Just Add Water (1) (15 page)

27

Detective Martinez surveyed the
closet and breathed his now familiar rattling sigh. “You haven’t touched
anything?”

“The clothes. I pulled out a
blouse.” I held up the cameo. “I was looking for this.”

“And you can’t remember whether you
turned on the alarm or not when you left last month?”

“I was distracted. Distraught
actually, when I left. RJ had just died and I wanted to get away from here as
fast as possible. I truly don’t remember about the alarm.”

“Sorry about your dog. I liked him,
and I don’t like dogs much. You say you’ve been away about a month?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where were you?”

“Wallowing in self-pity at Jan’s
apartment in San Francisco.”

Martinez allowed a small smile to
spoil his dour visage. I wondered if he had ever heard of Metamucil. “I
understand,” he said. “I’ve lost a pet or two in my day. You never quite get
over it.”

I was surprised by the emotion in
his voice. I guess I tend to think cops don’t have any. He sighed again and
said, “Let’s go back downstairs. As soon as my guys get through dusting for
prints, you can determine what, besides your jewelry box, is missing.
Meanwhile, can you think of
anything
you have, or had, that someone, particularly your Mr. Tokyo, might want?”

“I think we can
rule out my body, since he only comes when I’m not home,” I quipped.

“I think,” he said, “we can put
that in the ‘good things’ column.”

“Thanks, Martha,” I said. Detective
Dour didn’t get it. Who knew he didn’t watch Martha Stewart?

After the print guys finished up,
Martinez and I went to work. Well,
I
went to work. He stood by while I methodically hung clothes and then began
checking for missing items. Which was a problem. How do you know something’s
missing when it’s not there? Was all my underwear accounted for? Martinez had
actually asked. Had I left any money around? I couldn’t remember. Jewelry I
always
remember, but for the rest I
booted up my trusty computer, which was thankfully in place, and downloaded a
home insurance inventory.

Using the printout we backtracked
through the entire house. All there. In fact, as far as we could determine, the
jewelry box was the only thing stolen. That and any remaining affection I harbored
for my formerly happy home.

“Detective Martinez, if someone is
trying to scare me, they’re doing a right smart job of it. The padlock thing,
those calls. And you know what? I thought I was going goofy before, but this
time someone
really
rearranged my
jewelry.”

Martinez wanted to know what I
meant, and I told him that several weeks before it looked like someone had
moved things in my jewelry box.

He didn’t say anything. The pensive
look on his face led me to believe he was either ruminating over my problem or
waiting for a gas bubble to pass. Whichever it was, he finally asked, “Was
that
 
jewelry thing before or after the
lock was changed on your hot tub housing?”.

I called Jan. She thought, as I
did, the two were close in time. I hung up and asked Martinez, “Do you think
someone, namely that rat bastard Hudson Williams, broke in here before and
looked through my stuff?”

“I wouldn’t rule
the rat bastard out. His prints
were
on the padlock.” He made a note on his little notepad and was preparing to leave
when the phone rang. It was Jan.

“Hetta, you know what?” she said, “I think Hudson changed
the lock before RJ hijacked the mail truck. Think about it. How else could RJ
get out? The son of a bitch made friends with RJ, let him out, then came and
went at will.”

Now there was a
thrilling thought.

“But Jan, how
about the alarm?” She didn’t have an answer, but I relayed her idea to Martinez
who told me alarms were play toys in the hands of a professional. Professional?
I guess Hudson qualified, according to his Interpol rap sheet.

“And I don’t
like the idea even a little bit, Ms. Coffey. I have a gut feeling that
Williams, if that’s who we’re dealing with, has the determination and skill to
get what he wants. I also think you might know what it is and are holding out
on me. Not real smart on your part. Are you staying here tonight?”

 
“Yes, but Jan’s coming over. And if you
recall, I have a couple of guns and....Oh, hell.” I went to the hall closet,
threw it open, reached into a false compartment behind a shelf and smiled.
“Still there. Both guns.”

“Good. I guess.
According to an old police report I found, you’re a pretty good shot, too. Make
sure any rat you vaporize around here in the future is already inside your
house, if you know what I mean.”

Did I know what
he meant? What was I, an idiot? He meant I might really be in danger. But if
so, why? The key around my neck? It made me all the more determined to keep the
damned thing. But again, why?

Martinez walked to the door and asked, “Are you still
leaving tomorrow?”

“Yep, Jan and I are headed for God’s country.”

There was a
lengthy pause then, “Does God know this yet?”

“Was that humor,
Martinez?”

“I’ll let you
know when I tell a joke. You two have a good trip. And Hetta, let’s not have
any Thelma and Louise stuff out there, okay?”

Martinez left, and I pondered the situation. First off, I
pondered why I hadn’t given the key, or at least knowledge of the key, to the
detective.

I fixed myself a
thè Slav
with a lavish splash of
Lacho slivovitz—Polish plum brandy—dumped into my Earl Grey. Then I had
another, this one with a diminished percentage of Earl. The Polish moonshine
was just the ticket to opening a gate into morbid introspection.

