Thyme to Live: A We Sisters Three Mystery

by Miller, Melissa F.

  “That’s not a reason to risk your life,” he sputtered.

  “And, let’s be clear, it’s highly unlikely that this Gabriel dude has even ever killed anybody.” That was a fairly weak argument, I realized. Not to mention that, for all I knew, he’d left behind a string of bodies that stretched across Rio de Janeiro. But I pressed on. “We’re talking about two street punks and a dirty cop. That’s all. Now are you going to help us or not?”

  Dave sighed heavily. “I am. Not because your plan is so great, because, frankly, it sucks. And not because some guy you’re hot for has conned you into playing amateur detective. And not because your crazy-ass sister is giving me the stink eye. I’m going to help you because there’s nothing I hate more than a bent police officer. Nothing.” His voice was grim and resigned.

  I flashed Victor a thumb’s up sign.

  “Thanks, Dave.”

  “Don’t thank me. Grab a pen and write down this number.”

  15

  It was a good thing we got an early start, because we had a million things to do. Victor didn’t want to ask his buddy with the car service business for another favor, what with the whole ‘sorry, we returned your car with a shattered rear window and a body riddled with bullet holes’ thing. But we also couldn’t burn the entire day riding around on the subway. So we flagged down a cab and headed to a bone broth shop in the East Village to meet Dave’s friend, an officer assigned to the NYPD’s Movie/Television Unit. Yes, that’s really a thing—they’re both a thing, actually. The broth takeout place and the Movie/TV unit.

  Patrol officer Jerry Thompson met us outside the broth joint. He was already standing on line, wearing his crisp blue uniform and a pair of aviator glasses. He waved me over. Victor paid the driver.

  “Officer Thompson?”

  He pushed the sunglasses up to the top of his head and flashed me a dazzlingly white smile. It rivaled Victor’s for brightness. What was the story with these New York men and their pearly whites?

  “Ms. Field.”

  His handshake was firm but not bone-crushing. Victor joined us.

  “This is the friend I mentioned on the phone. Victor Callais, Officer Thompson.” I made the introductions while the two men sized one another up and shook hands.

  “Thanks for meeting us,” Victor said.

  “No problem. Thanks for coming out here. I’m assigned to a shoot around the corner.”

  We inched up in the line of people waiting to drop actual hard-earned cash on a cup of broth.

  “Has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Ryan Samson?” I tried hard to stop myself from actually saying the words, but it was impossible. He looked just like the movie star. In fact, for a moment I wondered if maybe he actually was Ryan Samson, doing some sort of Method acting preparation for a role as a police officer.

  He threw back his head and laughed. “I may have heard that once or twice.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “I actually appeared in Blue Blood, Big Badge as his stunt double in a scene.”

  “Really?” Beside me, I felt Victor stiffening with impatience and boredom. “I mean, is that part of your job?”

  Victor snorted, but Officer Thompson nodded. “Sort of. The Movie and Television Unit provides traffic control to productions being filmed in the city. We also oversee ‘crime scenes’ for shows like CSI and Law and Order. Think about it. It would be pretty horrifying for a citizen to wander into a scene where the actors have found a murdered body. We keep them back, just as we would from a real crime scene. And officers from the unit appear in crowd scenes where police officers are needed. We aren’t paid extra for that,” he hurried to explain. “It’s part of the job. But it’s better than having a bunch of folks running around the boroughs impersonating police officers, you know?”

  In a crazy way, it made sense. It blurred the lines between fact and fiction, life and entertainment, but the existence of the unit and the role they filled probably did keep New Yorkers safer than they otherwise would be. And, no doubt, helped boost the economy by bringing movie crews and television shows to town.

  “I see,” Victor intoned, having no doubt undertaken the same silent analysis.

  Officer Thompson went on. “As for Ryan Samson, I actually have my SAG card because when he needed someone to be his body double, that was outside the scope of my role with the unit. I was a paid actor in that scene.” He puffed out his chest.

