by Kaye George
Near lunchtime, a dark, handsome young man came in and hesitated just inside the door.
“Can I help y’all?” Yolanda called from farther back in the store.
“Is…is Raul here?” He ducked his head and looked around nervously.
“Oh, you must be his cousin, Mateo. Is that right?” Those Fuentes men were certainly good-looking, she thought. So was Kevin, her mind added, so as not to be disloyal to him.
Mateo nodded. “I need to see Raul.”
“He just left to deliver a basket.” The garden club basket had been easy and they had whipped that one out first. Mostly cut flowers arranged with three small potted plants and a lot of ribbon.
“Can I wait for him? I really need to talk to him.”
“Sure. Have a seat.” She pointed out the chairs that clients sometimes sat in to look at books with pictures of basket types and decoration ideas.
He sank into the chair and stared at the floor between his shoes. He seemed as despondent as Raul was today. Maybe she’d find out what was going on when the cousins talked to each other.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Yolanda asked. “Water or iced tea?”
He shook his head without looking up at her.
Raul soon returned and stopped as soon as he was inside the door. He raised his eyebrows, surprised to see his cousin in the store. He was feeling something else, too, from the look in his narrowed eyes. Upset? Angry? His cousin jumped up as Raul stalked toward him.
“Teo! What are you doing here? Why would you come to my work?” Raul sounded annoyed. He halted in front of him and stood almost toe to toe with Mateo.
“Rulo, I need you to help me. I got fired again.” Unlike Raul, Mateo had a soft, lilting accent. Yolanda thought she saw tears in Mateo’s liquid brown eyes.
“What do you think I can do about that? I can’t give you a job.”
Mateo looked over at Yolanda with huge, shiny eyes.
“No, Mateo, I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t afford to pay another employee.”
Mateo slumped back into the chair, his shoulders sagging, his eyes going dull.
“Cuz, you can’t keep losing jobs. Did you fall asleep delivering pizzas, too?”
Mateo glanced at Yolanda. “No. I didn’t fall asleep. Why are you saying that?”
“Because you fell asleep at your last—”
“Rulo! Cállate!”
Yolanda’s father was Italian, had been born there and come to America at a fairly young age and her mother was Latina, a Texan for generations. At home, when things got heated between them, they both lapsed into their first languages to argue. Spanish and Italian were enough alike that they could understand each other, and Yolanda picked up a lot of words in both languages. Especially, words that were rather unkind. She knew Mateo had just told his cousin to shut up.
“You’ve been in too many wrong places at the wrong times lately,” said Raul. “I don’t know what to think. You’re mixed up in something bad.”
Mateo threw one more look at Yolanda, a worried one, and hurried out the front door.
Raul stood, seething, looking daggers at his cousin’s departing back. When Mateo disappeared, Raul shook his head and walked slowly to the table where Yolanda had the next basket half assembled. She had chosen a garden party theme for the older woman, since she was already doing the other garden-themed basket and planned on picking up a piece, or maybe several pieces, of embroidery for embellishment.
“Raul, what’s going on? Why are you so mad at him? Why did he tell you to shut up?”
“He’s…he’s not hanging out with the right people.”
“Is he the one you said was volunteering with the Crime Fritzers?”
Raul nodded as he picked up a colorful seed packet and tucked it into the basket beside a miniature sprinkling can.
“Are those the wrong people you’re talking about?”
“No, no, not them.” Raul shook his head. “But that wreck. The time he fell asleep. He was driving the truck that had our plastics in it.”
“Are you saying you think he had something to do with the jade that was being smuggled?” She had talked about the jade with Raul after learning some of the details of it from Tally.
Raul looked at her with despair in his eyes. “I don’t know what to think.” He was almost wailing. “He’s my cousin and I love him.”
Yolanda shook her head. “We don’t get to pick our relatives, do we?”
“But he’s been acting so nervous lately. Like he’s guilty of something.”
“He got fired when he fell asleep, right?”
“Yes. And now he’s gotten fired again, from his pizza delivery job, he says.”
“Fired? Why was that? Do you know? It didn’t have anything to do with smuggling, surely. You don’t smuggle pizza.”
Raul took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. “I don’t know. He delivered a pizza and the guy was dead.”
“Oh! That was him? He found the guy in the motel?”
“He said he saw a wooden crutch on the floor before the police took him away to give them a statement.”
Yolanda tried to put together the pieces of what Raul was telling her. She knew that the driver of the smaller truck had a broken leg from the accident that, apparently, Raul’s cousin caused by falling asleep at the wheel, making a night delivery. Then the crime watch guy was beaten up with a crutch. And now a crutch showed up next to a dead guy that Mateo—the driver of the truck that broke the guy’s leg—discovered.
“I don’t know,” she said. “This all sounds like bad luck to me. I don’t see how any of this means that Mateo is mixed up with the smugglers.”
Raul shrugged and arranged some plastic sprigs of greenery around the seed packets. “I just know something is wrong with him and he’s acting strange. I’ve never seen him like this. He’s nervous all the time. The way he’s acting, it’s just not like him.” Raul’s voice sounded flat, dejected.
