Guilty by Association (Judah Black Novels)

by E. A. Copen

  First of all, there was the name. I wasn't sure if it was a nickname or his real name but one thing was for sure. You don't get a name like Chanter so you can go do great things like run pawn shops on a supernatural reservation. His eyes, too, and the power they held over me was a decent indication of his power. When we'd met gazes earlier, I'd felt as if we were waging a battle, wrestling over which one of us was going to come out of that look on top. If it was a battle, it was one of will and I had clearly lost.

  More importantly, Chanter had an amazing presence. Presence is something that most folks today don't put too much stock in, even though it's arguably one of the most important assets everyone has. It has a lot of names, most of them vague because language fails to capture that extra something that is presence. It's simple if you think about it. Presence is a mix between confidence and comfort, power and approachability. It's what makes the difference between getting hired and getting promoted, subtle yet unmistakable. Chanter had it and he had it in droves. When he spoke, I couldn't help but listen and when he moved, even doing simple things like sorting through his stock, I paid attention. Everything he did seemed important in some way. He'd captured my attention and held it against my will.

  I didn't like it, not one bit.

  At length, I got tired of waiting for him to say something and decided to pose a question of my own. “So, did you want me to stay for a reason or are you just going to yank my chain?”

  “I'm deciding,” he offered quietly.

  “On what?”

  “On you.” He glanced up casually and then back down. “I smell another wolf on you.”

  “Well, I spoke with Valentino this morning and I was in the room while Dr. Ramis was examining Elias. I'm also the one that found him.”

  “I smell a boy,” he said without looking up. The blood in my chest frosted. “Adolescent. No, prepubescent but close. Eleven, maybe twelve. You must live in very close contact with him. You reek of his lack of discipline. A son, perhaps?”

  I took two steps closer to Chanter at a pace faster than he liked, as evidenced by the way he shot me a warning glare. I didn't care. Not even a hungry tiger could get between me and my son's well-being. “Don't you dare speak about my son,” I said, dropping my tone a few octaves. “Who and what he is has no meaning here.”

  “It has plenty of meaning. You haven't registered him with BSI or else I would have been notified of his presence through other channels, which can only mean one thing. You're either stupid or you're not as blind as you'd like everyone to think you are.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Chanter sighed, slid the boxes aside and then leaned on the counter. “Agent Black, I'm old, not stupid. I've been raising wolves since before your kind even knew we existed. After a while, you develop a sixth sense about these things but even I don't need that to smell him all over you. I don't know your story or where you come from. To be blunt, I don't care. By bringing him onto the reservation, you've made him my business. Let's not dance around the pit of vipers pretending they are blades of grass, girl. BSI isn't the utopian society that it claims to be. This reservation is hardly flowing with milk and honey. The government has lied to us, used us and, eventually, they'll seek to eradicate us. Your subversion tells me that some part of you knows this and that you seek to protect your child from what you know is coming.”

  I put my hands on the surface of the display case he was working at. “If you breathe a word of this to anyone...”

  “If I told your superiors what I know, who would that serve?” He looked up from the box he was going through, his expression unreadable. “I'd like to help you, Agent Black. In fact, I believe we can help each other.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to listen. What you will hear will help you two fold. You're here seeking answers concerning Elias Garcia. I'm not surprised to hear he's dead. I'm only surprised to hear that Valentino will have a body to mourn. Around here, that's a rare thing.”

  I relaxed a little, glad that our conversation had veered away from people in my personal life and back to business. “Did Elias have a lot of enemies?”

  Chanter shrugged. “Don't we all? Like most of us, Elias was his own worst enemy. Elias and Valentino were very close once. They weren't raised in my pack and I adopted them as a favor to my daughter, Nina.”

  “Valentino's wife.”

  “My daughter,” Chanter corrected in an irritated tone. “Valentino acclimated. Elias...Elias never did. He chose the life of a lone wolf over the life of the pack. Sometime after that, he became troubled. Fell into the drugs. Refused to hunt. During a crucial time in his life, Elias failed to embrace and codify what it means to be a werewolf. He grew to hate what he was. He adopted the belief that he was less than human. In his final days, I believe he would have traded anyone or anything for the chance to escape his life.”

  “Are you telling me he was suicidal?” I asked, leaning in closer.

  “I'm telling you that there is a state of mind that is worse than that. The source of all of his misery, all of his troubles and, in the end, his death, was his failure to embrace his nature. Denial is a death sentence for us, Agent Black. Do not make that mistake with your son.”

  I pushed away from the counter and frowned. “Denial didn't stab Elias Garcia in the neck with a silver knife, Chanter.”

  “No it did not,” Chanter agreed.

  Well, that line of questioning wasn't getting me any answers I didn't already have. Time for a new approach. “Do you know of anyone named Maria? Latina woman, maybe. She might have been with him just before this happened.”

  “Valentino would know better than I would. As I said, Elias was not part of the pack in an official capacity. I rarely had to interact with him. You’d be better off talking to Valentino about that.”

