Chapter Seven

I dragged Jun with me to the bar to meet up with Juan Carlos and Richard. I had a strong feeling he was going to be important and I would need him and his circular logic to help Vivian. I also needed him to find Dhane’s sister, Trinity, whom I was certain had information that would help me figure out what had happened to Dhane.

Juan Carlos’s Hjálmar friend, Mateo, was already sitting in a booth with Richard and Juan Carlos when Jun and I got there.

“Azalea, where have you been?” Juan Carlos’s irritated glare moved from me to Jun standing over my left shoulder. “Holy Comic-Con!” He waggled a finger at Jun. “Who’s your little friend, Zee?”

I made introductions all around, taking special note of Richard’s irritation at Juan Carlos’s interest in Jun.

Juan Carlos scooted over and patted the booth seat next to him. “Come sit next to me, Jun.”

“Thank you.” Like the eager-to-please puppy he was, Jun plopped down next to Juan Carlos, oblivious of Richard’s glowering.

I slid in next to Jun just as the waitress strolled up and asked for our drink order. Everyone ordered a cocktail except Jun.

“Cherry Coke, please.”

“Cherry Coke? No, no, no. He’ll have a Singapore Sling,” Juan Carlos informed her.

The waitress propped her tray on her hip and asked Jun, “Can I see some ID?”

Jun blushed and ducked his head. “I just want a Cherry Coke, please.”

The waitress looked to Juan Carlos.

Juan Carlos shrugged. “Cherry Coke.”

The waitress pivoted and headed off to place our drink order at the bar.

Juan Carlos turned to Jun. “No fake ID?”

Jun shook his head.

“That’s cool. Love your hair. Who cuts it?”

“I’m sure Mateo has better things to do than watch you strike out with an underage cartoon character,” Richard interrupted.

Juan Carlos turned on Richard, but I cut him off before they could have an all-out brawl. “Mateo, what have you been hearing about Dhane’s death?”

“That’s all everybody’s talking about. I’ve heard lots of stories.” He tossed his head, flipping his long black hair over one shoulder. “There’s the one where he gets jumped in the elevator of his hotel. There’s one about it being a mob hit. And then there’s my favorite one. Hookers and blow.” Mateo bobbed his thick black brows, his too-pretty-to-be-a-boy’s mouth curving into a naughty smile. “You know, like an erotic -asphyxiation thing.”

Ewww.

“Then how do you explain his…and its being…?” Juan Carlos stammered.

Richard stepped in before Juan Carlos hurt himself. “He’s asking how any of that could be true, since he was decapitated.”

The image of Dhane’s head lying on the carpet, his beautiful hair fanning out around it, popped into my head. I shivered uncontrollably. Then I thought about Vivian being accused of doing that to him and I just couldn’t imagine it. Not my Vivian.

“Yeah, they didn’t really talk about that part. I mean they did, but just not the details of it. You know?” Mateo said.

We all nodded.

Mateo’s statement got me thinking. How would a person go about decapitating someone? What kind of person would do such a thing?

“What…what did it look like?”

We all turned toward Jun, surprised by his question. Then Juan Carlos, Richard, and I exchanged glances. Having firsthand knowledge of the experience put us in a club no one would willingly join. I didn’t have the words to describe it for him and even if I did, I wouldn’t want to be the one to put such an image in his innocent little head.

“Bad,” Richard answered. “I won’t ever forget it,” he finished quietly.

The silence hung heavily over us, weighing down all our moods. Someone sighed.

“Vodka Collins?” the waitress asked, disrupting our thoughts.

Mateo put up his hand. The last to get his drink was Jun.

“And a Cherry Coke for the young master.” She sat down a tall glass with a purple straw and three maraschino cherries in front of Jun.

His face lit up like a child’s on Christmas morning.

“How would a person do that?” I asked, unable to rein in the thought.

“Do what?” Juan Carlos asked.

“Decapitate someone.”

We looked around the table at one another. It was one thing to speculate on what might have happened. It was another to break it down and piece it back together.

“You’d have to be strong, I would think,” Mateo said. “I mean, it can’t be easy. You’d need a chainsaw or an ax or something. And it would be messy. Blood everywhere.”

Jun audibly gulped.

“There’s no way Vivian could have done it,” I defended.

“Yeah, she’s a miniature little thing,” Juan Carlos added.

“Not just that,” I said. “She just doesn’t have it in her. I’ve known her forever. Sure, she gets an unholy glint in her eye when she kills a spider, but that’s an insect, not a person.”

“Who’s Vivian?” Jun asked.

Mateo sat up in his seat. “Is she the one they arrested? I heard about that. I heard she was covered in blood, soaked in it. She a friend of yours or something?” He cast a scandalized glance at Juan Carlos and me.

“Yes. And none of that’s true,” I argued. “She didn’t have a drop on her.” And then it hit me. How Detective Kennedy hadn’t seemed confident in Vivian’s arrest. The blood—or lack of it—would make it difficult for charges to stick. So why arrest her? Just because she was found with the body?

