In the Guise of Mercy (Maggie Macgowen Mysteries)

by Wendy Hornsby

"In the meantime?" he asked.

  "Monday morning at ten there will be a funeral ceremony at Evergreen Cemetery before the county buries a batch of unclaimed and unidentified remains in potter's field. It would be nice if someone got to the cemetery early to video the digging of the trench; I don't know when that will be. We need to video the loading of remains at the morgue, and of course the burial ceremony itself. You'll need to work out the timing and the crew."

  "You coming to the burial?"

  "Wouldn't miss it," I said.

  "Fergie told me she got the permit for us to video at the morgue tomorrow," he said, not with a happy lilt to his voice. "It's Sunday. Will the morgue even be open?"

  "Just like our network, the morgue doesn't close," I said. "Sunday is a good day because the autopsy suites won't be in operation and your crew won't be in the way of normal activity. There won't be any cadavers lining the halls."

  "That's good, but what exactly do you want us to do at the morgue?"

  "Call this man." I handed him Phil Rascon's card. "Phil and Mike were good friends and he's eager to assist us. Phil will walk you through the morgue. He's setting up an array of stored, unclaimed remains, mostly skeletal, for you to shoot," I said. "While you're there, Phil will take you across the parking lot to the crematorium. He may be able to get you inside with the same permit. If not, an exterior shot will do."

  "And for dessert?"

  "He'll escort you to the county Scientific Services Bureau west of downtown so you can get some footage of the forensic identification labs. He talked a technician into coming in tomorrow to show you the bridge operation, how they are sorting through the debris that was flushed down from the First Street Bridge last week."

  "Good background, if nothing else," Guido said, making notes on a lined pad. "Altogether, a lovely day you've set up. I'll call you later if I have nightmares."

  He read down the list, making margin notes, listing requirements for people and equipment. He looked up at me. "Tomorrow, where will you be?"

  "I don't know yet," I said. "Depends. I need to start clearing up Mike's estate. I need more time with his files."

  He looked at me through narrowed eyes. "Doing that will make you sad and weepy."

  "Maybe I need to do some of that, too," I said, "a good sob-fest to work things through."

  He was nodding as I said this. "Good idea. I'd invite you to dinner tonight to cheer you up, but I hear Mr. Drummond has dibs."

  "Where did you hear that?" I asked, surprised, dismayed. No one had asked me to dinner. And no one had dibs.

  "Cashier in the commissary. Big gossip of the day is that you and Early are very cozy. Whatever, you need to be careful about jumping into a relationship. Right now you're awfully vulnerable."

  "Be careful around the gossips, Guido. A lie can fly halfway around the world before the truth can get its pants on."

  "Mark Twain?"

  "Winston Churchill."

  "Same difference," he said. "They both get credit whenever something really quotable gets said."

  "Quote this," I said, and fanned my chin in my favorite obscene Italian gesture, one taught to me by Signor Guido Patrini himself.

  "Same right back at you." He had finished his notes. "This is a big list. Were you thinking we'd finish by end of next week?"

  "Nope. By Mother's Day would be okay."

  He nodded, grinning. "Better get at it, then."

  "Hey Guido," I said to his back as he opened the door. "We need to go over the footage from our walk today. Why don't you come over to my house? We'll take the horses for a walk. We'll feed them, and I'll feed you. Then we can take a look at what we have."

  "Whatshisname be there?"

  "He will be if I ask him."

  "Who's cooking, you or the cowboy?"

  "Haven't gotten that far."

  "I've eaten your cooking. If you don't invite Early, I will."

  "Whatever," I said. "Give me a head start so I can get to the market, and I'll meet you at the house."

  "You got a deal." Guido closed the door behind him.

  I called Early and asked him to join us. Then I packed up the newest batch of sympathy cards and tokens, copies of the day's discs, dumped it all into my tote, turned off my lights, shut the door, sent Fergie home, went to the market, and went home.

  The load in the car was too large to be carried into the house in one trip. Except for the copy of the day's footage, I decided to leave everything except the groceries to be hauled inside later. I stowed the groceries, changed into jeans and riding boots, and went back outside to saddle Duke and Rover.

