Melissa Bourbon Ramirez - Lola Cruz 01 - Living the Vida Lola (31 page)

She nodded, a small frown playing on her lips. “Just moved back in. Kind of freaky knowing the woman who lived there before me died.”

“Emily was murdered.”

“Right. Murdered.”

It sounded so sinister when someone else said it. “But it’s better than living with your parents?”

She rolled her eyes. “God, yes. I’d do anything not to be in the Case household. No freedom.” She hesitated. “Beatrice is really upset, though. I guess she and Emily became friends.”

“You can tell Bea that I’m not going to stop until I find out who killed Emily, and why.”

Joanie’s gaze was intense and direct. “It wasn’t Zod. He wouldn’t do that.”

I couldn’t comfort her, or reassure her that I believed Zod was innocent when I hadn’t discovered the truth yet. Instead, I asked, “When was the last time
he
lived with your parents?”

“Oh, Jesus, I don’t know. He escaped a long time ago. I don’t think he’d take a million dollars to go back.”

After last night, I completely understood wanting to get away from nosy parents. “He’s got a pretty good gig going since your dad owns Tattoo Haven.”

She bared her teeth. “You think he’s guilty, don’t you?”

My guard went up. Despite how skittish she was around her
mother, Joanie clearly didn’t want to consider that her brother was involved in Emily’s death. I didn’t blame her for being upset. If Antonio were under suspicion of murder, hell, I’d defend him to my grave.

It was go-for-broke time. What had Jack’s note said?
Finish the job
. That was exactly what I intended to do. Until I found Emily’s killer, I wasn’t safe—and neither was my family. I needed to push buttons and see what happened. “He has a pretty clear motive. But then, so do your mother and father.”

“He didn’t do it.” Joanie flicked her wrist in front of her face, her shiny gold Rolex knockoff reflecting the sun. “I have to go.”

“But—”

“I have to go,” she repeated, her tone leaving no room for discussion.

Right. Mama Case was probably ready to unleash some whoop-ass on Joanie for being gone so long. She pushed off on the ball of her foot and jogged across the capitol lawn and back toward her father’s reelection office. Despite the short leash Mrs. Case managed to keep her daughter on, Joanie hadn’t defended either of her parents. Did that mean she thought
they
were capable of murder? And if so, which one?

An hour later, Reilly and I were sitting in her lime green Volkswagen Beetle in front of Bonatee’s office. The bubble car didn’t exactly blend in, but I couldn’t throw stones with my mangled car still sitting in Abuelita’s parking lot.

“This is so boring,” Reilly said after twenty minutes.

She was right. This stakeout had been duller than watching paint dry. I grunted noncommittally, slouched down in my seat, and kept staring at the doors to the building. My eyes scanned up and down the street every few seconds.

“Shouldn’t we go see how Antonio’s doing?” she asked.

“We will. Just a few more minutes.”
Come on, I willed
. Something had to happen. I needed a break in this case. Someone needed to make a mistake or act or do
something
.

My prayers were answered fifteen minutes later. A man came from around the back of the building and darted into the middle of the street. I recognized him immediately. George Bonatee.

I aimed the camera I’d borrowed from Neil’s stash and clicked. Documentation for my report. It felt so spy-novelish—now, if only it led me somewhere.

I bolted upright when Bonatee slipped into a mint-colored sedan that had come to a halt just ahead of the building. The driver’s side was smashed, streaks of dark green and brick red paint marking the crumpled steel. “Reilly!” I nudged her with my elbow. “Start the car!”

Reilly jumped, fumbled with her keys in the ignition, and brought the bug to life. “What? What’s going on?”

I strained but couldn’t see the driver. “Follow that car.”

She gunned it, screeching tires finally catching hold of the asphalt.

“Quietly, Reilly.” I caught a glimpse of the car’s license plate, committing the number and letters I could see to memory.
SJ3. SJ3. SJ3
. I buckled my seat belt and held on for my life.

“Who is it?” Reilly shrieked, her pudgy hands white-knuckling the steering wheel.

Grappling for breath, I let out the air I’d been holding. “I’d bet my life that that’s the car that hit Antonio last night.” And smashed the Mustang at My Place. Whoever it was, they had some nerve driving it around. I looked around for a police cruiser. There were none to be found.

