by Ronnie Allen
The man looked around. “Hey, know where I can find Sam Wright?”
To her, with his deep voice, his tats covering both arms, his muscles bulging through his T-shirt and skinny jeans, his olive complexion, this looked like one unsavory character. “Who wants to know?”
“Khaos.”
She couldn’t tell his expression through his dark shades, but she needed to get rid of him. “No, thank you. I have enough chaos in my own life right now.” She turned away, grimacing at his appearance, while sliding to the other end of the bench.
“Excuse me? No. I’m Khaos, Frank Khaos. It’s a metaphor for my life, too.” He removed his shades and hung them on the nape of his T-shirt. He sat on the bench, spread his legs, and bending over with his arms on this thighs, folded his hands between them. His massive frame took up most of the bench.
Sam didn’t know what to focus on first. The smirk on his rugged face, his clean-shaven head, or the red crossbow skull on his T-shirt that reminded her of all the blood she witnessed today. She looked into his dark oval eyes. “You’re the psychiatrist?”
He frowned. “Yeah, forensic. And you are?”
“Detective Sam Wright.”
He looked her up and down and didn’t hide his facetious laugh. “Didn’t think this precinct had dress down Wednesday. Man, and they scowl at me in my T and skinny jeans.”
Um, a smartass tough guy. And the tats. Eww. “Well, I was off duty and found myself at a crime scene. They took my clothes and brought me this. It’s my first day. So what’s your excuse?”
He ignored the comment. Damn him. She’d love to blow off steam right about now, and this guy looked like he could take it. But what he could do to her would be another story.
“This is your first day? As a detective?” She nodded. “And you’re still sitting here?” He smiled and shook his head. “Oh, man, they’re getting you but good.”
“What do you mean?”
“Welcome to the big-boy fraternity, Detective Wright. You’re getting hazed.”
“No.” Her eyes widened. “Seriously?”
“Who’s your partner?”
“Nick Valatutti.”
“Was he at the scene with you?”
“Yes.”
“Have you asked to go home to get cleaned up and changed?”
“No. Loo told me to wait here until he calls me back in.”
“Wait here.” He got up and walked to the corner to Loo’s office.
Sam looked after him. At his butt. Oh my God. That swagger. This guy has a bigger ego than all of them put together.
One thing, though, that had hit her immediately--his energy. Clean, pure, positive, and protective.
A few minutes later Frank returned. “Got clothes to change into?”
“Yes. Everything.”
“Good. Go do it.”
Then it hit her. “Oh my God, I can’t!”
“Why not?”
“Please don’t think I’m an idiot. My car is at the crime scene.”
“How in hell could you forget your car? You sure you’re a detective?” He bellowed out laughter, a deep laugh that emanated from his diaphragm. “Oh, man.”
“I’m glad I’m the butt of your humor, Doctor Khaos. It’s not funny. Withers was so busy yelling at me, and I was trying to block him out. He forced me into his SUV with them, and my car slipped my mind.”
“Withers? Dingo Withers? He’s on this case?”
“Yes.”
“That’s going to be a problem. Let’s go.” She stood up and he frowned. “How short are you?”
“I’m five-six,” she retorted with pride.
“You’re not five-six. That’s here on me.” He leveled his hand on his pecs. “You’re barely five-five. Come on.” He patted her back. Then stopped dead. “They didn’t bring you a bra?”
“Nope. Nor panties.”
He stared at her with a closed-lip smirk. “TMI. You don’t censor anything you say, do you?”
“Nope. What’s on my mind is on my tongue, most of the time.”
“That’s going to be a problem, too. Come on. We’ll drop you at your car and Valatutti and I are going to notify the family. You’ll meet us back here.”
“I wanted to go.”
“No time.”
Sam opened her mouth, but he cut her off before any words came out. “Hey, when I’m in the house, Khaos rules.”
