Swift Horses Racing

by Victoria Kazarian

  “You can call me Mario. I’m not on duty.” His eyes were fastened on her, trying to take her in. Normally when men did this, it made her nervous. His look made her feel warm, at ease.

  “How’s the case going, Mario?” She tried out his name and liked the way it felt to say it. “You’ve found the guy in the SUV? Jimmy and I have been upset about this since New Year’s.”

  “We thought we’d found him.” He took a sip of what looked like bourbon. “Turns out we didn’t.”

  He motioned to the bar chair next to him and smiled, though it looked more sad than happy this time. “Please, have a seat.” She stepped up to the seat and brushed her hair back from her face. He rubbed the back of his neck and finally looked away. “I came here to meet my girlfriend. She picked the place.” He frowned and a dimple appeared in his cheek. “She broke up with me.”

  His brown eyes looked red and tired, but he was still good looking. He was the actor a movie studio would hire to play Jimmy in the story of his life—a white version of Latino—someone who looked nothing like him. Fit, handsome, a nice profile. Strong, long fingers. Powerful shoulders.

  Next to his drink lay two shredded cocktail napkins and a drink stirrer he’d bent into a triangle.

  The champagne, and the good-looking man next to her, made her head light.

  “Mario, she made a bad decision.” Reyna laid her hand next to his, which she’d meant as a comforting gesture. She’d always been a hugger and a toucher.

  He looked down at her hand as if trying to figure out what to do with it. He clapped his other hand over hers for a moment. The warmth of his hand sped up her arm and into her bloodstream. He pulled it back quickly.

  He searched her face, then took another napkin and began shredding the edges again as he talked.

  “It was someone in her grad program at Santa Clara. A guy named Tim.” From her perspective next to him, she looked down at his bowed head. He was one of those men who actually had eyelashes. “She said she made her decision days ago.”

  The bartender set down a glass of water, which she needed to dilute the alcohol in her system.

  “You can do better.” She didn’t know where that came from, but it flowed out of her like warm honey. She wondered if he had never been dumped before. He looked like he was feeling sorry for himself.

  He looked down into his glass, then turned to her, the corner of his mouth turning up. “That’s kind of you, Reyna.”

  The water was clearing the champagne haze from her head. In the corner of her eye, she saw the women at her table. Heads bent together, watching her. But the laughing had stopped.

  “I need to get back.”

  “Of course.” He licked his lips and looked down at his drink. He had that look about him, his confidence worn through in spots, so that she could see the holes. Very different than he’d been on New Year’s, directing the crime scene on the expressway.

  “Thank you for the drink, Mario.”

  He watched her as she got up to return to her seat. “My pleasure. You know, maybe—“ he began, then looked down and shook his head. “I shouldn’t drink any more. Enjoy the rest of your night out, Mrs. Ruiz. Say hi to Jimmy for me.”

  Reyna walked back to the table and sat back down calmly in her seat.

  She caught the eyes of Alicia and Tiffany.

  They were mouthing holy shit.

  23

  Rose Mulvaney brought out a tray with cups of coffee and a small plate of butter cookies. The cookies looked homemade. Ruiz eyes lit up. He grabbed his cup and a cookie.

  Rose was petite, her hair cropped even shorter than Grasso’s. She looked like someone who walked five miles a day. Compact and wiry. Her voice was precise and efficient, as if she tossed out the excess words and only used the ones she needed.

  “My wife and I told Detective Flores what we saw that night. I’m doing what I can to help with the case. I am sorry for your loss, Mrs. Mulvaney. I had the opportunity to meet Duke Sorenson, your father’s friend, when I came back to look at the scene the next day.”

  Rose nodded, almost begrudgingly. “Duke’s been helping me with my father’s house.”

  Rose’s living room was decorated with antiques and a large, ancient-looking cuckoo clock over the fireplace, with a little bird that had popped out and whistled on the hour. Framed black and white photos were grouped on the surrounding walls. He went over to look at them.

  “Is this your father here?” Ruiz asked. He paused at a series of photos and framed awards grouped together. It looked like Rose had made a shrine to her father.

