by Kathy Reichs
I’d been to a heroin den once, as part of a team to collect a corpse. I could still picture the horror. Stained mattress. Used needles. Bugs. The reek of urine and feces.
“She was wearing a T-shirt we bought in Honolulu. She loved it, made me memorize the proverb.” His voice again sounded husky. “Hele me kahau ‘oli.”
I reached out and stroked his face.
“Go with joy,” he translated.
“You did everything you could, Ryan.”
A tear broke free and rolled down his cheek. He backhanded it roughly. Took another drag of his Camel.
“Guess it wasn’t enough.” Bitter.
What could I say?
When Ryan learned of Lily’s existence, she was already in her teens. He’d never cradled her as an infant, never shared her joys or comforted her fears as a child. I knew he regretted his absence from her life. Knew he felt responsible for her addictions. Her death.
Under the law, Lily was an adult. Ryan couldn’t tell her how to live or what to do. Still. I could imagine my own sorrow and self-recrimination should something happen to Katy.
Parenting transcends rationality. Always you think you could have done more. Always you blame yourself when things go wrong.
“I should have concentrated more on Lily and less on the job, on strangers who don’t even know my name. I should have focused on her. My own daughter.”
Ryan’s pain was a raw wound. There was nothing I could do but listen.
“Funny. The things that come back. Meaningless moments. One night she came into my bedroom to play a song she’d downloaded from iTunes. I remember exactly what it was. Israel Kamakawiwo‘ole’s ‘Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World.’”
Ryan’s haunted eyes searched my face. “Is that all we had, Tempe? All I ever gave her? One lousy vacation in Hawaii?”
I placed my hand on his. “Of course not.”
“Then why is every memory tied to that trip?”
“It’s still too soon.”
He snorted softly. Shook his head.
“You should stay here,” I said. “As long as you like.”
“I have to go.” He drew deeply, then stubbed out the Camel.
“Now?” Disbelieving.
“I’m sorry.” He shot a hand through his unwashed hair. A gesture so familiar it tore my heart.
“Go where?” I asked.
“Away.”
I looked a question at him.
“I need to move. Move and keep moving.”
“Ryan—”
“I’m sorry.” He rose and started for the door.
“Please.” Imploring. “Stay.”
“I’m not fit to be around people.”
“Where are you headed?”
He hesitated. “South.”
“You can have the study. I’m busy with a case. You’ll hardly see me.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.”
He read my expression to mean something it wasn’t.
“You’re right. This was a mistake. I just …”
“A mistake?” Masking the anger and hurt.
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Stay, Andy.”
“There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing anyone can do.”
With that, he left.
I hurried to the door and watched him recede into shadow, tears hot on my cheeks.
Halfway down the walk he paused, turned, and slowly walked back toward the porch.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I wish you’d let me help.”
“You have.”
He spread his arms. I ran into them. They closed around me. I molded my body to his.
He hugged me hard. I smelled stale smoke, leather, and a hint of cologne.
As we embraced, headlights curved the drive and lit our bodies. Blinded, I couldn’t tell if the car belonged to Slidell’s surveillance team.
The vehicle accelerated, blew past us, and turned right onto Queens.
Flashbulb images. A box. A severed tongue. A bloated, bloody face.
Mistaking my sudden stiffness for dismissal, Ryan pulled away.
“I’ll miss you.” Kissing his fingertips and pressing them to my cheek.
“Don’t go.” I may have spoken the words, may only have thought them.
Ryan strode down the walk and rounded the corner. A car door slammed. An engine kicked to life.
I shut and bolted the door. Leaned against it, struggling to process. He hadn’t asked about Katy. About my travels. I’d been to a war and he didn’t give a damn.
In his time of suffering, Ryan had shut me out. The rejection felt like a knife to my heart.
Seriously? The man’s daughter is dead and you’re miffed he didn’t call or query your recent concerns? Have you become that self-centered?
I pushed from the door, ashamed of my pettiness. I had one foot on the stairs when the phone rang.
