Fostering Death (23 page)

“What for?”

“What d’ya mean, what for?”

“Even a moron like you would need a reason to try to break in someplace.”

“Oh. Yeah. Well, Zee says they got some expensive jewelry in there.”

“Jewelry?”

“Yeah. He says Father Peter used to work in a jewelry store. The owner was an old guy, and he couldn’t really run the store any more. So they took some of the most valuable jewels.”

“What makes this Zee think that Father Peter didn’t just go pawn the jewelry?”

“I guess he did most of it. That’s what he used to start up the Tabernacle. But he kept some unusual pieces. The kind that would be really noticeable if he tried to pawn it. Zee says they’re hidden in the church somewhere.”

“How could you go searching in there? I thought they always left somebody in there. Praying or meditating or whatever.”

“Yeah. They left that dumb kid Isaac. Zee said he would probably be asleep. If he wasn’t, I was supposed to hit him over the head.”

I looked at him with contempt.

“Look.” He rubbed his nose. “I’m sorry about the mistake with the window. I
really
didn’t know it went to your place.”

I just kept my silence and continued looking at him. Finally I said, “What else you got to tell me?”

“Okay.” He licked his lips. “I was supposed to get a gun Zee says was hid in there, too.”

“What did you need a gun for?”

“I dunno.”

Cocking my head to the side, I lifted my right fist.

“Don’t hit me, Jesse. You got me good the other night.”

“Not good enough, it looks like.”

“Look,” Aaron said. “I got to ask you about the guys’ wallets.”

“What about them?”

Aaron sniffed. “They figure you took the cash. But they was hoping they could get the driver’s licenses back. They’re a pain to replace.”

“What about the credit cards and stuff?”

He winced. “Didn’t you fence them?”

“What makes you think I might of done that?”

“Well, I thought you might not want to take a chance using them yourself, but you might try to make some money off them. You wouldn’t have any problem finding someone to take them off your hands.”

“So did they do the smart thing and cancel the cards?”

Aaron looked confused. “What?”

“The smart thing to do is tell the credit card companies and the banks that your cards are missing any they should cancel them so can’t nobody use them.”

“Oh.”

“How are they doing?”

“Who?”

Dealing with someone whose brains are scrambled by drugs can be frustrating. “Your buddies. Clay and Marcus and Ramon.”

“Them.” A quick grin crossed Aaron’s face. “You sure showed them.”

Like he hadn’t been part of it. “Why’d they want to bother me anyhow?”

He shrugged. “Marcus gets his reefer from some guy at that bar. And the guy got busted. So he got mad. And the madder he got, the more he drank. And the drunker he got, the more he thought maybe you’d snitched them out. Then we’re walking down the street from the bar and there you are in the Laundromat.”

“What did he think I’d snitched him out for?”

“For when you caught them with that blunt at work that night.”

“How would that get his dealer busted?”

“I dunno. He just thought that.”

“And he came to that conclusion with no help from you?”

Aaron looked stricken. “Why would you think that?”

“Just a hunch.”

Nervously, he licked his lips. “I got to be going.”

“Not yet, you don’t. You got some more stuff to tell me.”

His hand went to his neck. “No.”

“None of you guys showed up for work on Thursday or Friday. We was real short-handed. They gonna come next week?”

“Yeah. They’re okay, mostly. We all went to the emergency room. Said we’d been in an accident.”

“Did they believe you?”

“No. But what could they do. Where’d you learn to fight like that?”

Even Aaron couldn’t be that dumb, could he? “You believe I got all kinds of connections from when I was locked up to get drugs or fence stolen goods, but you don’t think I learned to fight?”

“I dunno.”

“I was a sixteen-year-old kid when I got locked up in an adult prison. You think I would have survived if I hadn’t learned to fight?”

He looked down at his feet. “I guess not.”

“At the rate you’re going, you’re gonna get hurt.”

Aaron backed up a step. “Is that a threat?”

I shook my head. “No. It’s a prediction. Stop trying to play these games.”

“What games?”

“Telling people I’m a snitch.”

“I was mad at you when I said that. I didn’t really mean it.”

“But Clay and them guys didn’t know that. Did you ever tell them you were lying?”

“No. They’d be mad at me.”

“And they’re not mad at you now?”

“Well, yeah, but they’re mad at you more.”

“I can’t help that. What was you going to do with the gun?”

“The gun?”

“Yeah. The one Zee said was hidden somewhere in the Tabernacle.”

“I dunno. Sell it, maybe.”

I took a menacing step toward him.

“Okay, okay.” Aaron raised his arm to shield his neck. “Zee wanted it ‘cause he wanted to go to the old man’s place and get some stuff he’d hid there.”

“The same old man whose wife died?”

“The one who you went to the funeral? I think so.”

“He’s just an old man. Not very strong. What’d he need a gun for?”

“He said the old man’d bought a shotgun.”

That didn’t sound like Mr. Coleman. “Why’d he buy a shotgun?”

“Protection. Zee was over there a lot. He took me a few times. At first the old lady was happy to see him. She’d fix frozen pizzas for us. We did some chores for her. Zee told her he’d paint the garage.”

