Hold of the Bone (8 page)

On this Saturday it is late in the day and the light spills from the west. There is only one car left in front of the store, resting nose-in to the oak like a weary beast of burden. Slowly, so as not to raise dust, Gomez pulls the squad car off the road. She checks her watch and glances at the empty bench in front of the tilted store. “Looks like she's about done.”

“She run the store?”

“No, Sal does her business in back.”

“What kind of business?”

“Well—” Gomez drums her fingers on the side-view “—that's the interesting part.”

It's taken the cop this long to come around to why Saladino's such a character, so Frank stays quiet. The sun warms her lap and bees feed in a patch of mustard near the car. A breeze wafts the smell of dried grass and hot dust through the windows. Frank watches it nuzzle the bowed oak leaves.

“What do you know about alternative medicine?”

“Not much. I know some of it works.”

Gail had used acupuncture to help alleviate the pain of the cancer coursing through her body. Frank didn't know if the practice worked because of actual healing properties or because her lover's belief was enough to give it a placebo effect. In the end, Frank didn't care; it had eased Gail's pain and that was all that mattered.

“Have you ever had anyone—” Gomez makes quote marks in the air “—lay their hands on you?”

“Nope.”

“Well, that's what Sal does. She's like a
curandera
.” Gomez grins at her. “You know what that is, City Cop?”

“Hell, Country Cop, I work in South-Central. I probably know more
curanderas
than you have in your whole county. Have you ever used her?”

“No sir, not me, but a lot of people do. They swear by her.”

Frank shrugs. “I've heard stranger things.”

Gomez gives her a squinting look while a woman who looks like a raisin left in the field too long limps from the store. “Let's go.” Gomez pushes her door, but Frank is suddenly reluctant to leave the patrol car. “That was probably her last customer,” Gomez explains.

Frank gets out but stands next to the car. “You're not gonna lock up?”

The cop looks around. “What for? Come on.” She hitches her gun belt, waiting for Frank to move.

“How do you know she's here?”

“It's Saturday. She's always here on Saturday.”

“Where's her car?”

“Probably around back. What's with the Twenty Questions? You should be talking to her, not me. Let's go.” She starts for the store but stops again when she sees Frank isn't following. “What the hell? Are we doing this or not?”

Frank glances at the store. The old boards shine whitely in the afternoon sun. She raises a hand to the glare, certain the store is a Rubicon and that if she crosses over she won't be able to step back.

Gomez glowers with hands on her ample hips. “Are you big city cops always this flaky?”

“Give me a sec.”

“What's the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Jesus, Mary, and her husband Joe.”

The car under the oak starts with a loud cough and Frank jumps. A young man slowly backs the old Buick from under the tree. Across the one-lane road a yellow field baseboards a dark wall of mountain. Frank's eyes are drawn to the crooked, black ridge. She knows there is a saddle up there, a notch in the mountain that affords a 180-degree view of the western slope of the Santa Lucias, a view that falls from the stunted, ever-thirsting chaparral at the top of the slope down to somber redwood canyons cut perpendicular to the purple sea.

“City, if you don't want to talk, I'm going home.”

Gomez starts toward the car and Frank struggles to think clearly. From the sound of it, she can't just drive out to Saladino's place and knock on the door whenever she feels like it. If she's going to talk to Saladino, it's got to be now or never. “Alright,” she says, with more determination than she feels.

Gomez wags her head but leads Frank up the sagging steps. The boards creak under their weight. A rusty screen door answers them. Gomez holds it open for Frank.

Only two western windows light the store. Frank pushes the Ray-Bans onto her head, temporarily blinded by the abrupt change from light to dark. On a wooden counter the length of the room, a fan stirs pungent ghosts of old beer and pickle barrels but does nothing to cool the air. Frank is careful not to touch the counter thick with decades, maybe even centuries, of human grime and grease.

Gomez nods at a pasty girl waiting on a woman who hovers in the gloom like an apparition. “Hey, Sal. How are ya?”

Frank steps around Gomez for a better look at the woman. Eyes
that seem to hold the entire summer sky stare back, appearing disembodied in a face as dusky as the light.

“I'm fine, Angie, thank you.”

As Frank's vision adjusts, the rest of Diana Saladino becomes corporeal—the ethereal body only a man's bleached shirt worn over faded jeans; the halo around her skull just silver hair gathered loosely in a braid. The sky-blue gaze rivets Frank.

“This is Lieutenant Franco. LAPD.”

Frank dips her head in a brief nod. “Miss Saladino.”

Sal mirrors the gesture. No one speaks. Sal won't take her eyes off Frank, and Frank won't look away first.

“I need to ask you some questions. Could we go outside?”

“Questions about what?”

“It's stuffy in here,” Gomez says. “Let's go out.”

She herds the women to the door. Sal's boots echo off the dusty floor. She stops at the bottom of the stairs and squints into the sun. Frank lowers her sunglasses, pleased to have a slight advantage. But Sal turns and the mountains rise behind her like protective brothers. Frank makes the mistake of glancing at them.

A faint trail winds snakelike from the dusty foothills up through cool, dark canyons to a pass on the ridge, where wind fresh from the ocean sings in a stunted pine. Plank-winged birds soar beneath the bald ridge. A horse tied nearby jangles its bridle.