Excited, I snatched up the handset.
It wasn’t Ryan.
“Yo, doc.”
“What is it, detective?”
“That sounds as enthused as a dead trout.”
“Why are you phoning?”
“Got a shocker for you.”
It was.
“REMEMBER ARCHER STORY?”
“The younger brother of John-Henry, the man who died in the flea market fire.” Maybe. “What about him?”
“Archer and John-Henry were partners in S&S Enterprises.”
“Right.” Drawn out and ending high. A question. I had no idea where this was going.
“S&S. Story and Story. They owned John-Henry’s Tavern, a string of convenience stores, a whack of storage centers, and a bunch of other shit. Nice little money machine. But they were tanking on other investments.”
“The Saturn dealerships and the pizzerias.”
“You got it. But the bros weren’t exactly circling the drain. They’d diversified. And buried their investments in layers and layers of umbrella LPs and LLPs and other legal bullshit.”
“What does this have to do with Candy and Rosalie?” Ryan’s visit had left me drained. I wanted to curl up and sleep until the pain receded.
No. What I wanted was a drink. Cabernet or pinot noir until euphoria, then oblivion. But I knew how a binge would end. Knew the self-loathing that would follow. I’d been down that road. Wouldn’t travel it again.
“Will you let me finish?” Slidell snapped.
My sigh conveyed impatience equal to his.
“Turns out one of these little shelters is SayDo.”
That got my attention. “The Passion Fruit Club.”
“The Passion Fruit and four other massage joints. Names are real magic. I’ll spare you.”
“Holy shit.” Facts were winging. John-Henry Story. The US Airways club card in Candy’s purse. The Passion Fruit.
“Yeah. Holy shit.”
“How did we miss that?”
“It took time to untangle the mess. The guy I had working it got diverted to another case. And I got sidelined with the damn MP.”
“Now what?”
“Now I figure out how to get to Archer Story.”
“Just bring him in.”
“I do that, he’ll lawyer up tighter than a frog’s nuts.”
I ignored the metaphor. “You can’t even question him?”
“Based on what? He owns skin joints and we think maybe the personnel director offed one of the hookers?”
“What about a nasty habit called human trafficking?” I felt like screaming.
“The raid turned up dick.”
“Of course it did. Someone tipped Tarzec so she moved the girls and sanitized the place.”
Silence.
“Will you at least check out the other massage parlors?”
“I got nothing to get a warrant. And, needless to say, my credibility took a nosedive after the fiasco at the Passion Fruit.”
“Jesus, Slidell. These people killed Candy. And D’Ostillo. They’ll ki
ll again if they feel threatened. These girls mean nothing to them.”
Slidell was silent a moment.
“There’s a SayDo joint up in NoDa. I’ll swing by tonight. Unofficial like.”
“Keep me looped in.”
“If it makes you any happier, I dropped in on Rockett for a little more face time.”
Slidell didn’t seize the opportunity for humor on that. Good sign.
“And?”
“He told me I could suck his dick.”
When we’d disconnected, I went upstairs for a long, hot bath. And realized I still hadn’t seen Birdie. I’d been distracted by Slidell’s call. Then Ryan showed up. Then Slidell phoned again.
Had the scamp slipped through the open door while Ryan and I were on the sidewalk? Stupid not closing it. He loves to sneak out, I suspect mainly to get my attention. I always find him in the shrubbery, within inches of the foundation.
Cursing, I trudged back downstairs and out the front door. Called his name. No cat.
I circled the building, my annoyance increasing each time my summoning went unanswered. Eventually, I expanded my search onto the grounds.
After fifteen minutes, I gave up. Told myself to relax. He’d done this before. He’d come home when hungry.
The bath was a bust. I lay in bubbles up to my chin, sadness and worry foreclosing any relaxation.
Lily, dying before her twentieth birthday.
Ryan, excluding me in his time of sorrow. Forever?
Katy, fighting in Afghanistan.
