Scarlett Undercover

by Jennifer Latham

  “Good enough. Did you figure out what’s going on?”

  I kept my eye on Blondie. “Sort of, but I’ve got a long way to go.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “Aunt Lucy likes it when I help out with my cousin, Knox. He can’t talk yet. He’s fun.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. I’d only known Gemma for a day, but she was smart enough to know what was what.

  “I’m glad, kid,” I said. “Listen, you sit tight, be careful, and shoot me a text every once in a while to let me know you’re hanging in there. And don’t leave your aunt’s place except for school. Honestly, I wish you didn’t have to go out at all, but if you start skipping or faking sick, your parents might figure out there’s something going on.”

  “Sure,” she said. “And, Scarlett?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You be careful, too.”

  I closed my computer. “Don’t worry about me, kid. I’ll be fine.”

  She said good-bye. I did the same and called Emmet Morales.

  He took three rings.

  “Scarlett?”

  “Morning, Emmet. How’s my favorite cop?”

  “You know me—I’m always good. Haven’t heard from you in a while, though. Keeping your nose clean?”

  “Cleanish.”

  Trouble wasn’t a topic to joke about with Emmet. I did it anyway.

  “What’s up?” he said.

  “I was hoping we could meet sometime today.”

  “New client?”

  “Nah. I just miss your pretty face.”

  “Yeah. Right. Tell me about the case.”

  I laughed. Tried to sound casual.

  “It’s nothing special. Just a little girl with a brother who’s been acting weird lately. Staying out too much, getting into fights, that kind of thing. Oh, and one of his friends took a little tumble Friday.”

  “Keep going,” Emmet said

  “The friend was Quinlan Johnson.”

  I could picture him in the silence that followed, folding his lower lip in with his index finger and thumb, thinking.

  “A lot of bad stuff goes down on the streets,” he said after a while. “Sounds like this kid needs a shrink more than a detective. I know some good ones. How about I give you a name?”

  He sounded guarded. Careful.

  “You know,” I said, “I might just take you up on that once I sort out some other stuff. Like why my client’s brother broke into my office this morning and tried to scare me off the case.”

  “Tried to scare you how?”

  “Tough talk. Nothing big.”

  “Families get messed up, Scarlett. You don’t know what this kid might have tangled with or what’s going on in his sister’s head. Maybe she’s just trying to get him in trouble. Did you talk to the parents?”

  “She says they’re out to lunch, and so far everything else she’s told me has checked out.”

  “Maybe she’s just looking for attention. How’d she get your name?”

  “Business card in the school bathroom.”

  He laughed. “Quite the entrepreneur, aren’t you?”

  “Don’t change the subject. Can we meet or not?”

  “Being police is a real job, you know. I don’t have time to play sidekick to some ghetto Nancy Drew.”

  His words sounded cruel, but I knew better.

  “I’ll remember that the next time you need my help tracking down a serial killer, Detective Morales.”

  “I suppose you do come in handy once in a while,” he said, laughing again.

  “So how about Rita Mae’s?” I asked. “Say, in an hour?”

  “Sure. Rita Mae’s.”

  “Great. Oh, and Emmet, what can you tell me about Quinlan Johnson?”

  The line went quiet.

  “Emmet?”

  “It’s not my case,” he said.

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “I know.”

  “So you’ll tell me what you can?”

  “Rita Mae’s,” Emmet said. He wasn’t laughing anymore. “See you there.”

  Blondie and Shorty hadn’t budged, and since I wasn’t in the mood for company, there was no choice but to ditch them the hard way. I tucked my blackjack under my jacket sleeve, strapped my bag across my chest, and hit the street.

  Blondie stayed behind her paper as I passed by. I didn’t look up, didn’t let on that I knew she was there. I stopped at the curb, snuck a peek at Shorty, and crossed to the newsstand on the other side of the street.

