The Hallows, page 8
Jia sat down. “That was pretty remarkable. Have to admit.”
“Why do I get the feeling you don’t compliment often?” I checked my watch. “Better run. Clock-out time.”
“Not for me,” she said. “I got motions to write.”
“Me too,” Will said.
“Well, shit rolls downhill for a reason. Have a good night.”
When I left, it was getting dark. I headed to a furniture store. The place was all bears, cowboys, Indians, and sunsets. I bought a painting of wild horses and then pointed out several couches, chairs, a table, a bed, and a few other things. The owner said they could deliver them in a few days, and I told her I’d throw in an extra five K if they delivered it tonight. I thought her eyeballs might fall out of her head. I gave her the key to my place, and when I was leaving, my cell phone rang. It was Gates.
“Hey,” I said.
“So I heard an interesting story about court today.”
“Oh yeah? Did it involve a devilishly handsome Miami attorney displaying his genius in front of the world?”
“Maybe. Or maybe someone that just got lucky.”
“No such thing as luck, Gates.”
“Maybe.”
I hesitated. “What are you, um, doing for dinner tonight?”
“Nothing. You hungry?”
“I am.”
“Come over. I’ll make something.”
“You sure? We can just eat out.”
“No, come over.”
“Okay. See you in a bit.”
I hung up and couldn’t wipe the silly grin off my face.
Gates’s ranch was on the outskirts of town and had been in her family for four generations. It looked about the same as I remembered it, maybe a bit more run down, but still up and running.
I parked in front of the house and strolled up to the door. Gates opened it without me having to knock. She wore jeans and a slim button-down shirt and was wiping her hands with a dish towel.
“Come in. Dinner’s almost done.”
The house smelled like old wood. It was decorated exactly the same. Nothing had changed. I sat down on the couch and watched her stirring food in a pot over the stove.
“So you’re famous,” she said. “My opponent, Horace, was interviewed for the local paper saying I’ve brought you on as a ringer to get a conviction against two innocent young boys.”
“Innocent? Really? I thought the town is calling for their blood?”
“I said half the town is, and if we lose this case they’ll eviscerate me. And now if we win, I’ll be accused of railroading innocent boys and leaving the real killer on the loose. Horace just found a way to put me between a rock and a hard place. Anderson’s father is one of the wealthiest men here, and I’m sure Horace is getting some nice little donations from him, because I certainly am not.”
“Aren’t you curious how much Horace is getting from him?”
“I could find out. Wouldn’t be too hard. Maybe I’ll poke around a little. Hope you like chili.”
“Sure. You know I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in . . . man, I can’t even guess. Almost twenty years, probably. Since I left.”
“No girlfriends cooked for you in Miami?”
“Not really how it works over there. At least not in the circles I ran in.”
“Well, never too late to start over.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing? Starting over?”
She looked to me. “Isn’t it?”
“Maybe I’m just passing through. One last goodbye to the old haunts.”
She grinned. “You never were very good at having insight into yourself. You could read other people better than anyone I’ve ever met, but it could never be focused inward.”
“Man, you sound like some yogic guru.”
She chuckled. “No, just an observation.”
“Can I ask you something? Why’d you never get married?”
She hesitated. “Just never met the right person, I guess. And when my dad got sick, there wasn’t much time for dating. I had to take care of him. I got close once, though. Food’s ready.”
I went over to the dinner table, a table I remembered her father carving from a tree he’d cut down himself because it had gotten crown rot and was withering away. “Who was it?”
“You wouldn’t know him. He was only here a couple of years. A doctor from up north.”
“Wow, Gates Barnes, I had no idea you were into doctors.”
The table was already set, and she brought over the pot and spooned chili into the two bowls. As she sprinkled in a few garnishes and cheese, she said, “I couldn’t have cared less what he did. He was nice, treated me well. He proposed to me.”
“What’d you say?”
She sat down across from me. “I said no.”
“How come?”
She stared at me a second. “Just wasn’t the right person.”
We watched each other a moment, and then I looked down at the chili. “Smells good.”
“My dad’s recipe. Would you like to say the blessing?”
“No.”
She grinned and folded her arms. I watched her close her eyes and say a blessing for the food, thanking God for it and for the other blessings in her life.
I took a bite. The chili was hot and melted in my mouth like warm cake. It was sweet and spicy at the same time.
“Wow, that’s good.”
“Glad you like it.”
“Your father made this?”
She nodded as she ate. “He learned it from my grandfather. My granddad left the ranch for a while when he was a teenager—this must’ve been in the thirties—against his father’s wishes and worked cattle drives in New Mexico. Out there all they had was whatever they could carry that wasn’t perishable.” She grinned. “He told me all of them were constipated on the drive, so he learned to make a chili that would take care of the problem.”
“Oh. Delicious and will clean me out. Consider me sold.”
“You know I like to be practical.”
A silence passed between us then, and I said, “Gates, when I left, while you were in the hospital—”
“No, don’t.”
