by Dianne Emley
That annoyed the tattooed man more than being searched. “As for you, Pasadena, you’re testing my patience. That’s an egg-white frittata with sautéed spinach and feta cheese. The container stuck between my legs is full of coffee. Are you finished, because there’s one thing I hate— cold food. Two things … and cold coffee.”
Vining went through Li’s wallet. It contained the usual: driver’s license, credit cards, and reward cards from Staples, Vons supermarket, and BevMo. He also had nearly six hundred dollars in cash. With the cash, she was surprised to find her business card. She wondered if this was the card she’d given Pearl Zhang last night.
Li started to lower his arms.
Caspers snapped. “I didn’t tell you to relax.”
Li ignored him and put his hands on the arms of his chair. “I’m telling you to relax. I’m happy to answer all your questions, but you need to take a chill pill, my man.”
His comment riled Caspers. Vining could almost see the adrenaline begin racing through his veins as his movements grew more brisk and his face flushed. Li seemed to have keyed into some deep-seated issue with Caspers. She had seen this before when cops had encountered someone— a suspect, witness, or even during a routine traffic stop— who reminded them of an ex who’d dumped them or an abusive parent. Perhaps Caspers’s lack of sleep was making his emotions raw. She was annoyed with him. Personally, she couldn’t care less about Marvin Li, who was too slick and glib for her by half, but they needed him to cooperate.
Vining shot Caspers a warning look.
They heard music. Vining recognized the tune as Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” Her ex-husband had worshipped the group. The music was coming from the cell phone attached to Li’s belt.
“I’m going to answer my phone, all right?”
Vining said, “Go ahead.” She put her card back inside the wallet and folded it closed.
Li picked up his phone, looked at the display, pressed a button to connect the call, and began speaking in Chinese.
Vining handed Li his wallet. While he was on the phone, she sneaked glances at Li’s tattoos. The illustrations weren’t coarse like common prison tattoos. They were colorful and delicate: of animals, flowers, lush forests, and butterflies. They momentarily distracted her, their artistry and complexity drawing her in.
She caught Li watching her, a wry smile on his lips. She moved away, feeling as if she was a tiny fish that had barely escaped the paralyzing yet beautiful tentacles of a sea anemone that had lured it close.
Caspers remained ready to pounce, standing with his hands away from his sides.
Vining slipped beside him. “Alex, back off. It’s not helping. Guy like him, he’s been around the system for so long, intimidation won’t work and will likely backfire.”
“The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” Caspers looked at Li as if he could eviscerate him with his eyes.
Li ended his call and put his phone away. “See how easy that was, Pasadena? I thought the Pasadena Police had it together better than this.”
Caspers said with complete seriousness, “Just following procedure when dealing with convicted murderers.”
“That was twenty-five years ago, Pasadena. I did my time. I sit before you a reformed man.”
“My name is Detective Caspers.” Using his index finger, he poked Li in his beefy bicep with each word.
“Pasadena, don’t tell me you’re gonna rough up a guy in a chair.”
When Vining saw Caspers tense further, she put a hand on his arm.
“You’d better keep that mad dog on a short leash.” Li rolled his wheelchair forward.
Vining slapped her hand on his shoulder. “You! Don’t move until I tell you.”
Li looked at her with admiration. “Whatever you say, Detective.”
Vining and Caspers were startled and quickly had guns in their hands when they heard the back door open. The painted screen prevented them from seeing the door.
Li called, “Auntie Wan?”
An older female voice called back in Chinese.
Vining holstered her gun and shot Caspers a look, telling him to do the same.
Li explained. “This is my aunt’s shop. She lets me use the back room to run my business.”
Soon, Auntie Wan appeared, nearly hidden behind a large vase of giant white chrysanthemums. She continued speaking in Chinese as she carried the vase toward them, apparently heading for the round table in the front.
Vining saw that she was Pearl Zhang’s mother, the older woman she’d met the night before.
