Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_05 (3 page)

“Iris?” His dark eyebrows rose. “Isn't she around?” He glanced toward the front of the store.

“Tony”—now her tone was long-suffering—“I told you she skipped out on Thursday. Well, she hasn't come back. Her grandmother's worried and asked Mrs. Collins to check on her.”

His face immediately became serious, but it was obviously an unaccustomed look. “Oh, hey, that's too bad. Well, anything we can do to help, you just let us
know.” He squeezed my hands again, let them drop. Then he shrugged and his smile was rueful. “You know these kids, here today, gone tomorrow. But”—and he shed the concern like a stripper tossing off a garter—“I'm sure she'll be back and sorry she's worried anyone. Iris is a sweetheart. Okay, Susana, check the times and see if you can help this lady.”

She nodded, but there was no smile on her face as she stepped out from behind the counter. She started toward the back of the store.

I was right behind her.

She stopped at the brown door. “It may take me a few minutes. There's a love seat in that alcove.” She pointed toward a cozy nook with a tile-topped table and an array of art magazines.

“Thanks, but I'd like to come with you. It will give me a better picture of Iris's job here—to see the storeroom and offices.”

Her hand, smooth, large and heavily ringed, tightened on the door handle. For an instant, I thought she was going to refuse me entry. But she shrugged, pushed through the door. We stepped into a bare but well-lit corridor. Three doors opened on the left, one double door on the right. A circular iron staircase curved at the end of the hall.

She gestured to her left. “Our offices. The receiving area is to the right.” Her brightly patterned skirt swished as she walked.

“Does Iris work back here sometimes?” Our shoes clicked on bare cement.

She opened the middle door, stood aside for me to enter. “Sometimes she helped Rick with the unpacking.”

“Rick?”

“My nephew. He's in charge of tagging every item with a price.”

The office was small and jammed, a desk overflowing with catalogs, a full in-box, a pile of unopened correspondence, a telephone with caller ID. A computer terminal sat on a side desk, the printer on the floor. The stucco finish of the walls had aged to a light coffee color. A Fiesta calendar and a bulletin board with pinned notes hung behind the desk. A gilt baroque mirror filled the wall opposite the desk. The glass was so dark and warped, we shimmered like silver ghosts as we moved.

She slipped into the desk chair, punched on the computer. She clicked the mouse a half dozen times, then swung to face me. “Iris punched the time clock at ten
A.M.
Thursday. She didn't punch out.” She spoke evenly, but I heard a tight echo of anger.

I leaned forward, placed my hands palms-down on the desk, held her gaze. “So you don't know if she ever left the store?”

Her face flushed. “That's absurd. She's a thoughtless girl who walked out without speaking to anyone. I found the door to the storeroom open. A fortune in art works with no one in attendance. Where did she go? Not that we care.” She stood, stared at me haughtily.

I rose and our gazes were level. “Did you look for her?”

She threw her hands up and the bracelets jangled. “Everywhere. Here. In the storeroom. Upstairs in the bed-and-breakfast. No, she is not on our premises. She disappeared Thursday afternoon without a trace. Where she went or why, I have no idea.” She spoke with utter assurance. “You must look elsewhere.” She fingered the shiny gold beads of a long looping neck
lace, beads intermixed with gold coins, gold jaguars, and gold parrots, ending with a filigree butterfly. “You are here to find her.” It was almost an accusation. Her dark eyes watched me intently. “Who are her friends? Surely someone knows where she is.”

“I hope someone does. But I'm from out of town. I need help. Do you know anything about Iris's friends? Can you tell me anyone she knew, anyone I can talk to?”

Her slender fingers, the nails glossy red, twirled the beads and the tiny clicks seemed loud in the silence between us. I knew she didn't hear the sound, that this was a familiar, automatic action that accompanied thought. Her face was composed, but her eyes narrowed in concentration. Abruptly, she nodded.

She reached down to the desk, pressed a button on an intercom. “Tony, send Rick here.” She clicked off the machine. No please or thank you, nor even a wait for confirmation.

As we waited, I asked, “Let me see. Iris started working for you—” I hesitated.

“In April.” She was watching the door.

“And in all that time, did she ever miss work? Leave without explanation?”

“Of course not.” It was almost a hiss. “I don't put up with any nonsense, I can tell you that. I didn't want to hire her. I was against it from the first. Believe me, she did everything right. I insisted on it.” Resentment glistened in her eyes, thinned her bright lips.

