Fortune Cookie (Culinary Mystery) (10 page)

“Exactly,” Ji said.

He let his eyes run along the apartment again before they met Sadie’s. “So, what would you like me to do?” he asked. “I’d started on the stuff in the living room, but then the detective showed up with those boxes”—he waved toward the document boxes still on the counter—“and I answered his questions until I had to get back to the restaurant.”

Sadie nodded. “Well, I’ve packed up most of the cabinets in the kitchen. She has some really nice sets of dishes, and I wondered if you wanted to keep them. One is from Williams-Sonoma and—”

“I don’t want anything,” Ji cut in, his voice brisk.

“Nothing?” Sadie asked, glancing at the TV on the wall. It was a really nice TV, and she figured that if he wanted anything at all, he’d want that. She also wondered why the robbers hadn’t taken it. Maybe because it was too big to get out easily?

“She gave me nothing while she was alive, and I won’t take anything now.”

Sadie was struck by the intensity of his words and by the obviously deep-seated pain he still felt about his mother. “We could probably sell some of this. She has some very nice things.”

He shook his head again. “I want nothing from her.”

Sadie nodded sadly. “I’m sorry for all the hurt she caused you, Ji.”

He simply looked at her, and she wondered if his distrust for his mother had spread to include Sadie too. She’d sensed it when she talked to him on the phone but hoped meeting him in person would change things. She wanted him to see her as an ally, even if accepting her as family was too difficult right now. He finally looked away, scanning the apartment again.

“My friend works with a charity organization that helps new immigrants get settled here in San Francisco. He said he can send a truck tomorrow afternoon. Do you think we can get everything packed up before then? They’ll take everything—furniture, kitchen supplies, and clothes. They’ll even take nonperishable food and cleaning supplies.”

“That’s wonderful,” Sadie said with a smile she hoped communicated that she was trying to understand how he was feeling about all of this. “I think we could get everything packed up if we worked hard at it. Pete, my fiancé, will be back in a little while, and between the three of us, I think we can make really good progress.” She was as eager as Ji seemed to be to get this job over with, but suddenly wondered why either of them was here if neither of them wanted to be. Surely the police had dealt with other murder victims who had no one to claim their things; there had to be a procedure for what to do in that situation.

“She never told me she had a sister.” Ji’s flat tone caught Sadie off guard, but he continued before she could comment. “She never talked about any of her family. I assumed she didn’t have anyone, let alone anyone like you.”

Like me?
Sadie repeated in her mind. Did he mean that in a good way or a bad way?

“How did you find my address to contact me?”

“I looked through her desk and found an envelope with your return address. Your father’s obituary was inside, which is how I made the connection.”

“She hadn’t come to his funeral so I’d sent her the clipping. She kept it?” Sadie felt a wisp of gratitude that she’d sent it even though she’d been frustrated with Wendy for not acknowledging their father’s death. That Wendy had kept it all these years meant something, didn’t it?

Ji’s expression showed a hint of regret that caused Sadie to brace herself. “It hadn’t been opened when I found it,” he said.

Wendy never even opened the letter Sadie had sent? She’d never even read the final tribute to their father? Sadie swallowed the hurt and reminded herself that this detail was in perfect accordance with the Wendy Sadie
did
know. A nice apartment and beautiful things hadn’t apparently changed her much.

“Wendy cut us out of her life entirely,” Sadie explained. “But I’m glad she kept the letter if only so that you could find me. I’m glad you contacted me.”

“When did my mother cut you off?”

Sadie gave him a brief version of the history and ended with, “It was very hard on my parents.”

“But not on you,” Ji added, picking through the subtleties of what she’d said.

If not for having already promised herself to be honest with him when the hard questions came up, she’d have lied. There was obvious difficulty between Ji and his mother, and Sadie felt guilty adding to it with her own negative experience. But she wouldn’t lie to him. If this man deserved anything from her, he deserved the truth. Still, she proceeded with caution, not wanting to give more than he wanted to hear. “Wendy didn’t treat me well when we were young, and we never had a chance to form a bond later in life.”

“What do you mean she didn’t treat you well?”

It was easier to tell Ji than it had been to tell Pete, maybe because she’d had practice, or maybe because she’d had a few days to relive the experiences and reaffirm to herself that she hadn’t been to blame for Wendy’s bad behavior. Or maybe because she sensed that Ji hadn’t been treated well by Wendy either. Those things didn’t make the telling of it painless, however.

“I forgave her a long time ago,” Sadie said after divulging the details of her childhood experiences. “I believe she was mentally ill and didn’t always understand what she was doing.”

“Perhaps you give her too much credit. Perhaps she was just a bad person and always had been.”

His dark sentiment surprised her, but she was careful not to react. She had no idea what his life with Wendy had been like and didn’t want to come across as dismissive or judgmental. “I’m not sure I believe that people are just
bad.
” Yet even as she said it, she thought of some of the people she’d met in recent years who could fit that description.

Ji looked away from her to the canvas prints of Wendy on the living room wall. Sadie watched him, wondering what he felt when he looked at the portraits of his mother and wondering what Wendy had done to cause such disdain in her only child.

Several seconds passed before he looked back at her. “Did you know about me?”

Sadie had been dreading that question but took a deep breath before she answered. “My parents begged for contact when she told us about you; she called you Eddie.”

Ji nodded but didn’t comment.

Sadie continued. “They sent money when Wendy faced different crises and asked for help. More than once, they sent money specifically to pay for the two of you to come out and visit, but she never came. She would go for months and sometimes years between contacting Mom and Dad. And then at some point she said you were living with your dad.”

