“Ellery Templeton.”
“Excuse me?”
“Ellery Templeton,” Jenna repeated. “The guitar player? You have a funny look on your face. You know him?”
If you spent any time at all in blues clubs around Boston, you knew who Ellery Templeton was. Played guitar in successive incarnations of his blues band. During a blizzard on New Year’s Eve a few years ago, Sky was enjoying too much champagne at the House of Blues. Templeton’s band was performing, standing room only. Sky saw the guitar player watching her from the stage. The attraction was immediate. The crowd chanted a countdown to New Year’s, and by the stroke of midnight Ellery Templeton was kissing Sky. A long, deep kiss.
“You have Templeton’s address?”
“No. He has a place in Charlestown. He’s playing at Genuine John’s tonight. Just around the corner from here.” Jenna’s eyebrows furrowed. “Or maybe he’s not.”
“How long have you known Nicolette?”
“Six months. I’m from Manhattan, by way of SoHo. I got my bachelor’s at Boston University two years ago. Biology. But I didn’t want to go back home. I love the Bean. When a clerical position opened up in the biology department, I grabbed it.” Jenna picked at a loose thread in the taffeta skirt. “Last October I was looking for a roommate to share the rent so I posted a note on the department bulletin board. Nicolette practically lived at the bio department, like graduate students do. We started hanging out together. She moved in, the day after Halloween.”
Jenna slipped into girl-talk mode. “Nicolette was so much fun at first. We went to all the clubs, dancing at The Estate, Umbria, Royale. First we’d go to Forever 21 or H&M, get something wild to wear. I love all the trendy trash. That seventies revival stuff? No spank you!” She gave a dismissive sniff. “We found some funky sheath dresses at the Garment District in Cambridge a couple of months ago. Dollar a pound! We did some serious shopping.”
Jenna cast a doubtful eye at Sky’s jeans and sweater. “Nicolette may have been from L.A., but she shopped like a New Yorker, I’ll give her that. When she had money, that is.” Jenna scratched her head with the remote.
“Wasn’t until she moved in that I found out about Nicolette’s money problems. Her research fellowships paid, but not enough for the Bean. No help from her mom. Her dad wasn’t even in the picture.” Jenna gave Sky a sidelong look. “Serious issues there. I think she was living on credit cards.”
“Nicolette thought it was okay to stiff me on the rent because we were so-called friends.” Jenna’s thin lips formed a disapproving pout. “Truth is, she knew my folks would cover me if I came up short at the end of the month.”
“Do you know where Nicolette might have gone last Saturday? Who she was with?”
“I know she got her hair done at Duquette’s in Newton Centre. Manicure, too. She made a big deal out of showing me her nails, said she had them match the polish to her hair color. First time ever.”
“First manicure ever?”
“God, no. Nicolette spent a small fortune on her hair and nails. Saturday was the first time I ever saw her with red nail polish, though. She usually went with a French manicure, said it lasted longer. Lab work and all.” Jenna’s nails were bitten to the quick. She caught Sky looking at them and curled her fingers into her palms.
“Was Nicolette a natural redhead?”
“Yeah, but she was always getting highlights. She’s been going to the same hair guy since she came to the Bean. His name is Francois, owns that whole chain of Duquette salons.” Jenna rolled her eyes. “The guy’s about a hundred years old, seriously. Francois from Seekonk.”
“Did Nicolette spend the night here on Friday?”
“No. She was here Friday morning, early. She left for the lab around six-thirty, just after I got up. It takes about fifteen minutes to walk to the BU bio department. She probably stopped for coffee on the way.”
“And once she got to the lab?”
“Nicolette ran her rats at seven o’clock every morning, Monday through Friday.”
“That’s awfully early, isn’t it? To run experiments?”
“No shit.”
“Did you ever go to the lab with her?”
“God, no. I hate research. Rats give me the creeps.”
“Did you see Nicolette again on Friday, after she left the apartment?”
“Yeah, she had office hours. One to two-thirty. I didn’t talk to her, but I could hear her arguing with Horace in her office. That’s Professor Horace Fisk, she worked in his lab. Don’t know what they were arguing about. Nicolette’s door was shut.”
“Was Nicolette seeing anyone besides Templeton?”
