by Deanna King
It was her dime, and she began talking. “Okay, we both know that. Now, what has that got to do with me? I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Tell me about that night, what happened?”
Jenna bit her bottom lip to keep it from quivering, large dewdrop tears formed, and until she blinked, they remained on the front of her eyes, like large watery contacts. She blinked, sending two single dewdrop tears cascading off each cheek. She took one last drag of her burned-up smoke, crushed what was left of it, and inhaled.
“I was to take Celeste’s car to AO, uh, All Occasions. I was to take her keys out of her desk and take a bag that had her clothes in it and show up. Don’t ask me what time it was because it was twenty-five years ago. All I can tell you is that it was late, and it was at night.”
“That’ll work, Jenna, please continue.”
She stared at the top of the table as she spoke. “I got there and parked her car, grabbed the bag of clothes, went to the door and knocked, Sarge opened the door. He had the doorway blocked so all I saw was feet on a bed, I never saw who the person was and to tell you the truth, I didn’t know that the woman was dead. I thought maybe she was just passed out drunk, how could I know?”
Her tears were microscopic, mere droplets, yet they continued to cascade down her face, dropping onto her nose and falling to her upper lip. How women cried so much was something he didn’t understand. He cried hard once, at Cole’s funeral. This job made him not just cynical, but hard-hearted and sometimes even heartless. Liars brought out these bad virtues in Jack. People lied more than ever in these interview rooms.
“Tell me what else you saw, everything, the entire truth, and remember, no lies, that will be your saving grace,” he told her.
“Sarge did have most of the doorway blocked, but I got a glimpse of Jed, Scottie, and another man.” Her lips in a straight flat line, she turned them inward as if she were ticking a lock to keep a secret.
“Jenna, did you see the other man, do you know who it was?” Jack leaned in, hands on his knees, his eyes following her eye movement, not letting her break the gaze he had locked on her.
She bowed her head and in a quiet voice said a name, however, she said the name so low that even the recorder couldn’t have picked it up.
“You’ll have to repeat your answer, Jenna, I didn’t hear you, and if I didn’t, then the recorder didn’t either.”
She raised her head up just a little. “I, uh, ahem…” She cleared her dry throat, picked up the bottle of water, uncapped it, took a drink, recapped it, and set it down. “I said I saw Troy Wolff.”
“What was he doing, Jenna?”
“He was on the floor in the room, half-naked, and he was passed out cold.”
“Jenna, you did excellent. Now, I have some pictures to show you, they’re not pretty, and it’s gonna upset you.” Jack pulled the file to his lap. He opened and took out the pictures, and placed them facedown in front of her.
She eyed him, and then looked at the overturned stack.
“Please take a look.” He pushed the stack closer to where her hand lay on the table.
She pulled the photos toward her, slid them with her hands to the edge of the table, and turned them over. She put her hand to her mouth to hold her scream in.
“God, no, that’s Skip. Who did this to him?” She pushed the pictures away with such force they shot off the other side of the table. Lucky bent to retrieve them, then handed them back to Jack.
“Harvey Walden did this.”
Her face went ashen. “Why, why did he do this?”
“That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question we all have. Did you ever know him by any other name, Jenna? Did Daphne ever tell you about him?”
She took her hair in-between her fingers and twisted it. “If he had another name she didn’t say. Daphne was private about their life.”
She was lying, damn it. Jack took the picture of Harvey taking the gun and putting it to Skip’s head. “Jenna, this is a cold-blooded killer.” He laid the picture in front of her, stabbing at the picture of Skip’s dead body with his finger.
She averted her eyes, and her body convulsed with tiny jerks. Jack felt the table vibrate as her body shook. He looked up, and she was unashamedly sobbing, both hands covering her face.
“Skip was a sweet guy, he was immature, but he was nice to all the girls.” She stutter-cried, “He-he-he was a goofball, a fun goofball.”
“What did Daphne tell you about Harvey, Jenna? Doesn’t Skip deserve justice, tell me what you know.”
“All she told me was that he had been in trouble in Chicago. When I talked to her last, she told me he was closed-off, sold the house, and had started moving stuff out or throwing it out. She was afraid he was going to commit suicide. She begged him not to do it, to live until his death came naturally and to honor her life by keeping his. He told her he wasn’t ready to die, not yet, because he had business to take care of.”
“What business, did she tell you, did you ask her?”
Jenna’s brows came together in a sharp V, and her face took on tangible anger. “No, she didn’t, she had a coughing fit and began coughing up blood, and had to get off the phone. That was the last time I spoke with her, she died three days later.”
“I am sorry, Jenna. I liked Daphne myself, she had spirit, was a bit bossy, and in her day, she was a damn hot-lookin’ woman.”
Jenna half-smiled. Jack was right; being mad wasn’t going to bring her friend back.
“She was all of those things, and she was a helluva canasta and poker player.”
“One last thing, Jenna, do you know where Celeste or Jed Logan are?”
“No I don’t, all I know is that Sarge has a number to reach them. I hadn’t seen her since the day before that all happened, and that night was the last time I saw Jed. I swear that’s the truth, so help me God.” Then she crossed her heart. “Detective West, am I going to jail?”