“I want to explain.”
“There’s no reason. You were nineteen, a kid. It doesn’t matter now, and I don’t want to ruin a perfectly good dinner with talk of things neither of us can change.” She took a bite of the chili. “Will told me about Patty’s stalker. How do you suppose Howard and Vail missed that?”
“I can tell you exactly how: they don’t care. It’s open and shut to them, and they want it done and to go back to their stolen-candy-bar cases. Murders are hard work. Doesn’t mean Anderson and Steven didn’t do it, but I’m not getting up in that court and convicting two innocent men or taking the chance that two guilty men walk. We gotta find this guy and rule him out.”
She grinned. “I’m sure you will. Somehow I don’t think you fail much.”
I watched her. The way her eyes reflected the light, her milk-white skin burned just a little from working the ranch, the way her hair danced on her shoulders. Up behind her near the front door I saw a large blown-up photo of her and her father hugging out in the fields, her father’s sun-beaten face like leather and his meaty arm around her thin shoulders. “You miss your dad a lot, don’t you?”
“Every day.” A sigh escaped her lips, though I didn’t think she meant it to. “Don’t take it for granted that they’re always going to be around, Tatum. They won’t, and by the time they’re gone, it’s too late to do anything about it.”
We ate and talked for a good two hours. She caught me up on how she became county attorney. She hadn’t been kidding earlier when she’d alluded to many of the good ole boys out here not trusting a woman in such a powerful position. At a town meeting, one man had asked if people would be randomly arrested when she was on her monthly. Gates had said, “Only registered Democrats, sir,” and had gotten a laugh from the crowd.
We finished up, and at the door I stood there a second before saying, “Thanks. I needed this.”
“Come by anytime for a home-cooked meal.”
“Nah, I don’t wanna put you out.”
“You’re not. It was . . . nice. To have someone else here. The house is usually so quiet.”
I nodded and said, “Better go,” and headed to my car.
“You still going to be here tomorrow?”
I turned around and said, “Never really know what the gods will bring, do you? But probably.”
I contemplated driving to my condo but went the opposite way, to Adam’s house. When I got to the door, it was unlocked. I went inside and said, “Adam?”
No answer. The house was quiet. I waited a beat and said, “Adam, you home?”
I heard something from upstairs. A quiet moan. I took the stairs up to my parents’ bedroom. My father was in his pajamas on the floor.
I ran to him. “What happened?”
“Help me up, damn it.”
Wrapping my arm around his back and waist, I hoisted him up as he groaned. I got him onto the bed, and he lay back and took a deep breath.
“Hand me those pills.”
The amber bottle was on the nightstand, and I passed it to him. He took two and a sip of water out of a glass next to the bed.
“What happened?”
“Nothin’, just fell.”
“And you couldn’t get up on your own?”
“Just caught me by surprise is all.”
“Falling catches everyone by surprise, but we can get up. Do you need help?”
“Help? Like what?”
“Like a nurse.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “I don’t need a damn nurse. Just some rest. What’re you doin’ here anyway?”
I pulled over a chair and sat down. “Just . . . I don’t know, was in the neighborhood.”
“I thought you’d be long gone by now.”
There was a ball of yarn on the nightstand. My mother’s. I took it and twirled it in my hands. “So did I.”
He looked down to the yarn. “Your mother was making me a scarf when she . . .”
I nodded. “We didn’t talk at the funeral.”
“Nothin’ to talk about. It happens to all of us.” He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes a second. “Turn out the light, will ya? I need to get some sleep.”
I put the yarn down and rose. He was almost out just from the exertion of falling and getting back in bed. A blanket was at the foot of the bed, and I laid it on top of him. I stared down at him awhile. I had never realized how alike we actually looked.
He slept on the far left side of the bed, as if to give someone else room.
I crept downstairs and watched TV on the couch.
24
It was half past ten that night when I turned off the television and checked on Adam. I went outside and stared up at the moon a second before deciding it was time to take a little drive.
The stretch of I-15 to Vegas was pretty empty, but ominous because of all the canyons you had to weave through to get there. Canyons interspersed with long stretches of nothing but sand and cactus. At night, you couldn’t really see anything but road and jagged shadows protruding out of the ground where the mountains should’ve been.
I arrived at Skid Row before midnight. The bar was hopping. A line had formed outside that went nearly to the intersection. Bars did that even if they weren’t at capacity. It made people driving by think the place was exclusive and built up hype. Still, there were far more people waiting than a little dive like this warranted, and I wondered exactly how much product Farah was moving. With this much exposure, she had to have a deal worked out with the local Narcs unit. Otherwise they would’ve busted her a long time ago.
I parked in front and got out. The Incredible Hulk was working the door again. I smiled at him and said, “Miss me?”
His lips pursed into a slight frown before he stepped aside to let me in.
“Not even the cover charge? I knew you liked me.”
