Blood Bond (18 page)

“If you heard it from several tables away, yes, I suppose it must have been,” Joe encouraged her.

“Oh, yes. And Gail answered her in what I would characterize as a normal tone, but Marva just kept getting louder and louder. She called Gail selfish, and inconsiderate, and said—and this I remember very clearly because everyone in the store turned around to stare—she was so loud, that it was ‘time she learned that she wasn't the center of the universe.' ”

“Do you know what she meant by that?”

“No. How could I, without context? But Gail was trying to calm her down, really, she remained quite reasonable the entire time. Gail was unflappable,” she said, managing a wobble to her lower lip.

An interesting quality to remember with affection, Joe thought. Unflappability. Or coldness, some might say.
He
might say. Compared to her sister, Gail was frigid, calculating.

Clearly he'd lost objectivity. Maybe he shouldn't even be here; had he lost the ability to seriously consider Marva as a suspect?

“Describe Marva Groesbeck's demeanor, please,” he said, in as professional a tone as he could muster.

“I would say—out of control. Her appearance, to start with, was unkempt. Her clothing wrinkled, her hair and makeup—very little effort. As though she were too upset to take the time.”

“And would you characterize her appearance as markedly different from the prior time you met her?”

Mrs. Ellis opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. “Well, she certainly was
angrier
than last time.”

“But you don't know what the subject of her anger was.”

“Maybe not.” Dilys Ellis narrowed her eyes and stared him down. “But she definitely seemed angry enough to do something crazy.”

JOE GOT
to Shalimar near the end of his family's dinner. He'd called from the road, driving as quickly as he could down 680 toward Fremont, but Omar didn't pick up; Shalimar was noisy and he probably didn't hear his phone.

The children were picking at plates of chicken
makhani
and
paneer
masala, and the adults were drinking tea and eating sweet
kheer
. The din of the Sunday dinner crowd didn't seem to bother any of the patrons; as agile waiters made their way out of the kitchen carrying trays loaded down with dishes, everyone ducked or leaned out of the way to give clear passage among the tightly packed tables.

Joe smiled as he approached the table. He wasn't entirely unhappy about missing dinner; the food was expertly prepared, but the ritual of his parents arguing about what to order, and then his father ordering the same things he did every time, and his mother correcting him shrilly in front of the confused waiter, was a spectacle best viewed sparingly.

He approached his niece and nephew and bent down so that he was at eye level between their chairs.

“Madiha! Taj!” As they shrieked with delight, he slipped them each a Pez candy dispenser he'd picked up at Walgreens on the way down—pumpkin and ghost heads, for Halloween. He hugged them tight, relishing the feel of their arms around his neck.

“Sit next to me, Uncle Jamshed!”

“No, sit next to me!”

“Mama! It's my turn!”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Joe said. “I'll sit between you. See? Then we'll all be next to each other.”

Mollified, the children made a show of scraping their chairs away from each other and dragging another chair over, nearly tripping a waiter carrying a tray full of drinks. Joe made the rounds of the table, shaking his father's and Omar's hands and kissing his mother and sister-in-law on the cheek.

“Dad make you fix the screens?” he asked Omar when he finally sat down, sure his parents couldn't hear him across the table.

“Yes, thanks to you,” Omar said glumly. “He stood on the ground while I was up on the ladder, telling me I was doing it all wrong.”

Joe shrugged. “Well, I tried to convince him to call a service. Even told him you'd pay for it.”

Omar glared unconvincingly as Joe's cell phone rang. A quick check under the table showed it was Amaris.

For a second he considered not answering. He'd been doing that a lot lately. But he excused himself and went outside into the strip mall parking lot to take the call.

“Where are you?” she asked in a small voice.

“At Shalimar, with my parents. And Omar and Sakeena. Remember—I told you.”

“Oh.” Pause. “You didn't invite me.”

“I did, Amaris,” Joe said patiently. “Last night. Remember? You were in your own world.”

“Oh . . . well, I wish you'd asked me again.”

“Do you? Really?”

The pause was longer this time. “I don't know. I mean, you're probably happier without me . . . I wouldn't blame you.”

“I always enjoy your company,” Joe said patiently. Amaris in this state of mind was perhaps the most difficult of all for him; she was like a moody adolescent, her emotions volatile, her need for attention insatiable. “We both knew that our families would be . . . challenging.”

