by E. E. Giorgi
Traffic was steady on the One-Oh-One northbound. Most vehicles at this time of the day were coming into town, not getting out of it.
“You know what this reminds me, Track?”
“What does it remind you?”
“Of mangoes.”
“Mangoes?”
“Yes, sir. Sweet, ripe mangoes.”
“Mangoes,” I repeated.
“See, my old man wasn’t very fond of those. They smell like a woman’s breast, and one don’t eat a woman’s breast, he’d say. Ma was from the western coast of India. Every July through late August, she’d get the mango frenzy. She’d buy boxes of them, fill up the car, bring them home, and line them up on the back porch. She’d use the green ones to make chutney. With the ripe ones she’d make mango lassi and mambazha kaalan. The rest she sliced and let dry in the sun. We called it the mango season.
“One of those frenzied mango days, it was just Pa and me at home. Don’t forget to bring the hapoos inside if the weather gets nasty, Ma said on her way out. She used to call them hapoos. It’s July, baby, my old man replied. It’s July.
“So I sit on the doorstep to the backdoor and watch. I let my toy car climb up and down the stairs. The wind picks up. A few leaves from the old elm tree in the backyard blow in my face. Vroom, vroom, I go. Gray clouds appear in the sky and rush forward. My engine keeps roaring. Vroom, vroom. The clouds billow, whirl, and accumulate. They turn black. The trees by the fence whine. My engine stops. The sky is a shroud of black. It’s gonna rain, Pa, I say. It’s July, pumpkin, he replies. He rocks on his chair and reads the paper. A drop as big as a bumblebee falls on my nose.
Another one on my knee.
And then another, and another.
Some drops aren’t really drops, they’re rocks, and they start speckling the backyard. They bounce on the grass, hit the fence, smash the ripe hapoos.
“It’s hailing, Pa, I yell. It’s July, pumpkin, he replies. I look up at the sky and think, They’re missiles. I drop the car and pretend our yard is under bombardment. Wheeeeew boom.” Satish sucked in his lower lip and whistled, his closed fist mimicking the trajectory of the missiles hailing down the sky.
I chuckled. “And then your father got another bombardment when your mother returned?” I took the Vineland exit and proceeded north. The first fraternity and sorority houses appeared on the right, empty beer cans sprawled all over the overgrown lawns.
“Ma was mad. The hapoos were lookin’ no good! You wanna know what she did with the smashed hapoos? She worked day and night for three days and made moramba. Jars and jars of moramba, all lined up against the walls in the kitchen.” His hand swept an arch in the air, brushing the imaginary stacks of jars. “They lasted the whole year. She invented new dishes to use all the moramba she’d made: she’d put it on sticky rice for breakfast; she’d use it to marinate the chicken for lunch; she’d simmer the spinach in it for dinner. And my old man ate it all. Not once did he complain. It was July, he’d say through each meal. And ate it all.”
I parked on Camarillo, got out of the car and locked it. Satish stepped on the sidewalk, shoved a hand in his pocket, and ambled toward the campus entrance.
“Wait,” I protested. “What’s the moral of the story?”
He frowned. “The moral?”
“Yeah. You said what happened in court today reminded you of mangoes.”
“The moral,” he said, shaking his head sideways. “Always looking for a moral. People make choices in life. Sometimes they make the right ones, some other times they screw up and make the wrong ones. That day my old man decided it was July and the weather was gonna be fine. He made a choice. But then, he held his chin up and paid the consequences: he ate moramba for twelve months. I mean the man grew up on fried pork, roasted corncobs and sweet potatoes. And he hated mangoes. Take this celeb, Jerry White. A spoiled son of a bitch. Blows up, takes his gun, kills a man. And then calls his lawyer to come and fish him out of the shit. You better keep your balance, if you choose to shit in the field. That’s what my old man used to say. And if you fall, get up and wipe your ass.”
A clique of garrulous young ladies passed us, as cheerful and colorful as a flock of lovebirds. In high heels and low waists, they padded along the red brick sidewalk, love handles wobbling, and a generous cleavage spilling out of their skimpy tops. The air around them was saturated with gossip, giggles, and pheromones.
