Guilty by Association (Judah Black Novels)

by E. A. Copen

  “Now, wait outside, “I said in my and pointed toward the door. “Both of you.”

  “I ain't going nowhere,” Valentino insisted and crossed his arms. “Not without Elias.”

  I sighed and rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to ward off the headache that was already starting to crawl into my face. “Dr. Ramis, do you have an office or something? Somewhere Detective Tindall would be more comfortable?”

  Doc looked from me to the body and then to Valentino. “You want me to leave you two alone with the body?”

  “That's the idea, Doc.”

  “Oh,” he said quietly but didn't move for a moment. “Just make sure it's still in one piece when I get back, along with everything else in here.” He leaned over the dead body on the table to whisper to me. “And, whatever you do, don't disturb my assistants while they're sleeping. They don't wake gracefully.” He and Tindall made a hasty exit.

  As soon as they were gone, Valentino's posture changed. He hooked his thumbs into his belt, lifted his chin and began to pace along the wall with his eyes locked on me. Maybe pace wasn't the right word. It was more of a stalking movement, like a hungry tiger circling its prey. The way he moved with fluid, purposeful grace and silence shook what little confidence I had in dealing with werewolves. Until proven otherwise, I had to assume that Valentino, like his brother, was exactly that and react accordingly.

  Werewolf body language is complicated, too complicated for a non-expert like myself to have more than a rudimentary grasp on. I remembered from my training that it worked as a form of non-verbal communication, quicker, subtler and more efficient among their own kind most of the time than actual words. To me, it just looked like he was trying to scare me. It was working but I tried not to let it show.

  “You said he's your brother?”

  Valentino changed directions in his stalking but remained always just out of arms' reach as his eyes shifted to the corpse. “Yeah.”

  “You called him Elias. That's his name? Elias Garcia?” Valentino drew a hand over his chin but kept silent. “Look, Mr. Garcia. When I found him, he was like this, lying naked in the middle of the laundromat. No ID. Nothing. If you could just give me some information-”

  He planted his feet and directed a hard scowl at me. “I ain't telling BSI shit.”

  Aha. Well, at least I knew why he was being so combative. I'd expected some level of animosity to exist between the residents of Paint Rock and a government agent. It kind of comes natural when the government forces any group of people from their homes and relocates them to a crappy patch of desert in the middle of nowhere. I'd been relocated against my will, too, but I knew better than to expect any sympathy from these people. So far as they were concerned, I was the enemy. The only thing that was ever going to change that was time and trust.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out the BSI badge I always carried. I showed it to him and then casually tossed it off to the side of the room. “Me neither. As far as I'm concerned, you were never here and this conversation never happened. All I want is a name to go with the face.”

  “You're going to pull his file.”

  “One way or another,” I admitted. “But I'd rather hear your version first.”

  Valentino's forehead wrinkled. “Names have power, puta. A lot of power in places like this. You give me yours and I'll give you his. But I won't sell nobody out. I ain't a rat.”

  “Judah Black.”

  Valentino looked surprised when I extended a hand toward him. He stared at it as if it were a bear trap. Then, he grunted and rolled his shoulders back. “My name's Valentino. That's my brother, Elias. Elias Garcia. He wasn't an official resident here, see, so don't bother checking the roster. Elias was sort of...Well, a drifter.”

  “A drifter?”

  For the first time, Valentino ventured close to the body, though he wrinkled his nose at it. I couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary but, then again, maybe his nose was more sensitive than mine. “He had a problem.”

  “With drugs?” Valentino turned to scowl at me. “We saw the track marks on his arm. Tindall's going theory is that this whole thing can be chalked up to a drug deal gone bad.”

  “No way. Elias was clean. He had to be to sleep in my house. I know. I made him piss in a cup once a week at random. One positive and he was out on his head. Those marks are old news. Scars.”

  “I thought werewolves didn't get scars?”

