by Chaz McGee
He smiled in my direction. ‘The difference between us, my friend, is that I found a lot of meaning in my life. You, son? Well, you looked like you were drifting. If you’re still hanging around, then maybe it’s not too late. Take it from me – if your life has no meaning, for Godsakes, find some.’
TWENTY-THREE
If, as Calvano seemed to think, all roads led to the mansion on the edge of town, then I would take one of them. I knew that the vice cop, Alice Hernandez, would be showing up in the morning and applying for the job of maid, but I considered myself the ultimate undercover operative and I wanted to get there first. Yes, it was a small badge of honor to wear, but it satisfied my pride. Besides, it was my chance to see how the presence of a newcomer would change the household. To do that, I first needed to see what it was like before Alice Hernandez arrived.
Like all big houses, the Delmonte House felt lonely. I wandered the empty halls and sterile rooms without even another spirit to keep me company. My unhappy friend was elsewhere, perhaps off searching for whatever it was he so desperately needed. He had left wisps of his unhappiness, though, and I felt his desperation as I passed through them. I knew I should help him. He was a fellow traveler, after all. But I just could not understand what it was he wanted or how it might connect to Arcelia Gallagher.
The house was in that period of calm that comes when its inhabitants are winding down for the night. Dakota Wylie was lying in bed, a cool washcloth over her bruised eyes as she dozed the groggy sleep of the medicated. The television in one corner of her bedroom played what seemed to be an endless loop of her old television show. I wondered if she ever left her bed, or ever left her old life, and I went in search of others.
Her manager, Lamont Carter, was sitting in the dark of a small movie theater that had been installed on the first floor. He, too, was watching an episode of the television series that had made Dakota Wylie famous. He felt coiled and angry, even alone, as if the fight he wanted to pick was with the entire world. Up on the screen, his client was bouncing around Hollywood’s idea of a dorm room with the unconscious, coltish grace of girl who has just crossed over into womanhood. Her heart-shaped face was perfect, with features that seemed carved out of ivory. I watched her until I could no longer bear to acknowledge the terrible truth of what she had done to her face in an effort to retain that beauty. I left Carter to his solitary worship, wondering if he realized that his client would no longer bring him so much as a dime. Her beauty was gone. Surely he realized that by now.
The old butler was sitting at the kitchen table doing a crossword puzzle and enjoying a cup of hot tea. His wife was sleeping in a bed in a room off the kitchen, her face smooth and unworried. I wondered if her husband ever stood and watched her sleep, remembering what his long life with her had once been like. It was probably the only time when he felt he had her back again.
Outside in the gathering evening, Rodrigo the gardener was collecting his tools and stashing them in the shed. He had worked long hours that day without anyone to help him. I would have felt sorry for him, but I felt that he knew more than he was saying about Arcelia Gallagher’s disappearance. Maybe he was remaining silent to protect his family, but it was robbing another man of his.
Or maybe he really didn’t know where Arcelia Gallagher was after all. He definitely moved with the easy air of a man whose conscience is clear. I followed him for a while, enjoying the summer air and the sounds of the birds as they settled down for the night. First, Rodrigo checked all the doors and windows of the house to make sure they were locked – a task he performed, I felt certain, to spare the old butler the chore. Each time he reached a new entrance into the house, he stopped and made the sign of the cross, then sprinkled droplets of holy water on the ground at his feet, marking a perimeter around the mansion.
When he was done securing the house for the night, both literally and spiritually, he took off across the lawn and I followed him, enjoying the smooth expanse of green that had once been tilled diligently by farmers, long before the crops had been bulldozed and the trees razed to make room for the huge house that towered behind us. Birds flew from the ground shadows as Rodrigo approached, while, overhead, the evening gathered. I could see no purpose to his walk, except perhaps to enjoy the night. There were worse ways to pass the time. The air was cooling and smelled of loam. It was a heavenly place to be.
