? Summary: After a magic wish makes Nick mortal again, his new life takes a tragic turn for the worse. Unpleasant times ahead for Nick. Spoilers: The Fix, Feeding the Beast, Close Call, Dark Knight, Black Buddah Rated: PG-13 Arabian KnightPart 1
Detective Nick Knight pulled his Caddy to a stop alongside several other police vehicles that were parked outside a well- manicured home in an upscale neighborhood. It was the type of house he might indulge himself in if he weren't pretending to be just your average Joe living on a cop's salary. After flashing his badge to the rookie guarding the entrance, the direction to the crime scene was pointed out to him. Through the foyer and upstairs in the master bedroom was where the main action was taking place. He got a glimpse of a body on the bed and saw the flashes of a camera as the scene was being documented. Knowing that he would have to wait a while longer before going in, Nick bypassed the bedroom and headed for a room further down the hallway where his keen hearing had already picked up on a recognizable voice. He discovered his partner, Don Schanke speaking to a tearful, older black woman wearing a maid's uniform. "Nick," Schanke interrupted his conversation with the woman to acknowledge the presence of his partner. He quickly introduced him to the woman he'd been interviewing. "Ma'am, this is my partner Detective Knight. Nick, this is Mrs. Saundra McNeil. She works -- worked -- for the deceased. She was doing some cleaning downstairs when she heard a gunshot. She came up here, knocked on the bedroom door, didn't get an answer, found the door locked, became concerned and called the police. The boys in blue arrived, and after getting no response from inside, decided to jimmy open the door. They found the late Mr. Stanley Melville dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound." "Mrs. McNeil," Nick spoke softly to the woman, "Do you reside in this house?" "No, sir. I just come in to clean three times a week." "Did you see or talk much to Mr. Melville?" "Only a few minutes at a time. I've only been working for him a few months. He was what you'd call a swinging bachelor. He liked throwing parties and inviting pretty women over. Seems like I was cleaning up after a different woman every week. But he was a nice man. He'd always ask how my family was doing and he'd tell me what a good job I do for him, and he liked to tip me a few extra dollars." "So what you've seen of him," Nick queried, "he seemed pretty contented, did he?" The woman nodded. "Yes. Up until recently, that is. The last couple of weeks, I could see that he was pretty upset about something." "How could you tell that he was upset?" asked Schanke. "I could hear him yelling and cursing." "At who?" "At himself, I guess. He was mad because he couldn't solve that puzzle." "Puzzle?" both Nick and Schanke questioned at the same time. "For the past two weeks he was always home when I came to work. He'd walk around with this little square puzzle, sort of like a Rubik's cube I guess. He spent hours at a time just twisting and sliding the pieces this way and that, and getting real frustrated that he couldn't figure it out. You know, I've seen people get kind of hooked on video games and stuff, but never anything like that. He was acting like...." The woman's words trailed off as she reflected on her late employer's behavior. "Like what?" Nick prodded. "He was acting like his very life depended on getting that little puzzle solved." "Looks like it did," said Schanke with a mild grunt. "Mrs. McNeil, would you happen to know if Mr. Melville has any close relatives we can contact?" Nick asked the housekeeper. "None that I know of. He never mentioned any and I haven't seen any family pictures around the place. I kind of get the feeling he was a very lonely man not too long ago. Back before he came into all that money." "What'd he do?" asked Schanke. "Win the lottery?" "No, he was one of those people who would pick through other folk's trash for stuff he could fix up and resale. He told me that he came across a painting somebody threw out, and he picked it up because it had a good frame. When he started to clean the frame, some of the paint came off the painting and he saw that there was another painting underneath. Long story short, he found out he had an original Picasso and he auctioned it off for 2.3 million dollars." Schanke whistled his amazement. "Man, some guys have all the luck." "Seems like life was good to him for awhile," said Mrs. McNeil thoughtfully. "But then he started obsessing over that puzzle. And it was like nothing else mattered anymore. I accidentally threw it in the garbage the other day when I was cleaning his room and he really freaked out. He managed to rescue it just before the garbage man came to pick up. I remember thinking that if he hadn't gotten it back then, he