by Brenda Novak
His gaze kept going to me and Jack and Leon Stein, and his dark eyes got round and large.
“Thanks, Will.” Joe turned to us. “This is my nephew Will Hizumi. Will, this is Sheriff Jack Lawson and his wife, Doctor Graves. They’re helping us out here with Leon.”
“We sure do appreciate that,” Will said. “Leon was a good guy, but quiet. He minded his own business, and my dad says that’s about the best thing you can say about anyone. Speaking of my dad, he sent all the medical supplies from that list you made. He didn’t have a bone saw, but he had one in the garage from when he built those bookshelves in his office last year. You remember that, Uncle Joe?”
“I remember it was a mess and I heard about it from your mother for weeks. Will’s mother is my sister.”
“Did your dad want to be here?” I asked. “If he’s the island physician he’s welcome to do this. I’m happy to assist if he’d prefer.”
“Oh, no. Dad isn’t a surgeon anymore. He says he enjoys the people and delivering babies. He treats pretty much everyone on the island, and if he can’t treat them he goes with them to the mainland to act as their primary physician. He says it’s a special job.”
“I can imagine,” I said impressed. “There aren’t many people who get to be so entrenched in an entire community.”
“Dad’s great. You’ll like him. I brought those extra fans you asked for. Uncle Joe said it would get pretty awful in here without the extra air.”
“It’ll get awful sooner rather than later in this kind of heat,” Jack said. “We appreciate the fans.”
“Not a problem. People were happy to donate them for Leon.”
Will and Joe went out onto the front steps and collected the box of supplies and the fans. When they came back in there was a woman with them, and the heat in the room went up by about a hundred degrees.
There were some people who exuded raw sex appeal from their every pore. It hovered around them—a sway of the hips or a toss of long dark hair—a flirtatious look from exotic eyes the color of coal or lips lush and full enough to make every man in the room wonder what she could do with them.
She was the kind of woman that made other women want to hate her on sight. A cobalt blue sarong was tied loosely at her hips, showing impossibly long legs. And two triangles of fabric in the matching color covered the most perfect breasts I’d ever seen.
“I brought the laptop and scanner you asked for,” she said. I was surprised to hear she didn’t have a hint of an accent. “Where do you want me to set things up?”
Even her voice sounded like sex. I snuck a glance at Jack and he winked at me, taking a drink of his bottled water and then passing it to me. I trusted Jack with everything—including my life. But I had to admit it was a nice feeling to not see him react to her the way the other two men were. I wouldn’t have blamed him. Even I wanted to stare.
Jack had once told me that I was his fantasy. I’d been skeptical at the time. I’d never paid much attention to my looks or put a lot of effort into them. But I knew I was above average as far as attractiveness. I had good bones and skin, and my eyes were an unusual shade of gray. I was slim of hip and breast, more of an athletic build than anything on my five foot eight inch frame, but Jack didn’t seem to mind my lack of curves, and I’d stopped wishing for them once I realized I could shop right off the rack and never had to try on clothes before I bought them.
The testosterone in the room was so thick I could almost taste it, and Joe looked like he was about two seconds from marking his territory and howling at the moon. Will was still young enough he wouldn’t have a clue what to do with a woman like that. His mouth was still hanging open.
“Thanks, Camille,” Joe said. “You can use my desk.”
“You got it.” She moved around the two men, impervious to their stares, and went to setting up the equipment on Joe’s desk.
I found it interesting that Joe didn’t bother to introduce Camille to us like he had Will.
She glanced in our direction, and her gaze settled a little longer on Jack than I was comfortable with. But then she noticed the silver band on his ring finger and shrugged as her attention turned to me. And then her gaze traveled to Leon and rested there.
“My grandma told me someone killed Leon. She was at Mass right before it happened.” Camille crossed herself and went back to setting up the scanner and modem so we had internet access. “She said she was surprised no one had done it sooner.”
“Your grandma didn’t care for Leon?” Jack asked.
Joe opened his mouth to say something, but Jack gave him a look and he closed it again.
“Grandma doesn’t much care for anyone who isn’t blood related, and even half of those she’s not too fond of. About forty years ago she and Leon had a run in at the market over the last of the fresh chicken. They haven’t been on speaking terms since.”
“Did your grandmother see Leon at the church?”
“Yeah, she said he was at the three o’clock Mass and that he must have had a lot of sins because he took forever in the confession with Father Fernando. And then she said he sat right in the front pew of the church like he was trying to get in good with God since he would probably die soon.”
“What about after Mass? Did she see him leave the church?”
“She didn’t say, but when Father Fernando discovered Leon’s body and called out for help she went to the courtyard with most of the other parishioners who were still there.”
“What about Leon’s wife?” I asked. “Where was she during all this?”
“Maria has become somewhat of a recluse over the past several months,” Joe said. “She had pneumonia about a year ago and never quite bounced back from it. She only goes to Sunday Mass now. Leon or her children do her errands for her.”
Will had set up the box fans and plugged them in, and the breeze felt like heaven against my overheated skin. Joe handed me the box of supplies and I took them into the cell. I’d already set up a tray next to the body so I could work more efficiently.
