Saints and Secrets

by Mark Stone

  “Oh, my God. You’re the cops,” the woman said, her face dropping as she mulled this prospect over. “I’ve got a gun on a police officer.”

  “You do,” Jessie said. “But it doesn’t have to mean anything, not if you stop this right now. Just put the gun down.”

  “I can’t do that,” the woman said. “Even if you’re telling the truth and you’re a cop, that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I can show you my badge. It’s in my back pocket,” Jessie said, nodding at the woman. “And I can assure you that being a cop does mean something. I don’t know how familiar you are with Sanibel, but my father is the chief of police here. He’s a good man and he works hard to ensure that the people here are safe and free of as much crime as possible. Just put the gun down, and I can help you with whatever you’re dealing with, with whoever is after you.”

  “Like you did last time?” the woman asked, scoffing at Jessie. “I know how the cops work on this island, and I know just how effective Clint St. James is. You people couldn’t keep a potted plant safe from the rain. You sure as hell can’t keep me safe. You proved that.” She shook her head hard. “Besides, what kind of detective lets herself get held up with nothing to defend herself?”

  “Well, you got me there,” Jessie said. “I made a mistake, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help you. You’re scared. I can see that. It’s obvious in everything you do. Whoever you are, whoever you’re running from, talk to me about it. Let me do everything in my power to make sure that whatever you’re afraid might happen never comes to pass.” Jessie shook her head. “I know you don’t trust me, my dad, or maybe even the police department in general. Maybe you have good reasons for that, but the fact of the matter is, we’re here to help. I took an oath to protect and serve. Let me do that. Let me help you out.”

  The woman looked off into space for a long moment, pain crossing her face and causing it to steel up even more.

  “God, you almost convinced me,” she said. “But you can’t help me. Aside from Roman, maybe nobody can.”

  “Roman?” Jessie asked, her eyes tightening. “Roman Parks?”

  The woman inhaled quickly, flipping the gun around in her hand so that the barrel was facing her. “Sorry about this,” she said. “I’m not going to jail for murdering a police officer, but I can’t let you follow me. So, maybe one day, I’ll go to jail for assaulting one.” She brought the butt of the gun toward Jessie’s face. Jessie grabbed it and held it firmly.

  “Now, I’m going to have to arrest you,” Jessie said, her teeth clenched.

  “I’m afraid not,” the woman said. She pushed the barrel of the gun up so that it faced the ceiling and then she pressed down on the trigger. The gun went off, shocking Jessie so much that it sent her backward, falling into Katie.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said, kicking Jessie hard in the face. “I really am.”

  Jessie grabbed her face, seeing stars and watching the woman run through the front door and out of the house while Katie hovered over her, freaking out and asking how she could help.

  “She left the gun,” Jessie noticed as she wiped blood away from her nose.

  Quickly, Katie helped her up. While she was standing beside her friend, shaking herself, Katie muttered, “You know what? You’re right. You do deserve to be called ‘Detective’.”

  3

  After giving her statement at the precinct about what happened, Jessie walked over to her desk and plopped down on the large leather chair she called home whenever she wasn’t pounding the pavement looking for clues, chasing down the bad guys, or being otherwise entrenched in the business of being a detective on an island like Sanibel. Her head was pounding, and though she knew some of the ache certainly came from the shoe to the face she’d just received, Jessie had to admit that some of it probably came for other reasons.

  She told the questioning officer everything that had happened in the house with Katie, including the fact that the woman who’d attacked her had mentioned her partner by name. Though Roman Parks had never been her favorite person in the world, there was something about being truthful about what happened to her that left a bad taste in her mouth.

  It wasn’t the fact that Roman was her partner or that in helping her take down the man who’d murdered her brother all those years ago, he had proven himself to be more than just the cocky, oafish brat who’d stood her up for the prom all those years ago. There was something else, something in the way the woman in the house said his name that rubbed Jessie the wrong way. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly why she was having that reaction, but she knew it was there, and maybe that was enough.

  “And why the hell didn’t you call me?” a familiar voice asked from behind her. Turning in her big leather chair, Jessie wasn’t even a little surprised to see her father standing there wearing his fishing gear with a look on his face that was much sourer than it would have been had he stayed on the Gulf all day without catching anything.

  “Because it wasn’t a big deal and because it’s your day off,” Jessie said, keeping her seat. “And because I didn’t think you’d have phone service out on that boat.”

  Clint St. James huffed at his daughter as he set his fishing equipment down and sank into the seat at the desk beside her, a seat usually reserved for Roman.

  “The first thing isn’t true, the second thing doesn’t matter, and the third thing is a flat out lie. You’ve called me a hundred times while I’ve been out on the Gulf before. You called me just last week to ask me if I recorded over something called The Masked Singer.”

  “It was the season finale!” Jessie shot back. “And maybe I just didn’t want you to worry. Have you ever thought of that?”

  “No. Not once have I ever thought of that,” Clint replied. “Because honestly, I don’t give a damn about whether you want me to worry. I care that my daughter just got pistol whipped and assaulted in a house she’s not even supposed to be looking at. You promised your mother we’d talk before you started shopping for houses.”

