X

  “Do you have a preference?”

  “I should probably handle it. I’m the senior statesman,” he said.

  The door swung open and Edna appeared holding a paper napkin in one hand. The air was scented with meat, onion, and ever so faintly a suggestion of burning hair.

  Henry cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to interrupt your supper.”

  She lowered her gaze, which in some people would signal humility. With Edna, it could mean anything, and none of it good. “We didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”

  “May we come in?”

  She stepped back and admitted us. She and Joseph were eating their evening meal at a card table set up in the living room. They’d arranged their chairs so both could see the television set, which was tuned to a game show that had been in syndication for a decade or more. At each place setting, there was a tin plate of the TV dinner sort, divided into compartments, which still held traces of mashed potatoes, green beans, and some sort of ground meat patty covered with gravy. Really, I don’t cook at all, but I don’t want to eat shit like that when I get old.

  Joseph was solidly packed into his wheelchair, a paper napkin tucked into his collar. The footrest on the chair had been flipped up, so maybe he was using his feet to scoot himself around the room. He seemed uncomfortable, which is more than I could say about Edna.

  She said, “I’d offer to share, but we barely have enough to feed ourselves. Would you care to have a seat?”

  Henry said, “No, thank you. We’re hoping this won’t take long.”

  We remained on our feet. Edna stood near Joseph’s wheelchair, one hand on his shoulder. My guess was she’d squeeze the bejesus out of him if he said a word.

  Henry went on, his tone mild. “Kinsey spoke to the Adelsons this afternoon.”

  “Who?”

  “The Adelsons. They’re the legal owners of this house. They told her they don’t have a rental agreement with you.”

  “That’s because we aren’t renting from the Adelsons. We signed a rental agreement with Calvin Sanchez.”

  “I see. I’m not familiar with the name.”

  “I have a copy if you don’t believe me.”

  “We’d appreciate it.”

  Henry and I exchanged a quick look as she crossed to a cardboard box jammed with files. She withdrew a sheaf of papers clipped together, which she handed to Henry. The top document was five or six pages in length, with a carbon copy of a receipt clipped to the front. Henry removed the paper clip and handed me the bottom sheet, which looked like a rental application.

  “This is the application you filled out for Mr. Sanchez?”

  “It certainly is,” she said.

  While Henry leafed through the rental agreement, I ran an eye down the application, which included their prior address. I made a mental note of the house number and street: 1122 Lily Avenue. Joseph’s employer was the Perdido Community Development Department, which more or less corresponded to Edna’s claim that he’d worked for the city before his retirement. Under Spouse’s Employer, Edna had written N/A, meaning “Not Applicable.”

  “We paid first and last months’ rent and a cleaning deposit. The receipt’s right there on top.”

  I handed the page back to Henry, who was saying, “Anyone can mock up a carbon copy of a receipt. Where is this Mr. Sanchez?”

  “Well, I’m sure I don’t know.”

  “Well, where do you send your rent checks if you don’t know where he is?”

  “We do it by direct deposit.”

  Henry was losing patience. “It might be best if we spoke to him before we go on. Do you have his phone number?”

  “I suppose we have one somewhere, but we haven’t had the need to get in touch.”

  This is where I opened my big mouth. Even in the moment, I knew it was ill-advised, but I couldn’t help myself. “There isn’t any Calvin Sanchez. This house is owned by Dale and Trish Adelson.”

  “Be that as it may,” she said, “we’ve lived here for three months. We’re good neighbors. I don’t see how anyone can have a complaint.”

  “How about the complaint that you’re in this house illegally?”

  She flicked a dark look at me. “I didn’t realize you were an attorney, dear. Are you licensed to practice law in this state?”

  “I don’t need a law degree. I have a degree in common sense. If you can show us an agreement with the Adelsons’ signatures on it instead of your imaginary Mr. Sanchez, we’ll concede the point.”

  “The point isn’t yours to address one way or the other,” she said primly.

  “You want the Adelsons to fly out?”

  “That’s up to them. We’re not hurting anyone. We’re looking after the property. We live here in exchange for upkeep and maintenance.”

  “You can’t just do that unilaterally. The Adelsons haven’t agreed to anything.”

  “If your Mr. and Mrs. Adelson want us out of here, they’ll have to evict us.”

  “I’m sure that can be arranged,” I said snappishly. Henry gave me a warning look, but it was too late for that.

  Edna said, “To date, no one has served us with a notice of any kind. If you do serve such a notice, we will contest it. It’s clear you’re retaliating because of a misunderstanding about a hose bib, of all things. You’re discriminating against us because of our age and my poor husband’s disability.”

  Henry said, “This has nothing to do with Joseph’s disability. Your occupancy is unlawful.”

  “So now you’re citing the law? Well, let me cite one for you as well. We are tenants, and as such, we are not without our rights. Even if your Mr. and Mrs. Adelson win a judgment, we’d be entitled to remain on the premises because of hardship. We qualify for low-income housing.”

  “You can’t move into a house without permission.”

  “But that’s what we’ve done. We’ve made no secret of the fact that we’re living here. This is simply the first time you thought to question us.”

