“But why would Jeff kill him? Jeff didn’t know her, so why would he care if Elise was messing around with the guy? There doesn’t seem to be much motive here.” I didn’t watch
“Just let us do our job. I’ll send you the picture.” And he ended the call.
I wasn’t convinced Tim had this figured out. But he had to put on a good show, since it was his job to sort it all out and solve it. Me, well, I just fell in the middle of it, so it didn’t matter what I knew.
I finished up the stencil in time for my client, and I spent the next hour tattooing the Chinese characters for love, prosperity, and hope on a guy’s upper back, trying to be careful not to get any ink on the white trousers, since my other clothes were in Joel’s car and he was still out. But I managed to be neat, and I could’ve done the tats with my eyes closed.
Which was almost the case. I was exhausted when I finished. All the stuff that happened the last few days had finally hit me, and the endorphins had disappeared, leaving me dragging. I considered a Red Bull, but I wasn’t sure I needed that much of a boost. A coffee would do.
I thought about food, too, but lunch still sat in my stomach. I never eat so heavy in the middle of the day.
Ace ran out to get coffee for all of us, which was when I realized Joel wasn’t in the shop yet.
“Hey, Bits.” I poked my head into the office, where she was straightening up the file cabinets. “Where’s Joel?”
She shrugged. “Not my day to watch him.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “But he’s got a client in half an hour, so he’d better be back.”
I dialed his cell, but it just rang and rang, kicking into voice mail. I left a message.
I mulled over where he could be. He said he’d drop Sylvia back at Murder Ink. On a whim, I decided to call over there.
No one answered; there wasn’t even a machine pickup. That was odder than Joel not answering his phone. A business should always have a machine answer if no one was there. And why wasn’t anyone there? They were open till four a.m. Unless having Jeff on the lam was incentive for his staff to take a little vacation.
I mentally kicked myself for not finding out where Sylvia lived or hung out when she wasn’t in her son’s shop, even though there’d been no reason to until now. A walk through the phone book told me nothing. I pulled up a people search on the Internet, but nothing there, either.
I decided I should check e-mail while I was online, since Tim had said he’d send that picture.
He sent three.
The first was a close-up of the tat. So close so I couldn’t tell exactly where on the body it was; it could be the chest or the back, a place with little body fat and taut muscles. There was no hair, but if it had just been done, the hair would’ve been shaved beforehand. It did look professionally done, not by a scratcher-a disreputable tattooist or amateur. The heart was neatly outlined, the letters in careful calligraphy, the clasped hands incredibly well- drawn.
It was practically identical to the one I’d drawn for Elise, except her name was substituted for “Matthew” in this one.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think that whoever did this ink had seen my drawing. But my drawing hadn’t been made public until that night, on
I clicked on the second picture, the tat slanted and elongated by the angle. The skin looked otherworldly; it must be from the autopsy. I shivered and clicked quickly on the third picture.
It was of the crime scene, the bathroom at Versailles, but the body had been rolled back against the back of the tub, the shirt unbuttoned to reveal the tat in the center of Matt Powell’s chest.
Right in the same place Chip Manning had shown me on his own chest where he wanted the exact same ink.
It struck me then.
Chip must have seen my drawing.
Chapter 34
Because of the quality of the ink, Chip couldn’t possibly have done the job himself. And I couldn’t be sure whether the tat was done before Matt was killed or posthumously. If the skin was alive, it would be pink around the edges. I didn’t know what it would look like if a corpse was inked.
I heard heavy breathing.
Bitsy was looking over my shoulder at the screen. She tapped it with her finger a few times.
“That’s your drawing. Why does it say ‘Elise’?”
“Someone stole the idea.”
“Copycat.”
No kidding.
I twisted a little in the chair so I was at eye level with her. “You didn’t show this to anyone else, did you? I mean, besides
Bitsy’s chin went up in the air slightly, put out that I would even suggest that. “
“Who did, then?” My attempt to keep my tone light wasn’t very successful, and she frowned.
“Ace had a difficult client.”
“Difficult in what way?”
“Difficult in that the guy didn’t know what he wanted except he wanted his girlfriend’s name in a heart. You should be happy. Imitation is the purest form of flattery.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who was the client?”
She sighed and went back to the file cabinet, dragging that stool after her. She climbed on top of it, pulled out the top drawer, and shuffled around in the papers until she held up a manila folder. “Here it is.” She hopped down off the stool and flipped through the file. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “That’s right. After all the crap he put Ace through, he never did get the ink.”
“What’s his name?”
“Matthew Powell.”
I hung my head back and stared at the ceiling. “You’re kidding.”
“No, should I be?” She shoved the folder in front of me, on top of the computer keyboard.
I glanced at the page of notes Ace and Bitsy had both made, as well as the information Matt Powell had provided. “He had a pretty good memory,” I said, pointing at the screen. “He must have taken the design and had it done somewhere else.”
Bitsy’s eyes grew wide. “That’s him? That’s the guy?”
I nodded. “He’s the guy I found at Versailles. When did he come in for the tat?”
“It was a couple days ago.”
It could explain how Chip had seen it, but when I thought about it further, why would Matt have shown his devotion ink to his boss when he was messing around with his boss’s fiancee?
Maybe Chip had seen the ink and killed him. That would explain the blood on his shirt. But I was still stymied as to how he could’ve gotten the tattoo needles. They’re just not something that’s in everyone’s medicine chest or utility closet. Sure, you could order them off the Internet, but that took some thought, and it would take at least a day or two to get them.
I needed Elise. She held the key to all of this, since she was where it all started. But where was she? Had that actually been her blood in the trunk of Kelly Masters’s rental car? And if so, was she dead somewhere or had she escaped?
I was going at this all wrong. I kept focusing on the results of Elise’s actions, not on what made her run in the first place. That could tell me everything. And it just might stop these bodies from popping up.
I had half a mind to call Tim, but he’d just tell me again to mind my own business and stay out of his. Problem was, when I’m the last person to admit seeing a missing woman and I encounter a dead person who is somehow linked to that same missing woman, it becomes more of a personal quest to find out exactly what’s going on.
