Holy Guacamole! (27 page)

Finally, I was left with one nurse, a very kind lady who let me have some Seven-Up, although she freely admitted that they wanted to know if I could keep it down. “You must have been having a boring evening if my little misadventure caused so much interest,” I remarked.

“Oh, no. We’ve been busy. Friday night/Saturday morning and Saturday night/Sunday morning are always a circus. Everything from knifings and car pileups to barfing kids who ate too many hot dogs at the ball game.” She held out the cup with its bent straw, encouraging me to take another experimental sip. “Now if you feel like vomiting, honey, let me know right off. Then we won’t have to change the sheets.”

“I’ve stopped feeling queasy,” I assured her. “And I should have remembered that weekends bring lots of emergencies. Dr. Peter Brockman, an acquaintance of mine, was called out in the middle of the night for emergency surgery just last weekend.”

“The neurosurgeon? Not here, he wasn’t. I’d have remembered that. He’s ultrapicky about everything.”

“I’m sure it was here. Maybe you were off duty. According to his wife, the call came after midnight.”

“I had that shift. Both Friday and Saturday. I promise you he wasn’t here.”

Now that’s strange
, I thought.
Vivian definitely told me that he was home with her after the opera party, until the hospital called him in to perform surgery on an auto accident victim.

“You cold, honey? Want me to get you a blanket?”

I said that I wasn’t. That shiver, those goose bumps running up my arms were caused by a very disturbing thought.

“Another half hour and we’ll let you go home. Anyone waiting for you in Admitting?”

“Yes, a friend,” I replied. A friend that I wanted to talk to right away. I didn’t get to of course.

We were in the car heading for my house before I had the opportunity to tell Luz about Dr. Brockman, who had said to his friend Frank Escobar, Luz’s ex, that they needed to get rid of Vladik—Dr. Brockman, who had told his wife he had to go to the hospital to perform emergency surgery on someone’s head, when there wasn’t any such surgery. So where
had
he gone?

“Sounds thin to me,” said Luz, ignoring the mention of her ex-husband. “Who goes over to someone’s house and kills them over a weird opera production. But, hey, we can worry about that tomorrow. You want me to stay with you tonight?”

I did. For the second night. We were having a weekend sleepover, only more violent than the ones I’d given and attended as a child, and there hadn’t been any more at my house after my mother died. My father didn’t like giggling. Or noise of any kind if it involved children.

A Butt Print Remembered

E
ven considering the
strange bed, I should have slept right through because I’d been pushing myself too hard and needed the rest. Instead I kept waking up and checking on Carolyn—like my subconscious thought she was going to die on me. The woman never stirred all night. Once the hospital staff satisfied themselves that she didn’t have a concussion or fracture, she was given a prescription for pain pills, which she couldn’t wait to get home and take. The only thing that changed with her that night was her eye, which had puffed up and turned multicolored by morning. She was not going to be a happy camper the first time she looked in the mirror.

At dawn I’d wrapped up in a blanket on her patio to watch the sunrise creep over the Franklins, but then I dozed off in one of her loungers and woke up with my knee aching, so I rubbed on some of her husband’s pain cream, thinking that my chile-pepper stuff would have done me more good. Maybe that’s because I’ve got Indian blood. My ancestors probably used chiles to doctor all their ills. Then I made myself some coffee and toast and ate it in the warm kitchen while I waited impatiently for Sleeping Beauty to wake up; I needed to get home, change clothes, and give myself a shot—it was that day—but I didn’t want to do it until she woke up. It was a bitch, being tied to a medication schedule when I actually had something interesting to do with my time.

Carolyn staggered out around ten-thirty. “Have you seen my eye?” she groaned.

“It’ll clear up in a week or so,” I said.

“A week,” she cried, and dropped into a chair, aghast.

I told her she was lucky to come out of last night with just a black eye. I’d been reading the paper. Ignatenko was in jail, and the cops had found the alley victim at Thomason Hospital. The guy talked his head off, identified Manny Diaz as the attacker, said Ignatenko had threatened him because of the drugs and bookmaking at the club. So the guy was arrested, him and his broken bones: collar bone, six ribs, and three leg bones, plus some cracks in his arms and a bleeding kidney. There was a warrant out on Manny and more charges on Ignatenko. INS was talking deportation hearings, so Boris was, as I’d told him, thoroughly screwed. “We did good work last night,” I told Carolyn, and read her choice bits of the story.

