by Leslie Karst
But no, the grip continued to tighten and the breathing grew louder. Then, with no warning, the hands let go and pushed me down the stairs.
I think I must have lost consciousness at that point, because the next thing I knew, I was sprawled facedown on the living room floor. I rolled over with a groan.
Evelyn touched me on the shoulder. “What happened?” she asked. “I heard the person say something, and then you made a kind of gurgling sound and fell down the stairs. Are you okay?”
I reached up to touch my throat. “I guess so,” I said, though it came out more as a rasp. “Are they gone?”
“Yeah. Whoever it was tore past me and out the door. Did you get a look at them? Who was it?”
“No. They were wearing a ski mask. They grabbed me by the throat and told me to ‘stay out of this’ and then shoved me down the stairs. I guess we must have spooked them with our investigation.”
“Ohmygod, how scary! You sure you’re okay?”
Slowly, since I was still feeling woozy, I lifted myself to a sitting position and rubbed my shin. I’d been lucky not to break anything, but I could tell my leg was going to host a colorful array of blues and greens by the morning.
“Just a few bruises,” I said. “Nothing that won’t heal in a few days.”
Evelyn exhaled. “Well, that’s good. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you and stay downstairs like you wanted.” She sank down onto the floor next to me. “And after all that, we didn’t even learn anything.”
“Yeah, too bad.” Taking a few deep breaths, I reached up once again, gently probing the spot on my neck those gloved hands had so tightly gripped. The hissing of the voice came back to me, the face so close to mine.
“Wait,” I said. “There was something. When they leaned in to warn me off the case, there was a distinct smell.” I closed my eyes and tried to recall the elusive aroma. Woody … with pepper and citrus …
And then, with an intake of breath, realization hit me. “I know what it was,” I said. “One of the curry spices.”
Chapter 17
A sharp rap at the front door made both of us jump. Through the curtains, I could see the red and blue lights of a police car parked in front of the house.
“I got a call about an intruder?” the uniformed cop said when I opened the door.
“That’s right. But they’re gone now.”
Another cruiser pulled up to the curb. I waited for the second officer, a woman, to join the guy at the door, and then let them both inside.
“You want to sit?” I asked, motioning to the couch.
“That’s fine, we’re okay,” the policeman said. “Why don’t you tell me about the incident.”
“Sure.” I recounted what had happened, but left out what the person had said to me about “staying out of this.” No way did I want word getting back to Detective Vargas about how Evelyn and I had been snooping around about Jackie’s death. But I did show them my neck and the injured spots on my leg, which had already become discolored.
“You think you should go to the hospital?” the officer asked. “Your throat’s kind of red, and it might be a good idea to get it checked out.”
I assured him I was fine, and the woman then went upstairs to check out Jackie’s room for evidence while the other guy called in an APB on the suspect. Though a fat lot of good that was going to do, given my account of an average-height, average-build person of indeterminate sex, in dark clothes. That could describe half the population of Santa Cruz.
“You say he had on gloves?” the cop asked, as we waited for his colleague to return.
“Yeah. But like I said, I don’t know for certain that it was a man. It was dark, and I was being strangled at the time, so I can’t really tell you anything about the person other than that they had strong hands.”
“Of course. Sorry.” The man glanced toward the dining room and kitchen. “You wanna do a walk-through downstairs to see if anything’s missing?”
“Uh, well, I don’t live here. It’s Evelyn’s house—the house she and her mom, Jackie Olivieri, lived in till her mom died last week. Evelyn’s been staying with me since then.”
Recognition lit up the cop’s eyes. “Oh, right. I knew I recognized the address. This is the house where she was found. I’m so sorry about your mother.”
“Thanks. But I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much help telling if anything of my mom’s has been moved or taken,” Evelyn said with a wry smile. “You know, because of …” She indicated her eyes.
“Right.”
The other officer joined us in the living room. “There were several drawers open in the master bedroom,” she said, “and it looks like they’ve been gone through. So I’d say it must have been a burglary in progress that you two interrupted.”
“They just told me the house has been unoccupied for a week,” the first cop said, “so it makes sense it would be a target.”
“I don’t think that’s what it was,” Evelyn interjected, and both officers turned to stare at her. “I think it actually might have been the person who killed my mother, coming back to retrieve something they left here, or maybe cover their tracks in some other way.”
“Okay.” The man scratched his nose and frowned, as if calculating how to politely respond to this out-of-the-blue theory. “It’s my understanding that your mother’s death was self-induced.”
“But I have—”
I touched Evelyn on the arm. “Let’s let it go for the time being,” I murmured. “He’s not going to do anything more right now.”
She exhaled loudly, letting her shoulders fall in defeat. “Fine.”
“All right, then.” The officer pulled a pen and pad of paper from the pocket of his police jacket. “So why don’t you try to figure out if anything’s been taken—you know, jewelry, money, other valuables. And in the meantime, I’ll file a report and make sure the officers assigned to this neighborhood do periodic drive-bys of the premises. You want to give me your names and how we can contact you?”
