Home Free (17 page)

“Oh, lucky me,” my mother said. I think she
was kidding.

When the family was gathered around the
table, Brian began to orate, practicing his speeches and regaling
his wife and kids, not to mention our parents, with his brilliant
political strategies. If he was so great, I wondered why the paper
was reporting that the race was too close to call, with the
87-year-old incumbent Gavin Mackey holding a one percent lead over
Brian.

“Please pass the corn,” I asked. My mother
never moved, didn’t hear a word I said. Pauline reached across her
and handed me the bowl of corn on the cob. I rolled my eyes in the
direction of The Candidate, and Pauline and Kevin nodded. “Watch
this,” I told them.

Brian was talking about freeway expansion. I
took a sip of beer. I cleared my throat and announced, “I have a
nipple ring. Anybody want to see?” I don’t, but it didn’t matter
because no one heard. Pauline and Kevin snickered.

Kevin said, “I bought the motorcycle shop
four months ago.” Pauline and I made the huh? face, not sure if he
was kidding or not, and he grinned, nodding, it’s true. Brian was
at the part where he promised to make Minter a safe place again,
and the family was on the edge of their seats.

“Congratulations,” I said to Kevin.

Pauline gave him a squeeze on the leg. “I’m
not wearing underwear,” she informed us. I wrinkled my nose, and
Kev groaned and leaned against the table to steady himself.

“I gave Danny Salazar a blowjob on this very
table once. Please pass the hotdogs.”

Pauline almost fell out of her chair laughing
as Kevin yanked his plate up off the sullied surface. I could have
given a repeat performance, right there in front of everyone, and
except for Kevin and Pauline, no one would have even blinked. Well,
maybe Danny.

I escaped as soon as dinner was over. Kevin
and Pauline had gone to nap in my father’s hammock, Brian and the
gang were in the pool, and my parents were in the kitchen, so no
one noticed when I slipped out the gate and ran to my car, jerked
the door open and jumped in, then squealed away. I blamed it on the
regular coffee I’d had at Danny’s this morning. Usually I stick to
decaf.

There was something I wanted to do, but it
was going to have to wait till dark, so I drove home to wait. The
house was empty when I arrived, which tonight was a relief rather
than a drag. I went in the office. Angela had put all the tutorials
away and left the desk neater than she’d found it. My camera sat on
a stack of photos in the middle of the desk. The top one was of a
car, and there was a post-it stuck to it.

“
Alex, I forgot to tell you - that car was
at Sherry’s again this morning, so I took a couple pictures. Hope
it helps your fireman. Thanks, Angela.”

I looked at the photos. The first one showed
a dark sedan. It was shot from the side and I couldn’t tell the
make. Something pricey. The second photo was a closeup of the
license plate. Damn, the girl was good. There weren’t any other
shots, so I still couldn’t determine the make, but I had the plate.
It was a vanity plate, MUSCLMN. Muscle Man? Music Lemon? I hate
those annoyingly cryptic plates. If only I knew someone at the
DMV.

I flipped through the rest of the photos.
Nothing special, but she’d done a good job of cropping them in an
interesting way. I wondered what she could do with the raisins.

When it was almost eight o’clock, I went to
my room to change. I tugged on black jeans and a tight,
long-sleeved black t-shirt. Actually, I didn’t remember it being
tight, and I thought I’d better hurry up and join the gym. I
switched from my A’s cap to a Raiders cap since it was black, and
shoved my feet into a pair of short black boots. I locked up the
house, gave Lucifer a nod, got in the car and drove.

The gravel yard parking lot was empty and
dark when I arrived. I pulled the set of keys I’d nabbed before out
of my purse and looked at it. Six keys, none of them with a little
sticker that said “front door.” Damn. I got out and beeped the car
locked, leaving my purse inside, and then shoved my keys in my
pocket. I tiptoed to the door, holding my breath, and started
trying keys.

The fourth one worked. I giggled with relief.
I opened the door and waited for an alarm to sound. I didn’t hear
anything, so I went inside and closed the door behind me. I waited
a minute to let my eyes adjust, then made my way to the door marked
Private
. I only bumped into something every other step.

