“Did you hear anything?” Riki says.
“Oh no, I always put in earplugs when I sleep because San Francisco so noisy, you know. At night can hear sirens, people shouting, laughing, that kind of thing.”
“You’ve called the cops, right?” Julia says.
Vera blinks. “No, I don’t want to. What good have they do? Nothing! I even go to the station, asking them to investigate more, and they tell me to stay away.”
“But, Vera,” Julia says, “this is serious. Someone broke in! Look at the place. I think you need to report this.”
“They will just say is drunk kids from SF State or Berkeley. Anyway, is okay, I will do my investigation myself.”
Riki wants to push her into reporting it too, but then he thinks of what that would entail. The fact that he’d have to talk to the police himself, that they would come round and dig, and dig, and no doubt they’d put the break-in and the murder together and tie all these strings together, and who knows what it’ll lead to?
“I think Vera is right,” Sana says. Riki glances at her in surprise. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to call the cops.” She licks her lips, looking at them with wide eyes. “I just—I don’t know, I haven’t been impressed with how they’ve handled everything.”
That makes no sense, Riki thinks, but a larger part of him is sagging with relief. Yes, don’t call the cops, it squeaks. He looks around at the others, and they too are looking hesitant and uneasy, as though they are torn about what to do. Surely they’re all hiding something too, because normal people would definitely want to call the cops, right? He has no idea what to think. His mind is as much a mess as the shop is.
He steps farther into the shop and peers over the counter before turning to Vera. “Did they take anything? Is money missing?”
Vera shakes her head. “No, I check my safe and nothing is taken.”
“Where’s your safe located?” Oliver says.
“Upstair in my house.”
“Hmm.” Oliver frowns, glancing around. “So that doesn’t rule out the possibility that they might have been looking for money and didn’t want to risk going upstairs.”
“Aiya, you think they might have come upstair and murder me?” Vera cries. Beside her, Julia wraps an arm around Vera’s narrow shoulders and squeezes while little Emma clings to Vera’s leg.
“No,” Riki says quickly, before he even realizes what he’s about to say. Everyone looks at him, and he wants to sink into the ground. “I—uh, it’s unlikely. I think that’s exactly what they didn’t want to do. They didn’t want to hurt anyone, they only wanted to look for . . . something.” It’s only after the words are out that Riki realizes just how shady they sound, because uh, how the hell would Riki know what the burglars were after?
“There can only be one person,” Vera says. “It is the killer.”
Riki freezes. He can’t even muster up the brain cells to remind himself to blink, or breathe.
“It is, right? The killer come back because there is some evidence that they are looking for.” The more Vera says, the more certain she looks, her eyes glowing with a righteous flame. “Marshall must have leave behind some clue about who kill him. You see? If we call the police, they will just bungle it all up. They will tell me to stop meddling in investigation. No, it’s clear, I have to do this myself. I am on the right track, I must be doing something right, that’s why the killer break in.”
I might throw up, Riki thinks. I might actually hurl right now, this very minute, standing here with this old lady and these suspicious strangers in this broken shop.
Vera isn’t done with her speech. “Now we know that even though Marshall die from allergy reaction, it is in fact murderrr.” She stretches out the word with so much drama that Riki is somehow surprised that there isn’t an accompanying thunderclap.
His faux pas in mentioning that whoever it was must have been looking for something, paired with the shattered remains of Vera’s jars everywhere around them, somehow increases in intensity until it reaches a crescendo, overwhelming all his senses. All Riki can hear is the roar of his blood as every drop of it seems to rush into his head, a deafening sound that drowns out everything, even his thoughts. He can see it in his mind’s eye, the force that it took for someone to smash these thick jars, dashing them across the floor, their innards scattering everywhere like brains spattering out of a smashed skull. And there, on the floor, staring up at him accusingly, is the outline of Marshall’s body, looking particularly gruesome with the mess all over it. It’s almost as though Marshall has just died all over again. There is so much violence around him. And suddenly, as though a jagged piece of glass has just been stabbed into Riki’s head, the memory slices into his mind.
His fist, as though an entirely separate entity from his body, swinging so fast he could feel the wind whistling past it. Making that horrible, delightful, satisfying wet crunch against Marshall’s cheek. The way Riki’s knuckles had felt every single layer of Marshall’s face then—his cheek moist with slight perspiration, then the surprising soft yield of Marshall’s cheek, followed by the painful shock of his cheekbone crunching against Riki’s hand. The way the pain had seared all the way up Riki’s wrist and forearm and elbow.
And, above all, how good it had felt. How the monster inside him had wanted to hit Marshall again, and again, until nothing was left.
It’s too much. Riki can’t bear it. He stumbles outside, glass crunching under his sneakers, stares following his back. He knows he must seem guilty as hell, and he is. Vera mentioned the nasty bruise on Marshall’s cheek, and no doubt the police would be looking into that, and all this while, here’s Riki, the very cause of the bruise, hiding in plain sight. Why is he even here? Why didn’t he just stay the hell away?
Because guilty people can’t stay away from the crime scene.
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. All this time, he’d thought that he was doing everything he could for Adi, but all he’s done is fucked everything up beyond measure. Tears rush into his eyes.
“You okay?”
The voice jerks Riki out of his spiral and he looks up to see Sana next to him, looking at him with wide, concerned eyes. He turns his head so she won’t see the way he’s this close to bawling. “Sorry, it’s just—it’s a lot to take in.”
Sana nods sympathetically. “Yeah, god, someone really wanted to smash up her shop. Poor Vera.”
Poor Vera indeed. Riki’s insides twist painfully. He actually feels physically ill. He’s familiar with this feeling, especially ever since meeting Marshall. God, what a cursed day that was. He wishes he could turn back time and grab his past self and shriek at him to run the hell away.