by Susan Fleet
Frank chuckled. “Like Tanya?”
Miller looked at him, deadpan. “The day Tanya’s quiet is the day I’ll really start to worry. Let’s go see Benita.”
_____
Her plane landed at Logan Airport at 9:53. During the two-and-a-half-hour flight she'd dozed fitfully, jolted awake by ghastly faces with dead eyes. Bone-weary, she edged into the crowded aisle. Last night at the Atlanta airport she'd bought the last copy of Friday's Times-Picayune. The Peterson murder was all over the front page, including his photograph, taken at a business dinner, Arnold smiling broadly as if he'd just closed a lucrative business deal.
No more business for Arnold now.
No more smiles, either.
The cops weren’t saying much, but that didn't reassure her. Either they had no idea what happened or they did and they weren’t saying. Nothing in the paper about an unidentified man found dead in City Park. Early this morning she had pinned a chestnut-brown fall to her hair and used her Robin Adair ID to board the plane.
Chinese proverb: All warfare is based on deception.
The shrill cries of a cranky baby cut into her thoughts, and the crush of passengers in the aisle began to move. Towing her suitcase, she hustled up the gateway and raced through the terminal to the Logan Express bus stop.
Several people sat inside the glassed-in cubicle.
Five minutes later she boarded a bus to Nashua, New Hampshire.
_____
They talked to Benita Gonzales at a coffee shop near her apartment. When they told her Tex was dead, she seemed much more upset than the bartender. She didn’t cry but her eyes welled up. An attractive woman in her twenties, she had thick brown hair, brown eyes and a gold ring in one nostril.
Was body piercing a requirement for bartending, Frank wondered.
“Do you know if Tex had any enemies?” he asked.
Benita sipped her foamed latte, considering. At last she said, “Not that I know of. But he didn't treat his girlfriend very nice, I can tell you that.”
“Anything you can tell us might help us find the killer,” Miller said.
Her eyes widened. “Whoa! I didn’t mean that I thought she killed him!”
“Of course not.” Miller gave her a reassuring smile. “What’s her name?”
“Maryanne. I don’t know her last name. She only came in a few times when Tex was working. I don’t think he wanted her there. He used to flirt with the customers.” Benita wrinkled her nose and her nose-ring waggled. “If he’d been my boyfriend, I’d have called him on it, but Maryanne seemed timid. One time she had a bruise near her eye and when I asked how she got it, she said she ran into a door. The usual bullshit.”
Benita rolled her eyes. “Sorry for the language.”
Frank grinned. “I’ve heard worse. We need to talk to Maryanne. Was she living with Tex?”
“I’m not sure. He lived over near Esplanade. His landlord might know.”
“Did Tex ever mention any enemies?” Miller said. “You know, people had a grudge against him?”
“Not to me. He was always talking about his buddies in Pecos. He played football in high school and most of his friends were on the team. He never mentioned any enemies. He said his father was the chief of police.”
They thanked her and paid Tex’s landlord a visit. He knew nothing about a girlfriend and wouldn’t let them into Tex’s apartment without a warrant.
Stymied, they went back to the car.
“Tex seems like a peachy-keen guy,” Miller said. “Got a bunch of hometown football buddies, no enemies, slaps his girlfriend around and then? Bada-bing, one shot to the head. The back, not the front."
"Exactly. We get the warrant to get into Tex’s apartment, maybe you can locate the girlfriend's last name.”
Miller raised a quizzical eyebrow. "You taking a vacation or something?”
“Very funny. I’m going to Pecos, see if Tex crossed one of his buddies and they came here and bumped him off.”
“Travel budget’s tight these days. You think Vobitch will okay it?”
“He will if we find out the slug that killed Tex came from the gun that killed Peterson.”
NATALIE
1992 - 1994
For my fourteenth birthday in April, Faye made me a birthday cake. I don't know why. Maybe because she knew I'd started my periods. She seemed surprised when I asked to use one of her tampons. I wished I could talk to Mom. I felt so alone. Now Mom had been dead almost four years.
