by Valley Sams
She roared into the empty parking lot of the motel. Predictably, it took a lot of her strength to get the van to come to a lurching halt. She had to put all of her weight on the brake pedal just to stop it from crashing through Samuel’s door and into his sanitary little chamber.
Her hand clutching her phone, she jumped down from her seat and ran to the door. She was about to knock frantically but was reminded of the sad, calm man inside and decided that it would have the opposite effect on him than what she was looking for.
She needed answers and that was going to take as much charm and manipulation as she could manage. She knocked gently.
Samuel answered the door wearing a pinstriped baby blue oxford shirt and a pair of perfectly pressed khakis. His ginger hair was wet and tightly slicked over to cover the puckered baldness on the opposite side. The smell of expensive shower gel floated off of him like a subtle mist.
“Well hello again, Officer….” He paused; embarrassed that he had forgotten her name.
“Mackenzie,” Mac said. She blushed, equally embarrassed that he thought she was an actual detective.
He smiled, revealing his beautiful, pearly teeth.
“How lucky am I to get a second visit from such a lovely lady. Although you do look as if this storm has gotten the better of you. Please, come in and dry off.”
He stood aside in the same gracious manner as before and Mac entered his personal sanitarium.
It was just as clean as before, only this time a packed suitcase lay open on the bed. Each item was vacuum-sealed in plastic bags, from his socks to his toothbrush. Mac had never seen anyone so particular. He looked more like he was preparing to launch into orbit than leave town.
“You caught me just in time Miss. Mackenzie. Your supervisor…my gosh, I’m so bad with names. Handsome man, very tall with a lovely accent…long nose…”
“Louis,” she said, his name sounding foreign in her mouth. He snapped those serpentine fingers of his.
“Yes, precisely. He has given me leave to go, I’ll be off as soon as the storm clears…hopefully to less tragic climes.”
Mac felt her deception rising from her chest and covering her like a cloak. She wasn’t proud of herself, but…
“The head detective actually wanted me to ask you just a few more questions before you are on your way. I hope it’s not a bother. I know I must look a sight. He called me in unexpectedly.”
Samuel’s one clear eye widened but then softened just as quickly. He made a gallant gesture to the chairs they had sat in earlier.
‘Not at all. I can’t think of a more pleasant way to pass this gloomy day.”
He made a motion to pull her chair out of the way but remembering the production that followed last time, Mac did it herself.
“Please, don’t bother,” she said, smiling her most winning smile. Samuel tensed up as she touched the chair but that crooked little kitten smile of hers worked wonders. He couldn’t help but smile back.
Mac waited for him to perform all his sitting rituals. When he was fully sanitized and had arranged the pleats in his pants just so, he clasped his hands in his lap and looked at her calmly.
‘Well then, how can I help you now?”
“Brenda Davies and Mr. Bevacqua. What can you tell me about their relationship?”
Samuel’s smile faded but hung on. She wondered what it would take to make it disappear altogether.
“As much as I don’t like talking about other people’s business, I suppose it can’t hurt now that the police are involved.” He sighed and looked at the ceiling, as if gathering courage to do something so obviously against his staunch moral code.
“The two of them were in a relationship for quite some time. One of a very adult, and very private nature if you will. It would’ve been harmful for Miss Davies’s public image if it ever came out that she was with someone…. well, someone as shall we say…as rough around the edges as Benson. And infidelity? For a woman whose entire industry was based on the home and family?” He let out a dry cackle... “I have no doubt that she loved him though. We were acquaintances more than friends, but you could see a difference in her when the affair began….and when it ended, sadly.”
“Would you mind elaborating?” Mac asked carefully.
Samuel’s fingers flew in the air, as if trying to conjure the romance of the entire affair. For the first time Mac noticed the extent of his disfigurement.
“She was much more buoyant when she was with him. She became what the public saw her as…the southern princess. I hate to speak ill of her, but at her center, she’s quite a coarse young lady. A few of us believed she was only after his money, but really...” That laugh again, “She drank heavily and smoked multiple packs a day before she met Benson. As soon as he took her under his wing, so to speak, all of that stopped. She smelled delicious and was as shiny as a new penny.”
Remembering Samuel’s claims of a supernatural sense of smell, Mac couldn’t help but notice a black garbage bag visible over his shoulder where it leaned against the back door.
He caught her looking and turned stiffly to see what had drawn her attention. He laughed once more, dry and without humor.
“Yes, that. Detestable. I suppose you wouldn’t mind taking it out for me when you leave, would you?” When she leaves. He was tiring of the conversation. She could see that in the way he had crossed his legs in the other direction, in the way his laugh was sounding more forced by the moment. She needed to hurry up before she lost him. She needed to get to the meat of the matter.
