Who Killed Rudy Rio?

by Lee Bellamy

  There was plenty of time before the funeral. At the office I changed into the grubbies I'd tossed into the car—jeans, red sweater, and well-worn Nikis. I hopped on Kings Canyon Boulevard east and drove twenty miles to the little farming town of Sanger. I continued south another three miles or so, past plowed, empty fields that would soon be full of cotton, alfalfa, grapes, tomatoes, what-have-you, in the spring.

  A lonely stretch of country road led to Joy's property. A bumpy dirt driveway took me to her small, tumble-down house. No resemblance to House & Garden here. The bare dirt yard harbored trash, weeds, a broken-down chicken coop, and the rusting hulk of a tractor lying on its side. Rows of brown, leafless, January-dead grapevines stretched beyond the house as far as I could see.

  Two terrorized chickens flew up squawking as I rolled to a stop in front of the house. I got out of the car and was about to climb the sagging wooden porch steps when I heard the noise of a tractor out back. I circled around to the back yard. Just as I got there, a big orange tractor came barreling toward me, down a dirt aisle between two rows of vines. A big woman sat at the wheel, her carrot red hair flying wildly in the wind, her expression grimmer than Ben Hur's in the big chariot race. At the end of the row, she started to turn, then spied me. She reversed the wheel and shot out of the vineyard, swerving around in a four-wheel slide. Shutting off the motor she glared down at me over the top of the huge tire. "Who the hell are you?"

  So much for merry and bright. "I'm Holly Keene." Choke! The tractor and the disks it pulled had kicked up a big billow of dust. I got a face-full. Good thing I wasn't wearing my Rodeo Drive suit. I bent down and slapped at my jeans. "Neat tractor. I've always wanted to drive one of those. I talked to you yesterday on the telephone."

  "You drove out to the boonies for nothing. I told you all I know."

  I got the dust off, straightened, and took a good long look at Joy Daniel. Now I knew what Doris meant when she implied Rudy couldn't possibly be after her. Joy had a big broad nose and thin colorless lips that formed a happy face turned upside-down. Her eyes were a pretty velvet brown, but they were set too close together, almost buried in puffy fat. Her body was shaped like a pear—small at the top, with ski slope shoulders and a nearly flat chest; big at the bottom, with hips that hung over the edge of the tractor seat like two sacks of grain. She wore a pilled pink sweater and faded old denims straining at the seams.

  An open box of Zingers sat on the floor of the tractor, next to a Little Penguin cooler.

  I tilted my head back and breathed deeply. "Hmmm, it's great to be out in the country. I love smelling that air. It's so invigorating."

  Joy lifted a nostril to take an evaluating sniff. "Alfalfa and cow manure. Nothing great about that."

  "Well it smells good to me. Say, I just realized—" I shaded my eyes from the weak winter sun and looked around, studying intently those long brown rows of vines "—I was born and raised in the valley, but I've never been in a vineyard before. Bet it's a lot of work."

  "You've got that right." Joy heaved herself down off the tractor with hippopotamus grace. "You've got to keep after them all the time. People don't know that. They think the machines do all the work. They think, oh those god damn farmers, they're getting rich sitting around waiting for their crops to grow. Well, that's a bunch of crap. If I'm not irrigating, I'm pruning, or making furrows, or disking, or spraying herbicides, or twisting vines. I work my butt off three-sixty-five days a year, eight, ten hours a day."

  "Is that right? How many acres do you have?"

  "Twenty. All Thompson seedless."

  "Table grapes?"

  "Raisins." Her lip curled with disgust. "That means more work. First, you've got to grow the suckers. Then you've got to hire a contractor to bring the pickers in, 'cause you can't do twenty acres by yourself. Then you've got to get another contractor to come and lay special paper down, and spread those little hummers out in the sunshine to dry." She thrust out her chin at me. "And then you know what you've got to do?"

  "Not actually, no."

  "You've got to pray the shit it doesn't rain for the next fourteen days. Because if it does, you're done." She flung a palm in the air. "Kaput. Kerflooey. It's all down the tube, baby, if your raisins get wet."

  "Well, I sure hope it won't rain. Did you ever think of getting into something else?"

