5 Twisted Vine

by Toby Neal

  “I don’t know,” Soga said heavily. The saimin arrived, a great steaming bowl of savory broth and noodles enlivened with strips of egg, chives, rice cake. They busied themselves eating for a while and Lei noticed that his color was better and he seemed to be relaxing.

  “When did you eat last?” she asked.

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Does that happen often?”

  “I don’t need much, at my age.”

  “Grandfather. You have to take care of yourself.” She reached over, put a hand on his. “It’s not good to forget to eat.”

  “For you to tell me these things . . .” He shook his head, a hint of a smile around his mouth. “You don’t eat well.”

  “You’re right. We can both do better taking care of ourselves.” Lei finished her saimin, at least all that she could capture of the noodles amid the broth, and pushed it away. “Now. Tell me from the beginning. What did he say to you, and what do you know? I need to be warned about what’s coming.”

  “He came with his partner Ching. They sit with me in the living room. They ask me what I know about the box. I say it’s my late wife’s things, and I gave it to you for keepsakes. They ask, do I know what’s inside? I say letters and photographs, maybe a small little thing or two.” He set the bowl aside, still half full. “I ask what this is about. They tell me about this man who shoots Kwon and other people, that he’s dead and your number on his phone. You said you got the number from the box. Now I’m worried.” His hands, when he brought the napkin up to dab his mouth, were trembling. “I tell them I don’t know anything. And I don’t.”

  “But you do, Grandfather. You know my grandmother, what she was capable of.”

  “Yes.” He did not elaborate.

  “So would she? Have called an assassin?”

  “I don’t know. I like to think not, but she an angry woman, your grandmother. She want to have someone to blame for Maylene dying, for you going to live with Rosario.”

  Lei was increasingly glad that her loving, generous aunty Rosario was the one to have taken her in and not the Matsumotos. Despite the very real affection she had for her grandfather, her grandmother seemed to have been a hard and bitter woman.

  “Well.” Lei touched his gnarled hand. “Hopefully, he will close his case quickly.”

  “I hope you are right.” They drank more tea, and Soga insisted on paying the bill. On the way back to his house, he said, “When do I meet your fiancé?”

  “Who?” A curl had escaped the FBI Twist and bounced in her eye as she turned her head to look at him. “You mean Stevens? He just came for the weekend.” Lei felt a blush rising in her neck and was glad the darkness hid it from her grandfather’s sharp eyes. “He’s not my fiancé.”

  “But he was. And he should be again.” She’d told Soga she had someone when he’d asked, that they’d had problems but were working them out.

  “You been spying on us?” She made her voice playful. “We want to be together; it’s true. But I don’t know how. One of us has to give up our work to be with the other.”

  “You should get married,” Soga said, opening his door at his house. “I don’t have forever to see my great-grandchildren.”

  The blush intensified as Lei pictured Stevens holding a baby. Their baby. It was a flash of vision—his face, filled with joy, smiling at her. The baby a wrapped bundle with a head of dark curls and tilted sleeping eyes.

  It was the first time that idea had done anything but terrify her. Now she felt a tug of longing somewhere deep inside. Probably my dried-up uterus casting a vote, she thought. Trust biology to win over good sense. She wouldn’t know the first thing about being a mother.

  “We’ll see, Grandfather. Next time he visits, I’ll bring him to meet you. You’ll like him, I think.” She walked him to the door. “Don’t worry about that other thing.”

  “I will try not to.”

  “Love you.” She leaned over, kissed his leathery cheek. “Good night, Grandfather.”

  The next day’s surveillance was long, punctuated only by a phone call with Stevens. Lei told him about Kamuela’s phone call to her, his interview of her grandfather.

  “When do you go make your statement?” he asked.

  “I have to go by Kamuela’s station after work. We’re doing stupid surveillance of these two DyingFriends members. Sophie said she’s seen them in the second level of the site, but not the third, where all the gory pictures are. My day is seriously dragging.”

