Power of Attorney (9 page)

“Okay, well how what Seth? You know, our brother-in-law?”

“Okay, I’ll give him Hannah.  That still leaves you and Sarah for me to look out for, and Lily of course.  That goes without saying.”

“You can look out for Lily, but Sarah and I can look out for ourselves.  We’re your
big
sisters; remember?  Let’s not forget that I’m the one who beat up Stan Horowitz when he stole your new baseball glove.”

“I was six. You were eight.  Let it go already.”

“The point is that you don’t have to worry about me.  I’m a big girl and I can handle myself just fine.”

“I’m just ...”

“Like I said,” I interrupted, “we’re just working on a case together and he’s not hitting on me. So chill, Tarzan.”

“Fine. If he gives you any trouble, though, you let me know.” 

I had to admit that I was sort of touched that my little brother wanted to defend me. “This case is simple and very minor. There’s nothing serious about it,” I reassured him.  You know the phrase “Famous Last Words?” Well, that.

T
hat night, I had planned my usual routine, but I never even got to finish the
Ally McBeal
portion of my evening because I got a call at about half past nine from Dana.

“Abby,” she said urgently.  “I just got a call from Trog. He was a nervous wreck.  More than usual, I mean.”

“What did he want?” I asked, muting an emoting Ally mid-angst.

“It was hard to tell, because he sounded like Beaker from
The Muppet Show
, but

from what I could make out, he wants us to meet him at Deon Flux’s apartment.”

“Well, I guess that he finally heard from her. Did you manage to get an address?’

“Yeah, here give me a second ...” I heard fumbling and I took the opportunity to go over to my desk and grab a pen and some paper. She came back on the line and read an address off to me as I wrote it down.  As I looked at the information she had provided, something struck me as off. “Wait a minute. Isn’t that in Society Hill?”

“You’re right. It is,” Dana agreed, sounding surprised. “I don’t think that a college student could afford that neighborhood, unless she’s an heiress or something.”

“If she were an heiress, she wouldn’t need Trog to steal a twenty dollar scientific journal article for her.  Call Lena too. I’m sure she’ll want in on this.”

Twenty minutes later, I parked my car near the address Dana had given me.  It was dark, but the streets were as well lit as streets tended to be in affluent neighborhoods. People around here knew that they were worth mugging, and clearly they were not taking any chances. I had passed two Philadelphia police cruisers patrolling in the five-block radius surrounding my present location. You probably couldn’t get two cruisers to show up for a stabbing in North Philly, at least not very quickly.

After walking a block, I turned a corner and saw three figures standing up ahead. One started waving at me, and I saw Dana’s blonde hair shimmer under a streetlight.  They were standing in front of a condominium complex that looked expensive. Ramen Noodles, my ass.

The closer, I got the more expensive looking it got, and the more traumatized looking Trog got. At that moment, yet another police cruiser turned onto the street and Trog suddenly crouched into a fetal position.  Yeah, that wouldn’t catch their attention.  I paused and held my breath for a moment. Luckily, it actually didn’t catch their attention. The cops didn’t seem the least bit curious about the gang of people hanging out on the street corner or the guy who had hit the sidewalk and rolled into a little ball. They drove right on by without even slowing. Well,
that
made me feel really safe. I rolled my eyes.

“Wait until you hear this,” Lena said as I approached.  She sounded tense. Uh oh. I knew already that this wasn’t going to be good. Lena could be passionate and hotheaded about a lot of things, but she usually kept her cool under pressure.

“Blood!” The little ball of Trog wailed.

“Hush!” Dana warned sternly, hauling him to his feet again.

“What you mean blood?” I hissed, grabbing Trog’s elbow and pulling him into the shadows.  I looked around quickly but there didn’t seem to be anyone in the immediate area. There were no more cruisers either at the moment, which oddly enough, was a relief even though one would think that police might be a welcome presence where there was blood.

“Blood. There was blood,” Trog blubbered. Just in case I had forgotten.

“He said that he got a message from Deon asking him to meet her at this address,” Dana explained calmly.  Her tone would have been reassuring; except for he fact that Dana was usually pretty calm and so that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

“He assumed that it must have been her apartment even though this place doesn’t fit with the stuff she’s told him,” Lena went on, gesturing expansively at the condos ahead of us, which looked more like somewhere that successful professionals lived rather than college students.