I wondered if she realized how at odds that answer was with her immediate assumption that Iris was simply a thoughtless girl who'd walked out of the store without a word.

The door swung open, and the young man who'd been at work in the front window ducked his head to
enter. There was a strong family resemblance to the older man, Tony, who'd taken Susana's place at the cash desk: the same tight dark curly hair, aquiline nose, and deep-set dark eyes. Rick, too, was tall and husky with an athlete's build. A small, fashionable goatee and crisp mustache framed a poet's mouth, sensuous and sensitive.

He looked from me to his aunt. Although his glance was pleasant, I sensed a tension, an uneasiness, almost a flash of fear.

His aunt nodded toward me. “This is Mrs. Collins. She's looking for Iris, wants to know who her friends are, where she might be.” The woman's hand tightly clasped her necklace.

His face turned cold and haughty. “I already told you, Susana, I don't know where she is. And I don't care where she is. If she wants to go off with some guy, that's her business. Just leave me the hell out of it.” And he turned and was through the door, slamming it behind him.

Uh-oh, a lovers' quarrel. That was not pleasant, but it was certainly better than some of the possibilities I'd begun to consider. I didn't hesitate. I darted to the door and yanked it open. My shoes clattered on the cement flooring. I hurried up the hall to the back entrance to the showroom.

“Rick. Rick, wait!” I caught up with him in the middle of the store. He stopped beside a huge pottery lion, faced me, his back against the pottery.

I stared into wary dark eyes. Why was this young man so tense? He looked past me, watched his aunt approach.

I spoke quickly. “Rick, either you talk to me, or you can talk to the police.”

“For heaven's sake, Rick.” His aunt tossed her head
and that mass of dark hair quivered. “What's gotten into you? If you know who that girl's friends are, tell this woman. We certainly don't want the police coming around here.”

“The police.” His eyes flickered between us. “You don't need to go to the police. Iris—” He took a quick, sharp breath. “She's just off on a trip.” He tried to laugh. “Sorry. I didn't mean to get upset. But”—he clasped his big hands together, twisted them—“I guess I took too much for granted. I thought Iris liked me. And then Thursday, she told me she was going to Padre with a guy she met last weekend.”

“What guy? What's his name?” I opened my purse, pulled out a pen and small notepad.

Those big hands twisted again. It took him a long time to answer and when he did, the name came in a spurt. “Jack. Jack Smith.”

“Where did she meet him?” I tried to hold his gaze, but his eyes shifted away from me.

“I don't know.” Now his voice was defensive, irritated. “I mean, God, she didn't tell me.”

“Okay, Rick. Let me get it straight.” I spoke quietly. “You and Iris have been dating—”

He threw out his hands. “Not exactly dating. Kind of hanging out together. Nothing serious.”

“Sure. Nothing serious. But friends. Right?”

“Yeah. Friends.” He took a deep breath.

The wooden floor creaked as his aunt stepped closer. But I didn't take my eyes off his sullen face. “Okay, you've hung out, gone places. Where did you usually go?”

He shifted from one foot to the other. “Oh, well, sometimes Mi Tierra. And there's a coffeehouse in Monte Vista—”

I held out the notepad to him. “Please. Write them down.”

He took the pad and pen, stared down at it, and scrawled some names, then thrust the pad at me.

“How about women friends?” I wished now I'd looked through Iris's apartment for an address book. Did anyone her age keep an address book? I didn't know. But I'd look hard when I returned to her apartment.

His almond-shaped eyes blinked. Some of the tension eased out of his body. “Oh, yeah, well, she used to go shopping with Shandy Valdez. But Shandy's just moved. To Dallas.”

“Do you have her address in Dallas?”

He looked relieved. “No. She's going to write and tell us when she finds a place.”

“I see. All right, Rick.”

His relief was almost embarrassing.

I smiled. “In case I need to talk to you, what is your phone number?”

He rattled it off. Interesting. That was information he didn't mind giving.

“And you are Rick Garza?”

He looked surprised. “No. No, I'm Rick Reyes.” His eyes narrowed.

Did he think I should have known his name if I was close to Iris? Maybe so. But I couldn't guess which questions might excite suspicion. And these were answers I had to have.

I slipped the pad and pen into my purse. “Thank you for helping me. And Rick.” I looked at him, then at his aunt. “Please, if you hear from Iris, ask her to call her Grandmother Wilson. Tell Iris her grandmother is terribly worried about her.”

