Shadow Boys (13 page)

- CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR -

I left the renovated house that served as the headquarters of the Helping Place, shutting the front door softly.

Toby was gone from the porch.

I jogged to the Navigator, jumped in, and sped away.

Instead of heading downtown to arrange for the pickup of Tommy Joe Culpepper’s misplaced shipment, I drove north on Central Expressway. Traffic in this direction was light, and about ten minutes later I exited at Lovers Lane and headed east.

A few blocks after the apartments and shopping centers clustered around Greenville Avenue, I turned south on an interior street called Rexton Lane and found myself in a neighborhood of low-slung brick homes, snug little places built in the 1950s and ’60s. Most had tiny front porches with painted wrought-iron railings, picture windows overlooking the street.

I stopped midblock in front of a house with two towering sycamore trees in the front yard. Piper’s domicile du jour, a rental she kept on a six-month lease, her version of commitment.

From the console, I grabbed the manila envelope that contained her pictures. I got out, strode across the lawn, and knocked on her door.

She answered a moment later, out of breath, hair damp. One arm was behind her back.

“What do you want?” She slowly eased her hand down, fingers grasping a pistol.

“Here.” I held out the envelope.

She was barefoot, wearing a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt from the Broken Spoke in Austin, the fabric so worn it had the consistency of cheesecloth.

She took the package. “Thanks.”

Neither of us spoke.

After a moment, she stepped away from the door. “You want to come in?”

I shrugged, entered her home.

The living room was decorated in early Pier 1. Wicker and bamboo, veneer woods that had been stained mahogany. Brass-plated knickknacks.

The coffee table had been moved to one side and a yoga mat set in its place. Candles and incense peppered the flat surfaces, making the air smell like vanilla-scented patchouli.

“You’re doing . . . yoga.” I tried not to sound incredulous.

“Keeps me centered.” She shrugged. “Good for my chi, too.”

“Your, uh, chi?” I paused. “It needs to be centered?”

Piper’s idea of self-improvement was to read the Sunday papers. Yoga was a sign of maturity, or some damn thing. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

She cocked her head to one side. “What do you want, Jon?”

“The pictures.”

She shut the door behind me.

“You said to take care of them. So I did.”

She did a couple of stretching exercises, bending at the waist, palms flat on the floor. Then she stood up straight and exhaled slowly.

I clenched my hamstrings, aching just from watching her.

“Did I tell you my sergeant asked me out?” She picked up a bottle of water from a side table.

I didn’t reply.

“Guy’s got the IQ of a speed bump,” she said. “And his mustache, jeez, it makes him look like a walrus.”

On the wall opposite the front door were a half dozen pictures of children, eight-by-tens, framed in black. For some reason their presence filled me with a sadness that was hard to describe. Roads not taken, holidays spent alone, opportunities missed.

“My life is complicated enough, so of course I said no.” She sighed.

“Of course.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. I was agreeing with you.”

She drained the water bottle. “So, long story short, he goes all puppy-love on me. Starts talking about how he can help me get my life back on track.”

I nodded, a nonjudgmental expression on my face. Hopefully.

“Am I a fix-it project, Jon?” She sat on the couch. “Do people look at me that way?”

“You can’t run your life based on what people think,” I said. “You are what you are.”

Corinne, our DOJ-mandated counselor, would be so proud. It was almost like I’d been paying attention.

“Maybe it’s because I grew up an orphan.” She shook her head. “People want to save me or something.”

“I need to get back to the office.”

“The thing you asked me about,” she said. “The pedophile busted last week at the Iris. The guy that Lysol Alvarez told you about.”

“Yeah?”

“The arrest records were unavailable for a two-day period that week, including when your guy got popped.”

“What does that mean?”

“No access,” she said. “They’re blaming it on a computer glitch.”

