“Hard to do all that if you have problems,” Paul said. “What is it?”
“Bipolar. I have a good shrink and the meds were working on my depression pretty good. Then my wife, who I love, dies. And I come to find out she was cheating. I had some hints, but I ignored them. Mostly.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Ain’t got no hope no more.”
“It’s natural to get angry when someone close to you dies,” Paul said.
“Yeah, and it’s even more natural to be angry when you start wondering if the kids you’ve slaved over are yours or not.”
Paul now understood the man’s hollow eyes and sepulchral voice. Johnny’s reaction was so different from Ronnie Bee’s. Johnny wasn’t sure he was her victim. “Cyndi wasn’t faithful?”
Johnny tipped his head at Paul. “She died in a hotel in the middle of the day at the hands of a stranger. I started looking into her phone records and so on. Where she spent time. I found a guy. I passed the information on to the cops. I’m pretty sure it’s him.”
“DNA tests are accurate. You could get the kids tested.”
“That’s what my lawyer said right before I fired him. What good would that do? I don’t want to know. They’re mine. I love them. Case closed on that. However, I’d like to see the boyfriend fried if he did this to her. In fact, I, personally, would like to shoot him dead.” Johnny folded a few clean towels, placing them gently on the couch. “I think we might’ve gotten past this, if I’d found out.” His voice cracked. “She would have told me eventually. She had a conscience. We were starting to go to church again. We were really close, once.” Castro separated neat piles of clothing into two big white plastic baskets. “She had a good heart. She adored the kids. I can’t work it out in my mind.”
“The name of the guy you suspect?”
“Jesse Bancroft. Our car mechanic. I mean, she had the normal car trouble, but she paid him a bunch and called him a bunch of times I never heard about. That’s not normal.”
“Did you talk to him after Cyndi died?”
“Yeah, I confronted him a couple of days ago. Told him off. He argued with me. Denied it. You believe that? Arrogant asshole. He probably killed her. He took my wife away from her family, from me! Tried to get me arrested for assault. Cops came but nobody wanted to arrest me. They left me alone.”
“You fought?”
“I punched him, yeah. He deserved worse. Bastard!” Johnny’s face flushed. “He wouldn’t even fight me back. Tell you one thing for sure. She had something going on, something secret, the last few weeks. She wasn’t, like, all excited and breathy, like somebody who is in love with another man. But there were other signs. She bought new underwear. I should have guessed then. When you love somebody, you don’t want to be suspicious. You don’t want to get into their cell phone, check their side of the closet. I knew but I didn’t know, you know? She was distracted and upset, is what she was. I’ll tell you one thing, the situation was not making her happy. I thought I knew her better than anyone. Why wouldn’t she talk to me?”
Sometimes you thought you knew someone well but you didn’t, not really. Paul thought he knew Nina. But she still surprised him, not always pleasantly. “Her phone records show she was talking a lot with Jesse Bancroft?”
Johnny’s teeth flashed. “Yeah.”
“But he didn’t admit anything?”
“Admitted they talked, no more than that. Said they talked about her car. Bastard!”
“Uh-huh. You going over there?”
Paul nodded. Castro leaned forward and jabbed his finger at him.
“Take him down for me, okay? The police say he’s clean. He sounds convincing, all right.”
Paul took down the mechanic’s name and address. “Now, for a moment, let’s go in another direction. What if it wasn’t Jesse who was with Cyndi that day? If it was someone else who might take an interest in Cyndi—who might feel enough passion or connection or, I don’t know, have something going on that he felt that need to kill her?”
Johnny tucked his polo shirt into his pants. “A fan? She had a lot of fans. Guys came on to her every Saturday night, and I got to confess, she did like nice things. Saw her with a few pretty things in the months before she died, but she explained them away and I’m so dumb and I”—he paused—“loved her so much I bought it. ‘Hey, where’d the pearl earrings come from?’ ‘Nobody.’ ‘Nice looking gold chain.’ ‘Oh, yeah, this guy comes every night. Wanted to give me something.’”
