The Judah Black Novels Box Set

by E. A. Copen

  He took the paper and rotated it clockwise. “What's this?”

  “Zoe’s and Andre's license plate number. I need to know exactly when they arrived.”

  “We're not your errand boys,” Quincy started and moved forward, but Tindall put a hand on his partner's shoulder.

  “Quincy,” he said, handing the scrap of paper to him. “You get this. I'm going to go see what I can dig up about this Maria character Valentino mentioned. Maybe the cameras got her once or twice, too.” He glanced in at Sal with a frown. “You sure you can handle this by yourself?”

  “Or die trying,” I muttered. With that, I opened the door to the interrogation room and slipped back inside.

  I smiled to myself when I came back in to see that Sal had, indeed, pushed the table back where it was supposed to be and turned his stool right. He'd even picked up the photographs he'd inadvertently dumped and placed them neatly back in the file folder for me.

  I pulled out the chair and sat down across from him, lifting one leg over the other and folding my hands in my lap. Sal still had little gold flakes in his eyes, but they were fading visibly.

  “You lied to me,” I said, narrowing my eyes. I placed the stack of papers I’d printed earlier, Sal’s BSI file, on the table. “Taj wasn’t your first kill, was he?”

  Sal glared at me. “I guess not.”

  “So,” I said. “Tell me about Montana.”

  “That doesn't have any bearing here,” he protested and turned his head to look at the door.

  “It does. Try as we might, we can't run from our pasts, Sal. That's going to haunt you for the rest of your life. Tindall's got a bug up his butt about it so you might as well be open with me.”

  Sal gave me a sideways glance. “You read my file. That should tell you everything you need to know about it.”

  “Your file is full of sterile words and biographical data. I could use a little color. Paint it for me.”

  And he did. He told me a story like the one in the file about a boy growing up in rural Montana whose dad was as transient and elusive as the seasons and how his mother almost never smiled. He told me about another little boy, his neighbor. He wasn't someone Sal had a habit of hanging out with because nobody hung out with him. He was just kind of there.

  One day, the kid came to school with suspicious bruises all over. While they were changing in the locker room for gym, Sal noticed the kid had tiny circular burns on his arms and legs. Cigarette burns. Sal said nothing, did nothing. At least, not until he was coming home late from a basketball game and heard the kid's pained and muffled cries coming out of the house next door.

  “I didn't even think about it,” Sal said finally. “I opened the door and there he was, the littlest kid in the seventh grade, being kicked and spat on by his own parents. I got angry. Really angry. I don't remember much after that except flashes. Screams. The taste of warm blood. The worst ache in my body I'd ever felt. I Changed, shifted into my other self that night, and came back without even realizing it. The kid somehow crawled out of the house and called the cops. By the time they arrived, I was human again, lying naked in a pool of entrails and blood.”

  Sal drummed his fingers on the table. “He saw me Change and told the police, but nobody believed him. When they wouldn't, he changed his story and said I'd saved him, that someone else ripped his parents apart. He couldn't believe I would do something like that. But I killed those people, Judah. I did. I won't lie about it. But I wouldn't ever hurt an innocent person. I barely even knew the Summers.”

  I sighed and finally opened the file folder because I needed to see. I'd seen werewolf crime scenes before. They were messy, bloody affairs, but werewolves didn't often maul people beyond recognition. They went for the soft tissues of the gut and groin. If they killed, it was in a fit of rage. There was no thought or method to it. They just tore things apart.

  Donald and Teagan Summers didn't look like werewolf victims. Something had smashed the side of Donald's face in, leaving bits of shattered, broken teeth around the floor. They'd cut his tongue out through his throat and then proceeded to fillet the rest of him. Teagan, they hadn't even pulled her clothes off completely. She still had her shoes, nylons and underwear gathered around her ankles. Whatever had gotten her had enough sense and time to unbutton the front of her dress to chew on her insides. This was not the work of a werewolf, no matter what people said they saw.

  My head spun, and bile crept up my throat when I put the pictures away and looked up at Sal. “I need you to be honest with me now. To your knowledge, does Zoe Mathias have any access to magick?”

  “No,” said Sal shaking his head. “Not her. She couldn't have done this. It's not in her. For fuck's sake, she couldn't even watch CSI without breaking down into tears.” He put a hand over his face and was quiet.

  “Sal, how can you say that? I saw her try to hit you. And she knew you were a werewolf. That isn't exactly something a non-violent woman would do.”

  He stared down at his hands and said nothing.

  I sighed and decided to try something different. “You said she changed after that gig in Toronto. What did you mean? What changed about her?”

  “Everything,” he said, shaking his head, but he didn’t elaborate.

  “You didn't answer my question. Did Zoe have any access to magick?”

  “No,” he said after a short pause. “Not naturally. But we were married for almost three years. I taught her some basic stuff. Circles. Charms. Finding places of power. How to be safe around bad things. I had to teach her. What if I...” He swallowed. “What if something happened and I couldn't protect her?”

  “Do you know if LeDuc had access to magick?”

  “I don't know,” Sal said earnestly. “But Zoe was always living on the edge of things, you know? She liked to take risks and be with dangerous people. A Canadian doctor doesn't exactly fit that profile.”

