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Vera shoots him such a withering look that he feels his soul shrivel up and hide.
Oliver knows that Julia is lying about the night that her husband—his twin brother—died. He looks at her, and for the first time he wonders if perhaps he doesn’t know Julia that well after all.
Vera can’t remember the last time she had so much fun. People always say that your wedding day is the happiest day of your life, but honestly, people should try solving murders more often.
But there is something about this group of youngsters that makes Vera feel particularly protective. Still, needs must. She is here to solve a murder, after all, not make friends.
Vera ignores him. She’s gotten very good at ignoring people over the years, especially when they say things like “You can’t do that” or “You’re not supposed to do that.” At her age, Vera reckons that she’s gained the right to do whatever the hell she pleases.
As she wipes off the globs of paint, jagged pieces of memories flash through her mind. Of Marshall, always of Marshall. He’s haunted her for so long now. She foolishly thought that the news of his death would set her free, the asshole got what was coming to him, but why is she still blocked? Why does her hand refuse to move the brush across the canvas? Why, why, why?
Mind over matter, her mom whispers. It’s all in your mind. She knows it’s all in her mind, obviously everything is in her mind, but that doesn’t mean she knows how to make it unstuck.
Destiny, Vera thinks, is something to be hunted down and grabbed tightly with both hands and shaken until it gives her exactly what she wants.
Vera frowns. “Not any bird. For example, if he allergic to pigeon, then he would die a lot sooner, because this city is infested with pigeon.”
Vera can’t quite believe what she’s hearing. All those suspicious signs just being batted away. All wasted.
But then again, he’d never been close to Marshall, not since their mother died. He and Marshall would meet up once or twice a year, tops. The last time they’d met up, well, that was the day before Marshall died, and that hadn’t gone well at all.
He’s about to add that Marshall was loyal to her and he’s sure he won’t find anything that would say otherwise, but then he stops himself. Because why bother lying? The only person Marshall was ever loyal to was himself. But still, Oliver hates that Julia
he can just about imagine what Marshall was using it for, but aside from that there are no other pieces of furniture, merely boxes stacked on top of one another. It doesn’t look at all like a place that anyone lived in.
Before long, the studio looks like a tiny art gallery, albeit one owned by the most eclectic collector. There are oil paintings, and jumbled yarn pieces strung together with bits of broken glass and feathers, and cartoon drawings, and more sculptures. Some of the pieces are lone ones; others come in a set. They’ve all been made by different artists.
But one thing she does excel at is charcuterie boards. Well, she used to call them cheeseboards, up until the term “charcuterie board” took over the Internet. Her charcuterie boards absolutely slay.
Julia has no idea what she’s going to do then, but for now, she’s making a charcuterie board with her daughter and she doesn’t have to worry about Marshall telling her that it’s shit. Things could be worse.
“Yeah.” Oliver’s eyes soften. He’s noticed the desperation in her voice. “Really. It was strange, actually, because it was just filled with a lot of artwork. There were sculptures, paintings, photographs…and it seemed like a totally random collection. I couldn’t find any connection throughout all of them. Although, mind you, I’m not exactly an art connoisseur, so even if there had been a cohesive thread between all of them, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.”
Didn’t he say that night he left that he’d made it rich? It’s probably because he had an eye for high art, a talent he’d kept hidden from her, and for good reason.
He nods at Emma. “When I was a little boy, I was always really scared of unfamiliar things. Strangers, or situations, it didn’t matter, I was scared of them, and I always wished that I could have my own little corner to hide in whenever it got too much for me. So I thought maybe you’d like this.” Emma is staring at the tent with mouth and eyes wide open, wonderment written all over her face. “Mine?” she croaks.
chattering happily to herself. Julia only agreed to being interviewed because she thought it would look suspicious if she said no, but now, after seeing Emma so happy, Julia is in such high spirits that she doesn’t mind having to answer questions about her late husband. The feeling lasts up until Sana steps inside and sees all the artwork in the hallway. Sana’s face tightens with what Julia swears is not just anger, but white-hot fury, and it is then that Julia realizes that maybe she’s not the only person hiding some dark secrets about Marshall.
She hadn’t ever thought of the possibility that she hadn’t been Marshall’s only victim.
That she was caught up in nothing more than one of Marshall’s many, many scams. It makes her pain feel ridiculous.
God, this whole pretending to be someone you’re not is so hard. How the hell did Marshall do it so effortlessly?
I had no idea he was even venturing into art. Marshall was…he was always having one bright idea after another. He was into apps for a while, you know, back when apps just started being a thing, then he went into crypto…he never quite caught the trends in time to make it big, but he made enough for us to get by.”
