Shoot from the Lip (6 page)

“What the hell happened, Chelsea?” the man said as he emerged from the backseat. “Why didn’t I hear about this from you first?”

He was maybe five-foot-eight, completely bald and dressed in what looked like Ralph Lauren everything. And Houston now had a new pollutant—the cologne wafting my way on the late-morning breeze.

“Didn’t the city call you, Mr. Mayo? They said they would.” Chelsea tried for both a confused and contrite expression, but as I’d seen earlier, she was a terrible actress.

Erwin Mayo ignored her, turned his attention to Emma and smiled broadly. “Miss Lopez. What a pleasure to see you again. Lovely as ever, I see.”

I whispered, “Reasonable,” which had become our go-to word, and she responded by saying, “Hello, Mr. Mayo.” She almost sounded polite, but there was still an edge to her tone.

He widened his arms and walked closer to us. “I’m so glad to see you again. Are you excited?”

“Oh, happy as a lottery winner,” she answered.

No one could miss the sarcasm.

“Are you still upset about this baby secret of yours?” Mayo said.

Emma said nothing.

“You are upset,” Mayo went on. “I told you the mention of the baby during the episode will be brief, if it even survives the edits.” He gripped both her upper arms and stared into her eyes. “We’ll work our magic, and you’ll discover that what we’re doing for you is better than winning the lottery.” He looked at me. “And who is this? A friend?”

“Abby Rose,” I said. “Yellow Rose Investigations.”

“Really? Chelsea brought you on board, then. Good. You have a wonderful face for the camera, and maybe you’ll get some airtime. This is a big story, our two-hour sweeps special.”

Not even my pinkie toe’s on board your ship,
I thought. Did anyone working on this project have an ounce of sincerity? You’d think Hollywood people would be better at pretending to care.

Mayo released Emma, and I could see the relief in her face, noticed how her shoulder muscles relaxed. I wouldn’t want his hands on me either.

“I’m told the demolition is set for one o’clock,” he said. “Why don’t we do an early lunch, ladies?” He turned to Chelsea. “While we’re gone, get the crew ready to roll by twelve thirty. The city has been jacking me around, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they showed up early.”

Chelsea nodded, turned and trotted back to the trailer.

“You know a good place for lunch, Abby?” Mayo asked.

“Um ... listen,” Emma said. “I don’t think—”

“I do know a place,” I said quickly.
“Reasonably
priced, too.” I placed a reassuring hand on Emma’s back.

But we didn’t even have time to climb into the Navigator. A City of Houston truck barreled around the corner and pulled into Emma’s narrow, cracked driveway, amber lights flashing. A public works pickup followed.

A thirty-something guy with a no-nonsense, beardstubbled face got out of the first truck, walkie-talkie held close to his mouth. He said, “Let me check out the house and get back to you before we shut off the utilities.”

The guy ignored Emma’s “What’s happening?” and started toward the house.

Mayo took off after him, calling, “Hold on. What do you think you’re doing?”

The man turned, looking perturbed. “City-ordered demolition. I don’t think your name’s Emma Lopez, so you aren’t the owner and it’s none of your business.”

Emma walked toward the men. “I’m Emma Lopez. I-I thought we had a few more hours.”

The man smiled at Emma. “We have to work with the utility people, organize the electrical, gas and water shutoffs. They could do it now before lunch, so we’re setting up.”

“Okay,” Emma said, a hitch in her voice. “Now or later. Doesn’t matter.”

Mayo bellied up to the city worker. “It matters to me. I had an agreement with the city to allow us to tape for my program.
We’re
not ready.”

The man said, “I heard something about your TV show. Didn’t realize it was this particular demolition. Sorry, but we go on our schedule, not yours.”

“Dammit.” Mayo flipped open his cell phone. He speed-dialed a number, identified himself and, after listening for a minute, he said, “I need the mayor now, not this afternoon.”

Meanwhile the city guy was walking down the drive to the house with Emma at his side.

