A Kiss Gone Bad wm-1

by Jeff Abbott

  Whit pictured a little girl, sitting in a kitchen smelling of lemon peel and gardenias, the soft camouflage for a sickbed.

  ‘I wanted to go to film school. Be the female Coppola. But that costs money, Whit, and I wasn’t filling the bank waiting tables or mopping up spilled beer or tutoring kids in algebra. I met a guy. He said I could make a lot of fast cash, use a fake name, no one would ever know.’ She paused. ‘So I stayed in it. We build these little worlds for ourselves and then we never get to move out.’

  ‘Meaning no one was gonna hire you for legit film work once you went down Porn Street?’

  ‘The judge’s robe does a nice job of covering your vicious streak.’

  ‘It’s vicious of me to point out the obvious?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘What you gonna do after Pete is buried?’ Whit asked softly.

  ‘Go back to California. Find the next guy who can supersize his boner when there’s a camera three inches away and a crew of five standing around picking their noses.’

  ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t do that.’

  She smiled but not the kind of smile that said aren’t you sweet. ‘Gee willikers, Whit, you gonna sweep me off my feet and save me from myself?’

  ‘I just think you could… not do these movies anymore.’

  ‘Why are you a judge?’ she asked suddenly. ‘You don’t fit the type at all. Too free-spirited to be comfortable judging other people.’

  ‘My dad got me the job,’ he said, and she laughed.

  ‘But you’re sticking with it, right? You want to be elected. You’re like a small-town Gerald Ford, wanting everyone to vote for you and really give you the job you got handed. Why?’

  ‘I never wanted to be a politician. I hate that part of the job. But I think truth matters, even the little truths of small-claims and traffic court.’

  ‘And death inquests.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bull,’ she said. ‘You like the power, Whit. I can see it in your eyes, that quick flash of yes, I’m the judge, don’t mess with me, I like the power, too. When some lonely, horny guy slides one of my tapes into his machine, I have power over his pleasure. I can make him tingle all over or I can make him as limp as string. Never had much power as a kid, I bet.’ She smiled, a cat warming up for a good purr. ‘Littlest of six boys, you probably didn’t get to pick when you took a pee. I’m not inclined to surrender my power any more than you are, Whit.’

  Their bitokes arrived, and Irina plopped in the booth, chatting up Velvet, asking her if she’d walked through the shopping district and seen the Arts Center and the Maritime Museum. Velvet, steeped in sudden courtesy, spoke with complete assurance and sounded like an aspirant to the Junior League. Irina left them, patting Velvet on the hand, telling her how nice it was to meet her.

  Velvet toyed with the prescription-pad-size dessert menu clamped above the salt and pepper. ‘What if… you decide suicide, and more evidence comes later that says not suicide?’

  ‘I can reopen the case, conduct a new inquest. But considering Pete tried to kill himself before, if the autopsy remotely suggests suicide…’

  ‘I knew you’d cop out. You’re not going to risk your own political neck to help me.’

  ‘Give me something, then. Do you know anything he knew that could have gotten him killed? Anything specific?’

  She shook her head. ‘You don’t think that’s keeping me up at night? That maybe whoever shot him thinks I know what Pete knew? I don’t. I don’t.’

  And he saw fear, a naked cancer, in her eyes.

  22

  It had been a bad afternoon for Claudia.

  She got confirmation that Pete Hubble had once attempted – albeit clumsily – suicide. She hated that Faith Hubble was right. About anything.

  There was a Judy Cameron in the Port Leo phone book, at the Paris Street address mentioned by Heather. Ms Cameron was a math teacher at Port Leo High School, but she had never heard of Heather Farrell and had no transients lounging at her house.

  So Claudia gobbled a messy lunch of barbecue shrimp and coleslaw downtown, then headed for Little Mischief Beach. No Heather Farrell. The two scruffy girls on the beach she’d seen yesterday claimed not to know Heather or to have seen her.

  She’d then stopped by the Hubbles, an exercise in futility. Lucinda, Faith, and Sam all stuck by their statements. Lucinda gave yes and no answers. Faith Hubble was polite but clearly irked at going through her statement again. Claudia remained friendly, crisp, and polite with them but feeling out of sorts and frustrated.

