Tulip Season Page 12

  She asked, with hope in her, “Did you like my column, Robert?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. You're still a bit formal, but you obviously have interesting ideas. Readers like me, who've never thought of helping their grandmothers, or other deserving persons in their lives, are inspired by you.”

  Mitra offered him an appreciative glance, felt a smile flicker inside her.

  Robert leaned back in his chair, asked Mitra how she got started in this business, and she was only too happy to tell him. In turn, she asked Robert how he got into editing from crime reporting.

  “I lived in Phoenix when I was a crime reporter,” he replied. “Phoenix is the capital of KFR—Kidnapping for Ransom. The first time I followed a KFR incident, I started out with only bits of information and kept adding to it until I could see my way around. Ultimately, I traced the criminals behind it. I loved the work. Then I moved to Seattle and could only get a position as an editor.” His eyes filled with sadness. “Tell me about what's going on with your missing friend.”

  Mitra took him through everything that had happened since they had last spoken, emphasizing her arguments with Adi about the ransom letter. Robert took notes in a notepad. Going through the details made Mitra so sad that at one point she stopped speaking.

  “You all right?” Robert asked.

  He walked over to the office break room across the hallway and returned with two glasses of water.

  “Your friend's case is an interesting one,” Robert said. “Eventually, I'd want to write about it for the paper.”

  “I appreciate all your help.”

  They schmoozed for awhile, unusual for Robert. He was trying to brighten her mood, she supposed. She asked him about his garden, if he had gone back to it.

  His eyes sunk deeper under a jungle of eyebrows, even as the customary rain cloud returned to his face. He seemed to be asking: Why go so moony over plants? Why go so moony over anything? We all know life is one lick of punishment after another. He looked depressed, stayed silent.

  She noticed a fancy gold-toned business card engraved with a dancing figure on the desk. Another glance revealed the card was from Caribe, the new Caribbean dance hall and bistro just up the street from the newspaper office. The man did have a weakness. Might this be the place to take him out to dinner, to show her appreciation and become closer friends? Imagining him slightly inebriated, twisting, undulating, and perspiring on a smoky dance floor, she couldn't help but smile to herself affectionately.

  Belatedly, remembering her client appointment, she scrambled to her feet. She was already fifteen minutes late. She thanked Robert for the books. “And, with you helping me, I no longer feel like I've reached a dead end.”

  “Take care, Mitra.”

  She strode out, listening to a whistling tune from an adjoining cubicle and observing a butterfly kite hanging precariously from the ceiling. In another ten minutes, she reached her client's house only to have the doorbell unanswered. How much the recent events had changed her work habits. She'd never missed an appointment before. Oh, Mitra, how could you do that? Don't you understand how much reputation counts in this business?

  On the way home, she stopped at Cinema Books on Roosevelt. The clerk she'd seen speaking with Adi earlier in the day stood at the cash register.

  “Hi,” she said brightly to him. “I saw you talking with my cousin earlier. Do you remember him? Do you know what he likes to read? I'd like to get him a birthday present.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember your cousin. I helped him. He bought a bunch of books. I'll show you the big book he wanted to buy, but couldn't. His credit card didn't go through. He paid cash for the other books.”

  They walked to the shelf together. The clerk pulled out an oversized book titled, Bollywood: Now and Then by P.R. Rashid. According to the synopsis on the book jacket, the book concerned itself on the history and current state of the Bombay film industry: “Everything you ever wanted to know about Bollywood.”

  Back to her house, Mitra phoned Detective Yoshihama and recounted the details of her encounter with Adi outside Cinema Books.

  “So you suspect a film connection?” he asked, his voice going deeper, indicating he was taking her suggestion seriously. “That's most interesting.”

  “I was never much for Bollywood movies,” she replied, “but I'm going to read every word of this book.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  AROUND TWILIGHT, Mitra got into her Honda and headed to Grandmother's, turning on classic rock for company. She glanced at the rear-view mirror and saw a white Datsun pickup truck behind her.

