And why.
Then I saw that the shop door was ajar.
“Run,” I whispered and pushed Aimee back up the stairs. Neither of us had brought a phone. “Run back up and call 911. Go. Now.”
I wasn’t going to go in. But if I didn’t, the burglar—this time, I was sure of the word—would escape through the back door the moment she realized the police were coming. With no one able to identify her, she’d get away. With breaking and entering, and with murder.
Did the door squeak? I couldn’t remember. I pushed it open ever so slowly and crept in, crouching low, out of sight.
From the middle of the shop came the scraping sound of furniture on wood. The neon lips behind the cash register glowed, but their crazy colors didn’t give off enough light to let me pick out the intruder. Or, I hoped, to reveal me.
I snuck behind a wooden step ladder posing as a bookshelf and snaked past a plastic skeleton draped in vintage aprons. On a console table near the wall stood a lava lamp, red and gold amoebic shapes drifting slowly up and down. I had never noticed it before.
Another scraping sound came from the Asian room. I dropped to my hands and knees and crept toward it. A whiff of bleach from the scrubbed floor filled my nose.
My knee hit a small hard object on the floor. Though the low light made it hard to be sure of the color, I recognized its distinctive shape. An Asian pendant, red, carved from cinnabar. A good luck charm—had the luck held, or run out? I left it there, not wanting to smear the fingerprints. I knew now who had left the note on my car, and the police would need the pendant to make the match.
I’d been wrong about Brandon, and I hate being wrong. But in this case, I hated to be right. There were children involved.
“If you’re hunting for the chopstick,” I called, “you’re not going to find it. The police have it.” Aimee had spent much of the afternoon with the detectives, after they’d located Tony at Hot Dog’s apartment. The chopstick and souvenir handkerchief were now safely tucked in a police evidence locker.
And the knife? In the hand of the woman crouched behind a lacquered screen a few feet away. Melissa Kwan.
“I know you didn’t mean to kill Joelle,” I said. “You wanted her to stick to the original agreement and set up a design firm with you.”
A faint gasp—or was it a sob?
“I can’t imagine,” I continued. “Knowing your son was ill and you’d lost your job and couldn’t pay the bills.”
“Steen should have given me that bonus,” Melissa said. “I did half the work. I helped Aimee design those fancy rooms. I found the source for those stupid Tlingit masks, and had to bribe that greedy little witch to let me have them. It was a small sacrifice to make, to get a big bonus when the job was done. The bonus Aimee kept me from getting.”
Who? What witch? Oh. Karen, formerly of the Native American Art gallery in the Market, now working at A Global Touch.
Was that my blood boiling in sympathy with Melissa, or the room growing increasingly warm? I couldn’t hear a fan or an air conditioner. This old building might not have one.
Keep calm, I told myself, and catch a killer. Maybe I’d put that on a T-shirt, if I got out of here alive.
“But Joelle couldn’t afford to set up her own firm,” I said. “Besides, her focus was leaving her husband and building a new life on her own.” Finding a way to bounce back, as her friends had said.
“That was more important to her than the plans she made with me.” Another sound, softer this time. Like fabric swooshing or footsteps on wood. Was she coming closer? “I hated him as much as she did.”
“I don’t blame you. He helped cover up the evidence of the drug company’s lies, lies that hurt your son. It stinks. It really stinks.”
“How did you know? Ohhh.” Her voice rose. “Because you worked at the same law firm.”
That wasn’t how I knew, of course. But sometimes the pieces fall into place. Seetha’s fear that the killer had been after her, not Joelle, had been wrong, but she’d given me the right idea. Melissa had plenty of reasons to hate Justin and Joelle, but her real target had been Aimee, who finished the job Melissa had started when her son’s illness kept her from coming back to work, even after Steen offered to rehire her.
“You came to the shop last Monday to confront Aimee,” I said. “I don’t think you meant to kill her. I think you wanted her to pay you what you thought she owed you. So you could set up your own business and get your family back on solid ground. The trust fund from the lawsuit covers your son’s medical expenses, but it doesn’t put a roof over your head.”
