Craving (3 page)

There was a more insistent beep, as if the phone had a personality and was whining for food. “Yes. Please make sure to lock your doors and windows, just in case. I’ll let you know if anything pans out.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Call me if you need anything.”

“Okay. Bye.”

I set the phone in its recharging cradle on the TV tray. The clothes were there beside me, and it looked as if they were the contents of her entire closet waiting to be laundered. I picked up a blouse and brought it to my face. Chanel, like always, ever since my mother had bought her a bottle for Christmas and she’d fancied herself an adult. Tomorrow, I’d have to start going through it all, washing the clothes, picking out things I would keep and give away.

I would not sell a single piece of it.

The phone rang again and I nearly ripped the cord out of the wall and threw it out the window in recoil, but just stared at it instead. After a few rings, I heard her voice, but it was not the shy voice it had been. It sounded strained.

“This is Eva Pierce. I screen my calls. Leave a number.”

Then there was the beep.

I listened. First, a scraping sound, like a hand over the mouthpiece. Then there was the hiss of a sensitive mic picking up ambient noise.

I reached for the loudspeaker button, prepared to tell whomever it was to piss off, but another sound stopped me: footsteps and the lonely wail of a car alarm.

I jabbed the button.

“Detective Unger?” I called, thinking he had perhaps pocket-dialed me by accident.

There was the rhythmic chafe of breathing and then, “Lilith.”

No one called me Lilith. I had forbidden it after the jokes my teenaged friends had made about
Cheers
. The voice was one I didn’t recognize. It sounded like the forced whisper of an emphysema sufferer. For some reason, a tingle shot from my sacrum to my skull.

I picked the phone off the cradle and pressed it to my ear. “Who is this?”

I heard more footsteps, what sounded like a conversation taking place somewhere in the background.

If eardrums could expand like pupils, mine were fully dilated. Scratching and jiggling became loud as firing canons. When the phone beeped again, explaining to me in not-so-many words that it was about to shut itself off, I nearly went deaf.

“Hello?”

“Oh, hell,” I heard and recognized the voice as Unger’s, though it was muffled.

“Hello,” I repeated, hoping he’d hear the sounds of my tiny shout and get the hint, but he just kept on talking to himself.

Suddenly, the raspy voice returned at full volume. “Everything means something,” it said.

The phone trilled angrily and went dead in my hand.

I stared at it and put it back on the charger. When it came back to life, I hit the loudspeaker button and dialed the number from Detective Unger’s business card, but before it got to the third ring, a new, harassed beep told me that there was someone else ringing in. Huffing, I tapped the flash button, thinking that if Unger answered while I dealt with the other caller, it would be fitting payback.

What came from the other line was the sound of a cell phone ringing in chorus with a car alarm. It went on for some time, until silence intruded.

“The detective is unreachable,” said the raspy voice.

Chapter 3

The next day, I went to the police station. I had spent most of the night trying to call Unger back, only to leave about a hundred useless and rambling messages in various states of discontinuity. I had even dialed 9-1-1, but hung up, thinking they would probably know before I would. I was sure I would find the station in a shambles with men in bad suits running back and forth, shouting incomprehensible codes or taking phone calls off a tip line. I thought I would find them huddled in tight-knit groups with sallow, glazed faces mourning the loss of one of their fellows.

Everyone was exactly where they had been the day before, doing what they always did, including Detective Unger.

I watched him for a while from the front desk. I’m not sure why, I just had to. What was going on? I was positive I had heard him being accosted by the same someone who had called to taunt me, to let me know that they had gotten to my sister and to the man investigating her supposed suicide. Why else say what they’d said?

“Everything means something.”

But there he was, drinking a cup of coffee from a black mug, reading something in a file, and frowning expertly. He was a cop through and through, had probably been one for most of his long life. He seemed the type of guy who smoked like a chimney, drank Jack straight, remembered the face of every victim, and could voiceover a film noir without batting an eyelash. I felt trapped inside a screenplay.

