by Ann Roberts
She caught sight of a familiar face just beyond the edge of the old courthouse. He was sitting on the ground reading a paperback. From a distance he looked like many of the other lunchtime park dwellers but as she approached, his haggard appearance became obvious. His jeans were faded and the cuffs of his sweatshirt were frayed yet no putrid smell emanated from his body.
Professor Shakespeare ignored her, engrossed in a worn copy of The Stranger by Camus. She smiled at his sense of respectability. His shopping cart was well-hidden in the bushes and since he wasn’t asleep, she knew no one would complain and the cops would leave him alone.
When the professor finally glanced up, it took a few seconds before recognition crossed his face.
“Detective,” he said plainly.
“How are you, Professor Shakespeare?”
“I am filled with joy, gentle friend. And may fresh days of love accompany your heart!”
She smiled. Most of the man’s conversations were quotations from Shakespeare’s plays and accounted for his unusual street name. She nodded, understanding his meaning and wondering if she looked like a woman in love.
Professor Shakespeare’s speckled gray afro swayed in the wind, pressing against the side of his head. His bushy beard needed a trim, but his eyes radiated intelligence. When he smiled, she was greeted by rows of perfect teeth, obviously regularly cleaned and checked. The professor was not what he seemed.
He waited for a response to his quotation and all she could think to say was, “Interesting.”
“Yes. To expostulate why day is day and night night, and time is time, were nothing but to waste night, day and time.”
She shook her head at his wit. He was her favorite informant because he was so observant, and his mind wasn’t fogged by mental illness or drugs. He was one of the smartest men she’d ever met, and she’d heard that he was once the chair of the English department at Stanford University. After he’d engaged in an experiment on homelessness years ago, the story went that he’d grown accustomed to the streets, so enamored by the free life that he abandoned his position and moved to Phoenix where the weather was always warm.
Unlike many of the homeless it was obvious he had a place to sleep each night. Molly suspected the English department chair of Phoenix College, who happened to be one of his former students, had found him a closet somewhere on campus where he could rest at night and spend his days reading, writing and watching people.
“I am certain that you did not seek me out to discuss literature,” he continued. “I am not of that feather, to shake off my friend when he must need me.”
“I understand that you ate at Jack in the Box on Sunday afternoon.”
He sighed deeply. “Ah, yes. I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that it does harm to my wit.”
“Somehow I think whichever character said that wasn’t referring to a Jumbo Jack, but I think it applies.”
He laughed until he cried. “Oh, Detective Nelson, kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.”
She always had to read between the lines with him, but she was sure he was affirming her question.
“Did you take your meal to Washington School and eat it?”
His face sobered. “Hell is empty and all the devils here.”
“Does that mean you did or didn’t go to the drugstore?”
“No! He that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him but makes me poor indeed.”
Molly leaned close to him, invading his personal space. “I need to know how your food receipt for that meal wound up in one of the classrooms at the school. The time you purchased it was only a few minutes before that little girl was killed on the playground. Somebody ate that food at the school and either killed that girl or saw the person who did. Was that you?”
His face disintegrated into concern, and he shook his head violently. “No, the purest treasure mortal times afford is a spotless reputation.”
“But you heard about the little girl getting killed?”
He nodded and started to cry. “The elements be kind to thee and make thy spirits all of comfort: fare thee well!”
Molly grabbed him by the shoulder until he looked into her eyes. “I need to know right now how that receipt got into the school or I’m taking you in as a murder suspect.”
“Men’s vows are women’s traitors.”
“What does that mean? Are you saying some woman betrayed you? Was a woman with you?”
“I have a kind soul that would give you thanks but knows not how to do it except with tears.”
Her head was swimming. His quotations were becoming more cryptic with each statement. “Who was it, Professor? I need a name.”
He mumbled something indiscernible and buried his head in his hands.
She shook his shoulder and when he raised his head, fear crossed his face. “You need to help me,” she said as kindly as she could.
“I know not her name. She wears the coat of a game board.”
When he picked up his book again and opened it with a grand gesture, she knew the conversation was over. She trudged back to her car, thinking about his quotations. She almost didn’t notice her flat front tire.
“Shit.”
She squatted and saw the cause—a switchblade handle protruded between the treads. Hector Cervantes.
After the crime scene unit dusted for prints, Andre picked her up and they returned to the school, certain that the relationship between Raul and Maria was critical to the investigation. Someone besides Selena had to know something, and after interviewing five more children before school dismissed at three-thirty, they learned that Maria and Raul’s relationship was complicated and had deteriorated even further after they attended the science fair at the Arizona Science Center, the week prior to Maria’s death.
“That’s when they got really mad at each other,” Balinda Benson told them. She prided herself as Maria’s second best friend, directly under Selena in the hierarchy of school liaisons. “And I heard something else, too,” she whispered, her eyes wide.
“What was that?” Molly asked.
“Selena said that Raul had it bad for Maria.”
