Then I changed out of my Sears suit and put on the outfit Shell had bought for me. All dolled up, it was hard for me to recognize the person in the mirror. It didn’t look much like me. Rather, it looked more like the person I wanted to be.
I finished off the can of Aquanet, choking on the aerosol, and then walked out of the bathroom. My apartment was small, even by civil servant standards, so the bathroom let out right into the living room, where Shell had erected a makeshift studio, complete with three-point lighting. A white screen, with back splashes of red and blue lights, was set up in front of my television.
“Wow,” he said as I approached.
I thought of my boyfriend, Alan. He never said wow when he saw me.
“Would you like a drink?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why, but I suddenly felt a tiny bit uncomfortable.
“Whiskey, if you’ve got it.”
“Hate the stuff,” I said. “Vodka okay?”
“Rocks.”
I went into the kitchen, opening the cabinet and hoping I had two matching rocks glasses. I didn’t. The only matching glasses I owned had Ronald McDonald on them. I gave Shell my single rocks glass, then poured my vodka up, in a martini glass, making sure he wasn’t looking at the bargain basement brand I was serving. I dropped two ice cubes in his and then went into the living room. After handing him his drink, I realized why I was nervous. Having a cute guy in my apartment felt like a date. We’d gotten very comfortable with each other very quickly. Too quickly.
I took a very small sip of vodka, set it on a bookcase, and put my hands on my hips.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this.”
Shell finished his drink in one gulp, and if he noticed it was sub-par vodka he didn’t show it. “Stand in front of the backdrop,” he told me.
Immediately, I felt like I was back in high school, getting a class photo. I always hated those, standing in front of some disinterested, impatient photographer who didn’t want to be there, nervous that I’d look goofy.
“Have you been shot before?” Shell asked.
“Shot at, but they missed,” I said, before realizing what he was asking. A moment later we both laughed, and the camera went click, click, click.
“The secret to getting terrific shots is to pretend the camera is a person you like. You want to show this person how much you like him, how interested you are in him. How you want him to see you. So right now, tell the camera hello with your eyes.”
It sounded like utter bullshit, but I gave it a try. Shell snapped a few pics, then told me to pout, like the camera broke a date with me. I tried it, jutting out my lower lip a bit, trying to channel my inner spoiled brat.
From pouty we went to flirty, then to serious, then to curious. Soon we were in a comfortable rhythm and I no longer flinched at the shutter sounds. Shortly after that, I no longer paid any attention to Shell. The world had been reduced to me and the camera. The camera told me what it wanted, and I tried to please the camera.
“Let’s take off the jacket…
“Show me coy…
“Let’s untuck one shirttail…
“Show me thoughtful…
“Let’s open the blouse a button or two…
“Show me daring…
“Let’s open it one more button…
“Show me turned on.”
At that last suggestion, I lost all momentum. “Excuse me?” I asked.
“Turned on,” Shell said. “Aroused. You know. Your sex face.”
The inner vamp I was channeling was now confused and embarrassed. “My portfolio will have a picture of my sex face?”
Shell released the camera, letting it hang by its strap. “I’m not talking mouth-open eyes-shut When Harry Met Sally. I mean that look you give your boyfriend when you’re really aroused. Your take me now look.”
I didn’t think I had a take me now look.
“Don’t you have enough shots?” I asked. “You went through three rolls.”
“I’ve got some good ones. Some great ones. But I don’t have the knock a man on his ass shot yet. Do you trust me?”
“I don’t know.” I tried for a laugh, but it came out more like a nervous squeak.
“Just keep your eyes on the camera and listen to my words.” Shell raised it to his face. “We’ve just had a terrific dinner and are eating dessert. Strawberries and fresh cream. I dip a strawberry in the cream and feed it to you. But I don’t give it to you right away. I just dab the berry on your bottom lip, teasing you. I run it along your teeth, gently, before pushing the tip of it inside. Then you feel my hand caress your thigh under the table.”
