Dial H for Hitchcock (16 page)

I
t isn’t every day you meet a bearded lady and the world’s fattest man. No, that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Of which I’d experienced several lately.

Sugar Beet Amusement Park rose out of the dust like a cut-rate mirage, featuring twenty-five different games and shows, a farm-themed carousel, and an adults-only Tunnel of Love.

I pulled the car into an empty spot, then made my way to the entrance.

The bearded lady and the fat man were having a smoke under the neon sign.

I coughed to get their attention, then asked if they knew where I could find Dorothy Johnson.

After one last drag, the fat man crushed his cigarette under his floppy red shoe. “Nasty habit, sorry.”

The bearded lady said, “You’re a heart attack waiting to happen, young man.”

“Shut up,” he said companionably. “Your whiskers look like crap.”

She whacked him on the shoulder, then licked her fingers and twirled the ends of her mustache. “We’re disgusting. Like an old married couple. Take a right at popcorn and another right at Chicago-style dogs. Dorothy does spin art.”

The place was packed. A boy in a cowboy hat bumped me as he passed.

“Where’d you get the cotton candy?” I asked. “It looks good.”

“Dentist says it rots your teeth.” He reached into his holster, pulled out a gun, and pointed it in my face. “You get me?”

Ah, the impertinence of youth.

I followed the sound of fresh corn popping, then the scent of Chicago-style dogs, which come on a poppy-seed bun and unless you say otherwise are topped with mustard, onion, sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, peppers, and a dash of celery salt. I got mine fully loaded.

While I was eating, I watched the people trying their luck at the Hi-Striker. There was a father with a trio of adoring daughters. A skinny cowboy whose girlfriend was holding a huge stuffed bear, which the adoring daughters eyed enviously. An older man wearing his Sunday best. After draping his suit jacket over the fence, he picked up the mallet, raised it over his head, and slammed it down with all of his might, ringing the bell. He won a bag of freshly pulled taffy, which he gave to the little girls.

Spin art was just opposite.

“You can use blue, too, if you want.” The woman behind the counter handed a squirt bottle to a kid with chocolate all over his face. “Three colors for two dollars.”

The kid throttled the plastic like he was draining the life out of it.

The machine stopped spinning. The woman removed the piece of paper. “There you go,” she said, smiling.

“Looks like guts,” said the kid with satisfaction.

I took a step forward. “Excuse me?”

She studied me with clear blue eyes. “My daughter told me you called. I’ve been waiting.”

The first thing I noticed about Dorothy Johnson was her hair. It was silvery gray and glittered like tinsel on a Christmas tree. She wore it pulled back off her face, like she had nothing to hide. But she was tired. You could see that in the set of her mouth. Tired of having to smile.

“Give me just a minute.” Dorothy walked over to the ring-toss booth. “Emma,” she called out. “Can you take over for a little while?”

A young woman with a Mohawk handed a large man three metal rings and tucked the five-dollar bill he gave her into the pocket of her apron. “No problem,” she said, revealing a mouth full of gold teeth.

“This way.” Dorothy took my arm. “Let’s find someplace a little more private.”

It was crowded. We pushed our way past teenagers traveling in packs, mothers pushing strollers, kids clutching giant cups of soda.

“I once rigged a spin art machine for my daughter out of a salad spinner and some paper plates,” I said. “Man, did that make a mess.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Have you been working here long?” I was trying to make conversation.

“Nope.”

“Pop the balloon, Miss?” a man in yellow overalls called out. “Five dollars for three tries. Your choice of prizes!”

“It’s rigged,” Dorothy said with a sudden flash of anger. “The balloons are underinflated and the darts’ tips are dull. And don’t even bother with the milk throw. One of the bottles in the bottom row is always weighted. Come on.”

We passed a display of the local produce, which included sugar beets, potatoes, corn, and barley. Then the carousel, which had pigs, sheep, and goats instead of the usual prancing ponies. Just beyond that was a small dock and a glistening man-made lake with an island in the middle, surrounded by lush palms.

