Done for a Dime

by David Corbett

  Manny couldn’t say yes fast enough. So scared he couldn’t stop crying, he secretly hoped, once his name went public, the movement would step forward and claim him as one of their own. They’d done it before; he’d read about it. But the movement disavowed him instantly. The U.S. Attorney, though, was three steps ahead on that one.

  “The radical underground prides itself,” the government’s press release said, “on its clandestine communication channels. The suspect himself affirms his connection to environmental terror groups. Those groups have not offered one shred of evidence to disprove that fact.”

  The perfect ploy—can’t prove a negative and can’t disprove the possible. And so Manny got to be who he claimed to be and was promptly despised by all. Meanwhile, prosecution and prison inflicted their customary indignities. He did thirty months, reentering society punch-drunk, flinchy, shabbily tattooed.

  Unmasked.

  Ferry took a sip of orange juice from a carton he’d bought at a nearby minimart, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “How many punked-out jailbird junkies does it take to screw up a perfectly good plan?”

  “He hit me.”

  “He was old. If you’d bothered to look, probably could’ve seen the punch coming from, I dunno, Mars?”

  “You weren’t there.”

  Ferry rummaged in the paper sack at his feet, broke off a piece of an apple fritter he’d bought at the same minimart, tossed it in his mouth, and chased it with another swallow of OJ. “You’re absolutely right. I wasn’t there. Which brings us back to my favorite question—why were you?”

  Ferry had identified the kid, researched him, tracked him down. He’d come across the Portland arson story in an Internet posting. First stop, the mother. She’d married the boyfriend by that time and was apparently unaware, unconvinced, or unconcerned that her new husband had likely been responsible for her son’s imprisonment. Ferry pretended to be a private investigator working for an insurance company that had a claimant pretending his fire had been set by their son. From what Ferry could tell, the mother—source of Manny’s Black and Filipino genes—had more vested in her latest marriage than her son. And to his new stepfather, a cracker from the Cascades, Manny meant less than nothing. Like everyone else in Manny’s life, they couldn’t disclaim him fast enough. But as Ferry thanked them for their time and got ready to go, the mother stood up with him and said, “I’ll walk you out.”

  In the front yard, she confided that a few months earlier she’d received a one-page letter from Manny, postmarked from a town in Northern California called Susanville. “There’s a prison there,” she added. “Basically, he asked for money.” As she turned to go back inside the house, she added, “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell Manuel I gave you that information.”

  The trail in California proved complicated. Manny wasn’t in custody at the Susanville Correctional Center and never had been. He’d taken half a course for big rig drivers at the local community college, then disappeared. Given the fact that he could be anywhere, Ferry decided to employ the help of law enforcement. It continued to amaze him how trusting some cops could be once they recognized you as a former member of the tribe.

  He told them he was working for the family, trying to get the young man home for a little tough love. The cops he befriended confided that Manny’s name was related to arson fires throughout timber country. In Susanville alone, pipe bombs took out a log loader at a chip mill and a hijacked truck had been set afire. But Manny’s name came up across the state in Arcata, too, where a tree farm run by the Humboldt State agriculture department had gone up in flames. Then back to the foothills, a town called Quincy, where they wanted him for questioning in a torch job involving two more lumber trucks in a storage yard. Despite the legwork, the pattern gratified Ferry. Showed the kid still wanted to be known as the next great solo eco-warrior. And he had the good sense to keep moving.

  In the end, it all turned on the fact that a Plumas County deputy Ferry’d befriended stuck his neck out. The kid got picked up with no ID on a drunk and disorderly out near Antelope Lake. The deputy suspected this sulky mound of crossbreed lard was Manny Turpin and for a slight fee was willing to let Ferry spring him, nothing more than a fine to pay and a promise to get the kid out of the county for good.

