In the Belly of Jonah: A Liv Bergen Mystery

by Sandra Brannan

“Well, that’s not the end of it. You wouldn’t remember her, but I played basketball with a friend named Lisa Henry at UW.”

  “What about her?”

  “She was staying with me this week, working on the case for the FBI.”

  “Cool,” Elizabeth said.

  “Yeah, well, she was killed too.” There. I had said it out loud. I admitted Lisa Henry was dead. I admitted her murder had happened in my house, just a few feet from my bedroom. But it didn’t make it seem any less surreal.

  “You’re joking,” Elizabeth whispered.

  “In my house,” I added, nearing tears again.

  It was as if the gruesome truth that spilled from my lips opened the floodgates to my emotions. I heard my sister tell her husband to pick up the other line so they could both hear my story. Elizabeth repeated what I had told her so far.

  “You want us to come up and stay with you for a while?” Just the fact that Michael was willing to do that for me was comfort enough.

  “No,” I lied. “There’s an FBI agent staying with me right now. My bodyguard, I guess.”

  “Does he have a gun?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Of course he has a gun,” I answered.

  “Do you have your gun, Boots?” Michael asked.

  “Right where you told me to put it. Under my bed opposite the door, so I can roll off and grab it.”

  “Good.” My brother-in-law was a man of few words.

  “Boots, you want me to call Mom and Dad?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Hell no, Elizabeth,”I scolded. “And if you do, I might have to throttle you.”

  “Okay,” Elizabeth shot back. “You don’t have to get your underwear in a wad about it. I was just trying to help.”

  “Well, that’s why I called. To get your help. These murders are twisted.”

  “I kind of gathered that from the news reports.”

  “Jill had a hole cut out of her midsection. Like somebody punched a rectangular cookie cutter right through her. Then wrapped her head in cloth. And staged some weird shit by the shoreline. A couple of dressers, a brown bottle,” I babbled on.

  Michael said, “Hmm.”

  “That is messed up,” Elizabeth said.

  “Well, what’s been bugging me is that Lisa, the college friend who’s been staying with me, was found naked on the bed in my spare bedroom, her hands resting behind her head. But there was a—and you guys promise not to say anything about any of this, because it’s an ongoing investigation and this stuff can’t leak to anyone, especially the press—”

  “Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Elizabeth said.

  “There was a pomegranate found near her bed.”

  “A pomegranate? Like the fruit?” Michael asked.

  “Yeah, bizarre, huh?” I said. “I didn’t have any in the house and Lisa came empty handed. So unless she went out when Agent Pierce or I didn’t know it—”

  “Is Agent Pierce your bodyguard?”

  “No, he’s another agent who was staying here. He says neither of them had bought a pomegranate. But what’s been bugging me is that the stupid pomegranate made me think of something. But I can’t remember what I want to remember about the stupid pomegranate. It has something to do with you, Elizabeth.”

  “With me? What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. I mean I know you love pomegranates, but that’s not it. I’ve been thinking and thinking and all I can come up with is the image of the woman sitting up, a rectangular hole in the middle of her body. A naked woman posed on a bed with a pomegranate. And the Venus de Milo murderer. What does all that mean? Why are those images bothering me? I mean, beyond the obvious. They seem . . . familiar.”

  There was a long pause. I could hear Elizabeth breathing. “Because it should bother you. It bothers me. It’s the right idea, but it has nothing to do with the Venus de Milo.”

  “Who, then?”

  “You thought of me because you saw it in a book in my studio. A book of artwork by someone, a creepy guy. Who is it? Oh, Boots, I can’t remember. Maybe Hieronymous Bosch. Or Giocometti, although he wasn’t so creepy. My memory tells me it was someone more recent. I can’t remember.”

  “I couldn’t either, but now that you say it, I think that’s it. A painting with a pomegranate. And something coming out of it, but I can’t remember what it was.”

  “Tell you what,”Elizabeth offered, “Michael and I will drive over to the studio and dig through my books, see what we can find. Would that help?”

