Broken Serenade (5 page)

   
The young woman’s burned body had been identified using her denture prints and her never-missing anklet that proved to be a common gold jewelry with cubic zirconium. Many believed that Nadine had helped her, and then she had left with Lili’s car. Minutes after, she had suffered that terrible accident on Interstate 1, and as a result, she was missing, probably she had drowned in the ocean. Others went even further with the suppositions and pointed the finger at Timothy and Mr. Logan. Vivien had someone else in mind –
that scrawny Igor
. However, Lili’s explicit, coherent suicidal note had exculpated everyone in the eye of the law.       

   
The gossip regarding Timothy’s wedding, the mysterious disappearance of Nadine, and Mademoiselle Lili’s premature death continued to flow that summer in Woodside as if from an inexhaustible source of morbid imagination. Just until the end of August, when another ill-fated event finally put it to rest. A well-known face plastic surgeon from the area apparently had committed suicide, after he had allegedly shot in the head his entire family: his wife and two teenage daughters. The women had been found wearing huge yellow scarves wrapped around their scarcely dressed bodies.     

CHAPTER
2

    
  Menlo Park, California, 2011 

   
 
T
he wipers were taking great pains to remove the heavy downpour cascading over the windshield in vicious, never-ending torrents. Vivien felt an inexplicable inner joy.

   
Maybe it was the fact that she loved the rain. She had learned to. After almost fifteen years in Southern California where rain is a
rara avis
, it was exciting to be in the San Francisco Bay Area again. With small exceptions, the rain was an everyday event here starting in the autumn up until the end of spring.

   
Or maybe it was the Halloween that brought so much joy to Vivien’s heart. She made a mental note to stop at the grocery store and buy a couple of bags of bonbons. She expected the neighbors’ kids to come trick-or-treating.
I used to have a lot of fun on Halloween nights back then, when I was little,
she recalled with a nostalgic smile.  

   
At the first stoplight, she turned left. Her beige Lexus Coupe snaked cautiously on the narrow streets of central Menlo Park. She soon found her way into the parking space behind the exquisite antique store she had recently inherited from her grandmother. She had promised her family that she would take good care of it. It was, in fact, an excellent reason for her to return to this part of California that held so many memories. Good and bad. And equally loaded with unique life experiences. Those powerful memories had insistently dragged her back to this place.

   
On the other hand, the store supplied her with cash. It was particularly difficult to find students interested in piano and French lessons, even in this area generously populated with wealthy families.  

   
As she looked for the perfect spot in the empty parking lot, she passed the back door of her store. On the door’s window, the bloody imprint of a hand sent shivers down her spine. It looked just as someone had wiped the blood off his or her fingers in a hideous, undulated movement.
So Arlene has already arrived
, Vivien thought, even though her employee’s car was nowhere to be seen. She was probably getting ready to scare her boss with some gruesome, macabre farce, as Vivien herself had done it so many times in the past.
When I was a child, that is
, she reflected. Arlene could not make that excuse anymore.
Grow up, Arlene!
Vivien smiled to herself. She recalled how she had scared her babysitter once, so badly that the teenage girl had fainted.
A little ketchup and a big carving knife can work miracles!
Sure thing
,
Arlene is trying something similar,
Vivien concluded
.

   
She opened her huge, transparent umbrella and rushed toward the back entrance of her store. To her utter surprise, she found it locked. Shaking uncontrollably with cold, she fished for the keys into her handbag and opened the door with wet and slippery fingers. She wondered what Arlene could have used to smear the window. It looked so unnervingly convincing. She could have sworn it was blood. It even smelled like blood!  

   
Vivien stepped inside and shouted joyfully.

   
“Good morning, Arlene! Happy Halloween!” 

   
She didn’t wait for her saleswoman to answer the greeting and rather continued quickly. “And… just so we’ll not have any lengthy debate later. You messed up the window, you will clean it. I think that’s fair enough! When I said I had nothing against Halloween decorations, I didn’t imagine you would go that far!” 

   
No one bothered to send her a mere reply. Vivien anticipated that the young woman would jump in front of her any moment now, ketchup everywhere and a huge knife in her hand.
If not something even scarier: a sword, a scythe, or a hatchet,
she speculated, trying to brace herself for any ghastly oddity.     

   
Vivien left her wet umbrella in the hallway and advanced reluctantly toward the large room behind the store. They used it as a warehouse and often took their tea or coffee there, or just relaxed for a while on the black leather sofa. As she stepped into the room, she gasped and staggered back against the doorframe. Her blood froze in her veins. Her earlier particularly resourceful imagination, the vivid anticipation of a terrifying trick, couldn’t have possibly prepared her for what brutally appeared before her eyes. For the interval of a few seconds, she stood there motionless, watching Arlene in horror. The girl was totally undressed, only a large yellow scarf had been thrown negligently over her naked body. Her left breast appeared to have been cut off, and the fine silk scarf was imbued with coagulated blood. Arlene had her cold, unmoving eyes fixed on Vivien. Her pale, almost white face seemed frozen in a resigned expression.  

   
Vivien felt her body go stiff. Her stomach contracted nervously, threatening to throw out her earlier morning meal hardly swallowed in the first place. She turned her back on Arlene and articulated the words with difficulty, in an unsure voice.

   
“OK, Arlene, you’ve reached your point! Now I’ve seen a lot more than I’ve ever wanted to. Wash yourself and get dressed immediately! We have to open the store in only a few minutes.”

