Читать книгу The Man Behind the Cop - Janice Johnson Kay - Страница 7

BRUCE SLEPT for four hours and awoke Tuesday morning feeling like crap. He grunted at the sight of his face in the mirror and concentrated after that on the path of the electric razor, not on the overall picture. Coffee helped enough that he realized the ring of the telephone had awakened him. He checked voice mail, and found a message from Molly.

“Houston, we have a launch. Baby Elizabeth Molly—yes, named for me—was born at 5:25 this morning. While you were no doubt sleeping, ah, like a baby.”

Ha! He grinned.

“Since I didn’t have an indolent eight hours of beauty sleep,” she continued, “I’m taking Fiona and baby home and crashing—Elizabeth Molly permitting—in Fiona’s guest room.” As an obvious afterthought, she added, “Hope the self-defense workshop went well.” Beep.

Oh, if only you knew.

He skipped breakfast, figuring to get something out of the vending machine at the hospital.

Karin had gone home, he found, and was surprised at his disappointment. Instead, the waiting room was filled with Lenora Escobar’s extended family. The sister and husband and their brood of five children, and one of the Lopez’s four grown children with his wife. Lenora, he was told, was still unresponsive in ICU.

He asked to speak privately with Lenora’s sister and her husband, and took them to a smaller room likely saved by hospital officials for the grave business of telling family a loved one hadn’t made it. Tending to claustrophobia, Bruce left the door open.

Yolanda spoke English well, her husband less so. They switched to Spanish, in which Bruce had become fluent on the job. He’d started with Seattle PD on a beat in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, building on his high-school Spanish.

Both told him that they had always thought Roberto was scum. “Pah!” Alvaro Muñoz declared. “You could see the bruises, how frightened she was of him. But she lied to make us believe everything was fine. Only recently…” A lean, mustachioed man, he hesitated, glancing at his wife.

“She told me she was going to leave him. She said so on the phone. She lowered her voice, so I think maybe he was home. She said she’d call when she got to the safe house.” She bit her lip in distress. “Did he hear when she told me?”

Bruce shook his head. “Your aunt Julia went to the shelter to pick the kids up. I suspect Roberto was following her.”

Yolanda Muñoz was petite like her sister, but pleasantly rounded. Her husband’s skin was leathery from the sun, but hers was a soft café au lait. She must stay at home with the children, whatever home might be, given what Bruce gathered was their migrant lifestyle. Grief made her voice tremulous, kept her eyes moist. “You’ll find Anna and Enrico?” she demanded. “When Lenora wakes up, how can I tell her he has them?”

He offered his automatic response. “We’re doing our best. What I’m hoping you can do is tell me everything you know about Roberto. We’ll be talking to his co-workers, but what about friends? Hobbies?” Seeing perplexity on their faces, he realized the concept of hobbies was foreign to them, as hard as they worked and as careful as they likely were with every penny they earned. “Ah…did he go fishing? Work on cars?”

Both heads shook in unison. “He didn’t like to leave Lenora alone,” Yolanda explained. “Even when family was there, so was he. All women in the kitchen, and Roberto. As if he thought we’d talk about him.”

Or as if he couldn’t let his wife have anything that was hers alone, even the easy relationship with her family.

Bruce continued to ask questions, but they knew frustratingly little. Roberto Escobar worked. Yes, he was a hard worker, they agreed, the praise grudging but fairly given, and he did help keep their place nice. He talked about his mother coming to live with them again. He was angry when she went to live with his brother, instead. Lenora said he called the mother sometimes, but mostly he yelled, so they didn’t know if he would take the children to her. Yolanda thought maybe his mother liked Lenora better than her own son. And who could blame her?

Yolanda and her husband rejoined their children and cousins, and Bruce drove to the lumberyard where Escobar had worked. There, he learned little. Co-workers thought Roberto Escobar was surly and humorless, but his supervisor insisted that he was a good worker, and reliable until he’d failed to show up yesterday morning.

“So what if he ignores the other guys here, eats the lunch his wife sends instead of going out with them?” The balding, stringy man shrugged. After a moment, he added, “Maybe you can’t tell me why you’re looking for him, but…Will he be back to work?”

“I doubt it.”

“So I’d better be replacing him.” He was resigned, regretting the loss of a good worker but not the man.

Bruce’s only glimmer of hope came from the last interview, when the middle-aged cashier said suddenly, “He did used to be friends with that other Mexican who worked here. Guy didn’t speak much English. Uh…Pedro or José or one of those common names.” She leaned back in her chair and opened the office door a crack. “Pete,” she called, “you remember that Mexican used to work here? The one with the fake papers?”