“Man,” I said. “Fifteen years ago I would’ve found the spectacle attractive.”
“Ah, you’re aging, Track. To them, it still is attractive.” Satish pointed to the pimpled lad who, distracted by the Three Graces ahead of us, almost ran over a fire hydrant with his bicycle. We had a meeting with Professor Anthony Troy, former student and colleague of Michael Conrad, at the university café near the School of Engineering.
The place was buzzing with life: skinny students in baggy T-shirts rattled by on bicycles; freshmen flip-flopped from one building to the other while complaining about midterms; a colorful Indian family proudly escorted their nervous son to his doctoral defense. All around me, I recognized the smells of my college years: hot dogs, barbeque sauce, Irish beer, joints, overuse of cheap deodorant, sweaty bed sheets, and condoms. Girls, lots of them, most forgotten, save a first name, a pair of breasts and a set of lips still lingering in my memory—whether or not they had belonged to the same gal though, I couldn’t recall.
Professor Troy sat at a table outside the café, absorbed in his reading. The spot was beautiful, shaded by magnolia trees and surrounded by historic buildings that exuded stories of intellect, academic achievement, and plain geeky-ness.
“I hear you already have a suspect,” Troy said, as we shook hands.
“The case is far from closed, Professor,” Satish replied, bitterly. Even with the kind of evidence we had, without a motive, our grounds were shaky.
We dragged a couple of chairs over and sat at his table.
Troy bobbed his head, his green eyes clouded with grief. “Michael Conrad will be greatly missed.” He ran a hand through his wispy comb-over, then rested it on his protruding stomach. “The scientific community lost a great mind. I can’t tell you how deeply this event touches me.” His voice broke. He dropped his chin and stared intently at the gourd sitting in front of him.
“You drink maté,” Satish noted.
Troy smiled. “An old addiction of mine.”
“How well did you know Conrad, Professor Troy?”
“I met him in 1975, when I came here as a graduate student and he was a young professor. Always been brilliant: he became professor at age twenty-nine. He was my advisor through 1981. I left Tate after I graduated, but I’d still see him maybe two or three times a year at conferences and meetings.”
“Did you keep working together?”
“No, not really. We resumed when I came back to Tate, in 1991. We published something like thirty papers together since then.”
“On genetics?” I asked.
Troy shook his head. “No, actually genetics wasn’t Michael’s field—nor mine, as a matter of fact—even though he was often mistaken for a geneticist because of his opinions. Some people revered him as an expert in the field, people who found his positions convenient for their own purposes.”
“What’s your field, then?”
He gave out a shrill, nasal laugh like the whinny of a horse. “I’m a jack-of-all-trades, Detective. I know a little bit of everything, which often translates into knowing nothing at all. That’s the true spirit of science, though, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know, Professor,” I said.
“Who would find Conrad’s opinions convenient rather than controversial?” Satish asked.
Troy wrapped his fingers around the gourd. “After he received the Nobel Prize in 1989 and publicly announced he had donated to Graham’s sperm bank, Michael became the target of many biotech corporations. They all wanted him: it was good publicity to have him on their side. Here’s a famous, intelligent man, who no
t only backs up selective breeding—he actually advocates a scientific way of perfecting our genes. Michael started doing his own research in the field around that time. He had the money and people willing to provide him with the means.”
I perched my chin in the L between my thumb and index finger and smiled placidly. The man could’ve talked for hours and I would’ve listened for hours. He had a nice intonation to his voice and a well-rehearsed rhythm, which accommodated calibrated pauses and sensible punctuation. I pictured him in front of a blackboard filled with diagrams and formulae, while intently captivating the curious minds of the first two rows of devoted students. Farther back, hidden by unruly hair and torn jeans, the other rows busied themselves text-messaging, finishing the homework for the next class, downloading podcasts, and catching up on hours of missed sleep.
Satish leaned forward on his elbows and laced his hands together. “Who was willing to provide Conrad the means?”
