Holding Out for a Hero

by Pamela Tracy

  “Which might be why she’s hesitating to help us with a completely unrelated case,” Oscar mused.

  Even as he said the words, he considered that he was assuming—much like Riley—that Shelley was keeping secrets.

  “Her window looks right out over Candace’s house,” Aunt Bianca said thoughtfully.

  “I know.”

  “She’s renting the garage apartment from Robert Tellmaster. He does my website, never goes outside. He wouldn’t notice if a plane crashed in his yard.”

  It was the first time all day that Oscar smiled. Some of the tension ebbed away.

  “Here.” Aunt Bianca placed healthy helpings of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, green beans and rolls in front of him.

  “Shelley’s a lot like Anna,” Oscar shared. “She does this half-smile thing. I always knew when my little sister lied or was displeased. Everyone else just thought she was sweetly smiling. Ha, nothing sweet about it.”

  Anna had gotten out of trouble way too often because of that smile.

  “Okay,” Aunt Bianca said. “I believe you. So, what are you doing to help Shelley? That girl was as innocent as all get-out. Her parents sheltered her so. When Larry Wagner came along, she didn’t have a chance.”

  “He sucked you in, too,” Oscar reminded her, digging into the meat loaf. “That’s how I wound up here.”

  “No, it’s not. You’re here to keep an eye on Shelley. I’m not sure who you’re working for, and I’m amazed Riley hasn’t figured out that you’re not a wet-behind-the-ears rookie, but you’ll get the job done. As for me hiring Shelley’s husband, if he hadn’t also been working for Jedidiah Carraby, I’d never have—”

  “Larry Wagner worked for Jedidiah Carraby?”

  “Larry did work for a lot of people in town! I wasn’t the only one suckered in, and at least he didn’t steal anything from me that had sentimental value. I’m more than annoyed about the loss of money, but Jedidiah Carraby lost a Victorian brooch that had been in his family for years. He’d promised it to his daughter and had it out because she was coming for a visit. Larry took it for appraisal. Gosh, did Jed raise a stink.”

  Oscar nodded as he finished the last of the green beans. From the moment Bianca had called the family to tell her story, she’d said that she was annoyed more than anything and that at most it meant an extra year before she could retire. Luckily, she loved her job.

  As if to prove the point, she interrupted his chewing and said, “You knew I was fine the minute you walked in the door, and I love having you here.”

  “I like being here.” It was the truth. He was liking it more and more. Dreams changed; goals were redefined. He could breathe in Sarasota Falls. Not look for cover when a loud noise sounded or a helicopter flew overhead. Once he’d even walked up to a traffic stop and hadn’t worried he’d be shot. There’d been a time when he’d worried he’d never adjust to civilian life. A four-year stint in the army, two tours overseas, had jaded him. Jaded most of those he’d served with. Four years in college afterward had done some good, but he’d never fit in. Plus, the only one who’d needed saving while he was getting his degree was himself.

  As if sensing Oscar’s sudden drift to the past, Aunt Bianca said, “I think you needed me as much as I needed you. No one appreciates my meat loaf like you do. Shelley, though, she’s not fine. She no sooner found out that her husband was a thief and a liar than she wound up raising his son, alone, and then discovered she was pregnant herself. That she hasn’t broken under the strain shows you how strong she is.”

  “How far into their marriage did she wind up with Ryan?”

  “They’d been married maybe two months, and he got a phone call from an ex-wife turning the little boy over to him. That girl stepped up to the plate. Had to have been hard. From what I heard, Shelley didn’t even know there’d been an ex-wife.”

  Oscar needed to pay more attention to Ryan’s part in this whole production. Somewhere there was an ex-wife. But she wouldn’t be easy to find.

  “So, what are you going to do?” Aunt Bianca asked again.

  In Oscar’s mind, Shelley was no longer a woman he needed to meet so he could try to locate her ex-husband. Instead she was a woman he thought about way too often—and not because she was an assignment but because she was the type of woman who stayed strong even when the world around her was crumbling.

