Widows' Watch (13 page)

“I'd love to,” said Harmony, her eyes lighting up with a gleam that made Elena extremely uneasy. Surely her mother wasn't falling for the chief. Harmony was a married woman. She had five children, four grandchildren. Elena imagined her mother leaving Sheriff Ruben Portillo, marrying Elena's chief, causing a scandal.

“I have my own transportation, Elena,” said Harmony, breaking into those disquieting images. “Don't forget that the party for Boris is tonight.”

Friday, October 1, 7:20 P.M.

Elena glanced at the clock. Seven-twenty and her mother hadn't returned. Maybe Harmony wanted to avoid the wake. Elena had tried those cabbage rolls and found two problems with them: one, the filling wasn't spicy; two, she didn't like cabbage. For that matter, she didn't care much for vodka—especially if Dimitra expected her to drink straight shots. She'd read about that Russian custom.

“Mom, where have you been?” she demanded when Harmony let herself into the kitchen ten minutes later.

“I had to take four senior citizens home, not to mention their lawn chairs.”

At least her mother hadn't been meeting the chief in some dark bar. “I've got a bone to pick with you, Mom.”

“We don't have time. We have to dress for the wake.”

“You look great, and I can dress in three minutes. Why did you join that protest against the department? Can't you see that it was embarrassing for me?”

“Well, Elena,” said Harmony, dropping into a chair, “one has to have the courage of one's convictions, even if one's daughter is going to be a pill about it.”

“I'm not being a pill. I'm just—”

“We were addressing serious problems.”

“Sure. Like whether or not Lance Potemkin gets to go to New Mexico.”

“That, and the fact that there are three, four, maybe five women at the center whose husbands were killed in daylight robberies while the wives were at Socorro Heights. People really do feel that they aren't safe in their homes.”

“Over how long a period was this?” asked Elena, frowning.

“I don't know, dear. Within recent years.”

“With them, recent years could be the last fifty.”

“I mean recent recent years,” said her mother sternly. “It's a serious problem, very important to older people, and your chief has agreed to address it.”

“Yeah, Mom, that's another thing. Why were you flirting with Chief Gaitan? What would Pop think?”

“I wasn't flirting. I was being friendly. And very successfully, I might add. Lance is going to the race, Armando has agreed to look into senior citizen problems, and—”

“—and you were flirting,” said Elena. “You accepted a date with him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The police talent show.”

“That's not a date! He invited me to be his guest, which I presume means a complimentary ticket. I'll be going with you.”

“Oh. Are you sure? What if Gaitan thinks he's got a date?”

“Married women don't date.”

“I'm sure Pop'll be pleased to hear that.”

“Before he hears from Armando,” Harmony mused, “I guess I'd better call your father to tell him I offered protection along the race route. We'll drive up tomorrow since the event is Sunday.”

“We?”

“Of course. It's a nice opportunity for us to see your father and the family. Anyway, I've offered to put people up at the house.”

Elena sighed. “That's Lance, Leo, me, Maggie, and you. Concepcion won't be going. She's nauseated.”

“Is she? I must congratulate Leo.”

“Maybe she's got the flu,” said Elena dryly.

“Don't be such a pessimist.”

“Who, me? Anyway, we've got five people plus the bicycles and luggage.”

“The Holymobile will seat five,” said Harmony.

Elena giggled. “Grandmother Portillo would consider that sacrilegious—calling it the Holymobile.”

“Very well. The Penitentes' pickup. So it's all worked out. I'll drive.”

“Something's bound to go wrong,” Elena fretted. “Maggie'll fall behind. Then Lance'll disappear into the forest and get me demoted.”

“Nonsense. Whatever happens, we'll work it out, dear.”

“That's what you always say, Mom. That's what you said when the curandera put a curse on Tia Josefina over the Eye-of-God business.”

“I worked it out. She lifted the curse.”

“But we had to drink Joaquina's miserable herbal tea for a year, while the control group got to drink Kool Aid.”

