END GAME: A St. James Mystery (St. James Mysteries Book 1)

by Kristi Belcamino

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  JASON CARTER WAS WRONG. Investigators didn’t release him. Night fell and he was still behind bars. The plan was to charge him with first-degree murder the next morning.

  Parker was gloating about the murder charge. He swung by the photo department to brag to Tommy about it on his way out the door. “I told you. The husband always did it.”

  “Huh,” Tommy said, surprised. “He thought he’d be out of there before nightfall.”

  “What?” Parker turned back toward her. “You talked to him?”

  “Yeah, didn’t you?” She knew his interview request had been denied.

  “No, the meathead wouldn’t talk. But he talked to you, huh? What’d he have to say? Anything we can use in my story?”

  Tommy knew she should have fed Parker quotes for his story from Belinda’s husband, but this was too close to home. She wasn’t thinking like a journalist. She was thinking like a woman whose high school friend had been murdered. She knew her long silence was making Parker suspicious. He narrowed his eyes.

  “No, sorry. Just lost in thought there for a second. He just backed up what you already have about their marital strife and so on. But he said what I thought from the beginning: he wasn’t stupid enough to murder someone he had threatened.”

  Parker got out his notepad and began scribbling. “Can I use that?”

  “Of course.”

  “So, you still think he didn’t do it? I heard he’s quite a charmer. Quite a lady’s man in fact.” Was that jealousy in Parker’s tone?

  “I just think he’s telling the truth, that’s all,” Tommy said, thinking about her conversation with Jason Carter. What if he really was innocent? What if Rafael’s “Big Boss” killed Belinda for kidnapping Rafael? But she didn’t even know who that was. Would police release Jason Carter because she told them some unknown man, some mysterious stranger killed Belinda, but she didn’t know the guy’s name? Nope. She decided to keep that theory to herself. For now.

  “He’s a sociopathic liar, T.J.,” Parker said. “He has stepped on every single person who stood in his way on his path to the top. I have interviewed at least three people who will testify in court that he destroyed their lives in his thirst for power. How can you defend a creep like that?”

  “I’m not defending him Parker. But just because you are an asshole, doesn’t make you a murderer.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THAT NIGHT IN HER APARTMENT, Tommy grilled a steak out on her balcony overlooking the Mississippi River. The balcony was so small, she had to move one of the two ripped patio chairs into the house to use the small Hibachi grill. The rest of the balcony was taken up by the grill and a small table where she set a tumbler of bourbon as she monitored the steak, getting it just right where it was crispy on the outside and tender inside.

  The sun setting behind the Minneapolis skyline across the river lit everything in brilliant orange and red hues.

  “Days like today are worth eight months of winter weather,” Tommy thought, kicking her scuffed cowboy boots up on the small table. The Twins had an away game that wasn’t being broadcast locally, so she picked up her new book, “Skies of Ash,” about a badass Los Angeles detective named Lou Norton. Norton wouldn’t put up with the shit Tommy did. She’d have to start thinking, “What would Lou do?” the next time some asshole tried to boss her around.

  Later, after she was comfortably full from her steak, microwaved mashed potatoes, and another bourbon, Tommy rummaged in the big leather bag she used for work. She took out a folder containing a few of the shots she had blown up to eight by tens at the office.

  Standing in front of the oversized corkboard above her computer desk, she ripped off a few old wedding announcements and party invitations to make room. She tacked the photos to the board and sat back down, staring.

  The news researchers had found a fairly recent photo of Belinda and Jason Carter at a New York City fundraiser for the arts. Belinda had aged well. Her trim, toned figure could pull off a strapless red dress. But her smile didn’t meet her eyes. Her arm clenched Jason’s sleeve and something about the way she was holding on to him showed she was uncomfortable, even tense.

  Jason Carter, on the other hand, wasn’t even looking at the photographer. He was looking at something across the room. The look on his face puzzled Tommy. She scrunched her face trying to figure out what it was that disturbed her about his expression. Then she realized it. He looked hungry. He looked like a hungry wolf that had spotted his prey. Creepy, Tommy thought and then looked at the next picture.

  This one was of Rafael. Her own shot. She’d captured him crouched in the bushes. Only half of his face could be seen through the underbrush. He looked like a wild animal hiding in the forest. His cheek was smudged with dirt. Something in his eyes stopped Tommy. She studied the picture. He looked defiant as he gazed at the camera lens. He looked as if he were saying, “Yes, you see me, but you’ll never catch me.”

  Good. A kid like that needed some backbone, some defiance, to survive what he was going through.

  Seconds after she snapped that shot, Rafael had bolted up the hillside and away from the river. He was a resourceful little guy. Hopefully that would help him in his new life.

  Thinking about him in the care of social services still ticked her off. Detective Kelly was right, he probably would eventually be placed in a decent home. But what he really needed was his own family. That boy was going to need a lot of love to overcome the tragedy he had seen in his short life.

  Despite trying to reassure herself that the boy would be fine, Tommy felt an overwhelming sense of danger when she thought about him. She couldn’t tell if it was the “shine” or simply knowing Belinda might have been murdered for helping the boy escape.

