In Big Trouble

'This is really good,' she said. 'This elephant ear. It's the best I've ever had.'

Guzman followed her little sidestep effortlessly, the Arthur Murray of the box. 'It's from Mario's, in El Mercado. You been there yet?'

She shook her head.

'I keep forgetting, you're not just another tourist. El Mercado, the River Walk, the missions-those are the places the tourists go.'

'And the Alamo.'

'Claro que si. Not that I have much use for the Alamo.'

'Why?'

'Do I look like John Wayne?' he asked. 'Or even Fess Parker?'

'Oh, yeah-your people were on the outside.'

'Not my people. My people run a shoestore in Guadalajara. Besides, there were Mexicans inside, too, you know. No, it just doesn't mean anything to me. There's a lot of stuff in San Antonio like that. This stupid All Soul Festival, for example. Gus Sterne's brainchild.'

'Gus Sterne?' Tess had heard of the festival, and heard of Gus Sterne, the cousin who had raised Emmie until their falling-out. She hadn't heard the two were connected.

'Yeah, Gus Sterne. I know he raises all this money for scholarships, but to me, it's a sacrilege, using Day of the Dead as some hook for another week of parties and parades that also happen to promote his barbecue restaurants. Yet the City Hall folks, the tourism gurus, say it's a big deal. They say it's going to be bigger than the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival one day. ‘As if,' my twelve-year-old daughter would say.'

As if she would say as if. That locution was only a thousand years old in teen-speak. Under different circumstances, Tess might have smiled at the thought of this streetwise cop who couldn't keep up with his own daughter's vocabulary.

'Anyway, I don't care,' Guzman said. 'I'll make some overtime.'

'Umph,' Tess said, hoping it sounded like a polite, neutral agreement. Her lips were covered with pastry flakes and there was no napkin she could see. The back of the hand would have to do. But then her hand was covered with pastry, which made her giggle. God, she was so fatigued, it was like being stoned. Where had she read that British secret service agents had to undergo seventy-two hours of sleep deprivation as part of training?

'I remember when I used to make overtime working cases, not pulling parade duty. The bad ol' days. Now the homicide rate's at a twenty-year low.'

'Really.' Although Tess couldn't put much energy in her reaction, she was impressed. Baltimore had fallen back from its body-a-day high, but not by much. In fact, the stats indicated Baltimore's killers were simply getting more efficient: fewer shootings, but a higher fatality rate. Way to go, kids. If you can't bring up your reading scores, at least you're improving as marksmen.

'It gives us time to solve cases,' Guzman said. 'Old ones, as well as new ones. Today's technology can solve yesterday's murders. We cleared a twenty-five-year-old case last month. I was counting on Tom Darden to help me clear another one, one almost as old. You remember Tom Darden? You made his acquaintance up near Twin Sisters, as I recall. Stocky fellow?'

Not so stocky with his chest hollowed out by a gunshot blast, Tess thought. Somewhere in her body, a warning signal was going off, or trying to go off-it seemed almost as far away as the city's church bells. See? her body screamed at her mind. You should have let me sleep, then we could cope with this. The mind replied testily: Oh shut up and make some adrenaline.

'You know who Tom Darden is, Miss Monaghan?'

'He's the man I found.'

Guzman smiled approvingly, a teacher with a slow student who had finally, after much prodding and many hints, come up with the right answer.

'That the only time you've ever seen him?'

'As far as I know. I don't really know what he looked like when he was alive.'

Another smile, another nod. 'Good point. They keep making bigger and better guns, but there's still nothing like an old-fashioned shotgun for ripping open some guy's face, is there? That gun we found under your friend's bed, it was old, but it could do the job, couldn't it? A beauty. Matches a gun that belongs to Marianna Barrett Conyers. I just talked to her on the phone. She confirmed that she keeps it up at her weekend place. What do you want to bet that it's not there anymore?'

Tess said nothing, but in her mind she was making another quick inventory of the limestone cottage. No bullets in any of the drawers she had pulled open, no locked gun cabinet, but she recalled a rack above the fireplace. Empty, it hadn't registered as being of any significance. Could have been a plate-holder for all she knew, or some other piece of decorative bric-a-brac. A gun rack. Go figure.

'Don't get me wrong,' Guzman said. 'I'm not going to shed any tears over Darden. In fact, I was counting on watching him die one day. I just thought it would be through lethal injection, a few more years down the road. The thing, is, I wanted to talk to him first about some old business, and now I can't do that. And although I'm indebted to your friend, I can't really let it go, you know? Even lowlifes have rights.'

Tess started to nod, then stopped, not sure what she would be agreeing with.

'Unless-' Guzman paused as if struck by a sudden brainstorm, only he was a little too stagey. 'Unless, of course, your friend killed him in self-defense. I can see that. He's staying up there with Emmie Sterne, and this bad guy breaks in. Your friend gets scared and grabs the gun. Bang, bang, bang, lots of blood and screaming. Everybody panics. It's natural. He stashes the guy in the pool house, cleans up real good, and hits the road. Then you come along, looking for your old buddy, and you find the body. Only you don't bother to tell the sheriff why you're really there. That how it happened?'

'If it did, wouldn't it be a matter for Sheriff Kolarik? His county, his body.'

Perhaps the slow student was moving a little too fast now. For whatever reason, Guzman was no longer smiling and nodding at her.

'Believe me, Sheriff Kolarik would love to have you return as a guest of the county. Problem is, we know where Darden was found, but we don't know where he was killed. He was last seen alive in San Antonio, about two weeks ago, with his old buddy Laylan Weeks. Sheriff Kolarik doesn't mind if I make a few inquiries down here, seeing as the weapon appears to have shown up and all. Under your friend's bed. And seeing as Tom Darden might be the link to something where the stakes are a lot bigger.'

'I hate to undermine your theory, but Crow Ransome doesn't know how to use a gun.' At least, he hadn't when Tess last saw him. Or had he? Perhaps his knowledge of firearms had been something else he had mentioned in passing. My father abandoned a shot at the Nobel Prize to run off with my mother the famous sculptor and, by the way, I'm a crack shot. It was possible. Anything seemed possible just now. 'He's also not stupid enough to hide a murder weapon under his own bed. Who hides anything under the bed, anymore? I haven't put anything there since I was twelve and trying to read Lolita.'

'That Russian book they made into the dirty movie on Showtime?'

Tess decided not to challenge his characterization. 'Yeah.'

'Man, I'd jump up and down if my twelve-year-old was trying to sneak a book like that. The only thing she has under her bed is a stash of makeup that her mother won't let her wear until she's sixteen.'

'If you want her to read a certain book, all you have to do is ban it. Better yet, hide it wherever you hide your own contraband-my mom used the linen closet. Your daughter will find it there and start sneaking it out, gulping it down when you're out of the house. Leave a little Balzac behind, and she'll take it from there.'

'Naw. Estrella doesn't know our hiding places.'

'If you've got a twelve-year-old in the house, she knows where everything is. Including the dirty videos and drugs. Well, no drugs in a detective's house, I guess. But the videos and the booze, even contraband chocolates.'

Guzman blushed. 'Yes, well. Anyway, you came looking for your old boyfriend. Why did he go missing in the first place?'

The postcard with Crow's picture, the one that had started this whole mess, was in the pages of Tess's