“So Kavita would have to pay for medical school herself?” Tracy said.
“If she desired to attend,” Himani said.
“Did she desire to attend?” Tracy thought that if Kavita truly desired to live on her own and to enroll in medical school, it was even less likely she would have walked away from a rent check, as well as from her place of employment.
“That is what she told us,” Himani said.
“But not what you expected?” Tracy asked.
Himani said, “We expected Vita to marry.”
“And I understood that was the source of some conflict—that Kavita would not consent to an arranged marriage,” Tracy said.
“Kavita didn’t want to be Indian,” Nikhil said.
“Nikhil,” the father said over his shoulder, sounding more tired than upset.
“It’s true.” Nikhil pushed away from the wall and took a step down into the living room. He looked at Tracy. “Vita didn’t want to move home and she didn’t want Ma to find her a husband. She wanted to be American. And she expected us to support her lifestyle.”
“So there was conflict,” Tracy said, looking to Pranav.
“Yes, there was conflict,” Pranav said, without further elaboration.
“Was the conflict to a point that Kavita would not have called you if she was upset about Aditi getting married?”
Himani said, “Perhaps not.”
“I’m not judging anyone here,” Tracy said, sensing some reticence. “I’m just trying to determine if Kavita could be upset and taking some time to herself, if that’s the reason no one has heard from her. I’m wondering what level of communication each of you had with her and when. You know Kavita. I don’t. I need to know if Kavita has ever done this before, run off when upset?”
“No,” Pranav said. “Not to my knowledge.”
“Was Kavita in a relationship that you were aware of?” Tracy asked.
“Probably,” Nikhil said.
Tracy looked at him. “Any that you know of?”
Nikhil shook his head.
“Were any of you aware of any relationships Kavita had in the past?”
Pranav and Himani also shook their heads. “Kavita never told us of anyone,” Pranav said.
Tracy deduced that to have been deliberate, and not from a lack of suitors, given Kavita’s natural beauty. It also would have been unlikely she’d bring boys home to meet parents to whom she was not speaking. “So when was the last time you spoke to your daughter?” Tracy asked again.
“It has been several months,” Himani said. Again, her voice bore no evidence of alarm or concern.
“We had hoped this was just a phase Kavita was going through . . . like all young people,” Pranav tried to explain. “We had hoped she was just flexing her independence and would soon move back home.”
“And allow you to find her a husband?” Tracy asked Himani.
The woman seemed to take the question as some sort of a challenge. Her eyes burned. “A proper Indian marriage, arranged by your parents, is blessed by Lord Ganesh and Lord Krishna. You may not understand our ways, Detective.”
“I’m trying to,” Tracy said.
Himani continued, “Americans believe that a young woman must fall in love for the marriage to succeed, but look at your divorce rate.” She paused as if to accentuate the fact. “We only wanted what was best for Kavita.”
If Pranav was upset at the insinuation that his wife had not loved him when they married, he showed no outward sign that was the case. In fact, despite the unnerving circumstances—a detective in their home asking questions about their missing daughter—the couple did not show any outward sign of affection. They did not hold hands or otherwise console each other.
“I’m not judging,” Tracy said again. “I want to know if there were any men in Kavita’s life, or who wished to be in her life, who might have had reason to harm her.”
The room again fell silent. Tracy was about to move on when Sam spoke from the beanbag chair. “Vita had a boyfriend.”
It was as if someone had dropped an F-bomb in the room. Everyone turned to look at him but seemed too stunned to respond.
“How do you know this?” Pranav finally said. Sam looked tentative.
“You’ve spoken to Kavita?” Tracy prompted.
“Yes,” he said. “Sort of. No. We sent text messages.”
“Why did you keep this from us?” Himani sounded upset rather than happy her daughter was not completely estranged from the family.
“Kavita asked me not to tell you,” Sam said.
“Did Kavita mention a boyfriend?” Tracy asked.
Sam shrugged. “Not exactly. She said she couldn’t come to my soccer game because she had a date.”
