The thought of high school took Lydia’s mind out of the present. Dulcie watched as she relaxed, her body sinking down into the cushions. A bit of color came back into her face. “I knew you looked familiar,” she said softly.
Dulcie leaned forward and put her hand on Lydia’s knee. “I remember your sister was always a brave soul, more so than I could ever be. Didn’t she ride a motorcycle, even in high school?”
A slight smile came across Lydia’s face. “Yes,” she murmured. “Jennifer was the daring one. She always wanted to go faster, to win every race, try out new things.” Her eyes welled. “She pushed everything, for sure, but she wasn’t stupid. She never ignored safety. She always wore a helmet and boots on the motorcycle. And I know she would never have gone diving alone. She talked about that once. She knew other divers, so she could always find someone to go with her.” Lydia stared out over the ocean. “Why wouldn’t anyone have known she was missing?” she said, as though to herself instead of to the others sitting with her.
Nick watched her carefully. He had learned to read the signs. He knew when people were faking their sorrow. He knew what real pain looked like. This was real. This was pain. Yet there was something else. Her immediate reaction had been one of shock, but it was almost as though she had been prepared for it, fearing the worst. Could that have been because she was perpetually worried about her sister, who liked to test the limits, or did Lydia know of something her sister was doing that was more specific?
Dulcie said, “Lydia, Detective Black brought me into all of this because of something odd. Your sister had my phone number written on her hand. I really didn’t know her well years ago, and certainly haven’t spoken to her since high school. Do you know why she might have wanted to get in touch with me?”
Lydia flinched. The art. Had Jennifer planned to say something to Dulcie? Why would she call her? Had she called her? No, she couldn’t have, or Dulcie wouldn’t be asking in the first place.
“I’m sorry. I… I don’t know why she would have your number. She never mentioned you. I don’t think she knows a lot about art. Or knew a lot, I mean….” Lydia began to cry in earnest. She buried her head in Clark’s chest. He wrapped a protective arm around her.
“Can we do this later?” he asked Nick.
“Yes, but please let’s try as soon as possible. At this point I’d suggest getting in touch with her doctor,” he nodded toward Lydia “in case she needs to speak with a counselor.” He pulled his card out of his pocket and handed it to Clark. “Give me a call if either of you think of anything. Day or night. I’ll get in touch with you again tomorrow to see if we can follow up on this. We also need to have positive identification.”
Clark nodded. He slowly rocked Lydia back and forth.
Dulcie smiled at him in what she hoped was a comforting way, then stood with Nick. They both left quietly. Nick held the car door open for Dulcie then eased it shut as quietly as possible. He walked around the back slowly and heaved a huge sigh as he slid behind the wheel. “I hate doing that,” he said, leaning his head back and briefly closing his eyes.
She nodded. “It has to be awful, every time. But you’re very good at it. You’re good at making people feel at ease.”
Nick lifted his head and glanced at her. “I try. It helps in my line of work to make people feel at ease. They open up sooner.” He started the engine and backed out of the driveway. They drove slowly through the winding roads that crisscrossed between extremely well kept homes with manicured grounds. At last they reached the main road.
“Want to get something to eat?” asked Dulcie. “I have some thoughts.”
Nick tightened his grip on the steering wheel. ‘Not a date, not a date,’ he told himself so firmly that he thought he had actually said it out loud. “Yeah, sure. Good idea,” he heard himself saying. Dulcie pointed to a sign ahead on the road, and Nick pulled into a small restaurant that served nearly every kind of fried seafood imaginable.
At mid-afternoon, no one was in the dining room. They went to a table by a window and sat. There were still crumbs strewn in front of them from the previous occupants. Eventually an expressionless teenage girl came out with a wet rag and wiped off the table. She threw the soggy mess on the next table over, pulled a battered note pad from her back pocket and said, “Whaddya want?”
Dulcie looked at Nick and nearly laughed. She had grown up with places like this. He looked a bit like a fish out of water. “How ‘bout we split some fried scallops, fried clams, and French fries?”
