Sherry Lewis - Count on a Cop

by Her Secret Family

  Mason’s eyebrow arched. “He’s looking for one?”

  “I’m a woman doing a ‘man’s job.’ Some guys can handle it. Some can’t. My captain thinks I’m emotional and unfocused. Too busy thinking about fashion and babies, I guess.”

  Mason raked a gaze across her face that left her distinctly uncomfortable. “You don’t want kids?”

  “I don’t have anything against kids,” she assured him quickly, “and I don’t not want them. When I was younger, I always thought I’d have one or two, but it didn’t happen, and now… Well, now I don’t see them in my future, that’s all. Men on the force can have a home and family and get away with it. It’s harder for women.”

  “It shouldn’t be.”

  “But it is. If life were the way it should be, a whole lot of things would be different.”

  Mason conceded that point with a dip of his head. “So your job is on the line if you don’t pull all of this together in some way you can live with? Well, good. There’s no pressure, then.”

  Jolene grinned. “I’m not asking you to work miracles,” she assured him. “Just tell me what to read. Answer questions. I know how you feel about your heritage, and I know it’s a lot to ask…”

  He leaned against a support post and shook his head. “Have you ever felt as if everything is conspiring to make you do something? Something you really don’t want to do?” When Jolene didn’t respond, he gave a hollow laugh. “First Debra, and now you. I guess it’s time for me to deal with my past.”

  Jolene held up both hands. “I don’t want you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

  “Everything about this is going to make me uncomfortable,” he said, shoving away from the post. “But I have it on good authority that I’m pretty lame, so what’s a guy to do, huh? Ike tells me there’s a powwow coming up in a couple of weeks. You might want to start by checking that out.”

  “A powwow?” she asked, touched that he would put Debra first and hoping her voice sounded reasonably normal. “They still have those?”

  “All the time. The one Ike told me about is being sponsored by the Cherokee Cultural Center to raise money for the tribal elders. I’m probably going to have to take Debra. Are you interested in joining us?”

  Jolene nodded. “Yes. Thanks. But are you sure you’re okay with all of this?”

  “No. But I’ll survive.” He stepped past her and opened the library’s heavy glass door. “Ready? I’ll show you some books that will get you started.”

  She stepped through the door, more aware of him than ever, of his height, the slightly spicy scent of his aftershave, the cut of his jaw and the steely determination in his eye. But this was so much more than the physical attraction that had been nagging at her since the day they met, and she had a feeling this wasn’t going to be easy to ignore.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE NEXT FEW DAYS FLEW by so quickly, Jolene barely had time to think. Increased activity on their beat gave evidence of a new meth lab in the area. Mike Santini and his partner, Darren Ross, made an arrest just ten feet from an elementary school, and the dealer they hauled in—a registered sex offender known to target six-to eight-year-olds—gave everyone on the squad the creeps. It was Friday before Jolene and Ryan had a chance to track down their lead on Vivienne Beck.

  They found Vivienne working at The Beauty Mark on 11th Street, a low-slung concrete block building that spewed noxious chemical scents every time the door opened. How some women could subject themselves to hours of poking, prodding, pulling, yanking, waxing, filing and lacquering was beyond Jolene’s comprehension. The twenty minutes she spent having her hair trimmed once every three months was almost more than she could tolerate.

  As they approached the salon, the door opened and two Latino women deep in conversation came out. Each clutched a collection of bags from a morning shopping expedition, both wore formfitting pants and camisoles edged with lace and beads. In spite of her aversion to the whole beauty and fashion thing, Jolene suddenly felt large and clumsy in her industrial-strength slacks, toss-it-in-the-washer blazer and sensible flat-soled shoes.

  Ryan’s head turned briefly as the women passed, and Jolene found herself wondering what it felt like to be that kind of woman. Not that she wanted to be. Not really. Although it might be nice to know you could turn one man’s head.

