Skin Deep Page 9

  Address: she wasn’t living in Athena but rather Slaterville, which is the sketchier, uglier, trailer-park-ish neighboring town. Definitely a lie.

  Rap sheet: pot possession. Disturbing the peace. Simple assault. The kind of shit she was pulling when I knew her when.

  Except these arrests were from the last two years.

  Like I said, Siobhan, I’m all grown up now.

  I put my head down on my desk and closed my eyes.

  30

  The words above the door of the Athena Police Station read HALL OF JUSTICE. Being a sleepy upstate New York town, Athena could probably get away with VESTIBULE OF JUSTICE, but that doesn’t sound as impressive.

  I’d devoured a convenience store hot dog on the way over here, so my mouth still tasted of greasy mystery meat as I walked through the double doors. I identified myself to the officer manning the front counter and told him I was here to see Keeler.

  After a quick phone call, he said, “Make two lefts and you’ll be at the entrance of the holding cells. Lieutenant Keeler will meet you there.”

  I thanked him and proceeded through the white metal door once he buzzed it open.

  As I walked, I thought about how I was going to handle this. I was mad, not so much at Josie but at myself for failing to do the obvious. Why was I so quick to believe everything she told me? Everybody lies, especially people who come to private investigators for help.

  There was no one at the cell entrance, just me and the locked door that led to the area of miscreants. I’d been here a few times when I’d worked at the paper, but it had been a couple of years. I peered through the small reinforced window on the door, but all I could see was the empty hallway beyond.

  Keeler, who was two years shy of thirty years on the force, hurried in. He looked like he wanted to be retired yesterday. His white shirt had gotten untucked and his meticulous combover had gone askew to one side, making him look more unbalanced than usual.

  “And I thought I look like shit,” I said.

  “Your friend ain’t making it any easier. Her arresting officer was this close to upping her charge.”

  “What’s going on? I’ve never seen you so stressed.”

  “Some right-wing gasbag is giving a speech at Lenrock, a guy I never even heard of, but apparently he’s famous on YouTube. Demonstrators on both sides are keeping us occupied.” Keeler scanned his ID badge to open the secured door. “Cell C. Call me and I’ll let you back out. I got another ten fires to put out.”

  The police station had four cells. Cell A had a homeless-looking guy who was snoring away on his bunk. Cell B’s occupant, a young black man with ropey dreadlocks that cascaded over his broad shoulders, grinned at me with vacant eyes.

  Cell C.

  Josie was sitting in her bunk in her business garb, black blouse and gray slacks, though like Keeler, she was quite disheveled, even her makeup. Her red lipstick on her right side was smeared over on her right cheek, making her look a bit like a lopsided Joker, while on her left cheek, there was an angry red welt the size of a quarter.

  “Hey,” I said.

  She bolted upright.

  “What’s happening with Penny? Did you make any progress?”

  “We probably should talk about you first. Since, you know, you’re in jail.”

  After she stared me down for a good few seconds, she sat against the wall on her bunk with her eyes closed.

  “I bet you’re happy now,” Josie said.

  I leaned against the bars and faced the end of the hallway, so I could speak to her without making eye contact. The iron bars, thick and painted in bright white, were cold against my arm.

  “Because you haven’t changed?” I asked.

  “I know you’ve never liked me, Siobhan. You only put up with me because of Marlene. And as soon as my sister was in the ground, you couldn’t wait to get the hell away from me.”

  I stared at the bar closest to me, the glossy white enamel that looked almost liquid under the clinical fluorescent lights above. “I had every right to leave that house.”

  “What you’re really saying is that you had every right to leave me.”

  “Yes,” I said. “That too.”

  “You didn’t even say goodbye. Did you know that?”

  The longer I gazed at the cylindrical surface of the metal bar, the more I noticed the imperfections—nicks, chips, dings. Look long enough, and nothing remains unflawed.

  “You’re not working for Lenrock,” I said.

