by Elle Marr
Crowds pile onto the sidewalks of Northwest Fir Street for Saturday morning brunch. A line winds out the front door of a glass-walled restaurant, forcing me to dodge bodies and weave between emphatic gestures. I sidestep a laughing woman despite the impulse to freeze and take her backhand against my head.
I’m responsible for this. I’m to blame.
After the six hours of driving yesterday and the abrasive ringtone of my phone so early this morning, my whole body is achy. I crack my neck to release the dull pain. Music blasts from a passing car stereo, and I step into the crosswalk before the red hand symbol changes to white.
Behind the officers standing guard at the perimeter, a green-trimmed window advertises fresh baked goods daily. Police are visible through the glass, taking notes, speaking to witnesses, examining the site for evidence.
Lucky number three depends on you.
As I stand beneath the sign TROIS CROISSANTS, another memory surges forward: The baker goes for flour. He’s gone for an hour. He makes what he wants. A big, fat croissant. Rosemary made us do arts and crafts for an hour the day of our escape, and we made braided bracelets using that rhyme as directions.
We made three bracelets that day, one for each of us. “Three croissants,” I whisper, remembering.
The image of the second body in the cooler and the bracelet he wore flashes to mind. It was a clue meant to lead me to this bakery and the dead body waiting inside.
Black hair comes into focus from around the corner. Shia.
“Hey, Claire.” He lifts a hand in hello.
I cast an eye for Oz or anyone else I know from the Post and see only nondescript police officers whom I haven’t met yet. “Hey. What are you doing here?”
Shia shifts his weight and looks down at the sidewalk. A spray-painted stencil filling one square of concrete says KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD!
“I was in the area, and I saw all the excitement. I thought it might have something to do with . . .” His voice trails off as my expression hardens.
“You were in the area?”
He shuffles his feet. “Nearby, yeah.”
“You’re here way too promptly. You have a radio scanner, don’t you?” I shake my head. “One that monitors police communications, so you know when and where a crime has occurred. Is that right?”
I stare at Shia with a mix of surprise and resignation. For some reason, I believed he was a purist when it came to journalism or writing or whatever he does—I thought he genuinely wanted to share the facts, versus being the first one to share them. Disappointment number two, counting his visit to Chet. He’s like the rest of them, desiring to report on the most blood and gain the most profit from a tragedy. Teenage recollections of reporters waiting outside my high school jolt forward and fuel my distaste now.
Shia, for his part, looks embarrassed. “Isn’t that what you’re doing here? As a freelance photographer for the crime beat?”
“It’s different.” I sneer before I remember I’m supposed to be simply Claire in this space—sweet, hardworking photographer with nothing to hide.
“Look, I thought maybe this murder had something to do with your fa—with Chet. Do you think it does?” He drops the remorse and peers over my shoulder to the scene behind me.
I shake my head again. “I don’t know. I have work to do.”
“See you Monday?” Shia’s voice trails me as I step around someone shouting into a loudspeaker—Move back, respect the police tape—and slide beneath the yellow barrier. I flash my press badge to a cop, then slip into the bakery’s interior.
Pauline made me take a photo for the badge after I finished the marketing team’s headshots. With wide eyes and tense cheeks, my portrait looks every bit as uncomfortable as I feel now.
“Hey, it’s my favorite intern,” Oz says to me. “Good of you to join. You’re late.” Bright-green eyes flick below my collarbone in an appreciative glance.
A few heads turn at the scolding, but I ignore them. “What happened here?”
“The owner went downstairs this morning looking for his grandson’s baseball mitt. He got more than he bargained for when he went poking around the boxes in the basement.”
“Ms. Lou. Ready? The Oregonian is already below.” Sergeant Peugeot appears from a narrow hall, clutching an extra-large paper coffee cup. Without waiting for an answer, he turns on his heel.
