The Profiler's Daughter (Sky Stone Thriller Series) (38 page)

“I can’t. I have a date tonight.” Sky didn’t elaborate but Alexei seemed to intuit the situation. He stood at attention by his office door and watched her leave.

“Someone needs to save you from yourself,” he grumbled.

Sky headed for the elevator with the dog under her arm. She knew the therapist was watching so she made a painful effort to hide her limp.

“Do not pursue this man,” Alexei pleaded down the dark hallway. “I fear for you,
Zvezdochka
.”

Sky left Harvard and drove to the Newton police station.

The next two hours were spent giving Kyle a statement and pouring through mug shots for a white male, approximately five feet six inches, stocky, maybe two hundred pounds, black tattoo wrapped around a bull neck. Sky did her best to avoid eye contact with anyone; Jake had fired her and everybody knew it. It was embarrassing.

She was on her third Styrofoam cup of muddy coffee when Magnus beckoned to her from his door with a curt hand gesture. Sky abandoned the mug shots, handed Tiffany to Kyle, and limped to the Chief’s office.

Magnus sat at his desk glowering at her over a laptop screen. He snapped the computer shut and waved her to a chair. “Any luck with the mugshots?”

“No.” Sky fiddled briefly with the strap of her back pack and dove right in. “Jake took me off the Mercer case. For no good reason. Can’t you override that decision?”

“Sorry, kiddo.” Magnus shrugged. “Don’t sweat it. There’s always the next case.”

“No,” Sky protested. “There is only
this
case. There is only
this
murder. And I’m wasting my time here.” She stood up. “I’ve got things to do.”

“Hold on, hold on. Not so fast. My God, you remind me of Monk.” Magnus rearranged his massive frame in the tufted leather desk chair. “I’ve got something for you, Sky. Something I’ve had for … well, since before you were born.” He opened his mouth to say something else but the words didn’t come. Instead, he picked up the sword-shaped letter opener. The furrows in his face grew deeper as he tapped an erratic rhythm against the palm of his hand.

Sky had never seen the Chief so tentative and unsure of himself. “So what is it?” she said.

Magnus rolled out of the chair and drew the vertical blinds closed on either side of the office door. Something else he rarely did.

When he snapped the deadbolt shut on the door, Sky started to get nervous. Something was really freaking him out.

“Magnus? What is it?”

“Your father’s service weapon,” he blurted. “It happened during the Back Bay murders. Monk’s first field-office assignment. I was with Boston PD, we were on a call together. I went back to the car, I was looking for something in the glove compartment and found Monk’s firearm. I took it. I took his gun and hid it in my jacket.”

The words tumbled from his mouth so quickly that it took Sky a moment to register what he’d actually said.

She was too shocked to speak.

“It was a prank. A stupid joke. I had every intention of giving it back. I’d give it back and we’d both have a good laugh.” The Chiefs face was a knot of pain and regret. “When Monk found it missing, he was so angry, so disgusted with himself …” Magnus shut his eyes against the memory. “So help me God, I was afraid to tell him. Scared shitless.” He opened his eyes and looked at Sky. “Not much frightens me. But Monk … well …” Magnus laughed uneasily. “Your father could have that effect on people.”

“Where is it?” Sky asked. “Where’s the gun?”

Magnus went to a corner closet and pulled out a black duffel bag. “The Chiefs Special,” he said. “Smith & Wesson .38 snubnose. The Bureau switched to Glock semiautomatics in the late eighties, this is practically an antique, but …” He cleared his throat. “I keep it cleaned and oiled. It’s like new.” He shrugged. “I’ve lived with the guilt long enough. I can’t return it to Monk, it’s too late for that. So I’m doing the next best thing.” He crossed the room and dropped the bag at her feet. “I know you don’t like guns, Sky. But I’m giving it to you. Right now, on this day.”

The black canvas bag was nondescript, the kind every cop owned, used for lugging tactical gear.

Sky opened the zipper and checked the contents. A box of Buffalo Bore cartridges, a cleaning kit, and a black gun case with a carrying handle.

She reached inside and unlatched the gun case.

The revolver rested on a bed of gray foam. It had a blued steel frame with a two-inch barrel. Sky stroked the wooden grip with an index finger and thought about her father. The arguments, until she’d agreed to sessions at the range.

