Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1) (19 page)

“She must get a volume discount. Pastor Robb, this is my friend Nadine. Nadine, Pastor Robb.”

Nadine beamed. “Oh, we’ve met. Great seeing you, Eugene.”

His tomato-red face drained of all color in an instant. “Nadine, you said? Um, hello, yes, well—” he pulled up his sleeve and looked at his watch, “—so sorry, church business, and I’m running late.” He scrambled like a dog on a tile floor toward the exit.

Nadine turned to me. “Eugene is a big fan of dancing.” She winked. “Now, where were we?”

I laughed and slid the picture of Spike an inch closer to her. “I love your job. Have you seen Harvey with this guy?”

She tapped the picture four times with her middle finger. “That’s the guy that got blasted off the balcony at the Ambassador, or whatever they’re calling it now. He came in with Harvey the day before it happened. Freaked me out when I saw him on the news.”

“Has Harvey talked about it?”

“No, but I asked him. And he said he didn’t know the guy. I wasn’t sure why he lied, but most of the slimeballs in the Polo Club do.”

“Did you hear Harvey and this guy, or Harvey and anyone, talking about a woman named Sofia, or hear of a little girl named Valentina?”

I handed her a printout of Victoria’s picture of Sofia and Valentina.

“I’ve seen the woman,” Nadine said. “But only on the news. She’s the one that popped Spike, right?”

“Right,” I said.

“No one mentioned their names around me.” She handed the photo back.

“Okay, how about someone named Maria?”

“There’s a dancer named Maria. Harvey talks to her sometimes.”

My Maria was definitely not a Polo Club dancer. “What about a tall white guy, shaved head, a tattoo like this?” I fished Victoria’s drawing from the papers and placed it over Spike’s picture. “On his arm, maybe the upper arm, or the inside of his arm.”

She moved closer to the table, which started her bobbing and wriggling again. “You mean other than Harvey?”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Really? Harvey has this tattoo? Are you sure?”

“Not a hundred percent, because he’s been wearing long sleeves now that it’s getting colder. But he came in a few times this summer, and I saw a tattoo like this. I’m ninety-five percent sure, and I know I haven’t seen anyone else with it. As for tall white guys with shaved heads, I see a lot of them, in addition to Harvey.”

My pulse accelerated and I wanted to get up and break into the Cotton-Eyed Joe, my equivalent of a touchdown dance. My instincts had been right all along. Harvey was involved. And now I had an inside source.

Hold on, Valentina, hold on
.

“How about you text me whenever he comes in, and I’ll come check him out myself?” Maybe I could find out where he lived. And who was keeping him in Crown and Coke.

“Yeah, sure. I’m working again tonight. He’s always there.”

“Awesome. Either I’ll come in, or my friend will. He’s a CPS investigator, Wallace—”

“Oh, I know Wallace. I volunteer for the Rainbow Room. He’s my favorite investigator.”

I should have expected she’d know him, in a town where everyone knew everybody. “Yeah, he’s great. And you—two jobs, kids,
and
a volunteer gig? You’re like Wonder Woman.”

“You know it.” She flexed an arm, then leaned toward me. “Seriously, the Rainbow Room helped me, once upon a time. I owe ’em.”

I stood up. “I’m going to refill my coffee. Need anything?”

“I’m good.”

I filled my cup, dumped in a packet of yellow stuff and a splash of Half & Half, and returned to the table.

After I sat down, Nadine spoke in a soft voice. “Um, Emily, I think you’re bleeding.”

“Oh my, where?”

“It’s on your pants. And a little on your chair. I saw it when you walked over to the coffee. It’s not like really bad or anything. But, with the miscarriage and all, I figure it’s not your monthly visitor.”

No, please God, no.
I didn’t need more of this stuff now, not when the trail to Valentina was getting hot. I stood up and craned my neck to see the back of my pants, but all I saw was stars as I slumped back into my chair.

