Black Jasmine (2012) (25 page)

“How much of this interview is confidential?” she asked.

“All of it except suicidal or homicidal confessions.”

“Well, I’m bummed you think I could do something like that—but I guess it’s a fair question. The answer’s no. I went over there, gave him a piece of my mind and a taste of the butt end of my pistol, but I left him alive. I’m worried someone’s going to connect me with that, but so far they haven’t.”

“Well, they won’t hear anything from me.”

“It’s a good thing, too. It was awful seeing Kwon.” She blew out a breath. “He didn’t recognize me.”

“You grew up,” Dr. Wilson said gently.

“I reminded him of that name he had for me. ‘Damaged Goods.’ He didn’t react. Made me think I wasn’t the only little girl he made damaged goods.” She coughed around the lump in her throat. “Anyway, the bastard got his, and in the end, I’m glad someone else did it.”

“That must have been hard.”

“I didn’t know what I was going to do until the very last second. It was scary.” Lei picked up the threadbare cushion, hugged it. “I expected him to be bigger, to look evil like I remembered. He was just an ordinary little man.”

Tears brimmed again, and this time Lei put her face into the pillow.

“I’m proud of you for facing him. Often the worst monsters are wolves in sheep’s clothing, just little, ordinary men.” Dr. Wilson handed her the box of tissues. Lei mopped her face, blew her nose.

“Or women. Like Walker. She’s a sadist, gets off on others’ pain—and so is the House, apparently.”

“Did they escape together?”

“We don’t know, but the timing is interesting.” Lei got up, paced again, hugging the pillow. “So people keep trying to kill me. And get killed around me. I’m bad for Stevens; he could have died in the fire.”

“Oh, don’t even go there, Lei. That old ‛I’m bad luck and bad news’ line isn’t going to fly with me. You’ve chosen a dangerous profession. Take up teaching or nursing or social work if you don’t want people trying to kill you.”

Lei sat back down. “But I can’t be something I’m not. I’m a cop, first and foremost. Stevens knows that, respects it, but I think he wants the white picket fence thing, too.”

“Nothing wrong with that. There are other officer couples who make that work.”

“Not hard-core. Not the way I work.” She got up, paced again, rubbed her hands on her jeans. “The job comes first, but—I love him.”

“I’ve never heard you say that before.”

“I’ve been saying it more. It gets easier.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Dang.” Dr. Wilson glanced at her watch. “Well, I hope you’ll call me when you do. I’ve got a plane to catch. Anything else?”

“No. Just…Thank you. For coming, for all you did to help me get better on the Big Island. I’ll keep you posted.”

“You’d better.” The petite psychologist hugged Lei fiercely. “Let me know what you decide. But I think you should decide soon.”

Chapter 41

Lei and Anchara got out of the cab at Lei’s old address. Lei sucked in a breath at the sight of a pile of blackened rubble that was all that remained of their former home.

The cabbie, a kind-faced, older Portuguese man, frowned. “Sure this is the right place?”

“Yes. We’ll need a ride in about an hour,” Lei said through numb lips. The cabbie pulled away as the two women stared at the wreckage. A few bits of wooden wall still stood, sculpted along the edges with charcoal as if a black monster had reached down from above and eaten the heart out of the house in a few big bites. The grass was charred, and smoke scored the side of the propane tank.

Nothing appeared salvageable.

“Good thing the toolshed had those gardening boots,” Lei said. Anchara nodded. Both women wore rubber gloves and the boots. They had each chosen a pair of pants and a shirt to sacrifice, since they didn’t have any old clothes, and Lei was back in the foam collar. “I know where the kitchen was. Are you sure you want to help?”

“I like to help,” Anchara said. “What we looking for?”

“A ring. It’s valuable, and I have to at least try to find it.” Lei drew in another deep breath and stepped forward into the debris. “Follow me.”

The two women crunched forward. Lei tried not to think of the fire victims she’d seen in her career, curled and clawed as sinews in their bodies retracted. That could have been her and Stevens. The fire was over now, and they were safe—but the ring was unfinished business. She owed it to Stevens to try to find it.

The ring wouldn’t be here, lost in the ashes, if she’d been wearing it.

