Homesick Blues

by Steve Brewer

  "He had blue lights built into his grille?"

  "Yeah, but he wouldn't show me a badge. So I clobbered him."

  "I like that part," he said, "but I was thinking about Nancy Ames. If you're chasing somebody out on the highway, middle of nowhere, how do you make 'em stop?"

  "Blue lights." Jackie shuddered. "You think he's the guy who burned her up?"

  "I'd say he's a good suspect. And he's probably pissed now because you hammered him with that door."

  "Why did he even pull me over? All I did was drive past a couple of times."

  "Maybe they already knew about the credit card thing. He wasn't watching for you, specifically. He was watching to see if anyone showed interest in her house."

  Jackie nodded. That made sense.

  "I went back there," she said. "After midnight."

  He slapped his own forehead.

  "I made sure nobody was around first," she said quickly. "I walked through this park that's behind the house."

  "You've never seen a slasher movie? You never go alone, unarmed, at night, into the park with the spooky trees."

  "Who said I was unarmed? I had a heavy steel flashlight."

  He snorted.

  "And a jack handle."

  That made him smile again. She liked making him smile.

  "Someone had already searched Nancy's house before I got there."

  "You went inside?"

  "The door was unlocked."

  "Holy shit."

  "Settle down," she said. "There was no one there but me."

  "But somebody had been there. And they'd searched the house."

  She nodded.

  "For what?"

  "How would I know?"

  "Did they find it?"

  "Again, no way for me to know."

  "Right. So what did you do?"

  "I got the hell out of there."

  "Good call."

  "I spent the night in a cash-only motel on East Central, but I didn't get much sleep. A young couple in the room next door kept me awake me much of the night."

  "Loud?"

  "Very, um, vigorous. All night long."

  "So you need a different place to stay."

  "I've burned through most of my cash already, and I don't want to leave a credit card trail. Does that sound paranoid?"

  "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you."

  That dazzling smile again. She wanted to crawl right into his luscious mouth. Let him eat her up.

  "You okay?"

  "What?"

  She could feel her face warming. Caught.

  "You kinda drifted off there for a second. You feeling all right?"

  "I'm just tired," she said. "Like I said, not much sleep lately."

  "I can help with that," he said. "We've got empty apartments at the building I manage. Furnished apartments in various stages of remodeling. We can put you in one for a few days while we get things sorted out. Nobody will know you're there."

  "You'd know."

  "Our little secret. One of the vacant apartments is right next to mine. The kitchen's all ripped out, but the bedroom's okay. You could sleep there. If anybody bothers you, you can bang on the wall."

  "Then what?"

  "I'll manage it," he said. "That's what it says right there on my door, 'Manager.'"

  "And I could stay there for a few days?"

  "No charge. No strings attached."

  "Isn't that against the rules? What if it cost you your job?"

  "It's a crappy job. And nobody will ever know you were there, anyway."

  She stared at him, smiling, until he said, "What?"

  "I keep wondering if you're for real. You seem too good to be true."

  "Just your everyday heroic disabled American."

  She laughed.

  "Very trustworthy," he said. "After all, I was a Boy Scout."

  He put his right hand to his forehead in a two-fingered salute.

  "I think the Boy Scouts are three fingers. Two is Girl Scouts."

  "Right, that's what I meant," he said, doing the same salute. "After all, I was a Girl Scout."

  "I'll bet you sold a lot of cookies."

  "The stories I could tell."

  As Jackie laughed, she looked around the clamorous restaurant and caught a few of the other diners staring at them.

  "We should get out of here," she said to Romeo. "People are waiting for this table."

  "Okay," he said. "I can't eat another bite anyway."

  He plucked the check from the edge of the table. "My treat."

  "You don't have to do that."

  "My pleasure," he said. "I'm so glad to have you back in Albuquerque."

  Her turn to smile. "You may be the only one who feels that way."

  "Right now, I'm the only one who matters."

