by Kay Bigelow
“I’d much rather meet with your mother first,” she said, knowing it was rude but unable to stop herself.
“Ouch. I was hoping you’d like me. I researched you and liked what I found.”
“Will your mother be joining us?”
“You are certainly focused on your work, aren’t you?”
Leah remained silent, waiting to hear whether Amara Bensington was coming to this little impromptu meeting.
“Uh, no. She’s not in town at the moment. She’ll be back tomorrow afternoon, and will certainly want to meet you then if you can spare the time.”
“Where?”
“Where does she want to meet you? She owns an apartment in town. You can meet her there at three.”
“I look forward to it,” Leah said as she turned toward her car.
“Nice car,” Jardain said.
When Leah looked over her shoulder, Jardain wasn’t looking at her car at all. She was running her eyes over Leah’s body again.
“Thanks,” Leah said, hoping she could somehow stave off a blush as she felt the effects of Jardain’s eyes running over her body.
Seraph popped the door open and Leah climbed in. “Take us back to the office.”
Seraph quickly had them on the main road heading back to town and the Black Orchid Investigations building.
Leah had time to let her heart stop pounding and to clear her mind of the animal magnetism Jardain had exuded from every pore of her body. She’s dangerous. A woman could get lost in all that beauty and sexiness very quickly. Leah couldn’t remember a time when she’d found a woman so incredibly attractive from the first instant she saw her.
“Boss, Cots wants to talk to you,” Seraph said.
“Put him on.”
“Leah, what the hell did you do to Jardain Bensington?”
“Why do you ask?”
“She called to apologize for showing up when you thought you were meeting her mother. She sounded like she was thrown off guard or something.”
“When her mother didn’t show up, I got in Seraph and left the park where we were.”
“You just drove off?”
“Yes.”
Cots didn’t say anything for a few moments. “Sounds like you were as discombobulated as she seemed to be.”
How the phuc does he know I’m wildly attracted to Jardain Bensington?
“Something like that.”
“Be careful, will you?”
“Of course. Did she leave a number?”
“Yeah. Want it?”
“Yes. I need to set a time and place to meet with her. I still want to talk to Sarah’s mother first.”
“You’ve got it.”
“Thanks, Cots. See you soon.”
Cots hung up without saying anything.
“Seraph, call Jardain Bensington.”
“Hello?”
“Dr. Bensington?”
“Yes. Presumably I’m speaking to Leah Samuels, owner of the Black Orchid Investigations firm.”
“You are. I’m returning your call.”
“Ah. I may be off base, but I’m assuming you’d like to speak to me about my sister.”
“I do. Can you see me late tomorrow afternoon?”
“Unfortunately, no. But I can see you in the morning if you’re free.
“Will nine work for you?” Leah asked, knowing she’d lost the first battle with Jardain.
“Yes. Where would you like to meet? Perhaps we can have breakfast.”
“I’ll be at my office at nine. Is that too early for you?”
“No. I’ll stop by on my way to work.”
“Thank you.”
Jardain hung up before Seraph could disconnect the call.
“Boss, is that woman upset with you? She practically hung up on you.”
From the mouths of cars. She’s probably more than just a little upset with me. I behaved like a pompous ass.
“I think so, Seraph. But that happens.”
“You forget, I’ve had several people hang up on you and they were all angry with you. But I could have sworn this woman liked you from the way she spoke to you at first. Did I miss some human thing in the tone of your voice? Were you trying to anger her?”
“It’s complicated, Seraph, and yes, it’s a very human thing.”
Leah spent the afternoon poring over the new information that had appeared on the murder board since she’d been gone. Bensington sent over two boxes of documents the private investigators he’d hired had provided him. She started going through the boxes, but Lionel had been right—there wasn’t much there despite the large number of reports the PIs had generated. She also put her own updates into the computer. Slowly, but surely, the great gaps in their knowledge were beginning to narrow, a little piece here, a small piece there.
“Hi, Boss,” Peony said as she walked into the room. “How’d it go with Bensington? Did you see Mrs. Bensington? Or her other daughter?”
“Why don’t we wait until Cots gets here so I don’t have to report twice.”
Luckily for both of them, Cots walked through the door. “It looks like we’ve all had a busy day,” he said.
They took seats at the conference table. Stacy brought each of them a mug of coffee. Leah had told Stacy several times she didn’t need to get them coffee, but had been ignored so often that she’d stopped trying to get her to let them get their own drinks.
“I started looking at the family members as possible suspects,” Cots said, looking at Leah, who ignored him. “Lionel, Amara, and Jardain all seem to have rock-solid alibis for the night in question, but I’ll dig deeper. I’ve moved them all to the Family Members section.”
“I found the boyfriend,” Peony said. “Justin Fong and Sarah dated for about nine months. Then, six months ago, Sarah broke up with him. According to some of his friends, he didn’t care enough to be angry, but according to her friends, he took it badly.”
“You talked to mutual friends?” Leah asked.
