Home Free

by Sonnjea Blackwell

  Kevin said, “I bought the motorcycle shop four months ago.” Pauline and I made the huh? face, not sure if he was kidding or not, and he grinned, nodding, it’s true. Brian was at the part where he promised to make Minter a safe place again, and the family was on the edge of their seats.

  “Congratulations,” I said to Kevin.

  Pauline gave him a squeeze on the leg. “I’m not wearing underwear,” she informed us. I wrinkled my nose, and Kev groaned and leaned against the table to steady himself.

  “I gave Danny Salazar a blowjob on this very table once. Please pass the hotdogs.”

  Pauline almost fell out of her chair laughing as Kevin yanked his plate up off the sullied surface. I could have given a repeat performance, right there in front of everyone, and except for Kevin and Pauline, no one would have even blinked. Well, maybe Danny.

  I escaped as soon as dinner was over. Kevin and Pauline had gone to nap in my father’s hammock, Brian and the gang were in the pool, and my parents were in the kitchen, so no one noticed when I slipped out the gate and ran to my car, jerked the door open and jumped in, then squealed away. I blamed it on the regular coffee I’d had at Danny’s this morning. Usually I stick to decaf.

  There was something I wanted to do, but it was going to have to wait till dark, so I drove home to wait. The house was empty when I arrived, which tonight was a relief rather than a drag. I went in the office. Angela had put all the tutorials away and left the desk neater than she’d found it. My camera sat on a stack of photos in the middle of the desk. The top one was of a car, and there was a post-it stuck to it.

  “Alex, I forgot to tell you - that car was at Sherry’s again this morning, so I took a couple pictures. Hope it helps your fireman. Thanks, Angela.”

  I looked at the photos. The first one showed a dark sedan. It was shot from the side and I couldn’t tell the make. Something pricey. The second photo was a closeup of the license plate. Damn, the girl was good. There weren’t any other shots, so I still couldn’t determine the make, but I had the plate. It was a vanity plate, MUSCLMN. Muscle Man? Music Lemon? I hate those annoyingly cryptic plates. If only I knew someone at the DMV.

  I flipped through the rest of the photos. Nothing special, but she’d done a good job of cropping them in an interesting way. I wondered what she could do with the raisins.

  When it was almost eight o’clock, I went to my room to change. I tugged on black jeans and a tight, long-sleeved black t-shirt. Actually, I didn’t remember it being tight, and I thought I’d better hurry up and join the gym. I switched from my A’s cap to a Raiders cap since it was black, and shoved my feet into a pair of short black boots. I locked up the house, gave Lucifer a nod, got in the car and drove.

  The gravel yard parking lot was empty and dark when I arrived. I pulled the set of keys I’d nabbed before out of my purse and looked at it. Six keys, none of them with a little sticker that said “front door.” Damn. I got out and beeped the car locked, leaving my purse inside, and then shoved my keys in my pocket. I tiptoed to the door, holding my breath, and started trying keys.

  The fourth one worked. I giggled with relief. I opened the door and waited for an alarm to sound. I didn’t hear anything, so I went inside and closed the door behind me. I waited a minute to let my eyes adjust, then made my way to the door marked Private. I only bumped into something every other step.

  The door wasn’t locked. It was hard to see in the dark, and I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. I thought I’d know it if I saw it, though. I pushed the play button on the answering machine, but there were no messages. I rifled through papers on the desk and then turned my attention to the file drawers. I checked “A” for Arson, “F” for Fire and “B” for Bodies, Dead. Nothing. I didn’t know how criminals stored their information, but apparently it wasn’t like the rest of us, in alphabetical order. Suddenly, I felt, more than heard, someone else in the room. Shit. I really sucked at this. Then the someone cocked a gun near my head, and I held my breath and willed myself not to pee my pants.

  “Turn around.”

  I turned around and found myself face to face with Junior Salazar. He was dark and good looking in a menacing sort of way, with biceps that stretched the limit of his black t-shirt and a tight smile that suggested fatigue as much as violence. If he had Muscle Man license plates, it certainly wouldn’t be false advertising. I tried to peer out the window to get a look at his car, but I couldn’t see outside.