The information collected, they took their leave. I watched through the curtains as the two climbed into their respective patrol cars, then sat for a moment making further notes or calling in to dispatch.
“You want to go upstairs and see if anything’s missing?” I asked once they’d finally driven off. “I could tell you what’s there, and you could tell me if you can think of anything obvious that’s gone.”
But Evelyn had retreated to the couch and was holding herself protectively about the chest, as she’d done when we’d first met.
“No,” she said, then jerked in an involuntary shudder. “I don’t think I can.” She stood. “What I need to do right now is get out of this house.”
* * *
Back at my place, Evelyn crawled onto the sofa with Coco and held the dog tightly in her arms as I went to fetch us something to drink—hot chocolate for Evelyn and a stiff bourbon for me.
“You know what’s funny?” she said when I returned with our beverages. “After all that, I forgot to get that braille book.”
I sat next to her, prompting Buster to jump up beside me. I scooted over to give him more room; the couch was big enough for four, but not all sprawled out lengthwise as my dog insisted on doing.
“We’ll just have to go back again,” I said. “Whenever you’re ready, that is.”
Evelyn tested her cocoa and, finding it too hot, set it back on the coffee table. “I know it’s probably irrational, since the person was already gone and there was no more danger, but I just got freaked out once the police came. It made the whole thing about my mom somehow real, if you know what I mean.”
“I do.” With a shudder, I reached up once more to touch my throat, then slouched down into the sofa. Buster rolled over on his back, asking for a belly scratch, which I provided as I sipped my drink.
“So who do you think it was?” Evelyn asked. “And what do you think they were looking for?”
“Well, even though I couldn’t see all that much, I go
t the feeling it was the same person who stole your mom’s laptop from my car. They had the same general build, and it would make sense that whoever took the computer would want her cell phone, too, since it would have a lot of the same stuff on it. So I’m guessing that’s what they were after tonight—her phone.”
Evelyn picked up the cocoa again. This time she blew on it, then took a small taste. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
“And assuming I’m right about that smell,” I went on, “that would limit our list of suspects to people who’d be in contact with curry spices.”
“And if you’re also right about them wanting the computer and phone, it limits the list to people who know the police don’t already have them, which includes—”
“Anyone who heard me talk to Detective Vargas at the memorial service,” I finished for her.
“Right,” Evelyn said with a sigh. “Which doesn’t really help. All our suspects were there that day.” She pursed her lips. “But what if it wasn’t her phone they were after tonight? What else could they have been looking for?”
“Maybe something they left the night she died—something incriminating, like you said to the cops? Or maybe something Jackie had that they wanted.”
“Like the recipes,” Evelyn said, sitting forward so suddenly that Coco jumped up in alarm. She turned toward me. “What if it was that guy Al? He’d for sure smell like curry, since he works in the kitchen there. Didn’t you say Max said he was jealous of Mom as a cook? What if he came to get her Curry Leaf recipes so he could use them at Tamarind?”
I stared across the room at my red-and-white bike. I still didn’t think Al was likely our guy, though the curry spice clue did serve to place him back in the running. “What about Rachel?” I asked after a moment.
“Rachel? Really?”
“Well, she is the right height and build, and cooks tend to have pretty strong arms and hands from all the work they do, so it could have been her. What if she went there trying to get more of your mom’s recipes, maybe ones she’d kept to herself? It’s not all that uncommon, chefs being super secretive about their recipes. Even Javier has been weird about sharing things with me on occasion.”
Evelyn mused over this possibility as she drank more hot chocolate. Coco had settled back down, her head in Evelyn’s lap. “Maybe. But why wouldn’t Rachel just ask me if she could come look for them? It seems pretty extreme to break into someone’s house.”
“Since she and your mom had had a falling out, maybe she just assumed you’d say no. Plus, if Rachel was the one who killed her, it’s not likely she’d be wanting to call attention to herself right about now by asking about the recipes.”
I considered how the ex–Curry Leaf cook had been unwilling to even come talk to Evelyn at the memorial service reception. As if she’d had something to be angry—or guilty—about. And then I flashed on her behavior earlier today, when she’d appeared none too happy to see me at her new pop-up restaurant.
And whoever had grabbed me by the throat tonight and then thrown me down the stairs certainly seemed to hold some kind of personal animus against me.
Chapter 18
Evelyn’s door was open when I got home from my bike ride the next morning, so I poked my head into her room to say hi. She was stretched out on the bed listening to something on her phone, but at Coco’s sudden movement she pulled out one of the earbuds.
“Hey, girl,” I said. “You feeling any better?”
“Yeah, much better.” She sat up, removing the other earbud and setting the phone down on her lap. “I don’t know what got into me last night. I’m not usually such a wimp about stuff.”
I plopped down next to her. “I’d say it’s a completely healthy response to want to get the hell out of the place where someone has just broken in and rifled through your mother’s possessions, and then committed assault, to boot.”
“Yeah, but you’re the one who got assaulted. How come you weren’t freaked out?”
