Sweet 16 to Life (16 page)

B
y the time we reach the house, the kid is moving fast and already back down the stairs and about to mount his bike.

“He must be Lux's courier,” I say quickly.

Marco hands me the pizza box and grabs the kid before he can ride off. Good thing because Marco needs both hands free to block the small fists being wildly thrown his way. He packs a punch for a kid I guess to be about eight or nine.

“Hey, little man, I'm not going to hurt you. We just want to know who gave you that box to drop off.”

The boy stops hitting and squirming long enough to point at me.

“I know you. Sometimes I see you waiting at the bus stop on Center Street when I'm riding my bike. You live here?”

“I do. And that's my name on the package. So you want to tell me who my secret admirer is?”

This seems to relax the kid enough to trust we don't plan to do him any harm, though Marco still doesn't let go of the boy's bike.

“A man up the street.”

“He lives up the street?” I ask.

“No. He was parked on the corner a minute ago, near the dry cleaner's. He gave me ten dollars to deliver this package and the other ones, too. My mom works at the dry cleaner's, so I hang around there. I told him my mother only lets me ride my bike on the sidewalk, and I have to stay on the block.”

I pull my phone from my pocket and search for the photo I took of Lux the day I caught him taking the box out of MJ's house.

“Was this the guy?”

“Nah, nothing like that. He was bigger and taller. More like his size,” he says, pointing to Marco. “Wait, one time he was with another guy, and I think that might be him.”

“Do you remember what the car looked like?” I ask.

“Uh, I just saw it a minute ago,” the kid says like I must think he's stupid. “It's nothing special, 'cept it had a rental car sticker on the bumper. I noticed 'cause the sticker was neon green, like my bike.”

“But the smaller guy wasn't with him today?” Marco asks.

“Nope. Big dude was with a lady this time. She was real pretty, with a funny tattoo under one eye, like she was crying.”

I thank the boy and Marco gives him his bike back, along with ten dollars not to mention our conversation if he ever sees the man again.

“What do you think?” Marco asks as we watch the boy pedal away.

“I only ever saw Lux drive a car once—when he switched out the DVDs with drugs and got MJ busted the first time. It also had a neon-green rental car sticker on it. I have no idea who the mystery man is driving the car today, but I know who the pretty lady with the funny tattoo is.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“The alleged witness to the altercation between Lux and MJ. The kid just confirmed for me that she's working with Lux.”

“You kill me how you talk like you know this stuff. Then again, history proves you actually do know this stuff.”

“I told you, I watch a lot of cop shows. And now I guess I'll be watching a lot of old movies.”

On the way into the house, I pick up the latest DVD shipment the kid left at the door.

“Where do we start?” Marco asks.

“I think you were right about him having a reason to dole them out to us like it's part of the game, so he probably wants us to watch them in the order we received them.”

“That's a problem because I think I mixed them up when I was looking through them.”

“That's okay. I have a great memory,” I say, taking the packages into the dining room. “I'll just group them on this table based on which package they came in, the order they were stacked inside the package, and the time I received each group.”

“You even remember the order they were stacked inside the box? I hope you know you can never use the excuse with me that you forgot we had a date . . . or you forgot to call me, or something like that.”

I pretend I didn't hear the slip and focus on getting the wrapper off the first DVD. When I finally get it open, I'm surprised to find the case empty.

“Why'd he send us an empty case?” I ask, not expecting Marco to actually know the answer. “Now we'll start off with a missing clue. I hope these clues aren't like math and you have to build on the one before it.”

“That's okay. I've seen
The Wrong Man
a couple of times,” Marco says. “Open the next one.”

I do and it's empty, too. So are the rest of the cases, all of them sealed up tight and nearly impossible to get into, only to find there's nothing inside.

“I'm starting to hate Lux and I definitely hate being played with.”

“Wait a minute,” Marco says, looking a lot less confused than I am. “I get it. It's the titles he's giving us, not the movies themselves. The titles are the clues. That's why he sent them in a certain order, and why he sent them empty. You probably don't even need a Hitchcock movie buff to figure this out.”

“Uh-uh, you aren't going anywhere. You've already figured out more than I ever would have.”

Marco not only doesn't go anywhere, he stands so close to me as I line up the DVDs again that I'm having a hard time remembering the order. Now I know what can make my great memory go haywire—Marco's touch.

“I told you I have your back. I'm not leaving, just pointing out how the clues might be easier and faster to solve than we thought.”

His proximity is making it hard for me to think, so I step a few feet away from him.

