Hurley rolls his eyes and says, “Apparently, there isn’t anyone else here to watch the kids. Do you mind staying with them until I can take over for Junior and send him out here?”
I look over at the three kids, who are all standing in front of a large wall poster that shows a teenage girl puffing on a joint with the caption I’m not as think as you stoned I am.
“Sure,” I say, thinking, How bad can it be? I check my wallet for change and decide to herd the kids to the vending machine room down the hallway and treat them to some unhealthy snacks. “Come on, you guys,” I say. “Who wants snacks?”
I’m answered with a chorus of “I do”; and like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, I lead the little rats out of town. When we get to the vending machines, the kids all line up in front of them. Their eyes are as big as saucers; their fingers are splayed on the glass.
“What’s your name?” I ask the twin closest to me.
“I want Oreos,” he says.
“‘I-want-Oreos’ is a silly name,” I counter; at which point, he shoots me a dirty look.
Then his brother pipes up and says, “His name is Angelino.”
Clearly a misnomer.
“And mine is Oro. That’s almost like Oreo, so can I have some Oreos?”
Angelino shoves his brother and says, “I asked first.” Oro shoves back. Before I know it, the two boys are engaged in an all-out brawl, while the girl backs into a corner watching them. She’s clutching a Barbie doll in her arms. It’s a vintage Barbie, the kind with ugly joints and a 1960s ponytail. I suspect it came from a yard sale. I’m tempted to warn the girl about falling for that whole “Barbie and Ken myth,” but I don’t. She’s young yet; there’s still plenty of time for her dreams to be shattered.
I ignore the boys, walk up to the machine, plug in some change, and buy a package of Oreos. Then I turn to the girl. “What’s your name?” I ask.
“Susie.”
“Do you like Oreos?”
She nods, looking shy.
I hand her the package. “Then this is your reward for behaving.”
She takes the package, and the boys, sensing that something momentous has just occurred, break up their little tango and glare at me.
“We asked first,” Angelino says. “We should get the cookies.”
“Yeah,” Oro chimes in.
“Well, neither of you will get anything, because you clearly don’t know how to behave.”
I’m feeling pretty smug until Angelino walks up and kicks me in the shin. Oro goes over to Susie, shoves her, and grabs the Oreos and the Barbie doll, though Susie’s grip on her dream is much stronger than Angelino anticipated. All he comes away with are the cookies and Barbie’s head. Susie is left crying in the corner as the two boys run from the room and down the hall to the men’s room.
I’m sure they think this is a safe haven for now, that no reasonable woman would follow them into a men’s room. They may be right, but it’s a huge miscalculation on their part to assume I’m a reasonable woman.
I bang the door open and charge in after them, just in time to see Angelino drop Barbie’s head in the toilet. I also see Junior, who is standing in front of a urinal, finishing off his business.
Junior whips his head around and looks at me with a shocked expression. Unfortunately, other parts of his anatomy whip around as well. Clearly confused, he looks from me to the twins and then back at me again, before he realizes he’s still holding his man muscle and has just dribbled pee on his shoes. Flustered, he quickly tucks things away and zips up. Meanwhile, his face is turning a shade of neon red.
I walk over to the boys, grab an arm on each of them, and start to yank them out of the stall. Angelino, who, I’m guessing, always has to have the last word, makes one final statement by reaching over and pushing down the toilet’s handle. I shove him aside and make a desperate grab for the doll’s head, saying a silent prayer of gratitude over the fact that whoever used the toilet last had the decency to flush it. Someone also felt the need to use a sanitizer in the bowl recently. Unfortunately, it’s the type that turns the bowl water blue. I manage to grab Barbie’s fake blond ponytail and pluck her head to safety just as it is about to be dispatched to goldfish heaven. However, it’s not before the water has tinted her hair a lovely shade of royal blue.
“Everything okay, Mattie?” Junior asks, his face still blazing.
