Gotcha Detective Agency Mystery Box Set

by Jamie Lee Scott

  She reached in her purse and pulled out a cigarette. Nick was there to light it for her before I was even aware he had a lighter in his hand.

  “Where did you live when this happened?” Nick was all business.

  “We lived downtown, just a few blocks from Hennepin,” she blubbered. “She was found under the bridge near the arts center. Beaten and strangled. Some junkie had choked the life out of her.”

  Nick and I looked at each other. Nick asked, “I thought they never found the killer? How do you know it was a junkie?”

  Wilma’s face got red, and her eyes bulged. “Had to be a junkie. Whoever killed her was looking for drugs. They stripped her clothes off, and all of the pockets were pulled inside out. He kicked the snot out of her, broke her ribs, her jaw, her cheekbone, then grabbed whatever was closest, they think it was a piece of rope, and choked the life out of her.”

  “Ms. Dahl, I’m so sorry,” I said. “I can’t imagine having both of your daughters die in such similar situations. Was Jane back on the streets by that time?”

  Still shaken, she spat, “Damn right she was. Dirty little whore had brought a man into my home. He’d paid her for sex, and I walked in to find her on her knees in front of him, sucking his dick while he was sprawled on my couch. She’d needed drug money.”

  I shivered at the words. Junkies would do anything for a fix. So selfish and so manipulative. I’d learned that only too recently. The further I stayed away from junkies, the better. This gave me a crazy thought. I wanted to pull Nick away from Wilma, but I had to be patient and wait it out.

  My heart raced at the thought. I even wanted to call Cortnie and ask her opinion. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t thought of it before.

  I tapped my toe on the pavement unconsciously. I hadn’t even known I was doing it until both Nick and Wilma turned to stare at me.

  “Late for something?” Wilma asked.

  “I’m sorry, no, it’s just that I drank entirely too much coffee this morning and I need to pee.” I wiggled a little as I told the lie.

  Wilma looked at Nick and winked. “I’ve got to get to work.” She touched his arm with the tips of her fake fingernails. “The officers came by last night, so you have my number if you need to call me. I’ll have my cell phone on.”

  “Just one question, Wilma.” Nick oozed sweetness.

  “Sure, hon.”

  “Did Lena talk about her job much? I know she worked for the bank. Was there anything about the bank that she ever talked about?”

  Wilma’s demeanor stiffened slightly, and she sucked on her cigarette. “She didn’t really talk about work much. But we work for the same bank, in different departments. Who wants to work all day, and then talk about it when they get home?” She looked down at her watch. “I really gotta split.”

  She wiggled her butt from side to side as she walked to her car, flicking the burned down cigarette into the bushes.

  I stopped fidgeting when Wilma’s back was turned.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Nick asked.

  I shook with anticipation. “We missed an incredible angle here.”

  Nick frowned.

  “I’m serious. What about the other girls? The real hookers? And maybe their pimps? Don’t you think they’d be pissed that we are running off their business? What better way to stop the program than to stick a shiv in one of ours and get us to stop because it’s too dangerous?”

  Nick cocked his head as he thought about it. “You have a point, but I don’t think that’s our angle.”

  My expression went from hopeful to bleak. “Why not?”

  Nick held up his hand, and before he could say anything, Wilma drove past, nearly running me over as she waved to Nick. I jumped back, waving my arms in the air to keep my balance.

  Nick stepped closer, so close I could smell the faint scent of soap. I may have closed my eyes and sniffed, but I’d never admit to it.

  His hand went up again, his index finger pointed. “One, she was not shivved. Two, I’m sure those hookers don’t have the smarts to think that through, or they’d be doing something other than selling their bodies. Three, she was strangled, which usually means it’s personal, and the person enjoyed feeling the life leave the body--”

  “For a pimp, it could be personal. He’d be pissed that his income is being interfered with,” I interrupted.

  He sighed. “Are you finished?”

