Love Her Madly (10 page)

“Ergo?”

“I think the man is probably so angry he's thrown out the baby with the bathwater. I'm beginning to wonder what I'll do if he won't even consider actual innocence.”

“You'll just have to threaten him.”

“Excuse me?”

“Tell him you intend to carry on the investigation even if he doesn't grant the reprieve. Even if she's already been executed.”

“But that goes without saying.”

He laughed. “Not to him, I'll bet. Listen, darlin', I've got beepers going off left and right here. I have to run.”

“Wait. Joe, I shouldn't come back. I've got too much to do here.”

“I was thinking you'd come to that conclusion. I miss you.”

“Well … turn off your beeper. Make a little time for phone sex.”

Silence. Then he laughed. “Beeper is now off. Ladies first. You just close your eyes, honey, and lay back in my ever-lovin' arms.”

Joe has the right sensibilities. I do love our long meetings of the minds followed by our meetings of the bodies, even if we have to settle for such meetings via the wires sometimes.

He was damn good.

*   *   *

I watched the
Evening News
live, for a change. Pat Robertson was interviewed. He told Dan that Rona Leigh Glueck was a lady.

I called Max Scraggs and invited him to dinner. I needed the Texas law after all.

He said, “You happy with just edible food, or do you need real food?”

“Real.”

“Good. I just got to Waco. I'll have somebody bring you here to a restaurant I have in mind. When can you be ready?”

“I'm ready.”

“Five minutes. You'll hear a knock on the door.”

The young cop who drove me to the restaurant in Waco told me he knew of me. I thanked him for the compliment.

It was a German restaurant.

Scraggs said, “Some Bavarian prince was given a chunk of land by the Republic of Texas in exchange for—I don't know—the cachet. One of his descendents opened this restaurant. We have even more diversity than meets the eye, Agent.”

“Poppy.”

“Poppy. The descendent is a great chef.”

The great chef came to the table to greet his steady customer. Scraggs introduced me and then said, “Just fire your best meal on us, Billy.”

I said, “I'm glad his name wasn't Hansel. I can only take so much diversity.”

Immediately, a waitress banged two mugs of beer on the table.

“Hope you like beer.”

“I do. Officer—”

“Scraggs. Max. Whichever.”

“Scraggs, I thought you might have some advice for me. Here's what I'm dealing with. Rona Leigh Glueck—and, as of tonight, Pat Robertson—claim she's now a lady. She says that being a Christian gentleman, the governor will grant her a reprieve if only he can be convinced of this conversion—from lowlife to lady—in addition to the one he already knows about.”

Scraggs said, “The governor may be a Christian gentleman, but that doesn't give him scrambled eggs for brains. Beer'll taste better if you chug it.”

I'd been sipping. I drained off two inches. He was right. “I want this case reopened. I'd like it reopened before she's executed. I have evidence he needs to see. I need him to understand that I'm coming to him with facts, not bullshit.”

“He won't see you. No matter what you've got.”

“How do you know that?”

“Man told me as much.”

“What?”

“Ma'am.… Scratch that. Poppy. Here's what it's like. The governor of Texas is a figurehead. Our legislature meets four and half months every two years. During the other nineteen and a half months, the politicians do their politicking while they're bellying up to the nearest bar. That's where—”

“Hold up. They meet how often?”

“You heard right. The legislature carries out business off-season, and the governor isn't invited. The virtual governor is the president of the state senate, elected, not appointed, who leaves the ribbon-cutting and ambition toward national politics to the figurehead. Then the senator knows he'll be rewarded—maybe a cabinet position. His most important job is to make sure the governor looks good, dazzles in the klieg lights, and he also makes sure he doesn't have enough information about laws and legislation to say anything wrong.”

“I find this astonishing.”

“We don't blast the information from the rooftops.”

“Scraggs, the governor's big thing is that condemned prisoners in his state have not been denied access to the courts. He always says that in the past tense because they only have thirty days after conviction for access.”

“And that loophole is closed tight. Try your dumplings.”