  You don’t like Faith Hubble, fine. Look at every suspect. Don’t be blindsided, she told herself.

  So she tromped back to the station to engage in a Deloache hunt. She spoke with the Houston and Galveston police departments and did simple queries against a statewide criminal database. Thomas Deloache Sr., age fifty, had a quilted history: twice dragged before a grand jury, but never indicted. He had started most likely as an enforcer for the Montoya crime ring and took over when Montoya and his son both died, ignobly, crushed by a beer-laden semitrailer on the Houston stretch of I-10. Thomas Deloache Sr. kept a low profile, but he was suspected of handling about five percent of the drugs funneled through the Houston-Galveston area.

  Five percent was worth millions.

  The successive generation of Deloaches offered mixed hope for a criminal dynasty. Two sons. Tommy Jr and Joe. Joe was the bright one, attended a Catholic prep school in Miami, went to college at Texas but didn’t finish, opting to enter the family business early. Galveston police suspected him in two murders, but the lack of bodies and evidence stymied investigations. Junior marched to a different, perhaps palsied drummer. He had been arrested a few times on very minor charges, never anything worth more than a slap on the wrist. One hot check, swimming in very public Mecom Fountain in Houston when drunk, attending an illegal dogfight in Galveston. Barely finished high school, never attempted college. She went to go find her boss.

  To her surprise Delford seemed more willing to listen to the potentials of a Junior Deloache being involved in Pete’s death.

  ‘Why would Junior Deloache be in Port Leo?’ he asked.

  ‘One of his dad’s legit business concerns is a couple of small motels in Galveston. They’re clean as a whistle, which is driving the Galveston cops nuts. Papa might be turning over that side of the business to Junior; it’s less risky. He and his associate, a guy named Anson Todd, both told Judge Mosley they were renovating the old Sea Haven. And Judge Mosley thinks they’ve lied about their whereabouts the night Pete died.’

  ‘I bet the Deloaches launder dirty money through the so-called legit businesses like these condos.’ Delford tapped his finger against his lip. ‘Do they know how the Deloaches run in the Houston drugs?’

  ‘Probably different channels. Some from other parts of Texas, some up from Mexico, some in from the Gulf.’

  ‘So why’s he here? There wouldn’t be near the market in Port Leo for drugs, unless shrimpers and retirees suddenly go coke-happy,’ Delford said.

  ‘But we’ve got navigable bays. Quiet beaches. Only a few hours from the south side of Houston, closer to Padre and all those tourists. And a lot fewer officers.’

  Delford frowned. ‘So Junior’s here to smuggle drugs?’

  ‘Junior may be exiled where he can do the least amount of damage. The Houston detectives told me he’s famous for being an overgrown brat.’

  ‘Even if Pete turns out to be a suicide we need to know about these people. Sit down for a minute.’

  She sat, smelling a lecture in the air.

  Delford flattened his palms on the table. ‘Claudia, I have faith in you. But one area where you could stand definite improvement is in dealing with people.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Why are you grilling the Hubbles on their statements?’

  ‘I didn’t grill anybody. I hadn’t even talked to them before today. I just wanted to review their statements with them, see if there wa
s anything else they wanted to add.’

  ‘There wasn’t. I won’t have the senator and her family treated like criminals.’

  ‘I did no such thing.’

  He rubbed his stubby-fingered hand across his eyes. He looked ten years older, she realized, than he had last week. There’d been a bad cancer scare with him last year, and a sudden tremble of worry took her. He was not a young man anymore.

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  ‘Fine. Just tired.’ He leaned back in his chair and a new hardness tensed his jaw. I’m pulling you off as the lead investigator in the case.’

  Her face felt frozen. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because one thing we’re going to be in this department is professional, and you haven’t been.’

  ‘How?’ Don’t get mad, stay calm, she thought. A finger of sweat trickled down her back.

  ‘You clearly don’t like Faith Hubble, and it’s coloring your view of this case. And given all the likely publicity, it’s best Gardner takes the lead. You can still work on the case, just under his direction. I already sent him to Corpus this afternoon for the autopsy.’