  She took one last breath of fresh air and ducked through the door. Alan Jackson’s “Chatahoochie” played softly in the background, but the women inside were all too busy to pay attention.

  Since Ryan seemed convinced that they were wasting their time, Jolene took the lead. They were directed to the back of the salon by a skunk-haired receptionist who told them Vivienne was folding towels in the employee break room.

  Sure enough, they found a small woman with spiky hair so dark it was almost black working on the towels, clearly bored. Beneath her black smock, she wore a short skirt and her bare feet were arched into stiletto heels so high Jolene’s calf muscles cramped in sympathy.

  The woman, who Jolene guessed to be in her mid-twenties, glanced up when she sensed movement by the door. Seeing them, she frowned. Before Jolene could even open her mouth, though, she slumped against the wall. “Don’t tell me—cops, right?”

  Jolene nodded and moved into the room. The homey scent of fabric softener took the burn out of the chemical-laced air. “That’s right. Are you Vivienne Beck?”

  “I am.” She got up to put a stack of towels in an overhead cupboard. The hem of her skirt drooped in the back where the stitching had come undone, but either she didn’t know or she didn’t care. “What do you want?”

  “I’m Sergeant Preston, with Tulsa PD. This is my partner Detective Fielding. We’d like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

  Vivienne regarded them through close-set blue eyes, their color startling and unnatural in contrast to her nearly black hair. “About what?”

  “We’re looking for a guy who goes by the name of Big Red. We were told you might know where to find him.”

  Vivienne rolled her eyes and shut the cupboard with a bang. “Surprise, surprise. Red’s having trouble with the police.” Returning to the table, she swept something onto the floor and picked up a second stack of towels. “How’d you find me?”

  “Someone mentioned your name. Do you know where we can find Red?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  Ryan looked smug, but Jolene thought it was a predictable answer. Nobody ever knows where to find anybody else—at least not the first few times they’re asked. “Can you tell us when you saw him last?”

  Vivienne shrugged and pulled a fresh load of towels from the dryer. “A few weeks ago, maybe.”

  “Are you planning on seeing him again soon?”

  “I never plan on anything when it comes to Red,” Vivienne said, her voice suddenly sharp. “He comes and goes. I never know when he’s going to be around and when he isn’t.”

  Trying to look like someone Vivienne could confide in, Jolene worked up a sympathetic smile. “That must drive you crazy.”

  “Not really. You get used to it.”

  “Yeah, I guess you would. So the two of you haven’t split up, then?”

  “Split up?” Vivienne laughed through her nose. “You think Red is my boyfriend?”

  “He’s not?”

  “No. He’s my brother.”

  Jolene looked at Ryan, but his expression didn’t change, didn’t give anything away. “My mistake,” she said with a smile. “Then you can tell us what his real name is, can’t you?”

  Vivienne shrugged. “Sure. Why not? It’s Russell Alan Beck. Red to his friends. So tell me, what’s he done now?”

  Ryan answered while Jolene jotted down the information Vivienne had given them so far. “He hasn’t done anything that we know of.”

  Vivienne looked confused, so Jolene offered a bit more. “Nobody’s seen him for a couple of weeks. We’re trying to make sure he’s all right.”

  The young woman’s express
ion clouded. “You are cops, aren’t you?”

  “Yes we are.”

  “And you just stopped by to make sure my junkie brother is all right? What is this, a slow crime day?”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” Jolene admitted, “but we do need to find him. It’s important.”

  “When you saw him last,” Ryan said, “how did he seem to you?”

  “Pretty much the same as always.”

  “He didn’t seem worried? Agitated? Nervous?”

  “No,” Vivienne said slowly. “Why? Did something happen to him?”

  Ryan ignored the question. “Did he say anything to you that might help us figure out where he is?”

  “We didn’t talk much. I don’t have a lot to say to him.” She looked from one to the other slowly, and Jolene could see the woman’s irritation giving way to fear. “You think something’s happened to him, don’t you?”

