Broken Lullaby

by Tracy, Pamela

  The cousin, Mitch found out with a search, grew out of his life of crime, married, became an accountant and now had two kids and a minivan. Mitch wrote down the latest address for Patrick’s parents and cousin. He’d visit them before paying a visit to Patrick. Mitch also spent some time on Darryl Farr’s family. The man didn’t have much of a Christmas card list. A mother, an aunt and two ex-wives. That was it. Still, it was more than Mitch had. His office phone rang. Mitch expected a summons and he heard the icy voice of the attorney general’s executive assistant.

  It was time to pay the piper.

  The attorney general’s office was two doors down from his. The secretary nodded when he arrived and he let himself in. Melody stood, no surprise. No way would she want him to step up to her desk and look down at her. She wore a perfectly pressed dark-blue suit, her blond hair coiffed and her face a careful mask.

  “Mrs. Griffin-Smith,” Mitch said respectfully. “I’m so glad you arranged this meeting. I need your help with a case.”

  She probably expected him to apologize, explain, not to start out by asking for help.

  “You’re asking for my help,” the attorney general said, a bit loftily.

  “Yes. This time, the governor hasn’t specifically forbidden me to ask you.”

  Melody grimaced. Mitch understood. He’d be more than a little annoyed if he were left out of the loop, especially if one section of the loop had his name on it.

  “It’s in my power to supersede the governor, you know.”

  “I know,” he said simply and waited. She obviously hated that she’d already received a phone call from the governor, one that put Mitch firmly back in his old position, one that left her feeling like a second string.

  “He should have used his own people, not involved you.”

  “I agree,” Mitch said. “And believe me, I understand how awkward this has made our working relationship. That’s why I’m asking for your help, and here’s what I’ll give you in return.”

  Melody Griffin-Smith, attorney general and basically decent human being with a too-demanding job, raised an eyebrow. “There’s nothing I need from you.”

  “How about my resignation?”

  She winced, tried to turn it into a sneeze and said, “You’re kidding.”

  “No. For the last few hours I’ve been sifting through prison records and interviews and it’s made me happy. See, I originally joined the force with the goal of finding missing people. I knew I’d need to do other things along the way, but somehow I never expected the other cases to become the rule instead of the exception. The day I shot Officer Rolfson, the day he died, really spelled out for me how much I don’t want to work on any other types of cases and how much I want to get back to missing persons.”

  “Don’t go all righteous on me,” Melody said, and for a moment Mitch had his old boss back. “You’re good at what you do. This will blow over. You’ll soon be back in the trenches and over all the bad press.”

  Mitch didn’t remind her that the bad press didn’t really belong to him; it belonged to her. He also hid his surprise. She didn’t really want to lose him. The knowledge didn’t change his mind. “No, I’m done. I hope to never fire my weapon again. But I want to work one more case while I’m still under your jurisdiction. I want to be assigned exclusively to the José Santos case.”

  “The baby boy missing from Gila City?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “You really want to quit?”

  “I really want to resign.”

  “And there will be no repercussions to this office? No I-Was-Forced-Out headlines?”

  “None. I’ll even write the press release myself if…”

  “If,” Melody said carefully.

  “You let me work the Santos case exclusively and give me all the backup I need.”

  “What kind of backup?”

  “Both manpower and resources.”

  She stared at him, and the moment he’d won he knew it. There was no reason for the attorney general to turn him down. He’d never betrayed the office or misused the resources afforded him. “I want to help and I want good press,” she finally said.

  “You got it.”

  “Tell me what else you want first.”

  “What else? I’m not sure yet. Maybe nothing.”

  “Nothing?” she said skeptically.

  “I think I can find José, Tomás and some of the other missing children.”

  The attorney general uttered the same word that Mary had. “Children? You mean there’s more than one?”

  Mitch nodded.

  Melody pursed her lips and then frowned. “What else do you want? There’s no reason for you to ask for manpower and resources. You have them at your disposal, always have.”

  “There’s a chance,” Mitch said, “that immigration will come into the headlines.”

  This time Melody didn’t hide her wince. Immigration reform was a make-or-break issue for Arizona politicians right now.

  She nodded anyway. “Solve the case. You have my blessing.”

  “Thank you.” He stood and shook her hand. If his luck stayed true, he’d never have to tell her he didn’t need her blessing. He already had the governor’s.

  FIFTEEN

  “No, I don’t remember where I got it,” the old man grumbled.

  He’d been singing the same song to Mary for fifteen minutes. All the pieces in his store were from estate sales, garage sales or people simply walking in. He didn’t remember how he’d acquired the armoire.

  “How long have you had it?”

  “Don’t remember that, either.”

  Mary whipped out her new cell phone and pressed Eric’s number. It took her only a minute to tell him of her find and ask him to meet her at the store.

  “My brother’s on his way,” Mary announced to the store owner as she clicked her phone shut.

  “Whoop dee doo,” the old man said.

  “That’s his armoire. It was in the cabin. Eric didn’t sell it, so it had to be stolen.”

  “I don’t buy stolen goods,” the man insisted.

  “Well, since you don’t keep track of who you buy from or when, how do you know that?”

