Broken Serenade (23 page)

   
“Absolutely, Mrs. Hopkins,” he answered in his most pleasant voice.

   
“Listen, Don Juan De California! Don’t imagine that I don’t know who you are and how you treat women. Vivien means the world to me…”

 
  “And to me,” he said quickly. “I swear to God!”

   
“Don’t… interrupt me, Timothy!”

   
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hopkins.”

   
“Vivien loved you ever since she was a child. She adored you, and it seems that for some unknown, strange reason she still does. If you dare to break her wonderful heart, I’ll break your balls. Literally. As simple as that.
Tooth for a tooth and eye for an eye
! Got it? Good! Now, smile nicely, bid me goodbye, and let me talk to my daughter, Ok?”

   
“Yes, Mrs. Hopkins,” Timothy uttered and flushed lightly. “Thank you for the wonderful wishes. You have a great day too!”

   
He returned the receiver to Vivien, barely containing his laughter.

   
“She’s something else,” he whispered amused.

   
“Isn’t she a sweetheart?” Vivien said, beaming.

   
“Yes, indeed,” he acquiesced promptly. “She’s the perfect…mother-in-law.” 

CHAPTER 19

     
 
D
etective Leonard was definitely a matutinal person. Morning was his favorite part of the day. He loved mornings even for the fact that he could eat at breakfast anything he wanted – especially his to-die-for omelets made with spinach and mushrooms.

   
Art Leonard hated evenings and nights - particularly the cold and rainy ones – and his empty and frigid bed.
My description could contour quite well the portrait of a suicidal man,
he thought, as he stepped hard on the accelerator to beat a red light.
His ex-wife had walked out on him more than two years ago. He was paying child support for his two children, but he wasn’t able to see them as often as he wanted. Not in the least. His ex-wife had moved on purpose on the other coast. Art was living in a modest apartment in Redwood City now. That was all he could afford after his ex-wife’s divorce lawyer had practically plundered him. 

   
Robert Kane, on the other hand, was the most unlikely person to give up on his life so easily. The successful civil engineer apparently had endured no sentimental problems, and financially, he had been solid as a rock. Before he had allegedly put a hole through his head with an unregistered gun, he had left a farewell text-message to his wife of fifteen years of a happy marriage. In fact, that was the only text-message he had ever sent.
Strange,
the detective reflected.

   
To park his car, Art Leonard chose the furthest parking space he found at
Stanford Plaza
, even though the mall was almost deserted at that early hour in the morning. He grabbed the sealed plastic bag with Kane’s cell phone in it and strolled toward Macy’s department store.

   
The young woman in the perfume department approached him promptly. She wore an ethereal smile on her lips that shone with quality lip-gloss.

   
“Good morning, sir! How may I assist you?” she initiated the conversation.

   
Detective Leonard adopted a rather penitent tone. He knew from experience that the trick worked in most cases.

   
“I have a difficult problem to solve,” he started, knowing that he would not buy anything and feeling somehow guilty. He was going to encroach on this young seller’s time, and incidentally, he found that she was a real
femme fatale
.

   
“I would be glad to help you,” she offered politely.

   
The detective pulled out Kane’s phone from his pocket. He opened the plastic bag and made desperate efforts not to contaminate the object inside with his thick and clumsy fingers.

   
“This cell phone has a mysterious feminine scent. I’m not an expert, but I believe it’s an expensive perfume. Could you possibly tell me, without touching it, what fragrance brand is it?”

   
Her brown, perfectly contoured eyes treated him briefly with a certain expression that Art interpreted it without mistake.  

   
“No, no, I’m not a lunatic,” he highlighted with an awkward smile. “I’m a detective.”

   
“That explains,” the woman breathed a sigh of relief. “And that’s a dead man’s cell phone,” she pointed out.

    “How do you know that?”

    “Intuition.”

   
You’d make a damn good detective, cutie!

    Art Leonard
lifted the black cell to the woman’s face. Amused, he noticed that the ivory face powder she was wearing didn’t integrally manage to mask the piquant freckles on her small, pretty nose.

   
“Obsession, by Calvin Klein,” she declared on the spot.

   
“Are you absolutely sure?”

   
“No doubt whatsoever!”

   
She turned around. From that multitude of perfumes that populated the metal and glass shelves, she picked up an oval bottle with a dark brown lid. She sprayed a few drops on a testing paper strip and handed it to him.

   
“Perfect,” he said, satisfied, stealing a glance at her ring finger. She didn’t have anything on it. A transient thought passed through his brain involuntarily.
How would it be like to return home to a woman like that? Madness, pure and simple!

   
Art Leonard babbled a short “thank you” and walked hurriedly toward the exit. He felt a bit embarrassed, as if the woman were able to read his daring thoughts.

    “Detective,” she called out.
“You forget your scarf, sir!” She giggled charmingly and buried her perked little nose into the garment’s thick texture. “Hmmm… Polo for Men, my favorite male fragrance,” she whispered boldly, and then she handed him the scarf. “Come and buy a new one when you finish it.”  

   
“I believe… tonight I’ll use the last drop,” he mentioned, pleasantly surprised.

   
“The sooner, the better,” she chirped happily.

*                                        *                                        *

    It was definitely hard; it was next to impossible to find a parking spot on a residential street in Menlo Park on an early Monday morning.

