“A fashion conservative.” I actually said that, didn’t just think it. Spit.
“Camouflage.” He looked at me seriously, eyes twinkling. “Sometimes I go crazy and wear a blue shirt, though.”
I chuckled and knocked on the door. It felt insubstantial against my knuckles. I thought I heard movement inside the house, and I leaned close and listened. If there had been a noise, it had stopped. We stood and waited for another thirty seconds. I knocked again and walked over to the lone front window to the right of the door. The boards sagged under my weight. I stuck my nose close to the glass and framed my eyes with my hands. The dust on the window partially obscured my vision. I made out a couch, a TV with a protruding pre-LCD backside, and a low coffee table with a peeling wood-veneer surface.
I gave up. “I don’t see anyone, but I could have sworn I heard people in the back of the house.”
“We can come back later,” Wallace said. “If we stand here much longer, we might get shot.”
I clutched my handbag tighter. “That wouldn’t be pleasant.”
As we walked back toward the Altima, Wallace said, “So, you work for the infamous Jack Holden.”
“I do. But why is he infamous?”
“Maybe more enigmatic than infamous. Nobody knows a thing about him other than that he’s a great attorney. And hot. The cowboy thing really isn’t in right now . . . but on him? It’s classic.”
I couldn’t argue with any of that. I had a thought. “Have you ever seen his wife?”
“Nope. Didn’t know he was married.” Wallace unlocked the Altima with his clicker. “Check your shoes before you get in, please.”
I twisted to see the heel of my kicked back foot. It looked good. I repeated it for the other and decided it needed a scraping to get the grass off, but there was no curb. I scrubbed the bottom of my foot against the asphalt street. That would have to do.
I lowered myself into the car beside Wallace. He pulled out a Handi Wipe and cleaned his hands before putting them on the steering wheel, then dropped it in a car-sized trash can on the back of my seat.
I suppressed a smile. “Can we try the hotel formerly known as the Ambassador next?”
“The hotel formerly known as the Ambassador. I like that. We could do a symbol for them, like Prince.”
“A Ghostbusters type of thing, only with a dead body in the circle.”
He laughed. “Let’s head there now. What are you wanting to get out of it?”
“I’m hoping some of Sofia’s coworkers can tell me about her. Something. Anything.”
“Well, they didn’t tell me diddly squat,” Wallace said. “But maybe they’ll like you better than me. Shucks, I already like you better than me.”
I laughed. Wallace made a precise three-point turn, and we drove back to Adams and then south to I-40. He stayed on the access road until we approached the Ambassador, and he pulled in and parked.
“Since I talked to the manager once before, why don’t you let me lead?” He asked. “He might be more cooperative with me than with someone from a defense law firm.”
“Good idea.”
Wallace hurried off. A text came in for me.
Mom: I’ll pick you up at 5:15, okay, honey?
God, I wished Rich would hurry up with my car.
Me: Yep. Thanks, Mother.
The hotel formerly known as the Ambassador had a Monday morning busy-ness to it, but without the big crowd from Scott’s wedding, or the black comedy vibe that Spike’s tumble into the pool had given it. I wondered if the murder had helped or hurt their business. It wouldn’t have made me want to stay here, but the marketing gurus always say that there’s no such thing as bad press.
I walked over to the tables at the pool. Clear water rocked gently as a woman with a white swim cap breaststroked its length. She moved so slowly she nearly sank.
The steady thump-thump of footsteps alerted me to Wallace’s approach. “We’re in,” he said. “Or, I am. I told him you were my colleague, so don’t mention your law firm.”
“Slick move,” I said. I got up and followed him toward the managers’ offices.
“He’s going to bring them to us one by one, and the HR woman will sit in on the interviews. We’re to check in with her first.”
Wallace seemed to know his way around, and we ended up outside an office that said Linda Grace on a nameplate to the right of the door. He knocked on the wall beside it.
“Linda? CPS here for the follow-up interviews.”
