New River Blues (32 page)

‘What?' Sarah stared at her and then at Menendez, who looked startled too. ‘Uncle Teddy is Madge?'

‘Yes, he's always had that nickname,' Patricia said, ‘because the family name is . . . what's wrong?' She was speaking to their backs by now, because both detectives were walking away, muttering as they sidled through the stones together, moving toward Madge and the rumpled figure scuttling down the walk beside him.

‘We're going to have to take him here,' Menendez said, ‘like it or not.'

‘I know. Damn, it's awkward. Why is he giving his keys to Adam, though?' Sarah said.

Adam had almost reached the absurdly stylish antique Jaguar hugging the curb now, and his uncle turned and began walking back toward the group by the grave. Deciding that this was no time to preserve decorum, Sarah asked Menendez, ‘Can you take him by yourself?'

‘Oh, hell yes,' he said, and trotted toward Madge.

Sarah ran past Menendez toward the mourners, calling out, ‘Mr Henderson, Adam's not supposed to drive, is he?' She was pointing toward his son. He turned and saw the boy getting into the sleek roadster and ran toward him at once, without even a second's pause for thought. He was fast, for a big man, he still had some of his football player's muscles. He hit Madge's shoulder as he ran past him, and knocked him down.

‘For God's sake, Roger,' Madge yelled after him, from the ground, ‘what do you think you're doing?'

Roger had no time to answer. Adam had already closed the door and was putting the key in the ignition. But the top was down. Roger reached inside and lifted his son out of the car without even opening the door. He turned with the boy kicking and screaming in his arms, and carried him back toward Madge, who was still struggling to his feet.

‘You get in that fancy car now and drive it out of here,' Roger said, ‘and if I see it anywhere near my family again I'll set it on fire.'

Madge opened his mouth to protest, but saw Menendez coming, running, and Sarah beside him, holding up her badge, shouting, ‘Wait!' He jumped in the Jaguar and started it, released the hand brake and rolled away as Sarah ran up yelling, ‘Stop!'

‘Too slow,' said Menendez, panting beside her. ‘Sorry.'

‘We'll get him,' Sarah said, ‘the escort that came out with the funeral cortège is just down the road, come on!' Together, they ran to the squad car and jumped inside. ‘Hey, Petey, stop that Jaguar that just went out the gate, will you?'

‘That shouldn't be hard,' Officer Peterson said. ‘Why's he driving so slow, something wrong with him?' He pulled through the cemetery gates and turned down the hill. The Jaguar was still only a block ahead.

Approaching the first intersection the Jaguar paused, cautiously, as if the driver couldn't decide which way to go. Then Peterson activated the siren and light bar on his vehicle, and Madge looked back in alarm. He accelerated suddenly, shot across the intersection, and headed down the twisting street at speed. The squad followed easily, still emitting both its ‘Stop!' signals. When he saw himself ignored, Peterson activated the PA system on his mike and broadcast, in terrifying tones across the desert, ‘Driver of the Jaguar, stop your vehicle at once!'

But Madge was surfing down the rolling hillocks of Avenida Los Reyes, evidently sure he could outrun Tucson's finest. There was something desperate, though, about the speed with which he approached the intersection at Twenty-Second Street, where plainly he would have to turn in order to avoid entrapment in the cul-de-sacs of the residential community just ahead.

‘Why isn't he slowing down?' Peterson muttered. ‘He can't make the turn at that speed.'

Madge was going to try it, though, they saw. The driver of the great little car apparently thought his skill and the fabled engineering that still made mechanics misty-eyed would be enough to carry the day.

But he was wrong. Tires shrieked on the asphalt as Madge tried to keep the Jaguar on the road through the sharp left turn. After a noisy skid, he crashed through mesquite and cactus into the sandy wash that bordered the road, and then into the brick wall that kept the wild denizens of the wash out of the yards above it.

