Firebird (24 page)

“So you ran as far away as possible from your sister’s shadow.”  His eyes were challenging.

“
Yes
, I ran!  But I came back.”

“Yes,” he said slowly.  “You did.”

She stared at his hands, cradling his wine glass.  Jesus, Marik!  What was she doing, confiding in this man she hardly knew?   “You must be a good lawyer,” she said suddenly.  “You have a way of getting people to open up to you.”  When they don’t want to…

“It’s the easy charm.”  He wagged his eyebrows at her.  “But if it’s any consolation, it’s taken me much longer than usual with you.” 

Alexandra gripped her glass, leaned toward him, and lowered her voice.  “Much bigger wall,” she said softly.  This time the challenge was hers.

Shining mahogany eyes locked on hers, and she could tell he wanted to say something more.  But he only said, “Another conversation I won’t win?  Back to your sister, then.  Since she is the reason we are here.  You may remember something that will help us.”

Yes.  Safer ground to talk about Eve.  Or was it?  She pushed her half-finished salad away, lifted her wine glass.  “My sister stayed in Maine after I left, filed for divorce within the first year.   Then she took off, immersed herself in
la
dolce vita
.  Juliet was the child of husband number two.  Eve was drinking way too much by then.”  She looked at him.  “She was still drinking when she married Anthony.  But he told me that Eve was sober this last year.” 
Until the night she died
.  “Billie said the same thing.”

“Good for your sister,” Garcia said quietly.  “Getting sober is hard work.”

“Yes, it’s a disease, I know that.  But Eve saw her alcoholism as a weakness.  A moral lapse.  She moved around a lot – running away, maybe - and Jules spent way too much time alone in boarding schools.”

“So you lost the connection not only with your sister, but your niece?”

“Like a Tennessee Williams play, isn’t it?  And now, I feel as if I’m just beginning to know them.  But why, just when I start to think I’m getting close to them, do they slip through my fingers?”  
And why do I suddenly feel as if I’ve lost part of myself
? 

She shook her head back and forth as she thought of her attempts to draw her sister’s face. 

“Billie said something to me at the shelter this morning.  That if I thought Eve spent most of her final days in a fog of alcohol, I didn’t know my sister at all.”  She gazed down into her glass.  “But her drinking was so… unpredictable.  Scary.  She became a stranger to me.  I’ve spent so many years being angry with her, judging her, blaming her for what she did and didn’t do.  Hammering at her to change.  Not even trying to know who she really was inside…”

“There’s a fine line between who we are and who all the people in our lives want us to be.  Sometimes we see only what we expect to see, Red.”

“And hide our disillusionment with anger?   Good God, I missed what was right in front of me!”  A fist tightened in her chest.  “Eve was infuriating and selfish and a train wreck of a sister, but –”

“But you loved her once.  And you miss her.”

A heartbeat of silence.  “Yes,” she admitted slowly, blindsided by the realization.  “After all this time, I’m finally getting to know my sister, Garcia.  And - I
like
her.  I understand more, there was so much more beneath the surface of her life.”  She gazed at him.  “Do you know what Pentimento is?”

He gave her his crooked half-smile.  “Is this a trick question?”

“Pentimento is an underlying image in a painting.  When the top layer of paint is removed, you can see an earlier painting beneath.” She shook her head.  “I’m seeing an Eve who was finally trying to do something
good
with her life.  She didn’t take her own life, I’m certain of it now.  I just have to prove it.   If only -”

She stopped mid-sentence.  She could tell that he saw the questions stirring in her eyes.  “All the random choices we make over the years, Garcia.  Leading us to this moment.  What if we’d made another choice, so long ago?  Do you ever think about that?”

“You think too much, Red.”  Mahogany eyes blazed at her in the darkness.

You live too much in your head, Zan
, she heard her sister say, so close that she turned.  But there was no one there.

“My curse.  But clarity and rationality
work
for me.  Nothing clouds judgment like emotion.”  She looked away.  “Our father stayed in his own world after our mother died.  I was alone a lot, I read books, sketched, lived in my head.  Eve called me the Snow Queen.  But cerebral is
safe
, Garcia.”

“Is that what you want, Red?  Safety?  Because if you do, you damn well shouldn’t be sitting here.”

