“Sustenance for battle. Now, tell me what you know about this Ortiz character. I have another meeting with him today and you know what they say, know your enemy.”

  “Honey, I do believe we hired him on as one of the white hats.” His bristly gray eyebrows rose in amusement.

  “Maybe.” I poured syrup on my pancakes. “Anyway, what’s the scoop on him?”

  “Well now, he seems a smart enough fella for a—”

  I shot him a warning look.

  “Cop,” he finished, grinning.

  “Why would a man his age want a temporary job in a town like ours?”

  “Old friend of Davidson’s for one thing, and I also heard through the grapevine that he wanted a quiet place to work on something he’s writing.”

  “Oh no, I hope he’s not another cop writing his first mystery novel. That’s all the world needs, one more bad mystery novel.” I snickered and stuck a large forkful of pancakes in my mouth.

  J.D. shrugged. “Who knows? Doesn’t look like he’s going to be having too many quiet days ahead of him with this murder. Maybe he’ll put us in his book. Are you sure Carl got everything right?”

  “Don’t worry. The story will be on the front page this afternoon. Give him a break, J.D.”

  “Easy for you to say.” He crumpled his napkin and tossed it on his plate. “Wish that boy liked to work as much as he loves to party.”

  “You’re coming to the pre-showing at the museum Friday night, aren’t you?” Changing the subject always seemed like the best way to handle J.D. and Carl’s relationship.

  “You betcha. Lots a votes there.” He grabbed his tan Stetson off the metal hat rack attached to the end of the booth and slid out. “Besides, I’m afraid of old Connie Sinclair. She’d come after me with a bullwhip if I don’t support her little causes.”

  I laughed with him and licked my fork. Only J.D. could get away with calling Constance by such a common nickname.

  When I pulled my truck into the museum parking lot, it appeared less ominous in the bright morning light. Even the eucalyptus grove that appeared so dense and frightening last night seemed innocuous beneath the cloudless blue sky. I pulled up next to Ray, the duck carver’s, white Ford pickup, climbed out and inhaled the coughdrop-scented air. I mentally crossed my fingers. If the weather held until after this weekend, we’d be home free.

  Ray was in the woodshop wrapping a twist-tie around a large green trash bag. He wore boot-cut Wranglers, blue Nikes and a red-checked shirt that almost matched his brick-colored mustache.

  “Watch it,” he said. He pointed at the bleachysmelling liquid covering the jagged dark stain on the concrete floor.

  “How did you get in?” I stared at the bag in his hand, trying to avoid looking at the spot where Marla died. Maybe we could cover it with a rubber mat or something.

  “I went by Constance’s and got her key.”

  “Thanks.”

  He gave a stiff nod and tossed the bag over in a corner with two others.

  “Did you have to tell her? I tried to call but the housekeeper wouldn’t wake her.” I nibbled on my nails. “She’s not going to be happy about this.”

  “She already knew. I don’t know who told her and I didn’t ask.” A crooked-tooth grin peeked out from under his thick mustache. “She was on the phone to the police chief when I walked in. He was getting an earful, that’s for sure. I guess she has her own ideas about how he should go about solving this.”

  “Good for her.” I smiled at the thought of Chief Ortiz being lectured by Constance Sinclair. I’d buy a front row center seat to that.

  “She said she’d be down here to talk to the artists later this morning. Calm us all down was how she put it.”

  “And who’s going to calm you all down after she talks to you?”

  He readjusted the orange and blue Unocal hat on his head. The grin peeked out again. “Guess that’s your job.” He started mopping up the disinfectant on the floor.

  “Lucky me.” I perched on one of the stools and picked up a wooden train someone was sanding. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “How long have you been a member of the co-op?”

  “Three years. I was one of the first to be accepted.” He stuck the industrial-sized mop into the metal wringer and squeezed.

  “Then you know everyone pretty well.” I spun a wheel on the train.

  “Well enough.” He continued mopping but looked up, his face guarded.

  “Did you know Marla very well?”

