Dead Soon Enough: A Juniper Song Mystery (18 page)

I raised my hands. “I can work whenever I need to work. You’re paying my retainer.”

“Good.”

“What should I do during the day?” I asked.

“Just spend time with Lusig. You’ll be her best friend until the baby comes.”

Lusig put her arm around my shoulder, and I slumped down to meet her saddled height. “It’ll be one long sleepover, Song. Just like the good old days before the evils of sex and booze. Can we listen to the rap music, Mommy?”

Rubina crossed her arms and looked deep into Lusig’s room with an expression that betrayed hurt feelings. “Come on, Lu, you’re not being fair. It’s not that I’m a prude.”

There was a strained silence, and I knew better than to interrupt it. I hadn’t even unpacked my bag and here was my first reminder that I was an outsider thrust into one of the weirdest family situations I’d ever seen.

Lusig caught Rubina’s tone and bit down on her lip as if she could coax the words back in like a strand of saliva. She stepped over to her cousin and put a hand on her shoulder. “I know, I know. I’m just giving you a hard time.”

Rubina held the hand on her shoulder and Lusig squeezed.

“It’s just the baby,” Lusig went on, her voice sweet and soothing. “I know how important he is to you.”

Rubina’s eyes sparkled, and she sniffled gently, trying to hide her face by looking at the floor.

“No, no, no,” Lusig cooed. “I’m sorry, Ruby. I should stop making fun of you. But really, what’s the point of having a surrogate if you’re going to be this hormonal, huh?” She poked Rubina in the ribs, a gentle plea for laughter.

The mood passed. Rubina scratched a tear away from one eye like it was a speck of dust and nodded solemnly, pressing Lusig’s hand.

“Well, I’ll let you settle in, Song. Please let me know if you need anything.”

She smiled in the weak way of somebody wounded, and disappeared upstairs.

I looked at Lusig, opened my mouth, then closed it again. I took my suitcase into my new bedroom, sat down on the bed, and took off my shoes. Lusig followed me in.

“Got to hand it to her, huh? That is a woman who knows how to milk a guilt trip. My own mother never got me quite so good.”

“She’s more delicate than I thought at first.”

“Oh. yeah. She acts steely, but sometimes it seems like she’s one bad turn away from a complete breakdown.”

She sat down heavily on my desk chair with her chin resting over the back. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Yeah.” I chuckled. “Sure, me, too.”

She dragged a palm across her face. “I feel kind of bad for dragging you into this.”

“I was already dragged in. This is my job. There are plenty of worse things I could be doing for a living.”

“Like scrubbing toilets at a biker bar?”

“Or like babysitting an actual baby.”

“You are my babysitter, huh?”

“Your chaperone, maybe.”

“My bodyguard.”

The house filled with the sound of a car pulling into the garage. Lusig’s ears perked up and she looked out the door. “Van’s home,” she said.

I stood up. “I guess I should say hi.”

The garage door closed with a rumble, and a man’s sturdy footsteps sounded down the hall. A jingle of keys, and a shouted, “I’m home.”

I followed Lusig out of my room while Rubina pattered down the stairs. All the activity in the house was converging on the entrance of the man.

He looked past his wife and cousin-in-law to where I was standing a couple feet behind them. “Right,” he said. “This was happening today.”

“We met briefly,” I said. “I’m Song.”

“I remember. How could I forget?”

There was a note of irritation in his voice that irritated me. It wasn’t a great start to a monthlong stint of cohabitation. I had to stop myself from reminding him that this was his wife’s idea, that I wasn’t just an unwelcome guest crashing for my own benefit.

I couldn’t think of anything to say to him instead, so we stood for a strained moment, unsure of how to speak to each other. When the silence had lasted a beat too long, Rubina broke in.

“We’ll all go to dinner tonight,” she said. “So we can get to know each other.”

Lusig clapped her hands together like a wind-up monkey. “Oh, boy!”

Van smiled blankly, having found his footing in the strange scene. “Song, what would you like to eat?”

I shrugged. “I’m easy,” I said. “I’ll go wherever you guys feel like.”

“Have you ever had Armenian food?” Rubina asked.

“Yeah, a few times. I like it.”

“Okay, we’ll take you somewhere good.”

With that, she followed Van upstairs and left me and Lusig tilting our heads.

