by Anne R. Tan
“Olivia! It’s Raina!” She cocked her head and listened. Still no response.
The mature trees shaded the narrow walkway to the rear of the house. It was silent except for the false cheer of the host on the radio show. She took slow steps into the yard and stopped every few steps. It wasn’t trespassing since she’d made her presence known.
Raina rounded the house and froze. She scanned the large landscaped backyard. A lawn chair lay on its back, spilling Olivia’s bulk onto the grass. Her cocked head was hidden behind large sunglasses. One hand pointed toward Raina while the other still clutched the neck of a broken Jack Daniel’s bottle.
The hair on the back of Raina’s neck stiffened. She whipped around and tripped over her own feet. No one. Her skin went clammy. Birds rustled in the tree, a car engine started, and the radio played “Dancing Queen.” She grew dizzy and let out the breath she’d been holding.
Raina inched forward as her gaze continued to sweep the yard. Her heart raced and her muscles tensed for the slightest excuse to run. She took a deep breath and touched the still body with a shaking hand.
The air left her lungs in a rush. “Oh my God!”
The sunburned skin was warm. Olivia was alive. And she was snoring.
The tension left Raina’s body. She wrinkled her nose at the stale body odor and the drying whiskey. She prodded Olivia with her foot. The drunk snorted and turned, flipping the lawn chair on top of herself.
Raina almost laughed, except the whole scene looked like a train wreck. She glanced at the opened patio door and back at the sleeping woman at her feet. This would be her only chance to snoop. With another quick glance behind her, she went inside the house.
The kitchen was a mess. Junk mail competed with takeout cartons for counter space. Glass tumblers with congealing science experiments were scattered around the room. Emptied Jack Daniel’s bottles were stacked inside the sink. Her initial guess that Olivia Spider Lashes was a secret alcoholic was right on the money.
Raina swallowed the bitter tang in her mouth. The smell she’d noticed from her first visit grew stronger in the hallway outside the main bedroom. A quick peek inside confirmed her suspicions. There were more laundry piles than there was carpet. The source of the stench came from several congealing vomit spots on the carpet. No wonder her cleaning woman left.
In one of the smaller bedrooms, Raina opened the drawers of a battered mahogany desk and rifled through the contents: several unopened collection notices and a receipt for a downtown hair salon. A three-hundred-dollar haircut and color? No wonder Olivia’s hair always looked too glossy and full for a sixty-year-old.
Raina flipped through the collection notices. Tucked amid the pile were several bank receipts for five thousand dollars each. She counted out the receipts and blew out a whistle. Twenty thousand dollars. The amount of cash found in Holden’s safe. Was Olivia paying for his services? She didn’t know being a gigolo was this lucrative.
Something thumped on the floor from the kitchen.
Raina dropped everything on the desk and hurried over to the window. Her blood roared inside her ears. She threw a leg over the sill.
“What are you doing here?” Olivia slurred from behind her.
Raina whipped around. “I came to pick up the files for the fundraiser. Didn’t Lori call to let you know I’d be coming?”
Olivia stared at her through bloodshot eyes. She swayed as she walked into the room.
Raina wrinkled her nose and held up a hand. “Stop. When was the last time you showered?”
“What are you doing here?” Olivia blinked. “Why are you climbing in from the window? I have a front door. And where’s Lori?”
Raina snapped her fingers. “I need the fundraiser files. Please don’t tell me they are on your desk at campus.”
“Could you step away from the window?” Olivia lifted a hand to her eyes. “When did the sun come up?”
The tension melted from Raina’s shoulders. “Focus, Olivia. Where are the files for the fundraiser? When I asked you a few minutes ago, you said they’re on your desk.” The lie slipped easily from her mouth.
Olivia backed away and clutched her head. “Not so loud.” She closed her eyes.
Raina sighed and took hold of Olivia's arm. “Let’s go into the kitchen and I'll get you some Tylenol for your headache.”
