Scent Of Roses Part 25

"I've been putting in some pretty long hours. Like I said, I meant to call but the time just slipped away."

"That happens sometimes." Gwen wasn't much for small talk. And looking at her now, there was something in her face that made Elizabeth wary.

"You don't usually come by the office. Is there something in particular on your mind?"

Gwen set her gla.s.s down on the table. "Actually there is." She ran a finger over the moisture on the outside of the gla.s.s, making abstract designs in the condensation. "Jim and I were having dinner out at The Ranch House. On my way to the ladies' room, I ran into Lisa Doyle."

Elizabeth's lips curved in a smile that wasn't. "I'm sure she sends her best."

"Actually, I think she'd like to cut out your heart with a dull-edged knife."

"She already did that. Tell her she'll have to think of something else."

Gwen didn't smile. "Lisa says you're sleeping with Zachary Harcourt."

Elizabeth's hand shook as she reached for her gla.s.s, picked it up, and took a long drink of diet soda. "I don't think who I'm sleeping with is any of Lisa's business."

"It wouldn't be my business either if you weren't my best friend."

It was true. They rarely kept secrets from each other and this secret was a ten on the Richter scale. "Zach and I are working on a case together."

"Really. What kind of case?"

"Zach is heavily involved in Teen Vision. Most people don't know it, but he's actually the person who founded the place."

A sleek red eyebrow arched up. "I thought it was Carson's project."

"Apparently attaching Carson's name makes it easier for them to raise money. At any rate, Zach's helping one of the kids in the program. I'm trying to help the boy's sister. We thought working together might get better results."

"So it's just business. You aren't really involved with him."

Elizabeth glanced away. It was impossible to lie to Gwen. "We're seeing each other. Just on weekends, or whenever he's in town."

Gwen's eyes widened. "Oh, my G.o.d, then it's true. You're sleeping with Zachary Harcourt!"

Elizabeth shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant when that wasn't the least how she felt. "We're both adults. We can do whatever we want."

"Have you lost your mind?"

Elizabeth swallowed. The astonished look on Gwen's face reminded her that she had once felt exactly the same. Memories rushed back of the man Zach had been when she was in high schoolwild, reckless, uncaring. Women meant nothing to him. He liked them easy and only for a night or two. He lived up to his high school nickname in a very predatory way.

"I mean, I can understand the attraction," Gwen went on, "any woman couldbut that just makes getting involved with him even worse."

"It's not as bad as all that," Elizabeth defended, trying to shake off the memories, trying to convince herself. "It's purely a physical thing. Neither of us is looking for a long-term relations.h.i.+p."

Gwen leaned toward her across the table. "Who are trying to kid, Liz? Zach or yourself? This is your best friend you're talking to. I've known you for years and we both know you aren't the kind of woman who goes in for casual s.e.x."

Elizabeth glanced away. She didn't want to have this conversation. She didn't want to hear her own thoughts put into words. "For the most part, no, but this is different. It's been a long time since I've been s.e.xually attracted to a manand never the way I'm attracted to Zach. I wanted to know what it felt likejust this once. There's nothing wrong with that."

"Not there isn't. But in this case, there are other things to consider."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that Zach's a loner and always will be. He was when we were kids and he still is. Lisa can handle a guy like that. s.e.x means nothing to her. You aren't that way."

No, she was nothing like Lisa. She had said those same words to Zach, but he had convinced her it didn't matter.

"I really like him, Gwen. He's nothing like he was back then. He cares about those boys at Teen Vision. When I'm with him, I feel like he cares about me."

"Maybe he does," Gwen said gently. "Maybe he cares a great deal. But in the end, he'll leave. That's the way he's always been, the way he always will be."

Elizabeth glanced away, her throat suddenly tight. "I know you're right. It could never work between us. But I'm not ready to give him up. Not yet. I wish I could, but I can't."

Gwen reached over and squeezed her hand. "The guy's a hunk, no question. Just don't let him in too deep. Don't let him break your heart."

Elizabeth made no reply. She had a very bad feeling it was already too late.