I walked to the door, then looked back.

Two faces watched me, the woman's hard and thoughtful, the young man's tense and wary.

“Mrs. Garza.” My tone was tentative, but I guessed Tony Garza was her husband.

She smoothed her stiff hair.

I had a strong sense that we were adversaries, though her face remained composed, polite.

“This is a family store, isn't it?”

“Yes.” There was a proud toss of her head. “Yes, the Garza family has been here since 1960. My husband's mother, Maria Elena, opened it when no one cared about the River Walk, when they laughed at its future.”

“You. And your husband? Is Tony your husband?”

She nodded. So my guess was correct.

“And Rick.” I glanced at him and knew he wanted desperately to get away from me. “Who else works here?”

Susana Garza spoke quickly, almost too fast for me to understand. “My husband's sisters, Celestina and Magda. And Tony's brother Frank runs La Mariposa. Our hotel. Along with his wife, Isabel.”

“You said you didn't hire Iris. Who did?”

Her sullen eyes flashed with resentment. “Maria Elena does all the hiring. I told her we shouldn't have this girl. But she wouldn't listen.”

“Is your mother-in-law here? I'd like to talk to her.” Why had Maria Elena Garza hired Iris? It might have nothing to do with her disappearance, but there had to be a reason. And I wanted to talk to everyone connected with this store.

“I'm afraid that won't be possible. She's not been feeling well recently.”

“I'm so sorry,” I said quickly. “Nothing serious, I
hope. Rick”—I shot the question at him—“what is wrong with your grandmother?”

Rick's mouth opened, closed. He looked at his aunt, stuttered, “Well, I think she's had the flu. Yes, the flu.”

Susana's face didn't change, but her hands clenched into fists.

“I hope she's feeling much better soon. Perhaps I can meet her another time. When I return.” I said the last with emphasis.

The front door's silver bell sang as I left.

I stopped beside the window cleaner. The swipe of the squeegee made a faint moist sound.

“The window is very beautiful.” I spoke softly.

He ducked his head, peered at the ground. His eyes edged toward me, shyly, timid as a startled fawn. I saw the family resemblance, dark ringlets, these frosted by gray, the long, oval face, the indented chin, and glowing dark eyes.

I was startled by his eyes. They were soft and kind, filled with a yearning and a guilelessness that touched my heart.

I smiled, a genuine smile this time, not calculated to impress or disarm.

“Hello.”

He didn't speak, but his eyes spoke for him.

“I'm Henrie O.”

He lifted a hand, pointed at himself.

“Hello,” I said again.

It was the right answer. His mouth curved in a gentle smile.

“Do you know Iris?” I don't know why I asked. I already knew he couldn't answer.

He clapped his hands once. Then he looked at the window, moved carefully to a spot bathed in sunlight, and held up both hands. He moved his hands in swift
gestures and shadows moved on the window. I glimpsed flowers, then a darting bird, a bird that bobbed against the glass, a happy, saucy bird. Almost a silly bird.

His hands moved faster and his features drew down in a worried frown.

The shadow bird flew to the right, to the left, then streaked away.

“Yes,” I said slowly, “Iris has gone away. I'm trying to find her.”

His head bobbed. He gestured with his hands, the immemorial movement that signals, “Come. Come here.”

“Yes. I'll bring her back. If I can.”

As I walked away, I looked back. He was once again cleaning the shiny window.

I walked with foreboding. That simple man knew something. It worried him. And whatever he knew about Iris could only be connected to Tesoros.

I
knew what I was going to do, what I had to do. But I wanted Gina's approval. The pay phone was in the vestibule of the main entrance to the police department. As I made the call, I looked through smudged glass doors at the central reception desk. The second doorway to the right led to a counter for the sex crimes and homicide units. I hoped I'd never have to walk through those doors in my search for Gina's granddaughter.

When I was a young reporter, I spent a few years on a small Kansas daily and I covered everything from fires to murders to bank robberies. I always remembered that little town's police chief with respect. At the time, he'd terrified me. Over six feet tall, he was rangy and muscular like John Wayne, with a weathered face and a harsh voice. But he cared about his town and its people and once I'd seen tears in his eyes when they found a missing schoolgirl raped and beaten and dead. The case wasn't solved while I lived there. I heard later, years later, that he'd finally found the killer. He never gave up. He'd told me once, “Keep asking questions. Liars always make a mistake.” I followed his advice then and I follow it now. It works for reporters as well as cops.

