New River Blues (31 page)

‘Uh-huh. And Roger's the husband of one of them, so he must be on the list of people you'd like to pin it on, isn't he?'

Sarah smiled and said, ‘I can't discuss an ongoing investigation with you, Ms Anders, except to assure you we don't want to pin it on anybody but the culprit.'

Joyce Anders didn't smile back. The almost-yellow catlike eyes regarded Sarah solemnly. ‘I'm not asking for your trade secrets, Detective. I'm trying to find out what would convince you that Roger Henderson was where his car was – at my house – Sunday night. How about corroboration by a second person, would that do it?'

‘Well, yes. Probably. If the second person was, you know, not connected to you in any way. Not a relative or an employee.'

‘Well, but everybody who saw him there works for me.'

‘Pretty much destroys their credibility, doesn't it?'

Joyce Anders drummed a thoughtful march step on the table with her manicured nails. ‘How about,' she said, and now Sarah thought maybe they really were going to get down to it, ‘a document?'

‘You have a document that proves Roger Henderson was at your house last weekend?'

‘Yes.'

Resisting an impulse to ask her if she also had a wonderful bridge for sale, Sarah asked her, ‘Did you both sign it?'

‘Yes. And it's dated and timed, and witnessed by my attorney. And notarized.'

‘Notarized, really? That seems . . . extremely convenient.'

‘Yes. By a wonderful coincidence, it is.'

‘How did you happen to be signing and notarizing this convenient piece of paper last Sunday night, Ms Anders?

‘Oh, do call me Joyce. Everybody does.' A ghost of an ironic smile flitted over her features as she recrossed her legs, and there was that wonderful faint essence of the orient again, so exotic in this grim little room. ‘We signed this loan document Sunday night because we didn't get around to it Saturday night. By the time we'd figured out what we wanted to do, everybody we needed to help us with it had gone to bed. So he came back Sunday.'

Instead of going to his daughter's birthday party. What kind of a hold has this woman got on him?
‘He came back Sunday night to lend you money? Why?'

Now her smile was brilliant. ‘No, Detective. I'm not the one stuck with a lot of cookie-cutter houses I can't sell. He is.'

‘
You
loaned
him
money?' Sarah seemed to hear little clicking noises as the facts of the Henderson case rearranged themselves around her. She asked again, ‘Why?'

‘I just told you. He needs a bridge loan until the credit market gets well.'

‘I understand that part. I meant why would you put money into a troubled industry like the housing market?'

‘We're friends.' Sarah tried to keep her face neutral, but knew a little doubt was leaking through. ‘OK, a few details.' Her gaze was hooded now, looking across Sarah's shoulder at the featureless wall behind her. ‘A long time ago, before he met the beautiful daughter of the Big Pooh-Bah of Tucson, Roger and I were more than friends. Then he got married and we didn't see each other for a long time. A few years ago we met again by accident and since then we've . . . kept in touch. Roger Henderson,' the artfully framed topaz eyes swung back to Sarah's face and stayed there, unwavering, ‘is the best man I've ever known. He loved his wife and he tried hard to save her. He's stood between her and a lot of bullets. Now she managed to find one when he wasn't around to shield her, and left him with one more problem when he already had more than plenty. I'd like to help him with this one, if I can. He didn't kill his wife. He was in Phoenix, at my house, trying to scare up enough money to ride out the current liquidity crisis.'

‘And you're prepared to show this document in court?'

‘If I have to. Naturally I'm hoping that won't be necessary.'

‘Naturally. I suppose it must have been rather a large amount?'

The shadow of a smile passed quickly over her face again. ‘Small amounts don't do much for an operation the size of Hen-Trax.'

‘It's a big risk to take for a friend.'

‘Oh,' she shrugged comfortably, ‘Roger will pay me back. I have no fear about that. But just to keep all the lawyers happy I now have a lien on one of his subsidiaries.' She chuckled. ‘If Roger defaults I'll own a nice little machine-tool operation in Boise.'

