Five O’Clock Shadow (25 page)

“You didn't know about the vasectomy, did you?” Noralee leaned on both elbows, chin resting on clasped hands, and looked at her earnestly.

Pauly shook her head.

“Would you have married him if you had known?”

“I don't think so. Until recently I was into the American dream. Husband, house, two point five children.”

Noralee's turn to nod. “You gave the impression that bagging the big one was more important than a career. I mean until lately.” She looked pensive. “You know, I really think the lie about the vasectomy proves my point. Randy was set up to marry you.”

“It doesn't make sense. Why?”

“Who knows? For whatever reason, Randy had to get married.”

“Funny, he slipped a couple times and used those very words. I teased him about that being my line.”

There didn't seem to be a lot more to say. Noralee reached for the check but Pauly grabbed it. Was seven ninety-five plus drink too much to pay for information? She'd paid forty-five recently to kids and still didn't have a lot of answers.

Noralee walked her out to the parking lot. She'd heard that there was some problem with Pauly's clearance and that she was on leave. Pauly made it clear that the delay had obviously been trumped up. Noralee agreed. It was one more piece of evidence that someone was manipulating Pauly's life. Neither could imagine why. She thanked Noralee for coming forward and after a quick hug, Noralee got into the Vette with a promise to stay in touch.

Pauly watched her go. The sky was gray now and faint pin-point sized flakes of snow floated around her. It wasn't really serious about snowing, yet, but by late afternoon, this could turn into a traffic-stopper. The new shearling jacket was warm and she'd been smart to wear boots with heavy socks. You just never knew in New Mexico, sunshine to blizzard within an hour.

***

Pauly walked through the door of the photo lab and took a place in line behind four other people standing at the counter.

“Be with you in a minute.” The kid sounded apologetic.

Pauly wasn't in a hurry. Much. Curiosity was eating her alive. This was important. So much hinged on what these people could tell her. She hoped that they might have time alone. And then she didn't want to feel rushed. It seemed like the people in front of her were taking forever. But no one had come in behind her, so when it was finally her turn, the young man wasn't hurried when he pulled a large envelope from under the counter.

The enlarged copy of the photo was eight by eleven and made some of the features fuzzy. Paco looked morose, not just unsmiling. It was the shadow across his face. She bent closer, ignoring the jolt that seeing a robust, happy Randy caused…even with the distortion it was impossible to miss his carefree, grinning self. She straightened abruptly.

“Hard to see with the naked eye.” The young man rummaged in a drawer under the counter and handed her a magnifying glass. “But on the enlargement, look here.” He pulled the copy closer, adjusted a crook-neck light, and handed her the glass. He ran the tip of a pencil down the fuzzy shadow between Randy and Paco. It was not really noticeable in the small photo, but at this size it stood out sharply. It looked like tracings, a cut-line that followed the shape of Paco and one that outlined Randy.

“It's not a bad job, but no one used any sophisticated equipment, either. Anyone with a copy stand could have done it.”

“But you're sure this is a combination of photos?”

“Absolutely.”

“But the background. How could someone manage that?”

“I'll show you. See here and then again here?” The point of the pencil skipped over the foreground. “Both figures are standing in grass. A foreground that's easy to duplicate and covers all sorts of evils.” He stopped to grin at her. “Whatever would have separated the shots is blurred, airbrushed to blend together. It could have been two entirely different buildings, trees, who knows? The sky was the easy part.” Pauly followed the pointer-pencil again as it skipped across the top of Randy and Paco's heads. “The photo was pieced together, blended here and there and reshot to focus on the figures themselves, diminish the background altogether.”

Pauly leaned closer. Now that it was pointed out, it was so obvious.

“Could someone then reduce the size?”

“Just paste-up and shoot. He could do whatever he wanted with the film itself, the negatives, that is. This could have been a poster or the size you brought in.”

Pauly took a couple of deep breaths. The feeling of relief almost buckled her knees. She had wanted the photo to be a fake even more than she realized. Pauly put the original in her billfold, paid the man, picked up the blow-up that he'd slipped back into an envelope and left.