Pete, marrying a bimbo with a boob size exceeding her IQ.
D’Ostillo, trying to do right, getting murdered and mutilated.
Candy, perishing on a two-lane, alone and terrified.
How had Candy ended up on that dark stretch of road? Was she trafficked? Lured by someone she trusted? Stolen and caged like stock?
What fate awaited her had she lived? To be brutalized, her body a commodity exploited until its value was gone? What then?
Were others out there suffering the same hell?
My mind was in overdrive. I had to do something to squelch the terrible thoughts and images ping-ponging in my skull.
I got out, dried off, and pulled on sweats. Yanked my hair into a pony and headed downstairs.
I shouted through both the front and kitchen doors. Shook a bag of his favorite treats. Still no Birdie. My annoyance was joined by a tickle of apprehension. Why?
Ping.
Blanton had mentioned my cat. He’d been waiting just a block from the annex.
Paranoia, Brennan.
I brewed coffee, went to the study closet, and pulled out a large erasable board I use for structuring lectures. Then I got Scotch tape and a marker from the desk.
After propping the board on the mantel in the parlor, I collected every picture I’d accumulated over the past two and a half weeks. Snapshots, crime-scene photos, Polaroids, printouts, mug shots.
I started by taping up a picture of Candy, the hit-and-run victim whose real name we still didn’t know. Beside it I placed one of the snapshots I’d liberated from John-Henry’s Tavern. Pictured was John-Henry Story, the man whose US Airways club card Candy had inside her purse lining.
Using the marker, I drew a line between Candy and John-Henry.
Next I posted the second “borrowed” snapshot, Dominick Rockett at the tavern with John-Henry Story. Rockett, the smuggler who traveled to South America and made mysterious trips to Texas. Rockett, customer or maybe more than a customer at the Passion Fruit Club, owned by John-Henry and his brother Archer via SayDo. And employer of Candy.
I drew lines connecting Candy and Rockett, Rockett and John-Henry Story.
After jotting the name Passion Fruit on the right side of the board, I drew lines connecting the massage parlor to Candy, Rockett, and John-Henry.
Next in the lineup went the mug shot of CC Creach. Creach’s semen was found on Candy. Creach was a patron of the Passion Fruit, and said Candy and the other girls were afraid of Rockett. And of Roy Majerick, who was often there.
I added Majerick to the row. Majerick’s semen was also found on Candy. Majerick had a history as a sexual predator.
I drew lines between Candy and Creach, Candy and Majerick, Majerick and Creach, Majerick and Rockett, Majerick and John-Henry Story. Then between both Creach and Majerick and the words “Passion Fruit.”
I paused to consider.
Majerick had been seen at the Passion Fruit and had sex with Candy. Did that mean he knew John-Henry Story? I erased parts of that line, converting it to a dotted connector.
The last photo to go up was Rosalie D’Ostillo. My stomach still tightened on seeing the hideous mutilation.
D’Ostillo saw Candy at the Mixcoatl. The taquería was located close to the Passion Fruit. Like Creach, D’Ostillo thought Candy and the other girls spoke Spanish. D’Ostillo was murdered within hours of talking to me. Her tongue was left on my doorstep.
I drew a line from D’Ostillo to Candy, a dotted link to the words “Passion Fruit.”
Then I stepped back and surveyed my work.
The board showed a maze of interconnections. Which ones were meaningful? Which were spurious? Was Candy’s killer one of the men whose pictures I’d posted? Was I staring at his face right now?
How did the lines link up?
I moved my eyes from photo to photo.
Candy, lying on her morgue gurney. How did John-Henry Story’s US Airways club card end up in her purse? How did semen from Creach and Majerick end up on her skin? Turning tricks? Voluntary sex? Rape?
Dom Rockett and John-Henry Story sharing a beer. The two were partners in S&S. How had Rockett acquired the money to invest? Aware of his illegal trafficking in antiquities, did Story approach Rockett about doing the same with humans? Rockett was a smuggler, knew the routes, the cops and agents who could be bribed, the border crossing points most easily breached.