  “This isn’t an argument between us, Edna. We’ll call the Adelsons and tell them what you’ve admitted. They can fly out and deal with it in the next couple of days.”

  A smile touched her lips and dimples appeared. “You are setting yourselves up for a lawsuit for wrongful eviction. If the Adelsons take us to court and lose, they will have to pay court costs and our attorney’s fees, which I can assure you will be substantial. This will be a long-drawn-out procedure—very lengthy—with countless delays—and it won’t come cheap. If you think it’s easy to get tenants out, you’re mistaken.”

  “You’re not tenants. You’re squatting,” I said.

  “Also known as ‘adverse possession,’” she said. “You’ll find our rights in the matter aren’t so easily abridged. Beyond that, we don’t appreciate the name-calling. During the time we’ve lived here, we’ve improved the property, which was sadly neglected. There were so many cockroaches in the kitchen, we could have called the health department to complain. Rats, too, which are known carriers of the hantavirus. We paid for pest control and eradicated the vermin. You’ve seen us paint and make repairs. Whether you like it or not isn’t relevant. You can’t throw us out in the street. We’re elderly and we won’t be harassed and persecuted.”

  “Who’s harassing you?!”

  “I believe raising your voice in a threatening manner with the intent to intimidate old people would be considered a form of harassment.”

  “How about the fact that you’re trespassing?” I said. “We should just call the police and let them deal with you.”

  Edna made her little dimples appear. “This is a civil matter. I can assure you the police won’t want to step into the situation, especially when we can show a rental agreement in support of our occupancy.”

  I said, “I know a couple of detectives with the STPD, and believe me, they won?
??t hesitate to ‘step in’ and run a computer check. You better hope you don’t have so much as an unpaid parking ticket.”

  Henry gestured impatiently. “This is getting us nowhere. We’ll let the Adelsons know we’ve had this conversation. May I keep this?”

  “That’s my only copy and I’ll thank you to return it,” she said, and held out her hand.

  Henry gave her the rental agreement. Edna walked us to the door and stood there stubbornly, watching our departure with a satisfied expression. We descended the porch stairs and walked the twenty-five yards to Henry’s house.

  I said, “Pardon my language, Henry, but what the fuck was that?”

  • • •

  In the morning, I was still stewing about the tactics Joseph and Edna had employed with regard to the property next door. How could they simply move into a house and live there without paying rent? It seemed outrageous to me, but she’d defended their position with such confidence, it had to be a plan they’d executed before. The Adelsons would be forced to hire an attorney to assert their rights to a house they already owned.

  In scanning the rental application the night before, I’d spotted the past address the Shallenbargers had listed, which I hoped was legitimate. Any good liar will tell you that stitching in the occasional point of fact gives a fabricated story a certain ring of truth. I pulled out my Thomas Guide to Santa Teresa and Perdido Counties and tracked down Lily Avenue, which was just off Seaward. I stopped long enough to fill my tank with gas and then hit the southbound on-ramp to the 101.

  Once on Lily, I parked and did a quick walk-about, eyeballing the houses on either side of 1122. This was a neighborhood of middle-class houses, small but well-maintained. I approached the house at 1120 and rang the bell. There were two newspapers on the porch mat, and when I rang a second time without success, I gave it up and returned to the street.

  I tried the house on the other side of 1122. My knock unleashed a noisy chorus of barks. The woman who opened the door was still shushing the assortment of rescue mutts that accompanied her. In the main, they ignored her, so excited about the company they could barely contain themselves. I counted six of them, no two alike. I knew one was a dachshund, and the small, short-haired, brown-and-white hyper leaping dog had to be a Jack Russell terrier. One of the others was a shepherd mix, and that was as far as I got in my breed identification process. Much jumping and jostling while they yapped. I’m not ordinarily fond of dogs, but this was a happy crew.

  “Yes?”

  I handed her a business card. “I’m Kinsey Millhone. I drove down from Santa Teresa this morning in hopes of picking up information about the couple who used to live next door. Do you remember Edna and Joseph Shallenbarger?”

  She held up a finger. “Would you excuse me for a moment?” She turned to the lot of them and put a hand on her hip. “What have I told you about that?”

  She had apparently told them plenty, because the barking stopped instantly and the pack arranged themselves in a line and looked at her expectantly. She made eye contact with each in turn, and their obedience was so absolute as to be comical. She reached in her apron pocket for doggie treats and gave one to each dog. “I apologize for their bad behavior.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Looks like you have them well-trained.”

  “Until there’s a knock at the door,” she said. “I’m Betsy Mullholland, by the way.”

  “Nice meeting you,” I said, and shook hands with her.

  She stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door shut behind her. “They were calling themselves the Shallabergers then, but I know exactly who you mean. They were the worst neighbors we ever had. I wish I could tell you where they went, but they’ve been gone for months and they didn’t leave a forwarding address.”

  “Oh, I know where they are,” I said. “They’ve moved into the house next door to me, which is owned by a couple who now live out of state. Edna admits she and Joseph are squatters, but she’s completely unrepentant and apparently has no intention of moving out. My guess is they’ve done this before, and I was hoping to find someone who had better luck persuading them to go.”