They called 911 and the Fire Department and got plenty of prompt and skillful help, so Theodore Della Maggio was on his way to Carondolet Hospital in plenty of time to save, as Delaney later said, his drastically overvalued hide.

Menendez rode with the prisoner on his trip to the hospital, so that Sarah could stay with the Jaguar. She guarded its mangled remains as attentively as she had ever tended a wounded human suspect, making sure nobody touched it till she persuaded Delaney to send out the one person on the Homicide crew who could confirm her suspicions about the reason for the crash.

‘I didn't realize what I was watching at the time,' she told Cifuentes when he got to Twenty-Second Street. ‘But once he blew that turn – I think I figured it out.' She was sweating in the sandy wash, helping Cifuentes keep his rear end out of the cactus spines while he stuck his head under the wreck.

And she was mostly talking to herself, she began to realize. Because the other detective had fallen in love with the remains of an automobile almost twice his age.

‘The Jaguar XKE,' Cifuentes said, ‘is the car that changed everything.' Even indoors on a dark day in the dusty, crowded shop on Stone Avenue, Sarah could see his eyes shining. He had the poor bent wreck up on the hoist at the British Car Service, and had spent all day in the company of men who felt as he did about the importance of good workmanship. And Delaney, Ray, and Sarah were gathered around him now, waiting to see a display of his expertise. He was a happy man.

‘After the war, this baby put the glamour back in the car biz. Six cylinders, and dual overhead cams, it could almost rip up the road. This one's still got the original brass fittings, see?'

‘And the wooden steering wheel, look,' Tobin said.

‘You were going to show us the brake system?' Sarah's interest in automotive engineering never extended much beyond, ‘Does it run?' and, if answered in the negative, ‘How soon can you fix it?' Also, she had signed statements on her desk from Felicity and Zack, both of whom had been more than willing to tell the truth in exchange for slightly reduced charges after they had watched the DVD of Nino's interview. The important thing was to nail Madge, the truly evil plotter of the plan, Delaney had agreed. Now she was anxious to wrap up this last bit of physical evidence and forget about the Henderson case until the trial.

‘Yes. This happens to be the '62 model. The first year they went for a dual brake system, an extra safety measure that they were rightly proud of and bragged about plenty. Two cylinders here,' he pointed under the hood, ‘and separate hydraulic lines for the front and back wheels. Our man put a pinhole opening in both lines, right here, close to the cylinders. Just a tiny hole in each line and he must have done it at the last minute, so he'd still have enough pressure on the brakes to drive it to the cemetery.'

‘And there's no chance this happened in the accident?' Delaney asked.

‘No,' Cifuentes said. ‘You can see this portion of the firewall was untouched, though the front was crumpled. We believe we may have retrieved some DNA from this section around the holes that's cleaner than the rest, too – we're waiting on the lab for that. Either way, we'll remove this section of the lines, and the empty cylinders, to show the jury. But I wanted you to see them in place first, the way I did. In addition, we can point out the odd driving behavior that Sarah observed.'

‘He was attempting to control his speed by downshifting,' Sarah said, ‘and using the hand brake. He didn't dare tell Roger Henderson the car was disabled. So he thought he could just mosey away very slowly, but then Petey hit the siren and he panicked. When he tried to speed away, he lost it.'

‘I have to say,' Cifuentes said, ‘that was one damn smart call on your part, Sarah. Especially since –' he let his eyes play over the shop and yard where heaped car bodies and parts vied for space with workbenches and tools and catalogs, and happy men working patiently in the crowded aisles – ‘you really don't give a damn about cars, do you?'

‘Nope. Just people,' Sarah said, ‘and I'm pleased to say I think we did some people a favor this time. When Patricia Henderson found out her old sweetie of an uncle was hatching a plot to kill her mother the whole time he was enjoying her generosity – and Adam realized his father saved his life pulling him out of that car – well, there's kind of a family reunion going on at the Henderson house this week.'

‘So Adam's ready to be a good boy now?' Delaney's face said, Oh, please.

