Mission Road (Tres Navarre #6)(36)

I felt like I should say something to Ralph, but I was angry with him. My initial shock was wearing off, and I was starting to realize that he’d almost killed Zapata in front of my eyes. If I hadn’t grabbed his arm, he wouldn’t have missed.

A few uncomfortable facts were also starting to swirl together in my head: Frankie’s reputation with women, Ralph’s experience with his stepfathers, what Ralph’s sister had said on the phone: You know why he had to help Frankie, don’t you?

Ralph has always had a soft spot for abused women. Over the years, he’d gotten several prostitutes away from their pimps. He’d killed at least one wife-beater that I knew of. In fact, the more I thought about Ralph’s violent reputation, the more I realized that when he picked the fight, he almost always lashed out at men who abused women. And he did so with no concern for his own safety.

I thought about Ralph’s tone the night Frankie had roughed up little Madeleine. He’d had no tolerance for it—so why had he tried to save Frankie when his dad came down on him?

Ralph might have wanted to change Frankie, turn him into something better. But I wondered what Ralph would’ve done if he realized Frankie was beyond redemption, if he started seeing how many women Frankie had hurt. Ralph would not have been intimidated by Frankie’s mob father. For the first time, I wonder if the DNA test on the blood under Frankie’s fingernails really had been faked.

Next to me, Madeleine cracked her knuckles.

I figured we’d better find her somebody to beat up soon or she’d start cannibalizing people in the limo.

“What did Mrs. Zapata mean?” I asked her. “What’d your father do?”

Madeleine picked a speck of dust off her slacks. “He’s a mobster. Not much he hasn’t done.”

“I mean to women.”

“You must not have been listening. She didn’t say anything like that.”

At the corner of Santa Rosa, a police car cut across our path on full code three, siren wailing, lights running. I resisted the urge to slink down in my seat.

“I remember you from Heights,” I told Madeleine. “You used to draw on your clothes.”

Her ears turned pink. “I’m an artist.”

“An artist?”

“I got a BFA. That’s what I did in college. You got a problem with that?”

I envisioned Madeleine doing tornado kicks in a painting studio, ripping canvases, karate-chopping brushes.

“I remember you, too,” she said after another block. “You didn’t like Frankie.”

“How old were you when he died?” I asked. “Thirteen?”

She nodded.

“You remember the night of the murder?”

“I heard about it later . . . in a phone call. I wasn’t around.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know. Everybody knows.”

I didn’t, but from her tone of voice, I got the feeling it would be dangerous to ask.

“My father’s dying,” she said to the window. “All that talk about optimistic doctors? That’s bullshit. He’s got two months, no more.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I’m sorry wouldn’t have been exactly sincere.

Before I could decide, my cell phone rang.

Madeleine scowled. “My father shouldn’t have given that back to you.”

“I forgot about it.”

“Don’t answer.”

I checked the display. The number belonged to my housekeeper, Mrs. Loomis. She was calling from the cell phone I’d bought her for emergencies. She never used it. She hated phones.

I swore silently, then answered the call.

A man’s voice said: “Who is this?”

My heartbeat syncopated until I realized who I was talking to.

“Sam,” I said. “It’s Tres.”

“I know that, damn it.”

“Why are you calling me, Sam? Where’s Mrs. Loomis?”

“They can probably trace this. I told her it was a bad idea.”

“Sam, I’m on the run here. Are you okay?”

“I told her not to worry. Irritating woman. The gunshot isn’t that bad.”

I sat up straight. “What gunshot?”

“Mine, damn it. I’ve had worse. I don’t want you to come—”

Eight seconds later, over Madeleine’s and Ralph’s stereophonic protests, I was ordering the chauffeur to turn the car around, giving him directions to my office in Southtown.

FEBRUARY 2, 1968

DELIA MONTOYA KNEW SHE WASN’T HIS FIRST VICTIM, but she was determined to be the last.

Delia pulled into the police station parking lot right on time. She struggled to fix her makeup—hard to apply lipstick with three stitches in the corner of her mouth. She told herself she wouldn’t cry. She would face the monster; she would give her statement.

Outside, the winter clouds were an unnatural mix of gray and sulfur. Even the city skyline looked wrong. To the east, a new tower was rising for the world’s fair. The round top house was being hoisted up the five-hundred-foot column of concrete. It was about halfway today—like a ring awkwardly being lifted off a giant’s finger.

Delia stopped at the doors of the police station. She took a shaky breath. She’d been here too many times over the last month, trying to get someone to listen.