Fire and Ice (25 page)

“He had a great time at the party last night,” Eleanor added.
“Where’s Butch? He’s late, too. Still cleaning up after the bachelor party?”

“No,” Joanna said. “The cleanup is pretty much done. His publisher scheduled a surprise conference call for sometime today. He didn’t know if he’d be able to make it or not.”

Eleanor clicked her tongue. “Men,” she said disapprovingly. “You can’t live with ’em and you can’t live without ’em.” But Joanna noticed Eleanor smiled when she said the words. From Joanna’s perspective, it seemed as though the last year or so, since George had retired, her mother seemed truly happy for the first time in her life.

Now, peering across the top of her menu at Joanna’s face, Eleanor’s smile was suddenly replaced by a frown. “You look upset,” she said. “Don’t be. The two of us are perfectly capable of having lunch on our own.”

It was Joanna’s turn to smile. “It’s not that,” she said. “I just came from the Board of Supervisors meeting. Peggy Whitehead would like to have my head on a platter. Marliss was there. I’m sure you’ll be able to read all about it in one of her upcoming columns.”

The fact that Marliss Shackleford and her mother continued to be good friends was something that had bugged Joanna for years.

“The two of you are a lot alike,” Eleanor said now. “Both of you are ambitious. Both of you are determined to make a mark in your hometown. Both of you have nontraditional jobs. I’ve never understood why you couldn’t be friends, the same way you and Marianne Maculyea are friends.”

Because Marianne doesn’t come after me with knives drawn, Joanna thought as Daisy came to take their order. The daily special was two shredded beef tacos and a cheese enchilada. Joanna and Eleanor both ordered that.

“So how’s the best man this morning?” Eleanor asked, changing the subject.

Eleanor had been more than disapproving when she had first heard Joanna would be standing up with Frank Montoya, but when it came to planning the details, Eleanor was also the one who had tracked down a suitable outfit—a gray silk ankle-length skirt topped by a matching boxy jacket studded with rhinestone buttons. The material was a close match to Frank’s tux, and Joanna was relieved that she wouldn’t have to walk down the aisle in a tuxedo.

“Fine,” Joanna said.

“And you’re going to Helene’s this afternoon?” Eleanor asked.

“For a cut.” Joanna nodded. “Right after lunch. It’s the only time Helen could work me in.” Helen Barco had added an
e
to her name in hopes of lending Helene’s Salon of Hair and Beauty a little class. But Helen was still Helen.

“You might ask her if she could put a bit of a color rinse on your hair,” Eleanor suggested. “You may not have noticed, but you have some gray showing these days.”

As soon as she said the words, Joanna knew her real mother was back. This sounded more like the Eleanor Joanna had known and loved all her life.

“Sure, Mom,” she said. “I’ll see what can be done.”

Even as Joanna said the words, she knew she would do no such thing. Yes, relations between Joanna Brady and Eleanor Lathrop Winfield had changed some. Things had improved but not that much. If Eleanor didn’t like the fringe of gray that was showing up on her daughter’s otherwise red head, too bad.

I’ll wear that gray proudly, she thought ruefully to herself. Like a red and gray badge of courage.

I could have called ahead, but I didn’t. Mason Waters deserved more than a phone call. Tracking him down in person to give him the information he dreaded was the right thing to do. At least, it was the right thing for me to do.

I was relieved when I drove up the cul-de-sac and saw both the Kenworth and Mason Waters’s Honda parked out front. That meant he was home. I found him out in his carport. Armed with a DustBuster vacuum, he was cleaning the front floorboards of the little maroon sedan.

When I walked up beside the car, he straightened up, looked at me, and said, “This is going to be bad news.”

I nodded.

His eyes filled with tears. “You’d better come inside,” he said, quickly brushing them away.

I followed Mason into his house. By the time he lowered himself into the recliner, he seemed to be under control. “Tell me,” he said.

So I did, explaining that the woman he had known as Marina Aguirre was actually Marcella Andrade. I didn’t spare any of the details. Eventually they’d end up being media fodder. I thought he was better off hearing them from me in the privacy of his own living room. He listened to it all, sitting in stark silence with his big hands folded in his lap. When I finished, he shook his head.

“How do you know it’s her?” he asked. “How can you be sure Marina and this Marcella are one and the same?”

