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Authors: Kimberly Reid

BOOK: Creeping with the Enemy
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Chapter 21
F
inally I admit to myself that I have absolutely nothing under control. The minute I learned Cole was part of a crime family, I knew Bethanie was in trouble, but I didn't know how much trouble until I realized Bethanie's dad was the missing witness who was supposed to testify against the Family. That's when I decide to tell Lana everything I know. I'm showing her the out-of-focus photo of Cole that I found on her desk when I hear MJ banging on our front door. I know it's her because she keeps yelling, “Chanti, open the door!” until I do.
She looks full of news until she sees Lana sitting in the living room.
“I didn't know she was here. Her car usually be out front.”
“I had to take it to the shop,” Lana says. “My partner dropped me off,”
“That dude I see you with sometimes is your partner?” MJ asks. “I thought that was your man.”
“That's what everyone thinks. Now that I've trusted you with my biggest secrets, can you try to trust me?”
Lana's civility surprises both MJ and me.
“It's okay, MJ, I told her everything,” I say to reassure her Lana isn't looking to entrap her into an arrest. MJ thinks every cop on the planet is out to get her, whether she's done anything to deserve it or not. That's the perspective you take when you go to juvie for a crime you don't feel you committed.
“Well, you know how I said Cole joined the Family and moved up real quick? Seems like it's because he got in good with the Boss in, like, zero to sixty. The rest of the Family don't like him much.”
“Hating on him for moving up too fast?” I ask.
“That, and they just straight-up don't trust him. Some worry he's going after their position, but a few think he's positioning himself to be the Boss's right hand so he can take over the Family while the Boss is doing his time once your friend's father testifies against him.”
“But this guy is barely out of college, right?” Lana asks.
“If we believe what he says, he's twenty-one,” I say. “He looks about that. But who can trust anything he says now?”
“There's no way the Boss would let someone so young and inexperienced, not to mention distrusted by his soldiers, take over the Family,” Lana says.
“But that explains why Cole is here,” MJ says. “The Boss sent him after Larsen to kill him and prevent him from testifying. A kill shows your loyalty to the Family.”
“Or if the rumors you're hearing are right,” I suggest, “maybe Cole is going to double-cross the Boss and bring Mr. Larsen—or whatever his real name is—back alive and able to testify against him so he goes to jail and Cole takes over.”
“You mean like he's working with the cops? He'd be the ultimate snitch and the Family would eighty-six him the minute they even suspected it.”
“You're right, MJ,” Lana says. “If Chanti's right about his plan, he's working alone. However he delivers Larsen to the cops, it won't be in a way someone could tie him to it.”
Every interaction I've had with Cole, and every conversation I've had with Bethanie about him plays back in my head like I'm running it on TiVo. The car that I saw leaving Bethanie's street early that morning with its windows all frosted up—it was a silver Porsche like that cleaning crew guy at Cole's apartment had described and like I saw in the photo. Were his windows all frosted up because he'd been there overnight and had somehow sneaked into the house to be with Bethanie? I doubt it with Tiny around and with the killer security system Mr. Larsen must have now that I know who he is. That leasing agent said Cole's car had picnic stuff in the backseat. Sounds a lot like the backseat of Lana's car with all the stuff she needs for a stakeout. No, the windows were frosted over because he'd been there all night but not in Bethanie's room. He'd been staked out on the street, watching the house, probably learning the Larsens' schedule and habits, or more specifically, Bethanie's.
“He's been watching her since the bodega robbery,” I say out loud without realizing it.
“What about the bodega robbery?” Lana asks, sounding like she's about to go all cop-mother on me and put me in the box. “What does your friend have to do with that?”
“Ms. Evans, I swear I don't know a thing about that robbery,” MJ says, sounding guilty.
“Not you,” Lana says, “the other friend. The one gone missing.”
“Okay, Lana, keeping in mind we have a much bigger case to deal with here,” I say, hoping she won't kill me when I tell her, “I was in the bodega when it was robbed.”
“I told you to stay away from that place! And why am I just hearing about it?”
“Because I knew you'd be mad if I was there... .”
“Damn right I'm mad.”
“And I knew you'd be even angrier when you found out I ditched before the cops got there.”
“You were a witness to a crime and didn't report it?”