She helped Olivia into a chair next to the cluttered kitchen table. The grateful expression Olivia gave her almost made Raina feel guilty for taking advantage of the situation. After Olivia took the Tylenol, Raina applied aloe vera gel on the woman’s reddened arms.
Raina couldn’t believe this haggard creature was the meticulously groomed head of the history department. Her once silky chestnut hair was faded and hung in straggly strands, highlighting more roots than youth. Sans makeup and her tailored power suits, Olivia looked frumpy and every inch her sixty years in her dirty tank top and shorts. She looked like the personification of the smell in her house.
“You’re going to peel. And your skin is going to hurt once the Tylenol wears off. How long have you been”—Raina looked around for a napkin, but didn’t find one. She wiped the gel from her fingers on her shorts—“sleeping outside?”
Olivia shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
Raina licked her lips. It was now or never. “I also gave money to Holden.” It was a gamble. Hopefully their shared experience might nudge Olivia into telling her story. “Two thousand dollars.”
A tear slid down Olivia’s wrinkled face and she closed her eyes. “You got off easy.”
Raina held her breath.
Olivia looked up at the ceiling and blinked rapidly to get rid of the tears in her eyes. “It’s not easy to admit you’re an old fool.”
“I’m a young fool. Everyone is looking for someone to love.”
Olivia’s shoulders drooped. “The nightmare began after his credit card got declined earlier this year. We stopped going out for dates because Holden was so embarrassed. He wouldn’t let me pay.” She grimaced. “Said it unmanned him.”
Raina flinched as a flash of bitterness welled up in her. She was hearing her story come out of Olivia’s mouth.
“Then there were the harassing calls and the strange men following us around.”
Raina straightened. Were these the same men she saw with Holden at the bank’s parking lot? “What did they look like?”
“I don’t know. I never got a good look at them. Holden said it was a scare tactic to collect the money he owed them.” Olivia buried her face in her hands. Her voice was muffled, but the pain was raw. “He was so grateful when I gave him money the first time. He called me his beautiful angel.”
Raina patted her arm but cringed inwardly. He’d called her the same thing.
“Everything was fine for a while. We went to dinners, plays, and weekend hiking trips,” Olivia said.
“How long did this last?”
“A few weeks. Then he started getting moody and withdrawn again.”
“He wanted more money.”
Olivia stared at her for a long moment. “Yes, you would know.”
Raina flushed, but kept her chin up. She was a victim just like Olivia. There should be no shame attached to the victim. “Then what happened?”
“He complained his salary as an assistant professor didn’t cover his living expenses and his student loans. He wanted access to the grant fund to pay himself a salary during the off months while he worked on his book.”
“And you turned a blind eye because he produced a book. I heard another twenty percent went missing.”
Olivia stared at her hands. “I don’t know.”
Should Raina tell her about the plagiarism? No, she didn’t want to get sidetracked. “Was he supposed to share the funds with anyone else?”
“Two other professors, but they were busy finishing up their other projects.”
“How come you gave him more of your personal money after this?”
Olivia’s lower lip trembled. “He
'd stopped pretending to be in love with me by then. Two weeks later, he showed up and demanded more money. I told him I’d given him everything. Then he left.” She lowered her gaze. “That was the worst night of my life. That was when I realized my vanity had cost me twenty thousand dollars.”
“Then what happened?”
“He came back again. This time he said if I didn’t give him more money, he’d tell the Chancellor I sexually harassed him.” A vein throbbed on Olivia’s forehead. “That I’d helped him steal money from the grants for sleeping with me.”
Raina’s eyes widened. A moocher, a cheat, and a blackmailer. Maybe it was a blessing he’d broken up with her before she found herself in love with him.
Olivia licked her cracked lips. “I’m glad he’s dead.”
Raina wiped her hands on her shorts. She had to ask the million-dollar question.
