Read A Measure of Blood Online
Authors: Kathleen George
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General
A Measure of Blood (6 page)
“I said I'd start at five tomorrow.”
He heard her asking for sleep. “Make it seven. This case has two aspects. Find the murderer. Take care of the kid. If we spend a lot of time on the second, it ⦠can't be helped.”
Christie calculated. He'd get the boy to bed and then he'd call Jan and Arthur. He needed to tell them before they heard it from some other source that the boy had run away but was now found.
THE BUILDING THAT
OOPALE LIVED IN WITH HER FAMILY,
and that Maggie Brown had lived in with her son, had a front door that didn't use a security lock or a phone system. Christie was glad to see a cop on duty at the entrance. “I probably need you inside, outside the apartment door,” he grunted while holding Matt in the sack-of-potatoes position over his shoulder.
“We have another officer upstairs for that.”
“Oh. Good, good.” This kid wasn't getting out tonight. Christie mounted the stairs to the second floor.
“Are you all right?” Oopale asked.
“Almost there,” he said.
She fumbled for a key while he looked at the police-taped door of Maggie Brown's place. Finally Oopale opened the door to the Panikkar apartment.
Sasha hadn't asked to take Matt nor had Grady's or Jade's parents. Well, maybe they all thought he was spoken for. Oopale led him to the room that Matt had run away from. It was colorful, pretty, and had a sweet smell. But it was also a smothering sort of room, not something a boy would like.
“Should we try to undress him?” she asked.
“I think he'll be happier if we leave him as he is. The room is hot.”
“Yes. I think my parents turned off the air conditioner to save money. I'll put it back on.” She did so and pulled one thin layer of cover up over Matt. And then they left him.
“Would you like something to eat?”
The spices he smelled alarmed him. His stomach couldn't take exotic foods. “No, thank you. I live just ten minutes away.”
“Sure?”
He was almost dizzy with hunger. “Okay. Just a piece of toast.”
“Toast?”
“If possible.”
The elder Panikkars poked their heads out of a doorway.
Oopale said, “It's okay. Go to bed. It's the detective. He brought Matt back.”
“Give him something to eat,” her father croaked.
“I will, I will. Don't worry.”
The parents went back to bed.
“We have to feed you something. It's tradition.
Atithi Devo Bhava
.” She smiled. “It means, âThe guest is truly your god.' ”
“Oh, dear.”
“We have okra in curry. And rice of course, and a chicken tandoori left over.”
“Oh, toast sounds awfully good to me.”
“Toast and an egg?”
“Perfect.”
They sat in the kitchen speaking quietly.
“Was Margaret Brown unhappy, do you think?”
“I don't know. She didn't tell me things. I worried about her.”
“Why?”
“Working two jobs or three and not too much money. Matt wants everything of course.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wants everything he sees.” She got the egg on the stove in a small pot of water, waited till it boiled, then started the toaster doing its thing with a piece of white sandwich bread.
Christie was totally grateful for the ordinary foods. “I have kids. I understand how they want things.”
“You said you have somebody in mind for Mattâ”
“Yes.”
“Will they give him stability?”
“I think so. It's good of you to care.”
“To be honest, I worry that nobody will know what to do with Matt. Not even me.”
“What do you mean?”
“He's sweet, he definitely is sweet, but he never is content. Or lighthearted. Never.”
“I'll let you know if there is anything you can do. Maybe help the Morrises with the transitionâif I manage to get him placed with them.”
“Yes, I'll do that. Do they work, the Morrises?”
“Oh, heavens yes. They're both professors. Robertâhe goes by Arthurâteaches mostly poetry from what I understand. Not that I understand it. Janet is a theatre teacher. She teaches Shakespeare and things like that and she directs plays. In fact she's directing one starting in a couple of days, a Shakespeare play that my wife is going to be in.”
“I'll have to see that.”
“My wife is a teacher at Pitt, too. But I knew these folks, even from before my wife got to know them. They're kind and they want a child and they have two salaries.”
“Oh, good. Good. Are they young?”
“Not too young. Why?”
“I just wondered.”
The water boiled and the toast popped. He ate his middle-of-the-night meal and left, and then took out his phone to make a call from his car.
JAN AND ARTHUR
ARE
having coffee at the airport but in Jan's mind she is halfway home. She is thinking, praying, that she will know how to love Matt, to help him through a trauma her mind can hardly contain.
Her phone rings. She digs it out of her bag. “Christie again,” she says nervously.