  Jolene tried not to compare her family situation with Vivienne’s, but she knew that if anything happened to her parents or Trevor while they were estranged, she’d have to live with the guilt for the rest of her life. “We don’t know,” she reassured Vivienne. “We’re trying to find out.”

  Clearly shaken, Vivienne sank onto a chair. “What do you think happened to him?”

  “Maybe nothing,” Jolene said before Ryan could answer. “It’s possible he’s just lying low somewhere.”

  “Hiding? Why? From what?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out. You said you saw him a few weeks ago?”

  Vivienne nodded and drew a towel from the pile in front of her. “That’s right.”

  “Do you remember the date?”

  “The middle of April. Tax day.”

  The day after the failed Zika bust. Jolene leaned forward. Even Ryan looked interested in that. “You’re sure about that?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Positive. He ripped off the money my dad was going to pay his taxes with.” She smiled halfheartedly. “He’s bled my parents dry for years and ripped me off so many times I’ve lost count. He even stole from my grandmother while she was in bed dying of cancer. What kind of person does that?”

  That was a question Jolene wouldn’t answer. “Did he steal from you the last time you saw him?”

  “Me? No. I’ve finally learned my lesson.”

  “Are you sure your parents didn’t give the money to Red voluntarily?”

  “Positive. I thought my dad was going to have a heart attack when they found out it was gone.” Vivienne spotted a string dangling from a towel, wrapped it around her finger and snapped it off. “My parents don’t have a lot. We’re all doing good just to scrape by.”

  “How much did he take?” Ryan asked.

  “A little over two thousand. He got my mother’s ATM card. She’s a… Well, she’s always been soft-hearted when it comes to Red. Either she told him the PIN code or he guessed it. However he got it, he cleaned out her checking account, and nobody’s seen him since.”

  Ryan met Jolene’s gaze over Vivienne’s head. “Two thousand wouldn’t last long on the streets.”

  “That would depend on where he goes, wouldn’t it?” Jolene asked. “Has he been in contact with either of your parents since then?”

  “He’s not stupid enough to contact my dad,” Vivienne said with a humorless smile, “but I suppose he might have called Mom. She probably wouldn’t tell me if he had.”

  Jolene added Mommy Dearest to the list of people she wanted to talk to. “Can you think of anywhere he might have gone if he wanted to lie low? Somewhere he might consider safe?”

  Vivienne shook her head. “No, but then he disappears so often, I’ve given up trying to figure him out. We don’t see him for weeks and even months at a time, but eventually he runs out of money and shows up again.”

  Ryan pulled a business card from his pocket and passed it to her. “I’m sure that’s what’s happened this time, too. Thank you for your time, Ms. Beck. If you think of anything else, give one of us a call.”

  Stunned by his sudden about-face, Jolene trailed him through the salon. She held her tongue until they were outside on the sidewalk, but there she rounded on him. “What was that?”

  Ryan stepped around her and started toward the car. “What was what?”

  “That crap you just pulled inside. I wasn’t finished with her.”

  “You’re wasting your time, Jo. She doesn’t know anything.”

  His attitude made her cheeks burn. “She knew Red found himself a nice little bankroll before he disappeared,” she snapped. Ryan loped across the street during a break in traffic. Growing more furious by the second, Jolene followed and slid into the Crown Vic just as Ryan started the engine. “You’re so determined to be right, you’re not even listening.”

  Ryan pulled into traffic. “Getting emotional about this isn’t going to help, Jo.”

  Jolene’s mouth fell open. “Emotional? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Are you going to tell me you aren’t letting Big Red’s disappearance get to you?”

  “What’s getting to me,” Jolene snarled, “is the way you don’t seem to care. You’ve decided he’s dead in some alley or under some bridge, and you’d rather not be bothered to look any further.”

