Hallowed Ground (Julie Collins Series #2)

by Lori G. Armstrong

  “Fortunately, a standard business model works for whatever … ah, merchandise one is selling.”

  “Who told you that line of bullshit?”

  “Economics Prof in college.”

  “You went to college?”

  He nodded.

  Yikes. An organized lawbreaker.

  “Surprised?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Thought you might be.”

  A cold six-pack appeared before I got more uncomfortable.

  Martinez snapped his fingers. The room emptied. Neat trick. Okay, scary trick.

  The twist-off lids hissed as he opened the beers. He handed one to me.

  I fished my cigarettes from my purse and looked around for an ashtray.

  “No one smokes in here,” he said.

  “There’s a first time for everything.”

  He scooted forward, invading my space. “Yes, there is.”

  Those watchful dark brown eyes caused my heart to skip a beat or three. “What?”

  “Nothing.” Clinking his bottle against mine, he drained the whole thing in about four swallows. He set his empty on the table. “Now you’ve got an ashtray.”

  I was almost too paranoid to light up now. Almost. In the name of addiction I soldiered on. Two puffs, two drinks, and my tongue loosened, oh happy day.

  “I get that you’re a big, scary dude not to be messed with. Fat Bob’s is a fortress. So why am I here?”

  “Get to the point, why don’t you?”

  “You’re not paying me to be your drinking buddy, Martinez.” I paused, sipped. “I guess the question is: are you still paying me?”

  “Your partner didn’t advise you to drop this case, after what happened last night?”

  How the hell had he known about my early morning meeting with Kevin? I shrugged, shooting for nonchalant. “Partner being the operative word. He left it up to me.”

  “Why wouldn’t you keep the five grand and tell me to go fuck myself? I wouldn’t blame you.”

  I waited motionless, a rabbit caught in a snare.

  Martinez wasn’t finished poking me with a stick to see if I was really dead or just playing dead. “I got the distinct impression you’d taken Donovan’s side.”

  He was still in my face and I had too much pride to retreat.

  “You hired me to find Chloe. I’ve got your take on the situation and Donovan’s, neither of which is entirely accurate. We’re still missing information. I need that information before I make a final decision. Isn’t our priority to find Chloe and make sure she’s safe?”

  Finally, Martinez sat back, but in no way was he relaxed. He unclipped a cell phone and punched in a number. “Harvey. Bring Rondelle in.”

  I finished the beer to wet my suddenly dry mouth.

  Irritating, the whole locking/unlocking the door process. I’d half-hoped No-neck would escort Rondelle, saving me from another confrontation with kung fu man.

  No such luck.

  Harvey stepped inside first, a woman, I assumed Rondelle, a beat later.

  Martinez had placed a hard-backed chair inside the conversation area and he motioned for her to sit down.

  She did, reluctantly, throwing petulant glares at Harvey, fidgeting like a two-year old in church.

  Rondelle was striking, if a bit on the thin side. Younger than I’d imagined, shorter too. Her features, from what I could see beneath the black hair obscuring her face, were more Native American princess, less Asian than Harvey’s.

  Wearing skimpy rumpled clothes, her waist-length hair in knots, she personified a bad-mannered teenager reluctantly dragged out of bed.

  Harvey bypassed the couch and leaned against the wall behind me. I didn’t like having him at my back, but complaining wouldn’t be in my best interest.

  Martinez remained standing. “Rondelle, this is Julie Collins.”

  Her head came up. She had a wide forehead and high cheekbones that tapered into a sharp chin. Bleary hazel eyes stared down a blade-thin nose. She folded her arms, took my measure. Apparently finding me lacking, she scoffed, “Who’s she?”

  “I hired her to find Chloe.”

  She harrumphed and glared at Harvey. Twitched like she had fleas.

  Where to start? With empathy? Not my strong suit, but worth a try.

  “Thanks for coming here. I know you’ve got lots of other things on your mind. Not knowing where Chloe is, and now with Donovan in the hospital—”

  “What?” Her head snapped up so fast I heard her neck bones crack.

