“If I made a list,” Joe says, looking at him now, “of all the times I helped you with a story, it’d be pretty lengthy, wouldn’t it?”
“It sure would, Joe.”
“Talked to you when I wouldn’t talk to folks from the Sun, though since they’re a local outfit, it might’ve been to my advantage to cuddle favor there.”
He means “curry favor,” of course, but when Richard thinks back on it, he will decide that “cuddle” is closer to the truth, not to mention more poetic.
“And what thanks do I get? You go give the coach the third degree and start making insinuations about me. What’s behind this, Brennan? It’s that new redheaded Okie at the Sun, isn’t it?” Problematically, he glances at Julia’s photo.
Whatever residual gratitude Richard might have harbored for the information Garcia has fed him over the years is washed out to sea. “Maria Cantrell, you mean? She’s actually from Arkansas.”
“Arkie, Okie, whatever. She’s got a nice can trailing behind her, I’ll give her that. So I guess we could say she’s well named. She’s been buzzing around the Palomino, asking questions about who drinks with who . . . is it ‘who drinks with who’ or ‘who drinks with whom’?”
“Depends on how correct you want to sound when quoted. Or is this conversation off the record?”
Garcia uncrosses his legs and leans forward, a hand on each knee. “This conversation is being conducted between you and me. Like all the other conversations we’ve had over the last however many years. Either you call me up with a question and I tell you as much as I can afford to and then some, or I call you up and make sure you get dibs on a story. I don’t know why you didn’t do that this time. But here I am, Richard, for you to ask me whatever you want to know. If I can tell you, I will.”
It sounds perfectly reasonable, and it would be if Maria hadn’t shown him the photo of Major letting Jacinta Aguilera out of his car, if she hadn’t found a bartender at the Golden Palomino who said Major liked to drink there and was often served by Jacinta, if she hadn’t learned that Garcia handled security for private parties at the coach’s house. This last bit of info is the main thing that gives him pause: she says she can’t tell him how she came by it, that her source was scared and she promised to protect his or her identity. He mostly believes her, and the coach’s reaction seemed to confirm his ties with Garcia. But since Joe is sitting here asking him what he’d like to know, that seems like a good place to start.
“Did you handle security for a private party at Major’s?” he asks.
“Several times. I’ve also done it for the UCC basketball coach. You may recall—or maybe not—that I got four kids. Unlike me, they’re all gonna go to college. Two of ’em are there right now, another one’ll start next year and the last one a couple years later. So I don’t turn down work. I’m like most joes walking around out there.”
“Are you and Major friends?”
“A guy like me doesn’t get to be friends with guys like him. I work for him sometimes. He’s bought me the occasional drink.”
“Are you aware of any link between Major and Jacinta Aguilera?”
Garcia had to know the question was coming, that he wouldn’t be here otherwise, yet he takes a while before answering. Finally, he says, “You met my wife once, didn’t you?”
More than once. Her name is Cloris, and she’s a nurse at Valley Children’s Hospital. Years ago, one afternoon when Anna and Sandy were riding their bikes around the neighborhood, they somehow contrived to crash into each other. Sandy emerged unscathed, but Anna fell flat on her face, and when he saw the bloody mess it made of her mouth and nose, he threw her in the car and broke every traffic law driving her to the hospital. Garcia’s wife immediately got her in to see the doctor, and within the hour she was stitched up and on her way home with a promise that she’d heal just fine, which she did. He hugged Cloris that afternoon, thanking her profusely. The following day he returned with the biggest box of See’s Candy he could find. His choice of gift was not accidental, though when he told Julia about it, she voiced dismay. Cloris was and is an enormous woman. The clinical word would be “obese.”
“You know perfectly well that I’ve met her,” he says. “But what’s that got to do with Coach Major and Jacinta Aguilera?”
“Cloris, God love her . . .” Garcia shakes his head. “Great woman. Totally. But she’s not exactly Marilyn Monroe. You ever seen Coach Major’s wife?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Well, she kind of is Marilyn Monroe. You know what I’m saying?”
