Shadow Boys (27 page)

- CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE -

We didn’t speak for a couple of blocks. Shaky from adrenaline. Silent from the shock of learning who the man in the black tracksuit was.

Old houses and overgrown yards blew past the windows.

I turned the AC to high.

We stopped for a light at Hatcher Street.

Piper looked my way and said, “What the hell?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Hopper was doing his own one-man crime-reduction program.”

“Figured him for an asshole. Not crazy.”

“Everybody’s got layers,” I said. “Like a dysfunctional onion.”

I wondered where Deputy Chief Raul Delgado was at the moment. He’d disappeared in the aftermath of the incident by the Trinity River where Bobby McKee had died.

A group of people ran past the front of the car. Maybe six or eight. Men and women, varying ages, all moving fast, pointing to the other side of the street. Everybody had a cell phone in their hand. We’d left the gunplay far enough behind us that the hubbub had to be for some other reason.

“Speaking of assholes,” Piper said, “where do you think Stoma Steve has run off to?”

Hatcher was a main thoroughfare south of Fair Park, three lanes each direction.

Old apartments lined one side of the street. The other side, across from us, was a strip mall. The businesses there were pretty typical for the area—a beauty supply store and a dialysis office, a pawnshop.

And a day-care center.

The group of people crossed the street en masse and headed toward the day-care center where another, larger group was clustered.

Piper took several deep breaths and leaned her head back against the rest. “You don’t think he’s over there, do you?”

Where else would a child molester seek refuge? A place to which he is irresistibly drawn.

She hit the switch for the red and blue lights in the grill and peeled across the street.

A few seconds later, the borrowed car screeched to a stop in front of about twenty people circled around an inset of the strip mall, a corner where the day-care center connected with a tax-refund business.

Badge-less, Piper and I pushed our way through the crowd like we were cops.

Stoma Steve huddled in the corner, kept at bay by an old man wielding a rake like it was a spear. Stoma was still handcuffed but his jumpsuit was filthy.

“Step away, partner.” I grabbed the old man’s arm. “We’ll take over from here.”

Grumbling from the crowd.

“Show’s over, folks.” Piper whistled once, a piercing tone. “Please clear the area. This is police business.”

“He’s a damn pedophile,” the old man said. “My pastor told us about him.”

“Your pastor’s right.” I walked toward Stoma. “And now we’re taking him back to lockup.”

“What’s he doing out here anyway?” The old man pointed a finger at me. “He’s wearing jail clothes.”

“It was a, uh, clerical error,” Piper said.

Stoma stood up, eyes frantic. He addressed the crowd: “These aren’t real police. Somebody call 911.”

“Shut up, Stoma.” I grabbed his arm, leaned close. “You want us to leave you here?”

Stoma squinted at me while the crowd continued to grumble. He tried to pull free from my grip.

I shoved him toward our vehicle while Piper carved a path through the angry people.

Thirty seconds later we were barreling down Hatcher Street, Stoma in the back.

I looked in the rear. “Start talking. Tremont Washington, everything you know.”

“I coulda died back there,” he said. “I wanna go back to jail.”

I punched him in the nose.

He caterwauled. Bounced up and down on the seat.

Piper pulled into the parking lot of a self-serve car wash. She stopped the car. Turned around. “You want me to take you back to those people? Cuffed? In your jumpsuit? They’d love to see you.”

Stoma cowered in the backseat, pressed against the door.

“Begin at the beginning,” I said.

He took several deep breaths.

“That day. I saw three people,” he said. “Two adults and Tremont.”

“Keep going,” I said.

“One of ’em was the po-po. A Mexican in a black Suburban.”

I looked at Piper. That had to be Raul Delgado.

Stoma continued. “The Mex was fighting with this woman. She was the third person.”

“What did the woman look like?” I said.

Stoma shrugged. Women weren’t his thing.

“They was like a family or sumpthin’. Bitchin’ at each other.” Stoma shook his head. “My mama used to chase Daddy around the hog holler with a garden hoe. I know from fightin’.”

