The Silent Bride (17 page)

She mused about Mike's taste for meats and chicken that had been stewed all day so you couldn't tell what it was or how old it had been when it went into the pot. He loved melted cheese and weird-tasting sauces made with ingredients the Chinese never used: ground seeds, green tomatoes, red tomatoes, many types of dried peppers, cocoa, beans, avocado, cumin.

Like many Chinese, April thought even the freshest, mildest cheese smelled bad and that Mexican sauces left a gritty taste in the mouth. When she married, her parents and friends would expect a Chinese banquet. Fifteen to twenty-two courses, without mole.

A skinny waiter set a teapot on the table. The Chinese believed twenty cups of green tea a day was a necessity for good health. Yesterday she'd come up fourteen short. April poured and downed her first cup of today. Nineteen to go.

"Come up with anything?" she asked.

Mike had one of those gizmos only the top brass had. About the size of a Palm Pilot, the thing beeped, then printed on the screen every major crime as the dispatchers called them in. Already a shooting in Brooklyn and two rapes in the Bronx that day. Mondays were usually pretty quiet.

"I'm running a warrant check on Wendy. It's showing an error." Mike fiddled some more, then put the thing in his pocket.

The skinny waiter reappeared. He and April consulted in Chinese. "Any special requests?" she asked Mike.

"Yeah." He pocketed the computer and turned serious. "Tell me your problem,
querida."

"My problem?" The question surprised her.

"Uh-huh. You're not truthful. You say you trust me, but you don't trust anybody." Mike had the expression he used for suspects—the bad ones, not the not-so-bad ones.

April's face reddened in front of the hovering waiter. She placed an order in rapid Chinese.

"What are you talking about?" she asked as soon as he was gone.

"Tell me what picture you see in this case." Changing tack rapidly was one of Mike's effective interview techniques.

"Okay. The wedding was for show for sure. They hired a party planner to pull off a Broadway production. What?" He was giving her a funny look.

"I mean about the girl." Again with
the girl.

"Oh. Tovah." They kept calling her
the girl.
That really bothered her. "Her name was Tovah," she said.

"Tell me about Tovah then," he said, chewing on his mustache.

"She was marrying a boy she didn't know well because her family didn't want her dating. She had a zoned appearance. The party planner thought she was on drugs, is that what you mean?" April raised her delicate eyebrows. "Drug angle?"

"Why don't you tell the truth to a man you know well, who loves you very much and wants to marry you?"

Who needed this tonight of all nights? Twice in one day was too much. April tossed her head. They'd been through it all before. Certain things were facts of life. Their differences. She didn't want to go into it again.

"Don't you get it?" he demanded. "You're nearly twice that girl's age. You talk about getting married. You think about the menu and your dress, but that's about it. What are you waiting for? A death in the family?"

"Mike!" April inhaled sharply, taking a direct hit from the man she'd always counted on to be a good sport.

"You know your mother is not going to die to release you. She'll probably outlive us both. Why can't you do what's right for you and me?" His face was angry. He meant it.

April stared at him, annoyed that he'd just tossed away any chance for a happy moment at the end of a very difficult day.

"Why bring this up now?" She poured more tea for health. Drank her second cup of the day, immediately needed to pee.

Mike put his hands on the table. "A relationship has to move forward or end. That's it, April. I'm telling you right now."

"What's this, an ultimatum?" Her cheeks flushed hotter.

"Look, I've tried everything to show I love you. How many years now? I'm discouraged. I have bad dreams." Mike shook his head. "And now this case."

April was tired and just as upset by the case as he was. The press was doing its usual dirty work, blaming the victim for the crime. The Ribikoffs and Schoenfelds were being held up as child abusers for arranging the marriage of teenage children. April wished her lover would stay focused on the crime. It wasn't about them.

"You'd be insulted if a man lived with you forever without setting a date." He drank some water, then called the waiter over and ordered a beer.

"This case is doing something to you," she said finally.

"Maybe, but it isn't only the case. It's a lot of things coming together. You've been stalling. You only think about your point of view, never mine."

"I think about you all the time," she protested.

"Look. Last week when you went home I had dinner with
Mamita.
You know what she said?"

"I can guess." April put a hand to the medal Maria Sanchez had given her to make her a Catholic. It was the patron saint of soldiers and policemen. St. Some-thingorother.

"Mamita
has a boyfriend who wants to marry her."

April nodded. Nothing new there.

"She's telling people she's thirty-eight, two years older than me; that's going some on the Virgin Mother. And she loves that what's-his-name." Mike waved his hand, unable to remember the name of his mother's lover.
"Mami
says she can't marry him until I'm married."

Oy. Diego Alambra, believe it or not, was an Italian maitre d' who wanted to marry Mike's Spanish mother, a widow of five years. She was over fifty. What was she waiting for? Figure it out.

"Mamita
says she's living in sin. She says we're living in sin. And the truth is, I wouldn't live endlessly with someone who wouldn't marry
me.
Would you?" Mike gave her a clear-eyed stare, and April finally drew breath.

