by Lonni Lees
Cautiously, Adrian walked into the room and flipped on the overhead lights. Below Armando’s shelves lay a body. Cold and still and lifeless, arms outstretched like an invocation to the gods of mercy . It was the body of a man, the halo around his head a pool of coagulated blood, like some martyred saint in a crude religious icon. He was lying face down, head tilted to the side, but her eyes focused on the back of his bashed in head. Her body began to shake and her legs felt boneless and weak, unable to hold her. Adrian grabbed hold of the shelf to steady her balance and to digest the nightmare that lay at her feet. She realized she hadn’t been breathing and inhaled a deep breath, which only made her feel more light-headed and dizzy. Even without looking at his face she knew who it was.
It was Armando.
Barbara’s handsome Armando.
But as he lay there he was anything but handsome. Whoever had done this to him had seen to that. Armando had been a lot of things, a gigolo at best, an irritant at worst, but he certainly hadn’t done anything to deserve this. As much as Adrian wanted the rogue to disappear she never would have wished for this.
Her instinct was to feel for a pulse, to look for some glimmer of life, but she didn’t have to get any closer to see that he was gone. And by the looks of the rigor mortis he’d been dead for some time.
Dread overcame her as she realized she had to go upstairs and get his wife. Barbara would be devastated, but at least she would be there to comfort her. She had always been there for her, through the best and worst of times, but this was bad beyond belief. Something like this just didn’t happen. Not here. This place was a sanctuary. The Mosaic was a nurturing family that rose above the negativity that drove the outside world.
For the most part anyway.
But not anymore, she thought, as she looked down at the stiffening corpse. Somebody was capable of this, probably somebody she knew. But who? Her thoughts spun wildly. No, it had to be a stranger, an outsider. Maybe a robbery gone bad. That made a lot more sense of the senselessness of it all. Thoughts bolted through her head with the speed of monsoon lightning, leaping from one possibility to the next. Home invasions, she thought, were fueled by violence for violence sake and robbery was only the secondary motive. They happened all the time. That had to be it. That was senseless enough to make some sort of sense.
She’d have to look around and see what was missing.
But first she’d have to wake up Barbara.
Oh my God, she thought. What if something happened to Barbara?
Adrian raced out the front door and around the back to the steps that led up to Barbara and Armando’s private quarters. She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders and ascended the stairs, terrified of what she might find there.
* * * *
The weight of Prowler on her chest, accompanied by his relentless howling, woke up Maggie Reardon from her latest nightmare. Sleep had been intermittent, but every time she dozed off she ended up in the middle of another bad dream. Her ex-husband was in one of them, ridiculing her, trying to make her feel inadequate. Every move she made was met with his disapproval, frustrating her and making her want to cry. But Maggie wouldn’t cry. She refused to give him the satisfaction. Numerous ex-boyfriends marched in and out of the other dreams, each one telling her off for one shortcoming or another. She wondered why it bothered her so much in her dreams while at the same time she didn’t give any one of them a passing thought while she was awake.
Except for Marty.
In one of the dreams he was there, lurking in the shadows, watching her every move. Why, she kept repeating in the dream. Why?
“Nonsense!” she said, startling the cat as she jumped out of bed. “Absolute nonsense.”
She threw on her robe and Prowler followed her into the kitchen, anxious for his first meal of the day. She opened a can of food for him, shook it into a bowl and set it on the floor. She almost tripped over him as she reached for the bag of coffee beans. Grinding her own was time consuming but it was worth starting her day with the best. The coffee she got on the run had no more flavor than murky dishwater or warm piss, so her first cup of the day had to be a good one. While the brew percolated, she took the last stale donut from the box on the counter and shoved it into her mouth. Breakfast of champions. And lazy people. And cops.
She reached across the counter and turned on the radio.
“...expects to be another hot one, with temperatures threatening to break records....”
Maggie groaned, “Great, just great.”
“...no rain on the horizon. Monsoon season’s later than....”
She turned off the radio, disgusted. Pouring her first welcome cup of coffee, she hoped the day would be an uneventful one. Those nightmares had been enough action.
* * * *
It was unlocked. Not a good sign.
Adrian Velikson’s heart pounded as she opened the door and walked through the small sitting room in the upstairs apartment. When she reached Barbara’s bedroom door it was closed. She stood there, afraid to open it for fear of what she might find on the other side. What if the killer, or killers, had come here first? What if Barbara lay dead beyond the closed door? What if she had lost her friend forever?
Tears burned her eyes as she reached for the door knob and slowly turned it. Cautiously, she opened the door and walked in. Barbara lay motionless in the bed, the hand-stitched quilt half covering her nude body. Adrian’s worst nightmare had come true.
“Oh Barbara, no,” she said, closing her eyes.
Did she hear movement? Was she...?
Adrian opened her eyes. One leg moved under the quilt as Barbara stretched her body into consciousness. She opened her eyes and blinked at the shadow that stood at the foot of her bed. She pushed the blonde hair away from her face and as her eyes focused she sat upright. She absent-mindedly pulled the quilt over her breasts and said, “Adrian? Adrian, what are you doing here?”
