by Lee Hollis
“Well, like I told you before, I still have a lot of connections on the outside, so if you need any help . . .”
“I appreciate it, Max, thank you,” she said, although she still had no intention of ever taking him up on the offer. However, she was curious. “So who do you still talk to?”
“My old partner, JC. He keeps me up to speed on everything that’s going on, all the dirt. Apparently there is a big internal-affairs investigation unfolding right now, and according to JC, a lot of officers are about to get caught up in it. The IA is casting a pretty wide net.”
“What kind of investigation?”
“Big corruption case. Racketeering and robbery. A bunch of guys have been targeted from my old division, both active duty and retired. Apparently they’ve been out of control, like thugs with badges, stealing cash, reselling seized narcotics, sticking illegal GPS trackers on the cars of their robbery targets, mostly drug dealers flush with cash, and lying under oath to cover their tracks.”
“Oh my god . . .”
“Yeah, it’s pretty bad. JC, one of the good ones by the way, is assisting IA in identifying the ringleader, but he’s conflicted because he feels like he’s snitching. I told him it was his duty to find the bad apples so they don’t destroy the credibility and reputation of the whole department. Ironic, right?”
Max laughed as he looked around at his surroundings.
Maya forced a smile, but she didn’t find any of this funny.
“Guess I’m trying to make up for my past sins,” Max muttered.
“Does JC know who the ringleader is?”
Max nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t know him personally. He started after I left, or I should say, after I was forced to leave,” he said with a trace of bitterness. “I hear he’s got a golden-boy reputation and a sledgehammer approach to his homicide cases.”
“So he’s a detective?”
“I’ve probably said too much already.”
“Max, who is it?”
“I really can’t tell you. I wouldn’t want the guy somehow getting tipped off or find out that it was JC who fingered him. Not until IA makes a move on him and he’s safely in custody.”
“Do I know him?” Maya asked, curious.
Max hesitated. “I don’t know. I think Frances might. She worked with him briefly when she was still on the force. But that’s all you get.”
“You just told me you want to help me out. Why are you holding back on me now?”
“Because this has nothing to do with any of your cases. This is some dirty, dangerous stuff that you don’t need to get involved in.”
A name popped into Maya’s head and she suddenly sat up straight. “Reyes? Is it Detective Mateo Reyes?”
Max didn’t have to answer her question.
She could tell from the tense, agitated expression on his face that she had just guessed correctly.
Mateo Reyes wasn’t just an acquaintance of Frances.
He was a close friend.
Close enough that Frances had gone to the trouble of setting Maya up with him on a date.
Frances had to be warned.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Frances sat stone-faced on her ratty old couch that was in desperate need of new upholstery. She gently placed a hand on her giant stomach as Maya stood a few feet away, arms folded, having just explained what Max had told her about Mateo Reyes.
Maya spoke softly. “I know this is a lot to take in right now, but I felt you should know. I didn’t want to hide anything from you.”
“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Frances said. “I worked with Mateo. He’s a good detective. He wouldn’t be so dumb as to get caught up in something like that.”
Maya sighed, unfolded her arms, and crossed to sit next to Frances on the couch. She put a comforting arm around her. “Max said his sources are pretty solid.”
“Max is serving time for corruption,” Frances scoffed.
Maya couldn’t deny her remark stung just a little bit. Max was, after all, her husband, at least at the moment, until the divorce was final. But Frances was right. He wasn’t exactly an exemplary source, one to be trusted without question. He was looking to shave some time off his sentence, maybe testify in an upcoming case to speed up his parole hearing. There could be any number of reasons Max wanted to finger Mateo. But having been married to the man for fourteen years before his arrest, she could tell when he was being straight with her, and earlier that day, during their time in the prison visiting room, she felt he was being honest about what he knew. And Frances deserved to know.
“What else did he say?” Frances asked.
Maya shrugged. “Not much. But it sounds like the walls are closing in, and Mateo is seriously enmeshed in the whole mess.”
Coach Vinnie suddenly appeared. “Maya, I didn’t know you were here. I was in the bedroom watching the Red Sox kick some New York Yankee butt.”
“Hi, Vinnie,” Maya said quietly.
Vinnie immediately picked up on the cues. “Something wrong?”
Maya opened her mouth to speak, but Frances cut her off. “No, nothing. Just some girl talk.”
“Anybody want a beer? I’m heading to the fridge,” Vinnie said.
“I’d love one, but ask me again in about a week,” Frances said, patting her belly.
“I’m fine, thanks,” Maya said with a thin smile.
Vinnie shrugged and ambled off into the kitchen.
Frances turned and leaned into Maya as much as her body could manage and whispered, “I don’t want him knowing what’s going on. He worries enough about me as it is.”
“Got it,” Maya said. “But he’s going to find out eventually. Everybody is.”
“I know, but let him just get through the childbirth first, which is making him a nervous wreck, then we will deal with the rest of it.”
Mateo was Vinnie’s friend. And maybe there was a chance Vinnie was aware of what was going on in the department, but Maya highly doubted he was in the loop, despite the closeness between the two men.
