Uncertain Calm (Uncertain Suspense Series Book 1)

by Jamie Lee Scott

  It was parked at the end of several rows of grapes, along with about thirty other cars.

  Wyatt jumped out of his Explorer and followed me to the Honda. I figured I’d check to see if the doors were unlocked. We had the warrant in hand, so if the doors were open, I’d start looking. No need to bother Juan, and interrupt his work.

  We didn’t get very far on the old beater car, since the doors were locked. But we did look around, and make a general nuisance of ourselves until Juan Garcia finally came to see what was so interesting about his car.

  “Hey, ese, what are you doing to my car?” He spoke like a second generation cholo.

  “Hey, ese, we are deciding whether to break the windows, or wait for you to unlock it, man.” Wyatt spoke back to him in the same disrespectful tone.

  “You ain’t going nowhere near my car, ese.” He stepped in front of Wyatt.

  Juan Garcia was a few inches taller than me, and willowy. His arms were painted with tattoos; signs and symbols I didn’t recognize, and were half covered by the oversized white tee he wore. His baggy jeans hung off his ass, so there was no worry about him running. He’d trip over his own clothing before he’d get very far.

  Wyatt shoved the warrant in Juan’s face. “I’m going to get in your car with or without your keys, little man. So, if you don’t want to spend a few hundred dollars on a new window, reach inside your baggy-ass jeans and get your keys out.”

  “What for? What you looking for?” He got in Wyatt’s face.

  “Back the fuck off, or you’re going to end up in cuffs in the back of my patrol car. Got it?”

  I stepped in to cuff him.

  Juan turned to look at me, and glared as if I should back off. Oh, yeah, like I was afraid of his skinny ass.

  “What are you looking for?” he asked again.

  Wyatt shoved the warrant at him again. “You can read it while I search.”

  I mumbled, “If you can even read.”

  “What’d you say, puta?” He got in my face now.

  And that was it. “What did you just call me?”

  “Puta, it means bitch.” The defiant prick.

  Oh, I knew what the hell it meant.

  “Put your hands behind your back,” I said nicely.

  “Fuck you.”

  And now I was done being nice. I reached out and took his hand and before he knew it, I had the cuff wrapped around his wrist. Then the fight was on. He was not going down without a fight. And damn if my head didn’t hurt like a bitch. Normally, Wyatt let me take care of these whiny dudes by myself, but he knew I was in a bad way.

  Within seconds, Wyatt had Juan on the ground, with his knee in his back, and the cuffed wrist around behind his back. Wyatt reached forward and grabbed for Juan’s other hand. When Juan fought him, Wyatt said, “Dude, you’re already looking at resisting charges, don’t make this worse on yourself. We’re headed to your casa next.”

  Juan stopped fighting. Wyatt wrapped the cuff on his other wrist, and lifted him off the ground. He patted him down and emptied his pockets, which held nothing more than his keys and some loose change.

  I took possession of Juan, positioning him in front of me, and took him over to sit in the back of Wyatt’s car while we finished searching his car.

  After forty-five minutes of tearing Juan’s car apart, we found nothing. But it was really to be expected. Would he really bring the gun to work, especially just after the shooting? Maybe, if he wanted to toss it in the vineyard. But it was harvest. So many people would be walking around. Not a plausible idea.

  Television made search warrants look like so much fun: the cops just walk into the business or building, and find exactly what they’re looking for. If only real life worked that way.

  I sat in the car with Juan, while Wyatt explained to his boss why we were detaining him, and that we’d be taking him with us while we searched his home. Actually, we planned to put him in a holding cell, because we couldn’t be bothered with him needing to take a piss while we were doing the search. It’d be just my luck he’d piss down his leg, right there in Wyatt’s car, and Wyatt would make me clean it up.

  “That’s what I’d do in your car.” Ochoa sat next to Juan, giving him the stink eye.

  I ignored him. He wasn’t real, anyway.

  I touched my forehead and winced.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, you know. I didn’t kill nobody. You got the wrong guy,” Juan kept insisting. “You can search my house all day, you ain’t gonna find nothing.”

