“Drunk driver took her body. Work is what killed her.” The woman snorted. “Work. Can’t even call it that. Stripping. Taking her clothes off for sweaty men.”
Mama had done a slow strip to old jazz standards. That was part of where Jace had found her love of jazz. Mama had worked those gigs in the early 1990’s when most dancers were using hair metal and hip-hop. The jazz, and her stage name, Salome, had made Mama different. Late at night, when Jace was vulnerable and missed her mother, she could believe that Mama had been something more than just a stripper. Gramma had never been able to make that distinction.
The old woman cupped Jace’s face in withered hands and whispered, “Don’t let it win, Jace; it’ll take your soul.”
“ ‘It’ what?”
Gramma kissed Jace’s forehead and hugged her tightly. “All of it. Good guys and bad guys and cops and robbers and . . . the violence.”
“Gramma, I’m fine.”
“Listen, just because you’re part of violence’s world don’t mean you have to let the violence be part of your world. Violence begats violence.”
“Begats? You’ve been talking to Preacher? Letting him read Genesis during the dominoes games?” Jace tried on a smile but knew it didn’t fit well.
Gramma ground her jaw. “Damn it, Jace, don’t ignore me. I lost my daughter to stupid shit and I’m not going to lose my granddaughter, too. You never got hurt a day in your life and now you’ve always got bandages. That place is killing you, and I don’t give a stone’s shit in hell what that crazy old Bukowski says; you wanna quit then you walk out the door. Come home and let’s run this place together. There’s enough work; you won’t be bored. We’ll run it together, then I’ll die and it’ll all be yours.”
“Gramma.” Jace held tightly to the woman’s hand. “I love you more than you’ll ever know. After Mama died you were the only thing that kept me whole, you and Grapa.”
“You kept us whole.”
“We healed each other, then. I am never leaving you; I will always be here.” She indicated the Sea Spray. “And here.” She touched Gramma’s heart. “Always and forever, but I like this job. Yes, sometimes it’s a bad job, but it’s a good bad job.”
Gramma harrumphed. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“I’m helping.”
“By getting hurt.”
“No, by helping. Von Holton was going to string Mercer up and I figured it out. Yeah, I had help, but I figured it out. Me.”
“I know, but—”
“Listen to me. I might be good at this job. Might not; I don’t know yet. But if I am, it’ll be the only thing I’ve ever been good at. The video store? Porn to creepy old men and teenagers trying to pass for men. The music store? How many times can I sell the sheet music for ‘The Power of Love’ for weddings without going completely batty?”
Gramma sighed. “I know all that. You were lost and unsure and afraid of the world after your mama died, but this—” Gramma looked away, held her hands together in front of her. “Is a scary job.”
Jace waved her hand dismissively. “Couple of cuts. No big deal. What happened with Badgett doesn’t happen again. Every officer gets their big case. Mine happened my first night.”
“Jace,” Gramma said sharply, her voice like a blade. “Don’t patronize me. This job is dangerous and unpredictable.”
“I’m sorry; I wasn’t trying to be patronizing. Yes, this can be a dangerous job, but I’m strong and I’m smart and I promise you I’ll never let it get between us. I will keep this job away from you. I promise this with all my heart.”
“Bah. Whatever.”
Jace laughed. “You’re turning into quite the crazy old lady, aren’t you?”
Without a grin, her face set and tight, Gramma headed down the stairs. “Probably.”
Twenty minutes later, Jace and Preacher stood at the corner of Lee Street and East Industrial Avenue. Preacher had asked a few times how her days were going—he could always tell when something had gotten inside her—but she ignored his questions with jokes so weak they limped from her mouth.