“Black or white?” Piper said. “The woman. What color was she?”

“She was white. Maybe in her forties.” He licked his lips. “Rich-looking.”

Hannah McKee.

“So the Mexican cop and the rich lady are fighting,” I said. “Then what happened?”

“Tremont. He ran away.”

No one spoke.

“And?” I said.

Stoma frowned at us, a little jailhouse lawyering going on in his ninety-IQ brain.

“This isn’t gonna come back on you,” Piper said. “Everything’s off the record. We’ll even take you to Burger King on the way back to lockup.”

Stoma nodded. “I, uh, followed him.”

I stifled my natural revulsion to the implications of that statement.

“Then what?” Piper asked.

“We were on Hampton.” Stoma’s eyes were animated. “I was getting close, about to start talking to him.” He paused. “Then a squad car stopped.”

“Because there was a warrant out on you,” Piper said. “And you don’t exactly blend in.”

“The last warrant, that was all a misunderstanding,” he said. “See, I was just—”

“No one cares, Stoma,” I said. “What happened to Tremont?”

“The police arrested me.” His voice was whiny. “They put the cuffs on too tight.”

Piper rolled her eyes. “Cry me a river, ass-munch. Now tell us what happened to Tremont. Where did he go?”

Stoma looked out the window of the borrowed squad car. The sun was shining, traffic moving along Hatcher Street.

“He went back to the Iris. On the other side of the property, there’s a side gate.”

“And you saw him go in there?” I said.

Stoma nodded. “With that colored fellow. The one with the diamond grill, the one that talks like he’s from England.”

I turned back around and slumped my shoulders.

Tremont never left. He was in the Iris all along.

- CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR -

We didn’t take Stoma Steve to Burger King like we’d promised. Instead we dropped him off at the jail.

Literally.

Piper drove slowly by the intake entrance as I climbed in the back and tossed Stoma out the rear door. The car never stopped.

He was still in his jail whites, still cuffed. He rolled a few times and ended up in the gutter. Hopefully, somebody would find him and get him where he belonged.

I shut the back door, and we drove to the Iris Apartments.

Once there, Piper parked in a handicap spot, and we strode to the building to where Tremont’s unit was, the one he shared with his grandmother.

The courtyard was empty, no thugs standing around drinking beer. Nobody acting tough.

Piper rapped on the door of the grandmother’s place.

No answer.

She hit harder.

I peered through the window.

One of the curtains was open a fraction, giving me a view of where the sofa had been.

“It’s empty,” I said.

“Now what?”

I kicked in the door.

“That’s one option,” she said. “Not necessarily my first choice, but hey, I can go with the flow.”

I stepped inside.

The apartment was empty, furniture and personal items gone. In the kitchen, there was nothing in the refrigerator except a box of baking soda.

“She’s an old lady with no money,” I said. “Where could she be?”

The manager’s office was in the front building, a ten-by-ten cube that smelled like copier toner and cigarette smoke.

The manager, a hard-looking woman in her sixties with a Misty Ultra Slim 120 dangling from her lip, told us that Alice Simpson had left no forwarding address.

“Any guesses where she might have moved to?” I said.

The manager shook her head. “I’m not sure she even knew. Most days she couldn’t tell you where she lived even if she was standing in her living room.”

“When did she leave?” Piper asked.

The woman blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. “Three, four days ago.”

“Who moved her?” I said. “She had to have help, right? Especially with the dementia.”

“Some moving company. I don’t remember the name.” The woman shrugged. “Maybe you could ask that Mexican guy.”

“What Mexican guy?” Piper said.

“That one that was always around. He worked for the city or something.”

Piper shook her head, muttered under her breath.

“They were together on the day she moved out?” I asked.

The woman nodded.

“Thanks.” I headed toward the door.

“The old lady, Mrs. Simpson. She said something about the ocean.” The manager lit another Misty. “She and the kid wanted to see the beach.”

“What kid?” Piper said.

