The Accident

THIRTY-TWO

“I have to make a couple of calls before we leave,” I said to Kelly. She rolled her eyes, like we were never going to get out of here, as I went down to my office. My first impulse was to contact the police about Sommer’s visit, but as I picked up the receiver I wondered what, exactly, I’d tell them. The guy oozed menace, but he really hadn’t threatened me. I was the one who said I’d beat him to death, if he came near Kelly.

So I made the other call. To Belinda’s real estate office.

“She’s not in right now,” the receptionist told me. “If you’d like to leave a message, I’ll-”

“What’s her cell number?”

She gave it to me. I hung up and dialed the new number. After two rings, an answer. “Glen?” she said.

“Yeah, Belinda.”

“Could I call you back? I’m just heading off to show a house.”

“No. We need to talk now.”

“Glen, if you called to chew me out about the lawyer thing, I told you, I’m sorry about that, I really am. I never-”

“Tell me what was in the envelope,” I said, removing the lid from the shoebox under the desk and taking it out.

“Excuse me?”

“The one you gave to Sheila. You answer all my questions about it, and it’s yours.”

Silence at the other end of the line.

“Belinda?”

“You found it? So it really wasn’t in Sheila’s car?”

“That depends. You tell me what was in it, and I’ll tell you if I’ve found it.”

She started making funny breathing sounds. I wondered whether she was hyperventilating or something.

“Belinda, are you there?”

Her voice small, whispering. “Oh my God, I can’t believe it.”

“Just tell me.”

“Okay, okay, okay, it was an envelope. A brown business envelope. And there was… there was some money inside.”

“So far, so good. How much money?”

“There should be… there should be sixty-two thousand in it.” She sniffed. She was crying.

I had counted it late last night, and she had it right. “Okay. Next question. What was it for?”

“It was to pay for some merchandise. Some purses. A lot of purses.”

“What else?”

“Just…”

“Belinda, I’m going to start a little fire in the trash can here. And every time you don’t answer my question, I’m going to drop a thousand bucks in.”

“Glen, no! Don’t do that!”

“What else other than purses?”

“Okay, okay, purses, and also some vitamins and-”

“I’m just getting out my lighter.”

“Okay! Not vitamins, exactly. More like pharmaceuticals. Prescription drugs. Discount prescription drugs. Not, like, you know, crack or heroin or anything like that. The kind of drugs that help people. At better prices.”

“What else?”

“That’s mostly it. A few other things, but mostly purses and prescriptions.”

“And where does all this stuff come from?” The receiver felt hot in my hand.

“You know, from purse makers and drug companies.”

“I’ve got a better idea. Instead of setting fire to the money, I’ll just hang on to all of it myself.”

“Damn it, Glen, what do you want me to tell you?”

“Everything!” I shouted. “I want to know where you get this stuff, what you’re doing with it, how Sheila was involved, and why the fuck there’s more than sixty fucking grand in an envelope in my house! I want to know why Sheila had this money, why you gave it to her, what she was supposed to do with it. I want to know what the hell happened that last day! I want to know what Sheila did, where she went, who she saw, right up to the moment she drove her car up that ramp. That’s what I want you to tell me, Belinda. That’s what I want to know.”

Once I was done with my tirade, I could hear her weeping. “I don’t have all those answers, Glen.”

“Tell me the ones you’ve got. I’ve got money to burn here.”

She sniffed. “The Slocums were the ones who first got into it. Darren, he pulled over some guy driving a van up to Boston one night, for speeding or something. And when he checks out the truck, he finds it full of purses. Knockoffs, you know?”

“I know.”

“So instead of giving the guy a ticket, Darren gets asking him about his business, what it’s all about. He’s thinking this would be a good way for Ann to make some money, because she was losing her job about this time, and the police, they were cutting back on overtime. So the guy, he puts Darren onto his suppliers, people out of New York.”

“Okay.” I put my free hand to my forehead. I could feel a massive headache coming on.

