Melissa Bourbon Ramirez - Lola Cruz 02 - Hasta la Vista, Lola!

by Melissa Bourbon Ramirez

  Her eyes flicked to Jack; her expression grew more alert.

  “Jack Callaghan,” he said, tossing her one of his charming smiles.

  With my card still pinched between my fingers, I gave him a back off look. His smile dimmed.

  Turning back to the woman, I concentrated on my own congeniality. “Do you know Ms. Cruz down the hall?”

  “Who?”

  “Ms. Cruz,” I repeated.

  “Number fourteen.” Her head bobbed up and down. “She gone.”

  My breath caught in my throat, and I grabbed Jack’s arm. Maybe this was the right place!

  Jack patted my hand. His touch calmed my racing heart. “Right. That’s right. Do you know where she went?”

  “I not know nothin’.” Then quick as a snake, she slammed the door closed. The dead bolt clicked into place.

  Jack shoved his hands in his pockets. “That went well.”

  “But it’s got to be her.” I knew my excitement at finding the dead woman’s apartment was twisted, but I couldn’t help it. “This has to be our Dolores Cruz. I feel it in my gut.”

  He flashed me the same smile he’d given the woman a moment ago. “Let’s hope so. She may have opened up to me, you know. With a little flirting—”

  “Yeah, but I couldn’t ask you to compromise your integrity.” I moved down the hall, eager to talk to another neighbor and to avoid admitting that I wanted his flirting all to myself.

  He smiled bigger. “I might compromise it for you.”

  “But if you did, then you wouldn’t be the Jack I’ve always—” I bit my tongue. What had I been about to say? The Jack I’d lusted after since I’d photographed him—postcoital—when we were still teenagers? The Jack I’d wanted to succumb to in a fit of unbridled passion? The Jack I could, just possibly, if the stars aligned and all that, love? “I’ve always respected.”

  He managed not to laugh. Admirable, considering I was pretty sure he knew exactly what had passed through my mind.

  I dropped the subject when we stopped in front of another neighbor’s door. I knocked. And knocked again. After a few more tries with no answer, I moved on.

  A faint rustling noise seeped through the door directly across from Dolores Cruz’s apartment. When I tapped my knuckles against it, the rustling grew louder.

  An unbelievably deep voice that sounded like a human foghorn bellowed, “Who’s there?” The words seemed to ooze out around the edges of the slick door.

  I leaned closer to Jack, catching a hint of his musky scent. “Feel free to flirt with him,” I whispered. To the door I said, “Sir, I’d like to talk with you about one of your neighbors.”

  “Who?”

  Did no one know this woman? “Your neighbor in apartment fourteen?”

  “She gone,” the man said from behind the door.

  “Yes, I know that,” I said in a singsong voice. “I’m a private investigator looking into her—her—being gone.”

  The door opened abruptly, and an enormous black man filled the rectangular frame, his bulk leaving no space to see into the room behind him. His face was friendly enough, round and pudgy, with tightly wound hair trimmed close to the scalp.

  “Why you investigating? She do something?”

  “We’re not sure yet,” I said.

  Jack nudged himself closer to me. “So, do you know her?”

  “Nope. Jus’ saw her round.” The deep rumbling of his voice vibrated through me. He shifted his girth, heaving his trunklike legs wider for balance.

  I opened my mouth to speak but frowned when Jack’s voice came out. “Did you happen to notice if she had any regular visitors? Anything at all out of the ordinary.”

  I elbowed him.

  The man peered at Jack, raising his brows at him in a silent question.

  “Jack Callaghan.” He offered his hand and an engaging smile.

  “Kyron Banks,” the man said, returning the handshake.

  I marveled at the effect of Jack’s smile. It worked on men and women. He was shameless.

  Kyron’s hand engulfed Jack’s, wiry hairs sticking out from the black pores that speckled his skin. “Nice to meet you, Kyron,” Jack said.

  Kyron grunted. The sound played like the lowest key on a piano.

  I nudged in front of Jack and jumped back into the conversation. “Mr. Banks, Ms. Cruz is dead.” I paused, waiting for a reaction. Nada. “We think her real name was Rosie Gonzales.”