“I don’t think so. But just so you know,” Jenna’s voice lowered, “Ellery was her boyfriend, but Nicolette played guys on a regular basis. I mean, she used what she had, to get stuff from men. You know the type.”
Indeed, Sky knew the type quite well. “Can you give me an example, Jenna? Something specific?”
“Sure. Perfect example. Nicolette took graduate statistics last year. I always knew when she was stuck on an assignment because she would be smiling and laughing with Stanley Grabowski. A graduate student, into computational genetics.”
“Time after time, I watched Stanley help poor little Nicolette with her homework. Then she wouldn’t give him the time of day. Until the following week, when she needed his help again. She’d toss her hair and giggle his name. Made me want to hurl. Seriously. You could hear that obnoxious giggle all the way down the hall.”
Jenna arched a pale brow. “And then there’s Horace. He had such a woodie for Nicolette. Totally repulsive.”
Kyle was dusting the trim around the bedroom doorway, but he looked up when Jenna spread her long arms out in a gesture of confusion and said, “You’d think guys as smart as Horace Fisk and Stanley Grabowski could tell when they were being used by a woman, wouldn’t you? What’s up with that?” Jenna fixed Kyle with an accusatory glare.
Kyle smiled and shrugged. Sky knew Kyle suffered few illusions on this point. The man was on his third marriage, after all.
Sky said, “Did Nicolette flirt with other men?”
“That’s like asking if she breathed. It’s just the way Nicolette was. Pathological, really.” Jenna tugged at a legging. “It was all that red hair. Didn’t matter where we went, guys stared at her. Hit on her.” Jenna perched on the sofa with crossed arms and hunched shoulders, the posture of a petulant child. “I thought blondes were supposed to have more fun.”
Sky could imagine Jenna and Nicolette club-hopping together in Faneuil Hall, or the Theatre District. The two, side by side, sipping drinks under pulsing strobe lights – cocktails with names like Sex on the Beach or maybe a Red Death. Pale Jenna, forever eclipsed by a brighter, hotter Nicolette.
“Did Nicolette have a gym routine?” Sky asked.
“She ran. Five miles a day, sometimes more, if she was training. Said it was either run five miles every day or puke every day.” Jenna illustrated by sticking an index finger into her open mouth.
“Where did she run?”
“Nicolette always ran on Commonwealth. It was like a religion with her. She loved running by that statue on Heartbreak Hill. Said it inspired her.”
Sky knew the statue. It was Johnny Kelley, local legend, competed in over sixty Boston Marathons, even won a couple of times. It was a double statue, actually. Young Johnny and old Johnny, running hand in hand. It stood on the northwest corner of Commonwealth and Walnut, not two hundred yards from the spot where Nicolette’s body was found.
“Was anybody angry or upset with Nicolette?”
“No, I can’t think of anybody. But, like I said. Once she moved in, she sort of dropped me. She was using me for the apartment. She was a user. A bitch, actually.” Jenna gave a furtive look around and whispered, “I guess I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”
Kyle walked into the living room and nodded to Sky, an indication that the latent prints had been gathered. Axelrod followed, glanc
ing at Jenna and patting his cowlick.
“Mind if I look around?” Sky left Jenna with the detectives and entered Nicolette’s bedroom. She closed the door behind her.
The small room was dominated by a queen bed swathed in crumpled pink sheets. The white walls were bare save for a tattered poster of the LA skyline taped above the bed.
A table beneath a south-facing window held a black laptop, a desk lamp, a stapler, a ceramic cup jammed with pens and pencils, a Day of the Dead skeleton holding a guitar, and a small black jewelry case marbled with turquoise inlay. Lifting the lid, Sky found a necklace with a jeweled letter N, an assortment of costume rings, and a tangle of keys.
Sky lifted the keys from the box. It was a cumbersome collection, strung on various chains that were all attached to a single pink lanyard. Sky counted eighteen in all; fourteen of the keys were standard university issue, each engraved with letters and numbers and a label reading IT IS UNLAWFUL TO DUPLICATE THIS KEY. The other four were smaller, probably apartment keys, maybe a car? Sky popped them into her coat pocket.