Through the stems, Wan Li spotted Vining and Caspers.
“Hello. Good morning.” Auntie Wan tried to move the magazines on the table out of the way while still holding the vase. She was dressed in a red knit suit that had gold buttons on the jacket. Around her neck was a double strand of choker-length pearls.
“Let me help you.” Vining took the vase from her.
Marvin Li rolled his chair to the display case where Caspers had set his breakfast. He picked it up and began heading toward the back. He turned to look at Vining and especially at Caspers, who was still scowling.
“Detectives, I’m going into the back to eat. If you’ll come with me, I’ll be happy to answer all your questions.” He continued moving. “I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
Caspers bolted toward the front door. He slammed into it, forgetting it opened in and not out. He jerked it open, sounding the harsh buzzer, and left.
After Auntie Wan had cleared the table and Vining had deposited the flowers there, she went outside after Caspers. She couldn’t figure out what had gotten into him. He had taken a simple situation and had made it untenable. She found him at the end of the block. “What’s going on with you?”
He looked around, flicking his fingers, as if trying to conjure a good answer. “Nothing’s going on.”
She kept her voice low and steady, but left no doubt about her anger. “Alex, you’re bringing some sort of personal history to this. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t need it getting in the way of this investigation. So tuck it back inside your little bag of personal garbage and save it for your shrink. Got it?” She thought, who was she to condemn?
Caspers’ body language conveyed that he was still deeply agitated. The harsh look in his brown eyes softened. For a second, the brash cop, the guy who was always first on-scene, throwing them down, hauling them in, looked boyish. “I don’t know, Nan. Guys like that … I have a problem with them.”
They watched as a Lexus SUV pulled to the curb and parked in front of the Crown Vic. Two Asian women, one in her twenties and the other perhaps her mother, were ebullient as they exited the car. They went inside Love Potion.
“I’m sorry, Nan. I was out of line. It won’t happen again. I won’t let you down. I’m a professional.”
He raised his eyebrows and uttered a warning sound in anticipation of the smart-aleck retort for which he’d left an opening.
She said it anyway, wanting to make a joke to soften the mood. “A professional what?”
She patted him on the shoulder. “Sit in the car.”
As she unlocked the door for Caspers, she felt a wave of emotion about Kissick and how much she missed having him by her side. She missed the way they worked together and communicated nonverbally like hand-in-glove. She despised this pain-in-the-ass investigation and was jealous when she thought of the case he was working on. Vining followed the blushing bride and her mother inside Love Potion.
SEVENTEEN
WHEN VINING CAME BACK INSIDE THE STORE, THE BRIDE’S mother was helping her daughter try on a long veil that had many layers of voile fabric.
Auntie Wan was walking from the back with a wedding dress draped across her arms. The dress was so voluminous, it nearly engulfed her.
She smiled at Vining and said, “Marvin in back.” She hung the dress on a brass stand and began fluffing the skirt to peals of delight from the bride and her mother.
The bride pointedly caught
Vining’s eye, wanting to share her foaming joy with all the females there.
Vining gamely gave her what she sought: “Very pretty,” accompanied by a big smile. She thought that just because her husband had been a philandering jerk and her marriage had gone to hell, didn’t mean that everyone’s would.
In the storeroom, she found Li finishing the last of his coffee. The takeout container that had held the frittata was in the trash. The ends of his mustache were looped together, perhaps to avoid dragging them into his food.
He drew them apart with his fingers. “Can I offer you some tea, Detective?”
He pointed to the narrow table with the electric kettle, teapot, and straight-sided cups.
“I have special tea that a friend brings from China. It’s delicious. You won’t find it here. It has a hint of licorice with an undertone of hibiscus.”
“I’m not much of a tea drinker. Just herbal tea, when I can’t sleep.”
“Are you often sleepless?”
She didn’t know why she’d revealed personal information to him. From his interaction with Caspers, he’d shown himself to be the type of person who would leap on any hint of weakness. She didn’t respond.
