Mission Road (14 page)

Ralph finished his beer, crumpled the cup. “Anybody’s afraid,
vato,
it’s you. I think it scares the hell out of you that I got a wife and kid.”

“Bullshit.”

“You hate it that you’re the last person you know who hasn’t settled down.”

I wanted to yell at him how wrong he was, but my anger balloon had burst. I felt empty inside.

Mary and Joseph kept moving through the park. Their donkey must’ve made a deposit somewhere along the path. I caught a scent on the night air that was definitely not
fajitas.

“We brought Lucia Jr. here last year,” Ralph told me. “She was a newborn.”

The Blessed Couple moved toward the cathedral doors across the street.

Ralph studied his wallet photo, then slipped it back into his pocket. “I got a bad feeling,
vato.
”

“You’re going to see them again soon,” I managed.

“You’d watch out for Ana—”

“Stop it, Ralph. Besides, Ana doesn’t need watching. She’d kick my ass if I tried.”

“But you would, right?”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

“Promise?”

“
Yes,
already.”

I drank my beer, tried not to feel uneasy. Ralph was just scared for his family. He was entitled to sound a little despondent. We would get through this together. We’d been in scrapes this bad before. Almost.

The crowd shifted. I caught a glimpse of Madeleine giving Alex a deadly serious lecture. He was smirking at her. I wondered if his insolence was bravado, or if he actually had enough pull in the organization to stand up to Guy White’s own daughter. I wondered what his plans were once the old man passed away.

“We could leave right now,” Ralph said. “Forget the White family.”

“We could.”

“But the answer’s back at the White house . . . isn’t it?”

I felt as reluctant as Ralph sounded, but I had the same gut feeling.

I kept coming back to what Sam had said. Even if Guy White didn’t want to admit it, the old gangster knew the truth about his son’s death.

I wondered again about the intruder who’d broken into my house. I wanted to think it was the same person who’d shot Ana DeLeon, but I had a hard time believing it.

A guy who could set up a meeting with a homicide detective, calmly pull the trigger and walk away didn’t fit the image of the man who’d broken into my place. Ana’s shooter wouldn’t have been vanquished by a meat cleaver and a water gun.

I poured out my beer, crumpled the cup in aggravation.

A tattooed man had broken into my house looking for a woman. He assumed she would be there. A woman other than Mrs. Loomis. A woman he wanted to silence.

A cold, slimy feeling poured over me.

I dug my cell phone out of my pocket.

“I thought you ditched that thing,” Ralph said. “Don’t be risking calls.”

I hit speed dial #1.

Maia picked up, and she was even more direct: “You’re insane. Get off the line.”

“I’ll keep it under thirty seconds.”

“Tres, I’ve got my hands full.”

“You’re in danger. There’s a guy with tattoos—”

“On his arms,” she supplied. “Flowers, right?”

My stomach did a half-pipe. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m holding a gun to his head. He’s driving. We have a nice arrangement.”

“Maia—Jesus,
what?
”

“I’m taking a picture. Hang on.” A few seconds later: “Check your phone.”

The wonders of technology. Camera cell phones had quickly become a necessity for PIs, but I never thought my girlfriend would be sending me photos of the men she held at gunpoint.

The grainy digital shot showed a fiftyish Anglo with grizzled hair and a pitted face. He was sitting behind the wheel of Maia’s car, looking as if he’d just received an electric shock.

I put the phone back to my ear. “Maia, how—”

“No time to explain. We’re looking for a quiet place to talk.”

“Tell me where. I’ll come.”

“Too dangerous. I’m hanging up.”

“Wait.” I struggled to think of a plan.

Madeleine and Alex had finished their argument. They were trudging in our direction. The
Las Posadas
carolers had started their final song, welcoming Joseph and Mary to the church.

“Where are you?” Maia asked. “What’s that singing?”

“Some newlyweds and a donkey. They’re looking for a motel room. Look, don’t interrogate that guy alone. Please.”

“The problem is where. You have five seconds to suggest a safe meeting place.”

Madeleine was only a couple of steps away. No doubt she was going to grind my cell phone into rebar. She wasn’t going to be receptive to me giving her chauffeur any more directions, either.

I made Maia the best offer I could think of. As usual, it also happened to be the most insane: “You like mafia Christmas parties?”

