“Yeah, about that. I went to speak to Jimmy, as you know, and he flipped and said he did remember Tanner, he just wasn’t a fan.”
“How so?” Archie replied, curious.
“Said he didn’t trust him. Compared him to Carter and said at least with Carter, you know where you stand.”
Archie’s forehead furrowed. “Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Anyway, I’ve been talking about this shit all morning, let’s talk about something different.”
“McDaid still struggling with the poison case?” I asked.
He laughed. “Oh, my god, you have no idea.”
His pure glee at the subject change made me chuckle.
“What’s going on at the moment?” I asked.
“Thanks for the drastic shift in conversational direction, by the way. From work to work, awesome.” He rolled his eyes and gave me a mock glare, then continued. “We’ve got results back from the M.E. as well as the tox screens that were done during the postmortems. All of the poisons were administered in some kind of stealthy way. We’re talking dart guns, we’re talking tiny little scratches on the skin, we’re talking some crazy shit here.”
I laughed. “That really is something out of an Agatha Christie novel.”
“I know! And I mean, think about it. Some of these guys had the crap kicked outta them. And these are mobsters, professional hitmen a lot of them, or they used to be, they ain’t no slouches. This dude’s gotta be like, an ex-Navy Seal vigilante or something, it’s crazy.”
I laughed and nodded my head in agreement. “Yeah, I’d like to meet this guy.”
Our food arrived and we set to work devouring it. I spent the rest of the meal imagining up wild stories and ideas about who this mysterious vigilante could be, and what his motivations were. Archie tolerated me.
After the meal, he headed back to the station and I went back to his apartment to digest. About an hour later, my phone buzzed. Archie had the results from the M.E.’s report and was going to head out to talk to the second dealer downtown. I wanted to go with him, but he cited my prior behaviour around a drug dealer as reason enough to go alone.
I was pissed, but I allowed it. I spent the day training and went for a twenty-mile run, turning things over in my head and reaching no conclusions. When Archie got back to the apartment at around seven that evening, I had dinner prepared, so there were no excuses. I wanted information, now.
I placed a bowl of pad thai in front of him expectantly.
“Did you make this?” he asked, slightly too incredulously for my liking.
“Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. But it would be nice if you pretended like that could be true. It’s called common courtesy.”
“So sorry. How rude of me,” he replied as he rolled his eyes and dug in.
“Tell me. What did the Medical Examiner say?”
He rolled his eyes and gestured at the bowl. “I can’t eat?”
“You can’t multitask?”
He sighed, took a mouthful of food and began. He was well trained. “So, she died from the trauma to the head, which forensics confirmed was the fall or push into the coffee table. The M.E. says most likely, judging by the force necessary, she was pushed. Then, post mortem, she was stabbed, three times. The wounds are shallow, hesitant, which correlates with the whole staged element. The report says that they look specifically like small knife wounds, carefully placed around the fourth and fifth intercostals. It’s weird, because stabbings are usually the most passionate, the most violent, but this… I don’t know, it’s bizarre.”
“It is,” I replied. “Anything else?”
“Not that I can think of right now. Oh, just that the report confirms from her medical records that her miscarriage was caused by the overdose. Timelines match up.”
I nodded as I wished I could switch off emotion. I ground my teeth together instead. “And the dealer, Jesse? You went to see him, too?”
“I did. Non-cooperative doesn’t begin to describe him. I’m not having much luck at the moment. He lawyered up the second I walked in the room. I got shit all, we’re gonna have to go back with a warrant, which is a pain in my ass because we really haven’t got enough to get one.”
“Asshole. Where did you find him?”
“At the address we had on file from his driving license.”
“Wait, you found a license for him? There’s a file?”
He laughed. “Ana, you’re not a cop, I can’t just share that type of information with you whenever I want. I could get in serious trouble, you know. You’re lucky you can come along with me on half the stuff you do, if my captain found out—”
“Yeah yeah, if your captain found out, we could both get in serious trouble, yadda yadda yadda, what did he say?”
