Never Thwart a Thespian: Volume 8 (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series) Read online

  “That red brick monstrosity that used to be a church. Right on Perry Highway, between the funeral home and the dry cleaners.”

  “Andrew Marconi’s place!” Maura cried.

  Leigh stared. “You know about him?”

  Maura raised an eyebrow. “A guy buys a building in the middle of West View, proposes to open a strip club, starts a major community uprising, and then disappears? No one for two boroughs in any direction is likely to forget that! And perhaps you haven’t heard, but I also work as a county detective?”

  Leigh sighed. “Sorry, I keep forgetting that other people actually had lives back then. I remember the hoopla it caused in the family, but the twins were toddlers in those days. Whenever I try to recall something from the world outside my house, all my brain serves up are blurred images of dirty diapers and macaroni and cheese.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Maura replied drily, turning to study her tableful of files. “Marconi never did turn up again, you know. I was just looking at that case yesterday. It wasn’t mine, but it always bothered me.” She pointed toward a stack just out of her reach. “Can you look in that pile, there? Should be labeled Marconi. Got a couple sticky notes hanging out the side.”

  Leigh rose, located the file, and handed it over. “Have you been inside the building?”

  Maura shook her head as she flipped through the folder.

  “It has bad karma,” Leigh informed.

  The detective frowned. “Don’t start with me, Koslow.” She found a page with a pink sticky and pulled it out. “I never was happy with this case. The lead investigator wasn’t the greatest — he’d been good early on, but then he had some personal problems that got in his way. I always suspected he left a lot of stones unturned with this one, and now I know he did. He never even interviewed your mother!”

  “My mother?” Leigh replied, startled. “Why on earth would he? I mean, I know she led the protests against the strip club, but—”

  Maura put down the paper and gave Leigh an appraising look. “You really don’t remember all this, do you? All right, sit back down and I’ll refresh your memory. At least of what’s on the public record.”

  Leigh dropped into her chair.

  “To hear the locals tell it now, Andrew Marconi was some glitzy shark from the West Coast who invaded West View with every intention of turning it into the next Las Vegas. But none of that was true. Marconi was a local boy — grew up in Shadyside. His family were big-money lawyers going back several generations, and Marconi was the last of the line. He was also the definition of a black sheep. Failed out of law school, got arrested a couple times for petty stuff, couldn’t hold a job. Only success he ever had was when his dad died and he used what little inheritance he’d been granted to buy himself a business. Turns out he had a knack for the adult entertainment industry. He started off with one adult video and novelties store downtown and within a few years had opened a strip club on the South Side and two more novelty shops down in Washington county on the interstate. He bought the building in West View hoping to be the first to offer quality titillation closer to home for the relatively wealthy gentleman of the northern suburbs. But he made a critical error.”

  Leigh smirked. “He underestimated one Frances Koslow.”

  “Indeed,” Maura agreed. “By all accounts, the public outrage totally blindsided him. He knew there would be some disapproval, but he was naive about his ability to sway the local zoning board. He’d paid more for the building than it was worth, and he was in hock up to his eyeballs after expanding his other businesses so rapidly. The zoning board’s decision was critical to him.”

  “So when he got the bad news he took off, rather than face his debts?” Leigh suggested.

  “Well now,” Maura said smoothly, “that’s just it. That’s what everyone assumed. But the fact is, not a single person went on record saying they’d seen Marconi for a full thirty-six hours before the decision came down. He didn’t attend the final hearing; only his lawyer was present. The president of the zoning board said publicly that he had tried to reach Marconi with the verdict, but was unable to contact him. So yes, Marconi could have heard the verdict through the grapevine, or just seen which way the wind was blowing and took off to parts unknown. But there’s not a shred of evidence proving that he ever actually found out the news he was waiting so desperately to hear.”

  Maura eyes met Leigh’s with a level gaze. “And in all the years since, the guy’s never been seen or heard from. The borough tried to find him — they had to in order to process all the legal rigmarole to get possession of the property he abandoned. He left all his other businesses in the lurch as well — had no further contact with family, employees, or his handful of friends.”

