Such a Perfect Family, page 16
Tavish Advani was standing there with a crying Grace. His expression was solemn, the hand he had on her lower back comforting but respectful. Grace leaned into him, her body crumpling.
The tall and strong young man absorbed her weight without impact.
Connelly frowned…and wondered if Harold wasn’t the only one who’d done the math on Grace’s new financial status. Not only was Grace now rich by most standards, but she was also nearing forty, was single, and had nothing of Sue’s confidence.
All it would take were a few kind words and a smile from handsome Tavish Advani, and she’d fall like ripe fruit into his hands.
Chapter 35
My hand clenched on the verandah railing, the night balmy around me and the air heavy with a scent I couldn’t quite identify. It wasn’t the ocean, was thicker, sweeter than the salt-laced whispers I caught when the wind turned.
But Bobby sahib, oh, he could talk and talk—and that Shumi, she thought he was better than a movie star. The girl would’ve parroted anything Bobby told her to say.
How could Shumi have lived with herself all this time knowing that she’d put the blame on Diya’s innocent head? Even more so when Diya loved her so much, saw her as her best friend? How could Shumi have protected Bobby after he’d done a thing so vicious that it was beyond comprehension?
I wanted to shake the other woman, make her speak the truth. Because I knew that there was no point in telling any of this to Ackerson. The original police report was a fabrication, and no one had to tell me that Kamal wouldn’t say anything on the record. Neither would his wife. Because Kamal had committed a crime by filing a false report, and no matter what his wife might say to my face, what she’d say to the authorities was a whole different scenario.
Ani’s body was long gone.
I wondered now what Diya remembered of the murder. She’d only been five. My memories from that age were fuzzy at best, overwritten by things other people had told me they remembered about me.
The sole crystalline memory I had was of standing outside the living room, watching through the crack in the door as my mother surprised Raja with a mass of toys she’d bought him on her latest shopping spree.
Toy after toy, gift after gift, for her “best boy.”
It had been my birthday.
That was why I remembered. Because later that same day, I’d been excited to get my own haul of gifts from her. Instead, I’d been given a bakery cake that the adult me knew must’ve been ordered by the nanny who looked after me most of the time, and three generic “little boy” toys that the same nanny had likely ordered online.
Funny, what the mind chose to remember.
Ani…they said…about Ani…not…
My throat grew tight, choked up. Because my wife did remember enough about what had happened to Ani to be distressed about it. Yet, how many times over the years had she been told that she’d done that awful thing?
Had the lie overwritten her childish memories of the truth?
Did she believe herself a murderer?
The horror of it twisting her up until maybe it had become the reason for the medication she’d tried to hide from me. What she’d been told was the truth tangling up what she knew to be the truth, until she could no longer separate them, her memories a field of broken shards that didn’t fit together no matter how hard she tried.
My poor sweet Diya. “I’ll fix it,” I vowed as that thick, sweet smell laid itself on my tongue.
Mangoes.
Ani’s tree.
My fingers tightened to bone whiteness. “I’ll make sure the blame falls on the person who deserves it. Not on you and not on me.”
This time, there was no Kamal to hush things up, and no Sarita and Rajesh Prasad to allow the lie to exist even when they, too, had to have known it was a lie.
Diya had been five years old.
* * *
—
I was already up and showered by the time first light crept through the curtains. I’d tucked the religious statuette Ravi had suggested I take in a clean facecloth from the pile Kushma had left me by the bed, then put that safely in the middle of my duffel, where it’d be protected on all sides by my crumpled clothing.
But as I went to leave the house, I hesitated and returned to the prayer alcove to pick up the photo of the smiling couple with the little girl. It was a posed shot probably done in a mall or in a photographer’s home studio, complete with a fake background that looked like Venetian canals. The woman had dimples and shiny black waist-length hair that she’d allowed to fall over one shoulder, while the man had black curls and a thick mustache.
Their little girl was laughing in the picture, her dimples an echo of her mother’s.
I wasn’t a kid person, but I could see that Ani had been a beautiful baby. Also a happy one in this picture, her hands caught in a clapping motion as she sat on her mother’s lap, while her father stood behind them with his hand on his wife’s shoulder. He was wearing a crisp white shirt and dark pants, while she wore a rich pink sari over an aquamarine blouse.
The photo had faded, but not enough to wash out those brilliant shades.
Her mother had put little Ani in a white dress that poufed around her, and put two golden barrettes in her fine hair. I knew it had been the mother. The way she held Ani, it said this little girl was her heart and soul.
They could’ve been any young family that had dressed up to get their photo taken.
Turning it without thought, I saw a single line of text written in blue ink in neat cursive writing: Annika’s first photoshoot!
Annika. A grown-up name that would’ve meant only her family sometimes slipped and called her baby Ani after she became an adult. But Annika had never grown up, would always remain baby Ani in everyone’s minds.
Heart heavy, I tucked the photo back where it belonged, in this sacred space created by a family that had been mourning three lost lives. That didn’t absolve Sarita and Rajesh of what they’d done, the terrible weight they’d put on Diya’s fragile shoulders to protect their only son, but I could feel horror at their choice and sadness for them at the same time.
