Hungry Ghosts (11 page)

The fog had rolled in, turning late afternoon to a murky dusk. The crew was wrapped in wool and down. In my sweats I was already shivering. The hole looked like a fresh grave; the stench of mud and putrefaction oozed up from the entrance.

“You want to check it out, Ajiko?” Robin was asking.

I turned in time to see her shake her head. She was in character as My Yen, young, alone in a strange, barbaric country, terrified but resigned, on the threshold of the vile room where she would die. I glanced at the actress, but she was staring at the dark hole, sucking in the horror, cultivating dread.

“Okay, then!” And when Sparto turned toward me, I swung myself with bravado down into the tunnel.

The subterranean space couldn't have been more different from last night. Then Tia had run so fast into the darkness she'd nearly knocked herself silly against the wall. We'd all stood stunned, in part by her, but also by the lingering sense of the tunnel's evil history. Now a bank of lights was lowered down, illuminating the mottle of gray rock and mud shot through with sick-yellow clay. The crew was all business.

“Great! This is terrific!” Robin said, coming down behind me.

“Hard to find anywhere more claustrophobic,” I added. And hard to find a place to set a scene where he was less likely to need a stunt double, dammit. The space was useless for me, but not so for Tia. What
had
she been looking for down here? I needed to buy some time to find what she had
nearly knocked herself out to get to. “This far wall, Robin, it must have been open to the Bay once. I mean, it's a tunnel; it had to go somewhere.”

“Shine that spot down here, man!” Robin trotted closer, as did I. The wall appeared solid, though horridly damp. I rapped randomly, creating slight indentations in a couple of places, scraping my knuckles on rock in two others, getting nothing but dirty. Sparto shrugged. He was already losing interest. In five minutes he'd be out of here and his bank of lights with him. I ran my eyes over the rear wall again, scanned the low ceiling. There was no nook where anything could have been hidden.

I scanned the side walls near the end, but they were the same. What was Tia's game here? The whole thing was crazy. I would have dismissed the entire episode if she hadn't disappeared on me. Was she just wacko? I took a shallow breath, trying to ignore the wretched smell. Whatever she was after had to be right around here, the place she'd run to, the reason she'd smacked into the wall. Had she hoped to find and pocket it before the rest of us got the flashlights on? Had she even known exactly where it was? I stuck a finger into the wall, but hit rock almost instantly. I clasped my hand and smacked the wall from one side to the other, splattering mud and bruising my hands, but no nook revealed itself. Nothing, just nothing.

“Okay that'll do it. Let's clear out of here. Come on, uh . . .”

“Darcy, Darcy Lott,” I said automatically, as I did a last-ditch search for some reason to extend our stay. Sparto was already starting for the ladder. I grabbed his arm.

“Uh!” He flung me off.

I hit the wall. Mud splattered.

“Wha—?” But he wasn't looking at me, he was staring at a big lump of mud, about eight inches wide, seemingly just dislodged from the entrance to the extension of the chute we'd peered down last night. “Where the hell does that lead?”

I moved closer. Did the mud lump have a tail? Was it a dead rat? Or a live one? It was too dark to tell. “Bring the light over here.”

A lighting tech obliged and I aimed it into the opening. The chute above led into the hole below, comprising one long narrow tube that passed by the corner of the tunnel on its way to wherever. I bent down, ear to hole. “Could be water.”

“We're blocks from the Bay,” Robin scoffed.

“Sewers.”

He took a step back. “Do you think this hole was big enough for a woman once?”

It was definitely big enough for Tia to have pulled something out of. That would mean it wasn't deep. “Could be, Robin. A small woman like My Yen could look like she was wedged in there. It would be awful. But I could manage it,” I added quickly. Setting a scene here would give me a chance to check this hole and its contents. “Really awful,” I repeated, choosing not to think about the awfulness aspect at all.

“No way to shoot it.” He was across the tunnel and up the ladder before I stood up. And by the time I did, the lighting tech was at its foot waiting for escape.

I walked back as slowly as possible, trying to spot something, anything Tia had dropped, used, anything. Trying, failing. Resigned, I climbed the ladder.

The fog had flooded in now. It was rush hour and the traffic on Columbus was muted to red and white flowing lights. Fog sat in the courtyard smoothing the corners of the zendo, blending the red madrone doors with the brick siding. I hurried in and up the stairs. “Leo, it's me!” I called as I hit the second-story landing.

He didn't answer. I checked my watch. Oh, gee, it was 6:20; afternoon zazen was still going on. I was supposed to be there. Showing up at
zazen was the least the roshi's assistant could do. But not draped in mud. I slipped into my room, took off my clothes, and wrapped them into a ball. Grabbing clean ones, I went to the bathroom, where I could hardly run the shower above the people sitting zazen. I sponged off, put on the dry clothes, and waited to hear Leo come up so I could explain. I listened for the bells ending zazen, but they didn't ring. I thought surely I'd hear the large one used in the service, but I didn't. When it got to be quarter to seven and I hadn't heard Leo's footsteps on the stairs either, a shot of fear went through my body.

Maybe something
had
happened to him after all. It made no sense, not logically, but still. I knocked on his door.

No answer.

“Leo!”

I hesitated, then opened his bedroom door.

Tia Dru was lying on the floor.

C
HAPTER
11

“T
IA
! W
HA
—?” I flipped on the light. “Ti . . .” Her skin was whiter than I'd ever seen skin. Blood surrounded her, more blood than her delicate body could possibly have held. Her throat gaped open.

Leo! Was he dead, too?
“Leo!” I stepped over Tia, right over her, and pulled open his closet door. Nothing there but clothes, robes, suitcases. “Leo!” I yelled.

