Crunch Time (44 page)

On the way into the dining room, which also faced the Continental Divide, I whispered to Tom, “You need to get Humberto out of here so we can talk to Lolly. Have your people interrogated him about Osgoode?”

“Yes, Miss G.,” he said. He gave me a sideways smile. “Like you, they came up empty. But don’t worry, I can get rid of Humberto.” Tom excused himself to make a cell phone call, outside.

The dining room also smelled of paint. Like the living room, the floor was paved with red tile. Stone floors are hell on a caterer’s back, and I was glad not to be cooking and serving, although I did feel sorry for the maid. When Tom returned, my heart warmed when he pulled one of the leather-tooled chairs from the long trestle table to make way for Ferdinanda’s wheelchair. She loudly thanked him while glaring at Humberto.

Humberto proudly dimmed the lights on the chandelier, which he said he’d found in Paris on one of his travels. Like the ones in the living room, it was a ring of wrought iron topped with candle-shaped bulbs, but this one was at least more delicate than the wagon wheels. The dimmed lights gave the place a romantic feel. Lolly kissed Humberto’s cheek and said everything looked fabulous, and wasn’t he a smart fellow to find such beautiful decorations? He preened under her admiration.

The maid brought out a heavenly scented roast chicken surrounded with potatoes, carrots, yuca, and fried plantains. We talked and ate for twenty minutes without a single political comment from anyone, for which I was thankful.

We were halfway through luscious, creamy flans when Tom’s cell rang. He apologized to the group, went into the hall, then came back looking rueful.

“Humberto,” he said, “I’m sorry, but it looks as if there’s a team here to take you to the department for more questioning.”

“But we haven’t finished our dinner!” Humberto sputtered.

Tom shook his head. “I know, I tried to put them off, but they’ve got three cars down at your gates, and it’s the district attorney himself who ordered the interrogation. Some new evidence has come to light. And if
you
don’t go with them, they’re going to arrest your guards as material witnesses. We do have several interrogators who are Mexican-American, and they speak perfect Spanish. So unless you’re willing to hire individual lawyers for your guards at this late hour, then I’m afraid—”

“No, no,” barked Humberto. He waved his hands. “I will go. But I’m sorry, the rest of you will have to leave.”

“Leave?” said Ferdinanda, her mouth full of custard. She swallowed. “Now?”

“Yes, I am sorry,” Humberto said, his voice full of fury. “I cannot leave my house unguarded.”

“Are you saying you don’t trust us?” Ferdinanda demanded. “What have you got in here that’s so valuable you can’t allow your guests to finish their dinner?”

Humberto snarled something unintelligible. “Even the maid will have to go. Everyone must leave.”

Lolly did not look at us. Instead, she pushed back her chair and mumbled that she would go get her things.

Ten minutes later, Tom had helped Ferdinanda into her van, Lolly had loaded her overnight bag into her VW, and Tom and I were seated in his car. The maid came bustling out, furious, and slid into her Toyota, cursing at Humberto the whole time. He ignored her, opened his garage door with a remote, and drove out behind us in a silver Mercedes.

We made an odd procession snaking down the hill. The maid’s old Toyota belched exhaust. Ferdinanda fearlessly heaved the listing, rusted van from one side of the driveway to the other. Lolly followed cautiously in her lollipop-red VW, while Tom smoothly navigated his Chrysler and Humberto tailgated us in his ultraslick sedan. As we rounded the last turn, the commotion was apparent. Outside the illegal fence, three police cars, their lights flashing in the early dark, looked truly ominous.

“What did you have to do to get them here?” I asked Tom.

“Not much.” He gave me another of his Cheshire-cat grins.

“But you said Humberto had to be interrogated because there was a new piece of evidence.”

“No,” Tom patiently replied, “I said he had to be questioned. I also said there was new evidence, which there is. I didn’t say the two were linked.”

“You are a dog that is sly, Tom.”

The photocopied sheet was burning a hole in my pocket. Still, I thought it would look too suspicious to the guards if I turned on the interior light to read the sheet, which might, after all, contain nothing. I needn’t have worried. At the bottom of the hill, the guards all looked as if the police presence was making them wish they could disappear.

22

O
utside the gates, Lolly swerved left behind Ferdinanda. But where Ferdinanda continued on Aspen Meadow Parkway to get to Main Street, Lolly turned on the road that would lead to her apartment building. I used the cell to phone Boyd, asking him to walk out when Ferdinanda arrived. I said we’d be along shortly and that he should tell her something that would sound plausible, like that we’d gone for ice cream since we hadn’t finished dessert.

