She got herself a cup of hot coffee – he’d brewed hazelnut, her favorite – and added generous milk and sugar. He had his back to her, sitting at the kitchen table, and she watched the set of his shoulders, his burr of auburn hair, his wiry arms, the constellation of freckles on the back of his neck. She wanted to hold and kiss him and feel him against her, and she nearly dropped her mug.
Carefully she sipped the piping hot coffee, standing in the kitchen away from him. He turned around in his chair. ‘You want to talk options? Delford can’t just terminate you, Claudia.’
‘He could and did.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s a right-to-work state, he can fire me at will. I had to go back in, surrender my side arm, my badge. I didn’t have a box to clean out my desk, I guess I have to do that Monday.’
‘Are you going to appeal to the mayor?’
‘I’ll write him a letter,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think I’m overflowing with options here.’
‘Come work for the sheriff’s department,’ he said instantly and then stumbled. ‘I mean, you’re a good investigator. You could work for DPS, too, or Parks and Wildlife, maybe.’
‘I’m sure something will come up. I can always shrimp with Papa. That should drive Mama into the crazy house a full ten years ahead of schedule.’ She finished her coffee. ‘So what about your big Jabez Jones case?’
He shrugged. ‘He was spotted in New Mexico. I think he’s probably heading back to California, where he’s got a lot of friends. The DEA agent from Corpus told me they think Jabez’s donation receipts don’t match the figures in his books. He’s gotten maybe thirty thou in donations and three million on his ledgers. Mary Magdalene still ain’t talking. Sits in her cell like a freaking Amazon warrior, silent.’
‘I thought maybe Junior Deloache was bringing drug money into Port Leo.’
David nodded. ‘Probably. With Junior dead, and Jones running, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a connection. That three million, maybe it’s Jabez laundering Junior’s money.’
‘I just wish Velvet would turn up,’ Claudia said, thinking of Heather’s water-paled face. ‘Her car was at Junior’s condo, her purse with a gun in it, but she wasn’t.’
‘You think she killed him?’
‘No. I mean, I doubt it, but who knows. I don’t know her.’ She gave a thin, nervous laugh. ‘I for sure thought I knew Delford, but he turned on me quicker than a rabid dog.’
David shook his head again. ‘With all this insanity, I can’t believe Delford fired you. He needs everyone he can get.’
‘Does he? If the crime’s this big, the DEA and FBI will take it over. Delford’ll just wax his mustache and make press announcements.’ She retrieved the coffeepot, freshened their mugs, came and sat next to him at the table.
‘I don’t get how the Ballew girl fits in,’ David said. ‘Comes from Louisiana to see Jones, gets involved in this money laundering, and ends up dead?’
Claudia explained what she had found about the nursing home connections. ‘It’s strange, and maybe I chased a shadow,’ she said. ‘But I found, well, not quite a pattern, but a couple of odd coincidences of timing.’
‘Are all your notes at the station?’
‘Yeah. But I can get you a copy. I mean, it’s really your case.’
David phoned the station and got a clerk to make copies of Claudia’s notes on Marcy Ballew.
‘Ask them if I’ve gotten any messages from out-of-town police,’ Claudia said.
He did. He paused, gestured at her for pencil and paper, which she handed to him. He jotted notes.
‘Well, this is interesting. You got messages from investigators in Brownsville and Laredo.’ Neither police department had made much progress on the Morris or the Palinski case. Both women seemed to have vanished into thin air: no witnesses, no evidence.
‘Let’s call them back,’ she said.
He reached for her phone. ‘Not on my unemployed dime,’ she said. ‘Let’s go over to the sheriff’s department.’
She dressed quickly and they drove over. David made the calls, asking the investigator on duty if there was a nursing home near either woman’s workplace. The Laredo detective said yes, there was a nursing home right across from the Taco Bell that Angela Morris vanished from, Bellewood. It was the same one that Placid Harbor had handled a patient transfer from. Brownsville didn’t know if there was a nursing home near the pizzeria; they’d find out and call or fax David back.
So David called the pizzeria to ask if St Mary’s Nursing Home was close by. No, not at all, the pizzeria was at the northern edge of town on Highway 77. St Mary’s was on the east side of Brownsville.
‘But 77’s the main highway,’ Claudia said when David hung up. ‘Anyone going to St Mary’s might still pass that pizzeria. I’d just like to know more about these transfers, about how they work, the time involved.’
David set the phone down. ‘You want to go talk to Buddy Beere with me?’
‘I’m not a cop anymore,’ she said. The truth of it still sounded alien to her ears.
‘You are to me. C’mon, you’ve already talked to the guy. Better than sitting around updating resumes and harboring grudges.’
Now she smiled at him. ‘Sure. Let’s go.’
The little lock lay in the no-man’s-land between Velvet’s torso and her elbow, and if she moved her arm slightly, the lock and its strap teased her skin. But she could not move it toward her hand.
She wept briefly in frustration and then she slept again. Sleep was the escape door. In sleep her father’s arms enfolded her and he said, I forgive you I forgive you and I love you no matter what.
She woke at his touch. She wasn’t sure if it was minutes later, hours, time ceased to hold meaning.
‘Need to pee?’ he asked abruptly.
‘Yes, yes,’ she said. She had peed in the night, like a baby, and the towels were sodden with the smell.
‘I don’t got no more sheets or towels to put under you right now,’ he said.
Of course not. Who has time to do laundry when you’re busy kidnapping and raping? she thought crazily.
She felt a bag – roomy, made of soft chamois, reeking of dust and fuel – go over her head. He loosened the cords at her feet first, rubbing her ankles for her.
‘I’m taking you to the bathroom. Now, you try anything, I’ll cut and gut you, you understand?’ he muttered.
‘Yes. I’ll be good,’ she answered in a timid murmur. I’ll kill you if you give me a moment’s chance.
He slipped her hands free from the shackles. She heard the toss of keys again on the floor. She slowly massaged her wrists.
‘Do what I say.’ He pulled her to her feet. Bolts of numbness shot up her legs. She nearly fell, every muscle screaming. He yanked her forward and the doorjamb brushed her shoulder, and seven steps down – she was counting – along carpet that felt frayed, he steered her to the right. Cold tile prickled her bare feet.
He pushed her down onto a cold toilet seat.
She urinated, emptying her aching bladder. He hummed along, a bouncy tune she recognized as ‘I Get Around.’
I am so gonna kill you, ‘I need to poop, too,’ she said in a very quiet voice.
‘I’m not leaving.’
She couldn’t see him with the sack over her face. ‘Corey, you’re not gonna find watching me take a crap sexy. Please.’
‘No.’
‘Please, Corey, please!’
‘No.’ He sounded amused again. He wanted her to grovel, wanted her to beg, just so he could say no.
If he kills you now at least it’s over. She had acted the queen bitch dominatrix in her movies, and now she called up that icy, imperial voice. ‘Do you get off on bathroom functions, Corey? How sad. I thought you were a real man.’
A long silence and she thought: Either I got you or you’re about to strangle me here on a toilet.
He said, ‘I’m not some freak. I’m normal.’
His denial almost sent her into peals of hysterical laughter. She gripped the cool bowl of the toilet.
‘I know, Corey,’ she made herself say. ‘You’re normal. And a normal man lets a lady go to the potty in private.’ She paused. ‘You do that, and I’ll show you fun in bed you’ve never, ever seen before.’