Dead Soon Enough: A Juniper Song Mystery (22 page)

“Come here often?” he asked without a trace of humor.

“I don’t know why that’s any of your business,” I said, as calmly as I could manage. I was alone in a room with a man who scared me, and who was fully aware of his advantage. I had meant to find and talk to him before he entered the room, but this conversation was not happening on my terms, and I struggled to maintain some semblance of authority.

“You’re not here to see the dancing whores,” he said. “I believe you’re here to see me.”

“What gives you that idea?”

“Because Enver Kizil told me ‘some Chinese cunt’ came to his home and gave him trouble. And then I see you talking up the girls, not an hour later. I hope you will not take it as a compliment when I tell you you stand out in this place like a severed thumb.”

His words knifed their way under my skin, and my nerves were reacting more than I was willing to show. “And who are you?”

He held a hand out with a terrible smile, and I pretended I didn’t see it. After a second, he grabbed me by the wrist. I gasped.

“Relax,” he said. “You wanted to talk, we talk. Come with me.”

His fingers were disproportionately large and sturdy, and they clamped around half of my forearm, digging in with insistent pressure, his thick thumb burrowing between my bones. I thought about the Taser I’d left in my car, and knew I couldn’t reach for it even if it were in my purse. He kept his eyes on mine, and I saw that I wasn’t hiding the terror in my face.

The scream rising inside of me was about to spill out when he let go. He tilted his head and a curious smile curled on his face. He had the look of a child scientist watching the snail he’s just sprinkled with salt.

“Or,” he said, with a cool, reasoning air, “you are free to leave. It is your choice. I am indifferent.”

“Who are you?” I asked again, lamely.

He shook his head. “We can have that conversation in a different place, under different rules.”

I felt the phantom of his grip glowing red against my skin, and I lost my will to fight. It had been a long time since I’d had a glimpse of a man’s capacity for violence, and the view drained my ready store of power.

I knew what he meant to tell me. Without even raising his voice, he’d communicated what mattered—that he was a man, and that I was a woman, and that he had no problem crossing boundaries if I continued to pretend that I wasn’t weak where he was strong. And once the promise of transgression entered my consciousness, a million images and stories flashed through me, of women tortured, beaten, raped, and dismembered, in a million brutal, creative ways. The images and stories available to every woman and every man.

Later, I fantasized about the ways this scene might have played out. I thought about the information he was holding, the ingenious ways I might have pried it from him without revealing an inch of myself. I’d just come from breaking into a burly man’s apartment, bubbling over with the thrill of my narrow escape. I had no doubt that this man had underestimated me. He was probably bluffing, a cheap trick to scare the little girl away. I was smarter than him, and worst-case scenario, I knew where his balls were.

In the moment, fantasy lost to fear. I left the strip club without another word, and it took all my remaining energy and pride to prevent myself from running to the door. If I’d been calm, I might have stuck around near the parking lot and tried to track this man to his next destination. But I needed to get the fuck out of there. I got in my car and called Chaz. He was home, and I invited myself over, then drove straight to Van Nuys.

It was almost ten when I got there, and Chaz and his family were watching TV after dinner. Molly gave me a kiss on the cheek and the girls jumped off the couch to greet me like puppies, wrapping themselves around my waist and knees.

I’d spent a lot of time with the Lindleys over the last couple of years, eating their food and helping Opal and Ruby with their homework. Chaz and Molly assured me I was always welcome, and I took frequent advantage of their hospitality, repaying them with babysitting on the rare nights the two of them wanted to leave the house. The girls loved me for some reason. Opal even told Chaz she wanted to be a private investigator when she grew up, “just like Auntie Song,” causing her father to shed a single tear. I laughed and imagined telling her this story when she was an adult—that is, if I still happened to be in the picture. I saw the appeal of domesticity when I visited, the promise of lasting warmth in mandated bonds. The Lindleys were the most functional nuclear family I’d ever seen up close.

Chaz took one look at me and knew I needed to talk to him. He excused us from the living room and I followed him into the office, which held his computer as well as all of his daughters’ toys.

