The Zen Man (15 page)

“Why?”

“It’s obvious she spent a lot of time alone in here. Drinking while working or listening to music or watching TV.”

“Thought she had a lot of lovers.”

“More like a lot of one-month stands. Let’s get to work.”

After we put on our latex gloves, Laura headed to the computer while I went to the file cabinets. We’d already agreed these were our roles—she’d check electronic files, I’d check the physical ones.

We worked quietly for the next twenty or so minutes.

“Not finding anything all that interesting,” Laura finally said.

“No significant Bs here, either.” I used to pride myself on quickly assimilating information—the guy who could read a case file minutes before walking into a courtroom and quickly memorizing the pertinent details, but working like this—rushed, harried—invited missing something important.

Wasn’t sure how much more time passed, but suddenly I was aware of Laura standing next to me. “Finished with the computer. Nothing in the cache, or buried in email.” She made a thoughtful noise. “Funny the crime techs left it, considering they removed the glasses from the table.”

“Probably more interested in DNA. They may have checked the computer, found nothing like you did, so they left it.”

“How about I check the top cabinet?”

“Sure. Just watch my head.”

We worked in tandem, flipping through files, commenting on what we found, which was mostly nothing. Eventually, we closed the metal drawers, wandered through the rest of the house. Bathroom was littered with makeup and hair supplies on the sink. No towels on any of the racks—crime techs had probably taken those to check DNA, too.

We ended up in the bedroom. The furniture was different, but the way the light sifted through the curtains, the warm tones of the oak floor, the lithograph of a nude that we’d purchased on our honeymoon brought back too many memories. The partially open sliding closet door revealed hanging clothes and a mess of shoes on the floor. The bed was unmade, as though Wicked has just gotten out of it. It was eerie being in the place where I’d shared so much intimacy with a woman I’d grown to despise. And pity.

“Shall we look in the dresser?”

“You do that, I’ll check the nightstand.”

It was in the second drawer down. A blue velvet box that looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember why. Opened it, felt a cold chill dribble down my spine.

“Freakin’ A,” I whispered.

“What?” Laura crossed to me, looked over my shoulder. “A ruby and diamond necklace—oh! Isn’t that what she accused you of stealing?”

“Yep.”

“Do you think somebody stole it, then returned it?”

I frowned. “That means he…she…sneaked back in here after Wicked was murdered to return it. Too risky, doubt it.”

“Maybe it was never stolen.”

“Maybe.” I closed the case and set it back. “Not unlike Wicked to create a drama over nothing because she wanted something else.”

“Like what?”

“Beats the hell out of me. Maybe she just wanted to see my reaction. Prove to herself that I was really clean and sober ‘cause she never believed I truly was.”

“Or maybe she was testing you in another way. You said she looked afraid for a fleeting moment when you first saw her that day—maybe she knew her life was in danger, but didn’t know who had it in her for, so she was testing your hate-o-meter.”

“Hate-o-meter,” I muttered, closing the drawer. “If that was the case, her sick test led to my possibly spending my life behind bars. Let’s split—”

“Wait.” She crossed to the phone on the nightstand and lifted the receiver. “Let’s redial who she last called.” Laura punched a button, looked at me. “Five five five…eight nine four three.”

I repeated it to myself, patting my pocket for a pen. I wrote the number on the front of my painter’s bib.

She gently hung the receiver back in its cradle. “Got a recording. Older man’s voice. Identified himself as Hughes.”

“No first name?”

“Just Hughes. Let’s go home, run a reverse on the number.”

“Love it when you talk PI, baby.”

She gave me one of those smiles that made my insides braid like a crazy-quilt stargown. God, I didn’t want to lose her, lose our life.

Crack
.

I glanced toward the door—the sound came from the kitchen.

“What was that?” whispered Laura.

A series of creaks, punctuated with a thump.

Pressing a finger against my lips, I pointed to the closet door. As Laura and I slipped inside, I lost my footing on a shoe, teetered, caught my balance against the back wall.

Footsteps.

