And just when he believed Peruvian food was the most tantalizing in the world, Marina reverted to French with
rabbit sauté chasseur
. They’d eaten that in bed. Marina had poured it steaming from the pot into a chipped ceramic mixing bowl and set it on a pillow between them. They sat cross-legged on crumpled sheets, naked, and picked the rabbit bits, which had been sautéed in butter with tarragon and mushrooms, out of the bowl with their fingers. Brown sauce had dripped down Marina’s chin onto her white breasts. He’d leaned over to lick it off. In the next moment, she was smearing the rabbit gravy all over him— on his arms, chest, abdomen, lower still. Rubbing it on, lapping it up with a powerful, purposeful rhythm. Causing such intense sensation he had to bite down to keep from screaming out. Feeling like a helpless rabbit himself.
Faraway thoughts would peck at his consciousness. Was Elise really okay? Shouldn’t he at least go to class, maybe talk to some other people at the school? Were he and Marina really getting any closer to finding his parents’ murderer? And the guilt would overtake the ecstasy. His head would clear. He couldn’t keep doing this. He had other responsibilities.
But then Marina would wipe her chin and climb out of bed, her hair wild and tangled as though she’d just emerged from months in the jungle. She’d put on a few small items of clothes, then would turn to the pages hanging from the wall. Her manner would change. She became the teacher and he the student, and the guilt would dissolve. This was why he came here night after night. And they were making progress. Good progress. So how could there be anything wrong with it?
“There,” she said. Each word was written in bold caps as though everything had special significance. The room smelled like magic
marker and her hand was smeared with red ink. “SFWPA. The South Florida Water Protection Agency. Today’s suspect and today’s lesson.” She sat down in front of him, Indian-style, and took a puff on her cigarette.
He tried to focus on the paper on the wall, not on her tight thong. “But they’re an environmental protection group. Why would my father attack them?”
“Jeremy, Jeremy. You disappoint me.”
His father used to say that and it made him feel stupid and defensive.
“Fine. Tell me how they’re corrupt. Tell me what he found.”
“It’s back to the sugar growers, I’m afraid.” Marina pulled the cord to the ceiling fan, then fell back against the mattress, leaning on her elbows. The fan spun above them, shifting the stagnant air. “The sugar growers have a vested interest in the Everglades. If they had to keep the runoff of fertilizer and pesticides from their fields out of the Everglades, their business wouldn’t be nearly as profitable. So they use their money to influence the watchdogs.”
“Like the water protection agency.”
“That’s right.”
“Jesus, Marina. It seems everyone’s bribing everyone else just to keep making money.”
“Corruption. It’s what makes the world go round, your father liked to say.”
“So he attacked the water protection agency for allowing the Everglades to be polluted.”
“And the sugar growers for doing it.”
“And pissed off lots of people in the process.”
“You’re starting to get the feel of things.” She climbed off the bed. “Fillet of veal with Cointreau tonight. The veal’s been soaking in liqueur for over two hours. It’ll take a few minutes to fry. Are you hungry?”
Jeremy followed her into the kitchen as he flipped through some of his father’s papers. His father had named several organizations as being fronts. One was SWEET— Sugar Workers’ Ecological Enterprise Trust. The café jers had made a joke about SWEET. Could there be a connection? Jeremy scanned the names his father had listed of its key members not expecting to recognize any, but there, in black and white, was the name Liliam Castillo. Jeremy felt a rush. “Who is SWEET?”
“You are,
mon amour
.”
“The organization.”
“I know. I was making a little joke.” She moved a pat of butter around the skillet with her finger. “Smells good, no?”
“Yes. Tell me about SWEET.”
“What’s caught your interest?”
“I recognize one of the names, Liliam Castillo.”
“Ah. Your neighbor and gracious hostess to your parents’ funeral services. You think she murdered your parents?”
“I just want to understand her connection to this organization.”
“It’s a bit complicated. You see, SWEET purports to be a benevolent group, interested in the welfare of the migrant workers. Many of the people on the board are society women. They throw parties, raise money— it makes them feel important and altruistic. I wouldn’t be caught dead at one of their benefits, but I doubt the charity ladies are murderers.”