DECEMBER 19, 1986

THE LAST THING THAT MADE JULIA GARCIA
smile was her murderer’s joke.

They were riding along together, his new silver Mercedes as smooth and silent as a magic carpet. She told him what she wanted to do with her life, and he said, “You don’t want to be a teacher.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’d have students like me.”

She smiled and pushed his arm, but immediately she knew she’d gone too far. He tensed at her touch. His expression reminded her of the eight-year-old boy she’d volunteered with that afternoon, who’d flung the Dr. Seuss book across the room because he couldn’t pronounce the word
know.

She began to wonder if her friends at the bar had been right about this man.
Julia,
hija,
you gonna talk to
him?

They’d dared her twenty bucks. She’d taken the bet, conscious that the blond Anglo had been looking at her across the room, interested, intrigued.

She felt flush with success: Her first semester over, her grades excellent, her last exam put behind her that morning. By the end of the spring, her professors assured her, she could transfer to a full university if she wanted.

Shoot high,
they’d told her.
Look at Yale. Look at Columbia.

The names rolled over her like incantations—magical phrases from another universe. No one she’d ever known had gone this far. No member of her family had ever completed high school.

Earlier in the week, she’d dumped her senior year boyfriend. Life was too full of possibilities for her to marry him. She’d broken her last chain. Why not celebrate? Why not show off a little?

The guy at the bar was obviously from that other world she wanted—rich, powerful, groomed for success. It was as if he were put in front of her now, a symbol of what she could have. Did she have the nerve to take it?

They left together, and she turned to wink at her friends, knowing that tomorrow they’d owe her twenty bucks.

He pulled the Mercedes over on the side of a dark road. Mission, she thought, but she wasn’t sure. A crumbling streak of asphalt marched off into the night, scrubby trees and barbed wire on either side like scar tissue.

Her companion’s name was Frankie. That’s all she knew. The name made him seem younger, though he had to be at least a few years older than she.

He put the car in park and looked up at the stars. The Big Dipper, Orion, a bunch of other constellations she couldn’t name.

“Pretty,” she said.

He didn’t respond.

“So . . . you bring many girls out here?” She meant it to sound teasing, but when he looked over, the darkness in his eyes scared her.

“A couple,” he admitted.

She shifted away from him, just slightly. Already planning exit strategies. She would tell him she still had an early exam tomorrow. No . . . she’d already told him she was done for the semester. What else would work? That her friends were expecting a call, maybe.

“My father used to come here,” he murmured.

“Your father?”

“He used to bring women here. It killed my mother.”

This was getting creepy now. Whatever Julia had been reaching for, this was not it.

“I’m . . . sorry.” Julia tried to put herself into mentor mode. It was the only kind of training she could fall back on. Get him to talk. Put him at ease. A lot of kids . . . people . . . came from really bad homes.

“I got a sister,” he continued. “Thirteen. Looks just like my mom. Doesn’t even remember her, though. Not even a fucking memory.”

“I’m sure your sister . . . really loves you, Frankie.”

He stared at his hands, corpse-pale in the moonlight. Julia could see the anger draining out of his shoulders. She thought the dangerous moment had passed.

“She hates me,” Frankie muttered. “Get me arrested if she could. Sometimes I wish I could bring
her
here. Show her . . .”

His voice trailed off.

Julia didn’t know what he was talking about. She just wanted out.

“Look . . .” She tried to sound upbeat, not at all afraid. “I told my friends I’d call them, you know? Would you mind—”

“You told them you’d call.”

“Yeah. Kind of silly, but, ah . . . we had a bet.”

He stared at her as if there were an insect crawling over her face, something poisonous. “A bet. About me?”

She tried to keep her mind on good things—next semester, the children she tutored, getting her own apartment and a part-time job, moving to the East Coast. All that was waiting for her, just a few miles back down the road.

“It was just a joke,” she managed.

“You bet your friends I wouldn’t be able to perform?”

“No! Nothing like that.”

He slapped her. It surprised her more than it hurt, but she saw a flash of yellow. Her mouth stung.

“Stop it!” She used the same tone she’d used on her boyfriend whenever he got out of hand. “Take me back—right now.”

“You don’t give orders,” he said. “You don’t even
look
at me.”

He grabbed her by her hair and opened his car door.

