by Leigh Jones
“This is the damnedest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” he finally said. “We’ll just have to keep an eye on him. He’s up to something, and eventually we’ll figure out what. Write up what you’ve got and go home. You look like crap.”
Kate left his office without saying a word. Two hours later, she had her story approved, and she was headed home. She felt wrung out and hung up to dry. The last two days had been the worst of the whole year, at least so far.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
After a much needed three-hour nap, Kate showered and dressed for a date with Brian. Her pride still stinging from Mattingly’s harsh assessment, she took extra time to dry her hair into shiny waves that hung past her shoulders. Dark eyeshadow, smokey eyeliner, black mascara and a rich pink lipgloss completed her look. When Brian arrived to pick her up, she was sitting at the table, sipping a beer.
“Wow!” he said appreciatively. “Hello, gorgeous.” Cupping her chin lightly in his left hand, he kissed her softly.
She couldn’t help but smile back. She was definitely ready for a night out. They were headed to a downtown bar to listen to a new bluegrass band starting to make a name for itself along the Gulf Coast. Kate liked the band because some of their songs reminded her of the old country music her dad listened to. Brian just enjoyed live music in general.
By the time they walked into the bar, the first of the early acts was already on stage. Brian spotted a few of his fellow residents at a table near the door, but the pounding drums and whining guitars made it hard to hear what anyone was saying. After he introduced Kate as best he could, they headed to the bar to get their first round of drinks. While Brian leaned in and tried to get the bartender’s attention. Kate scanned the rest of the crowd. It didn’t take her long to spot someone she recognized, but it was not someone she ever expected to see at a bar on a Friday night. Alone at a table near the back of the room, Johnson sat nursing a tall beer.
Kate motioned to Brian that she was going to talk to the detective while he waited for their drinks. Johnson didn’t even look up as she approached. What thoughts kept him so engrossed? She almost had to touch him on the arm to get his attention. When he finally noticed her standing beside him, his unfocused gaze sharpened into a wide smile.
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite reporter,” he said, raising his voice almost to a shout so she could hear him over the din.
“What are you doing here?” Kate asked, smiling back. “I’ve never seen you out before.”
His laugh had a hard edge. “I just needed a change of scenery tonight. Plus, I like the Tumbleweeds. Is that who you’re here to see?”
Kate nodded just as Brian walked up and set their drinks on the table. The two men had met before. They shared an appreciation for Galveston’s lackluster but devoted surfing scene and had paddled out to catch a wave or two together. They hit it off right away.
“Hey, man!” Johnson said, standing up and shaking Brian’s hand. “Good to see you again. If you guys aren’t meeting anyone or anything, you’re welcome to join me. Maybe that will protect me from the waitress’ pitying looks.”
Brian laughed as he pulled out a chair for Kate. “Sounds good to me.”
They listened to the next three songs in a companionable silence. When the first band finished its set, they talked about the Tumbleweeds and local music in general. The men swapped surfing stories. Work was the last thing Kate had wanted to think about tonight. But sitting across from Johnson, she couldn’t resist asking what he thought of the mayor’s mysterious change of heart.
“So is everyone at the station talking about Thursday’s council meeting?” she blurted out during the next lull in the conversation.
Johnson raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
“That was all anybody could talk about this morning,” he said. “And Hanes isn’t wasting any time getting the deal done. He came by the station this afternoon to meet with Petronello and the other union reps. Judging by the handshakes and backslapping I saw as they came out of the conference room, I guess they reached a mutually satisfactory agreement.”
“Wow, I had no idea he would move that quickly,” Kate said. “He’s got at least a month before the council has to vote on the budget. Maybe he wanted to put to rest any speculation he might change his mind again.”
“Maybe. But here’s the kicker. After he was done with the union reps, he had a meeting with the chief. I figured they were just talking about policing in general, or worse, the stalled murder investigations. I never expected what I heard when the chief called a few of us in to join them.”
