by Rhys Ford
There were some reservations on my part when a large woman, wearing her Sunday best, arrived on my doorstep. I couldn’t guess her age, but there was a steady wisdom about her, and there was no denying she was a force of nature. Our interview was short and sweet: I told her I was gay and had some issues, she told me she was black and had high blood pressure.
At the time, she knew next to nothing about computers, and I let her spend the day either knitting or watching her stories on the television I’d bought her, but she kept my schedule tight, my bills paid, and if I needed feeding, she took care of that too. Claudia worked because she didn’t want her brain to get rusty after retiring from the school district. I worked because I didn’t want to turn into a couch slug, no matter how much money I’d gotten from the department. It was a winning scenario all around.
Except that she and Mike often conspired against me. God help me if they both decided at the same time that I needed to date. There’d be no saving me.
I did a quick shower to get the night sweats off of me. I debated dressing with a bit more care than I usually did. A visit to the Kim household probably would require more professionalism than I normally sported. Most of my clients were more interested in seeing what their spouses were doing or digging up dirt on employees who were claiming debilitating injuries. A pair of jeans wasn’t going to cut it.
Dark khakis won out. My closet was limited in choices. It was either the khakis or black denim. I must have skipped fashion sense when I stood in line for my gay genes, because Mike was of the opinion that I couldn’t dress myself. A cream polo was about as risky as I was going to get with the pants.
And apparently I’d guessed wrong when I went downstairs to the office and greeted Claudia with a cheery hello.
She took one look at me and held up her index finger, turning it around in the air and pointing up, silently telling me to go back and try again. There was a pinch to her brows when she did it, her face screwed up into either pain or displeasure.
“What? These go together!” I stared down at the pants and shirt. They both were kind of brownish.
“It is no wonder why you can’t get a date.” She went back to her crossword puzzle, reaching for her cup and taking a sip. “Your pants are green, and your shirt is the color of my coffee. Go change something before you blind someone.”
I came back down after changing into the black jeans, my only other choice for the day. I got a grunt of semi-approval from my office manager. Grabbing at the paper plate with a slice of apple pie on it, I shoved a large bite in my mouth, drifting off into a cinnamon-laced fruit heaven. As I chewed, Claudia stood, shuffling over to the coffee machine, and filled a travel mug, handing it to me as she went back to her desk.
“Shut up, I got you coffee because I felt sorry for your ass. Don’t think it’s going to happen that often.” She cut me off before I could protest. “Your brother called. He said that he spoke to some girl named Kim and that you can go see her any time today. Here’s the address. Is this a case? Should I be making a new file?”
“Yeah, it’s a new case,” I said, handing her the check and the rest of the contents of the envelope. I copied the suicide note using the small all-in-one machine I’d gotten from an office supply store, satisfied that the resolution held up despite being a second generation image, and passed that over to Claudia as well. She pursed her lips when she saw the amount on the check, raising her painted-on eyebrows in surprise.
“And Kim’s the family’s last name. It’s not a girl.”
“What kind of name is that?” An expanding red-rope folder appeared from the cavernous depths of her wide desk, and she pasted a white label on the front flap, carefully lettering a string of numbers underneath the family’s name. There was no censure in her tone, merely curiosity.
“It’s Korean.” I knew better than to say anything other than that. I loved Claudia, but there were times when she was going to have an opinion about something, and that was it.
“I like that hot cabbage stuff they make. That’s good.” She nodded emphatically. “Marcel’s got an Asian girl. You can’t show up at their doorstep without taking something. It’s bad manners. Be sure to stop at the store and get something.”
“What kind of something?”
“Cookies, usually,” she said, touching at the corner of her mouth with the tip of her finger, wiping away a dot of bright red lipstick. “Just something nice. Maybe flowers?”
“I’ll see what I can grab down the street. If you could deposit that, that’ll be great.” Other than Marcus, I couldn’t keep any details of Claudia’s huge family in my head, so I wasn’t going to comment on Marcel’s girlfriend or her ethnicity. “It’s one of Mike’s jobs, so at least we know the check’s good.”
