Half Life (A Sam Larkin Mystery)

by Helen Cothran

Connor watched me, his body tense. Experimentally, he said, “It’s okay, Sam. Eddie’s still crazy about you.”

  I looked at my brother, totally confused. “He is?”

  Connor nodded. “He is.”

  But what did that mean, exactly? Why did I suddenly feel such a sense of . . . pleasure . . . and hope?

  Connor leaned his shovel against the fence and softly touched my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s grab a cold one.”

  I nodded and followed him into the house as if in a trance.

  I didn’t understand anything.

  19

  “Sam! Where’s my outline?”

  Vince’s voice exploded into my eardrum. I held the cell phone away from my ear and winced. I had spent the previous evening drinking beer with Connor, trying to forget the tennis match with Eddie and Gabby and my subsequent meltdown. My head felt like it had a dog sleeping in it. A big hairy dog. I also had a big hairy dog sleeping with me. Lacy had no excuse for sleeping late—she hadn’t drunk a single beer. I mumbled something incoherent into the phone and eyed the clock: eight o’clock sharp. Vince had planned this phone call as the day’s first order of business. That was not good. I also realized today was April fifteenth, tax day. I had already done mine, but this day always felt like doomsday anyhow.

  “Sam! Are you there? Your outline for the book was due yesterday, and, big surprise, UPS comes, no outline. I have given you chance after chance to get your act together. I have a hundred other writers who could do your books, writers who would meet their deadlines. I’m seriously pissed!”

  I let him wind down. If he’d wanted to end our contractual arrangement for all time, he would have said so. Besides, I had heard this harangue many times before. Vince is so full of it. I’m the best writer in his stable, which he well knows, and it hardly makes any difference if I meet his ridiculous and arbitrary deadlines. For one thing, I know he builds in a “Larkin” margin, which means he tells me something is due three weeks before it really is. Also, he has devised special rules just for me, requesting that smaller pieces of my books be sent more often than required by the other Blue Nest writers. In this case the outline in question is what he calls a “pre-outline.” It’s a brief overview document indicating the general structure of the book, not the detailed, chapter-by-chapter outline that is the first thing others must turn in. Sure, maybe I could be more responsible, but the bottom line is that my books go to print on time, and they sell better than anyone else’s at Blue Nest. They have also won awards. So why didn’t Vince just leave me alone to do my work? My editor was a control freak, pure and simple.

  I made an effort to think around the furry canine in my head. “I’ll get the outline to you by the end of the week.”

  “End of the week!” he screeched into my ear. A nerve at the back of my head sent a sharp pain into my eye. “Unacceptable! That’s a week late.”

  “It’s the best I can do,” I said dully.

  I heard a rumbling sound, then a rap. He must have thrown a pen or dashed his phone against the desk. A coughing fit ensued that brought to mind dire diseases that cause the lungs to turn black. Indeed, after smoking two packs of cigarettes a day for God knows how long, Vince was looking good for both the black lungs and the disease.

  Just to bring the misery to an end, I said, “Okay, fine, I’ll get the outline in the mail today.” That was a crock—I hadn’t even started it. But I had to do something to get the man off the phone—I seriously needed to pee.

  “Send it next day!” he groused, but I could tell he felt better having won this little battle.

  As if I wasn’t winning the war. Ha!

  I punched the end button, sighed, and scratched Lacy’s ear. I guess it was time to actually start my book. Well, after I went to see Raul. Vince would just have to wait.

  20

  Castillo Construction looked like a dump without all the men and trucks around to give it the semblance of being a place where works get done. It was late Monday morning, and, with everyone out in the field, all that was left was the dilapidated masonry building standing in for an office, the sandy yard, which appeared a disorganized mess of rebar and two-by-fours, and a tin-roofed shed. I had thought about calling first to find out if Raul was even going to be there in the middle of the day, but I didn’t want to give him advanced warning. He was the owner, and I was counting on him staying close to home working on proposals or signing checks or whatever it is that business owners do.

