An Unacceptable Death - Barbara Seranella (4 page)

"Oh yeah, my past is a matter of public record."

"
Are you going to be around today?"

"
I thought I'd go over to Rico's dad's house and
see what I can do for them." She picked up the TO DO list she
had begun, but had difficulty reading it. Her letters were misshapen
and most of the words had been left unfinished. She took a deep
breath. The pain was still there. Maybe it was a part of her now.
"How does this work?"

"
What do you mean?"

She blinked back tears. "Does the department
arrange the funeral? Should I call the coroner's office? I'd like to
make it as easy on the family as I can."

St. John seemed to know what she needed and what she
didn't. A word of sympathy right now would completely unwind her.

"
I'll let you know the timetable as soon as all
that is decided," he said. "We usually do a showy funeral
for the troops and PR. The hypocrisy is painful at best."

"
Usually?" she asked, again picking up on
some reluctance in his voice and body language. "When haven't
they?"

"
The only cop funerals I've seen go ignored and
unannounced were suicides and bad off-duty situations."

"
It wasn't either of those," Munch said
firmly. "Especially not suicide. He was Catholic. A good
Catholic."

"
Of course he was," St. John said. "To
the best of my knowledge, it wasn't anything like suicide. He died
fighting."

Several hours later, Munch had to get out of the
house. She walked to the market and bought a quart of milk. Caroline
St. John took Asia to school at 8:30 A.M. They had decided not to
tell Asia until after school. Let the kid have a few more hours of
blissful ignorance. This also gave Munch a little more time to come
to terms with it all before having to explain the unexplainable to
her daughter.

Remember the Challenger, honey, and how that
schoolteacher died? This is much worse
.

The world had changed. People conducted their
business, gave up their money for services and products, grew
impatient with traffic, cared about the color of their houses and how
much water the neighbor used to water his lawn.

Munch had a secret. None of that shit mattered. It
was oddly freeing. She even felt superior, maybe enlightened was more
like it. The problem with this newfound wisdom was that when nothing
mattered, nothing mattered.

When she got back from the store, Munch changed out
of her Texaco uniform to go visit Rico's father. She put on a pair of
Levi's, T-shirt, and tennis shoes.

Fernando Chacón had a small house in Lawndale. He
lived there with his son Cruz. Cruz was thirty-three, but would
always need help for the simplest of life functions. His fingers and
toes curled spastically inward and he moved in lurching steps. He had
the mental capacity of a toddler and spoke in a minimal language only
understood by his immediate family. An older Mexican woman came in
five days a week to cook and clean for the two men since Rico's
mother had died.

Like a toddler, Cruz needed constant supervision.
When the family had lived in San Ysidro, the border town in
California opposite Tijuana, Cruz had once gotten out of the house
and walked across the footbridge connecting the two countries.

Rico and his mother had had to use connections and
bribes to locate the missing man in a Tijuana jail and negotiate his
release. Rico had hated the way they did business in his country of
birth, but knew how to operate within its corrupt system.

Fernando was sitting in his garage when Munch pulled
up. He was wearing lace-up boots, thick canvas pants, and a matching
long-sleeved shirt. A dark oval of unbleached fabric over the pocket
remained where a name tag had once been stitched. He, like Munch, had
opted for clothes that gave him maximum mobility.

Soon, she knew, he would be breaking out his black
suit and dusting off his lone pair of shiny black loafers.

Fernando kept a card table set up in his garage with
several folding chairs. A heavy bag hung in one corner and the big
round plastic dial of a chocolate-brown Admiral radio was tuned to a
Spanish-language talk station. Rico used to call the setup his dad's
fort. When Rico's mom was alive, Fernando purposely smoked big smelly
cigars to ensure her exclusion.

Today there was a bottle of mescal on the table and
two other middle-aged Mexican men sat with him gripping jelly-jar
glasses in their callused hands. Their faces were brown and deeply
lined, their bodies solid with muscle and unstooped by age, their
otherwise dark hair gray-streaked. The men didn't smile when she
approached. Fernando's expression under the brim of his Dodgers cap
was particularly grim. Munch didn't feel he'd ever approved of her.
She supposed he thought that his son needed and deserved a more
traditional wife.

She wondered if he also blamed her.

Fernando lumbered to his feet. He seemed to have aged
twenty years overnight. She hesitated at the entrance of the garage,
willing to accept whatever recriminations he had for her. He crossed
the cement floor to meet her. His arms raised up. She flinched. He
pulled her to him and hugged her tightly. Munch buried her face in
his shoulder. She tried to cry quietly and hold back the racking
sobs. This man who would have been her father-in-law, this poor man
who must deal with the loss of his wife and son, didn't need a
hysterical woman on his hands.

After a too-short moment, Fernando released her. She
instantly missed the feel of his rough shirt against her cheek. The
moment of comfort was as surprising as it was brief.

A Gran Torino pulled up to the curb behind Munch's
GTO. Two white men in suits got out. The flashing of their badges was
redundant.

"
Here we go," Munch said.

Fernando grunted and put a hand on her shoulder. For
him the gesture was as eloquent as any crafted speech.

"
I'm looking for Fernando Chacón," the cop
who had been the passenger said.

"
You found him," Fernando said.