Gomez coughs. Frank blinks. Sal and the cop are staring at her. Frank darts a look over Sal's shoulder, not surprised that the trail is gone.

Gomez prods, “You said you had some questions for Sal?”

“Uh, yeah. Your father. Is he Domenic Saladino?”

Sal nods.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“1968.”

“And where was that?”

“At home.”

“Which was where?”

She dips her head to the mountains. “Here. The ranch.”

“And the circumstances?”

“Circumstances? It was our home. The normal circumstances.”

“Morning, night, afternoon?”

Sal re-crosses her arms, shifts her weight.

“It was morning. At breakfast he said he was going down to LA, to work with his uncle. He went down there when things were slow.”

“What kind of work?”

“Construction. The uncle owned his own business.”

“What was the name of the business?”

“Saladino Construction.”

“Do you remember the date he left?”

The woman thinks briefly. “December 16.”

Frank thinks her answer's too quick. Innocent people questioned about dates or events rarely have accurate recall, but liars practice their stories over and over—usually with enough minutiae to hang themselves. “You're pretty sure about that.”

“It's a hard date to forget. My mother died two days later.”

Frank nods, remembering something like that from Lewis' notes. “Was she ill?”

“She had a stroke. A blood clot.”

“And your father didn't come home after that?”

“No. Officer, what exactly is this about?”

Next of kin are unpredictable. It's good to get information from them before notification, but Frank feels she has gotten enough. For now. “It's ‘Lieutenant.' We think we've found your father's remains. Positive ID is pending his dental records.”

Saladino finally looks away. Frank wants to touch her, to see if the blue denim is solid or if her finger will pass right through it, if the brown skin is warm flesh or artfully crafted mud. Even in the white light, Saladino seems unreal, a golem crafted from bedrock and wind and silver-running streams.

“Where did you find him?”

“Near Culver City.”

“Where in Culver City?”

“At a body shop on Western Avenue. They were doing some work and dug up what we believe are his remains.”

“How do you know it's him?”

Frank notes that Sal seems more curious than upset. “Like I said, we can't be certain until we get the dental records from the VA, but he had some identification on him.”

“What kind of identification?”

“I'd rather not say. Some details haven't been released yet.”

“I see.” She glances at the ground as if it offers encouragement, then back to Frank. “You said he was buried?”

“Yes.”

“At a body shop.” Arriving at the obvious conclusion, she states, “You're saying he was murdered.”

“That's what it looks like.”

“I see.”

Frank wonders what she sees. After this much time it's understandable that Sal's not upset about her father's death, but it's odd she's not concerned he was murdered.

“Is that all? Can I go now?”

“Is that all? Your father was murdered, Miss Saladino.”

“I understand that. But to me he's been dead a long time.”

“Okay, but I still need to ask more questions.”

“My dogs are penned. I don't like to keep them waiting.”

“It won't take long. If I could—”

“Am I under arrest?”

“No.”

“I'm going home. If you want me, that's where I'll be.” Sal thuds up the steps into the store. The screen slams behind her.

Frank appeals to Gomez. “Well?”

“Well, Jesus, Mary, and her husband Jo. I was off at two, you know.”

An engine growls and Sal drives from behind the store in a rusted pickup. Sun and dust have faded it the color of Sal's eyes, the same pale blue of the summer sky.

Waving the dust away, Gomez wags her head sorrowfully. “Come on, City. Let's go. May as well get this over with. You go up there on your own, you're liable to get lost and I'd have to go in and find you anyway.”

Frank hesitates. “I don't want to put you out.”

“If you dilly-dally another damn minute, I might change my mind. You coming or not?”

Frank listens to the fading pickup and wonders where it will lead. She nods at Gomez. “Let's go.”

Chapter 11

A couple hundred yards from the store, the paved road ends behind a locked gate. Sal has left it open and Gomez drives through.

“Want to close it?” she asks Frank with more command than question.

Already Sal's dust is settling and her pickup is out of sight. Frank bolts the gate and before she can shut the squad car's door Gomez accelerates after the vanished pickup. Lifting a rooster tail of dust, she says, “Better roll your window up unless you still want to be eating this at dinnertime.”

Frank does but already fine grit covers the dashboard. “How far do we have to go?”

Gomez laughs. “Sit back, City. We're just getting started.”

The road climbs steadily between emerald fields of alfalfa and vineyard. The vines are broad and gnarled. Frank comments that they look old.

“They are. Aliottis planted them long before anyone had heard of California wine. They used to make some of the best in the county, but now they sell all their grapes to some winery down south. I forget which one. Going to do any wine tasting while you're here?”

“I don't think so.”

“Well, you should. We've got some of the best wineries in the world.”

The green crops give way to yellow grassland dotted with cattle and broad oaks. Stealthy gray fingers of chaparral reach down from the mountains. Gomez pauses at an unmarked crossroads.

“I thought you knew where you were going?”

“If you hadn't dragged your feet getting in the car, I wouldn't have lost her.”

Frank points. “That's her dust up there.”

Gomez turns left, taking a right at another junction, then left again.

“You're right, Country. I probably would have gotten lost.”

Gomez grins.

“Hope you're charging for this.”

“Are you kidding? I don't even get overtime on my regular shift.”