“Gobsmacked. That’s what I am,” Win murmured. “To think, all this time Tito had always been looking out for his family, and we thought he was a dirty cheat. I’ll never sleep again.”
The word America brought something else to mind. “Why did your father need an American citizenship? Why was he taking the test? If he was here illegally, how could he possibly take out a life insurance policy?”
“He wasn’t here illegally. Mama is American—born here and moved back to Mexico with my
abuela
after her father, my grandfather, died when she was very small. She was only raised in Mexico. We’re all American, too. Mama’s first husband, my biological father, was an American who moved to Mexico to teach at the university. Papa was taking the test to make Mama proud. He loved America. He loved the Salty Sombrero and most of all, he loved Mama.”
I took a deep breath and swallowed.
I’m sorry, Taco Man. I doubted you. I was wrong.
“I still don’t have an answer. Why was Carlito at your house? I saw him go inside, Miss Cartwright.”
Mateo’s accusation brought me back to the present. “He stopped by because he thought I might be able to help him contact your father. He just wanted to talk to him.”
“He killed Papa! How could you help him?”
I gripped the plastic cup, my wine now lukewarm No. No. That was all wrong. As wrong as Bianca’s questioning by the police. “I don’t believe that, Mateo, and I’m going to prove to you that you’re wrong. Carlito isn’t to blame for your father’s death.”
His beautiful face tightened again, his eyes narrowing. “Well, they arrested him just after Papa’s funeral. They found a picture of him in Papa’s truck in all that cheese all over the place and we identified him. So I guess we’ll find out soon enough if he killed Papa, won’t we?” he spat, turning on his heel and leaving me alone with some sawdust and a leaf blower.
Oh, this was bad. Things were very bad. When the police found out Carlito was Tito’s biological son and he’d never acknowledged him, they’d call it motivation to kill—the rejection of a father. They’d say he was angry…maybe they’d even call it a crime of passion.
If they could brand me with so little evidence, they could certainly brand Carlito with this kind of information.
But they had the wrong person in custody, and if I didn’t do something, Carlito could end up in jail for the rest of his life.
* * * *
“Well. I guess we don’t have to offer to buy a taco truck for the Bustamante boys so they can stay in business,” Win remarked.
“Was that the crazy idea you had?” Win was a good egg. A generous egg.
“It was, but Tito had the forethought to handle his affairs. Bravo, Taco Man.”
Letting my forehead rest on the steering wheel of my car, I moaned. “This day…” I muttered, unable to even complete the sentence.
“Yes, Dove. It has been a day, hasn’t it?”
“It’s been brutal. I can’t believe the horrible things I thought about Tito. I feel like the worst person ever. And now, Carlito…” My stomach tightened.
They had the wrong suspect. Poor Carlito was probably terrified. He was just a kid.
“Now, Stevie, how could you have known? All the evidence said Tito cheated on Maggie. You didn’t have much to go on with this one.”
Sighing, I looked out over the rows and rows of tombstones as daylight slipped away and the purple haze of nightfall cast shadows amongst the trees.
“We still don’t know for sure if he did or not. But my gut says not. He raised those boys and Bianca as his own. I’m almost certain he never would have left Maggie, even if he’d known Esperanza was pregnant. He’d have found a way to work it out—old-school thinking or not.”
“My gut says the same. Maybe they should date,” Win teased, reminding me of my words to Officer Nelson.
“Don’t even joke about that comment. I’d rather have my arm sawed off with a rusty knife than date
Dana
Nelson.”
“Speaking of rusty saws and cigar cutters. Once, whilst on a mission in Papua New Guinea, I was held hostage by—”
“Stop! No more talk of interrogations and cigar cutters. I hate the finger-cutting parts.” Then I paused and remembered again that Officer Nelson’s first name was Dana. “Can you even believe his name is Dana?” I squealed.
Win barked a hearty laugh. “I admit, it wasn’t something I was expecting. I definitely leaned more toward John-Boy. Maybe Bruce. I actually battled with the two.”
Now I laughed, too, and that felt mostly good. Except we still didn’t have a killer in jail. “What are we going to do about Carlito, Win? You know he didn’t do it, right?”
“I do. His parents are on their way, I heard you say?”