Reilly slammed her foot down on the gas pedal. “My Antonio?” The car seemed to recoil for an instant before surging
forward. I repeated the partial plate in my head—
SJ3, SJ3
—and dug my cell and a pad of paper out from my purse again. SJ3. I jotted the plate number down, wishing I could see all of it. I dialed the office.

“Camacho and Associates,”

Sadie said into my ear. “Sadie. It’s Dolores,” I said. “I need your help.”

“Jesus, Dolores. Relax—”

I took a breath. Screw relaxing. I wanted to nail the bastards—whoever they were—once and for all. “I need you to run a license plate.”

“What is it?” She seemed to be talking in slow motion.

I looked at the partial I’d written in my notebook. “SJ3. It’s a green—” I peered at the car three lengths ahead of us. “—Mercury, I think. Or maybe a Buick?”

“That’s all you have?”

“I can’t see the rest. We’re too far away.”

“Get closer.”

Like I wouldn’t if I could? “We’re trying.”

“Fill me in,” she said.

Sadie barked, “Back off—” I heard a scuffle, and then Manny’s voice came across the line. “What’s going on, Dolores?”

I ignored their squabble and told him about the banged-up car that Bonatee had climbed into. “I don’t know who’s driving. Reilly and I are following him now.”

As if on cue, Reilly cranked the wheel to the left, and the car skidded around a corner. Horns blared at us from all directions.

“I’ll call you back about the plate.”

I snapped my phone shut and dropped it in my lap, grabbing the handle of the door to keep from careening into Reilly. “Manny’s on it!” I shouted over the screeching tires and my thudding heart.

“Where’d it go?” she shrieked a second later. “It’s gone!”

Sure enough, we’d lost it. There was no green car anywhere, smashed front end or not—except for the fluorescent green bubble we were in. “Damn.”

“Sorry.” Reilly pulled over, her hands shaking as she held them against her cheeks. “How can you do this every day? I’m a wreck!”

I didn’t have time to answer. My phone rang. I jumped, grabbed it from my lap, and slammed it against my ear. “Manny, what’d you get?”

A low, raspy voice came over the line. “Are you following me?”

My heart thrashed. It was my threatening phone caller. The same person who was in the car with Bonatee. Or maybe it was Bonatee on the line. “Not anymore,” I said, sounding way more calm than I felt. I thought my heart might spontaneously combust any second.

“Your brother was a mistake. Drop this case, or next time, there won’t be any mistakes.” And the line went dead.

“Who the hell are you?” I yelled at the phone.

As if answering, the phone rang again. “What?”

“This is how you answer the phone?” My mother. “We have to work on the favors.”

Shit. I banged the heel of my hand against my forehead and heaved a frustrated sigh. I couldn’t do
quinceañera
business right now. Reilly needed a pep talk to keep going. The killer had just threatened me again. I didn’t have time for mesh bags and chocolate Kisses!

Then I remembered my car parked at the restaurant. If a killer could drive a smashed-up car, why couldn’t I? I was the good guy—and I needed my wheels. “I’m on my way, Mami.”

A
n  hour of making party favors turned into two. I silently brainstormed my case the entire time, but wasn’t any closer to a plan or an answer than I’d been before I began shoving silver Kisses into the little bags.

I managed to avoid conversation with my mother, however. She was too busy worrying about whether or not to refry her
frijoles
and if we’d have enough guacamole to discuss my job or late-night activities. Finally, with the promise that I’d be at the hall to decorate bright and early Saturday morning—if I lived that long—I left.

Camacho and Associates’ gang of three was gathered around the conference table when I made it to the office. Manny’s expression was dark. Apprehension settled in my gut. Something was going on.

Neil sat with his back to me, his neck completely sunk inside his shirt. His fingers flew across his laptop computer. I pulled up a chair next to him and sat down, nodding my head in one communal greeting.

“Dolores,” Manny grunted. He cleared his throat. “Muriel O’Brien is dead.”

I nearly fell off my chair. What happened to buttering a person up before the blow? “You’re kidding.”

“Died yesterday afternoon.”

Yesterday. That meant she couldn’t have rammed Antonio last night. Which meant someone else had. I rubbed my temples. Poor Muriel. She’d been nothing more than a puppet, and now she was dead. I came back to the same potential puppet masters I’d been considering from the beginning: Assemblyman Case; Bonatee; the ice queen, Mrs. Case; and Zod.

