Grade a Stupid

by A. J. Lape

  Shifting in my seat, I told him that another man was found in a dumpster, killed almost identically in the fashion of Alfonso Juarez. He hadn’t been identified yet. Was it plausible to believe he was another AVO member marked for assassination? If so, then why? And if it were an AVO member, wouldn’t he have a criminal record, tattoos, or fingerprints to identify him with?

  “Were you told of this man, Oscar?”

  Another negative answer. Frowning, I cocked my head to one side, knowing if Oscar’s lawyer was worth his salt, he had this man’s death on his radar already.

  “I know AVO’s recruiting,” Oscar said, suddenly whispering, “and they’re recruiting people that don’t even look like gang members. That might be why his name wasn’t released. If this other man found in a dumpster is new, then he might not have earned any ink yet.”

  “Ink?”

  “Tattoos.”

  “He’d be like a fraternity pledge?”

  My father was in a fraternity, and before you were initiated as a full-fledged member, you went through a period of time that was a probationary period. You were called a “pledge.”

  “Yes,” Oscar whispered lower, “but initiation into AVO isn’t through your normal crime. It’s by killing someone.”

  My body didn’t know what to do. Should I faint, laugh, crawl in a hole and hide? I thought about hyperventilating, but when I remembered I was masquerading as a law clerk, I somehow managed a breath. Killing someone would make sense. AVO’s considered the deadliest gang of all time, so they’re not going to take your run-of-the-mill criminals. They’d want members that proved wholeheartedly they were loyal, wanted to belong, and would do anything to make that happen. I tapped my stiletto against the gray tile, trying to think of what to do next. Did Northside have something AVO wanted? Did AVO have something Northside wanted?

  There was one last thing I needed to discuss...Annie Hughes. Oscar knew he was considered a suspect in her murder. I wasn’t sure how to broach that subject again, especially when the mention of her name brought him to tears last time.

  I briefly closed my eyes, then opened them, trying to distance myself. “I’ve been thinking, Oscar. Why is it you’re a suspect in Annie’s murder? What evidence do they have?”

  Oscar looked like I’d just slapped him, his robot persona of earlier suddenly on high alert. “I was the last one to see her apparently,” he muttered, clearing his throat. “I met her in a parking lot at Tire Town and drove off while she was still sitting in her car. My face is on a security camera somewhere.”

  I rubbed my temples like I was going to claw my brains out. That meant her husband must’ve had a legitimate alibi. If he’d been preliminarily cleared, then who in the world did Annie tick off enough to kill her?

  “Anything else?” I exhaled.

  Oscar looked at the cuffs on his wrists. “They think I’m in a gang and said they’d give me a deal if I’d provide names of other gang members—the big players. I don’t know anyone in AVO.” So, he wasn’t going to get a deal, I thought...unless I could come up with the names for him.

  I’m not sure exactly what was the catalyst. Maybe it’s because I brought up Annie again, or maybe he realized the depths of his desperation if I were taking things upon myself. Whatever the origins, he burst into tears and grabbed at the lapels on my suit. Nearly pulling me to the floor, I only stayed seated when I latched onto the leg of the chair for support. I couldn’t help it, but tears showed before I could stop them. When he blubbered, “Help me, Darcy,” I fell short of smacking him before he gave up my identity altogether. It didn’t take long for the guard to pull him off of me and lead his blithering body back to his cell.

  Glancing over to Vinnie, I was hoping for some guidance—some miracle broadcast—but got nothing. The entire time I’d assumed he’d been taking notes, but honest to God, his note pad was doodled pictures of moon pies and women with big boobs. He reached across the table and grabbed my hand tightly. “Dolce,” he muttered, wide-eyed. “You’re in over your head.”

  No kidding, and I was drowning.

  19 DELUSION 101

  ONCE OUT OF the building, Vinnie gave me a what-are-we-doing look. I didn’t know, and it was a little unnerving we already had one foot in it. (I’m sorry, two feet and a whole lot of crap for brains.)

