Makeovers Can Be Murder (19 page)

″I know a guy who knows a guy over in the ME′s office,″ Fish said. ″And my guy owes me money. I′ll call in a favor.″

″That′s fabulous,″ I said.

Then I mentioned my weird encounter with Chaz Putnam to Fish.

″There was something wrong in the way he freaked out about Jana′s purse,″ I told him. ″I know the kid′s a dopehead and he didn′t want the cops coming over, but his response was way over the top. He practically broke my wrist. Can you check him out?″

″Sure thing. He sounds like a punk.″

 

Fish had left by the time a package arrived on the porch for me Thursday morning. Carefully wrapped in brown paper and twine, the box was small but surprisingly heavy, as if it contained metal ball bearings. Or maybe electronics. It was from my dad.

A neon red label on the outside said:

Next to that sobering warning, another sticker depicted a jagged bolt of electricity.

What in the world?
I wondered as I carried the box inside and set it on the kitchen counter.

I dug through my memory, trying to recall what my dad had said earlier this week about what he was sending to me. Something about a radio, I seemed to recall. Or maybe some kind of solar appliance. An earthquake kit—that was it.

Using my pocketknife, I cut through the cord.

Inside the box, a note lay on top of a layer of Styrofoam peanuts:

Underneath the peanuts was a smaller box with the label ELECTRO-MUSCULAR DISRUPTION DEVICE. Inside was a strange, futuristic-looking gun. Not a firearm—it was a Taser weapon, better known as a stun gun.

It was covered in a black-and-white zebra-striped pattern.

Obviously this must be the women′s model
, I thought, turning it over gingerly in my hands. Unless maybe the stripes were supposed to confuse predators in tall savannah grass.

The gun came with an instructional DVD. I popped it into my laptop and watched it intently.

Instead of a long barrel, the firing end of the stun gun was a bulky black box. When you wanted to fire the weapon, you released a safety latch. Then a laser beam enabled you to aim exactly where you wanted to fire a pair of electric probes. The probes delivered a jolt of fifteen joules of electricity—enough to incapacitate an attacker and leave him dazed but cause no permanent damage.

The optimal range for firing was seven feet. The probes—barblike metal prongs attached to wires—would deliver a stunning jolt to an assailant. The electric charge was supposed to work through clothing. The police version that my dad had sent me was stronger than the typical consumer version—supposedly it would work even through body armor. My dad had thoughtfully included two leather holsters—one for wearing underclothing, the other for attaching inside a purse.

Wow.

Never before had I been willing to carry any kind of gun. The idea of toting a firearm had always been anathema to me. My father and I had spent endless family meals arguing over the subject.

But times changed. The encounter with the intruder the night before had just succeeded where years of arguments from my dad had failed.

Standing now in front of my bathroom mirror, I assumed a shooting stance.

″You talkin′ to
me
?″ I did my best Travis Bickle pose from
Taxi Driver
, taking aim at an imaginary assailant.

Then I lowered it. The idea of toting around a Tom-Swiftian electric popgun for personal protection seemed bizarre in the extreme. Especially when the gun in question looked like a zebra-striped water pistol. Any assailant worth his bad-guy chops would probably bust out laughing at sight of the thing.

That would lower an assailant′s guard and give you an advantage in a fight
, the little voice in my head said.

I shoved the stun gun in the leather holster and snapped it onto my purse.

It slid right in.

Chapter 38

Fake Advantage

—From
The Little Book of Beauty Secrets
by Mimi Morgan

 

 

″Has anyone ever told you that you′re incredibly beautiful, Kate?″

″
Incredibly
beautiful? Let′s see. Yes. A guy at a bar said that to me once—right before he passed out.″

″I′m serious.″ Medina smiled at me from the other end of the canoe we were paddling.

