In Big Trouble

Chapter 14

There comes a point when it's simply too late for sleep. Tess was now so tired that the only thing she had going for her was momentum. A book, Guzman had mentioned a book about the triple murders. He hadn't given its title, but his tone had indicated that its ambitions fell short of In Cold Blood. The library, even if open on Sundays, might not have such a book. Nor would a new bookstore.

But Mrs. Nyguen's near-neighbor, Half Price Books, was a possibility. Tess and Esskay dropped by after their walk that afternoon.

"That dog can come in here only if it can read," said the clerk, who appeared to be in training for angry young manhood.

"She can," Tess said, feeling perverse. "Show her a bag with ‘kibble' written on it, and she'll go crazy."

He called her bluff, producing a brown bag and a black marker from behind the counter.

"Make the letters large and plain," Tess said. "Her eyesight's not so good."

When the clerk held up the bag, Esskay began leaping around the store in a frenzy. What the clerk couldn't know was that Tess bought Esskay's food from an old-fashioned feed store in Fells Point, and it came in brown bags just like this, with black markings.

"Gee, now you've got her all worked up. Anyway, I'm looking for this book about this triple murder here, about twenty years-"

"The Green Glass?" Good, she had made his day, given him another reason to sneer. "We got all you could ever want. Cases of ‘em. It's a pretty sleazy book, though. Sloppy, too. The guy didn't even get the name of the restaurant right. Espejo Verde is the Green Mirror."

"How come you have so many in stock?"

"It was a local book, and the publisher went bankrupt a few years back. My boss bought his stock, which included more than two thousand copies of that piece of trash. Turns out Gus Sterne ordered the bulk of the first print run, sat on the books for two years, then shipped them back and demanded a full refund. The publisher couldn't cover the loss, and that started his slide into bankruptcy."

"Interesting." And slightly at odds with the portrait Guzman had sketched of Gus Sterne as the patron saint of San Antonio. "Why go to all that trouble?"

"I think he wanted the guy to know the boxes had never been open, that he screwed him on purpose. See, Sterne apparently told the guy he would take an order of twenty-five hundred and sell them through his barbecue restaurants, even do some advertising-if he could get a one-month exclusive on it. The guy was a small-timer, he didn't know how things worked."

"Why did Sterne want to keep the book from distribution?"

The young man leaned forward, his initial antipathy toward Tess forgotten. He might not like providing service, but he obviously loved sharing gossip. "I always heard he wanted to make sure that his little cousin, the dead woman's daughter, never saw a copy. Because of the photos, you know? They are pretty gross. That's why the boss won't even put it out on the floor."

"Can you sell me a copy?"

"Sure." The clerk looked at her shrewdly. "But it's a collectible, you know. Twenty-five bucks. Cash."

Tess left Esskay behind the protective glass, curled around Mrs. Nguyen's ankles, then walked across the street to the Vietnam, the one Broadway eatery Mrs. Nguyen never patronized. ("Why should I?" she asked. "I make that myself.") Midafternoon on a Sunday, the tiny, almost decor-free restaurant was a blessedly quiet place, and the wait staff seemed unperturbed by the braided Occidental who lingered there, drinking sweetened iced tea long after her lemon chicken was gone.

The paperback for which she had paid twenty-five dollars had sold for two dollars when it came out, and that was still a dollar more than it was worth. The Green Glass: An Inside Look at San Antonio's Unsolved Triple Homicide was a failure even on its own low terms. Much too late to be a quickie book-it had been published almost five years after the murders-and without the virtues found in great true-crime writing, it was a shallow, vapid piece of work, with more padding than a training bra. Then there was the bonus of those black-and-white photos from the murder scene. Yummy.

The writer, a local journalist named Jimmy Ahern, spent the first hundred pages explaining-repeatedly-how important the Sternes were in San Antonio, and how common tragedy was in the family. "Bad luck stalked them," he had written, "as relentless as any serial killer." It was one of his more inspired lines.

