For Just Cause

“How do you think?” Mary-Francis spoke with only a slight accent. She had emigrated to the U.S. when she was fifteen, Eduardo Torres’s child bride.

“Is there something you need?” Claudia asked. “Toiletries or books?”

Mary-Francis declined to answer the question, and instead looked pointedly at Billy. “Who is he?”

“Billy is my associate from Project Justice. He’ll be helping me evaluate whatever evidence you present.”

“He’s staring at me. Tell him to stop staring at me.”

Billy didn’t look away. He said nothing. Claudia wished he would try to put Mary-Francis at ease. A relaxed subject was much easier to read.

“Let’s get down to business, shall we?” Claudia said. “You said in your email that you have new evidence that will prove your innocence.”

Mary-Francis shot another look at Billy. “Not in front of him.”

“He has to be here,” Claudia said. “He is the only one who can decide whether Project Justice will take on your case.”

Mary-Francis pursed her lips in disapproval. “I have no patient-doctor privilege with him. This information can’t get out. It can’t go public. If certain people find out what I’m going to tell you, they could have me killed.”

Evidence of paranoia. That wasn’t a good sign. Claudia hoped this wasn’t a fool’s errand.

“Billy is entirely trustworthy,” Claudia said. “He would never reveal sensitive information to an outsider.”

“Not even for a lot of money? A whole lot of money? He might be wearing a nice shirt, but he looks like a gangbanger to me. The kind who would pop an old lady in the head and steal the rings right off her dead fingers.”

Claudia watched carefully for a reaction from Billy. But he took the insult as if Mary-Francis had been commenting on the weather. Which was one of the main reasons the man unnerved her, and why she’d been studying him on the way to Mountain View Correctional Facility. He showed nothing of his true feelings—not a single nonverbal clue. His every gesture and facial expression were carefully choreographed to project only what he wanted others to see. In her experience, only sociopaths could disguise their feelings so completely, and only because they didn’t have genuine feelings. All of which made Billy both challenging and scary.

“Look, Ms. Torres,” Billy said, finally breaking his silence, “you either have to talk with me here, or this interview is over. It’s not Dr. Ellison’s decision.”

Mary-Francis shot Billy a look of pure venom. “Fine. I will talk.” She sounded as if she was bestowing upon them a great honor. “The other day, my daughter, Angie, came to visit me. She never visits me, so I knew right away something was up.”

“You and your daughter aren’t close?” Billy asked, smoothly taking over the questioning.

“She thought I murdered her father. She wouldn’t speak one word to me. Now, suddenly, everything has changed. Eduardo must have contacted her.”

Claudia was shocked—and disappointed. Eduardo couldn’t possibly be alive. Was this simply a last-ditch, desperate effort of a condemned woman to stir something up?

Billy didn’t look shocked. “So you think your husband is alive? Because your daughter came to visit.”

“I know he is.”

“Maybe Angie simply had a change of heart.” Billy flashed a charming, completely phony smile. “Your execution has been scheduled. It could have made her realize she’s about to become an orphan.”

Claudia watched for variations in her subject’s posture, or telltale gestures that might indicate stress.

But everything remained the same. Mary-Francis faced them squarely, her hands folded on her lap, her shoulders down and relaxed.

“Angie asked me about something that was a secret between Eduardo and me. Something we agreed she shouldn’t know about. Since I never told Angie, Eduardo must have.”

Billy looked confused. “Maybe he told Angie this secret before he died.”

“If he had,” Mary-Francis said, “Angie would have come to me long before now. I know my daughter. She is an addict, and she would steal anything valuable and sell it for drug money.”

“So this secret between you and Eduardo,” Billy said. “It involves money?”

“It involves something valuable, yes…”

Ah, now Claudia could see it. Not deception per se, but evasiveness. Mary-Francis was uncomfortable talking about this secret, whatever it was. Claudia made a note of Mary-Francis’s tight mouth.

“Well, what is it?” Billy asked.

Mary-Francis seemed to be weighing her options. Finally she came to a decision. “Coins. We had a coin collection worth a good deal of money. After we caught Angie stealing from us, I worried she might discover the coins and try to pawn them. So I gave them to my sister, Theresa, for safekeeping. I told no one, not even Eduardo.”

