A Kiss Gone Bad (6 page)

‘I know it’s a tough time, Claud, and maybe I ought to let Gardner handle this one.’

‘There’s no need,’ Claudia said. ‘Really, Delford, I appreciate the concern, but I’m fine and work is heaven for me right
now.’

He coughed.

‘I can smell the advice baking,’ she said.

‘I’d treat this like a suicide.’

‘I don’t think Whit and the ME have talked cause of death yet.’

Delford ran a finger along a curve of his mustache.
‘Whit Mosley couldn’t find his ass in the dark with three flashlights. After the election he’ll probably be running a snow-cone
stand.’

‘No. He’ll be a housepainter,’ Claudia said.

‘You ain’t one bit funny,’ Delford shot back. It was a Port Leo legend: fifteen years ago Whit and his five brothers had,
in four masterful hours when Delford was away at a football game, painted Delford’s house pink. Violent, electric, Pepto-Bismol
pink. Delford, unwilling to be the butt of a joke, had viewed the Mosley boys like crazed terrorists, even after they repainted
his house back to its original white. The rest of the town hid its laughter behind their hands and shook their heads in mock
scorn at those wild Mosleys.

‘You’re still not over that prank,’ Claudia said. ‘That’s why you don’t like any Mosley.’ She herself liked Whit Mosley fine.
He’d palled around with her brother Jimmy as kids, fishing, gigging for frogs, swimming in the bay, and Whit never made her
– the tagalong tomboy – feel unwelcome. He had kind eyes, gray as the bay when the clouds hung low. And he was easy to work
with. The last JP, God rest her soul, puked at every single death scene and guilted Claudia into taking macramé and quilting
classes with her. Whit kept his lunch and hobbies to himself.

‘I don’t like Mosley period. He’s running the bench like a beach attraction,’ Delford fretted. ‘I’m just saying Pete smells
like suicide to me.’

‘Are you jumping or driving to that conclusion?’

‘When I told Lucinda that Pete was dead, she asked straightaway if he’d killed himself. She told me in detail about the mental
problems he’s been suffering from over the past several years. It’s in her statement.’

‘She knew he was nuts but didn’t know he was doing porn?’ Claudia asked.

Delford frowned. ‘Well, maybe she did know. But I wouldn’t blame her for not mentioning it.’

‘His friend Velvet insists he would never commit suicide.’

‘Let’s talk about Pete’s friends. This boat he was staying on.
Real Shame.
It’s registered in Houston. It’s owned by a fellow named Tommy Deloache. In Houston, he’s known as Tommy the Roach. Suspected
drug ties, suspected money launderer.’

‘And Pete hanging with criminals bolsters your suicide theory how?’

‘From what Houston PD says, if the Deloaches wanted Pete dead, he’d be in the Gulf, sixty feet down wired to blocks. They
tidy up after themselves. They don’t leave bodies around to be autopsied.’

She stood. ‘I’ll keep you apprised of what I find.’

‘Claud, don’t get bent. I’m just asking you to be sensitive to a mother’s grief. Remember Lucinda’s got an election in less
than a month, and this could derail it.’

‘The senator wouldn’t get more sympathy votes if he was murdered as opposed to suicide?’ Claudia asked bluntly. ‘Suicide sounds
like maybe she was a bad mother.’

‘Damn it, Claudia, you’ve never handled a death this high-profile. And my gut, which is both bigger and older than yours,
tells me Pete killed himself. If you chase the wrong path and embarrass yourself, not to mention Senator Hubble, with all
this unrelated garbage about porn and Corey Hubble and what not, that’s going to be remembered.’

He shoved his chair hard against the table.

‘Well, hell, Delford, if you don’t have confidence in me, don’t give me the case.’

‘I’m just trying to help you. The case is yours. Just mind how you run it.’

She nodded, and he turned and left. Claudia stared at the door he slammed behind him.

‘Why didn’t you tell me Pete was back in town?’ Whit asked.

He heard the sharp rasp of Faith Hubble’s breath. ‘Oh, Whit. God, babe, I didn’t think it mattered. He said … he wasn’t going
to stay long. A couple of weeks, no more.’

‘If I had an ex-wife, wouldn’t you have wanted to know if she showed up in Port Leo.?’ he asked.

