Emily Kimelman - Sydney Rye 05 - The Devil's Breath (16 page)

It was strange to watch the kitchen crew in black and white, silent, like a 1920’s film. How much had changed since those first flickering films that captured the imagination of a species.

The orders slowed and the crew began to clean up. With the last dishes out and the kitchen cleaned the team opened beers and laughed, enjoying their end-of-shift drink. I sped up the tape, watching them all leave in quick, jerky steps, the lights went out and darkness fell upon the screen.

I sped through the darkness until the lights flicked back on and the routine I’d watched the day before repeated itself. Right as dinner service was about to begin in earnest, someone off camera called the crew out of the kitchen. As the last one came around the counter the screen went black. The explosion tripped the electric. The fire investigators and insurance investigators had looked at these tapes. They agreed the trap just wasn’t cleaned enough.

I switched to the footage from the front of the restaurant provided by one of the city’s webcams. It was in color and stuttered occasionally. I pulled a knee up to my chest and hugged it as I fast forwarded through the days, looking for something to click; for a clue to present itself to me.

At around noon the secretary knocked on my door and offered me lunch, but I waved her away, my mind and body consumed with the task at hand. After going back a week, I went back another. Lawrence hardly showed up on the kitchen tapes and it became clear that he spent his time in the front of the house. There was no indoor video, but I saw him come and go at least a couple of nights a week. Always greeting his guests at the door. They ranged in age, gender, and physical beauty, but they all had one simple little thing in common. Money. They all looked like money.

His wife, who only showed up once in the weeks I watched, looked most like money of them all. In the grainy footage she appeared ageless, her figure lithe, posture proud, outfit flawless. She seemed intensely subtle next to her TV-personality of a husband.

Ivan came often. He brought a group with him every time. The women were always different, the men almost always the same. He entered the place like he owned it. Kissing the hostess on the cheek and stopping among the outside tables to shake hands and laugh.

If Taggert was at the restaurant they sat together, often in a corner booth by the window. I could just make them out through the sidewalk tables, umbrellas, and patrons. I could see them talking calmly. Then as the wine bottles came and went they would slowly get drunk, the stiffness of Ivan’s lines melting a little. By the time the brandy landed on the table, Ivan’s big hands would be pawing the woman closest to him. Taggert comfortable and smiling, watching the show. The woman’s face was almost always obscured.

I rewatched the footage from the night of the fire repeatedly. While I could not hear the explosion, the moment was obvious. A woman in a short skirt who was walking by the restaurant jumped and her mouth opened in a silent scream. The man walking next to her moved his body to protect her.

In the front row of tables a group of four men in suits all held their cocktails loosely, their bodies relaxed. Then they lurched to the ground, dropping their glasses, two of which broke, the third rolling down the sidewalk, dumping ice and booze as it spun. Closer to the door, two women, dressed for fun in high heels and tight jeans, got up and ran, their postures mimicking frightened horses. Head back, neck long, heels stuttering, they pushed past the tables to get out to the street.

Then I saw him, he was dining alone and his face was obscured by an umbrella stand but when everyone else jumped, he didn’t. The man didn’t even flinch. I leaned forward, biting down hard on my bottom lip, and moved the footage one click at a time, waiting for him to reveal himself. But he never did. Soon after the explosion, when the crowds began to pour out of the restaurant, smoke following them in a billow of gray, he left, hidden from sight by the crowd of scared pedestrians.

I backed up the footage, figuring I’d find him when he arrived but the man climbed out of a cab directly in front of the restaurant, never turning his face toward the camera. Was this the guy? The puppeteer? Or was I just grasping at straws?

I watched him take his seat, a low hat blocking his face as he turned, repositioning the umbrella pole between the camera and himself. A white guy about average height, dressed in a button-down shirt and dark pants, his sleeves rolled up to combat the dying heat of the day. Dark hair peeked from beneath his hat.

What did that get me? Looking for a puppeteer, average height and weight with dark hair. Should I put an ad in the classifieds? I laughed aloud at the idea and that’s when I realized I needed a break.

