Faithful Unto Death

by Stephanie Jaye Evans

  I handed it back.

  “She’s lovely,” I said.

  Wanderley looked into the little face for a moment, nodding gravely. He tucked the phone away.

  “She is, yes.”

  “So was that your Sherlock Holmes act?”

  Wanderley tilted his head. “Depends. How’d I do?”

  I relented. “Merrie is at Texas Tech on a track scholarship, but she doesn’t compete because it’s the cool thing to do, Merrie competes because she loves it. She did volleyball, too. In high school.”

  He gave a small smile and turned back to the photo. I don’t think I’ve ever looked as closely at the picture as this guy did.

  “It’s your little changeling who’s interesting,” he continued. “She’s what, fourteen?”

  If Wanderley ever lost his job with the department, he could always be the “Guess Your Age” guy at the carnival.

  “She’s too small for volleyball. And I’m going to guess this one is not a team player; you can see it in her eyes. Way she holds her head, yeah, that’s the tell, the way she holds her head, the way she holds her whole body; this one is a dancer.”

  He looked up. “So?” he asked. “Am I right?”

  “Jo is a dancer,” I admitted, “but dancing, ballet dancing at least, is a team sport.” At least that’s the way Jo had sold me on it.

  “Oh, not for this one, I’m betting. She looks like a star, doesn’t she?”

  He held the photo out for me to see and I took it from him. You know, Jo does have a regal tilt to her chin. She has spent her time in the corps, the chorus line of a ballet company, but even then, she stood out.

  “She does. Mr. Wanderley …”

  “Detective. And your title is …”

  “Mister. Mr. Wells.”

  “Not Reverend Wells? Not Doctor Wells? Not your holiness?”

  “Mr. Wells will do fine.”

  Again the grin.

  “And you can call me Detective Wanderley.”

  “Detective Wanderley, Rebecca said you needed to see me urgently, and I’m a little lost right now about where the urgency lies because …”

  Wanderley took the picture from my hand and set it back on my desk, facing toward him. I turned the frame around to face me. He finally took the swivel chair across from my desk and sat in it or rode it, I don’t know which. He rocked it back and forth and swung it from side to side the whole time we talked. I thought he was going to bust the spring.

  Wanderley leaned forward. He’d fished something out of one of his pockets and was turning it over and over between his finger and thumb. “Let me tell you what I’ve come about.”

  Which would be good, since I had about a hundred things I needed to get done. I sat down at my desk and gave him my patient, expectant smile, the one I use for elders’ meetings.

  “There’s a member of your congregation,” Wanderley said. “His name is Graham Garcia.”

  My heart grew still inside me. Something bad is coming. It’s not my fault. It’s on you now. Graham’s voice.

  I took a careful breath. Whatever it was Wanderley had come to tell me, it wasn’t going to be good news. It would be nothing I wanted to hear.

  “Well,” I said, “Graham Garcia isn’t a member, but his wife, Honey, is. And their son, Alex. I think Graham goes to St. Laurence; he’s Catholic, their daughter, too, I think. Jenasy. She’s at Southwestern in Georgetown. You’ve got the wrong church, Mr. Wanderley—”

  “Detective,” he interrupted.

  “‘Detective,’ you’ll want to talk to one of the priests over at St. Laurence. Probably Father Fontana. You want me to call him for you?” I had my cell in my hand, waiting for the word. I’d be glad to turn this fellow over to my comrades down the street. I needed this to be the wrong church for whatever bad news was going to come out of his mouth.

  Wanderley shook his head no and I put my cell down and picked up a pencil instead. Put that down and picked up a pen. No more use to me than the pencil was. I was about to hear bad news and busywork wasn’t going to make it go away.

  “I’ll talk to Father Fontana later. It’s you I want right now. From talking to Mrs. Garcia, I think you might have some information Father Fontana won’t.”

  Whatever it was Wanderley had been turning in his fingers, he popped it into his mouth. I could see little glints of red when he talked.

  “What’s this about, Detective Wanderley? Is Graham joining Homeland Security or the FBI? You doing background checks? Is that a guitar pick in your mouth?”

