Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

blackmail her. It all seems so stupid and petty now. I wanted her ridiculous job.”
    “But I thought you didn’t,” I said. “I thought you wanted to write a book.”
    “I did, of course. I do. And now I can do it. You see what I mean about things working out? I never wanted the stupid job. But Mary Ellen and Katy—and Mother, of course—were always on my back about being director. I thought I’d do them a favor, that was all.” He shrugged, as if homicide were the least he could offer.
    “Also, I happened to be upholding the law. You see, sweet Sadie stole the Sheffield Pearl. How, I don’t know—she was probably over at Katy’s one day and lifted it when Katy was drunk. Her office door was slightly open and I saw her holding it up, looking at it with this kind of dreamy smile, and then hiding it in her desk.
    “I could have just called the police, but I recognized an opportunity, ladies and gentleman. I’d been hoping for one, thinking about one for so many years. A golden moment that would change my life. And finally one came to me—in the form of a glimpse of a woman looking at a pearl.” He licked salsa from the comer of his mouth, smug as a cat.
    “So I took the rest of the day and made my arrangements. Then I saw her go up on the roof with Julio. Naturally I followed and waited. I knew she’d stay there after Julio left—she treated it like her personal veranda. When he’d gone, she unhooked the plastic rope and bent down by the tank. When I came up, she said, ‘Oh, Warren, look at this splendid feather boa kelp.’” He did Sadie in falsetto.
    “I whipped out the Polaroid and showed it to her.”
    “The Polaroid?”
    “Why, yes, Rebecca, the Polaroid. When Sadie went to the roof, I simply sneaked in and took a picture of the pearl lying in her desk drawer. Pretty incriminating, wouldn’t you say? So I flashed it at her. I thought she’d try to grab it and beg for mercy, but she just seemed kind of puzzled. Finally she said, ‘Warren, what’s that?’
    “I said, ‘You know perfectly well what it is. It’s the Sheffield Pearl.’” He stowed a cookie. “I said, ‘Look, I've already called Katy. I know it’s been stolen.’”
    “And then she did something unbelievably stupid. She said, ‘You mean that pearl belongs to Katy Montebello?’ Can you believe the nerve? The insult to my intelligence?
    “I couldn’t handle her garbage anymore. I told her I was prepared to call the police and also to go before the board. But of course, I let her know I’d forget the whole thing—
and
let her keep the pearl—if she’d resign. That was the whole point.
    “She said obviously we couldn’t go on working together.
But do you know what she meant
? Not the obvious. Not by a long shot. The bitch tried to fire me!
    “I mean, can you believe that?” He paused. “I really started to get mad. Where does she get off, I’m thinking, you know what I mean? For Christ’s sake, the woman’s a thief. But she says, ‘Listen, for what it’s worth, I didn’t steal that pearl. I can’t tell you why I have it, but it happens to be for a legitimate reason—’
    “Oh,
sure
it was. She either stole it or she received stolen property. What other choices are there?”
    We were silent with our own guilty knowledge.
    “The bitch had the gall to say, ‘I’m sorry it has to end this way,’ and she started to leave. Then she turned back around and she said, ‘Warren, I’m going to tell you something. I’m really going to go out on a limb, and I hope I don’t hurt your feelings. Please believe me when I tell you that I know this isn’t your fault, I understand that. I’ve felt terrible for you ever since I met your mother.’
    “Now you see where this is leading. The bitch! My mother! I just started to see red. I said, ‘Where the hell did you meet my mother?’
    “She said, ‘Katy brought her around to some event or other. I’ve met her several times, actually.’ She put a hand on my wrist,
can you believe it
!” One after another, fat hands moving like motors, he stuffed cookies and chomped, giving new meaning to the term “fast and furious.”
    “
Can you believe she touched
me? In the very act of insulting my mother? She said, ‘Warren, nobody should have to go through what you went through.’ Do you
believe
it? She didn’t even know my mother! She said, ‘You don’t have to live with this, really you don’t—you can get better.’” He was doing the falsetto