Fatally Haunted

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  “Sir, tell me where you are hurt.”

  The man looked up at her.

  It was Narith Nam.

  “Penleu,” he spoke to her in Khmer. “My son. Go get him. They were looking for him. Don’t let them find him.”

  “I will find your son, and I will protect him. Tell me who did this to you.”

  Narith Nam approximated a shrug, then grimaced. “Gang. Mexican. Maybe. What do I know?”

  His head lolled to the side. Thavary put two fingers on the side of his neck.

  “Pulse is faint.”

  “EMTs on their way,” said the police officer on the other side of the counter. “What’d he say?”

  “I know him,” Thavary answered. “He’s worried about his son. Gangs trying to recruit the kid. He thinks that’s who shot him.”

  “They took the money from the cash register.” That was the officer behind the counter with her.

  Thavary gently lifted Narith Nam’s shirt. “One bullet went into his side.”

  She was relieved to hear the ambulance siren in the distance.

  Thavary led Penleu into the busy ICU unit. Nurses consulted with residents, a doctor held court with a group of students, and fearful friends and relatives huddled around the doors to some of the rooms.

  Two young Cambodians were seated in chairs on either side of Narith Nam’s door. One wore a ragged cap with an emblem, the Monkey King Hanuman with his sword raised, surrounded by a gilded heraldic frame. Thavary had a brief flashback of her father in front of a television, yelling and cheering.

  Soccer. King Hanuman had something to do with soccer.

  The young men recognized Penleu, smiled at him and greeted him in Khmer.

  Penleu tried to go into the hospital room, but Thavary stopped him.

  “Let me go in first. Then I’ll come get you.”

  Penleu gave her that wide-eyed frowning look she was getting to know very well. The soccer fan smiled at Penleu, took off his soccer cap, and put it on Penleu’s head, pulling it over his eyes. Penleu snatched the cap off and put it back on the man, now covering his eyes. Clearly a game they’d played before.

  Thavary went into Narith Nam’s room.

  The door was slightly ajar, but the room was dimly lit. The noise from the hallway didn’t block out the regular beep-beep-beeping of the heart monitor.

  Thavary approached Narith Nam’s bedside. She counted the number of tubes.

  Narith’s eyes fluttered open. He looked dazed, but he spoke to her in English. “Officer Keo. I am very happy to see you again.”

  “Sorry it has to be like this.” She glanced at the nurse’s instructions on the dryboard.

  Narith lifted his right hand and indicated his side. “Bullet went through my ribs. Made my lung collapse. Now I have a tube. It will let the air out. Then I can go home.”

  Thavary sat in the chair next to the bed. “That’s really good to hear. What about your leg?”

  Narith grimaced. “That will take a bit longer.”

  He looked down at the shape of his legs under the blanket, then back at her. “How is my boy?”

  “He’s right outside. I’ll bring him in. But I need to ask you something first, Mr. Nam.”

  “Call me Narith.”

  “Who are the two men guarding your door?”

  “They work for me, at the store.”

  “If you’re worried about your safety, I can ask my sergeant to assign you a police guard.”

  “It’s not necessary.”

  Thavary felt a quiver of doubt in her stomach. “Do you remember what you said to me, in your store? You said gang members shot you. The gang that wants your son.”

  Narith shook his head. “I was robbed. Not by gang. Crazy guys. Don’t know how to use a gun. Luckily for me.” The smile flickered over his face again. For a moment he looked younger, handsomer, vulnerable.

  Thavary felt a wave of warmth spread from her chest to her feet and her fingers. The feeling was strange to her, alien. She shifted her feet around, trying to restore her sense of balance.

  Narith stirred again. “But my son—I have no relatives here—can you watch him?”

  “I can do that. Now let me bring him in, he’s very worried about you.”

  Narith smiled, his face softer in the dim hospital light than Thavary had ever seen it before. “Yes, my boy, my boy.”