The phone was answered midway into the second ring. It was late in Majorca, but I wasn't surprised when Gina answered on the first ring, her voice tight with anxiety. As I finished speaking, Gina gave a low moan. It started deep in her throat, came from her heart. I could picture her on the other end of the line. I knew fear glazed the bright green eyes I'd so often seen dancing with joy or sharp with inquiry or soft with compassion. Gina and her husband Kent had been very good friends to my husband Richard and to me when we lived in Mexico City. She was a correspondent for a Los Angeles daily, Richard was with a wire service, and I was freelancing. Her husband, Kent, was a historian, his specialty the Mexican Revolution, the sea change that created pride in all things Mexican. Kent was working then on his biography of General Alvaro Obregon, the hero of the Revolution who was later President of Mexico. As families we'd picnicked in Chapultepec Park, wandered through country markets, enjoyed fiestas, embraced a country and people who, despite a society often in turmoil and plagued by poverty, celebrated life with vigor and enormous creativity. Those happy years in Mexico seemed a lifetime ago. Now we both were widows and Gina was in Majorca doing a nonfiction book on the prehistoric remains, especially the chambered stone towers called talayots. Always interested in everything about her, she'd sent me a cheerful postcard about the abandoned monastery at Valldemosa which had counted among its famous guests Frédéric Chopin and George Sand.

Now there was no reason for cheer. I spoke gently. “I'm calling from a pay phone at the police station.”

A wavering breath. “Yes. That's next. Has to be next. Oh, Henrie O—”

“Gina, it's odd and scary, but there was no trace
of”—I didn't want to say blood—“no trace of a struggle in Iris's apartment. And the boy, Rick, claims she's gone to Padre Island with a guy.” I wanted to hear Gina's response to Rick's declaration.

“No. God, I wish it were so. Not that it wouldn't be like Iris to meet someone and be immediately infatuated.” Her tone was rueful. “Iris, to put it kindly, is something of a fool, especially where men are concerned. But she'd tell me all about him, burble with her news, declare her love from a mountaintop. In fact, that's exactly how she's sounded about this Rick ever since she started working there. Every E-mail begins with Rick this, Rick that…Iris is constant in her fashion. Her love affairs always last at least six months. Henrie O”—her voice was suddenly cool and crisp—“I think this Rick is lying.”

I thought so, too.

“All right, Gina. I'll make a formal report to the police. And, Gina, don't give up hope. There could be a dozen reasons why she's gone off. A quarrel with Rick. A new boyfriend. Just for the hell of it. Maybe it's nothing more than that.”

“Please, God,” she said softly.

“I'll call after I talk to Missing Persons.”

 

Missing Persons turned out to be handled within Youth Services, no matter the age of the vanished person.

Detective Investigator June Hess waved me to a seat in front of her gray metal desk. She was fortyish, trim, almost muscular. Smooth brown hair cupped a pale, composed face with aloof blue eyes and a firm, colorless mouth.

I gave her high marks as a listener. Her eyes left my face only when they dropped to the pad where she
made brief notes. Or when she gave an occasional glance at the computer-printout photograph of Iris and Gina.

When I finished, she turned to her computer screen. It took her only a moment to scroll down the homicides reported since Thursday morning.

“No young women. The only unidentified body is that of a white male approximately forty to fifty years old. Killed in a knife fight.” She clicked close. “What's the grandmother's phone number?”

She punched the numbers on her speakerphone. I listened to Gina's weary voice as she answered the detective's precise questions. Detective Hess's fingers flew on her computer keyboard.

I watched the fuzzy green screen of the monitor as she keystroked entries into the missing-persons form, distilling the substance of Gina's replies.

Detective Hess's hands dropped to her desk. She looked at the speakerphone. “I haven't been to your granddaughter's apartment yet, Mrs. Wilson. Mrs. Collins informs me it appears to have been searched. Do you know if there is anything of value that Miss Chavez possessed, something”—she looked at me for confirmation—“about the size of an attaché case or anything of value that would fit in an attaché case?”

I nodded.

“No.” Gina sounded puzzled. “I can't imagine. Iris doesn't have any money. She just scrapes by. But she never asks for help. She's determined to make her own way. She worked two jobs to earn enough money to go to San Antonio. Oh”—Gina's voice trembled—“I told her not to go there. I knew she shouldn't.”

