Twilight, page 23
“I’ll call Mrs. Fallon to check,” she said, reaching for the phone.
The secretary confirmed the existence of a master set of keys. She checked and reported that it was still locked in a small fireproof safe, along with important church documents.
“Who has the combination to the safe?” O’Flannery asked when Dana repeated what the secretary had said.
Dana asked.
“Reverend Miller did. I do. And Mr. Tremayne, of course, since he frequently has to attend to church business.”
Dana tried not to react to the mention of Lawrence Tremayne. “I see,” she said quietly. “Thanks, Mrs. Fallon. You’ve been wonderful through all of this.”
On an impulse, she added, “I hope you’ll come to lunch tomorrow so I can thank you properly.” The suggestion wasn’t made entirely out of generosity. Dana had the feeling that Mrs. Fallon knew more about church politics than anyone else. She’d been observing them from the inside for years now, longer than Ken had been pastor of St. Michael’s.
“Why, thank you, dear. I’d love to.”
“About noon, then?”
“I’ll be there.”
When she’d hung up, she noticed that O’Flannery was regarding her impatiently. “Sorry,” she apologized. “That was long overdue.”
“Who has access to the safe?” he repeated.
She debated lying to O’Flannery and keeping Tremayne’s name to herself, but decided maybe it was time for the police to put a little pressure on the church elder. If they considered him a genuine suspect, they had the means to conduct a far more thorough survey of his background than she could.
She told the detective the three names. “Mrs. Fallon would die before she would let anyone into that safe.”
“And Mr. Tremayne?” he asked, watching her intently. “You think he’s capable of this, don’t you?”
Dana winced. Apparently O’Flannery was a better detective than she’d given him credit for being, or else she was more transparent than she’d prided herself on being. “Let’s just say, I don’t like him and leave it at that.”
“To your knowledge, has he been in the house recently?”
“Actually, he was here for tea, just the other day,” she admitted, regretting the fact that she hadn’t recalled that herself earlier. In fact, there had been a whole bevy of people right here at her invitation, all of them suspects, for one reason or another.
O’Flannery’s expression brightened. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Did he ever leave the room, say, to go to the restroom?”
Dana slowly shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She glanced across the table. “Kate?”
“No,” Kate said with obvious regret. “He was in plain view the whole time.” Suddenly her expression brightened. “But several of the others used the facilities.”
The detective regarded her expectantly. “Who? What others?”
At a subtle nod from Dana, Kate said, “Miriam Kelso, Peter Drake and Carolina Vincenzi. I remember all of them excusing themselves at one time or another.” She paused, her expression thoughtful. “Actually, I take that back. Carolina never said a word. She just slipped out of the room, right after Peter Drake left.”
“So each of them had the opportunity to have planted those drugs,” O’Flannery said. “Interesting.”
Dana found it interesting, but far from conclusive. She still thought Tremayne made an excellent prime suspect. “Don’t forget, I was out of town for weeks after the funeral. Tremayne had access to the key. He could have come in here undetected at any time and planted those drugs. I haven’t cleaned since I’ve been back. I doubt I would have looked behind that dresser, even if I had.”
With Tremayne and the three who had excused themselves during the tea the only ones with probable access to the upstairs bedroom, the suspect list was shrinking. There was still one on it that Kate and O’Flannery didn’t know about, and Dana intended to keep it that way.
As desperately as she wanted to believe that Rick had had nothing to do with Ken’s death or the drugs, she couldn’t help thinking about the access she’d innocently given him to the very room in which the cocaine had been found. Until she had a truly viable alternative, her awareness of that fact would always stand between them.
* * *
Tico was charging the basket with far more force than was necessary, Rick concluded, when he’d taken his third elbow to the gut. He backed off.
“Hey, man, what’s with you tonight?” he demanded. “You’re playing like a spot in the NBA finals is at stake.”
Tico grabbed a towel and wiped his face before replying. “Just trying to work off a little steam,” he said.
“Is that it, or do you still have a problem with the fact that I asked about you and Maria?”
Tico shot him a look of undisguised disgust. “Not that again. I don’t need this. I have a mother who cross-examines me if I so much as frown. I have employees who think they can run the business better than I can. I have a kid brother who’d rather get high than wait tables.”
Rick sensed that this last was the real source of Tico’s short temper. “Joey’s using?”
“José,” Tico corrected. “He’s discovered his roots. Latino pride has kicked in with a vengeance, thanks to that worm Carlos.”
“He’s running with Carlos?”
“He thinks he’s some kind of god,” Tico said. “Nothing I say can convince him that at the first sign of trouble, Carlos will drop him like a sizzling fajita pan. He’ll give him up to the cops if it’ll save his own sorry hide.”
“Is Joey the one who tipped you that Carlos might know something about Ken’s murder?”
Tico shrugged. “Not intentionally. I heard him and his buddies. They said enough for me to add two and two. I had a little talk with Carlos and convinced him that he should clear his conscience by talking to you.”
