Nick Staley let us out, locking the door and retreating to the back of the grocery. He’d lost his business, and now he was scared he’d lost his son, learning the hard lesson that sometimes the only thing that makes you feel better about bad news is worse news and the news about his son was not likely to get better. Brett’s relationship with Frank Crenshaw was as likely to be proof of guilt as proof of innocence. Murder in the family was the oldest of crimes.
There were a lot of reasons Brett could have needed money badly enough to steal it from his father, but there was one at the top of my list. He wanted to get out of town, hopefully before he fitted Roni for her funeral dress. Unrequited love is no match for the survival instinct. If Brett thought Roni made a deal with the cops to pin Crenshaw’s murder on him, love would turn to rage in a heartbeat.
I called Roni, but she didn’t answer, meaning she was probably screening my calls. I left her a message warning her again to stay away from Brett, knowing she’d ignore that too.
I surveyed the block, taking the pulse of a neighborhood on life support. Traffic was light, a handful of cars passing, no one stopping, no foot traffic going in and out of the cleaners, liquor store, or shoe repair shop that occupied the rest of the block, the storefronts on the other side of the street dark.
We were still on the sidewalk when a tricked-out Lexus, with gold-rimmed wheels, windows tinted midnight, slid to the curb behind Kate’s rental. A lanky brown-skinned kid stepped out, hands in the pockets of his jacket, the collar turned up. Even with his tattoos covered, I recognized Eberto. He slammed the car door, looked at me like I wasn’t there, and tried the grocery’s door.
“Read the sign, Eberto,” I told him. “They’re closed.”
He looked at me, this time remembering what happened on the bus, glancing over his shoulder at the Lexus, caught between a locked door and a middle-aged white guy who’d punked him once already, and whoever was behind the wheel, no-man’s land for a would-be gangster. He rattled the door a second time, pressing his face against the glass. I followed his eyes. The light in the back was off. I couldn’t see Staley but was certain that he was watching from the shadows, the reason he was hiding a gun beneath his apron now clear.
My working theory had been that Brett was in on the robbery of the gun dealer and had given his cousin Frank one of the guns. It was just as likely, maybe more likely, that Brett was the middleman when Crenshaw bought his gun, dealing with someone who knew that business a lot better than Brett, someone who wouldn’t hesitate to force Brett to clean up loose ends like his cousin and girlfriend as the price for his life, someone like Cesar Mendez.
Brett had told Roni that Mendez was a regular customer at the grocery. The question was who was buying and who was selling. If Brett was on the run, he might be running from the cops and Mendez, Northeast’s small world shrinking fast.
“Like I said, they’re closed. There’s nobody there. What do you want?”
Eberto went to the Lexus. The driver’s window slid down, and Eberto leaned in, talking across the driver to the person in the front passenger seat. Bits of Spanish I didn’t understand drifted back to me. The passenger door opened, and out stepped a man, late twenties, tall, broad, and hard, copper skinned, with buzzed head, leather jacket, and a slit-eyed look that straightened Eberto, sending him backpedaling to the grocery, yanking on the door to prove that he wasn’t lying about it being locked.
I whispered to Kate, “Get in the car, now.”
“You must be joking,” she said. “You don’t speak Spanish. I do.”
“Swell.”
“You’re welcome.”
I caught Eberto’s eye. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your boss?”
The kid looked like he’d been pimp slapped, his head spinning from me to the other man.
I turned toward the man who’d stepped out of the car. “You must be Cesar Mendez.”
“Who the fuck’re you?” he said.
“Jack Davis.”
“Name don’t mean shit to me.”
“Wouldn’t be healthy if it did.”
“You a cop?”
“Not anymore.”
“What about her?” he asked, pointing at Kate.
“I’m his driver,” she said.
The rear doors on the Lexus opened, and two of Mendez’s boys got out, flanking him, jackets open, gun butts sticking out of their jeans. Mendez slow walked toward Eberto, the boy’s lower lip trembling. Mendez threw his arm over Eberto’s shoulder, peppering him with questions in Spanish, Eberto mumbling his answers.
I glanced at Kate, whispering. “Can you hear any of that?”
She kept her eyes on them, her voice soft. “Enough. He asked Eberto how you know his name, and Eberto said something about seeing you on a bus. Does that make any sense?”
“Yeah. You’d be surprised the people you meet on public transportation.”
Mendez finished with Eberto, closing the distance between us, rolling his shoulders and shaking his arms loose as he walked, warming up.