I tugged the closet door—it stubbornly dragged a few feet, then refused to budge. Footsteps grew louder. Closet door was still open, maybe six inches. I carefully stepped back into the shadows, joined Laura behind a curtain of clothes.

Heavy footsteps—a man?—crossed into the bedroom, stopped. The room blazed to life.

Silence.

In the eerie quiet, I glanced down. A stream of light illuminated the lower part of my legs and shoes. My heart ratcheted in my chest.

Footsteps creaked across the floor and stopped again.

He had to be on the far side of the room. At the night stand? I eased out a pent-up release of breath, felt a bead of sweat break loose from my hairline. Couldn’t see a thing, just random stripes of light through Wicked’s clothes, but I didn’t dare move. So I stood like a sentry, suffocated by the musty, familiar scents of Wicked that had permeated her clothes—bar smoke, a sickeningly sweet perfume.

An unmistakable click.

I looked at Laura.

She smiled, held up her hand. A slice of light played on the open switch blade she held.

The sound of the switch blade opening was probably muffled by the clothes. But if dude heard anything, maybe he couldn’t tell exactly where the sound came from. Or so I fervently hoped. Because I sure as hell wasn’t ready for a closet smack down with Laura acting out some kind of
La Femme Nikita
fantasy.

Footsteps crossed back through the room, out the door, into the kitchen.

A loud thump, following by banging, trashing.

Silence.

After several excruciatingly long minutes, I whispered, “Dude’s gone.”

“How do you know?”

“I visualized the kitchen. He broke in through a glass window over the counter—always told Wicked it was a security problem—just exited by it.”

“Maybe he’s outside, waiting to jump us?”

“Whoever it was didn’t know we were here.” I shoved aside clothes, stepped through the minefield of shoes, re-entered the bedroom. Sucking in a lungful of fresh air, I turned to Laura as she extricated herself from the closet and held out my hand, palm up.

“What?”

I waggled my fingers. “The knife.”

With a roll of the eyes, she closed the blade and put the knife into my hand.

“You lifted Santa’s switch blade,” I muttered, dropping it into my pocket. I had a few choice things to say that could wait. I looked around the room. “Wonder what he took?”

“Not the necklace. We would’ve heard the drawer opening.”

I walked over to the nightstand, paused. “From the outline of dust, it’s something rectangular.”

“A jewelry box?”

“Didn’t see one. I think it was a book.”

“A robber broke in just to steal a book?”

“I’m guessing it was somebody associated to the killer.”

“Not the killer?”

“Maybe. But I doubt it.” I wondered if Santa had other criminal talents besides threatening my life, like B & E?

“Should we call the cops?”

“We were never here, baby.” I took her by the elbow, guided her back the way we came in. “Time for a smooth, fast exit.”

In the screened-in porch, we began slipping on our boots.

“Didn’t know you were carrying,” I said.

“Last minute idea.”

“You know what Sam said.”

“That your bail could be revoked if
you
were caught with a weapon.” She peeled off a latex glove. “He said nothing about me.”

We stuffed our gloves into our pockets, stepped out the back door to the street. I glanced up and down the alley. No one. Looked back at the kitchen window. It was closed, but I guessed the lock had been pried to open it. Unless one got close and looked, wouldn’t know the place had been broken into.

“Mad at me?” Laura asked as we walked down the sidewalk toward the van.

I blew out a plume of breath into the chilly air. “Carrying invites trouble.”

“But you have that stun gun.”

“More like a rusted metal baton at this point. Been gathering dust under my driver’s seat so long, probably outta juice.”

“Sorry I brought the knife and didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me you won’t do it again.”

“You have my word.”

“Then I’m not mad.” I squeezed her hand. “We’re safe, we’re together. As a famous Zen master once said, ‘It’s all about the love.’”

“Which Zen master?”

“Howard Stern.”

• • •

Several hours later, Laura was preparing a martini while I sat at the kitchen butcher block table, nursing a cup of warmed coffee. Garrett was outside, contemplating the rock design, which had to be a challenge as it was under a foot or two of snow. But after Laura’s and my exterminator adventure, we didn’t care. He’d been our stalwart apprentice PI who’d been a stand-up driver, although he’d missed seeing anybody entering or leaving Wicked’s while we were inside. Which meant Mr. B&E had never hit the street, and kept to the alley.

