Black Current Read online

  “Who told you I’d be coming to talk to you?”

  “Nobody you need to know about.” Now the beasts were loping across the emerald grass.

  “You’ll never be honest, Chaffee. I see that now that I’ve met you. So what would be the point of talking?”

  The dogs had reached the fence. They were powerful animals, no doubt perfect specimens. They began to bark loudly at me, lunging at the fence.

  “Shut it,” Thad snapped. The dogs obeyed. One whined and dropped to the ground.

  “There’s one or two things I could tell you.” He slipped the knife into the pocket of his baggy shorts. “One or two things you’d be interested in.”

  Dealing with this guy would be like entering a funhouse with mirrors. I’d never know when he was telling the truth and when he was lying. But I couldn’t walk away.

  “All right, Chaffee. I’ll pay you a hundred dollars if you tell me everything you remember about my brother and the night he died.”

  “First off, I don’t see no money.” He ran a hand through his long stringy hair. “Second, a hundred’s not enough.” He looked at me, calculating what he thought he could get. “My bottom line is five hundred, cash. I figure most people would pay five hundred for their brother. Or—half in money, the other half on your back.”

  “In a minute you’ll be on your back, Chaffee. With that knife at your throat.”

  He shrugged. “Take your pick.”

  The creep was sickening me. “All right, five hundred. But you better tell me everything you know, and not lie about it. Agreed?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, get the money and I’ll talk. Give me your cell number.”

  “I know where to find you.” I glanced over at the château. “Who the hell owns this, anyway?”

  “Guy who made a lot of money in the eighties. Bought it with cash.”

  Cocaine. According to my Realtor friend Tiffany Tang, a number of Montecito homes, priced in the tens of millions, were purchased with cash in the eighties.

  “So the coke dealer locks up his son. What for?”

  “Kid’s autistic. They don’t like having him around. Hard to keep under control.”

  “I’m sure you manage.” I turned away and headed for my bike.

  “Oh yeah, I manage,” he called after me. “I got a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  * * *

  I was out playing catch with Dex early the next morning when I heard my cell ring back in the house. I decided to ignore the phone, because the morning was too delicious to abandon. Hummingbirds, tiny flares of burnished copper, chased one another through the big patch of Mexican sage, then shot away into a blue and white buttermilk sky.

  The little heeler had never learned to fetch—he figured he was supposed to toss the ball, just like me. So I’d throw and he’d hobble after the thing on his three legs, pick it up in his mouth and fling it back. He was pretty darn good at it, too.

  The ringing stopped. I tossed a high pop-up to Dex. Then the dratted phone started up again.

  I walked slowly toward the doorway, willing the jangle to stop again. It did. And then, for the third time, it rang. Something was wrong.

  “Jaymie … it’s me.” I’d never heard Claudia like this before, except around the time her sister had died. She sounded upset, on the verge of tears.

  “Take it easy. Where are you?”

  “At the aquarium. It’s my day to—to—”

  “Volunteer?”

  “Yeah. To get things set up for the day. Jaymie, you gotta hurry. Come right now.”

  I glanced at the kitchen clock: 7:36. The aquarium wasn’t scheduled to open for nearly an hour and a half.

  “Claudia, what’s going on?”

  “Out on the wet deck. There’s—something—snagged on the ladder that goes down into the hole.”

  “Something? What do you mean?”

  “It’s—it’s a body.”

  “A body?” I stared through the open door, into the pristine blue morning. “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know, but I think it’s a woman. They haven’t lifted her out yet. Just hurry up, Jaymie! I’m not supposed to leave, nobody can. I’ll let you in at the back—they’ve locked all the doors.”

  “Be there right away.” I jammed the phone in my pocket and hurried out to the breezeway. Warning Dex to stay put, I hopped on my bike and tore down the hill.

  I rode dangerously, skidding on the turn at the bottom of Cliff and nearly flying off. I braked with my feet, sacrificing the soles of my shoes, and sped up again. All the way there I thought about the wet deck, with its gaping hole to the ocean below. Who in God’s name was hooked on the ladder?

