Justice Edge (Chris Seely Vigilante Justice Book 10) Page 4

  What could you do.

  Chris said, a little quieter, “I couldn’t help it. I was comparing you to the one other time that did happen in my kitchen. Not here, a different one . . . I go out for an early morning walk, pick up some pastries, and someone who had stayed over, who I thought was still sleeping, is in the kitchen . . . similarly reaching for a cup, and also dressed the same.”

  “She was nude?” Marlene said.

  “Well yeah. Which you just pointed out, is no big deal.”

  “Well did anyone see?”

  “I was a little concerned about that myself, since it was daylight, sunshine flooding in. She assured me that I was over worrying, that she’d closed the shades.”

  “Had she?”

  “I guess.”

  “I mean, was she nude when she closed them?”

  “That occurred to me. I didn’t ask her.”

  “How old was this person?”

  “Mid-twenties, I think.”

  “Gosh,” Marlene said.

  Chris said, “What are you doing? . . . You sure?”

  “Most definitely,” she said. A distinct slur to the words now, Chris thinking Holy Moly, I brought this on myself.

  “Describe this person,” Marlene continued, slurring worse, and Chris did his best -- and this would have been that time on Broderick Street with Allison of course -- and he threw in that even being a full decade younger than Marlene, she may not have been as fit as Marlene -- which wasn’t necessarily true, but it apparently did the trick here, and continued to fuel the fire.

  Eventually they got around to the coffee, and Marlene took a shower and did put something on this time, a robe out of Chris’s closet, and Chris said, “Let’s back it up, if we may . . . My bad for not addressing this until now. Why were you huddling by the pool at 4:30 in the morning?”

  “I lost my job,” she said.

  “Oh--kay,” he said. “But Gee, that spells the end of the world? And what job? I didn’t even know you found one.”

  And he kind of regretted that remark, since when she’d first moved in to A-3 downstairs she told him she was looking for a teaching job, and he even gave her a couple suggestions. These last few months, they weren’t hanging out -- fine -- but he should have at least been interested how that stuff was coming, shouldn’t he have?

  She said, “It’s a pattern, I’m afraid.”

  “Give me something here,” Chris said. “You mean you keep getting canned?”

  She nodded. He said, “It’s starting to come back to me -- to prove I do pay attention sometimes -- didn’t you say your last teaching job, that propelled you out here, was in Saginaw, Wisconsin.”

  “Appleton. Saginaw’s in Michigan. But thank you for paying attention.”

  “Fine. Seems harder to get fired back there, for some reason. Maybe I’m off. What’d you do?”

  “I had an off-site relationship with a student.”

  Chris’s eyes got big, and she had his full attention now. “You gotta know -- something like that -- around here, probably anywhere -- you could go to jail.”

  Marlene waved her hand. “Not that kind of a relationship, for crying out loud . . . All it was, there was a young man in my 4th period class, he was struggling terribly with math. My fear was he’d be held back, forced to repeat the year. I offered to come over on Sundays and tutor him, and his mom and step-dad were thrilled.”

  Chris said, “In that case . . . seems reasonable enough, probably.”

  “The student improved dramatically, and he won a math award at the final spring assembly. Unfortunately some complaints trickled in, that I was favoring one pupil over the rest of the class.”

  “Ooh. So they let you go? That is pretty cold-blooded. Yeah.”

  “They didn’t let me go, but they didn’t retain me for the next term. Same difference.”

  “But,” Chris said, “advancing to your deal out here -- same kind of thing?”

  “Sort of. I wasn’t accused of favoring a student this time, but again complaints from parents did me in. They didn’t appreciate it that I was discussing the ‘N’-word.”

  Chris didn’t like hearing this either. “So why were you? You couldn’t educate today’s youth, without bringing that to the table?”

  “Chris, this is middle school now. These are 8th graders. Social studies. The ‘N’-word is a significant part of our cultural climate. To sweep it under the rug would be irresponsible.”

