Confessions Of An Old Lady (10 page)

Chapter 18

Two weeks later, I was walking through Walmart, mostly killing time, when my black phone started to vibrate in the back pocket of my jeans. I assumed it was Sonny, since he was the only person who ever called that phone. So, without looking at the screen, I put the phone to my ear and said, “Hey there, darling. Do you miss me already?”

But it was Amanda’s voice that responded. “Trish? This is Amanda. Where are you?”

“I’m at Walmart. Why?”

“You need to get over to Leroy’s place, like right now.”

“Leroy’s place? Why? What’s going on?”

Amanda hesitated for the briefest of moments. “It’s Spider. Trish, Spider is dead. He went hunting with some of the guys this morning and…I guess…it was a horrible accident, Trish. Leroy accidentally shot Spider.”

I began to feel dizzy. The space around me began to spin and I felt like I was floating.
Spider’s dead
, I thought.
It’s all my fault.
I knew immediately this was no accident. There was no way this was a coincidence. Only days after Sonny and I had a conversation about Spider’s miraculous release, he just happens to go hunting? And not only that…he gets shot…and dies? No, this was no coincidence. This was Sonny. It may have been Leroy who “accidentally” shot Spider, but this was Sonny’s idea.

This was exactly why I couldn’t let myself fall for this guy. It was why I was there in the first place—to catch a known gang member, suspected drug dealer and cold-blooded murderer. Not to fall for said murderer and lose my job at the DEA and quite possibly my life. For now, I was deeply committed to this assignment and I would have to see it through to the end, no matter what I thought about—or felt for—Sonny Jackson.

I found a spot on an empty shelf to put my grocery items—a bag of Chex Mix, a gallon of milk, and some chocolate chip cookies, since it was that time of the month—and I half-walked, half-jogged out of Walmart. It took me only ten minutes to get to Leroy’s house and when I arrived, I noticed there were dozens of bikes parked in the driveway and behind the house. Before I could even get off the bike, Amanda was running up to me with her arms extended. She grabbed me and held me tight, swaying slightly.

“Can you believe it? Poor Spider! And so soon after Melanie!”

I politely pulled free from her embrace and looked at her with a hopefully convincing look of shock on my face. “No, I can’t believe it. Where’s Sonny?” I asked her, looking over her shoulder and craning my neck to see if I could spot him.

“He’s inside with Leroy and the other guys. They’re having one of their guys-only closed-door meetings right now. They should be done any minute.”

I followed Amanda to the backyard, where mostly the old ladies were standing around, speaking in hushed tones and looking very solemn. Spider didn’t have a girlfriend. He was too young, and besides, he had put all of his focus and energy into the club for the past year, working so hard to earn the privilege of earning his cuts and joining the crew.

As I approached the group of women, Harry’s wife, Connie, turned to face me. “Oh, Trish…can you believe it? I know how much you really liked Spider. And he really liked you too, honey.”

Great. As if I wasn’t feeling guilty enough as it was, I had to hear how much Spider really liked me?

Just about the time I was going to turn and leave, since the guilt was eating me alive, the back screen door opened and out walked Sonny and Leroy. Their faces were grave and grim as they approached the group of women. Sonny walked up to me and pulled me in toward him. He didn’t say a word, only placed his scruffy chin on my shoulder and squeezed me tight around the waist.

After a few seconds, he pulled back and looked me in the eye and said quietly, “This wasn’t me, Trish. I know what you’re thinking, and it wasn’t me. I promise you.”

“Not here,” I whispered. “We’ll talk at my place. Follow me?”

He nodded his head and followed me to where all of the bikes were parked. We both got on our own bikes and drove down the lengthy gravel driveway until we reached the main road. We arrived at my house not ten minutes later and Sonny followed me, again without speaking, into the house.

Sonny shut the door behind him and I put my hands on my hips and stared blankly at him, waiting for him to talk. I’d learned in DEA training that the first person who talks starts off in the defensive position and therefore, if you want the truth from your subject, you stay quiet until they break the silence. This had always worked for me with other suspects, and Sonny was no exception.

“I swear to you, Trish. This was not me. I had nothing to do with this. As far as I know, it really was an accident.” He stood, shaking his head in what appeared to be disbelief. Was he telling the truth? I couldn’t tell yet.

