Shoot from the Lip

by Leann Sweeney

  “Abby, bad news. Ed Benson had a stroke earlier today. He and White pulled a jewelry store case, and the homicide victim turned out to be a young security guard, a guy Ed knew who couldn’t make it in the academy. Guess Ed’s blood pressure went sky-high at the scene, and next thing you know they’re calling the paramedics. He’s in intensive care.”

  “That’s awful, DeShay. Will he be okay?” I leaned against the counter.

  “We don’t have many details. Guess Benson was conscious but couldn’t talk after he went down. Scared the shit out of Don White.”

  “I am so sorry. I’ll send flowers tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be filling in for Benson, and that’s not exactly my dream assignment,” DeShay said. “White is no Jeff Kline. He’s old-school. But I was the logical choice, since I’m already up to speed on the baby case.”

  “What about Christine O’Meara? Because I found out—”

  “Julie called me. Good work, Abby girl. Course, we have to wait on a positive ID through Emma’s DNA.”

  “What I don’t understand is why no one checked her fingerprints back then,” I said. “Even if she didn’t have a driver’s license, you told me she’d been arrested once.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s a reason. I just pulled the initial HPD report filed after they found her. She was a meltdown. Discovered in a field and had probably been lying there in hundred degree heat for a couple days. The corpse was no more than bones in a puddle, Abby.”

  I swallowed, glancing Emma’s way. She was deep in conversation with Kate. “Thanks for the image. I don’t think I’ll be passing that along to Emma.”

  “When Julie called she also updated me on the infant bones. She said there’s no evidence the child suffered any traumatic injuries, at least to the bones they collected. Could have been a natural death after the home birth.”

  “You’re saying Christine’s only crime may have been not reporting the child’s death?” I said.

  “We don’t know. But the O’Mearas’ case has become a priority. We had some jerk-off TV journalist all over our asses today. Did he care we have a brother hanging on in the ICU? I told him where to get off, but I’m betting he’s not leaving this train, Abby.”

  “Paul Kravitz?”

  “That’s him. I thought Don White might have a stroke himself when this guy showed up.”

  “You didn’t tell Kravitz anything?” I said.

  “No way. But he’ll go to the higher-ups, and then we’ll have the local news crawling all over us, too. I gotta say, this is a nightmare, Abby. A damn nightmare.”

  “Emma wants me to stay on the case, find out why her mother was murdered. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Okay? Of course it’s okay. White might not be thrilled, but it’s not like this is the first time a private eye’s been investigating while we’re doing our thing. He’ll get over it.”

  “He did seem a little testy when Emma wanted me with her during that first interview,” I said.

  “Don’t expect an improvement in that area now that Benson’s down, and don’t be surprised if I don’t get back to you right away if you call. I still have my own twenty-some cases, plus I gotta study up on Benson and White’s load.”

  We said our good-byes and I returned to Kate and Emma.

  “That was DeShay.” I put my phone back in my bag and told them what we’d discussed.

  Emma said, “I am so sorry about Sergeant Benson. He was nice to me, seemed to really care that my baby sister was dead, said he’d help me find answers.”

  “Now you’ll have DeShay on your side,” I said.

  “You didn’t get a chance to answer my question,” Emma said. “Will you keep helping me?”

  “You betcha. Think I’d throw you to the coyotes?”

  Kate drove home while I stopped at Beck’s Prime and picked up our dinner. They do have an acceptable black-bean burger that Kate will eat. I went for the cheddar burger and added grilled onions so I could say I had a vegetable today. I skipped the fries, promising myself to get into those running shoes tomorrow. God, how I missed Jeff.

  Once we were seated at the kitchen table and had started eating—Kate was drinking something thick and carrot orange from the blender while I enjoyed a Diet Coke—I brought up Clinton Roark.

  “Tell me what’s going on, Kate. You just broke off a serious relationship, and you’re dating someone else only days later. That’s sounds like something I would do, not you.”

  “We aren’t dating. I’m, well, helping him.”

