Bones and Roses (6 page)

He comes up to me after the meeting, following the usual round of handshakes and affirmations accorded me as tonight's speaker, which has me lingering after almost everyone else has left. He looks scruffier than I remembered, unshaven, wearing ill-fitting gray cords and an even baggier desert camouflage jacket, a Yankees ball cap pulled low over his head, his poor excuse for a ponytail dribbling from in back. “Funny meeting you here.” He greets me in his gravelly voice as I'm pouring myself a cup of coffee to-go at the refreshment table.

“Funny in what way?” I stir a spoonful of creamer into my coffee. Anna D., who was in charge of refreshments for this meeting, forgot the milk. Again. Drunks, they can be so unreliable.

“Hell if I know. But it's gotta mean something, right?”

“Yeah. That we're both alcoholics.”

“What makes you think I'm here for the same reason you are?” he replies testily.

“Gee, I don't know. Chalk it up to my brilliant powers of deduction.”

He regards me impassively with his dark, hooded eyes. “I gotta say, for a spokesperson, you're not doing such a good job selling me on this AA thing. If what you see is what you get, I ain't buying.”

I drop the sarcastic tone. “Okay, so tell me: Why
are
you here?”

He stands there scratching the back of his neck as he considers this. “Dunno. Curiosity, I guess.”

“Well, you know what they say: Curiosity killed the cat. So good luck with that.” I start to move past him, but he clamps a hand over my arm.

“Wait. You got a problem, let's hear it.”

“I don't have a problem with you, Mr. McGee. Don't take this the wrong way, but the less I see of you the better. I don't need any more reminders. I'm having trouble sleeping nights as it is.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Pardon me for saying so, but you look like shit.”

“Good. Maybe it'll scare off some of the reporters.” The story snowballed after it came out in the local paper. Now it's all over the Internet. I've had the press calling at all hours and showing up at my door.

“I've been getting some of that, too. Fucking ghouls.” He shakes his head in disgust. “They don't generally stick around after I've fired off a couple shots.” I can only hope he means that figuratively.

I take a sip of my coffee and make a face. The coffee at AA meetings is pretty dreadful as a rule. I don't know why; maybe it's some sort of metaphor, the whole dregs of society thing and all. “The other morning I got a call from a reporter in New York. Woke me out of a sound sleep at five freaking a.m. I just hope I wasn't quoted, because the language I used wasn't fit to print.”

McGee chuckles, a sound like pebbles rattling in the tire well of a moving vehicle. “I don't doubt it. You got a mouth on you like the perps I used to haul in.” I guess I didn't react in such a ladylike fashion to the horror show at White Oaks. But that's not what I'm keying into right now.

“You're a cop?” I eye him with interest.

“Retired.” He grabs a Styrofoam cup from the stack and fills it at the dispenser, dumping in enough sugar for the spoon with which he's stirring his coffee to stand up on its own. We alcoholics are notorious for our sweet tooth. I doubt I would have stayed sober if not for Reese's Pieces. “I was with the NYPD twenty-two years. Homicide division. The other day? Not my first D. B.”

I can only assume “D. B.” stands for dead body.

I ought to be disturbed by his talk of homicide, but instead I feel a tickle of excitement. Maybe this is a sign that I'm on the right track. I look into his eyes. Cop's eyes. He may be retired—either by choice, or, more likely, because blue wall or no, his colleagues could no longer turn a blind eye to his drinking—but it's in his blood. I picked up on it the first time we were together. Now it has me wondering. I might not be the instrument of McGee's salvation—he didn't seem too interested in my story when I was telling it tonight—but he could well be mine.

If I'm to find and bring my mother's killer to justice, I'm going to need all the help I can get. And who better than a former NYPD detective? “Interesting,” I remark. “It must have seemed like déjà vu.”

“That's one way of putting it.”

“What do you make of our local talent?”

His eyes fix on me above the rim of the cup as he sips his coffee. “In general or Detective Hard-on in particular?”

I cringe inwardly. He doesn't miss much. “There's bad blood between Sp—Detective Breedlove and me,” I explain. “I wouldn't want it to affect his judgment.”