“Yeah, yeah. Garcia.”

“Carlos,” she said with satisfaction. “Carlos Garcia. That’s it. They talked during breaks. ’Course, no one else could understand a word they were saying.”

“And this Garcia was the only person you noticed Roberto spending any time with?”

“Yeah, he wasn’t a real friendly type. After Pete fired Carlos—and he about had to, once he found out his green card was fake—Roberto went back to sitting by himself at breaks. Couple months ago, we all went in together to buy flowers when Toby’s wife died, but not Roberto. He was the only person working here who didn’t contribute.” The memory rankled, Bruce could tell.

Bank records next. Turned out the Escobars hadn’t had a debit card. Roberto, Bruce learned, had been paid Thursday and deposited his check in the bank on the way home, all but two hundred dollars. No checks had cleared subsequently. Monday morning, Roberto in person had gone into his local branch office and withdrawn the entire amount. He’d also taken a cash advance against his one-and-only credit card—which, Bruce noted, had not had his wife’s name on it. The whole added up to about fifteen hundred dollars. Not a lot, but if he had someplace to go where, even temporarily, he didn’t have to pay rent, he’d have enough to get by for weeks, if not months.

Yeah, but how to find that place?

Still, the fact that he planned to need money was reassuring.

Uncle Mateo was up to talking this morning, although he broke down and cried every few minutes, his daughter and a daughter-in-law both fussing over him. Bruce hid how uncomfortable the display of raw emotion made him.

Uncle Mateo gave Bruce the names of a few men he thought might have been friends of Roberto’s.

Yes, he’d suspected Roberto had hit Lenora sometimes, and since she had no father to speak for her, he had talked to her husband. Shaking his head, he said, “He thought it was his right. As if he were God inside his own house.” He shook his head at the blasphemy of it.

God. Yes, that was a nice analogy. King was what Bruce’s father had called himself. If a man can’t be king in his own castle… That was one of his favorite lines, just after he backhanded his wife for being lippy—a cardinal sin in the Walker home—or committing any of a number of other sins. Or pulled out the leather belt to use on one of his sons.

As if paralleling Bruce’s thoughts, Uncle Mateo begged, “What made him so crazy?”

Bruce wished he had an answer. Was it crazy? he wondered. Or too many years of being unchallenged? What would his own father have done if his wife had taken Bruce, Dan and Roger when they were little boys and fled? If a man was king, didn’t he have the power of life and death over his subjects?

Knock it off, he ordered himself. It seemed every time he dealt with a certain form of domestic violence, he leaped like a hamster onto a wheel of useless bewilderment. Why, why, why? the wheel squeaked as it spun and went nowhere.

Damn it, he’d put it all behind him, except at moments like this. He detested this inability to stop himself from going back and attempting to reason out his own family history. He couldn’t change the past; why replay it?

Back to see Karin Jorgensen. Lenora Escobar knew more about her husband than anyone, and he guessed that, in turn, she’d confided more in her counselor than she had in anyone else.

He called A Woman’s Hand and, after waiting on hold for a couple of minutes, was told Karin would be free in an hour and would expect him. Glancing at his watch, he realized the free time would undoubtedly be her lunch break. He’d offer to feed them both.

The moment the receptionist spotted him, she picked up a phone. Karin came down the hall before he could reach the counter.

He hadn’t imagined the tug he’d felt last night, even though exhaustion transformed her face from pretty to…Studying her, he struggled to understand. The only word he could come up with was beautiful. Not conventional, fashion-magazine beautiful, but something different: the purity old age or illness could bare when it stripped the illusions away and revealed the strength of bones and the life force beneath.

Bruce was not idiot enough to think she’d be flattered if he told her she looked beautiful like an old lady. And that wasn’t exactly what he meant, anyway. It was more like seeing a woman in the morning without makeup for the first time, and realizing the crap she put on her face was not only unnecessary, but it blurred the clean lines.

Not that Bruce had ever thought any such thing upon seeing a woman’s first-thing-in-the-morning face, but it seemed possible.

As she neared, Karin searched his eyes anxiously. “Have you heard anything about Lenora? Or found the children?”

He held out a hand, although he felt a surprising urge to hold out his arms, instead. “Last I knew, she’s still unconscious. And no, regrettably.”

“Oh.” She put her hand in his, and seemed not to notice that he didn’t shake it, only clasped it. Or perhaps she did because her fingers curled to hold his, as if she was grateful for the contact.

“Why don’t we go get lunch,” he suggested.

“Oh, that’s a good idea. I suppose you don’t usually take the time to stop.”

“Drive-through at a burger joint is usually the best I do.”