In September I started ninth grade at Pecos High School. Faye and Jerry were still arguing. Randy was sixteen and totally obnoxious, bragging about playing on the high school football team. Ellen was twelve and mousy as ever. I still didn't have any friends, but I liked my classes and the teachers were okay. One day in the library I heard two girls raving about Mr. Adams, the drama teacher. That reminded me of France Nuyen. She's a great actress and I wanted to be like her. The next day I signed up for Drama Club. I figured it would be neat, pretending to be someone else.
Mr. Adams was really cool, but the best part was meeting Gabriel Rojas. Gabe, to his friends. He's a year older than me. He never tries out for any of the parts. One afternoon I stayed late to help him paint the sets for the next play. I didn’t want to go home and deal with Randy and Faye and her vodka problem. When I told Gabe my grandfather was born in Vietnam, he seemed impressed. He said his parents had come here from Mexico.
Maybe that’s why we hit it off. We were both foreigners.
By then I was five-six and still growing. Faye complained about all the clothes she had to buy me. Gabe's shorter than me, only five-four. His skin is the color of a burnt-umber Crayola. His eyes are dark too, almost black. Mine are tan, the color of light brown sugar. We started hanging out after school. I loved talking to Gabe. He told me neat stuff I knew nothing about, like Pythagoras—Gabe's a math whiz—and computer games and Mexican artists like Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera. Gabe said his parents were talking about them one night at dinner.
I couldn't imagine it. Faye and Ellen never said a word at dinner. How could they when Jerry and Randy were going on about football?
Gabe said I reminded him of Joan Jett. "Not your looks, your attitude. Like, you take no shit from anyone."
I liked that. Gabe had no idea of the shit that went on in the Brixton household. I went to the library and found out Joan Jett was a rock star. She started her first band—an all-girl band—when she was fifteen in 1975 before I was born. How cool is that? I loved the name of her band. The Runaways. I often thought about being a Runaway, and it had nothing to do with a band.
Joan had a pretty face and dark shaggy bangs that flopped over her eyes. That night in my room I studied my face in the mirror. My nose is long and straight like Mom’s and my lips are average, not fat, not thin. Only my eyes look Asian. They're almond shaped and narrow at the outside corners. I decided I liked them. They made me different. Unique.
Randy still called me slant-eyes, but right then and there I decided to be proud of my Vietnamese heritage. By now my Vietnamese beliefs, Ancestor Veneration and Devotion to Study, were second nature to me. And I liked having birds and mountains to protect me.
I got a job at Burger King, but I hated the greasy-beef-and-cooking-oil smell. Outside where we dumped the trash there were cockroaches. The fourth day, a huge cockroach ran over my foot so I quit and started babysitting for our neighbor, a single mom with two little kids. She worked nights at the local steak house. It didn't pay much but it got me out of the house.
One Saturday in October Faye took Ellen and me to a flea market. Faye loves bargains. Jerry was at a football game watching Randy. I fell in love with a Japanese print of a bird flying over a snow-capped mountain. One corner had a smudge, so I got it for two dollars. Then I saw this gorgeous pendant: a metal bird with curved wings and a big tail. It was silver, inlaid with red enamel (my favorite color). The lady said it was a firebird, a good luck charm. She wanted ten dollars. I only had five, but she let me
have it.
On Monday I wore it to school. Gabe loved it. He said it looked like something his ancestors might use to ward off evil spirits. Then he invited me to his house on Friday to watch a video. He seemed anxious, like I might say no. I think he's got a crush on me. I said yes right away so he’d know that I liked him. But I didn’t want him to be my boyfriend. Girls were always breaking up with boyfriends. I wanted Gabe to be my Best Friend for Life.
Gabe rented The Karate Kid, the original one from 1984. His mom thanked me for the bottle of Sprite I brought, and Gabe and I sat in the living room to watch the movie. We had fun and the movie was great. Then Gabe walked me home. He told me his dream was to be a videogame designer. I said that was cool and he was smart and I was certain he could do it.
"What’s your dream?" he said, gazing at me with his almost-black eyes.
For some reason it reminded me of Jerry’s story about Mom's dream to dance with the Rockettes. So I said, "I want to be a dancer."
