by B. B. Hamel
“Eli makes sense,” Slick says. “He’s been the one with the lowest profile. And his alibi isn’t great.”
“Something about his friend, right?”
“Right,” he says, pulling out a file from his briefcase. He opens it up and pulls out a page, handing it to me.
It’s a copy of a police report, detailing the interview with Eli.
“Apparently he was playing videogames with his friend all night,” he says. “Crashed there, went home in the morning. The friend corroborated that story.”
“Seems too simple,” I say. “I mean, just one guy saw him all night?”
“It’s a bad alibi, but in this town, it’s enough.” Slick sighs and lights a cigarette, producing it from out of nowhere.
“So what do we do?”
“We go talk to the kid and get him to tell the truth.”
“You think he will?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I do. At this point, it’s been long enough. I think it’ll just take a little pressure… and he’ll crack.”
I look at the file in my hands. Eli’s friend is named Chance Myers. There’s a short little rap sheet related to Chance, mostly drug charges, so he’s clearly not the most upstanding citizen in the world. Apparently the police took the alibi at face value, and there really wasn’t any further investigation into Chance as far as I can tell.
“Why didn’t they talk to this kid more back then?” I wonder aloud.
“You know why.” Slick takes a long drag. “This town’s as corrupt as they come.”
“Still, it just feels so obvious.”
“They got their sacrifice,” He says, nodding at Luke. “Cops are people too. They have quotas and they need to fill them. They were handed this easy win on a silver platter and they took it, so even if some of the guys were legitimate, they didn’t question it much. They just didn’t care enough to.”
“People are awful,” I say softly.
Slick laughs. “That’s an understatement.” He takes the file back from me. “Come on, let’s go see him.”
“Now?”
He shrugs. “The kid lives in town, so it’s not far.”
I bite my lip. “We have Max. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Leave him with Luke.”
I shake my head. “He’s never been alone with Max yet.” I look over at him. Luke’s not paying attention to anything we’re saying. He’s staring at Max, watching him like a hawk.
“I think he’ll be fine,” Slick says softly. “Look at him.”
I watch as Luke takes a few steps toward the swings. Max stumbles and nearly falls, and Luke looks like he’s about to sprint over there. But Max gets up, brushes himself off, and goes back to playing. Luke relaxes, but not completely.
“Let me ask him,” I say. I get up and walk over to where Luke’s standing. “You doing okay?” I ask him.
“What?” Luke answers. “Oh yeah, fine.”
“You’re watching him like a hawk. He’s fine.”
“I know. I just… I’ve never done this before.”
I sigh. “Listen, Slick wants to go check out a lead. How do you feel about watching Max while we go?”
He looks a little concerned. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“You’re going to be alone with Max sooner or later. I’ll leave you whatever you need plus the car. You’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
I put my hand on his arms. “I’m sure.”
He takes a breath. “Okay then. What’s the lead?”
“We’re checking out Eli Walker’s alibi.”
He nods. “Good. Let me know how it goes.”
“We’ll be back soon.”
I nod at Slick and he stands up. Together, we walk to his car and get in.
“He’ll be fine,” Slick says to me, noticing the way I’m staring at Luke.
“I know. I’ve just never had another parent to help before.”
“It’s hard. But you’ll cope.” He starts the engine and we get going.
I stare out the window on the drive. I’m a little nervous about leaving Luke alone with Max, but that’s not really what’s causing my mood. I know Max will be fine with his father.
I’m more worried about what this all means for us. I want to be a family, but I’m not totally sure what Luke wants. He says he wants us to live with him, and that he’ll try and take care of us, but I don’t know. He just got out of prison, he’s barely been in the outside world, and now he wants a preschooler running around his space?
And I don’t know what kind of life Max is going to have now. Back at my parents’ house, everything was nice, he had tons of space. Luke’s apartment isn’t exactly huge. There are so many reasons why this is a horrible idea, and yet I don’t have any other choice anymore.
I burned those bridges. Even if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t go back there. I know I’m done with that part of my life but letting it go is still incredibly hard.
“I wanted to talk to you about something.” Slick suddenly says.
“Yeah?” I ask. “What’s up?”
He stares out the front windshield. “Business has been good for me lately. That’s part of why I can help you and Luke out for free. But I’ve been thinking that I might need a little help.”
I stare at him, not sure what to say. “What are you offering me?”
“I need an assistant,” he says. “It’ll be secretary stuff at first. Boring, run of the mill. I’ll only need you part-time. But it’s a job.”
I blink, surprised. “That’s really nice of you.”
“Truth is, you've got a good mind for this. The stuff you did for Luke… honestly, I just came in and followed your leads to their conclusions. You could have gotten there eventually without me.”
“Thanks,” I say softly. It feels really good to have some recognition of my hard work.
“So maybe I can teach you some things. We’ll go slow, and I’m not saying you’re going to be my partner or something like that… but I’ll teach you if you want to learn.”
I watch him silently for a second. I never imagined myself as a private investigator before. I didn’t think I had it in me, to be totally honest. I always imagined PIs were trench coat-wearing ex-cops.