“Why not Eduardo?” Billy wanted to know. “Didn’t you trust him?”

“Of course I trusted him! I was going to tell him, but it slipped my mind. And then he disappeared.”

Hand to the neck. Eyes squinting. Shoulders raised. Voice at a slightly higher pitch. Any one of those things could be a sign of deception. Together, Claudia felt absolutely confident they indicated Mary-Francis was lying.

“Ma’am,” Billy said, “excuse me for saying so, but your story is ridiculous.”

“I’ll explain better, then,” Mary-Francis said, losing her composure for the first time. “Eduardo was suspected of killing some drug dealer. The FBI was closing in, and Eduardo was scared of going to prison. I believe he fled to Mexico, thinking he would take the coins with him and sell them, so he could start over in comfort. But then he couldn’t find them because I’d moved them, and he couldn’t very well ask me about the matter. I was supposed to think he was dead.”

“Your loving husband wanted you to think he was dead?” Billy asked.

“He must have thought that would be better than going to prison,” she grumbled. “He knew the police would question me, and he figured I couldn’t tell them where he’d gone if I didn’t know.

“Later, he got in touch with Angie somehow, thinking she would help him find the coins.” Her words were rushed, a little desperate. “Maybe he promised her some money—Angie would believe anything he told her. She would do anything for him.

“But Angie couldn’t find the coins, either, so she came to me, thinking she could weasel where I’d hidden them, said she wanted to keep the coins safe, put them in a safe-deposit box, but that makes me laugh. She would turn them over to her father. Or sell them, probably for far less than they’re worth. My daughter is not the smartest—”

“How much are they worth?” Billy’s interruption halted Mary-Francis’s avalanche of words.

Her body language changed abruptly. While telling her story she had been leaning forward, her face open and animated, gesticulating with her hands. Now she pulled into herself and smoothed her hair, another self-soothing gesture.

“I don’t really know.”

Billy glanced at Claudia. She shook her head slightly.

“So your daughter asks about the coins,” Billy says, “and you draw the conclusion that your husband is alive.” He leaned back and folded his arms, a classic male territorial display designed to intimidate.

“You’re not getting it,” Mary-Francis said. “My daughter absolutely did not know about those coins before Eduardo disappeared. Now suddenly she’s full of questions. She knows. Because Eduardo told her.”

“So what do you want us to do?” Billy challenged. “Should we tell the police to let you out of jail because your daughter mentioned a coin collection? It’s preposterous.”

“I want you to find Eduardo. I know he is alive, and you must find him. He’s probably running out of money by now, and he’s desperate for the coins. Maybe you could set a trap. I can give you the names of friends and relatives he has both here and in Mexico. But first, I need for you to warn my sister. Sooner or later Angie will figure out I gave the coins to Theresa. Tell her to hide them well.”

“Why can’t you contact Theresa yourself?” Billy asked. “Advise her to move the coins to a safe-deposit box.”

“I can’t get hold of her. She doesn’t respond.” Tears sprang to Mary-Francis’s eyes. “She has my…oh, what is the word, where she can sign my name?”

“Power of attorney,” Billy supplied.

Mary-Francis nodded vigorously. “I am afraid she has turned her back on me like Angie.”

“If Eduardo is alive,” Claudia asked softly, “how do you explain all that blood?”

“Evidence can lie,” Mary-Francis said. “The police are corrupt.”

Billy was still stuck on the coins. “Mary-Francis, how valuable are those coins?” he asked again. “You must have some idea.”

Mary-Francis hesitated. “I’m not sure. They are old Spanish escudos, from sunken ships. Maybe a million dollars?”

CHAPTER TWO

“A MILLION BUCKS’ WORTH of old Spanish coins?” Billy said once they were safely back in his truck. “It better be Jean Lafitte’s treasure.”

“If they’re gold,” Claudia said, “they could be pretty pricey just based on the meltdown value alone. Historical significance would add to their value. She could be right.”

“I guess it doesn’t really matter what the coins are worth,” Billy said. “The question that concerns us is, does she really believe Eduardo is alive? If so, is she deluding herself?”

“She seems sincere to me.” Claudia sounded tired. “I’m starving. Can we stop somewhere and eat?”