Dorothy walked up to the kiosk and got two tickets.

We were going to the Isle of Enchantment.

The kid manning the dock helped us into a small rowboat. “Hands and feet inside at all times. Remember to be courteous to your fellow travelers, and no drinking and driving.” He gave us a hard push.

The boat drifted away from the dock. We glided for a minute or so. I watched a stray balloon turn into a dot, then disappear.

“Nice day,” I said.

Dorothy didn’t respond.

I reached down to touch the water. The cold pricked my fingers. I shook off the drops and closed my eyes. I felt the sun on my face, the soft breeze against my cheek.

When the boat came to a stop, we picked up the splintering oars and started rowing. It didn’t take long to get into the rhythm. Oars lifting, pausing, slicing into the water, then dragging against the current until they reached the sweet spot
where they could be lifted out again. Before long we were bumping up against the shore.

Dorothy got out first, picking her way through the tall grasses clustered along the bank. “This way.”

I could still hear the sounds coming from the other side of the lake: the carnival barker, the carousel music, bells ringing, whistles blowing. But they were faint now, just echoes. We followed a path of moss-covered stepping-stones through a shady grove of trees, past some empty picnic tables and an abandoned stand that had once offered fresh lemonade for twenty-five cents. Now all I could hear was birdsong and the wind whipping up the fallen leaves.

The Isle of Enchantment was deserted.

All of a sudden, Dorothy turned around. She had a strange look in her eyes.

And a gun in her hand.

“What are you doing?” I gasped.

“This is the last time anybody’s going to take advantage of me.” She leveled the gun at my head.

I did not have a good feeling about this. “Can we talk, Dorothy?”

“Nothing to talk about. It’s over.”

“Put the gun down, Dorothy. Please. Shooting me isn’t going to solve anything.”

There was no point in screaming. We were alone. As for making a break for it, I could try. But most people can’t outrun a bullet.

“I lost my house, my job, everything,” Dorothy said. “But you’d know that, wouldn’t you? And I wasn’t the only one. A lot of people got hurt.”

I took a step back. If I could distract her for a second, I could duck into the trees. It was dark in there. She wouldn’t be able to find me. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

“You’re a lawyer. You’ve been trying to find me. All you need is my social security number, right? Maybe the number of my bank account? Then you’ll wire me my inheritance, isn’t that how it goes?”

I took another step backward. “Look, I’m sorry I lied to you. I didn’t want to, but I had no choice.”

“Oh, you had to? You’re just another innocent victim?”

“I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Liar.” She pulled back the release.

A lot of people got hurt.

That was what Anita’s sister had said to Mystery. But she’d also said Anita was finally taking her life back. That she was done being a victim.

“Wait,” I pleaded. “Do you know somebody named Anita Colby?”

“Quit stalling.”

“Anita Colby lost everything, too.”

I thought about what the tiny yellow-haired girl at the Andalusia had told me. That Anita was finally getting out from under.

“Anita Colby is the reason I’m here,” I said. “She was murdered, and she left behind some papers. Your name was on them. I think she knew what was going on. I think she was trying to stop it.”

“I don’t know anybody named Anita.”

I reached into my purse.

“Stop!” Dorothy cried. “Don’t even think about it!”

I put my hands up and let the purse fall to the ground. “I just wanted to show you something. I have a picture. Maybe you’ll recognize her.”

“I’ll get it.” She bent down to pick up my purse, never taking her eyes off me.

“It’s in my wallet, a driver’s license. Anita Colby. Blond hair, five foot ten.”

Dorothy reached into my wallet, indiscriminately tossing credit cards and papers onto the ground. Then she stopped. “Is this what you’re talking about?”

I took Anita’s driver’s license out of her hand. I’d picked it up on the trail less than a week ago. So much had happened since then. I looked deep into Anita’s brown eyes. She was trying to tell me something. But what?