‘Not yet. But getting ready to go into detox. Nearby, this time, so he gets visits. It
could
work,' she insisted, to the dubious faces around her.

‘Sure,' Delaney said.

‘Yeah, and both Henderson kids and half a dozen of their Della Maggio cousins have been calling me for two days,' Menendez said, ‘asking me to find out if Madge killed his own parents last year the way he just tried to kill Adam.'

‘What?' Delaney stared. ‘No way in hell we're going to get any proof of that now.'

‘Probably not,' Sarah said, ‘But Devon Hartford says they all wondered at the time how a careful driver like Fabian Della Maggio could have hit that bridge abutment on a nice clear day. He's anxious to help if we decide to reopen the case. He feels bad because he . . . well,' she said, suddenly aware of how much space their four bodies were taking up in the tiny, crowded shop, ‘I guess we better get out of the way here and let these people work.'

Later, when they were alone in the car on the way back to the station, Delaney said, ‘I can't imagine Devon Hartford feeling bad about himself. Did he really say that?'

‘Yes. He came to see me to confirm for himself that “brother Teddy,” as he always calls him, has really been arrested and charged with his sister's murder. He feels a lot of responsibility for this tragedy, he says. “I'll do anything I can to help you put the ungrateful little whelp away,” he told me.'

‘Why would the lawyer feel responsible?'

‘Remember when I asked him if he'd notified the brother about Eloise changing the prenup?'

‘Yeah. He said he couldn't because it had to be a secret.'

‘Yes. But he found out later that Eloise gave in to one of her impulses and told Teddy what she was planning. She said it was just too delicious to keep to herself any longer, she had to share it with someone. “But don't worry,” she said. “Teddy won't tell.”'

‘I still don't see why Hartford would feel responsible.'

‘He said he never thought to ask her if she told Teddy they'd also added a codicil to her will, since it was several months yet till the anniversary and she wanted to make certain. She said, “In case I step in front of a truck before then, I don't want anybody to be able to change it back.” So in a funny way it seems as if she was really kind of on to how much her brother wanted her money to replace what he'd squandered, but he thinks she couldn't admit it to herself. Eloise was good at sweeping stuff under the rug, he said, she'd always had to be. Now he thinks, if he'd only sent that information to Theodore, Eloise could still be alive.'

‘Wow. There's a dismal thought.'

‘Yeah. I told him he should quit beating up on himself. Remember, I said, you told me yourself he hardly ever read your letters.'

‘He did say that, didn't he? I believe it, too – brother Teddy's really a waste of skin. Speaking of families, was it you who steered Cifuentes to the Verna Talbot case?'

‘Uh . . . yeah. I thought maybe . . . we were all so snowed under at the time—'

‘Uh-huh. And you decided to give him a leg up out of the doghouse so he'd tell you about his dates with Eloise. Right?'

No way am I going to answer that.
‘I didn't know at the time that he would turn out to be the resident local automotive expert,' Sarah said. ‘But wasn't that lucky?'

‘Uh-huh. He did a good job of chasing down that lead you gave him about the pearl necklace, too.'

‘Oh?'

‘The older daughter had it all along. She lied to Tobin when he asked her if she had touched anything in the house. She knew her sister would put up a fight for that necklace if she saw it, so she got it out of the house and told Tobin everything was just the way her mother left it.' He was getting pinker, remembering.

‘She didn't kill Verna for it, though, did she?'

‘No. She can prove she was home in Anacortes that whole week. I don't think we'll ever know who killed Verna.' He was scratching his ears now.

‘Why'd she tell Cifuentes the truth?'

‘You have to ask? Didn't he explain to you what a way he has with women?' Delaney looked as if he'd just stepped in something bad.

‘And cars,' she said, ‘he has a way with them too.' Because Cifuentes had done her two favors on this case and she didn't want to see him get marked down again.

‘Well, yes,' Delaney said. ‘The car thing, now that might come in handy.'