I was afraid scam artists had helped themselves to my mother-in-law’s debit card, I said. She was eighty-eight and so rattled that she couldn’t remember her account number; could they help me? No, I didn’t have her Social Security number, but I could verify her current address on Buffalo, the street she grew up on and her mother’s date of birth.
Three clicks later and I was looking at Stella’s bank account. I couldn’t get statements from twenty-five years ago, which might have shown whether or not she had enough cash to bribe Judge Grigsby, but I could go back two years. The house must have been owned free and clear some time before that, because every month showed automatic debits to the utility companies, and twice a year the property tax of $546.50 had been paid, along with the homeowners insurance.
Once a quarter, enough money had come in to cover those bills via wire transfer from an account at Global American Bank. The transfers had stopped the quarter before Stella’s release. Once she’d been released, she started collecting Social Security survivor benefits, slightly more than what her benefactor had been putting into the account.
I printed out the screen, but didn’t know how to dig any deeper than that, not without a professional hacker, a bigger budget and even fewer scruples than I’d already demonstrated.
“But we’ve learned something,” I said to the dogs. “We know that someone was paying Stella’s bills. She didn’t have any money—Mateo Guzzo’s pension disappeared in the big meltdown of the steel industry and none of those Garretty brothers had two nickels to rub together. Who paid her bills?”
Mitch flattened his ears. “She threatened someone, is your theory? Could be. Or did a big favor for someone. They stopped paying when she got out. Is that why she decided to look for exoneration? Because her invisible angel stopped pouring gold coins on her?”
As I shut down my computer, Freeman called. “Vic, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you cannot go near the Guzzo family, or Stella’s house, or her grandchildren.”
“Freeman, I stopped to watch the kids play baseball. That’s a crime?”
“It is if you attack one of the mothers.”
“This is beyond outrageous. She tried to slug me.”
“It doesn’t matter. Stay away from that family if you want me to continue to represent you.”
He hung up, sending me home in a thoroughly unpleasant mood.
DOG DAYS
The dogs woke me, barking in the upper landing. I bolted out of bed, pulling on jeans and a T-shirt. Jake mumbled something, turned over.
When I cracked open his front door, I saw Mr. Contreras struggling to hold Mitch, who was lunging at a couple of uniformed cops outside my own apartment. Peppy stood sentinel, barking short urgent warnings. One of the cops had his gun drawn, and maybe he would have used it, except that Rochelle, who lives in the unit underneath mine, was also in the upper hall.
“Go ahead and shoot them!” she was screaming. “They’re a menace. It’s only fucking seven in the morning and they’ve woken the whole building.”
“Watch your language,” Mr. Contreras panted, trying to hold the bucking Mitch.
The police were shouting warnings, the Soong baby started crying on the floor below and the two men who lived across from Mr. Contreras on the ground floor were yelling up the stairwell to make the damned dogs be quiet.
I took the sash from Mr. Contreras’s magenta dressing gown and used it as a leash to tie Mitch to a baluster. Once Mitch was sitting, Peppy stopped barking, although the hair at the back of her head stood up and she kept growling in the back of her throat.
“Want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked the cops.
“Are you Victoria Iphigenia Warshawski?” He pronounced it “Ipp-jin,” but close enough.
On the other side of the door I heard Bernie call my name, her voice pitched high with fear. “Are you out there, Vic? Someone’s trying to break in! I called nine-one-one.”
“Yeah, I’m out here, honey. Good job. I’ll hold the fort until the police get here.”
“We are the police,” one of the uniforms said.
“My houseguest couldn’t possibly know that.” I peered at his badge. “Officer Burstyn. She assumed you were housebreakers. You can explain it to your friends when they get here.”
“Lieutenant Rawlings wants to talk to you.”
“Now I feel really special,” I said, “but he has my phone number, no need to send an armed escort all the way across the city to find me.”
“Are you arresting her?” Rochelle demanded.
“We don’t have a warrant,” the second man said. “But—”
“She’s dangerous,” Rochelle said. “I want her out of this building. Those dogs aren’t safe, and—”
“You need to talk to your local district, miss,” Officer Burstyn said. “If the dogs are running wild, or biting—”
“They never bit anyone,” Mr. Contreras said, indignant. “This gal has her undies in a bundle over the dogs, but I hear your music playing at all hours, young lady, and if you want to bring the cops here, well, what are those boys doing when they’re leaving your place at three in the morning? Bet these cops could find all kinds of drugs if I asked them to take a look.”