“Thanks for your help, Will,” Joe said, dismissing the younger man. He took some money out of his wallet and passed it over. “Tell your dad thanks. And you and your friends try to stay out of trouble tonight. You put me in an awkward situation having to answer why I’ve never ticketed you for a drunk and disorderly.”
Will’s face flushed red and his fists bunched at his sides. “If it puts you in that awkward of a position just give me a ticket next time.” He didn’t look at any of us as he left the police station and slammed the door behind him.
“Poor Will,” Camille said, clicking her tongue. “You embarrassed him. We’ve all been that age. If you don’t get a little drunk and disorderly from time to time you’re not living life.”
“He’s young and stupid with it. Hopefully he’ll grow out of it and settle down.
“Oh, lighten up, Joe. As I recall, you were once young and stupid with it too. There’s something to be said about being young though, wouldn’t you say?” She looked up and winked. “The young always have a lot of energy and…enthusiasm. Remember?”
It was Joe’s turn to flush red with embarrassment, and I felt a little like a voyeur. But then Camille smiled and I suddenly felt sorry for any man who happened to cross paths with her.
“Enough, Camille. No one likes visiting memory lane.”
She propped a hand on her hip, deliberately provoking, and Joe’s gaze dropped slowly down her body.
I elbowed Jack and whispered, “It’s like we’re in our very own soap opera. A dead body and lots of drama.”
“Ssh,” Jack said. “I want to hear.”
“Really?” Camille asked. “Memory lane is one of my favorite places. Don’t you wish you could recreate those frantic and sweaty nights? Of course, there’s something to be said for maturity. Experience always trumps enthusiasm. Wouldn’t you say, Joe?”
Joe cleared his throat and was starting to look a little overheated, so I thought it might be a good time to remi
nd them they had an audience and a dead body, neither of which was conducive to successful seduction.
“Did your grandmother get a good look at Leon in the courtyard?”
Camille smirked and dropped her hand to her side, and then she went back to the desk and opened the laptop, making sure everything was up and running.
“Oh, she saw him all right.” She gave the sign of the cross again. “She said he was dead as a doornail and God probably delivered the final blow himself. And that it was no less than he deserved.”
Joe winced. “Don’t speak ill of the dead, Camille.”
“I didn’t say it,” she said. “You know how grandmother is. She speaks her mind. I’m all finished up here.” She turned to Jack and me. “The internet connection isn’t great, but it’s as good as you’re going to get. Unless a storm rolls in. Then you’re shit out of luck, as my grandmother likes to say. Now if you all will excuse me, it’s long past the end of the work day and I can catch a couple of hours of beach time if I’m lucky.”
“Thanks for getting us set up,” Jack said. “You’ve saved us a lot of time and hassle.”
“Tell me that when you’re waiting for dial up. I went to college in the states and got my degree in computer science. I was used to the best of the best when it came to technology. Then I moved back here when my mama got sick, and it was like being thrown into the stone ages. I thought I’d die from the boredom of how long it took to get connected to the outside world. Fortunately, I’ve found other things to keep my interest. At least until I can get back to the states.”
I felt a little sorry for Joe. His expression turned to one of disappointment as she mentioned leaving, but he perked up again when she brushed her breast against his arm and batted long eyelashes at him.
“Why don’t you come buy me a hamburger before you get bogged down in all your police work. I watch TV. It could be days before you get to see me again. All this talk of memory lane has made me…curious.” She pouted prettily, and I knew we wouldn’t be seeing any of Joe for the rest of the night.
Joe cleared his throat again and put on his straw hat. “Sure, I guess I could buy you a burger. It’s been a long day. Unless you need me for something?” he asked, remembering we were there and doing his job for him.
“No, we’re going to be here a while,” Jack said. “Though if you’ve got copies of all the statements you took this afternoon that would be helpful. I can start going through them with fresh eyes. We can follow up with whomever we need to tomorrow.”
“Sure,” Joe said, nodding. “Though you’d best make it an early day tomorrow. Rain will be coming in by mid-afternoon. You’re going to want to be holed up in your cabana by then.”
Joe gave one more look at Leon laid out on the table, shrugged his shoulders at us with a sheepish smile, and then followed the sway of Camille’s hips right out the door.
“Twenty bucks says they do it in the car before they make it to memory lane,” Jack said.
“That’s a sucker’s bet. We could be doing that if we weren’t stuck here with this body.”
Jack sighed and looked down at Leon Stein. “Then lets get it done. My patience for being helpful is about at its end. We didn’t come here to do all their work for them. And they don’t seem too in a hurry to find out who did it.”
“Maybe no one liked Leon as much as Father Fernando said. Though it seems like someone would’ve killed him a long time ago instead of waiting until the week before he turned a hundred.”
“So we’ll keep looking for answers. At least for a little while. But twenty-four hours is probably going to be our limit on this. If we don’t find the killer by then we’re going to enjoy the rest of our honeymoon and say to hell with it. I want to visit memory lane too.”
