Chapter Thirteen
Part of working undercover involved a willingness to not only look like an asshole, but to act like one too.
Owen banged on the Tsarina’s door the way he’d once rapped on crack shacks, and when she answered her unusual gold eyes grew so large they looked like a sunrise.
“I…good evening.” She jerked her robe shut, its creamy fabric barely skimming thighs of legs which…he glanced. Went on for eternity. A ‘massage therapist’. Right. How much money earned ‘massaging’ did she reinvest right back into cultivating her illusion of flawless beauty? And how long would it be before even money couldn’t polish away the deterioration a life spent peddling skin-as-commerce wrought? Not long, he knew, and wondered if she realized it too—or would it hit her like a sucker punch when it happened?
The floor creaked as she stepped back, away. “I-I thought you were my cousin. That he forgot his key.”
He could hardly ask why her cousin was out skulking so late—or where, precisely, he was— when here he was, standing at her door after ten. “I didn’t mean to intrude,” he lied. “I was just passing by and saw your lights. Thought I’d stop and check if Rob dropped off the tools he said he’d leave here.”
“Oh. Well. Yes.” She speared a finger (trembling, he noted) toward a tidy cache stacked next to a wall then her hand fled back to the belt of her fancy housecoat, and fretted. “Is that all you needed?”
Nope. He shone the million-watt smile. “Not exactly. Rob wants me to do some tile work in your main bath and I—” He tossed in an aw-shucks sort of shrug, “—I’m a novice. I’d kind of like to take a peek at the space—”
“Now?”
Yes, Tsarina. Now. Why don’t you want me here?
Alarm, and panic, hurried over her face and damned if he didn’t feel like a prick. It frustrated him. On any other day ‘fear’ was the most efficient partner he’d ever worked with. Fear loosened lips. Fear made people make mistakes. Fear tripped up behavior quicker than anything else.
Well…except maybe love.
A memory—Sondra in her housecoat, far rattier than the Tsarina’s silk—tugged at his insides.
“It…it’s never too late,” said Natasha Nikoslav.
“Pardon?” He snapped out of memory.
“To…to ease your mind about a job,” she said quickly, and fuss, fuss, fussed with her snooty housecoat. “I…sometimes I call my clients long after their appointments, just to check on how they are faring.”
“Really.”
Heat the color of bricks seized her face. “Yes,” she said faintly. “Really. Do…do come in. Just…” She took several steps back. “Excuse me while I change. You…you know where the washroom is, right?”
“Actually, no.” Jack the discomfort. Jack the fear. C’mon, Sleeping Beauty. Tip your hand. Give yourself away. Tell me if you or your cousin were at my buddy’s tonight.
“I…”
He squinted, trying to interpret the expressions tripping over her face. Confusion and…hurt? Another wayward shard of guilt jabbed his belly.
“Just let me change,” she repeated then fled, fingers still fluttering on her housecoat like worried little birds.
He assessed the room. A guitar on a stand by the sofa—hers or her ‘cousin’s?—and there, on the wingback: Children’s Best Beloved Fairytales.
‘Beloved’. The same word from her Facebook biography. He considered it, garish gold font glinting under an excess amount of light. He looked around. The place was lit up in a way that reminded him of being a kid with Steve and their sisters. They’d flick on every light the minute their parents went out - as if the illumination alone would prevent them from even imagining ghouls, ghosts or—another glance at the book. Fairytale witches.
The Tsarina reappeared in a sweatshirt and flannel pants he supposed were intended to make her look shapeless. ‘Therapeutic masseuse’. Uh-huh. Sure.
She said “The washroom is this way.”
He followed down a short hall also lit up like Vegas. “Scared of the dark?” he quipped.
“No. Just of shadows.”
It seemed she too had her tongue in her cheek. He gave her a look but she smiled, benign.
The john stank like cat piss. “Jesus!” He grimaced. “Is that juniper?”