  “Who are you?”

  “Alexis Jordan. I’m just - ”

  He waved the gun to cut me off and flipped on the office lights.

  “You Kevin’s old lady?”

  I started to breathe again, since he hadn’t shot me yet and didn’t seem to be taking aim. “His sister. Look, I know they were framed, I just don’t know why.”

  He snorted. “So you thought you’d come and look here, because of course, I did it. Look, sweetheart, I got enough trouble without you wandering around accusing me of arson and murder.” He leaned in so that his face was inches from mine. “That is what you’re accusing me of, right?”

  “Well, Danny and Kevin sure as hell didn’t kill anybody or start that fire,” I hedged. I couldn’t just come out and say I thought he might be the killer. That seemed rude. Besides, he had the gun and all.

  “No shit. As it happens, neither did I.”

  He gave me a long, appraising look. I knew he was dangerous, and I had no idea what he was going to do now that he had me. I hadn’t made up my mind if I believed him when he said he didn’t have anything to do with the body shop events. But I was starting to think he wouldn’t hurt me.

  “You believe me?”

  I shrugged, and he smiled. Out the front window, I saw headlights turn into the parking lot. Junior saw them too. The car parked and the lights went out.

  “Friend of yours?” he asked.

  I shook my head no. He reached into a desk drawer and came out holding a pair of handcuffs. Before it registered in my brain, he had cuffed my right hand to the drawer pull on the file cabinet.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” he told me, slipping the gun into the waistband of his pants as he went to investigate the headlights.

  “Hey!”

  When he was gone, I pulled my keys out of my pocket, flipping each one aside till I found what I was looking for. I reached my left hand up and inserted the little key, clicking open the bracelet. I relocked the empty cuff on the file drawer, then sat down to wait at the conference table in front of the cabinets.

  The headlights came back on and the car backed out. I heard the front door close and lock.

  “Security company, checking why the lights are on after dark on a Saturday night.” Junior stopped in the doorway, taking in the empty cuffs, then switched his gaze to me. I couldn’t tell if he was mad or worried or amused. “You a cop?”

  “Hunh-uh.”

  “PI?”

  “No.”

  His eyes narrowed, trying to decide whether or not to believe me. “Why do you have handcuff keys?”

  “Why do you have handcuffs?”

  He pulled the gun out of his pants, moving over to lean against the front of his desk, setting the gun down on the blotter. “You were just going to explain to me what you’re doing here.”

  I didn’t think he’d like my explanation, so I tried another tack. “Maybe we can help each other,” I offered.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Why not? I guess you want to prove you’re innocent, right? Maybe we can prove all three of you are innocent.”

  “Maybe I’ll call the cops right now and tell them I caught someone breaking into my office.”

  He was starting to piss me off with the stubborn routine, and I thought about kicking him in the shin and running for the car. But he still had the gun within reach on the desk, and I didn’t really feel like testing my theory about him not hurting me. I sighed and gave him my explanation.

  “Lonnie Chambers, the night watchman, was sha
cked up with this woman, Sherry Henderson, over on Cherry Street. Evidently, he’s pretty much a loser. Deals drugs when he’s not busy beating on his girlfriend. Sherry’s a skank who used to date your brother, back in high school. The idea occurred to me that maybe Danny would have had a reason to hurt Chambers if he knew Chambers was hurting Sherry. But I checked that out, and it went nowhere.

  “Then I found out a man in a dark, expensive sedan has been paying Sherry visits. I don’t know if he’s a customer or what. I also found out you have a black Cadillac, and so I thought maybe you were the visitor. Like you had something going with Sherry and popped Chambers out of jealousy or whatever.” I didn’t mention that I knew the license plate number of Sherry’s visitor, because if it was his car, I sure as hell didn’t want him to know I could prove it. “Or maybe the car was a only coincidence, and you just torched the place to send Jenkins some kind of message, like Jimmy C said. The cops said you don’t know anything about rigging explosions, but I figured maybe you had contacts from prison that do, and maybe you paid someone to set the fire. I guess I thought I’d come here and see if I could find something that would lead me in that direction, or else convince me that I was wrong.”