  I shook my head. “You think I don’t know my heinie from a hard drive?”

  “He wants to become a—”

  “A vegetarian. Sure. You know what I think? I think ‘Oh, my God, we were both born in the Year of the Rat’ would have probably worked just as well.”

  She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before speaking. “Okay. Maybe I feel an attraction. Is that so wrong?”

  “How would the shrink who resides in the thinking part of your brain answer?” I said.

  “That’s just it, Abby. I don’t want to think and rethink every decision. That’s what Terry tried to do for both of us; that’s what totally turned me off.”

  “Bet Roark’s at least fifteen years older than you.” I swigged my Diet Coke.

  “Fourteen.”

  I had my burger halfway to my mouth and froze. “He’s forty-four?”

  “How old is Jeff?”

  I raised my chin. “Thirty-six.” We sounded like we were back in junior high school having a boyfriend war like we used to—mine’s better than yours. I took a deep breath. “Sorry. I guess his age doesn’t matter. I’m worried about you, that’s all. You had one big cry and now you’re over Terry? I don’t think so.”

  “I’m moving on, Abby, and it’s not my fault if someone walked into my office and seemed like exactly the right person to help me do that. We have chemistry.”

  “Yeah. So did my ex and I, even after we got divorced. Chemistry experiments can blow up in your face.”

  Kate knew this was true. No reply needed. She drank her orange concoction and it left her with a neon mustache. She looked downright ridiculous when she said, “This is all your fault, you know.”

  “My fault?” But I couldn’t muster any conviction. She looked too funny.

  “I watch how you and Jeff interact. There’s all this passion between you, so much—”

  I was unable to hold back the laughter another second.

  “What?” she said.

  “You look like you should do a billboard for ‘Got Carrots?’ ”

  She swiped at her lips and then we were both laughing.

  13

  The next morning I managed to find my running shoes and spent an hour walking and jogging near the Rice campus. We were blessed with a perfect October morning, cool and bright, and I felt energized by the exercise. By the time I arrived back home, Kate had left for work, and the cell phone I’d forgotten on the kitchen counter must have been making noises while I was gone. Diva was sitting and staring at the thing as if it were a mouse hole.

  When I picked up the phone, I saw I had a message from DeShay. I listened to him say, “Hey, Abby. The DNA comparison on the baby is in. After I talk this over with White I’ll get back to you.”

  I closed the phone, thinking how Emma might have two sets of remains entrusted to her now—the baby’s and her mother’s.

  But it was Emma, not DeShay, who called me after I’d showered and dressed. She said the police were coming to her hotel to talk to her. “Sergeant White sounded so serious, and he wouldn’t tell me anything over the phone. I don’t want to face him alone.”

  “DeShay told me they have DNA results on the baby,” I said. “That must be what this is about.” I told her I was on my way, then checked to see if DeShay had left me a voice mail message while I was in the shower. But he hadn’t. Maybe he and White were shutting me out.

  I made the drive to Emma’s hotel in less than fifteen minutes, but not
soon enough. When she let me into her suite, White and DeShay were there. Room service coffee and a plate of fruit and croissants sat on the glass coffee table. White was holding a jam-loaded roll in one hand and a mug in the other. DeShay stood as I came around the sofa to sit next to Emma. White took a giant mouthful of croissant and nodded at me in greeting.

  “I asked them to wait until you got here.” Emma took my hand and squeezed. “Go ahead, Sergeant White. I’m ready now.”

  White had a mouthful of food, so DeShay started to speak.

  “Hold on, Peters. Let me handle this,” White mumbled.

  DeShay was seated directly across from me and rolled his eyes. “Sure, Sergeant.” Then he mouthed the word Sorry to me.

  White swallowed, gulped coffee and picked up a napkin from the coffee table. He slowly wiped every millimeter of skin around his mouth. I decided this was his way of saying, You make me wait for this bimbo PI to show up, I’ll make you wait, too.

