Chapter Thirty-Seven
White As A Sheet
Making sure I wasn’t being followed, I drove in circles for a while.
Then Sally called me. She was one of my best friends, and took care of my house in Baytown. Sally wanted me to come visit. I told her I would the first chance I got.
After hanging up with her, I drove south on Shepard in Archie’s car. I left him and Louie’s bodies in the street, trash to be cleaned up.
Made a left on to Inwood Drive, and I entered the old neighborhood. A landscaping truck parked on the first block, on the right side of the street. Only in Houston could a landscaper work in the winter.
I drove in River Oaks. Art told me that BM lived here. That’s all I had, that’s all Art gave me. He said he had the client’s initials and that was all.
After I threatened his family he gave me a somewhat detailed description of the house.
The streets of River Oaks were littered with multi-million dollar homes. The neighborhood had been the home of Jeff Skilling. He lived here before he began serving a twenty-five-year prison sentence for his involvement in the Enron scandal.
Lukas knew a lot of people who got screwed over in the shit. He tried to feel some of those people out to see if any wanted to put a hit on Skilling after I told him I’d do it at a discount. But in the end, we decided not to seek out the job, because there was too much media attention. Last, I heard, Jeff still resided in prison.
It took me an hour of searching to find the house. Art had described it to me earlier. I parked across the street from the house.
My phone vibrated. I never had the ringer on, because I didn’t want my phone to alert anyone else. I grabbed it, and answered. “Sup hermano?”
“Hey Rose, this is Mitch.”
He used my other name, probably unable to speak freely. “What’s up?”
“We got a name for the dead girl and went to see her mother,” he said.
“First, why are you telling me this? Second, why isn’t Henry telling me this?”
“The mother of the dead girl has a lot of pictures on the walls in her apartment. Henry looked at one, and became white as a sheet, and he told me to call you and tell you something.”
He had my full attention. “Tell me something?”
“Yeah.”
“What is it?”
“He said that he has a picture of a man and his name is ‘Uncle’. Said that you’d understand what he meant?”
It felt as if I had fallen a thousand feet in a single moment. “What was the name again?”
“I don’t know, he started mumbling. He mumbled something about an uncle. Do you understand what he’s talking about?”
“Yes, send me the address where you’re at.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
That’s A Big Scar
Impossible.
I searched for him for years and never found any trace of that monster. I pulled up to the apartment complex on Richmond Ave West of Montrose. Familiar with these apartments, I partied here a few times a five or six years ago.
It was dirty, a little run down. The outside walls were tattooed with wicked designs of dirt and partially alive vines. Tatted up hippies, who hated the system, and undocumented immigrants mostly lived here.
Cheap rent for a place in a relatively cool area of town.
Exiting my car, I walked up a flight of stairs. Off to the side, a center courtyard with a small patch of short grass where kids walked around like little penguins. I moved down the walk way, watching the kids play with no worries.
I wished I could inform them, to what was coming. I’d tell them to never grow up. To be kids as long as they could.
A little boy chased one of the little girls, arm out in front, holding something. Probably something dead, and gross. I half closed my eyes and breathed out, half grinning to myself, remembering little Jimmy Hazleton.
I had such a puppy-love crush on that boy. Before Mama died, I would play with him and the other neighborhood kids all the time. He was the first boy to ever kiss me. I was what? Eight? Maybe nine years old?
I remember once, at the urging of the older kids, we played Kissing Chase. Another boy caught me first but I didn’t let him kiss me. Jimmy eventually caught me and I let him.
One of the other little penguins screamed, breaking me from my memory. I turned and observed the girl running with the other kids.
Moving to the door, I knocked.
Mitch answered the door. He seemed a bit frazzled, standing there. “Hey, please come in.”
An aroma of beef teased my nose as I entered.
Mitch pointed. “This is Mrs. Teresa Ramirez, Samantha’s mother.”
Henry was plugged into a spot on a brown couch, his eyes scrutinized a picture he held. I moved towards Mrs. Ramirez, reached out with my right arm. “Hello, I’m Rose.” Normally I would tell her sorry for her loss, but I didn’t understand this situation.
The woman grabbed my hand, and shook it. Her face became warmer, relieved to see another woman. “Hi, please call me Teresa.”
She didn’t wear any make-up, and wore her hair back in a ponytail.
Before I spoke to Henry I wanted to see them. I turned to Mitch. “Show me pictures.”
Following him I walked over to the picture-covered wall.
“She’s got a lot of pictures of her family. See?” He presented the pictures like the women on the Price Is Right showing the different prizes.
Pictures covered the wall, and I took a moment to look at them. “Yes, so what?”
“Well, he saw a picture, the one he is holding now,” Mitch said, trying not to appear too worried. “He hasn’t said anything since he sat down.”
In the pictures, Samantha played with two other smaller children, a girl, and a boy. Many pictures of the children smiling, and a picture of a man, Hispanic were on the wall.
“This her husband? Samantha’s father?”
Mitch stepped in closer. “Uh, yeah but he’s doing a nickel in Huntsville, for selling cocaine.”