“Maybe, and then maybe not, I can’t say for sure.”
“What about Sarge?”
“Depends on what kind of deal he cuts with the district attorney, but they might be lenient.”
Leaving her, Jack and Lucky went back to the monitor room.
“I’ll cut both of them loose. I’ll call the ADA in the morning, set up a meeting with her and Renner.”
“You think he’ll run, Jack?” Lucky yawned, it had been a long day, and it wasn’t over yet.
“No. I think he knows I’ll hunt his ass down no matter what. I think Skip getting bumped off spooked them.”
“Okay, what about Wolff, we have some evidence, how are we going to move ahead with that?”
“Getting an arrest warrant for Wolff will be a very touchy subject,” Jack said, as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and pulled up his contacts. “I’m gonna call Bennie, get him in on what we need, see if he can come to the crime lab early.”
Lucky arched his back, raised his arms stretching. “I’m gonna call the wife, update her.”
“Sounds good.”
Bennie answered on the third ring.
“Hey, Bennie, this is West, sorry to call you this late. Can you meet us at the crime lab in the morning? We have something to compare the touch DNA with.”
“Really, you did?” Bennie asked as he tried to stifle a yawn.
“The proof is in the pictures, Bennie. Sure, see ya then, thanks.” Jack hit end call.
After letting Max Renner and Jenna Berrie finally leave, Jack and Lucky had just walked back into the squad room when the door opened, and 7-11 dragged in.
“Hey, you guys are still here.” Jac
e plopped into his chair and laid back, his neck leaned into the back of the chair, and he closed his eyes.
“We figured both of you were at home comfy in your beds by now.” Xi took his seat and kicked his feet onto the desk.
“No sighting on Buccella?” Jack was busy clicking his keyboard.
“Nada, but the warrant squad hasn’t come back,” Jace told them as he yawned.
“The guy is a flipping ghost, now you see him, now you don’t. I’m thinking his training on this being elusive shit up Chicago way was fairly extensive.” Xi stretched his arms over his head.
Jack gave them the skinny on Max and Jenna and their stakeout on the judge.
“You took pictures of him at Antone’s, and he didn’t eat at Quattros? What the heck was he doing at the Four Seasons then, having an umchickabowow?” Jace tried to say that with a straight face but didn’t pull it off.
“That, my friend, is a damn good question.” Lucky smirked; it pissed him off.
“Who knows what he was doing, I do know he wasn’t eating a late lunch, or he wouldn’t have stopped at Antone’s to eat. But guess who was working the counter today?”
“Was it Viola, our resident wannabe FBI spy…?” Xi Chang rolled his eyes, and a huge laugh burst out of him.
Jace cracked up when Jack said, “Affirmative, my man.”
“You know what I think? I think it’s been a damn long day, and we should all go home, start fresh in the morning, how about it, fellas?” Jack stood up, clicked his computer off, and stretched.
“I’m all for that. Hey, we’re dropping off the glass to Ben Gay at seven a.m. tomorrow, meet you guys here, or let us know what your twenty is.” Lucky was more than ready to end the day.
“Xi, if the warrant squad finds our boy Buccella, text me, I’ll be here pronto.” Jack wanted that man’s head on a platter, in a noose, just anyway he could get it.
“I forgot to ask you if you’d heard from Rick and Katherine in Vice. They check in or what?” Jace stood and pushed his chair under his desk.
“I wasn’t expecting to hear from them until the morning unless they had news that couldn’t wait. It’s close to midnight, and they’re staking out that Delvecchio dude. Since it’s a bar and they’re undercover, they may close the place down, observing.” Jack yawned. “If Rick or Sparky get a lead, or something significant, one of them will text me. See you guys in the morning, I’m out of here.” Jack did a hand wave in the air as he walked to the door, headed to the back stairs and to the garage. He was bushed, he needed sleep, and tomorrow was another day…he was Scarlett O’Hara after all, damn.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“So, you took these pictures of him at Antone’s with this glass?” Bennie took the evidence bag that held the red plastic glass that had Judge Troy Wolff’s DNA.
“And the best part was there were no other customers in the restaurant. To top that off, Viola was working the counter. I had Lucky call her and tell her we were on a secret mission and to not clear off any tables until we got there.”
Bennie grinned. “Good ole Viola, the resident FBI agent-in-training, or spy, or CIA agent. She’s a hoot.”
Everyone associated with the HPD knew Viola and her dream of being FBI, CIA, or a detective.
“I’ll put a rush on this, but I’m telling you it might not get back for more than a week.” Ben Gay scrunched up his nose and bobbed his head. “I do know a guy. I’ll give him a call and tell him it’s vital that we get this back soon as he can. It’s the best I can do, Jack.”
“We understand the backlog that the labs have, but whatever you can do to speed it up would be appreciated.”
Back at the station, he began cross-referencing the phone number Max Renner had given him for the Mason woman.
“Hey, it’s about time you got here, I thought maybe you guys were getting extra beauty sleep,” Lucky joked as 7-11 walked in, one behind the other.