“Oh, Joe, it's not even that. Look, can you come over?”

“I just got here, Amaris. I barely sat down. I need to spend some time with them—”

“Never mind. Never mind. I didn't even mean it, I have a ton to do. Um, call me tomorrow, will you?”

She hung up before he had a chance to answer.

Joe stared at the big plate glass windows of the restaurant as he put his phone back in his pocket. Inside, families and groups of friends laughed and gestured animatedly and drank their tea; outside, in the dark, he wondered when he'd drifted so far afield of everyone in his life.

 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

BERTRISE APPROACHED JOE'S DESK
carrying a steaming plate. Behind her, Odell trailed like a puppy.

“Bon appétit,” Bertrise said, deftly sliding the plate onto his desk in front of him. Odell handed him a plastic fork and knife rolled up in a napkin. A smell hit Joe's nose that was not entirely pleasant; meaty, but with a metallic note. He looked down: three lumpy black sausages about the length and diameter of his middle finger ringed a stack of thin patties that were just slightly lighter in color, with a deep purple tint.

“I'm not sure I want to know,” he mumbled, pushing the plate away. He was feeling slightly nauseated already; having fallen into bed by nine thirty and gotten up at seven thirty, he still felt far from rested, and the orange juice and coffee he'd tried to drink had left his stomach burning and unsettled.

“This comes from some very expensive restaurants,” Bertrise chided.

“It's
blood
sausage, buddy,” Odell piped up, barely able to contain his glee. “Also known as black pudding. Black, for obvious reasons. I don't get the pudding part.”

“It's English,” Bertrise said. “And prepared by two different chefs. One gentleman who has a couple of upscale cafés, one in the marina and one in Sausalito. And one from a restaurant in Berkeley—I don't even want to tell you what else was on their menu. The woman who runs it is very focused on authenticity. She told me.”

Bertrise wrinkled her nose in a way that showed she took a dim view of that sort of authenticity.

The sight of the black meats on the Chinet plate was doing little for Joe's constitution. Holding his breath, he picked it up and offered it back to Bertrise.

“That's really sweet of you, but I'm afraid I'm just not hungry at the moment.”

Bertrise folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “Both my girls tried it,” she said. “We don't let food go to waste at our house.”

“And when I come to live with you, I'll follow the family rules,” Joe promised. He was beginning to get a headache, the sort that begins at the temples and radiates through the skull. “Meanwhile . . .”

“I'll take it,” Odell said, taking the plate from him and heading down the hall.

Bertrise sat down across the desk.

“I'm sorry, Bertrise, I just wasn't up for that,” he apologized. “Guess you were busy yesterday.”

“Well, it's a nice change of pace from the usual, wouldn't you say? Beats standing in line at the Hall of Records.”

“So . . . you visited the farmers.”

“Yes, I talked to four or five sheep workers—and they don't smell very nice, my friend—one of them had a guy come in about a month ago.”

“Oh? Did you get a description?”

“Unfortunately, not much. My source is Vietnamese, and he doesn't speak much English, and when I showed him some photos he pretty much said they all looked alike to him.”

“Anything at all?”

“Yes—tall. He said the guy was tall, wore a baseball hat, and wore jeans and a Windbreaker.”

“Not much to go on.”

“No kidding. I could try to get someone to work with him on a sketch, but it's been a month and he didn't notice much to begin with.”

“Did he notice what kind of car the guy drove?”

“Yes. A dark one. Small sedan. That's it.”

“Great. Well, what did the guy buy?”

“Twenty liters of blood, just like we thought. Took it away in a feed bucket. Had to have somewhere to store it, like an industrial freezer.”

“Unless he repackaged it in Ziploc bags or something. Then you could get it in a regular freezer.”

“You're right.” Bertrise sounded dejected. “I didn't think of that.”

“Well, sounds like you logged some miles for nothing.”

“I took the girls—we made a day of it. Anyway, the workers gave me the names of a few chefs who buy from them. So last night, we went restaurant hopping and I took the photos around to show. Struck out again; none of the chefs or staff recognized anyone, either.”

“What did the girls like better—farms or restaurants?” Joe asked, curious.

