Unlock the Truth (18 page)

“Oh, I forgot about that. Yes, I did, I remember now.”

Dena sat still. Had Stanton come to warn him? That wouldn’t be right, he was a cop and he hated Zeke. Stanton’s eyes welled up again and he swiped at them with both hands, then took the paper napkin and blotted them.

“Sorry. I had to tell them—”

“Tell them what, Dave?” Zeke asked.

Dena felt a little chill of warning. While it wasn’t about Carli, this was going to be big.

“They found two different sets of DNA…you know, she’d been raped or had sex, or…I was one of the partners.” He rearranged what was left of the food on his plate.

The casita went quiet. Dena swallowed a mouthful of cereal without chewing, and reached for her coffee.

“Oh, Dave, I’m…geez…I’m sorry,” Zeke said. He sat back in his chair. “When did you two start seeing each other?”

“Six months ago, on the quiet. She didn’t have a good reputation but she’d tried to turn her life around.” Stanton sniffed hard several times.

“I know,” Zeke said. “I tried to get her to go to AA.”

“She told me,” Dave said. “The DNA doesn’t match yours. Just like the other case, I mean…sorry—” He glanced toward Dena. “—Carli’s case.”

Dena nodded. Stanton hadn’t said “your sister’s case.” Good. But darn it, she’d have to come clean with Zeke soon. It was Monday, and she recalled her promise to Steve then pushed it away. She needed more time, just a little more. If she told Zeke, would he be insulted if she asked him not to say anything to anyone else at Three C’s? Would he think she’d come here initially to investigate him?

She straightened. “Do they have any clues?”

Stanton shook his head. “We can’t think of any connection between the two women. Other than they looked alike.” He looked at Zeke, grimaced. “Kind of like your mother, Isabella.”

Dena gasped and covered her mouth. She turned to Zeke. “Do you have a photo of your mother?”

Zeke’s face went paler than pale. His hands shook as he pulled a photo out of his wallet. He handed it to her.

Isabella had to be around thirty in the picture. A hot lump rose in the back of Dena’s throat and she reached for her glass of water.
Don’t faint, don’t faint. Breathe, breathe.
She drank the water in huge gulps.

“Do you have a photo of Susie?” she asked Stanton, and carefully put the glass down.

He pulled a picture from his wallet.

“Hang on,” she said, and went into the bedroom for her purse and grabbed a couple of recent photos.

They lined up the three women’s photographs. All were petite redheads with gorgeous skin. They looked like sisters. Dena felt the room sway and sat down. Zeke pulled his chair close and slung an arm around her shoulders.

“Damn,” Stanton said, and pushed back his chair. “Seeing them lined up like that is weird. Can I take these to the station?”

“Yes,” Dena said, but her voice seemed to come from a distance.

“What does it mean?” Zeke asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m gonna find out.” Stanton stood. He shoved the little chair under the table with such force it made the china clink. “After high school, Susie went to college in Florida. She took a job there.”

“I vaguely remember her saying that,” Zeke said.

“Yeah, she came back after she heard you were home. She’d started dying her hair red as she got older. She’d always…you know…had a thing for you.”

“That was a long time ago, Dave. We were kids,” Zeke said.

Stanton held onto the back of the chair and stared at the floor. “I never really stood a chance.”

“Don’t say that,” Zeke said softly.

“How come her parents never reported her missing?” Dena asked. She’d do anything to prevent a discussion of rivalries between the two men.

“They said they were worried. She’d told them earlier that day that she was going to meet some guy. He’d offered her a high paying job in New York—”

“What? Wait.” Dena gripped the table. “It’s the same story as Carli’s. That’s what she’d been told…” Tears welled up in her eyes, and she grabbed for her paper napkin.

“I’m sorry, Dena,” Stanton said. “Susie didn’t say who the guy was, not that her parents could remember. She must have been, you know, sleeping with both of us.” His eyes got all watery again. He shrugged, pressed his lips tight for a moment. “We had sex in the back of my car that night, up at the top of the cove.”

Embarrassment crept up Stanton’s jowls and stained his cheeks. “I was on duty, on a dinner break,” he said softly. “I thought everything was great, but then she said she wanted to break it off. She told me to drop her on the edge of Old Town, that she was going to the Sandbar. I did.”

