“Was there?”
He gave me a hurt look. “No. It wasn't anything like that. Not like that at all.”
“But you never told Abby about her. Or me. Or María. What was she, your little private secret?” Maybe I was hitting below the belt, with his being in jail and all, but I was still pretty upset about this major omission.
He exhaled deeply. “Okay, so I was stupid, real stupid. But that's not a crime. I didn't kill her, Trade. And neither did Jackie.”
“How can you be so sure? She's pretty violent from what I hear.”
“Who have you been talking to, Renner?”
I didn't answer his question.
“Was she blackmailing you, J.B.?”
“We never called it that. I gave her a little money and prayed she'd keep her mouth shut, but Abby eventually found out about it anyway.”
“And there wasn't any more to it than that?”
Another big sigh. “Okay, this is a tough one for me to admit and I know you're gonna think less of me for saying it …”
I waited.
“I'm betting you've already talked to Jackie, right?”
I nodded.
“You've seen her?” he pressed.
“Yes.”
“Well, she's just not the kind of person that Abby ran around with, you know what I mean? It's like I was afraid if she knew about her early on that she wouldn't think I was good enough for her. I can't explain it, but I guess I was”—he hesitated and then forged ahead— “ashamed of Jackie. Ashamed that I'd married her not once, but twice.”
I let this sink in. While it didn't give J.B. a lot of character points, it did make sense. Jackie, although she'd given up her exotic dancing career in favor of animal rights, still had a very hard edge to her. I glanced at my wrist, which was sporting the beginnings of a bruise where she'd clobbered me with the chain.
“All right.” I was willing to let the subject drop for the time being. “Tell me again about that night in the Baboquivaris.”
The story he told me in jail was pretty much right on with the one that he'd been telling all along.
“You drank before you went to La Gitana and at the bar?”
“Yep.”
“And you were both pretty drunk?”
“Well, let me put it this way, I never knew I had a twin brother until I looked in that mirror behind the bar.”
“Did you eat or drink anything after you got back to camp?”
“I had a Jack Daniel's and Abby had a couple of Baileys before we went to bed.”
“You weren't drinking the same stuff?” I already knew the answer, but pressed the point anyway.
“That shit's too sweet for me.”
“You didn't buy the bottles at La Gitana and bring them back?”
“No. Gloria sent them with us. I already told you that. She packed all of our food and booze.”
The obvious came back to me. With Abby and J.B. drinking different whiskey, it would have been easy to selectively doctor each bottle. Abby could have gotten the ketamine, and J.B. something else that would have only put him in Nighty Night Land.
“Did you drink Friday night?”
“We drank a couple of those little airline bottles on the way down. By the time we got there, got the horses settled and camp set up we were exhausted and just fell into bed.”
If there had been something in their drinks, how could the murderer have known they wouldn't drink the booze Friday night?
“Were they new bottles?”
He thought for a minute. “No, they were both open. I remember that because Abby was asking what would happen if we got stopped by a cop with an opened bottle in the truck.”
Now my scavenger list had two bottles of booze on it.
“Okay, on Saturday night, did you feel normal before you drank at your camp when you got back from La Gitana?”
He thought for a moment. “Normal drunk.”
“And then you had a Jack Daniel's and Abby had a Baileys, right?”
“More than one. For both of us,” he admitted.
“What did you do after you had the nightcaps?”
“Not what you're thinking.” He laughed, but it wasn't what I was thinking at all. “We talked for a while and then crashed. I've told you all of this.”
“Yeah, well we're going over it again. Was anything different that night from a normal drunk?”
“Well, it was a doozy, like I told you. I was drunker than a Baptist preacher out of town. Really out of it, so was Abby.”
“How about the next day. Anything odd about the hangover?”
“Well, I never sleep in like that. And I felt like shit all day, but then after what happened, who wouldn't? You think something was in my booze?”
“It's a possibility. A drug would have taken both of you out of the picture long enough for someone to take Abby over to the pond and drown her. Since you have no recollection of what happened that night, I don't think you were dosed with the ketamine. We know she got some in her system somewhere.”
We talked for a while longer and then both got up. J.B. walked with me up to the door.
He retrieved his identification card from the officer there and then started back down the hallway, to go out the door he'd come in. Halfway down, he stopped and then turned back to me.
“Trade, you've got to believe me. I swear to God I had nothing to do with it.”
And with that, I headed out the door that would take me back to freedom.
He didn't.
31
IT WAS AFTER I TURNED OFF AT THE COW PALACE ONTO Arivaca Road later that night when I finally got serious with Quinta. Martín had asked me to talk to her about leaving with him and Cori Elena and I knew now was as good a time as any. In her short time with us, she hadn't talked about her mother much and was obviously still very angry with her. Confined in the cab of the truck, at least she couldn't walk away if she didn't want to talk about it.
“You know your mom and dad are thinking of leaving the Vaca Grande for a while,” I began.
“Yeah, he told me.”
“You know why?”
“Sure.” She gave a sarcastic laugh. “Because of Carmen.”