  After parking beside the building I tromped up the two wood steps to the office and pulled open the door. I entered a cramped space, filled largely with file cabinets and a reception desk empty of papers or anything that suggested work went on there. A pretty twenty-year-old sat behind the desk. She looked up at me with huge blue eyes. They appeared blank.

  “Hello?” she said, her brow furrowed.

  I waited for her to say “may I help you” or whatever receptionist-types say, but nothing further emerged from her pouty mouth. She gazed at me as if she’d never seen another human being before.

  “Is Raul here?”

  She popped a black-painted fingernail into her mouth and nibbled at it. Her eyes narrowed as she studied me, trying to work out this complex question.

  I waited for de-encryption to occur, but I had clearly stumped her. To help things along, I prompted, “Raul is the owner of the company. Your boss.”

  She nodded vigorously, her blonde hair bobbing. It looked like it had been blow-dried to within an inch of its life. Her boobs shook along with her head, which suggested that the triple D’s were authentic—fake ones wouldn’t move an inch. I felt encouraged by the nodding and waited for further enlightenment to take place. However, her face blanked out again, the brief moment of clarity too hard to sustain.

  “What happened to your face?” she asked suddenly in a fascinated voice. “The bruises look awesome!”

  Now I was the one blinking, unable to find appropriate words to respond. After a moment I tried again. “Is Raul here?”

  The blank look came back, and she resumed nibbling on the black fingernail. I wondered briefly if this consumption of toxic polish might account for her sluggish mental processes. I was thirty-two years old and I feared I’d turn fifty waiting for a response. Cobwebs would drape from my eyelashes and fingers, and dust would settle upon my head while this woman tried to solve the puzzle of my presence. I guessed that Raul did not hire her for her office skills. She was beautiful and had big boobs—and lacked a brain as far as I could tell—exactly Raul’s type.

  I soldiered on. “I’d like to see Raul. Your boss. He works here.”

  “Do you have an appointment?” she said quickly, suddenly finding the script in the vast empty recesses of her mind. Her face shone with happiness.

  I looked around the shabby office. It was not like there were twenty other people waiting here to see Raul. While I pondered how to advance this stultifying conversation, I studied my surroundings. The room was cluttered with blue prints and surveying tools, and it smelled like cigarette smoke. Apparently Raul was a scofflaw as well as a thug. “He’s expecting me,” I lied, trying to make this as simple as possible for her.

  She jumped up, the fleshy shelf of her boobs levitating for a moment before settling back to horizontal. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” she chirped. She teetered off down the hall in knee-high black boots with five-inch heels. The back of her red skirt barely covered the lower crescents of her cheeks. I stood by the desk, watched her totter down the hall. Then I felt my pulse quicken as I thought about coming face to face with Raul again.

  The receptionist came back, scurrying like a lizard being chased by a cat. I was guessing Raul had inquired who it was who wanted to see him, and she, of course, not having thought to ask, had had no answer. I dreaded further discourse with her as she tried to remember what it was she was supposed to ask me, but I was saved, if one could view it that way, by Raul’s appearance.

  He stopped in the middle of the room
and glowered at me. The stench of cigarette smoke had intensified with his arrival. He looked to be wearing the same red flannel shirt as on my first visit, cigarette pack visible in the breast pocket. His golf ball-shaped head looked even bigger in the tiny space of the office, or maybe it was swollen with rage at seeing me.

  “Whadya want?” He growled.

  For a moment I forgot. What the heck was I here for? It seemed like years ago when I had arrived and tried to get through to his receptionist. For a moment I sympathized with her mental struggles. Who could focus with this brute in the room? I almost snapped my fingers when I remembered.

  “I want to talk to you about where you were the night your brother went missing.”

  His jaw muscles bulged out and his lips tightened. After glaring at me for a full minute, he growled, “You are un-fucking-believable. You are stupid as dirt to come out here after I warned you. I could pound your face in.”

  What a dope. I realized that his primitive savagery combined with his rudimentary thought processes made him a dangerous man. I knew it was in my best interests to fear him, but his intellectual sloppiness, the way he used bravado to compensate for his appalling lack of empathy, reduced him in my eyes to someone to pity, not to fear. Of course, my habit of dismissing ignoramuses had come back to bite me in the past because it did not take into account that ignorance could pair with violence in lethal ways.

