A Good Day for Chardonnay by Darynda Jones
29
If one day when you’re famous
people will say things like,
“I used to work with her” or
“We were Facebook friends” or
“I’m not surprised she used an axe,”
book an appointment with us immediately.
—SIGN AT DEL SOL MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES
An hour later, Quincy dropped Sun off at an old friend’s house and she found herself in the woman’s living room, drinking a glass of chardonnay and reminiscing about the good old days. Not that Nancy was home yet, but Sun could wait. And she did.
When she heard the keys jingle in the lock at the door, she put the glass aside and watched as the woman stepped inside her dark house. She flipped on the light to the living room, turned, and saw Sun.
“Oh, my God!” she said, throwing a hand over her heart. “Sunshine? What the hell? You scared the shit out of me.”
“Hey, Nance. Long time.”
The woman, a tall strawberry blond with a wide smile and huge brown eyes, put down her bag and grew wary. Glancing around like she half expected a team of law enforcement officers to emerge from the darkness and arrest her, she asked warily, “How’d you get in here?”
Sun lifted the key. “You still keep it in the same place. And you still keep late hours, I see.”
Nancy slipped off her heels, looked at the open bottle of wine, and took a glass out of the cabinet. She walked over and poured herself a couple of ounces, her hand shaking, clinking the bottle against the rim on the delicate glass.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked Sun.
“More like, to whom,” Sun said. “Two names. Wynn. Ravinder.”
Nancy pulled her lips tight through her teeth as she studied her wine. “The man whose DNA was on that jacket?”
“The very one.”
She shook out of her thoughts. “I don’t have the file here. What did you need to know?”
“How he did it.”
“I only run the tests, Sun. You know that.”
“No, right. I know. I’m just wondering how he got you to alter it for him.”
She said nothing for a very long time, then downed the drink in one gulp before pouring another one.
Sun took that as a sign of guilt. “I believe the words you’re searching for are, ‘He blackmailed me.’ Or ‘He threatened me.’ Or, hell, even, ‘He coerced me to do his bidding by discovering my weakness for Oreos and offering me a year’s supply.’ Anything but, ‘I did it because I love him.’ That’s just a little too cliché.”
She kept her gaze downcast. “I do love him.”
“Oh, my God, Nancy.” Sun scrubbed her face with her fingertips and stood to look out a plate glass window, the stunning view of Santa Fe at night lost on her, her fury too great to appreciate it.
Her friend had always been a hot mess, but altering DNA evidence? Every single test she’d ever run would now be questioned. Every person convicted on evidence she processed would be thrown out. People guilty of murder and rape and molestation and trafficking … any number of felons would now have to be retried or released altogether.
What Sun was about to do was beyond unethical, but she could not allow that to happen. Not if she could help it. She had to know.
“Don’t worry, Sun,” Nancy said, her voice breaking. “He doesn’t love me back.”
“How many?”
“You don’t understand. He saved my brother’s life in Arizona. They were going to kill him.”
“How many cases, Nance? How many did you tamper with?”
“Just this one, I swear. You’ve met my brother. Kevin wouldn’t be alive today if not for Wynn.”
“He’s a shot caller, Nance. Your brother probably wasn’t even in any real danger. It was most likely a setup to get you under his thumb. To save you for a rainy day.”
“No, this happened years ago. And then we started writing.” She looked away. “Well, I wrote him mostly. He never asked me for anything until now.”
“That’s how they work. C’mon, Nancy. You can’t be this naïve.”
When she didn’t respond, Sun did the only thing she could do in this situation. “Tomorrow morning, you’re going to resign.”
A look of absolute panic hijacked her face. “I—I can’t.”
“You will or I’ll turn you over to SFPD. All of your cases … It’ll be a mess, and you know it.”
She raised her chin. “It’ll be your word against mine.”
“Nancy, don’t make me do this.” She brought out her phone. “I’ve recorded this whole conversation. You’ll be arrested.”
“Then arrest me. I can’t quit.” Her expression was one of both fear and desperation. It suddenly made sense.
“Who else has you in their pocket?”
Her fingers tightened around her glass. “Someone a lot scarier than you.”
