Bonbons and Betrayal: Book 3 in The Chocolate Cafe Series (7 page)

She opened the first drawer and found only a collection of expensive pens, change and a few misdirected staples.

The second drawer was deep enough to function as a filing cabinet. Mac was disappointed to find nothing but credit card statements, gas receipts and medical information.

Downstairs, the conversation continued. Mac couldn’t help but half listen as their voices drifted up through the overly filigreed heating vent beneath the desk.

“Deena Shelat was the head of the department at the time, was she not?” Louis’ voice as lighthearted and charming as usual.

“And Creed was the head of her, to be blunt. You see, the man was a sub-par student and a sub-par teacher. There was no way he would’ve attained any of his degrees without stealing ideas from greater minds than his. There is certainly no way he would’ve been employed without Shelat’s help either.”

Mehyar’s voice was almost a hiss of pure hatred. It was obvious, even to Mac one floor above, that he had no love for Creed and that his patience for Louis’s line of questioning was growing thin.

“Do you remember how long Shelat and Creed were seeing each other?” Louis asked.

Mac froze, midway through a pile of papers she had found beneath a crystal paperweight.

Deena Shelat. The tear-sodden middle-aged woman from the party the other night. Of course. No wonder she had gone out of her way to frighten the three of them off Paul. They had been lovers, and not the blissful kind.

“As long as it took for him to get what he wanted. Did you know she quit her position as soon as he ended their affair? Not all of us have the strength to see the person we hate every day. She just couldn’t take it. Look…how long is this going to be? This is a waste of my time.”

Finally, Mac’s heart rate began to increase. Perhaps she didn’t have quite the window of opportunity she had initially believed. If Louis came back to the car and she was gone…

Her heart beginning to thump in her ears, she moved quickly through the papers in her hands. What was she looking for exactly? Anything about Creed, she supposed. Or maybe she couldn’t resist being part of the action.

She came across a black and white newspaper clipping and stopped. Dated three months ago, it was a short article accompanied by a photograph of the unmistakably magnetic Paul Creed.

He was smiling at the camera, his Nordic good looks in stark contrast to the group of shabby students that surrounded him. On his right, a young man no taller than Mac smiled awkwardly at the camera. His hair, overlong and greasy looking, hung to his shoulders and even in the blurry newsprint, his eyes appeared haunted. Paul was holding the young man’s hand in the air in an exaggeratedly triumphant pose, like they were athletes rather than computer science nerds.

Beneath the photo was the caption ‘
Celebrated Computer Science Whiz Professor Paul Creed Offering Mentorship to
Tomorrow’s Tech
Game Changers
’

Mac began to read further when she heard Mehyar’s voice begin to take on a reedy, furious tone.

“…At home. Exactly what I told your superior and exactly what I’ll tell you. I won’t however, tell you again. I have an alibi and those have all been checked out. I hated the man, I won’t lie. I won’t pretend I felt anything even resembling respect for him, but I am not a murderer. I did not give up my life to spend the rest of it behind bars over yet another privileged, pompous idiot.”

This was where she made her exit. Mac hastily folded the article and shoved it in her cardigan pocket. She could hear Louis calmly trying to placate Mehyar but from his rapidly amplifying tone, she had a feeling she was down to seconds to make a successful escape.

Holding her breath and maneuvering her way down the long hall, Mac counted those seconds.
Just get to the door and get out.
Yes, she had now added theft to her list of criminal deeds, but she had a feeling there was something in that article that was going to make it all worth it.

He didn’t yell. He was far too British for that. What he did was even worse. In fact, it was the most uncomfortable five minutes of Mac’s life.

He stared at her.

He stared at her the same way he stared at convicts, suspects and those he was simply too disgusted with to waste words on.

Mac felt like the sheer force of that silent, cutting stare was pushing her back against the Toyota’s steamy windows. There was no love in those eyes. No respect either…

She held the stupid piece of paper between the two of them like a peace offering. It trembled slightly as she did her best to explain her actions. That was the worst part of the stare, for every moment that he didn’t speak she spoke more – unwinding the rope that he was handing her to hang herself with.

“I think it’s important. Honestly, I do. We need to…I mean you need to look at all possibilities, right? I mean it had to be someone he knew…no signs of a struggle, right? These were his students the semester… this… this guy… Randall Eisenhower… apparently was his star pupil. See? Would you? Louis, would you just look? I’m sorry… Here, just take a look...” Mac practically shoved the paper in his face. Anything to get him to stop staring at her that way.

Without expression, without even a sigh of annoyance, Louis finally took the trembling news clipping from her hand and read it.

The mood in the car immediately changed. He was pushing up his glasses to get a better look, but his hand froze. His mouth softened from its impenetrable slash of disappointment.

“This kid. I met this kid in the alley that night. Randall Eisenhower.”

Mac felt flooded with relief. Yes, thank god… Maybe she hadn’t sacrificed her relationship for nothing.

“He was incredibly drunk and had nothing good to say about Paul… he was one of my red flags.” Ignoring Mac’s satisfied smile, Louis took his phone from the pocket of his jacket.

There was silence as he dialed the station and waited.

“Yes, hello. It’s me. Listen, can I trouble you for the address of a Randall Eisenhower? Yup…”

Louis gestured at Mac to grab her pen and the same napkin that she had scrawled Mehyar’s address on earlier. It was hard for Mac to control her happiness. It was hard for her to control a lot of her emotions around this man.