Nadine’s discovery put an abrupt end to our coffee. She insisted on helping me to the bathroom, even though I was sure I’d only gotten lightheaded because I stood up too fast. I assessed my bleeding problem from the stall and found that I’d forgotten to put a maxi pad on before I left home. Not smart. Definitely, I was bleeding, but I was also only an hour away from seeing my doctor, and I wasn’t bleeding
profusely.
Not enough to run to the emergency room. I’d just go to the doctor’s office a little early and maybe they could work me in.

We exited Roaster’s into a twenty-five mile per hour grit-filled wind—double the speed I’d found unpleasant earlier. Nadine mother-henned me all the way to my car. I opened the door to the Mustang and the wind caught it, pushing it to its furthest point. I got in and had to use both arms to pull it closed again, even with Nadine pushing from the outside. The sky had turned to the color of dust, and trash tumbled across the parking lot—not just the paper and bags of a normal windy day, but cardboard boxes and glass bottles. I waved goodbye to Nadine and headed quickly toward my obstetrician’s office, careful to dodge the projectiles that whirled past one of Stanley Marsh’s signs (Road Does Not End) across the street in front of me. It seemed all the Marsh signs I saw followed a similar, creepy theme. Gusts pushed my car in and out of my lane.

While driving, I realized that it wasn’t too terribly out of the way to drive past Maria’s again. I tried to assume the best of people and, right now, that theory told me that there was always a chance Maria had softened. That if I could just look her in the eye as I held up a picture of Harvey and ran the name Antonio Rosa past her, I’d at least see a flicker that would tell me whether she knew something—anything at all. Heck, I could show her Valentina’s drawing. Yeah, it was a long shot, but something about it seemed right. Plus, I didn’t feel bad and I wasn’t really bleeding very much and it was way too early to show up at my doctor.

Thinking of Valentina’s drawing reminded me of something I’d dreamed. I tried to pull it back into my consciousness, but all I could remember was that I’d seen Valentina over and over, not where or when or what she was doing and with whom. But there was a similarity between my dream and her drawing, just out of sight, just out of reach, like the fireflies that I would try to catch each summer when they’d light up, only to grasp at nothing as they darkened and buzzed away.

I didn’t bother hiding my Mustang down the street this time. I parked in front of Maria’s house and opened the door only to have it ripped from my hands by the wind. It had gotten even stronger in the last ten minutes. The sky around me was in full-blown brownout. I strode to the door, leaning so far against the wind that if it had died suddenly, I would have fallen face-first to the ground. I used one hand for my purse and the other to hold my hair out of my mucous membranes. That left none to cover my mouth and protect it from grit, so I breathed through my nose with my head tucked down, trying not to suck too much dirt down my windpipe, and feeling really glad I hadn’t worn a full skirt or flimsy blouse. When I got close to the house, its bulk somewhat blocked the gale. I straightened up and pulled errant hairs away from my eyes and mouth. Nothing like a windstorm to strip a woman of her dignity and professionalism.

I walked the outside edge of the steps where I knew the treads had maximum structural support, giving the unrepaired hole I’d left the day before a wide berth. I rapped smartly on the door, and it fell away under my knuckles.

I tightened my grip on my handbag. An unlocked door didn’t seem very Maria-like.

“Maria? Are you home?”

No answer.

“Is anyone here?” I called.

I hesitated. If the door was open, I was invited in, which seemed to be a trend for me lately. I glanced at my watch. I had fifteen minutes before I needed to leave for my doctor’s appointment. Plenty of time to run through and scan for information. Or to find and question the little boy and possibly other people that didn’t like to answer Maria’s door. I just wouldn’t touch anything, I’d be silent as Sacajawea, and I’d hurry.

