Cowboy Secrets

by Alice Sharpe

  “Mona grew up in a small town close to Falls Bluff,” he told her as they wound their way up a heavily landscaped path to the patio by the side door. “She and Dad had a fling after Chance’s mother left. When she got pregnant she came to Dad for money to end it. Her only goal was to become a movie star and that did not include a baby. Dad said if she would stay long enough to give birth to me and hand me over, he would finance her in LA for one entire year. Mona took the deal. They got married and then divorced within two months. I grew up with three brothers and a few stepmothers thrown into the mix.”

  “But Mona never acted, did she?”

  “Not in films. A little stage work at first and then she transitioned from being an actor to being an actor’s wife.”

  “Parents do a number on kids sometimes, don’t they?”

  “I can’t complain. The ranch is great and I have people who love me. Can’t ask for much more than that.”

  “I suspect you’re an easy guy to love,” Sierra said.

  He stared down into her hypnotic green eyes, made all the more brilliant by the plethora of greenery around her. His gaze traveled to her peachy lips and she smiled. “This isn’t a good time for hanky-panky,” she said with a soft laugh.

  “‘Hanky-panky’? Where in the world did you dig up that old expression?”

  “My dad used to say it about certain political figures.”

  “One tiny kiss,” he said and completed the act before she could protest. The next thing he knew, he heard his name.

  “Pike! Is that you?”

  He turned to look at the house and found his mother standing at the open door.

  Thanks to a rigorous diet and exercise program, to say nothing of yearly appointments with a plastic surgeon, Mona DeVry was not only holding her own at age fifty-one, but in the right light, could also easily pass for someone a decade younger. Fine, blond hair brushed the shoulders of a flowing white caftan as she crossed the cement porch to give him air kisses on either cheek. Pots overflowing with flowers couldn’t compete with the floral scent of the perfume wafting around her in a delicate cloud. It might only be eleven in the morning, but as usual, her makeup was flawless.

  “You look great,” Pike told her.

  She immediately touched her cheeks, pleasure glowing in her eyes. “Do I? Oh, good. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? You know Tess isn’t here, right?”

  “Yes, I know. I need to talk to Doug.”

  “Douglas Foster is a two-timing rat,” she said, but there wasn’t much malice in her voice. “Why do you want to talk to him?”

  “Tess is in Idaho at the ranch. We need to discuss what’s going on with Doug, and Tess would like us to bring back the stuff she left here. Do you know where I can find Doug?”

  “Tess moved to Idaho?”

  “More or less.”

  “Why would any woman want to go there?” She turned her attention to Sierra and added, “Oh, are you from Idaho? I’m sorry if I offended you.”

  “No, I’m not from Idaho,” Sierra said.

  “This is Tess’s sister, Sierra,” Pike added. For some reason he’d just figured the two women had seen each other in passing or at least a photograph. The lack of communication between Sierra and Tess’s California family was mind-boggling to him.

  “Nice to meet you,” Sierra said.

  “I bet,” Mona said, irony dripping from her voice.

  “Mom,” Pike warned.

  “I’ve asked you not to call me that, Pike,” she said. “You’re far too old for anyone to believe you’re my son. And as for you, Sierra, well, all I know about you I learned from Tess and Doug. To one you’re an angel, to the other a demon. I bet you never hear conflicting stories about me.”

  Pike shook his head but Sierra smiled. “That’s true, I don’t.

  “Do you know where Doug is?” Pike asked again.

  “Did I hear someone say my name?” a man called from the doorway. It struck Pike that both Mona and Doug had announced themselves and then proceeded to make an entrance like the patio was a stage.

  Tightening the belt of a black silk robe around his waist, he sauntered out onto the patio. Back in the day Douglas Foster had been a force to be reckoned with, an approachable, handsome flirt who was also a competent actor. He’d carried a detective series for most of two seasons before he imploded and ended up in rehab. Most people would still recognize him as the voice of a popular insurance company and from guest spots on other shows. He owned a restaurant in LA, but to Pike it appeared his life seemed geared toward the next big break.

  However, the only question on Pike’s mind at the moment was what was he doing at this house, seemingly wearing nothing but a robe and slippers? “You two are back together?” Pike asked. “I thought he was a two-timing rat.”

  Douglas grinned, revealing his trademark dimples. In his fifties now, he still exuded a boyish charm.

  Sierra spoke up. “Aren’t you going to say hello to me, Doug?”

  “Sierra, always a pleasure,” he said without really looking at her. “I assume you two are here to see Tess.”

  “Not exactly,” she said.

  “Then what do you want? I don’t know where she is. She hasn’t bothered to call me or answer any texts. Frankly, I kind of gave up on her. In fact, I wondered if she was with one of you.”

  “Is that why you constantly pestered us about her whereabouts?” Sierra replied. The sarcasm wasn’t lost on Doug, who frowned.

  Pike interceded. “Tess is on my ranch in Idaho, Doug. We’re here to talk to you. We’re also here to collect some of Tess’s things.”

  “Take her stuff, I don’t care,” Mona said. “I’ll pack it up for you, or at least the maid will. Last I saw of Tess she was driving away with her druggie boyfriend.”