   
Not the slightest rustle came from the black leather sofa. Involuntarily, Vivien lifted her eyes to the thermostat in front of her. A somber premonition sneaked like a worm into her heart. Arlene had not turned on the heat. Arlene was always the one to turn the heat on. It was the first thing she did when she arrived. She dressed too summarily not to be concerned about the temperature in the store. Actually, Vivien had not met anyone so far with a deeper décolletage or shorter skirt. In fact, Arlene’s panty collection had nothing new to offer Vivien anymore. She had seen everything.    

   
Tensed, Vivien waited for a crackle, a giggle, anything at all. She would have happily welcomed any kind of noise coming from that sofa. The silence, heavy as a lead weight, was crushing her soul and feeding on her sanity.

   
“Arlene, please, say something,” she implored nervously. “I beg it of you. I’ve never been so scared in my entire life. You’ve won, can’t you see?” 

   
Reaching the end of her patience, Vivien swung around. At that very moment, she realized the tragedy. The woman before her was dead. There was no doubt about it. It was not a stupid Halloween trick. It was the naked, horrifying truth. 

   
Leaning on boxes and walls, she crawled until she reached the dead body of her young employee. She prayed in silence, still hoping that the whole thing was only a false assumption. Her trembling fingers gently touched the woman’s face.

    “Arlene, dear girl,” she whispered
sobbing.

*                                        *                                       *

    The young police officer offered her a paper glass with Starbucks emblem imprinted on it. Vivien watched transfixed the dancing steam rising gracefully from the hot liquid. The coffee aroma seemed to soothe her senses. She was tempted to accept it.

   
“Thank you,” she heard herself articulate. “I don’t drink coffee.” 

   
The man examined her closely, as if she were an extraterrestrial creature.  

   
Vivien did not concern herself with explaining her refusal. The caffeine gave her palpitations, and she had already had enough excitement for one day.

   
The detective conducting the investigation continued to press her with questions. As if in a trance, she started to give monosyllabic answers. It was the fourth time he repeated his interrogatory, and it was getting mentally exhausting.
Not to mention plain ridiculous,
Vivien thought.

   
“The blood smear on the door’s window had been done with a plastic glove,” the young police officer announced. “I doubt that we’ll be lucky enough to find any fingerprints.”   

   
After a very thorough examination of the entire suite, including the store, the forensic team finally left the place. Vivien watched absently as they gathered their plastic bags containing carpet fiber, hair, blood, and other minuscule pieces of evidence. Nothing clear so far. She felt as though she were living a nightmare. Or rather, she had been involved in a horror movie against her will. She hated horror movies. Most of them seemed stupid, the rotten fruit of sick imagination and nothing more than that.

   
The detective handed her his business card. Vivien was able to read it – with some difficulty though in the semidarkness of the hallway.

   
“Detective Art Leonard?” she syllabified his name.

   
“Correct. We thank you for your cooperation, Miss Hopkins. If you remember anything, even the most apparently unimportant detail concerning Miss Arlene Morgan, please don’t hesitate to call me. Anytime. Day or night.”  

   
“Yes, I will. Definitely,” Vivien promised, hardly hiding her tears.

   
“And… I’m sorry for your business, but we have to lock up your store and warehouse,” the detective declared in a calm tone that was remarkably sympathetic. “It is the crime scene for now.”

   
“I was expecting that,” she replied lackadaisical, getting up slowly from the box she had been sitting on for the last couple of hours. With visibly unsure steps, she walked out of the store. The rain had stopped, but the sun seemed to have chosen to stay hidden behind heavy clouds that day.

   
“Do you think you’ll be able to drive?” Detective Leonard asked somehow concerned. “I can take you home. One of the police officers can follow us in your car.”

   
Vivien would’ve liked to decline his offer. The cocky cop had tortured her with all kinds of questions for almost three hours. She would’ve been extremely happy to see him disappear from her sight. But she wasn’t sure she could concentrate and drive herself home. She was still in shock, nauseated, and dizzy. And she couldn’t bear the thought of being left alone with the memory of Arlene’s dead body, not just yet. By comparison, the company of a nagging character like detective Leonard appeared surprisingly welcoming.
In fact,
he is only doing his job
, she admitted and accepted his offer.   

CHAPTER
3

    
“
T
his weather is perfect for jogging,” Timothy Leigh told his older brother, trying desperately to change the topic of the previous discussion. He felt his nerves stretched to the point of breaking in shreds, and he wanted to avoid an open conflict with his only sibling. They had not seen each other in years, but Clark stubbornly debated the same old subject.

   
To Timothy’s exasperation, the man beside him refused to be led subtly toward another field of conversation. He continued to expose his distorted ideas with sickening enthusiasm.   

   
“You have to admit, Tim, that a woman’s place is at home, in the kitchen and especially beside the children. Someone has to guide them, to show them the right way in this life. Why do you think we are confronted today with a spectacular surge in minors’ criminality? Why do you think our students are unable to pass math tests? Why children obesity has reached scary levels? Why our girls become pregnant and give birth while still in high school? All of this happens because the woman left the nursery and became involved in business and politics. She is competing with the man. Soon, she will be too busy to squeeze a mere sexual intercourse into her full schedule. Little by little, they will reduce us, men, to the level of
sperm donors
. That and nothing more. We have to do something before it’s too late, mate. We can’t just sit on our lazy asses and watch as they take full control of our world.”