“Yes,” I said, handing the license back. “This is what I’m talking about. This is Anita.”

Dorothy shook her head. “This isn’t Anita.”

“I don’t understand. Who is it, then?”

“This is Cece.”

I felt my stomach lurch. “Cece Caruso?”

Dorothy nodded. “You know her?”

I sighed. “I am her.”

C
ece Caruso turned up one day like the proverbial bad penny.

She was a tall, willowy blonde in some kind of crazy wraparound kimono dress. Big eyes. Looked like a movie star.

Yeah, Dorothy said, remembering. She was some kind of actress.

It had been close to nine o’clock in the morning. Dorothy was late to work. She was in a hurry. She’d been reprimanded twice the week before. Her job was on the line.

Not to worry, Cece said. I’m going to make it worth your while.

She worked for a Hollywood studio.

Flashed a fancy business card.

Said they were shooting a movie in the area, and her job was to scout locations.

Cece needed a house just like Dorothy’s. A house with a white
picket fence and an American flag and a couple of bikes in the driveway and a rose garden that could maybe use a little pruning.

The house was where the family lived. Dad worked for the city and Mom stayed home with the kids and baked cookies. On weekends, the neighbors came over for barbecues. Then Dad got laid off and Mom stopped baking. Dad started drinking. And late one night, after a delicious pot roast, he waited until everyone was fast asleep, knocked back a fifth of Scotch, stumbled out to the garage, and blew his brains out.

But that was getting ahead of ourselves, Cece said. She promised Dorothy a copy of the script. It had Oscar written all over it. Then she pulled out a contract. Her boss would be by the next day. He’d pick up the paperwork and go over any questions Dorothy might have.

They were going to pay Dorothy ten thousand dollars for the first week, and an extra five for every day after that. Cece anticipated it would be twelve to fifteen days’ shooting time, meaning Dorothy was going to get close to fifty thousand dollars.

Fifty thousand dollars? Dorothy asked where to sign.

Cece laughed, then asked if she could peek inside for a minute. Dorothy invited Cece into her home. And that was when she did it. Found something. Some piece of mail or some old bill or some loose check or something with Dorothy’s private information on it. Dorothy still didn’t know what it was. But whatever it was, Cece found it and took it and tore Dorothy’s life to pieces. Not that Dorothy knew that yet. That was back when she still thought she was lucky.

Cece’s boss showed up the next day to pick up the signed
contract. He was a handsome fellow. Said that he liked what he saw. That Cece had picked the perfect place. He shook Dorothy’s hand and promised the check would arrive by messenger within the week.

The check never arrived.

Dorothy called the number he left, but it was not in service. Dorothy looked up the production company, but couldn’t find it. She figured they’d found another house with a white picket fence and roses that maybe needed pruning and promptly forgot about her Hollywood dream.

The trouble started six months later.

When the phone rings at three in the morning, it’s never good news.

It was somebody from a collections agency. They said Dorothy’s account with some bank she’d never heard of was four months in arrears. If she didn’t immediately make a payment of $9700, they were proceeding with legal action. When Dorothy tried to protest, the man on the other end of the phone started yelling, then hung up.

When Dorothy arrived at work later that morning, she had a note on her desk saying her supervisor wanted to see her. Dorothy was nervous. The supervisor had a bad temper. Her name was Mary Alice. Mary Alice said that they were doing a routine check on their employees and had learned that Dorothy had several delinquent accounts, a judgment against her, and a warrant out for her arrest. Mary Alice fired Dorothy on the spot.

On the way home, Dorothy stopped for lunch. After she’d finished her burger, she put down a credit card. The waitress took it with a smile, then came back frowning. The card was declined. So were the rest of them.

Dorothy paid cash.

When she got home, she had four messages on her machine. The first was from the collections agency. The second was from the bank. The third was from the mortgage company. The fourth was from the police.