I stepped into the first room, remembering my father’s lessons from long ago. I imagined leaves and twigs and rocks under my feet, and I placed each foot down light as air, and did it again. And again. And again. If I was less than silent, the sound of the wind muffled my indiscretions. I tiptoed around the living room. It was a dump, with ratty, dirty furniture that smelled as bad as it looked. The walls were bare except for stains and pockmarks.

My silent feet moved on to the kitchen. White linoleum, white counters, white cabinets, white sink, white refrigerator, white microwave, black oven, and a silver range top crowded the box-like space. Dirty dishes teetered in the sink, far too many for one woman, or even a woman with a family. These were dishes for a party of ten. The trash bulged up on its lid as well.

I stepped out of the kitchen. The little house couldn’t have many more rooms. Two bedrooms and a bathroom, I’d guess. Suddenly a loud thrumming interrupted the silence, and I reached in my handbag, groping for my Glock. Frantically I searched the small purse then remembered. I’d left it in the glove compartment of Wallace’s car, and wherever it was now, it didn’t do me a lick of good. I listened more carefully to the thumping thrum, and then almost laughed aloud. The sound wasn’t coming from the house. I was frightened of my heartbeat and a ringing in my own ears.

I moved quietly to the back of the house and stepped into the left bedroom. Sleeping bags were rolled and stashed against the walls. One, two, three, four,
five
of them in a rainbow of colors. A double bed sat in the middle of the room, but it was stripped bare, its sheets nowhere to be seen. The only other furniture was a desktop and a funny little machine in the back corner, like a printer, sort of, but smaller. I walked closer to it. It said Zebra ZXP Series 3 on top. Some ID cards lay by the desktop—Hispanic faces and names—and I compared the output hole in the Zebra thingy to the cards. They matched.

I scanned the room again. The closet accordion door was closed. I opened it. It was crammed full of clothes arranged by men’s, women’s, and children’s wear in descending sizes. Holy crap, was Maria helping out the entire undocumented community? Food, bedrolls, clothes, IDs? Excited now, I resumed my search, but the dense silence was shattered with a terrifying ringing noise. Not my ears this time. Spit. My phone. I fumbled in my handbag. My display read Wallace. I pressed accept.

“Wallace,” I whispered, “Meet me at Maria’s ASAP. She left her house open, and I’ve found—”

Something incredibly, unpleasantly hard cracked into the back of my head. I felt myself crumpling, my phone tumbling, and my cheek landing on the carpet as the lights went out.

***

I returned to the conscious world with another loud ringing in my ears and two blurry faces peering down at me in front of a white background that hurt my eyes. “Where am I? What happened?”

The two faces turned to my left. A third face appeared, this one above a police-blue uniform. It said, “Emily Bernal?” It sounded like a he.

“Yes?” Each word, his and mine, was an anvil strike on the wedge that was cracking open my skull.

“I’m Officer Wilson. Do you know a Maria Delgado?”

A light brown mustache floated above his upper lip, bobbing up and down like a prairie dog from its hole. My eyes locked onto it.

I spoke carefully, trying not to hammer the wedge. “Sort of.”

Talking hurt so much. I lowered my voice, and he leaned the mustache further toward me. It smelled like garlic and onions.

“This is her house,” I said. “I, um, I was meeting her here.” I hoped he could see how painful this was for me and would stop.

But the mustache kept bobbing. “Did you see her?”

“No.” Ouch.

“How’d you get inside?” The mustache did a hippety-hop. It almost made me giggle, but even the thought of giggling hurt.

“Door was open. I called her name and came in. And, sir, my head really hurts.”

“Sorry.” The mustache didn’t stop, though. “What happened next?”

“My phone rang. Something hit my head.” I gestured at him and behind him at the other faces. “Then, this.” My voice faded on the last word.

His eyes narrowed into slits that further emphasized the furry creature on his upper lip. Maybe not a prairie dog. A mole? No. Possibly a rat? Yes, I’d seen plenty of rats in the barn behind our house, and they jumped around like this thing did.

“Did you ever see Ms. Delgado?”

