The Last King of Texas (Tres Navarre #3)(32)

He was replaced in the doorway by Ines Brandon.

Today she wore jeans and an army-green silk blouse with a basket purse slipping off one shoulder. Her red-brown hair was tied back in a stubby ponytail. When she saw me, anger filled her like compressed air. "I don't believe this."

"You say that with such joy."

"Put it away," she demanded.

When I didn't immediately get her meaning, she walked to the desk and tore the photo of the Brandon men out of my hand.

She ripped the photo in half, carefully aligned the halves, and ripped them again, letting the pieces flutter to the singed carpet.

"It's away," I said.

There was a leaden quality in her eyes, as if the thoughts beneath were moving sluggishly. "Get the hell out."

"Can't. I've got a class in three hours."

Her hands worked into the smallest possible fists. "You came into my house. Now you're sitting at my husband's desk. You goddamn prying—"

"Mrs. Brandon — I work here."

"I don't give a—"

"As an English professor."

Her thin black eyebrows knitted into tilde marks.

She looked uncertainly around the office — the hole in the window, the scorched papers, the stacks of files I'd been sorting through. "I thought—"

"I told you I was a P.I. That's still true. So happens I'm also—"

"You're Aaron's replacement?"

I nodded.

Ines Brandon studied my tie. She looked at the upside-down family photo on the desk. The woman in it looked nothing like her — hair longer, lighter-colored; body ten pounds heavier and healthier; her smile sincere and warm.

"You can take whatever you need," I told her. "I'm sorry."

Ines Brandon's fingers touched the glass over the photo, trailed to the edge of the desk, and slipped off. "Everybody's sorry," she said.

She swayed, then sank into the chair that was, fortunately, right behind her. She curled forward, pinching her hand over her eyes. Her purse tumbled into her lap.

The office got intensely quiet. The plastic on the window ballooned inward with the breeze. The mesquite rustled. Outside the door, two male voices approached and then receded down the hallway.

Ines' fingers massaged small circles at the corners of her eyebrows.

When she focused on me again, her eyes couldn't target quite right. "Your name was Navarre?"

"Tres Navarre. Yes."

She mouthed the word Tres a few times, let out a sour laugh. "The third. How perfect."

"I'm trying not to dwell on that."

She shut her eyes. "This isn't your fault. I'm sorry. I don't have a box. I don't even know what things are his."

"Let it wait. His things don't have to go anywhere."

Her expression didn't change, but a thick tear traced its way down the base of her nose.

She tried to stand and couldn't quite make it.

She frowned, looked into her purse, then fished out an orange prescription bottle and stared at the label accusingly.

"How many?" I asked.

"They insisted. I broke a window."

"I remember."

"The doctor said the sedatives—" She stopped, still frowning. "Two pills. I think I took two. I don't remember."

She tried to put the bottle back in her purse and dropped it on the floor instead. "I need to go."

"You're not doing so great. Is there anyone who could—"

"Take me home?" she interrupted.

"Yeah."

She looked up at me wearily, her expression a mixture of resentment and plea.

I suddenly realized I had just made an offer.

FIFTEEN

I had to wake Ines Brandon when we pulled in front of her house on Castano. With some effort, I extracted her from the VW, got her up the five steps, navigated her around the Big Wheel and the street chalk.

Before I could ring the bell on the front porch, a scowling woman opened the door.

"I tell you," she scolded Ines.

The woman's arms were beefy slabs. Her upper body was stuffed into the world's largest black Papal Visit souvenir T-shirt, the faded picture of John Paul II on the front unflatteringly distorted by the bulges of the woman's br**sts. Her stubby legs threatened to bust out of turquoise sweatpants and her hair was pulled back in a painfully tight bun. Her feet were bare. Her face was as brutally sculpted as a Mayan pedestal — weathered and wide and flat, designed to withstand several thousand tons. She smelled pungently of cloves. She took Ines' arm and guided her into the house.

"This is Mr. Navarre," Ines mumbled. "I didn't have a box."

The woman cursed at her gently in Spanish, then looked back at me and said in a stern voice: "Stay."

"Arf," I said.

The woman didn't react. She and Ines disappeared down the hallway. I heard the sounds of minor protests, chastisements, orders to take off shoes. Miniblinds were snapped shut.

There was even less to see in the living room than there had been before. Most of the boxes were now taped closed. All the framed photographs had been removed from the end table. The broken window in the dining room had been covered with a piece of cardboard.