by Chaz McGee
Calvano pulled a chair up to her bedside and sat down without asking. He still did not look directly at her. ‘I bet it can get pretty lonely in here,’ he offered. ‘It’s a big house you have here.’
She nodded as she picked up a piece of cantaloupe with her fingers and nibbled daintily at it. Her lips were so swollen she had trouble finding her mouth. It was clear she’d had injections of something in them. Instead of driving me wild, the sight of the cantaloupe bumping against those swollen lips seemed almost grotesque. Why would she think men wanted her to look that way? I was repelled.
‘It does get lonely, but Enrique has a lot of business to attend to,’ she told Calvano. ‘Ever since he married me, his career has taken off again. I guess it was good for his reputation that someone as young as me fell in love with him.’
Calvano studied her carefully, perhaps for the first time. She returned his gaze with wide eyes and a flirtatious tilt of her head and I realized, as I looked around the room, that all the mirrors had been removed from it. Maybe she didn’t know what she looked like? I wasn’t sure she would have seen herself as others saw her even if she had studied herself in the bathroom mirrors nearby. I was beginning to suspect that she had lost touch with reality.
‘You really love your husband, don’t you?’ Calvano asked her. ‘I can tell by the way you talk about him.’
‘I’ve loved him since I was a little girl,’ she replied in a dreamy voice. ‘I used to stare at his picture in magazines and imagine that one day he would come and sweep me off my feet and buy me a huge, beautiful mansion and all the jewels I could ever want. And cake. I was very young then, you see. I was very interested in cake.’ She smiled again, but this time it was a practiced smile, the one she reserved for the cameras when she was pretending. ‘Not many girls can say that they grew up and married the man of their childhood dreams.’
‘And what about him? Does he love you back?’
It was an unexpected question and she looked startled that Calvano would ask it.
‘What do you mean?’ she stammered.
‘Here you are, pregnant and clearly recovering from . . .’ He stumbled for the right words, ‘Recovering from some sort of minor automobile accident, perhaps?’
She nodded eagerly at his assumption, completely unaware that he could see through the excuse he had offered.
‘If you were my wife, I would not leave your side,’ Calvano said simply.
She smiled at him, hungry for the compliment. Her shoulders straightened a little. She was one of those women that doesn’t really exist in her own mind unless she is basking in the attention of others. When I realized this, what she had done to herself suddenly seemed so very sad. She was a beautiful woman, not yet in her prime, and yet she had felt driven to risk her trademark beauty and endanger the life of her baby – all to look a few years younger.
‘Enrique means well,’ she told Calvano. She had not been able to bring herself to eat any more fruit and it sat, forgotten, in her bowl. ‘I am sure he would stay with me if he could. I think sometimes his agent encourages him to leave without me.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Calvano asked. ‘And why is that? Isn’t he your agent, too?’
She nodded. ‘Phil took me on soon after Enrique and I were married. Lamont, that’s my manager, is very protective of me and he and my old agent just couldn’t seem to get along. So it seemed like a good time to make a change.’
I thought of the cocky little man that was her manager and I could totally see that happening. He probably ran everyone off in her life.
‘But I don’t think Phil really believes in me,’ she added suddenly, looking up at Calvano. She needed a compliment from him. ‘I think he sees me as just another pretty face. He doesn’t believe I can act. But once I have my baby, just you wait and see. I’ll be on the cover of every tabloid and in the pages of every magazine, and just as soon as I lose the baby weight, I’ll be back and I’ll be bigger and more famous than ever. I’ll make my husband and everyone else proud of me.’
Calvano smiled as if he believed what she was saying, but even he could see that she had ruined her face – and her chances – forever.
‘I’m sorry your maid left you,’ Calvano said. ‘Did she tell you why she left?’
Dakota Wylie nodded. ‘She said that now there were two women missing from town, and she was afraid she would be next. She said she was going to take another job somewhere else and that she was sorry to leave me but she was too afraid to stay in this town.’
‘It does seem curious, doesn’t it? Two women – both of them Mexican, both of them with ties to this house – missing?’ Calvano said.
