Darker Than Any Shadow

Chapter Seventeen

On my way back to Trey’s, I finally got the return call from Cummings.

“Ms. Randolph?”

“Hi there! Detective, remember me? I’m the woman—”

“I remember, trust me. What can I do for you?”

So I explained about the CDs, and he thanked me, and then he hung up before I could quiz him further. So much for my good citizenship paying off. But I’d known when I made the call that the APD did not do quid pro quo, especially not with a “person of interest.” I’d done my duty, however, and felt mildly virtuous.

I found Trey sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of vanilla chai at hand and a deck of tarot cards spread out in front of him. I sat in the opposite chair, not saying a word as he contemplated the seventy-eight cards facedown in roughly an hourglass shape.

Some people thought Trey had a photographic memory. I had too, for a while. But his skill at remembering wasn’t eidetic; it was hard won. The damage to his pre-frontal cortex had cost him some executive function and some short term recall, but his spatial orientation remained spot on. And that was the trick—he remembered the “what” by remembering the “where.”

“Are you ready to turn them over?” I said.

He nodded. “Seven of Swords.”

I flipped over the first card, the one at the top left of the hourglass. It was indeed the seven—a furtive, self-satisfied man sneaking away with seven swords on his shoulder—but I didn’t say a word. I kept turning over cards one by one. If Trey called it right, I left it alone. If he got it wrong, I flipped it back over. When we were finished, he counted.

“Seventy of seventy-eight.”

“Not bad.”

“But not better.”

I watched him as made a note of the score, then gathered the deck for another try. He looked tired. I wondered for a second if I’d lied to Garrity, if Trey wasn’t okay. But then he cut the deck with a sharp snap, a determined set to his jaw, and I felt better.

“Garrity pretty much confirmed my hypothesis,” I said. “Lex Anderson was a persona.”

I filled him in as he began laying out cards in a new pattern, a square this time. He listened to the story, but didn’t reply.

I scooted my chair closer. “Okay, this may sound off the wall, but what do you know about pyrotechnics?”

“Like fireworks?”

“Like something that could set a fire while you were somewhere else.”

“You mean timed incendiary devices.” Trey stopped dealing cards and sent an inquisitive look my way. “What did Garrity tell you?”

“Absolutely nothing. That’s the point. He does that whenever I get close to something important that he’s not supposed to talk about.”

“If the arson team finds evidence of a remote device, then no one has an alibi.”

“True. But such a thing can’t be put together at the last minute, can it? I mean, you can’t McGyver one out of pocket lint and matches, right?”

He resumed dealing cards. “That’s not my field of expertise. I’ll ask Marisa when I get to work in the morning. I’m sure we have someone on staff—”

“No, don’t bother the boss lady. She’s got enough on her plate.”

Trey didn’t argue, which was good. The last thing I wanted was Marisa involved in the situation. She didn’t like me and didn’t trust me, and the feeling was entirely mutual.

I stood up. “One more thing. They’re having a memorial for Lex in an hour, at Lupa. We should go.”

“Why?”

“Because it’ll be like in the movies, when the famous detective gathers all the suspects in the drawing room.”

Trey remained seated, eyes on the cards. His index finger began a restless tap-tap-tapping, however.

I kept my voice nonchalant. “Lex’s murder is like a broken-up puzzle, pieces scattered everywhere. But tonight, all the pieces will be in one place again. Maybe some of them will fit together.” I shrugged. “But if you want to stay here, that’s okay. I understand.”

He lifted his head. “Have you discovered something you aren’t telling me?”

“A tiny something, maybe two. But I promise to fill you in on the way.”

He narrowed his eyes and sent his gaze traveling across my face, down to my mouth, where it lingered, and not in that sexy way either. Apparently satisfied that I was being truthful, he nodded once, crisply.

“Okay. I’ll go. Let me finish this first.”

I suppressed the grin. He began flipping over cards, starting with the one in the upper left-hand corner. Sure enough, it was the damn Seven of Swords again, the sneak thief. Always on the run, always too clever for his own good.

