Dirty Kiss (6 page)

But I did know what I could ask Jae to help me with. Then again, I was going to have to trust he’d tell me the truth on that too. He was hard to read, other than flashes of anger under the surface. Pulling out the copy of the suicide note, I placed it on the counter for Jae to look at.

“Have you seen this yet?” I wanted to see Jae’s gut reaction to his cousin’s note. Surprise is usually an investigator’s best weapon when asking questions. “Can you tell me what this says?”

His fingers trembled when he touched the paper. A softness warmed his mouth, giving me wicked thoughts I didn’t need at the moment. “No, I haven’t seen it. Is this…?”

Jae left the question unfinished. Another secret lurked around us. Now I was certain there was something more than a light acquaintance between the two. He was troubled, stricken at the sight of his cousin’s handwriting on a copied piece of paper.

“Can you tell me what this says?” I asked again, hoping to jar him from his distress. “I have a translation in the file, but I don’t know Korean and I wanted someone who knew Hyun-Shik to tell me what they thought.”

“I guessed that. The not reading Korean part.” Tracing the symbols with his fingers, Jae pursed his mouth, a look of confusion briefly flitting over his face. “This doesn’t make sense.”

“Suicide rarely makes sense.” I’d heard that in the past. A couple of years ago, I’d found out how true that saying was. “Believe me; it always leaves more questions than answers.”

Kim Jae-Min was more perceptive than I gave him credit for. His tawny gaze raked over me, a silent question in his eyes, but he left the matter alone and picked up the piece of paper to hold it in his hands. “I meant the note. It doesn’t make sense.”

“The report said it translated as he was sorry for doing this… the suicide.” I came closer, looking over his shoulder. It wasn’t an excuse to press against him. Actually, I wasn’t even sure why I drew near since I wouldn’t be able to read what he was pointing out to me. It seemed rude to suddenly jerk back, and the scent of him filled me, that tangy masculine smell sweetening the strain of the conversation.

“Hyun-Shik wrote, ‘Mian, naneun igorseul haeya haeyo’.” Jae looked up from the note. I turned, giving him some room. His shoulder brushed my arm, and he left it there, the barest of touches between us. He moved with an unconscious sensuality. Either that or it was so practiced that he didn’t think about it anymore. “It would make more sense if the note said, ‘Irokke hal su pakke obsor yukamida’.”

“And the difference is?” I was going to have to learn Korean before the end of this case. The subtleties in the culture and language were going to kill me.

“It kind of means the same thing, but what he wrote has to do with an obligation. Not that he regretted causing pain to others.” Jae struggled to find the right words to express his thoughts. “The other one is closer to, ‘I regret I have to do this’. Hyung wrote, ‘Sorry, I’m obliged to do this’.”

“Maybe he was thinking of the family’s honor?” I dismissed that as soon as I said it, and not just because Jae-Min rolled his eyes at me.

“We’re Korean. We just avoid doing things to embarrass ourselves. We don’t slice ourselves open like gutted fish because we’ve dishonored our family.”

“Hey, I was thinking out loud,” I protested. Jae’s reproachful look was nearly as searing as Claudia’s. “And I rethought it. He wouldn’t have killed himself in a… um.”

“You can say sex club.” Jae went back to stirring the soup, checking the firmness of the vegetables, taking his warmth with him. “I know what Dorthi Ki Seu is.”

“Okay,” I replied. “So what was he obligated to do? And why did he kill himself at the club?”

“Isn’t that what Uncle is paying you for? To find those things out?” There were sounds coming from the living area, a loud chatter of women’s voices, and he glanced at the door as if expecting Grace to come flying back into the kitchen.

“The truth is, I’m being paid to sniff around a little bit and then go away.” Diplomacy was never my specialty. I was more of a “club people over the head to get information” and apparently “running away from shotgun-toting elderly lesbians” kind of guy, but I wasn’t going to share that with Jae-Min. Our relationship hadn’t progressed to a point where humiliation was served up with a cup of tea and a smile. “But I’ve never liked following orders.”

“Someone ordered you to walk away from hyung’s death?” His hands stilled, holding a handful of mushrooms over the broth.

“No, not walk away. It’s just assumed that Hyun-Shik killed himself, so there wouldn’t be much to investigate.” The soup now had mushrooms in it, the curled ears bobbing in the hot liquid.

“Is that what you think? That Hyun-Shik killed himself?” Jae’s teeth returned to their nibbling, marking his lower lip. If he kept it up, he’d draw blood in a few minutes. “It looks like he did, but I knew him. Not like this. He wouldn’t have done this to his family.”

“People keep saying that. Your uncle included.” Resting an elbow on the counter, I picked up one of the mushrooms he’d left on the chopping board, sniffing at its aromatic meatiness. “I guess the question really is, how are you going to feel if I find out he did kill himself? What then?”

My phone rang before he answered me, and I debated letting it go, but Jae-Min returned to his soup-making, leaving me with his back to talk to. Cursing under my breath, I checked the number and cursed again, louder and with more fire than the first spate. Jae spared me a flick of his attention, then ignored me as I answered it.

“Yes, Claudia?” I took a look at the clock on the wall, frowning at the time. “What are you still doing over there? I thought you were going home.”

“I was planning on it, but those people who hired you are here. You know, that man with the wife.” Claudia was good about keeping secrets, so I guessed that there was someone in the office with her. “They’d like to talk to you.”

“They?”

