An Unacceptable Death - Barbara Seranella (5 page)

"
Anything," Ellen said without hesitation.
She knew Munch well enough to know she'd only ask once.

"
I need to go over to . . ." Munch
hesitated. Was it far-fetched to think that the phone might be
bugged? "The mall. I'm going to need a new Outfit."

"
Where are you now? You want me to pick you up?"

"
Yeah, meet me at the Brentwood Country Mart. We
can leave my car there."

"
Should I bring anything?" she asked.

"
You might want to
wear comfortable shoes."

* * *

The Brentwood Country Mart was a grouping of faux
barn buildings on the corner of Twenty-sixth and San Vincente. The
mini-mall had all the neighborhood essentials, including a hardware
store and a market. If people didn't care about paying top dollar,
they could get film developed, prescriptions filled, and buy toys.
There were also a world-class deli, a central courtyard where
shoppers could nosh on rotisserie chicken, and several boutiques that
sold the other necessities, such as three-hundred-dollar beaded
evening bags and hand-made Italian loafers.

Munch parked among the Mercedes and Cadillacs. Ellen
was already there waiting, although it took Munch a moment to
recognize her friend in long black beaded braids, fringed buckskin
jacket, and matching moccasins. Ellen walked over while Munch locked
her car. Munch took a closer look. "I like the eyes."

Ellen batted her long lashes. "Honey amber. I
just got them."

They embraced. Munch drank in the body contact, felt
nourished by it, and—in another first for them—let Ellen break it
off first. Ellen brushed a lock of hair from Munch's face and tucked
it behind one ear. "How you doing, kid?"

Munch shrugged. She didn't like to lie or complain,
and that left little to say.

Ellen put a protective arm around Munch's shoulders.
"Now, Miss I-Need-a-New-Outfit, where are we really going?"

"
Rico's house. I want to look around. Something
stinks."
 
 

CHAPTER SIX

RICO'S HOUSE WAS IN SANTA MONICA CANYON. THE garage
faced the street and the front door was actually on the side of the
house, facing the next-door neighbor's side fence. Munch had Ellen
park a few doors down the street.

"
Honk twice if you see anyone coming."
Munch looked up and down the block as she got out of Ellen's Camaro.

"
You want me to create a diversion or
something?"

Munch had to smile. Creating diversions was one of
Ellen's specialities. She didn't even need a reason and it often
involved lifting her blouse to her chin. "Let's play it by ear,
Pocahontas."

Munch used her key to let herself in. Once inside the
door, she turned off the alarm. She looked for signs that someone
else had been there, but couldn't detect any. Neither the police nor
the coroner had put their seal on the door. Not that a piece of
gummed paper would have stopped her.

The two-bedroom beach bungalow was definitely a
bachelor's pad. No dining room. A Pac-Man video game served as a
small table. The kitchen was open, defined from the living room by a
high counter. On the occasions that they had eaten meals there, she
and Rico had perched on the barstools side by side.

His stereo system was top of the line, Harman Kardon,
and every room boasted a television suspended by brackets from the
ceiling. Over the large overstuffed leather sofa hung a framed fight
poster advertising last year's bout between "Boom Boom"
Mancini and Bobby Chacón. Mancini had won by a unanimous decision.
Munch wondered if anyone would object to her keeping the poster.

The focal point of the master bedroom was the
king-size bed. The spread was pulled hastily across lumpy sheets. She
lay down on his side and rested her head on his pillow. He always
took the side closest to the door. He wanted to be the first line of
defense against an intruder.

How far would he go to protect someone he loved?
Where had that question come from? Was it a fishing expedition, or
had Bayless been trying one of those cop head trips on her? Sometimes
they were able to finesse a confession by providing the guilty person
an out. People naturally wanted to tell the truth. Giving them a
logical excuse for their actions made honesty that much easier.

She studied her image in the mirrored closet door,
curious to see if her grief showed in her face. So far she looked the
same. The dark circles under her hazel eyes would come later, after
the long sleepless nights. There was an odd sort of comfort in her
melancholy; maybe it was just the return to familiar territory.

Rico's brown corduroy coat sleeve prevented the
sliding closet door from closing all the way. It was the jacket he
had worn the day they ran across the gang-banger with the pit bull.
She pulled the coat off its hanger and put it on. She had to fold
back the cuffs three times before the sleeves ended at her wrists.

She slid the door open and stared at the costumes of
his under-cover work mixed with his dress clothes. A clear plastic
dry cleaner's bag shrouded a blue uniform with its patches and rank
insignia. Last year, she had helped Ellen pick out the clothes to
bury her parents—all three of them, counting her stepfather. The
Colonel, Ellen's long-lost dad, had left instructions to be buried in
his uniform. Rico would have wished the same thing. He told her once
that being a cop was the only career he'd wanted since high school.
Yeah, being buried in his uniform was one of those traditions he
probably would have dug.

A chill came over her and she pulled the jacket tight
around her. She went into the second bedroom, the one Rico used as
his office. On the top of his desk was a file folder with "Wedding"
written on the tab. She opened it to find menu selections and a sheet
of lined yellow paper torn from a legal pad. It was a working copy of
the wedding-guest list. How convenient to have a roll call of all the
same people she would be inviting to the funeral. Rico had also torn
out a glossy magazine ad of a tuxedo with a ruffled shirt. It made
her think of the fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror of his
low rider. Sometimes the guy was such a beaner, it made her want to
cringe. Not now. Now all his idiosyncrasies and flaws would be
forgotten or remembered with affection.

She lifted the desk blotter and found a United
Airlines envelope. Inside were two airline tickets to Hawaii. Under
that envelope were two aged Hallmark greeting cards. The printed
cards were gushy miss-you, love-you types and signed by two different
women: a Victoria and a Christina. The names meant nothing to her.
Munch wished the bitches had had the consideration to date their
declarations. Now she'd have to wonder.