  He did some maneuvering with his tongue and smiled, the bit of red plastic held between his front teeth for me to see. It was indeed a guitar pick.

  “How did Graham Garcia get to be a Garcia?” he asked, paying no mind to my questions. “I’ve never in my life seen such an Aryan-looking Garcia.”

  I wanted to tell Wanderley that the word “Aryan” had been misappropriated by the Nazis, that “Aryan” didn’t originally mean anything like a blond-haired, blue-eyed Northern European, but instead referred to the ancient Indo-Iranian peoples, whose descendants now occupy Iran, Afghanistan, and India, but I gave Wanderley the short answer.

  “His mother married Dr. Garcia.”

  I put the pen down and straightened my papers. If this was all on account of Homeland Security or such, I was going to be sending Pete Olson, my representative, another e-mail, and this one wouldn’t be on behalf of PBS and NPR. I would be relieved, too.

  Wanderley nodded his head like he had it all figured out now. He was in my office, head nodding, chair rocking, fingers drumming, and tongue working that red plastic pick around in his mouth so I could hear it click against his teeth.

  “Detective Wanderley, are you going to tell me why you’re asking about Honey’s husband, or are you the only one who gets to ask questions?”

  “He had a meeting with you last Friday.” Wanderley lifted his butt, fished a notebook out of the back pocket of his jeans, and flipped it open one-handed, pretended to consult it. He kicked out one long, skinny, jean-clad leg and rested the ankle on his knee. Gave me a look at those boots. They were good-quality cowboy boots, possibly from the same era as the jacket. They had the “cowboy heel”—angled and two inches high, so either Wanderley was a rider, or whoever first wore those boots was a rider, or Wanderley was a poseur. I’m not judging, I’m just saying.

  “At three o’clock,” he added, in case I’d forgotten, me being of advanced age and all.

  “He did, yes.”

  “Even though he’s not a member of your congregation; doesn’t even belong to your religion.” He gave me a bland, inquisitive look that he stole from Fox Mulder. Totally over the top, this guy.

  “Broadly speaking, we’re both Christians, but yes, we come from different religious traditions.”

  He stopped rocking in the chair and got still. The stillness was a relief. “Do you mind telling me what you talked about, the reason for the meeting?”

  I leaned back in my chair and pushed it until it leaned against the window. The air was noticeably warmer close to the window. This visit was making me feel increasingly anxious; my system was on that “high alert” setting that gets you ready for that whole fight-or-flight thing. “I do mind. Enormously. If this information is important to you, and I can’t see how it could be, I believe I’d be more comfortable letting Graham share it with you.”

  Wanderley was shaking his head before I stopped speaking, and he pulled his own chair up until his knees were against my desk.

  “No, nope, that’s not going to work, and I’ll tell you why. Somebody murdered Mr. Garcia early this morning. Graham Garcia is dead.”

  So there was the bad news. And it was so much worse than I had been preparing for. Dead. Finished. Final. Over. Time’s up. Something bad is coming. It’s not my fault. It’s on you now. Ohhh. I did not want this to be on me.

  Two heartbeats later I scooted my chair over to the intercom, pressed the button that gave me Rebecca’s desk. I said, “R
ebecca, please call Annie Laurie, try her cell if you don’t catch her at home; tell her I’m going to need to pick her up in ten minutes if she can get free, we’ve got an emergency in the church family. Make sure she knows it’s not Merrie or Jo.”

  I buzzed off and buzzed right back on.

  “Tell her if she’s got one of her pound cakes in the freezer, this would be a good time to haul one out.”

  Rebecca’s voice from the speaker said, “Bear, is there any chance you’re going to let me know what this emergency is?”

  I grabbed my Bible, didn’t bother with my jacket, this was shirtsleeves work anyway, and opened the office door so I was talking to the back of Rebecca’s head while she was talking to the speaker.

  “There is. I’ll call you from the car. No, you call me after you get Annie.”

  Rebecca nodded, already dialing my home number. I bypassed the elevator and took the stairs two at a time, noticing that Wanderley wasn’t having any trouble keeping up with me even though I had to have the longer stride, what with me having those three inches on him.