“You doing okay?” There was a mother hen look on her face, a searching pierce for information.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a hard night,” I reassured her. Bending over to kiss her cheek, I couldn’t dodge the stinging swat she gave my butt when I stepped back. “If you want to leave early, go ahead. It’s a Friday. No sense in keeping the place open past one.”
“I’ll call Martin and have him swing by then.” She nodded. The suspicion in her face hadn’t subsided, and I smiled to alleviate her worries. “Eat something, Cole. And I saw your back window when I came in this morning. You and I are going to have a little talk sometime about what you’re doing at night.”
“Yeah, thanks for reminding me. I have to give you the camera to get images off of it. Mr. Brinkerhoff’s wife was doing nasty things with a friend of hers. I’ll have to give him a call later and tell him the bad news.” I thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “Or good news, depending on how he wants to take it.”
“You just keep that kind of stuff to yourself.” Waving a pen at me, Claudia tsked her disapproval. “And I had a man come to fix that car window, since you slept in so late. I took money out of petty cash to pay him. He even vacuumed up the broken glass. I gave him a good tip, seeing as he’ll probably be out here again.”
THE Rover and I weren’t much on technology, so I used my trusty book of maps to locate the Kims’ residence. I could have mapped it out on the computer before I left, but that would have meant taking a bit more of Claudia’s abuse, and I was still too wrung out by the nightmare I’d had. Smiling and faking it could only last so long. Eventually, I caved in and showed how I truly felt. Claudia would have been on me in a moment, pulling at every last bit of emotion she could press out.
Los Angeles traffic was problematic at best and chaos at its worst. The only way to really escape the brunt of it was to head out to the 405 and hug the coast. On a map, it looked like a roundabout way of doing things, but the reality of life was, it was really the only way to get from point A to point B in under five hours.
I headed south after stopping off at a florist and grabbing a blooming orchid from the display. After shoving the receipt into a plastic folder Claudia gave me to keep track of my business expenses, I worked the Rover through the streams of midday traffic.
The Kim house was tucked into the cleft of a canyon, surrounded by a perimeter of ice plant and high stone walls. I parked the Rover behind a battered white Explorer. Both vehicles stood out among the low-slung sports cars and high-priced imports cluttering the neighborhood’s driveways. I didn’t even want to imagine what cars were deemed good enough to actually sit in the garage.
It was a long walk to the front door. I realized when my feet hit the pavement that I really didn’t have any idea what to say to a woman who had lost her son to suicide. When I was a cop, I never dealt with informing families about a loved one being murdered, and after making detective, I worked Vice, so any death I came across immediately went over to the guys in Homicide.
I summoned up some of the rote empathy words I’d learned and knocked on the door, hoping I could go in, ask a few questions, and head on out.
Unfortunately for me, as soon as the door opened, I lost all control of my brain
.
I’d never been into Asian men, maybe because they reminded me of Mike, but the young man answering the door took my breath away.
If there was any evidence of a God, it was standing right in front of me, I was sure of it. His large, almond-shaped eyes were tawny, a bronze, golden-brown surrounded by long, black lashes. Black hair swept down onto his pale skin, falling artfully over his face and his neck, and his high cheekbones were slightly flushed from the warmth outside. But it was his mouth that drew me in, full and tinged pink, a faint ring of teeth marks dimpling his lower lip.
It took me a moment to realize he was staring at me nearly eye to eye, standing just an inch or two under my six-two. I chanced a glance down his lean, tight body, drinking in the sight of long legs in beat-up jeans and the fit of a worn T-shirt hugging his torso. Swallowing, I tried to find something intelligent to say but he spoke first.
“Can I help you?” There was a fluidity to his speech, accented with an Eastern tint.
“Uh, yeah.” Juggling the orchid plant, I dug a business card out from the leather portfolio I took with me on interviews, using the notebook inside to jot down information. “I’m Cole McGinnis. My brother Mike said he called ahead. It’s about Kim Hyun-Shik. Are you a relative?”