“She did owe me. Half that bonus, or more.”
She didn’t know Aimee didn’t have the money. It was all in her shop. “But Aimee wasn’t here. Joelle tried to convince you to let it go. You argued and grabbed the knife. And before you knew it, she was on the floor, bleeding.”
A gasping sob came from the left. She was on the move. Where? In the strange shadowy light, I couldn’t see her.
“But Brandon—that’s a different story,” I continued, hoping she’d pause to listen and I could catch sight of her. “I think you killed him because he saw you here. He came here to see Joelle, but instead he saw you and he saw the knife. He knew what you’d done.” That explained why Brandon’s white van had been parked around the corner the day Joelle was killed. But I still didn’t know why he’d come here.
“The idiot. He thought he could convince her to support his claim against Steen’s estate and the Art Museum.”
What? When I didn’t reply, she let out a cackle. “So you didn’t figure everything out after all. Brandon’s stepmother was Steen’s sister. She died years ago, and Brandon thought Uncle Steen would leave him sitting pretty. Instead, he left his fortune to the Art Museum to endow a new exhibit of Asian furniture. All Brandon got was a pittance. He wanted Joelle to support his claim that Steen was too old and ill to know what he was doing. But Joelle refused—she knew it wasn’t true. We all did.”
“Ahh,” I said, trying to wrap my head around that shirttail relationship, the one the women at the museum had mentioned. I’d misunderstood when Jasmine referred to family, thinking she meant her co-workers, as people often did. But she’d meant “family” literally. “So after Joelle’s death, when she couldn’t help him anymore, he wanted Aimee’s support. He kept coming back, hoping to persuade her. I imagine he had to promise she’d still get her share.”
“He saw me, like you said. He was going to tell the cops he saw me. As if getting me locked up would have helped him.”
Poor Melissa. She’d been so focused on the money for so long that she couldn’t understand any other motive. Like justice.
“You were desperate,” I said. “The cops and prosecutors will understand. Killing Joelle was an accident.” Everything else had been an attempt to cover her tracks, even stabbing Brandon. Although a good defense lawyer would argue that she’d only meant to scare him into keeping quiet, not kill him.
Silence. All was silent. That terrified me. Where was she?
“You left the note on my car,” I said. “Trying to get me out of the way?”
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone else,” she said, as if begging me to understand. “You wouldn’t stop. You kept coming back, you and Brandon.”
“I came back to help Seetha and to deliver spices down the block. But yes, to see Aimee and help solve the crime.”
“The crime was what happened to me,” she said. “To my family. I worked hard and no one cared. My son got sick and no one cared. A drug company and a crooked lawyer lied and no one cared.” The shadows danced across the walls, telling me she was on the move. A dull glint of light bounced off the blade of the knife, clutched in both hands as she stood above me. I didn’t dare take my eyes off her. I rose up as if coming out of a deep yoga lunge, reaching behind me for the lava lamp. The plug jerked out of the wall and the cord whipped around my legs. On both feet now, the base of the lamp warm in my hands, I swung at my attacker. And m
issed.
I planted my feet, ready for her to come at me again. Where was she?
Where was the knife?
I kicked the cord loose and raised the lamp higher, catching a whiff of my own sweat and fear. The neon signs emitted a rainbow glow that was great for romantic ambiance, but lousy for fighting off a killer.
Melissa’s feet scraped the floor as she slunk to my left. Finally, I got a decent view of her, silhouetted against the faint light coming in the front window.
I took another swing. Connected with her shoulder. Heard her scream as the broken glass and hot goo hit her arm. Heard the knife clatter away on the wooden floor.
Then blue light flooded the shop as the front and back doors flew open.
Help had arrived.
I lowered the remains of the broken lamp. On the wall by the front door, hot pink letters glowed.
“WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?” the sign asked.
Nothing, I said to myself. Nothing at all.
