Murder Mile High (24 page)

“Your sister is very angry with you,” Mom said, shaking her head. She sat back down on the couch and picked up her crocheting, fumbling with the wool.

“I know. But we’ve talked, and she’s pretty much over it.”

Mom sighed. “I don’t know what I did wrong with all of you. Most people’s grown children don’t fight and squabble like you all do.”

“I don’t—at least, not until recently.” I sat in a chair next to the sofa, trying to talk under the roar of the TV. Dad turned and gave me a nod. I realized that I tended to treat them as they treated me—children who needed things smoothed over and made simple. Neither of us liked that. My parents had been through trouble and adversity. It was instinctive to try and spare them, which was what Molly tried to do, but that didn’t take into account their own resilience.

Dad turned the TV down a little. “That woman cop’s been here again. Took my gun. Don’t know when I’ll see it again.”

“I don’t care if you never do,” Mom sniffed.

“You don’t know anything about it.” Dad got that defensive note in his voice. "There’s times when you need a firearm—like when Naylor came around bothering you.”

“Well, all that accomplished was to worry me to death for fear you’d actually shoot someone and then have to go to jail yourself.” Mom looked indignant. “Better just to be shot, if you ask me.”

“Nobody did ask you, so shut up.” My dad, after this gracious utterance, turned back to the TV.

Mom wasn’t done with the subject. “You should have asked me in the first place, before you wasted your money on it. People in this family never talk to each other about anything.” She sounded mournful.

“We’re fine.” Dad banged the remote control on his chair arm. “Nobody needs to come around trying to make us feel bad.” He directed a look at me.

I managed to avoid the loud, defensive Sullivan Arguing Voice that usually took over any quarrel in our family. “It’s not so bad to admit you made a mistake. We’ve all made mistakes. You guys wouldn’t even talk to me for fifteen years because I made a couple of big ones. At least, I learned from that. What I learned was—don’t make the mistake bigger by pretending it didn’t happen.”

Mom turned to me, her eyes wet. “We were wrong, too, honey.” She put her hand on mine, a rare demonstration. “We shouldn’t have been so rigid with you. Like you say, it just made the first mistake worse. I didn’t mean to send you back to him, that time you told me he was beating you. I just wanted you to—well, be really repentant or something. Instead you left and never came back.”

“I never thought I’d be welcome.” I squeezed her hand and looked at Dad. “Would I have been?”

He looked down at the remote control in his gnarled hand. “Of course,” he muttered. “You’re our child. We have a duty to you. But dammit,” he burst out. “Why do you have to stir up so much trouble? Every time you come around—”

“I didn’t make the trouble this time,” I pointed out, striving for that reasonable tone of voice. “I didn’t kill Tony— didn’t even try to this time.”

“Shoulda been shot a long time ago,” my dad grunted, apparently without irony. “That’s what guns are good for.” He glanced sideways at Mom.

“I never want to see that thing again.” My mother spoke with surprising strength, considering a lifetime spent deferring to this man. “It’s just a source of trouble. Anyone might get hold of it—that Conchita, for instance.” She turned to me. “Thought she was such a nice little thing, but she just up and left this afternoon.”

“Before Eva came over? Oh, dear.” Here was something else that might be my fault. I hoped I hadn’t driven off yet another witness—or been the means of endangering her.

“Yes, she was here until nearly four, stirring around. Then the phone rang and she answered it—told me it was a bad number or some such thing. I dozed off for a while, and when I woke up she was gone.”

“Didn’t take nothing, though.” My dad added this, determined to be fair. “I checked.”

“Maybe someone called to tell her the INS was after her.” I hoped that was all it was. I hoped she wasn’t meeting the same fate as Maud.

“Now, I thought Molly told me she was an exchange student.”

I had to smile. “Nope. Molly probably suspected she was illegal. She got Conchita and whoever came before her through Tony. He was a coyote—bringing in undocumented workers from Mexico. Usually they pay the coyote to bring them, and he collects a fee for delivering them.”

Dad shook his head. “He was a bad one, that fellow. Never liked him. What was Molly about, to pick up with him?”

“Maybe she was rebelling, too, after being so good for so long.” I was worried about Conchita. “Did the girl go back to Molly’s?”