  “You know they’re both wanted by the police.”

  “Are you serious? For doing what?”

  “She stole a hundred and forty-two thousand dollars from the community college. She’d worked for them for years, and no one had any idea what she was up to. She’d been lying about her age, and when it finally came to light that she was seventy-five, they tried forcing her to retire. She threatened to hire an attorney to sue them for age discrimination. The school backed down, and that afforded her a few more years in which to siphon off funds.”

  “How’d she manage it?”

  “She was senior administrative assistant to the comptroller. She set up dummy accounts and rerouted certain checks as they came in. Then she’d alter the records to reflect balances that were pure fiction. Her husband was in on it as well, forging signatures as needed. Their methods weren’t original, but they were effective.”

  “How did they get caught?”

  “An oversight. A food service contractor was owed a hundred and ninety-six dollars and he complained to the school. Her records showed the man had been paid, and he demanded to see the canceled check. She was off work that week because Joseph was ill, and by the time she got back, the state auditor had launched an investigation. Edna chose that moment to retire.”

  “Were they convicted?”

  “Not a bit of it. They were arrested and booked, but they managed to post bail. Neither of them has a criminal history, and I guess as first-time offenders, they didn’t fit the standard profile for flight risk. They didn’t show up for the arraignment, and that’s the last anybody’s seen of them. I have all the newspaper clippings if you want to take a look. You can even have copies made if you want a set.”

  “I would love that,” I said. “Do you remember the name of the bail bondsman?”

  “He gave me his card when he came by looking for them. Hang on a minute.”

  She left the door ajar while she went off to fetch the business card. Six pairs of eyes were fixed on mine, and we studied one another. They seemed hopeful I might have a pocket full of treats as well, so they didn’t make a peep.

  She returned with a file folder bulging with articles from the local paper, which she handed me along with the bail bondsman’s business card.

  “Thank you. This is wonderful. This is just what I need,” I said. “I don’t suppose I could trouble you to use the phone?”

  She held the door open for me.

  40

  I sat in my car and made a few notes before I put the keys in the ignition. It wasn’t until I tucked the bundle of index cards in my shoulder bag that I caught sight of the half sheet of lined paper I’d torn out of Kim Bass’s steno pad. With a little start, I realized this was March 24, Teddy’s departure date. It was after 9:00 A.M. In roughly eight hours, she’d be getting on a plane to Los Angeles, where she’d pick up her flight to London. In the meantime, I hadn’t heard a peep from Ari. Since I’d be driving through Montebello anyway on my way back into town, I decided it would be politic to fill him in.

  When I reached the Xanakis estate, I pulled into the drive and paused dutifully while the uniformed security guard approached the car with his clipboard. I rolled down the window on the passenger side and said, “Remember me? I was here on Tuesday. I work for Mr. Xanakis.”

  “Right.”

  He returned to the gatehouse, and a moment later the gates swung open and I cruised through. I motored up the driveway and around the curve. The house was just as impressive as it had been the first time. I pulled into a parking pad big enough to accommodate five vehicles. As I approached the front door, I looked for exterior cameras. One was angled on the driveway itself, another on the front door. I gave a little wave as I rang the bell.

  Maurie open
ed the door. Behind her, in the corridor, I could see some effort had been made to organize the assemblage of miscellaneous furniture, though I couldn’t identify the underlying principle.

  “Is Mr. Xanakis here?”

  “Is he expecting you?”

  “What difference does it make? I need to talk to him.”

  She glanced to her right, where I could hear voices raised. I had apparently arrived in the middle of a ruckus. I took advantage of the distraction to step into the hall.

  Stella said, “I don’t believe it. I do not believe you did that. How COULD you? Without so much as a by-your-leave?”

  She came striding out of the dining room, dodging a glass-fronted corner piece that had been set to one side of the double doors. She wore a snug-fitting pair of teal trousers in a fabric that looked like taffeta and made a rustling sound as she walked. Over the trousers, she wore a long coat of the same material in lime green with two teal Chinese frog fasteners on the front. The coat was open from the bodice down, and she was walking so fast, the flaps lifted like two sails. She carried a folder filled with paperwork that she slapped once against her thigh. I’ve never quarreled with anyone while wearing an elegant outfit. You’d think it would lend an air of class to the occasion, but alas, it did not.

  I could hear Ari behind her, saying, “Hey, come on now. I told you this might happen.”

  “No. You. Did. Not.”

  “Well, I told someone.”

  The intensity of the fight rendered the rest of us invisible. Ari appeared from the dining room in what I swear was the same workout gear I’d seen him in three days before. Shorts, a tank top, running shoes without socks.

  Maurie and I were both rooted in place, neither of us daring to say a word.

  There followed choice expletives on her part and his. This was like watching a foreign movie, Italian perhaps, with voices dubbed in and the lines of dialogue not quite matching the movements of their lips. I thought it safe to assume Ari had canceled the honeymoon, forfeiting the thousands of dollars’ worth of deposits he’d paid to secure the reservations.