  Claudia heard her voice go ragged. ‘This is unwarranted, Delford. You’ve never treated me this way before.’

  ‘Defensive don’t suit you. I’ve made my decision.’

  She sat stunned.

  Delford’s phone buzzed. He scooped up the receiver and listened. ‘Yeah, oh, yeah. I forgot. I’ll send up Claudia.’ He hung up and gestured toward the blue flyer on his wall of Marcy Kay Ballew. ‘That missing girl’s mother from Louisiana’s here. Can you talk to her?’

  ‘That was the sheriff’s case.’ David’s case, to be exact.

  ‘Technically, yes, but she’s been wanting to know what we’re doing in the city to help.’ Delford shrugged. ‘Maybe this’d be good for you to focus on now.’

  ‘I’ll talk with her.’ Anything was preferable to sitting through an undeserved rebuke.

  Not quite. ‘By the way,’ Delford said, ‘your ex is with her.’

  David sat, ramrod straight, his deputy’s Stetson resting on his knee. His stare drifted to Claudia as Mrs Ballew talked; Claudia forced herself to concentrate on the woman’s words.

  ‘Marcy is a really good girl. The rose tattoo, that was simple foolishness. I’d already started saving for when she wanted to remove it. She is really quite sweet.’ Mrs Ballew perched at her chair’s edge.

  ‘I’m sure she is,’ Claudia said.

  ‘And it would be easy for me to say I have no intention of being a pest, but I have every intention of being a pest.’

  ‘You’re certainly not a pest, and I want to assure you we’re doing everything we can to search for your daughter here in the county.’ David nodded at Claudia. ‘Detective Salazar and I are used to working together, and I’m sure we can find your daughter.’

  Gosh, you hardly ever spoke so gently to me, Claudia opened her copy of the Ballew file that David had brought; the same picture from the flyers was on top. A photo, probably taken at a chain department store, based on the cheesy fake background of an autumn-kissed farm and barn. Marcy had reddish hair, cropped short, slightly crooked teeth, thin lips, skin supple as a peach.

  ‘No leads from the flyers yet, right?’ Claudia asked David. He nodded and foisted his extrasympathetic gaze toward her.

  Mrs Ballew swallowed. She was a spare, florid-cheeked woman, with a red frizz of hair and too-long nails painted a bright lavender. She wore khakis and a denim blouse, dressed for a day shopping at an outlet mall instead of beating the pavement for her missing child. ‘Well, everyone back in Deshay said that Marcy ran off, you know, but I didn’t believe it. Yeah, she had once before, but that was after a huge fight and she told me she was running off and I dared her to and she went to New Orleans for two nights and then ran out of money and came home, crying for her mama.’ Mrs Ballew blinked, worn out by her monologue. ‘Marcy don’t have a boyfriend right now, so I don’t think she took off with a boy.’

  ‘And no one in your family, your circle of friends, knew Port Leo?’ David asked. He kept glancing at Claudia and she thought. Don’t use this woman’s grief just to get within two feet of me.

  ‘No, none.’

  Claudia wondered if the Ballew girl had traipsed to the Coastal Bend for an unannounced vacation, lost her wallet, maybe turned to hitchhiking or hooked up with some of the party-minded sail bums that trolled from Galveston to South Padre Island. She hoped that was the answer.

  ‘Will they drag the bay again?’

  ‘Probably not, ma’am,’ David said, ‘unless we have new reason to.’

  ‘Will they search again?’

  ‘Until there’s more evidence to point she actually stopped in the county, probably not,’ Claudia said.

  Mrs Ballew sagged.

  ‘And you’re absolutely sure that your daughter knew no one in Port Leo?’ Claudia asked.

  ‘She hung out with boys, sometimes, at the bars, and sometimes they weren’t from Deshay. She never mentioned Port Leo to me.’

  Claudia debated. No clues, no witnesses, no reason for the girl to be here. But she couldn’t just turn this woman away. ‘Tell me about Marcy.’

  Mrs Ballew pointed toward the file. ‘But you have the information

  …’

  ‘I know. But it would be more helpful coming from you. You live in Deshay. How long have you been there?’

  ‘Three years. We used to live in Shreveport. But in Deshay I got a job working for a cousin of mine at his shrimp restaurant, and he’s promised to make me a full partner in a couple of years.’

