Plot Boiler

by Ali Brandon

More than once, Hamlet had knocked a pertinent title off of a shelf just when Darla needed a nudge. Others might scoff, but Darla was pretty sure her wily feline was usually trying to help her out.

  “That’ll put him ahead of Reese,” Jake muttered as she dutifully got up to join Darla in the book search.

  But a soft meow-rumph quickly had them both looking up. A yawning Hamlet was sprawled on a bookshelf above them, with no sign of a tumbled book below.

  “Sorry,” Robert called from over the stair railing. “That was me. I dropped a carton of coffee stirrers.”

  “That’s okay,” Darla called back in disappointment and slanted the feline a look. “Never mind,” she told Jake. Glancing toward the register, where a potential customer appeared headed, she added, “Go ahead and finish your coffee. I need to take care of this gentleman.”

  Carrying her own cup with her, Darla made the sale, then did a quick round of the store, pausing to check the back door. It led out onto a small terraced garden behind the brownstone where she and her employees lunched in good weather. As a surprise for her friend a couple of months back, Darla had hired her contractor to restore the previously blocked access from Jake’s lower level apartment up to that same enclosed terrace. Now, the PI had a garden apartment in all meanings of the word. But since the terrace also accessed a narrow alleyway behind, Darla planned to keep her door to it locked, just in case.

  She was headed back to rejoin Jake, when she noticed something lying on the bookstore floor near the sports and hobby shelves. Hamlet? She glanced about but saw no sign of white whisker or black tail. Besides, Robert had claimed responsibility for the noise they’d heard, and Hamlet had been nowhere close to that shelf a few minutes earlier. Shaking her head, she went over to the wayward volume.

  “Introduction to Ballet,” she read aloud from the dust jacket, while a Degas ballerina stared back up at her from the front cover.

  Picking up the book, she swiftly thumbed through it. It was a primer of sorts for the beginning dancer, covering everything from the basic five positions to popular ballet choreographies to famous performers to ballet as depicted in the other arts. Shaking her head, she hurried back to the table where Jake still sat and slid into the chair opposite her again.

  “Look what I found. I wonder if Hamlet pulled this down sometime in the night.”

  “I thought you said he was locked in the room with you,” Jake said as she took the book from Darla and studied the cover photo. Shrugging, she conceded, “Interesting, but not real helpful. We already know that Penelope and Livvy both were dancers.”

  “Yes, but maybe it’s something else,” Darla insisted with a glance in the feline’s direction. He was asleep or else pretending to be, so she wasn’t going to get any further help from him . . . at least, not for now.

  She paused and took a deep breath. “Last night, while I was thinking about them both, I remembered my last real conversations with them. I mentioned Livvy’s name to Penelope, and the claws came out. Same thing with Livvy, though she was a bit politer. Remember, both of them danced with the New York City Ballet at one time.”

  “You think they were some sort of dance rivals?” Jake asked.

  Darla shrugged. “Could be. Penelope was, what, twenty years older than Livvy? I don’t know if you’ve ever seen inside her studio, but there are a bunch of these fabulous old photos hanging on the walls of Penelope onstage. She was gorgeous . . . really ethereal.”

  She paused and swallowed back a sudden lump in her throat as she recalled her final glimpse of Penelope curled up on Doug’s floor. Then, clearing her throat, she went on, “Who knows, maybe Penelope was the established star in the company, and Livvy was the newcomer who booted her out, and Penelope couldn’t forgive being replaced by a younger dancer? That could definitely start a feud.”

  “True,” the PI agreed, “but there’s got to be more to it than that. So what else do women fight over besides career trajectories?”

  “Men,” Darla reflexively declared, and then felt herself blush when Connie’s face flashed in her mind, and she realized she could possibly fall into that camp.

  To her relief, however, Jake had slipped into one-track-mind mode as she worked on that angle. “The only known man in this equation is George, and somehow I don’t see women fighting over him.”

  “Neither do . . . Wait!”

