No Bad Deed

by Heather Chavez

  “Perla’s dead. I know that. Helen lied about living in that house. And I know that Carver Sweet killed at least one person, a girl named Natalie, and tried to kill Brooklyn.”

  “We’ll see.” Daryl pulled his laptop toward him but hesitated before typing. He looked at me, his eyes alert despite the pale cranberry color. “By the way, that stuff on the trail—that’s some badass shit.”

  “It was some stupid shit.”

  “Badass,” he corrected. “But next time, you won’t catch him off guard. Going off without a way to protect yourself, now that would be some stupid shit.”

  “I’m not carrying a gun I don’t know how to use.”

  “I could teach you.”

  I pictured the revolver that had earlier been planted on my passenger’s-side seat. “No gun.”

  “Pepper spray then.”

  “You have pepper spray?”

  “Of course,” he said, as if possession of pepper spray should be a given. “Tasers, too, if that’s more your speed. More important, though, is information.” He tapped the keyboard to take the laptop out of sleep mode. “First, this skank, who you saved and who repaid you by sleeping with your husband—”

  “Not quite the way it went down, and I don’t know that I’d characterize her as a skank.”

  “Of course, you wouldn’t. Female empowerment and all that. But if you’ve screwed the husband of someone I care about, or lied about it, the best I’m gonna call you is a skank.”

  Daryl typed Brooklyn Breneman’s name in the browser, but the results were unexceptional. Apparently, she belonged to a couple of professional organizations and had been quoted in a news story on rising water rates. There were a couple of photos, too, with Brooklyn in button-up blouses. No yoga pants this time.

  Daryl faked a yawn. “Let’s move on to Perla.”

  He didn’t need more information than her first name. Perla’s photo was prominently displayed on the newspaper’s website. One of those “happier times” photos the news organizations grab off social media. Perla and her Rottweiler, somehow making the same goofy face, above a headline: santa rosa woman shot to death. The three paragraphs that accompanied the picture didn’t expand much on the headline.

  Blackness pricked at the edges of my vision, so I closed my eyes. “Sorry, Doc,” Daryl said.

  I could hear his fingers tapping the keyboard. When I opened my eyes, Perla’s photo was gone. Just like Perla. I didn’t know which was stronger: the roiling in my stomach, or the urge to punch someone in the face.

  “How about Helen?” Daryl said. “Do you know her last name?”

  I admitted I didn’t, but I gave him the address where Helen had claimed to live. Thirty seconds later, the grin was back, and Daryl pointed at the screen. “See, Doc. Another thing you thought you knew but didn’t really. Like I was saying.”

  He nudged the computer toward me, and I read the information three times before I could convince myself of its truth. The property records showed the owner’s name: Helen Staley.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “Helen didn’t lie about living there?”

  “Seems you do understand.” The grin slipped from Daryl’s face. “In light of what happened to Perla, I worry about this mysterious Helen. Though I guess we still don’t know for sure if she lived there, only that she’s listed as the owner of record.”

  “Which means the man who answered the door lied,” I said. “Even if he rented, or even if he bought the place from her, he would’ve recognized the name. So what was that man doing in Helen’s house?”

  Daryl continued typing, more urgently now. “There’s no way to tell, at least not with the information we have.”

  I took out my new phone, the one originally intended for Leo, to call Rico, to tell him about Helen, but then I realized he had access to the same information I did. Much more information than I did, in fact. He had likely already knocked on Helen’s door, though I doubted the man, whoever he was, had opened the door for Detective Rico.

  When I returned my attention to the screen, Daryl was typing “Carver Sweet” into the search engine. The first couple of hits linked to the local newspaper again, but, thankfully, directly to stories about Carver. I didn’t again have to see that photo of Perla and her dog.

  Daryl clicked the link for the most recent article, which I skimmed over his shoulder.