All right. I took a break. I ate a dumpling, best one I've had since I was in Munich. “What if I show him that her original access to the court was made null by corrupt evidence, make clear that I'm not looking for clemency, just a reprieve. To give us a chance to look more closely at justice denied her.”

“The man believes she's a cold-blooded killer. She dies in … let's see … nine days. He sees no point in listening to what you might have to say. He wants her dead, plain and simple.”

I ate another dumpling. I said, “Scraggs, how do you get rid of your garbage in Texas?”

“'S'cuse me?”

“Landfills?”

He laughed. “In Texas? Use our
range
to let
garbage
sit and rot? We incinerate it.”

“When I flew into Waco I wondered what the layer of brown was. Now I know. Anyway, I'm just going to have to threaten him, then.”

He stopped chewing, even though his mouth was full. I disconcerted him and now I leaned into his face.

“You can tell that governor of yours I will continue my investigation even if Rona Leigh is executed. And if I show actual innocence, that she was innocent of the crime she died for, then his political aspirations beyond the present biannual four-month leadership of the state of Texas will end up in the nearest incinerator.”

He chewed some more and he swallowed. He chose to hold his temper. He did allow himself to be a bit caustic, however. “Ma'am, even if I was your messenger boy, which I'm not, I couldn't make such a threat on your behalf. Governor won't see me either. He's in seclusion at his ranch—until after the execution.”

The dumplings were gone. There were chunks of some kind of meat in front of me now. I stabbed one of them and put the whole thing in my mouth. I couldn't taste it. I tried to hear Scraggs's talk about the fine autumn weather. Neither of us enjoyed the following five courses.

He drove me back to Gatesville himself. He said, “You wanted my advice. Here it is. Pick another condemned killer. Governor's got too much at stake here. He's got political reasons for seeing to Rona Leigh Glueck's death. You're from DC. You know how it is. Politics rules.”

I said, “Only if you let it. You made your choice, I'm making mine.”

I guess I'd have to call our goodbyes icy.

*   *   *

The next morning I called my director for what I hoped would be better advice than what I'd gotten from Scraggs. I expressed my frustration. “Sir, how can the governor seclude himself? I mean, what if twenty witnesses suddenly turn up and say Rona Leigh didn't do it?”

He said, “Politics. The governor's washed his hands because he knows there won't be any twenty witnesses turning up. There won't be one. Last-minute phone calls from the governor as the prisoner is about to breathe his last only happen in the movies. Nobody's going to hear from that guy unless the press gets wind of something juicy.”

“Got any ideas?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. I've just heard from our office in Waco. Seems they're having trouble with car tires.”

“Who told you?”

“My man in Waco called me because they wanted you to know that the two guys from your lab were not involuntary transfers. When things got crazy in DC they asked if they could return to their former stomping grounds, which happened to be Houston. I cleared that with Delby. She remembered that you actually liked the two guys but you could tell they were burnt out so you wished them well.

“I asked Waco why it was so important for you to know about the burnouts, and that's when they told me about the nail in your tire. They've concluded that some guy in the lot meant to change the tire and got involved with something else. So here's what I told Waco. If we so much as
think
someone is trying to stop you from looking into this matter, I'm going to the governor myself. But in the meantime, if you decide you have something to take to the man, here's the number to call. Soon as you tell the fellow on the other end who you are, the governor will at least talk to you.”

What a guy.

“And Poppy?”

“Sir?”

“Had a chat with Cardinal de la Cruz. He wants to speak to you.”

“Don't tell me someone else is dipping into the till.”

“I don't know. He said it was a personal matter. Here's his secretary's number. Meanwhile, you watch your back.”

5

I'd found Cardinal de la Cruz to be an intriguing man. His lineage might have been the family-tree diagram on the first page of an epic historical novel. On his mother's side, it traced back through Queen Isabella to the Moors; it was her branch that ended up in Cuba. The cardinal's father had been Batista's Minister of Culture, meaning he kept Havana's casinos and sex shows up to snuff. The night Fidel took over, Batista saw to it that the de la Cruz family was on the first plane out, right after his own. In Miami, Signora de la Cruz continued the job she'd begun in Havana—praying for her son's vocation. Her prayers were answered.

