Shake Down Dead (20 page)

Pam gave her head a little shake. “Oh,
you wanted to know why I wasn’t invited to the memorial service.
Sorry, I got off the subject. What happened was that Uncle Graham
took Mom and me under his wing. Aunt Henrietta didn’t like that one
bit. She wanted to forget about her childhood which was sometimes
violent. Her father was a drunk. Alcoholism seems to run in the
family. I’ve never tasted alcohol and don’t plan to ever even try
it.”

“So, Henrietta never liked you?” I
asked.

“It wasn’t a matter of liking me. I was
just no use to her and I was a reminder of her terrible childhood.
She was pretty much okay with me but never friendly, when Uncle
Graham was alive. Once he died she didn’t even try to be nice. So,
I wasn’t surprised that she didn’t invite me to the memorial. I
feel sorry for the poor old lady.”

I was thinking that Pam was a lot like
Bernie, having compassion for everyone. “I’m sorry that she feels
that way, Pam. She doesn’t know what she’s missed by not being a
good aunt to you.”

A light pink blush climbed up Pam’s
face from her neck to her forehead. “Thanks. You’re very
kind.”

I shook off the compliment then asked,
“Pam have you ever heard anything about Whitney being
gay?”

“Gay? Whitney? Gee, I’ve never heard
anything like that but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because Whitney used people. Even the
guys she dated had to have something she wanted. Money, prestige, a
promotion, whatever she wanted. She used people, all the people in
her life had to have something she wanted. I can see her using a
woman in the same way she used men. But I don’t think she was gay,
just a user.”

That was pretty much the answer I got
from Gina. So, there may or may not be a shunned lover of Whitney’s
out there.

“Thanks so much, Pam. I appreciate you
taking the time to talk to me.”

“Did I help?” she asked.

“I think so. I know now that Whitney
really was blackmailing people. You should call Jacobs and tell him
what you told me.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Jennifer, whoever knocked me out at
the library must think I know more than I really do. If I just shut
up and mind my own business, this will blow over.”

She may not tell Jacobs but I sure
wasn’t going to keep this to myself. It was too dangerous for Pam,
if she really was attacked.

“Thanks again for meeting with me. I
appreciate your help. Please reconsider talking to Jacobs, will
you?”

Pam shook her head back and forth and
said, “I’ll think about it.” I knew she wouldn’t.

25

I stuck my Bluetooth earpiece in my ear
and dialed Decker. I was backing out of the parking space when he
answered. “How did it go with Pam?” he asked.

“Interesting, very interesting. Where
can you meet me?” I watched Pam’s ancient dull red Dodge Colt with
a bad muffler rattle out of the parking lot.

“I’m on my way back from Mankato. Want
to meet at Gasthaus for a drink?”

“Works for me,” I said taking a left
turn at the light and heading down Broadway to the business
district.

Inside the bar, Decker maneuvered us so
he had a view of the whole room and no one was behind him. I was
used to him doing that. Most cops are probably a little paranoid.
If I sat at just the right angle, I had a partial view of the
customers through the mirror behind the bar.

Decker ordered a beer and a wine cooler
for us and I started telling him about my meeting with
Pam.

“I’m just not sure if she was telling
the whole truth. I’m pretty sure she was telling the truth when she
told me about Whitney wanting to park her extortion money in Pam’s
account. I’m just not sure that Pam refused to help.”

“Why do you think that?” Decker asked.
“It sounds plausible to me.”

“Oh, I’m sure Whitney asked for her
help. I’m just not sure Pam turned her down. And I don’t know why I
think that. I want to believe her; I think she’d a nice person.
It’s just a feeling that she wasn’t completely honest with
me.”

“What about her being attacked at the
library? She couldn’t make that up,” Decker persisted.

“She sure could have. No one saw the
attacker, not even Pam. She refused to go to the emergency room. If
she was hit, it wasn’t hard enough to break the skin because she
wasn’t bleeding. I just don’t know,” I said, shaking my
head.

Decker took a swig of his beer from the
bottle, ignoring the glass next to it. I, however, poured my berry
wine cooler into the glass and sipped on it while Decker
talked.

“Okay, say you’re right. How do we
prove that?”

I didn’t answer. I knew he was just
thinking out loud.

“I think the next thing we need to do
is talk to Charlie. He might know if Pam was at his office and he
can tell us who the cleaning lady is.”

“I think you’re right. We need to talk
to Charlie. But I doubt if he pays attention to such mundane
affairs such as who cleans the toilets in his office.”

“Ah, there you’re wrong Jennifer.
Politicians take notice of all those little things. They need votes
and donations from everyone to get elected.”

Decker asked if I wanted to split a
pizza with him and we ordered one with sausage and extra cheese. We
sat and sipped our drinks until the pizza came then ordered a round
of drinks to go with it.

Half way through the pizza, Decker
said, “We’ve been seeing each other for a while now,
Jennifer.”

Yeesss,” I said drawing out the
word.”

“Do you think it’s time to take our
relationship to the next level?” he asked, catching my hand in
his.

“I guess so,” I didn’t quit know where
he was going with this. “What’s the next level?”

He leaned over and spoke in a whisper
into my ear. “For starters, let’s make our relationship exclusive.
Okay?”

My head snapped back. “Is this about
Pete?”

“Well, sort of, I don’t like you
flirting with him.”

“Oh.” It was all I could think of to
say for a moment. “Didn’t we have this conversation?”

“I tried to have this conversation with
you. But, now, like last time, you’re dodging the
issue.”

“What’s the issue, Decker?”

“I don’t want you dating other men. Is
that clear enough?”

“It sure is. Maybe you should try
having that conversation with me in a more romantic setting than a
bar.” I said.

“Okay, you can only dodge this for so
long, Jennifer.”