  Penleu lost his cool when Urrieta pulled up in front of the rec center. He yanked his arm out of Thavary’s grasp. “I can’t go in there.”

  He strode a few feet away from her with an I-don’t-know-her turn to his shoulder.

  Only to scurry back when a group of Chicanos came out of the rec center, shoving each other and laughing.

  Their laughter froze when they saw Penleu, then resumed, forced this time, when they saw Thavary and Urrieta in their police uniforms.

  Thavary put her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll introduce you to a couple people. Then you’ll be fine.”

  He swatted her hand off, but went along.

  Thavary led him over to Melanie, her foster mother. “This is Moms. And I’ll tell you a secret. There are snacks in that desk drawer.”

  “Penleu! How nice to see you! And, Thavary! Don’t give away all my secrets!” Melanie pulled the drawer open and pulled out two bags. “What’ll it be, chips, or cookies?”

  Penleu took both.

  Thavary looked at the kids doing homework. Kids playing games. Kids just hanging out. Penleu was right: most of them were Chicano or Mexican. She would ask her boss to increase the patrol around the rec center. If the grocery store really was a gang hit, a Khmer gang might decide to hit the rec center in retaliation.

  In just a few days Narith Nam was back on his feet. He insisted on re-opening the store. “My employees need to work,” he told Thavary. “And people need to know we’re open.”

  Thavary and Urrieta organized the security. Local news covered the event. There was much posturing by various dignitaries about brave businessmen like Narith Nam. The fact that the Hen-Heng grocery was re-opening was a sign that the gang wars wouldn’t define the neighborhood.

  The same men that had guarded Narith’s door at the hospital, one still wearing his beat-up cap with the monkey-king soccer emblem, held the ribbon while Penleu cut it.

  Narith Nam stood straight and tall and refused to use his cane as long as the cameras rolled. Even injured, he radiated confidence, as he and Penleu beamed for the news cameras.

  He seems taller. More powerful. Even after taking three bullets.

  Narith Nam was not just any grocer. He was a man with a history. She wondered what it was. Who had he been? What had he lost?

  After the news trucks left, Narith offered the officers cold sodas. Urrieta nodded. Narith turned and went back into the store, and Thavary followed him.

  Narith reached into a cooler and pulled out a bottle of Jarritos soda.

  “How are you feeling?” Thavary switched to Khmer.

  “Glad to be back.” Then he admitted, “Getting tired.” He handed her the bottle, but when she took it, he didn’t let go right away. “It would be a great honor if you could come to my house tomorrow. I will make you good Khmai dinner. To thank you for all your help.”

  Thavary hesitated.

  “Penleu would also be very pleased.”

  Thavary bowed her head and agreed.

  When Narith let her in he accepted her box of cakes. His eyes traveled over her straight black hair, now hanging loose, and the dress. “I have never seen you without your uniform. Very nice.”

  In the kitchen, Penleu was hunched over the stove. Thavary watched Narith guide his son through the steps of sautéing the marinated beef for the lok lak. She was struck again by Narith Nam’s toned and powerful body.

  Maybe he’s not that old. Maybe it’s just the war on his face.

  Penleu was losing his temper. “Why can’t she cook it?”

  Thavary shook her
head. “I can make hamburgers. I don’t know how to cook Khmai.”

  “Then I have to teach both of you.” Narith waved her over.

  Penleu ducked out from under his father’s arm and escaped. Thavary turned after him but Narith said, “Let him go, let him go. Now you learn.”

  Thavary tried to follow his directions, but the aroma of garlic and fish sauce, soy and lime, sent her back to her mother’s kitchen. She closed her eyes and waited, hoping her memory would send her a glimpse of her mother over the stove back in Cambodia, or maybe of her father at the table.

  “You’re letting it burn.” Narith took over the cooking, turning the strips of beef, scooping them into a bowl.

  “My mother used to make this.”

  He set the bowl of meat on a tray. “Ah. I thought you were too young to remember.”