The next thing she knew, she was being dragged outside, the grass scratching her legs. She kicked helplessly at the gravel. Her scream sounded thin in the night air—no one around to hear it. He threw her down, straddled her. His hands closed around her throat.

“Shut up,” he warned.

She couldn’t breathe. He was a black shadow above her, moonlight glinting on blond hair. Her throat turned to cement, a fire building up inside her chest.

If I just don’t fight,
she decided.
He will let me go.

He kept one hand around her throat as he ripped open her blouse, then began tugging at her skirt.

He will let me go.

She prayed those words, over and over, but her hands still clawed weakly at his face. The gravel and barbed wire dug into her back.

His hand tightened on her throat, and she wanted to tell him she would behave herself. She needed to breathe. If she could just get his attention, he would surely remember that.

She felt herself catching fire, as if her whole being were made of tissue paper. Her eyesight turned red, and the world faded into one small ember, slowly being smothered under Frankie’s hand.

ETCH ARRIVED AT THE CRIME SCENE HOPING TO FIND MAIA
Lee dead.

Dispatch hadn’t told him much over the radio. A shoot-out in King William between a man and a woman. Lucia’s old address. Etch prayed Titus Roe had done his work.

Inside the yellow perimeter tape, the tow crew was loading a shot-to-hell Volvo sedan onto a flatbed trailer. The media vultures had cameras rolling. Neighbors wrapped in blankets shivered on their front lawns.

No ambulance or ME van.

Maybe the body was en route to the morgue.

Kelsey waited at the curb, his slacks splattered with what looked like coffee. He was holding his jacket over his crotch, as if that would hide the problem.

Etch gritted his teeth. Kelsey had been enough of an embarrassment for one day. Cops all over the city were already talking about his debacle of a car chase.

“So,” Etch said. “The old lady you pulled over must’ve looked pretty dangerous.”

Kelsey’s ears turned purple. “We were baited. It was Arguello.”

“You sure?”

“The old lady described the guys who switched cars with her. Arguello and a white guy.”

“Navarre?”

“Maybe.” Kelsey didn’t sound convinced. “Whoever he was, he gave the old lady a hundred bucks and told her to keep the van. No VIN. Engine block numbers erased. Completely untraceable.”

“Christ.”

“And then we got this.” Kelsey waved toward the shot-up Volvo.

Etch scanned the scene, trying to read what had happened. The Volvo had been hit at least four times by a large-caliber gun. No sign of Lee’s black BMW.

The shooting had started in the driveway of Lucia’s old house. Forensics had circled a spent casing on the concrete. Skid marks in front of the house indicated where the Volvo had peeled out.

Perhaps Lee had parked the BMW somewhere else—around the block so it’d be out of sight. She commandeered the Volvo, and Titus Roe had taken her down as she attempted to flee.

Etch tried to like that scenario.

He forced himself to look at Lucia’s house.

The old fry cook who rented the place had trashed the front porch with beer cans and lawn furniture. He’d desecrated the yard with his goddamn whirly bird decorations.

The idea of Mike Flume living here, sleeping in Lucia’s bedroom, always made Etch’s blood steam. Flume must’ve invited Maia Lee here to poke around for scraps of the past. God knew what else he’d told her. Etch should’ve taken care of him years ago, along with Jaime Santos. And as for Maia Lee . . .

“Hell of a shooter.” Kelsey pulled his trench coat tighter. “Lee sure knew how to stop a Volvo.”

Etch blinked. “
Lee
shot up the car?”

“Sorry, sir, I thought you knew. Witnesses up and down the block. Nice-looking Asian lady in a black BMW.”

“You mean—”

“The guy in the Volvo tried to kill her and she turned the tables. Chased after him, blew his car to hell.”

“She killed the guy?”

“No, sir. Took him out of the Volvo at gunpoint.” Kelsey shook his head in disgust. “They drove off together in her car. Neighbors thought she was a cop, taking the guy into custody.”

Etch’s mouth felt like sand.

Maia Lee, goddamn her, had taken Titus alive. And with a screwup like Titus—it wouldn’t be long before he gave up Etch’s name. What the hell had Etch been thinking, going to Roe?

“Lieutenant?” Kelsey asked.

“I’m all right,” he managed. “Been a long day.”

Kelsey’s eyes were as impersonal as microscope lenses. “You just come from the Santos case?”