  My legs suddenly felt like Jell-O, and I barely made it to the park bench without crumpling into a heap on the sidewalk. That sometimes happened with me. I was good in a clutch, could talk my way out of anything, but the anxiety of the what-could-have-beens came afterward. I literally spread my legs wide and put my head between my knees, begging Mother Earth to help me breathe.

  “Shhh, Dolce,” Vinnie soothed, patting me on the back.

  “He’s…” I sniffed. “H-he’s…” I tried again.

  I was embarrassing myself. I was crying buckets of tears like my heart had been ripped out of my chest in a love-affair-gone-wrong. Not to mention the sidewalk had started to spin. “I need…”

  “Shhh,” Vinnie murmured again. Somehow I spit out I needed all three autopsy reports to tie the bodies together. I needed to prove the person who killed Alfonso and Annie was the one who murdered the man downtown—he was the key. If I could do that, then maybe that was reasonable enough doubt to have the charges dropped against Oscar. Why? The timeline wouldn’t fit. Oscar was already incarcerated.

  I think Vinnie got it, but sometimes you just didn’t know.

  Vinnie crossed his legs, ripping a seam on his pants. “It’s going to work out, Dolce. We’re going to walk right into the coroner’s office, lie, they’re going to believe it, and we’ll have all the answers we need.”

  Sounded simple enough, but sometimes Vinnie had a naïve bent on the world. This was going to be far from simple. First off, it wasn’t Valley. I successfully masqueraded as a law clerk up here. Downtown would be a totally different story. I looked too much like my aunt who now had blonde hair. If I drove downtown to find information, the Hamilton County Coroner would wonder why the Assistant Hamilton County Prosecutor (er, former Assistant) was worried about an autopsy report on an unknown with no known suspect as the perpetrator. Attorneys didn’t get involved until the police brought the case to them, ironclad. This would definitely be getting the cart before the horse.

  Vinnie must’ve read my mind because he whipped out his cell phone, googled the number for the Valley Township Coroner, and within minutes was speaking to someone I hoped was a decision maker.

  “Hello,” Vinnie said professionally. “This is Detective Russo with the Cincinnati Police Department. I need the autopsy reports for Alfonso Juarez and Annie Hughes. I’m down here at the station, and we, uh, might have a little situation on our hands.” Some talking on their end. “We didn’t want the press to get ahold of this,” Vinnie continued, “but now that they have, we’ve got to move quickly to see if we can tie these cases together. We’re getting squeezed by Odell Whitmeyer, and I can’t say I blame him. I guess he’s got a kid that’s being accused of knocking off someone then storing them in a dumpster. Yeesh, what’s this world coming to?” More talking. “I can believe that,” Vinnie added. “Sure, I’ll hang on.”

  Major silence with Vinnie giving me a shrug. We just stood there; him, pulling a Red Bull out of thin air; me, not knowing what to think. I laughed in a shaky voice, expecting them to say there’s a lengthy request form to fill out that took two weeks to process, and a fingerprint just for good measure. After a few nail-biting moments, I heard someone come back on the line uttering a simple, “Okay.”

  Vinnie didn’t appear a bit surprised. In fact, he said, “Here’s my badge number.” How Vinnie had someone’s badge number, I didn’t know, but when his identity wasn’t questioned, Vinnie told them we’d send over a runner to pick it up ASAP.

  Who would’ve thought getting the Coroner’s report for the third body found in Over-the-Rhine would be just as simple? I pulled myself together, stepped into my big-girl voice and within minutes had an envelo
pe waiting at the front desk. Times like these I got the impression it was okay to do the things I did. I’m sure there was some codicil in there, and maybe I’d contemplate that later, but right now I took these two successes as a sign to motor on.

  After a minor celebratory dance, I speculatively looked at Vinnie who’d long sense checked out. The thing with Vinnie was, he could get things, but he didn’t know what to do with them once he had them. He was back to eating moon pies, flirting with nearby women.

  It was Thursday evening, my normal shift at Belinski’s Bookstore.

  All day, I felt myself falling into a despair so deep I didn’t know how to claw my way out of it. I came to the realization my boundaries between right and wrong were seriously skewed. God only knew what I’d be convicted of if anyone discovered I’d messed with government resources, but try being a teenager on a mission. A teenager, likewise, on a short rope.