  Anne Jackson, 52, was found dead in her Cloverdale home late Wednesday, the victim of an apparent poisoning. Her husband, Carver Sweet, 58, is being sought in connection with the killing.

  Sweet also attacked a second woman later that night, police say. Sweet fled after a passerby called 911.

  The victim, whose identity is being withheld, was released from the hospital Thursday morning.

  Midway through reading, Daryl leaned back into the couch. “I kinda feel bad about calling her a skank.”

  I reached across him and scrolled down the page. I continued scanning the details of Anne’s killing and Brooklyn’s assault and comments from Sweet’s neighbors. The attacks were “disturbing,” the Jackson-Sweet marriage either “troubled” or “loving,” depending on who was describing it.

  Near the end of the article came mention of Carver’s previous conviction thirty-eight years earlier.

  Sweet, 19 at the time, served 15 years at San Quentin State Prison for the 1980 murder of ex-girlfriend Natalie Robinson, 16. Robinson’s body was found buried less than a mile from her Napa home. The girl’s skull was fractured, and her ribs showed signs of earlier trauma, but the cause of death was listed as asphyxiation. Robinson was unconscious but alive at the time of her burial, according to police.

  According to testimony at the time from the girl’s mother, Delphine “Dee” Robinson, Sweet was abusive throughout the relationship, leading Natalie Robinson to end the relationship about a month before she was killed.

  Delphine Robinson died earlier this year at age 75 of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive lung disease.

  Neighbors say Delphine kept to herself in the decades following her daughter’s death.

  “She rarely left the house after that,” said one neighbor, who declined to give his name. “Losing a child in such a horrific way—how do you ever get over something like that?”

  Daryl tapped the screen. “Oh, great, Carver did his time at San Quentin,” he said with genuine enthusiasm.

  Still reeling from what we’d just read, I asked, with considerably less enthusiasm, “Why’s that great?”

  “I know a guy. He can get information on anyone who’s been in the system, but he’s especially connected locally.”

  “He can get this information legally?”

  Daryl wrinkled his nose and brows simultaneously, as if trying to understand the word.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. Whatever it took to protect my family, I would do, even if it meant illegal Web searches and pepper spray.

  After several minutes more of searching and emailing, Daryl scrawled an address on a Post-it. “Carver’s former cellmate, a pedophile named Ernesto Marino, goes by Ernie. My guy couldn’t find a home address, but either Ernie or his girlfriend gets takeout from here nearly every afternoon.” He handed me the Post-it. “Seems he has a real weakness for bacon-stuffed waffles.”

  35

  I gave Audrey the last immunosuppressant from the old bottle and left three pills from the recent refill with Daryl. Just in case.

  After hugging Leo as tightly as he allowed me, I pressed a folded piece of paper into Audrey’s hand.

  “My new number,” I explained. “Call me for any reason, even if it’s just to tell me something silly Lester did.”

  “He is silly,” she said, but she offered no smile.

  I hesitated. “Do you want me to stay?”

  “Are you going to find Daddy?”

  “I’m going to try my hardest.”

  “I want you to find Daddy.” Her eyes burned with a faith I hadn’t earned, and I pulled her closer to avoid that
look. Still, I meant it when I whispered in her ear, “I will. Promise.”

  Daryl offered me the use of his ten-year-old Honda for the sixty-mile drive to San Francisco.

  I entered the diner in the Mission District through a red door and asked the staff about Ernie. Daryl’s intel was solid: Ernie was a regular—he usually ordered bacon-stuffed waffles with whipped cream, an extra side of syrup, and two maraschino cherries—and he never missed a weekend.

  Though I wasn’t hungry, especially after the waiter described Ernie’s usual order, I rented my prime spot facing the door by asking for a grilled cheese sandwich.

  Thirty minutes passed, then forty-five. The waitress eyed me as I nursed my tap water, and I sensed she was preparing to ask, for the second time, if there was anything amiss with my sandwich. The diner was packed and my space at the counter therefore precious. I forced myself to take a bite of my food, even less appealing now that the cheese had congealed.