  I pumped hard over the timbers of the dock, then let my bike fall at the back of the aquarium. The door was open a crack. As I hurried toward it, it opened further, revealing a scared-looking Claudia.

  “Jaymie—”

  I slipped inside and closed the door. Then I grasped the girl by the elbow. “Claudia. Who’s here right now?”

  “Vanessa and Porter, and the lady who runs the snack bar upstairs. And Dr. Thompson.”

  “Have they called the police?”

  “I don’t know. Jaymie—”

  “We’ll talk later.” I gave her a quick hug. “Wait for me in the foyer. You’ve seen enough.”

  I jogged down the hall. The front desk was unmanned and the gift shop dusky, its CLOSED sign in place. I hurried past the glowing tanks of the smaller fish and invertebrates.

  I mentally steadied myself before entering the room holding the massive jellyfish tank. Without wanting to, I glanced at the tank as I jogged past. The box jellyfish was gone, and in its place a school of silvery herring veered through the softly lit water.

  Telling myself to slow down, I took a deep breath before I pushed open the pair of doors at the end of the tank room. They swung open onto the wet deck.

  The space was roughly circular, floored in boat decking. At the center of the space a large open cylinder rose about four feet up from the floor. The cover was folded back, and a net was drawn up out of the cylinder and draped over the side.

  Neil Thompson and Porter Logsdon stood near each other, against a wall. Porter was smoking, his arms hugging his chest as if he were freezing. Neil’s head was bent as he talked intently into his phone. Neither of them gave me a glance.

  I walked over to the six-foot-diameter cylinder and looked down into the oily water.

  It was a ghastly sight. A woman’s body was hooked to the last rung of a narrow steel ladder riveted to the cylinder wall. Somehow, the sleeve of her pale mint-colored sweater had snagged as she fell.

  I bent over the edge to get a better look, and let out a gasp. Cheryl Kerr’s face floated like a moon in the black water, white and round. She’d apparently lost her glasses in the fall, and her pale blind eyes gazed upward. Opaque as pearls, they met my own.

  I made myself look. And look and look, in case I didn’t get another chance.

  White froth bubbled from her gaping mouth. The wavelets lapped at her, and her body swayed back and forth.

  Then I saw something so disturbing I could hardly breathe. I could only watch as a thick oily brown rope slipped up and onto her chest.

  A rope that was alive.

  The rope slid toward her open mouth. In spite of myself, I let out a sharp cry.

  Thompson was beside me in an instant. “It’s an eel,” he muttered. “A goddamn eel.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out as the eel slipped back into the water. “Dr. Thompson, have you called the police?”

  “I was just about to.” But he hesitated.

  “Forget about Steinbach,” I snapped, regaining my presence of mind. “Call the police if you haven’t already. Do it now.”

  “Wait, what are you doing here?” He was beginning to look confused. “You need—you need to go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  His cell rang like a wind chime, and Thompson slapped it to his ear. He glanced at m
e, then moved away to the opposite side of the room to talk.

  I walked over to Porter Logsdon. He looked edgy, nearly as white as the corpse. “Porter? Who found the body?”

  “Vannie.” He took a deep drag on his cigarette. I was sure he wished he was smoking something else. “We were assigned to set up the wet deck this morning. Vannie, she rolled back the cover, and saw it.” He was trying to sound cool, not succeeding at all.

  “Where is Vanessa now?”

  “The lady who runs the snack bar took her upstairs. Vannie freaked.”

  I nodded and turned away. I could go upstairs and talk to Vanessa and Delia, but first I needed to look around. It wouldn’t be long before the cops arrived.

  I circled the tank. Though the cover was folded back, it wasn’t secured. Vanessa must have caught sight of the body before she completed the task.

  Other than that, everything around the tank seemed in order. The trays that were used to hold specimens dredged up from the ocean floor were neatly stacked on a table. A variety of implements were arranged in rows. All very tidy. I circled again, in the opposite direction. And that’s when I spotted it, on the floor.

