The Edge of Night

by Jill Sorenson

  But the worst act he’d ever witnessed, by far, was one Junior had participated in. Eric considered him a victim and a perpetrator. They were ten and fourteen, respectively, and the attack had made an indelible impression on them both.

  They never discussed it.

  “Did you see any chavalas at the party?” Junior asked.

  “No. There were some guys at the taco stand later, though.”

  “Describe them.”

  He did.

  “Pinche chavalas killed my sister,” Junior said, his voice catching.

  Eric froze, remembering the questions he’d been asked at the police station. “Why do you think that?”

  “The cops said she had a gag in her mouth. A black bandanna.”

  Disturbed by the news, Eric told Junior everything he remembered about Friday night, omitting Cristina’s flirtatious behavior.

  “You think your boss did it? I’ll fucking rape his ass.”

  Eric hesitated. He didn’t believe Junior meant that literally, but he knew his friend was out for blood. “No, man. I don’t think he did it. I beat him up pretty bad. He could hardly walk when I was done.”

  “That’s why you talked to the police?”

  “Well, yeah. Because I wanted to help Cristina, too.”

  “Fucking cops,” Junior muttered, throwing his empty bottle out the window. It bounced off a tree stump, remaining intact. “Fucking Eastside!”

  Revving the engine, he turned the car around, sending a spray of gravel down the hillside. He almost lost control on the first turn. Eric braced himself for the inevitable accident, but Junior managed to stay on the road.

  He drove downtown, navigating the city streets with the same reckless imprecision. He was drunk and upset, and he’d probably been up all night. His foot was too heavy on the gas, his hands too light on the wheel. He turned the music up too loud.

  Conejo, that stupid ass, howled an encouragement, drumming his hands on the back of Eric’s headrest.

  Finally—finally—they slowed to a stop in a quiet neighborhood. Meghan didn’t live far from here, Eric realized, reading the street signs. Now that he’d told Junior the truth about Friday night, maybe his friend would let him get out and walk.

  But Junior obviously had other plans. He reached under his seat, taking out a 9mm semiautomatic pistol.

  “Oh, fuck,” Eric breathed, pressing his shoulder blades against the passenger door. Trying to distance himself from the situation.

  “This is where the Eastside leader lives. Oscar Reyes. He’s one of the chavalas you saw that night. I went to school with him.”

  Eric glanced toward a dark house. “No.”

  “Yeah.”

  Conejo started bouncing up and down in the back. “Let’s do him.”

  “No,” Eric repeated. Hands trembling, he reached out, touching Junior’s shoulder. “Dos Emes will flip out, man. We can’t do this without permission.”

  Dos Emes was another name for the Mexican Mafia, the prison gang CVL paid dues to. The Locos were a big deal in Chula Vista, but they were a small group in the grand scheme of things. Impromptu drive-by shootings were absolutely not allowed.

  “Fuck Dos Emes,” Junior said, shrugging him off.

  Swallowing his fear, Eric looked toward the front of the house. It had been recently painted. There was a shiny black El Camino in the driveway. “What about his family? You could hit anyone in there!”

  Junior disengaged the safety. “I don’t give a fuck about his family. Do you think he gave a fuck about my family when he was raping my baby sister? When he was choking the life out of her? Motherfucker!”

  Again, Eric was assaulted by memories from ten years ago. Images swirled through his head, making him nauseous. The girl, begging for help, her hands tied with a bandanna. The masked man handing Raul money, paying for his turn.

  “What if it wasn’t him?” Eric said, grabbing Junior by the front of the shirt. “What if it was … el hombre mascado?”

  They’d never mentioned him. Neither of them knew his real name. But, even drunk on booze and sorrow and rage, Junior understood exactly whom Eric was talking about. His eyes filled with tears and he turned the gun on Eric. “Don’t talk about that,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “Never talk about that!”

  Eric released Junior’s shirt and shrank back slowly. It wasn’t the first time a gun had been pointed at his head. It wasn’t the first time someone he loved had put a gun to his head. Raul had done this once.

  It was intensely terrifying. Soul-wrecking.