The house seemed to whisper in melancholy as I closed and locked the door behind me. As if it knew that its owners were never again coming home except as ashes. “Diya will come back,” I promised the spirit of the house. “She’ll open you up and let the sea winds sweep in.”
With that, I turned toward the banana grove, intending to hand Ravi the key.
The wind chime began to play.
I froze, staring at the unmoving leaves of the mango tree, and of the banana palms. There was no breeze to move the slender metal tubes that hung from the chime, not even the whisper of one. The morning was a still photograph broken only by the metallic shimmer of the chime dancing…and the faint echo of a little girl’s laughter in the air.
That’s Ani. That little baby never left here. I think she plays under the mango tree.
Chapter 36
Private notes: Detective Callum Baxter (LAPD)
Date: Jan 8
Time: 20:11
What interests me about Susanne Winthorpe is that, according to an off-the-record chat with her oncologist, her cancer wasn’t terminal, but she went from diagnosis to death in under a year. She did refuse treatment, but even without treatment, she should’ve had a good couple of years at least.
The Singaporean authorities ruled her death a suicide, and if there was an autopsy, I haven’t yet been able to get hold of the report. Whatever they found in an autopsy—if there was one—it didn’t change their conclusions. And I can’t run any further tests. Her body’s gone, cremated as per her wishes.
How hard would it be to find a way to poison an already dying woman? Weak immune system, probably not preparing her own food. And Advani was staying with her for the last months of her life. On the flip side, why take the risk if you knew she was a dying woman anyway?
Impatience might be the answer. He was barely twenty-two when she died. Could be he got sick of being stuck at an invalid’s side, got sick of pretending to care. He’d already missed his final year of university—though apparently he managed to do enough courses remotely that he did get his degree only six months after he should have. Not the same as partying it up with your class, though, is it?
So maybe there was resentment there, too.
I asked her doctor if he had any of her blood or tissues left, anything on which we could run further tests, but no luck. He barely saw her after her diagnosis—just for a bit of pain medication and that was about it.
End result is that I still have nothing except some disturbing circumstantial evidence.
Susanne Winthorpe (Advani aged 19.5–22): Died by suicide. Would’ve otherwise died of natural causes (untreated lung cancer) per the official record.
Jocelyn Wai (22.5–23.6): Dead of a fall ruled accidental due to drug intoxication (a mix of ecstasy and alcohol), her case closed with nothing in it to force a reopening.
Virna Musgrave (25.7–26.2): Dead. Vehicle tampered with; likely homicide.
That gap of over two years between Jocelyn and Virna worries me. Who haven’t we found? Who else is dead?
Time: 23:17
I forgot about Susanne Winthorpe’s niece. The lawyer mentioned her, said she acted as Winthorpe’s nurse at the end—and that she appeared close to Tavish. Fuck, I hope the woman is alive.
Chapter 37
My phone rang on the way to the airport. The name on the screen read Ackerson.
I ignored it, not ready to talk to her when—in the practical sense—I was in no better a position than when I’d sat across from her in that interrogation room. Ani’s story couldn’t help Diya until she woke up and was ready to talk about it, and it couldn’t help me at all.
As for Shumi…was it possible that after Bobby had attacked everyone with such murderous violence, she’d break, tell the truth? Who knew? Right now, there wasn’t any way to know if she’d even wake up. I could only hope she did. Because her memories of Ani’s murder mattered.
Three years older than Diya, she’d have been eight at the time, old enough to remember all of it. Even if she refused to talk of what had happened at the Lake Tarawera house, if she admitted what Bobby had done to Ani, it’d shine a spotlight on his violent nature. It would also put this tragedy in the territory of an annihilation driven by old emotion and old secrets, instead of a cold-blooded crime with a financial motive that put me in the crosshairs.
I squeezed the steering wheel in lieu of smashing my head against it.
I’d been such a self-destructive idiot all those years after Susanne’s death! What had I seen in the dopamine rush of gambling away every dollar that had come into my hands? It’d be easy to keep on blaming Jocelyn for the part she’d played in dragging me deeper and deeper into that world—because she had, oh, she had. Witty, sarcastic, fascinating Joss had wanted a fellow addict at her side, one she could control.
Her little toy whom she’d delighted in breaking…until he’d broken her.
My chest heaved, my breathing choppy.
The therapist I’d seen, under duress from my father after Callum Baxter put a target on my back and zeroed in, had been a sanctimonious old prick, but he’d said one thing that stuck with me: “You’re looking for validation, Tavish. Each time you win, you get that rush. False validation, but validation nonetheless. You’ve been searching for it all your life.”
Well, fuck that. I was done with being a mess because my mother was a narcissist who could only love one child, the one she’d so carefully molded in her image. I almost felt sorry for Raja at times. My brother had never had a chance to be anyone but who Audrey wanted him to be; he didn’t even enjoy acting as far as I could tell, but Mommy dearest wanted him in the land of make-believe and so Raja trudged on with a string of mediocre guest appearances, his life funded by Audrey.
