West Texas Dead: A Kailey and Shinto Mystery

by Frances Hight

  Shinto clapped her hands. “Awesome. It’s settled. We question everything. Make our notes and compare them. Then, when we’re ready, we’ll both go see him. Your boy’s not going anywhere.”

  “He’s not my boy, plus I think I should see Junior alone. I don’t want to get you in hot water with your boy, Allen.”

  Shinto ignored my little dig. “Still drink that Lone Star swill?”

  “Longnecks only,” I said. “You still choke down anchovies on your pizza?”

  “The fishier the better.”

  Before I made it to my car my phone pinged. “Officer Carmichael at your service.”

  “Kailey?”

  “Harper?”

  Harper huffed. “Now that we have our names clear, we need to meet. ASAP.”

  “Sorry, I’m in the middle of something.” I snapped my fingers. “Hey, you like pizza with anchovies?”

  “Why?”

  “Another officer and I are going over the Junior Alvarez case. You interested?”

  “That’s actually why I’m calling.”

  “Meet us at twenty-six oh one Boyd in about an hour.”

  “Deal.” Click and a dial tone.

  “Good-bye to you too, Harper. Me, too. Can’t wait. So glad you called.” The dial tone had nothing to say.

  Forty minutes later and balancing the pizza box in one hand so as not to tip and stick cheese to the box top, I rang Shinto’s bell. Nothing. Naturally.

  I stuck my head in the door and yelled, “Shinto, we’re going to have a visitor.” I hurried in ready to devour several pieces of the delicious pie. All the way there with the pizza smelling up my car, I’d developed a serious craving. Even for anchovies. Almost grabbed a slice on the way. Temptation, you evil, stomach-growling, bitch.

  When I entered, I saw Shinto sitting cross-legged on the couch in a thin white t-shirt and gray gym shorts with the police emblem on both. She had files on either side of her and one open in her lap.

  “Ooh, that smells heavenly.” She stretched out her arms and wiggled her fingers. “Come to mama, baby.”

  “Heather?”

  “Gone to stay at her apartment for a few days.”

  “I thought you two were going to move in—”

  “We are. She needs more time is all.”

  “More for us,” I handed her the box. “I’ll get paper plates and napkins,”

  She slid the pizza box carefully onto the coffee table and rose to help. “Who’s the visitor?”

  We both walked to the kitchen. I helped myself to a Lone Star from the refrigerator while she got the napkins and plates. I leaned against the counter and took a gulp. “DEA. Agent Harper Salazar.”

  “Why is she coming here?”

  I shrugged. The doorbell rang. “She said she had some information that might help our case. More important, Captain told me we need to liaison with her.”

  “Oh, my,” Shinto said. “Liaison.”

  “Shut up.” I headed for the front door.

  “She’s a Fed, Kailey. She’ll want quid pro quo,” Shinto called.

  I flung open the door and there stood DEA Agent Harper Salazar dressed in a sundress that had to have come off a runway in Milan.

  “I brought dessert.” She shoved a box into my hands and scooted past me and up to Shinto who dangled three Lone Stars between her fingers. Harper took one and said, “Hi, I’m Harper.”

  “Shinto.”

  “What an unusual name,” Harper said. “I like it.”

  “Yours isn’t all that normal either,” Shinto countered. “Not really a man, are you?”

  Harper winked. “I’m undercover and real good with makeup.”

  “I think I might like her,” Shinto said.

  “Pizza?” I offered Harper a plate and napkin while Shinto opened the box.

  After we polished off the pie and a six-pack of beer, we eyed the box that Harper brought.

  She opened it with a flourish. “I made cupcakes.”

  Shinto snatched one, took a bite and licked the remnants of cream cheese frosting off her upper lip. “Oh my god. There are cupcakes and there are CUPCAKES.” She finished another one and looked over what remained.“Where’d you learn to cook? Culinary Institute of America?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did.” She smiled. “Like ’em?”

  “If tongues could have orgasms—”

  “Shinto,” I cautioned.

  “Fine.” Shinto bit into a chocolate cake with cream frosting and a sprinkle of coffee beans.