It took me a while to build up the courage to speak to him; after all, I had nearly stalked the man. I stood there like a fool, even though the lady at the desk kept trying to welcome me with her gaze, and thought about the excuses I would make. When I had picked one that wasn’t too lame, I stepped out of the cover of the silk tree and smiled at her.

“I’m here to see Detective Unger about my sister’s case.”

She nodded. Guessing it was a welcome, I strode boldly up to his desk, still gross, unshowered, and wearing the shapeless sack of clothing.

“Detective?”

He glanced up, blinked, and then offered me the chair beside his desk.

“I’m sorry to have called you so many times. I thought for sure I had heard something happen to you and right before then I got a weird phone call.”

He frowned again.

“I thought it might be related to the case,” I kept blabbing, though he looked more and more confused, “and I wanted to run it by you. He knew my name and everything. When I couldn’t reach you I was worried so . . .”

“Um.”

That was all, but it felt like a sledgehammer. I realized then, that what I saw in his face wasn’t confusion about my freakish interest in his safety; it was confusion about my identity.

My heart sped up.

“I’m . . . sorry if I know you, but I can’t place you,” he said in gruff perplexity.

I swallowed hard. “I’m Lilith Pierce. We spoke yesterday about my sister.”

“Your sister?”

Something was wrong. This was not how it was supposed to happen. I was here all day. I had come directly from the airport and spent hours in his company.

“Eva Pierce. She . . . she threw herself off a building. I was here . . . talking to you about it.” I know there was that whisper in my voice, that softened tone that tells others that the speaker should be considered worthy of medication.

He stared at me and I clearly saw a reflection of myself altered in the funhouse mirror of his warped memory.

In that catering, condescending way, he smiled and apologized yet again. “I’m afraid I’m not on any cases like that, ma’am.”

“How can you not be on the case? How do you explain the fact that I know your name, that I called your phone, that
you
called
me
?”

A spark of life flickered. “I have two phones, maybe someone . . .”

I jumped up from my chair, though I’m not sure what I meant to do. “No! It
was
you! We talked here! Here! Yesterday!”

He started up slowly, his hand out in front of him as if I might hit him or bolt for the door. Then I realized how I seemed, disheveled, distraught, clutching my purse like a delusional old woman. I forced myself to relax, to uncurl my hands and stand tall.

“I was here all day yesterday. Ask her, she’s the one that signed me in!” I demanded and pointed to the lady at the desk.

Everyone was looking at me, at Unger, at each other. This was a defining moment. After this I was either credible, or a nutcase, so I held onto the moment for dear life, seeing everything in slow motion.

Unger looked at the woman over my shoulder. “Was she here yesterday, Cynthia?”

Cynthia shook her head in amazement.

“I didn’t see her,” one of the detectives volunteered.

Unger frowned even deeper and crooked his fingers under his chin. He was staring at me as if he wanted to believe me and that gave me enough courage to plead with my gaze.

“Anyone else see her?”

Glances were exchanged. I took a deep breath and glowered at them defiantly.

“We got a call,” said a second detective quietly. “We were gone.”

I had lost my patience. “Look, I don’t get what you’re trying to pull, but I want to know where my sister is! I want her body back, right now!”

The woman from the desk was closing in. I could hear her squeaky ergonomic shoes. She put what was supposed to be a comforting hand on my shoulder. “What’s your sister’s name, dear?”

“Eva Pierce! I visited her in the morgue yesterday!”

“And how did she pass, dear?”

“She jumped off the Old River Motel!” I nearly shrieked. “I already said that!”

Everyone stood still, giving me space. The hand recoiled from me, but ever so slowly came to rest on my shoulder again.

“I’ll check the records for you, dear. I’m sure we have not misplaced her. I’ll call right now, see?” She reached for the phone, a look in her face and a tone in her voice that was the tried and true recourse of a baffled grief counselor. It was the tone my ex-husband used when he had already worked me into a frenzy, the one that said “By talking this way to you, I’m demonstrating superiority.”

She dialed an extension and spoke in an almost-silent whisper. “Doctor, we have a situation here. Have you . . .”

