Lies Still Told, page 11
It was time to talk garbage.
Twenty minutes later, he was sitting across from Brad Payne, Colby Kane’s boss. The man had a small office and an old wooden desk. Carved and painted birds, all sizes and colors, sat atop the filing cabinets and crowded together on the window sills. A half-done one sat on a pile of newspaper at the edge of the desk. “Nice work,” A.L. said. That’s about as far as his attempts to build goodwill went.
“Been at it for some twenty years. Nothing relieves stress like carving a bird.”
He’d take the man’s word. “What can you tell me about Colby Kane’s work?”
The man shrugged. “He was here most every day, usually on time, and never drunk, that I know of. That gave him a leg up on some.”
“Okay,” A.L. said. He was about to ask his next question when the man burst into laughter.
“I’m just messing with you.” The man slapped his desk.
If Rena had been here, he could have counted on her to deal with this moron. “The man is dead,” he said.
“I know. I know,” the man said, looking uncomfortable now. “Listen, Colby Kane wasn’t the sharpest crayon in the box. And he made his share of mistakes in the past. But his customers loved him. We were always getting compliments from people on his route.”
“He have any disagreements with any specific customers?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Any other employees?”
The man shrugged. “He mixed it up with Dante once in a while. But Dante’s a hothead. So I wouldn’t put much stock in that.”
“Dante got a last name?”
“Inferno,” the man said. And then burst out laughing. “Get it? Dante’s Inferno.”
Right now, thought A.L., he might be in one of the circles of hell. “Last name?” he asked again.
“Sanchez.”
“Dante Sanchez working today?”
The man punched something into his computer. “I can see where every driver is every minute of the day.” He studied his screen. “He’s on his way back. Should be here in fifteen minutes or so.”
“Would you let him know that I’d like to talk to him? I’ll wait in your lobby,” A.L. said.
“As long as I’m not getting escorted out of here in handcuffs, you can do whatever you want. Don’t want to have to make that phone call to the wife at home.”
A.L. thought about what Rena had said to Veronica when she’d admitted that she’d driven home drunk. We generally don’t lock people up for stupidity after the fact. He might make an exception in Brad Payne’s case.
When Dante Sanchez walked into the lobby twenty-two minutes later, he didn’t resemble somebody who wanted to mix it up. He looked…frightened. It dawned on A.L. that the reason could be that he had something to do with Colby’s death. But his gut discounted that pretty quickly. He thought it more likely that allowing Brad Payne to issue A.L.’s request had been a mistake. The man had probably delighted in making it sound as if Dante was in trouble with the police. It probably amused him to jerk around the emotions of the people who reported to him. If there was one thing A.L. couldn’t stand, it was a bully.
“Mr. Sanchez,” A.L. said, standing up. There was nobody else within hearing vicinity. They could do this here. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.”
The man’s eyes changed and he no longer looked as if he might bolt for the door. “Of course.”
“I won’t take up too much of your time. I’m investigating the death of your coworker Colby Kane.”
Dante said nothing.
“Can you tell me about your relationship with Colby?”
“Colby Kane was a punk.”
“You didn’t care for him.”
“He charmed his customers, but he started his routes late, and he forgot to check instructions for additional pickups, resulting in other drivers having to pick up the slack. I know we’re just garbage collectors, but he didn’t take the job seriously. The only reason he had this job was to keep his parole officer happy.”
“And to pay his rent and buy his groceries,” A.L. suggested.
Dante shrugged. “Maybe.”
That was an interesting response. “You don’t think he needed this job to pay his rent and buy his groceries?”
“I think that Colby Kane always had more cash than he should have in his pocket. And as a punk, he wasn’t shy about letting other people see it.”
“Any idea where the cash came from?”
Dante stared at him. “You seem like a smart man. I imagine you can figure that out.”
“Let’s pretend that I’m a dumbass,” A.L. said easily. “Spell it out for me.”
“That would only be speculating,” Dante said. He pressed his lips together.
He wasn’t going to say more. “Do you own a gun, Mr. Sanchez?” A.L. asked.
“I do not.”
“And where were you on Wednesday night?”
“Working. I have a second job. I bartend at Leoda’s Tap on Fourteenth Street. I was there from six until eleven. Then I went home and went to bed so that I could be here at seven the next morning. That’s my life, Detective. I work. I take care of my family. And I guess I’m sorry that Colby Kane is dead. But quite frankly, he’ll be replaced by somebody who is probably better at the job, and that will make my life easier.”
He didn’t think Dante had anything to do with Colby’s death. “Is the name Platt Waymann familiar to you.”
“I know that he’s dead. I read the newspapers.”
“But not familiar in any other way?”
“Nope.”
“Thank you for your time.” A.L. handed him a card. “If you think of anything that might be helpful, please contact me.”
Dante nodded.
A.L. walked back to his SUV. He checked his messages. There was one from Ferguson saying he had a package from Dotee Correctional Facility on his desk. A.L. headed to the office.
With some effort, Rena pushed her cart toward the checkout line that was moving slowly, likely because everybody in the superstore had made a big haul, just like her. She’d started by picking up two of everything that she and Gabe normally used in their home. Paper towels, toilet paper, bar soap, liquid hand soap, laundry detergent, shampoo, toothpaste and cleaning products.