But as Rodrigo reached the edge of the far lawn and turned back toward the house, I stepped through a pocket of despair so profound it nearly brought me to a halt. It was her. I could feel it.
I looked around, but saw nothing but open lawn for acres in either direction and, yet, I could clearly feel Arcelia Gallagher and her fear. She had been here and part of her lingered.
The gardener continued toward the house, whistling to himself as if his nightly ritual had cleared his mind and heart of troubles. I hurried after him. As he reached the shed, instead of heading toward his bedroom at the back of the house, he pulled a bicycle out of the small building, donned a bright orange safety jacket and began peddling toward town.
I had never been the best cop in the world, but even I realized that a man who traveled the world by bicycle would have a tough time kidnapping and concealing a pregnant woman. I doubted Rodrigo had been the one to bring Arcelia Gallagher here.
As I watched the orange of his jacket bob off into the dusk, I caught a glimpse of headlights behind a thick stand of oaks across the road. It was an odd place for a car to park. I moved closer. A beat-up old Chevy was idling in the trees between two fields still worked each day by the farmer who lived across the highway. The car had cut across the pasture to reach its hiding place, where it had a view of the Delmonte House.
I was curious to know who was in the car, and why, thinking perhaps Maggie and Calvano had sent someone to watch the house. But before I could check for myself, the car pulled out of the grove and made its way slowly across the field and on to the road. The Chevy slowed as it passed the Delmonte House, then pulled into a driveway a quarter-mile down the road and doubled back, passing by the house once again. I waited behind the split-level fence that lined the road in front of the mansion until it came so close to me that I could see a man and woman sitting in the front seat.
When the car pulled to a stop a few yards beyond me, I went over for a better look. The man was big and beefy with a buzz haircut and the jowls of a heavy drinker. He wore a plaid shirt unbuttoned at the top to reveal a grimy white tee shirt underneath. The woman next to him was in her fifties and wore a pink flowered blouse that strained against her ample chest. Her hair was dyed an unflattering shade of blonde and her heavy make-up accentuated her age. They stared back at the house, mesmerized, as best I could tell, by its size and splendor. Finally, the man started the car again and, continuing on another quarter-mile, once again turned around. This time, he stopped a few yards short of the front gate.
What in the world would the pair of them have to do with anyone in the Delmonte House? They were clearly from a different world. Their car had once been green but the paint had flaked off to reveal much of the metal base beneath and there were rust spots corroding the body’s edges. The license plate on the back of the car had been issued by Alabama and was splattered with mud. They had traveled far to see the house. The back seat was heaped high with cardboard boxes and paper bags filled with household possessions. It looked like they were living out of their car.
As the engine ticked in the silence of the night, cooling, the couple remained in the Chevy, staring through the gate at the mansion. At last, as the darkness settled around them, the man opened the car door and unfolded himself, stretching in the night air. He was tall and broad shouldered with a drinker’s belly that tapered down to spindly hillbilly legs. He wore jeans and a pair of cowboy boots with pointy toes that looked like they had kicked more than one man in his time.
The man tucked his shirt into his jeans, hitched up his waistband and started swaggering toward the low fence to the left of the gate. He
hopped it easily and went tromping up the driveway toward the house. So much for security. The old butler would be no match for him.
But before he could even ring the doorbell, a figure came racing out a side door toward him. It was Lamont Carter, Dakota Wylie’s manager. He held a handgun and looked like he was prepared to use it.
The man from the Chevy immediately held up his hands and backed up, smiling. Carter did not return the smile. ‘Get in the car, turn around and drive away,’ he told the newcomer. His voice was confident. With a gun in hand, he had no fear of the larger man. And his tone told me that he knew him well.
‘Is that any way to treat—’
‘Get in the car and drive away,’ Carter interrupted. He poked the gun into the bigger man’s chest, forcing him back a step. ‘I mean it.’ He stared at the other man, who inched down the driveway until he was pressed against the gate. Still aiming the gun at him, Carter unlocked a side gate and kicked it open. ‘Go on, get out of here.’
