3 Savor (12 page)

She shook her head and poured apple
juice in her morning coffee cup still sitting on the counter. “Don’t be sorry.
You make a very sexy angel. I can’t wait to see what you look like in a
bikini.”

“Thanks, but I draw the line at
imaginary guns.”

“All for the best. I’ve had enough
drama for one day.” She drained the juice and rinsed her cup in the sink.

“Me too.”

He followed her to the bedroom,
flipping lights on and then off as they went. Whether to keep from stubbing a
toe or in search of an elusive intruder she didn’t know. While she brushed her
teeth she thought she heard him talking to her and stuck her head out the door
to catch what he was saying. He stood at the window across the bedroom, peeking
through the blinds into the backyard. His cell phone was pressed to his ear and
he was saying something about canceling services. What was that about?

She finished in the bathroom and
climbed into bed. He was already there, checking email on his phone. It was
already half past one and she was exhausted. When she curled up beside him, he
set the phone on the bedside table and shut off the lamp. He put his arm around
her, pulling her close.

“Be careful of your ribs,” she
warned.

“Don’t worry. I’ll scream like a
little girl if it hurts. I’m fine.”

She rested her head in the crook of
his arm, her cheek against his chest and listened to the beat of his heart,
steady and reassuring. After a minute or two she asked, “Who were you talking
to?”

Was it her imagination or did his
heartbeat speed up?

“When?”

“Are you really going to counter
with a question?”

He breathed out a laugh and ran his
fingers up and down her arm. “Sorry. I don’t want you to get upset.”

She waited, wondering what he could
have done that would make her upset.

“Manny gave me the name of a man in
security. I called him earlier today to set up an appointment and discuss our
situation, but now after the vandals hit Margaret’s yard as well…” he trailed
off.

She pushed up on an elbow to look
down at him. “Security. Is that code for bodyguard?

“Maybe.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. You
thought it would be a good idea to hire someone to follow me around without my
knowing, when I’m already paranoid?”

He sighed and reached up to stroke
her hair hanging over his chest. “Honestly, I didn’t think of that. I’m sorry.
I should have talked to you about it first, but I couldn’t stand the thought
that someone would try to hurt you because of me.”

She relaxed against him once more.
“I get it. But I’m glad you called it off. I’ve been thinking. The guy who came
by Saturday… I think he was warning me.”

“Yeah?”

“No, I mean he was warning me
– not threatening me. Remember I thought the truck was an older midsize
SUV? The truck the guy came in Saturday was a brand new Lexus.”

“Okay, but you never really got a
good look at the first truck or anyone in it.”

“Exactly!” she said, smacking the
bed with the palm of her hand. “They got away with it. No one could identify
them. So why would they show up the next day in broad daylight just to gloat?
Do they have a secret wish for a new home in cellblock 6?”

He chuckled. “I don’t know. There
are a lot of stupid criminals out there or the jails wouldn’t be so full.”

“True.”

“It’s late, babe. Let’s sleep on
it, okay?”

“G’night,” she murmured and pulled
back to her side of the bed. She heard him trying to get situated comfortably.
His ribs were probably aching more than he let on. She reached out and clasped
his hand. “Love you,” she whispered.

He squeezed her fingers.

She rolled over and tried to relax
but the face of the man on Saturday was stuck in her head. Many of the tattoos
covering his arms and neck were similar to ones Manny sported. She knew that
identifying a suspect by a specific tattoo could be nearly as damning as a
clear set of fingerprints. Why then did criminals tend to have so many? Maybe
it was like Handel said – there were just a lot of stupid criminals out
there. She rolled onto her back and stared up at the dark ceiling until her
eyes grew heavy. The last thing she thought of before drifting off to sleep was
Manny’s tattoo. A simple overwriting of numbers symbolized a change of heart
from the violence and death that MS-13 stood for to the love and forgiveness
his mother had prayed for. She wondered if the sentiments had pierced more than
skin deep.