  Maybe Tommy was just shaken up from Belinda’s murder. There was no reason Rafael shouldn’t be safe. He was in a foster home, under CPS custody. But she couldn’t help feeling he faced a grave danger. And that she was helpless to save him. The more she thought about it, the more anxious and angrier she got. She had promised to help Rafael find his father in Mexico.

  Staring at Rafael’s picture, she nodded, her lips pressed together tightly. Her jaw tight. She had promised.

  And she never broke a promise.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  LATER, WHEN IT BECAME dark and the cityscape across the river glowed from hundreds of tiny white lights sparkling from skyscraper windows, Tommy sank into her couch with her book, hoping she could stay awake to finish the next chapter. The book had slipped onto her chest and she was snoring lightly when a timid knock woke her.

  At first, she wasn’t sure what had woken her, but as she sat up, she heard it again. Somebody was knocking softly on her front door. She looked through the peephole, but didn’t see anything.

  Her heart thudded into her chest. What if Belinda’s killer had tracked her down?

  She grabbed the baseball bat she kept in the corner by the door and held it above her head. “Whose there?” She tried to sound as gruff as she could.

  “It’s me.” A pause. “It’s Rafael.”

  She quickly unlocked the door. Rafael looked up at her with a big grin.

  “Can I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?”

  As he scarfed down his second sandwich, Rafael told her how he’d found his way back to her place. Listening to his story, Tommy realized that the kid was something else: Put down in a foreign city, state, and country, he’d still managed to find his way back to her apartment.

  From what he had described, he’d been placed in a foster home somewhere in Blaine, just north of downtown by about ten miles. The neighborhood he was in was just off Central Avenue, a main thoroughfare that ran north from the Mississippi River practically to the Canadian border. When the social worker drove him to the foster home yesterday morning, he got excited when he saw the road they took. He remembered that the motel he’d stayed in with Belinda had been on Central Avenue. If he could find the motel, he could find his
way back to Tommy’s place.

  He waited until his foster family fell asleep, then snuck out of the house and headed for Central Avenue. Cars whizzed past, whipping road signs, the force nearly pushing him into the ditch, he said. A big rig truck passed him and then slammed on its brakes. Rafael slowly crept up to the truck. It was a Mexican-American man. He told Rafael he would drive him to Tommy’s place.

  Tommy was aghast that Rafael had hopped in the cab of a semi with a stranger.

  “Aw, it’s okay. He was a nice man.”

  “But he could have been a very, very bad man. Promise me you’ll never do that again! Promise me right now. No matter what happens.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged. “I promise.”

  Tommy shook her head. She knew she should call the police, but she was tired and simply grateful that Rafael was in her apartment safe. She’d deal with the authorities in the morning.

  “Time for bed now.”

  Tommy tucked Rafael into her bed and grabbed a pillow and blanket for her own spot on the couch. She turned off the light on the nightstand, gave him a brief kiss on the forehead, and got up to leave.

  “Tommy, could you sit with me a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  He gave a little sniff.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, straining to see his face in the dark.

  “I miss my mama.”

  Her heart broke a little right then.

  She stroked his hair. She didn’t know what words to say to comfort him. She felt that anything she said would be inadequate. She reached for his hand to hold. He gripped something small in his fist. In the dim light, she saw it was a little wooden figurine. It looked like a small whale, the wood worn smooth, about two inches long.

  “Is that a whale?”

  “Yes. It was my mama’s when she was a little girl. My abuela — grandmother — lived near the whales. They said she came from the sea. That she talked to the whales and they talked to her. The whales are the spiritual guides. They guide our soul to heaven if we get lost.

  “My mama said when she was a little girl, my grandmother woke her up early and took her out in a boat. My mama said she was cold and shivering and hungry for breakfast, but my abuela told her to hush and listen. After a few minutes, my mama saw something in the fog. It looked like a big ship, but then it disappeared under the water. Then, suddenly, she looked over, and right beside her was a whale. It had come out of the water to see her. He had a big, big eye, she said. His big eye was watching her. My abuela sang a song to the whale and reached over to touch it. The whale stayed there for a few minutes, looking right at my mama. Finally, my mama reached over and touched the whale and then the whale rolled over and went under water again. My abuela told her then that when you look in the eyes of a whale, you must go right home and go to sleep and then whatever you dream will come true. So, they went home right away.”

  “What did your mother dream about? Did she tell you?”

  “No, when I asked her, she started crying, so I never asked her again.”

  Later, lying on the couch, Tommy couldn’t sleep. What was she going to do with Rafael? The right thing to do was call the police again. Tommy took pride in doing the right thing. In fact, she had spent her entire life trying to be a good citizen, probably in an unconscious desire to be the opposite of her drunken father, who had thought nothing of stealing cigarettes from the corner market when he didn’t have enough cash. And then murdering her mother.

  But lying on her couch watching the sky lighten outside her floor-to-ceiling windows, Tommy realized that the law wasn’t always right. This time, she was going to have to do what she thought was right and just. In this case, the right thing to do was to do everything she could to reunite this boy with his father.

  Jumping off the couch, she quickly booted up her laptop and shot off an email to the photo editor. She wouldn’t be in today, she wrote. She had a stomach bug.