  And she gave him a look, like what’s the matter with him, when all Chris was thinking was, play the game just a little for goodness sake. Even if it means, fine, not upsetting the apple cart. That’s so difficult?

  “Where is this joint?” he asked.

  “The school? It’s in Sigma Beach.”

  “Wow. That’s . . . all the way up past Malibu, right?”

  “I know where you’re going. The traffic. How do I handle it? Or how did I . . . You have a one-track mind when it comes to southern California transportation.”

  “What I was ask going to ask,” Chris said, “that sounds like a pretty liberal area, no? Big money, the movies, celebrities and all that.”

  “It is,” she said. “But parents complain everywhere these days.”

  Chris had to agree, she had that part right unfortunately. “But the administration -- they caved in, just like that?”

  “They did. The principal. Unh-huh. That was the end of the month, before spring break. Now I’ve got a mark on my record, and my employment prospects for the fall are null and void . . . So yes, you caught me by the pool in a reflective moment.”

  Chris processed it. He said, “Tell you what, let’s go for a walk.” And Marlene got up and said she’d take a rain check, and there was a little peck on the cheek but she wrapped things up in about 30 seconds and was out the door.

  Man, there was always one more thing on your plate . . . wasn’t there.

  Chapter 4

  How would you find this guy Roland?

  That was something that did need to be addressed, it was a bit more dire than someone losing a job . . . even though admittedly Marlene’s deal sounded pretty hokey, the way it went down.

  But here, the situation you had: Roland might kill Holly.

  Chris knew, as in some of his other cases, he could be projecting way off the charts -- and that two phone calls Roland made to Holly, when she and her supposed husband decided they’d wait until there were three to take action -- that those could be it . . . forever . . . and the mope had moved on.

  But the problem a lot of these came down to, was the maybe not.

  So if the guy persisted and assaulted her -- which let’s face it, he threatened to do -- then it’s hard to live with yourself from here on out . . . that you had control of it -- theoretically -- and you sat on your rear end, assuming bad people could transform themselves into good ones.

  Chris thought back to his last conversation with Holly. Of course there was last night, the writing group thing, but forget that.

  Where she laid it on him -- and where he should have been more alarmed, except that the parallel triggered more urgency with the guitar maker gal up north and overshadowed the Roland threat that was right in your face -- was in the Nest, Kay’s last night, after the four of them had dinner and Kay and Finch got their own table and Finch started waxing philosophic and Kay barely moved a muscle.

  Chris got to know Holly a little bit then, and finally got around to asking her about the ‘disturbing development’ she’d referenced at the pastrami place regarding her trying to dig on the homicide case from Finch’s motel.

  Chris had assumed she’d uncovered a related crime, or some disturbing information on how this one went down.

  But no that wasn’t it, it was the Roland mope, whose name Finch had overheard as a possible lead -- Holly tracking him down, and him telling Holly yes he had some information for her, and her meeting him in South Central LA against her better judgment -- and Roland, no surprise, not having anything for her.
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  Holly’s description to Chris in the Crow’s Nest was something like:

  “Roland was a creepy individual, tattoos all over his neck and head that looked homemade. He didn’t give me anything I could use for the case, but told me to come back any time, that he was going to fuck the daylights out of me.”

  She pointed out of course that she didn’t speak that way typically, but was replaying the encounter with Roland for accuracy’s sake.

  Holly had continued telling Chris that when she got back to the newspaper office a senior reporter told her to call the cops . . . which she did, and she was informed Roland was a convicted felon but currently free and not in violation of anything.

  The police follow-up suggestion had been to simply not contact him further, but that’s when the phone calls from Roland started.

  Then, she said, a female officer did sort of take her case, and the woman seemed concerned and suggested a restraining order.

  Holly said she considered the pros and cons, that she might be making a bigger deal out of it than necessary -- plus the hassle -- and that’s when she and her yacht broker guy from Armonk made the decision to wait for three more before proceeding. Meaning restraining order, private investigator, the whole nine yards.