“I’m sorry I missed that conversation. I didn’t see any war wounds when I talked to him.”
Tico shrugged. “There are other ways to convince a man to do what is right.”
Rick’s gaze narrowed. “You have something on him, don’t you?”
“What I know about Carlos is between us, mi amigo. I would not tell anyone—even you—unless it became necessary.”
“Dammit, a decent man is dead, a man who helped you get straight, a man who put his word on the line to set you up in business,” Rick snapped. “Isn’t that enough to make it necessary? Carlos is slime, Tico. He doesn’t deserve your protection.”
“I am not protecting him. I am maintaining my leverage.”
Rick muttered an oath under his breath. Tico’s expression hardened.
“Up until now, you have been my friend,” Tico said, his tone lethal. “Do not say anything to make me regret that.”
Rick really didn’t like being warned off by a man who owed his salvation to Yo, Amigo. He whirled on the other man so quickly that Tico was forced to back up a step, straight into the wall. Rick crowded in close, a subtle reminder that he had twenty pounds of solid muscle on the wiry younger man.
“Do not threaten me, Tico. There is too much history between us. I would not like to have to remind you who controlled these streets before you.”
Fury flashed in Tico’s eyes. “That was a long time ago. You are out of practice.”
“There are some things a man never forgets,” Rick said.
Sweat beaded on Tico’s brow, but his gaze remained defiant. “I like threats no more than you do, amigo.”
“Then do not make them necessary again,” Rick suggested, backing away.
Tico snatched up his gym bag and left, without another word. Rick had the feeling that the exchange had just cost him another friend. What he didn’t understand was why it had happened in the first place.
Back in his office, he went over the conversation, word by word, trying to see why Tico had gotten so riled and so defensive so quickly. Was it Joey? Was Joey inadvertently dragging his big brother back into gang life, if only to serve as his protector?
And what were the links between Tico and Carlos? At one time, he supposed, they had been kingpins of rival gangs, though Carlos’s name had never surfaced in any of the usual street talk. When Tico had walked away from the streets, the rivalry should have ended, anyway.
Or did such things ever end? Perhaps Carlos’s recruitment of Joey had been deliberate, a slap at an old enemy. Not even his recent successes in mainstream society would be enough to keep Tico from reacting to such a taunt.
Damn, where were the answers? Rick had been so sure, when he steered Dana’s investigation into her own backyard, that he’d been right. Now he was beginning to have doubts. Some kind of turf war was building right here in the barrio, and his old friend Tico appeared to be smack in the thick of it. Had Ken been one of its innocent victims, after all?
24
Dana was awakened by the shrilling of the phone before dawn. Her heart slammed against her ribs, as she anticipated bad news. It was always bad news at that hour.
“Mom?” Bobby’s voice sounded plaintive.
Back in Ken’s chair again—now there were two rooms upstairs she couldn’t bear to sleep in—she sat straight up. Her grip on the receiver tightened. She forced herself to keep her voice calm. “What is it, baby? Is something wrong? You’re up awfully early.”
“I didn’t want Grandma and Grandpa to hear. They’re still asleep.”
“What didn’t you want them to hear?”
“Me and Kevin and Jonathan want to come home.”
Dana closed her eyes in a futile attempt to block out the image of her son’s pitiful expression. When she couldn’t, she sighed. “Not yet, sweetie. I’m sorry.”
“When?” he asked, suddenly defiant. “It’s not fair that we have to stay here and you get to be at home. We miss our school. We miss our friends.”
“You have friends there. Grandma told me that kids are running in and out all the time.”
“Babies,” Bobby said derisively. “There’s nobody my age.”
“Not even at school?”
“Oh, sure, but they treat me like I’m some kind of weirdo, just because I’m new.”
Dana sensed there was more to this sudden desire to return to Illinois than homesickness. Bobby was also the kind of kid who adapted readily to new situations. Of course, that had been before his very stable world had collapsed.
“What happened at school?” Dana asked, virtually certain that something there was at the root of the problem.
The direct question was greeted with silence, indicating that her guess had been accurate. Bobby had always hidden his feelings. He’d taken his role as the oldest very seriously, especially since Ken’s death. He would never have called, if this worry, whatever it was, weren’t too heavy for his young shoulders.
“Bobby? What happened?” she persisted. “Something must have. Last time we talked, you were okay with staying in Florida for the rest of the school year. Come on, sweetie, tell me. I can’t help if you don’t.”
“One of the kids...” His voice cracked. “Never mind. It’s not important.”
She’d been through this kind of hurt enough times to guess at the source of it. “If it upset you, then it is important. Did somebody say something mean?” she asked, anticipating some typical remark about an unfashionable, dorky shirt, or her son’s thick-lensed glasses. “You can tell me anything, you know that.”
“Not this time. I don’t want to say.”
“It’s okay. Please tell me.”
There was another long hesitation before he finally began in a voice that faltered, “He said...”
She could hear him swallowing back tears, and it killed her that she wasn’t there to gather him into her arms. “Take your time,” she soothed.
