Strawberry Sunday Page 14

  “Carlos told me that before she died, Rita was helping your daughter, Mrs. Vargas. Keeping Consuelo out of trouble, was what he called it.”

  She shook her head adamantly. “Consuelo no bad. Consuelo es bueno.”

  “Bueno. Right. I’m sure she’s not a bad girl; that’s not what I meant. But what kind of trouble was Rita protecting her from?”

  Mrs. Vargas shook her head again, eyes wide with panic, breaths quick with distress. “No sé. No sé, señor.”

  “Was she guarding her from Mr. Gelbride? Was that who was bothering Consuelo?”

  The reaction to the name was electric. Mrs. Vargas shook her head once more, this time violently and conclusively. “Señor Gelbride no hurt Consuelo. You leave now. You no talk to Carlos no more.”

  As I puzzled over her defense of the man who’d just brutalized her daughter in the field, Mrs. Vargas hurried away as fast as she could, walking toward the center of town where people like her would be there to shield her from people like me. She was clearly fearful to the point of flight, but I didn’t know why. Perhaps she’d seen me that morning and thought I was allied with the Gelbrides and that, therefore, her job was at risk. Perhaps she was afraid I’d make more trouble for her rather than less if I kept pressing for truth about Rita, or perhaps she had a guilty secret of her own of some sort, something that had contributed to Rita’s demise. Given the barriers that lay between us, the chance that I would learn the source of her fears from her bordered on infinitesimal.

  When Mrs. Vargas had disappeared down the street, I looked at my watch for the two hundredth time. Four o’clock. Well, three-thirty. Three hours plus change till my dinner with Jill Coppelia. If I went back to Salinas and looked up Rita’s best friend, Thelma Powell, there would be time to shave and shower after I finished the interview and by then Jill would be pulling into town. Good plan, Señor Tanner; eliminate the dead time, when the mind makes even serendipity seem suspect and erodes resolve like a Santa Ana wind.

  I took the Main Street exit toward downtown, then stopped at the first phone booth I came to. AT. Powell was listed, with a number but no address. When I dialed the number, I got a machine. In my profession it’s seldom an advantage to let them know you’re coming, so I hung up without leaving my name. Since Mrs. Lombardi had said Thelma Powell worked in a bank, I drove to the center of town to find one.

  Downtown Salinas was being revived—gonfalons proclaiming it Old Towne were hung on every lamppost and a streamer stretched above the street proclaimed its Uptown Style; Downtown Charm. Here and there a storefront sported a new face, but the inevitable knot of transients already occupied the public benches.

  Parts of it were inviting. Main Street itself was lined with dozens of leafy trees that gave it a cool, bucolic aspect. The thru traffic had been routed away from the core and the sidewalks were broad to encourage meandering. A second streamer advertised an upcoming Scottish Festival, suggesting multicultural conviviality. But except for an elaborate clothing store on the corner, the commercial establishments were mostly unexceptional, as though both the existing owners and the national chains were waiting for the benefits of the revival to kick in before risking further capital. A chicken or egg thing, I imagine, but the elaborate new malls I’d seen on the north edge of town weren’t waiting for anything but customers.

  I parked at an angle along with the rest of the cars and walked to the tallest building in sight, which housed the Coast Federal Bank. I went inside and stopped at the first free teller I came to. “I’m looking for a woman named Thelma Powell,” I said. “I was told she works here.”

  The teller brightened. “Thelma? Sure.” She looked left. “She’s back there, the blonde in the blue dress.”

  I looked where she pointed. A blonde in a blue dress was sitting at a desk that was one of a covey of identical work stations clustered at the far end of the room. Whatever business was conducted in the vicinity wouldn’t be private for an instant, which I suppose was the idea. If you have secrets, you don’t get loans.

  “You must be buying a new car,” the teller said after I thanked her. “What kind are you getting?”

  “Cadillac,” I said.

  “Really. We don’t get many of those anymore. Most people favor the Lexus.”

