by Lisa Unger
“So many people feel that way,” she said. “More than you’d ever imagine.”
He actually managed to get himself a little teary while talking to the pretty woman, who’d introduced herself as Vivian. And after a few minutes of comforting platitudes, a young man walked in, wearing the same outfit: white tunic and blue jeans. He handed Dax a cup of something hot. It smelled like some kind of herbal tea. Dax took it and thanked the kid, put it on the low coffee table in front of him. Vivian made no explanation for the kid or the tea. She slid a box of tissues across the table toward him. He took one and blew his nose loudly.
“The kid had a really glazed-over look to him. Not like drugged but more-” he said now to Lydia and Jeffrey, and paused as if searching for the right word. “Vacant.”
Lydia thought about what Matt Stenopolis had told her. Thelma Baker had used the words hollow and empty to describe Lily. Nothing could be further from the girl Lydia knew. Lily was a bright light, a firecracker. Anybody who met her, no matter how casual the encounter, would have seen that about her.
Dax said that Vivian had nodded to the young man and he left quietly.
“My mother always said that everything looks better after a good cup of tea,” said Vivian, leaning into him and smiling.
“My mother always said you’re a worthless piece of meat that will never amount to anything,” Dax had said, leaning away from the cup.
Vivian nodded solemnly. “Sometimes our parents, acting from their own place of pain, don’t realize how powerful their words can be. How we carry them with us for the rest of our lives.”
Dax asked if he could use the bathroom then, pretending that the conversation was making him so uncomfortable that he needed a break. He took the tea with him. Vivian rose to escort him.
“Just point me in the right direction,” he said as she exited the room with him.
“First door on the left,” she said. “Shall I hold that for you until you return?” She nodded to the cup in his hand.
“No. I’ll hold onto it.”
She looked at him strangely but couldn’t really insist without changing the texture of their encounter. She didn’t return to the room but stood and watched him as he made his way to the bathroom. A quick glance revealed a white hallway of closed doors.
Inside, he dumped the tea down the drain and folded the Styrofoam cup and put it in the back pocket of his pants.
“You were right,” Dax said to Vivian when he returned to her from the bathroom. “I do feel better after that cup of tea.”
She looked at him skeptically. He extended his hand and she placed hers in his. Her grip was steely, her kind eyes were searing into him now.
“I’m going to think about the things you said, Vivian. You’ve really made me feel a lot better. Thank you so much.”
“I’m glad,” she said quietly. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to sit awhile longer?”
“No, thanks,” he said, giving her his best sad smile. “I have a lot to think about.”
I just had the feeling she was watching me for the effects of whatever was in that cup,” he told them. “I washed my face and hung out in the washroom awhile,” he told Lydia and Jeffrey. “She was waiting outside for me when I exited. I just didn’t have the opportunity to dig around. I did notice one thing, though. That high-rise that stands behind the church? It’s connected by a walkway.”
“Do you have the cup?” Lydia asked eagerly.
“I already gave it to Striker when I came in. He said he’d get it to the lab, get a tox and fingerprint analysis.”
“Good,” said Jeffrey.
“What you said about the alarm system not having a brand name. Why is that relevant?” asked Lydia.
“Because the commercial alarm systems are about being a deterrent as much as about alerting a home owner that someone has succeeded in invading their house. They’re actually somewhat useless because, think about it, once you’ve heard that alarm, the system has already failed you. Like, someone is in your house, man; get your gun. But people like them because it gives them a false sense of security. People who actually need and want to keep people off the premises are going to find someone to install a real security system. On my way in I saw motion detectors, three exterior cameras that I could count without being conspicuous. Inside I saw laser sensors, and noticed that there were security shutters over the windows and doors that probably come down at night when the security system is activated. All very discreet, though. You’d not notice any of it unless you were looking and even then you’d have to know what you were looking for. Anyway, there are only a few companies that do that kind of work in the U.S. for the private sector. I’ll make some calls.”
