A Memory of Murder

by Nichelle Seely

  Takahashi hesitates. “I don’t like to breach someone’s privacy, but I suppose it’s part of his police record. He’s done some petty crime, engaged in minor violence. He had some inappropriate attitudes about women.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He tended to either idealize them or demonize them. Put them on a pedestal, and then when they weren’t perfect, turn them into monsters.”

  An alarm bell is clanging in my mind. “What’s that about, do you think?”

  Takahashi shifts in his chair, adjusting his collar. “He had a disturbing relationship with his mother. I’m not prepared to say anything further about that. But it colored his outlook. I actually thought he might become attracted to Catholicism, and their sanctification of the Mother of Christ, and I wanted to steer him away from that. He needed help, and I worked with him quite a bit when he joined my church. I was getting him to see that his criminal actions weren’t justified, despite his anger toward society. He still needed forgiveness, and to repent if he wanted to get closer to God and have Jesus be a presence in his life. He wanted to blame other people for his lot in life, but we can never control what others do. I was trying to show him that “society” isn’t some abstract entity bent on holding him down, but just a group of individuals, like himself, all trying to succeed in life as best they can.”

  “So, empathy.” What a novel concept.

  He smiles. “Exactly. Thinking of others before self. And that is where Victoria Harkness’s teachings were so corrosive. She has her congregants thinking of themselves before others. Self-development, self-actualization, all the seductive buzzwords that make people believe they are growing and changing but in reality are just teaching people to coddle their own egos.” He slaps the desktop. “I wish I could make people understand how dangerous that kind of thinking is. It’s got to be stopped.”

  Whoa. He’s gone from concerned mentor to judgmental overlord in about two seconds.

  This is exactly my problem with organized religion. Who is Takahashi to decide how others should conduct their spiritual lives? He’s pretty locked into his own track. But is he also a fanatic, willing to kill for his beliefs?

  “So Reverend, how far would you go to protect someone’s soul?”

  He laughs and leans back, once again the friendly reverend. He picks up an old-fashioned letter opener on his desk, turns it in his hands. “What is this, a job interview? Well, Jesus said, ‘Greater love hath no man than he who lays down his life for his friends.’ I’d like to say I’d go that far, but I suppose none of us knows until we’re in the situation. How about you, Audrey? How far would you go to protect someone? Would you take the proverbial bullet?”

  The room brightens. The letter opener flashes in the sunlight.

  I’ve never taken a bullet, but I have taken a blade.

  In the street outside the church, a car backfires. It sounds like a shot.

  Distant shouts. “Police! Don’t move!” Gunfire pops on the floor below.

  I feel the cold slide of steel beneath my skin. The warm spill of blood as it cascades over my breast and side. Sonny’s own blood coats his teeth as he smiles down at me.

  “Pig,” he whispers. “I got you.” His breath is raw and rancid, his eyes veined with red.

  The wound under my collarbone throbs, in tune to the beat of my heart.

  “No!” I grip the arms of the chair, drenched with sweat. The scar on my chest feels hot and burning.

  “Audrey! What’s wrong?” Seth’s voice is urgent. His hand is warm on my shoulder, on my forearm.

  I blink, and my vision clears. I’m in Seth’s office. The preacher kneels beside me. His eyes are wide and worried, and his voice is steady and soothing.

  “It’s all right. You’re safe.”

  He’s too close. The letter opener is still in his hand. I push him, hard. “Get away!” I struggle to my feet, kicking the chair aside. The residual heat of his hands is imprinted on my skin.

  Takahashi falls back, catches himself with one arm. He lets me retreat, then stands with animal grace. He says carefully, “What’s wrong? You suddenly just froze. And your eyes — you looked like some of the men at the shelter.”

  “I’m fine. Really. Just a headache.” I’m in control. I’m not crazy. And even if I am, I really don’t want him to know.

