“Where’ve you been?” the man asked. “Where’s my buddy Bill?”
“Hey, Felipe.” Flynt looked down, and Noah instantly knew that his partner was about to lie. “He’s not doing so well. A little sick.” He ran his finger around the water ring left from his ice water, gliding his finger along the red, green and white plaid table cover.
“Oh, I am so sorry to hear that.” Felipe crossed himself and said: “I will say a prayer for him.”
“I think he would really appreciate that,” Flynt said. “Felipe, this is Lieutenant Steele. We’re working a case together.”
They shook hands, and Felipe helped himself to a seat at their table. The man seemed to wear a constant smile—not as radiant as Pattie Vernon’s, but it was still charming. Steele was curious to know why Flynt lied to Felipe about Bill but decided to save such discussions for later.
“Detective Steele, a strong name. Tell me about yourself. You’re not from around here, are you?”
“No sir, I was born and raised in Pasadena, joined the force there.”
“Pasadena? Nice! So what brings you here?”
Steele was not usually one for small talk, especially when it concerned his personal life. But Felipe seemed like a genuine sort of fellow, the sort that was very easy to talk to. “I was invited to come here as part of a program to build up the precinct. It seemed challenging, and I never back down from a challenge.”
The back half of Noah’s mind went to work figuring out a way to avoid the topic of family, specifically of his wife. Those were personal issues he always kept away from small talk and prying individuals, no matter how friendly they appeared to be. When he finished his spiel about the transfer and his first impression of the Captain, Steele pivoted the conversation. He pointed to one of the pictures on the wall and grinned. “If I’m not mistaken, you were one of the boys in blue yourself.”
Felipe gave a proud nod, looking to his photo, which showed Felipe from at least ten years ago.
“Yes! I was on the job for twenty-two years until an old drunk lady t-boned my black and white.” He reached under the table and rapped his prosthetic leg with his knuckle. Knock knock knock. “My uncle was out of a job, and my aunt cooked like a saint, so I took the settlement and opened this joint. They’re both gone now, but there is no shortage of great Mexican cooks. So we carry on!” Felipe laughed, then took notice of Flynt. “You ok today, Flynt? Out in space somewhere?”
Flynt shrugged off his blank stare, wiped his face, and smiled. “Somewhere.”
“I think he’s low on the sleep front,” Steele said, nodding towards the kitchen. “You got any coffee back there?”
“I could find some, but I hope you’re here for some food as well.”
“Of course. I hear it’s the best.”
“That’s very kind. And how would you test that theory, Detective?”
“Four things. Number one, the chips and salsa. Number two, the Chili Verde, and number three, free refills on the soda.” Steele laughed and then added. “I couldn’t think of a number four. But I’m a sucker for chimichangas.”
“I love this guy, Flynt,” Felipe exclaimed. “I think we’re going to get along.” Felipe stood and said, “I guess I don’t have to take your order then.”
Flynt nodded with a grin. “You know the routine.”
“That I do.” Felipe’s limp was barely noticeable as he made his way back to the kitchen. Steele turned off the sociable part of his mind and fired up the investigator, ready to talk business. But first, he allowed himself a chip dipped in salsa and found that it was indeed very good.
* * *
“Theories?” Steele asked.
Flynt was hoping to enjoy a meal without bodies and murder being brought up, but he gathered that Steele wasn’t going to let that dream fly. He actually thought Steele could talk about murder and dead bodies just about anywhere, at any time.
“I’m not sure,” he answered honestly.
“Neither am I, or we would be done.” Steele held out an open hand, encouraging Flynt to try. “Theories. Let me hear them.”
“The Juggalos are wrapped into this somehow.”
“Right,” Steele said. “Juggalos. What the hell is a Juggalo? I know it’s a sort of gang in some cities, but I didn’t think there was much to them.”
“Juggalos are people that really, really like Insane Clown Posse. They’re a rap group. You know of them?”
“I’ve never heard a single song but yes, I know of them. So, Juggalos are what? Like a fan club?”
