3 The Case of Tiffany's Epiphany (7 page)

Jack was a good mentor in my early years. He’d sing my praises when I made the extra effort, thought out-of-the-box, or discovered something that no one else saw. He would also kick me in the rear when I missed the obvious or went off on one of my tangents that made no sense whatsoever. Our paths crossed frequently over the years, as did the paths of almost every other detective on the force. One reason was because Jack had more partners than a porn star. He couldn’t work with anyone. He was consistently late, complained about everything, forgot more than most remembered, and would zone out during conversations faster than an Alzheimer’s patient. If that wasn’t enough frailties, Jack had one more that put him over the top. He had more diseases than the Center of Disease Control. He would complain about having bursitis, rhinitis, phlebitis, ileitis, and colitis. All self-diagnosed, of course. Whenever a drug began advertising, Jack would eventually see the ad, and immediately claim he had the exact symptoms of whatever disease the drug claimed it alleviated or cured. Listening to Jack, you’d swear Stephen Hawking was a picture of health.

“Unlock me, would ya?” I plead with him.

“Wait.”

“Why?”

“Sherlock, I think I got COPD.”

“What’s COPD?”

“I don’t know, but I think I got it,” he says, sitting down next to me. “Some days it feels like there’s an elephant sitting on my chest.”

“Have you ever had an elephant sit on your chest?”

“No.”

“Then how would you know what it feels like?” I ask.

“Because after I came down with that case of meningitis and my brain swelled up,” he says, “my mind’s ultra-sensitive to certain stimuli.”

“Like elephants sitting on your chest?”

“So to speak,” Jack says.

“Get me out of these things, they hurt.” I turn my back to him with my hands outstretched.

He unlocks the cuffs. I rub my sore wrists. “Do you want to know what happened?” I ask turning back towards him.

“Not really,” he says. “What I want to know is what I can do for my sciatica.”

We get out of the squad car. The uniforms are busy stringing up yellow crime scene tape. One tech has picked up the fedora and is admiring it. “That’s the guy’s hat, the guy who got shot,” I tell Jack.

“Where’d he get shot?”

“Right here.” I point to the middle of my chest.

“No, I meant where, where.”

I take him to the spot between the dumpsters where the gate remains open. “What did he get shot with, a BB gun?” Jack asks.

“No, a real gun with a big bang.”

“No blood,” Jack says. “Usually when you get shot in the chest with a big gun, there’s blood.” He pauses, then asks, “Didn’t I teach you anything in all those years?”

“Maybe he was wearing a vest.”

“Kevlar or the third piece of a suit ensemble?” Jack asks.

“For the sake of argument, let’s go with the Kevlar.”

For the next hour, I follow Jack walking up and down surveying the scene. He asks me to start at the beginning and tell him everything I remember. I comply. One second before I finish, he says, “Wait.”

I pause.

He asks, “What was the license plate of the Cadillac?”

How stupid can I be?

“Do you remember seeing anyone who saw you when you were in the car?”

Damn. He got me again.

“You keep the half of the phone clean, so we can lift a print from the big guy?”

“Whoops.”

Jack turns to me, “Sherlock I was going to say that I missed having you on the force, but I’ve decided to hold off on that comment.”

“I was being kidnapped,” I retort. “I was under a lot of stress.”

“You were under a lot of stress?” he barks back. “Did I ever tell you about the time I came down with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome?”

“No, but I’m sure you will.”

---

Jack drops me off at a nearby ‘L’ station and I finally make it through my front door, five hours since I last arrived. I take a long shower, soak my wrists, put a can of soup on the stove to warm, and figure I better return a phone call.

“Mr. Sherlock, I’ve been calling you forever,” Tiffany shrieks into the phone. “I get this weird, annoying noise, then it cuts out, and I can’t even leave a message. You’ve got to get a smart phone.”

“I’m not sure I’m smart enough to use a smart phone, Tiffany.”

“Well, you got to get rid of that antique thing you use.”

“It’s already gone,” I tell her. “It broke in two.”

“See, I told you. It pays to buy quality,” she schools me. She pauses for a moment or two. I can almost hear the wheels inside her brain turning. “If your phone broke, how are you calling me?”

“On my landline.”

“Get with it, Mr. Sherlock. The only people who have landlines anymore are AARP Members.”

I am two years shy of forty and this is the respect I’ve earned so far in life. Pathetic, truly pathetic.

“Tiffany, what did you call me about the first time you called?”

“I’ve found a possible break in the case.”

