BULLETS (22 page)

“Can’t see her face at all from this angle.”

“Body language. Holding herself tight like that, she didn’t let him hug her right away. And look at him, he’s worried now, too.”

“It’s too hard to see anything in this light, damn it. Is she breaking up with him? It looks like she might be dumping him.”

“I don’t think so, I don’t get that read at all. They’re not yelling at each other. Whatever it is, it’s not … they’re not mad at each other, I don’t think.”

“Her shoulders are shaking, she’s crying, but he hasn’t taken her in his arms.”

“I know, but it’s something else. If she were breaking up with him, her body language would be more defensive than this. Plus…”

“Plus what?”

“Plus the guy I sat next to in the diner the morning after wasn’t a guy who’d just been dumped by a woman he loved. He was cheerful, happy. So she didn’t dump him.”

They watched the couple on the screen a little longer. The girl’s face was still covered by her hoodie, leaving her features completely shadowed.

“Damn it, I wish I could see her face. We won’t be able to identify her like this.”

“Camilla, you’re forgetting something. We don’t NEED her anymore. Look at the time stamp on this. It’s nearly midnight. That means, even without knowing who the girl is, we’ve—”

“We’ve cleared Pedro of Roger Carlson’s murder! There’s no way he could have committed the crime, not when he’s on camera in the park. We did it!” Camilla hugged Slick. “Between this and your video of Ted arresting Pedro, Ted is officially screwed. I’ll push for manslaughter charges and I’ll get them, especially with Javier’s help. It’ll be a long trial, but I will nail his fat butt this time.”

“He won’t go to trial, trust me, he won’t want people seeing the video I have of him beating Pedro to death.”

“Is it bad?”

“Yeah, it’s bad. He’ll plead out, trust me. Hold on, wait…” Slick padded out of the office. He returned, his pants in hand. He rooted through the pockets and pulled out his pre-paid smart phone.

“Crap, that reminds me, my personal phone is still at the restaurant. Javier’s probably going crazy,” Camilla said. “I have to call him. Who are you calling?”

“Nobody, I just want to record this and get the date and time stamp on it. This way you have another backup.”

“I can download and email a copy to you.”

“Do that, but just in case, I’ll have this.” Slick aimed the phone at her laptop and recorded the recording. On the screen, Pedro gestured and spoke with his companion, making a clear case for something, but with no anger, no desperation.

“He’s pleading with her. But about what?” Camilla asked.

After a moment, the girl leant forward onto Pedro’s shoulder. He took her in his arms and hugged her tight, comforting her. She opened up and put her arms around him and embraced him just as intensely.

“Now it looks like they’ve made up,” Camilla said. “So whatever it is—”

“Oh shit,” Slick said. “Oh shit.”

“What?”

“How long ago was that park event again? The cleanup, the one where they met?”

“Three months ago.”

“Three months ago. Three … months. You know?”

Camilla’s hands went to her mouth as she got it. “Three months. Oh no.”

“Yeah. She’s late in more ways than one.”

“Oh my God. She’s pregnant.”

“Catholics and condoms do not mix, or so I’m told.”

“Especially serious Catholics. Oh no. That explains everything, look at her. Three months? She probably only just found out herself.”

“And she just told him tonight, and was likely expecting the worst, and instead he’s basically tap-dancing with joy, look at him.”

Onscreen, Pedro waltzed his lady around, definitely more upbeat than earlier.

“Now that’s the guy I ate breakfast next to. That guy was happy. That guy was probably planning a wedding in his head.”

“Look at her, she’s happy now, too, a load is off her shoulders now that she’s told him. And the father of her baby is now dead.” Camilla stood, furious. “Ted is going to pay for this. This makes it so much worse for him. He killed an expectant father. That’s going to really hurt him politically. You have no idea what that means in this community, oh this is very bad. I’m going to … I need my cell phone, damn it. Excuse me, I have to check my messages.”

Camilla picked up her home phone and dialed as she rushed out of her home office. Slick kept watching the footage.

“And I have to send the footage to George,” she said from the other room.

“I’d wait on that, if I were you.”