“Oh my God,” Lusig giggled. “This is going to be such a disaster.”

“What, dinner?”

“Of course dinner, but also, this whole thing.”

“One thing at a time, I guess.” I looked at my phone. It was six thirty. “What time for dinner?”

“We eat early here, so probably soon. Everything closes by nine in Glendale.”

“That’s right. This is suburbia.”

“Not that it matters for us. We might as well be on an island. Alcatraz, maybe.”

*   *   *

We ate at an Armenian restaurant on San Fernando, a family-owned place done up thick with gold-trimmed moldings and cheesy nature scenes painted directly onto the walls. The staff recognized the Gasparian clan, and eyed me with friendly curiosity. Our waiter addressed both Rubina and Van as Doctor.

Van ordered for all of us and, ten minutes later, the table was spread thick with dishes. The only things I recognized were the usual hummus, stuffed grape leaves, and kebabs, but I ate some of everything and enjoyed it all. We dined family style, and I wondered if Van or Rubina would say something about food bringing people together.

“So, Rubina tells me you went to Yale.” This was the first thing Van said to me that had the scent of cordiality. “I went to Princeton myself.”

I smiled and nodded, glad to have my mouth full. I chewed on something that tasted like pomegranate.

“How did you end up becoming a private investigator?”

I swallowed and gave a quick, sanitized version of my career trajectory.

He raised his eyebrows and waved his fork back and forth, pointing at Rubina and Lusig. “Have you ever had a case like this before?”

I smiled. I was relieved to see that Van had at least a flickering sense of humor.

“I’ve had a couple big messes, but this assignment has been pretty unique. Lot of firsts.”

“First surrogate?”

“Yes, definitely.”

“Surely not your first neurotic client?”

Rubina put down her fork to give Van’s biceps a gentle squeeze.

“No,” I said, feeling more comfortable. “Certainly not.”

“We were hoping for twins, you know. Triplets, even. It’s common with IVF.”

“Maybe
you
were hoping for triplets,” Lusig interrupted, a sour edge to her voice. “I’m having enough of a time with just one.”

“Be fruitful and multiply,” said Van.

“That’s the Armenian mandate. Your priest even said it at your wedding. ‘Be fruitful and multiply and dominate the earth.’”

“It isn’t just Armenian. It’s biblical. Biological.”

Lusig turned to me. “Van thinks being angry about the genocide is a waste of time and energy.”

Rubina set her fork on the table. It thudded thinly against the tablecloth.

“It was an atrocity, and I get angry each time I think about it,” Van said. “But it’s been a hundred years. I live here now. I have my own life, my own family. Why do I need to dwell on history? What good does it do me?”

There was no heat in his voice, only a tone too calculated to sound reasonable and dispassionate. Lusig grew visibly impatient as she waited for her turn to speak, each of Van’s words stroking her into greater and greater agitation. Rubina, who was seated between them, looked on with her mouth set tight.

“First of all, ‘What good does it do me?’ Nice, Van. Not at all self-absorbed.”

“Lusig, come on,” Rubina said sharply.

“Second,” Lusig continued, “it would be one thing if our history were set in stone, if it had been dealt with properly. A hundred years ago, fifty years ago, even yesterday. But it hasn’t.”

“We know what happened,” said Van.

“That’s not enough.”

“Okay, not just us, then. Twenty-two countries and forty-two states have formally recognized the Armenian genocide. Academics are fairly unanimous, too—at least the reputable ones. Why do you care about a bunch of Turks who just want to think well of their forefathers?”

“Because it’s still a debate. Which means there’s still uncertainty. There’s a
lack of solidity
at the core of our identity. Not that we don’t believe in ourselves, but as long as we’re fighting for something as basic as human recognition, for the world to tell us, ‘We know, and it’s okay,’ there will always be something gooey and unsettled inside of us. And you’re not immune to that, Van Gasparian, any more than I am.”

He shrugged and popped a nugget of sausage into his mouth. Lusig stared at him, her wild eyes growing furious against his coolness.

“That’ll do,” Rubina said, putting conciliatory hands on her cousin and husband. “I don’t know why you’re picking a fight in front of our guest, Lu. And Van, you know you’re only egging her on.”

