Flood Abatement Read online

  The comment from one of the movers, “Damn, she must have lead bars in this thing,” startled Stan out of his day dreaming. The kid struggling down the porch stairs was carrying a big, baby-blue, suitcase. Out of the corner of his eye Stan saw the chick poke the guy she was with and nod toward the movers. The guy slowly shook his head and looked at the ground.

  “Bingo,” Stan said to himself in a low whisper. He would have to find out where the truck was going, but decided to wait a few minutes so as not to appear eager. Shifting in his lawn chair, he watched the babe and waited. Suddenly she stiffened, but didn’t poke her friend. What was that about? Stan strained in his seat to see what was going down. Nothing special, just movers carrying boxes. Still? She relaxed and the couple left. Stan ambled back to the apartment to move his piece-of-shit car onto the street so that he would be ready to follow the moving van.

  Chapter 24

  By the time Anton climbed into the cab of the bulldozer, his shirt was out of his jeans offering a clear view of the stretch marks on his belly to anyone curious enough to look. As the diesel roared to life, the hottie and the suit climbed into their Olds and drove off. Five minutes later, Anton took out the northeast corner of the small frame house. Twenty minutes later it was set for the landfill.

  Another heavy equipment hauler carrying a large hydraulic backhoe arrived followed by two dump trucks. At ten all that was left of the house was the foundation. With both trucks headed for the landfill, Anton shut down his Cat and drew his right hand across his throat to the backhoe. He went to his truck to retrieve his lunchbox for the mid-morning snack, not that it was going to be worth the effort. Nothing but fruit. Shit!

  Mike Mulligan, the backhoe operator, sat across the table from Jimmy and ate a sandwich. Anton figured he could either eat the fruit or talk to the boss’s asshole kid. He ate the fruit as the kid ran off at the mouth about the latest action at the Packers’ training camp. Anton noticed Mike chewed slowly. He kept his mouth full to avoid having to comment on the conversation. The moment he finished, Mike closed his battered, black lunchbox and stood up. One of the dump trucks turned off State into the flood abatement area.

  “Come on Andy. Let’s tear out that foundation,” Mike said.

  Anton nodded and stood.

  As the two operators walked to their machines, Jimmy called, “You guys’ll be done by lunch.”

  Anton kept walking, but raised his arm and waved his agreement. The two apples and the banana hadn’t filled him up, but listening to Jimmy took him off his feed. He sighed to himself when he lined the dozer up to dig out the foundation. The machine cut through what was left of the lawn and flowerbed then knocked the old cement blocks into the hole. With a bucket load of dirt, Anton swung the big Cat toward the dump truck. Jimmy stood watching him with a particularly stupid look on his face. The jerk ran toward him waving his arms. What an asshole. The truck driver was running, too. Jimmy was up near the Cat gesturing across his throat with his right hand. Anton cut the dozer’s engine.

  The truck driver, Mike and Jimmy stood in the front of the machine looking up into the bucket when Anton joined them.

  “What the hell are you…?” he asked.

  Jimmy pointed to the lip of the bucket where the upper half of a skull smiled down at them with its single gold tooth.

  Chapter 25

  Rhonda heard the roar of the bulldozer as it pulled toward Nana’s house and said, “Let’s go. I can’t watch this.” She and Bernie pulled out of the destruction zone as the Cat accelerated.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Just drive.”

  They went north on Menomonee Parkway until she took a deep breath and shouted “Stop.” He did. She jumped out. By the time he pulled to the curb she was sitting at a picnic table in the park.

  He walked up to her. “You okay?”

  “No.” Rhonda started to cry.

  He knew she wasn’t the sentimental type and physical contact with her could be less than helpful. But, after a moment he figured, what the hell, and did the only thing he could think of. He held her until her emotions came under control. He was a tough guy. He could handle the heavy lifting.