  Brow knitted, Darla thought back to the last block party committee meeting, when a big point of discussion had been over George King not ponying up his share of the retailer’s fee.

  She repeated as much to Jake, adding, “Everyone started chiming in about what a jerk George was,” she went on, “except for Penelope. She said something to the effect that he wasn’t that bad a guy. That’s when Steve jumped in and talked about how the man had insulted his son and daughter. Everyone else had something to say on that subject after that, except for her. I thought it was a bit odd at the time, but now it kind of makes sense.”

  “So it sounds like Penelope knew George, but she wasn’t making that fact public for some reason.” She paused, and her generous mouth quirked in a wry smile. “Maybe it was because she knew him according to all definitions of the word.”

  Darla gave her a look of mock horror. “Bad enough imagining Livvy knowing”—she gave the word finger quotes—“George, but now Penelope? My brain is officially boggled.”

  Then she sobered as another thought occurred to her. Snatching up the ballet primer again, she pointed to its cover.

  “George has a tattoo on one of his arms of a ballerina with Livvy’s name. It’s more abstract than realistic—well, except for the flowers and vines around her feet—but the pose of the dancer in his tattoo looks an awful lot like this photo.”

  “So?”

  “I’m not sure . . . but if Hamlet pulled down this book, I think there has to be a connection.”

  She paused, frowning into her coffee again. Then she shrugged.

  “Who knows? Maybe King George was a real hottie back in his day. Shave off fifteen years and fifty pounds, dress him right and get him a decent haircut, and he’d be presentable. And George did say that he had money back when he and Livvy got married.”

  Something else niggled at the edges of her mind, however, just out of reach. Then, like Hamlet and his books, she snagged it.

  “He said he had money, and he also said Livvy didn’t marry him for his looks,” she recalled. “And when he was showing me that tattoo, he said, and I quote, I always had a thing for them ballet girls.”

  “A bit creepy,” Jake decreed, “but you know how men always seem drawn to a type. Both of them were ballerinas. And Penelope and Livvy did look somewhat alike . . . petite, and dark, with those gamine features.”

  Darla had been staring at the book cover again. Now, she nodded slowly at Jake’s description of the two women.

  “All right, so how’s this for a theory, then? Years ago, back when she still was dancing, Penelope was seeing George. Maybe she takes him to one of those post-show parties with the rest of the company, and he gets a look at Livvy. She’s the new and improved version, so George dumps Penelope and goes after her. But Penelope has this unrequited love thing still going on, which is why she moved into the same neighborhood when George and Livvy got married.”

  Jake shrugged. “Maybe, but I’ll go you one better. This one’s pure hunch, but you said something about his tattoo. Livvy’s name was on it, but there was also this tangle of vines and flowers?”

  “Here,” Darla said, reaching for the order pad and pen on the bistro table. “Let me show you.”

  Swiftly, she did a crude if serviceable sketch from memory. “This is the ballerina, and here’s Livvy’s name in cursive,” she said, pointing. “And right beneath the ballerina’s feet, there are all these plants that really don’t belong.”

  “Cover-up,” Jake flatly said. “I would almost bet that if
you looked real close at the plants, you’d be able to see another name underneath—maybe Penelope’s. He had those letters tattooed over and Livvy’s name added when he got married. Happens all the time, according to a buddy of mine who’s a tattoo artist.”

  “Not bad,” Darla agreed. “So, should we call Reese and tell him our theory?”

  They smiled a moment at their mutual cleverness. Then Jake said, “Not to burst your bubble after all this brainstorming, kid, but chances are Reese chatted with your buddy George again and has already figured out pretty much the same thing as we did. So as far as he’s concerned, we’d be talking old news.”

  “Oh.”

  Her bubble didn’t burst so much as all the air in it oozed out, like a balloon that had been untied. She checked her watch and picked up the ballet primer again for later. It would make an interesting bedtime read.

  “That’s okay,” she said, standing. “I think all my brainstorms have pretty well dried up, which is probably a good thing since I need to get back to work.”

