In Big Trouble

Chapter 28

Thank God for make-up sex-Rick and Kristina were still at Rick's house when Tess called from her cell phone, their voices as soft and rumpled as the sheets beneath them. But once Rick understood why she was calling, he asked almost no questions, just took down the directions and promised to get up there as soon as possible. He didn't even press for an explanation when Tess told him she needed a change of clothes for the ride into town.

They were there within an hour, both of them, and Tess couldn't help wondering if Kristina had decided Rick shouldn't make a solo house call to a naked Tess. She had brought Tess clothes, however-a pair of jeans that couldn't fasten over Tess's hips, and a baggy T-shirt. Fashion Puta, She'll Do Anything for Clothes, the legend read. No, Kristina wasn't taking anything for granted.

"This time, I'm calling the cops," Rick said, once they were back on the highway, heading toward San Antonio at a steady seventy miles per hour, a speed that would get them into town within thirty minutes, but wouldn't cause the Texas cops to look at them twice. "If you know where Crow is, and you tell me, I've got to call them, or face the consequences."

"But I don't know. All I'm sure of is that he's gone to find Emmie somewhere along the parade route."

"You're making a big leap, Tess, from suicide to murder. Remember, less than forty-eight hours ago, you were just as sure that Gus Sterne had killed Darden and Weeks. Now you think it's Emmie."

"It has to be Emmie."

"I gotta call the cops," Rick repeated.

"If I end up in an interrogation room for the rest of the day, nobody wins. Even the cops, with all their manpower, aren't guaranteed to find Emmie in time. But Crow knows where she is, and there's only one way to make sure she doesn't hurt him."

"How's that?" Kristina asked, looking back over the front seat at Tess, her eyes bright with excitement.

"We have to stop the parade."

Between the parade and the usual Saturday traffic, it took them twenty minutes to inch through Brackenridge Park once they left the freeway. Finally they reached La Casita, where Tess grabbed her running shoes and some jeans that fit, then checked on her all-but-abandoned child. Mrs. Nguyen and Esskay were watching the preparade coverage on one of the local stations and sharing a can of Pringles.

"Mrs. Nguyen-please, no more junk food. It's really not good for her."

"Oh, I only gave her one. Maybe two. We have a pizza coming." Esskay smirked at Tess.

She glanced out the windows. Broadway was bumper to bumper, and there was no place to park. "Can my friend leave his car in your lot-we probably can't get much closer to the parade route than we are here, and I don't need my space today."

"Sure thing, sure thing," she said, waving a vague hand, eyes still fixed on the empty street in front of the Alamo. "Chris Marrou said there are ten thousand people already downtown."

It was more than a mile up Broadway to the parade staging area and the sidewalks and streets were clogged with people, making it impossible to move quickly. By the time they found the staging ground and a parade worker showed them to the shaded underpass where Gus Sterne's silver Lincoln idled, it was twelve-thirty. Half an hour until the first marching band started down the street. Tess motioned to Kris and Rick to hang back-she didn't want Gus Sterne to know she had confided her suspicions in anyone-and walked over to the car.

Clay was in the backseat, reading a book. His father was nearby, in a knot of men who all looked like him, with their gray hair, florid faces, and navy blazers.

"What'd you do, pay God off?" one asked. "The weather couldn't be better, you son of a bitch."

"You son of a bitch," the others echoed, slapping hands and passing around a silver flask. Gus Sterne declined it with a shake of his head. He looked distracted and uneasy to Tess. It probably would make a man nervous, knowing two of his accomplices had been murdered in the past month.

Tess placed her hand over the pages of Clay's open book, to get his attention. "You have to stop this."

He looked up. "I couldn't stop this parade with Sam Houston at my side. Besides, what's the big deal? I know it's just one big ego trip for my dad, but no one ever died from a little self-aggrandizement."

"Emmie is out there somewhere along the route. When the car goes by, she's going to kill your father, then kill herself. Can you live with that?"

He stared at her as if she had spoken in another language, and he hadn't caught every word. "Emmie? But where-"

"We don't know. That's why our only hope is to stop the parade."

They had spoken in low tones, but Gus Sterne suddenly moved toward the car and grabbed Tess by the elbow. "What is this nonsense? Stop the parade, because Emmie has made another one of her silly threats? I won't have it. That girl has exacted her last measure of insanity on this family."

"It's not a silly threat, and you know it. Otherwise, why would you step up security at Sterne Foods, and meet with police about the route? Darden and Weeks have already died for their part in the Espejo Verde murders. Now it's your turn."