“You spoke to her?” Himani asked.
Sam looked to Tracy, clearly trying to avoid his mother’s piercing stare. “What else did she say?” Tracy asked. “Did you speak to her or was this a text?”
“It was a text,” he said.
“What did you say in the text?”
“I just said I had a game and I wanted her to come. I said Baba was traveling and Mom wasn’t coming so I wanted Vita to come.”
“And did she return your text?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she was upset that Aditi had gotten married. She asked me if Ma was gloating about it.”
Himani sat up a little straighter, lips pursed.
“Do you have the text on your phone?” Tracy asked.
Sam shook his head. “No. I erased it.”
Tracy suspected she knew the answer to the next question but asked it anyway. “Why?”
“Kavita didn’t want Ma reading it.” Sam looked again to the couch. “Ma reviews my text messages at night.”
This was enough to burst the bubble of anger expanding around Himani and to free her tongue. “I take the phone at night so that Sam studies and is not texting his friends or playing some game. I know many mothers who do the same.”
“It’s summer,” Sam said softly. “I don’t study in the summer.”
“You should be doing something to improve your mind.”
“Again,” Tracy said. “I’m just trying to find out what information is available. We can recover those text messages from the telephone company. Did Kavita say she was going away, that she was going anywhere?” Tracy asked Sam.
Sam shook his head. “No.”
“But she said she couldn’t go to your game because she had a date.”
“That’s what she said.”
“Did she mention any names?”
Sam shook his head.
“Did she say anything else you recall in her text messages?” Tracy asked.
Again, Sam shook his head.
“Did you text her back?” Tracy asked, suspecting Sam had.
Sam nodded. Again, his eyes shifted to the couch. This apparently had been forbidden by his parents, or at least his mother, who sat simmering.
“What did you say to her?”
“I just said that we won and I missed her.”
“I also texted Kavita,” Nikhil said.
Himani looked as though the entire world was suddenly against her. Pranav looked like he’d been sucker punched.
“How long ago?” Tracy asked.
“I don’t know. A few weeks, maybe. I told her that her behavior was very hard on our parents. I told her that for the good of the family she needed to move home, and that she needed to get married.”
“Did Kavita respond to you?” Tracy asked.
Nikhil shook his head. “No.”
Tracy gave this a moment of thought. It was all very foreign to her. Her parents would have been thrilled if she had opted to follow in her father’s footsteps and become a doctor. And she suspected that a very large majority of the American population would be proud of a daughter supporting herself, not seeking anything from her parents except perhaps their emotional support and love, but she wasn’t
there to judge the Mukherjees or to question their culture. She was there to find leads, and, at the very least, the mention of Kavita being on a date gave them at least one. Aditi had not mentioned a date, but then she might not have known because she’d been gone for three months.
“Can you tell me anything more about your daughter?” Tracy spoke to Pranav and Himani. “You said she’s stubborn. Can you see her leaving without telling anyone where she was going?”
Pranav and Himani gave the question some quiet thought. Himani spoke first. “As I said, we haven’t been in contact with Vita for several months.” She glared at Sam. “I’m not sure she would have tried to call us. But in answer to your earlier question, yes, I can see Kavita leaving and not telling us.”
“She’s trying to hurt us by being difficult,” Nikhil added.
“All due respect, Nikhil,” Tracy said, “but this seems to have gone beyond being difficult. Kavita did not show up for work today, which her boss said was unlike her, and it doesn’t seem logical she’d pass up a chance to work if she was going to have to pay the apartment rent on her own.”
“What is being done to locate her?” Pranav said, now sounding worried.
Pryor sat forward. “Aditi filled out a missing persons report and provided us with a recent photograph of Kavita. That information is being disseminated to law enforcement throughout the state. I think we have enough to issue what is referred to as an Endangered/Missing Person Alert, and to provide that to the data center as well.”
“What will it do?” Pranav asked.
“It serves as authority for our missing persons unit to try to find Kavita, and places the information into the Washington and National Crime Information Centers. Can you think of anyone who Kavita might have called or gone to stay with?”