CHAPTER 6
Frank and Nick stared up at the massive home of Steven Larcon in the historic district of Central Park West, as they sat in Nick’s car with the dossier. The Gothic columns that stood on the landing shouted prominence, as if a warning that nothing could penetrate the power within.
Nick laughed. “Not in my lifetime.”
Frank shook his head, almost in distain at the symbol of wealth. “Nothing I’d want. Okay, let’s do this.”
They sprinted up the twenty-step path to the wooden door. The oval door-knocker, hanging out of a lion’s mouth, looked recently polished. It reflected the setting sun so glaringly that Nick had to squint to find the doorbell. They had taken a chance to come over without calling first, so after a few minutes of waiting, they were about to turn around. The housekeeper--who looked like she came right out of a historical novel, right down to the ruffles on her apron--opened the door.
“How can I help you gentlemen?”
“I’m Detective Nick Valatutti and this is Doctor Frank Khaos. Is Mrs. Larcon home?”
“Yes. Oh dear. What did one of those trouble maker kids of hers do now?”
Frank shot a quick glance in Nick’s direction. “Nothing that we need you to know about at the moment, but we may have to speak to you at another time.”
“Well, come on in then.” She led them through a massive center room with beige marble floors, crystal chandeliers, and original works of art from Renaissance painters adoring the non-mirrored walls. Sparse in furniture. Indicative of the style. “Wait here please.”
Frank took in the home that wasn’t much different from the one he had been raised in after he hit ten years old. He stood in the center of the hall, staring into space. He never could get used to so much openness. He compared himself to a cave animal, who preferred warm and cozy to cold and massive. He shuddered, even with a leather jacket on.
After his mom died, he couldn’t wait to dispose of the house. She had passed away, five months after his dad, when Frank was thirty-seven. He stood still with his hand over his mouth. He missed them so much. They had turned his life around. They had taught him how to love. They had taught him how to love Jen, the woman of his dreams. Jen didn’t want to live in their house either. He and Jen had been in sync on every level. At least his parents had gotten to meet her, and Frankie. They had lived for their only grandson.
He told Frankie about Grandma and Grandpa every night when he read a story to him at bedtime. How they were together with Mommy in heaven. Sometimes Frankie just wanted to read the helicopter book, the one that Frank was in, jumping out of an army copter with his medic gear on his back. He was glad he was stateside, but those two tours in Special Forces in Iraq, were the best thing he had done in his life, next to marrying Jen. They had met in Iraq. She was the nurse who had worked side by side with him. Those years as a medic formed his future to go to college, become a trauma doctor, and then gave him the launch into psychiatry. Wanting to give back for the privileged life his adoptive parents afforded him had catapulted him into forensics.
The psychiatrist, his parents had spent a fortune on when he was a kid, told them they needed to get him into a gym to release his aggression. Just like the housekeeper, before Tae Kwan Do, his parents, with every phone call, would wonder if it was from school, telling them he was in trouble. The gym changed his life. So, by the time he had turned eighteen, not knowing what he wanted to do with his life, he joined the military, already holding a Black Belt in Tae Kwan Do.
The housekeeper returned, jolting him. “This way, please.” She led them into a sitting
room where Mrs. Larcon sat on a Mediterranean-style couch.
Nick sat on a club chair opposite her, holding his note pad and pen. Frank approached her. “May I?”
“Yes. Please.”
He sat down next to her on the couch, unbuttoning his jacket.
“I’m assuming this isn’t a good news visit, but Clara told me it wasn’t about one of my children.”
Frank looked at the woman whose green eyes were as glittery as the house. Her flattened, shoulder length salon-done, dark-red hair, looked as if she might have been napping, and dressed hurriedly for them, forgetting to fluff up her tresses. Even her attire, a blouse and designer jeans, were as ostentatious as he would have expected. She even remembered her jewelry.
“Mrs. Larcon. When was the last time you saw your husband?”
“Steven?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my God. What did you say your name was?”
“Doctor Frank Khaos.”
“With a C?”
“With a K. My adoptive parents had Greek heritage.”
