GATOR: Wolves MC (Riding With Wolves Book 2) (9 page)

Two officers volunteered, and I went on to give one of them the details of Gator’s alibi as I watched the second head off to execute my other instructions. Then, I went back to the interrogation room, to pick up where I’d left off with Gator.

September 15, 2015–Los Angeles, California

“I’m checking your alibi right now,” J.T. said as soon as she walked in the door. “And if it checks out, you should be free to leave in no time.”

“That’s not my concern,” I said. “I’d rather stay here longer.”

“Well, maybe you
will
,” J.T. replied, “if your alibi doesn’t check out.”

“Dagnamit,” I smiled. “I shoulda given you a fake one then.”

Unfortunately, however, J.T. didn’t smile back at me. Instead, she scowled. “This isn’t a joke, Gator,” she said, looking down at her file. “How can you expect me to believe
anything
you say, when you say shit like
that
?”

Just then, someone knocked on the door, and J.T. jumped up to answer it. She exchanged a few words with the man at the door, then returned to the table with a plastic bag in her hand.

She threw the plastic bag on the table, and I noticed my wallet was contained in it.

“You ain’t gotta believe what I say,” I replied, motioning my head toward the bag. “You can see for yourself. I got that gas station receipt I was telling you about, right there in my wallet.”

“Show me,” J.T. demanded, sitting down and gesturing her head toward the bag also.

“You want me to get it out?” I asked.

“It’s your wallet,” J.T. replied, opening her folder and flipping through it, “and
your
alibi.”

I reached toward the center of the table, half-expecting some alarm or siren to go off when I touched the bag. But, of course, nothing happened. So I reached into it, pulled out my wallet, and quickly found the receipt.

“There ya go,” I said, sliding it across the table, in front of J.T.

She picked it up and looked at it, then looked at me.

“Four gallons of premium gasoline,” she read from the slip, “a six-pack of Miller Lite, and a twelve-pack of non-latex condoms. Looks like you were planning one hell of an evening.”

J.T. looked at me and raised an eyebrow, and for a moment, I thought she was going to smile, but sadly, she didn’t.

“Paid for with your credit card, I see,” she went on, “at eleven eighteen last night.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I nodded.

“So that part checks out,” J.T. responded. “Now, we just need to verify where you were before and after.”

“No worries,” I said. “You will.”

J.T. looked at me, then stood up again. She walked around the small table and stopped somewhere behind me.

“I don’t know why, Gator,” she said in a quiet, sweet voice I hadn’t heard in over a decade. “But I believe everything you’ve told me. And I believe you’re trying to help me—to help me solve this case and avoid danger.”

I wanted so badly to turn around and look at J.T. as she spoke to me, but I knew that I shouldn’t. She went behind me for a purpose. Either she couldn’t stand to look at me when she talked, or she wanted to block out someone else from hearing—whichever it was, I wasn’t going to challenge it.

“I’ll let you help me,” she went on in the same tone. “But we’ll do it by
my
rules.” J.T. didn’t say anything for a moment, then added, “Are we clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I nodded.

With that, the room went silent. And the next thing I heard was the door open and shut. I didn’t have to turn and see to know that J.T. had left the room. I could feel it. A cool breeze passed over me when she walked out, and a split-second later, the sweet smell of her was gone and the dankness of the space again overpowered my nostrils.

About fifteen minutes later—or sixty-eight bottles of beer on the wall later (I decided to count upwards this time, not backwards)—J.T. returned with a uniformed Los Angeles police officer.

“You’re alibi checked out, Struthers,” she said coolly and coldly. “You’re being released… You can pick up the rest of your stuff at processing.”

I looked at her, then at the uniformed officer. No one said a word, so I took action.

I stood up, grabbed my wallet from the table, and put it in my back pocket. “Thanks,” I said, gesturing my head kindly at both of them. J.T. told me to play by her rules—and that’s what I was doing.

I walked out of the interrogation room and followed the signs on the wall to processing, where I picked up my stuff and signed some papers. I hung around for a moment, pretending to take inventory of my things—just on the off chance that that’s what I was supposed to do. Yeah, I was playing by J.T.’s rules, but I didn’t know what they were exactly.

After fumbling around for as long as I could without looking suspicious, I finally headed out of the station and went to my bike. No matter what J.T.’s rules were, she knew what mine were—and she knew I was gonna keep watch on her, which meant she knew I wasn’t leaving the vicinity of L.A.P.D. until she did.

I sat on my bike and pretended to talk on my phone for what had to be about twenty minutes. I sure was getting used to pretending—and I sure was getting used to seeing J.T. again. The moment she stepped out of the station, I lost my train of thought and couldn’t keep track of my pretend conversation.

J.T. walked straight to her car without looking or even glancing in either direction, and she didn’t dawdle once she got in. Not even a minute after her door slammed shut, she pulled off onto the road—and not even a minute after that, I pulled out after her.

