Jeff Abbott - A Kiss Gone Bad

Claudia awoke early Saturday morning and lay on the futon for an hour, her body stiff against the flowered sheets. She had no job. She had rent, she had food to buy, she had a car payment, she would have no health insurance, she had less than two thousand dollars in her checking account and less in a savings account, she owed six hundred on a Visa card with seventeen percent interest. Twice she reached for the phone to call her mother, but even before she dialed her mother’s voice rang in her ear like discordant chimes: Whats wrong with you? You give up a wonderful husband, now you lose your job? What, you want to shrimp with your father? There’s a future. Why did we bother sending you to school? She wasn’t up for her mother’s blunderbuss catechism. Heather Farrell’s face swam before her, dream-edged, and twice Claudia stumbled to the bathroom, surrendering to dry heaves of sick and shock.

So she finally called David, whispering to him about losing her job, about failing Heather. He came over at seven-thirty in the morning, arrived with a bag of breakfast groceries, drew a hot bath for her, made omelets while she bathed and dressed in old nubby pajamas soft as a kiss. She heard him in her kitchen, sliding drawers, chopping vegetables, pouring juice, sizzling butter.

That didn’t take long, did it, Miss Tough? You’re just gonna let him right back in, aren’t you?

She popped open the drain, let the soapy water begin its downward swirl. Yeah. Maybe I am.

They ate their eggs and biscuits and juice, and Claudia, rather than talking, went under a wave of exhaustion. She fell asleep curled on the futon, David lying beside her, stroking her dark hair.

She awoke at 10 a.m. Her blinds were lowered, the room grayish dark. She stumbled to the kitchen. David sat drinking coffee, reading the Corpus Christi paper.

He lowered the paper. ‘Hope I didn’t overstay my welcome. I thought you might want to talk when you woke up.’

‘Thanks. Thanks for the bath and breakfast and everything.’

‘But I want to get something straight, okay?’ New steel in his voice she hadn’t heard before. ‘I’m not trying to take advantage of the… emotional train wreck you’ve just gone through. I’m saying that out loud because I know how your mind works, Claud, and sooner or later you’re gonna think I’m trying to tiptoe back in.’

‘Oh, David, I don’t think that,’ she said, unsure of what she thought.

‘Okay. I just don’t want you to be alone if you don’t want to be.’

She got herself a cup of hot coffee – he’d brewed hazelnut, her favorite – and added generous milk and sugar. He had his back to her, sitting at the kitchen table, and she watched the set of his shoulders, his burr of auburn hair, his wiry arms, the constellation of freckles on the back of his neck. She wanted to hold and kiss him and feel him against her, and she nearly dropped her mug.

Carefully she sipped the piping hot coffee, standing in the kitchen away from him. He turned around in his chair. ‘You want to talk options? Delford can’t just terminate you, Claudia.’

‘He could and did.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s a right-to-work state, he can fire me at will. I had to go back in, surrender my side arm, my badge. I didn’t have a box to clean out my desk, I guess I have to do that Monday.’

‘Are you going to appeal to the mayor?’

‘I’ll write him a letter,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think I’m overflowing with options here.’

‘Come work for the sheriff’s department,’ he said instantly and then stumbled. ‘I mean, you’re a good investigator. You could work for DPS, too, or Parks and Wildlife, maybe.’

‘I’m sure something will come up. I can always shrimp with Papa. That should drive Mama into the crazy house a full ten years ahead of schedule.’ She finished her coffee. ‘So what about your big Jabez Jones case?’

He shrugged. ‘He was spotted in New Mexico. I think he’s probably heading back to California, where he’s got a lot of friends. The DEA agent from Corpus told me they think Jabez’s donation receipts don’t match the figures in his books. He’s gotten maybe thirty thou in donations and three million on his ledgers. Mary Magdalene still ain’t talking. Sits in her cell like a freaking Amazon warrior, silent.’

‘I thought maybe Junior Deloache was bringing drug money into Port Leo.’

David nodded. ‘Probably. With Junior dead, and Jones running, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a connection. That three million, maybe it’s Jabez laundering Junior’s money.’

‘I just wish Velvet would turn up,’ Claudia said, thinking of Heather’s water-paled face. ‘Her car was at Junior’s condo, her purse with a gun in it, but she wasn’t.’

‘You think she killed him?’

‘No. I mean, I doubt it, but who knows. I don’t know her.’ She gave a thin, nervous laugh. ‘I for sure thought I knew Delford, but he turned on me quicker than a rabid dog.’

David shook his head again. ‘With all this insanity, I can’t believe Delford fired you. He needs everyone he can get.’

‘Does he? If the crime’s this big, the DEA and FBI will take it over. Delford’ll just wax his mustache and make press announcements.’ She retrieved the coffeepot, freshened their mugs, came and sat next to him at the table.

‘I don’t get how the Ballew girl fits in,’ David said. ‘Comes from Louisiana to see Jones, gets involved in this money laundering, and ends up dead?’

Claudia explained what she had found about the nursing home connections. ‘It’s strange, and maybe I chased a shadow,’ she said. ‘But I found, well, not quite a pattern, but a couple of odd coincidences of timing.’

‘Are all your notes at the station?’

‘Yeah. But I can get you a copy. I mean, it’s really your case.’

David phoned the station and got a clerk to make copies of Claudia’s notes on Marcy Ballew.

‘Ask them if I’ve gotten any messages from out-of-town police,’ Claudia said.

He did. He paused, gestured at her for pencil and paper, which she handed to him. He jotted notes.

‘Well, this is interesting. You got messages from investigators in Brownsville and Laredo.’ Neither police department had made much progress on the Morris or the Palinski case. Both women seemed to have vanished into thin air: no witnesses, no evidence.

‘Let’s call them back,’ she said.

He reached for her phone. ‘Not on my unemployed dime,’ she said. ‘Let’s go over to the sheriff’s department.’

She dressed quickly and they drove over. David made the calls, asking the investigator on duty if there was a nursing home near either woman’s workplace. The Laredo detective said yes, there was a nursing home right across from the Taco Bell that Angela Morris vanished from, Bellewood. It was the same one that Placid Harbor had handled a patient transfer from. Brownsville didn’t know if there was a nursing home near the pizzeria; they’d find out and call or fax David back.

So David called the pizzeria to ask if St Mary’s Nursing Home was close by. No, not at all, the pizzeria was at the northern edge of town on Highway 77. St Mary’s was on the east side of Brownsville.

‘But 77’s the main highway,’ Claudia said when David hung up. ‘Anyone going to St Mary’s might still pass that pizzeria. I’d just like to know more about these transfers, about how they work, the time involved.’

David set the phone down. ‘You want to go talk to Buddy Beere with me?’

‘I’m not a cop anymore,’ she said. The truth of it still sounded alien to her ears.

‘You are to me. C’mon, you’ve already talked to the guy. Better than sitting around updating resumes and harboring grudges.’

Now she smiled at him. ‘Sure. Let’s go.’