  The beer in my stomach fizzed. Surely she knew about Donovan. If not from the newspaper or TV, Harvey would have told her, wouldn’t he?

  “Donovan is in the hospital?” she repeated. “Why? Since when?”

  “Someone shot him last night,” I said carefully.

  “No!” She sprang, knocking over the chair. Shot across the room, swinging her tiny fists at Harvey, screaming, “I told you, you bastard, I told you not to look for her!”

  Stunned, I watched Rondelle punch Harvey in the head until Martinez caught her and wrenched her arms behind her back. She kicked and screamed, twisting her body, trying to get away from him and back at Harvey.

  “Goddammit, Rondelle, that’s enough,” Tony said.

  Harvey made no move to help Martinez contain Rondelle. He hadn’t defended himself from Rondelle’s blows, either.

  “Let go of me!”

  “Not until you calm down.”

  “Fuck you. And fuck you too, Harvey.” She spit at him.

  “Knock it off or I’ll call Big Mike in here to deal with you,” Martinez warned.

  “I don’t care.” She lunged for Harvey again. “If they kill her it’ll be your fault.”

  What the hell was going on? Rondelle hadn’t wanted Harvey to find Chloe? Why had I been hired?

  A sob broke from Rondelle’s throat.

  I’d had enough of them manhandling her. I said: “Let her go.”

  She quit struggling.

  Martinez released her, and for good measure blocked her access to her brother. Strange turn of events since it was Harvey’s job to protect him.

  Rondelle pushed her hair out of her eyes and curled in the love seat opposite me, hugging her knees to her chest.

  After a few uncomfortable seconds I prompted, “Rondelle? Are you gonna tell me what the hell is really going on here?”

  “Julie—” Tony started.

  “Shut up, Martinez,” I said without taking my eyes off Rondelle. “I’m not talking to you.”

  Harvey growled at me. I doubted anyone ever spoke to El Presidente that way.

  “Can I get a drink first?”

  Without comment, Martinez grabbed a bottle of Stoli’s, a lowball glass from the bar cart in the corner, and set it in front of Rondelle.

  “Classy guy like you always has the good stuff.” Her hands shook as she poured, tossed it back and repeated the process.

  Harvey’s revulsion with her actions pulsed through the room like a sonic wave.

  By the third shot of vodka, the rigid set to her mouth relaxed and she seemed less fidgety.

  Wasn’t the case with me. I was starting to get pissed off. “Talk.”

  “Start when you changed jobs.” This from Martinez.

  “While back, I got sick of the Linderman’s crap at The Golden Boot. I filled out an app at Trader Pete’s.” She sent a semi-panicked look to Martinez. “Swear I didn’t know I was workin’ for the Carluccis until ’bout three weeks later.

  “Robin, the head cashier, was short-handed. She asked me to work one of the private cocktail parties upstairs.” She sent Harvey a crafty look. “Told me no one minded if the girls wanted to earn a little extra money by being ‘friendly’ with some of the Carlucci’s special customers.”

  I’d never met a local woman who openly admitted she took money for sex. With the very public FBI bust of Pam’s Purple Door in 1980, Deadwood’s last working brothel, prostitution had left Deadwood. Or maybe not.

  �
�Did you take Robin up on her offer?”

  “Yes.”

  Harvey was shaking Rondelle like a stuffed toy before I’d realized he’d moved. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Now you’re whoring yourself?”

  I leapt to my feet, itching for the chance to knock Harvey on his ass, but Martinez beat me there. Wow. He was fast if he got the jump on kung fu man.

  With one fist wrapped in Harvey’s tank top, Martinez jerked him away.

  “Back off,” Harvey snarled. “She’s my fucking sister.”

  “So what?” Rondelle snarled back. “You think it was the first time I did it for money? Or for food? Or to pay my goddamn rent? Get real.”

  Tony didn’t say a word. Harvey’s face remained stoic.

  I placed myself between Rondelle and Harvey, directing my anger toward Martinez. “Get him out of here.”

  He shook his head. “No can do, blondie. He deserves to know what’s going on.”

  “Fine. But if he can’t keep his stupid mouth shut, or keep his meat hooks off his sister, he goes. You hired me, he didn’t. I might have to put up with your shit, but I won’t put up with his.”