“No, all this comes from their social media. I was looking there to find out who her best friends are and who they think her boyfriends are. I’ll talk to a select few over the next few days, as soon as I can find them. At least now, I’ve got some names.”
“Good work,” Leah said.
“I’ve started looking at the family’s financials. Each of them is independently wealthy. Sarah and Jardain inherited a bunch of money from their grandparents. Amara inherited money from her parents, too. Of course, Lionel not only inherited money, but he built a wide-ranging enterprise on his own. I didn’t see any large transfers of money in or out of their main accounts, but I’ll keep digging there, too,” Cots said.
“Who inherits from Sarah?” Peony asked.
“I haven’t looked at that yet. It might be complicated if she doesn’t have a will, and not many twenty-year-olds have wills. If she has no will, the money will undoubtedly be split among her immediate family members. If she has a will, there might be some interesting bequests.”
“What about Andrew Becker?” Leah asked, referring to the detective in charge of Sarah’s murder case.
“I got Andrew Becker to agree to meet with us. He didn’t want to, but I convinced him we could help solve the murder if he plays nice with us. He won’t come here, though. He’ll only meet us in a ‘neutral’ space away from his precinct.”
“When is the meet?” Peony asked.
“Tomorrow at noon in an Italian restaurant on Sixteenth Street.”
“Not the Amarosa?” Peony asked.
“Yeah, that’s the place,” Cots said.
“We can’t meet there, Boss.”
“Why not?”
“The Amarosa has been rumored to be mob-owned for decades,” Peony said.
Considering Peony was still in her twenties, Leah guessed she wasn’t speaking from personal knowledge of the rumors.
“Which mobs?” Cots asked.
“Most recently, say in the last five years, the Shaanxi Group.”
“Who or what are they?” Leah asked.
“I came across the name last night,” Cots said. “I didn’t pursue them because they seemed like they were nothing more than a student group that was anti-government.”
“The Shaanxi Group, pronounced as Shan-zee, is two hundred years old,” Peony told them. “It began when the federal government started falling apart. States were seceding, people took to the streets in protest, and students were rioting on campuses. The group was thought to have died out when the states disbanded the federal government twenty years later. Five years ago, the state government of WanChai decided it was time all students pay for their campus housing. The group came back like a zombie that won’t die. After that issue was negotiated to the satisfaction of both sides, the group remained active, but a part of the group splintered off and became violent. The police put the splinter group in the category of mob after they’d made moves on the territory of several other gangs and began spreading out across the city.”
“Why do you know so much about the group?” Leah asked. “And what the phuc is a ‘zombie’?”
“I was in college when the group splintered. My cousin Florenzo went with the splinter group and was killed in a shootout with the police when they raided a restaurant where he and others were having lunch. I’ll tell you later about zombies.”
“All right, it sounds like we need to meet somewhere other than the Amarosa. Peony, suggestions?”
“Why not meet at one of the small restaurants in one of the big hotels downtown, like the TaiPo? Or there’s an old-fashioned diner, Barney’s, by the sports arena. There aren’t any events tomorrow so it won’t be crowded around one.”
“Cots, try those options with Becker sooner rather than later.”
Cots pulled his phone out of his pocket and pressed a button.
“It’s Cots. We have a conflict at noon tomorrow. How about the TaiPo in the Metropolitan or Barney’s?”
He listened to Becker’s answer.
“All right. We’ll see you there at one o’clock.”
“Where are we going?” Peony asked.
“Barney’s.”
They returned to the case and decided what they needed to know going forward. Critical to moving forward would be Peony’s interviews with the dead woman’s friends. Leah hoped they’d be more forthcoming with someone closer to their own age than either herself or Cots. She’d read the copies of Becker’s files and there was no mention that he’d even talked to any of Sarah’s friends. That didn’t mean he hadn’t. It only meant that if he had, he wasn’t about to tell her father what he’d found out about his daughter.
“Oh, and I checked out Sarah’s building. It’s got good security and you’d really have to know your stuff to get past it, which suggests it was either a resident or someone in the building the killer knew. Of course, the worse-case scenario is the killer simply walked in behind a resident. I’m still checking on the individual apartments’ security. I’ve eliminated many of the residents because they weren’t home the evening Sarah was killed.”
“Good work on that.”
“I did find something on a video camera from across the street from Sarah’s building. It’s a man exiting through the front door near the estimated time of Sarah’s death. Unfortunately, the lighting was bad, and he had on a long coat and a rather large hat pulled low on his brow. We can’t see his features. I’m hoping to find the same individual on at least one other camera,” Cots said.
“It would be nice if you did find him or her on another camera. We could have the case solved in record time.”
“From your lips to the gods’ ears,” Peony murmured.
The next day was looking like a very busy one, indeed. Leah had a nine o’clock meeting with Jardain Bensington, a one o’clock lunch with Andrew Becker, and a three o’clock meeting with Amara Bensington at Amara’s apartment.
“Can you find Amara’s address for an apartment here in town?”
“Yes,” both Peony and Cots answered.
“Cots, add Smythe, the Bensington’s butler, to your search list. We don’t want to leave any stone unturned. I’m leaving for the day, but I’ll be at home so will be available if needed.”