“Why?” The detective's voice was sharp.

“It isn't good to go into the past. But she was determined. I understand why she went. She wants to know about the part of herself that came from her father. I think she always felt incomplete because she grew up in a completely non-Hispanic way and yet she
was Iris Chavez. But”—and Gina's voice was abruptly grim—“if I've learned one thing in life, it's to let the past go, let it go.”

“Do you think her disappearance could be connected in any way with her search for her father?” Detective Hess's hands were poised above her keyboard.

“I think it's unlikely,” Gina said slowly. “She told me quite soon after she arrived in San Antonio that she'd found a cousin of her father's who said Arturo died in a car wreck a few years after he came home. So I don't think her father can have any bearing on her absence. She sounded sad but, after all, she'd never known him. But she said she felt very close to him, being in San Antonio, so I stopped trying to persuade her to go back to California.”

Detective Hess typed for a moment.

Her final question surprised me. But, of course, given the realities of our time, it shouldn't have. The detective leaned back in her swivel chair, folded her arms. “Mrs. Wilson, you said your granddaughter has no history of drug use. But you can't be sure.”

“Yes. Yes, I can.” I knew that if Gina were here, she would be leaning forward, green eyes flashing, narrow face intent.

The detective looked sadly at the speakerphone. “A fortune in drugs can be carried in an attaché case.”

 

A fortune in drugs can be carried in an attaché case…

I unlocked the door to Iris's apartment. At my nod, Detective Hess stepped inside.

I looked at the disarray with new eyes. It could be drugs. If it was, the police would find out. In those circles, they had connections. Someone sold to someone else who sold to someone else. The police would
find out if Iris was involved in a trade that routinely dealt death in one form or another.

“Not random.” The detective's crisp statement confirmed my earlier judgment. “And not an ordinary robbery.” She pointed first at the painting in the chair. “That looks like something special. And there's the regular stuff”—her hand gestured toward the television and the computer—”so something unusual is going on. “Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Or the girl's split but dumped everything out to make it look like somebody searched the place. That could be why nothing's messed up.” She saw my surprise. “Yeah. People do funny things, especially when they're walking out on somebody. And this is a funny one. No sign of a break-in. Either the girl threw things around herself or she let in the person who made the mess or the searcher had a key.” She turned, studied the door. “But this kind of lock can be opened pretty easily if you have the right tools.”

Detective Hess closed the door, moved to the middle of the room and surveyed the small area. She didn't touch anything. No fingerprints would be marred if their taking should ever be necessary. Using the tip of her pocketknife, she delicately explored every pile of debris that appeared to contain papers. She spent at least ten minutes crouched on the floor beside the telephone table, patiently edging through that mess.

I stared at the telephone table. Had the drawer been pulled out, the contents emptied? I tried to remember, couldn't be certain. But that drawer was too small to hold anything larger than a notepad. Or an address book.

When Hess rose, stiffly, one hand on her left knee, I said, “No address book?”

“I didn't find one. Not in this stuff.” She pointed at
the floor. “Not in any of it. I'll check with her grandmother tomorrow, see if she knows whether the girl had one.”

We walked to the door.

Detective Hess took one last look. “If she didn't set this up, I'm pretty sure she wasn't here when the apartment was searched.”

I looked at her with interest.

She pointed at the kitchen table, at the chairs in place, at the lamps at either end of the sofa, at the untouched painter's easel, at the painting propped in a chair.

“People fight when they're attacked. You'd be surprised at the damage.” Her eyes, for an instant, were dark with memory. She continued matter-of-factly, “There's too much stuff here that's untouched. Whatever happened to her, it didn't happen here. If something happened to her.”

I led the way down the concrete steps. At the base of the stairs, Detective Hess stopped. “Are you going to return the key? Or hold on to it?”

My answer was quick. “Hold on to it.”

“Where can I find you?” Detective Hess flipped open her small notebook.

I'd had time to think about that. I wanted to stay on the River Walk. There was plenty of choice, from the massive Hilton to the elegant La Mansion del Rio. But I had a definite destination in mind. “There's a bed-and-breakfast upstairs from Tesoros. La Mariposa. B&Bs usually empty out on Sunday afternoons. I probably wouldn't stand a chance late in the week, but tonight I expect they'll have a vacancy.”