The Mystery of Nevermore (2 page)

“I can’t.”

Lancaster looked up at Winter briefly before asking, “Why’s that?”

“I have a light sensitivity. If you turn the overheads off, I will,” I said while pointing up.

Winter turned away and gave an order to one of the uniformed officers. The lights died and the shop was once again illuminated by the strategically placed lamps.

“Better?” Lancaster asked, her tone not mocking or unkind.

I pulled the sunglasses back to rest on my head as I put my regular glasses back on. “Thank you,” I said briskly.

“That’s called photophobia, isn’t it?” she asked.

“I have achromatopsia.”

“I see.” She didn’t bother for more details. “Has anything out of the ordinary happened in the past few weeks?”

“Nope.”

Lancaster frowned. “Who found the body part?”

“I did, when I came in. I smelled something awful and started looking for it.”

“Have there been any break-ins or stolen items?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “What’s this about? I’m assuming something bigger is at play here, otherwise you two wouldn’t be grilling me.”

“Why do you say that?” Lancaster asked.

“I live with a cop” was what I wanted to say. Four years of stories from Neil had, admittedly, given me an unhealthy interest in
whodunit
mysteries.

Instead, I just shrugged.

Winter spoke for the first time. “Do you know Bond Antiques?”

“Yeah, on Bond Street and Lafayette,” I confirmed.

“How is your relationship with the owner?”

“I fail to see what that has to do with anything,” I responded. “Mike Rodriguez and I have known each other for a while.”

“How do you get along?” Winter asked.

“He’s competition,” I stated. “What’s going on?”

“Sebastian!” called a familiar voice.

Ignoring the towering mountain that was Detective Winter, I looked around him to see Neil walking through the shop, shaking snow from his coat. I was immediately both happy and frustrated to see him, which didn’t seem like the right response. I hadn’t called to tell him what happened, so there should have been no reason for his appearance.

I turned to the counter. Max raised his hands up defensively and shook his head.

“What’s going on?” Neil asked upon reaching us. He looked at the two other detectives and removed a badge from inside his coat. “Detective Millett, CSU.”

Lancaster didn’t seem interested. “Detective Lancaster, homicide,” she replied with a nod. “My partner, Winter. We haven’t requested forensics yet.”

“Homicide?” I echoed. I mean, sure, I guess technically a heart without a body could mean something more sinister was at work besides a medical cadaver showing up to class and some poor student flunking when he had no heart to dissect.

I looked at Neil. He seemed concerned and maybe nervous, and for a minute, I was happy because he was worried about me. The annoyance I had been harboring toward him all morning suddenly washed away, and I had the urge to reach out for a hug.

“Sebastian is—a friend,” Neil said.

“
Friend
,” Winter repeated in a tone I didn’t like.

“He called me.”

Goddamn it, Neil.
He was so convinced he’d lose his shield for having a life outside his job, that after four years I was still just his
friend
in public.

“We’re in the middle of asking Mr. Snow some questions,” Winter said before looking back at me. I swear his gaze was intense enough to strip me down to bare bones. “Mr. Rodriguez’s business was broken into Sunday night.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I answered, turning away from Neil. “Was anything stolen?”

“The investigation is still underway. He pointed a finger at you, though.”

“M-Me?” I asked in surprise. “What—Mike thinks
I
broke in?”

“Why would he say that?” Winter asked.

“I have no idea,” I quickly answered.

“Where were you Sunday night?” Lancaster asked. “After eight.”

I could feel Neil’s desperation rippling off his body. I had been at home with him. I believe around eight we had been fucking, which had ended prematurely and dissolved into an argument until about nine.
That’s
where I had been.

“Home,” I said simply. “Look, I’m not answering any more questions without a lawyer, if that’s what I need. I called because I found a human heart in my shop, and now you’re accusing me of robbing someone.”

Neil’s hand was on my elbow next, and he was excusing us while dragging me away. Stopping near the back of the shop, he let go and turned to tower over me. “What the hell is going on?” he whispered.

