Goose in the Pond (28 page)

“His son,” I said, in between gulps of laughter.

She was struck silent for a moment, then regained her composure. “His wife and son were mugged on the two-hundred block of Morro Street. And call the paramedics.”

The paramedics were working on us when Gabe arrived. Gabe’s head towered over the cute EMT who was cleaning around my eye with alcohol. “Ouch,” I complained when the paramedic probed too deeply. I gripped the curb to keep from passing out from the pain.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just want to make sure it’s clean. You’d better keep ice on this for a couple of hours. But you’re going to have a real shiner there, Mrs. Ortiz.”

In my hazy vision, Gabe’s face appeared as villainous and unforgiving as a hit man’s.

“How’s Sam?” I asked, trying to peer around the paramedic’s body.

“He’s fine,” Gabe said. “Just a broken nose and some sore ribs. What happened?” His eyes were gray and hard.

The paramedic handed me a cold pack, and I placed it against my eye. “We were mugged.”

He stared at me a long time without answering. Then he said, “We’ll talk about it at the station.” He helped me stand, keeping his arm tight around me while leading me toward a patrol car. Sam was already in the backseat, holding a cold pack to his swollen bottom lip. Gabe helped me into the seat next to Sam. “I’ll be back shortly.” He slammed the door.

I turned to Sam. His sun-reddened nose was twice its normal size. “How are you feeling?”

He shrugged and attempted a grin. Pain turned it to a grimace. “Okay. He’s pissed, isn’t he?” He sounded like he was talking through a mouthful of wet oatmeal.

“Without a doubt,” I said, resting my head on the slippery vinyl seat. “What did you tell him?”

“That we were mugged. But it was pretty obvious that the truck was involved.” He pointed past me. The truck was illuminated by the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles. The completely flat rear tires gave it a comical nose-in-the-air tilt.

I adjusted the ice pack on my eye and groaned. “How much longer is this going to take? I gotta go to the bathroom.”

Officer Girard opened the driver’s door and slipped in. “Chief Ortiz told me to drive you both to the station. He’s going to meet us there.”

“Please, just don’t take any fast corners,” I said. When we pulled into the station’s back lot, the Corvette’s presence informed us Gabe beat us there.

“I’m sorry for laughing at your name,” I told Officer Girard as she helped me out of the backseat.

“No problem,” she said. “Happens all the time. My parents were hippies.” She nodded toward the building. “He’s waiting for you inside.”

“Go ahead,” I said to Sam when we walked through the station. “I need to hit the john before our interrogation or I’ll explode.”

“Thanks a lot,” he said, giving Gabe’s closed office door a baleful look. “Let me face the lion alone.”

“I’ll just be a minute,” I said, giving him a small push. “Besides, haven’t you heard that male lions are all roar? It’s the lioness you really need to fear.” I pinched one of his biceps and giggled, regretting it when pain shot through the side of my face with tiny lightning bolts.

He turned dark, soulful eyes on me. “I see my mom’s reputation precedes her.”

When I returned I could hear Gabe’s deep voice shouting through the heavy oak door. His voice rose and fell in that mixture of Spanish and English he slipped into whenever he was feeling very angry or very romantic. Sam’s slightly higher-pitched tenor yelled an answer. I pushed open the door.

Gabe and Sam faced each other, noses only inches apart, wearing expressions of rage so similar I fought the urge to chuckle. If I ever wanted to know what Gabe had looked like when he was a rebellious and cocky eighteen-year-old, here it was in living color. The tendons on Gabe’s neck stood out as thick as ropes. “Of all the stupid, idiotic—” he was saying.

He stopped midsentence when he noticed my presence.

“They can hear you two clear to Santa Barbara,” I said, keeping my voice light and calm.

“Am I under arrest?” Sam spit out, his voice thick with sarcasm.

Gabe looked at him with flint-colored eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then I don’t have to listen to any more of your bullshit. All I was trying to do was prevent a crime, and you treat
me
like the criminal. So why don’t you just shove it?” Sam stormed out the door, slamming it behind him. On the tan wall, a picture rattled.

