Murder By Misdirection

by Debra Snow

  He smiled and gratefully took a sip. “I couldn’t find the coffee maker.”

  “I have one of those single shot things with the little plastic cups,” Elisha said as she rose and went around the table to head to the kitchen. “I’ll make us both a cup.”

  In a quick move, Max took her hips and sat Elisha into his lap and leaned her back to kiss her neck. “Don’t leave me.”

  “Now stop, Max!” Elisha giggled. “If Pro sees this it will just set her off again.”

  “I don’t care! Last night was the first time in years I truly felt at home. That I was with someone who was just right.”

  She turned in his lap to face him. She moved in and kissed him, then pushed herself to arm’s length.

  “Max, last night was great fun…”

  Max smirked. “I got that from all the moaning.”

  “But…” she said carefully, “it was not the beginning of something. Don’t read more into it than what it was.”

  “Oh?”

  “After all these years, I can say I have no anger at you and that I honestly like you.”

  “Last night seemed a lot more than just ‘like,’” Max chuckled and kissed her neck again.

  She pushed him back. “Max, last night was just a walk down memory lane.” Elisha rose. “A lovely walk, but no more than that. However, the least I can do is give you a cup of coffee.”

  She headed into the kitchen. Max sighed and looked from the kitchen to the bathroom. “The two most important women in my life are insane,” he muttered to himself.

  Pro stepped out of the bathroom dry-eyed and stiff-backed.

  “I have to go to work,” Pro announced. “I am pulling Saturday shift.”

  “Oh, Pro, before you go,” Max said, “I just wanted to discuss a few things about our case.”

  Pro stopped dead in her tracks and slowly turned to her father. “Our case?”

  “Yes, I have a few ideas where we can go from here,” Max said just as Elisha returned with a cup of coffee, prepared the way Max liked. He took a sip. “Oh that is good, Elisha.”

  “Now you know why I switched,” Elisha replied.

  Pro put her hands on her hips. “Max, you have nothing to do with the case—”

  “I know, but I think the way to go is to try to track down those illusion plans that were made of my trick. If we can locate the people interested in buying them—”

  Pro held up a hand. “Max, we will go through Mister Floss’s emails and follow up on everyone he had business dealings with. That is standard procedure.”

  “Pro, you don’t get it. You are dealing with magicians! Whoever killed Floss knew when I was coming and set me up to take the fall!”

  “I find that hard to believe—”

  “Oh yeah? How did the police know to come to the shop?”

  Pro leaned with one hand on her hip. “They got a call from one of the neighbors who said they heard noises in the shop.”

  “Which neighbor?”

  “They didn’t identify themselves, but we triangulated the signal of the cellphone and they were in the same building.”

  “Or in the hallway of the same building. I’m telling you, Pro, this was done by someone who understands the art of misdirection. You need my help.”

  “Max,” Pro warned. “You need to stay out of this case, stay out of my office, and while you’re at it, stay the hell out of my life!”

  She looked at the plate of cut fruit and suddenly looked as if she would cry again. “You and your damn fancy fruit!”

  She stormed out of the apartment as her parents watched her leave.

  “Look what you did to our baby,” Elisha said as she shook her head.

  “What I did?” Max sputtered and indicated the plate. “I made fruit the way she liked it when she was a kid.”

  “After you left, I made Prophecy a plate of fruit. I never learned how you did that fancy cutting—”

  “Oh it’s easy—”

  Elisha held her hand up. “When I cut up the fruit, it wasn’t like Daddy’s. She cried for hours that night, because that’s when she knew you were really gone.”

  Max looked at the closed door his daughter had just left through.

  “I never knew…” he mumbled sadly.

  She took his face and turned him to look at her. “And that’s the problem. I think you’d better get going.” She stood up and began to clear the table.

  “So soon?” Max said with a smile. “Now that we’re alone, I thought we could find out if last night was just a fluke.”

  “I don’t think so,” Elisha said pleasantly as she took the plate of fruit back into the kitchen and put it in the fridge.

  Max followed her, frustrated. “You know, this was always the problem in our marriage. I never knew where I stood with you. One minute you’re hot and the next you’re cold.”

  “I am not the one who left, Max.”

  Max looked at her, cinching the robe tighter. “Are you going to tell me last night wasn’t beautiful? That it didn’t feel…right? And I mean, you got dressed up for me. When I suggested I wanted to see the place, you invited me up. You want to tell me it meant nothing?”

  She sighed and faced her ex-husband. “No, I won’t deny that when I saw that look in your eyes—that wanting—it kindled a lot of old feelings. Yes, I wanted to be with you, I wanted you to make love to me.”

  “And it was great, wasn’t it? I’m not just fooling myself, am I?”

  She turned from him. “It was everything I remembered. The passion, the way you touched me—”

  He moved close and wrapped his arms around her. “I’d like to do that again—”

  “The problem is, today in the light, I’m remembering all the stuff that pushed us apart. It’s all still there, Max.” She slipped out of his grasp. “I’m taking a shower.”

  “I can wash your back,” Max suggested.

  “Actually, I would like you to be gone before I’m done,” she insisted. “I know your number if I want to get in touch.”