“No. Molly called here right after dinner to say she’d be over to pick her up soon, and we had to say she’d already gone.” Mom clasped her hands together. “What does all this mean, Lizzie? Why is this happening?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It does sound like someone has it in for the Sullivans, though, doesn’t it?”

The phone rang, and I leaped up to answer it, having the youngest knees in the room. It was Amy.

“Aunt Liz, there’s another e-mail from Drake. Shall I read it to you?” She was eager to do so—hoping for some tender phrases, I supposed.

“No, don’t bother. I’m about ready to leave here.”

“Who was that on the phone?” Mom put down her crocheting, looking at me over her glasses when I came back into the living room. It took me back so far I almost lied from habit, as I’d done in my teenage years.

“Amy. She had a homework question.”

Mom nodded, satisfied. “Now little Amy isn’t mixed up in all this, is she?”

“Not if Biff lets her alone. He’s given to annoying her, I gather.”

Mom tsked, but Dad shook his head. “The girl should put more clothes on,” he growled. “Not that that’s any excuse for Byron. That boy needs a good whipping.”

Mom disagreed. “He can be a very sweet boy,” she insisted. “But Molly lets him get away with that bad behavior, so of course he keeps misbehaving. She should be stricter with him.”

It was none of my business. I was just glad Amy knew a couple of ways to discourage unwanted masculine attention. She was unlikely to change her style of dress, and although I found it tacky in the extreme myself, I didn’t see why she shouldn’t wear what she wanted. When men wear tight pants and muscle shirts, do women molest them under the philosophy that they just can’t help themselves? A man who can’t control his hormonal behavior is going to find provocation everywhere, even in women who wear muumuus. Such a man may need help reining in his impulses; an occasional knee to the groin does wonders.

I didn’t say this to my parents—protecting them from reality, but I thought they needed it. They looked a little shaken, and I felt bad about spreading so much truth around. When you’re used to ducking unpleasantness, to find it in your face is scary.

“I’m sorry all this is happening,” I said, giving my mom a tentative hug. “But I’m not sorry I came back. Maybe we can stay in touch after I leave this time.”

“You’ll be leaving.” Mom looked like she didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. “I was sort of thinking you might stay here, since you’ve come back.”

“My home is in California now. But you two could come visit me. The train runs between Denver and the Bay Area, if you don’t want to fly.”

“It’s so expensive,” Mom said vaguely. “But we’ll certainly think about it, honey.”

“It’s nice in the winter out there,” I told them. “Sunny until Thanksgiving, and warm. And spring comes early— February instead of May.”

“Sounds lovely.” Mom was a little more enthusiastic, but Dad just grunted. Sun or snow, he never paid much attention to the weather. He wore his heavy parka and fur-lined hat from October to April, along with long underwear and wool socks, and wondered why other people complained.

I left them in the living room, the TV turned back up, reminding my mother to lock the door after I left. She shook her head, but I heard the lock click.

Barker bounced back and forth through the bus when I climbed into the driver’s seat. I felt sorry for his boredom that day. I’d dragged him around without giving him a good walk, but he didn’t complain.

I felt like complaining, though. I wanted my swim. I wanted a long walk through the streets of Palo Alto, admiring the nice yards and well-kept cottages while managing to ignore the monster houses mushrooming up on small lots. I wanted to plant my seedlings and pick my green beans and tomatoes and smell my roses. I wanted to sit in front of my elderly computer, sending queries out and hoping they came back with positive answers.

Instead I pulled up outside my brother’s house at nine o’clock on a chilly Denver evening, hoping to escape a lecture from Andy on how I was sinking the family into the mire with every moment I stayed around.

I left Barker in the bus, despite his whining protest, and slipped in the front door quietly. Renee was at her usual post in the kitchen. She nodded, and I smiled back.

“Amy wants to show me something, so I’ll get that done so she can get to bed,” I said. “I left Barker in the bus.”

“I can hear.” She sighed heavily. “You might as well let him in. He’ll bother the neighbors.”

“He’s fine there for a little while. I’ll be going to bed soon myself.”

“You don’t have to sleep out there,” Renee said after a moment. “You could use the other bed in Amy’s room, you know.”

