Purple Knot

by Raquel Byrnes

  She nodded and directed me toward the counter. “You know, we can get you on another flight if you need a little time.”

  “No, thank you, but no. I think I need to do some driving. You know, clear my head, listen to some really bad talk radio.”

  I forced a smile, and she did the same.

  “OK. If you’re sure.” She was already backing away to the emotional safety of her counter.

  I rented an SUV because there were no other cars available. The kid at the counter handed over a map, and while still parked in the car rental parking lot, I plotted what I was going to do. I never did anything spontaneous like this. I always planned and analyzed and prepared. This was…I don’t know what this was.

  I left the car in a pay lot outside of Pike Place Market and walked the three levels of shops and cafés and restaurants. I watched the fish throwers put on a show for the tourists and wandered through the dusty book shop on the bottom floor. Outside on the street level, a kid wearing an eye searing lime-green hoodie plucked out a Spanish-sounding ballad on his battered guitar. I dropped a twenty dollar bill in his open guitar case. Mine was the only money in it. He didn’t seem worried though. His eyes were closed, his face turned up to the setting sun. Another teenager, this one with a harmonica sat down next to the guitar player and the two of them floated into a spontaneous duet. Soft and slow, the tune wove itself between the laughing and chatting of the passing crowd. I looked up and gazed at the rows of daffodils growing on the roof of the building. This was Summer’s favorite place.

  In high school, we’d spent entire days here. Fruits and vegetables were fresh and cheap. It was a place where both of us could buy our own lunch, or coffee. I didn’t feel poor here. She didn’t seem wealthy here. We were just two friends. Two kids at the start of our lives. I reached back to that time—the time before Parker, and tried to remember what her laugh had been like when it was full of promise.

  But I couldn’t quite remember her that way anymore. She’d met and married Parker while I was away at college with Jimmy. Mona had called frantic one day, screaming about how Summer was missing. Jimmy and I had driven home from the University of Washington. We’d broken land speed records but still weren’t in time to make Summer’s spur-of-the-moment wedding at the courthouse. I was crushed. When had she fallen in love? Why didn’t I know this? How had she gotten so far away?

  I walked to the pier and caught the ferry to Bainbridge. It was cold. Colder than usual, and the sky roiled with dark clouds overhead. I stood on the deck and let the wind whip hair against my face while I stared at the far off strip of land. The rain started as I disembarked, and I walked hunched over toward the middle of the little village. Wild lavender bushes swayed with the coming storm and the smell reminded me of my first date with Jimmy. Our senior year, right after his father died, we had dinner at the little fish restaurant near the marina. The marina.

  I found myself heading toward the boat. Jimmy’s family kept their boat at this marina. Maybe that was the reason I came all the way out here. I walked up and down the dock searching for their slip. Maybe they didn’t even have it anymore. I spied the Corbeau name on the dock railing and it all came rushing back.

  A beautiful Concordia Yawl rose gracefully from the water. My father, a boat mechanic, had worked on many of these yachts. As a child, I was warned never to touch or to board the beautiful vessels. I might dirty it, or mar it in some way.

  Anger flared in my gut. My throat and eyes burned with frustration. Summer had resources at her disposal that I could only dream about. And yet she’d not lifted a finger to save herself. Instead, she sucked me and Jimmy into a cycle of worry, frustration, and anger along with her.

  I don’t remember climbing onto the boat. I don’t remember prying open the hatch and entering the sleeping quarters. I only remember yelling. Yelling and crying and sweeping things off of shelves. I beat on the polished counter with my fists. I screamed my anger to the mast. I crumbled on the armchair and sobbed into a silk pillow. She could have come to me. She should have taken the help I offered. I would have moved mountains for her.

  And yet, Summer’s final act toward me was not friendship. Instead, she’d tied me to her tragic fate. She left me with guilt, and doubt, and the inescapable knowledge that I was who she chose to bear the burden of letting her die. And then I remembered her broken body. Worse, her broken will. Then my anger waned and I was back where I’d started.