He chuckled and said it was no problem.

In her apartment parking lot, Lolly got out of her VW and came over to our car, where she climbed in the back. She’d taken off her wig.

“Nice do,” said Tom, looking at her in the rearview mirror. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have black and blue hair.”

“I could dye it for you,” she replied, slamming the door.

“No, thanks.” Tom killed the engine and turned around to face Lolly. “Okay, Lolly, I want to hear it from the beginning.”

“I don’t want to be prosecuted for prostitution.”

“Who said anything about prostitution?” asked Tom innocently. “That’s not my department. Homicide is. So, tell me your story.”

Lolly obliged. She gave a quick summary of the DUI, her parents, Julian’s loan, her signing up with an escort agency, her liaison with Humberto, and wearing the necklace to a charity shindig. It wasn’t until she got to the bit about Father Pete telling her to do good, and her helping Ernest, that her voice faltered.

“I got him killed,” she said guiltily. “That damn Humberto.”

There was silence in the car.

“No, you did not get Ernest McLeod murdered,” Tom said firmly. “You helped him with a client’s needs. That’s all you did. So, you have no idea where the necklace is now?”

“Nope.”

“Is there anything else you want to share?”

Lolly told him about Humberto being furious that the necklace had been stolen, his suspicion of her, his guards tearing apart her parents’ house and Lolly’s apartment, and the subsequent cash payments. Then her eyes strayed to my face in the rearview mirror. I looked straight back with as blank an expression as I could muster.

We were thinking the same thing. It was one thing for Ernest to ask Lolly to do unlawful acts, which she was now confessing. It was quite another thing for the wife of a police investigator to ask her to drug her mark, do an illegal search, and photocopy receipts in the mark’s wallet. She knew she shouldn’t mention what she’d done today unless I told her to.

I didn’t. I figured, if I found something out from the wallet receipts, great. I’d tell Tom without mentioning my source. If I didn’t discover new evidence, well, then, no harm, no foul, and I would avoid being soundly scolded.

“Anything else you want to tell me?” Tom asked, his voice nonchalant.

“How’s this? Humberto still suspects me of something,” she lied smoothly. “I don’t know what. Earlier, I told Goldy that he’d redecorated, repainted, the works, after the break-in. He also installed security cameras, including in the bathrooms. I mean, that’s illegal, isn’t it?”

Tom sighed. “No, I’m sorry to say. It isn’t against the law to spy on people in your own home. But it should be. Still, I want you to be extra careful. Humberto may be responsible for the murders of two, or possibly three, men. He may have killed them, or he could have had them killed. Has he ever mentioned anything to you about being in Fort Collins? One of the murders is of a gas station attendant up there.”

Lolly shook her head. “He doesn’t tell me that much about his life, except stuff that isn’t true.”

Tom shook his head. “Still, I’d feel better if you dropped out of sight for a few days.”

“No can do,” said Lolly, shaking the black and blue hair. “Humberto knows where my parents live, and even though I’m not on speaking terms with them, I don’t want Humberto coming after them. Don’t worry, I know how to handle Humberto.”

Tom thought about this for a moment. “All right. I just want you to call me if you find out anything, or if you think you’re in danger.”

“Oh-
kay
.” She sounded like Arch.

Tom grinned. “Is there anything else you can tell me that might be pertinent?”

“Your computer guy? Kris? He’s a fraud.”

I said, “You weren’t too nice to him on that USB port thing.”

“Nice?” said Lolly, her blue eyes wide. “Who cares about nice? A real data-processing geek would have known, in answer to my question, that I needed to buy a USB hub. That guy’s a liar. I don’t know how he made his money, but it wasn’t starting a computer business in Silicon Valley, or any other valley, for that matter. He’s from Minnesota. He knows something about chemistry, because he tried to jump in with an answer to the medical isotope question. But you could know that from high school, unless you’re Donna Lamar. Still, I’ll bet Kris built up his fortune selling farm equipment. It’s just not as sexy as a Silicon Valley start-up.”

“Lolly?” asked Tom. “You want to apply to work at the sheriff’s department? I’m not kidding, we need a mind like yours.”

“I’m flattered,” said Lolly. “But I’m sure I make more money turning tricks. See you cats later.” She got out of the car.