“Do you have any reason to believe that Brenda may have been responsible for his death?” she blurted. Samuel was silent, her words hovering about them like the cigarette smoke had in Brenda’s room earlier.
His legs crossed again. His fingers stopped dancing.
“I’ll give you the same answer I’ve given multiple times, to a number of your colleagues.” He locked his eyes on hers and Mac found herself unable to look away. “I was one of the people who believed she was in it for Benson’s money. When he ended their little tryst she lost control. It was clear that she was drinking again; she smelled…” he made a sour face, “no, reeked of cigarettes and fried food. She tried to accuse me of Benson’s murder, after all…who else could hide poison in a chocolate and still have it taste half decent. She stood right where you are…” he said, pointing at the space as if at a ghost, “and raised her voice at me, called me a killer…just loud enough so that anyone within earshot could hear it. Paper-thin walls, you see.”
Mac noticed a few beads of sweat had appeared on his upper lip. Samuel hastily whipped a tissue out of the box next to him and wiped it off. As he performed his sanitization ritual, he shook his head,
“To think that I would have it in me to commit murder. Absolutely preposterous.”
He looked weary in the dim light. The storm howled against the window, no doubt as loud and as disturbing as Brenda had been only a day earlier. Mac was not surprised to see a single tear well up and then slip down his cheek. He took another tissue with trembling hands and wiped it away, embarrassed.
Mac tightened her grip on her phone even farther. She had what she needed. It was time to give Louis a call and put an end to this dark little comedy. She stood up and walked toward the bag where it sat, just as out of place as the bottle opener the day before.
“I’ll get that for you,” she said. She was tempted to put her hand on his thin shoulder for comfort as she passed but stopped. God knows how much sanitizer it would take to get him back to normal after that. It would probably involve another shower as well.
He looked up at her gratefully as she passed, still dabbing at his tired eyes.
“Thank you so much, Miss. Mackenzie. You’re too kind.”
******
The bag was surprisingly heavy and had been, not surprisingly, knotted and double bagged to keep its contents neatly stored. As Mac lugged it across the parking lot to the chipped grey dumpster, she wondered if all his trash was i
ndividually bagged as well. Not to mention…just how many boxes of tissue did the man go through in a day?
The storm still hadn’t let up and it attacked her mercilessly as she crossed the parking lot. Her hair, which she had hastily knotted at the nape of her neck to make herself appear more professional, had come undone and it snapped in front of her eyes like Samuel’s serpentine fingers. Why did everything in this town have to happen in a torrential storm? She really should start carrying around one of those big yellow fisherman’s hats and a slicker. Mac was starting to think the ocean was doing it on purpose, for dramatic effect.
Her arms aching, she finally made it to the dumpster. Thankfully someone had left it open and all she had to do was summon a bit more strength and hoist it inside. With an audible grunt she tossed it up into the open mouth of the metal cube.
Of course the bag caught on the raw metal, rusted from years of exposure to the ocean air. It burst open like a slaughtered animal, spilling its contents around Mac’s feet.
Rather than roaring a few choice curse words, Mac burst out into laughter.
She had been right. Samuel’s garbage really was packed in the same manner as his suitcase. There was a veritable harvest of bags at her feet, some stuffed with coffee grounds, some with q-tips and of course…many of them were puffy little plastic clouds filled with used tissues.
Still giggling (how tired was she, anyway?) Mac leaned down and starting tossing handfuls of the bags into the dumpster. She was on her last handful when she stopped. There was something much heavier in this pile. She crouched down in the rain, pushing her soaking hair behind her ear and out of her eyes.
Tucked in among the last few bags of tissues, she was shocked to see a bag containing the exact same vials as she had seen Brenda with in the bar. They were empty, but holding them up to the grey light Mac could make out a few drops of the same fluid and powder in each respective tube.
Perhaps it hadn’t been enough to accuse Samuel loudly enough of murder so that the entire motel knew, perhaps she needed to top it all off by planting some evidence as well.
“Clever lady,” Mac mumbled. Clutching the evidence just as tightly as she had her phone, she set off in a sprint back to the van. If the window had been open she probably would’ve jumped through in full-on homicide detective style, she was that impatient.
It was time to make the call.
It was time to wrap this up as tightly as Samuel’s precious tissues.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sitting behind the wheel of the VW, Mac’s hands were shaking as she dialed Louis’ number. The bottles, her precious and hopefully damning evidence, lay in her lap, shuddering as her legs jogged impatiently.
The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times.
She stared at the closed curtains of Samuel’s room, willing Louis to answer and thinking of the way that tear had made a zig zag path down Mr. Campbell’s face. Brenda had fooled her and tried to convict an innocent man – she couldn’t wait to see those manicured hands in cuffs.