  Outside, the storm hit. I huddled on the couch and rode it out, each tilt and pitch of the hull a mirror to my own internal squall.

  By morning, I was spent. Exhausted and cried out, I awoke to the bleeping of my dying cell phone battery. I’d put it on airplane mode at the airport. When I switched it back to normal mode, eleven messages popped up on the screen.

  Jimmy. Salem. Jimmy. Salem. They’d left frantic messages wanting to know where I was. Had I missed my flight? Was I OK?

  I looked at the destruction I’d levied on the craft and smiled bitterly. It was a poor substitute for her family.

  The phone, now out of batteries, was useless. I climbed off the boat and found there weren’t any payphones on the island. I took the ferry back, went to find the rented SUV, and plugged the phone into the car charger. I sat and stared out the windshield. Two minutes into the charge, the phone rang. It was Jimmy. My voice sounded hoarse, probably from yelling at the empty boat.

  “Hey, Jimmy.”

  “Rain!” He sounded relieved and frustrated at the same time. “Where…what happened? Salem said you missed your flight.”

  “I didn’t miss it. I decided to stay here another night.”

  “You’re still here, in Seattle?” He sounded guarded.

  “I went to Pike Place Market and wandered around.”

  I tried to sound casual, as if I’d had inconsequential errands to run. Well, you know, Jimmy, I took a ferry ride, destroyed your family’s yacht, screamed up a storm. The usual touristy things.

  Jimmy didn’t ask.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’m sorry I made you worry.”

  “Rain, if you needed to be alone, then that’s what you needed. No harm in that.”

  I stared out the windshield listening to him breathe and waiting for him to ask me what I’d done all night. He didn’t. Instead, he blew a breath and cleared his throat.

  “I’m flying back this morning.”

  “OK.”

  “OK,” I repeated. “I’ll call you.”

  “OK,” he said again.

  Jimmy got monosyllabic when he was upset. I’d hurt him. I’d worried him. We were back to our same old dance.

  Purple Knot

  8

  I boarded the flight to San Francisco and hoped that working on this Parker thing would keep my mind busy and the pain at bay. I sank into the seat, and took out a notebook. I listed some things to get started on. When the plane landed, I fought through baggage claim, and then hopped into a cab. I called Salem.

  “Can you come in? I need to start on this Parker thing right away.”

  “Do you know how hard it is to explain phone calls from another woman in the wee hours of the morning? Noemi is seriously eyeing the door.”

  Salem’s girlfriend didn’t like his lack of schedule. She also didn’t like me. I tapped the cabbie’s window and gestured for him to take 24th street.

  “How long have you guys been together? Like a few minutes? Why is she complaining already?”

  “We’ve been together seven months, and she doesn’t like how you look, by-the-way.”

  I could hear him knock over and break something glass, and then mutter. He was irritable.

  “What’s wrong with the way I look?”

  “Nothing, that’s the problem.”

  I heard him knock something else over.

  “What are you doing? Getting dressed in the dark?”

  “Uh, yeah. I just got in like, an hour ago. I’m exhausted.”

  I checked my watch. It was only eight in the mo
rning.

  “What are you complaining about? Why are you so tired?”

  “I left the house at this time yesterday morning. Your Mr. Bower has some seriously lame habits.”

  Salem’s first assignment as my investigative intern was to continue surveillance on Bower. He watched him the whole night? I made a mental note to be more detailed with instructions next time.

  “Who takes a twenty-minute trip, at four-thirty in the morning, to buy cupcakes?”

  “That’s when they’re fresh out of the oven. What else did he do?”

  “I’ll tell you at the office. You’re getting take-out, right?”

  “Just get there.”

  I hung up as we pulled to the curb. Jumba’s was my favorite place to pow-wow with clients, or staff. West African in flavor, it melded the tropical with the spicy Cajun influences of the owner’s upbringing in Louisiana. I looked at the familiar stucco building with its colorful mural of twirling ladies, and palm trees dancing across the front.

