Protectors

by Kris Nelscott

  “That poor woman, found on 61st and Dover?” Val asked.

  “Yes,” Eagle said. “It’s not Brunsan’s case. I’m not sure he even heard of it.”

  Pammy’s fingernails dug into the palms of her hands. “Do you think he’ll actually do anything?”

  “He was polite to me this time,” Eagle said. “He found out I was right. He doesn’t like this man, and he really didn’t like those parents. He wanted to see the girl, although he couldn’t figure out how to do it.”

  Val nodded. “Sometimes cases get to some cops.”

  Pammy looked at her sideways. Her father always had one or two cases that he couldn’t let go of. Apparently, Val’s late husband had had some too.

  “Brunsan said there was a lot of money involved,” Eagle said.

  That got Pammy’s attention. “How much?”

  “Enough to buy a house,” Eagle said. “What would that be?”

  “I don’t know about here,” Val said, “but in Chicago, that would be at least ten thousand dollars.”

  Pammy nodded. She had purchased her house for less than that, but it had been years ago now. Still, that was pretty expensive.

  “The thing to remember,” Eagle said, “is that’s just the initial payment. They paid the rest in cash.”

  Val let out a small whistle. “He’s making a fortune.”

  “I think the correct term is ‘killing.’” Pammy’s tone was even more biting aloud than it had been in her head. “Kelly will never be the same girl again. That much was clear. I’m amazed she’s even making it to class.”

  Val’s gaze met Pammy’s.

  “Me, too,” Val said quietly.

  Eagle crossed her arms, and leaned back in her chair. “Brunsan’s going to do what he can, but he won’t be able to do much.”

  “If he gets ahold of Albert Jessup in Walnut Creek,” Val said, “they should be able to do something. I think that attack at the gas station might get the truck guy put away.”

  “That’s the thing,” Eagle said. “Brunsan gave me the guy’s name.”

  Pammy inhaled sharply. “What?”

  “He told me who we’re looking for,” Eagle said.

  “Why would he do that?” Pammy asked, unable to fathom it. “He didn’t trust you on Sunday.”

  “He still doesn’t,” Eagle said. “He just wants me to warn people.”

  “He also knows you have a gun,” Val said quietly.

  Eagle looked at her. So did Pammy. Val’s face had gone slightly gray. Her eyes glittered. She was serious.

  “He wouldn’t tell me to kill someone,” Eagle said.

  “You sure of that?” Val asked.

  “This is not Chicago,” Pammy said, a warm flush running from her cheeks to her torso. She couldn’t believe someone suggested murder in her kitchen.

  Val faced her, a small frown forming above her nose. “What does that mean?”

  “We don’t go around sanctioning murder here,” Pammy said.

  “No one said anything about sanctioning murder, Pamela,” Eagle said. “Calm down.”

  “No one sanctions murder in Chicago either,” Val said, but something in her tone suggested otherwise. If Pammy had been defending her city, she would have defended it with more force.

  “I certainly wasn’t saying Eagle should go out and kill the guy.” Val looked at Eagle, who nodded just a little. “I did suggest that the cop knew Eagle had a gun. He might have wanted her to use it, maybe in defense of someone.”

  Then Val sighed. Pammy was still tense.

  “Ah hell,” Val said. “It did cross my mind that he wanted Eagle to go after this guy. Sometimes cops do that, you know? Sometimes they look the other way.”

  Eagle leaned back in her chair, her gaze not leaving Val’s face.

  Pammy was trembling. Her father would never have sanctioned murder. “I never knew of a cop who—”

  “Pammy,” Eagle said, “your knowledge of cops comes from growing up in a cop’s family. Val married into one.”

  “Oh, she was an adult, so she knew things I didn’t?” Pammy snapped. “I don’t think so. Cops wouldn’t—”

  “Give it a rest,” Val snapped. “You’re arguing for the sake of argument’s sake. I’ve been hearing about your People’s Park since I got here, and it seems to me your governor sanctioned murder not six months ago—”

  “It’s not the same,” Pammy said.