“He said...he said my dad was murdered because he was a dope pusher.”
Dana gasped, stunned not only by the unexpectedly terrible cruelty of the remark, but by the content. How would a child all the way in Florida know about the rumors all the way up here? When she’d left them there, she’d thought her kids would be safe from wild speculation and all the fallout from their father’s death. Sure, parents talked, but the discovery of drugs in Ken’s office and at the house hadn’t been publicized.
Or had it? She realized she hadn’t been paying much attention to the papers or to TV news. Whoever had gone to the trouble of planting the drugs might very well have leaked it to the media.
Damn whoever it was to hell, she thought fiercely. She didn’t care for herself, but this was different. Her kids were being hurt by the lies now. And when it came to her kids, this sleaze was walking on very thin ice. She would destroy anyone who attempted to hurt her babies.
“Is it true?” Bobby asked in a tiny, scared voice. He was obviously as shaken by her silence as by the original accusation.
“No, baby, it is not true,” she said adamantly. “Your daddy was a fine man and he hated drugs. Remember, he talked about that all the time so you and your brothers would know just how bad they were.”
“Then why would somebody say that?” he asked plaintively. “He didn’t even know my dad.”
“People like to spread gossip. They don’t care about the facts. And kids your age can be especially cruel without even meaning to be. Whoever said that about your dad probably didn’t know what he was saying. He didn’t realize how badly it would hurt you.”
“He did, too, know,” Bobby insisted. “He laughed, Mom. He told all the other kids, and then he laughed. I want to come home now!”
Suddenly Dana wanted nothing more than to gather her children close and hug them. She wanted to be there to protect them from vicious lies, even though she knew rationally that that was impossible. Maybe leaving them in Florida had been a terrible mistake, after all.
Even after all the second-guessing, though, she knew she couldn’t bring them home yet. If they were being taunted hundreds of miles away, then what would happen to them right back here in their own community, where gossip was bound to flourish? Life couldn’t possibly go back to being the way they’d remembered it. Even in Sunday school in their father’s church, there would be subtle, but unmistakable, shifts in attitudes. There was no way on earth to prevent it. How would they feel the first time one of their old friends was forbidden to play with them because of the rumors and innuendos circulating? They would be devastated.
No, this was no safe haven for them now, either. In the long run, they were better off right where they were, at least for the moment.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but you can’t come home yet,” she said, bracing for more tears. “I’m trying really hard to clear up all these terrible lies about your daddy. All of my energy has to stay focused on that. I need a little more time.”
“But Kevin and Jonathan and me could help. We could tell people the truth.”
“I know you could, and that would be a huge help, but it’s going to take more than just our word. I have to find out who’s behind this, and that takes time. I wouldn’t be able to be home with you.”
“Grandma could come with us. She would if you asked her to. Please,” he pleaded.
“Soon,” she promised. “I’ll be down there before you know it.”
Her vow was greeted with shocked silence.
“You’re coming here?” he asked eventually. “We’re not coming home?”
She heard the panicked note in his voice and tried to reassure him. “That’s something we’ll all have to decide together.”
“No, it’s not,” he shouted. “You’ve already decided. I can tell. We’re never coming home again. I hate you. I hate you. I wish you had died instead of Daddy.”
“Bobby,” she whispered, shattered by the harsh words. As the phone clattered to the floor, she shouted one last time, “Bobby!”
She could hear his footsteps as he ran away from the phone. Her eyes swimming with tears, she listened to her mother’s sleepy attempt to soothe him, to find out why he was so upset.
Sweet heaven, she had made a mess of things. His angry words echoed in her head as she waited, praying that her mother would notice the dangling receiver and grab the phone.
The minutes ticked by. Silence fell on the other end of the line. She could only guess that her mother had taken Bobby back to his room. Was he still sobbing? Had she been able to console him at all?
Eventually she heard the faint padding of bare feet on the tile floor.
“Dana?”
Dana choked back a sob. “Oh, Mom, what have I done to him?”
“It’s not you. It’s just the circumstances. The teacher told me what that awful child said to him yesterday, but Bobby wouldn’t talk about it. I should have called you myself last night, but I thought maybe he was handling it okay. He was so stoic. I didn’t want to upset you by repeating such vicious nonsense.”
“Was there something about Ken’s death in the papers down there? Is that how that child heard about it, from some news report?”
Her mother hesitated. “Now that you mention it, no. There wasn’t a word. I was as stunned as Bobby by what the child said. I was sure he’d just made it up to taunt him. Are you saying there’s some truth to it?”
“Of course not, but drugs have been planted.” She described what the police had found and the theory that she and Detective O’Flannery shared that someone had deliberately set out to destroy Ken’s reputation.
“Well, how on earth would a third-grader down here know about that?” her mother asked indignantly.
“That’s a good question,” Dana said. “Any idea what the kid’s name is?”
“The teacher never said. She was protecting the little darling, I suppose. I’ll do my best to get it out of Bobby, if you think it’s important.”
