Paul went back to see Barbara Santiago the next morning, early. Carlos was at work. The baby was not around.
“You were sleeping with Richard Filsen,” he said, after she let him in.
“Who do you think you are, coming at me like this?”
“A homicide detective with the Monterey County sheriff’s office. Now. Let’s get this over with. You were in love with him.”
Tears bubbled in her eyes. “Get out.” She pushed him toward the door. “Go, you asshole!”
Paul went outside, took a breath, and walked a few doors down to Helio’s apartment.
Helio was watching a soap opera. “See this guy?” he said, letting Paul inside. “He’s stealing from his mama. She knows but she doesn’t say anything. She’s superprotective. He can do no harm.” Helio nodded. “That’s good stuff. Loving mama. Friends who overlook his evil. Girlfriend who accepts his shit.”
“Can I sit?”
Helio pointed to the couch. “Want a beer?”
“No thanks.” For a few more seconds, they watched a guy with an unreal tan lie, steal, and kiss up to everyone left and right, and all of it in Spanish.
Helio slapped his leg when the show ended. “You have to admire the man! Don’t we all want that kind of love!”
“Sometimes.”
“My mama? She packed up and left when I was three. Daddy worked two jobs and was never home. Me and my brother, we played in an alley, and now it’s a shock to me we’re still alive and kicking butt.”
“I have a sister,” Paul said, “from planet Pluto. She drives me nuts.”
Helio nodded sagely. “Family, man. Real life.”
“Kinda like Barbara Santiago and Richard Filsen.”
“You know about that?”
“Yeah.”
Helio nodded, flicking off the television. “She loved that guy. She would do anything for him. Oh, boy, if you had seen her when she found out he already had a kid. She wanted his babies, for sure.”
“She told you stuff about his son? About Bob?”
“Said she wanted the boy’s mom dead and the grandma that kept Richard away from his son dead. Came over a few afternoons now and then after Richard left her. She got tough when she drank, okay? I get mellow. You get mellow?”
“I get mellow,” Paul lied. “After Richard left?” he repeated.
“Right. He came on afternoons when Carlos was working and the baby was asleep. She said he gave her two, sometimes three orgasms a go. How about that? I don’t think I can do that,” Helio said, gloomily sucking at the dregs of his beer. “You ever do that?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Paul said, feeling quite sullen at the thought.
CHAPTER 34
NINA WOUND UP THE HILLS TOWARD MATT’S CURRENT digs, a house-sitting situation off Esquiline in Carmel Valley, to see how he was doing. Their mother was due for burial the next day.
Earlier, she had stopped off at her mother’s house, using her own key. The crime-scene tape was gone. This bothered her, as if it meant the police had given up, even though she knew that wasn’t so. Inside she observed signs of fingerprint dust, and although the house looked freshly cleaned, she smelled it, too. The furniture, wallpaper, even the rugs also gave off the faint scent of her mother’s cologne, Chanel No. 5.
The floor near the entryway held only the usual red wool carpet. She saw no sign of the groceries her mother had bought on her last day.
In the kitchen, all looked tidy except for a few dirty dishes. The police had apparently removed the groceries and the knife. She checked the wooden block holder. Only one knife was missing, the butcher knife, the one her mother always kept supersharp.
Ginny had dropped the groceries so that she could grab a knife, Nina decided. However desperate or afraid Ginny had been, she had not gone like a lamb. She had fought, as she always did. However weak she must have felt, she fought and stood up to her assailant.
Never show them you’re afraid. Never let fear stop you.
Her mother’s words haunted her. Wandering into Ginny’s bedroom, her sanctum, she recalled skidding the length of the freshly waxed, long hallway with Matt in socks, screaming like crazy, and how her mother, sitting on her bed watching, had laughed and laughed at them.
Four pictures had been tucked into the frame around the mirror above the dressing table. One showed Matt, longer-haired, younger, lovingly polishing Harlan’s sports car. One showed Nina, hair blowing out behind her like a fan, at the beach building a sand castle, aged about six. In another one, bigger and more brightly colored, Bob stuck out his tongue. The last one hurt the most. Ginny, maybe nineteen, and Harlan, only a little older, sat on a blanket at Carmel River Beach, holding hands, smiling and squinting into the sunshine.
