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

going up to the roof, especially around six or six-thirty—did most of her hiring and firing up there. She loved it up there after work—said she could think better. I have to admit she knew what she was doing—it was the perfect place for a private discussion.”
    “Romantic.” I was jealous.
    “Very. Anyway, she got me up there and she said something very strange had happened. She said Esperanza had been by, and she was worried about her and said she thought Esperanza needed help. Needed to go to a therapist, I mean.”
    “Isn’t that a little pushy for an employer? I mean, it’s your private business.”
    He looked confused. “No. I mean, Sadie and I talked about Esperanza all the time; she helped me a lot.”
    I remembered how he’d enlisted my aid as well.
    “And of course, something
was
bothering Esperanza. The divorce. She was still drawing pictures of herself and Sylvia and me—she is still. Did you know children of divorced parents do that for a long time?”
    I shook my head.
    “She’d told Sadie,” he continued, “that she felt guilty about it—that she was afraid she was the one who caused it. And Sadie said that night that she wasn’t getting better, she was reaching some kind of crisis. Because she’d done something to draw attention to herself, she said. She said it was a cry for help.
    “I asked what, of course. But she said she couldn’t tell me, that would be violating Esperanza’s confidence. But that she’d done something out of character, and she wanted adults to know about it, and that I ought to listen to her. But I said I couldn’t listen to her when she hadn’t told me anything. …” He paused. “Well, anyway, we got into an argument. It was so damned frustrating, her not telling me what was going on. Now I see what it was. It was about the pearl. She knew Esperanza hadn’t found it on any beach.”
    “Did anyone see you go up with her?”
    “Sure. Lots of people were working late.”
    “It’s odd no one mentioned it to the police—I mean, that they haven’t talked to you about it.”
    “Oh, they have. Don’t worry, they have.”
    And they still thought Marty a better suspect.
    “So how did you and Sadie leave it? Were you still angry with each other?”
    “No. Thank God. Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing to live with—that your friend died angry with you? Finally she convinced me. I saw it wouldn’t be fair to Esperanza to tell what she knew. In the end we kissed and made up.”
    Damn. I was jealous again. “Did you leave together?”
    He spread his hands. “I left her there. She still hadn’t looked at the urchin eggs.”
    We were silent. “I saw Marty on the way out,” he said finally. “She was leaving, too.”
    For her date, I supposed, but I wondered why Julio mentioned her. He poured more wine, which I drank gratefully.
    He said, “Then I came home and tried to talk to Esperanza about her problems, but that was pretty hard, considering I was more or less in the dark as to why I was doing it.”
    I said, “She’s a lovely child.”
    And Julio said, “Could we talk about something besides Esperanza for a while? Sometimes I forget I have any identity besides ‘Daddy.’”
    “It must be hard being a single father.”
    He shook his head. “I mean it. Something else, Rebecca. Like why a smart, successful woman drives a crummy old Volvo.”
    I was insulted. “You don’t like my car?”
    “It’s just not you. You need a—”
    I wasn’t about to let him finish. Who cared what he thought I needed? “You know what I hate about this state, and this decade, and this point in history? Materialism turned into a virtue. The only thing in hell wrong with my car is it’s not fashionable. What kind of culture is this where expensive things like cars are throwaway items, subject to the whims and caprices of fashion?”
    Julio laughed long and hard, as if he rather enjoyed a good delivery on a midnight rant.
    The wine had done its work. We killed the bottle, and when I got up to go, I felt infinitely better than I had when I arrived. Friendly was one of the ways I felt. I wondered briefly if Julio would make a pass, but I was sure he wouldn’t. We didn’t have that kind of relationship. I threw my arms around him, meaning to kiss him on the cheek, and came to consciousness about half a century later, swimming up slowly, surprised to find that my eyes were closed, that I was still standing, that there was more in the room than Julio’s