Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  There wasn’t much left for Hortencia and me to say to one another. In English I thanked her and she understood, nodding and saying, “De nada.”

  I drove home from Watsonville, feeling foolish. For my rash adventure, I had a throbbing head and a jar of honey. I hadn’t learned much that was new. Anyone in the family could access the honey—Abundio, Victor or Esperanza. The Medinas did seem to have some affiliation with the Sureños gang. All of Victor’s honey was tied with blue, not red, ribbons. And Abundio’s mother and little brother had been ready to dump my body in the river, so God only knew what Victor might be capable of.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The police didn’t suspect Victor or Abundio Medina. They didn’t suspect Julieanne or Alexis Fortier. They suspected me. I spent the afternoon of New Year’s Day in an interview room. I had been summoned.

  “Mrs. Sabala...,” Detective Carman had said over the phone.

  “Ms.,” I corrected.

  He paused, as though making a note of it, but perhaps just irritated.

  “Sabala is my maiden name,” I explained. “Only Ms. works with that choice.” It occurred to me that Esperanza also used her maiden name—Medina. Victor was her brother. It seemed unusual for a Mexican woman not to take her husband’s name and even more unusual not to give a child his name. Could Delores be illegitimate? Esperanza never spoke of a husband or a father.

  Detective Carman didn’t inquire why I hadn’t taken my husband’s name, but said, “We’d like you to come down to the police station this afternoon.” It wasn’t a question, and something about his tone implied if I didn’t come to them, they’d come for me.

  In a brief fit of paranoia, I wondered if the Medina family had talked to Victor and he had reported yesterday’s escapade. One quick description from Hortencia and he would have known I, not Suzanne, had jumped into his yard. I had watched him and Abundio all morning, but they’d acted the same as always. Victor had even told me a couple of jokes.

  I’d wanted to ask him directly if he knew I’d “visited” his house, but I’d been overcome by wimpiness. I had a serious bruise on my head, and had been given the third degree by Chad. He’d wanted, reasonably enough, to know where I’d been all afternoon. I’d heard that the best way to lie was to stick close to the truth.

  “I went to Watsonville.”

  “Why?”

  “To visit the Medinas.”

  He’d narrowed his eyes. “I should have listened to Mary.”

  That had ended civilized discussion and resulted in a sleepless night. Between the argument and my injured head, I had not felt up to confronting Victor this morning.

  I reassured myself that this was the SCPD, not the WPD, and that the Medinas were not about to call the police, anyway.

  I dressed in a forest green silk blouse. My brother Donald had once told me that was my best color, bringing out the sincere green in my eyes and setting off the auburn in my hair. The color had grown so predominant in my meager wardrobe that I’d invested in dark green pumps. I donned them now below my denim gauchos and inspected myself in the full-length mirror on the bedroom wall.

  Good. How could they suspect me? In spite of my bare legs, I looked thoroughly respectable, like a schoolteacher.

  I drove cautiously, mindful of road oil loosened and washed up by the recent rains. I tried to calm myself. I had a telephone relationship with Sergeant Gold. He should remember someone as pesky as me. I took Water Street rather than Soquel Avenue to skirt the maze of detours in the downtown. Unlike downtown Watsonville, downtown Santa Cruz retained a bombed-out, war zone look from the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake. I found a spot without a meter and pulled to the curb along a yard bordered with oleander bushes, battered white and pink petals sprinkled on the damp ground. The irony appealed to me.

  As I crossed the street toward the old police station, my anxiety increased with each step. I stopped by the white masonry, WPA building, part of the beautifully landscaped block of officialdom. A low stone wall separated the rose garden from the sidewalk. “Come on, Carol,” I chided myself out loud. Buck up. This is a real police interview. The inner workings of a station. You love this stuff. A small, suppressed, sarcastic inner voice said Sure, in books. I drew a deep breath, and forced my conservative pumps to move through the dappled shade. I found myself stepping over cracks.

