by Jenna Rae
“All it needs is a little white leg sticking out of the water,” she whispered to herself. “Poor Icarus! Poor Breughel, for that matter. Auden, too.”
Lola saw a flash of light and turned sharply to her left.
“I—should I have said ‘cheese’?” she mumbled.
Sterling pulled the camera away and offered a rueful grin. “You just looked so beautiful and sad! Are you mad? Do you hate me forever?”
Lola wasn’t sure what to say, but she didn’t want to be cold to the one person who’d talked with her. She hated having her picture taken, really hated it. And had done, ever since she was a little girl. She pushed that away. This woman, Sterling, had startled her, and she probably should have asked before taking Lola’s picture. But, Lola wondered, was that true? Maybe people just take each other’s pictures. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal. People put pictures of themselves and each other online all the time, didn’t they? Maybe she was being overly sensitive. Probably she was. She tried to shake off her discomfort and forced a small smile. It hurt her face, making that fake smile. Did it look as insincere as it felt? She shook her head, still smiling.
“It’s okay, I guess.”
“I’m a photographer,” Sterling put her camera away. “That’s why I come to these things. I should be using this time to hand everyone my card. That’s pretty much my whole marketing plan.”
“Oh.” Lola nodded. She didn’t know what to say. Should she ask about photography? Ask for Sterling’s card? She had no idea. She was getting nervous, but Sterling was still fussing with her camera bag. She pulled out a red sweater, and Lola gasped and pointed.
“You’re the woman from the boat,” she blurted.
Sterling’s eyes widened, and she flushed for a moment. She looked away, and Lola tensed, worried that she’d said something wrong. But when Sterling looked at Lola again, her smile was relaxed, and her eyes twinkled.
“Well, I am a woman, and I do sail. But I think I’d remember sailing with you.”
“No.” Lola made a face. “I’m sorry. I meant, I saw you parking a boat at the marina a little while ago.” She peered out and pointed. “That one, I think.”
“Wow, how can you be sure that’s the one?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not.”
“I’m glad I wasn’t stealing it.”
Lola’s laugh was an awkward giggle, but Sterling smiled easily.
The rest of lunch, Lola chatted with Sterling, and the meal was over before she knew it.
“So, there I was,” Sterling was saying, when Marco walked up to their table and eyed Lola expectantly. “Now, remember, it was hot as anything, and we were hiding from the weirdo. And—”
“Introduce me to your friend,” Marco interrupted, and Lola stared at him.
“I’m Sterling. And you are?”
Marco raised an eyebrow. “Marco. Nice to meet you. I hate to interrupt, but I need to get going and we drove together. Do you mind, Lola?”
She rose quickly, embarrassed at having kept him waiting. Sterling stood with her, putting a hand on Lola’s arm.
“Wait, hold on. I’d like to show you the photo I took. Here’s my card. Call me in the next few days, and I’ll have the photo. Don’t forget—I’ll be waiting for your call!”
“Okay.” Lola watched Sterling stroll away. She felt good about maybe making a friend, until she saw Marco’s face.
“What?”
“What?” He signaled the server. “You’re driving back. It’ll take at least one more glass of mediocre chardonnay for me to play teacher. You’re buying my lunch, I just decided. Oh, and unless I’m mistaken, you’re paying for ‘Sterling’s’ lunch, too.” He pointed at the bill, left unheeded on the table.
“Oh.” Lola fumbled for her wallet. “It’s okay. I’m sure she just forgot.”
“Yeah,” Marco mumbled, shaking his head. “I’ll just bet. Listen up, my darling Innocenta, we need to talk.”
“What? Why? Marco, what’s wrong?” Lola flushed. “Are you mad? I’m sorry for keeping you waiting.” Her alarm was rising exponentially, and she heard her voice rise in pitch and volume.
Marco gestured at her to sit down.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, embarrassed and flustered.
“No, don’t be.” Marco sighed heavily. “I’m not mad at you. I’m just a little concerned, is all.”
“Why?”