“Do you think they’ll follow up with you? Did you give them a way to get in touch with you?” asked Lydia.
“She asked for my number so that she could call and check in with me but I told her I didn’t feel comfortable with that. I told her maybe I’d come back for that open meeting I read about on the Internet. I left then. She didn’t look happy.”
“You should have given them a number,” said Lydia.
“Oh, they’ll find me. Ignatius Bond is listed. I guarantee we hear from them within twenty-four hours. Vivian looked to be a bit of a die-hard.”
“You told her your name was Ignatius Bond?” said Lydia.
“Yes, you can call me Iggy.”
“That’s a pretty conspicuous cover name, Dax,” said Jeff.
“Exactly. So conspicuous that no one would ever suspect you’d make it up, yeah? Not like John Doe or some shit. I have a social for Iggy, the whole nine, so if they run a background check on me, I’m covered.”
“What does Iggy do?” asked Lydia, just out of curiosity.
“He’s a construction worker.”
It fit with his whole not-being-able-to-work-because-of-his-injuries thing.
“She’ll be calling, trust me. I think she was hot for me.”
“Naturally,” said Lydia. Dax leaned back again into the couch and stretched out his legs painfully.
“We need to get back in there,” said Lydia, looking at Jeffrey.
Jeffrey nodded and looked at Dax. “What do you think?”
“I’m going to make some calls to the security companies I know, find out what I can about that alarm system. When I know what we’re dealing with, we’ll try to get a look without Vivian breathing down my neck.”
Dax let a moment pass, then looked at Lydia sheepishly.
“Forgiven?” he asked, maybe feeling a little bad for jerking her around.
“We’ll see,” she said, rising. “I’m going to go check my email.”
“I have to go to physical therapy,” he said in a clear bid for sympathy as she walked past him.
“I hope it hurts,” she tossed back at him. “A lot.”
Dax looked at Jeffrey with a mischievous smile. Jeffrey didn’t return the grin. He’d been Dax’s partner in torturing Lydia in the past but he felt like Dax had stepped over the line and he didn’t like it.
“You need to be gentler with her,” said Jeffrey after Lydia had left the room. “She’s fragile these days.”
“She’s as fragile as a bag of nails,” said Dax.
Jeffrey looked at Dax sternly. Part of the love between Lydia and Dax, he knew, was antagonism… and most of the time it was pretty funny. But he was feeling protective of his wife. He walked over and shut the door.
“She just learned that her father, a man she barely knew, has died. And that,” he said, nodding toward the box that sat in the corner of his office, “is a box of things he left her. She’s not ready to deal with it-which means she’s not ready to deal with a lot of things regarding her father. Furthermore, it hasn’t been a year since we killed Jed McIntyre and she had the miscarriage. She’s just getting her feet under her and now she has to deal with this. So… just go easy on her.”
Dax looked down at his feet. “All right already,” he said, getting up. “It’s been a hard year for you two
, huh?”
Jeff looked at him. “For all of us, man.”
Dax nodded. “I’ll call you after I find out about the security system. A couple hours tops.”
Lydia came back through the door without knocking, holding a photo printout in her hand.
“Take a look at this,” she said. They came and stood behind her, gazing at the blurry photograph of a girl running through a crowd of people wearing costumes.
“What’s this?” Jeff asked.
“It’s a witness photograph from Halloween night in Riverdale. Apparently, a girl was shot in the middle of this parade. Police were unsure whether it was a Halloween prank or not, since there was no blood found at the scene. But look at this,” said Lydia, pointing to the white van. There was a logo they could just barely make out on the side of the van, the image of a sun with some geometric shapes inside.
“The New Day,” said Dax slowly.
“Is that the van you saw last night?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Yeah, or very similar,” said Dax. “I think I’d better skip that PT appointment and make those calls now.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” said Lydia.
“Does that look like Lily Samuels to you?” asked Jeff.
