Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries Boxed Set: Books 1-3 (The Alvarez Family Murder Mysteries) Read online

I waved my hand in acknowledgement and fell heavily into a swivel chair with a lumpy cushion in it. I knew this was going to be a tough call to make. Not only was the subject of the current surveillance dead, but he’d been the husband of one of my mother’s closest friends. Taking a deep breath, I dialed Lila’s cell phone. I heard her cool inflection after the first ring.

  “This is Lila.”

  “Mom,” I murmured into the phone, looking around to make sure I wasn’t being overheard.

  When she heard me, her mommy voice took over, “Liana, my dear, finally!”

  “Mom, I’ve got some really bad news, so brace yourself,” I whispered. “It’s about Portor Wyler. I guess the only way to tell you is just to say it. He’s.”

  “He’s dead, I know,” she interrupted, sympathetically. “Such a shock. Try to remain calm, dear. Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I stuttered, “but how did you know?”

  “The police notified Yvette around ten, and she called me. I went to her house, but I was frantic that I wasn’t hearing from you. Two or three hours ago, I phoned Frank. He made some calls and found out you were being held for questioning at North Beach.”

  “Of course, they’d notify Wyler’s next of kin as soon as possible. I guess I’m so tired I’m not thinking straight.”

  “Why didn’t you call me sooner? I would have been very concerned if Frank hadn’t told me where you were and that you were all right.”

  “My cell phone, se murió, dead, dead, dead. And they’ve been holding me incommunicado since around seven-thirty.”

  "I see. Are they through with you?”

  “Yes, although I’ve got to show up some time tomorrow and sign a statement. God, what a night,” I said.

  I heard muffled voices in the background and figured she’d stopped listening to me, so I shut up. I heard her talking to Tío, Dad's older and only brother, on one of those “long-term visits” after the lingering, but inevitable death last month of his wife of fifty years. Her loss, plus that of my dad two years before, left him pretty much devastated. With no children of his own, we were his only remaining family in the States. For now, he was staying with us indefinitely, and we liked it just fine.

  "Mateo wants to talk to you," Lila said. “He’s been very worried. You and I can discuss the details of Portor Wyler’s death later on and the ramifications on the Agency,” she added before passing the phone to her brother-in-law.

  "Hola, mi querida,” he said in his soft, Spanish accent.

  "Tío, what are you doing up? You should be asleep. It’s nearly two a.m.”

  ”You are all right?”

  “Of course, I am. You know I’m one tough cookie, Tío,” I said with a lot more bravado than I was feeling.

  “Not so tough, mija. Not so tough.”

  “Okay, maybe not,” I admitted. “But I’m fine, and I’ll be home soon. Why don’t you go to bed? Please don’t wait up, Tío, okay? I’m fine.”

  “You will drive right home, sí?”

  “Sí.”

  “You will lock the car doors?”

  “Tío,” I grumbled, “you’re worse than Mom!”

  “You will lock the car doors,” he repeated.

  “I will lock the car doors,” I agreed.

  “Está bien.”

  “Now put Mom back on, and please go to bed, Tío. Te amo.”

  “Te amo, también, mi sobrina.”

  Lila came on the line again. “Maybe you should find a hotel nearby and not try to drive home, dear.”

  “I just had some coffee, and I feel fine, Mom,” I lied. “I’ll see you soon.”

  I left the precinct and went out into the still pounding rain. Fortunately, my car was parked out front, thank God. I unlocked the driver’s door to find the entire front and floor of the car given over to the nameless kitten.

  My side of the floor had the water bowl and a paper dish containing a picked over chicken burrito smelling so delicious I almost gobbled it up myself. The passenger’s floor had the makeshift litter pan. On that side of the seat, the small, sleeping cat was snuggled in the blanket brought out earlier by a cat-loving cop, one which I would have to eventually wash and return along with the water bowl, me being the nice Latina girl that I am.

  I climbed inside avoiding the dishes, pulled some of the unused portion of the blanket over my lap and, remembering to lock the doors, leaned the chair back just to close my eyes for a moment or two.

