5
Block 9, Singapore General Hospital
August 26, :00 p.m. SGT
A few minutes later, the same man who had greeted us earlier emerged through a door from the back, trailed by Inspector Lee. The man carried a large metal tray.
He placed the tray atop the magazines and took a nearby chair.
Inspector Lee sat down and leaned in.
“This is everything,” he confirmed, presumably for my benefit.
“Except her clothes,” the younger man answered. “Dress, bra, and panties.”
I flinched at his matter-of-fact voice.
“In the room was a bouquet of red gardenias,” Lee told me. “We are working to see who delivered them. Also, a bottle of expensive cognac.”
I pulled my expression into neutral and said nothing.
Each of Cassandra’s possessions had been placed in a separate plastic bag. Clipped to the side of the tray was a typewritten inventory. Lee unclipped it and set it in front of me.
Possessions: Brenner, Cassandra Allegra
Case #1384-FN-19
Jewelry: Ruby and gold drop earrings, brand unknown
Shoes: Christian Louboutin red satin pumps with peep toe
Purse: Jimmy Choo Honey Gold Suede Clutch Bag with Crystals
Contents of purse:
Lipstick: Rouge Orange Hermès matte lipstick (#3)
Compact mirror: gold
Credit card: American Express Platinum
Business cards: Cassandra Brenner, Designer, Ocean House (12)
Plastic bag with 1.21 grams of unknown white powder
Plastic straw cut at an angle on each end
Yin and yang necklace, black and white, on gold chain, brand unknown
Hotel key: Marina Bay Sands, Room 401
Unknown substance? I lifted my eyes to Lee’s. “What is this powder?”
“We cannot be sure until the lab has analyzed the substance. We will also run a toxicology screen.”
“It’s not cocaine,” I said. “Cass has never used street drugs.”
Lee remained silent.
“Maybe a friend ...” I let the thought trail off. What friend? Why would Cass be carrying someone else’s drugs as she plunged to her death? Indeed, why had she been carrying her purse?
“Maybe,” Lee agreed in a neutral voice.
I put aside the implications of the powder for the moment and examined the two larger items. The shoes and the gold evening purse.
A red smear marred the crystals on the clutch.
I shuddered. “Is that—”
“The bag, like the shoes, was found near the deceased,” Lee said. “Separated during the fall.”
My stomach flipped. At the same time, my methodical mind whispered: Who climbs over a balcony railing in stilettos?
“Where is her phone?” I asked. “And keys? Cassandra didn’t have a car, but she has a condo in Tanglin. Ardmore Park.”
Lee looked again at the morgue employee, who said, “This is everything.”
“Someone took her phone,” I said. “They planted the drugs and took her phone.”
“Why would someone do that?” Lee asked.
I had no answer.
After a moment, Lee cleared his throat. “Does the purse look familiar to you?” he asked, including Emily in his gaze.
“No,” I said.
Emily shook her head.
“My sister wasn’t much for fancy clothes unless there was a big yacht event,” I said. “She’s never owned expensive things like these.”
My eyes skimmed over the drop earrings, their gold-and-ruby luster still visible through the plastic bag. Everything on the tray was a far cry from Cassandra’s usual flats, linen pants, and canvas totes. Cass enjoyed bright colors but rarely wore jewelry. She was practical. Efficient. Economical with her appearance as well as her life. At most she’d don a black cocktail dress and wear Grandmama’s paste jewelry.
“Perhaps,” Emily ventured, “she became someone else in this country.”
Lee lowered his eyebrows. He scratched under his chin. “Singapore does change people,” he said after a moment. “For good and for bad.”
Was it possible for a person to change so much?
If Cassandra had changed, were the changes merely skin deep? Or had the shift gone deeper?
I reached for the bag holding Cass’s yin-and-yang necklace. Lee’s immense hand gently interceded. “For now,” he said, “look only.”
I fished out my own necklace from where it hung around my neck and held it up for Lee.
“She was Yang and I Yin,” I said. “That’s what she told me when she bought these necklaces. I’m the thinker. She was the doer.”
Yin and Yang. Soft and bright. Earthy and airy.
I brought my hands to my throat.
