Trouble in a Big Box (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery)

by Alter, Judy

  The client, Jerry Southerland, waved her hand. “Oh, we have a contractor. This will be the fourth house we’ve redone in ten years.”

  Sounded like I’d made an easy sale.

  As I drove her back to the office, I looked down every side street, kept checking the rearview mirror, and clenched the wheel so tightly, she asked, “Kelly, is everything all right?” Keisha had come in her own car and dashed back to the office a few minutes ahead of us to put on the coffeepot.

  It would have been so easy to sob and fall apart and say, “No, it’s not. Everything’s a mess,” but I just mumbled, “Fine. I just like to be careful, especially with a client in the car…never know when someone will shoot out of one of these side streets.”

  She didn’t look completely convinced, and I realized that was a dumb way to try to sell the neighborhood. When I pulled up next to her car, she turned to me and asked, “You’re sure this neighborhood is safe?”

  I tried, probably unsuccessfully, to laugh it off. “Of course. I’m raising my children here. And ask Claire. The only problems we’ve had lately had nothing to do with the neighborhood itself.”

  “Yes, I remember reading about that serial killer. You were involved, weren’t you?”

  No sense saying, “I was almost a victim,” so I just said, “I tried to help with the case. My husband is a police officer.”

  “No wonder you feel safe.”

  “You really needn’t worry,” I said. Then impulsively I added, “There’s a neighborhood association meeting Thursday night to deal with a zoning issue. Why not come meet the people who make up the neighborhood?”

  She considered for a moment. “I’ll see if my husband is free. That’s a great idea. Thanks.”

  I told her it would be seven o’clock in the Hemphill Presbyterian Church—that caused her a moment’s hesitation, since Hemphill didn’t enjoy the best reputation of any street on the South Side, but she only skipped a beat. “We’ll be there…and if Jake can’t go with me, I’ll see if Claire will.”

  “I’m sure she’s going,” I said, making a mental note to call Claire that afternoon.

  As soon as Jerry was out of the car, I sped off to the elementary school, my heart in my throat. I cruised slowly, all around—the parking lot, the street in front of the school and the playground. No green Nova, no brown Mustang. Bella must be hiding out.

  Relieved, I went to get Mike and take him home for lunch.

  We were both sort of silent beyond the usual, “How was your day?” but then Mike said, “Kelly, promise me something.”

  “What?” I could hardly eat my tuna fish sandwich.

  “You won’t go rushing up to the Garza house.”

  That was an easy one. “No, I won’t. I know I’m the last person they want to see, and now I really am afraid of Bella.”

  “Good girl.”

  I left, with Mike’s promise that he would nap and then exercise. “Don’t you need a nap too?” His look was an outright leer.

  “If I napped with you, I wouldn’t get any sleep and neither would you.”

  “But exercise?” he persisted.

  “Nope. I have things to do at the office.”

  “Okay.” He was resigned. “When Maggie’s home, I’ll go with her to walk Gus around the block—yes, ma’am, with my walker.”

  “Will that be safe?”

  “I have my revolver, remember? And a whistle. I doubt Bella will mess with a cop, even a disabled one. Besides I think she’s hiding out.”

  I kissed him and fled.

  Back at the office, I called Joe Mendez on his cell phone. He hadn’t left yet for the YMCA. When I told him the news, he said, “I’ll go up there tomorrow. Miss Kelly, you stay away.”

  I told him I’d already promised Mike that.

  “I didn’t tell you, but I got the two younger boys into alternative school the end of last week. I’ll see if they’re still going after this. And I may buy Bella a beer, if she’s there.”

  “I haven’t seen her since Sunday night, but that doesn’t mean much. Mike thinks she’s gone into hiding.”

  “Nah, it doesn’t mean nothing. I’ll see if that oldest boy will talk to me. I’ll call tomorrow night.”

  Keisha gave me a curious look, so I told her the whole story, to which she replied, “Live dangerous, die young. That’s why Joe’s lucky you did what you did for him.”

