J.A. Jance - Shoot Dont Shoot: A Joanna Brady Mystery

PROLOGUE

Lying hot and sleepless inthe narrow upper bunk, nine-year-old Ceci Grijalva knew her mother was leavinglong before she left, long before the outside door opened and closed. When itdid, Ceci pulled back a corner of the sheet that served as a curtain and peeredout at the weed-infested yard that separated their dingy duplex f mm the onenext door. Moments later, Serena Grijalvas pilfered grocery cart, stacked highwith dirty laundry, rattled past the window toward the pot-holed gravel trackthat passed for a street inside the dreary complex known as Esperanza Village.

Hope Village. Even a littlekid could tell that the name was a bad joke. Hopeless was more like it.

Ceci dropped back on her thinmattress and lay there hot and miserable. Back home in Bisbee where they usedto live or down in Douglas with GrandmaGrijalva, the weather would be cooler now. But not here in Phoenix. Peoria,really. The way her mother had talked about it, Phoenix was one huge, magicalcitya wonderful place. Ceci had discovered that it was actually a bunch ofplacesPhoenix, Glendale, Peoria, Sun City. She could never tell where onestopped and another began, although the kids who had always lived there seemedto knowand they made fun of Ceci when she didnt.

Phoenix was hot. And the cooler didnt work. Even when itwas running, it didnt do much good, and it smelled awfullike something greenand moldy. Ceci hated that smell.

She lay on the bed, tossing restlessly. The knowledgethat her mother was gone kept Ceci awake while her little brother, Pablo,snored peacefully in the bottom bunk. Out in the living room she heard thesteady drone of the unwatched television set. Just before she left, Serena hadturned on the TV.

She always did that. Ceci knew the blaring television setwas a trick. Her mother thought if the kids woke up in the night and heard amumble of voices from the other room, theyd think Serena was out therewatching a program when in reality shed probably been gone for hours, leavingthe two children alone. Again.

Finally, careful not to disturb her brother, the sleeplesschild pulled her rosary beads out from under her pillow and climbed down fromthe top bunk. Clutching the beads close to her chest, she tiptoed out into theliving room and turned off the TV.

There was no lamp in the sparsely furnished room, and Cecididnt bother to switch on the overhead light. With the room illuminatedby the street-light on the corner outside, she made her way to thesweat-stained armchair one of Serenas pickup-driving boyfriends haddragged home from a pile of unsold refuse after a Sun City estate sale. Moving thechair close enough to the window to see out, Cecelia curled up inside it. Thiswas where she sat and waited when her mother went out late at night. This waswhere she sat and worried. And even though she tried to stay awake, shesometimes fell into a fitful sleep. Once Serena had come in and found herthere, but usually Ceci managed to rouse herself. Serenas cart clattering backthrough the yard would give the child enough warning to turn the TV set back onand scurry into her bed.

Ceci sniffed the air. Serena had been gone for some time,but the heavy scent of her perfume and hair spray still lingered in the room.Ceci shook her head. Even though the grocery cart had been full of dirtyclothes when Serena left the house, Ceci wasnt fooled. The laundrywas only an excusealmost as much of a trick as the blaring television set. Ifwashing clothes was all her mother had in mind, she could have used the laundryroom right there in the complex. For that onethe one next to the managersapartmentshe wouldnt have needed hair spray or perfume.

Serena always said that the machines in the EsperanzaVillage laundry room werent any good. She refused to use them, claiming thatthe clothes never came clean enough, and that the dryers were too slow. Thatswhy she always took the laundry four blocks down the street to the WE-DO-YU-DO Washateria.Ceci may have been only nine, but she understood that that story wasnt thetruth, either. Not the whole truth. The real answer lay in the business nextdoor to the laundrya place called the Roundhouse Bar and Grill.

Sometimes, on weekends, Ceci and Pablo would go along withSerena to do the wash. Usually the two children would be left on their own inthe laundry while their mother went next door to get some change. Thats whatshe always told themthat she was going for changeeven though Pablo hadpointed out the change machine right there beside the soap machine. Once Serenadisappeared into the bar, shed be gone for a long timefor hours. When shecame back, her hair would smell of cigarette smoke, and her breath would smelllike beer. By then Ceci and Pablo would already have removed the clothes fromthe dryers, folded them, and loaded them back into the waiting cart.

Often it would be late afternoon or even early evening bythe time they started the four-block walk home. Ceci and Pablo would behungrygrateful to munch on whatever treats Serena happened to bring out tothem from the barpotato chips or peanuts or even hunks of tough beef jerky.Sometimes a nice man from the bar would come find them and bring themhamburgers with real french fries.

Chances were, as Serena pushed the cart along, she wouldbe singing or giggling or both. She never really walked straight after shedbeen inside the Roundhouse for an hour or so. Ceci would spend the whole triphome praying to the Holy Mother that they wouldnt meet any of her friends fromhoot along the way.

Sitting in the stifling living room, waiting for her otherto return, Ceci Grijalva felt incredibly lonely. She missed her father. Eventhough her mother and father used to fight a lot, she still missed him. And shemissed her grandmother, too. The happiest hours of Cecis life had been spentat the rickety table in her Grandmother Grijalvas tiny house watching the oldwoman make tortillas. Grandma was blind, from something Ceci could neverremember, something that started with a g. But even blind, the old womanspracticed hands still remembered how to make tortillashow much flour and waterto put into the bowl, how to pat the soft, white dough into perfect circles,how long to leave them on the hot griddle, and how to pluck them off with herthumb and finger without ever getting burned.

Waiting for her mother to return, Ceci ached for thecomfort of her grandmothers ample breast and wondered if and when she andPablo would ever see their fathers mother again. Serena had said they might godown to Douglas at Christmastime, but Ceci didnt see how that was possible.Douglas was more than two hundred miles away. They didnt have a car. Twohundred miles was too far to push a grocery cart.

Blinking back tears of loneliness, Ceci fingered the beadsthat lay in her lap, the ones she usually kept hidden under her pillow.Grandmother Grijalva had given her the string of black beads last year whenshe made her first communion. Nana had told Ceci that saying Hail Marys wouldhelp her feel better, no matter what was wrong. In the months since Cecismother had left her father and brought the children to Phoenix, Ceci had oftenused the hidden beads to put herself to sleep, slipping them out from under thepillow only after the lights were off and her mother had left the room.

Ceci didnt really need to hide them from her mother.Serena was sort of a Catholic, even though she hadnt been to mass since theymoved. The real problem was Serenas mother, Ernestina Duffy. Nana Duffy, asshe liked the children to call her. Nana Duffy was a Baptist, Ceci could neverremember what kind, and she was always telling Ceci and Pablo that the popewas evil. Ceci didnt believe it.

Holy Mary, mother of God... she whispered. As thebeads slipped through her fingers, Cecis eyes grew heavy. Gradually shedrifted off into a troubled sleep. Only this time the return of her mothersclattering grocery cart didnt wake her. Pablo did. He was standing in front ofher in his underwear, frowning, both hands on his hips.