Going for Kona (16 page)

I drove the Jetta away from Juniper like a woman possessed, my tires screeching as I left the parking lot. All I remember from the drive was pressing my foot hard against the gas pedal, and the squeal as I turned into my driveway. I stomped hard on the brakes and was thrown forward into the steering wheel when the car jerked to a stop inches from the house. I rubbed my forehead. I hadn’t even put on my seatbelt. While I huffed breaths to calm myself, I slammed the Jetta into park and turned it off. Silence wrapped around me like an embrace, and I held myself perfectly still.

When I realized sweat was rolling down my face, I got out of the car and walked into the house. I shut the door gently behind me. I tiptoed into the office, leaving the lights out and drawing the blinds as I went, and slumped into the black office chair. I tucked my wings in tight, cradling my body, rocking, slowly rocking in my chair.

A sob broke free from my chest, then another and another. I rocked and sobbed for I don’t know how long, my brain emitting a low hum, a buzzing that rose and fell with the rhythm of the needle at the end of one of Papa’s vinyl Everly Brothers records. I had nothing left, nothing except Sam. A harsher sob dragged my chest toward my knees. No one to help me. No one who believed in me. I started to sob again, but I swallowed it, and pictured my son. I scrubbed at my eyes. I couldn’t let Scarlett derail me like this. I couldn’t let anything happen to Sam. I had to think. I had to quiet the buzzing in my head, I had to use my brain. I rotated my shoulders back, and my arms rose and fell by my sides. Because that’s all they were. Just arms again, not wings. I stretched them out in front of me. Short brown arms.

My bag lay at my feet. I leaned over and retrieved my phone, cleared my throat, and pressed a number on speed dial. It went to voice mail, and I kept my message short and sweet. “Robert, I’m going to need your help with Sam, immediately.”

***

An hour later, Robert had returned my call. He’d agreed to drop Sam at my parents’ in Seguin the next day for a long weekend of Dr Pepper, four-wheelers, and Seguin grandparents—maternal and paternal. I billed it as time away from his new friends before the start of his junior year. The grandparents would see firsthand that Sam had not sprouted horns living alone with me, and he would be safe, away from whoever the hell had him in her sights.

He would pick Sam up after baseball in a few hours. I glanced at my watch. Six p.m. I grabbed two Tylenol PM from the bathroom and chased them with water before burying myself in my bed.

***

Jobless, husbandless, and now temporarily childless, I woke at four a.m. the next day and took Precious by surprise. She didn’t object. She was more concerned that Sam wasn’t in his room, and as I got ready, she yowled at me.

“Got issues with me, cat? Get in line.” I emptied a small can of Fancy Feast into her dish. She shut up and ate. Today Michele would kick butt, take names, and save the day.

I checked my phone for messages from the kids. Nothing. A twinge of sadness surfaced. I had tried to get in touch with Annabelle several times over the past few days, and she was still ignoring me. I needed to fix whatever was broken there soon. Soon. I scanned the messages I did have. Just a few from Brian, which I skipped, and another one from Blake’s clinic: “You missed your Wednesday appointment. We have you down for eight a.m. on Friday. Let us know if you can’t make it.”

“I’m sorry, Adrian,”
I whispered in my head.
“I know you understand, but I promise I’ll take care of my knee, too, just not yet. I won’t let anything keep me from Kona. Not if I can help it.”

I packed up for my predawn swim and aqua jog. I reached down and stroked the cat’s head. “Good girl, Precious. See you in a few hours.” I was meeting my husband at the pool, and missing savings account or not, I’d loved the man a month ago, and I loved him still. That was what I knew was real.

***

At nine thirty I returned to the land of the living. Just in case, I checked in with Officer Nickels. Because who knew? Miracles could happen. Today was special. I could feel it.

“This is Mrs. Hanson. I wanted to see if you had any drivers’ license photos for my son and me to look at yet?”

“No, ma’am. Um, it’s only been one day. I have put in all the paperwork ordering the records, though, and I asked for a rush, so maybe on Tuesday.”

“Wow, that’s much faster than a week.” And still way too slow.

