Home Free

by Sonnjea Blackwell

  And now, it seemed, God had gotten in on the game. Ginger was a doctor. Great.

  “Well?” she pressed.

  “Never mind. I made a mistake. See ya.” I made for the door, but I wasn’t fast enough.

  “So, the rumors of your mental decay are evidently true.” She had finished her examination of Sherry, who still appeared to be asleep, and came around the bed to face me. She closed the privacy curtain. “What about the other rumors? Are you really seeing Jack Murphy?”

  There was a little hint of envy, or at least grudging respect, that I could get a guy like Jack. She’d probably cough up a lung if she knew I’d been involved with Danny, and had in fact been kissing him in public a couple days ago. She wouldn’t believe the truth, though. So I told a more believable lie.

  “Actually, Jack and I eloped this weekend. Went to Tahoe and tied the knot.” I grinned like a happy newlywed.

  “What? You didn’t! Let me see the ring.”

  “We don’t have rings yet. It was a spur of the moment thing, and we decided to get rings and have a big ceremony later on. For New Year’s.” I didn’t know where this was coming from, but I was thoroughly enjoying the shocked expression on Ginger’s face. I wondered if she had a thing for Jack, or if they’d actually dated or something.

  “Well, congratulations,” she stammered. “Tell Jack I wish him all the best.” She left to continue her rounds, and I followed her out the door, feeling pretty darn pleased with myself until I realized the rumor of my marriage to Jack would probably reach all points by lunchtime.

  Angela was still waiting where I’d left her. Brian was beside her. Crap.

  “That was thoughtful of you,” he was saying. “How did you know Sherry’s clothes had been burned?”

  “Well, I live - ”

  “Here,” I said, stepping into the space between them. If he was the helper, he sure as hell didn’t need to know Angela had been spying on Sherry’s place.

  “What?” Angela asked.

  “What?” Brian asked. “She lives here? In the hospital. What are you talking about, Alex? And why are you here?”

  “Well, I meant she practically lives here, she’s so dedicated to her volunteer work. She’s a candystriper.”

  Angela stared at me for a beat, then nodded. “Right, and I found out Sherry’s house had burned and so I came by with some clothes for her.”

  Brian turned to face me now. “But why are you here, Alex?” I was wondering the same about him. When I hadn’t found him in the room with Sherry, I’d been relieved. But it looked like his intention had been along those lines and he just hadn’t got here in time.

  “You know, I went by to ask her about Lonnie. There was no house there, and the firemen told me she was here. So I came to check on her. You?”

  Brian looked from me to Angela, then glanced at the wall clock. “And how do you two know each other?”

  Shit. Good question.

  “She’s my mentor,” Angela replied.

  Yeah, I thought, I’m teaching her to lie.

  “She’s your mentor?” Brian obviously thought exceedingly highly of me.

  “Yeah. She called the high school to see if any art students wanted a mentor. They gave her my name. She’s teaching me graphic design.”

  Now Brian looked at me with a grudging respect. I thought he and Ginger might have to form a support group for people forced to think better of Alex Jordan than they were inclined to.

  “Your turn, Brian. Why are you here?” There was no newspaper article about Sherry. How the fuck did he know she was in the hospital?

  He stumbled on his words, stammering unintelligible syllables like, “I, uh, oh, well, um,” until Angela saved him.

  “Insurance, right?”

  “What?” he snapped.

  “I’m sure your brother came by to do something with Sherry’s insurance claim from the fire, right?”

  “Right, of course. I have paperwork that she needs to sign so we can process her claim.”

  Angela and I both looked around for paperwork, briefcase, anything that might lend support to the obvious lie, but there was nothing. He didn’t seem to notice. He kept checking his watch.

  “Are you late for something?” I asked.

  Just then, two orderlies wheeled an empty gurney off the elevator and headed in our direction. Brian’s face fell.

  “Excuse us, please. We’re transferring this patient. Are you family?”

  “No, we’re her family,” came a voice from the opposite direction. Evidently Sherry’s parents. They looked nice. Normal. But then so did my parents.

