Thyme to Live: A We Sisters Three Mystery (10 page)

“What box?”

“The first time we were in the apartment, you picked up a ring box from her bedside table and put it in your pocket.”

He frowned. “That box was empty—trash. I was just getting rid of it.”

I waited.

“It was the box her wedding ring came in. I recognized the jeweler’s name. Gabriel’s family always used that jewelry store.”

“But the ring was gone?”

“The ring’s
been
gone. She left it behind when she left Brazil. I know because I arranged for a friend to return it to Gabriel once she was safely out of the country. I don’t understand why she left the box. It was right next the note, actually. I don’t understand any of this. It’s like a puzzle she thought I could solve. But I can’t.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. He was nearly vibrating with frustration.

“I’m sorry, Victor.” I truly was. I came over to the bed and sat down next to him.

“It’s not your fault.”

I covered his hand with mine and squeezed. He squeezed back. We sat like that for a long time, listening to the blare of angry horns and faint sirens on the street below and the hushed ticking of the HVAC system in the walls.

S
hortly before midnight
, after liberating the minibar of a bottle of middling wine, a can of cashews, and couple of fair trade, dark chocolate bars (the combined cost of which probably would have covered a better-than-good dinner out), I had a brilliant thought. I sat bolt upright, dislodging his head from my shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” His voice was sleepy, wine- and exhaustion-dulled.

“I have an idea!”

He rubbed his fists across his eyes. “Does it involve calling it a night and hitting the sheets?” He gestured toward the pitiful cot that housekeeping had delivered. It was still folded and propped against the wall. Anybody with enough spatial ability to park a car could look at it and tell there was no way it would fit in the available space if we opened it.

“No. Listen, I think I know how we can smoke out Gabriel. And maybe Helena, too.”

His droopy eyelids flipped open. “Really?” he asked, suddenly alert.

“I think so. We think Helena vanished because she knew her ex-husband was getting close to finding her, right?”

“Right.”

“And she left a fake suicide note.”

“Right.”

“But she also staged a struggle, which I don’t get.”

“You mean the fake blood?”

“Yeah.” That bit was throwing me off. Had she staged a fight
and
her death at her own hands? It seemed like that should have been an either / or proposition, not both.

“I don’t understand that part, either. Although, to be honest, I don’t really understand any of this. Why didn’t she just come to me for help?” His voice broke.

I tried to put myself in Helena’s shoes. “She probably panicked. I don’t know. But here’s what I’m thinking. She wants Gabriel to think she’s dead, right?”

“I think so.”

“We need to have a funeral.”

A look of pure horror crossed his face. “You’re kidding.”

“Okay, that sounded worse aloud than it did in my head. But hear me out. Given the fact that his goons are trailing us around town like baby ducks, he must not know where she is either and he’s probably not sure she’s even alive.”

“Probably,” he allowed.

He was still looking at me as if I’d sprouted devil’s horns, but he hadn’t run from the room screaming, so I figured I should push on.

“But if we visit a funeral home, a florist, go through the motions of planning a funeral, maybe it’ll get back to him that she’s dead.”

“And what? He tucks his tail between his legs and goes back to Brazil?”

“No. Unless Lifetime Movies have lied to me, he’ll show up at the funeral to see it with his own eyes. And that’s when the police arrest him.”

“You think the authorities are going to go along with this harebrained scheme? It’s like something out of ‘I Love Lucy.’”

“
Tom Sawyer
, actually, but whatever. And, yes, the police will play along because I’ll ask a friend for a favor.”

‘Friends’ may have been a slight overstatement of my actual relationship with Detective Dave Drummond, but I was confident he’d help me. Rosemary would see to it. Victor squinted, still unsure.

“It seems morbid.”

“Morbid, but effective,” I insisted.

“Maybe. You’re forgetting the part where we sent Helena’s phone on a tour of bars and breweries. Gabriel’s guys are following a delivery truck now, not us.”

I beamed at him. “Ah, if only we knew someone with an in at
The New York Times.
Tell me you know one of the obituary writers.”

A spark of understanding lit his tired eyes. “This just might work.”

“So what should we do first?”

“First, we sleep. I’ll take the floor.” He grabbed a pillow from the pile on the bed.

