The Undertaker's Widow Read Online Free PDF Page B

head. He pulled over a wooden chair that swayed slightly when he climbed up on it. Toward the back of the shelf was a shoe box. Inside were stacks of currency bound by rubber bands. Many stacks. The top bills were hundreds, fifties and twenties. Anthony stepped down from the chair and carried the shoe box into the living room.
    â€œI’ve read Marty’s file,” Anthony told her. “It says that you’re on welfare and Marty was having trouble getting steady work. There’s a lot of money in here. Where did it come from? Drugs? Was Marty selling drugs?”
    â€œI ain’t saying anything to you. You cops are all the same. I knew I shouldina let you in my house.”
    â€œListen, Conchita, I’m not gonna mess around with you,” Anthony said harshly. “Your husband killed a very important man. Now, all of a sudden, you’re rolling in dough. You tell me where Marty got that money or I’ll arrest you as an accessory to murder. What do you think happens to your kids if you’re in jail?”
    Conchita Jablonski wrapped her arms around her children and looked at Anthony with a combination of fear and loathing. He felt like a first-class heel, but Anthony did not let her know it.
    â€œIt’s up to you, Conchita. You want your kids in foster care, keep playing games.”
    The fight went out of Mrs. Jablonski. “I don’t know where Marty got the money,” she answered in a small voice. “He just got it.”
    â€œHe never said from who?”
    â€œJust that it was from some guy.”
    â€œDid he tell you what this guy looked like?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œMarty didn’t say what this guy wanted him to do for this money?” Dennis asked.
    â€œWhen he was doin’ something bad he wouldn’ttell me what it was because he didn’t want me or the kids involved, but I knew it was no good.” She shook her head and started to cry. “I tol’ him to give back the money, but he said it was for me and the kids. He felt real bad how we lived and how he couldn’t get no job because of his record. He wanted to do something for us. And now he’s dead.”
    â€œI’m going to have to take this with me,” Anthony said. “I’ll give you a receipt.”
    â€œYou can’t take that money,” she sobbed. “I got the kids. How I gonna feed them?”
    â€œThat’s blood money, Mrs. Jablonski,” Dennis told her. “Your husband may have been paid to kill someone for that money. You seem like a good woman. You take real good care of your kids and your home. You don’t want that money. You know that money will only bring you grief.”
    Anthony and Dennis spent twenty more minutes with Conchita Jablonski, but it soon became clear that she did not know anything more about the money, the man who had given it to her dead husband or the reason he had been given it. While Dennis finished searching the apartment, Anthony counted the cash in the shoe box and gave Mrs. Jablonski a receipt for $9,800. The detective figured that the actual amount Jablonski had been given was $10,000. The bills were secured by rubber bands in five-hundred-dollar bundles. Anthony had discovered a solitary rubber band under three hundred dollars in loose bills.
    â€œI don’t like this,” Dennis said when they were driving back to the Justice Center.
    â€œI don’t either. I didn’t see anything in Jablonski’s file about drugs. From what his wife says, he didn’t score the money in a burglary. Some guy gave it to him becausehe wanted Jablonski to do something. Why would Jablonski run out in the middle of one of the worst storms in Oregon history to burglarize an estate with the security system Hoyt had if that wasn’t the job he was paid to do?”
    â€œYeah, Lou, that’s what I was thinking. Only, robbery might not have been the motive. What if Jablonski was paid to hit Lamar