Ginny Aiken - Mistaken for the Mob

J.Z. snapped his cell phone shut. “Joey-O’s not talking.”

Dan looked up from the file folder he’d just picked up. “Did you think he would?”

“His kind usually does—to point the finger at someone else, of course. Especially if it means they can save their sorry skin.”

“Is he denying that he killed Mat? Or has he just zipped his lip?”

“David says no one can get a word out of him.”

Dan’s gaze turned thoughtful. “Latham’s good at getting perps to talk. So if Joey’s not talking, then he’s more scared of what might come his way from the outside than by staying in for…oh, say a hundred years or so.”

“I want to know how Joey got word to Wellborn so she could finish the job. He’s been in the slammer since minutes after he emptied his gun into the Laundromat.”

“I’m telling you, you’re barking up the wrong tree with the librarian, J.Z. There’s nothing, nothing here—” Dan waved the papers from the file “—that even hints at her involvement. Even her bank records are clean—you’ve read it in black-and-white, same as I have. Look at them again.”

Dan held the pages out to J.Z., but J.Z. did know what they said…and didn’t say. He shook his head.

His partner wasn’t ready to quit. “Not a dollar goes into her account that doesn’t come from her paycheck, J.Z. So what would she have to gain? Why would she kill for the mob? What’s her motive?”

“Remember the e-mails. They’re pretty clear. Terminate Carlo Papparelli.” J.Z. ran a hand through his hair. He felt the answers he needed were just on the other side of his grasp. “She’s got to keep her stash somewhere. Maybe Mat did the laundering for her dollars, and didn’t want to cough them back up. We just have to dig deeper than we have.”

“It doesn’t fit,” Dan argued. “She’s clean if you ignore those e-mails. So where’s the connection? A librarian doesn’t just hook up with the mob out of the blue.”

J.Z. shrugged. “That retirement home’s an awfully cushy place for a librarian’s salary to afford. Maybe she saw the chance to get the dough that’d keep her dad there.”

“Sure, but how would she turn to the mob?”

“That’s what you and I are going to find out.”

Dan stared straight at J.Z. A wriggle of discomfort wound through him. “I think there’s nothing for us to find. And there’s a lot of valuable time to waste, time we can’t afford to waste. Your personal bias against the mob in general and the Verdis in particular might just cost us six long months’ worth of work.”

The image of his father’s stony face at the defendant’s table came back to haunt J.Z. “The good ones always look that clean. Only a fool will let himself get caught up in their smokescreen. I fell for my father’s lies when I was too young to know better. I won’t do it again.”

“Just make sure you don’t lose yourself in a fun-house mirror and leave reality behind. Don’t miss the obvious for looking so hard through the filter of your past.”

J.Z. gritted his teeth. He knew what was what.

Maryanne Wellborn’s days as a free woman were numbered.

She was going down.

Maryanne gasped. Her heart began to pound and her stomach twisted.

That same, creepy someone’s-looking-at-me feeling hit her again. She looked around, and she went cold.

A familiar male figure was walking in the direction opposite from where she stood in the mall’s food court. Something about the dark hair, the set of wide shoulders, the taut fluid walk…

Could it be?

But she could only see the man from the back. She couldn’t be sure it was—or wasn’t—J.Z. Prophet.

Coincidence?

She doubted it. Mother always said she only believed in God-incidence. But if that was the case, then what did God have to do with the computer tech? His anger wasn’t the kind of emotion the Lord encouraged. It certainly didn’t dispose her to approach the man. Besides, she couldn’t see herself as a missionary to crazy computer techs.

She’d thought herself safe by going straight to church, joining in the potluck supper then taking her charges on their scavenger hunt. She’d sat at a table in the food court and made sure the teams understood they had to check in with her every thirty minutes—church rules.

The kids were great. And she enjoyed the time their pursuit gave her to work on her needlepoint project. At least, she had until a couple of seconds ago.

That itchy discomfort that seemed to strike so often since she’d met J.Z. Prophet had crept up the back of her neck again. When she turned in the direction of the lingerie store across the way, she’d spotted the dark-haired man propped against a pillar. But because his face had been hidden by shadows, she couldn’t be sure it was J.Z.

If it was him, what could he possibly want?

She didn’t know, but she did know one thing: she’d never felt like a hunted animal until he showed up at her work. She crammed her needlework into the tapestry sewing bag, grabbed that bag together with her tote bag and then slung the handles of both over her shoulder. A quick glance at her watch told her the kids should be back any moment now.

She’d have to get them out of the mall before that madman decided to hurt her, much less them.

“There you are,” Trudy said at her side.

Maryanne yelped. “Don’t you ever skulk up like that again! You just cost me ten years of my life.”

Her friend gaped. “What is wrong with you? I’ve never heard you speak like that before.”

Maryanne’s tremors grew so great that she collapsed back into her chair. The bags slid down her arm and fell to the floor.

“I think he’s here,” she whispered.

“Who’s here?”

She saw concern in Trudy’s eyes. “The Uni-Comp tech with the icy-cold eyes—that J.Z. Prophet guy.”

