Mission Road (Tres Navarre #6)(15)

Twelve minutes later, Ralph dumped the battered stepfather half-conscious into the curbside trash can, tossed his suitcase next to him and called a taxi.

Frankie beamed like a kid at his first R-rated movie. “That was hella cool, Arguello.”

Ralph said nothing.

Back inside, his mother screamed, cried, made excuses for the bum she’d married, but Ralph just held her while she pummeled his chest. “He’s no good for you, Mama. I’ll look after you.”

When she argued money, Ralph produced six hundred-dollar bills for the week’s expenses, more cash than I’d ever seen. He told the younger kids to go back outside and set the table. He grounded his fourteen-year-old cousin to the bedroom.

By the time dinner was ready, the family’s happy chaos seemed to be restored. We ate homemade carne guisada tacos and drank Big Red while fireflies blinked across the lawn. Gunshots crackled in the summer air. Every so often a train rumbled by and made the ground shake.

Frankie White enjoyed himself immensely. He kept glancing at the bedroom window, where the fourteen-year-old cousin was watching him.

Ralph’s mother was the only one who didn’t cheer up. She stared at the citronella candle on the table as if she wished the flame would freeze, just once, into a shape she could hold.

That night under the Main Street Bridge, years later, staring at the trash can fire, Ralph reminded me of his mother for the first time.

IN THE MORNING, WE CHANGED INTO clothes from a Goodwill donation box.

We’d already ditched Ralph’s car in an H.E.B. grocery store parking lot, so we hot-wired the Chevy Impala of a former client I didn’t like very much. Then we headed downtown with my .22 pistol, six dollars and thirty-two cents between us, and very little hope of living through the weekend.

I’d managed to grab my cell phone before leaving the house, but we decided to use a pay phone on the corner of South Saint Mary’s instead. I doubted SAPD could triangulate a mobile call. According to Ana they couldn’t even figure out their own e-mail system. But there was no point taking chances.

I called Maia’s number. She was already in town. If possible, she sounded even angrier than she had the night before, when I called to let her know I was a fugitive from justice.

As she told me about her conversation with Detective Kelsey and the note she’d found on Ana’s bulletin board, a pickup full of immigrant laborers cruised past on Houston Street. The driver slowed to see if we wanted work. Ralph shook his head. The truck drove on.

“Tres?” Maia prompted.

“I heard you.”

“You’re protecting a murderer. Turn him in.”

I pinched the collar of my Goodwill ski jacket, tried to pretend the smell of mildew wasn’t coming from me. “The lead on the ME . . . ‘timing.’ What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” she said wearily. “It doesn’t matter. DNA is one of the few things you can’t argue with. That’s all they’ll need to convict.”

Something in her voice worried me. Aside from the anxiety and the anger, she sounded . . . sick. The way she sounded whenever she was forced to face her phobia about boats and deep water.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course I’m not,” she said. “You’re running from the law.”

“Look, Maia . . . Ana didn’t believe the DNA results. You could retrace her steps, find out where she was going with the investigation.”

“Where she was . . . Tres, I just told you—”

“Ralph would never shoot his wife. Which means somebody else did.”

“He’s standing right there, isn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“You want me to call the police for you?”

“No.”

“Tres—”

“I’ll call you tonight. Take care of yourself. I love you.”

I hung up and tried not to look at Ralph.

“She wants you to sell me out,” he said. “I don’t blame her.”

“They have DNA on you for Frankie’s murder.”

“I know.”

“What do you mean, you know?”

“Ana told me. She’s my wife, vato.”

“She was about to name you prime suspect.”

“Chíngate. Ana didn’t believe I killed Frankie. I gave her a DNA sample myself ’cause I knew it wouldn’t match up. Somebody in the department framed me.”

“Conspiracy theory. Great defense.”

Rage sparked in his eyes. “Ana trusted me, vato. You got to do the same.”

A few blocks over, a cop siren sounded. Probably it had nothing to do with us, but it got my blood pumping.

“Come on,” I said.

Ralph didn’t move. “You think I’m crazy enough to kill Guy White’s son?”

“Maia talked to Kelsey. He said Frankie gave you the money for the pawnshops. You never told me that.”

“Mr. White knew we were doing business. It was his idea. We had a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

Ralph shifted his weight to his back foot, like he was getting ready for a punch. “All I’m saying—if Mr. White thought I’d killed his son, I wouldn’t still be breathing.”

The siren got louder, maybe a block away now.