  Jake rose, too. “Yeah, I probably should get to work myself. I actually got a client from that ten-minute speed PI dating thing I had going at the block party. Seems like a nice guy, but he’s gotten himself into a jam. I hope I—”

  She broke off all at once and slapped her palm against her forehead in the universal “what an idiot I am” gesture. Then, staring at Darla in seeming disbelief, she said, “I can’t believe I forgot this. She stopped by my booth at the block party and wanted to find out what it would take to hire a PI. She had a hunch her man was fooling around on her, but she wanted to be sure before she took any action.”

  “Wait,” Darla said. “Are you talking about Livvy?”

  “No,” Jake replied. “I’m talking about Penelope.”

  * * *

  “We are on television,” James intoned as he arrived promptly for his shift at 2 p.m., “and not in a good way. The national news channels are calling us the Brooklyn neighborhood where tragedy has struck twice in two days. And there is now speculation that not one but both of the deaths are murder, and that we have a serial killer in our midst.”

  “A serial killer?” Darla groaned. “That must be what all those voice mails from my mother are about. And that’s probably why we haven’t had a single customer since the morning coffee rush.”

  And during that extended lull, she’d had plenty of time to stew over her earlier chat with Jake. The PI had left her hanging with that bombshell about Penelope but had promised to get with her for supper that night to give her the full scoop. Her impatience to learn more about that potentially important conversation about the dance instructor’s private life had made the time pass even more slowly.

  Now, Robert looked up from the beanbag chair in the children’s section, where he and Roma had been quietly napping for much of the shift. His black kohled eyes were wide in concern. “Is that, like, for real, what they said on the news?” he asked James. “Maybe we should, you know, get a gun or something.”

  “I am certain you are aware of the firearms laws in this city,” James reproved him. “Besides which, neither you nor I have any experience with handguns. I would assume that expertise would lie with Darla, given that she is from a state that promotes public shoot-outs.”

  Darla, however, didn’t react to that dig at her Texas birthplace, occupied as she now was with pulling up news stories on the store computer. The two women’s deaths topped the headlines for all the major Internet news pages, she saw in dismay.

  “Oh great,” she said with a moan. “Here’s a clip from that same blond barracuda from the local channel who did a hatchet job on us during that whole Valerie Baylor incident last year.”

  Knowing she’d regret it, Darla clicked on the “Play” arrow. The clip took a few moments to download, during which time James and Robert—clutching Roma to his chest—crowded around the computer with her. Then the blond newswoman popped up on the screen, microphone in hand as she stood outside of Doug’s closed doughnut shop. The video started a few seconds past the beginning, with the blonde gesturing with a manicured hand at the crime scene tape that still blocked off the area.

  “. . . that the body of fifty-six-year-old Penelope Winston, a local dance instructor, was found inside a local doughnut shop by bakery owner Doug Bates and two of his neighbors. Winston’s cause of death has not yet been released, though sources close to the investigation tell us the case is being treated as a murder.”

  “Poor Doug,” Darla choked out. “Why did the news station have to film the front of his building? Who’s going to want to buy doughnuts somewhere someone died?”

  “As our viewers may recall, this is the second death in this same Brooklyn neighborhood in as many days,” the newscaster continued. “This past Friday afternoon, during a July Fourth block party event, thirty-three-year-old Olivia “Livvy” King was found deceased on the steps of the local coffeehouse she owned with her husband. King’s death is still under investigation, with no determination yet if foul play was involved. But rumors are surfacing that a serial killer might be targeting local women with connections to the world of dance. Like Ms. Winston, Ms. King was a former soloist with the New York City Ballet.”

  Darla hit the “Stop” button, not wanting to hear more. So much for all the time and expense the local retailers had put into the block party. All the positive feedback they’d garnered was being overshadowed—heck, trampled into the dirt—by Livvy’s and Penelope’s deaths.

  No offense to the dead people, she thought, momentarily echoing Connie.