Tess didn't know what emotion filled Gus Sterne's face then, she only knew she had never seen anything like it. It was ugly, it was evil, and yet it was also weak and pathetic, the look of a man who was almost relieved to hear his terrible secret spoken aloud.

His voice, however, betrayed nothing. "Get away from me, and get away from my son, or I'll have you arrested," he said softly, so no one else could overhear. "You are interfering with a legal parade, for which there is a permit, and you are making demonstrably false, slanderous statements. Those who wish to protest this event have been given a small space at the corner of Broadway and Grayson. Join them if you like, but you're no longer welcome here. Javier-"

Javier, the gabby security guard who was to pilot the silver Lincoln through the parade, seized her by the arm.

"She'll kill herself, right in front of you," Tess called over her shoulder to Clay as Javier led her away. "But first she'll kill your father. It's awful to watch someone die. I know, I've seen it. To watch someone die and to know it's your fault, that you might have prevented it-I can't imagine living with that."

Javier was frankly dragging her now, up to the curb where Rick and Kristina waited.

"Crazy Yankee," he muttered, as if expecting Rick to commiserate with him, but he and Kristina were bent over the parade route from that morning's paper, marking the high buildings along the way. Their map was festooned with little red X's, far too many to canvass in the minutes they had left. Besides, once the parade started, police would keep the route clear and the sidewalks would be crowded with reviewing stands.

"There are four- and five-story buildings most of the way," Rick said. "All private businesses. You'd have to know someone to get in. Watching from those vantage points is considered a perk."

"Then again, the Sternes know everyone," Kris put in. "She might have found an old family friend who let her into a private party for old time's sake."

Tess looked at the map, but it meant nothing to her. If it had been Baltimore, she would have known every building and its history, she could have figured out some association between Emmie and the place she planned to die. Here, she was lost.

"Is there anything near the Alamo?" It was Clay, still holding his book. He was trying to act very nonchalant, as if they should have expected him all along. But his cheeks were bright red, his voice shaky with the momentousness of what he had done.

"If I'm not in the car, she's got no reason to jump, right?" he asked as they stared at him. "And if she's not going to jump, then maybe she won't try to hurt Dad, either."

"It's a long shot, but I'll take it," Tess said. "You've given us more of a chance than we had five minutes ago. If only we could figure out where she is. You know her better than anyone, Clay. Where would she be?"

He looked at the route. "The television cameras are set up across from the Alamo."

"But there's nothing there," Tess said. "She can't jump from the Alamo, it's not even two stories. And the hotels in that area are too far back, right? I don't know how good a shot she is-"

"Pretty good," Clay said. "Better than I am, as Dad will be the first to tell you."

"Still, she has to be as close as possible."

Tess bent over the map again. The parade went straight up Broadway, past the Morgue, then wound its way through downtown. The Morgue, where Emmie sang. The Morgue, which stood at the intersection of Broadway and McCullough, two streets that started their lives parallel and ended up perpendicular. A fat lady with her legs crossed at the ankles, Tess had said, and Emmie had agreed. You could even say it ain't over until the fat lady crosses her ankles.

She had confided in Tess as surely as she had confided in Crow.

"She's here," she said definitely, circling the Morgue. She glanced at her watch-twelve forty-five. "But even if I'm right, we barely have enough time to get there before the parade starts. I wonder if we can delay it, at least."

"You'd still need Dad's say-so," Clay said.

"I wasn't thinking of a legal delay," Tess said.

Rick threw up his hands. "I told you, I'm not risking disbarment for anyone. We know where she is, let's go to the cops."

"No!" Tess didn't want to think what might happen to Crow if the cops stormed the place. Emmie was too unstable, too unpredictable. "We can't be sure. Once the cops get involved, we lose all control. I might be wrong, I don't want this to be my only shot."

"Let me help," Kristina said eagerly. "After all, I can't be disbarred."

"Kris, I absolutely forbid you."

Kristina turned on him, wagged a finger in his face. "Get one thing straight-you're never going to tell me what to do, even when we're married, you sleazy shyster."

"Sleazy shyster! Sleazy shyster!" Rick stopped, his outrage momentarily forgotten. "I'm not going to marry a woman who speaks to me so disrespectfully, I can tell you that much."

"Shut up, both of you," Tess said. "You can fight later. Now, Kristina, see that motley group of picketing vegans over there? I bet all it would take is a little rhetoric to get them out of the official protest area and into the street."

"Kris-" Rick yelled in vain, for she was already running full-speed toward the vegans, screaming "Meat stinks!" She didn't even wait for their reaction, just grabbed a hotdog stand and began running with it down Broadway, the confused and outraged vendor in pursuit. Kris stopped long enough to douse him with his own ketchup and mustard bottles, then resumed running with the cart.

