The Missing Ink

by Karen E. Olson

  “What?”

  “I’d like to see the tat. I think I can make that call better than you.”

  “I am not letting you into the morgue. He’s been autop- sied. You can’t see that.”

  “I’m not seven years old, Tim.” Although we were both acting like kids. I forced myself to relax, breathing out of my nose for a second. “All right, I don’t have to see the body, but can I see a picture? You sent me one of Kelly-why not of this?”

  “I don’t want to send it over the phone.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s evidence, Brett. Last time I needed an ID, so it was different. The phone’s just not that secure.”

  “That’s lame. Nothing’s secure these days. Someone could lose the picture in the evidence room.” I’d seen that sort of thing on TV. I continued to make my case: “I could help you. But you’re right about not sending it over the phone. I won’t be able to really see it that way. E-mail it to me.”

  He hesitated so long that I thought I’d lost him, then, “All right. I know you won’t let up until you see it. I’ll e-mail it to you. I can’t do it right now, but within an hour or so, okay?”

  I agreed. But I wasn’t finished with him yet. “So you think this guy was Elise’s lover?”

  “Seems that way.”

  “But why would Jeff kill him? Jeff didn’t know her, so why would he care if Elise was messing around with the guy? There doesn’t seem to be much motive here.” I didn’t watch Law & Order for nothing.

  “Just let us do our job. I’ll send you the picture.” And he ended the call.

  I wasn’t convinced Tim had this figured out. But he had to put on a good show, since it was his job to sort it all out and solve it. Me, well, I just fell in the middle of it, so it didn’t matter what I knew.

  I finished up the stencil in time for my client, and I spent the next hour tattooing the Chinese characters for love, prosperity, and hope on a guy’s upper back, trying to be careful not to get any ink on the white trousers, since my other clothes were in Joel’s car and he was still out. But I managed to be neat, and I could’ve done the tats with my eyes closed.

  Which was almost the case. I was exhausted when I finished. All the stuff that happened the last few days had finally hit me, and the endorphins had disappeared, leaving me dragging. I considered a Red Bull, but I wasn’t sure I needed that much of a boost. A coffee would do.

  I thought about food, too, but lunch still sat in my stomach. I never eat so heavy in the middle of the day.

  Ace ran out to get coffee for all of us, which was when I realized Joel wasn’t in the shop yet.

  “Hey, Bits.” I poked my head into the office, where she was straightening up the file cabinets. “Where’s Joel?”

  She shrugged. “Not my day to watch him.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “But he’s got a client in half an hour, so he’d better be back.”

  I dialed his cell, but it just rang and rang, kicking into voice mail. I left a message.

  I mulled over where he could be. He said he’d drop Sylvia back at Murder Ink. On a whim, I decided to call over there.

  No one answered; there wasn’t even a machine pickup. That was odder than Joel not answering his phone. A business should always have a machine answer if no one was there. And why wasn’t anyone there? They were open till four a.m. Unless having Jeff on the lam was incentive for his staff to take a little vacation.

  I mentally kicked myself for not finding out where Sylvia lived or hung out when she wasn’t in her son’s shop, even though there’d been no reason to until now. A walk through the phone book told me nothing. I pulled up a people search on the Internet, but nothing there, either.

  I decided I should check e-mail while I was online, since Tim had said he’d send that picture.

  He sent three.

  The first was a close-up of the tat. So close so I couldn’t tell exactly where on the body it was; it could be the chest or the back, a place with little body fat and taut muscles. There was no hair, but if it had just been done, the hair would’ve been shaved beforehand. It did look professionally done, not by a scratcher-a disreputable tattooist or amateur. The heart was neatly outlined, the letters in careful calligraphy, the clasped hands incredibly well-drawn.

  It was practically identical to the one I’d drawn for Elise, except her name was substituted for “Matthew” in this one.