  “No shit. Fancy colleges like Lenrock don’t hire people like me.”

  “What happened this time? What did you do?”

  “Saved lives is what I did. This asshole in his fucking truck in front of me, drift, drift, jerk, onto oncoming traffic not once but twice. After the second time, I sped in front of him and forced him to stop.”

  “Forced him?”

  “Put the brakes on and blocked his way.”

  The way she said it, it sounded like she’d made this move before. Was she aware of the textbook nature of her impulsive action here, that it was an obvious callback to her big sister’s death? Probably, because Josie was not stupid, but then again, Josie was just being Josie.

  “And then you get out of your car, the guy gets out of his truck…”

  “Fucker was texting on his phone, big surprise, I could see it because when he jumped out, he was holding onto his phone, the screen on the texting app. It’s as bad, if not worse, than driving drunk. Told him I was placing him under citizen’s arrest and he laughed at me and walked away. So I grabbed him and then things got a little out of hand.”

  “Like the bruise on your face.”

  Josie tentatively traced her wound with her finger, then smiled. “You should see the other guy.”

  I don’t know if it was because what she’d said was such a well-worn cliché, or because that crooked smile of hers made her eighteen again, but we laughed and the tension between us broke.

  I told her I didn’t know where Penny was yet but that I was gathering some decent intel. When I got to the part about meeting Faith, I figured it was as good time as any to ask her about the menstrual journal.

  Josie shook her head. “So now you think I’m some kind of a basket case who tracked my daughter’s bowel movements, too.”

  “Green Hair, as you called her, had her own version of truth, as you have yours. We all do.”

  Josie lied down on her bunk so now I was seeing the top of her head, offering me the old school shrink’s view.

  “Here’s the thing, Siobhan, something you don’t know because you don’t have kids. You end up doing all sorts of crazy shit for them, like keeping tabs of their periods. Because of my daughter’s particular kind of hyperthyroidism, she has to adjust her dose when she’s on her cycle. And because she’s a teenager, she’s not very good at keeping track of things, so I do it. That way, she takes her pills at the right time and doesn’t get deathly ill. Is that an acceptable answer?”

  “How do you know I don’t have kids?” I asked.

  “Sorry, I assumed. Am I wrong?”

  “No.”

  She laughed.

  “You were tight with Marlene, but she used to tell me things, too. Like how she and you saw eye to eye about children.”

  What a strange thing it was to have someone tell you something about yourself that you didn’t remember. It was almost as if she was talking about a different person.

  “I can’t say I recall telling her that, but I’m amazed you do.”

  “I was envious of you, Siobhan. I wanted to be close to Marlene like you were to her. My therapist, when I had money to see one, said that’s why I ended up adopting Penny.”

  So much for my powers of psychological deduction. Penny wasn’t a stand-in for Marlene, but rather me. How sad was that?

  My cell rang: Keeler.

  “Knocking off in half an hour. Post your friend’s bail, she goes home. Otherwise she spe
nds a few quiet nights here.”

  Five hundred bucks, that was the bail. So the check that Josie gave me, the one that I couldn’t even deposit yet, was going right back. Even though I was a newbie at this running my own business thing, I had a pretty good idea that this was not the way to make money.

  “Who was that?” Josie asked.

  “The cop that’s gonna set you free.”

  Josie stood up from her bunk and walked over to where I was.

  “You’re paying the bail,” she said.

  “Pay me back later.”

  She put her hands through the bars. A big boned girl, almost six foot tall, but Josie always felt small to me. I took her hands into mine.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “I’ll be back.”

  As I turned, she said, “Andrew, my husband…”

  “…ex-husband…”

  “I needed you to take this case, Siobhan. I’m sorry I lied, but I needed you to find my daughter.”

  “I understand,” I said. And I did.

