‘Truly?’ Atticus said. ‘A successful trial would have been a major career boost for Sylvie. As a scientist responsible for the vaccine, she wasn’t allowed to be part of the trial. She could only be told of the final result. So job stress is only a milder possibility. What’s left? Relationship. And that sure as hell makes Ivan, the pretty boy, of interest.’
‘I’d still like to have a private audience with your guru, if you could kindly arrange that. In view of this new tragedy, it’s extremely urgent—’
Uma had walked back to the yard. She interrupted Maya and said to Atticus, ‘Especially since your guru is in the hot seat.’
‘He sure is,’ Atticus said. ‘Yesterday, when driving to a relative’s house, a rare time when he was alone, he had the impression a man was on his tail, keeping an eye on his movements.’
‘Police surveillance, perhaps?’ Maya said. ‘Or someone else who has a stake in this matter? So … when can I see him?’
‘That’s absurd, Maya. I can’t ask the guru to bend his schedule.’
‘Please,’ Maya continued, ‘I might be in a position to help the guru.’ Fleetingly, Maya envisioned Detective Justin and his woman companion inside Revenge, wrapped in a cocoon of cozy intimacy. She wavered between phoning Justin to offer him new evidence and never speaking to him again.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Atticus said.
‘Are there protocols I should follow when I visit the guru?’ Maya asked.
‘Oh, yes. Wear white, cover your hair with a white scarf and bring an offering of fresh flowers, if you would.’
‘What flower is his favorite?’ Uma asked.
‘White lilies.’
Maya was on edge as she pictured the delicate lily garland around Sylvie’s neck and the lily-printed scarf on Tara Martin’s head. She held her tongue and looked toward the flower patch to her right, her gaze caught by the pure, distinctive, vase-shaped blooms of white calla lilies.
Atticus got up from his chair, offered Uma his gratitude for the tea, then turned to Maya. ‘More points of protocol for when you meet with the guru. Listen, be respectful and please don’t probe.’
Easily done, except for the probing part, with another young life lost in the flames.
FIFTEEN
The next morning, at 8 a.m., Maya walked into Betty’s, a cozy, informal café with light green textured walls, a tiled floor and high noise level. A whiff of freshly baked cinnamon rolls emanated from the pastry case. In the past few days, she’d stopped by here on several occasions during the hours when she knew Ivan would be at work. Her aim had been to check out his Russian-speaking friend, who also apparently patronized this place.
Maya got a cup of oolong from the counter and looked around for an empty table; there were none. Aware that communal seating was encouraged, she looked for unoccupied chairs. She spotted several at a corner table for four, where a man sat alone, his laptop and a journal open before him. Tanned and handsome, he fit the description Hank had provided. He must be Ivan’s friend. Finally.
‘Mind if I sit here?’ she asked.
He looked up, taking in as much about her as he possibly could, and gave her the grace of a nod. The even-featured mid-thirties man, with a honey-maple complexion, had probing eyes conveying confidence. Those eyes even had a little mischief thrown in for balance.
She put on a charming smile and took the farthest chair. ‘How can you concentrate with so much noise around?’
‘Oh, I’m used to it.’ Voice smooth and confident, he had an aristocratic air about him. ‘I come from a large, extended family. Never had a quiet moment growing up. Noise actually concentrates my mind.’
She moistened her mouth with a tiny sip from her cup and glanced at the journal next to him. ‘Looks rather scientific.’
‘You got it. I work in a scientific field. Hope that doesn’t turn you off.’
She laughed. ‘Not at all. I find it rather fascinating. This is my clumsy way of asking, but are you suggesting that science, at least the public perception of it, could use an injection of human feelings?’
‘Well put.’ His animated eyes fully on her, he smiled: teeth like white petals, cheeks high and radiant. ‘Science is not divorced from human emotions. I, for example, am at my best when surrounded by beauty and light.’
She blushed, smiled awkwardly and admitted to herself that she found him intriguing.
‘I haven’t seen you here before,’ he said. ‘Are you visiting?’
‘No, I’m a Seattleite.’
‘I’m from Moscow. Isn’t it amazing the extraordinary coincidences that bring two people together?’