Twenty-Nine
“Smoke is deeply symbolic—it ascends to heaven, as if bringing any prayers and intentions up to the gods with it. From the incense of Asia and Europe to the sage and cedar of the indigenous Americans, the smoke generated by plants has a primordial history of use as part of spiritual practice.”
—Spiritual Scents website
I WAS A MESS. THE LAMP HAD BEEN A VINTAGE NUMBER FROM the ’60s, the red and gold blobs wax that warmed from the heat in the base, rose through the chemical liquid, then drifted back down as they cooled. Most of the contents had landed on Melissa, the combination of the surprise blow, glass shards, and hot wax enough to knock her down, but some had landed on me, mixing with dust and sweat. I’d stood over her, holding the broken lamp like a sword, until the patrol officers eased me away. They assessed who was who and what was what and cuffed her. The EMTs spent a few minutes slapping gauze on her cuts and burns, then the officers hustled her into the back of a car to await the detectives.
Armstrong arrived first and found me sitting outside in the courtyard, clustered around Aimee’s patio table with my friends. The evening had cooled. If it weren’t for the cops and all the official hubbub, and if we hadn’t left the wine upstairs, it would almost have been pleasant.
“We’ve been here before,” he said. “Let’s not make a habit of it,” I replied. Part way through my story, Tracy charged onto the scene, so I started over. “It’s so terribly sad.”
Tracy grunted. “The judge will consider intent, but she’s still a killer, whether she meant to kill or not. And she would have killed you. Your sympathy does you credit, but she doesn’t deserve it.”
My turn to grunt.
A patrol officer stepped into the courtyard, holding a plastic bag. He handed the bag to Armstrong, who held it up for Aimee to see.
“The new spare key,” she said, her hand to her mouth. “I’d just put it on that keychain and left it next to the cash register. That’s how she got in.”
“Oh,” I said. “That day we were checking out the tansu and she came in to search for the chopstick. She went behind the counter for a tissue—I’d forgotten. She must have taken it then.”
“Intending to come back and search when you weren’t around,” Tracy said to Aimee. “She picked the wrong night.”
“That reminds me,” I said to Aimee. “What did you want to get from the shop? The reason we came downstairs.”
“The lava lamp,” she replied. “I spotted it at a second-hand shop downtown after I left the police station and bought it for you.”
Under the circumstances, I think our howls of laughter were forgivable.
WEDNESDAY morning, I dragged myself to yoga class. My shoulder was fine now, but crawling around the vintage shop on my hands and knees, then taking Melissa down with a fifty-year-old lamp, had left a few sore spots.
Ten minutes in, on my fourth sun salutation, though it felt like my fortieth, a woman unrolled her mat next to mine. Aimee.
After class, I stayed seated on my mat, legs crossed. So did she.
“How you doin’?” I asked.
“Life’s looking up,” she said. “Tony’s home safe. Not home free—relapse is always a risk, even on bupe. But I feel good about it. The killer is in jail—”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “Steen rewarded you for the work you did, and for your loyalty to him. And I think, because he recognized that you were practicing tough love on your brother. That Melissa saw it differently does not make you responsible for her actions.”
“The only thing she did on the hotel job was find those Tlingit masks. It wasn’t her fault that her son got sick at the wrong time.”
“Never a good time for that,” I said. “But maternal love and devotion isn’t the point here. She killed out of anger, and frustration at what she saw as injustice and lack of control. Maybe jealousy, too. And she killed again to cover it up. Though I don’t know why she decided to act now.”
“Detective Tracy told me she and her husband were about to lose their house to foreclosure. She saw my success, and thought I had money to spare. Life shattered her sense of herself as taking care of her family, and I was an easy target.”
“Because she had false illusions? None of us is exactly who we think we are. Who we want to be. Learning to live with that, or change it if we can, is called growing up.”
“Amen to that,” she said. We sat in silence, breathing rhythmically in and out, for several minutes.
“I’ve been wondering, though, why Steen didn’t leave Brandon money outright. Why make him work for it?”