“And then she got intoxicated and belligerent,” Zeke said, nodding. “She made a ruckus and Rocky and Manny and I tried to quiet her down. She wouldn’t have any part of that.”

“Then what happened?” Dena asked. She picked up her coffee mug and took a couple of sips.

Zeke scratched his jaw and squinted. “Far as I remember, we tried to ignore her, but she kept goading me. She threatened to climb my wall that night and see Susie Q. for the last time.”

“I was dispatched to the disturbance,” Stanton said. “Call came in there was an intoxicated woman throwing rocks at a vehicle in the parking lot.”

“Your car?” Dena asked, and turned toward Zeke.

He raised his eyebrows, nodded.

“Zeke had requested a restraining order on Susie earlier that week. It hadn’t quite been processed,” Stanton said. “At the time I’d thought it was out of line and—” He grimaced. “—I was guilty of holding it up.”

Zeke shot Stanton a look, but kept his mouth shut.

“But she knew about it?” Dena asked.

Both men nodded.

“Did you take her in to the station?”

“Wish I had,” Dave said softly. “I just gave her a warning and—”

“I didn’t press charges,” Zeke said. He pushed a hand through his hair. “I couldn’t. I felt bad enough that I’d requested the restraining order. She’d rambled on about being glad to be getting out of this hellhole once and for all. To tell the truth, I didn’t pay much attention.”

“So what happened to her then?” Dena asked.

“I’m not sure,” Zeke said. “I remember the owner came out and said he’d get her sobered up. Said he had coffee. Dave left on a back-up call, a shooting in Indio. I went home.”

“So, she went back inside the Sandbar?” Dena asked.

“Far as I know,” Zeke said.

“And Manny and Rocky, what did they do?”

Zeke gave her a blank stare. “I’ve no idea. We all met there in separate cars.”

“Did Manny sleep over that weekend?”

Zeke frowned. She waited while he went back in time to re-enact that evening.

“I doubt it. It would have been the wrong time of year, you know, no harvest,” Zeke said. “He doesn’t stay unless he’s working the fields.”

Dena nodded. Somewhere, somehow, she’d find a connection.

Stanton stared at the three photos again. “I’d better go. While I still have my job I want to investigate some more.”

“You think they’ll fire you?” Zeke asked.

Stanton swallowed hard. “Most likely put me on probation. I had sex with Susie in my car while on duty. That’s enough for dismissal. But I had to tell it like it happened. You never know, there may be some clue that comes through that can point to her killer. I owe her that.”

Good for Stanton for doing the right thing.

Zeke stood and held out his hand. “Thanks, if you need anything…”

“Sure.” Stanton pumped Zeke’s hand for a moment, then slapped Zeke’s forearm. “I’ve got it covered. I’ll find the bastard, whether I’m on duty or not.”

“Good. I don’t like the thought of him doing harm to another woman,” Zeke said.

“Sorry, you know…for my behavior yesterday,” Stanton said. He moved away, came back. “Listen, there’s someone in town I believe is making trouble for you. Nothing I can pin him with, but I’m going to look into it a bit closer.”

Zeke pursed his lips and ran a hand over his head. “You can’t give me a hint?”

“Rather not do that, in case I’m wrong. Give me a few days and I’ll be in touch, even if I’m no longer in uniform.”

Dena walked Stanton out the door, hugged him, and watched his sad figure waddle up the path toward the hacienda. The secrets of the desert were beginning to unravel. She shivered, and went back inside.

****

Zeke dropped back into a chair and banged his head against the iron rim of the table. First the confession from Stanton, then the photographs, how weird was that? Then there was the suggestion of sabotage of his business. His thoughts spun wildly, hitting on feelings that almost materialized, then spun out of his mental grasp again.

“What the hell does all this mean?” he asked Dena when she came back inside.

“I don’t know. But you’d better stop doing that head banging. You’ll break the glass top and that’s all we need, an injury and a visit to the E.R.”

They sat in silence for a while. Dena took a sip of the lukewarm coffee and made a face. “I’m making a fresh pot. Want some?”

“Yeah, make it extra strength. Damn. Poor Dave.”

He shook his head a couple of times, noticed Dena’s pallor. He wanted to ask, but wouldn’t risk a discussion on her friend’s photo just yet. There’d be time later.

“So, was everything okay with your mother this morning?”

She put a clean filter in the coffee pot, spooned in the grounds, and added an extra scoop.