“You want my advice, you'll keep it zipped.”

I feel myself stiffen at the obvious implication. “It's not like that with us. We were never—” I break off before I can reveal too much, my cheeks warming.

McGee gives another throaty chuckle. “I was talking about your mouth. What did you think I meant?”

“Nothing. Forget it.” I suddenly get busy screwing the lid on the creamer, taking my time until the heat in my face has abated. When I glance at him out of the corner of my eye, he's still smirking.

It's fully dark out by the time we emerge from the church basement and climb the steps to the sidewalk. I pause to look up at the familiar façade of St. Anthony's, where I used to go to Mass every Sunday growing up. It's a classic example of 1930s Spanish colonial architecture with its plain stucco exterior and twin bell towers flanking a rounded cupola. As a child, I prayed in the sanctuary; nowadays, I seek redemption on the floor below. My mom, from whom I inherited my dark sense of humor, would have appreciated the irony. I turn to McGee as we're nearing the parking lot.

“Listen, I was wondering—”

“Not happening,” he interrupts me.

“You don't know what I was going to say!”

“Sure I do.” He doesn't look at me or so much as slow his steps. “You think your old pal Detective Hard-on is doing a crap job on account of he can't see past his own dick, and if you had a real live big-city cop to assist you, you could solve this case on your own. That about sum it up?”

“Well, I wouldn't put it quite that way, but …”

“Fuggedaboutit.” He fishes a set of keys from one of the pockets of his camo jacket as he heads for his car, an older-model blue Ford Focus that looks as if it hasn't seen the inside of a car wash in quite some time.

“She died of a broken neck!” I call after him. “They're calling it ‘suspicious' but they're not saying it was foul play. How does someone who died of natural causes end up stuffed in a trunk?”

He slows to a halt and turns to face me, a dark figure amid the shadows of the parking lot and an uninspiring one at that. “Illegal disposal of human remains. It happens. Someone panics, worried they'll take the rap for something they didn't do.” I notice his Brooklyn accent isn't quite so pronounced when he's speaking in a professional capacity. “It's fucked up, but it's not murder.”

“I don't believe it was an accident and nor do you.” I'm guessing about the last part, but would we be having this conversation if he didn't have doubts of his own? “It was no accident, either, she turned up after all these years. Someone wanted me to find her. I need to know who and why.”

“Knock yourself out.” He turns and continues on.

“Let me buy you dinner at least!”

He utters a derisive laugh and calls over his shoulder, “What, suddenly I'm your new best friend? A minute ago, I was persona non grata. Should Detective Hard-on be worried?”

I bite my lip against the growl that surfaces. “It's just dinner.”

He halts in mid-stride, jingling his keys.

“There's a café down the street that serves the world's greatest tacos. House-made tortillas, the works. You like Mexican?” My grandma always said the way to a man's heart was through his stomach.

“Sure. What I don't like is the heartburn.”

“You can tell them to hold back on the hot sauce.”

He deliberates another second or two and then, with an audible exhalation, pockets his keys as he reverses his steps, glowering at me. “Something tells me I'm gonna have heartburn either way.”

McGee, I soon learn, comes from a large Irish clan of which seemingly every member is in law enforcement, a family tradition dating all the way back to the Plug Ugly era. He followed in his father's and grandfather's footsteps as had his brothers and cousins. Brooklyn born and bred, he moved to Rockland County when he made detective, where, as he put it, “a man can take the wife and kids out for pizza without breaking the bank.” Neither of which he has. He's never been married, he informs me, and as far as he knows the only “little McGees” are his nieces and nephews.

At Rosalita's, after he's plowed through the complimentary basket of tortilla chips and salsa and a combo plate with the works, he reiterates what he said earlier: He's not interested in helping me. I have to play on his sympathies in addition to buying him dinner before he finally relents and agrees to make some inquiries on my behalf. His brother-in-law Pete works in Internal Affairs, it turns out; he can get access to the national police and FBI databases. A day later I'm looking at a faxed copy of a driver's license with the current address of one Stanley A. Cruikshank.

