by Dave Daren
He only hesitated once he’d raised a chipped blue BIC lighter up toward the cigarette. He let the flame flick out as he spoke in a half mumble.
“You mind?” he asked both Brody and I.
“Not at all,” Brody said with a nonchalant wave of his hand.
Jackson gave a grateful sort of nod before he lit up and pulled in a deep breath. The end of the cigarette burned a bright red with the inhale, and then he exhaled a thick plume of smoke over his head.
He leaned up against the bartop in the window with one elbow planted on the shitty Formica top as he continued to take drags off his rapidly depleting cigarette. He tapped ash off the butt into a presumably empty Pepsi can that sat nearby.
“I only found out what they were lookin’ for thanks to the shit public defense lawyer they gave me,” Jackson resumed his story with a derisive snort and a shake of his head. “You ever worked with one of those fuckers? I think I knew more about the case than he did. He kept calling me Jonathan, too. Never forgotten that.”
I felt like I’d developed a decent rapport with Jackson, and so I wasn’t exactly going to jump at the opportunity to tell him that I had once been one of those fuckers, and that I was a severely overworked and underpaid one at that.
Brody’s lips twitched in a grin, and I could tell it was because he knew my background with the Public Defender’s office in Maricopa County. Luckily, he didn’t bring it up.
“So what did it end up being for?” Brody asked and shifted on the couch.
The springs underneath the cushions gave a whining groan, and I was momentarily concerned that the entire thing was going to break underneath our combined weight.
I stood up to prevent something like that from happening and moved a step back to lean my shoulder into the wall by the sliding door to the porch with my body angled toward Jackson.
“Possession with intent to distribute was the charge they tried to slap me with,” he said after he’d released another cloud of smoke. “And the warrant was for any drugs, paraphernalia, all that shit. They also were looking for anything that went against parole. But I’d been clean, on the straight and narrow, or whatever it is they say in the movies.”
He shook his head and tapped another clump of ash from his already nearly finished cigarette.
“Didn’t stop the pigs from taking all my shit, though,” he muttered with clear malice in his tone.
I looked around his apartment and took in its sparseness through a new lens now. Was it so empty still because he’d been unable to get back the things the sheriff and his herd of deputies had taken?
“Were you ever able to get anything back?” Brody asked the question that had been poised on my lips.
Jackson gave another sharp, bitter laugh as he stamped out his cigarette around the rim of the Pepsi can. He dropped the useless butt into the opening of the can and shifted to cross his thick arms over his torso.
“What the hell do you think?” the ex-con asked with a shake of his head. “I work at Vinny’s, you know it? It’s the best body shop on this side of town.”
There was a small tinge of pride to his voice, and I could tell that Jackson had some level of care about his job and the work he did.
“Vin’s a good guy, and he’s an ex-con, too, so he hires a bunch of us,” he explained with the ghost of a fond smile flashing across his face for a moment. “But even with my job there, it’s been a bitch of a time to save up enough to get out of this shithole, and I don’t have the time to waste fighting with a bunch of corrupt assholes over a fuckin’ flat screen TV.”
He shrugged, as if it was all that simple.
I knew it went unsaid that he wasn’t exactly the most sympathetic-looking character, either, and that a jury would probably rule against him if it ever went to court, which it probably wouldn’t, and that if he went to the media, who’d believe an ex-con over members of law enforcement?
I shifted in my spot on the wall, and that simple motion sent a small flurry of paint chips to the floor.
“Was your television all they took?” I asked and hoped that a television really was the only thing they’d taken from Jackson, but based on the fervor with which he spoke about the sheriff’s department’s wrongdoings, I could tell it was something more.
As if to prove my point, Jackson barked out a laugh and then shook his head like he’d either just heard the greatest or worst joke ever.
“Oh, no, they took everything that wasn’t nailed down,” he snapped, but I could tell the anger wasn’t really directed at Brody and I. “They took the sheets off my bed. They took lightbulbs and my shit set of knives I’d gotten from the Salvation Army. Hell, they even took my shower curtain.”
He bared his teeth in a bitter, angry smile, and I could see that discussing everything that had happened made a storm start to brew underneath the surface of his skin.
I could barely hide my own horror at his story and looked over at Brody to see a similar look on his face.
“They took things like the TV, too, a couple of small appliances that were probably worth less than my sheets,” he muttered and started to fumble for another cigarette to light.
He finally tapped one from the pack and held it clenched between his lips as he lit it. After a very long drag and a glance around at the empty room, he pointed toward an empty shelf I hadn’t noticed before.
“They took my grandmother’s clock, that’s what still gets me,” he said around the cigarette he’d nestled into the corner. “This old wooden one that was supposed to sit above a fireplace, you know the type? She left it to me in her damn will. She was the only one in my whole family that didn’t write me off after I went to lock-up, and those rat bastards took it for fun.”
Jackson slammed the BIC back onto the counter and gave a hard shake of his head. He made a strangled sound deep in his throat, then dropped the cigarette onto the counter. He dragged his large hands over his face for a moment, then let his arms drop limply to his sides.