  His round face with its two wide eyes and a round mouth reminded me of a bowling ball. “Huh.” Kyron didn’t seem surprised to know his neighbor had been using an alias, or that she was dead, for that matter.

  “Mr. Banks, the smallest bit of information might help.”

  He grasped the doorjamb, hoisted his mass onto one leg, adjusted his position, and rooted his feet again. “They leavin’. I know that much.”

  At last! “Leaving? You mean moving?”

  He angled his gaze at the locked door across the hall. “Boxes stacked high in there. They leavin’, all right.”

  Jack cleared his throat. “Kyron. You said ‘they.’ Did someone else live with Ms. Gonzales?”

  Kyron shrugged. “Jus’ her and the boy.”

  “Rosie had a child?” I asked, nervously pushing my hair back behind my ears. The news hadn’t mentioned that little fact. Not something Seavers would have discovered from a corpse. “Where is he now?”

  Kyron Banks shrugged again. “Don’t know.”

  The typical scenario of an abused woman came to mind. Was she running from someone? Was that her story? “Did you ever see a husband? A man?”

  Kyron’s lower lip protruded out. “Yeah, she have a man around sometimes.”

  Oh, boy. Had an estranged husband or boyfriend killed Rosie and taken her son? Or—oh, God—could the boy be inside the apartment?

  “Mr. Banks,” I said, panic filling my voice, “do you have any idea where her son might be?”

  He seemed to understand my meaning. He clamped his mouth shut and lumbered past us. With his body turned to the side, he blocked most of Rosie Gonzales’s door.

  Jack and I stared at him.

  “He’s going in!” I whispered.

  And then suddenly Kyron propelled his massive body forward and pounded his shoulder against the door of apartment 14. There was a loud crack, and a foot-long piece of molding split from the door frame. The door banged open, pieces of ragged wood splintering.

  I gawked. “Wow. Uh, hmm. Wow.”

  Kyron lumbered back across the hallway to his apartment and turned back to us. “Hope you find him,” he said just before he stepped inside his apartment and closed the door.

  I looked at Jack, then at the open door. What to do? I was in a moral conundrum that was easily answered. If there was a child inside, we had to find him.

  Jack went first. I tiptoed inside after him, my heart thumping in my chest. I did a quick search of the apartment, satisfied that there was no child trapped inside. Breathing again, I centered myself. We were in Rosie Gonzales’s apartment. Answers were just minutes away.

  Chapter 7

  My first mistake was breathing. I gagged at the stench in the apartment. Rotting food, soiled baby diapers, and other untold odors mingled in the air. My nostrils twitched. “Oh m-my G-God,” I sputtered, “this is a-awful.”

  The expression on Jack’s face said it all. I’d had the opportunity to do a little snooping at his loft, and the man was neater than me. Which is saying a lot. He ran his hand through his hair and turned his back on me for a second. Glad I was a neat freak, too. Sloppiness might be a deal-breaker for Jack.

  The thought that I should call Manny or Detective Seavers flitted through my mind. And flitted right out again. I wasn’t billing hours for Manny. Best not to disturb him. And I didn’t feel confident that Seavers would see our entrance into Rosie’s apartment as the innocent breaking and entering it was.

  I gave the main room a good perusal. A rickety-looking drop-leaf table was pushed up against t
he far wall, two equally rickety chairs tucked under it. Boxes were haphazardly pushed against the walls, the flaps lying open, bundles of newspaper-wrapped belongings piled into them. Discarded sections littered the floor. Kyron had been right on the money; Rosie had been planning to get the hell out of Dodge.

  A rumpled couch sat in the middle of the room, angled out of its original position. Scraps of papers, a few action figures, and a handful discarded Cheerios were scattered around. Other than the action figures, there didn’t seem to be much for a child to play with. No high chair, no other toys, no kids’ clothing amid the laundry piled on a chair. Pobrecito.

  “This Dolores isn’t much of a housekeeper,” Jack said. “Thank God you’re into cleanliness.”