“Expensive things,” Paul murmured, making a note. “Things a mechanic could afford?”
Johnny Castro stared at him. “If you made good money and didn’t have two kids and a wife to support.”
“Was Cyndi gone a lot? I mean, after work.”
He shook his head.
“She didn’t stay out afterwards. I mean, you kept track of her?”
“She didn’t have a lot of free time to do much messing around between her gigs and her job and the kids. I guess that’s why I’m pretty sure it was one guy.” Johnny stood up. “Listen, I have to go now, get my children. Put one shoe in front of the other.”
“One other thing. You have a sheet?”
Johnny eyeballed him. “I didn’t kill Cyndi. I loved her,” he said flatly. “I was at work. I expected that question you asked to come up and haunt me, so here’s the full picture. I was married before her and convicted of domestic assault. My wife at that time accused me. I spent a year in jail. I have never touched Cyndi. Ask anyone. The truth is, I never wished her no harm. I’m in a fix now, with our kids.”
Paul stood and shook his hand. “I’ll go see”—Paul consulted his notes—“Jesse.”
“He’s probably at that gas station at the Y about now. Works afternoons and evenings.”
They walked to the door. “You think that housekeeper at Prize’s might have got killed because she saw the guy who killed Cyndi?” Johnny Castro asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Was she married?”
“Yes.”
“Shit. Poor guy must feel as bad as I do.” He stroked the goatee. “Cyndi’s funeral is next week, but I’m not putting anything in the paper. This is private, this shit. Nobody’s business but mine.”
Jesse Bancroft was installing a tire on an ancient Chevy Suburban.
Paul walked into the garage and found him and, for once, no red tape. “I just need a minute,” Paul said, introducing himself. A good-size, ropy guy in his midthirties, Bancroft looked a lot like Johnny. Apparently Cyndi gravitated toward tattooed bad boys.
Something discontented lurked in Jesse’s expression. Stud in his right ear. Longish hair. A biker, Paul thought.
They walked around the side of the gas station and sat on a curb in the full sun. Paul put on his shades and Jesse pulled on a baseball cap and produced a cigarette. “That fool Johnny Castro sent you? He’s bugging the hell out of me. Do you believe it? He thinks I killed his wife.”
“I understand the police have cleared you.”
“I was working right here that day. Besides, I never would have hurt her.”
“I also understand there might be a question of paternity.”
“Cyndi’s daughter’s mine. Not her boy.”
“Is that so.”
“Looks just like me, man. My coloring. Cyndi was a blonde, natural. Her old man has black hair, name’s Castro, he’s Michoacán. Me and Cyn’s little girl has light hair and blue eyes. Everybody can see it once I point it out. She’s me in a little girl-body. I knew it by the time she was two weeks old. She’s got my spirit in her.”
“Did you ask for a paternity test?”
“Not yet.”
“She’s four, I understand.”
“Cyn begged me not to. Cyndi and I, we talked all the time. We were good friends. We talked and sometimes we had coffee. The sex ended years ago. I had nothing to do with her dying.”
“Must hurt like hell, seeing your child raised by another man. I can only gue
ss what it feels like having a little girl who can’t call you Daddy.”
Jesse blew out smoke. “I think, what’s better for my baby? She has a sibling, a father with his own house. I live in the trailer park the city’s trying to bury. I don’t know. I have to think about things.”
“In a way, Cyndi hurt you, not acknowledging your paternity.”
Jesse stubbed out his cigarette. “Don’t speak ill of her, man. Don’t. I loved her and she loved me once. But she wouldn’t leave Johnny.”
Paul thought that maybe more to the point, Jesse didn’t want the financial demands that came with raising a child for eighteen years. “Was Cyndi afraid of Johnny?”
Jesse’s mouth moved around this way and that. “Okay, I got to say no. She was attached to him and the kids. Happy family, sometimes.”
“You say your close relationship happened years ago.”
“Our girl is four. You do the math.”
