Red Man Down (6 page)

Questions were no problem, it turned out – Cecelia was happy to talk about Ed Lacey, her darling nephew. That sweet boy, she said, who always made everyone happy. But now in the end his life story had tragically begun to echo that of his Uncle Frank.

‘It does seem an odd coincidence,’ Sarah said. ‘Good, useful lives that both ended badly. Did you know Frank well?’

‘Of course I knew him. He was a saint, that man, and they adored each other.’ She batted her lovely dark eyes at Oscar. ‘Always the caretaker, Frank, remember?’

‘I remember you always said so.’ Oscar was walking some fine line here, trying to be the close friend Cecelia seemed to want him to be, while maintaining his non-involved stance for Sarah.

‘Yes, well, we all did. Because when Luz,’ she turned to Sarah, ‘Eddie’s mother? My second-oldest sister? When Morgan Lacey, her no-good Anglo husband disappeared, she took in a still more worthless loser for a boyfriend. And from that time on, Uncle Frank dropped by often, to keep an eye on Eddie, who wasn’t even in school yet and was being sorely neglected by his mother. So Frank often took him to the park or for an ice cream.’

‘I’m curious,’ Sarah said. ‘Frank Martin wasn’t Hispanic, was he?’

‘No, Frank was married to our oldest sister, Anita. Luz’s next older sister, you see? She died in childbirth in the second year of their marriage, and her baby died a few hours later. Terrible – it doesn’t happen anymore, thanks to God. But when it happened to them, Frank, of course, was bereft. But our family – you know, we are warm—’

‘Everybody knows that,’ Oscar said, and got a blazing smile for a reward.

‘Yes, well, we held him close, we tried to help. So even though Anita was gone, Frank remained our beloved uncle, always at family celebrations.

‘So – this is a few years later I’m talking about, now. Luz’s husband was gone, the boyfriend was in the house, and – she is my sister but I have to say it – she was drinking too much with that man.’

‘Ah, well,’ Oscar had his hands folded like an undertaker, ‘nobody’s perfect.’

‘And some of us are more imperfect than others. So one day when Luz was out of the house, probably making an emergency tequila run because God forbid they might find themselves short on margaritas, the boyfriend decided Eddie was a pest and started beating on him. He got a little carried away and broke the child’s nose. Eddie ran crying to his Uncle Frank, blood running down his face – in a panic, he thought he was dying.

‘Luckily it was a Saturday and Frank was home from work. He rushed Eddie to the hospital. And the next day when the boy was ready to come home, Frank asked my sister, “Why don’t you let him stay with me a while till your life settles down a little?” Something like that, making it seem OK. Just an extended visit.

‘But as time passed, he kept making up little stories so it was easy for her to leave him there – she was so busy, he said, her husband was gone and she had to look for a job. Like she ever would. My parents were a little alarmed at first. They kept saying, “Why is Eddie never home?” But when they saw how happy he was at Frank’s house, and how well taken care of … I know it’s crazy but it just became the way things were. Eddie stayed at Frank’s house and Luz came to visit, do the big kissy-kissy and leave.’

‘So Frank Martin raised Ed Lacey?’

‘Yes. And did all the things fathers do, or used to do when the world was more decent. Attended all the school plays, helped with the homework. You know, Frank was very frugal about his own things, always bought two-year-old cars, kept them till they were eight or nine – he was careful that way. But the best was none too good for Eddie – whatever clothes and gear he needed for games at school, and he went to all the games when Eddie made the football team. That’s how they got the scholarship so Eddie could go to college. Got his degree and went straight to the police academy from there, made us all proud.’

‘So you were pretty surprised, I suppose,’ Sarah said, ‘when Frank was accused of stealing money from the credit union?’

‘Surprised does not begin to describe it.’ Cecelia, ablaze with indignation, was a sight worth watching, Sarah thought – fake fingernails tracing crimson parabolas in the air, her remarkable bosom testing the seams of the emerald jersey. ‘We all begged him to fight it. Plainly, they had no proof. His whole character and life up till then made the claims ridiculous, and where was the money? Frank didn’t have it in his bank account. They searched all the drawers in his house – in both houses, his and Eddie’s. They even went through Eddie’s accounts, though he was married by then and had joint accounts with his wife. But Eddie said to go ahead, they wouldn’t find anything, and of course they never did.’

‘Where do you think it went?’