“I...I....”
“What time is it?” Trying to collect her thoughts, Barbara looked at her friend and muttered, “Adrian?”
“You need to dress.”
“What’s going on?”
“Just get dressed, Barbara. You need to come downstairs.”
Barbara rose from the bed, reached across to the chair and slipped a caftan over her nude body. She instinctively walked over to the wall mirror to give her hair a quick brush.
“Put down the brush. This is no time for vanity, just hurry up.”
Adrian remained silent as Barbara followed her down the stairs and into the gallery. She found it impossible to verbalize the words. Armando is dead. She couldn’t force herself to say it, as if not saying it made it not so. She took Barbara’s hand as they entered the second room. Barbara pulled away from her grasp and ran into the third room, screaming.
“Armando! Oh my God, Armando,” she said, racing over and kneeling next to where his lifeless body lay on the floor. “What happened? Adrian, what happened?” Tears streamed down her face as she draped her body over his, ignoring the blood that stained her clothes and painted her strands of hair in the deepest shade of crimson.
Adrian walked over to her and lifted her to a standing position. She held her close and said, “Stay away from him Barbara, there’s nothing you can do.” Adrian gently pushed Barbara’s hair from her face. “It’ll be okay, my darling. We’ll get through this.”
“Okay? Nothing will ever be okay,” she said, stretching her arm toward her dead husband as Adrian firmly held her back.
“Don’t. Touch. Anything. The police....”
“The police?”
“We have to call the police.”
“We have to call Rocco. Rocco will know what to do. Rocco always knows what to do.” She said the words as if she were chanting a mantra. “Rocco will know, Rocco will know what to do.”
“Rocco will tell you to call the police.”
“We have to...what happened?!”
“I found him like this. I don’t know what happened. I ju
st don’t know.”
“You did it! You’ve always hated him. You did it. You killed him.” She pulled away from Adrian and glared at her. “You killed him, I know you did.”
The cruel words that spewed from Barbara’s mouth stung worse than a scorpion. “You know better than that. You’re just upset. You know I could never hurt anything that you love. That would be like hurting you, and you know I could never hurt you.”
Barbara threw her arms around her friend and held her close. “I’m sorry. I know better. I know you’d never hurt me. I’m so, so sorry. I just. I just....” Staccato, unconnected words spilled from her mouth. They kept erratic time with her sobs as her shoulders shook in rhythm to her words and tearful gasps. She kept repeating, “Armando. My beautiful Armando. My handsome Armando....”
* * * *
The morning sun was already beginning to blister the blacktop as Maggie Reardon walked into the mini-mart to purchase her daily snack supply. She pushed through the glass door and greeted her friend.
“Ah, mi amiga,” Carlos said from where he stood behind the counter.
“Buenos Dias, Papacita,” she replied.
“Is beautiful day, sí?”
“It’s about as beautiful as standing inside a blast furnace. How can you stand it?”
“Too hot, too cold, it no matter much. We are alive and our stomachs are full. You were born here Miss Maggie, it should no bother you, sí?”
“I guess I must have a drop of Eskimo blood that my parents failed to tell me about. Every summer I swear I’m going to move away from here. Maybe go to the Pacific Northwest where it rains all the time.”
“Every year you tell me that. But you no go. I think you be sad away from your home.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she mumbled as she headed down the candy aisle. “I’d miss you too much. But summer’s here still stink big time!”
She knelt down by the rows of candy bars and grabbed three, stood up and reached for some jerky. With her hands full she walked up front and spilled them onto the counter. Carlos looked at them with a smile and shook his head, making a tsk tsk sound as he rang them up.
“You don’t eat right, Miss Maggie,” he said.
“When my rear end starts to spread I might just have to think about that,” she said, giving her backside a slap. “Until then, I’ve got other things to think about.”
“Sí, sí,” he said as he placed her items in a brown paper bag and handed them over to her.
“Adios,” she said with a wave of her hand as she pushed through the glass door and walked out to her squad car, squinting her eyes against the glaring sun.
Carlos whispered under his breath, “My little Marguerita, she is impossi-blay.”
Maggie slid behind the wheel, turned on the ignition, reached over and pulled a random candy bar out of the bag. One was as good as the next. She unwrapped it and took a bite as she revved the motor and threw it into reverse. She had the fixes she needed to kick start her day. Caffeine. Nicotine. Chocolate. Maybe today would be calm and uneventful. She could use a little of that too. Just one day of cruising around the neighborhood with nothing to do beyond putting Otis Campbell in the drunk tank to sleep it off. Just one peaceful day in Mayberry with Andy and Opie and Aunt Bea. Hah, days like that only happened on television. But she could dream, couldn’t she? Maggie shook it off. She fed on the adrenaline and excitement. Righting wrongs and catching the bad guys gave her life purpose, even if it was one never-ending battle after another. Come on, she thought, one day in Mayberry and I’d be bored to tears. Just like one day in the Pacific Northwest would probably have me complaining about the rain.
