The Last King of Texas (Tres Navarre #3)(19)

"Tres Navarre. I'm a private investigator."

She mouthed the word private. "A real P.I. You're joking. For UTSA?"

"Yes."

"Ah-ha. The University wants to be sure they're not liable for Aaron's death."

"Something like that."

She laughed without humor. "I'm not going to sue, P.I. Tell them not to worry."

"The man in custody — Zeta Sanchez. Had your husband ever mentioned him?"

"Don't you have someplace better to be?"

"Or Del? Did he ever mention Zeta Sanchez?"

"Del doesn't talk to me unless he's kicking me off his property. Or calling me a Mexican whore. Sorry."

I looked at the fireplace.

"My language embarrass you?" Ines Brandon demanded.

"No. But keep trying if you want to. Your son's not home. You might as well cut loose."

Her face reddened. She made a fist and then couldn't seem to decide what to do with it. She flattened it on her thigh, dug her fingers into the flesh above her knee. "I don't think I like you very much, P.I."

I tapped one of the boxes with my foot. "Where to? Back home to Del Rio?"

She punished me with some silence. I counted to fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. Tres Navarre, tai chi sage. Man with the Patience of Mountains.  Finally Mrs. Brandon glared up at me, annoyed that I had not yet spontaneously combusted. "I can't go home. Too much to take care of here. Michael and I are getting a small apartment for a few months. The police—" She faltered, took a shaky breath. "The police suggested I make no immediate plans to leave town."

"You were away when your husband was murdered, weren't you?"

"In Del Rio with my son, visiting friends. But you never know. I might've—"

Her voice broke apart. "I might've paid that Sanchez man. The police can't be too careful. I might've — oh, shit."

She slid from the arm of the couch into the seat, brought up her legs and hugged them, her forehead on her knees.

I waited while she shivered silently. I found myself looking at the mantelpiece, the gunshot holes in the limestone. I stepped back toward the front door, ran my fingers along the doorjamb, then went to the front window, looked at the latch.

"Did your husband have a gun?"

She spoke into her knees. "They already asked. A .38. In the bedroom closet. I hated Aaron keeping it in the house with Michael."

"And it's still in the closet?"

"It was. The police took it."

"No forced entry. Your husband answered the door wearing nothing but his jeans. He let his killer in, made no attempt to get his own gun. They talked in the living room, standing up, your husband here in front of the fireplace. The killer shot him twice. If your husband didn't know his killer, it would've played out differently."

Mrs. Brandon gathered her knees closer to her. "My maid will be back with Michael in a few minutes. I want you gone."

"Had Aaron and his brother been arguing recently?"

"I don't want another stranger in the house."

"Had they?"

She exhaled. "They hardly ever spoke — no more than two or three times since we were married. They hated each other."

"Because of the family business?"

"Because of everything."

"But your husband never mentioned Zeta Sanchez."

"No."

"What about a man named Hector Mara?"

It was a blind shot, but it hit something. Ines Brandon's face clouded. She seemed to be casting around for some context. Maybe she just remembered the name from today's newscast. Maybe it was something more.

Then her face shut like a blind. "Sorry."

"It could be important, Mrs. Brandon."

"What's important is that my son not have to deal with any more strangers."

"Mrs. Brandon—"

"Good night, Mr. Navarre."

It bothered me that she remembered my name. It meant she'd been paying a lot more attention than I'd given her credit for. But her eyes made it clear that our conversation was over.

I decided to honor that.

When I looked back from the front door, Ines Brandon was still curled in a ball on the sofa, her arms hugging her knees, her eyes fixed on the fireplace like there was something blazing there.

NINE

My old teammate from Alamo Heights varsity, Jess Makar, opened the door at my mother's house. This shouldn't have been a surprise since Jess lived with my mother, but it had been a long time since I'd seen him anywhere except seated at the kitchen table, beer in hand, watching ESPN.

Jess scowled at me. His boyish good looks had, over the last three or four years, begun to settle like cement along with his midsection. His blue eyes had become permanently stained with capillaries. Tonight he wore sweatpants and a Dallas Cowboys tunic streaked with motor oil.

"Tres," he grumbled. "Might as well join the party."

His cologne was stronger than usual. It didn't mix well with the usual scents of my mother's house — vanilla incense, shrimp steaming in the kitchen, the dusty aroma of old curios, Indian blankets, spicewood carvings.

In the main room, Christmas lights were blinking in the exposed rafter beams. Folk music was playing. Over at the pool table, the normal coterie of young rednecks was breaking setups and pouring each other shots from my mother's liquor cabinet.