“Bruises caused by choking are pretty consistent. So are the bruises you get when someone grabs your arm.” Stepping closer, he matched his fingers to the shadows that marked her arm, four on the outside, the thumb on the inside. “Is that why you ran away to Tulsa?”
“No.” She shrugged away from him and started walking.
He caught up with her, stopping her again. “If someone’s hurting you—”
The muscles beneath his fingers tightened, then slowly eased. Her movements controlled and deliberate, she removed his hand from her arm and started walking again, heading for the stairs so she could cross Riverside. “It’s no big secret. I got the bruises in my last workout at home. I study tae kwon do, and we do full-contact sparring. That’s all.”
Tony dodged a mother with stroller-bound twins, then broke into a jog as Selena did the same. “Why?”
She glanced his way. “Why what?”
“Why tae kwon do? Why full-contact sparring?”
“It’s good exercise and a great stress reducer. It teaches discipline. And I practice full-contact sparring because that’s what my instructor teaches. Besides, for a single woman who lives and travels alone, a little knowledge of self-defense can mean the difference between life and death. You should understand that better than most, Detective.”
Having worked his share of crimes against women, he couldn’t argue the point. “Are you good?”
A faint smile curved her lips. “I’m very good in the gym. In the real world, I haven’t had a chance to find out.”
“I hope you never do.”
She gave him another of those long, steady looks before agreeing. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
The knife blade clicked against the wood of the cutting board, providing a subtle accompaniment to the music spilling from the CD player as Selena methodically chopped onions and peppers. It was a hot, sunny Sunday, perfect for heading to the nearest beach, for lying back in the sun and forgetting that she had a care in the world . . . but some cares couldn’t be forgotten.
The knife stilled as the banging of a door drew her gaze to the window overlooking her neighbor’s backyard. The dog came into view first, trotting eagerly to the grill at the edge of the small patio, followed by his master. Detective Ceola was dressed casually in shorts, T-shirt, and no shoes, and a growth of beard darkened his jaw. He carried a plate of burgers in one hand, a pancake turner in the other, and was accompanied by two men who looked a great deal like him. Brothers, she assumed. As soon as he got the burgers on the grill, one of his guests handed him a bottle of beer, and the three of them talked and laughed while the dog kept a watchful eye out for the tidbits of meat Ceola occasionally dropped to him.
The homey scene filled her with wistfulness. Because she’d never had friends to invite over for a cookout? Or because she wouldn’t mind being the friend Detective Ceola invited over?
It was foolish. This was the worst time in her life to develop an interest in any man, and Ceola was the worst choice. It would be nothing less than disastrous . . . and she’d learned two years ago just how bad that could be.
Still, he crept into her thoughts every time she relaxed. She wondered why he wasn’t married and raising a houseful of kids. What his relationship was with the pretty little blonde who’d looked at him as if he were a hot fudge sundae and she’d just come off a diet. If he was as nice as he seemed. If all women felt a sense of security when he was around.
Because she did. Oh, there was caution and suspicion and wariness, but underneath . . . he could make her feel safe.
All her life she’d wanted to feel safe.
He used the pancake turner to flip the burgers onto a plate, shut off the grill, then followed his guests to the house, the dog on his heels. When the door closed behind them, Selena gave herself a shake and set to work again. She had far more important things to worry about than her neighbor and her response to him.
Such as what she was going to do about William. She’d idolized him most of her life, but she didn’t want to go to prison for him. Didn’t want to be controlled by him any longer. Didn’t want to live at the mercy of a merciless man.
If she followed his bidding, she would never escape his control. Just as he’d blackmailed her this time, he would do so the next time, and the next, until she had no choice but to surrender and become the puppet he wanted her to be.
She could run away . . . and live the rest of her life in fear of getting caught, for there was no doubt William would search for her. He wasn’t the sort of man who took kindly to losing what belonged to him, and in his mind, she most surely belonged to him.
She could turn the tables on him—blackmail him into leaving her alone. Not an easy task, considering how very little she knew about him. He had been as miserly with the details of his life as he’d been generous with his financial support.
Or she could silence his demands.
Not many choices, and none of them good.
Laying the knife aside, she added the vegetables to the skillet on the stove, then stirred the noodles on the back burner. At the moment, she was leaning toward choice number three—trying a little blackmail of her own. To that end, she’d spent most of the afternoon on the Internet. Her search for “William Davis” had brought tens of thousands of hits, and not one of the hundreds she’d checked had been the right man. Finally she’d gone to a website that promised, for a fee, to find out anything about anyone. She had filled out the form, though she didn’t hope for much. After all, if she’d had the information they’d requested— full name, date of birth, Social Security number—she wouldn’t need them.
If they didn’t come through, she could ask Montoya for help. That was a last resort, though. If worse came to worst—and she believed in being prepared—she didn’t want to connect him, even remotely, to murder.
No more than she wanted to be connected to it. But experience had taught her that too often, worse did come to worst. If there was no other way out, if someone did have to die . . .
