The Collector (18 page)

T
hey tracked Owen Gospel to the Asian Garden Mall. Erika hiked up the steps alongside her partner, dreading what the concrete would do to her Jimmy Choo heels. At least she’d bought them on sale.

The mall reminded Erika of those ant farms you kept as a kid. From the artery of Bolsa Avenue, a wall of glass showed the two-story enclosed mall, complete with escalator. Gift shops, hair salons, jewelry stores and restaurants vied for the all-important dollar, but that’s where the American influence ended.

Entering the air-conditioned building, you were no longer the uninvolved observer watching the ants toil. The energy of the place surrounded Erika. Vietnamese wafted on a current of climate-controlled air. Paper lanterns and incense teased the senses as neon lights and colors swept her up and transported her into the exotic.

She thought of Calle Ocho in Miami, a place where Cuban immigrants had recreated their homeland. She remembered going there once with her mother on vacation. She’d read a sign on a shop door that said English Spoken Here. The Asian Garden Mall felt the same. They’d stepped through the looking glass and dropped into a mixed-up world created by émigrés, a movie backdrop of old Saigon, cleaned up and polished for its American audience.

The second floor was almost exclusively dedicated to jewelry. Block-long display cases manned by eager salesmen and women housed the largest selection of gold, jade and diamonds to be found in the Southland. That’s where they found Owen Gospel being waited on, hand and foot.

Even if he weren’t one of a handful of Anglos in the mall, Owen Gospel stood out. He made sure of it, wearing a tailored silver-blue suit tailored within an inch of its life with a T-shirt. He’d accessorized with yellow-tinted glasses and groomed his blond-streaked hair into one of those fauxhawks, looking outrageously stylish for an afternoon at the mall.

He stood over an emerald bracelet, the stones so big Erika could size them from fifty feet away. He was working the saleswoman, a pretty brunette in a simple black suit. He smiled winsomely and laughed with her as he picked up the bracelet and draped it over her wrist.

Must be tough working for Dad, Erika thought. The middle of the afternoon and Owen was out for a grueling day of shopping. At least he’d kept it local. Hell of a drive out to Rodeo Drive on the 405 at this hour.

She knew the precise moment Owen spotted them. He leaned back against the display case, zeroing in. From that cocky smile, she figured dear old dad might have given him the heads-up. He knew they were cops. She tried not to take offense.
Must be time for a new wardrobe.

Erika flipped open her badge. “Owen Gospel? My name is Detective Cabral. This is my partner, Detective Bushard. We’re from Westminster Homicide, investigating the murder of Mimi Tran. Would you mind answering a few questions?”

The saleswoman made herself scarce. That was the problem with immigrant communities: people were a little too used to the turmoil of cops and robbers.

Owen made a show of checking Erika out. Her mother always told her she was too quick to judge. But in her line of work, she knew it was an asset. The kind of carnage she’d seen at the Tran crime scene wasn’t everyday stuff. Whoever killed Tran was pure evil. Her instincts told her this kid in his fancy suit and John Lennon glasses didn’t have the balls to pull it off. In her opinion, Owen Gospel was just a punk.

Peering over the top of his glasses, he said, “I’m not supposed to talk to you guys without an attorney.” He gave Erika an insolent smile. “But it’s hard to resist a woman with a gun.”

“No kidding,” she said. “Never heard that one before.”

A tall block of muscle in a spectacular Armani suit walked up to stand alongside Owen. He wore his head shaved to show off a tattoo of a cobra at the nape of his neck. Erika immediately pegged him as Special Forces.

“Can I help you, Officers?”

Erika stared up, craning her neck. Really, the guy gave her chills. The good kind.

“That depends,” she said. “Who, exactly, are you?”

Before the man could answer, Owen stepped in close to whisper in her ear, “He’s my babysitter.” Still leaning into Erika, he glanced over his shoulder at the Special Forces guy. “My father pays him gobs of money to make sure I don’t do…bad things.”

Seven grabbed Owen by the sleeve of his designer suit and pulled him off Erika. She made a mental note to tell her partner she didn’t need help handling the likes of Gospel.

“Wow,” Seven said, making a show of brushing off the suit. “Aren’t you something.”

“You’re familiar with Dolce and Gabana, Detective?” Gospel asked, amused.