  “Better than being the lieutenant of a station with all these balls in the air, schedules to juggle, reports to fill out—and all I’m doing is missing you.”

  Lei closed her eyes a second, dropping the binoculars into her lap. “I miss you too. My grandfather says we need to get married, get started on babies. He’s not going to be around forever.” A long pause. This was the weakness that had sent her running away two other times. Stevens must be scared to answer. “It’s not sounding like such a horrible idea to me.” Lei’s voice was small.

  “You know how I’ve felt these last four years,” he said, that rough note in his voice. “It hasn’t changed.”

  “Well, maybe I have,” Lei said. “I just don’t know what to do about me being over here and you being over there.”

  “I don’t know either. But this is getting bad. I keep thinking about being with you. You know. Being with you. It’s really distracting.”

  “Right,” Lei said, raising the glasses as she spotted movement at the door of the Woo residence. The old man was coming out, pushing his walker. He looked more like Yoda than ever. “Gotta go. Call you later.”

  She punched off, set the phone aside. Stevens probably thought she’d freaked out again—she’d have to call him back.

  The white care van had gone; Lei assumed the old man was alone as he made his way to the koi pond, pushing the wheeled walker up onto the little rounded bridge. At the top of it, he gave the walker a shove. It trundled down the other side of the arched bridge and tipped over at the bottom.

  Clyde Woo clung shakily to the low rail that came to just above his knees, looking down at the water.

  Lei wondered what the heck he was doing. And suddenly she knew, as he leaned forward and fell headfirst into the pond, his bright embroidered silk robe fluttering as it trailed behind him and settled over the splash where his body had been.

  Chapter 21

  “Shit!” Lei dropped the binoculars and radioed Dispatch with her handheld as she jumped out of the truck. She was at least a hundred yards away from Woo’s location. “Send an ambulance to this address! I need medical assistance!”

  Lei sprinted down the long oleander-lined driveway that led into the estate. She’d had to park just outside, positioned so she could see the house’s main entrance, but it wasn’t close enough. Flying down the driveway, once again she was glad she wore athletic shoes to work rather than the girly ones Marcella persisted with.

  At the pond, she shed her phone, cred wallet, and radio, jumping in. It was deeper than it had looked when she’d walked over the bridge herself, up to her waist, and she waded forward, startling the huge koi, to Clyde Woo’s body. He was floating facedown. She reached under his narrow torso and flipped him, grabbing the front of the robe and hoisting him up in a lifeguard tow, hauling him as rapidly as she could to the edge. She lifted him under the armpits and hauled him over the cement lip of the pond onto the clipped grass at the edge.

  Woo had begun to heave and spasm, and she rolled him onto his side, where he vomited water. She thumped his back, picking up the squawking radio.

  “Dispatch, surveillance subject attempted suicide by drowning. Conscious and expelling water. Where’s the ambulance?”

  “Five minutes out,” Dispatch replied. “Backup also on the way.”

  Lei set the radio down and leaned over to look into Clyde Woo’s face. “Can you speak?”

  He just coughed some more, and she realized that at least some of the water on his face was tears. “Why
did you stop me?” he gasped. “I don’t want to live anymore. This should be my choice.”

  “Mr. Woo. I’m so sorry, but it’s my job and duty to save lives. You might feel differently tomorrow.”

  Woo just sobbed, and she drew him into her lap and patted his back, feeling the light fragility of his twisted body, the hollow birdlike quality of his bones, and realizing how far she’d come that she could offer such comfort. She felt a complex regret that she’d saved him only for him to suffer more. That’s how they were when the ambulance pulled up, lights flashing, followed by a familiar unmarked SUV.

  Lei surrendered the old man to the EMTs and stood up, aware her shirt had gone transparent with water. She unbuckled her damp shoulder harness—she’d need to clean her weapon, make sure it was dry.

  Kamuela stood in front of her, Ching just behind. “Agent Texeira. Don’t know why they called for backup, but I was in the area.”