  A flower lay against the base of the tank. It was pressed flat, as if it had come off the bottom of a shoe. Carefully, I flipped it over with the toe of my sneaker. On the back side I could make out the color: burnt-orange, deep blue at the throat. Something tropical, maybe.

  I fought the urge to pick up the squashed flower and slip it into my pocket. I was sorely tempted. But instead I pulled out my phone, crouched down, and snapped several shots. Then I turned it over again and snapped pictures of the other side. The side which, now that I looked more closely, did bear the partial imprint of the sole of a shoe.

  “What’s that?” Neil loomed over me. His thin ponytail fell forward over one shoulder.

  “A dead flower. Probably nothing, but the police will want to take a look.” I placed my hand on his arm as he reached down. “I wouldn’t touch it. It could be evidence.”

  He shook off my hand and picked it up. “I’ll make sure they get it.”

  And so would I. “Don’t let it get lost in your pocket.”

  The blood rose like a tide, up Neil Thompson’s scrawny neck to his hairline. He opened his mouth to answer, just as a dentist-drill of a voice pierced the air.

  “Zarlin! What the hell are you doing here?”

  I looked across the room and met Detective Krause’s round baby-blues. I shrugged in reply.

  “No, I mean it.” Deirdre was at my elbow now, patting her fluffy blond hairdo as if it were a favorite pet. “I want to know exactly why you’re here and then I want you to get the hell out.”

  “Anyone would think you’d be more welcoming, Deirdre. Since I solved your last case for you.”

  Her mouth pursed into a pout. “Showing off, that’s all it was. Real police work is about attention to detail.”

  “Hm. And I thought it was about solving cases.” Why was it, I wondered, that I could never keep my mouth shut around this woman?

  “By the way, Zarlin. I heard it was Mike Dawson who dropped you, not the other way around. Can’t say I was surprised.”

  My mind flipped back and forth between two equally juvenile options: to pop Deirdre Krause in the nose, or guffaw in her face.

  “Cat got your tongue, Zarlin?”

  “If only the cat would get yours.”

  She trilled her signature shrill-whistle laugh. “Now one more time. What are you doing here?”

  I decided to answer. If I didn’t, she’d hound me, and I wasn’t sure I could stay cool. “Mr. and Mrs. Rasmussen are my clients. Remember, Deirdre? The parents of the boy who died here of an accidental fall. Sure are a lot of accidents around here.”

  Deirdre was uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her words took me by surprise.

  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe you’re not the only one who wants to solve cases? It’s easy for you, Zarlin. Try having a boss over you, or two or three.”

  Tongue-tied, I stared at the woman. I’d never heard her speak straight before. “Deirdre, I—”

  As fast as it had disappeared, her pout returned. “Oh, never mind. I don’t know why I’m bothering to talk to you. Just tell me, have you uncovered any actual info proving Skye Rasmussen’s death wasn’t an accident?”

  Even though Deirdre had let slip and shown she was human, I knew from past experience that sharing with her was a bad idea, a one-way street. No good would come of telling her about Taryn’s abortion or John Tactacquin’s blowup at the Rasmussens’. Besides, I’d no intention of breaking my word to Taryn. But there was one thing I did want to make sure she knew.

  “No. But I can tell you something about this case.”

  She actually tried to smile at me, and it was kind of scary. Like seeing a cat with a crocodile’s grin. “What’s that?”

  “I found something on the floor just now, next to the tank.”

  The smirk evaporated. “Hand it over.”

  “I haven’t got it. Dr. Thompson’s holding on to it for you.”

  “So I would have gotten it anyway. What else?”

  “Nothing. That’s it.”

  “Right. This is a crime scene.” She held up a dimpled hand and beckoned over the big officer who always seemed to follow her around.

  “Troy? Make sure Ms. Zarlin locates the door.”

  * * *

  “Jaymie, have you heard? The police arrested John Tactacquin last night.” Melanie’s voice was somber, dragged down. “They say he murdered a woman—and they’re saying … Skye, too.”

  “Yes, I heard.” I took a slow breath, and shifted the office phone to my left ear.