Confused at what could be the problem. My brother sat quietly in the living room. “Let me talk to Henry alone.”
Worry colored Mitch’s face. “Yes, please talk to him, Chloe.”
We walked over to the living room, I plugged myself into a big chair, and it was comfy.
My brother examined a framed picture. “Sup hermano?”
He brought up his head, and his eye brows raised. “Hey Chloe. Look at this.” He handed it to me. A picture of Samantha and two white men. They smiled, standing in front of the ass end of a Silver SUV.
Children were playing in the background to the right. A banner to the left.
A party?
Too bad Samantha’s father wasn’t able to help me find her killer. I looked at the faces of the two white men. It took me a moment, but I recognized one of them. “Oh shit!”
Mitch came over to see. “What is it?”
I pointed at the picture. “We know this man.”
“Who is it?”
I stood up, walked over to Teresa. “Who is this man? What’s his name?”
Teresa seemed nervous. Perhaps she was sad about learning about daughter’s death. She asked, “What?”
“What is this man’s name, here?”
She held the frame up closer to her face. “Oh, that’s Norman White.”
Oh shit!
Norman White was the man who put the hit out on Henry and Mitch with Lukas. And he’s Uncle. But why the hit? I dismissed the idea that this was related to our history with the man. He’d been gone for twenty years, and probably didn’t even remember Henry. Uncle put the hit out on them for some other reason.
I asked Teresa why she had a picture of Norman White with her daughter. Teresa told us that Samantha was at a party the City of Houston threw, commemorating Hispanic Heritage or something, she didn’t remember.
Teresa, and Samantha were low hanging fruit.
Henry brought his eyes up. “Chloe, he’s back.”
>
I didn’t want Teresa to hear me so I asked her for something to drink. She offered me a Coke, I accepted, and she left us alone in the living room.
I pointed to the man on the right. “You see this man?”
Mitch squinted. “Yes.”
Henry looked at me and nodded, giving me permission to explain it to Mitch.
“We called him Uncle. We didn’t know his real name until just now, ‘Norman White’.”
“Okay.” Mitch’s eyes wide open.
The side of my mouth twitched. “He is a scum-sucking pederast! And if Henry doesn’t kill him I will!”
“Wait a minute,” he said, resting his hands on his hips. “What are y’all saying?”
“Henry was one of his victims, when he was a boy.”
Mitch glanced at Henry and me. He grabbed his forehead, as it were a removable piece, and it became loose, and he was adjusting it. “We need to take this slow, guys.”
All I could see in Henry at the moment was a scared little boy who looked to his big sister to protect him. My heart hurts. If I had done my job back then, he would be whole now. Norman White will pay for this.
I knelt in front of Henry, and Teresa came back with a Coke.
“Thank you.” The can was cold in my hand.
Teresa nodded, then turned to Henry. “Is he okay?”
This situation was hard, but we needed to bulldoze our way through it. “Yeah, he will be.”
She stepped away.
Turning to my brother, I wanted to scream, but that would waste too much energy. “What do you want to do, right now?”
His mouth twitched, body still, eyes in front, fingers intertwined, hands in his lap. “I want to find him.”
Mitch slid his hand down to his mouth, wiped imaginary grime off his face. “First, we need to make sure the man in the picture is this Uncle guy.”
I stepped up to Mitch and stared him in the eye. “It’s him.”
“Rose, I will have to tell our lieutenant and—” he stopped.
“No! Don’t tell your boss. Why does he need to know?”
He held his hands out in front of him. “Calm down. My hands are tied, there are rules. Procedures to follow.”
“Fuck your rules Mitch! If you tell your boss, what happens?”
“I’m not really sure, Henry might have to see a shrink. Just seeing the pictures has obviously affected him. It won’t be bad, maybe he’ll take a day or two.”
“Henry’s okay now!”
“All right, let’s calm down,” Mitch said. “I’m not looking to jam up my partner. I’d never do that!”
He looked to the side, thinking. “We know this is Norman White, right?”
I nodded.
“But, I need to make sure he’s indeed the man you both knew as Uncle. If it’s him, and he’s related to this case, and we don’t mention it to my lieutenant. He came up in the investigation, okay?” he asked.
“What if you had another witness who would swear that the man in the picture was Uncle?”
Mitch sighed. “You know anyone who might be acquainted with this guy?”
“Yes, I do.” I held up the picture so he could see it. “You see that scar on this man’s face?”
He squinted. “Yeah, that’s a big scar. What about it?”
“I gave it to him.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Turning The Pages
Teresa walked to the window, and opened the mini blind with a middle finger.
The younger one got into a car, while the older one talked to the lady.
This was all her fault. If she’d been an actual mother to her children, Samantha would be alive today.
The police would be back, and when they do, they would arrest her. If locked up, she would never see her kids again until they were adults.
She needed money, and knew where to get it. She would call him. He would be mad, but it didn’t matter, she needed him to know the police had been here, and they had recognized him in the picture.
She needed his phone number, and recalled writing it down somewhere. Teresa closed her eyes, then remembered where she wrote it down. She went into her bedroom, finding her journal on the nightstand.