  Oh, well.

  There were only a few days left to Spring Break, and that in itself added to the despair. What would happen when I went back to school? A phone call to Frank said he expected the trial to happen within the next few months. That wasn’t a good sign. That meant the prosecutor felt she was so odds-on, a conviction was all but reality.

  If all else failed, I could take what information I had to the authorities, but what did I really have? I was excruciatingly aware that all I possessed regarding the copper thievery was Frank and Oscar’s word and personally seeing Jinx, Juan, Adam, and Mr. Hood on the premises of a construction site. That wasn’t physical proof of anything; and, most importantly, it didn’t connect them to Alfonso Juarez. Plus, I knew the way law enforcement would see this: being a crook didn’t make you a murderer. I made a pledge to myself that if I had nothing else in one week, I’d take what I had to the prosecutor personally.

  Let the chips fall where they may.

  Other than working on my term paper, I’d been a bum today lying around in my pajamas reading the coroner’s reports repeatedly—the coroner’s reports Vinnie’s cousin picked up disguised as a faux runner. A runner in a law firm files, serves, and picks up documents. Good to know people who know people.

  Regarding Alfonso Juarez, the cause of death was not the two gunshot wounds, it was the breaking of the neck. The gunshot wounds were that little extra “value add”...sort of like the toy in your Happy Meal. The hand was dismembered several minutes after the fact as I suspected. The heart had stopped pumping, ergo the reason for very little blood around the severed limb and his clothing. All I could think was the murderer must’ve stood there and stared at the body for a while. That thought made me shiver with fear. This wasn’t a normal murder-for-hire; this was recreational enjoyment.

  Here’s the interesting thing. I’d already assumed Juarez’s body was transferred from the actual murder site, and to prove my point, the report confirmed his body had particulates—or unnatural substances—on it (sawdust, drywall, and animal hair) reminiscent of a construction site or warehouse. Yay for Darcy. The buzzword there was “construction site.” Yes, Oscar robbed construction sites, but so did Jinx King. Toxicology/drug reports were pending, but traces of various chemicals were also found on the skin.

  Regarding the third body, the report detailed exactly as Rainn Webster reported. Cause of death was a broken neck; the two shots to the back didn’t do it. The male was an 18 to 35-year-old unidentified white man. It had no particulates on the skin similar to Juarez—insinuating he may have been killed in the alley in which the dumpster resided—but likewise, a full report wasn’t due for weeks.

  Annie Hughes, body number two, was a conundrum. She was like piecing together a ripped up paper doll then hoping she could talk and tell you what went on. Her limbs were torn apart by the compactor, and two bullet holes were found in the back. Once again, a broken neck. Here’s the thing—she had DNA underneath her fingernails. You could dispute a lot of things in criminal trials—DNA you couldn’t. Other than DNA, and I didn’t know whose it was, there was nothing that pointed to Oscar on her, or in the back of the garbage truck compactor. Could they solely be going on the security tape alone? That made no sense—unless there was something captured on tape that was incriminating.

  I never asked Oscar if they argued. That didn’t pop into my mind at all, but what if they had? What I did find out, however, were what sites four, five, and six were on the sanitation run. How did I do that? One phone call to the Valley Gazette, and I got a reporter that liked to talk. And guess what? They were on my stomping ground. Even though in a different town, all three sites were close to Belinski’s Bookstore. And site five? Site five was where Oscar was caught on videotape, Tire Town.

  Thank the dumpster gods.

  My mind went back to the fact that my aunt said word on the street was a rival gang off’d Alfonso Juarez. If that part were true, that would insinuate Oscar was in this gang. Oscar, point blank, wasn’t. As the minutes stretched on, the more I was convinced something went wrong with this hypothetical “hit” on Juarez. If the rumor mill was correct, why would his hand also be dismembered? Sure, this hypothetical gang could have some raving psychopath as a hitter—who basically enjoyed the process—but I had a feeling they would’ve shipped Juarez’s body back to AVO with a big red bow on it. That brought me back to the murderer residing within the worlds of Jinx, Juan, Justin, and Adam.

