Sweet 16 to Life

by Kimberly Reid

  “Chanti, I know you must be really angry with me right now—I’m kind of angry at myself. But even after what I’ve told you, especially because of what I’ve told you, we have to stick by the agreement.”

  She’s talking about the agreement we made about the same time my hormones started to kick in and we had our first real argument. She left for work angry at me and I was at home cursing her when her partner came to the house to tell me Lana had been in a traffic accident during a pursuit. He said we didn’t have much time; I had to get to the hospital right away. It turned out okay and we did get more time. After that, we made a pact that no matter how angry we were, we couldn’t part without promising that it would eventually be okay between us.

  “Is it okay for me to leave?”

  “Yeah, go.” It’s Lana/Chanti speak for I love you, which we both have a hard time saying. It’s even harder this morning when I feel like Lana has sort of betrayed me.

  “I should be home before dinner.”

  “Mom?” I call to her before she goes down the hall.

  “Yes?”

  “He should know about me.”

  She stands in the doorway and looks at me for a second, but leaves without saying whether she agrees or not.

  I must have gone back to sleep after Lana left because it’s close to ten o’clock and I never sleep that late. You’d think with all the crazy stuff going on with me right now, I’d be an insomniac. Maybe finding out my father didn’t reject me unloaded a weight I didn’t even know I was carrying.

  After a quick shower and a bowl of cereal, I head down to the bodega to share with MJ some ideas I have about dealing with Lux. I’m feeling confident until I see Lux coming out of MJ’s house carrying the box. The cold November morning apparently hasn’t woken me up fully because I don’t turn around and head back to my house before I’m spotted. That would have made more sense. Instead, I stand at the bottom of MJ’s porch steps, foolishly thinking I’m going to get some kind of explanation of why Lux is coming out of the house when neither MJ or Big Mama are home. I know for a fact MJ is at work and Big Mama is still on one of her church missions. He looks at me but doesn’t say a word.

  “Hey, you left the door open,” I say.

  “So close it,” he says as he walks down the stairs. The day of the fire, I noticed he had an odd gait as he walked down away from the crowd. Now I see that he has a limp, and favors his right side.

  I follow him to his car. It looks new. Not to mention it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him with one.

  “Do you own a real coat? Because if you plan on staying in town, you ought to know we’ve got another four or five months of winter coming, no matter what the calendar says. This isn’t California, and that hoodie won’t cut it for a Colorado December.”

  “You don’t need to know my itinerary.”

  “Just trying to be neighborly. Hey, I didn’t think MJ and her grandmother were home.”

  “You win a prize,” Lux says, putting the box in the trunk.

  “What I mean is how did you get inside if no one is home? And why are you taking stuff out of their house?”

  “Didn’t MJ tell you I’m her man?”

  “That’s what she claims, but it still doesn’t explain how you got inside. Big Mama keeps the house locked all the time.”

  “MJ gave me a key.”

  Considering MJ was threatening to kill him last night for breaking into her house, I’m pretty sure he’s lying.

  “I think . . .” I begin, trying to think of a way to suggest he’s lying in a way that won’t get me killed, but Lux interrupts me.

  “I know about you, Chanti, and what I think is you need to stay out of other people’s business,” Lux says as he opens his car door. “Unless you want to get hurt.”

  Yeah, those are the right words. I shut up quick and apologize for bothering him. Before he drives off, I manage to get his photo using my phone, and another of his license plates. Well, not his car because it’s a rental—there’s a sticker on the bumper. I close the front door to MJ’s house and then head for the bodega, where I find Eddie at the counter talking to a customer about her sore feet.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Eddie, but I’m looking for MJ. It’s really important. Is she in back?”

  Eddie apologizes to the customer for my rudeness, then says, “MJ took the day off. She called me last night and asked if I’d take her shift this morning.”

  “She hasn’t been in at all?”

  “No, I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

  The customer figures out she’s on her own and goes off down the center aisle in search of bunion pads.

  “Really? Did she say why she couldn’t come in?”

  “No, and she also wouldn’t tell me why she called off our date last night.”

  Well, that was probably because I was there most of the evening, followed by Lux at eight o’clock. She was too busy last night to fit in a date with Eddie.

  “Probably stressing over her GED exams.”

  “I’m pretty sure keeping a date with me would have provided her some stress relief.”

  Eww. TMI.

  “I was supposed to come by around nine after I closed the store, but she called a few minutes before that saying I couldn’t come over, and that she wouldn’t make it into work this morning, either. I’m starting to think something’s up.”

  So am I. Oh snap. What if Lux checked the box last night and could tell someone—like me—had looked through it? I can’t imagine that’s it because I was so careful not to leave any clues, but now my first thought is whether MJ is okay.

  “I gotta go Eddie. If you hear from MJ, tell her to call me right away.”

  “What’s going on, Chanti? Should I be worried?”

  I lie and tell him no, but I’m beyond worried.

  Chapter 19

  I spend the next four hours at home blowing up MJ’s phone with texts and voice messages, but she doesn’t answer a single one. I’m just about to call Lana when I hear a knock on the door.

