Hungry Ghosts Read online

  “Aren’t you his sister?”

  “That one.” I pointed to a large brass key on his ring.

  “You know the key? You’ve been in the tunnel?”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said, as if Eamon and I had played there as kids.

  “Take me down. Ajiko!” He was calling the female lead.

  Ajiko Sakai was a star in Japan. This was her first American film, her first step to stardom here. She was black-haired, tiny, and gorgeous. She was also polite. She stood waiting at Robin Sparto’s shoulder, her head barely that high. Compared to her, I was a baboon.

  There’s a reason stunt doubles are near-twins of the actors. Just how much pull did the universally known Eamon Lafferty have? I needed to get him one-on-one, this guy who walked off last night with the prize of Tia Dru. I needed to figure out what was going on with him and just who he was—if I could ever get beyond him not being Mike. But not now. Now was for connecting with Sparto and making sure the next time he needed a stunt double he’d remember me. I took the key and unlocked and pulled up the metal door.

  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.

  CHAPTER 11

  “TIA! WHA—?” 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.
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br />   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.

  A line of uniformed officers moved up the stairs and into the crime scene. It seemed both ages and no time at all till Korematsu returned. Vaguely I wondered if I was in shock. It was almost the same sensation I’d had in Tia’s dining room when I’d realized the truth about my brothers hunting for Mike. But one thing I was clearheaded enough to see was that there was no way I was going to let Mike’s name come into this investigation.

  Korematsu walked back in, propping himself against the doorway. There was a studied quality to his expression. He was slight, with hair that was long for a detective. I wondered if he was about to be rotated into an undercover job. He looked undercover, not homicide. He was way too sexy for homicide. I could see him half sprawled in a dark bar, setting up a buy, see his hair hanging over his eyes, down around his chiseled cheekbones.

  I flushed. I really was losing it. I stared down and inhaled slowly. Still I found myself thinking that he was one of those guys who hold their college looks till they’re fifty. Was he that old? When John was that age, he was already a force in Homicide. Had Korematsu joined the department late? “So, Ms. Lott, you said Ms. Dru disappeared about twelve-thirty.”

  “That’s right,” I said, yanking myself back to the question.

  “You talked to Detective Lott at twelve forty-eight. Then what did you do?”

  Broke into the garage was not the answer I wanted to share here. I sobered up quick. It was what they call in the stunt business “death curtain time,” the moment the assumptions are shattered and you know you’re going to die if you don’t get out that very instant. I’d had a few of those moments in car chase gags; each time I’d bailed I’d ended up with a broken pelvis or a collapsed lung—instead of a coffin. Now I saw in Korematsu’s face the deadly eyes of a homicide detective. Whom. I forced myself to stay still—no straightening of shoulders, no intake of breath, definitely not an iota of change of expression. “I waited for him. I wanted him to find her, but, well, there was nothing he could do, was there? Officially, I mean.”

  I th
ought for a moment he would say, “Whom do you mean?” but he merely nodded for me to go on. Not so much as a smile for John Lott’s sister. “I ran the neighborhood, checked each side of Broadway, the blocks around, Van Ness, Polk, and then went back to see if she’d come home.” I looked past him across the hall into Leo’s room. All I could see of Tia was her arm flung out palm up. I turned away, squeezing my eyes shut to hold back a torrent of tears.

  “That was what time?”

  “I don’t know. But then I ran back along Broadway to here and had Robin Sparto, the second unit director on the movie, get me through the barricade. The officer there may remember the time. Robin might have some idea.”

  “And then you came up here?”

  “After showing Robin something, yes.”

  “And you went to the priest’s room? Why was that?”

  To ask why the bell hadn’t rung as it always does to end the evening sitting, to find out if there had been an evening sitting at all, and to ask what could have been so important that the priest misses the evening service on the second day the zendo is open. “To say I was back.”

  “His door was shut.”

  “Yes.”

  “You knocked?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  “There was no response, so I went in.”

  “The door was shut and the priest didn’t say anything to admit you, but you went in anyway? Is that normal for your relationship with him, Ms. Lott?”

  I looked Korematsu in the eye. “It is.” At the monastery where I’d met Leo I’d had to protect him, and going in and out was part of that.

  “And you found a woman in his room.”

  Oh shit! “She was dead.”

  “There are footsteps, in blood, leading down from the crime scene—”

  “Mine. I went to get help.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Uh-huh.” I followed his eyes to the wad of clothing on the floor with the dark stains. If he tested them, he would discover the stains were mud. But by the time he got the results he would have dusted Tia’s apartment for prints and found mine. And then there was her garage, also full of my fingerprints. Whom! Now I remembered where I’d heard Korematsu’s name. He was a new instructor in the academy when John was in charge. As the least senior guy, Korematsu was assigned to teach recruits how to write reports. John had gotten him busted back to wherever he came from for the sin of focusing too heavily on grammar. As if, Grace had told me, writing a sentence clear enough for the D.A. to understand was going to be a blot on the department.