‘We’re not … dating, Whit. We’re just … I mean … oh, God, I can’t have this conversation now. Sam’s out of his mind with grief,
and Lucinda’s a zombie.’

Whit hated having to press, but he did. ‘Pete was writing a screenplay, Faith. I don’t think he was just waltzing in and out
of Port Leo on a quick jaunt.’

‘Oh, God.’ She couldn’t hide the shock in her voice. ‘Movie.?’

‘Did you know he was in the movie business, Faith?’

‘I can’t … discuss this right now. Sam’s real upset. He needs me.’

‘Fine. But I need to talk to you all tomorrow.’

‘I want that. I want to see you.’

‘Fine, I’ll call you tomorrow. Please give my sympathies to the senator and Sam.’

‘I will. And thank you, in advance, Whit, for your help. We appreciate it.’

They said their good-byes and hung up. Whit wondered exactly what kind of help he was supposed to provide, unasked.

Whit transferred his field notes to an inquest report and
assigned the death a case number. He had called the ME’s office in Corpus Christi as soon as he got into his office to report
Pete’s death and the body’s expected arrival at their facility. The on-call ME had phoned back and Whit gave her a brief summation
of the case. He asked her to be sure and check the corpse for any signs of foul play, although from the body’s condition suicide
was indicated. He hung up and watched the clouds begin to pour a thin, steady rain on the sleeping town.

He gathered up a notebook from the JP Training Center that offered details on conducting a formal death inquest, locked up
his office, and headed down the darkened hallways of the courthouse.

Grief, in whatever variety, reminded Whit of his mother. When he was two, she had packed up and walked away from her husband
and six sons and vanished into the great blue of the world, and in odd moments he ached for her touch as he might ache for
a missing limb. For the first time in weeks he wondered where his mother was, if she were dead or alive. He imagined her buried
under an assumed name, or her unmourned bones bleached by the sun, a victim of terrible evil. But not always. He also imagined
her munching a peanut butter sandwich, licking stray dabs of plum jelly from her fingers, watching
The Tonight Show,
curled on a bed with green sheets. Green had been her favorite color, she often wore a thin green ribbon in her blond hair,
at least in pictures. He could not remember if he ever played with the ribbon.

He wondered if she ever thought of him. Perhaps five sons had seemed manageable and six was just one son too many.

His mother. Corey Hubble. Both gone into the maw of the world.

The difference between Whit and Pete, Whit mused,
was that Pete acted. Or at least attempted to peel back the layers of years toward truth and document what had happened to
Corey.

Whit admired his guts.

So what had Pete found?

The police station’s night dispatcher, a she-grizzly named Nelda, buzzed him into the building. Whit free-loaded a cup of
high-voltage, road-tar coffee from her and collapsed on a rough old bench. Velvet was giving a statement to Claudia Salazar,
he was told, and Nelda peered at him strangely when he said he’d wait.

Being a shoulder for Velvet was fine. A moron’s level of political astuteness demanded that he do nothing more. But he knew
she was alone, and he knew the shock of sudden, paralyzing loss. No harm in being friendly. Bitter pills were harder to swallow
alone.

Delford Spires ambled toward him while he sipped his coffee.

‘Hello, partner,’ Delford said. ‘You’re not usually such a dedicated public servant.’

‘Just waiting for Claudia to finish up with Velvet.’

‘Claud can give the lady a ride to her hotel. Maybe you and I can chat for a second.’

Whit followed Delford to the station’s back entrance, where the smokers were exiled under a metal canopy. The rain fell steadily
and lightning webbed the sky over the Gulf.

Delford dug in his pocket for a pack of Marlboros and waited until he had one lit and two puffs down before he spoke. ‘So
you were gonna wait on Velvet?’

‘I told her I’d give her a ride and talk to her about Pete.’

‘A ride. I’ll bet.’ Delford blew out a calculated plume of smoke, edging Whit’s face.

‘I’m just being a nice guy.’

‘You know what nice gets you with a loose woman?’
Delford rubbed the smooth dome of his balding head. ‘A burning need for penicillin.’

Whit waited for the next nugget of wisdom to fall from Delford’s lips.