  If I didn’t know better, I’d think that whoever did this ink had seen my drawing. But my drawing hadn’t been made public until that night, on 20/20.

  I clicked on the second picture, the tat slanted and elongated by the angle. The skin looked otherworldly; it must be from the autopsy. I shivered and clicked quickly on the third picture.

  It was of the crime scene, the bathroom at Versailles, but the body had been rolled back against the back of the tub, the shirt unbuttoned to reveal the tat in the center of Matt Powell’s chest.

  Right in the same place Chip Manning had shown me on his own chest where he wanted the exact same ink.

  It struck me then.

  Chip must have seen my drawing.

  Chapter 34

  Because of the quality of the ink, Chip couldn’t possibly have done the job himself. And I couldn’t be sure whether the tat was done before Matt was killed or posthumously. If the skin was alive, it would be pink around the edges. I didn’t know what it would look like if a corpse was inked.

  I heard heavy breathing.

  Bitsy was looking over my shoulder at the screen. She tapped it with her finger a few times.

  “That’s your drawing. Why does it say ‘Elise’?”

  “Someone stole the idea.”

  “Copycat.”

  No kidding.

  I twisted a little in the chair so I was at eye level with her. “You didn’t show this to anyone else, did you? I mean, besides 20/20 the other day.”

  Bitsy’s chin went up in the air slightly, put out that I would even suggest that. “I didn’t.” It was the emphasis on the “I” that made me take notice.

  “Who did, then?” My attempt to keep my tone light wasn’t very successful, and she frowned.

  “Ace had a difficult client.”

  “Difficult in what way?”

  “Difficult in that the guy didn’t know what he wanted except he wanted his girlfriend’s name in a heart. You should be happy. Imitation is the purest form of flattery.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who was the client?”

  She sighed and went back to the file cabinet, dragging that stool after her. She climbed on top of it, pulled out the top drawer, and shuffled around in the papers until she held up a manila folder. “Here it is.” She hopped down off the stool and flipped through the file. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “That’s right. After all the crap he put Ace through, he never did get the ink.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Matthew Powell.”

  I hung my head back and stared at the ceiling. “You’re kidding.”

  “No, should I be?” She shoved the folder in front of me, on top of the computer keyboard.

  I glanced at the page of notes Ace and Bitsy had both made, as well as the information Matt Powell had provided. “He had a pretty good memory,” I said, pointing at the screen. “He must have taken the design and had it done somewhere else.”

  Bitsy’s eyes grew wide. “That’s him? That’s the guy?”

  I nodded. “He’s the guy I found at Versailles. When did he come in for the tat?”

  “It was a couple days ago.”

  It could explain how Chip had seen it, but when I thought about it further, why would Matt have shown his devotion ink to his boss when he was messing around with his boss’s fiancée?

  Maybe Chip had seen the ink and killed him. That would explain the blood on his shirt. But I was still stymied as to how he could’ve gotten the tattoo needles. They’re just not something that’s in everyone’s medicine chest or utility closet. Sure, you could
order them off the Internet, but that took some thought, and it would take at least a day or two to get them.

  I needed Elise. She held the key to all of this, since she was where it all started. But where was she? Had that actually been her blood in the trunk of Kelly Masters’s rental car? And if so, was she dead somewhere or had she escaped?

  I was going at this all wrong. I kept focusing on the results of Elise’s actions, not on what made her run in the first place. That could tell me everything. And it just might stop these bodies from popping up.

  I had half a mind to call Tim, but he’d just tell me again to mind my own business and stay out of his. Problem was, when I’m the last person to admit seeing a missing woman and I encounter a dead person who is somehow linked to that same missing woman, it becomes more of a personal quest to find out exactly what’s going on.

  “Joel’s still not here,” Bitsy announced, her words interrupting my inner monologue. “What do I do with his client?”

  I pushed back my chair and got up. “I’ll take him. But keep trying Joel’s cell. I don’t know what happened to him.”