“Joaquina likes to think she's very scientific,” said Harmony. “She still wants to write a book about science, herbs, and magic.” Harmony was nibbling tortilla chips that Elena kept in a lidded basket on the table. “Do you know what the most irritating thing about that protest was?”

“I know what irritated me most,” said Elena as she pulled bean dip from the refrigerator. “Your participation.”

“Lydia Beeman,” said Harmony, leaning forward to sample the dip. “Every single person from the center waited until I was released. But not Lydia. As soon as the police started carting off people in their lawn chairs, she got up, folded hers, and said to me, ‘We're making fools of ourselves and not doing a bit of good.' Can you imagine that? Lance is riding in the bicycle race, isn't he? Well, anyway, that's what she said to me. But then what can you expect of a woman who honors the memory of her late husband by polishing his gun collection every month? If she doesn't care about Lance, she should at least care about the safety of senior citizens. One also hears rumors about battered wives at the center. Perhaps I ought to organize a demonstration pointing out that the system fails to protect women.”

“Terrific,” said Elena, scooping up some bean dip to fortify herself against the cabbage rolls and vodka. “But in Santa Fe, not Los Santos, and target the women who refuse to press charges against their abusers, and the judges and juries who won't give the bastards long sentences or, in some cases, even convict them.”

“Would you like some raw carrots with our snack?”

“I'm not crazy about raw carrots, Mom,” Elena replied.

“They keep you from getting something—breast cancer, I think. I read that if you eat a raw carrot a day, you'll never lose a breast.”

“Right,” said Elena. “You turn orange instead.”

Because the hostess and many of the celebrants were worn out from the afternoon protest, the wake lasted only forty-five minutes. Elena went to bed early and thought about the things her

mother had said. It was sort of amusing, how antagonistic Harmony felt toward Lydia Beeman, but then they were two different kinds of women: Harmony extremely feminine, given to political and social causes; Lydia rather masculine and given to causes of a more abstract nature, like justice. Anyway, Elena thought that Lydia was an interesting person, even if she wasn't Harmony's cup of tea.

Then there were her mother's remarks about husbands of Socorro Heights women having been killed in daylight home robberies. Could there have been five? If so, that was a curious statistic. Was there some crime-ring operating out of the center, finding out when people wouldn't be home? But the husbands had been home. If she and Leo didn't manage to close the case on Lance, she'd have to look into her mother's information after the bicycle race.

Saturday, October 2, 9:30 A.M.

As Elena was finishing her huevos rancheros, Maggie Daguerre telephoned and said, “Do you really need three cops in the truck? I know I'm an extra gun, not that I ever use one—”

“I think the bicycle riders and the gay activists would be pretty ticked off if all three of us shot Lance on the way to Chimayo,” Elena replied dryly.

“Right,” Maggie agreed. “In that case, Manny Escobedo wants to drive me up. He's got his kids this weekend and thought it would be fun for them to come along, see that race, camp out. I'll have my own cheering section.”

As she hung up, Elena tried to picture Maggie Daguerre, Manny Escobedo, and his two kids, spending the weekend together in a tent. The kids wouldn't like their dad taking up with a gorgeous computer expert/police officer/bicycle racer. And camping out? Daguerre was the outdoorsy type. But Manny?

A half hour later Harmony, Elena, and Leo were in front of Lance Potemkin's apartment arguing about who should sit where. “I want Lance up front with me,” said Harmony. “It's not often I get the Yeats of his generation all to myself.” Lance looked pleased.

“You can't drive, Mom. He's a murder suspect, so I drive; he sits in back with Leo.”

“My insurance doesn't cover you, Elena,” said Harmony smugly, “and we have to use my truck. You've no place for a bicycle on a police car and no back seat in your own truck.”

“You should have mentioned the insurance business yesterday, Harmony,” said Leo, looking worried.

“It seems to me,” said Lance sarcastically, “that it would be easier for you two to shoot me if you're both sitting in back.”