Flynt shook his head, dipped a chip, and crunched it down. “More than a fan club. If you talk to one of them about it they would either call it a community or a way of life. A family. Here.”
Flynt pulled out his phone and flipped through a couple of videos that portrayed huge gatherings and festivals centered around the community. There was lots of face paint, lots of pot smoke, partial nudity and abrasive rap music.
“Where’s the clown makeup?” Steele asked. “I just see face paint here and there.”
“Not everyone wears it. People in the audience mostly just like to hang out and drink or smoke dope. People on the stage will get really done-up though.” They watched videos a little longer. Juggalos talked passionately about how much they love the community, their family. And it was all interspersed with tons of profanity.
“How do you know about Juggalos and the Insane Clown Posse?” Steele asked.
“I listen to lots of music. All kinds. I don’t particularly like this music, but it’s original and unique. And they have a huge following. So I just picked some stuff up by them.”
A delicate, young, and quiet woman brought them their food. Both detectives said “Gracias” and dug in. When Flynt pocketed his phone, Steele spoke up.
“You know what this means?” Steele asked.
Flynt didn’t. He said as much with a shake of the head.
“People kill for love, but they also kill for cults,” Steele said.
“I don’t think it’s a cult,” Flynt protested.
“No, maybe not quite a cult, but it’s a group of fanatics. If people like that get all their hate pointed in one direction, things can go wrong. And from what we know, the clowns and the punks weren’t exactly snuggle buddies.”
Flynt thought his partner might have a point, even though the leap between a passionate fan and a murderer was a long one. “If this is a feud, there might be another murder soon. Maybe even something worse.”
“A retaliation,” Steele said. He nodded, making Flynt think he already considered the idea. “I’m not sure either side would make another move with us snooping around, but you’re right. This thing could blow up.”
“Do you think white kids that young really have gang wars? I mean, it’s pretty extreme, two groups that dress that far from the norm?”
“True. And I know I’m a little old for this, I honestly can’t tell the difference between the two types of music. Except, according to those videos you just showed me, maybe the Juggalos are more rap based whereas the other guys are more screaming and rage-filled. Not much to start a bloody war over. Maybe we’re making this bigger than it really is.”
“I hope so.” Flynt took another cheesy bite of the enchilada before him and thought through the whole thing. “What about the other band members?” he asked with a full mouth.
“I’m not ruling them out, any of them,” Steele said. “We still have to talk to this Fatty Gristle kid. What’s his real name?”
“Tommy. Tommy Mayhew.”
“Right. Once we talk to him we’ll have a full picture of the Border Bigots.” Steele shook his head. “Horrible band name. Anyway, maybe he can tell us more about how Terry and Mark got along.”
“Or maybe he has a crush on Julie too.” Flynt thought it might be a stretch for all three of the guys to have the hots for Julie. Then again, he easily recalled Julie to mind; maybe it wasn’t such a stretch after all.
“That’s true,” Noah agree
d. “You know, if this boy died just because a bunch of musicians were sweet on the same girl, then it’ll be a real case against love.” He picked up his burrito for a bite, then put it back down again. “Did you think it was weird that Julie didn’t know Mark had a thing for her?”
Flynt considered this, cycling through the women that came into his life since his wife left. Most of them were cold, completely ignoring his feelings. The idea of a crush going unnoticed and unrequited wasn’t exactly a Twilight Zone, but he took his partner’s point. “Do you think she was playing dumb?”
“Playing dumb to him, or to us?”
“Both, I guess.”
“That’s something we’ll have to ask Tommy,” Steele said, sipping his water. “And if she was pretending to be clueless about Mark, she could have been putting on a show for the whole interview.”
“Except the…” Flynt gestured with his hand, motioning throwing up, not wanting to say it while they ate. “You can’t really fake that.”
“You mean the vomit?” Steele asked bluntly while taking a bite of his burrito. “I guess you’re right. If she faked that, it was an Oscar-worthy performance.”
