He heard a loud bang, almost like the sound of a shotgun. He shut off the engine and got out. He walked around the vehicle and saw his right rear wheel was flat.
So much for the smile and the raised middle finger, he thought.
EIGHT
Fisher glanced at Holt and saw the strain on his face. I’d prefer it if you went home, she thought. Her partner was in mourning, and she worried his emotions could cloud his judgment. As investigators, they were supposed to be impartial, but this case was personal, Fisher knew, even for her. She had met Isaiah a few times, and she found him polite, respectable, and full of energy. He seemed like he could not sit still in one place for long. There was always something that needed his immediate attention.
Holt’s gaze did not move away from Isaiah’s Chrysler. He was not going to leave Isaiah, and Fisher was not going to try to make him leave. If someone she cared for had been brutally victimized, she would damn well do everything in her power to find out who did it.
The crime scene unit would soon be going over the area with a fine-tooth comb, and the medical examiner was on her way too. Holt and Fisher had to conduct their preliminary examination before anything was touched or moved.
Fisher placed her hand on Holt’s shoulder. He slowly turned to face her.
“You up for it?” she asked.
Holt took a deep breath and let it out.
He nodded.
Fisher pulled on a pair of latex gloves and handed a pair to Holt. He put them on.
They approached the body together.
Isaiah was wearing a Milton College sweatshirt. He had dark curly hair and olive skin. He was a handsome kid, the product of a white mother and a black father. He had full lips, an aquiline nose, and emerald eyes. His eyes were closed, but Fisher remembered how bright and full of life they once were.
The front of Isaiah’s shirt and the side of his neck and head were covered in thick red blood. The smell was overpowering.
Fisher gently pulled the driver’s side door open. Shards of glass fell by her feet. She scanned the car’s interior. Glass was everywhere—on the seats, the floor, and the dashboard. The glass was from the passenger’s side window, which was completely shattered.
The Chrysler was an older model that lacked the technology that came with the latest models. No GPS, no back camera, no lane assist. For a moment, Fisher wished the car had GPS. They could have used the device to track Isaiah’s movements the night he died.
“It’s not his car,” Holt said.
She looked up at him. He too was leaning into the vehicle. “How do you know?” she asked.
“Isaiah was saving up to buy a brand-new Dodge Ram. I was supposed to go with him after the semester was over.”
Fisher’s eyes narrowed. “We need to find out whose car it is then.”
NINE
Even with a cracked windshield and broken taillights, Callaway made it to his destination after putting on his spare tire. As he pulled into the auto shop, he felt grateful no police cruiser had passed by him on the way over. The cops would have ticketed him for equipment violations.
He stepped out when a Hispanic man appeared from the garage. He had smooth dark hair, a pencil-thin mustache above his upper lip, and scruffs on his chin. He was wearing blue overalls. He wiped grease off his hands with a cloth and smiled. “Lee Callaway, to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Hello, Julio,” Callaway said sheepishly.
Julio’s smile faded when he saw the condition the Charger was in. “What happened?” he asked.
“It’s a long story.”
“Let me guess. You slept with your client’s wife, and he hurt you and your baby.”
Callaway frowned. “How’d you know he did anything to me?”
“Your face, man. Those tissues stuffed in your nose makes you look like a warthog.”
Callaway pulled out the tissues. His nostrils stung. “I need you to fix the Charger,” he said.
“Sure, that’s what I’m in business for,” Julio said. “The only question is, do you have the money to pay for the repairs?”
Julio was aware of Callaway’s money troubles. In fact, Callaway still owed him for the last two oil changes he had done for him.
“You know I’m good for it,” Callaway said.
“That’s what you always say,” Julio said, sounding exasperated. “And I believe you, but then you disappear until you need me again.”
“Listen, I’ve been busy. You hear about the Gardener case?”
“I read it in the papers. I heard you got a nice chunk of change out of it.”
“How’d you hear that? It wasn’t printed anywhere.”
“People talk when they are waiting for their cars to be fixed. I’m a good listener, you know.” Julio gave him a crooked smile. “You still have any of that money left over?”
Callaway’s shoulders drooped. “No.”
“I figured that. You can’t help yourself, can you? It must have been a very special horse you bet on.”
“Actually, I gave most of it to Patti.”
Julio’s eyes widened. “You did?”
“Yeah, I figured the temptation of a special horse would be too much for me.”
Julio laughed. “I never thought I’d see the day when you put other people over yourself.”
Callaway was not amused.
“But I’m still going to need cash up front to fix your ride,” Julio said.
“Come on,” Callaway pleaded. “Do me this one favor.”
“Sorry, Lee. Not this time.”
“How about we barter?”
“Barter what?”
“My services for your services. You fix my car and I follow your wife to make sure she’s not cheating on you.”
Julio almost keeled over laughing. “You do know my wife and I have been together for over fifteen years, right? And we got three daughters that we love more than anything in the world. There’s no way in hell my wife’s doing anything behind my back.”