Alive and dead.
“I’m ready to see her,” I said.
A woman in blue scrubs met us at an industrial-looking elevator, a paper mask tucked under her chin, her hair covered by a surgical cap. She smelled of chemicals and cleaning agents and a vague hint of something I couldn’t define and didn’t want to. The three of us—Emily had chosen to remain behind—rode down in silence.
Lee and Emily had tried to convince me to forgo the viewing. It was unnecessary and would make me greatly buay song . I’d explained that seeing Cass was imperative and that Lee would be buay song if he refused to allow it.
But as we rode the elevator down, my pulse returned to prestissimo.
“This way,” said the woman, exiting the elevator.
I hung back. Lee gave me a kindly look.
“Would you prefer to return upstairs?” he asked. “This viewing will only make your loss harder.”
But I stepped into the hallway. I was done with the thinking part. We were on to acting.
Panic would come when I was finally alone.
Five minutes later, I sat in a chair as directed and peered through a window at a tiled room with metal drawers and a single body on display.
The sheet-covered shape on the metal embalming table was clearly not in one piece and bore only the faintest outline of a human body. When the tech folded down the sheet, Cass’s face was unrecognizable. It wasn’t at all like looking at her. Except for the wavy fall of dark, blood-soaked hair, it could have been anyone.
It could have been me.
“She has a tattoo,” the morgue technician said. “Would it help for you to see it?”
I nodded. The tech covered Cass’s face and tucked the sheet back from her shoulder. The skin was bruised and split, but the yang tattoo and the surrounding words— light , sun , active , strong —were visible.
I’d forgotten about the tattoo. Cass had gotten it five years ago, just before she moved out of our shared apartment and flew across the world to take up her position in Singapore. I was supposed to get a matching tattoo on my right shoulder. But I was busy, and I hated needles, and—conveniently—I forgot about it.
“Have you seen enough?” Lee asked.
I nodded, understanding with lightning-bolt clarity why the tech had insisted I sit down.
“It’s Cass,” I said before the room went dark.
Sometime later, I followed Emily through the morgue’s door and into the cool white hallway. I gripped a bottle of a sports drink Lee had rustled up from somewhere, and a plastic package with two pain-reliever tablets.
Emily stopped. “You are okay now?”
My stomach seethed. “Sure.”
“Then please excuse me. I need to use the restroom. I will meet you by the front doors.”
I nodded. I wanted to wash my mascara-smeared face, but it felt intrusive to follow Emily into the bathroom. Instead, I found a shallow alcove with a water fountain. I turned my back to the handful of pedestrians in the hallway and cleaned the black goop from beneath my eyes using a damp tissue and a compact.
I was about to close the mirror when I caught the reflection of a man in the glass. He had stopped just outside the alcove.
I lowered the mirror and turned.
The man was lean, of average height, with close-cropped black hair and eyes hidden by steel-rimmed spectacles that reflected the hallway lights like silver coins over the eyes of the dead. He wore black pants and a black trench coat over a gray tee. His hands—I noticed his hands even though they were motionless—were slender but sturdy looking, the fingers strong, the knuckles calloused. The nails on his left index and middle fingers were gone.
His smile was merely a simulacrum of pleasantry. “You are Nadia Brenner.”
“Have we met?”
“Not officially.”
“But ... at a yachting event, perhaps? Or ...” My voice fell flat under the analytical precision of his gaze. “Or perhaps you knew my sister?” I took a step forward. “Cassandra?”
He continued to stare at me, his eyes like fingers picking at my flesh. Goose bumps rose on my arms.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Abruptly, he turned on his heel and strode away, leaving behind only the whiff of nicotine. I stepped out of the alcove and watched as he disappeared through the same door Emily and I had just exited.
I shoved my compact in my purse and hurried after him.
Emily’s voice sounded behind me. “Nadia! We should go.”
I stopped. “There was a man here who knew me. He knew my name.” I hugged myself. “The way he stared at me ...”
Her heels clicked on the tiles as she came toward me. “Someone working with the inspector, no doubt. Probably your beauty gave him a momentary distraction.” She touched my arm. “Come. I’m sure it was nothing more than that.”