Lee Street was one of two or three north-side entrances to The Flat, which spread from the south side of Zachary City like a pool of spilled gasoline. When Jace was little, there had been more streets that crossed from the old Highway 80 to The Flat, but the city fathers, startled at the sheer amount of brown and black they saw every time they drove past on their way to City Hall, had closed two of the main streets that crossed the highway and railroad tracks and snaked into The Flat. There had been an outcry, community activists and residents and everyone of the belief that cutting the trade routes with the larger Zach City would weaken the local economy. Outwardly, it had. There were fewer cafes and convenience stores and video stores and liquor shops. But behind the boarded-up storefronts, there was a thriving economy, and that was the economy Mama had reveled in. She’d always bought her booze and tobacco down here—homebrewed liquor, cigarettes hijacked from trucks in Dallas or El Paso or Oklahoma City and sent to the seedier areas of Texas towns to be sold from under even seedier counters.
As Jace and Preacher strolled The Flat’s aged sidewalks, black and brown faces stared back at them. Sometimes those faces were angry and sometimes they were guarded, but always they were curious. The challenging eyes and body language didn’t intimidate Jace. She believed she understood the fragrance of the area’s humanity. Most everyone down here was just trying to boogie to their own tune and get on with their own lives as best they could. Not too damned many of them gave a crap about some white chick wandering around with a lunatic black preacher while flashing a picture of a dead black kid.
They were on South Lee Street, about ten miles east of the Sea Spray Inn. Four blocks north of them was Highway 80 and the railroad tracks, and another two blocks north from there was the county courthouse and the jail. Between where they were and Highway 80 were six or eight small businesses lined up like prisoners to be searched. When she started to go inside one, Preacher stopped her with a nod toward a man on the sidewalk. He was older, his dirty hair gray, his clothes torn. He lay against the brick of a video store, in the fetal position, and he shook.
“He’s been got,” Preacher said.
“By what?”
“ ’On’t know, little girl. Drugs. Booze, maybe, or just a broken heart. But something’s got him powerful hard.” Preacher’s eyes welled up. “Maybe he lost his boy.”
“Preacher?”
“I’m’a be killed,” the man said, his voice thick with phlegm. His eyes cast over them but Jace didn’t think he saw anything. “He’ll kill me . . . kill me. Stabmeshootmechokeme burn in hell forever.” He smacked lips worn out by age and heat, cracked and swollen. “He’ll kill me.”
“Go on ahead, Jace, maybe I can talk to him.”
Inside, the man behind the counter, as old as the surrounding desert, was unable to quash the sadness that washed through his eyes when he saw her. “Ah, chica. No Robison today.”
“Gracias, Arturo. You will call?”
“Si, si.”
She stood, lost in hesitation, and finally took a different photo from her purse. It was frayed at the edges, the colors faded. In the picture, Mama’s grin was tight and muted but there was a spark in her eyes that Jace saw every time she thought of Mama. “I know I keep asking . . . but maybe you’ve remembered her? Maybe she bought something?”
Arturo made a show of studying the picture but Jace knew he’d never seen Mama. She snatched it back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have shown you that.”
“No, chica, I am sorry. I wish I had known your madre. I wish I could tell you she bought flowers or something sweet for her little girl.”
“Thank you.”
The delicate bell hanging over the door tinkled as she left. She stood outside the door and willed the tears not to fall. It was a battle she always lost so, just like always, she gave in and let herself cry. Finally, she wiped her face, rubbed her eyes, and realized Preacher was stand
ing next to her.
“Ain’t seen them?” His voice was soft and soothing and understanding and Jace loved him ferociously.
Sniffling, she linked her arm in Preacher’s and they strolled north, enjoying the bit of warmth in the winter air. “What had him?”
“Got himself a bugaboo about pills. Cain’t live his days without ’em. Got some this morning but they ain’t working for him so he hurting.” Preacher seemed wounded by the childlike moan coming from the man.
“He’s building up a tolerance.”
“Maybe is. His needs gotta jump a higher fence every day.”
“Who’s going to kill him?”
Preacher shrugged. “Boy talking crazy. Had a card could’a got him some pharma but it older’n me. Expired years ago.”
“For what?”
“Some pharmacy drugs.”
. . . knock-off pharma . . .
Shelby and Rory had both said that.