She wanted it to be a death she could live with.
6
MondayS were a bitch, and in Tony’s opinion, this one was no exception.
“Oklahoma must be the only freakin’ state in the union that doesn’t list vehicle color on DMV records,” Simmons groused as he pulled out of the police-department garage. “How many cars you got left on that list?”
“Too many.” The partial license plate number had come from a suspicious-vehicle report in the area of Bryan Hayes’s apartment at the time of his death—a dark car, no make, no model, no two-door or four-door. The computer had spit out a list of all vehicles matching the partial number, leaving it up to him and Frank to weed them out. They’d spent hours the week before doing just that before the next three homicides had doubled their workload.
Tony loosened his tie, then adjusted the AC vents. When he shifted his feet, he swore they stuck to the carpet—a reminder why he usually refused to ride in Simmons’s car. Bits and pieces of at least six months’ worth of snacks were sticking to everything he touched.
“You’re awfully quiet.”
He glanced across at his partner. “Just wondering when you last cleaned this shitbox.”
“The city don’t pay me enough to clean their car.”
“They don’t pay me enough to ride in it. Next time, I drive.”
“Hey, not everyone’s as anal as you about their vehicles. Some of us have more important things to do, like solve crimes.”
“You go out and solve a crime without telling me?” Tony asked sourly.
Simmons made an obscene gesture before asking, “What’s the next address?”
Tony studied the printout. They’d started the week before with the addresses south of Interstate 244. Their only witness at the time had said their suspect was white, and the ratio of whites to nonwhites south of 244 was much higher than north of that line. After his talk with Javier on Friday, though, this morning they’d started in short north—the area of the
city immediately north of downtown—and worked their way deeper in.
Setting the printout aside, he pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket, flipped through the pages until he found the address he wanted, and read it out loud.
“Who’s that?” Simmons asked as he started in that direction.
“Javier Perkins.”
“You think he remembered somethin’ new, or do you just want to see if he still remembers what he already told you?”
Tony responded with a shrug. Not everyone considered Javier a good candidate for a confidential informant, but as some movie character had once said, bankers and ministers rarely witnessed crimes. But that nagging feeling was still there, and Tony just wanted to see if an additional interview would make it go away.
Halfway there, Simmons stopped at a red light and started drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Hey, Chee.”
He grunted absently.
“Why are we bothering with this?”
Tony looked at him.
“Seriously. We’ve been identifying phone numbers, hanging out at funerals, and hunting down a vehicle with a shit-for-nothin’ description that ain’t gonna get us anywhere. And for what? To lock up the guy who did what we couldn’t?”
“We were trying to arrest them, not kill them.”
“We were trying to take ’em off the street. Well, they’re off the street, and it ain’t costin’ the taxpayers six figures a year to make them comfy down at McAlester. Why don’t we just say we tried and get on with something that matters?”
“This matters.”
“Oh, come on . . . you can’t tell me that at least once you haven’t been glad these guys are dead. That when you walked into the scene and saw their bodies, you weren’t just a little relieved.”
“No,” Tony admitted. “I can’t.”
“You’re bustin’ your balls—and mine—over these skanks, just like you do over all your other cases, when any one of them wouldn’t have thought twice about offing you if he had the chance. Why?”
“My job is to find their killer. Not judge or condemn them.”
Shaking his head, Simmons made one last turn, then parked in front of a tiny shotgun house. Over the years, all the color had leached from the paint, leaving a dull shade of nothing behind. For every window that was intact, two were held together by duct tape or covered with cardboard, and the rotting porch was tilting away from the house. A good wind might tumble it right down.
Notebook still in hand, Tony knocked at the door, heard shuffling inside, then knocked again. “Hey, Javier, it’s me— Ceola. Open up.”
“Jus’ a minute.” After more shuffling, the lock turned, then the door opened with a creak and Javier’s sleepy face appeared. He stuck his head out to look in both directions, then backed up so Tony could step in. “What you coming ’round here for? You know I don’t like people to know I’m talkin’ to the police.”
“I know. This won’t take long. I just wanted to ask a few questions about what you told me the other day.”
Javier was steadier than he’d been Friday, which probably meant he’d spent the weekend higher than a kite. He wore the same dark trousers, but in place of the long-sleeve shirt was a grimy undershirt. “What I told you . . . oh. About them boys that got killed.”
“You said you saw the man who killed them. Can you describe him for me again?”
Javier glanced around the room, picked up an armload of clothes from the only chair, and gestured for Tony to have a seat, then sat there himself when Tony declined. “Let’s see . . . He was tall, taller than me. Heavier, too.”
“And he was black?” Tony prompted.
“Black as me. And bald.” A quick grin, a hand through his hair. “Balder than me.”
Tony looked at his notes. On both occasions, Javier had used exactly the same words to describe the killer. Not just similar, but word-for-word the same, which meant his delivery had been rehearsed. Someone had told him what to say, and being the jittery type, he’d practiced to be sure he got it right. Too right.