  Thavary’s heart, usually cold and small, felt full and big. Her throat felt thick, so her voice came out low. “You help me. You help me remember.”

  Narith’s smile wiped all the hardness off his sharp features.

  When Penleu went to bed, Thavary got up to leave. She thought Narith might try to keep her there longer, but wasn’t sure if she was ready for that.

  But when he didn’t try to keep her there, the same part of her that had been ready to rush out now moved slowly. He’s still part of an active case. Better to keep a distance.

  Narith followed her to the door and watched as she slipped her feet back into her flats.

  “I would like to meet your barangs.” He pointed at the ceiling. “Thank them too. For watching my boy.”

  Thavary nodded. “Melanie, my foster mother, would like that.”

  “I would like to ask her also for her permission.”

  “For what?” Thavary reached down to pull on the stiff new shoe.

  “To court you.”

  The part of her that had wanted to leave, then wanted to stay, now stood frozen. One side of her was flattered. One side of her was offended.

  That side won. She straightened up. “In America, the only permission you need is mine.”

  Some emotion crossed his eyes. Was he offended by her straightforwardness? Or hurt by her tone?

  She leaned toward him and planted a kiss on his lips, warm, wet, and soft. But not lingering.

  Without waiting for his reaction, she went out the door.

  Thavary always stopped at the rec center after she and Urrieta finished their rounds. Melanie was always quick to say Penleu hadn’t come in, not since his father had gotten out of the hospital.

  “Probably helping out at home.” But inwardly Thavary feared she’d been too forward. Narith Nam was clearly very traditional. Perhaps he’d misunderstood the way she’d kissed him.

  So when she stopped at the rec center days later and found Penleu taking his pick out of Melanie’s snack drawer, her heart jumped.

  “We’ve been talking about you for hours,” Melanie said. “He wants to know everything about you.”

  A burst of yelling from the game room. Melanie hurried off.

  Thavary reached into Penleu’s chip bag.

  “My dad is coming to get me. He said to tell you he wants to see you.”

  Thavary followed him outside. Sure enough, there was Narith Nam, just parking his car. As soon as he saw her, there was that smile again.

  “Can we walk?”

  They walked to the beach, not speaking, Penleu running ahead of them.

  I made the first move. Now it’s his turn.

  Narith picked a camellia, reached up to put it in her hair, but was blocked by her cap. “I’m going to open another store,” he said. “More than one, eventually. Plenty of Cambodians here.”

  Thavary took the flower from him. “That’s good. You can hire boys like your son. Keep them out of the gangs.”

  Her eyes went to Penleu, now kicking up sand by the water’s edge. “Melanie, my foster mother, wants to see your store. She wants to learn how to make lok lak.”

  “I will be happy to show her.” Narith turned toward her, waiting.

  Thavary looked at the flower in her hand, the white petals already browning at the edges, their softness such a contrast to her uniform.

  “I just joined the force, you know. I like being a cop. We need Khmer cops.”

  Narith watched Penleu too, who was now playing chicken with the incoming surf, running towards it and jumping back.

  “Also, I’m only ten years older than he is. Not even old enough to be his mother.”

  Narith turned to her. He took her hand. “You and me, we live in two worlds. The world that we left, which we still carry, here—” he gestured to his heart, “—and this new world, the barang world.” He glanced at his son just as Penleu miss-timed the incoming surf and found water rushing over his feet. He looked back at them, the chagrin clearly etched on his face. Narith waved at him and smiled. “He doesn’t remember the old country. He only knows this world. I try to make him remember, but it’s not working.”

  He turned back to Thavary. “It’s very lonely, to have lost it all. It helps to remember with someone.”

  Thavary thought of the screaming at night in the refugee camp, the way she and other young girls had to hide from the roving gangs. “Not all the memories are good.”

  Narith squeezed her hand. “In one way, this world is like the old world. To survive, you have to fight. You and I, we know this. You and I, we’re fighters. We are the same. I recognize that in you. You recognize that in me. That’s important. That’s what matters.”