  Feeling more than a little panic, she reached under the counter for her cell phone. “I’m going to call Reese. If the police don’t hurry and find whoever did this, the whole neighborhood is going to go down like a line of dominos.”

  FIFTEEN

  Darla pulled up Reese’s name in her contacts and hit “Dial,” and then mentally counted the rings. Just when she feared the call would roll over to voice mail, he answered.

  “It’s Darla,” she told him in a rush . . . though, of course, he would have seen her name on caller ID. “Reese, we’re dying over here . . . no pun intended. I haven’t had a single customer since the story about Livvy’s and Penelope’s deaths hit the news. Now the local television station is trying to boost their ratings by starting the rumor we have a serial killer. Please tell me you’ve got some good news for me.”

  “That depends on your definition. We have the autopsy results on Livvy King.”

  “Good,” was her reflexive reply, and then she added, “but I’m not liking the sound of that. Someone killed her, didn’t they?”

  The silence on the other end stretched out a moment, and then she heard Reese’s reluctant, “We’re not exactly sure. All we have at this point is a cause of death. I told you we found one of those vaping pens underneath her body, right? The lab analyzed the oil in it, and they found it contained a fatally strong concentration of”—she heard the rattle of paper as he consulted his notes—“oleandrin.”

  “Oleandrin?” she echoed, drawing a look of surprise from James, who was listening intently to her side of the conversation. “You mean, like oleander, as in the flowering bush that will kill you if you roast hot dogs with its branches?”

  “The same. The ME told me that was pretty much an urban legend. But eating the leaves or inhaling smoke from burning the branches can be very deadly. They found oleandrin residue present in her lungs, and according to the autopsy she died from an increasingly irregular heartbeat consistent with oleander poisoning.”

  “But where would she even get hold of . . . Wait! The little bushes outside Perky’s. They’re oleander,” Darla exclaimed.

  “Right. I did a little image search online and confirmed it. Plenty of leaves for the taking.”

  Darla considered this a moment and then asked him, “Any chance it was an accident? You know that Livvy used herbs and such t
o help control her RA. Maybe the oleander got mixed in by mistake, or maybe it was a homeopathic treatment gone wrong.”

  “That would be the best outcome. I mean, it would make life a heck of a lot simpler for me. Not that simple’s the most important thing.”

  He halted, and she heard his sigh through the phone . . . or was that the sound of him taking his foot out of his mouth? He finished with, “You know what I’m trying to say.”

  “Sure, I get it. Are you going to search inside Perky’s for oleander leaves?”

  “Just waiting on the warrant, though Mr. King has been quite cooperative so far. The thing is, concentrated as the oleandrin was, I’m thinking it’s not very likely Mrs. King cooked that up accidentally.”

  Which led back to someone purposely spiking Livvy’s vaping pen with the fatal substance. Which wouldn’t be that difficult, she realized. So far, the vaping pens she’d seen were all the same brand and color, courtesy of Porn Shop Bill. The killer could have spiked his own pen and then swapped it out with Livvy’s, with the woman being none the wiser.

  Then, tentatively, she asked, “Any word on Penelope?”

  “Not yet. But you’ve got to keep in mind that it’s a holiday. We’ve got the usual three-day-weekend backlog of auto fatalities, floaters, shooting victims . . . you name it. According to Tina at the coroner’s office, they’ve got dead bodies practically stacked to the rafters like cordwood.”

  And thanks for that nice visual, Detective Reese, she thought with a shudder.

  Then, recalling her and Jake’s theory, Darla asked in as casual tone as she could muster, “How about Penelope’s family? Was there anyone you were able to contact on her behalf? Parents? Siblings?”

  Boyfriends, past and present?

  “Next of kin have been notified,” was his noncommittal response before he added, “Look, Darla, I’ve told you all I can so far. You don’t need to be jumping at every shadow, but try to use some common sense until we figure this thing out. No hanging out by yourself in dark parking lots, don’t meet anyone alone in an empty building. That sort of thing. Last thing we need is another body to add to the count.”