But maybe he’s right. I didn’t exactly enjoy investigating this Luke case, but I was definitely good at it. And there were parts that I liked.
“Let me think about it, okay?” I say to him. “I’m interested, I mean it’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever offered me. Just let me think.”
“No rush,” he says, pulling down a side street. “Here it is.”
We stop in front of a pretty boring little house. It’s dead in the middle of the street, with a small driveway, a tiny mailbox, and miniature shutters.
We park and get out. I follow Slick’s lead as he heads right up to the front door. He knocks hard a few times, waits a minute, and knocks again.
“What?” a woman’s voice screeches. She sounds older, deeper and gravelly.
“Ma’am, I’m looking for Chance.”
The woman opens the door. She’s wearing curlers in her hair, has an annoyed, wrinkled face, and a flowered housedress.
“What do you want with him?”
“My name’s Jason Slick, this is Avery Seller. We wanted to ask him a few questions if that’d be okay.”
She sighs and turns back inside. “Chance!” she shouts. “You got some fucking visitors!”
Slick grins at me and we follow her into the house. The place is fairly tidy, and there’s a cigarette burning in the ashtray. I should be surprised that Chance lives with his mom still, but I’m really not. He’s twenty-five, and a lot of people that age still live at home, especially in this day and age. Plus, this guy isn’t exactly a shining example of hard work and responsibility.
“Chance!” she shrieks again. We walk up to a closed door, the deep bass thump of rap music spilling out from beneath the crack, “Visitors!” She pounds on his door
.
“What?” he yells. “I’m busy!”
“Get off your game box and open the fuck up!” She pounds again.
The music abruptly stops and the door flies open. “What the fuck do you—” He stops midsentence when he spots me and Slick.
“Hi, Chance,” Slick says. “Let’s talk.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
Slick walks right into his room and I follow him. Chance’s mouth hangs open and he looks back at his mother. She just grumbles and walks away, clearly not interested.
“What the fuck?” he says. “Get out of my room!”
“Shut the door,” I say to him. “Let’s talk.”
He stares at us for a second before finally shutting the door. “I know you,” he says to me.
“Do you?”
“Yeah.” He stares for a second. “You’re Avery Seller, right?”
“Right,” I say, smiling at him.
“I know your brother.”
“Of course you do,” Slick says.
Chance’s room is a mess. There are clothes all over the floor, empty snack bags, dirty dishes, and cigarette butts. Clearly his mother never comes in here. There’s a computer and a desk against one wall, a twin bed against another, a futon in the middle of the room, and a big TV on the last wall.
“What’s this about?” Chance asks.
Slick looks around. “Nice setup you got here.” He walks over to the computer. “This looks expensive.”
“Back off,” Chance says. “I worked for that.”
“I bet you did.” Slick smiles at him. “I want to talk to you about something.”
He eyes me again. “What do you want?” he asks.
“We’re here for the truth,” I tell him.
“I don’t know shit about it,” Chance says quickly.
Slick laughs. “You don’t even know what we want to talk about yet.”
“Who the fuck are you?” Chance says to him.
“I’m Jason Slick. I’ve been investigating the Luke Harper case. You know, the one where he was falsely accused and did hard time for a crime he didn’t commit?”
“Sure,” Chance says. “Everyone’s heard about it.”
“You did more than hear about it,” I cut in. “You were involved, weren’t you?”
“No,” he says quickly. “Of course not.”
“Chance, do you know a man named Dominic?”
Chance turns sheet white and quickly shakes his head. “No. Hell no. Never heard of him.”
“Well, that’s weird,” Slick says. “Because he definitely knows you. Chance, we talked to poor Dominic. And he told us all about the bribes.”
Chance’s eyes go wide. His knees wobble a little bit and he quickly sits down on the futon.
I give Slick a look and he grins at me.
“Tell us what happened,” I say to Chance.
“No,” he answers softly. “Dominic wouldn’t tell you.”
“He would if he got hit by a car after running away from us.” Slick crouches down in front of Chance.
“You… killed him?”
Slick shakes his head. “No. He’s alive. But he’s unhappy.”
“Why… I mean, I don’t know anything about this.”
“Chance.” I sit down next to him. “Please, listen to me. I know you were bribed to cover something up, and we’re pretty sure it’s because of Eli. I bet his parents paid you a lot of money to stay away from him and to keep quiet. But it’s time to come clean.”
“You don’t have to go down for it,” Slick adds. “There’s no reason anyone has to suspect you talked or bother you ever again. But we need to know the truth.”
Chance looks between us and finally puts his head in his hands.
“Where was he that night?” I ask him softly.
“I don’t know,” Chance says, sobbing. His body heaves violently as he cries. “I don’t know. They gave me so much money. I don’t know.”
I look at Slick and he nods. We stand up and move toward the door.
“I didn’t know somebody else would go to jail,” Chance says before we leave. “I didn’t know.”
“Doesn’t change anything, does it?” I say to him. “You’re still a fucking liar.”
