Welcome to book fourteen in the Operation Quickline series. When old evidence in uncovered in the long-unsolved murder of Sid’s mother, he and Lisa end up mired in one of the messiest cases of their careers. You can read the first chapter here, or check out the other chapters here.
As I’ve already noted, Sid and I are not thrilled when people we don’t know try to get a hold of us. But we do need a cover career to hide behind, and being freelance writers is a darned handy one when we’re asking nosy questions that we otherwise couldn’t. So Sid has business cards with our rented mailbox address on it. We’ve set it up so that our house address is not linked to any of our phone numbers.
And people being who they are, they sometimes hand out our address and phone number without checking with us first. We can’t complain too much because we get some of our writing work that way. And it was how Jay Fedders got a hold of us. The other editor had just given him our phone number. Then Fedders passed it on to someone else.
At least, that’s what Congressman James Van Blinn said in the message he left on our answering machine. Fedders had heard about Van Blinn from Detective Reilly. Reilly, for her part, called to let us know that she had not told Van Blinn anything about us, but had put him onto Fedders.
“I didn’t want to say anything in front of your aunt,” Reilly said when Sid called her back. “But Dad thought that Van Blinn may have been one of those wealthy powerful men behind the case getting let go. Van Blinn seems on the level, but he’s been sniffing around ever since the murder happened.”
Sid had put her on the speakerphone in the office.
“Well, that’s interesting,” Sid said, his eyebrow quirking.
“It is,” Reilly said. “I put Fedders onto him in the hopes that he’d be able to lean on the old fart in a way that I can’t. Sorry about Fedders giving him your information. I swear this will be the last time I trust him with anything like that.”
“That’s alright.” Sid chuckled a little. “It happens all the time. We don’t like it, but it does.”
“On the other hand, would you mind talking to Van Blinn?” Reilly asked. “That whole leaning on him thing.”
Sid sighed and looked over at me. I nodded.
“I’ll see what I can do. Thanks for calling.”
He shook his head as he pressed the off switch on the phone.
Sid, Nick, and I had flown home on Thursday, the day after we had gone to the precinct house to meet with Reilly. Sid and I had figured that there would be a rush of work (both visible and not) to handle the following Monday after the holiday break, and wanted to take a day to prep before spending that weekend helping to clear Stella’s condo enough to make room for whatever Sy had decided to keep from his family’s place.
Which is why, that Friday morning, Sid and I were in our office listening to answering machine messages and calling people back. Nick was in his room or in the library, either reading or talking to his friend Josh on the phone.
“You okay?” I asked Sid.
Our desks are butted up against the other, so that Sid and I face each other when we work. Long John Silver, our gray cat with one eye, sat snuggled in Sid’s lap as usual. Motley, our springer spaniel with liver-colored spots, lay next to my desk, snoozing away, as he usually did. Fritz and Blueberry, Long John’s offspring, were elsewhere, probably outside in Fritz’s case. Blueberry preferred crashing in the living room, usually on a shelf. Bowser, the puppy, was running around the backyard.
Sid made a face. “I don’t know. I think I’m okay. I mean, I am curious. Even if Sheila wasn’t that real to me, it is a part of my history, and it would be interesting to know what happened. But then there’s Stella’s anger about it. Yeah, it’s justified, but I don’t know that I want to hook into it.” He blinked and shook his head as if trying to clear it. “I’ve spent too much time being angry.”
I nodded. Sid’s a Vietnam veteran, and when he got drafted and chose to go into the Army, it estranged him from Stella. It was his anger when he got home that continued the estrangement until late 1985.
“The problem is,” Sid continued, and winced. “We are pretty damn good at investigating things. So would it be an abuse of our privilege to check things out?”
I looked at him. “You’re not usually that worried about taking advantage of our jobs.”
“You’re right.” Sid’s face creased even harder. “That’s another thing that’s bothering me. Maybe I don’t want to know what happened. Maybe it’s better buried in the past. It doesn’t really change anything or affect me.”