“You sure about that?”
“More than you’d ever be certain of anything in your life.”
Callaway smiled. He knew Julio and his wife were high school sweethearts. They got married right after their graduation.
“That’s why it’ll be the easiest job I ever take,” Callaway said, his smile still not fading.
Julio sighed and shook his head. “Fine. I’ll see what spare parts I’ve got in the shop and work on your baby, but you still have to pay me when you get the money, got it? I’ve got a family to feed and a business to run.”
“Deal,” Callaway said. “Make sure it’s like new.”
“I always do,” Julio said.
“Oh, and I need one more favor.”
TEN
Holt thought he could handle the sight of Isaiah, all bloodied and dead. His years of experience had taught him to disassociate his feelings from the task at hand. In this case, he found the task was too much.
“I’ll go survey the area,” he said to Fisher.
She nodded and went back to examining Isaiah’s body.
Holt had to get away. He should not have stayed. But he could not leave Isaiah like this. He felt like he was abandoning him at a time when he needed him the most. But Isaiah was gone, and he was not coming back. There was nothing Holt could do to change that.
He loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt collar. He was suffocating. He broke into a cold sweat. The back of his shirt stuck to his body.
Holt’s emotions were all over the place. He had gone from initial shock to anger, and now sadness was hitting him hard.
He walked to the back of the furniture store. He pushed himself up against the wall. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He wanted to punch something or someone.
He wanted to hurt the person who had hurt Isaiah.
He took deep breaths to calm himself.
He could not afford to fall apart now. If Fisher saw him like this, she would report him to her superiors. But she woul
d do so out of love and concern.
The last time tragedy hit him, he had nearly lost his mind.
He had flown to another country to punish those whom he felt were responsible for what happened. He returned a broken and disappointed man.
He never imagined he would go through this again.
He shut his eyes tight. Tears flowed down his cheeks.
When Isaiah was born, Holt was at the hospital. Until then, his family had not had a birth in years. The excitement in the waiting room was palpable. He could not believe he was going to be an uncle. He remembered hearing the cries of a child when his brother-in-law, Dennis, burst in the room and announced the baby was a boy. Dennis was in tears. So was Holt. They hugged like they had won an NBA championship.
Isaiah was so tiny when Holt first laid eyes on him. He was pink all over, and he was huddled into a ball. He looked so scared of the world around him. Holt was petrified when his sister, Marjorie, asked him to hold the little boy. Holt worried he might crush his nephew with his big hands, but his sister encouraged him to hold Isaiah. She knew he would never harm this boy. She also knew he would never let anyone else harm this boy either.
Holt suddenly felt like he had failed Isaiah and Marjorie.
ELEVEN
The Chevy Impala was not much to look at. The exterior was dented and covered in rust spots. The interior was outdated, and there were tears in the seat fabric. The car was a late-nineties model, and it had over three hundred thousand clicks on the odometer. But despite all that, the engine had started up right away, and the car drove smoothly. There was an odd noise in the engine, but Julio assured him it was nothing.
Callaway could not really complain. He had not paid for the car. It was a loaner. Julio used it to run errands, such as picking up parts from manufacturers or driving to customers whose cars had broken down and were pulled off on the side of the road.
The radio did not work properly, and the air conditioning and heating were not functioning at full capacity, but again, this was something Callaway could ignore. Had it not been for Julio’s generosity, Callaway would be taking public transit about now. Taking the bus or train regularly would make his job as a private investigator impossible. How could he tail a cheating spouse while he was on a subway train? What if he had to extricate himself from a dangerous situation? He could not make a run for it only to be stuck at a bus stop waiting for the next bus. But public transit would save a lot of money. The Charger was not cheap to service and maintain. The car did not just eat gas—it swallowed it by the mouthful. He was constantly filling up.
He could get an economical vehicle, maybe even a hybrid or one of those electric cars, but the Charger was his prized possession. The one thing he never risked losing.
There were times he owed money to the wrong people. They offered to take the Charger off his hands in exchange for wiping out his debt. He always turned them down. The Charger was not for sale or for barter. He would somehow find the money to pay the loan sharks back, but he would not let anyone else drive his “baby.”
It irked him that someone had taken out their anger on the Charger because of him. The only consolation was that they did not do more harm to him. His health came first, and then the Charger’s.
Julio would make the Charger as good as new, but Callaway still had to find a way to pay him. He hated taking advantage of others. Julio was a good person, and he had a family to feed. Callaway would never stiff him willingly if he had the money, which he almost never did.
Why couldn’t I just get a job with a steady income? he thought. Why do I have to be so stubborn and be a private eye?
He knew the answer: he was addicted to chaos and danger.
He knew full well the repercussions of sleeping with a client’s wife, but he still did it. It was dumb, reckless, and immoral. The latter Callaway never cared much for, though.