"
I'm Detective Martin Grimes, this is my partner
Phil Bayless. Can we go somewhere private t0 talk?" Both cops
were gladiator-type specimens. White, six feet tall, with requisite
cop mustaches. Obviously, Munch thought, they had joined the force
before affirmative-action mandates had tilted the requirement scales.
Fernando stood tall and squared off. "I already know my son is
dead."

"
We just have some questions, sir," Bayless
said.

"
Can I see your identification again?"
Munch asked.

"
And who are you?" Grimes asked, obviously
annoyed at having his authority questioned.

"
Miranda Mancini," Munch said, also holding
her ground.

The two cops looked at each other. "We have some
questions for you, too," Bayless said.

He showed her his identification and gave her a
business card. Bayless was with Internal Affairs. Playing the memory
association game in her head, Munch instantly dubbed the two Grimy
and Ball-less.

"
Ask me anything you want," she said.

Bayless took her aside and pulled out a notebook. "So
what do your friends call you?"

She studied him dry-eyed for a second before
answering.

"
Munch."

"
How long had you and Detective Chacón been
seeing each other?"

"
About a year and a half. You know we were
planning on getting married, right?"

Bayless looked up from his notebook. He seemed ill at
ease, or maybe he was just the nervous sort.

"
I'm sorry," he said, and those words
sounded genuine enough.

"
Had you combined households?"

"
We were going to buy a house, but I canceled
the deal."

"
When?"

"
This morning. Right after I got the news Rico
had died."

Bayless nodded, as if the timing made sense, but then
asked, "Why?"

"
Why?" Munch wondered if this was some
dumb-cop routine, but decided to play it straight with the guy.
"Because it was supposed to be our house and I couldn't afford
it alone."

"
Was Chacón supplying the money?"

"
We both were."

"
And did you have a joint bank account?"

"
No."

"
Did Chacón get any mail at your house or
perhaps at a PO box you knew about?"

She felt her hackles rising. What were they
insinuating? "I'm not even sure what kind of stamps he
preferred. You want to tell me what any of this has to do with
anything?"

"If you would just answer the questions to the
best of your knowledge, we'll determine that when all the facts are
in."

"
He was a good and moral man."

Bayless nodded.

Munch pointed at his open notebook. "Write that
down."

"
Would you say he was loyal?" Bayless
asked.

"
Completely," Munch said, deciding to limit
her answers to one-word responses. It wasn't looking like she and old
Ball-less here were going to be new best friends after all.

"
And you characterize him as an honest man?"

A two-word response came to mind, but she didn't want
to come off defensive. "Yes, I would."

"
How far would he go to protect a loved one?"

Munch blinked. "How is anyone supposed to know
the answer to that? I'd step in front of a train for my kid. Is that
the kind of protection you're talking about? Who was in trouble, and
why?"

Bayless waved aside her question as if he were
swatting a gnat.

"
When was the last time you saw him?"

"
A week ago."

"
Was that unusual?"

"
We made time together when we could. It was
never enough."

She looked over and caught Fernando's eye. He had
crossed his arms over his chest and was shaking his head no to
Grimes's questions. Soon he would lose his English.

"
Who's handling the criminal investigation?"
she asked Bayless.

She wanted to add, Not this bullshit witchhunt; but
she didn't. It was too early to burn this guy as a possible resource.

"
They'll be contacting you in due course."

"
Then I should probably get home."

"
Just one more question," he said. "If
you remember anything else, or if something comes up in the future
that doesn't make sense, would you give me a call?"

"
The man I loved is dead. How is anything
supposed to make sense?"

"
Maybe that's something we can figure out
together."

"
Yeah, sure, You and me. What a team we'll
make."

Bayless had the grace to look uncomfortable. Munch
felt an unwilling response of empathy for him. Since she'd been
promoted to service manager at her gas station, there had been more
times than she cared to count where she'd been an asshole for the
sake of the business. And not always to the people who deserved it.

After the IA cops left, Munch stood on the sidewalk
with Fernando.

"
What's going on?" she asked. "No one
has even told me how it happened?

"
He was shot. Many times." Fernando's mouth
turned down from the bitterness of the news. "This is all I
know."

Munch shut her eyes against the image of ripped flesh
and shattered bone. "Have you spoken to Angelica?" she
asked, although what she was really wondering about was if Fernando
had turned to Rico's first wife, Sylvia. Was Munch jealous even now?
She couldn't tell and didn't want to examine her feelings too
closely. She already had enough to hate herself for.

"
Yes, they are coming over later with the rest
of the family."

She was glad he wasn't going to be alone. That's what
was important. "Can I use your phone?"

"
Of course,
hija
."
Daughter. He'd never used that endearment with her before.

She passed through the darkness of the garage
quickly. Her grief had settled in her throat, making it difficult to
swallow. Cruz was in the living room, standing as she often saw him
with his forehead pressed against the bronze-veined mirrored wall,
head bent down so that he could see the reflections. He turned to
her, startled by the noise, and she saw that his face was wet with
tears. She put a hand on his shoulder and said, "We'll get
through this."

She used the kitchen phone to call Ellen.

"
Hi," was all she said.

"
What's wrong?" Ellen immediately asked.

"
It's Rico."

"
What's he gone and done?"

"
He died."

"
He what? Oh, shit. No way. Oh, sugar, I'm
sorry. Damn. How? When?"

"
Some kind of shoot-out, I think; they haven't
told me much or with whom. Listen, I need your help."