Marble World Employee of the Month Gloria Cabrera gaped at me for a moment before shutting the door and throwing the dead bolt. First she set me up with the goons at the warehouse, and now she slammed a door in my face?
Like hell
, I thought. I wanted some answers, and I wanted them now. I pounded on the door.
“Gloria! Open the door this instant!” I yelled, as if expecting her to apologize and invite us in for cocktails. “I'm warning you, Gloria! Sisterhood is powerful!”
Evangeline and Mary looked puzzled. I shrugged.
The three of us backed up and looked around. On the right was a stand of fragrant eucalyptus trees. On the left was a narrow catwalk hosting a trash can and two recycling bins. We crept along the catwalk to a small balcony at the back door. It was locked, but the window next to it was wide open without so much as a screen. Being by far the smallest, I was the likeliest candidate to go through the window. Fabulous. I didn't have a good track record when it came to breaking and entering.
“Okay, guys,” I said. “Somebody give me a boost.”
Evangeline grabbed me by the waist and hoisted me onto the sill, where I paused for a moment before a firm hand on my butt propelled me forward. As I tumbled into the kitchen two women ran in. Gloria and the young Latina I had seen near Pascal's studio. She was sniffling and speaking rapidly in Spanish.
“Annie, for God's sake, don't you ever give up?” Gloria demanded. “I thought you were smart enough to stay out of this.”
“Think again.” I sneered as I extricated myself from the sink. The younger Latina offered a hand to steady me, which I thought was rather brave of her since I probably outweighed her by a good forty pounds. “I want to talk with you about your friends at the warehouse last night. And what's all this about a
dedo
?”
A wail and a fresh barrage of tears burst forth from the young woman. Gloria rolled her eyes and sighed.
Mary shouted to unlock the back door, and I let them in.
“What's up?” Evangeline said, gesturing with her chin towards Gloria.
“
Dios
, not her again,” Gloria swore.
“You two know each other?” I asked.
“Hey! You look familiar,” Evangeline said suspiciously. “Oh yeah, the stone chick, right?”
Mary turned to the younger Latina. “And you're Pascal's chick, right?”
Pascal's chick spoke in soft, accented English. “I am Consuelo. B-but I d-don't know where P-Pascal go.” She hiccupped. “His, his
dedo
â” She began to cry again.
I reflected that it was a good thing I knew what
dedo
meant. I shuddered to think what my imagination would have come up with.
“What's going on, Gloria?” I demanded. “What's all this about Pascal's finger?”
“Why don't we all take a seat in the other room and talk?” Mary suggested, her Midwestern breeding showing.
“You're not staying that long,” Gloria sniped.
“We're staying long enough for an explanation,” I replied. “Otherwise I'm calling the cops and you can explain to
them
what's going on, and who those goons were in the warehouse.”
“They got a little carried away,” Gloria said. “It happens. You're not good at taking a hint.”
“Hints are one thing,” I said. “Murder's another matter.”
Consuelo began whimpering again. It is a flaw of mine, for which I will no doubt spend a considerable amount of time in purgatory, that people who whimper bring out the worst in me. “What the hell's wrong with her, Gloria?”
Gloria sighed and shuffled into the living room, where she sank onto a white leather sofa and held her head in her hands. The rest of us perched on the modern, clean-lined, and dreadfully uncomfortable chairs.
“This whole thing has gotten out of hand,” Gloria muttered.
“What whole thing?” I demanded.
“You can't call the police.”
“Nobody's calling anybody just yet. Tell me what's going on.”
She remained mute.
“Listen, Gloria,” I said. “The last thing I want is to get involved in anything illegal.”
Mary raised an eyebrow and I scowled at her. Then I scowled at Gloria. For good measure, I scowled at Consuelo and Evangeline.
Consuelo stopped crying, Mary and Evangeline remained silent, and Gloria started talking. Maybe I should scowl more often.
“A long time ago, Pascal killed his assistant Eugene Forrester.”
“Go on.”
