Not Forgotten

by George Lee Miller

  “What the hell’s wrong with that?” I slammed on the brakes to keep from rear-ending a woman in a white Honda with the visor down putting on makeup.

  “Nothing,” Skeeter said. “That’s what I like about you. When you take a case, the guilty party gets punished.”

  “And it’s time to dish out some punishment.”

  “You’re not taking down a gangbanger. This guy’s got connections that you or I can’t access,” Skeeter said.

  “You wanna quit? I’ll wave the two weeks’ notice. I’ll mail your final paycheck. Consider your debt paid in full.”

  Skeeter didn’t reply right away. I heard him breathing. I set the cell phone on the seat and put it on speaker. I was stuck at a red light behind the Avalon.

  “I’m with you,” he finally said. “What do you need?”

  “The number for a petting zoo in Gillespie County.”

  “Not what I expected…”

  “I can’t reach Grandpa, and the zoo is next door.”

  “Got it. What else?”

  “I need you to watch Sylvia.”

  “All right,” Skeeter said. “Where are you right now. I’ll come to you.”

  I looked up and realized the light was green. Cars honked and pulled around me. A guy with a pipe rack on his pickup flipped me off. Skeeter was right. I needed to talk it out. I scanned the street signs out my window.

  “I’m at the corner of North Main and Quincy,” I said.

  “You’re two blocks from Lulu’s Bakery. I love their cinnamon rolls. Go in and order two for me and coffee. Wait for me. Give me twenty minutes.”

  I agreed and disconnected.

  Lulu’s parking lot was overflowing. The place was popular with the breakfast crowd. I found a place on the street and turned the engine off. My muscles relaxed. I realized I’d been doing isometric exercises on the wheel.

  I went inside the café and found a table that two cops were just leaving. I shoved their dirty plates aside and sat down. The sharp anger I felt after finding Sam was slowly turning to dull throbbing pain. I wondered at the kind of person who could take an innocent life for no other reason than to send a message or because the life interfered with the family inheritance. Had Danny led such a sheltered life that killing meant nothing more than an exclamation point? When I took a life in combat, I took comfort in knowing the evil that life represented. I had watched the enemy kill women and children and my brothers. When I went hunting, the animals I killed were part of the food chain and thinning their numbers helped control population density and preserve habitat. The hunt itself was infused with ritual and the spirit of the pioneers. Killing for sport, pleasure, or monetary gain represented evil.

  The young waitress stood beside me for a full minute before I realized she was there and waiting. I looked up and forgot to smile.

  She took an involuntary step back. “You okay?” She glanced at the cops in the parking lot. When I didn’t answer immediately, she pressed on. “Would you like to order, sir?” She was no doubt used to early morning customers angry for no reason other than they had to go to work.

  I had a better reason, but there was nothing she could do about it. I ordered coffee for two and Skeeter’s cinnamon rolls. She rushed off to fill the order. Normally, I ordered the migas plate with scrambled eggs, tortillas, and refried beans, but I wasn’t hungry.

  Skeeter texted me the petting zoo number. I called, but no answer. They only opened on weekends. I left a message explaining who I was and that I needed to contact Grandpa. Exactly twenty minutes later, Skeeter came through the door. He got the usual looks because of his size before he found my table. This time, he was probably right—they were wondering why anyone would sit next to me.

  I was on my second cup of coffee. The young waitress came back and offered to heat his rolls. Skeeter gladly accepted her offer. She took the two dinner-plate-sized rolls back to the kitchen. He sat down and studied my face.

  “Let me see your hands,” he said.

  “What for?” I said.

  “Let me see them,” he repeated.

  I held my hands above the table. I couldn’t hold them still.

  “When your hands shake, I know somebody’s gonna get hurt.”

  “You think I’m a vigilante?”

  “You ain’t no vigilante. Did you shoot the guy who set me up?”

  “I meant to.”

  “Who you foolin’? You caught him with a gun in his hand.”