Laura poured the vodka into a silver canister. “Those footsteps were heavy. Definitely a man.”

“Or an overweight woman, but it would’ve been tough hurling herself through that kitchen window.”

Laura barely suppressed a roll of her eyes. “Why a book?”

We’d asked this question multiple times on the way home. That maybe there were damning notes written in a margin or a bookmark that indicated a locale or identity. I had a new twist.

“Maybe someone hid a letter inside it.”

“Or maybe it has one of those secret compartments?”

I frowned. “Too obvious. It’s something in the title.”

“Too Nancy Drew. Hey, speaking of fictional sleuths, ever thought about our names?”

Behind her portable bar, which we never ported anywhere, she shook the metal canister vigorously, the crackling, sloshing sounds matching the beat of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” on the nineties station. She’d once said Nirvana brought back memories of her bad-girl youth, which at the time had made me laugh. Conscientious, deadline-prone, and occasionally gullible Laura
bad
? I figured she’d once shoplifted a Barbie doll or something.

“What about our names?”

“They sound like that sleuth couple in those old movies.”

“Abbott and Costello?”

“Very funny.” She gave me a courtesy smile. “I meant Nick and Nora.”

“Never thought of that.” And I hadn’t, although now that I did I wondered how I’d missed it. “Was Nick ever accused of murdering his ex-wife?”

She shrugged. “Accused of a lot, but not that. He liked martinis, though.”

I watched her pour the frothy liquid into a chilled martini glass. “Were they married?”

“Think so.” Laura shuffled her steps as she navigated her way back to her chair with her full martini glass.

“Children?”

She paused, her eyes darkening. “Later on…in one of the sequels.”

As we held each other’s gaze, there was a subtle, almost imperceptible shift in our emotions. She looked away, took a sip. The moment passed.

“Let’s check some databases,” I said, pulling over Laura’s laptop, which had taken up permanent residence on the table. I punched the power button, and the computer whirred to life. “Let’s run Hughes’ phone number, see what comes up.”

Laura sidled next to me, that honey-lavender scent weaving its way around my senses. “He sounded to be in his sixties. Maybe older. Too old to be breaking in through Wicked’s window, you think?”

“Doubt it, but then Jack LaLanne was built like Rambo even in his nineties.” I plugged the number into the database. It flashed a message—
Please Wait While We Search Billions of Public Records
. I’d always questioned if it was actually billions. Millions, maybe. But who was counting? Finally, the results displayed on the screen.

“Here we go. Denny Hughes. Carrier’s AT&T. Cell phone.” I paused. “Bellflower, California?”

“How does a Colorado phone number get associated to a California address?”

“Maybe he’s from here, but lived recently in California, then returned to Colorado. Kept the same cell phone number during that time.” I conducted another database search. “Let’s find his social, run a reverse on that.” I typed in his name, the address in Bellflower, up popped a social security number. “His social was issued in California.”

She leaned forward, squinted at the screen. “Where does it say that?”

“Doesn’t. I just happen to know that the first three digits of his social map to California as the state where the number was issued.”

She gave me an incredulous look. “You know all the states and their numbers?”

“Just a few because of cases I’ve worked. Once found a hard-to-find skip by researching the first three numbers of his social, the state code for California, found family members who lived in Oxnard. Checked them out, learned the guy was hanging at a cousin’s pad.” I punched in Hughes’ social. “We’ll run a reverse on Hughes’s social, see what current address pops up.”

A new screen displayed.

Laura waggled a finger at an entry. “What’s that D next to his name mean?”

The hairs bristled on the back of my neck as I realized we’d blasted open a new door.

“Means our Mr. Hughes is dead.”

“It’s pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness.”
—Jerry Garcia

L
ate the next morning, I pulled another stack of musty discovery out of one of the cardboard bankers boxes littering Sam’s office floor, groaning when I saw their mishmash order. “Obviously alphabetization wasn’t a high priority for our old paralegal—Peggy whatshername.”