Jack: Grime and Punishment
The Brothers Grime, book 1
Z.A. Maxfield
For everyone who was there for me after my house burned:
I want to tell a story about loss and new beginnings.
Let’s punch a hole in the empty shell of our old dreams and blow in new life, shall we?
You come too.
I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha’n’t be gone long. –You come too.
I’m going out to fetch the little calf
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha’n’t be gone long. –You come too.
The Pasture, Robert Frost
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Skippy’s Big Ask
Grime’s Surprise Baby
Afters
What to read next…
Join Club ZAM
About the Author
Also by Z.A. Maxfield
Chapter 1
The cat was new.
Jack was pretty sure when he’d gone to sleep there hadn’t been a cat in his house, much less a bowl of water or a dish of food. He stood still while it made its way sinuously between his legs, over his shoes, sniffing him and getting friendly with the rubber tip of his cane.
To be fair, it seemed like a nice cat. It was an attractive shade of gray that appeared almost blue, and it blinked up at him with green eyes. Its pupils seemed vertical, though, and vaguely reptilian. Jack couldn’t help worrying what a cat like that could get up to.
He lived alone, and he was sure the cat was new.
Jack heard a footstep behind him and jumped out of his skin.
“Sorry, boss.” Skippy, a ham-fisted, olive-skinned mountain of a man froze and looked him over from behind a thick, black five o’clock shadow. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“How’d you get in here?”
“Uh…” Skippy flushed and glanced at the back door. “I think you need better locks.”
“I think I need employees with fewer dubious skills.” Jack put the filter and grounds in the basket of his coffeemaker and turned it on. His kitchen was neat; he kept everything in reach. The fewer steps he needed to take, the better, even before he had a cat slithering between his feet. Skippy reached his colorfully tattooed arm down and picked the cat up.
“Can you cat-sit?”
“I have no clue.” Jack glanced at the cat again. “What does cat-sitting involve?”
“Okay, well. This is Tasha.” Skippy shot Jack a wry sideways glance. He must have thought Jack was kidding. “Even though it’s called cat-sitting, you don’t actually sit on the cat. That’s not what you do.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “What does the cat need?”
“I put her food in the cupboard where you keep crackers, and the litter box is in the bathroom. It’s the clumping kind, so you just scoop it and throw it in the trash or—”
“Don’t cats shred shit and run away and bring in dead bats and rabies and—”
“Tasha’s fine.” Skippy pulled her closer to his chest. “She’s a good cat.”
“Is she likely to run away if I were to leave the door open?”
“You probably shouldn’t do that.”
Jack eyed them both. He could maybe handle a cat. “For how long?”
“Four days?”
Jack thought about that. “I’m not responsible if anything goes wrong.”
“Okay.” Skippy tried to hand the cat over, but Jack stepped back.
“Scooping I can do. Bonding is out.”
“She’s a good cat,” Skippy repeated as he let her fall to the floor. “She’s smart.”
“Right. If she wins the Nobel Prize, I’ll help her endorse the check.”
Jack made his way to the office and turned his master switch to the On position.
All around them, electronics whirred to life. A printer, a fax machine, several computers and fans.
His cousin Gabe teased him about turning the power off every night, assuring him that all his stuff could stay plugged in but powered down, but if eight years in Orange County Fire taught Jack anything, it was that his decrepit wooden house with its mostly century-old wiring didn’t need any help burning down.
“I’ll get the coffee. You want yours black?” Skippy asked.
“Like my sin-riddled soul,” Jack answered automatically. He sat in his rolling chair and put his cane aside. “Unless you’ve got whiskey.”
“Fresh out. So you’ll watch the cat for us?”
“Yeah.” Jack figured Skippy earned what he wanted. He was a damn good employee, even if he came on a little strong. Even if his gang tats and hard good looks sometimes terrified the clients.
“And I can take today and tomorrow off, huh? On account of that last job went so late? Me and Kelly Ann want to get out of town for a few days. Her mom’s got the baby.”
“I guess I should thank God I didn’t wake up and find him crawling around in my kitchen.”
“So it’s okay? About the days off?”
“Yeah, fine.”
Jack marveled at Skippy’s energy when he returned with two steaming mugs. The man had worked all day the day before and well into the night, but here he was, cheerful as fuck at oh-dark-thirty, wearing khakis and a clean red uniform polo, even though he’d planned to take the day off.
“You’re all right, Skippy. Yesterday go okay?”
“That was the best fucking job yet.” Skippy’s enthusiasm took Jack by surprise. Muscles bulged on his furry forearm as he held Jack’s coffee out for him. Eyes the color of pine tree bark radiated giddy happiness. “Yesterday was gorgeous.”
Jack gave Skippy the once-over. He didn’t think an employee had ever said a job was gorgeous before. Particularly not after a long day at one of the worst fresh crime scenes they’d ever taken on. “Are you kidding?”