“Eberto says you pulled a gun on him. That right?”
“Fuck Eberto. He’s a punk. Hassles old men and mothers with small children.”
Mendez smiled. “And you run him off. What’s that make you, Superman?”
“Makes me nothing I wasn’t already.”
“You and your driver gonna run me off?”
“Not that we couldn’t, but that wouldn’t do either of us any good.”
He laughed, curious but not afraid. I was on his turf, and he had the numbers and the guns. If it hadn’t been for Eberto, he’d have probably ignored us and gone on his way. I was being enough of a smart-ass to pique his interest.
“What good you gonna do me?”
“I don’t think either one of us came here to buy groceries. I think we’re after the same thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Not what. Who. Brett Staley.”
He shrugged. “Don’t know him.”
“Sure you do. The two of you did business. Probably a little weed, maybe some blow. Then one day, Brett says, hey, cousin of mine wants to buy a gun, can you hook him up, and you say show me the money. Deal goes down, nothing special, just business. You’re selling enough dope it doesn’t even register. Then Brett’s cousin uses it to kill his wife, and it turns out the gun you sold him was stolen from a gun dealer last month and the ATF is all over that case like stink on shit and your boy, Brett, who you know is such a pussy he’ll flip on you the minute the cops say put up your hands, is in the wind. So you’ve got to find him, make sure that doesn’t happen, or you’ll end up doing the warden’s laundry instead of cruising around in that fine-looking Lexus.”
He listened, his face smoldering, turning away without comment when I finished, heading back to the Lexus, his boys following him, one of them opening the car door for him as he gave me a last look.
“I’m headed to Brett’s house in Sheffield,” I told him. “You can follow me and we’ll talk some more, unless you’ve already been there.”
“You know,” Kate said after they pulled away, “you sounded like a crazy man.”
“I don’t care what I sounded like, what did he look like?”
“Well, I don’t have a baseline…”
“Kate, I don’t have time for a baseline lecture. I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”
She folded her arms, taking a deep breath and nodding her head. “Okay. You’re right. Quick and dirty. I’d say you hit him where he lived. He flashed fear when you talked about the ATF. And he agrees with you that Brett is a pussy. I’d say you’re on to something. Not bad for making that story up on the fly.”
“I only made part of it up on the fly, but it fits with what we know. And, it explains why Nick Staley is carrying a gun and why he’s so worried about Brett. It doesn’t explain why Frank Crenshaw wanted a gun so badly he’d get it on the black market. I wonder what scared him.”
“He was losing control of his life. His business was falling apart. The gun may have been his way of reasserting control, of feeling strong again,” Kate said.
“One dick in his pants wasn’t enough?”
“Either that or he was planning on robbing a bank.”
“Thank you, Dr. Phil,” I said.
“Look, we didn’t come here because of Frank Crenshaw or Cesar Mendez. We came here because of Evan and Cara Martin. I’m beginning to think Lucy is right. You keep trying to work both cases and you’ll end up going off on tangents without solving either one.”
“Then you weren’t paying attention when we talked to Nick.”
“Are you kidding? He’s lost everything. He’s scared of whoever might knock on his door, and he’s worried about his son.”
“How do read his relationship with Jimmy?”
“He’s trying to minimize their relationship, but a lot of people do that—pretend they hardly know someone who was their best friend for life until they get arrested. Who wants to claim a crook?”
“I agree. After what happened with his parents, I don’t think he was fooling around with Peggy Martin, so we can cross him off our boyfriend list.”
“So what’s next? Are you really going to drag me to Brett’s house? How much longer can you keep juggling these cases?”
“As long as I have to. Brett’s house is a low priority. If he was hiding under the bed, Mendez would have found him.”
“What then?”
“I need to borrow your phone.”
“What’s wrong with yours?”
“Dead battery.”
“Tell me the truth. It’s easier.”
“Okay. No.”
She handed me the phone. “I appreciate your honesty. It’s so refreshing. And, after you finish your call, do I get to go on a scavenger hunt?”
“Absolutely.”
“Where do we start?”
“Peggy Martin’s house.”
“Why there?”
“Most trouble starts at home.”
Braylon Jennings wanted me on a short leash. That’s why he entered his number in my cell phone last night and made an appearance outside the courthouse this morning. Odds were he was also listening in on my calls. If I stopped using my phone, he’d get suspicious, but that was no reason to let him know everything I was thinking. I walked to the corner, keeping my call to Ammara Iverson private.
“I need a favor.”
