“What about your earring?”
I shrugged. “Didn’t wear any.”
Before he could reply, I shoved the key into the lock. I turned it. Pressing my lips together tightly, I held my breath. I opened the door. The alarm chirped but didn’t sound. Exhaling, I stepped inside. A click from the heater broke the silence, followed by a blast of unnecessary hot air. Shoving the key back in my pocket, I paused, remembering the step down and realizing the importance of taking it carefully. Unfortunately for me, Zane did not.
While I stopped, he kept walking. Thanks in large part to the laws of both physics and gravity, when I stopped moving but he continued, his sheer mass sent me flying. It happened too fast for me to cry out. I sailed forward, landing face first into the back of one of the couches before falling against the wooden floor. Hard. Staring up at the second-floor balcony, I rubbed the back of my head. It felt tender right away. I groaned softly. Suddenly, Zane’s face came into view, but his attention was not on me.
Instead, he was staring past me, at the white couch into which I slammed. More accurately, he was staring at something on the couch. Ignoring the protests of agony my muscles and nerves exuded, I rolled onto my stomach. I pulled myself to my feet, using the couch for support. As soon as I leaned over, I saw her. Wife Number Five. And she was dead.
13
I stood there, staring down at her, too stunned to speak. Twice in one night I found myself looking into the face of Death. I didn’t like it. I forced myself to look past the body and think. The first logical step was to determine if she was really dead. My head pounding from both drinks and a recent encounter with a hard, wood floor, I walked around the couch, my eyes never leaving her still form.
When we had left her all those hours ago, I could tell she had been enjoying her “Xanax cocktail” as Natalie had spitefully referred to it. She was loaded, but not dead. I paused, thinking back. She was definitely alive when we left the house. I remembered the sound of her loud snores echoing through the home’s magnificent, open floor plan. Swallowing the thick lump that had formed in my throat, I approached her.
Trying to steady my shaking hand, I felt her neck for a pulse. I had an eerie, macabre sense of déjà vu, recalling performing the same act upon Cash’s bloody, motionless body. Luckily, Cash’s pulse responded, slow but steady. As soon as I felt her neck, I knew. She was dead. And, based on her stiff limbs, I guessed she had been for several hours. The next logical question was, what happened?
“What the hell did you drag me into?”
Zane’s deep voice broke the silence and my train of thought. I glanced over at him. His accusing glare, under normal circumstances, might have bothered me. As it was, I had far more to worry about than upsetting him. Taking slow, even breaths, I began to survey the room, looking for clues. On the glass coffee table, I spotted a half-full scotch glass. I started to reach for it. Zane grabbed my arm. He forcefully pulled me back.
“What the . . .? Let go!” I slapped his hand, but his grip was strong. Through the darkness, I saw his eyes searching mine. They were narrowed, filled with suspicion.
“What the hell is this?” he growled, his grip tightening.
“Back off!” He finally released my arm. I stumbled backward. “I didn’t do this!”
“I don’t care.” He held up his hands, shaking his head. “I’m outta here.”
“Whatever.” I turned back to the scene.
I studied the glass then looked around the room. An off-white area rug lay beneath the table and surrounding couches. It was attractive, but not practical. It also offered no clues. Unlike Cash, who sported a bloody hole in his chest, there was no blood here, no mess. Wife Number Five looked almost peaceful, as if she were sleeping off an all-nighter.
The house was easily worth three times what my parents’ house cost. Even in this gated community, it was a prime candidate for burglaries. In New Orleans, there was violent crime. In the surrounding areas, there were robberies. Lots of them. Still, there was no sign of forced entry, no sign of foul play. Nothing about her or the room suggested a struggle took place. I was about to go into the kitchen to check for clues when Zane poked my arm.
“What?”
“Let me out.” He gripped the car keys and nodded at the door.
“No one’s keeping you here.” I felt my face flush with simmering anger.
“Open the door.”
“Why? Afraid to leave prints?”
He didn’t answer. His jaw tightened, his eyes steeled. “Open it.”
“No.”
I stormed off toward the kitchen. I had just reached the entrance when he grabbed me by my waist. Practically carrying me to the front door, he only released me when we were near the front step. Gritting my teeth, I did something I had wanted to do all night: I punched him. Hard. Unfortunately, all I hit was his lower abdomen. And it hurt me more than him.
“Ow!” I pulled my hand back. I massaged the knuckles. I’ve heard of rock-hard abs, but geez!
Grunting, he flinched as he lifted the base of his shirt. There, tucked into his pants, was a 38-caliber revolver. He pulled it out. Holding the gun in his right hand, he began rubbing his chiseled abs with his left. He frowned at me.
“What’s your problem?” He studied my face, then glanced down at the gun. “This? This bothers you?” I didn’t reply. “If this bothers you so much, why’d you run into a crowd after gunshots were fired?”