Gabe walked out to the hallway and calmly told a nearby officer, “Go take a statement from him while the incident is still fresh in his mind.”

“Don’t you think you might have been a little rough on him?” I said when he walked back into his office.

Gabe turned still-angry eyes on me. “You think so? What you two did could have gotten yourselves killed. And for what? A stupid vehicle. You know, I can see where in his youth and stupidity Sam might be that foolishly impetuous, but you should have known better.” He picked up a large plastic bag that held the knife the man had used to slash the truck tires. The blade was narrow, evil-looking; its sharp tip had punctured a hole in the thin plastic bag.

“Do you know what it feels like to be cut, Benni? With one thrust, you could have been dead.” He tossed the bag back down on his desk.

“He was going after Sam,” I said in my defense. “Gabe, I didn’t even think. If I had stopped and thought and ran for help, Sam could be dead.”

He turned away from me, inhaling deeply. “I could have lost both of you,” he said hoarsely.

I went over, put my arms around his waist, and laid my head against his warm back. “But you didn’t. We’re okay.”

“Whoever did this is trying to get me to back off on the Cooper investigation.”

I walked around and faced him. “That’s ludicrous. They have to know you won’t give in to this kind of threat.”

His face hardened. “You should go out to the ranch for a few days.”

“No way. The festival starts tomorrow. I have a speech to give and a billion other things to do. I refuse to let this person intimidate me.”

He touched my cheek, his face softening slightly. “Very brave sounding, sweetheart. But foolish.”

I put my hand over his. “Gabe, about you and Sam. Maybe you should try to mend some fences.”

The softness went out of his face. “What I said to him still goes. It was stupid and thoughtless to confront those men. He put his life as well as yours in danger just because he wanted to play Rambo.”

“He only did what any eighteen-year-old boy who was raised by a macho-cop father would do.”

“Are you implying his behavior is my fault?”

“All I’m saying is I suspect at eighteen you would have reacted in a very similar way.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he snapped, walking around and sitting down at his desk. I perched on the edge of his desk, facing him.

“Fine,” I said. “But think about it.”

He leaned back in his tall executive chair and rested his chin on his hand. “What I need to think about is who among our many suspects in this case could have arranged to have this done.”

“Where’s the truck?” I asked.

“I had it towed to Bill’s Auto Body over on Broadway. He’s done some good work for the department. He’ll give me an estimate tomorrow.”

“Guess I’ll have to find some other wheels for the time being.”

“Get your truck back from Sam.”

I didn’t answer, but made a mental note to call about renting a car tomorrow. “So, who
is
tops on your suspect list?”

He gazed at me silently for a moment.

“You might as well let me in on what’s going on. Everyone thinks I know everything anyway, so keeping me in the dark is no protection.”

He nodded, a look of reluctance still coloring his face. “I suppose you’re right. Especially when the
Freedom Press
hits the county tomorrow.”

“I forgot, how was your meeting with Michael Haynes?”

“I let him rant and rave and threaten and then I made all the comforting sounds a police chief is supposed to make. What I wanted to do is tell him that if he didn’t like the way I was running the department to just shove it.”

I smiled at him. “Very grown up.”

He gave me a weak smile back. “Yeah, I know, it’s just that I’m just so friggin’ tired.” He ran a hand over his face. “And this case has got me baffled. When I was working homicide, I always hated cases like this.”

“Like what?”

“So many suspects. No witnesses. Sex, money, and jealousy. All the biggies when it comes to motive. It’s messy and disjointed, and I feel like every time we make progress on one little point, a hundred others come up.” He pulled a small tape recorder out of the top drawer of his desk. “Tell me what happened from the beginning. I want to get a statement before you forget anything.” He punched the recorder on.

I told him everything I could remember, though like most highly charged emotional incidents, your memories are selective and somewhat convoluted. My voice shook a little when I told him about the man backhanding me. He reached up and gently touched my swollen eye, the skin around his eyes taut.

“I’ d like to kill him,” he said softly.

“I’ll heal,” I said. “Who do you think might be involved in this?”