The Sterne money had started in meat: They had been butchers whose small shop had grown into the supplier for the city's finest steakhouses after World War II. August Frederick Sterne and Loretta Anita Sterne-Gus and Lollie-had been first cousins, raised as brother and sister by their grandparents when both sets of parents had been killed in a private plane crash off Padre Island. Lollie-"the vivacious blond beauty," as Ahern wrote reflexively at every mention of her name-had married Horace Morgan of El Paso while in college, but they separated while she was pregnant with Emmie. He had not left a note when he committed suicide in his family's hunting camp, which freed Ahern to speculate freely that he was despondent over Lollie's desertion.

Meanwhile, sober, serious Gus had skipped college and gone straight to work at Sterne Foods. This made him "the last of the self-made men," although Tess couldn't see how bypassing school to run your grandparents' business qualified one for Horatio Alger status. But Gus had put his mark on Sterne Foods, convincing his cautious grandfather to move away from supplying other restaurants and to start their own steakhouses.

A string of small diners had followed, then a successful German restaurant that Gus had tried to take national. That venture had failed so miserably that the privately held company almost had to seek outside investors. Then Lollie opened Espejo Verde and its cash flow, although relatively modest, helped Sterne Foods regain its footing. "People flocked to Espejo Verde not just for the food, but for Lollie, whose vivacious blond beauty drew them like moths to a flame," Ahern had written. Torturous prose, yet Tess thought she understood what he was trying to say. Emmie had that same quality.

"Lollie brought a new brand of showmanship to San Antonio's restaurant business, and a new kind of flair to her family's business." Sadly, Ahern didn't provide many examples of that showmanship, although he did note that Lollie once had her hands insured by Lloyd's of London for one million dollars. A publicity gimmick, it was intended to counter another restaurateur's bitter claim that she was a spoiled rich girl who spent all her time in the dining room, playing hostess, while others prepared the meals for which she was celebrated. "But nothing could dim Lollie's success-until the night of December third."

Cue the spooky organ music. Now that she finally had arrived at that seminal event, Tess found herself less than eager to read about the murders. She skipped ahead to the inevitable "Where are they now?" epilogue at the book's end. Five years after the murders, Gus had started the Barbecue King, with such great results that the Sterne fortunes had quadrupled, and he was one of the city's leading philanthropists. The baby christened Emily Sterne Morgan was now known as Emmie Sterne, although she had never been formally adopted by her cousin. Patrolman Al Guzman had made detective. Marianna Barrett Conyers had become a virtual recluse, who would never speak of the night in question. That was Aherne's phrase, the night in question. Tess couldn't see how Emmie's godmother figured into the story, even if she had been Lollie's best friend. More padding on Ahern's part, she assumed.

Sighing resignedly, Tess flipped back to the descriptions of the murder, which took up the middle third of the slender book. Ahern's prose puffed and panted, but his ability to describe blood in varied ways could not disguise the fact that he had no firsthand information-and that the investigation of the crime had stalled almost immediately. The murder scene was all Ahern had, and he kept returning to it. The word "grisly" figured largely.

Lollie had been found near the door, killed by one shot to the back of the head. The cook, Pilar Rodriguez, was nearby, also killed execution style. Frank Conyers, chief financial officer of Sterne Foods, was in the kitchen, where he had been going over the books at a long wooden table. Nearby cans of gasoline and a pile of rags indicated that the killers had planned to burn the restaurant, perhaps to hide their handiwork. Their failure to go through with this part of the plan could only be attributed to Emmie, not quite two, in her playpen in Pilar's small bedroom off the kitchen. She had blood on her hands, elbows, and right cheek, but it wasn't hers. Police had never said how Frank Conyers had been killed, only that he had been stabbed instead of shot.