“Michael could afford being picky. Small, big, rich and poor—they all wanted him. In the end, he chose a fairly unknown company later to become famous: Exgene Solutions.”
I frowned. “I’ve never heard of it.”
Troy smiled. “No, Detective. As I said, it was small at the time. Two years later it merged with Novine, and the new corporation was re-named Chromo.”
Ha. Chromo and Conrad. Conrad and Chromo. The name Chromo ends on a sticky note together with Gaya White’s name. The person who wrote the note vanishes. White kills Conrad the morning after a Chromo executive is assassinated with his wife. The perfect riddle: you know there has to be a connection and yet you’re missing the clues to find it.
“What did the company offer Conrad?”
“Access to a genetics lab, for one thing. Paid consultations. He gave public lectures on Chromo’s behalf, advertising the corporation’s services. At some point, he got so busy he took a sabbatical from Tate University. He said he didn’t have time to teach. I suspect it was retaliation because Tate didn’t back him up in his public opinions. In the end, though, Michael was not made for the private sector. He missed his students. He came back to Tate one year later and, in 1999, when Graham’s sperm bank closed, he announced he was leaving Chromo for good.”
“Was it the end of the genetics euphoria?”
“He kept defending his ideas. But he definitely retired from the public eye.”
“And you said he never published anything in genetics? What kind of research was he conducting in those labs then?”
Troy shrugged, an airy expression painted on his face. “He was playing with ideas, mostly. But for Chromo, it was all publicity.”
“What about Conrad’s personal life?” Satish asked. “He was married briefly from 1977 to 1981 and never re-married. Do you know if he was ever in any important relationship after that?”
Troy brought the straw of the gourd to his lips and sipped thoughtfully for a few moments.
“You know, he was very private about his personal life,” he said. “And very intense on the job. I can see how he wouldn’t leave much room for anything else.”
Satish raised a brow. “He human, ain’t he? Suppose a beautiful woman approached him—”
“A beautiful woman, Detective? Have you seen pictures of Michael? And the way he acted and spoke… He was quite a self-centered man.”
“Suppose it did happen, though,” I insisted, backing up Satish. “Somebody who maybe wasn’t as charmed by his physical appearance as by his ideas. You said it yourself: he was in the public eye for a while, plenty of chances to make new acquaintances. Wasn’t the sperm bank supposed to attract interested ladies in the fertile years of their lives?” Which meant, ovulating women who embraced Conrad’s ideas, possibly with a dysfunctional husband or no partner at all.
Troy frowned. “You know, come to think of it… There was a name, but it was only a name, mind you, which came up in a few conversations a few years ago. I think it was the summer of 2004… But it sounded like a platonic thing…”
“Whatever it was. Do you remember the name?”
“Hannah. If there was a last name, he never mentioned it.”
Satish and I exchanged a glance full of unspoken meaning. Could’ve been a coincidence, but Hannah was indeed former Mrs. White’s first name.
CHAPTER 12
____________
Tuesday, October 14
Rhesus’s car gives a jolt. Another fucking hole, he thinks, the ruts in the road making the wheels skid. The sky is black, dawn procrastinating its appearance. Hidden in the brush, swallows break into a contentious litany of tweets and chirps. Rhesus sinks back in the driver’s seat, one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gearshift. The air is humid, he notices, as it careens through the open windows. It doesn’t conceal the odor permeating his clothes.
The road comes to an end. Wispy tamarisk shrubs scribble fringes of black in the feeble light. Rhesus parks and gets out of the car. He feels a thrill of anticipation as he walks to the back and pops the trunk. The stench is so strong it makes him falter. His eyes burn, his throat itches with the urge to vomit. It’s only a moment, though.
Control.
Rhesus thrives on control.
Under the lights of the trunk, his prey lies defeated in front of him. Imperfect, he realizes, staring at the ill aimed shot in the shoulder. Nothing like his second job. He outdid himself there—he got it all, the excitement of the kill, the blast of the shot, the inebriating scent of blood and gunpowder. And then the anger at her for prompting him to leave quickly, no time to stay, admire his masterpiece, and collect his prize.