We leave his room. I shut the door behind us. Slick thanks Chance’s mom on the way out and she just croaks in response. We head back into his car and we sit there in silence for a second.
“Eli Walker,” I say finally. “It was him the whole time.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Seems that way.”
“Shit. I can’t believe it.”
“I can’t say I’m too shocked. The kid’s a drug addict and a loser. He was probably so high that night he didn’t even know he did it.” Slick sighs and starts the engine.
“What now?” I ask him.
“We could go to the cops. I think we have more than enough.”
“But?”
He grins at me. “What’s the fun in that?”
We drive back toward the park, and I can’t help but feel real hope that this is almost over.
25
Luke
I’m thinking about my son when we spot Eli Walker leaving the church.
He’s wearing a dark sweatshirt and a pair of ratty jeans. He walks quickly away from the group, heading in the opposite direction of everyone else.
“That’s him,” I say, pointing.
Avery squints. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Slick starts the engine. We watch as Eli gets into a beat up-sedan, one I don’t recognize, and pulls out. Slick follows him, stays back a bit, being careful.
Over the past week, I’ve had to learn how to live with Avery and Max. I can’t pretend like it's been easy, having a four-year-old around, but it’s been a lot better than I thought it would be.
Max is a handful, but it feels good. I like taking care of him, making sure he’s comfortable and happy. I feel like a useful person when I’m watching him. I’m still working at the garage full-time, and I’m actually working on pulling in more business by courting classic car owners, since I have experience with restoration projects. My truck’s coming along too, and we might actually be able to fix it.
Best of all though, I go to sleep with Avery every night and I wake up with her. It’s like a dream, something I’ve always wanted. I can taste her when I need it, make her feel good, fuck her deep and slow. I’ve had her in every inch of my apartment, although we have to be quiet, since we have to wait for Max to go to sleep. Once he’s out though, the clothes come off, and I’m making up for lost time.
It wasn’t easy, getting to this point, but we’re here now. Slick’s been doing most of the research on his off time, although Avery helps as much as she can. I take Max for a few hours after work while she goes out with Slick. She told me about his offer, and I told her she’d be crazy to turn it down.
Eventually though, they figured out that Eli is in AA. A friend of his leaked that little piece of info, and they spent the rest of the week scouting out every AA meeting in the whole area for any sign of him.
Finally, they hit on this place, and here we are. They spotted him just a few days ago, and the wait’s been excruciating. I’m out of patience. I want this fucking case to be over. But Slick was adamant: we have to wait, or else we’ll spook him.
“What do we do now?” I ask.
“Now we follow and see what he does.”
“What if he just goes home?” Avery asks.
“Then he just goes home. We’ll try again next meeting.”
“Fuck,” I say. “I can’t keep waiting.”
“Patience, Luke. We can’t rush this. We have to do it right.”
I grumble to myself and Avery gives me a smile. I go back to staring out the window, and although I’m stressed that Eli’s just going to go right back to the Walker house, my fears are quickly alleviated.
Instead of going home, he drives in the opposite direction. We follow him to this
ramshackle bar, a place I’ve never heard of. It’s called The Suite Inn, although I’m pretty sure there aren’t any rooms for rent. Eli parks outside and goes in.
Slick stops the car across the street.
“Do we follow?” I ask.
“Avery can’t,” he says. “Eli will recognize her.”
“He’ll recognize Luke, too,” she points out. “He’s more famous than I am.”
“Okay then. We wait.”
“You could go in,” I point out.
“We don’t do things alone now,” Slick says. “As much as I’m not worried about that punk kid, it’s better to play it by the book.”
“Buddy system,” I say. “Got it.”
He gives me a look and turns to Avery. “There’s a reason cops have partners. Having someone to watch your back is indispensable in this business. Unfortunately, as a PI, you work alone most of the time. So you have to find little workarounds for certain things.”
“Like what?”
He shrugs. “I’ll show you sometime.”
We fall into silence again, watching, and I’m bored as hell. Slick launches into another one of his little speeches about detective work, and how it’s mostly waiting around for something to happen. He says being a PI isn’t glamorous or fun, and it’s actually mostly boring. I’m pretty sure he’s trying to talk Avery out of it, but she doesn’t seem deterred.
I lean back in the seat and watch the bar. The guy that really killed Lucinda Chavez is probably in there, drinking away, free as you can be. He even has a family that supports him and gives him money. Sure, the kid has his fucking problems, and it’s pretty messed up that he’s going to AA meetings and then heading right out to a bar, but fuck him. I don’t care if he’s off the wagon and ruining his life.
He got five years of freedom, five years that he doesn’t deserve. I want those years back, but doing this is going to have to suffice.
A couple hours pass. It’s just like Slick said, boring as fuck, but we hang in there. We listen to the radio, but we don’t talk all that much. I can tell everyone’s on edge.
The front door of the bar opens. Every time someone comes or goes, we all perk up. This time, it’s a group of three guys, and the guy in the middle is definitely Eli Walker.