Missing Lynx (6 page)

“Then two men in uniforms stood with their hats in their hands and their damned expert, low-toned voices telling me Angel was dead. Blown up by an IED. In nine months I went from ‘I do’ to ‘death do us part’.” My thumb worked convulsively, kneading into my hand trying to smooth the life line on my palm. An apt metaphor, I’d like my life line to run smoother. I took a few deep breaths; I felt dizzy and nauseated. “They sent me a pine box, and they said my husband was in the box. I guess I have to take them at their word since it was sealed; his remains ‘unrecognizable,’ they said. Identified by his tags and dental records.”

“You’d have better closure had you seen Angel’s body.”

I nodded. “Cognitive dissonance. My brain is playing me.”

“I can’t even imagine.”

I twisted my wedding ring around my finger. “Striker? When did you know you were in love with me?”

“Honestly?” Striker started to reach for me then pulled his hand back and laid it on his thigh. Good. I wasn’t ready to be touched. “I felt a pull right from the beginning, when I met you in the hospital after the Wilson attack. I felt it a little bit more each day we had you holed up in the safe house,” he said. “I guess the thing that sent me over the edge was when you told me the story about your special un-schooling studies with the hooker.”

“Chablis? That’s what did it for you?” I felt the pink creep up my face.

“The whole scene did it for me. The story about how you got married and your one-night honeymoon went to hell-in-a-hand basket, and you ended up still a virgin with your husband gone to war. And as a teen, you wanted to make sure the man of your future would be happy. So much so, that you thought getting lessons from a hooker and practicing on a purple dildo was just a normal thing to do.” Striker looked like he was working hard to keep from smiling. “All of it. You were such a dichotomy of innocence and femme fatale. I was completely charmed, and fell completely in love.” 

“Has this been hard on you?” I whispered, wide eyed.

“My feelings for you have been inappropriate, and I’ve tried to control them. But being around you…” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Figuring out the boundaries is awkward. I never wanted anything to happen to Angel.”

“No. Of course you didn’t.” I took a minute to gather up some bravery. “You know, Spyder was darned impressed with you. He told me so many stories of your exploits before I even met you, I had a huge case of hero worship.”

“And when you met me you found out I wasn’t a hero at all.”

“That’s an opinion.”

“Right. I guess hero is in the eye of the beholder.”

“Mmmm. Here’s the thing, I met you lots of times while I worked for Spyder, only you weren’t meeting me.” I turned in my seat and leaned my head back against the side window. I was a boy named Alex with an ingénue’s mad crush on the mythical Striker Rheas.” Striker opened his mouth to say something. I could see his mind working hard. I held up my hand to stop him; I needed to get through this. “I had these adolescent fantasies about saving the day, I’d take a bullet and be laying on the ground. You’d rip open my T-shirt to stop my bleeding only to discover I was really a girl, and you’d tell me I was awesome and brave and strong. You’d fall in love with me, and we’d live happily ever after.” I laughed at how ridiculous this all sounded.

“I don’t know what to say. I had no idea, you know. I really had no idea you weren’t who Spyderman said you were.”

“Yeah. But I need you to understand this is more complicated in my head than boy-meets-girl, and Angel isn’t the only reason.”

“Chica, there isn’t one damned thing about you that isn’t surprising or complicated. I’ve learned to let the wilding river flow.” Striker shot me a teasing grin, wanting me to laugh. I couldn’t give him what he wanted.

  Striker seemed to realize this because he dropped the smile and said, “Lexi, you don’t need to burden yourself trying to figure out how I fit into your life, right now.”

“What about you? What do you want from me?”

“Nothing you’re not willing to give.”

“I guess it’s also a question of what you’re willing to give and how you think this will play out.”

“Yeah.” He took a deep breath in. “You’re right. I don’t have an answer for you,” he said on the exhale.  

“We’ll go slow and figure this out?” I asked.

“We’ll go slow.”

Six

A
FedEx waited for me on the porch when I got back to my house. I picked it up and opened the door to the joyous cacophony of Beetle and Bella. Deep had brought them home for me. “Hey, sweet girls, let’s get you something to eat.”

“Lexi, why don’t I feed the dogs? I’ll take them for a walk while you relax in a hot bath. You look done in.”