The moment I’d heard about Carlito’s arrest, I went to the store to check on Liza, who was beyond comfort. She’d been on the verge of hysteria, to be precise. As I’d soothed her, tried to tell her everything would be all right, she told me what was going on with the Valasquezes.
“Liza said Esperanza’s on her way, but his father’s out of town on business. He travels for work, apparently. Should we send in the shark?” The shark being my crack attorney Win had hired when I was under the Ebenezer Falls murder microscope. One Luis Lipton, to be precise.
“Already done. Belfry’s on it.”
Smiling, I sighed. “It’s like you’re in my head, Crispin Alistair Winterbottom.”
“Perish the thought.”
Rooting around my purse, I dug out my phone and turned it back on. I was putting off the inevitable by dilly-dallying. But I wanted to use the right words when I apologized to Tito, and they took time to formulate.
We’d come to the cemetery for just that reason. I was compelled to tell Tito how sorry I was for thinking he was a philandering pig. I had to confess if I ever hoped to look at myself in the mirror. In some cases, if a spirit hadn’t crossed over yet, they sometimes attended their own burials. That was my hope tonight.
I was convinced Tito had gone to the other side, but I was going to apologize anyway. Leaning my head back against the headrest, I skimmed my phone when another idea rushed through my brain.
“Hey, just had a thought.”
“Stop having those. They almost always lead to chaotic shenanigans.”
I smirked into the growing darkness. “No trouble, just a notion. Maybe the spirit who contacted you at the séance was Maggie’s mother?”
“Certainly she was angry enough, and if she was using words like ‘pig’ and ‘affair’, nothing would surprise me.”
“Says the man who chats with me from the other side like we’re at the high school cafeteria lunch table.”
“So why are we dawdling?”
I aimlessly scrolled my Madam Zoltar Facebook timeline. “I’m trying to find the right words to convey my remorse for what I’ve been thinking about Tito all this time. None of it nice, mind you.”
“It’s getting late. I don’t like you out alone when it’s dark. Especially at a cemetery. Also, while Belfry is, I’m positive, the babysitter of the millennia, he
has
been home with our nameless dog for several long hours now. You might want to get a move on, Little Doggy.”
Nodding, I pulled my rain slicker’s hood over my head and reluctantly left my heated seats. Using my phone for light, I slid out of my car and regretted the moment my feet hit the ground.
If it weren’t so cold tonight, I’d go barefoot. My backside ached, matched only by the throb in my leg, and these heels were breaking me. I massaged one cheek as I walked.
“Yet another reason you shouldn’t be here, Stevie. Your backend needs a muscle relaxer and a heating pad.”
While he wasn’t lying, I wasn’t giving in to something as petty as a sore butt. “You can’t tell me you were never uncomfortable while on a mission. Surely you must have suffered far worse than a bum bum.”
“True enough. In fact, once I leapt from a building window into a pool with a dislocated arm and a broken femur.”
“And I’ll bet you relocated that arm by slamming it up against the side of the pool, didn’t you?”
“The pool house, if accuracy is your beast of burden. I couldn’t get quite enough leverage while bobbing in the water.”
Rolling my eyes, I tripped and stumbled over the oddly rough terrain toward Tito’s gravesite. “Of course. What was I thinking?”
I slowed only a little as I squinted into the darkness, reorienting myself in accordance with Tito’s grave. “Wow. It’s dark, huh?”
“You know, I don’t know many women who’d come to a cemetery at night.”
“Is that admiration I hear in your voice, Winterbottom? I’m an ex-witch who talks to the dead, International Man of Mystery. What about that says scared of a little old cemetery? I ain’t afraid a no ghosts.”
“Watch your step, Stevie. Stop walking and texting, for bloody sake. You’re going to end up in one of these plots with a broken leg to ice the cake of your broken backside.”
“I’m not walking and texting. I’m accepting Carlito’s friendship on Facebook,” I said with a sad sigh. He must have made the request earlier today. “We need to figure this out, Win. I mean, would you look at his page?” I scrolled past the colorful banner and perused the pictures of him and his friends and his family. “Look at all the happy pictures with his family…his friends. Is it any surprise he has so many friends? He’s got a lot to lose. We can’t let that happen.”
