Iced Tea (26 page)

I put a whole cube of oleo in the pot, let it warm up, threw the fat that I’d cut off the meat in there, just to give the butter some flavor.
 
Cooked that for a little while, while I put the beef chunks in the bag and shmooshed it all around until each chunk was fully coated.

I pulled the fat out of the oleo, put the beef in the pot, one piece at a time, so the oleo would stay hot.
 
When I got all the beef in there, I stirred it around, making sure to brown all the different sides, and added the mixture from the bag so that it sopped up every trace of oleo.

I put the kettle to boil, by the time it was whistling at me, all the meat was browned, I added water to the pot, to cover all the meat, made sure the burner was set so that the whole thing wouldn’t boil over, and ran for the shower.

I did the quick shower thing, which only takes me about five minutes.
 
I put on some yoga pants and a t-shirt and was back in the kitchen checking on the meat in no time.

I peeled some potatoes, pulled out some veggies, and got some rolls out and put them in a basket wrapped up in a napkin.
 
That is one good thing about Florida, the rolls aren’t likely to dry out any time soon, you can get everything set long before your guests arrive.

I set the table, using my favorite black tablecloth, my black and white Corelle, the square ones, and my square glasses.
 
Those were not easy to find, let me tell ya.

I had some time, so I tried to get my brain around just what I should tell my neighbor.
 
Tell him too much, he’ll think I’m crazy.
 
Don’t tell him enough, he’ll think I’m crazy.
 
I see a theme here.

At exactly the appointed time, as my mother would say, my neighbor knocked on the door.
 
He was carrying a beautiful silver wine bucket.
 
I panicked for just a second since I don’t drink wine and I didn’t have any wine glasses handy.

I don’t like the taste of any that I’ve tried.
 
Most importantly, I didn’t want to offend him, when he was doing me the favor.

I barely got a look at it as he walked through to the kitchen.

“Everything smells great.
 
What are we having?”

“Faux stew.”

“What is faux stew?”

“Well, I don’t like veggies.
 
So I cook the meat like it’s stew, then I prepare the veggies on the side, and serve it all family style, and you can concoct your own stew, with as many or as few veggies as you want.”

“That’s different.”

“Yeah, my mom doesn’t approve either, but you do what you have to do in this world, and I’ll do just about anything to avoid veggies.”

“You don’t eat any of them?”

“I’m what some might call a picky eater.
 
I’ve never even had a hamburger.”

“You’re kidding.
 
Don’t join the military.”

“I hadn’t planned on it.”

“Or go to jail.”

“From your mouth to God’s ears.”

“So, let’s talk.”

“How about I serve the food, you get the drink, and we’ll eat and talk at the same time.”

“I brought you the finest vintage I could find.”
 

With that, he pulled out a two liter Pepsi.
 
I could have kissed him.
 
Not an AJ kind of kiss but definitely a Liam kind of kiss.

He smiled.

“What kind of super sleuth would I be if I didn’t know something that basic about you Cara?”

“Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.
 
Need any help getting all this on the table.”

“No thanks, this part of life I have under control.
 
Just sit down and get comfortable, I’ll be with you in two minutes.”

I carried everything out to the table, sat down, drank the ice cold Pepsi and started to dig in.
 
Faux stew is one of my specialties and it didn’t let me down.
 

“Okay, I left a note on your door last night before I went bowling, did you see it?”

“Yep.
 
I made noise, but you didn’t come out, and we didn’t see your car, so we figured that you would call if it was really an emergency.
 
Did you learn something?”

“Well, like I told you, I bowl with the chief.
 
I asked a few questions, didn’t get any answers, but I did get a feeling or two.”

“Your Spidey sense go off?”

“That’s one way of thinking about it.”

“So, what did your Spidey sense tell you?”

“It told me that something hinky is going on.
 
I’m not sure what it is.
 
I’d be willing to bet pretty big money, money I don’t have right now, that the chief is clean in all of it, but at the same time, I think there’s something pretty big going on.”

“Something else has happened since we talked.
 
Last night my sister and her boyfriend came over for dinner.
 
We started talking and ended up going over to the condo to look for something, anything, that would help figure all this out.
 
We searched high and low and couldn’t find a damn thing.
 
Then all of the sudden my sister goes into movie fiction mode, we pull down the shades in the bedroom that Louis turned into a physical therapy room, and we find a key to a toilet paper dispenser in the tube part.”

“That was either luck or just plain weird.”

“My sister is weird.
 
Trust me.
 
Anyway, the condo has a community clubhouse type thing, we go charging over there, and the guys check in the men’s room, nothing.
 
Teagan and I check in the women’s room.
 
She found a little memory card shoved between the dispenser and the stall wall.
 
By the time we got all the dispensers off, there were eight cards.”

“Did you put everything back the way you found it?”

“Yep, and as far as I know, no one even knows we were in there.
 
One little old lady talked to us, but she thought we were just visiting our grandma or something.”

“She didn’t know you were connected to Louis?”