  “There were innocent bystanders. I couldn’t get a clean shot.”

  “You didn’t kill him because you wanted him to stand trial and prove the cops and the DA got it wrong.” He was right. Killing him would have been too easy. It would have allowed the prosecutor and the police to brush Skeeter’s case under the rug. Instead they had to put the real murderer on trial and expose their own malpractice.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m not going to shoot Danny. When I’m finished with him, he might wish he were dead. He’s gonna confess to killing Marissa and her unborn child. Capital murder. I’ll let the State of Texas execute him.”

  “What about Sosa?”

  “What about him?” I asked.

  “How is Marissa’s murder tied to Sosa?”

  “I think Danny knew I’d take the Luna case, and he came after me. Sosa was collateral damage. I was the target from the beginning.”

  “How would he know that?” he asked.

  “When I find him, I’ll ask him.”

  “How you gonna get to him?”

  “Through Marcus Lopez.”

  “What’s he got to do with it?”

  “He’s still the family lawyer. I think those two families are closer than they would like anybody to know.”

  The waitress brought back the hot cinnamon rolls with a new pad of melted butter on top. He cut into one of them with a knife and fork and shoved a large slice of buttery cinnamon dough into his mouth. Pleasure spread across his face.

  “What if he tells Danny to run?” he asked.

  “Danny won’t run.”

  “Why not?” Skeeter asked around the edges of the roll.

  “Too arrogant,” I said. “He thinks the sun rises and sets in his asshole. Think about it. He paid off a girl in Lubbock. He murdered a girl in San Antonio because she got pregnant, and he killed Sosa and Sam to get me off the case. He’s not scared of me or the law. He thinks he’s untouchable.”

  “Maybe he is,” Skeeter said.

  “I’m going to bring Danny in. In the meantime, stay armed. I want you to watch Sylvia.”

  “The note said he was coming after me? What did it say?”

  I showed him the note. “Still want me to take it easy?”

  He read the note and clenched his teeth. “How’d he get my real name?”

  “Maybe he read it in the paper. That article about your release.” I was thinking about the article that Mrs. Luna had showed me. The one that someone left in her mailbox.

  “Give me a shotgun. You know I can’t hit the side of a bus with that pistol you gave me.” It was true, he wasn’t a marksman by any stretch of the imagination.

  “Got you covered,” I said and finished the last of my coffee. The tables around us were empty. Most of the patrons had gone to work.

  “You want me in her office?” he asked.

  “No one will touch her there. Marcus has his own security in place. I want you to set up surveillance at her condo and put a tracker on her car.” I grabbed the check.

  Skeeter looked at me and then the second giant cinnamon roll. “Mind if I finish this first?”

  “Go for it.” I handed him Marcus’s business card with his personal cell phone number written on the back, something I’d lifted from Sylvia’s desk. “I wanna know who he calls when I leave his house,” I said.

  Skeeter took the card and smiled.

  “I’ll give you thirty minutes.” I knew he loved a challenge. “Keep your phone charged,”
I said. For a tech guy, Skeeter had the hardest time keeping his array of gadgets charged. I paid the bill and left the waitress a twenty. She had earned it.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Marcus lived in a newer gated community outside Loop 1604. It was one of a dozen gated communities that had appeared over the last fifteen years in the hills west of the city. There was no guard on duty, only a keypad that unlocked the gate. Sylvia brought me to the Christmas party last year and had given me the code.

  I stopped at the entrance—a twelve-foot-high metal gate. To the east, San Antonio stretched out like a flat, green ocean. The modern buildings floating above the dense city trees resembled ships heading out to sea. The houses outside the Loop seemed to drift above the urban center with no more connection to the Alamo than the clouds.