“Her grandson. The one that lived with her.”

The office got very still except for the cigarette smoke curling upward. Piper and I looked at each other.

“Her grandson was with her?” I said. “When she moved?”

The woman nodded again.

“He ran away a lot. Used to hide in those vacant units on the ground floor.” She coughed, a deep rattle like marbles in a can. “Had to chase him out a bunch of times.”

“Did his grandmother know he used to hide out there?” Piper said.

“I told you. She didn’t know what year it is most days.”

One of those ground-floor units was where I had encountered Lysol’s girlfriend trying to buy drugs. Sawyer, that was her name. She died in the mysterious explosion a few blocks away, the one that left Lysol Alvarez missing, presumed dead.

Tremont had been hiding in plain sight. Staying at the stash house. He would have made a perfect scout for the crew that ran the Iris, a little off, so no one suspected him of anything.

Or maybe they just let him stay there. Who knows?

Piper and I stepped outside.

“They’ve left, Jon. Out of our jurisdiction, so to speak.”

I didn’t say anything.

She touched my arm. “Let it go.”

“I knew the kid’s father.” I pulled a disposable smartphone from my pocket. “I need to find him.”

The smartphone had an app that was connected to the databases used by law enforcement. Theo Goldberg had allowed me to have access. I was glad to find that the access had yet to expire.

I ran the same search I’d been performing the past few days—Raul Delgado, his social, DOB, last known address, et cetera.

Nothing. Again.

Then I tried Alice Simpson. No results.

“He’s a cop with a lot of money,” Piper said. “He can disappear pretty easily.”

“Do you think the kid’s with him?”

Piper nodded.

“Do you think he’s safe?”

“Safer than here.” She massaged her stomach.

“You okay?”

“I feel like crap.” Her face was pale. “Let’s stop by the drugstore on the way—”

She put a hand to her mouth, then ran around the corner of the building. A moment later, a retching sound.

I dashed after her.

She was leaning over, hands to her stomach, a pool of bile at her feet.

“What’s wrong, Piper? Talk to me.”

“Nothing.” She waved me off. “Let’s get out of here.”

“You think it’s food poisoning? Something you ate?”

She didn’t reply.

I put an arm around her shoulder. “Let’s find a pharmacy.”

She nodded.

I said, “Maybe an antacid will help.”

“I doubt it.” She looked in my eyes for a few seconds.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I don’t think an antacid is gonna help what I’ve got.”

I didn’t reply, my mind racing with the implications.

“When I broke up with Raul. Couple months ago.” She said, “I shouldn’t a quit taking the pill.”

“The pill? What pill are you talking about?”

“The pill-pill, you idiot.”

My mouth was hanging open. We’d been together since then, several times, the last being in her rented house right before she’d gone to ground.

“Let’s go to the drugstore, Jon.” She took my hand, pulled me toward the car.

Port Isabel, Texas

Cesar Diaz considers himself the mayor of Jefferson Street. He watches over the homes on his block like a shepherd does his flock. Quietly, without seeming to. Missing nothing.

Jefferson is a tranquil residential street that dead-ends in the marina. The houses are old and small, occupied by working-class people or retirees.

You can’t see the ocean from his house on Jefferson, but you can smell the salt and hear the gulls trill overhead.

The marina is a few blocks away from Cesar’s place, South Padre Island maybe a three-minute drive over intercoastal waterway via the Queen Isabella Causeway.

Cesar is sixty-three years old, an ex-Navy mechanic and former letter carrier for the postal service. He’s worked hard all his life and is now content to pass his time as an observer of the activity on Jefferson Street.

He sits on the front porch of his wood-frame house, drinking coffee in the morning, beer as the afternoon wears on, watching people come and go.

The stucco house across the street from Cesar’s is set back from the curb, under a pair of palm trees, a “For Rent” sign at the end of the sidewalk. A porch runs the length of the front, a swing at either end. Cracked shells and weeds make up most of the yard, encased in a waist-high fence that matches the material of the house.

