I also thought it was strange and unlikely that Isaac would arrange for the body to be found to somehow exonerate himself. Unless he’d never seen an episode of Law and Order, he would know that he’d be much better off making sure the body was never found. It just didn’t quite add up.
For his part, Richard admitted that the narrative had some weaknesses. However, we both agreed that the supposition that Stephen had been involved in Edith’s kidnapping was not just plausible, but probable. Murray and Flint had worked some local contacts and discovered that he had a significant gambling debt that might provide a motive. According to his loan sharks, Stephen had told them he was planning to pay off his debts just days before he disappeared, and Edith died.
If Stephen was involved, and it certainly seemed like he was, his schedule for that day demanded that he must have had an accomplice. Whether that was Isaac was another question entirely.
“When we catch this guy, are you really intending to play this by the book?” I asked Richard, half not-wanting to hear the answer. Richard looked at me like I suggested he murdered puppies in his spare time. He was the picture of shocked innocence.
“I tried doing things my way and two weeks went by with no progress on solving the murder. One day after I told you the truth about Edith and we’ve got a suspect. I’m not so stupid that I can’t admit when I made a mistake. So, if you’re asking whether or not I’m going to call up Skylark and take this guy out the answer is no. Now, if you’re asking whether I intend for any of this to go to trial, the answer is also no.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that once we find the right guy and get him arrested, we’re going to make this go away as cleanly and as quickly as possible. There’s no way I want Edith’s medical records displayed for a jury. I made my father a promise a long, long time ago to keep her out of the news. This wasn’t what he had in mind, but I’m still not going to let it happen.”
“You’re talking about a plea bargain and not a prison yard shanking, I assume.”
Richard stared down the bridge of his nose at me. “Obviously.”
“Oh please, don’t pretend it’s that far-fetched.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ve given up my thirst for blood. Really.”
Richard might be saying that, but if confronted with the man who murdered his sister I had no doubt he’d change his tune. I didn’t even blame him.
“I’ll call you when I have more information,” I said.
We were meeting in Richard’s office at Durant Industries, a place I generally avoided since it seemed to always result in loads of extra meetings and unnecessary schmoozing. Only on a Sunday would I even attempt it. Not to mention that it was in the middle of downtown and was always a pain in the ass logistically. Today I was on a particularly tight schedule so getting out of Richard’s stupid office was even more important. As soon as physically possible, I was down the elevator and heading toward the garage. For once, thoughts of murder were extremely far from my mind.
My arrival at one of the nicest jewelry stores in Philadelphia made me feel as out of my element as anything else I’d done lately, including the time I’d spent at the city morgue. I gazed up at the famous light blue sign in wonder, thinking how utterly unlikely it was that someone like me would be able to even contemplate a purchase here.
“Can I help you find something?” A young woman asked the moment I cleared the doors. She flashed a bright white smile at me. She looked vaguely familiar but at the same time I knew she was a stranger.
“Um, maybe. I’m looking for a gift for someone.”
“A Christmas present?” She asked hopefully.
A rational part of me knew that early November was the perfect time for reasonable people to purchase Christmas presents, but I’d always been a two days before type of guy.
“No. It’s not a Christmas present. Just a regular present. For my girlfriend. She’s been stressed out lately. I want to cheer her up.”
“Lucky her,” the girl said. She looked me up and down appraisingly and clearly liked what she saw. I shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. Other women no longer interested me whatsoever. “What did you have in mind?” She purred, “we pretty much have everything you could ever want so we’ll need to narrow it down.”
I could see that. All around me, glass cases were filled with shiny things gleaming against velvet. I hoped I wouldn’t disappoint Eva by picking the wrong thing. There were just so many.
“She likes her birthstone. Diamonds.”
“April babies have all the luck,” the salesgirl replied with a pout. “Bracelet, ring, necklace, earring, watch, or brooch?”
I resisted asking what a brooch was.
“She doesn’t wear a watch, so not that. What do you suggest?”
The girl pursed her crimson lips. “Unless you’re planning on proposing soon, I’d avoid a ring box. You don’t want her to faint. Necklaces, bracelets and earrings are all classic gifts for women. Does she wear any jewelry on a regular basis?”
I wracked my brain. This was already harder than I anticipated.
“She doesn’t wear a lot of jewelry usually. She’s a nurse, does that help at all?”
“A nurse? Yes, that helps narrow it a lot. Bracelets are out because she can’t wear them easily with gloves. Brooches would be totally inappropriate. Earrings or necklace?”
I thought about the row of piercings in Eva’s left ear, extending high into the cartilage. She had little golden hoops in them, but the right ear had only one piercing. One lonely little piercing. To my left a case contained dozens of diamond earrings that looked both beautiful and understated enough to wear at work.
“I think we should look at earrings. She likes earrings.”
The salesgirl smiled. “Sounds good! Just follow me.”
36
Eva
Even within the glamorous world of medicine, there is nothing as consummately awful smelling or visually disgusting as debriding off dead flesh from wounds and removing infected tissue. I’d seen it done only once, in nursing school, observing and participating as the procedure was performed on the backside of a morbidly obese and entirely sedentary man who had ulcerated and infected bedsores, with an abscess here and there to boot. Maggots had been involved. I’d had nightmares for weeks afterward.
