Chapter 17 Kobe
Kobe
Dominique lived in a two-story craftsman house on Grange Avenue, not far from the café where we’d enjoyed our early morning date the previous week. Many houses along the street were decorated for Christmas. Dominique’s was one of them.
I pulled into the driveway at quarter to eight. The sun had gone down hours ago, and the house was lit up behind the drawn curtains. A string of lights along the eaves twinkled and chased one another. A wreath hung from the wooden front door.
The sight emitted a sense of hominess that tugged at a long-neglected part of me.
I didn’t care that Dominique had a daughter.
It didn’t bother me that he’d once had a wife.
People might expect a thirty-two-year-old single man to run from an already established family, but I wasn’t that person.
In fact, I longed for the domestic comforts I’d been deprived of as a child.
I yearned to be part of something intimate and private.
Going home to an empty house every day sucked.
The remainder of my afternoon had been spent behind a desk, making useless phone calls to endless flower shops—on Rue’s insistence—and doing research on Navid Kordestani, trying to figure out how he connected with two students over twenty years his junior.
Two students who weren’t in the medical program and had never taken his classes.
Dr. Housing had responded to my email, but the information he’d provided wasn’t promising. Apparently, the chemical components of perfume could be analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, but its use was not commonly employed in forensics, or rather, it was in its infancy.
The primary issue was that the components of perfume had a short shelf life.
They broke down rapidly, and the more time that passed, the harder it was to get a usable sample.
Ideally, a sample needed to be collected within the first few hours.
Collecting a sample from a rapidly decaying flower was laughable.
Nature emitted its own essence, and a rotting flower would compromise any possible findings.
Therefore, identifying the type of perfume used would be next to impossible. Even if it was possible to extract something, the study was based on making comparisons and finding matches. We didn’t have a scent to compare it to.
I hoped to discuss it further with Dominique.
Rue had given a press conference with Golding before deciding to visit boutiques in the area.
She was determined to hunt down someone who could identify the perfume from a description alone.
Rue was convinced she would recognize it, but I sensed it was an excuse to get away from me for a bit, so I didn’t argue.
In the end, she’d called to tell me that a woman working at Sephora had presented her with several options. Rue claimed one of them seemed similar. It was called Love on the Beach, an eau de parfum with coconut and frangipani. The saleswoman claimed it was her teenage daughter’s favorite.
The white rose and perfume had shown up at every crime scene. To me, it was a calling card, and if Rue had correctly identified it and the saleswoman thought it was popular among teenagers, it fit with a potential pool of college-aged suspects.
I cracked my neck and shed a day’s worth of stress before killing the engine and heading to the front door. Dominique answered with a crying toddler in footie pajamas attached to his hip. Wet curls stuck to the girl’s forehead, and the scent of baby powder and berries lingered.
Dominique greeted me with a strained smile as he rocked the girl in his arms. He was dressed in trousers and a button-up. His tie was gone, and the shirt’s collar was open, revealing a tuft of chest hair and the tail end of a tattoo.
“You made it.”
“I did. Hello there,” I said to the upset toddler. “You must be Cosette. I’m Kobe. Did you just have a bath?”
Cosette turned her face against Dominique’s neck, gripping him tighter as she sniffled and sobbed.
“Sorry.” Dominique cradled her head and kissed her temple. “Someone is overtired and needs to go to bed. Come in. Give me five minutes. Make yourself at home.”
He vanished down the hall as I removed my jacket and shoes, leaving them on a mat at the door beside Dominique’s boots. I hung my department parka in a nearby coat closet before wandering into the house, following the savory scent of whatever Dominique had made for dinner.
Encountering the living room, I paused and took it in, getting a feel for who Dominique was at home.
The space was cozy and lived in. Soft furniture, thick rugs, warm color tone.
A decorated Christmas tree stood tall in the corner.
Children’s toys lay scattered about. Paperback books filled a tall bookshelf—Dominique’s collection of nonfiction, I assumed.
A glass-doored curio cabinet housed a few familiar liquor bottles and matching crystal tumblers.