‘If you want us to leave,’ the other man said, ‘you’re going to have to give us some cash.’
‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’ Lamont Carter asked.
‘You’re damn right it’s like that,’ the big man retorted.
The two men stared at one another for what felt like minutes but was probably no more than a few seconds. They were gauging each other’s resolve. Lamont Carter was the first to give. ‘Get back in your car and wait. If you so much as get out of the car again, I swear to God I will shoot you both dead on the spot.’
‘Better make it a lot,’ the bigger man called after Carter as he headed for his car.
The woman with the garish make-up was waiting for him, her mouth a scarlet ‘O’. She had obviously overheard their exchange and looked a little frightened.
‘How much is he getting us?’ the woman asked her companion as he climbed back into the front seat with her. She had a thick Southern drawl.
‘Enough,’ he said sullenly. ‘At least for now.’
‘Let’s get us a motel room and a couple bottles for later, then maybe find us a steak dinner and a bar where we can score a bump or two. Hell, maybe three. We’re rich now.’ The woman smiled, revealing bad teeth, and her eyes lit up. I guess it was her idea of a perfect evening.
The man looked disgusted and didn’t bother to hide his contempt for her. ‘You seriously can’t think of anything better to spend our money on than that?’ He shook his head. ‘You deserve to be poor. You know that? You deserve to be poor.’
The woman knew enough not to argue. She turned on the radio, selecting a country music channel, and smiled secretly to herself as if she were already imagining how she would spend the money. The man was less complacent. He seethed with anger. However much money Carter returned with, something told me it would not be enough.
I waited with the couple, wondering if they would say something to reveal who they might be. But they were done talking to one another.
Lamont Carter returned with a thick envelope of bills and knocked on the car window. He handed it to the larger man without comment. The man thumbed through the money greedily and smiled. He cast a gleeful look at Carter. ‘This ought to last us for a while.’
‘That better last you for the rest of your life,’ Carter told him. ‘And if it doesn’t, I can take care of that problem, too.’ He held up the gun and stared the older man down.
‘Come on, Barton,’ the woman said. ‘He always was an ungrateful little bastard. I need a hotel room and a drink.’
The older man turned the key in the ignition and gunned the engine, fishtailing down the shoulder of the road, spewing rocks and gravel behind him. When he reached the asphalt, he turned abruptly and went squealing off down the highway, the car engine roaring to life with surprising strength.
Lamont Carter stared after them as he gently caressed his gun. He hated them, that much was clear, though his hate felt more like a habit than a burning emotion. He was not seeing the last of them and he knew it. But whatever lay ahead, something told me that Lamont Carter was ready for it.
TWENTY-FOUR
I went in search of Maggie and Calvano. I had learned plenty that night, though I wasn’t sure how much it mattered, and I had no way of letting anyone know. I knew now that Lamont Carter was being blackmailed, though I didn’t know why, and I knew that Arcelia Gallagher had been at the Delmonte House while in an extreme state of despair and might very well still be there. I didn’t know how long ago she had been there, but only a life-threatening situation could have produced the emotion I had felt lingering in the field.
It was completely dark and though my town should have felt peaceful in the summer night, the streets were empty. People were afraid. Curtains and shades had been drawn against prying eyes and an air of suspicion filled the air.
Earlier that day, I knew that patrol cars had been sent to rescue Danny Gallagher from a group of young men who had surrounded his truck at a convenience store, intending to take justice into their own hands. The patrolman had reported back to Maggie that Danny just sat there as the teenagers climbed over his truck and began to rock it back and forth.
‘It was like he was made out of stone,’ one of the cops explained. ‘It was like he thought he deserved it.’
It seemed the whole town now thought Danny Gallagher deserved it. Though he had been rescued, he had finally been forced to leave his farm and was staying at an undisclosed location set up by his father. At least his old man was stepping up to help.
