earned him some invectives.
Ignoring him, Zach turned his attention to the victim when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hayes lean over to pick up his baton. Swearing, Zach slapped a hand onto the deputy’s chest. “Do I have to cuff you?” he asked, voice hard. “You will keep back. Don’t move. Don’t touch. Do you hear me?”
“What the hell? We’re on the same side. The asshole grabbed for my weapon! I did what I had to.”
“This is now a crime scene. Don’t touch anything. Wait.”
Zach called for backup and an ambulance. When he saw Hayes take a step toward his vehicle anyway, he snapped, “Do not move!”
Then, finally, he crouched beside the fallen man and gently touched his throat.
Oh, damn. The lady with the green-gold eyes was right. Antonio was dead. Zach couldn’t even figure out how to administer first aid, the guy’s head was such a sickening sight.
The woman and he looked at each other across the body. Momentarily stunned, Zach stared for a few beats too long. Her right hand was bloody, he saw when he could finally wrench his gaze from her face. She’d touched the victim when she’d first fallen to her knees beside him.
Zach lifted his own hand to see that, yeah, his own fingertips were bloody, too.
At the sound of an approaching siren, he said gently, “There’s nothing you can do. The medics will be here any minute.”
She looked down then back up. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Why?” she whispered.
“I have no idea.” An ambulance rocketed to a stop in the driveway only a few feet away. Zach stood, circled to her side of the body and held out his hand. “Let’s back off and let them do their job.”
An unmarked police SUV blocked Zach’s car in. Having cut off the siren, the undersheriff himself, a whipcord-thin guy with buzz-cut gray hair, stepped out and started across the lawn. Paul Stokes. He’d been in on the interview when Zach was hired.
“Hayes? What the hell is this?”
The woman still hadn’t moved.
“Please,” Zach said quietly. “I need to talk to people. They’ll want to hear what you saw, too.”
After a moment her head bobbed. She let him pull her to her feet and backed away as medics crouched to conduct an assessment. It wasn’t long before one glanced up and gave his head the faintest of shakes. Zach nodded and walked toward the undersheriff and Andrew Hayes.
Seemingly unaware that his hands were battered and bloody, Hayes was doing all the talking. Zach, eyes narrowed, listened but kept his mouth shut. He’d have his turn. And unless the woman wimped out, there was a second witness.
Unable to help himself, he turned his head. She stood right where he’d left her, shoulders hunched, hugging herself, her stricken gaze fixed on the dead man.
But suddenly, as if she felt a pull, her head turned, too, and her eyes met Zach’s. Once again they stared, neither blinking, nothing hidden.
“Deputy Carter,” Stokes said sharply.
Zach shook himself, bent his head in acknowledgment to the woman—of what?—and faced his commanding officer.
* * *
TESS GRANATH LEANED against the fender of one of the police cars. She had declined the offer to sit in the backseat—behind the wire grille.
“Ms. Granath...or is it ‘missus’?” the officer asked.
Not officer, she reminded herself, or even deputy. He had identified himself as a detective. She groped to remember his name. Delancy or Delaney or something like that. He was in his forties, at a guess, and had too many muscles, which meant off the job he lived at the gym.
“Ms. is fine.”
“Are you married?”
Tess raised her eyebrows. “How is this relevant to what I saw?”
“Just trying to get some background, ma’am.” He paused. “Spouses, what we do for a living, influences our perceptions.”
The “ma’am” irritated her, after all that crap about whether she was a Ms. or a Mrs. The use of the word “perceptions” irritated her even more. The event she’d witnessed was straightforward. It had happened too fast for any filters to kick in.
“I’m not married.”
“All right then, Mi-izz Granath.” He dragged it out, his tone laden with condescension. “You live here close by?”
Since he held her driver’s license in his hand, he knew exactly where she lived. She said, “No.”
“May I ask your purpose for being here?”
“I was checking on a friend next door who recently had surgery.”
“And this friend’s name?”
“Lupe Estrada.”
“I’m surprised this friend hasn’t come out. Given all the commotion and all.”
“As I said, she had surgery. Abdominal. She is barely able to get up long enough to go to the bathroom. I stopped by to see if she needed anything because her husband had to work today.”
The detective wanted to know if she and Lupe had been friends for long. Since high school. So that meant Tess might have met some of the neighbors, too. Yes, she had.
“What about the fellow who was involved in this fracas?”
“If by that you mean the man who was just beaten to death? Yes. I knew him to nod at. I wouldn’t call him a friend.”
“But you know his name.”
“Yes. Antonio. Antonio Alvarez, I think.”
“So you saw him as a nice guy.”
“He seemed pleasant. I understand he lived here with his uncle and a couple of cousins. Antonio is a friend of Lupe’s husband, Rey. As I said, I don’t—” the word caught in her throat “—didn’t know him well.”
“All right,” he said. “When did you first see him today?”
“I’d left my sweater and handbag in the living room. On my way out, I was reaching for them when I glanced out the window and was surprised to see a police car parked in front of Antonio’s house. I could just see him and the deputy, speaking.”
“And where were they standing?”
“Antonio had stepped down from the porch. I could see that the conversation was...heated.”
“Could