  Leigh felt a prickle of angst. “I never knew he disappeared disappeared. I just thought he skipped town.”

  “So did everyone else, at first,” Maura continued. “But his family raised the alarm when his car turned up abandoned somewhere in McKees Rocks, looking like it had been stolen and dumped several times over. When the investigators found no sign that Marconi had recently drawn out any cash and that he wasn’t using any of his credit cards, it began to look more like foul play.”

  Maura tapped the file with a finger. “The case got assigned to homicide, but it never went anywhere. The detective in charge found zippo and eventually it went on ice.” Her expression turned wistful. “I always wanted to take a crack at it. I could see that Doomas was tunneling the thing.”

  Leigh shifted uncomfortably in the recliner. She preferred the story she thought she knew. “What’s tunneling?”

  Maura’s reverie continued a moment before she answered. “Tunnel vision. You’ve got a guy named Marconi who’s into strip clubs and adult retail, and who owes a lot of money, and he mysteriously goes missing. What does that say to you?”

  Leigh shrugged. “Loan sharks? Mob hit?”

  “Exactly,” Maura proclaimed, smiling crookedly. “That’s what the detective went looking for. And those things are possible, sure. But what if his name was Steinmetz and he sold organic potpourri and scented candles?”

  Leigh’s forehead creased. “Not following.”

  “Just because a guy has an Italian name and sells sleaze doesn’t mean he’s connected,” Maura explained. “Nothing in Marconi’s file points to that. And he owed a lot of money, yes, but he owed it to legitimate lenders and he wasn’t in any immediate crisis. So his name might as well have been Steinmetz and he might as well have sold candles. And if that was the case — then what do you think might have happened to him?”

  Leigh considered. “Lover’s spat? Mental breakdown? Random mugging gone wrong?”

  “Assault by a crazed community organizer wearing orange lipstick and carrying a giant handbag?” Maura smirked. “You get my point. The detective spent almost no time looking at the other possibilities. He was too focused on what the stereotype dictated. Tunnel vision.”

  Leigh got antsy. She rose from the recliner and began to pace. She’d never met Andrew Marconi and couldn’t pretend to care about him personally, but whenever the M word came into play her feet itched — and justifiably so — to run the other direction. “So you think he was… you know?”

  “Oh yeah,” Maura said matter-of-factly. “I’d bet money he’s dead. What’s curious is why his body never turned up.”

  “Okay!” Leigh said loudly, throwing up her hands. “TMI, detective. I don’t need to hear anymore. Can we talk about something else, please? Like, say… food?”

  Maura had sunk her head back into her pillows again. She was staring at the ceiling, looking contemplative. “I asked Doomas back then if he was going to search the building, and I remember what he said. He looked right at me and said ‘For what?’ like it was a stupid question! I guess he thought the mob was so good at disposing of bodies that even bothering to look for one would be a waste of his precious time.”

  Leigh put a hand on the doorknob. “I’d better get going.”

  A
frown creased Maura’s face. “He did wind up doing a search, but how thorough was he? If only I could get up and out of here, I’d go down there myself right now and—” Her gaze rested on Leigh, whose presence she seemed to have momentarily forgotten. Ever so slowly, the detective’s frown melted into a smile. “Then again, I don’t need to get up, do I?”

  Leigh didn’t care for the gleam in her friend’s eye. “Did I mention that I have to go?”

  “How much time have you spent in that building?”

  “Allison may wake up and need me.”

  “Koslow!” Maura exclaimed, sitting up. Her cheeks were suddenly rosy. “Why did I never think of this before? All these years I’ve been cursing your sheer dumb luck, when I could have been making use of you! Why, you’re better than a damn cadaver dog!”

  Leigh’s face grew hot. “You are kidding, aren’t you?”

  Maura chuckled. “Of course, of course.”

  Leigh studied her another moment. “No, you’re not!”

  “Well, not completely,” Maura admitted, still smiling. “You have to admit, it would be terribly convenient.”

