Murder in the Aisles Page 5

  Only Dr. Dresden would still be using a floppy disk when the whole world had moved to Dropbox, Google+ and flash drives, she thought, bemused. She turned the disk over. It was blank on both sides. Odd. Dr. Dresden was always so meticulous about labeling and cataloguing every scrap of information. She found it hard to believe that he would have left anything lying around that could not be immediately identified. That wasn’t like him at all.

  Felicia drew in a breath. Her thoughts ran a relay of possibilities. Was this some kind of evidence? Her gut told her that it was. On the other hand, she was Dr. Dresden’s research right hand. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for her to access his files. So there should be no issue with her checking what was on the disk—in case anyone asked. She turned the disk over, then tossed aside any further hesitation and turned on his computer. While everyone in the building had upgraded to Macs, Dr. Dresden stuck with his PC—the only one left in the building—old enough to still have the drive for a floppy disk.

  She waited for the computer to boot. She keyed in the generic ID and password for the library staff and the home screen of the Library of Congress appeared. She looked under the desk for the bulky hard drive and slid the disk in the slot. The computer hummed and buzzed and hummed. Felicia stared at the screen until she heard the disk engaged. She used the mouse to surf over to the options panel and selected “computer.” A screen opened to show the drives that were available. Drive D was where the disk was. She clicked.

  Felicia’s long neck snapped back at the message on the screen. Enter password.

  “Password,” she murmured. Her smooth brow creased. Dr. Dresden never used passwords because he claimed that he could never remember them.

  She tugged on her bottom lip with her teeth, and typed in his name. Error. She tried: library, his birthday, his job title, his address. She even tried the old standby, 1,2,3,4. Each and every time error flashed on the screen.

  It was rare that Felicia was perplexed by something this mundane. The very notion that she could not figure out a simple password by someone who was notoriously computer illiterate set her quirks into overdrive.

  Her pulse raced while her gaze jumped around the room. She hopped up from the chair and went straight for the pile of books that was teetering leaning-tower-of-Pisa-style in the corner. Gingerly she removed the books one by one, then meticulously and with methodic deliberate care, began a new stack that was in size and color order.

  The process took nearly an hour and by the time she was done the wave of anxiety that had assaulted her had begun to wane.

  Felicia rested on her haunches, smoothed her skirt and blinked rapidly. Her heart still skipped and thumped in her chest, but at least she could breathe and her hands had stopped shaking. She pressed her right fist to her lips to block the aching whimper that rose from her throat. Why? Why was she like this? She was bright, she was talented, she had a great career but her OCD felt as if it would one day drive her insane, consume her with its demands of her; a fear that she lived with everyday of her life. That sad fact combined with the loss of Dr. Dresden took its toll and her eyes filled with the tears she’d been holding back since the moment she’d found him.

  Overwhelmed, she lowered her head, not so much in a symbol of defeat but in recognition of her humanness. Slowly, she rose to her feet, wiped her eyes and pushed out a slow, steady breath. Crossing the still cluttered space, Felicia retrieved the disk from the hard drive, turned off the computer and lights and locked the door behind her.

  En route to her office, she stopped off at Emily Windsor’s cubicle. She tapped lightly on the metal frame of the cubicle and watched Emily flinch at the sound. She spun her chair around and pushed her glasses up on her short nose.

  “Oh…Dr. Swift…”

  “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “No. It’s fine.” She shifted in her cloth-covered seat. “I guess I’m a bit jumpy with…what happened.” Emily’s eyes seemed to fill with water or at least Felicia thought so, from behind Emily’s thick glasses.

  “Of course, we all are.” She absently tapped the disk against her hip.

  Emily’s gaze was immediately drawn to it. “Is that a floppy disk?”

  Felicia stopped tapping and lifted the disk to within her line of sight and peered at it as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh.” She blew off a chuckle. “Yes. Can you imagine?” She gave a quick shake of her head and returned her attention to Emily. She frowned. “Are you okay? You’re all flushed.”

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t sleep well last night. Maybe I’m coming down with something.”

  “If you’re not feeling well, you should be home. The last thing we need is the ping-pong effect.”

  Emily adjusted her glasses again. “You’re probably right. If I don’t feel better in the morning, I’ll definitely stay home.”

  Felicia studied her for a moment. “That’s best.” She folded her arms. “Emily, were you working on any special projects with Dr. Dresden?”

  “Special projects?”

  “Yes, anything that wasn’t logged maybe?”

  “Um, no.” She sputtered a laugh. “If I was, I never knew that it was unauthorized or not logged. Just my usual research stuff.” She gave a slight shrug.

  “Hmm, okay. Thanks.”

  “Why?”

  “Hmm, no reason. Just asking.” Felicia tapped the disk against her hip, then turned and walked away. “Feel better,” she tossed over her shoulder.

  Felicia click-clacked her way back to her office. She took one last look at the disk before putting it in her desk drawer. She’d worry about that later. In the meantime she had work to do. She collected her laptop and notebook, then hurried off to the research center.

