It was dark when I walked out into Trigger’s parking lot. I was fumbling through my purse looking for my keys when a hand clamped down on my shoulder, startling me.

  “Hey!” I twisted around, holding out my keys, ready to stab.

  “I’m sorry,” Carl said. “I’m such a dipshit sometimes, I even disgust myself.” He gave his best crooked, forgive-me smile.

  I pulled out of his grasp. “Don’t get me involved in your juvenile squabbles with your dad. You were pissed because he was criticizing your story, so you diverted his attention to me. That’s real mature, Carl.”

  “I know.” He wiped his palm on the side of his khaki pants. “I know what a donkey I can be. I’m sorry I dragged you into it. Don’t be mad.”

  I leaned against the truck and rubbed my eyes with my fingers. “Carl, why don’t you try and work things out with J.D.? He’s not as bad as you make him out to be. Besides, there may come a time when you’ll want to and can’t.”

  “That personal experience talking?” he said softly.

  “Maybe,” I said, though I’d been thinking about Wade and the last words he’d probably had with Jack. My memory wasn’t that dramatic. The best I could recall, my last words to Jack before going to my dad’s had been—“If you go to town today, pick up some Repel-X for the horses.” We kissed good-bye in that quick, mindless way you do when you’re going to see each other the next day.

  “I’ll think about it,” Carl said, opening the truck door. “Just don’t be mad.”

  “All right.” I threw my purse on the seat and turned to face him. “Just talk to him, okay? Try and work things out.”

  “For you, honey, anything.” He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.

  When I walked through the door of the museum, the antique clock in the lobby chimed seven o‘clock. The museum itself was dark and quiet, but Meg’s orange Toyota, Ray’s white Ford pickup and half a dozen other vehicles in the parking lot told me artists were working. December was their busiest time of year. Many of them were scheduled for various festivals until Christmas Eve. I walked back into the studios, where three women were chattering around a multicolored calico Log Cabin quilt.

  “You’re here awfully late,” one of them said. “How was the funeral?”

  “Just picking up some work to take home,” I said. “It was sad. Not very many people came.” I emphasized the last sentence.

  The quilters ducked their heads in embarrassment and went back to work. I walked back toward my office where I closed the door and sat down, feeling incredibly exhausted. I’d only worked for three months and already I needed a vacation from this place. I wondered if I was ever going to go camping or ride a horse again.

  I had one last idea left about finding out Suzanne Hart’s identity. If that didn’t pan out, I had no choice but to tell Ortiz what I knew. I picked up the phone and dialed Mrs. Chenier. Her soft, tissue-paper voice sounded like it was talking from the moon.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t recall anyone Marla knew with that name. But I didn’t know all her friends.”

  “Did she keep an address book there?” I could have kicked myself for not thinking to ask that before now.

  “Oh, yes,” Mrs. Chenier said and my heart started beating faster. “But the police asked me for that right off.”

  “Oh.” My heart flopped back to normal. “I don’t suppose you remember if there was a Suzanne Hart in it.”

  “No, I’m sorry. Is this Hart person important?”

  “Probably not,” I said. “But don’t mention the name to anyone yet. I’m still looking into it.”

  “Whatever you say. Thank you so much for your help.”

  Every time I talked to Mrs. Chenier, I felt guiltier. I made a note to myself to get those pots of Marla’s out and priced so they would sell. I was sure Mrs. Chenier could use the money as soon as possible. If they didn’t sell, I’d dip into my savings and buy them myself. I couldn’t help but remember the money in the Nancy Drew books. An anonymous postcard to Mrs. Chenier telling her to look in the books—What harm could that do? Maybe it was illegally gained, but if anyone deserved it, it was Mrs. Chenier.

  I laid my head down on my desk and wished that I’d never become involved in this, never found any bodies, never met Ortiz, never had this job. Never became a widow. Wishes, wishes. If wishes were horses ...

  I forced myself up. When I started thinking in cliches, even ones involving horses, I needed to get to bed. A strong knock sounded on my door.

