“Ricky.” She offered me a warm smile and settled the baby on her lap — a girl in a pink outfit with black hair and expressive eyes that searched the courtyard.
The infant gave me a brief glance before fixating once again on her fingers, apparently much more interesting. I noted a darkened birthmark on her leg, exposed by bare feet.
“Haven’t seen you in a couple weeks,” Marnie said.
She had lived in the building since the eighties, before it was fashionable to live in Gastown. I had no idea what her financial situation was, if she’d been married, widowed. I’d never seen a man or her adult children, though they must have existed as she had three grandchildren. Two boys and now the girl. I had no idea what their story was. Marnie had never once asked me about the tabloid-like stories in the paper. Maybe that was why we were tentative friends — we didn’t bother each other with the usual details. Our acquaintance was centered around living proximity. No need to pollute it with the outside world.
“You going to show that coffee up in my face, or get your manners together?”
I headed back into my kitchen and filled a second mug, adding the cream and sugar Marnie preferred. She nodded in thanks as I passed it down.
Marnie and her grandchildren were the only ones who used the garden regularly. The rest seemed either ignorant or uninterested in frequenting an alley in Vancouver, however gentrified. Creatures of our environment. It took someone who knew what a dangerous alley looked like to recognize when there was no danger. Maybe another reason we were friends.
Juggling the infant on one knee, Marnie took a deep sip, savoring the warmth. “How are things?” she asked. “More dead girls?”
That took me aback. Marnie had an unhealthy interest in my obsessions. There was something ironic in that — or comical.
She tsked. “The only thing that gets you out of your bed before noon is a dead girl.” The baby fussed and Marnie jostled her until she stopped. “Well?”
I shouldn’t tell her, in theory it was confidential with Murray... Screw it, I wasn’t even an official consultant anymore.
“False alarm so far — not a prostitute or a runaway.” Though that didn’t make it more or less tragic. I sipped my coffee. “Missing baby though.”
Marnie made a cross sign over her chest and out of reflex held the infant tighter. “That’s much worse.”
“Depends on whether the baby is still alive.”
I inclined my head as my phone buzzed in my pocket. Murray. I excused myself from the balcony and closed the door before answering.
“We found the SUV,” Murray said. “Empty car seat, no sign of the baby anywhere.”
So much for finding the baby. “Who was she?”
“June Xian. Kitsilano housewife, first kid born five months ago, named Blossom. June was born in Hong Kong, the husband and baby here.”
Despite my reluctance, my brain churned through the possibilities. “Suspects?”
“Husband. House and most of the cash is in her name. Her parents used her to invest heavily in real estate.”
“Money for motive?”
“According to the neighbors and a slew of noise complaints, the two have been fighting. Apparently she kept threatening to take the baby back to Asia.”
Money and children, common enough motives. “Affair?” I asked, completing the trifecta of domestic discourse. Still not in my realm, but closer.
“That’s what the husband claims.”
Maybe some of my old vice channels would prove useful. More rabbits ducked in and out of their holes. “Whoever killed June might simply have gotten rid of the baby—” I froze. The Asian woman in the old-fashioned dress was standing in my kitchen, her translucence unmistakable in the sunlight. She lifted a finger and jabbed it at me, her face, almost featureless, twisted in anger.
“Shit,” I said to myself. No, not here, anywhere but here.
“Ricky?” Murray’s voice on the phone.
“Yeah.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Where’s forensics at?”
“Waiting on the preliminary.”
“In the meantime I could tag my old contacts and dig up dirt on the husband.”
“Just — can you be discrete? We, ah, don’t need a repeat of last time.”
The professional thing would be to assure Murray there wouldn’t be a repeat. I decided not to jinx it and risked opening my eyes. She was gone from my kitchen. I stifled a sigh of relief while Murray carried on, as if lack of my response was normal. “I really appreciate it, Ricky.”
My goodbye verged on rude. It was almost eight a.m. now. I made my next call.
“You realize I’m Japanese?” said the young, attractive man in his twenties as he slid into the booth across from me. Today he was wearing waxed jeans and an expensively cut leather jacket, tattoos visible under the cuffs. Yoshi was more fashionable than I’d had any chance of being, even a couple decades ago.
“You realize I like the tea?” I said.
He snorted but didn’t protest further. It was the same every time. He thought I invited him here because I couldn’t tell the difference between Japanese and Chinese. I always insisted it was because I liked the tea — which I did. We agreed to disagree. I wasn’t changing the spot, especially if I was the one buying.
“Did you bring my payment?”
“Depends. Do you have what I want?” I silently chided myself. I wouldn’t be that snippy if it wasn’t for the Asian woman following me. I’d spent the entire walk here searching for her in the faces of passersby.
Yoshi didn’t care. He nodded and slid a tablet across the table to me. I slid an envelope to him.
Phone records, bank statements, e-mails, police reports highlighting domestic disputes, dates and times she’d crossed the bridge, locations where she’d opened her social media. All her life in painstaking detail. I glanced up at the preliminary autopsy report. “You’re not supposed to be able to access these.”
He shrugged. “I was already on their servers. Figured you’d appreciate it. Besides, I was curious. Girls like her don’t end up dead often.”
Death by strangulation, relatively healthy — I frowned at the mention of marks carved into her bare shoulder. Not a birthmark, not a wound. More like a brand, as if the skin had been filleted out. Three lines, too parallel and straight to be anything but deliberate.
I skimmed through the rest, but the symbol had my attention now. The rabbits didn’t want to let it go...
Credit cards showed she’d purchased the groceries at eleven thirty p.m., then crossed the toll bridge at eleven fifty p.m. Yoshi also confirmed the husband had been home, according to his phone and the voice-activated alarm system. I found the confirmation I was looking for in her e-mail. “An affair,” I said.
Yoshi arched an eyebrow at me. “You should see the texts, and the pictures. I didn’t know pregnant ladies—”
I shushed him and he fell silent. Where you had money and marital discord, you usually had the third. Still, it left a dry feeling in my mouth. Couples were assholes to each other all on their own, they didn’t need a third-wheel catalyst.
Yoshi of course had included the catalyst’s details, his name, Victor Miller, and his work and home addresses. He lived right near the Britannia shipyards. Well, now I knew what she’d been doing in the area. Miller worked downtown as a bartender. I finished my tea and tossed some bills on the table.
“What’s your hurry, Ricky?” Yoshi said.
“To find out just what June saw in this guy.”
I tapped the bottom of my soda on the bar as I watched Victor restock the bar, it being early in the afternoon and slow.