  “Understood.” His eyes narrowed at something behind me.

  I turned. Rondelle had poured herself another slug of vodka. Or five. With my back to her I couldn’t tell how many shots she’d glugged down. This was not going well.

  I sat and lit a cigarette, searching for calm.

  “Okay, Rondelle, get to the point.”

  She traced the rim of her empty glass with a dirt-caked fingernail. “I worked two, three, of those parties. Top shelf booze, catered by some fancy chef. Slick guys in shiny suits, like you see on TV, the ones who polish their shoes with the same junk they polish their hair. Late one night, I was in the bathroom, and I heard a couple of guys talkin’ in the other room.” She scowled. “Them walls are as paper thin as the cheap-ass government ones on the rez.”

  “What were they talking about?”

  “The Bear Butte Casino. See, that’s why I listened. Donovan had been bitchin’ ’bout the problems he’d been havin’ with threats, meetin’ deadlines and stuff on the jobsite so he couldn’t take Chloe ’cause he was workin’so much overtime. I kept listenin’ and this one guy bragged his ‘inside man’ would keep causin’ problems with construction delays.”

  “Sounds like a Carlucci specialty,” Harvey said.

  “I didn’t know that,” Rondelle retorted. “Anyways, I didn’t see the guys who was talkin’.”

  Rondelle reached for the vodka bottle and emptied every drop into her glass.

  “Chloe was with Donovan that weekend. When I picked her up, I told him what I’d heard. He didn’t say nothin’, told me to forget about it, so I did.”

  “Then I got a package delivered to me by name at Trader Pete’s. Inside were pictures of Chloe with some men I’d never seen before comin’ out of Smart Start and a warning to keep my mouth shut about what I’d heard.”

  “What’d you do with the pictures?”

  Her gaze flicked to the right by the floor. “Burned ’em.”

  Harvey muttered. Martinez murmured something back.

  “Shut up.” She glared at her brother. “It ain’t your business. I told Donovan to take Chloe and hide her. Even from me. That’s why I didn’t want you lookin’ for her.”

  CHAPTER 8

  THAT’S HOW DONOVAN HAD KNOWN IMMEDIATELY Rondelle hadn’t hired me.

  Anger rose from the dark place inside me, thick, black, potent.

  Why hadn’t anyone listened to Rondelle? She was the child’s mother. She’d made a decision, probably the right decision for the first time in her life. Harvey should’ve been supporting her, not circumventing her.

  Rondelle bit her lip, a childish habit which drove home the point she was little more than a child herself.

  My head ached. The shitty games people played never changed. To think I’d wanted something different and dangerous in my humdrum PI life. Doing background checks didn’t seem like such a bad gig.

  “Rondelle, do the Carluccis know Harvey is your brother?” Martinez asked.

  I paused, fresh cigarette in hand. Now, there was a problem I hadn’t considered. Rondelle could be in even deeper trouble if what Donovan told me about the bad blood between the Hombres and the Carluccis was true.

  “I don’t list Harvey as a reference. Can you see it? Yeah, call my brother. He’s an enforcer with the Hombres. Oh, sure, everything in his job is illegal, but he can vouch for my character.”

  “With all your whoring, boozing, and lying, you’ve got no right questioning my character, little sis.”

  “Enough,” Martinez said.

  I agreed. “Rondelle, do you have any idea where Donovan might have sent Chloe?”

  “No.”

  Harvey swore.

  Rondelle straightened her hunched shoulders. “Can I go now?”

  Martinez nodded, escorted her to the door, handed her off to No-neck with murmured instructions. He neatly stopped Harvey in his tracks when he attempted to follow Rondelle out.

  “Let her go.”

  For the first time I saw something on Harvey’s face besides contempt: deep-seated sorrow.

  Then Martinez did the strangest thing; he put his arm around Harvey’s shoulder in a half-hug.

  And Harvey let him.

  Huh? A genuine gesture of affection from one bad-die to another? This night just got weirder and weirder.

  Martinez caught me staring at him after Harvey left the room. Without a word, he headed for the bar cart, poured three fingers of Bacardi Silver and downed it.