“I was plenty freaked out, believe me. I guess I’m just a little better at suppressing my feelings is all.” As I said this, however, and thought back to what had happened the night before, a wave of heat and nausea swept over my body.
So maybe I wasn’t all that great at suppressing my feelings. Maybe I was merely the better liar.
Evelyn traced her fingers over the quilt beneath her, each square of fabric providing a varied texture for her curious hands. “But I am ready to go back there, to look around like the policeman suggested and see if the person took anything.”
“We could go now, if you want. And you can pick up that braille book, too.”
“Sounds good.” Evelyn’s eyes took on what I could only describe as a devilish gleam. “And I figure while we’re there,” she added, “we might as well check to see if the person who was there last night left any clues as to their identify.”
* * *
Evelyn unlocked the front door, and we stepped into the living room. I yanked opened the curtains, then looked about me. Nothing, of course, had been moved since the night before, but with the addition of the light streaming through the windows, the mood was completely changed. Whereas last night the room had felt eerie and claustrophobic, this afternoon it seemed a warm, inviting place, beckoning me to settle into the reading nook with a fat novel and soothing cup of tea.
“I’m gonna go get that book before I forget again,” Evelyn said, and started up the stairs. After a moment, she came back down and deposited the fat tome by the front door. “So,” she said, hands on hips, “you want to start in my mom’s room?”
“Sounds like the best place, since that’s where the person was last night.”
Once in the bedroom, Evelyn took a seat on the queen-size bed while I commenced opening dresser drawers and describing what was inside.
“Top drawer, knickknacks and jewelry. The jewelry’s mostly in boxes. Let’s see … a necklace with a piece of turquoise set in a silver backing, a box of various rings, some old-fashioned bracelets—Bakelite by the looks of them. Are there any pieces in particular that you remember your mom wearing?”
“She wasn’t that into jewelry, actually. You know, being a cook.”
I did know. Jewelry was a no-no in the kitchen. It got in the way and could be a danger if it caught on a pasta maker or Robot Coupe. Even a simple gold band could be a problem if it came off while mixing something with your hands.
“She did wear those plastic bracelets a lot when she went out,” Evelyn went on, “but to tell you the truth I don’t know what kind of necklaces she wore. It’s not like she told me what she was wearing on any given day, unless I asked.” Evelyn pursed her lips and thought a moment. “She did have a string of pearls, I remember. Is that still there?”
I pawed around more in the drawer. “Here it is, right in the front,” I said, opening a small black velvet box. “They look real, too.”
“They are. My dad—my real dad—gave them to her on one of their anniversaries.”
I replaced the necklace and shut the drawer. “I’d say this proves it wasn’t a burglar, then. Those pearls must be worth a bundle, so there’s no way they would have left them.”
“Not unless we scared him off too soon,” Evelyn said. “But I’m betting you’re right. What’s in the next drawer down?”
“That’s the one I found the will in, with files and paperwork. I wonder if there’s one with recipes,” I said, reading through the names of the folders. “Nope, doesn’t look like it. Is there an office with a filing cabinet, or somewhere else she might have kept papers and documents?”
“No. I mean, she’d sometimes leave papers and stuff lying around, but we don’t have an office. The extra room downstairs is just a guest bedroom. So unless it’s down in the kitchen or living room, there wasn’t a recipe file.”
“Javier stores a lot of his recipes on his laptop,” I said. “So Jackie’s might all be on hers, wherever it is now.”
I sat on the bed and pulled open the drawer of the side
table. Nothing but a few magazines and an old copy of the local entertainment newspaper. I was about to close the drawer when I noticed the date on the paper—September 8th. “Hey,” I said, “I bet this is the newspaper with that great Curry Leaf review that I read to you the other day.”
I leafed through the pages. “Yep, here it is, all right. I’m not surprised she saved it. We had a great review last summer and I kept the hard copy, too. I wonder if …” I pulled out the stack of magazines, and sure enough, there was another copy of the same weekly paper, this one dated a month later. “Aha!” I said, flipping to the review section. “She kept the one that had the review of Tamarind, too. Nothing like a healthy dose of schadenfreude to make a gal feel good.”
“Shodden …? Evelyn asked.
“It’s a German word for the glorious enjoyment one experiences from another’s misery. You know, like how people feel watching golf, when the person they’re rooting against misses a gimme putt.”
“Oh, right. Or like when the other team misses an easy field goal. Once when Max was over watching a Forty-Niners game with Mom, he started howling like a wolf when the Seahawks missed what would have been a game-winning kick. It was super funny.”
I looked up from the article. “So was Max over here a lot?” I asked.
“It depends on what you mean by ‘a lot.’ I mean, I guess he was one of Mom’s better friends. Like, he’d come over every week or two, and they’d hang out watching a game or a movie or something.” She turned to me on the bed. “Why? You thinking he might be the one?”
“Well, given what Al told me the other day about Max being really into jazz, it sure seems like he should at least be on the list. And even though he’s not a cook, he does work at a restaurant that serves curry, so it’s not that far-fetched to think he might carry the smell with him.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“So the next question is whether you remember Max ever playing your albums when he was over here.”