  Once Ferry had Manny in hand, he drove him to a deserted trailer in the woods where he’d been crashing. Manny picked up his stuff, all of which fit in a knapsack; then it was south, fast, out of the sheriff’s jurisdiction. In Downieville, Ferry sat the kid down for breakfast at a knotty pine diner. The kid ate like a pound mutt while Ferry let him know the extent of his good fortune. If he’d been made, which would have been assured once his prints got back-checked, he would have faced investigations, charges, and most likely convictions in at least three locales.

  “Thank you,” Manny mumbled, hunched over his plate.

  “Not gratitude I’m after,” Ferry told him. “I’m interested whether you want to get serious.” He said he worked for a certain party paying well to stage a particularly dramatic event. “I’ll tell you what the target is at the proper time. You can understand my reluctance at this point, I’m sure.”

  When Manny smelled setup, Ferry explained that if all he wanted was Manny in jail, he’d have left him where he was. And he wasn’t using Manny to get to anyone else; they wouldn’t be bringing anyone else on board. “Just the two of us.” That, and the naming of sums, proved to be all it took to recruit the kid. What was the alternative? How far did he expect to get if he just walked out?

  On the drive down to Rio Mirada, the kid opened up, told the sorry tale of his life up to that point. As though to impress Ferry with his competence, he confided that his whole time in prison, all he’d done, besides get hassled or get high, was bone up on arson. Getting paid to set fires? Tell him where to sign.

  If anything, it was hard to hold him back. And that, combined with the timing problem, almost caused the whole thing to fall apart.

  Ferry had hoped to find the kid, keep tabs on him, then bring him on board when the moment was right. Then Manny ended up a print check away from long-term custody. It forced his hand. But it was weeks too soon. Stuck in Rio Mirada, the kid had nothing but time on his hands. You couldn’t keep him locked up, though Ferry’d been tempted. He’d suggested once they room together here, in the office, but the kid freaked, spewing the most wildly paranoid rant Ferry’d ever heard. The prison thing, he guessed, and backed off. Rather than lose him altogether, he’d bargained the kid down to just staying in daily touch in return for an allowance. Out on his own, though, the boy went wild.

  Thank God arson’s so hard to prove, Ferry thought, more than once. Manny, admittedly a first-rate sneak, had set nearly twenty fires around Rio Mirada in six weeks’ time. Cars mostly, SUVs and high-end sedans, a whole carport of them once when the chance arose. A few Dumpster fires, too, downtown. It had stirred up something of a local panic, and Ferry had considered cutting the kid loose. At this particular moment, that seemed like an opportunity missed.

  But Ferry had latched onto Manny because he recognized what a curious little gem he was—precious not despite but because of his many flaws. His self-pitying pride, his obsessiveness, his lack of friends. Ferry would never find a replacement half as perfect, not given his time frame for the job.

  If only an obsession with fire had been his sole vice. The kid still had his prison jones—nothing worse than a maintenance habit, a morning nod at a shooting gallery, another about five at night, it kept him even keel most of the day. But to feed it, he needed to connect, and the people he’d connected with had steered him to an empty house up on St. Martin’s Hill, telling him he could crash there for a sum. And so Manny ended up in a deserted Victorian, right next door to his future victim.

  “You stalked her, the little white beauty you saw visiting up there.”

  “I followed her. To the club.”

  “We think we like her, do we, Manuel?”

  “Shu
t up.”

  “Then you followed her back and waxed the old dog you thought was boning her.”

  “I didn’t—Jesus. You’re not listening.”

  “Sure I’m listening. Especially to the parts you leave out.”

  “It’s like, the way you think, the fight at the club never happened.”

  “Kinda wish it hadn’t, you want the truth.”

  Manny fingered his eye again. “Old man just sailed into the bar? Swung around this white guy he’d been all friendly with not ten minutes before. Nailed him. Boom! It was crazy. Thought I was doing the old fool a favor—”

  “Doing the girl a favor, you mean.” Impress her, Ferry thought. Who was that masked man?

  “Lock him up, get him away, before, you know, the crowd got at him.”

  “The crowd, it got at him anyway, didn’t it? With you holding him.”

  “Not my fault.”

  “God forbid you just butt out.”