“Be right back,” I say to Oz. A few men pass Peugeot, carrying clear plastic bags containing fabric. Beside a cramped counter, a display case presents rows of neatly arranged golden croissants, chocolate croissants, tarts, other pastries I don’t know the names of, and sandwiches. My belly grumbles.
The baker goes for flour. He’s gone for an hour.
We head into the hallway. A pair of bicycles is propped against the side wall, a child’s baseball hat dangling from one of the handlebars. Beside them is a crepe maker, something I recognize from an old Belgian movie I saw at an indie theater. Tape across the top of a plastic bin reads, WINTER COATS.
Peugeot pauses to speak with a slight man who reaches the sergeant’s shoulders. I get closer and realize they’re speaking French. Peugeot says something to interrupt the man, then waves me forward. He leads me through a door that’s been propped open, then continues downstairs. A moldy smell rushes my nostrils. Dull light emanates from the corner.
Police personnel crouch along the ground, where the concrete cedes to earth, shining flashlights into crevices, searching for something. Handheld lamps are placed along the perimeter of the dug-out enclosure, and a quick glance ahead shows that it leads to a longer path—to the network of underground passageways. A body lies on the ground with a tarp over it. Beside it are a can of kerosene and a burned match, each accompanied by a plastic number, likely placed by forensics, and something else: a blanket—the white kind with stripes that’s usually given to newborns at the hospital. Chet gave one to Bethel when Lily was born. I adopted the blanket for my own and slept with it from ages four to seven. I climbed out of Chet’s basement clutching on to it, and the image was memorialized in a photo snapped by someone at the hospital later. When someone searches my name online, that’s the first image that pops up.
I suck in a sharp breath, recognizing the scratchy material. I wore the blanket as a dress, played with it like a cape, ate with it, carried it across the two rooms and back again during exercise hour, and loved it so much that I was devastated when the seams of one of its hems came loose and a hole ripped through the middle. Although Rosemary tried to sew it back together, my blanket was never the same. I couldn’t look at it without recalling my own carelessness. I had ruined something I loved.
“Turns out,” Peugeot now says to another officer, “the bakery owner also owns the property next door. It’s his family home. The passage extends from below his kitchen and partially under his business.”
Straightening, I take in the layers of dust on each item stored in the basement, the old rug covering the cement floor, and the lack of intended entryway to the next cell, where the body was found. “Did the owner know about the passageway? Was it boarded up before?” I ask.
Both officers turn to me like I just sprouted horns. “Ms. Lou.” Peugeot glares at me. “Time to take your photos so you can leave.”
The photographer from The Oregonian pauses in the corner, where he snaps pictures of baking paper, then resumes clicking faster than before.
I nod.
Peugeot and the other officer continue discussing the victim. He was burned, hence the can of kerosene, but the medical examiner is still determining the cause of death. My camera is heavy as I withdraw it from its case and sling it around my neck. Although Sergeant Peugeot warned me not to take photos of the body, I sneak one of the blanket.
The two officers continue speaking at low volume. “He did know about the passageway. Detectives are questioning him in his home right now.”
“You think he’s involved somehow?” An extra bar above the second officer’s badge reads LIEUTENANT.
Peugeot shrugs. “The fact is we now have three bodies left in or near this underground set of passages. We need someone to confirm what else we should know about these tunnels. Lou. Jankowski.” He turns to me and the other photographer. “Let’s go.”
Back outside the bakery, several onlookers snap photos on their phones and record the storefront activity. A car honks at the crowd spilling onto the road. I pull my hair from my ponytail and try to hide behind it as Peugeot says something about the utmost confidentiality and respect being shown to law enforcement when I’m invited to a crime scene. He makes me show him the photos I took inside, as if eavesdropping on one conversation shot my credibility.
As he flips through the three dozen pictures, relief courses through me. I just cleared my memory card last night, and I make it a habit each time I download images to my computer. If someone saw the photos I took of the body in The Stakehouse’s cooler, it would be apocalyptic on all levels.
