Fatal Intimacies (Romantic Suspense) (4 page)

9

Jessica sat in her car a while, staring at people coming in and out of the police precinct. A woman
ran out in tears, tissues almost glued to her face. A man, older, probably her father, had his arm around her as they walked. Jessica looked away.

Her own father had been distant. That’s one of the reason
s she and Michelle had been so close. Their father would come home from work and immediately disappear. No coming to softball or soccer games, no birthday outings. Even talking to him was like pulling teeth. Both Michelle and Jessica had moved out when they turned eighteen. Their father had said nothing to them other than, “Good luck.”

She realized she still hadn’t told her parents that Michelle was dead. Maybe after Seattle, she would tell them in person. Then again, she wasn’t actually that certain her father would have much of a reaction. Though her mother would certainly lose it.

Jessica turned the car on and pulled out. She brought up a note doc on her phone and input an address in the note app on Google Maps. The app lead her through the streets of downtown until she came to an apartment building near a liquor store. Across from the building was a news studio with an electric billboard set atop the building.

She parked at the curb and stared up at the building. According to the police reports, which Jessica had to pay $25 dollars for, and spend an hour on the phone with a customer service representative at the precinct, this was Michelle’s last known address.

She got out of the car. The air was cool and she took a jacket out of her bag in the backseat before hiking down the sidewalk. The pavement was uneven and broken. Completely neglected. She got the impression this wasn’t the best neighborhood.

The apartment building had a
keycode entry. She stepped to the side and placed her hands in her pockets, the wind whipping her hair. After about ten minutes, someone came out of the building. Jessica smiled to them and walked in. They glared at her, but didn’t say anything.

A sign was up indicating the manager was on the basement level. She walked down and found the apartment and knocked. A woman with short blond hair answered.

“Hi, are you the manager?” Jessica asked.

“I am.”

“My name is Jessica Barlow. I’m Michelle Barlow’s sister.”

Her face immediately softened. “I’m sorry. She was a nice girl.”

Jessica nodded. “I’m here about her apartment. Have you taken her things out yet?”

“No, not yet. We have painters scheduled for next week so we’ll do it before then.”

“Well, before you do, I was hoping I could go up and see everything. See if there’s anything there that… you know, family heirlooms and things.”

The manager glanced back to an infant that was in a bouncer. “I understand. Okay, I’ll take you up.”

Jessica waited until the woman put on shoes and grabbed her infant. The three of them headed up the stairs as there was no elevator. The paint on the walls was chipping and the carpets were deeply stained.

“She always paid her rent on time,” the manager said. “Never had any problems with her. Parties or anything like that.”

“Did you know her personally?”

“Not really.”

“Did you know any of her friends? Maybe a boyfriend?”

“No, nothing like that. She’d drop a check off every month and we’d chat for a few minutes. That was pretty much it.”

They came to the third floor and the manager used a master key to open it. The police tape wasn’t up any longer.

“They haven’t… I mean they haven’t cleaned the blood in the bathroom,” the manager said shyly.

“I’ll be fine, but thanks for the warning.”

“I’m going to head back downstairs for a minute. I’ll be right up again. Fifteen minutes enough?”

“That should be. Thanks again.”

When Jessica was alone, she stood in her sister’s living room and reached back to shut the door. She stopped, and left it open.

The apartment was small, perhaps the size of Jessica’s bedroom back home. A worn futon and an old television on a stand were the only things in the living room. A few decorations up on the walls. She noticed a poster of Edgar Allan Poe. Her sister had been obsessed with Poe in high school. Jessica never understood why. His writing only served to depress her.

She glanced through her sister’s bookshelves and then the cupboards in the kitchen
. She thought coming here would teach her something about her sister. But there wasn’t anything left of the sister she knew here. None of this was familiar in any way. It was like walking through the house of a stranger.

Jessica stood before the door in the bedroom. She knew the bathroom was where her sister had been killed. Building up her courage, she took a deep breath and stepped inside.

The bed looked as worn out as the futon in the living room. A dresser drawer was there, something that looked almost homemade. Jessica turned toward the bathroom. Stains took up the walls and floors. When she had come here, she thought she could look. But now, faced with something physical, something tangible that told her Michelle was really dead, she couldn’t face it. She turned away and strode into the living room. Sitting down on the futon, she exhaled and glanced around the room. There was nothing here for her now.

She left the apartment. For a moment, she stood staring at the door. Then she turned and headed back to her car.

10

The precinct was nearly empty at lunchtime. Most of the detectives went out together, but Garcia stayed behind to catch up on a few things. Although they were going to Porter’s and Porter’s had the best steaks in the city. If you wanted to know
where the best places to eat were, Garcia always thought you could ask a cop. They never brought their lunch and could sample everywhere.

He picked up the phone and called Miriam. She didn’t answer and it went to voicemail. A moment later, he got a text, asking if they were still meeting tonight for dinner. He replied that they were and then placed the phone down on the desk.

