Thread of Suspicion (Joe Tyler Mystery #2)

by Jeff Shelby

  “Mr. Codaselli hangs up, hands the phone back to Anchor,” Stevie said. “Tells us we work for him now. Anchor finally pulls the gun out of Boyd’s mouth.”

  Boyd was still staring at the table, shaking his head.

  “He tells us to tell him anything we know about Marc,” Stevie said. “And we did. Everything we could think of. I had no idea if he was gonna kill us or not.” He swallowed. “Then he told us to go find him and that we report to Anchor anything we find.”

  All of that made sense and sounded right. Stevie sounded too frightened of Codaselli to lie to me.

  “Then I got a call from Anchor tonight,” Stevie said. “Telling us to work with you. You called me. Here we are.”

  “Okay,” I said, spinning the coffee mug on the table. “Now tell me what you know about Marc.”

  “Can we get some food?” Stevie asked. “I’m starving.”

  Boyd nodded, but didn’t say anything.

  I signaled to the waitress and she came to the table. They both ordered hamburgers, fries and sodas. I forgot they were kids, probably still living on the street, without steady income or regular meals. Sitting in the diner was probably torture without being able to eat.

  “Not a lot,” Stevie said after the server left the table. “About Marc. Other than he has a girlfriend.”

  “Know her name?”

  “Jessica,” he said. “No last name. Neither of us know who she is and we haven’t been able to find out. But he borrowed the money for her. He told Gino that when he came to him the first time. That he needed it for a friend. Gino pressed him, made sure he knew he was responsible for it, that Gino didn’t care who or what it was for.”

  “But he never said why?”

  “Nope.”

  I thought on that for a minute. The waitress brought their food and drinks and they tore into them, not bothering to take their eyes off their plates until there wasn't a crumb left.

  “You said you knew who I was,” I asked. “How?”

  Stevie wiped his mouth with the paper napkin, wadded it up and tossed it on the plate. “We’d told Codaselli about Isabel, that Marc worked for her. Then we told him about you when we saw you that first night with her.”

  “So how’d you know who I was?”

  “Took a picture of you and got your license plate,” he said. “Gave both to Anchor. He called me back an hour later, told me your name, who you were, what you did. Said we should stick close to you, that you’d probably find Marc.”

  It didn’t surprise me that Codaselli knew who we were when Isabel and I had gone to his office. It explained why he was so quick to see us and why security had been fairly lax around us. Though I felt pretty sure that Anchor sounded like the kind of guy who always provided enough security.

  “You mentioned my daughter,” I said.

  Stevie pushed his plate away. “Look, man. I wanna live, alright? I’m not gonna lie. Codaselli scares the shit out of me. We don’t find his kid, I’ve got no doubt we’re gonna end up in a grave.”

  He looked at Boyd. Boyd nodded in agreement.

  “So, we have to find Marc,” Stevie said. “And Anchor said you could do that. And I looked you up, man. I think you can find Marc, too.”

  “What does that have to do with my daughter?”

  “Help us find, Marc,” he said, shrugging. “And I’ll tell you what I might know.”

  “Or, I could just call Anchor now,” I said. “Tell him you guys are full of shit and I’m done with you both.”

  The blood drained from Boyd’s face.

  But not Stevie’s.

  “Yeah, you could,” he said, staring at me. “But then Anchor would kill us and you won’t know what I could’ve told you.”

  Boyd glanced anxiously at his partner, then back at me.

  I laid my hands flat on the table. “How could you possibly know anything about my daughter?”

  Stevie held my stare. “You’d be surprised what you can learn out there. You ask the right people, you hear things that don’t make sense. Until they do.”

  He was doing to me exactly what I told Isabel she had to do with kids she knew. Leveraging. And he was doing it well.

  “If you’re lying to me, I’ll let Anchor take out Boyd,” I said. “But I’ll take you apart myself.”

