by Louise Ure
I was glad Bonita’s rent was paid up for a while, but if I was going to stay in Tucson, I’d need supplies.
I stopped at a Safeway to stock up on some of the basics. Milk, eggs, coffee, and beef jerky. It was a light load, and I swung the plastic bag as I returned to the car.
My father was waiting at the VW’s back door. His jaw was more saggy than chiseled now, and he’d moved on to bifocal glasses, but his eyes were still bright blue behind the magnified lenses.
“I was wondering who’d be driving Bonita’s car.”
“Dad.” I wanted so badly to wrap my arms around him, but didn’t know how he’d react. We’d left a lot unsaid at our last meeting, that day he’d chosen to sever his ties with me in order to preserve his marriage.
“Oh, honey.” He opened his arms wide and I moved into them. “God, it’s been so long,” he said into my hair. He pushed me back at arm’s length and sidestepped the last two and a half years. “You look great. What are you doing back in town? Is everything okay?”
I explained about HandsOn, Markson’s call, and Len Sabin’s crusade.
“I’ll call Deke. He’ll know what to do.”
“I’ve already seen him. He’s doing what he can, Dad.” I could hopscotch past a two-year absence as well.
He watched silently while I unlocked the car, put the groceries on the passenger seat, and rolled down the window to cool off the inside.
“I know you didn’t kill anybody, Jessie. You couldn’t.”
My dad’s personal Pledge of Allegiance. I loved him for it, even if some of the faith was misguided. And what he didn’t know definitely would have hurt him.
I wrapped my arms around him, still innocent in his eyes.
I should say it now. Tell him that all his support, all the money he’d put up that that first lawyer frittered away, all the fights he’d started, were a waste. That I was guilty as charged.
I couldn’t do it.
“The jury says I didn’t.”
“That’s good enough for me. Come have dinner with us, Jes. Come see your mom.”
“Can’t. I made a promise.”
“It was a stupid promise.”
I remembered my mother’s snarled accusation outside the courtroom. “I only have six children!”
“It scared her, Jessie, that’s all. Thinking that the county attorney might be right. I’m sure she understands now. Come home. Have dinner with us.”
I shook my head. To my mother, my father’s sin had been to believe in me. What had the last three years been like for him? Did he have to muzzle himself not to defend me in conversation? Or had he, too, settled into a smaller, safer life without me?
“Go home. Tell her I’m in town. Then we’ll see where it goes from there.”
He offered his arms once more. I hugged him tight, feeling the pain that three years as Believer In Chief had cost him.
Chapter Eleven
I dropped off the groceries at Bonita’s and left a message on Martin’s voicemail that I’d be staying for a while. Interesting that he hadn’t told my parents I was in town. The first year I’d been gone, Martin would leave phone messages every few months with greetings, news, and updates. When I didn’t respond, the calls grew less frequent, finally petering out about a year ago. I guess Martin finally agreed that there were only six kids in the family now.
I’d need a job soon, not for immediate living expenses, but for money to get out of town. A new life, somewhere far away from memories of Walter Racine. And equally far away from a cop named Sabin who saw me as the villain in both old and new crimes.
In the meantime, I needed to know more about the Marksons, the Villalobos, the Ochoas, and Paul Willard. I’d start with the lawyer, because I already trusted him the least.
Twenty cents a minute bought me computer time at Kinko’s, and a Google search didn’t take much longer than that. Willard had grown up in Phoenix and become a partner with his firm’s Tucson branch six years ago. They handled all kinds of legal work, but it looked like their bread and butter was estate management and corporate representation. I wondered if he handled Markson’s real estate business as well as his personal legal work, and whether any of the Ochoa operations were clients of his.
I did the same kind of search on Markson. Nobody had changed the corporate Web site yet; it still featured a photo of a black-haired, thin-lipped Darren Markson with the tagline “A Markson house is a Mark of Distinction!” There was a sidebar about his firm donating funds and personnel to build day-care centers in several low-income housing areas around the city. All in all, he looked like a saint.
I didn’t know enough about the patriarchs of the Ochoa clan to do a comprehensive search of their businesses. They probably owned half of the sweatshop-like maquiladoras across the border and almost all of the fruit and vegetable importing from the northern Mexico states, but they rarely had their name in the company business. They’d more likely be named something like “Frutas de Sonora” or “O&R Manufacturing.”
A Google search for Guillermo or Carlos Ochoa gave me far too many options. I’d do better if I found people who knew Felicia and could tell me more about her relationship to Carlos.
I logged off and paid for my time. Rolling down the windows on the VW again, I waited for the furnace air inside to dissipate before getting in the car. I’d been sidetracked by the discovery of Carlos Ochoa, so I hadn’t talked to anybody at Cholla High School. Now was as good a time as any to change that.
I didn’t know if any kids would still be around this late in the afternoon, but I might be able to catch one of the teachers.
The school was a linked set of hexagonal structures around a green quad. There were no spaces left in the visitor lot, so I cruised over to the student parking on the east side. Hell, the VW looked more at home there anyway.
