What Stella Wants

“All right, honey,” I said finally. “We’ll be there as soon as we can. It shouldn’t be more than a half hour at the most.”

“A half hour?” she wailed.

“Twenty minutes.”

“Oh…oh…oh!” She was hiccupping now. “What…what…ever!”

I snapped the cell shut and rolled my eyes at Jake. “I don’t know what’s going on, but it doesn’t sound good, and Spike’s out working on the D.A. I don’t think there’s a lot we can accomplish here right now. Maybe we should return when Baby gets back from the hospital and has had some time to rest.”

Marygrace’s eyes widened. “You guys can’t stay away too long. What if Baby comes back and something else happens? I want you to protect her!”

Jake looked puzzled. “I thought you wanted us to find whatever got stolen. You didn’t say anything about protection.”

Marygrace stamped her tiny foot and glared at him. “Aw, come on man! Do I have to spell out everything? Baby got hurt and that aide beat up Stella. I’d say the woman needs protection!”

A little muscle in Jake’s jaw began to twitch and I knew he was getting frustrated with Marygrace’s impatience.

“Okay, Marygrace, if you want to hire private protection…”

Marygrace held up her hand, stopping me. “Whoa, now exactly how much is that going to cost? I mean, I am a social worker. Money doesn’t just grow on trees, you know. Anyway, I guess the facility might pay, but I need to check it out. In the meantime, we have to take care of Baby. Where’s your—”

I broke her off before she could question my civic-mindedness.

“All right! All right! Jake, how about you drop me at Aunt Lucy’s and go on to the hospital so you can keep an eye on Baby. I’ll go see what’s got Nina so upset, then relieve you at six, either there or here, depending on when they release her.”

Jake nodded but before he could add anything else, his cell phone rang.

After he said hello all I could hear was the sound of Nina sobbing. I snatched the phone out of his hand and pressed the receiver to my ear.

“All right! We’re coming! You don’t have to call Jake to ride herd on me, okay?”

“It’s a matter…of…life and death,” she said shakily. “I thought I might’ve forgotten to…tell you…that.”

The cell phone went dead as Nina severed the connection. Oh, this was just too unbelievable. We finally get a case that has nothing to do with insurance fraud or cheating spouses and what happens? We develop a rash of personal problems! Somebody give me a break!

Still, a little flame of apprehension ignited inside my chest, growing stronger the closer I got to my office. Nina was a dingbat, no doubt about it, but she rarely got upset without cause. In fact, Nina never overreacted, at least not in the presence of real danger. So something was wrong, all right, and if Nina was on target, it would be a matter of life and death.

Chapter 4

Nina had stopped crying by the time we reached the brick row house she, Spike and I shared with Aunt Lucy. My Australian sheepdog, Lloyd, sat in my uncle Benny’s old place at the kitchen table, the seat of honor he’d been given ever since Lloyd and I had returned from Florida and Aunt Lucy had decided he was my uncle reincarnated. Nina sat next to him, her eyes swollen and red, nursing a cup of herbal tea. Aunt Lucy’s newest adoptee, Fang, the part-wolf dog, lay at Nina’s feet.

“Stella, what happened to you?”

I frowned, momentarily having forgotten that my eye was swollen and by now turning black.

“It’s a long story. There’s more to the nursing home situation than we thought, but tell me about Aunt Lucy first.”

Nina sighed and shook her head sadly. “I guess the whole world’s got problems. Now Fang and Lloyd aren’t getting along.”

As if on cue, Fang lifted one lip to expose a nasty-looking canine tooth and snarled softly at Lloyd. On her worst day, Fang could eat Lloyd for a snack and not feel satisfied, but this had never been an issue. Lloyd and Fang had met on the beach in New Jersey and from that first moment, they’d been inseparable. When Fang’s owner decided to move to the Caribbean, it seemed only natural that my generous aunt would bring the monstrous beast into the family.

