Death in Eden

by Paul Heald

  They made faces like she had just offered them a turd sandwich. “That’s okay, chica. He’s not our type,” the taller of the two laughed. “But you come back alone later, and maybe we can party.”

  She laughed back at them as if she were considering the offer. “Maybe later guys. I’ve got business to attend to now.” She slapped Stanley playfully on the backside and guided him away down the sidewalk. The two men whistled loudly, but did not follow.

  “Was that really necessary?” he whispered as soon as they were out of earshot.

  She looked at him with a skeptical grin. “And just what was your plan?”

  “Okay, okay,” he acknowledged her street smarts with a smile. “I was planning on using a bit of wicked Kung Fu to take them both out, but it was nice of you to save the taxpayers their hospital expenses.”

  The building listed on McCaffrey’s paper looked like it had been a small hotel at some point in its recent history. It was constructed with the same courtyard design as Janet’s upscale condominium, but the resemblance ended there. The doors were battered and dented, and most had extra deadbolt plates screwed in above the door knobs. Torn and stained curtains hung from less than half the windows, and the only sign of green was a lopsided rubber tree plant leaning against one of the corners.

  “What a dump,” he said as he scanned the doors for the apartment number.

  “It’s a lot like the place I used to live in.”

  “My condolences.” He turned around and looked over his shoulder. “It’s up there, on the second floor.” It took them a moment to find the stairs behind an unmarked door in a squalid vestibule. A rusted chain hung from the bottom rail of the stairs where a bicycle had once been attached. A used condom had been tossed in the corner of the stairwell, and the tattered carpeting on the steps stank of urine and stale cigarette smoke.

  They emerged into the sun again on an exterior walkway overlooking the courtyard. Modriani’s room was immediately on their right. As they approached her door, they could hear high decibel heavy metal music playing inside the apartment. He looked at Janet and then rapped on the door firmly with his knuckles. When there was no reply, he pounded with his fist to make himself heard over the din of the music, but the only door that opened was the neighbor’s.

  “Are you friends of hers?” A skinny brunette who looked to be no more than seventeen stepped warily onto the walkway. She was holding a fussy baby in her heavily tattooed arms. “She’s been playing that same fucking CD over and over since last night. I’ve been pounding on the walls, and I’ve called the cops twice, but they never came.” She vented her frustration. “I mean, this is like totally fucked.”

  The fact that she did not blink an eye at their clothes spoke volumes about the apartment complex and the neighborhood. “She’s not answering for us either,” Janet said. “Maybe she’s not home.”

  “Then why would she leave the stereo on?” the girl asked peevishly, but with a burst of insight she answered her own question. “Maybe she’s too stoned to notice. Could you guys go in and turn it off, maybe?”

  Stanley had no desire to break into Modriani’s apartment without permission, and to demonstrate the futility of even attempting, he shook the door knob and started to say, “It’s not open.” But to his surprise, the door swung in and the music doubled in volume. He looked at Janet, and she encouraged him to continue with a nod.

  He stood in the doorway, and she squeezed next to him and looked over his shoulder. The living room contained a tilted and torn sofa that looked like it had been salvaged from the curbside garbage pick up. A television stand stood across from it, but there was no set, just a rectangle of dust marking where it had once stood.

  “Mary?” he called out loudly and then shouted. “Mary?”

  There was no answer. He could hear the little brunette’s voice behind him. “Could you please turn off the music? She’s nice when she’s not fucked up. I don’t think she’ll mind.” He doubted the tattooed young mother had legal authority to let them into the apartment, but he wanted to see into the bedroom. He nodded his assent and walked in with Janet. The music grew incrementally loud as they approached the bedroom door and then practically blasted them to the floor as he pushed it open.

  “Oh my god,” Janet gasped as she looked into the room and saw the nude body of a young woman sprawled across the bed. Stanley stood frozen in place. He had been in the presence of exactly two dead bodies in his life, and the waxy forms of his aunt and his grandmother lying respectably in the local funeral home had not prepared him for the tableau set before him.

