by TG Wolff
Mariana huffed. “I heard. I’ve been very patient with you, Tito, but a woman has her limits.”
He stood, walking away from the pressure. “This case is demanding all my time, Mari.”
“I’m not talking about your heads, Tito. I’m talking about your woman. When do I get to meet her?”
Dumbfounded, he said the only thing in his head. “How did you know?”
“My friend works on the same floor as Erin Davis.” When he didn’t say anything, she added. “Erin is dating your friend Matt.”
“Erin. Right. Uh-oh.”
“Yeah. Uh-oh. I want to meet her, Jesus.” It was an order.
“Tomorrow.”
“On Easter?”
Easter. It was perfect. Lots of people to distract his mother and occupy his sister. “You’ll meet Aurora tomorrow. Don’t tell Mom.”
“You think it’s a good idea to surprise her?”
Cruz loved his mother, but she was a champion smotherer. If she knew he was bringing Aurora, he’d be on the phone the entire day answering questions he did not want to get into. “Yes. Absolutely. Definitely.”
Mari laughed so hard she snorted. “Have it your way. I bought a pork shoulder to roast. I’m going to the grocery store and was calling to see what else you planned to make, but obviously, you haven’t thought about it.”
He dug for a clean piece of paper and rattled off ingredients to his sister. They divided up the dishes and the chores until the girls found their mother’s hiding place.
“Tito,” Rhianna said in a voice that rose and fell like a mountain. “Tell Mama I needa dress!”
“I could but then who would wear the princess flower dress? It is an important part of Easter to have the princess who brings in the flowers for Jesus.”
There was a moment of silence. “I could do it. In a new dress.”
“No. That wouldn’t work. That dress is very special. Gabby is a little tall, but I suppose—”
“I can do it, Tito. Gabby! I’m going to be the Easter Princess.” Her voice trailed off as she ran to brag to her older sister.
“She grabbed the phone right out of my hand,” Mariana complained. “That girl is going to have me gray before I’m forty. I have to go.”
“Remember, not a word to Mom.” He ended the call, and movement in the corner of his eye caught his attention. “Good morning, sleepy head.”
“Shhh.” Aurora fell heavily against the door jamb. “Head hurts. Bad.”
“Let’s see what we can do,” he whispered. He sat her on the couch, fed her pain killers and a mug of cold water.
She sipped the water. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For whatever I did to put that look on your face that says I did something really embarrassing that I have no memory of.”
He grinned wider, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Oh. That look.”
“Are you going to tell me what I did?”
“Are you sure you want to know?”
Aurora covered her face. “It’s that bad?”
“No. Not bad.” He took the water and set it down, then placed a kiss in her palm. “You told me you loved me.” When her eyes grew wide, he knew the truth had escaped last night. Today, she looked afraid.
“We haven’t exactly gotten to the I-love-you stage. It’s okay if you don’t—”
“I said that I was crazy in love with you.” He hadn’t said it, but he felt it. He had never said it to a woman. It was easier than he expected, especially when she smiled radiantly.
“That’s good. Very good. Was that all?”
For all of Aurora’s energy and outgoing personality, she embarrassed easily. If she knew the rest, she would be self-conscious, even ashamed. He didn’t want that for her. “Yes. That was all.”
“That’s not so bad.” She drew her fingers along his jaw. “Tricking you into a date was one of the smartest things I ever did.”
He kissed her nose. “My luckiest day. Are you hungry? I need to work a little more, but I can make you a little breakfast first.”
She pressed her hand to her stomach. “Don’t even say that word. I’m just going to lie here, very still, and chainwatch Netflix. Go work. Don’t worry about me.”
He put a pillow under her head and tucked his one blanket around her. “Call me if you need anything.”
Her hand appeared above the back of the couch, waving him away. “Happy hunting, Detective.”
It wasn’t happy hunting, but it was productive in the sense of doing something to advance the investigation beyond reacting to the strict facts of the case. The suspect he pursued was a shadow. He built a portfolio of potential suspects from those closest to the victims.
