Follow Her Home (14 page)

“I don't know. She's out of town till Tuesday, anyway.”

Mrs. Cook was prone to sudden vacations, but this one, at least, seemed to suit Luke.

“Could you reach her if you had to?”

“I guess.” He held his head in his hands. “I don't think I want her to know. I don't know what she'd do. I want to hold off on it, especially if it could be a misunderstanding.”

“Okay, that's fair. That's why we're here. To find out what we can.”

I rounded the room and took a seat behind Mr. Cook's desk. I hesitated and looked at Luke before settling in the chair. Luke had found his way to the couch, where he sat with a sulking look on his face.

“You don't have to help me, Luke. I'm sorry I even brought you here. Do you want to wait in the car?”

He shook his head with an air of misery. “It's okay. I'll just lie down.” He slumped into a pile of Luke on the couch.

I tried the computer first, but it was locked down smart enough. I spent the next couple of hours going through every inch of the office, opening every drawer and examining each folder for something out of the ordinary. I checked behind photographs and between books as the sun set in a tangerine glow. Luke pretended to sleep on the couch and I let him. When I was finished, downtown L.A. twinkled like a switchboard outside the window.

“Luke,” I said. “There's nothing here. Not a scrap of paper looks interesting.”

He opened his eyes and sat upright. He looked up at me and nodded with relief. “I don't blame you for looking. Honest, I don't.”

“Thanks.”

“What time is it?”

I took my phone out of my purse. I had a missed call from Diego at 8:55
P.M.
“It's nine thirty-six. I guess Diego called. Did he call you?”

He checked his phone. “No love.”

“I'll try him now, I guess.” I called him, but found myself facing his voice mail message. It was infuriating, a startled “Hello?” that always tricked me into thinking he'd picked up. It was a common prank, but in Diego's case, unintentional. “Not picking up. I guess we'll try again later.”

I put everything back in order and we left the office spotless. Then, on the long path to the elevators, I saw a familiar bald head.

*   *   *

Chaz Lindley was crouched in a cubicle, his back to me and Luke. The loose, folding skin of his neck looked damp with slow-gathered sweat, and he was fiddling with the keyboard to an unresponsive desktop on a disorganized desk. I could see that he was engaged in the same activity Luke and I had been attending to for the last several hours. I grabbed Luke by the wrist and pointed. “That's Chaz,” I whispered. “That's the PI.”

We padded softly to the elevator bank before Luke spoke. “What is he doing here?”

“I don't know. I think I have to talk to him.”

“Who did you say he was looking for?”

“His brother-in-law. Who his sister thinks ran off with Lori.” I groaned. “Of course he's a Stokel employee. How did I not just assume that?”

I left Luke alone by the elevators and found my way over to the cubicle and knocked on the desk. Chaz Lindley leaped in his seat.

“What the hell. Are you following me now?”

I shook my head. “Wouldn't dare tail a seasoned detective.”

“I'm not following you, if that's what you're thinking.”

“I didn't think you were.” I felt my tongue grow thick in my mouth as I considered what his presence here meant. “I think we should swap stories.”

He raised an eyebrow. Without the dark glasses, his eyes were almost friendly, but he didn't seem to like me much. “First thing. What the hell's your name?”

“It's Song. Juniper Song.”

“What's your story?”

“Did you happen to pay any attention to Lori in that bakery or were you too busy keeping your eyes on me?”

“I saw her with an older man.”

“That older man's son happens to be my best friend. He was wondering if his dad was fooling around with Lori Lim. Similar project, really.”

He shook a wireless mouse back and forth in one hand. “So what do you know?”

“I know that she lives at home in Hancock Park, and that she didn't run off with your brother-in-law. I know exactly nothing about any Hector who isn't a Trojan prince. I'm guessing this is his desk?”

He nodded. “He works IT here. Been doing it a couple years.”

“Do the names Greg Miller or William Cook mean anything to you?”

He frowned and scrubbed the inside of his ear, his index finger submerged to the second knuckle. “I don't know no Miller, but isn't Cook one of the bosses here?”

