5. Armistice
ARMISTICE
Dahlia
February
Ice covers the parlor room windows.
When the light shines through it shatters and breaks into colorful prisms that reflect on the hardwood floor and marble fireplace mantle.
Detective Carson stares outside with an inquisitive look and arched brow as if the answer to the question floating around his mind might suddenly appear on my front stoop.
He’s younger than I feel a detective should be; maybe three or four years older than Alejandro, if that.
It’s impossible to tell when a smooth brown complexion makes him appear ageless.
With hair cropped short on the sides and perfectly styled curls on top, he reminds me a little of Diego.
“We’re glad to see you’re recovering.” Says Detective Wilson. “How long have you been home?”
I lower my teacup. “I was released from the hospital about a week ago.”
“We’d have appreciated a phone call,” Detective Carson glowers at me with suspicion. “We would’ve visited sooner.”
I plaster a smile on my face. “I’d hate to inconvenience a pair of New York City’s finest. I’m sure you have better things to do than pay me a house call.”
Detective Carson doesn’t smile in return and instead continues to glare outside my window.
Detective Wilson clears his throat and shifts uncomfortably on the love seat across from me. I watch him loosen his tie and move to the edge of the chair.
He’s older than his young partner by at least fifteen years. Tall, broad, and attractive, his dark hair is silvering and deep lines have formed around his blue eyes. He’s white and the rough edge of his raspy voice tells me he’s a true New Yorker, born and bred. The other detective, not so much.
“We were hoping you could answer a few questions.” Detective Wilson produces a small notepad and pencil. “What was your relationship with Li Huang like before the incident?”
“Cordial.”
“We’ve interviewed a few former employees of The Empress.” Detective Carson jumps in. “They say the two of you were hostile toward each other. And that just a week prior, engaged in an altercation at his club.”
“Whomever you spoke to was mistaken. A man assaulted me at the bar and I defended myself. Li stepped in to calm things down.”
“Why—”
Detective Carson cuts his partner off. “Didn’t he kick you out of his club?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” I reply smoothly. “Because if this is an interrogation, perhaps we should have it in a more formal setting. With my lawyer present.”
Detective Wilson shoots a look at his young partner that I can’t see. Detective Carson purses his lips and returns to window glaring.
“Miss Rosario, we’re simply trying to understand how all this…” he gestures vaguely. “Occurred.”
Because the chaos of that night was too much for all of us. And it didn’t occur to anyone that two injured parties and several dead bodies in Central Park would necessitate a cover-up.
Dona Ana enters the room and leaves a tray of pastries and coffee on the glass table between us.
“Detective?” I set down my own cup and motion for the coffee carafe.
“Black, please, thank you,” he says.
“Detective Carson?”
“No thank you.” He answers gruffly.
I extend the cup and saucer to Detective Wilson.
“I’m not sure what else to tell you, Detectives. Li lured me into the park under false pretenses, pulled a gun on me, and we fought. Clearly.” I motion to the injury on my right side, whose surgical incision has since healed. “And now he’s dead. There isn’t much more to the story.”
“The story in which four other bodies are found within a quarter mile radius of Bow Bridge and his associate, Rian O’Neil, is also injured in the process?” Detective Carson questions. “Not to mention the fact that your friends all just so happened to be in the area.”
“I was lucky.”
“With friends like Damiano Vellucci and Alejandro Narvaez, I wouldn’t consider myself lucky,” he fires back. A stretch of silence passes. “Where were you on the evening of January 15th?”
“Home.”
“And in the early hours of January 16th?”
“Bleeding out on Bow Bridge.” I deadpan.
“So you go missing for several hours and no one notices? Not your roommate or your housemaid?” He glances at Dona Ana. “Did you find it suspicious when Miss Rosario left without informing anyone and couldn’t be reached for several hours?”
She opens her mouth to respond but I cut her off. “Unfortunately, Dona Ana cannot be interviewed.”
“And why is that?”
Before I can respond, Detective Wilson interjects. “There’s no need for her to be afraid. We aren’t with immigration.”
I feel Dona Ana’s eyes on me but I’m focused on the man sitting across from us. The one who doesn’t know that if not for the fact that I’m still recovering, he’d be on the floor with my hands around his neck and two serving spoons sticking out of his eye sockets.
At this point, my cheeks ache from how painful the smile on my lips is. “What a funny thing to say.”
