29
IT WAS WELL AFTER TWO WHEN I HIT I-10 AND DROVE DOWN-town. I'd called María López Zepeda before leaving the Old Pueblo Stockyards and she had agreed to give me a few minutes as long as I could get to her office before three-thirty.
Parking can be a bear when you're driving a big pickup, and it's never more troublesome than when you are trying to park in one of those big overhead garages. I drove slowly since I always think the concrete ceiling is going to crunch the top of the cab and cave it in on my head. While it felt close, I probably had feet to spare. Still, not one of my favorite things to do.
López Zepeda's office was on the seventh floor of the Arizona Bank Building. I gave my name to the receptionist and sat on a soft brown leather couch admiring the view and the Michael Chiago painting of a group of Tohono O'odham people gathering saguaro fruit. Seeing that for some reason reminded me of the old Apache words for June, before we started using the English language. While I don't speak the language, I remembered the translation—face painted red with cactus fruit—a reference to the saguaro fruit. In the background of the painting was a large mountain peak that I recognized as Baboquivari. Interesting coincidence given the scene of Abby's death.
María, along with her two partners, had built a healthy defense practice, stoked in large part by their defense of a lot of drug dealers. The senior partner, Oscar Horowitz, had teethed on defending guys like Joe Bonano and Peter Licavoli, Mafia kingpins who years ago had made Tucson their home.
Three minutes later I was in María's office. After she thanked me for referring J.B. to her, I asked, “Did you get him out?”
“Can't. He's not bailable.”
“So he's been charged with murder one?”
She nodded. “And the county attorney's concerned that he may skip town.”
“The itinerant cowboy business I suppose.” I was sure J.B.'s former lifestyle probably had something to do with it.
“He's got access to money and he could flee.”
“It's a pretty good can of worms, isn't it?”
She nodded again. “Are you getting anywhere?”
Since J.B. had made it clear from the beginning that I could share anything I learned with his defense attorney, I brought her up-to-date on what I'd learned, which really wasn't all that much. When I got to the part about Jackie Doo Dahs, María was clearly upset.
“Another wife? He never said anything about that.”
“That makes us both surprised.”
“¡Hijuela!”
“I'll see if I can track her down. Apparently she wanted J.B. back.”
“I'm not surprised,” María said. “He probably looks pretty good to her with his saddlebagsful of money.”
“That's one of the problems with this case.” I stood and walked over to her window and looked out. Below, miniature people scurried along the sidewalks and jay-walked across the streets. “With Abby dead, everyone stands to gain—J.B., Lateef Wise, Abby's staff, the charities.”
“Not to mention the peripherals.”
“Right. So now I've added Jackie Doo Dahs to the list.” I turned back to the desk.
“I'd be interested in what she has to say.” María twirled a pen with her long slim fingers. It was like watching a kaleidoscope as the gold of her many rings sparkled and flashed with each turn. “I've advised him to take the Fifth.”
I let this sink in. While I'm not a lawyer, I do know a little about the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. The part we were talking about here had to do with a defendant not being compelled to be a witness against himself.
“What in the hell is he afraid of?”
“Not him. Me. I'm not willing to let even the smallest part of the case be made against him by his own words.”
“So you think he knows something?”
She shook her head. “Not necessarily. But he was in the neighborhood of the scene of the crime and he's been arrested for it. If he admits he knew the victim or was wearing a blue shirt, any little detail at all could be used to help convict him.”
While I knew this was a strategy used by a lot of defense lawyers, it seemed a lot more suspicious when the person doing it was my client. I always thought the guilty guys were the ones taking the Fifth.
“I guess it's a good thing that he came to see you first then,” I said.
“We talked about it last week, so when they read him his Mirandas, he chose to remain silent and, as far as I know, has remained so. We do have another problem though. He wants to take a lie detector test.”
“Oh, God.”
“Definitely not a good idea. They're unreliable and there's a chance he'd fail.”
“I didn't think they were admissible in court.”
“They're not. But he has this idea in his head that if he takes one and passes, that will make him look good and the police will start looking for the real murderer.”
“Is that true?”
She nodded her head. “Usually it means they'll look elsewhere, saving valuable time they might have wasted on the suspect. That's why cops love them. But even if I let him take the test, and even if he passed, that's not going to happen here. Not with the drugs they found.”
“Ketamine,” I guessed.
She wasn't surprised I knew about the veterinary drug.
“It's been placed in evidence.”
“What's J.B. say about it?”
“That he's never seen it before. Claims he didn't even know there was such a drug. Unfortunately the detectives found it among his bull riding paraphernalia.” She gathered up a stack of manila folders on her desk and put them in a slim leather briefcase. “Trade, I've got to run. I'm late for a deposition. Keep in touch.”
The next morning the elephant poop on my tennis shoes was driving me crazy. I'd accidentally stepped in it looking for Jackie Doo Dahs. Thank God I hadn't worn my sandals.
I finally found Jackie, or what I thought was Jackie, anchored to a chain link fence near the Tucson Community Center. There were four of them, waving protest signs saying things like CIRCUS IS CRUEL TO ANIMALS and WOULD YOU WANT TO PERFORM WITH THE FLU?
Since two of the protesters were men, I immediately discounted them. The third, a heavyset woman, was also probably out unless Jackie had gained a lot of weight that Tommy hadn't mentioned.