Auntie Wan entered the storeroom and poured tea from the pot into one of the stoneware cups. Attached to her wrist by an elastic band was a pincushion shaped like a tomato that was stuck with straight pins.
“See, Detective?” Li smiled. “The tea is safe. My aunt’s not going to poison her customers.”
He rolled his chair close to the teapot. He turned over two of the cups, and filled them with hot tea.
While he was looking away, her eyes were again drawn to his tattoos. A leopard crawled from his back over his right shoulder. One of the eyes hidden behind the strap of his tank top was revealed when he stretched forward. The leopard seemed to fix her in its gaze. A flock of bluebirds sprang from beneath the leopard’s claws and spiraled around Li’s right arm. Beneath the birds was a meadow from which tiny yellow butterflies poured. There were layers upon layers of images. The effect was three-dimensional. The illustrations seemed to tell stories. She’d follow one thread, and then was distracted by another, frustrated when an image was hidden by his top. She felt stymied by Li’s clothing. With no sexual impulse behind it, she wondered what he looked like nude.
He turned back, holding a cup out for her.
She walked to take it. Her fingers accidentally brushed his.
“Where’s your partner?”
“He had to make some phone calls.” Holding the cup by the base was burning her fingers. He had filled it to an inch from the top. She held it by the rim between the fingertips of both hands, as he was doing.
“Junior taking a time out?” Li swirled the tea in his cup. He breathed in the aroma before taking a small sip. “Please sit, Detective. Give the tea respect.”
She backed up to an old upholstered chair and sat. The tea was delicious, and it made her feel calmer. She didn’t know if it was due to the tea or just because she was drinking something hot. As the tension ever so slightly loosened its grubby clutches on her, she realized how tightly wound she was. How desperately she needed to rest, yet couldn’t. Every night, she’d lay down her head, exhausted, but her mind wouldn’t shut off. It was as if she sensed T. B. Mann out there, also awake, thinking of her, equally restless and anxious for resolution.
She stared into the depths of the small cup and watched the tea leaves settle at the bottom. Was her fate written there among the tea leaves? If she looked deeply enough, would she see T. B. Mann?
Marvin Li was watching her, holding his cup in one hand and twirling both tendrils of his braided mustache with his index finger. “Trying to read your tea leaves, Detective?”
“Can you?”
“A little, but I know people who are experts.”
“Do you believe in that?”
“Some people are in tune with such things. My aunt, for example, says she sees ghosts. She’s very superstitious. See those mirrors?” He pointed to a small mirror in the corner near the ceiling. “They’re supposed to reflect the bad luck. In the front of the shop, you might have seen a fish bowl. Its black fish is supposed to absorb the bad luck and die before the gold ones in the bowl. Clever shopkeepers sell black fish that don’t live as long.”
Vining smiled. “So you don’t believe in magic.”
“I didn’t say that. There’s powerful magic in the world. Just because I can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. Certainly, you’ve been in love, Detective.”
She didn’t respond and he didn’t wait.
“We can’t see love, but there’s no doubt that it exists and that it’s a source of considerable magic.”
She didn’t like the way he was watching her, as if he was savoring her like he savored the tea. He was strange and she didn’t trust him, but she felt he’d be more cooperative if she went at his speed. Flirting would advance her cause. She knew female detectives who unabashedly manipulated a male interviewee’s attraction to them— be it sexual, sisterly, or motherly— to get what they wanted, which was always honest answers to their questions. Vining had attempted such before, but it always felt awkward to her, being a more what-you-see-is-what-you-get kinda girl. This looked like fertile ground for such a technique. Right now, Li had requested that she give the tea respect. She could do that.
Truthfully, it was the first time she’d stopped to take a breath since she’d gotten out of bed that morning and it felt good. She gave in to Li’s one characteristic that she found compelling and somewhat magical. She let herself be drawn into that butterfly-strewn meadow on his body.