“You mean to tell me that just a few days after you and I discussed the possibility of Spider being an informant, he coincidentally winds up being shot ‘accidentally’ by your father?”

“I know it’s hard to believe, but I swear I didn’t do this. I would never have hurt Spider—even if he turned against us. I loved that kid like a little brother.”

Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he didn’t kill Spider. But Leroy had definitely done it intentionally, so how did Leroy know? “Did you tell Leroy about our conversation? About our suspicions?”

A look of instant revelation appeared on Sonny’s face. It looked as if he had just connected the dots, even though I had no idea how this could have only just occurred to him. He nodded his head up and down slowly.

“Goddamn it,” he growled under his breath.

He slid down the length of the wall until he landed in a slump on the floor and threw his legs out in front of him. I slid down the wall as well and sat down next to him. I placed my hand on his hand and laid my head on his shoulder.

“It’s not your fault.” I wasn’t sure Olivia Rockford really believed that, but Trish Sanders had to. “You didn’t know what he would do.”

“I should have known. I just figured that we’d talk about it and try to come up with a plan to figure out if he had turned or not. I didn’t think he would
literally
pull the trigger that quickly. But I know my dad and I should have known better than to think for a second he could be cool or level-headed about something like this.”

I just patted his hand and listened as he continued.

“I killed poor Spider. He was just a kid, Trish! What was I thinking? I should have handled this myself. I should have looked into it more before I mentioned it to Dad. What if he didn’t do it?”

“Who? Spider? What if he didn’t turn? Oh, Sonny, I don’t know. I can’t tell you what to do about that or what to feel. You have to process this your own way. But let’s think about this for just a minute. Spider gets pulled over with more than two pounds of cocaine in his trunk…he’s facing at least ten years behind bars…and then, all of a sudden, the charges are dropped. No plea agreement, no reduced charges…just altogether dropped out of the clear blue sky. If that doesn’t scream ‘rat’ to you, I don’t know what would.”

Sonny nodded his head slowly, but looked as though he was only half-listening to me. I gently grabbed his scruffy chin and turned it to face me. “You did not do this, Sonny. This isn’t on you. And no matter who caused this, Spider was a rat. He turned on you and the club. You would have eventually told Leroy anyway and he would have handled it the same way. There’s no sympathy for a rat. Remember? You told me that once yourself. This is not on you. If it’s on anyone, it’s on Spider himself.”

We sat there on the floor of my hallway in silence for what seemed like forever. As I sat there with my head on his shoulder, I had the same inner debate I had had with myself many times since starting this assignment…the debate between Olivia and Trish. Trish was comforting Sonny and telling him it wasn’t his fault…but what did Olivia really feel? I wanted not to believe him…wanted to see him as the cold-blooded killer he was accused of being. But I couldn’t help the feeling deep in some hidden part of myself. The part that loved Sonny Jackson and believed he was really a good person, who was capable of love and true depth of emotion.

When Sonny left, I grabbed my white iPhone from the fake book and called Renley.

“Hey!” Renley said cheerily into the phone. “Look at you, calling at a decent hour! To what do I owe the honor?”

“I was just checking in about the Spider situation. Anything on your end?”

“Not a peep. Why do you sound so down in the dumps?” Renley asked.

I couldn’t tell Renley that yet another internal battle was being waged between Olivia and Trish over what exactly I felt for Sonny Jackson. “No reason. It’s just kind of sad, that’s all. Spider, I mean, Andrew was a young kid. It’s sad to see such a young kid waste his life with this motorcycle gang and then end up losing his life to the same gang he had admired so much. I still don’t know if he was turned. Do you?”

“Nope. Not by us, anyway. I can’t get any of the other agencies to confirm or deny. But then again, we would stonewall them too, if the roles were reversed, so there’s no way to tell if he was turned or not. Were you able to get a confession out of Sonny about killing this Spider kid?”

“He says he had nothing to do with it…that Leroy acted completely on his own. What are you guys going to do about any possible charges against Leroy? What if he’s charged with Spider’s murder? Our investigation will be over then.”

“Nah…I’ve already talked to the DA down there. Even though she has a gut feeling that something is wrong with the situation, she’s holding off on any charges for now…not enough evidence.”

“Well, that’s good, I guess,” I said with little conviction in my voice.