  There was a black-and-white photo of a young man with that upward glance and backlighting he’d seen in old photographs. He looked like he was gazing up at his bright future.

  Ruiz saw the resemblance between the photo and the old man he’d seen breathe his last breath on New Year’s. It was the eyes. They’d been open then and seemed unusually light to him.

  Rose stood up. “That’s him. Right after he came to the U.S.”

  Ruiz looked at other photos. A middle-aged Karl Schuler, with a group of astronauts, then another of him giving a speech on a stage, in front of a large crowd. In another photo, a white-haired Karl waved as he sat on the wing of a jet on a runway. It reminded him of the goofy presentation Karl had given to the students at the Smithsonian.

  No wonder he spent so much time with kids. Karl Schuler seemed like kind of a kid himself.

  At the other end of the wall, Ruiz noticed a young woman with sharp features and dark, haunted eyes. Her hair was pulled up in rolls on the side of her head, the way he’d seen women wear it in old movies. She wore a simple white blouse.

  “Is this your mother?”

  “Yes, before she married my father.”

  Getting Rose to give any more details would require some work.

  “Did they meet in the U.S? Or back in Germany?”

  After her terse replies, a slight smile emerged on Rose’s face. It surprised him, since it seemed out of character for what he’d seen of her so far.

  “Both.”

  “Sorry. Can you tell me what you mean by that?”

  Rose looked at the photo. “They met at a military facility in Germany. They became close. There was a bombing at the facility. After that my father moved with his uncle to a town in the mountains. My mother ended up in a camp. Her life was very different after that.”

  “She was German?”

  “Polish.” Looking back at the photo, Ruiz could see facial similarities between Rose and the woman in the photo.

  “My father didn’t think he’d see her again. After he came to the United States, he worked here in the valley. When he was in San Francisco to pick up his passport, he ran into her. She was on lunch break from her job as a secretary at a bank. My father thought he had seen a ghost. He’d never expected to see her again. They were married in two months.”

  “Such a nice story.” Ruiz realized after he said it that it sounded as if he didn’t quite believe it.

  “They stayed married for fifty-seven years.”

  He and Reyna had been married for ten years. He loved her, but marriage was a lot of work. Fifty-seven years seemed unimaginable.

  “I read there was an uncle—someone who brought your father over to the U.S. with him.”

  “Hermann. He’s over here.”

  She walked over to photos on the other side of the room. They passed a newer photo, in color, of a young, blond soldier holding a rifle. She gestured to another photo, a balding man with spectacles and the face of a mild mannered, absent-minded professor.

  Uncle Herman looked like a friendly old guy.

  “Your father came over with your Uncle Herman?”

  Rose nodded. A cold look passed over her face.

  Rose didn’t look like she wanted to say anything else about Uncle Herman.

  Ruiz coughed and took a sip of his coffee. “Do you think someone from your father’s past could have come back to threaten him? Did he ever mention some
one contacting him?”

  Rose shook her head and glanced back at the backlit picture of her father.

  “I can’t imagine that.” She snapped. She zeroed in on some crumbs he’d dropped on the coffee table and carefully picked them up with a napkin. “He never mentioned anything. He seemed happy. And very much living in the present.”

  Ruiz wondered if a Mr. Mulvaney would have a different perspective on Karl Schuler.

  “Are you married, Mrs. Mulvaney?”

  “My husband and I divorced twenty years ago.” Her clipped voice shut down the topic.

  “You say your father lived a very routine life. Why would he be out so late driving?”

  A look of pain crossed Rose’s face. “I don’t know.”

  “Your father mentored at-risk youth, didn’t he? Maybe a kid he knew got stuck somewhere on New Year’s and called him for help.”

  Rose swallowed hard. “He did a lot for those kids.”

  “Sure.” He dipped a butter cookie into his coffee. “East Point Youth Center’s a great place. What exactly did your father do there?”