He knows what he’s saying. And he also knows what he’s not saying. “You didn’t really answer my question, Joe.”
With his tongue, Garcia probes his jaw, as if he’s having second, third, and fourth thoughts about Richard’s intelligence. “What’s your favorite pie?” he asks.
“Apple.”
“Like it a lot?”
“Actually, I do.”
“So, loving your good old deep-dish apple pie, you’re walking by a bakery one evening after closing time, and there sits a pecan pie in the window. Well, that looks kind of good, you think. So what do you do? Bash the window out to get it? Or go home and eat some more of that good apple?”
“I go home and eat more apple. But that doesn’t answer my question either.”
“I always heard Massachusetts offered excellent education. But I’m starting to wonder.”
He decides to return the sarcasm, fully aware he’s taking a calculated risk that could result in combustion. “Oh, it most definitely does, Joe. But I was not the brightest student in that storied state. So I’m afraid you’ll need to walk me through this. My devotion to apple pie means what with respect to whether there was a link between Nick Major and Jacinta Aguilera?”
While he watches, Garcia gets up and disappears into the dining room. He hears him walk through there and into the hall, and then he hears the door to Anna’s old bedroom open and close. More footsteps, and the bathroom door opens and closes. Then the door to his study, followed by the bedroom door and the door to the basement. After that, the kitchen. A moment later, the detective reappears, his face now purple. Breathing hard, he stands beside Richard’s chair so that there’s little choice but to look up at him.
“You want me to tell you he fucked her?” he asks. “Well, I can’t. You want to know why?”
“Sure, Joe. Why?
“Because if it happened, sad as this may be, they didn’t invite me to watch. I don’t say what I don’t know. But there’s a few things I do know, and I’m gonna relate ’em before I go to work.
“Here’s the first. When we entered the Aguileras’ house that night, we found the woman sitting in the kitchen slumped over the table. Her right hand’s wrapped around a nearly empty bottle of Chihuahua, and she’s got a hole in the back of her head. The two boys were in bunk beds. He shot the one in the upper bunk in the side of his head, and there were brains and blood all over the wall. The one in the lower bunk must have woken up and tried to get out of bed, because he was shot in the face. The toddler was in her crib and probably never did wake up, thank God and Joseph and Mary. I’ll spare you the details about her condition, except to say that when a kid’s that small, a 9-millimeter slug might as well be a hand grenade. He probably shot her last, since his own body was right beside her crib. The motherfucker just snapped. Why he snapped is anybody’s guess. Maybe his wife knew the answer. Maybe she didn’t.
“I could walk you through all the ballistics reports, tell you about powder burns and all that shit, but what’s the point? If you and your girlfriend or whatever she is wanted to know any of this, the time to ask was at the press conference. You didn’t even attend, but she did, and I never heard a peep out of her. You got anything else you want to know, ask me now. Or forever leave me be, as I intend to do unto you from this fine morning forth.”
“Move away from my chair, Joe.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to stand up. And
I’d like a little space in which to do it.”
“‘In which to do it.’” Garcia shakes his head. “Who in the world says shit like that?”
He backs up, but only a couple feet. Richard watches him for a moment until he moves a little farther.
Then he stands. Eye to eye with the detective, he can see a shred of meat caught between his incisors. Ham or bacon, it’s hard to say which. “Andres Aguilera didn’t leave a suicide note, right?”
“Like we announced at the press conference you didn’t go to, no, he most certainly did not.”
He doesn’t know why he asks the next question, though when he tells Maria about it tomorrow evening, he will realize he asked simply because it made sense. He was just doing his job better than he had for a while. “Did you happen to find Jacinta Aguilera’s cell phone?”
Some people can cover it up when you hit home. Some people can’t. Garcia is quick to say no. But not quick enough.
