“Sweet Jesus,” Jake whispered, turning to Sandy. She had nestled herself against his warm, broad chest as they read the book together. Now she turned her head towards him and gently kissed his neck, then his earlobe, and then, ever so slowly, they turned one to the other and kissed lightly on the lips. Sandy felt her head spin – was it the booze, or was it Jake? She knew he wasn’t right for her, but somehow, sitting here next to him, he just seemed dangerous, masculine, and sexual – she found his arousal arousing, and she pressed her lips against his and forced his mouth open and tongued him deeply. He hesitated for a second, and then responded passionately, taking her in his strong arms and pulling her body close to his. Soon they were locked in an embrace of passion, and Sandy found herself pulling Jake toward him and wrapping her arms around his sturdy form. She found herself aroused at his scent, at the sound of his breathing, at the sound of his heartbeat.
No – this is too much, too fast,
she thought to herself, and slowly and gently pushed him back.
“Easy, big guy… We’ve got to find this ‘Kim’ person,” Sandy said gently, not looking Jake in the eyes.
“I know… but tonight?”
“Tonight? No. Tonight was … was really special, Jake.”
“It was too much?”
“Let’s just take it slow,” Sandy said, turning her head to him.
There was an awkward silence, and then Sandy got up, and made an excuse about how late it was.
“This could be a big deal, Jake”, she said with a serious tone in her voice. He nodded as she turned and slipped out the front door.
ACT II - Investigation
The next morning the sky was filled with that magical deep blue that you only see in the high desert. Along the horizon a few distant clouds retreated after yesterday’s rain, pink-tinged but fading in the morning light. Jake seldom thought about how beautiful it really was out here, but now he was filled with a new purpose, and new desires, and perhaps that made him more sensitive to his surroundings. Another man might have felt slighted by Sandy, but Jake felt more alive than he had in a long time. But then he thought about what it was going to take to track down that Kim girl when he had no idea of what he full name is, or where she lives, or anything. But the journal also said something about a guy named Keith. Who he was, or who she was, no one knew. How they related to our dead gangster was totally unknown. But Jake was determined to find out.
Unfortunately the rest of the day spent on the phone chasing down leads given to him by his supervisor, Lou Smith. This was pointless. Or maybe he just wasn’t thinking straight, and had his head spun around by a dame, as Sam Spade would have said. Something told him that these kids were a sideshow, a distraction to Johnny Dimarino’s murder. Jake spent the rest of the day going from hotel to hotel with a mug shot of Johnny from a prior arrest, in an attempt to see he’d stayed in town – it was a long shot, but sometimes it paid off, but by 6 p.m. his dogs were burning and he was happy to call it a day.
That evening, as he sat with a Pabst in one hand and a TV dinner in his lap, watching the news, the phone rang.
“Jake? Hi. It’s Sandy.”
“Oh, hi...” Jake wasn’t quite sure what to say.
“Um, so, are you making any progress on the Dimarino murder?”
“Yeah, well – it’s not going too fast.”
“Did you think about college records?”
“What do you mean,” Jake asked.
“I mean college records. Their journals said they went to the same chemistry class. Just look for colleges in the area and check for his enrollment and a girl named Maria.”
“Are you gonna sing for me?” Jake joked.
“Maria, I just met a girl named Maria? I think that’s your line, Jake.”
“Smartass.”
“Just do it, Jake. And check out any writing classes. This journal crap is usually something you do in some kind of English class.”
Jake thought about asking her over, but then thought better of it. Again there was silence on the phone, and then Sandy made some excuse and they said their good byes and hung up.
It took three days, but, with persistent phone calls, cajoling, and a few threats, Jake finally managed to track down a small college south of Seattle were Shane Johnson and Maria Rodriguez both had the same chemistry class that summer.
That night he gave Sandy a call. “Hey, you’ll never guess who I found,” he gloated.
“Maria?”
“Maria Rodriguez.”
Really? That’s great, Jake. What did you find out about her?”
“No priors, not much. Got an address, though. In Tacoma.”
“Did you call the mom?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, I think you’re gonna want to go up there.”
“Yeah, but easier said than done.”
“Lou doesn’t want to spend the money?”
“Yeah.”
“I see. That’s too bad. Because I bet you can find these other kids pretty easy, particularly if you can find someone’s yearbook or something like that. You know, a high school yearbook? Most of these kids hang out together so it should be pretty easy to figure out who this Kim chick is. ”
“Right,” Jake replied, feeling dumb for having the obvious explained to him.
