Look Before You Jump

by D. A. Bale

  In my silence, Zeke continued. “I think the police acted far too rashly by arresting Bobby on such thin circumstantial evidence. This isn’t going to stick without hard evidence. And no. I don’t think Bobby’s a murderer.”

  “Really?” I asked. “So what do you think?”

  “That there’s someone out there who wants us to think he is.”

  ***

  Guilty or innocent, there’s something so wrong about walking into the lockup – and willingly too. It’s like a sense of guilt by association. Like they’re never gonna let you leave once you step past the gates and hear that ominous clang when they slam the doors shut.

  I had no idea what all Zeke had told them when he called to clear the path for me to visit. Wouldn’t put it past him to have me booked on drunk and disorderly for some past infraction. Was there a statute on slapping a cheating boyfriend?

  With dark circles under deer-in-the-headlight eyes, Bobby looked like death warmed over. Blond hair stood at all angles like he’d spent the night fisting it in frustration. His tall frame slumped into a chair on the other side of the glass, while the accompanying guard held the wall up behind him like he had a rod up his – er, spine. If the situation weren’t so dire, it would’ve made me laugh to think the squat guard could’ve stood a chance against his charge. Physically Bobby was present, but I couldn’t say the same for his mental state.

  “I’m at a loss, Vic,” Bobby mumbled into the two-way speakerphone. “Why is this happening?”

  “Don’t worry, Bobby,” I soothed. “I’m here for you. So is Zeke. He’s checking into all this right now.”

  That brought Bobby’s glazed eyes to mine. “Zeke’s helping me?”

  I nodded. “Neither of us believe the charges against you. Zeke said it’s probably some overzealous anti-religion idiot at the DA’s office, especially if all they’ve got is that empty medicine bottle from your curbside trash.”

  “I’ve been sitting here all night wondering if this is how Jesus felt when He was wrongly accused.”

  Leave it to Bobby to tie circumstances to the spiritual. Just as long as we didn’t have a crucifixion or a giant earthquake that loosed his chains and opened the jail doors, we’d be fine.

  “When do you go before the judge for preliminaries?” I asked.

  “Sometime later this morning.”

  “No worries then. Your parents will cover whatever bond is set, and you’ll be out of here by noon.”

  “If they will,” Bobby responded. “After the phone call in the middle of the night, I haven’t heard or seen hide nor hair of them.”

  “Wait,” I said. “They haven’t even visited you?”

  “Nope. Likely they’ve spent the night in conference for damage control.”

  “Damage control?”

  “For the ministry. The media’s gonna have a field day you know.”

  The shock of realization hit me like a bucket of ice-cold beer on wet t-shirt night. “Damn the media. You’re their son.”

  Bobby sighed. “Now you see why I’ve rarely seen eye-to-eye with them. It’s their ministry expectations above all else…including me.”

  “Then I’ll take care of your bail.”

  “With what?”

  “I’ll…I’ll…,” I started before I could bring myself to say the words. “I’ll go into hock. Sell my soul. Grovel at my dad’s feet if I have to.”

  “Can’t let you do that, Vic.”

  “As long as you show up for court he’ll get his money back. Or when they drop these ridiculous charges.”

  “Still can’t let you do that,” he said. “You and your dad are like warriors with endless supplies of hand grenades. One of you would end up dead and the other in here with me before I even went to trial.”

  He had a point. “Then we gotta get them to drop the charges.”

  “Easier said than done. Unless…”

  I could almost hear the wheels loosen and begin to turn in Bobby’s brain as thought processes ramped back up from the stresses of a night in the slammer. A light gleamed in his eyes. His jaw set.

  “Yeah?” I prompted.

  “There’s a key to my house hidden in a clay pot near the garage. Do you think you could get inside?”

  “Sure. What do you need me to look for?”

  “Those boxes in the spare bedroom where you changed. Some of them were from Amy’s mom that we never sorted through.”

  “I thought you dragged them all to the curb.”

  “Not those,” Bobby murmured. “I hadn’t returned for them yet.”