That brightened her up a little bit, but not much, so I said she should get a black eye patch for her eye, sew some beads or sequins on it, and set a fashion trend in El Paso.

“That’s a ridiculous idea,” she said sternly, and then started to giggle.

I was on a roll, having cheered Caro up without even knowing I had any talent in that area. My mother once told me she’d rather be sick on her own than have me around looking glum and botching up the nursing chores. Once Caro stopped giggling, I told her what I’d been thinking about her doctor friend. While I talked, I poured her a cup of coffee; from the look on her face, you’d think she didn’t like my coffee, even though I was known at Central Regional Command for my great coffee during my days on patrol. I fixed her some toast too, and even poured her a glass of juice since I figured she needed healthy stuff.

“Tell me about his butt,” I said, plunking the juice down in front of her.

Her expression was amazed and offended. Carolyn would make a crappy poker player. Everything shows on her face. If she got a good hand, she’d probably light up the room. “The doctor’s butt,” I added, just to be sure she understood what I wanted. “How wide would you say it is?”

“I don’t go around measuring men’s bottoms,” she replied stiffly.

I took a deep breath. “Look, you think he might have killed Vladik. It’s a long shot, but what have we got to lose? We need to think about him, this doctor. One thing I noticed in Vladik’s house was his sofa. He’s got this microwave upholstery on it. Feels like suede.”

“Microfiber,” she corrected.

“Whatever. Anyway, you sit down on it; your butt leaves a print. Lean your hand on it. Handprint. One of each on the Russian’s sofa. I had the crime-scene guys take a picture. Of course, that dumb Guevara thought it was a waste of time, but then he thought Gubenko died of natural causes. Probably still does.”

“If he’s so sure of that, why is he harassing those of us who provided food for the party?” Carolyn asked sharply.

“Because it’s easier than doing a real investigation,” I told her. “So how wide is the doctor’s butt?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “He’s had trousers over it every time I’ve seen him.”

“This wide?” I spread my hands to about two feet.

“Luz, he’s a thin person, but quite tall, and I don’t how wide his rear end is.”

“What about his hands?”

She thought about it. “Large, but then they would be. As I said, he’s tall. You wouldn’t expect little bitty hands or feet on a tall man. And his fingers are long and thin with short, manicured nails.”

I nodded. My recollection of the prints on the sofa was pretty vague, but it seems to me that the hand did have long fingers; of course so do Boris Ignatenko’s hands. Now Manny Diaz—he’d be more likely to have short, broad hands, but since I’d never seen the man, that was a guess.

“What we need to do is knock on my neighbors’ doors and ask if anyone saw or heard anything that night. If we can get a description of someone going in or leaving—”

“We? You expect me to go out looking like
this?
” She covered her eye with her hand.

“You planning to hide out for the next week or so?”

“I’ve heard of putting steak on a black eye,” she said. “But I’d have to go to the store to get some, and that would be so embarrassing.”

“Right. I get the idea. I have to do the canvassing by myself. Only problem is, you know what the doctor looks like. I don’t. And steak never did me any good. Course I used cube steak. Maybe you need a more expensive cut—sirloin or T-bone. Or a filet. That would be about the right size.”

“You’re making fun of me,” she said.

“Instead of a steak, why don’t we get you an eye patch? The decoration is up to you. Go for plain if you want. You could wear a hat too, a big, wide one. My neighbors won’t even notice you got a black eye. They’ll think you’re a gardener in your big hat.”

“What a wonderful idea. The pirate-gardener. Maybe I should bring along gardening gloves. And a trowel.”

I grinned at her. “So are you in?”

“I suppose so,” she grumbled. “If we can find an eye patch. But you’ll have to drive. I’m taking pain pills.”

