by J. R. Rain
Two handles by her shoulders give away a wheelchair.
I shift my jaw side to side. Okay, either Eric’s a real scumbag, or his wife is paranoid. While he finishes replacing bulbs, I get a few more photos of him and one or two of the woman before they go deeper into the house, out of sight.
At that point, I hop out of my Rubi and hoof it across the round section of road. A loose gravel path runs beside a row of cylindrical-cut bushes that act as a fence for the neighbor’s yard. Loath to make noise, I slow to a creep and make my way into the wheelchair-bound woman’s yard. Fortunately, a huge tree with plenty of branches takes up the rear corner. I waste no time hiding behind it, crouching on my knees with my head buried among pine needles.
Over the next forty minutes, I observe Eric running around the house fixing things, cleaning high surfaces, and generally helping this woman out with stuff she can’t manage on her own. My opinion of Eric improves, and by the time he’s heading for the door, I’m convinced there’s no cheating going on. Of course, if his interest in this woman is purely Samaritan in nature, why not tell Rachel? Eh… that’s not my problem. Wait, no. He did tell her he ‘was helping someone from work,’ but Rachel didn’t believe him. I’m not sure I would’ve either. It’s a pretty weak excuse.
A wide sliding glass patio door lets me see straight through the house to the front. He pauses at the door, stooping for a platonic hug. Lip reading makes me think he says, ‘be back soon.’ She nods, pushes the door closed behind him, and rolls across the living room before turning left and going out of sight into the house.
At that point, I break cover and hurry out of her yard, hiding between the bushes and house until Eric’s car disappears down the street. Once back in my Rubi, I watch his GPS dot for a few minutes. As soon as he pulls into the Valley Harvest, I flick off the app. He’s buying her groceries. Or at least picking them up. Probably picking up. She doesn’t look poor, but likely doesn’t drive.
Okay big fat waste of… no. Not a waste of time. I got a little faith back in humanity.
Wow. I guess sometimes, they aren’t really cheating.
Smiling, I drop the Rubi in gear and drive off.
t’s getting on toward six Tuesday night when I turn onto 6th Ave West in the Queen Anne section of Seattle. I know the police haven’t picked Troy up yet―what they’re waiting for is anyone’s guess. Probably a judge dragging their feet or maybe Detective Webb is still going over evidence. Either way, the bastard is still out where I can get to him.
Except… he’s leaving his house. I hastily tuck into a parking space three homes away and watch him get into a silver BMW. Hmm. It’s been a while since I shadowed someone on the road. I could use the practice.
I stay a few car-lengths behind him as he drives into Seattle downtown. He eventually parks on 65th Street and walks the better part of two blocks to a restaurant named Salare. Damn. I hurry into the closest alley, parking illegally, grab the ol’ camera, and follow. By the time I can peer in the windows of the place, Troy’s at a table with two well-dressed people, a man and a woman. They look like corporate types, and Troy is grinning ear-to-ear. Either he believes Hannah drifted off to die at sea (and had nothing to do with syringe-man) or he hasn’t found out his hired torpedo failed. I’m sure he also doesn’t know David and Christina aren’t still in an unmarked, undiscovered grave at the bottom of the Puget Sound either.
No, he’s got the smile of a man who got away with murder―and is about to make another sort of killing.
There’s no cover on the sidewalk in front of the Ida Culver House across the street, so I only manage a few photos of Troy with his dinner guests before moving on. My supernatural aura can pull off a ‘don’t see me’ effect, but it’s got a limited range. It’s obvious that he’s meeting them for some manner of deal, but I can’t stand here taking pictures in the window without arousing suspicion.
Hmm.
Hell with it.
I turn on my heel and head straight in. Table for one, please.
My seat winds up being halfway across the room from them, too far even for my supernatural ears to pick their conversation cleanly out of the din. If we were underwater, I could hear a flea fart at a half mile, but alas. Lip reading it is. Taking photos of them inside the restaurant would be way too obvious with the good camera, but I do manage to sneak a few from my smartphone while waiting for my dinner.
