Body and Soul Food, page 3
Koby ran his hand over Reef’s face, closing his eyes before he stood up. He put his arms around me. “Yeah. I think so.” He rubbed a hand over the top of his head. I could hear his breathing. Short. Quick. Labored. “This is crazy.” He tugged at the corner of his eye as if he was trying to stop a tear from falling. “We just talked to him.”
“What is going on in here!” The driver of the train burst through the door. His eyes were glaring, easy to tell he was angered by having to respond to a pull cord. I wondered how many kids had pulled it as a joke before.
I glanced at Koby before directing the driver’s attention to Reef. “It’s our friend. He. Uhm. He needs help.”
Although I knew there wasn’t any help for Reef.
“Oh. Good Lord. What happened?” He looked at us standing over him. “What did you two do?” He came closer to take a look at Reef.
“We didn’t do—”
Before I could finish my sentence, Koby, holding on to my arm, squeezed it tight. I tried to pull away, but he held on to it. “You need to call 911,” he said, answering the driver with a directive.
“What happened?” the driver repeated. This time he looked around at the other passengers.
“We don’t know,” Koby said, looking at me, then back at the driver. “But you need to get the police here. Now.”
“I’m calling the transit police.” The driver pulled a two-way radio from his belt, his eyes landing back on us. “Nobody leave!”
“You need to call the Seattle PD,” Koby said.
The driver walked past us and I saw his ID. He walked to each of the sliding doors, putting a key in a hole above them and giving it a hard twist. I guess locking us in.
His ID read, “Lance Bender. Driver.”
And, with his actions, it seemed that Driver Lance Bender didn’t want to listen to us either. Well, Koby. I hadn’t said anything else after being cut off. Which was fine with me. I’d let Koby do all the talking because I wasn’t sure if I had regained control of my voice yet.
Koby must have noticed the driver’s name tag, too.
“Mr. Bender,” Koby said. “I think someone killed him.” He pointed to Reef’s lifeless body. “You’re going to need more help than you can get from ORCA’s security detail.”
Koby was throwing shade. Being snarky. The Metro Transit Police weren’t just security guards, they were certificated just like the Seattle police and had the same powers. Still, I understood what he meant. I wasn’t sure if a homicide detective was among their ranks.
If a homicide really had been committed.
I looked at Koby. Clenching and unclenching his jaw and staring down the driver as he made the call over his radio. That just wasn’t like Koby to say mean words. But I was sure his attitude was only because he was upset about Reef.
He was strong, but me? I knew the only reason I wasn’t breaking down right then was because Koby was there. Even in the time I’d known him (that I could remember), I’d always felt better (and safe) when he was around.
But, according to Koby’s assessment, what little he’d done, this was even more serious than I thought.
Well, you know, I mean, death is serious. But murder? That was much worse and ratcheted things up—I looked around at the people in the train with me—to a whole other level.
I don’t think that I was ever unsure that Reef was dead, but it never even crossed my mind that he’d been killed.
* * *
• • •
IT WASN’T LONG before a swarm of Metro Transit and Seattle police and EMTs crowded into the one train car with us and . . . the body.
Creepy.
And sad. At least for the two of us.
I listened intently as a man who introduced himself as Homicide Detective Daniel Chow said he would send an officer around to get our names and addresses. Koby and I tried to relay to him that we were friends of Reef’s, but he held up a hand. “Please wait until I ask the questions,” was his response. Then he relayed he wanted to question all of us before we could be released to go home. In another car. One at a time.
“I didn’t see anything,” the girl with the phone said.
“And meanwhile,” he said, finishing up his little spiel, “please do not share any thoughts with each other about what happened.” He looked over at the one passenger on the other side of the aisle from us, pushed up against the window, her leg stretched across the seat. “And no phones until you’re off the train.”
She let out a huff.
“Thank you,” he said, a weak smile on his face.
His talk made me think that he, evidently, had the same mind-set as Koby—something sinister had happened to Reef. Why else would he tell us not to share? Why else question us somewhere else?
Then I wondered if he’d be able to figure out the guilty party that quickly. In the span of a train conversation.
Or was this detective’s plan to release a murderer out into the city after only a brief conversation? A person who had seen all of our faces and who might not want to leave any witnesses.
I looked around the train car and sighed. There were five other people in our car besides us. Not one of them looked like a murderer to me.
Although, I couldn’t be quite sure what one actually looked like.
Koby and I, sitting next to each other, didn’t say much while we waited for our turn to be questioned. I was nervous, my hands folded in my lap to keep me from fidgeting, but nothing could stop my leg from shaking a million miles a minute. I was surprised Koby hadn’t asked me to stop, I wasn’t sure if my actions, involuntary but definitely necessary, weren’t causing the entire train to rock.
Koby was quiet. The only muscle he moved was the one in his jaw. He kept it so tight, I was convinced his face must be sore. He seemed intent on watching every movement made by the EMTs and police from the moment they first approached Reef until the time they wheeled him out stuffed inside of a black bag.