“Yo! So, the warrant squad sargent, Leo Loomis, texted me, they spotted our guy but lost him, damn it,” Chang informed them.
“At least they spotted him, I thought maybe he jumped ship and headed to Mexico.”
“You have any luck with the phone number?” Jace rolled his chair back and propped up both feet on the trash can under his desk.
“You’d freaking think it would be simple, but ain’t nothing easy these days. Jack’s been cross-referencing the number, but shit, nothing’s popped.”
“Let me try, what’s the number?”
“Here, knock your socks off, Xi.” Jack handed him the number.
“The girl’s name is Celeste Mason, right?”
“Yep, and the man’s name is Jed Logan.”
Xi typed and clicked away while Jack, Lucky, and Jace watched and listened to the keys clacking, as he skimmed over a site, then he clicked and typed some more.
“If she wanted to disappear, she’s not using her real name, and him—this Logan fella—he didn’t disappear, no reasons to change his name I guess,” Xi commented as he buried his head into the computer.
“She had to have changed her name.” Dawson Luck stood up, walked over to Xi’s desk, and watched over his shoulder as he worked.
“She’s not using her name because I’ve seen zero Celeste Masons, and zero Celeste Logans, that would fit her age, that is.” Jack stopped to think. “What would she be calling herself these days?” he muttered.
“Maybe she made a new name outta her old name, you know, like an anagram.” Jace wheeled his chair over to Xi’s side of their two desks and sat next to Xi, watching him work.
Jack jotted her name on a notepad and began working it out, what anagram would she use if she used one? It took him about five minutes.
“It can’t be this easy, can it?”
“What can’t be that easy, Jack?” Lucky raised his head up and looked over at Jack, as did Jace.
“You said anagram and her first name is Celeste. The anagram I came up with was the name Steel.”
“Maybe that’s her last name, but that’s a damn common name, Jack,” Xi said as he stopped clicking and raised both arms to stretch.
“That would be her last name.” He analyzed what he had written, and he smiled. “Her first name would be Sara.”
“But Jack, the last name in an anagram is missing the C,” Xi pointed out.
“Okay, how about Sara C. Steel, that uses her complete first name.”
“Why Sara, Jack, what does that have to do with her?”
“Because Sara Sutton was her much older cousin, and she was the woman who gave her, her start, and she was the one who willed her the clubs, all three of them.”
A light bulb went on over Lucky’s head, figuratively. “Hell yeah, Jack, SS Corporation—Sara Sutton, Sara Steel, that’s brilliant.”
Xi used that name and went to work. In less than twenty minutes, Jack, Jace, and Lucky heard Xi say, “Bingo, we have a winner.”
“11, you are awesome with Internet searches.” Jack went and stood behind him peering over his shoulder, got the address, and stuck the paper in his pocket.
“Now what, we go see her, or what?” Back at his own desk, Lucky wondered what was running through his partner’s head.
“What I want is a confession about what happened in the motel room that night. As a bonus, I’d like to hear her say that she ordered the hit on Scottie Buccella.”
“Jack,” Lucky said looking at his watch, “you gonna call the ADA?”
“Jonell Simone, why are you calling her?” Jace looked from Lucky to Jack, then back to Lucky for an answer.
“That dude Max Renner wants
to try to cut a deal, and hopes he either stays out of jail or gets very little jail time, and said he’d testify in court for the State.”
Jack picked up the phone, dialed the DA’s office, and asked for Jonell Simone. He didn’t go into detail on the phone but talked her into canceling her afternoon because it was highly urgent. If he was yanking her chain, he’d pay dearly, she promised. He was damn glad that fireball was on their side.
Jack called Max Renner. Jenna answered.
“Uh-huh, I’ll tell him, two o’clock, yes, Detective West, we’ll both be there.”
Jack knocked on his desk. “That’s set.”
The next call would be to see what Rick and Katherine had found out. Picking up his phone, as he began to dial, the squad room door opened and Sparky walked in.
“Hey, fellas.”
“Hey, whatdaya’ know, I was fixing to call four and ask for you or Rick, how did it go last night?” Jack stood up and walked over to her.
“Place is a major dump, Jack, Jesus what a shithole. We nursed a beer, played pool all night, and ‘cased’ the joint.” She grabbed an extra chair and pulled it up between Lucky and Xi’s desks.
“So, what about this Delvecchio dude, or the place, get any vibes, see anything at all interesting?”
“Crimanitaly, Jack, one freaking question at a time, would ya? Here’s the skinny. There’s a possibility this place is running girls.” She held up her hand before Jack or Lucky made a peep. “Wait, let me finish, please.”
They were all ready to ask her a thousand questions.
“Rick saw a few of the girls in the club last night that we’ve been watching over by the truck stop, you know the one I’m talking about, it’s about six miles west over off I-10.”
Yeah, they all knew the place.
“Most of those truckers come to that bar looking for a cheap piece. We recognized some of the regulars. The truck stop’s been a regular gold mine for the prostitution industry. There’s a thirty-five dollar a night no-tell-motel three blocks away, and they might even have an hourly rate, who the F knows.”