“Sure. Any suggestions?” Billy didn’t recall seeing much in the way of classy restaurants in the closest town, Gatesville. Though it was the county seat and “the spur capital of the world,” it was definitely a small town.

“Any place is— Oh, look, a Tubby’s. Let’s go there.”

“Tubby’s? You’re kidding, right?” Claudia Ellison wanted to eat lunch at a greasy spoon with a gravel parking lot filled with beater cars and trucks?

“I have…fond childhood memories. But if you’d rather eat someplace else—”

“No, this is fine.” Billy tried to picture what Claudia’s childhood might have been like. He assumed she’d come from wealth. She had an aristocratic bearing and a way of speaking that he associated with old money. No Texas twang, so he doubted she came from around here. Maybe she’d eaten at Tubby’s while on a family vacation?

He had a hard time picturing little Claudia with her upper-class family, dining on ribs or chicken-fried steak. The mental image wouldn’t gel.

“I thought you’d be more of an upscale-French-restaurant sort of person,” he said once they were inside and seated at a booth with a faded green Formica table between them. Out of habit, Billy had selected the table and placed his back toward the wall, where he had a good view of the front door and a plate-glass window into the parking lot.

“Mais oui, I love ze French food. But this place…they have the best banana splits here.” She opened one of the plastic menus the waitress had dropped in front of them and gravely looked over the offerings as if about to make a decision of importance.

After a minute or two she looked up at him. “What? Why are you smiling?”

“I just never expected a Tubby’s restaurant to delight you, of all people.”

She suddenly became self-conscious, and he wished he hadn’t ribbed her about her lunch choice. “I guess I needed something happy to focus on after being in that prison.” She shivered delicately. “What an awful place.”

“And Tubby’s is a happy place?”

She looked around, perhaps assessing it through her adult eyes. The restaurant was half-filled, mostly with men in work clothes and a couple of tables of boisterous teenagers.

“Yes, it’s happy,” she declared. “These men are so relieved to sit in the air-conditioning for a few minutes’ break from their construction jobs. And those kids—blowing their allowance money on burgers and ice cream, flirting, away from parental control—yeah, happy.”

But her smile was slightly bittersweet.

“You ready?” the waitress asked.

“Yes, I’ll have the chicken finger basket and a Diet Coke.”

Billy ordered a standard burger and fries and the waitress left.

“No banana split?”

“It probably wouldn’t be as good as I remember. Now. About Mary-Francis.”

“I think she’s a lying schemer. Please, can’t we write this one off? No way could her husband be alive.”

“Ah, sorry. She was telling the truth—about some things, anyway. The coins exist. She believes they’re worth a million dollars, and her daughter did visit. She believes Eduardo has been in contact with Angie. All that’s true. She was lying about one thing, though.”

“What?”

“She didn’t merely ‘forget’ to tell Eduardo about giving the coins to her sister. I think she deliberately kept the information from him. Their marriage was on the skids. But she couldn’t just divorce him—he was violent. She might have wanted to keep those coins for herself, so she could escape and make her own fresh start.”

“Forgive me for pointing this out, but a million-dollar coin collection is a nice motive for murder.”

“She believes he’s alive,” Claudia said flatly.

“Then she’s delusional. The blood evidence was clear-cut. Maybe she had some sort of psychotic break and she forgot she murdered him.”

“Give me some credit. I think I would notice if the subject was psychotic.”

Their food arrived, and for a time they didn’t speak, focusing on filling their empty stomachs. Once Billy had taken a few bites to dull the edge of his hunger, he sat back and observed Claudia as she devoured her chicken fingers, coating each one with a few dribbles of ranch dressing. She took small bites, closing her eyes to savor each one.

He again wondered why this place was special to her. He tried once more to picture her as a little girl. Long blond hair in pigtails, maybe. She had such a slight build now, she’d probably been thin as a child, all knees and elbows. Had she been a tomboy, or a Little Miss Priss? Probably the latter.

“You’re smiling again.”

Billy quickly schooled his features. Damn, that was careless of him, letting his musings show on his face. His life no longer depended on hiding his true self every waking minute. But he still preferred to keep his feelings out of public view, and the one person he ought to be more careful around was Claudia Ellison. He might not believe in her body-language junk science, but she was perceptive.

