Widows' Watch (17 page)

Wednesday, October 6, 9:00 A.M.

“Interviews this afternoon,” said Leo. “Two o'clock. Bayard Sims and Lance Potemkin.”

Elena was getting ready to go downstairs for the backfiles on the Cox and Stoltz cases.

“Manny says you're making progress on the serial-killer angle.”

Elena shrugged. “I'm keeping after it, anyway.” She gathered up her notes and headed for I.D. & R., where she asked a clerk to pull the two files. Porfirio Cox first. The man had been shot by an intruder with a Russian Tokarev handgun in September, four years ago at around three in the afternoon. The intruder got in by knocking out a pane in the back door and unlocking it from the inside. The gun was never found. No fingerprints but the family's. A gold papal medal had been stolen, which Cox, a builder, had received for his donations of labor and materials to the Catholic Diocese of Los Santos.

Another medal. Was the killer a medal collector? Or just someone who liked to take a souvenir with him? Could you get anything from a fence for a papal medal? Los Santos was heavily Roman Catholic. She read on. There! The wife, Marcia Cox, had been at the Socorro Heights Senior Citizens Center when he was killed. Elena asked the clerk for a cross reference on family violence. Nothing turned up.

Her last victim within the five-year period—barely—was Herbert Stoltz, a retired colonel. A widower. Killed around two in the afternoon. Murder weapon—an Italian Beretta Modello. Nice gun. Elena thought about the weapons. All World War II. Maybe. They didn't actually have the weapons to confirm the ballistics reports. No sign of breaking and entering, but there were a number of items missing, according to the victim's son: a Rolex watch—now that would bring some money, unlike the stuff she'd turned up on the other victims; a West Point ring—that too might be worth something; three military medals for valor. More medals. But no wife this time.

She began to read the detectives' reports. Lousy typing. They didn't have computers, so there were misspellings, X-ing-outs. “Oh boy,” Elena breathed. No wonder this one didn't have a wife. He'd killed her.

Elena asked the clerk for the file on Frances Stoltz, and read slowly. Herbert Stoltz had shot his wife during a quarrel over her threat to file for divorce. He hadn't told detectives why she was filing, just that a man who had been married for almost fifty years had a right to expect that his wife would stick by him in his old age. So why hadn't he been in jail instead of at home where someone could ring his bell, walk in, and kill him? Suspended sentence. Elena called the D.A.'s office, got lucky. The First Assistant D.A. had tried the case himself and remembered it.

“He had a high-priced lawyer and a lot of character witnesses,” said the A.D.A. “Everyone said this was a good man, driven temporarily nuts because his wife wanted to leave him for no good reason. Was that fair? his lawyer said. He's old and sick, no good to her anymore, so she wants to take off with half his pension. He had an all-male jury. They ate it up. Convicted him on the lowest count and gave him a suspended sentence in the penalty phase. What a crock! That was one mean old man,” said Thaddeus Call. “Autopsy showed she had about five fractures—probably a battered woman, but the judge wouldn't admit that into evidence.”

“No domestic violence records?” Elena asked.

“Not a one, and the family and neighbors wouldn't admit that he'd been beating her. Hell, the poor woman had had a radical mastectomy. He probably hit her in the breast and caused that too.”

“Would you know if she went to the Socorro Heights Senior Citizens Center?” Elena asked.

“Not that I remember. But I don't see that it would have had any bearing on the case. She was home when he shot her. Oh, and he got his. Someone shot him in the same house.” The A.D.A. sounded pleased about that.

Elena had been taking notes as he talked. After the call, she bowed her head, fingers forced back through the thick black hair that fed into her French braid. Another battered wife—murdered, in this case; another daylight robbery-murder; medals stolen, jewelry off the body. She'd have to start interviewing survivors and people at the center. Survivors first. If the murderer was at the center, she didn't want to tip him off. There weren't a lot of men over there. She'd have to ask her mother about the two taking the weaving class. And she particularly needed to find out more about T. Bob Tyler. But what was the killer's motive? Did he think he was some sort of knight—rescuing elderly princesses from their abusive princes?

“How'd my instructions work?”

Elena looked up to see Maggie Daguerre swinging down the aisle on her crutches. “Pretty well. Mostly because I ignored the complicated stuff.”

Maggie laughed. “You want to do lunch, as they say in the business world?”

“Do lunch? You mean like go somewhere where they serve cocktails and appetizers and—”

“No, I mean like pig out on Mexican food—any place they don't have stairs.”

“You're on.” Elena collected her notes, slung her purse over her shoulder, and preceded Maggie out of I.D. & R. “Are you and Manny an item?” she asked.

“I don't know. His kids like me now, but that doesn't make him any taller. Maybe if he'd grow—four or five inches; that would do it.”

