Swift Horses Racing

by Victoria Kazarian

  He went back to his computer and saw an email from James Ruiz. With an amused smile, he clicked on the subject—Cerveza Gratis

  I have some info on Schuler if you’re interested. Let’s touch base. Meet you at Someplace Bar & Grill?

  Detective Ruiz was taking Schuler’s death very personally. Flores had heard of his performance on a few big cases. Apparently, murder happened even in the quiet, upscale burb of Monte Verde.

  Ruiz was a good detective—but he needed to remember this was not his case. It might not be a bad idea to meet up with Ruiz. A free beer was a free beer.

  Flores wrote back. See you at 6. None of that light beer shit, though.

  15

  At 4:15 p.m., Teresa Cho called. She’d searched her husband’s desk and found Tuan Nguyen’s address.

  A half hour later, the setting sun cast shadows through the trees on the green grass of Kelley Park as Flores turned onto Senter Road in East San Jose. He found a parking spot a few yards down from the apartment complex. The patrol officer pulled his cruiser into the space in front of him.

  Flores sat for a minute and took a breath, feeling the Kevlar vest tighten over him as he inhaled. He patted his side to make sure his gun was ready. He hoped this would go down smoothly. An easy arrest. An end to a case that had not turned out to be the no-brainer he’d hoped it would be.

  He felt a sheen of sweat on his palms as he got out of the car and gave a quick nod to the patrol officer, David Phan. They walked together down the street to the small two-story complex.

  Their presence brought immediate attention. Kids on bikes stopped in their tracks, their heads swiveling in their direction. Some dude waved from the window above, intoxicated or a little too manic.

  Flores took in the savory smells of fish and something garlicky and fried as they approached the far stairs. They smelled good to him, and he remembered he’d missed lunch today.

  The thumping notes of a bass guitar, playing a funk beat, low and slow, drifted down from the second floor. A grandma in a red t-shirt leaned against the rail of the facing apartment walkway and yelled something in a shrill voice, which could have meant, Keep it down, for all he knew.

  Flores wondered if they were being watched. He monitored their surroundings, looking for cover. He knew Phan a few steps behind him was doing the same thing.

  They made their way past a well-kept planter with herbs and a red plastic, foot-powered car for toddlers. There were a lot of children in the complex. Tuan Nguyen’s apartment was the middle of the second floor. Flores hoped this would go down easily with no collateral damage.

  He knocked on 6B and heard the familiar sound of a cheap, hollow core door, the kind bullets go through like flimsy cardboard. He stepped back and waited.

  No sound.

  He exchanged glances with Phan. They waited. And listened.

  Finally, Flores knocked again, louder.

  Quick footsteps, a brush against a wall.

  Phan pulled out his gun. Flores had his hand on his. This was where they would use the split-second assessments they been trained in. It took seconds for something to go wrong. Shoot or be shot. You couldn’t take back your response. The results could last a lifetime. For them. For you. For both.

  Flores kept his breathing short and shallow. He wanted to hear the smallest sound coming from behind the door.

  Phan kept his eyes on the door.

  Then the doorknob rattled. Flores’s stomach clenched. The door opened.

  In an instant, every muscle in Flores’s body relaxed. Phan’s stance changed, too.

  A startled middle-aged woman answered the door, staring in wide-eyed alarm at Phan’s gun. She looked between the two of them, then haltingly raised her hands above her head. Smells of dinner billowed out and surrounded them.

  “We’re looking for Tuan Nguyen, ma’am.”

  The woman looked puzzled. Flores saw three children pressed up against their mother’s back, eyes wide at the sight of the gun. Phan put his away. Flores slipped his into its holder.

  “There is nobody by that name here. Just me and my kids. I’m Yvette Tran.” Her voice was shaky, but firm. She seemed to be examining them both. Then she nodded, as if she’d made a pragmatic decision—let the police check things out so she could feed her kids dinner. She looked tired.

  She lowered her hands and stepped back from the door. “You can come in and take a look around.”

