The Happy Hour Murders
Humpy McDurvel's is a neighborhood bar with no grand illusions. It's been around since the late 1930's. It's seen men off to war, it's seen most of them come back, it's been THE gathering spot, and its been neglected by the "in" crowd. There's been a thousand fights break out in that bar and there's been a thousand romances bloom under its roof. A ton or fifty of beer, whiskey, gin, vodka, tequila and more beer has been drank, drunk and chugged in its nearly eight decades of existence.
Humpy McDurvel's is owned by part of the very powerful McDurvel family. They settled in Corpus Christi, TX in the early 1900's when the oil boom hit. The elder statesman of the McDurvel clan, Jack Henry McDurvel, thought that moving to Corpus Christi would keep his children and their progeny out of bad company. But sometimes the bad company isn't so much outside your doors as it is sleeping under your roof. The land was busting wide open and gushers spewed Texas Tea from virtually every pore of the Texas landscape, this made millionaires out of oil field trash. The McDurvel's drug themselves up from those fields and made their money and were untouchable. They had all the power a human could want. Everything and everyone had their price and it was paid quite easily.
All the McDurvel's children were spoiled rotten bastards except for one; Henry "Humpy" McDurvel. Henry was called Humpy because he had an unfortunate limp right leg. It wasn't completely withered, it was strong enough for him to walk on but it did give him an unusual gate. Humpy didn't care though. He wasn't as concerned about what the world might think of him or his condition. Not because he was one of the great and powerful McDurvels but because he just didn't give a damn.
Humpy's attitudes endeared him to the every-day Joe. His family found him eccentric at best. All except his grandfather who raised the children as best he could after their mother died in childbirth and their father died in a horrible oil rig accident. Grands (as Humpy referred to the elder McDurvel) was cut from the same cloth as Humpy. He was old school Texas. The ethics of Old School Texas are three fold; Your word is your bond; You do not break your bond; God and family first and yes, in that order.
Grands knew Humpy was not interested in the family business. He knew he'd rather be working a construction site, hanging out with the workmen and maybe have a beer every now in then. Humpy was just in his 20s when he realized that maybe life on a construction site wasn't the way to go. But he certainly didn't relish the idea of sitting behind a desk babysitting numbers. Grands gave Humpy a large tract of land and a fair sum of money to start any business he wanted.
When Humpy McDurvel's Bar opened up it was the scandal of the century as far as most of the family was concerned. But Grands and a few others showed up that opening day and had a few beers to celebrate. Months later Humpy married a beautiful gal bartender he had hired against his better judgment. Women, good women, do not belong in bars, he always believed. But times were changing and so he hired Hazel McIntyre because of all the applicants she was the best pick....even if she was a woman.
As they worked together they became more comfortable with their working relationship. He liked the way she deftly ignored the bawdy behavior of the customers and kept her books straight. She liked the way he looked at her and what a good and true man he was. After a while they dated, then they married and within the next year they made the first of many baby McDurvel's, Henry McDurvel II.
When Humpy died in 1996, well into his 80s, he left a massive fortune to Henry McDurvel II a.k.a. Hank and his siblings. Rose was the second eldest and as the only female of Humpy's children was the apple of daddy's eye but she wasn't spoiled. She learned what it was to earn a dollar. She was also one of the hardest working women, since her mother, volunteering and fundraising for homeless women and children.
Austin, barely 11, died in a tragic Tilt-A-Whirl accident. The carnival was in town and back in the day drunken carnies operating huge, fast moving machines was not out of the ordinary. Austin, being a smallish child was catapulted out of his Tilt-A-Whirl seat like the rock out of David's sling shot. It was a closed casket funeral and eventually lead to his mother's massive heart attack and her subsequent death.
Travis, the fourth child was a mere toddler when Austin died and unfortunately was still a toddler when his mother died too so that made growing up a little difficult for him. One of the many aunts they had, Sophie (she was married to Humpy's younger brother), took it upon herself to care for Travis as if he were her own. The problem with that is her children did as they pleased with little or no consequences. So little Travis grew up from a wounded child into a bitter and spoiled man with lots and lots of money, which makes for a very bad combination.
Hank inherited the bar and some couple of hundred of acres in the Hill Country right around Enchanted Rock in Fredericksburg, Texas and of course one third of the multi-million dollar fortune. Rose got most of the up-town buildings Humpy had in Corpus Christi and several acres in Padres Island and her third of the money. Travis was left with several businesses in downtown and his third of the loot.
So that's the situation.
Like any good neighborhood bar Humpy's has their regulars. Being that this particular bar opened at 7 a.m. and closed at 2 a.m. there are several shifts of regulars. There are at least three main shifts at Humpy's any given day of the week.
In the morning the breakfast crowd come in for their happy hour. These people are night shift workers from the nearby hospital, St. Luke's, and hotel staff from downtown. The big hotel, The Orion, is a huge staple in Corpus Christi and employs thousands of people.
The second shift of regulars combines two sub shifts. One comes in about 3 p.m. Mostly these are retirees and teachers...more hospital and service industry people. At about 5 p.m. office workers, lawyers and construction workers come in to the bar. The third shift is the night crew; they come in about nine and stay until close.