I didn’t once glance that way. I cared about Reef, maybe even liked him a little more than that, even though I hadn’t known him long. And I knew how much he meant to my brother. But I couldn’t watch or listen to what they were doing to him. Around him. I purposely focused my attention on everything else. All the other commotion and conversations. I already had my ID out when Officer Mateo (I’d heard his name when Detective Chow tasked him with the assignment) came to get our information. I had kept my attention on him as he had rounded the car. We were the last ones he came to.
Koby didn’t even look away from where Reef was when the officer got to us.
“Koby”—I gave him a little nudge to get his attention—“he needs you to tell him your name and show your ID.”
He moved like he was in a trance. “Koby Hill,” he said, reaching into his back pocket without taking his eyes off the spot where Reef had been. “Spelled with a ‘K.’ ”
The officer left, leaving all of us alone.
The car was quiet, and it seemed even quieter after all of what had happened. There I was, sitting next to someone I knew and not talking. But I didn’t know what to say to Koby, how to comfort him. I hadn’t had a brother long, but I felt so close, like somehow he’d always been there with me. But there were still so many things I didn’t know about him yet. Like how I could make him not so sad.
They say twins can feel each other’s emotions. I swear I could feel his, but that feeling left me with no clue on what to do about them.
“Calliope Pussett.” The first of us was called to the next car.
She sat with her husband all the way at the end of the car. The only seats that faced opposite all the other ones. I watched as the middle-aged couple, probably in their forties, stood up. Their names sounded European—Calliope and Basil Pussett—although I hadn’t heard an accent when they’d given their names.
Calliope Pussett wore a lavender sweater set. Fuzzy and soft-looking, it was one I’d have in my closet. Her pants fit snugly over her skinny frame, although they weren’t nearly long enough. Her legs and ankles were pale. Her fingers long and her pink glossy-tinged lips thin.
I thought perhaps her lipstick should have been a shade of orange to match better with her carrot-colored hair.
Although it was Mrs. Pussett who was called, both she and her husband got up and walked to the door to where Driver Lance Bender had been stationed. He had been told, I assumed per his actions, to let one person out of our car at a time, being sure no one else could leave. Then they’d have to wait on the platform for Driver Bender to let them into the attached car where Detective Daniel Chow was waiting to do his questioning.
“Only her,” Driver Bender said. “You’ll have to wait.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, and gave a slight smile and a nod of her head. Her husband took a seat next to the door and waited. Worried, I guessed.
I was worried, too. If the two of them had done something to Reef, I’d rather they both left. I would have felt much safer. But looking around the car, I didn’t really think I could feel safe left with any of them.
It took about fifteen or twenty minutes for Calliope Pussett to reemerge. When she came through the door, Basil stood up and together they walked back to the seat they had previously occupied.
“Aubriol Meijer.” The next name called.
“It’s pronounced ‘Meyer,’ ” she said. “The ‘j’ is silent.” The twentysomething popped up out of her seat, pulling her earbuds out and wrapping the cord around her phone. “And I didn’t see anything.”
“Tell the detective that when you go in to talk to him,” Lance Bender said, his face conveying he didn’t care about the “j” in her last name or the lack of information she knew.
She stomped her way out of the car and stood on the platform, waiting for the driver to lock us back in and open the door to the other car.
Second one in. Five more of us to go. I did the math in my head: Fifteen minutes (at least) spent with the detective in the other car times the ones who hadn’t yet spoken with him, including Aubriol Meijer with the silent “j,” would come out to having one hour and thirty minutes left. Ninety minutes. Five thousand four hundred seconds . . .
It seemed like we’d already been there for days.
And then I wasn’t sure if there were other people on the train. In other cars.
I wondered when I’d ever get back home.
Chapter Four
THE LEG SHAKING had calmed down a bit and now it was just the tapping of my foot as I waited my turn. Miss Aubriol Meijer, who had nothing to say, had taken nearly twenty minutes to tell the detective that.
“Tessa, uhm, Chai . . .” Driver Bender was back. He looked up, then back at his paper. I guessed he did care about calling out people’s names wrong.
“Chaiken,” the owner of the name offered.
Tessa Chaiken nearly bumped shoulders with Aubriol as she made her way out. They couldn’t have looked more different. Aubriol short and thick, saggy jeans, fingernails painted different colors. Tessa, shoulders back, strode more than walked. Her hair cut even to her jawline, her nails short and well manicured and tons of eye makeup. Eyeliner. Thick mascara. Lip liner and gloss. Her jeans were low-riders with a bootleg cut. She had on a green stretchy tee, fitting over her curves, that read Find a Way or Fade Away, the words going vertical, getting lighter as they went down.
Cute, I thought. And it gave me a feeling of déjà vu. Seemed like I’d seen that T-shirt somewhere before . . .
Aubriol rolled her eyes as the two women just missed colliding. Tessa didn’t seem to notice. I watched the door close after her and then Bender locking it.
At least one hour, ten minutes left . . .
