The Janes

by Louisa Luna

  “Duffy’s the owner,” said Cap, clarifying.

  “Yeah.”

  “You remember anything else about the Mexican—how tall do you think?”

  “Over six foot. Big this way, too,” he said, holding his arms out to the sides. “More muscles than fat.”

  “Okay,” said Cap. “You remember anything else about him? Haircut, tattoos?”

  The Can Man shrugged.

  “Nah,” he said. “I didn’t see him too well. I was pulling my cart in for the night across the street.”

  “By the China Buffet?”

  The Can Man nodded. Cap got the feeling he wasn’t lying. Some people, few people, had no reason to. The Can Man struck Cap as one of them.

  “Could you say that again?” Vega said.

  Cap and the Can Man looked at her.

  “About the hair?” said the Can Man.

  “No, no,” said Vega.

  Cap knew her expression—she was impatient, annoyed, but only at herself for not finding the answer quicker.

  “Before,” she said. “What you said to me. Exactly what you said to me about how you thought the big guy knew Duffy.”

  The Can Man glanced at Cap, a little confused. Cap rolled one shoulder in a shrug. I don’t know where she’s going, Can Man.

  “ ’Cause he opened the door?”

  “Yeah,” Vega said, pointing at him. “That’s it.”

  The Can Man tugged at his bandanna again.

  “I thought Duffy left it unlocked for him,” he said slowly.

  Cap watched Vega’s face for clues. All three of them were quiet. The Can Man did not return to the recycle bin. He was waiting now too, to see what Vega would do next.

  “So you saw the big Mexican walk up to the Ford Focus and open the door?” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “He walks up to the car and opens the door.”

  “Yeah,” said the Can Man, getting a little irritated.

  “What did he do right before that?” Vega said, moving her hand, directing traffic again. Back it up.

  “I…you know, he went up to the car.”

  Suddenly Cap understood where Vega was going. Why it took him so long he didn’t know.

  “Where did he come from, though?” said Cap. “Did he get out of another car?”

  “Ah,” said the Can Man. “I didn’t see that. I was pushing the cart around to my place, and when I look up, I see him walking. I don’t know where he came from.”

  “You don’t remember hearing another car door shut,” said Cap.

  “No, I don’t know. I just happen to look over there and see him go up to the car.”

  “He goes up to that car,” said Vega.

  “That one car,” said Cap.

  “Yes, Jesus,” said the Can Man, exasperated. “That one car.”

  He went back to the bin, and Cap and Vega looked at each other, and there was the old click. Cap thought if he were to ask Vega to describe it, she would say it was like a magazine locking into place after reloading rounds. Cap’s was a littler gentler—a child’s wooden puzzle piece, peg for a handle, the chicken or the barn or the fire truck landing in a space cut just for it.

  * * *

  —

  At the Hampton Inn, Vega stood in the room she had booked for Cap next to hers. She leaned against the door and thought as he unpacked basics from his small wheeled suitcase. She was watching him in the sense that her eyes were following his movements but she wasn’t paying too much attention, her mind skittering across list after list.

  Cap was talking, rattling off narrative, which was his way to get a handle.

  “Big Mexican walks right up to the car, doesn’t try any other doors on any other cars, as far as the Can Man sees, and this door on this car happens to be unlocked.”

  “Yeah,” said Vega, pushing off the door with her elbows.

  “So someone left it unlocked for him,” said Cap, holding a jar of vitamins. “And PD didn’t figure this because…”

  “Duffy the owner reported it stolen,” Vega said.

  She sat at a small table against the wall.

  “And PD didn’t push because they don’t know the thief walks up to that one car specifically,” said Cap.

  “No evidence of forced entry, but they figure user error,” said Vega. “And they don’t have the Can Man.”

  She pushed aside the binder full of ads for local attractions and began to sort through all the paper that Palomino had given them.

  “They don’t have the Can Man,” repeated Cap. “Still…”

  He stopped speaking and stared at the vitamins.

  “Still?” said Vega.

  Cap did the thing where he let his head wobble side to side on top of his neck, as if he were literally bouncing between two ideas.

  “Let’s say Duffy knows the Big Mexican and leaves the door unlocked for him. Don’t you think PD would get to that if they asked the questions they were supposed to ask?”

  “Maybe,” said Vega. “They’re rushing, couldn’t dedicate a lot of time to it.”

  “Right, they’re busy,” said Cap. “Maybe they weren’t asking because someone told them not to look too hard at it.”

  Vega almost said, “That’s what we’re here for,” but she didn’t have to. Cap sat on the edge of the bed and yawned. Vega shot him a stern look, and he closed his mouth and raised his hands like he was behind a bank counter in the Old West and she was Jesse James. Which made her laugh just a little bit.

  6

  dylan duffy opened the door for them with dripping wet hair and a towel around his waist. He apologized, saying he just got home from work, invited them in, and offered them a seat on the couch in the living room. He introduced them to a girl of about ten or eleven lying on the floor with a pillow over her face.

  “That’s Jaylin. Jay, say hi.”

  Jaylin gave a wave, kept the pillow over her face.

  “I’ll be right back,” said Duffy. “Do you want anything to drink?”