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I don’t think Nana cared much about the house, either way. But, I hate losing.” She punched him in the chest. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  That’s the Rhonda he knew. He rubbed his pec and gave her a handkerchief. She blew her nose. They sat silently as the hot west wind rustled the leaves in the maple overhead.

  “Let’s go see your grandmother,” he said.

  She squeezed his hand. “Thanks, Bernie.”

  He took a deep breath. “No problem.”

  Chapter 26

  When Rhonda and Bernie entered the over air-conditioned hospital room, Nana was playing gin rummy with a man who could have easily been in his nineties. She introduced him as Herbert Gastinau, a volunteer at the hospital.

  Herb excused himself. “I’ll stop by later, Frances, and we can finish the game.”

  “Sure thing. Don’t forget you owe me eighty-five cents.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that.” Herb left the room.

  Nana looked at the grin on her granddaughter’s face. “What? The old coot could stroke out as he’s walking down the hall and I’d be out that money.”

  Rhonda gave Nana a kiss on the cheek and introduced Bernie.

  “Keagan, from St. Anne’s?”

  “Yes, one and the same,” he said.

  The old times never got rolling as the door banged open and three burly men walked in. One wore a police uniform and the two others were plain clothes cops.

  The cop wearing the stretched-out, light blue, sport coat with the blue and yellow plaid pants began. “Frances Lapinski?”

  Nana said, “Yes.”

  The cops introduced themselves and flashed their badges with vigor. They seemed to like that part. The older one in a shinny black suit said, “We’d like to ask you some questions.”

  “What’s this about, detective?” Rhonda asked.

  “Who are you miss?” the other detective asked.

  “Rhonda Lapinski, she’s my grandmother.”

  They asked about Bernie and he told them.

  “Mrs. Lapinski, do you know an Aloysius Waldoch?”

  Nana gave them a pensive look. “No, I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

  “Some human remains were found in a flowerbed at your house. Mr. Waldoch’s wallet and driver’s license were among them.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell,” Nana reiterated.

  After some housekeeping remarks about not leaving the area and giving them a call if she remembered anything, the trio of cops left.

  Bernie used the pay phone down the hall to call Sam and in less than half an hour Nana and her nephew-lawyer began a conversation.

  “When did you first move into the house on 72nd street?” Sam asked.

  Nana took a drag on her cigarette. “Sal bought the place in late 1930 and we moved in early in ’31.”

  The lawyer leaned forward in his chair. “Can you tell us anything about this Aloysius Waldoch?”

  Nana pursed her lips and fidgeted in her chair.

  “Aunt Frances, if I’m going to help you, I have to know all the facts, preferably before the police find out.”

  Nana pulled her hospital robe close around her and settled back in her seat. “Well, Al was a guy I knew back in WW2 when I worked at Allis Chalmers. He was in the Merchant Marine.” She twisted her mouth to the left. “Sal was gone lots around that time, driving truck up to Minneapolis. It was the war. Work kept me busy, but it was lonely.”

  From the background Rhonda asked, “Nana, you didn’t get it on with this Al guy did you?”

  “Hey!” Nana said. “Your generation wasn’t the first one to invent sex, ya know.”

  Rhonda glared at the old woman. “And, how long did this go on?”

  “None of your business.” />
  “It would help us to know,” Bernie said.

  Nana twisted her mouth around a few times. “It lasted a couple’a years. The whole thing died out in ’44, ’45.”

  “Nana!” Rhonda said.

  “Give it a rest,” her grandmother shot back.

  Sam suppressed a smile. “Did your husband ever find out about your relationship with Mr. Waldoch?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “It would make a neat package for the cops to say Sal killed Waldoch out of jealousy. Sal’s dead. No trail. Case closed,” Bernie said.

  “Maybe? Yeah,” Nana said.

