Death Gets a Time-Out (32 page)

“This is an intensely class-conscious society. I don’t think someone whose family had enough money for a home like that would be a cop.”

“Maybe he was well paid.”

I shook my head. “I doubt it. I bet mine wasn’t the first hundred-dollar bill he pocketed during the course of his career. Who knows, maybe he got a pile of them from Polaris Jones.”

Just then we arrived at the central market. I paid the driver and we picked our way past the outspread blankets of vendors whose wares consisted of various tourist kitsch—little dolls wearing traditional indigenous clothing, ashtrays and pots painted in vivid colors, beaded earrings and necklaces. I
stopped at one blanket and crouched down to look at the rows of little green wooden turtles with bobbling heads. I couldn’t resist. I bought Ruby and Isaac each a handful of the tiny creatures.

We wandered deep into the market, past stall after stall of knock-off jeans and T-shirts, pens and flashlights, bright woven shopping bags with pictures of burros and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Tucked in between these stalls we found one that was unlike its neighbors. It was about twice the size of the others, and its wares weren’t hung over bars or heaped on tables like the rest. Racks of pastel dresses dripping in tulle, beading, and sequins were carefully arrayed in cabinets behind glass doors. The counters were glass boxes, revealing rows of white gloves, hair ribbons, and fluffy hats decorated with fabric flowers and beads. I fingered the white gown that hung on a headless mannequin in a corner of the store. The nylon was shiny and stiff. I’d be willing to bet there wasn’t a natural fiber in the place.

“Can I help you?” a voice said in thickly accented English.

A small woman stepped from behind the counter. In stark contrast to the dresses hanging around her, she wore a simple black skirt and a white blouse with just a touch of lace on her collar. A measuring tape hung around her neck, and a pencil poked out of the roll of black hair bobbing precariously at the top of her head. Her eyes were crinkled at the corners, as if she’d done a lot of smiling in her fifty-odd years. She was smiling at us now.

“You speak English?” I asked.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “Do you buy for yourself, or perhaps for your daughter?”

I looked again at the rows of fluffy marshmallow dresses Ruby would have killed to own. “How much are the confirmation gowns?” I asked.

“For what size?”

“A six-year-old girl.”

The woman pulled on the silver chain around her neck and a key ring appeared from deep in her cleavage. She unlocked one of the glass cases and pulled out four little piles of tulle
and lace. One, in a white so creamy it looked almost peach-colored, had a bodice of pearls and little puffs for sleeves. It screamed Ruby Wyeth at the top of its lungs.

“This one,” I said.

She checked a little white tag hanging from the sleeve and named a price in pesos that I was astonished to realize translated to less than forty dollars.

“We’ll take it!” I said, and reached into my bag for the money. She carefully wrapped the dress in a black trash bag, flipping up the wire circles of the crinoline so that they lay flat. Then she took a pair of gloves and a tiara from behind the counter.

“These belongs to the dress,” she said.

“Wow,” Peter said. “Ruby is going to flip out.”

“You have only one daughter?” the woman asked.

“And a son,” I said.

“How old?”

“Almost four.”

“One moment,” she said. She ducked out of her stall, walked down the aisle, and turned into another stall at the end. In a moment, she was back, carrying another black garbage bag. She pulled out a miniature
mariachi
outfit, white with black piping. The sombrero was decorated with rows of pearls, similar to those on the dress.

“How much?” I asked.

“Same price.”

“We’ll take it.”

I handed her the money, and as she was wrapping up Isaac’s outfit, I said, “Is your name Juana Acosta?”

“De Suarez,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“Juana Acosta de Suarez. My husband was Angel Suarez. He is dead. Last year.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said.

She shrugged. “He is a good man, my Angel. But I give him no children, so now I am alone.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“This is life,” she said. “Why you know my name?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m a friend of Lilly Green’s. Do you remember her? From thirty years ago?”

Juana had been straightening the rows of gloves in her display case, but her hands froze. She stared at me and her face softened. “Lilly? Lilita? You know her?”

“Yes,” I said.

“That is her, yes? The movie star? The one she has blond hair?”

“Yes, that’s her.”

“I
know
that that is Lilita. Not only because of the name. She looks the same. Just like when she was a little girl.
Mi pequenita Lilly. Ay yai yai.
Lilita. How is she? She remembers me?”