probably would've gone completely insane. But I never thought he'd do something like this." "Thank you, Mrs. McNeil for your help," said Nick, bringing the interview to an end. "I'm sure this has been a rather disturbing ordeal for you, so we won't hold you here any longer." Nick motioned to an officer standing in the hallway. "This gentleman will escort you out." "Can you imagine that?" said Schanke after the housekeeper had been led away. "A guy's got all this," indicating the home which he'd never be able to afford on a cop's salary, "money, a different woman every week.... And he chucks it all cause he can't solve a Rubik's cube?" "I'm sure there's more to it than that, Schank," replied Nick as he peaked around the doorway and noted the police photographer leaving the crime scene. "Looks like they've finished the preliminaries. Let's go take a look." Natalie Lambert was bent over the body lying partially crossways on the bed. The smell of blood and the vision of splattered brains on the pale blue sheets seemed to have no ill effect on her senses. She was carefully examining the hand with a gun still loosely clenched within its grasp when in walked two of her favorite detectives. She glanced up and greeted them with a hint of a smile. "Hi, guys." "Hi, Nat," they each responded in kind. "So what do you think?" Nick asked, keeping his distance a bit, to keep the massive amount of blood from triggering his vampire responses. "Well, so far, it's looking like suicide. It appears that he sat down on the edge of the bed, held the gun with both hands, placed the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger." "Was there a note?" "Haven't found one yet. I've still got some more to do here, so maybe you guys can just have a look around." Nick nodded, then with a pointed finger, indicated that Schanke should search the left side of the room while he checked the right. The room showed no signs of struggle or forced entry. The windows were locked, indicating that no one had exited through them. Cash and other items of value were found lying on the dresser. Picking up the man's wallet and scanning the contents, Nick noticed something interesting. He walked back over to Natalie and showed her Stanley Melville's driver's license. "Nat, would you say that the man on this license is the same as the man on the bed?" Natalie paused in her examination to compare the photo ID to the deceased. Disregarding the fact that driver license photos were notoriously unflattering, it was clear to see that the man had changed considerably since it was taken. Nat perused the photo with a magnifying glass, then finally nodded. "Well, he's obviously lost a lot of weight and he's apparently had a hair transplant, but everything else including that little mole on his chin and the green eyes are the same. It's him, Nick." After she handed the license back to him, Nick studied it again. Something just didn't seem right. "According to this license, Mr. Melville was weighing in at 315 pounds. He looks like he's probably -- what 160, 150 now?" "Your point?" "Nat, this license was renewed barely four months ago. That's about forty pounds a month. Is it normal to lose that kind of weight that quickly?" "No, no it's not. He may have had some kind of illness or physical disorder. I'll check it out back at the lab. That just might be the answer to why he did this." "Hey, Nick," Schanke called out as he stooped down to pick something out of the trash basket near the closet. "You think this is the thing the maid was talking about?" Nick walked over to his partner and took the object he held. "I think so. It's a Chinese puzzle box. I've seen quite a few in my time but never one quite like this." "What's so special about it that the guy would kill himself over it?" Natalie approached Nick and Schanke, having taken an interest in their conversation. "What do you mean? He killed himself over what?" "The maid said that for the past couple of weeks the guy has been obsessed with trying to solve this puzzle, like his life depended on it." "I know of a legend," said Nick, "about an ancient Chinese wish box. The story goes that, if you can solve the puzzle, the box opens and grants you one wish. The puzzle then resets itself and to gain another wish, you have to solve it again. Only the puzzle is always different and it's supposedly harder to figure out the second time around. On the third try, it gets even harder and after that, it becomes virtually impossible to solve." "So you're saying that Mr. Melville was trying to solve the puzzle to make a wish come true?" asked Nat. "Then went wacko when he couldn't figure it out?" Schanke added. "I don't know," said Nick with a thoughtful shrug. "It's just a legend. A fable. I've heard thousands of them." http://macfran.com/fanfic/fkfic/50-arabian-knight ? Go to the Link Above to read more........
