Blood Orange Read online

  Mike threw back his head and laughed. “I figured that was her plan. You know, I like her.”

  “Well, she certainly likes you. ‘The big hot cop.’”

  “Hey, that’s me. Now, if only you could see me that way.”

  I pretended to look out over the city as I slipped on my own sunglasses. See him that way? If only I couldn’t.

  I thought about Mike as I drove away in the cleaning mobile. He’d given me a list of names, and revealed forensic evidence. It wasn’t like him to break rules, unless they needed breaking. Mike had smelled something he didn’t like, I was sure of it. Something that stank.

  Chapter Six

  “Our lovely little city is so dangerous these days.” Darlene Richter glared at her Italian limestone floor and rubbed at a miniscule blemish with the toe of her black suede pump. “First Minuet is kidnapped, and then that poor girl is murdered.”

  “Ah, yes.…” The two crimes were definitely in the same category. I sternly reminded myself to think about the fat retainer check, still uncashed, languishing in the desk back at the office.

  “Your personal assistant praised you highly, Ms. Zarlin. Ten thousand dollars seemed a bit steep, but if you are all she claimed, the amount is well worth it.” Mrs. Richter lifted her coiffured head. “Minuet is precious to me. I hope you understand how strongly I mean that.”

  Darlene Richter, I guessed, was somewhere in her early sixties. As a young woman she must have been a knockout. Even now, in spite of a certain sharpness bequeathed by the surgical knife, she was a head-turner. Her platinum-weave hair was cut to look as if it had been slightly tousled in a breeze at the beach. And her outfit, a beige linen suit and turquoise silk blouse, made a clear statement: I am relaxed and in perfect control.

  “I understand. I’m fond of dogs too, Mrs. Richter.” Dogs. An image of the toothy Dexter came to mind. Two days ago, the mutt had greeted me with a proud tail and roadkill dangling from his salivating muzzle.

  “The phrase ‘fond of ’ hardly does justice to my feelings for Minuet, Ms. Zarlin. But I suppose it will do.”

  Ten thousand dollars or no ten thousand dollars, it was time for the conversation to get real. “How did you happen to hire me, Mrs. Richter? Dognappings aren’t my usual line.”

  She folded her arms beneath her artfully supported bosom. “I thought I’d explained to your assistant. I visited someone in your building—Saffron Sayers, the woman who reads pet auras. She’d done Minuet’s chakras, and I thought she might have some insight as to where my little girl might be. Frankly, Saffron wasn’t at all helpful. But as I was leaving, I noticed your sign.”

  “OK, I see.” So I had a mutt’s chakras to thank for my new affluence. Well, what could I say?

  “But we’re wasting precious time, Ms. Zarlin. Come with me. I’ve something to show you.”

  Darlene Richter led me from the foyer into a formal living room. Three sets of tall French doors looked out over a European-style garden. Twin rows of towering Italian cypresses flanked a stone staircase descending to a lower level, a lawn of wispy long grass. “That is the last place I saw Minuet,” she pointed. “Out there, in the meadow.”

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Richter?” A middle-aged Mexican woman with patrician features stood in the doorway. “It is two thirty. I have finished.”

  “All right, Marisol. But did you remember to clean the screens over the stove top? The cook fried with olive oil twice this week. The greasy odor can be offensive, especially in the morning.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Marisol’s gaze met mine, then skipped away.

  “Yes ma’am you agree, or yes ma’am you cleaned them?”

  “I cleaned them.”

  I studiously examined the view out the window.

  “Very well then. I’ll see you tomorrow at nine.”

  I saw an opportunity. “Mrs. Richter, I’d like a word with Marisol before she goes.”

  “I don’t see—” But then she nodded. “Of course, if you think it might help. Marisol? This is Ms. Zarlin. She’s going to help me find Minuet. I’ll wait out on the patio while the two of you talk.”

  “She must pay you well,” I said when Mrs. Richter had stepped outside.

  Marisol smiled slightly. “Not too bad.”

  “What’s it like, working for her?”

  “Mrs. Richter? OK, but sometimes she’s—” She grimaced, and stopped talking.

  “Sometimes she’s mean?”

  “Yes, sometimes.” But then Marisol shook her head. “Underneath, you know? Underneath Mrs. Richter is lonely.”

