The Witch On Twisted Oak

by Muller, Susan C.

  Her chair teetered and almost fell as she shoved it back. The screech it made against the worn floor hung suspended in the air. She stomped through the house to the front door and held it open.

  He took an infuriatingly long time to follow her. As he stepped across the threshold, she swung around to face him. “Maybe that’s the question I should be asking you. After all, you were there.”

  She slammed the door in his face and turned the lock.

  Chapter 11

  Ruben sank into his chair with a heavy sigh. He’d spent the half-hour drive from Tessa’s house to his office puzzling over her actions and he still didn’t know what to make of them. She’d been hot, cold, helpful, defensive, open, closed, but above all, angry.

  Adam glanced up from the folder in his lap and raised an eyebrow, but Ruben had no idea what to say.

  “Did you learn anything new?” Adam snapped the file closed and set it on his desk.

  “Only that everything we’ve done or learned so far has been a waste of time.” That was the one thing he was sure of.

  Adam glanced toward the stack of folders on his desk. “You couldn’t have told me this an hour ago?”

  “Anything happen here?” He eyed Adam’s coffee cup but the vending machine brew would taste twice as foul as usual after drinking Tessa’s.

  “I have a list of twelve El Jefes, but none of them match our guy’s description. Hard Luck stopped by to ask where we were on this case.”

  Ruben’s breath caught. “What’d you tell him?”

  “That we were working diligently and had several leads we were following.”

  “Yeah? And what did he say to that?” If Hard Luck put them back in rotation, they’d never get this solved and he couldn’t live with that. Mamacita couldn’t live with that.

  Adam held his nose to imitate Hard Luck’s nasal tones. ”That’s good, because I’ve farmed out a couple of new cases since this one hit so close to home for Marquez. But you better wrap it up fast or it’ll be your hard luck.”

  “I’m afraid we’re back to square one.” Ruben ticked off items on his fingers. “The victim did keep an appointment book, but even if we find it, odds are that won’t help. She used code words or nicknames for her clients. So whoever El Jefe is, that won’t be what anyone else calls him.”

  “Fuck.” Adam turned and shoved the folders to the far corner of his desk.

  “The news that Yolanda was her real mother didn’t come as a complete surprise to Tessa, but the news that Oscar might be her father did. That doesn’t help us because it was so long ago and there was no money involved, so no one cares anymore. Whatever happened to frighten Yolanda twenty-three years ago didn’t have anything to do with her drinking or exposing herself to that kid in the woods.”

  “Then what was she doing in the woods naked in the middle of winter?” Adam’s chair squealed as he spun around to face him.

  “That’s the one thing we got right. . . you got right.”

  Adam had a blank look on his face.

  “She was celebrating the winter solstice.”

  “You’re shitting me. What was she, some kind of witch?”

  Ruben put his face in his hands. “I have no idea. I never got a chance to ask.”

  “What’d you mean, you didn’t get a chance to ask? Did something happen?” Concern coated Adam’s voice.

  “I got kicked out.”

  Adam started laughing. “I’ve seen you take on three-hundred-pound bikers, and you let a skinny little woman kick you out?”

  Not skinny. Slim. Trim. Definitely not skinny.

  Ruben felt the laugh building. He tried to stop it, but eventually gave in. “To the curb. No good-bye. No ‘See you later’. I didn’t even have a chance to say ‘Thanks for the coffee.’”

  Adam’s shoulders were shaking as he pushed his glasses up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “What did you do to her?”

  The laughter in Ruben’s gut died away. “Whatever it was, I did it twenty-three years ago.”

  Ruben caught the screen door before it banged shut. Some lessons are never forgotten. He eased the front door shut with one foot while balancing the bag of groceries. Mamacita hadn’t locked it, again.

  Delicious aromas filled the house. Maybe she was feeling better.

  He pushed through the swinging door to the kitchen. She sat at the table, a head of lettuce, two tomatoes, and a knife on a cutting board in front of her. Her hands rested in her lap and her head lolled to one side.