  He raises his eyebrows skeptically. “Okay. But I’d like you to rest here for a few minutes. Can I get you an aspirin? Do you need a doctor?”

  “No. Thanks. I just need to get home.” Mercifully my knees hold rock steady. I don’t want him to see how shaken I am. I don’t want to showcase my vulnerability. There are things I still didn’t know, but I can’t continue the investigation at the moment. My questions will have to wait.

  I drive home in a state, binding my emotions with the knobby iron claw of self-control.

  For the second time in less than a week, a flashback has left me sick and shaken. Fear takes up residence in my abdominal cavity and purrs softly in its lair. What the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I get over that undercover assignment in Denver? Is it just a product of too many late nights, too much stress, too much bad food and coffee and irregular hours? I’d been embedded in the Baxter Building for months, posing as one of the squatters: a used-up ex-prossie who’d taken up residence on the eighth floor. In reality I’d been collecting names and dates and observing drops and deals. Hardened as I was to vice and violence, the situation sickened me. Prostitutes of both sexes, some young enough to be in grade school. Drug pushers ditto, johns and pimps and users all mixing in a fetid stew.

  When the raid came, it was meant to be a clean-up, a sweep of the dregs that feasted upon themselves in an endless cycle of predator and prey. But somehow Sonny had gotten wind of it, tumbled to my identity, and tried to kill me.

  I’d just been down to see one of the dealers, and had been forced by circumstances to take some coke. I’d been amped, alert, ultra-confident. I’d failed to lock my door. And ironically, it was my drug-induced state of hyper-alertness that made me aware of Sonny when he broke into my room.

  Maybe it was also the drugs, or the emotional overload, or maybe just simple blood loss, that had led to the vision I’d had on the abandoned mattress in the closet, waiting for the raid to finish.

  But I wouldn’t think of that.

  Maybe you need your meds, Lake. Just sayin’.

  No. No drugs. Not ever again.

  My empty house with its echoing rooms does nothing to alleviate my anxiety. I do a perimeter check, open all the shades so the sunlight can illuminate the rooms, and fill the electric kettle with water, waiting impatiently for it to boil so I can make myself a cup of tea. It’s after noon. I’m hungry, but my gut is too tense to eat.

  I try sitting on my camp chair, but finally pace across the room to stand by the windows overlooking the river. The water is speckled with whitecaps, and full of sailboats. My inner vision swoops back to Denver and the raid on the Baxter Building. That was the first time the hallucinations had really broken my life. There had been one or two before that, maybe, when I was younger, much milder and easier to understand. I’d seen an image of my brother after he’d died by his own hand. I’d glimpsed him in my peripheral vision, standing in a corner, looking pale and sad. The grief counselor said such sightings were perfectly normal. I begged to differ, but I just wanted to get through the process, so I didn’t argue with anything she said.

  The vision at the Baxter Building had been disturbing precisely because I couldn’t understand why I should be hallucinating police officers and criminals joining forces. Was it because I myself had been playing a role for so long? Was it just because the building was so awful, squatters on every floor, children and feral animals and desperate doped out men and women? No — I swallowed. It was because my vision had shown some of the very same men I worked beside taking part in the degradation of the people who lived there. True enough that those people had made their own series of bad choices, but the cops wer
e supposed to be above all that. Knights in the front line of defense, not aiders and abettors of evil.

  For weeks I’d lived the life of a strung-out crim, sleeping on a rickety bed in an abandoned room on the top floor, hoping that the stairs would be a deterrent to the lowlives down below. The days were hazy, an endless succession of deceit and self-harm. I couldn’t always keep away from the activities of the other dwellers; to maintain my legend I had to participate. But I’d been able to get the names of the players, clock their comings and goings.

  And here I am, still running from that darkness within myself. The empty house is proof enough of my failure to recover my sense of self, to move forward with my life. Something broke back in Denver. To much had happened in a short time. I told myself I could handle it all — of course I could. Until the day of the raid when I’d ended up in the psych ward.

