Dead Soon Enough: A Juniper Song Mystery (2 page)

The conversation was taking a weird turn. Rubina was not the type of woman who inspired quick and easy confidences, and I was more guarded than most. There was a clinical, universal tinge to her prescription, but it still struck me as somewhat intrusive. I ignored it and pressed on.

“So why are you worried about your cousin, Dr. Gasparian?”

“You can call me Rubina,” she said. “I’m sorry I corrected you. It’s a strange reflex.”

“Sure. Rubina. Tell me your concerns about Lusig.”

“She was a party girl. Through college, through her early twenties. And she’s only twenty-six, so her early twenties were not very long ago. We’ve been Facebook friends for years, and I’ve seen all her pictures, drinking and carousing with friends. Nothing abnormal, understand, but she’s always inclined toward the wild side. Nightclubs, vodka shots. I suspect some illicit drugs.”

I pictured Rubina culling through her cousin’s Facebook page, before and after entrusting her with her baby. The picture came easily.

“Drinking and carousing with friends seems pretty standard, really,” I said, though I suspected as I said so that Rubina’s youth had been tame and studious. “And from what you’re saying I gather she got a lot of that out of her system well before she got pregnant. I imagine you wouldn’t have chosen her if you had any doubts. What changed?”

She seemed surprised by the question, but recovered quickly. She tucked her hair behind her ear with a swift, precise motion. “Lusig’s best friend is a girl named Nora. They’ve known each other since the seventh grade—they’re both Armenian, both only children, and they stuck to each other from the beginning. I’ve met her several times, though I can’t say I know her very well. In any case, Nora has been missing for almost a month.”

I sat up a little straighter. “Missing? Like, officially? The police are looking for her and all that?”

“Yes, the police are looking for her. No one has said so, but everyone always suspects the worst.”

“I see,” I said, blinking hard. Murder had just entered the conversation.

Rubina broke the silence before it could set. “But I’m not here about Nora. I’m only giving you background. My concern is that Lusig has been acting strange ever since the disappearance.”

“Strange, how?”

“She’s been moody, and it’s been hard for me to reach her.”

“She’s been off the radar?”

“Not exactly. Let me explain myself.” She gave me a tight smile. “In general, I don’t care what other people do with their lives. Lusig is my cousin, and we’ve always been close, but I haven’t agreed with every one of her life choices. She hasn’t asked me about most of them, and I’ve withheld unsolicited advice on many, many occasions.”

I nodded. Something in her tone suggested unreasonable pride in her own restraint.

“But when you’re pregnant, you don’t
own
your body, at least not one-hundred percent. This might be especially true if you’ve signed on to be a vessel for someone else’s baby.”

My mind revolted against the idea, but I couldn’t say it was without truth. Instead, I asked, “Then, who does?”

“Who does what?”

“Who owns your cousin?”

“Well, to be frank,” she said, twisting her fingers together, “I think I do.”

I let her statement ride a brief pause, and she let out a tight little laugh.

“I don’t mean she’s my property, per se. And I know in this day and age women have certain rights to their own bodies, which I support wholly. But in this situation, I believe I have an unusual amount of interest in the contents of her womb, don’t you agree?”

“That’s true,” I said, and decided to get back on track. “So, your cousin hasn’t been attentive to your demands as the mother of the child.”

“No. She’s been defiant and unpredictable, going on errands she doesn’t care to explain and snapping at me when I ask where she’s been.”

“It sounds like she has some reason to be upset,” I said.

“Of course she does, and I’d like to give her space to deal with her … grief, if that’s the right word for it.”

“On the other hand?”

She pressed her lips together. “On the other hand, I need to know if she’s mistreating her body.”

“Ah, so this is where I come in.”

“I don’t want you to bother her,” she said. “Please just observe her, tell me what she’s doing, take pictures as you deem appropriate or necessary.”

“Sure, I can do that. Out of curiosity, though, what if I do find out she’s slamming shots and sharing needles?”

“I will cross that bridge only if necessary.”