Archie rolled his eyes. “Almost nothing. I could barely get a question out of my mouth before he had shut it down. Hopefully he’ll agree to cooperate, if not, I’ve got some uniforms specifically trying to find enough to try to get a warrant. Right now, we’ve just not got enough.” He ran his fingers through his hair. He looked exasperated. “I don’t want to piss him off too much just yet or he might never talk. I legitimately think he would rather go to prison than do business with a cop...”
“Sounds like a charmer.”
“You have no idea.”
At least I had my plan for that evening.
* * *
I left Archie’s at around ten pm. I jumped in my truck and started driving in the direction of downtown once again. No reason.
The lights of the freeway flashed past my eyes as I drove, lulling me into some kind of angry, hypnotic state. I was lucky, and thanks to Carter’s information, I found ‘Rico’s, or some shit’ on my first go around the neighbourhood I had figured he was alluding to. I parked the truck and pushed through the door, expecting, from the noise permeating into the street, a crowd much larger than the one I was greeted with.
I was pretty sure I had pegged the guy I was looking for the moment I walked in the door. Regardless, I thought I’d have some fun. I walked up to the bar and ordered a bourbon, straight up. The bartender eyed me up and down approvingly and grabbed a glass. I used the mirror behind the bar to observe my surroundings. What was I dealing with here?
Carter had been right, the place really was a dive. Splintering wood paneling on the walls. Sawdust piles in the corners covering god knows what. Somehow my shoes had stuck to the floor from my first step in. It had required some of my best efforts to not take the hardwood with me on the sole of my boot. I had to wonder, would Pam really have hung out here?
Situated at the back of the bar, I counted four booths, two of which were currently inhabited by patrons.
A couple mooning over each other in a booth at the back; they probably wouldn’t cause me any trouble.
One guy passed out on the table two booths down from them. I doubted he’d be waking up any time soon.
Everyone else was sitting up with me at the bar. We had the guy I suspected; about six foot and change and built like a brick shithouse. He was a couple stools down, to my right. A couple more stools down from him was another fella, a little smaller but still packing some serious weight. Right at the end of the bar was a weedy little guy who I wasn’t expecting any trouble from. I considered that often, those are the ones who end up causing you the most trouble, but I put that to the back of my mind for now.
The bartender put my drink in front of me with a smile and I placed a couple extra dollars on the bar for a tip. I spun around on my stool and leaned my elbows back against the bar, bourbon in hand. I observed the brick shithouse I suspected was Jesse out of the corner of my eye and was calculating how easy it would be to take him down, when he turned his head to look at me. I smiled sweetly ’cause it usually worked.
“What you lookin’ at?” he asked, leveling me with a stare.
Damn. I had a couple of options of how to play this. Sugary sweet or hardass? Heck, I’d play the game. “Sorry, I thought I recognized you… Jesse?
Is it?”
He got up slowly from his stool. There was more change than I thought. “How d’you know my name?”
“I’m friends with Pam. Pam Guss? Sorry, this must seem really weird, she had just showed me a couple pictures last time I saw her and I thought you looked familiar. I probably got the wrong person, though, sorry to disturb you.” I turned away on my stool and counted to five.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him in the mirror as he processed the information. I saw the internalized conversation regarding whether or not it was likely that I was a cop. He must have decided it was unlikely because he turned to face me directly.
“Pam?”
“Yeah, oh, do you know her?” I asked as I turned back around to him and pretended to be clueless.
He nodded. He stared, cogs still turning. “I did.” Past tense.
“Were you close?”
“Not really, no. She showed you a picture of me, you said?”
I wondered if he was smelling bullshit and did a quick sweep of the room to remind myself of exits. “I feel like I recognized you, yeah.”
“What did you say your name was, again?”
“I didn’t. I’m Ana. Jesse,” I replied, pointing at myself and then him.
