Thyme to Live: A We Sisters Three Mystery (3 page)

“No, but she’s a retired teacher. And a talker.” ‘Keith’ gave a short laugh, as though Mrs. Chandra had waylaid her more than once with an armload of groceries for a nice long chat.

“Perfect. Thanks so much!”

“No problem.”

He grinned at me and then pressed Mrs. Chandra’s buzzer. As promised, she was more than willing to share her thoughts about the state of public education. After about a minute and a half, she paused to take a breath, and Victor pounced.

“Would you mind if I come inside? The intercom system makes it hard to hear you, and I want to be sure to quote you accurately. Perhaps we can talk in the hallway?” he suggested.

There were several seconds of silence. I imagined Mrs. Chandra was weighing her safety against her loneliness and desire for the limelight. “I suppose that would be all right. I’m on the fourth floor. I’ll meet you in the hallway.” A long metallic click sounded, and Victor pushed open the door.

We were in.

“Now what?” I whispered as he hurried passed the rows of metal mailboxes and through an interior door.

“Now we take the stairs to the second floor,” he said, pushing open a metal fire door and ushering me into a dimly lit stairwell.

“What about Mrs. Chandra?”

He shrugged. “She’ll get tired of waiting and go back inside. She’ll forget all about us in no time.”

I tried to shake the icky feeling that I got thinking of the gregarious old lady waiting a few floors above and mounted the stairs behind him.

W
e came
to a stop outside Helena’s door. He rattled the knob. I shifted nervously and checked the hallway for traffic. There was none. No residents headed to the laundry room. In fact, it was eerily quiet. No televisions blared from behind the rows of closed doors. No voices raised in conversation or argument floated out into the hallway. The only sounds I heard were my own shallow breathing and my thrumming heartbeat.

The only evidence that the second floor was inhabited at all was the faint aroma of stale curry that hung in the air like a cloud. As an apartment dweller myself, I’d recognize that smell anywhere. The mayor’s next initiative should be to require all Indian takeout to be eaten with a window open. Or to install functioning exhaust fans in the city’s apartment buildings. Something.

I shook my head and pulled myself back to attention. Presumably, we were about to break into Helena’s apartment. I supposed I should be paying closer attention, so that I could at least testify against Victor and get myself a better deal when we got convicted. I wondered idly if Rosemary’s boyfriend would write me a character reference, and, if so, how much weight the word of a Los Angeles detective would carry with New York law enforcement.

And then, Victor gave the doorknob another turn. It swung open.

He turned and looked at me, wide-eyed and pale-faced. Apparently, he was as surprised as I was to find it unlocked.

“Now what?”

In answer, he gulped and stepped across the threshold.

Please don’t let her be having a baby oil party
. I sent out my plea to the universe and followed him inside.

He reached behind me and pulled the door shut gently.

Or dead,
I quickly amended.
Please don’t let us find Helena’s decomposing body. Especially not dead in the middle of a baby oil party.

We stood just inside the doorway and surveyed the small apartment. The galley kitchen was dark. From what I could see, no glasses or dishes sat in the sink. But that didn’t mean much. The average kitchen in a New York apartment was too old and dated to support much cooking. Its highest and best use was as supplemental closet space. Myself, I stored my sweaters in my oven and used my pantry as a shoe rack.

My gaze traveled over the living space. A tired-looking lumpy sofa and a pale blond IKEA coffee table faced a computer monitor that probably doubled as Helena’s television. A print from the Museum of Modern Art hung over the couch. Some magazines and junk mail spilled off the coffee table in a pile.

“Helena?” Victor called. His voice wobbled and cracked.

We listened for a moment. No answer.

“‘Lena?” he repeated in a louder, stronger voice.

Silence.

He glanced at me and inclined his head toward the short hallway that no doubt led to the bathroom and bedroom. I tried to swallow but my throat was suddenly paper-dry. I nodded.

He reached for my hand as we inched forward. I was surprised by the gesture, but I welcomed it. I was about ready to jump out of my skin, and his warm, strong hand gripping mine provided instant security.

We reached the tiny bathroom. The door was open, and we stepped inside. It was standard-issue. White subway tile on the floor and walls. A cracked porcelain sink with nowhere for a girl to place her toiletries. Helena, or some previous occupant of the apartment, had combatted the lack of counter space by hanging a small glass shelf under the mirrored medicine cabinet. A toothbrush holder with one lone toothbrush, a hairbrush, and a half-empty tube of toothpaste sat on the shelf. If Helena was anything like me, the narrow medicine cabinet would be filled to capacity with creams, lotions, pills, and potions, jammed inside in a jumble that threatened to spill out every time the door swung open.