″I′m serious, too. The bouncers had to drag him out of the bar by his ankles.″

Medina and I were making our way across Harmony Pond, a charming urban oasis tucked at the edge of Durham. A rattan picnic box rested on the floor of the canoe between us, waiting to be unpacked. This was our first date, and I was so nervous I was ready to jump ship.

″Why does my saying you′re beautiful embarrass you so much?″ Medina continued. ″I′m sure men must tell you that all the time.″

I′m sure they didn′t. But what was more embarrassing at that moment was that I′d just felt my end of the canoe scrape bottom. How unharmonius. If we ran aground and had to portage our way back to the docks, I′d be so humiliated, I′d have to drown myself in the pond scum.

We finally made it to a small man-made island and disembarked. The center of the island featured a set of rounded granite steps. At the top of the steps sat a small-scale replica of a Greek temple.

Medina looked up at the temple, then at me. ″Okay, so maybe the temple′s a little hokey, but what incredible light. Wouldn′t the French Impressionists have loved this spot? And they would have loved to paint you standing in it, I might add.″

″I can see Seurat doing that temple in that wonderful pointillism style of his. A bucolic urban island.″

″All we′d need is a parasol for you and a top hat for me.″

″And Seurat. We′d need him, of course.″

Medina gave me a delighted grin. ″So now that I know you like art, I have to try to trip you up,″ he said. ″Let′s go a little further back in time.″

Pointing up the stairs at the temple, he said, ″Are those Ionic, Corinthian, or Doric columns up there on our Greek temple?″

I studied them for a moment. ″They′re none of the above, Professor Pop Quiz,″ I finally said. ″They′re Chirons—a mixture of those styles. The temple′s architect put a proverbial man′s head on a horse′s body.″

″Where′d you learn all that? In college?″

″Wellesley. There′s still some value in a liberal arts education, no matter what those MIT frat boys say. Where′d you study art?″

″Oh, I′ve been a lifelong appreciator of everything aesthetic,″ he said, letting his gaze linger on my face. ″Especially the human aesthetic. ″

″Is that how you wound up going into plastic surgery?″

″I got my start in middle school,″ he said. ″Helping my older sister do her makeup for dates. I believe my mom thought I was gay until I started hitting on my sister′s girlfriends.″

″How′d you make out with the older-woman crowd, if you don′t mind my asking?″

″I love your asking, in fact. I did fantastic.″

Flexing his fingers he said, ″I developed this insane neck-rub technique. If you don′t mind a professional brag, by age twelve my neck rubs were far superior to anything you can get in some chiroquack′s office. I practiced on our dog until I got it down pat. My sister′s friends loved my neck jobs so much, they used to pay me fifty cents for five minutes. That′s where I first started training the muscles in my surgeon′s fingers, by putting the moves on the girls of Morris Township, New Jersey.″

While I was still taking that in, he added, ″So I′d like your professional opinion, Kate. Do you think any of those girls I neck-rubbed for cash will bust me for my past as a junior high gigolo? I′m afraid of winding up on
Entertainment Tonight
.″

″Okay,
ding-ding-ding
! That′s my bullshit meter going off,″ I said. ″You totally made up that whole story about the dog and the fingers and the girls′ necks.″

″Would these fingers lie to you?″

Facing the temple on the hill, Medina placed a hand over his heart. ″As Zeus is my witness,″ he said. ″Absolutely true. Except for the dog part.″

″Hmm. Well, as Scarlett O′Hara said, ′As God is my witness, I′ll never be hungry again.′ I′m hungry, so can we eat our picnic now?″

″I thought you′d never ask. And don′t worry—I didn′t bring any radishes with me, Miss Scarlett. ″

 

It was much too soon for my heart to fall for someone new, but my taste buds rolled over for Medina′s gourmet picnic faster than a cheap date on Hollywood Boulevard.

He unpacked an astonishing array of treats from the woven basket he′d brought in the canoe. When the unwrapping revealed nuggets of roasted portabella mushroom, goat cheese, and red peppers on focaccia, I broke into applause.