Jeremy wasn’t amused by her humor. “But why would my father have a problem with a group of fund-raisers?”
“Because the charitable operations are a front. SWEET is actually a lobbyist group for the sugar growers. Yes, I’m sorry— them again. SWEET is one of the organizations your father maintained bribes the water protection agency and other influential groups.”
“So they would have hated my father’s positions.”
“That’s an understatement. They’re also one of the largest
benefactors of MIU’s business school. You can imagine the embarrassment to Dean Winter every time one of your father’s pieces came out.”
The rich scent of melting butter hung in the air. “So SWEET and Winter both had a strong motive for wanting my father out of the picture.” He was feeling encouraged, optimistic. Maybe not Liliam Castillo, but certainly one of the other names on the list could be the murderer.
But this was no different from the way he’d felt last night, and the night before. Every thesis he’d reviewed with Marina had revealed a new set of suspects. Everything his father wrote about pointed to a villain. But by now, they had four or five lists of people who had pretty good reasons for wanting D. C. Stroeb stopped. And Jeremy was wondering whether he was in fact getting closer to the truth, or just being led on a wild goose chase. But why would Marina want to do that?
The butter sizzled. Marina had dropped the Cointreau-soaked veal into the skillet. She slipped one leg on either side of him, as though she were mounting a horse, and settled herself on his lap. “You look sad, my Jeremy.”
“I just don’t see us getting any closer.”
She tensed on his lap. “Did you think we’d come up with a solution overnight? That we just do a little research and zap, we’re done? Instant gratification? This isn’t like one of your video games, Jeremy.”
“And what if my mother had been the target? I’m spending all my time here.”
Like a cat’s, the pupils of her eyes seemed to expand and contract. “After all we’ve uncovered about your father, do you really think your mother was the target? Because if you do, leave now. I don’t want to keep you any longer from finding the murderer.”
She was right. His father had left a wide wake of outraged people. And whom could his careful mother have alienated?
“We’re almost ready to narrow it down, Jeremy.” She rested her warm hand on his shoulder. “I just want to be sure we haven’t missed anyone.”
“So many people.” He shook his head. “He made so many people angry.”
“‘If what you say doesn’t piss someone off, it’s not worth saying.’ I’m quoting your father. He enjoyed being the rabbit all the dogs chased around the track.”
But didn’t his father consider what happens to the rabbit when it gets caught?
Marina’s thighs tightened around his own. With a flick of her finger, she shifted aside the crotch of her panties. “We have ten minutes,” she breathed into his ear. “Ten minutes until the veal is done.”
Chapter 21
Elise held her mother’s hand tightly as they walked through the mall. Her mother wore white pants and a yellow shirt the color of a happy face button. Her hair was held up in a ponytail with a red ribbon. She smiled at Elise. Elise felt so happy she wanted to laugh out loud. She and her mother, together, forever.
But there were hundreds of people at the mall, all zipping past them. Why couldn’t she and her mother keep up? Her feet were heavy; she could barely lift them. And the black-and-white tile floor that looked like a giant chessboard was moving backwards, carrying them farther away from their destination. The sound of carnival music became louder. Over the edge of a railing, she could see a carousel.
That’s where they were going— to the carousel. Elise heard screeches of delight as the horses rose and fell in time to the music. The children’s black wings lifted them higher and higher, far above the painted ponies.
The children’s black wings.
All the children and all the people had wings, like bats. That’s why they could move so quickly. They could fly. Elise felt her back with her free hand. Yes, she had wings too.
She began rising high into the air. She squeezed her mother’s hand. “We’re flying, Mommy. We’re flying.”
“I’m not your mother,” said a thick shadow with a black mask.
“But she’s calling you,” the shadow said in its deep distorted voice. “Your mama’s calling you.”
Elise touched her back. The wings were gone. And she began falling, falling into a deep, dark hole.
Elise awoke with a start. The tee shirt she slept in was soaked with sweat. The shadow. The dark shadow was in her dreams every night. But she could never see its face.