She shoved the last of the candy bar into her mouth and sucked the melting chocolate off her fingertips. She turned onto St. Mary’s, heading in the direction of downtown Tucson. Men on bicycles peddled along the side of the road single file, in their skin tight pants and streamlined crash helmets; a homeless man pushed a shopping cart filled with soiled blankets and a clear plastic bag full of brightly colored feathers; under a bright purple awning, protected from the sun, people with blank expressions sat on a bench waiting for the next bus. Two college students in black concert tees walked slowly down the sidewalk, dragging their feet as they looked ahead with bloodshot eyes, hung over from last night’s under-age reveling. There was nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to draw Maggie’s attention.
It was proving to be a quiet morning in Tucson after all.
But it was still early.
Maggie continued driving east toward the tall buildings of downtown.
Static sputtered from the squad car radio and the voice at the other end was calling a possible Code 187. Maggie picked up and responded. She was only a few blocks from the address and was on her way.
CHAPTER FIVE
CALIENTE DE MUERTE
The police tape wrapped around the outside perimeter of The Mosaic Gallery like a crazy yellow snake ready to constrict. The CSI van was parked in front as was Maggie’s squad car. The place buzzed with activity as officers entered and exited the building. It was three hours since Maggie answered the call. Upon her arrival she had looked around at the empty cups and soiled paper napkins and dirty paper plates scattered around the rooms. Between sobs, Barbara Atwater had told her there was an opening night artist’s reception the night before. She’d apologized for the mess, as though that should have been a concern as her dead husband’s body lay lifeless in the next room. Maggie had escorted the two women who had called it in to the side yard and ordered them to stay put while she photographed the murder scene, looked around, and taped off the area.
While forensics dusted for prints inside the gallery, Maggie took her portable fingerprinting kit to collect prints from the women in the yard. Eventually, she would collect prints from everyone who’d touched the place, match them to the inside prints and see what was left once they were eliminated.
Back inside she looked at the trash left behind from the previous night. Eliminating that from the equation, the place looked clean. Too clean. Like someone had cleaned up something. But there had to be hundreds of fingerprints from dozens of hands. A lot of people had been in and out of these rooms, but the floor where the body lay almost looked as if it had been swept and scrubbed clean.
Except for the pool of blood surrounding the victim’s head.
A “south of the border” melody kept playing in Maggie’s head with the cacophony of an out-of-tune mariachi band. Caliente de Muerte. A happy, uplifting melody with lyrics that defied the coldness of murder and loss. Caliente de Muerte, the warmth of death.
There was nothing warm about it.
Maggie had called in for forensics and the meat wagon on her way to the address.
Usually when faced with a scene like this, Maggie just went about her work, able to disassociate herself from the victim as she worked. But this time she kept turning back to look at him. Even in death, her first reaction was how handsome he was. How beautiful and animated he must have been in life. A shame really, but murder was always a shame wasn’t it? Looking good doesn’t make it any worse a crime or any more a tragedy. It always bothered her how on television, or in the papers, when the victim is pretty it always demands more attention. As if being ordinary or plain made one unworthy of their time and coverage. Beautiful co-ed disappears. Pretty little girl kidnapped. Handsome leading man dies of overdose. Maggie knew it sold more papers, but it was unfair. Yet even as she thought those thoughts she looked over again at Armando’s body. Those features, what she could see of them where he lay, could have belonged to a movie star.
The media was sure to love this one.
To Maggie, this crime was akin to destroying one of the works of art that hung on the gallery walls. He was marred, destroyed, ruined. Just like the side of a building defaced by some thoughtless graffiti thug determined to leave his mark. She hoped forensics would be able to find the mark left by his murderer. The small piece of evidence that would reveal his, or her,
identity. In the meantime, she’d question everyone who’d touched this place to try and figure it out the old-fashioned way. And forensics would be the icing on the cake for a jury. It wasn’t about making her world a better place. It never got better. It was about finding one iota of justice in all the madness. That was her job.
She sighed and got busy with the task at hand. She looked around the rooms unable to find anything that looked like a murder weapon. Anything heavy enough to have bashed in the vic’s skull like that. A row of metal sculptures caught her eye. The figures were whimsical and made her smile. The little man heads were made of tin pie plates with washers or fat little bolts for eyes; soldered arms were made of kitchen knives and forks, while penises were formed from faucets and other phallic shaped items she’d never quite seen that way before. Little statues of women stood among them also made of metal, breasts formed from dented tin cups, their pubic areas masses of twisted wire or rusted scouring pads. She didn’t know squat about art, but she knew that she liked these. There was little joy to be found in her dark world but these made her smile. The sign on the wall above them bore the artist’s name. Rocco La Crosse. La Crosse. Why did that name ring a bell? She couldn’t quite place it, shook it off, and lifted a statue with her latex gloved hand and studied it. They were small, none of them heavy enough to do serious damage, much less bash in someone’s skull. She laughed a little as she set it down and headed out the door.
The two women huddled together on a bench under a tree, right where she had left them. She’d question them later. As she was putting up the last of the crime scene tape a battered van pulled up and a stocky man jumped out and headed for the front gate. As he tried to enter, she informed him that he couldn’t cross the line and stopped him.