Authors: Elizabeth Gunn
Delaney looked around the desk at his suddenly buzzing detectives and said, ‘You’re not talking about Frank Martin, are you?’
‘Yup.’ Tobin always remembered the best stories. ‘The beloved do-gooder who got caught with his hand in the till at the Old Pueblo Credit Union, then shot himself in the head. It was in all the local papers. They never found the money, though.’
‘That was Ed Lacey’s uncle? Why didn’t I know that?’
The faces around the table all grew a little half-smile until Leo Tobin said, kindly, ‘Boss, you don’t schmooze much.’ He shrugged in an understanding way. ‘It’s not a problem.’ He nodded at the rest of the crew. ‘We all gossip enough to make up for your share.’
What will we do when Leo retires?
Sarah wondered. He always knew how to walk the talk back from the place where sparks might fly.
Delaney gave a derisive snort and muttered, ‘You got that right.’ He peered at the ceiling light for a while as if it might hold answers up there instead of only dead flies. ‘That was a strange case, all right. But when’s the last time you knew a guy to go off the rails over something that happened to his uncle? Must’ve been something else going on.’
He closed the jacket. ‘Oh, the crime-scene crew picked up all three of Spurlock’s bullets off the asphalt, did I tell you that? They all went through Lacey so they’re pretty beat up but they think they can ID them. They found one in the street, too, right at the edge of the driveway. Looks like a match for the rimfire casing they picked up earlier beside Lacey’s body. If so it’s almost certainly from Lacey’s Sig Sauer. Except the angle’s all wrong – I don’t see how Lacey could have been that far off with his shot, but … the lab’s got all four of them now. I asked them for a rush job on the one from the street. No use wasting time on it if it isn’t from Lacey’s gun. Well, what else? Ollie’s still at the autopsy, huh?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Let’s all take an early lunch and then start on what we can do in the meantime. Sarah, you’ll be following through with IA, of course …’
‘Did most of that Saturday,’ she said. ‘The rest is on hold till the autopsy reports come back.’
‘OK, then you’ve got some time? Hold that good thought, I’ll get back to you. Leo, I want you to go back to that bar where the call came from, talk to everybody there, try to find the two guys who called nine-one-one on Saturday. Ray and Jason, you canvass all the buildings around there, both sides of the block, see if you can find anybody who witnessed the shooting.’
‘Boss, we’ve got the video,’ Sarah said.
‘I know. But juries like eyewitnesses and you never know what’s going to end up in court. And Oscar, you go after Lacey’s wife – or ex-wife, it sounds like, OK?’ There was a funny little frisson around the table – everybody’s head up suddenly, the same expression of disbelief on all their faces. Did Delaney really mean to say that to Oscar? Or give him that job? Sarah saw Jason nudge Ray’s elbow.
Oscar Cifuentes was famous throughout the department for two things: his prowess with the ladies, and how close he had come to losing his spot on the homicide crew when his first case there had collided with his colorful romantic life.
‘Find her,’ Delaney said, his preoccupied face innocent as a choirboy’s, ‘and get her take on the marriage and why they broke up. It won’t be the whole truth, of course, no divorce story ever is, but it’s a place to start. Well, um, and Sarah, since you’re free for now, see if you can find any more of Lacey’s family and ask them what they think happened to Ed. Did they see the wreck coming? Can they explain what made a good cop go nuts like this? Anything you can find.’
He looked around. ‘That goes for all of you. Look for neighbors, colleagues in clubs, drinking buddies … Jason, see if you can find out where he was selling his copper wire and the rest of the trash, will you? Keep picking every brain you can find because I smell a bad story coming and I’d like to see us get a handle on it before the TV guys start having fun with it.’
Gathering up papers, he sailed into his office, leaving a momentarily speechless crew behind him.
Oscar Cifuentes walked into the break room as Sarah started on the second half of her sandwich and said, ‘Well, Sarah, you brown-bagging again today?’
‘Today and forever, probably,’ she said, getting up when the kettle whistled, pouring water for tea. ‘Will and I bought an old house and we need to completely remodel the kitchen. We hope to get it done before the hot water heater dies.’
‘Keeping house is so much fun, isn’t it? OK if I join you?’ That was a rhetorical question; Oscar Cifuentes had self-confidence enough to be always sure of his welcome, especially with women. He pulled out the gloriously greasy cheeseburger he had obviously just bought from the In-and-Out up the street and wiped his hands contentedly on a couple of paper napkins. ‘I got a question.’