“I know. But I like it out there. All my stuff—” I waved vaguely, but Renee understood stuff.

Loud honking and roaring sounds came from outside. I flinched, and Renee ran to her curtain. “That Biff!”

“Is that him?” I joined her at the curtain, just in time to see a white pickup disappear.

“He’s done that a couple of times this evening—driven by revving and honking.” Renee tightened her lips. “I’m going to give Molly an earful, I can tell you.” She stalked over to the phone, and I went on down the hall to Amy’s room.

She was cross-legged on one bed, bent over a big text, but with one eye fixed wistfully on the phone. “Aunt Liz!” She bounced up when I appeared. “Here’s your e-mail.”

She had printed it; the piece of paper trembled a little when I took it.

Got your message. Naylor under investigation by FBI as member of a ring bringing in undocumented aliens. Ring is still active. Naylor may have been killed because he was a danger to other members. The FBI won’t shake loose of any other names—had to work like hell just to get this out of them. Be very careful. These people are obviously prepared to kill.

“I read it,” Amy confessed. “And I’m worried.” She turned frightened eyes to me.

“Don’t worry, Amy. That’s just Drake’s way of trying to scare me into my burrow like a good little rabbit.”

She was silent for a moment. “Will it work?”

I laughed. “You bet.”

“Good.” She slammed her book shut. “Did you want to answer it?”

“Sure, if it’s no trouble.” I watched her bustle around the computer. “Renee was just on the phone, if that matters.”

Amy lifted the receiver and listened. “She’s off now. I need my own phone line.” The computer made little dialing noises. After a moment, Amy said, “There. You’re all set. Tell it to send when you’re finished writing, then exit, like I showed you.”

I sat for a few moments, trying to compose something that would express everything I felt in a few non-revealing words. In the end, I just thanked him for his message and repeated that I hoped to be home soon.

As soon as I was finished, Amy confronted me. “Are you really in danger, Aunt Liz?”

“No. I don’t know anything. I’m as mystified as everyone else is.”

“You know about—Tony,” she said, pronouncing his name hesitantly. “You read that file.”

“Yeah, but the police know that, too. It’s no secret.”

“Right.” She seemed relieved.

I stretched. “Well, Barker’s already in the bus, so I’m headed that way, too.”

“This once, will you sleep in here?” The pinched look was back around Amy’s eyes.

“I’m just as safe in the bus.” I didn’t believe that anyone would be after me—what would harming me accomplish? But if anyone was so deranged as to wish to harm me, better that they didn’t go through Amy first.

It was cold outside and seemed darker than usual. Barker had stopped whining. His head was still out the window, his ears pitched forward to something down the street that claimed his attention. He barely looked at me as I walked toward Babe.

I opened the side door to climb in, and he was out of it like a shot, dashing down the street toward whatever he’d been watching—probably a cat, maybe even a raccoon. I grabbed the leash out of the bus and set off in pursuit, whistling to him. I didn’t want to yell, for fear that Renee would deprecate any commotion I made.

The streetlight at the corner was out, and Barker was close to invisible, like a dog in camouflage streaking through the darker shadows where trees overhung the sidewalk.

Halfway down the block I figured I was far enough from Andy’s house to yell. “Barker!”

He checked momentarily, turning back toward me. I saw his eyes shine, and his happy doggy smile. When I came closer he pranced away. I dangled his leash temptingly, but a dog who’d been without exercise as long as Barker wasn't going to give up a run for a tame walk on a leash. He circled coyly toward me, then his head came up again, alert. Once more he dashed toward the corner.

A big catalpa tree threw darkness over the corner. I thought I could see a figure standing in the black heart of the shadow. Barker disappeared into that blackness, but my steps slowed.

“Barker! Come!” I heard a whine from the shadows, and I could dimly see a few white spots that I assumed were my dog. Then he cried out sharply, as if someone had kicked him.

I hurried forward, unable to leave him to whatever threatened him, even though I knew it was foolish. The only weapon I had was my Swiss army knife in my pocket. I wrapped the leash around my hand a couple of times, its heavy hook swinging free.

My eyes were growing used to the darkness. I could see the moving shadow of a person, standing under the trees, stooping actually. I heard the clink of Barker’s chain collar and his soft, puzzled whine.