“Yesterday we did twelve hours, start to finish.” Skippy sighed, lifting a hand in that finger-rubbing motion that universally indicated money. “Cha-ching! Bunch of punks, living in a rental in Brea. Guess someone musta come in and blam-blam-blam. Blood spatter everywhere. I never seen nothing like it. I’m like…dude. This is some sick shit.”
“Twelve hours?”
“God, yeah. It was fucking grim. I guess the fun started in the upstairs bedroom. We had blood and tissue everywhere, and then there’s more in the hall, down the stairs, family room, living room, kitchen. It’s like they was finger-painting with their bodily fluids. Then I go outside, and what do I see?”
Jack leaned back in his chair. “I cannot imagine.”
“There’s bloody footprints out the back door. Someone hadda be hauling ass. There’s blood all over the patio. So I look, and goddamn if there’s not still a little bit of our guy’s head in the strainer of the pool filter. There’s stuff the cops missed. I swear to God, I could die a happy man today. That was the worst scene I ever be
en at.”
“I’m glad you’re so delighted by all this.”
“Would you feel better if I said they had naked pictures of underage kids all over the walls?”
“Did they?”
“Nope.” Skippy cackled. “What do you care? It’s money. Sloppy work, though.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, what kind of asshole killer keeps getting off near-miss shots over and over, chasing after his deadees for, like, miles before he can kill them? There was blood all over the walls, man. Zombie-apocalypse shit. Nom, nom. Fucking amateurs.”
“The killers were amateurs?” Jack worried whenever he caught a glimpse inside Skippy’s head. He really did. Things looked pretty scary in there.
“Twelve hours! That’s my longest job yet, and you know I don’t waste a minute. Me and Vasquez don’t screw you over like some of these punks.”
“I know.” Jack unlocked his strongbox and counted out two thousand, four hundred dollars in cash. “Here you go. When Vasquez gets in, I’ll give him his cut.”
Skippy picked up the stack of hundreds and kissed it. “Come to daddy, benjamenz.”
“We’ve still got to talk about whether you want to go with a PPO plan for dental or an HMO.”
Skippy’s happy smile collapsed. “Oh, now. Why you gotta go and spoil it? When I get a big cash bump like this, I can pretend I’m still in the enforcer business and not the damn cleaning-up-shit business. Why you gotta go talking about dental plans?”
“Sorry, but you know I do things legit, even if you want to get paid in cash.” Jack shot Skippy a warm smile. “You’re still all thug to me, baby.”
“Damn right, I’m all thug. But I gotta eat. And no one better judge me for how I bring home my bacon. Once Kelly Ann and me had the baby, I got all shiny.”
“You earn it, Skippy. Every last dime.”
“Hell yeah, I earn it. I hadda open the fucking pool filter to replace the diatomaceous earth. You know what? That shit gets everywhere. Hadda call the Five-O and tell them they missed something. Hilarious!” he sang. “Your detective kept trying to wipe that fine-caked mud off his little Italian shoes.”
“My detective?”
“Your boyfriend, Detective Hungley.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Jack said too quickly.
“Yeah, yeah, he’s just your friend, except when you’re both ass-plowing drunk, and I ain’t supposed to know about that. Whatever. I’ve gotta tell Kelly Ann we’re going to Vegas. Don’t call me until Monday.”
“Have fun.” The office phone rang, and they both saw it was Detective Huntley calling. Jack felt his cheeks heat. “All right, get out. That’s Dave on the phone now.”
“I’m supposed to go right now? ’Cause he’s not your boyfriend. Nuh-uh. That’s some sick shit you homos get up to. Calling each other on the phone, going out for drinks and whatnot. Ending up blind drunk and fucking.” Skippy shook his head and backed out, making rude hand gestures. “Where I come from, that’s called dating.”
“Out.” Jack answered the phone. “Dave?”
“You working already?”
Three words in Dave’s perfect whiskey voice had Jack shifting in his chair. “Mm-hmm.”
“One of these days I’m going to plant something on your boy Skippy, and he’s going to jail, which he richly deserves.”
“You don’t like him finding shit your crime scene guys missed?”
“I don’t like how happy it makes him.”
“He’s thorough, is all.”
“That’s not the point, is it? He used to break people’s kneecaps for a living.”
Jack’s artificial knee wanted to crawl up his ass at that. Even if he couldn’t exactly remember his body shattering, the thought made him sick. “You got proof of that?”
“Would he be walking around free if I did?”
“Quit bitching me out for something I didn’t do. Why’d you call?”
“I got something, but I didn’t know if I should call your outfit.”