Old enough to drive but young enough for the physical exertion of managing the bodies and the discovery sites. Average build to match an average shoe size. Skills to decapitate a corpse. A doctor or nurse. A butcher. An EMT. After all, you couldn’t YouTube it—he froze, wondered, then decided not to check. Somethings, even a homicide detective didn’t want to know.
Sunday, April 1
“Please tell me we are not late.” Aurora teetered on three-inch sunshine yellow heels as they ran across the asphalt parking lot.
“We’re fashionably on-time.” Cruz tugged her along as the church bells rang out over the bright Easter morning. He raced ahead of an elderly couple. “See? We aren’t the last, so we aren’t late.” He led Aurora into the church and down an aisle.
“Tito!” Rhianna climbed onto the pew in the white summer dress with yellow and purple flowers. At her shout, his entire family turned and stared. He ignored the feeling of being mentally strip-searched by swinging his niece to his hip.
“Who’s that?” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“This is Aurora. Aurora, this is my niece, Rhianna.” Introductions were cut short with the rise of the music. Thank You, Jesus.
Easter was a joyful celebration for the congregation of Sagrada Familia, but this one stretched on ad infinitum. His niece strategically positioning herself between him and Aurora. His mother looked back every sixty seconds, alternating between him and the mixed-race beauty that sat almost by his side.
His sister looked over her shoulder. He read the I-told-you-so in her amused eyes.
After the service, he pulled Aurora hastily into the aisle, wanting to be outside the church where he would have room to maneuver. If there were high ground, he would have taken it.
“Jesus De La Cruz.”
Busted. “Hola, Mama.” He turned casually and bent dutifully to kiss her cheek. “Mama, this is Aurora Williams. Aurora, this is my mother, Vanessa De La Cruz. This is my brother-in-law Tony Moreno, my sister Mariana. That’s Gabby and you’ve met Rhianna.”
“Tito, I have to go potty,” Rhianna tugged on his arm.
Cruz tugged on her braid. “You’re a big girl, Rhia. You know where it is.”
Rhia crossed her arms and gave a huff. Vanessa De La Cruz held her hand out, speaking rapidly and with animated gestures.
Aurora’s eyes took up her entire face. “I-I’m sorry. I don’t speak Spanish.”
The girls giggled. “That was English,” Gabby said. “Why do you care about her hips, Abuela?”
Aurora paled and then went scarlet. “I, uh, um.”
“Come,” his mother said, reaching for his girlfriend.
He swept Aurora behind him. “No, Mama.”
“Si. Woman talk.” Vanessa De La Cruz circled her son.
“No, Mama.” He turned again, keeping his body solidly between with mother and his woman.
A sing-song of his name came from across the yard. “Jesus. I was hoping you would be here. I’ve missed you the last few weeks. Your mother said—”
“No, no. He has a woman. I no need you.” His mother intercepted the early-thirty something. “But, give me your number in case this one does not stick.”
“Mama!” His voice cracked. Humiliated. Embarrassed. Emasculated. He looked down where Auro
ra cowered against his back. Except her shoulders were shaking, almost as if she were laughing. He nudged her with his elbow and gave her a warning look.
She sobered up quickly. “You even think about abandoning me and I will hurt you.”
Fun as it was to tease her, he didn’t feel relaxed. This was not going as planned. This was not anywhere close to the civil, respectable, normal introduction he imagined. No chance it would get better at Mari’s house, he thought on the short drive. “We shouldn’t go.”
“We’re going. We have to meet each other’s family sometime.”
“How about on our tenth wedding anniversary?” When she rolled her eyes, he let out a heavy breath. “I apologize in advance for anything my mother says or does. As her only son, she is honor-bound to torture any woman with the prospect of becoming her daughter-in-law.” Pulling in front of his sister’s house, he captured Aurora’s hand before she reached the door. “I love you. Remember that. Use it like a shield to defend yourself.”