She lives on a quiet street bisected by a canal. Like his house, hers is a Tudor and though a good bit smaller has many of the same features: rounded arches, wooden floors, in the foyer a stained-glass window. “This is the first place I’ve ever owned,” she says as she shows him around. She opens the bathroom door to reveal black-and-white art-deco tile and a pedestal sink. “You’ve got the same tile in your bathroom, I noticed.”
“Most of these Tudors were built in the early to mid-’20s, when there were only about three construction companies in town. You’ll see a lot of similarity from one to the next.”
She tosses her hair, which he has come to recognize as her trademark gesture. “Want a beer?”
“Sure.”
He follows her into the kitchen. It’s neat, dishes put away, no cartons or cans left standing around. He looks over her shoulder as she opens the fridge. There’s not much inside: just a couple six-packs of Sam Adams, a quart of milk, some Trader Joe’s lasagna.
She hands him a Sam, grabs one for herself, then pulls an opener out of a drawer and pops off the caps. “Cheers,” she says and clinks his bottle. “Want to go sit out back?”
“Sure.”
She leads him into the fenced-off yard. At the rear of it, there’s a deck with a Jacuzzi and next to that a glass-topped table shaded by a beach umbrella. He pulls a chair out for her, then one for himself.
“Know what I drank when I lived in ‘Wistuh’?” she asks. “Three guesses.”
“Harpoon?”
“You’re amazing. I’ve looked for it out here, but nobody’s ever heard of it.”
“I doubt it’s sold beyond New England.”
“Well, you’re wrong about that, partner. I once slurped down a whole bunch of ’em in a Miami bar.”
“Yeah?”
“Fuckin’ A, as they say at the corner packie.”
In the text he sent late last night, he told her he’d had an interesting talk with Garcia and that if she had time for a beer this evening, he’d be more specific. Now he takes her through their conversation word by word. When he’s finished, she says, “Goddamn. So you’re thinking the son of a bitch found her cell phone and concealed the evidence.”
“Given what else we know, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
“You think anybody else is involved in the cover-up?”
“Like who?”
For the second time in the last thirty-six hours, someone looks at him as if he were an unusually dense child. “Duh?” she says. “Like the other officers who entered the house that night. Like the fucking police chief. Like the DA. Maybe even a judge. Like, who do you think?”
He downs the last of his beer, then with the bottle gestures at the Jacuzzi, which is covered by a fiberglass lid. “You use the hot tub much?” he asks.
“Yes, I do. I get in it when I feel tense. And I’m feeling tense now. But I didn’t have the foresight to turn on the heater. You’re fixing to tell me we need to proceed with caution, aren’t you? Just chill for the next . . . oh, I don’t know, the next month or two. Or maybe wait till sometime in January, after the national championship game?”
“May I ask you a question, Maria?”
“Might as well. I mean, since it sounds like you’re not planning to ask the police any.”
“When you went to that press conference where the FPD announced its findings, I was covering a Modesto city council meeting. Garcia said that during the Q&A, you didn’t say a word. Is that true?”
“I can’t remember. It could be.”
“Maria?”
She’s looking at her fence, as if redwood boards are the most interesting sight in town. “Okay. I didn’t.”
“Yet you told me that you were bothered by the chief’s apparent nervousness as well as Garcia’s cockiness.”
“Are we having a Malcolm-McGuiness moment?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You know, where one journalist interviews another one to expose his—or in this case her—foibles?”
Yesterday afternoon, when he got his car out of the shop, he did something he should’ve done sooner, paying a visit to both the police department and the office of the superior court clerk. After that, he went home and placed a phone call, which lasted over an hour. Then he made a big pot of coffee, and by sunrise this morning he’d read every piece she’d written for the Worcester paper. As far as he can tell, her reporting there was flawless. She covered her share of fires and wrecks as well as numerous assaults and a handful of murders. He searched for retractions or corrections but couldn’t find a single one. He thought of calling his former BU classmate but decided against it. It wouldn’t be necessary.