“You just told me you hadn’t altered any other tests.”
“I haven’t.” She stepped closer, pleading. “I swear to God, Sun. He just—I just do a couple of side jobs for him from time to time. Off the books. That’s all.”
What kind of side jobs would a lab rat in forensics do? “Who?”
Wetness gathered between her lashes. “If I tell you, I’ll be dead by morning.”
“I can protect you.”
She scoffed. “You can’t even protect yourself.”
“Nancy, you’re putting me in a very bad position.”
She put her glass down. “You do what you have to do, Sunshine.”
One thing was for certain. She was going to have to look into Nancy’s situation further. But for now … “I want the analysis you falsified destroyed immediately.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“Then you and I are going to talk.” Sun walked up to her and lowered her voice, hopefully hampering anyone who might be listening. “And just for the record, I can be scary, too.”
Nancy nodded again, her hands twisting into knots.
Sun texted her parents to let them know she would be late getting to the hospital the next morning. Auri was getting out and she needed them there. They wanted to keep Cruz another couple of days, much to Auri’s distress.
She stepped out of her cruiser into the blinding light of the New Mexico sun. She’d gotten exactly three seconds of sleep, which could explain her vampiric aversion to the bright orb in the sky.
“What’s wrong?” Quincy asked her.
“It’s daylight.”
Quincy scanned the blue above them. “I believe this is the kind of daylight they call broad.”
She ran through every scenario possible last night about why Levi kept the truth from her. The law enforcement officer in her came to one disturbing conclusion: he was in on it from the beginning. But if so, why? And what happened?
He was just a kid, himself. Well, young anyway. He was only twenty when it happened. Had Kubrick tricked him into helping with the abduction somehow? If so, what event led to their falling out and subsequent fight to the death? And what in the bloody heck did Wynn have to do with any of it? Had he been involved as well? Was it a family affair?
Her brain had swelled in her skull with all the questions rolling around in there. On a quest for answers, she and Quincy found themselves at the state pen in Santa Fe. The DA had pulled it off. He’d gotten Wynn Ravinder transferred to New Mexico, and he’d done it in record time.
“I think I should go this one alone,” she said to Quince. “Wynn may talk more openly to me if you aren’t there.”
“That’s what you get for thinking, boss.”
She shook her head. “Don’t make me pull rank.”
“Don’t make me pull hair. It’s not very manly but it’s effective.”
They were shown to an office with stacks of files as tall as Quincy on the desk.
“He just came in last night,” an intake specialist said, rifling through the items on his desk for a file. He found what he was looking for and sat at his computer.
“Yes. Wynn Ravinder. He has quite the record.” He gave them a thorough inspection. “This must be really important to have gotten him transferred this fast,” he said, fishing.
“It is,” she said, not biting.
“I’ll have the sergeant bring him up.”
She tugged at the collar of her uniform as they waited in a small room much like the one in Arizona, only New Mexico clearly didn’t have quite the money they did. The metal table had been painted about a hundred times, each layer showing a different shade of the same neutral colors.
“Apple,” Wynn said when they brought him in. He eyed Quincy, then returned his attention to Sun. “You got my message.”
“Nope. No message.”
He seemed surprised. “Then why are you here so soon?”
“Questions.”
“Lots of questions,” Quincy added.
Suspicion narrowed his lids. “That’s going to have to wait. You have to get to Ravinder.”
She frowned. “You are Ravinder.”
“I’m not the Ravinder. I’m not Levi.”
She’d always found it fascinating how all the other Ravinders called Levi by their last name.
“Did you get my message or not?”
“No,” she said. The edge in his voice alarmed her, but she needed to stay focused. “Look, we got you transferred to get answers. It’s time to pay up.”
“That can wait. You need to get to him immediately. I thought that was why you were here.”
“I have a feeling you’re going to be getting a message soon, as well. From Nancy Danforth?” She stood and leaned over the table. “You lied.”
“Nancy?” he asked. He sat back in his chair, his silence confirmation.
“How did you get her to falsify the DNA test?”
He licked his lips. “We don’t have time for this.”
“And why? Why confess to a killing you didn’t do?”