“Listen, we can share the bed. Just stay on your own side.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure. I mean, it’s better than tripping over you and flying into a brick wall if I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. This bed’s plenty big for both of us. Just—”

“I know. Stay on my side.” He gave me a meaningful look. “Trust me, Thyme, the first time I take you to bed for real, it won’t be under these circumstances.”

After dropping
that
bombshell, he brushed his teeth and fell asleep basically the second his head hit the pillow. I, on the other hand, lay awake staring at the ceiling, listening to his slow, even breathing and analyzing his last sentence a million different ways. Sometimes, a girl really needed to chat with her sisters.

I
came
out of the steamy bathroom with a towel wrapped around my hair and a hotel bathrobe cinched tightly around my waist to find a room service tray and several bags from the boutique around the corner. Victor was munching on a cranberry muffin and wearing brand new dark gray trousers, a cream-colored dress shirt, and a black V-neck sweater.

“Morning,” he said around a mouthful of pastry.

“Good morning. You look nice.”

“We have a big day. I figured a fresh set of clothes was in order.” He nodded toward the bags on the bed. “Hope I guessed your size correctly.”

I peeked inside. A black wrap dress, an ivory cardigan, and a pair of impossibly high, scrappy black heels. I checked the tag on the dress. “The clothes should fit, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to run from any attackers in those shoes.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Good point.”

“Tell you what, I’ll just wear my ballet flats and hang onto these for that dinner at the Cuban restaurant you owe me.”

A smile crossed his face. “It’s a date.” He brushed the crumbs from his fingers and gestured to the domed lid covering the tray. “You have a choice between oatmeal and a muffin. Orange juice and coffee. Eat up.”

I helped myself to the oatmeal, swirling the dried fruit into it with my spoon. “So I figure our first order of business is to call my sister’s boyfriend. Should we wait until it’s a decent hour in California?”

“Do we have to?”

“Nah.” I reached for my phone and reinserted the battery. While I waited for the phone to restart, I downed a cup of coffee then took my new outfit into the bathroom to get dressed. I dried my hair and piled it into a loose knot at the base of my neck. I added a swipe of matte red lipstick and some mascara and checked my reflection. I was a passable grieving friend.

I returned to the bedroom to call Rosemary and Dave. Victor was sitting on the bed with his notebook propped on his lap, chewing on the end of his pen.

“What are you doing?”

“Writing my sister’s obituary,” he answered without looking up.

I grabbed the phone and dialed Rosemary’s number. She answered on the first ring.

“Are you alright?” Even though it wasn’t yet seven o’clock on the West Coast, her voice was alert and anxious—and maybe a little bit irritated. “We’ve been worried sick about you ever since you sent that stupid text.”

“I’m fine, Rosie. I’m sorry about the cryptic text, but I had a good reason.”

“Right. Let me guess, traipsing around playing girl detective with a total stranger.”

“Well, yeah. Listen, I really don’t have time for the lecture right now. But I promise I’ll call you later and let you harangue me for as long as you want.”

“I’m not haranguing you,” she harangued.

“Sure, okay. Lecture, scold, rant—you can pick the verb. But can we do it later, please?”

She was silent for a moment and then let out her breath in a big whoosh. “Fine. I’m sorry. I’m just worried.”

“I know. I get it. I’m calling because I need your help.” I knew that would get her attention. As the oldest, Rosemary
loved
to be consulted. She thrived on fixing problems for me and Sage, dispensing advice, and generally being in charge of our lives.

“Of course. Anything,” she said instantly. “What’s going on?”

I laid out the entire situation—the stage blood; the note addressed to Victor; the crazed gunmen stalking us; all of it. I paused for a breath.

“You spent the night with him?” she asked in a scandalized whisper.

“Focus, Rosemary. People were
shooting
at us.”

“Right. Sorry. Okay, so what’s the plan?”

“We need Dave to hook us up with someone he knows and trusts in local law enforcement. We think we can lure Helena’s ex-husband into a trap, but we need someone to, you know, arrest him once we do.”

“A trap?” Her voice dripped with skepticism.

“It’ll work.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can I please just talk to Dave?”

She huffed a little at that but passed the phone to her boyfriend.

“What’s up, Thyme?”

I repeated the story for him, talking over his outburst when I got to the part about the Portuguese guys with the guns. I explained the fake funeral idea and then said, “Can you help us?”

He was silent for a long time—so long, in fact, that I thought our call might have gotten disconnected.

“Dave?”