  Cheryl had been dead for only two days, and her body hadn’t even been autopsied yet. The cops had moved ultra fast, and who could blame them? Two deaths by drowning at the Santa Barbara Aquarium—the city’s residents were on edge.

  “Melanie. How do you feel about this—will it help bring closure to you and Dave?”

  “I don’t know how I feel. Not like I thought I would.” She measured out her words one by one. “I’m just horribly sad. Sad for his daughter, too.”

  “Taryn’s a nice girl.”

  “I know that our son…” Her voice broke. “I know Skye was fond of her.”

  “You could make contact with her. I think Taryn would like that.”

  “Maybe one day.” She was silent for a time. I let the silence expand.

  “Jaymie, I guess … we won’t be needing you anymore.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Dave is sure it was Tactacquin!” Melanie blurted out. “But do you think they got the right one?”

  “I’m sorry. I wish I could say yes. But no, I’m not sure.”

  I’d suspected Tactacquin, all right. I’d figured he might have killed Skye for revenge, revenge for hurting his daughter, revenge for pressuring her into an abortion and then dumping her. And he could have killed Cheryl, who might have seen or known too much.

  After all, Tactacquin had the door code to let himself into the aquarium, and he couldn’t come up with a solid alibi for either murder. Means, motive, no alibi: it all added up.

  It added up, but somehow it didn’t feel right.

  Focus on the facts, I reminded myself. Feelings aren’t good enough.

  But that was part of the problem, wasn’t it. Because the fact was, I was pretty sure John Tactacquin did have an alibi. He just didn’t have one he was willing to reveal.

  Chapter Twelve

  “We met in high school. Santa Maria High.” The slight, wispy-haired woman sat erect and still on the office couch. “John was a football star. I was in the band. I played the flute.”

  “That’s nice,” Gabi enthused. “He was your high-school sweetheart!” Gabi seemed to have forgotten that the high-school sweetheart was now accused of a double homicide.

  “Yes.” Donna Tactacquin smiled a little. “I thought John was quite a catch.
Being in the band wasn’t such a cool thing, you know.”

  “We can’t all be cheerleaders,” I said. “But I guess it didn’t matter to John?”

  “No, not at all. We had trouble, though. My dad didn’t like it that John was Filipino. And when he found out John’s dad was a field worker—” She shook her head. “I used to sneak out the window at night, John would pick me up out on the street.”

  “But you two got what you wanted in the end,” Gabi observed. “That is true love.”

  “Yes, we did.” Donna shrugged. “The usual way, I guess. My senior year, I was pregnant with Kenny, Taryn’s brother. My dad, like I said, didn’t like it that John wasn’t white, and he didn’t like it that I was pregnant and not married. But in the end he accepted it. And after a while, thanks to the grandkids, none of that mattered.”

  “That’s how it is,” Gabi said. “Grandkids—grandparents will do anything for them.”

  Donna looked over at Gabi and nodded. “Isn’t that the truth?” She twisted the strap of her purse in her hands.

  “I don’t have no grandkids,” Gabi continued. “But I have so many nieces and nephews. So many birthdays, I am telling you. I can’t even—”

  I cleared my throat. “Donna, how can we help you?”

  “I want you to work for us. Gabi called and told me you aren’t working for the Rasmussens anymore. I want you to prove my husband is innocent.”

  Gabi called? I gave my assistant a stony look. Chastisement would have to come later, after Donna was gone.

  “I’m not sure what to say.” I chose my words carefully. “I’m not the only PI in this town. Why me?”

  “Taryn trusts you. So do I.”

  “You know there’s evidence pointing to John’s guilt.”

  “But,” Gabi interjected, “Miss Jaymie goes for the truth. Only the truth, she don’t care about no evidence.”

  “Ah—I wouldn’t put it quite that way.” I glanced at Donna, perched on the edge of the couch. She looked like a schoolgirl at that moment, all trust and hope. Why the hell did I have to be the one to stamp it out, to inform her that her beloved husband was most definitely a cheat? But maybe I didn’t need to go quite that far.