  All three horses were excited when I hauled Duke and Rover's tack out of the shed. They nipped at the saddles when I draped them over the top rail, nipped at each other when the blankets and bridles followed. I slipped bridles over Duke and Rover's heads and wrapped the reins over the rail so that I could brush them. Red lined up next to them, expectant, as if to say, what about me? I didn't know how to tell him he was staying home.

  Duke was so happy he was going for a walk that he didn't bother to make a fuss when Guido drove up and parked next to my car.

  "Which one do I get?" Guido asked as he sauntered over.

  "Duke. Mike's horse."

  "He's awfully big."

  "This old gelding has a seat like a big sofa. He won't give you any trouble." As I smoothed Duke's blanket on his back, I asked Guido, "Have you ridden before?"

  "Sure. Ponies at summer camp."

  "With Duke," I said, "all you have to do is sit tight and enjoy the ride."

  I gave Guido some carrots to feed the horses while I finished saddling them. Watching me cinch Rover's saddle, Red began to put up a fuss. He usually got left behind when Mike and I went out for rides, just as Early left Duke and Rover behind. The left-behinds always complained. You can't explain waiting one's turn to a horse. Red wanted what he wanted.

  After Mike got sick, I would alternate riding Duke and Rover, always putting a lead on the other and bringing him or her along. But Red was too spirited for me to handle on a lead, especially when I would be with an inexperienced rider. Fortunately, Early arrived home and came to his big sorrel's rescue.

  It was late afternoon when the three of us set out up the mountain trail. The light on our side of the mountain was already growing soft. Evening birds set up their calls. Coyotes began to emerge from their daylight hiding places to raid trashcans. Above Castro Peak the first star of the evening appeared, and a sliver of a moon. The air was crisp and fragrant; dos vientos began to blow.

  We rode single file up Bull Dog Trail, Early on Red in the lead, Guido and Duke in the middle, Rover and I bringing up the rear. The conversation was easy, old friends, familiar co-workers. We paused at a meadow where we sometimes saw deer early in the morning and just before sunset, didn't see any, and continued up the trail.

  After rounding a grassy knob, we left the main Bull Dog trail and took a narrow side path cut along the edge of a mountain peak. Past a dry, man-made pond, we came upon a magnificent, abandoned, Frank Lloyd Wrightesque stone house erected in a canyon notch, overlooking a landscape below that resembled Provence more than anything one would expect to find at the outer edges of Los Angeles County.

  We dismounted and tied the horses to a couple of tall yucca plants and let them feed on mountain grass while we walked up the last stretch of slope to the house.

  Vandals, kids, had broken out all of the windows in the house, ripped out the kitchen and bathroom fixtures and tossed them down the slope. The inside was a shambles, but the intact shell of the house was still beautiful. We went inside, dodging broken glass, to stand at the window openings for the view spread out below.

  "Wow," Guido said. "Whose house was this?"

  "Nobody's." Early grinned. "Some speculator bought the land cheap when the Santa Monica Conservancy was buying up land south of here, leveled off eight building pads, built this house and waited for the Conservancy people to cry foul. The Conservancy raised money to
buy the entire property at a premium price to keep the guy from developing."

  "It isn't an old house?"

  "Ten, maybe fifteen years old," Early said. "No one ever lived here."

  Guido looked around. "I would."

  "Great view," I said. "But that unpaved trail we came up? That's the only way in."

  "I'd get a fleet of pack mules. Live a simple life. Plant a garden, raise a beef cow, fill up the pond and stock it with fish. Survive off the land."

  "A simple life." Early chuckled. "Any idea what the monthly nut would be on a twenty-million-dollar mortgage?"

  Guido shrugged. "There's always a rub."

  "It's getting dark," I said. "We should get down off the mountain."

  We gave the horses their heads and let them take us home at their own paces. Red was in a rush to get back to his dinner. Duke seemed to savor the outing and was in no hurry for it to be over. Rover, no feminist, she, just wanted to do what Duke did. Early tried to hold back Red, but gave up after a while, told us he'd meet us at home, and let the horse have his way.