Then there are those regulars who have become part of the family. They go behind the bar, they help out bar backing, they run errands for the bar and they bring food for pot lucks on Sunday during NASCAR and football seasons. Of these particular regulars Angelina Wisdom stands out from the crowd. She is a tall woman of no small proportions but she isn't obese or fat really, she is what a person might say is a big girl. Her hair is platinum blond by nature and she has milk-white skin. Being a good Texas woman, she knows how to handle herself in a deer hunt, knows her way around a horse and being a good Coastal Bend resident, she knows how to surf and all with 100 proof sun block. While not the girliest of women, she's certainly comfortable in her own skin and certainly comfortable using her unusual stature and feminine wiles to get what she needs.
Angelina works at a major law firm as an investigator. She works for the very well known personal injury lawyer, Waylon McBride, "Si, se habla Espanol!" his television ads assure. And yes, he is an incredible douche bag but really; he does help a lot of people. He is philanthropic and sure he mainly does it for the good publicity but at least someone is getting something out of it. Right? Well at least that's what Angelina tells herself. That and she feels that if she left the firm the just slightly left of ethical attitude might prevail and they may end up turning their backs on ethics altogether. So she stays.
Phillip Smithson, a retiree, is a transplant from the mid-west. He's a good guy with an absolute atrocity for a wife. She uses her insecurities against him with cutting remarks nearly constantly. But he seems oblivious so they have been happily married now for forty-something years. The good thing is that she rarely comes out to Humpy's, so none of the regulars have to put up with her too often. She really only talks to two people when she's there and coldly ignores everyone else.
Matt Herrmann is a part-time alcoholic and full-time nurse. He has been decorated for bravery, gotten countless accolades for his work at the hospital and is loved by many...sometimes too many. And some of those many are married. No one knows really where Matt is from because he's told so many different stories. One day he just appeared at the bar and was just so congenial with everyone he fell in quickly with the 3 p.m. crowd and no one really bothered to get to the bottom of Matt's origins or what bought him to Corpus Christi. Although his exploits with the women were fodder for a lot of rumor.
Chase Landress is an accountant, semi-retired. He is quite frankly one of the most hating individuals ever. He would find something wrong with a rainbow or a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. He will find something wrong with a well made and free meal. He would find something wrong with winning the lottery. And God help any new person who has the balls to come at sit with the 3 o'clock regulars. His wife left him after about 42-years of marriage. Everyone wonders why it took her so long. She went off and moved to Alabama to be closer to her family. It's often been discussed that the wrong person left Texas. But he's been coming to Humpy's for about 20 years so he's grandfathered in and no one can seem to get rid of him.
Onetta Zambrano Myers was a successful model back in the day. She worked for Dillard's and Nieman Marcus up in Dallas. She was and still is quite a striking woman. Her beauty never really faded, it just evolved gracefully. She married Marvin Myers, an industrialist when she was 21...he was 42. They had a short but loving marriage. The Dallas Morning News reported in December of 1980, "Marvin Meyers was discovered by his wife of five years in his recliner in front of the television." Police reports said, "There was an empty tumbler of scotch in his left hand and a smoking .22 in his right and a small hole in his right temple." The death was later ruled an accident. Wealthy Texas industrialists simply do not commit suicide. About a month after the funeral Onetta came to South Texas because she loved the deep sea fishing and the laid back attitude of the area. Well that and rumors began swirling about that maybe Marvin had some help with his unfortunate demise.
There are others who float in and out of the group. James Stanton, a nearly toothless bon vivant who loves the sound of his own voice as much as he does telling anyone who will listen how great he is. Geraldine Garcia, a poor yet hard working gal who just can't seem to catch a break. Butcher, Chicken and Felix, construction guys who keep to themselves mostly but are really are the friendliest men covered in construction debris you'll ever find.
Now that we know everyone, let's get down to some murder.
Minerva Saldivar is a bitch. She was snotty to clerks in stores, belittled as many people as she could and was just a miserable person. She never knew an un-bitchable day of her life. She was coming from the doctor's office one Monday evening and she saw motorcycles and big pickup trucks in a parking lot. It was Humpy's parking lot and she just shook her head.
"Those people, sitting there drinking. They're in there and God only knows what they're really up to," she thought in her bitter little mind.
Just as she was pulling away from the stop sign she saw some of "those people" sitting outside the building smoking. She shook her head again and then it happened, her car stopped moving. She jiggled the keys, the pounded the steering wheel and to her horror, the people smoking outside the bar were walking toward her.
"God, don't leave me here with these people!"
Phillip was the first to her door and he knocked on the window. She tentatively rolled the window down.
As she was nearly in the middle of the intersection he asked her, "Ma'am, can we help you move your car?"
Well she didn't know what to think. Her mind was racing and then struck quiet with Phillip's voice, "Ma'am? Are you alright?"
"Yes I'm alright! Why wouldn't I be?!"
Phillip smiled and said, "We just want to help. Will you let us or do we have to call someone for you?"
"I have a cell phone, I'll make my own call!" and with that she rolled up the window.
Phillip cocked his head and turned to walk back with the rest of the group to the bar. Then he heard, "Mister! Come here and at least move my car out of the intersection!" The lady was out of her car. She was about 5'5" and wearing a pair of white jeans, a faded aqua shirt and a bowl cut looking hair do with way too dark of a dye job she climbed out of her BMW.
He looked at the others and they went to push her Beemer out of the intersection and into Humpy McDurvel's parking lot. She supervised the entire move making sure these people knew that her car was expensive, she had lawyers and that her son was in the FBI. They moved the car and got away from her as quickly as they could. Except for Phillip.
He handed her the keys to her vehicle back and asked if there was anything else he could do. She said no in her cold manner. And he wished her well. Back inside the bar they were all at their usual table and when Phillip got to the table; they all looked at each other and said, "Wow."