  “Damn it, MJ,” I say as I open the door, but it’s Michelle, the last person I expected.

  “Um, that’s what the peephole is for,” Michelle says, just walking into my house uninvited.

  “Excuse you? Didn’t your mother teach you some manners?”

  “I had to Bogart my way in. It’s the only way I was ever getting inside this house. You weren’t going to ever invite me, am I right?”

  I scan the house looking for any signs that Lana is a cop instead of a paralegal. She never keeps anything in plain sight—no Police Monthly magazines or boxes of bullets or anything—but I’m always a little paranoid. With Lana at work, there’s no chance of a gun or holster on the coffee table. So I relax a little.

  “I thought you were pissed with me so I never expected you’d want an invitation.”

  “I told you, girl, I’m over Donnell and I understand now that he was no good for me. Or for you. Especially for you.”

  “Really?” I say, surprised to hear Michelle being so rational.

  “But this morning when I came out to get the paper for Daddy, I noticed you talking to that dude, the one that was asking Cisco for directions the other night.”

  Oh, so this visit is not social at all. Michelle is on a fact-finding mission.

  “Yeah, so?”

  “So I was wondering what you know about him. I mean, he can’t be some random dude like I thought if Big Mama and them know him, and now you. Maybe he knows Cisco after all.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about him.” At least not as much as I’d like to. And so far, I haven’t connected him to Cisco other than that night he walked Lux to Center Street and gave him directions, which, after my conversation with Cisco, I’m guessing were directions for how to get the hell out of Cisco’s territory.

  “I guess I should ask MJ. She must know him if he’s taking boxes into her house and—”

  “You mean out of her house.”

  “No, i
n. Well, I mean both. I saw him take a box into her house, and a few minutes later he came back out with a box. That’s when I saw y’all talking.”

  Okay, now I’m really confused. Why would Lux be moving the box back and forth? Did he need to add more DVDs from a stash in his trunk? But I got a peek into his trunk and there was nothing there; it was as clean and empty as any rental car trunk. And even if he did need to add something, why did he take the box with him when he left? Maybe I was right and he did suspect someone had been looking through them and decided MJ’s basement was no longer a safe hiding place—for DVDs. I still have no theory on that.

  I’m about to ask Michelle if Cisco has mentioned Lux since that night on her porch, but just then I get a text from MJ.

  “Michelle, I gotta go, which means you gotta go.”

  “But I want to find out about—”

  “I know, and the minute I have anything juicy to tell you about Cisco I will,” I say, hustling Michelle out the door.

  The last thing I need right now is Squeak chirping in my ear about Cisco. Once I see Michelle go back into her own house, I head for MJ’s.

  “Where’ve you been, MJ?” I ask once she lets me in. “I’ve been trying to find you all day.”

  “I can see that,” she says, showing me her phone. “Eleven messages. What’s got you so worked up?”

  “Uh, maybe the fact that a scary dude is blackmailing you and now threatening me. Did you forget about all that since last night?”

  “Threatening you?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. I was on my way to the bodega to find you when I catch Lux coming out of your house with the box.”

  MJ’s expression goes from worried to angry in about three seconds.

  “Lux broke into my grandmother’s house? I told you that’s why the basement door was open last night—he’d been in here.”

  I don’t correct her—better Lux take the blame for that than me.

  “I guess you were right. He was in here and took the box. Or brought it back and then took it out again.”

  “What?”

  I’m about to explain what Michelle saw when the doorbell rings. I follow MJ to the door, which she opens to find a uniform cop and some other guy.

  “Malone, what are you doing here?” MJ says. Apparently she knows the other guy.

  “MJ, the police need to check your house. They received a tip you may be in violation of your parole.”

  Now I know who Malone is too—MJ’s probation officer.

  “You have a warrant?” I ask.

  “Who is this?” Malone nods in my direction.

  “My friend. Her mom—”

  “Is a paralegal and I know you need a warrant for a search. An anonymous tip isn’t enough for probable cause,” I say, interrupting MJ. I know they’re cops and everything, but undercovers don’t even tell other cops unless they have to. Plus, no need playing the Lana card just yet.

  “MJ—glad to see you’re hanging with a better class of friends, even better that they know your Fourth Amendment rights.”

  “Yep, that’s right,” I say, trying to sound threatening, but probably not succeeding. “All those lawyers I hang around have taught me a little something.”

  “A little something being the operative word. They must not have told you neither a warrant nor probable cause is required for parolees,” Malone says as he pushes past us and into the house. “Besides, who said the tip was anonymous?”

  MJ tries to follow the officer when he leaves the living room to do the search, but her PO tells us both to wait here. I notice the cop left the room like he was on a mission, like he knew exactly where to go. MJ must be thinking the same thing because she gives me a questioning look. When we hear the hinges to the basement door creak open, I give her one. And when the cop returns to the living room in just a few minutes, not enough time for even a trained officer to finish conducting a search in a house he’s never been in, we know exactly who called in that tip. But seriously, how much of a parole violation could a box of DVDs be? Unless they’re stolen.