  “Because she misses her husband? I understand he died two years ago.”

  “Misses him? No, the opposite maybe.” Her mouth twisted down. “The señor, he used to shout at her. He had girlfriends, sometimes he even brought them here to the house. A bad man. I think maybe she’s been lonely for a long, long time.”

  “And the dog, Minuet—what happened to her, do you think?”

  “What, the dog? I don’t know, maybe it ran away.” Marisol gave an exaggerated shrug. “Listen, that little dog. It’s just a perro, you know? It only wants to be outside, play with kids.…”

  “So you’re saying Minuet wasn’t all that happy being a pampered princess.”

  “Princess? Believe me, that dog is a dog. It goes pee-pee in her bedroom, sometimes even on the bed.” She wrinkled her nose.

  I noticed Mrs. Richter had turned and was watching us now through the French doors. “Marisol, one more question. Do you think one of the gardeners—?”

  Marisol’s cell rang in her apron pocket. She pulled it out and peered at the screen. “My sister is here to pick me up. Sorry, I got to go.”

  “OK. But about my last question. King Charles spaniels are worth a lot of money, and landscapers have been known to kidnap valuable dogs before this.”

  “No. Not Mrs. Richter’s gardeners. They been with her a real long time.” She waved vaguely. “Maybe some other gardeners, up the road.”

  * * *

  Minuet’s playground was royal: an acre of manicured beauty. I accompanied Darlene Richter on a tour of the boundaries.

  “You see, Ms. Zarlin? All solidly fenced. And beneath the redwood fencing, chicken wire sunk into the ground to keep out the rodents and rabbits.”

  “When are your gardeners here?”

  “Mondays and Fridays. You’re more than welcome to come by on Friday and speak with Jorge and his people. But I have to tell you, I trust them implicitly. Jorge is Marisol’s brother, you know.”

  “Marisol didn’t tell me that.” A tiger swallowtail floated by on the breeze. “Mrs. Richter, I have to wonder. Could she be hiding something?”

  Darlene Richter frowned. “It would be out of character, I’d think. I’ve employed Marisol for seventeen years now, Jorge for nearly that long. They certainly aren’t perfect, but I’ve never had that sort of problem with either of them. They are both honest people.”

  We continued our walk inside the perimeter fence. The flower beds were meticulously maintained. Rake marks were everywhere, like wave lines in a Japanese garden.

  Which meant I noticed immediately when we came on an area where the lines were smudged.

  Following the smudge marks, I pushed my way through a stand of twelve-foot-high camellia bushes and knelt in the dirt. Sure enough, someone had sawn a neat little hole at the base of the redwood fence. Several long hairs, some white and some brown, were snagged on the splintered edge.

  “Mrs. Richter? There’s something here you’ll want to see.”

  * * *

  “Gabi! Get over here fast,” her sister Vicky begged over the line.

  “I’m at work. And anyway, this morning mi jefa borrowed my car. Is it something to do with that toilet that floods?”

  “What are you talking about, toilet? He’s here, Gabi, here at my place. And if Danny isn’t gone in one hour, the manager’s gonna evict us. Take a taxi, I’ll pay.”

  “Vicky, they can’t evict you so fast.”


  “What are you saying? The manager knows we got no papers. He can call INS if he wants!”

  “OK, OK. But Danny’s out of jail? How can he be out?”

  “How do I know? The bail bond guy dropped him off. This was Danny’s last address—the guy gave me some kind of rubbish like that.”

  “Vicky, listen to me. Is he … is he crazy?”

  “Of course he is. What do you think, he got all better in jail?” Gabi heard her sister take a quick breath. “But he’s not crazy-crazy, if that’s what you mean. Danny’s real quiet. But he’s talking to himself like he does, you know?”

  “Well maybe if you just—”

  “Gabi, listen to me! He can’t stay here no more. And Alma, she won’t do nothing, she just sits and stares at the floor. You gotta come and get him. Alma and the kids too, or Danny will just follow them back again. And I’m telling you, you better get over here before Arturo shows up.”

  “Arturo, Arturo,” Gabi grumbled. “What did you marry that guy for, anyway?”

  “Never mind about that. I’m telling you Gabi, you better come fast.”