“Marcella was found through dental records. But she was wearing a Timex watch at the time of her death—a Timex watch, an engagement ring, and a toe ring. I believe you bought the engagement ring for her.”

He nodded. “From Fred Meyer Jewelers, here in the mall.”

I reminded myself to check with the jeweler. They might be able to identify the stone as the one Mason had purchased.

“And you think this is all about the money?” Waters said. “Some drug dealer’s money. But I never saw her using drugs, and if Marina had the kind of money you say she had, why was she busting her butt working at Denny’s? That makes no sense.”

“My guess would be that she was trying to keep a low profile and trying to distance herself from her former associates. Can you remember anything at all unusual in the days before she disappeared?” I asked. “Did she seem worried or on edge?”

Waters shook his head. “No more than usual,” he said. “She always seemed to be looking over her shoulder, but that was because of her ex-boyfriend. What about him? I know she was scared of him. Terrified, even. One way or another, I’ll bet he’s behind what happened.”

Even though I had explained that Marco and Marcella Andrade were husband and wife and that Marco was already dead by the time Marina disappeared, Waters still clung stubbornly to the lies Marina Aguirre had told him. In a way, what he was doing was every bit as understandable as Warden Willison not wanting to consider that one of his people might be behind the security breach that had concealed Marco Andrade’s killer.

“As I said, Marco couldn’t have done it, because he was already dead,” I told him. “But I have reason to believe that the two of them had maintained some kind of contact while she was involved with you.”

Mason Waters shook his head. “No,” he said. “She didn’t.”

I could have told him about Marcella’s note to Marco, the one saying she wanted a divorce. But at that point Mason’s mind was made up, and I didn’t try changing it.

“So what’s going to happen to her now?” he asked woodenly. “To her body, I mean.”

“Her brother, Jaime Carbajal, is due in on a plane from Tucson
later this afternoon. I’m supposed to pick him up at the airport a little more than an hour from now. Once the M.E. in Ellensburg releases the remains, he’ll be taking the body back to Bisbee for burial.”

“Bisbee,” Mason mused. “That sounds familiar. I think I drove through there years ago, hauling a load of equipment down to Douglas. Do you think her family would mind if I came to her funeral?”

“I doubt they’d mind,” I said. “When I see her brother, I’ll mention you to him. I think her family would be glad to know that she had someone like you in her life.”

“And what about her son?” Waters asked. “Louis. What’s going to happen to him?”

Marina had told him that much of the truth—that she had a son, but Waters had only heard the name spoken. He hadn’t seen it written down. “It’s L-U-I-S,” I corrected. “From what I’ve been able to learn, he’s staying with his aunt and uncle on a temporary basis.”

Which will probably become permanent, I thought.

I stood to leave. “I can show myself out,” I said. “I’m sorry to have brought such bad news.”

Waters nodded. “It’s all right,” he said. “I guess I’ve been expecting it all along, and knowing is better than not knowing.”

“Is there anyone you can call?” I asked. “Someone who could come stay with you.”

“No, thank you,” he said. “I’ll be all right. I’ve been alone with it all these months. I can be alone with it now.”

I left him sitting there brokenhearted, and made my way back outside. I had turned off my phone when I went inside to speak to him. When I turned it back on, there was a missed call from Mel. I called her right back. “Detective Caldwell and I have been track
ing on Mr. Rivera. It turns out he didn’t show up at work today. Lucy’s afraid he may have skipped. She’s got an unmarked car stationed outside the suspect’s house in Cle Elum. Rivera’s truck isn’t there at the moment, so apparently he’s not home. She asked me if I wanted to be in on a sit-down with the suspect’s wife. I’m on my way there now. Care to join us?”

“Give me the address. Once I pick up Jaime Carbajal, we’ll come there, too.”

“Is dragging him along a good idea?” she asked.

“I can only do so many things at a time,” I told her. “If I’m coming there, he’ll be with me.”

She read off the address, and I loaded it into my GPS.

“Anything else?”

“We tried tracking down Miguel—the guy whose phone number was found on a scrap of paper in Rivera’s wallet. The number turned out to be a throw-away cell phone that’s no longer in service, so that’s a dead end.”

“Oh, well,” I said. “You can’t win ’em all. See you when I get there.”