"I know! Can you believe the attitude on that woman?"
And just then she walked in the door. A collective groan, though not audible, was felt through the bar. Her phone had died and she needed to borrow the bar phone to call the dealership.
"THIS is Minerva Saldivar, I picked up my new BMW yesterday and now it is broken down and I'm calling you from a BAR!" there was silence on her end. "Well I'm in a BAR! I don't know what it’s called." She stood there with the phone pressed into her head like she was trying to shove it through. The bar was silent as they took in this weird little vignette of elderly frustration, elitism and entitlement.
Then from the silence, "Minerva?" It was Chase Landress. He had just walked into the bar.
"Chase! You talk to this impudent woman on the phone!!"
"Hello? Yes. Yes. OK well we're at Humpy McDurvel's. Oh you know it? OK well if you could send that tow truck over....oh OK, I'll let her know. Goodbye."
"Well?!"
"Calm yourself woman. Good lord you could drive Mother Teresa to murder." He looked at the bartender and said, "I'll take a corr'slight and she'll have a Maker's neat. You still drink Maker's right?" Minerva nodded. "Yeah, just put it on my tab."
Minerva was quiet for as long as she could stand it. "Well, what did that slacker of an operator say?"
"They're sending the tow truck and the courtesy van."
"That's it?!"
"What the fuck do you want, a parade? A mass said in your honor? Perhaps a day of mourning because your precious Beemer died in front of a low down bar? Drink your Makers."
"Well why can't you take me over to the dealership?"
"Because I'm busy," he picked up his beer and chugged. Looked her in the eye and walked away.
She slammed her Maker's on the bar and walked out of the bar in a huff, mumbling something about a bunch of no good drunks.
"You know that woman?" Phillip asked Chase when he got to the table.
"Oh yeah, her husband I used to do business together. He was one of my clients. Good guy, she of course is stark raving diva bitch and that, I believe, was the reason for his early demise. God looked down and saw what he married and said, 'Son, come on home.' Passed away in his sleep, as peaceful as peaceful could be. Really the only way he was going to get peace in that house."
"Why would someone marry a woman like that?"
Those who knew Phillip's wife were thinking, "Man, look in the mirror." But out loud they mumbled, "Dunno.....beyond me...." and went back to Minerva.
"They ever have children?" Angelina asked. She had taken in the entire scene and helped push the car out of the intersection in her sun dress and espadrilles. She was off from investigating for the week so it was play in the surf in the mornings and beers in the afternoon then home for a little dinner and some TV. Maybe tomorrow she'd head up to Fredericksburg for a climb on Enchanted Rock; she hadn't made up her mind yet. Hank McDurvel had some property out there and told her she could use it at will.
"Nah....evidently her legs were fused together since they were dating."
They all laughed, they all drank, and they ordered another round. The conversation turned to Angelina's vacation and the possibility of going up to the Hill Country when a deer in the headlights looking kid wearing a Chipman's BMW uniform came into the bar looking around. He looked like he half hoped to find someone and half hoped to disappear.
He went up to the bar, "Excuse me sir, did you see a lady in here that was a little, ummmm...."
"The Bitchy Beemer Biddy? Yeah, she's outside waiting for you I thought."
"She's not out there. The tow truck took her car but I can't find her." He left the bar and no one else gave it a second thought.
After a while the group of regulars was past the Beemer Biddy and past Angel's vacation in the Hill Country and was deep in the subject of Phillip's construction of his new deck. Just as they were discussing the pros and con's of different pressure treated lumbers two police officers walked into the bar. They stopped and spoke to Ryan, the tallest surliest looking man you'd ever meet. He is 6'7" and broad shouldered, solidly built, and bearded man. His countenance was an almost permanent scowl, even when he smiled. But he is truly one of the best people walking the face of the earth. He is the bartender for the Monday - Friday, Noon to 7 p.m. shift. Ryan. The group looked up at the bar and Angel decided to sidle up and see what was going on since she knew both officers from her work at the law office. It wasn't always a great relationship, the police/private investigator relationship, but she was curious and her buzz was working her.
"Officer Roberto! Que tal?"
"Miss Wisdom."
"So formal. Angelina, how are you today?" Officer Ragland Roberts' partner, Officer Tanger Washington inquired with a slight bow. Washington knew honey worked better than vinegar. Roberts just knew he didn't like P.I.s and showed his disdain every chance he got. Officer Washington's first name is Tanger because his mother was shopping all the deals at the Tanger Outlet Mall in San Marcos when her water broke and she liked the name.
"Finer than frog's hair Tanger. So what are you and Roberto up to today?"
"Missing woman. Hey were you here earlier?"
"Three beers and three big ol' glasses of water....and several trips to the ladies room....so yeah, I've been here for a bit. Why?"
"Did you see an older lady with car problems?"
"OH the Beemer Biddy! Yeah we helped her with her car. It was dead in the intersection and we pushed it through to the parking lot around the side. It was closest. She's missing? It's only been a few hours. How is she missing if 24 has yet to go by....or have I been in this bar longer than I thought?"
"She's the mayor's sister-in-law."
"Ohhhhhhhh. Really? Hmmm, you'd think I would have run into her before."
"No from what we understand unless she goes to the doctor's office, which is where she was prior to breaking down here, she doesn't leave her house. Stays there with her dogs pretty much 24/7 well unless the dogs need to go to the vet."
