Mission Road (7 page)

“Thank you,” he told her one night, the first time he’d been able to say it.

Lucia looked up from her plate of onion rings. “No problem, Etch.”

He didn’t object to the name.

“How did you know the guy would turn the gun on you?” he asked. “How did you know what to say?”

She smiled ruefully. “I’ve made it a point to understand men.”

“Even men like that?”

“Especially men like that.”

He sensed more of a story there. He knew she was a single mom, raising a nine-year-old daughter named Ana. Speculation around the department was Lucia had to be lesbian. But Etch wasn’t so sure.

He’d never noticed the amber color of her eyes before, the way her short black hair curled behind her ears. She wore no makeup, but she had nice lips, the color of plums. He found himself wondering what she would look like in civilian clothes—a dress, perhaps.

Thirty years later, he could still remember the way she looked that night.

He opened his eyes. He thought again about what Miss Lee had told him.

He’d never trusted any cop the way he trusted Lucia. He sure as hell didn’t trust Kelsey to do things right.

He dialed the private number of a detective who owed him a favor—a narcotics guy who would’ve lost his job in an IA investigation if Etch hadn’t withheld some damaging information.

“This is Hernandez,” Etch told him. “I need you to do some surveillance for me. Starting now.”

•                           •                           •

MAIA WATCHED RETIRED M.E. JAIME SANTOS
play golf for ten minutes before she decided he hated the game.

“You ever try driving with a nine-iron, Miss Lee?” he asked. “Horrible technique.”

The old man eyed the golf ball like it had offended him. He tapped it tentatively, holding his club in vein-gnarled hands. He swung. With a crack, the ball sailed toward the tenth hole. It rolled to a stop at the edge of the green.

If the swing gave him any pleasure, Santos didn’t show it. He pulled the pin out of the turf like a pest control expert extracting vermin.

Maia said, “Dr. Santos—”

“Call me Jaime.”

“—if I could ask you about the case.”

Santos’ eyes were watery brown.

Despite his sour expression, Maia thought she detected kindness there—deeply submerged, diluted from years of autopsying every type of atrocity man can do to man—but still present.

He glanced at the two caddies—his own, and the one who’d brought Maia out to the course. “Why don’t y’all run and get some drinks or something? The young lady and I will walk from here.”

“But, sir, your bag—”

“I got a nine-iron,” the doctor snapped. “What else do I need?”

He handed them each a twenty. The caddies got in their golf carts and drove away.

Maia and Santos began walking.

A cold drizzle fell.

In the distance, Highway 281 was shrouded with mist. Christmas lights blinked on the smokestacks of the Quarry shopping center.

“So you’re Tres Navarre’s friend,” Santos mused. “Met him a few times. Dark hair? Pain in the ass?”

“That’s him.”

“He did some work for a friend of mine who was down on his luck. Got the loan sharks off his back. He wouldn’t accept any payment.”

“That’s him, too.”

The old man found his golf ball, gazed across the green toward the tenth hole flag. “Thirty years of autopsies, Miss Lee, they all tend to run together. But the Franklin White case . . . like I told the lady cop, that’s one you remember.”

“You spoke with Sergeant DeLeon?”

Santos studied his putting angle, didn’t seem to like it. He nudged the ball a little closer to the hole with his foot. “Seven blows to the head. Six of those to the face. Don’t see pure rage like that very often. Mind you, plenty of people were mad at him. That young man made his father look like a gentleman.”

“How do you mean?”

Santos gave her a raised eyebrow. “You don’t know?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

Santos gripped his club, faced the ball. “I hate golf. Blood pressure. Had to do something.”

“Jaime, about Franklin White?”

