by Hester Young
Who killed you?
Twelve
On Monday morning, I set out to accomplish the task I most dread: clearing out Jasmine’s apartment.
It needs to be done, of course. Investigators have finished their work inside, and now someone must take charge, gather Micky’s toys and clothes and dispose of Jasmine’s belongings. These are the duties that normally fall to family members, I reason, and technically that’s what I am. I can’t imagine one of Jasmine’s friends—histrionic Serena or inarticulate Bree—doing the job. Pam certainly can’t be bothered.
And yet, as I stand outside the Desert Village Apartments, I feel a kind of panic rising up in my throat at the prospect of seeing the place where my sister lived and died. Perhaps I shouldn’t have come alone, shouldn’t have left Noah back at the hotel discussing a rather dubious workman’s comp claim with Sharlene. When I grabbed the car keys and told him I was leaving, I expected opposition. Instead, he gave me a distracted thumbs-up. Either he’s starting to doubt the validity of my dream, or work has him too frazzled to think straight.
I wander along the winding paths between buildings, frowning at this first glimpse into Micky’s upbringing. Desert Village consists of about a dozen buildings, each a dismal shade of yellow-brown. Situated across from a money-wiring service and a checks-for-cash establishment, Jasmine’s home was chosen, safe to say, for its low rent and proximity to a bus stop.
The grounds, from what I can make out, are bare-bones. Scraggly trees protrude from red gravel; soda cans and an empty bag of potato chips litter the walkways. At the center of the complex, a tall black fence encircles the pool. The bars of the fence and the lock on its gate give the whole swimming area a dishearteningly jail-like appearance. The pool itself is empty except for a young mother with a child in floaties.
On one of the buildings I spot a sign marked LEASING OFFICE, so I follow the trail of cigarette butts to its door. I’ve been a little worried that the staff here will turn me away without proof of my relationship to Jasmine, but I needn’t have worried. The thickset, heavily lipsticked woman manning the office is only too thrilled to grant me access to Jasmine’s place.
“Thank God you came.” She produces the key so fast I suspect it’s been there on her desk awhile, waiting for any takers. “We didn’t know who to call. Only emergency contact Miss Cassell had on her application was her mom, and of course, she’s dead, too.” She blinks, as if it is belatedly occurring to her that this is not the most sensitive of comments. “It’s terrible,” she adds. “I’m real sorry for your loss.”
“I didn’t really know Jasmine,” I confess, not wishing to be the recipient of any unearned sympathy. “But she’s a half sister, so I guess I should take care of this.”
“Somebody has to. Half sister’s good enough for me.” Realizing I’m not some heartbroken relative, the woman assumes a conspiratorial tone. “This place has been crazy since it all went down. It’s not good for business, you know, all those cops.”
“I bet.” This is not a population that would find a strong police presence comforting. “Are they asking a lot of questions?”
“Oh, yes. They knocked on all the doors, went around leaving little cards. Here at the office, they’ve been asking about some of the residents, trying to get personal information.” She presses her brightly colored lips together in disapproval. “Two people dead, and I don’t think they have a clue.”
“Somebody must have heard something,” I say.
“You’d think, right? But Miss Cassell’s building has three vacant units. Andrew Dakin, he’s in eight oh six, and he wasn’t even home that Saturday. He spends weekends with his girlfriend in building two. Probably about time for them to get married, but you know how men are.” She rolls her eyes. “The other couple in building eight, the Delgados, they go to bed early. Mrs. Delgado told me she heard gunshots and screaming at maybe half past eleven—her husband slept right through it, of course—but she thought it was just a video game.”
“Really?” I can’t conceal my skepticism. “Mrs. Delgado couldn’t tell the difference between real screaming and a video game?”
“You can’t blame her,” Office Lady tells me. “The kids were having a big party over at the pool that night. They scream their damn heads off, those fools. And they play their music so loud, my God, it’s a wonder any one of ’em still has their hearing.”
“You don’t get complaints?”
