Mission Road (Tres Navarre #6)(30)

Two years ago, watching them at the altar had been more than Etch could bear—Ana in her white dress, her face so much like her mother’s, and a common criminal next to her, grinning like the devil.

Navarre and Maia Lee had been at the wedding. Then, as now, standing by Ralph Arguello, supporting somebody who didn’t deserve it, watching him take Ana’s hand.

Etch imagined Lucia sitting next to him, the way she had so many years on patrol.

Why did you do it, Etch? she asked.

It was an accident, he promised her. It wasn’t supposed to happen.

She turned her face to the window. It was no accident. You know better.

The sound of his cell phone startled him out of his trance.

His surveillance man had a short report: Maia Lee had spent the last couple of hours inside the Express-News offices, probably going through the archives. Now she was at the Pig Stand, talking to the old guy behind the counter.

Etch hung up, hit the steering wheel with his palm.

“Miss Lee,” he chided. “Miss Lee, Miss Lee.”

He felt his anger building.

Jaime Santos had done more than a little talking. The old man was dangerous. And Maia Lee . . . she was too much like Ana. She was following Ana’s trail too well.

If Kelsey didn’t do his work right, if Arguello started looking bad as a suspect . . .

Etch searched for a fallback plan. Only one came to him—an idea that had been brewing since he debriefed the old deputy Drapiewski. It had a certain sense of justice to it.

He switched his phone to answering service. He radioed dispatch and put himself in the field. Then he put the car in drive.

He circled Travis Square and parked across the street from San Fernando Cathedral.

The man Etch wanted to see was doing business in front of the cathedral as usual. He was leaning over the portable cooler on his ice cream bicycle, offering a strawberry paleta to the girl who sold T-shirts at the souvenir stand.

At the end of the block, a beat cop was eating lunch on the hood of a pickup truck. A bored security guard lounged in front of the Catholic Family Center.

Hernandez didn’t think they would recognize him. It didn’t matter, anyway. This was his city, his territory. He could talk to an old collar if he wanted to.

He punched a request into his laptop, printed out some information. Then he got out of his car and walked across Mission.

“Titus,” he called.

Titus Roe had been grinning at the T-shirt seller, but his smile evaporated when he saw the lieutenant.

Roe was grizzled and lanky, with a face like crocodile leather—all greasy bumps and hard lines. He wore a red flannel shirt rolled up at the sleeves to show his garden of flower tattoos—marigolds, roses, bluebonnets and cacti.

“Hi, uh . . . sir.”

Roe’s discomfort pleased Etch. He had warned the ex-con never to address him by name.

The T-shirt seller backed away. She was Latina, young and pretty, a little heavy on the mascara and hairspray. Just out of high school, probably, but Etch figured she could still sense the police aura. He was used to this effect on people—like he had some mildly frightening disfigurement that kept others from getting too close.

“I’m an old friend of Titus’s,” Hernandez told her. “Come on, Titus, pray with me.”

He put an arm around Roe’s shoulders and led him toward the cathedral.

Inside, San Fernando smelled of candles and newly hewn limestone. The recent renovations had taken the eighteenth-century mildew out of the air.

Hernandez wasn’t used to the changes. The cathedral had been falling apart before, sure, but it had been familiar—the city’s deepest taproot, an institution a year older than George Washington. Now the sanctuary felt raw, too open, too bright.

Up front, choir members were practicing a Christmas carol for tonight’s Las Posadas celebration. A scattering of parishioners prayed in the pews. Hernandez and Roe slipped into the back row by the sacristy, where a bank of votives glowed.

“I almost had a date, man,” Roe whined. “You know how long I’ve been working on her?”

“Work on her later,” Etch told him.

Roe laced his hands together. “Who you looking for?”

Etch smiled.

Roe squirmed. “What? I’ve been cooperating, Lieutenant. Shit—you know I have.”

True, Titus had given him some good leads over the years. Once upon a time, Titus Roe had been well connected, one of the busiest, if not best, assassins who worked locally.

He’d done two years in Floresville State for assault, but the only time Etch had a clear shot at busting him for capital murder, he’d let Titus go.

The hit had been a drug lord on the East Side—not exactly a loss to society. By sheer luck, Etch had found the murder weapon, tied it to Roe beyond a reasonable doubt, then set the evidence aside after explaining to Titus that it could come back anytime if he failed to cooperate. Since then, Titus had been a valuable informant.

“The Franklin White murder,” Etch said.

“Aw, hell, Lieutenant. I didn’t have shit to do with that. You think I’m crazy?”

Etch ignored the question. Of course, Roe was crazy. “You got any idea who did it?”

Roe’s eyes drifted toward the front of the cathedral, where the choir was singing “Adeste Fidelis.”

“Um . . . none,” Roe said. “None.”