Annie’s brow lifted, satisfaction tilting her full lips. “You got yourself a fancy New York City girl, do you, SJ? Tell me about her.”
I hadn’t meant to mention Brina, but with the subject raised, coy didn’t fly. “We work together in a detective agency. She’s my boss.”
I ducked my eyes, studying the ice in my glass. That flat declaration made things seem simple between Brina and me. They weren’t. Not by a long shot. Heat prickled my neck, the blotches giving Annie the clue she needed. Under pressure, my ears turned dusky red, the reaction both predictable and amusing.
Annie’s eyebrows arched in skepticism. “And dating the boss doesn’t land you in trouble?”
“None so far. She’s fair, honest, tough. She helps people. I help people. She gets me and we have each other’s backs. That’s what matters.” This was the most I’d ever said to a third party about what Brina meant to me.
Annie still had that talent for slicing through me like a goddamn can opener. Her smile widened. “And I bet she’s stunning too.”
I nodded but didn’t offer details on how beautiful Brina was. Annie knew me; elaboration on that score wasn’t necessary.
“Sounds good, SJ. You sound real good. I’m glad. You had me worried a few years back. But seeing you now–solid, steady, clear like this—makes me feel we went through all those troubles for a reason. So the both of us could land in a better place.” We touched glasses and took slugs from our drinks as this new-found peace settled over the table.
But since she’d split me open, I had clearance to return the shot. “And you? Anyone special in your life right now?”
“I’m not solitary, if that’s what you’re asking. I’ve got my little amusements. But right now, the company is my baby, my family, my everything.”
“Tell me about your company.”
She launched into corporate titan mode, her eyes glittering. “I have two hundred and fifty-five employees operating out of four locations in Dade County. We do everything from residential and commercial cleaning to janitorial services in major hotels, restaurants, hospitals, and entertainment venues.” Her breath came fast and hard as she spoke. “The thing I’m proudest of is almost all of those two hundred and fifty-five are women. We have a few men scattered here and there, but mostly it’s us ladies who get the job done, day in, day out.”
I thought about how Brina ran the financial side of our little detective agency. Her meticulous attention to every penny spent or earned saved us from disaster each month. Brina wasn’t in charge of a multi-million-dollar firm, but with her drive and smarts, she could pull it off, no doubt.
“How did you get started?” When Annie left me, she’d had less than four thousand dollars in the bank. She’d built her company from nothing in the strictest sense of the term.
“I started by doing the work myself. Me and another girl, we rented a vacuum cleaner, bought some pails and mops, and went door-to-door drumming up business. I always tell my employees I know exactly how hard they’re working, because I scrubbed the same floors they do. I washed the same windows and I scraped out the same ovens and refrigerators too.”
“They must love working for you, Annie.”
“I don’t know about love. I’m a tough boss. But the people who work for me know I respect them, and they return that respect to me.”
“And you bring in the big bucks.”
“We do pretty well, all told.”
The modesty was fake, but seductive. I wanted her to keep talking with me like this all night. Balancing at the rollercoaster’s peak was exhilarating. More softball questions kept her going. “And what’s your company called? Perry Cleaning Solutions?”
Annie hesitated for the first time. Her eyes drifted toward her lap and she bit her lower lip. “No. Actually, it’s called Rook Cleaning Services.”
“It’s named after me? Why?” I swallowed deep to calm my racing heart.
“Not after you, SJ. When I started the business, I was called Rook too, remember? And then I didn’t get around to changing it as time went on. We grew big so fast. We got known by that name, so I kept it. Even when I changed myself back to Perry.”
Every day she went to the office, Annie was forced to think of me, of my ugly temper, and our terrible parting. I shifted in my chair, leaning from the table. “I don’t know about that, Annie. It doesn’t sit right somehow.”
“Yeah, I know. But figure it this way: If you hadn’t married me, I never would have escaped south Texas. And if you hadn’t wrecked our marriage, I never would have founded my company. I’m a big old business success thanks to you, SJ.”