“J-juniper?” She began fretting again, fingers now working the hem of her sweatshirt.
“Yeah. Juniper stinks like cat piss. Is it planted outside your window?”
‘Blue Eyes’? He felt his own eyes become large. Oh, Tsarina. If that’s your plan, keep dreaming. That boy scout’s not rattling his zipper for anyone other than his little harpy.
“And if not him, little Heart-Face,” she added and smiled, beatific, holding eye contact. “Forgive my quirk, Owen Brophy; I am lousy with names, but excellent with remembering features.”
Bull. She’d met him only once but just called him by both first and last names.
“And I am not much of a botanist,” she added. “So I wouldn’t know juniper if I fell into it, I’m afraid. In my eastern Alberta we don’t plant much for aesthetics. Just crops.”
Needling him again. The Alberta-B.C. battle renewed. “We have crops too.”
A smile, a true one, filled her face and “Touché,” she said, laughing.
The sound of coins in a fountain. That had to earn bigger returns with her ‘massage’ clientele.
“Crops of fruit trees.” She tsked theatrically. “One more way Alberta looks like a newspaper while British Columbia looks like a fairytale.”
Fairytales everywhere. “You must be a fan of fairytales.” He pretended to examine the backsplash behind the vanity. “I noticed your book out on the chair.”
“You…you did?”
Yes, Tsarina. I really did. On came the million watt smile.
And fret-fret-fret went her fingers “I…I actually find fairytales sadistic. Abhorrent.”
His brows jumped before he could conceal his surprise.
“Cannibals,” she said. “Witches. Huntsmen planning ax murders—and this written for children?”
Point made. Still, have bait, toss line—“Sleeping Beauty always does get her kiss in the end, though.”
She gaped. “She is dead for hundreds of years beforehand! How is a kiss worth that?”
Good question.
“And that’s another thing.”
‘Theeng’. Her accent was getting heavier.
“Necromancy.” She looked as if she’d just taken a big whiff of the cat piss. “Sleeping Beauty is all about...about relations with the dead!”
Okay, that was beyond histrionic. And what sort of massage parlor escort said ‘relations’? What kind of 21st Century human being said ‘relations’? “Sex is a stretch, don’t you think, Ms. Nikoskav? They only kiss.”
She eyeballed him, one eyebrow up, the other mashed over her eye. “You are naïve,” she announced.
He choked. He was naïve? Was she blind? And regardless - she was the one who'd just said ‘relations’.
“And whether they are kissing or…or otherwise.” Her pout-mouth puckered. “He is creeping about her room while she is sleeping.” A shudder visibly jarred her beneath the bulky sweatshirt and flannel.
Owen stared. Never had he tripped over anyone who was such a strange combination of cowering courage—and uptight Victorian language.
And never did he think he’d kind of like it. He folded his arms across his chest, cocked his head. “How else was she supposed to wake up if he didn’t sneak in and kiss her?”
Her plump mouth fell open. “Shake her shoulder! Call her name! But kissing her—or anything else—it’s just…unacceptable.” She flicked a haughty hand. “And yet it’s a story for children,” she repeated and eyed him hotly, as if he were one of the (mythical, weren’t they?) Brothers Grimm.
“But he thinks she’s beautiful,” he said, grimacing when it came out way softer than he’d intended.
“Then he should just tell her so!”
He bit his lip. She frowned. “Your eyes are sparkling,” she said. “You think I am ridiculous.”
Yeah, he actually did. And that had so not been his first impression.
“I am ridiculous,” she muttered sullenly and straightened her shirt cuffs. “Arguing with a total stranger about fairytales. A new level of bizarre, even for me.”
This was piquing. “You’ve been on levels of bizarre before?”
She snorted, a derisive, yet delicate, sound. “Some people would say so.”
He tried to pluck the feelings from her face but her gold eyes blazed with an unmistakable awareness that said she knew what he was seeking. Yet…he did decipher something, something that unlatched another unwelcome burst of pity inside.
