Such a Perfect Family, page 11
The person with the wind chimes as their ringtone received a call down the hallway, the music of it haunting enough to raise the hairs on my arms, goose bumps that chilled me from the inside. I couldn’t understand why they’d have such a sad ringtone—especially here, in this place.
Fiji.
The word was a whisper against my ear, so real that I jolted up from my slouched position to look at Diya, certain I’d find her awake. But she lay unconscious, the ventilator constant in its mechanical breathing, while the name of her birthplace echoed inside my skull.
The wind chime ringtone sounded again.
Rising, unable to bear the pain in the music, I went to walk toward it, ask the person to silence their phone…but all was quiet. And though I stood in the hallway between the ICU and the CCU for a long minute, it didn’t sound again.
Rubbing at my arms to get some warmth back into my flesh, I returned to Diya’s bedside. “I can’t just go to Fiji,” I said to my wife.
It’d be insane to fly to another country on the strength of such a vague droplet of information…but whatever it was that had tormented Diya in that moment when she’d spoken her dead sister’s name, it had to do with the place where Ani had lived and died.
“Our house is in the back of beyond,” Diya had told me while showing me the black-and-white photos her mother had so cherished. “Used to be sugarcane fields all around us, a lot of farmers in the region. Not sure what the crop is these days, but it’s still mostly farmland. No intensive development.”
In an area that rural, people would remember the family of doctors who’d lost a child.
“It’s only a three-hour flight,” my wife had shared with a nostalgic smile. “Available throughout the week. We’ll go after you’re more settled here.
“It’s so peaceful,” she’d added, “the breeze that comes off the ocean like a kiss on the skin. The beach near the house is hidden, only really used by locals—pure white sand and coconut palms, water clear enough that you can see tiny tropical fish swimming around your ankles in the shallows. You’ll love it, Tavi.”
My heart twisted and twisted until the agony threatened to send me to the ground. The only thing that kept me upright was the knowledge that if I didn’t fix this, if I didn’t get Ackerson’s attention off me, then Diya would wake to a husband accused of multiple murders.
Taking out my phone, I looked up the travel requirements for a US passport holder who wanted to go to Fiji, found that I didn’t need to get a visa. That hurdle passed, I began to search for flights.
There was one the next morning at nine, complete with a single empty seat.
My gambler’s heart saw that as a sign.
I booked the fare, locked in my return flight two days later. Ended up having to pay for a seat on a charter flight for my return connection so I could make my international flight on time. That done, I found Ajay—seated at Shumi’s side—and told him about my decision to head to Fiji. He looked surprised but promised to keep an eye on Diya.
I also found Hazel, the nurse who was most often with Diya during the day, and told her. “I don’t want to go, but I have to.” It was the truth, the idea of leaving Diya wrecking me. “Has to do with preparing for the final rites. I don’t know when the police will say it’s okay to have funerals, but I need to be ready.” The staff, I’d come to learn, had a deep understanding of different cultural practices—part of the reason for the generous ICU visiting policy was to respect the needs of the local Māori population.
I felt bad taking advantage of that understanding, but I had no choice.
Hazel gave me a sympathetic smile. “I understand. We’ll take care of Diya until your return. I’ll make sure to speak to her, keep her mind active, and so will everyone else.”
Her sincerity only made me feel more like shit. “Thank you. I’ll only be gone for two days.”
I couldn’t afford to be out of the country longer without making it look like I was running away. Right now, if Ackerson even noticed I was gone, I could play it off much as I’d done with Hazel, say I’d gone in preparation for laying Diya’s lost family members to rest—specifically to fetch a sentimental item from the family estate in Fiji.
Because that estate was still there, still in Prasad hands.
Diya had shared that the property’s value had skyrocketed after their sleepy seaside village began to attract the attention of scouts from the companies that set up resorts. “But my parents won’t sell,” she’d said with a faint smile that held an edge of sorrow I’d mistaken for wistfulness. “Too many memories there.”
I hadn’t known about Ani then. Now that I did, I understood all the layers of Diya’s statement. She’d have told me about her baby sister, I realized. She’d already been dropping hints, building up to sharing this awful, dark part of her family’s history.
“I’ll find out about Ani,” I promised Diya before I left. “You just hold on for me, D.”
The first thing I did after I was out of the hospital, however, was call my father from the privacy of my car. Perhaps I was paranoid, but I didn’t trust that the cops hadn’t bugged my motel room.
After hearing what had taken place, Anand Advani said, “For fuck’s sake, son, can’t you ever keep your nose out of trouble?”
My hand tightened on the phone. “You really think I could do this? Murder an entire family?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think except as your lawyer—and as your lawyer, this looks bad. Most people don’t have even one suspicious death attached to their name. You already have two even before your in-laws are factored in. You know what the number is to be termed a serial killer? Three.”
There was a reason Anand Advani was considered a vicious asshole by those who’d come up against him in court. But I didn’t see him that way. To me, my father was a weak man in thrall to a woman who saw him as a trophy, and who’d probably mourn his death, when it came, more for theater than out of any true emotion.