“You’re being silly.” Aurora shook her head when he didn’t release her. “Maybe I’m a little nervous, but they love you and you love me, so we should all be good. Let’s go before I change my mind.”
The door hadn’t closed behind them before his sister and mother were pulling Aurora away from him. He leapt in to protect her. “Mama. Mariana. Stop.”
Mari tossed her dark curls over her shoulder. “There’s a pork shoulder calling your name, Tito. The faster you finish it, the faster you get her back.”
Then Aurora was gone. Swept down the hall. Cruz went to the kitchen to stop himself from dragging her away from his mother’s smothering and his sister’s influence. With his favorite knife in hand, he got busy with the roast.
“Relax. They aren’t going to eat her.” Tony pulled a ginger ale from the refrigerator, opened it, then handed it to Cruz. Then he took one for himself. “They just want to get to know her.”
He trimmed the fat from the roast with more gusto than grace. “Why can’t they do that out here?”
He shrugged. “They’re women.”
“They don’t have to mob her like that. They’ll chase her away.”
“Not likely. You know, this is the first woman you’ve brought home.”
“That can’t be right.” The knife stopped, and he thought back.
“I’ve been part of your family for ten years and this is the first one I’ve ever met.”
He sipped the ginger ale, his throat suddenly dry. Before his injury, his love life was a series of one-night stands, some lasting a few hours, others a few weeks. It was sex. A warm body to bury himself in, not someone you brought to Easter.
“Your mother thought you were gay.”
He dropped the can of ginger ale, spilling it over a stack of clean dishes. “What!”
Tony tossed him a towel. “You were reclusive. You never talked about anyone, never brought anyone with you when you did come around.”
He dried his shirt, left the dishes to Tony, and attacked the roast again. “If Mama thought I was gay, what was with the parade of women the last year?”
“She was trying to get you to, you know, change teams.” Tony’s stoic face crumbled. “You should have heard the conversations Mari had. Trying to convince your mother it was okay if you were gay.”
“Mariana thought I was gay?” Why that hurt his feelings he didn’t know.
“I don’t know if she knew. I told her you weren’t.”
“What, I didn’t set off your gaydar?”
Tony held up his hands. “You can’t be mad at them for thinking you’re gay and at me for thinking you’re not. Is it serious? You might as well tell me your side ’cause I’m going to hear your sister’s once you leave.”
“Yeah, it’s serious, and I don’t want them scaring her away with the smothering.” He looked down the hallway at the closed door. He planted the knife in the roast. “That’s it. I can’t take it.” He invaded the sacred ground of the De La Cruz women, pulling his Aurora from the room.
His mother and sister followed, chattering for him to mind his own business. He sat Aurora at the kitchen table, planting his hands on her shoulders to make sure she stayed put. “If you want to talk, talk out here.”
His sister lifted her chin. “As we were saying…I think he’s always had an oral fixation.”
“Si,” his mother said. “It is my fault. I nursed him until his was three. He always preferred milk from the breast.”
Tony roared with laughter, fumbling the dishes he was cleaning.
Cruz shrunk until he stood three feet tall, his voice too thin, too high. “I should have worn my gun.”
April 1
I’m disappointed. My signs aren’t working. The same men are hanging out on the same street corners. Kids are walking by all that evil just to get to school.
The police can’t stop them but it isn’t their fault. Laws are made for men. The drug dealers are infested with evil. They are more like demons then men. They feed on the weak, taking apart their human lives until nothing is left but the shell.
I need to do something more. Something that shows people evil can be beaten.
I carry the card with Saint Michael on it. He is my protection, my inspiration. I’m trying to think like him. What would he do?
There’s only one thing I know. It would be something big.
Chapter Thirteen
Monday, April 2
Yablonski stared the five profiles Cruz had laid out. “They’re all so average. None of them jump off the page as serial killer.”