“Only Aditi,” Himani said. “And perhaps this date she had.”
“I’m assuming if Kavita was not receiving financial support from you that she has her own bank account and debit and credit cards?” Tracy asked.
“Yes,” Pranav responded.
“And she pays her own bills?”
“Yes,” Pranav said.
“Do you know what bank she uses?”
“She used Bank of America while in school,” Pranav said. “It was a joint account. After graduation, she switched to a private account.”
“Do you have the number on that account?”
“I might have an old statement around, if I can find it.”
“What about Kavita’s computer? Does anyone here know her password?” Tracy asked.
Tracy received multiple head shakes.
“Okay. We’re also going to get a warrant signed to search her laptop and try to determine if there is anything on there that might be of use, and we’ll obtain her cell phone records to determine if she’s been using her phone since Monday.”
“What can we do?” Pranav asked.
Tracy and Pryor gave the family tasks—telephone calls to relatives and Kavita’s close friends in case Kavita showed up. Pryor would keep contacting hospitals, airlines, and rental car agencies. Then Tracy said, “I’m also going to ask where each of you were Monday night; it’s procedure.” She didn’t add that a high percentage of murders were committed by family members.
“I was traveling in Los Angeles,” Pranav said. “I returned home very late.”
“And I was at home with Nikhil, and Pranav’s parents,” Himani said.
“Here?” Tracy asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you go out?” Tracy asked Himani.
“No. I was reading.”
Tracy looked to Nikhil. He said, “I was watching television.”
Tracy looked to Sam. “And you had a soccer game?”
Sam said, “At Roosevelt. I spent the night at my friend Peter’s house.”
When they’d finished, Tracy and Pryor stood. They handed Pranav and Himani business cards, but Tracy looked at Sam when she said, “If anyone hears from Kavita, we’d like an immediate call.”
CHAPTER 17
Faz and Del escorted the tow truck to the vehicle processing room, which looked like a large indoor garage, at the Park 95 complex. They arrived after 8:00 p.m. Most everyone had already gone home. While optimistic—or at least hopeful—that Latents could pull a usable print, they knew it was never a certainty. On the drive, Faz had spoken with Desmond Anderson and Lee Cooper, but they had not garnered much in the way of usable information at the apartment complex where Monique Rodgers had lived, or from the neighboring homes and businesses. Faz hated having all of their eggs in one basket, but as Del liked to say, “It is what it is.”
“Why don’t you get home to Vera?” Del said. “I’ll finish checking on the car and fill out the paperwork.”
Faz had called Vera when they first arrived. She said she’d spent the afternoon working in her garden and was going to an elderly neighbor’s to make banana bread. She visited the woman a couple times a month to keep her company. “I appreciate it,” Faz said to Del, “but Vera is out keeping busy and I think we should pay Little Jimmy a visit tonight, shake the tree and see what falls in case Latents can’t pull a print.”
“We can go first thing tomorrow.”
Faz shook his head. “We could, but if Little Jimmy is putting the word out and intimidating people, I want him to think we’re already on his ass and not about to let up.”
They drove to South Park to conduct a noncustodial interview, which was exactly what it sounded like. They’d question Little Jimmy without taking him into custody. Police detectives favored the interview because it did not require a warrant, nor were they required to read the person his Miranda rights. Defense attorneys argued the interview was intended to intimidate, and Faz and Del hoped it did, though they’d never say so.
Back in South Park, Del parked on a street lined with red muscle cars like the one that had driven Little Jimmy past the apartment building after Monique Rodgers had been shot. It looked like a convention, each car washed and waxed and glistening beneath the street lamps. When they stepped from the car, Faz heard Mexican music echoing throughout the neighborhood. It wasn’t hard to find the source. Bright lights emanated from a one-story clapboard home that didn’t look to be more than a couple hundred square feet and in need of a good painting. They’d found the party. Men in jeans and tank tops stood outside the home talking to women in cutoff shorts smaller than bikini bottoms. Their bodies had been inked with enough tattoos, some of the prison variety, to start a catalogue. Faz saw various iterations of the number 13: XIII, X3, and M—the thirteenth letter in the alphabet. Sureño gang symbols. The attendees drank from red plastic cups and, from the sweet aroma lingering on the stagnant night air, smoked pot. Illicit drugs were also likely.