His nostrils are now immune to the reek of death, his eyes adjusted to the sight. Under the light, a golden cross glimmers on a chain around her neck. Rhesus stretches his hand but then changes his mind.
No. Too flashy. Something else. Something less conspicuous.
A quick movement through the prey’s hair makes him wince. A moth flutters on her forehead, crosses her eyelids, then creeps down to her ear. That’s when he sees it. Perfect, he thinks. He bends over the body and snaps off one earring.
A theater of shadows, the sky slowly lights up. The swallows’ garrulous chirps ebb off. Rhesus wipes his sweaty face with the sleeve of his shirt.
Damned fucking job, she made me do. It’s okay. It’s over. It’s my prize.
Rhesus walks down the road, his boots crunching the gravel. The reds die into yellows and whites, and a grainy veil of haze sets over the valley.
You did good, Rhesus thinks. You did damn good.
CHAPTER 13
____________
Tuesday, October 14
The Santa Ana winds that had swept through Southern California for the week had finally subsided. Temperatures dropped, and the moisture seeping inland from the ocean cloaked Los Angeles in a blanket of fog. We were eastbound on the Ten, the overcast sky mottled with skinny palm treetops. Telephone and electrical wires hung in the haze like lone spider threads. This part of the freeway was just cement, billboards, and wired fences—a few eucalyptuses thrown in the mix to distract the eye from the gray.
Behind the wheel, heedless to traffic, weather, and any other earthly concern, Satish whistled to the tune of What a Wonderful World. I rapped my knuckles against the car window and grunted. Satish ignored me.
“Sat,” I muttered. Again, he ignored me. “Hell, Sat, will you cut it out?” I bristled.
He hung his face in a callow grimace, shook his head sideways, and quit whistling. A few seconds later he was drumming the tune on the steering wheel. What put him in such a good mood escaped me.
We’d spent the first half of the morning at the coroner’s office, where a medical assistant had pulled the Tarantinos’ dead bodies out of the refrigerated vault so their daughter could see them one last time. The morgue’s chills were still biting into my bones, and Satish’s good mood irritated me.
Wonderful world my ass.
The day had started with all major headlines dishing out on the LAP
D for unreasonably booking Hollywood genius Jerry White. The atmosphere at Parker Center was jittery, and the LAPD brass edgy. Our captain had muttered a few sympathetic words in the squad room, before disappearing in the safe haven of his office. The commander in chief had nixed any comment to the press. The veterans in our squad—the few detectives who’d survived the wave of transfers and encouraged retirements following the O.J. case in 1995—expressed their ominous presages with the dark joke: “Get ready for another major housecleaning. You guys better polish those resumes.”
In spite all this, Satish hummed his favorite song and I seethed. We took the North Eastern exit ramp and landed in the Cal State L.A. campus.
Inaugurated in May 2007, the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center fostered the new headquarters of the Scientific Division. It was a boxy, red and gray building, with rows of blue windows and a crest of metal eaves that hung along the southern edge of the roof like a long, misplaced aileron. Everything inside was polished, sleek, and had the artificial and expensive smell of new. The building thrived with noises: heels clacking on shiny black tiles, fingers tapping on keyboards, laughter reverberating down the hallway. A pale disk of sunshine peeked through the haze and bathed the offices. It wasn’t Mount Olympus, yet here, three miles away from the morgue, it felt like we’d finally resurfaced from Hades.
“Where did you find the fingernail fragment again, Track?” Diane asked as our steps resonated through the corridors.
“It was stuck on the curtain by the French doors in the living room. Tell me our suspect had the bad habit of biting her nails.” Saliva on the nail fragment meant traces of DNA.
She laughed, her smile sweeping away the last crumbs of gloom. “No, it wasn’t the case.” She unlocked the doors to one of the conference rooms and ushered us inside. “Besides, it wasn’t anywhere close to the crime scene. Anybody could have left it.”
“Did you analyze the fragment just the same?” I remembered the face she’d made at the crime scene when I told her the fingernail stub belonged to a woman who’d been there the night of the shooting. I could still read disbelief in her eyes.