“Well, well, well,” he said, when we were alone, settling into a swivel chair. “One day away from the office, and you need my help already. I’m going to have to tell Opal about this.”

“Still not over that, huh?”

He chuckled. “So what’s going on, Girl Detective?”

“Did you find anything out for me? About those commenters?”

“You came all the way here to ask me about that? I could have told you on the phone. Or waited until morning.” There was no annoyance in his voice, but I knew I’d brought work into his treasured time with family.

“Sorry, Chaz. I’ve had an eventful evening. Came here on momentum.”

“What happened?”

“You go first.”

He raised an eyebrow, then filled me in. “All right, I’ll start with the bad news: It doesn’t look like we can get any definite IDs for these commenters. No jackpot open IP address, no traceable e-mails. Nothing you could take to a jury, nothing solid enough to get you far with police even.”

“But the good news?”

“Assuming this is just for you? To help you piece together your story?”

“Yeah, that’s all I need,” I said, almost licking my lips.

“I didn’t do anything fancy. You want to know what I did?”

“What?”

“I read all those disgusting comments. Every single last one.”

“Wow,” I said. “I lost my stomach for it after a few posts’ worth.”

“I didn’t enjoy it, either, trust me. The thought of anyone talking to my daughters like that, or Molly, or you—just makes me sick.”

“Or you. No one should talk to anyone like that.”

“No one calls men those filthy things.”

“What was the payoff?”

He smiled proudly. “You said you were interested in one stalker in particular, so that got me thinking. There were clearly multiple people attacking this girl, but a big chunk of the anonymous comments could’ve come from the same person. Now I’m no language analyst or anything like that, but certain things stand out to anyone who’s looking careful enough.”

“Like back in the day, when people used distinctive typewriters.”

“Exactly. In this case, there was some wonky capitalization, and a few consistent misspellings. The key here?” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “‘Dirty hore,’ without the ‘w.’”

I heard the words in Kizil’s voice and was sure that he’d said them at his door. I could feel the case tightening around him, click by click. “You found him?”

“That exact phrase popped up in three comments, all anonymous, posted on different days. Like I said, I can’t prove they all came from the same person. I also can’t prove that this same person has a YouTube account under the handle ‘KiZillion79,’ from which he comments on Armenian genocide documentaries and Taylor Swift videos—Taylor Swift being a ‘dirty hore’ in his opinion.”

“A YouTube account? I assume those can be anonymous. There are too many trolls on that site for that not to be true.”

“Yeah. But ‘KiZillion79’ is a step up from ‘Anonymous,’ and I found an Instagram account under that same handle. This one has a real name attached.”

“Enver Kizil.”

His head jerked back, giving him two chins and a look of surprise that relaxed into a grin. “Enver Kizil, that’s right,” he said. “Which means you found him, too. Which means we both got the right guy.”

“I’m impressed, Chaz.”

“You found him anyway—this was just another channel. But what the hell, I’ll savor the teaching moment. You thought I’d get here with fancy computer tricks, but the fanciest computer”—he paused to point at my head—“is your brain.”

I laughed. “Okay, thanks for that, Sensei.”

“All right, how about you fill me in now?”

“Well, for starters, I think I just met someone dangerous.” I thrust out my arm. In the half hour it took to drive from Torrance, the skin had started to bruise.

He started in his chair and gawked at my forearm. “What happened? Are you okay?”

I told him about my trip to Torrance, from my brief interview with Kizil to my encounter at the Spearmint Rhino. He listened and pinched the flesh between his eyebrows.

“Hold on, hold on. How did you get into Kizil’s apartment?”

I’d held back that little detail, as well as my escape out his window. “You don’t need to know that,” I said.

He shook his head. “Do you need a lecture?”

“Some other time, maybe. But, to your knowledge, I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Or illegal.”

“Come on, that’s not what I came to you to talk about. I’m freaked out, Chaz. This man, I don’t even know his name, and he was ready to kill me.”

“You did good to leave,” he said with a sigh. “Sometimes I think you don’t know where to stop, and I applaud you for stopping somewhere.”