On his way into San Pico, Zach stopped by the little cantina, La Fiesta, at the edge of town on the off-chance Mariano Nunez might be there with some of his friends. For once luck was with him. The old man was on his way out as Zach walked in.

"Se"or Harcourt," the overseer said with a friendly smile. "I did not expect to see you again so soon."

"I stopped on the chance you might be here. I've got a couple more questions I was hoping you might answer. How 'bout I buy you a beer?"

The old man's smile widened and Zach noticed one of his bottom teeth was missing. "Gracias, se"or. It is still hot outside."

Zach ordered a couple of Dos Equis and they sat down at one of the battered wooden tables at the back of the bar. The smell of green peppers and roasting meat drifted out from the kitchen at the back of the room.

"I thought maybe you could tell me a little more about the Espinoza family."

While Zach sipped his beer, Mariano talked easily about his friends, answering Zach's questions. Speaking partly in Spanish, he told Zach that Juan's wife had borne him a number of children over the years. Six, as he recalled, but none had arrived after the couple had moved into the old gray house.

"My father mentioned something about Se"ora Espinoza losing a child," Zach said, getting to the subject he had come to discuss. "Do you remember anything about that?"

Mariano frowned, the lines in his weathered face etching more deeply into his nut-brown skin. "Sis, I remember. She was carrying their seventh child when Juan got one of the overseer's jobs and moved his family into the house."

"What happened?"

Mariano shook his head, moving the long gray hair around his ears. "She got sick or something. She lost the child and they moved away a few months later. I was sorry to see them go."

"Do you recall what year it happened?"

"The family moved away in the fall of nineteen seventy-two. I remember because I had to help find a replacement for Juan. It was not an easy thing to do."

Zach took a swig of his beer and set the icy bottle back down on the table. He couldn't help wondering if Se"ora Espinoza had seen the ghost Maria claimed to have seen, if perhaps she had received the same dire warning and paid it no heed.

He shoved back his chair and came to his feet. "Thank you, Mariano. You've been a big help."

The old man grinned. "It is good to talk of old times."

Zach just nodded. Maybe it was good for Mariano, but the information he'd just received made Zach's insides churn.

Se"ora Espinoza had birthed six healthy children before she moved into the old gray house. She had lost the seventh baby and shortly after that, the family had moved away.

Perhaps it was only coincidence.

The knot in Zach's stomach told him it wasn't.

The drive through the San Joaquin Valley took a little over three hours. Fresno was a valley town much like the other small towns around it, flat and dusty, sprawling ever outward. Except that the city itself was bigger, with multistoried buildings downtown and several freeways spewing traffic from one end to the other, the surrounding farmland more likely planted with vineyards and orchards than cotton.

Leaning back in the pa.s.senger seat, Elizabeth watched the pa.s.sing landscape with little thought to her surroundings. Her mind was on Zach and the conversation she'd had with Gwen at the office yesterday after work.

Though she had tried to ignore Gwen's warning and had succeeded somewhat when Zach had arrived last night, in the bright light of morning, her friend's ominous words sat in the back of her mind like a bitter lump of poison. As she looked over at Zach's handsome face, she couldn't help thinking of the Lone Wolf he had been and always would be.

She'd been a fool to get involved with him and she knew it, and the urge to run grew stronger by the moment. Or at least the desire to reconstruct the wall she had once put between them.

She would do it, she told herself, but not today. Today she needed Zach's help. She had a frightened young woman to protect and a murder to unravel. Perhaps today they would find the answer to the mystery of the house.

She s.h.i.+fted in her seat as the town of Fresno approached through the smaze, a local combination of smoke and haze hanging over the valley. Zach pulled the Jeep off the 99 Freeway and headed through town to E Street and the building that housed the Fres...o...b..e.

As always, it was hot, the late August heat permeating the car the instant the doors swung open in the parking lot. Neither of them spoke as they made their way inside the structure, up to the receptionist's desk.

"May I help you?" asked an older, heavyset woman with at least two chins and a weary expression that said she was bored with the job she'd been doing for too many years.

