Widows' Watch (12 page)

Friday, October 1, 5:35 P.M.

Chaos prevailed at Police Headquarters: traffic gridlock on the streets, protesters milling outside, the leaders under arrest and held in the public reception area because the police had no way, short of teleportation, to get them downtown for booking. Harmony loved it. She was jammed against the desk sergeant's counter, guarded by a harassed patrolman and gleefully giving Lieutenant Beltran, whom she had demanded to see, melting looks that turned the poor man to putty.

Harmony knew she was looking her best, long black hair windblown so that the silver streaks showed, cheeks flushed from her afternoon outdoors. She had on her black hat with the silver and turquoise band, her favorite woven peacock-blue tent dress nipped at the waist with a concho belt, and her black sandals studded with turquoise.

“It's so sweet of you to come to my rescue.” She gave Beltran a smile that turned him pink, while she ignored the imperious Captain Stollinger. Harmony considered herself only a partial feminist. She wasn't above using female wiles to achieve her ends. While Beltran was blushing and stammering, Harmony spotted Elena pushing through the mob of prisoners, police, and media people.

“Mom!” exclaimed Elena when she reached the desk. “How could you—”

“Where the hell have you been?” demanded Lieutenant Beltran, shaken out of his befuddlement.

“I've been working on the Potemkin case,” Elena replied.

“This woman is your mother, Jarvis?” demanded Captain Stollinger as Lieutenant Beltran was muttering, “Maybe in the future, you could convince members of your family not to demonstrate against the department.”

“I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't speak to my daughter in that tone of voice, Lieutenant,” said Harmony indignantly.

“He's her superior,” said Stollinger. “He can talk to her any way he wants . . . as long as it doesn't constitute sexual harassment,” the captain added hastily.

“And here I thought you were being so gallant, Lieutenant,” said Harmony reproachfully.

“I was. I mean it was certainly my pleasure to—”

“What's going on?” boomed the rich, baritone voice of Armando Gaitan, Chief of the Los Santos Police Department. “Can't I leave headquarters for three hours without my department being bombarded by unfavorable media attention?”

Elena put her hand over her mouth to hide a grin. If there was one thing the chief hated, it was unfavorable media attention. He liked to think of himself as the darling of the press. By and large he was, being a tall, trim, handsome man in the best Hispanic tradition, a bachelor who put a tremor in the hearts of ladies all over town, including media ladies.

“Chief,” called a reporter from Channel 4, “do you have any comment on the accusations that have been leveled against the department by this group?”

“I don't even know what the accusations are,” boomed the chief, “but I shall certainly look into them.”

The reporter glanced down at her list as she trailed him toward Stollinger. “That police harass gays, that you're preventing a local hero from attending a bicycle race on the High Road to Taos, which everyone thinks he'll win, that—ah—the police are acting like vigilantes against poets.”

“Vigilantes?” The chief looked astounded. “What poets? I don't know any poets.”

“I, sir, am a poet,” said Angus McGlenlevie, eluding his personal police attendant and grabbing the chief's arm. “The young man who is receiving your unwarranted attention is a poet. I assure you, poets all over the country, including myself, whose book Rapture on the Rapids will be in the—”

“By God, McGlenlevie,” broke in Professor Donald Mallory, “if you plug that book one more time—”

“And for failing to protect senior citizens,” concluded the reporter. “Could you please comment, sir.”

“Senior citizens?” muttered Armando Gaitan. He shook off McGlenlevie and glared at the lieutenant. “What senior citizens haven't we been protecting?”

“I think they mean in general, sir,” said Sergeant Mosson, who, from a place near the hall, had shouldered his way toward his leader, cutting off an interview with a reporter from Mexico to do so. “However, we had a lot of old folks in lawn chairs obstructing traffic in the parking lot.”

“One older lady was dragged from her chair,” said Harmony reproachfully. “That's no way to treat one's elders.” It was then that Chief Gaitan first noticed Harmony Waite Portillo, and his eyes lit with the gleam of a bachelor on the prowl. Female politicians and city administrators, members of museum and symphony boards, even female members of the media were fair game for Chief Gaitan. Elena hoped he didn't favor married women. She'd never heard that he did.

