“Tick tock, little time on the clock, have you told your dear wife, about your second life?” The glass vase the flowers had arrived in shattered on the floor. “What second life, Richard? What the hell does it mean?”
Aynslee couldn’t hear Tate’s response, his voice apparently too weak.
“Anything interesting?”
Aynslee jumped at the voice right next to her ear. She spun around as if caught with her hand in the cookie jar, and smiled, seeing Shakespeare standing there, a slight look of what might be disapproval on his face. And she knew why.
“Detective, three times in one weekend?” She gave him a quick hug and pointed to Mike and Steve. “Not sure if you’ve met my crew, Mike Parker and Steve Davis.” Shakespeare shook their hands and turned back to her.
“What are you doing here?”
She raised her hands. “Don’t worry, it’s not what you think. I’m here on the heart attack story, not the other thing,” she said in a whisper. “I’ve been keeping my ears open and nothing has come in on that yet. But—” She stopped and looked around.
“What?”
“There’s something going on in there. Some flowers were just delivered, and the wife flipped out. I think there was something written on the card, some poem.”
Shakespeare’s eyebrows shot up. “Poem?”
“Yeah, it was kind of weird. Something about a clock, then asking if he’d told his wife about his second life.” This clearly excited Shakespeare. He stood up straight, his cheeks slightly flushed, his eyes bright with energy. It was a good look for him. A look she couldn’t remember having ever seen. “What, does it mean something?”
He looked down at her. “It could mean everything.” With that he stepped into the room, and closed the door, smiling slightly she was sure at her look of dismay.
“Who the hell are you?”
Shakespeare held up his badge to the clearly irate Mrs. Tate, her fake tanned cheeks flushed, her eyes red from crying. “Detective Shakespeare, Homicide.” He looked at Richard Tate, lying in the bed, his face pale but cheeks slightly flushed, perhaps from the tongue lashing his wife had given him.
“H-homicide?” Tate looked nervous. Too nervous. “What do you want?”
“I need to ask you a few questions, in private.”
“Like hell you are, anything you want to ask him you can ask in front of me!”
“Don’t I have the right to have my lawyer present?”
Normally Shakespeare’s guilt-dar would have gone off, but when dealing with the rich, you usually expected an emergency lawyer to step out of the closet within moments of arriving. “You’re not under arrest, sir, I just have a few questions for you.”
He slumped into his pillows. “Okay, go ahead.”
“What did you say your name was again?” asked Mrs. Tate. “Shakespeare? What the hell kind of name is that?”
Shakespeare shrugged his shoulders. “My dad’s?”
She went several shades of red darker. “Don’t get smart with me, boyo!” She snapped her fingers. “Do you have a card? I’m going to talk to your supervisor.”
Shakespeare pulled a card from his wallet and handed it to her. “Feel free. He always enjoys hearing from concerned citizens.” He turned back to Richard Tate. “Are you sure?”
Tate glanced at his wife who glared back. “Of course.”
There’s no way he knows about the photo. Shakespeare took out his cellphone and flipped to the unscrambled photo, holding it out for Tate to look at. “Can you confirm this is you?”
Tate went as white as his sheets, his eyes darting to his wife who stepped over and grabbed Shakespeare’s wrist, twisting the phone so she could see it. “Woah ho, I’ll see you in divorce court.” She shoved Shakespeare’s wrist away from her and stormed from the room, the tension level, at least for Shakespeare, easing quite remarkably. He looked at his witness. I guess I’m alone.
“You just cost me half a billion dollars.”
Right, like I’m the one who was slipping it to another woman.
“So you confirm this is you in the photo?”
The man nodded, defeated. “Yes.”
“And who is the woman?”
“Samantha Alders.”
We have a name! Shakespeare decided to play a game. “And where can we find her?”
The man looked nervous, his head turning slightly away, his eyes wandering the room then settling on the heart monitor which was now beeping slightly faster.
“I d-don’t know,” he whispered, his voice cracking.
Okay, that’s a little different than I was expecting. “Would you be surprised to hear that we found her body today?”
“Oh, God no!” Tate’s head swung toward Shakespeare and he pushed himself up onto his elbows. “You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t kill her! I don’t remember a thing! I just woke up and there was blood everywhere, and her body was in the tub. I left her there, then when I came back, she was gone; there was no blood, there was nothing. Nothing except—” He stopped, looking about the room. His eyes settled on a chair in the corner. “There, get me my jacket.”
Shakespeare walked over and picked up the suit jacket lying over the back of the chair. “Just tell me where?”
“Inside pocket.”
Shakespeare carefully reached in, not expecting anything sharp with this type of witness—suspect—but still wary nonetheless. He felt a piece of paper and pulled it out. It was a crumpled envelope, the Waldorf Astoria seal emblazoned on the back, the seal torn open. He reached inside and fished out the lone piece of paper, opened it, and read the four lines, his heart racing.
TICK TOCK
LITTLE TIME ON THE CLOCK
WHEN THEY FIND WHAT I HID
THEY WILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID
Shakespeare pulled an evidence bag from his inside pocket and placed the envelope and paper inside, sealing it. “The Waldorf, is that where it happened?”