Industrial-grade neutral paint covered the bare walls—and it smelled fresh. The woman behind the modular, L-shaped desk pointed to the two chairs in front of it.
“Have a seat,” she said.
Sitting in her own chair, she looked round, like a Weeble, with a very squat neck. And short like a Weeble, too. I wondered if her feet even reached the floor. She didn’t help matters by wearing a red and purple horizontally striped dress. A silver-accented frame decorated with a cross showed Linda standing with an older man (whose stringy beard gave me the icks) and two children who seemed about six years old—a boy and a girl. From their size, they looked like they must be either twins or very close in age.
“This is my colleague Emily,” Wallace said.
I smiled and said, “Nice to meet you, Linda.”
She nodded and typed something at her keyboard.
We sat. Wallace leaned to me and whispered, “She’s a real people person, puts the human in human resources.”
I stifled the laugh that tried to sneak out.
Wallace shifted in his seat and leaned forward. The voice he used dripped honey. “Linda, we just have a few short questions for you before the first witness arrives.”
Linda made a bitter beer face. “I already talked to the police.”
“Yes, but we’re trying to find Valentina, Sofia’s daughter.”
Without the facial contortions, Linda’s features looked porcine. Her skin was pale, and she had dark circles under her eyes.
“We knew her as Maria.” Linda said. She tilted her head as she studied me. “Say, don’t I know you?”
I struggled to place her face. “I’m not sure. I grew up here. Went to Amarillo High. Graduated twelve years ago.”
She crossed her arms. Her bosom created such a protrusion that it looked like she was dancing an Irish jig. “Yes, we’re the same age,” she said. “I went to Tascosa. I heard you just moved back to town.”
This wasn’t going anywhere good. “Yes, I did.”
Her piggy eyes squinted, and, for the first time, she smiled. “You’re the one whose husband—”
I broke in. “So about Maria.” I felt Wallace’s eyes boring into me, but I ignored him. “As we try to help her daughter, anything we can learn about her as a mother and who she associated with is incredibly helpful. We’re trying to figure out how Sofia found the Maria Delgado identity. It’s possible that whoever helped her get it has Valentina. Or maybe she wrote something on her application that would lead us to Valentina. I was hoping you’d let us look at her employee file, or, even better, give us a copy.”
Pink spread across Linda’s face. “Those are confidential employee documents.”
“Of course,” I said.
I licked my lips. Linda would feel defensive about being tricked by an applicant. She had to report new hires to the INS, and the hotel could get in a load of trouble if she’d half-assed the hiring process. I tried to sound empathetic.
“It must be very frustrating that she submitted fraudulent papers,” I said. “But Sofia isn’t still your employee, is she? If you’d like, we could get a waiver from her. It’s just hard, since she’s in prison, and it might take us a week.” I pointed at her framed picture. “Meanwhile, there’s a little girl, just about your daughter’s age in that picture, missing. I can only imagine how frightened she must be. I hope Valentina can make it a week. I hope she’s not being molested or tortured, that she has food—”
Linda held up her hand. “Stop. I know she
’s missing, but the police already have the documents.”
Wallace broke in. “Nobody wants to find her more than CPS, not even the city police, and we’re a state agency. Your cooperation would be much appreciated, and I wouldn’t ask if we didn’t believe it was the Christian thing to do, ma’am.”
I wanted to applaud. Wallace might not be from around here, but he’d figured out how to work within the system. I gave him a silent woot.
Linda lumbered to her feet. She pushed her chair back with her body and headed for the door. As she walked, the heavy brush of her thighs against each other made a grating pantyhose sound. Wallace and I looked at each other and I slapped my hand over my mouth. He licked his index finger and tapped it in the air as if touching it to a hot stove. God would smite us for sure now. Wallace had used the Lord’s name to pressure a witness, and then we’d been uncharitable toward the woman helping us. Her attitude sure made it hard to be nice, though. I resolved to try harder anyway.
Linda returned, panting. She handed me a stack of papers, without a word.
