Mother-Daughter Murder Night(37)

“Did any Saturday tours go all the way to the mud flats?”

Jack considered. “None of mine did. But there are always people on the slough on a nice day like that. Somebody would have gone out that far. Farther. Even if it wasn’t one of ours. Is the coroner sure—”

“He’s sure Mr. Cruz was in the water at least twenty-four hours. And it was slough water. It wasn’t like he could have been dunked in a bathtub and then transferred here later.”

Jack suddenly felt her lunch knocking against the top of her stomach. A real-life person had been killed and dumped in her slough. It didn’t make sense that Ramirez was giving her all these details. Jack remembered her mom’s fear that the cops might set some kind of trap. Maybe she’d been stupid to say as much as she already had.

“Why are you telling me this?” Jack asked in a small voice. “I don’t want to—”

“Jack, I’m not in charge of this investigation. I don’t call the shots.” Ramirez’s eyes were tired. “But I think you have the right to know you’re no longer a serious suspect. As you said, Mr. Cruz died before your shifts even started. You went to school that Friday, right?”

“I was there all day.”

“Did you go out on the water afterward?”

“No. I went out in the early morning.” This time of year, it was too dark after school to get in a good paddle.

The detective nodded. “We’re doing a full survey of everyone who was on the slough starting at ten a.m. the day Ricardo died. If you weren’t here, you’ll be cleared.”

Jack felt a rush of relief. Then, just as quickly, the photograph of Ricardo Cruz flooded her brain, his bright eyes and wide smile. He didn’t deserve what happened to him.

Ramirez’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “If Ricardo Cruz was in the slough all day Saturday and no one saw him, where was he?”

“If he had thirty hours to float?” Jack thought about it. “He could have gone a long way. Or gotten stuck somewhere. There’s all these little creeks that let out into the slough on the north side. They go for miles. He could have gotten stuck in a dead end in the pickleweed, or one of the branches upriver. It all depends which way the water’s moving, and how fast.”

Ramirez gave a quick, involuntary shiver. The sun was down, and the temperature was dropping as well.

“We done here?”

Jack nodded. She dropped her paddle in the water, using it like a rudder to spin the boat around in one long swipe. The detective shimmied her paddle out from between her feet and started turning over cautious strokes. The water moved under their paddles like breath, emptying and filling in a steady rhythm, taking them back to the marina in silence.





Chapter Twenty




Beth met Jack at the back door before she’d even locked her bike.

“How did it go?”

Jack leaned the bike against the house and accepted a one-armed squeeze from her mother. Then she made a beeline for the kitchen.

“It was okay. Good, I guess.”

“The detective?”

“She was cool, actually. She wasn’t excited at first about being in nature. But then she got into it.” Jack sat down at the table with a bag of tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa. She glanced at her mother. “And Prima was right.”

Lana’s voice floated over from the couch. “Right about what?”

Beth raised an eyebrow. “Go back to sleep, Ma.”

Lana pulled herself up out of the couch and staggered over. The toxins never hit Lana smack on the day of chemotherapy—Beth knew the steroids kept her wired for at least a couple more days—but it still looked like an ordeal for her to shuffle over to the table.

Jack looked from her mother to her grandmother. “She told me I’m not a suspect anymore. I got downgraded, I guess.”

Hope surged in Beth’s throat. “What do you mean?”

Lana rewarded her with a wink. “See, Beth? I told you Jack didn’t need a lawyer.”

There was no way Beth was going to get sucked into that argument again. “What made them change their mind about your innocence?”

“I think it had nothing to do with me. It turns out Ricardo Cruz died on Friday, before my tours ever happened.”

“Friday?” Lana asked. “Do they know when?”

“During the day. And then he was in the water twenty-four to forty hours before I found him.”

“If he died in the daytime, and you found him midday on Sunday . . . isn’t that more like forty-eight hours? In which case—”

“Jack, this is fantastic,” Beth said. She pulled Jack in for another hug, a big one this time. She didn’t need to know how many hours Ricardo Cruz had been in the water. Her daughter was cleared, and that was all that mattered. “Now we can just put this whole thing behind us.”

Lana was still muttering to herself. “Maybe he was killed, and then put in the water later. Or maybe . . .”

Beth watched, annoyed, as Jack broke off their hug and looked at Lana.

“What is it, Prima?”

“Did she tell you anything else? Do anything detectivey?”

“Ma, Jack’s out of the woods. We’re safe. I don’t think—”