Candid pictures of Cosette occupied various surfaces: on the swing at the park; swimming in a turtle pool in the backyard, wearing nothing but a diaper; enjoying ice cream in a stroller, chocolate by the look of it; watching the elephants at the zoo; blowing dandelion fluff into the wind; rolling in colorful fall leaves.
I searched for a picture of Dominique’s wife, curious about the elusive woman who still owned so much of his heart, but I didn’t find one.
I wasn’t surprised, not with the nature of his feelings toward her and his decision to move into the dating scene again for the first time. Wandering the room, I discovered a few empty spots on the shelves that looked like they might have once been occupied by more photographs.
Had he put them away out of respect, knowing I was coming over?
Was he trying to forget and move on? The former made more sense.
Dominique seemed to guard Angelique’s memory and wasn’t ready to share her, especially with me.
They were together for fifteen years. How could I compete with that?
I might always be second best, and although part of me had accepted that, it saddened me that I would always have to share him with a ghost.
Dominique returned as I examined a picture of Cosette in a high chair. An orange mess of spaghetti covered her face and hair, noodles glued to her cheeks and bare arms. A toothy smile and chubby cheeks. She’d been captured mid-laugh with gooey fingers clutched together like she was clapping.
“Her first birthday,” Dominique said, coming up beside me. “It only got worse from there. Homemade chocolate cake for dessert with far too much frosting. By the end of the meal, I was equally covered and unable to take more pictures lest I ruin the camera.”
I chuckled. “Looks like a good day.”
“It was. Memorable.” Dominique stared wistfully at his daughter, and I remembered then that his wife had died the day Cosette was born. It was more than a birthday celebration. It was a sad anniversary.
“It took almost two hours to clean up the kitchen and her,” Dominique said. “I had to wash the walls, and the one beside the high chair remained permanently stained.”
“Was it worth it?”
He nodded, still lost in the photograph.
“You’re a good dad.”
He didn’t respond. A painful expression strained his eyes. Cosette’s mother had missed it all, but perhaps it was still too raw for him to talk about.
Recognizing I’d made the moment uncomfortable, I shifted and tipped my head high, sniffing the air. “What smells so good? I’m not going to lie. I’m starving.”
Dominique blinked from his funk, and a trace of a smile touched one side of his mouth. “Chicken parmesan, garlic toast, and a garden salad with homemade vinaigrette. Is that okay?”
“Sounds phenomenal.”
He led me into the kitchen, where a round, country-style dinette was set with plates and cutlery, awaiting my arrival. Fabric napkins had been neatly folded beside each plate setting. A pitcher of ice water with floating lemon slices sat in the middle of the table. It felt welcoming and romantic.
Dominique waved for me to sit as he used two pot holders to pull a covered dish from the oven. He removed the foil, and steam rose along with the rich scent of seasoning and savory sauce.
“Can I do anything?” I asked as he collected our plates.
“Pour water? I was going to open a bottle of wine, but then I remembered you’re still on the clock. Wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.” He paused. “You are still on the clock, aren’t you?”
“Actually, no. I’m done for the day. We’re talking to a handful of students tomorrow to see if we can’t answer some of our more elusive questions, but otherwise, things aren’t unfolding as we hoped.
We don’t have any concrete leads, so linking our victims has become the priority.
Navid in particular. If we can figure out how he connects to the other two, it might give us a better direction.
My sergeant isn’t happy. The longer it takes for us to make an arrest, the more agitated the public becomes. The press is already hounding us.”
Dominique filled our plates. “In that case, would you like a proper drink? Sounds like you might need it.”
“I would, but I’m not much of a wine drinker.”
He set my plate down before sitting across from me with his own dinner. “A cocktail when we’re finished then. Call it a nightcap.”
“Excellent.”
We shared a smile, and Dominique motioned to my plate. “Eat. Tell me what you think.”
I cut into my breaded chicken, doused in sauce and layered with cheese, and put the piece into my mouth. Dominique waited with an arched brow.
Pleasure erupted across my tongue, and I groaned.
“My god. It’s incredible. The man can cook, ladies and gentlemen.
” I set my fork down and blotted my mouth with a napkin.
“That’s it. I know it’s fast, but we’re getting married.
If I don’t lock you in, someone will steal you from me, and I can’t have that. ”