Shattered Glass (14 page)

“Buchnanan home, I’m Asa,” a bright soft voice greeted me.

Asa was almost five and insisted on doing things like answering the house phone and helping her mom with dinner.

“It’s uncle Oz, Asa. How’s my girl.” “Mom says she’s mad, and it’s not nice for you to call her fat.”

I cringed again, making a splinter of pain rocket into my skull. “You’re right, Asa. That wasn’t nice. And Uncle Oz thinks you have the most beautiful mommy in the world.” “Mom. Mom. Uncla Oz says you’re most beautiful mom in the world.”

“Give mummy the phone, sötnos. Oz, the booties were perfect, but you didn’t have to.”

“Am I forgiven?”

“Always, Oz. I just teach you a little way to hold your tongue, yes?” Only the Buchanans used the nickname. I never told them how much I hated it. It didn’t matter, when they said it, it was different.

I laughed. “I think you taught me well, beautiful. But admit you forgave me because I sent the can of fermented herring.” “Yes, this was very kind. But I think Dave will not talk to you after I open it.”

“For your love, I’d do anything, Marta.” I heard a mild scuffle

over the phone, and the sound of lips smacking in a kiss.

“Are you quoting Oliver Twist to my wife?” “I think that was just Oliver,” I smiled.

“You know she won’t let me ban you from the house for sending her that foul smelling crap. But I insist you be there for its opening.”

“Oh, wow. I’d love to, but I’m busy.” “I haven’t told you when yet, man.”

“I’m monumentally busy. Weddings to break up, boys to chase, cases to solve. Busy, busy.”

“I heard.” The tone got serious faster than I was ready for. I pulled off the road into a parking lot and leaned my head back on the seat.

“Angel called Marta?”

“Marta first, then me. Wanted to know if I knew what instigated it.” I checked out the park across the street. Watched a couple of toddlers bounce on the rides. Would I ever have kids. “Do I?” He added.

“Last month, Luis and I are part of the sweep of the meth house on 19th Street, near the old hospital. You know it?” “I heard something about it. Dead kid in the back room.” “Not in the back room. In the backyard. Used his belt to hang himself in the tree back there. Seventeen years old.” Silence. “You there?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d we go eight years not talking about this? Not thinking about him at all?”

My father was always a lost cause. Telling him today wasn’t even that satisfying. Especially since I felt like I had lost

Angelica at this point, and now I was risking the loss of Dave, too. I had even fucked up with Luis. Slowly peeling my life apart helped me realize how lonely and afraid Jesse must have been.

“This isn’t something we should talk about over the phone, Oz.”

“Did you hate him because of that kiss?” “Shit no! We were cool after that. He made a pass, I said no, it was over. I loved him. You know that. Christ, we’d been friends since we were ten. Just. Goddamn that asshole. We laughed about the fucking kiss.”

“And then you told him I was gay,” I accused.

“Oz, sometimes it’d take a snap of my fingers at your fucking nose to stop you from staring at him.” My laugh broke on a wrecked sob. I quickly stifled it all.

When I had control again I answered. “I counted every freckle on his nose that first summer.”

Another beat of silence, and then we both breathed out in frustration and relief. “You want Jake’s and Terry’s new number?” Dave asked.

“Okay,” I sighed. A few seconds later I heard a beep announcing a text on my phone.

“I wasn’t mad he was gay, Oz. I was pissed at what he did, not who he was.”

Too much angst. I needed a break. “Angelica said she wouldn’t march in the gay parade for me.” “Are you asking me to be your fella for the gay prom?” “That’s like the worst impression of a female in the history of mankind.”

“Do me a favor, Oz?”

“Sure?”

“Don’t ask them about ass-sex when they answer the phone.

Marta feels guilty when you have no friends to visit.” “No on the ass-sex. Check.”

“Next week, Jays vs Sox?”

“My place, bring beer. Laters.” Huh. No lecture?