  Despair swelled over him, and he could only close his eyes, waiting for the blast. He was aware of blood rushing in his ears, his heartbeat thudding against his chest.

  When Junior pulled the trigger, Eric flinched.

  The report was deafening, a series of staccato blasts. Glass popped and shattered, raining down on the street. As they left the scene in a squeal of tires, Eric opened his eyes. He was still alive. Junior had shot up Oscar’s tricked-out El Camino.

  Not the house. Not Eric.

  He put a hand over his heart, amazed to feel it beating.

  His relief didn’t last long. Junior swerved all over the road, narrowly missing a parked car on the passenger side. A second later, the unmistakable peal of a police siren pierced the night air. They were being pursued.

  “Fuck!” Junior righted the wheel, glancing in his rearview mirror.

  Eric braced his hand on the dash and looked back. The police car must have been driving down one of the cross streets. Or, even more likely, it had been parked near Oscar’s house, doing surveillance.

  Maybe the cops had anticipated this kind of retaliation.

  Eric’s stomach dropped. They were all going to jail. It didn’t matter that Junior had been the only one who pulled the trigger. This was a drive-by shooting, and the city had a zero-tolerance policy on gang violence.

  Junior leaned back in his seat and stepped on the gas, punching it down the deserted street. He squealed around the corner and kept going, accelerating to a dizzying degree. If they didn’t crash, they were going to kill someone. The black-on-black squad car followed at a safe distance, sirens blaring.

  “Pull over,” Eric said. “Let’s take our chances on foot.”

  “Fuck no,” Junior replied, downshifting. His jaw was set with determination, the 9mm lying ready in his lap. Eric knew then that Junior wasn’t going to surrender. If they didn’t get away in the vehicle—and they surely wouldn’t—Junior would open fire.

  Powerless to stop him, Eric could only cling to his seat, tensed for the impact, watching the blur of trees and parked cars go by.

  Suddenly a pair of headlights swam before them. Junior jerked the wheel to the right, jumping the curb, and that was it. There was a feeling of weightlessness as the car caught air. Then it came down in a sickening crunch, flipping sideways.

  Eric couldn’t count the number of times the car rolled over. His seat belt caught and held, blazing a painful strip across his chest. Something slammed down on the top of his head. Vaguely, he realized it was the roof.

  When the car shuddered to a stop, he was disoriented. A wet trickle dripped down his neck. The engine was still roaring, wheels spinning uselessly against the thick underbrush. They were stuck in a ravine, surrounded by eucalyptus trees. Junior was slumped against the driver-side door, blood on his face.

  With a groan, Eric released his seat belt and reached out, turning off the gas. Junior’s head lolled forward. He appeared unconscious rather than dead.

  A glance at the backseat revealed that Conejo was also hurt but alive. He moaned, insensible. Eric squinted out the window, seeing flashing red lights through the trees. The road they’d driven off was only a couple of hundred feet away. In moments the police would descend upon them.

  He fumbled with his door handle, trying to get out. It wouldn’t budge.

  The back window had shattered, creating an alternate exit. Eric crawled past Conejo, who was crumpled in the corner.
Dragging himself over the glass-covered backseat, using his elbows, he scrambled out, sliding across the trunk. As soon as his feet hit the ground, his knees buckled, threatening to give way.

  He took a deep breath, praying for strength. After a few seconds the vertigo passed. His head was throbbing, his neck wet. Brushing the pebbled safety glass from his clothes, he fled, forcing his way through the thick brush, hopping tree trunks.

  Soon he was stumbling onto a dark sidewalk.

  Instead of running, he flipped up the hood of his sweatshirt and strolled at a leisurely pace, his heart thumping against his ribs. He had no idea where he was, so he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, distancing himself from the scene.

  Now he was a block away. Then another. And another.

  Finally, when he felt sure that stopping wouldn’t result in his immediate arrest, he collapsed on a bus bench on a deserted street. Although the cut on his scalp still hurt, it was no longer bleeding. A deeper laceration on his calf probably needed stitches, but he didn’t dare go to the emergency room.