  Every time the phone rang, I jumped. Which wasn’t exactly comforting to the guy who was under my needle. He’d conceded to my replacing Joel, but there was that tinge of uncertainty, confirmed whenever I turned off the machine to see if I could hear whether it was Joel on the phone.

  Bitsy wasn’t as concerned, but two hours later it was clear that Joel was most definitely missing.

  “What is it about this place?” Ace muttered. “Are we all going to end up going missing? Is it going to be some weird thing, like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something?”

  “If it was Invasion of the Body Snatchers, there would be two of each of us,” Bitsy said matter-of-factly, as if this were a definite possibility. “There would be pods all over the place.”

  “Listen, guys, I know I haven’t been around much the last couple of days, but I think I know where I can at least find out where Joel might be,” I said, planning to take a trip over to Murder Ink. I’d run into Sylvia over there before; why not tonight?

  “He’s a big boy, Brett,” Ace said. “Don’t you think he can take care of himself?”

  No, I didn’t. And the look on my face must have said it all, because they both nodded.

  “Call us when you find him,” Bitsy made me promise as I went out the door.

  A long line of tourists waited for a gondola ride just across the canal from the shop. St. Mark’s Square was bustling more than usual tonight. I heard some opera singers in the distance; a musician playing a mandolin stepped into my path. I moved around him, eager to get on my way.

  I smelled food, a mix of Chinese, beef, and chocolate that was not entirely unpleasant, and for the first time since my huge lunch I felt hungry. The thought of lunch made me think again about Simon Chase. He said he hadn’t seen Elise, but I had seen him talking to Kelly’s brother, Matthew.

  Bruce Manning had said I was banned from Versailles, but he didn’t say I couldn’t call over there.

  I punched the numbers for information and got Versailles’s main line. I asked for Simon Chase, expecting to hear his secretary Penny’s voice on the other end when it picked up.

  “Yes?”

  It was him. Chase. Answering his own phone.

  “Oh, hello,” I said as casually as I could.

  “Yes? May I help you?”

  He hadn’t recognized my voice. A slight disappointment rushed through me, but then I admonished myself. Why would he recognize my voice? After only one dead body and a lunch?

  “It’s Brett.”

  Silence, then, “Oh, yes.”

  “Manning kicked me out. Said I couldn’t see you, either.”

  “Oh, yes,” he repeated. “I’m sorry about that.” There was something funny about his voice, something not normal. Sort of like my Madonna accent.

  “I forgot to ask you something at lunch.”

  “I’ll have to get back to you.”

  Because I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, I got it. “Is Manning there with you?”

  “That’s right. I’ll call you back.” And the phone went dead.

  Rejection in any form is never easy, and I told myself I shouldn’t take this personally. I stuck my phone back in my bag and walked into the parking garage. I stiffened when I saw movement to my right, but it was only a family of four heading back to their car. My Mustang was just to the left.

  I unlocked the door and slid onto the seat, sticking the key in the ignition. But before I turned her over, a flap of paper stuck under my windshield distracted me. I hated those flyers for local businesses, especially in a mall parking garage. I leaned around out the window and snagged it, ready to crumple it up and throw it on the floor.

  But the image on it made me stop.

  It was my drawing of the devotion tat. But instead of “Elise” or “Matthew,” it now said “Brett.”

  Chapter 35

  Someone was playing games with me. At first, I thought it was Bitsy or even Joel, but in light of the discovery of Matt Powell’s ink, this was more than a sick joke. Elise was missing and Matt was dead. What did that mean for me? Who was sending me a message? And, more important, why?

  Springsteen’s “Jungleland“ blared from my bag, startling me. After a second, I realized what it was and pulled out my cell phone.

  It wasn’t a call, but a text message.

  Meet me in my office. 15 min. Simon.

  He must have seen my cell number on his caller ID.

