Forgive Me (5 page)

So when the cops showed up the next morning, trilling the doorbell at 9:39
A.M.
, Xana had accumulated as little sleep as they had. At first, Xana had assumed Em would answer the door. She knew Em would be awake. Em was always up with the sunrise and out in the living room with her yoga mat and her headband and her maddeningly chipper videogame, aping the gestures and postures and stretches of the digitized fitness gurus on the screen, and all to a soundtrack provided by the world's whitest disco cover bands. But Xana heard no terrible music. No sounds of Em counting along with every rep. Just the doorbell.

And then the doorbell again.

And then the doorbell again.

And then:

“Miss Marx, it's the police. Are you here?”

The police? Had something happened to Em? Xana scooted out of bed and padded barefoot toward the apartment's front door wearing only a giant pink-and-green Sex Pistols T-shirt.

The two plainclothesmen were a match made in contrasts. The younger detective was tall, broad, Samoan. His blue suit was tailored. His black shoes were alligator. The older detective was short, hunched, Caucasian. His suit may once have been blue, but the years had not been kind to its hue or its smoothness. The wrinkles in its sleeves rolled back on their owner like accordions. His face was similarly haggard, wrinkled, faded.

His UGA ball cap was brand-new, its brim not even bent.

“Good morning, Miss Marx,” he said. “My name is Detective Abe Konquist. This is my partner, Victor Chau. May we come in?”

“What is this about?” she asked.

“Victor, show Miss Marx your ID.”

He showed her his ID.

“Fantastic,” she replied. The morning sun was in her eyes. “What is this about?”

“May we come in?”

“Detective, if we're going to keep asking each other the same questions—”

Chau piped in, “Are you alone, ma'am?”

She was. Why she was, well, that was another story. But she had a feeling it was a story these detectives knew nothing about. They were sleepy eyed, impatient. Coming off a long shift during a long night. Whatever they were here about had nothing to do with Em.

Xana stepped aside and the two detectives slipped into the apartment. She closed the door and sat with them in the living room. She sat leaning forward. Her T-shirt may have been over-sized, but it wasn't made of magic.

“Miss Marx, do you know anyone by the name of Phillip Wilkerson?”

“Who's Phillip Wilkerson?”

Chau handed her his phone. On it was the ruddy face of a man in his early thirties. Probably a selfie snatched from Wilkerson's social media. Xana returned his phone.

“Never seen him before in my life.”

Chau swiped to another photograph. “How about this man?”

This was a full-body picture of a diminutive dark-skinned gentleman taken from an angle high and to the right in Hartsfield-Jackson Airport's customs processing.

“No,” she said, “but now I'm going to ask a couple questions.”

Konquist opened his hands in welcome. “By all means.”

“Actually, first, if you don't mind, Miss Marx, could we get a cup of coffee?”

“Nah.”

“Excuse me?” Chau frowned. “Do you not have coffee or…?”

“No. We have coffee.”

“Then why can't we have some?”

Xana shrugged. “Just 'cause. Anyway, here's my first question: Are you Missing Persons or Homicide?”

“Miss Marx—”

“I'm thinking Homicide. And that's fine. So did the Haitian kill Wilkerson or did Wilkerson kill the Haitian?”

Konquist and Chau exchanged a glance. “What makes you think the second man is Haitian?”

“You do know who I am.”

“We know who you
were,
” Chau corrected.

Xana sighed. So it was going to be like that. She grabbed Chau's phone and pointed at the tattoo on the dark-skinned man's right forearm.

“That's a palm tree. And the little red hat on top of it is called a Phrygian cap. It's the center image in the Haitian flag.”

“His name was Hercule Dacy,” Konquist told her. “And he did in fact arrive in Atlanta three days ago from Port-au-Prince.”

“Any criminal record?”

“He was a Catholic priest.”

“That's hardly an answer.”

Chau took back his phone. “We're getting off-track.”

“So Dacy killed Wilkerson,” mused Xana. “Who killed Dacy?”

Konquist chuckled.

Chau did not. “What makes you think that Father Dacy is dead?”

“We used the past tense,” said Konquist. “His name
was
Hercule Dacy. He
was
a Catholic priest.”

Xana shrugged an I-told-you-so.

“Wilkerson shot Dacy, and then Dacy cut open Wilkerson's throat with a hacksaw.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah.”

“So I'm still missing the part that involves me.”

“There were two witnesses. A young married couple. Scott and Crystal…what was their last name again?”

“McCormick,” said Chau.

“McCormick. Right. Nice kids. From Nebraska. On their honeymoon, if you can imagine it.”

“Who honeymoons in Atlanta?”

“By way of Paris.”

“Ah.”

So Konquist continued, outlining Scott and Crystal's play-by-play from the moment they arrived at the hotel to their exchange of room keys with Phillip Wilkerson, Hercule Dacy's arrival with room service, Hercule Dacy's rant about fair justice, Phillip Wilkerson's arrival with room service, and then Phillip Wilkerson's rant about the Serendipity Group and the yellow slip of paper with the lists of targets and dates on it.

