Melissa Bourbon Ramirez - Lola Cruz 01 - Living the Vida Lola (3 page)

Not exactly enough time to evaluate patterns of behavior, but it corroborated our client’s story. Had something changed in Emily’s life that had made her move in here? “Do you have a prior address for her?”

She shrugged again.

I kept trying. “Employment history? Anything that could help?”

She hesitated, and then nodded. “She filled out a rental application.” She didn’t budge to find it for me.

I gave myself a mental pep talk. Slow and steady won the race. “Does she have any friends? Relatives?” I asked.

“She’s always kind of kept to herself.” Mary’s expression softened. “Never brought people around, even when I pla—” She stopped abruptly, swallowed, and continued. “Even when I told her she could.”

A red flag shot up in my mind. Mary had been about to say something else. The question was what?

“Have you seen Sean?” she asked.

The youngest son. “Not yet.”

The color of her eyes seemed to dull. She leaned forward, looking anxious. “But you know where he is?”

“He’s with his uncle.” And probably pretty freaked, poor kid.

“She was never mother of the year, but how could Emily leave Sean?” Mary’s back straightened, her lips pursing. I could sense her gearing up for a rant. “Why do parents screw with their children—that’s what I want to know. If you choose to have kids, you should think about
them
instead of yourself, right? They get divorced, they promise they’ll spend time with you, but they don’t—” Her eyes bugged. “—and they screw around with your friend’s—”

So one of Mary’s parents—or maybe both—had done a pretty good number on her when she was younger.

My folks, on the other hand, had done zip to damage me—unless you counted the whole relationship-with-Sergio debacle. And their total lack of support about my career choice. And the guilt. God,
the guilt
. But otherwise…

Okay, I gave two points to Mary. Parents could definitely make things difficult. “I’m sorry,” I said, pushing my own familial eccentricities aside, “but could we get back to Emily?”

She blinked and snapped back to reality, her eyes returning to normal size. “Sorry. I just don’t get it.”

“So you really think she could have just up and left Sean?”

“Well, she’s not here.”

She crossed the room and sank into a chair at the table. Her short black hair had a hint of wave and was parted at the side and slicked across her head. She had one of those faces with perfect cheekbones and flawless skin. Short hair was attractive on her. On me I was pretty sure it would look like a helmet. “Could she be running from someone?” I suggested.

She smiled. Sort of. “Who would she run from? It’s not like this is a James Bond movie.”

No kidding. “So you think she walked out on motherhood,” I repeated, going back to Mary’s original idea.

Mary ran a hand under her eyes, sweeping away a tear that slipped down. “I’ll say it again,” she snipped. “Sean’s alone. She
did
walk out on him.”

“Why are you so sure her disappearance was by choice?” Something inside me screamed foul play. And, no, I hadn’t been watching too much
CSI.
My conviction wasn’t based on anything, but I wasn’t ready to condemn Emily without cause. Call it women’s intuition, but she
looked
nice in her photograph.

Mary cocked her head and looked at me. “Maybe she was just tired of being a mother.”

“Why would you think that?”

“It happens, right? Sean wasn’t planned.”

“Did she tell you that?”

Mary shook her head, her perfect hair still in place. “Not in so many words, but I picked up on it.”

Apparently I’d been wrong. A month and a half had been plenty of time for Mary to have discerned quite a lot about Emily Diggs and her deep emotional baggage. “Any idea who the father is?”

Her lips were tight, and she shook her head. “No.”

This interview was beginning to feel like slow torture, worse than slathering
masa
on a thousand drenched corn husks for tamales. “Even if Sean was unplanned, it’s been six years. Why leave now?”

Mary stared at me, unblinking. “Why not? Some people bolt when things get tough.”

Rule number one in the PI handbook is to be a good listener—well, after don’t get emotionally involved and protect
yourself at all costs, but those were throwaways. Mary had her own personal baggage. “What was tough for Emily?”

She continued as if she were in a trance. “You get wrapped up in your own life and forget about how your decisions affect the people around you. Too bad you can’t choose your parents,” she muttered. “Or trade. My roommate, Joanie, would have taken my dad instead of hers in a second.”

Again with the parents. “But what was tough for Emily?”

“Being a mother, I guess.”