“I want to stop having one-way conversations with my sister!” she countered, squaring her shoulders, determined to move on from this emotional quicksand.  “I want answers.  I want justice. 
I want to know who I am without her
.”

His eyes blazed.  “You’ll have your answers, Chica,” he said softly, touching his glass to hers.  “But you need to trust me.  You’ve been holding something back, Alexandra.” 

The note, hidden in her sister’s nesting doll.  Alexandra took a sip of wine, to give herself time to think.  Tell him.  “I found a message hidden in Eve’s bedroom.  Eve went to the river to meet someone that night.  I think she went to meet Ivan.”

Garcia leaned closer, liquid eyes gleaming in the darkness, until his face was just inches away from her own.  “What did the message say?”

“It said, ‘I know what happened to Charles Fraser.  Meet me tonight, after eleven, near the river.  You know the place.’  It wasn’t signed.”

At that moment the lights on the tiny stage went out, and the saxophonist ended his set with a final riff.

A rustle of silk, a spotlight, and a flash of silver.  Then a tall dark woman stepped into the intimate circle of light.  A bright fringed shawl fell from her shoulders to the floor.  In a shadowy corner, the strings of a bass cello began to thrum.  The woman closed her eyes.  Very slowly, in a deep whiskey voice, she began to sing.

The woman swayed on the stage, lost in the words of
The Man that Got Away
, her huge silver bracelets and rings glinting in the stage lights.  Behind her, the three very old black men accompanied her on bass, drums, and a scarred upright piano.  Alexandra leaned forward, not trusting her eyes, and suddenly stiffened with shock.  “Good Christ, that’s Billie Jordan!”

Moments later the waiter appeared at Alexandra’s elbow.  “Y’awl listenin’ to ma favorite Laydee,” he drawled in his soft accent, lifting a hand toward the stage.  “That’s our Satin.”

CHAPTER 26

“to tell my story...”

Shakespeare,
Hamlet

Soft applause filled the nightclub as Alexandra and Garcia followed Billie Jordan from the stage to her dressing room.  Alexandra rapped on the door.

The door swung open.  Surprise and suspicion registered in Billie’s eyes.  “What are you doing here, Baby Sister?”

“
You’re
Satin?” demanded Alexandra.

“She
never
says hello,” muttered Garcia.

Billie gestured them in and pulled off her huge metal earrings with a sigh of relief.  “Yes, I’m Satin.  Most people don’t know that.  I like it that way.”

“This is Jon Garcia,” said Alexandra.  “An old friend of Eve’s.”

“Not that old,” said Garcia, with a nod of his head.

“And what do you do, Jon Garcia, when you’re not banging on dressing room doors?”

“I’m a lawyer by trade, Ms. Jordan.  And now, Criminal Unit at the DOJ.”

“Criminals…”  She gave him an assessing look.  “For or against?”

“Against.”

“Call me Billie.”

“Your mama must have known her baby would sing like Billie Holiday.”

“My Mama had a crush on Billy Dee Williams.  Ever do Pro Bono, Counselor?”

He raised a wry eyebrow.  “Been a long time.  Depends on what you need.  A good lawyer knows the law, but a great lawyer knows the judge.”

Billie chuckled as Alexandra stared at him, amused by the easy charm of the serious man she was coming to know.

“Call me at the shelter tomorrow,” Billie said softly.  Flashing a hundred watt smile at him, she disappeared behind a Chinese dressing screen in the corner of the room.

“How the devil did you do that?” hissed Alexandra.  “She stone-faced me for an hour this morning!” 

“It’s an ethnic thing,” he murmured.  Billie Jordan emerged in jeans and a heavy sweater to face Alexandra and Garcia.  “I want to talk to Alexandra,” she said.  “Alone.”

Garcia looked at the women for a long moment.  “I’ll wait in the bar,” he told them.

When they were alone, Alexandra turned to Billie.  “I waited all day for you to call me.”

Billie sank to a brightly patterned sofa and gestured Alexandra to sit beside her.  “I have to protect my brother,” she said, gazing past Alexandra.  “He was a very powerful man.  Most of it was under the radar.  And I made the choice to stay under the radar as well, for
both
our sakes.”  Once more, distrust shimmered in the dark eyes.  “You found me this morning.  And now you’ve found me here.  What am I supposed to think?”