Jesse didn’t reply, instead turning around to the bartender and gesturing for another round. He then walked over to plant himself on the stool next to mine, greatly reducing the personal space that I’d been existing in, alone, quite happily up until that point. The other patrons of the bar had begun to pay attention.
“Ana.” He leaned forward. His voice was low and gravelly. I figured I was meant to feel threatened.
I leaned forward, too. “Yes, Jesse?”
“What are you doing in my bar, Ana?”
I watched the bartender deliver our drinks and then leave. “You know how I mentioned our friend, Pam?”
He growled impatiently. I reasoned to myself that his reaction was fair, it had been fairly recently that I had mentioned her and therefore unlikely he would have forgotten. I looked down to hide a smile.
“You seen her recently?” I asked in as innocent a voice as I could muster.
“What are you doing here?”
I knew I was pushing my luck, but I was having fun. “You mean besides having a drink?” I laughed.
Jesse slammed his fist down on the bar and barked, “What are you doing here?”
I didn’t react. I maintained eye contact, placed my drink down on the bar and stood up to meet him. “Pam’s dead, Jesse. But I think you might already know that.”
Movement caught my eye behind Jesse and I glanced behind him. Some of the other patrons had assembled in a rather unfriendly manner behind him to watch the daily festivities. Of course, I barely had a chance to notice that as Jesse’s giant hand grabbed my throat the moment I looked away. He lifted me like a bottle of water until our eyes met directly in front of his face.
“Cop,” he spat. I shook my head and grabbed at his hand, but I couldn’t pry a single finger away. Even his fingernails were strong.
“Don’t shake your head,” he growled. “You are, you’re a dirty fuckin’ cop. You come in here, try to trick me into talkin’ to you.” He lifted me higher. I took that cue to send a swift kick to his balls. As my instep connected, his eyes bulged, his hand released and he dropped me. I staggered backwards as he went down. I reached out to grab at the bar and steady myself, regain some breath, but I landed on a stool instead.
“Bitch!” He wheezed. His rage was telling him to get back to his feet and kill me, but his pain was telling him he needed another couple seconds. I took the opportunity to grab the stool by the legs and swing it like a club at his giant head. It cracked as the wood met his skull and he fell to the floor, but all credit to the guy, he levered himself back to his knees.
I was still struggling to regain my breath, but I charged at him and grabbed his head, slamming my knee up into it as he tried to stand. He fell back to the floor instead. I looked up as the little weedy guy from the end of the bar approached me and smirked.
He launched into the air and delivered a flying roundhouse kick to my jaw. I made a quick mental note to myself, once again, to never underestimate the little guy. I stumbled back, surprised. He tried to kick at me again, but I grabbed his foot with both hands, heel and toe, and rotated hard until I heard a crunch. He fell, screaming, to his one good knee.
The third man at the bar now began to circle me. He was almost as big as Jesse and sprang at me fast. He barreled across the hardwood of the bar and tackled me down onto the floor. “What you tryna do to Jesse, huh? You’re a cop, ain’tcha? I know you are. You think you can just come in here and attack people? Huh? All-a yous thinking you own the place, well, this is our bar!” He tried to pin me, but I managed to get a foot into his stomach and kicked back. Slightly winded, he grabbed at my wrist, but I managed to work it free and delivered a hard blow to his cheekbone. I used his shock to flip us and began whaling punches down on his face.
Suddenly, two arms wrapped around mine and lifted me off the guy. I was placed back onto my feet and then shoved, hard. I flew into one of the empty tables. The top of the table rammed hard into my solar plexus and winded me. I tried to regain my breath, but again I was lifted, this time thrown across the room and into the bar. My head smacked into the hard wood and it dazed me slightly. I struggled to my feet and reassessed. Maybe this was not my smartest plan. I made eye contact with Jesse. He grinned at me, ready for round three. Weedy was out of the picture, I was pretty sure I had broken or dislocated either his knee or his hip. Maybe both. I was fairly certain I had knocked out the third man, and I didn’t think any of the folks in the booths were particularly interested in joining the exercise. Most of them had snuck out the back door. It was just me and him.