“So they're lined up again based on the order they came. Let's look for a pattern,” I say, hoping I sound about as unfeeling and clinical as if I were giving a presentation in my AP chemistry class, when really I'm totally flustered.

“So you're telling me you've never seen any of these movies,” Marco asks as though I've never seen a full moon.

“No, but a few in the last column sound familiar. Once MJ and I are off the hook for murder, I promise we . . .
I
will watch every one of them, okay?” Oops. I keep talking as a cover. “Isn't this the same guy who did
Psycho
?”

“There's hope for you yet.”

“That's probably the most famous one of all. Why not include it?”

“Because it doesn't make sense as a clue for whatever it is we're supposed to figure out. Or maybe it's true what they say about crazy people. They're the last to know. Maybe he didn't use it because he doesn't realize he's psycho.”

As I listen to Marco and look over the groups, I realize he's on to something even though he was joking.

“He may not think he's psycho,” I say, “but what if he thinks he's
The Wrong Man?
”

“And he
suspects sabotage
?”

“Then it wouldn't be Lux using the tall man and the pretty lady to deliver the DVDs from the grave. The only people who have been sabotaged in this whole thing are MJ and Donnell—by Lux—but they're both in jail.”

“What if the tall man and the pretty lady are delivering these on their own, not on Lux's behalf? Maybe they've been sabotaged too,” Marco suggests.

“Possibly. The tall man's identity is a mystery, but I think the pretty lady is working for Lux, pretending to be a neighbor who conveniently witnessed MJ threatening him. For now, I'm sticking with the assumption Lux is behind this.”

“If I can believe what I see in movies, if people in jail can put hits on their enemies, I'm guessing they can get boxes of DVDs delivered to people.”

“That's true, but usually they need to have been well-connected before they went in, something MJ and Donnell aren't,” I explain, not even caring if Marco asks how I can be such an authority on convicts. Luckily he's so into reading the clues, he doesn't.

“Seems like Lux falls more in the second group of DVDs—he's the
Saboteur
who put both MJ and Donnell in jail, and he ran a
Blackmail
game on MJ to stash the DVDs. But I doubt we'll be hearing Lux say
I Confess
anytime soon.”

“Especially if we can't find him,” I say. “Maybe that one's in there as a trick question or a taunt. What about the third group? Not a single suggestion of a crime or wrongdoing like we had in the first two sets.”

“The first one is,
To Catch a Thief
.”

“But there was no theft in all of this. We had blackmail and sabotage, but no theft.”

“Uh, whoever created these bootlegs is a thief. That's Lux, right?”

“Marco, that's brilliant,” I say, remembering something Lana had said this morning:
We may not have gotten the right man.

“Can you tell me why I'm so brilliant?”

“There is one other player in this whole thing, and he has enough juice to be running this from inside—Tragic. He was the head of the Down Home gang until Lux set him up and sent him to jail. I thought Lux was running this, faking his death so he can get MJ arrested and get clear of any retribution from Tragic. But what if Tragic is the mastermind?”

“Okaay . . . if you say so. This is your world. I'm just along for the ride.”

“Lux didn't create the bootlegs,” I explain, “but he stole them from the person who did—Tragic. When Lux made the switch before Tragic's meet with my . . . I mean, with some undercover cops, I bet he exchanged the DVDs with cop-killer bullets. That way he could send Tragic to prison, take over the Down Homes, and go into the bootleg business himself.”

“Seems like a good plan, I mean, as far as gang domination plans go.”

“But it didn't go as planned for Lux. According to Donnell, Lux's vision was bigger than his capabilities, and he was run out of Los Angeles by his gang. Lux is originally from here, he knows the town, he knows MJ. He came to Denver looking to start up his own operation.”

“Okay, I get it,” Marco says. “That's why Lux needed to keep the DVDs hidden away in MJ's basement until he could make more copies and sell them. He was on probation and didn't want to be caught in possession of the DVDs. And if any Down Homes caught him with the DVDs, it would be revealed Tragic was set up by Lux, not MJ.”

“Exactly,” I say, impressed with how good Marco is at the sleuthing thing. “Then Lux realized Tragic had figured him out, ran out of time, and had to destroy the DVDs instead, because they were evidence. That means Lux is the thief, not the wrong man. And if Tragic is behind this, Lux may not be faking his death. He may really be in trouble.”

“You're thinking the tall man and the pretty lady are working for Tragic?” Marco asks.

“Yep, and they're probably behind the blood the cops found in Lux's apartment. We never looked at the last envelope the kid just brought,” I say.