  When he set the bag of groceries on the table, her head jerked up and her eyes snapped open.

  “There you are. I didn’t know what time to expect you.” She shook her head. “You keep such crazy hours I couldn’t decide if I should make the salad or wait.”

  She glanced at the timer over the stove. “Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes. Go wash up and I’ll put these things away.”

  “I’ll put them away. It doesn’t take me that long to wash my hands.” He stowed the food before she had time to get up and try to help. “I need to go upstairs for something, but when I come back down, I’ll make the salad and set the table. You rest a minute. You’ve been cooking all day.”

  She didn’t object and that told Ruben all he needed to know. Was it possible she looked even weaker than she had on Sunday morning?

  They were having that talk tonight, no matter how much she protested. If he had to take off work tomorrow to drive her to the doctor, so be it.

  For now, there was something he had to find in his old room.

  Ruben took the stairs two at a time. He needed to be back in the kitchen before the buzzer went off on the timer. Fifteen minutes at the most.

  The bedroom was divided evenly between his things on the left, and Vicente’s on the right. That meant he only had to search half the room. He pulled books off the shelves and dropped them on his old twin bed. They were all either textbooks or training manuals devoted to football or police tactics.

  His desk drawers contained nothing but papers, rubber bands, and broken pencils. Where was it? He hadn’t seen it in years, but Mamacita never threw anything away.

  Eight minutes.

  The left side of the closet held his old football letter jacket and a suit he had worn to high school graduation.

  The shelf at the top of the closet was packed with football trophies, children’s stories, comic books, and toys. A thin book peeked from under a baseball mitt.

  Twelve minutes.

  He pulled it into the light. A red, fake leather book with ‘Journal’ stenciled across the top. His sixth grade teacher had made the class keep one the year they read The Diary of Anne Frank.

  Seventeen minutes.

  No time to clean up the mess now. He’d come back later, after Mamacita went to sleep. He stuffed the journal in his back pocket and hurried down the stairs.

  Mamacita had started cutting the vegetables for the salad. She ran her eyes up and down him. Was he sweating? He turned his back and grabbed a couple of plates and set them on the table, then found silverware and napkins.

  The buzzer sounded before he finished setting the table.

  “The roast needs to rest five minutes before you carve it,” she warned him.

  “I know, Mamacita. By the time I make a pitcher of ice tea and find the salad dressing, it’ll be ready.”

  The roast wasn’t the only one that needed five minutes. He had to figure out how to talk to her, what to say so she wouldn’t brush him off or get mad and refuse to discuss it.

  Maybe after they ate.

  Ruben pushed his plate away. The roast, the potatoes, the carrots, everything had been delicious. He’d eaten, but not with his usual gusto. Not while Mamacita moved the food around on her plate, pretending to eat.

  He reached across the table and placed his hand on top of hers. “Tomorrow I’m taking you to the doctor.”

  She tried to pull her hand back, but he held on. “I don’t need to see a doctor. I’m just a little tired from not sleepi
ng well. It happens every fall when the pollen starts flying. I’ll go to the drugstore tomorrow and get something.”

  “If it’s allergies, great. The doctor can tell us that, and he can give you a prescription that will really work. But we are going to see him. Tomorrow. Now go and watch TV while I clean the kitchen.”

  As soon as he heard the TV come on, he grabbed his cell phone from his jacket pocket and punched in Adam’s number from the speed dial.

  Adam answered with no preliminaries. “What’s up, partner?”

  “I may be late tomorrow. I’m going to take Mamacita to the doctor.”

  Silence greeted him on the other end.

  “Well?”

  “I’m just wondering what took you so long. I‘ve been expecting this since I saw her on Sunday. Only I thought you’d talk one of your sisters into doing it.”

  “I’m not even sure where Ramona is. Emily blew me off.” Big surprise. “I could try Julio’s wife or Vicente’s fiancée, but Mamacita wouldn’t like that.”

  “Do you want me to call Jillian? She’d be happy to do it and Mamacita actually likes her.”

