Chapter 10: An Extra Foot

Pillow talk. “How long have you known Constance?”

Matt smiled, “Almost thirty years.”

“How is ... I mean, you would have been a child.”

Another smile, “Connie and my father...”

I bolted up, “What! You’re kidding!”

“It was just a fling. For both of them. Two ships and all that.”

“God.” I tried to get my mind around that one. “Did your father ever talk about her?”

Matt stretched, fluffed my hair, “Just regular stuff ... nice lady. Smart lady.” He chuckled, I just remembered one thing he said.”

“What?”

“Now he wasn’t an educated man, didn’t even graduate high school.” Just like Matt.

“But he was pretty smart I think. Read a lot, always had a book or two going.”

“Okay.”

“One night Connie was at our house for dinner. They were talking politics, you know, the latest schemes, behind the scenes stuff. She would give him the real skinny on the scandal of the day.”

“Yeah?”

“And he said, ‘Connie, you’re like the stonemason who doesn’t lose sight of the cathedral.’ I wondered what that meant at the time.”

“My god, that’s ... poetic.”

“Yeah, except somebody else said it first. Some guy was talking about Rachel Carson.”

“Really! That’s who I named Rachael Adams after.”

He reached over to me and our discussion turned to a different topic.

Later, post-shower, he led me down to his garage. Opened the padlocked cabinet, coded his way into the large gun safe. Handed me, with some ceremony, a handsome black leather case. Rifle case.

I opened it. It was like a piece of Hermès custom luggage. The rifle itself fit precisely in its designated slot. As did the scope. A smaller case held cleaning tools and a small leather bound book. I flipped through it — page after page of muzzle velocity, elevation data, windage.

Matt handed me the rifle. “It’s hand-built. E. F. Huntington. Family company, mother and daughter now. They only make five or six a year.”

What a beaut! The black matte rifle itself was clean-looking, simple. Good lines, thoughtful design. More than just function — it was stylish. I mean I could almost see it in MoMA. Along with Olivetti and Movado and Ferrari.

“Thank you, Matt, so much.”

“You’re welcome. Next we practice.”

I was curious who Mr. Dollface was, but the Samsung cell had gone quiet. It had been used exactly twice — both times I was the caller. We had discussed planting someone in Allentown and tailing him, but Matt decided against it.

I had talked to a sketch artist — Matt’s contact at the police — so we had a good likeness of the guy. That curiously unfinished face, bearded, and the portly body. Left-handed.

Matt said, “We can find him if we need to. We have contacts in that part of New Jersey.”

But for now he was simply an unidentified informant. Maybe-informant.

My main Kansas City case was driving me a little nutso. Two more burglaries, both in relatively upscale homes. Both covered by insurance.

I sifted through the voluminous paperwork. It was up to sixteen separate case files now. Three times that, really. Police, insurance, and my own, thinner folders.

I needed to interview the latest two families. Women first, then men, then together. Tedious and interesting at the same time. I might not learn who the crooks were, but I was getting some real insights into certain family dynamics.

Some marriages, you can just tell, were barely holding together. Often for the sake of the kids. Or financial realities. Other families ... well sometimes I simply got good vibes from both the husband and wife.

The burglars didn’t seem to care, so why should I? It wasn’t that it might help me on a case, and wasn’t, mostly, that I was nosy. But I was perceptive and I did pick up, did sense, how some relationships were strong. And some weren’t.

I decided to dedicate a full day to what the police and insurance investigators had already done. Going over each family’s activity on the date of the burglary.

I knew how to read a case file because I was intelligent, educated, experienced. Also, Daddy taught me how.

I started with the chronological record for each case. Essentially, it was a case diary — a string of dated and timed entries. Contemporaneous notes that would be expanded in the summary reports.

I did the police file first. Smiled as I read some of the entries, remembering my early days at the KCPD. God, was I a dumb bunny. As I read, it was easy to tell which report had been written by a newly-minted detective. Wordy, lengthy, full of irrelevant observations.

I hadn’t been on the force long enough to write up many crime scenes — that was detective-grade work. But, exigent circumstances, I’d written a few. My boss, Louise Finch, gently steered me toward three of Daddy’s write-ups. Terse, to the point, everything relevant.

I asked him about it. “Winter, a couple of things, both practical considerations. When you’re writing, you’re not observing.” I learned that Daddy, especially in the most serious cases like murder or rape, would sit for long periods of time, just soaking in the atmosphere. Trying to puzzle out exactly what had happened, how it had happened.

In a way, now that I think about it, Daddy was sort of like Cathal Conway back when he was a crime scene photographer. Trying to see everything; the obvious of course. But more than that too. Trying to understand the environment, the human condition, the elements that led us down the darker pathways.

I asked Daddy, “What’s the second thing?”

“Court. If it goes to trial, the less the defense has to attack the case, the better. I never record thoughts, suspicions, speculation.”

Can’t say the same for some of the cops on these KC burglary cases.

I’d read the police report. Then the insurance adjuster’s take. The insurance files were often more professionally written, more detailed. More laser-focused. These private investigators weren’t buried in dozens of breaking cases, weren’t being watchdogged by a civic bureaucracy.