Dorothy put her head in her hands, and wound her fingers around her long silvery hair. She couldn’t go on.

She didn’t have to. I handed her a tissue and put my arm around her. I was starting to understand.

Which meant the nightmare was almost over.

D
orothy lived in a trailer park not far from Sugar Beet Amusement Park. On the way there, we stopped at the grocery store and picked up steaks, baking potatoes, lettuce, and a bottle of Cabernet.

“Special occasion?” asked the checker, taking the hundred-dollar bill out of my hand.

“Could be,” I said.

“Somebody’s birthday? Don’t see no candles.”

“Better,” said Dorothy. “The day of reckoning.”

The checker handed me a bag and sixty-seven cents’ change. It’d better be the day of reckoning. I was down to eighteen hundred dollars. If I’d been thinking, I would’ve taken that forty from Mystery.

Dorothy’s trailer had flower boxes in the windows, wall-to-wall carpeting, and wireless Internet access.

“The resident manager set it up,” Dorothy said, flipping
through her mail. “She’s constantly on eBay. Collects owls. Owl salt and pepper shakers, owl cuckoo clocks, owl brooches. I have no idea where she keeps them. When I lost my house, I threw everything away. Didn’t stop until I’d filled ninety-seven garbage bags. Jesus. Don’t you hate junk mail?” After tearing the whole stack in half, she reconsidered and threw it up into the air. “Look. It’s confetti.”

Somebody was in a party mood.

“You can sit over here.” Dorothy picked a folding chair off a hook on the wall and carried it over to a wooden desk wedged into the narrow space opposite the bathroom. A daisy had been carved into the desk with red ballpoint pen. “I’ll be right back.”

The tiny space was a miracle of organization. There were twin Murphy beds, a Lilliputian kitchen unit with a pop-up Formica table, and a leather loveseat with swiveling armrests that doubled as TV trays.

“Do you take anything in your tea?” Dorothy asked.

“Black is fine.” I pulled Anita’s list out of my purse and laid it down next to the computer monitor.

There were eighteen names and phone numbers besides Dorothy’s. Ten of them had the same area code: 785.

Dorothy’s screensaver was a mystical gazebo, complete with unicorns, fairies, and tinkling wind chimes. I killed the fantasy and opened Safari.

Area code 785 stretches from the Colorado state line on the west to the Missouri state line on the east, but does not include the Kansas City metropolitan area. The largest city covered by the area code is the state capital of Topeka.

Kansas.

That must’ve been where this had all started.

Kansas?

Something rang a bell.

My best friend, Lael, grew up outside Topeka, but that wasn’t it.

Kim Novak’s character in
Vertigo
is from Salina, but that wasn’t it, either.

It would come to me.

Back to the list. I decided to start at the top.

Elaine Harris, from New Haven, Connecticut.

I typed the name into Google.

After reading through most of the thirty-plus hits, I pieced together Elaine’s story from articles in the
New Haven Advocate,
the
New Haven Independent,
and the
Yale Daily News.

Elaine had met him at the mall. Her mother had always warned her not to speak to strangers, but this man was different. Soft-spoken. Professional-looking. He gave her his card. It was on nice paper stock. Heavy. Expensive.

As one of the principals of A-1 Celebrity Management, he was always on the lookout for girls with that special something, and Elaine had it in spades.

He bought her lunch. They talked about everything under the sun. He told her she was not only beautiful, but also smart. The world, he said, was her oyster. Right there and then, he prepared a contract for her to sign. Exclusive representation for a year.

Elaine spent much of her savings having her hair straightened and her lips plumped. Then she had head shots taken and sent them to a post-office box, as instructed.

Two days later, he called. He’d gotten her an agent and a
paper towel commercial. She was going to be a young housewife whose marriage is saved by double-ply double rolls. All he needed to process her advance was a social security number.

Schuyler Kramer of Sandy Point, Maryland, met him while she was walking her dog, Lucifer, an uncommonly attractive Afghan hound.