  He gripped his lapels and straightened his one-size-too-small sports jacket. “According to the DNA comparison between Ms. Lopez and the female infant found on your property after the demolition, you and this child are not related.”

  Emma seemed too stunned to speak. I was too stunned to speak. We leaned back against the sofa cushions simultaneously.

  Finally I managed, “That sure tears a plank off the wall.”

  “Yeah, it does,” DeShay said. “We need to take a formal statement, Ms. Lopez, and since you’ve been a little banged up by your accident, we can do it here.” DeShay picked up a laptop case from under the coffee table and took out a computer and a small tape recorder. “Sergeant White will ask the questions; I’ll take notes. We’ll also make an audio recording.”

  “I-I don’t get it,” I said. “Emma saw her mother give birth.”

  White said, “You’re here only because Ms. Lopez asked for a favor. I’d appreciate it if you’d stay out of this.” White looked at Emma. “I understand from Sergeant Peters that an unidentified woman found deceased in 1997 has tentatively been identified as—”

  “Hold on,” I said. “Does Emma need a lawyer?” White and I traded angry stares.

  “For crying out loud, this is only a witness statement,” White said. “But if you want to hold up the investigation, go right ahead and call up a suit.” He started to get up, but DeShay put a restraining hand on his arm.

  “Hang on,” DeShay said. He looked at Emma and me. “We know from the forensic report that this infant was buried under the house about fifteen years ago. That would have made you around eight, Ms. Lopez. We don’t consider you a suspect. We just want to find out what happened.”

  “Thanks for the clarification.” I looked at Emma. “You okay with this?”

  “I’ll help any way I can,” she said.

  White was sitting again, but I could tell by his body language that he was mad enough to eat nails and spit rivets. He addressed Emma. “Since you’ve hired Abby, you had every right to invite her here today, but you need to know that HPD can handle this case, get to the truth.”

  “Like they handled the identification of my mother’s body? Let’s see ... that only took ten years.” Emma was having none of White’s attitude, and I wanted to smile.

  White’s ears reddened. “I understand your, um, unhappiness. I can assure you the ME’s office is comparing this dead woman’s DNA to yours maybe right this minute. Isn’t that right, Sergeant Peters?”

  “Yes,” DeShay said. “We hope to have a positive ID as soon as possible. And we’re very sorry it’s taken so long.”

  “I didn’t mean to sound critical, because I’m very grateful to the police,” Emma said. “But Abby’s the one who went to the morgue. She’s the one who showed me the reconstructed face of my mother. She’s helped me in other ways, too, and I want her to have access to everything you learn. Is that possible?”

  White sighed. “Yeah. I guess that’s possible.”

  Emma smiled. “Good. Now, what do you need from me today?”

  “We’d like you to tell us again about the home birth. Tell us everything you recollect from the events that followed,” White said. “We need to figure out what’s real and what’s not—decide, if we can, whose baby this was.”

  DeShay rolled his eyes again. White sounded condescending, but Emma had already shown she could hold her own with him.

  “Decide what’s real?” she said. “I’m not delusional.”

  “Sorry,” White said. “I’m sure you don’t doubt what you saw, but, well, the forensics say that baby was not your sister.”

  I said, “But Emma saw her mother give birth. If the baby under the house was the child born in the tub, doesn’t that bring into question whether Christine O’Meara was Emma’s biological mother?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew I shouldn’t have said them. Not yet, anyway.

  Emma said, “Oh, my God. She’s right.”

  DeShay shot me a look, gave a slight shake of the head to shut me up. He looked at Emma. “We won’t know until that other DNA comparison between you and the woman in the morgue is complete. For now, can you tell us what you remember about the time period surrounding the baby’s birth?”

  “I don’t know anything more than I’ve already told you,” she said.

  “Tell us again for the tape recorder,” White said.