  “Wow, what did you do?” I hadn’t actually seen Blue Blood, Big Badge, but I remembered the trailers. “Were you in the rooftop shoot out?”

  “No, not that scene.”

  “Were you hanging from the window washer lift, fighting the bad guys in the Empire State Building scene?” Victor asked.

  “Um, no not that one either.” His chest deflated and his shoulders sagged. “It was the scene where he was racing to catch the L Train. He didn’t want to go down into the station. I guess he’s afraid of rats.”

  I flashed back to the furry rodent that had scampered across my legs under the table in that Chinese restaurant and shuddered.

  “That was a good scene, too,” Victor mumbled.

  After an awkward pause, the patrolman cleared his throat. “How do you know Dave Drummond?”

  The line snaked forward and we inched along with it, moving incrementally closer to the takeout window.

  “My oldest sister is dating him. They met when he was investigating Amber Patrick’s death. She was Amber’s private chef.” I tried to explained the knotty, tangled situation as simply as possible.

  His eyes sparked—whether at the mention of the late rom-com superstar or the scandalous murder that had captivated the tabloids, I couldn’t tell. But he simply said, “Gotcha.”

  “How do you know Dave?”

  “The LAPD was considering reorganizing to form a unit like ours. Some of us flew out there to give them a presentation; then a couple months later, a couple of their guys, including Dave, came here to see us in action. We both like opera. We caught a showing of Sweeney Todd when it was in town.”

  The fact that Detective Dave was an opera buff was news to me. I filed that piece of information for later use, like if I got his name in a family gift exchange. We reached the window. Officer Thompson ordered a medium cup of broth and handed over a ten-dollar bill.

  He turned toward us, clutching his steaming takeout cup in his hands. “Aren’t you going to get something? Try the beef,” he suggested.

  “We already had breakfast,” I demurred. I was well-acquainted with the nutritional benefits of stock made from the roasted bones. My mother had been a big believer. As a result, I was also well-acquainted with how easily (and inexpensively) I could make an enormous vat of the stuff at home. I might pay five bucks for an overpriced chai latte, but dropping a ten on broth? I was far too frugal for that nonsense.

  “Suit yourself.” He took a big swig from his cup and exhaled contentedly. “So what can I do for you two?”

  We started walking away from the broth shop and, presumably, toward the cordoned-off area where the movie crew was shooting.

  “Victor’s sister is missing,” I began.

  “She an adult?” he asked between sips.

  Victor nodded. “She’s twenty-five.”

  “You file a missing person’s report yet?”

  “No, see—”

  The officer cut him off. “Don’t believe what you see on television. Ha. That probably sounds funny coming from me, but it’s true. You should definitely report her missing. It’s not the waste of time those shows make it out to be.”

  “That’s not why I didn’t call the police,” Victor explained. He took a long breath before plunging into his story. “Helena, my sister, was married to a dirty cop—er, police officer—back home in Brazil. He abused her. She got away from him. I helped her get settled here and she filed for divorce. But she’s always been worried that he’d find her.”

  Officer Thompson paused with his cup mid-air and gave a sad tsk. “That’s rough, man. I
’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Gabriel, her ex, he’s connected. He worked on a high-profile cross-border drug case with the federal DEA and some guys from NYPD Narcotics. I … I’m not sure who to trust.”

  Thompson’s entire face stiffened into a cement mask as he bristled at the notion that New York’s finest might not all be on the up and up. After a moment, though, he relaxed his jaw. “There’s bad apples everywhere,” he acknowledged. “But if that’s how you feel, why are we talking now?”

  I piped up. “We’ve been looking for her ourselves, but we’re not making a ton of progress. And … there are two guys following us around, um, trying to kill us.”

  His eyebrows jumped up his smooth forehead. “Did you say kill you?”

  “They took a couple shots at us near Hell’s Kitchen yesterday. Luckily, they have crappy aim,” I explained.