Mayo flushed as he listened to more talking. Without saying another word, he closed the phone, reopened it and punched one number. “Chelsea, get everyone out here now. They’re ready to bulldoze.”

I don’t think he even waited for her reply, because he pocketed his phone, then squeezed the bridge of his nose with thumb and index finger. “Good thing I showed up. I had a feeling they’d do this. Territorial bunch, these city people.”

I decided to see how Emma was doing, but before I took two steps, she and the guy came out of the house and headed back toward me.

Mayo started for the Navigator. Where the heck was he going? Maybe he had a secure line to the White House in the trailer and planned to call in some favors to delay the demolition for an hour or two.

Emma and the worker, who, now that I checked him out, was pretty hot—tots of muscles, expressive eyes—had stopped and were deep in conversation maybe halfway down the driveway.

She smiled when I met up with them. “Andrew was explaining exactly what will happen. He said the whole process will take about an hour. You know, amazingly enough, this feels like a weight off my shoulders. The fight is over.”

Andrew spoke into the walkie-talkie. “Get the dozer down here. Utilities are set to go off in ten minutes.”

Meanwhile, the film crew had gotten their act together and were setting up in the street. Then Mayo’s Navigator came rolling back from the trailer, and he emerged wearing pressed jeans and a
Reality Check
T-shirt. Chelsea was with him, having changed into similar clothing. They were also wearing hard hats, and I wanted to laugh. This was all for the show. They weren’t getting anywhere near the house and didn’t need hard hats.

Emma and I stood about ten feet to the right of the TV crew until the bulldozer arrived. The dozer was soon followed by a dump truck and another piece of equipment that would scoop up the debris that had been Emma’s home. Several men—mostly Hispanics—climbed out of the truck with shovels, what looked like fence cutters, and other tools I’m sure they needed for tearing things apart. When the cleanup crew was in place, we moved closer to the curb to watch.

I held Emma’s sweaty hand when the bulldozer rumbled in. The temperature was rising, another warm afternoon before a promised cool front arrived, and everyone was sweating. It seemed so quiet, even the sound of heavy machinery was somehow lost in the humid air. Chelsea passed out cold bottled water to everyone, and I liked her for one brief second. Within minutes the small, already broken house toppled like stacked blocks.

The
Reality Check
people captured every moment with mounted cameras as well as handhelds, while Stu Crowell’s attention was dedicated to Emma’s reaction. She seemed not to notice or care. Tears crept down her face, and I could feel her body trembling.

The job of clearing the debris began and the crew was almost finished when their work came to an abrupt halt after a worker shouted,
“Terminar
... Stop ...
Terminar.”
His voice was filled with an urgency that raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

This man hurried over to on-site boss Andrew, and then Andrew jogged after him to where the back of the house once stood. A few seconds later Andrew approached Emma and me.

He said, “This isn’t a burial ground, right? I mean, we always check the plats and the city history, but something could have been overlooked.”

Emma seemed too stunned to speak, so I said, “Burial ground? You mean ... ?”

He looked at Emma when he answered. “Disposable diapers take about five hundred years to decompose. We find lots of them during demolitions. But this time ... well, there’s bones, too. Baby bones.”

Baby bones.
Could there any worse words for Emma to hear right now? Good thing I had a hold of her arm, because I felt her go limp for an instant before she regained her equilibrium. Confusion rippled across her face, but this was quickly replaced by a wave of understanding. A baby sister who disappeared fifteen years ago must have been lying dead beneath her house all along. That thought would buckle my knees, too.

Emma said nothing, just stared over Andrew’s shoulder at the workers with their still shovels, their bowed heads. A few had their hats in their hands.

Meanwhile I became aware of cameraman Stu moving in, his lens fixed on Emma’s face.

“Andrew,” I said, “take care of Emma for a second.” I stepped between Stu and his camera. “Know something, Stu? I can get as mean as an alligator in a drained swamp, so I suggest you give the girl time to take this in or you may wish you never brought that beautiful expensive camera to Texas.”

His face was hidden, but within seconds the red light went off. “You got a job to do and so do I,” he said. But I could tell by the look in his eyes that he, too, might believe that sometimes your job isn’t the most important thing in the world.