  “Well, let us get out of your way, then,” I said, moving Angela and Brian aside. The orderlies and Sherry’s parents went into her room. Brian had no paperwork and no reason to go inside, but I wasn’t leaving until he left. I made small talk with Angela. Finally, Brian seemed to conclude there was no point to hang around, so he said goodbye and turned to leave.

  “I have to leave, too,” I told Angela. She nodded and went her own way. “I’ll walk out with you, Brian.”

  We walked to the elevator and pressed the down button, waiting in tense silence. The elevator came and the two riders got off and Brian and I got on, and I remembered Mikey’s advice not to be alone with my brother and I began to mentally hyperventilate. But he didn’t hit the stop button or attempt to strangle me with his necktie or anything, so I decided to push my luck.

  “So you do know Sherry, then,” I said, as casually as my fear-constricted throat would allow.

  Brian’s jaw clenched a couple of times and he swallowed audibly. “She’s a customer. I don’t know all of the company’s customers personally, Alex.” He was creeping me out, and the sick feeling in my gut was intensifying. Although that may have been hunger. A granola bar and coffee wasn’t exactly a hearty breakfast.

  “Did you forget the paperwork in your car?”

  “What paperwork?”

  The doors opened on the first floor. I was still alive, and Brian stalked across the lobby and out the door without so much as a goodbye. I watched until the Music Man car disappeared, then I went outside and got in the Element, turned on the engine so I could turn on the air, and wondered.

  Was Brian the faulty-wiring-helper? Had he come to the hospital to finish the job? Was he a concerned friend? Did he simply forget the insurance paperwork in the car? There were two bouquets of flowers in Sherry’s room. I assumed one was from her parents. Maybe Brian had sent the other, then come by to check on Sherry in person because he was worried about his mistress?

  I checked my watch. The police station was just across the street, but I still had a while before my meeting time with Jimmy C. I pondered my options, then put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking spot.

  My next stop was Jenkins’ Auto Body. I passed the gravel yard and pulled into the body shop parking lot. There was yellow crime scene tape around what was left of the office. The explosion had blown out the front windows, which were now boarded over, and there was a padlock on the front door. A blue tarp was stretched over the roof. I walked around the building, trying to see inside. My cell phone began playing the theme from Love Story. Every time it rang, it played something different. I couldn’t seem to control it.

  “What?”

  “You wouldn’t be tampering with a crime scene, now would you?” Mikey.

  I looked over at the gravel yard. The office door opened and he stepped out and nodded in my direction. I waved, and he went back inside.

  “I didn’t do anything. I’m just looking.”

  “Well, you’re not wearing your breaking and entering outfit, so I guess I believe you. Any word on Sherry?”

  How the hell did he know about that? I wondered.

  “It’s not a big mystery, Alex,” he said, reading my mind again. “My brother called me last night and asked if I knew anything about it.” I didn’t say anything, so he went on. “I didn’t.”

  I wasn’t getting a bad vibe from him, and
my gut felt fine, so I gave him the update about the rehab and Brian being at the hospital.

  “I think it might be my fault, Mikey. I told Brian I was going to go back to Sherry’s to talk to her about Lonnie.” I felt a little shaky, but I refused to let myself cry again.

  “So you think your brother did it? Lonnie, I mean.”

  I didn’t want to think that. Who wants to think their brother is a psycho? Even if I’d never liked him, I’d never thought of him as evil. And my parents would be devastated if it was true. But if he was letting Danny and Kevin squirm over something he’d done, I wouldn’t feel the tiniest bit bad about him getting caught.

  “I’m starting to think it’s a possibility.”

  “We need to push him, get him excited so he fucks up.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. I need to think. I’ll call you back.”

  I hung up and shoved the cell phone in my purse. I had come to the back corner of the building, and there was a window there that hadn’t blown out, but the outside was covered with dust from the gravel yard, and I couldn’t see in. I poked around in my purse for a tissue and came out with a card instead. I looked at it. It was the invitation Brian had left yesterday. I pulled the phone out again and dialed Mikey.