“She’s good,” I said. “She’s all right.”

“She sends you here to find me?”

“Not exactly. I got your name from Eduardo Cordoba.”

Her eyes narrowed. “From the police?”

“The father, not the son,” I said.

“Why he give you my name?”

“I asked him who was working in the house back then. Juana, I hope you can help me. Lilly might be in trouble. I’m trying to find out what happened to her mother. I think it could help her.”

“
Pobrecita. Pobre Señora Trudy
,” Juana whispered.

As soon as I’d mentioned Lilly’s name, Peter had begun easing his way out of the booth. He knew that Juana was more likely to talk without him there. He caught my eye and raised his eyebrows, motioning over his shoulder. I nodded and he melted away, leaving us alone.

“Were you there when she was killed?” I asked.

Juana’s chest rose as she heaved a sigh. She leaned on her elbows against the counter. “I am there, yes.”

“Do you know what happened?”

“They say Lilita play with the gun and shoot her mother.”

“And is that what happened?”

She frowned. “You try to help Lilita, yes?”

I nodded. “I’m her friend. Please tell me what happened. It’s important. For Lilly’s sake.”

“It is long time ago. Many many years. Thirty years!”

“Juana,” I said softly. “Lilly has spent her entire life believing that she killed her mother. Can you imagine what an awful thing that is to have to live with? Don’t you believe she has a right to know if she didn’t do it?”

Juana rubbed her forehead with one hand. She bobbed her head in a tiny nod. “Yes.”

“What do you think happened in that room?”

“I don’t know. All I know is this. Lilita could not kill Señora Trudy. She could not. I not believe it. I never believe it.”

“Why not?”

“She is by the fountain, plays with the little boy. With Jupé.” She pronounced it
Hoo-pay
. “I am washing clothes on the roof, and I hear their voices over the sound of the water. I hear them, right before I hear the gun. I hear Jupé say, ‘Where you going?’ and then I hear the gun.”

Lilly herself had remembered playing with Jupiter in the fountain. “Are you sure? Are you sure she was still in the courtyard when you heard the shot?”

“Yes. I think so. Jupé say, ‘Where you going?’ and then maybe a few seconds more and I hear the gun. Only one minute. No time for her to go to the room, find the gun, kill her mama.”

I leaned forward, excited. “Tell me everything that you remember from that day. Everything, no matter how small.”

Juana’s memory was as clear as could be expected, given the many years that had passed. She remembered little about the morning of the day that Trudy-Ann was killed. She did remember, though, fixing the children lunch and serving it to them out in the courtyard. She’d left them with their food and gone to do the washing.

“On the roof?” I asked.

“Yes. I do laundry on the roof. I have there a sink and strings for the clothes. I hear the children, and when I go to the side, I look into the courtyard and see them.”

Juana had been scrubbing sheets and listening to the radio. She was sure she heard the children’s voices beneath the
sound of the music. She’d heard the sharp retort of the pistol and had dropped the sheet she was washing and run down the stairs. The courtyard was empty. She raced into the house, to Trudy-Ann’s room.

“What did you see?”

Juana trembled and hugged her arms close to her chest. “Jupé in the hallway, crying. I run past him and through the door.”

“Wait a second. Jupiter was there? Did he see what had happened?” Jupiter had claimed not to know how Trudy-Ann had died. Now, maybe that was true. Maybe he’d been too little to remember. But I doubted it. A memory like that seemed too traumatic to forget . . . unless it had been repressed. And you know what? I just wasn’t buying that anymore.

“I think Jupé no see nothing. He crying from the noise. There’s no time for him to see nothing.”

Maybe. “What did you see when you got into the room?” I asked.

“Lilita. She screams, ‘Mama, Mama.’ Her hands, they are red. Red with blood.”

“Who else was there?”

“Señor Artie, he there.”

“He was in the room when you got there?”

She wrinkled her brow. “Yes,” she said.

“What was he doing?”

“He holds her close to him. She is fighting him. Trying to get to her mama. She kick him, hit him. But he no let her go.”

“Did you see the body?”