"How does she get groceries?"
"She has an errand girl. The girl, Grace Ayala, gets her groceries, her prescriptions and whatever other shopping she needs. She just goes in picks up and drops off. From what I understand the old lady isn't that much fun to be around."
"Yeah, that's putting it lightly. She's a stark raving bitch. One of my friends knows her, let me see if he'll talk to you."
"Alright, Missy Ma'am."
She got to the table and all of the guys were looking at her. "So?" Phillip said. She was standing next to Chase and she gave them a synopsis of the conversation at the bar. Chase groaned, "And you want me to go talk to the cops I suppose?"
"Well, it would be your duty as a good American." Angelina knew Chase couldn't pass up doing his "duty"...whatever it may have been. He was a frustrated soldier. When the draft came around he was found unfit to serve in the military because of his poor eyesight. Flash forward several years and he got laser surgery and perfect vision. So 'duty' was his buzz word.
"Fahhhhhhhk, fine."
He ambled up to the bar and introduced himself.
"So you know the missing woman?"
"That sour old cow isn't missing. She's probably flagged down a cab because she couldn't wait five minutes for the courtesy van from over at the Beemer place. So there's probably some poor tortured soul of a cab driver contemplating suicide because that biddy bitched him up one way and down the other."
"So, you're not good friends with her?"
"Nope. Can't say that. I know her because her husband was a client of mine back in the day. She killed him you know."
The officers' raised their eyebrows.
"Well not in the conventional murderous fashion. God just took him in his sleep because that poor bastard wasn't gonna get no rest with that woman around. You know the old saying, 'God made them and the devil put them together?' Yeah, well it was 100% true in this case."
Tanger chuckled. "Yeah I know the type."
"This one is the ORIGINAL of the 'type'. Really if she is missing, she didn't go quietly. That woman doesn't know from quiet. She put up a fight....unless of course...well..." He looked at the officers, "the only way she would've gone quietly is if she was taken by surprise. Even if she knew the person she would have put up some kind of ruckus."
"Good to know,” Officer Roberts said.
Tanger turned to Angelina, "Hey, wanna show us where the car was and where she may have waited?"
"Sure, my pleasure. The more time I get to spend with Roberto the better," she smiled at Washington as Roberts rolled his eyes.
They went out the front door and showed the officers where everyone was prior to the breakdown of the Beemer Biddy.
"We were sittin' out here smoking and the Beemer pulled up slowly to the stop sign. The lady seemed to be staring us down. She kept shaking her head. I don't think she approved. Now knowing her the way I do, I know she didn't approve of our behavior. Then she made it to the stop and then she looked at us again and then tried to pull away but the car barely budged its way into the middle of the intersection. That's when Phillip first approached her, we all voted to leave her to herself, but you know Phil is one of those guys that won't leave anyone hangin' like that. So at first she told us to back off and then next thing you know she was ordering us to move her car. We moved it over to here."
She took them around the side of the building They could see tracks in the loose gravel, two sets of distinct tracks. That of the Beemer and those of the tow truck. The latter being heavier and wider. There were footprints in the loose gravel, several, too many. The tow truck drivers, the regulars from the bar who pushed the car and those of the Beemer Biddy. Loose gravel is not very informative. There are no real impressions that really look like anything solid. You can see tire tracks in it but you couldn't identify the lands and grooves of the threads, therefore you can't identify the tire. You can see foot prints but you can't get an impression of the sole of the shoes, therefore, you can't identify one shoe from the other. It was a mess. And if this woman was indeed missing, it was going to remain a mess.
"So you think we should alert the lab boys?" Roberts asked Washington.
"For what? There's almost literally nothing here."
"Yeah but the mayor...."
"Ugh, that greedy old.....I mean that kind and benevolent man? I know, let's CYA it. Let's call Detective Bruno. He loves helping the mayor."
"Brilliant."
Angelina has seen the Cover Your Ass game before. It was always wise for patrolmen to bring in bigger badges on weirdo stuff like this so that way the beat officer wouldn't take the fall for something that might lead to nothing or something way above their pay grade. She went back inside the bar and decided it was time for a shot of Espolon, especially if she was going to deal with Bruno. She would take a cab home this evening. Too many damn cops out and in close proximity. She went up to the bar.
"Ryan, may I have an Espolon?"
"Yep. They still out there?"
"Yep, they'll be here for quite some time. They're calling in Detective Bruno. It’s because of the mayor."
"Great the rest of my afternoon is going to suck balls. No one is going to come in with that much black and white outside."
"Yeah but the good news is you're stuck with us and several cab companies will make some money off of us."
"Yay." He handed her the Espolon shot. Espolon is tequila and she drank it naked. She always said she didn't need training wheels because she was a pro. She shot it down and gave Ryan the shot glass. She went to the ladies room. The ladies room has four stalls that worked. The last stall in the corner was used more for storage than an actual potty. She always chose the third stall. Creature of habit. She sat and commenced her business and she heard some funny hissing type noise. She looked at the floor and around her stall and nothing but the noise didn't seem to be coming from where she was sitting. Then she heard a low gurgle noise, almost imperceptible considering she was sitting there peeing like a race horse. After she finished, she washed her hands and she noticed that the sounds had stopped. But it bugged her. Just then, Gaylyn came in to the loo.