I raced down the stairs, into the zendo. The room was dark. The tiny kitchen beside the entry was dark, too. Outside I yelled again, “Lee-ooooooh!”

“He was heading downtown last I saw him.” Eamon strode in from the street. “Are you okay?”

“No! Omigod, Eamon, Tia's dead! Upstairs. There's blood all over.”

“Blood!” He ran for the stairs. For a moment I couldn't move. Oddly, I thought I'd remember later his automatic concern was for his property rather than for the woman he'd taken home just last night. He turned all the lights on and as I followed him upstairs, bloody footprints sprang out at me. It wasn't till I reached the top that I realized they were my own.

He was standing outside Leo's door. “Have you called the police?”

“No.”

“You have to call them. Never mind! I'll do it.”

“No, wait—”

“What?”

“Nothing. Go ahead.” I was going to say I'd call John, but since he hadn't involved himself this afternoon, what was the point of trying to rope him in now?

I stood in the doorway, not wanting to see Tia's body, yet not able to pull my gaze off it. She was wearing the same clothes she'd had on at lunch. For an instant I heard her calling, “I'm in the kitchen. Come on in,” saw her walking toward me, her hands extended toward me, saw her smiling, surrounded by the yellows of many shades, smelled the freesias.

Now her hands were striped with red, her T-shirt caked brown with blood, almost the same color as her skirt. It looked ludicrously like an ensemble. The long skirt had been pulled up in her fall, revealing the misshapen leg she'd worked so hard to disguise. Her arms had flopped at her sides as if she had clutched at her throat, at the hand dragging the knife across, clutched until she couldn't.

Tears were swelling in my head, but my eyes were sandpaper-dry. She was lying on the hard floor, inches from Leo's narrow futon. Her blood had hardened on his blue sleeping bag. It was thicker than the smear on the floor because . . . because the killer had wiped the floor, wiped away shoeprints. I leapt back, as if it wasn't already too late not to trample any signs of the killer's departure. And then I started to shake.

Suddenly Eamon's arm was around my shoulder and he was saying, “Let's wait on the landing.”

I was glad to let him guide me down the six steps to that half landing where the staircase turned, glad to have the feel of a comforting arm. “Eamon, did Tia give you any sense that—”

“That she was going to be murdered?”

“No, no. I mean that she was worried, I mean, you know, anything
strange?” I was shaking so hard my voice was quavering. Eamon's hand tightened on my shoulder, pulling me against the firmness of his ribs, and I was glad for that, too.

“I just met her. She felt bad about ditching Jeffrey, but she didn't act like he'd come after her with a razor.” He sounded as undone as I was.

“Leo? What about Leo? Have you seen him?”

“He was racing out of here when I pulled up. Just before you came out of the tunnel.”

“Right, the tunnel. Robin wants to do a shoot there.”

“That's fine. I just caught him and settled things. It'll be fine.” I could hear the constriction in his voice that mirrored my own.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “You must have planned to see her again, to have something with her. It must . . .” I swallowed, but I couldn't force out more.

The gulp of a siren pulled me back. Leather-soled feet pounded up the stairs. The face I saw coming toward me was that of an Asian American who looked about my age but was probably older. His suit screamed Plain Clothes Shop.

“Detective Korematsu,” he said, extending a hand to me and to Eamon.

“Whatever I can do to help, Detective,” Eamon said, as if welcoming him to the grounds.

I wondered if he knew my brother John. His name sounded vaguely familiar, but that made no sense. I'd barely seen John since I got back, and never to talk about his job. I'd heard more about it from Grace when she visited than from him.

Korematsu looked in Leo's room, called down to someone to order up a crime scene unit, and took down our names. “Eamon Lafferty,” he repeated. “Did you discover the body, Mr. Lafferty?”

Eamon hesitated and I had the feeling he wanted but was unable to phrase his reply in a way that would be more helpful to me. “No, I came to help Ms. Lott after she discovered the body.”

The detective nodded. “Okay, Mr. Lafferty, Officer Greiss will take you downstairs while I speak with Ms. Lott.”

“Just a moment,” Eamon insisted. “Darcy, I have a good lawyer if you need one.”

“A lawyer!” Fear washed over me. Tia, the police, Eamon—it all seemed unreal, and now a lawyer! Only a fool opens her mouth to a cop—my brother the lawyer and my brother the cop had both proclaimed that more than once. A fool and her freedom are soon parted. But this was different. I needed to get this interview over with so I could find Leo. Where was he? Why had he been racing out of here? I'd never seen him move faster than a stride. Had he seen the killer? Was he following? Foolhardily? A fool and his life are soon parted . . .

I was losing it. Concentrate, Darcy! “I'm okay, Eamon.” To the detective, I said, “What do you need to know?”

As Greiss followed Eamon downstairs, Korematsu motioned me into the nearest room, which was my bedroom, and asked for my address.

“Here, I guess.”

“You're not sure?” he said in a tone that suggested domiciliary confusion was quite the norm.

“Here.”

“Do you know the identity of the deceased?”

“Tia Dru. We went to high school together.”

“Does she have family here?”

“Maybe. I think she lived with an aunt or someone—not parents—back then.”

“Husband? Brothers, sisters?”

“No. I mean, I don't think so. I just don't— What I know is, she was here last night for a reception. I was at her house for lunch today. Before we could eat she went out to get something out of the garage, and she disappeared. There should be a record of my call about that,” I said, hoping to cover everything pronto.

“Do you recall to whom you spoke?”

Whom!
Korematsu must be the most civilized cop in the SFPD. “I called my brother, John, at the Hall of Justice.”

He had been leaning against the doorway. Now he turned toward the hall and let his instructions float over his shoulder. “Excuse me for a moment. If you'll just wait here.” He walked partway down the stairs and I couldn't make out what he was saying into his phone.