B
lue and I went down to the lobby and out onto the street. It was hot and a breeze blew down the block, seeming to pick up speed as it rushed between the tall buildings. It was late afternoon, the sun tilted toward the west side of the world. Traffic was beginning to clog the narrow streets as rush hour began. A Lamborghini, yellow and absurd, revved its engine and then shot off down the block, braking hard at the next red light.

I’d neglected to leash Blue and he wandered down the block, sniffing at trees and tires. I followed him, letting my mind wander over the image of the man in the hat. My phone rang and I saw Dan was on the line. “Hey,” I said, watching Blue as a mother pushed a stroller by him. She eyed him but didn’t look nervous.

“Hey,” Dan said. He sounded excited. “I found out that a world-renowned expert on datura teaches at Sloan University right here in Miami.”

“Really?” Blue looked up at the tone of my voice and pricked his ears.

“Yes, I was going to head over there tomorrow and see if I could talk to him. Want to come?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Where should I meet you?”

#

T
raffic was light when I left for the university the next afternoon. During the twenty minute drive I thought over the tapes I’d rewatched, seeing a ton of people who could have been the guy, the one who didn’t flinch, but I had no way of knowing. He was just too nondescript.

I parked in the school’s visitors lot. It was a small institution from what I could tell, housed in a complex of low-rise buildings with palm trees and paved paths. Blue and I started toward a board with a map on it when I heard Dan call my name. “Hey,” he said as he crossed the parking lot towards us. He looked down at my car. “Nice ride,” he said. “Where’d you get that?”

“It’s a loaner,” I answered.

Dan let it go and we started toward the botanical building. Dan held the door for me and we walked into a carpeted hallway, the air cold, the lights fluorescent. Everything about it cried institution and it made my skin itch. The first door to our right was open, a plaque next to the entrance announced it as the office. The young woman sitting behind the desk smiled. Her medium-length brown hair was pulled back into a pony tail. She wore a sweater over a matching top. I believe that’s called a sweater set, I told myself as we approached her. “Hi,” she said, “how can I help?”

Dan smiled at her and asked about seeing the professor. On the counter were several pamphlets about the courses offered there. I picked one up and scanned down the list of classes. It might as well have been in Latin. Then I realized it was in Spanish and felt like kind of an idiot. I put it back and was about to return my attention to Dan and the girl behind the counter when I saw a pamphlet for a “Semester in the Swamp.” I picked it up and opened the front flap when I realized Dan was talking to me. “Sydney, that works for you?”

“Whatever you think is best,” I said. Dan smiled and nodded, a note of amusement in his eyes.

The girl came around the corner and led us down the hall. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at Dan before opening a door and motioning for us to enter. We walked into a lab room. Two students wearing white coats looked up from microscopes. “Here you go,” she said. “Professor Nablestone will be here soon. This is his next class.”

Dan thanked her and she left. The two students, a girl with short blonde hair and a boy whose skin was so black it glowed almost purple, watched us. “Hi,” Dan said, moving down the aisle between the large black lab tables, each with its own sink. “You guys the TAs?”

They both nodded and then the boy spoke. “Yes,” he said, a slight accent on it that made it sound musical.

“You work on research with the professor?” Dan asked.

“Yes, can I help you with something?” He sat back on his stool, leaning away from the microscope.

Dan smiled. “That’s nice of you. We’re doing some research for a case we’re working on. We’re private investigators and we suspect that one of our clients has been drugged with datura.”

The man’s brow furrowed. “I see.”

“Well,” the girl said, “that’s something the professor has written about extensively.”

“Yes,” I smiled. “That’s why we’re here.”

She looked over at me. Her eyes were light brown under eyebrows plucked almost into non-existence. “He’s widely published. Anything he hasn’t published he’s not going to want to tell you.”

Dan cleared his throat. “Really, we’re just looking for basic knowledge.”

“Then I wouldn’t waste the professor’s time. Read his work,” she said.

And with that she returned her attention to the microscope in front of her. I looked over at the boy. “I’m Sydney, by the way,” I said, extending my hand as I stepped up to him. He shook it politely, his hand was rough with callouses. “You do a lot of gardening?” I asked.

“I’m a botanist,” he answered and, again, I felt a bit like an idiot. Kind of an “I carried a watermelon” moment.