  “Missed me already?”

  “Hey, do you have plans tonight?” I asked, rubbing a clear circle on the window with my fist.

  “What?”

  “I have an idea for pushing Brian. Pick me up at six. Wear a suit.”

  “A suit?”

  I forgot I was in Minter. “It’s a political fundraiser. I think it’s fancy.”

  I gave him directions and peered in the window. I assumed it was Jenkins’ office, with a desk and telephone and some filing cabinets, and it appeared to be relatively unscathed, save for a thick layer of oily soot over everything. I didn’t see how that was going to help me. I turned and surveyed the rest of the area. The window faced the gravel yard parking lot. Around the corner, there was another door that opened directly from Jenkins’ private office to an asphalt strip leading to the actual body shop, which consisted of two large aluminum buildings with two roll-up doors each. The back office door was intact, locked but not padlocked. There were a few car carcasses abandoned in the lot, but I couldn’t see inside the bays. A pebble worked its way into my left shoe, and I shifted my foot to a more comfortable position. I sighed and went back around the front and got in the car and drove towards the police station. I didn’t know what I’d thought I would find, but I was pretty sure I hadn’t found it.

  I parked on the street in front of Courthouse Park, locked the car and went in search of Jimmy C. Just then, he sauntered down the steps from the court building. We met at a bench and sat down.

  “So, I take it there’s new information.” I noticed him looking at my hand, and I brushed the dirt off of it.

  He nodded, and I could tell I wasn’t going to like his news. “Chambers had been living with and abusing a woman Danny used to know. An old girlfriend.”

  I was holding my breath, my teeth clenched. I’d gone down the same road, of course, but I knew it was a dead end and I couldn’t believe the cops would buy into it. “And?”

  “Jealousy, rage over the abuse, who knows?” He shrugged. “Danny’s mom’s a battered wife, so he has issues. He’s a fireman, they like to be heroes. You name it.”

  “That’s crap.” Firemen didn’t go around shooting people to be heroes.

  He shrugged. He didn’t care if it was crap if it got him an arrest, I thought.

  I went on, in my most sarcastic tone. “Let’s see, Danny had a motive and the opportunity and the means, according to this scenario. So why don’t you just arrest him? He could have gotten the chemicals from someone other than my brother, and his own brother was busy getting loaded with the Clampers. Sounds pretty open and shut to me.”

  “I still think it was Junior. But the connection between Danny and Chambers strengthens our case against Danny, and I’m hoping to use that to get to his brother. We’re getting pressure to make an arrest, and people have been convicted on less evidence than we have on Danny. And you sure as hell didn’t hear any of this from me, understand?”

  “What about the fire at Sherry Henderson’s house last night?”

  Jimmy C’s eyebrows shot up. He clearly hadn’t expected me to know about that, and just as clearly hadn’t been planning to tell me himself. “What are you doing, Alex? You promised me you wouldn’t get involved, you just wanted to know what was happening for your own peace of mind.”

  “Well, that’s when I thought the Minter Police Department gave a damn about justice. Now that I know it doesn’t, I’m not leaving the investigation up to you guys.”

  “That’s not fair. We are investigating every lead. You’re angry because none of them clears your brother. Tell me how you know about Sherry’s house. It wasn’t in the paper.”

  I sighed. “I’m friends with Sherry’s neighbor. She mentioned it to me. I stopped by the house this morning and the firemen said it was faulty wiring. That’s bullshit. Whoever was trying to keep Lonnie quiet was also trying to keep Sherry quiet. I don’t know what they wanted them to be quiet about, though. Do you?”

  Jimmy C shook his head. “What I do know is that Junior Salazar delivered a bouquet of flowers to Sherry Henderson’s hospital room this morning.”

  “WHAT?” That was the second vase in Sherry’s room. What the hell was wrong with me? I suspected my own brother, but I didn’t even doubt a guy I hardly knew. Who just happened to be a convicted murderer. Maybe I did have a brain tumor.