  He’d been watching me, impassive, while I spewed. Now he picked up the gun again and looked at it. It was a Glock, a big-ass forty-five. I didn’t love the way he was looking at it. “Let’s see, I have a dark sedan, and I’ve been in prison, so therefore I killed the guy and set the fire. That about right?” He looked drained, not angry, but disappointed. I thought about my new rule, not to assume things, and I mentally kicked myself. “Not only that, but I’m willing to let my own brother take the fall for it. You’re pretty fucking brave to be here all by your lonesome, if that’s what you think of me.”

  “I’m sorry. I know it sounds like I’m jumping to conclusions based on stereotypes and generalities, but I’m really worried about my brother, and the cops aren’t looking for anyone else because they think you did it, and I’m pretty sure they’re just waiting for the pressure on Danny to get to you, only you’re not caving in and they do have circumstantial evidence against our brothers that they could probably build a case on, and I’m not an investigator, for crissake, so I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. Please don’t be insulted.” And please don’t shoot me, I thought.

  He put the gun down as if he’d read my mind. “I’m not going to shoot you. I didn’t know that, about Chambers and his old lady and the drugs and the guy in the car. I never thought about it in terms of a fire to cover up a murder. I assumed it was like the cops thought, a murder that went down in the process of torching the place. You’re smarter than you look. Maybe we can help each other. Not here, though.”

  Since he hadn’t shot me, I figured I’d be big about it and ignore the insult. “Sure, okay.”

  “I live in the apartments on the corner of Monterey Parkway and Grant Street, across the street from the junior college. Number three-twelve. Follow me over there and I’ll show you where to park.”

  We went outside. Junior locked the office behind us and walked me to my car, tucking his gun into the back of his jeans as he walked. I beeped the Element open and got in. I started to shut the door, but he caught it with his shoulder, holding his hand out, palm up.

  “My keys.”

  “What keys?”

  “The keys you used to unlock my office.”

  “What makes you think I used a key? Maybe I picked the lock.” I had no idea in the world how to pick a lock, but I found it insulting that he just assumed that about me.

  He raised an eyebrow and started to reach behind him, towards the stupid gun. I stuck my tongue out at him and dropped the keys in his hand, and he slammed the door. We pulled out of the lot, and I followed his Cadillac CTS for a quarter mile before I remembered to look at the license plate. Whew, no Muscle Man vanity plate. Just ordinary, Sacramento-issued digits. I heaved a sigh of relief and figured I’d tell him I had the registration number. Maybe he had some kind of contacts that could run the plate and find out who it belonged to. I couldn’t think of anyone to call at DMV.

  Junior’s apartment complex was a maze, and I followed until he pointed to a parking spot marked visitor. I was having second thoughts about coming here. So what if he was charming? They said Ted Bundy was nice as pie. I parked the car and hopped out, locking it and thinking that if he killed me, no one would ever find me here. It would take search teams weeks to find their way through the convoluted parking lot, and by then my body would be completely decomposed from the horrendous heat. Junior parked farther up, in the residents’ section, and I shuffled over to meet him, feeling anxious and wondering why on earth I’d agreed to come to a convicted felon’s house by myself in the middle of the night.

  On the other hand, at least I wasn’t home alone like a loser for a second time this weekend.

  “I said I wasn’t going to shoot you. Relax.” We walked to his apartment and went inside.

  It was clean, but almost empty of furniture. There was a dining room table and four mismatched chairs in the dining area. A couch that I was pretty sure I’d had sex on in high school and a TV occupied the living room. That was it. No chairs, coffee tables, stereo systems. I guessed it was hard to buy everything all at once when he’d gotten out of jail. But then I wondered about the Cadillac.