“I think maybe we said something about him, now that I think about it.
 
She said he was strange, hanging out with old people at the condo complex when he was young and should have been with people his own age.”

“Hmmm.”

“What do you think?”

“What was on the memory cards?”

“We don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?
 
Was the information encrypted or something?”

“Oh, I didn’t even think it might be encrypted.
 
Can you do that on those little cards?
 
We just didn’t want to know what was on them.
 
Kind of like not looking at the bad guy when he robs the bank.
 
If you can’t identify him, he’s less likely to hurt you.”

“Teagan isn’t the only one watching too much TV.
 
So what are you going to do with the memory cards?”

“They’re locked up.
 
Far away.
 
We figured we would bring them to someone in authority, I’m just not sure who that authority should be.”

“I could give them to the chief.”

“No offense, but we kind of thought it should be someone outside of the police department.”

“Why’s that?”

“There could only be a couple of things on those memory cards.
 
I know I’m only guessing, but guessing is all I’ve got right now.”

“Okay, tell me what your guesses are.”

“My first guess is that Louis really was working on something to do with a bunch of serial murders, and he found something he wasn’t supposed to find, but he couldn’t prove it strongly enough to hold up in court, so he was working on getting the proof he would need to convict the guy.”

“Sounds reasonable.
 
Then the memory cards would hold the evidence that he had collected so far.”

“I’m not sure about evidence.
 
Wouldn’t there have to be some kind of chain of command.”

“You mean chain of custody?”

“Yeah.
 
See, I don’t watch as much TV as you think.”

“Possibly.
 
What’s your second guess?”

“My second guess is that there is something going on with the cops.
 
Maybe there’s a bad cop.
 
Like maybe ol’ Jerkface that keeps showing up at my door.
 
Or maybe Jerkface is actually a good guy and he’s trying to nail the bad cops like Louis was.”

“If Jerkface is a good cop, then why doesn’t he just go to his superiors and get help.
 
Why is he trying to be Serpico?”

“Who is Serpico?”

“Only honest cop in the NYPD?
 
One of the best movies ever made.
 
Think it was in the early 70s.”

“Shall we talk about when I was born?”

“Don’t depress me.
 
So, you think it’s either a good cop tracking down a murderer, or a crooked cop.”

“I know.
 
We’re back to TV plots.”

“Those things really do exist in real life Cara, and unfortunately, some innocent people come across it in life.
 
What are you going to do?”

“Any suggestions?”

“If you don’t want to bring it to the chief, do you know a good lawyer?”

“Why, am I gonna be in trouble?”

“No, a lawyer can help you in this.”

“I don’t know any lawyers.”

“Well, you could call the media.”

“I don’t want to do that.
 
My brother’s a cop.
 
If there’s one bad cop, then it would be great if they could take care of that with as little damage to the rest of the force as possible.
 
Corruption can be like cancer.
 
You really want to get it out before it starts to spread.”

“Well, I guess you’re going to have to contact the State Attorney General.”

“Crap.”

“What?”

“That sounds so official.
 
I don’t want to get my brother all tangled up in this.
 
We share the same last name.
 
How do I get myself in the middle of this kind of stuff?”

“This isn’t the first time?”

“Well, for this specific stuff it’s the first time, but I’m always stepping in something.”

“I guess I could do it for you.”

“No, that isn’t fair.
 
This is my thing to do and I’ll do it.”

“There’s probably some anonymous way to report it online.”

“Yeah, but I have those stupid memory cards.
 
I’m sure it’s all part of the same thing, although with my luck, geezer porn is not out of the question.”

“I don’t even want to know.”

We finished dinner.
 
We talked about all the reasons that I don’t want to own a gun.
 
Why Teagan probably should.
 
About his new girlfriend, she’s a nurse, and AJ.
 

I admit, I really didn’t get all that much information about what to do with Jerkface, but it was a nice dinner, we bonded as neighbors, and when it was time for dessert, my other neighbor, of the quick draw video camera persuasion, joined us.
 
We had a great time, and they left, just as AJ was walking in the door.

EIGHT

The Internet is a wonderful thing.
 

I’m just sayin’.
 

I logged on first thing this morning and typed in a rather vague question, I fine tuned that and fine tuned that, and by the time I was done, I was on the Department of Justice’s website and they had a form there for me to fill out regarding law enforcement.
 
The page had all kinds of information, and directions on how to fill everything out and what applies and what doesn’t.

The page also had a list of other agencies that might be able to help me if that agency can’t.

I’m not the most computer literate person in the world, so I decided to print everything out and have Teagan look at it later.

I’m hoping I can set up some anonymous email address, send the information to the right authorities, then I can follow that up with the memory cards and maybe the journals.
 
If I had a magic wand, I’d wish to get the problem taken care of without me getting in the middle of it and more importantly not get Rory in the middle of it.
 
I doubt that is going to happen, so my goal is to get it done so I can sleep well at night knowing I’ve done the right thing and haven’t stepped in it in the process.