Gaylyn is what one would call a mid-range call girl. Since the recession, she had to take a pay cut that's why she's mid-range now. She has red wild hair and is a busty, shapely woman. If she were not so known as whore, she might have married well. But this being a small city everyone is in everyone else's business, there's no way a decent man of wealth would marry her. And she wanted the wealth, she could go without decent. So she did what she could. She had no children and she had no pimp. She skated by the law so well because she was so well connected. No one ever really talked about her connections, they just exchanged knowing looks.
She was on her cell phone (one of three) with her engagement secretary as casually as one might have talked about a pedicure, "The Orion? OK, how many? Two....OK, a couple. Oh hey, Angelina! Yeah I can be there by eight. Do I need to wear anything special? Oh good. I hate dressing up. Alright I'll call you when I'm finished with this gig." She got off the cell and attempted to tame the flurry of unnaturally red wildness she called hair.
The call really didn't faze Angelina. She was well acquainted with Gaylyn as Gaylyn was a great source of information.
"So what's up with Roberts and Washington out there," Gaylyn asked.
"Missing person's case. The mayor's sister-in-law."
"Really? Hmmm, I know her, Minerva Saldivar? Yep. She's one tortured old woman."
"She didn't come off that way. She came off as sort of a..."
"Bitch? Yep, that's how she masked everything," Gaylyn recounted the story of Minerva Saldivar as she fixed her many layers of make up. "She was sexually abused as a child and traded it seems, very brutal. Her sister didn't know anything about it because the sister was brought up with an aunt. See their mother died when they were young. The father took Minerva, she was older by about six years and the younger, and Susanna went to live with their aunt. So a lot happened that the sister never knew about, well until quite recently. Minerva actually killed her father when she was 12. Bastard had it coming."
Gaylyn pulled out another compact and was a flurry again with a brush and powder flying everywhere. "She should have strung him and his pals up by their balls. But being 12 well what could she do? So she poisoned his food and nothing was ever said about it. Because everyone knew what was going on but back in the day, even a rich Mexican could get away with such nastiness. But they really didn't look at him like he was Mexican. He was very fair, from what I understand, had green eyes. Actually Susanna looks stunningly like him,"
She pulled out another compact out and yet another brush, her purse was like a little leather clown car of make up. The line of make up was endlessly pouring out of her bag. "Anywho Minerva killed him and everyone figured good for her, it seemed like the law wasn't going to do anything. So no one ever messed with it. Minerva took after their mother, dark skinned and brown eyed. Minerva, you see, never really recovered from the abuse. Though she married she never really trusted her husband. Well really, she never really trusted men ever. Not like our distrust of men, it was pathological. I don't even know how she talked herself into getting married. She got pregnant within the first year of marriage but she had an abortion because she didn't know what might happen if the child had been a girl. It drove her quite mad."
Angelina was blown away. Not a whole lot shocked her. She had seen some things, had heard some stories but for some reason this one really struck her hard. She had already made up her mind that Minerva was THE Beemer Biddy. She was an entitled, spoiled, my way or the highway type of person who rolls through life like it were a demolition derby. And really to a certain extent she was that person, she wanted the world to hurt as much as she did. She never learned to turn her hurt into a foundation upon which she could build a better life but then, when you think of it.....that's a shit-ton of hurt. It's not easy to move out from underneath a shit-ton.
Eventually Angelina said, "Wow."
"Yeah I know. What a nasty childhood but I can see how people could look at her as a stark raving bitch. I've seen her go full tilt."
"Grace Ayala is your secretary right? How do you know this story, through Grace? You know she worked for Saldivar too, yes?"
"Yep. One time Gracie got her meds and she took them up to the house on Ocean, you know it, it's gigantic with the kind of medieval castle look to it?"
"Yeah, I know it."
"Well Gracie got there and she found Minerva lying on the ground. And she didn't know what to do so she called me. I got there and Minerva was passed out. A bottle of Maker's Mark by her head. Evidently she really like Maker's. And she was drunk one day and told Gracie the entire story. She was furious at herself the next day for telling Gracie and of course took it out on Gracie. Anywho, that night we found her passed out we took her upstairs and stayed with her. I was asleep in the chair beside her bed and she woke me with an alarm clock biffing me upside the head. She hollered and carried on and then threw up. Gracie came running in and calmed her just as much as she possibly could. We were both told to get our whore butts out of her house. So we did."
With the final stroke of mascara Gaylyn added, "Well with all that and her husband committing suicide like that....it's a wonder she ever got out of bed herself."
"I thought he died of natural causes."
"Nope. El suicide."
"Wow. You can learn a lot in a ladies room."
"Oh you have NO idea!" Gaylyn tossed the final compact into her purse. "Shot?"
"Sure what the hell. I'm taking a cab home. Oh heads up Det. Bruno is coming up here."
"Shit! Fine. I can deal. Le's go git summa dat tekilla!"
"Weehaw!"
Ryan got their shots, Espolon naked. They cheered each other, the sunk it and Ryan got Angelina another beer and went to making Gaylyn's Cosmo. He really liked Gaylyn since that misty morning after a late night at the bar and a later night at Ryan's and a little this and a little that. She truly was a professional. Ryan was in love even though she expressly forbade him to fall in love with her. "Friends with extreme benefits is what we are. I forbid you to fall in love with me." Too late. Ryan was a goner.
