“We don’t hang out except to do band stuff.” Terry hesitated. But he hesitated for a moment and then added something else. “Check the guy two or three doors down over at the storage place. He got into it with Mark, actually punched him. Almost got arrested for fighting. Stupid Fatty called the cops. Some sort of construction guy, I think.”
“We’ll do that,” Steele said. “Thanks.”
He took one last huge sip of his coffee and headed for the door. As he and Flynt made their way out onto the porch, the door opened behind them. Steele turned and saw Cindy poking her head out of the door.
“He’s not really a bad kid.” Cindy pursed her lips sadly. “He’s just a little lost since his parents died.”
“His attitude is going to get him in trouble.” Steele handed Terry’s phone to Cindy. “You might hang onto this for a day or two until he’s completely in the clear.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Cindy smiled sincerely and nodded in agreement.
“One last thing,” Steele said. “I need both of you to stay away from the rehearsal space for a while. I will let you know when you can go down there. I’ll need you and the band to eventually do an inventory of what, if anything, is missing.”
From behind Cindy, just inside the door, Terry’s voice called out. “How about you find me a drummer instead?”
“Are you sure he’s not really a bad kid?” Flynt sneered.
Cindy gave no answer. Steele could feel her eyes on them as they walked down the porch steps and made their way to the car.
“What a punk,” Flynt said as they settled into the car.
“Yeah, tell me the sky is blue while you’re at it.”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Something was off about him, I think,” Flynt said. “Not sure what yet, though. Something…”
Steele felt it, too. Maybe it was just the little jerk’s attitude…but maybe there was something else that neither Steele nor Flynt could put their fingers on.
“He can’t be all bad, though,” Flynt said.
“Why’s that?”
“He told me liked the Ramones.”
Steele rolled his eyes as he cranked the engine to life.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Noah decided it was time to see how his partner handled decision-making. Steele figured if he could spring the question quick enough, maybe he could get an answer without Flynt second-guessing himself.
“So do we track down the girl or go talk to Mr. Punch ’em Up construction guy?”
“Julie’s just a potential motive, but Miles is a suspect, so we should probably—”
Flynt stopped himself before making the call. The guy was worse off than Steele thought. “So. I’m not sure. What do you think?”
Steele decided not to push. He was here to solve a murder, not psychoanalyze his partner. “We’ll go see Miles first.”
“Can do,” Flynt said. He started plugging in the address for Mindy.
“When’d you get the address?” Steele asked.
“Googled it on the way to Cindy’s. Figured we’d need it eventually.”
Steele smiled and nodded. He hoped Flynt saw it. He was beginning to understand that Flynt didn’t seek out approval in an obvious way. He was probably more about little nods of appreciation or simply being told he’d performed a job well done. Sadly, Steele doubted he got much of either.
The ride was quiet for a little while. Steele was getting to know Flynt well enough to know that this would probably not last. Six minutes later, as they closed in on Miles’ address, he was proven right.
“So, who’s your favorite Beatle?” Flynt asked.
“George,” Steele answered without hesitating.
“Huh, I would have guessed John.”
“Then you would have been wrong.”
“Do you think it’s ok for men to like John?”
“Yes, Flynt. Yes. Like, love, dance with, share a bowl of soup with. Men can like whatever they like as long as it’s legal. Okay?”
“Cool.” Flynt settled into his seat.
“What about you?” Steele asked, figuring it couldn’t hurt to play along. “Who was your favorite Beatle?”
“None of them. I always thought they were overrated.”
There was an entire conversation there that they could have over beers at some point. But Steele wasn’t ready for it just yet. Instead, he nodded to the notebook on Flynt’s lap.
“So when are you going to explain the horse book?”
“Oh, this?” Flynt held the notebook up as if Noah could have been talking about anything else in the world. “Well, it’s actually a unicorn. My mom gave it to me.”
“Sounds like you two had a good relationship,” Steele said, being diplomatic. It was his assessment that Flynt’s relationship with his mother actually went several miles above and beyond the concept of Mamma’s Boy.
“We probably would have,” Flynt said. “I never met her.”
“Adopted?”
“Yup.”
Steele waited for more, but his partner’s natural state of nervous chatter never kicked in. It was the first topic that inspired silence in Flynt, which didn’t exactly suggest a blissful childhood. It reminded Steele that, absurdly out of touch and clueless or not, everyone carries scars from their past. Steele long believed it was the one thing that every single person that ever lived and breathed had in common.
He looked at Flynt out of the corner of his eye as he drove and wondered what other similarities the two of them might have.
* * *
The address Flynt plugged into the GPS took the detectives to a subdivision that Flynt visited during an old case with Bill. Thinking of it, the details of the case came to the surface of his mind in neat rows of data. The victim was a squatter. The killer a real-estate agent. The agent got off by claiming it was self-defense. Flynt’s gut told him the fight wasn’t that one-sided, but there was no evidence to back the theory.
It was strange to be back here, with a new partner and a new victim. But the familiarity of it was oddly comforting. It was one of those subdivisions that always seemed to be growing. Even now, two years after the case with Bill, there was new construction everywhere, but in various states of neglect and inactivity.