Elena glared at him. He was Mr. Sweetie with her mother and Mr. Snide with her. “You're sitting in back with Leo, and not behind my mother,” she snapped, having pictured him grabbing Harmony around the neck from behind. She sure hoped Beltran never heard that Harmony had done the driving.

“Maybe you'd feel better if you realized that I don't have that many fans, especially fans who can actually quote lines of my poetry. It's not likely that I'm going to try to take Mrs. Portillo hostage. In fact, if I weren't gay, I'd probably be in love,” said Lance, smiling sweetly at Harmony.

Harmony's infectious laughter floated out into the warm morning air as she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “What a lovely compliment, dear.”

If he thinks he can escape by buttering up my mother, he can think again, Elena decided grimly and waved him into the back seat. Leo then handcuffed himself to Lance, who didn't like that at all.

Harmony climbed into the driver's seat, muttering that Lance had not killed anyone; they were just being silly. Giving Elena a pointed look, she said, “Now, Lance, you're very welcome to stay at our house. You can sleep in Elena's old room. It has an excellent bed, so you'll get a good night's rest.”

“Actually, I have friends in Santa Fe,” said Lance.

“Can they put us up too?” asked Elena, resentful that her mother had offered the suspect Elena's comfortable bed.

“I forgot about that,” said Lance, looking sulky. “Thanks, Mrs. Portillo. I guess I'll have to impose on you.”

“No imposition at all,” Harmony assured him. “Leo, you can have the room Two and Johnny slept in, and Elena, you can have Josie's.”

“Great,” said Elena. “I remember what the beds are like in there.” She sat sideways, watching Lance. If he made a move toward her mother, he was dead meat.

“You're not competing in a race tomorrow, Elena,” said Harmony. “Lance needs the firmest bed.”

“Well, he can't have the room to himself,” muttered Elena. “He's under surveillance.”

“In that case, you'd probably feel more comfortable sharing a room with me, Detective Jarvis, more comfortable than your partner would,” Lance suggested. He seemed to be enjoying the squabble.

“I don't mind,” said Leo. “Gays never get the hots for me.”

“You just want the good bed,” muttered Elena.

“Well, settle it among yourselves, children,” said Harmony. She revved the engine and peeled rubber down the quiet suburban street. “I have missed Ruben.”

“Mom, you've been gone less than a week. And take it easy, will you? My mother thinks she's good enough to race in a Grand Prix,” Elena added. By running two yellow lights, Harmony had made it to the interstate access road in about thirty seconds. “When we were kids, she used to say, ‘Buckle up,' and then scare us all silly tearing over dirt roads to get to Mass on time. We all prayed on Saturday night that Pop wouldn't be out on a call when it came time to head for the Sanctuario on Sunday morning.”

Harmony laughed merrily and, zooming onto Interstate 10, cut off another pickup. The irate driver leaned on his horn. Elena noted that their suspect was terrified. Served him right. “Slow down, Mom. The speed limit's fifty-five in the city.”

Harmony took her foot off the gas, but by the time they passed the Executive Center exit, they were back up to sixty-seven, and Lance, who rarely rode anything but a bicycle, was clutching the leather strap that hung from the ceiling on his side. He could hardly reply to Harmony's critique of his water metaphors in a poem about resurrection. Elena was pretty nervous herself, since her mother kept taking her eyes off the road in order to turn and talk to the prisoner.

Sunday, October 3, 8:45 A.M.

Chimayo, New Mexico

Lance glared at them while Leo patted him down. “Couldn't you have done this at the house where I wouldn't be embarrassed?”

“Hey, we didn't even have to let you come to this race. It's costing the department a bundle to guard you,” snapped Elena. She was sick and tired of Lance, who was still doing the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde bit. He'd been charming to everyone at dinner, especially Harmony and Maggie Daguerre; then he'd demanded to have a bedroom to himself, once Harmony had gone to bed and Maggie had left for her tent, the plan being to sandwich the two kids in between her and Manny. Leo had been so pissed, he not only shared a room with Lance, he'd cuffed the prisoner to the hand-carved wooden bedpost. Elena had warned Lance that if he yanked on the cuff and damaged the post, Harmony would kill him, no matter how great his water metaphors were.

