Don't Leave Me

by James Scott Bell

  “Yeah. Me. My brother used to tell me that.”

  Rosa sat up. It was more than a crack now, Sandy thought. She had Rosa’s attention. And for some reason Sandy needed to blast through it like a pile driver. She had to make this one understand.

  “When I was four I almost drowned,” Sandy said. “No oxygen to the brain for twenty minutes. I should’ve died. It was an ice cold lake. My dad fished me out. I made it, but my brother used to tell me all the time I was brain damaged. That’s what he called me. BD for short. He made fun of me and I believed him. And when I was in school, I had a hard time. Until one day I found out I wasn’t really stupid at all. I didn’t have to believe it.”

  Rosa frowned. “How you find out?”

  “A teacher gave me a book to read. It was called A Wrinkle in Time. I got so into that book, and then I knew I had to read and read and read, so I did. And what I read stayed with me. It’ll stay with you, Rosa. You’re not stupid. You just need to practice. But you’ll never get practice hanging out with the gangs.”

  Rosa was silent for a long time.

  Finally, Rosa shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t want to say nothing. I want to go home.”

  “I can’t keep you here. I just would like you to stay and think about it. Let me get you something to eat.”

  “No. I want to go right now. I don’t want to say nothing.”

  Rosa got up hard, like she was afraid of getting shot right there in the interview room. Sandy stood and put her hands up as a signal for Rosa to pause a moment. “If you change your mind, I want you to call me.” Sandy handed Rosa her card. “Even if you’re in trouble or you just want to talk. Okay? Would you do that?”

  A tap at the door. It was Mark Mooney, Sandy’s partner. “A second?” Mooney said.

  Sandy put a finger up to tell Mooney to wait, then walked Rosa out to the front desk. “Remember,” Sandy said to her. “Anytime.”

  Rosa put her head down, turned and left. Sandy did not allow herself to harbor any hopes. You got wrecked if you did.

  When she got back inside she met Mooney standing by his desk. He said, “Lost kitty?”

  “What is it you wanted?” Despite liking Mooney—he was junior, a Detective-I to her D-II—Sandy found his tongue a little too sharp at times. Like he was playing out some Raymond Chandler fantasy. It went with the square jawed, buzz cut, buffed out image he liked to present.

  He motioned with his thumb to the computer monitor on his desk. Sandy saw a standard dispatch report. “911 call from this morning,” Mooney said. “A guy pulled a knife on a driver off Platt.”

  “Road rage?”

  “Don’t know. The guy who called it in was named Grant Nunn. The guy who got the threat, according to Nunn, was a guy named Samson, a school teacher.”

  “Is there a homicide lurking around this?” Sandy said.

  “That’s just it. Nunn never made it to work. They just found him in his car in back of Target. Bullet to the head.”

  Sandy said nothing.

  “But get this,” Mooney said. “This teacher, Samson, a few hours ago his house goes crispy. The whole thing. Boom. Up in smoke. That’s a pretty big day for just one guy, don’t you think?”

  Chapter 10

  At six-forty-five Wednesday morning, Chuck called Ray Hunt.

  “I’ve got a little problem,” Chuck said. “As in, there was a fire at my house and I don’t have any clothes or shaving gear or anything like that. In fact, I don’t have a house.”

  “Fire!” Ray said.

  “Long story, but I–”

  “You all right? Your brother?”

  “We’re in a motel. I need to get some clothes and shave and all. I’ll try to be in by nine. I may be a little late.”

  “Don’t come in,” Ray said. “I’ll get somebody to cover for you. Not a problem.”

  “I want to,” Chuck said. He almost added I need to.

  “You sure?”

  “Wal-Mart opens at seven. I’ll grab a stunning new wardrobe and a razor and come back here for a shower, and be good to go.”

  “Chuck, this is terrible. Anything I can do, name it.”

  “Just make sure the whale costume comes in on time.”

