A loud pounding on the door startled them both. Frank turned pale as the pounding repeated, and his phone, sitting on the floor beside Trace, vibrated. He looked at Trace whose eyes were wider than just seconds ago. He reached for the door when she whispered loudly, “No! Cut me loose first!”
Frank turned and rushed over, kneeling down in front of her when the door burst open.
Shakespeare wasn’t sure what he was looking at, but he didn’t like it. Trace was tied to a chair, jaw dropped, a look of shock on her face. The kid was in front of her, no shirt on, looking panicked, and gripping a knife. Shakespeare raised his weapon and pointed it at Frank. “Drop it!”
Frank just stood there, shaking.
“I said drop it!”
Frank’s head bobbed rapidly and he opened his hand, the knife dropping to the carpeted floor with a dull thud. Shakespeare flicked his gun, indicating Frank should move away from Trace. “Over there, keep your hands where I can see them.” He looked at Trace who now had a smile on her face, one side more pronounced than the other, as if she were enjoying the situation. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, slightly exasperated. “The kid was just about to cut me loose.”
“Huh?”
“This isn’t what it looks like.” Shakespeare looked at Frank. Yeah, right. “Just let him cut me loose and I’ll explain everything.”
“You sure?”
She nodded. “Yes, let the kid cut me loose, I wouldn’t want you to hurt anything.”
“You’re such a sweetheart.” Shakespeare motioned for Frank to come over and stepped back a few paces so he could cover him.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” asked Trace as her left hand was freed. She immediately scratched her nose, sighing.
“When I never heard from you I called your phone and you didn’t pick up. I called dispatch and they said you were still here, so I figured something must be wrong.” He waved at the scene with his gun. “Never expected this.”
“Yeah, well go check the bathroom if you want a real surprise.” Both hands were now free and Frank was bent over between her legs, working on the tape binding her feet together. She leaned forward and tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up. “Howsabout I take care of the rest since you haven’t even bought me dinner.” He looked puzzled and Shakespeare grunted a laugh.
Kids.
He stepped into the bathroom and saw a body floating in the bathtub. “Holy shit!” He looked about for a photo, but found none. He stepped back into the living area and looked at Frank. “You better have a damned good explanation for this.”
Trace stood up. “He does. And he was just about to start explaining everything, from the beginning.” Frank nodded furiously. “My gun?” Frank pointed to the kitchen counter. Trace retrieved her weapon, holstering it, as Shakespeare retrieved the key building management had given him from the door lock.
“Okay, let’s everybody take a seat, and work this thing out,” he said, sitting in what looked to him to be the most comfortable chair there—the high-back office chair Trace had just been freed from. Trace gave him a look. “Hey, figured you wouldn’t want to sit here again.” She gave him another look as if she thought he might just be right, then sat on the couch lining the window, and sighed. Shakespeare had the distinct impression she was trying to make him second guess his choice.
Frank paced back and forth between them, before at last sitting down in the couch’s matching chair. All three leaned forward in their little triangle, both Shakespeare and Trace pulling out their note pads. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
Frank nodded and took a deep breath.
“Okay, it all started I guess Friday after work. I met Sarah in the elevators—”
“Sarah who?” interrupted Trace.
“Sarah Paxman. I think she works in HR.”
“Pretty, chubby?”
Shakespeare was about to leap to the poor girl’s defense when an angry Frank beat him to it.
“Hey! She’s a really nice girl. Don’t judge her because she has some weight issues.”
Way to go, kid.
Trace threw up her hands, conceding his point. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” Then she stared straight at him. “Is that who’s in the tub?”
Frank paled. “God, I hope not!” He jumped up and rushed to the bathroom before either of them could stop him and returned a moment later, shaking his head. “No, this one’s skinny like you,” he said, jerking his chin at Trace who Shakespeare noted was about to smile at what clearly was not meant to be a compliment but caught herself. Her eyes darted at Shakespeare and he gave her a knowing smile.
Vanity, thy name is Trace? No, he didn’t think that. She dressed well enough and appeared to take care of herself—light makeup, simple but neat hairstyle, a rockin’ body as the kids might say, but she was one of the boys. Nothing girly about her. She’s only human. Everybody loves a compliment, even if they won’t admit it. He tried to remember the last time somebody had complimented his looks and gave up.
“So, you like this girl?”
Frank looked at Trace and shrugged his shoulders. “I guess. I don’t really know. I’ve seen her around work here and there, you know. Talk to her in the elevator, whatever.”
“So what was different about Friday?” asked Shakespeare.
“I asked her out for a coffee.”
“Frank, the ladies’ man, I never would have thought it.” Shakespeare watched as Trace gave Frank the twice over, her eyes momentarily drawn to his abs.
“Frank, why don’t you put a shirt on? It’s like looking in a mirror here.”
Frank missed the humor and left to get a shirt, while Trace watched him leave then turned to Shakespeare.
“Youth is wasted on the young.”
He nodded. “You’re telling me. That kid doesn’t even know what he’s got.” He leaned forward. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, my pride is wounded more than anything else. Taken down by a computer nerd.” She jabbed a finger at him. “If you tell anyone about this at the squad, I’ll punch you in the throat.”