MJ looks at me and I just know she's thinking I'm a hypocrite because in our past dealings with the police and getting arrested, I told her it wasn't being a snitch to help them get the bad guys.
Yeah
, I'm sure she's thinking,
unless it's your own skin you're trying to save.
“Okay, that was wrong. But soon after the robbery, I began suspecting it wasn't an actual crime. I always thought the way it went down wasn't right—how the long line for the BOGO tamales suddenly disappeared. And how Cole acted so stupid, trying to be a hero when anyone from around here knows what to do in a robbery—keep your head down and let it play out so you don't get killed. For that matter, what was Cole doing there anyway, is what I kept asking Bethanie. Tommy Hilfiger–wearing white boys just don't shop at the bodega.”
“So you think he was casing her before the robbery?” Lana asks.
“I do. That's how he knew Bethanie gives me a ride home every Friday and how I always stop in the bodega for the Friday BOGO tamales.”
Lana gives me an evil look for lying all this time about staying away from the bodega, but only says, “You think he set the whole robbery up so he could be there to save the day for her.”
“Yeah, and he had to have some help on the inside. I didn't recognize the guy at the cash register that day,” I say, staring straight at MJ.
She ignores my insinuation and asks, “What girl is stupid enough for the whole Prince Charming thing to work on her?”
“You don't know Bethanie,” I tell MJ. “And aren't you the girl who spent two years in JD because your boyfriend talked you into being his getaway driver for the bank robbery?”
“I told you a million times—he said he needed a ride there so he could open his account.”
“Yeah, I think you just answered your own question,” I tell MJ. “You know better than anyone how a boy can make you stupid sometimes.”
She looks away from me, which only confirms her guilt and answers the question I've had since I ran into MJ outside the bodega that early morning. Eddie must have been the cashier that I didn't recognize, the one who mysteriously disappeared before the cops showed up. I want to know MJ's involvement in this whole scheme, but I won't say anything now. Even though MJ is helping us, Lana's still a cop and will take MJ in if she thinks she's got something to do with Cole's bodega setup. She does, but just like the bank robbery, she probably didn't know what Eddie was up to.
“He did it to gain her trust,” I explain, letting MJ off the hook for now. “I think he needed to get her away from her family because her father pretty much had her on lockdown all the time, and then use her safe return to coerce her father to testify.”
“It's a good theory, Chanti,” Lana says. “What I don't get is how he knew where to find Bethanie and her family long before we did. Atlanta PD didn't figure out he might be in the Denver area until a few weeks before they asked me to get involved.”
“He's probably been tailing the Larsens since they left Atlanta, which is why he was a few steps ahead of the Atlanta police.”
“Like I told Chanti, the street is always way ahead of the five-o, 24/7/365,” MJ says smugly.
“Does she always talk in numbers?”
“I never noticed that, but I guess she does,” I say. “We'd better get moving on what we know.”
“Don't think you're getting off for this bodega robbery thing, Chanti. But you're right, that can wait. I don't want to deliver this kind of information over the phone, and I need to pull Atlanta into this. Let's get down to the department so I can share this with the team.”
“Well, let me know how it works out, Chanti,” MJ says. “I hope your friend is okay.”
“You'll learn firsthand how it works out because you're coming with us,” Lana says. “I may need to use your contacts again.”
“Oh no. I don't go into any police station, not unless I'm in cuffs and got no choice.”
“I can do that for you if you'd like,” Lana says, though I'm pretty sure she's kidding. I think. I hope she is because MJ outweighs her by forty pounds and is a few inches taller. On the other hand, Lana is a karate black belt who carries two guns on her at all times. It could get real ugly.
“I'm kidding,” Lana says, apparently recognizing the tension she kicked up with her not-so-funny joke. “I can't do that unless I subpoena you as a witness, which I can do if you make me.”
Okay, now we all know she isn't joking.
“Let me go tell my grandmother where I'm going.”
“Call her from the car,” Lana says, hustling us both out of the house.
MJ gives me a look that says she could kill me, and I'm pretty sure the next time I come knocking on her door looking for her help, she's going to pretend she isn't home.