  The woman, presumably Mary Modriani, lay on her side along the edge of the bed, the bicep of her left arm underneath her head, elbow and wrist cantilevered palm up toward the door. An angry red puncture wound marked the crook of her left elbow. Her other arm was cocked back awkwardly behind her providing a counterbalance that kept her from tipping onto the filthy carpet that covered the room. Although lank and greasy hair covered most of her face, Stanley could see that she had bitten through her lower lip in a spasm that left her teeth clenched in a grim and bloody rictus. Death had not come easily. The evident cause of the tragedy was scattered on the floor: a cigarette lighter, a tab of unfolded tinfoil, a spoon, and a syringe with a broken needle.

  The neighbor girl tried to push past them to see as well, but they barred her way and guided her out of the apartment. “There’s been an accident,” said Stanley, “probably better for the baby not to see.” The baby had fallen asleep despite the loud music, but the point was made. The girl acquiesced, and all three were soon standing together again on the landing. “What’s your name?” he asked her.

  “Lauren,” the woman said, her eyes darting back into the apartment.

  “I think Mary is dead, Lauren.” He expected to see more of a shock in her eyes, but she had apparently seen more of the world than he had at seventeen. “I’m going to go back inside and check.”

  “And could you turn the music off?”

  “Huh?”

  “Could you turn the music off,” she repeated, irritation with the thumping bass line more pressing than the horrific news that her neighbor was dead.

  Stanley nodded and went back into the apartment. Careful not to disturb the crime scene, he walked over to the bed and put his fingers on Modriani’s cold, exposed neck. He could feel no pulse, nor see any sign that she was drawing breath. If the compact disc playing over and over again through the night were any indication, she had been dead for hours. Without touching anything else, he took two steps to the night stand where the boom box stood blaring and reached for the off switch. He almost put his finger on it before he realized that he would be leaving his own prints on the device. He took a tissue out of his pocket and reached for the switch again, but he was afraid that he might erase someone else’s prints. He backed off and considered what to do. Finally, he bent over, took hold of the middle of the power cord with the tissue and yanked the plug out of the wall socket. The music stopped instantly and he felt himself relax for the first time since they had arrived in the neighborhood. He took one last look at the death scene and walked out into fresh air.

  Janet caught his eye as soon as he emerged, and he shook his head to let her know Geary’s alibi witness was indeed dead. “I’m gonna call McCaffrey.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “He needs to see this.” He dialed the number and waited while the woman answering the phone looked for the detective.

  “Lauren,” he asked, “can we wait in your apartment until the police come? It may take them a little while to get here.” She nodded her head slowly, for the first time showing suspicion that the slicked down pimp and the beautiful whore were not who they appeared to be. He thanked her and then the detective’s voice was suddenly on the phone. Stanley gave a brief rundown of the scene in the apartment and told him they would be waiting next door. “No, we won’t touch anything,” he assured the cop before hanging up.

  Lauren’s apartment was sparse, but re
latively clean. She at least was still fighting the battle against dirt and vermin that Mary Modriani had lost. The three adults sat around a small table next to the kitchenette, while the baby slept soundly in a cracked yellow carrier on the floor. “Did you know Mary well?”

  “Pretty well.” She was about to say more, but bit her lower lip instead. “Who are you guys anyway?”

  Stanley looked at Janet. He let her answer the question. “We’re private investigators, Lauren.” She looked directly at the girl and explained the situation in a disarming and gentle way. “We’ve been hired by a man who has been wrongfully accused of murder. We think that Mary’s meth dealer might be the real killer, and we wanted to talk to her about him.”

  “Her dealer? She has at least three.”

  “A guy named Chance Geary,” Stanley elaborated. “He’s a white guy with dreadlocks and a spider tattoo on his arm.” He saw a flash of recognition on the girl’s face. “Do you know him?”