I followed J.T. about five or six miles down the road, until she pulled over into a parking spot alongside a commercial strip. I pulled into a spot a few spaces behind and watched as she got out of her car and walked into one of the businesses on the strip. Again, she didn’t look in either direction, and again, I was captivated by her completely.

I waited on my bike for a minute and stared off at the place she’d entered. It looked like a college-kid bar and had a happy leprechaun on its awning. It definitely wasn’t the type of place you’d expect to find bikers
or
cops—which, I guess, made it the perfect type of place for a biker
and
a cop to meet up.

And with that in mind, I got off of my hog and moseyed on down toward the bar.

As soon as I walked in, I saw J.T. sitting alone, at the far end of the counter. She already had a pint glass of beer in front of her and was staring straight ahead, running her fingers along its rim.

I made my way down to her, sat down beside her, and gestured to the bartender.

“Miller Lite,” I said as soon as the old guy appeared.

J.T. continued to stare straight ahead and took a sip from her glass.

“Really,” she sighed a moment later, “
twelve
condoms?” She took another sip, then looked right at me. “Isn’t that a little ambitious?” she asked.

September 15, 2015–Los Angeles, California

“I don’t know if ‘ambitious’ is the right word,” I answered. “But ya know what they say—they were cheaper by the dozen. The twelve-pack was on sale, so I figured, what the hell… And why the hell do
you
care anyway? Jealous?”

“I don’t know if ‘jealous’ would be the right word either,” J.T. replied before taking another sip. “I hope you got good use out of them though. Your gal pal said you were at her place until about four this morning.”

“Reckon I was,” I said before taking a sip from my own glass. The bartender had just delivered my drink, and, boy oh boy, was I glad to have it.

“Evans, by the way,” J.T. remarked, watching me chug about a third of my draft in one gulp.

“Hmm?” I asked, setting my glass down.

“Your gal pal,” J.T. replied. “Belinda… Her last name is Evans.”

“Oh,” I said. I swallowed hard to hold back a burp. I didn’t care to know the girl’s last name last night, and I cared about it even less at this point.

J.T. turned in her stool so that her body, not just her face, faced me.

“Is all that stuff you said back in the station true?” she asked.

I took another huge chug from my glass. “Yes,” I answered. “I didn’t have nothing to do with Pigpen’s murder, and I think whoever did—”

“No, not
that
,” J.T. interrupted. “The stuff you said about following me out here to California and keeping track of me all these years… Is
that
stuff true?”

“Of course it is,” I replied. “Every word of it.” I chugged what was left of my beer and gestured to the bartender for another.

“Why’d you come out here to find me, but not make contact?” J.T. asked. “Why did you follow me for all these years, but never reach out to me? And why’d you—”

“Do we really have to talk about this
now
?” I interjected, interrupting what was sure to be a long line of questions. “Do ya really wanna revisit ghosts from our past in light of this fresh murder?”

“Well, we’re gonna have to talk about our past
sometime
,” J.T. replied. “We can’t go on ignoring it forever. And now’s as good a time as any—especially if you’re right about whoever’s behind this targeting me. If they’re really after me, don’t you want closure? Don’t you wanna make your peace with me before I’m gone?”

There was something sarcastic about the way J.T. was talking, even though what she was saying sounded completely serious—and completely absurd.

“Make
my
peace with
you
?” I chuckled, taking hold of the new beer the bartender had just placed in front of me. “I hold no hard feelings—no hatred or grudges. I already forgave you—for what your father did—years ago.”

“I’m glad you’ve forgiven him,” J.T. responded, even more sarcastically. “I have too. But I haven’t forgiven
you
for what
you
did.”

I wanted to pour my entire heart out on the bar counter and tell J.T. how I
really
felt about things. But now was not the time to be sappy. Now was not the time to care about my feelings or emotions. It was time to protect her, and help her.

“I was a kid,” I replied. “I didn’t know how to handle an ugly situation… But I tried to. I’m ready to make up for it
now
.”

J.T. finished her draft and motioned for another. I hoped she wasn’t trying to keep up with me. I definitely had the size advantage and could surely drink her under the table—and my taste buds were already so whet from counting bottles of beers on the wall, waiting for her at the station.

“I’m a detective, Gator,” J.T. said, eyeing the bartender as he drew her draft. “I’ve been working with San Francisco P.D. for several years now… And
you
are an outlaw biker, who I haven’t seen in over a decade. You have a rap sheet and your fingerprints are on a murder weapon. Still, despite those pitfalls, I’m willing to listen to you. I’m willing to believe you and take a shot on your theories. I’m willing to give you the chance to help me—and help yourself—here.

