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

done, and felt terribly, terribly sorry for him. And for her. I even wasted a little sympathy on Ava, for having to listen to all that profanity.
    The funny thing was, it suddenly occurred to me that Libby had acted more adult than all the rest of us put together. Neither parent should have exposed the kids to so much darkness, so much ugliness, such nasty weeping emotional sores. Ava and I should have stopped it, should have protected them. I was ashamed that I hadn’t and determined not to let them get away with starting up again. I found my shoes and put on red lipstick, for authority.
    “Hello, Don.” He and Libby were sitting at the table, Marty making oatmeal, wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, hair clean but dry, a hint that she’d gotten home the night before and washed away the aroma of jail.
    Don also must have gotten home the night before; at any rate, he hadn’t come here directly from the airport. He was wearing Monterey clothes—faded gray jeans and a turquoise polo shirt, complete with pony. His thin, brownish, nondescript hair was mussed, and his glasses were spotted.
    He was not a handsome man at the best of times, though he had a square enough jaw, but right now he was showing the strain of deep loss and draining travel. His shoulders, usually so proudly held in an entrepreneur’s almost defiant posture, were slightly hunched. His skin looked gray and crumpled.
    “Rebecca. I hope we didn’t wake you.” He made to stand, but I waved him back down.
    “It was time to get up, anyway. Marty, it’s good to see you home.” (I had to say this because she was my client, but I kept my fingers crossed.)
    “Rebecca,” said Libby in that singsongy way kids have, making four or five syllables out of three. “Have you got a boyfriend?”
    I supposed she was trying to keep the talk on safe ground, any old subject but murder and hate. “I sort of do,” I said, pouring myself some coffee. “He’s in Cambridge right now, though. In Massachusetts—you know where Boston is? It’s near there.”
    “I mean a new one.”
    “A new one?”
    “Esperanza called this morning. Real early.”
    I was beginning to get her drift. I said, “I stopped to see her last night. About the white thing.” I winked, trying to make contact on another level, a shared secret that Marty and Don couldn’t get in on.
    But Libby wouldn’t be stopped. She said, “Esperanza says she saw you and Julio making out after she was supposed to be in bed.”
    “We weren’t—” I tried to speak, but it did no good. I couldn’t be heard above Marty.
    “Julio!” she shouted. Her back was ramrod-straight with fury. “Julio Soto?”
    As if we both knew a thousand Julios.
    “Julio!” she shouted again.
    So Julio was “J.” But what to do? Better not to bring it up in front of Libby and Don.
    I said, “Marty, if we have something to discuss, let’s discuss it.”
    “I leave my children in your care and you throw yourself at the father of my daughter’s little friend!”
    It’s funny how people with children, even those who abuse them one way or another, use the kids as weapons of self-righteousness.
    Libby gave me a horrified look, unable to believe what she’d started, thoroughly ashamed. This wasn’t fair to her. It simply wasn’t fair. And I’d come downstairs to protect her.
    “Libby, I’m really sorry,” I said, meaning sorry I couldn’t help her, but of course, she misunderstood.
    She rushed to my rescue: “But you didn’t do anything. Anybody could see Julio has a crush on you.”
    To which Marty replied, “Rebecca Schwartz, you
bitch
!”
    “I didn’t realize,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “that I was stepping on your toes.”
    “Stepping on
my
toes. Do you think I give a good goddamn about that womanizing
Hispanic
person?”
    The way she spat it out, she might as well have used the pejorative for Hispanic as the word itself.
    “He’s been involved with every woman in Monterey
except
me. This is about you, not me, Rebecca. I thought you of all people could be trusted not to get hot pants for some good-looking
chili pepper
.”
    I heard, not bells this time, but a country song about poker that my southern law partner had taught me. I knew when to hold ’em, I knew when to fold ’em.
    “Sweetheart,” I said to Libby, “this isn’t a good time for houseguests. I have to leave now. I’ll call you later.”
    She nodded, a tear in her eye.
    To the company at large, I answered,