  If Duke got his way, he'd stay out all night, eating grass. I took the lead, and Duke's reins, and made him keep up with Rover. Now and then I let him drop his head to pull up a nice mouthful of sweet grass. He'd munch as we walked, grass stalks and their flowered ends fluttering out the sides of his muzzle. Horse, and rider, heaven.

  Families of quail ran across the trail in front of us, trilling their three-note call to urge their young to follow, quickly.

  "It's great up here, Maggie." Guido sat relaxed, taking it all in.

  "Come up any time," I said. "We'll ride."

  "Think I'll get me some boots."

  Back at the corral, we rubbed down the horses, tucked them in for the night, and went inside. I excused myself to go upstairs to get cleaned up. When I walked back downstairs, fifteen minutes later, the men were in the kitchen. Early was seasoning the sea bass I brought home and Guido was making a salad.

  "Hello," I said, picking up the glass of chilled pinot gris that apparently had been poured for me from a bottle selected from out of the special stash in the temperature-controlled wine safe, whose door stood open. I shut the safe door and sipped the wine, let it roll across my tongue and warm before I swallowed. "This is one of my favorites."

  "It's good," Guido said. "We found fish, corn on the cob, salad, and rustic bread from La Brea Bakery. Anything else you intended for this feed?"

  "Brownies and ice cream for dessert," I said, and began chopping garlic. "Thanks for getting started."

  "Mike's brownies?" Guido asked, expectant, maybe hopeful.

  "Sorry. Someone brought these over last week. They've been in the freezer."

  "Too bad." Guido turned back to his corn. "Early was telling me he thinks you should get a good security system, now that you're up here alone."

  "I'm not alone," I said as I dropped an obscene glob of butter into a saute pan and then scooped in a generous amount of freshly chopped garlic.

  "See," Guido said. "I told you, Early. She thinks she's bulletproof. Fish and butter, bread and butter, corn and butter."

  "I know for a fact," I said, "that garlic takes the bad out of butter."

  "And she's delusional," Guido said as he took a basting brush out of a drawer and dipped it into the saute pan and then began to generously slather the wonderful, cholesterol-rich mixture onto the ears of corn, along with a sprinkling of black chipotle powder. "She told me that calories leak out of broken cookies."

  "They do," I said. "But to shake the calories loose you have to run one mile for the equivalent of every whole cookie."

  Early had the grace to laugh.

  "Did you get a chance to look at the rough footage I gave you?" Guido asked.

  "Not yet," I said. "Maybe after dinner, if we're sober, we can go over it."

  "Eager to see what we got," Early said. "Mind if I sit in?"

  "Hoped you would." It was Guido who answered. "You going to grill or poach the fish, Early?"

  "Grill," Early said. "Want to grill the corn, too?"

  The only grill available was in Early's backyard; I was out of propane. The two of them left me to tend the bread in the oven and finish the salad while they went next door to play with fire. I could hear them talking, laughing, from time to time. By the time they returned with their steaming platters, the table was set and ready.

  The meal was memorable. Early's sea bass was perfect, crispy on both sides and just barely cooked through to the middle. Guido's corn, grilled in the husk, was sweet and piquant at once. The best of it, again, was good conversation, interesting people.

  With a crust of bread, Guido swabbed the last remnants of butter, garlic and bits of fish from his plate. He ate it with his eyes closed, a face full of true joy. And then he raised his glass to Early and me.

  "Alla famiglia," he said. We clinked glasses with him, repeated his toast, To the family, sipped the wine, bottle number two, and sat back, sated, smiling.

  "If it's one mile per cookie," Early said, "how many miles will this meal cost?"

  "I think two days of fasting in appreciation would cover it," I said.

  "That said, you want to meet in the morning for Sunday brunch?" Guido asked.

  "Normally, I'd say yes," I said. "But I have stuff to do in the morning. And you will be busy at the morgue."

  "Thanks for reminding me."