‘I have no idea. Well, I have one idea, but I have no proof either so …’ Cecelia paused and looked down, and for a moment Sarah thought she might be about to divulge further, but suddenly her head shot back up, her eyes blazing. ‘All I know is, Frank didn’t do it. I don’t care whose handwriting is on the’ – she waved the handwriting away – ‘deposits, or whatever they said. Somehow, a giant injustice has been done.’

‘But he left a sort of mea culpa when he killed himself, didn’t he?’

‘A what? Oh, the note. Some silly thing, I forget what it said …’

‘I can tell you exactly,’ Oscar Cifuentes said.

Sarah looked at him, her face saying,
What?

Pulling another piece of paper out of that same handy shirt pocket, he began to read. ‘“I didn’t take the money, but I won’t put my family through this investigation any longer.” And then a postscript: “Eddie, I’m sorry for everything. I’ve loved you all your life, please try to forgive me.”’

When he stopped, both women stared at him, waiting for him to add something more. But there wasn’t any more. Cifuentes put the paper back in his pocket and asked Cecelia, ‘Why do you think he wrote that?’

‘Oscar,
querido mio
– how would I know? It doesn’t make any sense. What was he apologizing for? Eddie owed his
life
to Uncle Frank.’ She made a fist of her soft, manicured left hand and beat on the sofa’s upholstered arm three times. ‘I. (Thump.) Don’t. (Thump.) Know. (Thump.)’

Tears welled in her eyes.

Sarah asked her for names and addresses of other members of the family. Cecelia wrote out a list, muttering to herself, ‘Let’s see, Luz, Guillermo – we call him Memo, Chico—’ she took a while to remember addresses, and had no phone numbers or email addresses. ‘We always just go see each other,’ she said.

As they were preparing to leave, putting coats on in the small foyer, Oscar said, ‘Are you going to tell us your idea about who got the money? Or must we dig that out of one of your sisters?’

‘No and no, Oscar.’ She looked deep into his eyes and the temperature in the foyer rose, Sarah thought, about two degrees. ‘Dig it out of Chico. Talk to the man of the family, for once. Give yourself a change of pace.’

‘Always a pleasure to talk to Francisco,’ Oscar said. ‘Does he still operate his fish taco stand near the ball field?’

‘No, no, darling, he sold that some time ago. Chico is retired on social security. Retirement is turning out to be Chico’s best thing. It suits him like nothing before in his life.’

‘Would he be likely to be at home now, at this address?’ He was looking at her list.

‘I should think so. It’s about Happy Hour, isn’t it? Not that Chico confines himself to one hour.’

‘Looking forward to finding him then,’ Oscar said, ‘though he’s not nearly as charming as his sisters.’

‘Get out of here, you rogue.’ She gave him a very small push.

‘Thanks for the wonderful coffee,’ Sarah said, feeling like the schoolmarm in the play. ‘And for talking to us. Here’s my card – all my numbers, my email. Call any time if you think of anything you want to add.’

‘How very kind,’ Cecelia said, patting Sarah on the shoulder like a sister.

But it was to Oscar that she tossed the final invitation. ‘Don’t be a stranger,
primo
.’

‘
Primo
means cousin, doesn’t it?’ Sarah asked him, when they were back outside by the car. ‘She doesn’t act like your cousin.’

‘Oh, we’re not, really. Except, you know, we both grew up down here in the south side of town. And people from the old neighborhoods – there’s a saying that if you go back far enough, we’re all related.’

‘But you don’t buy into the Old Pueblo stuff much, do you?’

‘Nope. I like to swim in the mainstream,’ Cifuentes said.

‘Except like today, when it works better to be Chicano.’

‘Well, sure. We all use what we’ve got to use, don’t we? At Cecelia’s house, you were using me, right?’

Sarah studied her shoes. ‘I suppose that’s true. How did you get hold of Frank’s note, by the way?’

‘Don’t worry, it’s not the original.’ Oscar winked at her. ‘OK, then.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ve still got an hour before we have to head in. You want to see if Chico’s home?’

‘Sure. Do you know how to get to that address?’

‘It’s in South Tucson,’ Oscar said. ‘Let me drive, it’s easier than telling you.’