  “This is a small place. Why would a thief sell me something worth a lot of money? There’s dealers who would pay a lot more. Me, I’m cheap.”

  Grumpy, too, Mary thought but didn’t say.

  The old man headed out the back door. He wasn’t much of a salesperson, seeming to prefer spending time with his dogs than his customers.

  Eric showed up minutes later in his truck. Surprise, surprise, Mitch was with him.

  Mary jogged down the steps to the side of the pickup. She opened the door for him. “I’m so glad you brought the truck. We can take the armoire with us. It’s Grandpa’s, I’m sure.”

  “Since I’ve never seen the thing, I’m not sure how you think I’ll be a help,” Eric said as he climbed out.

  “Well, it was stolen from your place. You’re the one who needs to complain.”

  Eric remained positively too calm for Mary’s state of mind. Mitch wasn’t any better. He exited the truck slowly—too slowly—and studied the antique store.

  The old man came around to the front. He had two dogs with him. He looked at Eric and Mitch and said, “I told the lady here, I don’t know where I got the armoire.”

  “And,” Eric urged.

  Finally, the old man looked at Eric and then at Mitch. He stopped walking but didn’t let go of the dogs. “I told her the truth. I don’t remember who sold me that armoire.”

  Mitch stared at the old man and then entered the house. Mary was right on his heels. He quickly assessed the living room, then followed her to the bedroom where the armoire was. With Mitch in the room, too, the room suddenly got smaller. Then it got smaller yet as Eric and the old man crowded in. Bed frames leaned precariously. Eric touched the one closest to him. “Interesting business you have here. How much do you sell in a day?”

  “None o
f your business.”

  Oh, wow, Mary thought. It’s like Eddie. This man doesn’t care if he sells antiques. It’s a front. I should have figured that out.

  Mitch nodded. “You’re right. It’s none of our business. How long you been in business?”

  “Again, none of your business. All you need to know is I bought this piece about three years ago. I kept it at my house for a while because my wife liked it.”

  Mary made a face. Some poor woman had this poor excuse for a man as a husband. “Was the man who sold it to you about five-foot-four with brown hair?”

  “You think Eddie sold off the antiques?” Eric asked.

  “It’s a possibility. I told him enough about their value while I read up on them. This piece is worth a fortune. It’s in great condition. It even has shoe racks.”

  Both the antique dealer and Eric looked at the armoire as if it were covered with gemstones.

  “I told you I liked antiques,” Mary defended herself.

  “I don’t remember what the dealer looked like.” The old man moved closer to the armoire and checked the price tag. He was asking just under four hundred.

  Eric pulled his checkbook from his shirt pocket. “I’m thinking it’s time Ruth had an armoire.”

  “It will never fit in your bedroom,” Mary argued.

  “Then you can store it for me until we get a bigger place.”

  “You a lawyer?” the old man queried. “You sure ask enough questions.”

  “I am a lawyer,” Eric said. “What about tax on this piece?”

  “Four hundred even is fine with me.”

  Eric finished writing the check, ripped it from his checkbook and handed it to the proprietor.

  For a moment, Mary thought the man might pass out. “Your last name is Santellis?”

  Eric glared. “Yes.”

  The old man looked at Mary. “You mentioned Eddie. Don’t tell me. Your last name is Graham.”

  “Yes, did my husband sell you that piece?”

  The old man stepped carefully away from Mary. “No, Eddie didn’t sell it to me.” He looked at Mitch. “You a Santellis, too?”

  Mitch pulled his badge and identification. “Nope, even better. I’m the long arm of the law. You need to fear me a lot more than you fear them.”

  The old man nodded. “I got it at the downtown swap meet. I purchased it from a Hispanic man in his late forties, maybe early fifties. He was about five-foot-four, about a hundred fifty pounds, full head of hair.”

  “You know his name?”

  The old man swallowed.

  Mitch just smiled and Eric shifted his weight from his left foot to his right.

  It was enough.

  “I buy from this guy whenever he has a booth. I’ve gotten some pretty decent pieces from him. He usually sells stuff with a bit more Spanish colonial flavor. For a while he had some nice hacienda tables and hand-carved trunks. This piece surprised me.”

  “His name?” Mary said.

  The old man looked at Mitch and then at Eric. Shaking his head, he muttered, “Roberto Herrara.”

  Eric lent them his truck. He wanted to stay in Gila City and see what Ruth came up with now that they had one more lead in José’s and Tomás’s cases.

  Mitch wanted to stay, too, but needed to get to his cabin and grab some of his files. Roberto Herrara was quickly becoming an obsession.

  He shifted and frowned when he didn’t quite manage to fully engage third gear. He hadn’t driven a truck this old since high school. And he’d certainly never driven one that had the gear shift on the steering wheel. Every time he missed a gear, Mary looked at him.

  Not exactly the reason he wanted her to look at him.

  He’d liked the look she’d given him an hour ago, though, when he’d escorted the owner of the antique store to the Gila City jail and deposited the man in Ruth’s lap. He’d seen admiration in her eyes then.

