by Roslyn Woods
“Did you ever see what was inside the box, Mrs. Espinosa?”
“No. It was locked. I just dust.”
“Okay. Is there anything else you can tell me?”
Carmen continued looking around the room for another couple of minutes before she spoke. “I no see anything else different.”
“May I ask how you normally entered the house?” Gonzalez continued.
“I have key,” she answered. “I never, ever use it except on my Wednesday. Mr. Garrett give it to me. He say be careful with it. He very nice to me, Mr. Sergeant. Very kind. He pay me too much.”
“Really? How much too much?” asked the policeman.
Carmen Espinosa looked questioningly at Dean Maxwell again. “Just tell him the truth, Carmen.”
“My day is seventy-five dollars. He pay me one hundred every time. He pay cash only.”
“Okay,” answered the sergeant. Then, addressing Maxwell he asked, “Do you know anything about all these God’s Eyes over the doorways? Was Mr. Hall superstitious?”
“I think he was, actually. Did you see the Enneagram in the hall?”
“The star?”
“Yes. It’s a sort of spiritual symbol. I think Garrett was very interested in such things. He also has a lot of mystical books in the shelves in his office and living room.”
“This star,” said Carmen, “is the same star on the box.”
“There was an Enneagram on the carved box?” asked Maxwell.
“Like the one in the hall,” she answered.
“You into that kind of thing yourself?” asked Gonzalez, looking at Maxwell.
“I think it’s all interesting, Sergeant.”
Gonzalez nodded, thinking about Hall. “I think we can probably go now.”
As they went out the front door the sergeant continued asking questions of Carmen. “Did you ever see anyone other than Mr. Hall when you were working here?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you know of anyone else who might have a key to the place?”
“No, but…” Carmen looked at Maxwell questioningly.
“What is it?” asked Maxwell. “Do you know something about keys?”
“He hide key outside.”
“What? Where?” asked Gonzalez.
“Debajo de mi Santo favorito. Francisco.”
“Better show me,” said the sergeant, locking the front door while the others waited. “Now where is this St. Francis?”
“By porch steps in back, Mr. Sergeant.”
They walked around the side of the house and through the gate into the back yard. The iron chair Maxwell had used to break the glass in the door had been placed under the little bistro table on the patio floor, and there were still a few bits of glass near the door. Beside the steps that led up to the porch was a planting bed full of blooming, yellow esperanza. In the midst of the shrubbery stood a four-foot St. Francis statue.
“Where is it hidden?”
“Mr. Garrett show me,” said Carmen. “Is here,” she said as she approached the heavy cement statue. A small ledge at the base of St. Francis’s robe was visible. “If you reach past the part you see,” she said pointing at the base, “you find key.”
Gonzalez squatted on one knee and tilted his head down close to the ground to see if the key was visible. Then he looked up at Carmen and smiled. He stood up and took a pocket knife from his pocket and a handkerchief. Next, he lay the handkerchief on the dirt beside the base of the statue and bent down again and slid the knife along the ledge. In a moment the key dropped off the ledge and into the hanky. “Well, what do you know? I think this is a little better than hiding a key under the mat, but not much,” he said, carefully wrapping the key without touching it.
“No?” Carmen asked.
“How long would it take you,” asked Gonzalez looking at Maxwell, “five minutes?”
“Well, you and your guys didn’t find it the other day,” answered the younger man, “but maybe you didn’t look for it. If I was trying to find a hidden key, I guess after I checked under the mat and around the doorframe I’d try the plant pots next and then this statue. Yeah, maybe five to seven minutes.”
The three headed back to the front yard.
“Thanks for the help,” said Gonzalez. “There’s actually one more thing.”
“Yes?” Maxwell asked.
“I’d like Mrs. Espinosa to do me a favor.”
“Okay, yes,” said Carmen.
“Does your cell phone tell you who’s calling?”
“Most of time,” she answered.
“I’d like to put a couple of numbers in, so it will tell you when the police station calls. That will probably mean a call from me, in which case my name will come up, or a call from Detective Wilson. No one else from the station is likely to call.”
“Okay,” said Carmen.
“When a call comes from either of us, I want you to answer like this. Say, ‘Carmen’s hair salon. How can I help you?’ Can you do that?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“If the detective asks anything about Mr. Hall, tell him you don’t talk about clients to anyone. If he says he’s the police, say that yes you do cut Mr. Hall’s hair once a month. Can you do that?”
“Yes, Mr. Sergeant Gonzalez,” answered Carmen again, and she handed him her cell phone. He added two names and numbers to her contacts and promised to only call if it was necessary.
“Will that be it, then?” asked Maxwell.
“I think so. I’ll let you know if I have any more questions and you can get me through to Mrs. Espinosa. Will that work?” he asked looking first at Maxwell and then at Carmen Espinosa.
“Yes,” said Maxwell, and Carmen nodded. “And thank you, Sergeant,” Maxwell added, shaking the older man’s hand.
Gonzalez walked with them to the Jeep and waited until Mrs. Espinosa was inside and her door was closed before he asked another question. “You okay, Maxwell?”