“No.”

I winced. I reached up to touch my head but missed and got nothing but air. I put my hand back on my leg.

The rat loomed over my face, blocking out the glare behind his head. “Did you see anyone else?”

“No.” I closed my eyes. No more rat.

“So Ms. Delgado was alive last time you saw her?”

“Yeah, yesterday. What, she isn’t now?”

“Ms. Delgado is dead.”

My eyes flew back open. “What happened? Where is she?”

“Blunt force trauma to the head, like you, but apparently you got lucky. She’s across the hall.” He wrote something on a notepad he had in his left hand. “I’ll let the paramedics get back to you.” And he and the rat disappeared.

I felt a little irritated. I was a victim, but he had pumped me for information as if I were a suspect. But then my bleary brain got smarter. I
was
a suspect. I’d never been one before. How weird, in a not-good way.

The two faces I’d first seen moved back into the tunnel of my vision, a white man with longish brown hair and a black woman with short dark hair. Behind them, a third face appeared. Things darkened and took shape. A popcorn-textured ceiling with water stains. The open closet full of clothes. The edge of a mattress. Floppy sand-colored hair streaked with highlights.

“Wallace . . .” I reached a hand toward him.

He couldn’t get past the paramedics, and I let my hand drop.

“Way to scare me to death, Emily,” he said. “I nearly had a heart attack trying to get here, worried about you, only to find Maria dead and you
looking
dead.”

“You called the ambulance?”

“911 the second I saw you.”

I tried to smile. “Thank you.”

The woman spoke. “Excuse me, ma’am, we need to ask you some questions, and then we can let you speak to your friend.” Her voice flowed like warm honey. Alabama? Mississippi?

Wallace shot me a thumbs up.

The woman resumed. “You appear to have been struck in the head with a heavy blunt object. You lost consciousness, and you have a concussion, which is why your head hurts. You probably feel a little foggy and nauseous, too?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll feel like that for a while. Anyway, we just got here right before you woke up, and, because your vitals were steady, we let the officer go first, before we could do a complete exam on you. There’s a fair amount of blood around your torso.” She put her palms on my abdomen and probed gently in a search pattern. “Do you recall why?”

I looked at her blankly.

“Do you remember being shot, or stabbed, or sexually assaulted?”

Oh God. My girly parts. “I was about to go to my doctor’s. I had a tubal pregnancy and hemorrhaged and lost the baby yesterday. I’d just started bleeding again, right when I got here, before I got knocked out.” To my dismay, I started to cry, which made my head hurt worse. “And they said if this happened they might have to remove my tube and I can’t lose this tube or I can never have a baby because this is the only tube I’ve got.”

Wallace crouched beside me, and a shocked expression flitted across his face. He grabbed my hand. “I didn’t know you’d lost the baby. Why didn’t I know? You poor thing.” He turned to glare at the woman. “She needs to be in the ER, not laying here with her reproductive organs spilling out. Or do you want to be responsible for the babies this gorgeous creature will never have?” He jumped to his feet, clapping. “Come on, people!”

And unbelievably, the paramedics snapped to attention. Wallace hovered nearby. I beckoned him closer. He put his ear near my mouth, and I spoke in a rush.

“Harvey Dulles has the tattoo Victoria described and my friend Nadine says he’s at the Polo Club daily. I got an anonymous email telling me Sofia talked about a man named Antonio. I couldn’t find anything on him, but that must be critical. And, of course, I’m sure you noticed Maria is running some kind of underground house here and—”

“Shh. I’ve got it, and I’ll fill in the police. You’ve done good. Worry about you for a change.” He kissed my cheek. “I’ll be right behind the ambulance.”

A swell of emotion surged up through my chest and lodged in my throat. “Don’t tell anyone else about me though, okay?”

He saluted me crisply.

Five minutes later, I was in the ambulance, speeding toward the ER with the sound of a siren battering my skull.