  He shoved himself up out of the booth, wincing when his knee bent. He held out a hand to her.

  "Come, madam. Your palace awaits."

  Chapter 22

  As he drove up to the two-story apartment building, Romeo Sandoval saw how it must look through Jackie's eyes: The rusty chain-link fence that surrounded the parking lot full of aged cars, the yellow "CAUTION" tape flapping over some of the apartment doors where construction remained unfinished, the patchwork of missing shingles on the roof.

  A dump. He lived in a dump. And he was the manager.

  Her red truck bumped into the parking lot and pulled into the slot next to him. The pickup was taller than his Chevy sedan, and he couldn't see her face to judge her reaction to the place. Probably just as well.

  He got out of the car, babying his aching knee, and went around to the driver's side of the truck. She rolled down the window when she saw he wanted to talk.

  "Is this gonna be okay?" he said. "It's not exactly the Hilton."

  "I don't need the Hilton. I need a hidey-hole. This is perfect."

  A hidey-hole. Pretty good description of the way he'd been using this apartment building and this manager "job." Hiding out from his friends, his relatives, the world he used to know.

  "Let me get the keys," he said.

  He went into his place, closing the door behind him, then limped around hurriedly, picking up dishes and tidying stacks of sports magazines as he went through the living room to the kitchen, where he put the dirty dishes in the sink.

  He kept all his apartment manager stuff – keys and tools and paperwork – in a spare cupboard. He sorted through the keys until he found the ones labeled for the apartment next door.

  By the time he got back outside, Jackie was on the sidewalk, a red overnight bag dangling from her hands.

  "You travel light," he said.

  "Don't look in the back of my truck. Everything I own is stuffed in there. It's a mess."

  "You locked it up?"

  "Of course."

  He unlocked the apartment and pushed open the door. Hot and stuffy in there, with a whiff of something stale in the air. He went inside and started opening windows.

  The kitchen was missing its appliances and tile and countertops, leaving only a dusty pit of bare concrete and jutting pipes. A curtain of filmy plastic separated the construction zone from the rest of the apartment, which was furnished with the same cheap sofas and aged beds as the rest of the apartments at the Stellar Arms.

  When he got back to the living room, he found Jackie standing just inside the door.

  "Think this will be okay?"

  "I've stayed in worse. As recently as last night. I assume you're quiet at night?"

  "Like a mouse."

  "Then this is definitely an improvement."

  "The kitchen's out of commission, as you can see, but the bathroom works fine and the bed's not too bad."

  They peeked in the bedroom at the naked mattress, which was mottled with ancient stains.

  "I've got extra linens," he said.

  "Don't worry about it. I have some in the truck. Towels, too. I'll just make myself at home."

  They we
re standing very close, side by side at the bedroom doorway, and she turned toward him, looking up into his face.

  "I really appreciate this," she said. "You're a lifesaver."

  "You saved mine last time. Taking out that guy after he wounded me. So I owe you one."

  She leaned closer. "Thank you."

  Romeo stared into her dark eyes, only inches from his own. He wanted to kiss her. Was now the time? Would she misunderstand? He'd told her there were no strings attached. If they started kissing, there might be no stopping them. They could practically fall onto that bare bed from here—

  His phone rang, shattering the moment. She turned away while he dug the trilling phone out of his pocket. He checked the readout.

  "It's McGuire."

  She turned back, her eyes wide. He held his index finger up to his lips, then punched the button to answer.

  "Hey there, Marshal," he said into the phone. "Didn't expect to hear from you so soon."

  "I'm checking all my traps," McGuire said. "Seeing if anybody's heard from Jackie Nolan today."

  "Not a word," Romeo said. "You think she's even in Albuquerque?"

  "She's here somewhere. I can feel it."

  Jackie took a step backward, as if even McGuire's tinny, disembodied voice was enough to frighten her. Made it hard for Romeo to keep his tone civil as he said, "I'm sure you know what you're doing. You know her better than I do."