Those nightmares found me again after seeing Paul’s hands and knowing what he was in for as his body inevitably rejected the dead and dying flesh still attached to living tissue. I spent the night tossing and turning in my bed and remembering the sight, sound, smell, and sensation of the blackened, necrotic chunks giving way under the scalpel. I woke up with the overwhelming, disturbing, and urgent need to exfoliate. My loofah and I spent about an hour together in the shower that morning. I emerged pink, smooth, and satisfied.
Sundays at the Durant mansion were always quiet, but with so many staff quitting, this one was especially dead. The rotating temp nurses took Alexander to eight am mass, Isaac was spending the weekend with family in the city, and Richard and Alexander Jr. were sequestered in their wing, so the only people around were Thomas, Paul, and me.
I caught up briefly with Charlie on the phone and learned that the police were finally on the verge of making an arrest. The knowledge that it was Isaac who was suspected made my heart sink, but he was the staff member I knew the least. He’d always been somewhat quiet. I just thought he was shy. Having personally witnessed his discovery of the body, however, it was hard to imagine that his reaction hadn’t been genuine. The only thing I could think was that perhaps guilt and shame would manifest similarly to shock and horror in that situation. The thought that I’d been working right next to a murderer made me vaguely nauseated but at least he wasn’t here this weekend. I felt better than I had in ages knowing that the mystery was finally on the cusp of being solved.
I tried to put all the thoughts of Edith and Stephen aside and focus on my project for the day, but I was thinking about Stephen’s gambling debt
as I gathered up my supplies to help Paul with his hands and feet. As I plodded down the hallway toward the garage, I heard Paul’s tuneless singing along with his radio. He was singing George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’. I really hadn’t figured him for a Wham! fan. Paul was a man of hidden depths. The thought put a smile on my face.
I had just turned the corner into the garage when Paul’s phone rang. He hadn’t seen me yet, and turned down the radio to answer. His back was to me.
“Hey man, we talked about this, you weren’t supposed to call me again.” He sounded shocked.
Whatever the other person said, it angered Paul. He smacked the wall with an open palm and then winced and bit back a painful yelp. I can’t imagine that had felt good to his injured hand.
“Yeah so what? Of course they went to your cousin’s place. That was the address I gave them. Listen our deal was simple and didn’t involve your freakin’ cousin. Don’t whine at me because someone was inconvenienced.”
My curiosity was piqued but I felt like I should interrupt. Something powerful inside me told me to stay silent.
“Isaac, listen. Don’t call me again. You’re supposed to be in Canada by now. I don’t care what the police told your cousin. I paid you to leave the country and not ask questions; not stay in Philly and interrogate me. You’re doing literally the opposite of what we agreed on.” Paul sounded irritated, but also frightened. His voice also had an edge to it that I’d never heard before. It sounded like desperation.
As it dawned on me what I was hearing, my heartbeat started to hammer in my ears. I felt frozen to the spot.
“What exactly did you think this was about? Don’t act dumb. Look Isaac, are you sure you want me to answer that question? Do you really want to know? Think really carefully about this…”
Through the fog of disbelief and confusion, another emotion began growing in the pit of my stomach: fear. Paul was behind the killings. I was standing in a room with a murderer. But he hadn’t seen me yet.
I took a small step backward, then another. Paul’s back was still turned to me as he listened to whatever Isaac was saying.
“Dude it’s too late to be thinking like that. We made a deal. You can’t just go back on it. I don’t want the money back.”
Another step.
“That’s right. Now get yourself up to Canada and quit your griping. This benefits you as much as it benefits me.”
The door was just a few feet away now. Adrenaline was coursing through me. Every synapse in my brain was screaming ‘Run!’. Meanwhile, Paul continued his conversation with Isaac oblivious to my eavesdropping.
“Ok, so we’re all good now, right? You aren’t going to call me again, is that understood?” I could see the tension in Paul’s posture, and his voice held a tinge of aggression and furious but tightly controlled anger.
I was in the doorway when Paul hung up the phone, just about to turn and make my escape. I felt the gauze scissors slipping from my grasp, but I was helpless to prevent their fall. They seemed to take forever to reach the floor.
The noise when the metal reached the concrete was deafening. The scissors bounced a few times as well, seemingly just to ensure that Paul heard me. He spun around and stared at me across the length of the garage. The surprise on his face melted into fear, and then finally hardened into something darker. Without a word, I turned and ran.
37
Charlie
The salesgirl, whose name I’d learned was Destiny, had picked out three pairs of earrings for me to choose from. I stared down at them in disappointment.
“You don’t like them?” Destiny asked. “Tell me what you’re thinking. Be honest.”
“They’re fine, but way too small.”
Destiny raised an incredulous, manicured eyebrow. “Small? These are all two carats. We can definitely go up on the weight if that’s your preference. What’s your budget?”
I shrugged. “I’m willing to spend at least twice what these cost.”