  31

  After dropping off Josie at the impound lot so she could drive herself home, I thought back to the no kids thing she mentioned. Honestly, I could not remember such a conversation taking place with Marlene, so obviously it hadn’t meant much to me at the time. But as I kept mining my own past, something I hadn’t thought of in years came back to me. Once I fully realized I was a transracial adoptee, I’m not sure what I thought about more, the mystery of my birth parents or the mystery of my birth life. What I mean is this: every adoptee leads two lives, the one that is and the one that could have been. If my mother hadn’t given me up, more likely than not, I would’ve grown up speaking Korean, eating Korean food, having Korean friends in a land on the other side of the globe. The gulf between those two lives is so wide that it remains beyond the reach of my imagination. That rift is what both intrigued and distressed me during those formative years, right about Penny’s age. It was worth noting that Penny might be living in a similar quandary, which may have attributed to her disappearance.

  Back in my office building, with my mind marinating in the sauce of my own complicated existence, I walked down the hallway to Craig’s office. There was a Post-It on the door saying he wouldn’t be back until Friday. His penmanship was font-worthy, the tops and bottoms of his cursive aligned as if with a ruler. I hadn’t realized how much I was looking forward to seeing him.

  Before I had a chance to truly wallow in pity, the phone rang. I ran back and picked it up just before it transferred over to voicemail.

  “This is so boss!” Faith said. Before leaving Llewellyn, I’d left the fake eyelashes I’d found in Travers Hall with either Katie or Carson, and emailed the photos of the mannequins and the wigs to Faith. “Molly scanned the QR codes on the eyelashes and they point to a Park Industries-owned laboratory known for nanotechnology and polymer research. Maybe that’s why they have the place under lock and key.”

  “I’m glad one of us is getting something out of this,” I said. “We square now, you and me?”

  “Yes, but I don’t want us to be. I just held an emergency meeting with the Womyn and we decided that we want to hire you.”

  I was sympathetic to these girls and their beliefs, but did I really want to get involved any more than I already was?

  “Find someone else to break into the next building.”

  “That’s not it. What we need is legitimacy. I want Wheeler to know we are serious about this, and that we are onto her.”

  “But what are we exactly onto?” I said. “She has every right to steer Llewellyn in a direction that she and the board believe to be beneficial to the well-being of the college.”

  “But I can’t imagine the board would be in support of what she’s doing. They’re a bunch of fossils on the brink of senility, anyway. What we need is for you to confront her and find out exactly what her plans are.”

  “What happened to your contact in the media? We’re not going to see the team from 60 Minutes on campus for a riveting exposé?”

  “I’ve already talk to my contact and she isn’t totally sold on the idea yet. Which is why we need you to record your conversation with Wheeler.”

  “A wire.”

  “An antiquated term. Your phone will be more than capable of recording your conversation—you just need the right app. We’ll pay you $500 for your services. That’s how much we have in the budget, so I hope it’s enough.”

  Why did everything cost $500? Whatever—that would pay for Josie’s bail, so I agreed. Besides, I was planning to talk to Wheeler anyway about Penny’s whereabouts, and actually maybe these girls did me a favor. I could use what I learned in Travers as leverage, possibly.

  We said our goodbyes. I turned on the office computer, a hulking black tower underneath my desk that wheezed and groaned like an old man. I read an email from Sven, my brother, writing to let me know that he was going to make it to Thanksgiving next month. He lives in Washington state, in the northwest part near the San Juan Islands, working as a mechanical engineer for a trucking company. We lived on opposite coasts and our parents were in the middle. When I visited Korea those many years ago, I never forgot that the two largest cities, Seoul and Busan, were barely two and a half hours via train. As much as I love the United States, sometimes I resent its geographical girth.

  After wading through my inbox, I checked through my notebook and saw “Grace’s bodyguard’s inside wrist.” I hadn’t gotten a chance to count the number of stars, but it looked like a bunch. A few tries later, I had it via Google Image search: Chil Sung Pa, which translated to Seven Star Mob. According to Wikipedia, it was the most powerful gang in South Korea, their criminal activities so secretive that the Korean Police had trouble containing them. A member of the Korean mafia was protecting the daughter of one of the most powerful companies in the world.