  There had of course been the two more calls but not third -- the second one a month ago she said, which made it closer to 6 weeks now.

  And that’s where we’re at, Chris thought.

  Holly did point out that her editor said let it go -- meaning the homicide story -- and let the LA Times and the cops figure it out, that a beat reporter earning minimum wage at the weekly Daily Gull didn’t need to be a hero.

  She said that’s how she was handling it, and frankly didn’t seem real concerned anymore. She was certainly playful enough at the writing thing -- though man, her own piece that she read really wasn’t very good, was it.

  Guys like Roland though -- you knew them. They didn’t just fade away. Sorry.

  Sure, it’s conceivable Holly would never hear from the mutant again.

  But what -- If that was 75 percent certain, you were going to roll the dice on the other 25?

  Nah.

  And what about the inevitable someone else that this guy sooner or later would be similarly going after?

  You could tout your prison reform until you were blue in the face -- and Chris was convinced the system was doing its best, and that many of the convicts deep down did want to improve their lives -- but he was also convinced there were humans born evil who weren’t going to be reformed.

  It was also hard to dismiss Chandler’s reaction from a couple weeks ago, when Chris asked him for a lead on Gilda Spinnaker (the guitar maker gal’s) pursuer, and Chris mentioned she’d filed a police report on the guy.

  “That do anything?” Chandler had said.

  Chris answered that Gilda said it stopped it. Nothing since.

  Chandler said uh-huh, and that he wouldn’t take that to the bank.

  The point being, Chandler had been around these guys a hundred times more than Chris or anyone else he knew. Chandler had put a ton of these guys away, also defended a whole bunch of them -- who knows, maybe even enlisted a few of them for his own dealings, such as the Craigslist motorcycle fool -- but one thing for sure, Chandler didn’t trust these guys.

  So back to the issue of how you find Roland Villanueava.

  That much he’d gotten from Holly -- the last name and where he was at, at least the day Holly met him.

  Chris supposed one way was drive over to South Central and start asking questions, except he figured you’d get robbed or carjacked or killed . . . or all three.

  You couldn’t simply ask Holly, for obvious reasons, since if something did happen you can’t be the one coincidentally poking around for information.

  You could ask Finch -- and Chris had a hunch that yes you could trust that son of a bitch to keep his mouth shut, that he did have a bit of a streak in him.

  But Finch likely didn’t know more than he told Holly -- which is he heard the murder victim and her alleged boyfriend utter the name Roland a couple times the night before the incident, in the motel lounge where they served the complimentary happy hour appetizers -- which Finch had to add in weren’t bad, there was in fact a barbeque involved.

  The point being, you could expose yourself to Finch as being interested in this Roland, with probably no upside. So no, forget him too.

  Holly was obviously pretty resourceful, and dug around the way journalists do, and did locate the guy . . . and Chris was one of those once, but there were obviously tricks of the trade that modern newspaper folks had at their disposal. Not to mention sources.

  Speaking of which . . . could you actually impose on Chandler again?

  Chris decided you couldn’t right now. Chandler was your once and future tennis partner, and let’s face it, you’d done little or nothing for the guy in return, considering the jams he’d helped bail you out of. At least indirectly.

  Sure, you could tell Chandler enjoyed playing lawyer again, that retirement wasn’t entirely floating his boat -- but there was a limit.

  Especially after the last one, where first of all you woke the guy up a few times in the middle of the night, but more to the point, where Chandler had to make the desperation call to you, explaining he gave you the wrong William White, when you were 2 and a half blocks from what you assumed was the right William White’s house out in Montana.