  “You never told me that,” Doug said, and he did look surprised.

  Mona shrugged. “Didn’t I? Must have slipped my mind. Well, no matter. That girl has been a problem from the day her hormones kicked in. I, for one, am glad she’s gone.” She took Doug’s hand and sidled up against him. “Now we can concentrate on you and me.”

  “But if you knew she was with that loser, you should have told me.”

  “I’m telling you now!” Mona said, sounding bored. “Tess ran off with Danny what’s-his-name. He probably talked her into driving to Idaho to sponge off Pike.”

  “Not exactly,” Pike said calmly. “According to Tess, Danny never left LA because someone killed him right in front of her.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “We think so.”

  “Is that a bad thing?” She shook her head. “No, don’t bother answering that. You’d better come inside.” She sighed dramatically and added, “Doug, be a dear and whip up a pitcher of mimosas.”

  * * *

  WHILE PIKE TRIED to reason with Doug and Mona, Sierra read the lineup of new texts from Tess. A couple mentioned items she wanted them to be sure to bring from Mona’s house, but most were plaintive cries for information concerning Danny. Sierra was stuck saying the same thing every time: No news yet, I’ll let you know when we find out anything.

  They left after surveying Tess’s room, which was crammed with teenage stuff, enough to fill a moving van. Sierra pointed out what Tess considered essential to Mona’s maid, Lindy, who nodded but wrote nothing down.

  All in all, it was a relief to be alone again in the rental with Pike. “Did you get the feeling Doug was more upset about his missing car than his daughter?” Sierra asked three hours later as they drove toward the neighborhood where Tess and Danny had rented a duplex.

  “Well, he was still making payments on the car,” Pike said with irony. “At least he’s reporting it stolen. Are we close yet?”

  She peered down at the map on her cell. “A couple more miles. Doug
obviously agreed with the cops—no body, no murder. It’s easier that way. Turn left up here.”

  She heard a ding on her phone. Tess again: Anything new?

  Nothing, Sierra texted back. Was it possible Tess was making this up, or had been drinking or using something and had imagined everything? That’s what she wanted to ask, but not in a text.

  “My mother seems to think Tess made up the story about Danny to get attention,” Pike said in an uncannily parallel feed-in to her own thoughts.

  “Do you?”

  “No,” he said thoughtfully. “How could she have described the house they went to so clearly the detective found it without trouble if she hadn’t been there?”

  “Just because she knows about the house doesn’t mean she couldn’t have gone there another time.” Sierra thought for a second and added, “Although, why would Tess visit the house of an elderly deaf woman in the first place?”

  “She saw something, I’d bet my life on it. But trying to get attention is the kind of motive Mona understands.”

  It was the kind of motive almost anyone who has had to fight for recognition understands, Sierra knew this. And sometimes the feelings that prompted such behavior weren’t conscious ones. “Go straight now, I think we’re almost at the duplex.”

  “Great neighborhood,” Pike said as he slowed down when Sierra pointed out the building. He pulled to the curb and they both looked at the ratty place built ten feet from the sidewalk. The two units were joined in the middle with driveways to either side. The unit on the left had a very old pink Cadillac pulled into the carport. The unit on the right had a battered truck and a stack of flattened cardboard boxes littered on the porch as though someone was in the process of moving in. “Looks like Mr. Landers got himself a new tenant,” Pike said.

  They got out of the car and approached the owner’s unit. The door opened about four inches, held in place with a chain on the inside. An older man with a pointed nose looked out.

  “Yeah?”

  “Mr. Landers, my name is Sierra Hyde. My sister is Tess Foster. She lived in the adjoining duplex...”

  “I know who she is,” he said. “Her and that no-good Danny Cooke lived there for almost three months. Argued all the time. The cops been to see me. Told them all I know. Want my opinion, the girl is better off without Cooke.”

  The door closed abruptly.

  “Now what?” Pike asked.

  “Now we drive to the house Tess described. The detective said it’s 1008 North Ash off South Vermont Avenue. It’s east of here.”

  While Tess’s old neighborhood had looked shabby and unloved, their new destination seemed to be taking them deeper into an almost alternate world. Iron grills and heavy bars protected windows and doors on small businesses, dark alleys looked like death traps and hordes of young men hung out in front of pawnshops and tattoo parlors. A young woman walking with a child in footie pajamas looked like the personification of innocence until the woman turned and Sierra saw that years of meth use had rotted half her teeth and emaciated her body.

  Graffiti was everywhere, lots of it undecipherable without knowing the prevailing gang slang. The thought that Tess had run down these streets by herself in the dark to escape Danny’s murderer made Sierra’s heated skin break out in a chilly sweat.

  They found North Ash a few moments later and parked across the street from 1008. If you didn’t count the inordinate number of broken-down vehicles in driveways, torn drapes hanging in dirty windows and dead, lifeless yards, the place looked more or less ordinary. The house in question was a small square stucco structure painted a light yellow with two windows facing the street. The door opened off the driveway and it was indeed red. There was a newish small white car in the driveway that looked out of place here.

