Hold of the Bone (23 page)

“Wait a minute. Which daughter?”

“The dead one. What was her name?”

“Cass.”

“Yeah, okay. That one. Larry had the hard-on for her. Way I heard it, he proposed but she turned him down. Hell, prob—”

“Larry Siler proposed to Cass Saladino? Dom's daughter?”

“Yep. Made Dom madder 'an a pissed-on hornet. Told Larry to stay the hell away, that he had plans for her. Way I heard it, he wanted her to marry Pete Mazetti and get the ranch back.”

“Did Larry stay away?”

“Far as I know. But I'll tell you something.”

He leaned as close as his belly would allow.

“Tore him up when that one died. He'd just gotten his badge a couple months earlier, and he and ol' Huey were first on the scene. That was tough on Larry. Real tough.”

She interrupts again. “First on what scene?”

“The accident. The one Dom's daughter died in. Him and Huey. What you call first responders nowadays. I can tell you he spent plenty a nights in here after that.”

Avila shakes his head. “Tore him up.”

Frank pays for the Coke she didn't drink and walks the couple of blocks to the police department. “Afternoon.” She flashes her ID at the duty officer. “Chief in?”

“Uh, let me check. Hold on.”

The cop comes back a minute later, the chief behind him.

“Lieutenant.”

Neither extends a hand.

“I need a minute.”

He tilts his head, indicating she should come back to his office. He shuts the door behind them. “I'm pretty busy.”

“Understood. Why didn't you tell me you were first on the scene at Cass Saladino's accident?”

Siler walks behind his desk and sits. Frank settles into a hard chair. Pulling on his chins, Siler explains, “It's not something I like to talk about.”

“Why is that?”

“She was a friend, for Christ's sake. A good friend. I went to school with Cass. I grew up with her. I was just a snot-nosed rookie when we got the call. It was my first fatality involving someone . . . I cared about. That's not an easy thing.”

“No.” Frank has had plenty of such fatalities. “It's not. But I need you to describe it for me.”

“What in hell does the accident have to do with Domenic Saladino?”

“Something. Maybe nothing. I won't know for sure until I have all the facts. You know that.”

“Well, I can't see how Cass dying had anything to do with her old man's disappearance.”

“I can, but I might be wrong. How'd it happen?”

Siler gives her a hard look. “I told you. She was drunk.”

“When you got the call, did you know it was her?”

His edge fades and Larry Siler looks like the old cop he is. Even from the remove of almost fifty years he saddens in the telling. “No, I did not. Donny Aliotti called from the pay phone at the gas station. Said he saw a truck out on 16, out in the wash by the Landons' place. My partner and I tore out there. I was excited as hell, thought it was probably some tourist on their way up to Carmel.”

He strokes his chins.

“Boy, I can tell you, when we walked out that wash and I saw whose pickup it was, I didn't want to go anywhere near it. 'Course I had to. The cab was empty. We shined our lights around and just when I was thinking the girls must have just crashed and hitched home, we found her. She was thrown a good 150, 175 feet into some willow scrub. She was a mess. Still breathing, though. Couldn't be sure which girl it was until we found her purse. We called the ambulance, but she died before they could get to her. My partner was an old-timer name of Huey Caine. He insisted we be the ones to go up to the Mazettis and tell Sal. Boy, I'll tell you, that was a long drive. Only good thing was that the Mazettis
ended up breaking the news to her. I don't know that I could've done it.”

She nods.

“Did she say anything before she died?”

“She never came to.”

“Did Soledad help CHP with the investigation?”

“Wasn't anything to investigate. She was just a dumb kid all liquored up and driving too fast. That's all there was to it.”

“So Soledad PD handled it alone?”

“No, 16 is CHP jurisdiction. They came and wrote it up. Nothing to it.”

“They measured the skid marks, all that?”

Siler tugs under his jaw. “Weren't any that I recall. Drunk as she was, she just plain didn't see the curve.”

Frank nods. “You loved her?”

“Look, I just said we—”

“You proposed to her.”

“Who the hell told you that?”

“Apparently it wasn't a secret. And when Dom Saladino heard, he beat the crap out of you.”

“Like I said, I was just a kid. I couldn't get near Cass, but I gave it a shot. Figured it might keep me from gettin' drafted.”

“That's the only reason?”

“No.” Siler sighs. “I loved her. Hell, half the boys in the Salinas valley did.”

From the long reach of Siler's memory, she extracts the time frame of his proposal, Sal's refusal, and the beatdown he got from her old man. They all back up what Avila told her. “One more thing. You knew Saladino roughed his wife up from time to time.”

Siler nods. “That was something we heard.”

“So Saladino has a history of beating his wife, he takes off, and she dies a few days later. No one thought that was suspicious?”

“Hey, when all that was going on, I was just a snot-nosed, high-school kid worried about staying out of 'Nam. And besides, this was a small town with very conservative, independent roots. It wasn't as common as it is nowadays for the law to get involved in domestic
matters. What a man did with his family back then was his own concern.”

“Even if he killed her?”

“I'm sure if there was reasonable suspicion that he'd killed his wife the authorities would have investigated. One dead body's not enough, you've gotta resurrect another?”

“Not trying to resurrect anyone, just looking for motive for who'd want to whack him.”

“So what have you got?”

Frank ticks names off on her fingertips. “The girls, for one. Pete Mazetti.”

Siler grunts and shakes his head. She ignores him.

“And Mike Thompson. They were both crazy about the girls. And any of Mary Saladino's brothers. They all threatened to kill him.”

“Says who?”

“Sal. Carly Simonetti.”