I thumbed through them. An application, the results of a background check, some new hire paperwork, and copies of Maria Delgado’s Social Security card and green card.
“Thank you very much,” I said.
Linda grunted.
Wallace perused the documents as I did, and I pointed to the list of references on her application, then at the emergency contact in her new hire papers. My hands felt tingly with excitement. Leads.
A stiff, male voice behind us interrupted my thoughts. “If you and your colleague would be so kind as to join us, Mr. Gray, I have arranged for the coworkers of the woman we knew as Ms. Delgado to take turns speaking to you. You, too, Linda.”
By the time I’d hefted my handbag and turned around, all I saw was the retreating backside of an African American man. I moved quickly with Wallace behind me and Linda trailing us. The man stopped at a doorway and turned. He had incredibly good posture—God, how my pageant coach would have loved him—and hazel eyes that were almost green. He wore a white dress shirt with the Wyndham logo on the collar and a name badge above it that read Russell Grant.
“Thank you, sir.”
Wallace echoed me. “Thank you, Mr. Grant.”
We entered to find a white woman waiting for us in a room identical to Linda’s office except that it held a round, faux cherry table with four chairs instead of a modular desk. There was nothing on the walls in there, either. Maybe the hotel just hadn’t rehung the decorations yet after painting.
Wallace and I both greeted the woman and took our seats. Without lifting her eyes from the table, she mumbled a reply in the voice of a three-pack-a-day smoker. She wore a burgundy service dress and had mostly gray hair and a stocky frame. Linda joined us a minute later, moving in a side-to-side rocking motion and breathing harder than before. She was definitely on a path to cut to the front of the line on the heart transplant list.
The manager stepped inside. “You’ll be speaking to Cindy here first,” he said. “Then I’ll bring Aracelli in fifteen minutes, and you’ll finish up with Roberto in another fifteen. They’re the only ones available.”
He left, closing the door behind him.
The meeting with Cindy yielded nothing. She kept her eyes on the table and spoke in a detached voice. She knew “Maria” only at work, they didn’t talk, she’d never seen her daughter, and she didn’t know anyone who was friendly with her. Aracelli had nothing for us either, but her voice strained and cracked when she spoke—once I thought I even saw tears. But, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get her to talk about Sofia.
Roberto was a different story.
The slight man wore a male version of the same burgundy service clothes the women wore. He looked into my eyes as he talked, and his tone was urgent.
“I work in the big rooms, the ballrooms, and I fix little things in the guest rooms,” he said. “Leaky sinks. Shower curtain rods. Things like that.” He looked straight at Linda. “I been here six months, I work hard.” He turned back to us. “Maria work hard, too. She very serious about work and about her daughter. Two times she bring a little girl here and hide her while she work.” He looked down. “I sorry I no tell you, Mrs. Linda.”
I kicked Wallace under the table. This contradicted what Roberto’s coworkers had told both of us, so far, about Sofia.
Before Linda could speak, I asked him, “Valentina?”
“Yes, she call her Valentina. The girl pretty, like her mama. She don’t talk. She just sleep and color pictures. She color pictures for me.”
“Where did Valentina sleep and color pictures?”
“She little, and she ride on her mama’s cart, hide behind the curtain.”
“Did she ever go into the rooms?”
“Yes, I see her once.”
Linda sniffed. “We can talk about this later, Roberto.”
His voice came out very soft. “Yes, Mrs. Linda.”
I wanted to whack Linda for casting a pall on our conversation, but I forged ahead.
“Roberto, this is very helpful. Just a few more questions. Did Sofia—Maria—tell you about any friends?”
“No one.”
“Anybody Valentina stayed with?”
“No.”
“A man, her husband, or Valentina’s father, perhaps?”
“Never.”
“Nothing about bad men, or men wanting to hurt or take her or Valentina?”
“No, Miss.” Roberto’s shoulders heaved and he put his face in both hands and rubbed it. When he looked back up and dropped his hands, he shook his head. “I wish she did. I wish I could help that little girl.”