“I ain’t no cop, Jesse.”
“Bullshit,” he spat.
“It’s not bullshit. I am not a cop. Pam is dead. I really do think you had something to do with it.”
He growled and ran at me again, but the blows to his head had skewed his balance and he wasn’t as fast or as strong when he hit me. Still, I went flying backwards, but I got up quick, shook it off and began to dance around him.
“C’mon, Jesse. Talk to me.” A swift, high kick to his temple; not hard, but not pleasant, either.
“Fuck you,” he snarled. I launched a kick to the side of his knee.
“We’ve established you knew her. Tell me how.” Another kick. A couple more and it would start to swell.
“I don’t gotta tell you shit. You say you ain’t a cop? Okay. I believe you. And I don’t wanna talk.” He lunged at me with a huge fist, but he was big and slow and I saw it coming. I grabbed his wrist and twisted. His arm turned unnaturally. I grabbed his index finger and yanked back. Snap. He cried out. I grabbed the middle. Snap. He fell to his knees and grunted, then lunged at me, football tackling me to the ground, his shoulder at my hip. I fell hard, but managed to throw a knee up into his face as he landed badly and I rolled away and forced myself to my feet. He heaved himself up and we stared at each other.
He pounced again and threw his fist hard at my face, but I sidestepped and ducked under the swing and threw a left hook at his temple.
He went over like an old redwood. He was done.
I’d leave the rest to Archie.
I nudged at him with the toe of my boot, and, satisfied with the result when he didn’t respond, walked back over to the bar and knocked back the rest of my bourbon. I turned around for a second to survey the damage. Archie would be pissed, but I could handle it.
A noise behind me made me turn quickly, fists up. The bartender’s head poked out from what I assumed was the store room behind the bar.
“You okay there, pal?” I asked as I dropped my hands. He stepped out when he saw it was just me. “Sorry about the mess.” I pulled a little cash out of my jacket, left over from Carter’s stash, and threw it down on the bar. Hopefully it would cover at least some of the da
mage.
The little guy nodded and straightened himself up. He grabbed a broom and, without a word, stepped out from behind the bar and began to straighten the place up. I guessed this must happen a lot.
I swung my jacket back on and headed out into the cool night air. I had to admit to myself that I’d kind of messed up. Everything I had gone there to do hadn’t worked out. Jesse had seen me coming and wasn’t going to talk, and I’d nearly gotten my ass kicked for my efforts. I’d learned one thing, at least. Carter wasn’t entirely full of shit.
Chapter Eight
I slept late the next morning and finally got out of bed around eleven thirty, desperate for some water and some coffee. In that order.
Archie was back at work, but I was pretty sure I’d hear from him sometime before he got home after he had encountered Jesse. As he inevitably would. I knew he was working his way through the information Carter had given us, and Jesse was definitely next on that list. I figured for the meantime, though, I would take it easy.
I showered and had some breakfast, then decided to go for a run so I could clear my head. It was bothering me that there was no real forensic evidence from Pam’s apartment, and it was bothering me even more that I believed most of what Carter and Daniel Tanner had told us. It felt like I was missing something huge. So huge that it was obscuring my view of everything else I was needing to look at. I had to figure out how Jesse and Pam had known each other. How they had met. How she had met any of these so-called shady people, when and why. I figured it had happened sometime after she’d stopped seeing Carter, but I needed to know for sure. I also needed to figure out where Tanner fit into all of this. Was he really the pulled-himself-up-by-the-bootstraps guy that he presented himself as, or was he still the hustler, and a great actor, too? There was an odd contrast between him and Carter that intrigued me. Once Archie got back from work, I would suggest a trip to Jimmy’s.
He had not been doing well since we told him what had happened to Pam, and I thought he could use some company. It had nothing to do with the fact that while we were there, we could try and figure out his interpretation of our loose threads.
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