by Quinn, Fiona
A FedEx waited for me on the porch when I got back to my house. I picked it up and opened the door to the joyous cacophony of Beetle and Bella. Deep had brought them home for me. “Hey, sweet girls, let’s get you something to eat.”
“Lexi, why don’t I feed the dogs? I’ll take them for a walk while you relax in a hot bath. You look done in.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll take you up on that.” I gestured toward the kitchen, “I set a cassoulet in the fridge to defrost, and you’ll find some bakery rolls in the bread box. When I’m out of the tub, I’ll just make a salad. You’re going to stay for lunch, aren’t you?”
“Yes, thanks.” His cell phone vibrated. He held up a finger for me to wait. “What’ve you got?” Striker listened for a minute then glanced over at me. “Are you up to Gater coming for lunch? He needs to go over some things with us about the Schumann case.”
“Yeah, sure, that’s fine. I’d like to hear how it’s going.” I glanced at my watch. “Tell him to come at twelve thirty-ish. The food should be ready by then.” Striker finished his conversation and headed for the kitchen with the girls prancing after him.
Twelve thirty on the dot the doorbell rang, and I opened it to Gater’s smiling face. “Ma’am, I can smell your good cooking all the way out on the sidewalk. What Kitchen Granny are we doing today?”
When I was an un-schooler one of my mentors, Snow Bird Wang, decided that if I were to have a worthy husband, I would need to develop honorable wife skills. Snow Bird rallied the other grandmothers in my apartment building to step forward and help. Five women signed on as my Kitchen Grandmothers each adopting me for one day of the work week. While the idea was old-fashioned, Mom decided this would be a wonderful opportunity for me to learn about many cultures and traditions. From the time I turned twelve, I learned whatever that day’s grandma thought I needed to know. I still cook in my Kitchen Grandmother pattern.
Monday was Jada’s day; she came from Turkey. Tuesday belonged to Biji. She was from Punjab, India. “It’s Wednesday: tonight is Nana Kate,” I told Gater. Nana Kate hailed from the mid-west. She taught me how to make the old fashioned, American, rib-sticking meals of her childhood with a dollop of Julia Child thrown in for good measure.
“Well, God bless Nana Kate.” Gater shucked off his jacket and hung it in my hall closet.
Gater went back to the kitchen, where Striker banged around in the cupboards. I picked up my FedEx and followed behind. Striker had the dishes set out and the food on the table. The guys were familiar with my house having spent a lot of time here when they were doing stake out duty, trying to capture Travis Wilson.
I sat down with my envelope, and pulled out a letter from Bryant and Kimber, Attorneys at Law. I wrinkled my brow as I read it through. “Wow,” I said.
“What?” asked Striker.
“It’s from Mrs. Nelson’s lawyers. She’s decided not to come home. She’s going to move straight from the rehab center to Brandenburg Assisted Living.”
“Why are the lawyers informing you about it with a FedEx?” Striker buttered a roll.
“She’s invoking my first right of refusal on her side of the duplex. They need to know within the week whether or not I want to buy her house.”
“You gonna do it?” Gater filled his plate with beans and sausage.
“I locked in the price before they did the upgrades I bartered for with Manny, so it’s a really good deal.”
“Manny across-the-street-Manny? What was he bartering?” Gater forked up a bite.
“Yes, my neighbor. He inherited his house, and it was uninhabitable. His grandparents were hoarders. I cleaned out his dump, and he played poker for me. He won the services of the people who came over and fixed things up over here. My house was border-line condemned when I bought it.”
Striker glanced around. “Hard to believe this place was in bad shape.”
My home was gorgeous now if I do say so myself.
“Okay, enough about that.” I shoved the papers back in the envelope and tossed them on the table. “Let’s talk diamonds. Was the prize hiding behind one of my doors?”