From off in the distance, we can hear Susie still screaming as if someone had ripped her head off rather than her doll’s. The two boys are standing in the corner, staring at me all big-eyed, like I’m a crazy woman.
“Nothing a tubal ligation couldn’t have fixed,” I say, staring down the two hellions in the corner. “Those two are yours. If it was up to me, I’d just shoot them if they pull anything else, but I’ll leave that decision for you.”
Oro lets out a puff of a laugh at this; but when I narrow my gaze at him, his smile fades fast. He bites his lip and looks over at Junior nervously. Junior just shrugs at him, letting his hand fall casually onto the butt of his gun. Oro swallows hard and tries to shrink himself into the wall behind him.
I walk over to the sink and rinse Barbie’s head, using a bit of hand soap to shampoo her hair. The end result is a very punk-looking Barbie. “I’ll try to calm down the other one for you,” I tell Junior as I dry Barbie’s hair with a paper towel. Then, with one last glare at the hellions, I exit the bathroom and return to the vending room, where I find Susie slumped in a corner, still screaming.
I kneel down in front of her, take Barbie’s body from her hand, and squeeze the head back onto it. “Here you go. Good as new,” I say, handing it back to her.
“Her hair is blue,” Susie whines, hiccupping sobs as she stares at the doll.
“Yeah, well, um, that’s because she’s secretly one of those people from Avatar,” I say, praying the kid has seen the movie. Apparently, she has, because she stops crying and gives Barbie a thoughtful look.
Junior appears in the doorway with the two hoodlums in tow. “Hurley wanted me to send you into the conference room,” he says.
Thank God. Parsing murder suspects is nothing compared to handling unruly kids. “Good luck with this bunch,” I tell Junior. I start to leave, but then I turn back. “You might want to empty the ammo in your gun, just in case you’re tempted.” And with that parting shot, I head for the conference room.
Hurley is waiting for me outside of the interrogation room and we enter together. Serena Vasquez is sitting on one side of the table and she looks frightened out of her wits. Her eyes are huge and brimming with tears; her hands are trying to choke the life out of a wad of tissues; her entire body is rocking back and forth in her chair. Hurley and I take seats across from her and Hurley hits a button beneath the table that starts a camera rolling.
“I don’t think you were totally honest with us when we talked to you before,” Hurley says, leaning across the table and pinning Serena down with those laser-like blue eyes of his.
“No?” Serena says as a tear rolls down her cheek.
“No. Does the name Hector Vasquez ring a bell?”
Serena’s flinch is so slight that it would be easy to miss. But I don’t, and I’m pretty sure Hurley doesn’t either. She stares back at him with a deer-in-the-headlights expression—clearly unsure of what, if anything, she should do or say at this point.
“This Hector Vasquez was involved in a very serious traffic accident down in Texas,” Hurley pushes.
I suspect this is a lie, since Hurley said earlier that the van of illegals was pulled over, not involved in an accident. But I recognize the brilliance of him making the claim when Serena cracks.
“An accident?” she says, sounding panicked. “Is Hector okay?”
“He’s fine,” Hurley says, leaning back in his chair. “He’s being held by the authorities down there pending his deportation back to Mexico.”
When Serena hears this, her shoulders sag. Her expression changes to one of sadness and defeat. Recognizing the ex
posure of her underbelly, Hurley goes in for the kill.
“He’s claiming to be your husband, Serena. Is that true?”
Serena nods, staring at her hands. Her tears flow freely now. “Yes,” she says.
“He also told the authorities in Texas that you paid money to help him get into the United States . . . a lot of money . . . fifty grand, to be exact.”
Hurley waits, letting the words hang. Serena’s face contorts as she analyzes her position and the consequences of what she’s just heard. The silence grows for a minute or more. When she finally speaks, it is with a surprising degree of anger.
“They cannot send him back there!” she spits out. “Please, you have to do something. We have worked too hard, waited too long for this. And I can never get that kind of money again.”