Monk’s voice was in her ear, ticking off the revolver’s advantages: easy to master, even for a novice like Sky. More accurate than a semiautomatic. Chambered for more powerful rounds. The short barrel meant concealability. Revolvers had their disadvantages, Monk had taught her that, too. Loud, limited to six shots, slow to reload. And the trigger pull was greater.

She’d never thanked her father, Sky realized. Not once, during all those lessons, all those practice sessions. Making her dry fire at home with an empty gun so Sky could get the feel for the trigger pull.

Sky was a decent shot, thanks to Monk. An ungrateful daughter, that’s what she was. Poor Monk, always trying to protect her from some imagined horror.

And here he was, even now, handing her a gun from the grave.

Sky snapped the latches shut and zipped the bag. A strange calm had descended over her at the sight of Monk’s revolver, she wasn’t sure why. She stood up and slipped the duffel bag over her shoulder.

“Are we good?” Magnus seemed invigorated by the confession, he stood taller, broader.

“Yeah. We’re good.” What else was there to say?

Sky unlocked the deadbolt and left the office.

Kyle was waiting at his desk with the dog on his lap. “I called Teddy, told him about your little adventure. He’ll be here any minute to pick you up.”

Sky started to protest but Kyle cut her off. “No driving. If need be, darling, I’ll arrest you.” He wasn’t joking.

Teddy showed up, glad-handing old friends and flirting with the women as he moved through the station. He displayed an irritating enthusiasm for his task, chauffeuring Sky to the Lake and walking her from the car to her office like some kind of body guard.

“I’m taking no chances, boss. Just getting you back to the ranch in one piece.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“Bad dog.” Sky plucked the copper bishop from Tiffany’s mouth and dried it with the sleeve of her sweater.

The Shih Tzu had managed to snag the game piece while Sky sat on her office sofa transferring Whip’s chess set from box to board. The chess board rested on an abandoned speaker cabinet retrieved from a storage closet at the end of the hall.

Issuing a dismissive snort at the loss of the bishop, the pregnant Shih Tzu proceeded to waddle back and forth in a small arc around the cabinet, gauging her chances of a second steal.

It was nearly six o’clock. The office window framed a late afternoon sky bruised with purple clouds.

Teddy sat at Sky’s computer, trolling for information on Porter Manville. “I got nothin’,” he complained. “Not even a parking ticket. Don’t get me wrong, Porter Manville is all over the place. But it’s awards, patents, parties, magazine articles. Toast of the town, this guy.”

Sky placed the last copper pawn on the chess board. “Did you check out that Phoenix Documentary website?”

“Yeah, I called the website number. Asked to speak with the director of
The Science of Happy
. Got transferred to some chick with a foreign accent who claimed the director was out of the country on another project. Gone for at least six months. No number, no e-mail address.” Teddy shrugged. “In other words, I got the brush-off.” He leaned back in his chair. “So I call Wellbiogen, claim I’m part of the Phoenix Documentary film crew, ask to speak to their media representative. Jesus, Sky, she drilled me a new asshole. Said it’d been nearly six months, what was the hold up, why couldn’t she get hold of anyone at Phoenix Documentary? Demanded I send her a copy of the film immediately. She was wicked pissed.”

“I wonder what Manville thinks about it,” Sky mused.

“He threw that demo away,” Teddy pointed out. “He probably doesn’t think about it at all. The guy has a million and one things on his plate.”

Sky picked up her cell. The telephone number from the Papa Razzi napkin was on speed dial, prefaced by *67 so her own number wouldn’t show on the other end. She pushed the button for the hundredth time that day. If Porter Manville gave the napkin to Nicolette, it was reasonable to assume that it was Porter Manville’s number. Sky let it ring, hoping to hear the CEO’s velvet voice on the other end.

No answer. No message.

Sky rearranged the chess men in an effort to calm herself. Had she been the target of gunfire at Bullough’s? She’d had her doubts because Porter Manville’s account wasn’t to be trusted. But there was nothing vague about the thug who’d chased her through Candace’s house and shot at her.

“So, boss. What’s the plan for tonight?” Teddy looked up from the computer screen. “After you get into Manville’s house, I mean.”

Good question. She didn’t exactly have a plan.

Maybe Jake was right. Maybe she’d forgotten how to do her job. Maybe she’d stayed on Nantucket too long.

“What should I wear tonight, Teddy?”

“A Colt 45,” he said, jamming a stick of Juicy Fruit in his mouth.

Sky heard the
click click click
of tiny teeth on metal, the dog was chewing on something again.

“Tiffany, come here.”