“Okay, thanks. I’ll take you up on that.” I gestured toward the kitchen, “I set a cassoulet in the fridge to defrost, and you’ll find some bakery rolls in the bread box. When I’m out of the tub, I’ll just make a salad. You’re going to stay for lunch, aren’t you?”

“Yes, thanks.” His cell phone vibrated. He held up a finger for me to wait. “What’ve you got?” Striker listened for a minute then glanced over at me. “Are you up to Gater coming for lunch? He needs to go over some things with us about the Schumann case.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s fine. I’d like to hear how it’s going.” I glanced at my watch. “Tell him to come at twelve thirty-ish. The food should be ready by then.” Striker finished his conversation and headed for the kitchen with the girls prancing after him.

Twelve thirty on the dot the doorbell rang, and I opened it to Gater’s smiling face. “Ma’am, I can smell your good cooking all the way out on the sidewalk. What Kitchen Granny are we doing today?”

When I was an un-schooler one of my mentors, Snow Bird Wang, decided that if I were to have a worthy husband, I would need to develop honorable wife skills. Snow Bird rallied the other grandmothers in my apartment building to step forward and help. Five women signed on as my Kitchen Grandmothers each adopting me for one day of the work week. While the idea was old-fashioned, Mom decided this would be a wonderful opportunity for me to learn about many cultures and traditions. From the time I turned twelve, I learned whatever that day’s grandma thought I needed to know. I still cook in my Kitchen Grandmother pattern.

Monday was Jada’s day; she came from Turkey. Tuesday belonged to Biji. She was from Punjab, India. “It’s Wednesday: tonight is Nana Kate,” I told Gater. Nana Kate hailed from the mid-west. She taught me how to make the old fashioned, American, rib-sticking meals of her childhood with a dollop of Julia Child thrown in for good measure.

“Well, God bless Nana Kate.” Gater shucked off his jacket and hung it in my hall closet.

Gater went back to the kitchen, where Striker banged around in the cupboards. I picked up my FedEx and followed behind. Striker had the dishes set out and the food on the table. The guys were familiar with my house having spent a lot of time here when they were doing stake out duty, trying to capture Travis Wilson.

I sat down with my envelope, and pulled out a letter from Bryant and Kimber, Attorneys at Law. I wrinkled my brow as I read it through. “Wow,” I said.

“What?” asked Striker.

“It’s from Mrs. Nelson’s lawyers. She’s decided not to come home. She’s going to move straight from the rehab center to Brandenburg Assisted Living.”

“Why are the lawyers informing you about it with a FedEx?” Striker buttered a roll.

“She’s invoking my first right of refusal on her side of the duplex. They need to know within the week whether or not I want to buy her house.”

“You gonna do it?” Gater filled his plate with beans and sausage.

“I locked in the price before they did the upgrades I bartered for with Manny, so it’s a really good deal.”

“Manny across-the-street-Manny? What was he bartering?” Gater forked up a bite.

“Yes, my neighbor. He inherited his house, and it was uninhabitable. His grandparents were hoarders. I cleaned out his dump, and he played poker for me. He won the services of the people who came over and fixed things up over here. My house was border-line condemned when I bought it.”

Striker glanced around. “Hard to believe this place was in bad shape.”

My home was gorgeous now if I do say so myself.

“Okay, enough about that.” I shoved the papers back in the envelope and tossed them on the table. “Let’s talk diamonds. Was the prize hiding behind one of my doors?”

Gater finished chewing his bread and swiped his mouth with his napkin. “Behind door number one, ma’am. My team found Omondas by staking out Slaybourgh Jewelers. Omondas headed up there before opening. He had the rocks on him. We watched him pulling them out to show to Jessup Slaybourgh. They tossed around some heated words, and Jessup physically threw Omondas outa the store.” Gater grinned broadly at the memory. “Since we were waiting for signatures on our warrants, we followed Omondas to his house. He went inside for twenty minutes. By the time he come out, our paper work had cleared, and we moved in for the capture. He didn’t have the diamonds on him when we took him in hand.”

“The diamonds are in his house?” Striker asked.

“They should be, sir. Our client searched Omondas’s car, and they weren’t able to find them,” Gater took his bowl to the sink.

I pushed my plate to the side to make room for my elbows as I leaned forward. “Have you searched the house, yet?”

