Steven Havill - Before She Dies

Mrs. Woodruff began to cry again, and Estelle covered the woman’s left hand with her own, and a handy tissue. I shifted in my chair, uncomfortable with this recitation of the Woodruff family scrapbook. Estelle caught the agitation and shot me a quick look of impatience. I folded my hands on my lap.

“Do you know where Elena Munoz works now?”

Bea shook her head, but Karl Woodruff replied, “She works at the Laundromat on Bustos and Second.”

“We may want to talk with her at some time,” Estelle said. “Had Tammy been drinking more recently?”

The abrupt change of subject startled Bea Woodruff and she glanced over at her husband. His eyes remained locked on the parquet floor tile.

“I don’t think more…” she started to say, but Karl interrupted.

“A lot more,” he murmured.

“How do you know?” Estelle asked, and somehow she kept any accusatory tone out of her voice.

“I could smell it from time to time, on her breath. When she came into the pharmacy. I saw an open bottle once in her truck.” He shrugged helplessly. “Of course, I should have said something.”

“What did she drink, mostly. Beer? Hard liquor? Maybe scotch, vodka, things like that?”

Woodruff nodded. “What difference does it make now? Beer, wine. She was particularly fond of rye whiskey.” He snorted. “The cowpuncher’s drink, I guess. I don’t know for sure what she liked or didn’t like other than that.” He looked up at Estelle, into those wonderful dark eyes. “She drank to excess. We know that. And it killed her. We know that, too.”

“Sir, would you look at this list? These are the items that were found in the cab of her truck at the accident scene. Either in the cab or in the immediate area.” She slipped a single sheet of paper out of her leather folder and handed it to Karl Woodruff.

He read the list and grimaced, then made a little whimpering noise as he looked away. “Jesus,” he said, and handed the list to his wife.

Bea Woodruff read the list and I saw her jaw quiver.

Estelle leaned forward. “Sir, we know that there is no way that Tammy was able to consume all that alcohol and still operate a motor vehicle. She would have been unconscious.” She reached over and indicated one of the items on the list. “A couple of six-packs, maybe. A few shots of rye, as you say, maybe at the Broken Spur on the way. But half a quart of vodka on top of everything else? Not someone her size. It would have put her in a coma.”

I saw the muscles of Karl Woodruff’s jaw clench. “She wouldn’t have drunk that stuff, anyway.”

“Sir?”

“She couldn’t stand vodka, officer.” He reached up and touched his own forehead between his eyes. “It gave her an instant headache, right here. Made her sick.”

Estelle leaned back. “Then someone else was either drinking with her at the time, or Tammy was planning to join someone and knew what his…or her…favorite drink was.”

Karl went back to kneading his invisible ball of putty. “I wish to hell I could believe that in a few minutes I was going to wake up,” he said. “Goddamned nightmare. I realize, sitting here, that my daughter is dead, and I can’t tell you people one thing about her life the past couple years. I don’t know who her circle of friends is. Hell, I don’t even know if she had a circle of friends. I don’t know what she was doing. I don’t know how she was spending her time. Or what trouble she was in.” He looked across at me, his eyes tortured. “And now she’s gone.”

“I’m sorry, Karl,” I said.

“And I can’t help her.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated. I didn’t know what else to say.

An impossibly fat woman looked me up and down, one hand on her hip, the other resting on the lid of a commercial washing machine.

“She called in sick today,” she said. “She ain’t here.”

“She’s home, then?”

“If she’s sick, that’s likely,” the woman said. “Her gal friend died, you know.”

“You don’t say,” I replied. “I’ll check her house. Thanks for your time.”

The fat woman watched without shifting position as I walked out of the Laundromat. As I pulled 310 away from the curb, she was still standing, watching.

The telephone book listed Elena Munoz at 223 Garfield, a little dead-end street that angled off of Pershing, two blocks east of the hospital. The address was a cinder-block house that had been a rental unit for twenty years.

I stood on the concrete step and waited. The doorbell button lit when I pushed it, but I heard nothing. After a minute, I rapped hard on the door. While I waited, I turned and looked at the older model Ford Escort in the driveway. The tires were bald, and one taillight unit had been replaced with red plastic and duct tape. Life at the Laundromat wasn’t making Elena Munoz rich.

The door opened against the security chain, and I could see about two-thirds of Elena’s pretty face. Her hair was a mess, and the makeup around her eyes had blurred and run, no longer covering up the red from crying. She lifted her chin a little when she saw me, and said, “I wondered when you’d show up.”

Elena Munoz didn’t look like she needed threatening just then, so I smiled and thrust a hand in one of my pockets, trying to look a little more casual-like maybe I’d just stopped by on a lark.

“Me in particular, or just the cops?” I asked.

She looked past me at the Sheriff’s Department patrol car parked at the curb. “I thought maybe Bobby would stop by.”

“Bobby?”

“Bob Torrez. He’s my cousin.”

“No kidding?”

“Well, sort of.” She slipped the chain and opened the door. “More like third or fourth cousin. Come on in.”

“Do you have a few minutes?”

Elena turned and smiled, lighting up the tear stains a little. “I got nothing but time, mister.”

“Why didn’t you call us?”

“Why should I?”

“You don’t have any idea who killed Tammy Woodruff?”

Her lower lip jutted out like a second grader deprived of morning milk break. I thought for a minute that she was going to start crying again. A box of tissues sat on a small coffee table, and I pulled one out and handed it to her. She waved it away and sat down on the sofa with a thump, hands folded between her legs.

I sat in a fake leather monstrosity opposite and waited.

“Sure, I got an idea,” she said.

“Who?”

“Well, it happened up on Fourteen, didn’t it?” She shrugged and turned away as if that were all the answer I needed.

“Yes, it did.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

She turned her head and glared at me through eyes brimming with tears. “So he lives up there. That’s what.”

“Who lives up there?”

“Torrance. That son of a bitch.”

“Patrick Torrance, you mean?” I asked, and she nodded. “You think he killed Tammy?” She nodded again. “Why would he do that?”

For a long time, she looked off to her right, eyes locked on something far beyond the cinder-block walls, beyond the yard outside, beyond Posadas.

“I just think he did.”

“Why?”

“She said he threatened her.”

“She told you that?” Elena nodded. “Why would he threaten her?”

After taking a deep breath and wiping a drop off the end of her nose with the back of her hand, Elena said, “Because she was through with him.”

“Come on, Elena. Tammy didn’t make a hobby out of monogamous relationships. We both know that. She’d broken up with him before. She left Brett Prescott and went back to Patrick. He knew what to expect.”

“She was pregnant. She just found out.”

“So what?” My response jarred her, and her mouth opened as if to say something. Nothing came out. “She was twenty-three years old, Elena. There’s no mystery about a pregnancy. It’s not like she was a twelve-year-old midschooler.” She looked down at the floor and her forehead furrowed. I continued, “Was it Patrick Torrance’s child? Did she say?”