Who By Water

by Victoria Raschke

  Chapter 5

  Jo came home to her empty apartment. Could it be that only this morning she’d rushed out with Milo, only hours ago that she’d put on silver sandals and gone to meet Gregor? It all felt like days, maybe years, ago.

  She took her sandals off in the entryway and padded to the kitchen for a drink of water, faintly humming the tune that had been running through her head all day. The M*A*S*H theme, whose title, she recalled, was “Suicide is Painless.” A terribly ironic earworm after the night she’d had.

  A layer of fine gray dust covered everything in her kitchen. Her bare footprints from the door had left a trail.

  What the hell?

  The plaster on the ceiling was smooth. The dust hadn’t come from there.

  She rinsed out a glass in the sink and filled it from the tap. She leaned against the counter, wondering why her usually-pristine apartment looked liked it had been vacant for years. The night’s events had exhausted her, and she didn’t need this on top of it.

  She raised her glass for another sip, and through it she saw her father, sitting on the futon. His clothes were sodden and two tendrils of milfoil hung from his collar down the front of his shirt. His skin was gray and blue, blotchy with abrasions on his cheekbones and brow.

  She dropped the glass. It landed upright at her feet without spilling a drop of water.

  Okay. This wasn’t real. She was dreaming. Helena wasn’t dead, and her drowned father certainly was not dripping Tennessee river water all over her floor.

  “Hello, Jolene.”

  No, this was not real. She pinched herself hard on the top of her thigh, but still couldn’t force herself out of the dream.

  So maybe she was awake. Or crazy.

  Her father spoke again. “It’s real and it isn’t. You are asleep though.”

  “You’re dead. I saw you. I saw your body before they took you away. This is not happening.” An edge of anger crept into her voice. If she was about to lose her shit, she would fight it all the way down.

  “Jolene. Calm down. It is real, and I need to talk to you. I need to warn you.”

  “Warn me? She’s already dead.”

  “It isn’t about that woman. It’s about you.”

  She shook her head, as if the dream was an image on an Etch-a-sketch, and she could smooth the fine silver dust again for a clean slate. “No. This is not happening. I’m sane, and I am not having a conversation with my dead father.”

  “Jolene, please listen.”

  “Stop calling me that. Nobody calls me that.” She shook her head again.

  “Okay. Jay. Please? Just listen to me. You are asleep, but this is not a dream. You don’t have to be asleep. I just didn’t want to scare you.”

  She stared at him.

  “I’m not the only one who can talk to you.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  He stood and took a few steps toward her.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “Just be careful. There’s something here, something dangerous.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I love you. I have to go.”

  “Wait! I don’t understand.”

  He was gone. The futon and the floor were dry.

  The glass at her feet shattered into a thousand pieces, spraying her with water and glinting shards.

  She woke up bolt upright in bed.

  Faron and Gregor appeared at the door of her bedroom and moved to either side of her. Gregor leaned down to push her hair off her forehead. Faron sat on the edge of the bed. “Mom? You okay there?”

  It was still a jolt sometimes, how much he looked like his father. He had the same dark hair and the same build, broad shouldered but slender, like a diver. Only his eyes, stormy blue like hers, gave him away as something other than a Dušan clone.

  “Yeah. Just a bad dream.” And a glimpse at her deepest fears. She took a deep breath.

  Both men were staring at her now, worry etched between their eyebrows.

  She looked at Faron and up at Gregor. “Is she really dead?”

  Gregor nodded. “Murdered.”

  “Murdered? People don’t get murdered in Ljubljana.” Maybe she was still dreaming.

  “Mom, someone broke her neck.”

  “How? With all those people there? No. She must have fallen from the deck, or tripped down on the ruins.”

  Gregor looked down at her, frowning. “She didn’t. The police want to talk to you this morning. As soon as you’re up to it.”

  “This morning? What time is it?”

  Faron pulled his phone out of his pocket and woke it up to confirm the time. “About 10.”

  “Fuck. I was supposed to let Igor in downstairs.” She rummaged around for something to put on and tried to get up.

  Gregor stopped her with his hands on her shoulders. “Already done. Vesna heard us come up last night.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t remember that.”

  Faron laughed. “I’m not surprised, between the champagne and the tranquilizer they gave you.”

  She bristled. “It’s not funny.” Nothing was funny this morning.

  “Sorry. You’re usually the queen of gallows humor.” Faron took her hand again. “It’s just not every day that you get to see your mom tanked – even if it’s for a bad reason.”

  “Apology accepted. It’s been a while since I’ve been this close to the gallows. And how did you get here, anyway?”

  “Vesna texted me. She thought you might need me after she met you guys on the stairs.”

  Gregor said, “I tried to send him home, but he insisted. He slept on the futon and I slept on Vesna’s couch.” He stepped to her wardrobe looking for a robe. “How did she get that thing into her flat?”

  “No idea.” She rubbed her eyes. “What’s next?” She ran both her hands through her hair. Her fingers caught in a tangle of knots.

