Silent Joe

by T. Jefferson Parker

  He took his gaze off the woman and put it on me. He chuckled. He sipped his Scotch and took another puff of his cigar. "You're direct. I like that. Sure, we talked about the county buying the toll roads and building the new airport. Will was against both of them, as I'm sure you know. We were just trying to make him see the light."

  "What light was that, sir?"

  "Just logic and good common sense. You see, the toll roads can turn a profit if the TA can run them. A big profit, over the years. It's a sound investment for the county, if you take the long view. But your father didn't want to see that. He wanted the private consortium to keep taking a shellacking on the things. I'll tell you something—private roads won't work in the West. Too much land to cover. The sooner the county can get control of them, the better. I think Will knew that. But it pissed him off to spend public money to bail out private enterprise. Same thing with the new airport. We'll need one someday, and that day is coming. We were trying to get Will to come over, throw his vote and his influence behind us. It's a free election in November, but we needed Will to get his first district going our way."

  Rupaski coughed, looked at the cigar, set it in the ashtray. "I'm sorry, Joe. I'm goddamned sorry about what happened. Will and I agreed on nothing. But I loved him. He was a good man and a good enemy and I respected him. How's Mary Ann holding up?"

  "Holding up well, sir, considering."

  He nodded. "Where was she going, so late at night, not telling her own husband?"

  "She liked to drive."

  Rupaski shook his head and grunted. Then he took another drink, swirled the liquid, set down the glass. "I didn't invite you here to talk about politics. Or your family. I invited you here to offer you a job."

  "I've got one, sir."

  "Hear me out. Double your salary, which will bring you in at about sixty-five a year to start. Mostly nights, so your days can be free to finish up college, sleep late, bang some women, whatever you want. You give up your Sheriff's badge and get a Transportation Authority shield. That puts you with me and I'm a good man to work for. It gets you a new county drive-home car—those big Impalas with the V-8s, side spotlights and short-wave radios. Gets you a concealed carry permit for your weapon gives you power within TA jurisdiction, which is big and getting bigger--- the Transit Department, the Highway and Roads Administration, the Airport Authority. Lots to do. It puts you in line for some fantastic benefits, better than sheriff's by far."

  "What would I do?"

  "You'd be doing for me what you did for Will. Joe, I worry. People are crazy these days. Look what happened to Will. A man of his quality and his standing. You took out two of those bastards before they got him. I want somebody who can do that. I want somebody just a little scary. Son, that's you."

  I looked at him but said nothing. Everyone wants someone scary, do what they are afraid of, go to the dark places, get their hands dirty. Will trained me to do that. I understood it while he was making me and I understand it now.

  "My scariness didn't save Will's life, sir."

  He stopped his glass in front of his mouth. "You don't blame yours for that, do you?"

  "I just look at the facts as they are."

  "You're valuable, Joe. Everybody wishes they had someone like you. You've got manners and brains and guts. You've got style—like what you did with those guys shadowing Chrissa Sands. I really liked that. You some celebrity. You got a face that everybody knows. You've got the respect of people for handling your problems in a good way, for going with your life when some people would just stay home in the dark all day. You learned a lot from Will, and he was great. I know you know things. But let me show you what I know. Joe, with your years as a deputy, an few more with the TA, you can go anywhere you want in the county. You'd have depth and contacts and an inside view of how things work. I can see you as a supervisor someday. Or head of the TA, if you liked it. Or even the State Assembly or the House. You've got star quality, Joe. I can use you and I can help you."

  "What about Travis?"

  "He'd be happy about it if I told him to be."

  "Well, thank you, sir. But no. I like being a deputy."

  "You like jail?"

  "I'm on the right side of the bars."

  Rupaski smiled and drank again. The waiter brought the lunches. "Think about it, Joe. Just tell me you'll think about it."

  "All right. I will. Sir, why do you have Hodge and Chapman shadowing Chrissa Sands?"

  "On the off chance that she'll lead us to Savannah Blazak."

  "But they were following her way back on Wednesday morning, the day Will died. Blazak didn't go public with news of the kidnapping until Thursday evening."