  Only seconds before, she'd seen the truck parked in front of her neighbor's Tudor. But now, drawing into the 45th Street, she noticed the truck again behind her car. She wondered with a chill if the pickup could be following her. She took several lefts and rights and lost it, only to meet it coming back toward her in the opposite lane. Trembling, she took a look at the driver. Aged about fifty and possibly of Eastern European descent, he had a Baltic gloom hanging over his face. She checked his license plate and memorized the number: 666-ZVZ.

  Upon reaching Grandmother's house, she parked in front and again checked her rearview mirror, relieved not to see the potential stalker. She called Detective Yoshihama and reported the incident. He greeted her eagerly and said he would make a note of it, adding, “I'm driving to a gun party. A shootout has gone on earlier. Talk later.”

  For a moment Mitra forgot about her travail and wondered if he'd be safe. She hopped out of the car, walked along a cemented path, mounted the front stoop, and pressed the doorbell hard. Opening the door, Grandmother wrapped her in a hug, but made no comments about the rigidity of her body.

  “Do you know I bought fifteen copies of the newspaper yesterday, the entire supply, at the corner grocery store?” Grandmother said. “The Vietnamese owner asked me to autograph a copy for her. ‘Grandmother's Day—what a fabulous idea,’ she said.”

  Mitra glanced at her, then at the window, the pickup still on her mind.

  “Anything wrong?” Grandmother asked, her face shadowed by concern.

  “Someone's been trailing me today. He looks kind of creepy.”

  “You know that doesn't surprise me. You're being shadowed for a reason. If it continues to be that way, report it to the police, will you?

  “I've already called Detective Yoshihama.”

  “Does it ever happen when you're out with Ulrich?”

  “No.” Mitra's stomach clenched, as she heard Yoshihama's advice in her mind: You might want to consider staying away from him. “Actually, I haven't seen Ulrich much lately. I feel secure when he's around or when I go some place with him.”

  “When a woman really wants to feel secure, she chooses a man who's more open about his background.” Grandmother paused. “I don't want to interfere and I've seen him only once. I only know what you've told me, but if you'd care to hear what I think—there are those who are the marrying kind and those who aren't. He looks like a drifter to me.”

  Grandmother—why did she have to be so stern-eyed and so judgmental? “We're enjoying each other for now,” Mitra said. “I'm almost thirty, but not in a hurry, not thinking long term.”

  “So they all say.”

  “What are you really worried about?”

  “That you'll make the wrong decision. Like me. That you'll latch on to someone and not be able to let go. Find out more about that guy, will you? He's trouble. And, I might as well share this with you. Yesterday, early in the morning, I saw him parked in front of my house. He was talking to himself. He saw me come out to get the paper. I'm sure he recognized me. And I believe he knew it was my house. I got back inside and locked the door. When I checked through the window a few minutes later, he was gone.”

  Mitra found herself crumbling inside. How would Ulrich ever find out where Grandmother lived? Had he been going through Mitra's stuff? Might there be something wrong in his psyche?

  “I'm sorry,” she said, “if he's scared you. He'
s never acted that strangely with me.”

  Tampopo, their feline friend, stalked in, brushed against Grandmother's leg, and purred. Her forehead creased, Grandmother said, “Much as I don't want to pile on you, I found this little devil rolling around the flowerbed you worked on so hard.”

  Mitra took a shaky breath. “What? Why did you let her loose? Let me go see.”

  She rushed out the back door, Grandmother following, and headed straight to the flowerbed. Street light illuminated parts of the bed. It appeared as though it had been ravaged by a storm. The cat had dug up the soil and made a salad bar out of the tender seedlings. More than half the bed would need to be replanted. She shook her head and said to Grandmother that next time she'd spread bark mulch, scatter prickly pine cones, or throw crushed red cayenne flakes to discourage her frisky friend.

  Tampopo strolled toward the lanky nicotiana plant in the far corner of the yard. About two feet high, it was already blooming red. Mitra and Grandmother followed Tampopo who leapt toward an unseen insect.

