Zoe wrinkled her nose. “A culturalthing?”
“Yeah. You haven’t noticed? A lot ofpeople are getting inked in their early twenties now. Covering their wholebodies. Even faces and hands. There’ve been a lot of celebrities getting itdone. Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, you know? Rappers and singers and sportsplayers. It’s considered cool right now.”
“Face and hand tattoos sound likeremarkably bad ideas,” Zoe said, making a face. “Imagine never being able tohide the mistake that you made at a young age, of choosing to get somethingstupid put onto your body forever.”
“There must be some kind of connectionbetween them somewhere,” Shelley breezed on. “I’m betting it would be in theirpersonal lives. Maybe they both knew the same people, somewhere in their lives.A bar or a club, a group of friends, a cousin who knew a cousin. Maybe theywere at the same event together without even knowing it. We just have to keepdigging until we get to it.”
Zoe nodded. “Well, then, I know where weshould start.” She lifted Callie Everard’s file, made a note of the addresslisted in it. “The friend she was going to see: Javier Santos.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Zoe walked around the small studiospace, taking in the illustrations and drawings that littered every possiblesurface. Whether Javier was talented or not was for someone else who had moreinterest in the arts to say. The fact that he was prolific, however, was not upfor debate.
“These are all for tattoos?” she asked,scanning them mentally.
“Yeah, sure.” Javier nodded. “Most ofthem have been used. I can whip you up something unique, though, if you’d like.”
Zoe shot him a look to see if he wasjoking. He seemed earnest, which was worse.
“I do not think so,” she said, settlingfor these simple words and hoping that he would not press the issue. She wouldnot like to spoil the interview before it even properly kicked off by tellinghim exactly what she thought of people who would get tattoos.
Especially tattoos like these: random,indiscriminate pieces of art. Zoe could understand someone liking the cartoonishform of a woman’s face as a piece of art, something to put on a wall or in abook. But to have it inked onto one’s body for the rest of your life? To wearthis person’s face—this fictional person, who meant nothing to you or to anyoneelse, who was only born from an artist’s random daydreams?
It was strange beyond measure, and shedid not know if she could trust someone who would be willing to make apermanent statement out of something so meaningless.
“Suit yourself.” Javier shrugged,apparently not bothered by her disinterest. “I don’t know what I’m going to dowith the design I made for Callie. I was thinking about putting it on myself,but that might be kinda weird.”
“Why so?” Zoe asked, latching onto hiswords. In her experience, if someone involved in a murder case thought thatsomething seemed “weird,” it was usually worth checking out.
“Well, it was a memoriam piece in thefirst place. Look, I’ll show you.” Javier began rooting around on a desklittered with stray scraps of designs on tracing paper, and pulled out a morefinished-looking design on an artist’s pad. It was inked with heavy blackstrokes, outlining the shape of a bird in flight.
“What is it?” Zoe asked, ignoring thedirty look that Javier shot her for not immediately getting his art.
“It’s a raven. Based on the myth of Muninn,”he began.
“From the Old Norse, memory,” Zoe cuthim off. Here, at least, she could demonstrate that she knew something. “A birdwho attended the god Odin. This is why you called it a memoriam piece.”
“That and the flowers.” Javier pointedto sprays of flowers behind the black bird, carefully colored in shades oflilac and violet. “They’re zinnias, representing the memory of a lost friend.”
“In whose memory?” Shelley asked softly,examining the design from over Zoe’s shoulder.
“An old friend.” Javier twisted hismouth, shrugged. “An old boyfriend, really. Back when Callie was, um…”
“On drugs?” Zoe supplied. She sensedShelley physically wince slightly beside her, but did not react. What was thepoint in beating around the bush? They all knew what they were talking about.It was no secret to any of them.
“Yeah,” Javier said, one of his handsgoing up to rub the back of his neck. “I was going to say in with a bad crowd,but yeah.”
“What’s the story?” Shelley asked. Hertone was much more sympathetic than Zoe’s had been. Somehow, she had the knackof asking those same direct questions but making them sound so much… nicer.
“He was bad news. One of the group thatgot her into drugs in the first place. From what I understand, if they weren’tstoned, they were drunk. And if they weren’t stoned or drunk, they weresnorting coke in the bathrooms and screwing each other.” Javier shook his head,taking a deep breath. “Sorry. I don’t like thinking of her like that. That’snot who she really is. Who she’s been, these past years that I’ve known her.”
“She got herself cleaned up aftercollege, isn’t that right?” Shelley asked.
“Right. I helped. She couldn’t affordthe rehab at first, so we did an art fair. Raised some money for her, me andsome of the others from our class. We stayed in touch since then.”
“This ex-boyfriend,” Zoe pressed, tryingto keep him on track.
“He was killed, I think. Or, I don’tknow. Callie didn’t like to talk about him much back then. The past few years, shestarted to come to terms with it, move on. I think she’d finally accepted that hewas bad for her, toxic. But that what they had also mattered. That’s why theflowers. Not lost love, but just a lost friend.”
Killed? That sparked Zoe’s attention ina very real way. “Do you know what the circumstances of his death were?”
“It wasn’t an overdose. The police wereinvestigating, but I don’t know if they ever caught anyone. That’s it. That’sall I know.”
Zoe mused on the idea. It would be avery tempting thread, if first this mysterious boyfriend was murdered and thenCallie. All they needed to do was find a connection to Dowling, and they’d havesomething. Maybe something to do with the drugs.
Shelley said it was all
