The interview room at the Port Leo Police Department resembled a supply closet more than an interrogation facility. In one corner tottered a stack of old computer monitors. The department had upgraded their seven-year-old systems recently and no one wanted the old standbys. A box of shredded documents, ready to be recycled, was shoved against the wall. Two plastic containers of office supplies filled another corner. An old wooden table occupied the center of the room, marred with circles from water cups and soda cans.
Heather Farrell, the young woman who’d found Pete’s body, watched Claudia Salazar with mulish eyes. Police Chief Delford Spires sat next to Heather, quiet, letting Claudia take the lead in getting the statement. Claudia noticed, with affection, that there was a crumb of cake caught in his mustache, but she didn’t want to point that out with the tape rolling. He had just returned from telling the senator her son was dead. She turned to the witness.
‘Okay, Heather, this won’t take long,’ Claudia said. ‘For the record, do you have some identification?’
Heather Farrell dug in her dirty jeans and produced a tattered driver’s license, one that had expired. The birth date indicated that she was two weeks past eighteen. The address on the card indicated she was from Lubbock, in west Texas, far more than spitting distance from Port Leo. Claudia read the information off the driver’s license into the tape, then handed the laminated card back to Heather, who proceeded to tidy her nails with the edge of the plastic.
‘Your family still in Lubbock, Heather?’ Claudia asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Why did you leave Lubbock?’
‘Dirt sucks,’ Heather said.
‘That’s a good reason,’ Claudia said pleasantly. ‘Any others?’
‘I’m an artist. Lots of artists here.’ Heather shrugged. ‘I thought for sure those galleries would want to give me a big-ass fancy show. Strange it hasn’t happened yet.’
‘You haven’t updated your driver’s license,’ Spires said.
‘Don’t drive much these days.’ Heather gave Delford a caustic look. ‘Gunk’s in your mustache, mister.’
Delford groomed out the offending morsel. ‘Thank you, Heather.’
‘Where are you living now, Heather?’ Claudia asked.
The girl shrugged with a lazy roll of shoulders. A willfulness – either born of stupidity or of hard use – tugged her face into a constant, wary frown.
‘Here and there. I camp out at the park down by Little Mischief Beach sometimes.’
‘Do you have a permit to camp?’ Claudia already suspected the answer.
Heather shifted in her seat. ‘Darn, I lost it yesterday. I haven’t found a friendly ranger to give me a new one.’
Claudia nodded toward the backpack in the corner. ‘Those pretty much all your belongings?’
‘Yep. Travel light. I don’t believe in U-Hauls.’
‘So you brought everything you had in the world along with you to meet this guy on the boat.’
‘I guess,’ Heather said with no energy in her voice.
‘You moving in with him?’
‘No. I just don’t like leaving my stuff lying around.’
‘Did he tell you his name?’
‘Yeah. Pete Majors.’ Heather took a swig of the tepid cocoa Officer Fox had fetched for her. ‘He said he was from Los Angeles.’
Majors, not Hubble. Big Pete Majors was his nom de cinema, gleaned from the videotapes on the boat. Claudia saw a thin sheen of sweat on Delford’s brow, despite the cool of the room.
‘Did Mr Majors tell you why he was in Port Leo?’ Claudia asked.
‘He was writing a movie about his brother’s death. But he was awful depressed about it. I think that’s why he killed himself.’
‘Where did you meet Mr Majors?’ Claudia asked.
‘At Little Mischief Beach,’ Heather answered. Claudia jotted a note on the pad in front of her. Little Mischief was an aptly named, scrabbly beach north of Port Leo, a few miles from the Golden Gulf Marina, known as a kids’ hangout, with a small park attached, dense with live oaks and red bays. A good necking spot, but there were better around the county.
Heather brushed fingers through her hair. ‘The light’s good at Little Mischief. I like to sketch the birds, the waves, the old folks walking on the shore.’
‘Dopers love Little Mischief,’ Delford interjected. ‘Am I gonna find some weed in your knapsack, young lady?’
‘No,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘I don’t do drugs.’
Claudia steered them back on track. ‘What was Pete doing down at Little Mischief?’
‘He’d come down there with a notebook computer, to write or just chill out and throw pebbles in the surf.’ She wiped a hand across her lips. ‘Quiet but nice. He gave me money for food.’