“She gave him the door code to get in,” Dana picked up the story.  “When he got to the right apartment he knocked but nobody answered.”

“Did he ask nobody where she was?” I couldn’t resist.

“Don’t be funny now!” Lena scolded.

“He tried the knob and the door opened,” Dana went on. “The lights were off and he called her name and walked in, thinking maybe she fell asleep or something.”

“He found a light switch and flipped it on and when he did ...” Lena continued.

“Blood! Blood! Blood!” Trog wailed again sounding like some disturbing car alarm. He then let loose a pitiful whimper and started bouncing up and down like he had to pee. He reminded me of the inhabitants of the monkey house at the zoo.

“There was apparently blood on the floor,” Dana concluded.

“Like ‘I cut my finger, blood,’ or ‘I slaughtered a herd of cattle blood’?” I asked.

“We don’t know,” Lena replied, sounding exasperated.  “I think that we need to go take a look.” Trog tried to roll up in a ball again but Dana stopped him.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she said, puffing with the exertion of keeping Trog vertical. “Maybe we should just call the police.”

“I agree with Lena,” I said. “Before we alert Philadelphia’s finest, I would like to make sure that Deon, didn’t just spill a bottle of red nail polish on her floor. The last thing we want is to look like some ‘prissy female lawyer.’ You know how Philly cops can be and word gets around.”

“Okay, but just a quick peek,” Dana agreed reluctantly. “And we must make sure that our presence here does not encourage anyone
else
to alert the police before we do. That would be worse.”

“I don’t wanna go back!” Trog whimpered.

“Fine. Then stand out here in the dark,” Lena said unsympathetically.

“Okay, I’ll go back, but you go first,” Trog sulked. Such a hero.

He directed us toward a beautifully landscaped courtyard surrounded by several multistory buildings done in a Spanish style with individual wrought iron balconies. It occurred to me that I might want to look into getting a place here myself.  Well, depending on how the blood thing turned out.

As we headed toward one of buildings, a couple emerged from the building next to it. They looked like young affluent professionals and they were laughing and chatting until they glanced up at us and paused. We all immediately froze like a bunch of department store mannequins. Realizing how suspicious
that
looked, I started trying to compensate. Remember how I said that I wasn’t a good liar but that Dana was even worse?  Yeah, that.

“So, I hope Vivian is home!” I said in an unnaturally loud voice.

“Who?” Dana asked sounding confused. Luckily, Lena the good liar, jumped in.

“Vivian!  Who we’re going to visit? Have you forgotten already why we’re here?” She snort laughed and slapped Dana on the back good-naturedly.

“Right, Vivian! Maybe these people know her,” Dana added. She was clearly trying to help out but she was so bad at this type of thing. She had managed to somehow sound both shrill and monotone at the same time. Even worse, she had now guaranteed that these two potential witnesses would remember us. I winced.

“You’re looking for someone?” the male half of the couple asked politely.

“Old friend from college,” I answered with a smile.

“We were all in the same sorority!” Dana volunteered. The couples’ eyes traveled in unison to the obviously male Trog. “It was a while ago,” she added.

“What’s Vivian’s last name?” the woman asked hesitantly.

“Smith,” I said quickly.

“Jones,” Lena said at the exact same moment.

“Smith-Jones.” I smiled, probably manically at that point.

“She’s British,” Dana said, her arms starting to flail in a very unnatural looking way. One of them accidentally caught Trog in the gut and he whimpered and doubled over in actual pain this time.

“Ah, I don’t think we know her,” the guy said, taking the woman’s arm and quickly guiding her as far away from us as possible.  Now we would really have to hurry, as the chances were good they would be flagging down the next cruiser that passed.

When they were out of earshot Lena turned to me.  “Vivian?”

“You know, Vivian Smith-Jones ... from our sorority.” I kept walking toward the building Trog had directed us to. When we all got there, he punched in the code Deon had given him and we entered into a lobby tastefully decorated in warm earth tones and Southwestern art. This really was a nice place. If you were going to bleed to death somewhere, might as well be somewhere stylish. Trog headed immediately for an elevator and we followed close behind.

