by Nic Saint
“I’m sorry, Adelric,” said Judyta. “I know we’re not supposed to wander off like this.”
“That’s all right,” said the aged janitor, his bushy brows working as he regarded Emily sternly. Then his eyes fell on the dummy. “This classroom should have been locked is all. Teachers always forgetting to lock up when they finish.”
He waited until both women were out before closing the door and locking it with one of the keys on his keychain, which contained dozens of others.
“We better get back to the others,” said Judyta, and Emily agreed that that was best. But as they put some distance between themselves and the janitor, she felt two eyes searing holes into her back. And automatically her mind jumped back to the dummy, with its own eyes gouged out with a sharp knife or… a bolt.
Chapter 22
The next morning, the Roast Bean was packed again—both with customers and reporters fishing for the latest news in what they now had dubbed the Death of a Casanova—the Casanova in question of course Jan. Lurid undertones had entered the coverage by a certain section of the media, and the whole thing had captured the imagination of New Yorkers and the rest of the country. The Silvistanian ambassador had complained about the bad press the new Silvistanian government was receiving, and about prejudice by the police department, and had assured everyone who would listen that his country wasn’t behind the murder.
No one believed him, of course. Except Emily, who was now inclined to suspect a more personal motive existed for Jan’s murder.
She almost hadn’t wanted to return to the Roast Bean, knowing what a circus the place would be, but she’d made a promise to Taryn that she would put her modest sleuthing skills to work and she intended to make good on that promise. Besides, she couldn’t afford to drop a temp assignment, as the agencies took a dim view of temps who did. If you pulled a stunt like that once or twice you risked being unceremoniously cut from the roster.
So she plastered her best smile onto her face and tried to serve the long line of customers with as much expedience as she could muster. Working side by side with Clara, she just about managed.
“I’ve never known this place to be as busy as today,” said Clara when there was finally a break in the seemingly never-ending queue. She was puffing, her cheeks bright red and her hair damp.
“Tell me about it,” said Emily, leaning against the counter to take some of the weight off her feet.
“So have you solved the case yet?” asked Clara. “Tonto did it, didn’t he?”
“Well, we talked to Tanton yesterday, and he could have done it,” Emily admitted.
“See? I knew it!” said Clara triumphantly. “I should be a detective. I have a knack for it.”
“But there are other suspects to consider,” Emily went on.
“There’s only one suspect for me,” said Clara decidedly. “The bodyguard did it.”
Teddy had joined them. He was looking slightly frazzled and if possible more spotty than ever. “Best day ever,” he said nevertheless. “We’re about to break a personal record here, people. Roast Bean management will be over the moon.” He pumped his fist. “I rock!”
“We rock, you mean,” said Clara.
“Exactly,” he said, grinning widely. It was obvious from his jubilant expression that he was already dreaming of becoming the Roast Bean’s next CEO or CFO or some other three-letter equivalent, and then it was only a short step to his first Forbes Magazine cover.
“Teddy—I heard that one of Jan’s girlfriends committed suicide,” said Emily, deciding to take advantage of this lull in the day’s proceedings. “Does that ring a bell?”
The sudden transition from business to murder didn’t jar Teddy. He tapped his protruding teeth for a moment, then nodded. “That does ring a bell. Yes, yes. Someone called me about that. I seem to remember it was the girl’s mother. She wanted to know if Jan worked here and if so could she have his full name and personal information. She said something about going to the police.”
“And? Did you give her the information?”
“I gave her the hotel Jan was staying at. I never heard from her again. And then the whole thing simply slipped my mind.”
“You didn’t ask Jan about it?” asked Clara, horrified.
Teddy shrugged. “None of my business.”
“A girl died and it’s none of your business?”
“Oh, please,” said Teddy. “People commit suicide every day. I’ll bet this had nothing whatsoever to do with Jan and everything to do with the way this girl was raised. People are much too eager to place the blame for their own shortcomings on others nowadays.”
“Meaning Jan was a good worker and popular with the customers so you didn’t care,” Clara said, giving Teddy her best scowl.
“Don’t look at me like that, Clara Collett!” said Teddy, and never had he looked more weaselly than at the present moment. “For what it’s worth I thought it was probably a prank call, and as soon as I hung up I put the whole thing out of my mind. I have a business to run here, if you hadn’t noticed—not the Salvation Army.”
“You’re such a jerk, Teddy,” said Clara.
“You’re the jerk,” Teddy shot back.
“Oh, now I’m the jerk?”
Before the whole thing escalated into a shoutfest, Emily asked, “Do you remember the name of this woman?”
“I might have saved her phone number,” said Teddy, ducking when Clara aimed a pink frosted donut at his head. “That’s coming out of your paycheck,” he warned. He then took out his phone and pressed his eyes closed. “Um…” he said, clearly thinking hard. The next moment Clara had sprayed a glob of whipped cream in his face and he made a growling sound at the back of his throat. He started tapping his phone, licking the cream from his face. “I’ll get you for that,” he warned Clara. “This is sexual harassment plain and simple.”
“It’s whipped cream!” Clara yelled.
“Don’t pay attention to him,” Emily said. “He’s just messing with you.”
