Red Man Down (27 page)

Sarah said she wasn’t going to be the one who decided anything about the money, and promised to let her know where to go to talk about that. ‘But tell me,’ she said, getting that warm feeling around her solar plexus that signaled a strong hunch growing, ‘that nice haircut Angela got in your shop just before she died – did you do that one yourself?’

‘Yes. Because she asked me to,’ Lois said, preening a little. ‘She said she’d been told I was the best haircutter in town. She paid extra to have me do it after hours, too. Said she couldn’t get away from the store during our regular hours, and she needed to spruce up to be in a wedding. She certainly did need a haircut – she was a mess before.’

Ollie had found the appointment noted in Angela’s diary, along with the ironic comment, ‘The ad says, “Do your head a favor, take it to Desert Cuts.”. So I did. Very satisfactory!’

Angela’s diary had disposed of the pedophilia charge succinctly, too. She wrote, ‘I always knew beyond question that Ed hadn’t been abused sexually – he was a wonderful lover, thought sex was terrific – used to say I was the best treat he ever had. And he adored his uncle. He could be a headache, but whatever that Scout’s mother had wrong in her life had nothing to do with Frank.’

Sure she was asking the right question, Sarah said, ‘Did you tell her you were selling the shop?’

‘Didn’t have to – somehow, she knew all about it,’ Lois said. ‘She asked me what I was going to do after Cecelia took over the shop, and I told her I was moving back home. I’d promised Cecelia I wouldn’t tell anybody till the deal was complete, but when Angela asked me like that, I was so happy I just told her all about my plans. Oh, dear, you don’t think— I mean, I didn’t think it was so surprising that a member of the family would know what Cecelia was doing. Do you suppose I—’ Thinking she might be put in the wrong for talking out of turn, she began to cry again. All in all, it was a damp morning at headquarters. It took a lot of time, but eventually Sarah assured her she was not at fault. Lois did a hasty repair of her makeup and went back to her shop.

They had found all the money Cecelia had stashed around her house – easily enough to cover what Joey had withdrawn the day he died. Oscar and Jason had gone to the house yesterday with a subpoena while Cecelia was working, and found it. ‘It was mostly in those pots by the front door, where I said we should look first,’ Oscar said. ‘In cans for that fancy Brazilian coffee she liked.’

Even better than the money, from Sarah’s point of view, was Angela’s purse, which they found, carefully oiled and nested in an old towel, in a bottom drawer. ‘She just couldn’t resist it,’ Oscar crowed. ‘Women and purses, isn’t it amazing?’ They’d put it all back where they found it and swore they left no tracks – they didn’t want her to bolt – but the knowledge that the money and the purse were there put an edge on the day.

‘When I saw that she had put plants in those pots,’ Oscar said, ‘but in smaller pots that she hung inside with hooks – that’s when I knew.’

They went in the shop to get her, Wednesday morning, carrying the warrant for her arrest. She was working with a customer, halfway through a haircut; she looked up when the bell sounded on the door and smiled when she saw Oscar. Her smile grew more tentative when Sarah walked in behind him. And when she spotted the backup car that the rules called for, parking at the curb with two patrolmen inside, she knew she was cooked. She laid down the comb she was holding and asked him, quietly, ‘Did it have to be you, Oscar?’

‘I came to make sure it went as easy as possible for you, Cecelia. If you will step outside with me we will read you your rights out there before we put the cuffs on.’

She tossed her great mane of hair, sniffed once and took off the apricot-colored smock, that matched the towels and hairbrush handles in the place. Looking in the mirror, she pushed her hair around a little and wet her lips. Then she picked up the hair dryer she’d been working with and hit Oscar a solid whack in the gut that bent him double, threw the dryer in Sarah’s face and bolted for the door.

Sarah caught her just before the door closed. The two backup patrolmen leaped out of their car at once and helped her get the cuffs on.

Oscar had debated, on the way to the shop, putting cuffs on Cecelia, saying he didn’t think it was necessary. But Sarah had said, ‘This woman has killed two people that we’re sure of, let’s not underestimate her.’ So she had her cuffs ready, and made sure they were good and tight, and put on the hard way – arms in back, uncomfortable almost at once and worse as time went on, and once in the car making it impossible to lean back in the seat. Before they put her in, though, Sarah left her standing in cuffs in front of the shop a few minutes. Several of her best customers registered shock when they saw her there, listening as Sarah read her Miranda rights off a card she kept clipped in the glove compartment.