She hadn't felt this good since Paco had told her the photo was a lie. Now she had the answers in her hand and proof of Paco's trustworthiness. Randy had simply not been involved with this child, had only met this child minutes before his death. But why had the photo been made? And how did it get into his safe deposit box? She sighed, then reached under the seat and shoved the envelope out of sight.

She still wasn't sure where she was going to go with this evidence. It had some connection with Randy's murder. But she had no idea what. She started the truck. She really needed to call Tony. Just tell him all the things she should have been telling him all along.

A bright spot in all this would be if Steve had gotten back. Not that she'd share information with him, but that didn't mean she couldn't share something else. Like her body. Pauly grinned. She was on the verge of OD'ing on horniness. And it felt good.

Pauly turned into the gravel lane that would take her to the three-car garage beside the B&B. What was the motor home doing in the driveway? She'd left it down by the maintenance garage. Was there another trip planned? She didn't know of any. She was accustomed to seeing hive-like activity in the field out back, and the Carnival would have gotten back late morning, but why was there a crowd up here by the house? Something was very wrong. She saw the police cruiser in the rearview and slowed as the driver came up on her bumper and turned on his lights. What was going on? She skidded to a stop and jumped from the truck.

“Not so fast.” The cop grabbed her arm. “Wait here.”

“I'm not ‘waiting' anywhere. I live here. What's going on?”

She didn't try to disguise the anger.

“You'll end up handcuffed in the cruiser if you're not careful.” The older cop was gruff but dropped his hold on her arm.

“That's her.” Pauly turned to see Davy pushing through the crowd. Brenda was two steps behind, and from the look on her face, Pauly was being accused of something heinous. “She paid me to take her to Paco.”

Whatever was going on, it had everyone's interest. But where was Grams? Or Steve? Wasn't he back? Pauly started toward the house.

“You can't go over there,” an officer yelled.

Pauly paused, then saw Ed standing by the motor home. “What's going on?”

“Jeez. This is the pits.” Ed was upset, running his fingers through thinning hair, then slamming his cap back on.

“Can you believe it? I go out to gas this ol' cow up and find a mess.”

“What kind of mess? Vandals?”

“I wish it was just that. Pauly, I'm sorry. I had no idea. I didn't mean to get you in trouble. Listen, I know you had nothing to do with this. It's just that Davy there said you was paying him to bring you Paco. Asking all kinds of weird questions. And now this.” Ed moved aside.

The smears of blood on the back side of the motor home door looked fresh. At the bottom of the steps was a child's tee shirt, crumpled and bloody.

“Oh, no.”

“That's not the half of it. Those boys were kept hostage in this coach. And they were tortured.” Ed looked her in the eye. “You was the last one to use the motor home. You was there when that kid disappeared.”

“The coach has been sitting here for a day and a half.”

“At the border they searched everyone else. Only you'd taken off. You never got searched, did you?”

“Ed, what are you saying? Are you implying that I had something to do with the boys disappearing?”

“Not saying anything. Just saying it looks strange. I found this.” He held out the teddy bear.

Pauly took it but almost gagged. It reeked of Tea Roses—Grams' scent. Grams?

“Where's my grandmother?”

“Nobody's seen her this morning. Went into town, I think. We need supplies.”

“I'll take that.” The teddy bear was lifted from her hand.

A familiar voice, calm, steadying. “Tony. Thank God. We need to talk.”

“Understatement. I would have thought you'd have called.” He looked stern, none of the old flirtatious Tony in his demeanor. But hadn't she asked for this? Taking on the world herself and not including him?

“I should have called. I meant to.”

“I'm not sure I can help you now.”

Pauly suddenly felt chilled. How stupid to try to find the answers by herself. She put a child in danger, maybe two. But who would harm a child? What was Ed talking about? Tortured? For the first time Pauly felt the bone-chilling fear register, then overload her nervous system. It went beyond the unanswered questions. She couldn't let Randy's murderers win. Because she knew Randy's murder, the pictures, and the disappearance of two young boys were all connected.