  Ryan was lucky to have her for a mom.

  If Oscar had his way, Larry Wagner would be in prison forever.

  “Ahem.” Aunt Bianca had never been the patient relative.

  Oscar took one last bite of his mashed potatoes, put down his fork and said, “I’m going to suggest to her landlord that he invest, and soon, in a Medeco lock. The one she has now would take an experienced burglar all of forty-five seconds to open. I’m going to redo all the locks here, too.”

  “Pretty much a waste of time since I leave the door unlocked so guests can come and go.”

  “You lock the doors at night,” Oscar pointed out. “You know not to make yourself an easy target.”

  Aunt Bianca nodded. “True, and of course, I have Peeve. I think a dog’s better than a lock. Maybe you should tell Shelley to get a dog or at least an alarm system.”

  Oscar shook his head. He already knew their timeline for getting a dog: ten years. An alarm system, however, wasn’t such a bad idea.

  “On the other hand, a dog is not something you should get on the spur of the moment. They’re a lot of work.” Aunt Bianca started clearing the table. “I think I trusted locks more before I met Larry Wagner. Shelley probably feels the same. A true criminal like Larry Wagner has more experience with locks than any locksmith I know.”

  “Do you know any locksmiths?” Oscar asked.

  “No, but now that I think about it, Larry didn’t need to break into any of the houses he stole from.” She closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath. “Also, we’re pretty trusting in this town. People gave him their keys, he made copies without their knowing and then he easily took what he wanted before he skipped town.”

  Oscar followed his aunt to the sink, carrying his empty glass and plate. “Maybe you should be the police officer instead of me. Do you know if Larry did any work for Candace and her husband?”

  “No, I don’t believe so. They were so new to town. I doubt they even met him or Shelley.”

  Oscar did know that, but his aunt had said something else that made a lot of sense. “Who else do you think had a key to Candace’s house?”

  “I do,” his aunt said.

  “You have a key?”

  “Sure. She locked herself out one day and asked me if I’d keep one here. I’m always home.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Aunt Bianca set the dishes aside for rinsing and went in the pantry. Oscar followed. Aunt Bianca’s pantry was good-size, big enough for both of them not only to walk in but also to do a few dance steps should they so desire. They didn’t. Plus, Peeve would want to join in. Opening a small drawer, Bianca took out a plastic box lined with small compartments, all labeled with the names of Bianca’s friends and neighbors. She even had a key to the church! Oscar could see the compartment under Shelley’s name. “Wow,” he noted. “You have keys for every house on the block.”

  Aunt Bianca pointed to a compartment labeled Robert. “That one has both his house key and one to the apartment.” She opened it, pulled out two keys, showed Oscar and then returned them.

  “The apartment one has been changed,” Oscar reminded her. “He did it today after he thought Shelley skipped out.”

  “I’ll return this one to Robert, then—” Bianca looked determined “—and give him a little nudge about getting better locks.”

  Oscar laughed before checking Candace’s key and heading up the stairs, Peeve at his heels. Bianca had given Oscar one of her better rooms. It
was more than a bedroom, with an alcove that usually served as a TV room but that he was using as a study.

  Settling at the desk, he turned on his computer and went to the files he had on Larry Wagner. Townley via the FBI had been thorough. They were the big guns and they had all the bells and whistles, top-of-the-line technology that little Sarasota Falls, New Mexico, didn’t have.

  Quickly Oscar figured out the date that Ryan would have joined Shelley and Larry and then sent off an email asking Townley to start looking into the court system about that time.

  That Larry Wagner’s crimes spread from California, to Arizona, to Utah, to here, and under at least four aliases, meant the crimes he’d committed, at least according to the hotshots from the state police, were bigger than the little Sarasota Falls police force could handle.

  Yeah, right.