“The sign clearly says the pool is closed after ten,” the woman says, not actually answering my question. “But you know teenagers. They jump the fence. What are you gonna do?” She throws up her hands as if to indicate her complete helplessness in the matter. “They set off firecrackers, too, sometimes.”
“Well . . .” I retreat a few steps. “I guess all that explains how nobody heard anything. Thanks again for the key.”
“Oh, it’s no problem. I’m just so glad you’re here. When the cops left the other day and nobody showed up to claim anything, I was afraid we were gonna get stuck with that mess.”
“Is it dirty?” I ask, and she gives a short, disbelieving laugh.
“You serious? The police don’t clean up for you when somebody dies, ma’am. That’s on the families. On you.” She looks me over, assessing my readiness for this job. “Honestly,” she tells me, not unkindly, “you’re better off hiring a cleaner before you ever set foot in there.”
My fist tightens around the key. I wrote freelance articles for a crime magazine back in my twenties, and yet it never occurred to me that after the CSI teams leave, the grim residue of death remains someone else’s problem.
“Have you been inside?” I ask.
“No,” she replies, “but I heard a couple detectives talking one day on my break. They said it was a bad, bad scene. I just praise God that Miss Cassell’s little girl didn’t get harmed. Poor baby.”
At this mention of Micky, I feel my resolve crystallizing. I’ve come all the way out here. I can’t leave without at least grabbing some of her clothes, some items from her previous life that she can hang on to when everything else is changing.
“What number is the apartment?”
“It’s eight oh two,” the woman informs me as I back out the door. “Ground floor, over by the pool. Miss Cassell’s paid up through the end of the month, which means you’ve got until the thirty-first to clear out. Otherwise, someone’s gotta pay for September.”
I make some noise of acknowledgment and weave around to the pool area. The sky has darkened a shade since I entered the office. Perhaps we’re in for another storm.
Apartment 802 has no distinguishing features, nothing on the exterior that hints at the dark events that occurred inside. I place my key inside the lock, feel it resist my push at first, then reluctantly click open.
The moment I step inside, I’m met with a nauseating mixture of heat and stink. The stench startles me, since Jasmine’s and Donna’s bodies were discovered relatively quickly, but of course there must have been blood. A lot of blood. That wouldn’t age well. To exacerbate matters, whoever exited the apartment last turned off the air-conditioning, a cost- or energy-saving measure that left any lingering body fluids to vaporize in the high temperatures.
I cover my nose and mouth and gingerly observe my surroundings.
Although it’s dim inside, I can make out a few familiar details, images from my dream of Micky that give me goose bumps. Barbies and crayons scattered about. A mirror with a shiny, sun-shaped metal frame. And on the cheap vinyl flooring, small bloody tracks.
I fumble for the light switch, afraid to see what this room holds but more afraid of things I can’t see. The bulb overhead hums and flickers once before illuminating the scene.
Blood. Mostly just a lot of blood, dried into a rusty brown crust that seems to be flaking in places. With the exception of Micky’s little footprints, the ghastly details are confined to the dinin
g area. A sense of the unreal settles over me. If it weren’t for the ungodly odor, I could disengage completely, forget that two living, breathing women died in this space.
I glance down at Micky’s tracks, following them with my eyes as I try to retrace her movements. The trail seems to originate from a large pool of blood, long congealed, to the left of the dining table. A series of smeary marks leads to another sizable blob on the wall nearby. I note four long streaks clawing at the floor.
Fingers, I think. Jasmine’s fingers.
Pam told me that Jasmine got shot in the chest several times. She must have leaned against the wall and left that big stain before dragging herself—or collapsing, from loss of blood—to the ground where Micky found her. It may not have taken Jasmine long to lose consciousness, but for at least a couple minutes, she had to have known that she was dying. Had to have seen who killed her.
I return to my study of Micky’s footprints, trying to hold back a rising feeling of despair. Her bloody tracks don’t travel in a single, obvious trail the way they did in my dream; they’re chaotic, moving in circles, smeared in one place as if Micky’s foot slipped. This child was frantic. She found her mother and didn’t know where to go, what to do.
