Chapter 29

Cecelia and I spent most of the day at the scene, though we didn't learn anything by it beyond the fact that the murderer had struck again. Whatever the crime scene techs picked up wasn't immediately obvious to us, but that's the nature of forensics. Anytime you see someone pick up a fiber at the scene and immediately know that Joe Blow did it because it's from a carpet that exists only in his house, you're seeing a flat-out lie. If it were that simple, we'd see convictions within days of the crime, rather than years after the arrest.

Late in the afternoon we headed for home. I'd thought of swinging past the conference room where all the task force's stuff was to see if I could see something this time, but vetoed that. I'd thought of heading off to talk to some more street people, but aside from my blunder about the west side – which mostly we'd rectified by now – there wasn't a whole lot more anyone could do in that direction. I've rarely faced it, given the nature of my cases and the fact that crooks are congenital idiots, but this case was stalling on me. If there was something I should be seeing, I wasn't seeing it, and if there was something else I could do neither I nor Cecelia nor anyone else had thought of it.

The next day, though, Cecelia had a brilliant idea – though it had nothing to do with the case. We'd decided to give the case a pass for the day, and not even go to the office unless Cris called to let us know of something important. Mama and Daddy had gone for a walk with Darlia, who'd said that she might take them over to Coronado Mall, though Mama might not be up to walking that far. Daddy's been a farmer all his life and is used to moving distances, even if it's only up and down in the field, but Mama's main exercise has been housework, which is work but isn't necessarily distance walking. And at that they're in their 70s, and even Daddy might not want to walk as far as the mall.

I had my latest book in my hand – a collection of hard SF stories – when Cecelia called me from the sewing room. I dogeared the page and got up, laying the book on the coffee table. I walked the short distance down the hall and stuck my head in the door, thinking of the changes that room had undergone. When I'd moved in back in 95, it was the third bedroom and Cecelia kept her weights in it. Then it became my study and she moved out her weights to a shed in the back yard, installing weight machines and storing the free weights away – for Darlia, as it turned out, though we didn't even know then that we'd wind up with a daughter, much less that she'd lift weights too. Then when she renovated the garage and turned it into a really luxurious study, with built in bookshelves and a wall of windows where the garage door used to be, the third bedroom became her sewing room, complete with an industrial sewing machine. These days about the only clothes she doesn't make for us are my jeans and our jackets – though she hasn't been sewing as much since she decided to become a PI herself.

Leaning on the jamb, I asked, "How many times did you have to holler?"

"Only three," she said over the hum of her machine. She can multitask better than anyone I've ever seen, though she kept her eyes on what she was doing rather than looking up at me. I approved, since I really didn't care to have to extract a needle from her finger. "You do vanish into the story when you read, but not as thoroughly as you descend into the page when you're studying the Bible."

"That's a true fact," I said. "What you need?"

"I don't suppose it would do any good to remind you that there is no such word as 'whatchoo, ' or that all facts are true by definition, so I shall forebear. Instead I shall propose a party."

My eyebrows went up at that. Cecelia goes to social functions every now and then, when someone connected with UNM throws one – her major was in some sort of financial stuff but her minor was literature, and she's a capable amateur literary scholar in both English and Spanish and hobnobs sometimes with others in the field. But she almost never throws a party herself. "Who you plannin' on invitin'?" I asked.

"Just close friends. Most have already met Mama and Daddy, but I am inordinately proud of my parents, and I want to show them off to everyone in a special setting."

"I wouldn't say you're inordinately proud of 'em."

"You prove two things with that utterance, Darvin – you know the word, though your ordinary speech renders it difficult to believe, and you are quite capable of speaking beside the point." She was smiling when she said it, though sometimes my ability to take off on tangents does annoy her.

I smiled back. "Okay, more to the point then – sure, why not? I'd kinda like to show 'em off too."

"It's a settled thing, then. I propose a week from today, here. It is unlikely that there will be further murders by then, and at this point I have considerable doubts that the evidence currently in our possession is sufficient to reveal the culprit. We possess a vast volume of material, but the information we need is, I firmly believe, not yet within our grasp."

"Yeah, he's gonna have to make a mistake, I think, before we'll nail him. So go ahead an' make plans. I'd suggest people, but you've surely already thought of everyone I could mention."

She smiled her ship launching smile then, the one that Helen of Troy never had even on her best day. "You are aware, beloved, that you have opened a door for me which I could easily walk through."

"Yeah, it's called my mouth, and I'm surprised you ain't already put my foot in it."

"Oh, you do that quite well without aid," she said, flat out grinning now. Though to me she's the most beautiful woman on earth, I know that by any sort of objective standard her face just isn't all that attractive – all edge, except for her broad African nose. But when she's happy her smile or her grin makes the rest irrelevant – she just lights up. "But I am in a charitable mood, due to the joy of my idea, and I propose to let you escape your punishment on this occasion."

"Well, I'm grateful for small blessings."

At that she stopped sewing and looked up at me. "Small blessings, Darvin? Be happy I do not amputate your body for that remark, my husband – you fully deserve it. Now go do something useful – I suggest hanging upside down from the front stoop."

Sometimes I'm as dense as the front stoop. I said, "That would put me underground."

"I am fully aware of that, Darvin."