  From his experiences with her as a kid, Bernie wasn’t taken by surprise. She’d watch out for Rhonda, her brother and sister and him just fine, but she was sort of hard bitten and pragmatic. He remembered Nana was not a woman to hand out more than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Wonder bread with a glass of milk for lunch. Though, one time he did remember she gave Rhonda and him dessert - two Oreos. Rhonda often said Nana held onto her nickels so tightly she could make the buffalo scream - that Great Depression mentality.

  “When was the last time you saw Waldoch?” Sam asked.

  “Let me think.” Nana took her time. “I bet it as nine, ten years ago, Spring of ’63. Ran into him at that Italian market on 68th Street. Hi, how ya doin’?, nice to see ya, sort’a conversation. I went my way. He went his.”

  “Nothing special?” Sam asked.

  “Sonny, all the special had gone outta that years ago.”

  The conversation dried up quickly. Rhonda didn’t want to stay and talk. She and Bernie walked down the hall to the parking lot in silence. As he opened the car door, Rhonda turned to him. “Something’s out of place here.”

  “Hey, it must be hard to think of Nana cheating on your grandfather or him as a murderer, but it adds up.”

  “No it doesn’t. My grandpa may not have been the smartest man around. But, I don’t think he would have killed the guy who was fooling around with his wife and buried the body next to his house, and thrown in the driver’s license for good measure. It’s too pat.”

  “That’s a good point. But, why did your grandmother seem so eager to let Sal take the fall.”

  “Yeah, that bothers me. Let’s go back.”

  When they returned Nana was up a dollar thirty-five playing gin rummy with Herb again. After he excused himself, Rhonda lit into Nana.

  “What were you trying to do?” Rhonda asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know grandpa didn’t kill Al what’s-his-name any more than Bernie here did.”

  “He could have.”

  Nana took a cigarette out of a pack she had on the card table and lit it with an old Zippo.

  “Say, I don’t think they allow you to smoke in here,” Bernie said.

  She took a deep drag, held it and blew the smoke out her nose. “Well, if they ask, you tell ‘em they can kiss my skinny, Italian ass.” She looked him in the eye and took another drag on the “coffin nail.”

  Okay, well, he decided to keep quiet and hoped neither of the women would remember that he brought up the idea that Sal Lapinski would be an easy scapegoat for Waldoch’s murder.

  “Nana, that’s bullshit and you know it. What are you trying to do?”

  “Honey, Sal was a good man. Probably better than I deserved. But I’ve got to put a lid on any police investigation or they might stumble across the stuff under the dryer. It’s okay, isn’t it?”

  “But, to make him out a killer?” Rhonda dropped into the chair across the table from her grandmother.

  Nana put her cigarette out in a small, green glass ashtray. “Hey, if Sal was anything, he was practical. He’s dead. Al’s dead. The cops get their package and I get mine.”

  Rhonda looked up at Bernie. “Don’t say anything.”

  “What?” he asked. “What was I going to say?”

  “You were thinking it.”

  “What? What was I thinking?”

  “You know.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “No. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Unh!” Rhonda turned back to Nana. “Okay, what’s in the blue suitcase?”

  “What blue suitcase?” Nana asked.

  Rhonda jumped to her feet. “The one that was under the dryer!”

  “Really, is that what was under there?” Nana asked.

  “Yes! Didn’t you ever look?”

  “No.”

  “Fine. What’s in it?”

  “I don’t know,” Nana said. “Didn’t you look?”

  “No, the cops were all over the place,” Rhonda replied.

  “Well I don’t know. Sal never said.”

  Rhonda began to flap her arms. “Ah … ah … didn’t you ever try for a peek?”

  “Once, but I couldn’t move the dryer.”

  Rhonda would have continued the conversation, but she was speechless.

  Later, in the car Bernie said, “Now I know where you get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “The habit of giving half the story.”

  “I told you everything I know,” Rhonda growled.

  He spoke before he thought. “It would be the first time.” It was stupid to pick at old wounds, but that was going to be part of their relationship until she was out of his life again.