Or had it gone the other way? Had Rockett proposed a moneymaking scheme to John-Henry, knowing Story had the infrastructure to make it work?
I thought of something. Jotted the identifier citizenjustice on the left side of the board.
The bearer of that name had sent threatening e-mails to me. Had that same person murdered D’Ostillo and delivered her tongue as a warning?
I stared at D’Ostillo’s ravaged face. Wondered. Who was the man in the hat and upturned collar she’d served in the taquería? Rockett was only a best guess.
Roy Majerick? Someone of whom we were unaware? A male counterpart to Mrs. Tarzec?
I jotted Mrs. Tarzec’s name and drew lines to Candy, John-Henry, and the words “Passion Fruit.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Pinched the bridge of my nose.
A tiny itch in my brain kept pestering. Asking to be scratched.
What was I missing?
The lines were crisscrossing like an Etch A Sketch pattern gone wrong. What threads were important? What intersections?
Clearly the Passion Fruit. A lot of lines converged there. Candy. Creach. Majerick. Story. Rockett. D’Ostillo. Tarzec.
Ditto for Candy. Every line led to her.
Still the itch.
What was the subliminal memory I couldn’t call up? What hidden data byte dozed in my id?
I stared at the crazy quilt of photos, names, and lines, willing the answer to make itself known. Stared at Candy’s bloodless face, frustrated, desperate to fulfill my promise to her.
What was eluding me?
Rockett. Why did he make trips to Texas and come back empty? Or did he?
John-Henry Story. Why was his lounge card in Candy’s purse? Was Story really dead?
Discouraged, I got a hand lens from the study and started moving from picture to picture.
Candy, face bruised and fractured. Blond hair bound by the little-girl barrette.
No. No tears.
I sipped some coffee, now tepid, checked on Charlie, then turned back to the photos.
Story and Rockett at John
-Henry’s Tavern, neither man smiling. Story rodent lean. Rockett’s mangled features shadowed by a hat pulled down to his brows.
I moved the lens across the snapshot, taking in details.
A brass rail paralleled the right edge of the bar, a strip of brightness lighting the curvature of its surface.
“Camera flash,” I muttered to no one.
Beyond the table, a jukebox. On the wall above, three or four decals, none larger than a man’s palm.
No, not decals. Military patches. I hadn’t noticed them on my visit with Slidell. The patches were similar to the ones I’d seen at the Green Bean at Bagram.
Was that the heads-up my hindbrain was offering?
I raised and lowered the lens, trying to make out unit totems or names. The image quality was too poor. Tomorrow I’d take the photo to the MCME and view it under higher power with the dissecting scope.
My eyes continued tracking across the magnified image.
Suddenly stopped.
I nearly dropped the glass.
The photo’s upper left corner caught a section of the old mirror in the main eating area. The glass was angled, not flush with the wall. I guessed it hung by a horizontal wire placed a bit too low.
The mirror reflected a ten-foot bubble of space in front of the table at which Rockett and Story were seated. In it stood a man, arms raised, elbows flexed, face largely obscured by a small box camera and the sunburst of its flash.
The man’s body was visible from the neck down. He was in jeans and a dark T-shirt. And had a tattoo I’d seen before.
I felt adrenaline start to seep into my blood.
All my theories skidded sideways.
IMPOSSIBLE.
Yet there he was.
Coincidence?
I don’t believe in coincidence.
But how did he work it?
Didn’t matter.
I retrieved a brown corrugated file from the study, emptied the contents onto the dining room table, and began reading every page.
It didn’t take long.
How had I missed it?
Oblivious to the possibility.
Careless?
Sudden realization. Another possibility overlooked?
I went to the parlor, took Candy’s photo from the lineup, and studied it again under magnification.
The dusky skin. The dark-rooted blond hair.
Rosalie D’Ostillo spoke Spanish to the girls but got no response. Fear of their handler? Or another explanation?