Gater finished chewing his bread and swiped his mouth with his napkin. “Behind door number one, ma’am. My team found Omondas by staking out Slaybourgh Jewelers. Omondas headed up there before opening. He had the rocks on him. We watched him pulling them out to show to Jessup Slaybourgh. They tossed around some heated words, and Jessup physically threw Omondas outa the store.” Gater grinned broadly at the memory. “Since we were waiting for signatures on our warrants, we followed Omondas to his house. He went inside for twenty minutes. By the time he come out, our paper work had cleared, and we moved in for the capture. He didn’t have the diamonds on him when we took him in hand.”
“The diamonds are in his house?” Striker asked.
“They should be, sir. Our client searched Omondas’s car, and they weren’t able to find them,” Gater took his bowl to the sink.
I pushed my plate to the side to make room for my elbows as I leaned forward. “Have you searched the house, yet?”
“No, ma’am. We figured you’d want first dibs before we moved anything around,” Gater said.
“Alright. Shall we go now?” I turned to Striker for confirmation.
“Fine with me,” he said.
Gater parked the Humvee across the street from a seventies-style tri-level. I sat in the car trying to imagine Omondas living here. It seemed incongruous. Too domestic for a single guy his age.
Gater interrupted my thoughts. “Hey Lynx, would you mind walking me through how you find something in the clients’ houses? I’d like to be able to do that.”
“Sure. I guess the Marines didn’t teach search-and-find?”
“Yeah sure, if you lost something in a swamp.”
I laughed and jumped down from the Humvee. Gater showed me how Omondas parked his car and walked to the porch. We followed the same path. Striker stood to the side, on the phone with Command.
I stopped at the door. “Gater stand here for a second and look.”
The house was sparsely decorated with brand-new, low-range, bachelor-type furniture. He sunk a lot of money in the electronics. Huge speaker systems, flat screen TV, and gaming systems were visible from the door.
“What do you think?” I asked.
Gater had one hand on his hip and with the other he rubbed his chin with his thumb. “Young. Male. Military neat.”
“He’s not military. So what else could be in play here?”
“Good cleaning service? A granny?”
“A granny?” I stared incredulously at Gater. He shrugged.
“So the three thoughts came to me were – One, he’s never here. He moved in and stays somewhere else. Two, he has an excellent cleaning service,” I said.
Gater bumped me. “Got one.”
I shook my head at him. “Or three, he’s O.C.D. So let’s check the kitchen.”
“Why the kitchen?”
I pulled on a pair of latex gloves, opened the fridge door and pointed. “Because of this.” A mess of open jars greeted me, along with dripping spills, and half eaten take-out containers. “The fridge answers which of my three initial hypotheses was correct. First one is out, obviously he’s here all the time, eating take-out. Third one is out, he’s clearly not OCD; there’s a biology experiment going on in here. And he’s not neat by nature. Must be number two. He has a good service. Hey, keep an eye-open for their business card. I might like some help around my house from time-to-time.”
“You didn’t rule out his having a granny.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled open the freezer. “Sure I did,” I said peering in. “A granny would have this fridge clean and filled with either healthy foods or delicious treats, but not cartons of crusty Kung Pao Chicken.” The freezer desperately needed defrosting, but nothing jumped out at me. “Okay Gater, now we’re going to walk through the house and get a sense of it. See what we can discover. Don’t touch anything. Okay?”
As
we walked up the stairs I asked, “Tell me again, how long did Omondas stay in here?”
“Twenty minutes, ma’am.”
“And, what time of the day was this?”
“Zero-Nine-thirty.”
The first bedroom stood completely empty. The second held a bed, a dresser, and a night stand. I opened the closet and drawers. “Not much in the way of clothing. Jeans and T-shirts, khakis and work-polos, tighty-whities. Nothing personally expressive, no photos, no books, no newspapers, no papers by the computer.” I threw my hands in the air. “Nothing period. He probably eats and sleeps in the house, and that’s all.” We walked into the bathroom. Other than the wet towel behind the door, he kept everything here neat. I opened the medicine cabinet.
“No tampons.” Gater said with a grin. When I first did a puzzle for the team, I told them to look for a flash-drive in the suspect’s tampon box. Now it was a running joke.