Gaylyn stayed at the bar and Angelina gravitated back to the smoking section outside the bar. Corpus Christi went smoke free in bars in 2009. Oh it was hard fought; people were outraged that their civil liberties were under attack. "It's a bar for cryin' out loud, not a health club," some said. Others were more colorful about it, "They wanna bring in fuckin' Las Brisas and pollute our air with pet coke but we can't smoke cigarettes in a fuckin' bar?! Stupid mother fuckers." And there were others, "I know for a fact the mayor smokes. You bet your ass this isn't his idea." Oh it was an ugly little time but the measure passed because political correctness won out over civil liberties. Still though, some of the staunchest against the smoking ban were inclined, after a while, to admit that it was nice to go into a bar and not come out smelling like an ashtray.
"Aaannnnnnnnnngelinahhhhhhhhh," Detective Bruno was in a mood, one of his best which always happened when he saw Angelina. He knew there was a huge possibility that the mayor was just covering his ass so his wife would think he was doing something to find her sister and that the woman would be found quite undamaged and probably riled that everyone was getting into her business. So he felt he was getting paid to do nothing really.
Angelina lit her cigarette, "Bruuuuuuuuuuunooooooooohhhhhh, que paso, senior?"
"Oh nothing. Just doing some looking around, asking questions, taking pictures..."
"C.Y.A.?"
"Yep. How're you doing? I haven't talked to you since that incident with the Coast Guard."
"I'm fine. On vacation, leaving for Fred in the mornin', be back on Sunday for the pot luck."
"That's nice. Hey why won't you ever go out with me?"
"You're a cop. I don't date cops. It's unprofessional." She said with a wink.
"Yeah, hide behind your profession. You askurred of magic that is the Bruno Love Experience?" He said while flexing stocky physique in front of her.
"That must be it." She laughed. "Get back to work Magic Man."
"One day, you will knock on my door."
She put out her cigarette, winked at him and went inside.
Bruno came in after her but now he had his serious cop game face on as he approached the bar, "Ryan Castillo?"
Ryan said, "That's me."
"Can I ask you some questions?"
"Sure, but I told the other officers everything I know."
"Well other than that table of misfits over there," he gestured to the table of regulars, “and the hooker at your bar" he looked directly at Gaylyn, "you don't have a lot going on. So answer my questions."
"Alright, alright...." Ryan said, red faced and temples throbbing. He wanted to put this little punk detective through the wall. And he could have, Bruno was all of 5'4" and maybe 170. Sure he had some mass on him but Ryan could have easily taken him. "You don't have to get nasty about my customers," he said in a calm growl.
He asked the same stream of questions as the patrolmen did. Ryan gave the same answers, l which pissed him off further. He really wanted to strangle that little detective.
Then Bruno asked, "Where's this Chase fellow?"
"Over here, with the 'misfits,'" Chase bellowed.
Not a lot of people were fond of Detective Anthony Bruno. He was a real hard ass. He kept the funny flirty Bruno completely separate from work Bruno. His parents literally swam across the Rio Grande and made a new start en los Estados Unidos. They lived in the Rio Grande Valley where they picked fruit for the gringos. They didn't want their children to pick fruit or cotton. They instilled the value of education in their children.
Bruno didn't speak English until he was in first grade. But he made it his mission to make his family proud. Ever since he was a child he had this huge sense of pride and duty to his family. He worked very hard and got through school with flying honors. He ended up at University of Texas in Austin. He got a degree in law and a minor in criminal justice. He didn't bother with law school; he took the bar and passed it the first time through. So there, he was a lawyer but he didn't like his fellow lawyers. He said he felt especially slimy after dealing with them. Then he realized one day when doing a plea deal, he was one of them.
"No, no, I'm going to be a detective," he told his then wife, Maria Elena. "I'd rather deal with the law on that end, then on this end."
Maria Elena soon left him. Not because of the hard life of a cop's wife but because of the cut in pay. Maria Elena soon, he later found out, broke up the marriage of one of his law buddies and successfully married him. They're very wealthy, so he figured that made her happy.
Being the eldest of six children, Anthony helped raise his brothers and sisters. God help the brother or sister who stepped out of line. They weren't as scared of their parents as they were of what Bruno might do. Yes, even his siblings called him Bruno. This confused their friends at first. "So your parents named him Bruno Bruno?" "No. It's just 'Anthony' just doesn't seem to fit him. So we call him by his only other name."
The Bruno’s did a good job raising all their children because they all grew up to be stellar members of society. One was a monsignor in the San Antonio Arch Diocese, one a thoracic surgeon in Corpus Christi, two became teachers and then moved up to professorships at prestigious universities (UT Austin and UT San Antonio) and the little one, Melinda, she became a lawyer in Houston. So two things Bruno was not so happy about (he had nothing but deep hatred for Houston). But she was great at her job and did a lot of pro bono, so forgave her.
Chase hadn't moved from his spot at the table. He said, "I'm not walkin' I'm drinkin', you wanna talk to me, you come’ ere." Chase, not the smoothest guy in the world. Bruno met Chase eye to eye. Chase was a little bleary eyed naturally; add several pints of beer to that and well....yeah.
Bruno looked him in the eye and said, "Nah, I want you sober. I'll wait." With that he walked away. Sidled up to the bar and got on his cell phone.
"Chase," Angelina said, "You bes' take a cab home tonight. He'll be waiting alright. He'll be waiting with a couple of black and whites around the corner and bust you for either Public Intoxication or Driving Under the Influence."
"I ain't takin' no g'ahdamn cab."
Phillip chimed in, "Chase, you better listen to Angelina. She knows these guys." The others nodded in agreement.
"Fahhhhhhhk. Fine."