  I punched in the code. Nothing happened. Naturally, they had changed the number. While I was trying to come up with an alternative plan, a man in a lawn service truck pulled up and punched in the new code. I followed him in and down a row of identical limestone houses lining the back nine of the community golf course. A foursome dressed alike in white polo shirts and Panama hats rolled down the center of the street in a four-seater golf cart, lost in conversation. They didn’t see my pickup and didn’t seem to care if anyone else was on the road. I putted along behind them until I found Marcus’s street.

  His house butted up against the par-four twelfth fairway with a spectacular view of cedar-covered, limestone hills. He kept his golf cart and clubs in a shed that looked more like a guesthouse. He could call the grounds crew and start eighteen holes from his backyard anytime he wanted. At the Christmas party, he had insisted that Sylvia and I pay close attention to his version of the finer things in life. I was sure it was Sylvia he was trying to impress.

  Marcus’s wife and two kids had been at the party too, but would no doubt be long gone by eight o’clock on a Tuesday. His wife was on the board of directors at one of the local banks, and school was in session.

  The front of his house broke with the limestone-block traditional look. It was a three-story glass and steel building that seemed more like a post office than a residence. I wondered how the structure ever got approved by the HOA committee. More than likely Marcus wrote its bylaws. I spotted a security guard standing by his front door. Marcus was running for governor, so I should have expected it. The guard wore a black uniform and was sipping coffee, looking bored but alert while he watched my pickup roll slowly past the house. I stopped a few houses down at the end of the cul-de-sac and planned my next move.

  I held my hands out above the steering wheel. Rock solid. The shakes were gone. Skeeter was right. I had needed to cool down. Going up against the Allison family was going to take all my powers of focus and restraint.

  I walked around the last house on the block, pretending to look for survey stakes if anybody was watching, and slipped over the chain-link fence along the fairway. Then I backtracked to Marcus’s yard, betting that he wasn’t too worried about home invasion. He’d grown up on the west side and probably figured he could take care of himself. The gate was open, and I found a worker cleaning the pool. He didn’t seem alarmed. I imagined that neighbors came and went by the back gate all the time. I said good morning, but he was too busy with pool chemicals to look up. There was no guard, so I let myself in through the double glass doors.

  The ceiling in the back room was three stories high, more like a hotel lobby than a residence. I remembered the sunken fireplace in the center surrounded by two white leather couches from the party. The only thing missing was the twenty-foot-tall Christmas tree. A wide staircase along the wall led to rooms on the second and third floors. I heard the distinct musical flourish from the NPR morning radio program.

  “Pool service,” I called. I didn’t want Marcus to step out with a gun in his hand.

  After a few moments, Marcus leaned over the railing from the second floor. He blinked, obviously groggy with sleep. He had dress pants on and a white T-shirt. I saw specks of shaving foam on his neck. After a beat, his eyes adjusted to the light streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Recognition kicked in.

  “Hi, Marcus,” I said. I pointed to his neck. “You missed a spot.” If I’d met him at his office, I would have been talking to Marcus Lopez, high-powered lawyer and politician. I wanted Marcus the family man with something to lose. I wanted him to feel vulnerable.

  “Nick? What’re you doing here?” He was off-kilter. I could see the wheels turning.

  “I wanted to see how the future governor lived.”

  “How did you get in here?”

  “You mean, through security? Piece of cake. You want real protection, hire me.”

  “That didn’t work out too well for Mr. Sosa,” he said.

  “Cheap shot,” I said. “Turns out Sosa wasn’t the target. I was.” I held up the bandage on my arm. “He tried again, but he’s a lousy shot.”

  Marcus wore leather, hard-soled slippers that clacked as he descended the metal stairs. “Sounds like you should be talking to the police. What are you doing here?”

  “The shooter is your client.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  I could see I had his attention. He probably had a dozen clients who would pull a trigger or hire a hitman if they felt threatened.

  “Danny Allison,” I said.

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  “How about a cup of coffee?” I asked. “I’ve had a long night, and someone shot my dog. I could use some java.”

  “I think you should leave.”