  I stared him in the eyes, daring him to be mean to me. Actually, I stared because I liked looking in his eyes, and I didn’t get the chance that often lately. He had nice eyes. Yes, I know I’ve mentioned that before. I’ll probably mention it again.

  “I’m not all that familiar with the hierarchy of prostitution in this town. These girls may be working for someone, or working on their own. I don’t know. I’ll check with Vice.”

  I looked down at the ground, hating that my idea wasn’t as brilliant as I’d thought. “Fine.”

  “Can we go now?” He put his arm over my shoulder and we walked to the car. “I want to check on the murder in Minneapolis. Something isn’t adding up.”

  Something wasn’t adding up all right! Nick had his arm around me. My heart melted a little. I wanted to reciprocate and put my arm around his waist, but I was afraid if I did, he’d realize what he’d done.

  When we got to the car, he walked me to the passenger side and leaned in. I thought he was going to open the door for me, but instead, he kissed me. I mean really kissed me. Not on the cheek, but on the lips, and like he meant it.

  I felt the fire shoot from my lips all the way to my toes, and damn right, I kissed that boy back! It may have lasted ten seconds, or ten minutes, I was so caught up in the moment, I lost track of time. When he finally pulled away, I had to restrain myself from leaning forward to beg for more.

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you in the car before we saw Wilma.”

  I was still trying to catch my breath. “Uh.”

  “I’ve wanted to do that for so long. I miss you.”

  I shook my head. I pinched my wrist, hard. I squeezed my eyes closed tight, then opened them again. Yep, he was still standing there, and he was smiling.

  “You okay?”

  Fine, lovely, blissful. No! Not fine, what the hell? “I don’t get you at all.”

  “I miss you.”

  There was a very small part of me that wanted to say, “Where the hell were you when I needed you? I needed a shoulder to cry on, someone to love, where were you then?” Instead, I smiled.

  “You missed me, too?” Even his face looked puzzled.

  Yes, I did, and I’d had a broken heart for so many reasons. I’d finally decided to move on, to find someone with no mutual baggage, and now this. What did I say? Sure, I missed him, I still longed for him, but I didn’t know if I could do it anymore. There was that other part of me that wanted to shove him in the back seat of the car and have sex with him right there. I was fighting my head so hard I thought it’d explode. In the end, I said, “Sure. You’re a good kisser.”

  That was noncommittal, right? That’s what I needed at the moment, because I didn’t think my heart could do this again.

  Nick leaned against the car. “I guess this wasn’t how I expected this to go down.”

  I felt the blood surge into my head, ready to explode. Instead, the words exploded from my mouth. “What did you expect from me? You abandoned me when I needed you most. I watched a man get shot within inches of me, saw my life explode with a bullet, and where the hell were you? I’ll tell you where, you were off licking your ethical wounds, because you thought you’d had sex with a married woman. It was all about you. Did you once think how lonely I’d been in those moments? I’d lost Dominic, you, everything I’d thought was real. And you, you selfish prick, all you could think of was that you’d broken a vow to yourself.”

  I took a deep breath, but I wasn’t finished. When we’d tried to be civil, weeks after the incident at the fruit stand, I’d never told him how I felt
. I was so afraid of being alone again that I kept it to myself. But I’d ended up alone anyway, because he had left me hanging. I was on a roll, and I was going to have my say. When it was over, he could take me back to the office, or leave me. I’d find my own ride.

  “In college, we’d had a good thing. We were friends. Sure, we had sex, but before that we were friends. And you didn’t even have the decency to stay friends when you didn’t want to screw me anymore. Worse, you weren’t even civil. I’d pulled so many strings for you, got you to look at yourself as the athlete you were, and because of that, you got that goddamn scholarship. And who do you think got you into the NFL camp? Your worthless college coach? No, it was my contacts that got you in. Yes, even after you’d kicked me to the curb, I kept rooting for you, and cheering from the sidelines. I knew you had nothing else, so I made sure you knew the right people.”

  Nick’s mouth dropped open, but no words came out.