“I’m here. I’m just speechless. I thought your sister here was the most reckless, idiotic woman alive when she tried to catch Amber’s murderer singlehandedly.”

“Dave—”

He rolled right over me. “But then, your
other
idiotic sister drove a flipping golf cart through a window to confront a murderer on that island in South Carolina, and I thought, no, Sage takes the cake.”

“Listen—”

“But, now
,
now I see that this is hereditary. As a result of some genetic defect, the Field women seem to think they are superheroes with crime-fighting ability. Your plan is foolish, dangerous, and—”

“Let me stop you right there. First, I’ll remind you that both Rosemary and Sage
succeeded
. Alayna’s in prison for the murder of Amber Patrick and the attempted murder of her stepson. And Linda Zaharee is awaiting trial for her role in the murder of Fred Spears. So tell me again how stupid we are?”

“That’s not a reason to risk your life,” he sputtered.

“And, let’s be clear, it’s highly unlikely that this Gabriel dude has even ever killed anybody.” That was a fairly weak argument, I realized. Not to mention that, for all I knew, he’d left behind a string of bodies that stretched across Rio de Janeiro. But I pressed on. “We’re talking about two street punks and a dirty cop. That’s all. Now are you going to help us or not?”

Dave sighed heavily. “I am. Not because your plan is so great, because, frankly, it sucks. And not because some guy you’re hot for has conned you into playing amateur detective. And
not
because your crazy-ass sister is giving me the stink eye. I’m going to help you because there’s nothing I hate more than a bent police officer. Nothing.” His voice was grim and resigned.

I flashed Victor a thumb’s up sign.

“Thanks, Dave.”

“Don’t thank me. Grab a pen and write down this number.”

I
t was
a good thing we got an early start, because we had a million things to do. Victor didn’t want to ask his buddy with the car service business for another favor, what with the whole ‘sorry, we returned your car with a shattered rear window and a body riddled with bullet holes’ thing. But we also couldn’t burn the entire day riding around on the subway. So we flagged down a cab and headed to a bone broth shop in the East Village to meet Dave’s friend, an officer assigned to the NYPD’s Movie/Television Unit. Yes, that’s really a thing—they’re both a thing, actually. The broth takeout place and the Movie/TV unit.

Patrol officer Jerry Thompson met us outside the broth joint. He was already standing on line, wearing his crisp blue uniform and a pair of aviator glasses. He waved me over. Victor paid the driver.

“Officer Thompson?”

He pushed the sunglasses up to the top of his head and flashed me a dazzlingly white smile. It rivaled Victor’s for brightness. What was the story with these New York men and their pearly whites?

“Ms. Field.”

His handshake was firm but not bone-crushing. Victor joined us.

“This is the friend I mentioned on the phone. Victor Callais, Officer Thompson.” I made the introductions while the two men sized one another up and shook hands.

“Thanks for meeting us,” Victor said.

“No problem. Thanks for coming out here. I’m assigned to a shoot around the corner.”

We inched up in the line of people waiting to drop actual hard-earned cash on a cup of broth.

“Has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Ryan Samson?” I tried hard to stop myself from actually saying the words, but it was impossible. He looked
just like
the movie star. In fact, for a moment I wondered if maybe he actually
was
Ryan Samson, doing some sort of Method acting preparation for a role as a police officer.

He threw back his head and laughed. “I may have heard that once or twice.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “I actually appeared in
Blue Blood, Big Badge
as his stunt double in a scene.”

“Really?” Beside me, I felt Victor stiffening with impatience and boredom. “I mean, is that part of your job?”

Victor snorted, but Officer Thompson nodded. “Sort of. The Movie and Television Unit provides traffic control to productions being filmed in the city. We also oversee ‘crime scenes’ for shows like
CSI
and
Law and Order
. Think about it. It would be pretty horrifying for a citizen to wander into a scene where the actors have found a murdered body. We keep them back, just as we would from a real crime scene. And officers from the unit appear in crowd scenes where police officers are needed. We aren’t paid extra for that,” he hurried to explain. “It’s part of the job. But it’s better than having a bunch of folks running around the boroughs impersonating police officers, you know?”

In a crazy way, it made sense. It blurred the lines between fact and fiction, life and entertainment, but the existence of the unit and the role they filled probably did keep New Yorkers safer than they otherwise would be. And, no doubt, helped boost the economy by bringing movie crews and television shows to town.