  Why did Larry Wagner do it? Was it money? Fun? A sickness?

  He opened a file with transcripts taken a few days after Larry Wagner’s crimes were first discovered and he’d presumably left the Sarasota Falls area. The interview of Shelley Lynn Wagner was forty pages long. Lots of it redundant. Oscar took out a notebook. After meeting Shelley, he wanted to understand her more: her role, her feelings, her testimony.

  He found the transcript he wanted and read Shelley’s statement:

  Everyone who’s called me, asking me to pay back money Larry has taken from them, has mentioned how elusive my ex-husband is. Apparently I’m wife number two that we know about.

  When this deposition was taken, Shelley’d known that there was an earlier wife, Ryan’s mother. Only, according to Riley’s investigation, the woman couldn’t be found.

  Shelley’s statement continued.

  He definitely is already living under a new name. And he’s working some angle. I just wonder what it could be. Surely he doesn’t do the same thing over and over. He’d be easy to catch then, wouldn’t he?

  Oscar noted how the interviewer didn’t answer the question but instead assured her,

  We’ll find him.

  The transcript recorded every detail, that was for sure, because Shelley’s next words were recorded, sarcasm practically jumping off the page.

  Tell me who the “we” is in that “we’ll”?

  The authorities.

  Oscar was part of “the authorities,” and they were no closer now than they had been then of finding Larry Wagner.

  By all accounts, he defrauded his first victim in 1999. If the age he gave me is real, he would have been eighteen.

  Oscar did the math. If the man was a teenager in 1999, he’d be in his late thirties now, possibly thirty-five or -six when he married Shelley. She’d have been, what? Twenty-two or twenty-three? He jotted down a note, because Shelley had said “If the age he gave me is real.” Oscar turned to the next page, wondering now, six months later, if Shelley had figured out that, even with all the technology the cops had at their fingertips, con men still played the con over and over and almost always got away with it.

  Peeve ambled to his feet, sounding a low bark before heading for the door.

  “What is it, boy?”

  “Oscar!” Aunt Bianca called. Her voice sounded strained.

  “Be right there.” Oscar locked everything away in the desk drawer before hustling down the stairs.

  Cody Livingston stood next to the check-in desk, haggard, eyes bloodshot, and looking like he’d go to his knees if a breeze so much as drifted through the room. “Where’s Candace? Where’s my wife? What happened?”

  “Did you just get home?” Oscar went to his friend and put a firm hand under his elbow, leading him to the living room couch. Bianca disappeared into the kitchen. “Call Riley,” Oscar told her.

  In response, via his aunt, he was given strict orders to wait for Riley before questioning Cody. Because Oscar was friends with the suspect. They not only were neighbors in Sarasota Falls but also came from the same hometown of Runyan, Riley didn’t want any chance of the case being compromised.

  Meaning Riley didn’t trust Oscar when it came to taking down a close friend.

  “Why call Riley?” Cody roared. “You tell me. I just drove by my house. There’s yellow tape all around it. I stopped in the middle of the street. I had one foot out the door when the mailman hollered, ‘Sorry to hear about your wife.’ My wife? What happened to my wife? You tell me. Is she here? Because she’s not home. There’s a sign on my front door saying I could be prosecuted if I enter. My own house! Did she come here because something happened at our house?”

  Peeve whimpered and Oscar asked, “Have you checked your phone?”

  “I was in meetings all day. It ran out of juice, and I got busy and forgot to charge it.”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “Last night? Something happened last night? What happened? Tell me!”

  Aunt Bianca came back in the room, setting a glass of water on the front desk near Cody and mouthing to Oscar, Riley’s here.

  Oscar calmly nodded, noting Riley at the front door. “Where were you last night, Cody? Why didn’t you sleep in your hotel room?”