  Fighting back tears of pain and exhaustion, he leaned against the bench and closed his eyes. He couldn’t believe he was alive. Alive, and relatively unharmed, and free. He’d walked away from the accident.

  He wasn’t in jail.

  It occurred to him that he didn’t want to live this way. He didn’t want to die this way. He was lucky to have escaped and grateful for this second chance. For the first time ever, he felt as if his life was worth something.

  He took the crucifix out from beneath his T-shirt. “Gracias a Dios,” he whispered, touching it to his lips. Tears streaming down his face, he looked up at the night sky, seeing an endless expanse of stars.

  15

  On Monday afternoon, Noah reported for work.

  He’d tried to spend some time with Meghan this morning, but she’d insisted that she wanted to be alone. She didn’t need him “breathing down her neck,” as she put it. She been holed up in her room all weekend.

  When he came home from April’s yesterday afternoon, in need of another cold shower, he’d looked in on her. She pretended to be asleep.

  The counselor had told him to expect extreme behavior. Sluggish fatigue or hyperawareness. Overeating or rejecting food. A victim might be needy one day, standoffish the next. She could speak of the incident constantly or refuse to say a word.

  Noah wanted to help Meghan, but she was shutting him out. Maybe because he was a man. For the hundredth time he considered calling their mother. Was he making a mistake by keeping her secret?

  Rolling the tension from his shoulders, he walked through the station, heading toward his cubicle. Patrick was already there, a surly expression on his face. “Sarge wants to talk to us.”

  “What about?”

  Patrick shrugged.

  Noah had a pretty good idea. He’d heard about the car chase last night. He and Patrick had been on the other side of town, so they’d missed the action. Apparently, Junior Lopez and another gang member, Carl “Conejo” Arroyo, had fled the scene of a drive-by. Arroyo broke his collarbone in the resulting crash, and Lopez suffered a moderate concussion. They were awaiting charges.

  Oscar Reyes, the intended target, hadn’t been home. His girlfriend and their two-year-old daughter were sleeping inside. One of the bullets had ricocheted, hitting the side of the house, but they’d been spared.

  Noah wondered how the Lopez family was dealing with Junior’s arrest. Daughter dead, son headed to jail. Unfortunately, these kinds of trigger incidents were all too common. Traumatized people led traumatic lives.

  He followed Patrick into Sergeant Briggs’s office. Detective Santiago had pulled up a chair next to Briggs, presenting a united front. Behind his black-framed glasses, Santiago’s eyes were flat. Briggs’s expression also revealed nothing.

  Each man had a distinct presence; together, they were formidable.

  “Have a seat,” Briggs said, indicating the two unoccupied chairs across from his desk. He was a former military man with rigid posture and a streamlined physique. His job took him into the realm of city politics and away from the nitty-gritty of police work, so they didn’t see him very often.

  Patrick slumped in one chair, his body language defensive, and Noah grabbed the other. This wasn’t going to be a pleasant chat.

  “I assume you know about the 318 last night.”

  “Yes,” Noah said, and Patrick nodded.

  “Junior Lopez demanded a lawyer as soon as he regained consciousness, but he won’t escape charges. Officers witnessed him opening fire. Luckily, they were patrolling the area.” He looked back and forth between them. “Is there any reason Lopez would think the Eastside leader was responsible for his sister’s murder?”

  Noah glanced at Patrick, who maintained his stony silence.

  “Officer Cruz told me you asked her to keep an eye on the situation, Officer Young.”

  Now Patrick was looking at Noah. Feeling his ears heat, he said, “Yes, sir. I thought Lopez might try to retaliate.”

  “Why?”

  He massaged the back of his neck. “When we were interviewing him, some information about the case … slipped.”

  Santiago leaned forward. “What information?”

  “He knew about the bandanna, sir.”

  “Officer Young, I told you specifically not to mention that detail. Do you remember my exact words?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The lead detective glanced at Patrick. “Did your partner convey that message to you, Officer Shanley?”