“Oh. I saw Steve yesterday afternoon. He told me he was working late with his team of designers at his Chelsea office. But, to him, that would be around midnight, or later.”
Frank shot her a suspicious look.
She understood the need to explain. “When Steven had a deadline to meet with one of his manufacturers, he worked till all hours. He paid his team double for working after five. My husband is a very generous man.”
“Where would he go after that?” he asked. She swallowed and looked away. “Mrs. Larcon, would he come home?”
“Sometimes, but not usually.”
“Where would he go?”
“Uh, we had an open marriage, Doctor. Usually he’d go to a club in Chelsea, rather a little south of Chelsea. He never told me the name and, frankly, I didn’t care enough to ask.”
Okay, this won’t be too hard then. Frank looked straight into her eyes. “Mrs. Larcon, I’m sorry to have to tell you, your husband was murdered last night.”
No shock. No surprise. No tears. Almost catatonic.
He reached out to touch her hand, but she jerked it away before he made contact. “Mrs. Larcon, shall we call someone for you? Your children?”
She kept her gaze straight ahead, not focusing on any object in particular. “Where was he found?”
“The investigators are still at the scene, so I can’t divulge the exact location to you now.”
“How did he die?”
“I can tell you there were knife wounds, but the exact cause of death, we don’t know. And he was found naked. At this point, we don’t know if he was murdered at this location, or moved. We’ll need to speak with your children.”
“They’re in their own little worlds, Doctor, which fortunately doesn’t include us.”
Frank looked at her startled. Where did the ‘close-knit’ family idea originate?
“I might as well be blunt, Doctor Khaos. There was no love lost between any of our children and us. I know you look at the immediate family first, but I can assure you, it was none of us. For several reasons. One, they don’t have the guts. Second, if there were cuts, there was blood. And I can assure you, none of my children, nor I, like to get dirty. Even the thought of gardening, sickens us.”
“Interesting analogy.” Nick put an asterisk next to her last comment in his notes. “Did your husband have any enemies?”
“Want the list?”
“A list? That many?”
“Yes. The fashion industry is fraught with jealousy.”
“Well, Detective Valatutti is ready to take notes, so please, go on, Mrs. Larcon.”
***
Sam couldn’t wait to get the grime and blood out of her hair, and off her body. It had taken her over an hour to get home in the rush hour traffic. As soon as she opened her door, she bolted up the stairs to her bedroom. She stripped off her clothes, threw everything into the hamper, and started the shower.
This would be more than just a shower to get rid of grime. She’d make the most of it to cleanse and consecrate her body, and to add the protection she’d need against those testosterone-driven men at the precinct. Nick was off limits. Thank God. The lieutenant and Withers, too. Marriage bands on both. And ugh, Withers. She detested the man and she’d just met him. The tension in his aura was so thick she’d need her athame to cut through it.
What is his wife like?
He probably ran his household with an iron fist. Their poor children, if they had any.
And then there was Frank Khaos. Ugh. Why a man would want to desecrate his body with tattoos befuddled her. This was definitely not the man she’d dare bring home to meet Mommy and Daddy. The imaginary scenario made her laugh out loud.
Oh, Frank, meet my dad, the neurosurgeon and my mom, the pediatrician.
Her dad would want to perform brain surgery on him, giving him a lobotomy, and her mom would want to call child protective services if he had any kids. Nope. To her parents, who based everything on first impressions, this wouldn’t work at all. She sneered, acknowledging that was why she was still single. They had chased away any man she had dated. No one was good enough for their princess.
She was pissed that she couldn’t go with Nick and Doctor Khaos. The initial interview with the family was so important. She hoped Nick would take great notes and be willing to share. Wait a minute. I’m his partner, he has to share. But Khaos. The nerve of him to tell her that when he was in the house, he ruled. She had stopped herself from laughing right in his face when he retorted with that. But making two enemies in one day was enough.