Everyone had slowed their drinking way down to almost nothing. Those who hadn't, already made arrangements with the local yellow cab to come and pick up their sorry butts.
Angelina had one more shot of tequila and then made a B-line for the ladies room. There was no toilet paper in "her" stall so she went to the fourth stall and went. She was doing her business when she saw what she thought was a wig hanging under the stall. "Probably someone's Halloween costume from last year," she thought. Last year's Halloween party was crazy. The bar staff was still finding bits and pieces of costumes in every nook and cranny since that party.
She finished up and she just kind of tugged on the wig. She thought it would be funny if she put it on and went back out as a brunette. Truly the tequila was gaining on her. She tugged harder at the wig. It was stuck on something. She reached up under the stall and she felt a face. She bolted upright and stifled her shock. She got out of the stall she was in and went to the next stall, the end stall in the corner where storage was kept. She shut her eyes and steadied herself, this wouldn't be her first body but it just never got easy. She opened the door slowly and there was Minerva Martinez, stuffed upside down, as if she were flung into the stall, dead as a door nail. She left the ladies and hollered, "Bruno! You need to come here!"
He went to her with a smile on his face. But when he saw the serious mug she had, he knew this wasn't for fun and games. She took him into the ladies room and pointed to the last stall. Bruno looked. "The missing lady, I take it?"
"Yep."
Most of the bar had filled the doorway to the ladies room and were all angling for a better view. Not much to see though because the body was upside down and kind of crumpled looking. Minerva was not a big woman. She was very petite and light. Angelina was looking at Minerva’s body and thought to herself, “It wouldn’t have taken a lot of strength to pick up her body. But why is it upside down? Surely whoever did this could have hidden the body easier and with less effort if they had left it right side up. Very odd.”
“Strange isn’t it?” Bruno asked.
“Yeah, I don’t get it. But then there’s a lot I don’t get about murder. Are the guys on their way?”
“Yep.”
“K, can’t wait to see what there is to see when they bring her down.”
“What makes you think you will? You’re not involved in this case,” Bruno and his game face were nothing to challenge.
“Oh, that’s how its going to be? OK, I’ll remember this,” Angelina isn’t easily intimidated.
Bruno turned to the peanut gallery encroaching further into the ladies room, “Y’all get on back to your barstools. Mr. Castillo, lock your doors, no one in or out before I talk to them.” He got on his walkie-talkie and told Washington and Roberts that the bar was to be shut down until further notice, no one in or out past the smoking section of the front door.
He looked at Angelina, who hadn’t budged from her spot, “You, you need to go sit on a barstool and drink a beer and stay out of my way until I call on you.”
She raised her eyebrows and said, “Fine.” And walked away. He knew this wasn’t “fine” and he knew this would cost him somewhere down the line. He didn’t care, this was his body, his murder and so after Angelina left the ladies room he set to look at the scene.
The bathroom is heavily paneled with wood with a heavy patina. Though cleaned regularly there was always some kind of debris, a bottle cap here or there, a lighter maybe and sometimes bits of some illegal contraband. The latter were rare though. Druggies tend to keep track of their drugs and the bar as a whole frowned on drug usage. It’s just not something most of its regulars did and so people who did that sort of thing tended to go to other bars in the area more accepting of that sort of behavior.
There are five stalls total in the ladies room. Four of the stall operate as actual toilets and the fifth stall in the corner was used for storage. There was a couple of boxes, mostly containing decorations for various holidays. The largest one was marked “Halloween” with the “o” made into a Jack-o-lantern and the next biggest one was marked “Christmas 2” with holly underlining the text.
The other boxes contained various banners announcing specials and special events. All were clearly marked so Bruno didn’t have to go digging in them to find out what was inside them. But as part of the crime scene, they would be taken to the lab and carefully examined. The lab boys were good for that. On the other side of the wall was yet another storage closet, but this one had a key lock on it. The toilet/storage didn’t. He made note and took some pictures with his digital camera. He tried the locked door and it wouldn’t budge. Next to the locked storage closet is the sink. There’s a generous countertop surrounding the sink and another storage space under the sink. There’s a large mirror above the sink and a towel dispenser to the left of the mirror. To the left of the dispenser is the only door to the room and on that a full-length mirror that was cracked. There was a sort of rounded crack and that spread a bit. It looked like a spiders’ web.
Bruno leaned in and looked closer, “Well, lookey here…a hair but no blood. Could someone’s head crack a mirror and leave no blood? Or could this be old damage to the mirror? This could be a random hair,” he thought. He snapped a photo, took a pair of tweezers and plucked the hair from the glass and placed the hair carefully into a small zip lock type baggie.
He walked out of the ladies room and approached Ryan. Ryan was already annoyed with Bruno and really didn’t want to talk to him any more but knew Bruno could do him up and make his life a complete hell. So he braced himself and Bruno asked about the bathroom mirror.
“Really? No I hadn’t notice. But then I wasn’t in there today. I went in there last night. A lady got really, really drunk and her friends couldn’t get her out of the john so I went in there and carried her up to their car and put her in but last night….no, I don’t remember it being broken.”
“Who were the ladies that were in there?”
“You got me. Just some random people.” Ryan was lying his butt off. It was the Martinez sisters who were having trouble with their newly divorced friend in the john.
“Really? Random?”
Ryan thought, “Little mother fucker, he knows.” He said, “Yeah random. Not everyone who comes here is a regular.”
“Well no, but I was a lawyer for a lot of years and now I’ve been a detective for the better part of a decade, I know when people are lying to me Mr. Castillo. Why do you want to lie to me?”