When he’d met Miriam, she seemed exotic and exciting. Garcia had spent most of his childhood in Cuba and when he migrated to the States, his parents could only get menial work. Money was tight, and a vacation at his house was going to his grandma’s for a few hours. So when he met Miriam in a $4000 dress, gold glittering on every bared portion of skin, she may as well have been an alien that had crash-landed on earth.

He decided to call it a day and left, mumbling to
the receptionist that it was five o’clock somewhere. Last week, he put in a good seventy hours and wanted a straight forty this week. He felt weak and tired and his mind would wander if he pushed himself too hard too often.

After a quick can of Red Bull, he headed to the gym.

The Rodrigo Montoya Boxing Club was in a building as rundown as the abandoned apartments next door. This section of Seattle had been bought and developed several times over the past four decades. Each time, the developers were unable to make it work. Something about the make up of the neighborhood didn’t lend itself well to middle class. It was a poor neighborhood and always tended to stay that way.

But the boxing gym had been there through it all.

As Garcia walked in and went to the locker room, the smell of sweat and synthetic leather hit him. A smell he’d known for twenty years. Growing up in Miami, all the boys in his neighborhood learned to box at a local rec center. It wasn’t an option. If you couldn’t fight, you became the target of bullies and gangs immediately. They’d forever see you as a mark and you could never break out of that stereotype.

Garcia remembered a time three boys had jumped him behind the restaurant he bussed at. He was throwing out the trash for the night and they knew he’d collected his portion of the tips from the servers already. But those tips went to his mother who used it for groceries, for rent, to buy shoes for his young siblings. There was no way in hell he was about to hand it over.

The boys were older than him by maybe a year, but they were the same size. The three of them closed in. If he would have thrown them his money, they might have just struck him a few times and left him alone. If he fought, he knew they might literally kill him. But he didn’t care. If this was how he was supposed to die, then this was how he was going to die.

He struck the first one so hard he broke his hand. The other two rushed him. One grabbed Garcia from behind and held him as the other one decked him in the face. Garcia managed to
wiggle free by dropping his bodyweight to the ground. He came up behind the boy that had held him. With one massive blow, consisting of kicking both legs into the boy’s back, Garcia knocked him into the other boy.

He reached into the dumpster and found a glass bottle. Breaking it against the dumpster, he stood there, breathing heavily, blood dripping down his
chin, and waited for the three boys to decide what they were going to do. All three of them glanced to each other, and then turned and left. They never came to the restaurant again.

Garcia changed and warmed up on the heavy bags. He switched to the speed bags after ten minutes and then got into the ring for some sparring. His partner was a taller black man named Ricky. They exchanged blows, traded insults, and
fought in three-minute increments, until neither one of them could hold their arms up.

After the workout, he hopped into the shower. The water was hot and steamed up the space quickly. He lathered himself and washed his hair. Catching a glimpse of the black tiger tattoo on his arm, he thought back to the young woman he was dating at the time he got that tattoo. He couldn’t remember her name as they’d been together so briefly, but he remembered wild, carefree nights that ended far too quickly.

As he was leaving the gym to head to dinner with Miriam, he received a call from a number he didn’t recognize.

“This is Tom.”

“Yes,” an older woman’s voice said, “I’m looking for Detective Garcia?”

“This is Detective Garcia.”

“Oh, good. I’m Daphne Claymore. You called me the other day about Michelle Barlow.”

Garcia opened his car door and sat down. He leaned back in the
seat, his muscles exhausted, and closed his eyes as he spoke. A calm euphoria coming over him. “That’s right, I did. My understanding is you live in the same building that Ms. Barlow lived.”

“I do.”

“Did you know her at all?”

“No, not really. We said hello a few times.”

“What about the night she was killed, the fourteenth of this month. Friday. Did you see her at all that day?”

“Yes, actually. I did. She was dropped at her building by a nice looking young man late at night.”

Garcia opened his eyes and sat up. “What young man?”

“Oh, I have no idea. I’d never seen him before.”

“How did you happen to see them?”

“I live on the first floor and sometimes I peek out the window is all. I have my blinds open in the kitchen and can see out when I’m cooking or doing the dishes.”

“Do you remember the make or model of the car?”

“It was gray. I don’t really remember much more than that.”

“Ms. Claymore, I’d like to send down a sketch artist to work with you if that’s alright. This man you saw was probably the last person to see Michelle alive.”

“Oh, well, anything I can do to help. As long as we can keep this private.”

“I’ll do my best. I’ll give you a call soon.”

He hung up and placed the phone down. That familiar feeling of the hunt was back. He didn’t get it on every case, but every once in a while, he saw himself as a wolf in a forest. Chasing down prey that had escaped. It was an image he’d dreamed once and it’d never left him.

Picking up the phone, there was someone he wanted to call. But it wasn’t the sketch artist. He reached to the backseat and the files that were stacked there. Taking Michelle Barlow’s file, he looked at the information sheet on the inside flap and saw the cell phone number for Jessica Barlow.