“Of Stokel, Levinson, and Cook. That's the one. Did Hector ever talk about him?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Why does your sister think her husband is cheating on her with Lori of all people?”

He took a long time to answer, eyeing me with unmasked suspicion and chewing on his words. “She found some dirty pictures on his computer. When she confronted him about them, he said they were part of a photography project. That this Lori was a friend from work.” He leaned forward. I smelled onions on his breath. “Between you and me, Hector's a greasy little gash hound—at least Candy thinks so. She had me put a tracker on his car a while back, cute little thing that tells me where he goes. Never led to much until he went and disappeared on her. Wanna know where his car is now?”

I nodded, with genuine interest.

“It's at a body shop in Koreatown. I did a little homework. Shop belongs to a guy named Taejin Chung. Taejin Chung has a cute little niece called Lori Lim. Now tell me what you know.”

His broad face was without guile, and though he was sharper than I'd allowed, I hoped he was dumb enough. If Chaz was nothing like Marlowe, he wasn't unlike the occasional secondary investigator who crossed paths with him. That type tended to end up dead. I wished him health and safety, and I knew there was nothing wholesome about the web I'd wandered into.

I shrugged. “Sorry, Chaz. I've told you just about everything.”

*   *   *

Luke and I were back in his car, riding Wilshire past MacArthur Park.

“What do you think is on that drive?” Luke asked.

I plucked it out of my bag and rotated it slowly. “We'll find out soon enough. I'm very hopeful, though. I mean, this thing was tucked away in the back folder of the bottom drawer of a dead man's desk. Since my life is now an RPG, it has to be important.”

He nodded and settled his eyes on the road as he merged onto Third. I turned on the air conditioning and reclined in my seat, hands folded on stomach as in a lazy prayer. Luke drove fast, and each bump was this princess's pea. Still, I relaxed and watched the ink-dipped, starless sky. The city sliding past our windows like painted screens was not quite Paris, but it was what we had.

I woke to the sound of Luke retrieving his key from the ignition. I must have nodded off for a while. It took a full half minute of rapid blinks to make my contacts feel at home again. The drowsiness faded as we made our way back to his apartment, and anticipation swam in the air, strong as bad cologne. He keyed us in and we dashed for his laptop on the coffee table without even shucking our shoes.

“Let me,” I said. “I owe him something, you know?”

I plugged the USB key into the side of the PowerBook. A second later, a Finder window popped open on the desktop.

Multicolored thumbnails appeared in a column next to files labeled IMG_1351.JPG to IMG_1366.JPG. Next to the file names were the dates modified, all February 11, earlier this year. I selected the lot and double-clicked.

The window popped open with silent indifference. There was Lori, standing against a white background, hands held together in a honey-toned heart peeking out from the drooping sleeves of a heavy silk kimono.

*   *   *

I thought about finding Quinn at school, but discarded the idea for the sake of Iris's privacy. In my head, our meeting was destined to be explosive. I planned to rain threats and accusations on Quinn's head in loud, clear tones. I decided the history office, where each teacher had a desk in arm's reach of the next, was not an ideal venue.

It took some maneuvering to find his home address. I got his phone number from the school by calling Iris's dean. In my best Korean accent, I told him I wanted to speak to Mr. Quinn about my daughter Iris. I mentioned that she had been missing a lot of school, and that she might require private tutoring. I noted that Iris's dean did not seem to think this an irregular request.

I took my time preparing to call him. I wrote out a short script and took many deep breaths before dialing his number. When he picked up, I didn't recognize his voice. It was, after all, our first interaction.

I borrowed the persona of Mrs. Winter, one of the women from the administrative office at my high school. I had met her a handful of times, and she had a quiet, muffled voice I thought I could imitate on the phone. I told Quinn that a system error had wiped his address, which I would need to process his paycheck. I kept the conversation short and devoid of any strands of insinuation, and within minutes, I knew where he lived.