  “Believe it or not, she doesn't bother the nicotiana,” Grandmother said. “Could it be because it's related to the tobacco family? I, too, hate cigarettes, but love these flowers. They start smelling heavenly at sunset, almost like jasmine. They come into their own after dark.”

  Even though Mitra's concerns about Ulrich hadn't been resolved and they hadn't agreed on how to cat-proof her yard, they were back to their common ground: flowers. This could be Grandmother's way of extending an apology about her earlier observations on Ulrich. The sweet fragrance of nicotiana had certainly revived Mitra.

  “They're a hummingbird magnet,” she said. “Wait till they return from the south and you'll see.”

  Then she remembered that hummers were among Ulrich's favorite birds. Aware that Grandmother mistrusted him, Mitra swallowed.

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWO DAYS LATER, Mitra's search for an art-deco planter for a client took her to a local mom-and-pop gardening shop in Fremont. Even here, she looked for Kareena, as she did everywhere. Then she came back to herself and told the store clerk what she needed. The clerk rummaged around in her inventory of containers, setting aside an iron kettle, a terra cotta elephant, and a faux Grecian cement pedestal. It appeared she was out of stock in the style Mitra needed.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a familiar figure at the cash register. It was Detective Yoshihama, casually dressed in a faded red sweat shirt and jeans. She studied him more closely, which she hadn't done when he'd come to her house. He was probably in his mid-thirties, on the cusp of the settling-down age. Minus his bulky jacket and cop badges, he appeared smaller, just another shopper engaged in mundane chores, attractive nonetheless.

  She didn't need another man in her life now. Oh, no. She had Ulrich. Still, she admitted to herself, Yoshihama had an appeal. She kept watching him. He spoke with the store clerk in a quiet confident manner, both smiling.

  After paying for his purchase, Yoshihama walked out of the store. She, too, hurried outside and tried to draw his attention. But by then, he'd gotten into his SUV and pulled out of the curb. She ran to her Honda parked half a block away and started following him, taking a right, then two lefts. She didn't quite want to do this: she'd been followed recently and that had threatened her. Yet, given that she wanted to speak with him in person urgently, there was no other choice. He parked in front of a house, hopped out, and climbed up the front steps.

  She parked her car across the street and surveyed the house, a nondescript pastel-yellow 1920's craftsman, set back away from the sidewalk and elevated. She closed the car door and crossed the street, dodging a white Datsun truck whose driver refused to slow down. She wondered for a moment if it was the same pickup that had followed her the other night.

  She bounded up Yoshihama's front steps and halted on the concrete pathway leading to the front door of the house, alert to the fact that she was invading his private space.

  Her eyes swept over the large square lawn to her right. A conscientious gardener could nurture this lawn into a thing of beauty, but Yoshihama hadn't done much. A volunteer lobelia waged a losing battle against an army of purslane. The grass resembled an aging flower child's unapologetically long, unkempt hair. Cheerful, yellow, “Aren't I pretty?” dandelion blossoms punctuated the grass.

  Pruning shears in his hand, Yoshihama studied a cherry tree at the far end of the lawn. He reached for a branch, then stepped back. From the looks of it, the tree had received only limited attention in recent years. It hadn't been properly pruned. The branches crisscrossed, robbing air and sunlight from each other.

  “Good morning,” Mitra called out.

  Yoshihama turned and their eyes caught. It took him a split second to place her. Then he answered, “Ms. Basu,” in a cheerful manner. “Taking a break from reading books about Bollywood?”

  Mitra smiled, as she walked toward him. “Actually I was running an errand down the street. I always check out people's yards—professional curiosity, I guess—and saw you working. You have a potentially nice space.”

  “Thanks. I think.” A strand of unruly hair curled at the side of his neck. He looked toward a starling perched atop the tree.

  “Is that a cherry?” A question she didn't really need to ask but, hopefully, it'd keep the conversation going to the point where she could enquire about Kareena.

  He nodded. “In the last two years, I have gotten maybe four or five cherries each spring. I can't figure out what's wrong.”

  She stole a glance at his hands. They were soft and smooth unlike hers with their calloused palms. His shears had rust on the cutting edge.

