Lisa Lutz Spellman Series E-Book Box Set: The Spellman Files, Curse of the Spellmans, Revenge of the Spellmans, The Spellmans Strike Again (68 page)

Saturday, May 20 1200 hours

Henry Stone stayed true to his word after “the incident,” as Rae called it, or “the almost-vehicular-manslaughter” as Henry called it: He never gave my sister another driving lesson. My parents’ recent disappearances, and work catch-up after their disappearances, offered little time for further driving instruction. Moreover, they asked me
not
to give Rae any driving lessons, since they “didn’t want me to ingrain in her any bad habits.” So, other than the school driving lessons and the rare supplement from my parents, Rae’s sole practice came during my brother’s depression when he let her drive his BMW.

We later discovered that while Rae drove David around on errands like his own mini chauffeur, David offered no element of instruction. He would stare out the window in a state of melancholy and not notice when Rae merely slowed down at a stop sign or failed to use to her turn signal or exceeded the speed limit in a school zone. He failed to comment on the car’s three-foot distance from the curb when Rae would parallel park. On occasion he would correct it himself, but mostly Rae simply pulled into driveways, which, to her credit, she had mastered.

That said, the day Rae turned sixteen my parents agreed to let her take her driving test, even though she was under suspicion at her school for spray painting the word “Rat” on Jason Rivers’s locker. They arranged a small party for after the driving test, which would include the usual suspects—Henry Stone, Mom, Dad, me, and Rae’s single age-appropriate friend from school: Ashley Pierce.

The celebratory spirit vacated the room the moment Rae stormed into the house, disparaging her driving test proctor.

“Bastard.”

“Pumpkin, calm down,” interrupted my father, who had accompanied her to the DMV.

“Rat bastard.”

“Rae, stop that.”

“Stinking rat bastard.”

“That’s enough!” my father said as he guided Rae to the couch for a brief chat.

“When you fail,” my father began, “it is your fault alone, not somebody else’s.”

“We have a driveway. I don’t need to parallel park.”

“Actually you do, because you won’t always have a driveway to pull into.”

“I can learn that later.”

“You also need to stop at stop signs. That’s why they say ‘stop.’”

“I did stop.”

“You slowed down.”

“Enough to see that no one was coming in either direction.”

“The sign says ‘stop.’”

“Whatever,” said Rae, who then turned to and on Henry. “This wouldn’t have happened if you kept giving me driving lessons.”

“You’re probably correct,” Henry replied. “And I would have continued to offer driving instruction if you hadn’t run me over.”

“I don’t know how many times I can say I’m sorry,” Rae replied.

“I’ve forgiven you, Rae. But, seriously, you need to take responsibility for your actions. Today is your birthday; why don’t you forget about the driving test. You can take it again when you’re better prepared. There’s cake to eat and presents to open.
Shake it off,
” Henry said assertively. And, miraculously, she did.

My mother then turned to my father and whispered, “Maybe we should just let her move in with him for the next few years. We can take her back when she’s completely house-trained.”

“Fine by me,” my dad replied.

Ashley Pierce arrived fashionably late, with her mother. Apparently my sister’s recent antics had gotten around the school and up the ladder to the PTA. The Pierce mom decided that this would be a supervised visit. Rae introduced her school friend’s mother to “Henry” as a friend of the family, sensing the mother was a judgmental type. The room took notice and saw Rae’s improving social radar as a sign of good things to come.

David was sitting in the corner, wearing a wrinkled shirt, eating a slice of cake and drinking a beer, surefire evidence that he was still in a serious funk. I sat down next to him and tried to impersonate a warm and approachable sibling.

“How are you doing?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation casual and unforced. The night before I had called Henry and asked him to give me a list of safe conversation-starters for my brother (see Appendix for full list). I was trying to avoid peeking at my cheat sheet for the rest. Fortunately, David carried the conversation in an entirely new direction. He watched as Rae picked up her first present and tore through the wrapping paper before reading the card. Henry corrected her and Rae promptly rectified the situation. She hunted for the card, opened it in a flash, smiled politely, and then continued the attack on her gift.

David observed the scene with a sense of detached bemusement. “I can’t figure those two out,” he said. “I questioned her about it not too long ago. I asked her what it was about him she liked so much.”

“What did she say?”

“She said the strangest thing. She said, ‘Because he’s better than us.’ What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, “but she’s right.”

More silence hung in the air. I recalled a few more Henry-approved questions and decided to go for it.

“Seen any good movies lately?”

“Nope.”

“How’s work?”

“I’ve been out since I left for the yoga retreat.”

“How was that, by the way?”

“I was only there two days.”

“Why?”

“Because they really frown on lying in bed and drinking bourbon.”

“I see,” I replied, without any kind of snappy retort, you might notice.

“You were gone for a week. Where did you go?”