  “I told her I would promise to talk before I started seriously considering houses,” Jessie replied. “And that place is a dump. So, I wasn’t seriously considering it. That means I didn’t lie. Also, I think it’s important that you know I wasn’t actually pistol whipped. The woman tried it, but I blocked her pretty effectively.”

  “If it was a dump, you shouldn't have been there at all,” Clint said. “Also, I’m not playing semantics with you. This isn’t about whether you should move out. This is about something bad happening to my daughter and my having to hear about it from Eddie Webber, for God’s sake.”

  “The pharmacist from the mainland? How the hell did he find out?” Jessie asked.

  “Apparently, Katie told the story on her Instagram account under the title You totes won’t believe what happened to me today,” Clint said, shaking his head. “Honestly, I sometimes think the world should have ended after the seventies.”

  “Don’t give up on us just yet,” Jessie said. “Katie’s poor word choices aside, I got a lot of intel about the woman who attacked me, even if I wasn’t able to catch up with her before she disappeared.” Jessie winced, thinking about running after the woman after she got up and finding no sign of her anywhere around the house. “Plus, I brought her gun in. She wasn’t wearing gloves, and that means fingerprints. The way she was talking, the way her face dropped when she found out I was a cop, I’d be surprised if she hadn’t been arrested before. You’ll find something with the prints.”

  “Hopefully, but it doesn’t answer other questions,” Clint said. “Specifically about her connection to Roman. If she was looking for him, it means she knows him, and that means he could have information about what she was doing in the house, and more importantly, what she was so afraid of.”

  Jessie took a deep breath as she thought about the woman again, about how terrified she had been and about what that might have meant for her. If only she had listened to Jessie. If only she had come into the precinct with
her instead of attacking her and bolting. Then, whatever horrible thing she was running from would have much less of a chance of catching her.

  “He also might know who Mickey is,” Jessie said.

  “What?” Clint said, and she could tell from the way his forehead knotted up that he wasn’t familiar with at least this part of the story.

  “The woman said the house belonged to someone named Mickey. She said she was waiting for him there. She seemed really confused that it was for sale.”

  “I don’t know any Mickey, but that house had been on the market for about six months now, and the people in there before were Harvey and Terri Glossman. He was an English teacher and she gave piano lessons in her spare time. They lived there for the better part of a decade until Harvey died in a car accident and Terri decided to move to the mainland to be closer to her daughter. They were really sweet people, and I doubt they’d enjoy the idea of you calling their house a dump.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” Jessie said, lowering her head a little. “I just meant it’s not for me. Maybe the woman was confused. Maybe she was on drugs or out of her mind. Who knows? Maybe there is no Mickey at all.”

  “Maybe not, but there’s definitely a Roman, and we need to ask him some questions before any of this goes any further,” Clint replied.

  “Then drag his cocky ass in here and question him,” Jessie said. “If he can help us find this woman, maybe we can keep her safe from whoever is after her.” She shook her head. “Or from herself, whichever is necessary.”

  “Yes, but it’s his day off as well, and he’s not answering his phone,” Clint said. “We called his roommate and he said that’s pretty standard whenever Roman goes out on a date.”

  “A date?” Jessie asked, arching her eyebrows. “I wonder who the poor woman is.”

  “That’s beside the point,” Clint replied. “The roommate said we could find him at the Catching Net, you know, that pricey new seafood place on Torrance Boulevard.”

  “Impressive,” Jessie admitted, speaking softly and mostly to herself.

  “I’ll bring Katie back to the house. She shouldn’t be alone tonight after what’s happened. She can sleep in the guest bedroom. I need you to go get Roman,” Clint said. “Bring him back here so we can figure out what he knows about this. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “Ruining Roman Parks’s night?” Jessie asked, grinning slightly despite herself as she stood up and pulled the ice pack she had on her nose away. “That’s very much the opposite of a problem, Dad. What’s more, you don’t have to ask me twice.” With that, Jessie tossed the now mostly melted ice pack to her father and headed for the door.

  As she drove the strip toward the snazzy seafood restaurant where Roman was supposedly wining and dining some mystery girl, Jessie still couldn’t shake that off center feeling. She found herself scanning the streets, looking for the messy black hair and wide eyes of the woman who had attacked her. If she could only find her, if she could only get her to sit down and talk to her for a second, surely, Jessie could convince her that she could help her.

  She didn’t see that black hair or those wide eyes, of course. It was tourist time on the island, and that meant this part of town was filled to the brim with out of towners looking for the sort of coastal, relaxed good time that could only really be found on Sanibel.

  Sanibel Island was a special sort of place, a small town in the center of a tropical paradise. It was like if Mayberry had a baby with Honolulu and that child possessed the best qualities of both. Barney Fife doing a hula dance—who could ask for anything more?

  Still, even though this place was basically sun-soaked perfection, the darkness still had a way of creeping in every now and then. That was where she and the people like her came in. They stood on the front lines, beating that darkness back so that everyone else could enjoy the light. Maybe that was what was bothering Jessie so much. Maybe, when she saw that woman, she also saw that she had been touched by the darkness just a little too much.