  A curved security mirror was mounted up high on the stand’s wall. I grabbed a magazine, snuck a peek at the mirror, caught Blondie pretending to read a flyer on a lamppost. Farther back, Shorty was still holding out her cup to passersby. I put down the magazine, bought a pack of gum, and strolled two blocks east to Zelinski’s Bagel Shop. Sundays were always busy there, and since my tails were doing their best to stay invisible, with any luck they wouldn’t follow me in.

  It worked. Inside the shop, counter workers jitterbugged back and forth along a row of overflowing metal baskets, tossing bagels and bialys into paper bags, slapping spackling knives full of cream cheese into tubs. Cashiers shouted orders and rang up sales so fast the registers smoked. Any other morning, I would have taken time to be impressed.

  I made my way to the front of the line, using a tall man in a Windbreaker for cover. After a few minutes, I turned and pretended to look at the clock over the door. Blondie was peering in the window. She seemed anxious, like her puppy had wandered too far away in the park. I pulled a handful of pennies out of my pocket, let them fall to the floor in a patter of clinks. Then I crouched low, crawling through the crowd as I pretended to gather them, muttering “excuse me” and working my way toward the narrow passage that staff used to get behind the counter. No one noticed when I crawled under and snuck back to the kitchen. And even if the counter workers had, they’d have been too busy to care.

  In the hot, calm back room, a mountain of a man dumping salt bagels off a peel saw me making tracks along the wall.

  “Morning, Scarlett. Who’d you piss off today?”

  “Nobody good, Edgar.”

  I kept moving.

  “One of these days somebody’s gonna wise up to your little escape route. Till then I might have to start charging a toll each time you cut through here.”

  “Yeah, well, if I make it to next time, you can name your price,” I said.

  Edgar laughed.

  “Heads up!” He chucked a hot bagel toward my noggin. I caught it on the fly and told him I owed him one.

  “One?” he called after me.

  “Maybe two,” I hollered back, and started down the basement stairs.

  At the bottom, I cut right and ran to the heavy double doors that led up to the street. I lifted the righthand side, scanned the alley, saw it was empty except for a crook-tailed cat licking his paw on a Dumpster. I climbed out, closed the door behind me, and hightailed it to the nearest metro station, stopping at the turnstiles to make sure my tails hadn’t caught on to my trick. I checked again at the top of the platform stairs and once more from behind a stained tile column near the tracks. The coast stayed clear, but after what had happened the day before, I knew better than to be smug or lazy. In my business, smug and lazy got you in trouble.

  And sometimes they even got you dead.

  11

  Emmet wasn’t at the restaurant when I arrived, so I got a table and took out Abbi’s copy of One Thousand and One Nights. It smelled of leather and dust and things I couldn’t have, and made me miss my parents so bad it hurt.

  I opened it to the first page. Traced the outline of a water stain. Ran my finger over an indigo inscription I hadn’t remembered was there: Abd al-Malik.

  Servant of the King.

  “You ready to order yet?”

  My waitress stood a few feet away, and judging by the look on her face, she wasn’t any too pleased about it. She was only a year or two older than me, but her kitchen-sink bleach job, p
ockmarked skin, and bloodshot eyes all told me life had dealt her a rough hand.

  “My friend will be here soon,” I said. “Can I get a soda while I wait?”

  She sniffed and meandered away. I doubted I’d see her anytime soon.

  Then Emmet walked in.

  Emmet was tall and broad shouldered, with blue-black skin, black-brown eyes, and neat little dreads all over his head. His ironed white shirt looked crisp under a camel-hair jacket, and other than the barely legal spring-assisted knife he carried in a strap around his right calf, his jeans weren’t keeping any secrets.

  “You’re early,” he said.

  “You’re not.”

  I smiled. Seeing Emmet always reminded me that I wished I could see him more.

  He hung his jacket on the hook at the end of the booth and sat down.

  “Been waiting long?”

  “Long enough to cheese off Miss Sunshine over there.”

  “That sweet thing?” Emmet grinned at the hard-faced girl as she hustled toward us.

  “Afternoon, Detective. What can I get for you?” She was suddenly all smiles.

  “Apart from your lovely self?” he said. “How about a cup of coffee?” The waitress giggled, then hustled off to get the coffee.