“At first glance, I’d say no. Too thin and her head is shaved,” said Lydia.
“You better hope that’s not her,” said Dax, looking closely at the photograph. Lydia could tell he was noticing the things she had noticed, the way her shoulder blades were visible straining through her flesh, the way she was clad only in panties and a thin tee, the way her arms were pumping in a dead heat. The woman in the photograph was running for her life and Lydia was sure if they could see her face that it would be a mask of terror. She prayed it wasn’t Lily. Because if it was, they might be too late.
Pink diamonds are for the very wealthy,” said Christian Striker, holding the gem in his hand. “This stone is just more than a carat. Very pricey.”
“Strange thing to find in the dirt at an abandoned house,” said Jeffrey.
“Is that where you found it?” he asked with a shake of his head. He pulled a loupe from his desk and examined the diamond.
“When you talk about diamonds, you talk about four things: cut, carat, clarity, and color. This is a brilliant stone, heart-shaped cut, nearly flawless. I can see one minuscule imperfection in the stone, making the clarity like a VVS1 or 2, meaning that the inclusion is not visible to the naked eye. And then there’s the color. White diamonds are measured by the colorlessness. Colored stones, called ‘fancy’ diamonds, are more valuable the richer their hue. Many colored stones are irradiated these days, meaning that the color was created in a lab. This is just because they’re in style but exist so rarely in nature. But to me this looks like a natural pink diamond, only because the pink tint is so subtle.”
Christian Striker knew more than anyone Lydia had ever met. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of facts-history, science, geology, mathematics-which is to say he knew a little bit about many things. Lydia liked hanging out with him because she always learned something. And he was cute, with sandy blonde hair and a boyish face but searing dark eyes, so brown they were nearly black, that missed nothing. He was a few years younger than Jeffrey, who had just turned forty-three.
“Where would you get one of these?” asked Jeffrey.
“I imagine most diamond dealers can get their hands on one. The largest diamond mine in the world is the Argyle mine in Kimberly, Australia… of course there’s Sierra Leone, Russia, and since 1991 Canada has become a major player on the scene. They have two diamond mines in the Northwest Territories, and two others expected to be operating by 2006. There’s been a bit of a diamond rush up there in recent years. What people like about the Canadian diamonds is they’re ‘clean.’ ”
“What do you mean?” asked Jeffrey.
“They’re not what people call ‘blood’ diamonds or ‘dirty’ diamonds. They’re not used to finance terror, war, and weapons the way they are in Sierra Leone and Angola. You know in Sierra Leone, for example, the Revolutionary United Front controls the mines and uses the proceeds to buy weapons. They also provide untraceable diamonds to other terrorist organizations to launder money. The people doing the mining are dying in slave-labor conditions; they’re imprisoned by the rebels and forced to work until they die. Meanwhile, said rebels randomly amputate the hands of children as a warning to their parents not to support the civilian government. These rebels are just children themselves, children high on drugs, carrying AK-47s and machetes. It’s pretty fucked.”
“See?” Lydia said to Jeffrey. He nodded.
“Anyway,” said Christian. “This is a nice one. Most dealers don’t sell gems without settings. So, it’s possible that this was purchased on the black market, which makes it even more likely that it’s a blood diamond.”
He handed the gem back to Lydia and she gazed at it. It was stunning. She considered it a terrible irony that something so naturally gorgeous could be surrounded by so much ugliness. Was it greed or a lust for beauty that led people to kill and die for these stones? Maybe both.
“Who would know where this might have come from?” asked Jeffrey.
“I know a guy in the diamond district,” said Christian, flipping through his Rolodex. He wrote a name and number on a pad by his phone and handed it to Jeff. “Tell him I sent you. He’ll tell you what he can.”
Nine
Jorge Alonzo thought he was king of the jungle. To show he was not intimidated by Matt Stenopolis’s size or the presence of detectives in his apartment, he slumped in his leather recliner, scrolling through channels on his digital cable. When he did finally turn his eyes to them, he stared at them like he was hard. Matt could feel his chest constricting, the guy was pissing him off so bad.