“I see,” Victor intoned, having no doubt undertaken the same silent analysis.

Officer Thompson went on. “As for Ryan Samson, I actually have my SAG card because when he needed someone to be his body double, that was outside the scope of my role with the unit. I was a paid actor in that scene.” He puffed out his chest.

“Wow, what did you do?” I hadn’t actually seen
Blue Blood, Big Badge,
but I remembered the trailers. “Were you in the rooftop shoot out?”

“No, not that scene.”

“Were you hanging from the window washer lift, fighting the bad guys in the Empire State Building scene?” Victor asked.

“Um, no not that one either.” His chest deflated and his shoulders sagged. “It was the scene where he was racing to catch the L Train. He didn’t want to go down into the station. I guess he’s afraid of rats.”

I flashed back to the furry rodent that had scampered across my legs under the table in that Chinese restaurant and shuddered.

“That was a good scene, too,” Victor mumbled.

After an awkward pause, the patrolman cleared his throat. “How do you know Dave Drummond?”

The line snaked forward and we inched along with it, moving incrementally closer to the takeout window.

“My oldest sister is dating him. They met when he was investigating Amber Patrick’s death. She was Amber’s private chef.” I tried to explained the knotty, tangled situation as simply as possible.

His eyes sparked—whether at the mention of the late rom-com superstar or the scandalous murder that had captivated the tabloids, I couldn’t tell. But he simply said, “Gotcha.”

“How do you know Dave?”

“The LAPD was considering reorganizing to form a unit like ours. Some of us flew out there to give them a presentation; then a couple months later, a couple of their guys, including Dave, came here to see us in action. We both like opera. We caught a showing of
Sweeney Todd
when it was in town.”

The fact that Detective Dave was an opera buff was news to me. I filed that piece of information for later use, like if I got his name in a family gift exchange. We reached the window. Officer Thompson ordered a medium cup of broth and handed over a ten-dollar bill.

He turned toward us, clutching his steaming takeout cup in his hands. “Aren’t you going to get something? Try the beef,” he suggested.

“We already had breakfast,” I demurred. I was well-acquainted with the nutritional benefits of stock made from the roasted bones. My mother had been a big believer. As a result, I was also well-acquainted with how easily (and inexpensively) I could make an enormous vat of the stuff at home. I might pay five bucks for an overpriced chai latte, but dropping a ten on broth? I was
far
too frugal for that nonsense.

“Suit yourself.” He took a big swig from his cup and exhaled contentedly. “So what can I do for you two?”

We started walking away from the broth shop and, presumably, toward the cordoned-off area where the movie crew was shooting.

“Victor’s sister is missing,” I began.

“She an adult?” he asked between sips.

Victor nodded. “She’s twenty-five.”

“You file a missing person’s report yet?”

“No, see—”

The officer cut him off. “Don’t believe what you see on television. Ha. That probably sounds funny coming from me, but it’s true. You should definitely report her missing. It’s not the waste of time those shows make it out to be.”

“That’s not why I didn’t call the police,” Victor explained. He took a long breath before plunging into his story. “Helena, my sister, was married to a dirty cop—er, police officer—back home in Brazil. He abused her. She got away from him. I helped her get settled here and she filed for divorce. But she’s always been worried that he’d find her.”

Officer Thompson paused with his cup mid-air and gave a sad
tsk
. “That’s rough, man. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Gabriel, her ex, he’s connected. He worked on a high-profile cross-border drug case with the federal DEA and some guys from NYPD Narcotics. I … I’m not sure who to trust.”

Thompson’s entire face stiffened into a cement mask as he bristled at the notion that New York’s finest might not all be on the up and up. After a moment, though, he relaxed his jaw. “There’s bad apples everywhere,” he acknowledged. “But if that’s how you feel, why are we talking now?”

I piped up. “We’ve been looking for her ourselves, but we’re not making a ton of progress. And … there are two guys following us around, um, trying to kill us.”

His eyebrows jumped up his smooth forehead. “Did you say
kill
you?”

“They took a couple shots at us near Hell’s Kitchen yesterday. Luckily, they have crappy aim,” I explained.

He closed his eyes and muttered something unintelligible under his breath. Then he exhaled, flaring his nostrils, and looked straight at me. “So what do you want to do about it?”

“We want to stage a funeral. That’s where you come in.”