“Ah.” He flaps a meaty hand. “Doing and talking are two different things. Thank God. Else I'd be a hell of a lot busier than I already am.”

Frank continues, “John Mazetti. I hear things were strained between them.”

“Strained doesn't lead to homicide.”

“You.”

“Me?” Siler laughs. “You think I killed Old Man Saladino because he punched me in a bar?”

“I'm just telling you who has motive.”

“Well, you keep looking, Lieutenant.”

“Oh, I will.”

Siler stands and opens the door.

“Anything else you've kept back?”

“You're the big city detective. You tell me.”

She considers a minute. “You don't really give a shit who killed Saladino.”

Siler sighs. “It's not that I don't give a shit, it's just that you're missing the mark. What happened is, he was probably drinking in
some dive after work, pissed off the wrong guy, and ended up dead. Saladino was a drunk and a pain in the ass. If you want motive, Christ, probably half this town had motive at one time or another, me included.”

Frank nods. “Half the town, indeed. Appreciate your time.”

Chapter 25

The day has been productive and Frank wants to get her thoughts down while they're still fresh. She takes a taco combo back to the hotel room and writes while trying not to get
carnitas
grease all over. When she has her ideas on paper, she gets up and watches college football for a minute. But even the classic UCLA/USC rivalry can't keep her attention. Frank wanders to the window, where the sun bleeds out behind the mountains. She stands in the last of the russet glow. The eastern flanks of the Lucias are already shrouded in darkness. In concealed dens and hollows, coyote and cougar stretch the day from their bones, ready to feed. The mountains gather the twilight close. Occasional lights hold the night back, but mostly canyon and ridge blend into a single stygian hue. Wind from the Pacific has threaded its way steadily through gap and pass to find its way to her window. It blows softly upon her cheek and as if it is a lover's kiss, Frank closes her eyes to receive it. The breeze caresses her overheated skin and she lifts her shirt to feel more, then steps back. She removes her clothes and stands with the smooth, rushing hands of the wind upon her—and she is in the dark on a bed of pine leaves under a blanket of stars. A sickle moon cleaves the branches overhead and washes her clean in its silvery light. She turns her head to see many figures stretched and sleeping near.

Beyond the window out on the freeway, a truck sounds its basso horn. Frank shivers and rubs her arms. She shuts the curtains and turns to her room, to the game playing silently on the television, the papers arranged on the shiny bedspread. Highway sounds seep through the curtain, tempting her to return to the window, but she picks up her clothes and folds them. Contemplating the mute football
players, she lets the starlit ridge ebb from her system. When she has fully returned to the present, Frank takes a long, scalding shower. She dresses in an old T-shirt and sits propped against the bed pillows. Pulling binder and notepads close, like papery talismans, she concentrates on the murder of Domenic Saladino.

Some cases have no clues and must be raked, scraped, and gleaned for even one lead to start working with. Others, like Saladino's, have an abundance that need to be sorted and winnowed. Frank takes a legal pad and rips a page out for everyone with motivation to kill Domenic Saladino. It makes her smile to think how Lewis would scowl at her scattershot, old-school approach, and how the detective would brandish her laptop—again—to show Frank her meticulously organized collection of folders and notes. And Frank would shrug—again—and reply,
I don't care how it works as long as it works
. To which Lewis would whine—

Her cell phone vibrates across the polyester bedspread and Frank catches it. “Speak of the devil.”

“You talkin' ill about me, LT?”

“Nah, just lookin' at my notes spread all over the bed.”

“Aw, man, what I—”

“—gotta do to get me into the twenty-first century?” Frank finishes. “I know, I know. I'm hopeless.”

Lewis makes a disgusted sound and Frank asks what she called for.

“What did you say the uncle's name was that used to fight with Saladino?”

“Hold on. Let me check.”

Lewis seizes the opportunity to point out, “You know, if you went digital all you'd have to do is type the name in and blam.”

“Amazing,” Frank murmurs. “Oh, wow, look. Somehow I found it. Blam. Roderick Dusi.”

“That's it. I had wrote down Broderick.”

“Why you want to know?”

“Could be something, could be nothing. What else you heard about him?”

“Nothing beyond what Sal's told me. But that's not surprising.
Nobody up here volunteers a goddamned thing. It's almost like they all know who did it and nobody wants to say anything.”

“That Saladino musta been a bad dude, so many people hatin' on him.”

“Should I follow up on Roderick?”

“Nah, keep it on the down low for now. A'ight, LT. Gotta go.”

Frank stares at the dead phone, then the legal pages all over her bed, the muted TV. Finally she gets up and parts the curtains. Across the highway, the black wall of mountain climbs into a charcoaled sky. Lights from scattered farms and ranches blink across its flanks in earthbound imitation of the stars. She drops to her knees, crossing her palms over her heart. An urge to speak wells within her, but she hasn't words. At length she whispers, “Goodnight,” and closes the window.

She gathers the papers into a folder, turns the TV off, then her phone. Undressing completely, she slides between the cool sheets and pulls the blanket over her head. The darkness complete, she drifts toward sleep, imagining she is held in the warm, lightless belly of the mountains.

After a dreamless night, she wakes with a gnarly headache. Getting up and dressed, she assesses whether this is a garden-variety headache or one of the killers she occasionally gets. If she lets it go and it's a migraine, the pain will end only when she can lie in a still, dark place and sleep. But the gift of sleep is dear and always paid for in hazy visions of blood-red battles, both ancient and new. In some, she recognizes the combatants; in others, not—yet she wakes from each dream with a disturbing sense of familiarity.