“I can’t, he HAS to know, and as soon as possible. This is unequivocal, there won’t be anything he’ll be able to do to stop it, in fact, he’ll want to be out in front of it and use it to his advantage. He’s a political animal, first and foremost. He’ll use this as leverage in the Latino community, trust me, I know him. There’s no way around delaying his involvement. Plus, I need to be able to say I sent it to him the moment I found it.”

“Send it to Javier first, then, as insurance.”

“I have about seven messages on my cell from Javier, he’s worried about me.”

“He’s going to be even more pissed when he finds out about us.”

“No, he won’t. He puts on an act, but he—”

“—is not over you.”

“It doesn’t matter if he is or he isn’t.” She bustled back into her home office, dressing herself with one hand, home phone still to her ear. “He’s a grown-up and a professional and he’ll know exactly how big this is politically. This can only help his career, too, as a Mexican-American federal agent. This is huge.”

“Big for you, too.”

“For everyone. I have to call Javier.” She started dialing, stopped, glanced at Slick. “Seriously though, what do you think? Should I tell him about you and I now, tell him that we—”

“I wouldn’t.”

“He’ll ask about you, where you are now. I know him. He told you to leave and he’s going to make sure you did. You think he’ll figure it out if I don’t say anything? I’ve never lied to him before. And now you’ve got me self-conscious about getting caught with your poker eyes, he’s kinda like you that way, even over the phone he might sniff it out. What do I do?”

“Counselor, are you asking me to help you lie?”

“I’m asking you to help me NOT to lie, actually. I don’t want to lie to him, if I can help it. Just want to put off telling him about us. Come on, help me, you’re the expert at this, aren’t you?”

“Okay, so the way to do this is to stay ahead of it and control the conversation as much as possible so it doesn’t go there. Let me ask, do you speak Spanish or English with him, most of the time? What’s the ratio?”

“Sixty-forty, English to Spanish. Maybe more like seventy-thirty, even. I know that sounds weird, but because of our jobs, it’s sort of like a professional language—”

“I totally get it. And when you DO speak Spanish with him, it’s always a more informal situation, right? You do it when you’re very happy or excited or relaxed, yes?”

“Wow. Sometimes you really scare me.”

“So when you call him, you start off right away in Spanish, don’t mention me personally, just tell him what Father Jose said and that you decided to look it up and found Pedro and the girl on digital video at the time of the murder. Go right past me and into the explanation of what it means and, if he asks about me, and he will, tell him that you dropped me off at my motel because my rental got towed. That will be the truth, because when we leave here, that’s exactly what you’re going to do, you’re going to drop me off at my motel. So you won’t be lying to him, just omitting when you actually dropped me off. Gloss right over that and then launch right into the massive Ted shit storm you’re about to unleash, tell him you’re emailing him the video right now and that this is huge.”

“Okay.” She bit her lip. “I hate to do this to him, but it is for the best.”

She went back to the phone and dialed.

“Don’t look at me while you’re doing this, either,” Slick said. “Put me out of your mind, think that I’m away, at my motel.”

She nodded and went into the living room. He heard her start off in Spanish and she did very well, her voice pitched high with excitement. She went too fast for him to keep up and translate, but it sounded authentic to his ear. Slick went to the bedroom, found his underwear and pulled them on, followed by his pants. He looked around for his shirt. He heard Camilla go into her home office and sit at her laptop, still chattering away to Javier. She was emailing him the video and talking about her boss.

Slick found his shirt and pulled it on. But as he tried to close it, he found that it was impossible because the buttons were gone. Camilla had ripped the shirt off his body so hard the buttons had popped off. He heard Camilla finish up her call and hang up. He stepped into the doorway of her home office, smiled and showed her his shirt, which flapped open and showed his chest and abdomen.

“That’s a good look for you,” she said.

“Very tropical.”