  Chuck gathered Stan up and drove to Mickey D’s for breakfast, then over to Wal-Mart. By eight-fifty they were back at the motel with enough clothes for a couple of days. As long as they weren’t angling for GQ, they’d be fine. Chuck sped through a shower and shave. Stan was next and could walk to work.

  Chuck did his best Jimmy Johnson, as much as he could in a dented Sentra, and made it to the Hunt school by nine-thirty-five.

  And realized, getting out of the car, how much he truly did need this place. It was a safe haven, a healing zone. He’d been lucky to get the job last year. Ray Hunt’s son, Raleigh, had been in the Marine expeditionary unit Chuck served as chaplain. Chuck reconnected with Raleigh stateside, and found out his father needed a fifth grade teacher for their spring semester. Chuck was about to run out of money. When he went in for the interview, he and Ray Hunt hit it off like they were the ones who were father and son.

  It was Raleigh’s drug problem, Chuck knew, that had put a veil between him and Ray. Ray Hunt was the proverbial straight arrow, and couldn’t understand why Raleigh, who everybody called Rollo, couldn’t lick the problem by sheer will.

  Hunt agreed to hire Chuck for a probationary term, as long as Chuck pursued a full teaching credential. Chuck jumped at it, and dug in. The job became his life preserver.

  It still was. And in a way, it was that for Ray Hunt, too. Because he hadn’t heard from Rollo in half a year.

  Chuck saw Ray striding––Ray never just walked––toward him in the parking lot, his full head of white hair topping a V-shaped body set in a crisp white shirt and gold tie. He was sixty-four and looked forty. A Viet Nam vet, he’d come back from the war and built up this prestigious private K-12 school with little more than moxie and eighteen-hour-days, alongside his wife, Astrid. Over the past thirty-plus years, the Hunts had become wealthy, respected, and active participants in the community.

  He pumped Chuck’s hand. “You’re amazing for being here. You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. I should get to class.”

  “I have Miss Hayes running interference.” Ray Hunt was old school. Women were Miss or Mrs. And the kids were never to use a teacher’s first name. “How did your house—”

  A thumping like Godzilla’s foot hit Chuck’s ears. He turned and saw a tricked-out pickup with fully amped gangsta blaring into the lot.

  One of the high schoolers. Chuck knew about him. Tommy Stone was his name. He’d almost been suspended a couple of times. He had an older brother who’d gone here, Jimmy Stone. A very bad seed, Jimmy was, so they said.

  Tommy drove by giving Ray and Chuck a look. A look.

  Chuck turned and was about to speak when he saw something he never expected to see on the headmaster’s face. But there it was, for a split second, before getting wiped off like a sheen of sweat.

  It was a look of fear.

  Chapter 11

  An hour before lunch Chuck was introducing the class to the battles of Lexington and Concord when Rene Hayes, the office assistant, stuck her head in the door.

  Chuck said, “Can it wait? I’m about to fire the shot heard round the world.”

  Miss Hayes didn’t smile. “I don’t think it can.”

  Chuck went to the door.

  “Mr. Hunt needs you at the office,” she said, low so the kids couldn’t hear. “It’s the police.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll take class till lunch.”

  “Um, yeah, okay. Have them do the worksheet on page whatever it is.”

  To the class he said, “Miss Hayes is taking over for a bit. If you’re good, we’ll do the harpoon song this afternoon, with the props.”

  The kids cheered.

  Ray was waiting with the cops in the teachers’ lounge. He introduced an African
American woman, maybe mid–forties and on the hefty side, as Detective Epperson. The other one, younger, white, was named Mooney.

  Then Ray excused himself, saying they wouldn’t be disturbed.

  “Thanks for your time,” Epperson said. She had friendly brown eyes. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  It sounded like she could have meant Julia. “What’s going on?”

  “We’d just like to ask you a few questions.”

  “About my house?”

  “The fire department handles that,” Epperson said. “We’re homicide detectives.”

  “Homicide?”

  “Let’s go to square one.” Epperson seemed calm, understanding. Mooney kept his lips pursed as he jotted notes. If this had been an interrogation, it would have been a no brainer to see the good cop-bad cop routine playing out.