“What's this?” demanded Leo, dragging a sharp implement from Lance's fanny pack.

“It's part of the repair kit,” snapped Lance.

“Then you better hope the bike doesn't break down,” said Elena, confiscating the item, “because you're not taking it with you.” She could just imagine him stabbing Maggie and riding off onto some unpaved track where he'd meet a gay activist in a Bronco and escape into the mountains.

“Heavenly Father,” intoned Dr. Sunnydale, president of Herbert Hobart University. His white hair was handsomely styled, his suit a beautifully tailored light gray, and his tan as California as it had been when he was a famous TV evangelist. In Chimayo, among the bicycle-racers, fans, and townsfolk, the university president looked as out of place as a poodle in a coyote litter.

“Who the hell is he?” demanded Sheriff Ruben Portillo. “Father Reynaldo is supposed to bless the racers.”

“We ask thy blessings on our fellow, Lance—ah—”

“Potemkin,” whispered Harley Stanley, Vice-President for Academic Affairs, who had offered to ride his motorcycle ahead of the racers, carrying first-aid equipment and refreshments. The sheriff had refused.

“He's the president of Herbert Hobart University,” Elena murmured.

“. . . who has been unfairly harassed by the vigilante police,” continued the university president.

Harley Stanley hissed into his ear, causing Dr. Sunnydale to frown at Gus McGlenlevie, who had evidently urged on him the phrase vigilante police. “—who has been given his own escort to the race by the Los Santos Police Department,” the president amended.

Lance grumbled. Elena stifled a giggle. Father Reynaldo looked as if he'd like to excommunicate President Sunnydale. Citizens of Chimayo, who would never have allowed the race to start in their town if it weren't for the leaking roof, were muttering angrily about the insult to their priest and the Sanctuario. This pushy Protestant had no right to give the blessing, they said, mostly in Spanish, but not always.

“We ask, Heavenly Father, that you smile upon this fine young man, whose troubles are legion but whose heart is pure,” said the president.

Bicycle racers now muttered resentfully because one of their number was being given special clerical attention. Lance looked embarrassed and sulky while Harmony whispered to him consolingly and Maggie Daguerre gave him a comradely slap on the back. Much good she'd be as a guard, thought Elena. Maggie and Lance had met the night before at Harmony's table and

talked white-water rafting over savory bowls of caldillo and hot flour tortillas in the Portillo kitchen during a noisy dinner served to family and guests.

“. . . safety, Christian sportsmanship, and the American competitive spirit,” concluded President Sunnydale. “Amen.”

Muttering under his breath, Father Reynaldo stepped forward and asked a proper blessing on the racers. At a blast from a ram's horn, preserved from Spanish colonial days, the herd of bicycle racers pedaled vigorously away on the High Road to Taos.

“They just left Chimayo,” said Sheriff Portillo into his car microphone. He had deputies stationed along the route in case Lance tried to make a break for it. “Don't know what your superiors are thinking of,” her father muttered to Elena. “Letting a murder suspect roam around the countryside like this.”

“It's all right, love,” said Harmony, whisking up to her husband and giving him a fleeting kiss. “Lance is innocent. Would I invite a murderer to dinner and to spend the night?”

“You not only would, querida. You have on at least one occasion.” Ruben caught his wife by the flowing sash that circled her slender waist and pulled her back for a hug.

Elena sighed, wishing she had a marriage like her parents'. Her father had returned from Josie and Armstrong's house last night and had undoubtedly made love to her mother after dinner, for they had retired suspiciously early. Elena and the guests and relatives had to do the dishes, which was only fair. Harmony had driven all the way to Chimayo, after all, then cooked dinner for twenty-five people.