“It’s on the fourth floor,” he said nervously and pushed the button. And then he pushed it again, and again, until Dana slapped his hand. As we waited, the front door opened once more and an elderly gentleman, walking a poodle with a rhinestone collar strolled our way. Perhaps “pranced” our way would be more apt. He was dressed like Cruella De Vil, the guy, not the poodle, and his toupee alone would have made Barry look butch. The poodle bared its teeth and growled at us.

“Now now, Marcello,” Liberace scolded. Then he turned his attention to us and bared his own teeth in a rather insincere looking smile. He incisors were a little pointy. He had been hanging out with Marcello too long. They were starting to look alike. “Hello? I don’t believe we’ve met. Perhaps that’s because you aren’t residents here. So why are you in the building?” Where in the hell was the elevator?

“We’re visiting,” Lena, the good liar among us, said with a smile of her own.

“Oh? Visiting whomm?” he asked emphasizing the “m” pretentiously. Finally, the damned elevator appeared.  As soon as the doors opened, I shoved Trog onboard and leapt inside with Dana and Lena hot on my heels. I slammed my finger down on the button and the doors, thankfully, closed immediately.

“A friendddd,” I called to the very offended looking poodle guy as he disappeared from sight. “I pushed the buttons for 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8. What floor we were visiting was none of his business and Marcello could keep him company while he waited.

When we got to the fourth floor, I poked my head out the door and checked in both directions. The coast was clear.  I signaled the others to follow.  We found the apartment a moment later and I tried knocking again. There was still no response, so I took a deep breath, reached down and turned the knob. The door swung open easily. Too late, something occurred to me ...
Shit. Okay, think.
  I opened my coat, grabbed the edge of my shirt and began polishing the brass knob.

“You’re cleaning now?” Trog whined.

“No, I’m not cleaning, you goofball! I’m getting rid of fingerprints. Some master criminal you would make.”

“Well, hurry up! That’s not exactly normal behavior.” Like Trog would know normal behavior.  He was really getting on my nerves.

“I don’t mean to worry you, but it might actually be criminal behavior, Abby,” Dana pointed out apologetically.  “Ours might not be the only prints on there. Further, Trog was an invited guest, so we’re technically not breaking any laws.  I’m just saying that action could be misinterpreted. Carry on, though, if you wish. ”

“Nah, I’m done tampering with evidence for now,” I said giving myself a mental kick in the ass. I had to stop watching so much
Law and Order
. I tucked my shirt back in looked inside the darkened apartment.

“Why did you turn the lights off again?” Lena asked Trog.

“Because. That was how I found it. It seemed polite.”

“Deon, are you here?” Dana called out.  “We’re friends of Trog’s. He’s here with us.” She entered the apartment and Lena and I followed closely behind while Trog hovered in the doorway.

“The lights are over the wall to the left, about ten feet in,” he offered.

“I got it,” Dana replied. I heard fumbling around and a moment later bright lights filled the room. I squinted and took a second to let my eyes adjust.

“Get in here and close that door before that poodle guy tracks us down,” Lena ordered and Trog scooted inside and shut the door behind him. Now, Lena would make a great master criminal, but I would never tell her that. Italian Americans could sometimes be a little sensitive about the implication that would make good criminals.

I looked around. The apartment was nice, but it did have a computer geek feel to it. Not only was there thousands of dollars worth of technological equipment but there were also framed Star Trek movie posters, an Iron Man Mask and various superhero action figures. 

“Whoa! Look at that!” Dana said suddenly, walking over to display case where what appeared to be a comic book took pride of place.

“I saw that!” Trog said excitedly. “1977 Marvel STAR WARS ‘A New Hope’.”

“1st printing, 30 Cent Newsstand Edition with UPC,” Dana added. “We know that if there was a crime committed here, burglary wasn’t the motive.”

“Well, it looks like there
was
a crime committed here,” Lena spoke up, “So enough contemplating the décor.”  She was staring at something and I followed her gaze. There was a puddle on the floor that looked to be about three feet in diameter. It was dark and seemed to have a viscous quality. Maybe nobody had bled to death in here, but that was no paper cut either.