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That seemed to be enough for Hazel to smile and sit up a little straighter. “Mr. Marchand was a good man, but his sister is a bitch. She heard what had happened and she asked Mike to take small things from the house. She told him she’d give him some of the money when they sold, and he could start saving for when he had to find another job. Mike didn’t tell me what he was doing. I thought he was cheating on me when he was handing stuff over to them to sell.” She made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “I wish he’d been cheating on me. He’d still be alive.”
Pamela made sympathetic noises, and I resisted the urge to ask Hazel what any of this had to do with Rico and Jocelyn. She had more color in her face than when we’d first come into the room. The more she talked, the stronger she seemed, and that meant eventually we could ask more questions, but she had to get there first. I’d learned a little patience over the years. Besides, there was no reason to rush. Bobby was safe. No one else’s head was on the chopping block. We had time to let Hazel tell her story.
“Jocelyn found out he was stealing and threatened to tell Mr. Marchand unless Mike did what she wanted.”
“What did she want Mike to do?” I asked, because Hazel seemed to want me to ask.
“To keep quiet about what she and Bobby were doing. Mike saw them doing things that brothers and sisters shouldn’t be doing, but she told him if he told on them, she’d tell about the stealing.”
Hazel shook her head. “Mike said that Bobby should have known what was happening, but Jocelyn had him so pussy-whipped, he couldn’t see anything but what she wanted him to see. She thought she could have anything, or most anything, that she wanted, but there were a few that said no to her. She doesn’t like anyone that tells her no.”
“Did Mike tell her no?” I asked.
“No, he just kept quiet and started stealing bigger stuff for that bitch Muriel and her stupid husband. I’ve never seen such a useless man, and I’ve seen some useless men in my day. I’ve dated enough of them.” Hazel sniffed and started to cry again. “Mike was saving up for us to go away together. We were going to go to Europe and see all those places you plan on seeing and never see, you know?”
“I know,” I said, and tried to keep my voice soft, because I was beginning to run out of patience. My supply was never endless.
“Then Mike heard Jocelyn talking to one of the other people that worked at the Marchand place. She was talking like Bobby was stalking her, trying to rape her or something, but he knew that wasn’t true.” Hazel looked up at me, eyes suddenly direct. “We couldn’t figure out why she was lying to people about her and Bobby. I mean, they weren’t really brother and sister, not by blood. Mike said that she was chasing Bobby hard when no one else could see. Then Mike saw Jocelyn kissing Rico Vargas. I mean, most women in town have kissed him at one time or another, but Bobby was talking marriage. You don’t mess with Rico when you’ve got someone serious about you, because Rico isn’t serious about anyone.”
There was a tone in her voice that made me want to ask if she knew from personal experience, but I let it go. If it mattered, I’d find out later.
“Rico does seem to think he’s God’s gift to everyone,” Pamela said.
Hazel smiled at her, and there was a moment of normalcy, and then she remembered, and she hunched in the chair again as if the blow was fresh. When grief is new, you forget for seconds, and then it crushes you all the more because for a second you felt normal, thought that no one had died, that it hadn’t happened.
“I told Mike he should tell Jocelyn that he saw her with Rico. Blackmail for blackmail, you know? But he said not yet. He wanted to wait until he needed something on her, and besides, if she was telling people that Bobby was trying to stalk her, then maybe she wouldn’t care if he knew about Rico, you know?”
“Makes sense,” I said.
“Then Jocelyn told Mike to find a reason to give them the house the night that Mr. Marchand died. He asked her why, but she told him to do what he was told, or she’d tell Mr. Marchand and he’d lose his job. He would have, too, but you can’t blame someone for firing you if you steal from them, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“He told Jocelyn that he’d seen her and Rico together, and she called him a liar. It was his word against hers, and he was stealing, but when Mike heard about what happened to Mr. Marchand, he blamed himself for leaving them alone. I told him that he’d have just died, too. We believed the police story about it being the wereleopard.”
“We all did at first,” Pamela said.
“Why did Mike hide after the murder?” Livingston asked.
“He thought when they did an inventory of the things in the house that they’d find out he stole things. He didn’t want to go to jail. He’d planned on us being out of the country when Mr. Marchand figured out the things were missing, you know?”
I almost said that last you know? with her, but stopped myself in time. “That makes sense up to a point, I guess.”
“Then Win Newman didn’t think that Bobby did it, and then Mike heard that
Jocelyn was telling more people that Bobby had been trying to rape her or something when he knew that was a lie. He felt like she was setting Bobby up. He just couldn’t figure out how.”
“Then he remembered the bagh nakha,” Livingston said.
Hazel nodded. “He thought if he went to Marshal Newman and told him about it, then maybe he could work a deal about the stealing part.”
“Why didn’t he talk to Newman?” I asked.
“Rico found him. Mike had to climb out a window to get away from him.”
“Why didn’t he contact Newman after that?” I asked.
“Mike got scared. He wasn’t sure who he could trust. I mean, it was his word against one of the local deputies. Mike was an addict and a thief. Why would they believe him against one of their own? Plus Jocelyn.”