  Faron stood. “Well, Gregor’s going to take you to the police station and I’m going to work. I can come back tonight if you want me to.”

  “Maybe? I’ll text you.” Jo tried to finger comb the mess of her hair. “I need some coffee and a shower. I feel like shit.”

  “Trank hangover.” Faron put one hand over his heart and emoted. “Mom, I’m shocked at your chemical use.” He couldn’t keep a straight face to get the whole sentence out.

  She threw a pillow at him. “Go to work. I’ll be fine. Or I won’t, but he can handle it, I’m sure.” She waved her hand in Gregor’s direction.

  “Yes, I can.” Gregor offered her a red silk kimono. “Now to the shower with you. I’ll make more coffee. Faron and I finished the first batch.”

  Faron leaned over to kiss his mother on the top of the head. Jo remembered the first time he’d done it, after a growth spurt when he was finally taller than her. Faron waved from the bedroom door. “Love you. Text me or I’ll just come over and harass you.”

  “I will. I love you, too,” she called out to him before he closed the front door. The sound of him pounding down the wooden stairs two at a time reverberated through the wall.

  She stood up to find she was wearing only underwear and a tank top.

  “Um, did you or Faron undress me?”

  Gregor backed out of the bedroom so she could pass him and head to the bathroom. “Actually, Vesna and I played Barbie with you while you were passed out. Vesna chose your ensemble.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Faron’s right. You are pretty amusing when you’re wasted, whatever the circumstances.”

  She glared at him. Losing control was right up there with rooms full of tarantulas and carloads of clowns on her list of lifetime phobias.

  He turned her gently toward the bathroom. “Shower. Coffee. Clothes. Then I’ll walk to the station with you.”
>
  She grabbed a towel from the back of the door, hung her robe in its place, and stepped up into the tiny bathroom. She would have preferred a soaking tub, but there wasn’t room without sacrificing the little kitchen she had. Through the shower wall she could hear Gregor humming in the kitchen while he made coffee. It sounded like the theme from M*A*S*H. Her dad used to hum it all the time.

  Maybe it was something else.

  She turned off the water and reached over to grab her towel from the sink, the only spot in the bathroom that stayed dry with the shower on. She rubbed the towel through her hair and over her body before wrapping her hair with it. She opened the bathroom door just enough to stick her arm out and grab her robe off the hook on the outside of the door. Gregor had seen her naked plenty of times over the years, but he was always a little embarrassed by her immodesty.

  Covered and mostly dry, she joined him in the kitchen. He waved her to the table that served for dining and as her desk.

  “Sit. I made you some oatmeal. I had to boil water for the coffee anyway.”

  She sat in the chair opposite the kitchen.

  Gregor placed a blue pottery mug of milky coffee in front of her, then brought a red pottery bowl of oatmeal with a small pat of butter and splash of milk. He handed her a spoon, a heavy one, with U.S. Navy embossed on the handle. One of the few things she had that had belonged to her father, she’d packed it in her backpack when she’d left Chattanooga.

  “Thank you. I feel like I’ve been a pain in the ass.”

  “You would have done exactly the same thing if it were me, or Vesna, or Faron, or a perfect stranger.”

  “Still.” Jo stirred the butter and milk into her oatmeal. “Thank you.” She took a bite. It all tasted like ashes in her mouth, but she swallowed it anyway. “I still can’t wrap my head around this. Murdered? Helena. For god’s sake, why?”

  “I don’t know.” He sat down across from her. He held a mug, a gray one, in his hands. “But, there’s something you should know. Before you go to the police.”

  She put the spoon down. “That sounds ominous.”

  “I was trying to explain what happened to Faron when he got here last night. He wanted to know who’d died, and when I told him he blanched.”

  She pulled back in surprise. “Why? Does he know her?”

  “Yes. Quite well.” Gregor looked down into the depths of his coffee mug. It wasn’t like him to be at a loss for words.

  She froze. “How well?”

  “They were sleeping together.”

  She choked on her coffee. He started to get up.

  She put her hand up. “I’m fine.” She coughed loudly. “Maybe some water though, please.”

  He handed her his glass of water from the table. “Are you okay?”

  “God no. What the fuck? Did you tell him how I knew Helena?”

  “No, but when I hesitated, he guessed.”

  She stood up. “Jesus.”

  “Apparently Helena’s collecting was more extensive than I thought.”

  She put her hands on the back of the chair. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “I thought it would be better coming from me than the police if they know. Or from Faron even. He was mortified.”

  She flopped back into the chair. “I bet. Nothing like finding out you and your mom have the same taste in women.”

  He looked down into his coffee mug again.

  “There’s something else, isn’t there?” He wasn’t being cagey exactly, but there was something he wasn’t telling her.

  “Not really. It’s just that maybe that’s an answer to your question about why someone would kill her.”

  “Faron? He didn’t even know.”

  “No, not Faron. But maybe there was someone else who wasn’t happy to share her, or share with her.”