The front doors of the building were propped open and I followed the hallway to the principal’s office. Two women about my age were leaning across the linoleum-topped counter discussing recipes.
“I’m with the Examiner,” I lied. “We’d like to do a follow-up story on Felicia Villalobos, the young woman who was killed in that car blast this week. Is there anyone here who could help me?”
“I was her homeroom teacher,” the young woman on my side of the counter said, extending a hand. “Sally Martin.”
“Jessie.” Thankful that she hadn’t asked for ID, I pulled a small spiral notebook from my purse. “Were you close to her? Is there anything you can tell me about her?”
“She was a great kid. More mature than many teenagers. She was doing well.”
“Did she belong to any clubs or organizations?”
“I think she was in the journalism club,” the woman behind the counter said.
She reached to her left to grab a yearbook, then paged through the book until she came to Felicia’s junior class picture. Felicia looked happier in the photo than she had at the arroyo.
“That’s right,” the blond homeroom teacher said. “And she was following our public safety program.”
“What’s that?”
“We’re a magnet school. There are special classes to get the kids ready for legal and law-enforcement careers.”
“She wanted to be a cop?” I made a note with a question mark behind it.
“No, a lawyer.”
I made another note. Felicia may not have been just the first high school graduate in her family; it sounded like she was on the road to even more than that. How did she get involved in something that scared her so badly?
“…like to see it?” She was mid-sentence and I hadn’t heard any of it. “It’s really state-of-the-art.”
I had no idea what I was agreeing to, but turned to accompany Sally Martin down the hall. The linoleum floor had a waxy sheen and our steps sent echoes ahead of us like explorers in a cave.
“Here,” she said, opening a door and flipping on the light.
It was a courtroom, as real as any I’d ever seen, right there in
the middle of a high school. The judge’s bench was raised, and the prosecution and defense tables lined up in supplication at its feet. I walked down the aisle, ran my fingers over the defense table, and approached the bench.
“Go ahead and take the judge’s chair,” Martin said. “The kids say they feel different when they’re asked to take the role of judge or jury in one of our mock trials.”
I walked behind the witness box and sat down in the judge’s chair, spinning around like I was trying it out before buying it.
“Felicia did a great job last semester on a mock trial. She wanted to specialize in immigration law.”
My mouth was dry and I felt light-headed. I hadn’t been in a courtroom since my own verdict was read, and this room was bringing all the bad parts of that memory back. The photos of Walter Racine’s dead body next to the car—his leg sticking out like a bent match and one eye still open, surprised by the gaping wound in his forehead. His wife Elizabeth’s testimony about how I’d hounded the police to bring charges against her husband. I stared at the defendant’s chair in front of me.
“Can I get some water?” I croaked.
“Sure. It’s just around the corner.”
She led me back to the hall and a drinking fountain.
“Sorry. Don’t know what happened in there. Must be a touch of heatstroke.”
“Sure,” she said, but I knew she didn’t believe it.
The secretary was still in the office when we got back.
“I forgot to ask, are there any students that Felicia was especially close to?”
Sally Martin reached for the yearbook, flipping past the individual photos to the club and activity section. “I’ve forgotten her name…what is it…Susan? Sandy? She was in the journalism club last year, too, and they were always sitting together. Stacy, that’s it. Here she is.” She tapped the face of a tall, thin blonde with charcoaled eyes.
“May I borrow this?” I used a Kleenex to mop the remaining sweat off my forehead before picking up the book.
“Sure. Anything you need. Just bring it back when you can.”
The secretary’s voice caught me at the door. “When do you think this story will run? I’d like to cut out a copy for our display in the hallway.”
I’d seen the display cabinet on the way in. Right now it held sports trophies and a papier-mâché horse’s head to represent their mascot, the Charger. A sad obituary about the death of a budding lawyer would change the tone perceptibly.
“As soon as I can make it do her justice.”
I stopped at the garage to pay the bill for the truck repairs, and they offered to follow me home. I gave the guy a ride back once I’d parked the VW.
Felicia’s journalism club friend was Stacy Kronwetter. A call to information confirmed only one number with that last name in Tucson. I phoned, hoping that the Examiner reporter ruse would work twice.
“Stacy? I’m writing a piece about Felicia for the paper. Do you think we could meet for a little while and talk about her?”
Stacy was less wary about meeting an adult she didn’t know than I would have been at her age. Maybe it was the journalism connection that sparked her interest. Hopefully, it wasn’t something she did on a regular basis after an Internet or telephone contact.
“But I’ve got to get to work,” she said.
“Where’s that?”
“The sunglasses kiosk at the Tucson Mall. I could take a break around seven.”
We agreed to meet at the smoothie place next door. I recognized the thin face and heavy eye shadow when she came in. Seventeen going on thirty.
“Can I get you something?” I already had a peach juice and wheat germ concoction in front of me.
“Just water.”
She’d be down to a hundred pounds by the end of the semester at this rate. I got her a large bottle of water.
“I’d like to know more about Felicia,” I said when I sat back down. “The police are looking at her friendship with Carlos. Do you think he had anything to do with getting her killed?”