“Well, darling, you just flirted hardcore with another woman. And, lest you’ve forgotten, you already have a girlfriend. You remember her, don’t you? Blonde, about yae tall, carries a gun? Bit of a temper?”
“I wasn’t flirting. I wouldn’t! And I would never cheat on Del, I swear! I told Sterling I have a girlfriend.” Lola shook her head. “I just, she was nice to me, and all the other women hated me.” Lola’s eyes widened. “Oh, God. I did. I totally flirted with another woman. What am I going to do?”
Marco took Sterling’s card and put it on the table, and they both eyed the cardstock like it was repulsive and potentially dangerous.
“Nothing. I’m taking this. If you still love Del, I’ll carry this thing around in my wallet until I get to be a senile old man and forget why I have it. If you girls break up someday, then ask me for it back. Okay?”
Lola nodded, red-faced. It would be rude, not calling Sterling. But it would be worse to call her. She could only imagine how hurt Del would be, if she thought Lola was flirting with another woman! Lola offered Marco a weak smile.
“Okay. That’s a good plan. Thanks so much for calling me on my ridiculous behavior! Marco, please don’t worry. Del and I are together forever. I love her, truly.”
Marco waited until he’d been served his wine to acknowledge her words. He eyed her before he drained the glass in a single, noisy gulp. Then he picked up Sterling’s card and ran his finger over the raised lettering before tucking it into his wallet.
“Okay, Innocenta. But you know what’s funny? I thought you’d tell me to just leave this on the table.”
Chapter Eight
“Asshole,” Del muttered, and Phan raised his eyebrows, taking a labored, indelicate slurp and eying her with exaggerated innocence. His left arm was slung carelessly out over the steering wheel of their department-issued car.
“Okay.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry I said you take too long to drink your coffee. Just—come on! How long could it possibly take to suck down twenty ounces of shitty slop?”
“Mmmm.” He smiled, drawling. “That is goooood caffeinated beverage. I am going to sa-vor this. Yes, I certainly am. Because life is meant to be savored, isn’t it, partner, dear?”
Del looked away. Her foot started tapping and she stilled it. The more impatience she showed the longer he would take. Finally after an agonizing thirty seconds they pulled into traffic. They rode in silence for a few minutes while Phan concentrated on the heavy traffic. They were usually spared this kind of work, but a recent sharp rise in the number of missing women in the city meant even homicide detectives were being recruited to interview a family member of yet another of the disappeared.
They finally got through the Tenderloin traffic snarl and to a notoriously raunchy hotel that functioned as an SRO—single-residence occupancy, the city’s code for a pay-by-the-week motel. Phan and Del took one look at the scattering scumbags who’d seen them coming. The pair had been to this particular SRO more than a few times. It housed the recently paroled, the newly homeless, the mentally ill, drug addicts, sexual predators, the variously impaired and other fringe folk. Some were on one end of the predator-victim spectrum, some on the other. Some were on both.
“Mrs. Wilson?” It was Del who’d made the call to the woman they were to interview. “Would you be willing to meet us at the sandwich shop down the street from your place? We’d be happy to buy you a cup of coffee, lunch, whatever you’d—”
“Good thinking.” The breathy voice had dropped to a barely audible volume. “In case they’re watching, right? I’ll be in disguise.”
> Del relayed the earlier conversation to Phan while they waited halfway between the SRO and the deli. The sidewalk’s denizens inched away until there was a thirty-yard perimeter around the two police detectives.
“She wasn’t kidding about the disguise,” muttered Phan, when a walking tower of layered, filthy clothes lunged out of the SRO and waddled over to them. The dingy affair was topped by a face-and-head covering comprised of what looked like four or five layers of aluminum foil, broken up only by narrow slits for eyes and a ragged gap for a mouth.
“My family called it aluminium,” Del noted to Phan, who grinned reflexively.