I checked my phone and debated calling Jake and Terry. But I didn’t know them that well, and I had no idea how to be gay around gay people. Was I supposed to develop an interest in shopping and Cher? Right now all I wanted to do was go home and watch some sports and do my second pastime: first person shooter video games. So that’s what I did.

Why has it never been said in the history of the world that Thursdays suck? Thursdays are that awful place between halfway done and can’t quite see the finish line yet. Thursday morning, stuck in the evidence room,
again
, with Luis—who had decided he was done bitching at me and would just heretofore grunt all responses. I was in a rotten mood. I was pissed at myself for making a date on Saturday. Seriously. Saturday? What was I fucking thinking? Like the anticipation between now and then was a good thing?

“There’s nothing new in these boxes.” I kicked one and sent it skittering by Luis’s foot. He fielded it with his shoe and then shoved it back.

“Right now you’ll sit there and look through these boxes while I try to figure out if I’m going to the captain to request your removal from this case. The less time we’re searching through evidence, the more I’m inclined to head to his office.

It’s your call.”

“I haven’t fucked up the case,” I insisted.

“A miracle because you’ve done just about everything possible to fuck it up.”

“Bullshit!”

He pounded the desk and stood, leaning over, nose-to-nose with me. “Just let it go. Wait until the case is solved.” Our volumes began escalating.

“I can’t,” I said—which being interpreted was, I wouldn’t.

“A few weeks?”

“Weeks? Or months? You don’t know. And I can’t wait.” “Why the fuck not? Is this kid—”

“Because I’ve waited thirteen years too long!”

“Ai, Dios mio! You! Ya estoy harto de tanta hostia. Estúpido cabrón!”

“I’m Googling that.” I sat down and began typing in my phone. “And if you just told me to suck your cock, I’m calling Denise.” While I waited for the tension to ease, I watched the latest viral pet video.

“I said I’d had enough of this shit, you stupid stubborn ass.” “I love you, too. Which is why I say this with respect: If you keep rubbing your face like that, I’m going to have to lift up skin to look you in the eyes.”

“This kid is involved, Glass.”

“I know he is, but he was just used to throw us off Alvarado.”

“That’s little Austin speaking.”

“A, he’s not little. B, not even funny to go
there
. C, he’ll get us a name.”

“Says you and your—”

“Says me and eight years of being a cop.” “Eight years is still primary school. I wouldn’t brag about that. He has until Monday to come up with someone. Or you bring us something we can squeeze him with.” “Deal.” I exhaled, hoping I’d bought enough time that Peter could come through.

Luis grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and slipped it over his shoulders. “Let’s get out of here and find out where those kids are before the DA agrees to that plea. Because it ain’t here.”

“Where to then?”

“Let’s go beat down some SORs (Sex Offenders

Registrants).”

“I thought uniform was on that?”

“They are,” Luis said. “And so are we. Let’s go.”

By Friday Luis and I had visited forty-two registered kiddy offenders in Denver and its suburbs. By late evening we had four left on our list. The DA had already cut the deal with Alvarado hours earlier. Nineteen minors were rescued from various places, but those were only the most recent of Alvarado’s victims. They were the ones Alvarado gave up. Luis and I were hearing reports of more from the dregs we’d been interviewing.

My cell rang a few minutes from the end of our sweep. Luis lit up a cigarette while he waited, parking the car outside a halfway house not five blocks from Peter’s townhome. We had just interviewed a class act who only got arrested because he “accidentally” jacked off in a park across from a school.

“Glass,” I answered, nodding at Luis to get going.

“The Manhole,” Peter said, “Talk to Darryl Boerner. He’ll be there until three a.m. He knows you’re coming.” He hung up before I could say a word.

“Peter came through. The Manhole?” I refused to peek at Luis as my lips pressed together and my chest and shoulders shook.

Luis groaned, “Shit.” He dragged the gears into drive and hung a U-turn taking us into the depths of downtown.

The Manhole was one of Denver’s oldest gay bars. It was notorious for leather, biker types. Rumors were that a stairwell and basement existed where men had sex and, during the summer, ‘watersports’ were played on the patio. The heat of the day reminded me what time of year it was.

