Mission Road Page 0,13

if he could get Franklin out of the picture. Franklin got whacked. Within six months, his former business associate was the number one owner of pawnshops in San Antonio."

"Ralph Arguello."

"Jackpot."

Maia felt her dizziness getting worse. She'd be damned if she'd give Kelsey the satisfaction of seeing her pass out. "If that's true - "

"If?"

"Why didn't anybody put Arguello and the victim together sooner?"

"He and White were real careful not to advertise their business relationship. Still, Arguello was one bold SOB, starting his career by whacking Franklin White. Dangerous game, considering Franklin's dad."

"Who's his dad?"

Kelsey stared at her. "I forgot you're an out-of-towner. Maybe this doesn't mean anything to you. Franklin's dad is Guy White."

Maia's heart fluttered. She had a flashback to several years ago - Tres taking her on a case to a mansion where even the butler carried a gun.

"Guy White," she said, "the most powerful mobster in South Texas."

"Please, Miss Lee. Private businessman. Mr. White donates to orphanages and shit. Just because his enemies for the last thirty years have all turned up in the river - "

"Guy White's son was beaten to death in 1987 . . . his only child?"

"Only son. Got a younger daughter, but Frankie was the golden boy."

"And the case was never solved."

Kelsey smiled. "Well, see, you got a mob boss with lots of enemies. Somebody whacks his son. You think the detectives at the time were going to bend over backward trying to figure out what happened? Best guess, White's big rival in town, Johnny Zapata, ordered the hit. Zapata controlled most of the Latino side of town. White was muscling in. Anyway, White blamed Zapata for the hit. After Frankie died, San Antonio saw its biggest gang war ever. The homicide rate spiked by thirty-five percent. If you're the police, you're not going to go out of your way to find another scapegoat for Frankie's murder. Unless, of course, you're Ana DeLeon, and you can't stand loose ends . . ."

"The DNA under the victim's fingernails?"

"Results came back two days ago. Positive on Ralph Arguello. Ninety-nine point nine percent."

Maia looked around the room for something to concentrate on besides Kelsey's smirk.

She hated hopeless cases.

For years, she'd known that Ralph Arguello was bad news. She had never understood how a woman like Ana DeLeon could get involved with him. And she'd been secretly relieved when Tres and he had started to drift apart.

She focused on DeLeon's corkboard - a picture of Ralph and Ana with their baby girl standing in front of a bronze elephant at the zoo.

She felt horrible for that poor child. Her mother dying in the hospital. Her father a fugitive.

But she couldn't get drawn into that.

She didn't care why Ralph Arguello had bludgeoned a mobster's son eighteen years ago.

The question was how to extract Tres - how to get him untangled when the fool kept throwing himself into the most dangerous situations he could find, to help a friend who shouldn't have been his friend in the first place.

"Miss Lee?" Kelsey asked.

On the corkboard just above Kelsey's head was another photo, circa the Seventies, of a woman in patrol uniform, obviously DeLeon's mother, Lucia. She was standing next to another patrolman - a much younger Lieutenant Hernandez.

Maia hated this town. Everything was connected. Everybody was somebody's cousin or childhood friend. A city of a million-plus people, and they still operated like a little country town.

There was a sticky note attached to the photo - the name White, then Timing is wrong, and a few more words Maia couldn't read from where she sat.

Why hadn't Kelsey taken that note down?

"Miss Lee?" he asked again. "Are you going to help us out?"

The back of Maia's neck tingled. She suddenly doubted Kelsey had even seen the note. He wouldn't bother looking at DeLeon's family pictures. It would not occur to him that anything of value could be there. Sentimental bullshit.

She forced her eyes back to him. "How is it that you expect me to help?"

"Obvious, isn't it? Convince your boyfriend to bring in Arguello."

"Assuming I know how to reach him."

"Navarre called you. He got you here."

"He called from a pay phone."

"And you made arrangements to talk again. Let's not play games. We've known about the DNA for two days. Lieutenant Hernandez ordered us not to act on it until Ana had time to do the right thing, turn over her case notes to me so I could make an arrest on her husband. Obviously, Ana didn't cooperate. She must've told Arguello,