  His eyes followed mine around the room. “You’re making assumptions again,” he said. “Maybe that’s my fault. Let’s start over.” He extended his hand and spoke in a snotty, pretentious voice. “Hello, I’m Junior Salazar of the Minter Salazars, it’s so nice to meet you.” He smiled, and I couldn’t help smiling back. It was that kind of smile.

  I shook his hand. “Alex Jordan.” I considered him for a minute. “You don’t look like a Junior to me.”

  “What does a Junior look like?”

  I shrugged. “I guess maybe a two hundred and fifty-pound bouncer at a strip club.”

  “You been spending a lot of time at strip clubs, have you?”

  “I like Mikey better.”

  “Suit yourself.” He went to the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Beer or soda?”

  “Beer.” Beer had been growing on me over the past week, to the point where now it actually sounded good. I mentally groaned and wondered if a perm could be far behind.

  He brought a six-pack to the dining room table, and we sat. “My brother was a professional baseball player for a few years. He made good money, and he bought me the car as a homecoming present. End of story.”

  I hadn’t asked about the car. He was starting to creep me out with the mind-reading thing.

  “I’m not a mind reader. When you’re an ex-con, you get used to people thinking certain things about you. I watched you when you came in, and I could see the wheels turning.” He looked at me again now. “By the way, what is this outfit you’re wearing? Somebody die?”

  I looked down at my all-black ensemble. “It’s my breaking and entering outfit.”

  Mikey laughed out loud. “Did you go to the mall and buy it special?”

  “Okay, what about this?” I asked. We’d finally gotten back to the subject of the arson, and I was wracking my brain to come up with something, anything really, that I could go to Jimmy C with so he’d lay off Kevin and Danny. I’d ruled out alien invasions and terrorism, but everything else was still on the table. “Rumor has it the gravel yard’s gone legit.” I tried not to sound skeptical. “What if the mob people didn’t like that idea, and so they torched Jenkins’ place, not as a message to him, but as a message to you. You know, that they could frame you for it and you’d be right back in the slammer unless you went along and let them continue to run things.”

  He nodded. “You’re not as bad at this as you think you are. Well, nobody calls it ‘the slammer.’ But that’s a good thought. Only the mob has been out of the gravel yard for about five years now. They never were real big here, you know, just some small-time numbers and loan sharking stuff, plus the knee-cap-breaking th
at goes along with that. When the Mexican gangs started moving into Minter, things got messy. They were dealing a lot more drugs, and the violence was more random and, well, violent. The gangs aren’t just breaking fingers to remind you to pay your vig. They’ll kill each other for wearing the wrong colors. The climate changed, and finally Casaletto just pulled his operation out. Told my father and uncles they were even and that was that.”

  “So you really are legit.”

  “Yep.”

  “Shit.”

  Mikey smiled. “I think that myself all the time.”

  “What about Jenkins? Supposedly, he’s the one who called Danny out there that night, said he wanted to talk to him about you. You have any idea why? Maybe he has an axe to grind with Danny, and he framed him?”

  “Jenkins is a nice guy, and nobody ever has an axe to grind with Danny. I think he just wanted to know if I really am the fine, upstanding citizen I claim to be. I guess he’d be worried about making a deal with me if he thought that meant he was making a deal with the mob. Danny’s a local hero, baseball player, fire captain. I guess Jenkins wanted to hear from him that I was okay.”

  I had an unpleasant thought. “Why do you think he’s disappeared? You don’t think he’s dead, do you?”

  “Nah, I think he was probably on his way to meet Danny and saw the flames and figured me and my mob buddies had lit the place up when I heard he was checking on me. Probably scared the shit out of him, and he took off.”

  “Hunh.” I hadn’t thought of that. I yawned. It was getting late and it had been a long day and the beer was having an effect.

  “Let’s go back to your way of looking at it,” Mikey said, ignoring the hint. “Let’s assume the arson was after the fact, to cover up the murder. Or at least confuse the issue. Who would want Chambers dead?”

  “Well, Sherry is an obvious choice. He evidently used her as a punching bag.”

  Mikey shook his head. “I doubt it. Trust me. She might have eventually worked up the courage to leave him, but most abused women don’t fight back.”