  Five hours later, the sound of a car horn woke me up. The kitten had crawled up under my neck. I felt myself being

  lulled back to sleep by its soothing purr. I snapped to, realized where I was, and sat up abruptly. The kitten jumped to the seat, while I checked the time. It was nearly seven a.m. A grey light filtered through the morning rain still drumming on the car roof, but I wasn’t listening to it.

  I was thinking of Portor Wyler, really thinking about him for the first time. Now that the shock was gone, I was filled with an almost painful sense of guilt. Even thought he didn’t know it, I had let him down. My job was not just to watch him but to watch out for him. I was so busy being bummed out and inconvenienced I never took that job seriously. And look what happened. Maybe the man wouldn’t be dead if I had done my job right.

  Just then, I put one foot into the water bowl and the other one into the soggy burrito. That brought me right back to the here and now. Here was a problem I could readily solve. I turned to my overnight guest.

  “I’ve got plans for you, little guy, but they don’t involve you living with me. Not that I wouldn’t love to help you out and keep you myself, but I’ve got a busy, busy life. There is absolutely no room in it for a pet, so don’t take this personally,” I said, remembering my idea of unloading the little beastie on my vet friend, Ellen.

  In front of me was one of those rare commodities, a payphone. I grabbed my change purse and placed a call to Vets and Pets to make sure Ellen was at her job. She was.

  Getting back in the car, I turned to the kitten playing with a corner of the blanket and said, “Time to meet your new mama, kiddo, so don’t waste this adorable act on me.”

  Chapter Three

  A Four-Legged Commitment

  Vets and Pets is one of these newer veterinarian clinics open twelve hours a day, seven days a week, servicing exotic animals as well as the standard dog, cat, and bird. It offers the latest in technological know-how and is run by young, energetic doctors straight out of vet school. A connected pet store carries medicine, food, litter, housing, wearing apparel, toys, collars, leashes, etc., and gives a ten percent discount to anyone using the services of the Clinic. Basically, the clients are in and out with one stop shopping. As for the vets, a share of the profits enhances their passion for their calling. Everyone’s happy. I have all this insight because my good friend, Ellen, is one of the eight energetic doctors. Shortly before eight a.m., I pulled into the parking lot of the large, pale blue building off El Camino Real in Palo Alto, filled with plans to take advantage of our friendship.

  I turned off the motor, leaned forward and looked up to the sky through the windshield. The storm had lessened the more I’d headed south, and in Palo Alto, it was barely sprinkling. My little passenger fell asleep beside me somewhere near Brisbane. I picked him up, and he weighed almost nothing. My heart went out to him. He was little more than skin and bones.

  “Don't you worry, little guy. Ellen's going to be a real good mommy to you.” I knew Ellen had about six dogs and a dozen cats living with her already. What was one more, I

  rationalized? I tucked him into my jacket pocket and dashed across the parking lot.

  The receptionist was a large-busted, happy youth of about nineteen, and she beamed broadly despite a broken front tooth. She extended necessary forms on a plastic clipboard. Within ten minutes, the kitten and I sat inside a pristine examining room with a stainless steel table as its centerpiece. The room was filled with an antiseptic smell, and I felt almost as nervous as the little guy.


  Ellen entered wearing a crisp, white smock and reading the now completed forms. She was a pretty, fair-complexioned woman about five years older than me, with shiny, light brown hair worn in soft curls all over her head. We met at Stanford when I was a student and Ellen had been a teaching assistant in a human anatomy class for extra money. That was during the lean times before she got her license to practice. “Hi, Ellen. Got any coffee?”

  Ellen looked up in surprise and narrowed her hazel eyes, appraising me. “In my office. Take what you want. But what happened to you? You look like who did it and ran.” I stood up for a hug but she pulled back. “Yuk! You feel like a damp sponge. And your hair! I’ve never seen you look so bad, and I’ve seen you pretty bad.” Ellen, originally from the east coast, spoke a little faster than anyone else I knew and was impossible to interrupt.

  “Thanks,” I said after she’d finished. I glanced down at my ruined boots, baggy slacks and salt stained jacket. “Let’s just say I took a swim in the Bay.”