  Lei plucked the shirt away from her bra, glad it was a plain white one. “Yeah, I just called Dispatch for emergency assistance. Seems like they did a general support call.”

  “Well, how handy that you were on the scene.” He let the statement roll out into a question.

  “I had Mr. Woo under surveillance. Saw him ditch his walker.” She gestured to the tipped-over equipage at the end of the bridge. “He threw himself in.”

  “What were you surveilling Woo for?”

  “Can I get into some dry clothes?” She wanted to buy time to confer on how much to tell about the investigation the FBI had stolen from him.

  “We have to do a walk-through in the house, see what we can see,” Kamuela said.

  Ching added, “Marcus, this is probably related to the fishy suicides the Feds have been looking into. I told you about Shimaoka last week, and you had that Hale kid first.”

  Marcus turned to look at his partner as Lei picked up her phone and the radio along with her weapon. “Detective Kamuela, why don’t you guys do your walk-through and meet me at my house? I can shower and change, give you a statement. About that other thing too.” This could save her a potentially embarrassing trip to his station. “I have to call in to my partner and HQ. I’ll text you my address.” She walked off before he could detain her further, shoes squishing, pants rubbing, holding the shirt away from her body as best she could.

  The EMTs loaded Clyde Woo into the ambulance and pulled out, sirens blaring. Woo must be in some distress for them to be in such a hurry, she thought, jumping into the truck. Woo might die anyway from the stress of the experience, and she felt a stab of sorrow for him.

  She wondered fleetingly if he’d left a suicide note and knew she needed to interview him further regarding DyingFriends now that her cover was blown—but Kamuela and Ching were entering the elaborate doors of the house as she turned on the truck. They would take any note they found into evidence, and she’d get it from them.

  She called in to Dispatch as she drove, patching through to Ken at his surveillance site.

  “Woo tried to off himself,” she told Ken. “Sent the nurse service home and pitched himself into the pond.”

  “Damn!” her partner exclaimed. “You had a lot more action than I have—nothing moving over here. Did you get to him in time?”

  “Yeah, but Dispatch called for backup and Kamuela and Ching showed up.” She told him what was going on so far. “I’m going home to change. They’re meeting me there to take a statement. I’m wondering if we should bring them on to the case. We’ve already got Reyes and his partner—do we need anyone more?”

  “I’d defer to Waxman and their chief on that, but go ahead and brief them on where we are. We need HPD happy with us. Just one big interagency family bringing down the criminals.”

  “This case—it’s tough. The criminals aren’t as clear. Woo was crying when I fished him out. Told me he thought it was his right to end his life. It’s hard not to feel bad for him, for the others.” Lei found herself rubbing the pendant at her throat.

  “The law is straightforward, and our job is to uphold and represent.” As always, Ken’s certainty grounded her.

  “I know. Thank God that much is clear. It’s all shades of gray, except for this system admin who’s promoting suicide and may be killing people. Have you thought of that? So far we have two—Corby and Betsy—that we know had some help going down and no trace we can tie to anyone.” Lei turned off the truck’s air-conditioning—she’d begun to shiver in her wet clothes.

  “I had thought of that. He or she is the real criminal. I hope Sophie’s getting somewhere with that today; she seemed to think she was a lot closer.”

  Chapter 22

  Hours after she’d hooked it up, the write blocker finally beeped, letting Sophie know the duplication of Betsy Brown’s hard drive was done. The electronic sound broke the spell of tracking the suicide photos using DAVID. She’d begun to try to match the photos to known victims across the United States.

  She stood, stretched backward, then forward to touch her toes. Unhooked the write blocker, replugged it into Amara. She could hopefully spin through the hard drive and online activity and burrow into Betsy’s deepest level on DyingFriends. She knew there had to be another level beyond the one ShastaM had made it to.

  There was too much work to do to leave DAVID on ice, and she’d heard Texeira express it this way: “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.”