  “Just tell me where you were, and I’ll get out of your hair.” Not that he had any. I knew that Raul claimed to be playing poker the night Pete disappeared, but I wanted to push back on that. As Trent had said, the alibi sounded shaky, especially since it had been too neatly corroborated by all of Raul’s pals.

  Raul scraped a big paw over his jaw as he thought about it. The rasping noise filled the room. Amusement flickered behind his eyes, and he glanced over at his receptionist. “Whadya think, Suzee? Should I give this nosy bitch what she wants?”

  Suzee stared at her boss as though he had a snake coming out of his nose. I took her appalled reaction as a sign of female solidarity. No woman likes the word “bitch”—unless we use it, of course.

  Getting no answer from the hired help, Raul shrugged. “I said this before. I was playing poker with my buddies like I do every Thursday night.” He smirked, pried the cigarette pack out of his pocket, tapped one out.

  Eager to escape before he lit up, I asked, “Can anyone corroborate that?”

  The word “corroborate” seemed to present too many syllables for him, but he had watched enough cop shows to finally get it. “Yeah, any of the guys I play with.”

  “Names?”

  He sniggered, secure in the belief that anyone he named would substantiate his story again. Which was no surprise. Who would defy Raul? He would not be a good enemy to have. He nodded toward the window. “Ask Miguel. He plays every Thursday.”

  I glanced out the window and saw a tall skinny guy in work boots strolling across the yard toward the trailer. He looked familiar. “Miguel, as in Miguel Martinez?”

  As in Eddie’s brother.

  “Yeah. And he’s coming in so we can go to lunch. I told you what you wanted, so you can go to hell now.”

  I watched him light up, smoke curling around his head, making him look even more demonic. If Suzee didn’t get some dreaded disease from chewing on her fingernail polish, she surely would from Raul’s cigarette smoke if she stayed working here long. Before I joined her in the cancer ward, I turned on my heels and fled to the great outdoors.

  As I tromped down the steps I came face to face with Miguel. I saw a hitch in his step as he recognized me. “Sam? What the hell are you doing here?”

  Eddie comes from a healthy, nurturing family, which I am extremely fond of—except for Miguel. Miguel is the black sheep—he and Eddie are polar opposites. Whereas Eddie and his sisters are kind and responsible, Miguel has always gotten into trouble. He is gregarious where Eddie is quiet, prone to wild schemes where Eddie plans and saves and works his tail off. When Miguel’s schemes go awry, Eddie bails him out and protects their mom and dad from the cold hard truth about their youngest son. In return, Miguel mocks his big brother, his favorite putdown being to call Eddie “a bore.” I had spent more time than I could stand in Miguel’s company simply by being Eddie’s friend and hanging out with his family. Miguel always tried hitting on me, not that I believed his crap about how gorgeous I was. He did it to bug Eddie.

  “Hey, Miguel,” I said, not wanting to talk with him but seeing a chance to check out Raul’s alibi. I knew Raul would be looking out the window at us, hoping I’d ask, confident that Miguel would say what he had been told to say.

  “Looking hot as usual,” Miguel said with a fake lascivious grin. He resembled Eddie, the same dark curly hair and brown eyes, but his character showed in his face. Instead of Eddie’s kind strong features, Miguel’s countenance was sharp and weaselly. He said, “Wanna go out some time?”

  He knew full well that he made my skin crawl. “When lizards fly,” I said. I forced myself to focus on what I wanted to ask instead of how much Miguel disgusted me. “Raul told me you guys play poker every Thursday night. That right?”

  I saw Miguel glance at the office. He grinned some more. “Yep.”

  Not that it mattered, but I asked anyway. “You played two Thursdays ago?”

  He didn’t even stop to cast his mind back in time, run the reel of his life backward to that night, which is what people did who were not lying. “Yep.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yep. Really, Sam, how about some beers at Cactus Sam’s tonight? I’ll show you a good time, I promise.” He waggled his eyebrows.