  Ah-ha. The half-hearted greeting. The makeshift football. The bad attitude. “Was that what had you all upset when I got there yesterday?”

  Bobby nodded. “There’s something in there you need to see.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Mom always said a lady never sweats. She glistens. Seems God forgot that tidbit when He hardwired my endocrine system because I can sweat just as much as Pastor Dennis during a holy roller revival. I read somewhere once it’s not the heat but the humidity. That moron apparently never visited central Texas in June – and was probably male.

  While Zeke spent the day in his cool comfortable office poking around the periphery of a Dallas PD case, I spent the afternoon parked up the next street behind a row of boxwood waiting for a chance to enter Bobby’s modest home. Quite a far cry from the Vernet estate across town, that’s for sure. I got a good look at it this time too. Tan siding. Brick façade on the lower half. Standard two-car garage we’d successfully made a dent in the day before. What I’d seen inside the house was pretty cookie-cutter for this subdivision.

  ‘Cept for the view through the big picture window. Officers crawled around inside and ducked under yellow crime scene tape wrapped around the outside like a package expressed from Santa Claus.

  All this for an empty bottle of sleeping pills? Talk about overkill.

  “Are you okay, dear?”

  The question from the neighbor startled me in my half-sleep state. It’s really hard to stay conscious when your day starts way too early and the heat sends you into a catatonic state. That and the fact I really had to pee after downing my third coke.

  I blinked then recognized Nosey Nana from yesterday’s adventure of unpacking with Bobby. Coifed gray hair was teased high like a coil of cotton candy at the state fair. The bright pink nylon wind suit sold the appearance of an afternoon out for a walk, but seeing it just made me sweat all the more.

  “I’m fine,” I mumbled, wiping sleep-induced drool from the corner of my mouth.

  “Oh, I recognize you now,” Nosey Nana proclaimed. “You were over yesterday helping out the young pastor who lives next door.”

  “Yeah, I’m a family friend.”

  Nana shook her head. “Such a sweet thing, his wife. Sure is a shame what happened.”

  She gave me the look. You know, that direct stare with eyebrows raised in expectation and a mouth crossed between a smile and surprised shock. So fake. So earnest for information she could spread around like the ranking member of Gossipers ‘R Us. I was so not in the mood.

  “Well don’t believe everything you hear,” I said. “There’s more to the story than what the Neighborhood Watch and Gossip Committee is probably saying.”

  The comment got me a purse of orange-red lips and a sniff before she took up the trot again, arms swinging and butt jiggling like two trapped cats fighting for supremacy. Told you I could be bitchy when I didn’t get enough sleep. I rubbed my forehead, took another sip of warm and watered-down pop, then punched in Zeke’s number on my cell.

  “What now, Vicki?”

  “Why’s Bobby’s house been crawling with cops all day?” I asked.

  A pause. “Please tell me you’re not attempting a stakeout.”

  “I thought those were at night. What’re they called in the middle of the day?”

  “Stay away from his house,” Zeke commanded.<
br />
  “It’s not like I meant to hang here all afternoon, but the cops won’t leave and Bobby asked me to check on something.”

  “Don’t tell me you have a key to his house now.”

  I hesitated. “Maybe.”

  The sigh came out more like a growl. “Look, I’m only going to say this once,” Zeke grumbled. “Stay away from the crime scene.”

  “But no crime was committed here. Why’re they blocking it off?”

  “They found evidence there that may have been used in a crime.”

  “It was on the curb,” I countered.

  “Which leads a good investigator to dig deeper and check the house.”

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “It’s what I’d do in their shoes,” Zeke said, “especially considering the extremely weak evidence they’ve collected so far. They’re going to need more than an empty bottle found at the curb to make the DA’s case against Bobby stick.”

  “But what about when Bobby gets home?” I asked.

  “That might be awhile. His bail was set pretty high.”

  “For a bottle of sleeping pills? What about his parents?”