  “Wells, we weren’t done in there.”

  “We’re done for right now.”

  “Listen, there’s some questions I’d like answered. I’ve got a job to do.”

  He was the one irritated now; I could hear it in his voice. Not that I cared. The guy ran his fingers over the balusters like he was twelve. The air filled with the thrum.

  The soft, wet air closed around me when I stepped out of the air-conditioned building. My keys were in my hand and I beeped the door locks open. I shut the door harder than I needed to, but lowered the window as I pulled out of the space marked OFFICE STAFF ONLY, PLEASE and looked back at the young man standing there, nearer Merrie’s age than mine.

  “Mr. Wanderley—”

  “Detective.”

  “Right. I’ve got a job, too. And I’m going to go do it now. If you still want to talk later, we’ll talk later.” I didn’t wait to see if this was agreeable with him.

  Two

  Ten minutes’ notice and my wife was on our front porch, neat as a new dime in khaki slacks and white leather Keds, clasping a tote bag that I could be pretty sure held a foil-wrapped pound cake in a ziplock freezer bag. I am a lucky man and I know it. That makes me twice blessed.

  Annie Laurie slid in beside me nearly before the car came to a complete stop, and I drove back the way I came. The Garcias live the other side of the church from us. I keep a church directory in the car, and on the way over I tried to get through to Honey, but I kept getting a busy signal. I put my cell on speaker phone, and as I dialed Rebecca, I said to Annie Laurie, “Let me call Rebecca and you listen in. I’ll do the telling once, not that I know much of anything yet.”

  Rebecca picked up on the first ring, saying straight off, “I did call you the way you said to, but your line was busy.”

  “I was trying to get through to Honey Garcia, but I couldn’t get her. That young police officer, detective, whatever, that Wanderley fellow says Graham Garcia is dead. He says Graham was murdered this morning.”

  There was a gasp from Annie Laurie next to me and from Rebecca on the phone. Annie put her hand on my knee.

  Rebecca said, “Oh, my good Lord. I’ll call whoever is heading the prayer team right now. She’s got one child still at home, doesn’t she? A sixteen-year-old boy, right? What’s his name?”

  “Alex. Alejandro, but he goes by Alex.”

  “You know which youth minister he’s closer to—Jason or Brick?”

  I didn’t.

  “I’ll buzz them, see what they can do. You think it’s too early to call the women’s association to start making some meals for the family?”

  I told Rebecca to do whatever she thought was best, which was what she was going to do anyway no matter what I said. I told her that I’d keep my cell phone on but to try not to call unless she had to.

  “And if you don’t hear from me before two thirty, would you pick up Jo? I may not be able to get Annie back in time.”

  “I’ll pick her up and feed her, too, assuming I can get your child to eat anything. She have ballet class this afternoon?”

  I said Jo had ballet class every afternoon, eight days a week.

  “Well, I’ll take her on to ballet, don’t worry, I’ve got you covered.”

  Rebecca is Southern Baptist, not Church of Christ, and it was the Baptists’ loss when she came to work for me. That woman makes my life run smoother, and if she critiques my sermons as she takes dictation, well, it’s worth it to have her handle the myriad organizational difficulties that would otherwise consume my day. I have taken to telling Baptist preacher jokes, which is some retaliation.

  The Garcias don’t live in any of the new subdivisions that surround the church. They have one of the older homes on Oyster Creek. These are expensive homes, most of them on two-or three-acre lots that back up to a small lake that’s really an overgrown retention pond. The neighborhood was built thirty or forty years back by oilmen who wanted their kids to be able to keep horses and boats and who didn’t mind the half-hour drive into downtown Houston. Of course, since then Houston had sprawled all the way out to lap up against Sugar Land—that same drive would take you an hour or more today, what with traffic.