She’d wandered over to the grocery section and added another twenty items. Finally, she’d gone into the adult clothing section and purchased a fleece-lined maternity shirt and a pair of maternity leggings. She had a pretty good idea of Willow’s size based on the photo that had been on the table in Tawny Lane’s living room. Then she bought a nightgown, a robe and fuzzy socks for Tawny. Once she was in the clothing section for kids, there were so many cute choices that it was hard to narrow it down. But she got a couple outfits for Elisa and then blankets, diapers and the sweetest sleepers one could imagine for the soon-to-be-born baby. The clothing section morphed into the toy section, where there were a few stuffed animals that she couldn’t resist and a puzzle that she thought the two-year-old would enjoy. She added some blocks with caterpillars on them before she finally admitted that the cart could not hold another thing.
It was by far the most she’d ever purchased on one trip.
And not one single item for herself. It felt great.
Finally at the cash register, she snagged a package of four rolls of wrapping paper and some tape. She was just about out, and she wanted to wrap a few things as Christmas gifts.
As she unloaded her cart, she held back everything that needed to be wrapped until the very end. “Gift receipts for these and bag them separately, please,” she said. It would make the process much easier at her house. She’d leave everything in the car. It was certainly cold enough that the groceries she’d purchased wouldn’t go bad. She’d run into the house, wrap the gifts and then take everything over to Tawny Lane’s tonight.
She pushed her cart out, keeping her head down, making eye contact with nobody. She had not encountered anyone in the store she knew, which had been a blessing. But her good luck faded as she pushed her now-empty cart into the parking lot stanchion.
“Rena. Rena, is that you?”
She looked up and recognized the woman. One of Gabe’s mother’s friends. She and her husband had been guests at Rena and Gabe’s wedding almost four years earlier. “Hi, JoJo,” she said. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas to you, too, dear. I’ve been reading the newspapers. I can’t believe how terrible the press can be.”
“They do their job,” Rena said. “How is your husband?”
“Good, good. Was that teenager really shooting at people?” JoJo seemed shocked.
Rena nodded, her throat feeling suddenly too dry to talk. She swallowed hard. “It was good to see you. But I just put a bunch of groceries in my car. Best get them unloaded.”
“It’s that time, isn’t it? I swear, I buy more food now than at any other time of the year. I just hope this ugly incident doesn’t ruin your holiday.”
She resisted the urge to say something breezy and trite, like, Of course not. A dead sixteen-year-old can’t get me down. “Goodbye, Jo-Jo,” she said instead.
Now it wasn’t just her throat that was tight. It felt like her chest had seized up. She started for home, but four blocks shy of her house, she made a decision. She simply couldn’t face seeing news reporters and protesters outside her home. Not until she’d finished what she’d started. She turned her car around, drove to The Commons and parked outside of Tawny Lane’s apartment building. Then she got the presents, wrapping paper and tape from her trunk and proceeded to awkwardly wrap the gifts in her front seat. She hadn’t bought name tags, so she used scraps of paper to identify the recipient of each gift.
In the end, the presents weren’t as pretty as what she’d have been able to do at home, because she had all kinds of ribbons there, but they would do. Then she carried as much as she could in one load and went to Tawny Lane’s door. She did not knock. Instead, she simply deposited everything and then returned to her car for the second load. By the time she got back to Tawny’s door, she was feeling a bit winded.
Finally, she knocked. She stood in front of the door so that someone inside could look through the peephole and see her. She heard the door unlock, and the door opened. A young, pregnant woman stood on the other side.
“I’m Detective Morgan,” Rena said.
“Tawny said you’d been by,” the woman said. “I’m Willow. Uh…Tawny isn’t here. She’s working.” She was staring at all the purchases at Rena’s feet.
“That’s okay. This is not police business.” In fact, she probably shouldn’t have introduced herself as Detective Morgan, given that she was on administrative leave. But old habits died hard. “I have some things for you, for all of you, to hopefully make your Christmas a little brighter.”
And then she started bringing things in. Willow helped. Everything got put on the kitchen counter and when that was full, the kitchen table. “Some things in here should be refrigerated,” she said.
Willow nodded and got busy while Rena carried the rest of the sacks inside. “That’s it,” Rena said when she was done.
Willow was focused on the wrapped packages. “You bought us gifts, too?”
“Just a few things,” Rena said.
A tear ran down Willow’s smooth cheek. The girl wore no makeup, and with her long hair in a ponytail, she looked very young. “I don’t mean to cry,” she said, swiping at the tear. “But this has been kind of a crappy year,” she said. “And I know how worried Tawny was after hearing the news about Platt. This is just very, very kind. And it’s a good reminder that there are lots of very good people in this world.”
Rena wanted to hand over her checkbook. “Your baby will be born next year. That will make it a better year.”
Willow shrugged. “I’m going to be an uneducated, unemployed mom of two young children. Even if I could get a job, every cent I make would go to daycare. And Tawny already does so much for us. She works two jobs and babysits for Elisa whenever she can. It’s just a lot.” She put her hand on her rounded stomach. “I’m repeating my mother’s life, and she was dead at forty-three. Pills. I used to think she was weak. Now I think she was just tired.”