“I’m… his cousin.” He obviously struggled with what to say. The death was too new to shove Hyun-Shik into the past tense. “Please. Come in. Grace spoke to Mr. McGinnis this morning. I don’t know if she’s told Auntie that you were coming.”
“This is for the family. I’m really sorry for your loss.” Unsure of what to do with the plant, I solved my problem by handing it to Hyun’s cousin. I flicked open the portfolio, starting to outline the family dynamics. At the very least, it would help me diagram who I spoke to. “Grace is…?”
“Henry’s older sister.” He placed the bobbing purple-bloomed stalk on an ornate wood credenza in the hall entrance, motioning for me to enter. “Sorry, Hyun-Shik is Henry’s Korean name. He used Henry for school and work.”
I entered the house and brushed past him. Damn, he even smelled good, a citrus, masculine scent with tea under notes. “Does Grace have a Korean name too?”
“We all do.” His smile was tight, a tinge of bitter or sadness to it, but I couldn’t determine which. “Grace doesn’t use it. She’s just Grace Kim.”
The house was quiet, the solemn quiet of a home mourning a loved one. I followed him down the hall to an elegant living room, trying to keep my eyes up off the seat of his jeans. Fixing my gaze onto the center of his back didn’t help much, but it was better than letting my mind wander.
Four well-dressed Korean women were in the room, one of them sitting in a loveseat while a younger woman patted her thigh, murmuring something I couldn’t understand. The woman at the center of their attention glanced up at the young man with me, and her face changed from sorrow to anger, her swollen eyes bulging as she started to scream.
I didn’t know Korean, but whatever was said made his face tighten, and his mouth twisted as he struggled not to respond to the vitriol being flung at him. There was ugliness in those words, and she used them like knives, plunging them over and over into his heart until he bled out in front of her.
The younger woman stood, grabbing at Hyun-Shik’s cousin, but he eluded her, twisting away and walking out of the room. She turned to me, glancing back at the now subdued older woman, the others surrounding her and calming her down. “I’m sorry, but this is a bad time for my mother. I didn’t tell her that you were coming. I’d hoped to have more time, but then Jae-Min showed up, and I’ve had to deal with that too.”
“He’s Jae-Min? Your cousin? The one who let me in?”
“‘Cousin’ is a loose term. Our grandfathers were first cousins,” she said. Fatigue made her face a bit puffy, but there was a porcelain prettiness to her features, and I could see a resemblance to the man who’d let me in. “Umma’s having a hard time dealing with Henry being gone. Seeing Jae-Min here instead of my brother makes her mad. I’m sorry you came out here for nothing, but I don’t think my mother can speak to you right now.”
“No problem.” There was something not being said to me, and I wanted to dig it out. It didn’t make sense for Mrs. Kim to be pissed off about Hyun-Shik’s cousin, but then I wasn’t that up on Korean culture. “Maybe I’ll just talk to your cousin. Did he know Henry well? He might have something to add.”
“Talk to Jae all you want. He’s probably in the kitchen.” Her smile held a smirk, lurking beyond the pleasantness. I was now sure there was something else going on. “It’s down that hall and to the right. Tell him I’ll be in to refill the tea in a bit, if he can have it ready.”
It was easy to find the kitchen. It was larger than my office and gleaming with yards of stainless steel and granite. There was also no sign of Jae-Min and then I spotted him standing outside of a set of French doors, smoking a kretek on the veranda. His back was to me, his shoulder blades jutting out to poke his T-shirt up as he leaned on the railing, exhaling blue-grey smoke into spirals around his head. It looked like a familiar position for him to be in, as if he’d stood there many times before.
I found a chrome teapot on the stove and filled it with water from the filtered dispenser on the sink. I’d leave the tea selection to Grace if she came back in, but I turned the gas stove on until bright blue flames licked at the bottom of the pot. He’d glanced back when he’d heard the water turn on, catching me staring at his shoulders. Jae-Min’s face was closed, his emotions shuttered behind a pretty mask.