Claudia made a note. ‘This money he gave you. Any strings attached?’
A flash of resentment crossed Heather’s face. ‘Of course not. What do you take me for?’
More to the point was what Pete Hubble had taken Heather for. Claudia remained silent for a full thirty seconds, and Heather began to fidget. ‘I’m not a whore, okay? He was just being nice.’ She paused. ‘Maybe he didn’t need the money, since he was gonna kill himself.’
‘So he gave you a loan. What happened next between you?’ Claudia asked.
Heather Farrell finished her cocoa and began to tear the rim of the foam cup into strips. Specks of wet, powdery chocolate smeared onto her fingertips, but she didn’t notice. ‘Nothing happened. He seemed real sad. Lonely. Like he’d gotten bad news.’
‘When did he invite you to his boat?’ Claudia asked.
‘He said he wanted to talk,’ Heather said. ‘He wasn’t sure why he would go on living.’
‘He barely knew you and yet he suggested to you he was suicidal?’ Claudia said.
‘Sometimes it’s easier to talk with a stranger than a friend.’
‘I suppose. What was this crushing sadness?’
‘Pete said his brother… was the source of all the sadness in his life. I gathered his brother died young. And he made mention of some preacher that had screwed his brother over. Somebody Jones.’ She glanced at Delford. ‘He made it sound like maybe this preacher was responsible for his brother’s death.’
Delford cut in. ‘Pete tell you what proof he had?’
‘No. But Pete bitched that he couldn’t make a case stick.’ She looked up from her lap, her eyes wide, like a child watching a parent for approval.
‘You’ve got to be more specific,’ Claudia said. ‘What exactly did he say about this preacher and his brother?’
Heather scrunched her face. ‘Christ, I didn’t take a goddamned transcript, and he didn’t make a ton of sense. I’ve told you what I know.’
Claudia let silence fill the room and began to tap her pen against the notepad. ‘He ever suggest you come to his boat and take off your clothes for a movie?’
Heather gave a sharp bark of laughter. ‘No! I’m not some street whore. I haven’t had any problems with the police since I got here a month ago.’
‘How’d you get over to the marina?’
‘I hitched a ride into town from Little Mischief. I got to the marina a little after ten.’ She tore a long strip of Styrofoam away from her cup and shredded it into confetti. ‘So I go to his boat – he’d told me it’s the big one at the very end of the dock – and I went aboard. I called for him, but there was no answer. The door was open. I went downstairs.’ Her throat worked. ‘And there was no one in the kitchen and the living room, so I knocked on the bedroom door.’
‘It was closed?’ Claudia asked.
‘Yeah.’ Heather dabbed at her lips with her tongue. ‘I yelled out for Pete and pushed hard on the door. I saw him on the bed, right away, and the blood spotting his face.’ She was quiet for a moment, a youngster staring at implacable death and realizing she would someday feel its grasp.
‘I think I screamed. I think I would. I got off that boat like it was on fire. I screamed running down the docks, and people came.’
‘See anyone suspicious around the boat? Or around the marina?’ This from Delford.
‘No.’ Heather tented her cocoa-daubed hands. Claudia yanked a tissue from a box and offered it to Heather. The girl wiped her hands carefully and repeatedly. ‘I was so worried about Pete, how depressed he was, I wouldn’t have noticed anyone.’
Delford nodded solemnly.
Claudia thought: You just don’t strike me as the Girl Scout type, sweetie.
‘Do you have your panties on?’ she asked Heather.
Heather’s mouth twitched. ‘Excuse me?’
‘I’d like to know if you have on a pair of panties.’
‘Why?’
‘Just answer me, please.’
‘Yeah, I got on panties. You think I’m running around without underwear on?’
‘Show me, please. I need you to lower your pants enough where I can see you’ve got a pair on. Chief, would you step outside for a moment?’ Delford blinked at this turn of questioning.
‘He can stay. I don’t care.’ Heather stood and yanked down on her beltless jeans with a gentle tug. Claudia could see a slice of panties below the girl’s waist, plain white, grimy.
‘Thank you,’ Claudia said.
Heather rearranged her jeans and sat. ‘Let me guess. You found panties on the boat and wanted to be sure they weren’t mine?’ She was smarter than she acted. ‘Those panties probably belonged to his lady friend.’