  I sighed. How could this man be related to Eddie? “Gotta go, Miguel.” I started walking to my car, tennis shoes crunching through the sand. The air was cool, but for once not a breeze stirred. The sun felt hot on my shoulders.

  “Hey, Sam!” He called, just as I was unlocking my Corolla. “You won’t have to fight off my brother’s advances anymore. His bitch of a girlfriend is back in town.”

  I felt my stomach clinch. If I’d been a man, I would have gone over there and knocked Miguel’s pretty white teeth out. Instead, I opened the car door, jammed myself inside the vehicle, and drove off, tires sending a cloud of dust into Miguel’s face.

  21

  I pulled up at Eddie’s parents’ house ten minutes early. Figures. Just when I learned to leave early to compensate for donkeys wandering down the streets, fenderless jalopies broken down in the traffic lanes, and armies of tumbleweeds blowing across the tarmac, Desert Rock decided to act like a normal town. The five-minute drive from my house to the Martinez’s had actually taken five minutes. I felt like I had entered an alternate universe.

  I sat in my car waiting for Eddie to arrive. I had called him the minute I left Castillo Construction and told him that his brother was supplying Raul with a shaky alibi. I knew Eddie would want to know—he makes it his personal business to keep Miguel from screwing up. As expected, Eddie cursed and grumbled, and we made a pact to wring the truth out of Miguel. Eddie thought it best to waylay his brother so he couldn’t prepare more BS, so he invited me to his parent’s house for dinner tonight. Miguel was sure to be there, as he is almost every night, scamming a free dinner and knocking back a couple of cold ones on his parents’ dime.

  I looked forward to seeing Eddie because I missed him, but I dreaded it at the same time. All too clearly I recalled our words after the tennis match. His damning observation echoed in my head: “Some people need a warm body, Sam.” Just thinking of it made tears spring to my eyes. What made it worse was that Connor said the same thing to me. God! Just because I’m independent, just because I’m careful, just because I don’t hop in the sack the minute I feel lonely doesn’t mean I’m a freak.

  Eddie’s words also pained me because in them was tacit admission that he was sleeping with Gabby. This thought sent searing pain through my chest as though I’d been impaled. To think of him in bed with her—no
! It was too awful. He was too good for her. Gabby was just a ho, using him for sex. As soon as someone “better” came along, she’d dump him just like she did the first time around. But then, I thought, Eddie is no dummy, and he isn’t a sap. He might have been suckered once, but no way would he not know who Gabby was now. Another thought came hard on the heels of the first: Nowhere in Eddie’s statement did he suggest that love was any part of this. He was a guy, he needed sex, Gabby made herself available. That was all this was. It was awful enough, but not as bad as I feared. Connor had said that Eddie was “still crazy about” me. I felt myself relax for the first time in days, and a smile lifted the corners of my mouth.

  When Eddie drove up in his Ranger at exactly five o’clock, I felt composed, hopeful. As he climbed out of the cab, I studied him, my chest filling with emotion. He really was gorgeous, his face all planes and angles, his body hard and trim. He was an incredibly decent man, kind and gentle and responsible. To my immense fortune, he was in my life. He and I would just have to get through this rough patch—that was all there was to it.

  I realized that while I had been watching him, lost in my reverie, Eddie had made his way to my car. He knocked softly on the driver’s side window. I nodded, grabbed my bag, and climbed out.

  “Why didn’t you go on in?” he asked. In high school, I went to his home every day, had become one of the family. He was obviously perplexed as to why I hadn’t just walked through the front door and gone in search of a Martinez to chat with.

  “Just thinking about the case,” I lied. “Shall we?”

  To my surprise, he draped his arm around my shoulders, and without thinking, I put my arm around his waist. Together, we walked up the concrete walkway to the house. My shoulders burned at his touch, and I found it hard to breath. He glanced over at me with a tentative smile and rubbed my shoulder. I took this as an apology for what had happened at the tennis court, and I forgave him. I squeezed him back, sending my own apology. For the moment, I felt connected to him again, as if we had never been apart, as if we’d never hit this wall. Tears burned my eyes as we climbed the three steps to the porch and entered the small house.