“Right,” Flynt said, dipping a chip in the fiery salsa. “Are we ruling out Miles then?”
“I don’t want to rule out anyone,” Steele replied.
“I know, I mean, do we want to put him at the bottom of the list?”
Noah let out a sigh. “Sure. I guess we have to start somewhere. I don’t exactly like the guy, but that doesn’t make him a murderer. We should look into his business, though. See if he works with any other guys that might borrow hardware from his space. He could have some so-called musicians working for him. Musicians with grudges against the Border Bigots.”
The idea of further expanding the list of suspects made Flynt feel dizzy. They were lucky that most of the surrounding storage units weren’t being rented out by anyone.
“Where are we going next then?” Flynt inquired, dipping yet another chip.
Steele cleared his throat to make sure the next thing he said came out right. He had been thinking about it for a while. He figured if there were any rough edges to it, they would be softened by how much Flynt was enjoying the food.
“Flynt, I think you’ve got things backward.”
“Backward? How’s that?”
“Have you noticed you save the questions for me and the statements for suspects?”
“Questions?”
Steele leaned in. “I think you know more than you let on. Try switching it around. Instead of asking me, look at your watch and you tell me where we’re going next. Or where you think we should go next.”
Flynt looked, and immediately his stomach dropped. It was late afternoon. There was still some time before the autopsy, but not quite enough to make another stop.
“Oh, of course,” Flynt said, playing dumb. “It’s time to clock out. My shift is over.”
“Nice try,” Steele said, getting up from his seat.
“The coroner?” Flynt said.
Steele nodded. “Let’s go. Don’t want to keep the Doctor waiting.”
Flynt reluctantly dragged himself up and out from the booth. As they made their exit, Felipe poked his head out of the kitchen and waved goodbye.
“Good luck out there, boys.”
“Thanks,” Steele said. “It was nice meeting you.”
“Same to you! And Steele, how did the theory pan out? Am I guilty?”
“Guilty of making the best burritos in town!”
Felipe clapped his hands in celebration and returned to the kitchen.
They stepped outside. Flynt’s last thought before getting into the car was how much of a waste it was that they just ate lunch. He was certain that he was about to throw it all back up onto the autopsy room floor. Bill used to accept any excuse Flynt would give to stay out of the morgue. But it seemed like Steele didn’t even want to hear it.
Flynt already felt his stomach tensing up. He hoped his partner was ready to see the second Oscar-worthy performance of the day.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Autopsies were a necessary evil, especially if your case involved a person that died in a suspicious manner. Steele did not mind them all that much. He’d always had a strong stomach and was able to distance himself from the mortality of the victim. But he respected the profession. After all, if your case involved a dead body at all, you trotted yourself to the morgue and suffered through a few crucial minutes understanding the how, when, and, maybe if you were lucky, who. As for the why? The reason could elude you every day of your life until the very end.
Sometimes an autopsy offered up enough information to catch the criminal, things like the manner of death or the weapon. Enough pieces and they create enough clues to find the perp. The workings of a mind that thought it was okay to take a life would always be beyond him.
Steele almost missed the turn into the precinct parking lot, but corrected with a screech of tires and swerve that sharply nosed the car into his assigned space. The engine pinged. Mindy corrected the route in a breathy whisper.
“We should clock out,” Flynt offered. “It’s getting to be that time.”
Steele turned sharply and glared at his partner.
“Yeah, but we have an appointment in the morgue. When it’s done, you can go right ahead and take off or… whatever you want to do.”
Steele climbed out and headed straight in without waiting for his partner. The man had promise but was starting to wear on Steele. He was trying to mine for the good stuff, but the irritating stuff was so insurmountable that Steele couldn’t determine if this partnership was going to work in the long run.
More than anything, Steele hated enablers. People needed to know that things weren’t just going to fly by him and he was not going to blindly do someone else’s work for them just because it made them feel awkward or uncomfortable. He didn’t know who this Bill Barrow character was. The entire precinct spoke highly of him, but he apparently coddled Flynt to the point of near helplessness. If that was the case, though he hated to think ill of the dead, Bill Barrow did Comrade Flynt a great disservice.
