by Steven James
The three women stared at me.
“Chauvinist,” Tessa said, not completely seriously.
“No. I’m not. You know that. I’m just saying-”
“It’s okay, Pat,” Cheyenne said. “I’m glad you’re aware there’s a difference between men and women.”
Actually, I’m aware of several of them…
“Yes, exactly,” I said. “That’s my point.”
“And you’re right. We are different-physiologically, chemically, hormonally, psychologically, emotionally. The way we think, prioritize, remember, construct knowledge, and process information-all different.”
Good. A way to salvage things.
“There you go,” I said. “Men and women think differently. Men are more logical, women are more-”
Lien-hua raised an eyebrow. “Careful, now.”
Tessa signaled her agreement. “I second that.”
“I’m just saying-” By the looks on their faces I decided I’d better try a different tack. “However, you do know that some feminists might argue that masculine and feminine roles are simply social constructs and not physiological traits.”
“Then they’re ignoring the research.” Cheyenne shook her head. “But that’s no surprise. In one of the tragic ironies of the twentieth century, feminists never fought for women to become more feminine.”
“What do you mean?”
“Instead of celebrating what it means to be a woman, to be feminine, to be an empowered female, they fought for women to act and be treated more like men. That’s why I call them masculinists.”
“You call feminists masculinists?” I said.
“That’s right.”
She must have noticed the surprise on all of our faces because she went on to elaborate, “Yes. Masculinists. Because in their fight for more rights, they ended up devaluing what it means to be a woman and emulating the very things they criticized most in men-imperialism, identity confusion, militaristic propagandism, dehumanizing competition, careerism.”
Lien-hua, Tessa, and I glanced at each other. I had the sense that all of us were unsure what to say.
Cheyenne set down her chopsticks. “Women should be extended the same dignity, opportunity, and respect as men but shouldn’t be treated in an identical way: equality without uniformity. I want to be treated like a woman, not a pale imitation of a man.”
“You go, girl,” Tessa said.
Cheyenne took her up on the offer. “Women should never be ashamed to be feminine. Strength comes from conviction, not from acting like a man. Being feminine doesn’t mean you’re weak, it just means you’re proud to be a woman.”
All three of them looked at me as if they were daring me to refute her. I had the sense that if they were guys they would have pounded fists with each other, but I decided this might not be the time to point that out.
“Feminine is good,” I said at last.
Cheyenne stood. “I’ll be right back. I need to use the ladies’ room.” She’d smiled as she said the words and offered a warm emphasis to the word ladies. She left for the hall.
Lien-hua and Tessa watched her sweep away. When she was out of sight, Lien-hua said, “She’s not subtle is she?”
Nope, I thought.
“Nope,” Tessa said.
“I’m glad she’s on our team,” Lien-hua said evenly. Then she went back to her meal.
But I noticed that she avoided eye contact with me as she did.
70
After dinner and dessert, we gathered in the living room, and when Lien-hua noted the chess set, Cheyenne complimented Tessa’s skill. “She’s quite a player.”
“Not compared to you,” Tessa said. “Just to Patrick.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Lien-hua picked up the black queen. “I learned to play years ago, but I’ve never been very good.”
“I’m sure Detective Warren could teach you some moves to improve your game,” Tessa said.
“I’m sure she could.” She set down the queen.
A touch of silence.
“So,” Cheyenne said, “your name, Lien-hua, it’s lovely.”
“Thank you. It means lotus.”
“The flower.”
“Yes.”
Though there was no outward antagonism in their words, I had the sense that the two women were verbally fencing.
Cheyenne looked reflectively at the far wall. Then, concentrating on remembering the words, she said, “Flowers are the hieroglyphics of angels. Loved by all men for the beauty of their character, though few can decipher even fragments of their meaning.”
“That’s beautiful,” Lien-hua said, clearly impressed. “What’s it from?”
“I’m not sure, exactly; it’s a quote I read once by Lydia M. Child. I’m not a huge reader, but I sometimes stumble across something that’s worth holding on to, and I make sure I don’t let it slip away.” As she said the words, she was looking at me, leaving me to interpret them on more than one level. Then she glanced at Lien-hua. “I like the line about deciphering fragments of their meaning.”
“I’d love a copy of it.”
“Absolutely.”
But at the moment Cheyenne didn’t take the initiative to write it down.
More fencing. This time with silence.
“So, speaking of lotuses,” Tessa said, “the Lotus Sutra is a teaching, a discourse of Buddha.” She paused as we all gave her our attention, then added, “Which brings up the .”
“N gas?” Cheyenne said.
“According to legend,” Tessa explained, “the Lotus Sutra was given by Buddha himself and kept hidden for five hundred years in the land of the N gas until humans were finally ready to understand it.”
“What are N gas?” asked Cheyenne.