“This neighborhood has been on hold for years, since the recession,” Flynt said. “Most of these places have set half-framed for three years or more. I wouldn’t buy one. Would you?”
“No. That one there wouldn’t even pass code.” Steele pointed to the bare lumber of a framed house.
Most of the houses were missing their street or lot numbers, turning the search for Mile’s house into an investigation of its own. They circled the block and were about to go around again when Flynt spotted a pickup full of plywood and some power tools.
“Maybe there?” he asked. “I guess it’s a good neighborhood for a carpenter to live, isn’t it? Lots of jobs around, short commute, right?”
“I doubt anyone here is hiring.” Steele parked at the curb.
They approached the door of the cute, but very simple house. They didn’t need to knock. A man dressed in green shorts, a Kenny Chesney t-shirt, tool belt, and heavy work boots exited the house as they approached. He was carrying a circular saw, headed for his truck.
“Miles Miller?” Steele asked.
“You bet. Can I help you guys?”
“We’re with the police. We need to ask you a few questions.”
“You here to dig up all the bodies I hid in my basement?” The guy grinned as he threw the saw into his truck carelessly.
“Mr. Miller you might not want to make jokes like that right now.”
“Why’s that?” The smile was still there but faltered a bit.
“Are you familiar with a band called Border Bigots?” Steele asked.
“Yeah. Got all their CDs, seen all their shows. I even have a few tee shirts.”
Both detectives were silent. Flynt smiled uncomfortably, trying t
o decide if this was one of those jokes he was going to miss out on.
“I’m just messing with you,” Miles said. “But yeah, they’ve got the storage unit next to mine. They suck. Sort of like little low-lifes with no respect for anyone or anything. Nose rings. Dudes with eyeliner.”
He moved back towards his house, eyeing them oddly. Flynt and Steele followed behind him.
“Don’t you want to know why we’re here, Mr. Miller?” Steele said to Miller’s back. “Or do you already know what happened?”
“I figured you’d tell me when you were ready,” Miller said.
“There’s been a break-in at U-Store.”
Miller chuckled. “I believe it. That place is a hunting ground. My unit’s triple-locked these days.” He stopped just inside his house. “Wait. Are you trying to tell me the Border Punks got cleaned out?” The smile came back to his face with the thought.
“Actually it’s a little more serious than that,” Steele said.
Finally, Miles Miller’s ‘just a couple of guys hangin’ out’ persona dropped. He realized things were getting serious now.
“Wait,” he said. “Are you two homicide detectives?”
Noah nodded. Flynt did, too, though a bit more emphatically.
“The drummer is dead,” Flynt announced, blatant and swift.
Steele gave him a wary look. He made a mental note to talk to Flynt about being so abrupt. Still, he thought Flynt probably picked the method up somewhere. Even Steele was familiar with a theory in regards to interrogations that suggested: If you give people a quick mental shove, they’ll either flail around for balance or put their dukes up.
Miles flailed, confused, not quite grief-stricken. Steele took the opportunity to steer the conversation exactly where he needed it to go.
“What was the nature of your relationship with the band?” he asked.
“My relationship? They were neighbors at the U-Store. They actually rehearse in that little space sometimes. The music was loud and horrible. Lucky me, I have a stockpile of earplugs.”
“Did you ever argue with them? Tell them to turn down the music or anything like that?”
“Sure, I tried, but they wouldn’t listen.”
“So you got in some shouting matches?” Steele asked.
“That’s right.”
“And what if I told you we have a couple of witnesses that say you got in a physical altercation with our victim?”
A rain cloud seemed to form over Miles’ head. “I was getting to that.”
“I’m sure you were, Mr. Miller. Would you mind telling me where you were last night between nine and midnight?”
Flynt watched Miles put his mental dukes up. Steele took note of how closely Flynt watched the man. He wondered what sort of filters Flynt ran a suspect’s statement through. Or, honestly, he wondered if Flynt was thinking of something else completely.
“Last night I was at home with my wife, in bed, watching TV. Do you want to know what we did after?”
“Will she testify to that in court?” Steele asked, ignoring the little snarky jab at the end.
“One hundred percent,” Miles said. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, one thing.”
Without being prompted to do so, Flynt held out the security footage snapshot. He seemed incredibly proud of himself.
“Have you seen these two before?”
“Oh, those little shi—” Miles began.
“Language,” Flynt said cutting him short.
Miles looked more disturbed by the request than he did when he heard that a kid was murdered. “Yeah, I know exactly who they are. They’re the reason I got three locks on my unit.”
“Other friends of the band?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t think so. Pretty sure they’re in like a rival band or something.”
“Is there anything you can tell us about them?” Steele asked.
“They’re brats with bolt cutters. I caught them breaking into my unit a few months back and they ran off before I could get them. This happened twice. What else do you want to hear? It’s not like they stopped to introduce themselves.” He paused, the details all starting to catch up. “Wait. Do you think they killed the other guy?”