  Leigh rolled her eyes with a groan. The irritable, swearing, stomping Maura she had known and loved since her college days she knew how to deal with — but ever since the detective had heard her baby’s heartbeat, she had turned into an incurably happy camper whose peaceful, laissez-faire demeanor was curiously disturbing.

  “I’d feel a whole lot more comfortable if you’d just yell at me and tell me to stay the hell away from there,” Leigh declared.

  Maura shrugged. “No can do, Koslow. Stress is bad for the baby. But if it bothers you, just forget I said anything. Go on back with your Aunt Bess and scrape paint off the walls, redecorate, hang curtains — whatever you would otherwise do.” She smiled innocently.

  Leigh turned to leave.

  “If Marconi’s there,” Maura muttered with cheer, “I’m sure you’ll run into him.”

  Chapter 3

  “Are you positive you’re up to this?” Leigh asked her daughter worriedly as the Pack scrambled out of the van.

  “I’m fine, Mom,” Allison assured, twirling her neon pink eye patch around on her finger. “My eye just feels a little scratchy, that’s all. Do I have to wear this thing? The doctor said it was ‘optional.’”

  Leigh studied her daughter tentatively. Allison had been born prematurely and was small for her age, but the image of frailty she presented was only skin deep. The child had a mind like a steel trap and the curiosity of about six cats — a most uncomfortable combination, at least for her parents. “He also said you should avoid dust,” Leigh reminded. “Which will be completely impossible in this building without it. Now, put it on, please.”

  Allison sighed, adjusted the patch over her left eye, then put her glasses back on.

  “I think it looks cool, Al,” her brother Ethan encouraged. “Makes you look dangerous, in a girly sort of way.”

  Leigh smiled at her son, who had been born just as prematurely, but was big for his age. At eleven, he was nearly as tall as Cara’s son Mathias, who was thirteen and relatively tall himself. For much of the boys’ lives they had been the same size, but Mathias had recently hit a growth spurt.

  “Is it really dusty?” Cara’s daughter Lenna, also eleven, asked. “Maybe I shouldn’t have worn these leggings.” Her large blue eyes blinked with distress, and Leigh stifled a sigh. Neither she nor Cara had a clue how any girl born with Morton genes could be such a shrinking violet. Pathological anxiety in general was understandable — in that Lenna was like her Great Aunt Frances. But fear of insects, dirt, sweat, reptiles, and fashion faux pas put the child in sharp contrast to the rest of the Morton women, who — while sporting a variety of other neuroses — were uniformly audacious.

  “They’ll wash,” Leigh assured, closing the last of the doors and locking the van with her remote. “Let’s go on in and check it out. If anybody doesn’t want to stay and work, I can take you back home. It’s up to you.”

  The Pack looked at each other. Leigh knew full well that none of them would back out now, but she couldn’t resist making the offer. Just looking at the outside of the accursed building was enough to give her the heebie-jeebies. But she could hardly justify keeping everyone else out of it based on nothing but bad vibes and a bad joke. At least, she hoped Maura had only been joking. How could the detective be serious, when any number of people, including the police and a bevy of building inspectors, had been in and out of the place multiple times in the years since Marconi had gone missing? There was no rational reason to worry about… that.

  As Leigh led the Pack toward the building, a side door to the annex was opened, apparently by a giant bag of Styrofoam packing peanuts with legs. The figure stumbled to the rental dumpster and the bag was tossed up and in, revealing the shabbily dressed torso of a bulky man in late middle-age with a wild head of graying hair and broken black eyeglasses repaired with duct tape. He caught sight of the group and stared a moment, his jaw slack. “You here to see Ms. Bess?” he asked, his words slow and drawn out.

  “That’s right,” Leigh answered. “She’s here, isn’t she?”

  The man nodded. “She’s in the sanctuary.” His gaze turned to the Pack, and as he stared at them his eyes began to bug as if the children were armed and dangerous. “Are you the kids gonna work in the basement?” he asked tentatively.

  “They are,” Leigh responded, assessing him. The man did not appear to be mentally challenged, but his odd manner could certainly be described as “socially awkward.” She decided that he must be one of the men Bess had hired through a local charity to help with the manual labor. “I’m Bess’s niece, Leigh. Nice to meet you.”

