The Witch On Twisted Oak

by Muller, Susan C.

  Ruben hung the phone up in disgust. Half an hour wasted looking for a dead woman. Yolanda Garza’s sister had been gone for five years, and they hadn’t talked for years before that. Some kind of falling out over religion? The cousin he talked to couldn’t remember.

  A complete dead end. He’d have laughed over the pun if it weren’t so sad. How did people end up like that, with no one who cared about them?

  Not like his family. Mother, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins. All so much into each other’s business it drove him crazy.

  He’d fantasized about moving so far away they couldn’t bother him, but where would that be, the moon? No, if he didn’t hear from some family member during the week, he started to get antsy. Like he’d lost something, but didn’t know what.

  His family had even adopted Adam. With his brother in Alaska and his parents in the hill country, Mamacita had brought him into the fold like a lost sheep. Until he met Jillian. Now he didn’t seem so lost anymore.

  Good for Adam, he was happy. They were already hinting they wanted to make it permanent. Why would they do a fool thing like that? Mess up a good thing.

  Not for him. The only truly happy marriage he’d seen was his parents. And even that had caused his mother immeasurable pain when his father passed away.

  He was tired of doing the dance, though. He wouldn’t mind a steady girl for a while. Six, eight months would be nice. Time to relax. Not have to work at it so hard. Then move on before things got too serious.

  Monday morning couldn’t have been a bigger contrast to Sunday afternoon. Every desk was occupied, phones rang, printers beeped, and the not-so-low mummer of voices filled the room.

  Ruben had tried to phone Cheryl when he got home, but she refused to take his call. Good, he was officially free of her.

  He saw Adam, leaned back in his chair with his feet on the desk and the phone pressed to his ear. What time had he gotten in?

  A yawn overtook him. Less than two hours of sleep Saturday night then awake most of Sunday night worrying about his mother. Two nights without sleep was his limit. Here’s hoping we solve this thing today.

  He waited for some joker to make a smart-ass comment accusing him of being late, but no one did. What was this? They were treating him as if he were the victim instead of some old woman he’d never met.

  He’d sat in his car in the parking garage and phoned Mamacita to make sure she was safe and had slept well last night. She insisted she’d been up for hours, but she sounded like he woke her. At eight? Not possible.

  Remy Steinberg strolled by and dropped a newspaper on his desk without a word. The paper was folded to a story about last night’s murder. Why would he want to read that? He already knew more than any reporter.

  He scanned the article, then turned the page. Son-of-a-bitch, there was a photo of Mamacita’s house, with he and Adam coming out the front door. That no good, lousy reporter had listed the owner as a witness, and claimed that detectives had been in and out of her house for hours. The article didn’t give her name or address, but the house number was clearly visible in the photo. Finding her would be a breeze.

  Heat surged through his body. Why not just pin a target to her door? Send the killer an engraved invitation? This was why he hated reporters. They should be stamped out like the vermin they were.

  He sprang to his feet and rushed out the door to find his lieutenant.

  Hard Luck was in the break room, stirring creamer into a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

  “Have you seen this piece of crap?” Ruben slapped the newspaper on the counter. “You have to get round-the-clock protection for her. This scumbag could come back any time to tie up loose ends.”

  “Cool your jets. The chief would just claim that was your hard luck. I’d never get that much overtime approved.” Hard Luck took a sip of coffee, wrinkled his nose, and reached for the sugar. “I’ll spread the word and every patrolman in the area will find a reason to drive by her house two or three times each shift. The best thing you can do is get this case solved. And for that, you need a cool head.”

  Fuck. That’s why Hard Luck pulled in the big bucks. Ruben took several deep breaths and reached for the coffee pot. Maybe the caffeine would settle his nerves.

  Five minutes later, his breathing returned to normal. What were the odds the killer saw that photo? No one read the paper anymore. When this was all over, he’d make sure that reporter got the message, until then, he needed to concentrate on the case. He grabbed a coffee for Adam and started back to his desk. Time to get to work.

