by Rhys Ford
“You’re not getting any of this, dog,” I said, fully aware I was going to take the end piece of the bread loaf, tuck a piece of American cheese into it, fold it in half, then microwave it for the dog.
There hadn’t been a plan for that when I started my dinner, but the dog knew me. She’d played on my sense of guilt from the day she came into the house. Thank God for Jae or I would pretty much have to roll her around like one of those balls people sit on in front of their desks to build up their core strength. I was an easy mark, and Jae was the only thing keeping her from looking like an oversized tribble. I would’ve tossed her a piece of cheese from the kitchen, but I’d learned the hard way about breaking Jae’s rules for the dog. The first thing I learned was that the dog could not keep a secret and was more than willing to take the tidbit I’d given her to snack on and eat it at Jae’s feet. The second thing I learned was that the universe hated me, because the last time I gave her something when Jae wasn’t around, she saved it until he came home, then promptly ate it at Jae’s feet.
She never did that if I gave her something outside of the kitchen. So Honey’s version of a grilled cheese was going to have to wait until I was done with mine.
There was something about eating a stack of slightly burned grilled bread stuffed with plastic-wrap American cheese that brought me comfort. It wasn’t something I could actually eat with my husband around, mostly because Jae questioned the preservatives I was gulping down in big bites and didn’t understand that a properly made grilled cheese sandwich required a good char. The bread had to be fluffy and white, then slathered with butter—or mayonnaise, a variation I’d recently learned—and placed into a medium-hot pan to be cooked to a darkness even Satan would approve of. The cheese had to be cheap and made by the same people who brought us Americans our neon-orange macaroni and cheese in a box.
And by stack, I mean four. With Jae going out for the evening with Ichi, I’d been left on my own, and I was looking forward to getting myself sick on processed foods, drinking a few beers, and then falling asleep on the couch until he came home.
“He’s going to give me shit about not eating vegetables,” I muttered to myself, looking into the drink fridge for something to go with my sandwiches. “Does pumpkin ale count as a vegetable? Screw it, I’d rather have a Harp.”
I’d just finished pulling Honey’s snack out of the microwave when someone knocked on the door. Catching myself before I tossed the dog her sandwich from the kitchen, I called her over to heel so she would follow me into the foyer, where I could give her cheese and bread without her thinking she was getting away with something. Another knock on the door sounded before I could open it, and a quick check through the peephole showed me a very haggard-looking O’Byrne standing on my front stoop.
“You okay?” I stepped aside, and after I opened the door, I was chagrined I hadn’t answered it immediately, considering how tired she looked. It was still early, about eight in the evening, but I knew the hours an LAPD detective worked. It wasn’t a nine-to-five job by any means, and the truly dedicated usually work themselves into the ground every day, only to wake up the next morning to do it all over again. O’Byrne was definitely one of those cops. As she went by me, something Jae-like crawled up out of me from wherever it’d been hiding and came out of my mouth. “Have you eaten? Let me get you some food.”
“Food would be good if you got some, but I’ve got to ask you a few things officially first.” She sniffed at the air. “Something burning?”
“I made grilled cheese.” She nodded, and once again I reassured myself that O’Byrne was good people. Only the true connoisseur of trash food understood a delicate touch of burn was needed on the bread to make it a true grilled cheese sandwich. “Want to come into the kitchen and talk first? I could make you a couple. Dog will probably be happy. Means she’ll get another end piece if I can dig it out.”
“This is actually kind of serious, McGinnis,” Dell replied, pulling out her notebook from her jacket. “When I say officially, I mean I actually have to question you about your whereabouts this afternoon and early this evening. Is Jae around? It might be best if we have privacy while I take care of this.”
“He’s out with Ichi. They’re probably not going to be back until around midnight. It’s just me, Honey here, and Neko, but that’s it.” The hunger I’d stoked up in anticipation of my sandwiches quickly faded away. O’Byrne was deadly serious, wearing a cop face without any hint of friendship in it. “What’s this about? Do I need to sit down for this?”