Elena rubbed the small of her back. That bed in Josie's old room was a killer. Not that she had cause for serious complaint. Maggie Daguerre, who was at this moment racing madly along on a bicycle, had occupied a sleeping bag in the Portillos' orchard, sharing a tent with Manny Escobedo and being kicked by his unfriendly children, Tito and Virgie.

“I will say,” said Ruben Portillo, “that Potemkin has good taste in women.”

Elena grinned. “He's in his twenties, Pop, and—”

Ruben tugged Elena's French braid affectionately. “I can tell when a man's in love with your mother. Quit that, you kids!” he roared.

Cleo, Josie and Armstrong Carr's daughter, was supervising a mass scaling of the adobe wall around the old plaza. Virgie Escobedo, when shouted at by the sheriff, fell off and glared at him. Tito scrambled over the top and dropped out of sight. Two and Rafaela's twins, Tres and Carlito, obeyed their grandfather by climbing into the gnarled branches of a tree that overhung the wall.

“Look at me, Abuelo,” shrieked Connie, the three-year-old daughter of Johnny and Betts Portillo. They had left her in Harmony's care so they could drift through the crowd peddling tiny clay bicycle racers in sombreros and ponchos. The figurines had come out of Betts' kiln just the day before.

Ruben strode to the wall and snatched his capering granddaughter from the top. Cleo sat astride the adobe playing the shepherd's flute on which she composed her own tunes. With Connie under his arm, Ruben stopped to listen. “That's a good one, Cleo,” he said. “Now get your bottom off that wall.”

“Daddy, I'm bored,” complained Virgie Escobedo.

“You're getting to be a real pain, kid,” said the sergeant. “I know who put that lizard in Maggie's sleeping bag.”

“Not me. I'm too old for silly stuff like that.”

“You're saying Tito did it?”

“So what if he did? She didn't care.”

“That's ‘cause she's a gutsy lady,” snapped Manny.

“I don't want a stepmother,” muttered Virgie. “And she's too tall for you, anyway.”

“Who says I'm marryin' her?” growled Manny.

“Mama.”

Six-year-old Tito dropped off the wall, yelled, “Snitch,” at his sister, and ran for his life when she made a grab for him.

“Bringing those two was a big mistake,” Manny muttered to Elena. “You wouldn't believe how they treated Maggie last night.”

“Maggie didn't seem to mind.”

“Yeah,” said the sergeant gloomily. “I guess that means she doesn't care one way or the other about me. Otherwise, she'd want my kids to like her.”

“Elena!”

Elena turned to see her friend Sarah Tolland, the chairman of Electrical Engineering at Herbert Hobart, working her way through the crowd. Sarah was trim, gray-blond, fortyish, and pretty in a very conservative way.

“I can't believe it,” said Elena. “I didn't know you'd be here, Sarah.”

“I didn't know Gus would be here,” said Sarah, scowling. Her ex-husband was at the edge of the crowd flirting with one of the village girls, whose father was watching them closely.

Elena grinned. “If Gus tries to make a move on that young woman, her father might just drown the author of Rapture on the Rapids in an acequia.”

Sarah grinned. “Gus has posters all over campus announcing that book. They can write in posthumous under his name and double the sales.”

“So what are you doing here? Supporting Colin?” Sarah's boyfriend, Colin Stuart, a professor in her department, was one of the racers.

Sarah nodded, but she didn't look particularly happy. “I've been wanting to call you about Colin. I wondered if you'd be amenable to a date with him.”

“He's your boyfriend, Sarah,” said Elena, astonished.

“It's not working out. He's a wonderful person, but it's causing trouble in the department, my dating one of my own faculty.”

“I'm sorry,” said Elena. “Good men are hard to find.”

“Tell me about it.” Sarah glanced darkly at her ex-husband. “Not that I mind about Colin. Nice as he is, there's really no—well—spark between us.”

Elena grinned. “So you want to fix me up with someone you find boring?”

“I don't find Colin boring at all!” said Sarah indignantly. “Believe me, you'll like him. He's charming, intelligent, good-looking, and—”

“Snap him up,” advised Elena's sister Josie, who had come in on the end of the conversation.

