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I drove out of the university parking lot in my cream-and-black MINI Cooper, ignoring the rent-a-cop signaling me to slow down. It was early September, classes had just started, and students wandered around haphazardly as they looked for buildings and classes. Turning right onto Columbus, I drove past the western part of San Marco University, a mishmash of new buildings built to look old and large old homes dating back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. Those had been refurbished for scholastic use. It was a beautiful campus with maintained lawns and lots of shade from massive oaks and towering palms, but I wasn’t in the mood for it.
“Shit,” I blurted, hitting my steering wheel.
I was mad at my boyfriend and perturbed at Gabe. I felt like the two of them were keeping secrets from me. But it really wasn’t Gabe’s responsibility to keep me apprised of my boyfriend’s career. So that let Gabe off the hook. That brought my raging mind back to Nick. Okay, so maybe we weren’t exactly a dedicated couple. We’d been down this road before. When I was a student, I’d requested a private study session with him in a feeble attempt to get close to him. He’d said he would happily help, in a feeble attempt to get in my pants. We were both wildly successful at what we wanted.
Three months later, our relationship shifted into an on-again, off-again drama highlighted with angry arguments about nothing. Well, not nothing. A difference of opinion about what to watch on television, what to have for dinner, or where to go for the weekend could devolve into pitched battles. And though the subjects of the arguments were trivial, the subtext wasn’t. I suspected we were really fighting over fidelity, levels of commitment, and the possibility of a future together—things neither of us had the courage to bring up at that point in our relationship. And since the arguments that inevitably ended in tearful apologies were something neither of us wanted, we’d mutually broken it off. As Nick had put it, we were both mature enough to recognize that we were too immature for a relationship.
I turned onto the beach road, and though the ocean wasn’t visible on this stretch of the A1A, I could hear the pounding of the waves through my open windows. I breathed in that organic smell of the ocean—salt mixed with life and decay, a cleansing tonic borne on the air—but it didn’t help this go-around.
Nick and I had remained friends over the years. After I graduated, we’d floated in and out of each other’s lives from time to time. Upon my return to San Marco to open my own business, he was the first person I called. He was single. I was single. So we spent time together.
Three months ago, after an evening of pizza, wine, and The Marx Brothers in Duck Soup, something fell from my mouth almost of its own volition: “I think we’re both mature enough to recognize that we are now mature enough to have a relationship.”
The rest of the night, we’d spent engaged in the horizontal tango. It had been passionate and feverish, and it’d felt right. But then, Vienna popped up. Four days? Shit!
I wasn’t upset that he was going. That he hadn’t said a thing to me, hadn’t allowed me time to prepare for his departure, was infuriating.
I pulled into the parking lot at San Marco Eldercare too fast and nearly nicked a car backing out of a space. I needed to calm down, especially if I was going to visit Mom. I parked, got out, then had to wait for the car I’d nearly hit to drive past. The old man driving gave me a dirty look. I figured he’d been visiting his wife and didn’t need aggravation from me, so I raised my hand in a signaled apology. He gave me the peace sign. I needed that.
I entered the building and passed the main desk with a nod at Greta, who welcomed visitors each weekday. I took the elevator up to my mother’s floor. Mom had been wheeled into one of the communal rooms in front of a giant TV on which Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, and Debbie Reynolds were dancing. I pulled a chair beside her and sat, taking her hand. She looked at me curiously, not knowing who I was, but smiling just the same. She always loved company.
I pulled out a brush and started on her hair. She closed her eyes and made a sound of appreciation. In better days, Mom had liked to see her stylist once a week and always fussed over her hair. Pops had first started brushing her hair on visits. I’d continued the tradition after his death. As I brushed, I told her about my day and teaching the class, though mainly, I talked about Nick and Vienna, asking if she had any advice. She mumbled now and then. Maybe in her mind we were having a mother-daughter conversation, though for that to happen, she would have to recognize me. And while I couldn’t understand what she was muttering, I imagined her speaking in her voice from years ago, cogent and rational.
“First,” Mom from days gone by said, “ask yourself if you love him and want to be with him. I assume the answer is yes, or you wouldn’t bring it up. While it was inconsiderate of him to spring it on you at the last minute, I can understand that he’d worry how you’d take it. You do have your father’s temper, you know. That’s why he put off sharing the news.”