Detective Wilson’s brows furrow. “What do you mean?”
“Thinly veiled threats are in poor taste.” My voice hardens. “Dona Ana is not here illegally, in fact, the only illegal thing in this room is the interrogation you’re conducting without my lawyer present. Get out.”
He clears his throat and rushes to set down his cup. “I apologize if—”
“Apology not accepted and next time, don’t show up at my doorstep unannounced. Dona Ana’s English is limited and I don’t like it when she has to attend to people alone.”
“Eso no es ningún problema. Traduzco para Dona Ana con mucho gusto.”
My jaw tightens but the smile never wavers. This time, Detective Carson smiles back with a smugness I’d like to wipe off his face. “Black father, Cuban mother.”
“Miss Rosario,” Detective Wilson rises from his seat in an attempt to mediate between us. “We’d appreciate it if at a time of your earliest convenience, you and—”
The front door opens and closes and a gust of wind sweeps through the first floor of the house.
A moment later, Alejandro steps into the foyer as he removes his scarf, lips pursed as if to speak.
Upon realizing we have company, his jaw tightens and he rises to his full height, something he rarely ever does.
“Detectives,” he says by way of greeting and dumps a handful of grocery bags on the floor. “I thought I made it clear that the next time I caught you speaking to her alone, I’d have your badges.”
Detective Wilson remains calm and unshaken. “We just had a few—”
“Ask her another question and I’ll make you eat your gun. Get out.”
Detective Carson is young in his field and out for blood. The chip on his shoulder prevents him from making level-headed decisions which is why he has the audacity to cross the parlor and stand toe-to-toe with a man nearly half a foot taller than him.
“If house visits are such an inconvenience, then we’d be happy to make an accommodation down at the station.”
I can’t help but admire him for it. Alejandro is, well…intimidating to put it lightly. Carson isn’t backing down.
“Come back with a warrant, Detectives,” I stand and motion for the exit. “Either way, the next time we speak it’ll be with a lawyer present. Enjoy the rest of your morning.”
Detective Wilson is the first to leave and the way he grabs onto the back of Carson’s collar like a dog on a leash doesn’t evade my notice.
The movement is subtle and he attempts to conceal it by giving his partner a pat on the shoulder.
As Wilson ushers Carson out of my house, I head toward the windows and push the curtains aside.
Heated words are thrown back and forth but too muffled for me to hear.
Wilson attempts to calm Carson down but he spins on the balls of his feet and storms down 92nd Street.
I let out a deep breath. “Get Sasha on the phone.”
Alejandro lifts the device to his ear. “Already on it.”
He disappears into the hall and I help Dona Ana clean up. “If they come by again, don’t open the door.”
Her brown eyes glisten with concern. “My English is good. I can answer questions.”
I touch her shoulder. “It’s not that. I know you can I just don’t trust them not to misconstrue anything you say. Besides, they have no reason to interrogate you. Okay?”
She rubs her hands down the length of her skirt and lowers her head slightly before nodding.
I kiss her cheek. “I’ll bring this to the kitchen. Do you mind finishing the laundry for me? I put a few bedsheets to dry about an hour ago and they should be done by now.”
She squeezes my hand before leaving and I pick up the last grocery bag Alejandro left abandoned in the hall while balancing the coffee tray on my other hip. I head to the kitchen where Alejandro paces restlessly.
“—spoke to the Police Commissioner?”
I catch the tail end of his sentence and he stops to drag a hand down the length of his face.
A beat passes and he listens intently before turning to begin unpacking the bags on the counter.
He looks around as if expecting to find another when our gazes meet.
I lift the bag in question and he bolts across the kitchen to take it from me.
“How many times do I have to tell you to stop lifting things?” he whispers. A voice comes from the phone and he rolls his eyes. “Not you.”
He grabs the grocery bag first and then the tray, both of which he deposits on the kitchen island. I sit on one of the stools and start unpacking. Apples, grapes, pineapple.
“That’s exactly what I don’t want.” He awaits Sasha’s response. “Antonov, I don’t give a shit. Either handle it or I will.”
He hangs up and tosses his phone onto the counter.
“You seem upset.”
“I’m not upset!” he snaps. “I’m—”
I quirk a brow at him and he stops to take a deep breath.
“I told you not to let them in the house if they came around.”
“Don’t you think it would’ve been suspicious if I hadn’t?” I unpack the bananas and a bag of oranges. “Wilson doesn’t seem like much of a threat.”