  “If you prune it right, the tree will give you more fruit and it'll live longer. One of my clients has an Asian pear in her backyard. It's quite prolific because of the care it gets.”

  “You're a professional gardener, as I remember,” he said. “This is my first attempt. So, how would you prune this one?”

  She went over the basics: aim for an open center to admit sunlight and improve air circulation. Prune the crown low for easy harvesting. And be sure to use quality shears.

  “That sounds like it'll take me hours,” Yoshihama said.

  So far he hadn't uttered the word “we.” She assumed him to be someone who lived alone, liked his privacy, but was overwhelmed by the demands of property maintenance. “You have a backyard, too?”

  He smiled into her eyes. “Would you like to see?”

  He turned and started on the path toward the back of the house, brushing past a lobed-leaf hydrangea bush hanging far beyond its optimal space. She followed, watching his long strides.

  Yoshihama turned. “Forgive the mess. I've been busy at work lately with a couple of complicated drug cases. It's been a month since I've mowed.”

  He had, indeed, let the yard go. A gigantic pine blocked what Pacific Northwest gardeners cherish most: natural light. English ivy had smothered a wooden fence and destroyed its planks. Some rotten boards had fallen over onto a flowerbed that ran along the fence. The bed was an eyesore of crown vetch, originally intended as a ground cover. An invasive variety of mint was sprawled on the ground everywhere she stepped. She had, however, seen worse. Her adopted grandmother's yard, when she first got the assignment, lurched to mind.

  He was studying her, as though to check how horrified she might be. “At least you haven't fainted.”

  She would be thrilled to beautify this plot of land, if she ever had the chance. Drawing in a pleasant expression on her face, she said, “You know, you could have a great yard here if you clean out the ivy jungle and take out the pine. I can see deciduous shrubs on the right, minimum-care perennials like daylily and bleeding hearts on the raised bed, a honeysuckle bush in that corner for lushness and color.”

  He managed a small smile. “A spade, a roto-tiller, muscle power, and hundreds of hours, huh.”

  He steered her toward a tidy cement patio, the yard's only redeeming feature. “Would you like to have a seat?” he said eage
rly, as though wishing to prolong this visit. “Do you have time?”

  She risked a glance at her watch and pulled up a chair from the patio's wrought-iron dining set. He took the other chair.

  “So do you take on projects like this?” he asked.

  “Yes, but you might want to see some of my work first. Recently, I planted a garden for Glow Martinelli, my adopted grandmother. Her plot isn't much bigger than yours. I'm sure she wouldn't mind showing it to you, if you call her ahead of time.”

  He asked for the particulars. “I'd like to see it.”

  She noticed a gaudy mass-market paperback lying on the patio table. The cover showed an elaborate office desk, a reclining woman in a corporate suit with buttons popped off—no undergarment from the looks of it—and a fully dressed male executive leaning over her. She glanced at the title: Between Five and Seven. Bold letters at the top proclaimed it as the third title in the “Boardroom Romance” series.

  This detective read romance novels? She wouldn't have guessed it. It could also be that he kept his emotional side well hidden when on police duties.

  She raised an eyebrow. “This looks interesting.”

  His face flushed. She'd embarrassed him. “Oh, the cover is misleading,” he said. “This author puts more energy on the characters, less on the plot. You see, as a detective, I like to study the idiosyncrasies of human behavior, to deduce what a person's real motives are from what he says or does. I also read partly to escape.”

  She recognized his flimsy defense and glanced at the lurid cover once more. Flipping to a pink bookmark, she noticed flamboyant character names such as Orianna and Lance, put the book down, and nodded seriously.

  “I'll pick up a copy,” she said. “For my mother who lives in Kolkata. She zips through at least three books a week. She calls them her bon bons. She's a careful reader, likes to get involved in the nitty-gritty. It's the smallest acts, she says, like how a man ties his shoe laces, how he counts money, or how he dumps the newspaper into the waste bin that reveal his character. She also says women are in the habit of noticing minor flaws in a person's actions that add up to major issues.”