Now the vegans had caught on, and they were attacking other meat vendors-hurling turkey legs to the ground, overturning steaming vats of ground beef at the picadillo stand, throwing buns at the hapless hamburger server. Spectators who couldn't care less about the politics of the food chain began scooping up the fallen treats. As the cops converged on Kristina and a sighing Rick ran to her aid, Tess and Clay slipped across Broadway, to the relatively deserted street that ran parallel to the parade route.

"Do you really think she'll do it?" he asked.

"You know her better than I do, Clay. What do you think?"

He didn't answer. They were running almost full out, but it still took ten minutes to reach McCullough. This side street was full of vendors and overflow from the parade, and no one seemed to notice the woman with the braid and the man with the book slipping into the parking lot behind the Morgue, where the door to the loading dock, tightly bolted yesterday, was now ajar, and a white Toyota with Maryland plates was parked illegally. Great, her car would probably be towed before this was all over.

Clay started to follow her inside, but Tess stopped him. "If you're there, she can still do it, right? She wants to die in front of you. She doesn't need a parade to do that. Wait here, and if I don't come out in fifteen minutes, I want you to get a cop and come find me. Okay?"

"Okay," he said reluctantly. "But if I'm there, if I can talk to her-"

"We can't risk it, Clay. Now help me with Emmie-think-roof, or the top floor?"

He didn't need more than a second. "Top floor. On the roof, the news and traffic helicopters could spot her. She's smart enough to have thought that through."

Tess took the stairs to the fourth floor, treading as softly as possible. The Morgue's various music venues went only as high as the third floor, and this area appeared to be a storage room, virtually unrenovated. She walked through old boxes and piles of newspapers, moving toward what her ears told her was the Broadway side of the building. The crowd was loud and restless, possibly because the parade was now officially behind schedule. The noise would be deafening once things truly got under way. She wondered how much time Kristina had bought them.

She tried a series of doors along the corridor. The Lady or the Crow. No. No. No. What if she was wrong, after all? She had bet all the time they had on this one hunch. She might have bet Crow's life on it as well.

The last door she tried was in the northwest corner and when she entered, there was Emmie, kneeling over Crow, pressing her hand against his stomach. When she saw Tess in the doorway, she held her hands up as if to ward off a blow. She wore white gloves. Once-white gloves now covered with blood.

"I'm so sorry." Emmie was almost babbling. "I wouldn't have hurt him, not for anything, you have to know that. I tried to tell you he was in trouble, but you were so slow to come. Why couldn't you come sooner?"

Tess pushed Emmie so hard that she hit the far wall, next to the room's only window. She knelt next to Crow and lifted his shirt. The wound was narrow, but deep, and he was losing blood at a sickeningly rapid rate. She took off his shirt and used it as a compress.

"You'll be fine," she said, hoping it was true. She should get her gun out of her knapsack, hold it on Emmie, so she wouldn't come at both of them with the knife. Tess looked around the room and saw the long blade lying on the floor, just a few feet from her. She couldn't get to it without leaving Crow's side. Meanwhile, Emmie seemed in no hurry to pick up the weapon and resume her attack. She sat on the floor, legs spread out like a Raggedy Ann doll, babbling to herself.

"You should have come sooner. I wouldn't have hurt him for anything."

"Go," Crow said, his voice weak. "Live."

"Not for anything," Emmie repeated in a low moan. "Never, never, never." She beat on her skirt, as if trying to put out flames, but succeeded only in leaving her own bloody handprints behind. She was dressed like a princess, or a little girl's idea of a princess, in a long gauzy skirt over a pink leotard and leggings, her feet in flat ballet slippers. Those white gloves. "I never wanted him to be hurt."

Tess felt the pulse at Crow's neck. It wasn't strong, but it was steady. There was some hope. "Then why did you?"

"I didn't," she wailed, crouching in the corner like some strange animal. "But he said-and I promised, and I keep my promises, I always keep my promises. He was the one who broke his promise. He said no one would be hurt. Only bad people, he said. Only bad people, who deserved what they got."

The door opened, and Clay stumbled in, a police officer at his side. Good for him, he hadn't waited the prescribed fifteen minutes. They would need a cop to get an ambulance through the crowds, to get Crow the help he needed. The parade was starting, she could hear the strains of a marching band, blasting out something that sounded like "I've Been Working on the Railroad." She looked up hopefully into the face of the cop with the rifle on his hip.

Steve Villanueve took off his dark glasses.

"Don't feel bad, Tess," he said. "You weren't the only one who never stopped to think that Pilar Rodriguez had a family, too. Or that there was someone who loved her enough to avenge her death."