He was right, so Sarah gave up the wheel, something she rarely did in her departmental car. She always said she wanted to be able to defend any dings it brought back. But mostly her attitude was left over from the beginning of her career, when the men all expressed their hostility to the presence of women investigators by criticizing their driving. Sarah, determined to be treated as an equal, decided she would drive, by God, when it was her turn, and they would ride with her and shut up about it.

‘I always thought the nickname for Francisco was Pancho,’ Sarah said, as they rolled along.

‘It is,’ Oscar said. ‘So’s Chico.’

‘So many things I don’t understand in this part of town.’

‘You should try making the trip in the other direction.’

Oscar made his way quickly through the narrow streets of the mile-square Hispanic municipality encapsulated in the middle of Tucson. Francisco García’s house was a small, tidy adobe next to a junkyard – zoning was somewhat casual in South Tucson.

‘Aren’t we going to knock?’ she said as they followed a brick path around the front of the house.

‘Let’s look in the backyard first.’

The backyard belonged to a whole different world than the front. It looked as if sections of the junkyard next door had tunneled under the fence and settled in here, where they lounged about, waiting to be useful. A long, ramshackle shed along the back fence held at least three old cars they briefly registered, one on blocks, and parts of several others. Piles of worn tires, two benches and an ancient rowboat with no motor filled the rest of the yard – there were paths through the jungles of equipment. Hammers, machetes, shovels and other tools hung from nails on every upright.

It was shady under the tall trees, darker still under the thatched ramada, and too cold, this late December afternoon, to be lying outdoors in a hammock. But the man who lay there had solved the problem by wrapping himself in an electric blanket. His features were hard to see in the gloom, but Sarah got an impression of a big mustache under a shock of white hair. As they watched, he lifted a beer can to his lips and drank the last swallow, sighed happily and pitched the can over his left shoulder toward a trash can. It landed inside with a jolly clink.

Oscar knocked on the wooden upright of the open patio just as the man turned to reach for the handle of the cooler, on the ground by his right side. Its cord, and the one for the blanket, ran together to a power outlet that snaked out from an outlet on the patio. The man had put serious effort into his comforts.

‘Whoa,’ he said, peering toward the noise. ‘Who’s there?’

‘It’s Oscar Cifuentes, Chico.’

‘You big bad boy!’ He spread his arms. ‘Too long since I’ve seen you, man. How you been?’

‘Better than ever, can you believe it?’ Oscar bent for a big
abrazo
. ‘And this is my partner, Sarah Burke.’

She held out her hand. The old man covered it with both of his and said, ‘My pleasure, Officer. Detective, is it? Well!’ He beamed at them both equally. ‘Do cops drink beer?’

‘We do, but unfortunately we’re still working,’ Oscar said.

‘So late? Well, come back sometime when you’re off-duty, huh? Sit, sit.’ He waved at chairs and they each pulled one closer as he opened the cooler, rattled ice, and came out with a dripping can of beer. ‘Meantime, please pardon me, my thirst won’t wait.’ He popped the cap, swigged, belched contentedly and lay back.

The two men batted some small talk back and forth, neighborhood news, and then Oscar said, ‘Cecelia suggested we should talk to you about Eddie.’

‘She did, huh?’ He scratched his ear. ‘Cecelia is good at deciding what other people should do. You know’ – he fished a pack of Marlboros off a small table by the trash can and lit one with a huge flame from a lighter while Sarah held her breath, expecting his mustache to go up in flames – ‘when she was not much bigger than a Chihuahua I used to carry her on my shoulders to the bodega and buy her a popsicle. She thought I was wonderful then. Now she wants to tell me what to eat and drink, and can’t understand why I won’t follow her orders to the letter.’

‘I’m sure she has your best interests at heart,’ Oscar said.

‘Oh, absolutely. Mine and everybody else’s.’ He puffed a while, drank again and sighed. ‘She wants me to dish the dirt on Eddie, so she won’t be heard speaking ill of the dead.’

‘Is there some dirt on Eddie?’

‘Well, he was a … when he was little, he was kind of a pain in the neck.’

‘How so?’

‘Anxious and demanding … always
wanting
something. “Will you give me that, can I have one of those?”’ His imitation of a child’s voice was very funny strained through his big white mustache. ‘His mother didn’t really want to be bothered with him, you know … after her husband left her she was always after boyfriends and Eddie slowed her down. So the kid was angry and … what’s that word they use all the time now?
Needy.
I didn’t like him myself, tell you the truth. But after he went to live with Frank, he straightened out.’