The space looked a lot different at peak hours than during the day. The line outside wasn’t a ploy: the bar was literally packed to capacity. A band blared some indecipherable metal song as I made my way through the crowd, which stank powerfully of marijuana and sweat, and over to the office. The door was open a crack, and I knocked and poked my head in.
Farah was there, dressed in a tight black dress with heels. She was sitting at the computer, and when she saw me, she leaned back and crossed her legs.
“People will talk about us if you keep showing up like this.”
“Couldn’t possibly be worse than what they’re saying about me now.” I shut the door behind me, raised my brows, and tilted my head toward the chair.
“By all means, please.”
As I sat, she took out an unlabeled bottle of booze and two tumblers from her drawer before pouring and sliding one to me. We tapped glasses and she said, “To happiness.”
The drink tasted like gasoline mixed with cinnamon.
“That is just about the worst thing I’ve ever had.”
Farah shrugged. “My own recipe I’ve been working on. I’m trying to get into the booze business and go legit.”
“That’s the way to do it. If it’s not on the up-and-up, it won’t last.”
She poured a little more for herself and then leaned back in her chair with the glass between her hands. “So what brings you back? I can’t imagine it’s just to see little old me, although that would make my night.”
“Unfortunately, no.” I took out my phone and pulled up a photo of Patty, a school picture. I laid the phone down on the desk between us. “That’s the victim.”
She nodded. “I know.”
I didn’t want to throw Diana under the bus for telling us Patty was a regular, so I said, “So here’s the thing, Farah, my dear, what are the odds that an underage girl is at this bar for the first time ever and just happens to get abducted and murdered that night?”
She grinned. “You’re wondering how often she came.”
As sharp as I’d thought. I had a feeling that she would’ve excelled in any business, and I wondered how it was she fell into the drug game.
“I’m guessing she was here a lot.”
Farah nodded. “She was a siren.”
“A what?”
“Well, that’s just what I call them. A girl that sits at the bar and gets men to buy her drinks all night. The drinks are how bars make money, not the cover charge. I paid her fifty bucks an hour, and she easily made ten times that for me. I mean, men would fall over themselves for the privilege of buying her a drink.” She took a sip of her moonshine. “She hadn’t even grown into her beauty yet. Imagine what she would’ve looked like at twenty-three or twenty-four.”
“You hired an underage girl to work at your bar? That’s a dumb move, and you don’t strike me as someone that makes dumb moves. I’m guessing you’ve got the Narc and Vice guys wrapped around your little finger.”
“This is Vegas. We pay lip service to not breaking the law, but we all know why we’re here. The police aren’t looking too hard at any place that provides this much . . . entertainment to the tourists.”
“Did Patty ever complain to you about anybody maybe getting too handsy with her, or maybe calling her or following her around? Not leaving her alone?”
Farah grinned. “You mean every man that’s ever met her? Beauty is the trait that lasts the shortest amount of time and brings the least satisfaction, and it’s all men can think about.” She placed the glass on the desk. “I thought you had your killers already?”
“Probably. I’m just making sure all our bases are covered.”
She chuckled. “You don’t think they did it.”
“I didn’t say that. But I need to find this guy. Her stalker would be someone older, I’m guessing, that maybe was rebuffed when they wanted to go further than Patty was comfortable. Maybe someone with a history of instability. Patty ever talk about anyone like that?”
“Honey, everyone in her life was like that. She was a sweet girl born with the curse of looks, and every piece of human garbage she met tried to take advantage of her. You really need to go talk to her friends and the people that knew her.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you need to look at everyone in that little hick town of yours. A man came in here one night looking for her, drunk out of his mind. He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her out of here. My bouncers tossed him out on his ass, but he kept shouting that he was a mayor and would have their jobs. Patty said he had told her that day he was going to leave his wife for her and wanted to marry her and all this nonsense. She was seventeen and he was almost sixty. How he thought that would turn out well I have no idea.”
“The mayor? You’re kidding?”
She finished the booze left in her glass and then what was left in mine and put both glasses back into the drawer with the bottle. “Like I said, you need to look at everyone.”
I glanced around the office. “You know, you made it sound like only men abused her. You abused her, too. I highly, highly doubt you stopped with men paying for her booze. You’re not the type of person to see someone like Patty and not use her up as thoroughly as you can. Did you set her up on dates as well? Was she an escort for you?”
She smiled and said, “Take a look at your own house before you start judging other people’s.”
25
On the drive back from Vegas, I called Gates and she picked up.
“Hello?”
“You’re not gonna believe this. I hope you’re lying down in bed.”
“Tatum? It’s like one in the morning.”
“I know, I’m a night owl. I just got out of a little conversation with the owner of Skid Row, and guess what she told me? Our little Patty was a siren for her, someone that sits at the bar and gets men to buy her drinks, and I got the really strong impression, though Farah didn’t come out and say it, that Patty was escorting for her on the side. So I went back to that bartender’s apartment, Diana. Scared her half to death waking her up in the middle of the night, but she broke down and confirmed everything. Said she didn’t tell us because she didn’t want to get in trouble.”