  Rupaski nodded. "Right, but he went private with it. Straight to me. We're friends, Joe. We talk. I knew his son was crazy—last year the dumb kid ran one of Jack's Jaguars into the Windy Ridge toll plaza, took out a wall and trashed the Jag. He was drunk and high, and when my men dragged him out he tried to pull a gun on them. Luckily, they had the presence of mind to kick the shit out of him. Anyway, I offered to help find Savannah. I think Savannah Blazak is one of the sweetest kids I've ever met. Love her. So we shadowed the girlfriend. We're still shadowing the girlfriend. A few years ago, Jack Blazak helped persuade the county to establish the Transportation Authority. He helped me get the top spot. He's a friend and friends help each other. Same way I'd use the power of the TA to help you, if you were one of us."

  "You ought to tell your men to be more polite to her."

  "Thanks for bringing that to my attention, Joe. And to theirs." Under the thick brows, Rupaski's eyes glittered merrily. "Joe, I'm going to make you work for me, whether you want to or not."

  "How?"

  "I don't know yet. I guess I'll have to come up with a better offer. How about that car of Will's? Two-year lease, isn't it? I can arrange you to keep it, then buy it dirt cheap when the lease runs out. Consider it a signing bonus. Yours for the asking. And I'll still throw in the hot Impala for work-related stuff."

  I had to smile to myself at the idea. "I'll think about that."

  The lunch was excellent. The only way it could have been better was if the food wasn't touching on the plate.

  Halfway through lunch, a young guy in a tuxedo ambled down the stairs from the conference level. His hair glistened from a shower, maybe hair gel. Tall glass of orange juice in one hand, a silver Halliburt case in the other. Lifted his glass to Rupaski when he spotted us.

  I drove back down to the toll road, thinking about something Will had said to me a hundred times: Save your friends, spend your enemies.

  Enrique Domingo was short and thin, with large clear eyes and black hair. His English was poor, so we spoke Spanish. Will had insisted that I learn Spanish, and I'd done okay with it at school.

  The three of us met in Jaime's HACF office. Jennifer Avila nodded me in greeting, but said nothing.

  Jaime asked Enrique to tell me his story. In a quiet voice, he did.

  He explained that he was fourteen years old. Miguel, his brother, had been sixteen when the police shot him. His older sister, Luria Bias, had been eighteen when the Suburban hit her on Pacific Coast Highway.

  His sister.

  I saw him differently then, knowing that he'd lost not only a brother but a sister, in just a few short weeks. He seemed to me so completely alone, even sitting there with Jaime and me. Solitude surrounded him, like rings around a planet.

  I told him I had no idea that Luria was his sister. Why did she have different name? He said that Bias was the name she used to enter and work as a domestic in the Estados Unidos. She'd used it to qualify for a green card, claiming to be the sister of a family friend who was now a citizen.

  Enrique's face colored as he told me this.

  "Very common," said Jaime. "They do what is necessary to get papeles."

  "Why haven't the police and the newspapers made that connection?" I asked.

  Jaime stretched out his arms, hands up. "They know, but they don't care. The po
lice say an accident is an accident. A coincidence is a coincidence. The English newspapers ran very small items—so small that you yourself did not see them, correct? Our Spanish newspaper has run the story much larger, but who listens? This is why we were hoping for your help."

  I told him I was sorry for what had happened to his brother and sister. He looked away.

  Then he told me that for a while things were good for him and Luria and Miguel. They were able to send money home to Guatemala to their parents and young siblings. Enrique and his brother both worked as gardeners, had gotten on with a regular crew that did lawn cleanup and light tree trimming. Eight dollars an hour. Luria worked as a domestic and had twelve regular households she cleaned, two each, six days a week. Sixty-five dollars per house. She was popular because she worked hard, was pleasant and beautiful, but not expensive.