  It bothered her more than she had thought to tell that simple white lie to her boss. First, she decided to harbor Rafael from police custody and now she lied to Sandoval, her boss and friend. Taking liberties and going outside what society expects of you is a slippery slope, she thought. But deep inside, she knew that whatever anyone else said, getting Rafael home was the right thing to do.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  BOTH TOMMY AND RAFAEL slept in. Around ten, Tommy got up and fixed breakfast. Frozen waffles with a squirt of whip cream should fit the bill for an eight-year-old boy.

  Rafael’s eyes were sleepy, but he quickly wolfed down the waffles and asked for more. After his second batch, he seemed to come to life.

  “Tommy, are you going to help me find my papa today?”

  “Yes. But you need to help me find your village. I have an idea.”

  Tommy booted up her laptop.

  “What’s your father’s name and what’s the name of your village?”

  “My father is Juan Rafael Menendez Vasquez. My village is called Santa Dimas.”

  After about ten minutes, Tommy looked up, frustrated.

  “Are you sure it wasn’t called something else? Maybe San Dimas? I have a San Dimas here on the map.”

  He looked at her and rolled his eyes. “I know what my village is called.”

  “Okay, okay, you’re right, but it’s not on any map I can find.”

  “It’s a very small village. I told you.”

  “Okay, let’s try something else. What was the closest big city to you?”

  “Benito Juarez.”

  Tommy searched for Benito Juarez. She easily found the city but there was no mention of his village. It was probably too tiny to make the map.

  “If I got you to Benito Juarez, would you be able to lead me to your village?”

  “I think so.” Rafael thought a minute. “Yes. I could. The man who delivers the seed to the ranch is from Benito Juarez. I could find him and he could help us.”

  “Okay, now we have to figure out how to get to Mexico. You’re here illegally, so we can’t fly. We’re going to have to drive. I’ll have to take some vacation time and we can cross the border at Tucson. Then we’ll make our way to Benito Juarez. I have to ask for vacation time.”

  “When? When do I go home?”

  Tommy had to finish a big photo project first. “We’ll leave in two days.”

  She closed her laptop with a satisfying click.

  “Now, let’s go buy you some clothes. Have you ever heard of Target?”

  Rafael’s eyes grew wide.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  AT TARGET, TOMMY PICKED out seven outfits for Rafael, a bunch of power bars, two cases of water, three grocery bags of nonperishable foods, and two flashlights. They stopped on the way out so she could buy Rafael his first slushee and they both got submarine sandwiches.

  “I think we’re set, buddy,” Tommy said ruffling his hair. “We’ll leave Friday morning.”

  Later that day, Tommy gave Rafael a tutorial on the remote control and told him he could watch anything on the cartoon channel while she was at work on Thursday.

  After a dinner of corn dogs and tater tots, Tommy taught Rafael how to play Go Fish. At one point, when she kept dropping her cards in a slapstick manner, they both laughed until they cried. Suddenly, Rafael stopped laughing, threw his cards down and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind them. Tommy sat there stunned. What had she done wrong? She thought they had been having fun. Maybe she said something?

  She went and knocked on the bathroom door and then said softly, “Rafael?”

  No answer.

  “Rafael? Did I say something wrong?”

  She heard some sniffling sounds.

  “If I said something that upset you, I’m awfully sorry. Can you please come out so we can talk about it?”

  Nothing. She waited a few seconds and then slowly the door swung open. Rafael was hastily wiping the tears from his face.

  “What’s wrong honey?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, chokin
g on his words.

  “Are you sad?”

  He bit his lip and nodded yes.

  “Do you miss your father?”

  He nodded again.

  In some ways, he was so mature for his age, she forgot he was still just a small, scared child. She crouched down and wrapped him in a hug. “You’ll be home by this time next week. I promise you.”

  “It’s not just that.” Rafael said, drawing back from her. “I am sad for another reason, too.”

  “What is it? I’ll try to help you in any way I can.”

  “It’s just that you are so nice,” he said and a fresh flood of tears began.

  “I didn’t know me being nice would make you cry,” she said in a lame attempt at levity. “Should I be crabby instead?”

  She was rewarded with a small smile.

  “You and Belinda have taken care of me like I’m your hijo – your son. And it makes me miss my mama.”

  “Oh, my gosh. Of course, you miss her.”

  She tightened her hug.

  “Will I ever stop missing her?”

  Tommy shook her head, sadly. “Rafael, I’m not going to lie to you. My mama has been dead for eight years and I still miss her every minute of every day.”

  “Your mama is dead, too?”

  “Yes, honey. But even though you will miss her forever, sometimes there are days when instead of it hurting for me to think about her, it feels good to think of her. It makes me happy to think of her. That will happen to you, too. I promise. When you hold that whale and it makes you think of her, does that make you happy?”

  “Yes. It makes me happy because I know the whales are with her. I know they are her guides to heaven. They are protecting her.”

  “Well, she’s in great hands, then. Whales are very, very wise creatures. They will make sure she gets to heaven. In fact, I’m sure she’s already there. When a whale has a job to do, it gets it done. No messing around.”