Louis parroted the address and hung up the phone. There was another loaded pause and he turned to her.

Was he going to kick her out? Was she going to end up walking home? Shelling out a cool hundred for a taxi back to Mackenzie Bay?

“Don’t think that I’m overly impressed.”

“So you’re a little impressed?”

Louis turned the car on, avoiding eye contact as much as he could.

“A very small amount. Nothing to get excited about. And I am absolutely serious this time…when we get to Eisenhower’s house, I am locking you in the trunk. No bowls of water. Nothing. You’re very naughty. It’s infuriating.”

Mac’s face twisted up into her impish smile, her strangely beautiful face practically glowing with triumph.

“But impressive. Infuriating but impressive.”

******

One lock opened, the dull click loud enough to almost echo down the hallway.

Another click as another lock was undone.

Then another.

Despite himself, Louis took a few steps backward. Not that he thought there was anything behind the door that he couldn’t handle. He’d seen enough in his ten odd years as a homicide detective to prepare him for even the most unthinkable of surprises.

In his experience however, it always made sense to give oneself a little extra space when there were that many locks on an apartment door.

Two more locks later and the seams of the doorway protested as it opened.

Only as far as a few chain locks, of course.

Louis was immediately hit with the dank smell of rot, strong enough to make its way through the small crack into the hall.

A single eye stared out at him. It was blood shot and wild. Whomever was the lucky owner of that eye, was hanging by a thread, that was obvious.

“Randall Eisenhower?”

There was a pause and then a crackling noise in the man’s throat, as if he hadn’t spoken in months.

“Who wants to know?” he gurgled.

Louis flipped open his ID,
holding it up to the rank smelling crack in the door.

“I’m with the NYPD. I need to ask you a few questions.”

“I know you,” the voice said. “Let me see your badge.” Hesitantly, Louis stepped closer. Two thin fingers snaked their way out of the door. The nails were bitten to the quick, the cuticles swollen and crusty with blood. Craig took Louis’ ID in a pincer grip and it disappeared into the dark behind the door.

Louis sighed, staring down at his shoes while he waited for Eisenhower to be satisfied that he was legitimate.

After an inappropriate length of time, Louis heard the remaining two chain locks being rattled back. The door opened into a dark apartment, the rank smell strong enough to be almost palpable as it rolled over Louis and into the hall.

Eisenhower, his thin body almost visibly brittle, stepped to the side as Louis walked in.

“You were in the alleyway,” Randall said. He regarded Louis suspiciously, his eyes so much darker and much more hollow without the drunken sheen to them. “That night. The night Creed was killed.”

“Good timing on someone’s part,” Louis said, taking his ID back and slipping it into his inner pocket. “At least whomever did it gave him a chance to enjoy his success before they did him in.”

Another calculated statement. Expertly placed in front of the young man like bait on a hook. He scanned the apartment as he waited for Randall’s response.

Once inside it was easy to see where the smell was coming from. Piles of takeaway containers towered in the corner like Grecian columns, flanking a litter box that hadn’t been cleaned in what looked like a very long time. The only furniture seemed to be a white plastic lawn chair in the center of the room. It faced a massive collection of computer monitors and hard drives that rose even higher than the piles of crusty curry containers and pizza boxes. The only light in the room came from windows that were papered over with yellowing newspapers and the bluish green glow from the monitors.

It did nothing for Randall’s complexion. He looked sickly, and at the mention of Paul’s death, beads of sweat suddenly appeared on his upper lip.

“That’s harsh,” he said. “A terrible thing to say. Even about a man like him. A terrible thing…it’s unkind. You’re unkind. Are you unkind?”

Louis decided to change his tactics. The rapid-fire speech and obsessive stuttering Randall had shown in the alley that night was obviously not alcohol related.

This kid was not well.

He’d seen plenty of mental illness in his time and he could spot them in a line up. He had, in fact, spotted it in many in many line-ups over the years.

“I can be unkind, I suppose,” he said. “But only when pressed. Can I ask you some questions?”

A nervous little smile scuttled across Eisenhower’s face. A weasel…that’s what he reminded Louis of. He was all angles and erratic energy.

“I don’t know, can you?”

“You were a student of Paul Creed were you not? His protégé, I believe the New York Times called you.”

Randall closed the door, sealing Louis and the wet, offensive smell in tight. He began to chew his fingers with great enthusiasm, tearing at his own flesh with his sharp teeth. He pulled the dirty lawn chair up to the wall of monitors and began to type frantically on one of the many keyboards.

“That’s a terrible amount of pressure to put on a person. Protégé. Protégé of what? Not his. More like he was a protégé of mine.”

Louis watched as two black cats suddenly tumbled out of the one adjoining rooms. Just as skinny and wild eyed as Randall, they pushed the bedroom door open in their battle. A single mattress lay on the floor, surrounded by mason jars filled with what looked like organic matter. Fingernails, urine and…

“You wouldn’t be a fan of Howard Hughes, would you?” Louis asked, crossing his arms despite himself. Eisenhower was getting more interesting by the minute.

When the cats, rolling like a furry, hissing wheel through the apartment came close to his chair, Randall slammed his gnawed fingers in his ears.