‘What do you mean?’ Dakota Wylie asked. ‘How are they connected to this house?’
‘One visited here and the other is married to one of the gardeners. She often came here to bring him lunch.’
Dakota Wylie looked down at her silk coverlet. ‘I didn’t know that. But I don’t see how that can mean anything. There is no one here who would do something like that.’
‘May I ask you about your husband?’ Calvano said.
She looked frightened. ‘He would never do anything like that.’
‘He was married before you, wasn’t he? Several times in fact. Do you know what his other wives looked like?’
She nodded slowly. ‘They looked like me. He likes blondes. Young blondes, preferably. That is why I am determined to stay looking good for him. But you see, that means that those missing women, well – they just aren’t his type, are they? Besides, he’s not here enough to have done anything like that.’ There was a trace of bitterness in her words.
Calvano felt that he’d pushed it as far as he could. ‘When is the baby due?’ he asked. ‘You must be very excited.’
She patted her belly and smiled. ‘In about a month, I think. The doctors aren’t quite sure.’ She looked up at Calvano. ‘Do you know that in all the times that Enrique has been married, I am the first to give him a child? He wants children more than anything in the world and I am going to be the one to give them to him.’
Calvano looked surprised. ‘Really? You’re telling me that in four prior marriages, not one of those women had his kid?’ He did not say what I was thinking: Enrique Romero was like Henry VIII, going through wife after wife in search of an heir, when the problem, in fact, surely lay with him.
‘Really,’ she assured Calvano. ‘I think it’s a miracle, don’t you? It’s a sign that we belong together.’
Calvano looked at her for a moment, unsure of what to say, and I don’t think she saw the sadness that I could sense in him. ‘Perhaps,’ he finally said as he rose to go. ‘I hope that you will both be very happy. All three of you, I mean. Your baby will be a very lucky baby.’
‘You’re a nice man, do you know that?’ she told Calvano. ‘I didn’t know that nice men could be detectives.’
Calvano looked sad. ‘Trust me, sometimes I can be not so nice.’
‘Oh, I don’t believe that for a moment,’ she said, touching his hand and letting her fingers linger. ‘I think you just might be about the nicest man I’ve ever met.’
But as if to test Calvano’s words, her manager, Lamont Carter, burst into the room at that moment, angry at finding Calvano alone with his client. I should’ve heard him coming down the hall, but I was too intent on trying to figure out what was going on between Calvano and Dakota Wylie. Was she messing with him, manipulating him or being genuine? It was impossible to tell.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing in here?’ Carter demanded. ‘I’m going to fire that old man for letting you up here.’
‘No you aren’t,’ Dakota Wylie said firmly. ‘I like Mr Jarvis and you’re not going to fire him.’ She never raised her voice in the slightest, but I had the feeling that her manager would do anything she said, anything at all. Certainly, he did not press the point.
‘I just brought up her breakfast,’ Calvano said. ‘That’s all.’
‘Well, she has her breakfast,
so you can go now,’ Carter said rudely. His eyes darted back and forth between his client and Calvano, as if he were convinced that they had been plotting against him and he was trying to find a way to counteract their plans.
‘Whatever,’ Calvano said with a shrug. Then he smiled at Dakota Wylie so genuinely that I honestly believed that he did not see the bruises, the swelling and the tiny bandages at the corners of her hairline. I think he saw a woman so beautiful it made your heart stop; a fairy princess come to life. It’s amazing what the heart can do to the eyes.
‘You can go now,’ the manager said more loudly. Calvano stared at Lamont Carter. His gaze lingered as he scrutinized the other man’s shorter frame, letting Carter know that he could posture and threaten and bully as much as he wanted, but Calvano would always outrank him in every way. Carter got the message. His nostrils flared and he clamped his lips tight as he held back the insults he wanted to say.
‘Goodbye,’ Calvano said to Dakota Wylie. ‘It was so nice talking to you.’