  “It’s open,” I called.

  Ray walked in, his face grim. I briefly wondered how long he’d been standing outside my door, how much of my conversation with Mrs. Chenier he’d heard.

  “What’s up, Ray?” I asked in a light voice.

  “Constance wants her keys back.” Since cleaning up after Marla’s murder, Ray had unofficially taken over the task of opening up the museum for the artists. The two other sets of keys were on Marla’s and Eric’s bodies when they were found and were locked up as evidence.

  “I’ll make copies of these spare keys tomorrow,” I said.

  “Okay.” He started to walk away, then turned back and regarded me with angry brown eyes. “The police came to talk with me again today.”

  “Oh?”

  “They wanted to know about my relationship with Marla.”

  I stared at my desk blotter and didn’t say anything.

  “I wasn’t the only one.”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Why did you tell the police about me?”

  “I didn’t,” I said. “Why does everyone assume I’m the one turning all you guys in? Meg told me about you and Marla, and if Meg knows, you know everyone does. I haven’t told the police anything about you.”

  His face grew stubborn. I knew the look. He needed someone to blame, someone other than himself.

  “If my wife finds out about Marla, she’ll take my son and split.” His voice broke slightly. I felt a flash of sympathy; I knew what Ray’s son meant to him. Still, that wasn’t my problem. I had enough of my own.

  “I’m sorry, Ray, but I guess that’s one of the consequences of that sort of thing. I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “No one is taking my son from me,” he said, his voice harsh. He stabbed the Xacto knife he was holding into my wood desk. “No one.”

  I stared at the knife and held my breath. The look on my face must have shocked him back to his senses.

  “I’m sorry,” he said in a soft voice. He picked up the knife and stuck it in his tool belt. “It’s just that you seem awfully involved in this. You and that police chief have gotten real friendly, I hear.”

  “The next person who brings up the relationship I do not have with Chief Ortiz is going to have to sign a complaint against me for assault.”

  He looked at me steadily. “All I’m saying is you should stay out of things that don’t concern you.” He turned and walked out the door.

  As I stuck the keys in the ignition of the truck, I thought about all the things I should have answered. Of course, all I’d done was sit there and gape.

  “No backtalk from you this time, bud,” I commanded the Chevy, “or I’m selling you for scrap.”

  And for a change, someone believed me.

  15

  THERE WAS ONE message on my answering machine when I arrived home.

  “Benni, call me.” Sandra’s weepy voice sputtered like an old engine. “Wade came home real mad, then left again. He said he saw you at Trigger’s. What happened?”

  I didn’t call her back. I didn’t know what to tell her. I had no idea where Wade fit into this whole mess, but I knew one thing—I’d just as soon eat a saddle blanket as talk to or about him again.

  A saddle blanket would have probably tasted better than anything in my refrigerator. I would have killed right then for the beef dip I didn’t eat at Trigger’s. While changing into jeans and boots, I decided what I needed was a real homemade meal—steak, baked potato, corn on the cob, apple pie with vanilla ice cream. And a movie. A funny one. Williams Bros. Market out by the university had everything I needed, except the movie. The video store had slim pickings, so I grabbed Police Academy, remembering it being a silly, slapstick comedy that made police look like mindless idiots. For some reason, that sounded appealing.

  I balanced the paper sack of groceries on one hip and had inserted the key in the front door with the other, when a whoosh and then a plink sounded above my head.

  The porch light shattered.

  Tiny shards of glass sprayed across my face. I dropped the paper sack and frantically brushed at my eyes. The scent of Italian dressing surrounded me. I glanced out at the street. A light-colored pickup was idling there. In the dark I could just make out the outline of the rifle. Like a stupid animal, I stood frozen, staring.

  Another plink chipped the stucco above me.

  I shoved the front door open, hit the floor.

  Sounds like a .22, I thought, amazed at my calm as I crawled across the floor toward my bedroom. No match for a .45. If I could get to it. My bedroom seemed a hundred miles away.

  A front windowpane cracked.