Nick nodded. “Sounds good to me.”
The waitress scribbled and, without looking up said, “Drink?”
Dulcie ordered an iced tea. Nick asked for a sparkling water. The waitress peered at him from beneath shaggy eyebrows and, without lifting her head, said, “We only got Poland Spring. Think that’ll cover it?”
“Um, yes. That’s fine. Thank you,” he mumbled.
Dulcie stared hard at the table to force herself not to laugh. The waitress left and, regaining her composure, Dulcie looked back up at Nick. “You know what I thought was strange?”
“The fact that our waitress leaves the cleaning rag right out in the dining room?”
Dulcie laughed. “Maybe it’s a bus-your-own-table kind of place.”
“I’m not sure what kind of place it is. Maybe we should cancel our order….”
“No, don’t be silly. These places are all up and down the coast. They’re fine. Besides, nothing can survive deep-frying so the only thing that really can kill you is the fat itself. And that takes years.”
Nick smiled. Dulcie worked in such a glamorous, rarified world, yet she was so down to earth. Genuine. Real. Very much unlike the women he had always been with in the past. Not that there were many.
The waitress brought in their drinks. She handed Nick the bottled water without a glass and sauntered back into the kitchen. The bottle was barely cold. He looked at Dulcie and they burst out laughing.
“OK, so tell me what you thought was strange,” he said as he unscrewed the lid and tentatively took a sip.
Yes, back to work, Dulcie thought. “Here’s the odd thing,” she said. “Remember that I put my hand on Lydia’s knee? I noticed that when I mentioned my phone number, she was startled. She flinched. I felt her jump, just slightly. Why would she do that? She was distraught over her sister dying under those circumstances, for sure. She was adamant over the fact that Jennifer wouldn’t be diving alone. Any of those things would clearly upset her. But why would my phone number startle her? What bothered her about Jennifer contacting me?”
“Good point. That is strange. Any ideas?”
“Nope, not one. But the other thing that seems too coincidental is that I just met with Lydia’s mother-in-law.”
Nick sat back and stared at her. It was all spinning. Spinning quickly. In his work, coincidences were practically nonexistent. There was always a connection, a reason that explained it all. But finding the connection often seemed impossible.
Lydia flinched when Dulcie mentioned that Jennifer was going to call her. Dulcie had just spoken with Lydia’s mother-in-law Amelia. Jennifer was already dead when Dulcie had met with Amelia. Dulcie was the common thread. But why?
“Jennifer would have been dead when you had lunch with Amelia. Do you think Amelia could have known?” asked Nick.
“Or cared?” said Dulcie. Then she shook her head. “No, she’s a cold fish, definitely, but I can’t imagine she’s that cold. She would have mentioned something about a death in the family, I would think.”
Nick wasn’t quite so sure. He knew that Amelia Davenport-Jones would never think of Jennifer, or even Lydia for that matter, as family. He decided to put it in the back of his mind for the moment and let it simmer.
The waitress reappeared with enormous baskets of unidentifiable fried items. She slid them on the table along with a big bottle of ketchup. “Lemme know if you need anything else,” she said and without waiting for them to reply, she left.
Nick looked at Dulcie. “I suppose asking for cocktail sauce is out of the question?”
Inspiration does exist
but it must find you working.
― Pablo Picasso
CHAPTER 7
After Nick dropped Dulcie off at her townhouse, he decided to check back in at the station. He strode into the communal office space and grabbed some coffee from the pot in the corner, hoping that it was reasonably fresh. He walked back to his desk blowing on it and nearly tripped over Johnson’s foot. His partner was sitting in Nick’s chair. Nick slopped coffee on his hand and, quickly putting the cup down, flapped his fingers in the air. “Ow, ow, hot, ow!” He looked up at Johnson through narrowed eyes. “What the hell are you doing at my desk?”