“You really think so?”

Maryanne nodded, unable to say more.

“Where did you see him? Did you call security? What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I can’t even think straight. And of course I didn’t get a chance to call security. I just saw him a moment ago, right before you came up.”

“Show me. Where is he?”

With her eyes shut tight, Maryanne pointed in the direction of the lingerie store, reluctant to again feel J.Z. Prophet’s anger. But when Trudy didn’t say a thing, Maryanne looked up at her friend.

With worried brown eyes, Trudy looked from the lingerie store to Maryanne and back again. “Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked. “I’ve never known you to be so paranoid.”

“Aside from that guy scaring me half out of my wits, of course, I’m fine.”

Trudy kept silent for long moments. Maryanne looked up at her friend. A frown on her forehead, Trudy said, “There’s no one there.”

Maryanne stood, used the table for support and slowly turned to look across the expanse. As Trudy had said, no one stood by the window draped in frivolous, pastel-lace frills; no one leaned in that distinctive way against the pillar at its side; no one glared at her right then.

“He’s gone,” she said, not reassured. “For now.”

“What do you mean?”

Maryanne met her friend’s worried gaze. “Everywhere I go, I feel someone watching me. I can’t shake the feeling. And somehow, I’m sure I’m going to see him again. I just don’t know when or where. Or why.”

“You’re nuts,” Dan told J.Z.

“Why? Because I know she’s pulling a fast one?”

“No. Because, man, you’ve taken a long walk down the diving board and gone off the deep end this time. You’ve let something personal get in the way of your work. Will you just look at her? I doubt she’s ever even killed a fly.”

J.Z. looked at Maryanne Wellborn as she smiled at and hugged other worshippers on her way down the church steps.

“That,” he said to his partner, “is what she wants us to believe. I’ll admit she’s good—very good.”

When J.Z. had first seen the librarian, she’d worn a boring baggy tan skirt and brown-and-white checked shirt. The next time, she’d sported garments in a gloomy shade of gray. Today, for Sunday School and the worship service, she had on a dingy-taupe dress that hung to about an inch above her ankles. A narrow brown belt caught the shapeless thing at her waist.

“Even if you can’t,” he added, “I can see right through her.”

Dan tapped J.Z.’s shoulder with a fist. “Then you must have X-ray vision. I don’t think there’s anything here. I’ve a feeling she’s just what she looks like, a serious librarian with more on her mind than the latest fashions.”

After a pause, Dan went on. “Don’t take it wrong, okay? I’m worried about you. You’re not yourself. I mean, you almost blew it at the library, and then at the mall. All that after you promised you’d be careful.”

J.Z. went to argue, but Dan held up a hand.

“She’s not dumb, you know. You shouldn’t have talked Zelda into letting you take her place. You have to keep a professional distance.”

“You forget I’m the senior agent here.”

“But you’re acting like a rookie with a bone to pick. Unless you want to blow a case we’ve worked for months, you’d better get a hold of yourself.”

“So what do you have to say about the lab findings? Those were her fingerprints on Laundromat’s IV-fluids stand. They match the ones we lifted from her desk.”

Dan shrugged. “She’s in and out of that nursing home with her library cart and to visit her father all the time. Who knows when she might have touched the thing? For an innocent reason, I mean.”

J.Z. snorted. “They have sick people there, Dan. All that equipment is cleaned and disinfected and sanitized—all the time. It’d be pretty hard for fingerprints to survive that kind of scouring.”

“Hey, there’s always a first time for everything.”

So as not to continue the argument, J.Z. ground his teeth. He followed Maryanne’s progress toward her plain little Ford, and took note of how she patted the tight bun at the back of her neck.

He didn’t buy the story she was selling. No woman would choose to hide her hair like that without a reason.

Many years ago, his father had mastered the art of the innocuous appearance. The plain black suits, black ties, white shirts and black shoes he’d worn were the male equivalent of Maryanne’s dowdy wardrobe. Her bun was the perfect counterpart to Obadiah’s unremarkable barbershop cut.

He had to give the devil his, or in this case her, due—Maryanne Wellborn had her cover down pat, just like his father had. But J.Z. wasn’t about to let the illusion of respectability get in the way of his mission. He hadn’t gone over the edge; he just knew the difference between a trick and reality.

Everywhere the librarian went he’d be sure to follow. He would keep the pressure on her until she cracked. Sooner or later, she’d talk. And then he’d bust her, Olive Oyl disguise notwithstanding.

Maryanne ran into her father’s suite, out of breath. “I’m so sorry I’m late. The Sunday School Council meeting after the service dragged on forever.”

“Gimme a hug,” Stan said. “And in about an hour I’ll be the one griping about endless meetings. The Residents’ Senate has an agenda fatter than the Federal budget for today’s meeting.”

“Oh.” She plopped onto his bed. “Well, then, I guess I’d better be going. I’ll come back later…maybe after dinner.”

Stan caught her fingers. “Don’t you dare leave me to the mercy of that bunch of geezers.”