  Honey and Graham lived in Honey’s childhood home. Her dad is HD Parker, one of the big ones in Houston’s oil heyday. HD’s own father had been a West Texas dirt farmer, yet with equal parts hard work, recklessness, ruthlessness, and good luck, HD eventually scratched out for himself a tidy piece of the Houston oil scene, and the money and notoriety that went with it. I’ve read a couple of books about the wildcatters and their years of excess, and though HD didn’t warrant a whole chapter in either book, he was the subject of some pretty lively paragraphs.

  Honey had been HD’s only daughter. His first wife had given him a horde of sons, and had worked and worried herself into an early grave as she dealt with the initial ups and downs of HD’s fortunes. HD was in his forties and his ascent assured when he and his new bride, Belinda—known as Beanie—had Honey. He had named the child “Honey” over Beanie’s objections because she was “the sweetest gift life had given him.” It would be fair to say that HD Parker was a doting father.

  When Honey got engaged to Graham Garcia, her father was putting the final touches on the new swankienda he’d built in River Oaks, Houston’s most exclusive neighborhood, so he made a gift of his old home to the new couple. He took care to give it to Honey before she got married, however, to make sure the house would always remain her separate property.

  Texas is both a community property state and a homestead state. By giving Honey the house before she married, HD had assured that the house would never fall under the community property law and become half Graham’s. And because Texas is a homestead state, a house offers a significant margin of financial protection. Houston had a bankrupt millionaire try to claim homestead protection over a thirty-story office building. He had made his home in the penthouse. I don’t think the argument prevailed, but it kept a number of lawyers busy for several years.

  Over the years, Graham and Honey had made the house their own, and it was a lovely, welcoming home, one they frequently opened up for church and community affairs. It was a long, low, late-sixties ranch that didn’t look like all that much from out front, but inside had been expanded and restored and was a beautiful, glowing example of what good taste and a truckload of money can do.

  The gate to the Garcias’ home stood open—I’ve never seen it closed. The house wasn’t visible from the road. Thick hedges surrounded the property. You drove up a gravel drive past rows of mature crepe myrtle, currently covered with little green buds. It was only March, and crepe myrtle doesn’t bloom till June. Mainly what you noticed, especially this time of year, were the huge five-foot-high shrubs of blooming azaleas, lilac and white and pink and coral. Your landscaping has to be in place a long time to achieve that lush look.

  Honey’s black Escalade was parked in
the circle drive. It was dusty and spotted with water drops. There were two police cars parked to the side and a sedan I didn’t recognize. I didn’t see Alex’s F-150. He’d had the fire-engine-red truck jacked up, those great big tires like you see on monster trucks, so there wasn’t any missing it.

  I parked next to the Escalade. I took a big breath, let it out, and opened the door. Annie Laurie caught my sleeve.

  “Bear, you want to say a prayer first?”

  I kind of had been, all the drive over, though it hadn’t been anything more specific than “Please, God, please, God, please, God.” I was counting on God to fill in the missing parts, but Annie was right, I needed to take a moment before I rushed in like a lineman opening a hole for my running back. Following that simile through, I guess that would make Jesus my running back. Sounds like a country-western song. My sister-in-law, Stacy, says if I use one more football simile in a sermon, she’s going to get up and walk out and she’s going to use the center aisle, too.

  Annie and I held hands and I asked God to give me the right words to comfort this family, asked Him to send them the peace that passes understanding. I was trying to keep my mind on praying and not think about the heartbreak we were going to walk into.

  We didn’t have to knock; a pretty young woman in a police uniform opened the door as we walked up the steps.

  “Ya’ll the Wellses? Detective Wanderley called, said to expect you, so ya’ll come on in.”

  She was keeping her voice subdued, but her eyes were alight. We don’t usually get this kind of excitement in Sugar Land.

  “Mrs. Garcia is out on the sunporch,” she said. “Don’t worry about touching things, everything’s already been dusted.”

  The brick-floored foyer opened onto a large, comfortable family room and on past the kitchen, where I could see Cruz Valtierra, who’d worked for the Garcias as long as I’d known them, standing at the kitchen sink, her back to us, peeling something with a potato peeler. Potatoes, probably. The kitchen had that same polished brick floor, which was probably easy to clean but must have been hard on Cruz’s back.