  Stevie shifted in the booth. “I can live with that. Just help us find Marc.”

  I took a deep breath, steadying my nerves and my anger. I had to trust him and remember that Tim Barron was also helping me. It might work out that I didn’t need his help.

  But something told me he might be telling the truth.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s find him.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  We walked outside the diner and the icy wind pierced my ears. I shivered against it and pulled up the collar on my coat. They both stood rock still, inured to the bone-chilling temps.

  “Every person you see tonight, you ask them about a girl named Jessica,” I said. “I don’t care if you’ve talked to them before. Ask them again. She’s the key. We need to know who she is and why she needed money.”

  Stevie nodded, but Boyd looked skeptical.

  “What?” I asked him. “What’s the problem?”

  He took a deep breath. “Lot of people don’t like us. Because of what we do.”

  “Then figure out a way to make them like you tonight,” I said. “Take food. Take drinks. Blankets. I don’t care. You guys know better than I do what’ll get people to talk.”

  They exchanged anxious looks.

  “What?” I asked again.

  “It’s money,” Boyd said. “Money works better than anything.”

  Stevie nodded in agreement. “He’s right.”

  I pulled my wallet out of my jeans. I took out a handful of bills and handed them to Stevie. “Don’t overpay until you’re sure you’ve got someone who can tell you something legit. They’ll want more up front. Don’t flash the money. Separate it in your pockets so you don’t pull too much out at once.”

  Stevie spread the bills around to the four pockets in his jeans, then handed what was left to Boyd, who did the same.

  “If all that money’s gone, you better have something to show for it,” I warned. “Don’t pay unless you think you’ve got something. You can pay for small things. But don’t pay for nothing.”

  Stevie nodded. “We got it.”

  “You have my cell,” I said. “You call me the second you get anything. I’ll come to you. Otherwise, I want to hear from you every two hours. Just to check in.”

  Stevie pushed up the sleeve of his coat, checking his watch. “Two hours. Got it.” Then he looked at me. “What are you gonna do?”

  “I’m gonna drink coffee and stay awake and wait for you to call me,” I said, looking at each of them. “If I go out asking, I’ll spook people. Between you guys and Isabel that’s plenty of people asking questions tonight. Throw me into the mix and I’ll just make it worse. So I’m gonna find some coffee, sit in my car, and wait for you to call.”

  They both nodded.

  “So get going,” I said. “Turn something up.”

  I watched them walk off into the snow. Wondered if they’d find anything. Wondered if Marc was alright. Wondered who Jessica was.

  And wondered if Elizabeth was out there somewhere, too.

  THIRTY

  Four hours later, my phone rang for the second time.

  “Think we got something,” Stevie said.

  I shifted in my car seat, stiff and cold from sitting for so long. They’d called two hours earlier with nothing to tell me and I’d drifted off after that, the coffee not doing its job.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  “Probably be better if you just come,” he said, the wind whistling through the phone.

  “Where are you?”

  He gave me directions and told me it was probably fifteen minutes from the diner. I plugged the intersection into the GPS and told him I was on my way.

  The wind and snow ha
d picked up while I’d fallen asleep and it blew horizontal across the windshield. The streets were coated with blindingly bright white snow, split in half by fresh tire tracks. I stayed in the lanes created by the other cars, unsure if the road had frozen or not.

  I moved from well-lit streets to roads with busted out streetlights, jagged slashes of light across the white streets. Boarded up windows glared at me from the neglected buildings. Groups of people huddled together in heavy, ill-fitting clothes.

  I drove slowly on the icy streets, listening as the voice on the GPS guided me. I spotted Boyd on a street corner. He was squinting into the snow, staring at my car, then held up a hand. I pulled to the curb, the tires crunching against the frozen snow.

  The wind slapped me in the face as soon as I opened my door, the snow stinging my eyes and cheeks. I ducked into my coat and shut the door behind me.