  Cap said no thanks, and Vega shook her head.

  Duffy jogged out of the room. Cap and Vega sat on the couch, which had wicker armrests, patterned with big tropical flowers. It squeaked under their weight.

  Cap watched the girl on the floor. Her legs were crossed at the ankles, relaxed. Cap turned to Vega, but she wasn’t looking at him or the girl. She was surveying the room, taking in the nubby carpet, the soft IKEA bins filled with magazines, shoes, markers, papers.

  “You talk,” said Vega.

  “Sure.”

  Another few minutes passed, and Duffy returned in jeans and a muscle tee.

  “Sorry,” he said, putting his hand through his hair. “I work for a tree doctor. I’m a real mess when I get home.”

  “Thanks for taking the time,” said Cap.

  “Sure thing,” said Duffy. “I want to help. Like to get the guy who put me out of a car.”

  “So the police didn’t tell you the conditions in which they found your car?” said Cap.

  “No, just said it was part of an investigation, like evidence, so they had to keep it. Insurance is getting me a loaner. I’m not sure how it works.”

  Duffy nodded as he talked, his hair dripping onto his shoulders. The girl on the floor uncrossed her ankles.

  “Mr. Duffy,” said Cap quietly. “Could we speak to you alone for a minute?”

  Duffy appeared confused. Cap nodded toward the girl.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Duffy, realizing. “Jay, go practice in your room awhile.” Then, to Cap and Vega, “She’s really into sensory deprivation.”

  The girl removed the pillow from her face and stood up.

  “Now I have to start over,” she said to Duffy.

  “They’re with the police,” said Duffy emphatically. �
��Official police business!”

  The girl remained unimpressed. She glanced back at Cap and Vega and left the room, dragging the pillow behind her.

  After she had gone, Duffy said, “You were saying, about how they found the car?”

  “They found a body in it,” said Vega.

  “No shit,” said Duffy with an appropriate degree of awe. “That’s fucking crazy, excuse me.”

  “Yeah,” said Cap. “We don’t know if the thief is the murderer but he is certainly a suspect. And we have reason to believe he knew your car would be unlocked.”

  Duffy nodded at him and kept nodding as the idea snaked around his head.

  “Wait,” he said. “My car wasn’t unlocked. I always lock my car.”

  Cap continued: “There wasn’t any substantial evidence of forced entry, and we have an eyewitness who says the thief opened the door without a problem.”

  Duffy stared at Cap, his hand on his head, processing. Cap could see him start to question himself.

  “Look,” he said hoarsely. “If I didn’t lock my car, it would’ve been the first time, okay?”

  “So you think the thief got lucky?” said Cap, only a little skeptical.

  “No,” said Duffy, sounding pained. “I don’t know. I know it doesn’t make sense.”

  Cap smiled at him. He sounded honest and confused.

  “That’s why we’re here, Mr. Duffy,” he said. “To try and figure it out. Why don’t we start somewhere else? Why do you park the car on the street to begin with and not in your garage or your driveway?”

  “My wife, she’s an RN, she works second shift. I don’t want to block her—I like her to park her car in the garage so she can come straight into the house. I don’t want her walking around outside at midnight, one a.m., you know?”

  Then he turned to Vega.

  “It looks like a nice neighborhood, but we had a lot of crime the last couple of years. Carjackings, stuff like that.”

  Vega gave him a small commiserative nod.

  Then she said, “Could we talk to your son?”

  Duffy looked from Vega to Cap and wiped his hands on his jeans.

  “My son?” he repeated.

  “Yeah, your son,” said Vega. “He’s about fifteen, right?”

  “Um, yeah. But he’s not here—he’s at a friend’s house, you know?”

  “When will he be back?” said Vega.

  “I think he’s sleeping over, so tomorrow morning probably,” Duffy said, squirming around in his chair. “He doesn’t even drive yet. I don’t know what he could tell you.”

  “Probably nothing,” said Cap generously. “Sometimes we notice things and we don’t realize we’re noticing them.”

  Duffy smiled, grateful.

  “We’ll come back then,” said Vega, standing up. “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh, okay, sure thing,” said Duffy, jumping to his feet. “I’ll, uh, walk you out.”

  He followed them to the door, and they all shook hands and said goodbye. The temperature had dropped at least ten degrees, the sun rolling down fast, sky lit up with pinks. Cap waited until they were in Vega’s car to speak.

  “How’d you know he had a son?” he said. “I didn’t see any Shakespeare.”

  “The paper recycling outside,” said Vega, starting the car. “I saw it as we went in. There was a drug-test box in there, over the counter. I don’t think it’s for the girl.”

  “No,” said Cap. “And not for the parents. But how’d you peg fifteen-year-old boy?”

  “Figured it was a teenager under sixteen because police might have covered that if there was another licensed driver in the house,” she said, pulling away from the curb. “Had to be a boy.”

  “Why?” said Cap. “Girls smoke pot, too.”

  Vega peered at the upcoming intersection and moved her jaw from side to side.

  “Teenage boys, even the smart ones, are led around by their dicks. Unless they get into drugs. Girls are more likely to binge-drink and have eating disorders.”