Juana was crying now, fat tears that left trails in the thick paste of her makeup. She rubbed a ribbon of mucus away from her nose with the back of her hand. “Half of Señora Trudy on the bed, half on the floor. Her white dress—red all over here.” Juana motioned at her own chest. “So red. Her, what do you say, sleep dress? What she wears at night? It so wet with blood, I can see shape of her body, her breasts.” She swallowed hard, and for a moment I was afraid she would be
sick. But she just inhaled sharply and said, “I take the girl. Drag her from the room. I remember I am so angry. Her father he do nothing. Nothing.”

“What do you mean? You said Artie was holding her.”

“Not Señor Artie. I told you, he hold her back. Her father, Raymond. And his woman. They just stand, stare at us. They do nothing.”

I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. “Raymond and Beverly were there?”

“Of course. They standing in the room when I get there.”

“Raymond and Beverly were in
Mexico
, in the room when Trudy-Ann died?”

“Yes, of course,” she said impatiently. “They come right before this. They say they all live together. All. But then after, they take Lilita and go back to
Estados Unidos.
”

I tried to assimilate this information. Raymond and Beverly had said they were in Los Angeles at the time of Trudy-Ann’s death. Hadn’t they? I tried to remember. Had they ever specifically said they weren’t in Mexico when Trudy-Ann was killed? I wasn’t sure, but I did know that they had led me to believe they weren’t in San Miguel. And what’s worse, they had let Lilly believe the same. But why?

“Who killed Trudy-Ann, Juana? If Lilly didn’t do it, who did? Could it have been Artie? Or Raymond? Or Beverly?”

She shook her head. “I do not know. I do not know who kill her. But I know it not my Lilita. She in the courtyard. With Jupé. I hear her when I do the washing.”

“Would Raymond or Beverly have had a reason to hurt Trudy-Ann?”

“Señor Raymond, he would never hurt her. I think he loved her. I see how he look at her. Señora Trudy, she was very beautiful. I think he love her.”

“Why? Why do you think that? They’d been together once, and then broken up, after Lilly was born. And she was with Artie, wasn’t she? Was something going on between them?”

Juana’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know nothing, but I think maybe yes. I see Señora Trudy when Señor Raymond comes.
She looks for him. She wears her white sleep dress when he is there. You can see her body under the dress, and I see that he is looking.”

“Do you think they might have been having an affair?”

“In that house, they all do that. They sleep one night with this person, one night another. Señor Artie say to me that this is the right way. Everyone supposed to love each other. But I think he’s no happy. I think he no want Señora Trudy be with Señor Raymond.”

“But Trudy and Raymond were together?”

“Yes, I think so. I change the sheets, you know? And I think they are together. Señor Raymond, it his fault she die, anyway.” She nodded her head emphatically.

“Why? Why was it his fault? If he didn’t kill her?”

“He give her the gun. He bring it from her papa in Tejas.”

“Wait. Raymond gave Trudy-Ann the gun? Why?”

She shrugged. “Señora Trudy, she tell me her papa give it to him for her. But Señor Raymond, he bring the gun into the house. So it is his fault the beautiful Señora is dead.”

I nodded, not sure I bought the logic, but considering how I feel about guns, not willing to dismiss it altogether. “What about Beverly? Did Beverly mind that Raymond was sleeping with his ex-wife?”

“Señora Beverly, she says everything happy, good. But I hear her sometimes, with Señor Raymond. She scream at him. She no happy.”

“Did she kill Trudy-Ann?”

She shrugged, lifting her shoulders almost to her ears. “I do not know. I know only one thing. Lilita, she in the courtyard.”

“Did you tell anyone about this at the time?”

“Sí. I tell the policeman. I tell Eduardo Cordoba, ‘Lilita not kill her mama.’ He tell me I make a mistake. Lilita is, how you say,
culpable.
”

“Guilty.”

“Yes, guilty.”

“And he never even investigated? Never tried to find out if you were right?”

She tossed her head. “Eduardo Cordoba is Eduardo Cordoba.”

“What do you mean?”

She leaned her head close to mine. “I mean, he has very much money, Señor Cordoba. For a policeman.”

“Yes,” I whispered back.

“He does what he is paid to do.”

“Do you think he was paid to say that Lilly killed her mother?”

She shrugged. “I know nothing. I know only that Lilita in the courtyard, she play with the water in the fountain. I know only this.”