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Not for one second had it occurred to her that maybe he couldn’t.
But there had been a whole lot of women in his life. And, until Darla Jo, he’d failed to father a single baby or even get a woman pregnant that Phoebe had ever heard of—and she was staring into her coffee cup again, feeling a definite reluctance to meet Rio’s waiting eyes.
“Phoebe.” He said it softly, coaxingly.
So she looked at him, making her lips a flat line, narrowing her eyes a little, sending the clear message that just because he said something didn’t make it true. “How, exactly, do you know he was sterile?”
Beneath that cheap suit, one hard shoulder lifted a fraction in a hint of a shrug. He took off those absurd square-framed glasses and hung them from the breast pocket of his jacket. “I told you. He said so.”
She canted forward, sharply. “Why would he tell you if he never told me?”
He eyed her with wariness. “You about to go off on me here?”
“Just answer the question.”
Carefully, he suggested, “Come on, Phoebe. What does it matter, who he told—or why?”
She tightened her fingers around her coffee mug. It mattered. Probably more than it should have. “Ralphie lied all the time. He was a master at it. He made lyin’ the next thing to an art form.”
Rio shook his head. “All right. It’s no secret that Ralphie never put a lot of emphasis on honesty. But a man doesn’t lie about something like that, not without a damn good reason.”
What he said made sense. Too much sense. She swore under her breath. And then she slumped back in her chair, lifted her arms and scraped her hair back hard off her forehead with both hands.
The movement had her braless breasts poking hard at the thin fabric of her old T-shirt. Rio looked. She caught him at it. One black eyebrow canted up, but he didn’t say anything. Neither did she. She was too busy feeling hurt and defiant. Too wrapped up in ignoring the sudden sluicing of heat, down low, where it had no damn business being, and remembering…
Ralphie. That evening in early December. Sitting across from her in the same chair where Rio sat now….
Her stove had gone on the blink again and Ralphie had come over to fix it. As always, within ten minutes, he had it working like new. She’d offered him a beer and he sat down and got out his Marlboros. Squinting through the curling smoke, he’d announced, “This is it. My last pack of smokes.”
Phoebe had to laugh at that one. “Ralphie, you’ve quit more times than any man I know.”
“This time’s for real, babe. Darla asked me to.” He sucked that coffin nail hard, tipped his head back and tapped his cheek. Five perfect rings rose toward the ceiling, quivering a little on the still air before they slowly faded to nothing. He gave Phoebe that charming, naughty-boy smile. “I’m marryin’ her, babe. She’s the one.”
Phoebe felt so happy for him that night. She saw in his face that this one would be different. She knew it, deep down, no matter what anyone else said. She reached across and laid her hand over his long, skinny one, all ropy with veins. “Go for it.”
“Oh, I most definitely am.”
Later, when Ralphie was leaving, he told her he was inviting Rio Navarro to the wedding. “Damn, I hope he comes. I been trying for half my life and most of his to get his ass to Oklahoma. I want him to meet you.”
She’d seen the matchmaking light in those watery blue eyes and she’d almost warned him not to even go there. But no. Let Ralphie imagine his two longtime friends falling hard and fast for each other, the way he had for Darla. What could it hurt for him to scheme on that? It wouldn’t cost her any money, the way most of Ralphie’s big plans did….
Phoebe blinked and shook her head, and ordered her mind back to today, to the large man in the bad suit sitting across from her—and to Darla, about to have a baby that might not be Ralphie’s, after all.
She let her arms drop to her sides. “So what now?”
He rose and circled the table to set his mug on the counter. “You make that list. And I’ll go have a talk with Darla Jo. See if I can find out who the real father of that baby is—and if maybe he had a problem with Ralphie claiming his child.”
She was on her feet before he finished that sentence. “No.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his ugly slacks—and waited for her to explain herself. “Just let me do it, okay? Let me talk to Darla.”
He studied her for a few seconds more. “That’s not how I operate,” he finally said.
“Maybe not. But we’re working together on this, remember? And she knows me. She trusts me. She’s a lot more likely to tell me her secrets than a stranger.”