  “When we got the fire call on the scanner last night, I assigned a car to tail Salazar. He was home at the time of the fire, didn’t leave the house till six this morning. He went to the market, got a big vase of flowers, and drove to the hospital. My unit radioed for orders. I told him to let Salazar go into Sherry’s room, then go in after him. But Junior didn’t go in. He left the vase and the card at the second floor nurses’ station, then left and drove to the gravel yard.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means he spotted the tail.”

  “Or it could mean he just wanted to leave flowers and not disturb Sherry since it was so early and she’d obviously had a rough night.” I didn’t want to believe I’d been wrong about Mikey. I liked him. And I’d had a really bad feeling about Brian at the hospital this morning.

  “And how exactly did Junior know she’d had a rough night?”

  Shit. Because Danny had called him? Or because he’d been there? “Maybe he has a scanner.”

  Jimmy C harrumphed. “Junior or Danny or both had something going on with Chambers and his woman, and I’m going to find out what it was. Maybe your brother was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or maybe you don’t know him as well as you think you do. I’m going to find that out, too. But now you need to keep your promise and stay out of this.”

  I was wondering how well I did know my brother, only not the brother Jimmy C was referring to. I thanked him and hobbled to my car, trying to rearrange the pebble as I walked. The morning had been a bust, and I was grouchy and hot and hungry and my foot hurt. I drove home thinking cranky thoughts about small town cops.

  When I turned onto Shasta, I slowed to a crawl. A block up, at my house, the behemoth truck was gone, replaced by a little red Mustang. I sucked in some air and drove on, pulling in next to the sportscar. At least my car didn’t look like a toy next to it.

  Danny sat on the front steps, watching me, and I thought maybe the day was looking up.

  “Hey,” he said, legs sprawled along the steps. Lucifer meandered over, pushed his head into Danny’s thigh and did a little somersault, ending in a purring ball.

  “Hey.” I sat down next to them.

  He gave a sniff in my direction. “Why do you smell like smoke?”

  I didn’t smell it, but leave it to a fireman to notice. I figured telling the fire captain I’d spent the morning poking a
round arson sites wouldn’t go over that well, so discretion being the better part of valor and all that, I lied. I was getting better at it. “It was a daring rescue attempt this morning. Unfortunately, the toast couldn’t be saved.”

  “Uh-hunh. You didn’t elope with Murphy after we went to the batting cage the other day, did you?”

  My momentary victory over Ginger Jorgenson this morning came back to haunt me already. “Let me think... Uh, no, I’m pretty sure I went to my parents’ for a barbecue.”

  “Just checking.”

  “So. About Sherry’s fire.”

  He nodded. “Electrical fire. Her electrical system wasn’t up to code. Big surprise. So it was potentially hazardous, but there’s not enough of anything left to tell if the fire was spontaneous or deliberate.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yep.”

  “Both of our brothers went to the hospital this morning. Mikey said you told him about the fire. Did you?”

  “Yeah. You tell Brian?”

  “Hunh-uh.”

  He stroked the cat and spoke quietly. “I have a meeting with a lawyer this afternoon.”

  “You talked to Jimmy C?”

  He nodded, his eyes tired. “This is a fucking nightmare.”

  I stood up and stepped over him and put the key in the lock. I opened the door and turned back. “You want to come inside? It’s too hot out here for me.”

  Danny followed me into the living room, shutting the door behind us. I was hopping on my right foot, trying to get my left sneaker off as I walked. I yanked it loose, and the pebble flew out, and I sat down hard on the chair. He sat across from me on the couch and hoisted his legs up, resting his boots on the coffee table. He had on a pale blue polo shirt, and his hair looked like he’d run his fingers through the curls after showering and left it like that. I kind of wanted to do that myself right now.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Danny and I were lounging by my parents’ pool, enjoying the late August day. Kevin was working an early shift at the motorcycle shop because their championship game was later that evening. Which was the same reason Danny gave for not wanting to fool around with me. Something about needing strength in his legs, blah blah blah. He splashed water at me with his foot, and I retaliated by turning the garden hose on him.