  “He’s right, you know. You ain’t gonna find nothing,” Ochoa repeated.

  “Ain’t gonna find nothing means we’re going to find something, you morons.”

  Juan cocked his head at me like I was nuts. “Morons?”

  “Just shut up.” I’d had enough. I turned back around and stared out the windshield.

  Wyatt climbed into the driver’s seat and said, “You look like you’re going to pass out. Are you okay?”

  “Fine. Just drive. I’ll be fine by the time we get to Juan’s house.” I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

  “Juan’s boss said he’s never had any complaints about him. He’s a reliable worker. He’s been taxiing the workers without cars for about five years, and has never been late for work. They pay him for his time, and he uses the company van to pick them up. He comes to work early in his Honda, then takes the van out to round everyone up and bring them to the work sites, then he drives them home at the end of the day.”

  “Not a single complaint?” I found it hard to believe.

  “I only talked to his direct supervisor. He said Juan worked hard, didn’t say much, and drove everyone home at the end of the day, then came back to get his own car. That was it.” Wyatt drove the rest of the way in silence.

  When we arrived at the station, Wyatt booked Juan into the holding cell, while I rested in the car. I enjoyed the quiet, and must have fallen asleep. In my sleep, I heard a tap. I thought someone was trying to get to me, and I was trying to get away, but I was being held down. I couldn’t move, couldn’t get away. Then I heard my name.

  “Harper, damn it.” Wyatt opened the car door.

  I jumped and screamed as Wyatt reached for me. He was lucky he didn’t get punched.

  “Don’t touch me,” I yelled as I thrashed.

  “Wake up.” He held my arms at my sides to save himself.

  In a snap, I came to. “Hey, oh, sorry. That was a nasty nightmare.”

  He let go of me. “You were out cold. Dang, woman.”

  “I was dreaming someone was trying to get to me, and I was strapped down. It must have been the seat belt.” I looked at the shoulder strap and laughed. “Sorry about that.”

  “Do you have dreams like that a lot?” He looked terrified. Not for him, but for me.

  “Must be the head injury,” I lied.

  Reluctantly, he shut the door and went around the driver’s side.

  “Want to talk about it?” he asked, as we headed back out on the road.

  “Nothing to talk about. I fell asleep, and I was dreaming. You scared me in the middle of a dream. And now I’m embarrassed.” I reached across and punched him in the shoulder.

  “I don’t believe you, but we have other things to worry about at the moment. When we get back to the station, there’s a package waiting for you.”

  The way he said it, I thought maybe Thomas had left me a gift. It was so nonchalant. I shrugged, and said, “I’m not expecting anything. But you could have brought it to me.”

  “It didn’t look important. You can get it when you get back.” Irritation rattled his words.

  The sky had clouded over, and I prayed for rain. I could pray all I wanted, but the only thing we’d get was thick fog.

  CHAPTER 18

  Wyatt made a left on M Street, then a right on 3rd, and my heart raced. Juan Garcia lived three blocks from Danny Cabrera’s aunt’s house. I wondered if Wyatt was thinking the same thing I was. I looked at him, but hi
s eyes were on the road.

  Something was bothering him.

  “What’s going on in that head of yours? I can tell you’re pissed about something.”

  “Nothing. Let’s just get this over with,” he snapped.

  “No, Wyatt. I can’t work like this. We won’t be productive, and you know it.” I gripped the door handle to keep myself from doing anything stupid.

  “You have flowers, too. Okay? You have stupid flowers.” Wyatt’s face turned beet red.

  I bit the insides of my cheeks to keep from smiling. Thomas had sent flowers. Thomas sent flowers.

  “Oh, please, he was there when I wrecked. They’re probably just get well flowers. Stop it.”

  “Whatever. It’s no big deal. I’m just telling you.” He drove into the driveway of the apartment complex where Juan Garcia lived.

  Juan had given us the keys to his apartment because he didn’t want us asking the apartment manager for the key, and he didn’t want his door kicked in. That made me happy, and yet gave me pause.