Port Isabel is near the Rio Grande Valley, a peculiar slice of North America that is a strained mixture of two vastly different cultures, a place where people keep to themselves and don’t ask many questions.

This is why Cesar doesn’t immediately walk across the street and welcome the mixed-race family that moved into the stucco house one hot summer night.

So many strange occurrences on the border, things that don’t seem to fit together.

Men are enemies one day, friends the next.

People drop out of view regularly, only to surface in another town with a different name. Usually. More often than not, they disappear and are never heard from again.

Hard to tell what is normal in these trying times.

Maybe the strangeness is due to the heat. Perhaps it’s the
brujas
, the Mexican witches who sell potions and spells from their shacks by the Rio Grande.

Or maybe it’s the narco-traffickers, the shadowy people no one likes to talk about.

Who’s to say?

In any event, Cesar doesn’t bother the new arrivals. He just watches.

Two African Americans—a boy in his early teens, and a woman in her late seventies. And a handsome Latino man with hard eyes and a trim physique.

The man is the one who walks with the boy to the marina every day to look at the boats.

They stop at a little shack by the Catholic church for tacos and coffee, and then they continue on to a bench by the water, where they watch fishing trawlers leave for the Gulf.

A few days after they move in, another, even odder pair joins them.

Cesar sees them arrive one morning as he is reading the
Brownsville Herald,
a story from Dallas about a group of babies found in an abandoned house not far from where Bonnie and Clyde grew up.

The new arrivals come in a late-model sedan, a Japanese import, gray and nondescript.

A pretty woman in her late thirties, a Caucasian, with hair the color of mahogany. Her companion is a light-skinned black man in his forties, who walks with a slight limp. The man is dangerous-looking, the type of person you cross the street to avoid.

Cesar watches them get out and then continues reading. It’s a sidebar story about the skeletal remains of a young man found on the ranch of the Dallas vigilante killer, a former police officer named Robert McKee.

The authorities had been alerted to the existence of the makeshift orphanage by an anonymous call from a cell tied to McKee’s account. At the moment, they were trying to piece together the connection, but were not having much success.

The light-skinned black man and the Latino do not greet each other. They keep their distance from one another like two tomcats aching for a fight.

They all go inside and after a while the lights in the stucco house click off, one by one.

The next morning, as Cesar is having his second cup of coffee, the black man leaves the house, gets into the gray import, and drives away.

Cesar never sees him again.

The woman stands on the porch and watches him go. After a few moments, the Latino man joins her.

By the way they stand, Cesar surmises they are lovers or used to be. The status of their relationship now is hard to determine, though Cesar spins all kinds of wild tales in his head, most based on the soaps his wife watches on Univision.

Perhaps they are bank robbers on the lam. Or spies hiding from the government. Cesar wishes he could ask, but that is not the way on the border.

For the next few weeks life is serene on Jefferson Street.

Cesar and the man nod hello to each other and occasionally visit about the weather and how the redfish are running.

The man tells Cesar his name but it is so obviously a fake that Cesar only thinks of him as the guy across the street.

He has family nearby, that much is obvious. Cousins in Brownsville and Matamoros. From time to time, the cousins come over and there’s a big cookout in the backyard of the stucco house.

Smoked brisket. Ears of corn on the grill. Coolers of beer. Bottles of white zinfandel.

The old black lady stays inside for these events, her health precarious.

The man and the boy seem to enjoy themselves, but the pretty white woman sits by herself off in a corner of the yard, drinking her wine. She smiles when people approach, but by the way she holds her shoulders, Cesar can sense her sadness.

One evening, as a get-together is in full swing, the woman storms out of the backyard and sits on the low wall in front of the stucco house.

The shadows are long, so she doesn’t see Cesar on his porch.

A few moments later, the Latino man joins her.

He is angry; she is drunk. The predictable happens. They argue, voices raised, fingers pointed.

Cesar hears certain words that are louder than others.

Wayne and Junie.

And, from her:
Hannah! Why can’t you fucking say Hannah?