Tony put the notebook away, then looked around the room. There was a pillow and a pile of sheets on the sofa, a needle half hidden underneath a magazine on the coffee table, and a large, nearly empty bottle of Chivas next to it. “You’re drinking the good stuff these days, Javier. What’d that set you back?”
Just like that, the unsteadiness returned. Javier couldn’t hold his grin in place or keep his hands still long enough to light the cigarette he’d just removed from the pack. “Aw, s-somebody give that to-to me. You know me, Chee. I don’t c-care about the g-g-good stuff. It’s quantity that c-counts, not quality.”
Tony picked up the bottle by the neck, read the price sticker still attached, then set it down again. “How long have we been working together?”
“Long, long time.”
“Yeah. And you’ve always been straight with me, haven’t you?”
Javier nodded vigorously. “I have, Chee. You know I have.”
“So why do I get the feeling you’re lying to me now?”
Now his head was shaking just as vigorously. “I-I-I w-wouldn’t do-do that, Chee. N-not to you. I-I swear to God.” But he couldn’t look Tony in the eye. “I al-always been straight w-with you. You c-come to me, I go to-to you, either way we g-give each other what we need. Right, Chee? Right?”
“Right,” Tony answered absently. And that, he realized, was the other thing bothering him. What Tony always needed was information. What Javier always needed was money. Every conversation between them had started the same way—I’ve got some information you can use. How much is it worth to you? Except this last one. Javier had never mentioned money—hadn’t made a deal up front, hadn’t asked for it after the fact.
Because he’d gotten it from someone else?
Before he could decide the best way to proceed, the cell phone in his pocket rang. He excused himself and turned toward the door to answer.
“Tony, it’s Henry.” The chief ’s voice was terse against the wail of a siren. “Are you busy?”
“Kind of. I’m re-interviewing the witness in the Washington case. There are a few things that don’t quite add up.”
“Can you finish up later? There’s been an accident on I-44 at Forty-first. I need you to go to the scene.”
Tony’s gut clenched. It had been years since he’d worked Traffic, and accident investigations on the interstate were the highway patrol’s jurisdiction. “Who?” It was all he could get out as he acknowledged Javier with a nod and headed out the door.
“It’s Joe. I don’t know how he is. The call just came in. I’m on my way.”
“I’ll see you there.” As he buckled himself into the passenger seat, Tony repeated the information to Simmons.
“I thought you took his license away,” Frankie said as he pulled into the street.
“I did, but hell, people drive without licenses all the time. You know that.” And a license meant nothing to Joe. He’d been driving since he was fifteen and a half. He didn’t need some piece of paper to continue doing it. That was why they’d sold his pickup and taken away his keys to Anna’s car. Why she had become very vigilant about hiding her own keys.
For all the good it had done.
As soon as they reached the four-lane, Simmons turned on the light on the dash and the siren, then gunned the engine. The Ford really was a shitbox—piss yellow and smelling like the inside of a wino’s mouth after a three-day binge—but there was nothing wrong with its engine. They were pushing a hundred before they’d gone a full block.
Emergency lights were flashing at the scene—two highway patrol units, the chief ’s car, an ambulance, and a wrecker. Simmons pulled onto the shoulder and parked at the end of the line.
Out the door before the car came to a complete stop, Tony covered the distance to the smashed-up vehicle in record time. He spotted Henry first, then his father, sitting on a gurney and fussing at the paramedic trying to bandage his head.
“Dad,
are you all right?”
Joe looked at him, and his expression became one of chagrin. “Vincenzo. They called you off the job to handle a little fender bender?”
“Dad, it’s me, Tony, not Uncle Vince . . .” He let the words trail away. Joe’s gaze had that distant look that meant his mind had drifted off.
Henry laid his hand on Tony’s shoulder, then guided him to the side of the road as the paramedic set to work again. “If it’s any consolation, he didn’t recognize me either. He thought I looked familiar. Other than that, though, he’s fine. Just some scratches and a cut where he bumped his head. The car was reported stolen from a gas station about a mile from the house. The owner filled it up, then left the engine running while she went to pay.” His tone turned sarcastic. “She didn’t want it to get hot while she was inside.”
Tony looked at the car, realizing for the first time that it wasn’t his mother’s Chrysler. The thought of the charges Joe could face—auto theft, driving without insurance or a license, destruction of personal property—was enough to make his head ache.
“Don’t worry about it, Tony,” Henry said. “There won’t be any charges.”
He glanced at the car again, a new Honda with at least a few grand in damages. “You sure about that?”
“She never should have left the keys in the ignition. If she’s difficult, we’ll make noises about the family maybe suing her. After all, he’s . . .” His gaze shifted to Joe and turned sad. With a bleak shake of his head, he left the sentence unfinished.
Tony couldn’t. Incapacitated. Impaired. Debilitated. Feeble-minded. Senile. He could think of a dozen ways of saying it, some polite, some not, all of them ugly. His father was losing his mind and his self. Before the disease was through, there would be nothing left of the Joe Ceola they both knew and loved.
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