  “Getting kind of hard-hearted, aren’t you?”

  “José’s rubbing off on me. I think officers see so much of this stuff. It surprises you and me, but they know more about the dark side of people than we ever will—or want to.”

  Keisha, the philosopher. It seemed to me these days that I was surrounded by threats and crime and, well, as she said, the dark side of people. But we were probably only seeing the tip of that old iceberg. I almost rushed back to take up a vigil outside the school.

  When I took the girls home, I told Maggie that Mike would walk with her, but she might have to walk slow. He was back on his walker for an indefinite period of time.

  “Is it okay for him to walk around the block?”

  “Doctor says exercise is good for him.” She would never understand my secret smile.

  ****

  The morning paper the next day had a small article that the stabbing victim found off Northeast Twenty-Eighth Street had been identified as Sonny Adams. Police were looking for a “person of interest” but there wasn’t much else. I called Mike.

  “Beat me to it. I was going to call you. A team went through the Garza house thoroughly, found a butcher knife with bloodstains and fingerprints. They printed the only family member home, the mom, which is an insult to her and stupid on their part. Now they’ve still got to find Bella and print her, plus print all the brothers. The two younger ones were in school, so they’ll get them this afternoon. No telling where the older boy is.”

  I hung up wishing some wonderfully bright idea would come to me, but none did.

  Joe called a little later with essentially the same report, but with more humanity in it. Mrs. Garza, he said, was frantic with worry about her two older children, hadn’t seen them in days. Michael and Alex, the two younger boys, were staying in school and had started going to the Boys and Girls Club after school. They claimed they had no homework, but Joe told her not to believe that. She blessed him, said the younger boys were the hope of her life, and sent him away with homemade tamales that he was saving to share with Theresa.

  “I’m not sure what you got me into the middle of, Miss Kelly, but the tamale part is good. And I feel okay about Michael and Alex. Where are the police on this?”

  I told him about bloodstains and fingerprints and that it would be a while before the lab results were in, but I’d let him know.

  ****

  The neighborhood association meeting the next night was noisy and crowded. There were almost as many people as there had been when the neighborhood was scared out of its wits by a serial killer. I noticed that Jerry Southerland was there, apparently with her husband, sitting next to Claire. I gave Claire a hug and welcomed Jerry, who introduced me to Jake.

  “Looks like we’re about to become part of your neighborhood,” he said. “Jerry isn’t happy unless she’s redoing a house. I like to keep her busy.”

  Everything about him, from clothes to watch to haircut, spoke money, so I guessed he could afford for Jerry to redo old houses, but I resented his patronizing attitude—treating her as though she were the “little lady” to be kept amused.

  I managed a smile. “We’ll be glad to have you. I’m sure you’ll like it.”

  When I came back to Mike, he said, “What’s the tight little smile about?”

  “Tell you later.” I looked around and noticed that Tom Lattimore was conspicuously absent from the meeting.

  Jim Price called the meeting to order and quickly outlined why we were there. Then he asked for those who wanted to speak to line up at a microphone in the center aisle. Christian was the first to spe
ak, and he had the most important information. He had read the zoning variance application, which indicated, as far as his research could tell, Tom Lattimore’s investors were not from Fort Worth. Christian emphasized that meant that they were interested in money and not in our neighborhood. Then he reported that the petitions Lattimore had submitted contained 131 signatures, a fairly insignificant amount in a neighborhood the size of ours. About one-third of them proved to come from outside the official boundaries of the neighborhood.

  When Christian sat down, Jim Price spoke to report that without an organized effort, the neighborhood association had 457 signatures. A door-to-door campaign was planned, and there would be petitions and volunteer sheets at the table in the back of the room at the end of the meeting.

  Several neighborhood people spoke, among them Keisha, who repeated her plea for the neighborhood pretty much as she had given it in the office earlier. Otto Martin had been persuaded—perhaps with Mom’s help—not to talk, partly because the idea of him living behind his store was iffy and mostly because no one wanted him threatening again to kill Tom Lattimore. He had walked to the meeting, since it wasn’t far from his store, but he now sat next to Mom, which caused Mike to poke me in the ribs and grin knowingly.