This is the problem with creative people; their self-image is divided into two parts—one thinks that they’re a genius who will one day create a masterpiece of such breathtaking brilliance that it will still be discussed with reverence hundreds of years later; the other part thinks they are trash raccoons rooting around in the dark and coming up with nothing but more trash. There is no in-between. It’s either “super genius” or “trash raccoon,” and somehow these parts coexist within the head of one very tortured artist.
Riki’s never hit anyone in his entire life, until that night, but that’s not going to matter. No one will believe him, not when the first person he hits turns up dead the very next morning.
She might be formidable in some—well, okay, most—situations, but at the end of the day, Vera is a frail old lady who doesn’t deserve to have her shop smashed up.
“When you get to my age, you will need so many things just to keep everything where they belong,” Vera says cryptically, with a vague gesture at her own body.
“What dead body look like?” Vera mulls this over carefully. She believes that honesty is the best policy, but when the truth involves telling a two-year-old about her father’s dead body, maybe a little fudging is in order. “Hmm, it looks like normal body, but dead.”
In Vera’s opinion, Emma is better suited to be an architect.
after a sip of the milk tea, Julia releases her breath, the tension leaving her face. Vera smiles inwardly. Good tea always has that effect on people. It’s a comforting drink, which is why Vera has chosen to dedicate her whole life to bringing it to more people. The last thing that these youngsters need is coffee, which only serves to make them more stressed-out and unhappy, why can’t they see that?
“Unrealized dreams are one of saddest things in life,” Vera says. “Well, after serious illness and death and all that.”
“I am mother too. Actually, I am Chinese mother. You can’t get better than that. We raise the best children in the world, you just look at any hospital, all the surgeon are Chinese.” Vera beams with pride, as though she has personally been responsible for all the surgeons in every hospital.
“You don’t describe your job like that,” Vera scolds. “Is a ‘small job,’ hah! Can you see men saying that? No, men will talk it up with bullshit, that is why they get even bigger job next time. There is no such thing as ‘small job.’ And don’t say in that silly tone, oh so apologetic, I am just silly woman having a small job. No!” Her index finger shoots up and points at Julia’s face like a sword. “You go and do this job proudly.”
she wonders if perhaps this used to be the norm in the before times. When Marshall was alive, maybe Julia always carried this nervous energy with her, and maybe that’s why Emma was so insecure. Vera sighs. So many maybes.
Vera’s heart bursts into a gallop. Who would hide a laptop away in the garage? Someone who was doing something nefarious. Someone who was doing something so shady that it might have gotten him killed. Someone like Marshall.
“Well, we were cleaning up Vera’s shop?” he squeaks. “Why?” Oliver grasps the first answer that comes to mind. “Uh…because…we’re nice?” He cringes inwardly. That was quite possibly the stupidest answer anyone could have come up with.
Sana, Riki, and Oliver stand there, not quite knowing what to say. The air between them is thick with suspicion. Sana takes out her phone, coming up with an excuse to leave, when she sees that there’s a text from Vera. It says:
But then she sees Vera’s slight frame against the vast ocean, and the way Vera’s Asian perm blows in the sea breeze, and something about it cracks her apart. She can’t lie to Vera, not like this. Not ever.
she does, going way back, because somehow, Sana knows that Vera is here to listen to everything, not just the thing that happened with Marshall, but everything. And she wants to tell someone. She’s been hungry for it ever since she was a kid.
“It felt like he had stolen a part of me and left me with this gaping hole. And the worst part is, when I told my mom about it, she just laughed and said, ‘Oh, sweetie. Move on. Do you think I haven’t had my work stolen before? The literary world is just as full of thieves. Plagiarism everywhere. I once told a friend about a book idea I had, and next thing I knew, she’d written a book with exactly that same idea. You know what I did? I moved on. You are more than just one idea.’ ”
“Well,” Vera says, “I agree, we are all more than just one idea. But having our very first idea stolen, before we have even plunge into the water, is devastating.”
God. Julia isn’t sad now; Julia is fucking furious. At Marshall, yes, but most of all, at herself. How could she have been so goddamn stupid? How had she let him tear her down like that, piece by minuscule piece? Such tiny pieces of her that she hadn’t realized they were being taken away from her until she is left suddenly hollow. And now she’s faced with another one of his victims, a young person whose future had been so bright, who is now staring at Julia with wide, fearful eyes. Eyes that are jaded and bitter and broken.
Vera takes a heavy breath. This is it, then. Detective Vera Wong is finally getting the moment she’s fantasized about for weeks, to tell everyone that she’s finally figured out who Marshall’s killer is, but unlike her fantasies, there is no joy in it.
