Fifty Grand

A cold, prickly feeling on my scalp as I got closer, and I had to pause for a moment when the mailbox said 88.

“This is it,” I said aloud.

When Ricky came to Fairview, he’d gone to the garage, he’d walked the Old Boulder Road, he’d visited the motel, he’d taken photographs of Jack’s car and Esteban’s Range Rover, but this little job he’d left for me.

I hesitated at the gate and then went in. Cement driveway. Underfoot more pinecones, beech leaves, a flattened Starbucks cup. The path bent to the left and there, suddenly, was the house. Single-story Colorado ranch style. Modest in proportion to other homes in Fairview but boldly painted yellow and elaborately festooned with flowerpots and hanging baskets, some of the blooms gamely hanging on even though it was December.

It was shady here and frost coated a neat square of garden and several of the close-trimmed rosebushes that surrounded the house like a primitive siege defense.

I stepped over an ornamental gnome with a fishing pole, half a dozen free newspapers, and squirrel shit. I knocked on the door.

She took a minute to open it.

She was pretty. She looked about thirty but I knew she was older than that. She had black hair cut short in bangs, cornflower-blue eyes, arched, surprised-looking dark eyebrows, high cheekbones, full lips with a crease in the lower. If it wasn’t early on Sunday and if the past few months hadn’t been such an obvious trial to her, she’d be a knockout. Dad’s type? Certainly. And I had a feeling that a year from now she wouldn’t be alone.

“Hello?” she said, groggily. Her breath: coffee, cigarettes, last night’s red wine.

“My name is Sue Hernandez, I’m from the Mexican consulate in Denver,” I said and offered her my hand. After a second’s hesitation she shook it.

“What can I do for you, Señorita Hernandez?” she asked.

“We’re looking into the death of Alberto Suarez. I’ve come here to ask you a few questions, if that’s ok.”

She stood there in the doorway, pulled her nightgown tighter about her. It only accentuated her big breasts.

“On a Sunday?”

“I’m very sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Fuck it. What’s all this about?” she asked.

“Señora Suarez, your husband was a Mexican citizen, and the embassy routinely investigates all suspicious deaths of Mexican citizens in the United States.”

“Not this again.”

“This will be the last time, I assure you. May I come in?”

She shook her head. “The place is a mess.”

“I don’t mind that,” I said, realizing that I was actually more desperate to get in the house than I was to meet her. I wanted to see relics: family photographs, art, souvenirs. The interior of number 88 would be a ghost house filled with memories.

“No. I’ve been through this before. With the cops and someone who phoned me from your embassy, already. And now you’re here. Clearly, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing.”

I smiled. “It’s just a few questions. Please, may I come in?”

“No, you can’t. Look, I don’t have all day. What are your questions?”

“They’re about the accident.”

“Yeah, you said that. Just ask the questions.”

“You husband worked as a pest controller.”

“Yeah, he was overqualified for that. He was a smart guy. Killing rats, trapping raccoons, it was gross.”

“Yes. But what was your husband doing on the Old Boulder Road? According to our records his last job was at the Hermès store on Pearl Street. He didn’t have-”

“He was drinking.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I didn’t like him to drink, so he used to go up there. There’s a viewpoint two-thirds of the way up, a cliff where you can see the whole Front Range. A couple of kids committed suicide there. He used to go there, drink, look at the mountains, walk it off before he saw me.”

“So he was drunk the night of the accident?” I asked. The local paper had said he was drunk but there hadn’t been obvious signs of alcohol and the consulate hadn’t felt the need to conduct a tox report.

Karen shook her head. “I doubt it. We had a big blowup last year, I threatened to leave him, I’ve never seen him blind drunk since then. He was smart about it.”

“I see, so he may have been drinking when the car hit, but he wasn’t intoxicated.”

“Something like that.”

Hmm. Ricky said that it was just a coincidence that it had happened on my birthday. But maybe not. All those years without letters, without sending us a dime, maybe guilt had finally got to him. Had he had too many? Was he staggering all over the road? Maybe the consulate in Denver had hushed up the toxicology for fear of contributing to a stereotype. Maybe a million things.

Karen sniffed. “I hope he was drunk. I hope he was totally hammered.”

“Why?”

“Lady who found him, walking her dog. I know her. She talked to me. She told me the truth, the people around here are pretty blunt.”

“What did she tell you?”