“Have you heard anything else about this big sit-down with the Lords and the Monsters? I’m telling you, Rockford, if we could get a heads-up on when and where that pow-wow is going to take place, we could probably catch both gangs red-handed. Two for the price of one! You know they’d go to the meeting fully loaded with weapons and probably with a large amount of drugs as well.”

“Yeah.” I nodded my head, even though he couldn’t see me. “I’ll do my best.”

I hung up the phone without saying goodbye. It wasn’t that I was mad at Renley. I had no reason to be. He was only doing his job…and so was I. Or
was
I?

I lay back on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. For the first time I noticed a large brown-and-yellow water stain in the far left-hand corner of the ceiling. But my thoughts immediately strayed back to Sonny and my feelings for said outlaw biker.

If I was being totally honest with myself, there was a small part of me that felt apprehensive when Renley talked about bringing down Sonny and his crew. Logically, I knew this had to happen and it was the whole purpose for my being here in the first place. But emotionally, I felt like I wanted to defend Sonny and keep him out of danger from the very agency I worked for. I couldn’t care less about Leroy and the rest of the gang—although they had all been very nice to me since I met them—but Sonny…I didn’t want to see Sonny go down at all. Maybe I was making justifications, but I hadn’t seen Sonny do anything worthy of a DEA investigation, let alone a take down. I knew he probably did do things I was unaware of, but for some reason, I felt a natural urge to protect him. The thought of Sonny being at that meeting and then the doors flinging wide open and dozens of agents swarming the place and arresting Sonny made me want to cry.

I realized in that moment that I was going to have to make a decision…and soon. The way I saw it, I had several different options. The first and most obvious option was for me to stay the course and continue on in my investigation of Sonny, even if it meant bringing him down in the process.

The next option would probably mean the end of my career. In that scenario, I would succumb to my feelings for Sonny and somehow warn him and then—what? Ride off into the sunset together? Ridiculous. Not an option.

The final option was for me to find a way to continue my investigation, but try to keep Sonny from being caught up in it. Warn him in some way. Try to save him from going down in flames when the shit hit the fan, so to speak. But how? That seemed impossible. Sonny was the vice president of the club, so he was guilty by association of whatever crimes the crew committed, including Spider’s murder, even if he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger.

I decided this was my best course of action. Somehow I was going to figure out a way to protect Sonny from whatever was coming when this investigation…
my
investigation…was concluded. The simple fact of the matter, whether I wanted to admit it to myself or not, was that I was, in fact, falling for Sonny Jackson.

Chapter 19

Missing my family was made worse by the fact that they were only twenty minutes away and I couldn’t go visit them. I had told them I was “away” on an assignment, so I hoped that would suffice as an excuse for the lack of calls and visits. If I told them I was so close, my mother would hop in her Volvo and seek me out the way she used to do when I would skip school in middle school at Lexington Christian Academy. She’d find me and she’d wrap her scrawny, bejeweled hands around my neck and wring it soundly for not calling. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about what to do about Sonny, because my mother would have killed me right then and there and that would be the end of it.

That being said, I called my mother for only the second time since the assignment started several months ago. The first time, I called as soon as I settled into my temporary house, just to let her know I had arrived at my secret location—which despite her protestations, I firmly advised her I could not disclose—and that I was safe. This time, I wanted so badly to tell her what I was going through with Sonny. Typically, it would be my mother whom I would confide in about relationship issues…I didn’t have any girlfriends to speak of. But, number one, she’d kill me for having feelings for someone like Sonny. Number two, I couldn’t tell her even one word about it, because I’d be compromising the assignment. So I kept it casual.

“Why on earth haven’t you called? I’ve been worried sick about you,” she screeched into the phone, causing me to pull the phone away from my ear to avoid bursting my eardrum. I could also hear the clicking and clacking of her heels on the hardwood floor of the kitchen as she paced.

“Mom, I told you, I’m on an assignment. I can’t talk about it and I’m very busy.” The truth was I did have a ton of down time, usually during the weekdays, but I had put off calling my mother because I was quite certain she’d be able to use her mom-telekinesis to detect something was bothering me. Sure enough, it was the very next question out of her mouth.