“Uncertainty,” Van said, elongating the word. His tongue clicked wetly against his teeth and he turned to me, smirking. “Isn’t that your trade? Maybe you can solve this for us, too. As long as we have you.”

*   *   *

Dinner concluded without further incident, and Van disappeared to his room as soon as we got home. Rubina hung around Lusig, worrying about things, until Lusig finally told her she was going to bed.

I unpacked and washed up and was getting ready to hole up with my computer when Lusig came by to visit.

“Aren’t you guys supposed to be sleeping?” I said, wagging my finger at her stomach and head.

“In a minute. I’m just curious what you thought of Van.”

“He was pretty polite to me,” I said. “You don’t like him much, huh?”

“I like him fine,” she said defensively.

“You kind of picked a fight with him.”

She sat down next to me on the bed without invitation. I smiled and moved over. There was something of the stray pet in this girl, an unconscious disregard for boundaries I found weirdly charming. “Okay,” she said, letting her head touch the wall. “I’m not his biggest fan.”

“You don’t like Chris, either. Bit of a protective streak?”

“Maybe. Maybe a jealous one, even.” She smirked and closed her eyes.

Within minutes, she was snoring lightly, a lispy whistle streaming out of her open mouth. I woke her up and she trudged the twenty feet to her room.

Nine

I checked my phone first thing in the morning. No response from Enver Kizil, but I did have a couple texts from Rob Park.

I asked around about EARTH.

Do you have time to talk today?

I asked him to give me a call.

Rubina and Van were at work, which meant I was on Lusig duty. Without anything pressing on her unemployed pregnant agenda, she was still very much asleep by the time I’d showered and dressed for the day. I went outside for a smoke, then sat down at my new bedroom desk with a cup of coffee.

I checked my e-mail again, in case Enver Kizil had decided to reach out in the last hour. No dice. It had only been a day and a half, and I knew it was easy for e-mails to get lost, but I also knew it was likely I wouldn’t hear from him at all. He was my best lead, and I couldn’t afford to be passive. It was time to look for him on the assumption he didn’t want to be found.

I turned on InvestiGate and pulled up a dossier for an Enver Kizil in Los Angeles County, with his e-mail address to verify the match. Google was usually adequate for casual searches, but I wanted a physical address. InvestiGate was a powerful private investigation tool; software for background checks and other purposes of less official interest.

Kizil was thirty-four years old, a high school graduate with some community college on his résumé. He was Turkish by blood, but born and raised in Ridgefield, New Jersey. He’d moved to Los Angeles three years earlier, but his occupation was hard to pin down. He had spare jobs in bars, restaurants, and the occasional hardware store, but he didn’t seem to have much in the way of a steady career. He’d also had a couple arrests—for drunk driving and assault. This didn’t look like a man with the cash to hire one of the most powerful law firms in Southern California.

I plugged his address into Google Maps and turned on the street view. He lived in what looked like an old house split into apartments, his address ending in 3/4. I wondered if I was looking at his window. I decided to give him the day then pay him a visit.

Lusig woke up just before noon and came into my room, brushing her teeth sluggishly. Her hair shone with grease.

She removed the toothbrush and spoke with her head tilted to keep the paste from dribbling out of her mouth. “Sorry I passed out in your bed,” she said. “I haven’t been sleeping great, and I guess it just got to me.”

“No problem,” I said.

She dipped out to rinse out her mouth in the bathroom and came back with her face wet. She walked past me and plopped down on my bed, driving a fist into her lower back. “I have heartburn and crazy gas and my back’s been killing me. Sometimes I forget this isn’t even the hard part.”

“What do you mean?”

“The hard part is when you catch your teenage daughter sneaking back into bed after an all-night rave and she tells you she hates you.” She shook her head. “In my defense, I did take it back.”

I smiled. “You don’t need to defend yourself.”

“Do you want kids?”

“I go back and forth. On the one hand, maybe. On the other hand, who needs the stress and heartbreak.” I thought of my mother, how losing my sister had destroyed her.

“I think I got a good deal, in a way,” she said, drumming her belly. “I get to be a part of this grand project, and I don’t have to take care of a shitty kid for eighteen years.”

“He could be a good kid.”

“Sure. He’ll still piss and shit daily, long before that becomes his own problem. He’ll still run Ruby and Van’s lives like a tiny dictator.”