She obviously expected more of a reaction, but continued. “Eugene Forrester was my mother's boyfriend.”
“Who's your mother?” Could Gloria be Francine Maggio's secret love child? No, the ages weren't right.
“Irma Rodriguez. She married Guillermo Cabrera when I was eleven, and he adopted me. But I adored Eugene. And that bastard Pascal killed him.”
“Nah, I don't believe it,” Evangeline interjected. “Pascal's a jerk, but he ain't the type to whack nobody.”
“I
saw
it happen. I was only ten, but I know what I saw. Eugene took me with him to the studio sometimes. He told me stories about how the stone trapped ancient spirits, and it was his job to release them. I think that's why I went into the stone business . . . Anyway, I was there the night he was killed.”
“Tell us about it,” I said.
“Pascal and Eugene were arguing over Eugene's sculpture,
Head and Torso
. My mother modeled for it.”
Eugene had been a busy boy, I thought. He'd kept two women on the string, each of whom believed she was his true love and muse.
“That's the one we was workin' on,” Evangeline added. “Pascal said he hadda do it over again cuz the first one wasn't quite right.”
“You mean the first one wasn't quite his,” Gloria sneered. “Pascal's been using cocaine pretty heavily and got it into his head that some guy from the Brockâa real prick named Dr. Sebastian somebodyâwas trying to âout' him. I told him he was being paranoid, that nobody could tell who had sculpted something just by
looking
at itâI mean, c'monâbut Pascal insisted it was possible and that to protect his reputation he had to sculpt a
Head and Torso
himself. Made me ship in one fuckin' heavy piece of marble for it, too, let me tell you.”
Pascal was worried about Dr. Sebastian Pitts, from the Brock Museum? That was a laugh. Sebastian would be lucky to spot a child's scribblings in a stack of Picassos, much less out a stone sculptor on the basis of technique alone. “What happened between Pascal and Eugene Forrester?” I asked.
“They started arguing, and I hid under a worktable. There was a terrible scream. I'll never forget it. And a gunshot.” Gloria's voice shook and there were tears in her eyes. “I peeked out and saw Pascal standing over Eugene's body with a gun in his hand. I hid there for hours, until my mother came for me and called the police.”
So much for the newspaper report of the body being found by “a cleaning woman.”
“But if you knew Pascal murdered Eugene, why didn't you say something? And why do you do business with him?”
“My mother was afraid nobody would believe me, and besides, she was an illegal immigrant. She could have been deported. When I went into the stone-importing business I knew I would run into Pascal, and I figured I could use what I knew to my advantage.”
“You mean blackmail?” I asked.
“Whatever.”
“What does this have to do with the goons in the warehouse? Or with Consuelo?”
“They sent Consuelo Pascal's finger.”
“Eeeeewwww!” Mary said.
“Cool,” added Evangeline.
“Was this, um, recent?” I was afraid of the answer.
“It's right over here.” She got up, crossed over to a sleek white-oak credenza, and held out a small cardboard box.
I leaned away, my nose wrinkling. “That's okay. I believe you. Maybe later.”
Gloria, clearly made of sterner stuff, opened the box and shook her head, a bewildered expression on her face. “I don't know what those guys are thinking.”
Consuelo started crying again, muttering in a mixture of Spanish and English.
“What
guys
are we talking about, Gloria? The same guys who hung me several stories above the concrete warehouse floor? Those guys?”
“Who
hung
youâ?” Mary began, but I silenced her with a look.
“The wise guys lookin' for the money, right?” Evangeline said.
Gloria nodded. “Pascal was holding out on the last shipment.”
“What kind of shipment?” I asked.
“I don't know the details,” Gloria protested. “I
don't.
I didn't want to know.”
“How did you get involved with them?”
“Jose approached me a couple times over the years about importing some containers from abroad. I had always kept my nose clean and didn't want any trouble from customs, so I said no. But then my mom got sick and had to go into a nursing home. All she had was Medicare and Social Security. You know what kind of a hellhole that pays for? I got to thinking about Pascal. He shipped in stone all the time anyway. Plus, if he got caught he'd go to prison like he deserved. And I could say I knew nothing about it, which is true.”