“Thanks, give me a little more time and
I’ll give you a serious answer.” I wasn’t dating other men and no
way was I about to start dating Pete. He had his chance and he
broke my teen-age heart.You only got one chance to break my
heart.

He lifted his beer bottle and I clinked
my glass to it. Now I’d have to do some serious thinking about
where I wanted to go with Jerry. I could see that he wanted a
commitment. I wasn’t sure what I wanted. I liked things the way
they were. I was afraid to take the next step.

Decker took out his cell phone and
punched in some numbers. I listened.

“Hi, Charlie, Detective Decker here.
Are you busy?”

Decker paused and nodded his head.
“Would you be available this evening? I’d like to drop by for a few
minutes.”

Another pause and Decker rolled the
beer bottle on the bottom rim. “Yes, it’s about Whitney. I know
you’ve answered all the questions that Lieutenant Jacobs asked.
This is something that just came up. It’ll only take a few
minutes.”

Another pause.

“Okay, thanks. We’ll be right over.”
Decker popped the last piece of pizza in his mouth and chugged the
rest of his beer. “Let’s go. You can leave your car her for now,
okay?” he asked me.

I nodded my head and took a drink of my
wine cooler and left the rest. We were out the door and in Decker’s
truck before I could ask what Charlie had said.

“I think he just didn’t want to have to
go over everything again. He’s with his lawyer so he said we could
stop by for a few minutes. He’s at his campaign
headquarters.”

Decker maneuvered his truck into a
parking place in front of a storefront in the strip mall where I
had gone for my hair cut. I hadn’t noticed the campaign office when
I was there last time. Not only was I focused on the beauty shop at
the other end of the building, but there was no signage, except for
large posters in the windows that could only be seen from directly
in front of the headquarters.

It was starting to get dark already.
Winter was on its way. It was almost six-thirty and clouds had
rolled in while Decker and I were eating pizza.

Charlie was waiting for us. When we
entered, he locked the door after us. Charlie was again wearing
jeans and a western shirt. His casual clothes were so different
from the suits he wore at the rallies and the skintight pants and
shirtless look from his rocker days. “I didn’t know you were coming
with Decker, Jennifer. Did you invent a new cookie for my
rallies?”

“No, I’m afraid it’s a little more
serious, Charlie.”

“Come on into my office, then,” Charlie
said. “My lawyer is here and it’s more comfortable in
there.”

We walked to the back of the room and
went through a solid door that Charlie closed behind us. An
attractive woman wearing a dark brown Donna Karan business suit
with a belted jacket was sitting in one of the chairs in front of
Charlie’s massive desk. Her shoes and briefcase were both brown
leather and looked expensive.

Charlie pulled another chair up and
Decker and I sat down. “Detective Decker and Jennifer Penny, meet
my lawyer, Dolores Drescher.”

Attorney Drescher leaned over and shook
my hand and then Decker’s. She nodded to us then to
Charlie.

“Can I get you something to drink?”
Charlie offered.

“We don’t want to take up much of your
time, Charlie,” Decker said. “We’ve just got a few questions, if
you don’t mind.”

Charlie took a swig of what looked like
scotch on the rocks from the squat glass with “CJ” etched on the
side. Ms. Drescher had a similar drink only hers was a much lighter
brown.

“Well,” Decker said shifting in his
chair. “We know that Whitney volunteered here in the evenings. Did
you ever see her with Pam Frey?”

“I don’t know who that is,” Charlie
said.

“Actually, she’s Whitney’s cousin,”
Decker said.

Charlie shook his head. “I understand
that Whitney was going to blackmail me. Was this Pam person in on
it with her?”

“We don’t know,” Decker said. “Did you
ever see her with someone in the evening while she was
here?”

“No, I wouldn’t have noticed. I walk
through and shake hands with the volunteers and tell them how much
I appreciate their help. But, most of the time I’m in meetings here
in my office.” Charlie reached over and knocked on the wall. “It’s
sound-proof. No one can hear what goes on in here. Which also means
that I can’t hear what goes on out there.” He nodded his head
toward the door.

“We understand that there was a
cleaning lady here the night that Pam met with Whitney. Would you
give me her name?”

“Sure, but she’s not with a service or
anything. She’s a college kid that I pay to come in and clean when
the office is closed. I think she comes in between seven and eight
each morning during the week. I’ve never seen her here in the
evening.”

“That’s odd,” I said. “I got the
impression that it was someone older than a college student. Do you
have any idea who that could be?”

“Not a clue,” Charlie said, flipping
through his Rolodex. He scribbled a name and phone number on a
scrap of paper and handed it to Decker. “Here’s the name and
address of the cleaning girl. Need anything else?”

ers the info on thefjfjfjfjfjfjfjfj
“Nope, that should do it.” Decker got up from his chair and held
his hand out for me.

We said good bye to each of them,
shaking hands again.

When we were back in the truck Decker
said, “She never said a word.”

“What?” I asked. I had no idea what he
was talking about.

“The lawyer. She never spoke a word to
us. Isn’t that odd?”

“Maybe she charges by the word and
Charlie’s a cheapskate.”

Decker, bless his heart, laughed at my
terrible joke.

“Hey, it’s 8:00 on a Friday night.
Let’s go to a movie.” He wanted to go out on a date.
Cool!

We pulled into Hermann’s answer to a
multiplex. The owner of the Hermann Cinema had remodeled the once
large auditorium into three separate theaters. They weren’t big but
the people of Hermann had some choices and the cinema was bringing
in more people and selling lots of popcorn. Decker bought me a big
bucketful of that fluffy buttered heavenly food. He shook his head
as he watched me salt the popcorn, then shake a little mound of
salt in a napkin which I twisted to hold in the salt. I tucked the
napkin in my pocket.