“What’s going on?” I repeated. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m a cop, Sebby—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“What human heart? Why didn’t you call me?”

I honestly hadn’t thought to ring Neil. Maybe a year or two earlier, the first reaction I’d have had would be to call my cop boyfriend to come solve this peculiar little problem. Now, he hadn’t even crossed my mind. It was disconcerting.

“Nice lie you told, by the way,” I said instead. “I
called
you? Why the hell did you come if it wasn’t to be here for me?”

“Stop it,” he ordered in a harsh whisper. “We’re not having this argument again.”

“Go back to work, Neil. Everything is fine,” I said stubbornly.

“You didn’t….” He hesitated.

“Tell them about you? No. I know the drill.”

Neil gritted his jaw. He looked angry. He turned back to the other detectives before saying, “Is that Calvin Winter?”

“What? Yeah, why?”

“Be careful what you say to him.”

“
Why
, Neil?” I repeated.

“Because I hear he’s a homophobe,” Neil said.

Without thinking I replied, “
You’re
a homophobe.”

Neil looked back at me with a strange expression I couldn’t place. “Real nice, Sebby,” he said after a moment.

I couldn’t take it back, but when I stared up at Neil, when all of our recent arguments over the past month came rushing back, I didn’t care and didn’t want to take it back.

“Go back to work,” I said again. “We’ll talk at home, behind locked doors.”

I was making him angry, and I couldn’t stop myself. I don’t know what had gotten into me lately. Neil and I had been at each other’s throats for weeks. I provoked him, or something he said got under my skin in ways it never did before.

Neil didn’t say another word. He turned while zipping up his coat and brushed by the other detectives in silence on his way out.

I took a breath. It was shaky. I was being cruel to the most important man in my life.

I pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose as Lancaster left the woman with the medical supplies and walked toward me with a smile.

“Good news, Mr. Snow.”

“Oh boy.”

“It’s not human.”

Who, Neil?
“The heart?”

“It’s a pig’s heart,” she replied.

“A minor relief.” I took another breath, working harder than necessary to calm myself. “So can I open for business?”

She spread her hands. “There’s been no foul play, although it seems like someone wanted to pull a prank on you. I highly suggest you invest in some tighter security.”

No foul play.
My gut said otherwise. Two detectives—from homicide, no less—had shown up right away, and I played twenty questions regarding the unfortunate pig and Mike Rodriguez, the latter of which I found extremely strange. Why would time be wasted to send out detectives for something that proved to be nothing? And it still didn’t explain how the pig heart ended up in my shop to begin with.

Lancaster thanked me for my time, to which I muttered some pleasantry. She turned to leave with the medical examiner.

Winter, however, approached me. “Your friend seemed upset.”

I frowned while looking up. I was on the shorter side, only five foot nine, and both Neil and Winter stood a good half a foot taller. Neil was a leaner build, like myself, which was a stark contrast to the brick body that was Detective Winter. He was close enough again that I could study his freckles—which to me actually looked like gray blemishes. They’d be clearer if I invaded his personal space or looked at his skin with a magnifying glass.

Neither of those do I recommend doing to someone you’ve just met.

In comparison, his light-colored eyes were so brilliant and sharp, it was almost unnerving. They reminded me of minerals on display at the Museum of Natural History. They were gorgeous, but also maybe just a little weary. They looked like they’d seen something that had hardened and tired him considerably.

Winter swallowed up the air around me. He was both intimidating and somewhat comforting to be in the presence of. He smelled nice too. Some kind of spice—really different from Neil’s cologne.

“I didn’t break into Mike’s shop,” I said again. For the record.

His gaze shifted slightly to the boxes behind me. “What’s all this?”

I looked over my shoulder, then back at him. “New inventory.”

“From where?”

“Bond Antiques,” I retorted. “Jesus. It’s from an estate sale.”

He reached into his suit coat next, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he pulled his gun with the way I was shooting my mouth off. Instead, he handed me a business card. “Should you conveniently remember something.”

“Like slaughtering some pigs?” I shoved the card in my pocket.