The cardinal's secretary was very friendly, still grateful to me on behalf of the Archdiocese of New York. After a minute of general gushing, he said, “His Eminence would like to ask a favor of you.”

Did they think I was now at their beck and call? The priest read my mind.

“He doesn't need you to investigate another matter. The favor has to do with the work you have undertaken on behalf of the condemned woman Rona Leigh Glueck.”

I wondered how many people my director had mentioned my work to. The priest read my mind yet again.

“Forgive me for not being more forthcoming, but all I can tell you is that we learned of your work via an angel. The cardinal, as it happens, is in Texas right now. He will celebrate the marriage of his niece at the cathedral in Laredo, the city where the girl's family lives. A private matter no one will hear of until they read the society pages the next day.

“His Eminence wonders if it would be possible for you to meet him there. He regrets having to ask you to go out of your way for him, but he feels it is an urgent matter that he wants to discuss with you face-to-face.”

“Laredo. On the Mexican border, isn't it?”

“Yes. It is a very personal matter that has been on his mind, and he is in a dilemma. He feels he could make a sound decision if he exposes his thoughts to you and would respect your opinion on the matter. He could go to others, but this same angel is telling him that you are the one he needs. He begs your indulgence, Miss Rice.”

I said, “Actually, talking to him might help me in a dilemma I find myself in.”

“I will pray then that both of you will benefit from such a respite from your physical labors.”

Then he blessed me in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

I called Delby and told her I needed a handle on the cardinal's Texas connections. She faxed me a bio.

Post-Cuba, the de la Cruz family spent a dozen years deciding exactly where to settle permanently. They tested out their European properties for a while, making their greatest effort in Madrid, but never felt at home there. After all, it hadn't been home for three centuries. Then they'd spent several years in Mexico City but realized that what they missed was their countrymen and finally decided on the newly burgeoning metropolis formerly known as Miami, now Little Havana. But Beltrán's oldest sister had started school in Mexico City and begged her parents to allow her to stay on. Since Señor de la Cruz still had business there, illegal but productive, he thought it might be a good idea for a member of the family to be retained across the U.S. southern border. Years later, when that segment of his enterprise petered out, Beltrán's sister emigrated once again, this time to Texas—to Laredo—and married a man who was now the mayor. The approaching wedding of her daughter was in fact making the newspapers, not because the cardinal would officiate, which was being kept secret, but because his niece was marrying the first baseman for the Houston Astros, who happened to be a recent Cuban refugee. Cubans are a tight group.

I found I couldn't get back to Waco the same night so I told the clerk at Best Western I'd be away till the next day but that I was keeping the room. She said, “Our cleaning staff does enjoy hearing news like that.”

The flight from Waco was two hours.

In the early evening, Cardinal de la Cruz met me in an anteroom off the lobby of La Posada, a hotel across the plaza from the Laredo cathedral. Like the cathedral, the hotel was old and dowdy, but it was festooned with flowers and lights in the Mexican tradition. He fit me in during the time the wedding party was dressing. I guessed it had taken only minutes for him to dress, as he was wearing the robes of the Franciscans, his order. That meant he looked like Friar Tuck rather than a prince of the Church. No miter or gold-embroidered vestments. Instead, he was covered in brown homespun tied with a rope and wore a pair of sandals on his feet. I told him I didn't know cardinals could do that. He smiled at me and said in his cosmopolitan accent, “There is no one to question certain decisions of mine but the pope, and he is in Rome.”

There were two guards stationed at the open doorway of the anteroom, and they managed to keep everyone out except for five little flower girls in white tulle appliquéd with lace butterflies, their heads wreathed in hydrangea. They flitted in around the legs of the guards, who looked like a pair of colossi trying to rein in fairies. The cardinal encircled the children in his arms and his gaze, blessed them, and shooed them off toward their mortified parents, now standing in the doorway. He smiled and gestured to them, and the parents knew enough to come in, kneel, and kiss his ring. Once they'd slunk away, little girls in tow, he said, “It is divine that you and I start our discussion in a moment of innocent beauty and purity. Ironic, too.”