  “To speak to. She and I didn’t have cause to have much contact. She’s only been a member for about ten, eleven months.”

  “What did you think of her?”

  “What’s your point, Benni?” he asked in a careful voice. He agitated the mop in the bucket of soapy water.

  “I guess I want to know if you think anyone in the co-op could have been involved in her murder.”

  “I reckon she irritated a few people. She was pretty mouthy. But I don’t think anyone would kill her.”

  “What about boyfriends?” An obsessive boyfriend would wrap this whole thing up in a neat package.

  He shrugged. “I told you, I didn’t know her that well. I guess she had some.”

  “Anyone here?” It suddenly dawned on me how little I knew about the personal lives of the people who belonged to the co-op.

  He stopped mopping and regarded me impassively.

  “I don’t know why she was killed, Benni,” he said. “Why don’t we leave it up to the police to find out?”

  “Oh, sure.” I set the train down and slipped off the stool. “I was just curious. Really, thanks for coming up here and doing all this.”

  I retreated to my office, annoyed at my clumsiness in questioning Ray. The FBI certainly wasn’t going to ask me to join any time soon. I plugged in my electric pencil sharpener and grabbed a handful of pencils. I sharpened every pencil in my desk down to lethal nubs, trying to decide what I should do about Rita. I answered the phone on the first ring simply because it was something to do.

  “This is Chief Ortiz,” his brusque voice said. No wonder he had no friends. “Will most of the artists be coming into the studios today?”

  “Well, good morning to you too, Chief Ortiz,” I replied.

  “Right, sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry. “Well?”

  “Yes, most likely.”

  “I’m sending over two detectives. Cleary and Ryan. See to it that they have a private place to question people.” I heard fumbling, a few muttered Spanish words; then he was back. “I can see you at two o‘clock. Come a few minutes early and get your prints done. I’ll leave word at the front desk.”

  “I ...” I started to say I was too busy. My intention was that Rita would be the person talking to him, not me. I just hadn’t figured how I was going to work that out.

  “What?” His voice practically barked.

  “I’ll see you then,” I said lamely.

  “Good,” he said and hung up.

  Sticking my tongue out at the buzzing receiver made me feel juvenile, but a whole lot better.

  Less than an hour later, the detectives showed up. Detective Ryan, the bushy-browed one from last night, and Detective Cleary, a somber-faced black man with skin the color of aged oak. With exaggerated politeness they commandeered my office and methodically called in each artist and questioned them. I wandered through the studios and tried to eavesdrop. Finally, I just came out and asked one of the quilters, a gossipy, myopic woman named Meg, what they were asking.

  “They wanted to know where we were at the time she was killed. How well we knew her. Did we know of anyone angry at her. Things like that.” She held up a lap quilt she was working on, a copy of Georgia O‘Keeffe’s painting ’Corn.‘ “What do you think?”

  “It’s beautiful,” I said. “That’s all they asked?”

  “That’s all. Why, what did they ask you?” She leaned forward, crumpling the quilt in her lap, her face awash with curiosity.

  “Same thing.” I avoided her avid gaze, deciding I’d better limit my questions until I found Rita. “I have to go out for a while. I have some errands to run, then I’ll be at Blind Harry’s. If anyone needs me, I should be back by three or four.”

  I glanced at the unfinished quilt exhibit as I walked through the main hall. I wondered if Eric would ever show up. If he didn’t, it looked like my Thanksgiving would be spent hanging quilts, something I wasn’t really upset about—at least it would keep me busy. I tried briefly to imagine Eric stabbing Marla. It just didn’t seem probable. For one thing, she was five inches taller than him. And he seemed too shallow to work up the kind of passion it took to kill someone. But then again, I’d only known Eric three months. What did I really know about him?

  Detective Ryan called to me as I was about to walk out the front door. “Can I use this?” He pointed at the phone behind the tiny gift shop counter.

  “Sure,” I said. “Take as long as you like.”