  "Something else? You've got to be kidding." She gestured grandly over her twenty acres, striking a noble-pioneer-woman-of-the-golden-west pose. "This is my land. I'm the boss here. I'll stay here until I die so I don't have to take crap off of anybody."

  I thought of Barnicut. She had a point. I'd let her ramble long enough, though. "Look, I know you're busy, but there are a few questions I'd like to ask."

  "Hey, what more do you want? I already told you, Crystal was a kind, loving, thoughtful girl."

  "No she wasn't." I watched closely to gage her reaction.

  "She wasn't, huh?" Joy looked faintly amused.

  "No. So don't jack me around. I want to hear about the real Crystal."

  "Well, shit." Joy regarded me with pursed lips, taken aback that I wasn't awestruck over her raisins anymore. "Well, shit," she said again, shrugging indifferently. "Why should I care? Okay, I'll talk to you, but you've got to follow me around. I'm tying vines today." She reached for her box of Zingers. "Have one if you want." She opened her cooler. "Grab a beer."

  The Little Penguin contained a six-pack of Budweiser. Zingers and beer and it wasn't even noon? I started to say no, but changed my mind. What the hell, it was that kind of day.

  I took a beer and picked out a Zinger. "I'll have just one—they've got cholesterol."

  "Screw cholesterol." Joy unwrapped the foil from her Zinger, crammed it into her mouth, and flung the foil to the ground. She ripped the tab off the Bud and took a swig.

  I finished my own Zinger and washed it down with the Bud. "Not bad." Joy offered me another Zinger, but I declined. She polished off two more. When she finished, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, picked up a box marked, "Twistims" and trudged toward the field. She glanced over her shoulder. "Well, if you're coming, come on."

  I started after her, my Nikes sinking into the soft earth. We stopped half way down the row. She opened the box and grabbed a handful of Twistims. They looked like the things you use to fasten your garbage bags, only longer.

  "Here," she said, "make yourself useful."

  I accepted a Twistim. "What do I do?"

  "Watch me." A long, strong wire, attached to the top of five foot stakes ran the length of the row. Joy seized a dead-looking branch, tugged it upwards, deftly guided the Twistim around it and wrapped it around the wire. She glanced at me. "See? All's you do is attach the branches—canes they call them—to the wire. You've got to be careful, though. If you don't twist right, that cane will whip right back and smack you in the kisser. You can get hurt."

  Oh, great. The way my luck was running, I would no doubt get attacked by a killer grape vine. "So you're an old friend of Crystal?" I prompted as I grabbed a vine.

  "Oh, yeah. We were in kindergarten together. We knew each other all through school. Always pals, you know? We did a lot of stuff together. We both had a reputation from the fourth grade on." Joy's sharp eyes checked me out. "You're doing it wrong. Hold with one hand. Tie with the other. You have to be coordinated."

  I nodded, tugging at the branch. "What...sort of...reputation?" The damn cane didn't want to move.

  "We were easy, the both of us. Who knows, maybe that's why we hung out together. We were always the bad girls of the class. In middle school we ran around with stoners." She squinted at me with a bet-you-don't-know expression. "You know what stoners are?"

  Did she think I didn't? "Sure. Kids who smoke pot and think they're cool."

  "Yeah, you got it. But it's high school where we got the really bad reps. Boys who went out with us expected sex."

  "And?"

  "So we gave them sex. They'd get mad if we didn't. I didn't care."
<
br />   "Why not?"

  Joy cast a disgusted look at me. "How else was I going to be popular? 'Course, I've put on a little weight now, but back then I wasn't so bad looking. Even so, the boys weren't exactly beating a path to my door."

  I felt a pang of sympathy for a woman who, on the best day of her life, could not come close to "not so bad looking." High school must have been hell for Joy Daniel. Was her life any better now? "What about Crystal? I've seen her picture. She's a beautiful girl."

  Joy sniffed derisively. "That's the difference between us. I was bad because I had to be. Crystal was bad because she wanted to be. 'Course, she just loved having me around. I made her look even better. We did a lot of bad stuff. Like we smoked, drank, ran around with the wrong crowd, got into dope a little... Shit, one night we even hung out on 'G' Street."

  "You were prostitutes?"