She glanced behind her shoulder. The sliding patio door and screen door were shut. If she had to make a run for it, Olivia would be able to knock her over the head before she had time to slide open both doors. Olivia watched her with a half-smile on her face, as if she knew what Raina was thinking. She took a deep breath. “Did you poison Holden?”
“I’d rather shoot him.”
“That would have been messy.”
“Then it’s a good thing someone got to him first.”
Raina thought about the phone number she’d found in Olivia’s office along with the file on Andrew. “Have you ever met his sister Natalie?”
“No.”
Raina asked several more questions, but Olivia only grunted or stared into space. She collected the fundraiser files and left a few minutes later.
It wasn’t until she was at her car that she realized she’d asked the wrong question. Olivia didn’t technically lie if she hadn’t met Natalie. The question should have been why she had Natalie’s number.
21
FOLLOW THE MONEY
Raina pulled into the parking lot at Starbucks. She called her grandma to let her know she was outside and texted Eden to invite her to dinner. After her talk with Sol, she was convinced the man was more weasel than killer. And if he rocked her friend’s boat, then so be it. There wasn’t much she could do until Eden got seasick.
She leaned across the seat and opened the passenger door. Her grandma handed her a lukewarm coffee in a plastic cup. Her iced caramel macchiato held more diluted espresso than ice.
Po Po buckled in her seat belt. “What took you so long? I got myself into an incident with the man in the tan shorts and Bluetooth headset.”
Raina squinted against the glare of the reflective glass on the building. A silver-haired man scowled at her car. “What do you mean?”
“He thought I wanted”—Po Po made air quotes by curling her fingers mid-air—“to ‘hook up.’”
Raina backed out of the parking spot. She wasn’t surprised men still found her grandma attractive. Her exercise routine and her ability to laugh at herself made her a favorite among the senior crowd.
“I asked if he could plug the adaptor for my tablet in the outlet strip on the other side of him,” Po Po said. “How was I supposed to know the outlet strip was his?”
“I don’t get it.”
“Apparently that is the way you pick up women these days. Once I was plugged in, he thought he could chat me up. Kind of like when a man buys a woman a drink at the bar.”
Raina smiled. “What a cheapskate. He should at least offer to buy you a coffee.”
“Oh, but I showed him.”
“What did you do?”
“I knocked my empty cup onto his lap. I wanted him to think I was clumsy so he’d want to keep his laptop from me. How was I supposed to know there was still coffee in it and he’d swat it to the woman across the table from us and that the woman would knock her coffee into the man next to her?” Po Po gave Raina a sheepish grin and her eyes glowed with glee. “Things kind of dominoed after that.”
Raina’s eyes widened. “Geez, I can’t leave you alone for a minute. Then what happened?”
“I walked around the shopping plaza and came back. By that time, only the Bluetooth Man and the staff remembered what happened. I bought a new coffee so the staff didn’t care.”
Raina laughed. “Po Po, I love having you around. You always make my day better.”
“You need to laugh more. Stop carrying the guilt around. Ah Gong gave you the money so you can enjoy your life. You were the only grandchild who took care of him during the last years of this life. Even if you divided it among your cousins, it wouldn’t make the sting of being left off the will any less.”
Enjoy her life? Her granddad’s money was a leash leading Raina around from the other side of the grave. If she told Po Po about the strings attached to the “gift,” it would break her grandma’s spirit. “I wished he had been upfront with everyone.” She blinked back tears and swallowed. What was wrong with her? She was turning into a regular weeping Nelly.
Po Po patted her shoulder. “Everything will work out. I’m always on your side.” She smiled. “By the way, that red-haired friend of yours came into the coffee shop right after you left. The one with the baby from the mall.”
Raina frowned. Lori? “How long did she stay?”
Po Po shrugged. “I wasn’t paying attention. Too busy trying to ignore that man’s lame pick-up lines. I mean ‘Hello, baby?’ I haven’t been a baby in sev—” She coughed. “Sixty-five years.”