  His phone rang before he’d had time to pull out his chair.

  “Marquez,” he said, reaching for a pen.

  “This is Thurman, at the front desk. There’s a woman here asking for you by name. Says it has to do with the Yolanda Garza case.”

  “Can you send her up? I’ll be waiting by the elevators.”

  Adam placed his hand over the mouthpiece of his phone and raised an eyebrow. Ruben shrugged. “A visitor.” That could mean anything from a suspect turning herself in—stranger things had happened—to a nosey Nellie looking for information. He didn’t have time for this now.

  He pushed back the chair that hadn’t even had time to warm under his body and stomped across the room and out to the hall. He waited, tapping his foot in frustration at the hour he was about to waste.

  The bell rang on the far elevator and he twisted in time to see a tall woman step out. She was young, no more than twenty-eight or twenty-nine. He looked closer, thirty, maybe. Her build was hard to determine under a long, diaphanous skirt that almost brushed the floor and a gauzy blouse that hung to her hips.

  Despite several people in the hall, she headed directly for him. Her skirt and blouse flowed back against her body, revealing a slim figure. Her eyes and hair were as dark as his own, and her olive complexion glowed like polished brass.

  “I’m Theresa Reyna. Yolanda Garza’s . . . niece.”

  Ruben noticed the hesitation, but forced himself to smile and reach out to shake her hand. Her fingertips, the only part she offered, were rough and dry. A dark substance ringed one nail. Dirt? A bruise? He inhaled deeply. A faint whiff of turpentine. Must be paint.

  She pulled her hand away quickly.

  “I’m Detective Ruben Marquez,” he said.

  “Yes, I recognize you. You really haven’t changed much.”

  What did she mean by that? He’d never seen her before. He’d have remembered that face. “Let’s get my partner and head into one of the interview rooms. It’ll be quieter in there.”

  Ruben strode to the squad room and beckoned to Adam. When he looped back toward the woman, he did a double take. She faced away from him and her hair hung past her shoulders in a black waterfall. The florescent lights that made most people look sickly, reflected off the darkness like the full moon in a mirror.

  A feeling of déjà vu swept over him and was gone. Where had that come from?

  Adam rounded the corner and she twisted back, her hair billowing around her, framing her face.

  Ruben stumbled over the introductions and led them toward the furthest interview room. He needed the time to clear his head. He could feel Adam studying her. Adam might be spoken for, but he wasn’t dead.

  Chapter 4

  The interview room reeked of fear and sweat. At one time, someone had urinated in the corner. The smell was faint, but discernible. This was the least used interview room, and as such, had acquired the worst furniture.

  Rubin considered moving to a different room, but that would make his decision to traipse the entire length of the hallway even more questionable.

  He gave Ms. Reyna the best chair, while he took the one that wobbled on one short leg. Adam sat in the chair with the cracked plastic seat and pulled out his pocket spiral.

  Adam pushed the spiral toward her. “Would you be so kind as to write your full name, address, and contact number in case we have more questions later?”

  Ruben watched as delicate finger
s wrote in large, loopy letters with a definite slant to the left. What did that mean? Both open and closed? Letting everything hang out yet keeping a secret? He shook his head. Handwriting analysis was a joke, but they definitely had her fingerprints now.

  Ruben cleared his throat. “We’re sorry for your loss, Ms. Reyna.” Was she married? Single? She wore several rings, but the one on her left ring finger was silver and shaped like an animal with red stones for eyes.

  “For now, all I want is to get my aunt’s body so she can be cremated and returned to the earth, as she would have wanted.”

  Ruben thought about that pause before the word aunt. “We don’t know for certain who her next of kin is. Your cousin may want to claim her.”

  “He’s a cousin on my father’s side. He never even met my aunt.”

  “Nevertheless, we’ll need to do a DNA test to make sure you are her closest relative.”

