Widows' Watch (7 page)

“Cooperation makes a good impression,” said Leo, “but we can get the warrant. Take about two hours. We can hold you until—”

“But I have the magazine proofs to do.” Lance now looked like a man on the edge of panic. “All right,” he decided.

They left the Crimes Against Persons Division and started to turn right toward the side door.

“Sneaking me out?” muttered Lance.

“Not if you'd prefer to leave through the front,” said Leo sharply and, taking Lance by the arm, headed him toward the hall that went to the public reception area. At the desk they ran into Harmony, chatting with a volunteer.

“Mom, you're kind of early to pick me up, aren't you?” said Elena.

“I finished at the center, so I thought I'd come down and get better acquainted. Your colleagues are so—” She stared at Lance, then exclaimed, “You're the poet who publishes in the Desert Wind Anthology!”

Lance flushed, much to Elena's astonishment.

“Your poem on saguaro against the sky was so moving,” said Harmony. “If it doesn't take the prize this year, I'll be very disappointed. I'm Harmony Portillo.” She shook Lance's hand enthusiastically. “Elena's mother.”

“It's nice to meet you, ma'am,” he replied. “I don't know too many people who've read my poetry.”

“I'm definitely a fan,” said Harmony. “And I've met your mother. Lovely woman. She gave me a dozen frozen cabbage rolls just yesterday. I suppose you're here about your father's death. I'm so sorry, dear.”

“Thanks,” said Lance.

“In fact, I drove Dimitra over to your apartment this morning to see if we couldn't get hold of you.”

“I feel terrible that I wasn't there for her,” said Lance. “How's she taking it?”

“Very well, dear. She's bearing up.”

“Bearing up” was an understatement, thought Elena. Dimitra was just short of gleeful.

“Well, it's been a pleasure to meet you. If you're ever in Santa Fe, I'll come in for the reading.” Harmony gave him a card.

“I've got a reading at the university tomorrow night,” he said diffidently.

“Really. Which university?”

“Herbert Hobart. It's at seven. The first-floor auditorium in the Humanities building.”

“I'll be there,” Harmony promised.

“Now that I think of it, I wonder if I'll be there,” he mumbled. “I've got to find a ride.”

“Oh, I'd be glad to pick you up,” said Harmony.

“Mom!”

“Give me your address.”

Lance wrote the information on a slip of paper he borrowed from the desk sergeant. Elena gritted her teeth. Her mother was making friends with their prime suspect. Declaring herself his biggest fan. Offering him a ride.

“Time to go, Mr. Potemkin,” said Leo. “Officer Blake here will take you to the university to pick up the other bicycle. You can either give us the key to your apartment or we'll meet you there.”

Lance opted to be present during the search. Once the poet had gone, Leo turned to Elena. “We've got him on tape saying, ‘My mother's safe now.'”

Elena sighed. “I noticed that, but he was cooperative. Didn't make us get warrants or anything.”

“When I said we'd hold him, he thought I meant jail.”

“Can't blame him for not wanting to spend any time there.”

“I figure he thinks he's washed the bicycles down so good there won't be any evidence left that one of them was in that alley. As for the apartment, lots of perps think they've hidden things where no cop would ever think to look. But he's wrong. If the medal's there, we'll find it.”

“Whatever are you two talking about?” asked Harmony. “That boy didn't kill his father.”

Elena grinned. “Let me guess. He radiates the wrong color? Unfortunately, testimony about auras isn't admissible in court, Mom.”

“Auras?” said Leo and stared at Harmony as if she'd just sprouted fairy wings.

Harmony went to the Chevrolet dealership to pick up her truck. Leo and Elena returned to Lance's apartment, where they found a lot of handwritten poetry stuffed in his desk. No czar's medal. No gun-cleaning equipment, no rubber gloves to eliminate fingerprints, no ski mask to hide his identity. No letters or diaries expressing a desire to kill his father. He did have an extensive library of gay literature and some videos, but Elena kept her promise and ignored them. And he had some sexy silk bikini underpants in bright prints, but she didn't think those were germane to the case, just interesting. Frank had never worn anything like that, nor had her brothers. Elena wondered how many men had sexy underwear. Maybe just gay men did.