  “Too tiny,” I said gruffly, adopting a pose for no reason except burlesque. “Me and the missus like lots of leg room.”

  She nodded to confirm my good taste. “You’re a big man so you need a big car. Thelma can finance you fine, I’m sure.”

  “Hope so,” I said. “Not that I ain’t got the net worth, but most of my cash flow’s tied up in coffee futures.” I waved farewell to the teller and went back to the bowels of the bank, feeling out of place and poverty-stricken.

  Thelma Powell was young and pleasant-looking, though too overweight and too moon-faced to be beautiful and too open and friendly to be intriguing. Her hair was short, with the color and body of yellow thread. Her dress was blue with red buttons and her left sleeve was missing an arm. Not a complete arm, just the musculature from the elbow down, the part that would make it a forearm instead of a withered stick of bone and skin that culminated in a tiny stump in the manner of a peg leg. I tried to notice it without noticing, and it was kind of Thelma Powell to let me believe I’d gotten the job done.

  “Yes, sir?” she said as I loomed over the desk. “How can I help you?”

  “My name is Tanner. I’d like to talk to you for a minute.”

  “Of course. Sit right down and we’ll—”

  “It’s not business,” I interrupted, then lowered my voice. “It’s about Rita Lombardi. Maybe you could go on break for a few minutes.”

  She frowned in puzzlement, then looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s not really break time, but …” She looked up at me and nodded as if to confirm a hunch. “You’re the man from the hospital.”

  “Right.”

  Her expression turned grave. “I’m very glad you’re here. And I do want to speak with you.” She looked at something I assumed was her appointment book but was in reality a stuffed bear that looked like Rita’s Brownie.

  When she saw me notice it, Thelma smiled. “She gave it to me before she died. She said I needed it more than she did. Typical Rita,” she added in a heartfelt tribute. “Always thinking of others.” She grabbed her purse. “Tell you what. We’ll just go outside and appraise your car.”

  “But I—”

  “I know. You’re not buying a new car today. But we’ll pretend you are and that way I can leave the office for half an hour while I look over the trade-in.”

  She got up and went to one of the enclosed offices along the back wall of the bank and poked her head in the door and told a fib. A moment later she returned. “What kind of car are you thinking of purchasing, Mr. Tanner?” she asked, loud enough for the entire environs to overhear.

  “Cadillac,” I intoned again. “I buy American. Always have; always will.”

  “Good for you,” she said and took my arm with her one good hand. “The new Deville is a wonderful vehicle. I’m sure we can put together an attractive package.”

  We walked out the door like Bruce and Demi on the way to Planet Hollywood before Bruce and Demi split up, then crossed the street and walked till we were out of sight of the bank’s front door. “How about some coffee?” she asked after a glance back the way we’d come.

  “Great.”

  She led me to a coffee house named the Cherry Bean that featured a variety of fresh brews and some secluded booths in the back by the roasting machine and bags of beans from Guatemala. Thelma ordered a cappuccino and I ordered a double espresso in the hope that there was much to be done before I slept and I wanted to be awake enough to enjoy it. As I made an effort to keep my mind off Jill Coppelia and on the business at hand, we made small talk at the counter until the drinks were ready, then repaired to a booth by the rear door.

  “I haven’t slept since she died,” Thelma began after she licked foam off her lip a
nd put down her cup, her voice low and urgent, as though we were discussing high treason. “It’s so terrible. I see it happening, over and over and over. The knife, the blood; everything. I cry out in the night; I wake myself screaming.”

  “Who do you see doing it to her, Thelma?”

  Her eyes shifted warily, as though she herself were under suspicion. “I don’t know. Some faceless creature, I guess. Some monster.”

  I gave her time to calm down. “You see quite a bit better than that, I think.”