“We’re exploring all options,” Steele said. “Are you sure you can’t remember anything? Maybe one of them called the other by a name? Anything would help.”
Miles scratched the back of his head. Steele recognized it as the gesture some people turn to when they’re debating whether or not to keep their mouths shut about something. He’d seen it far too many times.
“Alright, look,” Miles said. “If I help you out can I get, like, immunity or something?”
“That’s not exactly how it works,” Steele said. “But if you help us out, we could help you in turn, by not coming back with a warrant while you and your wife are in bed watching TV between nine and midnight.”
Miles wasted no time getting into his speech. It seemed like it was right on the tip of his tongue the entire time. “The second night I caught them, I got in my truck and followed them. I would have let the police handle it but you know cops.” He smirked, proud of yet another jab. “Worthless slobs. So I handled it myself.”
“Wow.” Steele shifted his voice to fake awe. “Just like Batman.”
“I would never attack kids or anything,” Miles stated. “I just wanted to figure out where they lived so I could rat ’em out to their parents.”
“And how did that go?”
“They didn’t go home. They went straight to ‘practice’ if you can call it that. They had a generator set up in some crummy abandoned flop on the other side of town. I know I said those Border Punks were bad, but these kids…” His eyes went wide. “Not sure I could call it music, and they were all, like… in clown makeup. You should have seen it.”
“Juggalos,” Flynt said, matter-of-factly.
“What?” Steele and Miles asked.
“They’re, uh…” He shrank back, then looked to Noah. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Fine.” Steele turned back to Miles. “So did you go punch one of these kids or what?”
“No, I wasn’t going to touch them. Just stand there and stare at them, so they know that you know, I know… where they practice.”
“I get it, real intimidating-like.” Now it was Steele’s turn to talk as if they were just a couple of guys hanging out, talking about how off-kilter the youth of today could be. Steele knew it was a tactic that worked and that he was rather good at it.
“You keep trying to push my buttons and I’m not giving you the address.”
Steele stared at the man for a second, then turned to Flynt. “You got your cuffs on you?”
Flynt pretended to reach for them, even though he left them at home.
“Alright, alright.” Miles defensively raised his hands. “You got a pen?”
There was venom in the question. Steele was none too pleased that it made him happy. Then, when Flynt broke out the unicorn notebook, Steele found himself having to hold back an ironic laugh.
“Ready when you are,” Flynt said.
CHAPTER NINE
“You have arrived at your destination, baby.”
Flynt smiled at the warm and sultry voice of his GPS. He could tell Steele found it aggravating, but that was okay. Mindy kind of grew on Bill, so he was sure Steele would come around too.
They arrived at the residence of Julie Vernon, also known as Passion Pitts. She lived in a posh neighborhood north of downtown. Her neat, whitewashed plaster house with its picket fence and pretty flowers was not what Flynt was expecting. He hadn’t necessarily been expecting some Transylvanian castle or bondage dungeon, but this picturesque home was taking him for a loop.
“Flynt?” Steele said.
“Yeah?”
“You want to take the lead here?”
“You mean talking to her? No. Not the best idea. I sometimes start stuttering and spitting when I talk to pretty girls.”
Steele flashed his badge as soon as the door opened. The woman that answered the door did not seem to be bothered that there were policemen at her door. She smiled wide, showing a perfectly white and dazzling smile.
“Officers!” Her good cheer was bright, too bright. It even made Flynt wonder what issues this woman had. “Please, come in. Come in.”
Not a single question. She seemed almost desperate to get them inside, skipping introductions. Flynt guessed the lady didn’t want the neighbors to see cops on her porch.
“I am Lieutenant Steele ma’am,” Steele recited when they were inside. “And this is my partner Sergeant Flynt.”
“Oh,” she replied. “The badges were good enough for me, but it’s nice to meet you.”
The house was wide, airy, and filled with a jumble of kitschy junk and pricey antiques, put together in a way that seemed to work.
“Please sit down,” the woman said. She still didn’t volunteer her name. She gestured toward a pair of stools by a wooden bar in the kitchen. “Can I offer you anything?”
Steele quickly declined. Flynt did the same, though he was getting hungry for lunch. A soda might be good right now, too. But he followed Steele’s lead. After all, this was not a social call. One thing was certain, though. The smooth tone of the woman’s voice gave Mindy a run for her money. If Passion Pitts inherited her mother’s voice, she should absolutely be a lead singer.
“Would you like some coffee? Maybe cookies?” She continued as if Steele hadn’t already answered. “Sure you do.” She gave another dazzling smile and turned towards the counters.
Cookies sounded great. Flynt then realized just how ravenously hungry he was becoming. He looked over at Steele who was sitting rigidly on the barstool, all business. In that way, he reminded Flynt a bit of Bill.
Bill would have been cool if he’d asked for a cookie. But for now, Flynt was still trying to size up Steele and did not want a cookie or a soda to come between them. He sat there as the unnamed woman set about pouring coffee for them, waiting for Steele to once again take the reins.
Dead Beat (Flynt and Steele Mystery Book 1) Page 6