And Donna?
My eyes venture to the other side of the table, settling on a high-backed chair in the corner that Micky’s prints appear to avoid. Spatter. Tiny white chips. Pink flecks.
No wonder Micky didn’t approach her grandmother. I, too, keep my distance.
Suddenly desperate for fresh air, I hurry out of the apartment, leaving the door ajar behind me. I no longer feel the heat, am only vaguely aware of laughter coming from a neighboring building’s stairwell. I just want air, clean air. Want to fill my lungs with molecules not tainted by death.
I should feel something, anything, about the gruesome scene I’ve just come from, but my mind skips right over Donna and Jasmine, just keeps going back to Micky. Imagining what she saw that night. Wondering how I can possibly take on a child with so many problems.
Donna and Jasmine couldn’t have been dead for long when Micky found them, not if she was tracking footprints everywhere. I don’t know exactly how fast blood coagulates on vinyl, but I’m guessing Micky discovered them within the hour, and probably sooner. Perhaps she heard the gunshots her neighbors didn’t. Perhaps she heard her mother screaming, arguing with her killer. Perhaps she lay huddled in bed, waiting for it all to pass.
The more I think about it, the more frightened I am by what Micky may have overheard. I know that she’s been questioned by police psychologists and she’s seeing some sort of therapist, so I’ve assumed that she knows nothing of real value. But would she tell the police if she did? Jasmine taught her to lie and omit details of Ruben. What other secrets might the child choose to keep?
“Hey!”
A pale blond boy of eleven or twelve peers down from the second floor of building seven. His friend joins him and both stare at me.
“You going in there?” the blond boy calls. “That’s where those ladies died!”
His friend hits him in the chest. “Dude. She’s probably, like, related to them. Or she’s a detective or something.”
“She’s not a detective,” the blond boy scoffs. “Look, the yellow tape is down. That means all the detectives finally left. Besides, she’s preggers.”
“She could still be a detective,” his friend retorts. “Some of them wear regular clothes to try and fool you.”
The blond kid has already lost interest in me. “We should go in,” he says, nudging his buddy. “Look, the door’s open. I dare you. I dare you to go in.”
“No way.”
“Wuss. I’ll give you five dollars.”
“Yeah, right. You do it.”
“For five dollars? Fine.”
As the two negotiate the terms of the dare, I duck back inside, taking care to lock the door behind me. It’s not the most comforting sensation, being locked in with all this gore, but I don’t want some stupid kid to wander in and be traumatized for life.
Find Micky’s room, I tell myself, then get the hell out.
As it happens, the task is not so simple. The apartment has only one bedroom, one dresser that Jasmine and Micky apparently shared. Either the investigative team pulled all the clothing out and then stuffed it back in or Jasmine was the laziest laundress imaginable, because her items are mixed indiscriminately with her daughter’s. My fingers sift through Jasmine’s frilly bras, silk panties, and tiny camis to locate a couple pairs of Micky’s shorts, her Disney princess nightgown, and an orange tank top.
I toss these items into a hamper and move on to the next drawer, trying not to gag. Though I’m breathing through my mouth to avoid the putrid smell, I swear I can still taste it, old blood souring the air.
When I’ve grabbed enough little-girl clothing to fill the basket, I search for keepsakes that Micky might like to have. A box of polished stones that she’s apparently been collecting, a dog-eared copy of The Three Little Javelinas, a gold bracelet engraved with the word “Michaela.” And then I dive into the photographs. Jasmine isn’t much for frames, but her bedside table is cluttered with glossy prints, like someone who hasn’t yet joined the digital age. I sift through them—her and McCullough, mainly, and a bunch of friends, but I eventually find a couple shots of her and Micky. I tuck them into an old envelope for safekeeping and stuff them into my pocket. I should go. Drop off Micky’s clothes with Vonda and call a cleaning service, something that specializes in biohazards, to deal with this place.