  “I’ve seen him a couple of times. He rides a motorcycle.” From the matter-of-fact tone she used, he concluded that she did not know Geary well enough to be afraid of him.

  “Have you seen him recently?” She hesitated, and Janet took over the questioning.

  “Did he come by here yesterday?”

  “No,” the girl replied, “at least I didn’t see him. He came by last week though. Mary asked me if I wanted to party with her. She said she was doing a favor for him and he’d given her a shitload of new stuff.”

  “Did she say what kind of favor?”

  “Nope, just that he owed her big time.”

  The baby began to stir and the young mother gathered her up and disappeared into the bedroom. Stanley and Janet sat working through the implications of Lauren’s tale while she dealt with the child. After fifteen minutes, they heard a loud rapping at the apartment door. As he got up to open it, the young mother emerged from the bedroom.

  Stanley asked her quickly. “Was Mary right-handed or left-handed?”

  “What do you mean?” The girl seemed confused by the simple question and startled by a further round of knocking on the door.

  “When she shot up, did she use this hand, or this hand?” He mimicked the act with both arms and she pointed to his left.

  “That way,” she said, closing her eyes to visualize a scene she had witnessed before. “She used that hand.”

  He rewarded her with his most winning smile and turned to answer door. When he opened it, McCaffrey stepped in and took a hard look at the professor and the porn star, both still dressed to blend into the neighborhood. Stanley stood with his hands on his hips, one tee shirt sleeve rolled up as if to carry a pack of cigarettes. His partner was showing more leg than a Rockettes’ Christmas show, and the diamond in her navel sparkled faintly.

  “Hopkins? Stephens?” He looked from one to the other and shook his head. “I don’t even want to know.” He grunted in disgust, “I don’t even want to know . . . just show me where the body is.”

  XXVIII.

  A STIFFED STIFFY

  After her husband’s decision to stay in Los Angeles, Angela avoided her friends. The last thing she wanted was pity for her inability to win her man back from a dazzling porn star. She tried to believe Stanley’s protestations of fidelity, but there was no reason why other people watching him and Layla DiBona on their television screens should trust him. She spent as little time at the real estate office as possible, meeting her clients only at the homes she was showing. Thank goodness for Nanci. Her friend had been privy to the Los Angeles debacle from the beginning and managed to share her disappointment about Stanley without speculating aloud about where he was spending the night. But when Nanci called to remind her of the dinner party, there was no way she could agree to come.

  “I’m just not up for it, Nance,” she tried to explain. “The last thing I want to do is talk about Stan with anyone but you.”

  “Look, you can’t stay inside forever. And besides, everybody’s going to assume the worst if you stay at home all the time. The thing to do is show up with a smile on your face and jump into the pool wearing your lovely Land’s End one-piece like there was nothing wrong. That’s the best way to shut up the gossip.”

  “I don’t know,” she wavered. The thought of facing a dinner party was still traumatizing, even if her friend was right about putting on a bold face.

  “And don’t forget,” Nanci said, “Max is going to be there. There’s nothing to lose by asking him if he can do something more. Maybe he could get the administration to relent if Stanley really proves this guy is innocent.”

  “Maybe.” Angela had her doubts about whether anyone could prove Don Johansson innocent given the circumstances of the case, but she had to admit that her husband seemed to be doing okay. As much as she wanted him home and back on track, she could see that he had talent for ferreting out information. He was a loyal bulldog armed with a Ph.D., a law degree, and tons of experience talking to all sorts of people. If anyone could exonerate Johansson, it was him. She could also reluctantly understand why he liked flexing his muscles on a bigger stage than the BFU. But now was not the time to be tilting at windmills and hanging out with porn stars. It was time to come home, find a new job, and start raising a family.

  “Come on! I’m making Margaritas.”

  Nanci knew her weak spots. Angela laughed. “Okay. I’ll come, but I’ll probably leave early.”