  “He came and talked to them about science. He helped with homework and took the students on field trips sometimes. Some of the kids ended up being the first in their families to go to college. But there were only a few real success stories. Out of all of the time he spent there, in that dangerous part of town.”

  It must seem that way to Rose Schuler Mulvaney, living on the southwest side of the city, in upscale Almaden Valley. Many people lived, worked and raised their families on the east side.

  “That’s where I grew up, Mrs. Mulvaney.”

  Rose looked at him suddenly, as if reexamining the man standing in her living room, eating her cookies and drinking her coffee.

  What kind of person had Karl Schuler really been? Could there be something more sinister hiding beneath the surface? Pedophilia? Or just an obsession with helping. Maybe he had some kind of a white savior complex.

  “Any idea why your father was interested in this kind of work?” he asked, throwing it out there to see what happened.

  “He couldn’t resist people who needed help. Anyone on the fringes. The poor. Troubled students, single mothers.” Rose pursed her lips disapprovingly. She walked over to the bookshelf and glanced at the books. She ran her hand over the books on the top shelf, then bent down and ran a finger across their spines as if she were looking for something.

  “His father was wounded badly in the first world war,” Rose continued, turning to face him. “Friedrich would have had a future in the sciences. His specialty was botany. As smart as Hermann, but he came back with shellshock and an amputated leg. He couldn’t go back to university, couldn’t work. He had delusions, nightmares. I know it was hard for my father. But he hadn’t known anything different. One day when my father was twelve—he found him dead.”

  Karl Schuler would have had to lock it all away and grow up fast. Suck it up. It had to have affected him. Karl wouldn’t have seen a therapist, something that had personally helped Ruiz. People didn’t do that back then.

  “Did you meet any of the kids he worked with?” Ruiz asked.

  Rose shook her head. “That was his business. I tried to get him to give it up. He was too old to be working with those kids. I worried about him.”

  “East Point would know who your father worked with. Any kids who might have some bad connections.”

  “If they were a responsible organization they would,” Rose eyes darted around the room, as if she were getting impatient with the conversation. She picked up Ruiz’s empty coffee cup and put it on the tray. “You’ll have to talk to them.”

  As Rose headed for the cookies on the end table, Ruiz beat her to the tray and took a last butter cookie.

  “Part of the reason I’m here is, I wanted to ask you, Mrs. Mulvaney.” Ruiz cleared his throat. He had seen this woman’s father die. What Schuler had said might mean something to her. “When I got to the car, I heard your father say something before he died. I want to know if it means anything to you.”

  Rose’s eyes got big. Her lips pressed tightly together. He tried to identify the expression on her face. Anticipation, maybe. Fear?

  “What did he say?”

  Ruiz let the sound from that night play in his head again, as if it were a recording on his phone.

  “It was barely a whisper, but it sounded like he said, ‘saloon.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

  Rose let out a grunt. “I can’t imagine what that could mean.” She continued with the tidying, moving into the kitchen to seal the leftover cookies in a ziplock bag, as if what he’d said had had no effect on her. But the crease deepened on her forehead. The word was rolling through her head as she tried to put meaning to it.

  He ate the last bit of cookie.

  “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Mulvaney. If you can think of anything about your father that might help the investigation, please give Detective Flores a call.”

  Rose paused, tray in hand. Her tone softened just a bit, probably as conciliatory as she got. “I’m glad you stopped by, Officer Ruiz.”

  “I’m sorry for your father’s death” Ruiz said, honestly. “I wish I’d known him.”

  She walked him to the front door, her heels making birdlike clicks on the tile entry way. Then she turned and looked up at him.

  “The memorial service is next Friday, at Good Savior Lutheran. 3 p.m. I’m grateful for what you did for my father, and I would like to have you there.”

  24

  When Flores’s phone rang at 8 a.m., the buzz seemed to originate inside his head, rattling his skull with brute force on its way out.

  His mouth felt dry and pasty, as if someone had spackled his mouth shut with dental plaque. As he rolled over to his nightstand, he swore he heard his almost thirty-year-old body creak. He fumbled for the phone, which dropped to the floor. He slid his hand under the edge of the bed and felt around till he found it.