  Even the wire mesh on the windows and the faded police department sign didn’t mar the beauty of the long, low building. At the end nearest me, an electronic eye circled, watching the entrance and the white and blue cruisers in the lot. The news filmed this building and vandals attacked it, yet, in fact, it housed little of the police department. The building was seriously earthquake damaged, and the heart of the department had moved further up the street to the old telephone company building, an innocuous, ugly, red brick square marked only with a discrete plaque. In spite of my anxiety, I was curious to see the interior. I’d tried to “visit” one day just to see what it was like, only to discover that the front door was locked and one had to speak through an intercom to gain admittance.

  “Carol,” a voice called out impatiently.

  Making a flank attack down Center Street, my nemesis hobbled toward me in her too-tight shoes. “I’ve been waving for five minutes.”

  My thoughts were a string of obscenities. What was I going to tell my mother-in-law? She would positively relish the idea that I’d been called to the police department. When she reached me, she clasped a hand to her ample breast. Under her nubby yellow jacket, she wore a ruffled, ivory blouse, equally unflattering, but no doubt, an incredible bargain. “Oh my,” she panted. “Couldn’t you hear me?”

  Obviously not. Out loud I managed a civilized, “What’s up, Mary?”

  “Civic meeting.”

  Translation: seniors meeting. They usually used the Louden Nelson Center at the other end of the outdoor mall, but with earthquake repair, activities and meetings played musical chairs.

  “You’re all dolled up,” she said.

  Why did a basically lazy woman gallop a block down the street to see her hated daughter-in-law? Well, of course, she didn’t want to see me; she wanted a ride home. “I can’t give you a ride, Mary.”

  “I don’t need a ride.” Mary sniffed. “I can call the Lift Line.”

  A Lift Line named Chad.

  “I understand how busy your life is.”

  I sighed in spite of myself.

  “I suppose you have an appointment,” she said.

  “Actually, I do.”

  Her eyes flicked around for possibilities, and then with her ungodly instinct, she said, “The police department. I told Chad that you’d get in over your head.”

  It was my turn to lie. “I’m not in trouble. In fact, I’m going down there to give them a tip.”

  She stared as though the truth were a pearl in my black, nasty core. Even though I had just lied, I was a basically honest person, who naively expected others to tell the truth. As a basically dishonest person, Mary was suspicious of everyone. She blinked in uncertainty.

  But since I had given the police a tip, my lie must have sounded convincing.

  “Well, then,” she said, “I guess I’ll just have to sit and wait for the Lift Line.”

  However, as I continued down Locust, she tagged along, making me nervous. Fortunately, she didn’t try to invite herself into the police department.

  “Where’s the nearest pay phone?”

  I shrugged.

  “Do you have a quarter?”

  This was pure extortion and Mary at her finest. I would have been willing to wager my last ten that if I grabbed her black patent leather purse and shook it upside down, any number of quarters would bounce on the sidewalk. Yet, regardless of the outcome, I’d be the one who’d look, and feel, like an ass. A quarter was a small price to see her backside, but it galled me anyway.

  I didn’t get a chance to see the bullpen or to find Sergeant Gold and hail him like an old friend. I entered a small utilitarian lo
bby with offices to the left behind a counter topped with what I imagined to be bulletproof glass up to the ceiling. Microphones seemed to be the only way to communicate with the rabbit warren of workspaces, but Detective Carmen saved me the trouble by striding through the single door. He directed me to an interview room.

  He motioned for me to sit. While no bare light bulb dangled from the ceiling, the room was sufficiently austere. It contained a phony wood grain table, three chairs, and metal filing shelves in the corner. Someone hadn’t realized the air outside was only damp, not cold, and had turned on the heat. The room felt muggy. I plopped into an upholstered desk chair. Detective Carman sat opposite me in a wooden chair and fiddled with a hand held tape recorder.

  “Aren’t you going to Mirandize me?” I studied his face and found it handsome, but not as fresh as Chad’s or as engaging as Buzz’s. It was a face of which I’d tire.

  “Let’s put it this way,” he said. “I invited you to this interview and you came voluntarily. You’re here of your own free will and you’re also free to leave at any time.”