They finished and paid with a company Visa, then headed back into the sizzling hot afternoon. Claudia removed her pale blue suit jacket. Her blouse was damp, clinging to her breasts in a way that made Billy’s mouth go dry despite the huge soft drink he’d just sucked down.

“So you’re going to recommend Project Justice not take on this case?” Claudia asked.

“It’s kind of fantastical.”

“Yes…but don’t you think we should at least check a few things out? For example, let’s sic Mitch on Eduardo. If the guy is alive, he’s leaving signs of his presence somewhere in cyberspace. Mitch is so amazing when it comes to that, and we have that list of friends and associates Mary-Francis gave us.”

“I guess that would be okay, if Mitch doesn’t mind.” Mitch Delacroix was Project Justice’s resident computer geek and missing person locator. “I can put Daniel off about a decision for a few days.”

“And I want to visit Theresa and see what she has to say about this illustrious coin collection.”

“Yeah, I’ll admit I’m curious. If Theresa has some supervaluable artifacts in her home, we should advise her to take them to the bank and put ’em in a vault. Especially if her drug-addict niece wants them.”

As Claudia climbed into the passenger seat of Billy’s truck, she offered him a healthy flash of thigh, and his heart leaped into his throat…was that her panties he just saw? Then he realized she was wearing a lacy-edged slip.

How Victorian. How…intriguing.

“She was definitely concealing something,” Claudia said once they were back on the road. “She gave at least a dozen signs of it.”

“A dozen? Come on.” No one could give themselves away that thoroughly.

“You knew she was lying. How did you come to that conclusion?”

“’Cause she told a stupid story about a million-dollar treasure and a dead husband come back to life. Doesn’t take an expert to figure out it’s a crock.”

“My hunch is, you read all the body-language signals on a subconscious level—the direction of her feet, the angle of her body, voice inflection, how fast she talked, where she looked, what she did with her hands, nostrils, lips, whether she swallowed a lot—”

“It would take me a year to catalog all that. Isn’t it easier just to listen to what a suspect says?” Yet merely listening to the words someone spoke hadn’t always told him what he needed to know. He’d missed some vital clues during that last operation with Sheila.

Just thinking about Sheila filled him with a profound sadness. “Hey, Claudia, can you tell what I’m thinking now?”

“I read body language, not minds,” she said tartly.

“What’s my body language telling you?”

She actually took him seriously, studying him from head to toe in a slow perusal that made him hot—checking him out the way a woman does at a bar when she wants you to return the favor. If he was as good as he thought he was, though, Claudia would have no idea how badly he’d like to kiss those moist, full lips of hers and muss up that elegant blond hair.

“You’re bored,” she finally said. “You don’t like this assignment, you don’t like Mary-Francis, and you’d rather be working on something else.”

“Uncanny,” he said as relief washed through him. He still had it. He could still hide his true feelings.

“I’m not so ready to wash my hands of Mary-Francis,” Claudia said, abruptly returning to business. “I’m going to talk to Angie. If she’s in contact with her supposedly dead father—”

“Whoa, wait, Claudia. You probably shouldn’t confront her. She could be dangerous.”

Claudia seemed insulted. “I know how to deal with addicts, even violent ones. I’ve had clients come at me with knives, try to choke me with drapery cords—”

“In a clinical situation, where I’m guessing you have a panic button, or people waiting in the next room who’ll come running if you scream.” Jeez, and he thought his job was dangerous.

“I know a little something about dangerous people,” she said. “I wouldn’t be dumb enough to confront her in an unsafe environment.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said, surprised at how happy it made him to have an excuse to spend more time with Claudia. Now that he knew for sure she couldn’t see inside his head as though it was a fishbowl, he wouldn’t be so irritated if he caught her studying him again. In fact, he might not be irritated at all. Did she always wear lacy slips? What was that about?

“I’m sure you have better things—”

“Once Daniel makes up his mind to check out a potential client, he wants it done right. It’s my job to run around interviewing people connected with the case. It’s what I’m being paid to do.”

“I’m on a hefty retainer,” Claudia reminded him.

“Then we’ll confront Angie together,” he said, settling the matter.

