The Ambitious Card (An Eli Marks Mystery) (21 page)

She glanced in my direction. I was looking at my shoes. “How about the security tapes?”

“They’ve got cameras on all the entrance doors, in all the elevators, in all the stairwells. Our guys sat with the building’s security guards and went through the tapes. No one who came in that doesn’t belong, with the exception of Boone and your ex. We’ve got men watching the monitors now.”

“What about motive? For Boone? And, for that matter, Eli?” she added as an afterthought.

“Looks like Boone just broke up with that girl, Nova something. She was previously involved with Grey and with Ms. Dupree. Apparently she swings both ways.” Deirdre merely grunted and he continued. “Might be some sort of revenge, crime of passion thing. I sent a car to pick her up.”

“Where’s Eli fit in all this?”

I snuck a look at them. Homicide Detective Fred Hutton was chewing on his lower lip. Deirdre stared up at him and after several seconds he looked away. Poor bastard. “I’ll admit that, besides proximity…we don’t have much to go on.”

“Let’s face it, Fred, you don’t have anything to go on with him. He’s met the other suspect once, has virtually no connection to the three victims. All you’ve got is a playing card that keeps turning up at the crime scenes. And that’s not going to hold up in court.”

“So you just want to let him go? Again?”

“I think that would be the wisest course of action at this point.”

“Okay. And then what happens if someone else dies and we prove Eli did it and the press finds out we brought him in twice and let him go twice, on the advice of the District Attorney’s office?”

“Then I’m going to be updating my résumé and will probably end up going back to the Ice Capades. But until that time, the District Attorney’s office doesn’t feel that there is sufficient evidence for a conviction in this case.”

“That’s your final answer?”

“That’s my final answer.”

I tried to contain a laugh but I couldn’t and it burst out, an explosive snort that was louder than the laugh would have been if I hadn’t tried to suppress it. They both turned in unison and stared at me.

“Sorry,” I said. “For a moment it sounded like I was flipping channels and had stumbled on
‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’
”

Homicide Detective Fred Hutton ignored my observation. “Marks, you’re free to go. Again. I’ll get someone to uncuff you.”

Deirdre walked me out of the office and down the long corridor to the elevator without saying a word. I pressed the button and we waited in silence for the elevator to arrive.

“I hope I’m not getting you into any trouble with all of this,” I said. “I mean, I appreciate what you’re doing on my behalf.”

“Damn straight,” she said, giving the button a couple of violent but wholly unnecessary jabs with her index finger. “Now do me a favor and put as much distance as you can between yourself and the other people currently involved in this investigation.”

“I will absolutely do that, no problem,” I said as the bell signaling the elevator dinged and the doors began to part. Before they were completely opened, I was greeted with a sound that fell somewhere between a yelp of joy and a screech of surprise.

“Eli!” the voice yelled and I looked over in time to see Nova bounding out of the elevator and throwing her arms around me. She was dressed in tight blue jeans and a colorful shirt that seemed to be an artful blend of peasant blouse and halter-top, which left a healthy serving of her tanned midsection uncovered.

“Thank God you’re here. Arianna’s dead and they’ve brought Boone in and everything is just colossally fucked up.”

Behind Nova were two uniformed cops and from the puzzled expressions on their faces I guessed that they had been the ones assigned to pick her up and bring her in for questioning. I imagined that it had been a very interesting car ride, one that they would be recounting to their co-workers for years to come.

“Let me guess, you’re Nova,” Deirdre said, as she stepped forward and took charge. “I’m Deirdre Sutton-Hutton, Assistant District Attorney. Thanks for coming down. We just need a few minutes to ask you some questions about the unfortunate events of the last couple days. These two officers will take you to our conference room and get you settled. I’ll be in with a representative of the Homicide department in just a moment to speak with you.”

I’m not sure if Nova understood, or even heard, much of what Deirdre said. But, as I’d discovered many times in the past, Deirdre’s tone and manner were so self-assured, that people generally slipped into a docile mode and instinctively did what she said.

Such was the case with Nova, who unhooked her arms from my neck, smiled meekly, and followed the two cops down the hall. Before she had gotten too far, she turned back to me. “And Eli, thanks again for staying with me the other night. It was great.” Nova then averted her eyes from Deirdre and continued down the hall with the cops.

