Chapter Twenty-Nine. The Body with The Deadly Fashion Sense
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
THE BODY WITH THE DEADLY FASHION SENSE
We find the ring more or less where I left it, once I excavate it from the tangle of hair clips and lip balm and discarded T-shirts that populate the top of my dresser.
“I thought you’d be more Type A with your stuff,” Felix observes, watching me throw a wadded pair of shorts in the direction of the hamper.
“I am at home.”
“This is you cutting loose.”
“Yes, this is the wildest I have ever been,” I monotone.
“Besides the murdering. And your luggage.” He tips his head at the open closet, where the corner of my suitcase is visible.
“Showtime is over.” I clap my hands for emphasis.
Felix makes a pouty face, like he was just getting started, so I grab him by the wrist and drag him out of my room.
In the lobby, we hit the brakes when the revolving door disgorges Claude’s sister, carrying the world’s largest purse.
“I’m back,” she announces before we can say anything. “Even though I’m risking my life being here. And yes, I was gone less than twenty-four hours. I know the rules.”
Her tone is so snippy, I’m surprised she doesn’t add a “neener-neener.” Felix glances behind us, to see if there’s a bigger audience for this speech.
“I had to visit Bradley’s parents, to comfort them in their affliction.” She heaves one more dramatic sigh before sweeping past us.
“Does she think there’s a hidden camera?” I whisper.
“I wish she would monologue about something useful,” Felix replies as we watch her step into the elevator.
“Like what, ‘I am a murderer who murders? Put me in jail so I can’t steal this building’?”
“Ideally, yes.” He grins at me like he’s impressed. “That would be perfect.”
“I’ll write it into her script.”
There’s a ding in the background of my thoughts, like my brain just made a connection, but it hasn’t bubbled up to the surface yet. I’ll have to think about that after we pay a call on Detective Ortiz.
It turns out you can’t waltz into a police station and demand to speak with a detective.
“Maybe if our last name was Odell, it would be a different story,” Felix mutters when they give us the runaround.
That gets the attention of the person on the other side of the desk. “You have information about the Odell case?”
“Yes,” Felix says, before I can qualify it with a Sort of.
“Wait over there,” the clerk tells us, indicating a row of chairs.
I order myself not to fidget while she speaks to someone on the phone. No finger or foot tapping, because I am not doing anything sneaky.
“We’re being good citizens.”
“Totally,” Felix agrees, without turning his head. “If you meant to say that out loud.”
A few minutes later, the detective emerges from the hidden inner chambers of the police station. There’s a flicker of recognition on his face when he spots us, so I’m glad we didn’t stick around Mr. Odell’s office the other day to get caught.
I wait for him to escort us to his office or an interrogation room, but instead he sits down in the empty chair to my left.
“What can I do for you?” he asks.
“We heard the news about…” I trail off, not sure which words to use if I want to sound serious and professional. Felix sees me foundering and rushes to help.
“The Castle Claude murder,” he supplies.
Detective Ortiz blinks, probably resigning himself to a hysterical confession from two wannabe teen sleuths. I can almost hear him thinking, Damn you, Netflix!
“It’s about this.” I remove the velvet case containing the ring from my purse. “Claude left it to me in his will,” I explain. “There’s a secret compartment.”
“They call them poison rings,” Felix adds, waiting for the detective to fill in the blanks.
“May I?” Detective Ortiz holds out his hand, and I pass him the box.
“It seemed like something you should know about,” I say as he lifts the lid, examining the ring without touching it.
“Was it out of your possession at any point?” It’s hard to tell whether he’s humoring us, because he always sounds deadly serious.
“I don’t think so,” I reply.
Felix clears his throat. “It would have been fairly easy for someone to take it without her noticing. Given the state of her … affairs.” He offers this helpful tidbit in a half whisper, like that makes it less rude. I shoot him a look that says we’ll be discussing this moment later.
“I doubt it was stolen,” I tell Detective Ortiz.
“Your grandmother keeps her door locked?” he asks, too quickly for me to come up with a less damning answer.
“Not … always.”
