asking, “How well did you know J. D. Rouse?”
“Only so well as he would let us, which means not well.
You have seen where they lived?”
His question was aimed at Richards and she shook her head.
“They live in a field. No flowers. No bushes. One ugly tree. When he married the sister of
“Why?” asked McLamb.
Diaz shrugged. “For that you must ask another.”
The morning was warming up rapidly and Mayleen Richards slipped back the hood of her coat. Her shoulder- length cinnamon-colored hair blazed in the sunlight and Miguel Diaz’s dark brown eyes widened in appreciation.
Fortunately McLamb missed the byplay because his eyes were on the door of the double-wide as Gerardo Garcia escorted his sister out to them.
Juanita Rouse was dressed in black from the scarf on her head to the boots on her feet. Her eyes were sad and there was a deep purple bruise on her left cheek; and yes, she told them, clearly ashamed of the bruise, J.D. had gotten violent with her once or twice, but only once or twice. All right, yes, maybe three or four times. He was not a bad man, though. Nor a bad husband. Not really.
Only when he drank too much beer or when things had gone badly at work. She turned to Diaz and spoke rapidly in Spanish with hand gestures to illustrate vocabulary words Richards had barely read, much less heard pro-nounced.
“She says that these things happen between a man and wife before the man settles down into marriage, when he still fights himself because he is not young and free.”
Diaz’s tone was completely neutral. “She wants you to know that he was a good father to their daughters.”
At that, Garcia growled and spat on the ground in dis-gust, which would indicate that he knew more English than they realized.
Mrs. Rouse’s dark eyes flashed. “Never once does he hit them, Gerardo. Not even when he have much beer. He brings candy, he plays with them, he makes them laugh.”
Garcia’s words were scornful and Diaz translated them, 12 too. “A good father does not hit the mother of his children.”
“What about his own fight with Rouse?” asked McLamb.
Back came the reply through Diaz: “A man does what he must for the honor of his family.”
“Would that include killing the man he feels has dis-honored the family?”
“It could. But not like that. He says it was a coward who shot him, not a man of honor.”
“All the same, we have to know where he was Thursday evening.”
“He was with me,” Diaz answered directly. “We have the contract for Orchard Range. You know where that is?”
McLamb nodded.
“We are planting around the entrance sign and the berms. You can speak to our men. They will tell you the same.”
“I’m sure they will,” said McLamb. “Anybody else who could vouch for him? Besides those in your employment?”
“Will the Anglo who employs us do for this? He came by around five to talk to us about using more holly instead of cypress.”
McLamb asked for the developer’s name and telephone number and jotted it down on the yellow legal pad, then turned back to Nita Rouse. “Do you yourself know of anyone who would want your husband dead?”
“No,” she said, but as McLamb continued to look at her steadily, her eyes fell. As if it were too painful to try to say it in English, she spoke through Diaz.
“There is a woman,” he told them. “Her name is Darla. This is why they fight so much now. She is married, too. Her husband has been in the war. Now he is home again. Maybe if he knew?”
His name?
Nita Rouse denied knowing it.
McLamb had been watching Diaz as he translated, but Mayleen Richards had watched the woman and had seen the small twitch of satisfaction at the edge of her lips. As they drove out of the compound back onto the highway, she said, “If that soldier does know about Rouse and his wife, guess who got word to him?”
“You think?”
“Five’ll get you ten.”
“No bet.” The car’s interior had warmed up while standing in the sun and he reached over to turn the heater down a couple of degrees.