“Believe it or not, I think they liked the farms,” Bertrise said. “The girls acted like I had taken them to Mars. They asked me if it was like where I grew up. Can you believe it! I said sure, Kingston's nothing but one cattle ranch after another.”

“You didn't grow up in Kingston,” Joe observed.

“I was making a point. And besides, I was born there. We moved to Oakland when I was eleven. Anyway, once the girls got over their shock I think they liked it.” She sighed. “Louise got to pet a sheep. Camille wouldn't go near them; she said they smelled bad.”

“How did Louise feel about the slaughter aspect of the operation?”

“Oh, childhood,” Bertrise said dismissively. “You know how it is; you just pretend that anything inconvenient doesn't exist.”

Joe laughed. “Must be nice.”

“Ah, you don't remember,” Bertrise said sympathetically. “You need kids; they keep you in touch with your youth.”

“I don't need kids; I have my niece and nephew,” Joe said. Thinking:
it'll be a cold day in hell before Amaris decides to have any
.

Bertrise rolled her eyes, which was how she concluded a good many of their conversations.

“Well, you enjoy your day,” she said. “I'm off to find out who's been driving up Mount Diablo. See if they have records of the license plates.”

“Nice duty if you can get it,” Joe said. “Traipsing through the fields, eating out in the nicest restaurants, communing with nature—”

“Hey, buster,” Bertrise shot back. “You think it looks so pretty on this side of the fence, you come over tonight and help my girls with their calculus, hear?”

That shut Joe up, but he returned to his work with a grin on his face.

HE WAS
no longer grinning by noon, when he got to the morgue.

Joe didn't mind gore, blood, viscera. He didn't mind the waxy look of the bodies or the harsh black stitches when they were sewn back up.

He just didn't like the smell.

And it wasn't the organic element of it that disturbed him; the demise of the flesh came with its own mortifications, which he accepted. It was the other stuff. The chemicals. The disinfectant. Despite its unique cloying bouquet, the morgue reminded him a little too much of the hospital.

At Marty's invitation, Joe leaned down to peer at the side of Gail's head. It had been shaved to reveal the livid bruise underneath.

“All we can say is that it was blunt,” Marty said. “Nothing to indicate any sharp edges. No rough or pocked surfaces, something smooth.”

“So, a bat, a pipe, a bowling ball . . . ,” Joe suggested.

“Yeah, sorry we can't be more specific. Put her out quick, though.”

He reached under the thin white blanket and drew out one of Gail's wrists. The unblemished French manicure made a stark contrast to the livid quality of her flesh; her fingers curled inward slightly toward her palm.

Marty used a pen to indicate a line of bruising along the wrist.

“From the restraint,” he said. “Looks like it cut in pretty good, which, given the nature of the material, isn't surprising.”

Joe walked around him to get a better vantage point and squinted at the cruel red line in the flesh.

Marty held up an evidence bag and used a forceps to draw out a length of dirty, wrinkled orange ribbon. Joe remembered the flash of orange from the day on the mountain; he'd assumed then that it was strips of some sort of fabric.

The ribbon was wide, maybe two inches, and the edges were banded with a flocked material, while the body of the ribbon was shiny and looked like it was made of cheap polyester.

“This is called French ribbon,” Marty said importantly. “See, it's got wires on both sides to make it hold its shape. You can make it into a bow or whatnot.” He illustrated the point by bending the ribbon into a loop.

“So it's used for what, crafts? Gift-wrapping? Home decorating?”

Marty nodded. “Exactly. Gervais hunted it down; it's not very unique. You can buy it at any Jo-Ann's or Michaels, even drugstores. You know, in their seasonal aisles.”

“Still . . . it's a strange thing to use,” Joe observed.

“Not if you haven't got anything else on hand. And once the wires were twisted together, she wouldn't have been able to undo it. Pretty effective, really.”

“Okay, thanks, buddy.”

“You got my report on Bergman,” Marty said.

“Yeah, thanks. Bertrise and I went over it this morning.”

“More information that you can't really use.” Marty flashed him an almost apologetic look.

“No, no, that's not true. It confirmed a lot. You know, the fake stone—what do you call that—”

“Architectural stone veneer. Definitely from the hardscape. And I do have one other little treat for you. Gervais had his buddy at the state lab look at the photos of the blood evidence. They were able to come up with something interesting.”