“Yep, both of them. The husband and the wife.” She paused, and I heard a murmur outside of my hearing range, then her speaking to someone else. “You go on down the street and get me something cold to drink. Here, get yourself something.”

“What the hell?” There was silence, and then I winced. “Sorry. They’re both there?”

“It’s okay. I understand that it’s probably been a long day for you, what with waking up so late and then driving down to Orange County.” Her voice was light, but Claudia’s sugar was laced with sarcasm. “And yes, both of them. They’re outside getting some air. I wasn’t sure if I should feel insulted or just glad they weren’t in the office.”

This coming from a woman I pay to watch television for most of the day, I thought. Not being stupid, I kept my mouth shut until the urge to speak those idiotic words passed. When my mind finally saw some sense, and I could trust my tongue, I said, “I’m about forty-five minutes out, if the traffic gods love me. Are they willing to wait?”

“I think so,” she responded smoothly, as if all was forgiven between us. “Both of them came in here as sweet as honey, asking if they can see you. And that’s not the type of woman you’d expect to be doing those things. Well, maybe doing, but not wearing that outfit.”

I suppressed the laughter choking my chest. “You looked?”

“Of course I looked!” Claudia snorted. “I’m human. I get curious. And that’s some sickness going on in that marriage.”

“I could give you the ‘everyone loves differently’ speech you gave me,” I reminded her.

“Yes, I know,” she replied. “Are you coming back here, or should I send them off?”

“No, I’ll be out there in a bit. Just give me some time. Ask them to wait. Thanks, Claudia.” I hung up the phone and rested it against my forehead. My life was getting stranger by the day, too odd for even me to imagine. The Brinkerhoffs would have to be dealt with, and I wasn’t even sure where to begin.

“Is Claudia your girlfriend?” Jae turned the flame off, covering the pot with a glass lid. It steamed up almost immediately.

“No, she’s my office manager.” I smiled at the idea of dating Claudia. Her being a woman aside, she was a hard taskmaster, and I imagined my life would be even more strictly run than what she dictated now. “She keeps my life in order.”

“So she’s your wife.” He grinned. His smile burned away any sadness left lingering in his face. Tucking a thick piece of hair behind his ear, he laughed when I grimaced.

“Not a wife, but she bosses me around like one.” I should have told him I was gay. Opening up would go a long way in cementing a camaraderie that I probably would need if I was going to go any further in Hyun-Shik’s death. My throat closed up around the words. It was like standing in front of my father again, unwilling to crack open and be vulnerable. There was nothing to lose, except perhaps the job. Suddenly, I wasn’t certain the Kims would appreciate a gay man looking into the death of their son. “You have my card, right?”

“Yeah.” Patting his front pocket, the smile dimmed just a bit.

“Call me, please,” I asked softly. The edge of my card was peeking out of the pocket, his thumb pressing down against the corner. “If you have anything to add or if you want to talk about your cousin.”

“Sure.” We both instinctively stiffened when the taps of high heels in the hallway alerted us to Grace’s approach. “You’d best head out before Almira Gulch catches you here.”

It wasn’t until I was halfway to my office that I realized I’d laughed more in that short time in the kitchen than I had for the last two years. My ribs ached a bit, and I rubbed at the scar stretching over my abdomen. It hurt, as did the one on my leg, but that was from running away from Mrs. Brinkerhoff. The pain stabbed into my gut. A treacherous twist echoed in my chest as I thought of Rick for a fleeting moment. With any luck, I wouldn’t hear from Jae-Min Kim again, and I’d be better off for it.

There
was a section of a redwood tree standing on the front porch to my office. It wasn’t a real tree, just one of Claudia’s many offspring. In all of the time that I’d known Claudia and her brood, there was never a mention of Mr. Claudia, and I’d never worked up the guts to ask. For all I knew, he was alive and well, chained someplace in her house with a never-ending honey-do list, a fate worse than death in my book.

As I mounted the steps, I noticed the man on the porch was, at most, in his late teens, and if possible, even larger than my mind could comprehend. I was tall, but he stood nearly a foot taller than me and a solid six inches or so wider across the shoulders. He saw me look at him, and he straightened, distancing his head from mine even more.

“Hey, Mr. McGinnis.” I tried not to flinch, hearing myself age about twenty years as he spoke.

“Hey.” I nodded my chin at him. It might not have earned me cool points, but maybe I could gain back a decade or so of my youth. “Which one are you?”

“Mo. Martin’s my dad.” Dangling a set of keys from his fingers, he gave me a sly smile. “He said if I picked Nana up this afternoon, I could have the car tonight to go out with.”

“Excellent deal.” I saw movement in the office, shadows moving behind the black-screen security door. “Guess I better get in there before she comes out here and gets me.”

“Yeah, you don’t want that,” he rumbled. “Nana told me to wait out here on account that you all had business. That okay?”

“Oh yeah, it’s all good.” Nodding again, I braced myself for the Brinkerhoffs. “I’ll send her out. Sorry you had to wait.”

“No problem.” His grin was wide, creasing his strong face nearly in half. “I got out of mowing the lawn. Sissy had to do it instead.”

There wasn’t a gender line dividing tasks in the Clan of Claudia, and other than not being massive enough to form a sea wall to hold back a tsunami, the girls in the family were expected to do the same chores as the boys and vice versa. Self-sufficiency was a stern requirement in that genetic pool. Made me wonder what they did to the ones who failed to live up to their matriarch’s expectations.