by Paula Paul
“No, I’m not trying to find him before he’s arrested,” Juanita interrupted. “I’m trying to find him before he’s dead.”
“He’s not dead,” Irene said. “He was in my store recently.”
Juanita’s fever-bright eyes lit up even more. “He came to you? I told him to find you if he ever needed…How did he look? Was he…”
Irene shook her head. “I didn’t see him,” she said, “but I spoke to him on the phone, and I think he came to my store later. He brought me something and left.”
“Brought you…” Juanita broke into another fit of coughing before she could finish her sentence. “The necklace,” she managed finally. “He brought you the…” There was yet another paroxysm of coughing.
Irene felt angry at herself. She knew now she shouldn’t have mentioned Danny calling her and certainly shouldn’t have hinted that he’d brought the necklace. She’d hoped to give Juanita some comfort, but she’d gone about it wrong.
“I don’t have the necklace, and I’m not even sure it was Danny who was in my store. I only wanted to let you know he’s probably still alive.”
“You don’t have the necklace?” Juanita asked. “Then what did he bring you?”
Irene took a deep breath. “It was nothing, just a little token gift of…” She took another breath and blew it out through pursed lips. “Oh, hell, Juanita, I can’t lie to you. He said you told him I’d help him if he ever needed it. Then I found the necklace in my store. I assumed he planted it there, but I have no way of knowing for sure, but whoever it was came back later and got it. Out of my safe, I might add.”
“Danny was alive last night!” Juanita said. “But where is he now? Is he…”
“Try not to worry, Juanita. The police will find him eventually,” Irene said with a show of false confidence. “They’ll give him a chance to give himself up. If he does, he won’t be killed. But you have to turn yourself in first. They’ll do everything they can to get word to him that you want him to do the same thing. I’ll do everything I can to make that happen, and Mr. Bailey will do the same.”
Juanita shook her head. “It’s not the police Danny and I are afraid of. It’s those men, those men who try to steal our culture and sell it at auction.” She spat the words out as if they burned her tongue. “And one of them beat me. Think what they might do to Danny!”
“That’s another reason you both should turn yourselves in,” P.J. said. “The police can help protect you from those men.”
Juanita coughed again, took a sip of something from a cup on the table next to the chair, then put her head back with her eyes closed. “Danny will die unless I find him and help him escape.”
Irene leaned toward her. “Juanita, please try to understand—”
“It’s you who doesn’t understand,” Juanita interrupted. “I know what’s going to happen to Danny. I know because one of them told me.”
“One of who?” Irene asked.
Juanita didn’t answer. She turned her head away from both of them for a moment, then erupted into another spasm of coughing. Her face turned red, and beads of sweat dotted her forehead.
Irene was alarmed. “Juanita…”
“I’m all right,” she said.
“You’re not all right. I think you may have a fever. And those bruises, that wound on your arm—”
“Angel’s medicine is helping,” Juanita interrupted.
Irene shook her head. “Please…”
“Tell us!” P.J. said. “Tell us who told you that something bad was going to happen to Danny. Was it the same person who beat you up?”
“No, it wasn’t that man, but you wouldn’t understand,” Juanita said, turning away again.
Irene frowned. “Juanita, I don’t know why you think we wouldn’t understand,” she said.
Juanita looked at her in silence for a few seconds, then, with her eyes still on Irene’s face, said, “It’s because it was a spirit that told me.”
Irene was puzzled. “A spirit?”
“You don’t believe in spirits, do you?” Juanita’s eyes were still boring into Irene’s.
“I don’t know. No…I mean maybe, but—”
“You would say it was the fever. The sickness that brought it on. I was on the mesa alone, searching for Danny. Yes, I had a fever, and I saw things. You would call it hallucinations. But the spirit came to me. The same spirit that once came to my mother to tell her my father had died when he fell from a horse. I know because she said he had the mark of a lightning bolt on his chin. The lightning spirit. It was the same one who came to me.”