  “Well, don’t do it again. I take it you were in the City. I hear it’s still raining cats and dogs up there. No pun intended. Flooding everywhere.” The “City” was what most people who lived in the Bay Area called San Francisco.

  “We got lucky down here.” Ellen continued, “Not much, just a light sprinkle. Is this your kitten? What a cutie. There's no name of an owner on this form. Write your name down here, will you?" She scolded me good-naturedly as she pointed to a line.

  “I'm really not the owner,” I put in when she took a breath. “I found him near Fisherman's Wharf. I couldn't leave him."

  “I see.” She became all business. “Well, let's see what we've got here,” replied Ellen. She held out experienced hands for the kitten and gave over her full attention to the examination of him.

  I felt anxiety run through me. What if the little guy was sick?

  Stop it, I thought. He didn't act sick. He's just a little skinny. Besides that, he’s not your cat. You just did the right thing and brought him in from out of the rain.

  I forced myself to think of other things. My mind ran to my recent assignment and how it ended. I let out a groan.

  “Lee, Lee!” Ellen brought me back to reality. “You want to stop that moaning? You're scaring the cat.”

  “Sorry, Ellen. Well, how is he?” I inquired anxiously.

  “Pretty healthy, I'm delighted to say. He’s about eight or nine weeks old. A little undernourished but no ear mites. His eyes are clear. No sign of anemia, although the chances of him having tapeworms are pretty high considering I've seen some fleas on him. He could use some fattening up plus vitamins. There's no way to tell about Feline Leukemia unless we do the test. The results would be in tomorrow. So what do you want to do? Do I start the Parvo shots? Do I do the Feline Leukemia test? What are your plans?” Ellen stared into my eyes, both of us knowing what the other was thinking.

  “I thought, you know...” I began weakly, “with all the animals you have that, you know, one more...”

  “I've placed three dogs and two cats in the past month,” Ellen responded. “That's what I do, placement. I hold the animals, myself, until I can find a home for them. Is that what I'm doing with this one?”

  We both looked soberly down at the orange and white kitten sitting small and sad on the cold, steel table. Amber-colored eyes looked from one of us to the other. He locked eyes with me and meowed silently. It was all over.

  “No. You're coming home with me, aren't you, little guy?” I heard me say. I shocked myself into silence.

  “Great!” answered Ellen, visibly relieved. She took the health and welfare of animals very seriously. “Then it's time to start our initial shots plus test for Feline Leukemia.” She swept him up in her arms before I had time to question my sanity. “I'll weigh him and give him a quick flea bath, compliments of the house. We'll be back in about fifteen minutes. Why don't you read one of those magazines over there on the care and feeding of our feline friends?” Ellen gestured to a Lucite magazine rack hanging on the wall, which held a dozen or so different animal “how to” books and magazines. She watched as I sank into a chair. Then she looked at the kitten that had closed his eyes and begun to purr in her reassuring hands.

  “Don’t worry, kid,” Ellen said to the little guy. “We can teach her how to do this. It may take her a little while but she’s a quick study.” I burst out laughing, and Ellen joined me. She grinned and closed the door, leaving me alone in the room.

  What have I done, I thought? A cat. That's all I need, an animal in my life.

  Come on, I countered, he's awfully cute, and he's just a little guy. Cats aren't supposed to be much trouble.

  I picked up a magazine with shaking hands. “You and Your New Kitten,” I read aloud. I felt faint.

  A half an hour later, having acquired a cat carrier, litter pan, ten pounds of litter, dry and wet kitten food, vitamins, a scratching post, a myriad of instructions and receipts, and a bright green collar with a bell, I staggered out the door with my new friend and a much lighter wallet. Looking up at the sky, I noticed the rain had stopped completely, and the morning air had turned much colder. I blasted the heater in the car and headed toward the house on Chaucer Street, some fifteen minutes away. Turning onto University Avenue, I thought for the first time in a long while about food.

  I looked down at the carrier on the passenger's side of the car and into the face of the kitten sticking his nose and one paw out of the wire mesh door.