Chapter 22
W
hen we get to the police station, I can tell MJ is about as nervous as I'd be if we were in a building full of ex-cons. Lana takes us to her desk and tells us to wait. I take her chair behind the desk and leave the interview chair for MJ. That's the one where everyone who has to talk to Lana must sit—victims, family of victims, witnesses, and witnesses who turn out later to be the perp. It was probably a bad choice of seating because now MJ looks even more uncomfortable. I imagine she's sat in the interview chair as a member of every category, and definitely the last one.
Before Lana leaves us to find her CO, I ask, “So you're going to tell them I was really eavesdropping when I was with you at the Atlanta PD?”
“I don't need to give all the details now. I'll just tell him between what I knew of the case and some information you gave me about your friend, I put two and two together. Maybe later, after we find your friend, I can tell him my daughter is something of a detective herself.”
“Then I'll get the collar, right?”
“No, I don't think so.”
“I figured out the whole thing.”
“You did, but you have to be a cop to get the collar.”
“Oh yeah, right.”
She leaves and goes to her boss's office. Then I see the two of them plus a couple of other detectives go into the strategy room. It's something like you see on TV cop shows without all the high-tech gadgets. There's no holographic table with a 3-D rendering of the suspect. There's no wall of GPS mapping with every coordinate of the perp's location based on the ESN signals of his mobile phone. There
is
a wall-sized whiteboard with a bunch of writing and photos taped to it, but that's not so impressive. We have one of those in some of the classrooms at Langdon.
I see the whiteboard wall has pictures of Mr. Larsen on it. There's even one of Bethanie and her mother, but none of Cole. Whatever his role in the crime family MJ's contact says he's part of, or however he might be connected to Mr. Larsen's case, nobody at the Atlanta PD or in Denver must think he's important enough to include in the investigation. That could be good or bad. If I can believe all the Mafia movies, he isn't “made” yet, which means he's never killed anyone—very good for Bethanie. Or if he's an ambitious sort of mobster, he might be looking to get promoted by doing something to change his status—seriously bad for my friend.
There's a glass wall facing the hallway so I can see Lana talking to her boss, then pointing at the whiteboard wall, but I can't make out what they're saying. I turn my attention to MJ, who I think might get sick all over Lana's desk any minute.
“You don't look so good.”
“That's what you want to be—a cop?” MJ says, like I wanted a job kicking puppies.
“I haven't really thought of what I want to be.”
“Bull. Everybody knows what they want to be, whether they have any chance of being it or not.”
“So what do you want to be, then?”
“I ain't in the mood to talk about it.”
The way she keeps fidgeting in the interview chair, I don't think she's in the mood to talk about
anything
. I figure since I got her into this, I should at least come clean about my career aspirations. Besides, I need something to keep my mind off Bethanie and what Cole might have done to her when he made her get off the phone so abruptly.
“I do sort of want to be a cop, but not like Lana. You have to not be afraid of everything to be that kind of cop.”
“Chanti, you keep saying stuff like that, but for you to always be in some mess like this, I don't think you're as afraid of stuff as you think.”
“No, Lana's kind of crime solving isn't for me. I want to be one of those forensic cops.”
“Oh yeah, like on those
CSI
shows, right, 'cause you like science,” MJ says like she just figured out a big mystery herself. MJ would have my back in anything, and could probably take out even the scariest boy at school, but she will never make class valedictorian.
“Now would be as good a time as any to tell me about Eddie.”
“I got nothing to say about Eddie.”
“Well, I'll tell you what I think and you can let me know if I'm warm. Obviously he's your boyfriend... .”
“He is not my boyfriend. Just a guy I like.”
“Okay, he's a guy you hope will be your boyfriend, and we know your track record in letting guys get you into trouble. You had to have known him before he worked with Cole to set up the bodega robbery.”
“He didn't help Cole. He didn't know who he was helping. Some dude came into the store just before tamale happy hour started and offered Eddie a thousand dollars to disappear for an hour.”
“What? I saw him at the counter taking orders and ringing people up. He didn't disappear until after the robbery.”
“You got it all bass-ackwards. You think Eddie was the guy in on the robbery.”
“Wasn't he?”
“Sort of, but not the way you think. Eddie is the owner's son. He had just started working in the store that day.”
“That's convenient,” I say. Someone was lying—MJ to me or Eddie to her.