“This is Dan,” I said, moving on, “and Blue.”

“I was not aware they allowed dogs in the classrooms,” the girl spoke up again. 

“Aja,” the man said, extending his hand to Dan, who shook it. “I’m interested, what makes you think your client was drugged with datura, specifically?”

“He tested positive for it,” I answered. A sort of lie.

Aja’s eyes narrowed. “Tested positive for what exactly?”

“We’re not scientists,” Dan said. “We just want to know what kind of effect it can have on people, to see if it fits with our case.”

Blue touched my hip and I heard voices and footfalls filling the halls. The door behind us opened and students began to enter. The girls wore either pajama pants and UGG boots or coochie cutters and wife beaters. The boys wore the male equivalent (pajama pants with flip flops or khaki shorts and button-down shirt). With them rich and varied smells—perfume, shampoo, body odor, pheromones. Aja stood up and headed to the front of the class. “Excuse me,” he said.

“Let’s wait outside,” I suggested.

Dan agreed and we returned to the hallway,  now bustling with students and teachers moving between classes. I stood close to the wall and concentrated on making myself invisible. Allowing my eyes to pass over people, seeing without seeing. An older man, his hair thinning on top, wearing a button-down shirt tucked into crisp blue slacks, sauntered toward our doorway. “Excuse me,” I said as he went to enter. “Are you Professor Nablestone?”

A look of annoyance flurried over his face. “Yes,” he answered. “And I am busy.”

“Sorry to bother you but my name is Sydney Rye and I’m a private investigator.” His expression remained annoyed. “I think that one of my clients has been drugged with datura and I wanted to talk to you.”

He looked through the glass on the door at the almost full room. “I’m sorry but I don’t have time. Anything you need to learn can be found in my writings. Read them and if you still have questions, email me.” He pulled out his wallet and removed a white card from one of the pockets. Dan took the card and the professor brushed past us into his classroom.

“Friendly bunch,” I said. Dan laughed.

We started back toward the exit and I pulled out the pamphlet I’d picked up in the office. “Check this out,” I said, handing it over to Dan. He took the pamphlet from me. “Look at the map.”

He opened up the “Semester in the Swamp” pamphlet. “It’s not far from where Lawrence Taggert’s body was found.”

“That’s what I thought.”

We pushed through the doors back into the bright day. As Dan headed to his car, Blue jumped into the Audi and I climbed in after him. It was hot in the car and I lowered the windows and blasted the air. As I was about to pull out, I saw a girl with blonde hair, the rude TA of Professor Nablestone, push through the doors into the sunlight. She squinted and lowered her head, pulling out a pair of sunglasses from her lab coat pocket. Her hair was so blonde it reflected almost silver in the sunlight. I watched her go over to a tan Volvo that had seen better days. It looked like it was from up north and had gone through a couple of winters before moving to the sunshine state. The girl opened the back door, reached in, and pulled out a bag before pushing the door closed with her hip and heading back into the building. The Volvo was old enough that she had to use her key to lock it.

I stared at the car for a couple more minutes.  Next to it was a Jaguar, a classic, when the shape still made you think of a jungle cat. It was forest green with tan leather interior, its chrome almost blinding in the bright day. I was pretty sure I recognized both those cars from the gas station tapes. Picking up my phone I called Dan. “What’s up?” he asked.

“Follow me back to FGI. I think I have something.”

#

D
an met me at the FGI building but when we went to pass through security they would not let Dan come up. “He’s my guest,” I said.

The man behind the desk didn’t smile. “You don’t have clearance to have a guest,” he explained.

“Clearance? Fine, can you call Robert Maxim’s office for me please?”

He picked up the phone. “I have a Ms. Rye down here, she wants to speak to Mr. Maxim about guest privileges.” He listened for a moment and then replaced the handset. “Mr. Maxim is in a meeting. He has time at 6 pm to discuss the matter.”

I bit down on my bottom lip trying to control my anger. I did not like being told what I could and could not do. I wanted to call Mulberry but I didn’t want to end up yelling into the phone while standing under the watchful eyes and many lenses of FGI. “Fine,” I said to the security officer. “I’ll come back.”