  “A bunch. I’ll go over to the CSU library and do the same. I’ll take my cell phone with me in case you find something,” I said.

  “Great. Glad we can help. Are you sure you’re okay, Boots?”

  “I’m much better now.”

  STREETER’S MEETING WITH DR. Miller, the journalism professor, provided an account similar to the others’. Jill was responsible, bright, and talented. Not that Brian Miller wasn’t fascinating in his own right, but Streeter admittedly rushed to get the interview over with and on to his meeting with Micah Piquette.

  Streeter found her inside the bookstore on the corner across from campus, right where she had told him she’d be, sipping a large gourmet coffee and looking more exotic than he’d remembered from the night before.

  “Hi,” she said simply as he approached her.

  “Hi,” Streeter said back.

  “I don’t like him,” Micah said without any prompting or preamble.

  “Who?”

  “Dr. Jay,” she said with a shrug. “I saw the way you looked at me when everyone was talking about how cool Dr. Jay was and how he occasionally joined our gang for drinks and partying.”

  “What way did I look at you?”

  “You were studying me, my reaction,” she said. “That’s why I called you. It’s true I’m guarded and hide my emotions well, but when it comes to that pretentious asshole, I don’t do such a great job. I don’t like him,” she repeated, emphasizing each word as she did.

  “Why not?”

  She ignored him and sipped.

  “Want to go somewhere and talk about it?”

  “What’d you have in mind?” she said, sliding her eyes toward the FBI agent like a practiced seductress.

  “Not whatever you’re thinking,” Streeter countered.

  Her smile was crooked. She motioned toward the park bench outside the bookstore. Streeter took a seat and stared at the greenway through the middle of campus.

  “I’m a quarter East Indian, a quarter Cherokee. My mom’s white,”Micah said, staring at the same biker in neon spandex that Streeter was watching.

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Everything,”Micah said. “We’re two peas in a pod, Dr. Jay and me. So alike, we can’t stand each other.”

  “I’m not following,” Streeter admitted.

  Micah cocked her head to the side, watching the biker as he sped away on the sidewalk. “He doesn’t trust me. I don’t trust him. I know he uses his ethnicity to attract women: sometimes he plays it like it’s a handicap to overpower; other times he uses it to captivate.”

  “Like you were trying to do to me a minute ago?” Streeter asked without apology.

  Her smile widened. “Yeah, just like that, like me. It’s how he plays the game, but for someone like me, it’s nauseating because I see right through it. I think all these women are stupid to fall for such a weak ploy.”

  “Yet you have your game on the same channel,” Streeter said.

  “Right. That’s why I can’t stand him.”She turned toward Streeter, adding, “And he can’t stand me.”

  “Just because you both have the same game on? The exotic, mysterious foreigner game?”

  “Not just. Mostly,” she said. Then, grinning, she added, “Sexy, huh?”

  “Oh yes,” Streeter answered, never once looking her way. “What is Dr. Jay’s background?”

  “Half white, half Latino,” she said. “He’s Cuban.”

  “How do you know that?”
<
br />   “He asked me and I asked him. I’ll show you my scars if you show me yours kinda thing. When people ask him, he usually answers that question with some pathetically glib line, like ‘I’m one part tiger and three parts Energizer bunny.’ And for some sick reason, the women eat that shit up.”

  “But not you.”

  Micah shook her head. “He’s disgusting. So, anyway, one night when we were three sheets to the wind and I was off my game and so was he, I asked him flat out what his ethnicity was and he asked me. For some reason, we chose not to lie about it that night.”

  “Does he consider you one of his many conquests?”

  “A little personal, don’t you think?”

  “So is murder.” Streeter answered flatly, watching a couple walk across the grass and then lie down to stare at the clouds.

  “Never, as if it’s any of your business,”she answered, following his gaze to find the lovers holding hands and pointing at the sky.

  “What about the others in your circle of friends?”

  “What? You mean have I slept with any of them?”

  “That’s not where I was going,” Streeter said. “But is that the thing with these . . . gangs nowadays?”

  “Nowadays? You act like you’re an old fogy. How old are you, anyway?”