They both sat upright when Frank returned sporting a Steve Jobs style turtleneck. These kids still worship that guy.
“Okay, so where were we?” asked Trace as she looked at her notes. “Oh yeah, you asked her out for coffee. What happened then?”
“She said yes.” He sounded surprised.
“Rare event for you, girls accepting your invitations?”
He shook his head. “No, me asking is what’s rare.”
Shakespeare felt a twinge of sympathy. He had always had an extra few on him, and it had always shaken his self-confidence. Rarely did he ask someone out, in fact, over the years he could count on one hand how many he’d asked, and unfortunately he needed even fewer fingers to count how many had said “yes”. “So you’re on the elevator, you ask her out, she says yes. What now?”
“We go to this coffee place I go to, La Barista, just a couple of blocks from here—”
“I know it.” Great cinnamon rolls. Trace shot him a look as if she had read his thoughts.
“—and that’s all I remember until the next day.”
Trace looked up from her notes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, we went in the shop, I have some fuzzy memories of sitting down with our coffees, talking, laughing—” He paused and blushed.
“Yeeeessss?” prompted Trace.
“Kissing.”
Trace almost looked jealous.
“Then nothing. I woke up in that apartment downstairs yesterday morning. That’s my first memory.”
“You woke up where?”
“Downstairs.”
Shakespeare and Trace both leaned back, looking at each other wide-eyed, each reevaluating the entire case. Trace spoke first.
“Sounds like you were dosed.” Trace looked at Shakespeare. “How long does that stuff stay in your system?”
“Not sure. We might—”<
br />
“I took a sample.”
“Huh?” Trace and Shakespeare echoed.
“I took a sample, you know, pissed in a cup, just in case.”
Smart kid. “Where is it?”
“In my fridge at the lab.”
“Remind me never to go into your fridge.” Shakespeare racked his brain, trying to remember if he had ever taken anything out of the fridge over the years he had known Frank and drew a blank. Thank God.
“We’ll test you again, just to be sure.”
“Well, it wouldn’t matter, because I got dosed again today.”
“What?” Trace seemed to be echoing each of Shakespeare’s outbursts.
“Yeah, I was just waking up when you arrived.”
“Okay, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here,” said Shakespeare. “Back it up to yesterday; you woke up the next morning in the apartment downstairs. Then what?”
“I discovered the body in the bathroom and panicked.”
“Meaning you did…” Trace’s hand made a circle in the air, indicating he should move the truck that was his brain forward.
“Meaning just that. I panicked! I didn’t know what to do! I knew that I’d go to prison because I was covered in blood, there was a dead body in the tub, and my name was written on the wall.”
Shakespeare’s eyebrows narrowed. “There was nothing written on the wall.”
Frank looked at the floor. “I washed it off.”
“You did what?” roared Shakespeare.
The kid turned pale, even Trace jumped. “I-I didn’t know what to do, I just didn’t want to go to prison, so I cleaned the entire apartment, top to bottom.”
“Why didn’t you take the photo?” asked Trace, giving Shakespeare the “take it easy” eye.
Frank looked up at her. “It wasn’t there when I left!”
Trace and Shakespeare looked at each other. “Seems to corroborate your claim someone else is doing this.” Shakespeare leaned back in the chair. “There’s no way you’d leave the photo if you had done this, unless you’re a psycho trying to lead us on a wild goose chase and just got caught sooner than you had expected.” Shakespeare didn’t believe that for a second, but he didn’t want the kid getting too comfortable. If he thought there was still a chance they thought he was guilty, he’d volunteer much more information, trying to prove his innocence.
Frank frantically shook his head. “No, no, I’m not crazy! I thought I was, going crazy I mean, I just didn’t know what was going on, and then I started to receive these text messages—”
“Text messages?”
“Yeah.” He handed his phone to Shakespeare who scrolled through the messages, his eyebrows climbing his forehead with each one. “When did you get the first one?”
“In the apartment, the first two in fact. It was like I was being watched. And like he was trying to help me.”
“He?”
Frank shrugged his shoulders. “I’m guessing it was a he, because whoever carried me here was definitely a guy.”
“Huh?” Trace beat Shakespeare to it. “Carried you here? When?”
“Earlier today. I’ll get to that.” Frank seemed to be enjoying himself a bit, his voice stronger, his hand motions more controlled. “So I snuck out of the apartment, tossed some stuff down the garbage chute, ran up here—”
“So it was you I chased!”
Frank nodded. “Yeah, sorry about that.”
Trace made a note. “That’s fine, it’s just one loose end tied up.”
“I flushed the rest of the stuff down the toilet, and then got the call to come to the scene to pick up the photo.”
“Which wasn’t there when you left, which is why you fainted when you saw it.”
Frank blushed, his eyes roaming the room. “Yeah, I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.”
“Is that why you grabbed it?” asked Shakespeare.
“No, I didn’t do that on purpose, that was an accident, I swear!”
“Okay, so you wake up, scrub the place down, get some text messages, outrun Trace”—Trace shot him some daggers—“then get the call to come back to the crime scene, see the photo, pass out, wake up, leave with the photo, then what?”
