Mother laughed. “So coy. Well, invite us to the wedding.”
Melinda’s nostrils flared. “My mother doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
Mother looked at me and both of us raised our brows at the same time.
“Good to see you, Mrs. Phelps. See you in court, Emily.” Melinda’s back was to us before Mother could answer. She weaved her way between tables toward the door. Her pants bagged off her rear, and she almost moved like she’d been tippling.
Wait a second, I thought. Did Melinda have a substance abuse problem? Was she drunk in the middle of the workday? In addition to the bulimia or instead of it? Oh my goodness, I might get the chance to rat her out to the DA’s office. I hated myself and wanted to hug myself at the same time.
“Emily, what are you laughing about?” Mother stared at me, looking like she didn’t know me.
I pulled my lips into a straight line, knowing that I wasn’t thinking in a way that Mother would consider very Christian. “Nothing.”
Luckily, our waiter interrupted. “Did I hear you talking about the murder case against Phil Escalante?”
I did a double take at him. “Um, yeah, why?”
“Are you his attorney?”
“I work for his attorney.”
“Can I have one of your cards?”
I reached into my purse and fished one out for him. As I handed it over, I said, “Can I ask what this is about?”
“I know who the killer is.” He ducked behind the line of Jesus gawkers and ran toward the back of the dining room and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Wait! I need to show you a picture! I need to talk to you!” I jumped up, knocking my chair over as I did, and sprinted into the kitchen. A waiter with an enormous tray was exiting as I entered, and she spun away from me. The dishes on her tray slid to the opposite side and she shouted, “Hey, watch it.”
“Sorry!” A door on the far side of the grill slammed shut. I ran again. “’Scuse me. Pardon me.” People flattened back against the walls to let me through. I flung the door open into the bright light of the parking lot. Sunglasses would have helped. I scanned the lot, searching for his black shirt and balding head, but saw no one resembling him. “Hello?” I shouted.
People walking toward the restaurant turned to look at me, but no one answered.
The waiter had vanished.
Chapter Ten
The next morning, I was loading the dishwasher after a cereal breakfast.
Jack put the milk back in the refrigerator. “Gotta make a call.”
It was only five minutes before we were due to leave for the office together. He grabbed the cereal and took it to the walk-in pantry. I followed him in and wrapped my arms around him from behind, reaching up and placing my palms on his collarbones. I’d felt his reserve of yesterday slip away as we made love the night before. I didn’t want him to withdraw again. I put my chin on his shoulder. “I can wait for you.” Snowflake stepped on my bare feet, her little toenails the lightest of pin pricks on them.
He slipped away from me, toward the home office. Snowflake followed him, jingling. “Go on without me. I’d hate for neither of us to be there if Clyde shows up. I’ll be in soon.”
“He came by yesterday. Did you see the papers he left for you?”
“Yep, but we had to redo them so he may come again.”
“Okay. Who’s your call with?” I asked, but my words were swallowed by the sound of the French doors closing.
I heard the home phone ring behind the doors. Snowflake yapped, but I snatched her up and held her mouth shut. “Quiet,” I said. I had to get control of this dog’s phone issues. I stroked her. “Shhh, good girl, shhhh.”
Jack was standing, and he pressed a button. “Jack Holden.”
A woman’s voice said, “New Mexico Department of—” before Jack picked up the receiver. He turned his back, and his muffled voice was unintelligible.
Suddenly I empathized with Snowflake and wanted to bark like a demon at Jack’s phone, too. I put her down and walked to the kitchen for a treat. “Good girl,” I told her. My heartbeat slowed and the energy and hopefulness I’d felt dissipated, leaving an empty spot inside me.
***
I raised the top on the red Mustang and drove. For five minutes I concentrated on nothing but the purr of the engine and the hum of the tires on the road. But as I drove past the neon colors of the oft spray-painted Cadillac Ranch on I-40, something changed. Anger filled my empty space. I decided to try out the hands-free again on the rental car, to call and give the DA a tip that something was wrong with Melinda, and that something might be affecting her ability to do her job. I focused on the possibility of alcohol or drugs, and tried to forget the pathetic figure in the bathroom. Even if she’d been throwing up, that didn’t rule out drugs or alcohol. It might even mean they were more likely.