  * * *

  The moment Gabi slammed the taxi door, she heard trouble. Shouting and clanging. She hurried into the center of the complex, then halted in her tracks. Eight or ten of her sister’s neighbors—some of them supposedly friends—were shouting outside Vicky’s door and banging on pots and pans.

  “Out! Out! Out! Out!”

  “Stop it! Stop it right now!” Her heart tightened with fear as she ran forward. “Leave my family alone!”

  “Family. Some family you got!” one woman shrieked. “We have kids here. Daughters! We want him out!”

  The door to Vicky’s apartment had opened a crack. Gabi saw an eye—Vicky’s eye—peeping through.

  Gabi was the big sister, she had a role to fill. She turned back to the wild-eyed women. “OK. I’ll take Danny out. If you back off, hear me? Go back to your telenovelas!”

  “You’ve got thirty minutes,” somebody yelled. “The manager’s already gone to call the evicters.”

  * * *

  She felt like a holy woman, leading her little band through a terrible wilderness. Gabi could see the blinds twitching as she took Aricela and Chuy by their hands and walked through the apartment complex courtyard. Behind her, Alma crept along with Danny. Alma seemed almost in shock, and Gabi had been afraid her sister would not be able to put one foot in front of the other. But somehow, probably for Danny’s sake, Alma was inching forward.

  They were nearly to the corner when the hissing began. A door flew open, then nine or ten more. No words were spoken, there was just the terrible hissing sound, like snakes or poisonous gas.

  Gabi had called a different taxi, the white guys’ taxi company, less likely to know who Danny was. “Get in, fast now,” she urged the children.

  The driver turned to look at Gabi, who’d taken the seat beside him. “Where to?” He was suspicious, she could see it in his squinty eyes.

  “Can—can we go to your place, Tía?” Chuy sounded really scared.

  Now Gabi began to panic for real. She turned to look at her family in the backseat. Alma and Danny both looked like zombies. No, not her place! No. Because Danny would never get better. He’d be a poor sad scary guy for the rest of his life. If she let them into her home, her private sanctum, they might never leave.

  “My office,” she pronounced. “101 Mission.”

  As they pulled away from the curb, splat! An egg hit the windshield.

  The driver halted and stared at the yellow smear. “What the fuck?”

  Next a tomato hit the hood, and then something ugly and brown. Now the driver stepped on the gas.

  “You’ll have to pay to get my car cleaned!”

  But Gabi shook her head. “Nothing to do with us. They don’t like you, maybe you overcharged somebody in the neighborhood?”

  * * *

  I was thinking about the hole in the fence as I drove out of Montecito and back into town. When I got to Mission Street, my musings came to an end. I had to circle the block three times before a park opened up. By the time I’d wedged Gabi’s barge into a space more suited to a golf cart, I was sweating under my arms.

  A devilish little tyke of six or seven was attempting to balance on the handrail alongside my office steps. The shrub below the rail was flat as a doormat.

  “Hi!” the boy said.

  “Hi yourself! Are you—”

  “My nephew Chuy,” Gabi answered from the doorway. “Chuy, get off there right now. Go inside. And say you’re sorry about the bush.”

  “Sorry.” The boy grinned.

  “Bushes grow back.” I peered past my assistant: there seemed to be more people inside.

  “Miss Jaymie?” Gabi stepped down and grabbed my arm. “I gotta talk to you before you go in.”

  “Ah. What’s going on?”

  “Come on, let’s walk over there. Chuy, get lost.”

  “Listen,” Gabi said urgently once she’d steered me into a far corner of the courtyard. “Something’s happened, I’m really in trouble.”

  “Let me guess. You have to babysit every day from now on. You’re going to bring your niece and nephew with you to the office. Look, I love kids, but—”

  She shut her eyes. “No.… Something way worse.”

  “Gabi? Open your eyes and just say it.”

  “OK. It’s—it’s Danny. They let him out of the jail! You won’t believe it: some rich lady put up his bail. Some rich lady as crazy as he is.”

  “Celeste Delaney. I went to see her, Gabi. I asked her to do it.”

  “What?” Gabi stepped back. Her dark eyes flashed. “Why didn’t you ask me first? Tell me, at least? Now I’m the one who’s gotta figure out what to do!”