Etch willed his hands not to clench.

The bastard was fishing, looking for a reaction.

“Yeah,” Etch said. “Alamo Heights PD is cooperating. Ballistics is still working the scene.”

“Tied to Ana’s shooting?”

“Doubtful. Couple of weeks ago, Santos reported some kids down in the basin—”

“I heard.” Kelsey’s tone made it clear he didn’t think much of the teenage sniper theory.

There was a loud, dull clunk. The tow crew lowered the Volvo onto their trailer.

“I got to sign for that.” Kelsey studied Etch, as if the lieutenant was a much more interesting wreck-in-progress. “If you’ll excuse me, sir.”

•                           •                           •

ETCH STEADIED HIMSELF AGAINST THE SIDE
of his car.

His knees felt weak.

He stared up the sidewalk at Lucia’s porch.

The night of Frankie White’s murder, Lucia and he had sat on that porch after their shift, as they’d done so many times before. Three in the morning. Out of uniform. Etch insisted on making margaritas. They sat together on the porch swing and drank in silence like mourners at a wake.

“We need to talk about it,” Lucia said.

“No,” he told her. “We don’t.”

“Etch, I don’t want a lie between us.”

She wore nothing special—jeans, her Houston Rockets T-shirt. Her feet were bare. Her short curly hair retained the faint impression of her patrol hat. She looked more beautiful than ever—the way people look when they’re slipping away from you.

Etch set down his margarita. He slid off the porch swing and knelt in front of her, his arms circling her chest, his head resting between her breasts. She ran her fingers through his hair. He could hear her heartbeat. Her skin smelled of clove.

“It was an accident,” he told her.

“It was murder. The nightstick—”

“Lucia, don’t. Please.”

He couldn’t make himself say what he’d planned. He couldn’t explain why he’d been late to the Pig Stand that evening. All he had wanted to do was help her, save her. He had planned everything so perfectly, gotten up his nerve for weeks, and now his best intentions were shredded.

She allowed him to kiss her.

Later they went inside, shed their clothes. Their lovemaking was clumsy and desperate.

She told him she loved him, but the hollowness had begun.

A hole had been bored in Lucia’s soul. The more Etch strove to patch it, the bigger it became, the further she slipped from his grasp.

In the years that followed, she kept up the facade of model officer. She pushed herself to confront the most dangerous situations. She got repeated commendations for bravery, but Etch began to see these incidents for what they were—suicide attempts, like the alcohol. Displays of contempt for her own life. He began to wonder if the shoot-out at the Pig Stand, years before, had really been about saving him, or if it had merely been her first flirtation with self-destruction.

He covered for her more reckless moments on the job, her drunk driving episodes. Her reputation on the force remained untarnished. They named a scholarship after her at the academy—a program for female recruits.

Seven years after Frankie died, Etch was at her bedside. He wouldn’t allow himself to believe she was dying. She refused to let him call the doctors.

I’ll be fine,
she murmured.
Just need some rest.

She convinced him to go home for the night, let her sleep off the alcohol.

Her last words, muttered half asleep as he closed her bedroom door:
Ana, is that you?

Ana, the daughter who hadn’t visited her in over a year.

•                           •                           •

“LIEUTENANT?”

Etch forced himself back to the present.

Kelsey was folding up his cell phone, slipping it into his pocket. “Another report on Navarre and Arguello. Assault and battery, four-twenty this afternoon. Arguello, Navarre, some woman—they approached this guy at the Poco Mas, got him outside and beat the shit out of him. Seems they were looking for Johnny Shoes.”

Etch pondered that. “Who was the woman?”

“Anglo. Blonde.”

“Not Lee, then. Who?”

Kelsey shook his head. “We’re working on it.”

“Work harder. They’ve already made fools of us enough this weekend.”

Etch said
us.
He knew Kelsey heard it as
you.

The detective rubbed the knife scars on his fingers. Etch could tell Kelsey wanted to say something, some half-formed doubt fluttering in his throat.

Etch decided to beat him to the punch. “Santos’ death will raise questions. Also, you know about the autopsy report, the rumors about the murder weapon being a nightstick.”

Kelsey nodded.

“Ana would’ve investigated that,” Etch said. “She wouldn’t have been afraid to bust a cop, even if nobody in the department ever trusted her again. She would’ve done whatever she could to save Arguello.”