“Exactly. Our suspect hides in plain sight. These five are so average, they could walk through a secured area and not be seen. These five are not only average, they had a close relation killed in drug-related homicides. I’ve only gotten through August, September, and October of last year, before we found Alvin ‘Uncle’ Hall in November. He freakin’ planted heads on interstate highways, there were hundreds of witnesses and we got nothing. He doesn’t stand out. He isn’t the big one, or the little one, or the one that walks funny. He is absolutely, boringly average.” He picked up the nearest paper, his gut telling him this path was the right one. “I’m going to visit Roger McCormick.”
“I’ll drive, you talk.”
“Roger McCormick. Age twenty-seven. Mechanic by profession. His sister, Kelly, was killed last September by her boyfriend. She was five months pregnant at the time. Her boyfriend, Justin Reese, was found passed out next to her body, covered in her blood. The knife with his fingerprints in her blood was recovered. He pled not guilty. He said he’d been stoned and had no memory of hurting Kelly. The brother disrupted the courtroom when Reese started to cry over the death of Kelly and his son.”
Yablonski drove west to the edge of the city. “A mechanic is a good fit. Physical work. Comfortable with power tools. Does he have a record?”
“A minor for public intoxication when he was twenty-two. Clean otherwise.”
“Married? Kids?”
“No. He owns his own garage. Specializes in body work and collision repair. I checked out the property. He shares it with a junk yard.”
Yablonski turned onto the quiet street and parked in front of a neat, two-story colonial. “Convenient.”
Cruz took the lead, knocking on the front door.
“If you’re looking for Roger, he’s not home. He’s at work. He’s always at work.” An older woman with two yappy dogs on the end of blinged-out leashes offered the information.
Cruz held out his identification. “Detectives De La Cruz and Yablonski, Cleveland PD. Who are you?”
“His neighbor, Elsie Watkins. Is Roger in trouble?”
“No, ma’am. We are just doing a follow up on people associated with violent crimes. We understand Mr. McCormick lost a sister last year.”
“Oh, yes. Such a tragedy, she was such a lovely girl. She lived with him for a few weeks right before she died. He feels responsible, you can see it in his eyes. He spends too much time alone, too much ti
me working. I tried to set him up with a girl who works in my son’s office, but he wouldn’t have it.”
As serious as the conversation was, inside, Cruz laughed. What was it with woman of a certain age? Did they think coupling up solved everything?
“The holidays were hard. From Halloween until New Year’s he hid out in that house of his, hid from the world. I pried him out for a few hours, long enough to get a decent meal in him. He’s losing weight, you know.”
Leaving Mrs. Watkins and her pooches, they headed to McCormick’s Body Shop, which shared a building with Tip Top Scrap. The three-acre lot was close enough to the residential neighborhood for easy customer service but kept the grittier details on the industrial side of the street.
A small bell over the front door announced their arrival. The man at the front counter looked up. “Hi, there.”
Cruz held out his identification. “Detectives De La Cruz and Yablonski. Is Roger McCormick here?”
“I’m McCormick.”
The man looked little like the picture of the five-foot-ten, two-hundred-pound man in the DMV picture. He’d lost at least forty pounds. His cheekbones stuck out where they used to be rounded. His hair hung down long enough to brush the tops of his shoulders. His eyes were as hollow as his cheeks.
“Is there somewhere we could talk?” Cruz said.
“My office.” He led them down a narrow hall, looking over his shoulder every other step. “What’s this about?
“We understand you lost your sister last year in a drug-related incident.”
McCormick stiffened. “She was stabbed to death by the junkie father of her baby.”
“Did she use?”
Color tinted his cheeks. “No. Absolutely not. And if she did before she was pregnant, she definitely didn’t after. She wouldn’t even drink a cup of coffee.”
“Did she ever talk about people her boyfriend associated with?”
“Sure. I went to a few parties over there. I knew some of them.”
“Can you tell me if any of these men look familiar to you?”