The computer system at the Dallas County jail was legendary for its inefficiencies and abrupt shutdowns. Inmates got lost in plain sight for weeks at a time because of the jail computer. The company that had designed the system was run by people who knew nothing about computers but were experts in graft and kickbacks.

“Could be a coincidence,” I said.

“It’s not and we both know it.”

I nodded.

“Shutting down access for a specified period,” she said. “That’s the kind of thing only somebody with a lot of juice could pull off.”

“A deputy chief, perhaps?”

“Going right for the jugular, straightaway.”

“I still can’t figure out why he’s so interested in one kid from West Dallas.”

“He cries in his sleep sometimes,” she said. “Calls out for his brother. And somebody named Junie.”

“Delgado?”

“He’s the only guy I’ve slept with lately.”

“Not counting me.”

“Right.” She nodded. “Which we agreed was a mistake.”

“What else does Raul Delgado do that I might need to know about?”

A long pause.

“I dunno.” She shrugged, a wistful look on her face. “He’s got as many snakes in his head as you and me.”

I debated my next question. Decisions had been made. My life was on a different path than before.

“He wants to change me,” she said. “Make me into some do-gooder socialite.”

“Do you have a gun I can borrow?”

She raised both eyebrows, a look of mild astonishment.

“Things are heating up,” I said.

“You told me no more guns. After the last time.”

We were silent for a few moments.

“You never wanted me different,” she said. “I always liked that about you.”

Outside, a lawn mower started up. Inside, the smell from the incense and candles began to be cloying.

“So you need a gun. Welcome to Piper’s Firearm Emporium. If we can’t kill it, it’s not from this planet.”

I smiled. The tension between us had disappeared, replaced by a sense of comfort and familiarity.

“I’ve got a friend in records,” she said. “He can track down everybody arrested that day.”

“Thanks.”

“My weapons inventory is in the bedroom.” She smiled innocently. “The good stuff anyway.”

I waited for her next move.

She took my hand. “Come with me.”

Ellis County, Texas

1986

In the aftermath of the assault on Junie, Raul pieced everything together and realized how it must have looked when Bobby arrived at the creek thirty minutes later.

Bobby skidded to a stop, feet slipping in the mud. He was breathing hard, standing in the shade of the cottonwood tree as the cicadas screeched and a cow bellowed in the side pasture. He saw his daughter, barely clothed, being held by a shirtless Raul.

He stared at Junie’s tear-stained face and bare legs and Raul Delgado’s sweaty torso.

Raul and Bobby locked eyes, and Raul glimpsed the depth of a parent’s love.

Bobby’s expression was no longer kind.

The older man’s face was cold and deadly, a gray bullet looking for something to kill.

Without speaking, Raul pointed to Wayne’s body to the left of Bobby’s line of vision.

Bobby turned.

Flies were buzzing around the dead man’s bloody head. His bare ass was pale like ice cream against the muddy creek bank.

Junie pushed Raul’s arm away. She stood, clutched his Explorer shirt tight around her chest.

“D-daddy. I’m s-sorry.”

Bobby knelt beside Wayne, touched his neck. He stood, looked at his daughter.

“Are you hurt? Do you need an ambulance?”

She didn’t reply. After a moment she shook her head.

Bobby’s vision zeroed in on Raul’s swollen hands. “What happened?”

Raul told him, a dry recital of the facts, just like they talked about at the Explorers. He began with his return to the ranch from the feed store. Then, seeing Wayne’s Camaro and hearing Junie’s scream, which led him to believe that an assault was in progress.

He ended his little speech, voice shaky, by saying, “I attempted to control the suspect and end the threat.”

“Control the suspect.”
Bobby’s voice was flat. “Is that what you said?”

After a moment of hesitation, Raul nodded.

Bobby looked at his daughter. Then he jabbed a finger at Wayne’s body.

“I told you last week,” he said to her. “Stay away from him. He’s a suspect in a rape case out of Hillsboro.”

Junie’s eyes filled with tears.

“Go to the house,” Bobby said. “Get yourself cleaned up.”