“I’m as surprised to see you as you are to see me,” said Alexandra honestly.  “I learned that Eve was here, at this club, just before she died.  Then you started to sing, and it all fell into place.”

Billie leaned closer.  “And just what place is that?”

“I told you that Eve sent me a message.  It was a warning.  She mentioned needing satin.  Turns out that’s you.”

Billie Jordan caught her breath.  “So Evie really
did
send you to me. You’ve got my attention, girl.  What warning?”

Alexandra held out her hands.  “I wish I knew.  She was scared, she thought your brother was in some kind of trouble.”

Billie’s eyes flickered.  “I knew nothing about Charlie’s work.  His choice.  If he was in trouble, the warning came too late.  I can’t help you.”

Can’t, or won’t
?  “Did your brother ever mention an Operation Firebird?  Or a man named Ivan?”

Billie’s eyes closed in concentration.  “No.  No Firebird, whatever that is. 
Something
was troubling Charlie, I could tell - but he wouldn’t talk about it.”

“Did you meet Eve here a few nights before she died, Billie?  Share a cosmopolitan together?  Maybe she gave you something…”  Alexandra snapped her fingers.  “That’s it!  What I’ve been trying to remember.  You told me at the shelter that Eve trusted you with her treasures.”

“She was here,” said Billie after a moment. “She’d just found out Charlie was dead and rushed home from Maine to be with me.  The cosmos were for the band, she always took care of them.  I told you this morning, Evie wasn’t drinking.  But that night – we were both in shock.”

“Did she give you anything to hide for her, Billie?”

“What’s going on?  You’re beginning to scare me.”

“I think that your brother and my sister were caught up in something very dangerous.  Something that may have caused their deaths.”     

“
Caused
their deaths?”  The dark eyes glittered with pain.  “You’d better tell me everything.”

“Some of it may hurt you, Billie.”

“My brother’s dead.  I’ll be the judge of what hurts me and what doesn’t.”

Alexandra took a breath.  Speaking quickly, she told Billie Jordan about Frazer’s Russian connection, his mole hunt, and everything Eve had said in the recording she’d made in Maine.

When she fell silent, Billie stood up in one swift motion, her hands fisted tight against her chest.  “Oh, God!” she cried.  “Charlie.”  She stared into Alexandra’s eyes, struggling to understand.  “No!  He was in an accident…” 

“I don’t know the truth, Billie.  Maybe it
was
a car accident.  But maybe someone set him up to die.  Help me find the answers!” Alexandra’s plea was as fierce as Billie’s pain as she grasped Billie’s arms.  “Do you know if Eve had any enemies?”

Billie shook her head back and forth, trying to absorb the shock of Alexandra’s words.  “She was closer to men than women.  I told you that this morning.  But enemies?  I thought they were all in love with her...”

“This is important, Billie.  Did Eve give you anything to keep for me?”

The two women locked eyes. 

“Okay,” whispered Billie finally, disappearing behind her dressing screen and reappearing moments later with a thick cream envelope.  “Charlie gave me this just before he died.  He always left letters for Eve here, with me.  Where and when they would meet, and so forth.  They had a secret place.”

You know the place
… the words in the message sent to Eve.  “Where?”  

“An inn, somewhere in the Maryland countryside.”  She touched her forehead in thought.  “She never told me the name of the inn.  But she had a friend who drives a cab, he’d take her there to meet Charley.”

The River Falls Inn, thought Alexandra.  That’s where they would meet. 
Another matroyoska doll, twisted open
.

Billie’s voice caught.  “I was the one who called Eve in Maine, the night Charlie died.  She met me here the next night.  I gave her this letter, and a small jewelry box he’d left for her.  Evie read the letter, asked me to keep it here, keep it safe.”  She stared at Alexandra.  “Until someone came for it.”

“And the jewelry box?  Did you see what was in it?”

“No.  And I don’t know what she did with it,” Billie muttered, looking around the small dressing room as if she expected to find the small leather box on her dressing table among the scattered cosmetics.  “Two days later I saw her at Charlie’s funeral.  I never saw her again.”

“Did you read this letter?”

“No.  It was addressed to Eve, as always.  Charlie worked for the President, you know?  He needed to keep things private.  I thought it was – a love letter.  Still do.  No way I’d make it public.  And no way I connected it with his accident.”