  "Sure! It was fun getting all dressed up in those miniskirts and boots. Crystal loved it. She did it because… Like she had a bad attitude, you know? Her father was a Baptist minister. He didn't believe in dancing, or makeup, or running around. Her sister, Velia, and their mother didn't seem to mind. Remember The Church Lady in Saturday Night Live? They both were like that, but not Crystal. She was a rebel. She just had to show them up." Joy took the Twistim out of my hand. "You'll never make it as a vine twister, honey."

  "I guess not." Happily, I relinquished the branch. "What happened after high school?"

  "What do you mean, after high school? We both dropped out, but I bet that fancy sister of hers didn't tell you that. That's when we went our separate ways. Crystal hustled her buns down to Hollywood. She was going be a star. I found a guy I didn't love—married him because I figured nobody else would ask me. Served me right when he turned out to be the world's most worthless piece of shit. I finally got tired of getting beaten up and yelled at, so I left him. I've been single ever since."

  "What about Crystal?"

  "Crystal became a star, all right, only in the porn movies. I saw a film of hers once. Las Vegas Party Girls—something like that. Jeeze! There was old Crystal doing beaver shots and getting balled. Pretty raunchy stuff. Even I was disgusted. Then she went to Vegas, and that's where she got herself into big trouble."

  "Like?"

  "Like she got mixed up with this mobster guy, Sereno Ghimenti. I never did know what she did—she wouldn't tell me—but whatever it was, she really pissed him off. She came high-tailing it back to Fresno, scared to death he was after her. Her parents were both dead by then, so she moved in with me. That was before I bought the farm and still lived in town. I didn't mind giving her a hand. She decided to go back to school—put the old life behind her. It didn't work, though." She gave me the box of Twistims. "Here. Hand these to me. Well, first off, a few weeks after she moves in, somebody drives by and shoots the shit out of our living room. Crystal was scared spitless. It was like she knew it was Sereno Ghimenti sending her a message."

  "It was mentioned in the newspapers when Crystal disappeared, but the police didn't make much of it."

  "They wouldn't. The police figured it was just another random, drive-by shooting."

  "So then what happened?"

  "A few days later Crystal disappeared." Joy gave her Twistim an extra firm twist. "That's all I know."

  "You don't suppose—?"

  "That's all I know," Joy said with stubborn finality. "Hand me a Twistim."

  I gave her one. Obviously, it was time to change course. "What about her sister, Velia?"

  "What about her?"

  "Did you pal around with her, too?"

  "With the virgin queen?" Joy reached for another cane. "Pal around with Velia," she muttered to herself, "oh, jeeze, give me a break."

  "I take it you don't like her."

  "Naaaa...I like Velia well enough. She's always been nice to me. She's a nice person, period. Born to be a minister's daughter, let me tell you. She's always involved in lots of church work, like at Christmas she's running around town collecting food for the poor. She's always doing stuff like that. The only thing wrong with Velia is that there's nothing's wrong with her."

  "Who can stand someone who's perfect?"

  "You figure it. I could never relate to Velia. Never knew what to say to her beyond hello. We were in different spaces."

  "How did she meet Jay?"

  "When Crystal came back to Fresno, Jay came with her. He was her boyfriend back then. She was nuts about him, but the minute he laid eyes on Velia...well, it was one of those magic moments, like in a Harlequin romance. Velia had never been in love before. She hardly ever dated. But when those two met, honey, the sparks flew. In a month they were married, and poor old Crystal was out in the cold."

  "How did she take it?"

  "She was pretty upset, but what could she do? Have you met Jay?"

  "Not yet."

  "Jay can park his boots under my bed any time he wants. You going to his mother's funeral this afternoon?" I nodded. "You'll see."

  Another Jay Champion fan, I noted. "So you like him."

  "Like him?" Joy straightened and gave me a curious look. "Yeah, I like Jay Champion," she answered softly. "He's tender and he's tough. He marches to his own tune. Velia got damn lucky."

  With a sigh, she started twisting again, and I saw I'd better let the subject drop. She got off on another tangent then, ranting about some old grape boycott in San Francisco and how every shit-faced member of the Board of Supervisors who voted this disgrace should have been taken out and shot.

  When we finished the row, we left the vineyard. We sat down at a dilapidated redwood picnic table in the back yard and had another beer. "One more question," I said, "what can you tell me about Rudy Rio?"

