Death by Sarcasm

Twenty-two

Next up: Ready Betty. Does six or seven guys at a party. Moves to New York. Does a few plays. Marries a poor Jew. Gets fat and dies of a heart attack.

Not exactly The Bridges Of Madison County. Mary wondered if that was how her obituary had read. She idly wondered about her own obit. Would it be boiled down to a few pathetic facts like that? Worked as p.i. Never married. Owned lots of shoes. Killed a couple people. Died of an embolism while trying to sweat a confession out of a teenager.

Nice, Mary. Keep up that positive thinking.

She forced her negativity aside and focused on the task at hand: find a Jew in New York. No problem.

She used her paid subscription websites that helped her find a couple dozen Betty Schneiders. She eliminated all of the ones that didn’t fit the age range. Then she eliminated the ones that had never lived in southern California.

By the time she was done she had a half dozen Betty Schneiders.

Using the last known addresses and phone numbers, she eliminated another four.

Two left.

Within five minutes, she learned they were both dead.

Mary considered stopping. Why not? They both couldn’t have done it. But then she chided herself and it took another half hour to figure out which dead Betty Schneider was the infamous Ready Betty.

She spoke with a daughter who told Mary that her mother had in fact died of a heart attack, and that she had lived in L.A., trying to make it as an actress. The daughter had started to go into Betty’s life story but Mary begged off. The daughter did mention that Betty had weighed over three hundred pounds when she died. Heavy Betty.

So Mary crossed her off the list.

She pushed back from her desk and looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath.

She was down to her last name.

David Kenum.

Years ago, Mary had been given the opportunity to obtain a username and password for non-classified state of California governmental websites.

The opportunity had been presented to her by a happy client who also had these same privileges. Although her possession of access to the network was most likely prohibited, there had never been any questions or issues directed to Mary.

Therefore, it was relatively easy to access David Kenum’s prison information, at least everything that was deemed non-classified. It appeared to her that everything about David Kenum was non-classified.

It also listed the name of his parole officer.

Mary picked up the phone and called him. His name was Craig Attebury.

“Hi, my name is Laura Bancroft and I’m with Staffing Resources Management. I am doing a follow-up on behalf of a prospective employer who has been contacted by a…” here she paused and ruffled some papers. “David Kenum.”

“Hold on,” Mr. Attebury said. Now it was Mary’s turn to listen to papers being shuffled. The beauty of the L.A. criminal system: of course the parole officer wouldn’t recognize Kenum’s name firsthand. He probably had a hundred or so files stacked on his desk.

“What’s the name of your company again?” Attebury asked.

“Staffing Resources Management. SRM. Not to be confused with Sado Rectal Masochism.”

“Right, right. And Kenum applied for a job with you?”

“No, sir. He applied for a job with one of our clients. We do all of the tasks associated with verifying a prospective employee’s information. Everything but urinalysis. That we outsource.”

“I see, I see. Um…what’s the name of the company where he applied for a job?”

“Our client information is private, sir.”

“Figures.”

Mary heard him dig through more papers before he let out a sigh.

“Kenum. Here he is.”

Mary gave him a moment to breeze through the paperwork and remember the facts about the person he was ostensibly responsible for protecting society from.

“Okay,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with why Mr. Kenum was incarcerated.”

The parole officer sighed. “Mr. Kenum was convicted of murder in the second degree.”

“I see.”

“Spent the last thirty years or so in prison,” the parole offer said. “He’s paid his dues.” That seemed to be the extent of Mr. Attebury’s sales effort on behalf of his charge.

“I’ll be the judge of that, sir,” Mary said. “We certainly don’t take murder lightly here at SRM. Shoplifting and indecent exposure, yes. Murder, no.”

Mary tapped some keys on her computer, then asked a few more trivial questions before she went for the treasure.

“Under present address he wrote something indecipherable and then simply wrote Los Angeles,” she said. “If my client hires him, the first training he’ll receive will no doubt be a penmanship course. But in the meantime, do you have his correct street address? I’ll need it to mail the necessary forms as I believe my client will most likely offer him employment.”

The tumblers fell into place and the P.O. gave Mary everything she needed.

“Thank you,” Mary said. “I believe Mr. Kenum will be receiving some good news shortly.”

The P.O. had already hung up.

On the way to Kenum’s, Mary thought about Harvey Mitchell. The only guy in the group, other than Braggs, who’d made it big. She pictured the pompous ass in her mind from when she’d seen him on television. Smooth gray hair. Teeth a little bit too big for his mouth but perfectly Hollywood white. Slightly heavy, but still with that dignified look men with good features can possess late into life.

Harvey was the late night talk show host who had known Marie Stevens the best, according to the old men. Unfortunately, she hadn’t spoken with him yet, and he was her best lead as to what may have happened to the Mysterious Marie. Or Crazy Marie as the gang of old men had called her.

Mary called an agent friend who knew everyone in town. After some small chitchat, Mary got the name of Harvey Mitchell’s agent, who in turn gave her Mitchell’s assistant’s phone number.

While she waited on hold, Mary thought about Mitchell. She’d caught his show a time or two, enough to know that Mitchell thought he was funnier than he actually was. And that he could be demeaning to guests of lesser stature, and annoyingly ass-kissy to the big stars. She hadn’t tuned in much after that.