She had thought she might find something the police missed. And maybe she had.
Love.
As she locked up, she decided the only image missing to complete the painful history of their family might just be one of Richard Filsen.
She parked in front of the house in Carmel Valley and knocked on the door. No reply. She rang the doorbell. No reply.
“Matt?” she called, peering into the dirty front window from the porch. She could see a light inside.
A curtain shifted.
The door opened and he let her in.
The house, a single-story, sprawling, low-slung ranch built in the seventies, showed nothing of Matt. Bookcases held books he would never read. Pictures reflected a four-person family, mom, dad, boy, and girl. The entryway was mauve. In the kitchen, Formica masqueraded as oak. In the living room, vinyl performed the same function.
What did he do in this place? Nina wondered, then spotted the huge stereo system, tapes and records strewn about, a plump set of headphones lying on the floor.
“How are you, Matt?”
The red webbing around his irises deepened as his eyes made the rounds. “Fucked up, Neen.” He chuckled, and it made her cringe. “People came around and injected me with virus. Kept me from eating. And now I can’t sleep either. I warned you! I warned you and Mom!”
“Oh, Matt.”
“I’m sick now. Maybe dying.”
She took his pathetically thin arm and sat him down on a couch. He put his face into his hands. “Mom,” he said brokenly. “She kept me going. I ran out of stuff and I’m out of money, too. And I got fired yesterday.”
“Wait, wait. Tell me about this so-called virus?”
“AIDS. I feel so bad I must be dying.”
“Have you seen a doctor?” She sat down, stood up, and stared at him, shocked and almost ready to believe him, he kept saying it so much.
He got up, gesticulating. “A doctor? A doctor? Do you hear yourself? Do you know what so-called doctors did to our mother? How about they killed her, huh?”
“Matt, we’ll get you tested, and then—the drugs are affecting your thinking. Matt, you need more help than I can give you.”
“They want me dead, underground with Mom, worms going in, worms going out, in that cold, dirty place.”
Nina went over to him and held him by the shoulders. “Jesus, Matt, what did you use today? Crank? Cocaine?”
“Drugs are bad, Nina. They make me sick. They don’t work right anymore.”
“Pack a bag, like for a vacation.”
“Maybe I need to call Zinnia. Figure out what’s going on first.”
“You’re not calling Zinnia. Not now. Not ever again.”
He paced the living room while she packed him a bag.
“Sign here,” said the kindly black woman covering the front desk at Community Hospital’s psych ward. Located in the basement of the hospital, the low-ceilinged ward was a claustrophobe’s nightmare. From the desk Nina could see various small rooms leading off the brightly lit reception area—patient quarters. All the doors were shut tight. She bet some of them were locked, even though they had just passed through a heavy, locked door to get this far.
“Sign right here, Matt,” Nina said, pointing.
>
“What the hell’s this!” He picked up the paper and examined it.
“A safe place.”
“You agree to stay for seventy-two hours,” the woman said. “We protect you, get you the help you need.”
Matt looked around wildly. “A doctor’s going to inject me?”
“You see anything dangerous here?” Nina asked, waving her hands into the white space. “You believe I would find you a place that’s dangerous? Matt, I need you. Bob needs you. Dad wants you safe, too. Please, stay for a few days. I’ll come see you, I promise. Please sign.”
Matt gave her that younger-brother look, quizzical, trusting. “Is that what I should do? Really? Lock myself up?”
“Yes, Matt.” Nina touched the pen to his hand.
He signed.
“Seventy-two hours, that’s all we can hold him,” said the woman at the desk. An aide searched through Matt’s suitcase. Matt looked on, disoriented. He looked so defeated, so wasted, that Nina almost said, Let’s get out of here, baby bro. But she kept her mouth shut.
“He needs help,” she said finally.