  “Almost forty,” Streeter said, amused by her straightforwardness.

  “Hmm,” she said, draining her coffee and throwing the cup into the nearby trash bin. “Well, nowadays kids just hang out in groups, so you don’t have to get stuck with one friend or with the dating scene. It’s more exciting to have several people to talk to, a crowd to lean on, rather than just one person. Several of our gang have enjoyed each other’s company in the privacy of their own dorm or apartment, but that’s not my thing. And Dr. Jay is certainly not my thing.”

  “Was it Jill’s thing?”

  This got Micah’s full attention. She turned toward Streeter and commanded his attention. “Jill was not at all like that. She was just nicer about it than I was, particularly with Dr. Jay and Zack.”

  “They both hit on her?”

  “Who didn’t? Jill was amazing and super nice to everyone,”Micah said, slouching on the park bench and crossing her jean-clad legs. She dangled her bejeweled sandal from her right foot, twirling her ankle nervously. “Jill had told Zack to back off, only she was so nice about it, I don’t think the dweeb really got the message. He was all mushy over Jill.”

  “And Dr. Jay?”

  “He was too narcissistic to think she really meant it when she told him she wasn’t interested in him. He thought she was always playing hard to get,” Micah said.

  “How can you be so sure she didn’t like either one?”

  “Oh, I never said she didn’t like them. She liked them both. As friends,” Micah explained. “She just didn’t want it to go any further with either of them.”

  “You seem so sure,”Streeter persisted, watching as a dog ran out in front of a young girl, stretching the leash until she could barely restrain him.

  “Well, let’s put it this way,” Micah said. “One night, maybe a week or so ago, Dr. Jay and Zack and Jackson were all giving Jill a particularly hard time. Mostly about her being a prude.”

  “Because she wouldn’t sleep with any of them,” Streeter concluded.

  “Right,”Micah said. “Only, their egos would never allow them to admit that it was because she found them unattractive or didn’t see them in that way, so they started questioning which side of the plate she swung from.”

  “Her sexual orientation?”

  Micah covered a laugh with her fist. Mimicking his words, she said, “Yeah, her ‘sexual orientation.’ Dr. Jay went so far as to say Jill must be gay if she was willing to pass up a night swinging from his dance pole.”

  Just thinking about how repulsed Jill must have been made the muscles in Streeter’s jaw work overtime.

  “Well, that was the first time I ever heard Jill say anything remotely bad or swear in any way.”

  “What did she say?”

  Micah grinned, recollection filling her smoky eyes. “I’ll never forget it. She looked right at Dr. Jay and said, ‘Oh, Dr. Jay, you misunderstand. I’ve always said what a nice ass you have. It’s just too bad it’s on your shoulders.’” Micah doubled over with laughter, holding her gut as if Jill were right there saying it again and seeing the expression on all the men’s faces.

  “That must have shut him up,” Streeter said.

  “He was at a loss for words. First time for that too.” Micah chuckled still more. “Go, Jill, is what I said. That was such a good comeback.”

  “And Zack Rhodes? How did he respond?”

  Micah’s chuckle faded. “Dr. Jay stood there with his mouth open like a docked fish. Jackson roared right along with me. And Zack blushed. He was mad, but I got the impression he was mad at Dr. Jay, not Jill. At least that’s what I thought.”

  “And Jackson Whaler laughed.”

  “Yep. It was hilarious,” Micah added.

  “When was this? When Jill made you and Jackson laugh so hard with her comment about Dr. Jay. Do you remember?” Streeter pressed.

  Micah leaned back on the bench again, laying her head on the wooden slats and staring at the blue sky. She stretched her legs out and twirled both ankles, pink sandals sparkling in the sun. “Actually, I think it was last Friday night. We were at Nate’s around closing time. Everyone was kind of wasted.”

  “Wasted? As in drugs?”

  She shook her head. “Booze. Lots of booze.”

  “Does the gang ever do drugs?”

  Micah gathered herself. “What is this? I thought we were just talking?”

