“Why not?”
“We both have too much to lose to do something as stupid as kill someone.” Gina crossed her arms. “Anyway, there are better ways of getting back at a man than killing him.”
Kona set his attention on Clara again. “Almost done, Miss. Other than someone at the park, who else might’ve been mad enough at Danny to want him dead? Any of the other girls that worked for him?”
“We all liked him. He was pretty nice to us, not so demanding, you know? I can’t think of any of them that wanted to kill him.”
“Anybody else come to mind?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“We found a bottle cap for Tuyo beer in his pocket, a Filipino brand. Was that his favorite brand of beer?”
She shook her head again. “He didn’t drink beer, at least not that I ever saw. Or anything else. Sure, he hung around that bar, but he’d drink sodas or whatever. He didn’t want us drinking booze, either.”
“Why not? Too expensive?”
“He had to pay for our drinks, and soda cost him the same as booze. He just didn’t want any of us drunk. He really was protective of his girls.”
Detective Kona took a black and photo from his notepad and showed it to Clara. Gina recognized it as the one that had been in Danny’s wallet the day she found him. She watched Clara’s face for a reaction.
“Do these people look familiar to you?”
Clara looked for a full minute. “You think she’s his wife?”
“I don’t know who they are.”
She handed the picture back. “Either do I.”
He made her look again. “Is the little girl in the picture you?”
“Why should I be in a picture?”
“Is the lady holding the girl’s hand your mother?” he asked.
“I told you…” She tossed the snapshot down on the table. “…I don’t know them.”
That wrapped up Detective Kona’s interview of Clara, who excused herself to the bathroom.
“Any ideas of who killed Danny?” Gina asked, once they were alone.
“I have footprints all over the scene, but no shoes that match them. I have fingerprints with no matches in the system. I have a dead man’s fingerprints, but have no match in the system. I have a bottle cap to beer that the dead man apparently didn’t drink. I have a photograph of people nobody knows. I have a knife with blood on it that doesn’t match anyone’s DNA in the database. And I have a troop of hookers that are more familiar with quantum physics than they were with their daddy. What I don’t have is suspects in three death, and all three of those deaths revolve one specific bar, and at least tow of them have been classified as murder.”
“What about Chuck? Your money is on someone using the billy club on him?” Gina asked.
“That’s what makes sense to me. No prints at all on the bat, and we know he’d handled it only a few hours before when she displayed it to you. I can’t imagine why he would clean the bat along with the rest of the bar at the end of the shift. It wasn’t used for food service, just on the occasion when he needed to persuade someone to behave themself.”
Gina handed him a glass of lemonade. “Well, Detective, I’m glad these are your cases and not mine.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Gina didn’t hear from Detective Kona for the rest of the week, and that was just fine with her. As far as she was concerned, Chuck as at least responsible for Danny’s death, if not the one who plunged the ice pick into his liver. It took more guesswork to decide on Chuck’s killer. Maybe it was Candy, or one of his other prostitutes exacting revenge for him being mean to them. Maybe even Clara had gone there late that night and given him a whack, for no other reason than taking the father of her baby away from her. Or Flor or Florinda. That was something Gina didn’t want to consider, since Clara was beginning to relax around her and the house, and cheering up a little. It seemed like the entire crew was moving on from the nerves of death, and settling into a work rhythm.
Eventually, working together, Felix and Kenzo got the last of the wall paneling put up in the house. Next came coats of paint, and while Felix decided on which room to start with, Kenzo checked the weather for the next few days, planning on dry days for painting. Since the house was still none of her concern, Gina let them bicker over wall paint while she replaced blisters for callouses on her hands.
After getting the umpteenth lecture from her mother about going to church, at least to meet a few more people, Gina went to early Mass Sunday morning. After that, she planned on making an extra-large kettle of summer minestrone, with the ulterior motive of taking half of it to Mr. Tanizawa as a surprise. With the way he had talked about it the time she met him, it seemed to bring a good memory to his tired soul. She’d spent most of the church service daydreaming about how to make that day’s version of the soup.
She was just getting everything mentally assembled when she drove over the little bridge to home. Now that she’d been there for a few weeks, and had even received a snail mail letter from her mother delivered to the doorstep, she was beginning to feel like the old house was home. Even her estate project was starting to feel like a chosen profession, rather than just having a lawn-mowing job. Everything was beginning to fall into place.
Then she saw Detective Kona’s sedan parked at the side of the house. He’d already seen her come in, or she would’ve backed around and left again.
“Detective Kona, what’s taken you so long to come back? It’s been five whole days since you’ve been here.”
He looked at her