When he’d first
seen her, he didn’t immediately introduce himself. He saw her down the hall staring at a painting and he stood for a moment and watched her. Something about the way she moved, the way she carried herself… When he finally did meet her, his heart nearly dropped into his stomach. She looked familiar but he couldn’t place where he could have possibly met her before.

Despite all his instincts telling him not to, he called her.

“This is Jessica.”

“Ms. Barlow, it’s Detective Garcia. I had some information about your sister’s case that I thought you might be interested in.”

“What information?”

Garcia hesitated a moment. “We should meet in person to go over it. How about tomorrow?”

“Okay. Should I just come to the police station?”

“Yes, around noon if you would.”

“Okay, I’ll be there.”

Garcia hung up and stared at his phone. That was a stupid move. There was no reason for Michelle’s sister to be involved in the investigation. In fact, relatives always interfered. Their emotions were too high and they were unable to look at things objectively.

Garcia put it out of his mind and started the car. He headed home to change into a suit. As he was getting dressed, he stared at himself in the mirror. His appearance had, more and more, begun to resemble his father.

His father had been an actor back in Cuba before the revolution. Garcia’s mothe
r had kept old movie posters and Garcia would always stare at them in wonder that his father ever did anything other than be his father.

His parents were kind and always there for him, even though they had little. Though he knew most men might be disturbed by the fact that they were becoming their fathers, he felt it a privilege. He wished his parents were around now to see the man he had become.

Garcia met Miriam at the restaurant. A ritzy place that he would never have gone to on his own. The kind of place where the maître d’ looked down on him for not wearing a tie. He heard one of the waitresses say to a manager, “Like he can afford this.”

Considering that his suit was an Armani he’d bought while in Las Vegas, he didn’t exactly know what they
saw. Just some unwritten rule that he wasn’t one of them, and it was obvious to them in a way he couldn’t perceive.

Miriam wa
s already at the table sipping wine. Garcia kissed her on the cheek and she pulled away.

“You’re late,” she said.

“Sorry. Busy. Never been here for. What’s good?”

“Thomas
,” she said, placing her hand over his, “don’t be crude. It’s not polite to ask what’s good.”

He grinned and then realized she wasn’t joking. “How am I supposed to know what to eat if I don’t ask what’s good?”

“I’ll order for you, don’t worry.”

The waitress came and they ordered. Apparently they had little say in the matter. You could chose the red or white meat option and the meal was served in courses based on
which one you chose. He ordered the red meat option. The first course was a salad with dressing on it so bitter it could have been straight vinegar.

“Can’t we
ever just get a steak and beer?” he said.

“Dining out isn’t about the food. It’s about being seen. You know my charity ball is coming up and I want the right people to see me in the right places.”

“Right. Your charity. What is it this time? Owls? Whales? People who can’t clot well?”

She rolled her eyes. “You just need to show up and look handsome and I’ll take care of everything. Like I always do.”

A long silence ensued as the second course came. A cheese platter with dried walnuts. But it wasn’t like any cheese he had ever had. Again, it was bitter. Almost painfully so. Garcia glanced around and noticed that few people were actually eating it. They would take a nibble and then push it away.

“Let’s get outta here,” he said. “I know someplace great we can go. The Loft. They’ve got this grilled burger with—”

“Thomas, I told you, dining out isn’t about the food.”

“I’m starving. It’s about the food to me.”

Just then, two of Miriam’s acquaintances came to the table. They all put on their best smiles and chatted. All except Garcia who sat there staring at his cheese. He noticed that Miriam didn’t introduce him.

When the couple had left, he said, “You didn’t introduce me.”

“Didn’t I? I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged, but didn’t say anything.

The third course was a soup that was cold as ice. Garcia took one sip and placed his spoon down. He had to drink a third of his glass of water to get the taste out of his mouth.

“I’m starving, Miriam. Let’s go.”

“Bobby and Suzanne are supposed to be here. I’m not leaving until I see them.”

“Who gives a shit
if we see Bobby and Suzanne? Let’s go have dinner. That’s what this was supposed to be. Just us having dinner.”

“Fine, you
wanna go. Go. I’ll sit with Candice and her husband.”

Garcia rose. “Fine.”

As he was walking out, she said, “Where are you going?”

He glanced back. He knew anything she felt
right now wasn’t a result of his leaving. She was embarrassed that she couldn’t keep her man in a cage in front of two acquaintances she probably saw less than three times a year.

Garcia got in his car and drove around the block. He debated going inside again. She was his fiancée after all and would one day be his wife.

His wife.

Even as he thought it, the word didn’t fit. Not when he thought about Miriam.
But he was getting older and had always had an eye toward marriage. Dating was not something he had time for. And he desperately wanted children. The clock, even for men, was always ticking on that.

Slowly driving by the restaurant, he peeked through the windows and saw that Miriam had already sat with the couple that had come over and said hello. She was laughing and
sipping at a glass of wine. She’d already forgotten about him.

He flipped a U-turn and headed to The Loft to eat by himself.