Rather than sounding creepy, Shell’s voice was oddly hypnotic. I could see the scene. Feel the cold cream in my mouth. The tart sweetness of the fruit. A warm hand on my leg.
“You reach out to bite the strawberry, but I pull it away.” My lips parted, just a bit.
“Imagine you want the berry in your mouth. How would you tell me that with your eyes?”
I felt my eyes smolder a bit. He snapped some pictures.
“Now my fingers are moving slowly up your thigh. I touch the edge of your panties. I keep them there, rubbing them back and forth, back and forth, waiting for your signal to put them inside. Show me you want me to.”
It was easier than I thought it would be, because I was getting turned on. I tried to remember the last time I’d had sex. It had been a few weeks. Alan and I were having a dry spell, worsened by him traveling a lot and my long hours. I’d also been too busy to take care of myself lately, and having a man—an attractive man with a camera—talk in deep, dulcet tones about rubbing my thigh was more than enough to get me going.
“That’s it,” Shell said. “That’s the look.” He set down the camera and stared at me.
“But I haven’t knocked you on your ass,” I breathed.
I walked up to him, taking my time, liking the way his eyes were on my body. Then I touched his camera lens, running my finger along it, feeling deliciously wicked.
Shell grabbed me abruptly, cupping my ass in his hand, pulling me close, so close I could feel he was just as turned on as I was.
I realized it was wrong, but I tilted up my head to be kissed anyway. He lowered his lips to mine but stopped short, only a few millimeters away. Shell gently kissed one side of my mouth, and the other. Then he softly chewed on my lower lip, tasting like vodka and heat.
Shell’s tongue sought mine, met it, and I moaned in my throat.
That’s when my front door opened and my boyfriend, Alan, walked in.
Present day
2010, August 10
Phin showed Herb Benedict and Harry McGlade the mud lines on the carpeting in the hallway.
“He must have wheeled in a gas canister on a hand truck,” Phin said. “Stuck the tube under the door and filled the bedroom. That’s why he didn’t wake us up when he took Jack.”
“So he’s a doctor?” Herb asked. He was jotting things down in his notebook. “He has access to anesthetics?”
“Not necessarily,” Phin said. “You can get nitrous oxide—laughing gas—at any welding supply store. When I woke up, I had a metallic taste in my mouth that could have been nitrous.”
Herb blinked at McGlade, who was staring at him. “What?”
“Every time I see you, you have another chin,” Harry said.
Herb scowled. “Have you taken your pill today?” he asked.
“What pill?”
“Your shut the fuck up pill.”
Harry’s brow crinkled. “Where did I hear that before?”
“Guys, stay focused,” Phin said.
Herb gave McGlade a lingering glare, then turned back to Phin. “How did he know when you went to sleep?”
“He was watching the house. Or maybe a listening device.”
“I’ll check for bugs,” McGlade said. “I brought my spy gear.”
He set a metal suitcase on the floor and opened it up, spilling contents all over the carpet. One of the items that
rolled away was a sex toy.
“That’s spy gear?” Herb said, pointing at the pink dildo.
“It’s got a listening device in it. I swapped it with a woman’s vibrator and put it in her desk drawer, trying to catch her cheating on her husband.”
“Did it work?” Phin asked.
McGlade frowned. “I got the switches mixed up. All I recorded was three hours of bzzzz-zzzz…oh God…bzzzz…oh my God…bzzzz. I should have put a camera in it, too.”
“You’re an idiot,” Herb said.
“And you’re a miracle of evolution,” Harry replied. “Somehow a sea cow grew limbs and learned how to talk.”
Phin stepped between them. “Harry, put away the dildo microphone. Herb, unclench your fists. Do either of you have any idea who could have Jack?”
Herb let out a slow breath, then shook his head. “Not so far. We normally get alerts when someone we put away gets out. All the major ones are still in there. Got a few baddies who were up for parole recently, but they were all denied.”