My mother loved only two people on this earth: neither my father nor I were on that list.
“Can you help me find a local attorney or not?” I asked the man part of me loved even as I pitied him. Because for all his faults, he’d stood by me when the shit hit the fan…and he’d never once asked me if I’d killed Jocelyn or Virna.
He didn’t know about Susanne.
“Let me make some calls.” The sound of air being dragged in, exhaled. He was smoking again. “That cop—Baxter—he’s still sniffing around. Called me to ask what you were doing on the other side of the world. Didn’t believe me when I said you’d run off and had a quickie Vegas wedding, so I sent him a copy of your marriage certificate.”
“He reply?”
“Sent a message saying we have an extradition treaty with New Zealand. I told him that was nice, but that I had paperwork for Jason Musgrave’s seven-figure donation to a certain fund related to the police and just how fantastic it would look in a defense brief.”
“Baxter didn’t strike me as the kind who’d toe the company line.” In fact, he’d struck me as the exact opposite—a dogged cop incapable of letting a case go.
“Might be he wasn’t clued in. Now he is.” A shrug I could hear in his voice. “Regardless of what Baxter does or doesn’t know, the hierarchy will understand that the instant I file a case, the media will descend on them like rabid dogs.
“No matter if the fund is a wholly separate entity from the force, Musgrave’s donation just has the rotten smell of corruption about it—and you know how popular the department is after that gangland case that fell apart.” I could almost hear his satisfied smile. “I’ll email you a list of non-extradition countries anyway, just in case.”
Pressing my head back against the headrest, I smiled at the inside of the car roof. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Don’t say I never do anything for you.” Another drag of the cigarette. “You need money?”
“No.” I still had twenty-five grand in my official accounts, mostly thanks to my father forcing me to go cold turkey on the gambling after Virna’s death.
That first million I’d won? My salary? The balance in my main savings account?
Gone.
Aside from the twenty-five thousand—a remnant of my final big win—all that remained was the money I’d taken from Audrey. And by the time my father forced me to quit, not touching that money had been taking its toll on me in sleepless nights drenched in sweat, the need to be back at the tables a constant gnawing in my bones. His intervention still wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t met Diya…if she hadn’t become my new addiction.
“Your mother called.” Another drag of his cigarette. “They’re filming the new show out in the desert. Says the sand gets between her teeth, in her hair, on her lipstick.” When I stayed silent, he said, “Raja’s boy is babbling now. Pretty sure he almost said ‘Anana’ the other day. That’s me.”
My lips curved, my eyes on the dark gray of the parking lot. “How’s the pregnancy going?” The second pregnancy so soon after the first had been a surprise, but Raja and Elizabeth seemed happy with it.
But my father paused. “Fine, I guess. I’ll find that lawyer for you.”
I didn’t luxuriate in the hint of trouble in paradise after my father hung up. My brother might be Audrey’s narcissistic reflection, but I liked his wife and my nephew. Elizabeth’s only flaw was that she loved Raja.
I drove out of the parking garage.
Rain hit the windshield soon afterward, blurring the golden light thrown by the streetlamp under which I’d stopped when the traffic lights up ahead went red. In the hazy light, I glimpsed the ghostly image of a stunning woman with high cheekbones and lush lips, her hair a wavy mass of ebony against skin that would make Snow White jealous, and her curves legendary.
Even more legendary was her sultry voice.
Audrey used to sing Raja to sleep even when he was eleven or twelve, while I listened with my ear pressed to the wall between our bedrooms. And she used that same voice to campaign for the care of abused and abandoned children.
“No child should have to live without love,” she’d said in one interview. “Every child should know they’re treasured, their dreams important.”
I guess all that goodness got cloying after a while and she’d decided that not loving me would be her outlet. It had been an active thing, my mother’s lack of love for her second-born, not simple emotional neglect.
“I should’ve never given in to Anand’s begging and had you,” she’d told me while doing her makeup one day when I must’ve been seven at most, her tone offhand. “Raja was all I ever wanted or needed. We had five years as the perfect little family before you came along.”
The wipers swiped back and forth as the traffic started to move again, and I allowed them to swipe away the memories of my strange mirage of a childhood. Smiling appearances before the media, my mother’s arms around both her children.
Those photo ops had been some of the only times she’d touched me.
But Audrey Advani no longer mattered. Not when the love of my life lay in the hospital after using what might’ve been her last moments of consciousness on this earth to give me a message I couldn’t decipher.
Ani…they said…about Ani…not…
Chapter 24
Private notes: Detective Callum Baxter (LAPD)
Date: Dec 28
Time: 01:02
Everyone’s on vacation and too busy to reply to my requests, but I have managed to confirm that Susanne Winthorpe is dead.
Christ.
That makes three women. Three dead lovers.
What the hell are we investigating here?
Chapter 25
Half of me was convinced Ackerson had put me on a no-fly list, but I got through customs and security in New Zealand without a hitch, then onto the flight. But it wasn’t until after the plane was in the air that I relaxed.