  “I never expected a thank you, because I never expected you’d ever find out. I did what friends do, I pulled for you, did what I had to do so you wouldn’t end up pumping gas in some service station for the rest of your life. Then I moved on. I got my own life, and it was a pretty good life, too. It’s not my fault it all went to hell.”

  I put my head in my hands, because I just knew my brain was going to start oozing out my ears. “Why the hell did you have to come back here?” I got in his face. “WHY?”

  Oh, holy cow, what had I just done? My mother always warned me that my temper would get the better of me, and she’d been right on so many occasions. I just never thought I’d do this. Ever.

  “Are you done?”

  I couldn’t even look at him. He’d been the love of my life, before Dominic, but Dominic was gone, and Nick was here. The problem with words is that once they’re out, they can’t be unspoken. At the same time, I’d held all of this in for so many years. I’d let him hurt me, make love to me, hurt me again, and all that time, I never told him how I really felt. I didn’t answer, just stood there breathing in and out, trying to put my temper in check.

  “I’m guilty. There isn’t a single thing you’ve said that isn’t true.”

  I supposed this should have made me feel better.

  “I can’t change the things I’ve done, the way I’ve treated you. I wish I could, but we don’t get do overs in life. We do get the chance to try again, though. We come from different worlds, Mimi, and the one I come from is really good at distancing ourselves from uncomfortable situations.”

  He pushed off the car and reached out to touch me. I backed away. The jolt that gave him was visible.

  “I knew you’d been there. I knew all the things you’d done. I was young and stupid and didn’t know how to say thank you back then. It was all about me, and as an athlete, it always had been. I knew there was no way I could ever repay you for what you’d done for me, so I distanced myself. It’s what I do best. My mother was a good teacher. It’s what she did when things got uncomfortable, and so did I.”

  His mother was dead, so how dare he use her for an excuse. I wanted to reach up and slap him across the face.

  “Don’t think for a minute that Ronnie let me forget how I’d gotten into the NFL. Every time I messed up, he threw it in my face. He’d tell me how ungrateful I was for the breaks I’d gotten, and that if it hadn’t been for you calling him, I’d never have even seen the parking lot of San Francisco’s training camp. I’ll admit it, I resented you. I resented that you weren’t even an athlete anymore and you had better connections than I did. I resented that Ronnie was in my face, telling me as much, every time I turned around.”

  I knew he and Ronnie had become close friends, but after a few years, I’d drifted away from Ronnie, and was glad of it. I loved him dearly, and loved frequenting his sports bar, but I had to move on.

  “I know I’d be back home, pumping gas, or loading boxes on a truck somewhere, if it hadn’t been for you. Not that those aren’t noble jobs, but you knew, and so did I, that if I ended up in a job like that, I’d be dealing dope on the side. That was the life in my city. That’d be my life if I went back. Instead, I had football, and then I messed that up, too.”

  I sucked in my retort and blew out my anger. I still had nothing to say.

  “In a twelve step program, there is a step where we go to the people we hurt, and we make reparations. Because I didn’t see you as one of the people hurt by my addictions, I never apologized--”

  Nick’s phone rang. He looked at it. “I’m sorry, I have to answer this.”

  I looked down the street, watching cars go by. I wanted to walk away, be done with it, but I knew, as long as I was in this business, I’d have a connection to Nick. Then it hit me. After this I was done. No more private detective for me. I’d sell my half of the business to Charles, and I’d be gone. There were so many things I could do with my life; I didn’t need to stay in Salinas.

  100

  Charles

  I wasn’t so sure the johns were the way to go about this investigation, and Randy definitely wasn’t a suspect, so I suggested we go talk to Lena’s boss. I was sure the bank manager worked on Saturday, but I didn’t think the bank was open yet.

  “The drive-thru is usually open by eight, so someone has to be there.” Cortnie pulled up to the drive-thru window of the Central Valley Bank, and a lovely young woman of about seventy (she should have been retired by now) was working.

  I thought about leaning across and butting in, but I was sure that’d get me castrated.