Her face brightened with the automatic graciousness of a woman who was used to being adored and wanted to keep it coming. ‘It was so nice talking to you,’ she chirped back.
To hear that beautiful, breathy voice coming out of that ravaged face was like a sucker punch to the gut.
As for Calvano, he glanced back at the manager over his shoulder and his look held a warning – Calvano would be watching him.
I, of course, could do that quite literally. I stayed behind to see what Lamont Carter would do once he was alone with Dakota Wylie. I was not entirely convinced that the bruises she was hiding were caused by plastic surgery. But the moment they were alone, he hurried over to her, sat on the edge of her bed and gathered her in his arms. She leaned back against him, surrendering herself to his embrace. I had to admit that I had never seen her look so content as she did in that moment, being rocked back and forth in her manager’s arms as he whispered soothing words to her. She looked beautiful today, he was telling her, more beautiful than ever, and soon the whole world would know it, too.
I figured there was a better than even chance that Dakota Wylie’s baby was going to come out with corn yellow hair and look a hell of a lot more like that short little man than it would look like the great Latin lover Enrique Romero.
Inside the kitchen, Maggie was helping the old man wash the coffee dishes. They were chatting like old friends while the butler’s wife beamed at them from her place at the table. She smiled when she saw Calvano, assuming she must know him, not wanting to give away the confusion she felt.
‘Ready to rock ‘n roll?’ Calvano asked Maggie.
She read this tone instantly and dried her hands on a towel. ‘Sure. Let me just thank Mr Jarvis for his help.’ She shook hands with the elderly butler before they left through the back door but I stayed behind long enough to see Mr Jarvis shuffle over to the kitchen table, a little slower than usual. The effort of appearing happy and in control had taken a lot out of him. He sat next to his wife with a sigh and closed his eyes. He was too old to be coping with so much.
Back in the car, Calvano told Maggie what he had learned upstairs and of how her manager had made it plain he felt a need to protect Dakota Wylie.
‘Do you think Gonzales is right, that it’s possible her husband is involved with the missing women in some way?’ Maggie asked him.
Calvano shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. She’s flaky and she’s out of it, but she’s right – he’s not here enough to pull off something like kidnapping or killing two women.’
‘What about the manager? Could he be behind it?’
Calvano shrugged. ‘I don’t see why he would. There’s no motive. He just seems like a really short jerk to me. No surprise there.’
Maggie stared out the windshield. ‘Mr Jarvis told me that Aldo was a reliable worker, steady and even-tempered. He was very thoughtful. He even brought in flowers for Mr Jarvis’s wife every day, because he knew it made her happy to look at them. He says that there is no way Aldo could be involved in the disappearance of his wife or Arcelia Gallagher. I don’t think Flores is involved, either. He’s sitting there in a jail cell, Adrian, and he doesn’t have anything to do with this.’
‘I know,’ Calvano said. ‘It sucks. But I think the only way we’re going to get him out of there is to find out who is responsible. Gonzales is on the war path.’
Maggie’s phone vibrated and she checked the number. ‘Crap,’ she muttered. ‘Gonzales wants to see us.’
‘That can’t be good. You think your ex-husband complained about me rearranging his face for him?’ Calvano sounded worried. He’d gone off once or twice before and it was on the record. He was trying to rehabilitate his image and he didn’t need it noted that he had punched a member of the media in the nose pretty much just for standing there. Not that the guy didn’t deserve it.
Maggie shook her head. ‘No, Skip won’t tell anyone what happened. He likes to be the big, strong guy and if he tells people that you cold-cocked him with a single punch, well – he’ll just look like a dumb ass. This has to be something else.’
‘I’m not sure that’s much better,’ Calvano mumbled. He was afraid of Gonzales and I didn’t blame him.
NINETEEN
The media had the station house under siege once again.
‘Don’t these people ever stop?’ Calvano asked. ‘Isn’t this Sunday?’
Maggie sighed and she sounded tired. ‘I don’t know what day it is, so I can’t tell you.’