Elena laughed. “I don't think there's much chance of that. You'll have to shrink.”

“No way. Not for about forty years. Not at all if I drink this stuff your neighbor in Chimayo gave me—Joaquina. Some herbal tea that'll keep me young and gorgeous forever and stop my leg from aching.”

“Or give you terminal diarrhea,” muttered Elena, remembering Sarah's experience with Joaquina's potions.

“All I can say is I hope it works on the young and beautiful part, because it didn't do shit for my leg.”

Wednesday, October 6, 2:00 P.M.

Bayard Sims and Lance Potemkin met in the reception room at Crimes Against Persons. “Sorry, Bayard,” said Lance, glancing at the woman behind Sims. “But since she already knows, I couldn't see letting them continue to think I killed my father.”

Elena, who was with Lance, watched Sims turn brick-red.

“Professor Sims, if you'll come this way,” said Leo.

The woman behind Sims said, “Where he goes, I go. I'm his lawyer, not to mention his wife.”

Carmen, the receptionist, was staring at Mrs. Sims with horror. Carmen looked like a shampoo ad, with a glowing, luxuriously curled head of hair; Mrs. Sims looked like she had a rusty wire brush on her head.

“His lawyer?” asked Leo. “He's not a suspect.”

“I suppose you're the boyfriend,” said Mrs. Sims, eyeing Lance. “Well, we'd better head for that room with the tacky early American couch and thrash this out.”

Lieutenant Beltran, who had been briefed on the progress of the case just an hour before, strode into the reception area and said, “The suspects will be questioned separately.”

“Suspects?” snapped Opal Sims. “Neither one of these men did anything—except break the sodomy law.”

Carmen's mouth dropped open.

“Opal,” muttered Professor Sims, looking pained. He was a stocky man, handsome in a distinguished, graying way, but shorter than his wife.

“I believe in calling a spade a spade,” said Opal Sims.

Lloyd Booker, a black detective in Sex Crimes, who was entering the reception area at that minute, said, “Some of us spades take that amiss, ma'am.”

“I'm not surprised,” snapped Opal Sims. “Nothing pisses me off more than this politically correct racial and ethnic sensitivity crap. Now, can we get on with this interview?”

Elena had now placed Opal Sims as a tough criminal defense counsel, easily pissed off in court, as well as elsewhere. “Is Professor Sims going to back up Lance's alibi?” asked Elena.

“Whatever he has to say, we're interrogating them separately,” said Beltran.

“I'll tell you what,” said Opal. She fished in her purse and came up with a notepad, ripped off a sheet for Lance and one for her husband. “Just write down the span of time you were together out at Bayard's tedious country place, then note any time that you weren't in each other's presence while you were at the house. You don't have to say what you were doing because that would be self-incrimination.”

“Look, lady,” roared Beltran.

“Don't ‘look-lady' me,” Opal Sims snarled back. “I'm appointing myself counsel for Potemkin too. Now, write!” She glared from her husband to Lance. “You cops can compare what they have to say.”

Lance looked taken aback to find himself, willy-nilly, represented by the wife of his lover, the woman who had insisted that they part company. Elena, who was enjoying the scene immensely, managed to keep from laughing out loud because she could see that the lieutenant was furious. Sims sat down, took a cookbook from his expensive soft leather briefcase and, using it as a writing surface, began to jot things down. Lance turned and used the reception counter to make his notations.

“Great hair,” said Carmen. “Are you really gay?” Lance nodded and added some more notes to his written testimony. “Too bad,” said the receptionist. “Is that a perm or natural curl?”

“Natural,” said Lance.

“Shit,” said the receptionist. “Who cuts it for you?”

“Mrs. Pargetter, the secretary in Electrical Engineering.”

“You're kidding? An amateur?”

“No,” said Lance. “She's faster on a computer keyboard than I am, and that's saying something.”

“Great,” said Mrs. Sims. “Then you can type Bayard's new cookbook. I sure as hell don't want to.”

Lance gave her a look, added one last item, and handed his paper to Elena, who read it over. Sims handed his to Leo.

“I don't care what those papers say,” muttered Beltran.

“Oh, don't be such a grouch, Lieutenant. I got my husband in here; I told him he had to tell the truth except where he needed to take the Fifth. Now read the damn accounts of their time. I've got a deposition at four. You screw that up, I'll file suit against the department. Wouldn't be the first time.”

Beltran gave her a fulminating look and compared the two schedules. Before he could comment, Opal Sims strode off toward the large interrogation room, leaving the others little choice but to follow her.

“You're both swearing to these?” Beltran asked angrily.