I felt my face flush. I refused to respond. So much was going on at once, I could barely think straight. I knew I needed to help Natalie. I knew that something had to be done about her dead stepmother. But at that moment, all I could think about was this stranger standing before me with a weapon, probably loaded. A twinge of pain shot through my shoulder. I grabbed it.
“Get out.” I heard the words escape my lips. Soon, others followed. “I don’t know who you are or what your deal is, but I’ve got way too much to put up with this. You want out? There’s the door.”
“And what’s your plan, huh? Solve the big mystery?” He shook his head. “Babe, you have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Get out, damn it!” He looked surprised. “I know exactly what I’m doing. I don’t have to explain myself to you. I didn’t ask you to come here. I didn’t ask for your help. Go!”
The surprise in his eyes shifted into a look of indignation. Instead of throwing out more insults, he turned, grabbed the doorknob, and left without a word. The door slammed behind him, causing me to jump. My heart was still pounding in my ears when I heard a car peel out. I was certain that such a commotion so early in the morning in a neighborhood like the Heights would at least result in neighborhood security chasing the car down with a golf cart. But that was not my problem. I had enough problems already. One of them was a one hundred thirty-five-pound dead weight a couple of yards away.
I hurried through the living room to the kitchen. Twice the size of my parents’ and far more opulent, everything from the granite countertops to the stainless-steel Viking brand refrigerator shined. The large room, with its tall cabinets and complementary tile backsplash, was so spotless, I doubted it had been used since Wife Number Three. Scanning the dark room, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Then, I saw it. My shoes echoed along the tile floor as I passed by the island. I paused near the stainless-steel double-sink.
Three prescription bottles containing three different types of opiates. While I’m no doctor like my sister, I have had more than my fair share of injuries since taking on my current occupation. I was able to recognize all three as prescription painkillers. Two were name brand forms of hydrocodone and one was a generic oxycodone. When I broke my arm, I was prescribed hydrocodone. It took away the pain and made me feel a little drowsy. One pill was strong enough to have an impact on me that lasted almost all day.
Staring at the half-empty
bottles with labels suggesting the scripts were filled last week, something told me Wife Number Five had had a lot more than one pill a day. If my theory were correct, I was not looking at a murder, but more likely, an accidental overdose. Leaning back against the rich mahogany cabinets, I thought about a conversation I had with my sister several years earlier when she was still in med school.
“Aww! Rod Inkhorn died.”
“Who?”
“Rod Inkhorn.”
I glanced up from my laptop to find my sister Alicia highlighting her anatomy textbook. She had been doing the same thing for the past eight hours. I saw a movie and had dinner with Heather, came back three hours later, and she was in the same exact spot. I don’t think she moved.
“I’m sorry?” She blinked, shaking her head as if awakening from a daze. “What did you say?”
“Rod Inkhorn died. He was in the latest Death Speed movie.”
Alicia leaned back in the chair. She stared at me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Well, maybe if you took your nose out of a book every now and then, pop culture wouldn’t seem like a foreign language to you.”
“Will any of that help me pass this final?” she countered, narrowing her bloodshot eyes. “That’s what I thought.”
“Well, excuse me.”
“Jordan, this is possibly the biggest test of my academic career.”
“You say that about all of them.”
“Well, this time it really is.”
“You say that too.”
“Jordan!”
“Geez, fine.” I stood and slammed my laptop shut. “I’m leaving.”
“Jordan, wait.” I paused. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she sighed. “What time is it?”
“Six.”
“In the morning or night?”
“You really need a break.”
She stared down at her textbook. She frowned. “You’re right.”
“Come again? Did you actually say I was right?”
“Don’t make a big deal about this,” she groaned, a tired smile crossing her lips. “I’m too weak to fight you right now.”
I grinned. “You definitely shouldn’t have told me that.”
“Just shut up and tell me about this Blinkhorn guy.”
“Inkhorn.”
“Whatever.” She leaned back in her chair. “Who is he? An actor? What happened?”
I sat down and opened my laptop. The screen came to life. “He signed a huge deal for the Death Speed movie franchise.”
“Okay, so what happened to him?”
“Not sure yet. It might be a drug overdose, but there’s no evidence.”
“Then it’s not a drug overdose.”
“What do you mean?”
“If it was a drug overdose, there’d be plenty of evidence. You just have to know what to look for.”
“Okay, Dr. Know It All, what do you have to look for?”
“Well, most of the symptoms are visible during the overdose, but the effects remain following death. At least for a little while.”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“All right, let’s say he overdosed. First, check his pupils. If someone OD’s, his pupils will be, like, pinpoints. His nails and lips might also turn blue because of the lack of oxygen.”
“So people who OD have tiny eyes and blue fingers?”
“Initially.”
“How long does that last?”
“It all depends.”
“On what?”
“The individual.”