  “He’s been missing for three weeks,” Ryan pointed out with annoying calm. “If he were still alive, he’d have surfaced already, if only to score a buy.”

  “Not if he has a good reason to stay hidden.”

  “He left his duffel bag behind. He never went anywhere without that thing.”

  “He stole two thousand dollars a couple of days before he disappeared, and there’s no sign of that money in his pack.”

  “Which there wouldn’t be if someone rolled him for the money.”

  “If someone rolled him for the money, we’d have a body, wouldn’t we?” That shut Ryan up. “If Red wanted Raoul Zika to back off, appearing to disappear is one way to do it.”

  A scowl puckered Ryan’s face as he stopped for a traffic light. “So now you think he faked his own death? Come on, Jo. Get real.”

  She shifted in her seat as far as her seat belt would allow. “Look, I know there’s no evidence to support my theory. I know that. It’s just a feeling. You saw the look on Red’s face when he was telling us about that shipment. He wasn’t telling us everything he knew.”

  “That’s pure speculation.”

  “Yeah, and so’s this. We show up the night Zika’s planning to move the drugs. He knows we’re there because I roust the kids. But why do you think somebody like Red knew about that shipment in the first place? Why would Zika tell Red, of all people, that he’s planning on moving a shipment of dope?”

  Very slowly, Ryan shrugged. “He wouldn’t.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. My guess is that only a few trusted people knew about that shipment. But then we show up, and three days later, Red just happens to overdose or take a dive off a bridge. Coincidence?”

  “Could be,” Ryan said, but he didn’t sound nearly so confident now.

  “Could also be that Red wasn’t supposed to know about that shipment. Maybe he was somewhere he shouldn’t have been, heard something he shouldn’t have heard and he saw it as a chance to improve his standard of living.”

  “By calling us?”

  “Why not? He’s facing drug charges that could put him away for a long time. He accidentally picks up a choice piece of information but, through no fault of his own, the bust that’s supposed to earn his freedom goes sour. What does he do next?”

  Ryan took his eyes off the road for a heartbeat. “You think he went to Zika?”

  “No, I don’t think Red is that stupid. But I think he told someone else, and I think whoever he told ratted him out. Somehow, he found out and went into hiding.”

  “That’s where your theory really falls apart,” Ryan said. “Red didn’t know anything that posed a threat to Zika. The bust—as you said—went sour. Zika was in the clear.”

  �
�Which brings us right back to my idea that Red knew more than what he told us.”

  Ryan thought about that for a couple of blocks. “Even if you’re right,” he said at last, “that backs up my theory as much as it does yours. Red has something on Zika. Zika finds out, and—” He put two fingers to his forehead and pretended to pull the trigger.

  “But it also means that if Red is dead, it wasn’t an accident.”

  Ryan shook his head firmly. “It’s an interesting theory, but there’s still not one shred of evidence to support it.”

  “That’s because we haven’t been asking the right questions. I think we should talk to OC again. I’ll bet anything that OC is either the one who ratted Red out to Zika, or he knows who did.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “Then I’m wrong. No big deal.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Ryan looked at the passing storefronts for half a block or so then said, “I think you’re blaming yourself for Red’s disappearance. That’s why you’re grasping at solutions, even when they don’t make a whole lot of sense, and that’s why you’re so determined to see this through.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Am I?” He glanced at her.

  “Absolutely. I’m just trying to do my job.”

  “By making sure you don’t shoulder the blame. Red gave us a tip. Now he’s gone, and you’re trying to make sure nobody can blame you for that.”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “Are you crazy? Why would I even think someone might blame me?”

  “Because we would have had Zika if not for those kids.”

  Jolene began to feel uneasy. “Do you really believe that?”

  “You don’t?”

  “Now which one of us is delusional?” she asked, trying to sound more confident than she felt. “Zika has slipped through our fingers several times. What makes you think this bust would have been any different?”

  He shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know, will we?”