Johnson slowly smiled. “Well, first of all, watching the performance.” Nick stopped flapping and sat down on the edge of the desk, wiping his hand off on his pant-leg. “But secondly, I’m wondering if you’ve seen this.” He slid a manila envelope toward Nick. “Coroner's report,” he said, nodding toward it.
Nick slid his wet coffee cup out of the way and picked up the folder. Flipping through it absently he said, “Let me guess. She drowned.”
“Well yes, of course she drowned.”
“Because she ran out of air.”
“Yeesss, she ran out of air. So she drowned. Right on so far. That why you went to them ‘spensive schools?”
Nick sighed. “Johnson, I was a young man when this conversation started.”
“Well then, read the damned report!” He leaned forward. “Here’s the juicy bit.” He pointed with a chubby finger half way down the page:
Ketamine found in victim’s saliva. Recommend further testing of diving equipment and clothing.
Nick looked up at his partner. “What’s ketamine?”
“Well, I took the liberty of looking it up.” He jerked his head toward the computer on Nick’s desk.
Nick gasped theatrically. “You mean you used the computer?”
“That I did. Stop mocking me. You’d have been proud. And here’s what I found,” he cleared his throat and read aloud, “Ketamine: a dissociative anesthetic used in the treatment of animals and humans.” Johnson looked up at his partner and continued, “So, being the brilliant researcher that I am…”
“And you are,” Nick added.
Johnson peered over his reading glasses at Nick. “Yes, I certainly am. So, being brilliant and all, I looked up ‘dissociative anesthetic.’ Know what that is, smarty pants?”
“Enlighten me.”
Johnson cleared his throat again. “It’s a hallucinogen. It blocks signals from the conscious mind. Users can be in a state of sensory deprivation or even in a trance.” He took off his reading glasses, tossed them on the desk, leaned back and folded his arms.
“Huh!” said Nick. “Well that certainly puts a spin on things!”
“Yep, certainly does!”
“She had a reputation as a daredevil, but I doubt she would have been stupid enough to take a hallucinatory drug, then go diving.”
“Right. So somebody slipped it to her.”
“Have we tested her equipment for anything? Was her mouthpiece tested?”
“Not yet, but I’ve ordered tests already. Figured if it wasn’t there, no harm done. But if we find traces, we’ll have narrowed things down.”
Nick was scanning the file closely. Johnson had added his own printout on the drug. Ketamine was tasteless and colorless. Nick’s mind was racing. So, someone might have put the drug on or in her mouthpiece. They would have had to do it right before the dive. Did she leave from the beach? Was she diving from a boat? Did the other person dive with her? And the biggest question of all: how did that damned van Gogh play into all of this? He rubbed his temples with the thumb and index finger of his dry hand then gulped his coffee.
“Yeah, you’re thinking what I’m thinking,” said Johnson. “They must have had access to her equipment not long before she went on the dive. But I don’t think they dove with her because they didn’t take the painting. She still had it.”
“Let’s take a walk. Actually, let’s go back to the beach where we found her. I want to think this through from the beginning.” Nick downed the last of his coffee, crushed the paper cup with one hand and tossed it across the room toward the trashcan. He missed.
Half an hour later Nick Black and Adam Johnson stood on the small beach where they had found Jennifer Hully. The sun was setting. Calm, mild weather had resulted in a low, gentle surf lapping the shore. Johnson put his hands on his hips. “Kinda romantic. Too bad for you I’m married.”
Nick just rolled his eyes. He walked over to the large rock outcropping where they had found the body. “So she was on ketamine, probably hallucinating. That means she probably wasn’t paying attention to her air supply.”
“She might have been passed out,” Johnson piped in.
Nick shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think her mouthpiece would have come out if that was the case and her tank wouldn’t have necessarily drained. She’d still have drowned, but with air left in the tank. No, I think she was awake and breathing but had no clue where she was or what she was doing. She kept breathing and seeing, well, who knows what she was seeing, or thought she saw, and finally she ran out of air. If that happened, would she have panicked when she ran out, or would she just have taken one big gulp of water and… lights out?”