“Right, no tampon box, also no condoms, so I doubt there’s a girlfriend.”
I headed back down the stairs…Something wrong. I went back into the kitchen. Striker was off the phone, and both men followed me over to the fridge.
“I’m scanning, Gater. I can’t put my finger on it. Something’s poking at me. Do you notice anything wrong here?” I leaned into the fridge.
Gater looked over my shoulder. “There’s a whole lot of wrong here.”
“Crime wise.” I crouched down and pulled open the veggie drawer that held some moldy cheese. I stood up and opened the freezer, and it stood out immediately. I lifted my watch - fourteen hundred, five hours since Omondas had been in the house.
“What’s the first thing you would tell yourself about this freezer, Gater?”
“I’d say the frost is pretty thick. Omondas needs to de-ice and do a better job of shutting the door.”
“Right. Everything is covered in frost and look - it’s hard. It’s been this way for a while. Everything is covered in the frost except …”
“Except for the ice cube trays, ma’am.”
I took out the three ice cube trays stacked up in the very back. I cork screwed them to release their cubes, dumped them into a bowl, and started running hot water over them.
Striker and Gater came over to the sink to watch me. No one said a word. Soon a plink, plink, plink rang as the diamonds fell to the bottom of the glass bowl. When the ice had all melted, I carefully scooped the diamonds onto a dishtowel, and we counted them.
I grinned at Striker. “All present and accounted for, sir.”
“Now, that there’s crazy.” Gater flashed an endearingly boyish grin.
“Not crazy – methodical. I felt like the kitchen was the place this guy spends most of his time. You saw for yourself. Like I said, he probably eats and sleeps in the house, and that’s probably all.”
“So you focused in on the kitchen?” Gater leaned back against the counter, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Usually people will hide things in the rooms they hang out in the most. The room they feel most comfortable with.”
“Is that how you do it every time, ma’am?”
“I’ve developed different techniques I use. I try one, and if I don’t get anything, I test out another. It’s usually a matter of perseverance. I keep trying until I get something.”
“Say he hadn’t left his freezer open and gotten all that frost. Would you still have ended up looking in the ice?” Striker held a diamond up to the light.
“Yes. Actually that would probably have been one of the first places I would have checked.”
Striker’s eyes were keen on me. “Because…?”
“In the tapes you guys handed me, Omondas used ‘ice’ as a synonym for diamonds. If I used serendipity to find the diamonds, I would check for ice.”
“The discovery of something fortunate? I’m not following.” Striker put the diamond back on the towel and leaned a hip into the counter.
“It’s my puzzling version of Jung. Carl Jung says that serendipity is awareness. If you think about something you kind of prime your brain. Like doing a word search. There are lots of words hidden in a box of letters. Once a word is read off of the list, the brain can search more effectively. Once you think a thought then your brain will find ways to reinforce those thoughts.”
“Can you give me another example?” asked Striker.
“Sure, if you find out your best friend is pregnant, then when you’re out and about you’ll find pregnant women everywhere. Or, if you tell yourself you’re a lucky person then each time you hit a green light you think, ‘Wow, lucky me.’ If you stop at a red light and your phone rings you think, ‘I’m a lucky person. I wanted to get this call and here I had a red light and could answer safely.’ Do you get what I mean?”
“Yes. I understand that. What I don’t understand is how using the synonym ice for diamonds would fit.”
“Omondas was thinking ‘ice.’ He was under a great deal of stress. He would have acted on serendipity, that is, the thing he had primed his brain to reinforce. The thing making his conscious actions reflect his subconscious mind — ‘diamonds are ice.’ Hmm. it’s a little complicated to explain.” I bit at my lip. “Let’s say that words have power and under stress words often become action. The word as action here is taking the ‘ice’ - diamonds and making them ice - in the freezer.”
“Got it. Interesting. I like it.” Striker said.
“Good thing they were in the ice though. I was afraid he might try to bread them.”
“Bread them, ma’am?” Gater had moved to a bar stool next to Striker.
