Sendoff for a Snitch (17 page)

Pulling out the tiny flashlight, I went back up the stairs to go to bed myself. Not much to do in the dark like this. One thing, I’d been getting enough sleep lately.

Chapter 15

B
ack upstairs, I went to check out the accommodations. Not luxury, I was sure.

The bathroom was grungy, but not filthy. A good scrubbing might improve it somewhat, but the old fixtures were worn and stained. The other bedroom—Jumbo George’s, when he could make it up the stairs—was so small I wondered if he’d ever really been comfortable in it. Everything was dust-covered, as if no one had entered it in a long time. A spider colony appeared to have taken up residence in the far corner.

I opened the window a crack to let some fresh air in. Then I went into Nick’s room to pick up the stuff I’d knocked down.

It was mostly paperwork—letters, bills, ripped envelopes. I tried not to mess them up any more than they already were, but the stack kept sliding. Finally, I sorted them into several piles.

Gripping the flashlight, I looked under the bed to see if I’d missed anything. Sure enough, a few pieces of something white showed in the narrow beam of the flashlight. I couldn’t quite reach them, so I lay on the floor and pulled them out.

Another stack of envelopes, these ones new, with names on them. Phil. Reggie. Jason. Denver. James. Diffy.

Diffy.

Diffy wasn’t a common name. The only Diffy I knew was a forklift driver on the four to midnight shift at Quality Steel. Who didn’t like me.

And Denver. Wasn’t that the name of the driver who’d been looking for Aaron the last night we’d worked?

I picked up the envelope with Diffy’s name on it. The flap was tucked in. Pulling it out, I looked inside. A piece of paper with a list of numbers and letters. Some of the numbers might have been dates. But I couldn’t make any sense out of the rest of them. A tiny plastic baggie with a resealable zipper was in the bottom. I took it out. It contained a little white powder.

Cocaine? Powder meth? I was tempted to lick a finger and get a bit to taste, to see if it had the bitter taste I’d expect.

Not a smart idea. I had no notion how much—or how little—it would take to show up in a drug test. While Mr. Ramirez didn’t regularly test me when I showed up for parole appointments, he had the right to, anytime he felt like it. And the last thing I’d need was to test positive.

I put those envelopes onto the nightstand and looked a bit more closely at the other things.

One was a big manila envelope. “Aaron” was written on the outside. I only hesitated a moment before I looked at the contents.

A few pictures. Aaron by himself. Aaron and Benji. Aaron standing next to his battered blue pickup. Aaron and an older lady, possibly his mother.

The envelope also contained some legal-looking documents. The only legal documents I was familiar with had to do with criminal cases, but these looked a lot like them, only the state wasn’t one of the parties listed.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and shone the narrow beam of light on the pages. They outlined some kind of financial settlement, repeatedly referring to “Aaron Stenski, minor” and “Gina Michaels, guardian.”

Of course, Aaron was no longer a minor. Or wouldn’t have been if he were still alive. Because of the heavy machinery, overhead conveyors, etc., the child labor laws would not have permitted him to be hired at Quality Steel until he was at least eighteen.

Perusing a bit further, the papers seemed to be outlining child support arrangements and how they would be affected by various events, including the youngest child, Aaron, reaching eighteen or graduating from high school, or the death of one Gustav Stenski.

Also mentioned were George and Nicholas Stenski, children of Gustav, and Suzanne Stenski, his wife.

The papers stated that Nicholas had received $125,000 to purchase a truck cab and establish himself in business. George had received a similar amount to purchase and stock a retail store. Therefore, fifty percent of the estate would go into a trust fund for Aaron after his eighteenth birthday to provide him with the means to set himself up in business.

The remaining forty percent of the estate would be divided among the other two sons and Suzanne, also in trust funds. If an heir died, his trust fund would go to his issue. If he had no issue, it would be distributed to the other trust funds according to the same formula.

I didn’t know much about estate law. Could he really set it up so if someone died, the money would go back into trust funds for the other heirs? The paperwork seemed to indicate that.