  She paused, then nodded, then looked around the room and whispered. “It’s Randy Gelbride. He’s the one I see. Every single dream, it’s Randy.” She rubbed her bad arm with the opposite hand as though a brisk massage would restore it. “God. I can’t believe this has happened. I can’t believe the valley has turned into some sort of slaughterhouse.”

  “Why is he doing it, Thelma? Why is Randy killing Rita?”

  “Because she hates him.”

  “Why does he care what she thinks?”

  “Because she’s stopping him from getting what he wants.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He wants to take over the business from Daddy and he doesn’t want to wait much longer to do it.”

  “And Rita’s in the way of that?”

  “I think so.”

  “How?”

  “I’m not sure. She just made vague references to making changes at the Gelbrides’.”

  “It sounds like she had something on Randy. Something she could use to force him out of the business.”

  “Maybe she did.”

  “Any idea what it was?”

  She lowered her voice again. “Randy likes young women, apparently.”

  “Are you talking about Consuelo Vargas?”

  She nodded. “Randy wants to add her to his list.”

  “List of what?”

  “Women he’s deflowered, I guess. Spoiled. Abused. Whatever he does to them, it must be hideous. Rita says some of them never recover. They go back to Mexico to live in shame for the rest of their lives.”

  “But Randy must have pursued lots of women over the years. Why did Rita care about the Vargas girl?”

  Thelma shook her head. “I don’t know for sure. She’s very beautiful, Rita told me, almost magically so. And smart. Rita was trying to find a way to make sure she stays in school and goes on to college. When Randy set out to debase her, Rita swore she’d stop him. Oh. And it had something to do with Gus.”

  “Randy’s father?”

  She nodded. “Rita was going to get Gus to stop Randy from molesting the Vargas girl, I guess.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. But she seemed pretty confident that she’d get the job done.”

  Thelma finished her drink and wiped foam off her lips. “Rita said Consuelo was like a fawn in the forest, about to be devoured by a lion.” Thelma began to cry. “Now Rita has been devoured herself.”

  I gave her time to compose herself. “What was the connection between Rita and the Vargas family?”

  “They worked for Carlos. That’s all I know.”

  “Did you ever meet Consuelo?”

  “No.”

  “You said Rita hated Randy. Did she have problems with him besides Consuelo?”

  Thelma shrugged. “They’ve hated each other since Randy was in third grade and Rita was in first.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they have opposite views on practically everything. Because Rita used to be friends with Missy and Missy and Randy despise each other. And because Rita was crippled so he couldn’t browbeat her the way he did the rest of the kids.”

  “What happened between Rita and Missy?”

  Her voice hardened. “Missy turned into a drunk.”

  “And there was no other issue of late? Except for Consuelo Vargas?”

  “Not as far as I know. Except for the usual quarrel over the conditions in the fields.”

  “Was anything else going on in Rita’s life before she died?”

  Thelma sniffed and blew her nose on her hankie and pulled herself together. “The wedding, of course. She talked a lot about that. I was going to be maid of honor. I already bought my dress. I look stunning in it, if I do say so myself.”

  The tears reappeared with full force, eroding her makeup, tarnishing her eyes. I patted her hand. “I’m sorry to put you through this, Thelma.”

  “No. I want to. I haven’t been able to talk to anyone else about her death and these feelings need to come out so I can get past it. Rita said you were a good listener, so it might as well be you who puts up with me.” She tried to assemble a smile out of a host of contrary emotions. “If it’s all right with you.”

  “It’s fine.”

  I waited for her to calm once again. “So things were still fine with Rita and Carlos.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “How about the union? Was Rita active with the organizing campaign?”

  “She talked to them a lot, I know that. She had lots of ideas she wanted to discuss.”

  “What kinds of ideas?”

  “I don’t know specifically. Benefits for the workers, basically, I guess. I’m not really into agriculture.”

  I smiled. “You’re into cars.”

  She grinned. “Only at the office.” She glanced at the clock and got ready to leave.

  “Who did Rita talk to at the union?” I asked quickly.

  “A woman named Connors at the UFW office in Watsonville. She was one of the leaders, I think.”

