"You're the one who wants to marry her."
"She says the marriage talk is a joke to me, that I'd never mention it if I thought there was a risk of her saying yes. At least, I think that's what she said. I kind of zoned out in the middle part, somewhere between the two percent and ‘you son-of-a-bitch.' I was reading the sports pages when she started in on me. That columnist Robert Buchanan, man, he pisses me off. I mean, I'm not saying he should be a homer for the Spurs, but he could cut them a little slack now and then, you know?"
"When Crow and I were together, I was the one who buried my nose in the paper while he prattled." She remembered Charlottesville, the discovery of all the things she hadn't heard-assuming they had ever been said. "Just more proof that I'm not very feminine."
"Wouldn't say that. Wouldn't say that at all."
The compliment was automatic, mindless. Rick was still in his funk, while Tess's mind was racing, making connections someone should have made long ago. The fire at the Sterne house, the fire that was never started at Espejo Verde, despite the gas cans found there. Did Emmie's act prove that she knew the man who raised her was responsible for her mother's death, or was it just a coincidence? And all those psychiatrists, how scared Gus Sterne must have been when one had tried to recover Emmie's memories from the night of the triple murder. You could see how everything fit together if you took a step back. Guzman had been too close, for too long.
The paunchy homicide cop came into the restaurant as she was thinking about him. There was a split second before he spotted them, and Tess used this opportunity to study him. His eyes were so active, like a camera on a motor drive clicking away. She saw skepticism on his face, a hint of amusement at his surroundings. But the primary impression was of someone who made a constant inventory of wherever he happened to be, whether it was a restaurant or a murder scene.
Then he saw them, and his face was instantly more guarded.
"This the kind of place you hang out in?" he asked Rick, sitting down and helping himself to a piece of bread, reaching for the butter, then pushing it away. "Kind of girly, isn't it?"
"The food is good and they've got Shiner Bock on draft. Besides, Tommy Lee Jones always brings the out-of-town press here for all those profiles they're forever doing on him. If it's good enough for Tommy Lee Jones-"
"Then it's good enough for Tommy Lee Jones," Guzman finished. "Now what have you and this particular out-of-towner cooked up for me tonight? You going to tell me where to find your client?"
"I'm going to tell you why you don't need to find him." Tess had intended to be cool, to make Guzman work harder for what she knew, but she couldn't hold back. "Crow didn't kill anyone. Neither did Emmie."
"Yeah?" He was intent on his bread, which he had decided to butter after all.
"Seriously, you've got to listen to me. I know one of the first things police do in any homicide is look to see if anyone benefits from the murder, financially or otherwise-"
"Oh, you mean like that whole motive thing? You know, I knew there was something I forgot." He slapped his forehead with the palm of his free hand. "Twenty-one years on a case, off and on, and I forgot to check if there was a motive."
"No need to be sarcastic, guy," Rick put in. "She's assuming you did your job. So tell us, were there life insurance policies on the victims?"
"Okay, yeah, we checked that. Lollie Sterne's daughter was her beneficiary, while Frank Conyers left Marianna about five hundred thousand dollars. She's probably got more change rattling around in her sofa than that. The cook, Pilar Rodriguez, was the kind of old woman who kept her money in her mattress, so she didn't need an executor for her estate."
"There was a corporate policy, too, one that Lollie took out as a publicity stunt. It paid one million dollars if her hands were damaged. I'm assuming death counts as damage. That policy paid off, and Sterne Foods, which was about to be forced into seeking outside investors, was suddenly in very good financial shape."
Nothing registered on Guzman's face. Not surprise, not even mild interest. He just helped himself to another slice of bread. When he did speak, his voice was so mild that he might have been inquiring about the weather. "Why not just torch the restaurant, if you need insurance money? Why kill your cousin, and two other people?"
"Arson might have been the original plan," Tess said. "It was a Monday night, the one night the restaurant was supposed to be dark. Darden and Weeks came with gasoline. But the building probably wasn't worth nearly as much-"
"Fifty thousand, as a matter of fact. Yeah, I checked that, too."
"So I think the intent was just to cover their tracks after they killed Lollie. But they couldn't go through with it, because of Emmie. They couldn't kill a little girl."
"They could shoot two women in the head, and torture a guy, but they couldn't let a baby burn up? I guess everyone has their limits."
"It's consistent, though. They didn't hurt Danny Boyd, either, when they realized they had the wrong little boy. They could have killed him, or left him by the roadside. Instead, they tried to abandon him someplace relatively safe and got caught for their trouble."
"Wrong little boy?"
"Darden and Weeks meant to kidnap Clay Sterne. Check the arrest report. He was grabbed a half-block from the Sterne house."
Finally, she had Guzman's attention. She could almost see his mind opening beyond his intense dark eyes, taking in the new information and examining it from every angle.
He spoke slowly, deliberately, thinking out loud. "When Darden and Weeks were picked up for the kidnapping, they hadn't yet been linked to the triple murders. That was a lead we developed while they were in Huntsville. So at the time-"
"No one made a connection between the Boyd kidnapping and the murders. And even when they became suspects, the reason for the kidnapping seemed obvious-they took Danny Boyd to generate quick cash for their getaway. It all made perfect sense." She tried to find a smile that was conciliatory, without being smug or cocky. "Unless you know they intended to kidnap Clay Sterne. Two boys, both blond, about the same age."
She hadn't expected Guzman to start high-fiving her, but she had thought he would be more gracious. Instead, he chewed his bread, staring over her shoulder at the Halloween night crowds.
"So you're saying Gus Sterne hires these guys-to kill his cousin, a woman who was like a sister to him-because he needed money to keep Sterne Foods going, and then was crazy enough to think he could get away with not paying them?"
"I'm saying Gus Sterne was naive enough to think that he could pay these guys for their work, and they would go away. Once the job was done, I'm sure they blew it all, then demanded more money. There's about a two-week lag between the two crimes. They blackmailed Sterne, he balked, and they decided to take his son, to show how serious they were. Instead, they ended up with Danny Boyd and they went to prison, hoarding their secret because they still planned to cash it in. You said they obviously had money when they got out. That could have been hush money from Sterne."
"Okay, I'm with you so far. I don't believe a word of it, but I'm with you. So who killed Darden and Weeks?"
"Gus Sterne," Tess said, trying not to sound too triumphant. "He learned the hard way that you have to do these things yourself. He killed Darden and Weeks, and tried to frame Emmie for it. So the gun shows up under the bed, Crow's T-shirt ends up at the murder scene. But it's all credible, because everyone knows she's crazy enough to do anything. Whereas no one would believe Gus Sterne, San Antonio's great benefactor, could be responsible for his own cousin's death."