Before She Dies

Chapter 34

An impossibly fat woman looked me up and down, one hand on her hip, the other resting on the lid of a commercial washing machine.

“She called in sick today,” she said. “She ain’t here.”

“She’s home, then?”

“If she’s sick, that’s likely,” the woman said. “Her gal friend died, you know.”

“You don’t say,” I replied. “I’ll check her house. Thanks for your time.”

The fat woman watched without shifting position as I walked out of the Laundromat. As I pulled 310 away from the curb, she was still standing, watching.

The telephone book listed Elena Munoz at 223 Garfield, a little dead-end street that angled off of Pershing, two blocks east of the hospital. The address was a cinder-block house that had been a rental unit for twenty years.

I stood on the concrete step and waited. The doorbell button lit when I pushed it, but I heard nothing. After a minute, I rapped hard on the door. While I waited, I turned and looked at the older model Ford Escort in the driveway. The tires were bald, and one taillight unit had been replaced with red plastic and duct tape. Life at the Laundromat wasn’t making Elena Munoz rich.

The door opened against the security chain, and I could see about two-thirds of Elena’s pretty face. Her hair was a mess, and the makeup around her eyes had blurred and run, no longer covering up the red from crying. She lifted her chin a little when she saw me, and said, “I wondered when you’d show up.”

Elena Munoz didn’t look like she needed threatening just then, so I smiled and thrust a hand in one of my pockets, trying to look a little more casual-like maybe I’d just stopped by on a lark.

“Me in particular, or just the cops?” I asked.

She looked past me at the Sheriff’s Department patrol car parked at the curb. “I thought maybe Bobby would stop by.”

“Bobby?”

“Bob Torrez. He’s my cousin.”

“No kidding?”

“Well, sort of.” She slipped the chain and opened the door. “More like third or fourth cousin. Come on in.”

“Do you have a few minutes?”

Elena turned and smiled, lighting up the tear stains a little. “I got nothing but time, mister.”

“Why didn’t you call us?”

“Why should I?”

“You don’t have any idea who killed Tammy Woodruff?”

Her lower lip jutted out like a second grader deprived of morning milk break. I thought for a minute that she was going to start crying again. A box of tissues sat on a small coffee table, and I pulled one out and handed it to her. She waved it away and sat down on the sofa with a thump, hands folded between her legs.

I sat in a fake leather monstrosity opposite and waited.

“Sure, I got an idea,” she said.

“Who?”

“Well, it happened up on Fourteen, didn’t it?” She shrugged and turned away as if that were all the answer I needed.

“Yes, it did.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

She turned her head and glared at me through eyes brimming with tears. “So he lives up there. That’s what.”

“Who lives up there?”

“Torrance. That son of a bitch.”

“Patrick Torrance, you mean?” I asked, and she nodded. “You think he killed Tammy?” She nodded again. “Why would he do that?”

For a long time, she looked off to her right, eyes locked on something far beyond the cinder-block walls, beyond the yard outside, beyond Posadas.

“I just think he did.”

“Why?”

“She said he threatened her.”

“She told you that?” Elena nodded. “Why would he threaten her?”

After taking a deep breath and wiping a drop off the end of her nose with the back of her hand, Elena said, “Because she was through with him.”

“Come on, Elena. Tammy didn’t make a hobby out of monogamous relationships. We both know that. She’d broken up with him before. She left Brett Prescott and went back to Patrick. He knew what to expect.”

“She was pregnant. She just found out.”

“So what?” My response jarred her, and her mouth opened as if to say something. Nothing came out. “She was twenty-three years old, Elena. There’s no mystery about a pregnancy. It’s not like she was a twelve-year-old midschooler.” She looked down at the floor and her forehead furrowed. I continued, “Was it Patrick Torrance’s child? Did she say?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Who was she seeing this weekend, then? If she’d broken up with Patrick, who was she seeing?”

Elena Munoz frowned again, as if all the pieces of the puzzle were floating around in her brain, refusing to fall into place or pattern.

“Tammy’s mother said she saw the two of you last week, coming out of one of the stores.”

“So?”

“And all the time you were with her last week, she never said who she was seeing?”

“Sure, she talked about it.”

I spread my hands, waiting.

“She was all excited.”

“About what?”

“She said she had a chance to make all this money.”

“The last thing Tammy Woodruff needed was money,” I said, and instantly regretted it.

“Her own money,” Elena said with considerable acid.

“How was she going to do that?”

“That’s what she said…that no one really thought she was much good for anything. This was her chance.”

“What was she going to do?”

“She didn’t say. It was some big secret.”

“She never told you?”

Elena Munoz shook her head. “But she kind of had this crazy glint in her eyes, you know? Like it was something she’d never done before? Or even thought about?”

“On Sunday night, Elena, we have evidence that Tammy was the driver of a truck that one of our deputies stopped to assist on State Highway Fifty-six.” The girl blinked but said nothing. “Patrick Torrance told me that he saw Tammy Woodruff driving her own pickup truck around noon on Monday. And there was another man with her.” Again Elena said nothing, and I added, “No one saw her alive after that, Elena. Patrick got scared and ran off to Wyoming.”

Elena looked incredulous. “Wyoming?”

I shrugged. “He has relatives up there. He got scared. For Tammy and for himself.”

“That does a lot of good, the dumb fuck,” she muttered.

“Maybe, maybe not. If you know who she was seeing, we’d like to know. Before anyone else gets hurt.”

“She wouldn’t tell me his name. She said she didn’t want her father to find out.”

“Why is that?”

Elena looked at me defiantly. “Because she said he was a Mexican.”

I frowned, puzzled. “So?”

“So the Woodruffs don’t like Mexicans. He doesn’t like me. His wife doesn’t like me. That’s why Tammy and I aren’t sharing an apartment. He wouldn’t let her.”

“How could he not let her?” I said, puzzled. “She was over twenty-one. She could live where she wanted…and live with whomever she pleased.”

She made a face and dismissed that remark without comment. “I still found out who she was seeing, though. I saw them Sunday. I saw them drive by. I was working, and Tammy looked right at me and smiled this great big old smile like she had it all over everybody.”

“Who was with her?”

This time she didn’t hesitate. “Carlos. Carlos Sanchez.” She mistook the expression on my face for a blank brain, and added, “His father owns the Broken Spur Saloon.”