Deirdre turned slowly and gave me a look that was hard to read.

“It’s not what you think,” I began, trying to come up with something plausible on the fly.

“What I think is that she probably came on to you in a big way and, chaste magic man that you are, you spent the night sleeping two feet from her bed, sitting in a chair, fully clothed.”

“Oh,” I said, taken aback by her prescience. “Then I guess it is what you think.”

“Go home, Eli.”

I stepped into the elevator and turned to give her a friendly wave, but she was already headed back down the hall.

Chapter 16

I had gotten home from the police station, walking the several blocks to the Carlyle parking ramp to retrieve my car.

I drove home via side streets, my head still feeling a bit woozy, either from the crack on the head the night before or from the hospital breakfast I’d been forced to eat that morning.

After giving Harry an abbreviated report on the events of the previous day and night and that morning, we both agreed that he could manage the shop while I went up to my apartment to lie down. Which I did with a vengeance, sleeping for what I guessed to be several hours.

At some point, while I was sleeping, I heard a persistent knocking.

The sound of someone knocking on my apartment door is a very rare occurrence. In the months since I moved back in, I don’t think it had happened even once.

When I was younger, in my teen years, Aunt Alice and Uncle Harry got in the habit of simply calling me on the phone when my presence was required. Neither one wanted to scale the steep stairs to the third floor, stairs even steeper and more treacherous than those they used to go up and down into the shop from their rooms on the second floor.

At first I thought the knocking was part of a dream. In my dream I was still following Boone, driving slowly behind him as he navigated the twisty streets of Prospect Park. I heard knocking and assumed that there was a problem with the car, but even after I pulled the car over and opened the hood, the knocking persisted. Then something pulled me out of the dream and back to the surface of reality and I woke up.

The knocking continued and it took another long moment for me to realize that someone was at my apartment door.

I stumbled to the door, not fully cognizant of the fact that I was only wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt. I swung the door open, fully expecting to see Harry and instead came face-to-face with a large gift basket. Wrapped around the basket was a wide, red ribbon.

“I come bearing gifts,” a muffled female voice said from behind the basket. “Are you in any condition to have visitors?” Megan’s face peeked out from behind the bountiful basket and her eyes widened playfully when she glimpsed my attire. “Perhaps I should come back later,” she suggested.

I woke up, fully and completely, in an instant.

“No, no,” I said, as I turned toward my bedroom. “Just give me a second.” I scampered—yes, that’s right, scampered—into the bedroom, reappearing a few moments later in jeans and a cleaner t-shirt. “To what do I owe this surprise visit?”

Megan was already in the apartment and had placed the large basket on the kitchen table.

I stepped around her and shut the door, wondering for a moment if it was more circumspect to leave it slightly ajar. I decided that dorm rules didn’t apply after age thirty and closed the door.

“I heard about Arianna this morning and got very upset,” Megan said as she straightened the ribbon that surrounded the basket. “So I walked over to your shop to talk to you. Harry explained that you were in the hospital, and so I got this basket together, but by the time I was ready to deliver it to the hospital, he said you were already home. He told me I could come up,” she added.

There was an awkward silence as we stared at each other, and then Megan redirected our attention toward the basket. “Anyway, these are just a few things to help you recuperate, although you seem to be doing just fine. How’s your head?”

I gingerly touched the bump on the back of my head. “Still sore. But getting better.” I looked at the basket, which was filled to overflowing with various and sundry items. “This looks amazing.”

“Well, it’s a mix of useful items along with some other, I don’t know, more playful things.” She began to unload the basket. “First, we have some Chicken Matzo Ball soup from Cecil’s Deli. Powerful stuff. Good for what ails you.” She handed me a quart-size plastic container, which was still warm. I held it between my hands for a few moments, enjoying the warmth and letting the aroma waft around me, and then set it on the counter.

“Just as powerful,” she said as she dug into the basket further, “is chocolate. Never underestimate the power of chocolate.” She handed me two small wrapped boxes. “I didn’t know if you were a dark chocolate guy or a milk chocolate guy, so I got you both,” she added. “Personally, I don’t have any preference, so I’ll be happy to eat any you don’t like.”