  But over the months, Luria had become sullen and withdrawn, not herself. Usually, she was a very happy person. And she began going out at night with girlfriends who had cars, who dressed in expensive American clothes. She wouldn't come home until late. She drank liquor often and cut back her domestic work, then stopped doing it altogether. But it seemed that the less she worked, the more money she had to spend. She sent less of it home, said Enrique.

  He blushed again as he told me that.

  One night she had come home with one eye purple and swollen shut. She was very frightened. Miguel was furious. Two weeks later, she was killed just a block from their apartment Fullerton.

  Enrique looked out the window in Jaime's office as he told me this. His eyes were set high in his face and shaped like almonds. It looked like he was going somewhere else in his mind, back to a time when his brother and sister were alive, maybe, back to a time when what little he had seen enough. I wondered if he had a quiet spot to go to, an eagle to perch beside some view of a better world when he needed it.

  He said that Miguel was distraught over Luria's death. Enrique had seen him, the night after Luria died, trying to disguise a machete in a couple of old jackets. Miguel told Enrique that he was investigating death. Miguel, he said, was a very hot-blooded man.

  He looked at me, and in a quiet voice said that five days after Liuria was killed, Miguel was shot by the police.

  Enrique told me that Luria was more sympatico with Miguel than with him, because Enrique was much younger and wouldn't understand adult problems.

  I thought about it, but couldn't see what Miguel had to investigate. Luria's death was an accident. The woman who hit her stopped and tried to help.

  "I thought the same thing you're thinking, Joe," said Jaime. "So I called a friend in the coroner's office. They did an autopsy on Luria, as they do with any violent or questionable death. But they will answer no questions from me. Because I'm not family. I'm not law enforcement makes me believe what any sane man would believe—that they are hiding something."

  I weighed the possibilities, but said nothing.

  "I suspect foul play, Joe. This is more evidence of foul play against Latinos in America, and nobody is interested. The DA will not return the calls. The police in Newport say that Miguel Domingo brandished weapons and failed to surrender them to officers of the law. The police in Fullert say that Luria died strictly of an accident. How can I believe this? What if these people were not the Latino poor? What if it had happened to you, Joe? Your father would never have let this be ignored. This is why Will was a great man. Now, what can you do to help us?"

  "Let me think about this."

  "Your father would do more than think."

  "He'd think first, Senor Medina. And please don't tell me what Will would have done. With all respect, senor, I knew him a lot better than you did, no matter what he did for the HACF."

  Jaime stood and exhaled loudly. "I'm sorry, Joe. You're right. I'm like Miguel. I have hot blood sometimes, when I see injustice. Please, I apologize very sincerely to you."

  "I'll find out more."

  I told Enrique that I needed the names and addresses of Luria's twelve employers. He told me he would try, but didn't think he could do that. Luria didn't tell him everything, like she told the older Miguel.

  Jaime walked me to the door. "I was wrong. You are just like your father, Joe."

  "Thank you, sir. But I know I'm not."

  I drove to the coroner's facility near headquarters, went in and asked for the director. Brian McCallum had been close to Will—they played tennis together as a doubles team, and liked to hit the club bar after their matches. McCallum was a heavyset man who moved surprisingly well on a tennis court. I remember noticing how strong his wrists were because he moved the racquet so easily. He told me he'd played baseball through college, which explained it.

  He took me into his office and nodded along as I told him part of what Enrique Domingo and Jaime Medina had told me.

  "Well, yeah," he said. "I was the one who talked to Medina. He's prying, pushy, acting like he owns the place because tax dollars pay our salaries. He told us that Bias and Domingo were brother and sister, and I passed that along to Newport and Fullerton. He wanted information on Bias, but the policy here is if you're not family or law enforcement, we're not going to give you information about autopsies. We just don't do it."

  "Can you tell me?"

  "Are you doing them a favor?"

  "Yes, sir."

  He looked at me for a moment, then sat back. "Luria Bias was hit from behind by a Chevy Suburban. The time was about three P.M., a Thursday. The impact point was her shoulder blade, and the collision threw her away from the vehicle instead of under it. Death occurred within twenty minutes. Her lungs and heart were heavily contused, her neck was broken in two places. Twelve breaks in eight different bones. The x-ray of her left shoulder blade looked like . . . well, multiple fractures. The internal hemorrhage was severe, considering her heart only had a few minutes of life left in Cause of death was cardio-pulmonary collapse due to impact. If by some miracle she'd lived, she'd have been paralyzed from the neck down."

