Lies Come Easy Read online

  “No need to be sorry, Padrino. And don’t be silly. If hijo wants to buy a truck, that’s entirely up to him. He doesn’t need Mom’s approval or permission. And there are certainly worse impulsive behaviors.”

  “Impulsive is not a word that I ever associated with your oldest son, Sweetheart. Now Carlos? Maybe.” For a moment, he chewed thoughtfully, eyes closed. With a little shake of the head, he finally surfaced from burrito-induced bliss.

  “The concert venues are keeping Francisco busy?”

  “It’s incredible. Right now he’s in the middle of a five-week series with the Berlin Philharmonic. It’s a Christmas Tribute to Beethoven, or however that’s said in German. They’re two weeks into it, with rave reviews. They’re recording it all, and planning a fancy DVD release. Our souvenir shelf is filling rapidly.”

  “Miss Trevino is with him?”

  “She is. When the Tribute is finished in Berlin, he has an extended concert series in Buenos Aires. That starts in late January. The only thing I know about it is that if all goes well, he’ll be performing a collection of four-handed pieces with Barenboim. He’s excited about that.”

  Gastner puffed out his cheeks. “As he should be. What an amazing career. Is Miss Trevino participating?”

  “In Germany, yes. I don’t know about Argentina.”

  “What’s the maestro’s next concert in the United States?” He grinned. “The grilling is never going to stop, you know. Us old duffers are nosey as hell.”

  “Francisco sent me an itinerary…and at the moment, it’s pinned on the kitchen bulletin board.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t keep a copy in your wallet.”

  “Like people who keep a photo gallery of the grandkids.”

  “Exactly.”

  She pushed the remains of the salad into the take-home box. “January twentieth in Aspen, Colorado. It’s just before the festivities in Argentina, and coincides with another CD release. The early review of the CD in the Wall Street Journal, how do you say it? ‘Heaped plaudits.’”

  “Those are good things to heap. Congratulations to him. He’s come a long way from that concert he gave in Posadas a number of years ago.”

  “Just an older version of the same kid.”

  Gastner laughed. “What a doting parent you are.”

  “I do dote.”

  “Yeah, quietly, I guess you do.”

  “I hope you’ll go to Aspen with us. You and Camille, if you haven’t driven her off by then.”

  “She’ll be thrilled. Any excuse to stay and stay and stay. Hey, I’ll be thrilled too. But this late, you’re never going to get lodging. Not in Aspen. Not in January. And certainly not for his venue.”

  “Arrangements have already been made, Padrino. And see, here I am giving away secrets. It’s his Christmas present to us. Francisco sent us a package deal. Four tickets for seats that he personally reserved, accommodations at the St. Regis, rental car…the whole thing. He’s made arrangements so that we’ll fly right out of Posadas Municipal, direct to Aspen.” She smiled. “He sent four tickets because that’s what the special package included, way back in July.”

  “Always thinking, the maestro. He was able to bribe an airline into stopping in Posadas?”

  “I believe he’s booked a charter.”

  Gastner’s eyebrows shot up. “A charter! Damn, that’s some bucks.”

  “I don’t know, and I didn’t ask. He’s excited, and so are we. He said his agent took care of all the details.”

  “Always thinking, that kid.”

  “Or at least his agent is always thinking. He describes her as his ‘doting, spinster aunt.’”

  “More doting.” He pushed his platter, almost empty, to one side and slid to the edge of the booth seat. “Ready to go?”

  “Yep.”

  He accepted the offered elbow, and when he was firmly on his feet, he stood quietly for a moment. “I’m letting my joints settle,” he said. He fished out his wallet, and despite her protest at his grabbing the check, dropped two twenties on the table. “Time to go home?”

  “In a few minutes. I want to see this truck you were talking about. Can you stand that?”

  He grinned. “Once a mom, always a mom.”

  “A doting mom,” she corrected.

  Chapter Four

  Overhead, the powerful mercury vapor lights fixtures in the hangar ceiling sputtered and buzzed, the wash of light from them painfully bright.