Kate leaned forward, her eyes focused intently on Johnson’s face.
“What did he say?”
Johnson held her gaze for a few seconds, glanced over at Brian and smiled.
“I’m gonna tell you, but it’s off the record, okay? I don’t want to see this in the paper with my name associated with it. Get it confirmed somewhere else, but you didn’t hear it from me.”
Kate’s eyes were wide now and she exhaled quickly when she realized she’d been holding her breath. Johnson had never offered her anything off the record. Although she’d always hoped to gain his trust, she secretly doubted he would ever tell her anything without the chief’s permission. He would need a very good reason to break his fealty to the department’s command structure.
“Sure, of course. You know you can trust me. I would never burn you, especially over a beer,” she added with a grin.
Johnson nodded grimly. “I know. I just had to say it. So, when we were all in the room with the door shut, the mayor starts praising our work and tells us how much he appreciates what we’re doing. He says all his friends were talking about last week’s prostitution sting and describes it as a good piece of policing that’s helping to clean up the city. But, he says, with the two unsolved murders, and the prostitution bust, the island is starting to look like a hotbed of crime.”
Johnson paused to take a long drag on his now warm beer, grimacing slightly. While he continued, Brian signaled the waitress for another round.
“I couldn’t figure out where he was going with all this. Then he says he’s asked the chief to put a hold on any other stings for a while, at least until we can get through the summer and fall festival seasons. He doesn’t want to scare off tourists, you know.”
Johnson shook his head in disgust.
“So, I’ve got to scrap my investigation into this new pimp who’s supposedly come to town. If there really is a new operation getting set up, it basically has a free pass. Never mind that this actually makes the island less safe. As long as it looks like nothing’s going on, that’s all the mayor cares about.”
Johnson’s words lingered while the waitress set down a new batch of drinks. Kate’s mind wheeled with possible explanations.
“Do you think there’s any connection between that and his new pact with the union?”
“I don’t know,” Johnson said. “All I know is that I’m back to working on two dead-end murder investigations. So, cheers.”
As he lifted his beer bottle in an ironic salute, Kate vacillated between sympathy and incredulity.
“So that’s it?” she finally managed. “You’re not going to sniff around and try to figure out what’s going on?”
Johnson took a deep breath and shook his head slowly as he exhaled. His hazel eyes glittered as he held her gaze for several seconds before answering.
“I could. But what then? I become a one-man police force? A vigilante? That only works out in the movies. I learned a long time ago that vigilantes start out thinking they’re serving others and end up serving themselves.”
“But you could say the same thing about any leader!” Kate sputtered. “Who’s the mayor serving? What about the chief? What if the orders he’s giving you are wrong?”
Johnson took a long draw on his beer and set it down hard. “Then that will eventually become clear, but it won’t be because I’m working to undermine him. If he thinks he can’t trust me, he�
�ll never listen to me when I say something he needs to hear.”
“That sounds like a cop-out to me,” Kate said, ignoring Brian’s gentle nudge under the table.
“That’s because you can’t imagine you might be wrong.”
Kate’s jaw dropped open and she gaped at him in amazement. Indignation flushed her cheeks and she began to stand. But Johnson held up a conciliatory hand and leaned across the table, his piercing gaze pinning her in place just as if he’d grabbed her arm.
“It’s not just you. We all think we see perfectly and understand everything we see. We have no idea how narrow our perspective really is until someone else points it out. And if we refuse to listen, our self-assurance turns into hubris. I’ve seen what kind of mistakes hubris can lead to. I’m not about to make that mistake again.”
Kate leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.
Johnson sighed. “The orders the chief gives me might be wrong. But my assumptions could just as easily be wrong. Yours, too.”
Johnson took another drink of his beer as an uncomfortable silence settled over the table.
“Perspective is important,” Brian finally said, breaking the tension. “Maybe taking a fresh look at the murders will turn up something you didn’t see before. This could be just what you need.”