“We can take this into the living room and get it over with,” O’Byrne suggested. “And I hate to ask you this, but is there anything on you that I need to be worried about? Gun? Knife?”
I stopped midstep on my journey toward the living room and turned back to face her. Something definitely had gone wrong, and I was now suddenly in O’Byrne’s crosshairs. It was hard not to be resentful of it, especially after everything we’d gone through, but I also understood she had a job to do, even if it meant I was in the hateful position of being under suspicion for something I didn’t even know what it was yet.
After taking a deep breath, I answered her calmly, “I’ve got a couple of Glocks in a gun safe over there in the hall closet and another one upstairs with a trigger lock in the dresser. The only knife I’ve touched recently was the butter knife I used on the bread for my sandwiches.”
“Would you have a problem turning over your weapons if I asked for them?” She studied me carefully, her dark eyes unreadable and hard.
“What exactly do you think I’ve done?” There was every possibility O’Byrne was there to take me in for something. I just didn’t know what. “And no. You want my weapons? You can take them. Just give me a receipt so I get them back. Now you going to tell me what’s going on? Or am I going to have to sit in the back of a cop car and be taken down to Central instead of eating the sandwiches I’ve made?”
“The living room is fine. I hate this as much as you do, Mac,” O’Byrne said, probably using my old nickname to soften any hard edges the conversation formed over our relationship. “It’s just that someone got to Ivan Brinkerhoff in the hospital earlier this evening, and I just need to make sure it wasn’t you. Because you’ve got to admit, finding out he died from a bullet hole straight through his forehead is going to lead a lot of people to you first, and if I don’t ask these questions, they’re going to come after you, and there’s nothing I would be able to do to protect you.”
GRILLED CHEESE sandwiches don’t taste as good unless they are hot enough for the cheese to burn the roof of your mouth. Mine were just going to have to wait until O’Byrne was done with me, and if I were a cruel man, I would make her eat two of the cold ones just to get back at her. But I’m not that kind of guy.
Still, I was mourning the death of my crispy dinner as she made herself comfortable on the couch across of me.
“Can you tell me where you were this afternoon?” O’Byrne began, scribbling something down. I imagined it would be the time and place of our interview, because that’s what I would’ve written down. Reconstructing a conversation into a report was only as good as the details laid down, and if there was one thing I knew about O’Byrne, she liked to keep her details straight. “Any approximate times would be helpful. As well as anyone you were with.”
“Well, I started off the afternoon with Bobby—Robert Dawson—interviewing Arthur Brinkerhoff’s neighbor, George Watson. We gained access to the building around two thirty in the afternoon, signing in at the security counter, then going upstairs using the elevator. We were with Watson for about an hour and a half. I got some information about paintings Brinkerhoff did—Arthur, not Ivan or any other Brinkerhoff—and discovered there was a courier who would pick up canvases Arthur finished every so often.” I’d told her this on the phone earlier but it was good to catch up. “I didn’t have a picture of Ivan, but I think it would be good to put one in front of Watson to see if that’s who was moving Arthur’s paintings.”
“What did you do after you finished up with Watson?” O’Byrne nodded, reaching for the bottle of water I’d left her on the apothecary chest we used as a coffee table.
“Well, since we weren’t able to gain access to Arthur’s apartment to look at any of the paintings he had in there, I took Bobby home. Since Dawson lives next to Little Tokyo and we were all the way on the east side of Downtown, it took me about forty-five minutes—maybe fifty—to get him over there.” I thought back to what we’d done along the way. “Actually maybe a little bit more. I stopped for gas off of Olympic because we were avoiding the freeways, so I’ve got a receipt for that. I had to go inside because we wanted something cold to drink, so I grabbed a couple of iced teas. After I dropped him off, I drove home up Wilshire. I didn’t get home until about six.”
“Was anybody here when you got home?”