  “What does it matter?” Patrick shot back, his expression hostile. “The only progress in the investigation has been made by our unit. We’ve delivered two viable suspects, and homicide hasn’t done shit. This is the thanks we get for busting our asses on your case?”

  “Officer Shanley, did you tell Junior Lopez about the physical evidence?”

  “Yes,” he said, lifting his chin. Daring Santiago to make something of it.

  Santiago turned to Noah, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “Officer Young, do you think your partner leaked the information on purpose?”

  Noah struggled for an honest answer. He didn’t want to believe Patrick was capable of gross negligence or outright malice, but he suspected him of making a deliberate attempt to jeopardize the investigation. Patrick had a troubled history with Santiago, and his animosity had spiraled out of control.

  “Fuck you,” Patrick said, lurching to his feet. His chair toppled over. Instead of righting it, he glared at Noah. “And fuck you.”

  Noah avoided his gaze, hating the position he’d been put in. What could he say after stabbing his partner in the back?

  Sergeant Briggs stepped in. “Officer Shanley, you’re on administrative leave, starting now. Please turn in your weaponry and follow proper sign-out procedures. I’ll let you know the duration when I make my decision. Until then, you’re dismissed.”

  Patrick kicked his chair aside on his way out. It hit the far wall, knocking one of Briggs’s plaques to the ground.

  They all stared at it for a few seconds.

  Briggs turned his attention back to Noah, folding his hands on top of the desk. “Officer Young, when an interviewee is given confidential information by a member of your unit, you need to tell the lead investigator immediately. I know Shanley is your superior, but I hold you responsible for failing to notify Detective Santiago of the slip.”

  Noah had never been reprimanded by Sergeant Briggs or any other high-ranking official. Receiving the criticism in front of Detective Santiago, a man he’d hoped to impress, was twice as humiliating. Worse, he knew he deserved the set-down. “Yes, sir,” he said, clearing his throat. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  Briggs grunted in response. “I’ll let it slide this time, because of the … family incident you were dealing with. How is your sister doing?”

  “She says she’s fine, sir.”

  “Good.” Visibly uncomfortable, Briggs glanced at Santiago. “You’l
l ride solo while Shanley is on leave, and continue to assist in the homicide investigation as needed.”

  Santiago picked up where Briggs left off, riffling through a stack of papers on the top of the desk. “Witnesses place Oscar Reyes at the Taco Tico restaurant early Saturday morning. He’d been at a house party the entire night. According to our contacts, most of the Eastside crew attended, and there were no altercations with CVL. We don’t have a reason to suspect him of either murder.”

  Noah was disappointed but not surprised by the news. Raping and killing of women by hard-core prison gangs wasn’t unheard of, but it just didn’t match the local boys’ m.o. Besides, neither victim had been a documented member.

  Maybe the bandanna was planted as a diversionary tactic.

  “My unit has interviewed Jack Bishop’s friends and acquaintances from the bonfire,” Santiago continued. “Several remember seeing the victim walk away from the crowd by herself. No one stands out as a likely candidate, but we’re looking into it.”

  “Is there anything you want me to do?”

  “Yes,” Briggs said. “Watch out for a payback effort on CVL by Eastside. Monitor activity at the Lopez household—maybe the killer is in their circle of friends. And ask around about the car chase. We know there was a third passenger.”

  “Did Lopez say who?”

  “Lopez won’t say anything. Carl Arroyo claims he was the only rider, but officers at the scene spotted three men in the car.”

  Noah nodded his understanding. “I’ll get right on it.”

  As soon as he was excused, however, he went looking for Patrick. Noah found him in the parking lot, about to climb into his white Ford Ranger. His face was red, suffused with anger.

  “I’m sorry,” Noah said, raking a hand through his hair. “I didn’t know what to say.”

  Patrick nodded. “You did what you had to.”

  Noah knew Patrick felt betrayed by his actions. A partner was supposed to have your back, no matter what. But Patrick had gone too far this time. Noah couldn’t believe he would screw up just to annoy Santiago and then expect Noah to cover for him. Patrick’s actions had been dangerous, irrational, and wrong.