  I scrambled for the bedroom, knees banging against the hard oak floor. Nightstand, my mind commanded. Get to the nightstand.

  I fumbled for Jack’s pistol. Slip in the clip. Safety off. Pull the slide back. Aim. Jack’s words, Daddy’s words, coming back to me. I sat back against the nightstand, rested the heaviness of the gun on my bended knees and aimed at the open bedroom door.

  Somewhere, tires squealed.

  Mouth dry, breath coming in sharp gasps, I sat in the dark, frozen. Police. Call the police.

  The 911 operator had already received a report. A patrol car was being dispatched. I told her I had a gun. She told me to stay on the line.

  “They’re coming up the walk now, ma‘am,” the dispatcher’s steady voice said after minutes of inane conversation she had probably been taught kept a scared caller from hysteria. It hadn’t worked.

  “I have a gun,” I said. “Tell them I have a gun.”

  “They’re in the house,” she reported.

  “Tell them I have a gun,” I repeated.

  “Police,” a loud voice yelled from the living room.

  “I have a gun!” I yelled back.

  “Put it down,” the voice commanded.

  “Not until I see your uniforms!” I shrieked.

  “Benni?” The faintly familiar voice broke through the loud adrenaline buzz in my ears. A dark head poked around the corner of the doorway. A bright light blinded me. I aimed the pistol at the light.

  “Benni?” he asked again. I knew that voice. A sob gurgled up from my throat.

  “Miguel?”

  “Put the gun down, Benni. It’s Miguel,” he said in a soothing voice.

  Another sob escaped, but I couldn’t put the gun down. A primordial voice in my subconscious whispered—it’s a trick—don’t surrender your weapon.

  “Benni, I can’t put my gun down until you do.” His voice sounded apologetic. “Put it down on the floor next to you. Do it now.”

  The deep, reassuring tone of his voice finally penetrated my brain. With trembling hands, I laid the gun on the floor next to me.

  “Push it away from you,” he said softly. I shoved it across the slick floor. He turned off his flashlight, flipped on the bedroom light and picked it up, his pistol already back in its holster. Shaking his head, he removed the clip, pulled the slide back and emptied the chamber.

  “Geeze Louise!” he said, sounding like the Miguel I knew again. “You scared the shit outta me.”

  He passed the gun to the officer behind him and held out his hand. I grabbed it, pulled myself up, then burst into tears.

  “Ah, don’t cry,” he said, putting a heavy arm around me. As I leaned against his comfortable bulk and tried to get control of myself, he carefully led me to the tweed sofa in the living room. His partner, a tall, freckled guy in horn-rimmed glasses, was inspecting the bullet hole in the wall across from the window.

  “Looks like a .22,” he said to Miguel. He turned to me. “Who’s pissed at you, lady?”

  I stared at them a moment, wondering where I should start, when we were distracted by the arrival of two more police cars. After getting my description of the truck, I was left alone as they put out a report to the other patrol cars and assessed the damage made by the three bullets. Finally, Miguel came over, pulled out a notebook, and started asking me questions. I repeated my story of the light-colored pickup.

  “That could be thousands of people in this county,” he said. He started to ask who I suspected, when the front door flew open and Ortiz burst into the room. His navy L.A.P.D. sweatshirt had the crumpled look of something slept in or grabbed off the floor; the fierce expression on his face caused all of us to stop talking mid-sentence.

  “What happened?” he demanded. For a moment, we all just stared at him, then three officers started talking at once. He held up his hand and scanned the room, glaring indiscriminately. His eyes paused at me, then moved on to the hole in my living room wall.

  “Someone get the slug?” he asked, walking over to the wall.

  “Whose smart idea was it to call him?” I whispered to Miguel.

  “Probably the dispatcher,” Miguel said out of the side of his mouth. “Orders. Anything that involved you, we were suppose to call him pronto.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I blurted out. Ortiz turned and gave me a threatening look.

  After taking my statement, Miguel helped me nail up the plywood my neighbor, Mr. Treton, had graciously cut to fit my broken window and pick up the groceries splattered across the porch.