“Well, that’s when I found out it wasn’t Sarah who was dead, which really freaked me out.” He looked back and forth at both of them, his eyes pleading, filled with tears. “We need to find out what happened to Sarah!”
“Did you try calling her?”
Frank shook his head. “No, I was too scared to, I was afraid that if something had happened to her, then I’d be questioned as to why I called her.”
“You must have known we’d see the two of you leaving together on the surveillance tape at the crime lab?”
Frank nodded. “Yeah, but like I said, I wasn’t exactly thinking straight.”
Shakespeare nodded. “Go on.”
“Well, I did the analysis on the photo, unscrambled the woman who wasn’t the victim apparently, then set it up for the guy in the photo. That’s when Trace came in and scared the shit out of me.”
Shakespeare turned to Trace. “Explain.”
“He slipped up. When he fainted he went to get a glass of water and knew where the cups were.”
Shakespeare snapped his fingers, nodding. “That’s what it was. I knew something was bothering me about that entire scene.” He looked at Trace. “Good catch!”
She grinned. “I didn’t get a chance to follow up because of the witness showing up, but I had planned on it. I just didn’t want to voice anything, just in case the kid turned out to be innocent. Especially with what just happened with Eldridge. One whiff and the kid’s career is over.”
Shakespeare turned back to Frank. “So Trace fills your drawers, now what?”
“Next morning I come in, do some more work on the photo, leave to get a coffee, then wake up here.”
“Same coffee place?”
Frank nodded.
“You got your coffee, and don’t remember anything else?”
“I have a vague memory of being on the elevator with somebody holding me up, and they said the words ‘Tick tock’.”
“Just like the text messages.”
“Yeah.”
Shakespeare looked at the messages again, finishing with the last one. He decided to wait before asking about it.
“Next.”
“So I wake up, discover the body in the tub, and Trace arrives. I panicked and knocked her out.”
“What did you hit me with?” asked Trace, rubbing the back of her head.
Frank pointed at the piece of broken statue on the floor. “With that.”
Trace looked at her hand.
“Any blood?”
She shook her head. “No, just a nasty bump.”
“You should get that checked out.”
She waved her hand at him. “Nah, I’ll live.”
“Okay, so you take out a highly trained detective”—daggers—“with a single blow to the head”—more daggers—“and now what?”
“Well, I get a text message about her, about what I had just done, which makes me realize I’m being watched. So I search the apartment and I find this”—he got up and picked up something from the floor, handing it to him—“behind the grate in the kitchen.” He pointed, indicating the grate, now hanging by a single screw.
“What is it?” asked Shakespeare, turning the device around in his hands.
“It’s a wireless camera that streams its feed to the Internet.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that anybody, anywhere, who knows the right website, shall we say, can watch the feed.”
Shakespeare eyed the lens. “Is it on?”
“No, I disconnected the transmitter.”
Shakespeare put the camera on the table in front of him and leaned back in his chair. “And then you received this text message.”
Trace pointed at the phone. “That’s when I realized the kid was being set up.”
&n
bsp; “Yeah, I was cutting her loose when you arrived.”
“Just after the nick of time, I might add.”
Shakespeare let her have that one. “You just be thankful it was me who discovered you. If a couple of uni’s had come in here, you two’d be in deep shit.” He leaned back. “I guess that just leaves one thing.” He looked at Frank then at Trace. “Do you want to press charges?”
Frank gasped.
“Absolutely,” said Trace. “Nobody assaults a police officer and gets away with it. I don’t care what the excuse is.”
“But I was being framed! I thought you believed me!” Frank started to panic again and Shakespeare held up his hand, deciding he had had enough.
“Relax kid, we’re joking.” He shifted his eyes to Trace. “We are joking, right?”
She laughed and leaned over, slapping Frank on the knee. “Take it easy, kid, you need to learn to have a sense of humor about these things otherwise this job will eat you alive.”
“Easy for you to say. You haven’t had to lie to your friends, break every rule you’ve sworn to uphold, and been stalked by a killer for forty-eight hours.”
Shakespeare suddenly regretted his joke. “Sorry, kid, I guess I wasn’t thinking about what you’ve been through.” He leaned in. “But it’s over now.”
Frank gave a weak smile. “Yeah, I guess so. Now what?”
Shakespeare stood up. “Well, that should be obvious, shouldn’t it?”
“What?”
“We check out the other apartment for a camera.” He pointed at Trace. “You stay here and call this scene in. And put an APB out on Sarah. We’ll go check out the apartment.” Shakespeare held open the door for the kid as he grabbed his small tool kit off the kitchen counter. A quiet elevator ride to the fourth floor and they were soon inside the apartment by way of the master key Shakespeare still had.
Frank pointed at the grate above the kitchen cupboards. “I’m guessing it’s in the same place.”
Shakespeare nodded and waved for him to proceed. Frank grabbed a chair, climbed up and quickly removed the screws holding the grate in place, letting it clang to the top of the cupboard. He reached in, pulling out a camera in triumph.
Tick Tock (A Detective Shakespeare Mystery, Book #2) Page 12