They climbed from the car. The crowd of reporters gauged whether they were worth their attention. Skip Bostwick stood among them, a bandage covering his nose. Purple bruises bloomed around each eye. He glared at Maggie and Calvano but looked away without saying anything. He was going to keep it to himself.
‘Nice work,’ Maggie told Calvano. They pushed their way through the crowd, refusing to answer any questions. Lindsey Stanford had been expecting the brush-off and she was ready. Giving her cameraman a signal, she snapped into on-camera mode and began her monologue. ‘Meanwhile, authorities are refusing to cooperate with the media and are stonewalling reporters on their progress. This has led more than one observer to remark that it is unlikely they have any leads in the case. Arcelia Gallagher has been missing for over forty-eight hours and chances are growing that the outcome of this story will not be a happy one. None of these developments appear to trouble her husband, Daniel Gallagher, who remains free – despite a growing consensus that he, and only he, knows what happened to his wife.’
If Lindsey Stanford thought it would rattle Maggie, she was wrong. Maggie just shook her head slightly and pushed through the double doors into the station house, past a line of uniformed men assigned to keep the media hordes outside.
Freddy, the desk sergeant who had ruled the front counter for decades, called out to Maggie as soon as he saw her. ‘There’s some Mexican guy hanging around the lobby who says he’ll only talk to the two of you. He went out for some coffee, but he’ll be back. He says it’s important. The guy seemed terrified.’
‘What do you mean some Mexican guy?’ Maggie asked. ‘Can you be more specific?’
Freddy shrugged. ‘He looked like a Mexican guy.’
Maggie gave him a look of disgust and headed for the elevator as Calvano scurried after her. ‘What’s your problem?’ he asked as they stepped into in the car.
Maggie jabbed the floor button angrily. ‘Did you ever think we wouldn’t be in this mess if this whole town didn’t assume that all Mexicans looked alike?’
But Calvano’s conscience was clear. ‘No, I don’t think that. But I do think we wouldn’t be in this mess if some massive scumbag hadn’t taken Arcelia Gallagher.’
‘Point well taken,’ Maggie conceded. She seemed reluctant to leave the elevator when they reached the fourth floor. The closer they got to Gonzales’s office, the slower she walked. She was directing the investigation and she knew that his priorities did not coincide with hers. She wanted to find Arcelia Ga
llagher and the other missing woman. He wanted to make sure that he came off looking good in the press, that the case fueled his rise to the top, and that the local fat cats were pleased with how the town came off in the national press. None of them gave a crap about Arcelia Gallagher.
‘Have a seat,’ Gonzales told them. He was reading an e-mail on his BlackBerry and barely gave them a glance. Abruptly, he shoved the device in a drawer and placed both hands on his desk, staring back and forth between Maggie and Calvano. The silence in the room lengthened.
‘Well?’ he finally said.
‘Well,’ Maggie answered, her voice holding more than a trace of impatience. ‘We’ve spent the morning out at the Delmonte House and I can tell you right now that Aldo Flores has nothing to do with the disappearance of Arcelia Gallagher or his wife. You have a man sitting in a jail cell who has done absolutely nothing, who is clearly a victim as well, and once the press gets wind he is there, he will be crucified.’ I had never heard Maggie challenge Gonzales so directly. The case was getting to her.
‘It’s been forty-eight hours,’ Gonzales reminded her. ‘We’re looking for a body at this point. It will be found and when it does, someone is going to have to pay.’
Calvano was in over his head and remained silent. He understood that Maggie and Gonzales had a complicated relationship, one that stretched back to her childhood when she had grown up wanting to be a cop, just like her father, and Gonzales had promised to hire her one day after she got some experience under her belt. He had done just that right before I died, hiring her away from the Wilmington force and bumping her up a rank.
‘Wouldn’t it be better if the person who actually did it paid for it?’ Maggie suggested.
Gonzales lost his temper. I had never seen that happen before, either. It rose in him and flared before he willed it back under control with monumental effort. I think that scared me more than anything. To know he had that kind of anger in him, and the control to use it for his own purposes was terrifying, even though he held no power over me.