A list of assets added up to a staggering $2,765, 250.

That meant that Aaron’s fifty percent would be $1,382,625.

Ten times what either Jumbo George or Nick had gotten.

Assuming, of course, that Aaron was alive to collect anything from the trust fund.

Jumbo George was up and piling mud-encrusted merchandise in the sink when I got downstairs.

“Only got cold water, but I can get a start on it,” he said, holding a leering gargoyle up to the light.

I looked around the shop. It was in a lot better shape than when I first got there, but it was still dirty and cluttered. And it still stank of mildew. Jumbo George had lit a whole sheaf of incense sticks on the counter, but I wasn’t sure that the smoky patchouli scent was much of an improvement.

“You think you can walk down to that McDonald’s again?” Jumbo George asked.

“Sure.”

He pulled a twenty out of his pocket, stared at it, and added a five. “Get some coffee. The biggest size. And as many breakfast burritos as you can.”

The McDonald’s was packed. It’s an ongoing mystery to me how stores can be out of stock, roads can be blocked, supply lines can be almost nonexistent, but the fast food restaurants are up and running as soon as the power comes on and the employees can get there.

For the money, I got two huge cups of coffee and a bag stuffed with the breakfast burritos.

“Haven’t had any coffee in days,” Jumbo George said as he took the top off his massive cup and inhaled the aroma. He took a huge gulp. “That’s good.”

I put the bag of burritos on the table and took a sip of my own coffee. It hadn’t been as long for me, since I’d had some at the high school and then the cold instant at Kelly’s, but I’d missed it all the same.

We sat at the table again. Jumbo George wolfed down a few burritos and half of his coffee.

“What ya got planned today?” I asked him, taking a second burrito.

He shrugged. “Same old, I guess. Keep cleaning up and see if I can’t get this place in shape to open whenever the power comes back on. How about you?”

“I got to check out some stuff,” I said.

“Like your apartment?”

“Yeah. I bet that’s a mess. And I got to find out when Quality Steel is working again. That’s a good job, and I wouldn’t want to lose it.”

Jumbo George unwrapped another burrito. “Seems like it’s kind of hard to get fired from there, isn’t it? I didn’t see him much, but I know Nick said Aaron was always goofing off, missing work, stuff like that. And he never got fired.”

“Yeah.” I wondered how much I should tell him. He’d as much as said he didn’t care much about Aaron. But it was his brother. “Some people thought Aaron was untouchable because he was keeping an eye on the drug deals and stuff in the shop.”

Jumbo George snorted. “Running the drug deals in the shop would be more like it. Aaron’s a druggie, no doubt about it. If he needed a fix and thought selling his mother’s eyeballs would get it for him, he’d do it. No problem.”

I let that statement hang in the air between us.

“When you say ‘keeping an eye on’ the dealing, you mean, like, snitching?” He took another gulp of his coffee.

“That’s what some people said.”

“To the cops?”

“Yeah. And the cops asked the company to keep him on while they investigated a few things. So he didn’t get fired.”

“You know,” Jumbo George said, “Nick said Aaron was beginning to hang out with a bike club. Predators. That’s where he was getting a lot of his shit from. If they thought he was rolling over on them, he’d be toast in no time.”

I took another drink of my coffee. This container was huge. “Unless they were using him.”

“You mean, like to find out what was going on?”

“Yeah. And to send fake information.”

He raised his shaggy dark eyebrows. “Interesting. But a dangerous game. As soon as they were done with him, or he proved a liability, they’d off him.”

“I imagine they would.” I drained my coffee. “But if they did that, I don’t imagine the body would ever be found. They’re pretty good at hiding bodies.”

We finished our breakfast, and I began sweeping the wrappings into the bag. “Your brother Nick ever haul for Quality Steel?” I asked.

“Sometimes.” Jumbo George finished his coffee and looked sadly at the empty cup. “That’s where he found out a lot of this stuff about what Aaron was up to.”

“Was that a good-paying gig?”