“This you can handle on your own,” Luis announced as he parked out front.

The bar wasn’t dark and dingy, like I had expected. Sunlight filtered in through a doorway which led out to the patio, and hanging fluorescent lights kept most of the area well-lit. The only dark spot was four steps from the entrance, where the infamous stairwell coughed up moans from two leather clad men humping against the wall. My partner steadfastly ignored them. I craned my neck to investigate and grimaced. I was definitely
not gay enough for that, I decided. Luis wore the most put upon grimace in the history of man. “I’ll wait here,” he said, leaning near the door.

For early evening it was almost empty, only a smattering of men nursing their beers, hovering at tables or playing pool and darts. A few of the patrons walked by. They wore chaps. Just that—chaps with nothing else. Their hairy asses waved around in the breeze. I grinned, checking my partner. Luis passed a hand over his eyes and curdled to cracker white.

Walking over to the bar, I leaned across the scuffed wood and flashed my badge, smiling with what I hoped was my charming smile. “Here to see Darryl,” I said to the biggest, hairiest man I’d ever laid eyes upon. I dubbed him Grizzly Adams.

“Darryl! Visitor,” Griz called out over his shoulder and

poured cherries from a large jar into a little container. A skinny boy about Peter’s age danced around the corner, lowering a set of headphones and looping them around his neck.

Darryl Boerner was on the feminine side of cute, with bright green eyes and wispy thin blond hair. He wore leather chaps, the hot pink variety, with matching pink short-shorts underneath.

His arms and chest were bared around a vest that appeared to be a matching set with the pants. Old scars from track marks littered his inner elbows and arms.

“Why, hello there.” He leaned right across the bar so our noses could touch should either of us move an inch. His lip gloss smelled fruity. “You rang, handsome?” I flashed my badge again. He glanced at it with distaste and then back up to me, smiling in a manner I assumed was supposed to be seductive. There wasn’t enough gay in the world to make me hit that. “Peter said you’d have something for me,” I said placidly.

“So you’re the gorgeous little detective,” he mused. Tilting his head and twirling a bleached strand of shoulder length hair, he eyed me like I was a glazed donut. “Peter always did like ‘em manly and pretty.” He propped up his elbows on the wood and placed his chin delicately on the back of his hands. “I have something for you. Now what are you giving me, hmm?” I slid a hundred bucks across the bar. He dropped a hand to cover it, then tucked it somewhere. I refused to check, or even imagine, where. “Well?” I asked, doing my best to be devastatingly handsome.

“My, my, so impatient. For a hundred more you can to join me downstairs for about an hour.”

“I’m spoken for,” I lied, trying not to grit my teeth. “Just the info.”

“Lovely, isn’t he? Our little Peter Rabbit.” He reached out to trace the top of my hand. “And so sweet. Had a face like an altar boy when he was just twelve. They
loooved
him to pieces.

That delightful red hair, blue eyes so innocent, those darling little freckles. Made him call them daddy. He used to tell me they liked him to cry.
Don’t, daddy. Please don’t, daddy
,” Darryl parodied in a soft high voice. The way Darryl said ‘loved’ made me want to get descriptions and kick off a pedophile-murdering rampage. “Does he call you daddy?”

“The info,” I reminded him, this time there was a distinct bark in my voice. Nausea had welled up in my throat. Acid reflux of the emotional kind.

You know what was sick? What my selfish fucking brain was thinking? If Peter had been checked for HIV. That was my first thought when I heard he’d been raped at the age of twelve. I disgusted myself.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, sexy,” Darryl said airily and picked up a napkin. He wrote an address down and slid it over to me. “Iss’s stepbrother’s house. Took me there once.

Told me I was his special little boy.” He batted his lashes, and I resolved to never do that again to Luis. “My phone number’s down at the bottom. If you ever want me to call you Daddy.” I didn’t even want to think about that. “Detective…?” ‘Yeah?” I looked up from the napkin.