  “Wait here for a second.”

  “The meter’s running.”

  I waved at the owner, Sirena, through the open wood doors.

  “Well look who’s dragged herself back in. Where have you been? I didn’t see you all this week.” Her accent always made even her admonishments sound slightly amused. She hugged me.

  “I need something quick for me and Salem. Can you fix us up?”

  “You need to slow down your life, Reyna. What about bringing a date to eat here sometime?”

  “What about some Chicken Yassa? I love the lemon-vinegar sauce.”

  “Did I tell you that I have a nephew your age?” Sirena grabbed me in a walking-hug, propelling me toward the restaurant’s doors.

  “Sirena, I’ll just take the chicken.”

  “He’s a wonderful young man, works with children…”

  Twenty minutes later, I dragged my bags onto the elevator, exhausted. I used the heel of my pump to hit the floor button, as I balanced Styrofoam boxes with the meal; it smelled heavenly.

  Salem rushed out to help and his eyes lit up when he grabbed my suitcase.

  “Do I smell Chicken Yassa?”

  I nodded, dropped my purse on the table, and grabbed some diet sodas from the mini-fridge in my office. I was tired, but determined. I needed to do something to stop the racing thoughts. I sat down at the desk and handed him a soda. I told him about my plan to check out Parker’s alibi.

  “So you want me to drop my surveillance on Bower?”

  “We can’t drop it entirely, but I do want your help on this Parker thing. We can watch Bower at night mostly.”

  “And Parker?”

  I pointed at Salem with my plastic fork.

  “When I was at the hospital, Mona said Parker was in Colorado on business.”

  “Is that not true?”

  “I’m not too familiar with Parker’s business, but he’s a pharmaceutical executive, don’t they have territories close to their homes?”

  “That’s usually how it works.”

  I pulled out an atlas, and found Colorado. I brought it back to the table.

  “If he and Summer live in Seattle, then what would he be doing a few states over?” I refused to talk about her in the past tense yet.

  “Conferences take salespeople out of their territory. That’s easy enough to check on. It would also be pretty easy to check how large the company territories are. Somewhere under the company contact info it should have the territories breakdown so prospective clients can figure which rep to contact.”

  “Before we waste our time calling another state, we should get started on a skip-trace file.”

  “Skip-trace?” Salem made a face.

  “You didn’t read that book I gave you, did you?”

  “I wanted to get to the meat of investigating,” he said under his breath.

  “Like it or not, Salem, reading is the cornerstone of investigating anything.”

  I walked to his desk, grabbed the book on investigative techniques, and flipped to the right chapter. “A skip-trace is simply what you call the person you are investigating. It comes from way back when tracking down bail skippers was what most private detectives did.”

  “Oh,” Salem muttered. “I should know that one.”

  “Yeah.”

  “OK, so what do we do to get started on this Parker guy?”

  “First, we get any information on him available through public records.”

  “That’s what…birth certificate…” Salem pushed his dinner aside and grabbed a pen and notebook.

  “No. We go through Washington’s secretary of state website. We can find out about any professional licensing, permits, corporate records that have Parker’s name on them.”

  “So do you have his social security number?”

  “Full name and birthday actually gets more information so do a search with his name; Parker Evans. I’ll have to check my calendar, but I think his birthday is on Labor Day. I remember Summer mentioned it before.”

  “That’s it?” Salem seemed disappointed.

  I stood up and threw the rest of my meal in the trash.

  “That’ll get you plenty. I have a list of public records websites to check. You need a Private Investigator’s license to get DMV records, so I’ll take care of that. Right now I just want a solid background on what Parker has been up to for the past two or three years. After that, we’ll dig deeper.”

  Salem was writing.

  I leaned over and stopped his pencil. “You’ll learn by doing. It won’t make sense until we compile a record.”