But according to the Nielsen ratings, apparently the older folks loved him. Mary thought he looked like a blubbery Lawrence Welk.

Mary took the 405 down to a frighteningly bad neighborhood near South Central, near David Kenum’s address, while she waited for Mitchell’s assistant to take her call. Mary unconsciously touched the Para .45 in her shoulder holster.

“Claudia Ridner,” a bright, chirpy voice said through Mary’s cell phone.

“I’d like to make an appointment to chat with Mr. Mitchell. My name is Mary Cooper and I’m investigating the murder of my uncle, Brent Cooper.”

“What does this have to do with Mr. Mitchell?” the assistant asked, not sounding so bright and chirpy anymore.

“He should be able to answer some questions regarding certain issues in the case…”

“Mr. Mitchell is very busy.”

Mary didn’t like being interrupted. “My uncle was busy too, until he had his throat slit. Do you want me to talk to Mitchell or do you want the cops to talk to him? Or maybe a few reporters who would like to know about his links to a brutal murder?”

There was a long silence.

“There is a half hour opening tomorrow, starting at 3 o’clock.”

“Yippee,” Mary said. “Claudia, you’re a peach!”

Mary put the phone away and looked across the street at David Kenum’s apartment building. Lovely. Gray brick falling apart in every place imaginable, with pathetic little balconies featuring black wrought iron. Not useable because the windows had bars on them.

Mary knew why Kenum had picked this place. It must have reminded him of prison.

She got out of the Honda and walked to the front of the building. For some weird reason, she felt eyes on her. She didn’t put any store in that goofy premonition shit. Or sixth sense crap. But still, she felt strange. Maybe the pasta last night had been bad.

A boy came out of the building with a bike. He bounced it down the stairs.

“It goes faster if you pedal,” Mary said. He looked at her, and Mary wondered if he knew she was kidding.

“What, bitch?” the little boy said.

Mary stopped. Had she heard right? Had she just been called a bitch by a kid? She took a closer look at him. A slightly chubby ten year old. Or a growth-stunted early teen.

“Nice,” Mary said.

“Nice tits,” he said.

She considered backhanding him but pictured another trip downtown, this time a charge of child abuse and decided against it.

“They miss you at Finishing School,” Mary said, then walked past him and pushed her way into the building, through old steel doors with cracked glass and creaking hinges. Kids today, she thought.

The intercom system wasn’t functional. Mary knew this because the entire metal face of the system was smashed inward, as if someone with a size 17 EE foot had made the kick of his life.

It didn’t matter. The PO had told her it was apartment 525. She took the stairs to the fifth floor, then fished the .45 out of its holster. She held it at her side as she got to the door.

Apparently the guy with the 17 EE feet got around. Because David Kenum’s door looked just like David Kenum’s apartment building’s intercom system. Smashed in and hanging uselessly in the breeze.

Reminiscent of a Pottery Barn catalogue, Mary thought to herself. The only time Martha Stewart would find herself in a place like this would be if she’d been abducted and held hostage – ransomers demanding her recipe for cream cheese mashed potatoes.

Mary took a step inside the apartment, holding the .45 with both hands, pointed vaguely at the floor in front of her. The first thing she noticed was the smell. There are bad smells, and then there are bad smells. This was a bad one. Not dead-body-bad, but definitely fecal-debris-bad.

“Eesh,” Mary said to the empty room.

Only the stench answered her back. Mary took in the place: a single large room with a small kitchen consisting of an ancient stove and tall rectangle of dust where a refrigerator used to be.

She moved through the main room to the back where a tiny bathroom with a filthy toilet sat. “Love what you’ve done with the powder room, Mr. Kenum,” she said. Mary was looking at the rings of growth inside the toilet when she heard the soft scrape of a shoe behind her.

She whirled and had the .45’s three-dot sights lined up on the forehead of her unannounced guest.

“He’s not here, Sugar.”

She lowered the gun.

It was the boy from outside.

“You’re as bright as you’re polite,” she said.

“Nice gun,” he said. “I like a woman with a big gun like that. Turns me on.”

Mary looked closely at him. Oliver Twist he wasn’t. This kid looked like a well-fed, well-pampered punk.

“So, Miss Manners,” Mary said. “Who do you live here with? Andrew Dice Clay?”

“What’s it to you?”

Mary rolled her eyes. “You said ‘he’s not here.’ Who’s not here?”

“Santa Claus,” the kid said. “Who do you think? The guy that lived here. David.”

Mary nodded. “So if he’s not here, then where is he?”

“What’s it worth to you?”

Mary rolled her eyes again. She took out a twenty.

“I’m not talkin’ about money,” he said. “How about you do me right here, right now?”

Enough. Mary pulled out the .45. She walked up to the kid. “I’ve got a twenty. And I’ve got a .45. Which one do you want?”

He held out his hand and Mary poked his palm with the edge of the twenty but pulled it back when he reached for it.

“I used to steal bottles of wine for him,” the kid said. “Last one I gave him was just before he left. Told me he was going to work on a boat. Offered me a boat ride.”

Mary gave the kid the twenty.

“This boat have a name? A location?”

“It was called the Diver Down.”

“If-” she started to say but he cut her off.

“I know, if I’m lying you’ll come back and kill me. Big whoop. I almost wouldn’t mind seeing those sweet jugs of yours again.”

It wasn’t until she was back in her car that Mary finally let herself start laughing.