I suspected there was a touch of Annie-style revenge in the name game too. But I let it slide. “So, Rook Cleaning Services is all on me?” I dragged a hand over my mouth, but a smile peeked out.
“Yep, all on you, wise guy. And to think, you never even wiped a countertop the whole time we were married!”
“I did so. Remember that weekend you were sick and I made you a cake from scratch? From my mother’s favorite recipe. Yellow cake with chocolate icing.” I grinned when Annie hummed and licked her lips. “And after, I washed every bowl, pan, and spatula. When I was done, that kitchen was spotless.”
“I’ll give you that, SJ. You really put your foot into that cake!”
Guilt fluttered in my gut, a twinge, no more. I’d never baked a cake for Brina. Maybe I should.
Annie and I talked on. I wanted us to continue like this all night. Catch up, heal those little wounds that still festered. Laugh the way we did in our early days together. This evening proved those memories weren’t my idle fantasies. Our talk showed we’d been foolish, misguided, juvenile. But we weren’t wrong about the fundamentals. I wanted more time with Annie. More time to repair, to explore. More hours to bury the past. More days to imagine a future.
Annie wanted more too. She sketched a fingernail along the braided metal of her necklace, lifting it from her throat. Wires in three shades of gold twisted together, yellow, white, and rose. She pressed her thigh against mine. A firm touch, not hard. But enough to spin the rollercoaster.
“You ever think about us, SJ?”
“All the time.” A stretch. But the core truth croaked over my dry tongue.
“We were good together, you and me.”
“Sometimes.” More truth; I swallowed the last of the bourbon.
“Miami’s a nice town.” Her fingers twitched over my leg, just above the knee.
“So I hear. Nice beach, nice ocean.”
“You ever think about moving?”
“You inviting, Annie?” The train tottered on the greased tracks, high above the carnival midway.
She winked, black eyes slick with tropical heat. “Depends.”
Depends? My stomach lurched under my heart.
Annie slid her eyes left, black pupils filling the slanted corners. I waited for another wink, but she stilled her gaze. I rubbed damp palms over my pockets, my fingers near hers on my thigh.
She said nothing more, scattering me in a thousand directions. Depends on what? Phases of the moon? The tides? If the sun rises tomorrow? What?
I never found out. Strangers invaded. Barbarians occupied our booth. The present erased our past with a bold swipe.
And the next day, two bullets deleted our future.
Chapter
Three
By the time I found Annie the next day, she was dead.
At four in the afternoon, I rode the elevator to the eighteenth floor with the Continental’s manager, Brock Stevens. He plowed around several turns of dark oriental carpeting and beige walls, until we arrived at the door to 1823, Annie’s room. Stevens slid his key card into the slot and pushed the door. Sweat popped along my collar as he fiddled with the latch. I stepped forward, but it was his hotel. I let him enter first.
Stevens was a big ma
n, rolls of blubber shimmying over his belt. He charged across the threshold with his head down like a bull. I was a step behind, my view blocked by his broad back. His cry pierced me. He howled like a baby stuck by his first vaccine: shrill, intense, mournful. As if the entire world had betrayed his trust. He froze in his tracks, one arm stretched forward, index finger pointing.
I shoved Stevens aside. Annie sprawled on the floor next to the bed, bare legs ajar like an abandoned door. A pink kimono embroidered with orange flowers and pale pink butterflies draped over her body. A bullet had carved a hole through her left breast. Another bullet punctured the flesh below her ribcage. The singed dots blemished her velvet skin. The braided gold necklace draped on her throat, grazing her earlobes. Her long hair fanned around her shoulders like a black cape. Splayed hands rested on either side of her head. A maroon-and-gold quilt hung off the end of the king bed. The cream sheets were rumpled, pillows mounded against the mahogany headboard. On the side table, the lamp was lit and the phone’s red message button pulsed—an exercise in futility.
