Holy Guacamole! (7 page)

“Got that right. Gubenko parked his car in front of my place that night, one wheel on the curb, then threw up on my sidewalk and fell into my bushes. Didn’t wake me, but it wasn’t hard to figure out the next morning when Smack and I went out for an early morning walk. Barf all the way from my yard to the Russian’s front door, and on inside, for that matter. The trail took me right to the body.”

“Where was the body?” I asked.

“He was lying on his bed, face up, all the signs of suffocation. Want to know what they are?”

“No, thanks. I’ll take your word for it,” I answered hastily.

“Thought so,” she replied. “Place smelled like a drunk tank. Vomit everywhere—in the bathroom, bedroom, hall, on him and the bedclothes. Green vomit. Were your canapés green?”

She was trying to, as my daughter would say, “creep me out.” “White, red, and peach,” I replied. Green was for guacamole, obviously.

“So maybe you’re in the clear, unless you held the pillow over his face. As sick as he was, I suppose a woman could have held him down till he inhaled in the middle of the next retching episode.”

I felt a little green myself. “And that’s what you think happened? Someone held a pillow over his face instead of him dying in the—more or less natural course of things? How did they get in his house?”

“They didn’t break in, if that’s what you’re asking. I checked while I was waiting for the medics and cops to arrive. Either the killer had a key, or the Russian left the door open. Probably the last. It was open when I got there the next morning. If the killer had a key, he’d have been smart to lock up after himself, so it would look like Gubenko died alone. And that’s not what I figure happened. The pillow was on the floor, vomit-side up, the indentation of his face still in it, and he was on his back.”

“Then why aren’t the police investigating that instead of chasing after us?” I asked.

“One, what Guevara is doing is the easy way, talking to respectable ladies while he waits for the tox screens to come in. Two, I told him what I figured happened, and he brushed it off because there’s bad blood between us. If I told him there was a guy with a knife behind him, he wouldn’t turn around or run. He’s lazy and stupid.” Her dog started to growl. “It’s okay, Smack,” she said, patting his head. “Just because I’m pissed off doesn’t mean you have to bite someone.”

“Is he dangerous?” I asked nervously.

“She. She’s a retired narcotics dog. Her partner couldn’t keep her when she got too old for duty because the partner had to get a new dog, so I took her in. But old Smack here could do some damage if I told her to, and if you’d come in with pot in your pocket, you’d have seen some action.”

“How fortunate that I don’t use illegal drugs,” I murmured weakly.

“Right. She jumped a kid at a high school the other day. I was there giving a talk. Kid was dealing coke and had a couple of ounces on him. Smack held him up against the wall, while I called in the troops. Of course, they had a cop undercover there who had enough to arrest him, so the dealer just got caught a little early. Any more questions?”

“I guess not,” I said.

“And what are you going to do with the information?”

“Well, since you don’t seem to think Sergeant Guevara is going to catch the killer, I guess I’ll ask around about any enemies Vladik might have had. I’d hate to see people harassed by the police when a real criminal actually killed him.”

Luz Vallejo laughed. “You’re going to investigate this yourself? Well, that’s a hoot.”

I could have told her that I wasn’t inexperienced when it came to investigation, but I didn’t. She’d hurt my feelings, and I didn’t care to be laughed at again.

Indignant Ladies Unite

I
drove home
to think about my next move, if, in fact, I wanted to make a next move. Lieutenant Vallejo had thought the idea “a hoot,” and Jason would be upset if he thought I was getting involved in another murder investigation. On the other hand, my life had been much more exciting of late, much more interesting. Writing about food is all very well, but one doesn’t really use one’s powers of logical thinking, and one doesn’t really make a difference in the world, only in a meal or two somewhere in the country.

Not that I’m ungrateful for the syndicated newspaper column on eating out that I more or less fell into and the book on eating out in New Orleans that I recently sent off to the publisher. I pulled into the driveway and started toward the front door, thinking of whom I might interview if I decided to look for the person who held the pillow over Vladislav Gubenko’s face. Before I could even sit down to make a list, I noticed that my answering machine was blinking. I pressed the Play button and heard the following:

“Carolyn, this is Vivian Brockman. I’m getting the women who made refreshments for the party together. I think we should protest this ridiculous harassment by the police. Lunch at the Magic Pan on Doniphan at twelve-thirty. I’m reserving a table on the patio. If you get this message in time, please come.”