“Great. What’s broken?”

“I’m not sure,” she says. “We have to go see Alix Fromound. I’ll pick you up in an hour.”

“No. I’m beat. I just got home. I’m hungry. My wrists are killing me. I want to go to bed. I had a horrible day.”

“Oh, Mr. Sherlock, it couldn’t have been that bad.”

“I got kidnapped, shot at, almost run over by a trash dumpster, held at gunpoint, handcuffed, and roughed up by a couple of cops.”

“Okay, if you need a little extra time, fine,” she says. I’ll pick you up in an hour and a half.”

CHAPTER 5

Gibson’s is a Rush Street steakhouse which was once, and maybe still is, the most profitable restaurant in the country--if you figured it on the basis of square footage. We’re at the bar. Tiffany sips a martini, I, a Shirley Temple, and Alix, a Maker’s Mark.

“There was some major, bad mojo workin’ that night in Zanadu,” Alix says. “Seriously bad.”

“I know,” Tiffany agrees. “It tossed me right on the carpet.”

“I wasn’t talkin’ about you,” Alix qualifies her statement. “That was like the saving grace of the evening.”

“Thanks, bioché.”

“You’re welcome--bitch.”

“You two always been close?” I ask.

“Too close,” Alix says.

“Way too close,” Tiffany ups her one.

“Tell me what was so weird about the evening,” I continue in my search for facts instead of insults.

“I’m sittin’ at the bar, Monroe Chevelier chattin’ me up--” Alix begins.

Tiffany interrupts, “Chevelier was chatting you up? Yeah, right.”

“Ahh, yeah.”

“As if.”

“Tiffany,” I interrupt, “would you let her tell me what happened.”

Tiffany crosses her arms, gives me a nasty stare, and shuts up.

“As I was saying,” Alix brushes back her long, mid-back, jet-black hair with a sweep of her hand and a slight push back of her head. “Chevelier’s chattin’me up and this guy I’ve never seen before comes right up and cock blocks him.”

“What?” I say hoping I heard that wrong.

“He puts this major cock block on Monroe Chevelier.”

“No way,” Tiffany says. “Monroe’s daddy’s got more money than my daddy.”

“Not mine,” Alix says.

“Can we rewind,” I plead. “What did he do?”

“He cock blocked him.”

I heard it right the first time.

“That’s when you’re talking with some guy and some other guy juts right in between, with his butt to him and his face to you, and starts chattin’ you up,” Alix explains.

“It’s called cock blocking, Mr. Sherlock.”

I’m in shock. What has the dating world become?

“It’s not so weird when you’re getting hit on by some wimp and a good-lookin’ stud puts a block on,” Alix explains. “But when a dude does it to Monroe, who like wears Armani to the gym and benches presses 400, that’s totally bogus.”

“So, what happened?”

“Yeah,” Tiffany says. “What happened?”

“Monroe’s pissed. He gets off the stool, and I think he’s gonna go like Jackie Chan on him, when the blocker faces Monroe and all this swearin’, and posin’, and pushin’ goes down.”

“And?”

“Little bitch Tiffany goes fallin’ off a barstool, and everybody goes scramblin’ her way like they’re givin’ away free Crystal.”

“What did you do?” I ask Alix.

“I grab Monroe and pull him towards me.”

“Aw, wasn’t that nice,” Tiffany comments in a sing-song voice.

“Like you wouldn’t have done the same?” Alix snaps back at Tiffany.

“Stop, you two,” I order. “What did this blocker guy look like?” I can’t bring myself to repeat the other word.

“He looked like he knew his way around the gym,” Alix says.

“What happened to him?”

“I look up, “Alix says. “And he, like, disappeared.”

“And what happened with you and Monroe?” Tiffany asks.

“None of your business.”

“I’ll find out,” Tiffany says.

“Good,” Alix says with a devious smile. She takes another sip of her Maker’s Mark.

I put the whole scenario into my head, cross reference it with the DVD of Tiffany passing out, and ask, “Alix, how far away from Tiffany were you when all this happened?”

“Few feet.”

“What were you drinking?”

“Martini.”

“Kumquat?”

“Kettle One, on the rocks.”

I throw it all into my head. It makes no sense. I’m not sure the two instances are even related. I try to think it all through while I finish my Shirley Temple, but I can’t. My brain is filling up with a pile of loose jigsaw pieces and I don’t even have the picture on the box to give me a clue on where to begin.

“Was I right?” Alix asks me.

“About what?”

