by Paula Hiatt
“There was no reason to believe Kate last night. I was there—no indicator,” Ryoki said, too dazed to care about the accomplice.
“This is her seventh murder, signature M.O. Jacki-the-Ripper, been in the news eight years off and on, started in Washington State, then Oregon, California, but never in a high profile location, and generally shy of security cameras. Expected Arizona next, but I suppose Vegas was too tempting a challenge. We knew she was a woman, but she’s so clever at distraction we couldn’t get a good description. Real artistic, that one, always arranges the scene just so. Probably all over the news by now.”
“She’s so small,” Ryoki choked. Smith smirked.
“Once her man had his guard down, she drugged him, just enough to slow him down, give her time to slash the belly and vocal chords. After that she could take her time. Women make the best assassins, lot of people don’t know that. Anyhow, security should have snatched up your girl’s report and run, but it’s been nineteen months since her last strike, and I don’t believe Ms. Porter herself made the connection. Guess it doesn’t take that long to get comfortable with the devil.”
They had passed back under the yellow police tape and rounded a corner. Ryoki could hold no longer and doubled over, vomiting into a large potted fern, noticing every one of his aspirin floating in the bile. Useless coated caplets, take forever to dissolve.
“Are we finished here?” Ryoki asked, leaning against the wall, wiping his mouth on his handkerchief, grateful for the cool surface against his forehead. Gordon offered him a mint and took down his contact information, leaving him a business card and warning him he’d likely be contacted to file a statement. Ryoki nodded goodbye and started for his room, but stopped in his tracks at the sight of Kate coming down the hall accompanied by another police detective, a short balding man in a tweed jacket who waddled like an angry pigeon. Tweedy Bald, Ryoki thought to himself.
“Huh. Looks like my partner found her. Guess we didn’t need to put you through that after all. Sorry sport,” Gordon said jovially, clapping him on the back.
“Kate,” Ryoki said, hoping he sounded firm, rather than sick and vulnerable. She looked pale, anxious.
“They need me to identify a body,” she said.
One minute earlier Ryoki believed he’d seen the worst the world could ever show him, but if he had to watch Kate walk into that room—
“I’ve already tied the body to Kate’s report,” he said quickly. “Last night we saw the victim, not the accomplice. She doesn’t need to see that.”
Tweedy Bald objected, sounding gruff and intense like a schoolyard Napoleon. “We ought to have her take a look. It was her report.” With his feathers ruffled and chest puffed out, Ryoki pegged him as the kid everyone had picked on, the kind that grew up to cherish any stench of authority.
“It’s the same man,” Ryoki stated decisively, turning to Gordon. “We were together. We saw the same people. The only time we were separated was when Kate was speaking to security.”
Gordon looked at the two witnesses. They stood close together, not touching, but giving the impression of intimacy. He’d seen Tanaka’s unmade bed, the rumpled pillow and blanket on the couch, seen him glance into his bedroom, probably looking for her. He’d bet money they’d had a serious fight the night before. But in this awful moment they still functioned as a couple, the two of them against the outsiders, Tanaka imposing himself between his lady and the dead man.
“Is that true, ma’am? Did Mr. Tanaka see the same man you did?” Gordon asked.
“Yes,” she said, adding, “He had a birthmark on his forehead, a port-wine stain I believe it’s called, shaped like a hand without a thumb.”
“Did you see anyone else with Ruiz?”
“No, no one. I only looked at her.”
“That’s it, we’ve accounted for everyone we know about,” Ryoki said, seeing Gordon weaken.
Tweedy Bald’s phone rang and he put it to his ear, nodding and grunting as he listened. “They’re bringing in the other dealers,” he said to Gordon, pulling the phone from his ear and tapping at the screen.
“They’d have been watching everybody at the table,” Ryoki pointed out, but Tweedy Bald continued to sputter “It’s her report” under his breath. Ryoki knew he’d make Kate identify the body if he could get her alone, just to be thorough. So he commenced the exit sequence—smile, shake hands, glad to help, we’ll call if we remember anything, repeating his own number, passing it off as Kate’s, grateful for the first time she refused to carry a cell. If Gordon noticed anything suspicious, he said nothing.