I didn’t want to pour salt on whatever festering wound Mary had involving her parents, so I maneuvered the conversation in a different direction. “Did you see or talk to Emily the day she disappeared?”

“No.”

A change in the environment registered in the back of my mind. I turned and looked down the hallway. Something was different. The house was still. Dr. Phil’s voice was gone.

After popping out of my chair, I strode to the hall. “Had Emily been upset?” I asked over my shoulder, peering toward the front door.

“She was different than she used—”

I lost the rest of her sentence, focusing instead on the mysterious woman with the dead eyes. Where was she? I walked down the hallway, and not two seconds later, she burst from behind the wall as I turned into the front room.

“Beatrice!” Mary shouted from behind me.

Beatrice. Score. I had another name.

An erratic tremor took hold of Beatrice’s head. “You ain’t found Emily.”

I stared at her. Give a girl a chance. I just started looking for her like twenty minutes ago. “Not yet,” I said.

Beatrice tugged her hat down over her forehead, shadowing
her face. She turned and faced the wall, breathing deeply. Self-imposed time-out?

“Beatrice, why don’t you go watch your show?” Mary said, her tone placating.

Beatrice slowly turned back to us. Her eyes were crossed and her lips stuck out. She considered Mary. “No. I need to help this girl.” She looked at me, and I started. A light had come on behind her eyes. “I have something.”

I wondered if Beatrice’s elevator made it to the top floor, but I asked the obvious question anyway. “What kind of something?”

She folded her arms and straightened her shoulders. “Emily’s journal.”

Mary blinked slowly and put her hands on her hips. “Aunt Beatrice,” she scolded. “You do not.”

“Aunt?” I looked from one woman to the other, noticing a vague resemblance for the first time.

Mary nodded. “She’s my mom’s sister.”

Ah, that explained why Mary would tolerate a potentially crazy woman in the house.

Aunt Bea just nodded. “I do have it.”

“Why would Emily give you her journal?” I asked.

“She asked me to hold it for her one day. Important stuff in it, she said. So I kept it, but then she didn’t come back.”

Mary held her hand out. “Give it to me, Bea.”

“Uh-uh.” She sounded like a rebellious child.

Mary’s face grew stern. “Emily’s missing. It should go to the police.”

“I said uh-uh.” Bea was indignant.

I’d already made up my mind. There was no way I was leaving this house without that journal. “Would it be all right if I take a look at it?” I asked. “It might help me find her.”

She hesitated, shooting an uncertain glance at Mary. Finally, her eyes cleared. She swung her head and looked pointedly at me. “You think so?”

It was my turn to nod. “You never know what important stuff she may have written.”

“Well,” she said, still hemming and hawing, “I do want you to find her.”

I held my breath as she walked to the couch and pulled a spiral notebook from under a cushion. The edges were worn, and the cover was pulling away from the coil. It wasn’t much of a journal, but it had a worn look that told me Emily used it well.

Bea came back toward us and held the journal out. I wrapped my fingers around it, but she didn’t let go. My smile strained. She’d better hand it over or I’d bust a move on her. “She’d want me to see it,” I said sweetly.

Her hands trembled and she looked nervous, but she finally released it.

“Thank you, Bea,” I said. And I meant it. Emily had enlisted one of her roommates to watch over the journal. Surely there would be something useful in it.

Bea gave me a wild look, and then she flicked her eyes at Mary. “She should talk to George,” she said hoarsely. Then she repeated to me, “Talk to George.”

“Aunt Beatrice!”

But Bea didn’t even blink at the indignant tone of Mary’s voice. “She should. You know she should.”

“Who’s George?” I asked, but just as quickly as it had gone on, the light in Bea’s eyes suddenly snuffed out. She shuffled over to the TV, pressed a button, and Dr. Phil’s voice filled the room again.

I turned to Mary. “Who’s George?”

“He’s the property manager,” Mary said. “And my father.”

Muy interesante
. “Why does Bea think I should talk to him?”

“He has Emily’s application. Really, you should ignore my aunt. She means well, but she doesn’t always make sense.”

Ignore Bea? Not a chance. She’d given me more information in two minutes than Mary had given me in nearly fifteen. Bea might have a loose grip on reality, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t perceptive. I studied Mary. “Does your father know Emily’s missing?”