‘So you think our meeting is not a random event?’
‘Quite the opposite, speaking hypothetically, of course.’ His cellphone trilled. His expression changed to one of concern. ‘Pardon me. This is an important call. I have to take it.’ He sprang to his feet and hastened toward the back entrance.
Frustration surfed through her. She could have used a bit more chit-chat to get a fix on him but best not to linger; she didn’t want to reveal her identity. Quick on her feet, she exited the restaurant and breathed deeply only when she’d driven several blocks. She now had somewhat of a picture of Ivan’s charming co-conspirator; a feeling of unease shook her.
Around 10:30 a.m., she arrived at her next destination, Salon Martin. On this, her first visit, she needed to poke around a bit. The high-end, unisex beauty salon boasted a long, narrow room. Minimalist, with stark white walls and a wood-laminated floor, it had an orange-accented color theme. A row of styling stations, separated by huge planters, stood empty. The faint sound of a solo jazz drummer provided energetic background music.
Maya stepped in, walked past a couch and greeted Cindy King, the owner who stood at the reception desk. A stocky, forty-something woman, gentle-eyed but seemingly dispirited, Cindy led Maya to the shampooing station in the back. As warm water flowed through her hair and a herbal fragrance permeated the air, Maya, now in a reclining position, refreshed the facts in her mind. Cindy, an employee, had bought this salon from Tara Martin, the original owner who suffered from mental illness. An image of Tara, who had set herself alight and died yesterday, as reported by the media, flickered in Maya’s mind.
Fifteen minutes later, Maya sat in an orange leather chair in the main room, her body covered by a black nylon cape, hair damp, soft and shiny in the large mirror affixed to the wall. At Cindy’s question, she indicated her preference for an understated, chin-length bob, no color change and no bangs. Cindy sectioned her hair. Wrapping each section in a big roller, she pulled out a pair of scissors and held them at a forty-five-degree angle over Maya’s head.
‘We begin our “snip tour”!’ Maya said.
Amid the snipping sound of the scissors, Cindy made a cut across a section. ‘One of my clients used to say that. Anna Kamala. Did you know her?’
Maya gave a nod.
‘What a sweetheart she was. I simply don’t get it. How in the world?’ Cindy sounded as though she spoke through a tightened throat. ‘I bought this shop, thinking … I don’t know what I was thinking. Now I am simply going insane. Some mornings I can’t even get up.’
Yes, three suicides, connected to this salon. Maya sighed. ‘Did you style Sylvie’s hair, too?’
‘Who are you?’ Cindy stepped back and examined Maya’s face. ‘Why are you asking all these questions? And I really must be nuts, or else why am I answering you?’
‘I’m a private investigator. My job requires talking and feeling my way into situations. I’m digging into the deaths.’
‘Oh my God, a P.I.? Do you carry a gun? I don’t allow guns here. And shouldn’t I exercise my Miranda rights and not speak with you without lawyering up first? You have to leave. Right now. No charge.’
‘Hey, I can’t go out like this with wet hair. And no, I don’t carry a gun. Look, you have nothing to hide and, believe me, I’m on your side. My investigation can only throw light on why Tara chose that particular path
. Don’t you want to understand her motivation? Aren’t you curious about why Tara’s customers are cancelling their appointments? Wouldn’t you like to see your new business take off? Calm down and finish the cut.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Cindy resumed cutting, her eyes round in sadness. ‘I’m under a lot of stress. I’m taking medication for depression. Sometimes I think I’m going to faint. You’re right – I’d like to be able to make a go of this new business. I want Tara’s clients to come back.’
‘Was Sylvie a client of this shop?’
‘Yes, Tara did her hair. I met her at our Christmas party.’ Cindy picked up a spray bottle of water to further wet Maya’s tresses. ‘A lovely young woman – Sylvie had ace hair. Every year Tara threw a Christmas party here for our clients. A hustler, she was. They all came. We’d drink punch, eat truffles and yak all evening.’
‘Did Sylvie and Anna become acquainted here?’
‘Yes, hon, quite often they’d make pedicure appointments together. Gave them a chance to catch up. They were different, though. Sylvie dressed like a million bucks and was more confident. Anna was shyer, less upfront, less talkative. But you couldn’t miss the sisterly chumminess they had between them.’