‘You knew he had a girlfriend?’ Delford asked.
‘He mentioned a lady that lived with him on the boat once. But I got the impression he’d had his fill of her. He said she’d made a lot of money off of him, and he was tired of her.’
‘We’ll need you to stay in town, Heather, until our investigation is done.’
Her eyes widened. ‘What, under house arrest?’
‘No, but don’t leave town.’
Heather leaned back in her chair. ‘I think my statement is done, and I want one of them pro bono lawyers like on TV if you’re going to ask me any more questions.’
‘Two more simple questions,’ Claudia said. ‘Woman camping a lot, you carry a gun?’
Heather picked at the table with a dirty fingernail. ‘No. I have some pepper spray, and I know how to kick a guy’s balls all the way up to his throat.’
‘You ever see this young woman around, maybe down at Little Mischief?’ Claudia pulled a flyer from her notebook and pushed it toward Heather. Delford watched without expression.
‘Marcy Ann Ballew,’ Heather read. She scrutinized the photo, as if looking for some vestige of herself in the printed face. ‘Sorry. Don’t know her.’
‘Where you staying tonight?’ Delford asked.
Heather looked discomfited. ‘Back at the park, I guess.’
‘If you’re still shook up, spending the night alone out in the dark’s no fun.’ Claudia softened her tone. ‘You can crash here.’
‘Oh, great, a jail cell,’ Heather said. ‘Thanks but no.’
‘We’d leave the door open. You’re not locked up. It’s clean and warm.’ Claudia ventured a grin. ‘Real cute guy working the night shift.’
The face of Marcy Ann Ballew smiled up at both of them.
Heather shook her head. ‘I am not staying in any jail cell.’
‘Then let me call Social Services. They’ll find a place for you.’
‘You just want to keep a tab on me.’
‘A tab to be sure you’re okay,’ Claudia said.
‘I don’t need a tab.’ Heather stood. ‘We done? I got to go.’ As if she had errands to run, close to midnight.
Claudia clicked off the tape. ‘I’ll get this typed up and you can sign it.’
‘Can I come back tomorrow and sign? I’m beat.’
‘Sure,’ Claudia said.
‘Thanks for answering our questions.’ Delford stood. ‘And like Detective Salazar said, don’t leave town, miss. There may be a death inquest and you may have to give testimony.’
‘I’ll stick like glue. Later.’ She gathered up her knapsack and left without a backward glance.
Delford Spires shut the door. ‘And they say charm school don’t make a difference no more.’
‘She seems awfully sure, on the basis of little detail and thin acquaintance with the man, that he committed suicide. Would a man really kill himself over something that happened to his brother long ago?’
‘I worked the Corey Hubble case.’ Delford sat back down. ‘A heartbreaker. Here one day, gone the next, and never a sign of him again. I wonder what this connection is to a preacher. Corey sure wasn’t religious – he was a little hell-raiser.’
Claudia told him about Pete’s tape and the mention of Jabez Jones.
Delford clicked his tongue. ‘Jabez Jones was just a kid then, too, and sure to God was never a suspect. Shit, there was never a sign of foul play in that case, period. Corey just ran off and landed himself into real hot water and never resurfaced.’
‘Pete clearly thought otherwise,’ Claudia said. ‘I think I’ll talk to Jabez Jones.’ She watched Delford slump in his seat. She was fond of him, like one might be of an old-fashioned uncle.
‘How are the Hubbles?’ she asked.
‘Devastated. I think they felt they’d just gotten Pete back in their lives. He’s stayed his distance. Lucinda’s a real strong woman, but this might undo her. They gave me preliminary statements.’
A twinge of irritation nipped at her. He’d assigned her the case yet taken statements from the immediate family. Perhaps it had been best, she reasoned, giving him the benefit of a doubt, but she decided to explode the land mine.
‘So do they know Pete was a porn star?’ She explained the tapes.
‘Holy hell, no. At least she didn’t mention it to me. Why does a son hurt a mother so?’
‘Maybe she hurt him. Parents can be rotten.’
Delford snorted. ‘Lucinda gave Pete the world. It ain’t her fault he didn’t want it.’ He sighed, a long, arduous wheeze, and stood. He regarded her with critical affection. ‘You up for this big a case?’