  Take all day, I thought. I didn’t know how many detectives Ortiz had working on the case, but I was hoping it was just Cleary and Ryan. This had to be the best time to cruise by Marla’s place and see if there was any sign of Rita. If the police were there, I’d keep driving. No one would ever know.

  Easy, Dove would say, as shooting a turkey.

  Of course, I should have remembered what Daddy always added to that statement in his calm, ironic voice.

  “Or your own foot.”

  5

  MARLA RENTED HER paint-peeling, 1930’s bungalow from Floyd, her boss at Trigger’s. It squatted in a neighborhood where fifty-year-old houses shared street lights with muffler repair shops and aluminum recycling centers. Half-covered by a huge orange bougainvillea bush that clashed with the faded red clapboard walls, it appeared deserted when I swung into the driveway. After banging on the torn screen door and pressing the rusty doorbell until my forefinger throbbed, I came to the brilliant conclusion that no one was home. There was no indication the police had been there, but then what did I expect, a twenty-foot banner?

  Though Trigger’s was the last place I felt like going, I knew I’d have to talk to Floyd. There was only a slim chance he knew where Rita was, but it was a possibility I couldn’t overlook.

  Trigger’s Saloon was two blocks away, and though it was only eleven o‘clock, the parking lot was already half-full. I pulled up between a chopped Harley with “Midnight Confessions” painted in script on the purple gas tank and a school-bus-yellow crew cab pickup.

  I sat in my truck and stared at the bar. A flat-roofed cinder-block building the size of a small bowling alley, it sported the usual Silver Bullet, Budweiser and Dos Equis signs in the darkened windows, as well as two large white satellite dishes on the roof. It played live country-western music six nights a week, was the bar of choice for oil-field workers and cowboys, concrete and otherwise, and served the best beef dip sandwiches in the county. It was also the last place my husband was seen alive.

  The air in the bar felt thick and cold and rippled with the scent of wet, smoldery beef, the vinegar of men’s sweat. I scanned the room uneasily, studying the high-backed booths lining the walls, the three crowded pool tables, the long bar presided over by a depressed-looking elkhead with battered cowboy hats stuck in its antlers. A smoky haze hovered over the room like a misty tarp. From the juke box, Alan Jackson moaned about the haunted, haunted eyes he saw one midnight in Montgomery.

  I almost ran out.

  But something—responsibility, loyalty, stupidity—compelled me to walk up to the bar where Floyd swabbed the counter with a stained white towel. His fiftyish face held a tired look. A sparse, graying beard attempted to cover a cherry-red skin rash.

  “Floyd?”

  “That’s my name,” he said. He traded the tired look for a suspicious one.

  I stared at him for a moment. The questions on the tip of my tongue had nothing to do with Rita. What I really wanted to ask was—Do you remember Jack? Did you serve him that last beer? Did you talk to him last? The one thing I’d never been able to let go, was the feeling that if Jack had to die before me, the last voice he heard should have been mine.

  Floyd’s cross voice brought me back. “Is there something you want, lady?”

  “My cousin Rita.” I forced myself to focus on him. “She works here. Have you seen her lately?”

  “Sure.”

  “When?”

  “Two nights ago?” He phrased it like a question. His scraggly eyebrows intersected in a frown.

  “Sunday night?” I prompted.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” He pulled out a can of Copenhagen and stuck some behind his bottom lip. “She’s supposed to work tonight.”

  “I need to get in touch with her,” I said. “It’s extremely important. Can you tell her to call Benni when she comes in?”

  “If she comes in. She ain’t all that dependable.”

  “You heard about Marla, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded and folded his towel in half, in quarters, then stuck it under the counter. “Tough break for me. She was a good bartender. Never cheated me once. Least, far as I could tell. She’ll be hard to replace.”

  I looked at him in amazement. Tough break for him? What about Marla? Nice guy. One of his employees is murdered and all he can think about is her replacement.

  “Well, Rita was with her that night and I think she might have gotten scared and taken off. Do you have any idea where she might go?”

  “Ain’t she living with Marla? You check the house?”