  I ignored him and followed my nose toward the coffee I’d smelled when I came in. Marcus trailed behind me, his slippers echoing down the wide hallway lined with family photos. I walked into an open kitchen with granite counters and an island with recessed ceiling lighting.

  An older woman stood polishing the silver cutlery by the sink. She had dark features and wore a white apron over a blue uniform. She seemed annoyed at the interruption. Marcus dismissed her in Spanish, and she disappeared reluctantly into the back of the house. He fiddled with the settings on a French press coffee machine.

  “It has to do with the death of Marissa Luna, a college student found in the San Antonio River on the fifth of July,” I said.

  Marcus had his back to me, listening. The machine came to steaming life. He placed a cup the size of a soup bowl near the spout.

  “What’s Danny Allison’s connection to this?” He handed me the full bowl of coffee.

  I took a sip and had to admit it was good. Better than what my drip coffee maker could produce. Not as good as Grandpa’s stove-top percolator. Marcus made himself a cup, and we sat across from each other on polished, metallic barstools.

  “This is really good coffee,” I said. Marcus watched me and waited. “The dead girl was carrying Danny’s child,” I told him. I watched him closely for a reaction.

  Marcus didn’t blink. Didn’t move. He was waiting for more explanation. That was all I was going to give him.

  “You know this how?” he asked.

  “Danny’s DNA matched the fetal tissue.”

  Marcus took a sip of coffee. “How did you obtain a DNA sample from Danny Allison?”

  “That’s not important.”

  “So, Danny knew a girl who drowned in the river. Now you think he’s shooting at you and killed your dog?” He seemed amused.

  “I’m taking what I have to Detective Peterson as a concerned citizen. He handled the original case.”

  He smiled when I mentioned Peterson. It wasn’t a friendly grin. It reminded me of the Grinch when he decided to steal Christmas from the children of Whoville.

  “You know Detective Peterson?” I asked.

  “I know of him. He seems competent,” he said. Not a choice of words I would have used.

  “Why not have Danny stop by the police station. He can save me a lot of time by confessing.”

  “You want me to br
ing Danny in, so he can confess to a murder that he didn’t commit based on evidence that’s inadmissible?”

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  “Get the hell out of here,” he yelled. His temper was showing, and I suspected it was only the tip of the iceberg. “If you make one move against Danny Allison, I will have you arrested.” His face turned red, and his voice was climbing to a higher octave. “You can’t come to my house and threaten me. I’m going to be governor of Texas. I’ll bury you!” He paused to catch his breath. He didn’t just have an anger management problem. He was showing signs of coming unglued. A vein popped out on his forehead forming a column from his left eyebrow to his receding hairline. “The Allison family is one of the most respected families in Texas. I will not have you impugning their reputation with ridiculous accusations.” He was showing me the street fighter who had clawed his way out of the west side and would take down anyone who challenged his position. He waited for my response. Expecting me to run or apologize.

  I smiled. “That’s funny,” I said. “Danny told me you and Patrick had a falling out.”

  “Patrick Allison and I have very deep ties.”

  “Deep enough for you to cover up a murder?” I thought the vein on his forehead would explode.

  He reached for his cell phone and hit the speed dial. So far so good. I hoped Skeeter was ready to trace the call. I finished my coffee. A male voice came on the line.

  “Yes, sir?” the voice responded.

  “Just remember, I have the DNA,” I said. “Danny can run, but he can’t hide.” I walked toward the back door.

  Marcus said, “Never mind,” and disconnected.

  Chapter Thirty

  Ipulled into a convenience store off Loop 1604, topped off my gas tank, and waited to hear from Skeeter. Ten minutes later, my phone rang. Skeeter said Marcus had made four calls. He was rattled. That was my intent. Skeeter started to explain how he intercepted the calls, but I didn’t want to know. The first call was to the Heights Security Company—the guard sitting on Marcus’s front porch. The second was to Danny’s cell phone—Danny hadn’t answered. The third was to Lucky’s gym, and the fourth was to the Dominion. That was a problem.