I needed to talk to Vivian and soon.

“Who’s Vivian?” Jun asked again.

Mateo asked, “How do you know she didn’t have any blood on her?”

His question had me frowning over how much information I should share and whom I should share it with. At this point I didn’t know whom to trust outside of Juan Carlos and Richard. To protect Viv, I let Mateo’s question slide.

“If she didn’t have any blood on her, then why did they arrest her?” Juan Carlos thankfully slipped in.

I turned to Mateo. “What do you know about how Hjálmar is run? Was Dhane more than the face behind it? Have you heard anything unusual either before or since Dhane’s death?”

“As co-owner, Dhane was very involved in product development. His partner ran the business side. There was a rumor about the company maybe being for sale, but I don’t know if it had sold or not.”

“Has anything out of the ordinary happened lately?”

“Like what?”

“Like someone hanging around who hadn’t before or a change in the company’s policies or procedures, something like that,” I said.

“No, not really.” Mateo stared off for a moment, his dark eyes fixed on a spot in the distance. “Wait.” His attention returned to us. “There was one thing that was kind of strange.”

“What?” Juan Carlos asked.

“This lady came to the counter early this morning while we were finishing setting up, you know, before the show floor opened.”

“Yeah?” The thrill of a possible clue vibrated inside of me.

“She was asking for Dhane. Got kind of mad when she found out he wasn’t around. Like she was expecting him to be there or something. Like they had a meeting scheduled.”

“Who was she?” I asked.

Mateo’s shoulders hitched up. “Don’t know.”

“Could you find out?”

“Maybe.”

Juan Carlos joined the questioning. “What did she look like?”

Mateo’s glance veered off again. “Kind of small. Dark hair. Hispanic. Smokin’ body.” He flashed a wicked grin. “All T and A, just the way I like them.”

His description sounded kind of familiar. “How was she dressed?” I held my breath for his answer.

“Black dress, tight. I liked that. Her hair was up. I liked that, too. Oh, and she had a big red flower in her hair. She kinda reminded me of Salma Hayek.”

My heart slid into my stomach. He’d described Vivian perfectly. Juan Carlos was staring hard at me. The same shock and disbelief I felt was being reflected right back at me.

I twitched a shoulder, trying to shake loose the bad feeling I was getting. “If you can think of anything else or if you hear something, please give me a call.” I slid my business card across the table to Mateo. “Even if it doesn’t seem important, okay?”

“Sure. Will do.” Mateo tucked my card in his jeans pocket and stood. “I’d better get back to the counter. See you, Juan Carlos. Say hi to George for me.” They exchanged hand pumps and fist bumps with each other. Juan Carlos’s part in it was lackluster at best.

“Later,” Mateo called to the rest of us as he left.

Richard slid over in the booth so we all could spread out. “So what’s with Cartoon Junior here?” he asked me, gesturing toward Jun.

“My name is Jun.”

I sipped my drink, needing a moment to sort out my scattered thoughts. “He’s helping me.” I briefly explained about the note and the gist of the conversation I’d had with Jun earlier.

“Where can we find this Trinity?” Richard asked Jun.

Jun hitched a shoulder. “Tenchi would know.”

“Would he put me in touch with her?” I asked.

“Probably.” Jun sucked up the last of his drink. “But you can’t talk to her.”

I exchanged a long look with Juan Carlos. “What do you mean?”

“She doesn’t talk to people,” Jun replied.

“Then how did she tell Tenchi to give you the note to give to me?”

“She didn’t.”

I slapped a hand to my forehead. “But you just told me she did!”

Jun sucked an ice cube into his mouth and talked around it. “I didn’t mean her.”

“Okay, wait.” Juan Carlos held up a hand. “I’m lost. If this Trinity chick didn’t tell this Tenchi dude, and I’m assuming it’s a dude, to give Azalea the note, then how did he know to give it to her?”

“Through Curio,” Jun answered, digging out another ice cube, totally oblivious to our frustration with him.

I dropped my head on the table.

“Who’s Curio?” Juan Carlos asked.

“Well, he’s really a what not a who.” Jun lassoed a cube on his straw and spun it around until it flung off and hit Richard. “Sorry,” Jun told him.

Richard took the straw from him. “It’s fine. What is Curio then?”

“A skunk.”

That brought my head up. “A real live skunk? In here?”

“Well of course not live.” Jun smiled as if we were all in on the joke.

“A dead skunk?” Juan Carlos shouted.

“Oh! No.” Jun squinted at me. “Did I say Curio was dead?”

Finally catching on to Jun’s path of logic, I asked, “Is Curio a stuffed animal?”

Jun tipped his head to the side, his wide eyes blinking slowly. “Of course.”

“Of course,” we all chimed.

“Where did you find this guy?” Richard mumbled to me out of the side of his mouth.

I waved him away and started in on Jun again. “So Trinity told Curio, the stuffed skunk, to tell Tenchi, a real guy, to tell you to give me the note?”