“Have y’all asked him what’s wrong?”
“He won’t talk to me. Doesn’t answer my questions, just changes the subject.”
While Raul was gone making the last delivery of the day, Yolanda quietly called Kevin and asked if he could have dinner with her again.
“Sure. Name the time and place.”
“This time I have something I’d like to talk to you about.” If she discussed the situation with Mateo and Raul, maybe it would help her sort out what was going on, who was involved with what.
10
Yolanda was glad that her relationship with Kevin was on solid enough footing that he readily agreed to meet. They decided they would see each other for dinner in half an hour. She shooed Raul out early. It had been a good day for Bella’s Baskets. Three new basket orders delivered and paid for. She hadn’t taken a penny from her father in months. Maybe she was on her way to being self-sufficient and getting free from his controlling clutches. She knew her father loved her, but she needed to leave the stifling nest and fly. She couldn’t consider herself a whole person unless—until, she corrected herself—until that happened.
She closed up the shop after Raul left and then called her little sister, Violetta.
“Yo, I was going to call you,” she said, her voice bright. “I have some big news.”
Yolanda heard what sounded like pure joy in Violetta’s voice. “You sound like you’re grinning.”
“I am! Like a Cheshire cat or something. I’m crazy with smiling.”
“Something to do with Eden?” Only the woman her sister loved could make her this happy, Yolanda thought.
“We’re getting married! You’re the first person I’m telling.”
She’d been right. “Wonderful, Vi! Do y’all have a date?” Her sister deserved this after being shunned by her own parents for merely being who she was. Poor kid.
<
br /> “Not yet. We’re going to enjoy being engaged for a bit, then move to the next step. I never in my life thought this would happen to me.”
Yolanda hesitated to bring up the subject of their parents. Mostly their father. “Are you going to…announce it?” She thought she was being oblique.
“You mean am I going to tell Papa?” Vi got it, oblique or not.
“Do you want me to?”
“I don’t care if he never finds out, actually. He’ll want nothing to do with it. With me. With us.”
“That’s not true, Vi. He loves you.” At least he used to. Violetta had been their father’s obvious favorite, up until the moment Vi announced that she had a girlfriend. He had switched his fierce devotion to Yolanda after that, to the daughter he had always ignored, but Yolanda felt nothing but resentment for the years he’d regarded her as the inferior, lesser daughter. Surely their papa still loved Violetta, deep inside. “Don’t you think he’ll come around when he hears you’re getting married?”
“I do not.”
“I’ll let y’all know what he says. He might surprise us.”
“You don’t have to tell him. I don’t intend to.”
Yolanda congratulated her sister again and told her to give Eden a hug from her, but despondency descended as soon as the call ended and her false cheerfulness vanished. She knew Violetta was right. He would never forgive his daughter for being gay. Maybe he couldn’t forgive himself for not knowing that about her, for not knowing who his daughter really was. But he would never succeed in making Yolanda into the substitute for the adored favorite he no longer had. She would not let that happen.
She shook off the feeling and got ready to see Kevin. It was her habit to keep a small bag handy at work that contained some large pieces of gold jewelry, extra makeup, a dressy pair of sandals with straps and heels, and a hairbrush and spray to fluff her wild mane into awesome dimensions. Just in case she got last-minute dinner invitations. Or, in this case, unless she delivered the invitation and it was, happily, accepted.
Kevin was already seated when she arrived, and was holding a table in the dimly-lit outdoor section of the restaurant, festooned with strands of dangling twinkle lights. Yolanda pulled out her chair, swishing her skirts and tossing her mane, accompanied by the ringing of the gold bangle bracelets that slid up and down her wrist as she sat.
“I got us some onion rings,” he said. “And ordered a white for you.”
With Kevin owning a wineshop and vineyard, he knew almost everything about wines. She knew he had ordered something good. He could be completely trusted on that subject. The glass sat at her place, keeping his glass company. He sometimes, not often, liked to go out to sample other local wines, so tonight they were in a restaurant associated with a rival wine merchant.
He raised his glass. “Here’s to us.” They clinked and he asked, “How’s everything?”
“I think I’m just about recovered from the break-in. I lost money because we didn’t do any business that day. But we had a very good day today. How about you?”
He grinned over the rim after his first sip. “I’m seeing my daughter next week.”
“Kaycee?” Until two nights ago, she didn’t know he had a daughter, let alone anything about her. Not even her name.
“She wants to connect with me. Now that her mother and I are apart, officially.”
“How often do you see her?”
“Lately, not nearly enough. That will change, starting now.”
He was obviously looking forward to seeing her. “How old is she?”
“A little younger than you. Rachel was very young when we got married.”
Yolanda thought his daughter would have to be more than “a little” younger, but she was relieved that the daughter wasn’t older. That would be… well, inappropriate. People would talk.
“That’s nice,” was all she could think of to say.
He seemed so happy about seeing his daughter that Yolanda would try very hard to be pleased for him. She hoped she could meet her soon, but didn’t want to ask, for some reason.