  Adam’s eyes went wide, but he had enough sense not to say anything.

  The girl’s lips formed an O, and she shook her head. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “We can’t release the body otherwise.” Lying to suspects was part of the job, and didn’t bother him at all. Lying to Adam or Mamacita was off limits and he couldn’t pull it off even if it wasn’t. Lying to witnesses was a gray area, and one that gave him trouble.

  She glared at Ruben. “What do I need to do?”

  He let out the breath he’d been holding. She’d fallen for his explanation. “Stop at the lab on your way out. I’ll tell them to expect you.”

  “When can I take her home?” she asked.

  Adam spoke softly. ”I’m afraid it will be several days before we can release the body. This is a murder investigation, after all. There will need to be an autopsy.”

  Ruben nodded. “Meanwhile, anything you can tell us about your”—he let the slightest hesitation creep into his voice—“aunt would be appreciated.”

  Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she kept her back straight. “I don’t know how much I can tell you. I hadn’t seen her in years.”

  “Had you talked to her during that time?”

  “Only twice. She called me a couple of months ago and said she was moving back to Houston. Then she called a few weeks later and gave me her address and phone number. She said when I was ready, I should come and visit her.”

  A few tears fell and she pulled a tissue from some deep pocket and dabbed at her eyes. “I never called her back, or went to see her. Now I never will.”

  “Did she say why she moved back, or for that matter, why she moved away?”

  “She moved away because she was afraid for her safety. She spent several years moving around before she finally settled in San Antonio, near her family. But wherever she went, she kept a low profile. She never advertised, and only took clients she knew well. She changed her name constantly. These are things my mother told me.”

  Now there were getting somewhere. “Did your mother tell you anything more specific?”

  “Aunt Yolanda had a vision of her own grisly murder and knew it would happen in Houston, and that she wouldn’t live to see Halloween of her forty-eighth year.” She raised her eyes and stared straight at Ruben. “And she knew the only person who could bring her soul any peace.”

  A chill went down Ruben’s spine and he looked away. “Ms. Reyna, why in the world would she move back to Houston if she thought she would die here?”

  “Please, call me Tessa.” She waved a hand in the air then let it drop it back into her lap. “It was her time. She had to come. If she resisted her fate, events would be even worse, for herself and those she loved.”

  Ruben leaned forward and banged his head on his desk. He and Adam had questioned Tessa for another thirty minutes and not gotten one solid piece of information that might help them solve this case.

  Adam didn’t take his eyes off his computer. “Trying to pound some sense into your head? I’ve been hoping you would do that for years.”

  “It’s been more than twenty-four hours and we’ve gotten nowhere.”

  “Well, here’s something.” Adam tapped a finger on the computer screen. “Yolanda Garza’s arrest for indecent exposure was for dancing naked in the woods too close to a Boy Scout troop on a camp out. One of the boys decided to step into the woods to take a leak and got lost.”

  Ruben rolled his eyes. “Was there a full moon?”

  “It doesn’t say, but when else would you dance naked in the woods? Probably alcohol involved.”

  “Ya think?”

  “Yep, it was December. Hey, December 22, to be exact, the shortest day of the year, winter solstice.” Adam grinned as if that explained everything.

  “So is she considered a sex offender?”

  Adam scrolled down. “Naw. The kid wandered into her campsite. She didn’t find out until the next day when the Sheriff came looking for her.”

  “How does that help us any? You don’t think the kid’s father held a grudge all these years and decided to hack her up for revenge?”

  “You never know. That and the butcher are all we’ve got.”

  Ruben shoved his chair back. “Then maybe we should go see the butcher instead of sitting here, wasting time.”

  Ruben stood in front of the window and groaned. There was something fundamentally wrong about a butcher shop with spider webs spread across the windows, even if they were fake. A bell chimed somewhere inside as they opened the door, and a hefty man in a once white apron appeared as if by magic.