“It's probably the best thing to do,” I said. “Since those men may come looking for your mother.”
“I'll miss my dad.”
“Maybe you ought to go with them.”
I saw her looking at me out of the corner of my eye. “Why would I want to do that?”
“Seems to me that there was a problem in Magdalena when your father got you out,” I said, thinking of the time months ago when Martín had first come home with Quinta. He'd been a bit black-and-blue and had told me that some people had argued about his taking his daughter out of Mexico. Even then, Félix's men had had Cori Elena's daughter under surveillance, hoping her mother would return. What they hadn't counted on was her father's courage and doggedness.
“That was then. Now they know where my mother is.” There was a coldness in her voice that, in spite of the hot desert evening air, chilled me. “I'll be fine.”
“Your father doesn't think so.”
“Well, he's wrong. I've got my job. Besides, who'd take Tata dancing if I left?”
I kept my eyes on the narrow two-lane road, mindful of the raccoons and deer that liked to cross at night.
“You wouldn't consider going, just for a week or two?”
Even in the darkness and without looking directly at her I knew that she was shaking her head. “Not even. The thought of being in the truck with my mother for that long makes me sick.”
“You hate her that much?”
“No, Trade, I'm that angry with her,” she admitted as she placed her forehead against the window glass and stared out into the dark night.
There was nothing dark about La Gitana when we finally pulled in shortly after ten. A brightly lit Cerveza Pacifico neon sign greeted us—“Welcome to the Oldest Bar in the Oldest Continuously Inhabited Townsite in Arizona.”
The parking spaces in front of the large sign were full of pickups, a couple of sport utility vehicles and a battered old woody station wagon. I slammed Priscilla into reverse and edged into a tight space on the east side of the building.
Not looking for trouble—after all, it was late and we were two women alone—I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out my .38. Checking the cylinder to make sure five bullets were chambered, I then unbuckled my leather belt and threaded the holstered pistol through it. When I pulled out my shirt, the .38 was concealed. It was definitely illegal to carry a weapon into a bar in Arizona, in spite of my concealed weapon permit. This infraction didn't bother me a bit since I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six anytime.
We stepped over an ancient sleeping Australian shepherd dog and into a room filled with smoke, the cacophony of drunken conversation and Patsy Cline wailing about walking after midnight. While Arivaca is known for having a lot of inhabitants with questionable reputations, I was still surprised at the rough trade in La Gitana. It was packed with bikers and men who looked like the kind of guys who lived in caves and blew things up.
Our entrance had not gone unnoticed by a lot of the patrons. There were no free tables so Quinta and I sidled up to the bar. I was aware of more than one man undressing us with his eyes.
If the bartender was any clue, it looked like as safe a place to be in the crowded rough bar on a Saturday night as any. He was enormous, well over six and a half feet tall, with huge forearms that looked like ham hocks, a full head of curly brown hair and a wisp of a goatee. With him on board, the management probably never needed a bouncer.
We ordered two Coronas, squeezed a couple of limes into the bottles and then dumped them in on top of the beer. For some reason, sitting on the bar stools drinking beer with Martín's daughter after drinking with him just a day or two ago made me very sad.
We watched a couple of young, drunk cowboys attempt to shoot a game of pool on one of the two tables. It was taking more of a licking than either one of them as they scratched time after time, letting the pool cues skip and skid across the scarred green felt. A chalkboard on the wall held the names of several challengers, and I suspected that the next games would go very quickly since so far neither of the young studs had managed to come anywhere near a pool ball. Solids and stripes alike sat with impunity on the table.
As I sat there drinking I tried to take in as much as I could. I'd deliberately picked this time to come since it was a Saturday night, and approximately the same time that J.B. and Abby would have been in the bar two weeks earlier. There was a good possibility that many of the same people that were here now would have been here then. Not to mention the help.
When it finally slowed down a bit and it looked as though the bartender had things under control, I introduced myself and asked him about J.B. and Abby.
“The deputies have already been in here,” he said as he wiped the thick mesquite counter, which didn't look as though it needed it. “I told them I remember those two because they didn't look like they fit in around here. Especially her.” He eyed Quinta and me, and I wondered if he thought we fit in.
“Did anyone talk to them?”
“Sure. I did. The barmaid did, maybe a few of the regulars. But no one spent any time with them if that's what you mean. They were pretty wrapped up in each other.”
I sipped the Corona. “And they didn't buy any take-out.”
“Nope. But to be honest with you, they didn't look like they needed any more to drink. I probably shouldn't admit that,” he said, winking at me.
“How long did they stay?”
“Closing. I do remember that because she wanted to stay and dance some more. She was doing a kind of hoochie koochie thing out there, all by herself. She'd been dancing with the pool sticks, the broom, whatever she could find.” He nodded to a bare patch of cement on the far side of the pool tables that I assumed was what they called the dance floor.
Abby must have been soused. I'd never seen her do anything close to that. “What, no one would dance with her?”
“Sure, she danced with a few of the guys earlier in the evening, but mostly with her old man.”