Handel bolted straight up from the
bed and then groaned loudly, scaring her awake. “What?” she looked wildly
around, wondering what had startled him. The alarm clock on the dresser said
7:17, but it felt as if they’d just fallen asleep.

He threw his legs over the side of
the bed and groaned again. “I forgot about my ribs. Sorry for waking you. I
remembered something important. At least I think it’s important.”

Billie rubbed sleep out of her eyes
and watched him reach out for his cell phone on the bedside table. “It’s kind
of early to be making a call, isn’t it?”

“I’m not. Someone called me right
before the accident. I completely forgot until now. You know how when you’re
half asleep things just pop into your mind sometimes?”

“Mmm Hmm.” She dropped her head
against the pillow. “I’ve heard that’s when we’re most creative. If you come
back to bed, I’ll show you how creative I can be when I’m half asleep,” she
said in a husky voice that was supposed to be seductive, but didn’t even win a
glance from her husband.

Handel scrolled through his calls,
his back to her. “You didn’t erase anything from my phone, did you?” he asked
finally.

She sighed and reluctantly scooted
up to a sitting position, leaning against the headboard. “No, I never did
anything with your phone, other than plug it in and charge it when you were in
the hospital. The nurse found it in your suit pocket when they undressed you
before surgery.”

“That makes no sense,” he mumbled,
shaking his head. “All of my incoming calls and texts are gone. Deleted.
Anything before I was released from the hospital… gone.” He turned around and
looked at her as though he thought maybe he was losing his mind.

She remembered the daily texts
she’d sent him when he was still in a coma. “There should be at least seven
texts from me. I sent you one every day.”

“Gone.” He narrowed his eyes. “Who
had access to my room, other than you and the nurses?”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head.
“The doctors, interns, Margaret and Davy. You can’t think someone snuck into
your hospital room just to delete your list of calls and texts, do you?

“I don’t know what to think. I just
know they’re gone and that makes me wonder why.”

“You can always go online and look
at your account. The calls will be listed and you can see where they came from,
unless the number was blocked. But then why would anyone worry about deleting
them?” She yawned and climbed from the bed. “I’m taking a shower. Feel free to
join me when you figure this all out.”

He didn’t look up. His mind was
definitely somewhere else.

When she came out ten minutes
later, wrapped in a fluffy white towel, her hair dripping down her back, he was
gone. “I guess the honeymoon is over,” she muttered.

•••••

She’d dried her hair, applied a
little makeup, and dressed in jeans and a bright purple tank top before joining
him in his office. He sat at his desk, his laptop open and running, watching
the printer in the corner of the room. It made a whirring sound and whipped
into motion, rolling out two printed sheets of paper.

“I’m printing the list of incoming
calls from the phone company. There were a couple of out-of-state numbers, but
I think those were just telemarketers. They didn’t last more than a few
seconds.” Handel took the printouts, marked some lines with a yellow
highlighter and held them out for her to see. “There are three numbers I don’t
recognize. Any of them look familiar to you?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

After the excitement of the night
before Billie hoped he would take it easy today, that maybe they could get out
for a while, take a drive, relax. Yeah right. Handel was in his element. In
baggy sweatpants and a ratty old t-shirt, he was ready to take on the bad guys,
whoever they were. He still looked tired, but there was no use telling him so.
She might as well join the fun. “So, what’s next?” she asked.

“The phone company won’t give me
the info on blocked calls or unidentified numbers, but they’ll give it to the
police.” He picked up his cell. “I’m calling Officer Torn. I think he might
help us out.”

“Why?”

“Because he mentioned the other day
that his sister was recently arrested for assault and he was looking for a good
lawyer to handle her case.”

She raised her brows. “How
opportunistic of you.”

“Oh, it’s not for me.” He grinned.
“I thought you might like this one. Isn’t it time to get your feet wet in the
California court system? Her ex-husband filed assault charges after he broke
into the house and tried to rape her. She hit him with a lamp.”