  “I loosen my hold? Old dude spins around and clocks me in the eye. Kabam! Worse, I’m ’zontal, he slams his heel down hard. I mean, damn hard.”

  And disgraced you in front of your secret darling, Ferry thought.

  Manny felt along his rib cage, winced. “You fight like that, you got what’s coming.”

  “Now you really sound like a punk.”

  “If I was a punk I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’d be giving you up as fast as they’d let me.”

  Ferry rose from his chair, crossed over to where Manny sat. He nodded at the boy’s ice pack. “Can’t be much more than water in there now.” He gestured toward the fridge. “Got another tray of cubes in the freezer. Give it to me, I’ll fill it up.”

  He held out his hand. Manny’s good eye twitched as he thought about it.

  “I thought you said it wouldn’t do any good. Too late.”

  “Seems to make you feel better. Come on, give it.”

  Ferry wiggled his fingers. Finally, Manny let go of the ice pack. Ferry took it, raised it to his ear, shook. “Just like I thought. All water.” He smiled. Then he reared back, slapped Manny’s face with the ice pack as hard as he could, did it again, fast, grabbing the kid by the hair, pulling up so the kid couldn’t hide, harder, flogging him. Manny broke free and lunged from his chair to the floor and tried to fight off the blows with his hands. The bag broke, water flew everywhere, and then the damp cloth was like a little whip, the sound a low, fierce whistle in the air.

  Ferry threw the bag down finally. “Old man kicked you? Kick you here?” He aimed for the rib cage. “Kick you here?” The kidneys. Manny curled up into a ball, arms shielding his head, knees tucked up to protect the stomach, the groin. He lay there perfectly still, taking it like he had in prison, just the sound of his breath leaking through his teeth as he panted.

  “How stupid could you be?” Ferry shouted. “Tell me, please, tell me you didn’t have your car parked out front when you shot the old fuck.”

  “No.” A small voice, the fat boy, the raped boy, deep inside himself.

  “Everybody in the neighborhood, they hear the shots, they look out, there you are.”

  “No.”

  “You better hope to God not.”

  “I parked down the hill, block and a half away. I waited next door.”

  “Lying in wait? You simple shit.”

  “I got away.”

  “They saw you.”

  “I ran. I’m here.”

  Ferry collapsed into his chair. His chest heaved as he wiped his hands on his pant legs. “See what you make me do?” The oldest reproach.

  They stayed like that—Manny on the floor, curled up, head buried deep within his arms. Ferry watched him from his chair, skin damp with sweat. An electric clock above the doorway hummed. Manny spoke first.

  “I’m gonna need to leave town.”

  “Talk like that, I’ll kill you right here.”

  “I can’t just—”

  “You think I’m not wise to you? Finally get a chance at some real money, not this firebug stuff you’re used to, you can’t fuck it up fast enough. Because you’re scared. You know what a chickenshit loser you really are and you’re scared. So you pull a weapons-grade fuckup, thinking it’s your way out. Think again, you little piss pot. I’ve shelled out plenty to you already. Bought you that fucking car.”

  “I’ll pay it back.”

  “No, no. Like way too late for that.”

  “I can get the money.”

  “Shut up!” Ferry picked up his chair by the arms, slammed it down again. “Hear me? Fucking shit weasel—you listen to me. Think I’m Mr. Fix-it? Well, here’s how things get fixed: plan gets sped up.”

  “Like when?”

  “Like tonight, if I can figure it out.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Manny stared out between his elbows. The bruised eye wouldn’t open. “Richard, please. The guy fucked up my eye. I can’t see. I’m no help to you.”

  At that, Ferry laughed.

  11

  Toby couldn’t dispel a vague suspicion as Tina Navigato took control with the police. Not that he wasn’t grateful, and there was no questioning her competence. But she hadn’t brought up money yet and where she came from proved curious.

  She’d been contacted by his mother. The bigger surprise, though, was that she’d also been his father’s lawyer. When he asked if that didn’t pose a conflict, her representing both of them, father and son—victim and suspect—she responded, “You’re innocent. Besides, I’m no longer your father’s lawyer. Agency terminates at death.” The last part was one of about five things she’d said that stopped him cold.