The door wasn’t locked. It was hard to see in
the dark, and I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. I
thought I’d know it if I saw it, though. I pushed the play button
on the answering machine, but there were no messages. I rifled
through papers on the desk and then turned my attention to the file
drawers. I checked “A” for Arson, “F” for Fire and “B” for Bodies,
Dead. Nothing. I didn’t know how criminals stored their
information, but apparently it wasn’t like the rest of us, in
alphabetical order. Suddenly, I felt, more than heard, someone else
in the room. Shit. I really sucked at this. Then the someone cocked
a gun near my head, and I held my breath and willed myself not to
pee my pants.

“Turn around.”

I turned around and found myself face to face
with Junior Salazar. He was dark and good looking in a menacing
sort of way, with biceps that stretched the limit of his black
t-shirt and a tight smile that suggested fatigue as much as
violence. If he had Muscle Man license plates, it certainly
wouldn’t be false advertising. I tried to peer out the window to
get a look at his car, but I couldn’t see outside.

“Who are you?”

“Alexis Jordan. I’m just - ”

He waved the gun to cut me off and flipped on
the office lights.

“You Kevin’s old lady?”

I started to breathe again, since he hadn’t
shot me yet and didn’t seem to be taking aim. “His sister. Look, I
know they were framed, I just don’t know why.”

He snorted. “So you thought you’d come and
look here, because of course, I did it. Look, sweetheart, I got
enough trouble without you wandering around accusing me of arson
and murder.” He leaned in so that his face was inches from mine.
“That is what you’re accusing me of, right?”

“Well, Danny and Kevin sure as hell didn’t
kill anybody or start that fire,” I hedged. I couldn’t just come
out and say I thought he might be the killer. That seemed rude.
Besides, he had the gun and all.

“No shit. As it happens, neither did I.”

He gave me a long, appraising look. I knew he
was dangerous, and I had no idea what he was going to do now that
he had me. I hadn’t made up my mind if I believed him when he said
he didn’t have anything to do with the body shop events. But I was
starting to think he wouldn’t hurt me.

“You believe me?”

I shrugged, and he smiled. Out the front
window, I saw headlights turn into the parking lot. Junior saw them
too. The car parked and the lights went out.

“Friend of yours?” he asked.

I shook my head no. He reached into a desk
drawer and came out holding a pair of handcuffs. Before it
registered in my brain, he had cuffed my right hand to the drawer
pull on the file cabinet.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he told me, slipping the
gun into the waistband of his pants as he went to investigate the
headlights.

“Hey!”

When he was gone, I pulled my keys out of my
pocket, flipping each one aside till I found what I was looking
for. I reached my left hand up and inserted the little key,
clicking open the bracelet. I relocked the empty cuff on the file
drawer, then sat down to wait at the conference table in front of
the cabinets.

The headlights came back on and the car
backed out. I heard the front door close and lock.

“Security company, checking why the lights
are on after dark on a Saturday night.” Junior stopped in the
doorway, taking in the empty cuffs, then switched his gaze to me. I
couldn’t tell if he was mad or worried or amused. “You a cop?”

“Hunh-uh.”

“PI?”

“No.”

His eyes narrowed, trying to decide whether
or not to believe me. “Why do you have handcuff keys?”

“Why do you have handcuffs?”

He pulled the gun out of his pants, moving
over to lean against the front of his desk, setting the gun down on
the blotter. “You were just going to explain to me what you’re
doing here.”

I didn’t think he’d like my explanation, so I
tried another tack. “Maybe we can help each other,” I offered.

“Why would I do that?”

“Why not? I guess you want to prove you’re
innocent, right? Maybe we can prove all three of you are
innocent.”

“Maybe I’ll call the cops right now and tell
them I caught someone breaking into my office.”

He was starting to piss me off with the
stubborn routine, and I thought about kicking him in the shin and
running for the car. But he still had the gun within reach on the
desk, and I didn’t really feel like testing my theory about him not
hurting me. I sighed and gave him my explanation.

“Lonnie Chambers, the night watchman, was
shacked up with this woman, Sherry Henderson, over on Cherry
Street. Evidently, he’s pretty much a loser. Deals drugs when he’s
not busy beating on his girlfriend. Sherry’s a skank who used to
date your brother, back in high school. The idea occurred to me
that maybe Danny would have had a reason to hurt Chambers if he
knew Chambers was hurting Sherry. But I checked that out, and it
went nowhere.