  Boyd motioned for me to follow him and we trudged down the street. He led me up a block and then around a corner. He hopped up the steps of the second house on the block, a narrow home with a high pitched roof and a sagging front porch. He opened the screen door and then a weathered-oak door.

  My eyes adjusted to the dark interior. It smelled like smoke and urine. Several mattresses were off in the corner of the otherwise bare room.

  “They’re in the back,” Boyd said, brushing the snow from his arms and shivering.

  I followed him through a dingy kitchen and the floor creaked with each step.

  Stevie was huddled near a black stove-pipe furnace, the flames illuminating his face and the rest of the room. Two girls sat on the other side of the furnace, their arms wrapped around their knees, staring at me, their eyes probing and nervous.

  Stevie lifted his chin. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” I said, pulling my gloves from my hands and shaking them out.

  “That’s Amanda,” he said, pointing to the girl closest to the fire. “That’s Mary.”

  I nodded at them both. They stared back at me, their arms locked tightly around their knees.

  “They know Jessica,” Stevie said.

  Boyd sat down next to Stevie, holding his hands out to the crackling flames. I joined him on the floor, which felt nearly as cold as the air outside.

  “But they think you’re a cop,” he said.

  I looked at each of the girls. “I’m not a cop. I promise. I used to be. I’m not anymore.”

  They exchanged anxious looks, unsure of how to take that.

  “All I want to do is find Marc and Jessica,” I said. “That’s it. And I don’t want to hurt them. They aren’t in trouble. If they need help, I’ll help them. But I need to find them first.”

  Amanda whispered something to Mary. Mary’s eyes darted toward me, then back to her lap. Her cheeks glowed in the firelight.

  Mary nodded and rocked a bit.

  Amanda studied me. Her eyes were small beneath a thick, red wool cap. She had an oversized green ski jacket on over jeans and dirty black boots. Strands of greasy blond hair peeked out from the cap.

  “Stevie said you had money,” she said, her voice low, raspy.

  I looked at him.

  “Took all we had to get to them,” he said, shrugging. “But we’re here and they know her.”

  “Tell me what you know,” I said to Amanda. “Then I’ll pay you.”

  She shook her head. “I need to see the money or we can all sit here and pretend to roast marshmallows.”

  Her stony expression told me she was serious. I yanked out my wallet and pulled out all of the cash. “Here it is.”

  She held out her hand.

  I shook my head. “No way. Talk first.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Hope you like imaginary marshmallows.”

  There was no way I was handing over money until I knew what I was getting. But she didn’t trust me and I didn’t blame her. She had no reason to.

  “Let’s meet halfway,” I said, then reached across Boyd and handed the cash to Stevie. “He holds. You tell me what you know about Jessica, then he gives it to you.” I nodded at Stevie. “Give them each twenty now.”

  He pulled off two bills and handed them both to Amanda. She quickly handed one to Mary and the money disappeared into their jackets.

  “She’s a junkie,” Amanda said. “Heroin.”

  I nodded.

  “Guy named Laser, he’s her dealer,” she continued. “She was buying on credit. He finally cut her off, told her it was time to start paying. She didn’t have the money. He beat the shit out of her, told her she had two days to get it to him or it was gonna get worse.”

  Mary rocked a little quicker.

  “She’s new out here,” Amanda explained. “She didn’t know better.”

  “What about Marc?”

  “Tall guy? Dark hair, that helper guy?”

  Sounded close enough, so I nodded.

  “Yeah, she’d been hanging out with him,” she said, the fire crackling and popping next to her. “I guess he was her boyfriend or something, but I’m not sure. I know she was hiding the heroin from him, though.”

  “How?”

  “Careful about her tracks,” she said, shrugging. “Not doing it when he was around. Like I said. She’s new out here. She still looks new.”

  I wondered if Marc really hadn’t known about her drug habit but didn’t say anything.