The onion rings were delivered and Yolanda bit into the juicy part, enjoying being with Kevin, eating good food, with the knowledge her shop was doing well.
“Anything more about your broken window incident, and who was involved?” Kevin asked.
“Not really. Except for something Raul said today. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. His cousin came over. I think he wanted me to give him a job.”
“A job at Bella’s Baskets? That’s strange. Isn’t it?”
“He’s a strange guy. He’s been fired from two jobs very recently.”
“He doesn’t sound like a good risk. You’re not hiring him, are you?”
Yolanda laughed. “I wouldn’t hire him anyway. I can’t afford to pay anyone else. But Raul was so upset.”
“Why? Because he came to you?”
“No, for losing the jobs, I think. And he thinks something else is upsetting his cousin, but doesn’t know what exactly.”
“What kind of work does he do?”
Yolanda leaned closer and lowered her voice. “He was the driver of the truck for Planet Earth Plastics. The one that wrecked.” She had looked up the invoice to be sure of the name of the manufacturer.
“So he’s a truck driver. A bad one. Even more strange to want a job in a basket shop. Did he say anything about the wreck?”
“He fell asleep, he says.”
“A very bad truck driver. What was the second job he lost?”
“Pizza delivery.”
“Don’t tell me. He wrecked a car for the pizza company?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think so. He didn’t say exactly why he was fired. But listen to this. Okay, first, he drove the truck that carried the smuggled jade. The truck driving job, obviously.” She ticked off number one on her fingers. “Then, he delivered pizza to a guy who was dead when he got there.” Yolanda ticked off the second finger.
“Bad luck for him. Poor guy.” Kevin raised his wineglass for a sip, swirling his glass and observing the behavior of the liquid.
“He said that there were crutches in the room with the dead guy.”
He set down his glass. “And the guy who broke your window was beaten up with crutches, wasn’t he?”
“I think maybe the window-breaker was the one who beat up the dead man in the motel.”
“It sounds like Raul’s cousin is in that mess, deep. Up to his eyeballs.”
“You think so? You yourself said it was bad luck.”
“Nah, that’s too much coincidence. Keep away from him. In fact, I wonder if Raul is involved, too.”
“No!” Yolanda pointed her onion ring at Kevin. “He is not involved. Raul is a good kid.”
Kevin gave her a skeptical look over the rim of his glass.
* * * *
When Tally got home, she noticed a message on her cell to call Detective Rogers. She kicked off her shoes, got a glass of iced tea, and sat on the couch. Which was a signal for Nigel to leap up next to her and lean on her arm, making it difficult to sip the tea and talk on the phone.
“You called?” she said when he answered. She could tell from the background noise that he was still at work. “Working late tonight?”
“I’m doing it for you.” He chuckled. “Kind of, I guess. It’s you and Yolanda that the victim robbed.”
“Victim?”
“Yes, the guy in the motel, the one on crutches.”
“Why are you calling him a victim? Was he the one found dead by the pizza guy?” She noticed a few new frayed places on her blue couch cushions. Was that Nigel’s doing, or just old age on the part of the couch? Or both?
Jackson’s voice got a lot more serious. “You didn’t know that, did you? Maybe I shouldn’t have let that spill. I figured you pro
bably knew Mateo.”
“Who’s Mateo?” Tally struggled to juggle her tea, her phone, and her cat. Only a few drops of tea spilled onto her lap. She had heard that name. “Is he Raul’s cousin?”
“You know what? I’m saying way too much. Ask Yolanda who he is. She should know.”
As soon as Tally hung up, Yolanda called.
“Tally, can you talk right now?”
“Last time I checked.” She started reciting the alphabet in a singsong voice.
“Smart aleck. Listen, I’m not sure what’s going on, but maybe we can figure this out together.”
“Figure what out?” Nigel bumped her arm with the top of his head. This time some tea fell on his dry, pristine fur. He bolted from the couch, highly insulted. Anyway, it was time for him to eat.
“Raul’s cousin,” Yolanda said.
“What about him?” Tally set her tea glass on the side table and went into the kitchen.
Tally heard Yolanda take in a deep breath before she plunged on. “Okay, Mateo showed up today asking me for a job and it turns out he was the driver for Planet Earth. And he was the person who found a dead guy with crutches in his room.”
“Slow down, slow down. I’m assuming Raul’s cousin is named Mateo, right?” Clutching her phone between her head and shoulder, she managed to get din-din into Nigel’s bowl and set it on the floor.
“Right.”
“Jackson told me the cousin found the guy on crutches.” Tally sat on a kitchen stool and watched the chubby cat do his best to get chubbier.
“No, not on crutches. With crutches.”
Tally was getting more confused by the minute. “Back up a minute. Raul’s cousin is named Mateo.”
“Correct.”
“He asked you for a job, right? And he was driving for…Planet Earth?”
“He was the truck driver. The one who crashed the truck for Planet Earth, the plastic company Lily ordered our stuff from.”
Yes, the company Lily had all the trouble with when the products melted in the sun. Lily had been calling them two or three times a day, trying to get their money back. It hadn’t worked yet. “Oh. Poor guy.”