“True.” I looked over the bit of work I was trying to get done. “But it affects Stella, and she does not seem to be dealing all that well with this.”
Sid’s breath released with a whoosh. “Which is the crux of the issue. This isn’t about my history. It’s about hers and how she’s able to deal with it. And there’s only so much we can do about it.”
“But if we can help her along…”
“There’s that, too.” Sid rolled his eyes.
I reached across my desk and grabbed his hand. “There’s no reason you have to answer Van Blinn’s message now. Why don’t we give it a few days?”
Sid agreed, and we went back to work. Sid got the freelancing work organized, while I went over my syllabus for the two sections of Basic Composition that I’d be teaching when school started the following week. Then I updated the notes and outlines for my two independent studies projects for my Monday meetings with each of the two professors supervising the projects, plus got in some advance reading on the one lecture class I was taking that semester.
The summer after Sid and I had gotten married, he talked me into following one of my big dreams, that of getting my PhD in English. This semester was the last of my coursework before I really knuckled down on my dissertation. It looked like it was going to be a fascinating semester, class-wise, but a busy one.
As for Congressman Van Blinn, well, he didn’t get to where he was by not being tenacious. Sid had the misfortune to pick up when the congressman called. Since Sid was working on an outline at the time, he slapped the speaker phone on so that he could keep writing as he talked.
“Hello?” Sid asked.
We don’t identify ourselves until we know who’s on the other end of the line.
“Eh. This is Congressman James Van Blinn,” said the soft, comfortable tenor through the phone’s speaker. “I’m trying to reach a Mr. Sid Hackbirn.”
Sid glanced my way. I shrugged and nodded.
“This is he,” Sid said.
“Ah. Good. I hope you got my earlier message.”
“I did.”
“Then you know that Mr. Fedders referred me to you regarding the murder of…” Van Blinn seemed to swallow. “Well, eh.”
“And what’s your interest in the case?” Sid asked, a little curtly. But then again, he clearly wasn’t sure what he was dealing with and wasn’t about to give away anything until he knew.
“I, eh, knew Sheila Hackbirn. We were very close.”
“I’m sure you were.”
“No! No. It wasn’t like that, son.”
I could see Sid bristling and held up my hand.
“I see,” Sid said to the speakerphone.
Van Blinn chuckled. “I doubt that.”
Sid and I both rolled our eyes.
“But,” Van Blinn continued quickly. “Of course, you couldn’t possibly have known. You were just a baby then. The way her case was handled, well, it was a terrible injustice. I’ve been trying to fix it ever since. I mean that. That’s why I want to talk to you. To tell you about her. Maybe then we can find the man who killed her.”
Sid sighed. “Alright. But I’m not in New York right now.”
“I know. Well, I know you live in Los Angeles. I’m in Orange County right now, myself. Visiting with an old friend from that time. In fact, Earline may be able to shed some light on this, as well.” Van Blinn coughed lightly. “I’d like to invite you to lunch this coming week. There’s a lovely old club, the Los Angeles Country Club.”
“I’m familiar with it,” Sid said.
“Would Tuesday be good for you?”
Sid glanced at me and shook his head. “Can you hold on for a second?”
“Sure.”
Sid put the congressman on hold. “Do you want to come?”
I frowned. “Do you want me there?”
“I asked you first.”
My eyes rolled. “I can be if you want me there. It’s first day of classes, though, so it might be tight. I’ve got a break between my lecture class and my first section of Basic Comp. And the college isn’t that far from mid-Wilshire.”
“I can probably push it to Wednesday, too.” Sid frowned as he thought. “Let’s see what Van Blinn wants to do.”
He pushed the buttons for the speakerphone again.
“Congressman? We can meet, but Wednesday would be better for my wife and me. And Stella.”
“Eh.” Van Blinn coughed, then chuckled. “Well, son, that would be a problem. I was hoping to meet you by yourself, and I’m afraid Wednesday would not be a good day for me.”