His look took her measure. “You have to decide, Reina. Which you want more. The truth, or holding on to your romantic fantasy about Ralphie and his little widow.”
She realized she was biting her lower lip—and made herself stop. “I don’t think it’s a fantasy. But if it turns out that’s all it is, fine. I do want the truth. I want it more. I want it most of all.”
OUTSIDE, THE MUGGY morning had turned cloudy. When Rio left Phoebe, he rode his bike to Ralphie’s Place and took the alley around to the back as per Phoebe’s instructions of the day before. Behind the bar, he found a small loading area. A big green Dumpster stood against the building next to a wide roll-up aluminum door with a bolt-type lock. When he stuck the key Phoebe had given him into the lock, an alarm began beeping a warning from inside. The door slid upward with one easy shove and the alarm box was right there, on the wall inside, next to the door. He whipped out the card Phoebe had given him and punched in the code.
Silence. A low-wattage overhead light had come on. It cast a dim glow over a combination garage and storage area. Boxes and crates lined the bare brick walls and a red Chevy van, dinged and dented and probably about twenty years old, was parked nose-in on the left.
A red van.
A steel door a few feet from the front of the van would take him into the back rooms of the bar—if the key to the garage fit the lock, which Rio had a pretty good feeling it would.
First things first. Rio wheeled his bike in and parked it next to the van.
Then he gave the area a cursory check, reading the labels on the boxes, peering into an old microwave that had been left on top of a crate. He checked out the van, which was full-size with a flat front—the kind of vehicle—and the color—that had put an end to Ralphie Styles.
Inside, the van smelled of dust, with a faint hint of dampness. The rear seats had been removed and lint-spotted gray shag carpeting covered the floor.
In front, a dream catcher hung from the rearview mirror and a half-empty Aquafina bottle waited in the cup holder between the seats. Rio sat in the captain-style driver’s seat, leaned across to the passenger side and popped open the glove compartment: insurance up to date; registered to Phoebe Isabel Jacks.
He got out and went around and looked at the grill. It was original, he’d lay heavy odds on that. Original and intact. Around the edges of it you could make out the van’s original colors: silver and maroon. But the red paint job wasn’t new, just badly done, the shine faded out, dinged and rusting in spots. Rio got down on the concrete floor and looked under the front end. No surprises there. The undercarriage, like the grill, was worn but undamaged.
Whatever had smashed Ralphie flat, it wasn’t Phoebe’s old red van.
Rio got to his feet, brushed off his slacks, and moved on to the steel door that would take him into the bar. He was just sticking the key in the lock when he heard the soft whir of an engine and the crunching of tires on bits of gravel in the loading area behind him.
Pocketing the key, he put on his Clark Kent glasses, turned and strode between the van and his Softail. He stopped in plain view, just beyond the garage door.
The car was a yellow Camaro. Boone Gallagher unfolded his long frame from the low front seat. He had his left hand on the window of his open door, in plain sight. His right arm was down at his side, the hand not visible, tucked around behind him.
“Who the hell are you?” Gallagher demanded.
Rio raised both hands high and wide and put on his most harmless, ineffectual expression. “Rio Navarro. Phoebe gave me a key, said I could store my bike here.” He tipped his head back, in the direction of the Softail behind him.
Gallagher’s frown deepened, but his lean body relaxed a little. “Navarro. You the one Ralphie Styles left half this bar to?”
“That’s me.”
Gallagher bent slightly toward his car. When he straightened, he brought his right hand up: empty. He’d either decided he didn’t need his weapon, after all—or there was no gun. Rio figured the former, but in his line of work a man learned to suspect the worst. “No offense, man,” said Boone. “Things have been kind of tense around here lately, if you know what I mean.”
“I understand.”
“So I need to see a little ID.”
Rio almost smiled. Yesterday, Phoebe. Today, Darla Jo’s brother. They all had to see a little ID. “No offense taken. I’ll just ease it out. Slowly.”
“Yeah. Slowly.” Gallagher remained covered by the door of his car. “Good idea.”
