Page 43 of The Newcomer
“But you’re taking a beach day today,” he pointed out.
“Seems almost criminal to beatthe beach, yet notonthe beach,” Letty said. “This weather is so amazing, I still can’t believe it’s winter in the rest of the country.”
“You mean, like, in New York?” He said it casually, but Letty heard the intent behind the question. She decided it was best not to evade the question.
“Yeah.”
“How long did you live there?” he asked.
“Five or six years.” She needed to shut down this line of questioning. “Hey, what’s going to happen with Ben Dover and his stepmom? Are they still in jail?”
“They’re still there, and I don’t see either one of ’em getting out anytime soon,” Joe said. “That story about going to visit her kids was bullshit. When we popped the lock on the trunk of that Impala we found an electronic credit card skimmer and boxes of credit card blanks. Those two are bad news.”
“Did you tell Ava about what you found?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, taking a swig of beer. “She says she’s learned her lesson now, but she always says that. The problem is, in her mindshe’s a hard-nosed, take-no-prisoners businesswoman. She can’t stand the idea of having an empty room for even one night.”
Letty thought about the gun Ava had hidden in the front-office cash drawer and wondered if Joe was aware that he had a pistol-packing mama. And just how much did he know about her own complicated situation?
“But the reality is my mom is a pushover. Which is why all these sad-sack hard-luck losers are attracted to her like flies to honey.”
“You mean people like me?” she asked.
His face flushed. “That’s not what I meant. You didn’t show up here looking for a handout, or to rip her off. I was thinking about her shitbird ex-boyfriend.”
“The unhandy handyman,” Letty said.
“The one who set up a scam business out of one of the rooms right here at the Murmuring Surf, right under my nose.” He scowled. “Chuck and Rooney, the dynamic duo of rip-off artists.”
Letty almost choked on her hard cider. “Rooney? Did you say the other guy’s name was Rooney?”
Rooney. Tanya’s ex-boyfriend. That Rooney?
“Yeah. Chuck was just a boozer and a loser, up until he met up with Rooney, who, it turned out, was a hard-core criminal.”
“What kind of ‘business’ were they into?”
“Precious metals. It’s a classic Florida scam, because they preyed on retirees or people desperate to make a buck. They’d set up in motels around here, including the Murmuring Surf, and run ads about paying top dollar for estate jewelry and gold coins. Some old lady would bring in her mother’s wedding ring, or a bunch of old coins or the sterling silver tea set they never used. They’d make a big show of weighing it—of course the scales were rigged. And maybe they’d tell somebody her diamond was worthless—flawed, but they’d buy it for the weight of the gold in the ring. Pennies on the dollar.”
“How did Chuck hook up with this Rooney guy?”
“Where else? A bar. I only figured out what they were up to after one of our guests came to me and said she was afraid she’d beenripped off. She’d decided to sell a watch she’d inherited. Begged me not to tell her husband because she was embarrassed. After I looked into it, we set up a sting. We got a female undercover agent to sell them a ring we’d had a certified gemologist appraise at fourteen thousand dollars. They offered her two hundred and eighty dollars. We had the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the sheriff’s office, St. Pete Police, several different agencies involved, because these other two had been working this scam all over the state.”
“There were three of them? I thought you said it was just Chuck and Rooney,” Letty said.
“They had a woman working with them. A redhead, and she was a knockout. They used her as window dressing, to gain the trust of these old ladies. Because how could a sweet-faced girl like her possibly rip them off?
“Rooney and the woman were staying right up there in unit six,” Joe went on. “Our undercover agent said she saw thousands and thousands of dollars in cash, boxes and boxes of gold and silver coins when she went to the room to sell the ring. But when the raid went down, the room had been cleaned out. Rooney and Chuck were long gone. Along with all the money and jewelry and coins. The only person arrested was their female accomplice.”
Letty felt sick. “The female accomplice was arrested? Do you remember her name?”
Joe screwed up his face as he thought about it. “Something with aT.Teresa? Or maybe Tammy?”
“What was she charged with?”
“Fraud. Her lawyer worked out some kind of deal with the district attorney’s office. I don’t even know if she did time.”
“What about the two men?”
