman asked.

“While these men were applying the sealer, I stopped by,” Grace said, looking smug. “Along with a friend who works for the Michigan Department of Transportation and a couple of officers from Kalamazoo Public Safety. While we all stood there, blocking the men and their truck, my friend tested the sealer they were applying. As we’d presumed, it was merely a coating of oil.”

“You ought to have heard the things those men said as the officers took them away.” Nita tsk-tsked and shook her head, but her blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “That’ll teach them to underestimate a senior citizen.”

I nodded. Anyone who underestimates my grandmother is really in for a surprise. I was about to say as much when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“You about ready to go?” Grandma Carter asked.

I could smell cigarette smoke on her and knew I’d been right about where she’d been. I glanced at the clock on the wall and realized how late it was. I needed to return to Zenith and let my dog out, shove a pan of lasagna in the oven, and hopefully straighten my house up a bit before my gentleman caller—as some of these older women would say—arrived. “Sure,” I said. “Just give me a minute to gather my notes and thank the librarian.”

I’d given everyone in attendance my business card and a copy of an article on scams directed at seniors. I slipped the extra cards and copies, along with the three-by-five cards I’d used as prompts for my talk, back in my briefcase, and then went over to talk to Emily Anderson. “Thanks for rescuing me from that situation with Mrs. Delaney,” I said. “I wasn’t sure what to do. Did you look in the briefcase? Was there anything . . . anything unusual?”

Emily Anderson smiled and patted my arm. “Yes, I looked. It was filled with lab reports and site maps. Oh, and some boxes of dirt. Nothing I wouldn’t have expected. Her nephew is a soil tester.”

“Anything that could be used as blackmail?”

“As blackmail?” Emily chuckled. “Not unless I missed something in one of those aerial photos . . . and I don’t think I did.”

She looked past me, toward the outside door. “Poor Ida. Her mind is getting worse and worse. I do feel sorry for her nephew. He’s a very patient man, but I don’t know how much longer he’s going to be able to care for her. He usually brings her and picks her up when she comes to the library. I tried calling him just a while ago, but he didn’t answer. Since Ida was gone when I came back, I’m assuming he picked her up.”

“So where’d she get the blackmail idea?”

Emily fanned out her hands. “With Ida, who knows? It could have been something she saw on one of the soaps she watches. I’m not even sure that briefcase is one her nephew uses. It looked pretty old. Maybe her nephew gave it to her, and she put those papers and boxes of dirt in it.”

Reassured, I thanked her again. Outside the library, I walked around to the parking lot at the side of the building. Grandma was already buckled in and listening to her favorite talk station when I reached my car. I’d given her a key months ago, when her car had to go into the repair shop and she borrowed mine for a couple of days. That was before I moved out of the city into what she calls “the sticks.” She’s never given the key back, and I’ve never asked for it. I figure if I ever lose mine, I know where I can find a spare. Meanwhile, if she and I are out somewhere, and I take longer to get to the car than she’s willing to wait, I often find her sitting in it, listening to the radio.

“That was a good talk,” she said as we drove back to her house. “But I’ll tell you, I don’t understand how anyone can be fooled into believing you won a prize in a contest you never entered. Or why someone in Nigeria would contact me or you for help.”

“They wouldn’t keep doing it if people didn’t fall for it,” I said. “Look at how many of those get-rich scams Mother has fallen for. Did you ever get rid of all those envelopes she was supposed to address?”

“Recycling now has them.”

“How’s Mom doing?” I asked, hoping the news would be good.

“Cross your fingers.” Grandma did cross hers. “She’s still working, and still taking her medicine.”

My mother has been a schizophrenic all of my life. In fact, getting pregnant with me probably triggered the disease in her. For the last two months, however, she’s been on some new medicine that seems to be working wonders. Of course, even when she’s crazy, she’s not completely crazy. It’s just difficult at times to weed through the bizarre to find the reality. I learned that the hard way.

I pulled up in front of my grandmother’s house, but I didn’t get out. “Thanks again for setting this up,” I said.

“You’re not going to come in?”

“I’ve got to get home and let Baraka out.” My dog is good about not having accidents in the house, but he’s only six months old, and I don’t like to make him wait too long. “And Wade’s coming by.”

“Ah yes, Detective Sergeant Wade Kingsley of the Kalamazoo Sheriff’s Department,” Grandma said with a grin. “So how are you two doing?”

“Fine . . . I guess.”

“You sound a little unsure. Trouble in paradise?”

Wade and I started dating two months ago, and up until last week, I would have said we were getting along great. Now . . . ? “He and his son are spending the weekend on Wade’s boat. I wasn’t invited.”

“Maybe he wants to have some man-to-man time with the boy.”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “Or maybe he’s afraid his ex would have a fit. She’s sure I’m a bad influence.”

“What a lot of poppycock.” Grandma slid out of the car, then leaned back in. “By the way, I put that briefcase in your trunk.”