I surveyed the rest of the room. Toilet jammed up against the outside wall. Short tub, too small for a soak, with a shower head sticking out of the tile above. Helena’s shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and razor were lined up on the edge of the tub like soldiers waiting for their orders. I peered down at the bottom of the tub. No water droplets gathered near the drain.

I reached out and touched the fluffy pink towel that hung from the bathroom’s only hook. Also dry.

Victor watched me, and then he stretched his arm forward and touched the bristles on her toothbrush.

“Dry,” he said.

My heart ramped up even faster. I wondered just how fast it could go before it exploded in my chest.

“Maybe she went away for the weekend,” I suggested.

“Without her toothbrush?”

I didn’t have an answer for that, so I said nothing. I flipped open a white wicker hamper that sat in the corner beside the sink and looked inside. My racing heart stopped for a moment, and I froze.

“Victor,” I said when I finally found my voice. “You should see this.”

He gave me a curious look and leaned forward. I knew the exact moment he spotted the blood-soaked pink towel because he inhaled sharply. He reached for the towel, and I placed a hand on his arm to stop him.

“You shouldn’t touch it. Fingerprints,” I explained haltingly.

He nodded. Then he just stood there, staring down into the hamper.

I gave his sleeve a gentle tug. “We need to get out of here and call the police.”

He didn’t move for a moment. Then he dragged his eyes up to mine. “Let’s take a quick look at her bedroom.”

Noooooo. Oh, hell, no,
my mind was screaming at me to get out of this apartment pronto. But I imagined finding a bloody towel in one of my sisters’ bathrooms and just walking out, and I couldn’t. I knew I wouldn’t.

I gulped. “Okay, but make it
really
quick.”

He gave me a ‘don’t worry about it’ look. “Trust me. I don’t want to hang around in here any longer than we have to.”

He led the way, and I forced myself to put one foot in front of the other and follow him down the short hallway to the bedroom. The door was slightly ajar but not open wide enough that we could actually see inside the room. There could be anything on the other side of the door. Helena’s bloody corpse. Or an armed, maniacal serial killer. Or ... he pushed the door all the way open with his foot ...

Nothing
.

I let out a breath that I didn’t realized I’d been holding. There was nobody (and, more importantly, no body) inside. Just Helena’s empty bed and a bedside table against one wall and a shabby-chic dresser with its top drawer pulled out along the other. The dresser was pushed up against the wall near the window. One side of the curtain was stuck between the wall and the dresser. I crossed the room and peered out the window. A fire escape landing sat just below the window. I looked down. The rusted, metal fire escape dropped off into a narrow, filthy alley.

I back turned to Victor, but his attention was fixed on a small, velvet jewelry box that sat on the bedside table. It was empty.

“Something wrong?”

He jumped, startled at the sound of my voice, and flicked his eyes up to meet mine. “What? No. I just ...” He trailed off and stuffed the box into his inside jacket pocket without further comment or explanation. Then he shifted his attention to the bed behind me. “I take that back. Something is wrong.”

I followed his gaze. The bed looked pretty normal to me. A queen-sized mattress sat on a cheap wood frame. Green and purple striped sheets that I recognized as being from the Target Home Collection were more or less smoothed over the lumpy mattress. Two standard pillows and a matching decorative sham completed the ensemble.

“What’s the matter?”

“Where’s her comforter? She has the coordinating comforter.”

“Purple and green polka dots?”

He wrinkled his forehead. “As a matter of fact, yes. How did you—?”

“Fellow Target shopper,” I told him. “It’s pretty lightweight. I use mine year-round.”

“So does Helena.”

We both stared down at the bed. I’m not sure what was going through his mind, but speaking for myself, I was regretting the steady diet of Lifetime movies I’d binged on the year I moved out of my parents’ screen-free home. It was a sure bet, in a made-for-TV movie, at least, that Helena’s dead body was currently wrapped up in her lightweight but warm comforter. Probably jammed in one of the Dumpsters that lined the alley below.

As it turns out, his imagination wasn’t quite as quick to take a turn for the morbid.

“Maybe she sent it out to be dry cleaned,” he mused.

I bit down on my tongue to stop myself from informing him that part of the beauty of that particular bargain comforter was that it was machine washable. But he was waiting for me to validate his fantasy, so I mumbled, “Maybe.”

I started to walk toward the door hoping he’d take the hint and follow me out, but instead he pulled open the bifold doors to the bedroom closet.

I squeezed my eyes shut.
No dead bodies, please
. Then I sort of peeked between my eyelids to see if my quick request of the universe had worked.