  A knock produced another chained door, but this time a middle-aged woman peered through the crack. She didn’t look old enough to fit the detective’s description of the home owner. Sierra said, “Is Mrs. Ruiz here?”

  “She’s here but you don’t want to talk to her,” the woman said.

  “Actually, we came to ask her about a night eight days ago.”

  “What time of night?” the woman asked.

  “Nine o’clock, more or less.”

  The woman undid the chain and opened the door a little wider. She had a pleasant, round face with a worried expression and was wearing a pair of bright yellow plastic gloves. Sierra and Pike introduced themselves.

  “My name is Camila Sanchez. Inez Ruiz used to go to my church before she became too scared to leave the house. I clean for her once a week and I check on her every morning. She can’t talk to you about the other night.”

  “Because of her hearing?” Pike asked.

  “That’s one reason. The hearing aids don’t work so good and she can’t communicate that well with most people. But more than that, Inez goes to bed at seven thirty every night of her life. She goes into her room and locks the door and doesn’t come out again until I help her get up and dressed the next morning. Good thing there’s a little half bath off her room. Someone told you a lie if they said they saw her at nine at night. It would never happen.”

  Sierra took out her cell phone and found a photo of Tess taken last summer. “Do you recognize this girl?”

  Camila studied the picture, then shook her head.

  “By any chance, did Mrs. Ruiz mention that the police had come to see her yesterday?”

  “The police! Why would they come here? Oh, it’s Raoul, isn’t it?”

  “Raoul?”

  “Her worthless grandson.”

  “I’m not sure about Raoul. The police came because of a report that there was a shooting.”

  “Where?”

  “Here,” Sierra said. “In this house, right by this door.” They all looked down at the linoleum.

  “Police swabbed the floor looking for blood residue,” Pike said.

  Camila’s forehead furrowed. “You know, funny thing, I noticed the floor had been cleaned last week.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “These floors don’t get all that dirty because Inez doesn’t go outside and not many people visit, so I only clean them every few weeks—truth is I hate to mop. But last week it looked like they’d been scrubbed clean. I just figured it was my imagination.”

  “We need to tell the police this,” Sierra said.

  Camila shook her head. “I would rather not talk to the police.”

  “It might turn out you can’t avoid it,” Sierra said. “But for now, why did your thoughts turn to Inez’s grandson when we mentioned the police?”

  “That one,” she said with distaste, “is in and out of trouble all the time. He’s a loose cannon.”

  “Does he visit Inez?”

  “No. Not since I changed the locks when I found out he was using her house to crash. Him and his drug friends. Poor Inez didn’t even know he was doing this. I was just glad she’d started locking herself in her room. I don’t trust that boy.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Pike said. “Raoul would wait until his grandmother had locked herself in for the night and then sneak into the house and spend the night here?”

  “Him and his friends. Eat her out of house and home. Most of the time I guess they just slept it off. but sometimes they partied. I know because I picked up the garbage. I wanted to turn him in, but Inez would have hated that...and, well, ever since my own kid had a run-in with the law, I just try to steer clear of making trouble.”

  “What does Raoul look like?” Sierra asked.

  Camila shrugged. “A punk.” She turned into the room and asked them to wait. A moment later, she returned with a photo that looked to be several years old. “This is Inez on her eightieth birthday. The man there is her late son, and the boy standing to his left is Raoul.”

>   Sierra and Pike studied the boy’s image: very short dark hair, calculating eyes, gang tattoos, superior sneer. “Do you think it’s possible Raoul might have started coming back to this house at night?”

  “How could he? I changed the lock.”

  Pike leaned to check out the front door. “The lock doesn’t appear to have been tampered with,” he said. “Hang on a second,” he added and stepped off the tiny porch, disappearing around the house.

  “Can you tell me where Raoul lives?” Sierra asked. “I mean when he’s not here.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe with friends, maybe he has a girl once in a while... I seen him hanging out up on Vermont near the Tip Top bar a time or two. You might ask around up there.”

  Pike showed up again. “The laundry room window has been jimmied open,” he said. “Where does Mrs. Ruiz keep her keys?”

  Camila gestured at an ornate hanger by the front door from which three or four keys hung. “Right there.”

  “So you’re thinking Raoul might have come in through the laundry?” Sierra asked.

  “He’d only have to do it once, take the key, get a copy made, put the original back in place and from then on, he’d be home free.” He turned to Camila and added, “Do you want me to secure that window before we go?”

  “Would you, please? Guess it’s time to change the lock again.”

  “Are there tools in the garage?”

  “I’m not sure.” She handed him a key from the little hanger. “You can check.”

  He left again. Sierra pocketed her phone. “I’m going to have to tell the police everything I learned. I don’t want to cause problems for you, but they need to know. They’ll send forensics back to process this doorway and everything else and they’ll need to talk to Mrs. Ruiz. You and her attorney should be present to help her. May I give them your name and number?”

  “Yes,” she said with a resigned sigh. “Go ahead.”

  “And it’s probably too late, but don’t throw anything away. Just keep all the trash you find in a plastic bag in the garage, in case there’s evidence.”