Cleanup (6 page)

Suddenly I heard ferocious barking. A massive black animal shot toward me. I heard a grunt of surprise and fell backward, holding an empty glove as my attacker ran.

“Brutus! Brutus, stay!” a voice yelled from across the parking lot.

Brutus was an enormous black rottweiler who lived with his owner down the hall from me. He continued to bark and growl.

“Brutus!”

Tony Milano, Brutus's owner, appeared, a chain leash dangling from one hand. He peered into the darkness for a moment before reaching down and helping me to my feet.

“Are you okay, Connie?” he asked.

My head was throbbing and my stomach hurt. But I nodded.

“I've complained to the management company a dozen times about those burned-out lights,” he said. “They never listen.” He snapped the leash onto Brutus's collar. “Maybe now they'll have to.”

I stared at the large leather glove in my hand.

“I'm glad you came along when you did—you
and
Brutus. He almost got away with my purse.”

“He's a coward, if you ask me. Lurking in the darkness to attack a woman. And you know what else? The little twerp runs like a girl.” He stared into the darkness with a look of disgust on his face. “You want to call the cops? I doubt they'll be able to do anything, but if we have a police report, it might help to pressure the building management to fix the lights.”

I said okay. As I suspected, the police weren't about to send a squad car for what sounded to them like an attempted purse snatching. I had to go to the police station to file a report. Tony gave me a lift and drove me home afterward. He and Brutus walked me to my apartment door. I was grateful. I lived at the back of the second floor, right next to the stairwell. Tony pulled a business card from his pocket.

“If you get nervous in the next couple of days and want someone to walk you to your car, call me,” he said. “I mean it, Connie.”

As I thanked him, I noticed how blue his eyes were. I had never seen them this close up. I went inside and double-locked the door.

* * *

I planned to sleep in the next morning, but someone hammered on my door bright and early. It was the work crew. They had finally made it to my apartment. No sooner had I let them in than the phone rang.

It was Maria.

“You're coming to see me today, Connie,
sí
?” she asked.

“
Sí
, Maria.”

“Can you bring my Bible?”

“Sure. Where is it?”

“In my dresser. In the top drawer. And, Connie, if you could bring me some soap—”

Somewhere on the other end of the line, someone yelled.

“Is everything okay, Maria?”

“There's always a line for the phone,” she said. “Ask Luisa to let you in. You remember her. She lives across the hall.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Some of the women in here, they scare me.”

“Maria—”

But the phone was already dead.

I got dressed. The side of my face was bruised and swollen where I had been hit. I covered the mark with makeup as best as I could and made myself something to eat. I dug out the keys that I had picked up off Mr. Withers's floor and headed for the elevator, leaving the workmen to start on my apartment.

My knees trembled when I crossed the parking lot, even though it was morning. I couldn't help thinking what might have happened if Brutus and Tony hadn't come to my rescue.

I drove to the building where Maria lived. The place was shabby compared to my building. The security door was unlocked, and the lobby smelled of stale cigarettes, urine and vomit. No wonder Maria wanted to work for rich people.

Two of the four elevators were out of order and one seemed permanently stalled in the basement, so I walked the seven floors up to Maria's apartment. The stairwell smelled worse than the lobby.

Maria had told me her neighbor Luisa would let me in, but I didn't see any reason to bother her when I had Maria's keys in my purse. I dug them out. There were three keys on the ring. I slipped what I assumed was the apartment key into the lock. It wouldn't turn. I pulled it out again and selected another key. Just then the door across the hall opened and a head popped out.

“
Hola
, Connie.”

“
Hola
, Luisa,” I said. The second key didn't fit either.

“How is Maria?”

I told her what I knew.

“The police came,” Luisa said. “They searched the whole apartment. It took me forever to straighten everything up after they left.”

I slipped the third and last key into the keyhole. It didn't turn either.

“This place is worse than mine,”

I muttered. “At least my keys work.”

“Our keys work,” Luisa said indignantly. “The property managers installed new locks only last week. You must have the old ones.”

She disappeared into her apartment and was back a moment later with a single key on a string. “Maria and I have copies of each other's keys, just in case.” She slipped it into the lock, turned it easily and pushed open the door.

I dropped the useless keys onto Maria's tiny coffee table and got some soap from the bathroom. I found the Bible in the bedroom. When I picked it up, something slipped out from between the pages. A photograph. I picked it up and looked at it. The photo was of Maria with a handsome young man. The young man had his arm around her.

It was Andrew Withers.

CHAPTER
NINE

T
he guard at the detention center searched me and my purse. He searched the Bible too, leafing through the pages and holding it up by the spine to see if anything fell out. Finally he said, “It will be given to the inmate.”

I met with Maria in a long room that was divided in half by a wall of Plexiglas. Tables lined both sides of the wall. Between each table was a divider that offered only the smallest amount of privacy. Attached to each divider was a phone. I sat at the table I had been assigned. Maria appeared through a door on the other side. She smiled when she saw me.

“You brought my Bible?” she asked as soon as she picked up the phone on her side of the glass.

“I had to leave it with the guard. He said he would give it to you.”

She nodded.

“Maria, I found a picture,” I said. “Of you and Mr. Withers's grandson.”

She frowned. “His grandson? I don't know Mr. Richard's grandson. Where did you find this picture, Connie?”

“In your Bible. He has his arm around you.”

Recognition flickered in her eyes.

“You mean Andrew,” she said.

“Yes. Andrew Withers.”

“His name is Andrew Stevenson,” Maria said.

“Maybe that's the name he gave you—”

“I saw it on his driver's license.”