″Now I can′t wait to see the dessert,″ I said.

″Oh, that will be the best of all,″ he replied. ″I made chocolate
pot de crème
with fresh raspberries. My grandmother′′s recipe.″

If Medina had summoned Zeus from the temple above us and asked him to pronounce us man and wife at that very moment, my stomach would have happily said
I do
.

Over the chocolate and glasses of dry rosé, our conversation turned much more serious. I finally told Medina that his patient Jana had been my friend.

″I didn′t know you knew her. That carjacking was such a horrible tragedy,″ he said. ″My heart went out to her family. In fact, she had an appointment with me the afternoon before it happened. ″

″I know. I had lunch with her that day, by coincidence. She′d just come from the appointment at your office.″

Medina′s eyebrows shot up. ″Wow, that
is
a coincidence,″ he said. ″You don′t by any chance have a camera crew hiding behind the temple ready to ambush me with questions about my patient, do you? I know you′re a good reporter but . . .″

″No, silly!″ I laughed, a bit too hard.

When my laughter died away, a jolt of sadness replaced it. ″Actually, all I know about Jana′s death right now is a bunch of disconnected information,″ I said. ″The police seem to be in a hurry to put her case behind them. They′ve arrested the guy they say shot her. They don′t seem to want to know about anything that doesn′t fit in with their story line.″

″I know. I saw that piece you did on the news. His name is Antoine something?″

″Antoine Hurley. But I can′t let it go at what they′re saying. There′s something missing for me in the picture they′re trying to paint. Maybe there′s too much noise on the graph, as my old science teacher would say.″

Medina plucked a long blade of grass. ″Well, you know what the artist Seurat would do in this situation.″

″No. What would he do?″

Turning the blade of grass on its side like a scalpel, he traced a line around my lips. ″Seurat believed that you have to juxtapose all the tiny, disconnected dots of color next to one another,″ he said. ″Then you have to take a step back to see the big picture. That′s the only way you′ll see what′s really going on in the painting.

″So you have to put all the color dots—those are all your disconnected bits of data—down on the canvas. Then take a step back. That′s when you′ll be able to see what shapes emerge.″

Medina kept stroking my skin with the blade of grass. Long, slow brushstrokes. The sensation gave me goose bumps. I felt hypnotized.

I don′t know diddly-squat about colored dots, but that grass-blade thing gave me the most sensual feeling I′d had in months. And we hadn′t even kissed yet.

That came next.

 

When I got back to the studio from our lunchtime picnic, I decided to test out Medina′s theory about brainstorming by using color-point analysis. Maybe art theory could actually help me think through Jana′s murder.

Put all the color-dots—those are your disconnected bits of data—down on the canvas,
he′d said.
Then take a step back. That′s when you′ll be able to see what shapes emerge.

Of course you could write that same information down and then start brainstorming, but I liked the idea of taking a more visual approach to brainstorming. The problem was that my artistic skills stopped developing when I was in kindergarten. So when I got back to the studio I decided to use technology to substitute for talent. I′m sure Seurat would have approved. In fact, I′m sure he would have been a computer genius on top of all his other abilities.

Using a shareware program I downloaded from the Web, I assigned a specific color to every type of information I could think of that was related to Jana′s murder. The information bits, colored by type, appeared as small bubbles. Then I told the program to sort the bubbles in various ways. I kept adding and sorting the information bits, looking for patterns.

An hour later, all I could see in the dots was a kaleidoscopic bubble bath.

What I did
not
see, interestingly, were very many green bubbles, which was the color assigned to the police′s favorite suspect, Antoine Hurley.

Most of the bubbles were in the yellow zone. That was surprising. Yellow was the color I′d assigned to the information about the Putnams′ house and Jana′s purse. It was as if the clustering of the bubbles indicated that there was some importance to the fact that Jana had left her purse at the Putnams′ house on the night of the Newbodies get-together.