“That may have happened, but you mustn’t think—”
“I mustn’t think it was a spirit? I mustn’t think it was a message for me?” Juanita said. “I know that’s what you believe, but what you don’t understand is that there has to be an opening for the spirits. My people know this. We know there are many ways to create an opening—herbs, natural medicines, and yes, even a fever.”
“But if you were hallucinating…”
“That’s what you would call it, I think. It doesn’t matter, though. Doesn’t matter what you call it. There was an opening and one of them spoke. It was evil. It told me Danny is a murderer and a thief, that he stole the necklace for money for drugs, then changed his mind and killed the Frenchman to get it back. Now he says Danny will die for it.”
“And you believe him? This…this spirit, I mean,” P.J. said.
Juanita looked down for moment. When she raised her head again, her face had a tortured look. Her answer was a simple “Yes.”
Irene wasn’t certain what to say next. It was clear Juanita believed that her fever-induced hallucination really was a visit from a spirit with a message. She wouldn’t insult her by trying to refute that. P.J. came to her rescue, at least for the moment.
“How do you think you can help Danny, knowing that?” he asked.
“I have to help him escape,” Juanita said. “If he killed that man as the spirit said, there is no other way. I can’t let him go to prison. If he goes there, he will die there.”
“There is no death penalty in this state,” P.J. said.
Juanita turned her gaze toward P.J. with the same intensity she’d had when she was speaking to Irene. “He will die there,” she said. “I know.”
“If he never goes to prison, he won’t die there,” P.J. said.
Irene gave P.J. a questioning look, and at the same time Juanita frowned and shook her head. “What are you getting at, P.J.?” Irene asked.
“A good lawyer might get him off,” P.J. said.
Tears filled Juanita’s eyes. “I can’t afford a lawyer. If it comes to that, the court will appoint one, but I won’t let him be arrested. I’ll go back to jail first.”
“Please, Juanita. Don’t do anything foolish. Don’t try to take the blame. If all the evidence points to Danny, no one will believe you anyway, and you’ll probably only end up harming yourself and Danny as well.”
“I will not stand by and let Danny…” Juanita was once again gripped by a fit of coughing and couldn’t finish her protest.
P.J. took a step toward her and led her back to the sofa. “Try not to worry,” he said. “I can defend Danny, and I won’t charge you a penny.”
Juanita looked up at him from the sofa with bleary eyes and a haggard face. “You are a kind man,” she said, “but if it comes to that, I’ll have to find a way to repay you.”
“You can repay me by letting me take you to the emergency room,” P.J. said.
Juanita shook her head. “No. The police—”
“I’ll take care of the police,” P.J. said. “I’ll take care of everything.”
“No doctor,” Juanita said again.
Chapter 12
“Now there’s an example of stubborn,” P.J. said as he and Irene left Angel’s house and drove back to the store. “She wouldn’t budge an inch.”
“She’s afraid,” Irene said. “Of a lot of things.”
“Obviously.
”
Irene glanced at him sideways as she drove. “I have to say, however, that the offer you made to defend Danny and to take care of everything was truly generous.”
“I don’t know what got into me.”
“So you’re regretting it? Or you didn’t mean it in the first place?”
“Of course I regret it, and of course I meant it.”
“So, why regret?” Irene asked.
“It goes against my nature.”
“It goes against your nature to be kind and generous?”
P.J. didn’t answer. Instead, he slumped farther down into the seat.
“You’re a curmudgeon,” Irene said.
“Yeah,” he answered. “Curmudgeoning. That’s what I do best.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone about your generosity.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Of course everyone will find out anyway,” Irene added. “When it goes to court.”
P.J. mumbled something incomprehensible and turned his face toward the window. He stayed that way until they reached the parking lot behind Irene’s Closet.
Angel greeted them when they entered the store. “Ah, you’re back. How did it go?”