“There wasn't any trouble though?” I knew from experience sometimes things could get out of hand when you danced with a cowboy's woman. Cowboys liked to flirt with danger and with whiskey, and oftentimes the two met in the middle and had a hell of a row.
“Nah. Most of these guys”—he flicked his bar rag in a wide arc—“are regulars. We don't get much trouble in here. They look like shit, but they really stick to themselves. Fact is, other than Squeezy McNeil wiping out on his motorcycle on the way to Round Hill a few years ago, I don't remember anyone ever going from here to the Happy Hunting Ground.”
“Did they leave with anyone?”
“Now that I can't say. Right before closing she was dancing with a bottle of booze in her hand and she dropped it. It made a helluva mess and I was busy cleaning that up when we closed.”
There it was again. The drop. Abby dropped a bottle of booze while she was dancing. Did it mean anything? Or was she just so drunk that hanging on to things had been a problem that particular night?
While some of the regulars were delighted to talk to us, they scattered like wanted felons when I got around to asking about J.B. and Abby. We were strangers in their midst, and their behavior was not all that surprising since this is frequently the norm in small towns. No one wants to share dirty laundry or juicy gossip until they're sure you're one of them—something I couldn't convince them of in the scant hour we'd been in the bar.
I left with not a lot more information than I had when I went in. Mostly confirmations of what J.B. had already told me, other than the dropped, shattered bottle.
After leaving La Gitana, I took the back road and headed west. Arivaca Creek, banked with its lush green trees, paralleled the road for a while and the moon was just coming up. Even with its soft glow I could barely make out the San Luis Mountains to the south. While the winding, curving road was paved, it was desolate. Except for a couple of rattlesnakes stretched out on the warm asphalt, we didn't see another soul or car until we hit the Sasabe road. This was the same route that J.B. and Abby would have taken on that fateful night. Had someone followed them from the bar? At the stop sign I checked my rearview mirror, but there were no headlights in it.
Briefly, I debated about turning south and heading into Sasabe. There wasn't much there, and at no time in his recitation of the night's events had J.B. mentioned a trip to the border town, so I headed north instead, toward his camp site.
The foothills were dark, in spite of the mailboxes we passed on the road. Like country people everywhere, the people of the Baboquivaris appeared to be early-to-bedders.
I was driving more slowly now, fearful of missing the road into J.B. and Abby's camp site. Finally I found the turnoff.
Quinta had the Ortiz courage for she never questioned the wisdom of our being out in the middle of nowhere late at night. Eager for an adventure, she jumped out of Priscilla and opened the barbed wire gate and waited while I drove through before she closed it and bounced back into the pickup.
“This must be the place, huh?” she asked.
“Part of the place,” I explained. “She actually drowned at a cattle tank a quarter of a mile from here.”
The road hadn't gotten any better, but I could drive a little faster over the single, weed-clogged lane since I wasn't pulling a horse trailer this time. The brush at the end of the track had been packed down with all the county vehicles that had come in after Abby's body had been found.
I turned the truck around, facing it toward the road in the event we'd have to get out of there in a hurry. When I shut the engine down, the night took on an eerie silence.
Although the .38 was still on my hip, I grabbed a speed loader from the glove compartment for my pocket.
“Now that's gonna scare the caca out of the coyotes,” Quinta said with a wide grin.
While I really wasn't expecting any trouble, I sure didn't want to be unprepared. There was no reason that anyone would be out here at all, but there is still something very spooky about being in an area where you know someone has been killed in the dark of night. I was feeling the same things I felt in Mullon's carport earlier in the day. I can't really explain it except to say that it had the hairs on my arms standing up, and all my senses on hyper-alert.
I retrieved a big Mag-Lite from the center console, and then turned off the interior light before opening the door. There wasn't any reason to silhouette ourselves against the light if we didn't have to.
The night air was as cool as it had been in days, as the desert gave its heat back to the sky. It felt good.
In the darkness I knew I wasn't going to find anything that Sanders and I and the police hadn't noticed in broad daylight. Stopping here had really just been an afterthought from our visit to La Gitana.
I'd come more for an impression than anything else. I wanted to feel the scene in the night, the same way that Abby and J.B. had felt it on the night of her death. Well, not exactly the same way, since I was a liter or so short of the booze the two of them had consumed.
I swept the flashlight over the ground, and as near as I could tell, there were no fresh tracks. The drought was taking its toll even on the ones that had been left by all the emergency vehicles, as they melded into the dry, dusty desert floor.
We walked slowly around the camp site, listening to a coyote concerto of mournful songs. Somewhere off in the distance, a cow was calling for her calf. Moths fluttered around the lens of the flashlight, attracted to its bright glow. Silly things, using the light for their flight orientation. Unfortunately it was a lot closer than the moon, and many of them were crashing into the lens.
After circling the camp site with the light, we returned to the truck. I dropped the tailgate and Quinta and I sat on it as I turned the Mag-Lite off.
Although I hadn't told her what I was doing, she must have known, for she sat quietly with me. I closed my eyes, again trying to get some idea of what had gone on two weeks earlier.
Rode Hard, Put Away Dead Page 20