“You’re kidding, right?” The look Seven gave was priceless—like he was thinking more Barnum and Bailey, but was just too polite to say so. “So, how well did you know Mimi Tran, Owen?”

“I didn’t know her at all.”

“But she was an associate of your father’s?”

“I couldn’t say.”

Seeing that Gospel was giving Seven the runaround, Erika took a different tack. She turned her back on Owen, acting as if he mattered about as much as a flea on the ass of an elephant.

She said to the muscleman in Armani, “
Has
he been a good boy?”

The man just managed to hide his smile. “The best.”

“Good.” She reached inside her bag and pulled out her notebook. She flipped it open. Still ignoring Owen, she asked Mr. Armani, “Then you won’t mind telling me when and where your charge—” just a touch of emphasis on the last word, nothing too obvious “—was on the evening of April nineteenth?”

Immediately, the man’s friendly manner shut down. “Mr. Gospel is correct. That is a question for his attorneys.”

“Really.” Erika made sure the guy got a whiff of her disappointment. “That’s not a problem.” She flipped her notebook shut. “We’ll meet you down at the precinct in, say—” she made a show of examining her sensible Citizen watch “—half an hour?” She looked over at Owen. “Does that work for you, Mr. Gospel?”

“Actually, it’s entirely inconvenient.”

But Seven was already punching a number into his cell. He said into the phone, “I’d like to speak with Judge Odin. It’s about a search warrant for the residence of one Owen Gospel. The spelling is
O-w-e-n
. Gospel, spelled just like in the Bible.”

“You’re bluffing.” But suddenly, Owen wasn’t looking so confident.

Seven didn’t flinch. “The basis for the warrant is new evidence linking the Tran murder to a case seven years ago.” He turned away from Gospel. “Another psychic in Long Beach—”

“All right,” Owen said, a touch of desperation lacing his voice. “All right.” Then, flashing an insolent smile, he said, “It so happens, I have a few minutes.”

Seven slapped his phone shut in his hand. His expression gave nothing away. “Great. How about we take a seat over there?” He motioned to the railing overlooking the first floor.

“Owen?” the block of muscle warned.

“Shut up, Rocket.”

Erika liked her partner’s style. Seven had imagination. She knew for a fact that there was no Judge Odin on the court.

They sat down and made themselves comfortable on a bench that looked down from the second floor to the food court below. The layout reminded Erika of a pinball machine. A lot of neon lights and flashing colors with tiny shoppers bouncing back and forth from one side of the mall to the other.

“You people,” Owen said, taking out a bottle of eyedrops and squeezing some into his eyes. He carefully replaced the tinted glasses. She noticed he had curious eyes, nothing like his father’s. They were a pale blue, shiny and unblinking. “Can’t you let a man rest?”

“‘You people’? That sounds a little insulting,” Erika said, pulling out her notebook again. “But then, maybe you have an issue or two with law enforcement?”

He looked as if he was going to argue with her, thought better of it. “You have five minutes, Detective.”

“Like I asked your babysitter, where were you on the evening of April nineteenth?”

“I was at a meeting. There were several witnesses.”

Owen reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a silver case, the kind that might hold business cards, only bigger. The initials D.O.G. had been engraved on the front, making Erika smile.
All that money, and your initials spell dog?

He opened the case to show it contained a pad of plain paper. He began writing on the top sheet.

“Gee, isn’t that nifty, Seven?” she asked, staring at the case.

“And you with a birthday coming up.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I like my little spiral,” she said, holding up the dimestore version of Gospel’s Tiffany case.

He ignored the ribbing and ripped out the sheet, handing it to Erika with that canary smile she’d seen on his father’s face just that morning. Only David Gospel, the senior, had showed more finesse. Owen was rubbing their noses in it with that smile.

“These are three of the people who saw me at the meeting. They can vouch for my whereabouts.” Again, he leaned in close to Erika to whisper, “And that, Detective, is all I have to say. Even to someone as delectable as you.”

Erika could swear he hovered there, taking in her perfume with a sigh before pulling away.

Seven and Erika watched him saunter back into the jewelry store, the saleswoman at the ready as his self-proclaimed babysitter vanished as quickly as he’d appeared.

“There’s something wrong with his eyes,” Seven said.

Erika glanced up, surprised by the abrupt observation. “What?”