  After a few bites of spaghetti, I showered and dressed in my I-don’t-care look. I cared, people, but this was Delusion 101. Pretend something wasn’t there long enough, and maybe you could forget it.

  Tugging on my Belinski’s shirt and black yoga pants, I stepped into my Chuck Taylor’s that I’d gotten clean, compliments of half a bottle of Spray and Wash.

  The weather was back to Cincinnati-weird. It was almost six o’clock when Claudia dropped me off, and a fog had settled in as thick as pea soup. As Murphy often said, Mother Nature’s a fickle wench, confused, not knowing her arse from a hole in the ground.

  Sort of like me.

  When I arrived at the store, it was devoid of customers but still its usual emotional pandemonium. I dropped my purse behind the counter, then crossed my arms over my chest watching Mr. Belinski—in his overalls, freakish as usual.

  “I’m gonna jump!” he screamed. Oh, boy, cue the stupid. I rolled my eyes as Rudi ran from the rear, her petite feet puttering faster than the eye could see as she launched into disaster mode.

  At least once a month, Mr. Belinski would stand on a chair and feign injuring himself from what he thought was a life-altering jump. What was the worst he could do? Twist an ankle? Blow out a shoe? It was a twenty-inch drop at best. Thing was, he sometimes took his idiocy outdoors. If it wasn’t his hypothetical quote-unquote jumping from a chair, it was his sitting in the middle of the parking lot in his version of a political sit-in. His wasn’t for reasons of politics; it was to guilt people into buying a book from his store. Without a doubt, the man needed counseling more than anyone I’d ever met—me included.

  Beads of sweat dripped from his bushy brow as he inched his three-hundred-plus-pound body to the edge of the chair, tipping it back and forth. Rudi frantically signed for me to do something, her brown bob swaying with emotion. What was I supposed to do? Talk him down? The process honestly made me feel stupid. Still, I found myself inching closer and closer—palms up in a mean-no-harm pose—as if he was truly standing on the ledge of a skyscraper.

  The things I do for a paycheck.

  Talking in a whisper, I tried to calm him. “Come down, Mr. Belinski,” I eased. “You know you don’t want things to end this way.”

  A laugh slithered up my throat, but I somehow coughed it out. “Can’t do it,” he mumbled.

  Turning back toward the counter, I picked up the manila folder leaning up against the cash register containing restaurant menus and coupons. You lured a mouse with cheese, a crook with money, Mr. Belinski with takeout—free takeout.

  “What’ll it be? Pizza? Subs? Chinese? Barbeque?” I asked.

  I�
��d already eaten—granted not a lot—but thankfully my metabolism so far had cooperated with my in-between-meals snacking. In the back of my mind, though, I had to wonder if one day I’d wake up the happy hippo. I ordered the Big Four pizza from LaRosa’s which was every edible meat known to man, and after twenty minutes, the place smelled like an XL meat-heaven. Somehow the order got transcribed wrong, and we were delivered five extra pizzas loaded with various toppings. Thank God they didn’t make me pay the difference.

  Two pizzas later, Mr. Belinski had lost some of the crazy. He was a simple man, sort of like a baby: you fed him, then put him to bed. At least that was the plan, but as soon as he stepped one foot onto the green carpet—yes, he ate standing on the chair—he forgot to put down the landing gear. He bowling-balled across the floor, took out a potted fern then teetered forward somehow landing flat on his behind. Pulling himself up on one knee, his pants split—fanning us with dirty boxers—at the same time he broke wind. Hand to God, I don’t think I could reproduce that sequence if I tried. Like a fool, I tried to assist, but hit a pizza slick, scissoring my legs into the splits.

  He blamed me for his faux pas—of course he would. Somehow, Rudi and I stood him aright and shoved him toward the Break Room, covering him with a blanket once he passed-out on the couch.

  Now close to seven o’clock, we sat down in the middle of the store at the pine wood table. The smell of pizza permeated the air, so I sent a group text to my address book.

  4 leftovr pizzas at BB. 1st come, 1st serve...D

  “I want a boyfriend,” Rudi signed when I finished.