How she wanted her mother back! Her mother in the yellow blouse with her hair held up by a red ribbon. Her mother smiling at her. Elise closed her eyes, trying to reconnect with the happy part of her dream. Mommy, she whispered. Mommy, come back.
But only black bats flew across her mind, blocking out the sweetness as they flapped their dank wings.
Elise reached for the water glass on her nightstand. She was thirsty, so thirsty. The glass was empty. It was after two in the morning. Dwight had called around midnight asking for Jeremy, as he did most nights, and she had unplugged the phone.
She turned on the faucet in her bathroom and held her mouth under it to catch the cold stream of water. She couldn’t seem to get enough.
Her mother smiling. So happy, so real, Elise was certain she had touched her. Elise’s heart ached with unbearable emptiness. It had been a dream. Her mother was dead. Her mother was dead. Tears ran down Elise’s cheeks mingling with the tap water. Was that why she was so thirsty? So she had something to make more tears with?
Her legs were heavy, like in the dream, as she went to Jeremy’s room. She was frightened. She was always frightened being alone in the house. She would lock all the doors as soon as she was inside, but it didn’t seem to help. The murderer had gotten in with a key last time. Why would locked doors stop him now?
Jeremy was stretched out across his bed. Elise felt a wave of
relief. She wasn’t alone. Then she realized it was only a couple of piles of laundered clothes. Jeremy wasn’t asleep in his bed. Jeremy never slept in his bed anymore.
A terrible sadness pulled Elise down to the floor. Carlos had given her a pill tonight. It had a tiny black Batman insignia. Ecstasy. “Take this,” he’d said. “It’ll really make you fly.”
And perhaps because she was already high from the pot, she’d washed it down with a glass of water.
“You have to drink plenty of water,” he’d said. “This shit makes you real thirsty.”
And she was. So thirsty. She went back to her bathroom and drank from the faucet. The water splashed her tee shirt. Her mother’s shirt. The one she’d found hanging in the hallway closet. It had three brown teardrops. Her mother’s blood from the nosebleed she’d had the night they’d come home from visiting Jeremy. Elise could still smell her mother’s perfume on it. She wore the shirt every night, refusing to wash it. Unwilling to lose any more of her mother than she already had.
Moonlight was seeping in through the partially open blinds in her mother’s office. Elise sat down at the desk and rested her head on her arms. A sharp point poked her. The clipboard with its yellow pad and squiggly writing was lying on top of the desk. She had only scribbled on the top page the last time she’d noticed the clipboard. Now, she found every page filled with her tight, intense pen strokes. Had she done this? In her sleep?
She flipped through the pages. The letters became almost legible as she got to the end of the pad. She could make out
m, g, e.
And there were breaks in the scribbles, almost like she’d been writing words.
Elise studied the last few pages. It seemed as though she’d been making columns.
Geezer.
That was one of the words. She was sure of
it. Then,
Elise, Jeremy
, something that looked like
May 2,
Elise’s birthday, and
February 20
, Jeremy’s birthday. In a few days, he’d be twenty-three.
But what had her subconscious been doing? She turned to the next page and tried to decipher the words.
Corvair, freedom, Mozart.
“Corvair, freedom, Mozart,” she said aloud. Her father’s favorite things. And the names and birthdays were important to her mother. Passwords. Could she have been making a list of possible passwords in her sleep? Trying to break into her parents’ e-mail accounts?
Elise got her laptop from her room. She set it on top of her mother’s desk blotter.
Passwords. She logged onto her parents’ mail server to input each one.
Geezer, Jeremy, Elise, May 2, February 20.
Invalid password. Please try again,
the computer said.
She tried her father’s account.
Corvair, freedom, Mozart.
Please try again.
Each time she input a new word, she felt a stab of pain. Just like in the Kafka story she’d read in school called “In the Penal Colony
,”
where a torture machine wrote the name of the crime into the culprit’s body with a sharp needle. With each word came a memory, which stabbed her like the needle in the story. But Elise couldn’t stop. She threw the clipboard on the floor and started typing in her own memories.
Bicycle.
She remembered her father pushing her on her little pink bike after he’d taken the training wheels off, shouting, “Go on Elise. You’ve got it. Go on, pumpkin.”