“What about Mom?” Matt asked forlornly. “I’m going to miss going. They’ll bury her without me, put dirt over her.”
“I’ll be there, okay? I’ll tell her you meant to come. I’ll give her a rose from you.”
“A white rose. She liked white roses.” He closed his eyes. “I hate all this feeling. Hate it. Hate it.”
“This is a voluntary commitment. He’ll be seen by the psychiatrist once a day,” the nurse said after a respectful pause. “We’ll call you about any meds.”
“That gives us time to track down long-term treatment. Do you have suggestions?”
The receiving nurse handed Nina a list.
“We get this all the time, dear. Some come back repeatedly, okay? You have to hope your brother will come through this.”
Leaning against the wall, feeling as tired as a marathoner, Nina tried to remember. Had she slept the previous night? She recalled an exhausting storm of weeping. Yes, eventually she must have slept. She remembered nightmares.
To get to Pebble Beach, California’s premier golf resort, Paul had to follow the tourists down Seventeen Mile Drive, a winding toll road that connected Pacific Grove and Carmel. That meant he drove carefully, slowing as each breathtaking pullout snagged yet another smitten, swerving driver.
He parked in a lot near Spanish Cove and locked the car, as if here, in such exclusive company, with the cameras and the extensive security, a thief lurked.
Walking toward the course, he thought about Nina’s younger brother. Impulsive kid, an addict, it appeared. Unstable. Hated Wu and Filsen.
In other words, a worthy suspect in Filsen’s death. But what would that mean for Nina?
Harlan Reilly dragged his golf bag behind him, his arm heavy on the shoulders of a young blond woman with bright eyes and a wide smile. Nina had mentioned that Harlan’s new wife was pregnant, but Paul wouldn’t have known at first glance.
Paul introduced himself. Harlan introduced Angie.
“Mind if we go just a little longer?” Harlan asked, sorting through his irons. “Then we can go inside and sit down and talk.”
“Sure.” Nina’s father didn’t exactly appear prostrated. Of course he was divorced from Nina’s mother. Still, Paul wondered about such a man, resorting to golf in the face of a family tragedy.
A tall, buff, handsome man in his late fifties, the kind who stays salt-and-peppery for a long time, Harlan had held on to his hair. His prominent chin and the mouth now set so firmly reminded Paul of Nina.
He stood at the tee, drawing the line between the distant flag and the tee with his eyes, back and forth, back and forth, readying himself. He pulled the club back, keeping his eye on the ball, and gave it a hell of a whack. The ball flew up, then bounced close to the distant green.
Harlan smiled.
“Good correction going into this breeze,” Paul said.
“You a golfer?”
“Now and then. This is one of the best courses on earth. It’s always a high, playing here.”
Harlan and Angie both nodded. Angie waved an arm around, gesturing toward a sparkling ocean as deep as her blue eyes. The wind made her hair dance. She looked very young to be with Harlan, but from the way she rubbed his back as she passed him, Paul thought she didn’t mind. The wind revealed her stomach bump. She was just a few months pregnant, Paul judged. “He comes for the golfing. I come for the rest of it.”
“You’re here, sweetie, because you’re a competitive little monkey. I’m betting you’ll be able to better my handicap in six months.”
She touched a finger to her new husband’s face, right where his lip curved. Paul could see the warmth from her passing into Harlan. Boy, these two had it so bad it looked good even to Paul.
“So—how to handle oceanside conditions?” Harlan said a moment later. “I do a low running shot to play the firm turf. That keeps the ball under the breezes.”
Angie took a club from the bag. Pushing hair out of her eyes, she swung. Her ball rolled weakly off toward the woods. “You see how I fake it?”
“She hasn’t got a rhythm yet, is all.”
His new wife after several strokes finally hit her ball onto the green. They walked toward his ball. One more stroke and he made the green of the par-3 hole. She nudged her ball into the hole after several more strokes. Harlan tapped his in smoothly. “Better this time, Angel,” he encouraged.
“Meet you at the clubhouse in a few minutes.”
“You don’t want to finish, Angie?”