As usual, my genius older sister had told me a lot without telling me anything. Standing in the Weisman kitchen, I tried to recall if Alicia had said anything else that might help me determine whether or not Wife Number Five overdosed. Unfortunately, I couldn’t. Frustrated, I decided to go back and check on the signs I knew for certain.
Crossing the living room, my gaze shifted towards the front door. Thoughts of Zane and his stupid gun made my face flush with anger. I forced myself to focus. I knelt beside the couch. I reached for her fingers but paused. Something about touching her felt both creepy and disrespectful. Leaning in closer, I studied her fingers.
They definitely had a pale, bluish tint, but so did the rest of her body. Further up her arm, I noticed a darker shadow where it lay against the couch. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I gritted my teeth as I touched her wrist. It felt cold and hard. Almost like hard foam instead of flesh. Shuddering, I dropped her arm, but not before seeing that the dark, purplish shadow was a bruise that extended the length of it and beyond. That’s when I remembered another conversation with Alicia.
“You want to see livor mortis?”
I glanced up from my book and over at my sister. It was two weeks before Christmas my senior year of high school. Alicia had come back from college for her break but was still carting around her stupid textbooks. Earmarking the page in my book, I rolled my eyes. “You mean rigor mortis?”
“No,” she replied, grinning as she sat beside me on the couch. “I mean livor mortis.”
With that, my older sister flipped open her textbook, revealing a photo taken of a dead body on a gurney, probably in a coroner’s office before an autopsy. Although white sheets covered the guy’s head and lower body, the torso was visible. While most of his torso offered a pale, flesh tone, his back, which rested on a metal slab, was a reddish-purple shade. Almost gagging, I slapped the book away.
“Oh my God, ew! What’s wrong with you? Why’d you show me that? Was he dead?”
“Was and probably still is,” she said with a laugh.
I furrowed my brow, shaking my head with disgust. “You’re gross.”
“I’m not being gross. I’m educating you.”
“Go educate someone who cares.”
“Come on, Jordan! It helps me to learn this stuff if I can explain it to others. Won’t you at least listen to me for a second?”
“You’ve already aced all these classes. The semester’s over. Why are you still studying?”
“Because I need to retain this information for next semester,” she insisted. Pausing, she closed the textbook. She placed it on the coffee table. “Please?”
Tapping my book with my nails, I eyed her warily. “You gonna show me more dead people?”
“No.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“I promise.”
Sighing, I lay back against the burgundy leather sectional’s plush cushions. “Fine. Teach away.”
“Thanks.” She grinned, crossing her legs. “Okay, when I said livor mortis, you corrected me and said rigor mortis. That wasn’t what I was talking about, but that is one of the stages of death.”
“I don’t know if I want to hear this.”
“You said you’d listen.”
“Fine.”
“So anyway, there are eight total stages of death: pallor mortis, algor mortis, pre-rigor mortis, rigor mortis . . .”
“Are you gonna name them all?”
“. . . livor mortis, putrefaction . . .”
“I get it. Lots of fun words about death. Can you speed it up a little? Heather’s coming to pick me up in, like, an hour.”
“. . . decomposition and skeletonization. Got that?”
“Absolutely.”
“Pallor mortis happens within, like, fifteen to thirty minutes after death. A person’s skin turns pale.”
“Pallor, pale. I get it.”
“The skin turns pale because of the lack of capillary circulation. The blood will kind of sink down to the lower parts of the body, because of gravity, and that leads to livor mortis.”
I frowned. “So that picture . . . That guy wasn’t bruise
d? That was sinking blood?” She nodded. “My blood is starting to sink. Ugh, I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s completely natural.”
“Um, newsflash, Diane Sawyer. Talking about death is so not normal. It’s gross. And weird.”
“There’s nothing weird about death. It’s a part of life.”
“Maybe so, but it’s not one people like talking about.” I paused, watching her flip through the textbook again. “Normal people, at least.”
A sudden click thrust me back to reality. Looking around, I realized the heater had turned on again. Sighing, I stared at the body. I would definitely have to say Wife Number Five was reaching the stage of livor mortis. If that was the case, based on the little information I remembered from Alicia’s medical lectures, she must have died about five to six hours ago, putting her death sometime right after we left.
She was already inebriated when we were leaving, which explained her passing out on the couch. At some point after that, she must have gotten up to take some more pills, with her scotch, and had an overdose. Despite having known her for less than ten minutes and the fact that her drunk self almost put another bullet in me, I still felt sorry that she had died in such a senseless, tragic way. While I might feel pity for her, I knew that Natalie would not.
Thoughts of my friend jarred me. I remembered in an instant the entire reason for my return to the Weisman house. Natalie had been kidnapped. And I had to help her. Saying a silent prayer the woman would rest in peace, I hurried toward the staircase that led to Natalie’s room.
14
My feet ached as I ascended the stairs, gripping the banister for support. I was tired. I had the onset of a splitting headache. Not a great combination, especially facing a kidnapping case.
Simple Misconception (Jordan James, PI Series) Page 12