Raina merged onto the freeway. “She was supposed to meet me at Olivia’s house. I guess she forgot.”
“Where are we going?” Po Po looked at the signs, bouncing in her seat. “To the Indian casino.”
“I thought we could have lunch out there. You can’t beat the price on their buffet.”
“You’re going to talk to Holden’s sister.”
“How did you know?”
Po Po wiggled her fingers. “Magic.”
“Uh-huh. What does Janice from the Senior Center have to say about Natalie?”
Po Po beamed. “You do listen to me.”
Raina nodded. It was more like selective hearing, but she wasn’t going to admit this to her grandma.
“You remember her granddaughter Christine?” Po Po asked.
“The neighbor from across the street?”
“She said someone broke into Natalie’s apartment in the dead of the night. Turns out to be one of those skinny nerdy types that’ll cower if you stare at him funny. The man said he was Natalie’s fiancé, but the police hauled him off to jail anyway.”
Could this be the bartender from the casino? What was his name? Kenneth? Kendall? But why would he need to break into Natalie’s house?
“What are we going to do about Officer Hopper?” Po Po asked.
“Nothing.” Raina gave her grandma a sidelong glance. “I’m not getting involved in someone else’s drama.” With her luck, Officer Hopper would come looking for her sooner or later.
Po Po smacked one fist against her palm. “No one does that to my baby and gets away with it. We have to teach her a lesson.”
“I don’t want to borrow trouble. I have enough of my own.”
“What is life without trouble? Don’t worry. My posse will take care of this.”
“Just don’t do anything illegal. I don’t want to call Uncle Anthony to explain why you need a defense lawyer.”
Po Po whipped out her cell phone. “Time to get cracking.” Her fingers flew across the touch screen. “I love these smarty pants phones. I’m sending out an SOS on Facebook for a secret meeting later this evening at the center. You’ll have to bake me cookies since we’re fighting for your cause.”
Raina chuckled. Was that a new cell phone? And posse? Geez, what were they teaching the elderly at the senior center? Her smile disappeared when she pulled into the parking spot at the casino.
The massive building loomed in front of her. Holden was a liar, a cheat, and a blackmailer. There was nothing Natalie could say that would surprise her. And yet
, butterflies tap danced in her stomach.
* * *
THE CASINO WAS empty in the middle of a workday. Po Po made a beeline for the slot machines by the restroom when they got through the entrance doors. Raina strolled to the lounge. She stood in the doorway, letting her eyes adjust to the dimmer lighting. Bingo! Natalie sat in a booth in the far right corner, writing in a notebook. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out where an unemployed gambling addict would hang out. At least this time, her wardrobe didn’t scream of Sluts R Us since a white cardigan was draped over her shoulders, providing some coverage to her skintight fuchsia halter top.
Raina slid into the seat. “Hi.” She squinted but couldn’t make out what was on the page.
Natalie looked up and grunted. She returned to the list she was making.
The waitress dragged herself from the bar stool and sauntered over. “Anything to drink?”
Raina smiled, trying to project an air of calm friendliness. “Iced coffee, please.”
Natalie scowled at Raina. “Make yourself at home.”
“Thank you. I think I will.” Raina nodded at the notebook. “What are you working on?”
Natalie shut her notebook with a thump and shoved it into her purse. She lit a cigarette and blew out a smoke ring. “What do you want?”
Raina ignored the stinging in her eyes. “Why did Holden dump me?”
“How would I know?”
“Guess.”
Natalie tapped her cigarette on the ashtray. “People break up all the time. They don’t go around asking strangers why.”
The waitress set the cold glass on the table and Raina thanked her. “You’re right. I do have a problem. Fortunately, my problem is nothing compared to yours.” She sipped the coffee, hoping to clear up the grit in the back of her throat from the smoke permeating the casino. “At least the police don’t suspect me of murdering my brother.”
“Whatever.”