* * *

“GOOD MORNING, CELESTE,” Claudia said as she entered the Project Justice lobby the next morning. “I’m here to meet Billy Cantu.”

Celeste Boggs, Project Justice’s office manager and self-proclaimed head of security, looked up from her Soldier of Fortune magazine with a stern expression and pointed to a clipboard. “Sign in there, please.”

“Oh, but I’m not—”

Celeste tapped the clipboard with one impatient finger and glared, daring Claudia to complete her argument.

Claudia signed in. It was hard to defy Celeste. Though the former Houston cop was in her seventies, she was one scary mama who claimed to know fourteen ways to kill someone with her bare hands. Celeste dressed as if she were auditioning for the role of World’s Most Eccentric Senior Citizen, but Claudia wasn’t fooled by the flamboyant red, ostrich-feather-trimmed shirt or the huge earrings made from shotgun shells.

Celeste meant business, and no one got past her into the rest of the building unless she let them.

“Billy,” Celeste said into the phone, “your date is here. I hope you bought a corsage for her.”

Is that how Claudia appeared to Celeste? she wondered with some alarm. Like a high-school girl all primped for a date with the quarterback? She’d opted for a more casual look today, a pale peach linen sundress with a wide brass belt. The skirt was one of her shorter ones…had she subconsciously dressed provocatively for Billy’s sake?

The possibility was troubling.

A loud clanging of metal and a snort coming from the vicinity of Celeste’s feet interrupted Claudia’s uncomfortable musing. “What’s that noise?”

“Oh, that’s just Buster.”

“You have a dog down there?”

“No, not a dog.” Celeste tried and failed to hide a mischievous smile. “Want to see him? He’s a beauty.” She leaned down and grabbed on to something that turned out to be a metal cage. As she hefted it up, Claudia saw that inside the cage was a large, furry, fierce-looking…pig? It was excitedly trying to dig its way through the steel bars with sharp, cloven hooves.

Claudia took an instinctive step back. “Oh, my God, what in the hell is that thing?”

“It’s a javelina! Haven’t you ever seen one before?”

“In a zoo, maybe. What’s it doing here?”

“It was in my backyard, and it kept digging up my vegetables. I caught it. My grandson’s school mascot is a javelina and their previous one died—or maybe they ate it. So I’m donating this one to the school.”

“You’re donating a vicious wild animal to a school?” That did not sound like a wise plan.

“He’s not vicious. I’ve been taming him down. Watch, he’ll let me pet him now.”

“Uh, are you sure that’s a good idea?” Claudia took a few more steps back.

Celeste opened the cage door. “Don’t worry, he’s really rather sweet. Aren’t you, Buster?” Celeste petted the animal on the head, then scratched it behind one ear.

The beast didn’t look as if it enjoyed the attention. In fact, it was frozen in a classic defense posture designed to make it invisible. Its next move would be to bolt for freedom. Freeze, fight or flight.

A frosted glass partition separated the lobby from the rest of the building. Just as Celeste withdrew her hand and was about to close the cage, Billy burst through the glass door like a freight train.

“Good morning, Claudia!”

The wild animal bolted out of the cage at the speed of light, sliding across the polished surface of the reception desk, plopping to the floor and wiggling right past Billy’s feet and through the door before it closed.

Claudia screamed just from the sheer surprise, and Billy backed up against a wall, his right hand automatically reaching under his jacket for a weapon.

“Holy crap, what was that thing?”

Celeste was the only one who didn’t look perturbed. “A javelina, what did it look like?” She calmly picked up the phone and pushed the intercom button. “Attention, all staff. Please be advised there is a small, hairy, piglike animal loose in the building. If you see it, would you mind calling the front desk so I can catch it?”

“You brought a live javelina to work?” Billy asked, as if wanting to be sure he’d heard right.

“It would have been fine if you hadn’t scared it.”

Billy looked at Claudia. “Now would be a good time to leave.”

“Sign out! Both of you.”

Once they were out the door and heading for Claudia’s car, they burst out laughing.

“What the hell was that about?” Billy asked. “Celeste’s new pet?”

“She caught it in her yard,” Claudia said, “and she’s donating it to her grandson’s school because they need a mascot.”

“Her grandson? Celeste doesn’t have any children. She never married. You must mean her great-nephew.”