  Jackie shook her head.

  "I thought I knew her," McGuire said. "But she surprised me, running off like this."

  "Women, right? Who knows how they think?"

  Jackie made a face, and it almost made Romeo laugh. He coughed into the phone.

  "Sorry. I don't know what else I can tell you."

  "You've had no contact from her?"

  "How many ways you want me to say it?"

  "Okay, okay. Just checking. You sound funny."

  "I don't feel funny. I feel like I was in the middle of something, and I'd like to get back to it."

  She smiled.

  "All right," McGuire drawled. "Sorry to disturb your busy day. If you hear anything—"

  "I've got your number," Romeo said.

  He thumbed off the phone while McGuire was thanking him for his time. He stuffed the phone in his pocket, but still Jackie said nothing. Just stood waiting, her eyebrows raised.

  "He doesn't know anything," Romeo said. "He's calling the same people over and over, hoping someone will have a tip. He sounded desperate."

  "That's what I'm afraid of."

  Romeo wanted to take her in his arms and tell her everything would be okay. But the moment seemed lost now, the intrusion too much.

  "Come on," he said. "I'll help you carry in your stuff."

  She nodded, and he followed her out into the sunshine.

  Marcus Dupree, the black sheep among the tenants, leaned against the wall outside his apartment at the far end of the ground floor. He was dressed in his usual wife-beater T-shirt and filthy jeans, and he was smoking a cigarette, in flagrant violation of apartment no-smoking rules. The welt on his pale cheek, where his girlfriend scratched him the day before, was red enough to be visible from here.

  Romeo followed Jackie to the back of her pickup, where she unlocked the camper and began to dig around in the boxes that filled the bed. Every time Romeo glanced over, Dupree was watching them, his bleary eyes narrowed against the smoke.

  Dupree worried him. A lowlife like him was undoubtedly somebody's snitch. They couldn't have Jackie's location blabbed to the wrong person. Word would get back to McGuire, or to somebody worse, like the mysterious Apache cop Jackie had described.

  "Here you go," Jackie said.

  He took the box, which weighed only a pound or two. "This is all?"

  "Sheets and towels," she said. "That's really all I need. Everything else is in my bag."

  He followed her back to the apartment, pausing to look over his shoulder to see if they were still being watched. Dupree must've gone inside. He was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 23

  No sense rushing into anything.

  Jackie Nolan knew it was the right course, but she still was disappointed when Romeo went to his own apartment. They'd been so close for a minute, before the phone rang, and she'd allowed herself to have feelings she usually kept battened down tight. But the call from McGuire had reminded everyone why she was here with Romeo. Yet another reason to resent Ellis McGuire.

  She looked around the tiny apartment. Everything bore a thin coat of dust from the construction work. The sofa and armchair were old and worn, but there were no lingering smells of pets or smoke as you so often find in furnished places.

  Jackie went to the wall separating this unit from Romeo's apartment and listened. She could hear footfalls. Was he pacing back and forth, worrying over what he gotten himself into? If so, she knew exactly how he felt.

  She was sorely tempted to rap on that wall with her knuckles. She imagined him rushing over, breathless and brave, ready to rescue her. The thought made her smile.

  But why give him a heart attack? She could just call him on her cell. Ask him if he had a bottle of wine and could he bring it over right away. Or tell him there's an emergency in the bathroom, then wait in the shower for him, all naked and wet.

  Good God, where had those thoughts come from? The man had offered her a place to stay, not an erotic adventure. Anything beyond that was fantasy. Yes, a sexual magnetism existed between them, but this was hardly the time to get carried away with romance.

  First, make sure there's not a killer on your trail, she thought. Get rid of McGuire. Then you can consider future entanglements.

  She plucked a set of white sheets out of the box and went into the bedroom. She focused on making the bed, hardly thinking at all about how it would be comfortably big enough for two.