A television with a DVD player sat on a low table next to the door. Sky pushed a button and the player ejected the movie Titanic. On top of the TV, a red pillar candle shared space with a curling iron and a ceramic hair straightening wand. Next to the television, a bookcase held shelves of jeans, t-shirts, and sweatshirts, most with Gap or Abercrombie and Fitch labels. The pockets of the jeans yielded some used Kleenex and an empty gum wrapper.
A wicker basket on the lowest shelf overflowed with bras, underwear, and thongs in a rainbow of colors. Sky held up a green satin bustier, the kind of lingerie marketed as bridal wear. It had an hour-glass shape and pink ruffled edges, with a back closure that must have required a second person to lace. Or unlace. It was the sort of thing that usually included a matching thong or panty but Sky couldn’t find either in the basket.
The room had no closet. A few mini-skirts, a pair of dark dress pants, a red Hawaiian-print halter sun dress, and a raincoat hung on a metal clothing rack wedged into the corner next to the bed. Beneath the rack, Sky found a pair of Ralph Lauren leopard flats with slim black ankle straps.
A built-in shelf to the left of the headboard held two absurdly fat biology textbooks, a hardbound Mensa edition of word games and puzzles, a statistics text, a framed snapshot of Nicolette and two other females on a boat, a tattered copy of Salinger’s Nine Stories, Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, an encyclopedia of magic spells, a battered Dido No Angel CD and Delirium’s Karma CD. Sky pulled out each book, one at a time, and fanned the pages. Nothing. Until she got to the encyclopedia of magic spells, which yielded a paper napkin with the logo of a local restaurant, Papa Razzi, and a scrap of notebook paper with words hand-written in pencil:
A) TELL MR. VIPER NO – ERECTILE NORM ETC
Sky walked to the living room and showed Jenna the note.
“Yeah, that’s Nicolette’s handwriting. She always wrote in caps. She never mentioned a Mr. Viper. That’s a name I would remember.”
Sky slipped the note and the paper napkin in her pocket and returned to the bedroom.
In the book of magic spells, on the same page where the note and napkin had been lodged, someone had circled a set of instructions for an English conjure bag: Sew together two matching red cloth hearts. Stuff with cloves, cinnamon, rose buds, and a pearl dipped in menstrual blood. Embroider with your initials, your loved one’s initials, and the words ‘I love you’. Present as a gift to the one you love.
An English conjure bag? Now, that was exotic.
Then again, they burned witches at the stake a mere thirty miles north of Boston, in Salem. Or maybe they hanged the witches. Sky couldn’t remember.
On the other side of the bed, a nightstand held a boudoir lamp, a gold tube of lipstick in Sugar Daddy Pink, an empty Snickers wrapper, a Sony MP3 player with attached ear buds, a pink bottle of Victoria’s Secret hand lotion that smelled of roses, a Dido Life for Rent CD, a blue plastic container of birth control pills (unopened), a baggie with two lumps of Godiva dark chocolate, a crumpled Beowulf ticket stub, a pot of OPI nail lacquer labeled An Affair In Red Square, a tiny stuffed Dalmatian puppy with a leather nose, a half empty bottle of Evian water, and bottle of Chanel Allure perfume. Sky sprayed a bit of the perfume into the air: Jasmine, with a touch of vanilla. Feminine.
But where was Nicolette’s purse? And what about her cell phone?
Sky didn’t remember seeing one at the crime scene. Did Nicolette take her cell with her when she ran? Did her killer have it?
Sky picked a pink Jansport backpack from the floor next to the bed and unzipped the largest pocket. It held a sheaf of journal reprints and a black running bra. In the smaller pocket, a pair of sweat socks. The smallest pocket was empty. No cell. No purse.
Stepping over fleece-lined boots and a pair of pink mules, Sky pulled the Dido CD from the headboard and slipped it into the pocket of her trench coat.
She returned to the living room and handed Jenna her card. “You’ll be remembering details when you think about Nicolette, things she did in the last month that were a change from her usual pattern. Call me, night or day, even if they don’t seem important.”
“Sure thing.” Jenna pointed at the TV with her remote and clicked. Before the screen went dark, Sky glimpsed a lone runner sprinting along the base of Heartbreak Hill.