  Valentino snorted. “Things like that usually heal up, yeah. Jab yourself enough times with silver, pump toxins into your body and then refuse to embrace your wolf and you don't heal so well. Nah. Elias' problem was more with people and authority figures than anything else. He didn't adjust well to life on the rez. Sometimes, he stayed with me. Other times, he'd go wherever he could find a roof. I kicked him out when I caught him doing barbs in the house. He was sleeping under an overpass in Ballinger for most of last year before he got arrested again. He got clean in prison and, one day, showed up on my door. Stupid pendejo.”

  I frowned. If what Valentino was saying was true and Tindall was wrong, then we didn't know anything useful at all about why Elias had died. We wouldn't find anything useful out, either, if Doc didn't get the chance to sort through his insides. Valentino's testimony aside, we needed to rule out drugs. “Other than the drugs, did Elias have a history of any mental health problems?”

  “Why?” Valentino snapped. “You think he did this to himself?”

  “The suicide rate among werewolves is pretty high, Mr. Garcia.”

  “He didn't fucking stab himself in the neck, now did he?” He didn't say anything for a long time, leaning in with his palms flat on the exam table. “I didn't know my brother as well as I should have, Agent Black.” Valentino reached into his pocket and brought out a pack of cigarettes, sticking one in his mouth and lighting it before continuing. “We didn't always get along, you know?”

  “You and Elias fought?”

  Valentino stared at the glowing end of his cigarette. “Yeah. Sometimes.”

  “About the drugs?”

  “Look,” he said, leaning forward in his chair. “He can't be bringing weird people into my house. It's my house.” He jabbed his thumb into the table firmly. There was a short pause before he mumbled, “He’d been seeing someone.”

  I leaned in. “What?”

  “He’d been seeing someone, nobody from around here. I don’t know. Maybe it was some illegal. I don’t know. Frankly, I don’t care. I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. I don’t want to get mixed up in his personal life. I got a record. You people, you'd put me away again if I sneezed wrong.”

  He was getting more and more agitated, which was pushing us off topic. I needed him to trust me or he was going to stop talking altogether. “So,” I said. “You got a name for this girl?”

  “No, I don’t got no name. I didn’t fucking ask. I told you that.” He sucked down the rest of the cigarette and lit another. “Elias was clean, though. I know he was. I just did the test on him day before yesterday.” He shook his head. “Shit. Three months he was with us. I think that's the longest he's ever been clean since we were kids, you know? And now he's dead? Who the fuck did this?”

  I drummed my fingers on my forearm. I didn't really have any details to give Valentino since he'd interrupted the autopsy. Even if I did have information to give him, I wasn't sure it was wise to pass that along given how worked up he was. Someone like Valentino was more likely to take the law into his own hands than to give a killer due process. As much as I hated the bad guys, I had to admit that a lifetime behind bars was a far worse punishment than any death Valentino could dream up. Prisons are a nightmare, especially in Texas. “We don't know anything yet. The autopsy would be a great help. I'd also like to have a look at Elias' things if you don't mind.”

  His brow wrinkled. “Don't you need some kind of release from the next of kin to cut into him? I mean, what guarantee do I have that you're going to put eve
rything you take out back in and not ship it off to some government lab somewhere?”

  “Until ten minutes ago, nobody here seemed to know he had any kin but I'm sure there's a form somewhere if you're not averse to signing it. Otherwise, if you object, you'll have to file your objections with the county clerk of courts and make a legal mess of it. I don't think that route is going to benefit anyone, to be honest. We want to know what happened to Elias just as much as you do. And no one's going to ship his parts off to a lab. Trust me when I say the government already has more werewolf cadavers than they know what to do with.”

  The thought didn't seem to comfort Valentino any, though he nodded. “What exactly are you going to do with him?”