May as well eat something. Grilled salmon over a bed of mushrooms and seared cauliflower with… are those sliced apricots? Ugh. Whatever. I still don’t know who got the bright idea to mix sweet with salty. If I had the powers of time travel, I’d go back and throw them in the ocean before they inflicted that on the world. Strawberries in salad? Really? Salty and sweet need to be firmly separated. Don’t even get me started on chocolate covered pretzels. It’s a crime against good chocolate and pretzels. I like both, but together? I shudder.
The salmon tastes fabulous, even with me having to pick the apricot slices aside. I’ll eat them last as dessert. I spare a moment’s pity for Dracula. He hasn’t tasted food in, wow. Since 1476 or so. And I thought I felt old. Poor guy. At least I can have cake.
Granted, my new self would prefer a huge crab cake over a chocolate one, but I can still enjoy the taste of either without projectile vomiting ten minutes after swallowing.
I manage to pick out the word ‘acquisition’ more than once in their conversation. That explains the nice clothes. Why is Troy meeting with their reps? It can’t be a―wait, who is Troy to NexArc? A little internet digging via smartphone strikes gold. He’s the co-founder, tucked away on an ‘about us’ page of their website. His photo’s got a big shit-eating grin. He and David are co-owners. Of course. He’s discussing a buyout? Obviously, NexArc would be the company being absorbed since they’re not big enough to buy out anyone, except maybe a single work-at-home programmer.
The three of them shake hands. Troy seems rather pleased with himself. The look on his face would fit him winning the lottery.
That gets my gears turning. Maybe Troy got himself in trouble with the wrong people and simple embezzling wouldn’t bail him out. Either David caught him stealing or roadblocked whatever he’s trying to do with those two fancy-dressed corporate types. The amount of money he stands to make selling the company is a strong case for motive. Neither one of them had terribly expensive homes, so even a pittance of an offer to a mid-sized company would feel like a fortune to him.
We make casual eye contact when he comes walking by my table on his way to the exit. He has no idea who I am, so he must be staring at me for the usual two reasons, both of which are attached to my chest. A whiff of his thoughts both surprises me and confirms what I expect. The surprise is in his opinion of me―he thinks I’m ‘cute as hell but too skinny.’ How ‘bout that. Troy likes full-figured women. His momentary judgment of my assets fades back to the overwhelming thought on his mind.
Money.
The corporate people have no strong emotional reaction to their meeting. If anything, the woman’s in ‘I can’t wait to go home’ mode.
It takes the waiter forever to come back to my table after Troy’s out the door. I politely decline dessert/coffee and hand over a credit card.
“Was everything to your liking, Miss?” asks the probable college student waiter.
“Oh, yes. Quite good. I’m simply in a hurry. Work called and I need to get there fast.” I sigh. “Always when I’m in the middle of something wonderful.”
He smiles, nods, and walks off.
Luck is with me tonight. No parking ticket. I drive back to Troy’s house. It’s gotten dark out and the wind has picked up a bit. Feels like rain’s coming. My Rubi fits (mostly) in his driveway behind the Beemer. No sense being subtle.
Troy answers the doorbell in seconds, giving me a curious eyebrow lift. “You… that girl from the restaurant. You followed me?”
My expression is somewhere between icy and neutral. “Troy Robertson?”
“Who the hell ar
e you?” His body language is aggressive, but his expression shows worry.
“I’m a private investigator looking into the disappearance of David―”
Slam. The door shuts in my face.
“Strickland.”
I fold my arms across my chest. Hmm. That didn’t go well. There’s always kicking down the door and going full on ‘bad cop,’ but I like living in this city. Going ‘bad cop’ would cause me a lot of problems, and having to relocate would be a pain. That’s one problem with setting up a nest above the waves. I’ve accumulated too much crap in my house. And I mean ‘crap’ in a metaphorical sense. What can I say? I like having nice things. Abandoning it isn’t happening. With only circumstantial evidence linking Troy to the dead bodies, as well as the somewhat bigger problem of me not being a police officer, I reluctantly trudge back to my Rubi.
I miss the old days.
Ancient Rome?