She listens to Christie tell about what has just happened. When she hangs up, she tells her husband the boy they want ran away to the hospital and scared everyone pretty badly for a couple of hours. She's not surprised that his face is full of worry.
It's the middle of the night in Pittsburgh, she thinks, everyone involved with Matt strained, exhausted, and just going to bed. In France, all is coming alive, a new day. Soon they will be in the air, collapsing the time difference between the two places.
In her mind, she is already there.
On the plane an hour later, she closes her eyes as other passengers bump on, trying to stash their carry-ons.
When the plane lifts, Arthur squeezes her hand. She falls into a half slumber to make up for last night, when she was too excited to sleep at all. Restless dreams toss her, images of the judge refusing to let them have Matt. Time leapfrogs all over the place and even in her half sleep, she can't keep up.
She wakes when they land in Frankfurt. Their flight is anything but direct. They are certainly not alone in that. Most people have to go out of their way to go where they want.
“We have an hour,” Arthur notes.
The Frankfurt business-class lounge is humming with people, and there are used plates and glasses on most surfaces. It's like a well-appointed bus station with upscale clients, each with a laptop. Arthur wanders around to look at the available foodsâgood German breads and spreads. Good coffee. Jan pulls out her computer. When she gets a connection, she quickly logs in to her email.
Soon, Arthur is walking back toward their seats with plates of sandwiches and sweet rolls for both of them. He settles, looking for a place to put down their plates among the leavings of other travelers.
First she types in a message to Marina.
You probably know by now we're going to try to get Matthew. I just got this idea to put Matt in the play. He's going to be disoriented and grieving. It might help him to have something to look forward to. I need to be with him as much as possible, and what do I do about the fact of needing to be in rehearsals every night? So if I let him come to rehearsals and work with me ⦠don't you think that might be good? I have this idea to actualize the changeling child. You'll have a scene with him thenâa momentâa falling in love kind of moment. Or a being in love. What do you think? I have to do some other emails. More later. Jan
People are franticly typing on laptops or talking on phones, gulping food. Anxiety everywhere â¦
Arthur hands her a plate of food. Brown bread with some kind of fish salad on it.
She imagines Matt traveling with them, holding on to them, trying the food, liking it.
Monday
NADAL IS AWAKENED BY THE PHONE.
He rolls over, confused, ignoring the phone and then it stops. Suddenly he remembers yesterday and he comes fully awake. His heart pounds unmercifully.
He's worried the ringing phone has bothered the others. His roommatesâthere are three of themâare Korean. He's money in the bank for themâhis room is not a room, just a space meant to be storage or something. The bed barely fits. His choice though because he likes to be alone. He's not on the lease. He's their spending money.
They sleep in one bedroom while he has this other (very tiny) room to himself.
The phone begins ringing again. This time he answers. It's his mother.
“Dal?”
“What?”
“I thought you weren't there. I thought you didn't make it.”
“I was
sleeping
.”
“I'm so sorry. It's just that I've been up.”
“Doing what?”
“Worrying about you. Watching TV.”
Does she know? It's as if she knows.
“Watching the news. There was a terrible murder in Pittsburgh. A nice woman in a good neighborhood. Just like that. Home on a Sunday and somebody comes in and kills her. It gives me the shivers. Are you still there?”
“I'm here.” He waits.
“Just a woman with a young son. Same name as ours. It was very upsetting to hear about.”
“Well, Mom, I have to go to work. Good thing you got me up. I don't want to lose my job.”
“No, no. Don't lose your job.”
When classes begin later this week, he will have only one and that one meets once a week. His mother thinks he's in graduate school, which is what he told her because she worships the whole university-intellect-learning thing. But he has only one classâto test him for provisional admission to the graduate program in computer science. He told his mother another lieâthat he has an assistantship, when it's just a plain old job in the computer lab, answering desperate people's questions about what is wrong with their computers.
He knows a good bit, but not as much as some of the other computer consultants do. He has one very good answer for many inquiries. “Have you shut it down and restarted?”
He tiptoes to the bathroom and turns on the shower. He wishes his mother hadn't jarred him to consciousness. It's better to be asleep. Awake, he has to worry if anyone saw him leaving the building and going to his car. And if someone did, if that person saw the license plate ⦠His heart won't quiet down.
The water always begins slow and lukewarm. His roommates buy soap and shampoo as cheaply as possibleâlarge generic containers of the things needed to clean themselves. They never touch his Tone soap or his hair conditioner even though Shin talks about special personal products that he loved in Seoul, things he intends to afford in the future.