I turned back to Emma. Her expression had turned stony, her skin pale green. I noticed Andrew had his cell phone to his ear.

“He’s calling the police,” Emma said, her gaze still locked on the mound of debris that was once her home. “I-I ... never called the police back then, even when she’d leave us alone for a week at a time. I was too afraid. I should have called them, Abby. God, I should have.”

“You don’t know if what they’ve found—”

“I don’t know? Come on. You’re not stupid, and neither am 1. They found my sister.”

“Maybe. We’ll talk to the police and—”

“No. I need you to get me out of here before then. I don’t have time to talk to the police. They’ll want to know things, and it could take hours. I have to pick up Shannon from school. She needs braces, and this was supposed to be her first appointment with the orthodontist. And Luke has football practice, and—”

I put a finger to her lips. “Stop and think what you’re saying. You know this is a different kind of ... interruption in your routine. This is serious business.”

Eyes bright with tears, she took a deep breath and finally her wobbly legs gave out. She fell to her knees, made the sign of the cross and started praying. “Holy Mary, Mother of God ...”

The rosary prayer, the one Catholics do penance with after a confession. Why should she have anything to feel guilty about? This wasn’t her fault.

“Why aren’t you rolling on this?” Chelsea said, poking Stu in the arm.

Where the hell had she come from?

Stu got in her face. “Don’t you ever touch me again.” But he did lift his camera and resume taping.

Chelsea took a deep breath and knelt beside Emma, putting an arm around her.

You phony bitch,
I wanted to say, but instead I backed off.
Jeez.
I felt like I had my foot stuck in the stirrup of a runaway horse. Things were totally out of my control here. Maybe when the police arrived, it would feel less chaotic.

 

The police came pretty fast, but not before another
Reality Check
cameraman walked right onto the property to videotape what looked like a black garbage bag—I could see the torn pieces blowing in the afternoon breeze. He ignored the admonitions of the workers standing near what I assumed were the remains. But then Andrew intervened, and he and the cameraman got into a shoving match. Thank goodness a uniformed cop arrived in time to escort the photographer off the property.

Mayo had disappeared after the discovery, but he’d apparently been inside his Lincoln the whole time. When the cops showed up, he emerged from the backseat, a cell phone pressed to his ear. Something was up. I could tell by the hardness in his gray eyes. He stayed by the car, talking, looking like he was ready for Halloween in his hard hat and designer jeans.

With arrival of the police, more onlookers appeared. There had been a few curious neighbors watching the demolition, but sirens summon a crowd, and that crowd was quickly growing across the street.

I watched one officer set up a perimeter with crime scene tape, and another herd all the city workers off the property. They piled into Andrew’s extended-cab truck and he tossed them the keys to turn on the air-conditioning.

Meanwhile, Stu kept taping until an officer who seemed to be in charge came over to us.

He said, “Sir, I have to ask you to stop filming until we determine what’s gone on here.”

“But we have an agreement with the city,” Chelsea said. “A contract with the homeowner giving us the right to film. We have—”

“Ma’am. We know all that. The
Chronicle
ran an article about your little production visit to town this morning. No matter what deal you had with who, you’re turning the camera off or I will confiscate it as evidence. Might do that anyway.”

Chelsea’s artificially bronzed face paled. “No way this was in the newspaper. You’re lying.”

The cop stared down at her, smirking and shaking his head.

“Okay, you’re not lying,” she finally said. “Syndicated or local piece?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care, ma’am. Now, this is your last chance. I want all your people to wait in the street. We’ll be barricading this block so they won’t have to worry about being in the way of traffic.”

I liked this guy. Calm. Tall. And very much in charge.

“Oh,
whatever.”
Chelsea tugged at Stu’s sleeve despite his earlier warning not to touch him. He pulled his arm free and stomped away toward the other crew members.

Chelsea started to follow but stopped and turned back to me. She was hot, and not hot like her little boots. “You did this, didn’t you?”

“Did what?”