  The three of us talked about possible directions both the video and our inquiries could, or should, take as we cleared up the kitchen, put dishes in the dishwasher. With a last glass of wine each, and a plate full of brownies, we went into the work room, pulled up chairs around a computer monitor, and ran the unedited footage from the walk through downtown following Jesus' and Mayra's routes on that particular January day a decade ago. Some of the images and sequences were wonderful, some were junk. So far, where any of it might fit into the finished video was the great unknown. We talked about the footage, replayed some scenes, talked some more.

  It was late when Early stood up and stretched.

  "Thanks for the meal, Maggie," he said.

  "Thank you," I answered. "For a thousand kindnesses. And for having a full propane tank."

  "Tomorrow is going to start early. I'll say good night." He turned to Guido. "The roads around here are treacherous under the best of circumstances. A little wine makes them deadly. You're welcome to my spare room."

  "Thanks, but your house is a long walk away." Guido pulled off his sneakers. "Maggie, if you don't mind, I'll borrow your living room sofa for the night."

  Looking from one to the other, I asked, "Did you two plan this?"

  "Plan what?" they asked in unison.

  "Good night," I said. I saw Early out, tossed a pillow and a blanket and a new toothbrush to Guido, and went upstairs. Alone.

  In the morning, Guido was in the kitchen drinking coffee and reading my paper when I went out for an early run in the mountains. Feeling cold and stiff at first, I struggled up the steep near end of Bull Dog Trail, eventually found my stride, and kept up an easy pace all the way to the abandoned house. I stopped at the house long enough to appreciate the morning view below and to take a drink of water. Then, following a route Mike and I especially enjoyed, I picked up Bull Dog again, circled down into a canyon, through the site where the "M*A*S*H" television series had been filmed years ago, and then back home, coming up the back way on Crags, a paved street.

  The night of the break-in the sheriff suggested that the burglar had parked on a street down below, perhaps on Crags, or on Lookout Drive above it. I turned from Crags onto Lookout, ran on the back side of the mountain from our house. I looked for possible sheltered parking places, found several, and figured out a route the burglar could have taken from there, by foot, over the crest of the knob and into my backyard. Rough going, but possible if he was in good shape and had both hands free to use.

  Chapter 15

  Guido was gone by the time I got home from my run, off for his day at the
morgue. I showered and dressed, packed a lunch, and drove in to the studio.

  Like the morgue, a television studio is a seven-day-a-week enterprise. I needed more time with Mike's files, uninterrupted. Leaving the lights off in Fergie's work area, I holed up in my office with the door closed. I curled up on the sofa with a list of times and dates and copies of Mike's hand-written notebooks, reading in his own words, at least a shorthand version of his own words, where he had been, whom he had talked to, and where those conversations led him.

  I tacked up the enlargements I had made of the grainy newspaper photos taken of three policemen's funerals, and studied them. I looked again at the file of drug-related crimes, pulled out names and wrote them down in two columns: perps, cops. Then I went online, accessed newspaper archives, searched and read.

  By midafternoon, I felt dizzy after hours of trying to find any straight thread that would tie so many pieces together. And of trying to find a straight story of any kind. Whoever said "Never speak ill of the dead" should be disinterred and forced to tell the whole truth, just once.

  I had left my tote in the car the day before, so I left the day's notes piled on the desk to be retrieved Monday, and walked out empty-handed to fetch my car.

  My phone rang before I got to the freeway.

  "Miss MacGowen?" A woman, whispering. "It's Mayra. Mayra Escobedo, miss. She's here, at my house."

  "Who?" I hoped I knew the answer.

  She said, "Nelda Ruiz. She's kind of sick. I think she's been living on the streets for a while. I think she's scared of something."

  "What is she doing there?"

  "Sleeping."

  "I'm just leaving Burbank. Can you keep her there until I get to you?" Sunday traffic is very unpredictable, not that traffic in LA is ever predictable. In the best of circumstances I could get to central LA in twenty minutes. In the worst? Who knew? You drew what you drew. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

  "Don't take too long. She's sleeping now. She's really tired," Mayra said. "But I hope you can get here before Julia gets home. She will be very angry with me."

  "I'll do my best."

  I had to call someone at LAPD and let him know that Nelda was at Julia's house, alone with Mayra. As I hit the Ventura Freeway headed east, I thought about who that would be, who I trusted.