“Ichi had just gotten here. His bike should be in the carport. Jae gave me a kiss, and they hung around for about an hour before leaving. I took a shower and watched a little bit of a ballgame, then went into the kitchen to make something to eat. That’s when you knocked on the door.” I did some mental calculations, and while my timeline was fairly tight, it left me open in certain spots. “I guess it all depends upon when they found Ivan, because I didn’t have anybody with me on the ride from Dawson’s place to home and didn’t stop anywhere along the way. I also have about an hour between Jae leaving and you arriving where the only alibi I’ve got is Honey, and she’s easily bribed with food.”
She was still writing long after I stopped talking. I began to regret leaving my unopened Harp in the drink fridge, and I really mourned my now totally soggy grilled cheese sandwiches. She finally looked up when I’d gotten to trying to figure out how I could hide the ones I’d made in the freezer for some later date and make new ones. Jae would find them, and he would question my sanity. They would be easy enough to eat later when heated up in a microwave, but tonight I really wanted them hot and charred.
Also my face still kind of hurt from where the blown-out glass cut me, and it was hard to believe it was just a few days ago that I’d stood on Arthur Brinkerhoff’s front porch, about to knock on his front door and offer up my services to find out who murdered his wife.
“So would you say you were in the Downtown Los Angeles area at about four thirty?” O’Byrne’s handwriting was precise, but she didn’t lift her pen up when she wrote, so everything was connected. It looked more like the lettering on the sign of our favorite Indian food place—swirls and dips connected with lines in between. It didn’t matter really, except it made it impossible to read upside down. “Where does Dawson live again?”
I gave her Dawson’s address, pointing out that my brother Ichi lived with him since they were married, so technically it was the Dawson-Tokugawa residence, but that just got me a withering look. I once again reevaluated my determination to offer up hot grilled cheese sandwiches to her instead of the soggy cold ones waiting in the kitchen. It was all going to depend upon how much I liked her at the end of this interview and whether or not we ended the interview with me in handcuffs going down to Central. Because in that case, the cat would probably get the grilled cheese sandwiches, and I would have to make yet another phone call to Jae to come bail me out of jail.
Except California no longer had a bail system, and my release would be dependent upon a judge deciding whether or not I was a flight risk.
With my luck, the judge would not only decide I was a flight risk but find me a cellmate I’d arrested when I’d been a cop.
“Did they take Ivan to the same hospital Arthur is in?” Not knowing the protocols about taking care of detainees who needed severe medical attention, there was a good chance he ended up in Cedars-Sinai, right alongside his uncle. “What time did they find him? Should I get a lawyer? Am I going to get my Miranda rights read to me? Are you Miranda?”
“What the fuck does that mean? You know my name is not Miranda.” So not only did O’Byrne deserve a cold grilled cheese sandwich, she also did not recognize a line from one of my favorite movies. Now I was going to have to reevaluate our friendship, but still, no sign of handcuffs or a Miranda card. “I’m going to ask for your guns just to totally exclude you, but the timeline for you to have gotten to him, gotten off a shot, and knocked out the policeman outside of his door is too tight. Especially with LA traffic. I’m not saying you’re free and clear, Mac, but it looks unlikely. I’ve got to have all of my t’s crossed on this because Marlena Brinkerhoff is kicking up a stink. Ivan was two stories below Arthur, and now she’s convinced someone is going to come and kill her grandfather.”
“She’s not wrong,” I pointed out. “Even assuming our fake Marlena was the shooter at the house and we’re pointing at Ivan as the guy who killed her out on the street, we now have a third person who popped him in a guarded hospital room. And we still don’t know why they came after Arthur and killed Adele. Although I do have a theory.”
“Why don’t you make me that sandwich you promised me while I go lock up your guns in the trunk of my car?” Dell stood up, stretching out her lean body until I heard her back and hips crack. “Then you can tell me all about the crazy theory you’ve got. Because right now, I’ll take anything to get the captain off my ass and to close this case.”