“So you hooked up Jose and Pascal?” I asked.
She shrugged. “What of it? Pascal had to cooperate because of what I knew about Eugene and
Head and Torso
. He was a junkie by then anyway.”
“Where were the drugs hidden?” I asked.
“In the shipping containers, I guess. How the fuck should I know? I made a point of not asking stupid questions, okay? I got paid to do the customs paperwork and keep my mouth shut. I wasn't involved.”
“No, all you did was turn a blind eye to murder and drug smuggling,” I said, my sympathy for the little girl Gloria had been replaced by disgust for the woman she had become.
“I bet he hid the drugs in them garden thingies,” said Evangeline. “Pascal tol' me he had 'em cast in Mexico, cheap, for some o' his clients. They was always breakin' 'n' shit, and he hadda glue 'em back together then sold 'em to that garden place, Monkey Madness or whatever it's called. He was rippin' them off, too, cuz plaster falls apart in the rain.”
“What happened to Seamus McGraw?” I asked.
“Pascal hid something in McGraw's studio,” Gloria said. “The boys went to get it back but I guess Pascal had already moved it. They would up killing McGraw, then strung him up at the art show as a warning to Pascal.”
“What about McGraw's fingers?” I asked, appalled at the savage story Gloria recounted so calmly. And I thought I needed therapy.
“Jose's boys put them there as a joke; none of us knew Pascal was selling the statues to the garden supply store,” Gloria said with a shake of her head. “He was supposed to break up the plaster and melt it down. Cheap bastard wanted to make a few extra bucks by selling them, which meant he didn't destroy the evidence. I've seen CSI. They can pick up all sorts of traces off stuff like that. What an idiot.”
“And Derek, your employee?”
“Derek started snooping around and demanded a piece of the action. He even tried to pry the container open. I feel kind of bad about what happened to him, but you have to understand Jose and the boys are scared too. They work for someone else, somebody even worse.” She met my eyes, and I saw sadness there. “It's not what you think, Annie. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. All I wanted was to be able to afford some nice things for my mother. Pascal owed us. Nobody was supposed to get hurt.”
“Except Pascal.”
“Like I care,” she said with a snort.
“And Seamus McGraw. And Derek.”
She shrugged.
“Why did they send Pascal's finger to Consuelo?”
“I guess they think she knows something about the missing stash. She doesn't, though, so I came over to help her deal with them. This has got to stop. These guys are out of control if they're slicing off fingers and killing people.”
“Gee, Gloria, you think?” I asked sarcastically. “Wait a minuteâare you saying they're on the way over?
Now?
” I squeaked. None of us was packing any firepower as far as I could tell, and in light of two dead bodies, numerous severed fingers, and my adventure in the warehouse, I had an aversion to meeting up with Jose and the boys again. I stood. “Let's get the hell out of here.”
“You know, I never bargained on any of this,” Gloria said, dropping the box with the bloody finger on the credenza and heading out the front door. “I'll leave Consuelo in your capable hands. I'm outta here.”
I wondered whether to give chase, but decided against it. Gloria had already told us what she knew, and I didn't relish trying to hold her captive while waiting for the police.
“Yep. That's his fat little finger, all right,” Evangeline said with a shake of her head as she peered into the box. “When Pascal said he liked coke, I thought he meant soda pop. Who woulda took him for a junkie?”
I turned to Consuelo. “Where are the statues?”
“Down there.” Off the small foyer was a flight of stairs to a room on the lower level composed almost entirely of windows, the view obscured by the floor-to-ceiling curtains. The space was crammed with packing material and sculptures of various shapes and sizes in the Eugene Forrester style. Most lay on their sides or were broken in two.
“Those are the new ones,” Consuelo said.
I tried to pick up one of the intact sculptures, but it was too heavy. Evangeline came over and hoisted it onto her shoulder. “Where'd'ja want it?”