“Looks like a party,” Faz said. “We picked a good night.”
“Yeah, they’re going to love us,” Del said. They crossed a dandelion-infested brown lawn and made their way down a sloped driveway, garnering stink looks and under-the-breath comments from the crowd. A brown wooden gate separated the front from the backyard. Behind it, two men in black bandannas stood like bouncers outside a bar. The more assertive of the two had roped muscles so large he looked like an overinflated sex doll.
“It’s a private party,” he said.
Faz held up his badge. “Good thing we have our invitations. Looking for Little Jimmy. He knows me. He waved to me today from his car. Tell him Detectives Fazzio and Castigliano would like a moment of his time.”
Steroid Boy nodded to the other bouncer, who scurried down the driveway into the backyard crowd. “It’s his birthday today,” Steroid Boy said. “Why you want to ruin his birthday, man?” He sounded almost rationale.
“We don’t,” Faz said. “We came to wish him Happy Birthday and bring him his birthday present.”
The man scoffed. “We’re all just kickin’ it. Nobody is causing any problems.”
“And we’re hoping to keep it that way,” Faz said. He turned to Del. “I’m sure th
ere are noise ordinance violations though, and I’m guessing no one took the time to get a permit for this gathering.”
“I agree,” Del said.
Faz spoke to the bouncer. “But we aren’t looking to ruin everybody’s evening and shut down the party. That would be a shame, wouldn’t it, on his birthday?”
The smaller bouncer returned and said something in Spanish. Steroid Boy stepped aside and opened the gate. “Little Jimmy said he looks forward to speaking to you.”
The crowd seemed to close in around the two detectives as they walked down the driveway and into the backyard. More men and women leaned into one another, sat on lawn chairs, and came in and out of the back of the house, the screen door whipping open and slapping closed with a thwack. Overhead, multiple strands of party lights crisscrossed between the cornice of the house roof and a freestanding garage. The sweet aroma of marijuana became much more pungent the deeper into the yard they walked.
The focal point of the party was in the southwest corner. When Del and Faz approached, the crowd parted like the Red Sea. Little Jimmy sat in a brown leather chair, the price tag still dangling from the side. Shirtless, his body was riddled with tattoos from his shoulders to his wrists and across his hairless chest, including what looked to Faz to be a portrait of Big Jimmy tattooed over his heart. Multiple gold chains also dangled from his neck, some with crosses. The waistband of his red underwear protruded above his jeans.
Little Jimmy smiled up at them and stretched out his arms, as if to welcome them. When he did, the man seated beside him pulled back the rotary tattoo machine he’d been using to ink Jimmy’s left shoulder. Jimmy had a joint between his lips. He took a hit, removed the joint, and handed it to a woman seated on the arm of the chair. He exhaled and slapped the arm of his chair. “Detective Fatso, how do you like my birthday present?”
Little Jimmy had his old man’s facial features but that was where the similarities ended. Big Jimmy had been powerfully built, with beefy arms and legs, though Faz doubted the man had ever lifted a weight in his life. Big Jimmy also had an air about him similar to a seasoned politician. Well-spoken, he was beloved in the South Park community because he’d donated frequently to public causes, like the community center. It was a tactic the cartels in Mexico and the Italian Mafia used to ingratiate themselves with the neighborhood. Little Jimmy wasn’t his old man. He was thin, though muscled, probably from dedicated weight lifting and possibly steroids. He shaved his head and sported a thin black goatee and he wore the same black sunglasses. He also spoke like the other fools—in clipped English sprinkled with a lot of slang and profanity.
A Steep Price (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 6) Page 10