  Well, he felt the same. Her stumbling onto the armoire and then an owner who knew Roberto Herrara, well, it was one more brick in the path that would lead them to Tomás and José.

  “You know we’re going to need help loading this into your house.” The armoire weighed a ton. It had been all he and Eric could do to load it.

  “Maybe Carl and George can help.”

  “Maybe.” Mitch figured that after a hard day of work, unloading heavy furniture would be last on the list of things Carl’s dad wanted to do.

  Mary proved his theory wrong. She pulled a piece of paper and a cell phone from her back pocket, tapped in a number and soon had George, Carl and a ranch hand all lined up to help unload.

  It was going to be a long drive home, Mitch thought, glad that Mary had been sensible enough to tell George she’d call when they got to Prospector’s Way. Mary insisted Mitch not drive over fifty. She was convinced any faster would cause unnecessary scarring to the armoire. She had already filled him in on where it would go in the cabin, what materials it was made of and why she wanted to buy another one just like it, so she’d have one.

  She kept turning her head and scrutinizing the rearview window.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to the armoire,” he finally said. “We have it tied down securely.”

  “I know. I’m just amazed that I found it and by all that old man knew. I’m also amazed that you showed up with Eric. Why were you in Gila City? I thought you were spending the day in Phoenix, getting caught up and making nice with your boss.”

  “I finished making it right with Melody and came to Gila City to talk to the man who puts on most of the city’s public events. I noticed a discrepancy between the name of the man who purchased booth space at the festival and the name of the man interviewed after José went missing.”

  “That’s probably not so unusual. Whole families work booths. They won’t always have the same last name.”

  “I’d agree, except the name of the man renting the space was one Pascal Remariz.”

  Mary looked at him. He could see comprehension dawning so he continued. “The events coordinator provided a pretty good description of Pascal and it matches the one the antique proprietor just gave: late forties, about five foot four, about a hundred fifty pounds, full head of hair. I decided to head down here, look up some of the vendors and show them Roberto’s picture.”

  “And?”

  “Pascal Remariz and Roberto Herrara are the same person. I’d gotten the third positive ID when Eric called to see if I knew where you were.”

  “Why didn’t he call me?”

  “Seems the number he had didn’t work.”

  “That’s right. I got new phones today. So how did you wind up with Eric?”

  “I pulled up just as Eric was heading out to meet you. I really wanted to talk to Ruth. She wasn’t home yet.

  “That sure worked in my favor. Thanks to our antique dealer friend we now know a lot more about Roberto Herrara. One, he’s been committing crimes in the area for a while.”

  “What an awful, awful man.”

  Mitch nodded. Before he could go on about all the other things they’d discovered about Roberto Herrara, his cell phone rang. Ruth was on her way home, and Eric wanted everyone to meet for dinner before Wednesday night church services.

  “We do have a lot to talk about,” Mitch agreed. “Ask Alma if her parents had lots of antiques at their ranch.”

  Mitch waited while Ruth got the affirmative and then asked, “What happened to them?”

  A moment later Mitch knew that Roberto had, over time, loaded them up in the back of a truck and hauled them off. He called it “Keeping the ranch going.” In the long run, Alma’s family lost both the furniture and the ranch.

  “Tell Alma,” Mitch suggested, “that we might be able to get a few of her things back.”

  He listened for a few more moments, then clicked off.

  “What did Alma say?” Mary asked.

  “She said she didn’t need material things, just her family.”

  They drove on in silence. Finally, Ma
ry cleared her throat and said, “She’s smart, that Alma. Not many people so young realize the importance of family.”

  Mitch nodded, thinking of his sister, his mother. “You miss your family? Your dad?”

  She snorted. “No, I don’t miss my father. I miss my mother. And, in spite of it all, I miss my little brother, Kenny.”

  He should have guessed that. She’d mentioned that Kenny had lived with her and Justin. Had her little brother ever run interference? What had it been like even before that, when they were children? By his calculations, Mary would have been about five when Kenny was born—the perfect age to play mommy to a living doll.

  “When did you hear from Kenny last?” he asked.

  “The day I left. He gave me money. Cash. Enough so that I never needed to worry.”

  “Where did he get the money?” Mitch couldn’t help it. He had to ask.

  “I don’t know. Kenny always had money. He wasn’t married like Sardi or Tony. What money he did spend was on toys. He loved hunting, camping and the lake.” Her look said more than her words.

  He recognized the look. It was the one his mother always wore when worrying about his sister.

  “I once had a big sister,” Mitch finally said.

  That’s all it took. Mary tucked one leg under the other, turned away from the outside mirror and said, “Tell me about her.”

  Surprisingly, he did. The tale took them all the way to her cabin. He didn’t leave anything out. As he turned into her driveway, he finished by telling Mary that both his sister and his mother were buried in Oxenburger at the family plot of a good friend.

  Mary had nodded at all the right spots, looked more sad than necessary to a guy’s way of thinking, then she reached across the seat and her fingers closed over his, bringing warmth he hadn’t realized he’d been missing. He looked at her and a wave of longing for that affection washed over him. He’d been so busy living the straight and narrow, proving that good conquered evil, that he’d forgotten the simple things.