Shorts - Sinister Shorts (6 page)

“You're saying he was mixed up in a drug deal gone bad?”

“I wouldn't suggest that. I'm just trying to help you out, help you understand. He didn't work for me. If he had an income, that's one way people get it around here.”

“When the Maldonados came by, you said you didn't know Roman. You lied, Bert. Why'd you lie?”

“They were upset. They remember wrong.”

Paul wondered if they did.

On the way out of Taylor 's, Paul ran into the stroller. Baby now sat quietly, calm as a cow chewing her cud, face covered with chocolate.

“ Taylor sure keeps the store nice,” Paul said to the baby's mother.

“Yeah, I hardly recognized it today. I'm here at least once a week. You notice when things change.” She riffled for something in a voluminous straw bag, found what she was looking for, and brought out a crumpled cigarette.

“He really fixed it up, huh?”

“When he bought it, he put in the fresh food and painted the inside. I noticed today, the place is real clean.”

“Ever see a big kid named Roman working the counter in there?”

“I don't want to get Bert into trouble.”

“Kid got shot here a couple of days ago. Bert said it was a drive-by.”

“Here?”

“Right in front of the store.”

“Shit.” She sighed, lighting up. “Might as well go out smoking.”

Long shadows crept along the street shading the building opposite Paul's office, blurring as twilight hinted its approach. The shoppers were going home. If he wanted to make his evening walk on the beach, he would have to hurry. The thought, which ordinarily made him happy, irritated him for a moment. He didn't like routines. And he was tired of walking alone.

He called Taylor 's insurance company, then pumped a workers' compensation lawyer he knew in Salinas for information. He had tried earlier in the day to talk with Roman again, but had another brief unenlightening conversation. The boy was in pain and too sick to talk on the phone.

But Paul was satisfied he had a solution. This wasn't the standard whodunit. The facts in the case had been deliberately muddied but he thought he knew now what had happened to Roman Maldonado.

Hurrying to his car, he clocked his trip to the hospital at four minutes. Another record.

Up in his room, Roman lifted himself out of his fog long enough for Paul to hammer the final nail in his solution: Taylor had a baseball bat he resorted to in a pinch to cool down hotheaded patrons.

He made the trip back up to Taylor 's store, only once having to slip out of cruise control when a middle-aged flea marketeer cut him off at the Red Barn intersection.

“You again,” Taylor greeted him. “Like Columbo. ‘Oh, let me ask you one last thing.'” He laughed.

“That's right.” Paul smiled. “I'm back and I'm bad.”

“What's on your mind?”

The store was quiet, perhaps as quiet as the day Roman got shot. “Where are all your customers?”

“They come in waves. Sometimes we get ten people, then nobody for ten minutes.”

“That way on Sunday?”

“Always is.”

“That's right. There were no eyewitnesses. It was just you and Roman here, all alone. Just you two and a little under-the-table job, and a baseball bat.” Paul strolled around picking a few things off the shelf, placing them carefully, neatly back. Behind the counter, he caught sight of the bat. “Self-made man,” said Paul.

“That's right,” Taylor said, wanting to throw him out, but nervous about it. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“Self-sufficient. Hate hiring people. Bet you get worked up around tax time. Want to keep the government out of your business. Avoid insurance like the plague.”

“Who doesn't?”

“I like that sign you've got in your window there. ‘Survival of the fittest.' I've got to get one of those.”

“Something I can help you find?” Taylor said impatiently.

“You know, I don't think so. This last thing I want to see here, I'll swear you haven't got.”

It took him a long time to wear Taylor down, but in the end he admitted it. Taylor just didn't carry what Paul was looking for.

The Maldonados were due in his office at about four o'clock. Stuck at a long light, he spent an extra minute on the return trip there, and ran up the stairs to make up the time. He was going to have to stop all these little games he played, find something a little more satisfying than competing against himself.

Puffing hard and inspired by the thought, he punched in the number for the medical examiner. Since that morning on the beach, he had thought a lot about Susan Misumi and that pip-squeak dog of hers.

She wasn't part of his grand plan, but dreams had a way of changing on you.

“Fancy an evening walk?” he asked.

She did.

The Maldonados arrived on the button. They took seats across from Paul. The long afternoon light from the window behind his desk slanted through blinds, striping their faces gold and gray.

“Did Roman tell you anything? We can't get him to talk. His mother cries when she goes there. It's tough, seeing him like that.”

“He's confused about the details of what happened,” Delilah said. “He remembers working behind the counter and he's sure he never stepped out that front door. Says he always used the back door. Too many smokers and winos hung around in front.”

“So what the hell happened?”

“Victor!” his wife reprimanded.

“I'll send you a written report,” Paul said. “But this was no drive-by shooting. There was no spatter on the wall, and at least some of the blood he lost ended up somewhere besides the sidewalk in front of Taylor 's store.”

The parents looked at him, flummoxed. The father slammed his open hand down on the Formica. “ Taylor shot him! I didn't like him the moment I saw him.”

“No. Taylor didn't shoot him. Roman says it was someone he didn't know. But Taylor 's got plenty to answer for.”

“Well, then…?”

“Here's my take on it. Number one problem. Not enough blood on the sidewalk. That's easy. Roman was shot inside the store. Number two problem. Where's the blood? Well, we've got an immaculate store all of a sudden. Taylor 's been mopping and scrubbing like a maniac. You said the day your son was shot, you got there and Taylor was cleaning. He probably had cleared away the blood seconds after Roman got shot right there behind the counter. Problem three. Who shot him? I don't think it was someone Roman knew. I don't think it had anything to do with drugs. I think Roman got shot the same way most people get shot in convenience stores. He got shot during an attempted robbery.