“But I got nothing from him. I went after him on what turned out to be a pretty good hunch, and I have shit to show for it.”

He nodded and tapped at his keyboard to wake up his computer screen. “Not ‘shit,’” he said. “You saw him, didn’t you? What was the name of that genocide truther group?”

“EARTH. European and American something or other, Truth in History.” I stood up and walked behind him so I could see his computer screen.

EARTH had a rudimentary Web site, in English and Turkish, showing banners of vaguely patriotic propagandistic nature scenery against a parchment-colored background. There was a mission statement full of horrible lies and bald self-pity, lamenting the maligned reputation of the Ottoman Empire, a particular concern for preservation of national pride. A few linked pages offered further details about the organization. Chaz clicked on the personnel page, and my heart beat hard until the page loaded with neither pictures nor names.

“Not a single contact?” I said, annoyed.

“Maybe on some level, they recognize this is shameful.”

“They probably recognize other people might think it’s shameful. They probably feel pretty persecuted.”

He snorted and clicked onto another page. “Well how about this?”

I scanned the page. It relayed information for an event Friday at seven, at a community center in Glendale—a discussion and strategy meeting regarding the erection of the genocide memorial. It was open to “all people interested in discussing the nuances of our history.” Snacks and soft drinks would be provided.

“You think I should go to this?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I’d be happy if you never saw that man again, but if you want to get more information out of him, you can and should do it safely, when he doesn’t see you coming. This seems low risk, and if you want, you can take a buddy. I just so happen to be free Friday evening.”

“Thanks, Chaz. I think I can handle it on my own, but I’ll let you know if I get nervous.” I smiled. “I thought you might try to lock me in a tower and protect me from the world.”

He reached an arm behind him to pat my shoulder. “You’re all grown up now, Songbird. You just let me know if you need back-up.”

Ten

I left the valley after Molly fed me dinner—reheated penne, at her insistence—while Ruby and Opal braided my hair. I missed the 134 Interchange and was almost at Echo Park when I realized I had to trek back to Glendale. It was strange going home to someone else’s house.

As I drove up the hill, I noticed a pair of headlights following me through every turn, a path that grew more and more specific as I neared the Gasparian house. When I pulled over and pretended to park, the car passed me and I let go of my fear—it was Van, going home.

I got to the house right behind him, and he kept the garage door open when he saw me come up the driveway.

“Late night at work?” I asked.

“It’s how it goes,” he responded, sounding tired.

I caught a whiff of a familiar scent. “Korean barbecue?”

He raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“You must have had
kalbi
for dinner. I’d know that smell anywhere.”

He pulled his sweater to his nose and gave me a wry smile. “I guess I’ll have to wash this.”

I smiled back at him and was about to go in the house when he stopped me with a touch to the elbow. I turned. “Are you coming in?”

“Can I buy you a beer?” he asked.

I looked at him curiously. There was nothing suggestive about his demeanor, or even his touch—only the casual friendliness of a bored coworker. Still, I wondered if it was appropriate to go out drinking with my client’s husband.

He caught my hesitation. “Ruby asked me to talk to you, by the way. I was going to wait until tomorrow, but why not now?”

I thought about my night, about how much I deserved a nightcap. “I could use a beer,” I said, knowing there was none in the house.

He drove us downhill to a dive bar in a strip mall with painted mermaids peeling quietly on the walls. College football played on an old TV, but there weren’t many patrons getting into the game. Two grizzled men played pool at a well-worn table, and two more sat several stools apart at the bar. We grabbed a Guinness and a club soda with lime, then sat in one of the many empty booths.

“I thought you wanted a beer,” I said, taking a sip of mine.

“I said I wanted to buy you a beer. It was a social proposal.” He lifted his glass to meet mine. “I thought it’d be appropriate to get to know you, seeing as you live in my house. I just don’t happen to drink.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“Are you wondering why?”

“It’s not because Rubina forbids it?”

“Not exactly.” He chuckled. “It’s that I’m an alcoholic.”