“And another thing, Jake. Do you know where Johnny’s club is?”
“What club?”
“The nightclub he runs. It’s right there …. Look, Jake, tell you what. Maybe I can pull some strings – let’s just see what happens. Meanwhile there’s still a dead guy in your morgue.”
“Right.”
“Listen, Jake. Don’t go poking your nose around Johnny’s house or the club. You steer clear of those, you hear? That’s nothing but asking for trouble – and I don’t just mean with the feds.”
Three days later Jake found himself on a dark night, flying in to Seattle Tacoma airport. Sandy had warned him that the FBI investigators had already talked to most of Shane’s friends, teachers, and school mates. But they didn’t have the diaries.
The next morning Jake stopped by the college where Shane and Maria had had the class together, but that was pretty useless; people tended not to know each other that well for summer classes. Shane’s apartment had already been gone over by the FBI; nothing more there that wasn’t already either squirreled away in some FBI office or on one of the dozens of reports that Jake had already waded through. That afternoon, as he drove out through the gathering darkness, he struggled to know what he would say, but at the same time he had to admit to a little tingle of thrill thinking about the woman who had seduced this young man. At least that was something that they didn’t have. He knew she was bad, but he admitted that he liked it.
Maria Rodriguez had lived in a rambler on a cul-de-sac of a nondescript suburban street. An alley ran along the back of the property, and Jake could see the little turn-out spot on one side where Shane had probably parked his truck as he described in the diary. Jake thought for a moment about going over there to poke around, but just then Maria’s mom, Joan, pulled into the driveway, stepped out, and went to open the door as Jake walked briskly towards her.
“Missus Rodriguez? Missus Joan Rodriguez?” Jake puffed from running, catching her at the front door.
“Miss Rodriguez. Who are you?”
“Jake. Jake Sullivan. I’m a detective from New Mexico.”
“New Mexico? What are you doing here? Is this about Maria?”
Jake nodded.
“Is she all right? Do you know where she is?”
“No, ma’am. I mean, Miss.”
“Well, then I don’t know if I can help you. I already told the FBI and the state patrol and everyone else everything there is to know,” she scowled and turned her back to him.
“We have one of her friends.”
“Shane. Yes, I know.”
“Do you know him?” Jake asked, producing a small photo from inside his jacket pocket.
“Oh, not very well. He was just a boy that Maria hung out with,” she lied.
“I see. Did the FBI tell you why he’s a person of interest?”
“Sure. But they’ve already been here. You’re too late. There isn’t anything more… nothing more to say only you need to get my baby back, do you hear?” She turned and almost poked Jake in the chest with her finger, but hesitated. Just then a man’s voice called her from within the house, asking what’s going on. “There’s nothing more for you here, and don’t even think about coming in… Good day, detective,” she said, swinging the door into his face, but he wedged a toe in, and grabbed her wrist, and pulled her close.
“I think you knew that Shane boy pretty well,” Jake whispered. “In fact, I think you knew him about as good as a woman can.” He could feel her face turn red, just for a moment, but she didn’t turn and look at him yet. Jake knew that this was his moment. “Joan, I don’t care about that. I want to help you, I want to help Maria, and I think this Shane kid is innocent.” That shocked her; she hadn’t considered that Shane might be a suspect for murder. “Do you know a friend of Maria’s named Kim?” Joan shook her head and whispered, “I don’t know her full name, but yes, I think she was one of the other kids they hung out with.” Then she continued in a loud stage voice, “Look, you’ll just have to go, see?” and then she pointed to the brown Chevy in the driveway and whispered, “ come back when that’s gone.”
Jake dutifully returned that evening after the brown car was gone, but when he knocked and rang the doorbell there was no answer. He was about to leave when he noticed that something flat and bulky was lying under the doormat. He gingerly pulled it out and saw that it was a high school yearbook,the kind of book that kids get their picture in and then write stupid stuff about their friends. Jake looked around and, seeing no one, quickly returned to his car with the book under his coat.
That night, at the hotel, he gave Sandy a call and told her about the book.
“So, now you’ve got pictures and names of the friends?”
“That’s right,” he replied cockily. “Including a Kim. Hey, you’re gonna have to check out this Keith kid for yourself,” Jake said, looking at the handsome young man whose picture had been circled and had little notes written around it. There were pictures of him in football. There were pictures of him in baseball. And in basketball. Each one with a little smiley or heart or an underline.
“Keith Youngblood.”
“Really. Why?”