Tate nodded.
“Give me the full story.”
“I left the office Saturday, went straight to the Waldorf, about six p.m., went up to the room, and Samantha arrived shortly after, maybe ten minutes later. We, you know, made love, then she poured us drinks, then the next thing I know it’s the next morning, I’m lying naked in bed, blood all over me and the sheets, and she’s floating in the tub, dead.”
“Then?”
“Then I got the hell out of there, went home, got in a fight with my wife in the driveway, left without even leaving my car, and decided I had to go back to the hotel.”
“To do what?”
“I don’t know! I wasn’t really thinking straight. I guess part of me was thinking I needed to get rid of any evidence I was there, but that would be impossible since the room was in my company’s name, and part of me thought she might still be alive and need help. I don’t know what I was thinking, I was panicking.”
“So you went back, then what?”
“Nothing. It was completely cleaned up. The body was gone, there was no blood anywhere, the bed was made, just as if housekeeping had come through.”
“And how long had you been gone?”
“About four hours I guess. I drove out to The Hamptons and back, so however long that takes.”
“Sounds about right. And the note?”
“It was sitting on my overnight bag. I had forgotten it when I left, and found it in a closet. I opened the note, then had this damned panic attack or whatever they’re calling it.”
“Not a heart attack?”
“No, panic, anxiety, whatever. Pretty clear what caused it though.”
Shakespeare grunted in agreement, furiously scribbling notes.
“Have you ever been to a coffee shop called La Barista?”
Tate shook his head. “No, never heard of it.”
“Does the name Sandy Thorton ring a bell?”
Tate shook his head. “Should it?”
“What can you tell me about Samantha? Where did you meet her?”
&n
bsp; Tate looked away, his cheeks flushing. “I met her on a sugar daddy website. I needed a release, my wife and I haven’t been getting along for years now, and rather than divorce her, I decided to take action, and solve my problem.”
“With a hooker.”
“Not a hooker!” Tate clearly was upset at the suggestion, his glare aimed directly at Shakespeare. “She’s a college student, trying to pay off her student loans.”
“How does this sugar daddy arrangement work?”
“Basically you meet, if you hit it off, you work out a, shall we say, arrangement. Give them an allowance, and they come by whenever you want them to.”
“And how much were you paying her?”
“About two grand a week.”
Shakespeare whistled. “I’m in the wrong business.”
“You’d be lucky to get fifty bucks.”
Shakespeare chuckled. “And what college was she going to?”
“NYU.”
Bingo! Yet another link to NYU. Maybe the coffee shop is a red herring? “Have you received any text messages, or any other type of message, that seemed odd?”
Tate pointed at the flowers scattered across the floor. “Yeah, those fucking things came with a marriage ending message.”
Shakespeare looked around and saw a small card sitting on a nearby table and picked it up with a latex glove he pulled from his pocket. Handwritten, most likely by the florist, he read the text:
TICK TOCK
LITTLE TIME ON THE CLOCK
HAVE YOU TOLD YOUR DEAR WIFE
ABOUT YOUR SECOND LIFE?
“I see what you mean,” said Shakespeare. He dropped the card into a second evidence bag. “Any chance your wife knew what was going on?”
“What, you mean she might have killed Samantha?” Tate thought for a brief moment. “I wouldn’t put it past that cold hearted bitch. She’d kill anything that got between me and my money.”
“Is that the brain or the heart talking?”
Tate sighed, waving his hand like an eraser. “Forget I said that, I may hate the bitch but she’s no killer. Did she know I was cheating on her? She accused me of it enough when I wasn’t, so no, I don’t think she knew. She’ll claim she always suspected if you ask her, but like I said, she’s been accusing me of it for years, and I only met Samantha a year ago.”
“Could Samantha have told anybody about you?”
Tate shook his head. “That was part of the arrangement. She’d be cut off if she told anyone.”
“Therapist, boyfriend, mother?”
“No, like I said, a peep and it’s over.”
“Do you have an address for her?”
“Yeah, it’s on my phone.” He pointed to the jacket. “Other inside pocket.”
Shakespeare fished it out and handed it to Tate who turned it on and entered a code to unlock it. He hit some buttons and handed the phone to Shakespeare. “Here you go.”
Shakespeare wrote Samantha’s contact info in his pad and as he started to hand the phone back to Tate, it vibrated with a new text message. By instinct he hit the prompt to view it.
TICK TOCK
LITTLE TIME ON THE CLOCK
WHEN TWO STAR CROSSED LOVERS MEET
IT WILL SIGNAL THEIR DEFEAT
He showed the message to Tate, but didn’t let him touch the phone, it now evidence. Tate paled.
“What does it mean?”
“I have no clue.”
“Clearly the flowers and this message are linked.”
Tate nodded.
“And you have no idea who’s sending these.”
He shook his head. “No clue.”
“Any idea who the ‘star crossed lovers’ are?”
“How should I know?”
“This was sent to you, so it’s supposed to mean something to you. Samantha’s dead. Are you seeing any other women on the side?”
Tate emphatically shook his head. “Absolutely not.”