  Shrimping was big along the Louisiana coast, and it was a lifeblood in Port Leo. Was that coincidence? But she’d consulted a map: Deshay was a fair ways north of the Louisiana coastline and huddled up close to the Texas border. ‘Did Marcy work?’

  ‘As little as possible,’ Mrs Ballew said, as if by rote, and she burst into tears, long, heaving sobs that carried the force of long suppression. Claudia hurried around her desk and squatted next to Mrs Ballew, put an arm around her, and placed a tissue in the woman’s hands. David fiddled with the brim of his Stetson, paling under his freckles.

  ‘Sorry,’ Mrs Ballew gasped as her crying subsided. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re doing great,’ Claudia assured her.

  ‘I always said she didn’t work hard enough, Jesus, and now I’m so afraid she’s dead, and I make fun of her for being lazy. But that was the thorn between us, you know. Not a joke but the one thing I got mad at her for, the not working hard enough.’ Mrs Ballew exhaled a long who-oosh and wiped her face and nose.

  ‘Tell me about her job.’ Claudia pulled her chair close to Mrs Ballew’s.

  ‘She worked as a nursing home aide in Deshay. She’d change the patients’ beds, mop up the floor, spoon lunch into their mouths. It was either that or road crew for the parish, out in the heat and wet. But she liked the clients, especially the old ladies. She’d tell me when a new widower arrived and all those old women would just start a-prissing.’ Mrs Ballew mopped at her eyes. ‘Marcy said she could make their last days happy if she snuck Viagra into the food.’

  ‘What’s the name of the nursing home?’

  ‘Memorial Oaks.’

  Claudia wondered why it wasn’t a crime to use the term memorial in a facility designed to house the still-living. ‘Tell me about the day she went missing.’

  ‘September thirtieth, she worked her regular shift, from noon to ten at night. Usually she came right home, showered to get the Lysol smell out of her hair, got ready if she was going barhopping. She didn’t come home.’

  ‘The staff at Memorial Oaks were the last to see her?’

  ‘Yeah. Her supervisor said she left about ten after ten. She stayed to help with a patient who’d puked all over himself.’ As Mrs Ballew’s lip trembled, she wondered the inevitable: If Marcy had been her usual lazy self and not stayed that extra ten minutes, would she have escaped the boogeyman?

 
‘And none of her things were missing?’

  ‘No, all her stuff was at home. Her car was found about ten miles away, at a shopping center parking lot. But she hated that center. She never went there, so I don’t know why she would go that night.’

  Bad with a capital B. The girl was, in Claudia’s opinion, an abductee and probably dead. But how and why would her ID surface in Port Leo, hundreds of miles away?

  David cleared his throat importantly but said nothing.

  Claudia glanced at the file. The wallet, when found on the road outside Port Leo, had had a credit card and thirty-three dollars in cash in it. The most likely scenario was that the Ballew girl had been killed close to Deshay, although the Louisiana police had not turned up a trace of her. Assuming she was dead, someone – either the killer or an associate – had come to Port Leo, where they chose to throw Marcy Ballew’s wallet – still containing cash – onto the road.

  ‘We traced the movements of the registered sex offenders in Encina County, seeing if any of them had gone to Louisiana recently, if any had a connection to Deshay. So far nothing,’ David said.

  The words sex offender made Mrs Ballew go white.

  ‘Deshay is a long way for someone to go to commit a crime against a stranger,’ Claudia said. ‘There must be some other connection.’

  ‘I can’t think of one,’ Mrs Ballew said mournfully. So for the next forty minutes Claudia worked through Marcy’s life: old boyfriends, old high school friends, former co-workers, any hobbies or interests. David hardly asked a question.

  Mrs Ballew enumerated her daughter’s interests. ‘She did like watching cable TV, the movies, and she liked wrestling on TV a lot, and figure skating, what with the fancy costumes.’

  ‘Wrestling? She ever watch Joltin’ Jabez Jones?’ Claudia asked.

  Mrs Ballew brightened. ‘Oh, yeah, the guy who became the preacher? Sure, she watched his show. She was a big fan of his.’