“Just fine,” he answered, but his jaw clenched.
“Well, you look like hell.”
“Thanks. I’ve had a little bout with a bug.”
Gonzalez considered for a moment. “That explains it,” he said.
Back at the station Wilson was trolling through emails when Gonzalez got back. He looked up as his boss walked into the murder room.
“You see Davis?” asked Gonzalez.
“Yeah. I met him down at his office on Second Street.”
“And?”
“And he said he heard Balcones Development was interested in Thaddeus Dickson’s building on Fifth Street.”
“Where did he hear it?”
“He just said he heard they’d made him an offer. They want to build a high rise.”
“Where the gallery’s sitting?”
“Right. They’ve already bought three of the adjacent buildings. I checked in county records.”
“When did they make the offer to Dickson?”
“In February, a month after Dickson had made the deal with Westside Gallery,” he said.
“So Dickson learned he could make more money selling the place to Balcones than renting it to the artists.”
“Is it enough of a motive to get rid of somebody?”
“To get rid of the guy that’s making the rental agreement work? I imagine they offered him millions.”
“Maybe we better look into his alibi on the morning of April twenty-fifth?”
“Yeah. We could pay him another visit, or we could give his wife a surprise visit. Let’s do that.”
Chapter 21
Shell got up Wednesday morning feeling terrible. She hadn’t slept much the night before, and she hadn’t eaten either. This morning she was nauseous and headachy, and she couldn’t imagine facing a day of working at the gallery. Even if she had felt like it, she hadn’t thought clearly enough yesterday to bring work clothes with her. At this point, she would go shopping for new clothes before she’d return to the house on Barrow Avenue.
“Shell, darling
,” said Billie when he found her seated on the couch with Bitsy in her lap. “I’m making you a cup of tea and some dry toast. I know you can keep that down. And I’ve already fed the doggies,” he added, glancing at Bitsy as she jumped down from the couch and joined Penny on the rug by the fireplace.
“Thanks, Billie, but I’m not an invalid. I can make tea and toast,” Shell said, starting to get up.
“No, not today. I won’t hear of it! You stay right where you are and I’ll join you in a minute with the tea. We have stuff to talk about.”
Shell was fairly listless and didn’t have the energy to argue with him. She tucked a bare foot under her knee and leaned her aching head against the arm of the couch. Her anger was gone today. All night she had vacillated between hating and loving Dean, worrying about his pain and wanting to hurt him more because of the way he was treating her. This morning she was so wrung out she had only an empty sadness left.
“Look how quick I was,” said Billie, handing her a steaming mug of Earl Grey five minutes later. “This is good. Do you love Earl Grey? Leonardo has taught me to love it. I never knew it was so good until he got me hooked on it. By the way, sweetheart, we’ve been talking, and we think the gallery shouldn’t open yet. We’re all just so upset right now, and it’s probably better not to open before the memorial.”
“Fine,” said Shell. She didn’t want to go in today anyway. “I don’t have work clothes here. I need to pick up some stuff from my house, but I just don’t think I can face that.”
“Well, then, it doesn’t matter, does it? Here’s your toast,” he added, handing Shell an elegant little plate of toast that had been cut on the diagonal. Beside the toast were two aspirin tablets. She placed it on the end table. Billie seated himself opposite her in one of the armless chairs, and he looked at her for a moment without speaking.
“I know I look like crap,” said Shell. “I’ll go shower and try to make myself presentable in a little bit.”
“You look fine, but I can see you didn’t sleep. Honey, this problem with Dean is going to work out. He doesn’t know the truth yet, but he’s going to calm down and listen to you, and as soon as he does he’ll learn you’re innocent. Oh my, but he’ll be sorry!”
“Even if that’s true—and I don’t think it is—I’ll never feel like I did before. I’ll never feel that I’m with someone who cares for me and believes in me the way I believed in him.”
“I know it feels like that right now, Shell, but relationships have to grow. We all make mistakes, and we all have to be forgiven. Maybe things won’t be exactly the same. Maybe they’ll be better. Maybe you’ll have a deeper understanding of the insecurities you both have. And you have to admit that if you walked in on him in a hotel room and found him with his arms around someone you’d be pretty ruffled. Anyone would jump to the wrong conclusions. Wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess, but I think I’d listen if he said he had an explanation,” she said, rubbing her temples. “I’m just so frustrated! I’m worried about him and I want to make him see the truth, but then I get so mad at him I don’t know what to do!”
“Well, right now you need to call Margie and tell her we’re not going to the gallery this morning. It’s eight-thirty, and she’ll be trying to get there at ten if you don’t let her know.”
“If I talk to her—”
“You have to talk to her!”
“I know. I just don’t know what to tell her.”
“Tell her the truth.”
“I can’t hurt her like that. I can’t tell her that Dean won’t listen to me. She idolizes him and she needs to look up to him.”
“She’s going to find out anyway. Besides, she strikes me as a lot tougher than you think. Maybe you think Dean needs her to idolize him.”
“I’ll go call her,” she said, and she took a sip of her tea.
“Eat some of your toast first. And take the aspirin,” he said.