The detective nods, then turns his attention back to the ring.
I want to ask if he’s going to dust it for fingerprints, so I can explain how careful I was not to touch it when I put it in the box.
I wonder if he’ll let us watch, especially if they test the poison compartment for residue.
This isn’t a school field trip, I remind myself.
He’s not going to give you a tour of the lab.
Or anything else, it seems.
“I appreciate you coming forward,” he says, closing the velvet case with a decisive snap. “You don’t have to worry. The ring would not have been used.”
The careful wording catches my attention. “Because whatever it was wouldn’t fit in the compartment? Or did he not ingest it?”
Felix smacks me in the arm. “It could have been a contact poison!”
Detective Ortiz treats us to a rare hint of a facial expression. Unfortunately for us, this one says, Nice try.
So much for tricking him into letting a vital piece of information slip. I can feel the timer counting down, even before he glances at his watch.
“There was something else,” I say in a rush. “That was stolen—”
“My grandfather’s paintings,” Felix interrupts. He doesn’t look at me, but I hear the unspoken warning. Maybe he thinks bringing up Bernie’s cup will throw Malia under the bus—a factor I should have considered before opening my mouth. Besides, art theft sounds cooler than a missing cup.
It seems the detective agrees, because he sits back, no longer on the verge of departure. “More than the one you found at the thrift store?”
Felix nods. “At least four or five others.”
“Can you describe them?”
It’s obvious from his answer that Felix is an artist, because where I would say things like “a swirly blueish background” and “some pink slashes,” he busts out useful terminology like “landscape” and “foreground” and exact color names, along with the approximate size of each canvas and its subject matter.
Detective Ortiz makes a few notes (by hand! With an actual pencil!) in a small spiral notebook he keeps in a pocket. “Do you have a sense of the monetary value of your grandfather’s work? On a per piece basis.”
“I think the most he ever got for one painting was sixty thousand.”
My eyes widen. It sounds like a lot to me, but I’m not exactly an art expert.
“There’s a gallery downtown that carries his stuff,” Felix adds. “They’d know better.”
The detective nods, returning the notebook to his pocket. “We’ll look into it. Leave your number with the desk. I’ll have someone call if we find anything.”
Someone as in “not me.” Subtext: don’t drop by and ask for another chat. The brush-off should be disappointing, but right now being pawned off on an underling is the best-case scenario.
“Thanks so much,” I say brightly, popping to my feet. “We’ve taken enough of your time.” Catching Felix’s eye, I jerk my head at the door. “We should go.”
I start walking before either of them has a chance to respond. Hopefully Detective Ortiz will assume we’re a couple of jittery teenage weirdos running outside to jaywalk while staring at our phones.
“Chill,” Felix whispers as we near the exit. “You’re acting like you left a bomb under your chair.”
I restrain myself to a small huff, waiting until we’re outside the building to round on him. “What were you planning to say if he asked where the paintings were stolen from? If it even counts as stealing. She inherited Claude’s apartment, so maybe they belong to her now.”
Felix shakes his head. “He wouldn’t do that to my grandpa. Claude must have known his sister had terrible taste in art. It would be like giving a steak to someone who only eats McDonald’s hamburgers.”
“I’m still glad we got out of there before we accidentally fessed up to breaking and entering.”
“Can you imagine that phone call to Mervyn? ‘Hey, I know you’re busy trying to save Castle Claude, but could you come down to the station and help us make bail?’”
I stop walking. “You think they would have arrested us?”
“If he called Bernie, she would have for sure pressed charges.”
My heart is beating too fast. I rub a hand over the left side of my chest, trying to manually slow it down. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a real-life detective.
“Let’s go home,” Felix says, like he can smell the panic wafting off me. “I’ll make you lunch. We need to figure out our next move.”
“Are we allowed to use the kitchen or is it still a potential crime scene?”
“We can go to my grandad’s.” His brow furrows as if he too has suddenly been struck by the question of whether this constitutes a forward step in our relationship. “Do you like a grilled ham and cheese? I make it with extra pickles.”
Or not.