“What about Aunt Lucy’s boyfriend?” I asked, ignoring the dog issues. “You said it was a matter of life and death.”

Nina’s momentary calm dissolved. Her chin quivered and tears filled her eyes. “It’s sooo sad,” she wailed.

“Nina! Just tell me what’s going on!”

“Well, I told you I got the license plate number and well, you know I have that friend, Micky, at the D.M.V.?”

I nodded, encouraging her.

“Well, she got his name.” This produced a fresh spillover of tears. “It’s Arnold Koslovski. He graduated from Glenn Ford High School in 1951, went into the army, then to Villa Nova on a VA loan and then, for some unknown reason, moved to Michigan. I guess that’s where he met his wife, Elizabeth. Anyway, he stayed there and eventually opened his own company. He was some big entrepreneur, owned one of the first chains of electronics stores and then he discovered computers. Everything he touched turned to money. He’s like a gazillionaire or something. There were all these articles about him and his wife doing good deeds and giving away millions.”

Nina blew her nose as the tears continued to fall. Jake squatted down to pet Fang but drew his hand back when Fang snarled.

“Man, she is testy today! Think she could be sick?”

Leave it to a man to change the subject whenever feelings get involved!

“She doesn’t look sick to me. She looks fat and lazy. Maybe living the good life is starting to get on her nerves.”

Lloyd whined and gave his beloved Fang a concerned look. Nina blew her nose again and continued on with her convoluted report.

“Arnold and Aunt Lucy were in the same class,” Nina said. “I found Aunt Lucy’s old yearbook lying out on the coffee table. She must’ve been looking through it.” Nina reached down into her lap and drew an ancient volume up from beneath the table. A napkin marked the page where Arnold Koslovski’s teenage face smiled out at us.

“Nina, this is all well and good, but if there’s a life-threatening situation here, could you just cut to the chase and tell me about it?”

Mistake. Big mistake. Never rush Nina, it only makes the situation and the story last that much longer. My cousin sniffed and scowled at me.

“I am like, totally telling you about this!” she snapped. “You have to know the history and background to understand the gravity of Aunt Lucy’s situation.”

“All right, all right! Do it your way!”

“I will. As I was saying…Aunt Lucy’s been receiving anonymous flowers and cards ever since Uncle Benny died. Then when we were at the beach, you know, on our last case, the flowers started coming there, and there were groceries, too. Well, Arnold must’ve hired people to watch Aunt Lucy. How else could he have found out where we’d gone? And, like, I thought it was totally creepy until I found this!”

Nina shoved a piece of paper at me. It was a copy of an old newspaper article dated 1971. “Kidnapped Koslovski Heiress Found Dead,” was the headline. I read the piece with Jake leaning over my shoulder.

“So the guy’s only kid was killed in a bungled kidnapping?” Jake clearly didn’t get the connection to my aunt.

“Isn’t that awful?” Nina looked at the two of us and seemed to be waiting for us to “get” it. “So, like, the guy doesn’t want anything bad to ever happen to people he loves,” she said with a tone of exaggerated patience. “So, he’s been watching over Aunt Lucy for, like, ever. That’s how he knew Uncle Benny died.”

“Nina, that doesn’t make sense. Why would some guy Aunt Lucy went to high school with have private investigators watch her when she’s married to another guy? That is creepy.”

“No, look!” Nina snatched up the yearbook and flipped to another page she’d marked with a napkin. “See!”

Jake and I stared down at the picture of my aunt as a young girl. “She looks like you,” Jake murmured. “Look at those huge, dark eyes and that hair!” Jake looked at me with a speculative eye. “You had black hair just like hers in high school. What’s with the blond?”

In truth, the blond was a stakeout cover on my first and only big case with the Garden Beach, Florida, Police Department but I liked it and so, as part of starting over, I’d kept it. I ignored Jake and turned my attention back to the yearbook. Spidery blue script covered the margin next to my aunt’s picture.