  Flores took out his badge. Then he and Phan stepped into the apartment living room.

  Flores knew. There would be nothing to see here. Toys piled in a laundry basket. Worn, older furniture, covered by colorful blankets. A table with plates set out for dinner.

  “How long have you lived at this address, Ms. Tran?”

  “We’ve been here since my husband passed away. Two years in June.”

  “There hasn’t been anyone with the name Tuan Nguyen living here? Any other adult male?”

  “As I said, it’s just the kids and I.”

  “Ms. Tran, do you know if there is a Tuan Nguyen in the apartment complex?” Hollander could have written the address down wrong. Flores was relaxed enough now to give Yvette Tran a smile. “He’d be man in his thirties, skinny. Very short hair. Glasses. About 5 foot 8.”

  Yvette Tran paused, then shook her head. The kids behind her had lost interest and drifted away. He heard video game sounds.

  “Of course, there are a couple of Nguyens in the apartments. It’s a common name. We know each other here. I can’t think of anyone who looks like that.”

  Phan and Flores thanked her and made a short, unsuccessful door-to-door survey of the complex, giving the description and name, then they headed back to their cars.

  As Phan started up the cruiser, Flores stood on the sidewalk checking his phone messages as the sky dimmed to darkness and kids went inside for dinner. He could go back to Jake Hollander, but he suspected he wouldn’t get anything else.

  Whoever had murdered Karl Schuler had gone to a lot of trouble to cover their tracks.

  16

  They were almost done with Karl’s house.

  Duke understood Rose better now; the work had been hard, but it had felt cathartic to deal with his grief through cleaning, organizing and disposing of things.

  At Rose’s direction, Duke Sorenson brought the last two moving boxes, labeled KITCHEN, into her tiled entry way and set them down. He’d managed to pack the contents of Karl’s cupboards, with the help of Rose’s daughter, within the last couple of days.

  Everything was clear now, cupboards empty and wiped down, countertops cleared and food thrown out, refrigerator and oven cleaned out.

  The house had an antiseptic smell and an echoing coldness that Duke couldn’t bear. There was an absence of the life that Karl brought to it: the sound of his warmly accented voice, the smell of coffee always brewing, the German classical music he always had on the radio.

  The house reminded him of seeing Joanne’s body after she’d passed in her hospital bed at home, her expression drained of her smile, any trace of her personality. An empty shell.

  Rose had decided to rent, since the market was better for rentals right now, with houses in Silicon Valley beyond the reach of nearly anybody who hadn’t been working in tech in the valley for at least five years. She told him she didn’t want to rush into selling, now that the market was predicted to ease off. She’d wait a few months and see how things looked.

  When it came to finances, Rose was a wise woman, as her mother, Agnieszka had been, and Karl had made Rose the executor of his trust.

  Maybe Rose wasn’t ready to face the fact that her father wasn’t ever coming home. She could walk through his house, spend more time with her memories of her father.

  Karl would have been much less interested in making money off of the property, Duke thought. He’d have wanted his house to go to someone who needed it. A single mother, a retired couple who’d run out of money. Maybe he’d have wanted to make it a group home for kids in trouble—which
of course would have ticked the neighbors off to no end; Duke smiled to himself at the thought.

  Rose came in and watched him as he stacked the boxes. She looked at the print on each one. “Bring the top two into the kitchen and I’ll start going through them.” She gave him a perfunctory nod as he handed her the keys. “Thank you, Duke. For all your help.”

  Duke turned pink at what was a lavish show of affection, coming from Rose.

  “Your father would have done the same for me.”

  “I have another box that I’ve gone through that I need to take to the Salvation Army truck off of Redmond. Would you mind dropping them off for me?”

  “Might as well.” Duke followed Rose into the living room. “I’m passing right by it.”

  “This box of books can go.” Rose tapped a copy paper box filled with books. “Then I’ve got a smaller one back in the bedroom. Let me bring it out.”