“Don’t you remember, he’s the hot guy?”
“Oh, I see. You mean you don’t want him?” Sandy joked.
“I’ll just have to do with you...”
“Oh, Jake... well, I appreciate that.” Sandy said, and Jake realized he’d said too much.
“Any luck on the diary?”
“No, I’ll stay up here another day and see what happens.”
“OK, see you soon, sport,” she said and hung up.
Jake spent a sleepless night lying in the fleabag hotel room that his cheap bosses had doled out for. He began to convince himself that this whole thing was a waste of time, and that these kids were just having some sort of summer fling. Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” came to mind in particular.
The next morning Jake faxed the yearbook pages back to Sandy and then headed out to the community college to talk to that chemistry professor. The weather had improved a bit, at least he could occasionally see a shadow, but still a damp chill reached into his bones, a chill he couldn’t shake. It had been a while since he’d been on a college campus, and the sheer number of young people was a little disconcerting to a man whose job is to blend in and be unnoticed.
Once Jake had a look at the classroom that was used for summer chemistry he realized that he was wasting his time; it must have held maybe 250 seats, and his follow-up interview with the prof yielded nothing. Frustrated, he made his way over to the central office to review records for any writing classes, but of course Jake didn’t know that the admissions and central office staff wouldn’t have known anything about that; he’d have to talk to the individual departments, so after getting the runaround all day Jake dejectedly decided to leave the campus. But he was hungry, so before returning to his car, he headed over to Luigi’s Pizza. It seemed popular and maybe he could grab a slice and a beer while he thought about his next move – which he did.
Inside was crowded with young students clustered here and there in small knots, plus a few blue collar workers, their shifts done for the day. Jake envied them the simple satisfaction of ending each day’s work at the same time, and turned back to his beer when a new group of about six young men and women came in and asked if he would mind so much moving to a smaller table so that they could use his. He was about to yell at them, but thought better of it when he looked at their smiling, eager faces. They thanked him and sat together, animatedly discussing something. Jake tried to tune them out but it was impossible. They were making a student film, apparently. That sounded interesting. Jake found himself glancing over their way, and noticed that they all had those composition books like Maria had for their journals.
I suppose everyone has those
, he thought to himself – they probably had a sale. But what made him almost spill his beer was when he overheard them say that they were all keeping journals. Jake felt his heart race, and then told himself to calm down and listen, but he just couldn’t make out what they were saying, so he wandered over.
“Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear you’re in film studies,” Jake said, using his earlier encounter with them as his buy in.
“Yes - we’re all in a script writing workshop,” answered one of the young men.
“That’s fascinating. Really. I’ve always been interested in writing for film or television. You know, when you get to be more like my age you start to have some experiences, some things that are worth writing about.” They nodded their heads politely, and Jake continued. “Can you tell me which professor runs the class? I’d be interested.”
“Oh, no,” interjected one of the girls. “It’s not through the college. It’s a special writing workshop set up by the Tacoma film institute.”
“The what?”
“The film institute. It’s a program for young artists.”
“Really. So, what kinda stuff do you write?”
“Well,” answered one of the girls, “We practice writing dialogue by writing it in a journal.” She looked at him and realized that Jake didn’t get it. “See here,” she said, opening her journal and showing a page to Jake. He quickly scanned the handwritten pages and saw that she had been writing about a fight with her boyfriend, but with dialogue.
“Thanks...isn’t that kinda personal?”
“Yeah, but you get over it. How are you gonna write drama if you don’t HAVE drama?”
Jake couldn’t refute that argument.
“So, are there other classes?”
“Yeah, but this is the core writing class. They only have it in the summer.”
Jake pulled out the pictures of Shane, Maria, Kim, and Keith, and placed them on the table. “Do any of these guys look familiar?” he asked the group.
“I thought you were interested in writing,” one of the young men said.
“I am… but that’s not my job now.”
“What is your job now?”
“I’m a cop.”
“Then … maybe you should go.”
“These kids – these guys could be in danger,” Jake half-lied.
Danger, yeah, like being accused of murder’s being in danger
.
“Well, good luck,” the young man said and started to rise up.
Jake grabbed his arm. “Look, this is serious. I’m not fooling around here.”
The young man stood and pulled Jake’s arm away, and walked out the door, with the rest of his gang following timidly behind. Jake tossed some bills on the table and started after them, but realized that they weren’t going to talk in a group. He turned and started back to the parking lot, only to hear footsteps in the gravel behind him. It was the girl that had shared her journal with him.