She nodded. “He’s been out of town, but I e-mailed him.”

Sounded like a close father–daughter relationship. “Would you give me his number?”

She hesitated and then disappeared into the kitchen, returning a minute later with a business card. I gave it a quick once-over and tucked it into my purse. Paying a visit to Mr. George Bonatee, attorney-at-law, was at the top of my to-do list. I was really rocking now. A journal
and
a business card. Score.

“I’d like to look at Emily’s room,” I said.

“I don’t know what good it’ll do,” she said, ushering me ahead of her and up a creaky staircase.

I didn’t either. “I’ll just have a quick peek.” We walked to the end of the long corridor. The room was bare bones. “Not much here.”

Mary perched on the edge of the bed with her legs crossed and her hands clasped. “She doesn’t have much. Sean has a few more toys and stuff outside.”

A few watercolor paintings were taped to the wall at child’s height. The papers were crooked, and the pieces of tape were at least three inches long. Sean was obviously a proud artist. I ran my finger over a length of tape stuck to the wall. “What was hanging here?”

“I don’t come in here much.” Mary paused, thinking. “A
photo? Yeah, that’s right. The river, I think.” She didn’t sound like she cared. “Maybe a boat—” She stopped, abruptly looking down, twisting her fingers together. “I don’t really remember.” The angst returned to her voice. “I just can’t believe she left.”

After a few more attempts at questions, I gave up. “Anything else you can tell me?”

She shook her head. Her perfectly coiffed hair hadn’t budged. I wasn’t so lucky. A stray strand was caught on my mouth. I picked it away from what was left of my lipstick and grabbed a stuffed stegosaurus up from the bed. “I’ll take this to Sean,” I said, thinking Emily’s little boy might need some comfort from home—as strange as that home was. Setting up a time to meet with him and his uncle was also on my list of things to do.

“That’s a great idea. He loves that dinosaur.” Mary led me back downstairs. I thanked her for her time, waved to Bea, who didn’t acknowledge my presence again, and escaped into the sweltering heat.

Back at my car, air conditioner at full blast and directed straight at my face, I flipped through the journal. A bunch of scribbles and lists and doodles. It would take time to peruse. Best to do it back at Camacho’s. I was about to slap it closed again when my finger brushed over a staple. I opened to the page and saw a business card attached to the top of a sheet of paper.

My heart stopped. The
Sacramento Bee
logo marked the card. And there, in the center, was printed

JACK CALLAGHAN STAFF WRITER
/
REPORTER

My Jack Callaghan?
¡Ay, caramba!
I knew he’d been back in Sacramento for six months or so and was working at the newspaper. I’d gone out of my way to avoid him. He and Antonio had seen each other, but Jack hadn’t been to our house or to Abuelita’s, our family’s restaurant. Thank God. I didn’t want to rekindle my old fantasy—just to end up invisible to him again.

Jack’s name stared at me. Why would Emily Diggs have Jack’s business card in her notebook? Had he spoken to her? Did he have information on her disappearance? Oh God, I was going to have to call him.

I tried to calm my racing heart.
Dios mío
. After fifteen years, it looked like I wasn’t going to be able to avoid Jack Callaghan any longer.

T
he minute I pulled into Camacho’s parking lot, the smell of hot oil and fried food carved through the heavy air and seemed to land smack on my thighs. If I were a bear, I’d be ripping off car doors to get to the nearest ice chest, I was
that
hungry.

I followed my nose into Szechwan House, greeted Helen at the front counter, and ordered my usual, to go. Popping open a fortune cookie (I’m a firm believer in dessert
before
a meal, especially when the answer to my latest problem might be found on the fortune inside the cookie), I looked hopefully at the slip of white paper that fluttered onto the counter.
YOUR LOVE LIFE WILL BE HAPPY AND HARMONIOUS
.

Yeah, right. I’d been single for so long that I’d pretty much given up on having a happy and harmonious love life. And now I had to phone up Jack Callaghan and quiz him on why a missing person I was investigating had
his
card in her notebook and all I could think about was what he’d done to Greta Pritchard way back when and how I still wanted him to do it to me. I felt myself blush. Talking to him again after so long was going to be torture.