“Wasted our time,” P.J. said. “Juanita wouldn’t budge. Couldn’t get her to go to the doctor.”
“I told you that before you left,” Angel said.
Irene moved behind the counter, next to the cash register. “I wouldn’t say it was a complete waste of time.”
“How so?” Angel asked.
“It’s possible Juanita made contact with whoever is behind this stolen-artifacts business,” Irene said.
P.J. gave her a surprised look. “I thought you agreed it was just a hallucination brought on by her fever.”
“I wouldn’t say that I agreed with that,” Irene said. “You’re the one who made that suggestion.”
“Irene, any reasonable person would know that she was sick, that ghosts or spirits or whatever she called it don’t appear to people.”
“You need to keep an open mind,” Irene said.
P.J. frowned. “Give me a break.”
“No, I mean it,” Irene insisted. “Especially if you’re going to defend Danny.”
“Defend Danny?” Angel said. “So, you’re sure he killed that guy?”
“I’m not sure of that at all,” P.J. said. “If I were, I wouldn’t be likely to offer to defend him.”
“There may be a witness,” Irene said. “You need to keep that in mind.”
“Witness?” Angel glanced from Irene to P.J., trying to make sense of what they were saying.
“Not exactly a reliable witness,” P.J. said. “It might be a little difficult to call a spirit to the witness stand. That is what Juanita called him, isn’t it? A spirit?”
“What if it wasn’t a spirit?” Irene said.
“Okay, if it wasn’t a spirit, it was, at best, a hallucinatory figment.”
“Wait! Wait! Wait!” Angel said. “Neither of you are making sense. Start at the beginning. Juanita saw a spirit?”
“Yes,” Irene said.
“A hallucination,” P.J. said at the same time.
“Don’t be so sure,” Irene said.
“Will one of you please just cut to the chase?” Angel said.
“It happened when she was out on the mesa, before she made it to your house.”
“She was already sick,” P.J. said. “She admits it. Admits she was running a fever.”
Irene gave him an annoyed look. “Nevertheless, she says she saw something. Someone. A man who told her he had witnessed Danny killing the Frenchman, Armaud. The person said Danny did it because he sold that sacred necklace to an auction house but changed his mind. He told her Danny stole the necklace in the first place, hoping to sell it for money to buy drugs, but then he changed his mind about the deal and murdered the man who was going to auction the necklace.”
Angel’s only comment was a noncommittal “Hmm.”
“There’s no proof of any of that, not even of Juanita’s so-called conversation,” P.J. said.
“Okay, if Juanita didn’t do it, and Danny didn’t do it, who did?” Angel asked.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Irene said.
“Not something I need to know,” P.J. said. “I just need to provide reasonable doubt that Danny did it, if he’s my client.”
“That sounds so heartless,” Irene said. “We need to prove Juanita didn’t do it as well. She’s the one wanted for the crime.” She scowled at P.J. “There has to be a conscience somewhere in that lawyer mind of yours.”
P.J. seemed about to protest when Angel interrupted.
“That guy, the Frenchman who got killed, didn’t the TV news say it was sometime Sunday night?” Angel asked.
“That sounds right. It made the papers on Monday,” Irene said.
Angel turned away from P.J. and Irene and paced back and forth in front of a display of costume jewelry inside a glass case. “I didn’t want to say anything about it, but I think I saw Danny the night the French guy got killed,” Angel said, turning back to Irene and P.J.
“I saw him that afternoon,” Irene said. “On the plaza with Jimmy. I thought Jimmy might be walking him to his apartment because he was stoned.”
“I don’t think he went to Jimmy’s apartment, because I think I saw Danny that night.” Angel said.
“Where?” Irene asked.
“Why haven’t either of you mentioned this before?” P.J. asked.
“I didn’t want to get him in trouble,” Angel said.
“Didn’t want to get him in trouble?” P.J. said. “Are you crazy? He’s already in trouble.”