“His eyes. He’s wearing glasses, but they’re not prescription. The tint is light enough to allow him to see with indoor lighting, but still be fashionable. And he needed drops.”

Erika turned to look at Seven, having herself noticed that unblinking stare of Owen Gospel’s. “Mimi Tran’s eyes were missing.”

He shook it off. “It’s a bit of a stretch. Certainly nothing we can take to the chief.”

Erika frowned at her partner. Whatever he was thinking, he wasn’t ready to share.

She stared down at the paper in her hand, Owen Gospel’s alibi. “What do you want to bet these are ironclad?” she said with no little disgust.

Seven nodded, putting on his sunglasses before heading out. “I’d say they’re the best money can buy.”

V
elvet stared down at the yarrow stalks on the table. The fifteen-inch-long dried stems lay carefully counted out in small, discreet piles, finishing the last line of her hexagram in the I Ching ceremony.

My future,
she thought.

In Vietnam, it was believed that people did not simply pass away. Instead, they traveled to another world very near that of the living. The spirits of the dead, if properly worshipped, would happily stay in their realm, watching over their progeny, even passing along the good fortune they had accumulated during their lives on earth.

But restless spirits could prey upon the living, haunting them. They could pursue their victims into a wretched existence. There was even a celebration held on the seventh month of the lunar year, the Feast of the Wandering Souls, a time to appease those who died alone or neglected, the idea being that such spirits could be dangerous.

A week after Mimi’s death, Velvet had begun to feel her presence.

Last night, she’d dreamed of Mimi dressed in one of her beautiful St. John suits. She’d looked perfectly normal but for the fact that her eyes had been gouged out, their empty sockets meaty and bloody. Closer and closer Mimi came. When she was just a few feet away, she held up her hands toward Velvet.

Cupped in her palms, Mimi offered her two bloody eyes.

“Don’t be blind,” she told Velvet in Vietnamese. “Use my eyes.”

Velvet had woken with a start, completely shaken. Luckily, David rarely spent the night. Velvet had gotten up then and there, slipping barefoot into her living room, where she’d fallen on her knees before her mother’s altar. She lit three joss sticks and begged Má to intervene on her behalf against the spirits.

That which is invisible is always the most dangerous.

She knew well Mimi’s last prediction to David. What Velvet didn’t understand was the sense of dread that had come over her these last days. The idea that she, Velvet, was part of David’s prophesy.

And here was Mimi, invisible—a ghost—haunting Velvet, seeking retribution for…

For what?
Velvet thought.

That’s where the logic dissipated into superstition. Velvet was well-versed in the traditions of her ancestors. Some beliefs were harmless, like the idea that if a woman’s left eye twitched it was a sign of bad luck, or that the first person you encounter in the morning sets the tone for the day.

But some superstitions had more haunting possibilities. The Vietnamese, the Children of the Dragon, believed that if any part of the body was missing at the time of death, that soul could never enter the hereafter. Like Mimi and her eyes.

And there were other reasons to believe that Mimi lingered, watching over Velvet, haunting her every step. It took forty-nine days for the soul to reach the underworld. Mimi had only been dead less than a week.

Sometimes, Velvet had the sense that if she turned around quickly and looked over her shoulder, she’d see Mimi there, holding out those two bloody eyes.

And yet she knew she had never done Mimi any wrong. She had, in fact, had little contact with the psychic, seeing her for only an occasional reading. But the idea that something was very wrong—that Velvet somehow bore responsibility for Mimi’s death—wouldn’t leave her.

That’s why she listened with great trepidation to Xuan Du, the psychic promised to David as a replacement for Mimi. Velvet had asked Xuan to come an hour before David was due to arrive here at her condo. She’d wanted a reading, thinking to dissipate or at least clarify the sense of dread hanging over her. Now she waited for Xuan to interpret her hexagram.

They’d already had tea in the traditional manner, Velvet having bought special rice cakes for the occasion. They’d retired to the dining room, the table giving them the necessary space for the ritual drawing of yarrow straws.

I Ching was an ancient form of divination. It worked by dividing piles of yarrow sticks or flipping coins while meditating on a question. These days, there were even computer programs. But Velvet preferred the ancient ways, the yarrow oracle.

She liked the feel of the straws in her hands, enjoyed meditating on her question as she set aside the first stick, the straw representing unity. As she divided the remaining straws over and over, slowing creating the six lines of her hexagram, the ritual felt weighty and organic, conducive to contemplation.