  The meeting went on predictably. No one spoke for the development plan until to my surprise and dismay Jake Southerland stood at the mike. “I’m not a resident of Fairmount,” he began, “but my wife is trying to convince me to buy a house here to redo. After listening to this discussion tonight, I can tell you that I will never invest money in this neighborhood. I’m a businessman, a developer, and I make my living building new shopping facilities. Leaving old buildings untouched and saving mom-and-pop stores doesn’t make money—building new big business that will draw customers does. You people need to wake up to the twenty-first century.”

  He sat down to stunned silence. Fairmount people were too polite to boo, but I sure was tempted. Mike simply squeezed my hand.

  After an awkward silence, Jim asked if anyone else wanted to speak in favor of the development. Dead silence. So he covered a few other routine business matters—a treasury report, the selection of a couple of new block captains—Claire volunteered to my great delight, while Mike held my hand down tight to keep me from jumping up—and we needed a new monitor for the neighborhood e-newsletter. I grabbed my hand from Mike and raised my hand. When he frowned at me, I said, “Piece of cake. Not hard to do. Doesn’t take a lot of time.”

  Mike shook his head.

  We hurried home after the meeting, knowing we had kept Theresa and Joe out far past their usual bedtime. Instead of finding them pacing the floor anxious to go home, we found Bella’s car parked in front of the house and Joe leaning in the driver’s window talking to her. When she saw us turn into the driveway, she pulled away so fast that Joe was in serious danger of being dragged. Fortunately, he had good reflexes and jumped back in time.

  He stood staring after the car for a minute then met us in the driveway. “Little bitch,” he muttered. “Sorry, Miss Kelly. I apologize. But she nearly dragged me. Didn’t give me no warning she was going to pull out like that.”

  “You okay?” Mike asked. “We can put out a warrant if she hurt you.”

  “Nah, I’m just mad. I went out to try to talk some sense into her, but I don’t think she’s the listening kind. Asked her why she was doing this to perfectly good people and she said, ‘There ain’t perfectly good people in this world.’ So I told her oh yeah, there are and you two are them. I tell you one thing, she’s not doubled over with grief. We talked about Rosalinda a bit. Bella didn’t like her much. Rosalinda was the pretty one, the one who got good grades, the one who snagged a boyfriend with money—though I don’t think Sonny Adams was much of a catch.”

  “So why kill Sonny Adams?” I asked. “And why stalk me?”

  Mike looked startled. “She hasn’t been charged. Neither has her brother.”

  “Partly because no one could find her. Tonight’s the first time she’s shown up since Adams was killed. She did it,” I said and sailed into the house leaving the two of them on the sidewalk. Theresa was at the dining table, taking notes out of a textbook. “Hi, Miss Kelly. I don’t think I’ll ever understand economics. To me it’s simple: you earn money, you pay your bills, and you put some in the bank. But that’s sure not the way governments do it.”

  “So I’ve noticed,” I said.

  Theresa sighed and closed the book. “Girls were angels. Joe read to them so I could study, and they went right to sleep…in your bed, I’m afraid. Where’s Joe? He said he was going out for fresh air. If he’s out there smoking….”

  “He and Mike are just chatting.”

  “I bet,” she said suspiciously. “That girl still following you?”

  “Yep. She was outside tonight. That’s really why Joe went out.”

  Theresa sighed. “Puts himself in danger all the time for others. He’s got a knife, but….”

  Alarmed, I said, “He mustn’t carry a knife, Theresa. It violates his probation.”

  “Some of his former buddies don’t see it that way. They might jump him some night. We’re both aware of that. He’s not carrying a gun, at least.”

  I wasn’t the only one living with fear.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next day when I picked Mike up from the substation at noon, he announced we were lunching at the Grill and then going gun shopping. I balked—I had work to do, I couldn’t be out of the office that long, I had to pick up the girls.