  She recited for him what she described as the same disclaimer she’d given his father. There were several first-rate African American estate planning and probate laywers in town—all smart, at least two smarter than her, one way smarter—not to mention criminal defense lawyers, and she would gladly provide referrals and harbor no ill will. Toby responded by asking what his father had said when she’d posed the same question.

  “Your father,” she said somewhat sheepishly, shooting a glance toward Toby’s mother, “said that, frankly, he got a silly little thrill—his words, I remember them well—having a white lawyer. Especially a white woman lawyer.”

  With respect to the murder investigation, she added that she had, some five years back, worked for a small boutique criminal defense firm, specializing in prosecutorial abuse cases and death penalty writs. Though that no longer constituted her specialty—she’d moved on when her mentor, the firm’s managing partner, died at age forty-six from a brain tumor—she still knew the lay of the land. It didn’t take a genius to infer from the way she told this part of the story that her mentor had in fact been her lover.

  For a number of reasons, some he only dimly understood, Toby liked her. He felt something less than a silly little thrill, but he liked her. He prayed to God that didn’t mean keeping her on was crazy.

  He sat on her right side, his mother her left. Across the table, Murchison and Stluka sagged a little in their chairs, arms crossed, ties tugged down from their collars. A vexed exhaustion hazed their eyes. Toby could sympathize. He chose not to.

  “I’ve had the opportunity to confer with my client, and there appear to be several areas that could use some clarification. You realize I’m under no obligation to make him available for questioning, and I have associates who’d consider me a fool for even going this far. But Toby has insisted I tell you: He did not kill his father. And the victim was, yes, his father. Perhaps that’s the first confusion we should deal with.”

  Like everything else about her, Toby thought, her voice was an enigma; a sexual huskiness softened the edges of her words. She pulled a burgundy three-part legal folder from her briefcase and withdrew from it a thin stack of documents clasped together.

  “Mr. Carlisle came to me two weeks ago concerning a problem with his sister. He’d received a tax notice from the county concerning his
property, and only then learned that title had been transferred without his knowledge or consent into joint tenancy with that sister, whose name is Veronique Edwards. I have a copy of the quitclaim here from the Recorder.” She found the deed in the stack of papers and spun it around so the detectives could see. “First, observe the date. Mr. Carlisle was in the hospital, heavily sedated at that time.”

  “His kidney surgery,” Murchison said, picking up the deed. “Day of?”

  “Day after. The second thing to notice is the signature. It’s a reasonably good forgery, but the first name gives it away. Mr. Carlisle’s y had a distinctively large below-the-line flourish.”

  “Low impulse control,” Stluka said, glancing over Murchison’s shoulder.

  “It’s notarized.” Murchison handed the document back.

  “I’ve spoken to the notary. She works at the same title company where Ms. Edwards works. She says a Black male adult who showed her Mr. Carlisle’s driver’s license and seemed to bear a resemblance to the photograph came in with Ms. Edwards and executed the deed.”

  “Her husband,” Toby’s mother said. Her voice betrayed a bitterness long in the making. “His name is Exeter.”

  “We don’t know it was Mr. Edwards for certain,” Tina advised. “Not yet.”

  “It’s not the first time they’ve pulled something like this,” Felicia said.

  “Not like this,” Toby countered. “When Pops was on the road, pay the gas bill, deposit a check, sure.”

  “Maybe you see something I don’t,” Murchison said, directing his words to Tina, “but I don’t get how this settles anything about your client being the victim’s son.”

  “Mr. Carlisle intended to leave his house to Toby. It’s why he added the practice room addition—not just for his own band, but Toby and his bands, too. And he knew it’s not income, but assets, passed on through generations, that secure your place in the middle class. He wanted that for his son. He also knew the poor chances involved in trying to qualify for, let alone afford, a mortgage on a musician’s income. Especially here in the Bay Area.”