“Could be,” Johnson said, looking over at Kate as the second opening act started to take the stage. “Waiting isn’t easy. But action without direction is like beating your head against a closed door and saying you tried to open it.”
Twanging guitars and pounding drums cut off any further conversation. Kate mulled Johnson’s words. What mistake did he want to avoid making again? She tried to picture the self-effacing detective contorted by arrogance, blinded by pride. It just didn’t fit. But neither did the willingness to turn a blind eye to injustice just because his boss ordered him to. Johnson might struggle with believing his own eyes, but Kate didn’t. The only thing worth trusting was what she could observe and verify. Her intuition rarely led her astray. If you couldn’t trust yourself, who could you trust?
Chapter 11
The brush trembled slightly as Esperanza swirled it in the pressed pink eyeshadow. Iridescent flakes floated onto the cluttered table when she brought the soft bristles slowly to her face. She watched in the mirror, as though from a distance, while her hand guided the brush back and forth across her eyelid. The rosy powder couldn’t cover the fear and anxiety that hollowed her eyes and pinched at the corners of her mouth. Her lower lip trembled. Her vacant gaze sharpened suddenly into piercing terror. Her throat tightened and she clutched the tabletop with white knuckles, as though it might keep her from drowning in despair. Her face began to turn a dull red, and she had to will herself to take a shaky, shallow breath. These moments of panic frightened her, although they came so often now she was almost used to them. She took another breath. Then another, as the blood slowly drained from her cheeks and forehead. Her nostrils flared as she filled her lungs again, this time more deeply and with determination. Each time the terror ebbed, hope and courage surged in her chest. We will survive.
Slowly, she willed her fingers to let go of the table and pick up the brush again. She looked carefully at her face to remind herself where she’d left off. She wished she could put her makeup on without a mirror. She’d grown to hate what she saw. The woman staring back at her looked nothing like the carefree, exuberant girl who left home just a few weeks earlier, longing to make all her dreams come true. Had it really been such a short time? The agonizing days that stretched into unbearable weeks seemed to have lasted a lifetime. At home, the offer of a job in America sounded like an answer to the prayer her mother intoned every morning during Mass. Cleaning rich people’s houses seemed like an easy task. Her mother assured her she would soon move on to bigger and better things. Why didn’t any of them see it was all too good to be true?
“Do you think tonight will be as bad as last time?” from across the room, her sister’s hushed tones spoke more than the question she asked. At home, Gloria’s warbling soprano was filled with laughter and innocence. Here it quivered with fear every time she spoke.
Esperanza sighed and met her sister’s eye in the mirror.
“I don’t know.”
She had lost track of the number of times El Jefe brought men to the house. The parties started off small. Just two or three men who ate and drank and talked business before taking the girls back to their bedrooms. That had been bearable. But last time—it must have been a week ago, she lost track of days—El Jefe brought six men with him. They spent the afternoon fishing on his boat. Most of them were already drunk when they got back to the house. None of them wanted to wait until after dinner to get what they’d really come for.
Esperanza swallowed to push down the lump in her throat. Listening first to her sister cry out in pain and then to her softly cry herself to sleep tore at her heart. She had never really known pain before coming to this hell. But no amount of slaps, pinches, or forced intimacy she’d endured compared to the suffocating knowledge that Gloria’s agony was her fault. Every time one of the men came for her sister, her muscles tensed, bile rose in her throat, and adrenaline surged from her chest to her limbs, all in preparation for an attack she could never launch.
The first time, she had tried to fend off her sister’s molester. The memory still made her shudder. El Jefe easily fought her off, pinning her arms behind her with one hand, her face shoved against the wall, while he punched her in the back and sides with the other. With every blow, he reminded her how powerless she was to save either herself or Gloria. When he finally stopped and let her go, she slid to the floor, gasping for breath. Through tears, she watched him drag her sister into the bedroom, the pounding of her pulse not loud enough to block out Gloria’s pleas for mercy. He showed none. When he was done, he came for her. He didn’t even bother to drag her into the other bedroom but pinned her down on the living room floor, his heavy body compressing the bruises already forming on her back. She didn’t even have the strength to cry out. The only sound was his grunting. When it was over, he told her he’d be back the next day and expected both of them to be in a more cooperative frame of mind.
