Page 42 of The Mystery of the Curiosities
“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned Barnum,” Quinn said.
“Uh, I guess that’s true,” I said when I recalled my mention of the bricks and the story of Barnum’s unique advertising. “There’s another note on the back.” I turned it around for both detectives to see. “That’s when I saw Meredith.”
Calvin glanced up from the note, narrowing his eyes. “Meredith?”
“She goes by Crystal. A dancer, I think. I called the number on the business card in her purse.”
Calvin took a breath and raised his hands, sort of like he wanted to strangle me, but Quinn took his jacket sleeve and tugged him away to look at the body.
I pulled my phone out once I was alone again.Iwas supposed to solve the murder. Not that I wanted to win a prize, but anything learned could bring us one step closer to catching a mistake this maniac made and taking them down before another person could be hurt. I pulled up the web browser and briefly checked out Ricky’s online presence. Lots of scantily clad ladies and dubious use of Photoshop. It didn’t look like anything particularly special—one gentlemen’s club is like all the others.
I tried searching for any news related to the club. Maybe there was some dirt on the owner, or bad blood between rival businesses. If I lived anywhere else, I’d say that was ridiculous, that this poor woman just got jumped and the tragedy was that there was no reason for her death, but I live in New York City and last Christmas I was stalked by a guy who planted a heart under the floorboards of my store.
Anything is possible.
Nothing of any particular interest was showing up in Google’s news feed for Ricky’s, other than somesizzling winter ballthey’d had in January.
I looked over at the group of police and a few museum personnel. Calvin had climbed into the display and was looking down at Meredith. I squinted—it was hard to see his expression from where I was. But Calvin had certain tics I had begun picking up on in his posture that helped me understand his mood when it was difficult to read his face. And I think he was surprised just then, because he had a hand over his mouth, rubbing his jaw.
That was interesting to me.
Did Calvin know her?
Not personally, of course. He may have been in the closet until recently, but I knew Calvin wasn’t one for lap dances from ladies either. NowIwould certainly sit on his lap and show him a good time, but I drew the line at putting on glitter.
“Fuck,” I murmured to myself, because now I had the image in my head of me naked, riding Calvin’s cock, and having thegreatestof times, and that wassonot what I should be thinking about at a murder scene. “Get it together,” I muttered.
I caught a uniformed officer glancing at me in confusion.
I squared my shoulders and took an extra second to look at Calvin as a professional, and not my unbelievably gorgeous boyfriend, which was admittedly a little hard to do. He was saying something to Quinn, who appeared to agree with him. Maybe Meredith had been on the wrong side of the law before. But if Calvin knew her, it had definitely been serious. A suspect in a murder case?
I looked down at my phone again and tried a few keywords that included Meredith, Ricky’s, and murder. I found exactly what I was hoping for, third link down on the list.NYC Exotic Dancer Suspect in Daughter’s Death. That didn’t paint Meredith in a particularly good light. I clicked the link and expanded the page to better read the text. It was a case from two years ago, led by the recently promoted Detective Calvin Winter. DNA evidence had been incorrectly handled at the scene and was unusable in laboratory testing. Meredith’s alibis had apparently been suspicious, but her boss had backed her statement, and Calvin had ultimately ended up with no legal way to prove she had bludgeoned her teen daughter to death.
“Calvin!” I called out, and when a few officers looked at me, I followed up with, “I mean, Detective Winter. Could you come here?”
Calvin got out of the display and walked toward me. “What?” he asked in a low tone.
I held out my phone. “This is the same lady, isn’t it?”
He looked at the article. “Yes. How did you find this?”
I shrugged. “Seemed like she was familiar to you.”
Calvin’s mouth formed a tight line and he gave my phone back. “It’s a cold case. Not enough evidence to convict her, but everyone knew she did it.”
“The note said I had to prove the murder.”
Calvin raised a hand to stop me. “No.”
“But—”
“No. Stop right now, Seb.”
“But what if it leads us one step closer to who did this? You’re going to ignore that chance to stop this person?”
“I’m not, no. But you are.”
“Like hell.”