  “Pammy, calm down,” Eagle said.

  Pammy glared at her, feeling betrayed.

  “It is not the same,” Pammy said. “That’s the governor talking about how to deal with rioters. That’s not one cop telling a civilian to use her gun.”

  “Pamela,” Eagle said. “Think it through.”

  Pammy looked at her. Eagle’s expression was neutral, the same way she looked at some of the women who had hurt themselves by punching something wrong.

  “You were gassed in May, on that governor’s orders,” Eagle said. “I don’t think anyone in Chicago has been gassed like that.”

  Val let out a small snort. “That’s because the people who get covered with tear gas in Chicago live on the South Side. They’re not worthy of the national news.”

  Pammy looked at her. What was she arguing? That the three of them go rogue? That they become lawless? Or that the whole world was already lawless?

  “There was tear gassing on the national news from Chicago,” she said, not quite willing to let the argument go. “The whole world watched the Democratic National Convention. Kids got gassed there too.”

  Val raised her chin defiantly. Her brown eyes flashed with anger. She was about to speak when Eagle cut in.

  “But no white kids died at that convention,” Eagle said. “One did die here in May.”

  She had spoken softly. Somehow that was much more devastating than if she had shouted the words.

  Because she was right.

  Pammy stood up, and realized she was shaking. “I mean what I said earlier. I don’t want to sanction murder in my kitchen.”

  “We’re not talking about murder, Pammy,” Eagle said. “I’m reporting what one cop said to me. We can speculate all we want about his motives, but the only way to know those motives is to ask him. And I don’t plan to.”

  Val moved her hands up and down in a small, placating gesture. It seemed to mean calm down. Sit down.

  Pammy wasn’t ready to, though. Not yet.

  “I would rather have the police handle things, no matter what they’ve done in the past,” Val said in a completely different tone, one not as charged with anger. “This man sounds dangerous.”

  Eagle looked up at Pammy but answered Val. “He does sound dangerous. But I’m pretty convinced the police won’t handle anything.”

  “Not even Walnut Creek?” Pammy sat down slowly. Her heart was pounding hard. She was still shaken, but she wasn’t sure what had her so upset, at least from this conversation. Maybe she was still upset from talking to Kelly. Scratch that. Pammy was still upset from talking to Kelly.

  “I don’t know what kind of information the police have,” Val said. “It sounds like this man can talk his way out of things.”

  It did sound that way. And of course he could. He was licensed. An authority of some kind. A man used to getting what he wanted.

  Pammy had met men like him, men that seemed reasonable on the surface and were so very horrid underneath.

  “Maybe that body wrapped in a blanket on 61st might help,” Pammy said. “Not to mention the poor girl who died in Tilden Park. Did you mention that to him?”

  Eagle nodded, but Val held up a hand before Eagle could speak. Val’s cheeks were flushed, and she spoke quickly.

  “That girl in Tilden Park,” Val said. “I know who she is.”

  The conversation stopped cold. Both Eagle and Pammy looked at Val. Val’s tired face seemed even more drawn, as if the news she was about to impart pained her greatly.

  “The body belongs to Darla Newsome,” Val said. “I got a call
from her roommate, offering me the apartment.”

  “Offering you the apartment?” Eagle asked. “That’s cold.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Val said. “She wanted a friend, I think. It was her excuse to call me.”

  Pammy pushed her plate away. Food had been a good idea, but it wasn’t the kind of idea she could contemplate at the moment, not with her stomach tied in knots and the gigantic lump in her throat.

  She had been hoping that Darla Newsome was alive. Part of her had been counting on it.

  She had really wanted Jill to be right—she had wanted Darla Newsome to have gone somewhere else, on some “Movement” business, hiding from her parents and living her life elsewhere.

  And now the poor girl was dead.

  After defending herself against someone.

  “Did this man kill her?” Pammy asked Val.

  If this horrid man had killed her, maybe something could come out of Darla Newsome’s death. Maybe they would end up with something to give to the cops, something to allow them to take the entire investigation and actually do something right.