I thanked her and hung up. So no miracle yet. Time for DIY. Ironically, since I hated the media, I had a journalist badge through Juniper Media. I decided to use my creds to find the driver myself. Well, that’s not the whole truth. I called my friend Manny in the records department for Harris County and asked him do me a favor, since we went way all the way back to Vogel Elementary School in Seguin.

“Hey, Michele, how are your parents?”

“My father is a saint and my mother is a harpy.”

“No, your mother is an angel. A beautiful woman, like you.”

Manny had helped me many times for legitimate articles. I pitched him what I needed, attempting to make it sound legit, but he saw through my ruse. “I’m not supposed to do this. You could get me in trouble.”

“Manny, the person that drives this car is stalking my son. It may be the same person that killed my husband. I need a restraining order, and the police can’t get the records for a week. I can’t wait that long.”

“Dios mío! Why didn’t you say so?” Manny had three young children. Keys began to click. I kept my mouth shut and let him work his magic. “It’s a big number, Michele. There are thirteen hundred and one white Ford Tauruses registered in Houston that are five years or older. Ouch, mamí. This is a popular car.”

“How about within ten miles of my house?” I gave him the address.

“Two twenty-nine.”

“Female owners?”

Click click click click. “Thirty-six.”

“How else can I narrow the information? What can you search by?”

“Well, we can pull some DMV information, you know, the stuff from drivers’ licenses. Do you know anything else about her?”

“She’s white, and she’s at least thirty-five.”

“White can be tricky. I don’t want to limit you too much. How about I rule out anyone of Asian or African descent?”

“Okay.”

That got us down to seventeen. By eliminating owners under thirty-five, we ended up with twelve, and I could work with that. He read the names and addresses to me over the phone in a low voice.

“Are there any more?”

“That’s the whole list.”

“There’s not a Rhonda Dale?”

“Sorry, no.”

How was that possible? I pulled up one of the articles about her and scanned for her age. Thirty-seven. Manny’s search should have pulled her in if she owned an old Taurus. If it was registered in Harris County and not somewhere else. If it was registered as white and hadn’t been repainted. If a man didn’t own it and let her drive it. The possibilities started spinning through my head and anxiety rippled through me. But no, I told myself, I couldn’t get sidetracked. I had to pursue the most logical leads first.

“Can you look her up and tell me what she drives?”

“Sure.” Click click clickety click. “Hmm. I don’t show any vehicles registered to Rhonda Dale in Harris County.”

Mierda. She could have come from anywhere.

“Thanks, Manny. Are there pictures?”

“Not that I can get to you without getting fired. Seriously. They check to see if we send out that kind of stuff. Would it do any good for me to look at them and tell you what I see?”

“I don’t think so. Thanks. I owe you. I don’t even know what to offer, this is such a big favor.”

“You don’t owe me nothing. I’m going to pray for you guys.”

I knew he would, too. I would pray for him in return, and I would try not to make it about his grammar.

So, now I had twelve names and twelve cars. No Rhonda left me stymied.

The front doorbell rang. I peeked out the side window at the thinner of Sam’s two new friends. I opened the door.

“Hey, Mrs. Hanson. Is Sam here?”

“No, he’s out of town. Well, you’re not heavy enough to be Ted, so you must be . . . ?”

The kid had a great smile. “Andrew. I left my wallet in Sam’s car, and he didn’t answer my texts, so I thought I’d see if he was here.”

“No, sorry. His car isn’t here, either.” Car. Sam’s car. “Andrew, could I ask you a favor?”

He stood up taller. “Sure.”

“I am trying to identify the woman Sam hit the other day and I have twelve names, and I wanted to Google some pictures. Could you come see if you recognize any of them?”

“Uh, yeah. Like, right now?”

“Please.”

He wiped his hands on the thighs of his pants and stepped through the door.

“I’m making myself a sandwich. Would you like one?”

“Yeah. I mean, yes, please.”

“The list is by the computer in the office.” I pointed. “They all live in Houston, and they should all be Caucasian and about my age or older. If you get pictures that look nothing like that, it’s the wrong person, because—”

He smiled and cut in. “Because there could be like fifty people named Andrew Ellory.”

“Exactly.”

I walked into the kitchen and pulled out ham, cheese, Miracle Whip, and Wonder Bread for Andrew, and brown-rice bread, turkey slices, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, and German mustard for me. I raised my voice. “Ham, cheese, and mayo on white?”