I glanced at my watch and left the house, calculating that I’d only be five or ten minutes late, which would leave me time for their wonderful tortilla soup and a half sandwich. What did Vivian have in mind as a protest? Letters to the editor of the
Times?
Picketing the police station? Confronting Sergeant Guevara? Hiring a lawyer? One of the women who had provided food was married to a lawyer, so maybe we could get pro bono representation. And what would our suit against the police allege? Interfering with our civil rights? Slander? I’ve never sued anyone, so I had no idea.

Five women had preceded me, ordered, and were sipping iced tea. I sat down after greeting them and took in the ambiance. I’m very fond of the Magic Pan. Their patio has vines, greenery, ceiling fans, and a mister, so you can eat outside, even in hot weather—although not during high winds and dust storms, or when it turns cold. On those less frequent occasions, you eat inside where they sell interesting “antique” doodads and jewelry. I love jewelry so was glad to be outside and away from temptation. Bad enough that I was surfing the Internet for an area rug to put in the family room. I hadn’t mentioned this pursuit to Jason yet. He was still muttering about a rug I bought in San Francisco, although I’m delighted with that purchase. I love colorful rugs, and our floors are tiled here in El Paso so they need a bit of softening underfoot.

Now who, among the food providers at the opera party, had come to the meeting? I glanced around the table. Vivian, who had provided a mountain of shelled shrimp (available at the Albertson’s for a price) and a spicy sauce; Dolly Montgomery, little rolled sandwiches with a chile-cheese spread inside (Jason said he thought they’d come from the university catering service, about which I wish I’d known); Barbara Escobar, tiny pastry puffs stuffed with tuna salad; Olive Cleveland, a cauldron of very good chile con queso with a burner to keep it warm; and Maria-Reposa Hernandez, mixed hors d’oeuvres from the Portable Fiesta. Her husband was the lawyer.

I ordered, as planned, a cup of tortilla soup and a half Lone Star sandwich. If I’d ordered a bowl of the soup, I wouldn’t have been able to eat dinner. It has a rich, spicy broth and is crammed with veggies, chicken, tortilla strips, and melted cheese. I’d have eaten every delicious bite in the bowl and been uncomfortably stuffed. Not that the Lone Star sandwich isn’t good as well. The Magic Pan has an array of sandwiches with a wonderful raspberry-chipotle sauce slathered on the buns. The meat in the Lone Star is, as you might expect, beef.

I’m told that cattle, not to mention sheep and goats, once grazed on long grass in our area.There are still ranches, but the cattle now have to walk their poor legs off to find enough grass to get them through the day. As far as I know, cattle don’t eat cactus. People do, but I have yet to treat myself to that pleasure. For all I know, some of the prickly things in my yard are edible and I should be harvesting them and putting them up like a good pioneer woman. Ha!

“I want to go inside,” said Barbara Escobar, the youngest among us. She has that heavy, dark hair with absolutely no split ends to disturb the patina. Her skin is smooth and quite light; I’ve heard her make disdainful remarks about Mexican Americans with dark skin and obvious Indian heritage, like Luz Vallejo, who is a handsome woman, in my opinion. How determined people seem to be to distinguish themselves from others on the basis of the smallest differences in skin color.

“It’s freezing out here,” Barbara complained.

She probably enjoyed the summer heat, although I couldn’t imagine it. I’d heard that August had produced a temperature of 106 degrees. Fortunately, I wasn’t in El Paso last summer to experience it. I’d probably have turned my thermostat to seventy and refused to leave the house. Peter Brockman claims that his solar house, situated properly in relation to the sun, heavily insulated, and possessed of thick walls and deeply overhanging eves, doesn’t need air conditioning at all.

I’d been fascinated to hear this, having read that the Spanish colonists had oriented their haciendas by jamming sticks into the ground and studying the shadows before placing a house that would fend off both heat and cold. My interest, based on our high electric rates for refrigerated air conditioning, had dissipated when Vivian Brockman said, “No matter what Peter thinks, I keep the air conditioner on from April to November.”