“Were there any cases Jack was working on before she quit? Any open cases?”
Herb’s brow crinkled. “Only one. But it couldn’t be him.”
“Harry? Were you and Jack working on anything?”
“Nothing big.” McGlade picked up a slim black case with an antenna sticking out of it. “Bug detector,” he said. Then he held it next to Herb and said, “Beep, beep, beep! Crab lice alert!”
Herb shoved the device away, then got behind Harry and roughly pressed him up against the wall. “You keep it up, and the next thing your magic dildo is going to record is you going pbbthhhh when I shove it up your—”
“Enough,” Phin said, pulling Herb off of McGlade. “I will personally kick both your asses if you don’t cut this shit out and focus. Harry, have you noticed anything weird lately? Strange phone calls? E-mails?”
“There is the one guy, keeps e-mailing me, telling me I won the Nigerian lottery. I’m thirty percent sure it isn’t legit.”
Phin forced himself to unclench his own fists. The best way to deal with Harry was excruciating patience. “Seen anyone hanging around the office? Anyone following you or Jack?”
McGlade’s eyes lit up. “Actually, there was this one guy. A few days ago. Spooky looking mother. Black, greasy hair. Pale as the sickly, white underbelly of a morbidly obese sea cow.”
“Where did you see him?”
“Outside the office. Just standing on the corner, staring up at our window.”
“Did Jack see him?” Phin asked.
Harry scrunched his eyes closed. “No. She was on the phone with a client. I was playing FarmVille—I just earned enough from my turnip patch to buy a tractor—and I noticed him down there. Checked again a few minutes later, and he was still there.”
“What did you do then?”
“I plowed my field in like one-tenth of the time. That tractor is epic.”
Herb began searching the floor, and Phin guessed he was going to make good on his threat.
“Did you go down and talk to him?” Phin asked Harry.
“Naw. When I checked again, he was gone. Hey, how come we aren’t Facebook friends?”
“Because I’m not on Facebook,” Phin said. “I actually have a life.”
“You should get on there, and friend me, and then send me fuel for my new tractor.”
Now Phin got in McGlade’s personal space, backing him up against the same wall Herb had shoved him against.
McGlade’s eyes went wide. “Hey, easy buddy.”
“If you kill him,” Herb said, “I’ll call it suicide in the police report.”
“You’re not taking this seriously, McGlade.” Phin spoke softly. “Someone has Jack. We need to stop screwing around.”
“Relax, Phin. How many times have we been in this situation? So many times, we already know how it’s going to end. It’ll be a close call, but me, or you, or Tubby the Talking Manatee here will save her at the last possible second. That’s what always happens.”
“Strangle him,” Herb said. “We’ll make it look like autoerotic asphyxiation.”
“Check the house for bugs, Harry,” Phin ordered. “And don’t say another goddamn word.”
Phin released him. Harry smoothed out his rumpled suit and said, “When I win the Nigerian lottery, I’m not giving either of you a penny.” Then he turned on his bug detector and walked into the bedroom.
“We might need help on this one,” Phin said to Herb.
“Way ahead of you. Every cop on the force who ever met Jack Daniels is on the lookout for her. They’re not going to let one of their own slip away.”
Phin nodded. He knew how hard Jack worked, all of those years on the street, trying to earn the respect of her peers. Having them rally behind her would have made her feel good.
“The media?” Phin asked.
“We’re keeping it on the down low for now. If some psycho does have her, we don’t want to egg him on with press. Have you considered this might be someone new?”
“You mean, like a ransom thing?”
“Maybe. Or maybe some unknown whack-job read about her and wanted to get his name in the true crime books.”
Phin didn’t like that scenario at all. If it was someone from Jack’s past, at least they had a chance at finding her. How could they find someone completely new?
“The bedroom is clean,” Harry said, returning to the hall. “Except for those sheets. I saw several stains of dubious origin.”
“Check the rest of the house,” Phin said.