“Okay, thanks.”

I assembled sandwiches and grabbed a bag of carrots for me and Doritos for Andrew, a Dr. Zevia and a Coca-Cola, and tucked a roll of paper towels under my arm. I set everything out on the long desk surface and carried a chair in from the dining room. “I forgot to tell you to print any pictures that look promising.”

“Okay, but I haven’t found her yet. These with the check marks by them,” he pointed at my list, “are definitely not her. Some of them I can’t find, which is weird. Who’s not online these days?”

“Old people. Private people. People that don’t have computers. People that like to do other things instead of get online.”

“Weird people.”

“Those, too.”

“Well, I’ve looked for all of them—and I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty good at finding stuff about people. I found eight of them, and none of them are her. I couldn’t find these four, though.” He touched his index finger on the unchecked names of Rebecca Holden, Elizabeth Copeland, Nan Weaver, and Stephanie Willis.

My heart leaped. I could do handle four. “Wow, that’s great! Thanks!”

“Yeah, and do you want me to print out the pictures of the other women? I have them open in all these tabs.” He pointed at the screen.

“No, that’s okay, Andrew. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

He jumped up. “No problem. I work at a computer store. This stuff is easy.” He walked toward the door then turned around and walked backwards. “One thing, Mrs. Hanson. About that lady. I think you’ll know it’s her when you find her. She’s really creepy.”

The door slammed behind him.

Four women. Four home addresses. A wide-open afternoon. I mapped their addresses, one to another, printed the results, and slung my zebra bag over my shoulder. I had more than enough time to run them down.

Rebecca Holden’s address mapped closest to mine. I pointed the Jetta toward Reliant Stadium and cruised her street, mid-1900 tear-downs interspersed with new construction pressing hard on the height and property-line setback requirements of the neighborhood. Box after box went by until I came to a T intersection. A white Taurus was parked in the driveway, and my adrenaline surged. As I rolled along the street, I got an eyeful of Rebecca’s bumper stickers, crammed edge to edge on every square inch of its rear exterior. “Snowmen against global warming.” “War is not pro-life.” “Quiet women seldom make history.” I grabbed a pencil from my console and scratched Rebecca off my list.

One down. Three to go.

The next Taurus belonged to Elizabeth Copeland at an address off Beechnut and Highway 59. I made it there in fifteen minutes. The rundown wooden house was on the rough fringe of a declining neighborhood, and the Taurus backed into the driveway looked promising. I couldn’t tell if it was
the
Taurus, but I couldn’t rule it out. I parked two houses down, taking care not to lock the Jetta. My running shoes made little squeegee sounds on the sidewalk, but the roar of Highway 59 blocked out life itself. It was like walking alone at the edge of the earth, cocooned inside myself with only my thoughts real. I turned up the sidewalk between weed-edged brown squares of lawn. The street number on the door hung askew by one nail: 7306. I pressed the doorbell and heard it chime inside. Ding dong ding dong. Dong ding ding dong. No answer. I knocked. Still nothing.

I did a visual sweep of the neighborhood. Satisfied no one was watching me, I opened the mailbox. Nada. When I talked to Nick and Katie, we hadn’t covered physical sleuthing, but I had some experience from when I dated an older guy at Trinity. I heard he was cheating on me and I broke into his house and searched it. It went off without a hitch, although it spelled the end of the relationship. Unfaithful bastardo.

I’ll just take a quick peek inside, I thought. One minute, maybe two. Adrian wouldn’t approve, but he wasn’t there. I opened the side gate to the yard and tensed, listening for barking and growling and slobbering. Nothing. I crept around to the back door. I put my hands around my eyes to block the sun and pressed my nose against the window. The lights were out and I couldn’t see much. I pressed harder against the glass.

A nasally male voice far too close to my left ear sent chill bumps racing up my arms. “Who the fuck are you, lady?”

Without turning, I raised my arms high in the air. “My name is Michele Lopez Hanson. I’m looking for Elizabeth Copeland.”

The guy spat by my foot. I kept my eyes up. “If you find the bitch, tell her I took all her shit to the dump.”