I thought about what I imagined she’d said. I patted her hand, though her attention seemed glued to a romantic Gene-and-Debbie scene. “How would you handle it if it were you and Pops?”
Mom leaned forward and swung her head to me, surprise on her face. She lay back and closed her eyes, instantly asleep. But in my mind, Mom said, “I’d support him in his venture and let him know I was proud of him. But you should also let him know that finding out the way you did hurt you. Tell him you will always be open and honest with him, and that you’d appreciate it if he did likewise.”
“Good advice, as always.” I stood, and she mumbled something in her sleep when I kissed her cheek. I left as the Singin’ in the Rain credits began to roll and ran into Arlene Fruman in the lobby as she was on her way to visit my mother. Mom had a lot of friends, many who visited her regularly. I just wished Pops was still alive so he could visit her, as well as give me some fatherly wisdom concerning Nick.
I turned west out of the parking lot, heading past a new, fairly upscale neighborhood called Leaning Oaks. Ten minutes later, I was tempted to stop at Merrill’s Fish Camp for a cold one, but I drove on by, giving my horn a quick blast to say hi to all the retirees who either fished or just sat at Merrill’s bar. Finally, I pulled into the little strip mall a quarter of a mile from the San Marco Municipal Airport. Sandwiched between the Kwik Stop at one end and my little office at the other were a tattoo shop, a sewing shop, a pizza place, and a yoga-slash-Pilates studio.
After using my key to open the dead bolt on the door, I stepped in. My office wasn’t much, and I could have probably worked as well from home, but an investigator I’d worked with in Jacksonville had said an office would make me more credible in the eyes of clients. Set up as a storefront, it had a glass front wall and door, which I’d covered with beige drapes. Clients and potential clients stepped off the sidewalk and right into my office, where an abstract Jaison Cianelli giclée was mounted on the wall across from my scarred desk bought from a secondhand store—and an expensive chair, because I treasured my comfort. The other walls held framed black-and-white beach shots that a photographer friend took. Someone had given me a green filing cabinet, and even though all my files were computerized, it added credibility. The cabinet held mostly office supplies, along with snacks, a bottle of Bulleit rye, gym clothes, and other assorted knickknacks. A pastel-blue love seat sat in a cluster with a couple of chairs. As a nod to my profession, and more art than functional, there was a coatrack in the corner holding a raincoat and fedora.
I sat and opened The Floating Ballerina file on my computer. I hadn’t had the honor of meeting Shari Stephens’s husband. One of the first things I’d learned about working a divorce case was not to believe everything when it came to one spouse, even my client, detailing the shortcomings of the other. Divorces involved a lot of emotions, biases, and skewed viewpoints. On the other hand, some cases were simply a matter of a woman being married to a douchebag. Shari Stephens was one of those women. She’d accepted her husband’s general doucheyness and resolved to stay married because, in her mind, that was what people should do. Then he’d given her chlamydia.
She’d provided me with copies of what she’d found while poking around his computer. He was a member of not one, but three sites devoted to random sex with strangers. His username was StudlyHungwell69.
Before I could get sufficiently grossed out reviewing the online antics of Mr. StudlyHungwell69, my cell phone played Barry White’s “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe.” I’d picked it as Nick’s ringtone specifically because of the cheese factor.
I held my sigh until I answered so I could share it with him. “Hello, Nick.”
“Still mad?”
I thought carefully about how to answer, because though I still felt a fire burning, it was dwindling. “Look, I’ll get over it, but yeah, I’m still ticked off. Not telling me, well, you hurt my feelings.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. At least let me explain.”
“Go ahead.”
“Gabe didn’t ask me. He told me I was going. I suppose I could have backed out of it, but it is a huge honor. I figured we’re doing so good right now that we’d easily survive a few months at a distance, and then we can return to our illicit affair.”
“It’s not illicit.”
“I know, but it sounds cool.”
I laughed a little. “It does, doesn’t it?”
“I started to tell you a few times and then chickened out and then tried working up the nerve, and then we’d get back into illiciting.”
“Neck deep in illiciting.”