Meanwhile, Gonzales had apparently grown so desperate for positive press that he had actually agreed to go on Lindsey Stanford’s talk show. I had watched incredulously, in some stranger’s living room, as Gonzales turned on the charm, said little, yet appeared to be perfectly forthright. He had managed, without quite coming out and saying so, to make it sound as if Aldo Flores was under suspicion and Enrique Romero was refusing to cooperate with the police. He had also flattered Lindsey Stanford so shamelessly that she had refrained from her usual hardball style.
In this world, when you’re as shallow and willing as Gonzales to kiss ass, things always break your way.
Maggie and Calvano, of course, were stuck doing the actual work. I caught them just as they were leaving the station house, cups of coffee and late-night sandwiches in hand. I was pretty sure they’d been meeting with the rest of the case team and, judging from their faces, nothing of value had been uncovered.
I knew the moment I took my place in their back seat that they were headed to the church to see Father Sojak again – Calvano looked as if it were his rights being violated and Maggie looked determined.
‘If what we had wasn’t good enough for a judge, why are we going there again?’ Calvano complained.
Maggie sounded impatient. ‘Because we have nothing else to go on. It’s as if she vanished from the face of the earth and the only people who know where she might have gone are too afraid of us to say anything. We have to get through to someone. We can’t keep bumbling around in the dark. We have to find a direction.’
‘What are you going to do if Father Sojak says no?’ Calvano asked. ‘We can’t force him to cooperate.’
‘I really don’t know.’
But Father Sojak didn’t say no. In fact, he met them at the door of the rectory with so much friendliness that I suspected he had somehow known that they were coming. The trio of nuns who served the church were clustered behind him, the old nun shielding the younger ones with her body.
‘We have to speak to some of the illegal immigrants who knew Arcelia Gallagher,’ Maggie said simply. ‘We have had no other leads and we’re desperate.’
‘Come in,’ Father Sojak said, opening the door. ‘We’ve been expecting you.’
Maggie and Calvano followed him in, baffled at his generosity. Not me. He was slick. He would raise less suspicion if he treated them with courtesy. I knew what he was hiding: an entire basement full of illegal immigrants beneath our very feet. The last thing he wanted to risk was having t
hat room discovered.
Everyone headed toward the small sitting room where the old priest had been snoozing a few days before. He was there once again, fast asleep in his old armchair, and apparently the others who lived at the rectory were used to treating him as just another piece of furniture. They all took seats without commenting on his presence. After a brief glance at the priest, Maggie and Calvano followed their lead.
‘Since your last visit, I have asked the sisters to speak with some of our parishioners who may have come in contact with Arcelia,’ Father Sojak said. He nodded at the older nun.
The nun faced them with determination. ‘We have, in fact, spoken to as many of them as we can on your behalf.’ She sounded defiant when she said this, as if she had not appreciated being treated as a suspect and wanted it known that she was on their side. ‘Most of them knew nothing, only the same wild rumors that you yourself have probably heard.’
‘What rumors?’ Calvano interrupted. He looked interested.
‘Oh, you know. Things like she went out to the Delmonte House and the spirits got her. We can’t always keep these people from interjecting their own superstitions into our religion, you know.’
Maggie went for the low blow. ‘I seem to recall your religion is pretty superstitious to begin with,’ she said.
The nun looked at Maggie sharply. ‘Didn’t I have you in one of my classes when you were a girl?’ she asked. Her voice held a hint of steel.
Maggie actually looked alarmed. It was a reflex, I think, from a childhood spent in Catholic schools. ‘No, you did not. Please continue.’
‘As I said, we talked to as many of . . .’ the nun’s voice faltered and she began again. ‘We talked to as many of the people who will not speak to the authorities as we could. I would say we interviewed over one hundred of them. Wouldn’t you say so, Heather? Felicia?’