Yes. Much easier to deal with criminals back then. No ‘forensics.’
You mean much easier for vigilantes.
Six of one…
Wasn’t it your idea to send him to prison as it’s more ‘a slow withering’ of his soul?
Yes, but that was before he tried to kill Hannah.
So, you think we should kill him now?
No, I was fantasizing more about a permanent disabling injury, plus prison.
I chuckle. I’d feel better, but I don’t want to leave town to avoid the law.
Party pooper. A faint raspberry flutters in the back of my thoughts.
I’m at home, relaxing at the edge of my indoor pool with my tail out. My boobs are out as well, and they appreciate the freedom. A wireless keyboard a safe (mostly) distance from the water clicks as I tap in another web search. An overhead projector gives me a ninety-inch monitor on the wall, which is more than adequate for a mermaid’s dream office. I made the mistake of using a laptop poolside a few years back. Much cheaper to replace a wet Bluetooth keyboard.
The only thing that would make this setup better is converting the pool to seawater, but the maintenance on the pump/filtration system would be horrendous. Much easier to head out to the Sound for my saltwater fix. This, at least, is comfortable. Besides, a mermaid in a pool is like a goldfish in the bowl. Nice to soak, but I can’t swim up to any decent speed.
So. Damn. Frustrating.
Eric Moss’ wheelchair friend turns out to be one of his employees. Katherine Dean, age twenty-one. The girl likes Facebook. Looks like she’s been in a wheelchair for most of her life. Pictures go back to grade school. Poor thing. At least she’s smiling in most of them. She works at the same internet service provider, one of the customer service agents he supervises. I don’t need to work up a full dossier on her, only enough information to calm a worried wife.
That done, I dig back into David’s business and personal life, but turn up nothing remotely shady other than three unpaid parking tickets from Pottstown, PA, around the time he’d been nineteen. Guess he’s originally from the east coast. I check a few other resources, in case he fled west to get away from something. He’s never changed his name or gotten in serious trouble. Their house represents the biggest debt I’m able to find. It certainly doesn’t look like he’s rolling in cash.
Troy on the other hand is a little different. He’s got some odd expenses that aren’t explained. Usually that means selling drugs or illicit gambling. His parents are teetering on the edge of being wealthy, so perhaps they’re helping him out. Great. He’s going to have one hell of a lawyer. At least that explains where he got the boat from. Or not. A little poking around for The Bit Bucket shows it as officially owned by NexArc. The weasel wrote it off as a business expense. I wonder if David even knew he’d done that. Between the neighbor’s description of the trip, and Gerald not knowing anything about it, I suspect Troy might’ve been playing games with the books. Perhaps even embezzling, and I’d only said that as an idle theory before. Not now.
Maybe David caught him?
No. That doesn’t make sense. If David caught him stealing from NexArc, why would he go on a buddy weekend boat trip? Unless David caught him but hadn’t told him anything. But someone had been harassing their family for months…
I fold my arms on the concrete at the edge of the pool and rest my head on them.
Ugh. What am I missing?
few minutes after ten the next morning, Rachel Moss walks into my office and stands still in the front foyer. I give her a quick glance of acknowledgment, but continue my internet hunt for information on Troy, David, and that boat. I’d even sent an email to Paolo to see if he can get to anything with his ‘special police access.’ I do find an insurance policy. Already, a claim has popped up on the $158,000 boat that Troy filed yesterday afternoon.
Rachel creeps up to my desk like a high school kid summoned to the principal’s office without knowing why. She’s got on a look that says I’m either going to ruin her life or give her an award.
“Ms. Silver?” she asks, overacting the timidity.
“That’s me. Please, have a set, bear with me one sec.” I finish adding a line to my notes about the policy, number claim date, amount, and save the file before looking away from the screen and smiling at her. “Sorry. Okay… well, I have some good news for you.”
“Good news?” She blinks and sits straighter.
I take a few papers out of a drawer, printouts of the photos showing Eric doing housework. “Your husband isn’t cheating on you, Rachel.”
She leafs among the pages.
