Rock Chick 07 Regret (23 page)

After Hector left, Ralphie woke up Buddy and shared the news that I was going to the Station. Buddy (according to Ralphie) jumped out of bed “
lickity
split”.

Buddy spent the morning gulping down copious amounts of ibuprofen mixed with acetaminophen with the addition of caffeine in his coffee. Still, he looked like hell but Buddy didn’t have a shift that day (thus, him allowing himself to tie one on last night) and Ralphie informed me there was no way “on God’s green earth” I was going to the Station without one of them with me.

While I showered, drank coffee, ate toasted brioche with orange marmalade and did my hair and makeup, Ralphie picked out my outfit. It was as Queen Ice as you could get.

Winter white, plain front, light wool trousers with wide legs and a cuffed hem. This was paired with a winter white, silk, tailored blouse. For contrast, Ralphie added a slim, ice-blue belt and ice-blue, 50’s-style, ultra-pointed-toed, pencil-heeled, sling-backed pumps. My ensemble was completed with a winter white, Italian leather, tailored blazer, my diamond studs and diamonds-in-platinum tennis bracelet.

Pure ice.

Hector held my hand as we walked into the Station, Buddy (still looking peaked), on my other side.

In the lobby were Daisy, Shirleen, Luke Stark and a big man with light brown hair and a muscle-bound frame. In fact, one look at him and I was certain sure that God had seen fit to give this man
twice
as many muscles as other men were granted.

Daisy rushed to me the moment she saw me. “You okay?” she asked.

“I’m scared to death,” I answered.

Hector squeezed my hand.

Daisy grabbed my casted wrist and held on. “Ain’t no one gonna hurt you, not here, not again.
Comprende
?”

I nodded.

“We’re gonna be right here, you won’t be alone,” she went on.

I nodded again.

We advanced to where Luke, Shirleen and the other man were standing.

When I got within a few feet of her, Shirleen crowded in, pulled me away from Hector and Daisy and gave me a fierce hug.

“Child,” she said softly into my hair.

Then she let me go.

That was it. But that was all there needed to be. Shirleen Jackson gave good hugs.

“Sadie, this is Luke Stark and Jack Tatum,” Hector said when Shirleen moved away. “They work for Lee and they’re here to give their statements. They were there the night you drove into the garage.”

At that, my body froze solid.

Bex
told me a lot of people blocked out what happened to them. Not me, no, I remembered every last second. Including scrambling in the stairwell in nothing but a nightgown.

I instantly decided I couldn’t do this.

Right before I could turn on my heel and run, Jack spoke. “I’m just gonna say, I like Hector’s plan for
takin
’ Ricky down a lot better than this shit. I don’t like the idea of him gettin’ a cushy jail cell for the next fifteen years. No man makes a woman end her night slippin’ in her own blood on some stairs –”

“Jack,” Luke growled (yes, he
growled
).

I felt rather than saw Hector’s body grow tight and that dangerous current was snapping all around the lobby.

“Thank you,” I said quickly in an effort to fight back the current.

Jack stared at me. Then he said, “What?”

I pushed back the panic, tamped down the fear and sallied forth so Hector didn’t come to blows with his colleague because he’d been an
eensy
bit too honest at an inappropriate moment.

I explained, “You got to me first. You were nice. Thank you.”

Jack stared at me again. Then he muttered, “Jesus.”

I decided to take that as a muscle-bound man’s way of saying “you’re welcome”.

I took a deep breath, straightened my spine, looked up to Hector and asked quietly, “Can we go and do this now?”

His arm slid along my shoulders, he pulled me into his side and looked down at me.

“Yeah,
mamita
, we can go do this now.”

* * * * *

We walked into a big room that was full of people, phones ringing and lots of desks.

It didn’t go silent when we walked in but the noise definitely muted.

My eyes caught Eddie who was standing at a desk in the middle of the room. Beside him was a middle-aged man, shorter than Eddie by several inches, definitely rounder and he had dark, thinning hair.

Eddie and the man’s eyes came to us immediately upon entering the room. I saw Eddie look at his brother before his eyes moved to me. Then he smiled.

His smile was nearly as nice as Hector’s.

“Willie, Brian, Tony, Jorge, she’s here. Round ‘em up,” the man beside Eddie said, pointing to some uniform officers that were standing several feet away and then he twirled his finger and pointed to the door.

The officers didn’t waste time, they took off.

Eddie and the man walked to us.

The man stopped, Eddie didn’t. His arm went around my waist; he leaned in and kissed the side of my head then, while I as recovering from that, he stepped back.

“This is Detective Jimmy Marker. He’s gonna take care of you.
Bex
Cusack called and said she’d be here in twenty minutes. We’ll start after she arrives,” Eddie told me.

I nodded.

“They weren’t
jokin
’, you do look like a fairy princess,” Detective Marker remarked.

I nodded again, now completely unfazed by this remark then I sighed. “I get that a lot.”

Detective Marker stared at me for a second then he spoke again. “Willie, Brian, Jorge and Tony just went out to pick up Ricky and Harvey. We already called the hospital and made appointments to get statements from the staff who took care of you. Got officers
jumpin
’ at the chance to nail those two jackasses so Luke, Jack, you’re up now. Luke, you’re with Melvin. Jack, you’re with Danny. Hector, I wanna talk to you.”