  I told him. In the decade or so I'd been working for BSI, I'd seen a few autopsies through glass and their aftermath, though I'd never attended one directly. Most of what they show on television isn't far off. They cut the body up, pull out the insides and look for anything out of the ordinary. Even if the cause of death is pretty obvious on the inside, they have to do the whole thing, weighing organs on a scale and writing out a nice, detailed report. Samples of tissue and blood get sent to an independent lab that analyzes them in a period of three to six weeks and then sends another report back to the local coroner and police station. At least, that's how it worked back in Cleveland. Here, the process might take even longer. I finished by promising him that I would make certain the body was released within twenty-four hours after Doc completed the autopsy.

  “I guess that's fine,” he said when I was done. “I'll make arrangements with my people.”

  “Valentino, you wouldn't happen to have a picture of this girl he was seeing? Maybe a description? Even just a name would help.”

  He tapped his chin in thought. “Dressed like one of them chola whores. You know? With the painted on eyebrows, the long, red fingernails and the gang banger attitudes.”

  “A name, Valentino. I need a name.”

  He gave me a funny look, started to say something and then stopped, thinking better of it. “Maria or something like that. At least, I think that’s what I heard Elias say once or twice.”

  He really looked like he wanted to say more. I waited but all Valentino did was snarl and smoke so I jotted down the description as best I could, though I didn't think it would help me find her any more than the generic name he'd given me. For all the information I'd squeezed out of Valentino during the interview, I still knew absolutely nothing. “You got a phone number, Valentino?”

  He hesitated. “I guess,” he said and grabbed the pen from my hands to write a number down. He glanced over at Elias as he handed both the paper and pen back to me. “Just so we're clear, I'm only letting you touch him because you said it would give me answers. You'd better have some when you call me.”

  I took the items from him, ignoring the threat. “It would really help if I could see his things or look around his room a little. When can I come by?”

  “Absofuckinglutely not. And I want him released by this time tomorrow or I'm coming to get him.”

  “I'm just trying to help, Valentino.”

  Valentino let out another growl and stormed for the door where he paused. “Government help is what got us relocated to this dead, dry patch of Hell. You can take your help and shove it up your blanco ass, puta. And you better pray you find the fucker who did this to my little brother before I do. 'Cause if I see him, I'll rip his beating heart out of his chest and shove it down his throat.”

  “Valentino,” I said in a warning tone. “Don't.”

  “Try and stop me,” he spat back at me and pushed through the double doors.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Defeated, worn and disgusted, I trudged back out to the waiting room just as a big black pick up tore out of the parking lot. Doc was fidgeting with a hanging skeleton in one corner while Tindall polished the barrel of his gun. Boys and their toys. Both of them looked up expectantly when I stopped and put my hands on my hips. “Elias Garcia,” I reported.

  Doc adjusted the skeleton's clavicle. “Well, you got a name. That's a start.”

  “Can you handle it from here if I sign off on everything, Doc?”

  He stared blankly at me. “Why? You going somewhere?”

  I walked over and put a hand on Tindall's shoulder. “Let's go for a drive.”

  Tindall snorted, blew on his gun and then continued to polish. “Where to?”

  “Anywhere but here.” He looked up at me, eyebrows pinched together. Then, he spread his lips upward into a grin. “What's the matter, Agent Black? No stomach for an autopsy?”

  I frowned as I looked out into the cloud of dirt Valentino's truck had stirred up. “How well do you know the Garcias?”

  “Well enough, I suppose. Valentino's got a record for some small time crap. Disorderlies, mostly, and an old domestic charge but the wife gives as good as she gets, really. Fucking werewolves. Why?”

  “I need internet access.”

  “Got a sheet to pull, eh?” He pushed himself up and dropped the gun back into his shoulder holster before canting his hat to one side. “Well, come on then. I'll show you the way.”

  I climbed into my rickety hunk of junk car and coaxed it to life. By the time it was at a steady enough idle that I could take my foot off the gas to shift into drive, Tindall's car was already long gone. Lucky for me, I knew where the station was because I'd eyeballed it on our way into town. That didn't stop me from cussing him up one side and down the other all the way there.