  She looked out the passenger side window. “We should look in the suitcase.”

  “Hang on, hang on, I need something to eat.”

  If her look could have turned him to stone, it would have.

  “The cops have secured it,” he said. “Nobody’s going to get it. And, I missed lunch.”

  “Bernie, who gives a shit?”

  “Hey, it’ll take a couple of minutes. I need the fuel. Better yet we need to take a little break and clear our heads.”

  She folded her arms and looked out the windshield.

  “Let’s go to Barbiere’s. Mostaccioli and meat sauce sounds about right.”

  “No, just grab a sandwich and get going.”

  He turned toward the restaurant as she sulked in the red leather seats. Rhonda was just angry enough to eat the salad and spumoni that came with his dinner.

  Chapter 27

  “Can you prove it?” asked the fat woman who ran the You-Store-It yard. Rhonda dug through her entire bag for two forms of ID before she was able to get the key to Nana’s unit. Bernie waited in the car as the sun slid behind a bank of clouds coming in from the Northwest. He slowly idled the Olds up and down the aisles of two-car garage storage units until they found number G18. The units were made from sheets of corrugated steel with flimsy fiberglass doors.

  He got out and grabbed the lock and hasp that was supposed to secure the unit, but now dangled from the overhead door. “I’m pretty sure this isn’t right.”

  “With all the shit that bitch in the front office gave me, I’m gonna kick her ass with this screw up.”

  “Looks like someone pulled the hasp lose with a crowbar.”

  The overhead door sprang up when he lifted it. The hot blast from the air inside rolled into them.

  “Yeow! Shit!” Rhonda jumped into his arms.

  A thin man, whose salt and pepper hair needed a trim, sat open mouthed staring into the twilight. Bernie dragged Rhonda part way toward the man in a kitchen chair, just enough for him to turn on the single overhead bulb. The guy didn’t move or blink. The copper smell of blood was strong.

  “What’s he doing here?” she whispered.

  Bernie stepped in front of the figure. The man’s clothes were simple and worn. His teeth were yellow from smoking and he needed a shave about two days ago. Blood soaked the left side of his T-shirt.

  “Do you recognize him?” Bernie asked.

  “No, why should I?” she replied. “He’s dead, right?”

  “From the ice pick in his ear, you’re right on the money.”

  Rhonda walked over to where Bernie sto
od and sure enough, there was an ice pick sticking out of the corpse’s left ear. “Oh,” she groaned, turned and lost Bernie’s dinner salad and ice cream. She took the handkerchief he offered while she struggled to regain control.

  “What do we do now?” she gasped

  “We call Sam.” She gave him a complete blank look. “Your attorney?” The fog lifted. “Then we call the cops.”

  “What about Nana’s suitcase?”

  “Somehow I don’t think it’s here.”

  They used the pay-phone outside the yard office to make their calls. As they waited for someone to arrive Rhonda asked, “Should we tell them about the suitcase?”

  “Probably not. With two corpses linked to Nana in less than twelve hours, the police are going to think there is more to this than some ratty old furniture.” They went back to the storage area and stood beside the Olds. “No need to mention our midnight excursion to dig in the basement.”

  “Fine.” Rhonda leaned against the massive, front fender of the car and stared at the corpse. “Say, isn’t that the guy who was out in his lawn chair near Nana’s house this morning?”

  Bernie walked up to the dead man for a closer look. “Score one for the little lady.”

  “You don’t think that if we had come here right away instead of going to dinner we …”

  “What, we might have intervened. Saved the suitcase. Stopped the killing. Run into the murderer. Maybe gotten an ice pick of our own.” He reached a finger out and touched the body.

  “What are you doing?”

  “The blood on his neck is wet.” He held out a discolored fingertip.

  Rhonda turned and retched with the dry heaves. She fell to her knees. He walked up to her as she raised her left hand, pointed into the storage area and croaked, “There! Ack.”