  “Do you think he doesn’t care if we find anything, or he knows we won’t find anything?” I asked Wyatt.

  “Who the hell knows? But he’s damn sure guilty of something. He’s way too smug to be completely innocent. And our warrant gives us plenty of leeway, so look through every nook and cranny. Porter will be here in a few minutes to back us up. This may take a few minutes, or it may take all afternoon.”

  We headed to apartment 113 and unlocked the door. I saw Porter’s vehicle drive up as Wyatt went in.

  It had been a long time since I’d lived in an apartment. This was a two bedroom, with white walls and brown carpets and cabinets. Seen one, seen them all. Juan’s had well-used furniture: a couch, two chairs, a coffee table, and a flat screen TV on the wall. The nicest thing in the place was the TV.

  Along the wall in the kitchen was an entertainment center with a smaller TV. The cabinet had lots of doors and drawers, and stacks of books and magazines next to the TV. The dining room table held a dirty plate with dried on food, and more piles of magazines. I saw a few books stacked there, too.

  “Where do you want to start?” Wyatt asked me.

  “I can start here.” I looked at the mess on the dining room table. “I feel like I should do the dishes first, though.”

  “How do people live like this?” He turned up his nose.

  “Be careful back there. If the kitchen and dining room look like this…” I could only imagine what the bedroom and bathroom looked like.

  I heard Wyatt say, “Porter, you take the bathroom, then the spare bedroom.”

  I snickered to myself. Thank goodness I was first in with Wyatt. I’d been the one on bathroom duty for warrants before. It sucked. You’d think people were criminals because it paid well, and because they got to live the good life. I had yet to see a nice house during my raids. Or maybe we just hadn’t gotten that lucky yet. Only the DEA and FBI got to raid the million and billion dollar homes, or so it seemed.

  I needed to move up the chain of command. I looked over at Ochoa, who was shaking his head. Yeah, not with him looking over my shoulder. I’d never pass the psych evaluation. I was going to find the gun, make my case, and get my head on straight. Maybe I could move up, and get out of Uncertain, too.

  I started at the entertainment center. The stacks of magazines were hardcore porn. Not the kind you get in convenience stores, and have to ask for, because they are behind the counter. These were the mail-order ones that came in a plain brown wrapper. I’d never even heard of some of the titles. BDMS, male on male, ménage a trois, the works. It made me wonder what Juan was watching on his televisions. The top of each stack of magazines had an innocuous magazine like, Time or Sports Illustrated, but pick just that one up, and you got the gamut of his real tastes. Three or four magazines down, I found a book.

  I pulled the book out. It was a hardcover, with a Spanish title I couldn’t translate. When I opened it, the interior had been hollowed out, and replaced with DVDs. I popped the DVD out of the jewel case and turned on his TV in the entertainment center. I slid the DVD into the built-in player.

  When the DVD started playing, I yelled, “Wyatt, get in here.”

  Did I mention he hated to be yelled at from another room? I was lucky he came running. I’m sure it was only because he worried about my head injury. Porter came along with him.

  We all stared at the screen, even though we wanted to look away.

  Juan had taken amateur video of himself raping a young girl in the back of his work van. He held the camera phone in one hand as he went through the motions of raping her. He’d already had her mouth and hands taped, and he spoke to her in Spanish as he violated her. The poor girl’s face was bloated and red, as tears streamed down her cheeks and into her matted hair.

  Wyatt reached forward and stopped the DVD. “That’s enough. Set it aside. Stop searching this room. We’ll search it last.”

  Porter looked at me and said, “That looks like it hurts.”

  I touched my forehead, knowing it would smart, and said, “It does.” I wasn’t about to explain it.

  We had a warrant to search for evidence for the crime of murder, not rape. So if we came across evidence of another crime, we had to stop our search, and get another warrant to gather evidence for that crime. What Wyatt was telling me was, “We’re going to finish looking for the gun. When we’re finished, we’ll find this evidence, and we’ll go back to the judge. Then we’ll charge that piece of shit Garcia with rape on top of everything else.”