  Duke looked down at the box. Curious, he headed for the living room bookcase. He spotted the cloth binding on the journal, the one Rose had been obsessed with the other night when he’d come to help. He pulled on the top of the journal and slid it out easily. He pressed the rest of the books together, so it didn’t look as though something was missing. His heart pounding in his throat, he slid the book under a floppy softcover atlas in the giveaway box.

  A few seconds later, he heard brisk footsteps coming down the hall. Rose brought out a smaller Amazon shipping box that held books and a few neckties.

  He took the box from her and stacked it on the copy paper box. “Let me take these out to my car.” He gave her what he hoped was a cordial, nothing-to-see-here smile. “Nothing else for today?”

  “There may be more tomorrow, but we’re done with the books. Clothes and memorabilia now. We might be able to donate some of it to one of the local air museums. It won’t mean anything to anyone else.”

  They might mean something to me. Duke felt guilty hovering like a vulture over Karl’s things, eager to paw through them, while leaving the impression that he was only here to help Rose out.

  And now he had stolen—something instilled in him not to do since childhood. He saw his mother shaking her head, a look of disappointment behind her spectacles. Guilt came over him as he said goodbye to Rose and lugged the weighty box down to his car.

  But now he had in his possession the book he’d had his eye on for the past three days.

  A ripple of excitement ran through him, crowding out the guilt.

  17

  Karl Schuler’s Journal

  I started this journal to record what I’ve seen. I have seen so much, the extremes of human nature: cruelty that put men in their graves and genius that put men out among the stars. And I have seen those two things combined.

  Now I am tired.

  Two identities live in my head. One real and one pretend. I sometimes confuse them because I am old. Which is the real story? I had to see the words in my own hand, before they blurred again in my mind. So I could face the truth.

  I am a coward because I have chosen to write this confession, not say it out loud. I hope my children and friends will consider it fairly. As I near my end, I need to say what I’ve seen and done. Consider it a warning from someone who remembers. The world is shifting and settling into a pattern. It looks more and more like it did eighty years ago.

  If you do not remember your history, it circles back to you, until—if it doesn’t kill you—you finally learn your lesson.

  18

  Ruiz sat at a high table at Someplace Bar and Grill, trying to pace himself with his bottle of Modelo.

  He was not doing quite as well with the almost empty basket of tortilla chips sitting in front of him.

  Someplace was one of those 1960s-era bars named as a joke. If the wife asked where you were, you could say, “Oh, I was Someplace. Or Nowhere. I was at The Library.” So, as if you were a character in a 1960s sitcom, you technically wouldn’t be lying to your wife. Someplace was a tiny bar wedged into an old strip mall, between a vacuum cleaner repair store and a shop for extra wide shoes for women.

  The Kelly family had run it for years, and cops, sheriffs and firemen had been stopping in here since before Ruiz was a rookie. Aged indoor/outdoor carpeting, fake wood paneling and patched up vinyl bar stools, but you didn’t notice all that if the lights were kept low. The “grill” part of the name didn’t really apply; the food consisted of chips and salsa, doughy soft pretzels and almost anything you could heat up in a microwave. It was a place to let down, to relax, a place where you knew you’d be accepted and could have drinks and a conversation in peace.

  He’d wanted to get Flores up to date on what he’d heard about Karl from Duke. In return, he was hoping to hear how the young detective was doing with the search for the SUV. It wasn’t his business. He was hoping to strike up a camaraderie with Flores and find out what he wanted to know. Have a few beers, share stories and commiserate. He had ten years on Flores and got the feeling Ruiz had grown up in an upper middle-class home, one very different from his own. Ruiz hoped they’d find common ground.

  About five minutes after six, Flores walked in, scanning the bar and tables. Ruiz watched as a couple of young women at the bar swiveled in their seats to look at him.

  “Flores, here.” Ruiz waved him over to the table. Flores’s eyes brightened and he headed over to the table. Ruiz signaled the waitress, who met them at the table.

  “I’ll have what he’s having.” Flores nodded at the waitress, who laughed softly and turned pink as if she’d picked up some clever innuendo in his remark.