‘Of course.’ She labeled the tape of Heather’s statement and dropped it in an accordion folder.
‘You okay about David?’
She closed the folder. ‘I’m fine, Delford, really.’
‘I noticed today that you weren’t wearing your ring no more.’
Claudia’s thumb rubbed along the bare ring finger. A band where the skin, shielded by metal that supposedly meant forever, stayed pale. ‘Yeah, well, the divorce was final yesterday. I sent David back the ring.’
‘I know it’s a tough time, Claud, and maybe I ought to let Gardner handle this one.’
‘There’s no need,’ Claudia said. ‘Really, Delford, I appreciate the concern, but I’m fine and work is heaven for me right now.’
He coughed.
‘I can smell the advice baking,’ she said.
‘I’d treat this like a suicide.’
‘I don’t think Whit and the ME have talked cause of death yet.’
Delford ran a finger along a curve of his mustache. ‘Whit Mosley couldn’t find his ass in the dark with three flashlights. After the election he’ll probably be running a snow-cone stand.’
‘No. He’ll be a housepainter,’ Claudia said.
‘You ain’t one bit funny,’ Delford shot back. It was a Port Leo legend: fifteen years ago Whit and his five brothers had, in four masterful hours when Delford was away at a football game, painted Delford’s house pink. Violent, electric, Pepto-Bismol pink. Delford, unwilling to be the butt of a joke, had viewed the Mosley boys like crazed terrorists, even after they repainted his house back to its original white. The rest of the town hid its laughter behind their hands and shook their heads in mock scorn at those wild Mosleys.
‘You’re still not over that prank,’ Claudia said. ‘That’s why you don’t like any Mosley.’ She herself liked Whit Mosley fine. He’d palled around with her brother Jimmy as kids, fishing, gigging for frogs, swimming in the bay, and Whit never made her – the tagalong tomboy – feel unwelcome. He had kind eyes, gray as the bay when the clouds hung low. And he was easy to work with. The last JP, God rest her soul, puked at every single death scene and guilted Claudia into taking macrame and quilting classes with her. Whit kept his lunch and hobbies to himself.
‘I don’t like Mosley period. He’s running the bench like a beach attraction,’ Delford fretted. ‘I’m just saying Pete smells like suicide to me.’
‘Are you jumping or driving to that conclusion?’
‘When I told Lucinda that Pete was dead, she asked straightaway if he’d killed himself. She told me in detail about the mental problems he’s been suffering from over the past several years. It’s in her statement.’
‘She knew he was nuts but didn’t know he was doing porn?’ Claudia asked.
Delford frowned. ‘Well, maybe she did know. But I wouldn’t blame her for not mentioning it.’
‘His friend Velvet insists he would never commit suicide.’
‘Let’s talk about Pete’s friends. This boat he was staying on. Real Shame. It’s registered in Houston. It’s owned by a fellow named Tommy Deloache. In Houston, he’s known as Tommy the Roach. Suspected drug ties, suspected money launderer.’
‘And Pete hanging with criminals bolsters your suicide theory how?’
‘From what Houston PD says, if the Deloaches wanted Pete dead, he’d be in the Gulf, sixty feet down wired to blocks. They tidy up after themselves. They don’t leave bodies around to be autopsied.’
She stood. ‘I’ll keep you apprised of what I find.’
‘Claud, don’t get bent. I’m just asking you to be sensitive to a mother’s grief. Remember Lucinda’s got an election in less than a month, and this could derail it.’
‘The senator wouldn’t get more sympathy votes if he was murdered as opposed to suicide?’ Claudia asked bluntly. ‘Suicide sounds like maybe she was a bad mother.’
‘Damn it, Claudia, you’ve never handled a death this high-profile. And my gut, which is both bigger and older than yours, tells me Pete killed himself. If you chase the wrong path and embarrass yourself, not to mention Senator Hubble, with all this unrelated garbage about porn and Corey Hubble and what not, that’s going to be remembered.’
He shoved his chair hard against the table.
‘Well, hell, Delford, if you don’t have confidence in me, don’t give me the case.’
‘I’m just trying to help you. The case is yours. Just mind how you run it.’
She nodded, and he turned and left. Claudia stared at the door he slammed behind him.