“We’re going,” he said into Kate’s ear as he took her by the shoulders and steered her toward the elevators. She remained stiff in his grip and he dropped his arms at the elevator doors. He wanted to feel her soften under his hands, to pull in close, give some sign that she forgave him and needed comfort as he did; he felt greedy for comfort. When they stepped inside the elevator, he pushed the button and looked at their reflection in the polished mirrored walls as they went down to Kate’s floor. In their reflection he saw a glossy magazine couple, poised and sophisticated, no sign of the brittles ricketing beneath his surface.
The doors slid open and Ryoki walked her to her room. She pulled out her key card and slid it into the lock, turning the handle, opening the door a crack. Ryoki frantically cast around for anything that might induce her to let him in, but in truth, he could give her no good reason not to punch him in the eye and slam his fingers in the door. He knew he should apologize at the very least, but not here, not out in the hall. She turned to speak, maybe to say goodbye, but he was faster, bowing deeply as he said, “May I come in?”
“For heaven’s sake, stand up,” she hissed, nodding at the elderly couple strolling by. He straightened, watching her hopefully. She sighed and looked at him.
“Come in,” she said without animosity.
Ryoki entered her room, bedroom and sitting room combined, decent, though a third as large as his. A long couch and overstuffed chair sat across from the bed. Kate had pulled the desk chair in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Strip. Her suitcase lay open on the bed, something silky white hanging over the side, maybe a slip or a blouse. She caught him looking and flipped the lid shut.
“Don’t go,” he said, but she ignored it.
“Can I offer you anything to drink? Maybe some aspirin? You’re acting like you need it,” she said with the barest smirk, which disappeared at his look of pure, unvarnished gratitude.
While she rummaged through her bag, he went to the bathroom and unwrapped one of the complimentary toothbrush and toothpaste cello-packs to scrub the morning’s events from his teeth. When he came out she gave him a water bottle, shook a few tablets into his palm and handed him a packet of crackers. “Eat these, your stomach is easily upset,” she said. She opened a bottle of water for herself and they sat on the couch, each hugging an armrest. Ryoki downed the aspirin and looked at the bottle in his hand, studying the water bubbles clinging to the inside of the plastic. He risked a glance at Kate who studied her bottle as well. She took a few sips, filling the space while he struggled to think of something eloquent to say.
“Kate, I’m not even sure how to ask your forgiveness,” he finally admitted.
She nodded, her eyes still on her bottle. “I know how it sounded. I had a lot of time to think last night, and I kept imagining what it must have looked like to you.”
“You saved my life. You can ask me for anything and I won’t refuse.” He wished she’d ask for a car, something with enough zeros to stopper his guilt. But she only rolled her eyes and took a drink from her bottle.
“The police may offer you a reward, too,” he said softly. She looked stricken.
“That man is dead because of me. I told her where to find him. I should have walked out with her, made sure hotel security met her at the elevator. I’ve heard of The Ripper, everyone has. I don’t know why I didn’t put it together.”
Ryoki
visualized Kate shoved into a maintenance closet and gutted like McLeary, her blood smeared over the walls. His stomach pitched and yawed until he thought the aspirin was coming back up. Without thinking, he reached out to cover her hand. “I saw the body, Kate. She was skilled with her knife. Fast too, I bet. If she felt threatened she might have turned on you. It’s better all around that we stayed together.”
Later he would be embarrassed by his vehemence, but in the moment, he felt the corporeal weight and mass of his words. He wondered if Kate sensed something of the shift. She blushed and pulled her hand away.
The murder hung between them, its atoms suspended in the air they breathed, but neither wanted to talk about it. Instead they talked around it, commenting on Gordon and Tweedy Bald, and the media circus that was sure to ensue. That topic finally fizzled into silence, and pregnant minutes ticked by. Still she hadn’t agreed to stay. He could feel her sidling away, cutting him out. He decided to take a risk.