“So you thought that was right up
my alley.” She tried to look peeved, but the thought of getting back into law,
helping women who really needed her, sounded pretty appealing with all the
financial woes at the winery.

“Yep. That’s what I thought.”

She slipped a leg over the edge of
his desk and swung her foot back and forth. “Okay, call him,” she said, before
she had time to change her mind. “And then you can tell me about this mystery
caller and why it’s so important somebody wanted you to forget all about it.”

•••••

“The cell number belongs to Hosea
Garcia,” Handel said as he got off the phone later that morning with Officer
Torn. They were in the kitchen having a late breakfast. “Frank said he did a
quick search and found out the guy has been a member of MS-13 for the past
eighteen years, has done two stints in the state pen and has quite a colorful
arrest record. In fact, he was arrested for driving by and shooting out
someone’s front window two years ago. He spent a week in jail and served the
rest in community service… planting flowers in city parks.”

“You don’t say.” She put their
empty plates in the dishwasher and turned around, crossing her arms. “He
doesn’t have a skull and crossbones on the side of his neck, does he?”

“Frank said he’d email over a
photo.”

She raised her brows. “Frank?”

“Officer Torn and I are like this.”
He crossed his fingers. “Two law men fighting for the common good.”

“You’re so full of it.” Billie
smiled and reached for his cup. “More coffee?”

“No thanks,” he said, already
opening the email on his phone. “Here it is.”

She stepped behind his chair to
look over his shoulder. “That’s him! The guy from last Saturday. See! There’s
the tattoo. That one is hard to forget. Creepy.”

Handel sat back in his chair and
rubbed a hand over his jaw the way he always did when he was deep in thought.
“Now we just have to figure out whether he’s trying to warn us or threaten us.
And what does he know about Jimena’s murder?”

“Have you thought about calling
Manny and asking him about this guy? Since they were in the same gang and his
sister was supposedly seeing him?”

He got up and kissed her cheek.
“I’m going to do that right now,” he said, and headed back to his office.

•••••

When Handel called, Manny was in
his car driving. He said he was on his way to see Sloane at county lockup.
“I’ll only keep you a minute,” he said. “I remembered a call I received right
before my accident.”

“A call?” Manny turned his radio
down.

“From Hosea Garcia. I think you
might know him.”

He didn’t answer right away. “Yeah,
I know him,” he finally said. He didn’t sound too excited about admitting it.

“How well do you know him?”

“We both joined the gang when we
were fourteen. We were like brothers back then. But things change. I went my
way and he stayed with the Maras.”

“So you guys go way back,” Handel
pushed, eyes narrowed, listening for the clues that were never volunteered.

“Yeah, way back. So what did he
say?”

“He said he knew who killed your
sister.”

“Really. And who would that be?”

Handel expelled a laugh. “Hell if I
know. I crashed before he told me.”

Manny swore and said, “People are
driving crazier than usual. Someone just cut in front of me. Was there
something else you wanted to ask?”

“No. Drive safe.”

“Adiós.”

Handel sat back in his desk chair
and sighed. Why didn’t Manny mention the fact that he had warned Hosea away
from his sister? Was he protecting his sister’s reputation or trying to keep
himself out of the suspect pool?

•••••

Margaret squatted beside her
grandfather’s original vine, now uprooted and laying in the dirt. It had been
her prized possession. A family heritage worth preserving, unlike other aspects
she’d rather forget. She took some cuttings and sat back on her heels with a
sigh. The seventy-six-year-old trunk was as thick as a telephone pole and as
twisted and weathered as an aged seaman. “If vines could talk,” she said to
herself.

Her grandfather had been in Italy
during the war and when he came home, he brought clippings from the Friulia
region. He had dreams of growing his own vineyards, making his own wine, and
raising his children in the sun. His dreams were uprooted just as this vine,
when he had to sell most of the vineyard to the Sanchez family in the Fifties.
But he kept this small vineyard, short rows of Tocai Friulano, French
Colombard, Malbec, and Cabernet Franc, that he used in his wineblending. She
hated to lose this piece of living history.