  Which reminded me to look up Park Industries. Mainly I was interested in Won Ho Park, the chairman and CEO, the man who’d built the gigantic multinational conglomerate from the ground up. According to the history page on the company’s website, his dad was a fisherman and his mom a schoolteacher. There weren’t many photos of Park, but because his current wife—he was on his third—was the opposite when it came to public exposure, I found a few photos of him standing next to Cleopatra Park at various ritzy events, benefit galas and such. He was about my height, possibly shorter, but in all the snapshots, he had such a sense of himself. It wasn’t exactly confidence, nor was it arrogance, but just a clarity of who he was. He looked like a man who always knew exactly what he wanted.

  There were so many photos of Cleopatra that she had her own image timeline on Google, which I thought only celebrities had. But I supposed she was a celebrity, because she certainly knew how to pose like one. Her cheekbones were cut like the face of Kilimanjaro and her waist was as tiny as Audrey Hepburn’s in Roman Holiday. Whether in the glow of natural sunlight or bleached by the harshness of a flash bulb, she was the most alluring person. And, shockingly, she was pushing fifty. Women in general were looking better nowadays, what with plastic surgery and Botox and better diets and Pilates, but this encroached Dorian Gray territory. I couldn’t have dreamed of looking that good when I was eighteen. Cleopatra deserved her name.

  I blinked my eyes because they were dry. And they were dry because I’d been on the computer for…two hours? As wonderful as the internet was, here was its dark side.

  My inbox dinged.

  Hey. Now that we’ve shared cronuts, how about we take it up a notch and go for dinner when I return on Friday?

  Craig was asking me out. Via email, which wasn’t as personal as over the phone, but I think it rated higher than a text? Or something like that. I placed the computer on standby and headed out for a walk. I felt like whistling, but I was a terrible whistler. I whistled anyway, and it was bad, so I stopped.

  32

  This day was beginning to feel like it was never going to end, but of
course, it was ending because it was already dark outside. While I’d gotten lost in the internet, the sun had set and the Commons, the beating heart of my town, was readying itself for dinner and drinks. The blackboard at O’Reilly’s announced a dozen beer-battered chicken wings and a pitcher of Killian’s for ten bucks. Next door, Chayo Phaya served flattened and rolled ice cream in addition to their crack-level-delicious pad thai.

  I couldn’t decide what to eat, which mean I wasn’t hungry yet, but the stroll around the Commons felt refreshing, the evening air clean and crisp. On my walk back to the office, my phone rang. There was a bench in front of Buffalo Books, so I sat and took the call.

  “The masses have spoken, Siobhan O’Brien,” said the voice on the phone. Professor Marks.

  “Lawrence.”

  “You are hereby granted access to our next session of Creative Writing 201. Shall you join us tomorrow at half past eleven?”

  “I shall,” I said.

  “Then it shall be!” Marks declared. “We have declared it so. Grover 107. The class runs for one hour and fifteen minutes. We hold a ten-minute intermission at the midpoint, where we delight in cookies and tea and each other’s company.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “And even though you are not an official member of our literary enclave, if you wish to bring something short to read – a few choice verses of a poem, a sliver of a short story—you are more than welcome to do so.”

  “You mean like something I wrote?”

  “But of course.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be doing that.”

  A tiny wren flew down from the maple tree above and pecked at the ground, finding food invisible to my eyes.

  “The choice is yours, Siobhan O’Brien. The choice is always yours. Till we meet tomorrow, sweet gumshoe.”

  I hung up my phone and sat there for a moment. If nothing else, Marks’s class was setting itself up to be a solid source of entertainment.

  Instead of taking the elevator, I climbed the stairs to my office, my steps echoing up and down the emptiness. Sometimes I do this because I like to feel the effort of my legs and my lungs. Sometimes I do it to clear my head. And sometimes it’s because there’s something I don’t want to do, an avoidance tactic.