With that I headed for the airport. I suppose I could have muscled my way past security and made arrangements to meet Marcella’s brother at the gate. Instead, I stood in a clutch of limo drivers waiting at the foot of the arriving passenger escalator. Like them, I carried a handwritten sign with the word
CARBAJAL
printed on it. Unexpectedly, the plane landed several minutes early. Soon after the loudspeaker announced the flight’s arrival, a young Hispanic man riding down the escalator noted the sign, caught my eye, and nodded.

I held out my hand in greeting. “Luggage?” I asked.

“No,” he said, hefting a small athletic bag. “Carry-on only.”

Jaime may have been traveling light as far as luggage was concerned, but from the look in his red-rimmed eyes and the set of his
mouth, he seemed to be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

“Let’s go, then,” I said.

“Where to?” he said. “Ellensburg?”

“No, a place called Cle Elum. My partner is on her way there to interview a possible suspect. I thought you’d like to ride along.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, I would.”

On the drive across the mountains I brought Jaime Carbajal up to speed on everything Mel and I had learned about Marcella/ Marina. I told him about how the wallet left in Marcella’s abandoned vehicle had led us to the guy in Cle Elum. I told him about Mason Waters, his sister’s grieving fiancé, and I let him in on everything I had learned from Warden Willison and Detective Lowell about Marco Andrade’s death.

“So the California homicide investigator claims the feds shut down his investigation into Marco’s murder?” he asked. “Why?”

“I have no idea. I’m guessing Detective Lowell didn’t tell me because he didn’t know. But the one detail he gave me, the address tattooed on Marco’s arm, is what links Marcella with the woman who was passing herself off as Marina.”

“And the money?” Jaime asked. “The money Marcella’s son claimed she had?”

“As far as I know, it’s gone,” I told him.

“Figures,” Jaime said.

He fell silent after that. A few minutes later, I noticed he had nodded off. I let him sleep. From the looks of him, he needed it.

In the course of an hour-long hair appointment, Joanna had three separate phone calls. She apologized to Helen each time, but she needed to take them.

The first call was from Butch, apologizing (fingers crossed,
Joanna suspected) for his having missed lunch and verifying that she would be coming home before the wedding rehearsal so they could ride to the church and rehearsal dinner together.

The second call was from Ernie. He reported that he had dropped off the Action Trails security DVD at the Department of Public Safety crime lab in Tucson. “They’ll get to it eventually,” Ernie said, “but don’t hold your breath for a fast turnaround. It doesn’t sound like this is a big priority for them. It’s our homicide, not theirs.”

“And the wallet?” Joanna asked.

“I picked it up,” Ernie said. “I brought it down and checked it into our evidence room, but I also did what you told me and called the information to that detective up in Washington. There was some money, a couple of credit cards, and a Washington State driver’s license.”

“Good,” Joanna said. “Anything else?”

“Nope, that’s it for me,” Ernie said. “See you tomorrow, then. At the wedding.”

The third call was from Debra Howell.

“You called that shot,” Deb said. “The lawyer one. Candace showed up with her smarmy Tucson lawyer firmly in tow.”

“What happened when you told her Bobby said no dice?”

“She hit the roof,” Deb answered. “Went absolutely ballistic. She told me that, if she had to, she’d go to court and have him declared incompetent.”

“Bobby is not incompetent!” Joanna exclaimed.

“Right,” Debra said. “I agree. He’s mad as hell, but who can blame him? That sister of his is poison, and I suspect their mother knew it, too. I went to the courthouse and checked the probate records. Long before she got sick, Inez Fletcher went to a lot of trouble to see to it that Bobby had a roof over his head and that his interests would be protected.”

Behind Joanna, Helen Barco heaved an exaggerated sigh and pointed at her watch.

“Good work, Deb,” Joanna said. “I’ve gotta go. Talk with you later.”

The Lady in the Dash, as Mel likes to call our GPS, mangled the word Cle Elum when she told me to take the next exit, but the sound of her voice was enough to rouse Jaime Carbajal. Once he was awake, I called Mel.

“Okay,” I said. “We’re just now coming into town. What’s the deal?”

“Detective Caldwell and I have been gathering what information we can. Tomas Rivera works out in the woods. Under ordinary circumstances, he’d be home by now. But we found out from his crew chief that he didn’t show up at work today. For as long as we’ve had the name and address, Lucy has kept a deputy in an unmarked patrol car parked on the street to keep an eye on the house, so we’re fairly certain that he hasn’t come or gone from there. He has an old Toyota pickup registered in his name. We’ve got people on the lookout for that, too.”