Seung, Shin, and Gab-do are not thieving sorts. They never hesitate to put their share in, or to show receipts, but for his own peace of mind, Nadal checks his money every time he goes into his room. No, nothing is ever missing.
The three roommates stick together of courseâit's their chance to speak their languageâplus they've had the place together since last year, so they know one another. Nadal's only been here since last May when he got his one course approved and snagged the job. Then he saw Maggie and his son, and at first he believed he would be able to visit them, eventually move in.
He listens through the splashing water for his roommates. No, not awake yet.
They are good enough guys to room with, but it's a business arrangement mainly. Rightâwhat does he have in common with them? They cook. Rice and this. Rice and that. Other things. They always offer. He eats his frozen packets of burritos, his cans of beans. One night they wanted to go to a club on the South Side and asked him to go with them. He supposed they wanted to pick up American women and wanted his help. But when they got there, Seung told them all it was important from his experience not to look too eager. “Correct?” he asked Nadal.
“That's what I hear,” Nadal said.
“It's the same in Seoul. Clubs, the same everywhere.”
Nadal didn't like clubs and it galled him to spend so much money on a drink. Shin told him, “Always to drink slow, not spend too much.”
The water finally comes hot. He scrubs himself.
His car. He must get rid of it. Step one.
As soon as he's dressed, he sits down to breakfast. He is aware now of early snufflings from the next room as he stirs milk into his cereal, generic corn flakes. Each month he will plunk down two hundred dollars cash for the rent and fifty dollars for groceries and supplies. That's the deal. The Koreans take care of the rest. Seung is the money manager. He buys chicken and cans of soup or beans for NadalâNate is how they know him here. He never even told them his last nameâBrown.
Brown
. How this whole thing started.
The supplies under the sink are pretty goodâbleach and soap and glass cleaner and baking soda. His roommates are clean, anyway. His mother would surely approve of them for that. When they're not around, he will scrub the car. Again and again. Three times.
After breakfast, he forces himself to open his laptop and search for the news.
There it is.
Margaret Brown, 49, a single mother of a seven-year-old boy, was stabbed to death in her apartment on Morrowfield Avenue after noon on Sunday following an altercation with an unnamed man. Neighbors did not hear the disturbance but the child alerted them to the incident. Neighbors then discovered his mother, dead of her wounds. Police are investigating.
Ms. Brown was a well-liked teacher of art in the elementary schools. Employed by the ART-FIRST program, she was hired to give private tutoring to students who showed promise as painters. She had a studio and was a painter herself.
Commander Richard Christie of the Pittsburgh Police Homicide Division said it was early in the investigation. Police are working on the identity of the man reported to be arguing with Ms. Brown. The man allegedly believed himself to be the father of her son. Anyone with information about this person is asked to come forward.
Allegedly. Believed.
OOPALE AND HER
MOTHER
make him eat cereal and toast. They sit and murmur at him until he makes the food go down. “The detective is coming for you. He will take care of you today.”
“Can I go home now?”
“No, it isn't allowed yet.”
“Why?”
“Because there's an investigation. Nothing can be touched.”
Yes, he's seen that on TV. He could go to Jade's house or Grady's house. They could play something anyway.
“Is there anything you want? Anything I can get you?” Oopale asks.
“No.”
The two women look at each other. They clearly don't know what to say to him. After a while, Mrs. P smiles with a sad face and puts on the TV.
“TWO-PRONGED TASK,”
Christie repeats at the squad meeting. “To find the murderer and to keep the boy safe.” Then he adds, “Two-pronged investigation also. Think of it as the two fathersâthere is the person who stabbed her and who insisted he was the father. There is the man who supposedly fathered the childâartificial insemination, we're told, at a clinic in New York. We have to follow that up. We have Potocki going through all kinds of files. The two fathers very possibly could turn out to be one and the same, but we have to follow both avenues. Nothing so far on the clinic. Right?” He addresses Potocki. “Fill us in.”
“She might have thrown away financial records from eight years ago. People do. I haven't found them yet. I'll try her current bank if nothing comes up today. One other thing: I asked a neighbor there if there was a storage unit in the basement. He said no, but I found this key on her ring that doesn't go to anything. So I called the super this morning and it turns out there
is
a storage unit in the basement. I'll get stuff from there today.”
“Right. Good. So here we are, looking at three possibilitiesâOne: The father is anonymous, from a clinic in New York. That's what the best friend says. If this is the case, the guy is probably not our killer. Two: The father is very present and knows he's the father. He has a secret tempestuous history with the mother who didn't share it with her best friend. Or, Three: The guy who killed Margaret Brown thinks he's the father but he isn't. That information comes via the boy and the best friend who didn't really know much beyond the fact that some guy from way back reappeared lately. What do we believe?”