  In case you missed it the first time, Paint Rock is a small town. Ten years ago, the place wasn't much bigger, though it was arguably more of a town than it is today. There were streets with houses, little general stores and even a gas station, school and a library. All of those things are there now, too, but they're not in the same place they used to be. When they turned the place into a reservation, the first thing the new inhabitants did was tear down most of the existing structures and remake the town in their own image. All the streets had been renamed according to the self-imposed segregation standards—things like Fae Boulevard, Werewolf Way, Vampire Avenue and, my personal favorite, the intersection where That Road meets This Road. Gotta hand it to the people of Paint Rock and their overbearing sense of humor and creativity.

  The station was at the corner of Main and West streets near the center of town. All of Paint Rock's official buildings were there, lined up in a row. Next door to the station was the post office, which was only separated from the school by a small parking lot. The reservation’s singular bank was across the street, right next to the courthouse. I pulled into the tiny parking lot next to the station and jogged up the walk.

  Inside, the station was deader than a graveyard at midnight. There were a few cops but most of them were sitting behind a desk, sipping coffee and staring at the newspaper. A few were gathered around a television screen, chattering over a baseball game. All of that didn't keep them from looking up from whatever it was they were doing to stare at me as I passed by. The weight of their stares and their silence hung on my shoulders and made my feet drag.

  The duty sergeant looked up from her computer screen as I approached. She was a plump, dark skinned lady with close cropped hair and a skeptical glint in her eye. I produced my BSI badge and introduced myself briefly. In response, she cocked an eyebrow upward. “So?”

  “So,” I continued, trying to ignore the obvious hostility in her voice. “Detective Tindall told me to meet him here.”

  “Tindall,” she snorted. “Yeah. He's here somewhere. Why?”

  I was about to ask if she was hard of hearing when I realized all the activity in the station had stopped and everyone was staring at me. They didn't look too pleased, either. I had that uneasy feeling that I was about to be lynched if I said the wrong thing. “I've heard of small town, southern friendliness but this is ridiculous. You guys always this friendly?”

  The duty sergeant stood and leaned forward, her palms flat aga
inst the desk. She was at least four inches taller than me and could probably bench press a whole tray of McDonald's hamburgers in her sleep. She pointed to a door on the right with tinted glass and worn off lettering. “Your office is in there. Tindall's waiting on you.”

  “Thanks. You’re a doll,” I said shortly and turned to go.

  “Don't bother getting comfortable,” she called after me. “You won't last the week.” The baseball watching cops snickered.

  The door complained loudly when I pushed it open. On the other side was either the biggest broom closet or the smallest office I'd ever seen. Based on its current condition, I couldn't really tell which. There were boxes piled in one corner behind an ugly little desk with three legs. The fourth corner was held up by a stack of phone books. A metal folding chair sat on the other side. On the side toward the door, there was a stool. Tindall had pulled it over to the singular window which stood naked without blinds or curtains. The paint that wasn't chipped or peeling was a shade of yellow that hasn't been popular since LBJ was president.

  Tindall had pulled the window open and was leaning out it, smoking a cigarette. I walked over and pulled it from between his lips. “Hey,” he protested as I crushed it out on an empty picture frame that rested on the desk. “I was smoking that.”

  “My office. My rules. Rule number one: No smoking in my office.” He opened his mouth and I raised a finger to interrupt him. “Rule number two? No whining about not smoking in my office.”

  His jaw muscles flexed as if he'd physically had to swallow his complaint. “I was going to quit anyway,” he mumbled and then added, “You got a lot of nerve walking in here like that. It's a good way to make enemies in this town, Black.”

  I started pulling drawers out of the desk. The last tenant of the office had left behind a roll of blue duct tape, a paperback romance and a wad of tissues in the bottom drawer. Lovely. “I'm here to bring the crime rate down to something tolerable, detective. Not to make friends.”