  I imagined the scene, though I didn't want to. "How fast was the vehicle going?"

  "Accident investigators put it between fifty and sixty. Skid marks after impact. The driver said she never saw the woman. Like she jumped out into the boulevard."

  It was hard to reconcile the newspaper pictures of Luria Bias's love smile with a Suburban going sixty.

  "There was more, Joe. First, the woman had been severely beaten before she died. Abdomen, ribs, sternum all bruised. Two ribs cracked. Some bleeding from the liver and pancreas, not associated with the blow from the car."

  "Beaten with what?"

  "Hard to say. Fists, probably. Nothing that left any trace evidence on her skin. No chips or shards, nothing."

  "How long before she died?"

  "Frank Yee said within twenty-four hours. He's good at the times. She was pregnant, too. Six weeks. The beating didn't kill the fetus. The Suburban did."

  Again I imagined Luria Bias meeting her end against a Chevy Suburban doing sixty. "She staggered into the boulevard," I said. "Not in control of herself, because of the beating?"

  McCallum nodded. "Sure. She could easily have been disoriented. She was certainly in some pain. No drugs in her system. No alcohol. She could have thrown herself in front of the car, that's a possibility. There's one small point of light we came up with—flesh under the nails. Maybe she got a piece of the beater. She got a piece of somebody. We checked her very closely for marks, thinking reflexive or self-inflicted. It wasn't herself she clawed. But tell Jaime Medina not to worry—Fullerton PD is up to speed on all this."

  I sat for a moment, remembering Enrique's tale of his sister's withdrawal and unhappiness. Young, poor, unmarried, in a foreign country and pregnant.

  What would you do?

  It made me think of Will, because all sadness made me think of Will. I shook my head, trying to separate the two, trying to give Luria Bias the respect she deserved.

  "What are you thinking, Joe?"

  "What a waste it
all is."

  "Sometimes it seems that way."

  "Thank you. Medina wanted information because he's tight with Luria's brother."

  "I figured. I know Jaime does good deeds."

  "They think it's tied in with the brother getting shot."

  McCallum raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "I don't see how."

  "Can I look at Miguel Domingo's personal items, the things he had on him when he died?"

  "We've got everything but the weapons."

  He led me back to the property room, talked to the sergeant on duty. He made a call. A few minutes later a deputy brought a plastic box to the counter and set it down. McCallum signed for it and we took it back to the lab.

  There wasn't much: a plastic bag with $6.85; a pack of matches from a convenience store; a black plastic comb; an OCTA ticket stub; a wallet and a ballpoint pen. A bloody shirt in white butcher paper. Bloody pants. Another bag with socks and underwear. Two worn athletic shoes with the laces tied loosely together.

  "The wallet, may I?"

  "Go."

  I opened the bag and took out the wallet. It was old and worn and lopsided the way a wallet can get. One picture of five children and two adults, all standing in front of a wall with climbing roses on it. I recognized a face that looked like Enrique's, one that looked like Luria's. No ID. the billfold was a small, folded piece of newsprint. I unfolded it and said the Journal article that told of Luria Bias's accidental death. I folded it and put it back.

  "Pants?" I asked.

  "They're a mess."

  I worked the butcher paper loose. Black jeans, bloodstains a deep rust color on the fabric. Nothing in the front pockets. Nothing in the back, slipped a finger into the watch pocket and felt something slick. I worked my finger around and tried to get it out but it was stuck. I used the tweeze on a pocketknife I carry. The tweezers slipped off twice before the dried blood gave way and a square of paper came out. I unfolded it and flattens it against the table. It looked like part of an envelope—you could see the diagonal seam in the paper. It had been torn into an approximate square, about five inches on each side. One edge was dark and wilted with blood