  I eased the Mustang out of the parking spot and wondered how I could go up to Chase’s office without Manning seeing me. I pulled into another spot and texted back: Banned how will I get there brett.

  Within minutes, Springsteen belted out “Jungleland” again and I read, Minnie mickey.

  That old song and dance? Really? I tossed the phone into the seat next to me and peeled out of the garage. A small part of me-a very small part, but a part just the same-was tingly with the thought of seeing Simon Chase again. So I wasn’t sure if he was a murderer, and I knew he was a playboy, but he looked mighty fine.

  No Dodge Dakotas followed me as I made my way to Versailles, and once I got there, I saw a small sign for self-parking, so I veered to the right before the valets caught sight of me. The parking garage was surrounded by those hedge animals, and I kept close to the edge, just in case Bruce Manning happened to look out a window and see me coming.

  The lobby was more difficult.Those mirrors showed hundreds of me, and if circumstances were different, I might be making sure my hair and makeup looked good. As it was, I ducked behind one of those big flower arrangements when I saw Chip Manning emerge from the hallway where the elevators were tucked away.

  A woman with platinum blond hair styled in a flip like Marilyn Monroe was right behind him, and he stopped to let her catch up. She wore a tight-fitting dress that hugged all her curves. Chip put his arm around her waist.

  I blinked a couple of times. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. They were laughing, her face tinged with a blush as he whispered something in her ear.

  He hadn’t wasted any time.

  They came closer, and I ducked so I was now eye level with the marble table, the orchids hanging over my head. A quick glance in the mirror told me that hiding wasn’t my number one accomplishment, but insanity might be. However, I stayed put. Especially since Bruce Manning had come around the corner.

  From the look on Chip’s face, I could tell he wanted to Be the Table, too, but he wasn’t close enough to blend in. As it was, he pushed the poor girl he was with aside, and she stumbled, slipping on the newly waxed floor and landing with a thud on the other side of my table. She frowned at me as Bruce Manning helped her up. I had stopped breathing.

  “Are you all right, young lady?” Manning asked.

  “I’m fine-”

  “Chipper, I need you upstairs now.” Manning didn’t give two hoots about that girl. His feet started
walking away. Chip went after him, scurrying to keep up.

  I peered up over the edge of the table. The girl looked perplexed at being abandoned, and I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t afford to have Manning turn around and find me here. I didn’t want to risk getting banned from Versailles a second time. What would happen then? Would he hoist me on top of one of those slot machines and lop off my head? Or would he let the Bastille crowd run me down?

  I might have been overreacting, but the man had scared the crap out of me. And even though I was here at Simon Chase’s request, I didn’t think it would bode well for Chase, either, if Manning found me here.

  I approached the front desk when I was sure Manning was far out of sight. The concierge recognized me from yesterday.

  “You-” he started.

  I put my finger to my lips and shushed him. “Minnie to see Mickey,” I whispered, feeling like an idiot.

  A knowing look crossed his face, and I began to wonder just why that little code had been devised. Perhaps they thought my tattoo story was a cover for a real painted lady. Great. I totally had to think about renaming my shop.

  Unlike yesterday, I was put in the elevator alone. I punched the floor for Simon Chase’s office-I hoped it was the right one, if memory served-and the box lurched upward. When the doors opened, I stepped into silence.

  The office was at the end of the hall to my left.

  I tapped on the outer door. It wasn’t shut all the way. I peered around it, but saw no one. Penny was probably gone for the day, since it was after five. I stepped inside, closing the door behind me.

  The door to Simon’s office was slightly ajar, but I didn’t hear anything inside.

  A cold chill crept up my spine.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have put my fingerprints on that door. Because I was having some serious déjà vu.

  I strained my ears to pick up any sound at all.

  Nothing, except my heart pounding in my chest.

  I didn’t want any more surprises. If I tiptoed out of here, no one would be the wiser. I went back the way I came. Because the door was shut, I had to put my hand back on the doorknob.