  “I am, but just so you know, I think you have unreasonably high expectations.” I mean, his apartment had even passed the white glove test I’d given it.

  “Actually,” he said, raising an eyebrow at me, “setting high expectations means people generally rise to the occasion. And you,” he added, “could give Martha Stewart a run for her money.”

  I couldn’t argue his point. My mother had trained me to be freakishly clean. I scoured my apartment when I needed to think, cleaned just for fun, and took pride in a spotless house.

  Apparently Rosie Gonzales didn’t steal that part of my identity. A black plastic bag of trash had spilled across the floor in the kitchen. I whipped out the purple rubber gloves I always carried in my purse for just such a situation, slipped them on, and handed Jack a set. He arched an amused brow at me. I waggled my head back at him. “I believe in being prepared,” I said.

  “So do I,” he shot back. “Trojans. Ring a bell?”

  Heat rose to my cheeks. I quickly turned back to the contents of the bag, picking through it with my thumb and index finger.

  “You know you’re messing with the evidence here,” Jack said.

  “Yeah, that’s occurred to me. But Rosie was a victim, not a suspect. That makes it a little less of an offense, right?” I wasn’t really asking for his approval, but if he agreed, I’d definitely feel better.

  He slapped on his gloves. “I guess so. But we should be careful.”

  “Of course.” That was understood.

  “You actually enjoy doing this, don’t you?”

  I peered up at him. “Yes.” His pant leg brushed against me as he crouched by my side, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. Somehow, I managed to keep searching. Now that I knew there was a child involved—and potentially in danger—I was on a mission.

  “Find anything?” he asked a few minutes later.

  Had the woman’s garbage held something sexier than discarded food, dirty diapers, and junk mail, I might have responded differently to his seductive tone. Instead, I stifled another gag. “Not yet,” I said, and dug deeper. I burrowed through the waste, my gloved hand finding a pile of papers that had been shoved into the bottom of the bag. I pulled them out.

  They looked promising. I took my find to the table and sat down. The chair creaked under my weight, and I braced myself in case it collapsed. My palms pressed against the table, my weight shifting from butt to feet. There was another ominous creak, but thankfully the chair held.

  Jack lifted a cushion from the couch and bent down to peer at the crumbs. “Find the smoking gun?” he asked.

  “Funny.”

  He dropped the cushion back into place. “This place needs fumigation.”

  I nodded, flipping through the papers in front of me. “We should leave everything just like we found it.”

  “Yeah,” Jack deadpanned, eyeing the busted door. “Wouldn’t want to mess things up.” He pushed the couch parallel to the wall, crouched down, and pulled a glossy folder out from underneath. He flipped through it. “Are you going to tell that detective you were here?”

  My methodical search of the papers continued. “If we find something that can confirm it’s Rosie’s apartment.” My voice remained remarkably calm. “We figured out the address. The door was open.” By Kyron, and illegally, but we thought there was a child in danger. Surely Detective Seavers would see the urgency.

  Jack held up the folder. “Looks like our vic did a stint in drug rehab.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I played it nonchalant, not wanting to let on how hot I thought he looked, holding up a valuable clue in my own personal mystery. “Where?”

  “Brenda Dawson Clinic for Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation,” he read. “In Auburn.”

  He handed me the folder. I looked at the information inside: my name scrawled on the top in black Sharpie, and a date. “She was there a year ago, according to this.” It might have been ancient history, but it was worth following up on. I wrote down the clinic information before handing the folder back to him. He put it back under the couch, and I went back to Rosie’s papers.

  They were crumpled and stained in various colors of God knew what. The woman had tossed away weeklies from the mail, a variety of glossy mailers, and credit card solicitations. It was all addressed to Dolores Cruz. The more I saw my name, the fuzzier my brain felt.

  The stack grew smaller, but I gave each piece of paper a thorough examination before putting it in my “of no importance” pile. I still didn’t have proof that this was Rosie’s apartment. My gut wasn’t enough.

  “Here’s something,” I said, holding up a credit card application. “It’s partially filled out.” My blood ran cold as I saw the neat, left-slanted writing. It had my address, the name Rosie, and the G-O-N from Gonzales, but that was crossed out and mine was written in its place. But she’d tossed it away. Too many mistakes, I guessed.