Jace stopped, thinking about what some of Dr. Vernezobre’s patients had to go through every once in a while. Maybe, in his zeal to show investors solid financial sheets, or in an effort to pull as much profit out of Cruz Medical as he could, Dr. Cruz was the endpoint user on a pipeline that delivered weak drugs.
Rory should test the pharma pills they found in the truck, see what the strength was.
So was Wrubel killed because he was selling . . . or because he knew about the pipeline?
If the pipeline even existed. It was a stretch to say Cruz was using smuggled drugs with no potency. After all, they hadn’t found his name on a dealer’s list, just Wrubel and Dr. Vernezobre’s.
. . . he’ll kill me . . .
The junkie’s word, a man lost both on the street and in his own head and addiction. But why did his words ring a bell?
She realized, when she stopped walking, that she hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings. She and Preacher had crossed Highway 80, only four narrow lanes that this time of day didn’t have much traffic, and were standing near the courthouse. All the way around the giant square upon which the courthouse stood were bail-bond businesses, copy shops, pawn shops, an old mom-and-pop diner. There were more than a few lawyers’ offices, though they had tattered and dirty awnings if they had any at all, cracked windows, and roll-down storefronts that rarely got used because the attorneys lived in these offices and were available 24 hours a day.
But as Jace looked, and thought about someone going through the courthouse to the tunnel entrance in the basement, she realized there was a bodega directly across the street from the courthouse’s employee entrance.
And there were at least two security cameras posted on the outside of the building.
CHAPTER 36
Her phone rang. It was Sheriff Bukowski.
“I get one free indoor smoke behind this.”
Her breath held.
Preacher led the way back to his truck.
“Spoke to a couple of black robes. Kerr’s first offense. There were no deals yet but it was looking like probation. Then he gets nailed down to a year in county.”
“What changed?”
“Dr. Ernesto Cruz.”
Jace’s grip tightened on her phone.
“Cruz came across Kerr’s pre-sentence investigation; don’t know how that happened. Saw that Kerr had some medical training, went to the presiding judge, made a deal.” Bukowski laughed. “Judge told me he asked Cruz what if Kerr kills somebody, doing medical procedures.”
. . . he’ll kill me . . .
Again, the old junkie’s words, but someone else’s, too.
“Made a deal? With a judge?”
“Election time’s coming, Salome. Cruz Medical is a big company; maybe threw some donations the judge’s way. Told the judge that a year in county would be perfect punishment and training for Kerr and that, afterward, Cruz would hire him at Cruz Medical. Hey, everybody wins, right? Cruz gets an assistant, Kerr gets a job, Kerr’s kid and kid-to-be get child support. It’s a win-win.”
Then she knew. Kerr’s words. In the tunnel. Jace hadn’t put them together because she and Rory had been yelling and Kerr had been crying but he’d said it. He couldn’t tell them what was what because some unknown he would kill Kerr.
“Shit.”
“What, Deputy?”
“Kerr told us in the tunnel that if he said anything he’d be killed.”
“Said anything about what?”
“I don’t know. Never gave us a name, either.”
The sound of the man’s breathing, heavy and strained, was clear though the phone. “Well . . . damn.”
CHAPTER 37
The bodega was small, just an afterthought that had been there for decades, probably handed down from father to son and then to grandson. Its stock was small and precisely targeted for the customer base. Cigarettes for the clerks and cigars for attorneys and judges; flavored coffees for courthouse workers who couldn’t afford the upscale coffee shop down the street; newspapers spread from Midland to Lubbock, Dallas, Austin, a few copies of the Wall Street Journal; homemade sandwiches filled with pork or brisket, chicken fingers fried in lard; a few premade salads, and scores of sanctuary candles decorated with Jesus and the saints for those who wanted to light a candle over their loved one’s misfortune with the legal system.
Jace stepped up to the counter, Preacher outside, and popped open her wallet. Her badge, something she still loved looking at, gleamed in the light. “Do your security cameras work?”