  “I would if Valentino would give me a straight answer,” I growled at him without thinking and then sighed. “Look, Chanter. Here's the thing. I need to search Valentino's house since it was Elias' last known residence. Now, I can call a judge and get a warrant but, while I do that, the trail gets colder and the chances that I can actually find Elias' killer get smaller. I'd much rather just get permission to go in and save everyone the legal headache.”

  I'd expected him to guess what I was going to suggest or make some kind of quip like he'd been doing this whole time. Instead, he stood there, expectantly waiting for me to ask. “Would you talk to him? See if you can convince him to change his mind?”

  There was a long silence as Chanter tapped his fingers on the glass, thinking. “Say you don't find the smoking gun you're looking for. Then what?”

  “Then I keep looking. I keep fighting. A man is dead and his killer is out there. I don't care what kind of person Elias was or what he did while he was alive. Somewhere inside of him there was a soul that could have been saved if someone, somewhere had just tried a little harder, listened a little more, if someone had just cared.”

  The words fell out of my mouth unfiltered through my brain. Once I said them, I immediately felt stupid. I was a professional, an agent of the law. Whatever I felt about Elias, it wasn't right to let my feelings cloud my judgment. I couldn't just go around blaming people, especially when the information I had was limited to what was written on sheets of paper. But I know more than that, I thought and hazarded the chance to meet Chanter's eyes one more time. I can read between the lines. Elias was a kid in a dark place. He needed help from his pack, not whatever it was he got. Chanter knew that and chose to do nothing. Failure to act did not absolve him of some level of guilt.

  That same, inexplicable urge to look away came over me again as our eyes met but I fought it. It took clenching my fists and gritting my teeth but I didn't look away, not that time.

  The corner of Chanter's mouth twitched and the feeling eased away. “You're a very different sort of woman, Agent Black.”

  “It's my job to be different.”


  “No,” he said sharply. “It's your job to keep the peace between them and us, no matter the toll that takes. If you have a child that is like us, then chances are good that the child's father was one of us. It's reasonable to infer that you have intimate knowledge of werewolves and the supernatural based on your position and personal history. If you intend to hold the position you do for any length of time, you must be willing to embrace certain truths, truths that a good man like Detective Tindall will not understand.”

  I swallowed and forced my fingers to flex out of the fists they'd formed. “Are you implying that I'm not a good person?”

  “Both of us know that to be standing where you are, knowing the things that you know...You have seen dark things, Agent Black. You have taken them into your mind and body and made yourself one with evil in ways that no human can truly understand. Does that make you a bad person?” He shrugged. “It makes you alive. It makes you fierce and it makes you powerful, more powerful than any fool hiding behind a gun and a badge. The people of Paint Rock don't need another gun.”

  “What do they need, then?”

  “Hope,” he said simply and slid a small box across the counter to me. “Supernaturals and Humans alike. I see the spark of that in you yet, girl. Do not lose it.”

  I took the box and opened it. Inside, there was a single, black feather. I lifted it out and gave him a skeptical look. “A crow feather? What's this supposed to mean?”

  He smiled warmly. “It's a raven's feather, actually. The raven is an animal of contradictions, a bridge between this world and the next. He carries wisdom, magic, change and trickery over the threshold. At least, that's what old Indians like me are supposed to say to curious white girls.”

  I spun the feather between my fingers looking at it. “So, what? This is like a totem or something?”

  That made Chanter laugh. “It is what it is, girl, a feather and nothing more.”

  “Ravens are carrion eaters,” I said, frowning. Mythologically speaking, most people believed them to be bad omens and heralds of death. I wasn't sure I wanted to be associated with such a bird, even if it did have something to do with wisdom and magick and whatever.

  Chanter just nodded solemnly and said, “So they are.”

  I didn't get to ask Chanter any more questions after that, though somehow the trip didn't feel wasted. He agreed to talk with Valentino at the very least, which is more than I'd expected out of our exchange. When I went outside to rejoin Tindall and Quincy, I had the oddest feeling in the pit of my stomach, something inexplicable but warm and comforting.

  “Well?” asked Tindall. “What'd he say? Anything useful?”

  I tucked the box containing the feather under my arm and swallowed the dry feeling in my throat. “Not really.”

  “What'd I tell you?” Quincy continued, shaking his head. “That old prairie nigger is stonewalling us.” He popped a hard candy into his mouth and chewed on it.

  “Native Americans, Quincy,” said Tindall, fanning himself. “Jesus Christ. He could sue you for that.”

  “Well, then, let's hope I hit the jackpot tonight. For his sake.”

  “I'd like to go have a look at the crime scene again,” I said and started for my car.

  Tindall wrinkled his nose and trudged toward his car. “Yeah, okay. My uniforms still have it secure. CSI came down this morning. Should be finishing up about now.”

  “You don't have to come, you know.”

  Tindall just laughed bitterly at that. “And miss standing in awe of you while you do your brilliant detective work? Not on your life. Besides, if you keep running around and asking questions like you are, you're likely to turn up dead yourself. I'll meet you at the laundromat in ten.”

  On the way over, I stopped by the town's only gas station to fill up and grab my briefcase out of the trunk of my car. While I was away from prying ears, I called home to check on Hunter.