The words seemed to hang in the air. “Tawny told us that pursuing your education is important to you. Once your baby is born, I’d be happy to help you connect to social service agencies that might be able to provide some financial assistance to offset daycare expenses. Maybe there’s a daycare at the college that offers a sliding scale.”
“Thank you,” Willow said. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I…I’m not proud of the fact that I feel this way about the pregnancy. I was careless and got pregnant, but I just never dreamed that Stu would simply take off.”
“Maybe he’ll come around,” Rena said. “Once the baby is born.”
“He won’t. And even if he did, I don’t want to be married to somebody like that. He’s been gone for months. He’s had plenty of time to regret his decision to leave and to make amends. It’s too late now. I just don’t care anymore. I’ve accepted that I’m on my own with this. I’m just going to have to make the best decisions that I can make. For myself. For Elisa. For this baby.” She stopped. “Do you have children?” she asked.
Rena shook her head. “We…uh…have been doing our best. Trying. So hopefully someday.”
“Isn’t that the way it works? The people who really want a baby can’t have one, and then… Well, there’s me. I’ve had reckless sex twice in my life, and both times I ended up pregnant.”
Well, that wasn’t the only way it worked. There were many people having children who were somewhere in the middle of all that. But she understood Willow’s perspective. She was soon to be the mother of two, but she was really just a very young woman herself. “How old are you, Willow?” she asked.
“Nineteen. I’ll be twenty in January.”
Rena had turned thirty-nine two months earlier. She was almost twenty years older than Willow.
She heard a key in the door, and when it opened, there was Tawny Lane. She looked at Rena, then Willow. “Where’s Elisa?” she asked.
“Sleeping. The detective brought us all this,” Willow said, motioning to the sacks and the presents. “Plus, there’s more food in the refrigerator.”
Tawny Lane said nothing for a long minute. Then she turned to look Rena in the eye. “That’s kind of you, Detective. I imagine, given what I’ve read in the paper, that you’ve got other things to think about.”
Willow looked perplexed, and Rena thought it likely that she hadn’t seen the news. “I can’t really talk about it,” she said.
“Of course,” Tawny said. “I work in a bar and in retail. And I have to tell you, I’ve thought on more than one occasion what I’d do if I was facing a gun. And if that day ever comes, I want you there. I want you protecting me and all the other innocent people. It’s terrible that he was a sixteen-year-old kid. But it’s also terrible when sixteen-year-old kids kill twenty-five-year-olds and forty-year-olds and sixty-two-year-olds. By the sound of it, you stopped that.”
She had to get out of there. Her throat was closing up again, proving that tears were barely being held at bay. “I’ve…got to go.” She reached for the door.
“Merry Christmas,” she heard as she ran down the hallway.
Chapter Ten
“It’s time to go,” Tess said. She stood in the doorway, coat on and holding a casserole dish.
His shirt was half buttoned. He glanced at his watch. She was right. He knew he’d been pushing the time. “Isn’t it fashionable to be late?”
She raised her eyebrows. “You know what, A.L.? Being fashionable isn’t something that I’d ever associate with you.”
This was going to be his second trip to Madison today. But that wasn’t Tess’s fault. He pressed a hand to his chest in mock dismay. “An arrow to my heart.”
“More like a kick to your rear end if you don’t hurry up. Here, take this so I can grab the other dish.”
“I appreciate you making everything,” he said. “I’m sure my sister will really appreciate it. I can usually be counted on to bring chips. Maybe dip, too, on a good day.”
“Tell me about Tom. I feel badly that this is the first time I’m meeting him.” They walked out of her house into the attached garage.
“Tom is…” A.L. sighed. “Tom is Tom. He’s a nice enough guy, but I don’t think he’s good for Liz. He’s not convinced that Liz is an alcoholic. Everybody else, including Liz, knows that she is.”
“But she’s been doing really good, right?”
“She has been. Six months sober is no small deal.” At the car, A.L. got the dishes settled on the floor of the back seat. Once they were inside, he turned the heat on high. “It’s just that Liz has been sober for six months in the past. And then, unfortunately, she started drinking again. I’m not confident that Tom would immediately understand what a tenuous situation that is if it happens again. Liz says it’s not going to happen, and that I need to stop worrying.”
“She’s your sister. Of course you worry.”
“She likes you,” he said, driving down the street.
“The two of you have talked about me?” Tess asked.
“I talk about you with everyone.” It wasn’t the right time to tell Tess that he’d volunteered to Liz during their most recent conversation that Tess was important to him.
“No, you don’t. First of all, I think you’re unlikely to voluntarily talk to a lot of people about anything. Especially about anything personal.”
She really was starting to know him too well. “At least the roads are dry,” he said, changing subjects. He’d texted Traci the night before, offering to drive her and John to Liz’s house in Madison. She’d responded that she and John were going to go early to get some last-minute shopping done.
That, of course, had given him chest pain, because it had made him think of Rena, who’d been doing just the same, and look at the trouble that had gotten her into.
