Millstone - Novel 01 Ch. 05

"What's on your mind?" I asked.

"I just keep wondering if it's really happening," he said in his sexy deep baritone. "Am I actually walking down the street with you holding my hand, or am I dreaming?"

I stopped walking and held fast to his hand. "Is it an unwelcome dream if it is?"

He stepped closer and held my hand to his chest. "No. Never."

I kissed him. "If you're sleeping, we're both having the same wonderful dream. Let's see where it takes us." We continued, and by the time we entered the garage, the private number on my phone rang. It was our cop friend and my first cousin once removed, Albert. I put the call on speaker. "Hey, Al. I'm glad you called, if you had given me a couple of minutes, I would have called you. What's up?"

"I spoke to my brother Thomas last night," he said. "We got to chatting, and the subject of you came up."

"Oh? And with what lurid details has he confided in you?" Max and I climbed into the roadster.

"No, nothing lurid, far from it. He couldn't tell me everything, but when I mentioned Tommy Two-Weeks and what happened with Edgerton, whom Thomas knows well, he told me flat out, if you thought something sounded suspicious, I should take it seriously, so I have. This morning I made a request of a friend of mine at the city morgue to perform the autopsy on Tommy, against Edgerton's wishes and our policies. The hot water I'm in with Edgerton was set to boil until the results came back a few minutes ago. The evidence suggests that Tommy had quite a bit of alcohol in his system and either had some very rough sex or was raped sometime before he took his life, which could be significant, but without his testimony saying it wasn't consensual, there's not much we can do, and his death still appears to be suicide."

"There's nothing that can be done?" asked Max.

"Tommy's family could sue the guy he dated that night in a wrongful death suit, but that's a civil matter."

"I don't remember hearing how Tommy topped himself," I said. "What method did he use?"

"He hanged himself in his closet."

"Was there anything unusual about the scene?"

"The report says that his roommate Glenn Scarborough found Tommy hanging in his closet about 10:00 a.m. He wore no shoes and had rubbed butter on the floor in front of him. It looks like he slid down the wall to five inches above the floor. He had his feet straight out in front, and the heal marks in the butter showed that he struggled a little. And get this, his hands were bound behind his back using a Chinese finger trap on his middle fingers. It had a few of Tommy's partially smudged prints on it, but that could have happened when he struggled to remove it at the last second."

"A Chinese finger trap," I said, repeating him.

"That sounds like an odd thing to use," said Max.

I spoke to Max. "If the trap is new, it's hard enough to get out of those when you can see it, let alone behind your back as your body panics from oxygen deprivation. It also has the benefit of allowing you to trap yourself without assistance. Hey, Al, can you buy one of those in Franklin?"

"I've never seen anyplace here that might sell an item like that. I have a photo of it in my hand. I shouldn't do this, but..."

I received a text with a cell photo of the photograph. "Okay, what you've got there is an anomaly." I showed the photo to Max.

"What do you mean?" asked Albert.

"I've been to Chinatown; all the Chinese finger traps I've seen come in two colors, harlequin-like. Search online if you want to see what I mean. This one is pure white, so I think it's homemade. I would start there. Ask Glenn what he knows about it. Check Tommy's things for books on origami and signs of attempts to make one of these; it would require a bit of practice. If you don't find one, I would check his internet history for videos about it, his bank account for online purchases for books on origami, check the library and local book shops to see if he checked-out or purchased a book on it. While you're at it, do the same for James Malor."

"Millstone, you know that I don't work for you, right?" asked Albert.

"That's alright, Al," I said, "I don't work for me either. I work for the truth, and to know the truth, we need facts. I don't like the idea of assuming he killed himself. The scene you describe could just as easily be a setup."

"I have something to say," said Max.

He had my attention. "Go ahead."

"I don't think he killed himself."

"Why would you think that?" asked Albert.

"When I first became a nurse," said Max, "I had my residency in behavioral health. And from everything I've heard about Tommy, he sounded like a survivor; even if he wanted to curl up and die for a time at any point in all his difficulty, he didn't; he found a way to survive whatever he was going through. Now we have a potential rape and this odd, homemade finger trap. So, take my knowledge for what it's worth, but I think you'll discover he didn't kill himself."

"There's one more thing I should add to this," I said. "While Max and I were getting measured for suits at Wilson's Tailoring, a man with dark, shoulder-length hair, pulled back into a ponytail, slender but fit, came into the shop and warned me off this case, he said that the police decided that Tommy had died of suicide and that I should leave it at that. From his words, he implied that he would harm us if I didn't leave it alone. Might that have been James Malor?"

"No," Albert said, "unless he wore a wig, Malor has shorter red hair. This changes things. What was the guy wearing?"

"Dark shirt, dark jeans, boots, I think. What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking we fell for somebody's setup. Let me talk to Edgerton, and I'll get back to you."

"One last thing," I said. "I have a license for concealed carry, but I need to buy a handgun."

"That's probably a good idea at this point," said Albert. "Try the shop on South 3rd Street. They're good."

When the call ended, Max said, "So, that's what he said to you."

I nodded. "Does that scare you?"

"Not while I'm with you."