Delford exhaled another stream of smoke. ‘This is a hell of a mess, Whit. Hell of a mess.’

‘Yes. I feel bad for Lucinda Hubble.’ Whit tossed out a verbal card to see if Delford would trump.

Delford did. ‘Oh, Lord, yes. I hated to be the bearer of bad news, but she had to know. Suicide is so goddamned selfish. And
this so close to the election.’

Whit sipped his coffee, letting Delford believe silence signaled agreement, then said, ‘We don’t know that it’s suicide, Delford.’

To their right, a blue-light bug zapper sounded a long, fuzzy trill as it dispatched some flying insect to creeper heaven.
‘Of course not. But I been in law enforcement thirty years, partner, and you’re wet behind both ears and balls. Pete Hubble
clearly looks like a suicide to me. No sign of struggle, big old boy like him. He put that gun in his own mouth.’

Whit shrugged. ‘I think I’ll wait for the autopsy to make a ruling. But I sure don’t see why he’d come home after all these
years just to kill himself. Especially after he was starting a new film project.’

‘I get it. You’re just interested in the media circus, get your name in the paper for the voters to see. I think you owe some
common sense and courtesy to Lucinda Hubble that this be handled quickly and quietly.’

‘Since Dear Abby’s not available,’ Whit said, ‘how does ramming a ruling through quickly get classified as common sense and
courtesy?’

Delford stubbed out his smoke. ‘It’s called decency. Try to add it to your vocabulary, partner. Lucinda’s done more for this
county than most people have, and she’s
suffered a lot of tragedy in her life. So show her some compassion.’

The woman has lost her son. I don’t plan on being anything but compassionate. Especially if it turns out her son’s been murdered.’

‘And you wouldn’t change your mind because she’s a Democrat and you’re a Republican?’ Whit had had to make a party affiliation
to get the appointment from the Republican-controlled county commissioners, but he felt lukewarm about allegiance to any political
party.

‘Party lines bore me, Delford.’

‘I imagine. The only party line you’re interested in is the one leading to the keg.’

Whit patted his pockets. ‘I like that one. I better write it down and note the time and date you actually attempted a joke.’

‘Listen, Whit.’ Delford lowered his voice but kept his amiable smile firmly fixed. ‘We all know you’re sort of learning as
you go, but you sure don’t want the voters to realize that you’re, shall we say, still climbing the learning curve.’

‘For all your preaching about compassion,’ Whit said, ‘I haven’t heard you show one bit of sympathy for Pete Hubble.’

‘Lucinda doesn’t deserve for that good-for-nothing son of hers to muddy her name from the grave. You’re gonna be out there
alone, Whit, looking like a fool when the police and the family – who know the truth – all say it’s suicide and you’re chasing
shadows.’

‘What is this, a good-old-boy plea to stay in step?’ Whit said.

Delford shook his head. ‘You must’ve sniffed some of that pink paint, son. I’m not pressuring you to do diddly. My judgment
is based on years of police experience. This is your first big death case, Whit. You screw it up and it’s
real public, and it’s right before the election.’ He laughed and crushed his cigarette under his boot heel. ‘And just a tip:
voters don’t vote for candidates who consort with porno queens.’

Delford went back into the police station. Whit watched the rain and finished his coffee. When he went back inside, Nelda
told him Claudia and Velvet had left not three minutes before. He drove home, devoured a ham sandwich and a bag of corn chips
while watching a
Monty Python
rerun on cable, and went to bed with his JP training materials. He read every detail on death inquest procedures.

He wondered how the voters would react if he and his brothers painted Delford’s house again.

Reading the procedures, written in law’s natively ornate style, made him drowse. His thoughts drifted to the last time he
had been with Faith, making hurried love in a Laurel Point motel last week. She had seemed distracted, going through the motions
of lovemaking without her usual ardor, kissing him as though she were tasting a sour peach. He had wondered if she was growing
tired of him or preoccupied with Lucinda’s reelection campaign. Now he wondered if it was because Pete had reentered her life.

He doused the lights. When he fell asleep he dreamed not of Faith or Irina or Velvet but of his mother, calling his name like
a siren from the surf-churned rocks.