“Let’s make it both his foibles and hers,” he says. “We’ll start with mine. For the last couple years, I’ve been going through the motions. That’s what you detected when we were at Chicken Liver’s and you pinned my foot to the floor. I used to work a lot harder. For the record—”
“Oh, so now we’re on the record.”
He ignores the barb. “For the record, I still believe what we do’s crucial. But there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way. The right way nearly always takes longer. I’ve already made one bad mistake.”
She doesn’t ask what that bad mistake was. She’s receded into herself, to the place of inner darkness he knows all too well.
“I shouldn’t have interviewed Major before I’d taken some other steps. Of course, you’re the one who suggested it, but I should’ve known better. For one thing, I should’ve talked to Joe before that, though it probably wouldn’t have gone any better than it did yesterday. More importantly, I should have read the police report, then driven down to superior court and taken a look at the search warrant.”
He gives her a moment to respond. But she’s not going to.
“After all,” he says, “that’s what you did.”
“Okay. That’s what I did.”
“And since you’ve examined lots of search warrants, when you looked at the one executed during the Aguilera investigation, you would’ve noticed immediately that no mobile phones were listed among the items retrieved from the house. And that would’ve struck you as strange because these days, who doesn’t have a cell phone? My guess is that this is when you went to see your editor.”
“I waited a week.”
“And did what?”
“A little more digging. Followed Major around town, spent some more time at the Palomino. And found out about Garcia handling security for his parties.”
“Speaking of that,” he begins.
“I’m still not going to tell you who I learned it from.”
“Eventually, you may have to.”
“No. I’ll tell you how and when, if you insist. But not his name.”
He’s silent for a moment, during which he decides to let that one go, at least for now. “I don’t suppose you’d like another beer?”
She says sure but doesn’t get up. She’s still staring at the fence. She hasn’t looked at him even once since he started asking questions.
> He takes their empty bottles back to the house, drops them in the recycling bin, and grabs a couple more. When he pulls out the drawer where the opener is, he notices a neatly rolled joint. It’s lying in the tray that holds kitchen utensils, almost but not quite concealed beneath the spoons. He pops the caps and goes back outside.
Now she does look at him, watching him all the way across the yard. “That was quick. If it had been me, I would’ve probably seized the opportunity to look around, paw through a closet or two while claiming I took a big piss.”
“I’m sure you would have,” he says, handing her the beer. “I did find your joint, though I wasn’t looking for it.”
“No, that wouldn’t be your style, I guess. Was it ever?”
“Not really.”
“Of course not. You went to journalism school and made the right connections and got a job with a big paper when you were still in your twenties.”
He sits down and crosses his legs. “One connection I made was with a guy from your home state. Remember, I told you I had a friend who teaches at the University of Arkansas?” He mentions the name. “He’s from some small town up in the Ozarks. I don’t suppose you know him?”
She shrugs. “I know who he is. Used to be a foreign correspondent for the Washington Post, and when he retired he moved back home and accepted some kind of fancy chair or whatever you call it at the university. I never met him, though. I don’t travel in those circles. Never have.”
“He and I met in Poland,” he tells her. “In the fall of ’89. At the time, he was the Post’s regular Eastern Europe correspondent. His Polish was serviceable at best, but I found it easier to understand him in that language than I did when he spoke English. We used to laugh about it. His accent was really thick. Still is. I talked to him last night. He’s got the most amazing memory of just about anybody I ever met.”
He pauses again, leaving her a blank to fill in, should she choose. His kindness, if only he knew it, is grating. That’s a word she learned in the cotton gin her father used to run.
When she first heard it, the word was a noun rather than an adjective, and it had no g at the end. She’d asked why there was a hole in the gin’s concrete floor and why that hole was covered by four or five rusty iron bars. And her daddy said, We’re so close to that old grudge ditch that we get flooded sometimes. When the water comes in, it runs through this gratin’ into the drain, and the drain carries it right back out. We can’t let the machinery get wet. That’d foul it up bad.
The Unmade World Page 14