  “Junior Alvarez especially liked that one you’re biting into.”

  Shinto stopped chewing and her mouth hung open. “How did Junior Alvarez get a hold of one of your cupcakes?”

  “Long story,” Harper said. “He and I had a sort of encounter. He knows me as Elizabeth, the name I use while I’m undercover. A little spoiled, somewhat timid, rich girl who likes bad boys.”

  “Don’t we all?” I said. “Now, girl, tell us what’s going on. You tossed a rattlesnake in the middle of one investigation. Maybe two. We need to talk about that.”

  Harper nodded. “Thought that might get your attention.”

  “Where do we start?”

  “How about we get back to the business of murder?” Shinto said. “Sprinkle in a little gang action for spice.”

  “Works for me.” I leaned forward and snagged a key lime concoction with a green twist of lime embedded in the frosting. “Harper, you are looking at the big picture. Your cocaine highway from Mexico to Canada. Fill us in on that, and we’ll fill you in on our tiny speck of a city here in West Texas. I got a feeling things are going to come together somewhere along the way.”

  “You told me about your goings-on at the Chaparral Apartments.” Harper dabbed daintily at her mouth with a napkin. “I told you we kept that place under surveillance for a while, so I pulled some of our footage and saw something interesting about an hour before the murder. This guy, clearly not a resident, we’d seen him before, loitering around, generally acting suspicious. He must have walked by the apartment a dozen times. Then we lost him behind some bushes.” She bent over and pulled a tablet from her Louis Vuitton purse. “Check it out.” She tapped a few buttons and swiveled the tablet so we could all see.

  “Government issue you that iPad?” Shinto asked. “I’m hitting Requisition up for one in the morning.”

  “Optimist,” I said.

  “Time and date stamp are on twenty-four-hour military time,” Harper said. “Our cameras are motion activated, so you’ll notice some jumps. Here is a printout of the relevant dates and times. My team reviewed the footage and captured all the times Mr. Suspicious was seen hanging around the apartment complex. I also noted all the times Junior Alvarez came and went. You want those too?”

  “That would help.” I saw Suspicious Guy onscreen for the first time. Much shorter and lots stockier than Junior. Tiny details, but important. “Harper, this is really good stuff. Now, what can we do for you?”

  “I do want something from you both.”

  Shinto gave me her I-told-you-so-look I knew so well.

  “Before I begin,” Harper said, “I’ll confess I have checked you guys out. I mean, a deep dive into you both. I know how tight your friendship is and how far it goes back. Shinto, I talked to your superiors in the Army and dug all the way back to your kindergarten teacher.”

  Shinto sputtered and stood. “That woman was a cunt.”

  Harper closed the tablet and folded her hands. “Let me explain.”

  Shinto sat down and said through clenched teeth, “I suggest you do.”

  Harper turned to me. “Kailey, I did the same with you. I talked to your superior in Dallas who fell all over himself bragging about you. I am very sorry about your daughter. One night we are going to have a sit down, and you are going to tell me all about Derek.”

  I shrugged.

  “Ooh, yes. Let’s talk about Derek.” Shinto said.

  Harper continued, “I’ve gotten permission from my
superiors and yours to read you into my ‘big picture.’ Only thing is you will both need to report to me for the duration of the investigation.”

  Shinto sat back and crossed her arms.

  I tapped my foot. Rapidly.

  “Report to you,” Shinto said.

  “If you have a problem with that, you should talk with your captain. In fact, call him. He’s expecting to hear from us.”

  Captain Samosa answered on the first ring. “Put me on speaker,” he said. “I don’t want to repeat myself.”

  “Yes, sir.” I may have sounded surlier than I needed to be.

  “Got a bee up your ass, Carmichael?”

  “No sir. Officers Carmichael and Elliot, reporting with DEA agent Harper Salazar as requested.”

  “She filled you all in on our arrangement?”

  Neither Shinto nor I spoke up.

  “Officers?” he said.

  “Captain, I have open cases.” Shinto glared at the phone.

