Lust, Loathing and a Little Lip Gloss (8 page)

“They murdered Enrico,” Maria whimpered. She was still in the fetal position and Toby was rubbing her back. “Someone…someone took my beloved
amore
from me!”

“So that’s it then?” Toby asked, looking up at us, “Enrico’s really dead?”

Anatoly nodded just as we heard the sounds of sirens in the distance. I silently prayed that the murderer was still around, hiding in the dark corners of Enrico’s condo. As creepy as it was to think that someone so violent could be so close, I was also aware of how all this was going to look to the police if they
didn’t
immediately catch the killer. If the fact that I had discovered two dead bodies in a short period of time bothered
me,
it was sure to bother the police even more.

“You fucking bitch.”

I jumped and then peered into Enrico’s apartment from where the voice came…not a human voice, but the voice of that seemingly mild-mannered bird now perched on top of the sofa. He stared at me with his sharp avian eyes and repeated, “You fucking bitch.”

The bird went out of focus as did everything else. For a moment all I could see was blurred colors and the vague forms of the things and people around me as I was transported back hours earlier to that phone call. “Anatoly,” I finally managed. “I heard it.”

“Heard what?” he asked.

“The murder. I heard Enrico die.”

6

People frequently claim to be going insane, but I’ve never heard anyone say they were going sane. Perhaps it’s because sanity isn’t a desirable destination.

—
The Lighter Side of Death

THE KILLER WASN’T THERE. THE POLICE RUSHED INTO THE APARTMENT AND
searched every room and examined the windows, all of which were locked from the inside. The police questioned me, Anatoly and Maria separately, grilling us about every detail of our discovery. I knew they considered us to be suspects, how could they not? But no one was arrested or even detained down at the station. Maybe it was because all of our stories were consistent, or maybe it was because none of us looked stupid enough to make up a story that involved a chained locked door when we didn’t have to. After all, it would have been easier to say that the chain lock had been broken before we showed up.

In the end they let us go with the promise of more questions in the near future. Toby offered to let Maria stay at his place since she was “clearly unfit to drive,” but she refused and opted to take a cab home instead. She didn’t want to be in the same building in which her husband had been killed. We all walked out together and waited on the sidewalk for the taxi that Toby had called.

For several minutes we stood there in silence, the other neighbors now back in their own apartments, with furniture barricading their doorways, no doubt. There were plenty of police cars double parked along the street, but most of the officers were inside dusting for prints.

It was Maria who eventually broke the silence. “I know who did it,” she whispered.

I let out a little noise of surprise, and Anatoly snapped his head in her direction.

“It was Jasper Windsor.”

“Who’s Jasper Windsor?” Anatoly asked.

“He’s the owner of that scythe.”

Impulsively, I reached out and grabbed her arm. “You
did
tell the police that, right?”

“Yes, but they didn’t take me seriously.”

“Why the hell not?” I asked. “If he was the owner of the murder weapon I’d say that’s pretty damn serious!”

“You’re right,” Maria agreed. She had become so pale that her skin seemed to actually glow. “It’s very serious…. Even more serious, considering he’s dead.”

Anatoly and I exchanged looks. “Maria,” Anatoly said gently, as if he were speaking to a panicked child, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about. When you say he’s dead, are you referring to Enrico?”

“No.” Maria’s eyes seemed to be focused on an invisible object before her. “I’m referring to the man who took Enrico’s life. Jasper Windsor is dead. He’s been dead for over three hundred years.”

Anatoly and I both gave her silence as a reply. The cab came, and in less than a minute she was gone.

“Do you think she’s crazy?” I asked quietly.

“She’s not sane.”

I agreed. I had to I agree because disagreeing would require me to change my entire outlook on life and death. I watched the steam of Anatoly’s breath float into the night. I was losing my bearings. I needed to get back to my own turf, where I could feel safe. “Take me home, Anatoly.”

He draped his arm over my shoulders. “We’re going. I’ll be by your side all night long.”

I pretended to sleep until I was sure Anatoly was dead to the world, then I allowed my eyes to pop open and laid there, staring at the ceiling. Mr. Katz had planted himself on my stomach as usual, but like me, he seemed to be holding on to at least some semblance of consciousness. His yellow eyes blinked at me and I could feel the gentle vibrations of his body as he purred. He hadn’t had any problems adjusting to his new home. I hadn’t, either, not really. Yes, I was having a little difficulty resigning myself to the fact that I was going to have to spend time with Venus twice a month for a year, but even after that disastrous séance I still thought it was a fair price to pay for the house.