  Just then another uniform comes through the front door and Malone stands up.

  “What the hell is going on?” MJ says.

  “Mary Jane Cooper,” the first officer says and I barely notice hearing MJ’s full name for the first time because I know exactly what he’s about to say next, especially when the second officer asks her to assume the position. “You’re under arrest for felony possession of a controlled substance, possession of a firearms by a felon, and violation of parole.”

  Now I know what was in the box Michelle saw Lux taking into the house.

  Chapter 20

  Not that I had to remind her, but before they put MJ in the squad car, I yelled to her not to say anything to the police until I could get her a lawyer, call Big Mama, and find Lana. Now I’m sitting with Lana at her desk at the police station, Big Mama is driving home from Grand Junction, where she was doing some of her church missionary work, and the lawyer has just arrived.

  Lana stands up to greet him, and they do the European cheek-kiss thing, which would seem weird for my mother, especially while she’s on the job, but I suspect they once had a thing when she worked at his law firm as a paralegal. When I was arrested for some burglaries a few months ago, Lana had to get his help and blow her cover. When she left his firm, she’d told him she had found a better-paying paralegal job, not that she was enrolling in police school. Now three people in Denver outside the department know my mother’s a cop: me, MJ, and this lawyer who we seem to be keeping busy lately.

  “Mr. Chatman, MJ didn’t do this. I know it for sure and—”

  “Hi,Chanti,” he says, shaking my hand. “If you vouch for her, then I know she’s innocent. But I’d better go talk to her first. I just wanted to let Lana know I was here. Does Mary Jane have any family here?”

  “Don’t call her Mary Jane. I don’t think she’ll like it much.”

  I haven’t confirmed this, and never thought to ask her what MJ stood for, but seeing how she’s never told me, I’m going to assume she doesn’t like it. Besides, her full name sooo doesn’t fit her.

  “She’s eighteen. You can talk to her without guardian consent,” Lana says. “And believe me, this one knows her rights and her way around cops and lawyers.”

  “We’re her family,” I add, to soften Lana’s totally unnecessary editorial on MJ’s knowledge about the legal system. “At least until her grandmother gets here. She’s three hours away, but she’ll be here to post MJ’s bail.”

  When Mr. Chatman leaves to find MJ, Lana asks me why I’m so certain she’s innocent.

  “Lana, you don’t think those were her drugs and weapons, do you?”

  “No, but I want to know why you’re so certain they aren’t. I can tell it isn’t just vouching for a friend. What have you been up to?”

  “I know I promised no more investigating, but this thing with MJ just kind of happened and—”

  “Chanti, what do you know?”

  I tell her everything I know so far, starting with the house fire and my suspicion Lux set it, and ending with what I saw in the box the day before Lux switched out the DVDs for drugs and weapons.

  “What I don’t get is if he was worried about being outed on his secret stash of DVDs, why not just take them and run?” I ask Lana. “Why did he have to set up MJ? For that matter, why are DVDs so important he’d ask MJ to hide them without telling them what they were, and turn around and try to destroy them?”

  “Maybe they were stolen master copies, or uncut versions not meant for public sale. Lux and Tragic did operate out of Los Angeles; they may have had contacts in the film business. He probably intended to bootleg them at first.”

  “Bootleg DVDs aren’t all that serious, are they?”

  “Don’t ever say that to the feds. That little FBI warning at the beginning of DVDs is no joke. We’re talking millions of dollars in illegal business. When I was on assignment to the FBI, I learned they have a whole dep
artment just for cyber crimes. Bootleg DVDs keep them plenty busy.”

  “Okay, so it’s serious.”

  “Maybe Lux didn’t tell MJ what they were because he was afraid she’d steal them, make the bootlegs and sell them herself. If he’s from her old gang, Lux knows a different MJ than the girl you and I know.”

  “I can see that. But what about the rest?”

  “He could have gotten angry that MJ was questioning him. Maybe you’re right and even though you didn’t notice any boobytraps, maybe he could tell someone—you—had been in the box.”

  “What if MJ is in jail because of me?”

  “If Lux is like every other con I know, taking MJ down was probably part of the plan all along, whether you opened that box or not.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Lana leans back in her chair and starts staring at the ceiling like there must be hidden clues up there, so I know she’s thinking through the clues we actually have.

  “It may be big business, but there’s more to this than bootleg DVDs. You haven’t talked to MJ about what went down when Lux came to visit her last night?”

  “No, we didn’t get a chance before the cops came to her house.”

  “She must know more about him than we think. She may not even be aware of it, but Lux wants to make sure she doesn’t tell anyone what it is, or at the least, make her an unreliable witness. He either realized that last night and had to act, or he was planning it to go down this way all along.”

  “The theory I was working on before she got arrested is that Lux was the one who narced on Tragic. You know, blame someone else for your crime and divert suspicion from yourself.”

  “It’s a good theory,” Lana says, then smiles. But the smile fades quickly. Poor Lana is always stuck between being proud to have a kid who is a good detective and being pissed off that I’m always sleuthing and getting into some kind of trouble.