   
Police officer Nick Alberman cursed silently as he drove around the enormous
Waste Management
truck that collected the garbage. The awful noise, and the pestilential smell it exhaled, stretched Nick’s patience to the limits. He rolled up the window swearing nervously. He didn’t need this stupid truck to drive him nuts this morning. He already had multiple other issues that gave him headaches.    

    “
Like the lack of a parking space, for example,” he mumbled alone, even though he knew the real reason of his bad mood too damn well.

   
His girlfriend of over 2 years had asked him to make a decision. She wanted children, and she wanted a family. She had given him an ultimatum that morning. “I can’t wait forever,” she had told him. The message left by Miss Hopkins had helped him evade a particularly difficult discussion with a possibly terrifying conclusion. He loved his girlfriend, but marriage was not on his list.
At least not yet!
The examples around him were not highly encouraging either. Most of his fellow police officers and detectives were either divorced or separated. The perspective of a failed marriage appealed to him as much as monkhood.

   
Miss Hopkins had not been very explicit in her message. Now, a fancy car stationed beside hers kept him from going directly to her door. After circling around a second time, Alberman found that the silver Mercedes had vanished. He entered her driveway and parked behind the young woman’s Lexus. He checked himself into the rearview mirror, straightened his tie, and climbed out of his car. As he stood in front of her door, Nick got the chance to push the doorbell button only once. An adorable, radiant Vivien Hopkins popped up instantly from inside the house. She wore no make-up at all and was dressed only in an oversized blue T-shirt that left exposed to his view her long and gorgeous legs. He stared at her bewildered. It occurred to him that if his girlfriend had known where he had headed after their earlier fight, she would’ve dumped him that very morning. The mere thought left him horror-stricken.

   
The young woman before him blushed lightly. Visibly embarrassed, she retreated behind the door immediately. Now he could only see her head.   

   
“I’m sorry, I thought you were Tee, my boyfriend,” she attempted to explain her prompt and overly casual appearance.

   
“Is…uh…is he the… the person who just left,” Alberman stuttered, trying to ignore how beautiful she was blushing like that.

   
“Yes, I thought he forgot something. Would you excuse me for a moment,” she added pressed. “I’ll put something on and be back before you know it.”

   
What a lucky dog!
Alberman reflected with envy, thinking about the man in the silver Mercedes.

   
Vivien Hopkins came back in record time and invited him inside.

   
“I…uh…I was driving around this area when you called,” Nick Alberman lied. “That’s why I’m the one to…uh…to respond to your… uh… your call…” 

   
“Thank you! Well, actually, I wanted to talk to Detective Leonard, but he didn’t answer his cell phone, and I didn’t want to leave a message. Then I called the station, I thought he was there. That’s why they sent you, I guess. But it’s not even something extremely important. I just thought it might help with the investigation if I mentioned it. I remembered the other day that, in the back room of the store where I found Arlene, there was a strange odor. I know her perfume. There was nothing she or I ever wore. Still, it was a woman’s scent. My guess is
Obsession
, but I’ll have to check it out to be sure. I’m going to stop at Sephora one of these days anyway.” 

   
“Thank you for letting us know about it. So, is that all?” the officer asked, moving from one foot to the other.

   
Suddenly, his empty stomach sent a painful growl. The smell of cinnamon and vanilla in the house didn’t help much. On the contrary, it made him salivate continuously.

   
“I didn’t have time to eat any breakfast yet,” he excused himself, embarrassed, as another unseasonable visceral roar scratched the silence. 

   
“Tee and I made cinnamon rolls this morning,” Vivien announced kindly. “Would you like to try them? If you’re in a hurry, I can put a couple of them in a plastic bag, and you can eat while driving.”

   
“Thank you so much. That would be great!”

   
The police officer followed her in the kitchen. While the young woman generously chose the largest two cinnamon rolls in the pan and bagged them for him, Alberman studied his surroundings with a critical eye.
My kitchen was this stressfully clean only the first day I moved into my new apartment. For about two minutes. At the most!
Then, comforting chaos settled in! God, this kitchen alone could kill me! There must be something wrong with these people!

     A small plastic bag with
Detective Leonard’s business card on it stood on the edge of the counter. On it, somebody had written with capital letters
TEE
. It resembled Miss Hopkins’ handwriting a lot. Acting on impulse, he grabbed it and stuffed it quickly into his pocket before she could notice anything.

   
“Is your boyfriend a doctor?” he asked absently. 

    “No. Tee
is an architect.”

   
“Tee…from…”

   
“From Timothy,” she pointed out proudly, as she handed him the bag with cinnamon rolls. “Timothy Leigh.”

   
“Thanks a lot,” Nick Alberman said, ready to leave. “He’s a lucky guy!”

   
Vivien smiled shyly. Alberman saluted politely and left without delay.

   
He backed up his car and drove away. At the first intersection, he made a right turn and stopped. Nick pulled the stolen plastic bag from his pocket and checked it in the sunlight. A blonde piece of hair shone inside it.
Miss Hopkins lied to me. She
didn’t trust me. This is what she actually had for detective Leonard
. Without losing another second, Nick placed a phone call to a friend from forensics.  

   
“I need a DNA test. I’ll bring you the sample in about ten minutes.”

  
“When do you need the result?”