“Chief, this is my mother, Harmony Waite Portillo,” she said quickly. “Of Chimayo.”

Chief Gaitan clasped Harmony's hand and gave her a charming smile. “Dear lady, what a pleasure, and may I say that your visit graces our fair city?”

TV cameras were rolling.

“The pleasure is mine,” said Harmony with an equally charming smile. The two positively radiated good will and sex appeal.

“Mother's been arrested,” said Elena loudly, “for picketing the police department. Probably in her younger days she even called us pigs.”

“Elena!” exclaimed Harmony. “That was years ago! Before you were born.” She smiled at Armando Gaitan. “In the late, bad sixties.” Long, black eyelashes dropped flirtatiously onto flushed cheeks.

“We're contemporaries,” said the chief.

“Are we? Did you ever call a policeman a pig?” Harmony asked gaily.

“No,” said Gaitan. He was taking the conversation amazingly well.

“Do you plan to put Ms. Portillo in jail?” asked the pretty Channel 4 reporter sharply.

Elena decided there were at least two people in the crowd jealous over the flirtation between the chief and Harmony, Lieutenant Beltran being the other one.

“Everyone knows the LSPD is a bunch of gay bashers,” said Orion Massine combatively, then turned to his guard and snapped, “Watch the pleats,” when the patrolman grabbed the back of his shirt to keep him from escaping into the mob.

“Nonsense,” said Chief Gaitan.

“Chief, there are a lot of senior citizens who are nervous about driving after dark and would like to get home as soon as possible,” said Harmony.

“We haven't arrested any senior citizens,” said Lieutenant Kurtz. He had come out of Sergeant Mosson's office to the left of the reception counter. “They can pack up their lawn chairs and leave, even the old guy who grabbed an officer. He evidently thought he was protecting some

lady. She thought she was being subjected to police brutality. In other words, it was just a mix-up, so they can go home. The old folks.” He looked hopeful.

“Well, I believe, sir,” said Harmony, “that they're staying to see that nothing untoward happens to me, since I came with them from the Socorro Heights Center.”

“Nothing unpleasant will happen to you, my dear Ms.—may I call you Harmony? My feeling is that we should all retire to the conference room—”

“What about Lance?” shouted Hoke Mitchell. “He's our best chance to win that race.”

“—and discuss the complaints of those who have been protesting here today. I'm sure we can reach a compromise that will make everyone happy,” said the chief soothingly.

“You're knuckling under, Chief?” asked the jealous Channel 4 reporter.

“I'm being responsive to public concerns,” snapped the chief. Then he turned courteously to Harmony. “If you would represent the senior citizens, Ms. Portillo—”

Elena said, “Mrs.,” but no one heard her.

At the chief's orders, police officers shepherded those who had been arrested into a utilitarian conference room with a lectern for the chief and an array of uncomfortable chairs for everyone else. The media was relegated to the hall. Protesters sat down, Gaitan took the lectern, and the complaints began.

“Where is this Lance Potemkin?” asked the chief after he had heard from gays, poets, and racers.

“He's much too retiring to take part in noisy protests,” said Donald Mallory, “but I have a complaint.”

“What is that, sir?” asked the chief.

“In the first place,” said Mallory with dignified restraint, “the work of the English Department at Herbert Hobart has been seriously disrupted because of your unwarranted harassment of Lance Potemkin, our secretary. In the second place, McGlenlevie is misusing the word vigilantes. By its very definition, vigilante cannot be used about police in the pursuit of their assigned duties.”

“Harassing gays is an assigned duty? I knew it!” shouted Orion.

“We do not have a policy of harassing gays,” said the chief, “but we do have to investigate murder cases.”

“Well, as I told my daughter,” said Harmony, “your investigation is misguided. Lance is not the murderer.”

“My dear lady, do you have evidence to support that?” asked the chief.

“Certainly. No one with Lance's customary aura—”

“His customary what?”

“Mom,” moaned Elena.

“Aura,” said Harmony clearly.

The chief looked taken aback. “Thank you for your input,” he mumbled.