TWELVE

‘
T
en o'clock mass at the cathedral,' Ray Menendez said. ‘And a big crowd, it's going to take them a while to get away from there. So a few minutes after eleven by the time they're all in the cars, and then they have to drive to that new all-faiths cemetery on the east side, how long will that take?'

‘Let's see, Avenida Los Reyes? Half an hour. A little more than that, for us. I'm going to make a couple phone calls and check on the status of our prisoners. Quarter of eleven, I'll be ready to go,' Sarah said.

Delaney didn't really see much merit in their going to the cemetery, but Menendez held out for it, saying they could learn a lot from seeing who showed up and how they behaved. Sarah agreed, but knew he also wanted them to be there to support Patricia. ‘We asked her if there was anything we could do for her,' he told Sarah, ‘and this was all she asked us for.'

‘I know it's a lot to ask,' she'd said, mopping her eyes after her meltdown over her mother's cremation. ‘But I feel like it would make all the difference if I could see a friendly face there tomorrow. And that sure as hell isn't going to be anybody from the Henderson clan.'

‘Your father and brother still fighting?'

‘Worst I've ever seen them. And to be fair, I understand why Dad's so angry. He needs to grieve for Mom and he feels like Adam has taken away all his time and space to do that. And Dad and I . . . ordinarily we're kind of partners, the two who keep things going. But I blamed him when he first got home Monday. I said if he'd been where he belonged it wouldn't have happened. I don't know how to take it back now, and he can't forget it.'

‘Give it time, Patricia,' Ray Menendez said.

‘And of course we'll try to come if you want us there,' Sarah said, ‘if you don't think your father will object.'

‘I don't care if he does,' Patricia said. ‘I'm pretty sick of men and their objections. Why do they always have to run everything?' She looked at Menendez apologetically and added, ‘No offense.'

‘None taken,' Menendez said cheerfully. ‘We're all crazy on testosterone is the problem, we just can't help ourselves.'

‘As you can see he's disgustingly pleased about it,' Sarah said, and Patricia lost a little of her sad pallor as she rolled her eyes up and said, ‘What can you do?'

Now Sarah checked the roster at County. Zack and Felicity had both pleaded not guilty at their preliminary hearing, and were being integrated into the system. Nino had not yet entered a plea. She phoned the Public Defenders' office to find out who was taking his case, was told all the lawyers were tied up with clients right now, but Carswell, their newest lawyer, had Nino Giardelli on his list. She wrote a note to remind herself to call him later, to suggest he come and view the interview they'd recorded yesterday. She already felt invested in Nino's defense.

‘OK, you ready? Let's go,' Menendez said, a few minutes early. As much as anything, she thought, he was looking forward to getting outside on this glorious day. Tobin, coming in this morning, had said he was having trouble deciding how to feel. ‘The weather's so perfect I can't concentrate on how terrible the news is.'

They were in plenty of time, she saw when they pulled into All-Faiths Memorial Park. They had the whole place to themselves. ‘Look for the Garden of Saint Joseph,' Menendez said, ‘that's the Catholic part.'

They pulled past the sign reading ‘Please be on the lookout for snakes and scorpions' – the new cemetery was right on the edge of wild desert. Austere and impeccably tidy, every pebble raked severely within borders, it stood on a series of little rises overlooking a vast valley that sloped away to the east. Beyond the valley the purple masses of the Rincons rose into a clear sky, so blue it made Sarah's eyes water.

They wandered around the scant statuary and stone benches till Sarah said, ‘Oh, there it is, the wall of crypts, see? Just ahead in the next section. Where the white statue is, in the Garden of Saint Joseph.' They found the open niche with Eloise Henderson's name on it.

‘I wonder,' Sarah said, ‘why Eloise isn't being buried in the big Della Maggio plot up north on Oracle?'

‘Patricia said the family offered, but her dad said he thought the last few spaces there should be saved for older family members. She thinks he wants to put as much distance between himself and the Della Maggios as he can.'

When they saw the hearse coming, they stepped a few feet back and stood under a palo verde, far enough away so Roger and Adam needn't acknowledge their presence, near enough so Patricia could see them if she looked.