I set the chocolate on the table and watched with interest as she continued to empty the basket. She was having fun and that made it even more fun to watch.

“In case you get bored while recuperating, I got you a book. But not just any book. My favorite book.” She held up a hardcover book. “Funniest book you’ll ever read. Ian Frazier’s
Coyote vs. Acme
. Funny, funny stuff.” I held up my hand in a just-a-minute gesture and she stopped talking, holding the book in midair.

One of the benefits of living in a small apartment is that you don’t have to go far to find something. I took two steps, which moved me out of the kitchen and into the living room. I reached up to a shelf on one of the two bookcases that line one wall of the living room and pulled out a book, identical to the one she was holding except that the cover was more frayed and worn. Megan gave a small yelp of joy. “You’ve already got it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, now you have two.” She handed me the book. “But this one’s inscribed.” I started to open the front cover, but she put her hand on top of mine to stop me. “Not now. Wait ’til I’m gone. Otherwise I’ll get embarrassed.” She returned to the basket and I gently set the book on the table, my curiosity now completely piqued.

“Back to foodstuffs. Chicken soup is vitally important while you’re sick, but for me the real cure can be found in sugared cereals.” The next items out of the basket were six small boxes of sugared cereals, all held together under one cellophane wrapper. “Each box says that it’s one serving size, but I think we both know that all six boxes equals one serving.” She handed me the cereals and I turned the package over in my hands, seeing several favorites and feeling the pull of their sugary siren song.

She stopped digging for a second and turned to give me a serious look. “Eli, you may not agree with this, but I thought you needed a stuffed animal of some kind,” she said, “as the stuffed animal offers a unique level of comfort that may be missing in the life of someone who lives alone. I’m speaking from my current, personal experience. However, you are a very manly man, and so the choice of stuffed animal was particularly important. With that in mind, I believe I have made the correct selection.”

From the basket she pulled a small, stuffed version of the cartoon Tasmanian Devil. “He looks quite fierce,” she said as she ceremoniously handed it to me, “but in reality he is quite soft. I tested him out for you.”

I stood there, holding my stuffed Tasmanian Devil in one hand and the boxes of sugared cereal in the other, feeling better than I had in days, perhaps even years.

My headache was gone and the sore spot on my head was, at that moment, hardly noticeable.

Megan continued to pull items out of the basket. “I also raided my store for a few select items.”

She placed the objects on the table as she described them. “A Get Well card, handmade and hand-printed by a local artist with way too much time on her hands. She makes her own ink, for example, and I think the paper is homemade as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if she grew the trees and mashed her own pulp.” I picked up the envelope, which had the rough, primitive feel of homemade paper. Megan had written ‘Eli’ in big, broad letters across the front. I set it down on top of the book.

“I also brought some candles and essential oils. The idea is, you put the oils around the wick and they burn as the candle burns. Each one has a different property and is designed for a different intended effect, like harmony, balance, serenity, and so on. I color-coded everything to make it easier for you. Oils with the red dots go on the candles with the red dots, blue goes on blue, yellow goes on yellow. You should be able to figure it out with no problem.” She set the small box filled with vials on the table, and then placed several different sized and colored candles next to the box.

“It’s like Garanimals for the New Age sect,” I suggested as I set down the cereal and the Tasmanian Devil and picked up two of the candles. I gave them each a quick sniff. Unlike the odor that permeated Arianna’s shop, these actually smelled quite pleasant.

Megan again stopped unloading the basket and looked up at me with a wicked grin. “Hey, you might be onto something there. Could be a million-dollar idea.”

She winked at me and then reached into the basket and reverently withdrew a small, purple velvet bag. A braided gold cord was used to secure the bag around the top. She undid the cord and released the contents into her hand, then held them up for my inspection.

“I’ve saved the best for last,” she said.

Her hand held four stones, crystals I guessed. Megan gazed at them with wonder, but to be honest all I saw were four small rocks. However, I did my best to look sufficiently awestruck. “What do we have here?” I asked.