“We still can't assume he's innocent,” said Leo, interrupting her underwear speculations.

“I know,” Elena agreed and got out of Leo's car. Since Harmony had left Elena's truck at the dealer's lot, Leo had offered Elena a ride to pick it up.

Wednesday, September 29, 8:15 P.M.

Having dug the first trench for her irrigation system, Elena came in from the back yard to find her mother weaving.

“Do you like the colors?” Harmony asked.

Elena studied the growing piece of fabric. “Yes,” she said. “Especially the green.”

Harmony nodded. “You always had a taste for that Hopi green, but what about the coral?”

“Depends on how much there is.”

“Just touches,” said Harmony. “Actually, I don't know why I'm asking you. You never give any thought to home decor.”

“I trust your taste, Mom, but look at this stuff.” She waved despondently at the sofa and love seat. Stuffing burst out of the pillows, springs from the frames.

“Not a problem. Mr. Ituribe will take care of it.”

“How did you happen to meet him?”

“Why, I've introduced myself to all your neighbors. Jose perked right up at the thought of getting his hand in again.”

“I'll have to pay him something.”

“He'd be insulted if you offered.”

“The poor man's dying of prostate cancer, Mom.”

“I know, Elena. It will make him happy to know he's left something beautiful behind when he goes. Why haven't you replaced your TV?”

“I've still got the black and white in the kitchen. It's good enough for the news.”

“Well, certainly the news is something one doesn't want to see in full color.”

“Mom, about Lance Potemkin. I don't want you hanging out with a guy who probably killed his father.”

“Elena, Lance is not guilty.”

“O.K. Maybe he isn't, but he's a suspect. It looks bad to have my own mother connected to my suspect.”

Harmony chuckled. “Listening to him read poetry hardly constitutes a close connection.”

“You offered him a ride.”

“Well, he doesn't have one. You took his bicycles.” Harmony stretched her back, then returned to her weaving.

Elena gave up. “Have you seen Dimitra today? I wondered how she was doing.”

“Just for a minute this afternoon,” said Harmony. “She was getting dressed for a date with Mr. Ashkenazi. Since she couldn't locate her son, Mr. Ashkenazi offered to drive her to the mortuary to make funeral arrangements. Then they planned to take in a movie and go out to dinner.”

Elena didn't know why she was surprised. Dimitra hadn't made any bones about being pleased over Boris' death, but for God's sake, the woman had accepted a date before she'd even buried her husband. And taking her boyfriend to the funeral parlor? Elena shook her head. Tomorrow she'd ask Lieutenant Beltran to assign two uniforms to recanvass the neighborhood, see if anyone had spotted Omar lurking around the murder scene. Claiming to have been asleep on your carpet wasn't Elena's idea of a great alibi, and dating the widow of the victim—that certainly looked suspicious—stupid maybe, but suspicious.

“You know, Elena, you're wasting time looking for evidence against Lance when it was obviously a robbery.”

“You mean because of the czar's medal?”

“Well, that and the fact that it's not the first time this has happened. Several women from the center have lost their husbands in daylight robberies.”

“They have? Are you saying there's a connection?”

“I have no idea, Elena, but it does show that older people are being targeted.”

“Well, robberies are hard to solve, but we clear a good percentage of the murders. Much better than most cities.”

“I'm sure you do, dear. I know you're a great asset to Crimes Against Persons—speaking of which, Lieutenant Beltran should be here any minute. With one of his sons. They're going to fix my truck and my loom so that I can get the loom to the senior citizens center handily.”

Elena groaned. Just what she needed. Lieutenant Beltran and one of his sons getting chummy with her mother. Before she knew it, she'd have Mrs. Beltran over here complaining and Harmony inextricably entangled with both her case and her colleagues.