“Jack, don’t. I’ve given you everything I can. You need something else, you’ll have to deal with Jennings.”
“We both know that Jennings will screw me the first chance he gets. But I can handle him. I just need room to maneuver.”
She sighed. “What do you want?”
“Whatever you’ve got on Cesar Mendez. He runs a gang in Northeast, Nuestra Familia.”
“Where’s he fit in?”
“They do drugs, which means they do guns.”
“So do a lot of people.”
“But Mendez is the only one who’s looking for Brett Staley.”
“Should I ask you how you know that?”
“Probably, next time we have dinner.”
“You’ll buy. Why is Mendez after Brett?”
“Frank Crenshaw was Brett’s cousin. Brett’s father owns a grocery in Northeast, and Brett works for him. Mendez was a regular customer; they knew each other. Best bet, Brett hooked Crenshaw up with Mendez, and Mendez sold him the gun he used to kill his wife.”
“Which you think Mendez stole from the gun dealer?”
“Bingo. And, when Quincy Carter and Jennings make that connection, they’ll be all over Mendez. But, if Brett is too dead to testify against him, Mendez skates.”
“That doesn’t help Roni Chase unless you can prove Mendez stole her gun too.”
“It’s a start. Right now, Mendez is at one end of this thing, Roni’s gun is at the other, and Brett Staley is in the middle. I’ve still got a lot of dots to connect.”
“Pretty hard not to put Roni’s gun in Brett’s hand. Makes him a man without much to lose. You made a deal with Jennings. You should take this to him.”
“He has enough clout to get the charges against Roni dropped so he can use her as a moving target, hoping that whoever killed Crenshaw will come after her. I’m not telling him anything until I’ve got this nailed down and I know that she’s in the clear.”
“Jennings is going to be pissed if he finds out you’re holding back about Mendez.”
“That assumes Jennings doesn’t already know about him. Gangs, drugs, and guns are the ATF trifecta. If I’m right, a lot of this has gone down on Mendez’s turf. He has to be on Jennings’s short list.”
“Then why did he draft you?”
“When I know the answer to that question, I’ll start talking to him. Until then, I need your help.”
She was silent for a moment. “Okay. I’ll do what I can, but watch yourself.”
There are a lot of ways to get from dawn to dusk. Most people lean forward or fall back, trading modest risk for nominal gain, hoping to break even when they cash in. Then there are the outliers, the people who hit the gas, turning into a swerve with a wild-eyed grin or who assume the position at birth, ducking whatever life throws at them. I’d spent most of my life in the first group, leaning into punches when I couldn’t avoid it. But the shakes changed all that, forcing me to learn how to tap dance on a tightrope, solid ground the only thing that made me uneasy.
“Don’t worry. I always do.”
Peggy Martin didn’t answer her door or her phone. Her car wasn’t on the street or in the garage. There was no mail in her mailbox, and there were no newspapers piled on her driveway. She was out but not gone. Across the street, Ellen Koch watched us from her front window, drawing the curtain when I started toward her house.
“You wanted to talk to her,” I said to Kate. “Find out why she showed such contempt for Peggy. Might as well be now.”
We rang the bell, and she opened her door a crack, the chain keeping us out.
“May we come in?” Kate asked.
“What for?”
“We’d like to talk with you about Peggy. You’ve been such a great help to her through all of this.”
“I’m worried about her kids. Anyone would be.”
“But not everyone would do what you’ve done. There are people who don’t think Peggy is a good mother. They blame her for what happened and use that as an excuse not to help. You’re not like that.”
Ellen studied us for a moment, removing the chain and opening the door. “It’s not those poor kids’ fault. They didn’t choose their mother.”
She led us into the kitchen, warmed her coffee and offered us a cup. “All I’ve got is decaf.”
“Perfect,” Kate said. “The caffeine makes me too jumpy.”
Kate was in her element, reading Ellen, making a connection, turning it into an invitation. She’d done it with Jimmy Martin and Nick Staley, both times sucker punching them. I made myself part of the scenery, wondering whether she’d do the same to Ellen.
“Me too,” Ellen said. “Keeps me up at night.”
“My son is almost as old as Adam. He’s what keeps me up at night.”
Ellen stirred her coffee, eyes on the rising steam. “I know what you mean.”
“There’s a lot of talk about Peggy, about her being unfaithful. I imagine you must have heard that.”
“People talk.”
“The police think her husband may have been so mad at her for cheating on him that he did something to their kids to punish her. What do you think?”