“What, twenty over par? No, I do not. I’ll cling to what’s left of my dignity.” Angie passed close to Paul, saying in a soft voice, “He needs this distraction. He’s upset.” Then she took off at a trot, her pregnancy no impediment.
“Soda, remember, Angie,” Harlan shouted after her, his voice thin, breaking.
Paul and Harlan walked back toward the clubhouse together, squishing in the damp grass.
“I hate those goddamn carts,” Harlan said. “They take all the sport out of it.” Paul and Harlan walked lightly, the wind at their backs.
“Your ex-wife’s burial is tomorrow,” Paul said. “Closed casket.”
“You’re a subtle bastard, aren’t you?”
Paul said nothing.
“I’ll be there. Of course I will. I owe her that.”
Ignoring the financial implications of that statement, Paul asked, “Where were you on Thursday morning, early, Mr. Reilly?”
“Driving back from Vegas. With Angie. Spent Wednesday night there. Got home Thursday about three.”
“She’ll verify that timeline?”
“Sure she will.”
“What was the fight about?” Paul asked.
“Fight?” Harlan stared at him.
“When you beat up your wife four years ago?”
CHAPTER 35
“DAMN.” HARLAN STOPPED. “WHY BRING THAT UP? Trying to knock me off-balance?”
“You put her into the hospital,” Paul said. “Broken jaw, wasn’t it?”
“Look. That happened just before we separated. The end of a long road. Emotions running high. She—she—it doesn’t matter anymore. It wasn’t like it sounds. She ran into me.”
“How’d you get the charges dropped?”
Harlan looked toward the clubhouse. “Ginny didn’t press charges. I went to counseling. Got the judge to accept probation. I have been apologizing to Ginny and my kids for that ever since. Believe me, Detective, you’re on the wrong track. I realize that because I’m the ex-husband you have to consider me. But I had nothing to do with her death.”
“I’ll be looking up the police report and talking to you again,” Paul said mildly. “Matt was there, right?”
“Yeah,” Harlan answered, looking thoughtful. “You got kids?” When Paul shook his head, Harlan went on, “It’s the worst pain. They’re little. Sweet. Hold your hand. They draw pictures of you with a giant
head and stick legs all day long. They love you very much. Then one day you look at this hulking animal. An innocent in a grown-up body, but not so sweet anymore, you know what I’m saying?”
Paul waited.
“Matt has problems. He’s not reliable.”
“Drug addicts tend not to be.”
Harlan frowned. “I went to see him today, around noon. Somehow, Nina got him to go to Community Hospital. He’s detoxing, but sick. Not all there. He didn’t say much. The expense is going to be a bear. How the hell did he get himself so fucked up anyway!”
Paul felt his judgment forming. Harlan Reilly seemed to be a shallow soul who was rapidly moving on from the first family he had created. A burden to him now, they represented his failures.
He felt a rise of anger. Nina wasn’t a failure. She’d had her problems, but she was trying to train herself for a career and be a good mother, and he thought she was succeeding.
“My son in the hospital. Who’s ever prepared for that?” Harlan patted his pockets, searching for something. Cigarettes? Gum? A heart?
“Here’s what worries me.” Harlan’s mouth twisted nervously. “People will assume I’m involved. It’s always the husband or, um—ex, right?”
Interesting immediate reaction. “Was it you?”
“No.” Harlan leaned against a tree.
“You knew Richard Filsen?”
Harlan sighed, shaking his head. “I hate this bygone garbage. I knew of him, but never met him. Nina saw him for a while years ago.”
“How does that explain why you hired the private investigator four years ago?” Paul should thank Armano for digging that from Mrs. Reilly’s old paid-bills files. Armano was proving himself to be a real obsessive for detail work, a good thing, because Paul hated it.
“Oh, shit, you found out about that.” Reilly dug holes in the green with his cleats. “The investigator came right after Nina had Bob.”
Paul didn’t say anything, just stood comfortably, arms folded, alert, letting the sea breeze ruffle his hair. Reilly was about to say something that was costing him some pain.
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