  “We are,” Streeter said. “I’m not with narcotics. I’m investigating a murder. I’m just curious if maybe there was any connection to drugs.”

  “Jill never did any of that shit. She really was a Girl Scout. Cool, but she never touched that shit or swore or had sex or nothing. She was a really good kid.”

  “Not like the rest of you,” Streeter said, answering for her.

  “Hey, I’m not ratting anyone out if that’s what you’re after.”

  “Just tell me this. Which one of the gang provides the rest of you with drugs?”

  Micah sat up straight, pulling her knees together and folding her hands neatly on her lap.

  “Let me ask it a different way, Micah. I’m trying to find out who killed Jill. Maybe the drugs and Jill’s refusal to participate got her in trouble somehow. If you were me, and you were looking to find the answer to my problem, who would you focus on?”

  Micah stared a long while at the couple lying on the grass, the girl playing with her cocker spaniel, and the geese flying overhead. The longer she stalled, the more convinced Streeter was that she’d eventually tell him.

  “Who are you meeting with?” she asked in a small voice.

  “When? What do you mean?”

  “Today. After me,” she said.

  “Zack Rhodes.”

  Streeter could tell Micah was mulling this over, debating whether to tell him more or leave this discussion where it was. He was pleased with her decision.

  “That’s what I would have guessed,” she said. “You already knew the answer to your own question, Agent Pierce. Your focus is right where it should be.”

  Micah stood up and, without ever looking back, walked slowly down the street toward the dorms.

  On the way to Zack Rhodes’s dormitory, Streeter’s cell phone chirped.

  “Streeter, it’s Jack Linwood. Did I catch you at a good time?”

  Streeter stared up at the clear blue sky. “Sure, Linwood. What do you have?”

  “What color hair does the homeowner have?”

  “What homeowner?”

  “Where Lisa Henry was staying,” Linwood clarified. “What’s her name?”

  “Liv Bergen,” Streeter answered. “And her hair is chestnut brown, her eyes, sea green.”The second the words left his lips, Streeter regretted sa
ying them. Such descriptive words to describe a stranger he knew only from her photograph. Whatever possessed him, he wondered.

  “You sure?”

  “Pretty sure, although I’ve never met her.”

  Linwood paused a long moment. Before he could ask, Streeter explained, “There were photographs in her house. Lisa pointed her out to me. Unless she’s recently dyed her hair some other color, her hair is brown.”

  “Chestnut brown,” Linwood repeated. “Interesting.”

  “Why?”

  “Look, I need some direction. We’ve finished prepping everything. Dr. Johnson wants me to stop processing the evidence from Lisa’s room and start performing a PCR on the tissue and hair I recovered from the spread.”

  “Hair?”

  “Just one strand. With a root,” Linwood explained. “And I was able to recover some tissue. Dr. Johnson confirmed my theory that it might be the killer’s tissue.”

  “What kind of tissue?”

  “Looks like skin, from underneath Lisa Henry’s fingernail,” Linwood explained. “Dr. Johnson confirmed that Lisa’s nails had been cleaned by someone other than herself. This might have been a chunk the killer missed after he scraped her nails.”

  Streeter’s mind flashed to the angry scratch down Dr. Jay’s left cheek and neck. Alarm rang in the veteran FBI agent’s ears. “What color was the hair?”

  “Not chestnut brown,” Linwood said. “It’s black.”

  “Lisa’s hair is black, Linwood,” Streeter discounted.

  “Yes, but this is definitely a different shade and texture from what I could see through the spectrograph and microscopically.”

  “Different,” Streeter was starting to get that rush he often felt when the pieces were starting to fall into place. “Length?”

  “About eight inches,” Linwood said.

  Streeter’s mind went to both Dr. Jay and Zack Rhodes. Both had shoulder-length black hair. Artist’s hair, in his opinion.

  “Run it. PCR on the hair is going to give us more than RFLP analysis anyway,” Streeter said.

  “Means I’m going to fall behind on analyzing the rest of the evidence,”Linwood reminded Streeter. “I have the traps on all three pipes from the house. If he cleaned up, I might get some blood or tissue samples.”