“If he is, then it’s really none of your business.”
He ignored her warning. “Ex-cop. L.A. I see that’s where you came here from.”
“I see that you’ve been digging deeper into personnel records.”
“You did it first. Karlinski in Records mentioned it to me.”
Molina felt her face heat up, whether from annoyance or being caught, she couldn’t tell.
“Listen.” He came closer and lowered his voice. “Undercover cops know better than most that the lines between professional and personal can get blurred in police work. You wanted to take something from me without my knowing it. Think what a lot more you could get if you were up front about it. That Nadir guy is trouble, I can smell it, and he worries you. Accidents isn’t putting me to work 24/7, the way I used to work. I got a lotta free hours. I could help.”
“You’re volunteering? For what?”
“Whatever you need.”
“Why?”
“I’m bored.”
“Not what I need.”
“And I think you could use more of a social life.”
She pushed off her car. “What would give you that idea? That’s the last thing I want, need, have time for.”
“Case closed.”
“I don’t even like you.”
“Not a problem.” He grinned. “I’m still losing my street persona. I’ll get cuddlier.”
“Give it up. You are not my type.”
“Oh, you think you have a ‘type.’ That’s progress. Let me guess: tall, lean, and mean. Early Clint Eastwood, right?”
Molina felt herself flush for real. “You’re pursuing this, not me.”
“That’s the way it’s supposed to be, have you forgotten?”
“Maybe. And I like it that way.” She opened her car door, paused, considered, and said “Good-night.” He backed away to let her drive out of the parking slot, hands in the pockets of his nylon shell jacket, watching her with head lowered, a bit boyishly.
She headed into the maze of access roads that circled the mall.
Not her type.
But better than Rafi Nadir.
Although, who wasn’t?
At home, sweet home Dolores napped on the couch while early-morning TV blared. Molina hated to awaken her, but she knew Dolores would want to be home with her own kids and husband. So she saw her out and watched her cross the street to her own door and safely enter.
In the distance, low-riders grumbled like very disgruntled thunder. That was a negative of living in a Latino neighborhood, but in Anglo neighborhoods it would be costly car stereo systems cranked up loud enough to keep the canals on Mars awake. One way or another, the young bucks in the neighborhood have to make their presence known.
Mariah was sleeping hard in her room, face buried in a tangle of covers.
Molina went to her bedroom and deposited her weapons in the closet gun safe. She could never open the large metal cabinet without brushing against Carmen’s array of vintage velvet gowns. Velvet and steel. It sounded like the title of a supermarket romance novel.
Carmen hadn’t come out to sing and play at the Blue Dahlia lately. Maybe the on-premises body a few months back had accomplished that. Maybe Molina had just been too busy.
She started taking off her clothes … shoes kicked off first. She slipped out of her jacket and blouse, slacks, then sat on the bed to pull off the dark socks she wore with her working “uniform.”
Something slid into her back as her weight created a sinkhole for whatever was on the bed.
What was on the bed? Shouldn’t be anything. She kept a military-neat room, unlike her darling daughter, the mistress of mess… .
A box lay there on her grandmother’s patchwork quilt. A gaudy gilt-paper box. Had Mariah performed one of her random acts of preteen sweetness?
Molina opened it, not surprised by the array of fancy chocolates but by the unfamiliar handwriting on the tiny envelope inside.
She pulled the flap loose to withdraw the stiff note card. The same handwriting that had written “For you” on the envelope had written “Sweets to the sour” on the card inside.
She stood there staring at the black-ink block lettering in the dim light of the overhead ceiling fixture.
Was this some clumsy attempt at humor, or a threat?
Mariah, veering wildly in the bipolar state that was ‘tweendom, might be apologizing and complaining at one and the same time. Or …
This might be from someone else. Like Dirty Larry. Was he a colleague, a would-be boyfriend … or a stalker? He was the only new man in her life … or was this a calling card from a former man in her life?
Rafi Nadir. Now that they’d finally run into each other, he knew that she lived and worked here in Las Vegas. He had a lot of reasons to resent her. Sweets to the sour. The line reeked of bitter anger; was it for leaving him without notice? Like you’d mention to a strike-poised rattlesnake that you’d decided to back off.
Had he found her address after she’d visited him the other night without warning to give him a warning? Turnabout foul play?
Molina spun on her bare heels and padded through the hall and living room into the kitchen. There she ran-sacked drawers looking for something she ought to remember right where it was.
Damn! Whoever had left that candy was no friend and maybe a lot worse. She marched back to her compromised bedroom, plastic sandwich baggies in hand. The note went in one baggie via the offices of the new tweezer from her adjoining bathroom. The box went into the quart-size bag, for analysis by forensics. She’d think of some reason in the morning.
For now … she went through the house from garage to seldom-used front door, checking closets and locks.
All secure, doors dead bolted, sashes nailed shut yet easy to open in case of fire. The place was a freaking monument to advocated domestic security measures, courtesy of your local police department.
So. Someone had gotten in, and gone. And left the poison. Maybe not literal poison but mental poison. Who’s been creeping into my bed with Ethel M candies?
She didn’t even want to finish undressing to don her Land’s End sleep-size T-shirt.
But she did.
Then she unlocked the gun safe, set the semiautomatic on her nightstand, and shot the bolt on her bedroom door so Mariah couldn’t wander in.
The illuminated nightstand clock said four-twenty A.M.
Molina was thinking now that she might actually welcome having Mariah out of the house and under the constant surveillance of reality TV show cameras for the next couple weeks.
What’s a mother to do?
If she’s a homicide lieutenant, maybe a lot more than some cowardly stalker might imagine.
Chapter 13
Macho Nachos
“Dinner? At your place?”
Matt knew he had sounded unflatteringly shocked, but it was too late to backpedal. That was another disadvantage to years spent in the priesthood: an inability to shift rapidly into glib social lies.
“Just casual,” Molina said quickly. “I’ve got some issues I want to bounce off you.”
These must be some issues to merit a social occasion at Casa Molina, Matt thought.
“Yeah, fine. I’m always available for dinner.”
“Usually, I’m not. But, what say, six thirty tomorrow?”
Very pressing issues. “Sure. That’s perfect. Saturday night supper. I’m leaving town for a few days early next week.”
“Glad I caught you before you left. We’ll have something, oh … something. See you then.”
Matt stared at the phone receiver for a moment before replacing it. Molina was always busy when she was at work, and she was almost always at work.
He immediately dialed Temple’s number, but after five rings her slightly raspy voice informed him she’d had to leave town on a family matter and would be back in two weeks or so.
This time he stared at the receiver as if it were an alien artifact.
Curiouser and curiouser. Guess he’d have to go take two hours’ worth of lonely hearts phone calls at WCOO-AM, which is what paid his bills, and find out what was going on with the hearts and minds he thought he knew later.