“Have a good day, Mr. Snow.” He turned and walked out of the shop.

THE STORM
seemed to have scared off the day’s foot traffic, which on any other afternoon would have worried me, being so close to the holidays when the sales are needed. But I couldn’t concentrate on anything business-related. My salad sat beside me at the register, half eaten and getting soggy as it settled into the pool of vinaigrette dressing. I held a magnifying glass to the mail as I read.

“Why not get bifocals?”

I looked up to see Max staring at me, pulling up the spare stool to sit. “What?”

“The magnifying glass is sort of silly. You pull them out of pockets like you’re an old-timey detective.”

“I tripped down the stairs wearing bifocals when I was younger,” I answered while setting the glass aside and stacking the junk and bills together. “Broke my arm.”

“Yikes.” Max reached out to push my salad around with the fork. If he planned on scalping my meal, the sogginess must have changed his mind. “So why was Neil here?”

“I don’t know.” I stood, brought the mail into the office, and dropped it on the desk.

The morning had been resting heavily on my mind. Usually I was closed on Mondays, but holiday demands often changed my schedule, so I had been open yesterday. When I closed the shop last night just after six, it gave someone a thirteen-hour window to break inside. Max and I had spent the remaining hours of the morning going through the Emporium, and from what we could tell, not a single item had been misplaced.

It was
that
concept that puzzled me the most. Why break into an antique shop, get past the security alarm, only to steal nothing?

So someone came in, put a decaying pig heart under the floorboards, and hightailed it without taking so much as an old button?

More upsetting was the matter with Mike Rodriguez. I had worked for Mike for a few years before going into business for myself. I respected his knowledge and the success of his shop—he’d been in this line of work for over twenty years now—but he was a cranky old fuck. He hadn’t liked me all that much when I worked for him, and I’m certain he felt slighted, to say the least, when I took everything I had learned to open the Emporium.

Mike specialized in higher-end antiques. Georgian and Victorian furniture, clothing, paintings, and other works of art. It wasn’t where my interests were, and the Emporium was cluttered and stuffed instead with books and old documents, maps, photos, and every little gizmo and gadget from another century. People enjoy the odd and bizarre, like Victorian glove stretchers or tear bottles. The Emporium was doing very well after only a few years of business, and I suspected Mike was insulted.

I walked back out of the office, leaned against the doorframe, and crossed my arms. Mike and I weren’t exactly on friendly terms these days—we certainly weren’t mailing each other Christmas cards—but how the hell had he come to the conclusion that I should be looked at as a possible suspect? Had he waited three years to seek revenge against me? And it wasn’t even revenge so much as insulting my integrity and character.

“Man, look at it coming down,” Max murmured as he stared out toward the front door, watching the storm continue.

“Jingle Bells” started to play on the shop’s speakers. Dashing through the snow, all right. The city was getting buried.

“Why don’t you get out of here early, Max.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. The subways are going to be a wreck, I bet,” I said while walking to the counter.

“Are you leaving?”

Honestly, I wanted to swing by Mike’s place and ask him what was going on, but it didn’t seem like the smartest idea. Maybe I’d give him a call. That was less threatening. As much of an asshole as he was for accusing me of doing something like breaking into his place of business, we had a long history and I
did
want to make sure he was okay.

“Probably.”

“I’ll walk out with you, then,” Max replied as he stood and started cashing out the register for me.

The shop phone rang, and I reached to take it off the receiver. “Snow’s Antique Emporium.”

“It’s me.”

Neil.
I collected myself. “Hey.”

“Busy?”

“We’re closing up early. The weather’s getting bad, and Max has to take the subway to Brooklyn.”

“I’m ducking out,” he replied. “I’ll swing by for you.”

“I can walk home.”

Neil took an aggravated breath. “Sebby, please don’t argue with me just once this month, okay? Let me pick you up.”

Why was I getting angry at him for wanting to drive me home instead of making me walk in this nasty weather? “All right. Thanks.”

“Want me to grab anything for dinner?”