Chapter 13
DUVAL
Sometimes cases move like molasses in winter.
Sometimes they move like a damn avalanche.
Not that he'd experienced a avalanche before, but he had the feeling that he was getting to experience one now.
They'd located the family that had owned the market where Aracely worked.
Duval had almost expected them to stonewall the investigation.
When they received the invitation to interview the two brothers at the center of the gossip back in the day, Duval had to pinch himself.
The only trouble was, they weren’t about to talk to Duval.
There had been a little news story about him that had popped up in the news, both print and TV.
The Rangers who had allowed West to keep Duval on the case were now staring down the barrel of some mightily unfavorable public opinion.
So when it came time for the interview, Duval was left in the office, listening in on the radio and watching the security feed on the computer monitor.
After some consultation with the Chief and West, they'd decided to send in Jack and since they didn’t have another woman on the S.W.A.T. team at the time, Deputy Hayden Hatcher was asked to step in and help. Hayden was eager to help and stepped in readily.
The men met with the two officers at the Santa Ana Links, the restaurant in the clubhouse at their golf club.
The president of the Golf Club had a son in law enforcement, and he had no problem with letting the Rangers know when the two brothers were at the club. As he'd said on the phone with Chief Fagan, "If they're innocent, you'll figure it out. If they're guilty... well, that's their problem."
* * *
JACK
Jack wasn't a woman who liked currying favor in men. Okay, she didn't like currying favor in anyone.
She was, by nature, a self sufficient person.
Her parents, one a psychiatrist and the other a psychologist, had diagnosed her early on with oppositional defiant disorder.
And true to form, she'd try to show they weren't right.
It didn't work.
Being defiant was a losing proposition that she gave up when she moved out.
Walking into the patio area of the Golf Course's Restaurant, Tee Totalled, she made easy progress across the room with Deputy Hayden Hatcher at her side.
The two smiled as they walked up to the table where the Coolidge brothers were sitting.
By the number of glasses on the table, Jack knew they were good and liquored up for the conversation.
Hayden was the first to speak. "Well look at this, Jaclyn! It's the Coolidge men. Hello there."
Both men sat up straighter in their chairs, almost preening before them.
Jack saw the way both men raked their gazes up her body and Hayden's as well.
Neither man tried to hide it.
It didn't matter to her that they were white haired and elderly, their attitudes pissed her off.
Still, she had to smile. Well, at least she tried to keep her expression to something neutral.
"Well, hey there, ladies..." The man who Jack recognized as Donal Coolidge leaned over and grasped the arm of the nearest free chair and pulled the chair closer to him.
She would have to sit within reach of his hand.
It would make her sick, but she'd do it.
She heard a whisper of sound in her ear and knew that someone had breathed into the microphone back at the office.
"If he touches you, you can break his hand." She almost smiled at Duval's instructions.
Jack knew she couldn't break the man's hand for just touching her, but she could dream about it.
Fantasize about it or-
"And you can sit here, my dear."
She looked over at Hayden and saw the same pull of strain at the deputy's temples. Jack had to admit that Hayden handled the smarmy tone better than she had.
Smiling as she settled into the seat that Bradley Coolidge had pulled over.
"So," Donal gave them a wink, "I hear you want to know about that woman who disappeared. Ana... Amma..."
"Aracely," Jack nodded, hoping her slight smile didn't slide right off of her face and onto the floor, "Aracely Rodriguez."
The two elderly men looked at each other and for a moment, Jack wished she had half the skill her parents purported to have. She'd love to be able to get inside of their heads and find out what they were thinking.
She could guess, but she had a feeling that whatever it was she might just have to clock one or both of them for those thoughts.
Donal managed to keep his expression fairly neutral, but Bradley's mouth was tipped up at the corners in a smile. Jack sucked in a breath through her clenched teeth.
Bradley spoke first. "We can't tell you much about her. She was pretty."
"Real pretty." Donal smothered a smile on his face, wiping his hand over his mouth. "I guess that's not acceptable to say these days..."
Thank heaven that Hayden spoke up, because Jack wanted to reach across the table.
"We're not here to police your words, gentlemen."
Jack admired Hayden's sweet tone, it was something she couldn't manage to do at the moment. This is why she wasn't good for any kind of public facing policing that involved assholes.
Both men seemed to take her words as permission to relax.