“I want to explain about Apple, my ex-wife I mean,” he said haltingly.
“You don’t have to—‘Apple’? Her name was—” She cleared her throat, choking back an embarrassed laugh. “Is that a common name in Japan?”
“Her name was Miu, but everybody called her Apple. In middle school she was caught stealing apples on a dare. Her father grounded her and she had an apple tattooed on her left shoulder blade to show him who was boss. It was funny, the way she told it.”
“I’m sorry I brought her up last night. I was mad. It was a cheap shot.” She tried to change the subject, but he soldiered forward.
“What do you know about her?” he asked, smiling encouragingly.
“Not much really, your mother refers to her as The Worm, which I’m guessing must be an apple reference.” She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “Said she chewed you up and spit you out, except she didn’t say ‘spit’.”
“It was an arranged marriage. Do you know how that works in Japan?”
Kate shook her head.
“My grandmother contacted the matchmaker who brought a portfolio of possibles for us to go through. Matchmakers aren’t as common as they used to be, but I had very little time to meet suitable women.”
“‘Suitable’?”
“A wife with the right upbringing and family connections. It’s very practical, and in real life marriage is a very practical thing.”
Kate nodded, her face expressionless. “How long had you known her?”
“The usual time. With a matchmaker people generally decide whether or not to make an engagement within three or four meetings or dates, whatever they want to call it.”
“Your mother agreed to—” she blurted, breaking off just in time.
Ryoki kept his expression neutral, remembering how his mother had raged at his grandmother when she discovered the plot.
“She had some other girl in mind, an American and a Christian. Wanted to keep me in touch with my roots, or maybe to put one over on my grandmother. Never was clear on that,” he said uneasily.
“How’s that different from the matchmaker?”
Ryoki shrugged. “It didn’t matter in the end. The American girl never materialized and my mother eventually resigned herself.”
“Lucky escape,” Kate said, drawing her eyebrows together and blowing out a puff of breath. Ryoki must have looked at her oddly because she started to stammer an explanation. “I mean it would be hard—married to a foreigner. I know people do it. But marriage is rough, even when you speak the same language and worship at the same church. You know, it’s, it’s rough.”
Ryoki absolutely agreed in principle, yet he found himself mysteriously offended to hear her say it out loud.
“Yes, well, Apple was my second round of omai, my second arranged courtship. She was beautiful, with an Art History degree from Tokyo U. Well-bred, well-connected, charming to talk to, very sociable. She seemed perfect for my needs. We were married quickly to accommodate my work schedule. The only hitch was that she refused to relocate to London, so I had to travel three, sometimes four weeks a month. She was left alone quite a lot.”
“Did she work?”
“I don’t think it ever came up,” he said. “I made sure she had everything she needed, money and time and a staff to take care of our apartment and do the cooking.”
“But how did she spend her time?” Kate asked. Her neutral expression couldn’t hide the accusation inherent in the question—you stuck her in a golden prison—a needle jab to a wound still oozing.
“I treated her the only way I knew how,” he said, avoiding her eyes, “the same way my father treated my mother.”
That was what hurt the most. He’d made the effort, had honestly tried his best. For all his parents’ quirks he’d always craved their brand of intimacy, from the time he was a boy, before “intimacy” took on its bawdy connotations. He thought he’d have the same if he gave it time, did all the steps, took care of all the details. Yet he’d been cheated somehow and he still couldn’t understand why.
“But what did she do with all her freedom? Was she into charity work, did she study or paint or—”
“She got pregnant while I was in London,” he said flatly.
Kate mouthed a silent “oh” and lowered her eyes to her hands.
He hadn’t seen the lie at first, thrilled at the news, delighted to become a father, to start a real family. He didn’t think to ask how far along she was at the time, maybe because she didn’t seem to “show” then. In her fifth month she had an ultrasound, a boy. He’d been looking for her checkbook when the ultrasound photo fell out of her wallet, the probable date of conception printed in the corner. Even then he’d hoped there’d been some absurd mistake. At that point Apple could have made up a story, given him some excuse. He wanted to believe. Instead she’d just looked at him. I guess I got careless. It’s a relief, I suppose, she said. That was it, a relief.
