Faithful Unto Death (2 page)

“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, “Rebecca, 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

T
en 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.

The glassed-in sunroom was bright with morning light. The wrought-iron furniture had been stacked high with floral cushions and pillows, and there was a deep-pile flower-patterned rug on the brick floor. Fresh daffodils stood in vases on the side tables, and on the small glass breakfast table was a woven basket filled with bright orange clementines. The room seemed like an extension of the backyard, flower-filled and sunny. The lake looked blue and cool, and if it wasn’t big enough for sailboats, it was just the right size for the white canoe pulled up to the Garcias’ dock.

Honey sat alone in the corner of the love seat, her knees drawn up to her chin and her hands clasped around her ankles. A roll of toilet paper next to her was trailing its sheets on the floor. A scattering of damp tissue wads littered the cushion around her. On the table to her left, there was a part-full glass of lemonade almost the same color as the slacks she wore.

Annie Laurie dropped her purse and tote bag on the floor and went over to Honey, brushed aside the tissues, sat down, and put her arms about her. Honey’s face was puffy and streaked with weeping; now she laid her head on Annie’s breast and let the tears fall. She didn’t let go of her ankles, didn’t make any effort to wipe the tears away, hardly made a sound as her shoulders heaved. Her tears left a wet patch on Annie’s blue cotton shirt.

Looking at the two women together, I was taken aback by how much Honey had changed. Annie has always been a slim woman; after our girls were born, she rounded out some, but for a woman over forty, she looked good. Shoot, Annie would look good for thirty.

Honey, on the other hand, had battled her weight for as long as I’d known her. She hadn’t ever been less than plump, and there had been times when she had veered off into, well, if I were an unkind man, I’d say she’d gotten a little fat sometimes. The thing is, Honey looked good plump. She’s a peachy-skinned redhead, and full-bodied, she looks ripe and luscious and more than one man has been surprised that her unfashionably fleshy curves have caused such a stirring in his loins. I’d be a liar if I said it hadn’t ever happened to me.

But the Honey who sat in front of me, eyes squeezed shut, leaking tears all over my wife, was not plump. I’d say she was skinny, but the word that came to mind was “deflated.” She must have dropped a good thirty pounds. That’s a lot of weight to lose, even for someone as big as I am. Honey was maybe five feet nine. And I’ll tell you something else: Honey’s probably a bit over forty, but I’d never before noticed. Now those years clung to her. Looking at her made me feel sad, and old.

Annie Laurie did that comforting murmur thing women who care for each other do when one is in terrible pain. I took a handful of clementines before I sat down on the chair closest to the love seat and I peeled and sectioned four or five just to give my hands something to do. There wasn’t a trash can anywhere I could see, so I mixed the torn pieces of peel in with a bowl of potpourri. Then I lined the miniature orange sections up on top of one of the magazines stacked on the coffee table. In case someone might want one. The phone rang somewhere in the house; there was talk and then a definitive click as the receiver was replaced in the cradle.

Cruz came in with a coffee tray and I jumped up to take it from her, but she wouldn’t let me. She put it down on the glass table with a thump that brought Honey’s head up, and before she could go back to crying, Cruz handed her a folded, damp washcloth and said, “Wipe your face. You’re all splotches. That was your father on the phone again. I told him what you told me to tell him.”

Honey patted her face with the washcloth and said through the cloth, “Thank you, Cruz.”

“Yeah, he’s coming out anyway. He’ll be here in a little bit, so you want to pull yourself together.”

Honey threw the washcloth across the room.

Cruz was unperturbed. “I told him what you said, he said he’s coming out.
You
can’t stop that old man. I don’t know why you think I can. Your momma is coming, too. You should have called her first thing, Honey. How you think that’s gonna make her feel, getting that call from me? Should have called her yourself with the news. And you gonna pick that cloth up yourself.”

Honey unfolded herself and crossed the room to fetch the wet cloth. Cruz poured out four cups of coffee, fixing each the way she knew we drank it; she put three sugars and milk in mine, four sugars, no milk in hers. She sat down in the chair opposite me, smoothed the straight, navy blue skirt of her dress over her knees, and said without preamble, “Alex isn’t home.”

“Hasn’t anyone called the school yet?”

Cruz gave me a look. She’s really good at that, giving meaningful looks.

“Of course we did, Bear. What you thinking? He’s not at school. He didn’t come home last night. He’s not answering his cell. Jenasy’s roommate is bringing her home later today. You know what happened?”

Annie said, “No, we just heard . . .”

“You gonna tell them what the police say or you want me to?”