  I waited. Eyed the four full bottles of warm Coors sweating on the coffee table.

  “I’m sorry,” Martinez said, shocking the hell out of me. He sank into the opposite corner of the couch, putting his ostrich skin cowboy boots on the table.

  “You should be.”

  “Don’t pull any punches, do you?”

  “Wrong.” I pointed at him with my cigarette. “I didn’t get to zap Harvey last night, that was pulling a punch.”

  “True,” he murmured.

  Martinez, this close, sent my protective instincts haywire. I dropped the cigarette butt in the bottle. Swished it around as it hissed out.

  “I ought to walk away from this case.”

  “I know.”

  “You didn’t tell me when you hired me that Rondelle didn’t know about it.”

  “If I told you at the time I didn’t think it mattered, would you believe me?”

  I shrugged.

  “I thought I was doing Harvey a favor.”

  “Harvey has a shitty way of showing his gratitude.”

  He lifted his hands in resignation. “That’s why I’d rather have the reputation of being a bastard. Every time I play nice guy it turns around and bites me in the ass.”

  Oh I didn’t touch that comment. Not nearly enough space between me and his very bitable ass.

  Jesus, Julie, just focus, would you?

  “Harvey should’ve listened to Rondelle in the first place,” I said.

  “Let me explain something about Harvey.”

  I held up a hand. “Don’t.” Don’t make me feel sorry for him; don’t humanize him. I needed Harvey to be the bad guy because if he wasn’t, who was?

  “Don’t what? Tell you that his mother killed herself by driving drunk? How Rondelle survived but their sixteen-year old brother Lonnie didn’t?”

  “Martinez, don’t do this.”

  His boots whumped the floor. “She was ten years old and Harvey couldn’t get custody of her because he had a felony. He had to watch his only surviving family member shuffled from foster home to foster home on the reservation, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and was tempted to clap my hands over my ears.

  He scooted closer; his melodious voice held a knife’s edge. “Rondelle believed he’d abandoned her. Nothing he did for her was ever enough. She totally rejected hi
m.”

  An image of my father appeared. Ben had dealt with his rejection from our father by establishing a relationship with me. Not for the first time I wondered if Ben’s motives in getting to know me were fuelled by revenge on our father.

  “When she got pregnant at nineteen,” Martinez continued, “she had nowhere else to go—”

  “So she finally came to Harvey.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where was Donovan during this time?”

  “In Pine Ridge. Drunk, unemployed, unable to take on the responsibility of a baby. Harvey mostly kept Rondelle off the booze during her pregnancy. After Chloe was born, Rondelle became the party girl again.”

  I opened my eyes. “How long did Harvey take care of Chloe?”

  “A year. While Rondelle played at being a mother, Harvey changed diapers and made sure Chloe had food in her belly.”

  Don’t ask, my brain warned. My mouth opened like a drawbridge anyway. “Rondelle’s mother was dead. Where was her father?”

  “In the state pen.”

  I examined the silver buckles on my shoes. “Shit.”

  “Considering the alternatives, it was a good thing Donovan sobered up and stepped up to his responsibilities. Still, Rondelle saw an opportunity to hurt Harvey like she believed he’d hurt her.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes,” Martinez mocked. “She moved. Didn’t stay in one place more than a few months. Drove Harvey nuts when he didn’t know where they were.”

  I’d been through that when Ben disappeared. It’d driven me crazy and driven a wedge in my marriage that had splintered it completely.

  “Things haven’t improved. Rondelle still uses Chloe as leverage. Harvey, being Harvey, pushes the issue and ends up pushing Rondelle further away.”

  Silence weighed between us while I processed the information. Everyone I came in contact with had family issues. Nothing easy and simple like Mom and Dad occasionally playing favorites, but deep-rooted hatred stemming from tragedy—whether accidental or intentional.

  I sighed. “This is so fucked up. Is everybody’s family like this?”

  “Guess we’re just the unlucky ones.”

  “Yours too?”

  “You have no idea.”

  I waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t.

  “I’ll get started on this again Monday.”