  I started to stand, to surprise him.

  He gave me a grim half-smile and an abrupt gesture to sit down.

  My cheekiness dissolved. I sat back down on the chair.

  “After we came to your work yesterday, a witness talked to my partner and told her that you had a book on poisons and that you had talked once about how easy it would be to poison someone.”

  “Oh, God,” I said. That had to have been Patsy. Suzanne would never snitch, but Patsy’s first loyalty would be to Detective Peters, a compatriot, a lesbian, although Patsy would use the word queer. Patsy had marched the local Queer Nation through the Capitola Mall, and she took seriously her allegiance to the gay community.

  I sucked in a deep breath. “Yes. That is the kind of stuff I like to read. My favorite novel is Silence of the Lambs and the niftiest place I’ve ever visited was the torture museum in the Tower of London. Call me weird, call me odd, call my mom. She’d love the confirmation and commiseration. Furthermore, the book in question was in an unsecured locker where anybody could have read it.” In spite of the big breath, my blood pressure rose and the anger gained momentum. “For that matter, anybody could go to a book store and buy that book.”

  Detective Carman remained quiet. He may have expected a more docile person, but when I lost my temper, I lived up to my mom’s often cited, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

  I immediately regretted my outburst. I kind of liked Detective Carman, and if I were more extroverted, I might have become a homicide detective rather than a baker with a twisted avocation.

  “What about the conversation on how easy it would be to kill someone?” he asked.

  “Yeah, we had such a conversation, and I told Patsy poison would be a good way to murder. It’s rare, there’s no obvious violence, and a homicide investigation often depends upon an aggressive coroner. Don’t you agree?”

  He gave me a subtle version of the squished-bug look, just a hint of crinkling around the eyes. God, I was beginning to detest that expression. It made me feel like joining Patsy and her radical feminists. If a man discussed poisons or murder, people might consider him knowledgeable or dangerous, but from a woman it was weird and icky. So sue me for not having a squeamish temperament.

  “Anonymous tips help,” he said.

  Sweat trickled down the inside of my silk blouse. Did he know?

  “Considering that Patsy was my interested audience for that conversation, I sure hope you call her down for questioning.” Something about Patsy niggled the back of my mind, but I knew that I wouldn’t retrieve it now, under pressure. Whatever the detail was, it would surface, unbidden, when I was taking a tray of hot cookies from the oven or making love with my husband.

  “She’s been here,” Detective Carman said.

  “What about Julieanne Fortier?” I persisted.

  “What about her?” he asked.

  I was indeed getting tired of his face. I read the punched labels under the stacks of forms on the metal shelves: Missing Persons, Substance Abuse Report,....The cop waited until I looked back. His nose had a bump in it as though it had been broken. Normally, I liked that kind of irregularity, but now it bugged me like a bit of bread dough that bubbled instead of baking into a smooth crust. There wasn’t anything I could do about it, but the sight made my fingers itch. I told him the little I knew about Julieanne Fortier.

  He explained the term legitimate suspicion, apparently what they felt about me.

  “Jesus,” I exploded. “How many homicides are domestic? Her husband is killed; she’s the beneficiary of his life insurance, and she disappears. That’s not legitimately suspicious?”

  “You know a lot.” His tone was flat.

  I lifted my hair to give the back of my neck some air.

  “There’s something familiar about your voice,” he added.

  “You’ve talked to me before,” I insisted. Shit, if he’d connected me to the tip line, no wonder I was under suspicion. If oleander had been the poison, who would believe that I’d followed a hunch, made a lucky guess, nothing more? I didn’t believe in coincidences, so why would the police department?

  “What about Victor Medina?” I said desperately.

  “What about him?” Detective Carman asked.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  My mom connected my hot temper to the highlights in my hair. “You got that red hair from my Grandpa Turner,” she’d say. He was dead long before my time, but I’d heard a lot about the legendary figure. My mom had shown me a black and white photo of a huge man with a full beard. “His hair was your color,” she’d say, “but that beard was red, red, and we’re pretty sure he killed Grandma.”