  “No one’s shown up to bond him out yet,” Zeke confessed. “It’s going on four o’clock, so without a miracle he’ll probably have to wait until tomorrow.”

  The thought of Bobby spending another night in jail about made me sick. Or maybe it was the heat. I wanted to drive right over to the Vernet mansion, blast through their gates, then grab Mary Jo by her skinny little neck and wring it like a chicken. How dare a mother abandon her child. May as well have sentenced him to death.

  The image of a pregnant Amy splayed out in a parking lot popped into my mind. Ouch!

  “So what now?” I finally asked.

  “There’s nothing else to do today. Now go home, clean up, and get ready for work tonight.”

  Work – oh, crap. In all the distractions I’d almost forgotten what day it was. Janine would be out of classes soon and calling again for an update if I didn’t catch her first. I could come back to Bobby’s house later tonight after I got off work. When it wasn’t invaded by cops. When it was quiet. Dark. Didn’t Zeke say stakeouts were usually at night?

  Oh yeah. That was me.

  ***

  Yellow crime scene tape glowed under the muted cast of streetlights like a specter screaming to stay away from a haunted house. ‘Course I don’t believe in spooks, so I ignored my imagination and crept in the shadows around the side of Bobby’s garage then plucked the key from the fake rock nestled in the terra cotta urn.

  I’m not sure why people do that. You know, put a key to their house inside an obvious fake rock right out in the open. It’s fooling nobody. Instead it’s almost an advertisement to thieves like a billboard publicizing a free-for-all inside someone’s house. If I ever owned a house I’d just bury the key in the garden. Then again I’d probably forget where I buried it.

  Sneaking around to the rear porch, I spied a strip of yellow tape at the back door. One end was floating like a streamer left over from a backyard barbeque. As I entered the house, I reminded myself the whole walk across the living room that I had permission to be there. All Nosey Nana had to do if she was up at this hour for a pee run was to ask Bobby – well, once he was bailed out of jail.

  After shutting out the late night cicada serenade and making my way upstairs, I stood at the top of the staircase and listened to the silence. What was once on its way to being a happy home felt heavy and oppressive without life pulsating between the walls. No husband snoring down the hall. No pregnant wife up emptying her overwrought bladder or for a three A.M. feeding. No baby’s cry. Maybe Bobby was better off spending another night in the slammer than here with the memories of what should’ve been.

  With the dark piece of plastic bag secured over the flashlight, soft illumination revealed the spare bedroom. Once neatly stacked blue t-shirts were scattered. Box contents were dumped across the bed and on the floor. A slashed mattress propped against the wall with box springs askew. It didn’t look so much like police had searched for anything – more like they’d released a Texas-sized tornado. My job just got harder.

  I sighed, tipped a box upright then shoved in t-shirts until they were out of the way. After setting that box in the hallway, I grabbed another and sat down on the floor to begin the real work.

  “The things I go through for friends,” I grumbled.

  An hour later I wished for my bed. Which made me wish for Nick. Which made me remember in whose house I was. Which made me think of Ford F-150s.

  Which woke me up enough to realize what I held in my hand.

  “Well hello,” I murmured. “Where’ve you been all night?”

  The hand-carved humidor was beautiful even in the diffused light, the patina at the edges caused by the oils of skin touching it over years of opening and closing. A cache of envelopes yellowed with age spilled across the lined interior while the faint scent of tobacco tickled my nose. It reminded me of visits to Louisiana with Janine when we were girls. It smelled like her grandfather when he’d hug us. If my olfactory memory served, we’re not talking just any cigar. The best of the best. This humidor once contained Gurkha’s His Majesty’s Reserve. At nearly a thousand dollars a stogie, we’re talking some serious coin.

  How did Amy’s mom come to own a humidor that contained some of the most expensive cigars in the world? The only reason it was still here was because the police who’d searched this room earlier probably had no clue how much the humidor alone was worth. They could’ve cared less about the letters too.