“I checked into a five-star hotel just a few miles away.”

“What did you do there?” I asked.

“Lay in bed and drank bourbon,” David replied as if it were the most obvious of answers.

More silence, and then David offered the information I was subconsciously fishing for.

“She’s coming back.”

“When?”

“Today or tomorrow.”

“Are you going to try to work things out?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“You should go home and shower and bathe and stuff, so you don’t look pathetic.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what else to say.”

“Finally,” David replied.

I got David another slice of cake and a beer and left him to wallow, since that was clearly what he needed to do.

While Rae was opening her presents, I managed to slip out of the room and steal away to the attic apartment. The binoculars were right where I left them—under the bed. I pulled them out, parted the curtains, and viewed Subject’s residence for any signs of life or death. I suspect, in my absence, Subject had once again developed some confidence in his own privacy. The shades were drawn, a few windows were open, and there were no signs that he was attempting to hide from me or anyone else.

Subject appeared to be packing. I came to this conclusion after I watched him fill cardboard boxes with items from his apartment and tape them up. I watched Subject repeat the same task for the next five to ten minutes. Then I observed Subject carrying—
you won’t believe this
—a rolled-up rug down to his truck. He carefully placed it on the bed, looked around nervously, and then got into the truck and drove away. I was so engrossed in Subject’s activity that I didn’t notice a door open and close behind me.

“Sometimes a rolled-up rug is just a rolled-up rug,” Henry said.

“But sometimes a rolled-up rug is a crime scene,” I replied.

“If you make one move to leave,” Henry said, “I’ll tell your parents.”

“You are so prehistoric,” I said, checking my watch. The fact was, I had no plans to leave. With my tracking device on the car, I could calculate Subject’s whereabouts and estimate where he dumped the rug and/or body.

I returned downstairs with Henry right behind me.

Rae was mauling the last of her presents. (She’s not the kind of girl to save the gift wrap.) Her final acquisition, from months of unsubtle persuasion, was from Henry. The entire
Dr. Who
collection on DVD. All of the newer unreleased series burned to disc, which, I pointed out to Henry, might be construed as illegal.

“How did you know this is
exactly
what I wanted?” Rae asked, playing the part of surprised birthday girl.

“If you were any less subtle,” Henry replied, “I would still be in the hospital.”

I departed while Dad tried to convince Rae that he could watch television without talking to the TV. My mom eyed me suspiciously as I left. I returned to my closet to observe Subject’s moves from my computer screen.

1400 hrs

Subject drove from adjacent residence at Clay Street to the intersection of Van Ness, Market, and Eleventh Street, where he remained for ten minutes. Then Subject drove to the intersection of Market and Castro and returned home at precisely 1530 hrs, and seemed to remain in for the night. I got in my car, when I assumed Subject was home, to check the locations that he visited earlier in the day. The Eleventh Street location was a Goodwill store. Could it be that he donated his carpet, to dispose of the evidence? A dump site would be more reliable, but perhaps more suspicious. The second location had too many establishments to predict which one Subject entered.

I returned to the Goodwill Store that sat in an awkward triple intersection of Market, Van Ness, and Eleventh Street. I scanned the store for a rolled-up Oriental rug, but it seemed obvious that the item hadn’t gone through processing yet. I found the foreman, who accepts deliveries, in the back of the store and provided a simple explanation for my query:

“So, my boyfriend and I just broke up and he got the rug in the settlement—but he didn’t really want the rug, he just wanted to keep me from having it. Anyway, I’m pretty sure he donated it to you guys this morning. Could you check around for it? I’m happy to pay whatever you think is fair, but I really need to have that rug back. It has a lot of sentimental value.”

Twenty minutes later, the foreman was helping me load the rug into my car, not without some protest.

“There’s no way this is going to fit,” he said.

There was also no way I was going to leave this evidence unattended. We stretched the rug through the trunk of the Buick, across the flattened backseat, into the front seat, and out the passenger window.

“You must really love that rug,” the foreman said as I was getting into the car to drive off.

“You have no idea,” I replied convincingly.

As soon as I exited the parking lot of the Goodwill store, I realized that the size of the rug and the experiment I needed to do on it presented a problem.

First things first; I phoned Henry. “Where can I get Luminol on a Saturday afternoon?”

Sigh.

“Henry, are you there?”

“Why do you need Luminol?” he asked.

I lied, because that’s really what he wanted me to do. “There’s this stain on my carpet. I’d feel a whole lot better about living here if I knew for sure it wasn’t blood.”

“You took his rug, didn’t you?”

“No. I need it to check the stain on my carpet, like I just said. Can you hook me up?”

“No, Isabel.”

“You could if you wanted to.”

“I’m not going to argue the point.”

“So you don’t know where I can get some?”

“I can’t help you,” Stone replied, and I hung up the phone.