“Except we couldn't find this yellow slip of paper,” Chau added. “We did get a call an hour ago from Crystal McCormick. She remembered the last name on the list. And the date.”

“Who's the last name on the list?” asked Xana, but as soon as the question left her lips, she knew the answer, and everything made sense. “Oh. Well, that's no good. When's the date?”

“October twelfth.”

“Oh good. Three days from today. I'll pencil it in. Is it a credible threat?”

“We don't know. But the Serendipity Group is real. We have an appointment with their COO in a little bit.”

“But first you wanted to come by and see if I was dead.”

“I recognized your name as soon as I heard it,” said Konquist. After a moment he continued, “Always thought you got a bum rap. Didn't take long to get in touch with your parole officer and he gave us your current residence and here we are.”

“Here we are.”

Detective Chau opened a notepad app on his phone. “Miss Marx, can you think of anyone who might want to target you? Anyone who might feel victimized by your actions?”

To this, Xana laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed. She laughed until she cried. She laughed until her spleen became a dagger poking at her bladder. She excused herself and walked to the bathroom and simmered herself down and halfway through emptying her poked bladder she burst again into full-body spasms and almost fell off the toilet.

Meanwhile, Chau, perhaps still smarting from her denial of simple hospitality re: coffee, grumbled, “I don't see what's so funny.”

“What's so funny,” replied Xana, reentering the room, “was your question. Oh boy. I haven't laughed like that in ages. Thank you.”

“Miss Marx—”

“Detective Chau, how long have you been with the force? You're, what, thirty-six years old? So you entered the academy after college. That puts you at thirteen years on the job.”

“Maybe I went straight from high school.”

“If you did, you stole that Xi Kappa fraternity ring you're wearing. My point is this—thirteen years on the job, how many people are out to get you? Add up all the spouses and parents and children and grandchildren of all the low-life scum you've put away. Now add onto that list all the spouses and parents and children and grandchildren who blame you for not protecting their loved ones in their time of need. Of not finding justice for their suffering. Now add onto that list the malcontents and misanthropes and anarchists who hate cops and who hate Asians just because. Now add onto that list every girl whose heart you know you broke. Now add onto that list every girl whose heart you don't know you broke. Now add onto that list all of your wife's exes. Now add onto that list that guy you cut off in traffic that one time.”

Chau didn't speak.

“You've been on the force for thirteen years. You've been alive for thirty-six years. I worked for the FBI for almost thirty years and next month I'm going to be fifty-three years old and I've been a pain in the ass every step of the way. You want to know if anyone might want to kill me? Detective Chau, it's a miracle no one hasn't already done it.”

Chau didn't speak.

“Now, if you can give me five minutes, I'll shower and put on some relatively clean clothes and then we can go.”

Xana disappeared into the bedroom before Konquist or Chau could react. But then Chau did react, and did speak, and said, “Wait, what?” but all he got in return was the crash of cascading water in a shower.

“She's unbelievable,” he said.

“Some people you meet, you realize there was no way they could have lived up to their reputation. On the other hand…” Konquist shrugged.

“She's right, you know? If this is a credible threat, narrowing down the list of people she might have ticked off is going to take forever. And not just because she probably accumulates new enemies every day.”

“
Enemy
is such a strong word.”

“I'm not saying I'd put a hit out on her, but I wouldn't mind watching her trip over a curb. It's the difference between confidence and arrogance.” Chau left his chair and went to the kitchen. “If she's not going to offer us any coffee, I'm going to take some.”

And then he began to sift through the pantry, which was suffering from a serious case of multiple personality disorder. Organic granola bars beside a tube of barbecue-flavored Pringles beside a nearly empty bag of figs beside many, many boxes of cereal. Next shelf: more cereal. So far no coffee, although there was an itty-bitty tin of Turkish tea.

Konquist joined him in the kitchen, leaned against the stove, crossed his arms, and watched Chau continue to search. “Maybe she doesn't have any coffee.”

“She said she did. Why would she lie?”

“Why do birds sing so gay?”

“There's a coffeemaker on the counter.”

“Maybe it's a decoration.”

Chau waved him off and moved on to the drawers beside the refrigerator.

“You can't wait five minutes and ask?”

“I am choosing to take life by the reins.”

“When you're doing that, it helps to have a warrant.”

“That settles it.” Chau slammed shut a drawer of silverware and moved on to a drawer of knives. “No coffee for you.”

“They should add this to the sergeant's exam. You got five minutes to find a box of coffee in a—”

The cascade of shower water stopped. So did Chau, for a moment. And then he returned to the pantry to search again.

“And we're not really taking her with us,” he added, “are we?”

“I don't see why not.”

“She's a pain in the ass!”

“The way I see it, taking her with us gets us two things, OK? One, it lets us keep an eye on her in case someone is out to get her.”

“And two?”

“Well, let me put it to you this way—don't you want to see the look on their faces at the Serendipity Group when we walk right through their doors with one of their targets?”

Chau replied with a loud grunt of reluctant acknowledgment.