She looked up. “Jimmy Martin has a temper on him, that’s for sure. And, he’s a hateful man. Never said a kind word about anybody that wasn’t White, and that’s a hard way to be around here with all the Blacks and Mexicans and the other immigrants. Seems like he was mad most of the time, and he and Peggy fought like there was no tomorrow.”
“So, you wouldn’t be surprised if he did something to his kids.”
“Oh, no. I’d be shocked if he laid a hand on them. He has a lot of ugly in him, but every time I saw him with his kids, he was nothing but a good father. One look at them kids and he was a different man.”
“Then why do you think he won’t help the police find his children?”
“I don’t know,” she said, looking away. “Maybe he knows they’re okay and he doesn’t want to let Peggy have them.”
Kate reached across the table, covering Ellen’s hand with hers. “If you believed Evan and Cara were safe, you wouldn’t have raised the money to hire Lucy Trent or organized the volunteer searches, and you wouldn’t have been at the lake yesterday.”
Ellen raised her head, her eyes moist. “You never know for sure about someone. You try to find the good in them.”
“Did you see Jimmy the day the kids disappeared?”
“No. Like I told the police, I didn’t see anybody or anything.”
“It’s possible Jimmy had nothing to do with the kids’ disappearance. It’s possible that someone else who had access to the house and who the kids knew well enough to let inside may have taken them. Can you think of anyone like that?”
“No,” she said, her gaze aimed at the floor. “Nobody I knew of.”
“Peggy admitted she was having an affair but wouldn’t tell us with whom. We need to talk to her boyfriend. The kids could have let him in, and he could have taken them. Do you know who she was seeing?”
Ellen sagged, shaking her head. Kate squeezed her hand.
“I think you do know. I can see it your face. There’s nothing more important than saving Evan and Cara. Please help us.”
Ellen withdrew her hand, clutching her arms around her chest.
“It wasn’t his fault. He’s a good boy, and she’s old enough to know better, but she kept after him.”
“Who?”
Her chest heaved. “Adam.”
“Peggy was having an affair with your son?”
Ellen turned away, crying. “She’s nothing but a damn whore! Threw herself at my son. I found out a couple of months ago and made him break it off.”
“Did he stop seeing her?”
She shook her head. “He says so, but I don’t know.”
“Where’s Adam?”
“He left a while ago. He didn’t say where he was going.”
My cell phone rang. It was Lucy. There was a door in the kitchen leading to a small, bricked patio. I waited until I was outside to answer.
“Did you pick up the files?”
“Yes. Simon and I have been going through them all morning.”
“Anything?”
“Timmy Montgomery and the Martin kids went to the same school and the same church.”
“We knew that. What else?”
“There’s a list in the Montgomery file of all the Sunday school teachers at the church and the older kids who helped out in the classroom. One name jumped out; a teenager who was assigned to Timmy’s class.”
“Who?”
“Adam Koch.”
“You and Simon were going to try to catch up to him and his mother last night. Any luck?”
“No. The house was dark. We rang the bell, but no one answered so we waited outside for a couple of hours before Simon made me go home. And, get this. I called the church to find out if Adam worked in either of the Martin kids’ classrooms, and he didn’t. Turns out that the church gave him the boot a year after Timmy Montgomery disappeared. It seems that a parent complained he’d gotten too friendly with a little girl.”
“Did the police question him about the Montgomery boy?”
“Yes, but it was a perfunctory interview, covering the bases. They talked to all the Sunday school teachers and staff, asking them if they’d seen any strangers hanging around the church or the neighborhood, stuff like that. He was never considered a suspect.”
“What about the parent’s complaint?”
“There’s nothing in the file about it.”
“Makes sense. The complaint was a year after Timmy’s disappearance. No reason for anyone at the church to make a connection and call the police.”
“You’re right. Only reason I found out was that the church secretary likes to gossip. When I asked her about Adam, she couldn’t wait to tell me.”
“Did you get the name of the parent who complained?”
“Yeah. I’m going to see her later this afternoon. Where are you?”
“On Ellen Koch’s patio. Kate is inside talking with her. She told us that Adam was having an affair with Peggy. He left the house this morning, and she doesn’t know where he went. Peggy isn’t home either. I’m going to have a look around. If he killed the Montgomery boy, he may have kept souvenirs.”
“Timmy’s file says he was wearing blue shorts, a
Harry Potter
T-shirt and flip-flops when he was last seen. Any of those would qualify.”