When Cecelia was secure in the backseat, with a patrolman standing guard on either side, Sarah went back in the shop and said, ‘Ready?’ to Oscar, who had just got up off the floor with as much dignity as he could muster. He was still having some trouble getting his breath, and was having a lot of loose hair brushed off him by a helpful haircutter. He got back in the passenger seat of the Impala and never spoke another word to Cecelia, then or later.

Sarah put her in Interview I and stepped outside to check with her interview partner. Cecelia had been wearing only a sleeveless top under the smock – it got pretty hot in the shop – and the whole crew of detectives had gathered around the video picture now. They were all trying to maintain professional decorum – Delaney was there. But watching her heaving bosom in the low-cut top, as she tried to adjust her generous backside to the tiny stool, and seethed over being cuffed to the restraint strap on the table, the men clearly found quite diverting.

‘It kind of makes you think of Sophia Loren in one of them early pirate pictures, don’t it?’ Jason whispered.

Sarah said again, to Ollie this time, ‘Ready?’ They had the list of questions, drawn up yesterday afternoon, and they went through them dutifully. How had she learned of Frank’s being accused of pedophilia? Did she know it was a false charge, or did she believe it? When did she threaten him with disclosure, and what did she say? Did he protest at all, or give right in? Did Ed know about the accusation? Did he know she was extorting money from his uncle? How did she get Joey to help her with Angela’s murder? ‘We know you could not have hung her in the closet without help, Cecelia, was it Joey who helped? Did he do it just because you paid him, or did you have something on him too? Did he help you with Frank’s murder as well?’

Cecelia denied everything. She declared she had never received any money but her own, hard-earned income that she stood on her two feet and earned. She didn’t know what they were talking about. If Joey had something funny going on with a bank, that was Joey’s doing – she couldn’t be expected to keep track of her crazy-ass brother. Why are you talking about Frank’s murder when everybody knows he killed himself?

They talked at cross-purposes like that for about an hour. When the transport vehicle arrived they stopped talking and two fresh officers, who had been warned to watch her every move, took Cecelia away to the Pima County Adult Detention Center.

‘I thought there was one second there, when you asked that last question about who helped her with Frank’s murder, when she almost said, “No!” kind of indignantly,’ Delaney said. ‘Like maybe she did that one all by herself and was proud of it and didn’t want to share the credit.’

‘I thought I saw that too,’ Sarah said.

‘Holy Moly,’ Ollie said. ‘That’s really sick.’

‘Well, you can watch the video,’ Delaney said. ‘See what you think.’

‘I think I need a cup of coffee first,’ Ollie said. They all went in the break room together, poured coffee and sat quietly staring at it for a couple of minutes. Finally Delaney said, ‘OK, what did you all see in that interview?’

‘Total denial,’ Sarah said. ‘She feels no guilt at all for having wrecked her entire family. She saw a way to get something she wanted, she took it. She still feels entitled to it.’

‘That’s right,’ Leo said. ‘This broad is never going to break down and confess. We gotta get her with solid evidence.’

‘I think so too,’ Delaney said. ‘So how much have we got?’

‘Well, the money in the pots is pretty good,’ Oscar said. He was proud that he had found the money in the pots.

‘It’s not enough, though. Not even close to what they claim is missing.’

‘But along with what was paid to the shop owner, it is,’ Ray said.

‘Yeah, but money’s so fungible,’ Leo said. ‘Even a so-so defense attorney can show a jury we can’t prove it’s the bank’s money.’

‘Even a so-so State’s attorney can convince them innocent people don’t hide their money in flower pots,’ Ray said.

‘But what we really want to prove is the murders,’ Delaney said. ‘Which ones look the most promising, do you think?’

‘I think we’re pretty close on Joey,’ Sarah said. ‘There’s the threatening conversation from the jail that Greta overheard … and we’ve got the record of the phone call, the number that led us to Cecelia. For Frank, there’s the gun he was supposed to have used to kill himself – we know Joey stole that. There’s Frank Martin’s car – we can get Chico to tell how Cecelia maneuvered for Joey to get that.’

‘Hey, yeah,’ Jason said, ‘and we’ve got the tapes Oscar and I made when we interviewed the shade-tree mechanic who worked on the car, so we can prove he was making regular trips for his “employer” – Cecelia was obviously pulling the strings there.’