She learned to write in her journal the last time she was in rehab. Every day she wrote a daily goal first thing in the morning. Also, she would write down one thing that would make her mad that day, like using drugs again would make her mad. And one thing that would make her happy that day, like not using drugs that day would make her happy. Teresa didn’t stop there, she also wrote other notes.
I will be sober today and I will not use drugs, I am strong today and I will be strong today because I love my children, and I am a mommy every day of their lives.
She flipped through the journal and found his number written in ugly red handwriting, appeared to be an ancient script.
Teresa grabbed her cell phone and dialed the number.
It rang five times, then ten, then twenty. She hung up and decided to call it again.
“Hello?” answered the man on the other end on the fifth ring.
“Uh, hi, this is Teresa Ramirez.” She noted that her voice was higher pitched than normal.
“Ah, yes, I remember you.”
She closed her eyes, taking in a couple of deep breaths. “Uh, I wanted to tell you the cops found my daughter, and she was dead.”
“Teresa, I am sorry about what happened to your daughter, I truly am. I spoke with him about what happened and it was an accident, he loved her.”
Tears began running down her cheeks, she sniffled.
“Teresa, I am sorry my dear.”
His words sounded hallow. How could she have been so stupid to trust this man.
“I should have told you as soon as I learned about it,” he said.
She raised her shirt, and dried her face. “Cops just left.”
“What did you tell them, my dear?”
Teresa didn’t like the way he talked, he scared the shit out of her. “I swear I didn’t tell them anything! Our agreement is still good, but I uh, need some money.”
“You need more money?”
“Yes.”
He cleared his throat. “And why is that my dear?”
Teresa knew not to be a smart ass with this man, but she needed money. Although she didn’t kill Samantha, her daughter’s death was her fault.
She was nervous, turning the pages of her journal, coming to a page with a doodle. It was a flower with a smiley face. Samantha had drawn it for her one day before school. She told Teresa that it was a flower to make her happy throughout the day.
With her index finger, she traced the lines of the petals of the flower, reading a note at the bottom of the page: ‘I love you Mommy’
Three times, three different handwritings, three different kids. Her children, one dead, two still alive.
A tear ran down her cheek before she wiped it away. She didn’t want to go to prison.
“My dear, you still there?”
“Uh, yes,” she said softly, thinking of her options. If she could get enough money together she could go down to Mexico, and come back later maybe to get her kids. She had some relatives in Monterrey that would help her. “I think it’s time to go on a mini vacation, you know?”
Teresa didn’t hear his voice for a few seconds.
“How much you need?”
“I think ten thousand would take me far.”
Half a minute had gone by before he replied. “Teresa, is your mother still alive?”
Her back straightened after registering the question.
“Uh, yeah, but we aren’t close,” she said, knowing where he was going. Over the years she had been threatened more times than she could count by drug dealers, pimps, and johns. “She disowned me years ago, she claimed that I loved drugs more than her.”
“My dear, I’ll give you the money, but you better stay gone for a very long time. If I hear you been talking to the cops, you will visit your daughter.”
A knot of fear grew in Teresa’s stomach. Her life had been threatened before by tough and rugged men. This man was not tough nor rugged. He scared her on a much deeper, psychological level, which made her shudder. “Yes, I know. I promise I won’t talk to the cops and I will stay away for a long time, I promise.”
“You still live at that awful apartment?”
She cringed, but he was right. Her apartment was awful. “Yes, sir.”
“Wait there, the money is on the way.”
It worked! She would be ten-grand richer in Mexico.
Chapter Forty
Loved Him Like No Other
The man watched the boy, who was thin but firm, stand in front of the bed.
He had his own boy, Jerry, who he called his son. His mother worked as a prostitute, and couldn’t afford to feed another mouth besides hers.
He bought Jerry from her at a discount, and loved him like no other.
“Take your clothes off,” he told the boy.
The boy took his clothes off slowly, and the man liked it.
“How old are you?”
“I’m eleven.”
He really liked the boy’s dark skin. “Where are you from?”
The boy who took off his underwear.
The man missed Jerry.
“I don’t know, I’ve been with him.” The boy pointed towards the door, towards the man outside the hotel room. “Since I was five or six, I don’t remember exactly.”
When the man found out he was leaving to go back to the states, he took Jerry to a nice restaurant. One last meal together. They had chocolate cake, Jerry’s favorite, for dessert. He drove Jerry around town one last time before parking in an empty alley. They got out, and he pulled out a knife. The pushed the blade into the back of Jerry’s head, severing the spinal column. Jerry was dead before the man laid him down on the ground. If he couldn’t have Jerry, no one could have him.
The boy got in bed with him.
For the next several minutes he forgot about the outside world.
Then a knock at the door. “Yo, time is up! Hurry up.”
Checking the time on his cell phone, it had been only forty-five minutes. He was about to tell the guy that he had more time when he his phone chimed.
Ungoverned: A Thriller and Suspense Novel (Ungoverned Series Book 1) Page 11