  He closed his eyes and muttered something unintelligible under his breath. Then he exhaled, flaring his nostrils, and looked straight at me. “So what do you want to do about it?”

  “We want to stage a funeral. That’s where you come in.”

  16

  Patrol Officer Jerry Thompson was a man of action. I had barely finished explaining the plan when he chugged the rest of his beef broth and radioed for assistance, barking out commands in an alphabet soup of abbreviations that meant nothing to me. Victor pulled out his cell phone and called in Helena’s obituary. I could tell from his face that he felt guilty about misleading a coworker, but he plowed forward anyway. That just left me.

  I squared my shoulders and fixed my resolve. You can do this, Thyme. She puts her bra on backwards and then wriggles it around after it’s been fastened, just like everyone else.

  I punched in the numbers and threw in a soft ohm mantra while I waited to be connected.

  Maura’s chipper voice sounded in my ear. “Whittier Media, Cate Whittier-Clay’s office. How may I help you?”

  “Maura, it’s Thyme Field. I need to see Cate.”

  “You need to see her? Like, you need to reschedule her workout or you want to make an appointment with her?”

  “More like, I’m on my way with a reporter from the Times and an NYPD officer.”

  Maura gasped. I smiled to myself. The statement was one hundred percent true, but I knew that Maura would misinterpret it the way I’d intended and think something was going down that involved Whittier Media. I heard the clatter of keys as she shuffled around appointments to clear a hole in Cate’s always-crammed schedule.

  “Um, it looks like she has an opening at eleven. Can you be here that soon?”

  I glanced at my watch. It would be tight, but presumably Officer Movie Star had lights and a siren.

  “We’ll be there. Thanks, Maura.”

  She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Sage, do I need to call Cate’s attorney?”

  I decided to take pity on her—in no small part because Cate was going to freak out on her for giving us an appointment no matter what; I might as well try to mitigate the damage.

  “No, that’s not necessary at this point. Just tell Cate that Whittier Media isn’t implicated in this, um, police business. But let her know her help will be instrumental and will generate lots of good will from law enforcement and, more importantly, good press from The New York Times.”

  Victor caught my eye and quirked his mouth as if to say ‘Oh, really?’ I just smiled. For all Cate’s rah-rah new media cheerleading, she still craved legitimacy. And in her eyes, it didn’t get any more legit than the paper of record.

  On the other end of the phone, Maura let out a happy sigh. “I can definitely sell that,” she said, relief and enthusiasm replacing the dread in her voice. “See you in a few.”

  I ended the call and joined Victor and Officer Thompson, who were standing near a black-and-white patrol car. Officer Thompson was gesturing a lot and talking in a loud, animated voice to an unimpressed female officer.

  “No. Nein. Nyet. Am I speaking your language yet?” she asked.

  “Come on, Jennings. Just lend me your wheels.” He flashed that movie star grin at her.

  Jennings appeared to be immune to his stunt double charms. She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not hoofing it back to the station after this shoot. I drove, you lose.”

  He craned his neck and looked at Victor. “Okay if Jennings tags along? She’s a straight shooter.”

  Victor glanced at me. I didn’t like it. You know the saying, three can keep a secret if two of them are dead? Four seemed even worse. But we had to get to Cate’s office before we got bumped from our slot. Maura was a lot of things, but she wasn’t a magician. She couldn’t hold Cate’s schedule open indefinitely.

  I forced a smile. “Sure.”

  Officer Jennings eyed us for a moment with a neutral look and then turned and shouted to another patrol officer, “Jerry and I have to talk to a wit in mid-town. Hold down the fort.”

  The guy gave a two-fingered salute and went back to chatting up the makeup artist.

  Officer Thompson ushered us into the back of the car then he and Jennings engaged in what appeared to be ritual bickering over the best route to the Whittier Media Building. Only after she acquiesced to following his directions, did we finally pull out into the flow of traffic. It occurred to me that the workplace dynamics between colleagues in a high-stress environment like law enforcement would make for fertile research ground.