“About there being some seriously bad mojo hangin’ in the Zanadu that night?”

“Correct on all counts,” I say.

Alix gives Tiffany an “
I’m smarter than you”
grin
.

Tiffany turns up her nose at Alix, and gives her head a snarky shake.

If I don’t nip this now, it could get ugly. “It was nice meeting you, Alix.”

“I’m sure it was,” she tells me.

“Can you take me home now, Tiffany?”

“You don’t want to party anymore?”

“I didn’t want to party to begin with.”

Tiffany and Alix air kiss goodbye, their method of acknowledging mutual enemy admiration. I doubt if these two will ever paint each other’s toenails at a sleepover.

---

I’m lost in thought most of the way up the Drive. Tiffany can’t take the silence. “What are you thinking, Mr. Sherlock?”

“I don’t know. What are you thinking?”

“Alix and Monroe would never be an item.”

“Why not?”

“She’s an Aries. He’s a Scorpio. Fire and water don’t mix.”

I’m not into astrology. I let her answer suffice. I’m silent again for a mile or two. “Tiffany, why do you think somebody would roofie you?”

“To have sex with me.”

“And who would want to do that?”

“Everybody. I’m totally hot.”

“I mean, who would stoop so low as to drug you to do it?”

“Some total psycho dweeb.”

I pause. “I’m not so sure.”

“No way would a stud muffin do it.”

“I’m not so sure,” I repeat.

We reach my building. I’m exhausted. “Good night, Tiffany. Be careful driving home.”

Before I can get out of the Lexus, she says, “Mr. Sherlock, can I ask you something?”

“You’re asking a question to ask a question?”

“Well, you’re answering my question with a question,” she says. “You told me you hate that.”

“Touché, Tiffany. Ask away.”

“Mr. Sherlock, you don’t think I’m as self-centered, egotistical, spoiled-rotten, and conceited as Alix, do you?”

She catches me off guard. I hesitate. I better be very careful or I’ll cause hours of useless, and very expensive, therapy, “Of course not, Tiffany.”

“Sure?”

“It’s all relative, since your good qualities far outweigh your bad qualities,” I say sincerely.

“Thank you, Mr. Sherlock,” she says. “That’s what I think, too.”

---

“The transition game needs work, Sherlock.”

“And I really appreciate your interest in the team, Mrs. Whiner, but what we need to do is get back to basics.”

Mrs. Whiner is the only parent who comes to all the games and all the practices. “Exactly right,” she yells at me from her seat in the bleachers. “The basics of your transition game.”

I smile at the obnoxious woman. She doesn’t smile back.

I bring the Bailouts to the center court and have the players sit. Kelly, my oldest daughter, has offered her services as an assistant coach, even though she has never played basketball herself. I accept her offer, any activity that will get her off her cell phone is a plus.

“Team, we’re going to go back and start at the beginning.” I stand on the center line, ball in hand and my players around me. I present the ball. “This is a basketball.”

Kelly stops texting and says, “Slow down, Dad, you’re going too fast.”

“That’s an old joke, Kelly.”

“Yeah, but I’m a young kid, so I can use it.”

Back to the team. “I want you all to listen up, and remember one word, today, just one,” I pause. “Beef. B-E-E-F. Beef.”

“My mother won’t let me eat meat, Coach,” Allison, a mediocre player on a team of less-than-mediocre players, informs me of her dietary restrictions.

“No, it’s not about eating beef,” I tell her.

“What do you order when you go to McDonald’s?” Kaylyn asks Allison.

“We don’t go to McDonald’s,” Allison answers.

“Do you go to Burger King?” Care asks.

“McDonald’s is better than Burger King, because it has better fries,” Annie, our point guard points out.

“Girls,” I attempt to get the conversation back on the game of basketball. “We’re not here to talk about fast food.”

“Then, why’d you bring it up?” Kelly asks.

“My Mom says we should be working on our transition game,” Wilma Whiner, a chip off the old computer motherboard, tells the team.

“Beef. B stands for Balance. The first E for eyes. The second E for elbows. And F is for feet,” I explain. “Got that?”

No response, except for Kelly’s phone ringing. “Sorry, Dad, I have to take this.”

“Stand up everybody.” I line up the players across from each other. I pass out balls to the ones on the left, position myself in the middle, and demonstrate. “Whenever you shoot, pass, dribble or whatever, your eyes, elbows and feet have to be in balance. Watch.” I use two hands and pass the ball to Kelly, who jumps aside to avoid any contact with the ball.