“Pauly, I need to take you in for questioning.”

“Take me in?” Did she hear correctly?

“Let's get in the car. Over there.”

“I need to leave a note. Tell Grams—”

“You can call from the station.”

“Am I being arrested?”

“Not at this moment.”

“Then why—?

“Pauly, I hate this. Believe me.” Tony gently took her arm. “Let's go. The sooner we get started, the sooner you can come home.”

He was propelling her toward the first cop car in line out of the three that hugged the side of the drive. Tony opened the passenger-side door and she sank onto the plastic-covered front seat. Where was Steve or Grams? Or Hofer for that matter; she hadn't remembered seeing him in the group. She was beginning to feel very alone. Tony walked around and slipped in the other side behind the wheel. She assumed they would go over the motor home. What else would be found? Was there something Ed hadn't told her?

***

Tony's office was a cramped corner of the new concrete block substation on Second Street, efficient, a handful of reference texts, a computer in the corner, new with blinking cursor, nothing homey or inviting, no philodendron trailing across the top of a bookcase. The gray metal desk matched gray metal chairs, prison-issue spartan and about as comfortable. But what did she expect? Taxpayers weren't about to keep their protectors in tufted leather. It was always tough enough to just get decent salaries. The cops had her sympathy.

Pauly excused herself to go to the bathroom, splash water on her face and comb her hair. Tony had shown her where the bathrooms were on his way to put on a fresh pot of coffee. He seemed tense, but said to take her time. Would he be standing outside the door when she came out?

He wasn't. And she felt relieved. She passed him in the kitchenette on her way back to his office. She was beginning to feel better. But not by much. She took a chair opposite the desk and couldn't stop her thoughts from straying to the teddy bear and the scent of tea roses. It wasn't a popular scent. She had to face it. It linked her grandmother to Paco or whatever child left a bloody tee shirt and who knew what else inside the motor home.

But she couldn't tell Tony that…couldn't implicate her own grandmother. She felt sick again. Had her grandmother just looked the other way when other young children were lured into the carnival? Used and controlled by violence?

No. Pauly could never believe that. Never. But didn't her grandmother seem as strongly implicated as anyone else? Grams had certainly kept things from her…had her secrets. Did Pauly have blinders on when she set out to exonerate Randy? She'd never thought that the seeming guilt of one person really might belong to another person even closer to her.

Her stomach churned. Hadn't Grams given them the balloon ride? Knew that Pauly would not be in the gondola…. And what was it that Ed said about Grams buying her the job at MDB? She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes.

Tony pushed open the door, “I don't think I could find a couple aspirin around here if I tried.” Apologetic smile. “But maybe this will work just as well.” He stood in front of her holding out a cup of coffee. “Cream and sugar are in the top drawer if you need 'em.” He indicated the filing cabinet in the corner. When she didn't move, he walked around the desk, opened the drawer and set a few packets on the edge of the desk before sitting down and sorting out two packets of Equal for himself. He looked strangely out of place in the small room; the image of paper-pushing didn't quite fit with his exuberance, his youth. Hopefully, he didn't spend much time here.

“Black is fine.” Pauly found her voice with the first sips of coffee that warmly slid down her throat.

Tony was watching her. He didn't seem to be in any hurry; or was he just planning what he would say? But at least he'd softened. Away from his buddies, he was almost human again. Suddenly, he leaned forward in his chair, elbows on the desk.

“We received a call yesterday about a problem with the carnival. Two young boys disappeared and a pretty exhaustive search didn't turn them up. It was brought to our attention that you had returned to Albuquerque in a motor home that had not been searched. Then some kid came forward and said you had paid him to take you to meet some carny child. That you asked lots of questions—crazy stuff. I think he said you had pictures and kept calling him by the wrong name. This true?”

Pauly nodded. It was no use to lie now.