***

We got to Lupa early. The front of the restaurant was a shrine now, featuring a life-sized poster of Lex, the red streak in his black hair as brilliant as a splash of blood. Bouquets of flowers clustered on the sidewalk like a strange overgrown garden. There were stuffed animals too, and sympathy cards, some of them Hallmark, some of them hand-lettered.

Frankie tended the scene. She spared us a quick glance, then adjusted the teddy bears charmingly around the biggest card, the one from the Atlanta Spoken Word Team. I noticed it featured a spanking new head shot of her right in the center. Padre’s work, no doubt.

I stepped over a box of white tealight candles in cuplike holders to stand beside her. Her forehead wrinkled as she tried to remember who I was, but she said nothing. She straightened the flowers to make sure they didn’t block the Performance Poetry International logo, then appraised the scene with a critical eye.

“Everything going okay?” I said.

“Memorials are hard. But the team needs to mourn.”

She said it like marking an item off a checklist. On the sidewalk, a mike stand, podium, and sound system were getting a final inspection. Already a crowd gathered, including a few people with cameras and notebooks. Reporters. One of them squatted to examine an enormous oil painting propped on a speaker, a swirling mélange of gray-black rivers and stark white spirals. I blinked, and the swirls became words, poems, branching circles of verses.

Frankie saw me looking. “I dedicated that particular painting to Lex. I was hoping some of his family would be here to claim it, but no one has been able to find his next of kin.”

I tilted my head and looked closer. Yep, there was Frankie’s signature, taking up almost an entire corner of the piece.

“That’s amazing work. Is it one of your poems?”

She nodded. The compliment left her unmoved, and I wondered why. Was she used to praise? Indifferent? So completely sure of herself that compliments were irrelevant?

I examined the painting. I didn’t know a lot about art, but it impressed me nonetheless. The way the words surprised you, hidden as they were in abstraction.

I cleared my throat. “Hey Frankie, I have a quick question.”

She didn’t look up. “What is it?”

“Friday night, I tripped on a stack of CDs in the hall as we were evacuating, and I’m trying to figure out who brought them. Any ideas?”

“No.”

“Padre said it might have been your assistant?”

Her head snapped back in astonishment. “Debbie? What’s she got to do with this?”

“Somebody brought CDs. She seems a likely candidate.”

“If she brought them, she didn’t tell me about it. She was supposed to be at the gallery cataloging the new inventory. But I’ll be sure to ask her.” Frankie dusted her hands briskly. “I’ve got to get to work. The show starts in an hour, and the turnout is predicted to be massive.”

She headed down the sidewalk. I watched her go, an earth-toned vision as regal as a queen, as single-minded as Napoleon.

I touched Trey’s arm. “Lying?”

Trey cocked his head. “Probably. But only pieces.”

“Which pieces?”

“Hard to tell. Your question about Debbie sparked the shift. She’d been telling the truth before that, without hesitation.”

I thought about the implications of that for a second. And the fact that Frankie had called the memorial a “show.” But then I thought about why I was there, to pump people for information, and I felt even worse.

I took Trey’s arm. “Come on. Let’s find the team.”

***

Lupa was a beehive, with most of the action concentrated in the kitchen. We entered against the outgoing tide of the film crew, a dozen tan guys in jeans and khaki shorts, goateed and baseball-capped, their arms filled with boom microphones and water bottles. They chattered about grip trucks and bad blockings, ignoring us completely.

Jackson worked the burners, his attention focused on a simmering stockpot. At his elbow, a lump of dough the size of a groundhog waited in a bowl for its punching down. He looked our way.

“Did y’all bring Rico?”

“No. He’s not here?”

“He should be, but he’s not.”

“He’s probably running late. I’ll call him.”

I remembered Garrity’s warning and kept a lot of distance between Jackson and me. I’d filled Trey in on the details, but he didn’t seem to be in red alert mode. He stayed at my side, attentive but placid.

Jackson dropped his eyes to his work station. “Sorry about last night. Cricket told me I overreacted big time.”

I chose my words carefully. “We’ve all been on edge.”

“Yeah, but that’s no excuse to go off like I did. No hard feelings?”

“None here.”