“Don’t know. Don’t know as I’d ever want to know. But it sure did look like plain ol’ lights out to me.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Johnson picked up a rock and, leaning over with a groan, skipped it across the water. He stood up straight again with another louder groan. “Oh, the joints! Gettin’ old ya know.” Nick just snorted in response.
“All right, guess we better get home. I’m sure you have supper on the table,” Nick said.
Adam Johnson grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Oohh yeah! Tonight’s fish fry! Takes a full week to get the smell outta the house, then we do it all over again. I could eat a dozen!”
“I don’t doubt that,” said Nick as they got back in the car.
Nick dropped off his partner at the police station then went back home. His apartment was a small studio in one of the old brick buildings near the waterfront. They called that section of the city the Old Port. Once seedy and undesirable, it had been gentrified and was now the hot spot for trendy restaurants and weekend nightlife. Unfortunately, this had kept Nick awake on many a Friday and Saturday night. He’d thought of moving several times but never seemed to take the steps to find a new place. Besides, the price was right and it was convenient to the station.
He threw his keys on the kitchen counter and grabbed a bottle of wine. It was his one indulgence. He’d fallen into wine collecting as a hobby several years earlier and hadn’t stopped. This one was a lovely Pinot Noir from the Russian River Valley near San Francisco. He had vowed to go there someday but hadn’t been able to fit it in his schedule. Yet. He pulled the cork out and poured a glass.
Dulcie collected wines too, he thought. He remembered a conversation they’d once had. He really wanted to talk to her. Would that seem strange? It had only been a couple of hours since he’d seen her last.
However, there was the issue of the van Gogh that he had yet to mention to her. Of course the Feds had jumped in on that one. They loved art thefts. Very high profile and it made them look good to solve those cases. He’d had to turn the canvas over to them right away, although that didn’t stop him from doing a little research on his own.
He sat at the small table that served as both a dining area and a desk and pulled open his laptop. ‘Where to start?’ he thought. He stood up again, yanked his shirt out of the waist of his jeans, unbuckled his belt and pulled it out of the pant loops in one easy motion. Slinging it on the bed in the corner of the room, he sat down again.
“Ok, let’s see what we can find out about the theft of that thing,” he said out loud. An hour later he’
d compiled a respectable file of information. The painting had belonged to an investment banker, or more accurately, his wife, as he’d bought it for her as a gift. It had sold for a mere three-quarters of a million dollars. “Some gift,” Nick muttered. He reached for his wine and discovered the glass was empty. ‘Another half wouldn’t kill me,’ he thought.
Pouring a second full glass he glanced at the clock on the stove. Eight-thirty.
A soft knock on the door made him jump. ‘Who the hell…?’ he thought. No one ever came to see him. He looked through the peephole, drew back quickly, shoved his shirttails into his jeans as neatly as possible, and opened the door.
Dulcie looked up at him. “I’m sorry to just come by. I should have called first. I can come back later. It’s just that I was thinking, and I’d been out walking. It’s such a nice night. And I remember you’d told me that you lived here…” She trailed off.
He was speechless for a moment. He gripped the doorknob hard to regain his composure. Then he stepped back, gesturing her in, and said, “No, not at all. That’s fine. Come in.” She walked in and saw the full glass on the table.
“Are you having wine?” Dulcie asked, then winced inwardly. She didn’t want him to think she was asking for some or that she wanted to stay any length of time.
“Yeah. It’s my most heinous indulgence. Here, have some.” He stepped into the kitchen area and quickly poured another glass. He held it out to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said without taking it. “I really don’t want to impose. I just can’t stop thinking about…”
“Take the damned glass so I can drink mine,” he said, smiling.
She grinned sheepishly. “Yes. Thank you! But wait till my friends hear that an officer of the law forced alcohol on me!” She took the glass and glanced into the apartment. The van Gogh was in full view on the laptop.
“Hey, that’s the van Gogh that was stolen last year! Are you working on that case too?” she asked walking over to the table.
From the Murky Deep Page 5