  “Flores here.” The words shot out of his mouth. For all the person on the other end knew, he was awake and perfectly alert.

  “Mario, It’s Mandy. They’ve found the SUV. In Gilroy. Near a vineyard off Monterey Road.”

  Flores sat up in the bed. And immediately regretted it as his head pounded with pain. “Fuck.”

  Mandy snorted on the other end of the line. “That’s a good fuck then? Meet you down there in forty minutes. I should tell you—the SUV is burned. Sheriff’s deputy says you can smell the accelerant.”

  “Yeah. Okay. We’ll see what we get.” He rubbed his eyes and blearily scanned his room for the nearest clothes.

  “You know how late you are, right?” Mandy sounded amused. “Buckley’s been looking for you.”

  In ten minutes, Flores had showered, dressed and downed the rest of a leftover burrito and three ibuprofen.

  On his way down Highway 85, he thought about last night.

  He retraced his steps. The steps of a drunk who’d lost brain cells last night.

  He’d met Oksana at the French place, her choice. All seemed fine at first, though she seemed quieter than usual. Fifteen minutes later, while they waited for a table at the bar—she’d broken up with him. He had to ask her to repeat it, since he wasn’t sure what was happening.

  There’s this other student in the program—Tim. There’s just something there with us—We have so much in common. Mario, I knew when we were together on New Year’s that it would be the last time. I didn’t know how to tell you.

  His mind replayed the past week. She’d waited for him, on New Year’s, hadn’t she? They’d made love. They been dating exclusively for six months. Things were getting serious. He’d assumed that when she graduated, they’d move in together. Maybe consider marriage down the road. What had changed in a week?

  After she left, he’d stayed for a drink at the bar. Okay, three. And then he’d noticed a woman in his peripheral vision. He knew her. Her name escaped him. He watched her with her friends, laughing and talking with her ha
nds. She had an open, sexual way about her that drew his attention. A shiny object he couldn’t stop looking at. The way she moved so freely.

  She was very different from him. Not college educated. Grown up on the wrong side of town even. Mired in self-pity after Oksana left, he’d prayed a drunk’s prayer that she would come his way. And she did.

  Then he realized how he knew her. He’d interviewed her on New Year’s. She was James Ruiz’s wife. He thought he remembered she worked as a dental hygienist. She was beautiful. But she was no one he’d ever go out with. Or ever cross paths with. So what did he do? He’d bought her a drink and entertained thoughts about what he wanted to do with her. He’d just met up with Ruiz, someone who reminded him of his mentors in Explorers.

  The way he remembered it, she had come on to him. An old girlfriend had told him once that all men think women are coming on to them. But in this case, she had. Hadn’t she?

  The way she’d looked at him. The way she laid her hand down next to his.

  Today he needed to focus on the Schuler case. Ruiz had been right. The donut shop meeting had been helpful. He’d talk to Randall Mulvaney and go back for another interview with Rose Mulvaney. Call Karl’s son, Christoph Schuler in Florida. He couldn’t look past Duke Sorenson’s suspicion that Karl Schuler had gone out that night for one reason: somebody told him they needed his help. Someone had called Karl from the public phone at the bus stop—but who?

  Facts in this case seemed hard to grasp, clear one moment, faded to nothing the next. But he knew one thing.

  The person who’d called Karl Schuler was almost certainly his killer.

  25

  Flores wound through the bright green hills on Watsonville Road, which ran through farmlands and small vineyards, from the southern suburbs of Gilroy and Morgan Hill down to Highway 152.

  It would have taken the killers about forty minutes to get here from the expressway in San Jose.

  Not too long after passing a farmhouse with a white picket fence, Flores saw a sheriff’s vehicle and two SJPD vehicles pulled off onto the shoulder near a grassy field. He swung the Prius onto the shoulder. He rubbed his face, then got out of his car—willing himself to think clearly. His head throbbed as he stood up on shaky legs. Somewhere, a chicken began squawking, making him want to hold his head and dive back into his car for cover.