“Right, right,” said Todd. “A surfer. Did you see his shoes?”
“What?”
“He had the straightest shoes I’ve ever seen in my life. If those games mistresses’ yearbook photos were full body shots and we could see their shoes, they’d look like the dancing slippers of Liberace and Beyoncé’s secret love child in comparison.”
“Poor Beyoncé.”
“Conceived in vitro and carried by a surrogate,” Todd continued. “Funded by the Secret Federation of Gays.”
“Them!” I said. “I thought they were concentrating on bringing floods and tornadoes.”
“The elected ones are,” said Todd. “I’m talking deep state.”
“I do love you,” I said. “You talk more crap straight and sober than most people do on mushrooms.”
“I’m married in case you forgot,” said Todd. “You should listen to your mother sometimes, Lexy. Before you wither on the vine.”
A low blow, that. I absorbed it quietly.
When we got back to the Skweek with a tray of outlandish coffee drinks and a bag of pastries that could close down a gym and open a heart hospital, we discovered that no one else had been wasting their time wittering on about Liberace. Roger, Noleen, and Kathi had all struck pay dirt.
“Lah-MAHNT,” Roger said as soon as we were through the door. “Lah-MAHNT plaid.”
“What?” said Todd. “Jeez, I got to Kerr then you swept in for the glory?”
“LAH-mnt,” I corrected. “But yes, you’re right.” The picture of the kilt on Todd’s phone and the picture on Kathi’s laptop of the Lamont clan tartan were an exact match.
“And Mama Ortiz lives on K Street,” said Noleen. “1200 block.”
“And,” Kathi said, “I found out a whole hell of a lot about Tam Shatner. Including why he came back to Cuento after all these years.”
“Really?” I said, splitting a cinnamon roll with napkins over my fingers and handing her the big half. “Was it more than just the fiftieth reunion then?”
“Yup,” said Kathi, looking pretty pleased with herself. “It wasn’t the reunion at all. That was a coincidence. He came back to buy up a piece of real estate.”
“He was moving back here?” I said.
“Nope,” said Kathi. “There’s no house on the property and the zoning is agricultural.”
“Is he a farmer?” I said. “Is that what he did in Florida? Because they do say the citrus industry is shifting west, don’t they?”
“They do?” Kathi said. “The stuff you know.”
The truth was one of my clients was an orange grower with a brutal anxiety disorder and I’d learned more than I ever dreamed I’d need to know in order to help him navigate the vagaries of pests, prices, weather, and water.
“No,” Kathi went on, “he was not a farmer. He was a waste management contractor.”
“A what?” I said.
“A dustman,” said Todd.
I flicked him the vees. “I know what it means,” I said. “I was just emoting. Because that’s like code for dodgy, isn’t it? Waste management?”
“Not necessarily,” said Kathi. “But it’s not unheard of either. He was one of Central Florida’s biggest specialized waste management contractors.”
“Specialised how?” I said. “And how did you find this out?”
“I looked him up on White Pages and called the number,” Kathi said. “Got a very talkative young woman by the name of Courtney who hates working on Sunday just because her boss is dead and the whole operation is headed—and I quote—‘straight to Shitty City.’ She confirmed everything we saw in the auto expo photo too, by the way. Thomas Shatner had an eye, two hands, and a long tongue for da ladieees.”
“’Uck sake,” said Noleen through a mouthful of muffin. “Tryina choke down some breakfast here.”
“Never married,” Kathi went on. “Not for lack of some Melania-grade gold-diggers giving it the old college try over the years. Never even lived with any of them. Just kept the rolodex turning. A real prince. So do you want an answer to your question?” I frowned. “About the specialism?” I nodded. “Roadkill disposal.”
“Ewwwwww,” said Todd. “Go back to talking about his tongue while we’re eating, huh?”
“That is truly disgusting,” I said. “But it must be lucrative if he was investing in farmland in California.”