  Emma told her story once more, while I tried to make sense of this unexpected information. If the baby wasn’t related to Emma, was she related to Shannon and Luke? That question would have to wait, too. Or perhaps the police didn’t care. But Emma would. She did resemble Xavier Lopez—same eyes, same smile. Could she have been born outside Lopez’s marriage and he placed her with Christine to hide her existence from his wife?

  Wait. No. Christine was supposedly pregnant with Emma when Lopez died. Or so Emma’s date of birth indicated. But no one knew better than I did that birth certificates can be changed or forged or outright manufactured. I’d already seen it happen with previous clients. DeShay was right. Until the DNA comparison came in, we couldn’t assume anything.

  White was saying, “You’re sure the baby was gone the next day? That you didn’t see CPS come and take her away?”

  “All I know is that if the baby had been in our house for any length of time, even one day, I would have held her, I would have fed her, I would have changed her diapers, like I did with Shannon and Luke. None of those things happened.”

  “You did all that when you were only eight?” White’s voice was generously laced with skepticism.

  “Emma raised her brothers and her sister,” I said. “She’s been their legal guardian since she was sixteen. I think she’d remember if there was another baby for her to care for.”

  White was apparently still simmering, and every time I opened my mouth he almost boiled over. Ignoring me, he said, “Most of those old houses have a trapdoor that leads to the crawl space under the house. Was there one in your place and did you ever open it?”

  “The door was nailed shut,” Emma said. “I never had any reason to remove those nails. I didn’t want to know what kind of bugs and rodents were crawling around under there.”

  “Nailed shut, huh? Now you’re telling me something. Seems your mother didn’t want you kids snooping around. She had something to hide.”

  DeShay said, “I’m not sure we can draw that conclusion yet. A trapdoor to the outside wouldn’t be safe for a houseful of little kids. Maybe Ms. O’Meara—”

  “Yeah, right, Peters. Thanks for pointing that out. Why don’t you do something useful, like call up your friend at the ME’s office?”

  “But Julie said the DNA results—”

  “Call her,” White said. “Put some pressure on those people.”

  “Can I talk to you, Sergeant?” DeShay put the laptop on the coffee table, stood and walked to the window.

  “Excuse me, ladies.” White followed, again adjusting his sport coat.

  Though they’d stepped away, I could hear every word. I
t wasn’t like they were behind a closed door.

  “I am not your slave,” DeShay said in an angry stage whisper. “You treat me with respect, because for now, I’m the only partner you’ve got.”

  “Didn’t mean to rub you the wrong way. I’ll be more sensitive to your needs in our partnership. Sounds to me like you’d rather be partners with your little detective friend.”

  A tense silence followed. Then I heard DeShay say, “We’ve got a job to finish.” He came back, reclaimed his chair and picked up the laptop. “Sorry about that.”

  White resumed his questions, and the answers hadn’t changed from the last time he’d interviewed Emma and me. They left fifteen minutes later, and DeShay said they’d be in touch with any developments.

  “I don’t understand, Abby,” Emma said. “How could my mother not really be my mother?”

  “You were her oldest child. Maybe someone left you with her.”

  “Who? My father?”

  “Listen, I know you’ve had several big surprises today. Let’s wait on the DNA. Then we’ll know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

  “Guess you’re right. I’ll know the truth soon enough,” she said quietly.

  I could tell this had hit her like a heavyweight’s punch. What else could happen? We talked a few minutes longer; then I took off and returned home to research Emma’s neighborhood, hoping to use the ideas Jeff had suggested to find anyone who might have known Christine O’Meara back in the nineties.

  Diva was happy to have me at the computer, and once we were both comfortable, I tried the Houston City-search Web site, used all sorts of query combinations using Dogpile.com, one of my favorite search engines, and combed the online yellow pages for bars and liquor stores in Emma’s neighborhood. There were plenty of stores and bars, but after a dozen calls I learned that most places had turned over ownership time and time again. No one would remember a woman from ten years ago. I did come away with the names of two places that had kept the same ownership for longer than ten years, one bar and one liquor store. But a short list was better than no list at all. Time to hit the streets.