  “Yes, no one answered.” When he didn’t offer anything more, I decided to take a chance. The worst he could do was say no. “Maybe there’s something in the house that will tell me where she’s gone. Have the police been here asking for a key yet?”

  His expression became irritated. “No. You think they will?”

  “Probably. I’d like to see the house before them. Do you have a key?”

  “I don’t want any trouble,” he said with a scowl.

  “Just give me five minutes. Please. I want to see if her clothes and stuff are gone. Her grandmother is worried. Please.” I gave him my best pleading look. Being short and somewhat adolescent-looking can have its advantages. It’s harder to pull off the helpless female act if you’re over five-six or carry a briefcase. I hated using it, but your resources are your resources. It doesn’t always work, but this time it did.

  He eyed me sourly and reached under the counter. Pulling out a huge set of keys, he twisted one off. “Make it fast.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled widely, feeling a bit proud of myself for finally accomplishing something concrete in my search for Rita, even if I did set women’s lib back a game point or two.

  My feeling of triumph lasted until I entered the house. I purposely stayed away from anything of Marla’s, knowing the police would be looking through her things soon, if they hadn’t already. Rita’s room was empty except for an old bed, a couple of pasteboard boxes and a lone fly two-stepping across the window screen. I sat down hard on the saggy mattress. My options were few. Nonexistent, actually. I locked the back door and drove back to Trigger’s, rehearsing what I would tell Ortiz. None of it sounded plausible. I’d withheld important information on a homicide investigation. There was no dancing around that.

  By the number of pickups and motorcycles crowding the parking lot, Trigger’s lunch rush had begun. When I walked back up to the bar, Floyd was filling a pitcher from the tap with one hand and picking up a wad of bills with the other.

  “Find anything?” He set three mugs and the full pitcher on a large tray. A gray-pig-tailed man in a blue “Built Ford Tough” tee shirt winked at me as he picked them up.

  “She’s gone.” I tossed the keys on the bar. “Thanks. If she happens to come in, tell her to—”

  He interrupted me. “You got a visitor.”

  “What?”

  “Cop.” He spit into a white mug and gave me an annoyed look. “Had to tell him where you were. Told you I didn’t want no trouble.”

  “Thanks for nothing.” I turned and searched the noisy room for Ryan’s stomach or Cleary’s calm, dark face. How did they find me? No one could possibly have known where I’d been going.

  “Okay, I give up,” I said. “Where are they?”

  “He.” Floyd jerked his head toward a corner booth where a dark-haired man wearing a conservative gray suit, a crisp white shirt and a furious expression, stood up and crooked his finger at me.

  The epithet I muttered caused the skinny cowboy standing next to me to burst out laughing. I was, obviously, going to be given the privilege of explaining myself earlier than I’d anticipated.

  Walking slowly toward the man in the gray suit, I decided on the casual approach.

  “Chief Ortiz,” I said. “I hardly recognized you in your grownup clothes.”

  His facial impersonation of a mannequin impressed me, though I decided not to share that particular thought. He pointed to the seat across from him.

  “Sit down.”

  So much for the casual approach. I slid across the slick brown vinyl, avoiding eye contact. After he sat down, we played more of the silence game. While he worked at intimidating me, I occupied myself with studying his hands which were tapping a soft cadence on his thick white coffee mug. They were huge, strong-looking, with short, neat nails, and though clean, stained black in rough crevices no soap can reach. A mechanic’s hands. I looked up at him in surprise.

  The expression on his face was unreadable. I refused to give in and look down, hoping my face didn’t show the dog-caught-in-the-garbage-can look I suspected it held.

  Finally, he spoke.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

  An excellent question. One I’d asked myself several times in the last twelve hours. I looked him straight in his peculiar gray-blue eyes and told him the truth.

  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  For a moment he appeared stunned. Not the answer he expected. Not the answer I expected. His mouth made a sharp downward curve.

  “You can tell me about it now,” he said. “Or we can go down to the station. Your choice.”