  I wondered about something Detective Seavers had said. He’d thought maybe I’d been letting an illegal immigrant use my name. Seavers had identified her through an anonymous caller, not through AFIS. If she was an illegal, her prints wouldn’t be part of the fingerprinting system. She wouldn’t exist as far as the United States was concerned. I wondered if Gonzales was really her last name.

  She was inconsistent as a thief; that much was clear. “It’s her. This is Rosie’s place.” My address on the application was proof enough for me.

  I put the application in my “keep” pile and moved on. Three other partially filled out credit card applications, these complete with my Social Security number, had been in Rosie’s trash. How much damage had this woman done to me? And how much more would she have managed had she not died? I slammed both hands on the table. “How did she get this stuff?”

  “There are a thousand ways. Identity theft’s still the fastest-growing crime in America.”

  So Seavers had told me.

  “I can’t believe it.” My voice shook. “You read about this stuff, but you never think it’ll happen to you.”

  Jack laid his purple gloved hand on mine, his rubbery touch only mildly comforting. “You need to assess the situation and act based on the facts.”

  I swallowed and nodded, waving the credit applications in the air. “I will. I am.” I added the applications to the “keep” pile and finished looking through the diminishing stack.

  The next valuable piece of garbage was a birthday party invitation. It was for a boy named Elijah. No last name. Pins pricked behind my eyes as I registered that the date of the party had been the same day Rosie had died. Jackpot.

  “Is there an address?” Jack asked, looking at the slick dinosaur card.

  I shook my head. “Just a phone number.” I stuck the invitation with the credit applications.

  I jotted the phone number and name from the invitation down in my notebook, followed by the credit card companies Rosie had applied to. How long had she been living as me?

  Accidentally sucking in a deep breath brought on a fresh wave of nausea. I closed my eyes and waited for it to pass. When I was able to breathe without fear of losing my lunch, I got back to work. Leaving my discoveries on the table—easy access for the police—I searched the rest of Rosie’s apartment. Every room was stripped bare, like the Whos’ house after the Grinch
had finished with it. Nail holes marked the dingy walls, and a loose wire hung from a quarter-sized hole in the bedroom. With Jack at my heels, I peered into the only bathroom. The cracked toilet seat was up, and yellow stains marking the torn linoleum floor.

  If not for the fact that I didn’t want to change the scene any more than necessary, I would have used a toilet paper square to lower the seat and lid. Force of habit. Finding the seat left up was a major pet peeve of mine. I silently tsked Rosie, but stopped short. She wouldn’t have lifted the seat. Unless, of course, she was a transvestite, but since Seavers hadn’t mentioned that, I dismissed it.

  I looked at Jack. “You didn’t sneak in here and use the bathroom when I wasn’t looking, did you?”

  He made a face showing his disgust. “Uh, no.”

  “Didn’t think so. That means a man’s been here.” The question was who.

  Fifteen more minutes of searching turned up nothing else. We stripped off the gloves—pocketing them to dispose of outside Rosie’s apartment.

  I left feeling sad that we were no closer to finding Rosie’s son, frustrated that we hadn’t found out more about the woman and why she’d stolen my identity, and angry and agitated about the state of my credit.

  Back in the car, Jack and I both jotted notes, me in my file on Rosie, and him in his narrow journalist’s notebook. I wrote:

  Was Rosie an abused wife or girlfriend?

  Where is her son?

  Kyron Banks saw man around—boyfriend or husband?

  Where was Rosie moving to, and why?

  Why did she need a new identity?

  Who is Elijah, and did Rosie take her son to the birthday party the day she died?

  Jack scribbled furiously, obviously inspired. I absently answered my ringing cell phone, tucking the file folder on Rosie next to my seat.

  “Lola, bonita, hermana.” The sugary sweetness in Antonio’s voice meant he was up to no good.

  “Tonio, loco, hermano,” I said, knowing exactly what was coming.

  He cut to the chase. “I need you to work the dinner shift,” he said. “I’m short staffed.”