  “A Dodge WC-Fifty Two,” Jim Bergin announced. “Made in nineteen forty-one.” He pulled the hangar man-door closed, and nudged Gastner gently as he walked past. “A few years older’n me. You coulda played with it, though.”

  Estelle gripped the steering wheel and pulled herself into the cab, maneuvering around various pieces of plumbing as well as the huge spare tire that nestled on the running board. The interior had an interesting blend of aromas—old grease, oil, gasoline, and seventy-plus years of unaccountable smells that had soaked into the canvas top and seat. She held the black steering wheel with both hands, gazing out through the slab-flat windshield, out across the mammoth hood and flat fenders.

  Thumping the palm of her left hand on an odd piece of heavy pipe framework that was welded to the doorframe near her left elbow, she looked quizzically at Bergin. “What’s this?”

  “That would be the mount for the machine gun platform.” Bergin grinned. “Notice all the American Safety Council-approved safety padding.”

  She ran a finger along the hard steel edge of the ominous structure again. “Nice.”

  “With the canvas top pulled to one side or removed altogether, the gunner could stand right in the bed of the truck, just behind the driver, and chop things up with the fifty-caliber.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “The old girl is simple to start,” Bergin offered. “Just purrs along. Want to take an early morning spin down the taxiway? It sure as hell doesn’t care about a little snow.”

  “I’ll wait,” she said. “Francisco shipped this thing from somewhere, somehow? I mean, he didn’t drive it.”

  “Oh, no. Oh, my achin’ kidneys, no, thinking about driving this old rig across the country at thirty-five miles an hour! Nope, one of the classic vehicle transporters brought it in, tucked in the comfort of a semi. Francisco e-mailed me, and asked if I’d be willing to give the old girl a physical, and then drive ’er once in a while.” He took a deep breath. “Sure happy to do that.” He leaned over and peered at the floor by Estelle’s feet. “Lookin’ at the condition of the pedals and all else, I don’t think she’s got all that many miles. And, you know, I might even have good use sometime for that big old winch that’s bolted on up front.”

  “So this is the female version?”

  Bergin lifted his cap and ran a hand through his gray stubble. Small of stature and with one of those heavily creased faces that broke into a dozen interesting planes when he smiled, he stroked the windshield frame, then ran a finger along one of the long cracks in the glass. “Just a manner of speaking. It’s easy to feel some affection for these old warriors.”

  “As Francisco obviously does.”

  “Yup. Well, he wants to rent space to keep it parked right here at the airport. I got no problem with that.” He placed one boot on the running board. “So this is a surprise for you?”

  “To put it mildly.” She smiled with a touch of resignation. “Not the first, though.”

  “Well, I can tell you one thing. If he takes care of it, he’ll never lose a penny on it, that’s for sure. It’s a good investment.”

  “He could carry his piano in the back,” Gastner observed.

  “You know, I was thinkin’ that he could file the paperwork and for a couple hundred bucks to register with the feds, he could mount the fifty-caliber machine gun right back on that pedestal. Make a good rig for hunting prairie dogs.”
r />   “And I’m sure you’ll suggest that next time you see him,” Estelle scolded gently. “I look forward to seeing his little brother’s face when Carlos sees this.”

  She ran her hands around the circumference of the big steering wheel and sighed. “The sheriff will be delighted.”

  “He saw it already. Let’s see. It come in last Thursday week. Bobby watched ’em unload it.”

  No one was better at keeping secrets than Sheriff Robert Torrez, Estelle reflected. “What’d he say?”

  “His exact words?”

  “Yes.”

  “‘I want one.’”

  She laughed. “I could have guessed something like that.”

  Bergin stepped back to let her slide down. He turned to Gastner, who was resting his rump against one of the knobby front tires. “What year were you born?”

  “I would have been thirteen when this old brute was built in forty-one. And if I could have stolen it, I would have.”