“I need the phone number for the District Attorney’s office in Amarillo, Texas.”
I clicked my nails on the steering wheel as I waited. I needed to give myself a manicure bad. It didn’t seem fair to Jack’s ring to wear it with fingers like these. It was like getting fancy hair from your stylist and wearing gym sweats with it. I held out my left hand, and the teardrop-shaped diamond winked at me, like Jack had Friday night. A wave of emotion snuck up on me, and I nearly burst into tears.
A robotic voice interrupted my pending meltdown. “Here’s the number for the Amarillo District Attorney’s office. Would you like to call the Amarillo District Attorney’s office?”
“Yes.”
The phone seemed to take an awfully long time to connect. It began to ring. It rang and rang and rang. I glanced at my dash clock. It read 8:35. Finally, a woman’s twangy voice said, “District Attorney’s office. Hold, please.”
Muzak took over my phone line. “Come on,” I said. Traffic was light—we’d overslept that morning, so I had missed what there was of a rush hour. Light traffic was one of the many benefits I’d rediscovered when I moved back to Amarillo. Another was that people had treated me with great kindness, albeit great familiarity and a lot of gossip. Kindness. I pictured Melinda’s spiteful face yesterday, and remembered how unsteady she’d looked, how off-balance her whole personality had seemed. Her backward-facing heels in the bathroom. Suddenly, I felt small.
I was better than that. Bedsides, if I was wrong, she’d crucify me. On top of our long-standing feud, she’d had a thing for Jack before he and I got together. I sighed and pressed a button on the dash to end the call. Sometimes taking the high road wasn’t much fun.
I swung the Mustang into the parking garage and snagged a good spot by the elevator. I had left Snowflake with Jack, so I was able to move fast. Clyde had taken to showing up later and later each time he came to the office, but it was pushing nine. When I got to our floor, I found not Clyde but Nadine seated with her back against the glass side light by our door.
She stood and pushed down the legs of her tight jeans. “I was about to give up on you.”
I pulled keys out of my purse and threw the lock. “I didn’t know you were coming. Did I?”
“I texted you a minute ago. I got your message last night. About what that Millie lady said. Made a split-second decision to drop by here before the hospital.” I had left an update on Nadine’s voice mail before Jack got home.
I hadn’t checked my phone since before I called the DA’s office. “You never called me back.” I pushed open the door and held it.
“I had to think about it. I didn’t sleep with Dennis. I barely knew him. But you know what I heard Phil say. ‘Why did it have to be her, you dumbass?’”
I walked in after Nadine. Black metal lettering above my desk spelled Williams & Associates in cursive. “So you don’t think it could have had anything to do with you?” I set my purse down on the desk beside the framed portrait of Geronimo Jack had given me, typeset with the quote, “There is one God looking down on us all. We are all the children of one God.” I turned back to Nadine.
“Absolutely not.” Her face was pale and drawn, the bags under her eyes dark and deep. She drop-sat on the couch and put her head on her knees.
“Do you need a glass of water?”
“No.”
“Would it hurt?”
“No.”
I trotted down the hall to the kitchen and put ice cubes and water in a glass tumbler. On impulse, I wetted a paper towel with cool water, too. I moved slower on the way back, the water sloshing up over the edge of the glass. “Here you go.” I held the glass and towel out to her.
She took the white sheet and wiped it across her forehead, then pressed it to the back of her neck under her long ponytail.
“Any updates on how Phil’s doing?” I handed her the drink.
She took several long guzzles before she answered me. “I got a message a little while ago. He hasn’t gotten any worse. The doctors are optimistic.”
“The boys?”
“Wallace came and got them yesterday.”