“None of you ever looked for me,” Ji said matter-of-factly.

There was a question in his statement, a
“Why didn’t you find me?”

“When my parents gave her money it was their expectation that they were helping you.” Even as she said it, though, she wondered why they hadn’t tried harder to find him. Why not hire a private investigator? Why had Sadie followed the passive lead of her parents instead of doing something herself? She tried to explain about the uncertainty of whether or not Ji had existed because Wendy seemed to have used him only as an excuse to get money from her parents, but he cut her off.

“You knew she wasn’t well—you said so yourself. Did you consider that she wasn’t well enough to be a mother? Knowing she might have a child should have spurred you to at least try.” His expression was hardening, and Sadie felt herself tensing in response.

“We worried about that all the time, even when we weren’t sure if you were real or not. When we learned you were with your father—”

“My father is a drunk. I was ten years old when Wendy dropped me off at his nasty apartment and told him he could be the parent for the next ten years. I didn’t see her for almost five years. By then, I was living with Lin Yang’s family and working at their restaurant so that I could eat and stay in school. I had nowhere else to go.”

“I’m so sorry,” Sadie said softly, feeling terrible about all he’d gone through. “We had no idea.”

“And you didn’t check,” Ji said. His eyes and expression were cold and stony. He turned away and took a breath. “Before she took me to my dad’s, we lived all over Southern California. She’d shack up with someone for a few months, then after he’d kick her out for stealing, we’d live with another friend of hers. One time we lived in our car for an entire summer. I panhandled on the beach so we could eat at the end of the day. Growing up with her was a nightmare, and all along you guys . . .” He stopped himself and took another breath, a deeper one. “Never mind,” he suddenly said, straightening his shoulders. “I’m going to get started in the bedroom.” He crossed the room and shut the door behind him.

Sadie blinked, trying to keep the tears down while swallowing the lump in her throat. Why hadn’t they tried harder to confirm Ji’s existence? Couldn’t she have done something to help him? Was there anything she could do now to make it right? She pictured him as a little boy, begging for money, and had to close her eyes against the image that made her physically sick.

After several seconds, she went back to packing the kitchen, heartsick and wishing she could say something to ease Ji’s hurt. The hopes she had of having a relationship with him after they finished closing out Wendy’s life seemed slim, and yet she couldn’t hold it against him. If she’d been in that situation and learned that there were people who could have helped her but didn’t, she wasn’t sure she could forgive them either.

She also wondered, as she wrapped a crystal bowl in newspaper before putting it in a box, how Wendy had gone from the woman Ji had just told her about to someone with crystal bowls and Williams-Sonoma dish sets. What had happened between then and now? Did it even matter?

Chapter 9

When the buzzer sounded for the second time that day, Sadie was startled all over again. It was Pete this time. She buzzed him up, then opened the apartment door and waited in the doorway for him, relieved that he was back. Ji stayed in the bedroom, allowing Sadie to give Pete a whispered update of what had happened in his absence. She heard the pleading tone in her voice and was glad when Pete said he’d try to talk to Ji. She didn’t notice the white paper bag until he handed it to her and said they’d eat the “treats” in a little while.

He kissed her quickly before disappearing into the bedroom. She heard him introduce himself and immediately begin asking about Ji’s work and family. Pete was a master with people, and Sadie was glad when she heard Ji answering Pete’s questions. The bag Pete had handed her was from Ghirardelli Chocolate Company, and there were cookies inside. Sadie’s stomach was too twisted to be tempted at the moment, so she set the bag aside and went back to work packing up the kitchen.

Half an hour later, the last of the kitchen items were boxed up, and she shifted her attention to the office. She scanned the room from the doorway and looked over her shoulder at the document boxes still sitting on the kitchen counter filled with personal papers, contracts, and other remnants of Wendy’s life. She was tempted to start reading through those files first but talked herself out of it; it was more important to get the apartment packed. The files were already boxed—she could look through them another time—but there was a deadline for everything else.

Sadie picked up an empty box while eyeing the bookshelf. Pete laughed in the other room, and she wondered what on earth they could be talking about that had him laughing, but then she forced herself to move again. It was
Ji’s
chuckle that stopped her in her tracks the second time. She hated feeling left out but took comfort in the fact that if Pete was building a bridge with Ji, she might be able to cross it later.

She started with packing the books—interior design, mostly, and a few racy romance novels she
may
have read a couple pages from before remembering the task at hand. She’d finished the top shelf and had moved on to the second when she pulled out what she thought was a book only to realize it was a box of stationery. The box was black and stored between a book about Audrey Hepburn and
Feng Shui for Dummies.

Sadie moved the box to the desk, where she lifted off the lid. Half of the box was filled with pale pink envelopes and the other half held stationery of the same color, half-sheet size. It was a disappointing discovery—she’d hoped for something more personal—and was going to put the top back on when she realized that the envelope on top of the stack was sealed.

She set the top of the box back down on the desk, picked up the sealed envelope, and turned it over. Nothing was written on the front. It was obvious, however, that there was something inside.

Sadie considered her options for .03 seconds, before sliding her finger beneath the seal and tearing it open. Inside was a piece of the pink stationery. She pulled it out and unfolded it. The words were written in large, flowery letters with looping circles—artistic and dramatic.

He came again last night. Ecstasy!

Sadie read the words again and felt her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. It wasn’t hard to guess what this note was in regards to. She looked for a date or a signature, something to give these six words some context or chronology, but found nothing. She refolded the letter and put it back in the envelope, which she then took into the kitchen and slid under the lid of one of the file boxes. She wondered what it meant
exactly,
why it was written but not sent, and who it was intended for as she continued packing up the office.