“Got it,” finally said Teddy, and held the phone up in front of Emily.
She read, “‘John Suicide?’ Very subtle, Teddy.”
“Just covering my back.” He then poked a finger in the whipped cream and dabbed it against Clara’s cheek where it left a smudge.
Clara rolled her eyes exaggeratedly and wiped off the smudge with the hem of her apron.
“And that’s coming out of your paycheck, too,” said Teddy.
“What is?”
“The dry cleaning!”
She groaned. “‘What did you do today, Clara?’ ‘I had a food fight with the manager, Mom.’ ‘Oh, what fun.’ ‘Yeah, it was hilarious. Until I beaned him with the waffle iron!’”
Emily entered the phone number into her own phone and thanked Teddy. Then she quickly walked to the back of the store, pressed a finger in one ear and the phone against the other and waited for the call to connect. Her heart was hammering in her throat. What do you say to the woman whose daughter killed herself over a boyfriend she was seeing?
“Is this one of them robocalls?” a gruff voice on the other end grunted. “Cause if it is I can tell you right off the bat you’re wasting your time and I’ll be reporting you to my phone service provider and the FCC and the FBI.”
“My name is Emily Stone,” Emily said quickly, before the woman hung up. “I, um, worked with Jan Skrzypczak—although you probably knew him as John Sunderland. I was wondering if I could talk to you about your daughter.”
Silence. Then, curtly, “Royal Seafood. Linden Street. Catch me on my lunch break.”
The call was promptly disconnected. It was only then that Emily realized the woman hadn’t given her name. Then again, how many people could possibly be working at Royal Seafood on Linden Street?
Chapter 23
The Royal Seafood fish market was exactly what the name indicated: a market where all manner of fish could be purchased by the discerning seafood aficionado. Fish display counters seemingly showc
ased every fish under the sun—or the ocean—and the place was buzzing with activity, people hurrying to and fro to select their dish for the day. Unfortunately for Emily, the place was also very big—at least fifty vendors hustling for potential customers’ business, some of them loudly hawking their wares, others sullenly eyeing passersby, their impassive expressions closely mimicking those of the fish they were selling.
Emily stopped at the first shop, where a bearded man stood hacking a tuna into slices. “Um. Could you tell me where I can find the people who are on their lunch break?” she asked, realizing this was pretty much like looking for a needle in a haystack. Or a fishbone in a stack of fishbones.
The man didn’t even look up from his gruesome business. “Try the restaurant area,” he said, gesturing faintly in the direction of the back of the large covered space.
Emily set foot in the direction indicated, the smell of freshly fried seafood guiding her step, and wended her way to several small eateries, where families were enjoying lunch. A corrugated roof protected these bustling restaurants from the fickle New York weather, and Emily found her own stomach growling with anticipation. She could do with a nice meal herself. She glanced around, looking for a woman sitting alone, and suddenly a hand rose up and a voice rang out, “Emily Stone!”
She snapped her head in the direction of the voice, and saw a squat woman with a fleshy face waving at her. Relieved, she quickly set foot for the woman, and took a seat on the bench across from her.
“Thank you so much for agreeing to see me,” she said.
The woman was eating a seafood dish, which looked delicious, and when she saw Emily eyeing her plate, stuck up her hand again and bellowed, “Diego! Customer!” She then added as an aside to Emily, “Try the catfish nuggets. They’re on special. Fries and can of pop included.”
Emily gratefully ordered the dish indicated from a bored-looking Diego, then was surprised at how quickly her order was served. She dug in with relish, feeling the eyes of her lunch mate on her.
“So you knew John Sunderland, did you?” finally the woman asked. She had a gruff voice, and wasn’t exactly friendly. “Or should I call him Jan Skripich?”
“Skrzypczak, yes. That was his real name.”
The woman narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Are you a reporter or something?”
“No, I’m not. I’m a temp, actually. I work at the Roast Bean, the coffee shop on Broadway? That’s where I met Jan. I also assist a life drawing class at the Community Arts School—where Jan was modeling.” She swallowed down a piece of nugget. “And where he was killed the day before yesterday.”
“And now you want to know about my daughter. Why?”
“The thing is—Jan’s sister asked me to look into her brother’s death. She doesn’t feel the police are doing everything they can to find out who did it. So…”
The expression of suspicion deepened. “So you’re a temp, an assistant at the art school and a detective?”
“Oh, I’m not a detective. It’s just that Taryn seems to feel that since I worked with Jan, and knew some of the other people he worked with, I might be able to shed some light on what happened—more so than the police, who sometimes come across a little heavy-handed.”
“They sure do,” said the woman. “The police are not on our side—but at least I would have thought they were on these Skripiches’ side. They’re rich and famous, and the police are always on the side of the rich and famous.” She eyed Emily critically. “I don’t get it. You seem nice enough. Why you would get involved with these horrible people is beyond me.”
“Jan may have had his faults, but he was always kind to me.” She shrugged. “And his sister Taryn is a good person. I guess I felt she deserved to know what happened to her brother.”