“Where did you get it from this time?” I ask.
“Mr. Jack gave it to me.”
“He gave it to you, or you took it?” Hurley retorts.
Serena turns and glares at him. “He gave it to me, I swear. Mr. Jack and I talked a lot about life in Mexico and how hard Hector worked to get me and the boys out of there. It is very dangerous there these days with the drug wars. Mr. Jack knew how much the boys and I missed and worried about Hector. So after he won big at the casino, he insisted that I take money from him and use it to pay a coyote to bring Hector here. He said we were good people, and because I never asked for the money, he wanted to help us out.”
Hurley raises a skeptical brow. “You expect us to believe that Jack just gave you fifty grand out of the kindness of his heart?”
“I expect you to believe that is what he wanted to do,” Serena says, looking a bit indignant. “But I insisted on paying him back.”
“Sure you did,” I say with no small amount of sarcasm.
“I signed a note for it,” Serena insists.
I have to admit I’m impressed with how quickly she came up with a plausible lie, and I’m pretty sure I know what’s coming next.
“And I’m betting that now you’re going to tell us that note got lost in Jack’s house fire,” I say. “How very convenient for you.”
If looks could kill, I’d be stretched out on Izzy’s table right now, taking an eternal nap. I’m rethinking my position on Serena’s guilt. If Oro and Angelino’s temperaments are any indication of a genetic pass-along from their mother, it’s not hard for me to imagine Serena killing for money, especially if it meant getting someone here to help her with the little demons. I’m thinking things are looking good for Hurley and me to crack this case and tie up most of the loose ends before we head for Florida. That is, until Serena makes her next comment.
“Mr. Jack’s papers may have been burned up in his house,” she says. “But I still have my copy. Take me back to my house and I will show it to you.”
Chapter 14
Fifteen minutes later, Hurley and I are headed back to Serena’s house, with Serena and all three kids in tow—though they are all behind us in Junior’s cruiser, thanks to my description of how exciting it is to ride inside a real police car. This comment elicited a look of promised paybacks from Junior, but he accepted his mission with the courageous resignation of a soldier headed into battle. He turns on the lights and siren for a block or two, and I’m betting it’s to shut up the kids, drown them out, or both.
“It’s a bummer if Vasquez really has this note,” Hurley says. “I thought we were close to winding this thing up.”
“So did I.”
“Guess that means we’re still on for the casino tonight, then.”
“Looks that way.”
“What time do you want me to pick you up? Is six-thirty okay?”
I brace myself for what’s to come. “I want to take my own car.”
Hurley makes a face like he just tasted something disgusting. “You want to drive up there in a hearse?”
“That’s what I drive these days, so yeah.”
Hurley rolls his eyes and sighs. “Fine,” he says. “Then you can pick me up at six-thirty.”
“I don’t think you understand,” I say, looking apologetic. “No one needs to pick anyone up. I want to drive myself. Alone.”
Hurley stares at me, unblinking, as several beats of silence punctuate the awkwardness of the moment. “You mean take separate cars?” he says finally.
I nod.
“That’s a huge waste of gas. Why would you want to do that?”
“Because I’m thinking I might want to hang around there for a while once we’re done with our official business.”
Hurley’s eyes narrow with suspicion. “Hang around? Why?”
I shrug. “I might want to try my hand at a little more gambling, just for fun.”
“Gambling is a huge waste of money.”
“Not if you win, and I did pretty well last time.”
“Which makes it that much more dangerous for you,” Hurley counters, clearly exasperated.
“I’ll be all right. I’m thinking Joe Whitehorse will have some free time after our dinner and he can show me the ropes. I’m sure he’ll . . .” I hesitate, searching for the right words. “I’m sure he’ll keep an eye on me,” I conclude, with a sly wink.
“You need to maintain a professional distance,” Hurley grumbles.
“Don’t worry. Everything will be strictly platonic . . . at least for now.”
Hurley’s grip on the wheel tightens almost imperceptibly.
