Hold of the Bone (22 page)

“Why do you think she does that?”

“I think she made a decision a long time ago not to have much to do with people. I think losing her immediate family in such a short time frame pushed her into a sort of self-imposed exile. I don't think she's ever gotten over all that.”

“How difficult was that for you?”

“I get it now that I'm older, but as a kid . . .” she shrugs.

Frank sips at her tea. “But you have dogs in common. And you're both apparently . . . gifted.”

Parker twists her hair and gives the ceiling a rueful smile. “Something else I hated about her when I was a kid. I just wanted a normal mother, not one the whole town whispered about.”

“Seems like you have that in common, too.” Frank clarifies, “Having a parent that embarrassed you.”

Parker stops twirling her hair. “Did she say that?”

“Said it was hard having a father that drank so much. What do you remember about your grandfather, hearing about him?”

The fortune-teller frowns and resumes twirling. “Let's see. That he drank a lot. That he was incredibly handy. Apparently he could fix anything. That he didn't have the best temper. I guess he used to hit my grandmother, but I hear he was good with the horses and dogs.” She smiles. “Guess we got that from him.”

“When you say he hit your grandmother, was that a regular thing?”

“I don't know how regular it was, but apparently it wasn't unusual.”

“So he had a habit of beating her.”

She squirmed in her seat. “I don't know that I'd say a habit.”

“What was his relationship like with your mother?”

“You know, it's funny. She never talks much about him. Never has.”

“Is she evasive?”

“I wouldn't say evasive. More like uncomfortable. Like it hurts to talk about him.”

“Even after all this time?”

“I think so. I think it just devastated her, his leaving and all. Apparently now we know why, but it didn't help then.”

“What has she told you about your grandmother?”

“Not much about her either, other than she was a terrific gardener, had the original green thumb. I know Mom wishes she were as good a gardener. I think she loved her a lot.”

“Why do you say that?”

“From what I've been able to glean over the years, it sounds like they did a lot together—pruning, canning, sewing, baking, reading. Apparently my grandmother read to her and Aunt Cass every night. That was one thing I loved about my mother,” she adds. “She used to tell the greatest stories.” Parker eyes her shrewdly. “You should get her to tell you about the
zopilote
.”

Frank steers the conversation from storytelling back to the Saladinos. “Do you think your grandmother was as close to your aunt as your mother?”

“You know, I couldn't say. I think Cass was more of a tomboy, less domestic. I think she spent more time tooling around with my grandfather doing ranch things.”

“I understand there was bad blood between the Saladinos and Mazettis, yet your family was allowed to stay on. Do you know why?”

With a warm glint, Sal's daughter teases, “I don't think you'd believe me if I told you.”

Frank grins. “Oh, you might be surprised.”

“Alright. It goes back a long way. The Saladinos were the first owners of the ranch, other than the Native Americans that used to live there. We've always had a relationship with that land. When we're there, it seems to thrive. When we're not, it fails.”

“So it was a barren wasteland before the Saladinos got there?”

“Not at all. Apparently it was always very productive land. Where the cabin is? That's where one of my great-great-grandmothers was born. She was Native American, one of the last of the Esselen tribe. You know the Esalen Institute? That's what it was named for. Anyway,
she married whichever great-great-grandfather it was that settled there, and the rest is history. They say the land needs a Saladino, but what I really think it needs is that old Esselen blood.”

“You believe that?”

Parker chuckles. “You're a detective. It's hard to argue with the evidence.”

“What happens to the ranch when your mother dies?”

A crease plucks the fortune-teller's brow. “I couldn't say.”

“Do you ever plan on going back to stay?”

“I don't think so. I'm not that monastic.”

Frank nods. “She said you stopped going when you were a teen.”

“Yeah, my life was in town. I didn't want much to do with her, or the ranch.”

“And now?”

“Now that I'm a little older, a little wiser, and a lot more scarred, I appreciate them both, I know it hurt her that I didn't want to be with her. And at the time—rotten little shit that I was—I was glad it hurt.”

“How so?”

Suddenly Parker gets cagey. “I thought you came here to ask about my grandfather.”

Frank grins into her tea. “Sorry. I did. I just find your mother fascinating. And the ranch. Celadores. What your mother does, which I'm still not even sure what that is.”

“I thought you were a skeptic,” she teases again.

“I thought so too.”

“Have you used the deck I gave you?”

“Can't say I have.” Frank's not even sure where it is.

“Well, like I said, I'll be glad to finish the reading any time you want.”

“I'd like that.”

“Really? Let's do it right now.”

Parker starts to get up, but Frank stops her before she can blur the line between the personal and professional even further. “I really am here on official police business.” Setting her tea down, she continues, “Miss Parker, do you remember anything about the time your grandfather disappeared? I mean, anything you may have heard about that time?”

“Miss Parker,” she laughs. “Please. Call me Cassie.”

Frank nods.

Cassie only reiterates what little Frank already knows about him and when she asks how her grandmother died she confirms that, too.

“Why do you think no one ever looked into her cause of death?”

Cassie flips her hair over a shoulder. “What could they do? He wasn't even around to press charges on. And it could have been an accident. She might have fallen. It's one of those things no one'll ever know.”

“Did your mother ever tell you that she went down to LA looking for him?”