Santos sighed. “Back in ’87 there was a string of rape-murders on the South Side. Half a dozen young women picked up in bars, driven to secluded spots, raped and strangled. These women, all nineteen, twenty years old. All of them bright college girls, sweet kids. The kind of young women families pin their hopes on. You look at their photos . . .” The old man shook his head sadly, as if he could still see the victims’ faces. “Nobody was ever arrested, but they got a sketch of a man seen talking to one of the victims shortly before she disappeared. Young Anglo guy, blond and stocky, looked a lot like Guy White’s son.”

Maia felt her nausea coming back.

“You all right, Miss Lee?”

“I’m fine.”

Santos studied her more carefully. “Let me see your hands.”

“Why?”

“Come on now.”

Reluctantly, she extended her hands. The old man pressed at her fingers, felt her pulse.

“I’m fine,” she said again, pulling away. “Sergeant DeLeon thought you knew something about the Franklin White case. Something important, maybe about the blood under Franklin’s fingernails?”

For another moment, the old man stared at her. Then he turned his attention back to the golf ball. “Guy White isn’t what he used to be, Miss Lee, but he’s still vicious. Maybe more so now that he doesn’t have much time.”

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “You can’t be evil as long as Guy White’s been evil without it catching up with you. Rots you from the inside. That’s my medical opinion.” He tapped the ball. “If I were you, I wouldn’t stir up the Whites. I see a lot of directions this might go. I don’t like any of them, after what happened to the sergeant.”

“DeLeon wrote something about the timing being wrong.”

“I don’t know about that. The timing . . . I told Ana she should ask Mike Flume out at the Pig Stand. He could probably tell you about that, if the old bastard is still alive. Mike vouched for Lucia and Etch Hernandez that night. They had to have a clean alibi, see. All the cops involved did.”

“Why?”

Santos pulled back his nine-iron. He hit the ball much too hard and watched it roll past the hole.

“Hell with it,” he murmured. “Seemed so important at the time. That’s the problem with getting old—you stop caring about secrets. The weapon marks—”

“Detective Kelsey said the murder weapon was a tire iron.”

Santos’ mouth twitched. “Kelsey knows better. But, yeah. That’s the story we decided to go with.”

“You lied in the report?”

“I was . . . vague. Had to be, or we would’ve had a war on our hands. Those marks were consistent with a very specific type of bludgeoning device. Murder weapon was never recovered, mind you, but the match was pretty damn exact. Police nightstick. The type most patrolmen carried back then.”

Maia felt as if the rain and the cold were soaking into her bones, turning her to ice water. “Did Kelsey work the scene, too?”

Santos shook his head. “As I recall, he was still on medical leave, but you better believe he scrambled to get an alibi.”

“Medical leave.”

“Few months before the murder, Kelsey had had a run-in with Frankie White. Frankie was brandishing a knife in a bar on the Riverwalk. Kelsey was a rookie, straight out of the academy. He made the mistake of trying to take Frankie’s knife away.”

“The scars on Kelsey’s hands.”

“Almost lost several fingers. Afterward, Guy White took Kelsey apart in front of his superiors. White’s lawyers turned the whole incident upside down, claimed Kelsey was responsible for using excessive force. Nearly got Kelsey kicked out of the department.” Santos sighed. “There weren’t many cops back then who
hadn’t
had run-ins with the White family, Miss Lee, but I’d appreciate it if you’re more careful with this information than Ana DeLeon was. I don’t like young ladies getting shot.”

Maia watched the cold rain drifting across the hills. She imagined Frankie White, the blond preppie from 1987, as a rapist-murderer, not so different from the elf who’d attacked her that morning. She imagined the same wild light in Frankie’s eyes, the same foul breath. She could easily put herself in the place of those women Frankie had murdered, his hands closing around her throat.

“Thanks, Jaime,” she said. “I’ll tell Tres you said hello.”

“You sure you’re feeling all right?”

“I’m fine. Probably just something I ate.”

He smiled in a sad way, like he’d just come across a tender love note in the pocket of an autopsy subject. “One more question, Miss Lee, just because you can’t fool an old doctor. Does Tres Navarre know you’re pregnant?”