She retrieved her big pot from her closet, small bottles of sandalwood and lavender oils from a shelf, put them outside the shower door, and stepped into the shower. The warm water running over her head and down her body felt so good. She used double the amount as usual of her lavender shampoo and saw remnants of blood go down the drain. She shampooed twice until the water ran clear. Then she used her lavender shower gel to cleanse her body. First to cleanse, next to protect. She washed her body from neck down to her toes with her purple mesh sponge, waiting in the shower until every drop of water went down the drain.
Opening the door, she brought the pot and oils in with her. She put a few drops of each oil in the pot and filled it with water. Holding the pot in both hands at midriff level, she began her invocation, after inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her mouth several times to ground herself and give her focus.
I need to do a fast one now so, Dara, help me out, please. Oh my deities, Isis, the Goddess of Healing, and Artemis, the Goddess of the Wilderness and of the Moon and the Hunt, come into my energy field now, so I can manifest my desires. Let these lavender and sandalwood oils cleanse and protect my aura, so I do not absorb any negativity from anyone in my new precinct, or from this crime. I need to stay healthy and strong to compete with these people and solve this case. My future as a detective depends upon this.
She poured the water and oil mixture from the pot over her head with her eyes closed, absorbing the protective energy of the oils.
I acknowledge I need to do this three times, but I just don’t have the time now. Forgive me, Isis and Artemis, for working in haste. My protection is complete. Dara, I need you to make contact with Nick and Khaos. Thank you, Dara.
Sam shut off the water, dried herself quickly, and blow-dried her hair, while mumbling over why it had to be so thick. At least it was fairly straight. She dressed in a navy blue pants suit with a white silk blouse, just low enough to show some sex appeal and, at the same time, be professional.
Looking in her closet, she selected a pair of navy heels. The arrogance of that psychiatrist to say she was short. Humph. She was the height of the average American woman. Okay, these would add three inches. And her sneakers were in her bag, in case she had to dart out in them.
When she finished dressing, she pulled a pendant from her top drawer after surveying her copious collection.
Um,
that’s it.
The three-inch sugilite petal pendant, topped with three oval moldavite stones in 14-K, held on a twenty-four-inch solid-gold chain was slipped over her head. She tucked it under her blouse. There was no need for them to see the pendant that had kept her safe and multiplied her abilities over the last couple of years. Then she lifted the cover to a box on her dresser and removed two healing stones to slip into her right pocket--rhodochrosite and kunzite, both to relieve stress and enhance calmness, and two healing stones to slip into her left pocket--black tourmaline and rutiliated quartz to give her the confidence to assert herself and reflect the negativity from those men.
***
Getting up from the sofa, Frank gave Mrs. Larcon a sincere smile. “Mrs. Larcon, we need to speak with your children tomorrow. I know this will be a hard time for you, but we need as much information as we can get to help us find your husband’s killer. Can you come to the precinct in Chelsea tomorrow morning around ten?”
“I don’t know if I can lasso all three of them together at one time Doctor. They’re all in the city, but so busy, doing who knows what.”
He sat down again guessing this would be a long explanation. “Okay, tell me what they do.”
“Well, Valerie, the oldest, is on Steven’s design team. She’s the only one worth a damn. Very talented, but she did have her stint in rehab several years ago. They all had their time in rehab, the twins, multiple times. And to tell you a secret, please don’t judge me, Doctor Khaos, I’ve had mine, too. Multiple times. I just got out, actually. From a wonderful place in Suffolk County. They bled us, but pampered me, knowing I’d be back. Alcohol is my drug of choice, as it is with Valerie. The twins, Adam and AriellaRose, are into the party drugs, cocaine, barbiturates. And AriellaRose, oxycodone. Don’t know why she chose that one. She couldn’t possibly have any pain. She never did anything strenuous in her life.
“They don’t relate to us at all. The only time they come running to us is for money. Then they are the sweet children every parent wants. Then we pay off the drug dealers who are after them, and they disappear again. For weeks at a time. Even when we talk to them on the phone, Steven can tell that Adam and AriellaRose are high on something.”