“Be careful, Lolly,” said Tom.

“No worries.”

When we got home, the streetlights indicated something different about our house.

“What the hell is that?” asked Tom. We both stared at one of the pine trees in our front yard.

A carved wooden mask was nailed to the trunk. Tom shook his head as he pounded ahead of me up the new wheelchair ramp.

“Hey, guys!” said Arch when we came through the door. He was sitting in the living room with Yolanda, Boyd, and a very smug-looking Ferdinanda. “Did you see the cool Santería mask that Ferdinanda made? I helped her nail it to the tree out front.”

“What does it mean?” Tom asked coolly.

Arch’s face dropped at Tom’s tone. Yolanda looked at her hands, while Boyd, clearly in mental discomfort, straightened his shoulders. Ferdinanda lifted her chin.

“Tom!” Ferdinanda said. “You let me worry about what it means.”

“It’s our front yard,” Tom replied evenly.

Ferdinanda sighed. “It’s to ward off evil spirits.”

“I thought that’s why we all went to church,” Tom replied.

“This is extra,” Ferdinanda said.

“What is the significance of that mask?” asked Tom.

“The exact significance?” said Ferdinanda. “After all these years, I forgot. You know what? I’m tired.” She yawned, stretched her arms over her head, and turned the wheels of her chair toward the dining room. “I’m going to bed.” Then she stopped. “Hey! Where’s the ice cream you were out buying?”

“I forgot,” said Tom, before starting up the stairs. I bade everyone good night, then gave Arch a stern enough look that he nodded. Time for him to go to bed, too.

In our bathroom, I pulled out Lolly’s photocopy. With Tom’s mood turning foul after hearing about Lolly’s dealings and seeing a Santería mask in our front yard, he probably wasn’t ready yet to hear about Lolly doing an illegal search of Humberto’s wallet.

Humberto Captain had kept several receipts, only one of which interested me: Aspen Meadow Printers, High Country Dry Cleaners, Frank’s Fix-It, and Excalibur Safes.

Excalibur was delivering its premier model, the Deerslayer, on Friday.
Room for numerous guns and pistols,
the receipt said,
with anchor holes for bolting to the floor, an electronic/mechanical lock, and two-hour resistance to fire.
The Deerslayer was touted as their
best model for storing papers and valuables.

Yeah,
I thought.
I just bet.

Say Humberto had figured out that Ernest had stolen the necklace, and either killed him or had him killed. He had put the .38, the gold, and the gems somewhere, until the safe could be installed. But Ernest had insisted that Humberto did not have a safety deposit box, and Lolly had searched the house. If Humberto had put the weapon and valuables into one of Donna’s houses, I would be sunk. Yet Lolly had not said Humberto kept keys with him all the time. He kept his
wallet
with him. And the wallet had yielded these receipts.

Without a warrant, there was no way Tom or I or anyone could get access to a fancy safe after Friday. But I could visit the three local places the next day. Perhaps one of the receipts would lead to something
.

I stuffed the paper back in my pocket and took a quick shower. Once in bed, I felt guilty about Lolly, about the photocopy, about things in general. I loved my husband. When he slid between the sheets beside me, his warm presence made me feel, more than ever, that I wanted him to be happy.

Well, I knew what that meant, didn’t I?

I felt a quirk of emotional discomfort. Was I ready for this? Were we?

Was anyone ever ready to bring another being into the world? Probably not. But I realized suddenly
Yes,
I want this, too.

I said, “Why don’t I forget the protection tonight?”

He pulled me in for a warm hug. “Are you sure? You think it would be okay if our family got bigger? Should we talk to Arch?”

“If we do, it’ll get his hopes up. He’s always wanted a sibling. Better just to keep it to ourselves, I think, until we know something.”

“Miss G., are you sure?”

Unexpected tears slid down my face. “Yes.”

W
hen the alarm went off at seven, I woke up, startled. Had I been dreaming, or had something occurred to me? Something had been wrong about Humberto’s house. What was it? But the dream, or memory, was as elusive as sunlight flashing across the surface of Aspen Meadow Lake. I hopped out of bed and almost fell down. Exhaustive lovemaking had led to extremely sore muscles.

“Good God,” said Tom, as he rolled over to bop the ringer on the clock. “I can’t move.”

“Me either. But we have to.”

“How about a shower together?”