Defeat.
“Was…was this all you needed to see?” she asked, and her finger (quaking again), pointed vaguely to the tile he hadn’t really bothered to look at.
“Yeah,” he nodded and wondered—was this all manipulation? Was she intentionally playing for pity? It should have fit and yet…as she walked out of the bathroom, perfect posture, she still seemed…defeated. Chewing on it, on everything, he paused at the front door. “One more thing.”
Her eyebrows rose, thin, perfect arcs.
“If fairytales are so disturbing, why read them?”
She hesitated—he was sure of it—then hoisted an indifferent shoulder. “Why do people read true crime if not to seek understanding?”
“So they can learn how,” he parried.
She recoiled as though something foul had just slithered toward her.
“Just speaking from experience,” he added, and used the million-watt grin.
She did not return it. Did not do anything, actually, other than skitter another gaze to the window, alarm ripe on her face.
She was scared of him. And that was exactly what he’d wanted, yet…that rogue shard of pity pierced his gut again, and kept jabbing him even once he was back home and in front of his computer. He resurrected her barren Facebook page. Would anything she’d said tonight unearth something new?
No Friends To Show vaguely squeezed his chest, and that picture of the dead Sleeping Beauty… “I find fairytales abhorrent.” So was that why she’d included this grisly picture here? Was she making some sort of interpretive statement?
If that was the case then it was identical to the statement being made in the storybooks sent to Rob and Jessalyn.
Which should in turn mean Natasha Nikoslav was their quarry, yet….
That sliver of pity. He went to bed with it stabbing him, and it was still sharp the next morning within a tide of new sun and the sweet, clean scent of sawdust out at Rob Haslom’s residential development. “Question.” He looked askance at Steve, on coffee break beside him.
His brother sucked on a smoke.
“Speaking as a civilian, why do you think people like Rob and Jessalyn don’t clue in to hinky shit like suspicious behavior or untrustworthy people?” And why am I forgetting how to too?
Steve flicked ash off his cigarette. “Because they don’t see it.”
Didn’t see it? Or didn’t want to see it? The Tsarina looked like impeachable royalty. And he’d laughed—enjoyed laughing—at how scandalized she’d been over the fairytales.
Steve looked at him. “Want to know why good people fuck up?”
Images of Sondra, of the Tsarina, of himself, whistled past. “Sure,” he said, and suddenly wished he could light a smoke too.
“Good people fuck up because they think everyone else is just like them.”
Owen weighed this. “Meaning…?”
“Meaning they trust everybody because they don’t believe other people are capable of doing things they’d never do. And wanna know why bad people fuck up, little brother?”
There was judgment there, streaming in the subtext. He raised his chin. “Do tell.”
“Because they also think everyone is just like them.” Steve threw down his smoke, crushed it. “They think everyone’s just as sneaky and dirty as they are—and that’s why they’re so fucking indignant when they get caught. They don’t think they’re any worse than anyone else.”
Owen considered his last conversation with Sondra, a shouting match. Her: “You think what we’re doing is somehow worse than the shit rats on the street, Brophy?” Then him: “Not we, Sondra. Not me.”
“You cops are a breed of both,” said Steve.
Owen’s jaw locked. “Careful,” he murmured.
Steve ignored him. “Take Cory Chandler.” He shook a fresh smoke from his pack. “Guy looks like a clown but there’s a cleaver in his back pocket. Typical cop.” He flicked his lighter. “Swapping faces when it suits him.”
It took effort to shove this aside. Still, it was through gritted teeth that he said “Cory Chandler was one of my old procedure instructors. I never saw any dual face there.”
“You not been listening?” Steve scowled, took a drag. “’Course you didn’t see it. Good people don’t see shit. They think everyone’s decent like them, but trust me.” He inhaled and the end of his smoke glowed, Halloween orange. “Chandler’s got secrets.”
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