  I decided to start in the gross kitchen instead.

  When Wyatt and Porter went back down the hallway, Ochoa said, “Wrong place, ese, wrong place.”

  After three long hours of searching every inch of Garcia’s house, we came up with nothing even close to resembling a gun.

  I had Wyatt stop at the Corner Store, so I could grab a couple of slices of pizza and a Green Monster. I wanted to go over some of the news footage at my computer station. We’d been able to get something from Channel 8, but I didn’t think it was much. They’d only give us what they’d shown to the public. Something about warrants, probable cause, blah, blah, blah.

  I chewed on a slice of cold triple meat pizza, and chugged Green Monster from the can, as I watched slow-motion footage of the anti-police rally. I looked for familiar faces in the crowd. Looked for anyone I’d come into contact with in the last few days. Anyone who I might not have recognized before. Someone who looked familiar after going to the almond groves and the vineyards.

  I did see a familiar face. The chick from the office at TBA. Holy shit. The nice girl who gave me all of the information, and paged Felix what's-his-name. What was her name? I looked in my notes. Shit. I never got her name. Funny, she never mentioned being at the rally, or was it a protest? Whatever. I swore Thomas said her name. Why didn’t I write it down?

  I picked up my phone to text Thomas. Then I put it down. I didn’t want to bother him with it. I picked it up again, looking through my notes. I dialed TBA Almond Growers.

  I got the switchboard and introduced myself. Then I said, “I’m not really sure of the name of the person I’m looking for. She’s a cute thing with long brown ringlets. Works right near the front counter in the trailer office.”

  “Oh, you’ve reached the corporate office. Let me transfer you to the field office. I think you’re talking about the Clearville division.” I heard a few clicks and the phone was ringing again.

  “TBA Almond Growers.”

  I recognized her voice immediately.

  “Hi, I’ll bet you remember me. I’m Officer Harper Leigh.”

  “Oh, yes, the one my boss was all smitten with,” she giggled.

  “Okay, well, can I get your name?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Oh, I heard you, but I’m not sure why you need my name.” Not quite so giggly now.

  “It’s a funny thing. I was looking at some footage of the p
olice protest rally, and I saw you there. I’m certain I can just ring up Thomas and ask him, but I’d prefer to keep him out of it for now.”

  Ochoa shook his head.

  “Take a good hard look at your footage, Officer Leigh. I wasn’t at the rally. Oh, I was there alright, but I wasn’t at the rally.” Her voice got really low. “I knew why you were here that day, and Felix wasn’t the reason you were here. You were looking for the man killed that boy. But it wasn’t no man.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” She was grating on my nerves.

  Back to her normal tone of voice. “Ha, yes, you’re correct. My sister has been an intern with that news station for over a year. She’s a dear, isn’t she? Well, she wanted to meet you, but that just wouldn’t have been safe, now, would it?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Wyatt walked in with the signed affidavit for the rape warrant on Juan Garcia, at that moment, and waved it under my nose.

  Ochoa said, “See, I told you, you were looking in the wrong place.”

  “My daddy was a cop in Sacramento. Thirty years. He was devastated to know my sister was covering that protest. Made him sick. I’m sorry you saw my face on TV, Officer Leigh, I really am.” She almost sounded southern, the way she spoke.

  “What are you trying to tell me, miss…?” I still didn’t have her name.

  “Let me put you on hold just a minute.”

  She put me on hold, but not for just a minute. I waited for five minutes when I realized she wasn’t coming back on the line. Damn it all to hell. She was good. I thought about calling back, but then I watched the tape again. She was at the rally, but she definitely wasn’t part of it. She stood on the periphery.

  She was looking for someone. Her sister worked for the news station. She was there looking for her sister. Okay, all was forgiven.

  I stuffed more cold pizza in my mouth, remembering I’d be having pasta for dinner. I didn’t even care that I’d probably gain five pounds in two days. I took another bite.