  “If you don’t stop babbling, I’ll drive the car. There’s a good gun shop out on Old Highway 80.”

  “Is it a pawn shop?”

  Large sigh. “No, Kelly. They sell guns, new and used. We’ll get you a new one.”

  Right. I don’t want a used one. Who knows whom it might have killed in its previous existence?

  The shop was innocuous enough with a small sign saying, “Hank’s Guns and Pistol Range.”

  Pistol range? Did I have to shoot the blasted thing today? I wasn’t up to it. I needed time to prepare.

  “Kelly, let me do the talking please.”

  I bristled. Mike knew I didn’t like being treated like the female idiot in the crowd. I’m not even blonde for pity’s sake.

  He introduced me to Hank. I had expected big muscles, tough guy type, tattoos, maybe a cigarette hanging out of his mouth ala Humphrey Bogart. Instead a perfectly ordinary man, slightly on the small side, wearing spectacles and looking anything but threatening, shook my hand firmly and said how nice it was to meet me. I returned the greeting, sort of under my breath.

  Mike explained I needed some protection, nothing big, something easy for my purse. A handgun, he said, not a semi-automatic.

  Hank had just the thing. He disappeared and came back with a small box. Inside, wrapped in tissue like fine jewelry was a small gun, maybe the length of my hand. Hank put it in his palm and hefted it. “Nice weight. Not too heavy, not too lightweight. Here, try.” And he gave it to Mike. “Smith & Wesson.”

  I wanted to scream, “Wait a minute! This is for me!”

  Mike moved it around in his hand, juggled it to tell the weight, and said, “Here, Kelly. Just hold it.”

  I expected my hand to drop under the weight, but it didn’t. The gun was light, maybe a pound. And I guess it was what I’d heard on detective shows as snub-nosed—the barrel (I assumed that was what it was) was short, just over an inch. But still, I held it awkwardly.

  Mike took my hand, rearranged the gun so it lay in my palm, and then showed me how to turn my hand up and pull the trigger. “Don’t pull it,” he said. “You don’t know if this gun is loaded or not.”

  Surely he trusted Hank not to hand me a loaded pistol. That would be disaster for everyone.

  Hank nodded. “It’s not loaded. I assure you of that. But you still have to check for yourself.” He showed me how to open what I would later learn was the chamber and roll the cylinders to make sure all were empty.

/>   Mike carefully positioned it in my hand and said, “Aim it. Not at Hank, even though you know it’s empty. Never point a gun at a person unless you mean to shoot him or her.” He showed me how to hold both hands straight out in front of me at chest level. “What are you aiming at?”

  “That poster on the wall, the picture of the big game hunter.” I hate big game hunters.

  “You’re probably going to be three feet to the right of it. That’s why you need target practice. When are the concealed handgun license courses, Hank?”

  “Every Saturday, nine o’clock.”

  “Sign her up. She’ll be here, maybe next week if she’s a quick learner.”

  I started to protest. How did he know I didn’t have client appointments or classes for the girls or…that was it. “Maggie has a soccer game Saturday morning. Ten o’clock. And you can’t drive.”

  “Keisha or Claire will take her. You’ll be here if I have to come with you.” He turned away from me. “Hank, okay if we go do a little target practice now?”

  “Sure thing. Ear muffs are out there.”

  Mike showed me how to load the thing. The .38 caliber bullets were amazingly small—about as long as the first joint of my thumb and tiny around. “This can hurt someone?”

  “This can kill someone,” he said firmly. “That’s why you take it very seriously. And you never shoot without meaning to kill. Don’t aim for the legs or something like that because you might not stop the person. Besides the trunk of the body is the easiest target.”

  I can’t do this. Yes, I can. I promised.

  Mike wasn’t through with his instructions and demonstrations. He told me to spread my legs until my feet were under my shoulders, bend my knees slightly, and use both hands on the gun, although I’d squeeze the trigger with my right index figure. It took me so long to figure out the pose that I’d have to ask any threatening opponent to please stand still for a moment while I assumed the stance.