‘Just one? Most people will have more. Makes everybody kind of paranoid, seeing a good cop go down the tubes like that.’
‘
Was
he such a good cop? All those happy years I worked in Auto Theft, I never realized how much hot news I was missing. All I know about Ed Lacey is what I’ve read in the paper. Did you know him?’
‘About like I knew you in Auto Theft – just to say hello. But you don’t get on the training crew till you’ve shown some chops.’
‘I guess that’s right. You know, I didn’t think about it till we were done talking in there, but then I remembered I know one of his aunts. Cecelia … you might want to talk to her, what do you think? I forget her married name but it’s probably changed by now anyway … Seems to me she was just getting divorced when I dated her a few years back.’
‘You dated Ed Lacey’s aunt?’ Sarah brought the tea back to her place. ‘Wasn’t she kind of old for you?’
‘No, actually she’s a couple years younger than Ed was … it’s one of those big Mexican families like you hardly ever see any more. Vicente García was the papi – he’s no longer with us. His first wife died and after a couple of years he started all over with a younger wife. Eddie’s mother was one of the older girls in the first family and Cecelia was one of the second bunch.’ He shrugged. ‘I could probably get on the grapevine and find her.’
‘And you’d be glad to do that, to help me jump-start my search for Lacey’s family,’ Sarah said, watching him thoughtfully over her Swiss cheese on rye, ‘in return for which favor, exactly?’
‘Hey, hold your fire, I come in peace,’ Cifuentes said, hands up, trying for the easy joke. Then, beginning to twitch under her unrelenting stare, he said, ‘I just thought maybe you wouldn’t mind riding along with me while I interview Ed Lacey’s wife.’ He studied his fingernails. ‘Ex-wife, actually. Angela.’
‘Oscar,’ Sarah said, ‘if you know so much more about this family than the rest of us do, why didn’t you speak up in there?’
‘Well, see,’ he re-crossed his legs and looked out a window, ‘the thing is I dated Angela, too, a long, long time ago, before she met Ed. Just a couple of times, but … the second date I took her out dancing and one thing kind of led to another …’
‘As it so often does with you. Well, and?’
‘And I guess she kind of thought we had something going on, but I … didn’t. No real chemistry there at all – it was just the drinks and the music. But then she kept calling me, so I just sort of … made myself scarce till she gave up on me.’
‘And then along came Ed Lacey and took her mind off you.’
‘Well, yes. A little bit later.’
‘So what’s the problem?’ Her smile held a little edge. ‘You think she’s still hot for you after all these years?’
Looking offended, he shrugged and concentrated on his lunch for a while. Finally, he said, ‘Hey, forget I said anything, OK? It was just a thought. But if you don’t want to work with me—’
‘Oh, come on, I’m just pulling your chain. The truth is I’d be grateful for any info you’ve got about the family, especially Ed Lacey’s ex-wife. She could be the key to the whole thing. But the truth also is, you should have told Delaney if there was a problem about you getting in touch with her—’
‘Oh, Sarah,
por favor,
you know better than that.
If Delaney hears one whisper about a problem between me and a woman ever again, he’ll throw me off this crew. I half suspect he assigned me to Lacey’s wife hoping I’d give him an excuse to fire me.’
‘I didn’t hear you say that.’ Sarah wanted to stay out of this fight, if that’s what it was going to be. But she did think Cifuentes was trying hard to succeed in his job, and Delaney was being a little judgmental about his personal life. ‘So what do you want from me?’
‘Well, I thought maybe if I gave you the number you could make the call.’
‘Really, is that what you thought? How very surprising. I would never have guessed that was what you were after.’ She waited while he got his face arranged in his pleading-puppy look before she said, ‘Oh, go get the damn number, Oscar.’
He pulled a small card out of his shirt pocket and handed it over. ‘She works at this used clothing store on West Ina.’
‘She does? That’s funny; I thought I read that she worked in the credit union where the uncle stole the money.’
‘Allegedly stole.’ Cifuentes shrugged. ‘After the investigation she quit her job there and went back to the store where Lacey found her, is how I heard it.’
‘He did? What in the world would a good street cop like Ed Lacey be looking for in the used rag shop?’
‘Tell you what, Sarah,’ Cifuentes said, ‘let’s find her and ask her.’