“He’s helping a handicapped woman. Her name’s Katherine, and she works with him. That’s how they met. I think this is a case of a manager going the extra mile to be a good guy for one of his workers.”
Rachel stares at the pictures for a long few minutes. She sniffles and occasionally lets out a “huh” that’s part chuckle. “Why wouldn’t he tell me this? You’re sure there’s nothing else going on?”
“I’m a pretty good judge of body language, Mrs. Moss. When I observed them together, I didn’t get the feeling their relationship was anything more than platonic. And you did mention during our first meeting that he told you he was ‘helping someone from work.’ Lame excuse or not…” I smile.
“Hmm.” She shuffles the printouts for a while more. “I still think he’s up to something. He hasn’t been acting right. Eric’s been on edge and nervous around me. Maybe”―she waves the papers around―“maybe it’s not this woman, but he’s doing something with someone. Will you keep working on this for me?”
I shrug. “All right. It’s your dime.”
Her lost-waif eyes dial back the pleading a few notches. She smiles. “Thank you. Oh, I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“Is he still… pardon the question, intimate with you?”
“Yes, but, he seems preoccupied.” She fidgets at the pile of papers in her lap. “Like he’s afraid of something. At first, I thought it was me finding out about some other woman. But do you think it could be something else? If he’s not cheating, with her, why didn’t he give me any details?”
I tap the four fingers of my right hand on the desk in a cascading pattern back and forth. “Can I be direct?”
She nods.
“You seem to be somewhat possessive and territorial toward him. Perhaps there’s a dash of paranoia in there somewhere.” I grin to soften it. “I think he wanted to avoid the probable argument it would’ve caused to bring up going to another woman’s house.”
Rachel’s angelic innocence hardens for a few seconds. Her face calls me a bitch, but she glances off to the side instead of going on the attack. “When we were in high school, he left me for a few days. He denied it, but I was sure he’d decided to try dating Perfect Cindy Walters.” She fires a sour frown into the floor.
“And that’s why you suspected him of cheating? Because he hung out with some other girl for a few days when you were kids?”
She nods, her cheeks reddening.
“All right,” I say with a
hint of sigh. “I’ll keep investigating him.”
“Thank you.” Rachel takes one of my business cards from the holder on my desk, scribbles an email address on the back and hands it to me before standing. “You can invoice me with PayPal.”
“I’m not in the business of exploiting people, Mrs. Moss. I’ll do what I can, but I won’t keep stringing you along if there’s no gems in the mine.”
“I appreciate that. Please, find out why he’s acting strange.”
She could try talking to him, says Licinia deep in my mind.
If only. Guess I do this the hard way. As Rachel walks out, I set up the GPS tracker app to alarm if Eric gets too far away from his home, work, or Katherine’s house. As soon as this Troy issue is over with, I think it’ll be my turn to do the cheating. No sense tailing this guy for weeks when I can read him like a book.
y phone rings on the way to the office Thursday morning.
I’m a little behind schedule due to waking up with a major craving for fresh (live) salmon. Little buggers played elusive this morning so it took me a while to find two. Some people accuse humans of being indifferent to other people’s suffering, but they’ve got nothing on fish. Pluck a salmon (or most fish) and bite it in half, its buddies carry on without even a ‘that sucks, dude.’ Hell, some of them even eat the scraps. Humans can be assholes to each other, but at least they don’t start eating their dead friends before the corpse is even cold. Stock traders notwithstanding.
I poke the hands-free button. “Hello?”
“Ms. Silver?” asks Lorraine Strickland.
Uh oh. At least she sounds calm. “Yes. How are you?”
“I suppose we’re doing as best we can given what’s happened. I… I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, but would you mind doing us a small favor?”
Damn red lights. Again, I’m stuck behind a Honda Civic who can’t move faster than ten under the limit. I swear it’s as if this guy wants to get stuck at every single light. My usual joke about favors leaps to the tip of my brain―as long as it doesn’t involve farm animals and a pay-by-the-hour motel―but I’m not saying that to Hannah’s grandmother. Hell, I wouldn’t say that to anyone who’d just lost someone. “Not at all. What do you need?”