Now that Carlito and I were Facebook friends, I was privy to all of his pictures whereas before, when I’d looked him up, my viewing was limited.
And then I stopped. Froze in place right there in the darkening murkiness of the cemetery, right between two headstones as I looked at one picture he’d uploaded just this morning, according to the timestamp.
Shut the front door.
“Win?”
“Yes, Dove?”
I held up my phone as though he were right next to me, making the picture bigger and pointing with my fingertip. “Do you see what I see?”
Win took a sharp intake of breath then was silent for a moment before he said, “I do see what you see.”
“Do you know what this means?” Relief, excitement, and the urge to cheer rushed through my veins. “It means we can go to the police and tell them who Tito’s killer is and free Carlito!”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you!” a voice, rich with menace, threatened.
G
osh dang it. I knew the minute I turned around, there was going to be someone holding a gun pointed right at me.
Maybe it was the tone of voice, maybe it was just pure instinct. I can’t say for sure.
Or maybe it was because I’d been down this road before. But the last time I heard that tone, I woke up with duct tape on my hands and tied to a chair.
Not coolio. I’m a little over being held hostage, thank you very much.
And sure enough, as I whirled around, sending a sting of agony through my butt cheek, I confronted my pistol packer.
Good gravy, the second gunman I’d encountered in my life was a really big guy. Far bigger than the last—if his shadow was an indication of his reality, that is. Much larger than his picture led one to believe and at least a half foot taller than I was. He outweighed me by at least a hundred pounds.
No
bueno
.
Because you know what that means, right? It means I’m going to take a licking before I get out of this—
if
I get out of this.
“Back it up, lady!” He barked the order, waving the gun at me in choppy stabs of the air. “And throw me that phone, now!”
I did as I was told, minus throwing my phone to him, in the hopes I could distract him. My heart pounded in my chest as I smacked into a tombstone with a wince.
“Who are you?” I called out.
“Stevie, do exactly as he says,” Win said in slow words, as though my comprehension levels had gone down.
“I
am
doing as he says, Win!”
“But you didn’t give him the phone.”
“Win, zip it already. I got this!”
“Who the hell is Win?” the strapping silhouette yelled back.
Now, look. I get that I play with fire a lot. I’m impulsive. I create some unnecessary problems with my wagging tongue. I’m prone to jumping in feet first without checking the water temperature. But here’s the thing. If there’s one thing I learned last round with a killer, it was this: Be the crazy.
Be the craziest mutherfluffer in the whole room.
Or in this case, the boudoir of the dead.
Be crazier than the guy waving the gun in your face. Distract. Deflect. Pretend like it’s not your fault you’re crazy and that his threats are nothing compared to the nutballery living inside your head.
It threw them off balance. This guy, if he was who I thought, was already shaky, probably even a little remorseful. If I could just keep him like that long enough to either get help or run, I might leave here with my life intact.
So as I backed up farther, I ducked under a shadow from a tall oak just sprouting its leaves, stepping into the dark abyss to hide. Then I stripped my white rain slicker off, a sure beacon of my location, shivering from the chilly air.
The shadow came closer, his tall frame growing bigger, his feet crunching the newly growing grass. “I said,
who the hell is Win
? Where is he?”
Swallowing the lump in my dry throat, I responded, “Well, to be fair, you didn’t really say it, you growled it. And Win is my ghost, of course.”
“
Your what
?”
“You heard me. My ghost. He talks to me all the time.”
“You’re crazy, lady!”
I rolled my eyes, even though he probably couldn’t see me, and began sliding out of my heels. I wish sometimes I’d get just a little warning before being held at gunpoint. I’d plan my footwear better, for sure.
“Hah! That’s so original. You don’t suppose you’re the first person to call me crazy, do you? I have a list as long as my arm of people who’ve called me crazy. Go directly to jail, do not pass go.”
“Stop provoking, Stevie. I’m begging you. You’re not trained for this type of tactic.”
I rolled my eyes again, backing up even farther and almost tripping on a bouquet of flowers. “Do more sit-ups, Dove. Stop eating all that junk. It’s bad for you. Bloody hell, Stevie, your body is a temple, not a bodega,” I mocked in full British accent with a jut of my chin.