They always come back,
someone once told me, and it's true: However far a native Californian might roam, he always comes back in the end, drawn by the mild climate, natural wonders, and abundant produce of the Golden State. Stan's peregrinations have brought him full circle. He's a live-in ranch hand at the Four Chimneys Ranch in nearby Watsonville, not a fifteen minute drive from my house. I'd pictured him living in some godforsaken town at the other end of the continent. Now I'm wondering if I'm on the wrong track. Why would a guilty man return to the scene of his crime? There's no statute of limitations for murder.

I pull up images of the ranch on Google Earth. One shows an older man on horseback whom I recognize as Stan from the one photo Mom kept of him—I found it tucked in the lining of her jewelry box when I was packing up her things after Dad died. His face is more lined now and his hair silver when it had then been light brown, but he's still lean and rangy. Still handsome if you go for the Marlboro Man type. I bet he's a real lady killer. The question is, did he kill my mom?

Only one way to find out.

The following morning I awaken, at my customary early hour, to the sight of my striped tom, Hercules, curled asleep next to me. He looks so peaceful you'd never guess he'd been out all night hunting for small furry and feathered critters to maim and slaughter—he's the Dr. Mengele of the cat world. I stroke his fur and he cracks open one yellow eye and purrs. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” I murmur. He follows me when I get up and head down the hallway, drawn by the aroma of coffee. I have the timer on my coffeemaker set for the same time every morning.

In the kitchen, I look around me with satisfaction as I wait for the coffee to finish brewing. My housekeeper, Esmeralda, was in yesterday to clean and every surface gleams. I take in the black and white checkerboard flooring, original glass-front cabinetry and green tile counters, deep porcelain sink, and vintage Formica dinette. My 1930s Craftsman bungalow isn't grand or luxurious like the homes I manage, but what it lacks in square footage it makes up for in charm. It still has many of its original features, which previous owners had either covered with sheetrock or painted over, and I was able to restore when I bought and renovated this place eight years ago. It was worth every drop of sweat equity and savings it took to make it shine.

I pour myself a cup of coffee and sit down at the table with my laptop to check my email. A half hour later I'm headed out the door, showered and dressed, with my travel mug and a banana. The sun hasn't yet risen, and there's just the rosy tinge in the sky above the rooftops of my quiet residential neighborhood, which is a five-minute walk from the beach. My first stop is the Willets' Cape Cod on Opal Cliff Drive, then it's on to the Voakes' split-level on Sea Breeze Court, both routine walk-throughs with no surprises. At the Blankenships' oceanfront villa in Casa Linda Estates I oversee the installation of a new alarm system. At the Oliveiras' shingled two-story on Swallow Lane I meet with the pool guy to discuss a remedy for the black algae infestation. I spend the better part of an hour at the Martinson's duplex by the yacht harbor conducting a thorough search for eight-year-old Grady Martinson's hamster that's on the lam. I don't break for breakfast or lunch; I bolt the banana and a protein bar on the run. I'm hurrying through my to-do list so as to be done by four o'clock, in time to pick up Ivy for our trip to Four Chimneys Ranch.

She's waiting on the porch when I pull up in front of the Victorian white elephant she inherited from her late grandmother. She waves to me and comes trotting down the walk. She's my “wingman,” a role she's taking seriously I see, after she's climbed in and we're en route, when she pulls a gun from her straw handbag. It's the pearl-handled derringer that had belonged to Ivy's great-grandfather, Beauregard Ladeaux, a notorious bootlegger in his day. I've never seen it outside its glass display case in the parlor. “Um. I don't think we'll be needing that,” I say, eyeing it nervously.

“You never know.”

“When was the last time it was even fired? Jesus. Put that thing away before you do some damage!” I cry as she cocks the hammer.

“Relax, it's not loaded,” she assures me. “It's just for show. In case he tries anything.” She's wearing sixties bellbottom jeans and an embroidered peasant top, cork-heeled wedgies on her dainty feet. Bonnie and Clyde meets the Summer of Love.

“He wouldn't dare. Not in broad daylight,” I state with more confidence than I feel.

“He's a murderer. God knows what he's capable of.”