The clerk, an older man with wisps of gray hair lonely on his head, looked at the badge, at Jace, at the cameras. “Wouldn’t do no good otherwise, am I right?”
“You are.” Jace put her badge away and held out her hand. “I’m Deputy Jace Salome, Zachary County sheriff’s office.”
With a grin, the man held both his hands out. “Cuff me up, take me away. Three squares a day and no responsibilities? Cuff me right up.”
Jace laughed as though the joke weren’t ancient and was still funny. “Maybe, but before the cuffing, I wonder if your cameras caught anything last night between ten and midnight.”
The man shook his head. “We close about seven and had no trouble. No break-ins or anything.”
“I’m more interested in what they might have seen across the street.”
The parking stalls on the street were angled and both of his outdoor cameras were pointed in such a way that would probably catch cars and license plates if need be.
The man glanced toward the courthouse. “Trouble over there? An escape?”
“No, no, nothing like that. Actually, it was someone going in. We’ve been having problems with our access code system recently. One person comes in but the computer says it’s someone else. You know . . . software and computers.” She rolled her eyes, feigning exasperation.
“I got one but I hate it.”
Together they checked his footage and fifteen minutes later, Jace walked out. She’d had to show the owner how to burn a copy of the footage for her, but she had it and it left smoldering embers in her head.
Who in the hell are you?
“Jace? You okay?” Preacher had been sitting and studying Robison’s homework while she was inside. Now he stuffed the papers inside his briefcase and stood.
“I’m not really sure, Preacher.” She was certain the video showed Bobby’s murderer; she just had no idea who the man was. “How about you?”
His face, lined with so many years of missing his son, seemed even more anguished than usual. “I miss my boy.” He wiped his eyes and started walking. “Hoped today maybe we’d see him.”
They walked back to his truck, hand in hand.
CHAPTER 38
The rest of the afternoon and evening, Jace slept. Her dreams were crowded; cells and inmates screaming “Murder!” while alarms shrieked; dead men wandering through tunnels while they sold prescription drugs to Sheriff Bukowski and Major Jakob; Detective Von Holton madly punching the button on a copy machine and letting it spew thousands of flyers.
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But it was also crowded with the small house, up on cinder-blocks as though waiting for a truck to haul it to better days. The young girl that she was in the dream hated the brown paint on the walls. Spots and drips and, in some places, large brush-strokes. Holes in the living room walls, torn and stained carpet in the bedroom, smashed windows everywhere through which a hot wind blew and scalded her, a broken mirror staring at her with ragged glee in the bathroom.
But that little girl also knew, with the preternatural knowledge one finds themselves with in dreams, that those windows faced west.
And blazed with an early-morning sun.
The little girl knew, too, the song she’d heard the last few times the dream crowded her. It was one of the songs Mama danced to . . . at least, the little girl thought it was.
Jace woke, scared and sweating, her entire body tight and coiled and defensive. She yanked open a curtain to let the half-moon bleed into her room and wondered if the sun now rose in the west.
Hershey’s.
Not particularly that brand, but chocolate. She hadn’t known that until the tech had sprayed Inmate Bobby’s cell. Now she knew that dried blood could be mistaken, sometimes, for dried chocolate.
Or brown paint, maybe?
So maybe, in this tiny house in her recurrent dream, the brown wasn’t paint at all. Maybe it was blood, spattered and stained and once wet and dripping, but now dried into the house’s memory of violence.
Before she left for work, she stopped at Gramma’s and hummed the bit of song for her. Gramma smiled and shook her head. “Can’t believe you don’t know that one. ‘East of the Sun (West of the Moon).’ Grapa and I danced and . . . uh . . . stuff to it.”
East of the sun, hence the sun rising through west-facing windows.
“Did Mama ever dance to it?”
Gramma frowned, gnawed her lip. “I think so. I don’t know what all she danced to, but I think that was one.”
“Thanks, Gramma.”
“You’re welcome, baby. Be careful tonight, okay? No bandages?”
“Deal.”
East of the Sun Page 24