“Lately you’ve been friends, not lovers?”
“Not lovers. Not for ages.”
“Can you picture Cyndi with another man? I mean not you, not her husband.”
“She wanted to be good,” Jesse answered. “I’ll give her that. When we got together? She felt really guilty. I was probably her best friend over the past couple years. I kept her car cherry, man.”
“That’s not an answer, is it?”
Jesse gave Paul a look. “The papers, the TV. They’ll say she was a tramp. She wasn’t.”
“Who was he?”
“Usually, she didn’t throw out names. It just came out one day. She was feeling bad and she told me somebody came after her and she rolled with it.”
“Any details?”
“She said it’s hard to resist when somebody falls that hard, gives you presents, says things like you never heard before. She said he was ‘besotted.’ That’s the exact word she used.”
“But she didn’t love him?”
“Women don’t love like men,” Jesse said. “I could tell from the way she put it that she didn’t love him like he loved her. You can bet he killed her for that. And now her old man blames me.”
“When did you speak with her last?”
“The morning she died. We met up at Heidi’s for breakfast after she dropped the kids off at school. She had to go to work.”
“She get a phone call?”
“Not that time. Other times, yes. Could have been the new man.” Jesse puffed furiously on his cigarette, held it between thumb and forefinger, then dropped it and stubbed it out. “Check me out. I was right here performing a fifteen-point inspection with an alignment on a 1987 Eldorado. Find who did it and call me, and I’ll grab Johnny, and we’ll both go over and explode his ass.”
CHAPTER 19
After Paul walked out on the conference with Eric Brinkman, Nina spent the afternoon slogging her way through a long hearing in a contract case and worked out a settlement with opposing counsel, avoiding a ruling that might have been damaging to her client.
At least a few things were going right. She had time to shelve that file for the moment and make a few phone calls as the sky began to lose its light. She got through to Marianne Strong.
“Hello?” Marianne sounded rushed. People talked in the background.
“Hi, it’s Nina Reilly.”
“Yes?”
“You’re seeing Eric Brinkman regarding some issues that are coming up with regard to the sale of Paradise tomorrow. I’m coming along.”
“Why?”
“I have some questions.”
“Such as?”
“Why you met with Nelson Hendricks.”
“Are you kidding? He’s in charge of information, in case you hadn’t noticed. He’s the man making the deals work. He merely filled me in on some financial background.”
Or not, Nina thought. Hendricks had problems, a sick wife. Marianne had problems. Maybe they had worked out some solutions together. “Tomorrow at ten?”
“We’ve arranged to meet at the lift nearest the ski shop. I teach a class at nine. Novices. Snowplow.” Marianne sounded dismissive. “Teaching them to fall without breaking their necks. Paradise’s most profitable class, by the way.”
Nina imagined Marianne, warm in her North Face parka and expensive snow boots, and herself in her lawyer-wear, standing around in the snow. “Ten is fine,” Nina said, “but let’s make it at the dining room at Paradise.”
“Why?”
“Snow. Bad weather. Slips.”
“If you insist. Tell Eric, okay? And I’d like my brother, Gene, you remember him, to come. If you don’t hear from me by e-mail this evening, I’ll see you both at ten.”
“Thank you,” Nina said.
“It’s good. I want to talk to you, too.”
Paul hadn’t called, and Nina wasn’t in the mood to try to reach his cell phone. She let the Strong case sit tight for a minute. Its issues had taken over the past few days and she had catching up to do.
Kurt called at five sharp as Sandy was gathering her purse to go home.
“I’ll lock up,” Nina told her.
“Don’t forget you have a home.” Sandy pulled the door shut behind her.
Nina said into the phone, “You didn’t show up at the counseling appointment.”
“True.”
“No point, huh?”
“Listen, Nina, I’ve had to change my plans tonight. Can’t take Bob to the movies. Sorry.”
“I think because you were born in Michigan, I expected better from you. Midwesterners are generally so damn nice and reliable. You can’t say the same for Californians. We’re usually the ones all over the place.”