Beside the bed, gore spread over the carpet, camouflaged by the rug’s maroon tufts. Blood unfurled in dull red wings on both sides of Annie’s body. So much blood, still damp when I touched it. The air conditioner blasted arctic winds across the room, lifting her candied fruit perfume from the sheets. Stench of musk and burnt iron polluted the air; the room reeked of gun smoke and sex. Annie’s face was mild, pink lips slack. Like sleep had taken her on a gentle flight. Her forehead was smooth, her cheeks shiny below half-open lids. Like she wasn’t lost to me forever, only napping. If I kissed her, she’d wake and call me SJ. And we’d laugh at this crude joke.
The manager jutted a finger into Annie’s cheek. He too wanted to awaken her from this brutal sleep. I jerked his arm. This stranger had no right to touch her. Crouching, I lifted the hem of her robe and covered her bare hip with pink butterflies. My finger stroked her thigh as I settled the kimono. The dark skin was dense as glass: smooth, firm, and cool.
I barked over the air conditioner’s drone: “Call 911. This is a crime scene. Don’t disturb anything.” Stevens stared at the bed, paralyzed. “Call the police and notify your house security. Now.”
I sounded professional, masterful in the face of grotesque violence. Like murder was my beat. Like I witnessed a hundred deaths each year. Like my wife’s killing was one more statistic jotted in my notepad. Like my past and maybe my future hadn’t been hacked to ribbons. Like all the tears dammed inside my heart would rush out sometime. Like I’d survive this horror.
I stood and walked backwards through the door and took a seat in the corridor.
From my place on the hall bench I watched Stevens pace. He punched at his phone. Sweat beaded in the folds of his brow and dripped beside the blunt curve of his mouth. Anger had overtaken his initial shock: crime wasn’t permitted in his hotel. Especially murders; so disruptive, so messy.
I wanted to see Annie one more time. I needed time to cradle her head and stroke her cheek and arrange her hair in a flattering style before more strangers had a chance to view her. I wanted to tell her I was sorry I hadn’t been able to give her the life she desired. Tell her I was glad she’d created the fulfilling life she deserved. That I’d wonder forever about the marriage we should have had. Always mourn the unexplored self I might have been with her. If only we’d had the time. I needed time to tell her everything before letting her go. I needed time to see Annie again.
But instead I sat on a stiff velvet upholstered bench in the hall near room 1823. Maybe I stayed because anguish trapped me. Or because Annie was my wife. Or because I was a material witness to her murder. Or maybe I had nowhere else to go.
I slumped on that bench a long time. Twenty minutes, an hour. Maybe a week. In the hazy distance, clanking announced the arrival of police, emergency medical personnel, technicians, official photographers. They reeked of male sweat and chemical solvents. A fog of sterile skepticism settled over the room and the corridor. The bustling and commotion droned around me, a backdrop to my dry sorrow.
“Rook, how long you been here?” A low voice rolled through the fog, as heavy as the hand gripping my shoulder. I shrugged, but the thick fingers held firm. “It’s time. You can go home now.”
I leaned to escape the intruder without abandoning the bench. But Archie Lin crowded next to me anyway.
Detective Archibald Lin’s job on the NYPD Homicide Special Task Force brought him to crime scenes around the city. Sometimes he ran across me in the vicinity of one of his cases and drafted me into the effort. Most days, he was a welcome friend and partner. But peering into Archie Lin’s flat face now didn’t bring me any joy. His cheeks were ashy and sunken. Worry smeared gray film over his black eyes. Seeing Archie was awful. But the shock did jerk me from the cloud of blame where I’d floated since finding Annie’s body.
“Archie, I don’t need this. Leave me alone.”
His rumble was official, strong. “We already took a statement from the manager, Stevens. He’s first on the scene, so we got his positive ID and what he saw when he entered the room. You don’t have to hang around here.”
I rubbed the back of my head. Pain pulsed in a shallow rhythm between the cords at my nape. When I said nothing, Archie’s voice dwindled to a whisper. “Tell me, Rook. Tell me what this means. What do you know about this?” I stayed silent, so Archie took a different tack to pry me from the investigation. “Gavin’s the lead on this case. He’s got his men canvassing this floor. They’ll interview every guest, maid, and bell boy on the wing. I told him we’d get your statement tomorrow. When you’re up to it.”
