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Convicted by her own mouth. Fresa meant “strawberry,” a derogatory term she’d written in her note.
“Your fingerprints will be all over that letter when it’s examined. What happened? Did he take off in your car to see Kellie and didn’t come back? Did that make you so angry you lashed out at her?” Cy heard sirens getting closer by the second.
“Shut your mouth, chota!”
Cy had hit a nerve. Nothing could have pleased him more than to be called a crooked cop. “We’ll let you tell that to the judge.”
Vic took her other side. They dragged her around to the front of the house while the older woman screamed at them. Neighbors in the area came out of their houses to see what was going on. Two police cars had converged on the scene. The officers took over and put her in the back of one of the patrol cars. After giving information for the incident report, Cy walked back to the car with Vic.
“I’ll ask TJ to get a warrant so the crew can search the house for signs that Dan might have stayed there from time to time. Someone needs to take down a statement from the mother.”
When they got back to headquarters, Vic left to go pick up his son. He invited Cy to come over to his house later and they’d kick back with a beer. That sounded good since Cy dreaded going home to his empty house.
He went into his office to leave a message on the captain’s phone about the arrest of the Martinez woman. Then he phoned Nadine Parrish to give her the news. She wasn’t the only one greatly relieved. For a second when he’d first seen that letter postmarked only two days ago, his heart sank at imagining there was still another stalker out there.
The two of them decided Kellie didn’t need to know anything about this until her tour of the circuit was over. Be
fore they hung up, Nadine informed him she and her husband were flying to Greeley the next Saturday to watch her compete in the rodeo.
Kellie’s mother could have no conception of the kind of pain he’d been in for the past two weeks. All he could say was he hoped she’d make the best time and he wished her well.
“I’ll tell her.”
With that phone call over, he was emotionally drained and left for his car. Before he turned on the engine, he received a call from Luckey and clicked on.
“I’m glad to catch you, Cy. Are you still in Brownsville?”
“Nope. I came home when my lead there went dry. It’s a good thing I did.” For the next few minutes he told his friend about the letter and the arrest of the Martinez woman.
“That must have knocked you for a loop when you saw another note.”
“I have to admit it did.”
“Does Kellie know about it?”
“Not yet. Her mother will probably tell her when she and her husband meet up with her in Greeley to watch her performance.”
“Why not you?”
“Because we parted company two weeks ago.”
“As in...”
“I won’t be seeing her again.”
“Cy...there’s something you ought to know.”
He inhaled sharply. “What’s that?”
“She phoned me last weekend.”
“Kellie what?”
“Yeah. I was on a case and couldn’t answer it. She didn’t leave a message. The next morning when I saw that she had called, I phoned her to find out what she wanted. At first she was apologetic for bothering me. Then she asked if you were down in Brownsville.
“I told her I couldn’t discuss a case, but assured her all was well with you. She thanked me and then just before hanging up she said, ‘I guess I’m having a hard time letting this go. After he saved my life, naturally I don’t want to see him injured or worse.’”
Cy bowed his head. In one week she’d broken down to Luckey. To Cy’s joy, the ice was cracking. He’d warned her they could never escape each other’s pull. After hearing this bit of telling news, the longing for her was so great he knew he had to do something about it. Knowing her folks were flying to Colorado next week gave him an idea, but he’d have to clear it with his boss.
