Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

idol know she’d stolen something. “No!”
    “You told her you found it on the beach?”
    She nodded vigorously.
    “What did she say when you told her that?”
    “Say?” She squinched up her face, puzzled.
    “Do you think she believed you? Did she say anything to make you think she suspected something?”
    Puzzlement yielded to wonder. She snapped her fingers. And then she burst into tears again.
    “
Nena
, what is it?”
    “Oh, Daddy, I’m so embarrassed. She knew. She knew! Oh, Daddy, oh, Daddy, Sadie died thinking I was a thief!” Julio held her and rocked her back and forth. “Honey, she loved you—don’t you ever forget that—just like I do. She didn’t care what you did. She loved you anyway; do you believe that?”
    Esperanza saw the wisdom of that and, in a few minutes, calmed down.
    Julio said, “How did you know Sadie knew how you got it?”
    “Because she said, ‘Are you sure you found it on the beach? Are you really, really sure?’ But I just kept saying, ‘I did.’
Maybe
she believed me. She might have, don’t you think, Daddy?”
    When everything had been hashed over and then rehashed, it was agreed it was too late to call Ricky, and that Esperanza would do it first thing in the morning. She tried to get Julio to do it, but he held firm. She didn’t have to go to jail, but she did have to say she was sorry.
    She kissed us both good night and scampered off to sleep, once again, the sleep of the innocent. I got up to leave, but Julio stopped me. “Have a glass of wine with me.”
    Wine? After a nightmare on the bay, a close-up of a corpse, several hours in a police station, and a ten-year-old’s trauma? A glass of wine with Julio? Surely life could hold no sweeter pleasure. “It’s late,” I said. “I’d better go.”
    “Please. I need to talk to you.”
    “Oh. Well, of course then.” Dear, kind Rebecca—always there when you need her. “Could I make a phone call first?’’ It was late to call a judge, but worth a try. A boy answered, a teenager. Music blared in the background. Girls shrieked. Conversation hummed.
    “Judge Reyes, please.”
    “Who?”
    “Judge Reyes.”
    “Just a minute.” And then shouting, “Hey, Charlie, is your dad a judge?”
    Another boy came to the phone. “Can I take a message? My mom’s gone for the weekend.”
    So much for Judge Serita Reyes. Maybe Bruce Parton knew someone else.
    * * *
     
    Julio’s house was so small the kitchen opened off the living room and shared a common counter with it, making it possible to watch him open the wine. Meaning I got to stare without seeming to, contemplating the shoulders of my host. Wondering if it was wise to drink with him.
    The wine he chose was a chewy red one, just what I was in the mood for. If he'd have brought in something wimpy and white, I’d have probably drunk the whole bottle, trying to find some substance. White’s okay for small talk around the pool; you need red for bloodshed.
    When we were settled decorously at opposite ends of the couch, Julio said, “Rebecca, Sadie may have been killed for that thing.”
    Didn’t I know it.
    “You know what? I might be the last person to have seen her alive. She called me up on the roof Friday night to talk about Esperanza. That’s how I knew she didn’t believe the found-it-on-the-beach story.”
    “Wait a minute. You mean you knew about the pearl all along?”
    “No, of course not. When Esperanza swears someone to secrecy, she swears half a dozen people, I guess.”
    “Weaving her tangled web.”
    He nodded. “Actually, I shouldn’t say she called me up to the roof. That sounds imperious, and Sadie wasn’t like that at all. I popped into her office for something and she asked me if I’d like to go up with her. She was in invertebrates, you know, and there’s a research lab up there, where they were doing experiments with urchin eggs. She wanted to take a look, she said, and thought I might like to join her for a little break.”
    “Odd.” Unless it was a come-on. What else could it be?
    But Julio shook his head. “Not odd at all. Sadie had allies and she had enemies. Mostly allies, to tell you the truth, but—I hate to say it, but there was Marty, for one. You’ve seen what that third floor is like; even though she was the only one who could close the door, she never was comfortable discussing private things in her office. She’d start whispering, and you wouldn’t be able to communicate. So she got in the habit of