“You could have contested that,” I said, even though I knew how pointless it was. Jackson had said it well enough himself earlier. Who would listen to someone like him?
“I ended up running across Todd by accident,” said Jackson. “I was leaving the sheriff’s department after they detained me in a damn interrogation room for about seven hours after they broke into my house.”
I filled in the blanks in the story.
“Todd was outside protesting the sheriff’s department shutting down his business,” I finished with a nod of my own.
Jackson pointed at me and nodded as well to confirm what I’d said.
“He started tellin’ me what he was there for, and I realized the same sort of thing had happened to me,” he confirmed. “We kept in touch, kept talking about the shit that had happened, and he always told me whenever he found somebody else with a story like ours.”
He paused and the furrow returned between his eyebrows as he looked between Brody and I.
“Why are you two talkin’ to Todd?” he asked. “Did the Sheriff try to seize something of yours?”
I scratched at my cheek and shifted my weight from one foot to another as I tried to find a more comfortable position. A few more flakes of paint drifted to the ground, and I hoped it wasn’t old enough to still have lead in it.
“I had a woman approach me with a story like yours about a family heirloom taken by the police,” I explained when I was settled again. “And it sent us down this rabbithole.”
I didn’t think I needed to give him the full sequence of events that had led to us knocking at his door, and I don’t think he wanted it because Jackson gave a simple nod of his head at my statement.
“Do you think you’ll be able to get it back for her?” he asked, and I didn’t miss the note of longing in his voice.
I opened my mouth and then closed it. I couldn’t really address his question because I didn’t know the answer. I hoped we’d be able to get Natalie’s ring back, but given everything I’d learned about the department a
nd everything I already knew about Sheriff Thompson himself, I didn’t have the highest hopes.
Apparently the apprehension showed on my face because Jackson gave a deep sigh and a frown.
“It’s a shit hand,” he said with a small shake of his head.
Before I could say anything else, Jackson straightened up from his position against the bartop.
“Actually,” he started and seemed surprised at his own words. “I forgot to mention that there’s an auction going on.”
I shared a look with Brody before I turned my full attention back to Jackson and cocked my head to the side in question.
“An auction?” I asked.
He nodded and rubbed at his jaw.
“Yeah, yeah, you know one of those police auctions?” he asked but didn’t wait for an answer before he continued. “The type where they sell off all the useless shit they kept in evidence. I saw something about it in the back of the paper.”
I really did need to get a subscription to the local papers apparently.
“Those are fairly common,” Brody pointed out in his slow drawl.
I could tell he was trying to figure out why Jackson had brought it up now. Given the timeline, it would be surprising if they still had any of his belongings, and it was too soon for them to try and sell Natalie’s.
Jackson nodded again, but his dark eyes had gone bright.
“Yeah, I know, but is it common for the sheriff to keep some of the items for himself?” he asked with a vicious grin.
Chapter 5
Brody and I exchanged a look of shock, and I pulled my focus back onto Jackson. My eyebrows rose high enough that they probably sat somewhere near my hairline.
“Sheriff Thompson is keeping some of the items?” I asked without even pretending to be anything other than incredulous.
I knew better than most of the residents of Crowley that Thompson was a scumbag, but this was a whole new level of bad that I wasn’t aware he’d ascended to.
Jackson hesitated, and he suddenly seemed less sure of himself as he looked at Brody and me.
“Well, it’s a rumor,” he admitted. “But from what I’ve heard, the rumor started from the department itself, like one of those ugly little deputies is leaking information.”
He shrugged as if he hadn’t just dropped a bombshell on us, and then picked up his cigarette again. He took another puff, and then waited to see what Brody or I would say.
I couldn’t be sure what Brody was thinking, but I struggled to find something to say as I parsed through all the information he’d just given us.
“So, to be clear,” I started. “There’s going to be a police auction soon, and based on a rumor that might have come out of the department itself, Sheriff Thompson is keeping some of the items that are supposed to be auctioned off for himself?”
It sounded almost crazy as I said it all aloud, but it was the sort of crazy that I could believe, and that was the worst part.
Jackson nodded again.
“You’ve got it,” he assured me. “I’ve tried to go to all of the ones they’ve held, which hasn’t been many, but I can’t make it to the one tomorrow.”
He shrugged, and I assumed the reason he wasn’t able to attend the auction was because of his job.
I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and looked up at Jackson.
“Would you mind writing down the details of that for me?” I asked as I cleared the distance between us and extended my phone toward him. I’d switched it over onto the Notes app so he’d have a place to write everything down.
Jackson gave an easy shrug as he leaned forward to pluck the phone from my hand.
“Sure,” he said before he started tapping at the screen with his thumbs in a slow, contemplative manner as if he was trying to remember all of the details correctly.
After a moment he passed it back to me, and I gave it a cursory glance to make sure I had everything I needed before I clicked my screen off and slipped it back into my back pocket.
“Thank you for this, and for speaking with us,” I said with a genuine smile.