Junie didn’t move.

“Girl, are your legs broke?” Bobby’s voice was angry. “
Vámonos.
Now.”

Junie scampered up the creek bank and disappeared.

Bobby turned to Raul. “You did this?”

No reply. The answer was obvious.

Bobby paced, looking at Wayne’s body and the muddy area by the creek, which was littered with footprints, blood, and Junie’s underwear.

Raul cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. For him to die.”

Bobby glanced up, almost like he was surprised to find someone else there. He said, “Shut up, Raul. Don’t talk until I tell you to.”

Raul’s breathing was shallow, skin cold even though the air along the creek was hot and still. He nodded, fearful of the tone in the older man’s voice.

Bobby resumed his examination of what in most cases would be called a crime scene. After a few minutes he looked up and said, “The front gate.”

Raul frowned, confused.

Bobby pointed in the direction of the highway. “Take the pickup. Go to the front gate and lock it.”

“But—”

“Don’t ‘but’ me, Raul. Just do what I fucking say.”

Raul gulped. Then nodded. Bobby rarely swore.

“After you lock the gate, meet me at the barn. We’re gonna need the tractor.”

“I—I don’t understand.”

“The back part of the ranch,” Bobby said. “Farthest from the road.”

Raul tilted his head to one side, not getting the significance of what he was being told.

Bobby scratched his chin. “Then I’ve got to figure out what to do with the Camaro.”

Raul did the ciphering in his head, comprehended what Bobby had planned. The tractor had a backhoe attached, a large implement capable of digging a big hole very quickly.

“No—you can’t—” He shook his head. “We have to call the sheriff.”

“And tell him what, Raul? That you beat a piece of trailer scum to death with your fists?”

“But—but—” Raul took a step back. “This is wrong.”

“You want to go to prison? You’re not a minor anymore.”

Raul didn’t speak.

“This isn’t something I can sweep under the rug either.”

Raul stared at Wayne’s body.

“Let me explain it to you,” Bobby said. “You’re a Mexican, and you just killed a white guy in a county where the sheriff and all the judges are white.”

High overhead a jet streaked across the sky, contrails flaring. Raul imagined himself on that plane, headed somewhere far, far away.

“This problem has to disappear,” Bobby said. “That’s the only way out of the situation we’ve got here.”

Raul imagined Junie sitting beside him on the jet.

“Now, go lock the front gate,” Bobby said.

“I didn’t mean to kill him.” Raul wiped his eyes. “I just wanted him to stop hurting Junie.”

No one spoke for a moment.

“And that’s what you did,” Bobby said softly. “You stopped him from hurting my little girl.”

Raul fought the emotion building in his throat.

“You did the right thing, son.” Bobby smiled for the first time. “Hard for you to understand that now.”

Raul nodded.

Bobby wrapped his arms around Raul’s shoulders, hugged him close. Whispered in his ear, “We get this cleaned up today. And we’ll never, ever talk about it again. To anybody.”

Raul smelled the man who’d become a father to him. Old Spice cologne and gun leather and sweat. He tried not to cry.

Bobby released him. Gave a gentle shove toward the front gate.

Raul scampered up the creek bank.

Bobby called out to him, “One more thing.”

At the top of the bank, Raul stopped, looked back.

Bobby stared at him for a long moment and then said, “Thank you.”

- CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE -

You walk a path enough, you’ll wear a groove in it. The groove gets too deep, metaphorically speaking, it becomes difficult to walk anywhere else. Maybe that path is the one you’re meant to travel, and that’s why the groove is there in the first place.

What am I, a philosopher?

I got dressed in Piper’s bedroom, buttoned my shirt, found my shoes. I slid a heavy leather belt around my waist and attached a holster to the right side. Piper, wearing a bathrobe, opened a safe in her closet and handed me a .40 caliber Glock, a standard police sidearm. She loaded some magazines while I ran my fingers over the pistol.