The woman seemed to hesitate, considering her options. “John—or Jan—wasn’t kind to my daughter. In fact he was downright cruel to her. Made her all kinds of promises. Said he was the prince of a small European nation and he would make all her dreams come true. All nonsense, of course. He wasn’t a prince. He was the son of a corrupt former president.”
“What happened?” asked Emily gently.
The woman pushed the few remaining fries around her plastic plate with her plastic fork. “Lynn was always a sensitive kid. My husband died when she was three, so it was just me and Lynn. When she first told me she met a boy I was happy for her. How little did I know.”
“Where did they meet?”
“At a club. Lynn had gone there with a couple of friends. Just a fun night out. John was there, and immediately hit on her. I think what attracted him to her most was her innocence—and the fact that she was old-fashioned in the sense that she didn’t sleep with him on the first date. He had to take her out three times before she finally…” The woman looked away. “She never saw him again. He’d gotten what he wanted and lost interest. Like some men do.”
“Where did this happen?”
“Some swanky hotel. Lynn called me and said to pick her up. John had sent a limo for their final date, but when it was all over the bastard kicked her out and she had to find her own way home. She was a real mess when I got there. Felt like a piece of trash—discarded by the boy she’d fallen in love with. She actually thought they were going to be together forever. The man of her dreams, you know.” She shook her head. “She was never the same again after that. Didn’t want to return to school. Didn’t want to eat.”
“How old was she when this happened?”
Lynn’s mom fixed a sad look on Emily. “Eighteen. She died soon after. Pills. No idea where she got them. Probably pinched them at the drugstore. In the note she left she wrote that she couldn’t live without him. I went to the cops but they said there was no law against dating a girl then dumping her, and that there was nothing they could do for me.”
“That’s terrible,” said Emily softly.
“I went there, you know—to the Ritz-Waldorf—where John was holed up. He refused to see me, of course, so I waited in the lobby until he came out. But these people are well-protected. Some musclehead made sure I didn’t come within ten feet of the kid. I even got the receptionist to send a message to the parents, but never heard back, of course. So if you ask me, whoever killed John Skripich deserves a medal,” she concluded bitterly. “And you, young lady, shouldn’t waste your time trying to find out who it was.”
Emily nodded. “I understand,” she said.
“No, you don’t. If this kid did this to my Lynn, it stands to reason he did it to others, too. So the person who killed him did the world a big favor, you understand?” She abruptly got up. “Better leave well enough alone, Emily Stone. You think you’re on the side of justice? Well, you’re wrong.”
“One more thing, Mrs…”
“Moray. Aurora Moray.”
“Were you by any chance anywhere near the art school the night Jan died?”
The woman scoffed, “Oh, aren’t you the clever little detective? No, I wasn’t. I was at home watching Project Runway. Lynn and I used to watch it together. She wanted to become a fashion designer, you see. Until she met John. And now please leave me alone.” And with these words, she turned on her heel.
Emily watched Aurora Moray stalk off and her heart sank.
This was much worse than she thought.
Chapter 24
Emily got up and picked her way along the stalls. She’d taken out her phone to call Ansel and ask him if he wanted fish for dinner when she almost bumped into a tall figure dressed in a bright pink kaftan.
“Emily!” the figure exclaimed, and when Emily looked up she found herself staring into Judyta’s green eyes.
“Oh, hey, Judyta,” she said, tucking her phone away again. “Out shopping?”
Judyta looked a lot better than the day before. “I wanted to apologize about yesterday. I wasn’t feeling like myself.”
“That’s fine,” said Emily. She was feeling a little embarrassed. The things she’d discovered about Judyta were strictly private, a
nd not the kind of things one shared with a casual acquaintance.
“After I talked to you I decided to make a clean breast of things so I called Detective Shakespeare and I basically told him what I told you.”
“And what did he say?”
“Not much. He wasn’t happy that I hadn’t told him before. He was very interested when I said Jan dumped Justyna just before class.”
“Is she still being held in custody?”
“It would appear so. I haven’t read anything about a release.”
“But she still hasn’t been charged either.”
“Frankly I can’t believe Justyna would do such a thing. She seems like such a warm-hearted person. Not at all the femme fatale the media made her out to be. You know what I mean. They portray her as some kind of female James Bond. License to kill and all that nonsense.”
Emily was suddenly reminded of something. “Do you remember seeing a dummy in the classroom where I found you last night?”
Judyta gave her a curious look. “A dummy?”
“You know—the kind they use for sculpture classes. Anatomically correct dummy.”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“The weirdest thing. It had its eyes slashed out—just like Jan.”
“Oh, honey,” said Judyta with a laugh. “This detective stuff is causing your imagination to run riot. What are you saying? That Jan’s murderer first practiced on a dummy?”
Emily smiled uncomfortably. “You think I’m exaggerating?”
“I think you’re starting to see things. Which is only natural. If you want to see murder and mayhem everywhere you will. I’m sure it was just kids playing a prank. Or simple vandalism. Put enough of those young hooligans together in one room and they’ll start working off those hormones on anything and everything they can lay their hands on,” she concluded primly.
They walked along the market together, the smell of grilled fish filling Emily’s nostrils.