“We should have asked the kid whether he knew if there were any more coming,” Marco says.

When I open the envelope with the latest DVD, I see it's the most critical clue of all.

“I think this might be the last clue.”

“Why? Which movie is it?”

I hold it up for him to see.

“
Murder!
”

W
hen I send Lana a 911 text that she needs to come home, she responds that she's in the area and just ten minutes away. By the time she arrives, Marco and I—well, pretty much just Marco—figured out the third set of movie titles are clues to Lux's location.

When Lana walks in to find Marco there, she doesn't look too happy.

“Hi, Marco. Um, Chanti, can I see you in the kitchen for a second?”

I follow her out of the dining room. “Mom, Marco and I—”

“Exactly. I'm glad you and your friend are . . . friends again, but you know I don't allow boys up in here when I'm not home.”

“I know, but he's been helping me solve these clues from the DVDs. I think we've figured out where Lux might be. We don't think he's dead.”

“Whoa, back up,” Lana says, walking back into the dining room, where Marco is still looking over the third group of titles. “What's going on and how much does this one know?”

Marco looks up to see if he's the “this one” Lana is referring to.

“It's okay. Marco knows you're a paralegal and your boss is defending MJ.”

“Oh—right, okay.”

“I'm glad Chanti finally told me about you being a paralegal. It explains a lot about why she's kind of obsessed with crime-solving,” Marco says.

“Yeah, but paralegals don't solve crimes. We leave that
to the police.
”

“That's what I keep telling her, Ms. Evans.”

“So she doesn't listen to you, either? Maybe if we both keep trying . . .”

I'm glad to see Lana and Marco are having a bonding moment over my recalcitrance, but we really need to find Lux before it's too late for him, MJ, and possibly me. I bring Lana up to speed on everything, right up to where Marco has figured out Tragic is holding Lux somewhere near the Denver Zoo.

“How did you get the Denver Zoo out of this?” Lana asks, waving her hand over the table full of DVDs.

“First he tells us this third set of DVDs are instructions
To Catch a Thief
. His general location is
North by Northwest
.”

“That could be the whole northwestern corner of the city, state, or country for that matter.”

“No, Lux is close by,” I say. “My theory is this is a game with Tragic. He wants to see if he can be caught so he's going to make sure the possibility exists. And for some reason, it's me he wants to play the game with. We think Tragic is saying Lux is northwest of
me.
”

I think I might know the reason Tragic wants to play this game with me—he knows I busted Donnell, Lux probably told him I was on to him as early as the fire, and now he wants to see if I can catch him. Fortunately Lana is too deep into deciphering the clues to ask why I think Tragic sent these clues to me, or maybe she's figured it out for herself.

“Okay, what does this next clue mean?” Lana asks.

“
The Birds
?” Marco asks. “We got online and figured out we don't have an aviary in the area, but we remembered the zoo has Bird World. All those grade-school field trips—never thought they'd help me find a killer.”

“Let's hope he isn't a killer yet,” I say. “At least not of Lux.”

“I'm starting to see it now,” Lana says, looking at the third group of DVDs. “The zoo is northwest of where we are, and the zoo is inside City Park, which is bordered by Seventeenth Avenue.
Number 17.
That's in my zone.”

“Yes, where your law office is,” I say, surprised Lana made that slip in front of Marco. But I can tell she's really getting into the clues.

“Wow, this is good work, Marco,” she says.

Uh, hello? I helped.

“So what did you get for
Topaz?
”

“I was just getting to that one,” I say.“It stumped me for a second because I was looking for Topaz on the map—a street, a restaurant name, a housing subdivision. But I'd heard Tragic had a meth operation, and figured he might know his chemistry.”

“If I remember right, that's how he got started in his life of crime, as a meth cook.” Lana stops and looks at Marco. “I read that in the paper, a story about his arrest a while back. Some of those guys do know science. What about this clue made you think of that?”

“The chemical composition of topaz gives it a crystalline structure,” I explain.“It's one of the less stable silicates—which is kind of funny since Tragic doesn't seem too stable either, right?” Marco and Lana are looking at me like they don't get the joke. “Anyway, topaz is a crystal, and on Seventeenth Avenue, right across from City Park, are the Crystal Pointe Apartments.”

“Take a look,” Marco says, passing my laptop to Lana. “In
Rear Window
, Jimmy Stewart thinks he witnessed a murder take place from the rear window of his apartment. This clue doesn't match exactly because you can't see City Park from a rear window of any Crystal Pointe Apartment.”