“What are you doing there if—”
“It’s my mom’s neighbor’s place. I was having breakfast with her, and”—Dave covered the phone somehow, but Jack could still hear him telling someone in the background he’d be right there—“her neighbor started ringing the bell. He got home from his night shift at St. Jude and found his cousin, who lives with him, dead. Ate his gun. I guess the neighbor couldn’t face talking about it right then, so he came here to ask my mom to call the cops.”
“Are the cops there yet?”
“Not yet. Any minute, I expect.”
“You’re not supposed to throw me business, are you? You’ll get in trouble if—”
“It’s Nick Foasberg. That’s why I’m calling you. I wanted you to hear it from me.”
Jack froze. “My Nick Foasberg?”
Dave replied, but Jack couldn’t process what he was saying. The unnatural hammering of his heartbeat drowned out the annoying squeak of his oscillating fan. He turned the damn thing off, because suddenly the room felt cold.
“My Nick is your mother’s neighbor?”
“Ah, God, Jackie. No.” Dave had a perfect voice, all right. Perfect for phone sex. Perfect for shouting at perps. Perfect for making a death-notification call. “I’m so sorry to have to be the one to tell you this. Nick Foasberg is dead.”
Chapter 2
Jack got in his truck and programmed the Sunny Hills address Dave had given him into his navigation system. The drive over was fairly quick considering morning rush-hour traffic.
It was going to be weird between him and Dave, now that he knew where Dave’s mom lived. He and Dave had been acquaintances as far back as high school, but even then Dave didn’t seem to have a mom. As far as Jack was concerned, Dave shouldn’t have a mom, ’cause he didn’t do guys with moms.
Jack didn’t do much more than collide with guys in the blank oblivion of alcohol-fueled sexual encounters anyway, but guys with mothers? No.
Hit-and-run fucking was his thing. That was the only way to learn a guy’s most intimate secrets and still be able to walk past him the next day without recognizing his face.
He and Dave, they had that, but with the added bonus that they could get together most Friday nights and bitch about work. What they did wasn’t complicated.
And that was just how Jack liked it.
“You asshole,” Jack muttered as he made his way past rows of older Spanish colonial houses in the hilly upscale neighborhood. They were glamorous two-story places, most on oversize lots with wide green lawns. Here and there he got a glimpse of dazzling gardens.
With every square inch of Orange County real estate highly prized even in this shitty economy, big yards were as scarce as faithful husbands.
You never said your mom lives in East Upper Crustia.
Jack rounded a corner and found the place he was looking for. Two police cruisers and the coroner’s van were parked out front. A small crowd of curious neighbors clumped on manicured lawns—gawkers held back by a thin thread of decency and the suspicious glares from a handful of uniformed police officers.
He spotted a couple of guys he knew—his competition—and was pulling to the curb across the street just as someone wheeled Nick’s body out the side gate.
Jack gripped the wheel and simply sat there, stuck in his truck, unable to move through the gut-twisting pain of seeing Nick Foasberg in a body bag.
Jack’s phone rang, and he adjusted his Bluetooth out of habit more than need. When he answered, he kept his voice professional. “Masterson.”
“Are you okay?” A new voice from Dave. Tender.
“Nick Foasberg can’t be dead.”
“Take a deep breath for me.”
Jack pulled air into his lungs, then blew it out again, but his heart hammered on unhappily. “How do you know it’s my Nick? There could be more than one Nick Foasberg. It’s not an uncommon name.”
“The cousin went to school with us a few years behind.
” Dave’s voice could hold back oceans. It could order the cosmos. “I recognized him. You don’t think I’d put you through this if I didn’t know for sure.”
“I don’t know what you’d do.”
“Yeah, you do. I know how you feel about Nick Foasberg, even if you never let yourself admit it.”
“What do you mean, I never—”
“You love him. Even after he—”
“I know.” Jack couldn’t have this conversation. Not now. “I know that.”
Dave was silent for so long Jack thought the call had dropped. “Who are you sending over? God, do not send Skippy. The neighborhood watch will burst into flames if you send Skippy.”
“No. Not Skippy.” Jack managed the latch on the door of his truck. Once it was open, he pulled the strap of his messenger bag over his head so it would stay put while he got his cane on the ground.
“Is Gabe going to bid it or Eddie?”
“No.” Jack closed the door of his truck and started across the street. He looked over the houses on either side of Nick’s cousin’s place. God. Dave’s mother had to be doing pretty well to have a place like that. These houses were worth millions. Who had that kind of money?
The cousin’s place had typical Spanish colonial features and the look of old Hollywood: thick stucco walls complete with arches, wrought iron over the windows, and a red tile roof. Precisely sculpted boxwood flanked a cement-and-brick pathway that seemed to flow in tiers like pools of lava from a soaring rustic front door. It was pretentious but not unpleasing. “Are you still at your mom’s place?”
“Oh, no.” Dave swore. “Fuck no. You are not going to that scene yourself.”
Jack: Grime and Punishment: The Brothers Grime, book 1 Page 1