Opal plunked herself down on the blue polka-dot couch. “You sit here, Bayard,” she said, patting the cushion beside her. “You can sit over there, Potemkin,” she said to Lance, pointing to a chair beside the table. “We don't want any hand-holding here. You may not have killed anyone, but you two could get yourselves arrested for—”

“Opal!” grated Bayard Sims.

“Oh, all right, but it was your idea to turn bisexual, not mine,” she snapped. “And don't think you're ever getting back in my bed. I'm not risking AIDS.”

“I don't have AIDS,” muttered Lance.

“Who said I wanted back in your bed?” snapped Sims.

“Right, you want him. Well, O.K. It's not as if I ever enjoyed fucking with you, Bayard. It's just too bad you didn't find out you were gay before we got married.”

“Shut up,” shouted Beltran. “We're not interested in your—”

“This is called negotiation,” Opal interrupted. “You cops ought to try it. You'd save the taxpayers money. I'd be one of the savees if my husband didn't insist on living out in the boondocks growing a bunch of goddamned grapes and vegetables. I'd a hell of a lot rather eat frozen stuff than something that just came out of a garden with bugs and dirt all over it.”

“Always the philistine,” muttered the chairman of Gourmet Cookery.

“Philistine, schmilistine. I'm pulling down three hundred thou a year. That buys a lot of Eggs McMuffin.”

“I can't believe you said that, Opal. Have you been eating Eggs McMuffin when you could be home having eggs Benedict?”

“Ah—Professor Sims, counselor.” Elena tried to sound tactful but firm.

“O.K.,” said Opal Sims. “Here's my offer. No divorce. We stay together for the kids. If I feel like sex, I'll find my own partners. As for you and Potemkin, since it turns out he's not a murderer—”

“That has not been established,” said Beltran.

“For God's sake, check the statements. They were with each other. Anyway, as long as you're discreet, you two can get back together.”

“I accept,” said Bayard Sims, all smiles.

“I don't think so,” said Lance quietly.

“It does look as if Potemkin is in the clear,” muttered Beltran. “On the other hand, Sims lied once. He could be lying again to save his—his—” Beltran obviously had a hard time using the word lover in reference to two men.

“His sweetie?” suggested Opal Sims maliciously.

“Lance, I know you're angry because I lied, but you have to understand—the children, the scandal. Our relationship is too precious to let—”

“Could you talk about this somewhere else?” Beltran looked as if he might throw up. Elena, however, thought it was one of the best shows she'd seen in C.A.P.

“Of course,” murmured Bayard Sims. “Lance, perhaps we could—”

“There's nothing to talk about.”

“Lance!” Sims had gone pale. “The way is clear. Our future, within the bounds of discretion—”

“No.”

“I beg you—”

“Oh, lighten up, Bayard,” said Opal Sims. “It's only sex.”

Elena had been comparing the statements of the two men. “I'd have to agree that you're off the hook, Lance,” she said kindly. She didn't blame him for dumping Sims. Who, male or female, would want to have a lover with a wife like Opal?

Beltran frowned. “I'm not completely—”

“So they'll both take lie-detector tests,” said Opal impatiently.

“They're not reliable,” said Lance.

“Christ, what a worry wart! Even if you fail, it's not admissible in court.”

“I'm the one they think murdered someone,” said Lance stubbornly.

“You can count on my testimony,” said Sims.

“What? At a trial?” Lance looked horrified.

“Well, I'm out of here,” announced Opal. “Come on, Bayard. You have to pick the kids up at school. If we didn't live in goddamned New Mexico, they could take the bus.”

“Am I free to go?” asked Lance as the Sims left.

“Go on,” muttered Beltran.

“I've got a new lead, Lieutenant,” said Elena when Lance had closed the door politely behind him. “It's kind of weird. Looks like maybe the Potemkin murder was done by a serial killer.”

“Nonsense,” said Beltran. “Sometimes I think you're weird, Jarvis.”

“Well, I'm my mother's daughter,” she replied cheerfully. She could see that he was about to protest, so she added quickly, “But I promise I won't start any demonstrations in front of headquarters.”

Beltran stamped out.

“You want to hear what I've dug up, Leo?”

“Sure.” Leo began to practice a tap routine, fortunately without the tap shoes.

“You're going to dance while I'm talking?”

“Yeah. And let's start the cameras going in the other room. I can take the tape home and check out my routine for the talent show. You could make a few notes. Tell me what you think.”

Elena groaned.

“I can listen and dance at the same time.” He rushed into the next room, started the camera, returned, and bowed to the one-way window.

“Well, I've got five cases that fit the pattern.”

Leo did a slick buck and wing, then tapped gracefully around an imaginary cane. “How's that?” he asked with a flourish.

“Great. The really interesting one was five years ago. This guy killed his wife and got off. The other four wives were at the center when their husbands died. What do you make of that?”

Leo, tapping away madly, didn't answer.