  Epperson said, “Let’s start with how you first learned your house was on fire.”

  “I thought this wasn’t about the fire.”

  “This is about timing.”

  “Why is this important?”

  “If you’ll just bear with us for a few minutes,” Epperson said, “we’ll let you get back to teaching.”

  Fine. “I was driving home and I saw smoke, and that’s when I saw the fire.”

  “Were you driving home from here?”

  “No, I picked up my brother from work. He works at Ralphs.”

  Mooney said, “He was there from when to when?”

  “What does my brother have to do with this?” Chuck said. “You don’t think he had anything to do with a fire.”

  Epperson spoke through Mooney’s glare. “It’s just background for us, Mr. Samson.”

  “He was at work all day, he always is. Check it. I pick him up after I’m done at school. Around four-thirty or so, usually. I did that, we were driving home, I saw the smoke, I thought it was close to our house. It was our house. That’s how I found out.”

  Nodding, Epperson said, “Do you have any idea how it may have started?”

  Chuck wondered how much to tell them. The voice on the phone had warned him not to talk to the police. But he knew he wasn’t going to get very far on his own. He had to have help.

  “All right,” Chuck said. “Something weird happened to me yesterday. I was getting an early start, taking Stan in to the store, then I was going to go on to school. There was this black Escalade a little ways down from our house, with a guy in it. Sitting there. I looked at him, he looked at me. I drive on. Next thing I know, the guy pulls in front of me and jams on his brakes, and I hit him.”

  “A rear ender?” Mooney asked.

  “A set up,” Chuck said.

  “Why would he set you up?” Mooney said.

  “That’s the thing. No idea. He had an accent, or it sounded like one, and he pulled a knife on me.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “About my age and height, long brown hair parted in the middle, blue eyes, a little red in them. He had something to drink, I’m pretty sure.”

  Epperson leaned in. “Go on.”

  “I got out to talk to him, and he starts saying I was looking at him on purpose. I was trying to tell him I wasn’t, then he grabs me by the throat.” Chuck demonstrated with his left hand.

  “How’d you get the scar?” Mooney asked.

  “Afghanistan.”

  “Marine?”

  “Navy chaplain.”

  “Chaplain?” Mooney said. “You look like a guy who could fight.”

  “So?” Chuck said.

  “Just an observation. Where were you assigned?”

  “A unit in the Helmand province, right before Operation Khanjar.”

  Epperson said, “How does the Navy get involved with the Marines?”

  “Marines don’t have their own chaplains,” Chuck said.

  “How do Navy chaplains get scars?” Mooney said.

  “I was captured. I was cut. I don’t really see how any of this is relevant.”

  “Just asking,” Mooney said. “Go back to the guy grabbing your throat.”

  “I blasted his head back, like this.” Chuck showed his palms up move.

  “This guy had a knife?”

  “Butterfly knife, you know, with the flip blade?”

  Epperson said, “So this guy followed you and made you hit him, then grabbed you and threatened you with a knife?”

  “That’s right. Then a guy came along and stopped and the Russian put the knife away and drove off. And the guy in the car, he saw the knife, and called in a 911.”

  “Right,” Mooney said.

  “What do you mean right?” Chuck said.

  Mooney said nothing. Epperson shot her partner a quick look.

  “You guys know about this?” Chuck said.

  “We do,” Epperson said.

  “Uh-huh. And you didn’t want to share that little bit of information with me?”

  “We wanted to hear it from you fresh,” said Mooney.

  “Next time, why don’t you just tell me up front what you know,” Chuck said. “Pretend we’re all grown-ups.”

  Mooney started to say something, but Epperson cut in. “I’m sorry, Mr. Samson,” she said. “This is not any reflection on you. It’s how we gather information, that’s all. Routine, as they used to say.”

  Chuck said, “Can we get on with it?”

  “Tell us about your wife,” Epperson said.

  Chuck just looked at her.

  “More background,” Epperson said.