Chapter Six
“Victim is identified as Leon Stein. Male. Age 99. Height is five feet, eleven inches. Weight is one hundred and sixty-two pounds. No birthmarks or tattoos. There’s a large incision scar down the sternum, indicative of open-heart surgery. And more incision marks near the pelvis, indicative of hip double hip replacement surgery.”
I turned off the recorder and looked at Jack. “See, that’s what sucks about getting old. You start to fall apart and end up like a patchwork quilt of other people’s organs and body parts.”
“Maybe by the time we’re that old everything will be robotic and we’ll be like the Bionic Man.”
“I’m telling you, the minute things start falling apart on me you should just put me down like a dog.”
“Technically I could do that now. You know how your knees creak every time you walk up the stairs.”
“It’s not nice to bring that up. I saw you squinting at your computer screen the other day. Don’t worry. I don’t mind putting you out of your misery too. I wouldn’t want you to be old and falling apart all by yourself.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you.”
“I’m a giver,” I agreed.
I took Leon’s fingerprints and transferred them to the cards so Jack could scan them into the computer to see if we could get a hit on prints. A man that had lived to be almost a hundred had to have an interesting past. I was curious to know where he’d come from and what had brought him here.
“I’m going to give Ben a call and see if he can run things on that end so we can get some answers before our flight leaves next week. Camille wasn’t kidding. This connection is slow.”
I’d already documented all the marks on the body and checked for head wounds or any other injuries that might have been related to time of death. But Leon was clean except for the stab wound to the heart and the scrapes he’d received when he’d fallen to the ground.
Though seeing the lateral incision on his chest made it clear as to why the dagger had entered through the breastplate so easily. Between the brittle bones of age and the fact that he’d already been opened up before, the killing blow wouldn’t have needed near as much strength behind it as we’d originally thought.
“You think the killer knew he’d had the surgery?” I asked.
“Probably. Joe said everyone knows everyone else’s business, though Leon would’ve had to go to the mainland for surgery. Someone who knew him killed him for a reason. And it was up close and personal. They were pissed. So digging into Leon Stein’s life is our best hope for finding out who did this to him.
Jack dialed Ben Carver and then put the phone on speaker. Ben was a good friend of Jack’s and had worked for the FBI for a number of years. No one was really sure what Ben did for the FBI, but we’d learned over the course of a few investigations that he had top level security clearance and pretty much had autonomy when it came to investigations. He was also a genius with computers and had an unnatural relationship with a laptop he’d named Miranda.
A couple of weeks back Carver had been in a car accident with Jack and I when a killer had tried to run us off the road. Carver had been knocked unconscious and Miranda hadn’t survived the crash. But the first thing Carver had done once he’d been released from the hospital was buy Miranda a new body and get her up and running again.
“Agent Carver,” Ben said when he answered the phone.
“That’s very formal of you, Agent Carver.”
“That’s because I’m still mad at you. You and Doctor Death are nothing but trouble. And I also think my wife might be pregnant again. I’m thirty-six years old. I don’t remember condoms being so difficult to use when I was younger.”
“TMI, Carver,” I called out. “You do know what causes pregnancy, don’t you?”
His sigh was audible and pitiful and I stifled a laugh. “I thought I did, but now I’m not so sure. All I know is that my wife is making me sleep on the couch until I figure it out. I’m cool with that though. We have a toddler and an infant. There’s no room for me in the bed anyway. See what you guys have to look forward too?”
“Yes. Except we know how babies are made. Jaye is a doctor after all.”
“I’m assuming there’s a reason why
you’re calling me on your honeymoon instead of doing baby-making test runs?”
“We’ve got a crime scene we need your help with. We don’t have a useable lab down here and our connection to the outside world is precarious at best. We need somebody who can do things quickly and efficiently while we feed the information.”
There was a long moment of silence and I wondered if we’d lost the connection. “Do I want to know why you’re working a crime scene on your honeymoon?”
“Probably not. The details are boring. But we’re here and they wanted our help.”
“So of course you volunteered and then decided to drag me into another one of your ridiculous cases where I end up dodging bullets or getting a concussion like the last few times I’ve worked with you. You know you guys aren’t normal, right?”
“Normal is boring.”
“That’s very true. But I’d like you to know that my wife said I’m not allowed to play with you guys anymore. You’re too dangerous and you get me into trouble.”
“You’re wife is making you sleep on the couch,” Jack said. “She’s probably upped your life insurance without you knowing it.”
“Good point. I was wondering why she was trying to get a blood sample the other day. And lucky for you Miranda is back up to speed. She’s had a rough couple of weeks after the car wreck. Haven’t you, darling?”
“Talk about not normal,” I said.
“Fill me in on what you need from me,” Carver said.
“Our vic is a man a week shy of his hundredth birthday by the name of Leon Stein. Someone stabbed him in the heart with a very cool looking dagger. I’ve just loaded his prints into the database. I need everything you can dig up on this man.”
We could hear the clatter of keys over the line as Ben worked his magic. “Seems kind of a bummer to kill him before the big centennial like that. You’d think they could’ve waited a week.”