“Mackenzie?” Louis’ voice was finally in her ear. It was warm and close and Mac felt a great relief wash over her. How long had it been? Just two days? “I’m so glad you called. Listen, I was about to call you. I feel terrible about the way I spoke to you yesterday. It was uncalled for. This entire case has me in knots. Sabrina is my friend as well and I know how much you…”
Mac’s legs continued to jog fiercely in the wheel well. Before she knew it she had interrupted Louis’ gallant apology, practically spitting into the phone.
“It’s Brenda Davies. She killed Bevacqua. She’s the murderer Louis, not Brie. I knew it all along.”
She had to stop herself from laughing triumphantly. There was a heavy silence on the line. She couldn’t even hear him breathe. Of course he’s angry, Mac thought…but he won’t be for long, not when I tell him what I know.
“I know you told me to stay out of it Louis, you always do. And I tried. I really, really tried.” Lies, she hadn’t tried at all. “But I can’t…I couldn’t live with the idea of Brie getting framed for something she didn’t do. I know she’s not the most upstanding citizen in Mackenzie Bay, but she’s not a murderer.”
There was a sigh. At least it was a noise. She could practically see Louis remove his thick glasses and rub at his eyes. Those beautiful eyes. She suddenly wanted to crawl through the phone and into his lap like a child begging for forgiveness.
“I swear I didn’t do anything stupid - nothing dangerous. Nothing that would get in the way of your investigation. It’s just that I love Sabrina and I love you, too…”
Mac bit her tongue, her face suddenly burning so hot she imagined she could feel the rainwater that still clung to it steaming upwards.
Again. Silence. And then…
“I love you too, Catharine. I think I loved you even before I met you. I was just waiting to meet you so that I could show you how much.”
Mac’s legs had stopped moving. She forgot that Samuel sat behind the curtain she was facing, forgot about the murderess drowning her evil in champagne, even forgot about Brie sifting through a microwave dinner in her cell….
He loved her. Her wonderfully eccentric enigma, her oxford scholar and brittle, cruel detective with eyes like chocolate pudding that, when he took off his glasses were huge -almost feminine in their beauty.
Of course she was the only person to ever see them like that…because he loved her. Louis loved her.
“I can’t stand the thought of you getting hurt. But I suppose…I suppose I should know better by now, shouldn’t I? We’ve been through this enough now. I don’t even know why I bother to say anything anymore. Nothing is going to stop you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice small.
“What kind of evidence do you have?” he asked. “I know you, you must have something.”
Mac looked down at the vials in her lap, finding it suddenly difficult to concentrate on the case, let alone care about three little glass vials. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to forget his admission of affection and get to the task at hand.
“I believe I have vials of poison, planted in Samuel Campbell’s hotel room by Brenda. She was having an affair with Benson, Louis, a classically indecent one. Samuel believes she murdered Benson when he broke it off and I believe him. I saw her leaving that herbal shop across the way with the same vials. Not to mention,” she said, practically gasping for breath, “not to mention that there is no way he died of straight cyanide poisoning from one bite of Brie’s chocolate. It takes at least 3 minutes to take affect and he…he went down instantly.”
“Alright.” Louis’ voice rapidly changed back into the one that most of Scotland Yard still feared, even in his absence. “Where did you get the vials?”
“Samuel’s garbage.”
“Pardon me?’
“He asked me to take it out to the dumpster for him. It tore and it literally fell into my lap.”
“But not from Brenda herself? From Samuel’s garbage bag? From the bin?”
It was time for Mac to fall silent. Idiot. She was an idiot. Twice in one day. An amateur and an idiot. She felt a lump growing in her throat.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe I should leave this kind of thing to the experts.”
“Mac.” Louis paused in the way he did when processing a particularly juicy thought. “Mac, does the security system I made you two install have a camera?”
Mac blinked.
“Yes. Brie likes to watch the footage for kicks. “
“Does it show the outside of the shop? How much does it show?”
“Quite a bit, all the way across the street. All the way to Cheryl’s…”
Mac’s breath caught in her throat. Of course. Back at the chocolate shop, in that tiny little back room they kept the napkins and dishwasher in, was a recording not only of the break in at the MoonPhase, but Brenda leaving with her bag of dangerous goodies.
“How long will it take you to get back
to the shop?” Louis asked, sounding just as excited as she was.
“Meet you there in half an hour.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Mac and Louis were huddled in front of the laptop in the backroom of the shop. The bluish light from the monitor shone onto their faces in the gloom, cutting shadows deep under their cheekbones and eyes. Louis stared intently at the screen as Mac skipped through the security recording of the day before.
They had already passed the moment where Brenda had emerged from the narrow door, the bag held tightly against her chest. Louis had looked at Mac with amusement as the camera caught Mac emerging after her and tearing off down the street in hot pursuit. Embarrassed, Mac had begun to bluster.