  Estelle’s phone announced itself with a single, complex chord that she knew to be in E-flat minor, recorded for her by Francisco the last time he’d been home.

  “Guzman.”

  “Ma’am, arraignment’s set for nine o’clock,” Deputy Pasquale said. “Darrell’s trying to make himself comfortable in our second-floor suite.”

  “Where he’ll be safe from various flying objects sent his way by Penny.”

  “Yep.”

  “You did a great job with them tonight, Thomas. Thanks.”

  “My pleasure.”

  As Estelle was occupied on the phone, Gastner made his way toward the SUV, accompanied by Jim Bergin, who walked with one hand an inch from the older man’s elbow as they stepped from the dry concrete of the hangar floor to the quarter inch of fresh snow on the tarmac.

  “Jim, thanks for all you’ve done,” Estelle called. “You have a new tenant flying in?”

  “Sometime Monday, they say.”

  She glanced up into the snow, now diagonal and strong from the southeast. “Good luck to ’em,” she said, and ducked into the warmth of the Expedition.

  “Why don’t you just drop me off at the office?” Gastner said. “It’s time for me to be getting out of your way. I’m fed and entertained. Now maybe I can get some sleep.”

  The SUV fishtailed a little as Estelle swung around the apron and headed for the airport gate. “Tough night for a two-year-old to be out, pushing his bike along the state highway, dressed in a T-shirt and diapers,” Gastner mused. “That’s one for your memoirs.”

  Chapter Five

  The next-door neighbor’s shepherd-lab cross greeted Estelle with a profusion of doggy opinion, but other than him, Twelfth Street was quiet at three a.m. when Estelle rolled the county Expedition to a stop in front of the Guzman home. Her own Toyota sat in the driveway, now covered with an inch of snow.

  Standing for a moment on the front step of the modest brick ranch house that had been home to the Guzmans for more than twenty years, she listened to the sounds of the village. As usual, the Interstate to the south was a constant reminder that the rest of the world didn’t sleep. Snow on the streets and the highway had turned to slush, and a few stars peeped through gaps in the clouds. Whether she could sleep or not was still open to question.

  She put the small box containing the remains of her Don Juan salad in the refrigerator and turned the heat on under tea water. The hiss of the gas stove seemed loud in the empty house. No messages showed on the landline phone on the kitchen counter, and she stood by the kitchen table and regarded the laptop. She touched a key and it promptly awoke but displayed no new messages. “Ho hum,” she said aloud, and turned to fix her green tea.

  With the mugful in hand, she walked into the living room and pulled the piano bench out far enough so that she could perch on one corner. Opening the heavy keyboard lid, she regarded the black and whites, then gently touched middle C and listened to the sound swell and flow through the house. Idle for months, was the piano anywhere near tune? She had no idea, but Francisco had asked her not to have anyone else tune it. That would be his first task the next time he visited.

  She smiled at the memory from earlier in the night. An army truck. From kindergarten onward, her two sons—one now twenty-five and the other soon to be twenty-two—had been one surprise after another

  She played the middle C again, then stretched to the C above that, and again another octave above that. “He’s in Germany now, and then Argentina after a quick stop in Aspen,” Estelle said, speaking to the small rocking chair in the corner by the fireplace. Her mother’s spirit probably already knew. “And he’s bought himself an antique military truck. The kind the Mexican policia used before they discovered Toyota pickups.” She touched the middle C once more, then A below, then G.

  “Oh...and Carlos is working on some mysterious project at school, and doesn’t think he’ll be home for Christmas.” She closed the piano lid. “I was thinking of having a good, noisy party here this year. Except the kids won’t be home, and what fun is that?” And would Francis have me committed if he could hear all this?

  The tea soothed and she rose to return to the kitchen. On the way, she nudged the thermostat upward a degree or two and heard the furnace light with its gentle whump. When she had first arrived home and shed several pounds of cop gear, she had planned to head for the shower. Now, she shivered at the thought of getting wet on such a blustery, rowdy winter night. She was tying the belt on her favorite fleecy robe when the phone rang. Instinctively, she glanced at the clock and frowned. Messages at 3:27 a.m. were rarely good news.