“What’s wrong, honey? You sound upset.” I put the phone back to my ear and sighed into the phone. What would I tell her? What
could
I tell her? I made something up on the fly.

“It’s just this assignment, Mom. It’s very stressful and my boss is breathing down my neck for results. I just don’t have any to give him yet.”

She paused and sighed.
Uh oh
, I thought.
Here it comes
. The inevitable thinly-veiled lecture I got occasionally from Mom about my choice of profession. You see, my mother, while respecting my decision to become a DEA agent, had always thought it was too stressful a career for me and that I would end up jaded and disenchanted like my father when he retired from the police force. Not to mention I was putting my life at risk on a daily basis. Or at least the way she envisioned my daily work. Little did she know that most of my career so far had been spent riding a small metal desk. But I sat through the thing and said “mm-hm” here and there, so she’d think I was listening. I really didn’t need to hear all of this at that particular time, but she’s my mom, so I had to let her get it off her chest.

“So when are you going to be done with this
assignment
so I can see my baby?” I could almost see her making air quotes when she said the word “assignment.”

“I have no idea. I wish I knew that myself. Most of these assignments don’t really have an ‘end date,’ if you know what I mean. They just end when they end. You know?”

Thankfully, she eventually changed the subject and we talked for a few more minutes. Mom brought me up to date on the work they were doing finishing the basement and all of Dad’s attempts to occupy himself now that he was retired, as well as Aunt Suzie’s struggle with the gout.

I could tell Mom was crying now, as I could hear her sniffles as we wound down our conversation and it was time to say goodbye.

“Call me more often, will you please?” Mom implored.

“I will do my very best,” I assured her.

We disconnected and I set the black phone down on the kitchen countertop. I missed my family, especially my mom. I felt so alone all by myself in this empty, strange house. I had no one to comfort me when I was stressed-out or sad. Sonny couldn’t do it, because, well, he was the source of most of my stress. Or, at least, worrying about what to do about Sonny was the source of my stress. Olivia couldn’t confide in Sonny, because Olivia didn’t exist, as far as Sonny knew. I had to keep it that way.

***

The funeral for Andrew Davis, aka “Spider,” was one of the saddest I had been to in my entire life. Just like at Melanie’s funeral, the men from the crew all refused to even consider wearing a suit and therefore walked around the Betts & West Funeral Home in dirty jeans, t-shirts, and their cuts. However, Andrew’s mom—a tiny speck of a lady—wore a long, black lace dress, complete with a hat that had black mesh hanging from the front to cover her face and black feathers poking out from the top. She stood by Spider’s casket the entire time, refusing to leave him, even for a moment.

Then, an hour late, Leroy walked—rather, strutted—into the funeral parlor to pay his respects. Many nervous glances were shot between Leroy, who was now standing at the head of the aisle, and Spider’s mother, who, at first, did not see Leroy walk in. Everyone grew quiet. We all knew Leroy had shot Spider. Accident or no, he was responsible for the fact that Spider’s mother was standing on shaky knees next to her son’s pewter—and mercifully closed—coffin.

Spider’s mother, Roxanne, or Roxi to those who knew and loved her, looked as if she noticed for the first time the silence that had fallen over the parlor. She turned to see Leroy standing, hands in his jean pockets, at the end of the aisle. Her head started shaking from side to side and I could see her lips moving, but could hear nothing from where Sonny and I were sitting, a few pews back. As Leroy walked slowly toward the casket, Roxanne’s words become more and more audible. She was saying “no” over and over again. Suddenly, she shrieked “No!” at the top of her lungs and the whole room fell perfectly silent. Her hand, which had been resting on the top of the casket, shot out in Leroy’s direction and a bony, trembling finger pointed right at him.

“You killed my boy!” she proclaimed. “You get out of here, right now!”

Leroy, for the first time I’d ever seen, actually appeared to be humbled in Roxanne’s presence and opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, she shut him down with another “Get out!”

“Ma’am…I can’t imagine how badly you must be hurting right now, but if you’ll just let me―”

“Get out of here! You killed my baby boy! How dare you show your face around here? Get out!”

Everyone in the gallery was now looking at Leroy to see how this big, bad, motorcycle gang leader was going to handle being yelled at by a frail, ninety-pound woman. I squeezed Sonny’s hand and felt how tense he was. He was just beginning to rise up out of his seat when Leroy raised a conciliatory hand in the air and bowed his head, nodding ever so slightly. He turned on his heel and walked slowly back in the direction from which he had come.

