54.

"Kellin, I'd like a glass of red wine. I don't believe Mr. Navarre needs anything."

Kellin hesitated. She looked up at him, cold and expectant. Then he disappeared.

"Before I have you thrown out, Mr. Navarre, perhaps you'd explain yourself to me. Then I have my guests to attend to."

As if on cue, the music outside flared up into a fiddle solo. People started clapping.

"Where is Dan?" I asked.

"My son is not feeling well."

"I bet."

Cookie wasn't used to being contradicted. For an instant her eyes almost focused on me, as if I was worth considering.

"I can't make you understand," she said. "You will never be a mother, Mr. Navarre. You can't possibly appreciate-"

"Try me," I said. "Your sick husband, your years of raising Dan alone. Now here he is at the tender young age of twenty-eight, not quite ready to leave the nest but already, despite your best efforts, deeply involved in the family's shit. Where did you go wrong?"

She was tempted to get angry but to give her credit, she controlled it. She stared at the photo of her husband on the wall-young Dan Sheff, the Korean soldier.

"I have no idea what your crude comments imply, Mr. Navarre, but I will tell you this. My family means more to me than-" She faltered. "I will not allow you to-"

I'd interrupted a perfectly good chastisement by taking the faded pink envelope out of my back pocket, carefully unfolding the letter, and holding it up.

"You were saying?" I prompted. "Your family means more to you than what-an old lover who got too curious? The burden of betraying him to your husband? The guilt of knowing you got him killed?"

Cookie stared at the letter in my hands. Her harsh expression threatened to melt. Somewhere underneath the cosmetics, I think her cheeks actually flushed. I could see suddenly the remnants of a younger, more attractive woman, one who allowed herself emotions other than disdain. A woman my father might have seen as an interesting challenge.

Then she managed to refocus her eyes on that invisible fixed point in the distance. She corrected her posture.

"How-dare-you."

A row of small black mascara specks appeared underneath her eyes when she blinked. Except for that I would never have guessed there was extra moisture anywhere in her. Her bleak stare and the tone of her voice were as arid as the Panhandle.

"I will not sit here," Cookie continued, "and listen to accusations from a young man who understands nothing about my life."

I folded up the letter and put it back in my pocket. "I think I understand pretty well, ma'am. You were having a hard time ten years ago. Your husband's illness was just getting bad; he would be bedridden within a few more years. The business was deep in the red. Your son was away at college. You needed a little affection and my father was there to provide it. He must've been refreshing for you at first, before he told you he was about to start investigating your husband's company for defrauding the city, all because of papers he wouldn't have found if he hadn't been sleeping with you."

Before she could answer, Kellin reappeared at the door of the study. He walked over and handed Cookie a glass of wine. Then he picked up the small picture of Dan Sr. that Mr. Cambridge had knocked off the desk. Cookie glanced at it, then looked away. She brushed a strand of luminescent blond hair behind her ear.

"My past mistakes change nothing," she said, almost to herself. "I have my son to think of. I have done what I can to raise him well."

"To protect him."

"I am protecting him," she agreed tonelessly. "And I will not allow you-I will not allow another-" She stopped herself.

"Another Navarre to interfere," I offered.

She shook her head slowly, but there was something new in her eyes: resentment. She smoothed the belly of her sparkling evening dress with a withered hand.

"No," she said evenly. "Nothing like that."

I looked at the silver-framed picture of Dan's father, robust enough when I was in high school to flirt with countless young cheerleaders. Now Dan Sr. was upstairs somewhere, listening to the drip of the IV and the sound of dancing and Bob Wills that was rocking his floor, trying to remember his own name. I'm not sure what I was feeling for him, but it wasn't pity.

"What the hell is going on?" someone said behind me.

"Danny," said Mrs. Sheff. Her throat sounded like it was constricting. "I thought we'd agreed ..."