  The envelope on top appeared disturbed, the letter peeking out from beneath the fold as if haphazardly shoved inside. Unsigned love notes from an admirer. The officers had likely had a good laugh after perusing the first few. The ones underneath remained undisturbed until I got to the bottom.

  The flap was cracked. I unfolded the missive to discover the lone letter with a signature, a name Bobby hadn’t dared speak aloud over the jail phone. Amy’s father wasn’t just any Tom, Dick, or Harry. I stared at the signature of one Julio Benito Juarez – the Mexican Ambassador to the United States.

  My whistle of surprise changed to a squeak with the press of metal against the back of my skull and an unfamiliar male voice in my ear.

  “Hands up.”

  Chapter Twelve

  There’s something to be said for having friends in high places – in this case, law enforcement.

  “Victoria Bohanan. Any relation to…”

  “Distantly,” I said.

  ‘Course I didn’t tell Detective Horace Duncan the distance between me and my father was merely symbolic. We lived in the same town, but we may as well have lived on separate planets.

  But I digress.

  When the detective dragged my sorry carcass from Bobby’s house before sunrise tinged the sky pink, I should’ve been scared beyond all reason. I was dead. Headed to the slammer if I couldn’t sweet talk my way out of this one. Soon to become someone’s unwilling bitch. But there’s something about pulling an all-nighter that causes my sanity to go the way of the rotary phone.

  Or maybe it had more to do with Duncan’s surly attitude as he shoved me through the front doors of the precinct. Rumpled cheap suit, balding dome, and a greasy complexion in the early-morning mugginess wasn’t nearly as bad as the stench of Old Spice in the close confines of the interrogation room. Hard dark eyes swept over and through me like I was a mere apparition – ‘cept when settled too long below my neck.

  Since arriving on this side of puberty, I’d had many a man stare and talk to the endowments God chose to bless me with. For some, I didn’t mind accentuating the positives. For others, I didn’t care for the slimy optical undressing. Duncan fit firmly into the others category, though I was inclined to dislike him on first sight – not to mention the fact he hadn’t let me have my one phone call yet.

  Duncan continued, “Did
n’t you see the police tape?”

  “Was that what that was?” I asked, playing innocent and ditzy.

  “Can you read?”

  “Not in the dark.”

  Duncan reached into his pocket, pulled out a roll, and unwound a short section. “Can you read it now?”

  “Police line,” I repeated. “Do not cross.”

  “Which you did.”

  “No I didn’t.”

  “What do you call it then?”

  I pointed. “That particular tape wasn’t there.”

  That got me a purse of thin lips. “But some just like it was.”

  “Says you.”

  “And a whole investigative crew,” Duncan returned. “It means you do not go under it.”

  “I didn’t go under it,” I countered. “The only thing I saw near the back door was a yellow streamer with one end attached to the house and another end floating in the breeze like a windsock.”

  The detective cricked his neck. “Under, over, around or through, you don’t cross a police line.”

  “Can you take these things off?” I asked, jiggling my cuffed hands in his face. “They’re cutting into my wrists.”

  His fist jostled the table and echoed between the walls. “You weren’t just breaking and entering, but breaking and entering a crime scene.”

  “I didn’t break and enter. I had permission to be there.”

  “Permission? From who?”

  “The homeowner. And I had a key.”

  “You mean this thing?” Duncan asked as he flung the key onto the table. “It’s still not a get out of jail free card.”

  I tried another track. “Don’t you guys record all inmate conversations?”

  “What’s that got to do with…?”

  “Mr. Vernet specifically asked me to find something for him.”

  “What do you fancy yourself? Some private investigator? Nancy Drew?”

  “Just someone helping out a friend is all.”

  “In case you didn’t know, PI’s are required to be licensed. You’re just some bartender babe.”

  “Hey, I have a B.A.,” I responded.

  “In what? Bad-Assery?”

  “Business, dumb-ass.”

  “So why’re you wasting it bartending?” Duncan asked.

  “Maybe I’m planning to open my own place someday.”

  He leaned forward, his stare dipping again below my neck. “So why were you at my crime scene?”