My mind wandering, in a loop, back to the last time I’d seen Reef—alive—and the last time I had talked to him. I could still hear his voice.
I couldn’t wait to get back to Timber Lake. Nothing ever happened there. Plus, the initial shock was wearing off, and that loop of Reef playing in my head was making me sad. Really sad. I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to hold back the rush of tears that were banking up inside.
“This all seems so surreal.” Koby was talking. Finally.
“Unbelievable.” My voice low and unsteady.
“And what a coincidence we were here.” He shook his head. “Right when this happened.” He puffed out his cheeks, filling them with air, then blew it out. “What were the chances of that?”
“Astronomical.”
I had been waiting for him to come out of his zombielike state, and now that he was, I had only one-word responses to add to the conversation.
“And I wonder if any one of these people saw anything, would they tell?” I saw his eyes scan the car.
I cleared my throat and turned to him. “This reminds me of Murder on the Orient Express.”
My go-to, whenever I felt uneasy, had always been books. Agatha Christie was one of my favorite murder mystery authors.
Murder. Ugh.
I shook the word off before finishing my thought. “If,” I emphasized, “there was a murder, maybe they’re all guilty.” Lowering my voice, I leaned in closer to Koby. “They’re all in it together.”
“Together in what?” He looked at me, for probably the first time since they’d taken Reef out. “You’re talking about a movie?”
“A book.” I nodded. “Made into a movie, though.” Koby was a reader, but not like me. It’s all I did. I’d pick a book over television anytime. And I hardly ever watched a movie made from a book I’d read and enjoyed.
“I should have known you were talking about a book.” I thought I saw a weak smile cross his face. “I think I saw that movie,” he said. “Is it the one where the couple that plotted the first victim’s death end up killing other people to keep them from telling on them?”
“No.” I swallowed, wanting to keep my voice low. But I’d had that thought earlier, although that book hadn’t come to mind. “That one is called Death on the Nile. Took place on a big ship. The one I’m talking about took place on a train.”
“Oh.”
“In it, the victim was stabbed twelve times. Once by each of the passengers on the train. Well, in the car they were assigned to. All in it together, so no one told.”
“And why would they do that?”
“He, the murder victim, had killed someone near and dear to them. They all wanted to exact their revenge.”
Koby drew back and looked at me, one eyebrow going up higher than the other. “Reef didn’t kill anyone.”
“I know,” I said, grabbing his arm, tugging it to bring him back closer to me. “The point I was making is that everyone was involved.”
I saw the muscles tighten in Koby’s jaw as he scanned the car. Tessa Chaiken still hadn’t finished with the detective.
“That couple didn’t have anything to do with what happened.” He pointed to the Pussetts.
“You don’t think?”
“I’m sure of it.”
“And why aren’t the Pussetts on your who’s-the-killer radar?”
“I don’t have a killer radar.” He made a face. “And why do you remember their names?”
I chuckled and shrugged. “I just do. Calliope and Basil Pussett. Not too common a name. Easy to remember.”
He chuckled. “Okay.” He adjusted himself in his seat. “She’s wearing those dark glasses on the train.”
“She’s sitting by the window.” I gave a head nod her way. “Maybe the sun is in her eyes.”
“She wasn’t sitting there when I got on the train,” Koby noted. “She was sitting in the aisle seat. But”—he stuck up a finger—“even so, there isn’t any sun out. It’s raining. No need for sunglasses.”
“It only started raining after I’d gotten on the train,” I said. “She was already here. She hadn’t been outside when it started raining.” I held out my hands. “Maybe she just kept them on from when she boarded.”
“True.” He nodded like he was processing what I’d said. “But most people take sunglasses off when they go inside. Or flip them up over their head. But more than that, those don’t look like regular sunglasses.”
“As opposed to irregular sunglasses?”
“Look at them.”
I did. “Okay. They’re a little clunky-looking.” I thought about my earlier observation of her. “They don’t really match her style.”
He licked his lips and nodded his head like he was adding up something in his mind. “And did you notice how she’s been trying to make up to her husband about something? Clearly they’ve had some kind of disagreement.”
I took another gander at the couple. I looked and tried to notice things like Koby had. I mean, I had remembered their names—maybe I was more observant than I gave myself credit for.
Calliope had on pearl earrings. Small balls, but none of her jewelry had pearls. So maybe they’d been a gift? If they were real, they might be expensive. Did that mean they were a well-off, power kind of couple?
I scrunched up my face.
Koby was right, her sunglasses weren’t the kind you’d buy at Nordstrom. He wore glasses, too. But his weren’t dark, and he evidently needed them to see. But none of those things told me the things that Koby had seen in the two of them. I tilted my head to one side. Had they been arguing?
I didn’t know what Koby was seeing or how it could mean they weren’t involved because of it. How did sunglasses and an argument between the two of them stop them from being the ones who killed Reef?
“You wanna explain this to me?” I asked.
“Sure. When the driver called her to go and talk to that detective, her husband walked with her, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember that. It was like he wanted to go in with her, even after Detective Chow had said one at a time.”