He noticed where she was looking. His skin seemed to shiver beneath the light of her gaze. His voice was low and soothing. “How are you enjoying the tea?”
“I’m enjoying it very much.”
“The tea ceremony is an art in China. They have authentic Chinese teahouses here in San Gabriel. Maybe you’ll let me take you to one some day. Of course, when all this sad business is over.”
The front door buzzed. It sounded as if the two women were leaving with as much liveliness as they’d entered. The store became quiet.
Vining didn’t know if Auntie Wan was still there or not.
As Li twirled his mustache, his muscles undulated, making the swarm of tattooed butterflies appear to come alive.
“You have a butterfly theme.” She quickly amended her comment so that he wouldn’t think she’d been studying his body, even though she had. “In front, there’s that silk robe in a frame on the wall. There’s a painted screen.”
“The embroidery on the robe depicts the Chinese Romeo and Juliet story called the ‘Butterfly Lovers.’ It’s the legend of two fourth-century lovers who could not get married in their lifetime due to different family backgrounds. After their deaths, they turned into a butterfly couple, flying together for eternity. In the Chinese culture, two butterflies flying together are a symbol of love.”
He hooked his finger in his tank top and pulled it down to reveal a perfectly-formed, muscular pectoral. On it were tattooed two entwined butterflies. They were spiraling, frenzied, as if engaged in a sexual act, if butterflies even did that. He seductively drew his fingers across the image. His hand was masculine, but his fingers were long and tapered.
“I like butterflies because they symbolize a beautiful and free spirit.”
“I’m not a fan of tattoos, but I have to admit yours are beautiful. They’re works of art.”
His eyes met hers. “They’re not finished. They will never be finished. They evolve as I evolve. The story only grows more complex with each passing year.”
Their encounter crackled with sexual energy. She was not immune to it. She felt as if his tattoos had taken her unawares, like a stranger stepping from behind a tree into the path of a schoolgirl on her way home, a bag of candy in his sweaty fist. Just as he’d drawn out the worst in Caspers, he seemed to have keyed into a hidden aspect of her and drawn it out. But she was
no schoolgirl and his tattoos were only skin deep. She wondered if everything else he was reputed to be— the reformed bad guy who now dedicated his life to good works— went deeper than that ink.
“You have beautiful eyes, Detective. They’re very deep. Full of pain.”
She huffed out a dismissive laugh while lowering her eyes, as if flattered.
“You have a long scar on your neck. Do you mind if I ask what happened?”
“I was ambushed while I was on patrol. A man stabbed me and got away.” She stopped short of saying that that probably explained a lot about her.
“I have scars, too, from the gunshot wounds that paralyzed me. We’re both warriors, but in different wars.”
“But we’re on the same side now.”
“True.” He smiled, twirling both ends of his ribbon-braided mustache around his finger.
“Is there a man in your life, Detective?”
“That’s not pertinent to our discussion.”
“I would like to take you out to dinner.”
“That’s flattering, but—”
“Don’t underestimate guys in chairs, Detective. Because of our physical limitations, we’re very tuned in to women, their needs, and desires.”
Did she see his tongue dart from between his lips or did she imagine it? Standing, she walked to set the cup on the table. She’d gotten him to warm up to her, all right. Now she wished she had a garden hose to turn on him.
“Marvin, why was my business card in your wallet?”
“My cousin Pearl gave it to me. She came by my house early this morning after having met you at the Hollenbeck building.”
Li’s cell phone rang. He looked at the display and didn’t answer. “Pearl is obviously concerned about how that murder on her property, and a suggestion that I’m somehow involved, will affect her business and reputation. She doesn’t know anything about Scrappy’s murder. I don’t either.”
Vining took a small audio recorder from her pocket and turned it on. “I’m going to record our conversation if that’s okay.” She recorded the date, time, and people present and set the device on Li’s desk.