‘That judge,’ Velvet said to Claudia as they pulled into the Port Leo Best Western’s half-full parking lot. ‘Tell me about him.’

‘What exactly do you want to know?’

‘He said there might be an inquest. He gonna be fair?’

‘Extremely fair,’ Claudia said.

‘He looks like a beach bum not tidied up all the way,’ Velvet said. ‘I directed a movie called
Here Comes the Judge.
I know, bad title, but schlock’s part of the game. I worried that Flip Wilson’s estate would sue. Did great on video. I had a guy who wore nothing under his judge’s robes in one scene, and he did the court reporter and half the jury.’

‘Wow, you really are a film visionary,’ Claudia said, not wanting to hear a synopsis of adult movies. ‘A real Scorsese.’

‘Aren’t you the meow kitty? I guess I shock you,’ Velvet said.

‘You’re trying too hard to shock me.’

‘And why would I do that?’

‘If you don’t think what you do is wrong, and you beat people over the head with it, they’ll probably keep their opinions to themselves.’

‘And what do you know about my profession? You know, most of the people in the adult film business are married. They work it just like a nine-to-fiver, then go home to their families.’

‘I’m sure there are hired killers who have white picket fences. It doesn’t make it respectable.’ Claudia turned to her. ‘I don’t believe in exploiting people.’

‘You ever use an informant in your line of work, Ms High-and-Mighty? Maybe someone who’s fallen on hard times, gotten himself in a little lick of trouble, and wants to stay out of jail? And they can, if they give you names and numbers and know who’s fencing what or where the marijuana’s stashed?’

Claudia stopped the car in front of the lobby doors. Rain slid down the windshield, blurring the world. ‘That’s different. I’m enforcing the law.’

‘You’re taking advantage of their weakness to get what you want. Don’t lecture me about using people, baby. I launch careers, I let lonely guys have some fun in the privacy of their own home, I show shy ladies how to make a man their love slave forever. It’s a public service, if that resonates with you.’

‘I have less than zero interest in debating you, Velvet. But I don’t know of many women who could do what you do and not feel degraded. Tart it up however you like.’

Velvet regarded her with interest. ‘I bet Whit wouldn’t wear anything under his robe, if I asked him.’

Christ, lady, your old one’s barely cold yet,
David wasn’t even dead, only her spanking-new ex, but she couldn’t imagine touching another man right now. ‘Ask him and see what happens.’

‘Well, hello, raw nerve,’ Velvet said. ‘Didn’t mean to trespass.’

‘I’m not in the market, and I’m especially not in the market for Whit Mosley. I’m just being a realist. I know Whit. You’re not his type, and you’re involved in a case he’s adjudicating.’

‘Men are the simplest maps, honey, and no one can unfold one better than me. I just go for the thing pointing true north, and I learn all I need to know. Whit’s no different.’ She paused. ‘He up for reelection, like Lucinda?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sure the Hubbles will be riding your ass like the Pony Express to run the investigation the way they want.’

‘They don’t have any influence over me,’ Claudia said.

Velvet watched the rain splatter against the windshield. ‘Whit defended you to me, said you were a good investigator. I just hope he’s right. I’m sure in a little town sucking up to the right people makes all the difference in promotions.’

‘You’ve suffered a really nasty shock tonight, and I’m real sorry about your friend. So I’m just going to ignore what you just said, because you don’t know jackshit about me.’

‘You’re the one who got out the label maker, sweetie.’ Velvet opened the car door and ran through the rain. Claudia, peeved, followed her.

They went inside the motel lobby and got Velvet checked in. Claudia asked, ‘You’re gonna be okay here alone?’

‘I’d be better if there was a wet bar. I’ll settle for a shower and a bed. Thanks for the ride.’

‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’ Claudia said. ‘I’ll have a patrol officer bring you by some clothes and toiletries.’ Let her see actual, respectable small-town nice. Maybe she would unleash a squad of church ladies on Velvet. No one could be nicer than church ladies on a mission.

‘Thank you. Now go work hard and get the fucker who did this,’ Velvet said. She turned off and went down the hall toward her
room.