She shuddered. “I’m a vegetarian. Um…let me get my purse.”

He waited patiently, although he had every intention of paying for the meal.

Every block of the nearby stretch of Madison Street had a choice of trendy bistros and cafés tucked between boutiques, gourmet pet food shops and art galleries. The shopping area was an extension of an area of pricey homes and condos, many with peekaboo views of Lake Washington and the skyline of Bellevue on the other side. The street itself dead-ended at the lake, where city-paid lifeguards presided over the beach in summer.

Bruce let Karin choose a place, and they sat outside on a little brick patio between buildings. Today was cool enough that they were alone out there, which was fine by him.

She ordered a salad, Bruce a heartier sandwich and bowl of soup. Then they sat and looked at each other while the waitress walked away.

“Are you all right?” he asked quietly.

She tried to smile. “A nap would do wonders. But you must have gotten even less sleep.”

“I’m used to it. But that’s not really what I meant.”

“I know.” She began to pleat her cloth napkin, her head bent as she appeared to concentrate on an elaborate origami project that wasn’t creating anything recognizable to his eyes. “When Roberto hit her with the tire iron, it made an awful sound. I keep hearing…” For a second her fingers clenched instead of folding, then they relaxed and smoothed the damage to the napkin.

Bruce watched, as fascinated by her hands as she was.

“Naturally, I didn’t sleep very well.” She stole a glance up, her eyes haunted. “I saw him coming. And now I measure distances in my head and think, if I’d run, could I somehow have reached them in time?”

“You might have gotten your skull crushed, too,” he said brutally. “Julia Lopez did her best to defend herself. Her forearm was shattered before a second blow hit her head.”

“Ohh.” Her fingers froze, and she stared at him. “Oh.”

The image of her flinging herself between the furious, betrayed husband and the wife he was determined to kill shook Bruce. He tried not to let her see how much.

“There’s no way you could have reached her in time anyway. Even if it had been physically possible, you would have had to read his intentions first, and that would have taken critical seconds.”

“I should have walked her to the van.”

“I repeat—unless you’re trained in martial arts, you couldn’t have done anything but get hurt.”

Her shoulders sagged and the napkin dropped to her lap. “Do you think…Is there any way…?”

“She’ll survive?”

Karin bit her lip and nodded.

“Of course it’s possible.” Why not? People had huge malignant tumors vanish between one ultrasound and the next. They woke from comas after twenty years. Miracles happened. “From what I’ve read, the brain has amazing recuperative properties. Other parts step in when one section is damaged. Right now, I’m guessing the swelling is what’s keeping her in the coma.”

Those big brown eyes were fixed on his face as if she were drinking in every word. She nodded. “That’s what the doctor said.”

“It takes time.” He glanced up. “Ah. Here’s our food.”

They both ate, initially in a silence filled with undercurrents. He studied her surreptitiously, and caught her scrutinizing him, as well. He knew why she interested him so much. The question of the day: Did she see him only as a cop, or had it occurred to her to be intrigued by the man?

He cleared his throat. “I hope you weren’t alone last night. Uh…this morning.”

“Alone? No, Cecilia did sit with me for a while, and then Lenora’s sister came…” Comprehension dawned. “Oh. You mean at home.”

Bruce nodded.

“I live alone. I mean, I’m not married, or…”

Was that a blush, or was he imagining things?

“I fell into bed without even brushing my teeth. I was past coherent conversation.”

He understood that. “I, ah, live alone, too.”

“Oh.” Definitely color in her cheeks, and her normally direct look skittered from his.

Well. They’d settled that. It was a start. Although to what he wasn’t sure. He kept his relationships with women superficial, and somehow he didn’t picture Karin Jorgensen being content with cheap wine when she could have full-bodied.

Great analogy; he was cheap.

No, not cheap—just not a keeper.

Somehow that didn’t sound any better.

“The clinic’s receptionist said you had questions for me.”

He swallowed the bite of food in his mouth. Clear your head, idiot. “I want to know every scrap you can remember about Roberto Escobar. I’m hitting dead ends everywhere else I turn. No one liked him. I have a handful of names of men who might have been friends of his, although most people I’ve interviewed doubt he actually had any friends. If he really doesn’t, if he’s on his own with two little kids, we’ll find him. If he has help, that’s going to be tougher.”

She set down her fork. “What do you think he’ll do if he is on his own?”

“Rent a cheap motel room. Two hundred bucks a week. That kind.”

Karin nibbled on her lower lip. “That sounds…bleak.”

“It is bleak. Especially since I doubt he’s ever done child care for more than a few hours at a time.” He hadn’t thought to ask anyone. “Is Enrico still in diapers?”