  Emmet had first introduced Reem and me to Rita Mae’s two years earlier. That had been a good meal. A great meal, really, since he’d just managed to convince an old bulldog of a judge not to send me to Hammett House. “The food here tastes like my granny cooked it,” he’d said. To me, a fourteen-year-old kid who’d just dodged a stretch in the worst juvy lockup in the state, Rita Mae’s food tasted like freedom.

  But our friendship with Emmet hadn’t started off so happy. He’d still been a beat cop the day he and a washed-out homicide detective showed up on our doorstep to tell us Abbi was dead. And he’d made a lousy show of looking tough, sitting stiff as starch on our couch while the detective droned on and on and on. After that, he’d driven Ummi and Reem and me to the morgue in his squad car. He went into the observation room with Ummi, too, and all but carried her out when she was done.

  From then on, Emmet kept in touch with a call here, a ring on the doorbell there. He cared, so we cared back. Ummi cooked for him and fussed over his weight and loved him like a son. When she died, he’d helped carry her shrouded body to its grave. He hadn’t looked tough then, either. He hadn’t even bothered trying.

  So when I got busted hot-wiring a Lexus in ninth grade, Reem had called him straightaway. He stayed with me through booking, called in favors to get my paperwork moving, and promised the judge he’d keep me on the straight and narrow.

  And he had, mainly by putting me to work. At first I only helped with little things: seeing if liquor stores would sell to me with a fake ID, digging up records at City Hall, scouting for pickpockets in tourist areas. Turned out I had a knack for talking to people and the natural stubbornness it took to be a gumshoe. So Emmet taught me how to tail suspects, run surveillance, and work a case. He even got the owner of his muay Thai gym to train me for free, and pretended not to know I’d forged Reem’s signature on the gym’s release forms. “I can’t send you out there like a lamb to the slaughter,” he’d muttered under his breath. “It wouldn’t be right.”

  From then on, he’d brought me in on juvy cases where an inside angle might help move things along. I was young. I wasn’t a cop. That meant I could go places cops couldn’t and get teenagers to talk to me. The arrangement wasn’t official. Hell, it wasn’t even kosher. But Emmet had a soft spot for kids, and I had a soft spot for Emmet. We made it work.

  While Emmet sipped his coffee, I filled him in as best I could on my life. Yes, I was still working cases. No, I wasn’t doing anything too dangerous. No, I hadn’t gotten any taller.

  He listened close, asking questions when it suited him.

  “How’s Reem?” he said, nodding a thank-you to the waitress for refilling his cup. I’d given up on my soda.

  “Busy.”

  “She taking care of herself?”

  “Not really.”

  Emmet took the wrapper off a straw and rolled it into a ball.

  “You helping out?”

  “As much as I can. I keep the apartment clean and make sure she eats.”

  He poured a plastic container of cream into his coffee and stirred.

  “Tell her I said hello. And if she ever has a night off…”

  He let the words hover.

  “You know Muslim women can’t date, Emmet,” I said. “And Reem’s hard-core. Unless that changes, it just won’t work.”

  He smiled and shrugged like he didn’t care. Only I knew he did.

  “How about some pie, handsome?” The waitress was back, and she wasn’t talking to me.

  “What kind you got?” He draped his arm over the back of the seat. Emmet was not unaware of his charms.

  “The usuals, plus boysenberry and mango.”

  “I think I’ll take chocolate cream with a slice of peach on the side. If I’ve got room after that, I’ll try the mango.”

  “Anything else?” Her lashes looked ready to flutter off her face.

  Emmet looked to me. The waitress did not.

  “I’d like a slice of sweet potato,” I said. “And my soda, if you don’t mind.” Her pen moved across the pad in her hand, but her eyes stayed on Emmet. She batted her lashes one last time and walked away, rear end swinging.

  I pretended to throw up in my mouth. Emmet grinned.

  “I can’t help it, Scarlett.”

  “Yes. You can.”