  “How about a lawyer named Noland? Did Rita mention him?”

  “I know who he is but I don’t think Rita ever mentioned him. Oh God. She was so happy since she got back from the city. The wedding, the operation.” She put a hand on her stunted arm once more. “I knew how she felt, exactly. It was the way I would feel if they could ever … but they can’t, so it doesn’t matter, I guess.”

  “It matters.”

  “To you. To me. To Carlos and Mrs. Lombardi. But the rest of the world couldn’t care less about us. We’re nothing to them down here. Less than nothing, in fact.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the way we live.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “People in the big cities think we’re racists, that the valley is like the South way back when, that we live off slave labor only this time it’s brown skins, not black.”

  “Are they right?”

  “About some of us, they are. There are bad people around, no question, narrow-minded brutes. But not all of us are like that, not nearly. Latinos are treated with respect by most of us. The city council has several Latino members; so does the school board and the Chamber of Commerce. There are all kinds of social programs for disadvantaged workers, too. And some of my best friends are Latino.” She put her hand to her mouth. “I can’t believe I said that. Even though it’s true.” She looked at her watch and then at the door. “I should get back to the bank before it closes.”

  “Is there anything else you can tell me about Rita’s death?”

  “I don’t think so. Except she was certain she was going to do big things, now that her legs were fixed. I was so proud of her; it was like she was Joan of Arc or someone, going off to battle the growers.”

  I refrained from mentioning their common fate. “Can I have a number where I can reach you in case something comes up that I need help to decipher?”

  “You sound like there’s some secret code out there that has the answer to everything.”

  “I get the feeling this whole place operates by code.”

  Instead of disagreeing, she dug a card out of her purse and wrote on the back. “My home number. I’m usually there if I’m not at work. The cats depend on me to entertain them, which is where I’m going in half an hour.” She found another smile. “I hope you enjoy your Cadillac, Mr. Tanner.”

  “Thanks for giving me such a good deal, Ms. Powell.”

  Out on the walk, we went separate ways.r />
  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I looked at my watch. Four-thirty. Damn. Still time to kill before Jill. I walked back into the Cherry Bean and asked for a phone book.

  Grayson Noland’s office was on Alisal, the street that crossed Main in the center of town, only few blocks from where I was. I noted the number and walked west until I found it, across the street from the county courthouse.

  The courthouse was an eclectic structure incorporating a variety of neoclassic motifs in the color and texture of sandstone, attractively landscaped and substantially expanded to fit the needs of the booming populace of the Central Coast. A variety of people eddied through its walks and pathways, none of them looking particularly abandoned or confused, which made it a different kettle of fish from the courthouse I’m most familiar with.

  The law office of Grayson Noland had been built to match the courthouse, with columns, courtyards, fountains, gardens, and several pieces of statuary thrown into the mix as accents, all featuring nude women and dramatic gestures. Mr. Noland was obviously making a tidy living representing the Gelbride family interests, tidy enough to suggest that the courthouse was merely an annex to their empire.

  There were ten lawyers listed on the door, but the building seemed bigger than that, possibly because they used a lot of paralegal personnel, or maybe they had an indoor pool and tennis court. Grayson Noland’s name came first, which made it unlikely I’d get in to see him, but it was worth a shot, especially since the alternative was feeling foolish at being as eager as an adolescent to see what would happen when and if Jill Coppelia showed up.

  The receptionist was young and attractive and artifically happy to see me. When I told her my mission, she said she’d have to check Mr. Noland’s schedule and apologized for making me wait. She punched a button, murmured some words in her headset, then told me someone would be with me shortly.

  The someone was a stumpy, pugnacious woman whose job was to run interference for her boss, which was fitting since she looked like a fullback. “Mr. Tanner?” Her voice was already dubious, as if I didn’t have a right to my own name, let alone to disturb her employer.

  “I’d like to see Mr. Noland for a minute,” I said.