Yet I don’t leave. In my vision, I followed Micky’s footprints to the patio, found her hiding outside. What’s out there?
I glance back at Jasmine’s living area, past the chair and couch to the sliding doors. Find myself unlatching the glass door and tugging on the handle. The panel glides noisily back, and I step onto the patio.
I’m expecting desert, the indigo void I saw when I dreamed of Micky. Jagged lines of distant mountains, weedy plant life swaying as if in an aquarium. Instead, I find a tiny concrete area enclosed by an adobe wall about four feet high. The wall serves no purpose I can see other than to block out an ugly view: storage sheds that Desert Village must rent out, and a highway underpass.
Jasmine has at least made some effort with this patio. Wind chimes hang from the wall, adding an occasional jingle to the highway clamor, and a potted money tree occupies one corner, though it’s starting to look a bit droopy. A blue-and-white-striped lawn chair faces the wall. I sit down, letting the noise of the road wash over me. I imagine that Jasmine liked it out here.
Her life couldn’t have been an easy one. Low-level jobs, government assistance, a string of relationships that flamed out, no transportation beyond friends with cars and unreliable city buses, an accidental child with a man she loved but could never have. At twenty-seven, Jasmine didn’t even have her own bedroom. She must have wanted more, so much more, but this was what she got, all she’ll ever get.
This apartment should’ve been her safe place, not her death site.
And now a memory tickles my brain, something left undone. The bathroom. I need to check the bathroom here, to make sure it isn’t the one. I start to heave myself off the chair and then pause midway up.
Through the open door behind me, I hear something.
A thumping, followed by a male voice much too deep to belong to one of the boys on the stairwell. “Goddamn it!” he shouts, and I’m fairly sure someone has just tripped over the laundry basket I left by the front door.
Someone in the apartment. Someone with a key.
There must be a hundred legitimate reasons for a person to be rummaging through Jasmine’s apartment, and yet I can’t think of a single one. The investigators had a week to pry this place apart. Why would they be back? And from the way the woman in the leasing office was talking, the management wouldn’t set foot in this plac
e, not if they didn’t have to.
I slump deep into the chair, afraid to move, afraid to draw attention to myself. Any minute the man in the apartment will notice the door to the patio cracked open, and then what?
My first thought is McCullough. Jasmine might’ve given him a key. But why would he be prowling around her apartment? What could he possibly have left here that’s so valuable it justifies his returning to his girlfriend’s grisly death site? And whatever it is, wouldn’t the cops have already found it?
The stranger is definitely looking for something. I hear the sounds of drawers and cabinets being slammed, pots and pans banging around. What might Jasmine have hidden in her kitchen? Could this guy be searching for the Rohypnol that the TPD confiscated? I have zero desire to encounter some sketchy drug contact of Jasmine’s, especially not the kind who specializes in rape drugs.
I stagger to my feet. Make a split-second calculation about personal safety and then hurl my pregnant self over the four-foot patio wall. Not the most graceful maneuver, and I land with a painful thud that pleases neither me nor the baby. Still, it beats confronting a man who may or may not have murdered my mother and sister.
I drag myself around to the side of the building and stand, back pressed to the wall, contemplating my next move. I want to know who the hell is in that apartment.
I circle around front and park myself near the pool, where I have a good view of the door to apartment 802 and enough witnesses to assure my safety. After about twenty minutes of waiting around, my nerves give way to hunger and I succumb to the allure of a nearby vending machine. Beneath the envelope of Micky and Jasmine photos, I discover a crumpled dollar bill in my pocket. I’m trying to smooth it out on the corner of the machine, periodically glancing over at Jasmine’s door, when someone appears beside me. I recoil, arm flying out across my chest in a defensive posture.
Sanchez.
I almost don’t recognize him in his T-shirt and running shorts. He looks decidedly un-coplike, so sweaty and casual, I think for a moment that he might live here. But the TPD can’t pay that badly.