  “Everything's fine here, mom,” he promised. I could hear the laughter of a studio audience on the television in the background. “Everything except the air conditioning. Oh, and we're out of milk.”

  I wasn't surprised. All I'd managed to get in the house so far to eat was cereal, milk and hot dogs. “Tell you what, Hunter. You keep the place cleaned up and behave yourself and we'll go shopping together when I get home.”

  “Sure, I guess. When you coming home?”

  “Before six,” I promised, and then added, “I love you.”

  He gagged on the other end. “Bye, mom.”

  I hung up and thought hard about what Chanter had said. When BSI had rolled out their new program that required a blood test each year before enrolling in school, I panicked. Every year, I held my breath when they pricked Hunter's finger. Every year, we'd been lucky. But if Chanter was right, I was running out of time. Once he started to change, there would be no way around it. I would have to take him public. BSI would take him away from me. My whole life would be over. The thought of someone else raising my child made me sick but I didn't know if pack life was a better option, especially this pack. I hardly knew anything about the Silvermoons. So far, most of my interactions with them had been less than encouraging. What was the alternative? If I didn't have him in an established pack, there would be nothing I could do to protect him from the organization that I worked for. Nothing.

  There's no feeling in the world worse than helplessness, especially when you're a parent. It eats away at you, rots you from the inside out and twists every thought into a panic attack. I'd made a lot of concessions in my life but my son wasn't going to be one of them. I climbed back into my car and made myself a silent promise not to let Hunter slip through the cracks like Elias had. I was going to save him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Five minutes later, I was ducking under the crime scene tape across the laundromat doors. The scene was empty of everyone except Tindall and Quincy, who were standing guard, arguing with a heavy set lady dressed all in black. When I say all in black, I mean a long sleeved turtle neck, a black lacy skirt, a wide brimmed hat, gloves, sunglasses and, yes, even the umbrella that hid her from the sun was black. She wore the pallor of death on what little bit of skin that was exposed, though she'd attempted to color it with makeup.

  She turned when she heard me approaching and fanned herself profusely with one of those cheap, Japanese style folding fans. “Oh, thank my lucky stars! You're a federal agent, aren't you? Tell these idiot detectives that I have a right to enter my establishment to assess the damages. I'm going to have to make a claim against my insurance for all this and I'm running out of time to do that.” When she spoke, I caught sight of her elongated canines, clicking against each other.

  What a place I've moved into, I thought. Pawn shop owning werewolves on one side and a twenty-four-hour laundromat owned by a vampire on the other.

  “Miss Adams,” Tindall started but she cut him off quickly.

  “Patsy. I told you, detective. It's Patsy.”

  “Well, Patsy, you have to realize we're in the middle of an investigation. We'll let you know when we're done. It shouldn't be long now.”

  “It should be now,” Patsy insisted, stomping one boot on the ground. “I pay my taxes, detective, and I didn't break any laws. If I'm forced to wait much longer to re-open, I'll have to make a claim against you for my losses.”

  “I doubt you make enough in one or two days to justify such a claim, Patsy.”

  “You haven't seen what they charge to wash a load,” I muttered, drawing the vampire's attention to me.

  She pulled her sunglasses down slightly, revealing amber colored, feline thin eyes. “How bad is it in there?”

  I shrugged and looked away. “I can't comment on an open investigation.”

  She twisted her lips and let out a hiss before sinking back a step. It's so nice to feel loved by the public for the way I put my life on the line every day. “This had better get resolved by tomorrow night,” she said. “Or I'm going to start ge
tting upset.”

  “Wouldn't want that, now would we?” I said and sidestepped her. Behind me, I could feel her fuming and took a little bit of satisfaction in that. I've never really liked vampires. Werewolves, I can stand on some level. Hell, I'd been married to one before everybody went public, though I'd never known what he was until it was too late. That made me somewhat affectionate toward them. Vampires, though, they'd caused the whole mess the world was in by going public. If they'd just kept to themselves like they'd been doing for centuries, a lot of people wouldn't have died and I'd probably be doing something else for a living. They'd made the world a darker place and I'd always been a little bitter about that.

  Daylight didn't do any favors for the laundromat. The sunlight illuminated even more dents and rusty scratches in the metal of the washers and dryers but all of them looked old. There was lint everywhere. A few empty soda cans in one corner had attracted the attention of an ant colony. The gaping hole in the wall where a security camera once presumably rested looked even worse than it had that morning. Broken glass was scattered everywhere, even beyond where it had been earlier. Given the extensive coverage of glass on the floor, that was to be expected. I couldn't take two steps without stepping in some. A uniformed cop stood next to a woman in protective CSI gear, both of them examining the cracked glass at the emergency exit. I walked over to them, wincing at the sound of the glass crunching under my shoes.

  The cop stepped away from the door to intercept me, crossing his arms. “Well, lookie who finally found the time to get off her high horse and come down to the scene to do some actual investigating.”

  It took almost all of my mental power to keep from snapping back at him. “I've been busy,” I told him shortly. “And you standing in my way isn't speeding things up.”

  He stepped aside. “Since you guys are finally on scene, maybe I can get some lunch, huh?” Glass crunched as he navigated the aisle toward the door.