The tux had made some difference in Dan Jr.'s appearance. From the neck down he looked dapper, cleaned and pressed, both shoes tied, a tumbler of bourbon in his hand instead of a Lone Star bottle. From the neck up he looked about the same-bloodshot eyes, sickly pale face, blond cowlicks slicked only partially into submission. He looked like he was probably more sober than I was now, but that wasn't saying much.

"You agreed to talk later," Dan said. "I want to know what's going on now. It's my damn company, Mother."

"Actually," I said, "that's part of the problem. It's not."

Dan stared at me. Cookie stared at me. Kellin stood behind Cookie with all the emotion of a sideboard, looking at nothing in particular.

"I'd been wondering how Sheff Construction had repositioned itself for the Travis Center deal in '85," I said. "You were on the edge of bankruptcy, then overnight you were a powerhouse again. Even to your partners who were helping you to obtain the contract, you couldn't have looked like a very safe investment. I was also wondering how Terry Garza had the balls to push the Sheff family around. After all, he was supposed to be your faithful employee. So I just checked the files on your personal computer, Mrs. Sheff."

Cookie was totally still. Dan swayed a little, looking down at me.

"What are you saying?"

"This isn't your company, Dan. It hasn't belonged to the Sheffs since '85, when your dad had dug a debt hole so big he couldn't possibly climb out on his own. You were quietly bought out, taken over, repossessed. Then you were used to make the new owner and his partners, maybe the mob, a lot of money on city building contracts. Congratulations, Dan. You're going to inherit an honorary director's title, the right to use your own name without getting sued for trademark violation, and if you're a good boy, a modest yearly stipend. You're just an employee, like Moraga and Garza. Like your mother."

Outside, the band ended its song. Applause. An announcement about a new case of champagne being opened.

Dan Sheff was swaying a little more, like he wanted to fall over but couldn't quite decide which way. His blue eyes were vacant.

"Mother?" His tone wasn't exactly angry. It was more pleading, hopeful that his mom might have a speech in her repertoire to cover this contingency.

Cookie didn't offer one.

I pushed the faded pink letter toward her. "As near as I can figure, you told my father only one thing that was true. Sheff Construction was being used. That isn't Dan Sr. getting rid of Randall Halcomb in the blackmail photos; nobody with Parkinson's, even the beginnings of Parkinson's, is going to shoot someone cleanly between the eyes with a .22 on a dark night. It wasn't the Sheff family that ordered Garza to pay the blackmail, or Moraga to kidnap Lillian so she couldn't talk. You're not protecting your son or your husband, Mrs. Sheff. You're protecting your owner."

When Dan stumbled backward, Kellin was there instantly to steady him. Kellin helped Dan raise the bourbon glass to his mouth.

Cookie was shaking her head. "All I want, Mr. Navarre, is for you to leave. My son is going to inherit his company. He will get Lillian back safely without your help, or that of the police. Then he's going to marry her."

She could've been reading from Dr. Seuss, the way she said it. For some reason that thought made me laugh.

"I can't leave it like that," I said.

Dan started to say something, but Cookie silenced him with a look. Then she nodded at Kellin.

"Good night, Mr. Navarre."

It wasn't much of a fight. Even if I'd been sober, Kellin would've had speed on his side and a score to settle. Two punches connected with my gut. Then I was lying on the Sheffs' antique kilim rug, looking at the ceiling with a funny warm feeling in my head. I think it was Kellin's boot.

We went out a side door through the kitchen. Kellin dragged me along at just the right angle so I could admire the Saltillo tiles. The waiter tried to give me back my garbage can. A few of the cooks were telling jokes in Spanish. They got quiet as we went past.

When Kellin dragged me around to the front yard I looked up briefly into Fernando Asante's face. The councilman was just going into the party with his satin-dressed cherubs and a few tuxedoed businessmen. Asante's bow tie was bright green.

"Leaving us, Mr. Navarre?"

Somebody laughed, a little nervously.