The tone in Sky’s voice prompted the Shih Tzu to scuttle behind the sofa.

It wasn’t a game piece the dog was chewing on because all of Whip’s chess men sat on their respective squares with their queens, awaiting the next battle. Pinprick teeth marks riddled the unfortunate copper bishop’s face.

Sky walked over and gently unwedged the Shih Tzu from her hiding place at the end of the sofa.

“Give it up.” Sky poked an index finger in Tiffany’s wide mouth and felt along the nubby canines until something dropped on the Persian rug.

The dog wasn’t very old, Sky had decided, because she chewed anything and everything. Like a puppy.

Tiffany needed toys.

“That dog is a real pain in the ass, boss.” Teddy wore an indulgent grin. “What’d she get this time?”

“I’m not sure.” Sky picked up the roundish object that had fallen from Tiffany’s mouth. It was the size and shape of a lumpy chick pea with a short chain dangling from one end. The whole thing was blackened with a crusty patina of filth. “Smells like dead skunk.” Sky nearly tossed the dog’s treasure in the waste basket when she spotted a dull gleam. “Be right back.”

She jogged down the hall to the pink bathroom and held the object under a warm faucet, picking at it with a gold-tipped fingernail until the layers of muck softened and flaked off.

It was a piece of jewelry.

A brisk scrubbing with a paper towel revealed a silver heart, dome-shaped and rimmed with cut-outs of minuscule stars and hearts. Embedded in the center were diamond chips in the shape of a five-point star. The chain had four links and a lobsterclaw clasp.

Returning to the office, Sky found the business card from Zach Rosario and punched in the lab number on her cell. On the fifth ring, someone answered.

“Yes?”

“Professor Fisk? This is Sky Stone.”

“See here, Doctor –”

“You told me Nicolette had jewelry hanging from her phone,” Sky said. “Do you remember?”

“Of course I remember. Nicolette was never without that cell phone, you’d think it was glued to her hand. Pink metallic, with two dangly trinkets.”

“Can you describe those trinkets?”

“One was a heart.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“A silver heart. Rounded. Like the lockets girls wore many years ago. Nicolette was convinced those silly baubles carried magic powers. She would rub the heart and say, ‘This is for my love life.’”

“And the second dangly?”

“A silver starfish. Nicolette said the starfish represented her doctorate.” His voice faltered. “She’d say, ‘I’m reaching for the stars, Horace’.”

“Thank you, Professor.”

“They’ve arrested the guitar player,” he said. “I saw the press conference on television. Quite a relief.”

“How’s the lab?” Sky asked.

“Zach is here, we’re getting things in order.”

Sky detected the grad student’s sporadic grunts of exertion in the background and suspected that the professor’s role in the clean-up was strictly supervisory.

“Anything missing?” she said.

“Nothing of importance.” Professor Fisk’s voice turned shrill, the subject of the lab seemed to disturb him. “Nothing of importance,” he repeated.

“Are you all right, Professor?”

“It’s just that …” He paused.

“Yes?” she prompted.

“It’s nothing. Goodbye.”

The phone went dead.

“Very medieval.” Teddy had wandered over to the sofa and was peering down at the chess set.

“Do you play?” Sky asked.

“Chess? Me? No way. I’m a checkers man. What’s that?”

“A piece of jewelry from Nicolette Mercer’s cell phone. It must have rolled off the newspapers when we were picking through Manville’s garbage.” Sky sniffed the heart and wrinkled her nose. “I rinsed it off but it still stinks.”

Teddy poked at the trinket in Sky’s hand. “Wonder how it ended up at Manville’s place.”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe the heart fell off her phone somewhere else,” he suggested. “Like in the Lamborghini. Hard to say.”

“It doesn’t matter how it came off, or where it came off.” Sky pinched the tiny lobster claw open and shut. “Nicolette’s heart ended up in Manville’s garbage. That’s the only fact that matters.” Sky set the delicate charm gently at the feet of the silver queen. The queen Manville had so eagerly captured, just before Sky declared checkmate.

Tiffany gave a frustrated yelp at the loss of the heart. The dog appeared to know her rights. She blinked up at Sky with bulbous brown eyes, as if to say ‘finders, keepers’.

“Sorry, girl.” Sky pulled the Shih Tzu into her lap and extracted a generous crust of stale poppy seed bagel from a two-day-old Dunkin’ Donuts bag. “Such a smart puppy.” She stroked the brindle ears while Tiffany wolfed down the tidbit. All was forgiven.