  I just want it all to be over. To get beyond the relentless haunting of my past. The investigation gets shelved for today. Tea cup in the sink, and I head out to walk the streets, to work myself to a state of exhaustion.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  IT’S AFTERNOON. I’M in a better frame of mind, physically fatigued and ready to write up my notes. I still don’t have much to go on, but I have a broader understanding of the people involved, and can look at the case with a clearer eye. Without having to muck about in my own past.

  I’d left my phone at home on the card table, and when I get in the door it’s ringing. For some reason I feel a stab of nervousness, in case someone from Colorado has tracked me down; but since I don’t recognize the number, and it’s an Oregon prefix, I pick it up.

  “Audrey Lake speaking.”

  “It’s Coralee. From Riverside Christian Church. Something bad has happened!” She has a catch in her voice — I can hear it behind the effort to keep it steady.

  It takes a moment to click. Coralee. The receptionist. “What? Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. But Reverend Takahashi’s not. He’s been arrested.”

  “What? When?” Shock stiffens my spine. I just talked to the guy a couple of hours ago.

  “Just now. Please, I know you’re an investigator. Help him!”

  “Are you sure he’s arrested? Were you there when he was taken? Did they have a warrant? Read him his rights?”

  “Yes, I was here. I heard everything. They said they wanted to ask him some questions, and then they took him away!”

  “Okay, in general, the police will read him his rights if they are arresting him. So they probably just want to talk. Did they say what they wanted him for?”

  “They said it’s about Victoria Harkness’s murder! Please, go down there and tell them that he couldn’t be involved.”

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry, I can’t interfere in a police investigation.”

  Hypocrite.

  “But aren’t you working with the police? I thought, when you said you were an investigator, that —”

  “Listen. The police don’t arrest innocent people. If he hasn’t done anything wrong, he’s got nothing to worry about. He’s probably just a person of interest.”

  “You mean a suspect? Oh my God! I’ve got to organize a prayer chain! I’ve got to —”

  “Ma’am, please. Slow down.” I take a breath. “If he’s innocent, he’ll be back soon. If you tell people now, they may be worried without cause.”

  There’s a long pause. I wonder if she’s told some people already.

  When she answers, her voice is small. “I just want to help him.”

  “Then just sit tight. Worst case scenario, he’s going to need a lawyer. If the church retains one, you could have that contact information ready if the Reverend needs to call an attorney. But most likely, he won’t.”

  The call ends. I see again Takahashi’s compassionate face, the buttoned up shirt. But also the gleaming letter opener. Had the threat he posed been real, or was I just being overwrought? When I was talking to him, he didn’t seem worried. Or guilty. But I don’t have any access to the police, or any forensics, or even the autopsy. What do they know that I don’t? I hear again the slap of Takahashi’s hand on the desktop, insisting that Victoria had to be stopped. Is he more dangerous than I realize? Or are the police keeping tabs on my movements, and my visit somehow precipitated his arrest? The only way I’m going to learn is by going directly to the source. But visiting the police station is the last thing I want to do.

  As it happens, I don’t have to figure out how to approach the APD. A black SUV with the word POLICE stenciled on the side rolls up to the curb. I watch through the front windows as Detective Candide slams the door, adjusts her shoulder holster, and stomps down the concrete steps that lead to my front porch. Her boots echo hollowly on the planks. Her knock sounds just shy of a SWAT assault.

  Here we go. I stand in the doorway, as nonchalantly as I can manage. “Detective Candide, this is an unexpected pleasure.”

  “You.” Her voice is cold, but I can hear the tremor of anger behind it, and in the tension across her jaw.

  “Can I help you, Detective?”

  “You and I are going to talk. Now. So either let me in or get in the car and we’ll go down to the station.”

  I think about that. I don’t particularly want her to see the inside of my house, the lonely card table and camp chair. And if I go to the station I might get a chance to see Takahashi, or find out how their investigation is proceeding. Plus, points for cooperation.