REMEMBERING RALPH’S SECOND COUSIN
was a stroke of inspiration, if I do say so myself.

Like many San Antonians, Guy White ordered large quantities of tamales for his Christmas celebrations, and Ralph’s cousin from Mama’s Cocina delivered to all of the biggest accounts. The rich Anglos loved this. It gave them the flavor of a Tejano Christmas without the trouble of actually going to the West Side and mixing with Hispanics.

At any rate, hiding in the back of the cousin’s delivery van was the only thing that got us past police surveillance—a black Chevrolet sitting across the street from Guy White’s mansion. It had tinted windows and a slapdash stenciling job that read
Lou’s Electronics.

“SAPD?” I murmured to Ralph.

“Nah, they’d blend in better. I’d say federal. Not for us.”

He tried to sound confident about it—or as confident as you can be, crammed in between forty-pound canisters of hot tamales.

“FBI,” I speculated. “That execution White ordered in Louisiana.”

“I’m guessing Secret Service. The counterfeit twenties.”

“Ten bucks says FBI.”

“You’re on.”

From the front seat, Ralph’s second cousin said nervously, “I’m telling you guys, if you cost me this job—”

“No worries,” I told him. “If we get caught, you can say we’re tamale-jackers.”

I’m not sure that made him feel any better, but he pulled up to the gates of the mansion.

In one of San Antonio’s weirder architectural fantasies, the house had been built to resemble a miniature White House. I’d never been clear whether Guy White constructed the place to reflect his name, or bought it that way because it did. Either way, it was a pathetic attempt at grandeur—like a Taj Mahal model on a putt-putt course.

As we waited to be buzzed in, I tried to figure out why the grounds looked so gloomy. Maybe it was the winter fog, or the bare pecan trees. Even the Christmas tree in the windows seemed to glitter halfheartedly.

Then I realized the gardens were dying.

The few times I’d been here before, whatever the season, Guy White had taken meticulous personal pride in his gardens. Now there were no plants to speak of. No winter blooms. Just weeds and yellow grass.

A woman’s curt voice came over the intercom. Ralph’s cousin nervously announced himself.

The iron gates rolled open.

The back of the van was like a grease sauna. On either side of me, metal canisters cooked their way through my coat sleeves.

“You got a plan what to say,
vato
?” Ralph dabbed the sweat off his forehead.

“Let’s play it organic,” I said.

“Organic.”

“Yeah. You know. ‘How ’bout them Spurs? Nice weather. Wanna help us find Frankie’s killer?’ ”

“We’re so-o dead.”

•                           •                           •

THE VAN BUMPED UP THE DRIVEWAY.

I looked at Ralph and tried to gauge how he was doing.

Before we hooked up with his cousin, Ralph had called his sister and asked about the baby. His sister was worried out of her mind, frantic about Ana, furious with Ralph for running, but the baby was fine. She told Ralph all this, then demanded to speak to me.

“Stop him,” she told me. “He’s gonna get himself killed. You gotta stop him, bring him back to his daughter.”

I could hear Lucia Jr. in the background, banging on a pot and saying,
Ab, ab, ab.
I said, “I’ll do my best.”

“You’ll
do
it,” the sister insisted. “No accident Ralph came to you. You’re the one he respects the most. He’s told me that a million times. You gotta keep him from going over the edge.”

I didn’t bother protesting that we’d grown pretty far apart. I just promised again to do everything I could.

“You know why he got involved with the Whites, don’t you? You understand why he
had
to help Frankie?”

Before I could ask what she meant, the police came on the line and tried to negotiate with me. I hung up.

The call energized Ralph. He didn’t seem as depressed. He talked more. But there was also a new restlessness in his manner—a three-espresso buzz. I recognized it, unfortunately. It was the way Ralph acted when he was anticipating a fight.

He looked at me like he was following my thoughts. “My sister wanted you to hold my leash?”

“I guess.”