The airline tickets were in the names of Mr. and Mrs.
Enrique Chacón. She put the tickets back. They were too sad to
contemplate, and she didn't want anyone to accuse her later of taking
anything of monetary value.

The top right-hand drawer of the desk yielded
pictures. She started to select a few and then stopped. Maybe his
daughter or his father and brothers would want to have first pick.
The bottom drawer also had pictures in it, or rather a single large
manila envelope full of snapshots.

She pulled them out and fanned them across the
desktop, wondering why these weren't with the others. She imagined
there would be many unanswered questions in the days to come.

The pictures were of various family members. Fernando
and Cruz in the driveway of the Lawndale house. Rico's ex, Sylvia,
and daughter, Angelica, taken as they got in a car outside their
house in Los Feliz. This dated them. The move to the Los Feliz house
had been two months ago.

Other photos were of Rico's brothers and their
families. Several were shots of older Mexican men and women who might
have been aunts and uncles. judging by the unpaved roads and the
laundry drying on the bushes, these were taken in Mexico. There were
also pictures of her and Asia, even one of Jasper. She looked hard at
the photos, trying to remember the occasion. She wasn't smiling for
the photograph and neither was Asia, which was really odd. The kid
was such a ham.

Munch went back over the other pictures and noticed
that none of the subjects had smiled for the camera or even looked
directly at it. Two honks broke through her thoughts. Ellen's signal.

Munch pocketed Rico's address book and put the
pictures back where she had found them. She made for the bathroom off
the hallway between the two bedrooms. It had a door that led to the
backyard. Rico's brush was on the sink counter, lying there as if he
had just put it down. Long strands of black hair trailed from the
bristles. She couldn't help but notice how much longer they were than
Rico's own hair as she let herself out the back door, but she had no
time to ponder their source now.

She came around the side of the house, crouching low
so as to be concealed by the retaining wall that separated the pool
from the steep bank of ivy. She thought briefly of the rats that
lived in the undergrowth as she headed toward the far side of the
garage.

Rolls of chain link and odd-sized lengths of
two-by-fours were piled helter-skelter against the outer garage wall.
Weeds grew in between the metal and wood. One misstep could bring the
mess tumbling apart noisily. The last thing she wanted was for
whoever had caused Ellen to give the warning signal to catch her.

Car doors slammed one after the other and Munch
hazarded a peek around the edge of the garage wall.

A van and a car had pulled into the driveway. The
van, according to the lettering 0n the side, belonged to a locksmith,
the car was a blue Ford Mustang, a Shelby. She'd locked the front
door after herself, but the alarm was still turned off. Shit. She'd
made it easy for them. Two men got out of the car—one was a
longhair, the other clean-cut—and waited for the locksmith. They
all headed for the front door and out of her line of vision. The
locksmith carried his toolbox, the two other men carried cardboard
file boxes. The boxes were empty, judging by the way they handled
them. She waited until the three men had turned the corner, then made
a break up the driveway.

Ellen started the engine when Munch was almost to the
passenger door. "Those were cops, right?"

"
I guess," Munch said. "Pretty nice
ride for a cop. Those Shelby Mustangs go for three times the rate of
a regular Mustang, and those aren't cheap to begin with."

"They took the mail right out of the box."
Ellen swung into the lane with a wide U-turn, taking them past the
house again. "Isn't that a federal crime, to mess with the
mail?"

"
A lot of rules don't apply to cops." Munch
wished she'd thought to check Rico's mail. "Go slow," she
told Ellen as they passed the house. The locksmith was working on the
dead bolt. The other two were joking with each other as they waited.
She would have loved to stay and give them the evil eye, but it was
time to pick up Asia at school and explain why their lives had
changed.
 
 

CHAPTER SEVEN

ELLEN DROVE MUNCH BACK TO HER CAR. MUNCH WAS quiet on
the trip over, staring out the window, contemplating a sad future.
She had told Cruz that they would get through this, but only because
she knew he wouldn't ask how.

Asia's school bus would be dropping her off soon.
Ellen offered to come along, Munch didn't hesitate to accept. She'd
done her share for Ellen in the past and then some. Ellen made the
favor easier by offering. She knew how difficult it was to ask for
help, how bad it felt when someone told you no after you'd screwed
your courage up and asked.

Telling Asia was going to be rough. She understood
much better than most kids what death meant and how forever it was.

When Munch's mom had died, she was only a year older
than Asia was now. Walking around school after that, it was as if a
force field projected from her. She was the kid whose mom had died.
That scary, unknown prospect kept everyone from coming too close.

Now Munch understood that the isolation she'd felt
hadn't been intended to hurt her. The teachers had probably been
worried about saying the wrong thing. Or maybe they thought by not
bringing the subject up, Munch wouldn't think about her orphan status
so much. None of Munch's young friends could help her either. None of
them had lost a parent, and most of them had two to begin with.

Munch quickly learned that people's sympathy had
limits. Most people who asked how she was had only wanted to hear,
"Fine."

That was still true.

When adults took the risk of addressing her
situation, it was to praise her for being tough, for moving on. She
had begun getting in fistfights at school, her grades should have
slipped, but the teachers went easy on her. Not that there had been
anyone in her life to read or miss the signs.

Sometimes, young Munch slipped away from school in
the middle of the day. Once, while rambling along in an alley, she
came across a gate strung with barbed wire. Not sure how serious she
was, she ran her wrists across the sharp wire spikes. Enough to
scratch the skin. The next time, she drew blood. At ten years old,
she didn't know what she was trying to accomplish. She was staying
with doper friends of her mom who barely noticed when she came and
went, never asked her to account for her time, and let her eat
whatever she could scrounge.