CHAPTER TEN
Sky scratched some quick notes while Kyle made a U-turn and pointed the Crown Vic east on Commonwealth. He turned right a few blocks past the BU bridge, just past CVS, and drove the length of a narrow street.
The team left the cruiser at the curb and entered a modern brick building with a gilded plaque that read Biological Research. Sky found the room number on the second floor.
“He’s all yours, darling,” Kyle whispered.
Staring at them from behind a wooden desk was a man who appeared to be drowning in documents. Manuscripts, scientific journals, books and newspapers covered nearly every surface of the room.
“Professor Horace Fisk?” Sky flashed identification and introduced the detectives. The professor leaned forward and offered her a limp handshake. A nimbus of fine gray hair floated around his balding cranium, and his sloping shoulders seemed to sag under the weight of a gray herringbone jacket.
“Forensic psychologist?” He peered doubtfully at Sky through black-framed glasses. “I took you for a student.” His enunciation was clipped despite a slight lisp. “How is it that the world gets younger every year?” The professor slumped back in his chair and gave Sky a bewildered look.
She offered an encouraging smile.
“You are here about poor Nicolette, of course. My God, where do I start?” Professor Fisk gave the stack of papers in front of him an ineffectual poke. “At the beginning, I suppose. I met Nicolette Mercer four years ago. It was a poster session at a conference in La Jolla, she simply walked up to me and introduced herself. She was wearing a suit, very professional for a student.” The professor eyed Sky’s jeans. “I remember that the color of her suit just matched her green eyes. Quite striking. And all that red hair tumbling down her back, well …”
He put a finger to a slack jowl. “Nicolette and I shared a glass of merlot that evening at one of those convention parties. She was easily the most attractive female in the room.” Looking past Sky, the professor smiled at Kyle and Axelrod. “I was the envy of my colleagues that evening.”
“Tell me about it,” Sky prodded.
“I hasten to say that Nicolette was not just a pretty face. Her curiosity was intoxicating. So many intelligent questions about my research.” The professor gave a dry laugh. “Intelligent questions! Imagine.” He shook his head. “When she applied to our graduate program later that year, I supported her quite enthusiastically. I really went to bat for her.” He shrugged. “Her application was a bit weak in certain areas, but I saw real potential.”
The professor rummaged underneath a tangle of papers. “Nicolette was so thou
ghtful. She gave me this on Valentine’s Day.” He held up a white rubber rat as though it were a trophy. Bulging pink eyes and a long, flesh-colored tail gave the rat an authentic quality.
“May I?” Sky reached out and took the rat from the professor’s hands. “What kind of student was Nicolette?” Sky stroked the rat’s nose. Most of the rats she’d worked with looked just like this one.
“She was never late to the lab.” Professor Fisk seemed worried, as though Sky might somehow harm his treasure. “Nicolette preferred to get her lab work done rather early in the day. It made no difference to me, as long as there was consistency. I knew something wasn’t right when I got in this morning and she wasn’t here by seven o’clock. She was always so punctual. And she didn’t answer her phone.”
“What does her phone look like?” Sky ran her finger along the rat’s hunched back.
“Feminine. Very thin. Very pink. The phone had silver charms that dangled, Nicolette often played with them during our meetings.” He sighed wistfully. “She maintained that they had feng shui powers.”
Sky continued to inspect the rat. Amazing what the Chinese did with rubber. The detail was impressive.
The professor leaned across the desk and gave the rat’s tail a tentative tug, but Sky held on.
“We’d like to see the lab where Nicolette worked,” she said.
“Certainly.” Professor Fisk came around the desk and pulled keys from the pocket of his baggy khakis. “Follow me. The lab is just across the street.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Professor Fisk led the team out of his office and down the stairs. A damp wind churned brown leaves and dust into their faces as they made a diagonal cut across Cummington to an older, two-story brick and mortar building.
The professor continued. “I was delighted when Nicolette expressed a desire to work in my lab last year. She confided to me that she’d experienced a falling out with Beatrice Allen.” His voice dropped to a loud whisper. “Department chair and something of a harridan, I’m afraid.” He raised a finger at Sky. “That’s confidential. I don’t need Bea Allen breathing down my neck.”
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