I snuggled with Django and slept for two days until my jetlag had worn off and I felt like myself again. My head still hurt occasionally and my body was covered in cuts and bruises from being tossed around like a rag doll, but I’d felt worse.
On the third morning, I made a strong cup of espresso, tugged on some faded jeans and an old sweater and headed for the door with Django practically bouncing at my heels. I wanted to go visit Jessica Stark. The contract I’d seen in Italy still stumped me. Maybe Jessica Stark knew why Turricci was so interested in the land.
Outside the building, I glanced again at the spot where Ethel usually sat during the day. The flattened cardboard boxes she sat on were still there. I made a note to ask Thanh-Thanh about Ethel.
The cancer had done a number on Jessica Stark. Large shadows pooled under her eyes and her cheekbones were sharp slices slanting up to her hairline. The smile she gave me was wan. Death was shadowing her every move.
She didn’t seem surprised to see me. She held up a rocks glass to toast me and shrugged.
“I figure there’s no reason to wait until noon anymore.”
I pressed my lips together. When she poured me a drink, I clinked my glass to hers and downed it in one gulp.
“I came to tell you that you don’t have to worry anymore. My godfather’s dead.”
Her shrill laughter startled me.
“It’s too late. I went to the oncologist yesterday. It’s spread to my brain. It’s a matter of days. Maybe hours.”
I looked down. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugged.
I felt bad grilling a dying woman for information, but I needed to know.
“Jessica, can you think of any reason why an investor would pay two hundred and fifty million for this development? I mean, is there a gold vein buried underground or what?”
She frowned and her eyebrows knit together. “That’s how much your lying greedy godfather was getting for these digs?”
“Can you think of any reason someone would pay that much?”
She hiccupped. “Not a clue.”
I sighed. “Me, either.”
Grabbing my bag, I headed toward to door.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you. Again.”
“How about keeping a dying woman company?” She held up a bottle of gin.
“When you put it that way, it’s an offer I can’t refuse.”
She laughed. “Come on, stay a while. Want to watch a movie?”
“Sure, why the hell not.”
We sat, slumped on the couch drinking gin and howling with laughter at The Big Lebowski. When I heard her snoring softly beside me, I covered her with a throw blanket, lowered the volume of the TV, and crept out.
It was the last time I saw Jessica Stark.
On my way home, I saw a stand with flowers for sale. Dozens of red roses. I thought about Ethel. That fuck of a husband had beat her nearly to death and then thought he could buy her roses and that would make everything okay.
Well, it didn’t. I was glad he was dead. For a second, I thought about buying Ethel roses. Just for the hell of it. To show that someone could be kind to her for no reason, not as a way to make up for nearly beating her to death. But I didn’t know how she would take it. I would never forgive myself if it brought up bad memories. I’d ask her. I’d ask if it’d be okay if I bought her some roses one day because she deserved something pretty.
When I got home, I knocked on Thanh-Thanh’s door. Through a series of hand gestures and broken English, I asked about Ethel. From the older woman’s responses, she hadn’t seen Ethel around for days. Downstairs, I knocked on Trang’s door.
He opened it up and yawned.
“I ain’t seen the old biddy for a while.”
Oh, my God. My heart pounded in my throat.
I waited until eight thirty at night and headed for Saint Boniface. I’d heard that doors to the church closed for the night at nine. The pews were already filled. I began at the altar and slowly walked down the aisle softly calling Ethel’s name. A couple of people swore at me, but nobody answered my call. I looked for a head wrapped in a paisley scarf. About half way down the aisle, a man with a bald head and long beard sat up. “Ethel ain’t been around for long time.”
“You know where she’s staying?”
He shook his head and laid back down, pulling a dingy brown blanket up to his nose.
The next morning, I did a short Budo workout in my place to get back in the swing of things. Then, dressed as demurely as I could manage— flat shoes, my hair back in a sleek ponytail, and big black sunglasses—I headed to the police station.
At the front desk, I said my elderly aunt was homeless and missing and I was concerned.
After I filled out a missing report, I asked the clerk how soon I might know something. He shrugged. He gestured toward a bulletin board on the way out. “We’ll put a missing person poster up there. You can check back tomorrow.”
I glared at him. He was useless.
“I need answers now. She’s never just disappeared like this.” It wasn’t really true since I barely knew her, but I wanted him to take me seriously. I had a really bad feeling about Ethel’s disappearance.
I’d turned to walk out when the clerk called after me, “You checked the morgue?”
I didn’t respond. On my way out, my heart stopped for a minute as I passed a bulletin board plastered with wanted and missing person’s posters. My face and name were on one poster. I didn’t stop to read why. Blood pounded in my ears but I managed not to break stride as I casually walked out the double doors.
Outside, I leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. What the fuck? Had my godfather lied and reported me for committing some nonexistent crime? He must have been really desperate to find me. It wasn’t a “Missing Person” poster—it was a “Wanted” poster.
Just in case, I kept my sunglasses on when I walked into the morgue about twenty minutes later.
“I don’t have an Ethel Swanson, but we’ve got some unidentified,” the clerk there told me. “Can you be more specific?”
“Older black lady maybe in her sixties with short gray hair. She usually wears a scarf around her head. Homeless?” I knew it wasn’t much.
“Your aunt, huh?”
“Yep.” I looked her dead in the eye.
The clerk looked away and scrolled through her computer screen. “I got one that fits that description,” she said.
My heart stopped.
“Does she have any identifying marks? Tattoos, special dental work, anything like that?” The clerk asked.
I shook my head sadly. I didn’t know.
“What about something she might have had on her person, like a handbag or something?”
The flask.
“A silver flask with the initials GVS.”
“Hold.” She got up and went out a door.
She came back with a plastic bag. “This one?”
Good God. Inside was my flask.
A wave of sadness rolled across my body. Thoughts of her dying cold and alone in some alley maybe from alcohol poisoning. A thought horrified me — what if that night we had drank that booze and smoked that weed, what if that had done her in? What if that had been too much and she had died from it?
“How did she die?” My voice, barely above a whisper, cracked.
“You’ll have to talk to the police department.”
I scrunched up my face in confusion. “I was just there. They didn’t say shit.”
The woman seemed to take pity on me. “If you were there filing a missing person report earlier, they might not have made the connection yet. Go back and talk to them. But don’t expect much because it’s an open case and they won’t be able to tell you much.”
“I don’t understand.”
She looked over her glasses at me. “I’m sorry to tell you this about your aunt. Her death was ruled a homicide.”