  “He told her he could get the money,” Amanda continued. “And he did.” She nodded at Stevie and Boyd. “From Gino. He gave it to Jessica to pay off Laser. But she didn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I dunno,” she said. “Probably went in her arm or nose.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “So he said he’d get more and cover her and get her out of here or something like that,” she said, scratching at her jaw. “I don’t know. So he went to go get it from wherever. He comes back and she’s gone.”

  “Comes back to where?” I asked. “Where were they staying?”

  “About four blocks from here,” she said. “House like this.”

  I nodded at Stevie and he handed her two more twenties. She gave one to Mary and they disappeared again.

  “Pretty sure Laser took her,” she said, glancing at Mary. Mary nodded. “That’s his thing.”

  “His thing?”

  “Girls don’t pay, he comes for them,” Amanda said, squinting. “They go to work for him. Dealing, hooking, whatever.”

  “What’s he do with the guys?”

  “He doesn’t deal to guys,” she said. “Only girls.”

  Laser sounded like a real champ.

  “He’s one of those guys who pretends to be tougher than he is,” she said, frowning. “Mouths off, pretends to be a bad-ass, but only around people he can handle. Like junkie girls.”

  “Where do I find Laser?” I asked.

  Amanda started to say something, then looked at Mary.

  Mary cleared her throat, kept her eyes on the floor. “Old office building near the grocery store, maybe half a mile from here.” She looked at Stevie. “You know?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “There’s a guy there,” Mary said. “Nate. He’s like Laser’s bodyguard. You have to get past him.”

  I nodded. “That’s fine.”

  “But there’s a bunch of rooms there,” Mary said, her eyes staring into the fire. “Used to be offices and he turned them into rooms. If he has her, she’s probably there. He can lock the rooms from the outside.”

  “Would Marc know this place?”

  Mary shrugged, but Stevie nodded. “Probably. People don’t know what goes on in there, but they know the building. He probably knows it.”

  Which meant there was a good chance he might be there, too.

  “How do you know all this, Mary?” I asked.

  The fire popped and hissed. Her eyes stared into the middle of it. “I’ve been there.”

  We all sat there in silence, the fire the only noise in the room.

  I finally turned to Stevie
. “You can get us to this place?”

  He nodded.

  “How much do you have there?” I asked, motioning at the cash.

  He counted the bills. “Two forty.”

  I nodded and tilted my head toward the girls. Stevie held it out to Amanda. She hesitated, then reached for it. She stared at it for a long moment, then looked at me.

  “You’re giving all this to us?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Thanks for telling us what you know.”

  She glanced at the money. “This is a lot of money.”

  I pushed myself off the frozen floor. “Not really. I wish it was more. But it’s yours.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  “No catch. You helped us and we promised we’d pay for the info. That’s it.”

  Amanda glanced at Mary. Mary was still staring into the fire. She looked back to me.

  “No catch? At all?”

  I shoved my hands into the pockets of my coat. “Stevie. Tell them there’s no catch.”

  Stevie stood and so did Boyd. Stevie shrugged. “No catch. He’s for real. He says it’s yours, it’s yours.”

  Amanda stared at me for a long moment, then counted out the money and handed half of it to Mary. They shoved it into the same pockets as the other money we’d given them.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  I nodded. Either of them could’ve been Elizabeth. Alone. Cold. Suspicious of everyone they came into contact with. Hoping to make it to the next day. I hated seeing her face in theirs.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “You hear anything else, let Stevie know. He knows how to find me.”

  Both girls nodded and we headed for the door, the cold floor permeating the soles of my shoes. I pushed open the front door and flecks of snow pelted my cheeks.

  We stepped down off the porch, the snow billowing around my feet as we hit the walk. I motioned for the two of them to get into my car and we hurried into it, shutting the doors against the cold. I shoved the key in the ignition and cranked the heat all the way up. We sat in silence, waiting for it to warm.

  “You trust them?” I finally asked when my fingers started to thaw inside my gloves.