Crunch Time

to realize you need to change the codes from time to time. Furthermore, I’d done enough nose-powdering for him to think I only cared about my appearance. Not only that, I’d faked enough orgasms for him to think I was only in our relationship for the sex. When he paid me, he always said, ‘This is for you to buy yourself a little something.’ I always acted surprised and grateful.”

“Two sets of codes, and that’s it?” I still couldn’t believe what she was telling me.

“No, no, no, that is not it. As I said, there was no hiding place that I could find. But Humberto has his four cars, and his office building. He also has three thugs who guard his house and grounds. They’re all Spanish-speaking, and I don’t speak Spanish.” She sighed. “I did tell Ernest about the necklace, and that it was kept in an unlocked jewelry box. I felt terrible admitting I hadn’t been able to find the cache of stolen stuff Ernest insisted must be there. So I searched again. I went through the bureaus one more time. The closets. I scoured the cars. I looked in the freezer, under the mattress, and in every item of Humberto’s clothing. I checked the seams on all the pillows and upholstery. There was nothing handmade or hand-sewn. While Humberto slept and the guards drank themselves silly out in the gatehouse, I went through every box in the basement and the attic. One day I even took the toaster apart. No diamonds. I figured all I had to say if I was caught was that I’d lost something.”

“But that didn’t happen,” I said.

“Nope.”

I said, “Damn it. But why did you get upset a while ago? It’s not your fault that Ernest was killed.”

“Just let me finish my story, will you, Goldy? I want to get through this. Next time Ernest came over, I told him I’d failed. He said he had a new plan and gave me some of his temazepam. Know the drug?”

“Sleeping pills.”

She pointed a black-painted fingernail at me. “Correct. He asked me to open up the pills and sprinkle the powder into new bottles of the guards’ rum. He said to pour a little rum out of each bottle first, so it would look as if the guys had started drinking them and just forgot they’d opened them. Ernest assured me the dose I was putting in wouldn’t be enough to kill the guys.” When she shrugged, the torn-out neck of her sweatshirt fell off one shoulder, revealing the ratty strap of a bra. She pulled the sweatshirt back into place and went on. “The guys kept their bottles of rum in the refrigerator, so I knew I could do it. Ernest asked for the security codes, and I gave them to him. He also furnished me with a disposable cell and told me to call him the next time Humberto and I were going out on a date. That’s what Humberto always calls them: ‘dates.’ What a joke.”

She rubbed her eyes. I waited.

Finally, she said, “So then Humberto invited me to the opera. He always wanted to show me off to people, like he was such a stud, he’d been able to land a young girlfriend. And he wanted to appear cultured. Yeah, like yogurt, I always thought. Anyway, when he was on his way over here to pick me up, I called Ernest. Then I put the phone into my purse, to throw away at the opera, the way Ernest had told me. When I told Humberto I needed to stop at his place for a jacket I’d purposely left there, I threw away the guards’ open bottles of rum and put the doctored ones in their place.”

“Then what?”

“Down in Denver, I tossed the cell, the way Ernest told me. When the opera was over, I was so nervous we’d surprise Ernest while he was robbing the house, I told Humberto the music had moved my soul. I wanted to make love in the car. He complied.” She ran her hand through her hair.

“And when you got back to Humberto’s house?”

“The guards were all fast asleep. Humberto woke them up, yelling at them like there was no tomorrow. He insisted they search the house. That’s when they discovered the missing necklace.” She sighed. “Humberto called an ambulance for the guards. Then he phoned the police. But I think he was afraid of getting caught telling them about a piece of jewelry he had stolen being stolen, so he clammed up. As soon as the cops left, those son-of-a-bitchin’ guards hollered that I had to be the one who had stolen the necklace.” She lifted her chin, indicating the tiny apartment. “They came over here and tore the place apart.” Her right hand patted the couch. “I had to put this bedspread over my sofa, because they ripped through the old fabric, looking for the necklace. They went through the trash, inside my apartment and out in the parking lot, so I was glad I had dumped the cell in Denver. Then the assholes broke into my parents’ house and ransacked it. But wait, this is the good part.”

“There’s a good part?” I said faintly.

“My mom and dad get back from a church meeting? They surprise the guards. My dad blocks their car in our driveway. He calls the cops on his cell, then takes a crowbar out of his trunk and treks to the front door to threaten whoever’s in the house. So much for ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ ”

“Oh my gosh, Lolly—”

“Next thing I know, Humberto’s tooling over there, with me beside him. He’s giving my parents five K in cash, in exchange for them saying the guards were their friends who’d come to a party on the wrong night. No charges were brought. Arrests or no arrests, I was furious and told Humberto he had to give me money for new furniture and tell the guards to leave me alone. Otherwise, he could find himself a new”—she hooked her fingers to indicate quotation marks again—“ ‘girlfriend.’ ”

“Good Lord, Lolly.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. “The guards backed off. Humberto gave me ten thousand dollars, do you believe that? I called Julian, told him I’d come into some cash, did he want part of his money back? He laughed and said he’d take repayment after I got my degree and a jobby-job. So I bought this spread and those two chairs”—she pointed across the room—“at the Aspen Meadow Secondhand Store. My bank account got fattened up, and Humberto and I got together.” She stopped, and I waited while she summoned the will to tell me the next bit, which I knew was coming. “Next thing I knew, Ernest McLeod had been shot and killed.”

She rubbed her eyes furiously to keep herself from becoming upset. When she finally began to weep, I figured it was better just to let her have her cry.

19

After she’d cried her way through a roll of discount toilet paper, she calmed down. I asked, “Did you tell the cops all this?”

Her bloodshot eyes gave me that look again, like I was hopelessly dense. “No, Goldy. I did not tell the cops that while I was working as a whore, I conspired to steal a valuable necklace and then drugged three guys so that my coconspirator could break into the house where the necklace was. I didn’t even want to tell you. But then when you knocked and knocked and knocked on my door, I had this vision of Father Pete shaking his head and of Julian looking disappointed, and I couldn’t stand it. Your husband’s a cop, isn’t he? Can’t you tell him, and keep me out of it?”

I blinked. “I’ve already told him I was coming to see you.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“I don’t think Tom will arrest you for prostitution if you tell him all you’ve told me.”

She exhaled. “The cop who arrested me for DUI wasn’t exactly empathetic.”

“Nor would I expect him to be. But this is murder and is therefore different. Humberto had motive—Ernest had discovered and taken the necklace—and he probably had opportunity. Or he could have hired one of his guards to do it.”

“But how would he have found out about Ernest in the first place?”

“When Ernest was a cop, he had worked Norman Juarez’s case. Humberto or his people had put together that Ernest was investigating him. Humberto had even hired Yolanda to spy on Ernest. Maybe he had someone else watching Ernest, someone we didn’t know about.”

“Oh, Christ. Who?”

I shook my head. “You know I can’t talk about that. But here’s the big question: Did Ernest tell you where the necklace was? Because he didn’t give it to the Juarezes.”

“He didn’t?” She raked her blue-black hair behind her ears. “Holy crap. I wondered why Norman Juarez acted so angry last night. But no, after the break-in, I didn’t call Ernest. I was afraid if I called Ernest on my regular cell, Humberto and his guards might find his number on my ‘calls made’ list. Ernest had told