Or maybe it was the alcohol in their systems.
Either way, they started talking and Jack had to hold back her smile when they started to admit to all kinds of shit.
"She was pretty," Donal shrugged, "but she wasn't as good as that woman who worked in the bakery next door."
Bradley grinned. "Marie... Maria something. She had that round ass."
Donal almost snorted his sweet tea through his nose. "But Aracely had those tits."
Jack heard Hayden choke on a breath at that.
"That was the real shame, wasn't it?"
Jack heard Bradley's words and knew that the real shame was that she couldn't knock his teeth out with her fist.
"The real shame," his brother chuckled, "was that she disappeared before we could really have a good look."
"Or," Bradley opened his damn mouth again, "a good feel." He lifted his hands like he was cupping an orange in each of them. "We've had some sweet, sweet girls working for us over the years."
"A lot of them," Donal agreed. "And we had a little fun with our share, too."
Jack heard someone swearing through the ear piece she was wearing.
Bradley leaned on the arm of his chair, giving Hayden a wink. "They were all willing."
"Yeah," Donal chuckled, "Boy Scout's honor!" He held up his arm with a two fingered salute.
Jack had to roll her lips between her teeth to keep herself from grumbling that the 'Boy Scout' sign had three fingers, so either they were even more senile than she was already suspecting they were, or they were lying about being in scouts.
"We're just two men who enjoyed having a lot of pretty women around."
"We paid them well." Donal lifted his chin and smiled. "Hardly a complaint."
Jack caught sight of Hayden out of the corner of her eye. There was a decidedly green cast to Hayden's complexion.
Hardly.
That was the word that was upsetting her.
Hell, Jack wanted to throw up and punch their lights out.
Not necessarily in that order, but she kept herself in check with her hands in her lap, folded together like they’d taught her in cotillion class.
That was a memory she hated to have pop up in her head.
They let the men talk and reminisce about their own misdeeds, occasionally interjecting with questions, but there really wasn’t much about Aracely’s disappearance that seemed to be tied to the two men.
They were disgusting, groping, harassing employers, but murder?
“You know,” Donal looked into the glass of whiskey that he’d been nursing since they’d started to talk, “we weren’t the only ones with Roman hands and Russian fingers.”
Jack barely held back from vomiting at the word play that both of the Coolidge brothers thought was hilarious.
Bradley was just catching his breath when he frowned. “Who… who are you talking about?”
It took Donal a moment to digest his brother’s question. “You don’t remember?”
Bradley tossed back the rest of his glass and whatever liquor he had in it. He let out a loud sigh and shook his head. “Nope. Can’t say that I do.”
Donal rolled his eyes and leaned a heavy elbow on the arm of his chair. “You know…” He lifted a brow at his brother. “Our shadow?”
“Shadow?” Bradley’s brow furrowed and Jack wondered if it was going to crack like farmland after a long drought. “Who the… oh!”
Donal nodded and smiled. “Now you remember?”
Jack saw Hayden tense up in her chair.
It wasn’t a big movement or even one that Hayden might have consciously known she was doing, but Jack saw her sit up a little more than she had been.
There was a ramrod straightness to her spine that Jack was sure she couldn’t manage for herself.
She’d never been all that good at managing a ladylike posture, no matter how many books she’d tried to balance on her head.
Donal and Bradley weren’t twins, but they had a kind of synchronicity at times.
At that moment, they seemed to be locked into the glances of each other. Their brains, what they had rattling around in their heads, were connected.
Jack didn’t want to push them to speak just in case that ‘push’ caused them to shut down and refuse to speak.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to sit there and wait for one or the other to open their nasty mouths and let them in on the secret.
Duval, on the other end of the com device she had in her ear, wasn’t as patient as she was.
She had to work to remain still as the unmistakeable sound of a metal chair hitting a wall came through loud and clear in her ear.
Jack had to grasp her pants leg with her hand to keep from making a larger physical reaction to the noise.
She didn’t wear her nails long.
They were clipped short to keep them from catching on things like the items in her utility belt or the edges of her tactical vest, but times like this, she wished she had nails long enough to dig in and draw blood.
The pain would be a welcome way to manage her own frustrations.
“The man you should talk to,” Donal turned to look at her and smiled, “is Tony boy.”
Tony boy.
Boy howdy, Jack wanted to scream, they better come up with something better than that.