  “We have to make a stop, little guy,” I said as I stroked his protruding paw. “You’ve already been fed enough to fell a horse, but I haven't had a thing since yesterday’s lunch.”

  Turning onto Emerson Street, I pulled into a parking space in front of The Creamery, a popular establishment for locals and Stanford students alike. The Creamery has been around since the late thirties and with good reason. The comfort food is fabulous. Douglas, the manager, and I were in college together, so I often stopped in for a hamburger, beer, and some laughs at this Palo Alto mainstay, especially after my eight-year marriage fell apart.

  I informed Douglas of what waited for me in the car and promised to bring in pictures of the little guy as soon as possible, in exchange for bacon, eggs, and hash browns to go. The Creamery didn’t usually do take-out, but Douglas is good at making exceptions. Back in the car ten minutes later, I salivated at the smells emanating from the Styrofoam container at my side.

  Trying not to think about Portor Wyler, I pulled into my driveway within five minutes and past the house I grew up in and loved, despite it being much too grand for my taste. Backlit by the morning sun, it was a rather outsized, two-story job, dominated in the front by two massive, carved columns standing on either side of the entrance stairs. My father had these columns sent from Mexico for his and my mother’s fifteenth wedding anniversary, at great expense and red tape, I might add. Once your eyes get past the white columns, the rest of the house is mostly white brick with large paned windows, topped off with a Spanish tiled roof. In short, the house is homage to the Mexican-American success story, Palo Alto style, complete with glossy green shrubs, seasonally blooming foliage, hot tub, and swimming pool.

  When my marriage ended, my parents offered me the garage apartment, an added inducement to my coming home. I said yes, so they completely rebuilt the upstairs, two-bedroom apartment. It had been originally constructed for a chauffeur in the heyday of the 1930s but used only for storage since I can remember. They offered to decorate the place for me, but after living with those two columns most of my life, I opted to give it my own style, whatever that is.

  I followed the drive around to the back of the house to the garage and chauffeur's apartment, now my humble abode. The garage door opened electronically, and I drove inside. There are two sets of stairs going up to the apartment, one outside, one inside. The outside stairs on the right side of the building lead to the living room entrance. They are wide with a black wrought iron banister of a Mayan design, very cool. The stairs inside the
garage take you to the back of the kitchen. This inside stairway, painted dove-gray, is narrow and awkward when carrying bundles. However, it was still damp and cold, and I chose to struggle rather than to freeze. Getting out of the car, I switched on the inside lights of the garage and sighed.

  At one time, it had been filled with a colorful array of family cars. Richard’s red MG Midget, Mom's beige Jaguar, my own turquoise bit of heaven, and Dad’s green Jeep Cherokee. Now with the exception of Dad’s tarp covered Jeep, empty stalls stared back at me, reminding me of how much things had changed. Secretly, I wished Mom would sell the jeep, so I didn’t have to see it all the time but knew she couldn’t bear to part with it.

  Between these thoughts and Wyler’s death, I had a hard time shaking off the depression that made it hard for me to breathe, but I gave it my best shot. The Malaysian Ministry of Culture would have been proud.

  I maneuvered the carrier with the kitten and one of the bags up the inside stairway. This was the first of what I knew would be many trips. Track lighting illuminated the narrow stairs at night, but in the daytime, natural light poured in through an octagon shaped window on the landing. A hanging basket of dark green cascading leaves from some type of plant completed the look. Fortunately, the plant was on a timed-watering line or the hanging basket would have contained dark brown cascading leaves; you know how it is. I never have to lock the door at the top of the stairs because there is no way of getting into the garage without the automatic garage door opener.

  I crossed through my blue and yellow tiled kitchen and into the bedroom decorated in vivid, Mexican mosaics found on one of my trips to San Miguel de Allende. The kitten began yowling at the top of his lungs. He seemed to know he was in his new home and was anxious to get acquainted with it. I “kitten proofed” the bedroom and connecting bath, according to Ellen’s instructions, by checking closets, cabinets, windows, and under the bed for any hazards. Then I put his litter box, water, and food bowls temporarily in the bathroom.