"We need to look at your old newspaper files," Elizabeth told her, following the same approach she had used in San Pico.

The woman nodded, jiggling her chins. "I'll have someone come out and show you where to find the records."

The receptionist was helpful and the rest of the staff friendly. They spent the balance of the morning poring over old newspaper records, reading and printing every article they could find on Hector and Consuela Martinez, starting with the day the kidnapping of Holly Ives had been reported, the couple's arrest, the trial, and the twelve years that followed, until Hector's execution in 1984. One last small notice reported Consuela's death from cancer in 1995 during a life-sentence term in the women's prison in Chowchilla.

"Take a look at this." Elizabeth handed Zach a copy of the article she had just printed. "This was published the day after Holly was reported missing. It gives a detailed description of what she looked like."

Zach took the article and skimmed the words. "It says she had brown hair and hazel eyes."

Elizabeth nodded. "Which means she can't be the ghost Maria claims to have seen."

"Apparently not. To tell you the truth, I didn't really think she would be. The age wasn't right and it happened too far away."

"I couldn't help hoping. I still think there's a connection."

"So do I." Zach skimmed a couple more articles, reading them in chronological order. "Here, look at this." He handed her a printout of the article he'd been reading, and a shudder rippled through her.

Body of Victim Found Buried in Bas.e.m.e.nt. Her chest squeezed painfully. "Oh, my G.o.d, Zach. This is just so awful."

"Yeah, and the people who did it lived in the old gray house."

"Which sat on the same spot where the new house is built."

"No wonder the place is so scary."

She scanned another article. It went over the story again, listing the brutal details of the murder. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. "They tortured her, Zach. They tortured that poor young girl."

Zach took the printed page from her shaking hand. According to the article, Holly Ives had been brutally beaten, then raped and sodomized with various household items before being murdered. She had been strangled, then buried in a shallow grave in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the house.

Elizabeth closed her eyes and drew in a steadying breath. "This was easier when I didn't know all the awful details."

"There wasn't as much written about it in the Newspress, since the Martinezes were no longer living in San Pico."

Elizabeth looked down at the stack of printed pages. "I can't stand this, Zach. Even if Hector was the one who killed Holly, how could a woman sit by and watch her husband do something like that? How could she allow it to happen?"

Zach just shook his head, his eyes dark and hard. "I don't know." He set the page he was reading down on the top of the stack. "It looks like Holly Ives's death is unrelated to what's going on in the house."

"Not directly, at least."

"But I keep thinking that if Hector and Consuela Martinez kidnapped and murdered a child in Fresno, maybe they did the same thing a couple of years earlierwhen they were living in the house at Harcourt Farms."

Elizabeth's stomach knotted. The notion had been nagging her, too. It made sense. Too much sense. "That's what I've been thinking."

"And maybe the reason no one can remember a child dying in the house is because no one knew."

She said nothing, the terrible notion squeezing painfully inside her. "All right, if that's what both of us are thinking, where do we go from here?"

"We'll need to speak to the Fresno PD, see if there's anyone still working in the department who might remember the case. If there is, maybe he can tell us something that isn't in the papers."

Elizabeth nodded, dreading the idea of hearing even more gruesome details of the young girl's murder. Then she thought of Maria and her baby and remembered the terrifying night she had spent in the house.

"Let's go," she said and started for the door.

Twenty-Two.

"One of the worst cases I've ever seen." Detective Frank Arnold shook his head, his leonine mane of gray hair teasing the collar of his slightly frayed white s.h.i.+rt. "Happened over thirty years ago, but I remember it as clear as if it had been yesterday."

Arnold was in his early sixties, but not yet retired, still married to the job, still working long hours, his memory apparently as sharp as it was back then.

"We've read everything we could find in the newspapers," Elizabeth told him. "Can you tell us anything more about the case?"

"We're particularly interested in finding out if the Martinezes were suspects in any other homicides," Zach added.

The detective's head came up. "Funny you should mention that. I always had my suspicions there were, but neither of them ever confessed to any other murders and we were never able to connect them to any other missing persons."

"But you think it's possible," Zach pressed.