“I—”
Ramirez raised a hand and started ticking points on her purple fingernails. “You were responsible for their safety, but you let them drink. You let them get in the water. That’s against the rules, right?”
If there was a way to nod miserably, Jack pulled it off.
Ramirez nodded back.
“And then, the next day, Ricardo Cruz is found in one of your life jackets, dead, floating in your slough.”
“But—”
“Maybe you saw something. A weapon. Or a fight. Maybe you let Ricardo get in the water and his kayak flipped and he slammed his head. Whatever happened, let me give you some advice. Things will go much better for you if you tell us. Now. Because from where we sit, you’re a scared kid who made a mistake, and you’re trying to cover it up.”
Lana saw Jack’s eye twitch. She couldn’t let this continue.
“I saw something,” Lana said. She pulled herself up straight, drawing her robe tight around her.
“Ma’am?” Ramirez looked confused. So did Jack.
“But it wasn’t Saturday night,” Lana continued. “It was Saturday morning. Early. Two a.m. A person with a wheelbarrow. On the far side of the slough.”
“You were out on a hike at two in the morning?”
“No. I was here. Out the back window. No one’s supposed to be on the slough at night. But someone was there. Suspicious.” Lana remembered his jerky movements, his furious gaze.
Nicoletti leaned forward. “You spend a lot of time looking out the window?”
“Well, I—”
“Lady, you probably saw a farmer dumping something he couldn’t be bothered to take to the recycling plant. There’s all kinds of junk in the slough. Ricardo Cruz died at least a mile north of here, two maybe. I doubt you can see that far out your window.”
“No. Ricardo Cruz was found two miles north of here. Do you have evidence that proves he was killed there?”
The man leaned back and fixed Lana with a cruel gaze. “I don’t discuss evidence in open cases with grandmothers.”
“Saturday. Two a.m. Write it down.”
“Ma’am—”
“If you’re going to harass my granddaughter based on the claims of one tourist on a kayak cruise, you can at least follow up on the information I’m providing you.”
Lana locked eyes with Nicoletti, fixing him with an imperious stare. She sat up very straight, puffing her chest out in her blue-and-gold robe in her best imitation of an irate peacock.
Internally, she debated whether to start talking again, to insist the man she’d seen was suspicious and that the detectives should give her the respect she deserved. But she decided silence was a more powerful weapon. It was already doing its job. The energy in the room felt scattered, no longer driving toward a climax. Ramirez’s pen scratched against her notebook. Jack’s leg bounced under the table. Nicoletti looked from Lana to Jack and back again, his eyes hard.
Finally, he stood up. “I see this is as far as we’re going to get today. You”—he pointed one meaty finger at Jack—“don’t go anywhere. If we discover you knew Mr. Cruz, or that you’re covering up—”
“You are welcome to return another time, Detectives,” Lana said. Her voice was crisp. “We’re happy to entertain your questions. But not your unfounded threats.”
Nicoletti glared at Lana. She glared back.
“We’ll do that,” Nicoletti said. “You girls think about telling us the truth next time. The whole truth.” He stood and shook his head. “Ramirez, let’s go.”
*
It took a full five minutes after Lana locked the door before Jack’s heart stopped racing.
“That was messed up,” Jack said. “Like, really messed up. What are we going to do?”
“Jack.” Her grandma’s eyes weren’t cruel, but they were firm. “You’re absolutely sure he wasn’t on your tour?”
“I—I am.” She stumbled over the simple words.
“Speak up, Jack. Winners never mumble.” Her grandma’s gaze stayed steady. “Is there anything else, anything you haven’t told me?”
Jack swallowed. She debated whether to mention it.
“It’s possible I met Ricardo once.” Jack ducked away from her grandma’s searing gaze. “Not on a tour. I didn’t recognize him at first, but when they said he worked for the land trust . . . I think maybe I waved to him early one morning, a couple months ago, when I was out paddling.”
Lana closed her eyes for a moment. Jack couldn’t tell if her grandma was angry or disappointed or something else.
“Did you talk to him?”
“Just a few words. He was collecting water samples by the north bank, way upriver, a mile or two past the mud flats.”
“Was anyone else around?”
“I don’t think so. It was just, like, a quick hello on a foggy morning. Do you think I should tell the detectives?”
There was a brief pause, and then Lana gave her a curt shake of the head. “No. Not yet. Is there anything else?”
“Nothing, Prima. I swear.” Jack was surprised how forceful her voice sounded, how the volume masked her fear.
Lana’s eyes softened. It almost looked like she was going to offer Jack a hug. Instead, Lana gave her a single, tight nod.
“Right. I’m going to call your mother. You’re going to heat up a pizza. We’re going to figure this out.”
*
Beth charged into the house thirty minutes later, swooping Jack into a hug that lifted the teenager off the floor.
“Honey. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here.”
“S’okay. Prima was pretty great, actually.”
Lana looked over from the counter, where she was working a corkscrew into a dusty bottle of cabernet she’d found under the sink.
“The cops here are idiots,” Lana said. She pulled out the cork with a satisfied pop. “Trying to threaten Jack into admitting some part in that poor man’s death. I mean, honestly.”
“This isn’t a joke, Ma. They must be coming after Jack for a reason.”
“The reason is they’re lazy. Scared, probably.”
“I’m sure they loved it when you pointed that out to them.”
“Beth, please. They have an unsolved murder on their hands. Of course they’re looking for someone to blame. Jack found the body, she ran the tour the guy was supposed to be on. I don’t think these sheriffs have the capacity to connect more than two dots.”
“Wait, back up. Which tour?”
Jack explained what the detectives had said about the Saturday sunset tour and the bachelor party and Mr. Willis. Then she realized something. “That Saturday tour didn’t even get within a mile of where Ricardo’s body was found. Even if that guy Willis was right—which he wasn’t—we never got there. Just like the detective told you about your wheelbarrow man. We were nowhere near the mud flats.”
“So it’s your word against this Mr. Willis?”
Lana waved it off. “They can’t build a whole case around one tourist who thinks maybe he saw Ricardo Cruz.”
“But if they’re as lazy as you say, they might try.” Beth could feel the fear rising in her throat.
“I know this is stressful, Beth.” But it didn’t look like Lana felt worried. If anything, Lana looked excited, her eyes glittering in a way Beth hadn’t seen since before the cancer. “But we can fix it. They’re sheep. They go where they’re told, so all we have to do is point them in a new direction.”
Beth shook her head. “You don’t know the sheriffs around here. They’ll make something up, try to stick it on her. They see someone like Jack, a girl with brown skin and no daddy, and they assume the worst.”
Lana sniffed at the wine. “Please,” she said. “Not everything is about racism or discrimination. This is just good old-fashioned incompetence.”
Beth frowned at her mother. Lana hadn’t been there when other parents asked too loudly about Jack’s heritage, or when Beth pushed Jack around in a stroller and heard strangers’ coos turn cold when they saw the baby with the dark skin. In the Salinas Valley, people came in two colors, and everything was organized to put one on top of the other.