“Yeah, she and Aunt Cass went on a drunken wild goose chase to find him.”

Frank tries, “Did she ever tell you what they did when they found him?”

Cassie looks momentarily startled. “I don't think they ever did.”

“Can you think who might have wanted to hurt him?”

“Apparently he was an ass when he drank.” She adds remorsefully, “And that was the gift I got from him. It could have been any number of people he was at odds with.”

Frank prods, “Can't think of any family grudges, arguments with the Mazettis, anything?”

She shakes her head.

“Has your mother ever mentioned anyone who might have had more than a spat with him?”

“Not that I can recall. Sorry.”

“It's okay.” Frank snaps her notebook shut. “It was a long shot.”

She stands and Cassie walks her to the door. “So you like the ranch, huh?”

“Yeah, it's . . . it's enchanting.”

Cassie laughs. “That's a good word for it.”

Frank reaches to shake her hand but Cassie wags her head. “I see things when I touch people.”

“Like your mom.”

“Yeah.”

Cassie opens the door for her. “When would you like me to finish your reading?”

Frank smiles. “I'll give you a call.”

“You do that. You've got my number.”

The sun is down behind the canyon and they stand in the purple dusk. Frank thinks to give Cassie her business card. “Call if you can think of anything. No matter how trivial it might seem.”

Cassie studies the card. “I will.”

Neither woman says anything and neither seems inclined to move.

“Alright,” Frank breaks the stupor. “Thanks for your time.”

“Sure. Don't forget to call.”

“I won't,” she says, walking to her car. Bending to unlock the door, she glances back.

Under the bower of dusky greenery, Cassie leans against the railing, her gaze steady on Frank. For an instant in the twilight she looks like a young Sal. Déjà vu overcomes Frank and she clings to the car; she has already been here, in the narrow, gravel drive, unlocking her car, glancing up at Cassie on the porch beneath ghostly pale blooms, the sun a shadow behind the hills.

Of its own accord her hand lifts to Sal's daughter. The gesture is returned, and this too has already been lived.

Chapter 24

For the next two weeks, Pintar is on vacation. Frank and Lewis run out of local leads, and it is late October before Frank can get back to Soledad. The tumbling, happy hills east of the highway are steeped the color of aged malt whiskey while the western mountains remain unchanged—an impenetrable, evergreen maze of cliff and canyon. Frank leans over the steering wheel to take in as much as she can of the craggy range, and is filled with a hunger, an almost erotic longing for them. She shakes her head at the incomprehensible desire and sits back, eyes on the road.

When she checks into her hotel, the young woman behind the counter greets, “Well, hi, welcome back.”

“It's good to be back.”

In her room she places a chair at the window, props her feet on the sill, and eats a sandwich in front of the darkening mountains. Content to share the evening with them, she doesn't bother with lights. After the sun is well and truly set, she brushes her teeth in darkness and slides into the crisp-sheeted bed. The window remains open.

First thing in the morning, she tracks down the leads Gomez gave her. Two of them are Domenic Saladino's pals from grade school, and as Gomez warned, neither is particularly interested in cooperating with the Five-Oh. Her third and last lead is the owner of Soledad's oldest bar. He is retired but likes to work the lunch shift. Frank hopes as she walks into the tiny, windowless bar that he will prove more fruitful than Saladino's friends.

Though it's barely noon, regulars in ball caps sit at the bar nursing beers. Behind them, four men walk around a pool table with barely
enough space to line up their shots. The barkeep, as round as a cue ball and just as bald, gives Frank a cold eye.

His voice issues thick and phlegmy from beneath a silver handlebar mustache. “Whatcha want, hon?”

“Frankie Avila?”

“Yep.”

She flashes her badge. “I need a couple minutes.”

He doesn't move from his straight-armed stance against the bar. “License is on the wall.”

“Nothing to do with your business. I'm Homicide, LAPD.”

The drinkers all look up from their glasses and the men at the pool table lean on their sticks.

“Don't know nothin' bout any homicides.”

“I know.” She takes the next stool down from the drinkers. “But you do know about Domenic Saladino.”

He grunts. “That's going back a ways.”

“I hear he was a regular.”

“Regular as that chair you're sitting on.”

“Every night?”

Frank orders a Coke and softens Avila up with questions she already knows the answers to. The men next to her return to their conversation and the pool balls crack. She gets the barkeep telling stories.

He asks, “I figure you know our Chief of Police?”

“I've talked to him.”

Avila chuckles. “He mention the night ol' Dom dressed him down, right about where you're sitting?”

“Larry Siler?”

The old man's chuckle turns into a deep cough. When it clears, he smoothes his mustache and launches into another tale.

“We used to be a lot more flexible with the drinking age back then. Hell, we knew these boys, where they came from. They weren't no trouble. Just liked to have a drink or two with the men now and then, made 'em feel growed up. We'd serve 'em as long as they had the cash and kept their cool. So ol' Larry and a couple of his pals are in here playing pool one night when in comes Dom, madder 'an a bull comin' outta the chute. He walks right up to Larry, taps him on the shoulder,
and decks the poor son of a bitch. No warning or nothing. Larry's laying there on the floor wondering what the hell just hit him and Dom tells him to stay away from his daughter. Ol' Larry's ear swole up about the size of a grapefruit and he—”