I didn’t dare tell him I wanted to kill Randy. Gabe lived in a normal house with normal parents and a normal brother and sister. He had no idea how horrible my family was. Faye was still drinking and Jerry was working long hours for UPS (or having an affair). Ellen's twelve and still mousy, and Randy is still Randy. Now my bra size is 34 D. Sometimes the boys yelled crude comments at me, but I ignored them. I was still an outsider, but I had Joan Jett and France Nuyen to imitate, and thanks to my Devotion to Study I still got good grades. Best of all, I had a Best Friend for Life: Gabe.
Watching The Karate Kid gave me an idea. The bus I rode to school went past a strip mall with a sign that said Tae-Kwon-Do lessons. I wanted to be strong and flexible like the Karate Kid. After Jerry put the lock on my door, Randy stopped bothering me, but he was big and strong and he still scared me.
So I signed up for taekwondo lessons.
One day when I left the cafeteria after lunch Randy and his football player friends huddled together to block the entrance. My hands got sweaty. Randy and his buddies drove souped-up cars and I’d heard rumors that they had guns. Gun ownership was a big deal in Texas. Even Jerry had guns, a pistol and a rifle that he kept locked in a closet.
When they saw me, Tex Conroy—the police chief’s son—yelled in his ugly nasal voice: “Hey Natalie, I hear your mother’s a prostitute.”
Heat flamed my cheeks. My insides were shaking worse than the time I got the flu and had a high fever. I rubbed my firebird, hoping it would protect me.
Then Randy said real loud, “Nah, Tex. Her mother used to be a prostitute. But one of her customers killed her. She musta been a lousy lay.”
They all laughed. I wanted to kill every single one of them.
I kept walking but my thoughts were whirling like debris in a tornado. Mom. Dead in a hotel room. Murdered four years ago.
Waiting for me to avenge her.
Right then and there I made up my mind to do it.
But first I had to kill Randy.
_____
1994 1995
My junior year I got a part in the spring musical. We did Oklahoma. Joan Jett was my new idol, but I still loved France Nuyen, and now I was an actress, too. Mr. Adams said I was a great dancer and acting was easy. After living with Jerry and Faye six years, I was good at pretending to be who they wanted me to be, and Mr. Adams taught us techniques for faking emotions.
I was good at that, too. Three years since Randy killed Muffy and I never once let on that I wanted to kill him.
By now Randy and his buddies had graduated. Now Randy's a guard at the federal prison. He loves carrying a gun and bossing prisoners around, and having money to spend on girls and cars and beer. I think Tex’s father helped him get the job. Chief Conroy has a lot of law enforcement connections.
A good thing because Tex got in trouble a lot. A month before graduation, his girlfriend committed suicide. I heard she was pregnant, but I don’t know for sure. She took a bunch of pills. The newspaper said she left a note but didn’t say what was in it. Then, after the graduation party, Tex drove his date home and crashed his souped-up Mustang into a tree. The girl died. Tex walked away without a scratch. People said he'd been drinking.
I thought for sure he’d go to jail, but he didn’t. His father must have pulled strings or something.
Randy still lived at home, still said nasty things to me when Jerry wasn't around, and Faye was still drinking. Ellen was in ninth grade now, still a bookworm, still colorless and quiet as a mouse. Maybe even quieter.
Thanks to my taekwondo lessons I wasn't as scared of Randy as I used to be. Tae means to strike with a foot. Kwon means to strike with a fist. Do means way. My teacher’s name is Carlson. That seemed odd because taekwondo is a Korean martial art, but Mr. Carlson's wicked strong and does incredible moves. He’s a fifth-Dan (like a fifth-degree black belt) and he taught me a lot.
For instance, the leg is the strongest weapon a martial artist has, and kicks are the best way to disable your opponent so he can't retaliate.
Every eight weeks I passed tests to get to a higher level. Mr. Carlson said I was a fast learner. I advanced to first geup, the highest student rank, and got to wear a red belt with a black stripe. Then I studied breaking techniques. Breaking boards requires physical skill and intense mental focus. It was hard, but I mastered it. I wanted to learn the advanced techniques.
I figured I might need them. If I didn't avenge Mom, the Ancestor gods would bring me great misfortune.