  “I’m Ned.” He said simply, then he turned around and began walking back inside. Leigh looked over her shoulder to see Mathias elbowing Ethan in the ribs and whispering something in his cousin’s ear.

  Ethan grinned. “Yeah, he does!” he said out loud.

  After the man was out of earshot inside, Leigh turned around. “He does what?”

  Ethan looked slightly embarrassed. “Oh, it’s just that he looks like this character in a show we used to watch all the time.”

  “What show?” Lenna asked.

  “You know,” Mathias answered. “The Scooby Doo episode where—”

  Lenna shrieked and covered her mouth with her hands. “The creepy janitor!”

  “Stop that,” Leigh ordered, speaking to herself as much as the kids. “There’s nothing creepy about him. He’s just a man trying to do an honest day's work. I suggest you leave him alone and let him do it.”

  Stay away — far, far away, Leigh added mentally. She could hardly admit it to the kids, but the man was creepy. Which meant that everything about him fit into his current surroundings perfectly.

  They had just reached the door when the cool spring sun slid behind a cloud, darkening the sky. Leigh gritted her teeth and pulled on the door handle, fully expecting a hundred bats to come flying out in her face, just like in the Scooby Doo opening credits.

  The door creaked open uneventfully.

  It’s just a building! She reminded herself. So what if every blasted thing about the place was creepy?

  “Come on in,” she said with false cheer, holding the door open for the Pack and then pointing the way to the sanctuary. “Go see if you can find your Aunt Bess.” She would have made a joke about the — very real — bats waiting in the rafters, but she didn’t care to hear Lenna shriek again.

  The kids took off toward the sanctuary without looking back, and Leigh lingered in the hall a moment, wishing she hadn’t had quite so much diet cola on the drive down. Bess had said that the plumbing in the bathrooms was functional, but there was little else to recommend them. Would they even have toilet paper? Leigh grimaced as she opened the door to the women’s room and stepped inside.

  Her nose was struck immediately by the distinctive scent of lemon mixed with ammonia. She looked down to see a black and
white tile floor not only clear of debris, but shining in the harsh fluorescent light. Looking up revealed bright pink stalls, gleaming white sinks and a spotless mirror. The metal trash can in the corner had disappeared, replaced by a white wicker bin with a neatly tied-off plastic liner. The towel dispenser hung straight on the wall, exposing an appropriate two inches’ worth of brown paper.

  Leigh stood still and stared. It was Saturday morning. She had just been here on Thursday. There could be only one explanation for such a phenomenal transformation.

  A toilet flushed. Leigh watched as a woman’s behind backed out of the stall, clad in fake-denim, elastic-waisted work pants with a cleaning smock tied around the back. The woman straightened and turned towards Leigh. Her carefully coifed hair was covered with a clear plastic rain bonnet, and she held a toilet bowl brush in one hand and a bottle of cleanser in the other.

  “Hi, Mom,” Leigh greeted. “Wow. You’ve been busy.”

  Frances’s lips pursed. “Your aunt has gone too far this time. You do realize that this scheme of hers isn’t feasible?”

  Leigh considered the question rhetorical. “The bathroom looks great.”

  Frances harrumphed. She set down her tools in a bucket by the sink and removed her gloves. Then she pulled off the bonnet, tucked it in a pocket of her smock, and fluffed her limp curls. “Decent restrooms are the least of Bess’s problems.”

  Leigh short-circuited the rant she feared was coming by slipping into a stall and attending to her business. When she emerged, her mother was no longer in the bathroom. Smiling at the success of her tactic, Leigh washed her hands with the provided industrial-strength antibacterial hand soap and stepped back out into the hall.

  “What Bess does not realize,” Frances continued from her position just outside the door, “is that a building this size cannot just be cleaned once. It will require constant diligence both in cleaning and in repairs, absolutely indefinitely. Her rag-tag group of part-time thespians cannot possibly manage such a task, nor can they afford to pay to have it done properly. Why, if your aunt had any idea how much it would cost to hire a so-called ‘professional’ to perform all the cleaning services so desperately needed around this—”