  She headed into the bathroom. Max followed several steps behind to find the door shut in his face.

  6. Zig-Zag

  Pro was at her desk as she went over a printout. It was a list of the emails from Albert Floss’s laptop. The NYPD cyber unit had gone through the machine and printed all of the senders and recipients by heading, though it didn’t contain the text of the email. She could ask for any specific one from the list now that they had access to his email accounts.

  “Anything good?” Chu asked as he looked over her shoulder.

  “A friend suggested to look for the person who was trying to buy that ‘Prism’ illusion.”

  “By any chance, was the friend your father?”

  “Yeah, and at first I told him to get lost. However, once I began to think about it, it seemed to make sense.”

  “Good thinking,” Chu said and pointed at several entries that listed ‘mmarvell’ as the sender. “We did track down the emails your father sent and they are a bit damning.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “On one, he suggested he knew how to hide a body in ways no one could ever find it. This was among other threatening hints if Floss didn’t sell him back his illusion plans.”

  “Doesn’t help him look innocent,” Pro said.

  “Hard to believe the magic business is so cutthroat.”

  She turned in the chair to look at her partner. “Not at all. My father had to be incredibly secretive when he created an effect. He would limit how many people were involved in building it. He often did prototypes himself, just to make sure no one else knew what he was working on. He really is an innovator.”

  “Sounds like you’re proud of him.”

  “What? No!” Pro grimaced, embarrassed. “I’m just aware of what he’s done. It’s important to our case.”

  “So you saw him. Did you visit him?”

  Pro’s jaw set. “He was at my mother’s.”

  “Really?” Chu said with a r
aised eyebrow.

  She exhaled loudly. “He spent the night.”

  Chu was silent as this sunk in. Finally he asked, “You okay?”

  “I’m annoyed that this is bothering me. For chrissakes, he brought out fruit, cut up the way he used to do it when I was a kid, and I started blubbering.”

  “Do you feel like you’re not in control?”

  “Exactly! I had everything in my life all figured out, and then he shows up out of the blue. He used to do this to me after the divorce. I’d get used to things, get myself into a routine, then he’d come into town or fly me out to Vegas, and I would be an emotional mess for weeks.”

  “He is quite a presence, I noticed that yesterday,” Chu said while shaking his head. “Do you need me to have us reassigned? We certainly have reasons to request it.”

  “No,” Pro said and slapped her desk. “Dammit, I will not let him make me back off a case. And to be honest, Tom, I think my knowledge about magicians might help.”

  He nodded. “Okay. But if you feel you can’t handle it, you let me know. And you are due some days off—”

  “Vacations are for wimps,” Pro said with a wave of her hand.

  “Now that sounds like my partner,” Chu chuckled and turned his attention to the paper in her hand. “So, anything popping for you?”

  “Yes, there are repeated emails from one specific sender about ‘the item.’ Can we get the information from the cyber unit about who this person is?”

  “I already did. It hit me as well. They should be getting back to us with a user soon.”

  “Well, from the return email address, it is in the United States, but it could be anywhere in the country.”

  “Or down the street. Did you finish the paperwork on the bodega shooting?”

  “No, sorry, I wasn’t quite done.”

  “Well, if you finish writing it up, I’ll do the follow up with Cyber.”

  She gave a nod as Chu headed back to his nearby desk. Pro watched him go. He was a good partner and a great mentor, always looking ahead to what they needed.

  The words her mother said suddenly ran through her head: “You could use someone in your life that would inspire a little fire.”

  Well, Chu wasn’t that person. She admired and liked her partner, probably would take a bullet for him if it was needed, but she didn’t feel attracted to him on a physical level. In fact, there had been very little of that as she struggled to go from uniformed officer to detective with a single-minded purpose that shut out all the other aspects of her life.

  At her workstation, she pulled up the report and began to type on her keyboard, but her mind continued to wander.

  She thought about her former lover, Julius Trent, back when she was at the police academy. He was a tall, African-American man with a shaved head and the body of a weight-lifter. During her training, they had a friendly competition that inspired both of them to work harder. It had consummated with nights of some very nice sex, satisfying if not particularly exemplary.

  Her last serious relationship had been with a street magician, Jamie Tobin, over a year ago. They met when she was a uniformed officer and called in to secure the crime scene where another performer had been murdered. With Tobin’s help, and Chu with his partner at the time, Detective Franks, she helped close that case. When the older Franks retired a month later, Chu asked her to be his new partner.

  Over the next month she learned the ropes, and at night, Jamie brought forth a passion she didn’t know she’d possessed. He hadn’t been her type at all—thin, red-headed, and Irish—but the things he could do with those talented hands…

  She shook her head to clear it. Why was she letting that memory come to her now? It was useless and only brought up feelings she didn’t want to deal with. The relationship ended with his return to Ireland twelve months ago.

  He’d been a magician. And magicians always leave.

  Had it been an entire year since she’d last made love?

  She sighed at her desk. Why was she letting herself dwell on this? Because her mother had not been with a man since Joe’s death, which was two years. A part of her assumed her mother would just be celibate. Then she spent the night with Max, of all people.