“Did you believe the rumor?”
“I don’t know if it was true. Right after she said it she told me she was just kidding.”
“So what do you think? Was it a joke or was it really true?”
Balinda smacked her lips together and swished her legs back and forth. “Don’t know. But they sure didn’t like each other after the science trip.”
“What happened on the science trip?”
She bowed her head. “I didn’t get to go.”
“Why not?”
“I got in trouble.”
“What did you do?”
“I told a lie.”
Chapter Fourteen
Twelve houses and four hours later Wertz was frustrated with the offerings. “Is this all there is? None of them is special,” he whined.
Ari nodded sympathetically. She was used to clients showing initial displeasure. “Tell me what these houses don’t have that you want.”
He looked around the spacious home in which they were standing. It was the nicest and priciest of the ones they’d previewed, sitting at the top of a butte that overlooked North Scottsdale.
“I want something bigger, stylish and unique. I don’t want a home that anyone else has.” He paced and thought. Suddenly he snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “I want a house worthy of my car.”
“Are you prepared to go above your initial price range?”
“Significantly. The Hometown Grocery guy needs an impressive home,” he explained as they got back into the roadster.
“So I guess FoodCo won’t be buying you out?”
He snarled at the mention of the competition. “FoodCo will never take over my company. Never. I will do whatever it takes to remain an independent. Do you know that the FoodCo chain doesn’t offer health benefits to anyone who is part tim
e?”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“Not if you manipulate the workers’ schedules carefully. You can stay just within the law and keep the profits lucrative for the people at the top. I pay benefits to all my workers,” he added with pride. “We’re a family.”
The statement had a false ring to it, but she realized the man might be a chauvinist and a good boss as well. Clearly his generosity didn’t interfere with his personal wealth or he wouldn’t be buying a house three times more expensive than the one he was selling. She thought about some of the other listings available in Desert Mountain. They were top dollar, and she couldn’t help but smile over the commission each one guaranteed.
As they wound their way back down the butte, he listed some of the other amenities he wanted. His head whipped to the right, and he snapped the wheel in the same direction, veering up a private drive to an enormous gate. What sat behind the iron bars was an expansive and eye-catching home, literally built into the side of the butte. Its distinctive lines matched those of the mountain. The colors accented the desert landscape that cocooned the walls and roof. Enormous windows gave the owner a breathtaking view of Scottsdale and a bi-level balcony on the side perched over a swimming pool that seemed to disappear into the interior of the house, the mountain or both.
“This is it,” he announced.
She shot him a surprised glance. “What are you talking about? This house isn’t for sale.”
He parted his lips into a devilish smile. “Ari, everything is for sale.” He uttered the statement with absolute assuredness. “People buy and sell things at convenience and everyone has a price.”
She thought of Edgington’s IOU stabbed into the dartboard. “I don’t agree with that,” she said, shaking her head.
He leaned so close to her that she could feel his breath on her cheek. “For the right amount of money, security or power, I could coerce you to do anything. Anything.”
“I don’t agree.”
He held up a finger. “It’s true.”
His smug expression revolted her and before she could stop herself, she said, “Did Warren Edgington agree with your business philosophy?”
He blinked, but the rest of his face remained motionless. “Warren? Poor bastard. Why do you mention him?”
Ari shrugged, trying to calm herself. “I saw the two of you arguing at the luncheon and just wondered why you didn’t see eye-to-eye.”
He laughed. “Warren and I were friends. His mistress was my secretary, Candy. We were arguing because he was going to leave his wife for her, and I was urging him to save his marriage instead.” He stared ahead and sighed. “Maybe if I’d tried a little more to help him he wouldn’t have… done what he did. There’s no reason why he couldn’t have kept the wife and still had a little fun on the side.”
Ari’s disdain grew, and she wanted nothing more than to escape the car and put as much distance as possible between them. He had no scruples. She’d worked with real estate agents with questionable ethics, but he was a snake.
Realizing she needed to get off the mountain she took a breath and said tactfully, “I just don’t see it that way, Stan. I have most everything I want for myself. I’m very happy, and I don’t have a price.”
“What about for someone else? Your price doesn’t have to benefit yourself. Even if there is nothing you personally desired, if I could guarantee the happiness or success of a loved one then you might consider it, wouldn’t you?”
Ari turned away and for a fleeting moment she wished that money could bring her mother and brother back or give Molly the confidence to see their love was real.
He draped his arm around her. “Look up this house and see who owns it. Ask them what they think it’s worth and offer it. If they hesitate, double the price.”
“What if they don’t want to sell?”
“Well,” he said, as he maneuvered the roadster back down the hill, “there are always other methods of persuasion.”
He dropped her at the front of his house and sped off to work. The weight of his words lingered in her ears. She wondered if she were that rich, would she really go to any lengths to remain wealthy and powerful? She wanted to believe she was incapable of such unscrupulous behavior but she knew money changed people, and she was hesitant to declare she was immune from its temptations.