The pall-bearers got out of the long black limousine behind the hearse and the family out of the next one. Only a few cars followed after them. Expensive vehicles had clogged the streets around the cathedral, when they passed it – the funeral was well attended. But the burial was for family and close friends, and there didn't seem to be many of either. A couple of elderly Della Maggio aunts toddled slowly toward the wall, helped by younger cousins. There was not much left of the clan in Tucson now, Patricia had told them, ‘and Dad comes from a small family in Texas that's never kept in touch. His whole life has centered around taking care of Mom and Adam and me. I kind of wonder what he'll do now.' She gave a sad little shrug. ‘Work, I guess.'

Roger Henderson, looking older and cramped in a black suit, got out of the second limousine with his two children following. Adam looked utterly wasted, his face the color of chalk, his dark suit a little wrinkled and his tie askew. Patricia was elegantly turned out in a black dress with a jacket and a small pillbox hat with a veil. She was weeping, not making any sound but occasionally wiping tears off her cheeks behind the veil. She carried a small white missal, and four short-stemmed red roses.

Another man in a dark suit got out of a car farther back in the line, and walked up to join the family at the grave. The cut of his elegant suit, his narrow shoes and longer haircut said he was not from Tucson. Sarah felt a nudge on her elbow. Menendez whispered, ‘Who he?'

‘Must be Uncle Theodore,' she whispered back. ‘The brother who lives in Italy.' She saw Roger glance at him once and turn his face away. The man walked up behind Adam and Patricia and touched their shoulders, then nudged into a space they made between them. They each turned to him, squeezed his hands. He bent his head and whispered something to Adam, who smiled at him out of his dead-white face.

The priest was coming now, walking deliberately with a Bible in his hands. Evidently not familiar with this family, he gave them a formal nod and touched hands with Roger before he took his place in front of the wall of crypts. At the last moment Devon Hartford got out of still another car at the end of the line and walked up to stand beside Roger, on the side away from his children. Roger barely nudged his elbow, but his body language said he was grateful to have Hartford beside him.

The priest raised his Bible and began to read the graveside prayers. A little breeze ruffled his white hair and lace-trimmed vestment. It lifted Patricia's veil briefly and then dropped it against her face, and Sarah could see tears glittering through it. The priest paused in his solemn ritual and the pall-bearers slid the ornate small urn containing Eloise's remains into the niche in the wall. Patricia handed three of the red roses she carried to the three men of the family and kept one. One after another they stepped up to the wall, paused for a private moment, and put the rose into the vase that had been affixed in the door. Patricia said something, privately, to the contents of the urn before she kissed the rose and slid it into the vase. They all stepped back and the priest shook holy water from a silver aspergillum on to the urn while he recited another prayer.

Then it was over. Roger and Patricia turned from the graveside to shake hands with the old Della Maggio aunts and the cousins, and to thank the pall-bearers. Devon Hartford walked to Sarah's side, looking curious, and said, without preamble, ‘Surprised to see you here, Detective.'

‘Patricia asked us to come, so we did,' she said, and introduced him to Menendez. ‘I see Uncle Teddy made it from Italy.'

‘Yes. And Adam got through the ceremony on his feet, that's a blessing too.'

When Patricia finished hugging an ancient aunt who was wiping her face with a lace handkerchief, she turned and came toward them too, making no effort to hide the tears flowing freely down her face.

‘That was nice, Patricia,' Sarah said, ‘with the roses.'

‘It seemed like something she'd do,' she said. ‘It's hard to think what to do to make it as . . . loving . . . as she would have for one of us, you know? She always knew how to make me feel loved. So I told her “Bon voyage,” when I put my rose in the vase. I said, “Don't you worry about a thing here, just enjoy the trip.” Because that's what she'd have said to me, I think.' Tears were flowing freely off her chin.

‘Good thing your uncle made it, huh?' Menendez said, in an agonized masculine effort to get her to stop crying.

‘Actually, Madge has been around for a month or more, I think,' Patricia said. ‘In and out of town, of course. Flying around as usual.'