“Kidnaper might have also been watching from outside,” Harry said. “In one of those Hannibal Lector movies, the killer watched the house from the backyard and left all sorts of easy-to-follow clues behind.”
“Finish in here,” Phin said, “and Herb and I will check outside.”
Phin led the portly cop through the garage, out the back door. He located the tire track in the mud, then followed the direction of the treads back into the tree line.
“Take the left side,” Phin said. “I’ll take the right.”
Phin waded into the bushes. After four steps, he had to hold up his bare arms so they didn’t brush the nettles. Turning around, he saw there was no good view of the house—it was too obscured by foliage. He looked up, scanning the trees, finding one nearby.
At the base of the tree, half-hidden by the nettles, were two empty boxes of candy. Lemonheads. They appeared relatively new. No sun bleaching, and they were dry even though it had rained two days ago.
Phin let his eyes wander up the tree, and found a low-hanging limb. Though he wasn’t feeling his best, he managed to get up onto the bough. From there, he could see over the bushes, a direct line of sight to the bedroom window. Jack insisted on always keeping the shades closed, but it would be easy to tell if the lights were on or off.
“Found something!”
Phin looked over at Herb, who was thirty yards away, in the bushes near the garage. As he was getting down he found a Lemonhead candy stuck in the tree bark. He left it there and walked over to Herb.
“Footprints, right here.” Herb pointed at the ground. “Also some twigs broken off the bush so it was easier to see the house.
“Back there, someone was in a tree. You thinking two vantage points?”
“Either two vantage points,” Herb said, “or two abductors.”
They walked the perimeter of the property, trying to see if anyone else could have been watching. All they found were old, spent shell casings—the reason Jack now insisted on keeping the shades drawn, and why she’d installed the new burglar alarm. But there was no evidence of recent surveillance, except in those two spots.
Herb and Phin went back into the house. Harry was in the kitchen. He’d made himself a submarine sandwich and was finishing a bite. “No bugs in the refrigerator,” he said, mouth full.
“How about the rest of the house, jackass?” Herb said.
McGlade stared at Herb and protectively hid the sandw
ich behind his back. “Whole house is clean. At least, it was.”
Harry pointed his chin to the floor, which was dotted with nettles Phin had dragged in. Phin pondered that for a moment, wondering if it meant something. Wondering what they were supposed to do next.
Three years ago
2007, August 8
“What are we supposed to do next?” Herb asked.
We were exiting Dalton’s building and walking back to my Nova.
“The only thing we can do,” I answered. “We watch him. Follow him. Hope he makes a move.”
“You think he’ll make a move?” We waited for a cab to pass, then crossed the street. “He’s leaving the country tomorrow. You think he’ll do something to screw that up?”
“I think he’s a disturbed old guy who wants to play some kind of game. And if he does screw up, I want to be there.”
I unlocked my car, started the engine, and cranked on the air-conditioning. The chassis rocked when Herb sat down. After checking for traffic, I pulled out onto the street, turned onto Lake Shore Drive, and parked next to the 1300 building, near the underground garage. It didn’t matter if Dalton saw us—he practically challenged us to follow him, and no doubt knew we would.
I called a detective in my district, Tom Mankowski, and asked him to check the passenger lists on all flights to Cape Verde over the next three days, looking for Dalton’s name. I also asked him if he could confirm Dalton had a residence there.
Then we waited.
“So how’s Latham doing?” Herb asked. “Fully recovered yet?”
“He’s good.”
Latham, my fiancé, was still recuperating from a bout with botulism. He was almost back to normal, and we were going on vacation later in the month, renting a cabin on Rice Lake in Wisconsin. I had to testify at a murder trial next week, but that wouldn’t take more than a day or two. Then I was free of police work for seven glorious days. Though, knowing my luck, I’d probably run into some psychopath during the trip.
“How’s the wife?” I asked Herb.
Shaken (Jacqueline Jack Daniels Mysteries) [Plus Bonus Content] Page 8