Peony and Cots decided they’d stay at the office a few more hours while Leah headed for home.
By the time Leah reached her condo, she knew two new things. One was that she wanted to know more—much more—about Jardain Bensington. The second thing was that she needed to get Jardain out of her head.
During the night, she had a nightmare about her last case as a police detective. After that, she didn’t sleep well. Her mind was roiling with thoughts of Jardain, the murder of Jardain’s sister, and who might have committed the crime, all intertwined like the skeins of yarn Leah’s grandmother had, but never used. In the twilight sleep just before waking, she’d dreamt of a black-haired, green-eyed beauty who made love to her gently and left her wanting more.
Chapter Seven
The next morning, Leah was in the office before the staff arrived. She’d brought tea from the local coffee shop with her. She’d been forbidden to fix coffee in the office break room after the first time she’d tried her hand at it. The staff had asked she no longer be allowed near the coffee pot because of the sludge she’d made. She was standing in front of the window in her office watching the animals who lived around the lake as she sipped her tea.
She was alerted when the first of the staff had arrived and turned off the alarms. Stacy came into her office, and stopped.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting to see you here so early,” Stacy told her.
“Who’s usually here?”
“Cots and/or Peony. Please tell me you didn’t make coffee.”
“No. I brought tea with me.”
“Thank goodness,” Stacy murmured as she left the office.
Stacy returned thirty minutes later, and said, “Your nine o’clock appointment has arrived. What do you want me to do with her?”
Jardain Bensington was an hour and a half early.
“Show her in.” Leah moved to the front of her desk, which she leaned against with her legs stretched out before her and her ankles crossed, the very picture of self-assurance and cool distance. At least, that’s what she wanted to look like.
Stacy opened the door for Jardain, who came striding into Leah’s life. This morning she was dressed in a navy-blue power suit with thin white pinstripes, a white shirt with a stand-up collar, and shoes even Leah recognized as being very expensive. The suit, which had to be tailored to fit her to perfection, emphasized her long legs. She wore very little makeup—just lipstick, from what Leah could tell. She looked sexy as hell. Leah’s heart skipped a beat when Jardain smiled at her, showing off her deep dimples. Leah was a pushover when it came to women with dimples. Her heart beat faster as Jardain’s eyes raced down her body and back to Leah’s eyes.
“Good morning,” Jardain said. “I know I’m early, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you last night so when I was awake by four, I decided to get up and come see you. I’ve been sitting in the parking lot waiting until a decent hour to come in. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Leah said, smiling at the thought Jardain had been thinking about her just as she’d been thinking of her.
Jardain took a seat not far from Leah, who could smell the faint aroma of jasmine in the air.
“Will you have dinner with me tonight?”
“Would you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“No, but remember I asked first. And I thought since our appointment didn’t begin until nine, we could spend some time getting to know one another.”
“Dr. Bensington, where were you the night your sister was murdered?”
“I was attending a conference in Singapore. And, before you ask, I was the keynote speaker so about two hundred people saw me. I think you’ll find my alibi is solid, so I couldn’t have killed my sister. An added plus for me is that I had no motive for wanting m
y sister dead.”
“Did your sister have a love interest?”
“Ms. Samuels, my sister and I were not close. She is—or was—ten years my junior. By the time she was old enough to be interesting, I had already left the family home and was away at school. I seldom returned here until I accepted the department chair position at the medical institute.”
“Is there anything you know about her that might help us in our inquiries?”
“I doubt it. She had a best friend who undoubtedly knows her far better than I.”
What I really want to know is if you have a love interest. I really want to kiss your luscious lips and run my hands slowly up those long legs. Phuc it, I need to get my head in the game. What the phuc is wrong with me?
“Now that we’ve established I didn’t kill my sister, can we cut to the chase? I’m a thirty-two-year-old single doctor who teaches psychiatry at the Peseshet Medical Institute. I love intelligent women, old-fashioned books, fast cars, and even faster women. Now it’s your turn,” she said, standing.
Leah would never be sure what she would have done if Cots hadn’t knocked once and entered the room. What she’d been thinking of doing was kissing Jardain, but whether she would have taken the step that would have put her directly in front of the woman, she’d never know.
“This is my associate, Cots Benurbian. Cots, Dr. Bensington.”
“I recognize you from your photographs, Doctor. They don’t do you justice,” Cots said, turning on the charm.
“We were finishing up here, Cots. Give me a few minutes. I’ll join you in the conference room,” Leah said. She knew the staff was meeting every morning to start their day. Cots undoubtedly wanted to know if she had anything she wanted them to discuss.
“Right you are. It was nice meeting you, Dr. Bensington,” Cots said as he turned to leave the room.
“Damned rotten timing on his part, don’t you think?” Jardain asked.
“Or perfect timing, depending on your point of view.”
“Will you have dinner with me tonight?” Jardain asked again.
Before she could chicken out and say no, Leah said, “Yes.”
“Shall I pick you up at your home at eight?”