Rio produced his wallet, flipped it to his driver’s license, and passed it over the driver’s door window to Boone, who grunted at the proof, and then flipped it down and studied Rio’s P.I. card.
Finally, with another grunt, he stepped free of the car door, shoving it shut, and gave Rio back his wallet. “Didn’t mean to be unsociable. I saw the garage wide open and you standin’ there and—”
“No need to explain.”
Boone tipped his red-brown head to the side and smiled in a cautiously friendly way. “Hey. I seen that bike before….”
Rio gave him an easy shrug. “I stopped in for a shot of tequila. Yesterday, around three or so. I met Phoebe then.”
Boone was frowning again. “I was here. I don’t remember you.”
“I got a haircut since, and I cleaned up a little.”
Boone nodded. Slowly. “Yeah. Okay.” He grinned. “My sister hates your damn guts even though she’s never met you, in case you didn’t know.” Rio decided he’d be wiser to say nothing to that. Boone held out his hand. “I’m Boone, Darla’s brother. Darla was Ralphie’s—”
“Wife. Yeah, I know.”
Boone’s grip was firm and dry. “You’re a P.I., huh? From Los Angel-eez.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, come on inside. I’ll brew us a pot of coffee and you can tell me about all the movie stars you know.”
RALPHIE AND DARLA’S marital bliss had begun and ended in a trailer park south of Northwest Tenth, a few blocks east of Meridian. Phoebe pulled into the park an hour after she showed Rio the door. The whole drive over there, she had a nervous feeling in her stomach and a heaviness in her heart. The sign at the entrance did bring a grin, though: Rose Rock Suburban Estates.
“Come on out to my estate,” Ralphie used to say with a wink.
Through the gray day, a misty rain was falling. It dripped from the sign, dribbled like slow tears from her windshield. Phoebe cruised past single-and double-wides in a rainbow of colors, each with its own little carport jutting off the side, shading small squares of patio with plastic lawn chairs and cast-iron smoker barbecues.
Ralphie’s trailer, down at the end and around the corner, was one of the nicer ones. White, with blue shutters, striped awnings and a small redwood deck, it boasted a cheerful row of dwarf nandinas behind a low brick border in front.
Things were looking a little ragged, though, since Ralphie’s death. A couple of potted daisies on the deck steps, thriving the last time Phoebe had come by, had dried up and died. The grass, once pristine, was scraggly and uncut, dotted with dandelion flowers. Phoebe shook her head at that. She’d talk to Boone, see if he could make a little time to mow the yard for his sister.
Darla’s three-year-old red Sebring convertible, bought a few months ago in one of Ralphie’s deals, sat alone beneath the two-car carport. They’d repoed Ralphie’s V-series Cadillac, hauled it away from that street in the Paseo where he’d left it the night he died. After the police had gotten through with it, the dealership had claimed it. As usual, Ralphie was behind on his payments.
Ralphie had always driven Cadillacs. He’d cruised through life in style behind the wheels of an endless series of Fleetwoods, Eldorados, Sevilles and sedan DeVilles.
Beyond the carport, at the end of the driveway, stood a cute shed shaped like a miniature barn. It was blue and white to match the trailer.
Phoebe pulled in under the carport, sliding out of the sluggish rain and into Ralphie’s empty space. She got out and shut the door quietly, and then stood for a moment, breathing in the warm, wet May air and wishing that being there didn’t make her feel as depressed as the dead daisies on the deck steps.
DARLA PULLED OPEN THE door as Phoebe raised her hand to knock. Ralphie’s widow wore a red lace flyaway baby-doll top with matching bikini panties. Her tangled hair hung limp around her tear-puffy face and her giant stomach, the navel distended, poked out between the open sides of the lacy pajama top. “Hey,” she said in a tiny, lost voice.
“Oh, honey,” whispered Phoebe on a heavy sigh.
Darla pushed open the glass storm door, grabbed Phoebe’s wrist and hauled her over the threshold. The storm door shut by itself. Darla shoved the inner door closed. “Pheeb…” With a sound midway between a moan and cry, Darla threw herself at Phoebe, who gathered her in and held her, rocking her, stroking her dirty hair, breathing in the slightly sour smell of her skin, amazed that her distended belly felt every bit as hard as it looked.