His voice did not strike me as I feared it would. I must have expected some sinister force to finger its way through the telephone, to slip into my core through the tunnels of my ear. In fact, I felt nothing, no threat at all. My heart beat faster but the ruse was quick and successful, and I hung up with a thrill. I didn't fear Quinn, and I relished the thought that he might come to fear me.

He lived around ten minutes away from Greenwood, in a part of Sherman Oaks populated by small families and young professionals. I verified his address and parked the car across the street from his house. It was a small gray house with a short lawn, on the corner of the block. There was a burgundy Civic with a prominent spoiler parked in the driveway.

I turned off the engine and sat listening to my respiratory rhythm, my eyes attached to the house. In that moment, as I watched the unfamiliar home of a practical stranger, I recognized with vicious clarity that I had never done anything quite so crazy before. Quinn made sense as Iris's secret lover, but I had taken a strong hunch and given it the respect due to sacred fact. I was no Marlowe. Where he was ever composed and competent, I moved in response to jolts of love and fury.

I rang the doorbell and stood with my hands balled and my feet digging into the ground. I heard slow, shuffling footsteps coming to the door, the soft unhurried sound of socks on wood flooring.

The door opened, and a powerful whiff of marijuana went straight into my nose. Across the threshold was not Mr. Quinn, but a scrawny Asian man in his late twenties, with bloodshot eyes and a buzz cut, wearing cargo shorts.

I tried not to look surprised, and waited a beat for him to ask what I was doing in his doorway. He was looking at me with a blank expression, his mouth slightly open. He was starting his Saturday morning high as the moon.

“Sorry,” I said. “Is Quinn here?”

He contorted his face into what was technically a smile, wry and vague. I wondered if he thought I was a romantic prospect. “He's not home right now, but you can come in.”

“Will he be here soon?”

He shrugged.

I hesitated for a second before I figured out that this was a fortunate opportunity. With my suspect gone and his roommate inattentive, I could rummage through his things for something to retrace the dotted lines of my suspicion in ink.

As I entered the house, my heart started to pound with such obnoxious force that I feared it would give me away. But at the same time I let myself savor a small feeling of relief. This was not the living arrangement of a family man. I had prepared myself in case I ran into a wife or even a child, but I had not yet begun to deal with the idea of my sister as home wrecker.

It was a modest house, with two bedrooms and a large living room and kitchen. The roommate padded back into the living room, where he sat in a beanbag chair that already carried the mold of his body. A heavyset Asian girl sat on an armchair and looked up at me as I came into view. I waved meekly and hoped no one would ask for an introduction. No one did. While I stood studying the house and planning out my next move, the roommate turned his head from within the beanbag. “Elliot's room is the one on the left.”

I thanked him and let myself into Quinn's bedroom. If I was right, Iris had spent a lot of time in this room. The thought started to make me feel nauseous, and when I saw the outline of his twin bed in the corner of the room, I couldn't stop a flash of Iris's skin smothered by his from crossing my mind.

I switched on the light. It was ten o'clock in the morning and the room faced plenty of sun, but thick curtains kept it out, and I left them alone. It was a spacious room, with a desk and dresser and bookshelves leaving a fair amount of floor space unoccupied. On one wall hung a pair of samurai swords crossed in a short, wide X. Underneath it was a poster for an anime movie featuring colorful robots and busty girls in skin-tight body suits. A similar poster hung on the opposite wall. I took a look at his bookshelves and gathered that his study of history focused heavily on the Far East.

It was in high school that I first started hearing phrases like
Asian fetish
and
yellow fever.
They were tossed around lightly, with good humor, hot potatoes that no one wanted but that didn't hurt the holder. These were casual labels stamped onto any non-Asian boy who happened to show interest in an Asian girl. The reverse affinity was rarely noted and was, in fact, not very common.

But while most of the boys who dated Asian girls were also open to other races, there were a few who deserved the fetishist's label. The most extreme case knew all fifteen or so of the Asian girls in our class, and idolized each of us in turn. Once, I found myself behind him in the cafeteria line, and when I tried to pay for my sandwich, was told that he had taken care of it.