Hold of the Bone (19 page)

“How do you know?”

Sal takes her time before asking, “Have you ever been near a high tension wire?”

“Yeah.”

“And felt the electricity?”

“Uh-huh.”

“It's like that. It's a . . . a humming-ness of them. A vibration.”

“An energy?”

“Like that, yes.”

“Can you tell them apart?”

“Definitely. My father's energy is light and warm, very steady. Cass's is wiggly like a puppy, and my mother's too, but more pulsing, less erratic than Cass.”

“That doesn't scare you?”

“Not at all. I'd be scared if I didn't feel them.”

“Do their energies change?”

“Not that I've ever noticed.”

“Can you feel other people?”

“Sometimes.”

“When?”

“Mostly when I concentrate, when I think about them.”

“So you could feel me right now?”

Sal nods. Frank is again curious but doesn't press. “Tell me about Leslie Ferrer.”

Sal arches a brow. “You really have been doing your homework.”

Frank grins. “It hasn't been all horseback riding and tea leaves.”

After meticulously rolling another cigarette, Sal offers it to Frank.

“Thanks. Nancy Snelling says Leslie was your best friend.”

“Nancy.” Sal smirks. “What else did she say?”

“Was she?”

“She was.”

“But not anymore?”

“No.”

“How come?”

“Leslie and I were sad, mixed-up girls. She went on to become a sad, mixed-up woman.”

“Do you ever see her?”

“I run into her in town sometimes, but we just exchange the normal pleasantries.”

“Why were you a sad, mixed-up girl?”

“High school's hardly the easiest time for a child. Were you happy?”

“No. But I had my reasons. What were yours?”

Sal shakes her head and the silver braid swishes on her back. Frank has the idea that if the moon were a horse, its mane would be Sal's hair.

“I love my sister. I miss her every day. We were so alike, yet we were so different. I always wanted to be like Cass. I was always shy, but Cass could walk into a room and it was like the sun coming out after a storm. I was jealous of her friends, her popularity, all the attention she got. I wanted her to myself. I was lonely in school. So was Leslie. I don't even know that I liked her that much.”

“Were you lovers?”

Sal laughs. “That would be Nancy again?”

“She said the kids teased you about it.”

“Mercilessly. With a name like Leslie, naturally she became Lezzie. We both had boyfriends, but it didn't seem to matter. Mike would get so mad.” She finishes rolling a second cigarette and seals it with a lick. Striking a match, she holds it for Frank. “Why weren't you happy in high school?”

Frank takes a deep drag of the sweet smoke. She's already broken more procedural regulations than she can count on one hand. She pictures the retirement papers on her desk. She really must turn them in when she gets back. “My dad died when I was pretty young, so it was just me and my mom. I told you about her. It was a rough time.” Steering the conversation back to Sal, she asks, “Did your father ever hit you or Cass?”

“No. He tried once, when we were little. He grabbed Cass, and my mother swung a pan off the stove, a big cast-iron skillet. There were onions and bacon grease everywhere. It took us forever to clean it up. But she waved that pan and told my father if he ever touched one of her children again it would be the last thing he touched. He backed off and went outside. It was the only time I ever saw her fight back.”

Bone is stretched near her foot and Frank realizes she has been stroking him.

“Would you like another cup of coffee?”

“God, no. I'm shaky enough as it is after that damn snake. I really should get going.” But she makes no effort to move. The sun is warm and the breeze cool. The creek warbles and coos, and she wonders if it has risen with the rain. She sees it in the gut of the mountains, gushing over the edge of a great stone fall, past rock and boulder down a thin, dark canyon hemmed with fir and redwood that block the sun.

Sal stands and Frank is surprised to be in bright light. She swipes at her eyes and follows into the cabin. Squeezing into her damp jeans, she looks around the tiny bedroom, recalls standing at the window in the middle of the night watching the moon and clouds ride over the mountains. And then she is leaning against the wall and the room is dark but for starlight and the red, shadowy dance of a small fire. She hears a chant mumbled in a low, sexless voice, a rhythmic grinding of stone on stone. An animal stirs near, a black dog lifting its muzzle to the night.

Bone's wet nose pushes her hand. Frank shakes her head and the vision clears. “Jesus.” Bone wags his stump. She pets his sleek head, then goes to find Sal. She is in the barn, and Frank notes happily that Buttons is already saddled. The old mare nickers as she approaches and Frank scratches under her mane, surprised how relaxed she is around the beast.

They ride out of the corral toward the trees. The dogs run ahead and clatter over the bridge. The horses follow single file.

Halfway across, Frank stops. She looks down, hoping to see the fish she knows are there. But she also knows they are hiding, practically motionless in the deeper pools at the edge of the stream, as perfectly flecked and brown as the water that holds them.

Buttons knocks an impatient hoof and tugs on the rein. Frank smiles and crosses to the other side.

Chapter 20

A short, thick man with a shaggy gray mustache steps from the barn as they ride into the corral. Braiding the ends of a rein, he watches them dismount.

“Pete, this is Lieutenant Franco, LAPD. Lieutenant, Pete Mazetti.”

She shakes his hand. It is rough and callused, and Mazetti doesn't lessen his grip because she's a woman.

“Mind if I ask a couple questions?”