“So it's settled, then,” said Xana, returning to their company. Her hair was still wet, but at least now she was wearing a T-shirt
and
jeans.

“Hope you don't mind. My partner felt like ransacking the place.”

Chau banged the pantry door shut. “Where's your coffee, goddamn it?”

Xana glanced over at Konquist.

Konquist smiled, then uncrossed his arms, then moseyed over to the refrigerator and opened its door. On the middle shelf inside the door, nestled between a pint of nondairy creamer and a small jar of capers, was an eleven-ounce container of Folgers Classic Roast. He handed it over to Chau, although not before addressing him with all due respect: “Detective.”

“Fuck you. Who keeps their coffee in the fridge?”

“It tells you to on the lid,” answered Xana. “And I always follow directions.”

Twenty minutes and two cups of coffee later, the three of them were heading to the neighborhood of Buckhead in Konquist and Chau's beige Skylark. Xana stretched out in the back and dialed Hayley's cell. She couldn't wait to tell her the news. Unfortunately, the call went to voice mail. This not being the kind of message one left on a voice mail, Xana simply hung up.

The new special-agent-in-charge probably had Hayley in the basement, sorting old files. Cell reception was spotty in the basement. The old special-agent-in-charge, Jim Christie, would never have wasted someone with Hayley's talent on a task as mundane as sorting files. No, Jim Christie had rightfully held Hayley in high regard, almost as highly as he had held Xana. It was Jim Christie, after all, who had protected Xana all these years from any kind of retaliation or reprimand for her less-than-collegial behavior. Jim had continued to cover for her even as her alcoholism made her surly and sloppy, although not even the director of the Bureau could have prevented the shitstorm that came down after Xana, quite soused, drove her car into a residence.

Almost a year ago now.

And as to her champion, Jim Christie? Despite having been burned time and time again by Xana's malfeasance, he had allowed her to help out during the hostage situation back in July, and for his efforts he had been shot by one of the Chechen terrorists. He had quite literally died in Xana's arms.

The list of people wanting to see her suffer was long indeed, maybe justifiably so. The list of people she considered friends, never too lengthy to begin with, seemed to shorten with each passing year. Sure, Xana took pride in her independence, but still…

This naturally made Xana think of Em, and she dialed her number next.

Em, as always, picked up almost immediately. “Hey, sweetness.”

“Hey. Where are you?”

“I'm at the bookstore. I told you I had to be here early to set up. We've got that children's author coming in today.”

That sounded vaguely familiar. And so funny that Xana had to smirk. Her lover had picked up a new bad habit. Em no longer referred to the authors who came by her bookshop by name. Too many “Who's that?” from Xana. Oh, how it irked Em to no end how someone as worldly and wise as Xana could be so clueless about the world of contemporary literature, and oh, how it tickled Xana to irk someone as even tempered and laissez-faire as Em.

“So what are you up to today, sweetness?”

“Nothing,” replied Xana, only then realizing that she was not about to concern Em with these matters. Best to let her worry about her author. Best to let her stakes be as far from life-and-death as possible. Wasn't that, after all, part of Em's allure? Yes, she was an alcoholic, but she was still so…so untainted.

“Nothing sounds like fun.”
Chomp, chomp
. Em's breakfast must have been an apple. “I could use a little nothing in my life.”

“How about a little fun?”

“Oh I've got that,” Em flirted back.

Chomp, chomp, chomp
.

They pulled into a parking garage buttressing an office building. Xana bantered her phone conversation to its logical end. By the time she pressed
END,
they were parked.

According to the map on the lobby wall, the Serendipity Group was on the second floor. They could have asked the old man at the lobby desk, but why disrupt someone so peacefully asleep?

On the elevator ride up, Chau delivered the inevitable line: “Let us do the talking.”

Xana batted her eyelashes with faux naiveté.

“I'm serious.”

Xana batted her eyelashes with faux anxiety.

“You're a real pain in the ass. You know that?”

“She knows,” said Konquist.

The elevator jolted to a halt. The doors opened.

Suite 206 was two doors to the left. Detective Chau pressed the buzzer beside the locked door. Down the hall, a pair of day laborers in coveralls were staple-gunning new carpet into the floorboards. Twenty-two seconds passed. Chau angled his index finger toward the buzzer and the door unlocked with a loud click almost identical to the sound of those industrial staples stabbing into wood down the hall.

Inside, Suite 206 was perfectly ordinary. A waiting area, well-appointed with rented furniture and month-old magazines. A frosted-glass partition in front of a receptionist's desk. And another locked door, presumably leading into the heart of the beast.

The glass partition was halfway open, revealing a man on a stool. Behind him were rows and rows of color-coded files. Very much a doctor's office vibe. Not quite what Xana had expected, but then again, she had never before visited a vengeance-for-hire matchmaker.

Chau flashed his bona fides. “Hi, there. We have an appointment with Aaron Solo.”

The receptionist smiled, nodded, and handed Chau a clipboard.

Chau handed it back.

The receptionist didn't take it.

“I don't think you understand…” said Chau.

“It's policy.”

The receptionist shut the partition.

“It's policy,” Konquist echoed.