There was a Chinese saying: A reladonship can endure anything but disrespect. So now they had a pride situation: the pride of Maria Sanchez against the face of Sai Yuan Woo. A pathetic situation. Maria Sanchez had plans of her own, and now she had muscle. She'd found the right words to influence her son. Pride and honor for the Spanish ran as deep as face for the Chinese. Mike had to defend his honor now, and now that April saw it his way, she couldn't deny he was right. Jimmy Wong, who'd been her sometime boyfriend for several years before Mike, had frequently promised to marry her. When he hadn't made good on his promise, she'd dumped him. Mike always told her she was the love of his life, but right now she could see that pride was gaining strength. Certainly in Chinese, face for millions of people was more important than love.

The waiter returned with some pickled vegetables, a plate of steamed vegetable dumplings, and
shui mai.
April poured herself another cup of tea. She'd lost her appetite. Poor Tovah had gone along with her mother's wish for her to marry a boy she didn't know in a big production. This was something only poor and hopeless Chinese women did these days. Independent people didn't marry to suit their parents. It wasn't as though April didn't
know
this.

"Querida?"

Mike wanted an answer. She owed him one. She wasn't a girl like Tovah with no will of her own, a wuss, a sop, a weakling afraid to defy her parents.

There were consequences for everything. So she decided to tell him and let him figure it out. She put her hand to her forehead and blurted her secret. "I hold the mortgage on the house."

"Your house?" Mike frowned. What did that have to do with anything?

"Yes."

"That's it? That's your reason for not getting married?"

April pressed her lips together. Not qi*»te, but pretty much that was it.

"So ... you owe, what, sixty thousand dollars? Seventy?" It wasn't that great a property; how much could it be? Mike frowned, trying to figure it out. It was just across the bridge from Manhattan, but small, had no garage. They'd bought it before the Queens real estate boom. There wasn't even a dishwasher in the kitchen.

"Seventy-three," April admitted. "It has a thirty-year mortgage, and the house is probably worth more now."

"Lots more now. I don't get this. You don't want to get married because you owe seventy-three thousand dollars?" He was incredulous. She made more than that in a year. Together they made more than twice that every year. He already had more than fifteen years in. He was being recruited to the private sector practically every day. Plenty of jobs out there for a lot more money.

"The house is probably worth two hundred now. Maybe more," he said. What was her problem?

"I don't own it, only the mortgage." April's bladder was bursting. She needed a bathroom.

"That's it?" he repeated, frowning some more.

"Yeah." She lifted a shoulder. It was a lot of money, and she couldn't force her parents to sell. The way she saw it, Mike supported his mother. That was two rents in his column. Her father helped with the house, but not a lot, and Skinny Dragon not at all. Both of April's parents were tightfisted in the extreme. They were saving for their old age, afraid of an empty belly. April's head ached. Money and filial piety, and love for Mike. Those were her conflicts. She'd almost gotten over the whole ambition thing. Almost.

"I'll be right back." She jumped out of her chair, charged to the bathroom, and peed copiously, sighing with relief. Then the case popped back in her mind. So much for lack of ambition.

Wendy may or may not have had a cigarette or a drink and then gone to pee during the ceremony. But she had opportunity. She was the manipulator here, the one who knew everything. April made a note to herself to have a word with Hollis to stay out of it and let her handle the questioning. She wanted to go over the client list, do her own background check of Wendy. There was something there, but she didn't know what it was.

When April got back to the table, Mike was sipping his beer, deep in thought. He picked up a dumpling with his chopsticks and smiled at her enigmatically. "Pretty good," he said about the food.

"I'm glad you like it." April waited for his next words. But none were forthcoming. She gathered that the ball was in her court now. She poured her fourth cup of tea. Now for health she had only sixteen to go.

Nineteen

A
t eleven-thirty that night April picked up her home phone on the first ring. It was Ching.

"Ching. How ya doin'?" April was disappointed. She'd hoped it was Mike, calling to say he was sorry he'd been so tough on her.

Ching started wailing right away. "Oh, God, April. This is a terrible thing. Who killed that poor girl? Ma saw it on TV and she's going nuts."

"I don't know. It's an odd, sad case, but it doesn't have anything to do with you. Tell your mother."

"I told her, but she thinks it's bad luck."

April sighed. "How can a stranger's murder be bad luck for you?"

"Well, not only me, April. You, too."

"Oh, God," April muttered.

"She thinks you'll never get married. Did you call Gao back?"

"Huh? Gao?"

"He's the chef you had lunch with yesterday."

Oh, Jesus.
April closed her eyes. She didn't have dme for this. "Sorry, Ching, I remember. You know I can't fix parking tickets. I have no 'in' with Immigration. He wants a green card, get a lawyer, whatever.

If he's been collared I'll check it out. But not right now."

"He hasn't been collared," Ching said.

"Good." Anything having to do with a hostage or kidnaping she could get Special Case detectives on it. She didn't want to sound harsh, but her plate was full and her influence limited.

"No, no, it's nothing like that. He wants to better himself is all. He's a good guy, relative of a relative of Matthew's. And he's really good, trust me."