“My guess? It was a young-looking customer, a nervous one. Maybe put a six-pack on the counter thinking he'd get your son to open the register, then he'd make his move. But the owner's been on the warpath about selling to underage drinkers. Your son demands some ID, which is not something a thief is eager to show. The thief balks.”

“Roman would stand up to the guy,” Victor said sadly. “He's got a temper.”

“So, okay, at this point Roman's already defensive, maybe a little mad. The customer looks young. Maybe he's a little fellow. And Roman's big, intimidating. Roman says Taylor keeps a baseball bat under the counter in case things get rowdy. So, let's say, Roman reaches under the counter. Anyway, for that reason or some other one, the would-be thief gets nervous and pulls a gun. Your son gets shot. Happens all the time.”

“It doesn't make sense. They found him outside.”

“That slowed me down a little, too. That's where your friend Taylor came in. He moved him.”

“He dragged Roman outside?” asked Roman's horrified mother. “After someone shot him?”

“Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. He thought Roman was already dead.”

“But why would he do that, Mr. van Wagoner? Why leave our son dead on the sidewalk?”

“Bert Taylor didn't carry workers' compensation insurance. He knew he'd be liable if your son was shot in his store. Outside, he might be able to avoid any financial responsibility. He's not a murderer. He's just another small businessman trying to protect himself. Almost everybody lies to save money. He figured your son was dead already, so why invite trouble?”

“My God!”

“My ex-fellow cops are over there right now. I'm sure Taylor will be persuaded to help them identify the person who shot your son. He probably saw the whole thing.”

“They better catch him,” said Delilah, “before I do. Boys with guns. I never let Roman play with guns.”

“By the way, I had a talk with Roman's doctor,” Paul said. “In spite of being only a few feet away, the shooter missed anything vital. The doctor says Roman's as strong as a prizefighter. He'll be out of the hospital soon.”

“Without a job to go to,” worried his mother.

“No troubles on that score now. Taylor will make it up to him,” Paul said. “I'll see to it.”

“If he can't even afford insurance, we're not going after Bert Taylor,” said Victor. “We don't want to put him out of business or anything. What he did was really low, but he didn't actually harm our boy.”

“Oh, but Taylor can afford insurance. He just prefers to put his money into real estate. He owns a section of coastline south of Carmel.”

“He can help us with Roman's medical bills?”

“I'll give you the name of a fine workers' comp attorney in Salinas who will make sure Mr. Taylor takes care of all Roman's needs for now and for a significant chunk of the future, guaranteed.”

“You mean…” Delilah began, but her husband interrupted.

“Hot damn,” cried Victor Maldonado, knocking the chair over as he stood up. “Roman's going to college!”

Dead Money

Through his sunglasses, darkly, Tim Breen watched Sunday-morning sun heat the fence outside the sheriff's office, sending steam off the fence and the roof of the town library next door. It had been raining for a month, but today would be clear.

All around the little Sierra foothill town of Timberlake the forest whistled and cawed, rustled and stirred. The gullies along West Main Street ran like creeks, splashing up water as the cars rolled by. He watched a mallard sail down one, making for the river, sun glistening on its iridescent green head. As it passed, it rasped out some quacks, like an old man laughing at him.

He watched the town come out to dry, thinking, Now they'll bring me all the trouble they've been storing up behind their screen doors. He liked it better dull and sleepy in the rain, nobody bothering him. He was burned out, and he knew it, but he hid it behind a lumbering good-natured facade.

Warm yeast smells drifted toward him from the Ponderosa Coffee Shop across the street. At ten fifteen, more or less, he was usually there, eating donuts and drinking coffee with Bodie Gates, the other deputy assigned to the tiny Timberlake station.

He still had half an hour. He pulled the missing persons report on Roy Ballantine out of his pocket, scanning it again.

Anita Ballantine had been waiting for him at eight when he rode into the parking lot in the patrol car, wound tight from anger or fear, he couldn't tell which. Inside, while he washed out the coffeepot and settled himself behind his old metal desk, she had told him about Roy Ballantine, who had gone AWOL in the night.

He knew Roy, the local agent for Gibraltar Insurance Company. Roy worked out of a storefront office three doors down and across the street.

Anita had said Roy never stayed out all night before. He had to be at work at eight A.M., and he never missed a day. He had taken the car about ten the night before, saying he was going to the liquor store for beer. The car, a 2002 Honda Accord, was in good shape, but maybe he'd gone for a drive in the woods, god knows why, broke down, and passed a cold Saturday night out there.

Tim had listened, noticing Anita had gotten thinner over the winter. Her skin was so white he could see the blue veins in her neck. He had written down the license number, and promised to check it out, telling Anita he was sure everything would be all right.

It was probably nothing, but he'd have to do something about it. He stuffed the paper back in his pocket, a little angrily. The duck floated out of view, ruffling its feathers, and he went into the station.

First he woke up Henry Salas with his phone call. Henry had been on shift at Timberlake Liquors the night before. Roy hadn't shown up there, for beer or anything else.

Then he drove down the highway, out of town, toward the Feather River Bridge, the tall firs along the road black against the strong sun. Across the bridge, six miles farther south down the highway at Camden, there was an all-night supermarket that sold Roy 's brand of beer.

As he got on the two-lane bridge, forty feet above the swollen brown torrent below, he saw Roy's black Accord parked on the right, smack against the bridge railing. He turned on his flashing lights and parked behind the car.

Nobody inside. On the front seat of the unlocked car, Tim found Roy 's wallet with twenty-six bucks in it. The back seat was covered with suit ties, paper cups, and burger wrappers, quite a few files, some girlie magazines. Like most insurance agents, Roy did a lot of business out of his car.

No blood smears, no sign of violence, but all wrong. Tim looked up ahead, looked back down the road.