  “How do you know that? I had a job interview. I didn’t want Candace to know. She’s so happy here, and she thinks I’m happy working for her father. I’m not. Managing a grocery store isn’t what I set out to do. I figured if I could find a job making the same amount of pay or more, then her dad couldn’t protest too much when I quit. I drove all night Sunday from Albuquerque to Flagstaff for an early morning Monday interview. I haven’t slept in forty-eight hours.”

  The tears started then. Tears Oscar had seen before, in ditches, in hospital rooms and even courtrooms from those who knew their lives were over.

  Not a chance Cody killed his wife.

  Riley stepped into the foyer. He glanced at Oscar and Bianca before heading to Cody.

  “We have a few questions,” he started.

  “First tell me where my wife is!” Cody screamed. He actually took a step in Riley’s direction, but Oscar touched his shoulder.

  Cody turned, almost swinging, and stopped.

  Riley came to stand beside Cody and said, “Mr. Livingston, I’m sorry to have to inform you that your wife’s dead. Someone broke into your home and—”

  Cody Livingston retched, his whole body convulsing.

  His life over.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SHELLEY HAD A love/hate relationship with the media. She hadn’t even watched the news before she’d made the news. This morning she sat glued to the television screen, watching as Candace’s death was the focus of the morning airwaves.

  Candace wasn’t well-known, but she was liked by those who did know her. She was the same age as Shelley.

  Candace, however, had completed college, married her sweetheart and had been living her fairy tale.

  Shelley had completed college, too, although it wasn’t doing a lot for her at the moment.

  She thought about the young woman she’d seen dancing across her backyard, sometimes with her husband, sometimes not.

  She was dead. Larry had been standing over her.

  Shelley changed the channel, partly to squelch the direction her thoughts were going and partly to see if every station was covering the story. They all were. Photos splashed across the screen. Candace with her parents at Disneyland. Candace graduating from high school. Candace getting married. Candace with her kindergarten class. The two reporters spoke politely and mentioned how fortunate it was that school wasn’t in session and how the kids would have been adversely affected.

  Jack Little was on his way back from vacation, mourning his only child.

  One photo was of Candace and her best friend. Shelley leaned forward, studying Anna Guzman. She looked a lot like her big brother, Oscar: same black hair, same strong chin and dark eyebrows. The
female reporter went on to mention that one of the officers investigating Candace’s death had a connection to the family.

  Speaking of photos... Oscar Guzman had caught her off guard yesterday, reminding her that they’d met when she was eight and he was twelve. Leaving the couch, she went for the one closet in the apartment and bent to pull out a suitcase. She kept thinking this one-room apartment was temporary, so why unpack? Considering her flight the other day—albeit aborted—she might have been right. There were five photograph albums. She went for the one from her school days. Because she was an only child, her parents had taken a lot of pictures.

  She found the one with Oscar halfway through. It was faded, but she could tell the black-haired boy grinning jauntily at her was Oscar. His hair was shaggy and touched his shoulders. His eyes were black and looking right at her. His shoulders were broad for a kid’s.

  He’d been fun with a capital F, and not afraid of anything.

  In contrast, at age eight, she hadn’t even had a skinned knee.

  Sighing, she went back to the television, changing the channel to the third major station. They, too, were preoccupied with the murder.

  She wondered if Oscar was watching the news. Probably. She got up and went to the window, staring over at the roof of Bianca’s Bed-and-Breakfast. She couldn’t see if his motorcycle was in the parking area.

  She went back to the couch, weaving a soft blanket around her and wondering if she’d ever feel safe again.

  The current station had an update. Cody Livingston was in the hospital. He’d collapsed after returning to town from a business trip. The hospital hadn’t released any information why. The station showed some photos of him, too, same as Candace. Cody with his parents and three brothers at a beach. Cody graduating from high school. Cody and Candace getting married. Cody helping a customer at Little’s Supermarket. “Up and coming,” the newscaster claimed.

  He continued with his report, stating, “According to private sources, Candace Livingston’s body was first discovered by Shelley Wagner, wife of Larry Wagner, who...”