I started to thank him, but he sat up straight again and said, “Wait. You ask about bad men, and I saw a man that might do something maybe bad. He have a bald head, shaved”—he rubbed his scalp—“and he run out of the hotel that night. The night Maria, I mean Sofia, shoot that other man.” He raised his hands palms up. “I think, why he in a hurry? But then I forget and never see him again.”
I wanted to pound the table and shout, “Yes!” But I settled with asking him follow-ups. “Was he white?”
“Yes?”
“How old?”
“Not so young, not so old.”
“Did he have anyone with him?”
“I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “No.”
“Did you see where he went, or if he left in a vehicle?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Sorry.”
I reached across the table and patted his hand. “Don’t be sorry. This is great. Thank you, Roberto. Thank you.”
“Is that all?”
“It is. Adios.”
“Adios.” He rose to leave and Linda went with him.
Valentina had been here, and Spike might have seen her. Remembering Spike’s past and his connection to his old partner in crime—Harvey—here in Amarillo, it wasn’t out of the question that Harvey had been here, too. If Harvey and Spike were together, they could have been up to their old tricks with Valentina. Sofia might have caught them in the act, and, as a mother, she would have had to stop them. They might be the “bad men” she told Jack and me about. Heck, Harvey might even be the guy Roberto had seen running from the hotel. His description fit. Too late, I realized I should have shown the picture of Harvey to Roberto.
It was possible. It was more than possible. I whispered a prayer that I was wrong, that a convicted child molester did not have Valentina, then turned to Wallace.
“I think I know where to find her. And we need to hurry.”
Chapter Ten
Wallace punched it through the yellow light on the access road at Georgia Street.
“So you think this Harvey and Spike molested Valentina, and Harvey has her?” he said.
“Maybe,” I said, “and it’s terrifying.”
“I need to call it in.”
I ignored his comment, and he kept driving. Harvey’s address was in the file I’d brought with me, and
I entered it into the Maps app on my phone. He lived southeast of downtown, in the home he’d inherited from his mother before he’d done time. Siri called out the directions in her mezzo staccato voice: “Continue on Interstate 40 for 3.4 miles.”
Wallace had the Altima up to ninety-five miles per hour. He whipped around slower traffic like Jeff Gordon as he continued to accelerate. Siri had us exit at Ross-Osage, and Wallace took the corner with wheels screeching. He made another hard right on Twenty-seventh.
“We’re almost there,” he said.
We came to an intersection. One of Stanley Marsh’s many fake traffic signs throughout the city was planted in the yard of the house on the corner. This one read Undead End. Cryptic Texas kitsch, but this time it was eerie as well. We made our last left at the corner onto Olive Street and Wallace slowed down.
“It’s up on the right, nearly to the end of the block.” Wallace pointed. The street dead-ended a few hundred feet after Harvey’s house.
“What is that, where the street ends? It looks like . . .”
“Llano Cemetery.”
It was creepy—made creepier by the undead sign. Not that I believed in the undead; live people were way scarier than zombies anyway. Wallace executed a perfect U-turn again and parked facing Twenty-seventh across from the gloomy gray house belonging to Harvey. There were no other cars in front of it. It looked better than Maria Delgado’s, but that wasn’t saying much. It had a front sidewalk and a shuttered window left of the front door. A garage jutted off of the right front of the house in an L—an obvious afterthought added by someone with little or no construction skills. The yard was even worse than Delgado’s, though, and the paint was cracked and peeling on the garage and window frames. Missing shingles on the roof formed a crazy quilt pattern.
I opened the car door and jumped out. My heart hammered harder than it had the time Jib had stumbled at full gallop and I’d watched, helpless, as the ground came at me in slow motion. Jib had rolled over me, but we’d both come out of it okay. I said a little prayer for Valentina, for Wallace, and for me—that we all would be okay now, too.
Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1) Page 12