“My family lives in the public eye. I knew it would be a scandal, so I offered to give the baby my name and try to get past everything on condition that she never sees the father again. But she wasn’t willing. Apparently they’d fallen in love in college. He was a scholarship student with no money, but she’d accepted me on the assumption she’d be too comfortably rich to miss him. Turns out she wanted the money and the boy.”
“Are you sure it was really as public as it felt to you?” Kate asked. Ryoki resisted rolling his eyes at her naiveté. The reporter was only the beginning of the onslaught, a raw materials supplier for every ax grinding stranger possessing a microphone or internet access.
“Miu knew this would spatter a lot of mud on her family name, and she needed to make sure she could get back into her father’s bank account. So before the story became public, her clever lawyer advised her to contact this friend of hers from Tokyo U, a journalist who launched her career with the story that I oppressed my wife and abandoned her for months at a time while I was in London. No mention that she chose not to come with me, of course. Apparently I stopped her from progressing. Luckily, she escaped into the arms of a more evolved man.”
“Evolved from what—morality or just apes in general?”
Ryoki grunted.
“Any chance of forgiving her?” she asked after a pause.
“Have you forgiven your husband?” His question sounded harsh to his own ears.
“How do you know I’m not to blame?”
“Would you have fooled around on your husband?” he blurted, immediately wishing he hadn’t.
“I don’t actually believe in sex outside of marriage, so I’m going with no.” Ryoki looked at her, taken aback as red splotches bloomed up her neck and pinked her cheeks. “And yes, I’m upfront about it with the men I date,” she said defensively, looking at her watch and getting up to tuck and zip her suitcase, preparing her escape.
He jumped up and put his hand on her bag. “Do you want to watch a movie? It might be nice to stay in for a while,” he said. She glanced from him to her bag, a hesitation, an opening.
“Come back to San Francisco with me, we’ll finish the project and I’ll write you a glowing letter of recommendation, make some calls. I can help your career. I’m still good for that, even if I’m not very evolved.”
For the next half-hour they both stood with their hands on that suitcase while Ryoki talked and talked, once stepping in a steaming pile of schmoozy charm generally reserved for women in bars, until Kate gave him the stink-eye and he course corrected, shamelessly pimping every pleasant moment they’d shared since January, drawing on the second-generation connection, “we’re practically family.” He’d used all his best material and was getting nervous when he pulled his hail mary—the saga of his office chair, which got him a smile that stuttered into a laugh, sending the last of their fight off into the ozone, leaving them to stand together as two survivors. Before her laugh could die away, he took her hand and pinched her fingers around the zipper, jointly unzipping the suitcase. He even slid his hand under the closed lid and pulled out three inches of silky white, the coup de grâce. He stepped back, head to one side, silently asking.
“Maybe a movie would be nice,” she said slowly, reaching for the remote and taking a seat on the couch and tucking up her feet as she scrolled through the pay per views. Taking the hint, he pulled out his phone and keyed in the concierge number on the back of his black American Express. A chipper travel agent restored her original ticket and they watched a cornball romantic comedy that under normal circumstances he would never have endured without a paralyzing drug. But he’d have watched it twice, if she’d asked.
When the movie ended, neither of them made a move to get off the couch. It was too easy to stay in Kate’s room, insulated from the murder, hovering far above the news vans clustered to tear the juiciest bites from the gaudy spectacle. They clicked on a second movie, then a third, any excuse to delay the moment of separation when they would each have to sit alone and think about Jake McLeary. By the end of the third movie, their eyes had begun to feel square, and they scavenged two decks of cards, invented new rules for solitaire, and played card tricks which eventually degenerated into throwing cards into the ice bucket from all points in the room, fashioning them into missiles and airplanes. Ryoki won a miniature shampoo for the greatest distance, and Kate scored a disposable shower cap for the most shots ever missed in a single afternoon. All the while they talked and talked. I was once in front of my whole high school with my underwear hanging out from under my leotard.