  She pushed the bowl of oatmeal away and stared at him. “I keep thinking about all those people at the hospital. I know something like this is sensational but it seemed pretty awful to flood the place.”

  He seemed genuinely surprised. “What people?”

  Jo was ushered into a small interview room furnished with four hard chairs and a table that held a heavy black recorder and a steaming cup of coffee. Her interviewer introduced herself as Investigator Marta Klančnik of the Homicide and Sexual Offense Division and motioned for her to sit, asking if she wanted something to drink.

  “The coffee’s fresh.” Marta gestured toward her cup.

  “Yes, please, with milk, if possible.”

  “I’ll be right back.” She left, closing the door behind her.

  Jo inspected the room. Everything was gray. The walls. The chairs. The table. Everything except the recorder and Marta’s bright orange paper cup filled with coffee. The room even smelled gray, like damp and old linoleum. The coffee barely registered against it. She wasn’t claustrophobic, but the oppressive airlessness of the room would be a nightmare for someone who was. She looked at her hands.

  Her nails were short and without polish. Long manicured nails didn’t fly with restaurant work. Her cuticles looked a little beaten up. Everyone took turns washing dishes whenever they were between dishwashers, which seemed to be all the time. She didn’t believe in asking anyone who worked for her to do something she wasn’t willing to do herself. She twirled the wide silver band she wore on her right hand ring finger. The small amethyst point set into it had been a gift from Faron for Mother’s Day when he was about ten. A friend of Rok’s who did silversmithing had set it for her. Unless she was working, she always wore it.

  Marta returned with another orange cup filled with milky coffee. She sat it on the table in front of Jo before taking the chair opposite her. She laid her pen and notebook on the table, then opened the notebook, flipping to a blank page and folding all the used ones under. She did not pick up the pen again.

  “I understand you were pretty upset last night. Are you okay to answer questions now?”

  Jo nodded.

  “Would you prefer to do the interview in English or Slovenian?”

  “Slovenian’s fine.”

  “Okay. If you feel there is something you might be better able to express in English, let me know. I can speak it fine, but we’re required to have an interpreter present.”

  Marta turned on the recorder and stated her name, the time and that she and Jo were the only people in the room. “Please state your full name and address.”

  “Jolene Abigail Wiley. Zajčeva ulica 2, stanovanje 4, Ljubljana.”

  “Mrs. Wiley, are you a Slovenian citizen?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you lived in Slovenia?”

  “25 years.”

  “Do you live with anyone at the stated address?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have family in Slovenia?”

  “Yes. My son.”

  “Please state his full name.”

  “Faron Črnigad Wiley.”

  “And his father?” Marta’s pause hung in the air.

  “Dušan Črnigad.”

  Marta looked up at her. “The Dušan Črnigad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” Marta paused and made a note. “Okay. Let’s go through your evening.”

  “Gregor met me in the courtyard where I live.”

  “Gregor?”

  “Sorry, Gregor Bregant.”

  “Is this the building where your business is as well?”

  Someone spent the morning on Google. “Yes.”

  Marta looked up at her. “Then what?”

  “We walked to the City Museum together. It takes maybe two or three minutes.”

  “What time was that?”

  “About 6:45. We went early to meet Tomaž, a friend of Gregor’s, to talk about a business opportunity.”

  “Tomaž?
”

  “Tomaž Novak. He owns bars and clubs.”

  Marta nodded. “Yes. Mr. Novak is known to us.” She scribbled another note in her pad.

  “We met Tomaž in front of Križanke. With his wife Katarina, and Tomaž’s business manager Olga. I don’t know her last name. We talked about a new restaurant possibility. He mentioned he was traveling to Sweden this week and to the U.S. soon, if that matters. We talked about going to look at the property with Olga. And we made arrangements for Tomaž and Katarina to meet me at the teahouse tomorrow to talk about Tennessee before they visit.”

  “That’s where you’re from?”

  “Yes.”

  “Explains the accent.”

  She tried to smile politely. No matter how fluent she became in Slovenian, she couldn’t shake her soft Southern twang.

  “What time did you go into the museum?”

  “About 7:10, 7:15? I didn’t look at my phone to check.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “Gregor got champagne for us. And Helena came over to speak with me.”

  “Helena Belak? The deceased?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did the two of you discuss?”

  “We made plans to meet later before I left for the after party.” She found it harder to talk about than she had expected. Her throat tightened.

  “Ms. Wiley, do you need a moment? Some water?”

  “No. Thank you. I’m fine.” She sat up straight in her chair.

  “What were you and Ms. Belak planning to do?”

  “She hadn’t said. She only asked me to meet her.”

  “What did you think was going to happen?”

  Jo shrugged. “I figured we would go to my place or hers.”

  “What was the nature of your relationship with Mrs. Belak?”

  “We were sleeping together.”

  Marta looked up at her again. She didn’t look to be judging her, only evaluating. “Did Mr. Bregant know about this?”