  "Rudy!" With a ferocious crunch Joy crumpled up her beer can and flung it to the ground. "I'm glad that little weasel's dead."

  "He seemed a nice little fellow."

  "He got what he deserved."

  "What did he do to you?"

  "That bastard." Joy's face darkened. "I should have known better. I met Rudy at the trailer yard one day when I'd come to rent a trailer. He started sniffing around, acting like he liked me. I believed him. He'd come out here to the farm...sit around...not offer to help or anything, and I let him. Men!" Joy crumpled another beer can and hurled it after the first. "I loaned him money. He asked for more. When I wouldn't give it to him, that's the last I saw of the little creep."

  "Did you shoot him?"

  "Hell, no." A wicked little smile worked the corners of her lips. "I might have if I'd thought of it."

  When I left, Joy walked me to my car. "Come back any time," she said as I climbed in. She gripped the window edge and bent to peer at me. "You come out again, you can drive the tractor."

  I broke into a grin. "It's a deal. I've got a little girl. Can I bring her?"

  "How old?"

  "Six. Her name is Ashley."

  "Sure. She can feed the chickens and collect the eggs."

  "Thanks, she'd love that." Joy's friendship gesture caught me by surprise. Pleased, I handed her my card. "Call me. We'll do lunch the next time you're in town."

  "Do lunch?" She was trying not to laugh. "Oh, jeeze, do lunch. Well, we'll see."

  She stood in the driveway watching as I drove away. I had made a friend, I thought. There was something endearing about Joy Daniel and her Zingers and beer. I discerned a brainy woman beneath that rough exterior. In my old life, Tom would not have wanted her in our carefully circumscribed circle of friends. Now, though, I could befriend anybody I chose. This was better. Joy had the phrase for it: I was in a different space. But I'd better be careful. Despite her denial, she could have been the one who shot Rudy.

  Had I ever been right about Crystal! She was not a kind, loving thoughtful girl. On the other hand...another vote for Jay the hero. But he wasn't, he was a crook. Would the real Jay Champion step forward? I could hardly wait to meet him.

  ***

  I stopped off at Mother's and made an incredible third change o
f clothes for the day. This time I got into my Elie Tahari, perfect-for-a-funeral black sheath dress and black and white print jacket. I had bought a darling cartwheel hat to go with it, but they don't wear hats in Fresno, even at funerals. I agonized for a while, then left it behind.

  Almost two o'clock. Driving to the cemetery, I realized so far I'd done nothing about finding the black-masked Randy. He was my only lead to the snuff movie. Funeral or no, I wanted to find him fast. I pulled out Gil's card, read off the number he'd scratched on the back, picked up my cell phone and dialed. "This is Holly Keen, Mr. Archibald—Milo."

  "Holly! Nice to hear from you."

  "Guess what? I found a DVD of Virgin in the Pines. Now I want to find an actor who played in it."

  "Maybe I can help. Which one?"

  "I don't know his last name. His first name is Randy. Tall, dark-haired...he wore a mask, so I couldn't see his face, but he's very well-built, and he has an extremely large...uh...uh..."

  "He's got a big schlong."

  "Exactly."

  "Doesn't help, my dear. They all do. What else can you tell me?"

  "He has a deep voice and a snake tattoo that winds around his right arm."

  "Ah! Randy Lord."

  "Oh, great. Where can I find him?"

  "At Forrest Lawn, six feet under."

  "Oh, no."

  "Oh, yes. Randy died of AIDS two years ago."

  "Well, damn." I felt a surge of disappointment. "Do you know of any way I could find who made that movie? Anything?"

  "No I don't, Holly. You must realize it wouldn't have been reviewed in the New York Times. I'm afraid your chances of finding who made it are almost nil."

  Dead end. I thanked Milo and hung up the phone. But I wouldn't give up. There had to be a way to find who was responsible for Virgin in the Pines.

  ***

  Death.

  I couldn't get away from it that afternoon. The winter sun shone weakly when I got to the Clovis Cemetery at Villa and Herndon Avenues. As cemeteries went, this one was almost cheery. Bouquets of plastic flowers decorated the flat grave markers. Miniature twirling windmills were stuck here and there in the ground, adding bright spots of color.