“Nina, don’t do this.”
“He’s counting on you.”
“I said I’m sorry.”
She had a moment that connected her to a bigger universe. She had picked Kurt due to a biological imperative—lust, desire, and some love mixed in. Disappointments, weaknesses, they came along with the body of the young forest ranger she had fallen in love with sixteen years before. Same body, different person, now.
“C’mon, Nina. He’ll find something better to do in two minutes.” Kurt’s voice sounded squeezed for air. He cleared his throat. “Tell him another time, soon, okay?”
“You tell him.”
“Okay. I’ll tell him.”
“He’s probably home.”
“I’ll call in a little while.” Kurt knew that Bob loved seeing him and that Nina liked having a weekday night now and then in which she didn’t have to make dinner and push Bob about homework. Kurt would show up and take Bob out for a while, and Nina would take a long bath and enjoy being alone. Like divorced or separated people with visitation rights, Nina thought.
As they seemed to be, come to think of it. “We should talk about—”
“Not now,” Kurt said. “I have to go.”
Nina hung up. Slinging her computer case and her bag over her shoulder, she went out to the RAV, frustrated and uneasy. She wished she could see Kurt. She didn’t like getting cut off like that. She didn’t like a newness in his voice, a strangeness.
Maybe she should swing by with something to eat, get a better bead on things? He loved her showing up with food.
En route, she passed a sushi place. Perfect. She swung into a sharp left across the highway.
Thirty minutes later, loaded with ebi, tekka maki, and California roll, she arrived at Kurt’s apartment house. He lived on the second floor. She could see the living room light glowing. Pulling into the parking area, she located his car parked almost directly opposite his apartment.
A revamped motel from the sixties, the apartment house featured concrete stairs that seemed to hang in the air. The heavy material suggested stability. The creaking of her steps exposed it as risky and cheap. She climbed carefully, watching that she didn’t catch a heel and go flying with all that good fishy stuff. She hadn’t done anything like this with Kurt for a while, showing up spontaneously, and she felt cheerful at the thought. She’d
keep the conversation light and go on her way to the next hungry male on the list, Bob.
Kurt’s door hung ajar. She knocked.
Kurt stuck his head out.
“Look!” she said, smiling. “Sushi! Get out your chopsticks.” She started inside.
“Hey, thanks.” He stepped forward, blocking her. He took the bag and opened it. He sniffed. “Umm. Good stuff. But, uh—”
“Can I come in?”
An unfamiliar female voice spoke from somewhere inside the apartment. Before Kurt could answer, a girl appeared beside his, young, as tall as Kurt, pale and delicate, with long, shiny, light hair. The girl scoped out Nina from head to toe. “Hello, I’m Dana.”
Nina blinked.
“Would you like to come in, Nina?” Kurt asked.
Nina knew she should go, but found herself unable to. She shifted from one foot to another. Her high heels hurt, suddenly and painfully. She wanted to sit down, but instead she and Dana looked at each other in an age-old way for which there are many names, Nina cursing herself for not putting on lip gloss before she had come. She licked her lips, noting that Dana did not need to lick her lips. She had the gloss thing down.
Kurt’s intent eyes captured Nina’s. “Dana arrived an hour ago. Unexpectedly. Please. Come in.”
Nina entered Kurt’s modestly furnished living room, where an overnight bag with those wheels that rotate all the way around was propped against the couch, a wad of ticketing stubs hanging off its handle. A huge, battered leather purse and a computer case leaned against the bag.
Kurt went to the table and set down the bag of sushi. Nina felt Dana looking again at her body, making comparisons.
“Wine,” Kurt said. “All I’ve got is Sangiovese.”
“An excellent wine,” Dana said. “You should try it.”
She had an accent. Well, she would. She was from Europe somewhere, Sweden or Germany, Nina couldn’t remember what Kurt had said when he had nonchalantly first mentioned her sometime back, or later when he had equally nonchalantly mentioned they were corresponding.
Dreams of the Dead Page 18