“Those two guys were probably just hired thugs. You and Sam need to look through some pictures and see if you can pick out anyone, but I’m willing to bet that they were paid a couple of hundred bucks to vandalize my truck. There’s enough unemployment in San Celina County these days that finding people to do this sort of thing is getting easier and easier.”

“So, if you find these guys you’ll know who the killer is.”

“Not necessarily. They probably don’t even know who hired them. There’s a lot of ways to pay people to do illegal things without the employee ever knowing who employed them.”

I slipped down off the desk. “There’s not much you can do about it right now, is there?”

“Not unless you feel like looking through some pictures tonight.”

“Would it make any difference if I wait until tomorrow?”

“Not really.”

“Let’s go home, then. I’ ve got an incredibly packed day tomorrow.” I glanced at my watch. “It’s past eleven already. Did you call Dove?”

“Yes, and she’s all primed to chew your tail when you walk through the door.”

I shook my fist at him. “That’s why you didn’t yell at me.”

He ruffled my hair and gave a halfhearted laugh. “I figured I may as well leave it to the expert.”

And I did get a tongue lashing when I got home.

“Albenia Louise Harper, I’m surprised at you,” she scolded. “No, I take that back, I’m not surprised at all. You were full of the dickens when you were a child, and it’s only getting worse as you get older.” As she inspected the now purple-and-green bruise under my right eye, she continued to scold me. I countered with the fact that my impetuousness was obviously genetic (Let’s not forget that incident in Bakersfield four years ago, I reminded her. That was different, she said, that little punk was trying to take my
purse
. I’d have caught him, too, if I’d been wearing my sneakers). Gabe sat on the sofa drinking a grape soda, enjoying every minute of Dove’s lecture. She only stopped when Sam walked in. After an uncomfortable silence, Gabe went into the bedroom. Sam stared after him, his face angry.

“Let it go,” I told Sam. “He’ll get over it.”

“Who cares?” Sam said. “As soon as I’ve saved enough money, I’m gone.”

Dove gathered up her study books. “Honeybun, you’d best get some sleep now. You have a big day tomorrow. You, too, Sam.”

During the night something woke me. Not a sound exactly, more of a feeling that things weren’t right. I turned over and touched Gabe’s side of the bed. The quilt was thrown back, the sheets empty and cool. Over at the window there was a movement, and in the pale light filtering through our sheer curtains, I could see Gabe watching the shadowy front lawn. Navy sweatpants rode low on his hips, and he hugged his bare chest as though he were cold. I could see his body rock back and forth slightly in a self-comforting way that reminded me of a child. I wanted to go to him, hold him, and murmur words that would make the hurt of losing Aaron disappear. But I didn’t. I knew at this particular moment this was a road he needed to walk alone.

For weeks after Jack’s death, I rode my horse over miles of cow trails, ranting and railing against God, my head lifted up and shouting at the pale gray sky. Agitated blue jays flitted from tree to tree, screaming back at my violent words. My anger and blasphemy was so venomous, I expected to be struck down, a lightning bolt straight from the God I’d trusted since I was a child. And I wanted to be struck, to feel an electrified physical sensation of such mind-numbing proportions it would blot out the pain eating my insides like the maggots I pictured devouring my husband’s body.

God’s only answer was a piercing silence.

Eventually, when my torrent of words had been expelled, in the forgiving quiet, healing began. A still, small voice, like the gentlest wind, reminded me that death was as much a part of life as love. That with death, life doesn’t end, love doesn’t end. I started letting Jack go that day, and though there were still times when I longed to hear his laugh, moments when it seemed the sound of his voice would be the only thing that would ease the hurt deep in my chest, I was able to turn back to life and appreciate again the wet delicate nose of a newborn calf, the sweet, hopeful taste of an early strawberry, the solid feel of another man’s chest.

I watched my husband’s broad shoulders slump in the dim light, and my heart swelled with grief for him. I could not share this lonely journey with him or make it any less difficult. All I could do was stand at the end of the rugged, rock-strewn path and wait.

11