She shook her head. “Lenora was really happy to get him potty trained just…I don’t know, six weeks or so ago. Although that isn’t very long. Under stress, kids tend to regress.”

She wasn’t exaggerating. Under enough stress, they regressed by years sometimes. He’d seen a twelve-year-old curling up tightly and sucking her thumb. Having your mother brutally bludgeoned right in front of you…Yeah, that would be cause to lose bladder control.

“He’d be mad,” Bruce noted.

“Oh, he’d be mad at them no matter what. Enrico is two. You know what two-year-olds are like.”

He didn’t, except by reputation.

“And Anna is only four. Well, almost five. They need routine, they need naps, they’ll want their favorite toys—” She stopped. “Did he take the time to collect any of their stuff from their aunt and uncle’s?”

“After killing Aunt Julia, you mean?” he said dryly. “We assume they had a bag packed for the night, and if so, yes. It’s not there. But the ragged, stuffed bunny Uncle Mateo says Anna is passionately attached to was left on the sofa, along with Enrico’s blankie. Uncle Mateo predicts major tears.”

“Stupid,” she pronounced.

“He panicked. Wouldn’t you, under the circumstances?”

“Yes, but he’ll be sorry.” Then she shook her head, visibly going into psychologist mode. “No, sorry isn’t in his vocabulary. Not if it means, Gee, I screwed up. Everything is someone else’s fault. The more he gets frustrated with the children, the more enraged he’ll be at Lenora. This is all her fault. What’s frightening is that without her to deflect him, he’ll start turning that rage on Anna and Enrico. That he would anyway is worrying. That’s what finally precipitated her decision to leave him. She knew that sooner or later he’d lose his temper with them, not just with her.”

The sandwich was settling heavily in Bruce’s stomach. He was hearing a professional opinion, professionally delivered. “How soon will that happen?”

“Soon. It probably already has. If he’d attacked just Lenora, I’d think there was a chance that he’d have a period of being…chilled. Justifying it in his own mind, but shaken by what he’d done, too. The fact that he attacked two women, with—what, fifteen minutes, half an hour in between?—suggests that he’s even more cold-blooded than I would have guessed. No, he’ll have very little patience. His own children are just…possessions to him. Evidence of his virility. Not living, breathing, squalling, traumatized kids. He literally has no ability to empathize.”

Bruce swore. He supposed he had hoped Escobar was a man made momentarily insane by what he perceived as his wife’s betrayal.

Ah, here we go again. Hamster wheel squeaking. What was true insanity—what was cultural and what was in the blood, a legacy from father to son?

Give me a straightforward murder for profit any day.

In this case, at least, Karin was telling him that Roberto Escobar wasn’t momentarily nuts. He was the real thing: a genuine sociopath. One who, unfortunately, was on the run with two preschoolers. Now, that was scary.

He mined Karin for every tidbit she could dredge from her memory about her client’s husband. His favorite color was red; Lenora had once mentioned looking for a shirt for his birthday. Did it say that the guy loved the color of blood?

“He’s five foot eight, not five-ten as it says on his driver’s license. Lenora said he lied.”

Bruce made a note.

“He snores. But he didn’t like it when she slipped out of bed to sleep on the couch or got in bed with one of the kids. So usually she didn’t, even if she couldn’t sleep.”

Snores, he wrote, for no good reason. Unless someone in a cheap motel complained to the manager about a guy who sawed wood on the other side of the wall?

He noted food likes and dislikes, Roberto’s opinion about people he worked with, his anger at what in his view was his mother’s betrayal.

“Guy wasn’t doing well where the women in his family were concerned,” Bruce commented.

“No, and Lenora admitted to being inspired by the way his mother just let his words wash over her—like rain running over a boulder, I think is what she said—and kept on with her plans to go home to Mexico. Possibly for the first time, she realized he could be defied.”

“I wonder if that was a good part of why he was so angry. Afraid his wife would see a chink in his supremacy?”

“Um…” She pursed her lips and thought about it. “No, I doubt he reasoned it out that well. Or believed Lenora had it in her to defy him in turn. Mostly, he’d have been angry that his mother chose her other son. Although since he’s continued to call her, he may be channeling that anger onto his brother, who somehow lured their mother from her duty to her older son.”

“In other words, he has a massively egocentric view of the world.”

“Oh, entirely,” Karin assured him.

They quibbled over the bill, with Bruce winning. He couldn’t help noticing how little she’d actually eaten. He suspected she’d picked up her fork from time to time more to be unobtrusive about not eating than out of actual hunger.