“So meet you there around seven?”
Hurley’s eyes are the color of a stormy sky. “Fine,” he says.
We have arrived at Serena’s house and he yanks the wheel irritably to the right to park, hitting the curb in the process. As soon as Serena and the kids are unloaded, Junior peels out. I can only imagine the hell he endured on the ride over and wonder if he’ll ever speak to me again.
Once inside the house, Serena grabs a metal lockbox high on a shelf, opens it, and takes out two stapled pieces of paper, which not only contain a note for the fifty grand, identifying it as a loan with a set number of years for payback, but a notary seal for the signatures. I half-expect Serena to look smug as we examine the paperwork. Instead, she looks remorseful, sad, and a little bit frightened. I realize I may have misjudged her, perhaps because I based that judgment on my experience with the twins from hell.
Hurley takes the promissory note, telling Serena he will make a copy and return the original to her once he has checked out the notary. It will keep Serena on edge a little longer, but I can tell Hurley suspects, as I do, that everything will check out, which means we are back to square one.
Ten minutes before our scheduled appointment with Lisa Warden, Hurley and I leave Serena behind to fret and wrangle the kids. We head back to his car, and just as we get in, Hurley’s cell rings. I can tell from his end of the conversation that it’s Paul Fletcher calling with the names of the other patients Lisa Warden saw on the morning of Jack’s death. Hurley writes the information down and tucks it into his pocket. The way things are going, I’m pretty sure we’ll have Warden ruled out by day’s end. That means we’re going to have to start knocking on Jack’s neighbors’ doors. Not only am I beginning to think we won’t solve this murder before we head for Florida, I’m starting to wonder if we’ll ever solve it. So much of the evidence has been compromised because of the fire, and I fear the list of people with opportunity, means, and motive is growing frighteningly long.
As Hurley starts the car, he says, “Junior sure lit out of here in a hurry.”
I fill him in on the kids’ escapades back at the station.
“It sounds like they were quite a handful,” he says.
“That’s the understatement of the year. Five minutes with them made me rethink the whole idea of having kids.”
Hurley shoots me a sidelong glance. “Don’t say that. You have to have kids. They’re in your plan, remember? Besides, I can just imagine a little Mattie running around with a head of blond curls and big blue eyes. I’m guessing she’ll be in trouble a lo
t, but she’ll get away with it because she’s so adorable.”
Hurley’s words make my heart ache. It’s ironic that he envisions a little me running around, because I’ve fantasized a time or two about having a dark-haired son with Hurley’s baby blues. Yet, fantasy is all it can ever be. Between the kiss earlier at the motel, and this talk about kids and the future, I feel as if the lines demarcating our relationship are blurring dangerously.
There’s no denying my attraction to Hurley, and I’m pretty sure he’s attracted to me as well. And that makes me wonder if our current working arrangement is one we can live with for the long term. I enjoy his friendship and the chance to see him on a regular basis; and on some level, that fills a big need for me. But the way we get caught up in our need to flirt with one another is starting to mess seriously with my head. If we’re going to make a success of this working relationship, the flirting stuff is going to have to cease.
“You’ve got to stop doing this, Hurley,” I say.
“Doing what?”
“Implying things. Hinting at a relationship you and I can’t have. Planting kisses on me when I least expect it, or kissing me at all, for that matter.”
“I was just trying to help you out and piss off David.”
“Really? Were you? Is that all that was behind that kiss?”
“Yes.” He looks over at me; and as I stare back at him, his hands tighten on the steering wheel again. When he looks back at the road, his lips are pinched tightly. “Okay, maybe there was a little something else behind it, but you have to admit it was kind of fun.” He shoots me a worried look. “Wasn’t it?”
I smile. “It kind of was,” I admit. “But that’s the problem.”
“Is that why you want to drive yourself tonight? Because if it is, I promise I’ll be on my very best behavior.”
Lucky Stiff Page 13