Well, time to quit philosophizing, time to turn pages. Donkey work, but sometimes...

I started with the Crestwood home. Next door to Mayor Tom Lynch. I’d driven to Crestwood the day before and walked the neighborhood. The Robinsons — Janice and another Tom — had dined at the Capitol Grille that night. Empty nesters in their 50s.

There was no suspicion, zero, of insurance fraud. The Robinsons weren’t wealthy-wealthy, but were certainly comfortable. Plus, she was a VP of Sales at Allstate. Would hardly be foolish enough to rip off her own company.

I had a notepad on my right. Opened the police file first. The insurance claim was filed the next day. Quick, but understandable — Janice was in the biz.

Tom Robinson, a real estate investor, had made the Thursday night reservation a week before. No special occasion, just a night on the town. A leisurely dinner, one bottle of wine, red. Then they each had a glass of St. Agnes XO 15-year old brandy with dessert. Credit card receipt.

Drove directly home to find the front door unlocked. Back door too. Tom hadn’t bothered with setting the alarm, usually didn’t with their two children out on their own. He would set it the last thing at night, right before bed.

I looked over at my notepad. Blank. I’d written down zero insights.

I replaced the police file with the Allstate folder. This time I forced myself to go slower, read everything line by line.

The Robinsons left their Crestwood home about 7:45. An 8:00 reservation. They took his car, a 5 Series BMW. Drove to the Plaza; he made a north-to-south U-turn on Jefferson and stopped at the valet sign in front of the restaurant.

They went inside and were seated right away. Just the two of them. I made a note to check out their two grown children, a young man and a younger woman. But that was mainly to give myself the illusion that I was doing something. Unlikely that sixteen sets of children, some of them toddlers, would simultaneously steal from their parents.

But I’d check the Robinson kids out anyway.

I work hard on my appearance. Work out, walk five miles a day. Use the proper creams, emulsions, moisturizers. So it’s only natural that I keep mirror-tabs on my appearance. It’s not vanity, not insecurity, certainly not self-love. Well, perhaps a little.

Post Mr. Kenneth, I’d been checking myself out a little more often. The tats are fading; the cosmetic damage to my teeth is gone. Fake dugs, compression stockings, wig ... all stored in Matt’s garage.

Still ... the oddest thing. It’s like my reflection casts a faint afterimage of Mildred Hawkins. Of course I’m the only one who can see it. Oh well.

Maybe I’ll go for a brighter shade of lip gloss. Red

The Grand Duchess and Nature Boy still walk, arm in arm, up and down the hotel corridors on every floor except Five. Where there is no corridor.

If she had an opinion about his now-frequent erections, she kept it to herself. Hobo and the Proper Victim were equally reserved.

Matt was giving me considerable leeway on my Wexler quest. Which may or may not tie into his larger investigation of the Meriwethers. And their conservative PAC, RightWorld.

He passed along a reminder from Constance. “Wexler is important to you. And to me too. Vital. But he’s only a small part of the larger picture.”

“The Meriwethers.”

“Yep, Connie and Senator Wainwright consider them a real threat to democracy. The country is so divided now ... well, they’re concerned there’ll be a backlash, Democrats will sweep the midterms. Take over some statehouses too.”

“And that’s bad because...”

“They’ll be tempted to retaliate against the current administration. Give in to the far left. The United States can’t be governed by extremes.”

“I guess.”

“Jerry Brown, that old warhorse in California, compares governing to paddling a canoe. Right side, left side, constant course corrections to keep you in the middle of the river.”

“Sounds a little simplistic.”

Matt laughed, “Yeah, the way I said it, it does. Let’s roll.”

He took me over to the Watergate complex, to my old pal, Mr. Kenneth. Matt shook hands and said, “Hasidic Jew.”

Mr. K frowned at me, “Wow.”

The two men talked about me as if I weren’t there. Or as I if were there, but it didn’t much matter.

Matt said, “Her age is fine.”

“Boobs?”

“Fine.”

Mr. K started with wigs, the easiest part. Black hair, thick and lustrous. A ver expensive model, as Mr. Dollface might say. Then he looked me up and down, “Skin?”

“Face only.” I guess if I were naked in Kiryas Square, I would already be in trouble.

“Good that she hasn’t been tanning. I can pale her up a little more.”

I resisted the urge to say, “Hey! ‘Her’ is right here!” It’s called professionalism. Or maybe resignation.

He left my eyebrows and eyelashes for last. Black.

Mr. K said, “Okay, clothes. Her elbows, collarbones, knees have to be covered.”

Matt said, “I don’t think she can pull off frump.” A compliment. Of sorts. Perhaps.

“No, she can’t. I have a new shipment from Junee. We’ll be okay. Strip, honey.” Honey stripped.

I spoke for the first time in the process, “Junee?”

Mr. K smiled, the willowy man was in his costumer element, “Borough Park in Brooklyn. Very popular with younger Hasidic wives. Junee marries fashion and modesty. Even the undershirts have some style.”

“Undershirts?”

“Shells. They cover the collarbones.”

“Oh.”

He turned to Matt, guy talk again. “I’ll add a couple of dickeys too.”