“She never figured I’d be the one with the wife and kid. She always figured I’d live that shit through you. You know?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.

The tamale truck slowed.

I hazarded a look out the front windshield, but Ralph’s cousin immediately hissed, “Get down!”

My brief glimpse was enough to show me why.

Ahead of us, where the driveway divided, an angry-looking blond woman and an Anglo man in a brown leather jacket stood waiting for us with all the seriousness of Nazis at a checkpoint.

•                           •                           •

“YOU’RE NEW,” THE WOMAN SNAPPED.

“Y-yes, ma’am.” Ralph’s cousin’s voice wobbled.

Withering silence.

I made myself small behind a column of tamale canisters.

“Deliveries don’t come through the front,” the woman said. “Why do you look so nervous?”

Her voice didn’t match the glimpse I’d gotten of her.

She’d looked young, like a pissed-off sorority girl, but she sounded like my third-grade teacher Mrs. Ziegler, with the steel-gray beehive and the paddle hanging from the chalkboard.

“S-sorry, ma’am,” Ralph’s cousin said. “I just don’t want to mess up this job.”

Footsteps crunched in the gravel—the leather jacket goon, making his way around to the back of the van.

I got my spiel ready, should he open the doors. I hoped I’d have time to smile and say
“Would you like a free sample?”
before he shot us.

Finally, the woman’s voice: “Around to the right. The kitchen entrance is marked. You
can
read?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ralph’s cousin exhaled. “Thank you.”

We lurched into drive.

I tried not to worry about the woman’s tone—suspicious, almost taunting. Why had she let us go so easily?

Ralph’s cousin rolled up his window.

“Good job,
ese,
” Ralph told him.

“Shit, man.” His cousin was sweating as much as we were. “Did you see that lady’s eyes? I think she was going to gut me.”

“She couldn’t be older than college age,” I said.

The cousin glanced back at me. “College for what? Ax murderers?”

The back lawn was the size of a football field and just about as busy. Workers were draping garlands on the bandstand gazebo, erecting a large white tent pavilion next to the swimming pool, setting up buffet tables and covering them in plastic to protect against the weather. At the far edge of the property, where the ground sloped down to a stand of live oaks along the banks of Olmos Creek, electricians were stringing the entire forest with Christmas lights.

“Intimate party tonight,” Ralph guessed.

“For a thousand friends,” I agreed.

The cousin parked the van. Seconds later, he opened our doors.

“Clear,” he reported unconvincingly.

Ralph and I climbed out, half baked in grease. Ralph’s jacket steamed in the cold air.

“Two cans of pork.” The cousin shoved canisters at me. “Ralph, you take the two venison. I’m gone. Don’t tell me how your visit turns out.”

“Thanks,
ese,
” Ralph said.

“Relatives,” the cousin grumbled.

By the time we’d lugged our tamales to the service entrance, the cousin’s van had disappeared around the drive.

Inside, Guy White’s kitchen was a cavern of white marble and chrome, bigger than any apartment I’d ever lived in. The counters overflowed with gourmet food, catering trays, grocery bags, vases of flowers. I was too busy getting the crap burned out of my hands to notice much else about my surroundings until I found a free space to park my tamales.

“Damn.” Ralph rubbed his red hands. “Now what?”

A female voice behind us said, “Now, you explain.”

We turned.

Standing in an interior doorway, the angry young blonde was pointing a nine-millimeter pistol at my head.

•                           •                           •

SHE ESCORTED US INTO THE MAIN
foyer, to the base of the presidential staircase, where her leather-jacketed friend was waiting.

The guy wore khakis and a button-down with the brown leather jacket. With stiff blond hair, athletic build, he might’ve been straight off any college football team, but I had the creepiest feeling I’d met him before. Then it struck me: He looked like Frankie White. If Frankie had been resurrected a little slimmer, a little more handsome, still alive and in his twenties.

He even had the same cruel grin.