Lei stood at the steel door of the morgue and took a couple of relaxation breaths to calm herself. She’d continued on in the cab to the hospital on impulse after dropping Anchara off—her gut was telling her something. She’d stripped off the gloves and boots, but nothing could be done for the soot-streaked pair of stretch pants and T-shirt she’d ruined at the fire site.

She’d barely cleared the acrid tang of the fire out of her nostrils before coming, and getting her nose involved was a mistake—the morgue had a mouthwash-over-decomp scent that clung to the back of her throat like cobwebs. Morgues also carried memories of things she wished she’d never seen—friends, foes, and victims, all roadkill left by murder’s impact. She lifted her hand and knocked.

Dr. Gregory’s pale moon face appeared, and she held up her badge in case he’d forgotten her. He opened the door. Salsa music bounced off the tiled walls, and his cheery parrot-covered aloha shirt peeped out from behind a blood-spattered rubber apron.

“What can I do you for?”

“I’m here to see the Jane Doe.”

“Which one?”

“There’s more than one?” Lei came in, taking shallow mouth breaths as she followed him through the tables, carefully not looking at their contents. He moved with a confidence she didn’t remember seeing at the crash site to the bank of refrigerated boxes, shiny as the hood of a new car.

“A few. We keep them a while, you know, before we cremate ’em. Give them a chance to be identified.”

“Of course.” She wondered who the other Jane Does were. Decided she couldn’t worry about more than one.

He popped the handle of one of the lower doors with a sound like a Coke can opening and rolled out the shelf. A shadowed shape lay before her in a clear plastic body bag. He unzipped it, a long ripping sound, almost drowned by the samba playing in the background. Almost, but not quite.

Lei pushed the foam collar around her neck down under her chin so she could look at the girl who’d started it all.

“What happened to you?” Dr. Gregory’s voice broke the spell cast by the girl’s perfect features, the blue eyes Lei remembered so well closed at last, transparent lids lying over them like bruised petals. Lei touched a vivid strand of the girl’s red hair.

“Car accident.”

“Most dangerous thing we do each day.” Dr. Gregory put on the magnifying glasses dangling around his neck to look at the body. “She was a brunette, you know.”

“Yeah. Skin doesn’t look like a redhead.”

“Hair either, if you know what I mean. So. What did you need?”

“I’m not sure. Just saying goodbye, I guess, now that the case is wrapping up. We think we know who her killer was.”

“Get your man?”

“A woman this time. And no. She seems to have gotten away.” Lei felt the regret and frustration in her voice. “She’s being pursued by the FBI and she’s on the Interpol watch lists. Someone’s going to get her.”

“Too bad. Well, good thing we have the broader law enforcement community to take the investigation outside little old Maui.”

“Yeah, good thing.”

Lei’s voice sounded hollow as she looked down at the still face. She’d had to come here, see this girl, to get the message her gut had been telling her. Something about Jane Doe—her life, her struggle, and her death, was a part of Lei’s life now.

She’d made a decision about Stevens and her future.

Dr. Gregory had turned away, spraying down an adjoining table as Lei stood there, still not ready to zip up the bag.

“Any closer to an ID on her?” he asked over his shoulder.

“No. Nothing. No prints or DNA anywhere on record. None of the other women we interviewed knew her by anything but her stage name, Vixen.”

“That’s nothing to be buried with.” Gregory gave her a kindly glance over his glasses as he rinsed gore off his instruments before dropping them into the kettle of bubbling water on the stove. “Why don’t you give her a name?”

“She deserves one. She died trying to be free, and she set someone else free.”

“Well, it can’t be official, but I don’t see the harm.” Gregory handed her a ballpoint pen and a toe tag. “Put it on her other foot.”

Lei had always liked the story of Amelia Earhart, a woman who defied the odds, and even though Amelia’s story had ended badly, it was unforgotten. She wrote “Amelia Texeira” on the toe tag, and before she could lose her nerve, tied it around the girl’s left toe. She zipped up the plastic shroud and pushed in the shelf, locking the door with a pneumatic sigh.

She turned to Dr. Gregory. “Thanks.”

“Stop by and visit anytime. I get lonely in here when my assistant’s not around. These guys and gals aren’t known for their conversation.”