  “Everyone has open cases, Shinto. Your partner Officer Dempsey has,” he cleared his throat, “volunteered to help while you are out on assignment. I want your undivided attention on this case. If Allen needs assistance, which I am sure he won’t, I’ll assign someone. Questions?”

  Again Shinto and I remained silent.

  “Good. This conversation is over.” We both heard the dial tone.

  “What the shit?” Shinto glared at Harper.

  Harper smiled tightly. “I’ll ask one more time. Are we going to have a problem? Shinto?”

  Shinto fumed and tossed the remains of the cupcake she’d been eating into the box.

  I wanted to get us back on track. “I take it Junior likes your cupcakes?”

  Harper brightened. “He also likes brunettes with money problems. I’ve been working him undercover, almost recruited him, when this arrest happened. Bad timing doesn’t even come close.” She grinned primly. “He’s a potentially great contact. Been in the system since twelve or so. Bent but not too broken. Born to a crack-addicted mother and an addict father. Got streetwise way too early and remarkably survived it all with a touch of conscience.” She stood and paced. “There’s a glimmer of heart in that man, and I swear I’m beginning to see it.”

  Shinto chimed in. “Gee. Sounds like you really got to know our poor Junior Alvarez well.” She said it all wide-eyed and innocent. I felt sure Harper would take the bait. To her credit, she ignored it.

  “Junior’s arrest screwed up my timeline and set me back. If we can get him out of jail I know he can be an asset.” She stopped pacing and locked her gaze with Shinto’s. “Any idea what idiot decided to arrest him?”

  “What do you mean, Junior can be an asset?” I queried.

  “While undercover as Elizabeth Parks, I’ve been working at the bank with Yolanda Garcia. She’s the Los Demonios gang mama and Miguel Castillo’s main squeeze. We’ve been hanging out together. One day she introduced me to Junior at the gang’s party house. Junior was . . . interesting. She coughed. “We hit it off. I pulled his sheet, got a sense of his early years. No way he murdered that woman. I about convinced him I needed a job with his gang to make some extra cash when bam. He gets nabbed for a crime he didn’t commit. Our first order of business is to get him out of jail and working for us.”

  Shinto looked at me. “That ought to make you happy, Kailey.”

  “What does that mean?” Harper looked from Shinto to me and back to Shinto.

  “Nothing. I’ve thought Junior was innocent all along and it pisses Shinto off that I was right.”

  “No. I’m all about truth and justice and all that American way crap.”

  “See what I mean?” I said.

  “Ladies, ladies—and I use the term loosely. We have a lot of work to do in a very short time.”

  “You’re right,” Shinto said. “Gotta say, you sure do know how to drop a bomb.” She jumped up. “We have beer. Any more of those cupcakes left? Let’s figure out how to get Harper’s boyfriend out of jail.”

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Junior

  Chigger stroked his chin. “Freddie has always been Miguel’s favorite. Until you happened along.”

  “C’mon Chigger, this ain’t kindergarten.” I chewed a piece of mystery meat and watched the circus around us in the cafeteria. I felt them sizing me up, the only really fresh meat in the cafeteria. Bring it on assholes.

  Chigger nodded to a group strutting by checking us out. “Want me to tell you the story or not, dude?” He nodded to a friend. “Hey, Big Baby, how you doing, man?”

  A lumbering, tattooed vato the size of a refrigerator shoved another guy out of the way and sat down next to Chigger, his tray a study in prison food architecture. He focused his beady browns on me and snarled. “Who the fuck are you?”

  The dance continues.

  Chigger elbowed Big Baby and said, “He’s cool, Baby. This is Junior. Junior and I are tight, man.”

  Baby stared me down a few more seconds and then attacked the pile on his metal plate. The boy could eat. Watching him drove the hunger right out of me. I scooted back in my plastic chair and said, “Think I’ll get some air.” I picked up my tray, dumped all the food in the trash, and headed out of the cafeteria. Wonder if this place has a library.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Kailey and Shinto

  I stretched and felt a vertebrae shift. “Guys, it’s late. What do you say we call it a night? Besides, Shinto drank all the beer.”

  She stuck her tongue out at me.