“Okay. What about the gallery?”
“Leonardo already left an hour ago to put up a new sign. I printed it off in the office upstairs.”
“What does it say?”
“Just that we’ll be closed until Monday, May fifth.”
Shell went into the guest room and climbed back into bed and stared at her cell phone. What would she say to Margie? She tapped her name on the screen and waited while her phone rang.
“Hey you!” Margie answered. “I thought you were going to call me last night and tell me all about Jan!”
“Sorry, a lot’s been happening. Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah. Just struggling to stay away from sugar. Pierre is kicking so much I think he really wants out!”
“Oh! Maybe he’ll come early!”
“No. This is normal. So how was the trip?”
“It was…okay. Listen, I’m over at Billie and Leonardo’s right now, and we’ve decided not to open the gallery till Monday. Sorry for the short notice.”
“What are you doing over there? Are they okay?”
“They’re fine. Well, Billie is fine, but Leonardo is still pretty upset.”
“He’s really taking it hard, huh?”
“I think he really cared for Garrett.”
“Yeah. How’s Dean? Did he tell you he had dinner with me on Monday night?”
“No.”
“Yeah! We talked about you. Oh, Shell! He was so lonesome! It was really pretty sweet how much he missed you!”
“Margie…I…I need to talk to you about Dean and me. We…we’re having problems.”
“What? What kind of problems?”
“We sort of…we sort of broke up last night.”
There was a pause before Margie spoke again. “Is this some kind of joke, Shell? Because if it is, it’s not funny!”
“I’m not joking,” Shell answered a little roughly. “I’m actually a wreck.”
“I’m not following. You’re saying what happened?”
“We broke up,” she repeated, only this time the emotion was in her voice, and Margie could hear how close she was to tears. “I don’t know what else to say about it. I’m staying with Billie and Leonardo for the moment.”
“Wait a minute! You’re not kidding!”
“No, and I can’t talk about it. I just want you to know I’m really sorry it happened, and I…I…” She couldn’t think of what to say. I’m innocent? I didn’t do what he thinks I did? I love him but he hates me?
“Look, I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Travis Heights near Fairmount, right?” Margie asked, remembering the one time she and Shell had gone over to Billie and Leonardo’s for lunch.
“No, you don’t have to come over. There’s nothing else to say about it.”
“It’s not a choice you get to make, Shell. I’m coming over.”
And then Margie ended the call and Shell lay back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. What do I do now?
By the time Margie arrived, Shell had showered, dressed, and made the bed in the guest room. Billie opened the front door and hugged the very pregnant Margie without speaking.
“How bad is she?” Margie asked.
“She can’t eat and she hasn’t slept,” he said. “I’m pretty mad at your brother!”
“What did he do?”
“It’s what he didn’t do.”
“What didn’t he do?”
“He won’t let her explain what happened.”
“What did happen?”
“She’ll have to tell you. I’m sworn to say nothing,” he said, tilting his chin in the air and putting a hand on his hip to emphasize how adamant he was about saying nothing.
“Oh Jesus! Am I going to have to pull teeth to find out?”
Just then Leonardo pulled the red Escape into the driveway and they could hear the garage door opening. “Here’s Leo,” said Billie. “He just went over and put a new sign up at the gallery. It took him a lot longer than I thought it would.”
“Shell told me we’re staying closed till Monday.”
&nbs
p; “Yeah. I think it’s better to get the memorial over first and try and regroup as a team. See what our financial standing is going to be.”
“How bad is it going to be?”
“Bad, I think.”
Just then Leonardo came into the house from the door in the kitchen. He walked into the living room and the foyer and hugged Margie without preamble.
“You okay?” she asked him.
“No,” Leonardo answered. “I feel lost.”
“I know,” she said. “And now Shell and Dean seem to be having some trouble.”
“Yes. I hope they can work it out,” Leonardo said quietly.
“She’s in here, by the way,” said Billie, gesturing for Margie to follow him to Shell’s room.
They walked down the hall, and he tapped at her door. Shell opened it in a moment. She didn’t speak but stepped back so Margie could come in.
“I’ll just leave you girls to have your talk,” said Billie heading back toward the living room, and Shell closed the door again.
“So?” said Margie looking at her friend with a question in her eyes.
Shell had poised herself after the phone call. She didn’t want to complain about Dean, and she wasn’t going to. “So we had a fight and we broke up. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Oh, come on! What did you fight about?”
“Just something that happened and we had a disagreement about it.”
“Okay, what was the thing that happened?”
“Nothing I can talk about to his sister,” she answered.
“Oh my God! Do you think he cheated on you? Shell, I promise you, he’d never do that. The guy is head over heels in love with you!”
“No, no. I don’t think that. I can only say there’s a misunderstanding and I don’t see how to fix it as things stand.”
“Don’t talk all formal with me! You don’t rehearse the things you say to me! I’m your best friend. Remember? Now tell me what the misunderstanding is about.”
“No, Margie. I can’t. I just can’t.” She dropped onto the foot of the bed as she said the last part, her shoulders drooping and her head in her hands.