With a glance, Tessa deferred to Lien-hua, who answered, “A N ga is a serpent. The word is typically translated dragon, but a better translation would probably be cobra. Usually, N gas are kind to humans, unless they’re provoked. Then, they can be truly malicious. They guard treasure and represent immortality.”
“Yup,” Tessa said. “You wouldn’t want to cross a N ga while it’s guarding its treasure.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Cheyenne said.
With all of the subtext shooting through the room, I wondered how that meal last night between the two women had really gone.
After a moment, Cheyenne, the faithful Catholic, asked Lien-hua, “So, are you Buddhist?”
“No. My mother was.” Lien-hua paused. “I don’t mean this to be flippant, but I guess I’d say I’m between religions.”
Cheyenne waited for her to go on, but when Lien-hua didn’t elaborate, she said, “Well, it’s a journey.”
When Christie and I were dating, she used to tell me that when we pigeonhole people by their faiths, everyone loses out. “Multiculturalism doesn’t build bridges,” she said. “It puts people into boxes.” Maybe it wasn’t always true, but I could see it beginning to happen right now.
I wondered if Lien-hua was thinking something along those lines, because she went on to say, “Last February when Pat and I were working a case in San Diego, I was attacked and left in an empty pool-one that was nearly thirteen feet deep. While I was unconscious, a man who’d already killed at least eight other women-including my sister-chained my ankle to the bottom, and when I awoke he began filling the pool with water.”
“That’s horrible,” Cheyenne said softly, her voice full of empathy. “What happened?”
“Well, I was terrified, of course, and when the water was going over my head, I…” Lien-hua hesitated, and I think we could all tell how difficult it was for her to share this story. “Being raised in a Buddhist home, I wasn’t even sure if God existed, but I prayed, and someone arrived just in time to save me.” Her eyes found mine just as Cheyenne’s had a minute ago. “I’m still trying to sort out what all that means.”
“It means,” Cheyenne said, “that God still has big plans for you.”
“I hope y
ou’re right.”
Then, the conversation veered away from God and fear and treasure-guarding serpents and returned to the tamer territory of favorite books and movies and pastimes, and I was thankful. But not long afterward, Cheyenne mentioned that she really needed to get going. “I’ll be sitting in on classes all day tomorrow,” she told me. “But I can help with the case in the evening. I’ll call you as soon as I’m done. At 5:00.”
“Okay,” I said.
After we’d all thanked her for coming and said our good-byes, she headed for the door.
I debated whether or not to offer to walk her to her car, but in the end I decided against it. Cheyenne stepped outside, and I joined Lien-hua and Tessa, who were in the kitchen putting away the dishes and leftovers.
A few moments later I heard Cheyenne’s car backing down the driveway.
And then she was gone.
71
Brad entered the gas station to get a Mountain Dew.
The clerk glanced up, and for a moment his eyes lingered on Brad’s face, at the deep scars. The man, whose name tag had only his first name, Juarez, looked a little uneasy then went back to chewing a glob of gum and texting someone on his phone.
Brad found the soda, brought it to the counter. Set it down. Waited.
Juarez didn’t bother to acknowledge him, until, in no particular hurry, he finished sending his text message. Then, without making eye contact with Brad, he muttered with a thick Spanish accent, “That all?”
“Did you ever think about the two things technology tries to deliver us from?” Brad asked.
Juarez finally looked at him. Worked the gum back and forth in his mouth. “Que?”
Brad gestured toward the clerk’s phone. “Technology. Whatever field you choose-industry, science, medicine, entertainment-technological advances are there either to create more diversions to occupy our time or to relieve our discomfort: so either to construct a fuller life or an easier one. Would you agree with that?”
He shook his head and mumbled something in Spanish. Brad didn’t know the language well but recognized some of the words. He placed his hands flat on the counter beside the soda can. “Paradoxically, do you know the two aspects of human experience that offer us the most wisdom?”
Juarez looked past him then, scanning the store as if he were expecting someone to step out and explain the joke to him. This time as he spoke to Brad, his tone turned caustic. “Did you want anything else with your Mountain Dew, senor -” Once again he slipped into speaking to Brad rather rudely in Spanish. Brad waited, studying his eyes, until he was done.
Eventually, Brad saw the smirk fade and a wisp of uneasiness settle in. “Solitude and adversity,” he said softly. “Those are the two things that lead us to wisdom. Enough silence to facilitate reflection on the meaning of life, enough pain to cause us to consider its brevity. Quietude and suffering.”
Brad still had both hands flat against the countertop, and Juarez was letting his eyes drift from Brad’s hands to his face, to his hands. He shifted his weight.
“And yet, every technological advance is another desperate attempt to remove either silence or pain from our lives. Our society is constantly trying to cure itself of the very two things we need the most. Does that sound civilized to you?”
The clerk did not reply. But he had stopped chewing his gum.
Brad slid the soda toward him. “This will be all.”
Juarez promptly rang up the purchase. Brad paid for it, then walked to the door, paused, flipped the “open” sign around so that the word “closed” faced the highway, then turned to the clerk. “Maybe I’ll have one more thing. Before I go.”