“It went just like you said, Javier asked about you just like you said he would and didn’t question it when I told him I dropped you off. I did tell him that I asked you to stay in town a couple more days because this is all going to happen very fast, regarding Ted, and we need you to go on record. After all, this isn’t just about Ted, but the false reports his deputies gave and also the witnesses. They all perjured themselves and I’m going to take them all down and it helps if you’re here. He didn’t like that, but he understood. As I said, he knows what this will mean for Ted and for both of our careers. He’s going to meet me at the office in an hour and we’re both going to present it to George and box him in with it. I know Javier, this is a federal case now and he’s going to be all over it. This is a major coup for him and he knows it.”

“And for you.”

“I don’t care about me, really. I simply want things to be better for my community, and getting rid of Ted and his deputies will be a great start.”

She glanced at her laptop and brought the footage back up, scrolling through it.

“The only other thing is that I’d really like to find out who this girl is.”

“Why? You don’t need her.”

“I know, but … she’s going to have a baby, without the father, who she lost tragically. I just want to know who she is.”

“Did you see which way they went?”

“Yes, they wandered out of the park, back toward her neighborhood. I never did get a clear look at her face.”

Camilla turned, her eyes set, and finished dressing.

“Listen, I’ve been thinking about it. I know that I just told Javier I dropped you off at your motel and I meant it when I said that, but … now … I don’t think I should do that, take you to your motel, I mean.”

“You don’t want to take me to my motel?”

“No. I don’t think that you should go out at all. I’ll be at the office for a few hours, and I think you should stay here.”

“Why?”

“Because I do think Javier is right. I think Ted and his boys are after you because of the video you took of them and if you go out around town … you’re a target, especially once it gets dark, there’s no telling what might happen if they pull you over. Just stay here. It’s nearly six o’clock now, I’ll be back before ten—”

“But I have to get a new shirt.”

She smiled. “I’ll stop somewhere on the way home and buy you a new shirt.”

“Buy me a shirt? You’d do that for me?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

Slick smiled, enjoying the moment between them.

“Well. Since you put it that way, okay.”

She stood up and took him in her arms, giving him a long, lingering kiss.

“You’re getting a shirt out of this after all.”

“Hopefully a lot more than that.”

S
lick stayed at
Camilla’s condo, inside and out of the way. He watched from the window when she pulled out of her parking garage and noted that there was a state trooper parked across the street, keeping an eye on the place. The unit pulled out and followed her as she left, which made Slick feel better about letting her go.

Maybe the fed was right and Slick WAS the only target. He hoped that was the case, but his instinct told him otherwise, and Slick had learned a long time ago to listen to what his instinct told him.

He sat down at Camilla’s laptop computer and signed into his cloud, accessing his files. He brought up the digital video he’d recorded of his arrest and emailed it to Camilla and Javier. He thought for a moment and then hit play to watch it again.

He watched the whole scene in the diner unfold, this time as a viewer rather than a participant. Pedro’s beating was ugly, very ugly and the situation played out even colder after it was over, when his body was cuffed and callously dragged out of there. Slick had kept it subtle but he caught everything on his camera.

Slick watched Ted interrogate him in the diner after Pedro’s arrest, his camera picture wobbly. A quick close up of Ted’s face zoomed as he examined the phone. Slick listened to the ensuing conversation between himself and the sheriff, shaking his head not only at the violence he knew was to come, but also because he knew that he’d mishandled the situation himself and could hear it in his voice. Slick could have just as easily ended up dead like Pedro after all.

That wasn’t the smart play, not the smart play at all. Slick got lucky. He listened to the recording as he went on his diatribe at Ted.
Fine speech,
Slick thought,
but not worth the beating.
The picture was of the floor of the diner, now that Ted held Slick’s phone. He winced as he heard Brower’s baton bounce off the back of his head. More thumps and kicks as Ted and Brower both beat him senseless. They finally stopped.

“Get him out of here,” Ted said in the recording. Slick still couldn’t see anything, Ted had the phone in his hand, pointing down.

“Ted, what the hell are you doing?” said an unknown voice.

“My job, what do you think I’m doing? He attacked me, you all saw it.”

“Ted, goddamn it, he’s clearly a tourist, now a potential witness, and you just put him in the hospital! This isn’t the proper way of doing things.”

Slick recognized the voice. It belonged to Camilla’s friend Del Martin, the real estate king who had approached Slick and Thumper the next day at the restaurant.