Sarah opened her phone. ‘I’ll drive my car and you buy the coffee and snacks. Deal?’
A
whiskey-voiced woman said, ‘Twice As Nice.’ When Sarah asked for Angela Lacey, she said, ‘Hang on.’ After a click, Sarah listened to dead air for some time. She’d begun to debate hanging up and starting over again when a second click opened a line and a quiet voice said, ‘This is Angela.’
Sarah identified herself and her reason for calling, hoping the ex-wife would have read the weekend coverage in
The Star
. Angela had not been on the list of kin to be notified – the only person on that list was Lacey’s mother, Luz García-Lacey, who did not answer at the only number they could find for her.
‘Yes, I saw the story,’ Angela said.
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m calling to set up a time for an interview. We need to talk to you at your earliest convenience.’
‘Oh? You know, Ed and I have been divorced for over a year.’
‘Yes, I see you’re no longer listed as next of kin,’ Sarah said. ‘But we’d still like to ask you some questions.’
‘Um, what about?’
‘Well … we think maybe you could help us understand the uh, the manner of his death and the way he left the department.’
‘He got fired is why he left,’ the woman said.
‘So I understand. When could we talk, Ms Lacey?’
‘Well … I already went to lunch and we don’t get coffee breaks, so I guess it can’t be today.’
‘We could meet you after work …’
‘No, I’m busy tonight.’ She didn’t explain – Angela was no chatterbox.
‘How about lunch at twelve tomorrow?’
‘Um … I guess I could do that. I get exactly one hour, so it has to be someplace close. There’s a McDonald’s in this mall, can you put up with that?’
‘Of course. How about … I could order lunch, have it waiting for you, would that help?’
‘Well … yes. I’ll take a chicken Caesar salad and a large coke.’
Sarah pushed
end
and listened as Cifuentes wound up the last of several chatty calls. Closing his phone, he told her Cecelia García Lopez was living in a house on Calle Aragon, ‘And she can talk to us if we go there right now.’
‘You certainly made out better than I did,’ Sarah said, getting her gear together. She told him how hard it had been to get an appointment for tomorrow at noon.
‘Was she hostile?’
‘Not exactly. Just kind of … disengaged, But you hit pay dirt, huh?’
He chuckled. ‘She said, “Get your handsome ass over here, baby, I give you the whole skee-nee.” Cecelia’s kind of a hoot. You’ll see.’
Kind of hot, you mean
, Sarah thought when Cecelia answered her doorbell. She posed a full three seconds with her arms spread wide in the open door, making sure they got an eyeful of a voluptuous, vividly made-up woman in her early thirties, wearing a low-cut emerald-green top over jeans that did full justice to her curves.
Sarah had never felt the pull of Oscar’s fabled allure, and had a hard time understanding it. He was not as handsome as Ray Menendez, who lived a happy, blameless life with one girlfriend. Oscar was tall and wore his clothes well, but so did many other Hispanic young men in Tucson, without setting off earthquakes of yearning in female breasts all over town. Maybe it was that he really liked women and they responded to that. Whatever it was, Cecelia stood in her doorway clearly ready to prove it worked for her.
Her house was small and old but Oscar complimented her on the artful arrangement of brightly colored pots by the door.
‘Oh, honey,’ she said, ‘I keep my old
casa
up as nice as I can, but … it’s hard, I have to do everything myself. Papi used to help me but … you know we lost him last year?’
‘I was so sorry … I was there at the funeral but the crowds were so dense I never had a chance to say hello to you. Rightly so, of course; he was a fine man and it was a great loss.’
‘Yes … that’s very well said, my friend.’ She sighed, tossing back her great mane of hair. ‘And this is your partner? Come in, sweetie, this is your house.’
As Sarah took off her coat, Cecelia said, ‘Wow, a gun and handcuffs, you’re ready for a fight, huh? That’s what I should have done – be a cop. I could have used some of those weapons on that pond scum I married. But no, I had to go to beauty school, have the glamour. So now I work at Desert Cuts and listen all day while women have hysterics about hair and nails. Some glamour, huh? Here, sit down, the coffee’s ready.’
She poured it, black and aromatic, into handsome white porcelain cups, and gave them hand-embroidered linen napkins, flawlessly ironed. Eddie’s aunt was showing her style. Mostly for Oscar, Sarah figured.
Let’s just hope she stays friendly after we start asking questions.