Tess's tired mind caught the name on the second mention: Frank Conyers. Because everyone used all three names when they spoke of Marianna-and because "Barrett" seemed to provoke so much more awe and respect than "Conyers"-she had missed the connection. Frank was Marianna's husband. She had not only lied about the circumstances of Lollie's death, she had neglected to mention her own husband had been involved in the same "accident." But why? The book said only that Marianna, Gus, and virtually everyone in their social set were at a Monday Night Football party, watching the Dallas Cowboys play the Redskins. "The party at Gus and Ida Marie Sterne's home on Hermosa had a ‘South of the Border' theme," Jimmy Ahern had written, probably cribbing from the society columnist. "The menu included fajitas, borracho beans, and, ironically, a guacamole salad made from Lollie Sterne's very own secret recipe."

Just holding this book in her hand made Tess feel dirty. She would have tossed it into a trash can on her way out of the Vietnam, but it was hard to throw away something that had cost twenty-five dollars. She still couldn't fathom why Marianna had misled her so thoroughly, but Tess could see why Gus Sterne had tried to kill this ugly little book, as well as its publisher. The Barbecue King. She was reminded of another king, who had tried to rid his country of spindles so that Sleeping Beauty might not prick her finger. Ah, but there was always a spindle waiting somewhere in the kingdom, in some forgotten tower. In the end, kings could never protect their princesses.

A ringing phone woke Tess from a not very restful sleep. Her mind seemed to be stuck, like a video machine playing back the same scene over and over again. She kept hearing Crow's words, yet it was the black and white photos from the old murder scene that ran across her mind. Ruined everything, ruined everything, ruined everything.

"Hello?" she asked the receiver. Then she figured out it worked better if you picked it up. "Hello?" With the curtains drawn, the room was dark, so the bedside clock proclaiming it was eight o'clock wasn't much help. She could have been sleeping for four hours, or sixteen, or even twenty-eight.

"Why do you sound so groggy?" Kitty asked.

"Napping," Tess muttered, looking at her watch, still trying to anchor herself in time and space. All her instruments agreed: She was in La Casita on Broadway in San Antonio, Texas, a city of a million-plus souls, few of whom seemed to like her very much. Esskay was stretched out on the bed next to her. It was the last Sunday in October, unless it was Monday. And if Kitty were on the line, demanding to know why she sounded groggy, deductive reasoning meant it must be a time when normal people are awake.

"How'd you find me, anyway?" she asked her aunt. "I didn't even wait for the machine when I called you yesterday."

"I starred-69 your ass, as the expression goes. Maybe I should be the detective in the family."

"You want my business, it's yours. What's up? Everyone okay?" The Sternes' tragic history had reminded her how fragile family happiness was, how quickly an unknown and unexpected evil could shatter everything one loved.

"Tyner called, so did Pat. I'm not sure which one is more furious with you."

"Pat?" Her mind was still cluttered with the weekend's events.

"Patrick Monaghan, your father, my brother. Remember him? He seems to hold me personally responsible for you being in Texas. I tried to tell him you sneaked out without letting anyone know where you were going, but he wasn't mollified. And Tyner's over here every hour of the day and night, wanting to know if I've heard from you. I am not your answering service, Tesser. Call these people-and talk to them, not their machines. Write them postcards. All they want to know is that you're okay."

"Okay," Tess said, but she wasn't agreeing so much as repeating Kitty's last word back to her.

"You are all right, aren't you?"

"Sure, yeah. Just tired."

"Did you find Crow?"

"Found him-" She stopped to calculate. Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Had so little time really passed? "Two days ago."

"And he's fine?"

"More or less." Probably less than more, what with a corpse in a pool house, an unexplained shotgun under his bed, a missing femme who might be fatale in every sense of the word, and some bad-ass ex-con on the loose who was likely to be miffed about his dead buddy, assuming he wasn't the one who had killed him. Then there was the part about her hormones kicking in at a most inopportune moment, but that was so much more information than Kitty needed.