“Yes!” Jun beamed.

I lifted my glass. “Huzzah!” Then gulped down the last of my drink.

Juan Carlos’s eyebrows bunched up. “Why does she talk through a stuffed skunk? What is she, a child?”

Jun’s mouth flattened into a frown. “You’re being mean.”

“He’s not trying to be.” I laid a hand on Jun’s arm. “We’re just struggling to understand what happened so we can help our friend.”

“That’s okay, I guess,” Jun said. “Trinity is…different.”

“Look who’s talking,” Richard mumbled.

I shot Richard a dirty look, then turned back to Jun. “How is Trinity different?”

“She’s not like you and me.” Jun stabbed at the ice in his glass with his purple straw.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I don’t know for sure so I probably shouldn’t say.”

“We won’t tell anyone, promise.” I had to get him to talk. He knew more about the people in Dhane’s life than anyone I’d met.

Jun looked around the table, checking our expressions for the truth. He bit his bottom lip. “I asked Tenchi about her. He said something happened to her a long time ago. Curio helps her.” He jabbed at the ice again. “That’s all I know.”

He wasn’t looking us in the eyes anymore and I got the feeling he hadn’t told us all he knew. I was really getting tired of people doing that. “Jun. We’re friends, right?”

He bounced in his seat a little, his expression wide open again. “The best.”

“Uh-huh. And friends help friends, right?”

“Always.”

“I need your help.”

Jun bobbed his head. “Okay.”

“I need you to tell me what Tenchi told you about Trinity.”

Jun looked at Richard and Juan Carlos.

“Hey, guys. Why don’t you get Jun another Cherry Coke from the bar?” I suggested, loading it with tons of amscray and I’ll-tell-ya-later facial expressions.

As soon as Richard and Juan Carlos were out of earshot, I started in on Jun again. “What did Tenchi tell you about Trinity?”

“He told me not to tell. I keep my promises.”

I took his hand and gentled my voice. “Jun, my friend Vivian is in really bad trouble. She needs our help. What Tenchi told you might help me find a way to help her. Don’t you want to help?”

He nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.

“Tenchi would understand you telling me just this once, don’t you think?”

He twirled his straw around the inside of his empty glass. “I guess so.”

I sat back and waited. I could see the struggle all over his face. He wanted to help, but he didn’t want to betray his friend. I knew exactly how he felt. I was in the same predicament. I wanted to help Vivian, but I had to do it without betraying her trust.

After a moment he took a breath and gave up on the straw with one final stab. “Tenchi said that when Trinity was little, like maybe five or six, Dhane killed their father. Right in front of her.”

Of all the things I’d imagined he’d say, that was nowhere on the list. It wasn’t even in the same stratosphere as the list. I rubbed at my forehead, searching the far recesses of my mind for a follow up question, but Jun beat me to it.

“I guess Dhane’s father married Trinity’s mother after Dhane’s mother died. Then one day the dad just snapped, attacked Trinity. Dhane killed him to protect her, but he didn’t have to go to jail. Because of what happened, Trinity doesn’t deal well with people. She needs Curio. That’s all I know.” Jun turned away from me and stared down at his empty glass.

I found my voice after a few moments of stunned silence. “Thank you, Jun.”

Jun didn’t answer. I wanted to reach out to him, let him know how much I appreciated his help. I had the strongest urge to hug him hard and tell him he did a good thing, but I couldn’t quite find the words.

We sat in silence for a few moments with me trying to summon the courage to ask him to go one step further. I thought about Dhane. Then I thought about Vivian.

“Do you think I could meet Trinity?” I asked him.

“I guess I could call Tenchi and find out.” He stood up just as Juan Carlos and Richard returned to the table. “I’ll be right back.”

Juan Carlos waited a beat. “Okay, he’s gone. Spill.”

I knew it was a terrible betrayal, but I trusted Richard and Juan Carlos. So I filled them in on the most pertinent parts of what Jun had told me, glossing over or not relaying the bits that I didn’t think were important in determining who had killed Dhane. I really needed their help in sorting through all of this. The sooner we figured out what had happened, the sooner Viv would be released.

“So,” Richard said. “What do you think Dhane’s sister will know that might help Vivian?”

He posed a good question.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “But at least we’ll know what we’re dealing with when we talk to Trinity. Jun is arranging that now.” I turned to Juan Carlos. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about the story Vivian told us of how she met Dhane. A couple of the things she said have been bothering me.”

“Me, too.”

“It just didn’t make sense. And it didn’t match some of the things she’d told me before. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Juan Carlos got excited. “I know! There were more holes in her story than a punk-rocker’s head. I thought it was just me. Why would she tell us a story that isn’t complete? What’s she hiding?”

“I don’t know.” That was the million-dollar question. What was she hiding and why? I was especially curious to know if and how it would tie in to Dhane’s murder.

Jun returned, looking a little concerned. “Tenchi said that Trinity will see you. But it has to be now and you have to go in alone.”