Without delay, Luke and Jack moved into the room, separated and went to different desks.

I didn’t even have a chance to take this in before Detective Marker kept talking. “Lee sent the photos of your apartment over this morning. I
woulda
liked to have had a chance to send the lab boys over after the incident but if someone will let us in now, we’ll comb the place, see if we can find anything that places Ricky there.”

“I can let you in,” Buddy volunteered.

Detective Marker looked over his shoulder and called, “Adam, we got access to Sadie’s apartment. Call the boys.”

A man across the room immediately picked up a phone.

I blinked.

Boy, these guys didn’t mess around.

Detective Marker’s eyes were on me again and he caught the blink. “We’re police. We don’t like crime,” he informed me.

“I don’t like it either,” I assured him, just in case he was wondering.

“I wasn’t finished,” Detective Marker said.

“Oh,” I murmured.

“I got a wife, three daughters. Rape’s on the top of the list of crimes I don’t like,” Detective Marker declared.

I swallowed then I moved closer to Hector. When my hand found his and his strong fingers closed around mine, I nodded.

“I know who you are,” Detective Marker said and I held my breath. “So I suppose, the way you grew up, you don’t get this so I’ll explain it to you now. You’re
standin
’ there holdin’ Hector Chavez’s hand. Hector’s Eddie’s brother, Eddie’s one of us. We don’t like crime but we
really
don’t like crime when it happens to one of us. You’re one of us now. Ricky Balducci is goin’ down, I don’t care how it happens but me and every man in this room is gonna do whatever the fuck we gotta do to make it happen. You with me?”

“I’m with you,” I whispered.

“All right then,” he nodded. Then he smiled (which made him a lot less scary) and he reached out and squeezed my arm. “Badass Cop Speech is over, let’s get this done.”

Without anything else to say, I said, “Okay.”

* * * * *

“V… I… fuckin’… P!” Tex boomed the minute Shirleen, Daisy, Hector and I walked into Fortnum’s Used Bookstore (Buddy was at my apartment with the “lab boys”).

We stopped several feet in front of the door and I took in the scene.

There was a large open space at the front of the store, a counter in front of rows of bookshelves, an espresso counter against the back side wall, tons of comfortable-looking chairs, couches, armchairs and tables littered the middle. It smelled musty, dusty but looked really cool in a lived-in, sit-back, stay-awhile kind of way.

Even though it was well beyond coffee hour, there were people everywhere. Most of the seats were taken, there were three customers waiting in line to order, two standing at the end of the espresso counter waiting for their coffees.

Indy and a big, gray-bearded, long-gray-hair-in-a-ponytailed man wearing a black T-shirt that demanded you “Ride the Range” and a black leather vest with a rolled red bandana on his forehead were standing behind the counter. Tex and Jet were behind the espresso counter. Ally was clearing coffee mugs from the seating area.

“You!” Tex boomed, pointing at the people innocently sitting on the couch in front of the big, glass window at the front of the store. “That’s VIP seating. Up!
Move!
”

Without a word, as if this had happened before and they had loads of practice, the people grabbed their mugs and laptops and scurried to the corner table.

“You!” Tex pointed to me. “Sit!”

“You better sit,” Shirleen whispered sideways to me. “Indy’s face is gettin’ red. She hates it when Tex bosses around the customers. She looks like she’s gonna blow.”

I didn’t want Indy to blow so I nodded to Shirleen and hurried to the couch.

“I’m makin’ you a special,” Tex shouted to me.

“Okay, Tex,” I thought it best to shout back. Then I sat down.

“You’re gonna
hafta
wait, that’s Sadie. She’s a VIP,” Tex informed the next person in line like they didn’t already know this fact really,
really
well.

Daisy sat down on one side of me, Shirleen on the other side. They sat close, like sentries.

I looked helplessly up at Hector. He was doing that fighting-a-grin thing again.

I narrowed my eyes at him. The grin grew into a glamorous, white smile.

My eyes un-narrowed and I stared at him. He shook his head and went to the counter where Indy was.

Ally bustled up, precariously balancing used coffee mugs.

“You okay?” she asked.

I nodded. “It wasn’t that bad. Detective Marker is nice,” I told her.

She smiled and her eyes danced in a mischievous Veronica Mars type of way. “I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about Hector taking you to Blanca’s for dinner last night. What
is
it with the Chavez men taking their women home to meet their Mama? They know better. Blanca’s a nut. First time Eddie took Jet home, Blanca had the whole family over plus half the neighborhood.”

I gasped, sorry for Jet but also thankful that I didn’t have to deal with half the neighborhood last night. What I had was enough!

All of a sudden, Jet was there. “It’s true,” she told me. “I got
snockered
on margaritas.”

“And Eddie threw your cell across the yard and shattered a margarita pitcher,” a newly arrived Indy shared.

“I still wish I hadn’t missed that,” Daisy muttered.

“Boy’s got good aim,” Shirleen put in. “Damn waste of margaritas though.”

“Why’d he throw your cell phone?” I asked Jet.

“Well, I kind of had some bad men after me. One called me. Eddie took the phone away from me and heard what he had to say. It made him a little…” She hesitated. “Miffed.”

“Miffed! Eddie Chavez
miffed!
I love it,” Ally hooted.