72
Tessa told me and Lien-hua that she was going to call it a day, even though I think we all knew she wouldn’t be heading to bed quite yet, then she left us alone in the living room. After a few minutes, Lien-hua mentioned she could use some fresh air, and I suggested we go to the back deck.
As we entered the cool night I noticed there was just enough light from the moon for me to see across the yard to the stone wall where the doe had appeared yesterday morning.
Grace and beauty. Pursued by fear.
A small glance of kitchen light slipped out the window.
For a little while Lien-hua and I spoke about the case, focusing on the possible links between the locations of the crimes. “I think we need to speak with the former vice president,” she concluded.
“Yes,” I said. “But I might not be the right one to do that. Apparently, he’s on Lansing’s side in this custody dispute.”
“I’ll talk to Margaret. We’ll take care of it.”
A moment slid by, but it didn’t hold any awkwardness. The silence between us felt safe and familiar, almost inviting.
At last she said, “I never really had the chance to talk with you about Calvin’s death. Are you doing all right?”
“He was a good friend. He lived a full life, but even if he hadn’t been attacked like he was, he didn’t have much time left. He had congestive heart failure.”
She saw right through my answer. “That sounds like something a counselor told you to say. How are you doing, really?”
I hesitated. “I’m doing all right. I miss him, but it is what it is.”
“Grief has different hues, Pat.” No psychoanalysis in her voice, just friendship. Understanding.
“And they change over time.”
“Yes, they do.”
Then we were quiet again.
The night was full of stillness and crickets and dewy moonlight. “What are you thinking?” she asked at last.
“I was thinking about him again. Calvin. About the last time we were together before his coma.”
She waited for me to go on.
“We talked about justice, and I remember him asking me, ‘How far is one willing to go to see justice is carried out?’ I’ll never forget that question.”
She processed that. “There’s no easy answer to that.”
“No, there isn’t.”
I recalled the promise I’d made to Grant Sikora that I would not let Richard Basque hurt any more women, a promise I probably shouldn’t have made, but nevertheless felt compelled to carry out. And I remembered Ralph’s take on preemptive justice: “Identify a threat and eliminate it before it eliminates you.”
“Or someone else,” I’d added.
I walked to the edge of the deck, away from the light that fell from the kitchen window. “What do you think about preemptive justice?”
“I don’t believe we should judge people on what they might do,” she said, “only on what they have done.”
“And yet plotting a terrorist attack is a crime, right?”
A slight pause. “Yes, it is.”
I turned toward her. “And so is conspiracy-to commit murder, fraud, corrupt public morals, and so on. In those cases, we hold people accountable for their intentions, not their actions. In almost every country in the world, you don’t have to take any-”
“Yes, I know: concrete or specific steps to put the crime into effect and you can still be convicted of conspiracy.” Her words were terse, but I sensed that she was more upset about the laws than at me for pointing them out. She went on, “But just because something is illegal doesn’t make it morally wrong; just because something is legal doesn’t make it morally right. In the 1940s it was legal to kill Jews in Germany.”
Cheyenne’s words from our dinner conversation must have still been on my mind because I found myself thinking of the Middle Eastern countries where I’d consulted on cases and the Islamic laws that make it illegal to treat women with the dignity and respect they deserve. “That’s true,” I said. “Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”
“And in the cases you mentioned,” she replied, “crimes of conspiracy or plotting terrorism-people are convicted for their thoughts and intentions, not for their actions. But at different times all of us have desires and intentions that are immoral.”
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br /> I thought I could see where this was going. “So if you take preemptive justice to its logical end, all of us would end up in prison.”
“That’s overstating things, Pat, but my point is, we can change our minds. That’s part of what makes us human. Call it preemptive justice if you want to, but I don’t think there’s any justice in predicting what someone might do and then punishing him for it. It’s not our job to police people’s thoughts or imprison them for things they haven’t done.”
I was quiet.
She looked at me with concern. “What is this about?”
“It’s something that’s been on my mind lately.”
“Something you want to talk about?”
“Something I need to think about.”
Even though I wasn’t sure it would help get my mind off Basque and my promise to Sikora, I transitioned the conversation back to the case and reviewed the results of my geoprofile, but all the while I sensed that Lien-hua was listening to something that lay beneath my words; that she was reading my inner thoughts and… well… my truer, deeper motives.
Brad climbed into his car and started the engine.
He’d made sure the gas station’s video surveillance footage was destroyed and that the young man who’d been working behind the counter would not be sharing news of their conversation with anyone.
He guided the car onto the road and had driven about a quarter of a mile when he heard the explosion behind him and, in the rearview, saw the plume of fire mushrooming toward the sky.
Based on the rural location, the lack of traffic, the time of night, and the probable emergency services response time, he figured it would be at least fifteen minutes before any fire suppression units or ambulances arrived.