  “What are we going to do with any of this anyway?” I raked hair out of my eyes. “We can’t jeopardize your whole operation to get Junior out of jail.”

  Harper yawned. “First, I’ll call my superiors, inform them what I’ve got, and see if they can’t pull strings to get Junior out of this mess. Hell, I’ll ask them to classify him as my informant, if I have to. I want to get Junior’s take on our video. He lives there, for god’s sake. May even be able to ID our mystery man.”

  “Indeed,” I said. “Good thinking. Whatever we can do to figure out who that guy in the video is. Then again, we’ll still have to connect him to the murder. At this moment all we have is him lurking around the apartment.”

  Harper got up, stretched, and scooped up papers. “Let’s sleep on it. Meet up tomorrow around eleven? I hear La Bodega is decent. By then I should have some answers.”

  Shinto stopped collecting beer bottles for a beat. “Lady, you are a quick study. La Bodega makes the best migas in Texas. They will so kick your hangover in the ass. I’ll check with some of my contacts to see if I can ID the asshole too. See you guys there.”

  “Funny thing,” Harper said. “Never had a hangover in my life,”

  Shinto squinted at her. “Of course you haven’t.”

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Junior

  I got back to our cell and caught Chigger taking a dump. “Dude. Mercy flush. Jesus.”

  “Thought you’d never make it back,” he said, plucking TP sheets from the holder on the wall. “Where you been?”

  “Library.”

  “They got one of those here?” Chigger flushed and peeled his bony ass off the stainless-steel throne. “We need to finish our Get Out of Jail Free talk, bro.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You need to know. Freddie’s been bragging how he shafted you. Said he fucked that old lady you were sweet on. Then wasted her. Sliced her up bad. Stabbed her a million times and cut her tits off. Guy is one twisted motherfucker.”

  I clasped both my hands together and gripped hard to keep them off the little weasel’s neck.

  “Here’s the best part,” Chigger continued. “Says he stole your knife. Ripped you off one night when you were out. Then made sure she saw it up close. Called it your special knife for whores. She cried for you. ’Course you didn’t come.” Chigger chuckled. “He tossed your knife in the Dumpster behind your building for the cops to find.” Chigger looked off into the distance and smiled. “Tw
isted asshole sure paints a picture, you know?”

  I painted quite a different picture in my head, a finger painting in blood. Fuck You’s face, his blood, and my hands tearing open his throat.

  I hit the floor and began cranking out pushups. It was all I could do to stay sane. It probably kept Chigger alive. I didn’t give a shit. I kept at it until lights out.

  Chigger climbed up onto his bunk and never said a peep after that.

  I must have slept because the next thing I knew, the morning wake-up buzzer roused me from an Elizabeth wet dream. I laid there trying to relive it when I heard, “Alvarez, Junior Alvarez, Number D723497.” The guard’s voice boomed down the row of cells.

  I hit my feet before the key turned in the cell door. Outside, through my barred window, the sun lit the early morning dark with a tinge of purple. Chigger snored on in his bunk. I stood at attention. The guard said, “You are being released. Grab your belongings. We’re headed for processing.”

  I didn’t question my good fortune. I needed to get my hands on a knife and find me one Fuck You asshole.

  I signed for my items: wallet with eleven dollars still in it, house keys, thirty-seven cents in change, dead cell phone, and a wrinkled pile of clothes. I changed out of my prison uniform and got ushered into an interview room.

  “Hey, what the fuck is this?”

  The guard grinned. “Strings,” he said and shut the door.

  I heard the key turn in the lock.

  I knew it had to be too good to be true. Roll with it, dude. I sat down and clasped hands and waited. Let’s see what strings the system has in store for me.

  The lock clinked again, the door opened, and Officer Kailey Carmichael, in full uniform, strode into the room. All business. All cop.

  “Good morning, Junior.”

  “Professor?”

  “For the umpteenth time, Junior. I’m not a professor.”

  “You’re my strings,” I said.

  “Your what?”

  “Not important. Am I being released or what?” I tried damn hard to be polite. Until I got out of here, I had to play the game.