“And it says ‘their defeat’. Who are they?”
“How the hell should I know! I have no clue what the hell is going on here. I’m the victim, remember?”
“Your wife might beg to differ.” Shakespeare flipped his notebook closed and placed it in his pocket. He held up the phone. “I’ll be keeping this, to see if we can trace that text message.”
Tate waved his hand. “Fine, can I at least cancel the account? I get a lot of confidential phone calls to that line.”
“I can’t stop you, but I’d prefer you didn’t, just in case they try to contact you again.”
Tate nodded. “Any idea when I can get out of here?”
“I’m not a doctor, but you’re free to go as far as the NYPD is concerned.”
Shakespeare stepped out into the hallway and closed the door. As he turned, Mrs. Tate shoved a phone in his face. “Here, he wants to talk to you.”
Shakespeare took the phone. “Hello?”
“Shakespeare, what the hell is going on?”
Shakespeare tried not to laugh. “Hey, LT, why, what do you hear?” He had to admit, the woman was fast.
“Apparently you were rude to one of the richest and most powerful families in the city?”
“You know me, LT.”
“Yeah, I do. Nod your head while I’m talking, then say it won’t happen again. Who do these people think they are? For Christ’s sake, I have enough on my plate, I don’t need to be wasting time with spoiled rich people.”
Shakespeare’s head bobbed through the tirade. Finished, he said, “Okay, sir, it won’t happen again.”
He hung up and handed the phone back.
“I hope you learned your lesson!” She stormed off, an entourage of three staff scurrying to keep up.
“Anything you care to share with the press?”
Shakespeare turned toward the voice and smiled. Aynslee was young and eager. He remembered what that was like. He was never her league of handsome, but he once had the gung ho attitude. I wonder what she’ll be like when she’s my age. Would the spirit be drummed out of her like so many others? He hoped not. The world needed more people like her. Go getters that, when knocked down, got back up, that recognized an opportunity, and were willing to grab it.
“Nothing I can share, but”—he took her aside, out of earshot of her crew—“when you go in there, see if you can pry a few lovers out of his closet. I need to know if he’s a serial cheater, or just a monogamous one.”
Aynslee smiled. “I’ll throw on the charm, see if he takes the bait.”
Shakespeare planted a kiss on the top of her head, patting her shoulder. “Just show him that smile, and he’ll be putty in your hands.” Her smile grew into one he pictured a daughter of his own might have given him if he had just told her he was proud of her. “I’ve gotta run. Keep me in the loop.”
“Absolutely.”
Shakespeare rushed toward the elevators, fishing his phone from his pocket to call Frank. The only logical explanation that fit the case so far was that the star crossed lovers were Frank and Sarah. And if that were the case, their meeting would trigger someone’s defeat. And the only someone he could think of were those trying to solve the crime. And the only way he could see himself defeated, was if he wasn’t able to rescue her alive. Which meant one thing.
Frank must, under no circumstances, meet Sarah.
EIGHT
“You’re sure she’s okay?”
“Yes.”
She shivered despite the heat, the voice sounding disembodied over the cellphone speaker. She fed the lubricated tube down the naked woman’s throat and began pushing the enriched supplement directly into her stomach. She definitely wouldn’t be hungry after this feeding. She had already hooked her up to an IV to rehydrate her, and had just finished administering a drug that would evacuate her bladder and bowels over the next hour.
“When will you be finished?”
“In about an hour.”
“Very well. When you have finished your task, proceed through the red door to your ri
ght. Your payment will be waiting.”
“Okay, thanks.”
The phone went dead, and she was thankful for it. She had participated over the past seven years of med school in many experiments, had dealt with comatose patients like this one, but never in this type of atmosphere. It was always a hospital environment. But this? She looked around, not sure what to make of what she was looking at. Three large shipping containers, like those you might see on a cargo ship, stood in the center of the warehouse, a warehouse that was nowhere near any of NYU’s campuses. And definitely nowhere near the Psyche campus.
She was told the Psyche Department needed a doctor for one evening for a comatose patient they were doing experiments on, trying to determine what level of awareness they might have despite their condition. The email she had received had sounded fascinating, and the payment of five hundred dollars for coming at the last minute, their regular doctor having fallen ill, was too good to pass up.
Everything in the email had looked fine, it had been CC’d to the proper department heads, it had come from a professor in the Psyche department that she had heard of. The payment was unusually high, in fact, the payment in itself was unusual. Quite often these types of requests to help out other departments were expected to be donated. But if it wasn’t on the up and up, why would they have mentioned it in an email also sent to her department heads? And if there was a problem with it, wouldn’t they have responded, refusing her permission?
It all had seemed perfectly legitimate, until she had responded indicating she was available, and gave her contact information. That’s when she was told to come to this warehouse. From the outside, the warehouse looked fairly rundown, but inside it was clean, the necessary facilities were here, and there was a patient: female, mid-twenties, naked, covered by a sheet on the table waiting for her. Fortunately it was quite warm in here, a little too warm to her liking, but it was most likely for the patient’s sake.
Tick Tock (A Detective Shakespeare Mystery, Book #2) Page 15