Sid shook his head. “I’m afraid that is a problem for me. Tell you what. I’ll see what I can do on my end, perhaps for later in the week. Is there a number where I can reach you?”
Van Blinn rattled off a number with an Orange County area code, then added his New York office so that Sid could leave a message, if necessary.
“I hope you reconsider, son,” Van Blinn said. “I understand why you’re… being cautious. But I believe this will be good for you.”
“We shall see. Good afternoon.” Sid hung up and shook his head.
I raised my eyebrows. “Sounds like a power-over game to me.”
“Possibly. Probably.” Sid got up and started pacing. “And you know what? I am not in the mood to play. Damn it, I am not his son, and I do not need to be jerked around by someone with paternal fantasies. Especially when it’s as possible as not that he was the one who killed Sheila, and is only sticking his nose in now so that he can keep us off the scent.”
“Okay. Do you want to mention him to Stella?”
“We’ll see.”
And we each went back to our respective work.
It was a good thing that we’d gotten that extra day at home before Stella and Sy arrived from New York. Their plane arrived at seven that evening. Sid and I picked them up and drove them to the condo on Wilshire. We’d driven Nick and his best friend Josh Sandoval to the mall around five. Josh’s father, Reuben, got the boys right before the mall closed and brought Nick home close to nine-thirty. Sid and I sent Nick to bed shortly after that. We needed to be at Stella’s fairly early and were figuring the next day was going to be pretty stressful.
It most certainly was. Stella snapped at everyone, especially Sid. Even Sy, who is normally quite easy going, got a little waspish as he tried, unsuccessfully, to get Stella to back down a little. Finally, late that afternoon, Stella kicked Sid, Nick, and me out, and we were happy to go.
“What is going on with Stella?” Nick complained as we drove back to our house in Beverly Hills.
Even Nick had gotten snarled at, and given how indulgent Stella usually is with him, it completely shocked the boy. He’s got the same blue eyes, dark wavy hair, and cleft chin that Sid and Stella have, but he was almost six feet tall, and had wisps of a dark beard on his cheeks and chin.
“I don’t know,” Sid said with a deep sigh.
I was driving because Sid was in no shape to, being exhausted from trying not to respond to Stella’s sniping.
“I don’t think it’s Sy moving in,” I said.
“I don’t either,” said Sid. “It’s probably her sister’s murder.”
“That makes sense,” said Nick. “I heard Sy whispering something to her, and I think that’s what it was about.”
Sid shook his head. “Which means we’re not going to find out for sure.”
“I wonder if Van Blinn got a hold of her.” I made a face.
“Who knows?” Sid blinked and shuddered. “But like I said, she’s not going to tell us. So I propose we let it all go and focus instead on demolishing a frutti di mare plate and some pasta from our favorite place.”
“Yeah!” Nick yelled.
“Sure,” I said.
“Dad,” Nick asked. “Are you doing okay?”
Sid smiled softly. “Okay enough, son.” Sid’s brow suddenly creased. “Do you mind me calling you son?”
“I don’t care.” Nick flopped back in his seat. “It’s not like you can call me by name when we’re out in public.”
It’s one of those things we just don’t do because of our little side business. There is the very slim possibility someone might latch onto our real names and take advantage of it. But it’s mostly about being undercover. If we’re already in the habit of not using our names in public, then the odds we’ll accidentally use our real names instead of our cover names are drastically lowered.
“Besides,” Nick continued. “I am your son. So why not?”
“No reason,” said Sid.
I did not believe that, and Sid knew it, which I could see from the way he glanced at me.
We had a lovely dinner, some nice wine and watched a movie on the VCR at home. While Sid seemed more relaxed, I was not so happy about him trying to let it all go.
“Look,” I said as Sid and I were getting ready for bed. “I understand that there’s not much we can do about Stella not wanting to talk about it. But we also know that’s how things get really messed up.”