  “I know, and I considered that, but this is my job.”

  “Take your time tomorrow. I have plenty of work to keep me busy. We’ve let a couple of our other cases slide this week.”

  Ruben hung up and slipped the phone back in his pocket. He finished cleaning the kitchen and peeked through the door into the den.

  Mamacita’s head drooped as she dozed in front to the TV.

  Chapter 12

  The morning’s clear sky had turned to gray and an afternoon thunderstorm threatened. That suited Ruben just fine. It matched his mood perfectly.

  He dropped a Subway sandwich on Adam’s desk without a word then plopped into his chair to unwrap his own. The spicy aroma of the meatball sub should have tempted him, but it left him cold.

  Adam looked up from his sandwich, a smudge of sauce on the corner of his lip. “How’s Mamacita? Were you able to find out anything?”

  Ruben studied his sub, but didn’t taste it. “Not really. The doc did some blood tests, so it’ll be a couple of days before we know anything. He thinks she’s anemic. He gave her a prescription and I stopped to get it filled.”

  “That sounds logical. It would account for how she’s feeling.”

  “Yeah.” Then why didn’t that make him feel better? He knew in his gut that the problem went deeper than that. And his gut was seldom wrong. “Did you get anything accomplished while I was gone?”

  “I got a lot of busy work done. Hard Luck stopped by and asked where you were. I told him and he didn’t even make a sarcastic comment. Do you think he’s mellowing in his old age?”

  “Nah, he’s just waiting for the right moment.” Their lieutenant was fair. He wouldn’t kick a man when he was down. He’d wait until the guy was back up again, then give it to him.

  “I got a lead on our driver. As soon as we finish these”—Adam stopped to wipe his mouth—“let’s head out and see if we can find him.”

  Ruben picked up his sandwich and took a bite. Maybe he could eat after all.

  Gordo Cordova, Triple D to his friends, still lived with his mother in a modest but decent neighborhood on the east side of the city. He wasn’t the old man they’d been looking for, but a thirty-seven-year-old with a receding hairline he camouflaged by shaving his head.

  Ruben flipped through the printout Adam had handed him while on the drive across town. Triple D’s father had passed away three years earlier and he was running the family’s limousine service for his mother. From the looks of things, he’d almost run it into the ground.

  Between providing free rides for his gang buddies, and, according to one review on Google, “Smoking nonstop until the car and all passengers smelled like a pool hall on Saturday night,” Cordova’s Limo Services was nearly bankrupt.

  Adam stopped across the street and one house down from Gordo’s home. The house was definitely modest, but not so decent. The entire neighborhood was run down, but none as much as the Cordova’s.

  If Gordo had repaired a shutter or repainted a porch rail since his father passed, it didn’t show. The black Lincoln Town Car was nowhere to be seen.

  Ruben and Adam watched the house for several minutes, but didn’t see a single light or any sign of movement.

  They approached from the side and rang the bell. Voices drifted out, but they had the mechanical sound of a television program. The door opened with a creak and a white-haired woman held onto the doorsill with a frail, liver-spotted hand.

  “Yes?” Her voice was as weak as her frame.

  Adam had his badge out and opened his mouth, but Ruben held up his hand to stop him.

  He gazed into eyes that were milky white and unfocused, then glanced into the darkened room. The television was playing, but an announcer spoke over the music. “A young man with curly hair and glasses enters the diner. He is wearing jeans and a red T-shirt. He crosses the room and sits at the counter.”

  The dialogue resumed as the young man in the movie spoke to the waitress and placed his order.

  Ruben gave a slight nod to Adam and dropped his voice even lower than his usual deep rumble. “Yo. Triple D home?”

  The woman sighed and swung her head toward the direction of his voice. “I told the last one of you hoodlums that I hadn’t seen him since Saturday. Now get off my porch and when you find him, tell him I need him to come home. I’m almost out of food.”

  Ruben grunted and pivoted toward the car, tromping down the steps loud enough that she could certainly hear him over her movie.