  “Good choice.” Ruiz took a swig and gave Flores a crooked smile. “Don’t worry. It’s definitely not light beer.”

  “How’s it going at MVPD?”

  “Just wrapped up a string of burglaries,” Ruiz pushed the bowl of chips toward Flores. “A couple of guys from Redwood City who had been working their way down the peninsula—mostly computers and game consoles. Today someone saw them going through a neighbor’s back window and phoned it in. We got there just as they were leaving. I think we had a two-block-long chase.”

  Flores laughed. He smiled as the waitress set the beer and mug down in front of him.

  “So you’re from LA.” Ruiz launched in. Looking for something to connect with, he headed for sports. “Dodgers fan?”

  “You kidding me? Born and raised in Orange County. I’m an Angels fan. I also root for the Ducks.” He launched into an explanation why the hockey team’s latest lineup was going to make it the best season yet.

  Ruiz made sure he looked completely unimpressed and grunted. “You’re in Sharks territory now, son. Where’d you go to school?”

  “Community college in Anaheim.” Flores picked a single chip from the bowl on the table with his thumb and forefinger like a twenty-something woman on a diet. “Transferred up to UC Davis and got my sociology degree.”

  “What’s your dad do? And where did you get the Flores name?”

  “You interrogating me, Ruiz?” Flores said it with attitude, pushing back a little. Ruiz laughed. He’d needed to break the ice and the grilling had done it.

  “My dad owns a few home furnishing stores. The Flores comes from my dad’s parents, who came over from Puerto Rico. Mom’s a realtor. They’d like me to move back down south, and they don’t like my career choice. I’m happy here.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Ruiz shook his head and leaned on his elbows. “I grew up in San Jose. But it’s hard to make a living here if you’re not in tech.”

  Flores pulled out his phone and checked it for a minute, frowning. He mumbled fuck, then took a very big gulp of his beer. He moved his thumbs over the phone, texting, then set the phone down.

  “Why’d you choose it? Police work.” Ruiz was more curious as to why Flores had just sworn at the text message, but he’d finished grilling the guy and it was none of his business.

  “When I was sixteen, some friends and I stole a car stereo.” The corner of Flores’s mouth turned up. “Caught
before we left the parking lot. My community service was to join Police Explorers. Some great people spent time with me, something I wasn’t getting at home. I wanted to do what they were doing. Maybe help other kids like me.”

  Flores had gotten off easy with his sentence. But this was an unexpected twist. Ruiz was liking the young detective better. He reminded him of what his little brother Mateo might have been if he’d taken a different path.

  “Sounds like a good career move to me.”

  “I think so.”

  Flores leaned in over the table.

  “We had a lead on the buyer of the SUV. But he gave a false address.”

  Flores told him about Jake Hollander selling his vehicle after Christmas, and his attempts to track down the man who’d bought it with cash.

  “Gangs Investigations says they haven’t heard of any activity on that side of town.” Flores rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn. “But I did find out that Schuler got a call at 1:20 a.m. from a payphone near the bus stop at Cherry and Almaden.”

  “No cameras?”

  Flores grimaced and shook his head.

  The owner’s daughter came by with another round of chips and salsa, placing them, to Ruiz’s annoyance, on Flores’s side of the table. Flores grabbed a handful.

  “On top of my shitty news day, my girlfriend ditched me tonight. This is my dinner.”

  Ruiz finished off his beer and considered ordering another. Then he remembered he was on duty tonight for checking Jacky’s homework. If it was math, he needed to be stone cold sober.

  “I realize it’s your case, not mine.” Ruiz had to be careful with this. “But how were the interviews with the family?”

  “Rose Mulvaney told me her father was very independent. He did a lot of volunteer work, which she thought he needed to cut back on. She couldn’t think of anyone who’d want to hurt him. His neighbors said the same thing—he watched their dogs when they went on vacation. Delivered meals to the elderly. Mentored youth in science. By all accounts, a 100-percent good human being.”