Well, I knew what
that
meant, and after twenty minutes of having sex in a hot shower, my muscles were screaming at me. But I felt great, and I moved through a slow yoga routine that eased the physical pain a bit.

In the kitchen, Ferdinanda said, “I already fed Arch. He left because he is meeting someone to review for a math test.” She appraised me with a lifted eyebrow. “You made some racket last night.”

“We didn’t,” I protested. In fact, we’d made a special attempt to be quiet.

“Yeah,” she said as she rolled over to the espresso machine, “you didn’t. But I could tell by that stupid happy look on your face that you made some kind of something.”

My cheeks grew hot. Instead of responding, I bustled about feeding Jake the bloodhound and Scout the cat. Both animals were acting neglected. Jake had his own way of showing this: He came up close and gave me a long, mournful gaze. I patted him, whereupon he threw himself onto the kitchen floor to have his tummy rubbed. Scout, on the other hand, trotted away after eating, without so much as a backward glance. This feline behavior meant that only after he had gotten over his sulk would he twine around my legs and purr.

I let Jake outside. Ferdinanda chuckled and offered me espresso mixed with cream and ice. My face heated up again. Why should I feel embarrassed for making love to my own husband in our own house?

Boyd came into the kitchen. Maybe I was being paranoid, but it seemed as if he, too, was evaluating my expression. He smiled furtively but said nothing. There would be hell to pay from his boss if he so much as said a word about our personal life.

“Yolanda’s going to help you with the soup today,” Ferdinanda told me briskly. “I’m going to chop the mushrooms. You got chicken stock in your freezer?”

“Yup,” I said, and moved with relief to the walk-in. Yolanda called to Boyd, asking for help making up the cots. He disappeared.

“I made you toasted pork sandwiches for breakfast,” said Ferdinanda when Tom appeared in the kitchen, dressed for work. “Sit down and eat. You’re going to need strength after that night you had with Goldy!”

Tom’s questioning expression made me shake my head. Ferdinanda removed a cookie sheet from the oven and slapped it onto the table. English muffin sandwiches lay in neat rows, with sliced grilled pork steaming around the edges and melting cheese oozing onto the pan. Ferdinanda pulled a spatula out from beside her thighs in the wheelchair—one of these days, I expected her to retrieve a full-grown alligator from the wheelchair’s depths—and began levering sandwiches onto our plates.

Boyd came back out and said Yolanda needed Ferdinanda to help her change her bandages.

“I’m going,” said Ferdinanda, wheeling away. “You three eat, or I’m going to be angry.”

Tom’s cell rang as he was eating his sandwich. He said, “Schulz,” then listened. When he hung up, he told Boyd and me, “Stonewall Osgoode was an army ranger who got a dishonorable discharge for dealing drugs. Then he went to veterinary school at Colorado State but was kicked out of
there
for dealing drugs. This is what we call self-destructive behavior.”

“Colorado State?” I asked. “In Fort Collins, where the murder of the gas station attendant happened?”

Tom nodded. “That gas station attendant was a grad student in chemistry. Stonewall Osgoode probably had nothing to do with that, since he was definitely in his room when the kid was killed at the gas station. They found Osgoode’s roommate, who’s now a full-fledged vet, Dr. Hopengarten. Dr. H. had had the flu and remembers pulling an all-nighter that night, December twenty-third, because he had to turn in a paper on Christmas Eve, the twenty-fourth, or risk flunking a class. The two of them only had enough money for a studio apartment. Stonewall was there, asleep in the same room, so Dr. H. knows Osgoode never left.” Tom ate his last bite of sandwich, then said, “Oh, and get this. Dr. H. suspected that Osgoode was dealing drugs to support himself in school. Dr. H. is also pretty sure Osgoode had a partner. Whenever the phone rang and it was for Osgoode, it was always the same guy on the line.”

Boyd put down his sandwich. “Did Dr. H. see this partner?”

“Nope,” said Tom, discouraged. “And he has no idea who it was. But when Dr. H came back from turning in his paper, it was all over the news that shortly after midnight, this kid had been shot and killed at a local gas station. What Dr. H. particularly remembers, though, is that Osgoode went somewhere late that morning and came back in a foul mood. He said he was going to have to find a job to support himself, because he’d just lost the one he had. Dr. H. said, ‘What job was that?’ but Osgoode said, ‘Some people have no guts at all,’ then clammed up. The next week, the Fort Collins police pounded on their door and arrested Osgoode for dealing drugs.”