“I wonder what sign he is,” mused Harmony.

“Boss. That's his sign.”

“I meant zodiac sign, dear. I rather imagine he's a Taurus like your father.”

Thursday, September 30, 9:15 A.M.

Because Leo was working another case with Beto Sanchez, Elena and Officer Pete Amador from Central Division arranged a bicycle lineup. Besides Lance's two bicycles, a Merlin Titanium and a green Cannondale R600, Officer Amador borrowed one from the police bicycle patrol, a repainted blue and white mountain bike confiscated in a drug case. It had belonged to the dealer's teenaged son. To Elena the cocaine bike looked almost as expensive as Lance's, but what did she know? She just wrote down the names and descriptions as Amador produced them. He had called on his daughter for the fourth, a pink “ladies' cruiser” with a basket on the front.

Elena had some reservations about including girls' bicycles, since she doubted that Boris had been killed by a female, unless it was his wife, Dimitra. However, the coroner, even given the high temperature in the house, put the time of death between two and three, which was when Dimitra had been at the center.

The fifth bicycle, a black Rockhopper, had been taken from a newsboy delivering evening papers after sniffing spray paint. He'd run down an elderly lady and her dachshund. The lineup was still short a bicycle when Manny Escobedo, Elena's sergeant, said his daughter had one.

“Is it big enough to have been a murderer's?”

“Girls' ten-speed Schwinn,” said Manny.

Elena called and got his ex-wife, Marcella, who was home with the flu but agreed to lend the green Schwinn.

“Slick—you not telling her it was my idea to ask,” said Manny, who had been listening to Elena's end of the conversation. “How come she's home from work?”

“Got the flu. Isn't that something? End of September, and we're already into the yearly epidemic. Maybe Lance really did have it.”

“Don't write Potemkin off,” Manny advised. “He's got a good motive.”

Elena sent Amador to pick up the green Schwinn and the Ituribes, whom she entertained with a tour of Crimes Against Persons while Amador wrested the Escobedo bike from the trunk of his patrol car.

The Ituribes were especially fascinated with the departmental computer. They watched with so much awe as a detective from Sex Crimes turned out a Wanted poster that Sergeant Escobedo offered to let them make one. He gave Jose instructions, the result of which was a “want” on Juanita. The crime: serving Jose cold frijoles for dinner on the night of September twenty-ninth.

“Who's gonna cook for you if I get arrested?” asked Juanita. She was folding up the souvenir poster and slipping it into an ancient brown handbag when Amador popped his head around the corner and motioned that he had the lineup in order. The Ituribes then trooped after Elena to the main interrogation room to look at the six bikes.

“What do you think about this one, Jose?” asked Juanita, pointing to Lance's green Cannondale.

“It's too funny-looking,” said Jose. “I'd remember a bicycle that funny-looking.”

Elena sighed.

“How about this one?” Jose pointed to the green Schwinn that belonged to Manny Escobedo's twelve-year-old daughter.

“Maybe,” said Juanita. “It's green. Up close I can see that much. What do you think, Jose?”

“I don't know,” said her brother-in-law. “The more I look, the more confused I get.”

“Hey, look at this one, Jose. Cute, huh?”

“Pink with a basket? Yeah. The basket rings a bell,” said Jose. “And the wheels look right to me. Fatter.”

“Isn't it too small?” asked Juanita.

“How would we know? Neither one of us can see too good. Maybe it just looks small now because it's not so far away.”

Elena winced. If the Ituribes thought things looked smaller close up, they were going to make rotten witnesses.

“But didn't you say green yesterday?” asked Juanita.

“Not yesterday, Monday.” Jose scratched his chin. “I think I did. The green one's got a basket too.”

Neither Ituribe had paid the slightest attention to Lance's Merlin Titanium. “You didn't say anything about a basket before, Jose,” Elena pointed out.

“Didn't I?” He was studying the girl's green Schwinn. “I think it's this one, don't you, Juanita?”