  Jessie pulled into a parking spot on the main strip and stepped out of her car. The street was buzzing with the sort of cliché tropical music one never heard around these parts during the winter. Still, there was something about it that Jessie enjoyed. Perhaps being around this much happiness helped her to soak it up. Maybe being able to see this place through the eyes of tourists who relished this place for the escape it provided helped her relish it in the same way. Though, to be fair, Jessie knew that someone who only visited Sanibel Island for a few weeks out of the year could never come to appreciate it the way she did. This place was her home. She was the woman she was, in large part due to this island, and she loved it for that.

  Walking the strip, she saw the seafood restaurant in the distance. She picked up her pace, stuffing her hands in her pockets as she readied herself to completely ruin Roman’s night.

  “Serves him right,” she muttered to herself. “Maybe this will make up for prom. A little of it, at least.”

  “Detective St. James.” The voice sent shivers through her and stopped Jessie right in her tracks. She didn’t need to turn around to know who it belonged to. She would have known that voice if it woke her up from a dead sleep.

  Jessie cleared her throat, turning around to find the person she least wanted to see in the world.

  “Edgar Salazar,” she said, looking at the blatant criminal and known drug kingpin. He was right there, standing in plain sight of God and everyone else like he shouldn’t have been ashamed of himself, like he didn’t belong locked away from society. “To what do I owe this displeasure? I’d ask if you were staying out of trouble, but we both know the answer to that.”

  “You are a clever girl,” he said. “And to answer your first question, I’m here because you are.”

  “Me?” Jessie asked. “You followed me?”

  “Does that surprise you?” he asked, a slick, sickening smile spreading across his face.

  “Nothing about you could surprise me,” she said. “Why?”

  “Why am I following you?” he asked. “Simple. We have business to attend to.”

  “We absolutely do not,” Jessie said, turning away from him and walking toward the restaurant.

  “The woman who attacked you, the one in the blue house,” Edgar said, once again stopping Jessie in her tracks. Though, this time, she didn’t turn around. “We need to talk about her.”

  4

  Edgar Salazar stood in front of Jessie, smiling at her like he had just said her biggest secret aloud for the entire world to hear. Anger ran through Jessie like large ripples running through the Gulf. She should have known that this man, this horrible monster who seemed to have his thumb in every pie on the island, would know something about what happened to her today. He was this exact sort of snake, the kind that slithered around on the ground until he knew everything that went on around here.

  Jessie stepped toward him, fearful for the crowd that passed by her haplessly, unaware that a horror show of a human being was in their presence. Still, the rational part of her mind knew that, like her, the people on the streets tonight were in no danger from Edgar Salazar. At least, not the physical kind, anyway. He was much too smart for that. He was the kind of villain who made sure there were no tangible lines running back to him. He had people to do his dirty work, and that meant he had people to take the fall for it. Jessie could only wonder what part the woman who’d attacked her earlier today played in all of this.

  “You’ve got big ears, Mr. Salazar,” Jessie said, playing it coy as she walked toward him, folding her arms over her chest and meeting his slick grin with a stone-faced glance. “Is that what keeps you so well informed?”

  “These?” he asked, flicking his right ear with his forefinger. “They’re just a gift from my grandfather, the only thing the man ever left me, actually. No, you can thank a series of little birds for my wealth of knowledge.”

  “Never liked birds. See, I’ve always been more of a cat person,” Jessie shot back.<
br />
  “I can see that about you,” Salazar replied. “The way you move, the stubborn tenacity. Let me ask you, do you lick yourself clean, Ms. St. James?”

  Jessie felt vomit rise at the back of her throat. This was the most disgusting human being she had ever met in her life. Talking to her like this only made her hate him more. Still, she wasn’t about to let him get the best of her.

  “I bathe in the tears of my enemies, actually,” she said lightly. “Water level is a little low, though. Good thing you’ll be donating soon, and it’s Detective St. James, but you know that.”

  “Forgive me, Detective,” Salazar answered coolly. “Still, I do hate the idea of our being enemies. Isn’t there some way I can convince you to see me in a better light?”

  “Absolutely,” Jessie said. “All you have to do is give up your drug empire, purge this island and the surrounding mainland of all the garbage you’ve been pumping into it for years, and turn yourself in for the crimes you’ve committed. Easy peasy.”

  “You are a feisty one,” Salazar said. “I can’t remember the last time someone talked to me like this.”

  “Maybe you’re not talking to the right people,” Jessie said.

  “Maybe you’re right because I seem to be enjoying this much more than I thought I would,” he said.

  “Cut the garbage, Salazar,” Jessie grunted. “Tell me what you know about the woman who attacked me.”

  “Just that she shouldn’t have,” Salazar said. “You’re a civil servant, a member of law enforcement, and an upstanding member of this community. She should have known better than to strike you.”

  “Are you being serious right now?” Jessie scoffed. “You really expect me to believe that you don’t know anything about this woman other than the fact that she attacked me?” She shook her head. “No, that’s not what you’re doing at all. You know exactly who this person is. You know why she’s here, and you know why she’s so scared. What you’re doing here is trying to find out what I know.”