Kathi gave me a huge grin. “He wasn’t,” she said. “He was buying a very small parcel of land. It’s surrounded by fields but it’s not a field. And it can’t be turned into a field because of ground contamination from former use as a homestead with a septic and propane tank and all that. But its residential zoning has lapsed.”
“It doesn’t sound like the start of an empire,” I said. “Why would anyone buy it?”
“I do not know,” said Kathi, “but the ever-helpful Courtney down there in Tampa provided the information that he had a watch on this property in case it ever came on the market and, when it did, she booked him a plane seat the same day.”
“That is very, very interesting,” I said.
“You’re an easy mark,” said Kathi. “Because I haven’t even got to the interesting part yet.”
“Parts,” said Noleen.
“Both fascinating,” added Roger.
“Go on then,” I said.
“The little acre and a half parcel of land that’s for sale that Tam Shatner has been waiting to buy for years on end is … the old Armour homestead.”
My jaw dropped open. “Where the cutty sark was found?”
“The same. Guess what the other interesting fact is.”
I chewed the last of my cinnamon roll and pondered. What were the options? A real estate deal had a buyer, a seller, and a plot of land. We knew two, so the last piece of the puzzle must be … “Who owns it?” I said.
“Don’t know,” said Kathi. “We can check that out tomorrow when the land registry office is open. But that’s not it. The question is who’s selling it.”
“Isn’t that what I said?” I said.
“I mean the realtor,” said Kathi. “I mean which graduate of the class of sixty-eight is a real estate agent and currently has the old Armour homestead on the books.”
I ran over them. “Mo Heedles,” I said, thinking of her pristine house and its neutral tones. Her perfect hair and face and clothes.
“Close but no fluffy unicorn,” Kathi said.
“Close to Original Mo?” I said. “You mean Also-Mo? Mo Tafoya with the prayer flags and the bong is a realtor?”
“That’s California for ya,” said Noleen. “Gotta love it, huh?”
Twenty
You know that thing where you know you’re missing something and you don’t know what it is?” I said.
“Mm,” said Todd. We were in his room now while he selected an outfit for our afternoon’s mission.
“I’ve got a big stinking pile of that going on. It’s like … you know when you’ve got a bit of popcorn shell stuck on one of your teeth and you can’t tell which one?”
“No. What?” said Todd. “For god’s sake, Lexy, get your gums checked. What?”
“Okay! Jeez. Well, you know when you’ve got a hair on your face and you can’t find it but you can’t ignore it?”
“How many times have I offered to take you to my waxing lady?” Todd said. He was dressed now in a pair of grey-blue twill slacks of Roger’s, a pair of black brogues, a white shirt, and a cashmere vee neck. And he had removed all his diamonds. He’d put plain silver hoops in his ears instead.
“I don’t mean growing out of my face, Todd,” I said. “God, you’re annoying. I mean like an eyelash or something. Never mind. Why have you downgraded your earrings and then worn cashmere, by the way?”
“I haven’t downgraded anything,” Todd said. “I’m trying to look more Mexican
. And there’s no point taking earrings out if you’ve got pierced ears. It just makes you look like you’re hiding something.”
Of course we were planning to hide a great many things on this afternoon’s expedition. It was pretty much a massive con, but I chose not to dwell on that. “Look more Mexican?” I said. “She’ll know you’re Mexican, Todd, from your perfect idiomatic Mexican Spanish.”
“Okay, you caught me,” Todd said. “I’m trying to look ‘respectable Mexican,’ like maybe I just went to church. Instead of ‘me Mexican.’”
“Church?” I said. “Should I change too?” I was wearing my California winter uniform of yoga pants, Fuggs, and a hoodie.
“No point,” said Todd. “You’ll never pull it off. You better go with recent immigrant, clueless but harmless.”
That, I could do. That, I could hardly avoid doing, even after nine months here. Whether I was wondering what day of the week Thanksgiving was this year, mixing up Labor and Memorial Day, or asking for a knife to eat a salad, I was basically the resident fool. A stick with a bell on the end wouldn’t have been out of the question.