The complainant, a Mrs. Wilson, responded to Phan’s smile with one of her own, barely visible through the food-encrusted tinfoil on her face. The partners breathed through their mouths and greeted her. They bought her a turkey club and watched her cram tiny bits of it into her tinfoil-encased maw and forced themselves to listen for the parts of her story that might actually translate into something they needed to know. For the first ten minutes, they endured a rambling monologue about the various dangers of being a private citizen in a government-controlled dystopia.
Suddenly, the odiferous interviewee set down the remains of her sandwich and shot a glare at Del. “You look at me like I’m nothing.”
Del was startled and sputtered a protest, but the woman held up a grimy hand.
“Listen. You’re right. I am nothing. I always had trouble with just getting by. My head doesn’t work so good, I know that. But my Paula, she was something special. Is something special. I wasn’t exactly Mother of the Year, you know? She had to pretty much raise herself. But I love her, and I have to make sure she’s okay. If she’s alive, that is. She was not a hooker, just so you know. She worked, she works at a shoe store.”
“And she just didn’t show up for work one day?”
“Five weeks now. Not a word. And she’s not one of these girls that just ups and goes. She’s responsible. Tries to get me to go to the doctor’s, take the pills, all that. She’s a sheep, but she’s a good girl. She wouldn’t worry me like this.”
“Was she seeing anyone before she went missing?”
Wilson slammed her hand on the table. “It’s not like that! I told you, it’s not just some random crime. I know how you cops are, all of you. You think the victim deserved what she got. That’s what they did to me, back when she was forced into me by that bastard doctor.”
“Mrs. Wilson—” Phan tried to interject but was cut off.
“Listen to me, the past doesn’t matter. I know, lots of women disappear, I see it more than you. Lots of people down here got no kind of papers, nobody knows ’em or wants to. They go poof and nobody even notices, nobody who’ll go to the cops, anyhow. You might have a dozen or more folks just gone like nothing and there’s not even a peep. But now girls like my daughter are disappearing too. And what are you doing about it? Nothing, that’s what! It took seventeen phone calls and me threatening to park my ass in City Hall before you two showed up. Tell me you care, please. Tell me you give a shit about some crazy loon’s nobody of a girl.”
Del pursed her lips, thinking. “It’s true.”
Phan, used to Del’s maneuvering, sat back, but Mrs. Wilson sputtered with rage. Del waited her out for a full minute before holding up her hand.
“You’re absolutely right. If you were rich or famous or something, there would have been a news bulletin and a task force. But you’re nobody, status wise, and neither is your daughter. But we know that’s wrong. I just don’t know how to fix the whole system. What I can do, what we can do, is work our tails off to find your daughter and either bring her back or at least tell you what happened to her. And we’re gonna do everything we can to find her.”
“Or at least shut me up with a bunch of promises.”
“You won’t know how we’ll do until we do it, Mrs. Wilson. I’d like to share this much. Women do go missing all the time, and lots we don’t even know about. And you’re right, a lot more women than usual have gone missing the last several months. We don’t know why. Do you have some idea?”
Del’s question elicited a twelve-minute dissertation on a conspiracy that involved the CIA, the FBI, the White House and the Senate. Through it, Del and Phan each waited for a signal from the other to cut off the increasingly distraught complainant and neither gave it. The woman was clearly mentally ill, but she was just as clearly truly scared for her only child. Finally, Mrs. Wilson wound herself down and abruptly rose, disturbing a cloud of stink that wafted over the detectives.
“You don’t have time for chatting. Stop sitting around here like a couple old ladies and get to work. One more thing. If you aren’t just humoring me or playing along with the conspiracy, if you truly care about finding my girl, then you are in danger too. Please be careful, will you?”
The partners nodded, twin bobbleheads, and watched the woman stagger out of the deli in front of them. Exchanging a glance, they trudged in silence back to the car.
“Eight bucks for a lousy cheese sandwich?”
“It was worth not having to walk past all the parole violations.” Del gestured at the SRO.
“Not to mention having to refrain from shooting the pedophiles.”
Del shook her head when Phan headed for the driver’s side. “Nuh-uh, bud.”
“What?” Phan was red-faced.