That confirmed Maya’s suspicion: Sylvie and Anna had formed a bond at this beauty parlor, a place where both came to unwind, perhaps at first ignorant of each other’s involvement in the malaria trial. She kept listening.
‘Tara jokingly called this salon her Not-So-Lonely Hearts Club.’ Cindy, smiling, gripped her shears tightly. ‘I called it Styling Plus.’
Yet another point of interest, this being a unisex salon. ‘Did Ivan Dunn ever get his hair cut here?’
‘Oh, quite regularly. He was Tara’s buddy and confidant.’ Cindy stopped working and looked Maya full in the face. ‘You’ve met Ivan?’
Glancing at Cindy’s face, Maya saw a flicker of her interest in the man. Ivan was, after all, a ‘looker.’ ‘No, I knew him only as Sylvie’s partner. Does he, by any chance, still patronize this place?’
‘He did have a cut recently. Acted a bit cagey. Would hardly say a word. It’s not like I had designs on him. I got a splitting headache when he left.’
‘Are any of Ivan’s friends also customers of yours?’
‘No, but they might have been Tara’s.’
As Cindy did the blowout and final styling, she spoke more about her health concerns. Frequent headaches, lack of appetite, insomnia and a feeling of desperation.
Maya suggested the name of her physician, Dr Moore, and urged Cindy to make an appointment with him.
At Cindy’s request, Maya checked her final do in the mirror. Her face had more definition now and her hair was bouncier. And she’d received some valuable feedback. She paid with her credit card, wished Cindy well and promised to return.
Yet for the rest of the day, as she went about her business, she couldn’t forget Cindy’s distressed face.
SIXTEEN
How did the media react to the latest attempted self-immolation? The next morning, in her office, Maya opened a related article on her iPad.
Hank swung into the office, greeted her and put his coffee cup down on her desk. ‘What are you up to?’
‘Reading blogs, posts and editorials on the topic of political suicides.’ She elaborated: an op-ed piece had disclosed that, to date, there had been more than one hundred political suicides in Tibet. The world media played it up for a while and Tibet-sympathizers mourned, but then it was back to business as usual.
‘Are you saying these suicides are symptoms?’
‘Yes, they’re symptoms, not causes, of extreme public dissatisfaction. The same goes for self-harm, which is a topic of interest here, too.’ Maya pointed to a piece and they browsed it together. Gavin Kerr, a suicidologist, stated that over 30,000 Americans commit suicide each year. More than three times as many people try but do not succeed. Reasons for such attempts? Pet theories abound: desperation, isolation, lack of joy, life gone out of whack, possibly even societal breakdown.
Maya stopped reading and thought out loud. ‘Generalities aside, I still wonder why Sylvie and Anna pursued that path. And what made Tara Martin follow their example. Not for the first time, I wonder about a third party being involved.’
‘I’m a bit stymied myself.’ Hank proceeded to lay out the details of his legwork. The Facebook accounts of both women had been removed, leaving hardly any clues as to their social lives. The rapidity with which this had occurred had left him profoundly suspicious. Also, he’d called various members of the meditation center but received no new dope. And when he tried to make an appointment for Maya at the research lab where Sylvie worked, they wouldn’t consent, for security reasons.
Hank moved his cup closer to him; his eyes became wistful. ‘When Sophie and I met for tea yesterday, I talked to her about this. She’s a psych major. She said, “Now you’re acting less like a me-me-me-and-my-short-stories kid, less thirsty, and more like a grown-up. You’re binge-watching less, too.” She seriously thinks this job has been the best thing for me. Do you think I’m adulting?’
A sensitive, intelligent face, tender eyes and an eager expression of a millennial. How Maya wished Hank and Sophie would get back together. She examined Hank’s face with mock seriousness. ‘Yeah, I think you are.’
Hank rose and went to his desk at the back office. Maya reviewed her notes on the case and called her boss in Kolkata, who worked late in the evening.
‘Yes, Maya, tell me,’ Simi Sen said.