“Maybe I will.” Doubtful, though. She liked Dr. Gregory, but not his environs. Heading out into the sunshine and fresh air, she felt inexplicably better.

She knew what she had to do.

Chapter 42

Wind plays with my choppy, short hair. I stand against the rail near the bow; leaning over, I can see a ceaseless bow wave purling off the steel wall far below. Dark, swift shapes of spinner dolphins alternately duck and leap, surfing the wave. I feel well-being rise up from somewhere deep inside, bubbling up from my newly pedicured toes in the gold slippers Dr. Aurora Middleton favors for lunch on a cruise ship.

He’s texted me on the burner phone I’d kept just so he could. Earlier this morning, I’d seen a helicopter land on the VIP deck. He could be here anytime.

I haven’t been this excited since I was a kid. If ever.

“This spot taken?” That gravelly voice.

It’s him. I keep my head turned away, savoring the moment, the anticipation. I know what he’ll see—a shapely athletic woman in a short white denim skirt that showcases great legs, strawberry-blond shag blowing in the wind.

“Only by you.” I turn, look the House in the face for the first time.

A long moment passes as we take each other’s measure.

“I thought you had blue eyes,” he finally says.

“I thought you…were smaller,” I say.

He’s a large man. Not in a good way. A shiny shaved head sits like a bowling ball on huge wrestler’s shoulders; a barrel gut strains at an elegant snakeskin belt. Eyes gray and hard as bullets run over me, and I feel an unfamiliar chill.

“You aren’t who you said you were.”

“Who did I say I was?”

“Magda. Magda Kennedy. Tall, thin, blue eyes, black hair.”

I’m beginning to be pissed. He must have been fantasizing about Magda, not me, when we phone-fucked. A ridiculous oversight on my part. But he isn’t Brad Pitt, either, and my pride’s stung. I’m not exactly ugly.

“I did business in her name. Stupid society bitch took the fall for me.” Something dark and ugly moves behind his eyes, but it’s gone before I can really see if it was there. “Besides, I’m in disguise. Aren’t you?”

“I had hair before. A beard too.” He drops mirrored aviators over his eyes so I can’t see them anymore.

“Men. It’s all so easy for you.” I turn away. Disappointment curdles my stomach. Guess this isn’t what either of us was imagining.

He touches me then, a bold ass grab on my left buttock. “You aren’t her, but you’ll do.”

“And what if you won’t do for me?”

He finally lets go of my ass and gives it a hard smack. I flinch. I like to be the dom. This isn’t turning me on the way the phone sex did.

“Let’s go to your room.”

“I don’t think so,” I say. My voice sounds tiny, reedy and unfamiliar.

“You don’t have a choice, babe.” I look down. He has looped a meaty arm around me and there’s a blade in it, a foldable stiletto almost entirely concealed by his hand—his palms are the size of salad plates.

I find myself walking down the lush hallway to my room, watch my hand being clumsy with the keycard. I can’t figure out how to get the card in. I feel the sting and burn as the blade scratches the skin of my waist. He looms beside me like a wall.

I break out in sweat, and my mind scrabbles like a rat in a cage.

I think of something—a last resort I always keep handy. Ingredients for the drink. An overdose of roofies should do the trick. I fumble with the key and finally get the door open. I twist away from him and switch on some charm.

“Okay, I think we got off on the wrong foot, House. Let’s start over. I’m Karen Walker.”

“That your real name?” He’s let me move away, but now he tosses the knife back and forth, a hypnotic movement. I find my eyes following it and break them away.

“No. It’s not. But you owe me yours, too.”

“Gabriel. Like the angel, if you can believe it.” His bark of laughter, I recognize.

“Well, then. My name is Jasmine. Really. I haven’t said that name out loud in seventeen years.”

“Good. We’re being honest now. So you fooled me. I don’t like being fooled.”

“I’m sorry about that. I never felt safe telling you my endgame. But I did want to meet you. I wasn’t lying about that.”

“I know you weren’t.”

He looks around the room. The bed’s big and takes up most of it. I try not to look at it, gesture to the little side table and chairs.

“I have some champagne chilling for us. Why don’t we have some?”