  He laughed, eyeing the waitress like a well-fed wolf. “Maybe a little. But there’s no point behaving till I’ve got someone worth doing it for.”

  I rolled my eyes. Asked him if we could talk about something more important.

  “Nothing’s more important than you and your sister.”

  I rolled them some more.

  “Tell me about Quinlan Johnson.”

  His smile disappeared like a raindrop in the ocean. “Like I said on the phone, it sounds like your client’s brother needs counseling, not a detective.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But my client needs me.”

  We watched the waitress set three fat wedges of pie in front of Emmet and slap my soda down. “The mango’s on the house,” she said, giving Emmet a wink. “I made it myself. Tell me if I put in enough sugar.”

  “Darlin’, if it’s half as sweet as you, it’s twice as sweet as I can handle.”

  She let out a quackish giggle and waggled back to her station like a duck in heat. I didn’t bother wondering if my pie would ever show.

  “Emmet,” I asked quietly. “Were there any marks on Quinlan Johnson’s body?”

  His fork froze halfway to his mouth.

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “What kind of marks do you mean?”

  “Tattoos. Scars. Stuff like that.”

  He put the forkful of chocolate in his mouth and chewed a long time before he swallowed.

  “Maybe.”

  “Was there a kind of design, like interlocking rings?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Emmet put down his fork. “What makes you ask?”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure my client’s brother has the same thing carved into his wrist. It’s red and infected and ugly, and he’s not doing anything to keep it clean. Like he wants it to scar.”

  Emmet pushed the chocolate pie away.

  “There was a mark on the Johnson boy’s body, exactly like the one you’re describing. The medical examiner said it was at least three weeks old.”

  “On his wrist?”

  “Chest. We think it’s a ritual mark from some kind of gang or cult that hasn’t crossed our radar until now.”

  “A rich white boy gang?”

  “Or cult,” Emmet repeated. “That’s what I’m thinking. The department psychologist, too.”

  “Why?”

  Emmet m
ulled over his response. He wasn’t going to spill everything, but he wasn’t going to leave me hanging.

  “From what the boy’s parents told us, he’d been very involved with a new group of friends in the past few months. Apparently they were playing some kind of elaborate, real-life fantasy game together.”

  “Had the parents been worried?”

  “They said yes, but I’m not so sure. You know how it goes.” He pressed his lips together and pulled the slice of mango closer.

  “Emmet?”

  “Mmmm?”

  “Quinn Johnson’s father is second-in-command at Archer Construction. My client’s name is Archer. Gemma Archer.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “You know anything about all the problems with The Parker?” I asked.

  He took a mouthful of mango and grimaced. “Too much sugar.”

  “Let’s stick to The Parker,” I said. “The Globe mentioned four break-ins at Archer Construction’s on-site trailer.”

  Emmet sighed. “Five. The last was an inside job. Whoever did it had a key, but they weren’t authorized to go in after hours. The company wanted that one kept quiet.”

  “Did the thieves take anything?”

  “The first four times? No. They just tore the place up. Spray-painted walls and such.”

  “With interlocking rings?”

  Emmet nodded and scowled at his pie like it was trying to get away.

  “What about the fifth?”

  He took another bite and grimaced again. “Still too sweet.”

  “Emmet?”

  “Robbery’s not my department, Scarlett. I’m in homicide, remember?”

  “Look,” I said. “I think there’s more to Quinn Johnson’s death than suicide, and I need your help proving it.”

  He folded in his lower lip.

  “You’re stalling,” I said.

  “You’re right.” He dropped his hand and nodded, more for himself than me. “The thieves took a stack of papers from the secretary’s out-box.”

  “Any idea why?”

  Emmet’s lips curled into a lopsided smile. “You’re the detective. You tell me.”

  “Funny.”

  “It kind of was,” he said. “But the truth is, we’re not sure why. All they got was opened mail that the secretary hadn’t had a chance to sort. Invoices. Receipts. Stuff like that. The only thing she hadn’t laid eyeballs on directly was an unopened envelope that needed forwarding to The Parker’s architect in Chicago.”