He worked his scruffy jaw in frustration. “I answer your questions, then you get to Ravinder?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. Get rid of the hulk.”
Sun turned to him.
“This again?” Quincy asked. When she didn’t respond, he made a grand show of standing, his annoyance evident in every sharp move he made. He knocked on the door to be let out and exited with the same enthusiastic performance.
After the door closed, she refocused on Wynn. “You confessed to a murder you didn’t commit.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You didn’t do it,” she reiterated.
“Doesn’t matter who did it, apple blossom. You get to solve the case. I go down for the killing. Everyone is happy.”
“That’s not how the law works.”
“Listen. Just because I didn’t kill Brick doesn’t mean I haven’t killed.” He leaned closer. “How did you figure it out?”
“I remembered.”
“Oh, son of a bitch. That must’ve sucked.”
“You have no idea.” Her exhaustion, her devastation, was catching up to her. She rubbed her eyes. “I don’t want to play games anymore.”
“That’s too bad.”
She had to be honest with him. There was a part of Wynn Ravinder that was noble. She could tell by the way he reacted to her. He tried to put up a front, but for some reason a part of him truly cared for her. Now to find out how much sway that part had.
She studied her hands, and said, “I’m in love with him.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and watched her.
“I’ve been in love with him since I was a kid. I’m pretty sure my very first memory is of Levi Ravinder doing jumps on a Huffy. I think the fireworks bursting and sparkling around him were my imagination, but the rest was all him. And then last night, it all came back to me in a rush.” She blinked through the tears, unable to believe she was losing it like that in front of an inmate. “It was him.”
“Finally,” he said, tilting his head to one side. “I thought you’d never show yourself.”
“Wynn, why was he there? Why do you know so much about what happened that night?”
He released a heavy sigh, resigned to telling her the truth. He put his elbows on the table and clasped his hands. “When I heard what Brick was up to, I was working a job in Colorado.”
She sniffed, and asked, “Hitman?”
“Close. Logger.”
“Ah.”
“It was over and done by the time I got to town. When I found him that night, he was delirious. Bleeding to death in his bed. Refusing to tell me what happened. Swearing he’d be fine. He just needed to sleep it off.” He chuckled softly.
It took her a moment to realize he was talking about Levi. She stilled, hanging on his every word.
“His sheets were soaked with blood, and this was hours after he got you to the hospital.”
His words crushed her and it took everything in her to maintain her composure. “Why didn’t he go to a hospital?”
“Too many questions, apple. But I had no choice. I had to risk it. I wrapped him up the best I could and took him to an emergency room.”
“But there were no stabbing victims admitted into any of the local hospitals.”
“I drove him into Albuquerque. That was the biggest risk. I was scared shitless he was going to bleed to death on the way there. Took him to Southside. Admitted him under a false name. Then I whisked him out of there as soon as I could after surgery.”
The image of Levi almost bleeding to death made her queasy.
He saddened as he thought back. “He was in a bad way. Told me everything in his drugged state. Well, most everything.” He grinned up at her. “There were never any ropes, were there?”
Her test. She shook her head. “No. Chains. I only remember chains. And possibly duct tape.”
“Clever girl.”
She shrugged. “Hardly. It took me fifteen years to figure this out.”
“Brain injuries tend to do that. I went back and buried the body in a shallow grave, but I figure the animals got to him anyway.”
“They did. Not all of him, of course. And the knife?”
“I have it. Like I said.”
“Are you going to tell me where?”
“In due time.”
“Was he—” She could hardly believe she was asking this. Did she really want the truth? “Was he a part of it?”
The look he gave her was filled with almost as much sympathy as dubiousness. “You know the answer to that as well as I do.”
“No, I know. I just thought maybe Kubrick had coerced him or forced him somehow.”
“Apple, when have you ever known Levi Ravinder to be forced into anything he didn’t want to do?”
“Then why not just tell me? After all these years, why keep it a secret?”
“Who the hell knows?” He raked a hand through his shoulder-length blond hair. “Pride? Self-preservation?”
She bit her bottom lip. “He could’ve died saving my life and I would never have known.”