  On the six-foot-long table, Felicia had no less than a dozen research books on Egyptian languages spread out across its length, with the heavy volumes opened to various pages. In between flipping through the texts, making notes and referring back to Dr. Dresden’s findings, she documented each step in a special file on her laptop, which she then saved to a thumb drive as well as her iCloud account. She’d worked non-stop for close to four hours. Behind her eyelids had begun to feel dry. Fatigue tightened the muscles across her shoulders.

  She arched her back and rocked her neck from side to side to loosen the knots. She reached around the stack of books and notes and picked up her cell phone that she always kept on silent during the workday. Two missed calls. The time on the phone read 4:00 pm. One more hour and she was officially off duty.

  Felicia organized the textbooks and placed them back on the library cart, so that the clerks could return them to the shelves. She took her notebook and laptop before returning to her office. The callers would have to wait until later.

  Chapter Eight

  “But what about the tox screen? Not necessary? And the gash on his head? Fine. Yeah. Thanks.” Mark hung up the phone and stared ahead until the space between his dark eyes creased into a valley.

  “Problem?” Eddie asked from the opposite side of his newspaper.

  Mark’s brows lifted and lowered. He leaned back against the worn leather of his chair and tucked his hands behind his head. “Elaine—the ME says they’d been in touch with Dresden’s doc and he claims the old man was being treated for high blood pressure. ME says that based on his history and the preliminary evaluation, the old guy had a heart attack, fell, hit his head…end of story. Without probable cause or a family member demanding more, there’s nothing else to be done but declare it death by natural causes.” He blew out a breath. “You know the city is not going to spend what it will cost to run a full set of tests and an autopsy without a damned good reason. Right now they ain’t got one.”

  Eddie peered at Mark over the top of his paper. “I’d think you’d be sounding more enthusiastic. Cut and dry. End of paperwork. Next case.” He cocked his head to the side and waited.

 
; Mark grunted. “Yeah, yeah. Should be.”

  “But?”

  “I don’t know. Something is bugging me.”

  “That librarian?”

  Mark’s gaze jumped to Eddie’s placid expression. “Ahhh…” Eddie waved away his comment, then pushed back from the desk and stood. He took his cell phone off of his desk and walked over to the file cabinet.

  When Eddie was out of earshot, Mark pulled his notebook from his back pocket and found what he was looking for. He tapped in the numbers on his phone and listened to it ring. The call connected. He heard some shuffling in the background.

  “Dr. Swift.”

  “Yeah, hello, Dr. Swift. This is Detective Rizzo.”

  “Yes, Detective. Is there any news?”

  The husky sound of her voice did something to him, got under his skin and settled down. He loosened his tie.

  “I do have some news. I’d rather not discuss it over the phone.”

  “Should I come down to the precinct?”

  “Actually, I’m about done for the day. I could meet you. What time do you get off?”

  There was a beat of hesitant silence.

  “In about a half hour,” she finally said.

  “So what do you say I meet you out front at five-thirty?”

  “Are you sure you can’t tell me over the phone?”

  “I think it’s better if we talk face-to-face.” He heard her soft sigh. He closed his eyes—imagined.

  “Fine. I’ll be out front at five-thirty.”

  He was oddly elated. “See you then.” He grinned at his phone as if it had done something amazing, and then sauntered back to his desk. Leaning over without sitting back down, he turned off his computer and locked his desk drawer. He pocketed the key. “I’m outta here,” he called out to Eddie. “See you in the morning.”

  “Hot date?” Eddie quipped as he walked back to his desk with a file in his hand.

  Mark stopped and glanced across at Eddie. “What makes you think that?”

  “You never leave before seven unless it’s a murder or a date. I’m figuring a date.”

  Mark’s expression creased. “In the morning, man.” He grabbed his coat from the rack by the door and strolled out.

  He walked outside to the line of cars parked in front of the precinct. He bypassed his company car and used the key fob to unlock his gray Honda. It wasn’t much better than his working vehicle, but at least it had great heat.

  While he waited for the engine to warm up, the truth behind what he was doing crawled in the car and sat next to him, daring him almost to ignore what he was really doing. He turned the radio on blast to drown out the annoying voice in his head. “Strictly business,” he muttered as he pulled out of his reserved spot.

  The evening traffic made the ten-minute drive longer than usual. Mark checked the digital clock on the dash. 5:38 blinked back at him. His pulse began to race. He banged his palm against the steering wheel when the line of traffic was stopped yet again. He had a good mind to put his spinner on the roof of the car and breeze through this mess.

  Mark shook his head sharply. What was he thinking crazy for? Put on his siren just so that he could get to some woman to tell her something he could have said over the phone? Crazy. He gripped the wheel and forced himself to concentrate on the slow-moving traffic and not the stirring in his groin.

  At ten minutes to six he pulled up in front of the Library of Congress. No one was out front. There was a thin trail of bundled pedestrians dashing down the street in search of an escape from the biting cold. None of them was Felicia Swift.

  Pushing out a breath he dug in his pocket for his phone and scrolled for his last outgoing call. He pressed the green phone icon and listened to the ringing.

  “I waited a full five extra minutes. It was much too cold to stand around,” Felicia said instead of hello.

  “Totally apologize. The traffic was insane.”

  Silence.

  He cleared his throat.