  On the counter sat a small bowl of sad-looking orange suckers. Probably left over from last Halloween. How many kids actually came into a store that sold raw meat to trick-or-treat? The smell of blood didn’t make his mouth water for candy. No wonder the suckers were left over. He wouldn’t be surprised to see the same ones waiting here next Halloween.

  He wasn’t worried about any kids coming by his place tonight, but Adam had insisted on stopping at a Walgreen’s for a bag of candy on the way over. Adam was getting way too domesticated. That was one reason he had no desire to own a home. Apartment living suited him just fine.

  The butcher’s face fell when he spotted Ruben’s badge. That’s right. No sale here. Although those were the best-looking steaks he’d seen in a long time.

  The entire trip was a wasted effort. The butcher and his wife had gone to Galveston for the weekend. A little second honeymoon trip to the Hotel Galvez for some make-up sex. Still within driving distance, but one phone call confirmed that his car hadn’t left valet parking. Besides, the trip had been suggested by the victim, and from the smile on the butcher’s face, was highly successful.

  The only piece of useful information was that he’d known the victim when she lived here twenty years ago. If he’d recognized her, others had, too.

  “What was she called when she lived here before?”

  “Sister Yolanda, same as now. She was still young then, a real beauty. She gave lovelorn advice. Girls asked her when they would meet Mr. Right or for the most auspicious date for their wedding. Businessmen didn’t like anyone to know they went to her for advice, so they would slip in after dark. She had the gift.”

  Some gift. Ruined her life running from it and died because of it.

  Ruben chewed on that as they returned to the car.

  “What now, partner? Any bright ideas?” Adam drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

  “There’s still El Jefe.” Ruben sighed in disgust. How was he supposed to solve this case when both his mother and the victim’s niece were withholding information?

  “Let’s head back to the office. I’ll make some phone calls and see when the autopsy is scheduled and if the lab has anything interesting to tell us. You can start checking gang activity for any one nicknamed El Jefe.”

  “Good, because I need to get this solved soon.” That damn newspaper photo flashed across his mind. Maybe he should spend the night at Mamacita’s.

  He still wouldn’t sleep, but at least he’d know she was safe.
/>   Chapter 5

  The afternoon sun filtered softly over Tessa’s shoulder and fell onto the painting she was studying. The sky just wasn’t right. She wanted a light gray, signifying hurt and loss.

  What she was getting was darker, angry looking. Maybe that was the answer; she was still too bitter.

  This painting would never be for sale. It would be for her eyes only. Not that she sold that many paintings, or made that much from them.

  The murals she painted in kids’ bedrooms paid most of her bills. Star Wars for boys and fairy castles for little princesses; with occasional constellations on walls and ceilings for future astronauts and astronomers.

  Then there were the trompe l’oeil gardens of Versailles for some matron’s fancy dining room, and portraits of their pampered pets. Or, very seldom, portraits of their spouses.

  If she hadn’t inherited from her mother, she could never have afforded this house, even at a bargain basement foreclosure price. The owners’ had trashed it before they left and she should have spent the extra funds repairing walls and sinks.

  Instead, any money left over went toward converting the detached garage into her art studio. The large windows on all sides let in light any hour of the day. She could paint whenever she had the time or the muse hit her.

  She glanced at the clock. Time was not on her side today, however. Only an hour or so of light left. Then she’d be dependent on the unsatisfactory overhead lights.

  Even those wouldn’t work tonight. Trick-or-treaters would be ringing her bell soon, and she wouldn’t miss that for the world. Halloween was her favorite holiday, even outranking Christmas. The joy evident on the kids’ faces almost made up for all the years she wasn’t allowed to participate. After all, Halloween was a ‘pagan’ holiday, or so her mother had claimed.

  The smell of paints and the feel of a brush in her hands usually calmed her. Made her forget everything except the scene in front of her. Not today. She was restless, unable to concentrate.