I offered him my hand to shake, and Jackson took it and gave it a firm squeeze and a brief shake before he dropped his own hand back down to his side.
“No problem,” he said with a nod of goodbye to Brody as well.
Behind me, Brody pushed himself up to his feet with a bit of difficulty that I politely ignored but would be sure to tease him for later, just to get back at him for the shit he’d given me about my fear of the deathtrap elevator.
“If we manage to find anything related to you in all of this, I’ll be sure to get in touch,” I assured Jackson with another smile before I gave him a small nod and started back down the narrow hallway that led to the front door with Brody hot on my trail.
Jackson followed behind the both of us at a bit of a distance, presumably so that he could lock his apartment door back up once we left.
I reached up and unlatched the chain lock and took a step back to pull the door open. I gave a last wave to say goodbye before stepping back out into the grimey looking hallway. I’d nearly forgotten how poorly-lit it was thanks to the natural sunlight that had lit up Jackson’s apartment, and for a moment, I couldn’t see a thing.
Brody stepped out and pulled the door shut behind him with a resounding thud, and barely a second had passed before I heard the metallic clanking that signaled the lock being slid back into place.
The man and woman in the apartment next to Jackson’s seemed to have stopped their arguing for the time being, and the only sound I could hear was the still pulsing reggae music from a few doors down.
I fell into step with Brody as we headed toward the stairwell at the end of the hallway because there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I was going to willingly get back onto that damn elevator.
“We’re going to end up at that auction, aren’t we?” he asked with a blunt edge to his voice and a beleaguered sigh.
I offered him a pointedly cheerful smile in return as I nudged open the heavy door to the stairwell. The metal barely wanted to budge but finally gave an aching groan as I managed to wrestle it open.
The stairwell looked like the exact sort of place you’d be stabbed in if you were in a horror movie, and it was a none too reassuring thought. The metal stairs looked about as rickety as the elevator felt, but I at least couldn’t get stuck on the stairs.
“Why wouldn’t we go?” I countered Brody’s question and listened to my own voice as it echoed around the stairwell.
For somewhere straight out of a nightmare, it had surprisingly pleasant acoustics.
Brody gave another overly dramatic heavy sigh as he thudded down the stairs behind me.
“Look,” I tried a new angle of approach. “Even if this isn’t illegal-”
Brody cut me off. “-It isn’t,” he said.
“Even if it isn’t illegal,” I tried again as I turned on the landing down to the second floor flight of stairs. “We should at least go and check things out.”
I felt like we’d be bad at our jobs if we didn’t even go and have a look around the auction. Plus, I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for Jackson that he wasn’t able to go himself and look for his belongings, if they were still being sold at all.
But Brody sighed so loud it nearly echoed too as we made it to the last flight of stairs. Clearly, the man was not up for a visit to the local auction hotspot.
“Why, because someone told you that someone else told them that someone else told them the sheriff was skimming off the top?” He asked with a practically audible roll of his eyes.
I shouldered open the front door of the stairwell, and it swung out without nearly the same level of resistance I’d felt from the door on the third floor.
“Exactly,” I answered with the sort of pleasant grin I knew would irritate Brody to no end.
I held the door open for him anyway, however, and the two of us started across the tiny lobby to the Greenview Apartments exit.
/> The sun was bright enough overhead that I momentarily had to shield my eyes from the light. I squinted out at the street until my eyes adjusted, which seemed to take forever under the Texas sun.
Brody didn’t seem to have the same issue thanks to that damn cowboy hat he wore. He saw me looking as I shielded my eyes with one hand and had the gall to give me a cheesy tip of his hat and a wink.
I rolled my eyes and made my way down the front sidewalk.
The group of children that had been scattered around earlier had all disappeared, and I wondered if they’d all gone inside the building to have lunch, or if they all even lived here at all.
“This is a bad idea,” Brody spoke up again as we made it to his car. He quickly unlocked the vehicle and slid inside to unlock my door as well.
When I heard the lock click, I made my way into my seat and pulled the door closed behind me.
The sun had beaten down on the roof of the damn car and turned the cab into a sauna. I fanned myself with my hand like a debutante, and Brody snorted before he turned the vehicle on and cranked up the air conditioner for me.
Given the age of the car, the air conditioning was just a step left of useless, but I’d take what I could get so I didn’t sweat through my shirt before we made it back to Landon Legal.
“You’d say that no matter what I suggested we do,” I argued with a soft laugh as I watched Brody pull us away from the curb.
He gave an acquiescing grunt as he eased back into traffic.
“It’s because you only have bad ideas, kid,” he grumbled without any heat in his tone. “Where are we headed now?”
“Back to the office,” I said. “I think we need to regroup and rethink some of this case, given it’s not going to be as fast as I expected.”
It almost pained me to admit that he’d been right about our timeline expanding out. It also pained me to imagine explaining everything to Evelyn.
I could practically see the smoke that would come out of her ears when I told her that I’d found two more sob stories to attach myself to and that now I had reason to suspect the sheriff’s department of blatant corruption.