In I Ching, the hexagram was always numbered one through sixty-four, using an order known as the King Wen Sequence. Afterward, the soothsayer would consult the
I Ching,
the
Book of Changes,
and read the text associated with the hexagram to interpret the future. Xuan Du was considered quite proficient in the craft.

There were four possibilities in drawing the straws: old yang, young yin, young yang, old yin. Old yang and old yin were about change. But young yang and young yin were static. Today, Velvet drew a static hexagram.

There were sixty-four possible archetypes. This one was number twenty-nine, Water.

“Water over Water,” Xuan Du said ominously.

Velvet stared down at the yarrow straws, that sense of dread growing darker and more defined. She had almost drowned as a child of five in a friend’s swimming pool. Afterward, she’d maintained a kind of phobia about water, refusing even to learn how to swim.

As Xuan talked about life’s darkest moments and the repetition of danger in her hexagon, Velvet felt a strange sense of panic rising up inside her, making her breath tight in her chest.
I feel like I’m drowning.
…

“You have grown used to the danger in your life, Velvet,” Xuan said, looking up from the hexagon to meet her eyes. “You have become complacent.”

In the words of the I Ching, Velvet had grown too familiar with evil. She had lost her way. Misfortune would be the natural result.

“But you are not in a position to save yourself,” the older woman continued. “Like water, you must bide your time and try to slowly climb out of the abyss into which you have fallen.”

Every step led to danger, Xuan Du pronounced, and thus Velvet must act judiciously. She should not overreach and flee, courting disaster.

“You have not been honest.” Here, the woman looked up slyly to meet Velvet’s gaze. “You are handicapped by your sins.”

Xuan explained that Velvet’s insincerity had brought darkness where there should be light. “You have surrounded yourself with darkness. You are blind to the danger around you.”

Because Velvet had made the danger a part of her life, she couldn’t see it there hovering, waiting to bring her down.

“Take great care, Velvet. Your ambition is leading you to disaster.”

Velvet stared down at her manicured hands. Xuan, of course, knew of her involvement with Sam and David.

The logical part of her, the woman who had toiled at law school, burned with anger. She could see clearly how Xuan’s knowledge of her situation had leached into this reading. She wondered if the soothsayer might have manipulated the hexagram, guiding her to Water. Judging her.

Hadn’t Xuan herself agreed to help in Sam’s schemes? And here she was judging Velvet? Pointing a finger at her actions?

Xuan asked, “Do you want to hear more?”

Velvet swept her hand across the table, sending the yarrow sticks to the floor. She stared down at the mess she’d made, littering the carpet.

“I don’t believe your judgment,” she told Xuan.

But she didn’t raise her head to look at the fortune-teller, the Vietnamese side of her knowing better.

Again, she had the sense that Mimi was just behind her. The feeling was so distinct, a chill raced through Velvet. And then the realization came. Mimi’s prediction for David, how much it mirrored Xuan’s warning now.

Velvet jumped to her feet, the motion a reflex, like a deer hearing the sounds of a predator in the brush. She wanted to run. Wanted desperately to call David and tell him not to come—

But just then, the doorbell sounded. Velvet stood frozen, paralyzed by Xuan’s predictions of doom. Again, the air seemed to freeze up inside her chest, reminding her of when she was only five….

The door sounded again, David growing uncharacteristically impatient.

Too late….

“You will excuse me, Xuan?”

She spoke to the woman respectfully, wanting to convey more than a simple courtesy before leaving to open the door. She wanted to admit how poor her behavior had been, to apologize for her outburst. She stood waiting until the older woman nodded her head, dismissing her.

But even walking into the front room, Velvet heard Xuan’s prediction echo inside her head, the warning dogging her like Mimi’s ghost. Her meaning had been very clear: Velvet could not escape from disaster. She was trapped, incapacitated by her duplicity.

Standing at the door, she told herself to take a breath. If she were ever to become counsel for Sam, as he wanted, duplicity would be part of her everyday life.

She reached for the door, forcing a smile, expecting David.

But it wasn’t David standing on the other side. As the door opened, all those nebulous fears of the week coalesced into the picture standing before her, and Velvet knew why she’d felt weighted down with dread.

That which is invisible is always the most dangerous.

No truer words.