  So nope, not this time . . . and Chris knew you had to go old-school, which was hit a public library for the umpteenth time . . . and Gee, the day was getting on, it was after 3, and he hoofed it up the hill and down into town, but had to stop at Starbucks first, and one thing led to another, and he got into it with a guy about the latest college admissions scandal, how USC football always seems to wipe their hands of that stuff, when they’re probably the worst offenders -- and it wasn’t like the other guy was going to stand up and bring it blows or anything, but it took plenty of time off the clock.

  Chris came up for air, man what a dumb argument, and asked the guy what time he had and the guy said 4:38 and Chris flew out of there, and luckily the MB library was open Saturdays until 6, but still.

  You could try the normal channels -- you google the deadbeat’s name, you try the white pages, the other people searches -- you try to put it together . . . pain in the ass, is what boiled down to, especially at the end of the day when there were multiple better things you could be doing . . . and all that nonsense being performed, odds are you come up short or finger the wrong guy.

  Chris got up from the computer and made a second trip to the water fountain, all that scrambling around just to get here giving him a thirst -- and this time there was an Asian kid getting a drink. High school age, plenty of acne, black solid-rimmed glasses.

  He’d seen the kid here before. They had these glassed in cubicles in back, on the third floor, like small offices, that you could reserve by the hour. You’d see group study sessions in there, and other stuff too -- seniors doing art projects, people recording YouTube videos, kids sometimes lounging around with their skateboards on the center desk.

  But this Asian kid was all business, which Chris admired, seeming to reserve the cubicle for himself alone, and likely working some upper calculus project that would feed into an application to Stanford or MIT soon enough.

  Chris stopped the kid and said, “You ever do research projects? I mean not math or science, but more human interest?”

  “Yeah,” the kid said, amused, like is the Pope Catholic, and waiting for the punch line.

  “Okay good then,” Chris said, “if you were going to interview . . . I don’t know . . . like, let’s say, someone coming out of prison on their adjustment to civilian life . . . for example . . . And you were looking for a specific person to speak to.”

  “How would I?” the kid said. “Or have I?”

  “Wait -- you have? Done that?”

  “No. I’m trying to establish your question. Let m
e look.” And he pulled up his phone and it took all of 20 seconds, and the kid says, “Try find an inmate dot org, and good luck with it,” and the kid headed back to the cubicle to probably continue his calculations on how you’d fly a Tesla to the moon.

  Jeez.

  The website was one of those open source jobs, plenty clunky to navigate, but eventually Chris pieced together a couple dozen Villanueavas from the California penal system archives . . . and when you narrowed it down to the R Villanueavas as a subset, there were 9.

  You had to click on each one and wait for a screen to load, and then link to a second screen, but he whittled it down to 3.

  And then he noticed he wasn’t reading carefully, that two of them were Ronald instead of Roland -- so Bingo -- maybe. The Roland was a Roland R.K., listed with an address on Vermont Avenue, which, without looking it up and figuring out the cross street, sounded in the ballpark of South Central.

  Then, quite unfortunately, Chris realized that second screen somehow had linked with the generic White Pages sites -- and all you were doing now was looking for non-inmate Roland Villanueavas -- and Chris decided again he was getting too old for this stuff, and he really did have to consider moving out of the country so he could retire in peace.

  But here you were, and it was getting close to six, and that would be it for the library until Monday -- and he googled Ronald RK Villanueava by itself, and a taxi service came up, again on Vermont Avenue, and it wasn’t worth trying to figure out.

  He almost threw caution to the wind and pulled out his own phone and called the place, but downstairs they did have a house phone, sort of like the old hotel lobbies, where you make local calls for free -- and it was an odd set-up, why would anyone need this, except this was MB and the library had recently been facelifted and maybe they were trying to keep some of the old ways alive. It still didn’t make sense, but Chris went downstairs and dialed the number.

  “Bottom,” the answerer said. It took Chris a second, and the guy almost hung up on him, but Chris remembered that word in the cab company name someplace, and he asked to speak to Roland please.

  Nothing from the answerer but it seemed like Chris was on hold for a second and then, “Roland speaking, may I help you?”