“My turn. You drove here, remember?”
He shrugged but seemed peeved, which surprised Del. She took the wheel without trying to make conversation, wanting to see where his head was.
“Fuckin’ call should have been handled by Missing Persons.”
“Yeah, she’s a nut job, but remember the meeting this morning? It’s true, we have seen a lot more missing women than usual. You have to wonder, what happens to all of them? Wilson’s daughter is a legit missing person. She’s been gone over a month. She didn’t imagine that.”
“Jesus Christ, Mason. Are you lecturing me?”
Usually Phan was annoyingly patient and understanding, and Del was rattled by his short temper.
“You okay?”
“Worried I’m cracking up?”
“You’re batshit crazy. It’s why I keep you around, for entertainment.” Del eyed her partner. “But usually you’re a softhearted little girl and today you’re acting like this is your very first period.”
Phan shrugged but his eyes were doing a nervous dance. Del waited him out.
“It’s stupid,” he warned.
“That much I figured.”
“Dammit, I can’t believe I’m freaking out about this when I practically flunked out of school every year.”
Del nodded, her eyes on the traffic. Phan blew out a gust of air that smelled like coffee and sour stomach. Another first. Phan was a scrupulous mint popper. He’d even gotten Del in the habit over the last several months. Sneaking a glance, she noticed his hair was too long. Usually he kept it surfer-boy shaggy, but it was edging toward homeless-guy ragged, and Del was surprised she’d failed to notice the hair plus the fact that he was wearing a tie. He usually only wore one when he had to make an appearance in court. She’d been neglecting him, too, hadn’t she? Just like Lola and the house and everything else. She tuned back in when Phan cleared his throat, ready, finally, to spit it out.
“Okay.” He cleared his throat again. “Well, Kaylee’s getting a C in history.”
“Oh, no!” Del made a horrified face. “Now how will the pathetic loser ever get into Harvard, Yale and Stanford all at once and with full-ride scholarships?”
“Shut up. It matters, Mason.”
“Yeah, I know.” Del hid a smile. Phan’s big crisis was his kid getting a mediocre grade? “What’s the problem?”
“Teacher’s mean, mom’s mean, I’m mean. Nothing’s her fault. And she knows we both feel guilty about the divorce.” He shrugged again. “The thing is, she aced the final but didn’t do any of the homework. Honestly, I wish the teacher had flunked her. Maybe she’d have learned her les
son.”
“So, she’s super smart but lazy?” Del surveyed the group of bite-sized gangsters loitering on the street corner as the unmarked sedan eased slowly past them. “Could be worse. Dumb and lazy would definitely be worse.”
He ignored that.
“Listen, I don’t know shit about kids. But my guess is, Kaylee’s a good one, especially compared to most of ’em.”
She nodded in the direction of the baby thugs, who eyeballed the car at her gesture. She and Phan held the kids’ eyes until some unseen adult wrangler signaled his gophers. The youngsters dispersed, working hard to look casual. It was almost heartening, Del thought. They were still lousy at being criminals. Give ’em a couple more years, though, and they’d be slicker than spit and harder than the cement their overpriced sneakers scraped. She nodded again at the retreating kids.
“Prime examples, right there. Most of them are around Kaylee’s age, some even younger. They’re screwed to the wall, have been their whole lives. She’s not perfect, okay, but she’s nothing like them. She’ll get her shit together. Don’t you think?”
“Well, she better,” he said, too loudly for inside the car. “She’s not having any fun with her friends or watching TV until she does. No soda either. Or candy!”
“Meanie.” Del stuck her tongue out and smiled when Phan flipped her off. She’d have to keep a closer eye on him. How long had he been quietly falling apart without her noticing? I’m a detective, she thought, almost shaking her head. But apparently I’m blind and deaf when it comes to the people around me.
“Your turn.”
“Me? I flunked history a long time ago.”
Phan made a face. “There’s obviously something on your mind.”
As much as she hated to talk about Janet, Del needed a fresh perspective on things, and Phan was the only person she trusted.