  I realized I’d made a mistake, a serious one. “I should have told you. You’re right about that and I’m sorry. But Danny was going to be hurt in there, Gabi, maybe even killed. The cops weren’t going to protect him.”

  Waves of warring emotion battled in her eyes. “I don’t—I don’t want Danny to die, but I can’t—I just can’t—”

  “Hey. It’s OK.” I put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “Let’s go inside and talk.”

  But Gabi shook her head. “We gotta talk here first. Danny’s in there. And my sister Alma, and Aricela too. That’s what I’m trying to tell you: when Danny showed up this morning at our sister Vicky’s apartment, the manager said if he didn’t get out right away, she was calling the evicters on the whole family. Now Vicky’s husband Arturo, he’s OK but he’s kind of a tough guy. He—”

  “I get it, Gabi.” I caught sight of a face materializing in a nearby window. The dog-aura lady was listening in. “Let’s go inside anyway.”

  “OK, but one more thing first. I’m ashamed to tell you. But Danny can’t—please, he just can’t—”

  “Come to live with you,” I finished for her.

  “How did you know?” Her voice fell to a whisper. “He scares me. My own nephew, he makes me afraid. Don’t ever tell Alma, I’m so ashamed.”

  Now I understood why Gabi was so willing to work for me for free. She longed to help her family, but she couldn’t offer what they needed most: a place to live.

  “Gabi? Don’t worry. We’ll make it work out.”

  Chuy was back at the steps again, staying off the railing but now jumping from the top step to the ground. He made resounding grunts each time he landed. “You’ll break your legs,” Gabi warned weakly as we entered the office.

  Inside, a woman who looked like a smaller and quieter version of Gabi sat hunched in the visitor’s chair. A girl of about twelve stood beside her, stroking the woman’s long dark hair. And a young man lay curled on the couch, his back to the room.

  “Hey, Danny,” I said softly. There was no response.

  Gabi’s sister didn’t raise her head, but the girl met my gaze. “Hi. I’m Aricela. This is my mom.”

  My heart went out to the kid. Sh
e was trying to be an adult, trying to take charge. “Hi, Aricela. I’m Jaymie.”

  “Alma? Miss Jaymie is here!” Gabi spoke brightly and loudly, as if she were announcing the arrival of the Archangel Gabriel.

  Alma Armenta raised her head and looked at me. Her eyes were utterly blank. “Hello,” she said in a dry husk of a voice.

  “Hi, Alma.” I extended my hand, and after a long moment, Alma held up hers in response. It felt lifeless in mine, deathly cold on this warm summer day.

  “My son … my boy, he…”

  “Yes, I know. I’m just glad Danny’s out of jail.” I looked at the little circle of anxious faces. “Kids, why don’t you run over to the bakery with your tía? Grab yourself sodas and pick up some pastries for all of us.”

  Once Gabi and the kids were gone, I pulled Gabi’s chair out from behind the desk and sat down. “Alma, can you tell me what happened today?”

  * * *

  Danny stared hard at the upholstery. Tiny lines, gray and black, cut into the bluish fabric. Then the same series of lines crossed the first set, at an angle. The pattern repeated over and over and over. He stared harder, and the lines got squiggly. They danced and rearranged themselves every time he blinked.

  The voices in the room droned on, like bees. No, flies. More like flies. Those voices were outside his head. The Voices that were inside were quiet now. Gone away or maybe sleeping … or maybe pissed off with him. Maybe really, really angry. He listened to the outside voices drowsily:

  “He doesn’t remember.…” That was his mom. “… back on his meds. In the jail they took them away.…”

  “Do you think…” That voice he didn’t know. But the lady was … nice. She visited him in … the scary place. Jail.

  A gray fog descended.

  It’s foggy today, Danny thought, and he strained to hear the foghorn just outside the harbor. The foghorn he could hear at night in his bed, his own safe place.

  “We can’t go back,” he heard his mom say. “Because they…” The fog thickened, muffling all the words.

  What was out there, in the fog? Something bad—something so terrible—Danny lurched upright. He stared at the two weird faces now looking over at him. The eyes and noses shifted and slid to the wrong places. The way they looked at him, they made him horribly afraid. Were they devils hiding inside good people? Moving inside the people he knew, messing with their faces, taking them over?