  The cops could save some lives down here, instead of terrifying everyone.

  “Brunsan said no,” Eagle said.

  Pammy hadn’t expected that. “You asked already?”

  “I was grasping for straws, trying to get him to work the case,” Eagle said. “He was pretty shocked I even knew about it. They hadn’t released the information yet. So I’m shocked the roommate did too.”

  “I think Lucy—that’s the roommate—called me right after she heard,” Val said.

  Pammy frowned. She didn’t care about the roommate. And she didn’t want to think about the father. The man had been devastated before he had walked into the gym, when he thought his daughter was missing.

  He would be destroyed now.

  “How can your detective know that the cases aren’t related?” Pammy asked Eagle.

  “I don’t know exactly,” Eagle said, “although he did say she wasn’t wrapped in a blanket.”

  “Too bad,” Val said, and Pammy glared at her. Did she want Darla Newsome to die a horrid death?

  Then Pammy realized how ridiculous that thought had been. Darla Newsome had died a horrid death, and Val was right. It was too bad that there were no obvious ties.

  “So I don’t understand,” Val said. “He told you that Darla’s death was unrelated. He told you he couldn’t do anything with the information he had, and then he gave you the guy’s name? If Pammy’s right, and he didn’t want you to go rogue on this case, why would this detective give you the man’s name?”

  It was a good question. In fact, it was the most pertinent question that any of them had asked.

  Pammy nodded to show that she wanted the question answered too. She didn’t trust her voice or she would have said that aloud.

  “I’ve been thinking about it since he did it,” Eagle said. “I don’t think Detective Brunsan gave me that name lightly. And I don’t see it as a trust thing. I think he had a motive in mind.”

  Pammy forced herself to speak quietly. “What motive?”

  “I think he gave me the name to warn everyone,” Eagle said. “He believes—and he’s clearly right—that this man is dangerous. And we need to keep as many people away from him as possible.”

  “Are you planning to share the name?” Val asked.

  “His name is Justin Lavassier,” Eagle said. “And he has no fixed address. Just a hotel room.”

  Pammy frowned. “You said he has a California license plate. How did he get that without a fixed address?”

  Eagle shrugged one shoulder. “According to Brunsan, he moved out of an apartment and into a hotel.”

  “Did Brunsan check this?” Val asked.

  “Yeah,” Eagle said. “The address traced back to an empty building. It had an office on the first floor and an apartment on the second.”

  Pammy knew that tone. There was something in it, something else Eagle wasn’t saying.

  “And?” Pammy asked.

  “Brunsan said he talked to some of the neighboring businesses. The building’s been empty for more than a year.”

  Val shifted in her seat and looked at Eagle. “Brunsan doesn’t find that suspicious?”

  “Brunsan finds it all suspicious. It’s just something he can’t prove,” Eagle said.

  Pammy shook her head. Maybe she had too much information in it, or maybe the world was shifting on her. Maybe she was just too upset to think clearly.

  “I’m not following,” she said.

  “I didn’t either at first, until Brunsan told me the last known business in the downstairs space,” Eagle said. “It was a two-room operation, a secretary and a back office. And it was called Finders, Inc.”

  “Finders?” Val asked.

  Eagle nodded. “The name of Lavassier’s business is Finders, Inc.”

  Pammy shook her head again. This wasn’t making sense. “Why would he close his office if he was still running the business?”

  “According to Brunsan, Lavassier said he couldn’t afford the rent or the secretary any more. And that makes no sense, considering this man is earning at least twenty grand per job.”

  “Twenty thousand dollars,” Pammy breathed. If her business brought in twenty thousand dollars in one month, she’d be rich. She made eight thousand dollars last year, and barely broke even.

  “Did you mention the illogic of that to Brunsan?” Val asked.

  “I didn’t have to,” Eagle said. “He asked Lavassier about it. Lavassier said he wasn’t making that much early on. Then he grinned and added that he had one expensive secretary.”

  “Brunsan saw that as suspicious, right?” Val asked.