“The guy was probably in her life,” says Coleson. “This is an angry killing.”
“It is.”
“Did we pick up any DNA from the guy? The knife or anything.”
“There's going to be some DNA somewhere in the evidence they collected. They got some prints. They ran the prints locally. No matches. They are running the prints more widely today. We'll see about that. We'll test any DNA we have. Anything else? Ideas? Let me hear from you.”
“Any chance,” McGranahan begins, “that the kid is like some bad seed and he did it and made the whole thing up?”
“Always a chance,” Christie says.
“Tabloid heaven,” Colleen mutters.
“Were the prints on the knife good?” Coleson asks.
“Not very. But we got some bits.”
“So do we have any notion of which prints at the apartment belong to the killer and which are those of innocent friends?”
“Not clear yet,” Christie says.
“Whew,” McGranahan says. “Not simple.”
“So it's Potocki on paperwork and the storage unit at the apartment house, the rest of you canvassingâDolan has the assignments. And Dolan has a list of friends and acquaintances he's working through with Hurwitz and Denman. Call me with anything. I'm off to get the kid squared away.”
COLLEEN AND CHRISTIE
take one car to the apartment where Matt is staying. Colleen answers her phone on the way. It's the Giant Eagle Market Districtâthe store where they think Maggie Brown was first accosted by the manâfinally getting back to her.
“Is this the detective who wanted to know about tapes?”
“Yes.”
“We don't keep them long.”
“How long?”
“We don't have tapes over a month old.”
“Oh.” Not that she's surprised. Only disappointed. “I'll come by to see what you have anyway.”
Christie says, “Small chance it would have caught an altercation in the lot anyway.”
“Small chance, but a chance,” she says. Then they approach the apartment house on Morrowfield. “Anything new happen last night when you got Matt back here?”
“I put Matt to bed. Oopale was very kind, fed me a little meal. I asked her if she'd ever seen male visitors to the apartment. She said no. Very, very consistent reports.”
“Unfortunately.”
They take the stairs one floor up.
The mother and daughter both come to the door to show them in. They all move quickly to the kitchen table where Matt sits, dawdling over his food. Christie chooses the seat across from him. “Matt. How are you this morning?”
Matt shrugs.
“Would you show us what you did yesterday? Would you help us?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Let's get up then. Let's pretend the living room over here is your apartment. You were where, again?”
“In my room. I was playing with my PlayStation.”
“Okay, let's make this chair over here be your bedroom. And then?” Christie asks calmly.
“I heard a knock on the door. I heard my mother answer the door.”
“Did you go to look at all?”
“No, I kept playing.” He breathes hard. He is not okay with this part. “She gets deliveries sometimes, stuff like that.”
“On Sunday morning, no deliveries, people are relaxing, who comes by?”
“Sunday.” He looks frightened at his mistake about deliveries. “Maybe Sasha?”
“Anybody else?”
“No, I can't think of anybody.”
“Okay. And then?”
“I was just playing. Then I heard, like, arguing.”
“That's important. What were they saying?”
“Stuff like, âGet out,' and âYou can't treat me like that.' ”
“Good, good. Did they talk about you?”
“The guy said, âI want to see him. I want to know him.' I peeked out of my room then because I could tell it was about me. I thought finally she would tell me who my father was and I would meet him.”
“Could you see him?”
“Just from the back a little bit.”
“Did you return to your room?”
“No, because she yelled.”
“Okay. I know it's awful to have to repeat things, but tell us again what she said, okay?”
“Like, âMatt. Leave. Just run. Leave. Go to a neighbor.' ”
“But you couldn't see this man?”
“I was running.”
“And the little bit you saw ⦠what did he look like?”
“Just regular.”
“Anything you can remember? Hair, how tall?”
“Dark hair. Taller than my mom but not real tall.”
“Like me?” Christie asks.
“Yeah. I think.”
“And he was wearing?”
“Blue jeans, sneakers, just a shirt.”
“What kind of shirt?”
“I don't remember.”
“That's okay.”
“She was saying to run, so I ran.”
“But you grabbed the phone. Stopped a little bit to grab it.”
“I don't think I stopped. I just grabbed it.”
“Okay. And then you used the stairs?”
“Yes.”
“When did you use the phone?”
“When I got to the bottom.”
“Inside, outside?”
“Outside.”
“Show me how you left, where you were.”