“Ms. Pierce,” Unger said, reaching out. “Won’t you sit down while we sort this out?”

I glared at him, smoothed back my hair, and glanced away haughtily. “I’m fine standing, thanks.”

After a few minutes, Cynthia hung up the phone. The click echoed into a long silence.

“Well?” I barked.

“Did you receive a call from someone, dear?”

“My name is Lilith Pierce. Call me ‘dear’ one more time, I dare you. Where is my sister!”

“Calm down,” Unger soothed, and for it nearly received a black eye. “How did you find out that your sister passed away?”

“I didn’t fly all the way from California for my health!”

“I understand that, ma’am,” he said, trying not to shout at me. He turned a dark eye on Cynthia instead. “What did he say?”

“She was brought in this morning.”

“What!” we all said at once.

“The clerk said she was brought in two hours ago, suspected suicide. They were just going to call . . . her next of kin.”

My heart stopped beating. In that one instant, not only was I free, I was free-falling. My mind lost the faculty of forming the simplest of queries. This was impossible. This was unacceptable.

They were experiencing something similar, but for them it was an odd clerical error and I was a basket case.

I think it was my knees that went, but when people say that, what they really mean is that the whole leg sort of slackens, like I was instantly a paraplegic. They caught me, inexpertly, and I fell without a complaint. Sitting on the hard ground, I looked at their shiny shoes and wondered what was going on.

“Who’s the lead on it?” he asked around.

“Mitchell and Thomas. They dropped by on their way to lunch, but it was a pretty definite suicide. Apparently, there were witnesses. I can call them now if you want and have Thomas email . . .”

“God damn it, yes! Tell them I’ll take over and figure out what the hell is going on.”

Had it all been a dream? Was I so mentally overwhelmed that I had mixed up the ride from the airport with the ride from her house that had happened two days later?

Then I thought of the plane ticket. Opening my bag without a moment’s hesitation, I rummaged for it, and produced it. Unger took it from my shaking fingers and read the time stamp on the luggage tag.

“She flew in today. She was on a plane when . . .”

His voice sounded odd, like he was in a car and being carried away from me at an incredible rate of speed.

I woke up on the ground, a wet paper towel on my head, someone shining a light in my eyes. I sat up, finally understanding how important it was to breathe on a regular basis.

“Where is she?” I gasped.

“You can’t see her, dear,” Cynthia said. “She’s too badly hurt.”

“Right now,” I raged. “I want to see her
right
now
!”

They pulled me upright and Unger took only enough time to give his coworkers a vengeful look, as if they had somehow caused it.

“I’ll take her,” he said and helped me to my feet.

It was the same as it had been the day before, the same journey to the bowels of the building, the same grey hallway, the same dusty blinds. A heated conversation was going on inside the room. I spent the time staring into space, wondering if I had lost my mind.

When he came back, he seemed a bit frazzled. The shades were jostled.

“Are you sure this is what you want? She’s . . . she hasn’t been cleaned or . . .”

“Now!” I hissed.

He gave a final sigh of concern and tapped the glass.

The blinds went up.

There she was, for certain, inside a dark rubber bag, still wearing a pin-stripe suit and pink blouse. Her head was at an odd angle and was slightly misshapen. Blood had congealed at the back of it. She was pale, a mottled, darkish tide-line surrounding her ears and the back of her neck. One of her earrings was gone, and even though it was covered, her right leg was obviously broken.

My God,
I thought,
I was only a few minutes too late. I could have saved her!

I think he saw it in my face. The blinds dropped.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

I turned to look at him, my touchstone to reality. It was obvious he was a good man.

“You already said that,” I breathed.

He managed a hard swallow. “Did I?”

“I just talked to her,” I murmured vaguely, glancing around. “She had an argument in an alley. Make sure you look closely at her arm. I don’t know where they came from. May I have her keys?”

I don’t think he knew what to make of me, really. I was speaking in riddles, but in his eyes, I was either the worst criminal in the history of assassinations, or I was a psychic. He apparently had enough faith in his ability to decode it.