Ainsworth strolled, thinking the grounds crew was shirking its duties. The sun emerged from behind a cloud, and he noticed the glint of an object struck by its rays. He leaned over, pushed branches aside, and discovered a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol on the ground, next to the trunk of a bush. Looking back toward the area where the shooting had taken place, Ainsworth realized he was as far from that location as one could be while still in what could be considered the rear parking lot of the hotel.
Ainsworth called his friend in the homicide office, told him what he had discovered, and agreed to wait for officers to arrive. Minutes later, a patrol car pulled up. The officer wrote down the information regarding why and how Ainsworth had discovered the weapon, placed it in an evidence bag, and drove away.
There was little for Ainsworth to do on the case until ballistics tests were run. True to his effort to maximize billable hours, he spent the next few days tailing Brodie Bancroft around Houston. Bancroft met no women except at a garden club event where he spoke. He either wasn’t a player or had suspended his extracurricular romantic liaisons while the murder investigation proceeded. After a week of following Bancroft for three hours each day and billing for eight, Ainsworth ended the surveillance. It wasn’t conscience that prompted him, but boredom with the astronaut’s routine.
Two weeks after he found the pistol, Ainsworth sat in his office just after noon, sipping on his third drink as he half-heartedly watched an old episode of Bonanza on the television set he’d purchased with Curtis Simon’s second retainer. The show was interrupted by a breaking news alert, indicated by the words Breaking News Alert flashed on the screen and several beeps loud enough to get the attention of every living thing within earshot, including the cockroaches that had been scampering about the detective’s feet.
There’d been a break in the Jennifer Simon murder case. High-profile — some would even say famed — astronaut Brodie Bancroft had been arrested. Officers had recovered the weapon used in the crime and learned it had been purchased by Bancroft several years earlier.
Later, Ainsworth watched the evening news. The astronaut’s attorney denied his client had been involved in the murder or an affair with the dead woman. The attorney claimed Bancroft had placed an ad in a local weekly to sell the pistol. He said Jennifer Simon responded to the ad, and they met at the La Madeleine Café to complete the transaction, for which there was no written record.
Donovan Ainsworth garnered some local attention during Bancroft’s trial, but squandered it on getting a few free drinks instead of increasing his client list. Curtis Simon reaped much sympathy as the betrayed spouse. Brodie Bancroft was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The judge gave him two weeks to get his affairs in order before imprisonment. Bancroft’s socialite wife filed for divorce.
Ainsworth sent Curtis Simon a final accounting of his time on the case, including his court appearances as a witness. It came out to an additional $2,000. There was no objection.
The morning Brodie Bancroft was scheduled to report to begin his incarceration, his attorney found the astronaut’s body in his Mercedes SL 450 Roadster. The suicide note read simply: I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t have an affair with that woman. I will not go to prison. Ainsworth heard about it from his buddy in homicide.
He drove to a convenience store and bought a Houston Chronicle. Back at his office, he read the details of the suicide. After a few minutes of contemplation, Ainsworth called Curtis and asked him to drop by the office.
When the introverted accountant entered the room, he held out his hand in greeting, just as he had the first time the two men met. Again, Ainsworth ignored the outstretched hand and told Curtis to have a seat. Then he began.
“I know what you did, Curtis. You shot your wife with the pistol she bought from Bancroft.”
It was impossible to detect any reaction. Curtis’s body shrank into the seat as if he were trying to hide, but that was how he’d always sat. “Mr. Ainsworth, I’m surprised you would think such a thing. What would make you believe that?”
Ainsworth noticed, then, just a hint of a smile on Curtis’s lips. Or was it a smirk? It was accompanied by a vague sense of self-confidence the detective had barely seen in any of their previous meetings.
Curtis continued: “You have no proof of anything. I will concede to you and only you that I suggested Jennifer needed a weapon for self-protection and showed her an ad in the newspaper. But your accusations are just that. And, of course, I would deny even this conversation, if asked.”
Smiling broadly now, the accountant stood, nodded his head at Ainsworth, and walked toward the door. He paused, turned back, and added, “You know, I shouldn’t have had to suggest you look at the murder scene. You should have gone there the day I hired you.” With that, he was out the door.
Ainsworth walked to his makeshift home at the back of the office and reached into the cardboard-box liquor cabinet.
He’d never regretted killing the abusive pedophile, though it had cost him his career. The little girl’s face had been with him every day since. Now, it would be replaced by that of a swashbuckling astronaut.
He poured a full cocktail glass of Scotch, and thus began the rest of Donovan Ainsworth’s miserable life.
Xitlali Zaragoza, Curandera
by Reyes Ramirez
Spring
Xitlali leans on the bar at her other job as a Mexican restaurant waitress, five hours into her shift, feeling the bags under her eyes deepen. A customer waves her over to his table, to pay the tab for four margaritas and three cervezas, drunk and alone on a Tuesday at five p.m. He has a sad aura about him, thick and gloomy-colored like cough syrup.
“Ah-kee ten-go el dee-naro.”
“I speak English, sir,” Xitlali says.
He hands over cash and barely leaves a tip. Xitlali yawns and doesn’t bother to offer a blessing, as much as it seems he could use one. Dios mío, she thinks, prayers and alcohol are the two most abused inventions in human history. Any method to not completely accept this reality will do. That’s when the phone in her pocket vibrates. She walks outside and answers.
“Curandera Zaragoza, we have an assignment for you. Es urgente.”
“It can’t wait?”
“We tried calling other curanderas, Xitlali. No one else wants to touch this.”
“Why is that?” Xitlali asks, leaning against the brick exterior of the Mexican restaurant and watching out for her coworkers.
“This client is gay. The other curanderas say they cannot save a sinner from himself. We know it’s short notice, but can you take it?”
“Ay, pues... of course. If evil does not discriminate, why would I?” Xitlali says as she pulls her notepad from her back pocket. Desgraciadas. “Digame.”
“Jose Benavidez has been experiencing a haunting. Says that every night, while walking home from work, there’s a presence that follows him. Won’t say what exactly. Says he might encounter it again tonight.”
“Has there been physical interaction?”
“No.”
“Bien,” Xitlali mutters, scribbling onto her notepad. She can sense his energy already, tense yet weakened by anxiety. Pobrecito. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Bien, bien, bien. Mira, the code is 1448 to get into the gate. Complex is called Cherry Pointe. Apartment 13.”
“Gracias. Que Dios le bendiga.”
“Que Dios le bendiga, Curandera Zaragoza.”