  Then I laughed at myself. As if. The odds of my returning to my graduate program grew longer by the day. I figured Cate was more likely than not to fire me for canceling her workout. And if she did can me, I wouldn’t be able to pay my share of the balloon payment on my parents’ debt. And we’d lose the resort.

  Stop it, I told myself as Jennings hit the lights, activated the siren, and zoomed through an intersection, honking, shouting, and cursing at the drivers who were moving aside too slowly for her liking. All this worst-case bellyaching isn’t going to help. Worry doesn’t change anything. It was one of my father’s favorite sayings, only he put a dopey dad spin on it: Don’t borrow sorrow from tomorrow.

  Victor gave me a concerned look, almost as if he could hear my thoughts, and squeezed my hand in his. Officer Thompson twisted around to talk to us through the wire cage that separated the back seat from the front.

  “I called back to the squad room to get some more bodies on this. I figure we’ll need at least three or four blues in addition to me and Jennings here.”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but Victor beat me to it. “I think we need to be very discreet, given the … connections I mentioned before.”

  Thompson waved a hand at his concerns. “Listen, don’t worry about that. Your guy’s some kind of undercover narcotics agent, right?”

  “Yes.” Victor stared meaningfully at the back of Officer Jennings head.

  “Right. We’re pulling together a team from Movie and TV. There’s two kinds of officers in my unit. Guys—”

  “And gals,” Jennings corrected him.

  “Guys and gals who were assigned by the luck of the draw, and guys and gals who came to the Big Apple with stars in their eyes. You know? Like, they moved here, waited tables and acted in crappy theater productions for a couple years and then realized their dreams were childish and unrealistic and joined the force. But, in their hearts, they think, maybe, just maybe, this is their chance to be discovered.” His voice grew distant, and his eyes were looking at something far off.

  “You’re in the latter group, aren’t you?” I asked quietly.

  He nodded. “It’s true. But the point is nobody goes from narcotics to Movie and TV. Just doesn’t happen that way. Your skell isn’t gonna have a contact in my unit. We’re on solid ground.” He sounded so certain that I felt my shoulders unknotting.

  “If you’re sure.”

  “I’m positive.” He turned back to the front and resumed poking at his partner’s driving skills.

  I don’t know what kind of magic Maura worked on Cate, b
ut she was barely fuming at all by the time we were ushered into her massive office, all white leather, hard angles, and glass. She looked at us over the top of her reading glasses when we traipsed into the room then waved her hand toward the sitting area, which consisted of two white couches facing one another across a Lucite and steel coffee table.

  As she crossed the room to join us, Maura rattled off introductions and then stood at attention just inside the door, waiting to be dismissed. I’d already explained in the car that Cate did not shake hands. Germs, you know. So no one made the mistake of advancing toward our hostess with an outstretched hand.

  “Thank you, Maura. Why don’t you order up some coffee for our guests. Does anyone prefer tea?”

  “Green tea would be great,” Officer Thompson said.

  Maura nodded and then backed out of the room. The two police officers stood awkwardly in front of the couch to the left of the table. Victor and I took seats on the one to the right. Cate started to lower herself into the captain’s chair at the end of the coffee table and stopped, hovering with her butt just inches above the cushion, waiting for Officers Thompson and Jennings to sit down first. They continued to stand there stiffly.

  Finally, Cate sat down and crossed her legs. Only then did the two officers take seats on the couch. I had a feeling that the delay was the result, not of some etiquette rule regarding sitting with civilians, but of a prearranged effort to throw the high-powered executive off kilter. Judging by the squat Cate had just performed, it seemed to have worked.

  “Maura tells me you need my help,” Cate said without preamble, directing her question to the police officers. She removed her glasses and twirled them around by one of the stems while she waited for an answer.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jennings confirmed, even though she hadn’t exactly been filled in on the details of what we were doing in Cate’s office.