“Rosario’s brother told us that you were calling her all night, trying to get her to go to the club with you,” Jesamyn was saying. Matt was looking around the apartment: large flat-screen television with surround-sound speakers, a Blaupunkt audio system, leather furniture as soft to the touch as velvet. Matt counted four framed posters of naked or nearly naked women in a variety of evocative poses. There were some Japanese anime prints that looked pretty expensive, featuring scantily clad Asian women with gravity-defying breasts and bulbous asses, long thin legs and tiny waists.
“I know what that punk thinks he heard. But I was finished with that bitch,” he said lazily. “We were done. She was getting fat.” He held out his hands to express her expanding girth.
“She was pregnant. With your child,” said Jesamyn slowly, looking at him like he was a curiosity better seen on the Discovery Channel than right in front of her face.
“So she said. I asked for a paternity test,” he said, scratching his crotch and looking at Jesamyn with a smile. “Fat bitch. Not like you, girl. Your shit is tight.”
Matt was on him then. He knocked the remote out of Alonzo’s hand and lifted him off the recliner like he was made out of gauze.
“What the fuck-” Jorge protested shrilly.
“You’ll have some fucking respect for my partner, you piece of shit,” Matt said, the anger in his chest threatening to split him in two. His disrespect for Jez, his general attitude, and the fact that if Matt worked OT for the rest of his life he’d never be able to afford an audio-visual system like that without going into debt was making him crazy.
“Man, you can not put your hands on me like that,” Jorge yelled. “That’s police brutality.” He straightened out his shirt and the baggy jeans that were threatening a trip to his knees.
Matt hovered over him, a good two heads taller and about twice as wide.
“Do something about it, bitch,” he said quietly. Jesamyn strolled over to the window and looked outside as if the view of the brick wall was the most interesting thing in the world. Jorge looked up at Matt and then down at the floor.
“Now, sit down, punk, and answer our questions like you have a clue how to conduct yourself in polite s
ociety.” Matt stepped back and hoped, hoped, that he would make a move. But unarmed and with none of the other Kings around, Jorge dropped his attitude. He sank into the couch. Matt was disappointed.
“I told the other cops everything I know,” he whined. “They cleared me. Isn’t this like double jeopardy or some shit to question me again?”
“No. It’s not double jeopardy, you moron,” said Matt. He was about to explain what double jeopardy was but he stopped himself. What was the point?
“When was the last time you saw Rosario?” asked Jesamyn.
“I don’t remember,” he said sullenly, leaning down and picking up the pieces of the remote at his feet.
“You don’t remember,” Jesamyn repeated. “You don’t remember when you last saw her? Or what you told the police the last time they questioned you?”
They danced around with Jorge awhile longer. They asked him a question; he gave a vague answer or pretended he didn’t remember. Finally, he said he wouldn’t talk anymore without his lawyer.
“Who’s going to pay for this?” he asked, holding up the broken remote as they walked out of his Riverside Drive apartment. Neither one of them responded and he yelled the question again as the elevator doors closed on them.
“No one’s going to pay for it,” said Jesamyn grimly in the quiet of the elevator. “That girl and the baby inside her are dead somewhere and no one is going to pay for it.”
“Notice how he talked about her in the past tense?” Matt asked.
She nodded and didn’t say anything else. Sometimes the darkness of the job closed in on both of them. The glow she had earlier in the day was gone. Now she just looked tired. He wanted to put his hand on her arm but he didn’t.
Out on the street, Matt’s cell phone rang.
“Stenopolis,” he answered.
“It’s Lydia Strong.”
“Hey.”
“Thanks for the photo. I think it helped us.”
“Yeah?” he said, the brightening of his tone attracting attention from Jesamyn.
“It connects to something we found. Have you ever heard of an organization called The New Day?”