“Ann said there was a lot of money to be made, and not just in purses. She said there was watches and jewelry and DVDs and building supplies-she had a couple of customers for some of that stuff. But she was finding that running the purse parties kept her busy enough. She didn’t want me selling the bags, then we’d be competing with each other, but if I wanted to take on some of the other stuff-and, well, real estate’s kind of been slow lately, so I said okay, I’d try the prescriptions.”

“Drugs,” I said.

“I told you, it’s not like that. It’s not like I’m running a crystal meth lab. These are legitimate prescription drugs, made overseas. A lot of it comes through Chinatown-you ever been down around Canal Street?”

“How’d Sheila get involved? How’d she end up with all this money? Why was she doing this delivery?”

“She knew how bad things were going for you, Glen. She was taking the course to help you, but then there was the fire, and hardly any jobs on the horizon, and she wanted to do her part. She’d only just gotten into the prescription thing, she’d only made a couple of sales, enough to buy Kelly some new clothes.”

Oh, Sheila, I thought. You didn’t have to do this.

“The money, Belinda.”

“Ann and Darren, they had a payment to be made. That was the sixty-two thousand. Sometimes, I’d get it to them. They liked their money delivered in person.”

“They?”

“The suppliers. I don’t think Ann or Darren had ever really met them, but there was a contact person. I don’t know his name for sure, but-”

“Sommer? Tall guy, black hair? Nice shoes? Fake Rolex?”

“That could be him. But the thing was, I’d go into the city, and usually I’d just drop the money off in a mail slot or something, although sometimes, when Ann went in, she’d hand deliver it to the guy. But the day before I was to do the delivery, I had two or three calls from people, wanting to see properties the next day that I had listed, so I asked Sheila, since she was getting interested, and it was already the day she was going to be out for her class, whether she could do the delivery for me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “And she said yes.” Sheila always said yes when a friend asked for help.

“She did. So I gave her the envelope, with a phone number to call if there was a problem.”

“Sommer,” I said. “Sheila called the number once. To say something had come up. The money never left the house. Why didn’t she do the delivery?”

“I don’t know, I swear. Glen, they’re telling me, if I don’t come up with the money soon, they’re going to do something! We’ve managed to pay some of it back. I’ve maxed out my line of credit and gave seventeen thousand to Darren and Ann, and they put in another eight, for a total of twenty-five. But that still leaves thirty-seven thousand, and if we don’t pay soon, there’s going to be crazy interest on it. Ann told me, before she died of course, that she’d gotten a life insurance policy, but that could take months to pay out, and these people, they don’t want to wait.”

“Maybe you should call the police,” I said coldly.

“No! No, listen, if I can get the money to them, it’ll all be over. I don’t want the police involved. George, he doesn’t even know I’ve been doing this. He’d go crazy if he knew I’d gotten involved in all this.”

“So what the hell happened?” I said, as much to myself as Belinda. “She didn’t make the trip into Manhattan, or if she did, she went without the money. And she didn’t make it to her class or-”

“That class,” Belinda said. “She was liking it so much at first, but that instructor-she was getting kind of fed up with him.”

“You talking about Allan Butterfield? Was he calling her a lot?”

“Yeah. I don’t think it was about homework. Sheila would look at her phone, see it was him, and ignore it.”

All those missed calls on Sheila’s cell. The ones she either didn’t hear or chose not to pick up. “Maybe that’s why she didn’t go to the class,” I said. “But where did she go instead?”

“I guess… I guess she went somewhere to drink,” Belinda said, gently. “I mean, that is kind of what happened. Maybe everything that was going on, she was so stressed out, she just needed to take the edge off, you know? God, I feel like I’m there.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Glen, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry about everything that’s happened. I’m sorry I involved her in any of this. But we don’t know that it has anything to do with what happened later. Maybe… maybe she got scared. She had second thoughts about selling the prescriptions and maybe she went to a bar and-”

“Shut up, Belinda. I’ve heard all I want to hear. You’re a hell of a friend. First you get Sheila involved in this, and then you help the Wilkinsons. You’re the best.”

“Glen,” she whimpered. “I answered your questions. I’ve told you everything I know. I… I have to get that money.”

“I’ll pop it in the mail for you,” I said, and ended the call.