  “Is Richard Jimenez working this morning?” Cortnie asked, trying not to sound like she had a beef.

  The woman looked behind her, then back to the window. “May I help you with something?”

  “Yes,” Cortnie drawled, “you can get Mr. Jimenez for me, if he’s in.” Her grin was losing ground.

  The lady looked like she was going to have a heart attack, but she shuffled away from the window and shuffled back a few minutes later. “One moment, please.”

  Cortnie and I sat quietly observing the interior of the huge bank. The Central Valley Bank was one of the oldest banks in the area, and this branch had been in business since the early 1900s. I’d guess that many of the customers had been born close to that time, too, and this bank held a crap ton of money.

  Richard Jimenez approached the window. He looked to be in his forties, with black hair that needed a trim and held in place with some sort of greasy pomade. His skin was dark, and his eyes looked black through the slightly tinted window.

  When he smiled, I was nearly blinded. Damn, dude, lay off the white strips. “How may I help you?”

  I did butt in this time. I flashed my badge. “Mr. Jimenez, we need a few minutes of your time.”

  The smile vanished immediately. That seems to happen a lot around me lately.

  “Please park, I’ll meet you at the back door.” He vanished from view before we could respond.

  Cortnie drove the van round the parking lot and parked near the ATM at the back door. Since it was early on a Saturday morning, the parking lot was nearly empty, except for employee cars.

  Richard unlocked the door to the bank, and stepped outside as we pulled up. Apparently we weren’t going to talk inside.

  We got out and met him in the entryway. “What can I do for you?”

  My sixth sense went on immediate alert. I couldn’t pinpoint what it was that I didn’t like about him, but I didn’t even want to shake his hand.

  “Lena Dahl works for you?” Cortnie asked.

  “I’m sorry, but our employment records are confidential.” He stood with his hands in the pant pockets of his cheap suit.

  “Give me a break. If we came in here on any weekday, we’d know she worked here.” I stood tall, knowing my height would intimidate this man who barely skimmed five-seven.

  “Then why ask?” His tone was smug.

  “Why be an asshole?”

  Cortnie shoved me.

  “Mr. Jimenez, we know Lena worked for yo
u. I’m not sure if she was scheduled to work today, but she won’t be covering her shift.” Cortnie didn’t explain, on purpose I suppose.

  “The loan department doesn’t work Saturdays. Is everything okay?” He leaned in conspiratorially.

  “Mr. Jimenez, Lena died last night,” she said.

  Suddenly his skin wasn’t so dark. “Oh.” I could see him searching for the words, but they weren’t coming.

  “Have you noticed anything strange about Lena’s behavior lately, Mr. Jimenez?” Cortnie asked.

  “I don’t work directly with her, so not really. What happened?” The color had yet to return to his face.

  Lena worked in the loan department, so she wasn’t some fly by night that had only worked there a month or so, she’d earned her position and moved up within loans to become an officer. Maybe Richard only worked with the tellers. Usually banks have a separate division for banking and loans, so maybe they didn’t have much contact, even though he was listed as her boss.

  Cortnie started to answer, but I jumped in. “We aren’t at liberty to give any details at the moment, but we are looking into her recent habits, behavior, boyfriends, stuff like that.”

  “Was she killed?”

  “Yes.” Cortnie’s answer was deliberately vague.

  Richard turned back toward the bank and unlocked the door. “Come inside. We can sit at my desk and talk. This is very distressful. I didn’t work with her directly, but she was a very good employee. Everyone liked her. Her mother works here, too. I’m the head of operations.”

  “Really? So their bosses work for you?”

  “Yes. And I’m here today because the supervisors rotate Saturdays.”

  “Nice.”

  “Lena works in the loan department, and Wilma works on the teller line. Wilma is scheduled to work this morning.” He looked at his watch. “Has she been detained? She hasn’t called to say she’s not coming in.”

  “Not that I know of, but I do know the other detectives were planning to speak with her this morning.”