A bare three hours later and we were on the runway in Nadi, Fiji’s largest airport.
The humid heat of the tropical country hit me like a damp wall when I stepped off the plane. The air was as thick as molasses and somehow slower, the scent of the earth different in a way I couldn’t explain. As if all that lush tropical vegetation had permanently altered its chemical composition.
No one rushed ahead of me, most of the male passengers in shorts, and shirts featuring hibiscus blooms or palm trees. Many of the women wore strappy sundresses and had pulled out sun hats in readiness for hitting the outside world.
Tourists.
Hardly any locals on this midweek flight, to my eyes, though I did spot a couple of little old Indian ladies in light saris, and a small group of native Fijians in black shorts and white tees bearing the name of a local rugby sevens club. The latter was a game with which I had little familiarity, but that Rajesh Prasad had followed with near-religious fervor.
My jeans weren’t going to cut it in this heat, but they’d have to do.
An airport staff member in uniform, a red hibiscus bloom over her ear, pointed the passengers toward the immigration line. Unlike when I landed at LAX, no one was impatient, and a number of people chatted to each other as if they were in no rush to be anywhere.
I shifted from foot to foot.
And heard Diya’s laughter in my mind as she teased me about my need for constant forward motion. “Island time will drive you crazy,” she’d said one night, after we’d been talking about her childhood home. “But resistance is futile—things will happen when they happen, so just relax and enjoy life.”
As it was, the line moved along quickly enough even with no one in a hurry. When the officer, with his dark skin and tight curls, first saw me, he said, “Bula. Coming home?”
Funny, how I’d never thought I’d be asked that question on island soil at the far end of the Pacific. Hadn’t ever thought about visiting Fiji at all; my grandparents had immigrated from India, my only knowledge of this land due to seeing its name splashed across my mother’s favorite bottled water.
“First-timer,” I said. “My wife’s from here.”
“You’ll be back,” he predicted before returning my passport and waving over the next person.
I had no luggage to pick up, nothing to declare, and was soon exiting into the arrivals area, where people waited for their relatives. A little girl in a pretty pink dress was jumping up and down as she peered at the stream of arriving passengers, her hair pinned to the sides of her head with barrettes. Dressed up to fetch someone important to her.
Her father stood next to her, smiling indulgently.
Skirting past the others milling around, I found the sign pointing out the direction for the domestic terminal, from where I was to fly to the more rural of Fiji’s two big islands. The walk took me a minute, if that, the international and domestic terminals side by side.
I barely noticed the palm trees or the cabs lined up at the stand.
The ninety-minute wait for my flight almost drove me insane, but the journey on the small commuter plane was mercifully short—and the descent into Labasa Airport a breathtaking glide over endless sugarcane plantations. The tall gray-green leaves waved in the breeze, the airport nowhere in sight until we were suddenly landing on the tarmac.
Even from this lower vantage point, all I saw were the sugarcane stalks in every direction, as if we’d been dropped from the sky into the middle of the fields. Unlike in Nadi, there was no skybridge when the plane taxied to a stop. Instead, staff wheeled over stairs, and we were directed to disembark directly onto the tarmac.
I was braced for the tropical warmth this time, but it was worse when my feet hit the tarmac, the sticky black of it reflecting the heat back at me.
“Bula!” A smiling member of airport staff standing on the tarmac directed me along the safe pathway to an entrance. His skin was as dark as cocoa beans, his smile beaming white; the lack of any sweat stains whatsoever on his clothing shouted local louder than even his Fijian greeting.
Meanwhile, I was pretty sure I was melting.
This was the smallest airport I’d ever been in, but it moved fast because of that.
When I stepped out on the other side, I found my face brushed by a breeze that felt like a silent welcome to this place that lived in my wife’s heart. The sugarcane in the distance rustled, creating a hush-hush sound that was just a touch rough.
“I love fresh sugarcane,” Diya had told me when talking about her birthplace. “Have you ever had it?”
When I’d shaken my head, she’d said, “You strip off the hard outer shell, then just chew on the white flesh inside. It’s thready, so after you chew out all the juice, you spit the husk out and take another bite. It’s not the same as having sugarcane juice—half the fun is in the chewing and holding the cane in your hand.”
A delighted grin, no hint of the shadows that had swirled around her only a week earlier. “Watch out for the leaves, though—they’re tough, can cut your palm if you’re not careful.”
Pain settled again in my heart, stung at my eyes as the sugarcane rustled on.
“Taxi?” A question asked by an Indo-Fijian man in a pressed shirt and trousers who was leaning up against his vehicle not far from me. His body partially blocked the Taxi sign emblazoned in faded black lettering on the door.
“No, thanks.” The rental car I’d booked from New Zealand was meant to be waiting for me outside, but I saw no sign of anything but other cabs or locals doing a pickup run.
Taking my no with good grace, the cabdriver turned to speak to another driver, the two of them flowing between languages so easily that it took me several minutes to realize that one was speaking Fijian, the other Hindi, both also throwing random English words in the mix.
Neither seemed to have any trouble understanding the other.