Peugeot lifts his eyes to mine. “All right. You’re free to go.” He hands back my camera, then heads indoors.
“Sergeant Peugeot?”
He pauses, already past the threshold. “Yeah?”
My tongue slides between my lips, hesitates.
“Spit it out, Lou. I’ve got things to do.” He turns sideways to allow another officer to pass.
“Right. I was just wondering—is Gia Silva still a person of interest in these murders?”
Peugeot’s eyes narrow. “Yes, she is. You can follow the updates on any local news website. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“She’s not it,” I blurt out. “She’s not your murderer or your ringleader. She’s too young, and she couldn’t have . . .” Words pointing out the low likelihood of her knowing as many facts about my family as the killer does die on my lips. But as Peugeot takes a step toward me, good sense replaces the momentary impulse—the desire to save someone else from the prejudgment I’ve struggled against. Sharing my rationale would only expose me before I’ve got anything to offer the world in my defense.
“How’s that, Lou? You were saying she’s not our murderer. Who is, if not Gia Silva?” Peugeot crosses meaty forearms.
I slide my hands into my pockets, place my weight on my heels. “I’ve just been reading the news reports and trying to wrap my head around it all. The police obviously know more than I do.”
He doesn’t say anything but continues sizing me up. Then he turns and walks back into the bakery.
Oz bumps up against my elbow, startling me. “Just finished interviewing the deputy chief. They got fingerprints off a pair of dog tags the victim was wearing.”
I release a breath, feeling my pulse throb in my neck. Why suggest any kind of theory that contradicts the police? Drawing attention to myself outside of being a crime photographer will only cast suspicion on me, exactly as Rosemary worried.
I rub my jaw. “Dog tags? Was he military?”
Oz seems to dance, shifting his feet in excitement. “No, the ones you buy for five ninety-nine at an accessories shop. Nothing unique about them, except a fingerprint that doesn’t match the victim’s—or the fingerprints found on the other bodies.” Oz widens his stance. “Apparently, none of the prints found on the three victims matches the other crime scenes, and there’s no record for any of them in the database.”
“Not even a misdemeanor? No prior infractions?”
Oz shrugs, looking almost gleeful. “It’s not often that criminals surprise me, but this one—these criminals—did. I think it’s a coordinated gang. Plus, don’t forget juvenile records are sealed. It’s possible these guys did break the law, but we just don’t have visibility.”
“Ah, yeah. I hadn’t thought of that.” I have, in fact, been thinking of that my whole life, ever since I became an adult and left the dark years behind me—legally, anyway.
However, the rest of Oz’s logic doesn’t add up. “Though, just because these people don’t have a police record and the fingerprints are inconsistent doesn’t mean there’s some network of bad guys out there. Maybe this guy knew enough not to leave prints.”
He scoffs. “I thought you wanted to intern with me, Claire?”
“Oh, c’mon, I—”
“No, no. If you feel like you have a better grasp on crime scenes—this being, what, your third—please enlighten me on this criminal’s profile.”
I roll my eyes. “Fine. Your theory is possible. I’ll give you that.”
“I accept your apology.”
“Well, what else did the deputy chief say? Does this third body have anything in common with the others?”
The first was a stripper; the second was an insurance salesman who also sold original paintings. If this latest victim knew either of them, there might be some pattern.
Oz scratches his stubbled chin. “The victims all seem distinct. No obvious link among them. I’m just glad the police are finally looking somewhere besides a street kid.”
Something shifts in Oz’s frame. Emerald eyes half close, augmenting the bedroom stare he seems unable to switch off with women. A dog walker with short, wavy hair sashays past us, momentarily distracting Oz before he resumes his seduction. “What are you doing later?”
“Why?”
He licks his lower lip. A smile spreads across his pointed jaw, and he could be straight off a red carpet somewhere or in a candlelit restaurant on a date. “You see, Claire, that reply is exactly why I’m intrigued. It’s not just the no-nonsense attitude I enjoy or the schoolmarm way you think leaving two buttons undone on your shirt is casual. It’s that fire that says you want a proper welcome to Portland as much as I want to give it to you.”