“That or the pink one,” Juanita agreed.

Elena thanked them and sent them home with Patrolman Amador. They'd just identified his daughter's bicycle as the suspect vehicle. That or the Escobedos' daughter's green ten-speed. Great! When Amador returned, Elena, who had been making phone calls, said, “Where was your daughter on the afternoon of September twenty-seventh?”

Amador grinned. “In school. Where the hell else would she be?”

“You're saying she's got an alibi?”

“Yep. ‘Cause if she wasn't in school, her mother'd have told me about it.”

“So much for that,” said Elena. “Thanks for the help.”

“Sure,” said Amador. “Makes a nice break from chasing convenience-store robbers, and it's less dangerous than breaking up domestic brawls.”

Elena drifted back to her desk, thinking about Omar and T. Bob Tyler, Dimitra's admirers. Time to run a computer check on them, she decided, and discovered that there was nothing on Omar except a few traffic tickets. On T. Bob Tyler, if he was the Thelonius Robert Tyler she found in the LSPD files, there was an assault charge. Three years ago Tyler had attacked some young guy in a bar. The responding officer reported that the victim had been making unpleasant remarks about old folks. Tyler had taken offense and knocked the young man down with an ashtray to the forehead. However, the victim turned out to have a want on him for aggravated robbery. He was hauled off to jail and evidently never filed charges against his assailant. Nothing else on Tyler in the LSPD files, but if he was easily offended, maybe there'd be something in Otero County, New Mexico, where he lived before he moved to Los Santos.

Elena telephoned the Sheriff's Department and asked if they had anything on T. Bob Tyler, maybe Thelonius Robert, giving his age and saying that he'd been a rancher there. The deputy transferred her to Sheriff Blankenship, who said, “Who wants to know about T. Bob Tyler?”

“I'm a detective with the Los Santos Police Department, Sheriff,” said Elena and explained her case.

“Don't recall T. Bob ever shootin' anyone.”

“Mr. Tyler was friendly with the victim's wife,” said Elena, “and the victim didn't like it. We're exploring every avenue, and I wondered whether Tyler had a record in Otero County.”

“Well, T. Bob was a feisty cuss,” said the sheriff. “I got me his folder right in hand, covered with dust. Thelonius Robert Tyler. He musta took a poke at half the males in Otero County one time or another. Liked bar fights. Nothin' come of it, though. Ever'body'd sober up, an' nobody'd bring charges. But I gotta say, since you mention some fella's wife, T. Bob was a ladies' man. His

own wife died—oh, musta been in the sixties, an' after that ole T. Bob was chasin' ever' skirt who showed up at an Otero County bar.”

“Married women? Did he ever fight with any husbands?”

“Oh yeah. Nothin' serious like murder. A husband'd come along and take a poke at T. Bob, or T. Bob wouldn't like the way the fella was treatin' the wife, so he'd knock him down. Jus' yer usual stuff. T. Bob, he might be cussed with men, but he knew how to treat a woman. Reckon that ole boy got more ass in his day than anyone ‘round here. Still, I can't figger him shootin' nobody over a woman.”

“Even if the husband had done the wife serious injury, and Mr. Tyler felt somewhat responsible?”

“We-ell. Serious injury, huh? T. Bob sure as hell wouldn't take to nobody doin' a woman serious injury. I recollect now he put Pete Dominguez in the hospital for three, four weeks one time. Le's see, that'd be back in—ah—'65, ‘66. Pete, he done broke his wife's jaw. Wife had it comin', but T. Bob, like I said, didn't hold with that stuff. Yeah, I s'pose he might kill someone if it was real serious an' he couldn't do nothin' else fer the lady in question.”

“Thank you, Sheriff.” Elena hung up and mused on what she'd heard. Now they had two good suspects and one not so good. Compared to Lance and T. Bob Tyler, Omar Ashkenazi, the self-proclaimed pacifist-vegetarian-yoga freak, didn't look particularly dangerous or motivated.