Angel frowned and looked uncomfortable. “I know, but I thought it could make it worse.”
“Just start at the beginning, Angel,” Irene said. “He was on the plaza with Jimmy in the afternoon. Then you saw him later that night. Where did you see him?”
“At a friend’s house. I think I saw him there.”
She gave Angel a scrutinizing look, the kind she’d learned from her grandmother Teresa when she was a teenager. “You only think you saw him at a friend’s house, but you’re not sure. How can that be?”
Angel absently scratched his arm, then rubbed his hands together. “It was, you know, kind of dark.”
“Dark,” Irene said. “So dark you couldn’t really tell who was there.”
“Well, maybe not that dark,” Angel said, growing more and more uncomfortable. “What I mean is…Well, okay, it wasn’t really dark, but it was…”
“Go on,” Irene urged. “What was Danny doing there?”
Angel looked even more uncomfortable. “He was…umm…well, he was…”
“Yes?”
Angel took a deep breath. “He was, well, sort of buying drugs.”
Irene narrowed her eyes. “How do you sort of buy drugs?”
“Okay,” Angel said. His voice shook a little, showing his obvious discomfort. “He was actually buying drugs. I didn’t seem him up real close, but it was…See, I didn’t want to say anything that would implicate Danny as a user, and since I didn’t actually see him eye to eye, I thought…” He paused briefly then added quickly, “But don’t get the wrong idea. I wasn’t buying anything. I just happened to be there outside the house when the deal went down. I mean, I didn’t even know this guy was dealing. Well, I sort of knew, maybe, but I didn’t know he was going to actually do it. You know what I mean? Not exactly at that moment. And I wouldn’t have even been there, except, well, I don’t know, I saw him at that little grocery store near my house, and he said, “Why don’t you come over,” and I did because he said he wanted to show me this new game. It’s called—”
“Angel, you’re blabbering.” Irene said. “Why are you so uncomfortable? Who is this guy?”
“I told you. He used to be a friend of mine.”
“Used to be? Is he one of the members of that gang you used to belong to?” Irene asked.
&nb
sp; “I was never a member,” Angel said. “I just hung around some of them, but that’s over.”
“Is it?”
“Look, Irene, I wouldn’t lie to you.” Angel sounded choked with stress. “I don’t hang around gang members. I just saw this guy, and I wanted to see the new game that sounded so cool, so I went, and then Danny came, or someone who looked like Danny, and he bought…well, you know, and I didn’t want to make things worse for him by telling anybody he was using the stuff.”
“Was it the first time he’d bought drugs from your friend?” Irene asked.
Angel shook his head. “I don’t know.”
P.J. cleared his throat uneasily. “I’m not sure I need to know all of this about Danny,” he said. “I told you, I just need to know enough to be able to defend him. This may be too much, in fact.”
“I was just trying to help,” Irene said. “If he was at someone’s house on the night Armaud was killed, and there are reliable witnesses—”
“Nice try, Irene,” P.J. said, then added, “but this is a long way from an alibi. Angel can’t even say for sure it was Danny. Anybody have any idea where Danny is now?”
“Sorry,” Angel said. “If I did, I’d be the first to tell Juanita. She’s putting her life at risk looking for him.”
“What are you going to do about her staying at your house?” P.J. asked.
Angel shrugged. “Let her stay. Keep pushing my abuelita’s remedies down her and hoping for the best.”
“I didn’t hear any of this!” P.J. held up both hands in a show of self-defense. “I don’t know anything about where she’s staying.”
“That’s not true,” Angel said before he caught himself. “Oh, yeah, I get it. She’s an escaped criminal. How would you know anything about that?”
“Right,” P.J. said. He gave Irene a look that she could only describe as defeated and sad. “I need to get to work. I’ve got a long list of dishonest people I have to defend.”
“Where is all of this going?” Angel asked after P.J. left. “What’s going to happen to us? To Danny and Juanita, and all of us who are mixed up in this?”