“And besides that, this is a case of robbery-murder, and not the first in your city. A number of old people have been killed in their homes by robbers. One of our purposes was to demand that the police department provide better protection for older citizens.”

Armando Gaitan sighed and leaned his elbow on the lectern, brushing his neatly clipped mustache with a thoughtful finger. “Ms. Portillo, no one is more cognizant than I of the problems of the older population. We do the best we can to offer protection. Unfortunately, we cannot assign an officer to each elderly citizen.”

“You've assigned an officer to each of us because we were exercising our right to free speech,” said Gus.

“And it is certainly not my policy to target any group for harassment—not gays, not minorities, not—”

“Lance is a minority,” said Gus. “He's Anglo. People are always saying Hispanics are the minority, but they're not in Los Santos. Look at the police in this room. Three-fourths are Hispanic, whereas we protesters are all Anglos.”

“I'm Hispanic by marriage,” said Harmony.

“Right, and the chief of police has been a lot more sympathetic to you than to any of the rest of us,” said Gus.

“If you're accusing me of racial or ethnic discrimination, sir, you're out of line,” said Chief Gaitan, reminding everyone that he could be as hard-nosed as the next cop, as well as a lot more charming. “Now, it appears to me that the one thing we can do something about is this business of the bicycle race. We are not keeping the young man from doing his job, are we, Detective Jarvis?” he added, to placate Professor Mallory, who had opened his mouth to protest.

“No, sir. He's been in for questioning, but he's not under arrest.”

“Lance will win that race if you let him go,” said Hoke.

“I'm delighted to hear that,” said the chief. “You and your partner can escort Mr. Potemkin to New Mexico, Detective Jarvis, and see that he returns afterwards.”

“Yes, sir, but how are we supposed to keep track of him during the race? I doubt that either one of us has been on a bicycle in years.”

“I'm a bicycle racer,” said Lieutenant Maggie Daguerre, who was observing from the back of the room.

The chief looked at her and beamed. Maggie Daguerre, the department's computer expert, was a sight to gladden the eye of any man whose testosterone was still flowing. She was five foot eleven and built like a Vegas chorus girl, with lustrous black hair and slanted green eyes.

Lieutenant Beltran, still looking grumpy, said, “If Potemkin's a sure winner, no woman's going to keep up with him.”

“I've placed in bicycle races,” said Maggie, “not to mention canoe races, foot races—”

“Good. You'll go with the other two officers,” said the chief.

“And to show solidarity between the Sheriff's Department in Rio Arriba County and the Los Santos Police Department,” said Harmony, “I'll put Lance up as well as the police officers. Also I can arrange to have deputies placed along the High Road so you'll feel easy in your mind about this generous offer you've made, Chief.”

“Armando,” he corrected. “That's extremely gracious of you.”

“What does Chimayo have to do with the race?” asked Elena, puzzled. Her hometown was populated by reclusive descendants of early Spanish settlers. They hadn't even allowed the movie Milagro Beanfield War to be filmed there, because they didn't want a horde of outsiders disturbing their way of life.

“We need a new roof on the Sanctuario,” murmured Harmony. “It was the only way.”

“I hope that we have addressed as many of the protesters' concerns as we are able to at this time,” said the chief.

“We're all still under arrest,” said Professor Donald Mallory.

“But not yet booked. Lieutenant Beltran, you can take care of freeing these people,” ordered the chief. “Now, is everyone happy?”

“Absolutely,” said Hoke Mitchell.

“I'm not,” said Gus McGlenlevie.

“Oh, be quiet,” said Donald Mallory. “You may want to go to jail. I don't.”

“I could have written a brilliant cycle of verses from the county jail,” said Gus.

“The detention facility is full,” said the chief.

“What about the senior citizens?” asked Harmony.

“My dear lady, why don't we dismiss the meeting and discuss that.” Protesters and officers began to leave.

“Harmony, about the best I can do,” said Armando Gaitan, “is look into this matter of senior citizen safety. I shall appoint a board to investigate. Now, to more pleasant matters. The department is having a talent show in several weeks. I hope that you'll attend as my guest.”