  All at once, it hit her. She realized a childish part of her wanted to see her parents get back together, to reunite them back into a family. She shook her head in disbelief that she allowed such silly feelings to take hold.

  “You still on that report?” Chu said as he approached with a paper in hand.

  “What?” Pro said, sitting up in her chair and wondering how much time had passed.

  “I have a lead from Cyber. They traced the IP address of that email, and I have a name and a physical address. It’s right here in Manhattan.”

  Pro stood up. “What’s the name?”

  Chu looked at the paper in his hand. “Malcolm Shaut.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No,” Chu said and looked at the paper again to be sure. “Do you know him?”

  “I know of him. He’s the producer of A Night of Wonder down in the village. That’s been running for like twenty-five years.”

  “What is that?”

  “It’s a show in an off-Broadway theater on Monday nights. It’s a live stage presentation of magicians from all over the world, whoever happens to be in town that week. Max would work there occasionally when he’d visit…”

  “Pro you have a glazed look in your eyes.”

  “Sorry. I was just thinking how my father would take me out to dinner and then to see that show when he was in it, even though it was a school night,” Pro said, and her features grew hard. “I guess I didn’t appreciate it back then.”

  “So, your memories aren’t all bad,” Chu suggested.

  “I guess not. Where is this guy?”

  “He’s right nearby on 50th Street. Hell, we could walk to his place. It’s right between Ninth and Tenth Avenues.”

  “And only a few blocks from our murder scene,” Pro added.

  “I noticed that as well.”

  ∞∞∞

  They did take their police vehicle and were soon walking up the long front steps of an impressive brownstone. There was a wrought-iron protective fence around the ground floor entrance. However, fanciful designs had been made in the metal bars resembling moons, stars, and wands. The windows facing the street also had the same protective ironwork up all three floors of the edifice.

  “Does this guy own the entire building?” Pro asked.

  Chu checked his paper. “It doesn’t say. But there is only one buzzer.”

  Chu pressed a button on a metal plate with a speaker.

  “Who is it?” a male voice snapped over the intercom.

  “Detectives Chu and Thompson, NYPD. We need to speak with Mister Shaut.”

  “Show your badges to the camera. It’s over the door.”

  The two detectives exchanged an annoyed glance, and then pulled out their billfolds and showed their shields to the small lens over the doorway that glimmered in the sunlight.

  The door buzzed, and Pro opened the ten foot tall narrow door to walk through. A second door waited just three feet from the first, and Chu pushed through it.

  A door opened at the end of the hall and Chu and Pro walked past an impressive stairway that led to the next floor. A thin, average height man with dirty-blond hair and a receding hairline stepped forward to meet the detectives, leaving the door ajar. As he drew near, Pro could see a small chin beard and mustache and guessed that he was about thirty but looked younger.

  “Mister Shaut?” Chu asked.

  “No, I’m Brent Williams, his assistant,” the man said. “Let me take you to him.”

  He led Chu and Pro through the door which faced a bathroom. However, with a slight shift to the left, they went into an open room which contained a large desk made of chrome and glass. There was a computer monitor on the glass top, and to the right and the left were short filing cabinets also made from the shiny metal.
Poised on a wheeled chair with a fancy leather seat was a fair-looking man with average features, graying black hair, clean shaven, and wearing a pair of black pants with a light-blue shirt and a dark-blue sports coat. He carried the air of a performer, as he looked away from the monitor and at his visitors.

  “This is Mister Shaut,” Brent announced, and headed off into a side room. Pro watched as he walked through a small waiting room with several chairs, a coffee table, and a television. He then passed through another doorway to a small office. His desk with computer and phone was clearly visible as he sat.

  “Please show me your badges again,” Shaut demanded.

  “Shields, Mister Shaut,” Pro corrected as she opened her leather billfold and held it out for the man. “Officers have badges, detectives have shields.”

  “Whatever.” He shrugged. Facing him were two matching chrome and leather chairs and he gestured to them. “Please sit and tell me what I can do for two of New York’s finest.”

  Chu spoke first. “We wanted to speak to you about emails you were exchanging with one Albert Floss about an unnamed item.”

  “Christ,” Shaut said, displeased. “Is Marvell sending the cops after me now?” He called out to his assistant, “You hear that, Brent, Marvell’s sending the cops after us.”

  Brent walked back into the room carrying a mug emblazoned with the phrase “I’D RATHER MAKE RABBITS DISAPPEAR” and placed it in front of his employer, then added ruefully, “The man certainly has a problem, Mister Shaut.”

  “I’ll say he does,” Shaut said as Brent returned to the nearby room. “Look, detectives, he honestly doesn’t have a leg to stand on—”

  “You were in touch with Mister Marvell?” Pro interrupted.

  “Yeah, and tell him if he makes any more threats, I’m going to have the Las Vegas Police visit him.”

  “Are you sure you are speaking about Max Marvell?” Chu queried.

  “Yeah, isn’t he the one who sent you? I mean I know that he’s buddies with the mayor, but that doesn’t mean he can send detectives to harass me—”

  Chu cleared his throat, and Pro let him take over.