“No, ma’am. We figured you’d want first dibs before we moved anything around,” Gater said.

“Alright. Shall we go now?” I turned to Striker for confirmation.

“Fine with me,” he said.

Gater parked the Humvee across the street from a seventies-style tri-level. I sat in the car trying to imagine Omondas living here. It seemed incongruous. Too domestic for a single guy his age.

Gater interrupted my thoughts. “Hey Lynx, would you mind walking me through how you find something in the clients’ houses? I’d like to be able to do that.”

“Sure. I guess the Marines didn’t teach search-and-find?”

“Yeah sure, if you lost something in a swamp.”

I laughed and jumped down from the Humvee. Gater showed me how Omondas parked his car and walked to the porch. We followed the same path. Striker stood to the side, on the phone with Command.

I stopped at the door. “Gater stand here for a second and look.”

The house was sparsely decorated with brand-new, low-range, bachelor-type furniture. He sunk a lot of money in the electronics. Huge speaker systems, flat screen TV, and gaming systems were visible from the door.

“What do you think?” I asked.

Gater had one hand on his hip and with the other he rubbed his chin with his thumb. “Young. Male. Military neat.”

“He’s not military. So what else could be in play here?”

“Good cleaning service? A granny?”

“A granny?” I stared incredulously at Gater. He shrugged.

“So the three thoughts came to me were – One, he’s never here. He moved in and stays somewhere else. Two, he has an excellent cleaning service,” I said.

Gater bumped me. “Got one.”

I shook my head at him. “Or three, he’s O.C.D. So let’s check the kitchen.”

“Why the kitchen?”

I pulled on a pair of latex gloves, opened the fridge door and pointed. “Because of this.” A mess of open jars greeted me, along with dripping spills, and half eaten take-out containers. “The fridge answers which of my three initial hypotheses was correct. First one is out, obviously he’s here all the time, eating take-out. Third one is out, he’s clearly not OCD; there’s a biology experiment going on in here. And he’s not neat by nature. Must be number two. He has a good service. Hey, keep an eye-open for their business card. I might like some help around my house from time-to-time.”

“You didn’t rule out his having a granny.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled open the freezer. “Sure I did,” I said peering in. “A granny would have this fridge clean and filled with either healthy foods or delicious treats, but not cartons of crusty Kung Pao Chicken.” The freezer desperately needed defrosting, but nothing jumped out at me. “Okay Gater, now we’re going to walk through the house and get a sense of it. See what we can discover. Don’t touch anything. Okay?”

As we walked up the stairs I asked, “Tell me again, how long did Omondas stay in here?”

“Twenty minutes, ma’am.”

“And, what time of the day was this?”

“Zero-Nine-thirty.”

The first bedroom stood completely empty. The second held a bed, a dresser, and a night stand. I opened the closet and drawers. “Not much in the way of clothing. Jeans and T-shirts, khakis and work-polos, tighty-whities. Nothing personally expressive, no photos, no books, no newspapers, no papers by the computer.” I threw my hands in the air. “Nothing period. He probably eats and sleeps in the house, and that’s all.” We walked into the bathroom. Other than the wet towel behind the door, he kept everything here neat. I opened the medicine cabinet.

“No tampons.” Gater said with a grin. When I first did a puzzle for the team, I told them to look for a flash-drive in the suspect’s tampon box. Now it was a running joke.

“Right, no tampon box, also no condoms, so I doubt there’s a girlfriend.”

I headed back down the stairs…Something wrong. I went back into the kitchen. Striker was off the phone, and both men followed me over to the fridge.

“I’m scanning, Gater. I can’t put my finger on it. Something’s poking at me. Do you notice anything wrong here?” I leaned into the fridge.

Gater looked over my shoulder. “There’s a whole lot of wrong here.”

“Crime wise.” I crouched down and pulled open the veggie drawer that held some moldy cheese. I stood up and opened the freezer, and it stood out immediately. I lifted my watch - fourteen hundred, five hours since Omondas had been in the house.

“What’s the first thing you would tell yourself about this freezer, Gater?”

“I’d say the frost is pretty thick. Omondas needs to de-ice and do a better job of shutting the door.”

“Right. Everything is covered in frost and look - it’s hard. It’s been this way for a while. Everything is covered in the frost
except
…”