  Cap almost began to argue and then thought better of it.

  “Goddammit, you’re right.”

  Vega rolled down her window and stuck her hand out, wiggled her fingers in the warm air.

  “You think Duffy’s telling the truth?” she said.

  Cap thought about it, remembered the eager nods, the genuine shock.

  “I do.”

  “I do, too,” said Vega.

  “So first thing tomorrow morning we go back?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And wait for the Bastard,” Cap added.

  “Heard from him already,” Vega said, glancing at her phone. “Got some addresses. X-ray tech, Antonio LoSanto, in Santee—suburb of San Diego. Dr. Scott Miller’s in Escondido—nicer suburb.”

  They stopped at a light, and Vega leaned back, stretched her neck out, took her hands off the wheel.

  “We could split up tonight and go see them,” she said. “If you think you can stay awake.”

  Cap turned to her and saw she was giving him a side eye, waiting for his response.

  “I truly appreciate your concern,” he said. “I think I can handle it.”

  She nodded, didn’t smile but didn’t scowl, eyes on the road. The light changed to green, and she drove.

  Cap didn’t tell her he actually did feel the weight of the jet lag coming down on him as if it were the end of the night on the East Coast and not the beginning on the West, his lower back and foot arches aching, throat scratchy, eyes dry and heavy. But being with Vega while her brain snapped and curled like flames in a fireplace was enough to keep him awake for at least the next few hours, he thought. Better than Red Bull.

  * * *

  —

  Vega got to Santee around eight. The sun had just slipped down, the air light and cool. The X-ray tech lived in a condo complex on a quiet block. Vega parked in a spot marked SUNRISE TRAILS APARTMENTS—VISITOR, got out, and began to look around.

  Vega walked along a small paved path, saw the flickers of TVs through windows, noticed all the ground-floor units had small walled decks; second- and third-floor units had narrow balconies. The X-ray tech’s condo was on the ground floor. Number 107. Vega followed the path to the door, thought she smelled something sweet. Powdered sugar and frosting floating around the air like in an amusement park.

  She pressed the bell, heard it buzz inside. When there was no answer, voice, footstep, she buzzed once more. Then she knocked, lightly at first with a tap of her knuckles, then pounded her fist. Still no one, nothing. She tried to peer along the sides of the synthetic bamboo blinds hanging in the window.

  A text from Cap came through: “Here. No one home. Staking out.”

  Vega backed up off the path, thought about how long she wanted to wait. She tilted her head and let her eyes drift to the three-sided cinder-block wall to the side of LoSanto’s condo, which, Vega assumed, must be surrounding LoSanto’s deck.

  She crossed the small strip of grass separating the path from the parking lot and came to the deck wall, about six feet tall. She reached up and touched the top. It had been a long time since she went up a wall, but the principles had to be the same. Run, drive hard through right leg and push, grab the top, jam, and run up with the left leg to avoid the dead hang.

  Then she heard a cough.

  “Hello?” Vega called.

  There was no answer.

  “Mr. LoSanto?” she said, stretching her hand up and waving so that whoever was on the other side of the wall could at least see her fingers.

  Vega could sense motion. Then she heard the catch of air through the person’s nose, the scrape from a patio chair on the ground.

  “Who’s there?”

  The voice was female, young, high-pitched.

  “I’m looking for Anto
nio LoSanto,” said Vega.

  “He’s not here,” said the girl.

  Vega took her wallet from her pocket.

  “I’m a private investigator with the SDPD,” she said, holding up her PI license.

  She didn’t flash it often. Usually there was no need if she could see the person’s eyes, and the person could see hers. Usually people just tended to believe her.

  The girl paused, then said, “Come around front.”

  Vega went around, across the grass to the path, up to the front door. She heard the snap of a sliding door, footsteps, lock clicking open and then the door.

  The girl was in her twenties, Latina, pudgy in a babyish way with a round face, hair pulled tight back. She held a phone, earbuds still connected and dangling.

  “Sorry I didn’t hear you. Headphones,” she said, holding them up.

  Vega nodded with a tight smile.

  “Alice Vega. Is Antonio LoSanto here?”

  “No, he’s not home.”

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “In a while,” the girl said. “He’s at work.”

  “Can you tell me where his place of business is?” said Vega. “I need to speak with him right away.”

  The girl flipped her ponytail up, as if it had been caught inside the collar of her hoodie. She laughed nervously.

  “I’m just, I’m really not supposed to bother him at work.”

  “Got it,” said Vega. “If you have a minute, could I ask you a couple of questions?”

  “Me?” the girl said. “I don’t know anything.”

  Scared, thought Vega. Be nice. Cat with a feather.

  “Look,” said Vega, bending her knees, letting her head fall an inch to one side to appear casual. “I’m staying out in El Centro. Do you mind,” Vega hedged. “Just a couple of general questions, and then I won’t have to come back and bother either of you?”

  The girl blinked a few times, eyelashes fluttering.

  “They’re just some timing questions, like when he worked certain places.”

  The girl turned her phone around in her hands.

  “You wouldn’t even have to tell him about it,” Vega added.

  “What’s it about?” said the girl shyly.