“The man is a saint. Could we keep them for you tonight?”
She nodded. “Maybe. Thank you.”
“Of course.”
“I didn’t mention this on your voice mail because it may be nothing, but a crazy waiter at Abuelo’s told me he knows who really killed Dennis.”
“What?” She sat up straighter.
“Some guy named Abel Stone. The restaurant wouldn’t give me his number, and he’s not in information. He has my card. I’m praying he calls.”
She slumped, quiet for a few seconds, then asked, “Never heard of him. What if Phil and Dennis were fighting over Phil’s ex-wife?”
“That’s what I was wondering.”
“But he hates her. Why would he be upset with Dennis about her?”
I put my hand on her knee. “Maybe Millie is wrong about what she heard.”
“But what if she’s not?” Nadine wailed.
I thought about what John had said, that all they cared about was what Millie heard. But Nadine cared about the truth. And if Jack was going to be able to defend Phil, we needed to know the truth. I came around and sat beside her on the nubby couch. “So tell me everything you know about Phil’s ex-wife.”
***
An hour later, Nadine had left for the hospital, and I was dialing the number she’d given me for Phil’s mother in Borger. It wasn’t as direct an approach as I would have liked to his ex-wife. But Nadine said she and Phil had made a pact to start their lives over with each other and leave the past in the past, so she knew nothing about the woman. Which made me think about Jack and how his past seemed to have kept pace with him. A little white dog that belonged to his daughter. A horse that belonged to his wife.
The phone started ringing, and a crusty woman’s voice answered. “Yallo?”
It took me a startled second to return from my thoughts about Jack and remember I had called Manuela Escalante. “Um, yes, may I speak to Manuela, please?”
“Who wants her?”
“My name is Emily Bernal, and I work for the attorney that represents her son Phil.”
“I can’t understand you. You got cotton in your mouth or something?”
Or something. I hated those dang braces. I enunciated as best I could with the rubber bands cramping my style. “I said my name is Emily Bernal, and I work for the attorney that represents her son Phil.”
“You got me.”
“Oh, good. First, I wanted to tell you that Phil is a friend of mine. I am so sorry about his medical condition.”
“I’m suing the state. I heard about a woman got a million dollars when they killed her son in jail. Don’t suppose your law firm could help me?”
“Oh, well, um, it’s a little early for that. Phil’s condition is steady and the doctors are optimistic he’ll recover.”
She coughed, long and phlegmy. “Still, I’m due for my pain and suffering. It’s almost unbearable, I tell you.”
“Yes, I can only imagine.” I rolled my eyes. “We have to operate under the assumption that Phil will recover fully and have to face this murder charge. The grand jury indicted him yesterday.”
“Boy’s always been a hothead.”
“May I ask what you mean by that?”
“Well, he did it, didn’t he?”
“No, ma’am, we don’t believe he did.”
“Oh. Well, he’s still always had a temper.”
I made a note on my yellow pad. Must not let Phil’s mother testify under any circumstances. “I’m actually hoping you can tell me how to get in touch with his ex-wife.”
“That whore, Cecilia? What do you want with her?”
“I understand she grew up with Dennis and Phil?”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“And she knew Dennis when she was married to Phil?”
“No shit.”
“So, we need to talk to her about their relationship.”
“Whose?”
I stabbed my pen several times into the yellow pad. I smiled in real life so I would sound nicer than I felt. “Phil’s with Dennis.”
“Well, I’m the one you should ask about that.”
“Okay, tell me about it.”
“It was good.”
“Anything in particular?”
“They been best friends since sixth grade. Phil’s always been a lot smarter than Dennis, but they got along all right. They were both into rodeo. Phil rode bulls.”
“Really?” I nearly dropped the phone. Phil rode bulls? He’d always reminded me of a Hispanic Danny DeVito, so I had to reimagine him, in a good way. I had trained to be a clown while I was on rodeo scholarship at Texas Tech. My job as a clown wasn’t to make people laugh—or give them nightmares. It was to protect the bull riders. A warmth spread through my chest, an affinity for Phil I hadn’t felt before, even thought he was our client and engaged to Nadine.