“Mom apologized for being mean.”

He took a slurp of disgustingly cold coffee, and waited.

“I think she had a breakthrough with therapy, or maybe Aunt Ruth helped her in some way.”

“Well, that’s good, an apology.”

“Maybe, but I still can’t trust her.” She grimaced. “I know I have issues, but she’s never been there for me before.”

“It’s a beginning. All the rest is stuff from the past, and that means nothing. Let it go.”

“I know,” she said her voice soft, resigned. “I’m sure we’re in for a long overdue heart-to-heart.”

“Good for you,” Zeke said. “I regret never doing that with my mother. If I’d worked harder to know mine, perhaps—”

“Take your own advice, Zeke. Let it go.” She walked over and kissed the top of his head.

He slipped an arm around her waist, liking the feel of her body warmth, and the sound in her voice that said she was working on her relationship with her mother. By the end of his mother’s life, they had held each other in cool regard. Like polite distant cousins.

The coffee pot gurgled.

He ignored it, pulled her into his lap instead. They held each other tight. Not kissing, not touching in a sexual way. Just two wounded birds taking sustenance from each other.

Chapter Twelve

Zeke headed for his office a little before ten. Late for a Monday. He settled in the chair behind the desk and opened his appointment book but there was nothing of great importance or off-premises for today.

Memories of Dena, the way they’d comforted each other, filled him. He could still smell the sweetness he’d come to know as her scent…vanilla and roses. He’d asked her what it was and she’d said she’d taken two scents of body mist and combined them to make her own special fragrance. It worked.

He stared out the window for a long time.

Who’d have imagined Stanton and Susie would have hooked up? If he’d known, would it have made a difference? Would she still be here? He sighed heavily, thinking about how weird life is, then spun his chair back toward the desk, slit open an invoice and glanced up. Rocky stood in the doorway.

“Come on in,” Zeke said.

Rocky never asked or waited, he usually walked in and took over. The only exception had been the day Dena arrived at the estate. For some reason he’d played all shy and downtrodden that day.

Zeke sighed, slipped the bill back in the envelope. Money was getting tight and he’d just agreed to pay Manny twelve dollars an hour.

“You had business to discuss?” Rocky asked, and sat.

“Yes.”

Zeke pushed his appointment book aside and assessed Rocky’s sullen face. How had he allowed this man to walk all over him? And could Dena be right? He was the elusive Bobby? Could his old friend be a murderer? He shook off the thought. There was
no
way. They’d practically grown up together.

“You know, I was thinking yesterday that I never call you Robert, or Bobby, always Rocky—”

“So? So does everyone—”

“You don’t mind? I mean do you ever call yourself Robert, like if you introduce yourself to a woman, or a stranger?”

Rocky frowned. “Yeah, but mostly I’m Rocky. Why?”

Zeke shrugged. “Just wondering—”

“What did Stanton want?” Rocky asked brusquely.

Zeke straightened. He hadn’t worked his way around to Bobby but for some reason he couldn’t imagine Rocky even saying the name let alone using it. And he wouldn’t break Stanton’s confidence.

“He apologized for his behavior yesterday.”

Rocky raised his eyebrows. “He seemed bent out of shape.”

Zeke forced a laugh. “I guess he thought I’d take a swing at him.” He pushed back in his chair, attempted to communicate in the relaxed way they’d once known. “He never was much of a scrapper in his youth. Remember how you’d win any fight, or threat of a fight? Well, it was always either you or me.”

Rocky smirked. “Funny how he turned out to be a cop, maybe that’s why. He gets to be brave and courageous in uniform. Push people around.”

“You could be right.” Zeke scratched at one ear and straightened. “So, we need to discuss the harvest, grapefruit mainly…the Ruby reds. We’ll need to hire another field hand.”

“We’re on schedule with the grapefruit,” Rocky said, and shifted in his chair. “Why do we need more help?”

“Manny will be working with Dena.”

Rocky moved forward. “She’s staying?” he asked, and glowered beneath his heavy dark eyebrows.

“Yes. She’ll live in the casita.”

“What? Why?” He lurched forward in the chair. “What is it with you and this woman? She’ll poke around and stir up trouble. We’ve got enough of that.”

“I’ve got nothing to hide, Rocky,” Zeke said softly, and watched for a reaction but there was none. “She can poke around wherever she wants.”