  She smiled, thinking of the way Lei charged her cases. She felt the stiff unlocking of her frozen muscles as she moved and knew that minutes she spent exercising would enable her to work for hours more.

  The laptop had a password. She dragged another program over from one of the other screens and set it to cracking the password. While that was working, she carried her water bottle to the cooler, filled it up, and went to a quiet corner of the room. Got out her weighted jump rope and did cardio. She ignored the frequent glances from Bateman, whom she knew wanted to catch her eye and engage her in conversation or, worse yet, give her a compliment. She could see the words bouncing around the little agent’s head like a conversation bubble, and she just didn’t have the mental or emotional space in her head to deal with his crush.

  Back at her cubicle, she stowed the rope and checked Betsy’s computer—password was cracked. She sat on the rubber ball and dove in.

  She was able to see that Betsy had an account with DyingFriends by her traffic patterns, but Betsy had deleted her cookies. On the site itself, her account came up with a 404 User Not Found.

  The system admin had beaten her to it again and deleted Betsy’s account.

  “Damn,” Sophie muttered, realizing as she did so that her eyes were sore and gritty from overuse. She was going to have to keep going with the ShastaM ruse, and she was getting tired of it.

  Perhaps Betsy’s e-mail would have something useful. She surfed through the e-mail using keywords “suicide” “death” “ALS” and didn’t find anything of note. Also on the hard drive, and just as sad and devastating typed as it had been in the young woman’s handwriting, was a typed practice copy of her suicide note. It was dated the same day she’d placed the order for the nightgown, two weeks before the day she’d actually taken her life..

  Something had prompted her decision on that day.

  Frustrated, Sophie stood up and heard the distinctive growl of her stomach.

  “You sound hungry,” Bateman said from behind her. “Want to get a bite to eat down at the cafeteria?”

  “No, thanks,” Sophie said. “I brought something from home.” She didn’t turn her head, didn’t smile. He took himself off, and she felt guilty relief.

  She logged back into her DyingFriends e-mail on the site, and this time there was a new e-mail invitation for ShastaM: “DyingFriends.com is pleased to invite you to the deepest level of commitment and sharing available on the site. Read and accept Agreements to enter.”

  She read on. This security layer was even stricter about not talking about the site, disclosing things you’d seen or “partic
ipated in,” and it required a background check. The consent form for the background check was handily provided.

  Sophie paused. Fortunately, she had a clean and complete identity and background in place ready for ShastaM’s fake social security number. She’d anticipated that at some point, DyingFriends was going to do its own vetting of prospective members. She uploaded the consent, made sure all her blocker programs that hid her computer’s true identity and location were in place, and hit Accept.

  Sophie knew the drill by now. Nothing more would happen until the system admin had reviewed her.

  She got out her lunch from home, microwaved it, and while it was in the oven, looked at the clock—it was already five p.m. She took the vegetable curry out, sat back down at her station with the bowl, and opened the gallery of suicide photos again.

  It didn’t matter what time it was. The only people she wanted for company were the unnamed dead. Their faces, crying for names, crowded her mind.

  Chapter 23

  Lei took a shower, towel-dried and scrunched her curls, and got into a fresh FBI “uniform.” She was sitting at the dining room table with her Glock taken apart for cleaning when the dogs let her know Kamuela and Ching were there.

  Kamuela had come in alone. She looked past him to the car, where his partner was working a computer on the console. “Told him I’d only be a minute,” Kamuela said.

  “Thanks for the privacy. Which statement do you want first?” She led him into the cottage. She cued well-mannered Keiki to sit and give him a sniff while Angel bounced around, yapping. She shushed the little dog by picking her up. “Something to drink?”

  “No, thanks. I do have to keep an eye on the time. I’ll take the statements on tape, if you don’t mind.” He set a handheld tape recorder on the table between them. Lei sat down and kept her face neutral, stifling anxiety—this was protocol.