He did a thorough job frisking us. If I’d been wearing a wire, he would’ve found it. If I’d had a nail file concealed in any crevice of my body, he would’ve found it.

He took my .22 and cell phone, Ralph’s wallet. He turned out the pockets of our Goodwill jackets.

He raised an eyebrow when he read Ralph’s ID. “Ralph Arguello. I heard about you.”

“All true,” Ralph said.

The guy snorted. “I heard you’d gone soft and Johnny Zapata was taking over your business.”

He shoved Ralph against the wall and frisked him a second time.

“No wallet on the other one,” he told the blonde, digging his gun into my ribs. “Think he’s a cop?”

The woman appraised me coldly.

She had a tan much too good for the middle of winter, mussed-up shoulder-length hair the color of wet sand, a spray of freckles over her nose, black cargo pants and a black turtleneck sweater. She might’ve been any college kid just back from a week in Cozumel, except for her eyes.

She was too young to have eyes like that—startlingly blue and hard as glacier core.

“You’re not a cop if you’re with Arguello,” she decided. “Who are you?”

“Tres Navarre.”

Her eyes narrowed.

An uncomfortable sense of recognition prickled behind my ears. “Do I know you?”

She studied me about the length of time it would take to empty a clip into my chest. Then she glanced at her large friend. “Alex, put them in the wine cellar. I’ve got to think about this.”

Alex scowled. “I don’t take orders from you, Mad—”

“Just
do
it for once!”

“If Mr. White says to, sure.”

She glared at him.

I hated to interrupt their lovefest, but I said, “Alex is right. We need to talk to Mr. White.”

“No, you don’t,” the woman snapped. “Mr. White isn’t taking visitors.”

“He will for this,” Ralph said. “It’s about Frankie.”

Alex and the woman both froze. Eighteen years since the murder, the name Franklin White was still good for a hell of a shock wave.

The young woman was the first to react. She walked over to Ralph and punched him in the gut.

It was a professional punch—her whole body weight behind it, straight from the waist. Ralph doubled over with a grunt.

“You do
not
mention that name.” Her voice was steel. “Nobody is going to do that to the old man again.”

“Do
what
again?” I asked.

She whirled toward me, but Ralph said, “Listen,
chica.
”

He was clutching his stomach, trying to ignore Alex’s gun at his head. “My wife is a homicide cop. She was about to nail Frankie’s killer when she got shot. I’m going to find the bastard who shot her. Mr. White’s gonna help, because the shooter’s the same person who killed his son.”

“Mr. White doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“That’s not your decision to make,” I said. “Is it?”

Her kick was even faster than her punch.

I thought I was ready for it. I was no stranger to martial arts.

She launched a side-strike and I caught her ankle. I pulled her off balance, but instead of landing on her butt like a good opponent she pivoted in midair, connected her other foot with my face and turned her fall into a roll.

At least, that’s what Ralph told me later.

At the time, I was too busy staggering, admiring the floating yellow spots and tasting blood in my mouth.

The young woman got to her feet. She picked her gun up off the carpet.

“Forget the wine cellar,” she growled. “These two get dealt with right here.”

“Frankie’s killer’s gonna get away for good,” Ralph told her. “That what Mr. White wants?”

The woman raised her nine-millimeter. It was a newer model Beretta, a 9000S with a compact barrel and a discreet black finish. I imagined it would make an elegant hole in my chest.

A man’s voice said, “Madeleine.”

The young woman’s face filled with bitterness, as if she’d just been caught sneaking out after curfew.

At the top of the stairwell, leaning heavily on a cane, looking infinitely older and frailer than when I’d seen him last, stood a white-haired man. He wore a burgundy Turkish bathrobe. His face was the color of milk.

“What is this,” Guy White murmured, “about my son?”

•                           •                           •

WE WERE THROWN DOWN ON THE
carpet of Mr. White’s study. Persian weave. Silk. I’d had my face slammed against worse.