You might think it odd that a private investigator would have trouble finding a solution that’s used on every major television crime show. But the truth is crime scenes are surveyed by cops, not PIs. At best, we might see a picture of one or witness a courtroom reenactment, but we don’t investigate murders. I have never had cause to use Luminol before in my entire career. Therefore, I had no idea how to get my hands on it.

I called the only person who might know and might keep her mouth shut about the conversation.

“Rae Spellman’s phone,” Rae said as she picked up on her personal line.

“Why don’t you just say hello?” I said.

“Because if I just say hello it implies that the person has reached me and I can’t get out of talking to him/her/it.”

“But you have caller ID.”

“Some people block their identities.”

“I don’t.”

“Did you call for a reason?”

“Do you know where I can get Luminol?”

“Oh my god, you found a crime scene. I want to see it,” Rae said like a five-year-old begging for ice cream.

“No.”

“Please.”

“Where can I get Luminol?”

“There are tons of laboratory supply places online.”

“There’s no time for that.”

“You could try the Spy Shop.”

“I hate that place. It’s so tacky.”

“You just have to weigh your dignity against your desire to know the truth,” Rae said, and I hung up the phone once again.

Within ten minutes I was in the financial district, circling the block outside of the Metreon Center. I parked in a loading zone and entered the Spy Shop. As predicted, Luminol was for sale in overpriced metallic containers that looked sleek and television friendly. My transaction took under three minutes. I exited the shop and got on the bridge with my oversized companion, the Oriental rug.

When I arrived at Len and Christopher’s apartment, I debated how to play out my little charade. In the car ride it was my plan to offer the gift, bring it inside, and spray the Luminol while I had my polite hosts preparing tea and scones. However, there was something decidedly tasteless about this scenario, and since I was already on shaky ground with my actor chums, I decided to come clean.

“I need to do an experiment in your loft,” I explained when Len opened the door.

“That’s a new one,” Len wearily replied.

After a cursory explanation of my “case” and the recent trouble it had landed me in, my friends decided to oblige, since they know how my own brand of tunnel vision works.

Len, Christopher, and I lugged the hundred-pound carpet into their spacious loft and spread it out over the wide space of their twenty-by-thirty-foot concrete floor.

“If I don’t find any blood on it, it’s yours,” I said, hoping the offer of a potential gift might make my hosts less grumpy.

The rug, worn in various places, didn’t show any signs of foul play to the naked eye, but that’s what the Luminol was for. As much as I was looking forward to administering the spray myself, my actor friends wanted to live out their CSI fantasies and insisted that I let them do the inspection. Since I had invaded their home with a potentially blood-soaked item, I thought etiquette insisted I let them have their fun.

Christopher sprayed the Luminol first, crouching over the rug, studying it with the air of one who does this for a living.

“My turn,” Len said, reaching for the spray bottle.

“I’m not done yet,” Christopher replied, like a schoolboy not yet ready to relinquish his toy.

“One more spray and then it’s mine.”

“Fine.”

Christopher sprayed once, then twice. Len turned to me to intervene.

“Isabel, make him give it to me.”

“Christopher, I believe it is Len’s turn,” I said diplomatically, although I had already come to the conclusion that no blood would be found on the carpet.

Len took over the Luminol spray and doused the rest of the carpet in the solution. Nothing showed up. Then Christopher left the room and came back with an altogether different spray.

“It reveals urine and sperm,” he explained.

“Eew. That’s disgusting.”

“I picked it up when we were dog-sitting that time, remember, Len?”

“Oh, I remember,” Len said, rolling his eyes.

Christopher sprayed the rug and traced the green light over to the corner, revealing yet another stain.

“You think he peed on his own rug?” Christopher asked.

“No, I think somebody’s dog or cat peed on it and maybe he couldn’t get the smell out. This is why
I’m
the detective. So, do you want the rug?”

Fifteen minutes later, the rug and I were heading back across the bridge. I returned to the Goodwill store to re-donate it.

The foreman was, as one might expect, confused.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I realized that it would be healthier for me if I just moved on. Shouldn’t hang on to the past, that sort of thing. Clean slate, new carpet.”

On the way back to my closet, my cell phone rang.

“Izzy, it’s your good friend Bernie.”

“I think of you more as my enemy,” I replied.

“Always a kidder.”

“Deadly serious.”

“I have some great news, kid.”

“Shoot.”

“Daisy and I are back together.”

“That’s really just great news for you and Daisy. I don’t see how the rest of the world might benefit.”

“Kid, the apartment. It’s yours again. I had it scrubbed from top to bottom and I even cleared some more closet space.”

“I got an apartment, Bernie.”

“I thought you were living with your parents.”

“I had to move because of the restraining order.”
¹

“So you don’t need my place anymore?”

“Nope,” I said, but then I remembered something. “Bernie, I’ll call you back in a half hour.”