No way out

Chapter Forty-one

Nick Staley let us out, locking the door and retreating to the back of the grocery. He’d lost his business, and now he was scared he’d lost his son, learning the hard lesson that sometimes the only thing that makes you feel better about bad news is worse news and the news about his son was not likely to get better. Brett’s relationship with Frank Crenshaw was as likely to be proof of guilt as proof of innocence. Murder in the family was the oldest of crimes.

There were a lot of reasons Brett could have needed money badly enough to steal it from his father, but there was one at the top of my list. He wanted to get out of town, hopefully before he fitted Roni for her funeral dress. Unrequited love is no match for the survival instinct. If Brett thought Roni made a deal with the cops to pin Crenshaw’s murder on him, love would turn to rage in a heartbeat.

I called Roni, but she didn’t answer, meaning she was probably screening my calls. I left her a message warning her again to stay away from Brett, knowing she’d ignore that too.

I surveyed the block, taking the pulse of a neighborhood on life support. Traffic was light, a handful of cars passing, no one stopping, no foot traffic going in and out of the cleaners, liquor store, or shoe repair shop that occupied the rest of the block, the storefronts on the other side of the street dark.

We were still on the sidewalk when a tricked-out Lexus, with gold-rimmed wheels, windows tinted midnight, slid to the curb behind Kate’s rental. A lanky brown-skinned kid stepped out, hands in the pockets of his jacket, the collar turned up. Even with his tattoos covered, I recognized Eberto. He slammed the car door, looked at me like I wasn’t there, and tried the grocery’s door.

“Read the sign, Eberto,” I told him. “They’re closed.”

He looked at me, this time remembering what happened on the bus, glancing over his shoulder at the Lexus, caught between a locked door and a middle-aged white guy who’d punked him once already, and whoever was behind the wheel, no-man’s land for a would-be gangster. He rattled the door a second time, pressing his face against the glass. I followed his eyes. The light in the back was off. I couldn’t see Staley but was certain that he was watching from the shadows, the reason he was hiding a gun beneath his apron now clear.

My working theory had been that Brett was in on the robbery of the gun dealer and had given his cousin Frank one of the guns. It was just as likely, maybe more likely, that Brett was the middleman when Crenshaw bought his gun, dealing with someone who knew that business a lot better than Brett, someone who wouldn’t hesitate to force Brett to clean up loose ends like his cousin and girlfriend as the price for his life, someone like Cesar Mendez.

Brett had told Roni that Mendez was a regular customer at the grocery. The question was who was buying and who was selling. If Brett was on the run, he might be running from the cops and Mendez, Northeast’s small world shrinking fast.

“Like I said, they’re closed. There’s nobody there. What do you want?”

Eberto went to the Lexus. The driver’s window slid down, and Eberto leaned in, talking across the driver to the person in the front passenger seat. Bits of Spanish I didn’t understand drifted back to me. The passenger door opened, and out stepped a man, late twenties, tall, broad, and hard, copper skinned, with buzzed head, leather jacket, and a slit-eyed look that straightened Eberto, sending him backpedaling to the grocery, yanking on the door to prove that he wasn’t lying about it being locked.

I whispered to Kate, “Get in the car, now.”

“You must be joking,” she said. “You don’t speak Spanish. I do.”

“Swell.”

“You’re welcome.”

I caught Eberto’s eye. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your boss?”

The kid looked like he’d been pimp slapped, his head spinning from me to the other man.

I turned toward the man who’d stepped out of the car. “You must be Cesar Mendez.”

“Who the fuck’re you?” he said.

“Jack Davis.”

“Name don’t mean shit to me.”

“Wouldn’t be healthy if it did.”

“You a cop?”

“Not anymore.”

“What about her?” he asked, pointing at Kate.

“I’m his driver,” she said.

The rear doors on the Lexus opened, and two of Mendez’s boys got out, flanking him, jackets open, gun butts sticking out of their jeans. Mendez slow walked toward Eberto, the boy’s lower lip trembling. Mendez threw his arm over Eberto’s shoulder, peppering him with questions in Spanish, Eberto mumbling his answers.

I glanced at Kate, whispering. “Can you hear any of that?”

She kept her eyes on them, her voice soft. “Enough. He asked Eberto how you know his name, and Eberto said something about seeing you on a bus. Does that make any sense?”