He accepted my forgiveness gruffly, then gestured toward a card table covered with butcher paper. “Sit. I’ll bring you two something to eat.”

I sat. Trey did too, although somewhat hesitantly. Jackson ladled out two bowls of soup, topping each with a freshly grated haystack of Parmesan-Reggiano. He brought them to our table.

“My mother’s recipe. Minestra maritata. Except that I use collards instead of kale.”

Italian wedding soup, thick with greens and marble-sized meatballs. My stomach growled. Trey examined his quizzically, not picking up his spoon. I stirred the cheese into mine, watching it melt.

“It’s for the team,” Jackson said. “Frankie’s requiring everyone to show up in proper mourning mode, so I thought some comfort food would be appropriate.”

His words held a caustic hit of sarcasm. So I wasn’t the only one who didn’t care for Frankie’s drill team approach to memorial services.

“Did you help her set up the display?”

“No, that’s all Frankie. She even rented a giant TV to show Lex’s last performance. Have you seen the wall out there?”

“Hard to miss.”

Jackson moved to the sink to wash his hands. “I’m pretty sure Frankie made most of it. She’s even managed to get one of her paintings in the act. Throw in the damn documentary people complaining about the lighting, and Padre making us sign a million release statements, and it’s been a circus. I’ll be glad when it’s over.”

He returned to the center station and started chopping chives, keeping his knuckles turned under in the way of professional chefs. The kitchen was full of knives, dozens of them. I remembered the layout of the restaurant, how one of the kitchen doors led right into the hallway, fifteen feet from the bathroom. How hard would it have been to snatch one of the blades, plunge it in Lex’s heart, then trot right back to the kitchen and throw it in a sink of hot soapy water?

Jackson caught me staring. “The cops left my big knives alone. The chef knife, the cleaver. They took my paring knives, though, all of them.”

“Any of them the murder weapon?”

“How would I know? I didn’t kill the guy.”

“So Cummings hasn’t said—”

“He hasn’t said shit. And he hasn’t brought my knives back either. I swear, if some a*shole killed Lex with one of my new Forschners…”

He shook his head like a grizzly bear. I didn’t dare look at Trey, even though I was dying to see his appraisal. Instead, I took a bite of the soup. It tasted as rich as it smelled.

I licked the spoon and tried to sound nonchalant. “What about the stolen money? Any leads on that?”

“Nope. Which makes that another problem I don’t see a solution for.” He ladeled soup into a take-out container. “I gotta take this to Cricket. Y’all excuse me a second.”

Jackson left us in the kitchen. I waited until I was sure he’d cleared the room before I spoke. “So?”

“So he’s telling the truth.”

“About what?”

“About the murder. He didn’t kill Lex. Nonetheless.”

“Technically true but deliberately evasive?”

Trey nodded. “He’s hiding something.”

I sighed and spooned up more soup, garlic-scented steam rising from the bowl. “Everyone is. This group carries secrets like dogs carry fleas.”

The kitchen smelled like a Tuscan villa, redolent with oregano and rosemary. But Trey examined his soup as if it were a science experiment, not touching a drop.

I gestured with my spoon. “You’re not eating.”

He shook his head. I looked over my shoulder to make sure we were still alone, then leaned forward and dropped my voice.

“You think Jackson might being trying to poison us?”

“No.” Trey leaned forward and dropped his voice too. “Do you think he might be trying to poison us?”

“No. He wouldn’t be taking poisoned soup to Cricket.”

And yet I remembered the look in Jackson’s eyes from the night before, hot-blooded and aggressive. Suddenly Garrity’s words felt like a warning sticker emblazoned with a skull and crossbones.

“You said he was telling the truth, though, that he didn’t kill Lex?”

Trey nodded. My stomach growled again.

“So he’s not a killer.”

Trey shook his head. “I said he didn’t kill Lex. I never said he wasn’t a killer.”

I sighed and pushed the bowl away. “Fine. We’ll go back out front. If someone’s trying to kill us, at least it will be obvious there.” I wiped the last of the broth from my mouth. “And keep 911 on speed dial, okay?”

Trey stood. “I always do.”