“I can do that,” I murmured, moving Honey off of my right foot. “It might take a bit to make those sandwiches. Takes a while to burn the bread just right, and I still like you, so do you want two or are you hungry enough to choke down three?”
“Two, but I’ll take mine with a beer,” she replied, closing her notebook. “I am officially off duty as of right now, and unless you’ve got a smoking gun or bloodied knife you found in the alleyway by Watson’s, I’m going to spend an hour with you trying to figure this shit out, then I’m going to go home so I can do this shit all over again tomorrow.”
SIX NEARLY black grilled cheese sandwiches later and most of two bottles of beer put O’Byrne and me in a much better space. Honey scored part of a cold sandwich, getting it offered up to her piece by piece by a well-fed O’Byrne. I didn’t mind her taking my guns. Or at least at the moment I didn’t. I would have to reevaluate that conviction if I found I would need one of them over the next couple of weeks, but it wasn’t like I didn’t have an older brother who owned a security firm with a weapons arsenal that included a helicopter with machine guns on it. And if Mike didn’t own a helicopter with machine guns on it, I was going to be sadly disappointed. What’s the use of having a security firm if you couldn’t have a helicopter armed to the teeth?
Neko deigned to drag herself out of wherever she’d been in the house, sitting on the arm of the couch at my elbow, selflessly willing to choke down a bite of gooey cheese and bread so I wouldn’t have to do it myself. There was a bit more white around her face than there had been before, and there were times she could barely stir up enough energy to open her eyes to swat at the dog, but she seemed to do okay hitting Honey in the face just by pure instinct. Of course she was a tiny thing who’d survived a building falling on her, so I suspect the only way death was ever going to come for her was if she was asleep.
And as anyone who has a cat in their life knows, they never sleep.
“Should you be feeding her that?” O’Byrne gestured at the black furball purring up a storm at my side. “I mean, is cheese good for cats?”
“She’s five days older than God, and if she wants grilled cheese, she can have it,” I explained, holding another tidbit up for Neko to chew on. “If she wants a salmon, I will fly up to Alaska, learn how to fly fish, either catch one or fight a bear for one, and bring it home so she can turn her nose up at it.”
“You must love Jae a lot,” she snorted, taking a sip from her bottle.
“I love this cat a lot,” I corrected, scratching at Neko’s ears. “Do you have space in your brain to talk about what I think is going on, or do you want to do this tomorrow morning?”
“Hit me up,” O’Byrne muttered
, stealthily trying to hide a burp. But despite the lack of noise, I recognized the face she made behind her hand. “Tell me what you think is going on and then tell me who’s behind it, because right now, I don’t give a shit about the why as much as I do about who.”
“I haven’t figured out who, but I’ve got a couple of guesses. It all depends upon who they were working with, and by they, I mean Adele and Arthur.” I gave Honey the last bit of crust on my plate and leaned forward. “Let me show you something. This is a picture of the painting Dawson and I saw hanging in Watson’s apartment. It’s a little blurry because I had to take it on the sly, but there’s something weird about the signature. I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me about it until I came home and showed it to Jae. See, that’s the best thing about being married to an artist, you wind up watching some crazy shit streamed from YouTube on your TV instead of actually watching television shows. Some of the stuff is pretty interesting, but it’s not something that sticks in my head. Stupidly enough, this did.”
The iPad Jae used to sketch on was still open to the photo I’d taken at Watson’s. O’Byrne made murmuring sounds of appreciation for the painting, correctly identifying it as a Rubens. The only reason I knew that was because Jae told me. So she was one up on me there. I didn’t get a weird look until after I zoomed in on Arthur’s signature in the corner.
“Watson said he picked this painting out of a bunch of them lying against a wall. He told us Arthur took the canvas, made a black rectangle with some paint, and then signed it.” I pointed out the black rectangle with Arthur’s name scrawled in bright yellow. “Do you see the difference between the black part and the rest of the painting?”