  I tapped my fingers on the table. “Does the word ‘Aisling’ mean anything to you?”

  He shrugged again and crossed his arms. “Sure. It's some fae club out by Eden. It's not really my scene, but I know Elias used to go drink up there. He talked about it sometimes. He liked to go there to hook up with guys.”

  I blinked. “Hook up with guys?”

  “Yeah. I mean, it wasn't obvious, but Elias was gay as a San Francisco Pride Parade.” He leaned back in his chair.

  “Why didn't you tell me this before?”

  “Didn't seem important. Besides, Valentino wouldn’t acknowledge it. Elias tried to come out to him half a dozen times. It always ended with him and Valentino going at it until someone called the cops. Eventually, the whole thing glossed over. Elias stopped bringing it up. Everybody else ignored the elephant in the room. I always had a feeling that was part of what forced him out of the pack. Werewolf culture is all about dominance. A lot of people can’t wrap their heads around the fact that being gay doesn’t automatically make you submissive or lesser. Elias could’ve been an equal. Valentino never let him have a chance.”

  Then that Maria girl wasn't a girlfriend, I thought. Maybe she was someone else. A contact between him and the lab that was doing that testing on him, perhaps?

  Sal sighed loudly. “Am I still under arrest?”

  I nodded. “Until we get to the bottom of this, Sal, you're probably safer behind bars. If any of the fae think you hurt the Summers...”

  He followed my line of thinking, though he didn't seem happy about it.

  “All the physical evidence and witness accounts still point to you being at the scene, Sal. I'm sorry, but until I can get to the bottom of who and what might have wanted to frame you for a triple homicide and kidnapping, you're going to have to chill here. Promise me that won't be an issue.”

  “Wolves don't like cages,” he said with a hint of anger in his voice. “And they don't like being poked with sticks through the bars. I'll cooperate, but I won't like it.”

  “Good man,” I told him and then stood. I was going to leave and let so
me of the more mundane officers handle escorting him to a cell, but a thought occurred to me and I sat back down. “Sal, why did Zoe file the divorce?”

  His face hardened, and the voice that came out was dangerously void of emotion. “Is this important to the investigation?”

  “Anything you can give me to go on would help me establish a motive or a connection, even if it seems unimportant to you.”

  “We…Zoe and me… We, uh…” Sal swallowed and focused on the wall behind me. “We lost a child.”

  “Sal,” I said and reached across the table to pat his cuffed hands. “I'm sorry. I wouldn't have asked if I'd known.”

  He looked down at his hands. “We had a lot of trouble getting pregnant. I mean, we’d been talking about kids since before we even got married. At times, I don’t think there was anything either of us wanted more. When it didn’t happen, we turned to science. We skimped and saved for months. I took out loans. I sold things. Zoe booked extra gigs, and eventually, we were able to finance IVF. The doctors said she was a great candidate, that everything would work out. And it did. The first procedure was a success and we were beside ourselves happy for four months. Then…” He paused and shook his head. “I don’t know what happened. No one does. They call it a spontaneous abortion. The body rejects the baby and starts attacking it instead of growing it. She wasn’t the same after that. Zoe’s music career dropped off. Money stopped coming in. The loans came due. I did what I could, but I couldn’t keep us afloat.”

  His throat worked up and down as if he was trying to swallow something thick and sour “Then, Zoe got called about the gig in Toronto. It was supposed to be a two-day show. She didn’t come back for five months and, even then, it was only to sign the papers. I should have tried harder. I should have taken the time off work to go with her to that stupid show. If I had…”

  “Sal…”

  “She was pregnant with that French-Canadian bastard's child when she signed the divorce papers. Dammit. Do you know what that feels like? To know those two are going to have everything, even that? Our child was barely cold before she was having his.”

  “Sal, I’m sorry.”

  “Andre can have her,” Sal spat and jerked his hand away. “Those last few months, it was like she was dead already. If she didn't have a pulse, I would have buried her. Now, she's trying to bury me. Dammit.”

  “I'm going to fix this, Sal. And I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure those children come home.”

  He studied me carefully before nodding. “I can see you believe that. I don't know if it's true or not, but I trust you enough not to get in your way. If you say I'm better off here, then don't expect any problems from me.”

  I nodded and stood. There were still questions I could ask, things that would help, but I thought I had pushed him hard enough. He looked exhausted enough that he could pass out on one of those hard cots in the jail below without any problems. I was pretty tired myself, but I'd promised Nina I would stop by first thing.

  “I'll keep in touch,” I promised. “If you think of anything else that might be helpful, have them call me.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  I arrived at the Garcia residence before ten to find Valentino out on the front stoop, smoking a cigarette. There were deep, black circles around his eyes, indicating that he hadn't slept any more than I had. His hair was disheveled, and he was wearing last night's clothes without any shoes or socks. The only accessory Valentino had bothered with was a pair of reflective sunglasses that he raised when I pulled in only to drop as soon as I got out of the truck.

  He took a swig from the beer sitting next to him. “Where's your car, gringa?”