“No mystery there,” Aimee replied. “They weren’t blood relatives. They weren’t even particularly close. Brandon was Steen’s— what? Step-nephew? His late sister’s stepson. Steen gave him a job and an education in the business. To him, that was enough.”
Put that way, it made sense.
“Tony and I would like to come by your place this evening,” she continued. “We have another gift for you.”
I tried to raise one eyebrow, but failed, as usual.
“The tansu,” she said. “It’s more practical than a lava lamp anyway.”
“I’ll cherish it,” I said, and I meant it, no matter what ended up in its drawers. “Don’t tell Justin you’re giving it to me—he might change his mind and decide keep it.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Her chin rose, her eyes clear. “In fact, I’m going to ask him to donate all proceeds from the sale of everything Joelle brought into the shop to Melissa Kwan’s family.”
Sometimes the world has unexpected ways of making things right.
THURSDAY morning, I put on my black skirt and a nice blue top and strolled down Fifth Avenue. At SPD headquarters, I reviewed and signed my official statement. Armstrong told me they’d recovered the rest of the trousse set from the trunk of Melissa Kwan’s car, beneath a stash of canvas grocery bags, along with Joelle’s diamonds. Or rather, her cubic zirconia and fake sapphires. Melissa knew the real jewels had been sold, but took the fakes anyway to confuse investigators.
Dr. Davidson—how had I missed that Roxane had a PhD?— confirmed that the glass bead found loose in Joelle’s travel trunk fit the end of the chopstick we’d found on the floor of Aimee’s shop.
“Qing Dynasty,” Armstrong said. “Just as we thought.”
“Melissa was after Aimee all along, even though she resented Joelle and hated Justin. I got fooled, too—he was so easy to suspect, especially after making himself conspicuous at the office the day of his wife’s murder.”
“Precisely,” Armstrong said. “Only the guilty need an alibi.”
“That was our suspicious minds at work. The other lawyers were meeting with clients who used to be his, and he wanted to look busy in front of them.”
“Humans,” Armstrong said. “By the way, we talked to Ms. Sharma’s bus stop stalker. I don’t think she’ll have any more trouble.”
I didn’t ask what they’d said. Sometimes it’s better not to know.
On my way out, I ran into Detective Spencer, Tracy’s usual partner.
“You back on the job already?”
“Next week,” she said. “Passed my physical with flying colors. Bet you’ll be happy to have me back.”
“The new guy’s not so bad.”
She suppressed a smile. “Not who I meant.”
“Naah, Tracy’s not so bad, either. As long as you bring him cookies.”
Then I walked the block to the King County jail, not at all sure that the inmate would see me. She had the right to refuse, and she exercised it. I didn’t blame her. My desire for finality didn’t trump Melissa Kwan’s right to nurse a grudge, if that’s what she wanted.
It wouldn’t serve her in the long run, but she was going to lose a lot of her rights. Let her take full advantage of the ones she still had.
FRIDAY afternoon, I drove up to Eastlake one more time. Parked on Louisa Street, and stopped to collect Edgar. With both murders solved, Aimee had reopened Rainy Day Vintage. More business-savvy than her husband, even in her grief, Jasmine had decided to focus on the shop and her boys rather than try to challenge Steen’s will. It had been a desperate move, by a man anxious to provide for his family. Better now to let it go.
Aimee was interviewing for a part-time employee. Tony would continue helping with the heavy lifting, but he also had a new job in his field, as a dishwasher at Speziato.
All the Flick Chicks were gathered in the courtyard. Seetha clasped my hands. “Since your mother isn’t going to join the movie club, why don’t we ask Aimee?”
Perfect.
From up and down the block, the neighbors joined us, along with the yoga instructors, and at Aimee’s invitation, Roxanne Davidson. Even in a summery dress and flat sandals, she shone. But I found I no longer cared what her sister looked like.
Our yoga teacher lit a smudge stick and a whiff of burning sage struck my nostrils. Like a priest at a sidewalk altar, she made a slow circle, waving the smoke toward us. The faint strains of medieval harmonies echoed in my head.
Chai Another Day Page 23