Chatter picked back up in the gallery and I could hear some of the comments from some of the mourners.

“Can you believe he showed up here?”

“You know young Andrew is not the only person that monster has killed.”

“Accident, my ass!”

I could tell Sonny was hearing the same things I was, because I could feel his muscles tensing as he sat flush against me. “Sonny…just let it go. These people are mourning the death of a relatively young kid who was killed very tragically. Your dad’s a big man and he handled himself very well, if you ask me. Just let it go.”

***

After the service and the burial, Sonny and I went to the Rainbow Diner. Since Melanie had passed away, no one was there to cook for Leroy and Sonny and
I
certainly was not the cooking type. I didn’t even know how to boil an egg. Living alone in my downtown Chicago apartment, I only ordered take-out or cooked frozen meals in the microwave. Thank God for Panda King and Marie Callender.

As we sat waiting for our meals, Sonny looked depressed. He was barely speaking and only nodded his head when I spoke to him.

“Okay…I know we just left a very sad funeral and all, but something else is on your mind. I can tell. What is it?”

“Okay. You got me. It’s just that I still feel responsible for Spider’s death. I know Dad was the one who made the call and pulled the trigger, but if I hadn’t said anything to Dad about it yet…if I’d have dug around a little more first…who knows…maybe Spider would still be here. I mean, did you
see
his poor mother?”

I reached across the table and squeezed his hand again. “Honey…what have I told you? You did the best thing you knew to do to protect this club. The club is your life! You can’t be responsible for what Leroy decided to do to protect the crew. Spider was a rat, no matter how much you cared about him. He turned on you and he got what he deserved. I hate to say this, but the truth is, if he had lived, you might be in prison now, or worse. Better him than you.”

As the words were coming out of my mouth, I nearly choked on my own vomit. Olivia Rockford knew in her heart that this was nothing other than a cold-blooded murder of a young, naïve kid. However, Trish Sanders had to side with the club over anything and anyone else. She had to show Sonny her loyalty to the club and to him. But even as I was speaking, I wasn’t sure which persona I agreed with more. By God, I couldn’t help myself…part of me truly felt bad for Sonny and wanted him to stop blaming himself.

I knew in taking this assignment that the line between Trish and Olivia was going to be a blurry one, but I had no idea that only a few months into this assignment, the line was going to altogether dissolve.

“I know,” he answered, squeezing my hand in return. “Thank you for that. I love you.”

“Now let’s talk about something else, why don’t we?” I tried to sound cheery.

“Oh yeah? Like what?” Just as he asked that, the waitress appeared with Sonny’s meatloaf and my fried chicken.

“How about telling me what’s going on with the Monsters? Are you still going to try to have a sit-down with them sometime soon? Are you really going to try to work things out with them or are you planning to kill ’em all, Scarface-style?” I smiled mischievously.

“Oh, hell no.” He spat back. “There’s no working things out with them. They’re going to pay for what they did to Melanie. Not to mention they’re trying to hone in and take our suppliers away from us. That can’t happen.”

“So you’re going to lure them into a trap—make them think you’re going to sit down and ‘discuss’ your issues—then you’re going to kill them all?” I asked as nonchalantly as I could.

“Yup. That’s the plan. We’re going to offer them a large shipment of powder as a ‘peace offering’ to get them to show up. Genius, isn’t it?” Sonny nodded his head and then crammed a forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth and smiled.

“Where on earth is this little meeting going to take place? You can’t do it here in town. Everyone within a mile radius would hear the gunshots. The police would have the place surrounded in thirty seconds. I know you’ve gotta do this, but I don’t want you to get caught. I can’t lose you when I’ve just found you.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Sonny said between bites of meatloaf. “I’ll take your advice into consideration. We won’t do it here in town. I’ll find some old warehouse or farmhouse out in the country. That make you feel better?”

I nodded. “Much.”

I tried to hide my disappointment in not ascertaining the exact location, so I could pass it along to Renley. But at least I could tell him what I had learned so far. What I didn’t know was how in the world I was going to save Sonny from the DEA, and from himself, before he wound up in federal prison—or worse—dead.