“Wow, Oz. Sexual harassment went out of style in the nineties.”
He laughs a big, confident chuckle, self-assurance still intact. “When are you going to let me take you out? I’ve tried to be subtle, but I think you’ll notice it’s not my strong—”
I lift a hand to stop him. With Chet’s release Monday, my thoughts have been a mass of distractions. I don’t have the time or energy to deal with Oz’s lack of boundaries. Attractive or no.
“Rain check. Maybe we can invite Pauline, then.”
Oz grabs my hand as I turn to leave. “If you change your mind, I’ll be hanging out at Beijing Suzy’s later.”
I nod, recognizing the name of the bar I explored in Chinatown with the trapdoor. His touch is calloused, warm against the brisk morning air, like he runs hot. This close to him, my stomach tenses. The appealing sensation moves lower to curl around my thighs.
His thumb strokes the back of my hand before I pull away. “Good to know,” I say.
As I walk back to my car, clearing my head of Oz’s pheromones, my phone rings. Jenessa scrolls across the screen.
“Hey,” I answer, dodging a teenage couple. “What’s up?”
“Marissa, have you seen it?” Her voice is taut with panic. Hairs on my neck stand alert.
“No, what is it?”
“I sent you the link via text. It’s bad. It’s going viral right now. You need to see it.”
I switch her to speakerphone with shaky fingers and open our text messages. We haven’t exchanged more than ten since I got home. Tapping the link is easier than it should be for what I fear awaits. YouTube pops up in my browser, and the video’s headline stops my breath: Missy Mo: Pissed and All Grown Up.
“Em? I mean—Claire?”
“What the hell is this?” My voice mirrors hers now. I can’t tear my eyes from my own frozen image—hand raised and preparing to throw the Tru Lives reporter’s phone into traffic. “Who did this?”
Typing comes through the speaker, and Jenessa must be researching the video from her desktop. “The poster is anonymous, some dumb pseudonym with numbers after it. It was uploaded this morning, and I just saw a hashtag about it on Twitter. The good news is you can’t see your face, since it was filmed from behind.”
“But everyone already assumes it is me—that the headline is true?” My words are shak
y, and I feel ashamed of how much I hope she answers no.
“Yeah, I’m sorry. But we only see your back. Hard to tell who it is from that angle.”
I click the “Play” button and watch my own antics from last week—so self-righteous, enraged. I approach the woman, lure her in with my calm appearance, then snatch the phone and heave it onto the freeway like a maniac. The number of thumbs-downs vastly outweighs the thumbs-ups in the comments section.
Run. You run away from those crime scenes and that case as fast as you can.
“I look insane,” I murmur, holding the phone at my chin. “Can we tell anything else about the poster?”
Jenessa types more through the phone. “Not that I know of. This is the only video uploaded by the account. What were you doing anyway? Who is that woman?”
“She’s a reporter. For some TV show. She caught me off guard.”
Jenessa snorts. “Is that why you threw her phone?”
I lift my eyes toward the low-hanging clouds. “I threw her phone because she was going to record me and expose me, and I didn’t want her to follow me again. And I was pissed.”
“Just like the video’s title.”
“Shit,” I moan. “Who was filming from around the corner? She mentioned she received a letter from Serena Delle with directions on where to find me.”
“Who’s Serena Delle?”
“A high school classmate. It doesn’t matter.” I lean against a steel lamppost, run a hand down my face. “Who would benefit from this video being published? A clip of me acting like a violent jackass but which clearly has some traction with people . . .”
Jenessa is silent on the other end, and the answer comes to me.
“I gotta go.”
“What? Who did it? Who do you think?”
“I’ll call you later.” I hang up, wishing I had another phone to throw.
The drive across downtown is quick and gives me just enough time to visualize all the ways I’m going to kill him.