Unfortunately, my decision to shrug off the strangling chains of the past came too late, the damage already done. A fact that became crystal clear when I found Ackerson waiting for me in the busy arrivals hall of Auckland Airport late that afternoon, a uniformed officer at her side.
Lips pinched, she said, “I told you to stay close.”
I hitched the duffel over my shoulder, trying not to notice all the people staring in our direction. “I went to fetch a religious relic for the funeral rites. I wanted to have it ready for Diya when she wakes. So she can do right by her family.”
“I’ll need you to accompany me to the station.”
I smiled. “Sure.” Soon as I was in the back of the marked police cruiser, I sent a text to the criminal defense attorney my father had hooked me up with—he’d shot me the man’s details two hours after we spoke.
Still trying to protect me as he hadn’t when I was a child.
The lawyer was waiting at the station when we arrived. Broad shouldered, with rich black hair cut with flair, his skin the same shade of brown as mine, he wore a suit fitted to his body with such perfection that I knew it had to be bespoke.
A greenstone pin glinted on one lapel, the design intricate.
“Kia ora, Detective Ackerson,” he said with a beaming smile. “Andrew Ngata. You’ll remember me from the Piri case. I’ll be sitting in on this interview with my client.”
Ackerson’s face flushed a scalding pink, a balloon about to explode blood. “You don’t need a lawyer,” she said to me. “This is just a chat.”
“You picked me up from the airport with a uniformed officer and put me in a cruiser in front of the public,” I said, my tone tight. “Sorry if I’m pissed off. I want to be by my wife’s side, not here while you waste time looking at the wrong man.”
The balloon pulsed.
My lawyer touched me on the arm. “Detective Ackerson is just doing her job, Mr. Advani. Let’s keep this cordial.”
Let me do the talking was the unspoken order. Since there was a reason my father was paying this man’s significant three-figure hourly rate, I obeyed.
Once in the interview room, Ackerson raised her eyebrows. “Funny how you had your passport handy for your jaunt to Fiji. I’d have thought it was at the house. We know the Prasads had a safe—thing came through the fire.”
Only after Ngata gave me a small nod did I say, “I wanted to ask the bank if I could open up a local account.” It was the truth. “Figured my California driver’s license might not be enough ID so took my passport along.”
“What did the bank say?”
“I blew it off. Wanted to get home to Diya, thought we could come in together later in the day.”
Ackerson set her jaw, her next questions hard and flat. I let Ngata head them off for the most part. She’d met the cooperative Tavish Advani; now it was time for her to meet the Tavish Advani who was the son of one of the most successful criminal defense attorneys in Los Angeles.
It soon became obvious that she had nothing beyond my lack of solid employment and apparent lack of money. The staff at the bakery where I’d picked up the cakes had verified my alibi—God, that cheerful interaction where they’d teased me about the wedding madness to come seemed about a million days in the past—but with no way for Ackerson to know the exact time of death, she continued to insist that I could’ve done it before I left.
“I had a very interesting conversation with Detective Callum Baxter yesterday,” she said at one point. “He had a lot to say about the Virna Musgrave investigation.”
“Which isn’t your bailiwick, Detective,” Ngata inserted with unflinching calm, his faint smile chiding.
But Ackerson didn’t back down. “Perhaps not, but it does give me an excellent idea of your client’s predilection for violence. Though it seems he usually chooses older women.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake! Why don’t you look at the bully in the family?” I yelled, having waited until the right moment. Growing up with a narcissist for a mother had taught me how to manipulate people without them ever being aware of it; it was all in the timing.
Ackerson sat back. She was too smart to smile, but it was clear that she thought she’d broken me. “Clarify that,” she said.
“Bobby.” I fisted my hand on the table. “Ask his classmates how he was as a boy. Not his friends, the other children. He sure as fuck was a controlling bastard of a husband.
“Check with Shumi’s doctor, because even if she never made a police complaint, she probably needed medical attention at some point.” The latter was another gamble, but one with a good chance of paying off given all the information I had about Diya’s older brother; a boy who enjoyed bullying other children wouldn’t think anything of bullying his slavishly devoted wife.
If anything, he’d probably enjoyed it even more. After all, he’d known Shumi would never call him out on it.
That betraying twitch of her left eye, the signal that I’d startled her. “Are you saying Vihaan ‘Bobby’ Prasad was an abusive husband?” she said, even as Ngata said my name in a tone that told me to shut up.
“Yes.” I leaned forward. “Which you’d know if you’d done any actual investigating rather than deciding it had to be the outsider who did it.” Despite my words, I wasn’t so sure of her motives anymore, because just before, when she’d mentioned Virna, her voice had risen. Not by much, but enough.
How old was Ackerson? Fifties? Younger than Virna by more than a decade, but close enough to feel a sense of kinship with her. Out to nail the man she thought had scammed, then murdered a rich older woman desperate for love.
Gut instinct stirred, telling me to push on that vulnerability, but I stayed on the track I’d already laid down—letting her believe that I was ignoring my lawyer because I was a hotheaded idiot.