Maya noticed Frances taking deep breaths and continuing to hold a hand on top of her swelled tummy.
“You’re not finally going into labor, are you?”
Frances shook her head. “No, I always do this to calm myself down. Trust me, if I was going into labor, you’d know it from my screaming.”
Maya worried as she stared at Frances, who was visibly shaken by this news. She closed her eyes and kept breathing deeply and exhaling until finally she had relaxed herself into a calmer state.
“I’m starting to feel guilty for telling you anything,” Maya said.
Frances shook her head. “No, I needed to know.”
Maya sat with her in silence. She reached out to take Frances’s hand, but Frances gently pushed it away as her mind seemed to race about what she had just learned. She turned to Maya and was about to speak when Vinnie passed through with a bottle of beer. He winked at her and headed back into the bedroom. When he was gone, Frances finally spoke. “You’re not going to get into the middle of this, are you, Maya?”
Maya scrunched up her face, confused. “What do you mean?”
“Whatever Mateo might be mixed up with, it’s really not your job to try and be the big hero and take down the entire police department—”
Maya sat up straight. “I know that, Frances. I’m just relating to you what Max told me. Besides, it sounds like Internal Affairs is already on top of it.”
Frances’s face was pale, and she was starting to get worked up. “Good, because you shouldn’t stick your nose into it, like you always do—”
“Frances, I know he’s your friend, but why are you being so—?”
“You’re not a cop anymore!”
Maya was thunderstruck by Frances’s agitated tone as she struggled to stand up with little success. Finally, Maya popped to her feet and grabbed Frances by the hand, hauling her up from the couch.
“You . . . you better go now. I’m feeling a little nauseous,�
�� Frances sputtered.
“Can I get you anything?”
“Please, just go, Maya!”
Frances fled to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
Maya stood in the middle of the living room in a state of shock. She could hear the muted sound of the television in the bedroom broadcasting the Red Sox game. And she could faintly make out Frances vomiting in the bathroom. She wanted to go to her, hold her head, and pat her on the back and tell her everything would be fine, but she knew the last thing Frances wanted at the moment was for Maya to help her, or be anywhere near her, and that’s what Maya found so intrinsically disturbing.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
While driving home, Maya received a text from Vanessa letting her know that she was at Ryan’s house studying for an upcoming test. She was decidedly vague about what subject, which set off Maya’s alarm bells. It sounded more like another rushed excuse to cover up what they might actually be doing.
Maya’s head was pounding, and she was still feeling jarred and bothered by Frances’s reaction to her bombshell news about Detective Mateo Reyes. She pulled into a gas station to fill up her tank and get some much-needed coffee, hoping a shot of caffeine might make her headache go away.
Maya glanced at the digital numbers rising as the fuel pumped into her car, and couldn’t believe how expensive gas was at over three dollars a gallon. She was already over her monthly budget. She tried to erase her money concerns from her mind and texted Vanessa back, informing her she was going to swing by the Wallage house and pick her up. She just needed an address.
Vanessa hemmed and hawed at first, trying to convince her that they were not done studying and Ryan could give her a lift home later, but Maya wasn’t having any of it. She ordered her daughter to text the address now. After a couple more quick back-and-forths, Vanessa reluctantly sent her the address. Maya removed the nozzle from her tank and waited for her receipt to print out before getting back behind the wheel and following the GPS directions to the Wallage home.
When Maya pulled up out front, the size of the house took her breath away. Of course it made sense that Sandra lived in such an opulent home, but it was so far removed from her own circumstances that she couldn’t help but have a stunned reaction. She got out of the car and walked up the path dividing the immaculately kept lawn to the front door where she rang the bell.
After a moment, Sandra opened the door with a surprised look on her face. “Maya! What are you doing here? How did you know—?”
“I’m sorry to bother you. Vanessa texted me your address. I just came by to pick her up.”
“Please, come in, I’ll make us some coffee.”
“No, thanks, I just had some. I don’t want to be up all night. I have trouble sleeping as it is,” Maya said.
Maya tried to contain her astonishment at how beautifully decorated the house was. In what little spare time she had, sometimes she would flip through home and garden magazines, gazing at all the lovely homes that were so far out of her league and price range. They were fantasies, dream houses, like the ones she admired in the movies or on TV when she was a little girl.
Sandra led her into the living room, where Ryan and Vanessa sat closely together on the couch, their laptops side by side on the coffee table. They both had guilty looks on their faces, like the last thing they had been doing before she walked in was studying.
“It’ll be your fault if we fail our test tomorrow because you made us quit studying together so early,” Vanessa huffed.
“If you fail, then you didn’t study enough in the first place. The test is tomorrow, so you should already have put in the time to prepare,” Maya said flatly.
“Oh, she’s good,” Ryan joked.
Maya had to suppress a smile.
She liked this kid, even though she wasn’t entirely comfortable about the way he looked at her daughter. Still, if Vanessa had to have a lovesick boyfriend following her around, Ryan seemed like a good choice.
“Can we have just a few more minutes to go over some more test prep questions? This exam counts for twenty percent of our final grade.”