*   *   *

I’d been surveilling people for a couple years now, and it had long since started to feel like a creepy second nature. I could follow any car across town at any time of day, and I developed a talent for blending into most environments, without the assistance of a trench coat or a fedora. Most people don’t suspect they’re being followed. After all, hiring a private investigator to solve a personal problem—sussing out infidelity being the classic case—is a somewhat nuclear option, one that many can’t imagine using themselves. I couldn’t follow a man into a public restroom and take a video of his stream, but anything short of that was more or less possible.

Still, some assignments were trickier than others. I wasn’t quite ballsy enough to attempt a nighttime tail on a quiet road, but empty bars were usually manageable. Being an Asian woman worked in my favor—despite my height and somewhat unforthcoming demeanor, no one ever thought I was dangerous.

Lusig Hovanian was going to be an easier mark than most, and not because she was oblivious. Rubina, as I might have expected, kept her cousin on a short leash. Within a few hours of leaving my office, she e-mailed me a complete schedule of Lusig’s day. She gave me the name and address of a restaurant in South Pasadena and requested that I eat there at seven o’clock. She gave me a fifty-dollar stipend—she’d researched the restaurant and determined that this was enough to cover dinner for two. She thought, correctly enough, that I’d stand out less if I wasn’t eating alone.

There weren’t too many people I wanted to meet for dinner, so I was happy that my roommate was free. Lori Lim was my best friend, an adopted younger sister of sorts, with whom I had almost nothing in common but a few shared episodes of extreme trauma. We’d been living together for about two years, in a two-bedroom apartment in Echo Park. I liked to think this arrangement was for her benefit, but we both knew I’d be lonely as all hell without her.

She was also pretty useful as a plus-one on stakeouts, not that she always knew when we were on one. She disapproved softly of my PI work, maintaining that it was unsafe. Fair enough, really, as I’d been drugged, threatened, and held at gunpoint since I’d met her, among other things. But even she recognized that my experience had been largely atypical, and most days she was content to leave me be.

Manhattan Bar & Deli of Pasadena was a cozy neighborhood place, and I guessed from the name that it was run by newish immigrants. I felt minorly vindicated when we were greeted by a middle-aged Chinese woman with halting, friendly English.

Lusig was already seated when we arrived. The restaurant was small and relatively empty, so I spotted her right away. She looked less fresh than she had in Rubina’s wedding photo, though this, of course, was understandable. She was younger then, but I suspected the difference was due more to pregnancy and lack of makeup than to advancing through her mid-twenties.

Nothing about her appearance suggested an ideal surrogate mother. She looked slovenly and unnurturing, like she could hardly bother to take care of herself. Her hair was dyed crow black and cropped messily above her chin. It looked choppy and unwashed, with an oily shoe-polish shine. She wore a black T-shirt under a bulky military jacket big enough to hide a boar. Her ears were studded up and down with a spray of metal and stone. A tiny bright dot adorned one side of her thin nose, and above it, her huge, wild eyes were the focal point of the room.

Lori and I sat at a nearby table, within comfortable eavesdropping distance. I glanced at the young man sitting across from Lusig. He was clean-cut and handsome, with the kind of nonthreatening face that did well with mothers. He had dark hair, thick eyebrows, and sideburns that looked difficult to groom. Lusig had his full attention.

I ordered a hot pastrami Reuben and Lori got lox and cream cheese, which she formed into bite-sized bagel sandwiches, setting one on my plate. Fifty bucks left beer money, so I had a pint while Lori tucked into a milkshake. I told her it was my treat, and she thanked me with unnecessary enthusiasm.

She chattered about her job and her boyfriend Isaac, and I gave her the greater part of my attention while keeping one ear open to receive any revealing tidbits from Lusig’s table. Lusig had a low, steady voice that cut across space without apparent effort. It was easy to track, even while carrying on my own conversation, and when I heard a change in tone and tempo, I pretended to devote all my energy to my sandwich. The small talk was over.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to meet you till now,” she said with a note of remorse.

The man laughed uncomfortably. “You’re eight months pregnant, and I know this hasn’t been easy for you, either.”

“No, it hasn’t. To be honest, it had nothing to do with pregnancy. There is nothing easier for a pregnant woman than to eat a pastrami sandwich.”

He laughed again, but stopped when she didn’t join him. “Okay,” he said instead.

