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“I’m not trying to…”
“Then you have to handle this. I need you to protect Robin. Do what you need to do. But she can’t come here. It’s impossible.”
I wanted to ask why, but she was gone even before I could tell her I loved her.
In such a mood, I walked into the kitchen and found Robin standing by the window. She was staring out at the orange trees in the increasingly unkempt back yard, drinking orange juice. Any bad guy outside could shoot her that second.
“David, I’m sorry…” She set the glass down. “For all this.”
I walked close to her, wavered inside for a moment, then put my hand on the arc of her cheek. She had regained her color. The skin-on-skin momentarily rattled and confused me. She leaned against my hand and smiled. Small, attractive crinkles appeared at the edges of her eyes.
I regained my mental footing and let my fingers slide down to the simple metal chain on her neck, then slip under it and pull it out onto the sweatshirt. Metal slapped on metal. She jumped back three steps.
“Sorry.” She smiled. “Tickled.” Her face blushed the red of the apprehended. She slid the chain back under the sweatshirt, freed her hair, and fluffed it out. I had my reasons for not trusting Robin. But I had never imagined she could be involved in a murder. Until now.
“How much did you know about Jax?” I spoke the name as if it still meant something.
“Things you know when you’ve been seeing a man for a couple months.” She finished the orange juice and put the glass in the dishwasher.
“The cops don’t think his name is Jax. They think his name is Pedro Alejandro Vega.” I watched her eyes and mouth; they registered confusion. I went on and told her what I knew, he was a hit man, involved in one of the most dangerous drug cartels in the world.
She shook her head as I talked. After an hour with Peralta, it was always surprising to be with someone with an expressive face. Robin’s eyes were wide and teary. She wiped her too-long nose. Her jaw worked in agitation. Little ripples of emotion shook her cheeks. She was two years younger than Lindsey, yet looked instantly older.
I stepped closer. “He told you this, didn’t he?”
She stepped back again. “Of course not! Are you crazy?”
“You suspected…”
“No! He’s a professor! He couldn’t hurt a fly. I was afraid he was too nice a guy to hold my interest, for God’s sake.”
“And you had no suspicions? None?”
“None.” Her hair shook vigorously.
I let her keep her distance as I spoke again. “Why is there blood on that chain?”
Robin’s hand went unconsciously to her breastbone. She opened her mouth but nothing came out.
“I saw it on the back of your neck in the car. It has blood spatter on it.”
“David, you don’t understand.” She started out past me but I stopped her. Her face went through stages, settling on surprised fury. “You son of a bitch!” She threw a punch, a good one. I caught it just in time. Grabbing her roughly by the arm, I pushed her into the breakfast nook.
“We’re going to talk.” I reached across and pulled the chain out again. It held two dog tags. They were bare metal, without the rubber cushions that soldiers had started using in Vietnam to keep the tags from making noise. That would make them from World War II or Korea. The metal had aged into a dark gray, although the raised information stamped into the tag was still silvery. The dog tags themselves looked clean. Indeed, the entire part of the chain I could see now was spotless. The bloodstains were only on the back, as if they had been missed during a quick cleaning.
She saw my appraisal and again covered the tags with her hand. Her face turned redder and a vein stood out in her forehead. “Why am I being questioned?” Her voice echoed around the wood of the old breakfast nook. “Jax has been killed! I lost my lover! You’re just being an asshole cop, just like the rest. It’s what you’ve become, David! Why are your losses this big deal and mine is nothing?”
“This isn’t about me.”
Her eyes were molten. “Yes, it is. It’s been all about you, about you and Lindsey Faith! My grief is shit to you. You think I’m guilty of something.”
I forced my breathing to slow down. Quietly, I asked her how the chain got bloody. Maybe it was totally innocent. She had been wearing it, this chain I had never seen on her before, yesterday when she opened the box. And maybe, just maybe, it had fallen into the blood. I didn’t believe it.
“Jax gave it to me.”
“He gave it to you, or you took it?”
She tried to get up. I pushed her back again. I looked at my sister-in-law anew. I couldn’t tell what the hell I saw except…capacity. To lie, to conceal evidence, what else? My mouth felt as if it was stuffed with gauze. “You took this out of the FedEx box, washed it, and kept it from the police…”