Kellin dragged me a few more feet, then pulled me upright.

"No offense," he said.

Then he introduced my face to the gravel and walked away.

55.

I'd been waiting for Detective Schaeffer at his desk for thirty minutes before he came down the hall with his garlic bagel in hand. Schaeffer looked even more tired than usual, like it'd been a busy morning for homicides.

"No time," he said. "Got a stiff to take care of. Want to come along?"

A few minutes later we were heading toward the East Side in an Oldsmobile so brown-wrapper and so obvious that some kid with a sense of humor had spray-painted "THIS IS NOT A POLICE CAR" on the sides, right in English, left in Spanish.

"Only fucking unit available," Schaeffer told me. Somehow, though, I got the feeling he kind of liked this one. We drove down Commerce for a few minutes before he said: "So what's the occasion?"

"I thought we should talk."

"I said that two days ago."

"And I need a favor."

"Lovely."

He checked with Dispatch. Yes, the wagon was at the scene. They were waiting outside the house. Schaeffer swore, then blew his nose into the huge red napkin that had been holding his bagel a few minutes before.

"Waiting outside the house," he repeated. "Lovely."

"So the smell is inside," I said.

He made a noise that might have been a grudging acceptance. "Your dad was a cop."

We turned south on New Braunfels, then left into a neighborhood of matchbox houses and dirt front yards.

"So tell me about it," Schaeffer said.

I'm not sure when, the night before, I'd decided to come clean with Schaeffer. Somewhere around 3 A.M., I guess, when I'd finished picking the gravel out of my face and had been staring at the ceiling so long I started seeing dead faces in the crystalline plaster. Maybe they'd started looking a little too familiar. Or Carlon's newspaper deadlines had started looking too close. Or maybe I just needed to make Larry Drapiewski and Carl Kelley proud of me. Whatever it was, I told Schaeffer what I knew.

When I was done he nodded. "Is that all?"

"You wanted more?"

"I want to make sure your bullshit filter is operating today, kid. Is that all?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Let me think about it."

I nodded. Schaeffer took out his napkin again.

"Maybe when I calm down I'll decide not to kick your ass for being so stupid."

"Take a number," I said.

I don't know how Schaeffer drove with one hand and a napkin larger than his face pressed against his nose, but he managed to navigate us through the turns without slowing under thirty and without hitting any of the residents. We pulled up next to a couple of squad cars outside a two-story turquoise house on Salvador. Sure enough, everybody was waiting outside. You could tell the ones who had been inside recently. Their faces were bright yellow. A group of neighbors, mostly old men still in bathrobes, had begun to gather on the neighbor's porch.

"Someday," Schaeffer snuffled, "I want to know what it is about 11 A.M. that makes everybody want to turn up dead. It's a corpse rush hour, for God's sake."

"You got cotton balls or something?" I asked.

"In the glove compartment with the Old Spice."

I made a face. "I'd rather smell the deceased."

"No you wouldn't. One good thing about sinuses, Navarre. I can't smell a damn thing. You should be so lucky."

I opted for the Old Spice. I doused two cotton balls and put one in each nostril. When we got into the house I was glad I had.

The victim was an old widow, Mrs. Gutierrez. Nobody had seen her for a few days, according to the neighbors, until the guy next door had gotten worried enough to check on her. The minute he opened the front door he closed it and called the police.

I'd seen dead bodies, but usually not after they'd been floating in bloody upstairs bathtubs in one-hundred-degree heat for several days. Mrs. Gutierrez wasn't easy to look at. I must've needed to prove something to Schaeffer. I stayed with him while he went over the scene.

"Suicide my ass," he told the beat cop. He pointed at the slit wrist on Mrs. Gutierrez's bloated forearm. "You see any nicks on either side of the main cut?"

Just before he left to throw up, the beat cop admitted that he did not. Schaeffer put the dead hand down long enough to blow his nose, then continued his conversation with me.