“I feel like I’m in that gay cowboy movie,” she said. “I wish I knew how to quit you.”

“That such a bad thing? Us being together?”

“We’ll get in a fight here in a few minutes.” She handed me the mags. “We always do.”

I didn’t reply. She was right. Conflict was our way. Neither of us had the ability to take the high road, to let the feathers become unruffled on their own. Our nature was to stir things up, which made us good at certain activities but bad at others, like, say, being in a relationship.

“Are you familiar with an organization called the Helping Place?” I loaded the Glock. “It’s a charity of some sort.”

“You trying to change me, too, all of a sudden? Make me into some kind of socialite?”

I sighed. “It’s just a question, Piper.”

She didn’t say anything. I slipped on my sport coat, looked at myself in the mirror. The bulge from the pistol wasn’t too noticeable. As a federal agent, I used to carry openly or while wearing an oversized Windbreaker. This felt different.

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen to my job.” She crossed her arms.

I paused at the door to the bedroom.

“It’s the only job I got.” Her voice was soft, choked with emotion. “And it was damn hard to come by.”

“Here’s a tip—don’t sleep with a deputy chief. Shit rolls downhill.”

“You’re all heart, Jon.” She sneered in my direction. “Thanks for not wiping your junk on the drapes after we had sex.”

“What do you want me to say?” I walked down the hall to the living room. “I’m not the one who cut and ran.”

“We weren’t even talking about that.” She padded after me.

“Whatever.” I paused at the front door. “It always comes back to that.”

“No, it doesn’t.” She stood across the room. “You always bring it back to that.”

She was right but I wasn’t going to concede the point.

I opened the door.

“The charity,” she said. “The Helping Place.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve heard of it before.”

I raised one eyebrow.

“Raul was involved with them. Helped raise money.”

Another tidbit that Deputy Chief Delgado forgot to mention.

It was almost noon when I pulled into Judge Clark’s driveway. The nurse’s Toyota was in the same spot. Behind her car sat a white Suburban with exempt plates.

I parked to one side of the Suburban, got out, and rang the bell.

A uniformed Dallas police officer answered. He was in his midthirties, built like a Navy SEAL. The nurse hovered in the background.

“Come in,” she said.

The cop moved aside after a moment of staring at my eyes, a quick attempt at establishing dominance, a technique I’d used before on numerous occasions.

“Who are you?” he said.

“An associate of the judge’s.” I stepped inside. “I work at Goldberg, Finkelman, and Clark.”

The cop pointed to the living room. “They’re in there.”

I brushed past him.

Judge Clark was in his wheelchair by the window overlooking the lake. Another uniformed officer stood next to him, admiring the view. The man was about forty, lieutenant bars on his shoulders. He was bland like hospital food, colorless.

“You must be the facilitator.” He looked at me with eyes the color of sword steel, a cold gray.

“Who are you?” I said.

“Hopper. The chief sent me.”

“The chief of what?”

“They told me stories about you.” Hopper chuckled. “This guy Cantrell, he’s an Olympic-level smart-ass, that’s what they said.”

“The chief of police, Jonathan.” Clark spoke for the first time. “Lieutenant Hopper is his assistant.”

I nodded. “What brings you out on this fine day, Lieutenant Hopper?”

“Jonathan has a law-enforcement background, as you’ve alluded to,” Clark said. “He handles issues in the field that relate to our law practice.”

“Issues in the field.”
Hopper stroked his chin. “That’s precious. Does that include breaking the law?”

“You here to make an arrest?” I asked.

“The chief got a call from an old golfing buddy,” Hopper said. “An attorney, on retainer to Tommy Joe Culpepper’s daddy.”

“I can’t stand golf.” I looked at Clark and then at Hopper. “Apropos of nothing.”

Clark rubbed his eyes and sighed.

“You just walk around and hit a little teeny ball.” I shook my head. “What’s fun about that?”