Etch let the words slip under Kelsey’s mind like a crowbar.

Even if nobody in the department ever trusted her again.

Etch’s career was ending. He had nothing to lose. Kelsey was a different story.

“I came on in ’87,” Kelsey said. “I had a nightstick like that. A lot of times . . . things happened. People looked the other way. It wasn’t like now.”

“No,” Etch agreed.

“But no cop would shoot one of our own. Somebody tried to kill Ana. Arguello is the one who ran. He and Navarre are out of control.”

“Miss Lee will not see it that way. If she follows Ana’s line of inquiry . . . it may be very easy for her to pin blame on the department.”

“Can’t let her. We need to bring in Navarre and Arguello, one way or the other.”

Etch put on his best aggrieved face—the even-keeled lieutenant, trying to restrain the hot-tempered subordinate. He’d had a lot of practice playing that role opposite Kelsey. “We agreed to a forty-eight-hour delay before we publicize the DNA match.”

“Navarre won’t turn in his friend.”

“Even so,” Etch said, “if we make the DNA public, and the White family finds out . . .”

Kelsey had to believe this was his idea. He had to believe Etch hated it.

“I want to do the press conference tomorrow morning,” Kelsey said. “We can’t afford another day like today.”

Etch gazed at the curb. “Twenty-four hours early. I don’t know, Kelsey. I can’t sign off on that.”

“Are you going to stop me?”

Etch said nothing.

“First thing in the morning, then,” Kelsey said.

Etch watched as his predictable tank stormed off toward the Arsenal Street Bridge.

•                           •                           •

AFTER THE CRIME SCENE CLEARED, ETCH
drove north into Olmos Park. He parked at the ridge above the dam and stared at the lights of San Antonio.

He needed to go home. He needed sleep.

But there was so much to decide.

Stabilized.

He had called the hospital, a confidential talk with the doctor: Ana was expected to pull through. By tomorrow evening, it was possible she’d be conscious, and able to tell who shot her.

Etch exacted grave promises from the doctor that the information not be shared, for Ana’s own safety. The doctor promised, clearly moved by Etch’s concern. Etch hung up. Then he cursed Ana for inheriting her mother’s toughness.

He couldn’t do anything about her tonight. He was too tired. The men on guard duty would find it odd if he simply showed up. But tomorrow . . . Etch had already volunteered to take the morning shift by himself.

Everyone knew Ana was his favorite, his protégée. They imagined him by her bedside, holding her hand, waiting anxiously for her eyelids to flutter open.

He would wait anxiously, all right. He would see for himself how Ana looked. Then he could decide.

He rested his hand on the empty seat next to him. He remembered the night he and Lucia had made love here, at this very spot, for the first time.

They had shared their secrets. She had cried, weeping out years of frustration.
Finally,
Etch remembered thinking.
Finally, she will open up.

And it seemed like she had, at first. She made love with a hunger that left him breathless . . .

You shot my daughter,
Lucia said, somewhere in the back of his mind.

Etch tried to insist: He hadn’t meant to.

He had rotated Ana to cold case because it was standard routine, given her a stack of old homicides, never dreaming that she’d come across Lucia’s handwritten report, and see, behind the words, some truth about why her mother had fallen apart.

Ana had sensed the connection immediately, though she hadn’t understood it.

Etch discouraged her, but she kept asking questions. He ran out of excuses for postponing the DNA test. She started pulling away from him, looking at him differently.

And inside, the old anger started to build. After all he had done for Ana, after all her mother had sacrificed . . . Ana had nearly ruined her career by marrying a criminal. She had repaid Etch’s trust by digging into the one case he absolutely could not let her solve.

Finally, he had fixed the evidence. He had thrown some convenient facts her way about her husband’s dealings with Frankie White. Then, and only then, he let her do the DNA test.

And why not? If he could save Ana from her marriage, remove Ralph Arguello, and protect his own secrets all in one act, why the hell not?

Only she hadn’t believed it. She had refused to accept hard evidence.

And so Etch had gone to her house that night to push and provoke. To prove Ralph was a killer. He had learned that lesson from Lucia. Make them aim at you, then shoot them down. He hadn’t meant to find Ana alone. He certainly never dreamed she would corner him like that.