I turned slowly to face him. Hispanic. Skinny but strong-looking, and at least six inches taller than me. “So you haven’t seen her?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” His gold front tooth reflected sun into my eyes. He shook his head and looked past me. “She ran off with some pendejo a month ago, and I ain’t seen her since.”

I kept my guard up and lowered my hands. “I’m sorry. I saw her car out front and thought she might be here.”

“It’s my car now.” He laughed, enveloping me in at least a twelve-pack of beer breath. He narrowed his eyes. “Anything of hers is mine now. Friends, too. What do you say, pretty lady?”

“I’m not her friend.”

“That’s okay, I think we can work something out.” He reached toward my hair.

I whirled and ran for the gate, his cackle following me but not his footsteps. I didn’t bother to confirm he wasn’t chasing me, just sprinted for the Jetta.

Probably safe to cross Elizabeth off the list.

Two names to go.

The next address in the Galleria area was a bust. No Taurus, no Nan Weaver. Well, people had jobs, and it was a weekday afternoon. I could come back at night.

The last address belonged to Stephanie Willis. It was at the far edge of the ten-mile radius Manny searched for me, north of 610 and west of 290. And it was a dump. The small 1950s ranch was missing a few shutters, and cardboard and duct tape covered holes that used to be windows in the garage door. Weeds and dirt served as the front yard. If Adrian’s $200,000 went to Stephanie, she hadn’t used it on the house.

An old white Taurus was just turning into the driveway, and it rolled until its front bumper nearly touched the garage door. I sucked in a breath. Perfect. When its taillights went out, I pulled in tight behind it and jumped out. My feet barely made a sound on the smooth concrete drive. I moved quickly and stood even with the backseat on the driver’s side, ready. When the door opened, a woman got out and shut it, and I took a quick step between her and the house. Her mouth fell slack and she stepped back against her car.

The haggard woman pinched her mouth shut, crone-like, and squinted at me with small brown eyes. Limp, colorless hair hung down her forehead, with the rest scraped away from her face in a band. Her Yellowstone t-shirt was crusted and stained with something that probably started out red. For a moment, she seemed lost to me, like someone had turned the lights out around her and she was trying to adjust. Years fell away from her age before my eyes.

I leaned into her personal space and her smell almost gagged me. “Hello, are you Stephanie?”

She nodded, unblinking.

Anger rose inside me, and I went on the offensive. “I’m Michele Lopez Hanson. I thought we should meet face-to-face so you could tell me why you are following my son before I turn you over to the police.” I crossed my arms and my chin jutted forward of its own volition.

When she spoke, her voice was atonal, flat with no affect. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I shook my head. “Whatever. I saw you following Adrian—who’s dead, but you already knew that. And I’ve seen you following my son, and me, too. All I want to know is why.”

She stared at me, zombie-esque.

I fought the urge to scramble backwards. “No comment?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well, if you don’t have anything to say to me, then I guess I’ll just finish up with what I have to say to you.”

Suddenly she looked like a creature that
belonged
in the dark. But I lived half my life in the dark those days, too.

“Sam is out of your reach now, so stay the hell away from us.” I closed my eyes for a nanosecond, picturing Sam in Seguin. When I opened them, my arms raised themselves, and I stretched them to their complete length. I flexed my claws and shook the air with a tremendous flap of my orange and black wings, their obsidian tips shooting flashes of light ricocheting through the air. “The police will be here soon, Stephanie, or whoever you are. I’d suggest you cooperate, because if they don’t lock you up, you’ll have to deal with me.”

“You’re nuts.”

We stared into each other’s eyes for another ten seconds. She didn’t budge, but neither did I. Violent scenes played in my mind, satisfying scenes: my claws around her neck, squeezing, tearing; her, scratching at my face; me, beating her head against the ground until she couldn’t get up, ever again. Orange and black dust on her fingers and face.

Finally, her façade cracked. She giggled like a sorority girl with very bad breath. “If I don’t have anything left, neither can she.” She wriggled her fingers at me. “Toodaloo.”

Back in my car, I put a big fat double star by Stephanie’s name, started the Jetta and backed out of her driveway, but only made it three blocks when the Jetta shut down and coasted to a stop.