“I brought you some exquisite crystals,” Megan answered, practically cooing at the stones as if she were holding a handful of tiny, adorable kittens. “They all emit a different kind of energy, working on singular vibrational levels. Each one will vibrate with your aura in a different manner. For example, this blue one,” she said, picking it up and holding it gingerly with two fingers, “is specifically attuned for healing.” She gently handed it to me.

“So, what do I need to do?” I asked as I rolled it around on my fingertips like I would a coin during my magic act.

“Nothing, really,” she said. “Crystals are natural forms of energy. You just need proximity. You can carry them in your pocket, put them by your bedside—”

“Wear them as jewelry?” I offered.

She shook her head. “Maybe, but sometimes surrounding them with metal can have a negative impact on their intensity.”

“Kind of like how when you put Kryptonite in a lead container, it no longer has any power over Superman?”

She laughed. “Exactly the same principle.” She picked another stone and placed it in my hand. The gesture was surprisingly intimate and, well, erotic. “This is a black crystal,” she said, looking up to meet my eyes. “It provides protection.”

“Great. Where was it last night when I was getting clonked on the head?”

She laughed, quieter this time, and picked up the third stone. “This is a gold crystal, which increases wisdom.”

“Yet another item that would have come in handy yesterday,” I said as I took the crystal from her. Our fingers touched for much longer than was necessary for the exchange. She picked up the final stone from her palm and held it up.

“And this is my favorite. The red crystal. It provides power, with a particular emphasis on one type of energy.”

“What type would that be?” I asked, noticing that she was moving closer toward me.

“Sexual energy,” she said and before the last syllable had left her lips she was pressing those very same lips against mine. Our positioning was a little awkward, with the kitchen table between us, but we managed to get around it without disengaging, and before I knew it we were as one, standing there in my tiny kitchen, arms wrapped around each other, trying to find just the right placement of our various limbs.

“Hold me closer,” she whispered during a brief break for breathing.

I couldn’t help myself and quoted Groucho Marx. “If I were any closer,” I said, “I’d be behind you.”

As funny as that may have been, the only reaction it produced was a longer and even more passionate kiss. And then, just as quickly as it had started, she stepped back, pushing herself away from me. She ran a quick hand through her hair and straightened her blouse.

“I’m sorry,” she said, not quite looking me in the eye. “I probably shouldn’t have done that.”

“Well,” I said, taking a step toward her, “If you hadn’t, I would have.”

She held up her hand. “No, no, it’s too soon. This is too fast. I’m confused.”

I took a half step toward her, and she countered with a full step backward. She was almost to the door. “I’m sorry, Eli,” she said again. “I think you’re great, really I do. It’s me. I’m a mess. I’m—”

She didn’t even finish the sentence, just yanked open the door and raced through the doorway.

By the time I got to the doorframe, she had made surprising progress down the stairs. She rounded the corner two flights below and vanished into the magic shop, which struck me as ironic for about half a second.

I stood there for a long moment before I slowly shut my door.

The apartment, which had always seemed small, now felt even more undersized. The sudden mix of emotions that had raced through my system in the last three minutes, from instant elation to instant rejection, gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything since that morning, and I wasn’t even entirely clear how long ago that was.

I saw the container of chicken soup on the counter and then shifted my gaze over to the two boxes of chocolate on the table, vacillating between the options—healthy food versus a quick shot of pleasure-inducing sugar.

And then I saw the book she had left for me.

Masochist that I am, I immediately picked it up and flipped to her inscription. In a flowery hand, in blue ink, she had written, “Eli, hope this book makes you smile as much as you make me smile. Megan.” Under her signature were a line of small, blue Xs and Os, which if my junior high vocabulary was working properly, indicated kisses and hugs.

Figuring if I was going to feel bad, I might as well push it to the limit, I opened the Get Well card, tearing open the handmade envelope with ferocity. The card had a watercolor image of some kind on the front—a splash of yellow that might have been a sunflower or a sunset or just a splash of yellow. I opened the card and read what she had written: “Hoping that the enclosed gifts help heal what ails you. Megan.” This was also followed by a row of Xs and Os.

I was in the midst of setting the card back on the table when I heard a feeble knock at the door. I figured it was Harry, making a rare trek up the stairs to learn what I had done to inspire my guest to depart the premises with such speed.