J. Jance - Fire and Ice

It was a statement not a question, and when Mel responded, she didn’t agree or disagree. “Please, Mr. Waters,” she said. “If we could just step inside for a moment…”

The man looked close to tears, but he straightened his broad shoulders, nodded, and held the door open to let us enter. Nothing about Mason Waters was small-not his body or his well-used chair, a recliner that looked even older than mine, not even his TV set, a fifty-two-inch wall-mounted flat-screen that rested on the mantel of a redbrick fireplace. All of that looked overly large and out of place in the otherwise smallish fifties-era house. The living room walls were covered with dark-wood wall paneling punctuated here and there with large decorative brass plates that dated from the fifties as well.

Other than the television set, the living room resembled a time capsule. The sofa was old-fashioned leather, cracking in spots. At one end of the couch sat a set of nesting end tables, just like the ones my grandmother once had. An old-fashioned rocker that didn’t look strong enough to support Mason’s weight, or mine, completed the sparse furnishings. On the far side of the living room and through a framed archway we could see a small but formal dining room with an oak buffet and a matching pedestal table. Above it hung an aged chandelier. The place may have been dated, but it was also clean and neat. I had the feeling someone, Mr. Waters’s parents, perhaps, had lived in the house for a very long time, and he was making every effort to maintain it to some kind of stringent standard.

Waters dropped into the recliner with enough force that I was afraid it might tip over backward. While he reached for the remote to switch off ESPN, Mel and I headed for the sofa. Once we were seated, Mel made a show of digging a notebook and pencil out of her purse. That’s a signal we’ve developed between us-sort of like a secret handshake. Whoever gets out the notebook first takes the lead asking questions.

“Tell us about Marina,” she said.

Mason’s eyes misted over. For a long time he stared up at the black face of the television screen without saying anything. “She’s the most wonderful person in the world,” he declared. “We were engaged to be married. Next month.”

The last broke off in a strangled sob.

“How long have you known her?” Mel asked.

“I met her in September,” Waters replied. “September the twelfth, at twenty minutes past seven in the morning. I thought I was having a bad day. My car blew up. The radiator, not the whole car. The tow truck dragged it into a garage on 320th. It was one of my days off and I was mad that I was having to spend it hassling with car repairs. So I left the car and walked up the street to Denny’s-the one on 320th-to have breakfast. I always order their Grand Slam, and there was Marina, working the counter. The moment I saw her, as soon as she poured me that first cup of coffee, that was it. I knew she was the one. You may not believe me. I mean, people laugh when I say it was love at first sight, but it was.”

I wasn’t laughing. I know that drill because that’s what happened to me with Anne Corley. The moment I saw her, I knew. Since I’m married to Mel now, though, and since our relationship had developed on a more traditional trajectory, it seemed best not to mention it.

“She was a waitress then?” Mel asked.

Mason nodded. “I hated to see her having to work so hard, being on her feet all day. It’s hard on the legs, you see. I told her I’d take her away from all that. I even offered to pay her way through driver’s school so she could get a CDL and go on the road with me. She didn’t seem to like that idea very much,” he added.

I’ll bet not, I thought. The faux Marina might have been able to walk her fake ID past whoever hired her at Denny’s, but it probably wouldn’t have stood up to someone who actually went to the trouble of examining her driving record.

“Did she have a regular driver’s license?” I asked.

Mason shrugged. “I guess,” he said.

“But you never saw it.”

“No, but she did have a car. The missing persons guy I talked to on the phone told me he tried checking her driving record with the DMV just after she disappeared. He said she didn’t exist, that she must have been working under an assumed name and that she probably disappeared because she wanted to disappear and because she was trying to get away from me. So there I was looking for help, and all he does is tell me Marina’s a liar. I wanted to belt him one. If I’d been in the same room with him, I might’ve done just that,” Mason Waters added forcefully-as though he still wanted to punch someone’s lights out.

The trouble is, Mel and I had come to the house intending to give him much the same information-that the love of his life was a liar and a fraud. I looked again at Mason Waters’s bull-like torso and formidable fists. If he decided to light into one of us or even both of us together, I wasn’t sure we could handle him.

“What kind of car did Marina have?” Mel asked.

“A white 4-Runner,” Waters said. “With Arizona plates. That’s where she was from, someplace in Arizona. She told me she had to leave there in a hurry. Her ex-boyfriend was after her. He’s the violent type, if you know what I mean. Abusive. She said if she hadn’t gotten away from him right then, he probably would have killed her.”

“Do you happen to remember the plate number?” I asked.

Mason shook his head mournfully. “I’m dyslexic,” he said. “I’m no good at remembering numbers. I couldn’t even tell you the numbers on my own license plates. I have to keep them written down on a piece of paper in my wallet.”

“Let’s go back to Marina for a moment,” Mel said. “You met her that morning in Denny’s. Then what happened?”

“I paid for my breakfast and left. They fixed my car, and I went on my next trip, but as soon as I got back, the first thing I did was go to Denny’s for breakfast again. There she was, just as beautiful as ever, with long dark hair and brown eyes. So I say to her, “Hey, gorgeous. You still here?” She gives me that look of hers and says right back, ‘And are you still having the Grand Slam?’ I was already head over heels, but that sealed the deal for me. She remembered me; remembered what I ordered. That never happened to me before. Usually waitresses see me and couldn’t care less, even if I’ve seen ’em a dozen times before. But not Marina. Just that one time and she remembered.”

Mel smiled and nodded. “So tell us about Marina,” she said. “Is she from Arizona originally then?” Her tone was conversational rather than confrontational. She looked interested, and her use of the present tense belied our suspicion that Marina Aguirre was dead. Poor Mason. He lunged for the bait like a starving fish. He had been waiting for months for someone to show an interest in his missing fiancee, and now the details came flooding out of him.

“Yes,” he said. “From somewhere down there. When she wasn’t in her uniform from Denny’s, she liked to dress like a cowgirl, you know, in boots and jeans and stuff.”

Yes, I thought, remembering the charred Tony Lama boot in the evidence bag.

“She never told me exactly where in Arizona,” Mason continued. “She said the less I knew about it the better, because if her boyfriend came looking for her, he might come after me as well. I told her I could handle myself, but I don’t think she believed me.”

“Did you ever meet any members of her family?”

He shook his head. “Never. She told me she had a son, but that she had left him back home, that he was staying with relatives where she knew he’d be safe until she got on her feet again.”

“The son’s name?”