  “The station it is, then,” I say and step out onto the porch with her, locking the door behind me. I’ve surprised her, and she scowls. But she stomps back up the steps and opens the rear door. I oblige by getting inside, and she commandeers the driver’s seat.

  We are quiet on the way across town. Conversation seems to be a no-go, and I don’t want to give Candide the power to ignore me. The back of the car is spic and span—no trash, no scuff marks on the back of the front seats, no slits in the upholstery. The grill between the front and back is black and shiny. Nice. The SUV still has that new car smell, and I inhale appreciatively. My own car is well beyond its salad days; it’s about ready for the compost heap.

  Candide regards me in the mirror before turning her attention to the road. In a few minutes, we pull up in the parking lot of the station, and she ushers me in the back door.

  The interview room is typical, made to be intimidating and uncomfortable. But I know the drill, and sit back in the folding chair with my legs crossed. I consider waving at the one-way mirror, but decide that wouldn’t go down well. Candide sits across from me, notebook at the ready, pen beating a tattoo on the worn formica of the table.

  She begins without preliminaries. “Why did you interview the Reverend Seth Takahashi?”

  Here we go. Maybe I can learn something here. A little quid pro quo. “I’m talking to him in connection with the murder of Victoria Harkness. Why did you arrest him?”

  She blinks. “He’s not arrested.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  “Then your sources are unreliable. And you have no business interfering in an ongoing investigation. So, again, why were you talking to him?”

  “I was hired by the Church of the Spirit to find out what happened to their founder. Seth Takahashi had expressed some adverse sentiments to Harkness’s teaching. I was following up. Like you, apparently.”

  “You’re interfering. Who knows what damage you’ve done, what misinformation you’ve spread. This is an ongoing police investigation, and you are muddying the waters. I can charge you with obstruction of justice.”

  I snort in disbelief. Her tactics are beyond heavy-handed. Is this her own call, or Olafson’s? Regardless, I know the law. So I say, “I’ve offered him neither payment or engaged in threats of force. I have not encouraged him to lie or to commit a crime. I’ve simply asked him questions. Ergo, I have done nothing wrong. You’re free to do the same.”

  “Our work is not your business. I want you to stay away from potential witnesses or informa
nts. You could contaminate or prejudice testimony, and I won’t stand for it.”

  “Come on, Detective. Freedom of speech, and all that. You’ve detained Takahashi, so you must have something to link him to the crime. What is it?”

  She glares. “None of your business.”

  “You got more out of him than I did, if he admitted something to you. So you can’t be overly bothered by my visit with him. Or maybe you have some evidence.” I lean forward, hands clasped. “We shouldn’t be antagonists, we should be allies. After all, we’re all on the same side. Trying to put the bad guys away.”

  She takes a deep breath, as though to steady her temper. “Why do you think her death isn’t an accident?”

  “Why do you think it was?”

  “I’m asking the questions. Why are you investigating?”

  “Because I’ve been hired by the Church of the Spirit to do so.”

  “If they have some reason to believe it, they need to talk to us.”

  “Have you gone to them?”

  There’s a pause, then Candide says again, “None of your business.”

  “Never mind — I know you haven’t, because Claire or Daniel would have told me so.”

  “Who else have you been talking to?”

  “Her mother. People who knew her. Following standard operating procedure.”

  “What have you found out?”

  “I don’t have to answer, not without a court order. The information belongs to my client.”

  “You were a cop. Once. If you know something, you have a duty to tell us. Or risk being an accessory.”

  “Do you want a catalogue of unimportant factoids? Because that’s what I’ve got. Stop trying to threaten me with fake charges. I know the law. Better than you, apparently.”

  She doesn’t answer, just looks at me. We engage in a silent battle of wills, neither willing to give an inch.

  The door to the interview room opens, letting in a gush of fresh air. Steve Olafson fills the frame, his sleeves rolled up to expose his thick forearms.