  Adam shook his head as he opened the car door. “No wonder she doesn’t know he’s run the business into the ground. She’ll be lucky not to end up on welfare.”

  Ruben’s jaws clenched. “What kind of sick son-of-a-bitch runs off and leaves his blind mother alone with no food?”

  The car slid into traffic as Adam checked the side-view mirror.

  “Even if we find Gordo, he won’t be going home.”

  Adam waved one hand in the air and spoke in a high-pitched voice, complete with eerie sound effects. “‘I see jail in your immediate future, Mr. Triple D.’ Didn’t you used to know a woman in Adult Social Services? Maybe you should give her a call.”

  The back of Ruben’s neck felt hot. “Um . . . It might be better if you were the one who called her. She’d likely hang up on me.”

  The office was louder and more crowded than when they left. Almost every desk was filled and anyone not on the phone was on the computer or talking to their partner.

  Hard Luck eyed them from his office door and waved them over. “Making any progress on the psychic case?”

  Ruben pumped enthusiasm into his voice. “We’ve identified the driver for the main suspect. We’ll have him run down by the end of the day. Tomorrow morning at the latest.”

  Hard Luck looked skeptical. “You better show some progress by tomorrow. Otherwise it’s your hard luck. The citizens of Houston haven’t stopped murdering each other just because you’re busy. Cases are piling up around here.”

  Adam moved closer to Hard Luck’s desk. “We’ve closed the book on the Harding case. ME says it was suicide.”

  “Allow me find you a medal. You let the ME close a case for you. Now get out of here and get back to work.”

  Ruben speed-walked back to his desk before Hard Luck handed them a new case. Adam followed close behind.

  “You didn’t tell me the Harding case was settled. When did the ME notify you?”

  “I called him this morning, but the official ruling came about ten minutes ago. While I was parking the car. That should keep Hard Luck off our ass for twenty-four hours at least.” Adam sank into his chair and it let out its usual protesting squeal. He rummaged in his bottom drawer and pulled out a well-used can of WD-40 and gave the chair a couple of squirts.

  “How about I put out an APB for Triple D and the black limo while you call Adult Social Services for his mom?”
>
  “Deal. Should I mention your name?” Adam tossed the can back into the drawer and wiped his fingers on a tissue from the box he kept on his desk.

  Ruben gritted his teeth. “I don’t know. Should I call Mia in Records and ask for speedy service by using your name?”

  “Right. I’ll pretend I don’t know you.”

  Ruben had finished his calls and was reaching for his computer when his phone rang. “Marquez, Homicide.”

  “Ruben? It’s Tessa Reyna.” Her voice sounded shaky.

  “Tessa, what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know. It was probably nothing, but I had a phone call that made me nervous. Especially after your lecture about locking my door.”

  “Why don’t you let me decide if it’s anything? What’d the caller say?”

  She sighed, and her voice sounded steadier. “That’s just it. He didn’t say anything. He hung up as soon as I answered. But this time I realized I’d had several of those hang-ups lately.”

  “What about your caller ID? What did it say?”

  “It said ‘Blocked.’ I think at least one of the other hang-ups said the same thing, but I can’t be sure about the rest, I had cleared the memory from my phone.”

  “You said he. If he didn’t say anything, how do you know it was a he?” Ruben glanced up and saw Adam on his phone, jotting notes on a pad.

  She didn’t answer for a moment. “I don’t. It could have been a woman for all I know. Or a machine. That’s what all those ads and political calls do, don’t they? Block their name so you don’t know who is calling.”

  Maybe, but they usually hung up if no one was home, not when they answered. “Would you like me to run a trace on your phone?”

  “No,” she almost shouted. “I’m being silly. I’m sure it was a wrong number or something.”

  Adam knocked on the corner of his desk and pointed to the note in his hand. He already had his weapon in his holster and was reaching for his coat.

  Ruben swiveled his chair sidewise, blocking his view of Adam. “Do you need me to come over or send a patrolman by?”