“He just got into town a couple weeks ago. He dropped out of college, so his dad told him he had to earn his keep by working in the store, or go back to school. Eddie was filling in for his cousin, the owner's nephew and the cashier you're used to seeing. His cousin hasn't had a vacation in two years and he took the chance when he got it.”
“Why have I never seen or heard of Eddie until now? I go to the bodega all the time.”
“You never met Eddie 'cause he's always been away at school. He and his father don't get along, so he don't come home summers.”
“I can see why his father doesn't like him—he lets people rob his store,” I say.“Still seems like I should know something about him.”
“True, since you stay in everybody's business,” MJ says. “But his father didn't buy the bodega from his brother until a couple years ago, about the same time Eddie started school. That means Eddie never lived in Denver until two weeks ago.”
“So how did you know him?”
“I told you. Big Mama is friends with Eddie's father.” She starts making weird faces at me then, raising her eyebrows a lot. I'm beginning to think she's lost it, but then I get it. Big Mama doesn't just
know
Eddie's father. She's running her Numbers game with him. Of course we can't say that inside the police department since running Numbers would get Big Mama arrested.
“So your grandmother is expanding the business,” I say, just to mess with MJ for holding out on me with the Eddie story.
“Would you shut up?” she whispers. More like snarls. “I met him one time when I went over there early one morning to run an errand for Big Mama.”
“Wait, MJ. You aren't working for her, are you? Your probation—”
“Hell no. She wouldn't allow that. Stop thinking like a cop all the time. I really was running an errand. She sent me to get milk.”
“Like that morning I ran into you on Center Street? You said you were getting milk then, too. But you didn't have any milk and you weren't dressed for the cold morning.”
MJ looks like she's been busted. She definitely could never play poker because everything she's thinking always shows on her face.
“That's 'cause I wasn't picking up milk
that
morning. I didn't have a coat on because it wasn't cold when I went over there the night before.”
It took me a second to figure out what she was talking about, and when I did, for some reason I turned into a ten-year-old.
“Oooh, you and Eddie were in there all night. I know what y'all were doing.”
“Duh, Sherlock. I didn't plan to stay all night. You caught me trying to get back home before Big Mama got back from her overnight church trip to the Springs.”
“So where is Eddie now?”
“He's still here, but he's thinking of going back to school. He's afraid his pops is going to find out how he gave up the store on his first day on the job so it could be used for a fake robbery.”
“Yeah, not too bright,” I say, thinking MJ really knows how to pick 'em.
“He didn't know the guy was going to stage a robbery.”
That reminds me of what Lana said about the store being empty when the cops arrived and no money being missing.
“How exactly did he know that's what happened? There were no security cameras, no witnesses.”
“Eddie waited in the back parking lot for the part-time lady who helps with the Freebie rush. He met her at the back door and told her she had a paid day off. Eddie left after that, but didn't stay away the whole hour. He got worried what the guy was up to and crept in the back way, got there just as it was going down.”
“I had a feeling someone was in the back. I thought I smelled food cooking.”
“Yeah, that's another reason Eddie came back. His mom makes the tamales in the morning so all the afternoon clerks have to do is keep them warm. He remembered he'd left some tamales in the warmer and was worried he'd burn the place down.”
Wow, this guy might actually be worse than her last boyfriend.
“He was in the back when the cops arrived. He went out front before the cops searched the store. Told them he'd just stepped out back for a minute to take a smoke and there was no way a robbery had gone down in that short amount of time—it must have been a prank call. When he checked the register and nothing was missing, the cops believed him and left.”
“So the cashier was the guy who made the deal with Eddie to leave the store?”
“Yeah. It was a thousand dollars, Chanti.”
“He could have wiped the store out. I'm sure Eddie's father would agree the contents of the store was worth a lot more than a thousand dollars.”
“I suppose. Yet another reason Eddie will probably go back to school before his father finds out.”
“No, I'll bet he'll stick around either way,” I say.
“You think?” MJ says, and smiles for the first time since she walked into Lana's office.
From what little I know of Eddie's intellectual prowess, I don't think he left school on his own accord, but I don't mention this to MJ. I'll let her go on thinking she found a good catch, at least for now. We've got to save Bethanie first.

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