She checked her watch and realized she only had ten minutes until her appointment with Biz and the manager of Trombetta Dwellings. She sped down Seventh Avenue, timing the lights at forty miles an hour. Soon she was surrounded by the glass and brick of the downtown skyscrapers and the crisscrossing one-way streets. She navigated the turns until she came to the circular driveway in front of the city’s most innovative loft property. A valet appeared at her door, and she stepped out with her briefcase, offering him the keys to the 4Runner.
The lobby was bustling with activity as local business people enjoyed their lunches at The Sidewinder Deli, sat atop the shoeshine chairs reading their newspapers or tapped away on their laptops at the workstations that lined the enormous windows around the entire space. She spotted the elevators for the private residences behind a sliding glass entryway with a doorman hunkered over a marble counter. When the doors parted as she entered, the doorman, a tall, muscular Hispanic man, stood and smiled.
“Welcome to Trombetta Dwellings. How may I assist you?”
“I’m Ari Adams, a real estate agent, and I have an appointment with Terry Lancer.”
The doorman nodded and picked up the phone while she looked around the quiet waiting area, a stark contrast to the noise of the outer lobby. She heard the whoosh of the glass doors again and Biz appeared beside her, wearing tight jeans and a Rolling Stones T-shirt.
“I already love it,” she whispered. “And I haven’t even seen the place.”
“It’s really something, isn’t it?”
A lock clicked, and Terry Lancer emerged through a door she’d missed because it blended into the wall. Dressed in a suit with French cuffs, she realized the man’s haircut probably cost more than the entire outfit she was wearing. He smiled broadly, his gorgeous white teeth in contrast to his dark tan.
“Ms. Adams,” he said extending his hand, “I’m Terry Lancer.”
“Very nice to meet you, Mr. Lancer. This is my client, Elizabeth Stone.”
The warmth exuding from Lancer turned up a notch as he greeted Biz. “Such a pleasure, Ms. Stone. Welcome to Trombetta Dwellings.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Shall we go up and look at an available residence?”
He motioned to the elevators and one magically opened, but Ari realized it was the doing of the ever-observant doorman. They glided up to the twelfth floor and found themselves standing in another lobby with hallways extending left and right.
Lancer took the lead, and they followed him down the west corridor as he spoke of the building’s history with passionate interest. Biz asked questions intermittently and Lancer always knew the answers. When he opened the door to 1209 he stopped talking and allowed them to take in the space. Six large glass windows spanned the southern wall, a throwback to its days as a machine factory when sunlight was critical to the workers’ productivity.
She watched Biz’s reactions to the kitchen area, the enormous elevated living space and the spacious bathroom done entirely in chrome. She loved the look, the contemporary fixtures and design accenting the historic old structure. Biz’s expression remained neutral as she explored while Lancer periodically noted features and commented on the living community. He spoke so effortlessly and so unlike a salesman that Ari was impressed.
“Is this the nicest unit available?” Biz asked suddenly.
“Um, well, what exactly are you looking for, Ms. Stone?” he asked, clearly surprised.
She glanced around, her hands on her hips. “Well, I’d like a northern exposure instead of southern, a corner unit, preferably one with more square footage, and I’ll need a bigger kitchen that has an island to accommodate
my cooking hobby. Is something like that available?”
He furrowed his brow. “We do have a corner unit on the fifteenth floor that’s three hundred square feet larger with a beautiful view of Piestewa Peak, at least when the pollution’s down. But it’s much more expensive, and I’m afraid the kitchen is identical.”
She studied the area carefully. “How hard would it be to remodel the kitchen to my specifications?”
He smiled slightly and bowed his head. “Assuming that you abide by the CCRs we’ve established, it’s only as difficult as the price of your contractor.”
“Let’s go see it.”
The surprised expression returned to Lancer’s face, and Ari immediately touched her arm. “Are you sure about this, Biz? It could be horribly expensive.”
She laughed and squeezed her hand. “Another reason I’m an appealing catch is that I have some money.” When Ari continued to look worried, she added, “Just think of your commission. Shall we go?”
Chapter Fifteen
Molly savored her third scotch during the crowded happy hour at Hideaway. Several women had hit on her, and she’d politely rebuffed all of them. All she wanted was Ari. When the drums of Wipeout burst from her cell phone, she almost cried out in joy.
“Hi.”
“Where are you?” Ari whispered seductively.
“I’m still at work,” she lied.
“Do you have much more to do or can you leave soon?”
She closed her eyes, listening to the soothing lilt of her voice.
“Honey?” Ari chuckled. “Are you falling asleep?”
She shook her head and blinked, realizing the third scotch was probably a mistake. “No, babe, I’m here.”
Ari sighed. “Hey, would you like to come over?”
She sat up, surprised.
“I mean, I know it’s not our night, but we missed last night and I’d really like to see you, if you want. I’ll totally understand if you’re too tired or if you’d rather stick to the schedule…”