He studied her a long moment. “Do you have any idea what it would’ve done to him if you’d died?”
His question surprised her.
“He would’ve never gotten over it. He would not be the same man you see today. Besides, you helped.”
“I helped what?”
“You helped him win the fight that night.”
The snort that escaped her expressed her feelings on the subject beautifully, but she elaborated anyway. “Wynn, I literally lay there and watched as Levi was stabbed over and over. I couldn’t have been more useless if I were made of hair gel.”
“When Brick was abducting you, I guess he’d drugged you, but you fought back regardless. You bit his hand. That’s how Levi figured it out. He knew you were missing, saw Brick’s hand, and put two and two together. In a way, apple, you aided in your own rescue.”
She remembered Brick’s yell when he was taking her from her truck. Blood on his hand. But she didn’t remember biting him. “I thought he hurt it on the truck somehow.”
“You bit him. You clamped down so hard, you literally took a chunk out it. It weakened him. Made it possible for Levi to wrest the knife away.”
“He told you that?”
“He did. Again, he was high as a kite, but he rarely lies either way.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, when it dawned on her. “All those confessions muddying the waters. That was you.”
“A few, yeah. Not all. What can I say? The man is loved.”
“The man is almost worshiped, truth be known. And why do you keep calling me apple?”
He laughed softly. “You don’t remember? You stole apples out of my tree one summer. I chased your ass for a half a mile, at which point you turned and threw a half-eaten Granny Smith at me.”
“That was you?”
“God, you could run. I’ve called you apple blossom ever since. Just not to your face.”
“When are you going to tell me where the knife is?”
“When I see the girl.”
Her lids slammed shut. She had put it off long enough. Time for the ten-thousand-dollar question. “Why do you want to see her?”
“Because I’ve heard she looks like her grandmother.”
Her lungs seized and turned to cement. “You aren’t talking about my mother, are you?”
The corners of his eyes crinkled as he studied her. “She was a lot like you, apple. Strong. Beautiful. Fiercely protective of her family.”
“You were in love with her.”
“Body and soul.”
She sobered with the knowledge that Wynn had been in love with his sister-in-law. With Levi’s mother. “You’re telling me Levi is Auri’s father.”
“You know he is,” he said, his voice dripping with sympathy.
She took a long moment to process his words. To let them and their implications sink in. “You just said he wasn’t a part of it.”
“I don’t understand. What does your abduction have to do with Levi being Auri’s father?”
“Because that’s when it happened. I woke up pregnant.”
“You woke up with retrograde amnesia.”
“True, but I’ve remembered a lot since then. Almost everything.”
“Clearly, you haven’t. That could explain why Levi hasn’t told you the truth. Maybe he’s waiting for you to remember. And a little sad you haven’t. According to him, that night was everything. His word. One night you’re underneath him with skin as soft as an ocean breeze—again, his words—and the next you’re gone.”
The emotion simmering beneath the surface bubbled up and boiled over. All these years, the answer was right in front of her. How did she not guess the truth? Was it denial? Or just sheer stupidity?
She’d gone for so long believing she’d been violated. Raped by a monster. And she’d never wanted Auri to feel less-than because of it. Because of something beyond her control.
“Does he know?” she asked, her chin trembling. “That he’s Auri’s father?” The words seemed foreign. Surreal. Before Wynn could answer, however, she did it for him. “Of course, he knows. He loves her so much.”
“She’s yours, apple.” He reached up and brushed the wetness off her cheek. “He would love her either way.”
That wrenched the sob building inside her chest right out of it. She didn’t care. Screw policy. Screw procedure. Screw the rules. She stood, walked around the table, and threw her arms around him. He’d stood as well, anticipating her break from reality, and hugged her right back. Astonishingly, he let her cry and slobber on him like a lost puppy and didn’t seem to care in the least.
After another eon of emotional instability, she stood at arm’s length, and said, “Wait, what did you mean I have to get to Ravinder? What message were you talking about?”
Humor sparkled in his eyes. “Oh, now you want to know?”
A sheepish smile crept across her face. “Yes.”
He waited a beat, looked down into her eyes, and said, “Clay is going to take him out.”