Heat surged behind my eyes. “She’s my wife, Archie.”
He gasped, wet gurgling in his thick chest. He pressed back into the cushion, his shoulders rising toward his ears as if to shield them from the unwelcome news. A dull flush rolled from his cheekbones to his throat. Archie knew I’d been married. I guess he imagined that connection was in the forgotten past, a relic I’d discarded when I started a new life in Harlem. A life with Brina. Now I’d jolted Archie by calling Annie my wife and his eyes burned like coals as he looked at me.
“Don’t cut me out of the investigation,” I growled. “And don’t handle me. I don’t need it. I don’t want it, understand?” Anger blasted through the pain at the base of my skull. This wasn’t my case yet, but I wanted it to be. For Annie. For what we’d been together. For the man I’d been with her and the man I’d become since we parted. I wanted to find her killer.
Archie squeezed my forearm. “Okay. I get it. I hear you.” The squeeze turned into patting. “Then you can tell me what happened. Just us talking.” Thump. “You and me.” Thump. “There’s nothing more we can do here, either one of us.” Thump, thump.
I pushed his hand away. “Is she… is she still in there?”
He shifted his bulk on the bench. “Yeah, they haven’t brought her out yet. It’ll be a while.” Archie reverted to the cool, practical tones of a professional colleague. “You know the drill. The techs get a first look. Photos, measurements, samples, prints. The usual. Then off to the medical examiner for a complete work up.” This was better than the soft murmuring he’d started with. Good. No coddling needed.
A dry distant voice skidded over the gravel in my throat. “I’ll stay with her. Until they take her away. She’s alone in there, Arch. With strangers. I don’t want her to be alone.”
He nodded his heavy head, black eyes glimmering. “I get that. You’re right, we’ll stay.” He loosened the knot in his ugly red tie and rolled up tan shirt sleeves. He mimicked my position: torso caved, elbows on knees, head down. A solid friend.
“Tell me what happened, Rook. All of it.”
So, I told him the story of last night. Almost all of it.
Chapter
Four
“Miami’s a nice town.”
Annie’s fingers had twitched over my leg,
just at the knee. Blue lights in the Argent Bar had shimmered above our booth. At nearby tables, the tourist droning sank into silence. She leaned closer.
I punted: “So I hear. Nice beach, nice ocean.”
“You ever think about moving?” She licked a salt crystal from her pink lips.
“You inviting, Annie?”
She winked, tropical vapors hot in black eyes. “Depends.”
With her Miami question hovering in the air, Annie drew her hand from my thigh. She waved it like a flag at a man posing in the bar’s entrance. “Ricky! Over here!”
The hell? Annie had invited colleagues from the conference to join us. Maybe she’d done it as insurance against the possibility our reunion might turn disastrous. Like a girl on a blind date arranging to have her best friend call half-way through the evening. An escape route in case the date turns out to be a serial killer. Or boring. Or a boring serial killer. Like that, our private conversation was cancelled, and the evening swerved in a different direction.
“Here we are, Ricky!” His rodent face was smooth and tan, but boyish the way women prefer. The creep’s long incisors glittered at Annie when he caught her movements.
“Scoot over, SJ. Ricky can sit next to me.” She patted the tufted bench and the rat scurried to the seat on her left.
Annie introduced him as Ricardo Luna, her vice president for marketing and sales. Was this how all her executive meetings started? Two wet kisses to the temples and a third on the mouth? Luna had patent-leather hair, Hollywood teeth, and petroleum-black eyes. Everything about him grated on my nerves. His thick eyelashes and dense cologne, the way he stuck his chewing gum under the table when his rum-and-coke arrived. Everything. He was younger than we were, thirty-two max from the look of his slick cheeks, unlined neck, and narrow waist. I pictured Luna’s tan Cuban fingers twisted in Annie’s hair. His trim body hovering over hers. Had this baby vice president delivered a personal sales pitch she found irresistible? I raised my finger for another bourbon.
Murder My Past Page 3