  “Man, I loved this movie,” he said, picking up the video dripping with Italian dressing. I turned down his offer to take me to Elvia’s with the assertion that I wasn’t going to let a yahoo with a peashooter run me from my home.

  After he and his partner left, I looked around and realized the only people left in the house were me and Ortiz. His expression hadn’t changed since he’d arrived. Silently, he walked over to the front door and locked it, pulled down the shades on the front windows, then sat down in Jack’s brown leather recliner, arms folded, eyes angry.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “It’s in the report. With your pull, I’m sure you can obtain a copy.”

  “I’m not in the mood for your bullshit.”

  “I told Officer Aragon everything. It’s in the report.”

  He let out a string of Spanish words I vaguely recalled hearing spew from the mouths of Elvia’s brothers when we were kids. I also remembered them getting repeated whippings from Señora Aragon for it. His outburst caused no reaction in me, seeing as I didn’t actually understand what he was saying. That is, until I heard the word estupida.

  “I am not stupid,” I said. Before he could comment, the phone rang.

  “Are you okay?” Dove’s voice sounded faraway but gruffly familiar. I wanted to crawl into the phone toward it.

  “How in the world did you hear about it so fast? And yes, I’m fine.”

  “That nosy old fart who lives next door to you.”

  “Mr. Treton?”

  “I give him a couple of jars of my clover honey and he keeps me informed.”

  “You’re paying the neighbors to spy on me?” I asked incredulously. Ortiz’s scowl turned into a confused look.

  “I prefer to think of it as bartering.”

  “Dove, I’m thirty-four years old.”

  “I know how old you are. Whose sports car is that out front?”

  “You don’t miss a thing, do you? Are Mr. Treton’s binoculars trained in on me at this moment? Are you hooked up by cellular phones? What am I doing right now?” I stuck my tongue out at the phone.

  “Probably making a face,” she said and cackled.

  “Are you through? I want to go to bed.”

  “So, what about the car? Heard it’s a great restoration job.”

  “It’s the chief of police’s car and he was just leaving.”

  “Heard he’s a fine-looking man,” she said. I looked over at him in his old jeans, the thick black mustache I still thought about at odd moments, and slightly perplexed blue-gray eyes.

  “Pretty fine,” I said.

  “Let me talk to him.”

  “No.”

  “Benni ...”

  “No, Dove. He was just leaving. There’s nothing you could possibly have to say to him.”

  “You need police protection.”

  “I have Jack’s pistol. That’s all the protection I need.”

  “Let me talk to him.”

  “No.”

  “I’m bringing Garnet out, then. You shouldn’t be alone. I can be there in a half hour.” Knowing how she drove, I didn’t doubt it.

  “Why, you old coot, that’s blackmail.”

  “So call the cops. Let me talk to him.”

  I held the phone out to Ortiz. “My grandmother wishes to speak to you.”

  He looked bewildered as he took the phone.

  “Whatever she wants, tell her no.”

  “I heard that,” a tiny voice squawked from the receiver.

  He nodded as she spoke, her voice a frantic buzz audible from where I was standing.

  “Yes, ma‘am,” he said. “Yes, ma’am. I intend to, ma‘am. I’ll take care of it personally.”

  He handed the phone back to me, his face impassive.

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  He answered with a shrug.

  “Dove,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I know you will, honeybun,” she said in a saccharine voice.

  I looked at Ortiz suspiciously.

  “I’ll see you soon. Have fun,” she said.

  “What do you mean, have ...” but she’d already hung up.

  In the meantime, Ortiz had settled back in Jack’s recliner, and punched the television on to a rerun of Saturday Night Live. The Coneheads were going to the circus.

  “Excuse me.” I grabbed the controller from him and flipped the TV off. “Weren’t you just leaving?”

  “Can’t.”

  “What?”

  “Orders.”

  “What?”

  “Your grandmother demanded police protection for you, and since I don’t have any money in the budget for overtime, I guess I’m stuck with the job.”