“Then I found out a man in a dark, expensive
sedan has been paying Sherry visits. I don’t know if he’s a
customer or what. I also found out you have a black Cadillac, and
so I thought maybe you were the visitor. Like you had something
going with Sherry and popped Chambers out of jealousy or whatever.”
I didn’t mention that I knew the license plate number of Sherry’s
visitor, because if it
was
his car, I sure as hell didn’t
want him to know I could prove it. “Or maybe the car was a only
coincidence, and you just torched the place to send Jenkins some
kind of message, like Jimmy C said. The cops said you don’t know
anything about rigging explosions, but I figured maybe you had
contacts from prison that do, and maybe you paid someone to set the
fire. I guess I thought I’d come here and see if I could find
something that would lead me in that direction, or else convince me
that I was wrong.”

He’d been watching me, impassive, while I
spewed. Now he picked up the gun again and looked at it. It was a
Glock, a big-ass forty-five. I didn’t love the way he was looking
at it. “Let’s see, I have a dark sedan, and I’ve been in prison, so
therefore I killed the guy and set the fire. That about right?” He
looked drained, not angry, but disappointed. I thought about my new
rule, not to assume things, and I mentally kicked myself. “Not only
that, but I’m willing to let my own brother take the fall for it.
You’re pretty fucking brave to be here all by your lonesome, if
that’s what you think of me.”

“I’m sorry. I know it sounds like I’m jumping
to conclusions based on stereotypes and generalities, but I’m
really worried about my brother, and the cops aren’t looking for
anyone else because they think you did it, and I’m pretty sure
they’re just waiting for the pressure on Danny to get to you, only
you’re not caving in and they do have circumstantial evidence
against our brothers that they could probably build a case on, and
I’m not an investigator, for crissake, so I don’t know what the
fuck I’m doing. Please don’t be insulted.” And please don’t shoot
me, I thought.

He put the gun down as if he’d read my mind.
“I’m not going to shoot you. I didn’t know that, about Chambers and
his old lady and the drugs and the guy in the car. I never thought
about it in terms of a fire to cover up a murder. I assumed it was
like the cops thought, a murder that went down in the process of
torching the place. You’re smarter than you look. Maybe we can help
each other. Not here, though.”

Since he hadn’t shot me, I figured I’d be big
about it and ignore the insult. “Sure, okay.”

“I live in the apartments on the corner of
Monterey Parkway and Grant Street, across the street from the
junior college. Number three-twelve. Follow me over there and I’ll
show you where to park.”

We went outside. Junior locked the office
behind us and walked me to my car, tucking his gun into the back of
his jeans as he walked. I beeped the Element open and got in. I
started to shut the door, but he caught it with his shoulder,
holding his hand out, palm up.

“My keys.”

“What keys?”

“The keys you used to unlock my office.”

“What makes you think I used a key? Maybe I
picked the lock.” I had no idea in the world how to pick a lock,
but I found it insulting that he just assumed that about me.

He raised an eyebrow and started to reach
behind him, towards the stupid gun. I stuck my tongue out at him
and dropped the keys in his hand, and he slammed the door. We
pulled out of the lot, and I followed his Cadillac CTS for a
quarter mile before I remembered to look at the license plate.
Whew, no Muscle Man vanity plate. Just ordinary, Sacramento-issued
digits. I heaved a sigh of relief and figured I’d tell him I had
the registration number. Maybe he had some kind of contacts that
could run the plate and find out who it belonged to. I couldn’t
think of anyone to call at DMV.

Junior’s apartment complex was a maze, and I
followed until he pointed to a parking spot marked visitor. I was
having second thoughts about coming here. So what if he was
charming? They said Ted Bundy was nice as pie. I parked the car and
hopped out, locking it and thinking that if he killed me, no one
would ever find me here. It would take search teams weeks to find
their way through the convoluted parking lot, and by then my body
would be completely decomposed from the horrendous heat. Junior
parked farther up, in the residents’ section, and I shuffled over
to meet him, feeling anxious and wondering why on earth I’d agreed
to come to a convicted felon’s house by myself in the middle of the
night.