Neil growled, but the
tap-tap-tap
of his fingers striking the keys never let up. “Cause of death?”

“Mixture of drugs and alcohol,” Manny said.

“Accidental?” Neil asked.

Manny closed the folder he’d had open in front of him. “Doubtful. Bottle of codeine next to a bottle of blood pressure meds and cough syrup.”

“Just like Emily,” I muttered.

Manny nodded. “All washed down with one too many bottles of beer.”

A sound came from deep within my throat. Muriel wouldn’t touch beer. She’d said it herself—she was a Myers’s and Coke broad. I took a deep breath and faced Manny. The bodies were piling up, and it was past time to spill my secrets. “I was almost run down outside My Place on the night I went to see Muriel. And I was locked in a freezer at the florist, although I’m pretty sure it was Muriel who did that, and then my brother was hit while he was in my car—”

Manny and Sadie both slammed their hands down on the conference table at the same time. “What?” she shouted, while he barked, “¿
Cómo
?”

My eyebrows pulled together as I looked from one to the other. “And then I got a call a while ago saying to drop the case.
Or else.” I rubbed my temples again. It was so cliché, but it had me on edge. “Muriel ran My Place and Tattoo Haven. I think she was probably working for one of the suspects or was being blackmailed into doing their dirty work.” It was the only thing that made sense. “If the killer was feeling threatened…” I trailed off, not wanting to say aloud what I was thinking. As long as I kept investigating Emily’s death, I was a threat to the killer, and I could be next.

“—murder eliminated that threat.” Manny’s eyes were black slits. “You will not take any chances, Dolores. ¿
Entiendes
?”

Hell yes, I understood. I didn’t want to climb the lonely stairway to heaven.

Neil leaned toward me. “What did the broad tell you the night you talked to her?”

Ay, Dios
. Neil had spoken a complete sentence. “She said she only drank Myers’s. Besides that, nothing substantial. The only thing that was strange was when she said—” I closed my eyes, remembering how Muriel had phrased it. “—‘Emily was screwing the wrong people, and she didn’t even know it.’ ”

“Interesting but vague,” Manny said. “Anything else?”

“She was hostile. Emily was trying to blame Tattoo Haven for Garrett’s death, and Muriel seemed to be taking that a little personally. She took a phone call while I was there.” I replayed it in fast forward in my mind. “She was bartering. Negotiating the price of something. I thought she was buying or selling something.” Little did I know she’d probably been making a deal with the killer to stalk me and scare me off. “A few minutes later, she completely closed up. Practically chased me out. I spotted her a few times over the next couple of days—like she was tailing me.” When they all stared at me, I went on. “Once outside the tattoo place in a red truck, once at the florist, and once at Bonatee’s office.”

“So you think she was on the killer’s payroll,” Manny said.

I had no proof, but he was all about developing hypotheses. “I think it’s possible.”

“And you have no idea who called her that night? She never said a name?”

“No clue.” I paused, something tugging at my memory.

“What is it?” Manny asked.

“It’s just—I don’t know.” I thought back to that night at the bar. Whoever had tried to run me over had either followed me or had been in the bar at the same time Antonio and I had been there. “My Place is strange. The people didn’t all seem to fit.” But I wasn’t able to identify a killer from my memory of who had been there that night.

Manny watched me for a moment, drumming the table with his fingers. Finally, he looked at Neil. “Anything on that license plate?”

Neil tapped on the laptop. “Not yet.”

“Keep thinking,” Manny said to me. “It’ll come to you.”

God I hoped so, because when Manny adjourned the meeting, the killer had two and I still had zip.

I could feel Manny staring at me as I went over my notes again. He came up next to me. “The first rule for any private investigator is self-preservation, Dolores. You have to take everything seriously and be cautious to the extreme. You got lax on this one.”

He was right. Emily, and now Muriel, had been murdered. I could be next. “Do the police have anything new?” I asked, avoiding his scrutiny.

“As of yesterday, no.”

Great. So Detective Seavers and I were neck and neck in the race.

Manny left, and I spent the next twenty minutes following
up loose ends by contacting Café Venezia where Emily had worked, and then Sean’s teacher. Both phone calls yielded nothing new.