He shrugs.

“I understand you and Mike Thompson followed Cass and Sal down to LA the day Mary Saladino died.”

“Yep.”

“What can you tell me about the trip?”

“Didn't find 'em.”

“Did you find Domenic Saladino?”

“Wasn't looking for him.”

Frank smiles. “Is that a yes or a no?”

“No.”

“Mind laying out the details of the trip for me?”

He looks up sourly from the bridle he's working. “What do you mean details?”

“When you left, what time you got there, what you did when you were there.”

Pete weaves the ends of the strips into the body of the braid. “Left here right after the girls did, got there—”

“How soon after the girls did?”

“I don't know. Half-hour, forty-five minutes. We weren't exactly on their tail, but we weren't that far behind.”

She prompts, “You drove straight down?”

“Yep.”

“No stops in between?”

“Nope.”

“What was your plan?”

“Didn't have one. Stopped when we got down there and stole a phone book out of a phone booth. Gonna arrest me for that?”

“Go on.”

“Looked up Saladino Construction. Found it over in Culver City. Knocked on the door, but the lights were all off. They were gone for the day. Stopped at the next pay phone and called all the Saladinos in the book.” He glances at Sal. “Went over to the uncle's where Dom was staying. The aunt said she hadn't seen him or the girls. Parked a while, hoping they'd turn up there. When they didn't, we drove around looking for 'em, but we didn't find 'em. Called the aunt one more time to see if she'd heard from anybody, then gave up and came on home. Figured the girls would surface back here sooner or later.”

“You seem to remember that pretty well.”

“I heard you was snooping around. Figured you'd get to me sooner or later.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“What'd your folks think about you running off like that?”

He heaves broad shoulders. “Nothing.”

“Lucky you. 'Course your daddy—John Mazetti, right?—he wasn't home that night, was he?”

Pete's eyes narrow, and dart to Sal before settling back on Frank. “Seems like you already know the answer to that.”

“I do, but I can't remember exactly. Where was he?”

Pete stares hard at her. “Cattle auction.”

“That's right. And where was that?”

“Merced.”

“Merced, that's right.” She nods amiably. “When did he leave?”

“The day Sal's momma went into the hospital.”

“They have good cattle in Merced?”

“Some.”

“He go there often?”

“He looked at cattle often.”

“How long was he gone?”

“No more than a night or two.”

“One or two?”

“Hell, I don't know. The girls' mom was dead. I wasn't exactly keeping track of my father.”

“He come home with any cattle?”

“Nope.”

“Can you prove he was there?”

Pete spits between her feet. “Can you prove he wasn't?”

He throws the bridle onto a rail and as they watch him stomp to the ranch house, Sal says, “That was quite the third degree.”

“Hardly. I wasn't even warmed up.”

They turn the horses loose and get in the truck, but before starting the engine, Sal tells Frank, “I guarantee you Mike and Pete had nothing to do with my father disappearing.”

“How's that?”

“I know them. Pete might have been able to lie about it, but not Mike. He's a terrible liar. I could never tell him what I was getting Cassie for Christmas because he'd always give it away.”

Sal drives while Frank admires the clean morning shadows and raindrops weighing the tips of bushes like Christmas ornaments.

“How soon did John Mazetti replace your father after he disappeared?”

“I don't know that he ever did. Pete was out of school that spring and he and the foreman—that would have been George Perales back then—picked up the slack. Pete got drafted that fall, and George ran things until he got back and took up where my father left off.”

“Why'd Mazetti let you guys stay on without your father here?”

Sal hugs the wheel. Her tan doesn't hide the purple shadows under her eyes and Frank wonders how she slept last night. “Saladinos are good luck. The land needs us.”

Frank frowns. “John Mazetti let you stay because he's superstitious?”

“Not superstitious, a wise businessman. Why take the risk? And
besides, how would it look if he tossed two orphans out of their home?”

“You had family you could have stayed with.”

“We did, but we didn't want to. I helped out as much as I could. I'm a fair ranch hand and I picked up the chores my mother used to do.”

“Like what?”

“She helped Corette with the orchard and the gardens, the cooking.”

“What was your relationship with her like?”

“With Corette?” Sal asks in surprise. “It was fine.”

Frank is thinking there is more to why John let the girls stay, but Sal pulls up to the last gate and jumps out. Frank watches her bend to the lock. She doesn't want to get out of the truck, but Sal waits, holding the gate. Frank opens the door and drops down into mud. She kicks it off on a tire rim, but instead of crossing the road to her car, she joins Sal.

Leaning on the warming metal, she says, “I might have more questions.”

“You know where to find me.”

A squirrel scurries across the road and dives into a burrow. The dogs watch from the back of the truck, rigid with attention. Frank looks at the mountains. Scrubbed in the day's new light they hold a green, inviting promise.

“When I was passed out, what did you see?”

Sal studies her. “Your energy is amazingly strong, but it's confused.”

Frank nods. “Like a storm that doesn't know which way to blow.”

“Yes, exactly. How do you know that?”

“I've been told.” Frank juts her chin toward the crooked ridge. “I thought you were going to take me up there.”

Sal chuckles. “Would you have wanted to go in the rain?”

“No.”

“Next time.”