  “I wonder if I’d have a red beard,” I would say, rubbing my cheeks—to annoy her, of course. No body had been found, and I liked to believe Great Grandma Turner had deserted the tyrant, and started a new strain of relatives I didn’t know about.

  My father’s side remained a mystery. He’d abandoned the family before my memory began. My mom, on the rare occasion when she’d refer to him at all, called him “that poor alcoholic man.” My brother Donald had looked Latino, but my mom was clearly right about the source of my genes.

  I thought about this stuff as I took the freeway to Morrissey Avenue, and by the time I got home my Great Grandpa Turner’s temper had dissipated. Detective Carman was just doing his job.

  In front of our house, I stayed in the car for a moment to admire the hardy perennials and large rocks in the front yard and the palm sweeping the cloudy sky. Lola jumped over the redwood fence around the backyard and strutted to greet me, although she looked around in the air to feign indifference.

  I climbed from my car. “Hello, my sweet Lola.”

  She sauntered past and sniffed at a tangle of invasive Mexican primroses. When I opened the door, the aroma of baking salmon hooked Lola’s interest. And mine, too.

  “Where have you been, honey?” Chad was cheerful, but concerned.

  “I don’t want you to call me honey anymore,” I said.

  He looked dejectedly at our two good Willowware plates set out on the tiny table. He had hoped for a romantic evening. He was showered and shaved and wearing a blue and black flannel shirt that I liked.

  “I don’t mean it like that. It’s just that every time I hear the word honey, I think of the murder.”

  Chad circled the freestanding counter and gave me a bear hug. “Poor, poor, poor, poor, baby,” he caterwauled in pity. The flannel was soft and comforting.

  I joined the chorus. “Poor, poor, poor, poor, baby.” We howled in unison for a full minute and I felt much better.

  Chad poured us each a glass of dry Chablis and I related my “interview.”

  “Carol....”

  “Please don’t give me a lecture.”

  Chad set an already prepared green salad on the table and unwrapped Alfaro’s four-seed bread that he’d warmed in the oven. He opened his mouth
again.

  “And please don’t say anything about how your mom told you so.”

  “I won’t mention Mary,” he said tightly, “if you don’t mention Mary.”

  He dished up plates of salmon and rice. We seated ourselves. “This is as good as anything at Archibald’s,” I said, “and it doesn’t cost twenty-five dollars a plate.”

  “Fifty, at least,” Chad said, “if you count the wine and tip.” He relaxed. “I thought the Coho looked really fresh.”

  Then, when my mouth was fully engaged on a challenging hunk of bread, he said, “Uh, Carol, if there’s a link between the honey and the poison, doesn’t that mean someone at work killed Fortier? The person who gave him that present?”

  I chewed hard and fast, but finally gave up and talked with my mouth full. “It looks that way, but I haven’t found anyone yet who drew Fortier’s name or who received presents from Fortier. The gift might not have been part of the Kris Kringle. Anyone could have left it for him.”

  “But wouldn’t he be suspicious if he received a gift without being in the exchange?”

  “Not Fortier. He had a big ego. He wouldn’t have thought twice about a present from a woman, like say, Julieanne Fortier, sent into the kitchen via an accomplice.”

  “Alexis?” he said.

  “Well, she is going to inherit her uncle’s condo. That’s a motive.”

  Chad shrugged his broad shoulders.

  “And why did Julieanne take off after Fortier’s death?”

  The collar of his shirt lifted the back of his hair as he shrugged again. He was due for a cut. “If she came here to be near Fortier,” he speculated, “and now he’s dead, why would she stay?”

  “Her job.”

  Chad drained his wine glass. “But what if she thought there would be an investigation, and what if she thought the investigation would expose her role in getting Fortier the program?”

  I ruminated on a chunk of bread, and then swallowed. “I’m not sure what her role was in that, but your idea makes sense.”

  He beamed. Maybe he’d get so involved in the puzzle that he’d stop worrying about me.