“But, I have to tell you—I have to admit… I’m not a hundred percent comfortable here. I’m not entirely convinced you’re not out to screw me over—or just
screw
me. You see, if you want me to walk this path with you, it’d be a lot easier to walk it if I had faith in you and could trust you. But after what happened all those years ago, I
don’t
. I don’t have faith in you; I don’t trust you—at least not as much as I should to move forward.

“So if you want me to move forward, give me some reason to have faith in you. Give me something that’ll restore some of the trust we once shared. Give me an explanation—an answer. And don’t just say you did what you did because you were a kid—because if you were that much of a ‘kid’ twelve years ago, I’m not sure you’ve had enough time to become a man.”

J.T.’s sarcastic tone was gone, and it had been replaced by something that sounded desperate, offended, and scared. As I stared at my beer and decided to pace my drinking, I thought back to our brief time together in Lou’siana and how abruptly it came to an end. I’d had a lot of questions too. But I’d never intended to ask ‘em—and I certainly never expected I’d get any type of response. But now, maybe I could. Maybe taking a short trip down memory lane wasn’t such a bad thing—and the way J.T. had just put it, it seemed like a necessary move.

“That night, when I left your house,” I started, “I wanted, more than anything, to turn right around, come back, and tell your daddy to go to hell. And the reason I didn’t do
that
was because I was just a kid. I was too scared to stand up to a real grown-up and was too childlike to even know what to say.

“So instead of fighting for you, I threw in the towel. I gave up and went home. I spent the rest of the weekend in bed. I guess you could say I was depressed, and I didn’t do much but sleep the whole next day. Then, Monday morning came around, and even though I didn’t want to, I dragged myself out of bed to go to school… But I didn’t make it that day—or any day for the rest of the school year.”

J.T. looked at me strangely. One of those things I’d been wondering—one of the questions I had—for the past ten-plus years was whether J.T. knew what happened to me after we first parted ways. And the look on her face told me that, nah, she definitely hadn’t known.

“When we had our run-in with the gator,” I went on, “I walked away with nothin’ but a bite on my leg. But that gator’s bite left more than a mark on me. That depression that kept me in bed wasn’t just depression. It was infection, too. That critter’s teeth must have been the filthiest things, because they sent a bunch of germs into my body—and when I was in bed, pining over
you
, those germs were havin’ a field day with my insides.

“I collapsed that Monday morning. I fainted from a high fever and a bodily response called shock. My dad found me a few hours later and took me to the hospital. Turns out that gator infected my skin and my blood, and the docs were afraid it was gonna spread to my bones, which would have meant that I would’ve had to get my leg cut off. They put me on some really heavy medicines that had me sleepin’ and out of my mind a lot—and I was laid up in the hospital all of ‘bout twelve days.”

“What?!?” J.T. asked. She was clutching her beer glass like she was holding onto it for dear life. “I
never
knew you got sick from the alligator bite. I never knew you—”

“I gather most people didn’t,” I interrupted. “I didn’t have many friends as it was. And the only person who came to see me was my dad. As soon as I got out, I tried callin’ ya, but—”

“But our number had been changed,” J.T. said, taking her turn to interrupt me.

“And when I tried callin’ your cousin Henry,” I continued, “he wouldn’t tell me your new number… Said your dad didn’t want me havin’ nothin’ to do with you, and that you were better off without me.

“Guess I was a kid again, because I listened. I had a lot of other shit I had to take care of, mind ya… I’d missed so much school and missed finals—so they weren’t gonna allow me to graduate until I made up the work over the summer, which wasn’t that easy for me. But I had to do it since I came so close to graduation—I couldn’t go the distance just to give up at the last bend.

“Plus, my dad was houndin’ on me big to finish up school. He hadn’t finished up himself, and he always said how he wanted better for me… So I did what I had to do—and when I was done, you were gone.”

“You did what you had to do?” J.T. repeated. She looked sad and touched, but something about her voice changed again.

“Did you have to do
everything
you did though?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I inquired, shifting in my seat a little bit.

“I can understand that you had to recover from your infection,” J.T. clarified. “I can understand that you had to work hard to make up your school work so that you could graduate… I even understand why you walked away and didn’t turn back that night. But what I don’t understand is the check.”

“The check?” I asked, cocking both my head and my eyebrows. “What check?”

J.T. rolled her eyes at me and took a sip from her beer.

“The check my father made out to ‘Carl Struthers’ for two thousand five hundred dollars,” she clarified before taking another, longer sip.

Suddenly I felt sick to my stomach, as I was hit with questions—and realizations—I hadn’t had before.

“Hmm,” I hummed, taking a sip of my own beer. I turned and looked at J.T. and shook my head, then replied, “For someone so smart,” I said, “you sure missed a big one there.”

J.T. stared back at me, daring me to go on.

“You still got that file about me on ya?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said, suspiciously, nudging her bag.

“Take it out and look through it,” I instructed her, turning toward the counter again. “And tell me the name listed as next of kin.”