Steele caught the sound of heavy footsteps following him as he continued down the hallway. He stopped at an intersection waiting for Flynt to catch up.
“Shoot straight with me, Flynt. How many times have you been here?”
“Twice,” he said, without having to think about it.
“So then, lead the way.”
“Okay,” he said with a shaky voice.
Flynt continued down the hall, eventually making a left turn and through the last door. They entered a large room that Steele assumed was the central examination quarters for the morgue. A single man was bent over a body in a pull-out shelf, one of many mounted on the wall.
Steele’s first thought of Dr. Paru Sankaran the medical examiner was that he looked like an endearing, but eccentric, Indian uncle. The arched eyebrow as he noted his new visitors only added to the impression. Sankaran did not say a word to them but waved them off with a gloved hand that was stained with things that Steele did not want to contemplate.
Clearly, Sankaran was busy as he gestured for them to go away. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow.”
That just figures, Steele thought. He was looking forward to getting the ME’s information and placing it right into the puzzle of the case. Meanwhile, it seemed that Flynt was dancing on the inside, overjoyed that he wasn’t going to have to go through with the process just yet.
Steele nodded and glared rather indignantly at the ME. “Sure. Nice to meet you.”
Sankaran gave a grunt and then went back to his work. Flynt turned to head out of the room and saw that Flynt was nowhere to be seen. Apparently, at the first indication that they would not be useful here today, he bolted for the exit.
That was fine. Steele would let his partner live his afternoon and night with the dread of visiting the morgue again sometime tomorrow.
Maybe it was cruel to think that way, but
Steele was getting fed up. He tried to keep the positives in mind, but so far, Flynt was wearing him down and he could understand why so many people made fun of him.
But his feelings about this partner were secondary. He needed to focus on the case. And so far, after just one day, he felt like the case was getting away from him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Flynt pulled his Mazda into the driveway of his home at the end of the cul-de-sac. The lawn and planters looked a lot like their owner, overgrown and unkempt. He frowned at them nearly every time he arrived home but always forgot to maintain them.
Flynt no longer felt a part of the neighborhood. The little three bedroom, two bath house he and his wife bought all those years ago was now surrounded by renters. Gone were the families with SUVs, travel trailers and Mini-vans. Now there were low riders, work trucks, and Japanese Rice Rockets lowered, with loud mufflers, and even louder stereos. He wasn’t sure when his neighborhood took a nosedive, though it felt as if it was around the same time his marriage took one as well.
Flynt entered his home, tossed his keys on the counter, and put his gun and badge in a drawer next to the stove. He removed his jacket and loosened his tie enough to slip it over his head. He hung both on a chair at the kitchen table. For a long moment, he stared at the box of Rice Krispies on the counter.
Kicking his shoes off, he moved toward the family room. He walked directly to the fireplace and reached out and touched the glass of a picture frame.
“Mother, Bill’s dead.”
Flynt dropped onto a worn-out recliner next to the fireplace and sobbed. He wasn’t sure how long he cried, but when the weeping stopped, he still shuddered with each breath. He was totally and utterly alone in the world. He wished it was him that died, not his dear friend Bill. It was not a wish he took lightly, nor was it new to him.
Flynt was adopted at eight years of age. Up until that time he lived in the St. Ignacio’s Home for Children, an orphanage run by nuns. Big, dark, angry women seemed to float down the halls like witches in the scary fairy tales; Cloaked in flowing black, heads covered with only their grim old faces, big dark moles, and hairy upper lips, framed in snowy white. Their breath always smelled like something inside them was rotting. He supposed it was their hearts, rotting from the hatred they felt for boys like Comrade. He was an abomination in their eyes, and they let him, and the others like him, know it often.
Dead Beat (Flynt and Steele Mystery Book 1) Page 8