  “Waiting on a part to come in,” I said and glanced at the two cars up on blocks in his driveway. “You work on cars?”

  He grunted something that sounded affirmative and took another drink.

  I frowned. “Isn't ten a little early to be drinking?”

  “I started at six,” he said and stood. “Chanter told me about Sal being in lock up. He don't deserve that, you know. Him and Elias, they were like this, man. Like this.” He held up two crossed fingers. “Closer than brothers. And Sal and Leo, man, fuck that, too.” Valentino drew a hand over his unshaven chin. “He don't deserve the hand he got dealt. Sal would've been a way better father than I ever could've been.”

  “Valentino—”

  “Don't you fucking try to make me feel better, gringa. I don't want to feel better. I want to find the fucker who destroyed my family, and that's the only reason I'm even talking to you.”

  “Valentino, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I know about Elias’—” I tried to think of a gentle way to put it. “… alternative lifestyle.”

  He glared at me but didn’t say anything, just polished off the bottle.

  “Who was Maria really? A friend? A contact?”

  “I don’t fucking know,” he finally admitted. “She was trouble. I didn’t trust her. She shows up, and my boy goes missing, and then my brother gets ganked? Then, suddenly, she’s nowhere? She did it, gringa. That bitch destroyed everything.”

  Valentino finished his cigarette while I stood there in silence. There wasn't anything I could say that would make him feel better; he was right about that. At this point, Leo had been missing for five days. The longer he stayed missing, the less likely we were to find him. The likelihood that we would find him alive was even lower. All in all, things looked bleak for the Garcia family. But I had a good team that was focused in the right direction now. The warning I had received the day before was proof of that.

  When he was sufficiently finished smoking and drinking while I stood there waiting, he gestured for me to follow him. “Come on, then. I'll show you where he crashed.”

  The inside of the Garcia residence was vibrantly colored and buzzed with the energy of a troubled home. Updated furniture and a big-screen plasma TV gave testament to Valentino and Nina's small business success, though all that money was doing little to comfort them now.

  Valentino brought me through the living room and back a short hallway to a bedroom. Inside, I found one of those upscale convertible crib models and a folded-up camping cot. A cardboard box sat in the middle of the room filled with odds and ends.

  “Leo and Elias shared a room?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  I wandered forward into the room. Folded out, the camping cot would have taken up most of the rest of the room, leaving only a narrow space for walking. If Elias had been there when Leo was taken, there was no way Elias could have slept through it. “The night Leo was taken, was Elias home?”

  Valentino rubbed the back of his head. “He went out for drinks and came home with that Maria chola. We had words about it, just like I told you. The chick left around two, and Elias came in and slammed the door. I know Leo was here then because I heard him crying when the slam scared him.” He hesitated and rubbed at his throat. “Elias sang him back to sleep. He didn’t have no rock star voice, but he wasn’t bad, neither.”

  It was the first nice thing Valentino had ever said about his brother in my presence. I turned around and studied him. Behind those big sunglasses, it was difficult for me to guess at how upset he was before. Now that he was talking, I could hear the strain in his voice, the tightness when he spoke of Elias. On closer inspection, I could see blotchy patches of white and red on his cheeks. Valentino would never admit it, especially not to me, but he had been crying.

  He cleared his throat. “Nina came in to check on Leo at six, and that's when we realized he was gone. Elias was gone, too, so I thought...” His voice trailed off, and he sniffled and then rubbed his nose as if it were allergies. “Elias didn't come back until almost dark, and I told him if I ever saw him again, I'd kill him.”

  I put my hands in my pockets and stared down at the life reduced to a box and a handful of bad memories. “He went to Sal's place after that,” I told Valentino. “Where he stayed up all night concocting a plan to save your s
on and win back your trust. According to Sal, Elias tore out of there a few hours before I found him, determined to do just that.”

  Valentino put his back to me. “Sal never told me that.”

  “If I'm right, then Elias wasn't the perpetrator but a witness. He knew his killer. His killer believed he was a savior. Elias had a drug in his system that Doc Ramis believes was part of an experimental treatment plan to cure him of his werewolf affliction.”

  “Dios mio, Elias. Why didn't I see it? Why didn't you come to me?”

  “Sometimes, the people we're closest to can hide their darkest secrets from us the most effectively,” I said and thought of Alex. “Especially when they believe your love comes with conditions.”

  Valentino put his hand over his mouth and stood there in silence for a moment. “Everything he had is in that box,” he told me at length. “I'm not going to stand here and watch you go through it 'cause I got better things to do, but don't you go messing any of it up.” With that, he marched off and left me alone with the box.

  Human beings are collectors by nature. We spend our entire lives building up a collection of junk, to the point where most of us had junk drawers in our houses and totes full of extra crap in our closets. A lot of Americans rent storage units to hold all the possessions they don’t use on a regular basis, and most of us have more clothes and shoes than we could wear in a week.

  Consumerism tells us it’s not enough. We must have more. More will make us happy, make us rich, fill that empty void gnawing away our insides. All those things ever did was make us more miserable. Some of the happiest people I'd met had been those with the least to lose. Sitting there, going through Elias' box, I liked to think he must have died in a state of relative overall happiness.