She raised the eyebrow again, and then when she realized I wasn’t joking, grinned. “Follow me.”
The next case we went to was much better, and doubtless much more expensive.
Destiny pulled out a pair of earrings that were shaped like little flowers, with a diamond for each petal.
“Not those,” I said immediately. I couldn’t imagine Eva wearing something so frou-frou. She kept her jewelry simple and reserved the crazy flowers for her scrubs.
“Too elaborate? How about these?” The next pair Destiny produced were much better. Four little diamonds were arranged in an ‘X’ shape with a large gold bead in the center. They still looked vaguely floral, but in a much more understated way.
“I’d like to look at those,” I said, pointing to a pair of earrings with one round diamond and then one pear shaped diamond dangling beneath it.
Destiny produced them from beneath the glass and set them in front of me.
“Bezel set diamonds will always be in style,” she said. When I looked at her with a blank expression, she clarified, “see how the metal wraps all the way around the diamonds? It’s called a bezel.”
I nodded in understanding. “Like a watch face.”
“Exactly,” she replied.
I was just about to pull the trigger and request that Destiny have the earrings boxed up when a semi-familiar voice whispered right in my ear.
“Don’t get those ones. Too boring.”
I jumped about a foot and Angelica Ellis laughed merrily. At her side, her younger sister Clara shook her head in silent apology.
“Charlie Townsend,” I said stiffly when I was able to speak again. I extended my hand and she shook it and then held onto it like it was her personal property. Pulling out of her vicelike grasp would have been extremely awkward, so we stood there holding hands.
“Angelica Ellis,” she replied in a terribly weak approximation of a sexy voice. “But you already knew that didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I said weakly. Why was this conversation happening? Where did she come from? Did she just live at Tiffany’s? I wanted less than nothing to do with Angelica Ellis— I’d watched her sex tape and now looking at her with a straight face was nearly impossible.
“Well I just wanted to come by and thank you for taking care of my little issue a few weeks back. My father told me you made something disappear that might have made me unhappy.”
Oh, so she knew. Awkward. Still, it took some courage to come speak with me.
“Yes, um, you’re welcome.”
“Did you watch the tape?” She asked, batting her eyes at me coquettishly. My lack of reply and darting glance at her grossed-out looking little sister was Angelica’s confirmation. She giggled like it was somehow cute. “Did you like it?”
“I don’t think this is an appropriate venue for this conversation Ms. Ellis,” I finally managed in a cold, stern tone. She still had ahold of my hand, but I needed to shut this girl down pronto. Clara walked away with a ‘best of luck, dumbass” expression on her face. I’ve got no problem with women taking the lead and going after men, but Angelica was not my type, and even if she were, I was happily taken.
“You’re so right. Let’s go have a drink, shall we?”
Hell no.
“I’m actually in the middle of buying my girlfriend a present,” I told her bluntly. I’d been hoping to deflate her, but all she did was smirk.
“Why don’t you buy those, give them to me, and then come have a drink with me? I promise I’ll make it worth your while.” She winked at me and pointed to a pair of enormous, almost tacky ruby earrings in the case.
Being propositioned by Angelica Ellis was a truly surreal experience, but not a very pleasant one. Plenty of men would probably take her up on the offer, but I was quite done. I wriggled my hand out of her grip inelegantly.
“No thank you. Have a nice day,” I told her. I was now using the same voice I scolded Wallace with when he threw up on my pillow that one time. Like Wallace, however, my words seemed to
have no effect. Angelica didn’t even seem to register that she’d just been rejected.
“You know,” she purred at me, “I’d be more than happy to reenact any of the scenes from my tape with you. I really like the idea that you’re the only one who’s seen it.”
I assumed she meant to refer to something else, but my mind went straight to the standing triple penetration sequence in the shower with three members of the NBA. I’m not one to judge others on what they enjoy, but drunk, sloppy, group sex— particularly if it involved other dudes—was very much not my thing. I don’t like sharing and I don’t like dicks (other than my own, obviously). Angelica had good balance, impressive flexibility, and stamina, I’d give her that.
“No thanks. I have a girlfriend. Please just leave me alone.” I really didn’t know how much more direct I could be.
Angelica opened her mouth again, but this time Destiny stepped in.
“Listen up lady, he said no. No means no. I think he’s cute too, but have some damn self-respect and move along. You give us all a bad name when you humiliate yourself like this. He’s got a girlfriend. Now you’re gonna’ have to leave now, or I’m calling security to have you taken out for harassing a customer.”
Angelica looked at Destiny as if surprised that she possessed the power of speech. The two women stared at each other with identical looks of dislike on their faces.
“Don’t you know who I am?” Angelica asked.
Destiny laughed at her. “Do I look like I care? You aren’t in the fancy rich girl suburbs right now honey. Your daddy’s money doesn’t buy you special treatment in the real world. Grow up. Now run along and don’t make me press the security button under this case.”
Angelica stomped off in the other direction without a backward glance. She twitched her ass back and forth dramatically as she walked, grabbing her sister by the elbow and pulling her toward the door. I sighed heavily in relief.
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