“Look I don’t know who the drunk lady was, I just carried…”
“Yeah you carried her out to the car, did you see what kind of car it was, did you make note of the color? Anything?”
“No it was busy; I just wanted to get back to work.” Ryan was really digging a hole now.
“Great, I love looking at bar receipts. Hand ‘em over.”
“OK fine, it was the Martinez sister, Hazel and Aletha. They were here with some friend of theirs, who I really don’t know, anyway she just got through a nasty divorce and she wanted to drown her sorrows. Thing is she nearly drowned herself.”
“And why were you lying for them?”
“Because they’re good people and they really don’t have anything to do with this. I just don’t want to bother a whole lot of people over this.”
“’This’ is a murder. There is a dead woman in your restroom. Do you not understand the urgency here? I have to clear up a lot of things before I can even get to the body you dumb ass,” Bruno hated when civilians got in the way of doing his job.
“OK, I get it. I’m sorry,” Ryan surrendered. Ryan was a good loyal friend and a great bartender but could be as dumb as a box of rocks.
The lab boys pulled up in their vans and were eyed by not only Washington and Roberts but half the bar that was outside for a smoke. Phillip, Chase, Angelina and Gaylyn were sitting on the bench in front and a couple of stragglers were smoking cigarettes or on their cell phones telling their wives they were going to be late.
Phillip was on his cell, “Well I don’t know when, all I know is the cops are here and they’re not letting anyone in or out of the joint until they talk to all of us. For crying out loud Melanie, there’s a woman dead in the john. Oh great, the T.V. stations are here. You can flip on the flippin’ news and watch it. Look I’ll even fuckin’ wave to you,” he started waving frantically at one news camera that was up and running. “There, ya happy?” With that he hung up. Hanging up on someone when you really want to slam the phone down on them and make a statement is very cathartic but you couldn’t that with a cell phone. They need an app for that.
Gaylyn was laughing at Phillip, he knew it, “Well that woman, I love her and its not enough to love her. She’s just such a bitch sometimes.”
“Gracie, its me, Gay,” of course Gracie knew it was Gaylyn, who else would it be? “Well I’m kind of in a pickle and I can’t leave the bar. Well someone up and went got murdered here so the cops are keeping us here until they talk to all of us. Can you call the McGregor’s for me?” Gaylyn had a code name for all the types of clients she had. McGregor was for couples. “Yeah turn on the news. Right now we’re the only thing worth watching on T.V. Yeah I’ll tell you all about it later. Yeah Bruno is here…yeah.” Gaylyn was exasperated with trying to avoid Bruno or really just exasperated with Bruno’s presence. Just the fact that he was breathing the same air she does is enough to exasperate her.
Chase had no one to call, its not like the dogs could answer the phone. Angelina also had no one to call. Well she had her mother and there was a 50/50 chance that her mom would be watching the news. So if her mom watched the news she’d call Angelina on her cell. If her mom didn’t watch the news then she wouldn’t be worried over her daughter being involved in a murder. If her mom could be called an expert at anything she would be called an expert worrier.
Angelina’s job didn’t help. For the most part she investigated through reports and paperwork and lab tests but there were those times when she had to deal with people. And for the most part those people were plenty pissed off. It was rare when she encountered any physical harm or threat. She got stabbed one time by the ticked off wife of a man who was trying to defraud a major insurance company. But that was ages ago. Still, her mother thinks of it like it was yesterday.
The lab boys filed into Humpy’s carrying various cases and very serious looks on their faces. Angelina recognized most of them and so did Gaylyn. Not that she let on, she had a good poker face.
Bruno dispersed the majority of them to the ladies room where the body was. The coroner arrived and came in with a stretcher. He was sent to the ladies room. When the labs finished up their photographs and topical finds they let the coroner take the body from the stall storage and carry it out to the hall of the bathroom because there was no way to maneuver the stretcher around the corner and into the ladies room. So the regulars who were sitting at the bar got a glimpse of the body as they carefully laid it on the stretcher. There wasn’t much they could tell from their vantage point. But they craned their necks as best they could but no go.
Humpy’s is like a double-wide trailer with beer taps. The front door is at the center of the building facing Buford Street and the second door is on the end facing Third Street. Up until a few months ago those were the only two entrances/exits for decades. Then when the smoking ban was enacted the McDurvels decided to make a back patio and put a third door across the body of the building from the front door facing the field out on the back side of the building where the patio is going. The roof is a high-pitched barn roof styled attachment. It wasn’t original to the building. It was an add-on after the McDurvels figured it looked a little too much like just a double-wide trailer.
So between the roof of the trailer building and the inside of the high-pitched addition there was plenty of room up there to really open an upstairs to the bar. Hank had said many times, “A man can stand up in there. Of course he can’t get too near the sides without bumping his head.” The idea of some kind of balcony bar was tossed around and Hank was considering it. But then Hank was a long muller. He could mull over something for years before he acted. So no one was holding their breath.
Soon the coroner had the body in their wagon and were off to the morgue, the labs were in the bathroom still processing when Angelina went up to Bruno, “I’ve got to use the ladies room.”
Bruno looked at her, her legs were crossed and she was slightly bouncing, “Use the men’s and aim.”
“Fucker,” Angelina thought. “And then he wonders why no one will date him.” She cocked her head at him and said, “Fine.”
“Shit, another ‘fine’. I’m in big trouble,” Bruno said under his breath.