“I think so. He’s just getting into it. Talking about buying a flatbed trailer so he can haul anybody’s stuff, instead of just the big companies that can provide a trailer. Says steel makes a good load—it’s so heavy, you hit your weight limit fast. Not like some things, where they try to stuff just a little more into the trailer no matter how full it is. That kind of shit takes forever to load and unload.”

I got to my feet.

Jumbo George looked up at me. “You gonna come back and help out any more?”

“I might. If you want. Especially if you’ll let me sleep here again.”

“Hell, you can move in, for all I care.”

That was the second time he’d mentioned something like that. I wondered if he was really lonely. He sure couldn’t get out too much.

As I walked down the street, I thought about going to see how Kelly was doing, but decided to wait until we got back to work, which I hoped wouldn’t be too far in the future. We both needed the money. At work, we could talk things out a bit without the kids overhearing. If she wanted to talk to me.

I should go by Mandy’s and see how her plans were coming along. Maybe warn her I might be locked up again soon.

And my apartment—what kind of shape was that in? I almost hated to find out.

Not to mention that I needed to look into if Quality Steel was planning to reopen any time soon. And if the parole office would be open for my weekly appointment. I wasn’t looking forward to that.

Going to see Mandy won out.

Mandy’s neighborhood was in much better shape than the area around Jumbo George’s. It was higher ground, so it hadn’t been flooded. No debris stood in the streets. I heard the whine of a chainsaw and saw tree limbs piled neatly, awaiting pickup by the town’s trucks. The traffic lights were blinking instead of operating on their synchronized cycles, but they did have power.

I went past the hedge that surrounded Mandy’s property and up on the gingerbreaded porch. Wiping my feet on the doormat, I lifted the bronze knocker and let it fall.

Nicole opened the door. “Jesse! Good to see you!”

“Good to see you, too. How are you two getting along?”

“Fine. The power came on yesterday. Mandy decided to go out and get some food and things. She figured the towns away from the river ought to have a reasonable supply of most essentials.”

“So Mandy’s not here?”

“No.”

If Nicole didn’t want to let me in, I wouldn’t blame her. “I just came to check on whether you still wanted me to come house-sit at some point.” I didn’t say anything about the clothes I’d left behind, since I didn’t really have any place to take them right now.

Nicole opened the door wider. “Come on in. I was thinking about fixing some lunch. Are you hungry?”

After the breakfast burritos, I wasn’t really, but I wasn’t about to turn down any reasonable offer of food. “Sure,” I said, stepping into the entry hall/laundry room.

“I made some potato soup,” she said, “and a loaf of bread. Bread is one of those things that sells out fast in the stores.”

That sounded good to me. As I entered the kitchen, it smelled good, too. Fresh baked bread.

Nicole’s nose, though, wrinkled and she turned her head. “You haven’t had a chance to take a shower?” she said.

I should have thought of that. By this time, I must have been pretty ripe. “No, ma’am.” I took a step backwards, toward the door. “I can come back later. When I’ve found someplace to clean up. And maybe Mandy’s back.”

“Nonsense. You can take a shower here. I’ve washed the clothes you left here. Except for the jacket. So there’s something for you to change into.”

I followed her back into the laundry room with its little bathroom tucked in a corner. It was bigger than the one in my apartment. She got two fluffy yellow towels off a shelf and handed them to me. “I think there’s soap and shampoo in the shower,” she said. “I’ll put your other things on top of the washing machine.”

The shower felt good. The soap and the shampoo smelled better. And when I got out, the yellow towels were pure luxury.

I looked in the medicine cabinet to see if there was a bottle of mouthwash. There was. I hadn’t brushed my teeth in a while, so I took a big swig and swished it around in my mouth. That would have to do.

As promised, my own clothes were folded neatly on top of the washing machine. I put them on and pulled on the now-dry boots. Someone, probably Nicole, had cleaned them up nicely. I took what I had been wearing and tried to fold them as well as I could. I took a good sniff. They were pretty rank.