My target was a tiger mask with giant tears painted below its feline eyes. This was a schizophrenic beast, judging from its downstairs, which was clad in a very skimpy, barely-cover-the-butt Zena warrior princess costume. The strapless top did an excellent job of showcasing a huge set of Doo Dahs. The Tiger Woman was waving a placard that read, BORN FREE, LEAVE ME BE.
Catching the tiger's eye was impossible since I had no idea where to look in the giant mask. Finally I just marched up to the cat face. Now that I was closer I could see that it was pretty raggedy. The thing looked like it was molting with large bare hairless patches scattered across its oversized cheeks. “Are you Jackie Doo Dahs?”
Something that sounded like a muffled “yes” came back.
I placed one of my cards in her hand, relieved that it wasn't a paw.
“I'm Trade Ellis. J.B.'s been arrested and he's hired me to check out Abby's murder.” While this wasn't the exact sequence of events, it was close enough.
A mumbled “I know.”
“I'd like to talk to you about it.”
“Busy,” she muttered.
While I couldn't see her face because of the mask I thought she was probably surprised to see me. I imagined that J.B. had told her that he wasn't giving her name out.
I was cranky with the heat, the drought, the price of cattle and my reeking tennis shoe so I grabbed her arm, the one carrying the sign, and pinched it just a little.
“Jackie, we've got some serious stuff going down here and I need your help if J.B.'s ever gonna get out of jail.”
She hit me with her chained hand and the metal hit my wrist bone hard, causing me to immediately release her arm. I'd been warned about her temper and probably shouldn't have provoked her. Provoke her? Hell, now I was ready to kill her.
There was a long pause. Finally her hands went up to the cat's neck and she began tugging on the huge furry mask. She was having a tough time with it, but my wrist was red and hurting and I saw no reason to help her out.
When she was finally unveiled, our Lady of the Perpetual Protest had black hair sticking out all over from the static electricity generated by the cat's head. She had buggy brown eyes, the kind that look like they don't fit in their sockets, and thin-arced penciled lines for eyebrows. Her lipstick had gotten a little smeared and ran off the side of her uneven lips.
“What's with the chain?” I asked, rubbing my sore wrist.
She rattled her arm, the one that was still attached to the fence. “That's in case they try to arrest us. Makes them work harder.”
The way she said it made me think she'd done this before. Maybe her cop relations weren't all associated with animal protest. Could Jackie Doo Dahs have a police record? If she did, I was sure Uncle C and his gang would find it. “Good for self-defense too,” I suggested.
“Hey, you asked for it. So what's the deal with J.B.?”
“He's in jail and won't be out any time soon. I just came from seeing his attorney.”
“Bummer.”
“I understand you had dinner with him a few weeks ago.”
“Is there a crime against that?”
“No. Just a bit unusual since he was married.”
She rolled her bug eyes. “We used to be married.”
“I know. Twice.”
“So we were just good friends.”
“That's not what I hear.”
She glared at me and then dropped her eyes. “Look, I'll come clean with you. I wanted him back.”
“The dog and the bone thing.”
“Huh?”
“A dog has a bone, loses interest in it and another dog comes along and picks up the bone causing the first dog to go crazy because it's his bone and he wants it back, even though he threw it away.”
She thought about this for a minute. “Are you saying Abby was a bitch?”
“God, no. I'm just giving you a discourse on human nature. You just said you wanted J.B. back.”
“I was sure trying.” She smiled briefly. “But he wasn't interested. He'd found Mrs. Got Rocks and didn't want to upset that apple cart.”
“Well you got him to dinner. Sounds like that may have been a start.”
She laughed. “I had to lie to get him there. Said I'd had some bad news from my doctor.”
“I'll bet that sold well.” I was having no trouble feeding her lines.
“He was pretty mad.” Some early circus goers were walking by and Jackie waved her placard in their faces, earning her a healthy scowl from a mother who pulled her small child closer to her.
“So how long were you blackmailing him?” I guessed.
“Blackmail? I wasn't blackmailing him. It was more like a loan. I was gonna pay it back.”
“Then you never threatened to tell his wife that you and J.B. had been married?”
She grinned again. “Well as my mother used to say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. But it wasn't really blackmail.”
“Did J.B. ever hit you?”
“Maybe once or twice. No big deal.”
The way she said it really did sound like no big deal, something I could never relate to. If a man laid a finger in anger on me it'd be the last time he ever had the chance. “So you wouldn't call him abusive?”
“I thought you said you were working for J.B.,” she said suspiciously.
“Oh, I am. I just need to know what's going on, what his past married history was, that kind of thing. You told the cops that he abused you.”
“Did I?” She seemed confused and I wondered if she was a drinker, like J.B.
“So they say.” I was stretching the truth a bit. Uncle C had said that Jackie had missed work because of her bruises, that was all.
“Well, he didn't really abuse me. He's a nice guy. A real nice guy. Yeah, we had our problems, what married couple doesn't? Maybe I mentioned the bruises to the cops, but he's not a wife beater or anything like that.”
We talked a while longer and then when I was pretty sure I had her off guard, I hit her with the big one. “Where were you when Abby was killed?”
She glared at me. She was quicksilver, this one. Furious one minute, beguiling the next. And she wasn't falling for my trick. “Home in bed. Reading.”
I'll bet. What? Honey Bunch at Snow Top?
As I drove out of the community center parking lot I couldn't help but think of J.B.'s wives.
What would the elegant Abigail Van Thiessen have thought of the woman dressed up in the ratty cat mask?