Was I holding on
to the key in hopes of seeing Hudson again? Was I dangling a carrot? And if I
did see him, would I shoot him or kiss him? Could it be that I, like those
pitiful sob sisters with whom I had little sympathy or patience, longed for
this man, one who had betrayed, jilted and robbed me, to declare his undying
love, beg my forgiveness, rip off my bodice, loosen the one pin holding my
tumult of heavy copper tresses from my swan-like neck, and ravage me with his
throbbing, tumescent manhood?

Nah.

I oiled my guns.

I am the sovereign of
shilly-shally. Always put off thinking today about something I can possibly
forget by tomorrow, that’s my motto.

So the minute we left for Texas,
Hudson, padlocks, missing jewelry boxes, and the like ceased to exist. I also
realize that my proclivity for living in the present is probably a defense
mechanism triggered by my perilous past. And although my future was probably
equally crappy, there’s nothing like a road trip to make one hopeful.

“I’ve been thinking,” I said, three
days later as we rolled along I-10 through West Texas.

“It’s about time. What were you
thinking back in Laughlin when you started making fifty-dollar bets? You know
you can’t play poker worth a damn.”

“Hey, Harrah’s gave me free drinks.
It was the least I could do. Anyway, I won, didn’t I?”

“You broke even, which is a
miracle. Might I remind you, Hetta, you are unemployed? Let’s skip Nevada on
the way back. Neither I nor your bank account can take the strain.”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking
about. I might not come back.”

“What?”

“My life in California isn’t exactly
coming up roses, so I was thinking I might look for a job in Texas. Then I’ll
rent me a y’all haul and move back to my native state.”

“You hate Texas.”

“Not so. It’s my homeland. My
roots. My people have been here for nine generations. We arrived when Spain
still owned the territory, long before you
norteamericanos
invaded.”

“Snob. But you left, all the same.”

“Granted. I was tired of Houston,
so when I got the job offer in California, I took it. Now that I think about
it, Texas isn’t all so bad. Look at our friend, Mary. She’s never left and
she’s happy.”

“True, but Mary’s in Austin, where
living in a crappy old apartment she pays a fortune in rent for and driving a
junker is still seen as groovy. We left groovy behind long ago. You can’t make
good money in Austin unless you work for one of the new high-tech outfits. You
hate working high-tech. All those techies and damn-comers have driven up the
real estate prices and plumb
rurnt
Austin.”

“Maybe I’ll go back to Houston.
Lord knows, real estate is cheap there.”

“Not where you want to live. Hetta,
we aren’t twenty any more, and living dangerously on the cheap side of town
isn’t for us. In the neighborhood where we used to live, this Beemer wouldn’t
last two minutes. And besides, Houston has the same climate as Calcutta, India,
or have you forgotten.”

“Air conditioning,
my dear
, air conditioning.”

“They need to air condition the
whole damned state.”

“Oh, lighten up and smell the
bluebonnets, Miz Jan. And look at them!” Purple blanketed both sides of the road
as far as the eye could see. “Let’s blow this interminable interstate and cut
through the Hill Country to Mom and Dad’s.”

We took the Iraan exit, named not
for the Shah's former empire, but a couple named Ira and Ann Yates who cleverly
traded a grocery store for a several acres of rock and cactus that began
gushing oil. Now the hilltops also sprouted whirling wind machines.

The next three hours we traveled
state roads while oohing and aahing at rolling hills awash in a sea of
bluebonnets, black-eyed Susans, Indian paintbrush, and every other flower known
to grow wild in the Lone Star State.

“You know, Jan, this is Lady Bird
Johnson’s doing. Remember, years ago when she initiated that program to bring
back the wildflowers? We kids spent Saturday mornings spreading seeds along the
roadsides like this one. Look at the payoff. I’ve never seen the flowers like
this. I’d forgotten how beautiful the Texas ‘sprang’ can be. For the life of
me, I can’t remember why we left.”

“I followed
you
,” Jan said. “I came to visit and fell in love with San
Francisco.”

“You fell in love with Ronny. So
you dumped old whosit back Houston and moved in with Ron. Do you know what they
call women like you, Jan?”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“Serial monogamists.”

“That’s me all right. Faithful,
true, and blue, right up to the minute I leave ‘em. But at least I keep my men
for a while, Hetta, which is more than I can say for you.”

“Sad, but true.”

We entered an area along the San
Saba River where large cottonwoods lined both sides of the meandering water.
“God, it’s so beautiful here. Why did I ever leave?”

“The heat?”

“Naw, I was never outside anyway.”

“Mosquitoes?”

“Ditto.”

“Money?”

“Maybe that was it.”

* * *

The Texas Hill Country was
experiencing a spring that blindsides visiting Yankees who, entranced, buy a
place, then damn near croak all summer. It was nothing short of glorious.

Catfish practically threw
themselves onto Daddy’s Lake Buchanan dock, and then rolled themselves in
cornmeal and dove into his propane fryer. We water-skied daily and went tubing
down the Comal River. To make sure we kept up our cholesterol levels, we chowed
down on chicken fried steak, fried okra, Blue Bell peach ice cream and washed
cabrito
down with gallons of ice cold
Shiner Bock. Although an animal lover, I steadfastly refuse to equate the
savory, mesquite grilled
cabrito
with
those cute little goat kid darlings I bottle-fed at my grandmother’s ranch. One
can get a lit-tle too hung up on such matters.