  “Good, because right now it seems like you want a lot of useless information on this guy. What about phone records? What about…”

  “This isn’t a movie, Salem.” I pointed to the investigative techniques book. “This is real. It’s detailed and sometimes tedious, but almost always fruitful. People just can’t hide what they’re doing these days.”

  “Not from you anyway,” Salem said. “Anything else?”

  “Uh, yeah. We need to check the Property Tax Assessor’s files for Washington and maybe Oregon just in case. I’ll ask Jimmy if he knows of any recent purchases. And run his name through some of our professional search engines. Maybe he’ll pop up somewhere we don’t expect.”

  Salem was writing frantically again. I thought about Jimmy’s warning about trusting Salem.

  “And, how is Jimmy?” Salem cleared his throat, and avoided my gaze.

  “You know I love you, right? I consider you the closest thing I have to a brother.”

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  “Jimmy is off-limits as far as personal conversation goes, OK? I just can’t go there. Not now.”

  “Reyna, I just wanted to know how he was holding up, after his sister died.”

  “I know, but I need to be clear. I can’t even have a conversation with myself about Jimmy.”

  Jimmy overwhelmed my senses. He always had. I doodled on the paper and wondered how he was doing. I’d promised to call him when I got in.

  “What about taking a peek at Parker’s financials?” Salem changed the subject. “If you knew which bank they used—”

  I put my hand up, stopping him.

  “No, Salem, nothing black-hat. You can’t hack into Parker’s financials.”

  “I wouldn’t. I just wanted to know how serious you were about this.”

  “I’m serious. Just not willing to do anything illegal, you knew that was the deal when I hired you.”

  “What are you going to do about Parker suing you?” Salem gathered his dinner trash and dumped it in the garbage. He opened up another can of soda and half sat on the conference table, studying me.

  “I don’t know. I guess I need to find a defense lawyer.” I sighed. I felt deflated and tired, and this business with the lawsuit just made me angry.

  “Oh, that reminds me.” Salem walked over to his desk. He rummaged around on the piles of paper already littering the top. “I compiled this for you
after we spoke on the phone.” He handed me a typed list of names. It was a list of attorneys.

  “Thanks.”

  “You have tentative appointments with the top three this week. They realize your schedule is fluid.”

  “You’re my glue, you know that, right?”

  “I vote for the first guy on the list. He’s a bulldog. Come to think of it, he looks like one too.” Salem made a jowly gesture at his chin.

  He was sweet, and I was lucky. I sat up suddenly remembering something. I reached into my purse and pulled out a small box wrapped in black paper. I handed it to him.

  “I got you this the day before I left for Seattle. Congratulations.”

  “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

  “Just open it.”

  He took the package, opened it, and looked at me with shock. He held up the gift receipt from the computer store. “You did this for me?”

  “The guy was impressed I knew so much about computers.” My first car didn’t cost as much as Salem’s new system, but he was worth every penny.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say you’ll pick it up tomorrow and, you know, won’t get arrested for using it to do evil again.”

  “You were crazy for trusting me back then.” He smiled and leaned back in his chair.

  “Yeah, well…happy End-of-Parole Day, jail bird.”

  “Do I get to hug you now?” He opened his arms in a grand gesture.

  “Absolutely not. You know I hate people.”

  Purple Knot

  9

  The night I got back from Seattle, Jimmy called. I didn’t answer my phone. I let him go to voicemail and then listened to the message a few times. He sounded sad.

  “Just wanted to make sure you got home all right. I know you’re probably going full speed on this Parker thing, but please be careful.” He hesitated. “I miss you, Rain.”

  I didn’t call him back that night, or the next.

  I spent the next few days ignoring the lump in my throat and catching up on work. My niche market was process serving. I billed law offices in the five figures to find white collar thieves on the lam. I tracked down embezzlers, business espionage suspects—anyone having to do with high end corporations. Most of the time, people are pretty easy to track down. But give someone a few million dollars and a head start and it gets tricky.