  He stepped closer, pulled off her hat. Thavary thought he might kiss her, but he took the flower from her hand and placed it in her hair. “Remember, you can’t be a police officer all the time. Sometimes—” he stroked her hair, “—sometimes we just have to be like this, a man, a woman.”

  Then he kissed her, not like the barangs she’d kissed in high school who tilted their heads to the side, but nose to nose.

  Penleu hollered. A wave crashed over him. He jumped up and down in the water, screaming with joy.

  There was a banging on the door. It worked its way into Thavary’s regular nightmare about the fire, her family screaming and pounding on the doors.

  “Thavary! Thavary! Wake up!”

  It was Urrieta’s voice. Thavary jumped out of bed. She saw her utility belt, her gun. She wasn’t in Cambodia anymore. She was in Long Beach, California. She was safe. And she had a job to do.

  Urrieta was outside, geared up, the light on the cruiser flashing. “Finally. You sure can sleep. Come on, we gotta go, there’s a fire, they need us to do crowd control.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I did. Multiple times.”

  Why didn’t Moms wake me?

  Her mother’s car wasn’t in the driveway.

  Thavary got into the cruiser. “Where’s the fire?”

  “It’s the rec center.”

  Thavary’s heartbeat slowed. Moms.

  “Come on, Urrieta, step on it.”

  After what she’d been through during the war in Cambodia, after what she’d experienced in the refugee camp, Thavary thought she could keep her cool during any emergency. But now her feet felt like blocks of ice, and her hands were clumsy.

  “Good thing it’s after hours,” Urrieta said as they took in the fire fighters trying to douse the flames in one corner of the building.

  Then Thavary saw it. Her moms’ old gas-guzzler parked in its usual spot by the rec center. She pointed at her mother’s car. “Moms,” she squeaked.

  She dove out of the car and ran through the crowd, looking into the faces of the bystanders. She looked at the ambulance. The back doors were open, but no one was getting treated. She was only dimly aware of Urrieta’s voice behind her telling her to wait and something about smoke.

  She knew exactly where her mother would be. In her office, working on a grant application. The center always needed more funds, was always going broke.


  Thavary ran around to the side of the building not red with fire. The door was locked, but Thavary had her own key.

  Inside, the building was pitch dark and full of smoke. Thavary lit her flashlight and made her way, more by memory than sight, to Moms’ office. The smoke burned her eyes, her throat, left an acrid taste on her tongue, so dense she couldn’t see anything, even with the flashlight.

  Her eyes burned. Her throat already raw as if scraped with something sharp.

  The door to her mother’s office was shut. Thavary tried to open it but couldn’t.

  She kicked and kicked at the door hinges, but the door would not give.

  Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and whirled around. Two firefighters behind her, wearing masks. They held a mask out to her. Thavary ignored it and instead wrestled the axe out of the second firefighter’s hands and went back to hacking at the door.

  The firefighters pushed her out of the way, dropped the mask next to her, and took over. Thud! Crack! Bang!

  Thavary bent down to retrieve the gas mask. As she lifted it up she saw something else on the floor.

  An old, battered cap. With a soccer team logo on it.

  Hanuman the monkey king, his sword raised, set in a gilded heraldic frame.

  The cap meant something important, but her thoughts were scrambled, she couldn’t remember what. She reached for it.

  Crash! The firefighters had broken down the door. More smoke roiled in.

  Too Dark. Can’t breathe.

  She tried to pull the gas mask on. She’d taken a class on how to use it, but now she couldn’t remember how it worked.

  The firemen dragged someone past her. Thavary tried to reach up to them, but couldn’t move her hand.

  “Moms,” Thavary cried. But no sound came out.

  Another masked face loomed over her, reached down, and lifted her up. Not a firefighter. A police officer.

  The cap. I have to get the cap.

  She passed out.