This evening I had seen something truly horrible, gruesome and undeniably frightening. I had expected to carry that fear with me into the morning hours. Hell, I had expected to carry it well into next week, but the minute I had walked into the doors of my home it had dissipated. This place was my haven. And yet my sense of security was mixed with an odd sense of agitation. There was something I was supposed to do…but what?

Say goodbye, Sophie.

I froze, literally unable to move. It had been that voice again…or at least it had been the words, because, as before, I couldn’t actually identify a voice. It was like the words had been pushed inside my brain, but they weren’t exactly my thoughts. I knew that…but then…I couldn’t know that because that wasn’t possible.

Anatoly was still fast asleep. I glanced at Mr. Katz. He wasn’t purring anymore. In fact, his hair was sticking straight up and his eyes were wide with alarm. He had heard it, too. Me and my cat.

My eyes slid from side to side. No one was in the room, and there was no evidence that there had been anyone in the room other than me and Anatoly. Except for that scent…what was that? Strawberry air freshener? No, it was way too faint for that…it was more like…like flavored lip gloss, the kind little girls wear when they’re trying to look grown-up. Strawberry lip gloss.

But I didn’t have any strawberry lip gloss.

Without warning, Mr. Katz jumped off of my stomach onto an unpacked suitcase and then onto the floor. In the bedroom doorway he paused, looked back at me and then continued on his way out. Careful not to wake Anatoly, I climbed out of bed and followed him. I don’t know why I did that, but it seemed like the right thing to do. No, more than that. It felt like the thing I was
supposed
to do. Mr. Katz was now standing at the top of the stairs. When he saw me he started his descent into the living room. Carefully, quietly, I followed him, the odd fragrance hovering around me making me calm but alert. He walked through the living room and then stopped—right in front of the picture of me and my father.

I was beginning to feel a little unsteady on my feet. I actually pinched myself because the only way that any of this made sense was if I was dreaming. But I wasn’t. I was awake and seriously confused. I squatted down next to my pet and studied him carefully. “Mr. Katz, what’s going on?”

I talk to my cat all the time, but this was the first time I had ever spoken to him half expecting a verbal response. But if there was a response it wasn’t from him. It was from the upstairs floorboards where I heard a very distinctive thump.

All sense of safety left me. The fragrance was gone, if it had ever really been there at all. Suddenly being down in the living room alone didn’t seem like such a good idea.

There was another thump, in a different place this time.

It was pretty obvious that Mr. Katz had heard these noises, too, but this time he reacted by fleeing under the coffee table.

A third thump in yet another place on the ceiling above me.

“Sophie?” Anatoly called from upstairs, his voice groggy and puzzled.

I brought my hand to my cheek as if checking to make sure I still had a head. Of course it was Anatoly. What was I expecting? “I’m down here,” I called up.

A minute later Anatoly was slowly making his way down the stairs wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and mussed hair. As he got closer I could see that his eyes were slightly red with exhaustion and somewhat bewildered. “You
are
down here.”

“What, you thought I was lying?”

“No, but I thought I heard…” His voice trailed off and he lifted his eyes up to the ceiling. “Never mind, I must have been dreaming.”

“What did you think you heard?” I tried to keep my voice calm, but I was getting worried again.

“I thought I heard you walking around upstairs,” he said, nonchalantly. “But now that I’ve found you…” He reached to pull me toward him, but I stepped away.

“You thought you heard me upstairs?”

“Yes, but clearly I was mistaken. Sophie, what’s gotten into you?”

“I thought I heard
you
walking around upstairs.”

“I
did
walk from the bedroom to the staircase so…”

“I think someone’s in the house.”

Anatoly met my eyes. I knew he was trying to gauge if I was joking or just suffering from a brief bout of hysteria thanks to the earlier events of the evening, but something in my expression must have told him that neither was the case. Quietly, he crossed to the corner of the living room where he had left his duffle bag from work, and from it he pulled out a .45. “Stay here,” he whispered, and with a sharpness and stealth that most of us can’t pull off at three o’clock in the morning, he crept up the stairs. Watching him do this in boxer shorts was kind of a surreal experience. Daniel Craig couldn’t have been better.