They spent the next twenty-four hours locked in a room with no food or water. Somewhere outside the door, they occasionally heard a man’s voice. It sounded like he was talking on the phone. When they couldn’t hear him, they could smell the acrid burning of the cigarettes he smoked one after another. From that day on, he became a constant presence. Later they’d started calling him El Carcelero—the guard. When El Jefe returned that second night, he brought styrofoam containers of food. Esperanza thought about refusing to eat. But it had been days since their last full meal, and she’d been listening to Gloria’s stomach growl for hours. She couldn’t resist the warm, comforting aroma of enchiladas seeping out from under the lid of the containers he placed in front of them. Her sister opened hers right away and started to eat. Across the table, El Jefe sat down facing them. When Esperanza lifted a trembling hand to open her own container, his fat lips spread into a satisfied and knowing smile.
“You work for me now, and I always take care of my own,” he said. “You’re hungry? I feed you. Everything you need comes from me. You understand?”
A sickening sense of shame flushed her cheeks as she slowly nodded. She looked at her sister and a wave of helplessness washed over her. Tears trickled down the teenager’s face. She didn’t even bother to wipe them away.
“Pobrecito,” El Jefe had said. “Don’t cry. Everything will be ok. Do as I say and you’ll want for nothing.”
Gloria had looked at him with wide, incredulous eyes. He smiled again.
“I paid for you to come here, and now you must work off your debt,” he said. “Once you’ve paid me back, you’ll be free to leave and do anything you want.”
“You’ll just let us go?” Esperanza had asked.
“Of course. Yes, of course.”
Even then, his words rang w
ith the hollow tin of a lie. Esperanza knew they weren’t true, but as she glanced at her sister, she realized Gloria had grasped the promise like a lifeline. She clung to it with the innocent hope of someone too young to understand the depths of man’s depravity. Esperanza couldn’t bear to rip that away too. She’d already done enough to crush her sister’s spirit. So she played along, nodding encouragingly every time Gloria talked about what they would do once they were free. But every passing week made her more sure they would never get out from under El Jefe's heavy hand.
The dull thud of a slamming car door and the murmur of men’s voices dragged her back to the present. In the mirror, she watched a wide tear gather in the corner of her eye and roll slowly down her thick lower lashes. It cut a track through the blush that dusted her cheekbone, gathering speed over her jaw before careening into her lap.
Three loud bangs on the bedroom door made her jump.
“Get a move on!”
El Carcelero’s raspy voice reverberated with the constant threat of violence, even though he’d never laid a hand on either of them. He’d never had to. His simmering brutality, thinly concealed under a veneer of calm, terrified them more than El Jefe's more direct warnings. After that first night, he had assumed an almost fatherly attitude toward them. He brought them nice clothes and perfume. Several days ago, he gave them a box of chocolates. As long as they did what they were told and kept the customers happy, he exuded the munificence only a tyrant could afford. He never bothered Gloria again, but he regularly came to Esperanza. While she squirmed beneath him, he whispered over and over again in her ear, “You. Are. Mine.”
“Are you almost ready?” Gloria asked, walking up behind her.
Esperanza looked at her sister in the mirror. Her luminous black hair framed a delicate face dominated by doe-like brown eyes and full red lips. Her heavy makeup couldn’t hide her youth. She still looked like the angelic child who had danced around their mother’s kitchen singing the traditional folk songs their abuela taught them. Tonight she wore a slinky black dress that hugged her hips and ended about three inches below her backside. While Esperanza watched, she smoothed the fabric down self-consciously.