“He was good. Dennis was too big, so he did something where you tackle cows.” Steer wrestling, like my father, but I didn’t bother to tell her that.
I wondered how much she could really know if the two had lived an hour away at Boys Ranch. “This was at Boys Ranch, I understand?”
Silence for five long seconds. “Some of it, yeah. Dennis visited here with Phil, though. They came back after high school. Dennis stayed.”
“Do you know where Dennis is from, before Boys Ranch, I mean?”
“Colorado. Denver or thereabouts.”
Phil had said Dennis split time between Borger and Denver, so this made sense. “Was he close to his family?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“He wasn’t?”
“Didn’t say that either.”
I swallowed back an exasperated noise that almost slipped out. “So what are you saying?”
“He inherited some property from his father. His mother’s in jail. Been there since I known him.”
“For what?”
“Killing his father, of course. He was a real lowlife.”
Of course. “Well, that’s excellent. Thank you.”
“You paying for that?”
“What?”
“Me being a witness for you.”
I underlined my note to keep her from testifying, once, twice, three times. “Um, no, we aren’t able to pay witnesses.”
Jack walked in the door with Snowflake. I waved at him, and he smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. He dropped the Amarillo Globe News on my desk as he walked past me to his office. Snowflake wagged her tail then settled into the bed under my desk. Jack’s door shut behind him. I glanced down at the paper, and did a double take. A picture of Mother and me at Abuelo’s, beside my Jesus quesadilla.
“That don’t seem right.” She went into another coughing fit.
When she’d quieted, I said, “So, about Cecilia.”
“She was out there at Boys Ranch, too.”
I’d assumed that, but it was good confirmation.
“As trashy as she is, she took care of Phil’s diabetes. This new one, Nancy, she didn’t even
do that.”
“Nadine.”
“Whatever. Nadine. Not a step up from what I can tell.”
“Do you know how I can get in touch with Cecilia?”
“I guess I could, but it’d cost you twenty-five dollars.”
I closed my eyes. “No problem.”
“Mail the check to me here at my house.” She recited her address.
I scribbled it down. “Mhmm, so do you have Cecilia’s number?”
“No, but she works at the liquor store in Sanford most days, since she’s been sleeping with the guy who owns it.”
“What’s the name of the store?”
“Only liquor store in town. Hell, practically the only store in town.”
“Anything else?”
“My rent’s due. Can you send my money FedEx?”
I pulled a bottle of Excedrin out of my desk drawer.
Chapter Eleven
I’d barely hung up from Manuela when the office phone rang. Snowflake scrambled out from under the desk. I held her mouth closed gently. “Quiet, girl.” Her liquid eyes accused me of cruelty, and she whined, but stopped barking. I almost let the phone roll over to Judith, but I snatched it up after the third ring. “Williams and Associates, Emily Bernal speaking.” I released Snowflake, who returned to her bed, pouting.
A monosyllabic male voice said, “You the lady with the braces?”
“Uh, yes, I have braces.”
“We met at lunch. God spoke to me through you.”
Dear Lord in heaven, thank you for sending me the nutso waiter, I mentally prayed, with fervor. “Yes, I remember you. Abel, isn’t it? I’m so glad I could be of help. I wish you hadn’t run off so fast, though.”
“There is something I need to tell you.”
“Right, about who really killed Dennis Welch. You said you saw it happen?”
“Not on the phone. Meet me at one thirty between Ross Rogers and Thompson Memorial Park.”
“You mean by Wonderland?” I was referring to the somewhat rinky-dink amusement park that my parents had taken me to as a child. It was still there. No bigger, but that didn’t matter when you were five years old and the double-loop roller coaster at Six Flags Over Texas was an unattainable six-hour drive away.
Hell to Pay (What Doesn’t Kill You, #7): An Emily Romantic Mystery Page 11