Tess heard a high-pitched babbling on Kitty's end of the connection. "Is Laylah there?"

"Yes, Jackie dropped her off. She has a date."

"Jackie has a date?"

"Dinner with this nice man who was interested in hiring her for a capital campaign for Sinai Hospital. She says it's business, I say you don't wear a backless red dress unless there's some pleasure involved. Wait, Laylah wants to talk to you."

A brief silence, then Tess heard Laylah's snuffly little breaths as she panted into the phone. Laylah felt that telephone communication was largely telepathic. She just held on tight and thought lovely thoughts, until they flew through the line.

"Hey, Laylah, it's Tesser."

No response. Laylah knew the piece of plastic that Kitty held to her face wasn't Tesser.

"No, really, it's me. Esskay is here, Laylah. What does Esskay say? What does the doggie say?"

More snuffly breaths. Then, suddenly, clear as a bell: "Hey, hey, Esskay. Go yo' way. Hey, hey, Esskay."

It was a fragment of the sausage company's hotdog jingle, the one that Cal Ripken had been pretending to sing all summer long on the Orioles' radio broadcasts. Tess laughed so hard she almost fell off the bed. She was still laughing, and Laylah was still repeating the jingle, very pleased with herself, when Kitty took the phone back.

"She takes after you, Tesser. Your first sentence came from a commercial for pork products, too. ‘More Parks sausages, Mom-please?'"

"Bullshit," Tess said, but she couldn't stop laughing, and her room at La Casita no longer seemed quite so dark. Somewhere, there was a place she knew, a place where people knew her. She'd get back there eventually. She could be there the day after tomorrow if she really wanted. Get in the car right now and drive without stopping. Steal a cat nap somewhere in Tennessee, and pull up to Kitty's bookstore early Tuesday. Part of her longed to do just that.

But she wasn't finished here yet. Finding Crow had proved to be only the beginning. Now she had to save him, too. From what, she wasn't quite sure. His own good intentions, some twisted sense of honor, a trouble much bigger than anyone had anticipated? She rummaged through her bag and her pockets until she found the card Rick Trejo had given her. No answer at his home. On a hunch, she called the office number. He picked up on the first ring.

"Working on a Sunday night?"

"I'm the hardest working man in show business." And happy to be so, judging by his cheerful, upbeat voice. "What can I do for you, sweetheart?"

Stop with the stupid endearments for one thing. But it was hard, for some reason, to take offense. The sensible-seeming Kristina put up with Rick Trejo and she was, well, a sweetheart.

"They're not finished with him, are they?"

"Your friend Crow? Not by a long shot. Screwing up the search was a temporary setback. Guzman is a good detective. When he's pissed, he's a great one."

"Crow couldn't kill anyone."

"You don't have to convince me, baby. But he knows something. Got any idea what it is?"

"Not a clue."

"Well, don't hold out on me. That's rule number one. My hunch is that Emmie Sterne is neck-deep in some shit, and he's trying to protect her. Our best-case scenario is that she's the one who stashed the gun under his bed, then called the cops and fingered him."

"Why would she do that?"

"Because if she killed that guy, she needs a fall guy. And because she is crazy. Big-time, fucked-up, welcome-to-the-snakepit crazy. Of course, a lot of the old-money Anglos in this town are, but I guess she comes by her nut-house shtick legitimately."

Tess thought of the photos she had seen, and the sad legacy of the Sterne family, where everyone ended up orphaned. Although Gus Sterne had a little boy, according to the book. Clay, a year younger than Emmie. He had beaten the family curse, made it to adulthood with his parents alive.

"I don't think Crow would stand by if he thought Emmie was a cold-blooded killer. Only she knows what she's up to."

"Or where she is," Rick pointed out.

"Hire me," Tess said. "I'll find her. I'll go back to her godmother, for one thing, and find out why she was so determined to mislead me-sending me to the wrong place to find the band, glossing over the family history."

"You're not licensed to work in this state."