She unscrewed the cap and took a sip. “I don’t know. Carlos is a great guy, but he has some lousy friends.”
“Like who?”
She eyed my notebook with suspicion. I closed it and put it back in my bag.
“Ricky Lamas. Bob Eleven. Reuben something-or-other. It starts with an S.”
I committed the names to memory, not wanting to scare her off with a notation.
“Do they go to Cholla?”
“No. They’re friends of his from Nogales. But a couple of times they came to parties up here.”
Maybe they were part of Carlos’s gang past.
“Are they about his age?”
She nodded. “Yeah. They said they went to school together. And they were sure old enough to buy beer.”
“Tell me more about Felicia. Did she like hanging around with these guys? What was she like with them?”
“She hated it. Carlos was so different when they were around—all like ‘hey, cabrón’ and ‘in your face,’ and like that. He was lots nicer when it was just him.”
“Did Felicia ever seem scared of them?”
“Not Licia. She was all like, ‘I can take care of this.’ She was going to be a lawyer, you know?”
“What are you going to be?”
The fluorescent lights overhead caught the gleam of her glitter eye shadow and she grinned. “A reporter. Just like you.”
The sun was down and I needed to go down with it. Roll around with the sweat and the stink until I couldn’t remember my name.
I’d been too long alone, and today was looking more lonesome than most. Lying about who I was all day long—to teachers, to teenagers, to good-looking Hispanic guys, to my father. Just another cover story for a life, not even the life I wished I’d lived. I’d dated a guy once who couldn’t tell the truth if he was paid to do so. But his lies were crafted to make himself look more respectable, more interesting. “That your car?” someone would ask. “Nah, it’s a loaner. My Porsche is in the shop getting all tricked out.”
My lies, born out of self-preservation, were meant to create a barrier between myself and the world—a hard-edged shadow line of separation. That separation had become even more defining when I found out about my adoption. My whole life had already been a lie.
I stopped at a bar with a flashing neon arrow promising icy-cold beer. Miranda Lambert’s “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” was playing on the jukebox. “To a hammer everything looks like a nail,” she snarled.
I knew how she felt. Back in Phoenix I had been able to keep the guilt-shakes away. I’d never wondered what each day might have brought Walter Racine, if he’d lived. I hadn’t hungered to find out who my birth parents were. Here in Tucson, the shakes were back in force. What did I stand for? What could I count on? Who was I?
Tonight, for just a moment, I wanted to lose myself, punish myself past the point of redemption, and forget all about being Jessica Dancing Gammage—whoever that was.
I sat down next to a cowboy at the bar. He was whippet thin, with deep-set eyes and a black Stetson that curled unevenly on the sides. No wedding ring, but there was a lighter place on his finger where one had recently been. He looked younger than me, and didn’t seem to mind that.
“You ride?” I asked, pointing at his midsection.
“Only for money.” He tipped the salad plate-sized belt buckle up to the light until I could see the design. Silver hills in the background and a bucking horse in gold in the center. “Second Place, Texas Rodeo 2006,” it read.
“Bareback or saddle?”
His lips curled in understanding. “You sound like you ride for money, too. Are you a pro? A cop?”
I shook my head. “Just a girl looking for a good time.”
He stacked his change on the bar and tapped it in a rhythm that didn’t match the song coming through the speakers. “Is there a husband out there somewhere who’s going to start banging on the door just when things get interesting?”
“Nobody,” I promised him.
“Then let’s go.”
He paid for my beer, downed the rest of whatever was in his shot glass, and took me by the hand. We didn’t have far to go; there was a U-shaped motel next door that promised air-conditioning and free cable for only $19.95 a night.
I waited outside while he got a key. He kissed me on the cheek and guided me toward a room on the far end of the U with a hand on my ass.
“I guess today’s my lucky day,” he said, flattening me against the inside of the door. “By the way, my name’s—”
“Shh.” I held my finger against his lips. “Get a condom, cowboy. And no names.”
I didn’t stay to see what was on cable. Aching, sore, and a little bruised around the mouth, I put my clothes back on in the dark and left the cowboy snoring.
It was only midnight, but my blood was singing. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get to sleep and I was hungry. I cranked the windows down and headed east, stopping to buy a giant chicken burrito at a takeout place on Grant.
I’d thought my route across town was aimless until I realized that I was only a couple of blocks from Carlos Ochoa’s house. I slowed and turned onto his street.
It was a quiet neighborhood; a dog nuzzled a garbage can on the corner but nothing else moved in the street. I saw a blue glow behind some bedroom curtains and someone whistled, probably for that errant dog.
I stopped in front of Ochoa’s house. Nothing going on. And why should there be? The house was a shell; Guillermo certainly wouldn’t be staying there.
For no good reason except eternal hope, I walked around to the backyard. The tile saw had been removed, maybe taken back to the place he’d rented it from. My feet left dainty canyons in wet mud as I approached the concrete slab of porch.
Damn. I should have expected it. He’d washed my chalked phone number away.
Chapter Twelve
Deke Treadwell woke me at ten o’clock the next day with heavy pounding on the front door.