“We checked it on Google Earth,” I explain. “If there weren't a bunch of trees in the way, an apartment facing Seventeenth Avenue would have a perfect view of Bird World. We think that's the part Tragic is trying to tell us.”

“And
Torn Curtain
?”

“Look for an apartment window with a torn curtain? That's all we could come up with for that one,” Marco says.

“But the most important DVD is this last one.
Murder!
I think Tragic has added a ticking clock to this game,” I explain. “We need to find Lux before he's killed. Marco and I just did a pretty sweet job of figuring out these clues, but it's still all a hunch. It'll sound completely crazy in court if MJ is charged for murder.”

“But how can MJ be charged if she's been in jail all day?” Marco asks.

“It depends on how Tragic plans to kill Lux,” Lana says. “To be able to blame it on MJ, Lux was probably hurt this morning about the time she was in Limon waiting for him to show up, when Tragic took away any alibi she may have had.”

I add, “Prosecution will say she hurt him before her arrest and left him for dead, when really Lux might be in an apartment across from City Park, being finished off by the pretty lady and the tall man.”

 

Despite Marco's protest, we leave him at the house in case more DVDs arrive to be deciphered. For someone who wants nothing to do with detective stuff, he sure seems like he wants to get involved. But Lana tells him his parents probably wouldn't appreciate it, and all Lana is going to do is relay the information to MJ's lawyer. When Marco asks why we can't just call the lawyer, neither Lana nor I try to come up with a story for that. We just leave and tell him to call us if any more packages arrive or if he thinks of any new clues.

The minute we get in the car, Lana radios to Falcone to meet her at the Crystal Pointe Apartments, along with a couple of black-and-whites.

“I should have left you back there with Marco,” Lana says.

“I thought you didn't want me at the house alone with a boy.”

“Don't get smart.”

“Admit it, Lana—you need me. I might figure out more clues on the way. We can find Lux a whole lot faster if I can direct you to his precise location instead of knocking on every apartment door.”

She doesn't respond, which means I'm right. We drive in silence for a few minutes.

“Mom, I know it's a weird time to bring this up with everything that's going on, or maybe it's a good time with all that's going on, but I can't help but think about him . . . my father. Did you find anything on him yet?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I found out nothing at all.”

“Why'd you say yes, then?”

“Because nothing is
something
. I have access to all kinds of records—NCIC, prison, birth, death—and I couldn't find a damn thing.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don't know. It's like he doesn't exist. Few people on the planet get to disappear, and they tend to work with some very secret offices based in Washington. Maybe he's black ops for the government,” Lana says, adding a laugh. That means my father's disappearance—on paper, at least—has spooked her. Lana always laughs off the few things that ever frighten her.

Since things that scare Lana have a tendency to completely freak me out, I return to thinking about the movie titles, something I can handle. Before we left the house, I took a picture of the table with the DVDs with my phone. I have an eidetic memory—what most people call photographic—but I didn't want to rely on just that for something this important. I can't find any more clues in the titles, so I zoom out to look at the whole table and the rows of DVDs. Marco was right about the order Tragic sent the DVDs being a clue, and I think there are clues in the order to more than just Tragic's reason for running this whole game or Lux's location.

When we arrive at the Crystal Pointe Apartments, I see that I'm probably right. The building has three stories.

“Lana, he's on the third floor. If there's an apartment number 337, that's where he'll be.”

“Where'd you get that?”

“The DVDs—he sent them in four groups, three in the first two packages, seven in the next, and one in the final delivery.”

“What about the last number—the
one
?”

“This place is too small for a four-digit apartment number, but it's just a guess.”

“No, this is good. We can start with that, looking for apartment 337,” Lana says as Falcone pulls in, followed by two uniforms. “Stay here. I wish I hadn't let you talk me into bringing you.”

“Bringing me helped, didn't it? I'll be okay. If Lux is really in there dying, the tall man and pretty lady—or whoever did this job for Tragic—are long gone. They don't want to be caught, just like Tragic wouldn't be playing this game if he weren't already serving a life term. He has nothing to lose. Whoever is working for him does.”

“Just the same, stay put until I get back.”

As soon as I promise to stay put and Lana is gone behind the building, the half a pitcher of iced tea I had at the house while Marco and I were clue-solving becomes a problem. Now I know why Lana always says a Big Gulp before a stakeout is a very bad idea. I guess all the adrenaline pumping through me as Lana drove across town like a bat out of hell kept me from noticing before, but now I
really
have to go. I spot a gas station two blocks down the street and get out of the car. But I never make it there.