  “I ducked into the Art and Soul on New Jersey Avenue, N.W. Do you know the place?”

  “No. But I can find it. Give me the address.”

  “415 New Jersey Avenue, N.W.” She paused. “It’s inside the Liaison Capitol Hill Hotel.”

  Mark tapped the address into his GPS and froze for an instant when he heard the word hotel. “Yeah, got it,” he managed, pulling himself together. “See you in a few.”

  “I’ll be at the bar.”

  The call disconnected before he could respond. GPS read less than five minutes. This time he intended to make it. Six minutes later he was turning onto New Jersey Avenue, N.W. The hotel loomed on his right.

  For some odd reason his hands were sweating. He wiped them on his gray wool coat, then stuck his police placard in the windshield and got out.

  There was no reason for the lascivious thoughts that were trooping through his head and stirring his libido. Simply because she’d invited him to meet her at a restaurant in a hotel didn’t mean anything. Right? It was his fault that they weren’t meeting on the steps of the library. No reason to read more into it than what was in front of him. He was a detective that dealt in facts, although he’d been known to let his gut direct him.

  He climbed the three steps to the entrance of the boutique hotel. A hotel staffer who asked if he could help approached him. Instinctively and just to get a rise out of the staffer, he flashed his badge. The young man turned crimson.

  “I’m looking for someone.” He paused for effect. “Art and Soul. Where is it?”

  The young man, whose name tag read Josh, quickly sputtered out the directions and even volunteered to show Mark the way.

  “That won’t be necessary.” He peered at his nametag. “Josh. You’ve been a great help.” He clapped him on the shoulder and then headed in the direction of the restaurant, barely able to contain his laughter. Every now and then he had to find ways to release some of the tension of the job. Poor Josh just happened to be his release.

  The dim mood lighting of the swanky lobby—with its low smoked glass tables, embraced by cushy, purple armchairs and loveseats arranged in conversational groupings—dimmed even further when he stepped into Art and Soul.

  It took a moment for his eyes to adjust and take in his surroundings. The restaurant was of average size with banquettes as well as round tables that could seat two or six. The seating was arranged around a circular bar that was the showpiece of the space. The double-sided Plexiglas shelving in the center of the bar was stocked with top-of-the-line wine and liquor and gave the setup a surreal feeling of looking into a mirror, except the reflection was not your own, but a person on the other side of the see-through divide.

  “Good evening,” the hostess greeted, materializing out of the dimness. “Can I show you to a table, or would you prefer to sit at the bar?”

  Mark gave her a quick once-over. Early twenties, five-six, hundred and five pounds, dark roots, blonde hair, green eyes. He smiled down into her practiced expression. “I’m meeting someone at the bar. But thank you…Carrie.” He watched her flush, her smile shifting from corporate greeting to tentative invitation while her long lashes dipped over her green eyes.

  “Enjoy your evening,” she said with a bit too much purr in her voice. She turned and walked slowly away.

  “Do you always have that effect on young unsuspecting girls?”

  Goose bumps ran up his spine at the edgy huskiness of the voice that had filtered into his dreams. He turned, his expression fixed and impassive.

  “Dr. Swift.”

  “Detective Rizzo.”

  Her eyes seemed to taunt him. He tried to find one thing about her that said librarian. It wasn’t the fashion-forward camel-colored wool coat, or the form-fitting black wrap dress beneath, or the come-hither black leather thigh-high boots or the face of an angel with the voice of sin. He
ran his tongue along his bottom lip. “Hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long this time.”

  “I’m starved,” she said as if she could care less about whatever he’d just said. “We should get a table—away from the crowd so that we can talk in private.”

  Was he fucking hypnotized or what? Because the next thing he was aware of was helping her into her seat and stealthily inhaling her perfume.

  A waiter was at their table within moments to take their drink order.

  “Apple martini, frozen, please,” Felicia said. She settled back in her seat and under the light Mark realized that the dress wasn’t black but a deep navy blue.

  “And for you, sir?”

  He tore his gaze away from the bird-like flutter at the base of her exposed throat and turned his attention to the waiter.

  “Dewar’s, neat.”

  “Right away.” He quickly blended in with the ambiance and was gone.

  “Thanks for meeting me.”

  Felicia’s gaze remained level and unreadable. She folded her slender hands atop the table.

  Mark planted his feet firmly beneath him and leaned slightly forward, resting his arms on the table just as the waiter returned with their drinks. Mark raised his glass and Felicia did the same. He took a sip, let it slide down his throat, then rested the glass on the table. “I spoke with the ME, this afternoon.”

  Felicia blinked slowly. She took a sip of her martini.

  “The thing is, Elaine, I mean the ME, has been in touch with Dr. Dresden’s physician.” He explained what he’d already told Eddie. He studied her expression, which hadn’t changed. “His doc came in and ruled it a heart attack.”

  Felicia inhaled sharply, the only sign that she’d registered what he’d said.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s like I said all along.”

  Her gaze had drifted away then suddenly zeroed in on him. The penetration of her eyes held him immobile. “And you believe that?”

  To Mark, her question sounded more like an accusation than an inquiry. “I have no reason not to.”