‘They might seem unrelated but this is what we have in our hands.’ Maya ran through the salient points: two fiery deaths and now a copycat third; Atticus’ friendship with Sylvie, which, according to him, led to his brush with gangsters; an unobtrusive single woman named Anna, her voluntary role in the malaria trial and her suspicious romantic relationship with an unknown party; how Sylvie’s research had led to a secretive malaria trial conducted by Cal and participated by Anna.
‘Are you saying Sylvie and/or her malaria vaccine is a potential link to all these?’
‘Precisely.’
‘It’s like peeling an onion,’ Sen said. ‘You cry sometimes.’ She wished Maya a restful weekend.
On this bright Sunday morning, Maya finished her bowl of oatmeal and got up from her breakfast nook. With Uma attending a traditional Indian wedding ceremony in Redmond, she was free to spend the day as she pleased. As she stood in front of her dressing table and combed her hair, she thought of Justin. On Sunday mornings he usually lounged on his lawn, sunning himself, and leisurely browsed the newspaper. She had an absurd urge to see him, to hear more about the coroner’s report. Surely he’d be more relaxed and they might actually have a productive conversation.
She got into her car and started driving. She was still half a block from Justin’s house when she noticed a blonde getting into a Chevy Impala parked ahead. Even from a distance, Maya recognized Justin’s new companion. Only days ago, she’d spied her accompanying Justin to Revenge. Hands intertwined, they’d acted like an intimate couple. Now Maya watched her from the back. The blonde took a minute to settle herself, then pulled away from the curb, leaving a parking space for Maya. But no, Maya would not take that space. She’d had a change of heart. On impulse, she decided to follow the woman, allowing a car between them. Her pulse raced with the excitement of the chase. The blonde did a few rights and lefts, then headed north and eventually arrived at the fenced parking lot of a school building. On this Sunday, the open-air spot had been converted to a flea market bustling with bargain hunters.
The blonde pulled into the last available space on the street. Maya drove around for a few minutes until she found parking on a side street, then walked to the flea market, only to have lost sight of her target. Well, she told herself, she’d keep looking.
She meandered through the narrow aisles and idled before a messy antiques stall to lose herself for a few minutes and check out the merchandize. Her hobby of collecting antique teacups had helped her
heal after the heartbreak caused by her split with Justin. For weeks afterwards she’d scour estate sales, thrift shops and antiques stores, spending hours scrutinizing a cup from different angles under different lighting conditions. She would check the size of a teapot, which must have the capacity to hold enough tea for her guests – four to six, usually.
Now she checked a chipped cream-and-sugar set in a purple violet bouquet pattern; a somewhat discolored gold-plated tea service with missing pieces and an overly modern Japanese red cast-iron teapot. None of these suited her.
Her eyes searched for Justin’s new girlfriend as she resumed her walk. She passed a series of food hawkers who offered popcorn, pretzels, frozen yogurt and oversized chocolate chip cookies. Beyond these vendors stood a gazebo where a band played a lively folk tune. She people-watched for a moment, smelling both salt and sugar, her attention caught by an ice-cream-happy mob that were hustling about a stall.
Finally she spotted the blonde, lingering to the right of the stall, and walked toward her. Up close the long-limbed, young Eurasian woman had slanted eyes and golden skin. Her ancestry covered a lot of geography, of that much Maya was sure. Dressed in ill-fitted sweats, her long hair uncombed, she stared at nothing in particular. Belatedly, Maya noticed the baby in her arms.
The boy, about five months old, wearing a blue body suit and red booties, waved his arm at Maya. She took the opportunity to sidle up to the mother, smiled and said above the overlapping chatter of shoppers, ‘What a cute baby!’
The blonde tilted her head and smiled. Her face softening, she nuzzled him. ‘My first time – so nice, this market.’ Obviously foreign-born and not quite at ease, she seemed to struggle to get the words and sentiment out in English.
Maya looked around. Her gaze floated to the smiling boy with kicking legs and her insides went still. He, with the sweetest of faces, was a replica of Justin – the same impenetrable blue eyes and cheekbones, and a nose that didn’t vie for attention. Even the smile matched that of Justin when he was pleasantly astonished. ‘What’s his name?’
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