  “No problem! I’ll see you around seven.”

  The night was warm, and Angela sat on her back patio listening to the sounds of children playing flashlight tag in the neighbor’s yard. A little girl shrieked as she dove under a bush to escape a beam shining out of a dilapidated tree fort, and for a moment, the pitch of her voice harmonized with thousands of invisible cicadas and tree frogs chirping in the summer air. Too soon a chorus of mothers’ voices was cued, calling their reluctant children home to bath and bed. She sipped a glass of sparkling water and listened as the sounds of her childhood faded in the dusk. Nanci’s party had started an hour earlier, but she had not been able to draw herself away from the precious interlude between dinner and children’s bed times. She might have sat all evening, gently cradling the tiny secret in her belly, but as the sounds around her reverted entirely to insect, amphibian, and dog, she finally got the courage to stand up and make her way to Nanci’s party.

  When she arrived at the house, she walked to the side gate to avoid the gauntlet of guests milling about Nanci’s front room. Socializing would be less painful in the obscurity of the swimming pool deck. She unlatched the gate and found the pool empty except for the Millers, a dentist and his elementary school teacher wife who lived next door. Talking with them might be boring, but not too embarrassing. She walked along the pool toward them, but they seemed so engrossed in conversation that she left them alone and gave in to the temptation of the clear blue water. She wore her suit underneath her skirt and blouse, with her Speedo serving as a modest, albeit snug, foundation. With a quick jerk at her colorful wrap, she plunged into the water without even checking it with her toe.

  Despite the warmth of the air, the water was cool and she swam furiously to the far end of the pool until she got used to the temperature. She felt so unexpectedly refreshed when she reached the edge that she immediately turned and swam back, quickly completing twenty laps before she stopped in the shallow end on the steps that led down from the pool deck. She looked up at the house and could see a dozen people chatting and drinking in the kitchen. Several more were sitting in the living room, but she had no desire to join them. Swimming and maybe talking with the Millers was about all the excitement she wanted. Eventually, Nanci would make her way outside and take her Margarita order. With a drink to hide behind, she could probably survive the evening.

  As she sat observing the other guests, she heard a splash. A muscular figure started swimming toward her, and a moment later Max Kurland surfaced next to her and wiped the water from his eyes. He was ten years older than Stanley, with thinnin
g hair and a crooked smile, but he had kept himself in shape, and she could not help but notice his broad shoulders and powerful chest glistening in the soft light of the summer night. She reflexively pushed her hair behind her ear.

  “Hi Max,” she greeted him tentatively, unsure what to say to the man who had been unable to save her husband’s job.

  “Hi Angela,” he slid through the water and sat next to her on the submerged steps. “I’m glad you could come! I’m sort of co-hosting this party with Nanci.”

  “I don’t know how long I can stay.” She was not wholly comfortable with the warm body pressing against her side, but it wouldn’t be friendly to slide away. “I’m not feeling too social tonight.”

  “Well, I don’t blame you. It must be tough with Stan still out in California.” He touched her arm. “I was really hoping that you’d be able to convince him to come back here. Quite frankly, I don’t understand what’s running through his head sometimes.”

  “Me neither,” she admitted. She looked at their reflection in the water and shook her head. “I tell myself that he’s just being loyal to an old friend, but he sounds so obsessed whenever I talk to him.”

  “Same here.”

  He sounded so regretful that she took a chance and broached the subject of her husband’s status at BFU. “Max, if he were to prove that Don Johansson didn’t murder that girl, would the university consider taking him back?”

  The administrator let out a reluctant groan. “I doubt it. It’s not just a question of the president having her head up her ass. Stanley’s in trouble with the department too. About a third of the people, like me, are cheering him on, but the rest are either pissed off or jealous. Even with a completed book and no Los Angeles frolic, he was going to get some resistance. At this point though, I can’t see him getting through our committee, even if the president were willing.”