He told Schuyler he ran a company that represented animal actors, who were always greatly in demand. Had she ever thought of registering Lucifer? She could make a tremendous amount of money.

From Schuyler, he got a bank account number.

Joe Schwartz, from Tampa, Florida, was an aspiring science fiction author. His hero was Philip K. Dick.

There were two of them this time.

Joe met them at a reading he gave at the community center. A good-looking man and a nondescript woman. Dishwater blonde. Big, staring eyes. That’s how he’d described her to the police.

During the Q&A, the woman had asked a lot of questions—how he’d gotten started, what inspired him, where and when he did his best writing. The man with her was quiet, but took copious notes.

Afterwards, they approached the podium. Asked Joe if they could take him out for a drink. Said they ran a publishing house based in the Midwest, and were interested in putting out a small run of his short stories.

The man and the woman accompanied Joe back to his apartment. They had another drink while Joe printed out his life’s work. The woman asked if she could use the bathroom. Joe and the man stood at the door, chatting, while she freshened up.

After they left, Joe waited to hear from them. When he didn’t, he assumed they hadn’t liked the stories after all.

The call from the collections agency came eight months later.

I looked up from the monitor, aghast.

Who could do such things?

Taking people into their confidence.

Preying on their vanity.

Leaving them with nothing.

Never worrying about the trail they’d left behind because it would be cold by the time anybody could put two and two together.

“More tea, Cece?” Dorothy asked.

I rubbed my eyes. “I’m fine. The steaks smell great.”

“They’ll be ready in ten minutes.” Dorothy had draped an oilskin cloth over the pop-up table and was setting it with plastic utensils. “I’m sorry about this. It’s going to be hard to cut with plastic.”

“It isn’t easy to start over,” I said. “I admire you.”

“Drink your wine,” she said, bringing it over.

“Here’s to.” I clinked my glass against hers.

Then I typed in the words, “identity theft.”

Identity theft and fraud.

Identity theft prevention.

Surviving identity theft.

Fighting identity theft.

The last one was a news item.

In New Mexico, Wells Fargo Bank was inviting people to bring up to fifty pounds of paper documents to their local branch for free shredding.

I suddenly remembered the stack of preapproved credit-card solicitations on Anita’s desk drawer. She’d gone through other people’s trash to get them. No wonder she had all those pairs of rubber gloves under her sink.

And the change-of-address forms. When she got sick of going through other people’s trash, she’d simply rerouted their mail.

Anita was guilty. That seemed fairly evident now. But she wasn’t working alone. There were at least two of them.

She wanted out.

He wanted to keep things as they were.

Maybe she blackmailed him, thinking it was her only option. Maybe not. In either case, he decided to kill her. But he didn’t want anybody asking questions. He had to make it look like an accident. For that, he needed a witness.

It was dark now. I looked out the window. I couldn’t see anything except my reflection in the glass.

I was the witness.

But why me?

Why had Anita been using my name? Was she the only one? Were there other Ceces out there wreaking havoc on innocent people’s lives?

“Anybody here?” somebody called out.

Dorothy’s daughter was home. She resembled her mother, except for the hair. Hers was straight out of a bottle, a glossy blue-black, and hung down on either side of her pale face. She had a Bettie Page tattoo on her forearm. The girl took one look at me, then turned to Dorothy. “We rich now, Mom?”

“Erin,” Dorothy began.

“Didn’t think so.” Erin tossed her purse on the couch.

“I’m afraid you don’t understand,” I said.

“Oh, I understand plenty.” She pulled a Coke out of the refrigerator. “Nice steaks. She buy those for you?”

“It’s not what—”

Erin grabbed her mother by the shoulders. “You said you were going to teach her a lesson. And now she’s in our house, and on your fucking computer! It’s happening all over again. Wake up, Dorothy! You’re not in Kansas anymore!”

Kansas.

Kansas.

Jesus.

Now I remembered.