Maya sighed. “Fine.”
“We can wait in the kitchen,” Sandra said.
Maya eyed Vanessa suspiciously, signaling her to not take too long, and then she followed Sandra into the beautiful kitchen with expensive-looking stainless-steel appliances, an island in the middle like she had always wanted for her own kitchen, and a lovely table and chairs painted white with a classy print table cloth surrounded by accents, and best of all, an antique china cabinet. All of it pulled together so perfectly as if Martha Stewart had designed it herself.
“Are you sure you don’t want any coffee?” Sandra asked.
“No, thank you,” Maya said, her mind elsewhere.
“What’s bothering you?” Sandra asked.
Maya snapped out of her thoughts. “What?”
“You seem to be a million miles away.”
Sandra crossed to the counter and opened a cake tin. Inside was a delicious-looking cake. She cut two pieces and brought them over to the kitchen table on two dessert plates. “You may be able to say no to coffee, but try saying no to my lemon Bundt cake. Have a seat.”
Maya was in Sandra’s castle, so she did as she was told. Maya took the small silver fork Sandra held out to her and then she cut into the cake and took a bite. It practically melted in her mouth. “Delicious.”
“Thanks. So are you going to talk to me?” Sandra said casually, popping a piece of cake into her mouth.
Maya couldn’t help but notice how much more comfortable Sandra was getting the more she hung around her. In fact, she found it quite charming. Sandra considered herself a friend now.
Maya debated with herself about whether it was smart to bring Sandra up to speed on what she had heard from Max, but that only lasted a few seconds because, in her mind now, Sandra was no longer a peripheral figure in her life. They had been working together on the Maisie Portman case and their kids were dating. And since she couldn’t discuss any of this with Frances apparently, and Sandra was so eager and willing to be her confidante, she decided to come clean and voice what she had just learned.
Sandra sat opposite her at the kitchen table, wide-eyed and gorging on the cake as Maya explained everything, getting up only once to pour herself a cup of black coffee after the timer on the coffeemaker interrupted Maya’s complete rundown of information regarding Detective Mateo Reyes.
When she finished, Sandra sat quietly, churning everything over in her mind.
“I know it’s a lot. I’m still overwhelmed thinking about it myself,” Maya said, finishing her piece of cake.
Sandra suddenly startled her by pounding a fist down on the kitchen table. “I bet he covered up the crime scene!”
“What? What are you talking about?” Maya asked, totally confused.
“Maisie Portman! He was the first detective on the scene! When you saw those straight marks on Maisie’s neck and tried to tell him about it, he completely dismissed you. I thought it was a sexist thing, like he didn’t want a woman taking over his case, but maybe he just didn’t want to hear it because he was determined to make Maisie’s death look like a suicide!”
It was something Maya hadn’t even thought about. The last thing in her mind was connecting the police corruption case with the Maisie Portman case. “But why?”
“Because Maisie was all about breaking major scandals on her Dirty Laundry website. Perhaps she somehow uncovered Mateo’s involvement in the police department corruption case and was about to blow the whistle on him!” Sandra explained breathlessly before jumping to her feet and pacing around the kitchen, her mind exploding with thoughts fast and furious. “Yes! Maybe he found out what she was going to do, and he showed up at the school on the night of the PTA meeting and found her in her office, where he confronted her! He warned her to not publish her story, and when she refused, he strangled her, forged the suicide note, and then staged the hanging! When we found th
e body and called the police, he was already nearby and just happened to show up first on the scene!”
Maya stared at Sandra, slack-jawed. “How did you—?”
“I don’t have a regular job, so I have plenty of time to watch a lot of detective shows.”
Maya couldn’t help but smile. “It’s a very interesting theory, but there is one giant flaw in it.”
Sandra frowned. “What?”
“All of Maisie’s stories on the Dirty Laundry site were related to the high school. They were all about the teachers or students or administrative staff. As far as I know, Mateo has no connection to the school. He’s not married to a teacher, and he’s not a father, so he doesn’t have any kids enrolled.”
Sandra slumped over. “You’re right. I didn’t think about that.”
But Sandra’s off-the-cuff theory had sparked something inside Maya. In her gut, she knew Sandra was onto something. Mateo had shown up at the crime scene awfully quick the night they had discovered Maisie’s body.
Maybe Sandra was partially right.
Maybe there was more to the story still to be found.
They had to dig deeper.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Oscar Dunford beamed from ear to ear when he saw Maya standing in the doorway with a pizza box. “How did you know I’d be working late?”
“You always work late,” Maya said, smirking before entering the cramped office and setting the pizza down on his desk. She opened the box with a flourish. “Pepperoni and mushroom. Your favorite.”
“You spoil me,” Oscar said, his eyes dancing as Maya pulled a piece out and handed it to him. “I can’t wait to hear the reason for this late-night romantic tryst.”
“I need a favor,” Maya said.
“Let me put on my big-surprise face.”
“What’s your take on Detective Reyes?”
“Mateo? He’s okay. A little arrogant. A real macho type. Works out a lot. But he’s never personally given me any trouble, so I don’t have a problem with him.”