  “You can tell me what this is really about now,” Chuck said. “And I’ll decide if I want to tell you anything else.”

  “That’s fair,” Epperson said. “We know your wife was killed in a hit-and-run in Beaman, up near the Grapevine.”

  “Then you know what I know.”

  “What was she doing in Beaman?”

  “Working on a story. She wrote for a weekly covering Southern Cal.”

  “And Beaman meant what to her?”

  “Why are you asking me all this?”

  “Please, Mr. Samson.”

  “They have that alligator farm up there. She was doing a piece on the history of alligator farms in . . .” Chuck stopped, the words bunching in his throat.

  “I’m sorry,” Epperson said.

  Chuck said nothing.

  “Just a couple more things,” Epperson said, “and we’ll get out of here. At 6:42 a.m., yesterday morning, the 911 call came in from a Mr. Grant Nunn. He reported the incident you’ve described.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Chuck said. “I didn’t know his name, though.”

  “Mr. Nunn was an administrator at DeVry University in Sherman Oaks.”

  “Was?”

  Mooney said, “He never made it to work.”

  Chuck shook his head. He felt like they were lowering some sort of net on him. “And?”

  “He never made it home, either,” Epperson said. “He was found shot to death in his car in a store parking lot.”

  Chuck swallowed hard. It was like a fist of ice going down. “What does any of this have to do with me?”

  “Let us ask the questions,” Mooney said.

  “I don’t like your questions,” Chuck said. “I don’t know anything except what I’ve told you. Why should I know––”

  “What about Lucy Bowers?” Mooney said.

  Chuck eyed him. “I don’t remember mentioning Lucy Bowers.”

  “We’re mentioning her,” Mooney said.

  “What about her?”

  Epperson said, “She’s been reported missing, too.”

  Chuck stood. Too much information at once. He felt tight around his throat, like the Mad Russian had him in his grip again.

  “I have to get back to class,” Chuck said.

  “Your boss said it’s almost lunch time,” Mooney said.

  “Then I need to get to my sandwich,” Chuck said. “You got an issue with that?”

  “Maybe,” Mooney said.

  “Then deal with it on your own ti
me,” Chuck said.

  Epperson handed him her card. “Will you just let us know if any thoughts on these matters occur to you? That’s a direct number there. I’d appreciate it.”

  Sure, Chuck thought. The way you appreciate people putting ropes around their own necks. He slid the card in his back pocket and walked out.

  Wendy Tower caught up with him just before he got to his classroom.

  “I heard about your house,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

  Chuck nodded.

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Ritz,” Chuck said.

  She smiled. “All you need now is a home cooked meal.”

  He was going to say no, as he had before. But maybe he needed this. Maybe he should take a chance. “Twist my arm,” he said.

  “Would you like—”

  “What time?”

  “Say six.”

  “Six.”

  “See you then.” She turned and walked off toward the high school. She moved gracefully, like a dancer. It reminded him. The first time he met Julia, they’d done swing. He was the worst dancer ever, but in her arms that night he felt like Astaire.

  Chapter 12

  He’d met Julia the night his chaplaincy was approved. Some of his high school friends, who were now older and unemployed, or marginally making money, wanted to have a party for him. They had it at Steve Manley’s apartment in Westchester, by the airport.

  It was almost the same, like being back in high school when drinking and getting high and playing rock with his band, Maniacal Fly, was all he ever wanted to do. He’d long since given up the binge drinking and the Mary Jane, though most of his friends were still hanging onto the residue of that life. Still, he liked hanging with them. Two––Steve Manly and Rob Pinnock––had been in his band.

  Julia came to the party with Rob. She had short blond hair and cornflower blue eyes, and a brace of dimples. She might have walked out of a Norman Rockwell painting, except she had an edge to her that became apparent when he tried to charm her.

  Steve and the others had convinced him to forget his recent fortitude and do some tequila shooters for old times’ sake. He succumbed. After the third he set his eyes on the blonde. He waited until Rob got distracted then caught up with her looking at the poster of Cobain on the wall near the bathroom.