In a moment he disappeared from sight. Mr. Katz continued to crouch under the coffee table. When I had followed him down the stairs a few minutes earlier, he had seemed like he had some kind of clarity of thought and was trying to communicate with me. Now he just seemed like…well, like a cat.

I tore open one of my many boxes and dug my hand into a sea of crumpled newspaper and Bubble Wrap looking for something heavy. My hand settled on a crystal vase. Dena had used a similar vase to defend both of us from an attacker once and ever since I had grown an affinity for them. This one was heavier than the one Dena had used. Obviously it wasn’t a gun, and the taped-on Bubble Wrap might soften the blow, but still, it served the purpose of making me feel a little tougher. I may not have bullets, but I do have Lalique.

According to the wall clock, Anatoly was up there for a full four minutes before coming down to give me the all clear. “It probably was just me you heard after all,” he reasoned. “The mind can plays tricks in the middle of the night.”

Yes, but can the mind make your cat start acting like a small, laconic version of the Lion of Narnia? And what about the voice? But I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I collapsed on the couch and motioned for Anatoly to join me.

“I take it you couldn’t sleep.”

“I was pretending for your sake.”

“You need to improve your acting skills. I knew you were awake.”

“Then why did you fall asleep?”

“Am I required to have insomnia every time you do?”

“On the nights that I discover a dead body, yes, you’re required to stay up with me.”

“Sophie, that’s at least eight or nine nights a year.”

I smacked him on the thigh and he laughed softly. “I
am
sorry you had to see that,” he said with a slightly more somber tone. He pulled me to him and I rested my head on his shoulder. “You’ve had a tough time of it lately.”

“Yeah, but I do have a new house.”

“Almost have it,” Anatoly said softly. “It’ll be yours in about a week.”

I didn’t argue this time. I mean, technically, he was right. How was I supposed to explain that this house belonged to me in a way that completely transcended any technicality?

“I think,” Anatoly continued, “that this house is too big for one person.”

I turned my face away. I had planned on asking him to live with me, but…but there was something I was supposed to do first. There was that sense of agitation again. What
was it?
What was I forgetting? Or had I ever known?

“Sophie? Are you all right?”

“What? Oh, yeah, I’m okay. I’m just…thinking.”

“About Enrico?” Anatoly nodded without waiting for my answer. It was one of the few times he had ever misread me. Well, there was that short period of time right after we met when he thought I was a serial killer, but other than that small error he had pretty much had my number from the get-go. But since he had brought Enrico up…

“How did the killer get out?” I asked. “I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I,” Anatoly said. “And nobody commits suicide by slitting his own throat with a scythe. I’m not even sure it’s possible. Besides, he was in the middle of cooking a meal. That’s not usually the time people choose to end it all.”

“Yeah, but he was a chef. Maybe his soufflé didn’t rise and he got a little emotional…oh God, I can’t believe I just said that. I’m a horrible, horrible person.”

“No, you’re just a normal person,” Anatoly assured me. “A person who has had to toughen up due to life experience and several close calls. But to get back to the point, suicide doesn’t make sense here. It also doesn’t seem possible that someone could get out of an apartment and then lock it from the inside.”

“Did you ever watch
The X-Files?
” I asked.

“No.”

“Well, there was this one episode where there was a murderer who could sort of change his genetic makeup in order to squeeze through otherwise prohibitively narrow openings…”

“I don’t think that’s what we’re dealing with.”

“Neither do I, but it would be interesting if it was.”

“No doubt.” He smiled at Mr. Katz, who had finally come out from under the coffee table and was making a pillow out of Anatoly’s feet. “Who knows, maybe the police will find fingerprints, catch the killer and this whole thing will be over in the morning.”

“If it doesn’t play out that way we’re going to remain prime suspects.”

“For a while that’s true,” Anatoly agreed. “But not for long. We have absolutely no relationship with Enrico and we just met Maria today. Establishing a motive for murder would be nearly impossible. And the idea that we would break into the apartment of a man we didn’t know with a woman we didn’t know and then sit idly by while she took out a scythe…that’s beyond the suspension of disbelief.”

“I hope you’re right.” As I let myself become enveloped in his warmth, my eyelids became significantly heavier. Maybe my mind
had
been playing tricks on me. There had been no voice; Mr. Katz had not had a moment of depth and complexity; there had been no inexplicable thumps in the night. “I think I’m getting sleepy now,” I offered.