“What makes you think she’ll talk to us?” I said. “She was fairly forthright on the phone.”
“She didn’t know who we were on the phone,” Todd said.
“And who are we?”
He rubbed his hands with aftershave and slapped himself in the cheeks before answering. “I think we could go with ‘people who found Tam’s body,’” he said. “It’s less to remember than a cover story.”
Mrs. Ortiz lived in a neat yellow house in old east Cuento. As we walked up the path, I saw a lace curtain flutter in the big living room window and by the time we were on the porch the door was open and she was facing up to us. She was tiny, truly miniscule, a little dot of a person, with white hair cut in a style so brutal it made Noleen’s look like a salon do. She glared up at us out of miniature black eyes tucked into nests of wrinkles.
“I’m not buying,” she said. “Don’t care if it’s God or brooms.”
“We’re not selling,” said Todd. I was thinking Todd’s church-going uniform was obviously a good one and wondering what about me looked like a broom-seller. “We want to talk to you about Patti.” The door started to close.
“And Thomas Shatner,” I added.
The door stopped moving and then slowly opened again.
“Did you phone?” she said. “Was it you who called and asked to speak to my daughter?”
“I’m very sorry about that, “ Todd told her. “I was trying to find you and I didn’t think about what would happen when I did find you. Lo siento.”
“Lo sentimos,” I said. “I was there too.”
She sniffed deeply and then stood back to let us in. “You are forgiven,” she told us. “Sit. I’ll make coffee.”
Her living room was as neat as the yellow siding. Her chair, to one side of the fire, had panniers on both arms, with remotes, knitting, a phone, and rolled magazines all ready for a quick draw. The bigger chair, on the other side of the fireplace, was dented from long use but its cushion was plumped up now and balanced on one corner. The table beside it was empty except for an amaryllis bulb just beginning to burgeon. Todd and I sat on the couch, facing the fireplace wall, from where a photograph of Patti, blown up to poster-size, looked back at us.
Mrs. Ortiz came back in minutes with a loaded tray. I recognised the beloved beverage of my youth—instant coffee—but not the plate of bright pink sponge cakes in paper cases that sat beside them. “Eat, drink,” said Mrs. Ortiz, sitting down in her armchair. “Then speak.”
The coffee, even with a dash of nostalgia, was truly disgusting, but the pink sponge cakes were so sweet—could they really be spicy?—that I couldn’t taste it.
“So,” said Todd after a sip of coffee that made him visibly shudder, “we understand that Patti left home years ago?”
“My Patti,” said Mrs. Ortiz. “She went out to a party the night of her graduation and we never saw her again. She has never seen her nieces and nephews and her great-nephew now. I don’t even know if she knows that her father is dead.” She nodded at the empty chair on the other side of the fireplace. “I don’t even know if she is dead. Sometimes I hope she is dead because that means she is not cruel. Sometimes I hope she is a cruel girl who left us and doesn’t care because at least that means she is alive. Somewhere. With children and grandchildren of her own. But if she loves them, how can she not love us? Me?”
I couldn’t think of one damn thing to say. And a glance at Todd showed him with tears in his eyes. It was Mrs. Ortiz who broke the silence.
“So what is it you came to ask me? All dressed up like a good boy.” She smiled at Todd, who blushed as he smiled back.
“No puedes engañar a una abuela,” he said.
“I’ve lived too long to be fooled,” said Mrs. Ortiz, but she said it a proud way, not a sad way.
“Tell us about Thomas Shatner,” I said. “What you know of him from back then.”
“He was a bad boy,” said Mrs. Ortiz. “Not a boy with a leather jacket and a bottle of Scotch in his pocket. Not a bad boy to make a mamá afraid for her good girl. He was a bad bad boy. Mean. Cruel. I don’t know what makes a person go wrong, but whatever it is, it had happened to Thomas before he got to high school and met my Patti. He was a bad, bad boy. No one liked him.”