And then a thought hit me. I forgot to check Stephanie’s car for a dent. “Ay chingada,” I muttered.

I paced around my car, opened the hood, and looked inside, then slammed it shut and sat down on the curb. Cars whizzed past me, but none stopped. Think, think, think. I couldn’t afford to slow down. The 4Runnner was at Robert’s, but he and Sam were gone. Brian and I weren’t on speaking terms. I didn’t have girlfriends. For the last five years, I’d had Adrian. His name on speed dial. His “Hey, Butterfly, I can be there in fifteen minutes. Hold tight.”

I didn’t have anyone now. I shook my head, hard. All I had was me. Come on, Michele. Broken cars aren’t the end of the world. They get fixed. Call the dealership and have them fix it.

The number was in my contacts, and I pressed call. After a few transfers, service picked up.

“Yallow.”

I told the man about the Jetta’s many problems.

His laugh was a loud har har har. “Sounds like you need an exorcism, darlin.’”

My sense of humor wasn’t great, but some of my mother’s lessons took, so I used honey instead of vinegar. “I don’t suppose you offer those?”

“I ain’t a priest.” He har harred again. “Bring it on in, honey.”

“It won’t start.”

“Does your insurance cover a tow?”

“If they won’t, I will. Can you arrange for one to pick me up? I’m on the side of the road. No Yellow Pages.”

We worked out the details, and I moved into the shade of a treed front yard to wait. My next call was to my insurance company. Yes on the tow. And a rental car, if I wanted it. If? Ha.

***

Two hours later, I turned onto my street in a sage green Toyota Camry rental. As I pulled close to my house, an old white Taurus passed it slowly in my direction. Jesús Cristo. Had I spooked Stephanie out of her lair? I craned forward.

“God in heaven, it’s her,” I breathed.

No bumper stickers. The car looked just like the one I remembered from the month before, then the week before. Only it wasn’t Stephanie. It was Rhonda Dale.

I pounded the steering wheel over and over and sped up the street to turn around in a neighbor’s driveway. “Now who’s following who, bitch?” I shouted.

The woman who had made our lives a living hell, who scared my husband by showing up everywhere he went in the last few days of his life, was casing our house. At the first traffic light, I pulled up behind her and snapped a picture of her license plate. I rolled on behind her, invisible in my green Camry and sunglasses. She cruised just below the speed limit along Brays Bayou, where I would have been running at that moment if not for my knee.

Vindication was burbling through my rage. “Take that, Detective Young!” I knew I should go to the police. They could question her. They could take my statement and process my complaint and give me my restraining order. It’s what Adrian would want, and it might get Young and Marchetti to look harder at her.

When I thought about it, though—Nickels’ inexperience, Young’s resistance, and Marchetti’s diffidence, and pictured the pity on Young’s face as he poo-poo’ed my suspicions—anger crashed in waves inside me.

I would do this myself.

Rhonda stopped for gas at the Chevron Detective Young told me about, went through their Burger King drive-through, then headed west on 610 and north on 288. Traffic was horrible, and I struggled to stay within a car’s length behind her. She took the MacGregor exit west, a right on Almeda, a left on Hermann. When she parallel-parked next to some yuppie apartments, I lifted my eyes and my pointer finger toward heaven. “Muchas gracias.”

Then I shook my head and smiled a little, because my papa did the same thing three or four times a day.

I parked behind her and jumped out, triumphant.

Rhonda was wearing her usual hot pink, this time a spandex workout top and black yoga pants. She walked toward an entrance to some interior hallways, and I ran to catch up with her.

“Excuse me.” She turned around. “Are you the slut who was driving by my house half an hour ago?”

She stumbled backwards and whimpered.

I moved closer. “Rhonda, you’re busted. I know you’ve been following my son and me, and before that, Adrian. I’m taking everything I know to the police.”

Her forehead smashed in on itself and she answered in a high, strained voice. “What? No! I mean, yes, I drove by your house today. I shouldn’t have, but—Scarlett told me you found out she was behind the story about Adrian, and I just, I don’t know. I just drove by. But I haven’t been following you—or your kid.”

“You can explain it all to Detective Young when he calls.”

I didn’t wait for her answer, just got in the car and drove away.