“Do you want to know the truth?” she asked.

“Of course.” He didn’t sound especially excited to know the truth.

“I was mad at you.”

“Mad?”

She stared at him across the table, her eyes searching his. “You didn’t keep her safe, Chris. You were supposed to be there for her, that was the whole”—she made a framing gesture with her hands, encompassing his figure—“point of you, and you didn’t keep her safe.”

He moved back in his seat, dragging his chair a few loud inches across the floor. “
I
didn’t keep her safe? You have some nerve, Lusig.”

She watched him closely, and then her expression softened, taking on the contours of contrition. “I’m sorry. I’m projecting, I know.” She shook her head and looked disapprovingly at her dinner, then looked up again at her companion. “Where do you think she is, Chris? Where could our girl have gone?”

Chris was slumped over, looking helpless and crestfallen, and as I waited for him to answer, I noticed Lori was raising her eyebrows across the table.

“
Unni
,” she said. “Are you listening?”

I made a show of chewing and swallowing the bite of sandwich in my mouth. “Sorry, I zoned out a little.”

She shook her head and bit her lip with her crooked tooth. “
Unni
, are you working right now?” she whispered.

“Shhhhh,” I said, widening my eyes. “Jesus.”

“I knew it.”

“I’ll tell you about it later, okay? Sorry, what were you saying?”

She twisted her lips, but I could tell she wasn’t really annoyed. She was used to my work mode after living with me for so long. Our friendship was also the only good remainder of a case that had left us both devastated, and she knew that the job stabilized me, even if she didn’t understand how.

“I was just asking if you’d noticed how much time I’ve been spending at Isaac’s.”

“I am a detective, Lori.”

She’d been spending most nights at Isaac’s for the better part of a month. He’d moved into his own place downtown, and suddenly he was less interested in sleeping in my apartment. I hadn’t seen his face at all for a couple weeks, and even Lori was scarce. His place was within walking distance of her job—she worked in human resources for an accounting firm—and she only seemed to stop home for an hour or two here and there to pick up clean clothes and make sure I had enough to eat.

“Do you mind?” she asked.

I smiled, a little wider than felt sincere. “You’re an adult, Lori. I don’t stay up all night worrying about you.”

“I know, but you aren’t too lonely?”

I shrugged. “No, not too. I’m good at being alone.”

She nodded, still looking solicitous, but she changed the subject.

It wasn’t long before Lusig reclaimed my attention, along with Lori’s and everyone else’s in the restaurant. Her voice was raised, and she was glaring at the waitress.

“Guess what’s none of your fucking business,” she said.

The waitress looked around the room. She was a small Chinese girl, about college-age, probably the owners’ daughter. She wore a Manhattan Bar & Deli T-shirt over slim blue jeans and dainty shoes. Her face twisted into a look of scorn that searched for validation as she scanned the restaurant.

“You’re acting very belligerent,” said the waitress.

“Am I? I’m sorry. I just thought I could order a beer without being interrogated.”

“I only asked if you were pregnant.”

“Sure. Not a loaded question.” She scoffed. “Of course I’m pregnant. Look at me. You knew I was pregnant, so don’t fucking pretend you were just being curious.”

“I don’t know if I’m comfortable serving alcohol to a pregnant lady.”

“It’s
a beer
.”

“You’re acting pretty drunk already.”

Lusig stood up, rising a half head taller than the waitress, who seemed stunned to have this irate customer glaring down at her face. “I’ve had five drinks in the last three months, you judgmental cunt.” She flung a twenty-dollar bill on the table. “Come on, Chris. Let’s get out of here.”

Chris gaped at the scene in front of him, and then stood up after Lusig, half bowing with apology. He left more bills on the table in a quiet hurry, then followed her out of the restaurant.

The door swung closed with a tinkle of bells, leaving an awed silence in its wake. The waitress stared at the door with her mouth hanging open.

I caught Lori’s eye, and we both covered our mouths to suppress overt laughter.

“Oh,
unni
,” she said. “Please tell me you were here to watch them.”

I shrugged, and a sly smile spread across her face.

“She’s fun,” she said. “This could be a good one.”