  One of the landline phones was on the nightstand beside the bed, and she sprawled across on her side, stretching to pick up.

  “Guzman.”

  A couple of seconds passed as digital bits flew from Earth to satellite and back to Earth again, with several other skips in between.

  “Hey, Ma.”

  Those two syllables sent a surge of electricity through Estelle so powerful that her heart pounded against her ribs. In recent years, as her sons matured, she found it a challenge to differentiate between Carlos and Francisco on the telephone, but the hesitation of circuits said this wasn’t a simple call from the West Coast.

  “Hijo! What a surprise!”

  “A good one, I hope. I called the S.O. just now, and Ernie said you’d just gone home, so you’d likely still be up.”

  “I am, as a matter of fact. The cup of tea thing.” She sat upright on the bed. “Oh, hijo, it’s so good to hear your voice.”

  “My father the doctor isn’t home from Vera Cruz yet, right?”

  “Tomorrow, we hope. Your father the doctor is just too busy. He promises to be home Sunday…tomorrow, I think.”

  “So you’re rattling around the house all by your lonesome.”

  “That’s exactly right. Padrino came out to ride with me for a little while and we stopped off at the Don Juan for a snack. So that helped. Angie is well?”

  “She is. We’ll be going to lunch in a few minutes.”

  “A discreet little bistro hidden on a narrow side street.”

  The transatlantic pause made it sound as if Francisco had to think about that. He laughed. “No, actually it’s a luncheon at the maestro’s country estate just south of Berlin. Outside of Mittenwalde, I think. Thirty k’s or so. We’ll go eat ourselves sick, and then have a short late afternoon rehearsal to get polished for tonight.”

  “All goes well with the festival?”

  “Well, I think so, and the audience still is enthusiastic, so…”

  “Four weeks is a lot of Beethoven.”

  “Sin duda. And it’s five weeks. To keep everyone excited and coming back, the programs also include music by everyone who ever knew the composer, I think. Even a series of smaller pieces composed by some of the amateur musicians who were students of his. One of the real treats so far is
playing the Music of the Royalty. Turns out that several of Beethoven’s ardent supporters, like Count Lichnowsky and some of his friends, tried their hands at composing. Just finding the manuscripts was quite a challenge. Playing the music is something else.”

  “I would have liked to have heard some of those.”

  “Some. Others, maybe not. Some of them were so bad that the audience laughs in all the wrong places.”

  “Ay.”

  “We have a wonderful narrator, though. She clues in the audience and gives just a taste of background. Not a lecture. Just stage quips. Somebody put in a lot of work researching this whole thing. I’ve learned that Beethoven had a far greater sense of humor than most give him credit for. Than I gave him credit for.”

  “You never see a portrait or sculpture of him smiling, hijo.”

  “True. He probably had bad teeth.”

  Estelle sighed. “It is so good to hear your voice. You have a couple of weeks left in Berlin, and then on to Aspen…and then Argentina. I talked to Padrino about it earlier tonight—we’re excited about the trip north.”

  “I’m glad you would make it. Who’s using the other ticket?”

  “Padrino invited his daughter Camille, it turns out. She’s planning to come out for a visit.”

  “Wonderful. How’s the old tejón getting along?”

  “Just fine. I appreciated his company tonight.”

  “I hope you gave him my best.”

  “I did. Your ears are probably still burning, we talked about you so much. And by the way, we stopped by the airport to have a chat with Jim Bergin. I had a chance to sit in the truck.”

  The silence was just long enough that Estelle thought Francisco might not have heard, but in a moment, with voice tinged with amusement, he said, “It’s really hard to keep secrets from you, you know that?”

  “It’s a small county, hijo. And in that hangar with all those sleek, shiny airplanes, your old brute kind of stands out. Jim Bergin is in love with it.”