  Chapter 24

  U.S. Marshal Ellis McGuire sat behind the wheel of his private vehicle, a hardtop Jeep Wrangler with fat tires and stiff suspension for navigating Colorado snows. His lower back still ached from the long drive to Albuquerque.

  The house he was watching was a beige stucco number that looked a lot like the neighbors' homes to either side. Last known Albuquerque address for Jackie Nolan. He knew it was a long shot that she might drive by here; a different family lived in the house now. But the stucco home had belonged to her late mother, so perhaps Jackie would surrender to sentimentality and at least cruise down this street to check on the old place.

  Ellis had decided to wait here until he got solid information on where she might be. He had calls out to every law enforcement agency in the region. Somebody would soon turn something up. Until then, this place was as good as any.

  He loudly burped, wincing against the burning in his throat. He'd picked up some fast food on the way to this address and eaten the burgers while parked here. The Jeep now smelled like onions and French fries, so he could relive the meal all day. He dug in the pocket of his jeans for the roll of antacids he always carried.

  Ellis often suffered from indigestion, a result of his stressful job. He was so strung out over Jackie's disappearance, his belly was like a volcano. He ate a couple of the antacids, crunching loudly, and washed the chalky taste out of his mouth with the last of his drive-thru coffee.

  It was getting hot in the Jeep, and this suburban street offered no shade. Be cooler facing the opposite direction, without the afternoon sunshine pouring directly onto him through the windshield. He was reaching for the keys to move the car when his cell phone rang.

  "Hello?"

  "Yes, hi, is this Marshal McGuire?" A man's voice, with the nasal drawl of the prairie.

  "It is. Who's calling?"

  "This is Captain Gene Pugh at the Albuquerque Police Department. You got a minute?"

  "Sure, Captain. What can I do for you?"

  "I see that you've put out an APB on a woman name Jackie Nolan."

  "That's right. You got something?"

  "I need a little more information
, if you have it. I've got a couple of detectives standing right here, waiting to go after any leads you might have."

  Ellis sat up straighter in his seat. This was more like it. When he'd called APD before, the detectives on the line had sounded bored, like his search for Jackie Nolan was just one in a huge pile of such cases they were busy ignoring. This captain seemed to have some enthusiasm for what he was doing.

  "Sure, what can I tell you?"

  "She was in WitSec, is that right?"

  "Right. She crossed some bad people here in Albuquerque a couple of years ago, and she'd been living under another name in Colorado."

  "Wait a second," Pugh said. "You're in Albuquerque yourself?"

  "I drove down last night. Thought I might be able to pick up her trail, but not so far."

  "Well, sir, maybe we can help with that. You got any more known associates we can check out?"

  "I've called the only ones I know of, and nobody has seen her."

  "Never hurts to double-check."

  "You know who I'm curious about?" Ellis said. "A guy named Romeo Sandoval, who used to be in the marshals here. You know him?"

  "The name doesn't ring a bell, but we might've crossed paths. What's he got to do with it?"

  "Jackie Nolan was his last case. He got shot in the knee, trying to help her out, and ended up on permanent disability."

  "Ah. I remember that now."

  "I got the feeling there was some kinda bond between them," Ellis said. "I called him, of course, and he said he hasn't seen her. But maybe you could talk to him. Make sure we're getting the whole story."

  "We absolutely could do that," Pugh said. "You think Jackie Nolan might go to him for help?"

  "It's worth checking out," Ellis said. "Everything else seems to be a dead end."

  A pause.

  "You're worried about her," Pugh said.

  "She's stopped returning my calls."

  "Don't you fret. We'll find her."

  Chapter 25

  Joaquin Santiago sat on a shady patio at the Hacienda del Sol, sipping a chilled chardonnay and enjoying the view of the distant Sandias. From down here in the river valley, the mountains looked enormous, the rugged ridges floating above flat cropland and vineyards.