I remembered what Charles had said when Enid introduced Andrew to me. Maybe Charles hadn't formally adopted Andrew. Or maybe Andrew had decided to keep his own name.

“Were you seeing him, Maria?” I asked.

“We went out a few times. But it was nothing.”

“How did you meet him?”

“I was in the park, and he came up to me. He's very nice, but…” She shrugged.

“Not rich enough?” I asked.

She smiled. “No, not rich enough. But he helped me get the job at Mr. Richard's.”

“He did?”

“I told him I was working for Mike, and he told me he knew someone who was always looking for some help. The next thing I knew, Mike sent me to this man's house, the one Andrew knew. That's how I started working there.”

“Mike never told me that.” In fact, Mike had made it seem as if
he
was the one who had found the job.

“Mike likes to take credit for everything,”

Maria said. “I was grateful to Andrew. But I didn't want to go out with him.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“A few months ago. I kept telling him I wasn't interested.”

“
Kept
telling him?”

“He called me. He showed up at my apartment. I told him he had to stop doing that.”

“Did you tell him you were in love with Mr. Withers?”

“How could I?” Maria said. “I didn't know myself until a few weeks ago.”

And as of yesterday, Andrew hadn't known that Mr. Withers was dead. He had been away somewhere.

“What about your boyfriend and your child back home, Maria?”

She sat up straight. “How do you know about them?”

“Enid Withers told me,” I said. “Mr. Withers knew about them, didn't he?”

She hung her head. “Yes,” she said softly.

“Did you tell him or did he tell you?”

She was silent for a moment. When she raised her head, her eyes were filled with tears.

“He asked me if there was any reason I couldn't marry him,” she said quietly. “At first I didn't know what he was talking about. Then I saw something in his eyes. He had papers—information about me. I was so ashamed for lying. So I told him everything. I said I was sorry. I said I love my daughter, but I don't love her father. I also said I understood if he didn't want me because of her. Do you know what he said, Connie?”

I shook my head.

“He said he loved me no matter what. He said he wanted to marry me and make me happy. He said he wanted my daughter to feel like a princess and that he couldn't wait to meet her. Then he tore up the papers he had about me and threw them away.”

“You told me you were on the run from Colombian gangsters, Maria. You didn't tell me you lived in Honduras.”

“I had to leave Colombia. I went to Honduras first, and then I came here.”

She had an answer for everything. I didn't know whether to believe her or not.

“Tell me everything about that morning.”

“I
have
told you everything, Connie.”

“Tell me again.”

Slowly she went through the events of the morning Mr. Withers had been murdered. When she finished, I asked, “What about any smells?” “What do you mean?”

“I smelled something when I got there. Cologne, I think. Did you notice it?”

She shook her head.

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure.”

“Was Mr. Withers wearing cologne that morning?”

A smile crossed her face.

“He liked to smell nice,” she said. “Sometimes he put on too much, and it made me sneeze. Then we both laughed.”

“Did his cologne have vanilla tones?”

“I don't know,” Maria said. “You smell things that I don't even notice, Connie. He just wears something nice. That's all I know.”

A guard appeared and told Maria her time was up. Maria had one last question for me.

“Connie, do you think they will let me go? I don't want my baby to be born in a prison.”

CHAPTER
TEN

I
stared through the glass at Maria. Baby? She was pregnant?

“They have to let me out of here,” she said before she was led away. “They have to let me get the money Mr. Richard left for me. I need it. The baby will need it.”

“Did you tell the police about the baby, Maria?”

“No. The only person who knew was Mr. Richard.”

* * *

After I left the detention center, I sat in my car and thought about Maria and Mr. Withers—and the baby. I was sure it was going to make things worse for Maria. Enid and Charles would claim that she got herself pregnant in order to coerce Mr. Withers into marriage and changing his will. That, together with Mike's testimony that she had requested only rich male clients, would make it seem as if she had planned something like this all along. Maria's baby would not be brought up in prison—but it wouldn't be brought up by Maria either.

Finally, I pulled out my phone and called Emma. She listened without interrupting, then gave me the phone number that I asked for.

* * *

Mr. Camden was frowning when he got out of his car a few hours later.

“I'm still not sure what it is you're after, Ms. Suarez,” he said.

I explained to him about my allergies.

“I don't see what that has to do with Mr. Withers's estate,” he said.

I explained that too, as best as I could.

He hunted in his pocket and pulled out a key.

“Okay,” he said. “I'll give you five minutes, but I'm staying with you the whole time.”

“Actually, I was going to ask you to come along,” I said. I dug in my purse for my inhaler. “If I have an extreme reaction, I may need help.”

He stepped back a half pace, his hands raised in protest.

“I'm not a doctor,” he said.

“If I pass out—which I hope I won't— just call nine-one-one,” I said.

“Maybe this isn't a good idea, Ms. Suarez,” he said.

“Please, Mr. Camden. All I'm asking for is five minutes.”

Reluctantly he agreed. He unlocked the front door and followed me up the stairs to Mr. Withers's bedroom. He hovered nervously behind me as I opened various bottles and containers and sniffed what was inside. He tensed up when I had to use the inhaler. He rushed to my side when I started to wheeze despite it. He didn't relax until we were outside again.

“Well?” he said. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

I shook my head.

“Now what?”

“Now I have to do a little more research. Then I guess I contact the police.” But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't imagine Bodie taking me seriously. Especially once he found out that Maria was pregnant—if he didn't already know.

* * *

Armed with a brand-new inhaler, I ventured into the main floor of the city's largest department store. Usually I avoided places like that. The main floor is always crowded with cosmetics counters with attractive young women in front of each of them, handing out scent cards and offering perfume samples. For me, this was usually a recipe for disaster.