Sometimes after the others left (maybe because I'm part Vietnamese) Mr. Carlson would give me a private lesson. First he taught me throwing skills, falls for self-defense and jumping techniques. Then he showed me pressure points. In Korean they're called jiapsul. I said I doubted that I’d ever have to use them.
A half-lie. One part of the taekwondo oath said: “I shall be a champion of justice and freedom.” I liked that. Justice for Mom. Freedom for me.
Sometimes when I had trouble remembering what Mom looked like I got out my only picture of her. It was taken at her wedding in New York. My father wasn't in it. Mom threw all his pictures out. Mom looked happy and beautiful in her long white dress, but that was a long time ago. When did she start to be unhappy, I wondered. When she realized she'd never dance with the Rockettes? When my father left? But the picture gave me no answers.
Thanks to my Devotion to Study I got inducted into the National Honor Society. Not that I planned to go to college. I had no money and I knew Faye and Jerry couldn’t give me any.
I already knew what I was going to do. I was just biding my time.
Gabe was following his videogame-designer dream. Odessa College gave him a scholarship to study computer science. I was happy for him, but Odessa is 75 miles away, so I only saw him on weekends. Gabe worked at a computer store. For my sixteenth birthday he gave me a used computer. I got an email account so we could email each other every night and talk like we always did.
Ellen just turned fourteen. Her eyes have that dead look like Faye’s, and she bites her fingernails down to the quick. Sometimes they bleed.
I wanted to ask her what was wrong. She kept avoiding me, but one night I cornered her in her room. She was lying on her bed reading a book, some fantasy novel about vampires. Her thumb had a big scab where she’d bitten the cuticle.
“Ellen,” I said, “what’s wrong? Why are you biting your nails?”
She just looked at me with her dead eyes.
“Tell me,” I said. “Faye won’t help you. She’s too buzzed on vodka.”
For a minute Ellen didn't say anything, but then her face scrunched up and she started to cry. “Randy,” she said between sobs.
My heart turned to stone. “What did Randy do to you?” But part of me knew already. Ellen didn’t have a lock on her bedroom door.
“He makes me ... do things.”
“What does he make you do?”
“He makes me give him blow jobs,” she whispered. “He’s got a gun.”
I felt sick, like I mig
ht throw up if I didn't drink some water.
The next night after dinner I got Jerry alone and asked him to teach me how to shoot. He seemed surprised. He’d taught Randy how to shoot, of course. Boys were supposed to know how to handle guns. Ellen wasn't interested in guns. She lived in a fantasy world with vampires.
Except when she was giving Randy blowjobs.
So Jerry took me to the gun range and showed me how to shoot his revolver. The first time I did okay. The next time I hit the target every time, not bull’s-eyes but close. Jerry was impressed. Afterwards he took me out for ice cream. There were a lot of things I wanted to ask him: Are you having an affair? Do you know Faye’s an alcoholic? Do you know your son makes his sister give him blowjobs? But I didn’t.
We talked about what I’d do after high school. I told him a bunch of lies.
I didn’t want Jerry or anyone else knowing my plans.
The next weekend I made a picnic lunch, and Gabe and I went to this beautiful spot on a bluff high above the Pecos River. Gabe and I are still Best Friends, but not lovers. I think he would have liked us to be, but after I told him I wanted us to be Best Friends for Life, he seemed to understand. Besides, he knows I'm not dating anyone else.
After we ate lunch I told him about Randy and Ellen.
Gabe was shocked and disgusted, like I knew he would be. His face got tight and he clenched his jaw and his dark eyes looked very angry. Then he asked if Randy ever bothered me.
I said no, and told him I had a lock on my bedroom door.
Then I asked Gabe to get me a gun.
CHAPTER 8
Monday, 28 July Pecos, Texas
At eleven-thirty Frank parked in front of a modest sky-blue ranch house and got out of his rental car. Hot air hit him like a blast furnace. By the time he rang the doorbell he was sweating. Clarisse Conroy opened the door, clutching a tissue in her hand. Her thin face was careworn, her skin wrinkled and brown, like she spent a lot of time in the sun.
“Detective Renzi?” she said, dabbing red-rimmed eyes.