He laughed, sensing my thaw. “To be honest, Lise, I did plan to tell you tonight over dinner.”
“Okay, I believe you. It just sucks that you’re leaving when we’re getting along so well.”
After a moment of silence, he said, “So how about it? Dinner tonight?”
I felt it in the lower left quadrant of my gut, a little kernel of anger sizzling away. “Not tonight.”
I could hear his disappointment. “Tomorrow night then?”
“We’ll see.”
“Aw, Lise, c’mon. I’m leaving in four days.”
“Call me tomorrow.”
“All right. And, Lise...”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.”
After ending the call, I held my phone for a good five minutes, staring at nothing and thinking about my life, future, and a life and future with Nick.
Is that something I want? I thought I did. I was pretty sure, anyway. It was funny—I could be decisive when it came to most things, but with relationships, not so much. It boiled down to my personal freedom. Anything that threatened that, real or imagined, scared me. But Nick wasn’t a threat to my independence, and he certainly wouldn’t want me to change. In fact, we supported each other’s careers and independence. My anger had dwindled to a crumb of irritation, and a bit of guilt had been tossed in. Nick was sweet and smart, and he treated me well.
As a child, Nick had spent years under the care of his aunt. She was quick to anger and meted out harsh punishment, and I wondered if his reluctance to tell me could be attributed to that. Nick’s mother and father had married young and bought a small farm west of Saint Augustine. When Nick was five, they were killed in an accident on the way to a farmers market with a load of spuds. He went to live with his father’s older sister, Penny. Aunt Pen, as Nick called her, lived on welfare, started to drink early in the day, often left Nick on his own, and saw no problem in bringing her temporary boyfriends to her mobile home late at night for a rollicking good time while Nick attempted to sleep in the next room.
I was tempted to call Nick back and agree to dinner, had it not been for one obstacle—my pride. Still, I would get over it. I had to. With him leaving for Vienna, we only had hours to spend together.
Getting back to Shari Stephens and The Floating Ballerina case, I reread some of the printouts of her husband’s online conversations with other women but then decided I didn’t want to delve into that muck right then. I was too curious about those two detectives who’d stopped by Nick’s office. What would it be like to work a murder case like that?
My conversation with Baker and Ortega was probably as close as I would ever come to an actual murder case. For me, the work was cheating spouses, dirt digging, and process-servicing. All that was a job, which I felt suited to and was content with. But to work serious crimes, like murder, seemed like more of a calling. I wondered about that poor girl. The suffering she’d undergone, and the terror, must have been gruesome. The way the killer had left her body, considering the work he’d put into posing it, was equally horrific and remarkable. The killer was evil, and to be responsible for putting away just one evil person would be life-affirming. I could make a difference.
Baker and Ortega hadn’t told us much about the case, and I wondered if there was more to be learned. I clicked on the website for the local newspaper, the San Marco Ledger. Since I had the general time frame, and San Marco didn’t have many murders, I quickly found the first news item. It didn’t give details other than that she had been found murdered in her apartment. The other three articles offered little, except her identity—Kristin Harmon, a twenty-three-year-old student and waitress. That last article included a head-and-shoulders photograph. Her head was turned slightly, and she was smiling. Her blond shoulder-length hair caught my attention. It was wavy, like my cousin Gracie’s hair. Though the face didn’t match up exactly, the way she held her head and the sincerity of her smile added to the likeness. The next thing I knew I was getting teary-eyed. Through watery eyes, the photo could very well have been Gracie.
“Ah shit.” I sniffed back snot and refused to get all emotional. It was hard because they also shared something besides a passing resemblance—they had both been murdered.
Something occurred to me, something about family. I made a call.
“Baker,” a voice answered.
“Hi, Detective. It’s Lise Norwood. We met at the university earlier.”
“Yeah?” His tone added an unspoken, So what?
“I was just thinking.”
“Were you now?”
He wasn’t making this easy. “In the myth of the Dying Niobid, all of the Queen’s children are killed.”
“So you told us.”
“Well, on the chance that part of the myth is important to the killer, maybe you should see if the victim has any brothers and sisters. Maybe warn them to be extra careful.”
Baker took a breath, and I was expecting another smartass comment. Instead, he said, “Good point. We’ll handle it.” And he hung up.