  Picking at my sandwich and distracted by the crowd, I didn’t notice the blonde in the blue cardigan until she was at the door, red takeout bag clutched in her left hand.

  I abandoned the grilled cheese and walked quickly to the register, slapping the check and a twenty on the counter.

  “What did that woman order?” I asked.

  The man behind the counter reached for my check to make change, but I shook my head. I pointed toward the spot the blonde had occupied only seconds before. “What was in the bag?”

  “Bacon-stuffed waffles, whipped cream, side of syrup, two cherries.”

  Damn it.

  I left my change and hurried out the door.

  Once I spotted the woman in the blue cardigan, I worried she would hop into a car. She remained on foot.

  Because she carried the takeout bag and wore wedges, the blonde was slow and easy to follow, but I stayed half a block back. I resisted the urge to rush the woman right there on the street. It wasn’t her I needed.

  As the crowd started to thin slightly, the blonde in the blue cardigan stopped so suddenly I thought she might topple off her shoes. The brief pause before she looked over her shoulder allowed me the second I needed to tuck myself into the entryway of a pawn shop.

  Had the woman guessed she was being followed, or was this routine behavior? Living in a big city, picking up takeout for a former felon, might make her more cautious than most.

  I twitched with impatience. Nearby windows offered reflection, but they were too smudged to be helpful. In them, the blonde was one piece of the shapeless crowd.

  Five seconds. Ten. I couldn’t be sure the blonde had moved on. She might still be on the street, looking behind her for the strange woman who had followed her out of the diner. But I couldn’t take a chance on losing her. I stepped back into the throng.

  The woman had disappeared.

  Frustration bubbled up inside me, but I forced it down. She couldn’t be more than a few seconds ahead. My faster stride would swallow any gap between us.

  At the end of the block, I still didn’t see her. I looked left, then right. Had she gone into one of the stores I had just passed? I didn’t think so, not with a bag of glop-topped waffles growing soggier by the minute.

  I covered another half a block before I saw her again. Even with the bag she carried and the wedges she wore, the woman had started walking more briskly.

  I quickened my own pace. I kept to the edge of the crowd, near the storefronts that might provide me temporary refuge in case she looked over her shoulder again.

  The blonde turned a corner, and I followed. She crossed the street, and I did the same.

  A group of about a dozen tourists surged between us. The woman looked over her shoulder once more, but I easily slouched behind a tourist.

  A few minutes later, the group broke off, and the boutiques, bakeries, and thrift stores became glass-walled apartments. The woman slowed, and I expected her to duck under one of the red awnings.

  She continued walking, less hurried now, her steps labored but steady. In those shoes, her feet must’ve been throbbing.

  When the blonde crossed the street again, I forced myself to drop back. The crowd had thinned further, and there were fewer places to hide.

  She turned another corner. A couple of seconds behind, I almost missed her as she climbed the steps of a Victorian row house. She didn’t knock but instead used a key. This was her home.

  In one of the windows on the second story, I saw the woman hand the red bag to a man fitting Ernie’s description. He wore a baseball cap that he kept tugging over his forehead. Nervous habit?

  Beside him, a small boy pulled on a backpack before disappearing from view.

  Seeing Ernie with that boy made me very angry.

  A second later, the woman and the boy emerged from the Victorian’s door.

  They got in a car, and I waited until it had crawled down the street before climbing up the steps to have a talk with a convicted pedophile.

  36

  I knocked on the door. When Ernie responded, I stopped short, my practiced speech forgotten.

  “Oh,” I said. “You’re hurt.”

  The bill of Ernie’s baseball cap had caught the edge of the door, slipping nearly off his head. He yanked it down so it again shielded his forehead, but I had seen what he tried to cover: a wad of gauze held in place by medical tape. At the border of the gauze, his skin was inflamed, the same shade of angry pink as his cheeks. A wound, obviously infected.