“Yeah. You’d be surprised the people you meet on public transportation.”

Mendez finished with Eberto, closing the distance between us, rolling his shoulders and shaking his arms loose as he walked, warming up.

“Eberto says you pulled a gun on him. That right?”

“Fuck Eberto. He’s a punk. Hassles old men and mothers with small children.”

Mendez smiled. “And you run him off. What’s that make you, Superman?”

“Makes me nothing I wasn’t already.”

“You and your driver gonna run me off?”

“Not that we couldn’t, but that wouldn’t do either of us any good.”

He laughed, curious but not afraid. I was on his turf, and he had the numbers and the guns. If it hadn’t been for Eberto, he’d have probably ignored us and gone on his way. I was being enough of a smart-ass to pique his interest.

“What good you gonna do me?”

“I don’t think either one of us came here to buy groceries. I think we’re after the same thing.”

“What’s that?”

“Not what. Who. Brett Staley.”

He shrugged. “Don’t know him.”

“Sure you do. The two of you did business. Probably a little weed, maybe some blow. Then one day, Brett says, hey, cousin of mine wants to buy a gun, can you hook him up, and you say show me the money. Deal goes down, nothing special, just business. You’re selling enough dope it doesn’t even register. Then Brett’s cousin uses it to kill his wife, and it turns out the gun you sold him was stolen from a gun dealer last month and the ATF is all over that case like stink on shit and your boy, Brett, who you know is such a pussy he’ll flip on you the minute the cops say put up your hands, is in the wind. So you’ve got to find him, make sure that doesn’t happen, or you’ll end up doing the warden’s laundry instead of cruising around in that fine-looking Lexus.”

He listened, his face smoldering, turning away without comment when I finished, heading back to the Lexus, his boys following him, one of them opening the car door for him as he gave me a last look.

“I’m headed to Brett’s house in Sheffield,” I told him. “You can follow me and we’ll talk some more, unless you’ve already been there.”

“You know,” Kate said after they pulled away, “you sounded like a crazy man.”

“I don’t care what I sounded like, what did he look like?”

“Well, I don’t have a baseline…”

“Kate, I don’t have time for a baseline lecture. I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”

She folded her arms, taking a deep breath and nodding her head. “Okay. You’re right. Quick and dirty. I’d say you hit him where he lived. He flashed fear when you talked about the ATF. And he agrees with you that Brett is a pussy. I’d say you’re on to something. Not bad for making that story up on the fly.”

“I only made part of it up on the fly, but it fits with what we know. And, it explains why Nick Staley is carrying a gun and why he’s so worried about Brett. It doesn’t explain why Frank Crenshaw wanted a gun so badly he’d get it on the black market. I wonder what scared him.”

“He was losing control of his life. His business was falling apart. The gun may have been his way of reasserting control, of feeling strong again,” Kate said.

“One dick in his pants wasn’t enough?”

“Either that or he was planning on robbing a bank.”

“Thank you, Dr. Phil,” I said.

“Look, we didn’t come here because of Frank Crenshaw or Cesar Mendez. We came here because of Evan and Cara Martin. I’m beginning to think Lucy is right. You keep trying to work both cases and you’ll end up going off on tangents without solving either one.”

“Then you weren’t paying attention when we talked to Nick.”

“Are you kidding? He’s lost everything. He’s scared of whoever might knock on his door, and he’s worried about his son.”

“How do read his relationship with Jimmy?”

“He’s trying to minimize their relationship, but a lot of people do that-pretend they hardly know someone who was their best friend for life until they get arrested. Who wants to claim a crook?”

“I agree. After what happened with his parents, I don’t think he was fooling around with Peggy Martin, so we can cross him off our boyfriend list.”

“So what’s next? Are you really going to drag me to Brett’s house? How much longer can you keep juggling these cases?”

“As long as I have to. Brett’s house is a low priority. If he was hiding under the bed, Mendez would have found him.”

“What then?”

“I need to borrow your phone.”

“What’s wrong with yours?”

“Dead battery.”

“Tell me the truth. It’s easier.”

“Okay. No.”

She handed me the phone. “I appreciate your honesty. It’s so refreshing. And, after you finish your call, do I get to go on a scavenger hunt?”

“Absolutely.”

“Where do we start?”

“Peggy Martin’s house.”

“Why there?”

“Most trouble starts at home.”