“I think I'll pass,” said Elena. “The last time I dated a member of Sarah's department, he turned out to be a murderer.”

“Which one is he? I mean Colin, not the murderer,” Josie asked.

“Forty-five, gray hair, good-looking, green cycler's tights,” said Sarah.

“Elena would love to go out with him,” said Josie.

“I would not. He's too old for me,” Elena protested.

“Older men are better,” said Josie. “Look at me and Armstrong. We're perfect for each other, and he's almost twenty years older than I am.”

“Your mother's invited us to a barbecue tonight. I'll introduce you then, Elena,” said Sarah. “There's Paul Zifkovitz from the Art Department. I need to have a word with him.” She edged away before Elena could refuse the introduction.

“Traitor,” Elena said to her sister. “Why are Johnny and Betts talking to Dr. Sunnydale?”

“They're offering to sell him a collection of Southwestern folk art—wholesale.”

Elena groaned. Surely Herbert Hobart University wouldn't—Her fears that her brother Johnny and his wife might end up charged with art fraud were forgotten when a voice behind her said tentatively, “Detective Jarvis?”

What a voice! Mariachi baritone with an Anglo accent. She hated to turn around and find out who went with it. However, the voice's owner couldn't be considered a disappointment. Out of professional habit, she committed his physical characteristics to memory: lightly tanned face; square chin, slight flattening at the bridge of the nose, probably from a break; thick, wind-blown brown hair; hazel eyes that picked up the green of his sport shirt; and a killer smile that said, I'm prepared to be your best friend if you're interested. She put him at five-nine or ten, one-fifty, late twenties, wearing tan slacks and a tan windbreaker over the green shirt, sneakers, hands in pockets, easy stance.

His smile widened to a grin. “I promise you won't find me on any Wanted posters.” He held out his hand. “We haven't met, but I'm Michael Futrell. I've kind of been following your career. The acid bath case, that rape-murder last year.”

A police groupie, she thought, disappointed.

“I'm an assistant professor of criminology at H.H.U.”

No matter how cute he was, Elena didn't want to date any more professors. It was bad enough that Sarah wanted to fix her up. This one was the right age, but he probably just wanted to talk shop.

“I've been kinda of lying in wait, hoping to introduce myself,” he said.

“You mean you followed me up here?” asked Elena. He looked O.K. She'd hate to think he was some kind of creep-stalker.

“No, I'm here because my twin brother is riding in the race. He's a professor too. I heard all the kids calling you Aunt Elena and then Sarah Tolland talking to you, and I thought, ‘Gee, that's her.'”

“Does your brother teach criminology too?” she asked, trying to imagine a university department with twin professors. No one would know who was teaching what.

“Kinesiology,” Michael Futrell replied.

What the hell was that? Elena wondered.

He laughed as if he could read her mind. “That's Phys Ed to those of us not into heavy athletic endeavors.”

“Like me?” she asked suspiciously. Did she look out of shape or something?

“Actually, I meant like me. I don't mind hiking, but I prefer gardening.”

Elena looked at him with new interest. Gardening and criminology? Had God thrown Michael Futrell into her path after playing so many romantic jokes on her? Like Frank the Narc, her ex-husband. Like her last date, the homicidal engineering professor.

“Unfortunately, my gardening has to be done in pots on my apartment balcony,” said Michael Futrell ruefully. “Anyway, you don't want to hear about my world-class patio tomatoes.”

Elena wouldn't have minded. She grew tomatoes herself.

Looking even friendlier, Futrell said, “I was hoping we could—”

“Niña, get yourself over here.” She turned toward her father, who was standing beside his sheriff's car, squawks coming from the police radio. Elena excused herself and hurried away. If Lance had taken off across the mountains, she and Leo would be in deep shit with Beltran.

“Your Lieutenant Daguerre just went down,” said Ruben Portillo. “Then someone rode over her leg.”

Elena groaned. “Now we don't have anyone guarding Lance. Is she badly hurt?”