Marty went to a desk and dug under some papers, coming up with several glossy prints. “See here, the track through the blood, where it's congealed some? That's from Bergman's shoes as he slid. It would have been one of those moments like you see in the cartoons—where you're kind of almost running backward in place trying to stay standing, and all the while you're falling over.”

He demonstrated, sliding his own old-man Rockports on the tiled floor, flailing his arms.

“Nice moves there, Fred Astaire,” Joe observed.

Marty gave him an indulgent smile. “Thing is, this is a pretty strong indicator that Bergman slipped on his own. If he had been pushed or shoved, you'd see a different pattern. More slide, less stutter-step.”

Joe frowned, trying to see what Marty was talking about in the murky photo. “How certain are they?”

“No such thing as certain.” Marty shrugged. “Just telling you the way it looks to the folks who are supposed to know about these things.”

“So say I'm Bergman,” Joe said, assuming a stance with his legs slightly apart. He took a drag on an imaginary cigarette.

“No, remember they found the butt smoked down,” Joe reminded him. “You're talking on the phone.”

Joe pantomimed holding a cell phone. “And then you show up, but you don't see me.”

“You're doing more listening than talking.”

“Possible,” Joe mused. “Sproul said he gave Bergman a piece of his mind. But then at the last minute maybe I say something, or maybe you just notice me in the landscape lights or something. You're hauling that bucket of blood, it had to be heavy, what did you all guess—”

“Twenty liters,” Marty said.

“Yeah, that's got to be forty, fifty pounds? And let's say you're carrying it in some sort of tub or bucket, maybe using two hands. You're getting ready to heave it at the door, so you'll have taken the lid off. You're probably parked around the corner so you're concentrating on getting this heavy awkward bucket where you want to go, and your arms are about to give out, so when you run into me unexpectedly—”

He switched to pantomiming the attacker, holding a giant tub in front of himself, then dropping it.

“Bam, blood everywhere. And Bergman's so startled, he didn't expect anyone to come walking along, either, maybe he kind of jumps, but with that blood on the ground it's enough to make him lose his footing.”

Marty nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess that sounds as likely as anything.”

“Okay. So now I've just ruined my plan by spilling the blood all over the ground,
and
this guy has seen me, though it's dark and he's on the ground hurt.”

“He could be having convulsions,” Marty said helpfully. “Injury like that.”

“Right. Well, anyway it looks bad; at the very least he's not a threat, he's distracted, he's not going to be able to identify me. So what do I do?”

“I don't know—what?”

“Well, evidently I take a minute to think,” Joe said, “because instead of tracking blood back down the driveway, leaving prints, I take a big side step over to the flower bed. With the bark mulch and the grass, I manage not to leave anything useful.”

“So you're a pretty smart guy,” Marty said.

“Well—thanks.” Joe sighed. “But I guess I'm not all that smart, because I still don't have the faintest idea who killed this guy.”

THE LOCATION
of the police building—at the edge of Montair's posh downtown—was one of the more attractive perks of the job. Frustrated by the morgue visit, Joe walked to a coffee shop he favored and picked up a bagel to take back to his desk. Lunch on the run. While he ate he looked through the notes from the initial interviews after Bergman's death, reading slowly and trying to clear his mind, to notice some small detail or inconsistency that he'd missed before.

He found it, in the notes from the interview with the Gillettes. Or rather, in what
wasn't
in the interview with the Gillettes. Joe read it twice: nowhere had either of the Gillettes mentioned Marva in their description of the moment when Gail announced that Tom was dead.

“G's, E Bergman ask GE to repeat, attempt to calm her. All go outside to see body.”

All go outside
. But Marva said she hadn't gone with them. That she stayed behind.

But if she hadn't been at the table, and she didn't go outside, where was she exactly?

Joe slowly set his bagel down. He took a thoughtful sip of the coffee, closed his eyes, and thought.

She'd been in the kitchen, separate from the others. Her appearance was unkempt, though he'd dismissed it due to the work she was doing, the steam in the room and the shock of the events.

No one, none of the other guests or Gail, had seemed concerned that she was not in the sitting room with them. Was Marva's role at these parties so separate that it wouldn't seem odd for her to be out of the room?