“And yet he was the vice president senior year,” Todd said. “Someone liked him.”
“John Worth,” said Mrs. Ortiz. “But he didn’t like Thomas. I think Thomas had something, you know what I’m trying to say?”
“Had something on John Worth?” I said. “Like something to blackmail him over?”
“Blackmail is a big word,” said Mrs. Ortiz. “But there is no other way to make it sensible.” She sighed. “Do you think I’m a foolish woman to be saying all these things about children’s lives from fifty years ago?”
“Not at all,” I said. “We think the students’ lives, as you say—their problems and squabbles, from fifty years ago—are absolutely at the heart of what happened to Thomas Shatner last week.”
“It’s just, you see, that I spoke to them all, back then. Looking for clues. Looking for Patti. And then I’ve thought it over and over so many times all these years. It’s all in my head and it won’t go away.”
“So what did they tell you, abuela?” said Todd. “Mrs. Ortiz, I mean.”
“Abuela is good,” she said. She gave me a flick of a look. “You can call me ma’am.” But she was kidding.
“Well, ma’am,” I said, winking at her, “I’d like you to start further back than what the other students told you after the graduation. I want you to start—if it’s not too painful to talk about her—with Patti and Thomas at school together.”
“I love to talk about her,” Mrs. Ortiz said. “She was my baby. My son came early in my marriage and then nothing for ten long years. Then my miracle. My Patti.”
I did a quick calculation and upped her age from the eighties, where I had put her, into the nineties. Old enough to have been married, say, eleven years in 1950.
“And she was a good girl,” her mother said. “She wasn’t a genius or an angel and she wasn’t going to be a movie star, but she was my good, good girl. And I loved her.”
It was kind of wonderful to hear a mother being so clear-sighted and so unsickening about her only daughter and a long lost daughter at that.
“And everyone else loved her too,” Mrs. Ortiz said. “It was different back then. For us. For … people like us.” She gave Todd a questioning look, which I intercepted.
“You can talk,” I told her. “I’m an immigrant but I know—”
“Querida!” said Mrs. Ortiz. “You are not an ‘immigrant.’”
“That’s what I was just going to say!” I said.
“There were names they called us,” Mrs. Or
tiz said. “Me and my good man who worked so hard. Sometimes it felt like the harder we worked, the more bad names. Like working hard made them hate us. So when Patti joined the junior class council and helped to make the decorations for the junior prom and she went to the junior prom with a nice boy who picked her up in a nice car and came to the door and said hello to her father and me? We were more happy than I can tell you.”
“So … not Thomas Shatner?” I said. “The nice boy?”
“No one went to the junior prom with him,” she said. “A boy like that. Then senior year came and she was on the senior class council too, and her grades were good. Not great, but good. And her friends were here every day after school, playing records and giggling. Nice friends, from good homes. Good girls.”
“Mo and Mo?” I said. “And Joan?”
“The four of them,” said Mrs. Ortiz. “See? I said to my husband. See? She is not lonely. She doesn’t need us to move to a house near your cousins. She is happy here. He was worried about her. About where she would find a husband. About whether she would marry one of those … ”
“Gabachos,” I said, and she rewarded me with a small smile.
“That night,” she said. “That graduation night, we argued.”
“You and Patti?” said Todd.
“Me and Joe,” said Mrs. Ortiz. “Her father. We argued about her going to the dance. The senior dance. Because she wasn’t going with a nice boy who picked her up in a nice car. She was going with those girls. I told him it was sweet—all four of them going together in a rented car—but it wasn’t the usual way. He found it strange and we argued.”
“The girls all went to the graduation dance together?” I said. I turned to Todd. “Is that strange?”
Todd shrugged. “Not these days. Back then? Why did they do it, Mrs. Ortiz?”
“So that John Worth didn’t have to choose,” she said. “Or maybe better to say so that John Worth didn’t get to choose.”
“So they all went to the dance together,” I said again. “But Patti didn’t come home?”
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