"There's got to be a way around that."

"Yeah. You could work for free. After all, my client is officially indigent."

"His parents have money."

"He says if I call his parents, he'll find someone else to be his lawyer. And, baby, I want this case. Trust me, they can come into court with a video of Mr. Ransome offing Tom Darden, and I can get a jury to let him walk."

"I thought the goal was to keep Crow from being charged at all."

"The goal is to win. I'll take it in the early innings or in the bottom of the ninth, with bases loaded, two men out. If you think finding Emmie Sterne is going to help, you go for it. But bear in mind, it could hurt, too. We could end up with two coconspirators pointing fingers at each other, with the race on to see who can cut the fastest deal with the DA. Ever think about that?"

"It doesn't make any sense," Tess insisted. "There's no reason for Emmie Sterne to kill Darden. Guzman told me he thought he could link Darden and Weeks to the murders, but he never told the families that he was working that angle."

"I know, I know," Trejo said. "I talked to him, too. I can't decide if this helps us or hurts us. Then again, anything we don't know can hurt us. I tried to impress that fact upon Crow when I caught up with him later today. He swore he was telling me everything he knew."

"And?"

"He lies pretty well, but not well enough. Sometimes I wonder if I'm ever going to have a client that starts off telling me the truth. Probably not. Even the criminal attorneys who represent the white boys in white collars probably have to listen to a lot of lies in the beginning."

"Probably."

There was a moment of silence on the line, as Tess and Rick were lost in their own abstract musings-he on his class of clientele, no doubt, she on Crow's loyalty. One of his greatest strengths, but strengths could become weaknesses. Why was he so insistent on protecting Emmie? Why was he upset when he couldn't find her in the Alamo?

Time was a factor, and not because some record producer was coming to town. All I needed was a week. What could happen in seven days? God could create the world and take a day off. An ordinary mortal could work forty hours, get shit-faced and still have a day left to recover. Personally, she had gone through a complete set of days-of-the-week underwear and done a wash. Anything could happen. Everything could happen.

"So where do we start?" she asked Rick.

"Darden's buddy, Laylan Weeks, is out there, somewhere. I've got an old client in town who might have some ideas about where to find him. I say we go looking for him. You can look for our crazy little lead singer on your own time. Man, I wouldn't mind being her lawyer. The baby found at the scene of the city's most famous unsolved homicide, now a murderess in her own right. That would pack them in."

"You're really doing a lot to change all those ugly lawyer stereotypes."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." She could tell Rick was distracted-clacking away on a computer, eating a sandwich, slurping down something that had to be loaded with caffeine. She wouldn't be surprised to find out he was on a treadmill and watching television, too. "Man, listen to me, I sound like a friggin' Beatles song. You know, I don't even like their music that much. Give me Waylon Jennings any day. The way I see it, God proved his existence by keeping him off that plane, the one that went down with Buddy Holly and Richie Valens."

"You're saying God could save only one musician, and he chose Waylon Jennings over Buddy Holly?"

"No, I'm saying God knew Richie Valens had to die. If only he had gotten to him before ‘ La Bamba. ' You know how many times I've heard that goddamn song?

The movie came out just as all my sisters were hitting their teen years. I've got five sisters. Every goddamn quincenera they played it! I'm not a sailor. I am the captain. Could you explain those frigging lyrics, please? Give me ‘Pancho and Lefty' any day."

"The Willie Nelson song?"

"He sang it, with Merle Haggard. Townes van Zandt wrote it. And he died a few years back, died way too young. So I take it back. God doesn't know shit about music."

Tess had to laugh. Rick's ferocity about the smallest topics seemed to her an excellent harbinger for someone who might end up protecting Crow's life, given Texas's mania for the death penalty. "Are you always so adamant about everything?"

"Always. If you can't know your own mind, what can you know?"

Tess had no answer. But a corollary occurred to her: If you could know your own heart, would you then know everything?