“Yeah, it is.” Sid tossed his sport shirt into the hamper with more force than necessary. “But what are our options here? I can’t exactly stick a gun in her face and tell her to talk or else.”
“As if that tactic has ever worked.” I glared at my toothbrush.
“It’s not that.” Sid sighed again. “It’s just that if Stella doesn’t want to talk about it, she’s not going to. She’s been getting better about it, but after today, I really do not want to push it.”
“Is it because you don’t really want to know what happened to your mother?”
Sid sank onto the bench in our closet. “The funny thing is, I think I really do want to know. I’m sorry that I can’t seem to make up my mind on that score.” He frowned as he tried to parse out his feelings. “You know what it is? It’s Stella. I’m curious, but I think I’m pulling back because of her. I’ve never seen her like this before. She’s gotten so flat, and you know she is really upset. It’s as though all this hurt and anger is bubbling up in her, and I’m not sure where it’s coming from. I understand that she’s very bitter about how the case was handled. But how does that square with her feelings about her sister? She hated her sister.”
I finished rinsing my mouth and spat. “I don’t think Stella hated Sheila.” Grabbing a towel, I wiped off my face. “They weren’t friends. I remember Stella being very clear about that. My guess is that she had a lot of very mixed feelings about her sister. And then kept a lid on it all to protect you.”
Sid snorted. “I guess I should be grateful that she was that worried about hurting me. Still…” He shut his eyes, then pulled himself up from the bench. “I just don’t get what good it did. I found out anyway.”
He slid his arm around my shoulders and we made our way to our bed.
“I know,” I said. “It doesn’t always make sense to me, either.”
“It’s not like I don’t understand the need to keep a secret or two.” Sid pulled back the covers on his side of the bed. “That’s how you and I stay alive, for crying out loud. But this isn’t national security here. It’s simply a part of my ancestry. I know Stella didn’t want that for me, but honestly. How would knowing my mother was a hooker make me run out and do the same?”
“It wouldn’t, Sid.” I slid under the covers on my side of the bed. “But maybe Stella didn’t want you feeling the same sort of shame that she possibly did.”
“We knew a few hookers and she wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed that we did.” Sid got into bed, then scooted over to snuggle next to me. “But she never said word one about not wanting me to hustle.” He frowned as he considered something. “No. Remember when she first told us about Sheila being a hooker? I asked Stella why she didn’t tell me sooner, and that’s when she said she didn’t want that for me. As if knowing that my mother was a prostitute was going to somehow magically turn me into one.”
“Hm.” I thought that over. “You know what that reminds me of? There was this big fundamentalist Christian seminar that I got roped into going to my first year of college. I remember going along with some of it. The guy giving it definitely had some scary issues with women and questioning authority. But one thing he said that almost made sense was that if you want someone to identify counterfeit money, you don’t give him a bunch of counterfeits to look at. You give him the real stuff, so that if something doesn’t match, he knows to question it.”
“That’s horse manure,” Sid snorted. “What if the currency changes?”
“Christianity is not supposed to change.” I rolled my eyes. “But that’s beside the point. It’s the rationale behind banning books. If you give kids only quote, unquote, good stuff to read, they’ll be able to tell when something isn’t good.”
“Which is also horse manure.”
“I know, Sid. But maybe that kind of thinking was behind Stella not telling you anything. If she could erase her past, then maybe you wouldn’t be affected by it. It doesn’t matter that it didn’t work. In fact, that it didn’t might be driving some of her fear and anger even now.”
“It might at that.” Sid sighed deeply. “Maybe knowing what’s behind the angst will help dealing with it.” He looked over at me. “Odds I can talk you into giving me a back rub?”
I reached over and kissed his forehead. “No odds. That one is a dead cert.”
Thank you for reading. For more information about the Operation Quickline series, click here.
Please check out the Fiction page for the latest on all my novels. Or look me up at your favorite independent bookstore. Mine is Vroman’s, in Pasadena, California.