‘And I can match that up with the withdrawals my bank people will testify Joey made,’ Leo said.

‘Close,’ Delaney said. ‘But what bothers me is that we can’t prove how Cecelia could get Frank to steal money for her … that seems pretty shaky to me.’

‘Well, I remember something Angela told me,’ Sarah said. ‘She said that after she married Ed, there was nothing Frank wouldn’t do to keep her happy – she said it seemed to be very important to Frank to see Ed happily married.’

‘Yeah, so?’

‘Well, I think Frank must have been afraid, all those years while Ed was growing up, that somebody would dig up that old story about the Boy Scout mother’s complaint, and take Ed away from him. I think Ed was Frank’s reason for living, after his wife died, and Cecelia must have realized that he’d always do anything to protect that relationship.’

‘You know,’ Jason said, ‘we’ve all noticed how secretive these people are. Why don’t we talk to Chico and Luz again? Maybe they’ll admit they were covering up for Frank Martin all these years. If Angela began to suspect something about the money once she found out about Frank and ask questions … that would get Cecelia on her case, huh?’

‘This whole story’s going to be an easier sell if we can line up the forensics for any one of these murders,’ Ollie said. ‘If any of the DNA they lifted out of Joey’s car matches Cecelia, she’ll be toast.’

‘That’s right,’ Sarah said. ‘And what about Angela’s apartment, and everything we took out of it? If Angela was right that Cecelia was snooping through her stuff, there’s a very good chance she might have left some DNA – and it didn’t occur to us to ask for that comparison at the time.’

‘All right,’ Delaney said. ‘So we’re all inclined to keep digging, right?’

‘Absolutely,’ Sarah said. ‘And suspicion of murder one … she won’t be eligible for bail, will she?’

‘No.’

‘So maybe she’ll get sick of sitting in Pima County and start to make deals,’ Jason said.

‘Somehow I doubt it,’ Delaney said. ‘Let’s get back to work.’

Sarah heard Ollie, later that day, tell Leo, ‘You know, it’s surprising how little satisfaction there is at the end of a long hunt like this one.’

‘Yeah,’ Leo said, ‘you keep turning over rocks, and the worms that crawl out keep getting uglier. So after a while you think,
what’s the use
?’

‘Makes you understand what happened to Harry Eisenstaat, huh?’

‘You see me turning into Harry Eisenstaat,’ Leo said, ‘shoot me.’

D
elaney didn’t seem to suffer from any feelings of anti-climax. He made a point of talking to the chief about the case, that week while the story of Cecelia’s arrest was running in
The Star
. And one afternoon he gathered his crew in front of his office so the chief could shake everybody’s hand and congratulate them on the excellent teamwork that had cracked this very troublesome case.

Oscar Cifuentes wasn’t singled out for any special praise, but he certainly wasn’t excluded, either. Delaney placed him in the center of the row and made sure the chief got his name right. Sarah asked Leo later that day, ‘Have you noticed that Delaney seems to be getting friendlier towards Oscar?’

‘Yup,’ Leo said, ‘getting creamed with a hair dryer in the beauty shop turned out to be the luckiest thing that’s happened to Oscar in some time.’

‘How did you … I never told anybody about that,’ Sarah said.

‘Come on, Sarah,’ Leo said. ‘You had two backups in a patrol car there that day and this is the police department. Did you really think they’d keep it to themselves?’

‘But why does it make Delaney feel better about him?’

‘He’s never going to admit that’s what it is. He says Oscar’s finally catching on to teamwork.’

‘Well, he is. But he’s been doing that all along.’

‘I know. But having the great lover get punched out by a woman makes it easier for the boss to see it.’

‘Jeez, Leo, that’s just … pitiful.’

‘Please, Sarah, can we stop this conversation before we each start saying sexist things? This is a very good week for me and I don’t want to be cross about anything.’

‘All right. Why is this a good week?’

‘My son’s in the current crop of recruits and this is their final week of class. He’s just received official word that he’s on the list to graduate next Friday.’

‘Leo! You dog! Why didn’t you ever tell me?’

‘Because he threatened to kill me if I told anybody where he was until he was sure he was going to graduate. All along he’s been seeing other kids flunk out and he got terribly afraid he wouldn’t make it.’