Not So Model Home - By David James Page 0,54
said sternly.
“Zo who makes you the Hercule Poirot?” Gilles said from behind.
“Nobody, but it’s just good police procedure,” I added.
“You zeem to know a lot about ze police,” Gilles continued. “Maybe you know a lot about murder also. Keeling people!” he said, making a slashing motion with his hand holding an imaginary knife.
“Gilles, as usual, you are being overly dramatic.”
“You . . .” he said, pointing at me with his perfect finger. “You, I get zee restraining order on you. You slap me, now you want to murder me.”
“Gilles, if you’re talking about the number of people waiting to murder you, the line starts somewhere back near the Louvre.”
Finally, a great zinger of a response and the cameramen got it. I was back on top. Since Jerry warned them not to photograph crime scenes or even approach them, the cameramen stayed their distance. But a zoom lens solved that problem. I only worried that because this scene might compromise a murder investigation, the police might not allow it to air. As they say in the theater, the best scene might end up being played off stage.
The security guards that were hired to protect us finally showed up with bags of hamburgers and fries in their hands. By that time, the police had arrived again, setting up shop with regularity that was almost wearying. Another day, another murder. Everyone had been shooed downstairs. Jerry arrived and escorted me upstairs with him.
“Upstairs she go again, the murderess,” Gilles sniped. Before I got out of eyesight, I turned around for the cameras and stuck out my tongue at Gilles. We headed to Aleksei’s room where Jerry surveyed the scene before going in.
“Everyone seems to think this was unintentional suicide, Jerry.”
“Suicide? Who thinks that?”
“Everyone. Even Aurora.”
“Oh, in that case, I can just pack up and go home now. A celebrity shrink thinks it was suicide.”
“So you don’t think so?” I asked as Jerry made his way carefully into the room.
“No, I know so. Look at the way the tie has been pulled up from behind . . . er, Adam’s . . . ?”
“Aleksei’s.”
“. . . Aleksei’s neck. See the marks on the neck? The abrasions are at the back, with most of them pointing vertically. The tie was pulled way up. In fact, you can see from the marks on the chair’s velvet upholstery, on the arms, that Aleksei was pulled up and struggled with his hands, pushing down to take the tension off his neck. Whoever did this was very tall.”
“That eliminates one person downstairs: Marcus Blade.”
“Mini-Me Hulk downstairs?”
“He can’t be five foot two. Then there’s Aurora, she’s short too.”
“So everyone else is tall?” Jerry asked.
“Everyone. Even Ian and me. Well, Lance Greenly, Ian’s CEO, is about five foot eight.”
“So I assume the pile of drugs here on the dresser is crystal meth?”
“Probably. Aleksei had a problem with it and was here recuperating from it.”
Jerry pulled a folding magnifying glass from his back pocket.
“That is soooo Sherlock Holmes,” I said.
“Elementary, my dear Amanda.”
He bent over Aleksei and looked closely up his nose.
“Trying to see if he snorted any crystal?”
“Yes. Good girl. Yup, there’s some up his nostril, but the medical examiner will tell us if it goes all the way up.”
“Why would it not go all the way up into his nasal passages?”
“Just a hunch, Amanda. Just a hunch.”
“Are there other ways of doing crystal, Jerry?”
“Smoking it. But I don’t see a pipe anywhere.”
“He could have put it away in a drawer, or hidden it,” I suggested.
“If he was deliberately going to get high here in his room—and you said he was an addict—then he knew he would be high for a long time.”
“So what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?” I asked.
“What’s the rush in putting a pipe away? Or a needle if he was injecting? There’s plenty of time to put things away. Plus, you never know. Meth is so addictive, the user always knows he’s going to want more eventually.”
“So those are the only ways of getting high on meth?”
“Some use it as an anal suppository, Amanda.”
“Oh?”
“I’m not checking there, if that’s what you’re driving at. But be my guest.”
“No thanks, Jerry. So you don’t think he was high and jerking off doing a little autoerotic asphyxiation?”
Jerry looked at me with all seriousness. “This is not to leave this room.”
I made a sign of crossing my heart.
“No, he might have been jerking off, but I doubt the autoerotic part.”
“Do you think the killer