“No, he doesn’t.” He agrees. “It’s the rookie detective that’s the problem.”
“What do we know about him?”
“Nothing yet. Sasha promised it wouldn’t be a problem but I’m starting to think it might become one.”
A high-profile case like this could make a young detective’s career if he’s smart and ambitious.
Earlier this month when the news broke about the Mayor’s Office being investigated for corruption, I thought it was a blessing.
Stories about Li’s death and the massacre in Central Park had finally dropped from the public eye but now I wonder if it was the final nail in our coffin.
The Police Commissioner and Mayor are close friends—buddies from the early days of their political careers.
Commissioner Reagan might be a relative of Rian and Sasha through their mother but he’d be disinclined toward granting his nephews a favor of this magnitude at a time like this.
Li Huang was a titan in this city and not only is he dead but it happened under mysterious circumstances.
We’ve stuck as close to the truth as possible at Sasha’s behest. The less you lie, the easier it is to keep track of the story you’re telling.
Detectives Wilson and Carson have been on the case since the beginning but in the early days of my recovery, I wasn’t of much use to anyone.
Besides, there were several other bodies to account for, Li’s being among them.
One would think it’d be easy to find a corpse in a shallow, isolated body of water like the pond under Bow Bridge.
Except when Li fell, he broke through the ice and sank to the bottom.
This winter has been so cold that the ice froze over again.
After we were hit with another storm and several inches of snow, it took law enforcement a week to fish his cadaver out of the water.
Rian was inconsolable that night. I went to visit him in his hospital room but…
Well, we haven’t spoken since. And it hasn’t been from lack of trying. He simply refuses to see me.
But he speaks to Lyss and I know through her that he isn’t starving to death or neglecting his health. At least he’s speaking to one of us…
I finish unpacking what’s left in the bag; a variety of berries, all of which are not going to fit in my fridge. “Did you rob a fruit stand?”
He looks at me.
“You bought enough to feed an entire kindergarten class. Actually, you bought a lot of food.” I reach for a knife and start peeling the skin off an orange. “What are you making tonight?”
He doesn’t respond right away. “I wanted to make sure you had food in the house.”
“Mm.” I murmur around an orange slice.
“In case I have to leave this weekend.”
The knife stills in my hand.
“I know we haven’t spoken much since everything happened—”
“No. We haven’t.”
“I can’t stay here forever. One way or another, I’ll have to go back eventually.”
I set the knife and orange down having suddenly lost my appetite. “I don’t want to talk about this…”
“If not now, then when? It’s been a month.”
My throat closes and my eyes burn. “Not yet.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
It’s been so easy between us lately. I can’t remember the last time we were in such a good place.
It’s like clockwork. Every day, he stops by to check on me.
We have breakfast together and afterward, I clean the kitchen.
Then we sit upstairs in the library where I catch up on schoolwork remotely and he types away on his laptop.
Sometimes Lyss joins us and we all go out to lunch together.
On days where it isn’t snowing we go for walks in the park or take a drive around the city.
Alejandro leaves for a few hours in the late afternoon but I never ask about his whereabouts because he’s back in the evening to start on dinner.
Dona Ana sets the table, we eat together, watch a movie or two, and then he leaves. In the aftermath of the shootout at Central Park we’ve fallen into a fragile armistice I’m terrified to break. How much longer can we go without addressing the elephant in the room? My hope is forever.
“Dahlia, I can’t stay here and I’m not asking you to come with me. Not like this.”
Feeling defensive I say, “Why do I have to be the one who moves again? Why can’t you stay here for a while?”
“That would require a more serious conversation,” he answers calmly. “One you refuse to have.”
Damn it. He got me there.
“If you want me to stay in New York, then I will. But you have to ask.”
“I—”
He shakes his head. “Not like that.”
I open my mouth to argue further but the buzzing phone in my pocket cuts me off. I dig it out and read the name flashing across the screen. “It’s Lyss,” I say before answering. “Hey, I thought you were at work today?”
“I was but Rian called. He wants us to meet at The Empress in a half hour.”
“Us?”
“Yes. All of us.” Honking horns, sirens, and the screech of traffic muffle the sound of her voice. “I’m about to jump in a cab. Is Alex with you?”
“Yes.”
“Bring him too.” A car door slams shut and my best friend lets out a strangled sigh. “I have a bad feeling about this.”