‘The police won’t do much of anything for twenty-four hours,’ he said, not thinking, and she burst into tears.
He had never seen Lucy cry before. He took her in his arms, let her rest her face against his shoulder. ‘Okay, Lucy, okay. I’ll call the sheriff’s office, all right? And we’ll start making phone calls. We’ll find them. But when Patch finds out you’ve made all this fuss, you got to take the blame for it.’
She sniffled. ‘I will. Okay, thanks, baby. My aura’s feeling calmer already.’
‘Sure, Lucy.’ He didn’t pay much heed to her talk of auras and vibes, but it was part and parcel of Lucy and part of loving her. He kissed her forehead, wiped away her tears with the ball of his thumb.
He dialed the Encina County sheriffs office, figuring that within an hour or so Patch and Thuy would be found but fishing along a stretch of Black Jack Point, and all would be good and fine.
It didn’t happen.
The sheriff’s office, once called, found a broken window at the back of Patch Gilbert’s house. Lucy noticed certain items missing: a silver candelabra, a cookie jar in which Patch kept ample cash, a jewelry box that was a family heirloom. The search began.
Patch Gilbert owned over two hundred acres on Black Jack Point, and on late Wednesday morning, the searchers found the turned earth along the edge of his property. The disturbed soil was a hundred yards up from the beach, a rectangle of torn loam hidden among the thick fingers of the oaks, broken grasses draped over the ground like a shroud.
The deputies and volunteers started digging and Whit made Lucy wait up at Patch’s house.
‘Wait here with me,’ she said. ‘Please.’ She was shaking, her freckled arms folded over each other, her hair a mess from having dragged her fingers through it nervously.
‘I can’t, sweetie. I got to be down there.’ He was justice of the peace, and because Encina County didn’t have its own medical examiner, he also served as coroner. If there were bodies he’d order the autopsies, rule on cause of death, conduct the inquest if it was needed. His chest felt sucked dry at the thought of Patch and Thuy murdered and buried. But he didn’t like the vacant, broken look in Lucy’s eyes.
He put an arm around her and turned to Deputy David Power. ‘Maybe I should wait with Lucy.’
David made a dismissive noise. ‘You’re supposed to be down there,’ he said, as though comforting relatives of the dead was second-class duty compared to forensic investigation.
‘You don’t need me until you find bodies,’ he said, and he felt Lucy’s skin prickle under his fingertips.
‘Sure, Judge, whatever.’ David Power turned and headed down toward the thick copse of oaks.
Lucy watched him leave. ‘Well, he’s an asshole. Lots of negativity.’
‘He doesn’t like me,’ Whit said. ‘I’m friends with his ex-wife.’
‘Maybe you should go down there,’ she said. ‘I’ll be okay.’
‘I’ll stay here as long as I can.’
He and Lucy sat in Patch’s den, a dark room covered with thick brown paneling in turn covered with fishing trophies and a fake muscled marlin. He held her hand and watched All My Children to avoid thinking about what the shovels might be unearthing.
Lucy stared at the screen. ‘I cooked dinner for the two of them last week. Meatloaf. I burned it a little ’cause we got to talking and I was drinking too much beer. It tasted like a shingle. They didn’t complain, ate it with a smile.’
Whit squeezed her hand.
‘I should call Suzanne,’ she said. Her cousin, her only family other than Patch.
‘Let’s just wait and see.’
They watched a commercial offering tarot card readings for a call-per-minute charge while an energetic woman with a doubtful Caribbean accent proclaimed the future to amazed callers.
‘That approach is so misleading,’ Lucy said. ‘Look at her. She’s hardly listening to that caller – she’s just slapping those cards down.’ Her voice was flat as she pretended the searchers weren’t tearing up her uncle’s land.
‘I’m sure your psychics do a better job, sweetie.’ Lucy owned the Coastal Psychics Network, which, as she put it, served the needy and the bored across Texas.
‘At two bucks ninety-nine a minute, that is robbery.’ She fingered the amber crystal on her necklace. ‘I at least run a clean ship. Maybe I ought to advertise more. I’m cheaper than Madam Not-Reading-the-Cards-Right.’
He hugged her a little closer, gave her a tissue for her nose. ‘Need to tell you something about Patch.’
‘What?’
‘He was the one suggested I call you for a date.’
She laughed but it was half tears. ‘Did he now?’
‘Called me up after you were in my court. Said I had given you too heavy a sentence for those unpaid tickets.’
‘Not unpaid. Ignored on principle.’ Same argument she’d used in court. A little more effective with him now. Patch had settled her five hundred dollars’ worth of fines. She’d done her community service, Whit checking on her a little more than needed.
‘He said I ought to even it out by taking you to dinner.’
‘Old men playing matchmaker is a bad idea.’ Lucy wiped at her eyes. ‘Because they won the war they think they know everything.’
A deputy – young, sunburned, blond buzz cut bright with sweat – appeared in the doorway. ‘Judge Mosley? Could I speak with you?’ His mouth barely moved as he spoke.
‘Are they dead?’ Lucy asked. ‘Is it them?’
‘Yes, ma’am. It looks like it’s them. I’m real sorry.’
Lucy put her face in her palms. ‘Well, shit. It was a bad vibe,’ she finally said from between her hands.
4
Claudia Salazar let the sun warm her closed eyes. She had dozed on the pool lounge chair, the water evaporating off her skin, thinking, I could get to like this.
Claudia’s past few days had been a bitch: finally closing out a series of burglaries on Port Leo’s south side, aimed squarely at the tourist condos, by arresting a repeat offender who sadly had three kids and was bound back to jail; covering two extra late shifts for a patrol officer friend who was down with a bad summer cold, because the whole Port Leo police department was short-handed; and then the terrible Gilbert/Tran murders, which were beyond Port Leo’s jurisdiction but the sheriffs office and the police department helped each other with high-profile cases. David Power, her ex-husband, had politely declined the police department’s help and her thought had been: Pride goeth before a fall. It was the most biblical thing she had thought in years. She wondered, without ego, if he was too irritated with her to want the department’s help.
She decided not to care. As of today, she was officially on vacation.
She opened her eyes, sat up on the lounge chair, watched Ben standing by a table between the pool and the French doors, fiddling with a stubborn cork on a wine bottle.
‘What a rotten guest I am,’ she said. ‘I fell asleep.’
Ben Vaughn pried the cork out and grinned. ‘You’re exhausted. Don’t worry about it.’
She smiled. If she’d gone swimming with David, drunk wine in the early afternoon, then dozed, he would have used it as a basis for analysis: Did I bore you? What’s wrong with me? Ben just let her be, and she was grateful for that.
Claudia stood, feeling self-conscious in a new purple bikini a bit too adventurous for her, pulled a long T-shirt over her head, and smoothed it out along her hips. 'No more wine. Two glasses is my limit.’
‘You’re on vacation,’ Ben said. ‘I made lunch. Hope that’s okay.’
‘I’ll find it in my heart to forgive you. So what can I do to help?’
‘Just sit. You’re my guest.’ Ben disappeared back into the house.
The deck for the pool ran along the edge of St Leo Bay, and in the summer heat the bay water looked green as old glass, the waves like white lips rising to the surface for a kiss, then vanishing. She put on her sunglasses. Vacation. Well, a few days off and then back to the grind. But sitting on a multilevel deck, with a private dock, backed by the house that had to be approaching seven thousand square feet… well, it was better than eating takeout and watching old movies on video, which was how she’d spent her last vacation.