Claudia drove back to Golden Gulf Marina. The crowd had returned to their boats, although several craft showed lamps’ glimmers
from behind the curtains. People still awake, shocked at death’s close amble, watching television or drinking decaf to lull
themselves to sleep. In the gentle downpour she walked to
Real Shame,
watching the yellow crime scene ribbons flap in the breeze. She boarded and heard a low voice talking inside the cabin.

‘Yeah, it’s all taken care of. Not a problem.’

She opened the door and Eddie Gardner smiled, clicking off his cell phone.

‘What’s going on?’ she asked.

‘Not much, just finishing up.’ He gestured to a stack of bagged items and rolls of film, neatly tagged. ‘How did the statements
go? You squeeze a confession?’

‘Hardly. The girlfriend is sure he didn’t off himself, and the young woman who found the body is sure he did. I’d like to
send both to Credible Witness School.’ Claudia thumbed through the stack of bagged items: bedding, individual items of clothing,
including the pair of women’s panties (Velvet had said forcefully that she owned no pair with violets on them), wineglass,
wine bottles, the videotape that Whit had found.

‘Find anything interesting?’ she asked.

‘Not counting the dirty movies, no. No contraband.’

She smiled. Gardner could be a toad but he wasn’t a bad guy, just overimpressed with himself. Both the other single women
at the police station pined to date him, although the attraction eluded Claudia. She ought to shove Velvet toward Gardner
and away from a decent guy like Whit. She’d make Gardner’s day.

‘Delford – with all the tact of a fart in church – told me to treat this like a suicide.’

Gardner stopped piling the evidence into a case. ‘It looks like one.’

‘I know. But considering who this guy is, to automatically assume …’

‘Well, Delford’s a man of strong opinions, but he’s solved practically every major case he’s ever had. He knows police work.’

‘He’s old friends with Lucinda Hubble. She won’t want her son’s movie career brought to light, and I frankly don’t blame her.’

Gardner shrugged again. ‘Look, Claudia. Delford clearly has confidence in you. If he didn’t trust you, you wouldn’t be here.’

A sudden pang of embarrassment at having shown her doubt hit her. Gardner bent back to his work, not looking at her.

‘I know. Thanks. Can I give you a hand with the evidence case?’

‘Naw, I got it.’ He hoisted a box to his shoulder. ‘You coming?’

‘In a minute. I want another look around.’

Gardner headed out the door, grunting as he carried the box. ‘They’ve got Fox sitting out on the dock all night to watch the
boat, make sure no one comes aboard.’

‘Great. Thanks, Eddie,’ she said.

In Pete’s bedroom, Claudia carefully flicked on a light, using the edge of her hand. Black fingerprint dust marked the most
obvious spots: the light switch, the door handle, the metal nightstand table, where Gardner and the deputies helping out from
the sheriff’s office had dusted and lifted prints.
Thank God David wasn’t on duty.
She didn’t want to see him up close and personal quite yet, and it would be impossible to avoid with her in the police department
and him in the sheriff’s office.

The body and the bedding were gone. She opened the closet door. She pulled some of the files out of the box. The minutiae
of everyday life: phone bills, store receipts, credit card slips, bank records, all haphazardly clumped together. Pete wasn’t
rich, but he wasn’t destitute. He had a balance slightly over ten thousand dollars in his Van Nuys, California, account according
to his most recent statement, and he’d opened a new account last week at
the Texas Coastal Bank, Port Leo branch, with an opening balance of four thousand. She jotted down the Van Nuys address;
she wanted to check with the police there about both Pete and Velvet. It bothered her that he was staying on a boat with ties
to a criminal family. Such affiliations did not appear overnight with a snap of the fingers.

She was searching the main cabin when Gardner came back aboard.

‘Hey, Eddie, did you see a laptop computer?’ she asked.

Gardner inspected a handwritten inventory pulled from his pocket. ‘There was a small portable printer in the other room, but
I didn’t see a computer.’

‘Help me look.’

Nothing turned up except some dust bunnies beneath a couch and a box of shotgun ammunition hidden in a back drawer.

‘Two people have told us Pete had a laptop and now he doesn’t,’ Claudia said.

They searched again, behind furniture, in closets, in cabinets, for another half hour.

‘I don’t think it’s here, Claudia.’

Claudia crossed her arms. ‘So where the hell is it?’