  I forced my eyes from his forehead. “Ernie, right?”

  The man angled the brim of his hat over his forehead. He did a double take, but recovered quickly. “I ain’t buying anything.”

  “I just need to talk to you for a couple of minutes.”

  His eyes went flat, and his tongue darted to catch a dribble of what looked like syrup at the corner of his lip. “I was eating.”

  Strange. He still hadn’t asked for my name. “That’s a nasty wound you’ve got.”

  He tugged the brim of his cap again, his eyes narrowing. “I think it might be infected.”

  “I’m a veterinarian. I can look at it.” There was little I could do for Ernie here—he needed antibiotics—but I wanted him to trust me.

  Ernie’s face flushed deeper crimson. “I don’t want no animal doctor messing with my head.” He again tugged at his cap.

  “You should see a doctor then.”

  Judging by the fraying sweat suit and bad haircut, Ernie looked like the kind of man who didn’t have a lot of cash to spare for health care.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”

  “I got in a fight.” He puffed up his chest, signaling he had gotten in a few punches too.

  “Did you call the police?”

  Any rapport I may have been building dried up like a salted slug. “Why would I call those assholes?”

  I fought the urge to step back, instead straightening my spine. “The guy you fought with—was it Carver Sweet?”

  Ernie’s eyes became slits, and I saw recognition there. It had indeed been Carver who had messed him up. “You know Carver?”

  “He’s done some pretty horrible stuff to my family.” I motioned at his forehead. “I’m guessing you can relate. When was he here?”

  “Couple of days ago.”

  Carver couldn’t know I would seek out Ernie, so why had he? “What did he want?”

  Ernie shifted slightly, poised to scurry back inside and probably slam the door. I stepped forward and put my foot on the threshold so he couldn’t.

  “Look, I just want a few minutes of your time. I can see to that wound—in exchange for some information about Carver.”

  He dabbed at the sliver of gauze that peeked from beneath the bill of his cap. Whatever was festering there had to hurt. Finally, he said, “I suppose I can let you in. For a minute.”

  Ernie turned around and walked back inside. He still hadn’t asked my name.

  The air in the living room smelled faintly of infection, syrup, and processe
d meat. The only furniture in the cramped space was a small sofa, a table barely bigger than a board game box, and an oak chair that had been pulled from the adjacent dining room.

  The waffles sat in their to-go container on the table, but he pushed them to the side.

  “First aid kit?” I asked. He directed me to the bathroom cabinet, and I returned a moment later. I sat at the other end of the sofa, the kit tucked in my lap.

  “Why did Carver come here?”

  Ernie removed his baseball cap and placed it on the table, exposing gauze and its border of inflamed skin. When I leaned forward, he recoiled.

  “Gimme a minute,” he said.

  I leaned back. “Have you kept in touch with Carver since you were released?”

  He shook his head, then winced. He touched his forehead again. “Haven’t talked to him in years.”

  “Then why did he come here?”

  Ernie’s eyes darted from the window to the door before landing on my face. “He’s crazy.”

  “Even crazy men have their reasons.”

  Sweat traced the stubble on Ernie’s cheek. A fleck of waffle was stuck there. “He wanted to know about Dee.”

  That wasn’t one of the names I’d been expecting to hear. “Natalie’s mom?”

  His eyes were slits. “You know about that?” When I nodded, Ernie continued, “So you probably know what happened to Natalie.”

  I flashed to the photos Brooklyn had shown me, trying to remember the girl’s face but only able to conjure the broken girl buried alive.

  “I know some of it.”

  “That was brutal, man. She nearly died giving birth.”

  “Natalie had a baby?”

  Ernie shook his head. “Stillbirth. Carver’s kid. Dee found Natalie when she was bleeding out, saved her, but it didn’t matter. She ended up dead anyway.”

  Though I had no time to waste, it was a solid minute before I could speak again. “Do you know what happened?”