She cut the top of the clippings at
a slant, cut off the bottom end straight through the lower bud and sliced off
all but the two top bud nodes for growth. It was best to plant cuttings in the
fall, but if she wanted to preserve these old vines she had to work fast.
Unable to sleep after what happened, other than to toss and turn, she’d gotten
up at the first rays of light, and stayed busy all morning, preparing soil
mixture and filling pots. Now she pushed a fresh clipping into each pot,
documenting which vine it came from in the vineyard journal she kept.

A car turned up the driveway as she
was pulling the thick vine stump toward the back of the shed. Gravel crunched
under tires as it approached. She looked up from under the brim of her baseball
cap. Handel climbed out of Billie’s Mazda, looked around, and spotted her. He
waved and started down the hill.

Margaret dropped the vine behind
the shed and turned back, pulling her gloves off as she came. “What are you
doing here?” she asked. “I thought you were busy working on that murder trial.”

He gave her a half smile. “I was,
but… Billie went to the winery to take care of business and I found myself
thinking about you over here working so hard to preserve Grandfather’s vines.
Thought I’d come offer a hand.”

“Thanks, but I’m pretty much done.
You can help carry the dead vines behind the shed if you want. There’s a pair
of gloves over there on the bench,” she said, tipping her chin toward the
greenhouse working area. She pointed at the dozens of pots lining the row,
filled with starter clippings. “I took some from every vine that was uprooted.
Besides the original Tocai vine Grandfather brought back from Italy, a couple
of our oldest French Colombard vines were run over as well.”

“I’m sorry if my case caused this
trouble.” He stuffed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and gazed
around, shaking his head. “I became a lawyer to help people. Thought I could
make a difference. Set wrongs right and all that.” He blew the breath of a
laugh through his nose. “Not sure what has changed, but I’m beginning to
suspect that setting wrongs right is for someone bigger than me.”

She slapped his shoulder with her
dirty gloves. “Hey! Who’s bigger than my big brother? It’s not your fault your
case brought out the crazies. I blame the media for that. If they didn’t make
murder and mayhem so damn titillating –” she broke off. “How do you know
it’s about your case anyway? I know I kind of lost it last night, but Billie’s
wrong. Those pictures aren’t proof of anything. Dad could still be very much
alive. I’m not saying he is or that this,” she waved a hand at the vineyard,
“was his doing, but you must have him on your list of suspects. Am I right?”

“I didn’t want to say it in front
of Billie. She’s suffered enough at his hand. But sure. It is possible. I don’t
think it’s probable but I’m not ruling him out until we catch whoever is
responsible.”

She didn’t know how to feel at
first about Handel saying the words out loud, but it actually put some of her
fears to rest. She wasn’t the only one expecting Sean Parker to pop out from
behind a tree one night. With her brother’s admission, the threat seemed much
more insignificant. If their father ever showed up, they would deal with him
together.

He moved to the bench and pulled on
the extra pair of work gloves. “Let’s clean up this mess and then you can tell
me what it is I missed while I was in the hospital.”

“What are you talking about?” she
asked, dusting off her bare knees. Little indentations in her skin showed where
she’d knelt on gravel while she cut the vines. It was a hot day, but she
probably should have worn long pants. “Nothing much happened around here. We’ve
just been getting ready for an early harvest. What with all this crazy
weather.” She glanced around at the smashed clusters on the ground. “Another
week or two and I would have harvested this crop for another batch. Carl’s been
asking for more cases of Margaret’s Wine every year and I have a couple of
private cellars to stock as well.”

“I didn’t realize you were such an
entrepreneur,” he said, wresting a vine from the tangle on the ground. A clump
of smashed grape flew up and hit him in the face, leaving a smudge of rosy
juice behind. He raised his shoulder and wiped it off on the sleeve of his
shirt. “Actually, I was talking about you and Adam. You two looked pretty cozy
last night. Thought you were going to take it slow. Did something change?”