“Well, are we going to move inside?” Barbara demanded. The others had continued to chat while she complained.

It was only in the mid 60s, bracingly comfortable to my mind, but they agreed with Barbara, so we picked up our glasses and moved into the big room with its huge stone fireplace and plank tables supported by the bases of antique sewing machines. All the chairs were mismatched, the tables sporting flowered place mats, the windows ornamented with shutters and stained glass insets, and the decor finished off by a dark red carpet spotted with tiny white flowers. It is a charming room, but I had to turn my head as we passed the jewelry counters.

“I think we should start the meeting,” said Vivian, taking what appeared to be an old oak library chair and patting her densely curled gray hair. If she’d only known, her coiffure resembled a mini afro. “The only others who provided food,” she said, “are working women or students, so they probably won’t be coming.”

That explained why Adela Mariscal hadn’t answered the summons.

“Are we all agreed that the police have treated us outrageously?” Most of the ladies nodded. The several, including me, who had been served sandwiches, were distracted by the difficulty of keeping the ingredients inside the rolls. Raspberry-chipotle sauce is yummy, but also very slippery. I always hold my sandwich in two hands, which leads to sticky fingers but spares my clothing.

“We’ve committed no crime,” Vivian said indignantly. “It’s not a crime to provide refreshments for a fund-raising event.”

“Still, Martin says we could be sued by Vladik’s estate,” warned Maria-Reposa. “Well, Opera at the Pass can be sued, as well as the rest of us. In my case, Portable Fiesta could be sued, and the university through Dolly. Carolyn used preserves from the El Paso Chile Company, so they might be liable. It depends on what made Vladik sick. But it’s a civil action I’m talking about. I don’t know about criminal actions; Martin doesn’t do criminal.”

A hubbub of dismay arose among the ladies. They couldn’t imagine being arrested for a crime, but they could imagine being sued; professors, doctors, lawyers, all kinds of people could be and are sued. Anyone of us, except Maria-Reposa, could be sued by her husband, or represented by him. What a putative windfall for the Hernandezes. I certainly hoped Jason and I wouldn’t fall into Martin’s clutches. I didn’t even like the man. He had once told me that if Jason were ever sued for sexual harassment, he’d be glad to take the case. I was more insulted by him than by Sergeant Guevara and his disappointingly short interrogation.

“Actually,” I said, speaking above the babble of female voices, “although Vladik may have suffered from food poisoning, that was undoubtedly inadvertent.” Shame on me because I couldn’t resist adding, “Which would be manslaughter rather than homicide, wouldn’t it?”

They all looked alarmed.

“Or maybe negligent homicide. I haven’t lived in Texas long enough to know what the terms are.” So much for my little moment of antic humor. I wouldn’t have said those things to Adela. She’d have died of fright, since she was the person guilty of inadvertent poisoning—she and the greedy victim.

“However, there’s another possibility, or perhaps I should say added possibility. If you read the morning paper, you’ll have noticed that a retired policewoman, his neighbor, found the body, and she thinks someone put a pillow over his face while he was throwing up, whether to suffocate him or to cause what actually happened, the aspiration of his own vomit, she wouldn’t know, I suppose, but that
would
be murder. Unfortunately, the sergeant in charge of the case either doesn’t believe it or is too lazy to pursue a more complicated investigation.”

”I move that we confront the sergeant and insist that he find out who really killed Vladik,” said Barbara Escobar.

“We could make a list of people who might have hated him enough to do that,” I suggested.
Since I’ll be making such a list myself, I might as well get their input,
I thought.
They all knew him to some degree.
“Can anyone think of a name?”

Barbara laughed. “Well, Peter comes to mind. He said to Frank at the party that they really needed to get rid of Vladik. I don’t think any of us liked the
Macbeth.
”

“Howard liked it,” said Dolly. “He was pleased to see three witches instead of a whole chorus.”

“Then we won’t put Howard down,” I said, smiling and taking a pad and pen from my purse in case anyone came up with another name. “And Jason was friendly with Vladik, besides which Jason was in bed with me when the deed was done.”