It had. Sort of.

There were no dead bodies in Helena’s closet. What there was, though, was one green and purple polka-dotted comforter drenched in blood.

I
dragged
Victor away from his sister’s apartment and down the stairs. I burst through the building’s front doors and stood on the cement stoop, sucking down the polluted air in huge gulping breaths as if it were the freshest post-storm sea breeze imaginable.

Beside me, Victor sagged against the wall, gray-faced and silent.

“I’ll go with you,” I said softly.

He turned and gave me a searching look. “Where am I going?”

“To the police station.”

We stared at each other for a beat.

“Aren’t you?” I asked.

“No.”

“No? Why on earth not? Your sister’s missing, and there’s blood all over her apartment. No,
worse
, somebody cleaned up the blood that must have been all over her apartment!” I realized I was shouting when a dog walker strolling by with four large dogs shot me a look. I lowered my voice to a near-whisper. “Sorry.”

“Look, we need to go somewhere where we can talk.” He spoke in a deliberately calm voice, as if he were narrating a guided meditation.

I narrowed my eyes. “We can talk in the back of a cab on the way to the police station.”

“Thyme. Please.” His dark brown eyes burned into mine, somewhere between pleading and demanding. “I need to explain some things. Let me buy you a cup of coffee. Or a mug of chai? A kale smoothie? Whatever someone like you would drink.”

“Scotch,” I told him. “One ice cube. I know a place.” I raised my arm to hail a cab.

Duke’s wasn’t fancy. Okay, it wasn’t even nice. But it was around the corner from my apartment, and the bartenders there were used to seeing me in workout clothes. Don’t get me wrong, I’d visited my share of hip, subterranean whiskey bars, kicked back on couches with a pricy craft single malt, and done the whole girl in the city thing. But, Duke’s was home. And not only because Petra, the pink-haired bartender, routinely served me Macallan 18 and charged me for the 12.

My escort didn’t seem to share my enthusiasm for the joint, which, in light of the building’s peeling facade and poor lighting, was understandable. I dragged him away from the taxi and through the narrow entryway to the bar proper.

Petra waved at me. “The usual?”

“Yeah, but ring it up correctly—he’s buying.” I jabbed a thumb toward Victor, earning a laugh from Petra.

“You got it. What’ll it be for you, big spender?” she asked him.

“Uh ...” he scanned the chalkboard that hung over the bar. “How about a Dark and Stormy?”

“Grab a seat. I’ll bring ‘em right over.”

She hustled to the other end of the mostly empty bar to pour our drinks. I looked around for a table where the handful of patrons wouldn’t overhear us.

“Let’s sit over there,” I suggested, pointing toward a two-top in the front right corner of the bar.

“Sure. Lead the way.”

We situated ourselves at the worn wooden table. He propped his elbows against the table’s edge and leaned forward. “I guess I owe you an explanation.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I countered, even though that’s
exactly
what I’d say.

I definitely wanted to know what was going on. But at the same time, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to get myself in any deeper. During the short cab ride from her apartment to Duke’s, it occurred to me that, maybe, the less I knew about Helena’s situation, the better. I know that sounds cold, but it’s not like she and I were friends, or even acquaintances. We had the same employer, but we rarely, if ever, interacted. She was just another twenty-something woman in a sea of New York women. Except for the fact that she was missing. And all that blood in her apartment.

“You should know,” he insisted as Petra walked over with our drinks and a vinyl check holder. She placed the drinks on the table and put the bill near his elbow then gave me a wink. It was standard operating procedure. If I brought a new guy into Duke’s, she’d tally up the drinks after the first round. That way, I’d have an easy out if the date turned weird or unpleasant. Petra was probably only in her early thirties, but she acted like a mom sometimes. It didn’t bother me at all. It was nice to have someone looking out for me in a huge, busy city.

I had Petra. And Helena had Victor. I sighed then took a sip of my Scotch and let its pleasant, slow burn make its way down my throat to my belly. “Okay, let’s hear it. Why don’t you want to go to the police for help?”

He ignored his drink and kept his eyes fixed on mine. “Because the authorities here can’t help Helena.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It’s complicated.”

I eyed him over my glass and waited. Finally he said, “Helena moved here from Brazil, just like I did.”

“I figured.”

“Right, only, unlike me, she didn’t move to the states to get her education or for a job opportunity.”

“I’ll bite. Why did she move here?”

He took a long drink then said, “She was running away.”

“From what?” I asked quietly. Something in his face told me I wasn’t going to like the story he was about to tell.