We visited with old friends and
family, reveling in our home state with her best boot forward. Jan and I were
entranced with the friendliness—after all Texas
means
friendly—of our home folk and the flower-blanketed,
resplendence of the Hill Country in full regalia. It was hard to believe I’d
been so all-fired eager to abandon such a paradise for old cold northern
California. Made me wonder if I harbored some Yankee blood. Nah.

“Jan,” I said from my porch hammock
one lazy afternoon following a hard morning of drinking beer and shooting the
empties in the back pasture, “I’ve a hankerin’ to hit a honky-tonk. What do you
say?”

Jan dropped her
Texas Monthly
onto a sun-warmed
flagstone and nodded. “Fine by me. But let’s take your daddy’s pickup, ‘cause
we’ll stand out like a sore toe in the Beemer.”

“Did you bring your drankin’ tee?”

“Is there a cow in Texas? I have my
T-shirt, but dang it, I seem to have misplaced my chaps and spurs.”

* *
*

When Saturday night rolled around,
we loaded ourselves into Daddy’s Ford F-350 (complete with gun rack) and did a
dos-si-doed on down to the Lil’ Bitta Tejas Beer Hall and Cantina.

Live Country Western twanged
through the parking lot. When we opened the heavy mesquite door, a rush of
ice-cold air, Lone Star Beer fumes, and mesquite smoke rushed out. About a
jillion cowboys were bellied up to the bar.

The barn-like structure was packed
to capacity with beer drinking two-steppers in Levis, Tony Lama boots, and
Texas Hatter’s
chapeaux
. We found a
table and ordered nachos and beer.

When the band struck up
Cotton-Eyed Joe
, Jan jumped to her feet.
“I’m gonna grab me a cowboy and dance,” she announced as she headed for the
bar.

I opted to sit this one out and
made a bet with myself as to which guy she’d pick. I was right. Jan grabbed
onto the one with the biggest hat, belt buckle, and beer gut. She and I had
concluded long ago, after extensive empirical research, that the hefty ones are
the smoothest dancers. Perhaps something to do with dense centers of gravity.

Jan’s choice, at first taken aback
by being asked to dance, was soon gliding and guiding her across the floor,
entranced by this Melanie Griffith look-alike who had fallen into his arms.

After everyone stomped their boots
and hollered “Awww shit” one last time, the band moved on to a waltz. I roped
me a bronc buster by his belt loops, and for the next half hour we danced our
little hillbilly hearts out. After a lively
Beer
Barrel Polka
, we were plumb done and staggered back to the table for a beer
or six.

By mid-evening, we’d attracted a
herd of admiring Bubbas as well as the narrow-eyed scrutiny of several skinny
Bubbettes wearing life-threateningly tight jeans. This bevy of hillbeauties,
who all seemed to evolve from some special gene pool that breeds women whose
thighs never touch, twirled loose strands on the fringes of their
bouffants extraordinaire
and scowled.
They didn’t take kindly to city gals poaching the local talent.

“Don’t go to the little heifer’s
room alone,” I warned Jan. “You might come back with claw marks.”

The band took a break. During the
lull, one of our fan club decided it was time to get chummy. “You say y’all are
from San Francisco?”

We nodded. It was too much trouble
to explain about Oakland.

“Well, hell,” he said, “we hear you
got queers on your po-lice force.”

“We do have gays on the force,” Jan
said, sounding very prim and liberal. “They represent a certain percentage of
the population.”

“So,” our new friend drawled, and I
could tell the way he paused he was getting ready to entertain his buddies,
“when a Frisco cop says he’s gonna blow you away, it takes on a whole new
connotation.”

Guffaws exploded around the table, along with knee
slaps and hoots. I was amazed. Not by the fact that the guy told the joke, but
that he used a word like “connotation.” Ah, the wonders of Texas.

One of his fellow revelers pointed
his Lone Star long neck at the T-shirts Jan and I wore. “Whut kinda beer is
that on them shirts? Jap?” Obviously we had attracted a man of the world.

“How very astute of you, Jim Bob,”
I said. “Yes, it’s Sapporo Beer. I got these shirts in Tokyo.”

“Whut was you doin’ in Tok-yo?”

“I was there on business.”

“Bidness? Whut kinda bidness?”

“I’m an engineering consultant.”

He smirked for the benefit of his
fellow Bubbas, took a gulp of beer, and turned a bleary eye towards Jan. “And,
li’l lady, I reckin you to be a brain surgeon?”

“Nope,” Jan said with a toss of her
head. “You reckon wrong, cowboy. I’m a computer consultant.”

Silence fell like stars over
Alabama as Jim Bob filtered this information through the grits he had for
brains. “Well shee-ut,” he said, “jest how in the hey-all do
wimmin
git jobs like that?”

Jan and I looked at each other. “I
just remembered why I don’t live in Texas,” I told her. “It’s not the heat,
it’s the stupidity!”