“Yeah, you know, like the women in World War II. When the Jewish women from the ghettos were taken to the concentration camps, they tried to save the family gem stones to use as money if they were to survive. When they knew the Gestapo was coming, they would wrap the stones in bread and swallow them. Later, they’d search for their gems in their feces.”
“Couldn’t that rip a hole in their intestines?” Gater asked.
“Sometimes it did, though I imagine the gems those women swallowed were smaller than the diamonds on the counter.”
“You think Omondas would know about breading?” Striker asked.
“He might have read about someone being a drug mule and swallowing deflated balloons with cocaine in them. Same scenario. He could have made the leap. If he had breaded the diamonds, it would have created issues with the fourth amendment and due process. If we really thought he had breaded them, we’d have to arrest him and hold him long enough for his natural due process to occur. Believe me, that search is no fun.” I grimaced.
“Believe you? You’ve searched someone’s feces before?” Striker’s lips curled in disgust.
I laughed. “Yeah, well, did I ever tell you about my internship at the National Zoo helping with the primates?”
“Nope.” Striker went over to the sink and scrubbed his hands with soap and hot water.
“Let’s just say I’m not willing to do that kind of work ever again. I’d insist on a peon taking over the task. What do we do with the diamonds?”
Striker’s phone buzzed on his hip. “I call over to the client and get an agent over here to collect them as evidence.” Striker grinned. “Then we celebrate our success.”
Striker walked out of the room to take his phone call. When he came back in, a hint of stress hardened the corners of his mouth.
“Who called?” I asked.
“Command. Schumann’s in a body bag.”
“What? Dead?” I spread my arms wide. “This was all for not?”
“We retrieved the diamonds and captured Omondas. Not a complete waste of time. Just not the outcome that’s going to pay the big paycheck. Command says we’re a day late and a dollar short.”
Seven
“I’ll catch up with you at the office tomorrow.” I gave Striker a quick peck on the cheek. I was disappointed in myself, and sulking. If only I had puzzled out the Omondas thing quicker, we could have arrested Schumann before the killer got
to him. We would have won.
Striker grabbed my arm as I got out. He peered at me over the rims of his sunglasses. “Hey, I need you in by six, and I need you to dress corporate. We’ve got an assignment; we’ll be in the field.”
“Okay. How far up the ladder am I? Is this a Chanel suit kind of day?”
“Definitely. You’ll be rubbing elbows with the top execs and probably a board member or two.”
“You going to give me a clue what this is about?”
“Nope. It’s classified until the briefing.” Striker released my arm.
***
I wanted some shut-eye. Well that was my thought, anyway. Anxiety wrung my stomach. I was still fairly new at Iniquus, and I couldn’t go around failing, or I’d be out on my butt. Tomorrow I’d play my A-game and show Command what I was made of. Sleep? Impossible. I thought about Spyder’s health. I thought about the mystery assignment. I thought about how Sylanos could possibly have turned into a Hydra after all the work I did to make sure Iniquus took him down. Surely, Sylanos should be in someone’s prison cell by now. Okay, truth be told, I thought about Striker.
After tossing and turning most of the night, I gave up and threw on a jogging outfit to go run with the girls. I’d let a few days slide since I’d gotten any exercise. It felt good to work some of the tension out of my muscles. I arrived home around three in the morning. Still riled, I headed to the basement to lift weights and de-stress in the steam room before turning on my brewer.
Coffee in hand, I scrounged through my closet for a good disguise. I picked out a power suit - a hand-me-down from my friend Celia - some hose and heels, and a briefcase.
Spyder drilled the refrain into my head: when out in public, alter your appearance; anonymity is a safety net. “Yes, sir,” I thought as I went to the bathroom to shower and use temporary coloring to tint my hair strawberry blond. I did my makeup with corals to accentuate the red in my hair, painting myself in a more sophisticated manner than usual. I popped in brown contacts and scrutinized my reflection in the mirror. I wouldn’t recognize myself in a photo. Good.