  “It’s all suspicious,” Eagle said. “It’s just not illegal.”

  Pammy was turning this over and over in her head. He had an office that he got rid of. But the office, with the apartment above, established him. It allowed him to get a California driver’s license. It also made him seem legitimate.

  “If he doesn’t have an office now,” Pammy asked, “how do these parents find him?”

  “Word of mouth,” Eagle said. “Satisfied customers tell other prospectives about him.”

  “But how do they reach him?” Pammy asked.

  “And how did Brunsan find him if he has no fixed address?” Val asked.

  Eagle looked at Val, clearly planning to answer her first. “Brunsan said they found the truck at an A&W. They brought him in to the station. He cooperated.”

  Pammy didn’t care about Brunsan. She wanted to know about the parents. If a man ran his business from his truck, there would be no way to reach him.

  “Did he say how the clients reached him?” Pammy asked again, louder this time.

  “I don’t think Brunsan asked,” Eagle said. Which meant that Eagle hadn’t asked. She probably hadn’t thought of it.

  Pammy stood. She couldn’t sit any longer. She walked to the counter, poured herself some cold coffee, and stood there for a moment.

  “He has to have an answering service,” she said, more to herself than to the other two.

  “You’re right,” Eagle said. “That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  Val was nodding as well. “I worked for a lawyer who had an off-hours answering service. We called in first thing to make sure he had no messages overnight. He took emergency calls directly, but other messages waited for us.”

  “There are no emergencies in Lavassier’s business,” Eagle said. “Not like the ones lawyers and doctors would have.”

  “He doesn’t need a fixed address now,” Val said. “But he needed one to establish his business. He needed to give the answering service one, and he needed one for his California identification.”

  Pammy leaned on the counter, its lip biting into the skin above her back. “I don’t like this. It’s legal, but it’s shady.”

  Eagle nodded. “That’s why Brunsan wants us to get the word out.”

  “We need to do m
ore than that,” Val said quietly.

  Pammy sighed. She knew she would regret asking this next question. But she couldn’t keep it in, not after talking to Kelly MacGivers.

  “What would you suggest?” she asked Val.

  “We have to stop him,” Val said. “We have to stop him right now.”

  45

  Val

  I felt cold as I spoke. Cold and clear-headed.

  But I also felt like someone else.

  I set down my fork. Despite the conversation, I had managed to eat all of the rice, chicken, and veggies on my plate, and despite my nerves, none of that meal was threatening to return. My stomach wasn’t even upset.

  I should have been upset. Shouldn’t I?

  Eagle was watching me, a slight frown on her forehead. I couldn’t really see Pammy. She was standing to my side, leaning against the counter, her hands gripping its edge.

  I was rather relieved she couldn’t see my face. She clearly didn’t know what to make of me.

  I could understand that. I didn’t know what to make of myself these days.

  But every time I thought of that statement I had just made, that clear, cogent, We have to stop him, which emerged from me without thought, just as if it were the easiest and the most logical thing in the world, I couldn’t back away from it.

  We had to stop him. No one else was going to.

  “Why is it our responsibility to stop him?” Pammy asked.

  I knew she would say that. Hell, I would have said that a year ago.

  “It’s not,” Eagle said. “It’s the police’s responsibility. But they’re not going to. Not without help.”

  “Help?” Pammy asked.

  She had a good question. Even I didn’t know what help meant in this context. Nor did I know exactly how we could stop this man.

  I just knew that he couldn’t be allowed to continue with what he was doing.

  And I was glad I was having this discussion with Eagle and Pammy, not Marvella and Paulette. Because Marvella and Paulette would dismiss my comment, pointing out—rightly—that what this Lavassier was doing to those college kids echoed what Armand Vitel had done to me.

  Everything was replaying, from the fact that Lavassier apparently followed them to learn their routine to the way he grabbed them off the street. He tied them up and delivered them, broken and bleeding, to their parents, unlike Vitel, who had taken what he wanted from me in the hallway of my apartment building, but the concept was the same.