The teapot had started to babble over the flame by the time he finished his clove cigarette. I watched him stamp out the end in a pot of sand, picking up the stub and throwing it into a trash can outside. The door squeaked when Jae-Min opened it and stepped into the kitchen. He moved around the kitchen with a practiced ease, pulling out an ornamental service set from a sideboard. A bag of loose-leaf tea emerged from another cabinet, and he measured out a portion into a strainer, setting it into the silver server.
“Did you need something else?” His voice was soft, edged with a trembling pain.
“I just wanted to ask you a few questions about Hyun-Shik,” I replied, resting against the counter where he arranged sugar cubes in the service’s bowl. “Were you close?”
He looked up at me, measuring me with a long stare. A keen intelligence gleamed in his golden-brown eyes, but something wilder lurked there as well. With that look, I realized what he reminded me of.
Growing up as a Marine Corp brat, I moved around a lot until my father retired when I was thirteen. One of the places we lived was a small town in Hawai’i where a feral cat colony lived next to the base. The cats and people seemed to come to a détente of sorts: the cats kept the rat population down, and every once in a while, the people would poach a particularly cute kitten from the roaming prides that scattered when a human approached. I’d spent a month coaxing a young cat out, hoping to convince my parents into letting me keep it if I could tame it. The cat would come close enough to get his ears scratched and take the food I offered, but any move to go past his shoulders sent him back into the tall grasses.
Jae-Min reminded me of that cat.
There was a feral quality to him. Someone had coaxed him into the house and fed him, but he probably would flee or scratch if held too tightly. He seemed out of place with the tightly wound perfection of the home we were in, but he definitely knew where everything was and was even willing to help make tea for a woman who seemed to hate him.
Life had all sorts of surprises for me. This one was something I wanted to figure out.
He must have decided it was okay to talk to me, because he gave me a half nod. The sugar cubes also were extremely interesting, because he took his time stacking them after turning the stove off, letting the boiling water settle.
“Uncle, Hyun-Shik’s father, arranged for me to go to high school down here.” I stayed silent, waiting for more. “My family lives in Sacramento. My mother thought it would be better
if I was here. Hyun-Shik is… was four years older than me.”
“So he was like a brother?”
His expression barely changed, but the mask cracked, a bit of irony seeping out. “No, I never thought of hyung as my brother.”
How many nicknames did this guy have? I was trying to play catch-up on my notes when Grace scurried into the kitchen, her bare feet nearly sliding out from under her as she hit the slick wood floor. Shit. Looking down, I winced, finding my shoes were still firmly on my own feet.
“Good.” She grabbed at the sugar bowl, placing it on the tray. “There’s some sliced lemon in the fridge. Jae, grab some for me and put it on that dish. Umma has other guests coming. Are you staying?”
“If you need me to,” he replied. The coldness was back, placid as a glacier moving through still waters.
“Yes.” Grace stopped arranging dainty teacups on the tray, taking the plate of lemons from his hand. “Just stay out of sight. I’ll come in here when I need something. Can you see if we have something to serve people? Maybe nine or so?”
“I’ll look around.” Jae-Min stood as she bustled around him. She left the kitchen in a whirl of skirt and chatter, a wave of fragrant tea marking her exit. He caught the look on my face, quirking his mouth at me. “What?”
“I’m guessing that what Mrs. Kim said to you wasn’t all that pleasant, but you’re offering to make tea and finger sandwiches for her and her friends. Why?”
“Is this a part of your investigation in Hyun-Shik’s death?”
“It’ll help give me some idea of how this family works. Let’s just say that some things aren’t adding up for me. I’m being paid a lot of money to poke around, so I’m going to poke.”
“My family owes a lot to Uncle’s family. I’m here because….” He bit his lower lip with his teeth. It was obviously a habit he had when thinking. As habits go, it was better than my brother’s hedgehog hair brushing. “It’s an obligation. It would be… wrong to leave when Uncle’s family needed help.”