Canvassing in Black and Blue

T
here were various
minutiae to take care of before we could actually begin canvassing Luz’s neighborhood. I had to shower and dress, then find a suitable hat and a picture of Peter Brockman. There had been a photographer at the opera party, and we’d been sent a picture of the two of us standing with Peter and Vivian; I put that in an envelope. Luz had to purchase an eye patch for me at Walgreen’s. Then she had to stop by her condo to change her clothes and give herself a shot of the very expensive medication that keeps her mobile. Finally it was necessary to console Smack, who wanted to accompany us but wasn’t allowed. Luz said her neighbors might not appreciate a visit from the dog.

The security guard didn’t remember the man on night shift mentioning any strangers wanting to come in after midnight the Sunday morning in question. We picked up that discouraging piece of information before we even started the canvass. Because it was Saturday, we found people at home, but all had been asleep a week ago after midnight. Luz grumbled that she’d hoped to find at least a few swingers among the group who might have seen something. Our last stop was across the street and several doors down from Luz’s.

“Not much hope here,” she muttered. “This woman’s old. Probably goes to bed at nine.” She rang the bell, and the householder answered after a rather long interval and several more rings.

“You don’t have to lean on my doorbell,” she said, thumping her cane irritably on the floor. “I have arthritis. It takes me a while to get to the front door, and having the bell ringing in my ear doesn’t make me any faster, young lady,” she said to Luz.

Mrs. Filbert was a tall, lean woman, somewhat humped, very wrinkled, with liver spots on her hands and face. The rest of her was covered by a long, baggy dress with purple flowered stripes and large pockets on the chest, stuffed with Kleenex. Over the dress she wore a heavy green sweater that looked hand knitted. A pair of well worn, New Balance tennis shoes completed the outfit.

“I’ve seen you from time to time,” she growled at Luz. “You limp. Mine’s arthritis. What’s your problem?”

“Same,” said Luz grumpily.

“You’re too young for arthritis.”

“Tell my rheumatologist.”

“Oh, that kind of arthritis. Well, come in, both of you. Don’t stand out there in the wind.” She led us into her living room, where every chair and sofa was straight-backed and very firm. “You’ll appreciate my furniture,” she told Luz. “Easy to get out of. I’m not so crippled up yet that I have to have one of those chairs that shoot you onto your feet when you push a button, but I suppose that’s coming. Do you have one of those?”

“No, ma’am,” Luz replied. “My medication’s working pretty well.”

“Lucky you. Not that having a crippling illness at your age is lucky. I have a friend with the rheumatoid kind. It’s always women. Have you noticed that? As if God didn’t give us burdens enough—menstruation, childbirth, men. Either of you have children? Mine are a thankless lot. They think I should go into a nursing home. As if I’m likely to do that. I plan to stay right where I am. Maybe when I turn a hundred and don’t care any more, but for now I can take care of myself. Can’t drive anymore, but there’s bus pickup for seniors. You could probably use it too, young lady. You being crippled and all.”

“I still drive,” Luz said.

“I have two children,” I replied, in answer to the question our hostess had asked and forgotten. “Both in college.”

“You find you don’t know what to do with yourself now you don’t have to pick up after them and wash their clothes and all that?”

“Actually, I keep quite busy,” I replied, smiling.

“So do I. I have no patience for women who sit around their houses moaning about empty-nest syndrome, of all the newfangled ideas. I’d offer you refreshments, but I don’t feel like getting up. When people lean on your doorbell and force you to hobble faster, you need a little rest afterward.” She aimed a challenging glance at Luz, and then turned to look out the front window, by which her chair was placed. “What with TV and watching what’s happening in the neighborhood, I keep busy. Used to do crewel embroidery, but it makes my fingers hurt now. You have trouble with your fingers, young lady?”

“No, ma’am. Mostly my knees, although at times it jumps around,” said Luz. “Those are the worst spells.”

“Well, you have my sympathy. I know just how it is. Can’t sleep because you’re aching so bad, can’t garden anymore. That’s a nice hat you’ve got there,” she said to me. “Must be good for gardening. A good hat’s a blessing in this town. I always wore a big hat when I gardened. Of course here in Casitas they do your gardening for you.”