Phoebe whispered sweet lies meant to soothe. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay….” Darla held on tight and sobbed against her shoulder until the baby kicked Phoebe a good one and she pulled back. “Wow.” She laid her palm right over the spot where she’d felt the kick as Darla continued to sniffle and moan. “She’s a strong one….”
Darla hiccupped, a sound of pure misery. “It’s a he. I just know it. And he does that all time.”
Phoebe dropped her purse on the floor and reached for her hand. “Come on.”
Darla’s lip quivered. “What? Where?”
“A bath. And then breakfast.”
THE TUB HAD A RING OF greasy dirt in it and the small square of bathroom floor was littered with used tissues and wrinkled clothes. Phoebe quickly swept the clutter away and found a can of cleanser under the sink. She dropped to her knees, gave the tub a quick scrub and a cursory rinse and then put in the plug and ran the water, sprinkling in some bath beads to make it more inviting.
Darla sank into the froth of bubbles with a tiny sob and a surrendering sigh. Phoebe bathed her, washing her back and shampooing her hair. Darla cried softly through it all, murmuring now and then, “Oh, I don’t know. I just don’t know how I’m gonna go on….”
Once Phoebe had her washed up, she left her long enough to find a pair of reasonably clean maternity cargoes, a top and some underwear. She got Darla out of the tub, dried her off.
Darla stood before the steamy bathroom mirror, naked. “Oh, I just don’t know….” She traced a heart on the mirror, wrote her name and Ralphie’s, dotting the i with another tiny heart, the way she always did.
Phoebe looked at that sad, tiny heart and heard Ralphie’s voice in her mind. “Now, there’s a woman made for love. Even dots her i’s with little hearts…”
Darla turned from the mirror, big eyes stark with loss and pain. “Oh, Pheeb…”
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Phoebe said firmly. “Get dressed and get in there.”
The kitchen was worse than the bathroom. A tower of dirty dishes filled the sink. More dishes littered the counter and the table. Every burner on the stove had a pot on it and each pot contained something old and dried and unrecognizable. Phoebe cleared herself enough space to cook in. She found a box of oatmeal and a can of Eagle Brand milk in the nearly empty cupboard.
Twenty minutes later, she set a steaming bowl of oats in front of Darla, picked up the can of milk and poured some over the oats, then shoved the sugar bowl in closer. “Eat.”
Darla sniffed and scowled at the bowl. “I hate oatmeal. And that weird canned milk is gross. Ralphie used to eat that. Yuck…” Her face crumpled. “Ralphie. Oh, Ralphie…” The waterworks started in again.
Phoebe grabbed a Kleenex from the box on the table and shoved it Darla’s way. Grudgingly, Darla accepted it. She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose.
“Eat,” Phoebe repeated, more firmly than before. She dropped into the chair across from Darla and waited, keeping her expression stern. Eventually, Darla ladled on some sugar, picked up the spoon Phoebe had washed for her, and dug in.
As she ate, Phoebe lectured. “It’s enough, Darla Jo. And you know it, too. I know how much you loved Ralphie. But there’s grieving and there’s grieving and you have let this get way out of hand. I’ll send someone over this afternoon to help you clean up this place.” She figured she could get Bernard or Tiff to help out. If not, she’d come back herself. “Whoever I send will take you to the store so you can buy groceries.”
“I’m broke. You know I am. The man I love died on me—and he left me nothin’.”
So Phoebe got up, got her purse and laid two fifties on the table. “You’re buying food. Today.”
Darla slid a glance at the money, then muttered sulkily, “Thanks.”
“No thanks are needed. You clean up this place and get yourself some food and show up at the bar tomorrow afternoon.”
“Why?”
“I’ll put you back on the payroll. We’ll find something you can do.”
Darla shot her a calculating look. “Give me Ralphie’s share.” Her voice went wheedling. “Pheeb. Please. He woulda wanted me to have it. He promised it to me….”