Hopper was looking at me again. “Did you really need to rough him up?”

“Who? Tommy Joe?”

“You tune up so many guys this week you forget which one we’re talking about?”

“Tommy Joe’s a tweak-head and he’s twice my size,” I said. “Who’s roughing who up?”

“Everything Jonathan did was perfectly legal,” Clark said. “However, due to client confidentiality we can’t disclose any specifics.”

“Let’s talk about your arrest then.” Hopper pointed one finger at me like it was a gun. “You got out of the lockup pretty quick. Maybe next time you won’t be so lucky.”

“Perhaps I should call one of our criminal-defense specialists.” Clark held up a cordless phone.

“Hey, we’re cool.” Hopper waved a hand dismissively. “I’m just busting your boy’s chops.”

“What is it you want?” I said. “Catch me up. I came in late.”

Hopper cracked his knuckles. “You’re asking questions about a missing person named Tremont Washington.”

I looked at Clark. He looked back. We both shrugged.

“Yeah,” I said. “What of it?”

“A bigger problem is the fact that you’ve aligned yourself with a certain deputy chief.”

“Raul Delgado,” I said, the obvious. “Let’s go over the basics. I’m a private citizen working on a confidential matter. I’m not
aligned
with anyone.”

“You guys are part of some East Coast law firm,” Hopper said. “And you make nice-nice with a guy who’s one psych evaluation away from being bounced off the force.”

He spoke the words “East Coast” like they were a mild obscenity.

“Deputy Chief Delgado’s health records are private,” Clark said. “As HIPAA rules dictate.”

“You’ve got to admire the balls on Delgado, though.” Hopper nodded thoughtfully. “He’s managed to get close to the brass ring.”

“What are you telling us?” I asked.

“Delgado’s not going to be chief of police or mayor,” Hopper said. “The people who decide these things think he’s wrapped too tight.”

Neither Clark nor I spoke.

Hopper continued. “Which means he won’t get to move into the governor’s crib down in Austin.”

The room was silent.

“That’s what you guys do, right?” Hopper looked at each of us. “You suck up to politicos so you can keep the contracts flowing and going.”

“Well, aren’t you mister insightful,” I said. “How come he won’t make governor? You got pictures of him diddling a goat or something?”

Hopper smiled, a look of deep satisfaction on his face. He opened a briefcase on the desk and pulled out a stack of files.

I recognized them but didn’t say anything.

He handed them to Judge Clark. Clark scanned them in short order. Hopper stared at me the whole time.

“Murder investigations,” Clark said. “Somebody appears to be killing certain members of the criminal element in Dallas.”

I walked across the room and stared out the window. The lake was beautiful. A light breeze ruffled the trees surrounding the water.

Hopper meandered over, stood by my side. “Want to guess who we like for the murders?”

I shook my head.

“I’ll give you a couple of hints.” He chuckled. “The perp is Mexican. He started his life of crime when he was eleven years old and stole some money from a convenience store along with his brother.”

“I think you should leave now,” Clark said.

“Lordy, I love fucking with lawyers.” Hopper shook his head. “You should see the expression on your face.”

“What proof do you have?” I asked.

“None. But that’s the best part.” He paused. “See, you’re gonna get it for me, the proof.”

Clark dialed a number.

“Do you have any idea how connected the law firm is to the feds?” I asked. “You really want to go down that road?”

“I’m not after you or Ironside here.” He pointed to Clark, who was speaking on the phone in hushed tones. “Yet.”

His gray eyes darkened to the color of a thundercloud in summer. A sheen of sweat coated his forehead even though the room was cool, and he gave off a sense of stridency that was out of line with the current situation.

“I’m after Delgado,” Hopper said. “And you’re gonna get me the evidence to put him away.”

“Is this the part where I’m supposed to say, ‘Or what?’ ” I asked.

Hopper smiled. “Or the chief is going to put your girl Piper under the fucking jail.”