How did he expect the husband to react once he found out? Callaway was lucky he walked away with only a broken nose. Something far worse could have happened to him.
As he pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant, he vowed he would change his ways and live a more responsible life.
Deep down he knew it was an empty promise, one he would break the moment he got the chance.
TWELVE
Holt went back to the Chrysler when he saw the medical examiner leaning into the vehicle.
Andrea Wakefield had short, cropped hair and round prescription glasses. Her petite body was covered in a white lab coat.
She must have come straight from her office, Holt thought.
Wakefield was known for arriving early at work and leaving late. If there was something that was puzzling her, she would work all night until she solved it.
She stood up the moment she heard him approach.
“Detective Holt,” she said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” he said.
Wakefield stood there for a moment as if unsure of what else to say to Holt. She spent more time with the dead than the living, but she preferred it that way. The living could hide who they really were, but the dead were like open books to her.
Wakefield asked, “Should I do this with Detective Fisher, or would you like to be privy as well?”
“I want to know,” he replied.
“What we discuss may be troubling to you.”
“I’m a professional,” he said. “This is what I do. I solve murders, and right now I want to know what happened to my nephew.”
Holt did not realize he had raised his voice.
Wakefield looked over at Fisher.
Fisher nodded.
“Very well,” Wakefield said. “Perhaps it might be better if you observed from the other side of the vehicle. There is only so much room in here.”
Holt walked around the Chrysler and leaned into the passenger’s side window.
Wakefield pulled out a small penlight from her pocket. She flashed the light on Isaiah’s temple. “From my initial assessment, the victim died of gunshot wounds to the neck and the right side of the head.” Wakefield moved the light over two black holes—one in the lower neck and the other in the temple. “If it’s any consolation, the victim died immediately.”
“It’s not,” Holt said sternly.
Wakefield coughed to clear her throat. “Moving on, the shots were fired from the passenger’s side of the vehicle. The wounds are on the right side of the body, which confirms this premise.”
Fisher asked, “Why did the shooter not attack from the driver’s side? It would have been much more efficient.”
“That’s a good question,” Wakefield replied.
“The shooter didn’t want Isaiah to see him coming,” Holt said. “He was ambushed.”
They were silent for a moment.
“What else can you tell us?” Fisher asked.
Wakefield’s eyes darted over the body, recording and analyzing even the smallest details.
“I noticed the victim’s left ring finger is swollen and discolored,” she said.
“Isaiah broke it,” Holt said. “He was going up for a block and his hand hit the backboard.”
Wakefield looked confused. “Going up for a what?”
“The victim is a basketball player,” Fisher explained. “It’s a sport injury.”
“Okay, that would explain it. Other than that, there are no contusions or lesions visible on the body that I can see. Naturally, once I conduct a full autopsy, I will give you a definitive answer.”
“Why do you think he was still wearing a seatbelt?” Holt asked.
Wakefield shrugged. “Maybe he was waiting for someone.”
Fisher pointed at the keys still in the ignition. “It looks like he was ready to drive away at a moment’s notice.”
Who were you waiting for, Isaiah? Holt thought. Did they have something to do with what happened to you?
THIRTEEN
Callaway went inside the restaurant and walked straight to a booth in the corner.
&nbs
p; A waitress came over. She had blonde hair that was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a tight-fitting t-shirt and an apron tied around her waist.
“Don’t tell me,” she said. “You slept with a client’s wife and he beat you up.”
How do people know what I did? he thought. Is it that obvious?
“Actually, there was a terrorist threat that involved blowing up an airplane. Had it not been for my quick intervention, a million lives would have been lost as a result of it,” Callaway said.
She raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know a plane could hold a million people.”
“You didn’t let me complete my story,” he said, feigning disappointment. “The terrorists were planning to crash the plane into a nuclear plant.”
“I thought you said they were going to blow it up?”
“They were going to blow it up inside the nuclear plant.”
“After they had crashed it?”
“What can I say? These terrorists aren’t that bright.”
Joely Patterson finally smiled. “So, what really happened, Lee?”
“I just told you.”
“You told me a plot from an action movie.”
“Was it good? Maybe I can write the screenplay and sell it for millions of dollars.”
“Good luck with that. After you get your millions, maybe you can pay me back for all the lunches I’ve given you.”
“Speaking of lunches…”
“No.”
“You didn’t even let me finish.”
“You have to pay if you want to eat here,” she said. “If Bill sees me give you any more freebies, he’ll throw you out and fire me.”
Bill was the restaurant’s owner, and he had come to despise Callaway.
Callaway was always finding a way to avoid paying for his meal. He was no better than a beggar on the street.
“How’s your son?” Callaway asked, changing the subject.
She smiled. “He’s growing up fast.”
Joely was a single mom. Her then-husband was an equipment manager for a rock band. He went on the road for a tour and never came back. He did call, but only to say he did not see himself being married or a father.
The Lee Callaway Boxed Set Page 25