I recalled the half-painted garage. “Then what?” I asked.

“What d’ya mean?”

“You said she was happy to see him
at first.
What happened?”

“Then she found out he was screwing the housekeeper. And he’d make the old lady give him money. And some meds. Both her and the old man had some kind of good painkiller. Oxys, I think.”

“Why would she give him anything?”

“He said she owed him.”

That was what Aaron had said before. “How old is Zee?”

“I dunno. A little older than me. Not much.”

The only way I could make sense of the “owed me” idea was if Zee was the baby Mrs. Coleman had given up for adoption. Even then, it wouldn’t really make sense. But unless Zee were considerably older than Aaron—in fact, considerably older than me—he couldn’t possibly be that baby. “Did you know this housekeeper?”

“Not really. He went over a lot without me. Until Father Peter got suspicious and started keeping a closer eye on him.”

“Why was the housekeeper letting him screw her?”

“She was working under the table. No green card. She was hoping Zee would marry her.”

Sad what some people would do to try to get legal status. “So you was gonna go over with the gun and take some more of the meds? Supposed the old man needed them for himself?”

“Well, Zee said he’d hid a lot of the meds in the garage. I’m supposed to get them, then see if I can get the ones from the house.”

“Why’d he hide any in the garage?”

“He did that when the old lady got pushed down the stairs. He thought the housekeeper was gonna call 9-1-1, and he didn’t want to have anything on him if he got stopped.”

I shook my head. “You’re just making things worse for yourself, especially threatening an old man with a gun.”

“Zee said the old man isn’t in his right head. He said he’d fix it so he thought I was you. Then you’d get blamed.”

“How was he gonna do that?”

A car passed. Aaron’s eyes darted hopefully toward the alley entrance. The car kept going. Aaron licked his chapped lips. “I’m not sure of all of it. But he said I should tell the old man I was Jesse. Not too many people named Jesse.”

“I ought to just kill you now. And dump your body.”

Aaron’s face twisted in misery. “You don’t understand.”

“Damn straight I don’t understand. You got a drug problem. No real shame there. Lots of people got problems like that. But you got to get a grip on yourself and tackle it.”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You gonna let me go?”

“You gonna leave the old man alone?”

“
I
will. But I can’t speak for Zee.”

I knew I couldn’t believe that. If Zee put him up to it, Aaron would be out at Mr. Coleman’s, flashing the gun around and demanding his meds. And if Mr. Coleman really had a shotgun, somebody was likely to get hurt. It wouldn’t bother me much if it was Aaron or some of his buddies, but I didn’t want to see Mr. Coleman in any worse shape than he already was.

“I promise I won’t say nothing more about you being a snitch.”

Like I could really believe that. “You can go,” I said. “But don’t let me catch you around here again. Or at the Coleman house.”

“I’ll stay away.”

“Go on. Get out of here.”

Aaron eased away from the wall and started toward the street. I followed him to make sure he left.

At the entrance to the alley, he paused and looked back at me. “What should I tell the guys about their driver’s licenses and stuff?”

“I’ll
think
about getting it back to them at work Monday.”

“Okay.” He looked beyond me and strode abruptly away.

I turned in the direction he was looking. A small group of the Brethren in their saffron robes were approaching the stairs that lead up to the Tabernacle. They had the little boy with them, although he was dressed in regular clothes and a warm jacket. Aaron walked rapidly toward the little knot of flowing robes. The group split as he approached, half going on either side of him. They barely slowed down.

Except for the last one in the group, a tall thin young man with an acne-covered face. He hesitated ever so slightly, and his hand hovered near Aaron’s shoulder, but Aaron shook his head and stuffed his own hands more firmly into his pockets. Was he selling drugs to cult members?

Why would a cult member be into drugs? Or more suspiciously, why would a drug user be a member of that weird cult?

Aaron continued walking down the street.

Was that the infamous Zee? Had he really seen Rosa or whatever her name was shove Mrs. Coleman down the stairs? According to Mr. Coleman, she had been there when Mrs. Coleman died. And had not been back since.

But Mr. Coleman wasn’t a much more reliable source of information than Aaron. If I could come up with something reasonable, I could pass the information on to Detective Montgomery. Maybe it would take some of the suspicion off me.

The Brethren swept past me heading to the stairs. One of them bowed his head slightly in my direction. Isaac.

Chapter 17

I W
AITED
F
OR
A L
ITTLE
W
HILE
after the street and the alley were empty and checked under the dumpster. The wallets were still there, taped securely.

Now I could go back inside and concentrate on the book.

Only what would I do with the wallets? I had to do
something
with them by the time the truck came to empty the dumpster. I didn’t feel like I owed those guys much consideration after what they’d tried to do to me, but I wasn’t a thief.

And could I believe what Aaron was saying about going over to Coleman’s house with a gun? To get oxys Zee had hidden in the garage. Was this the same gun Isaac had talked about? Aaron’s mind was badly messed up, and he was a far from reliable source of information, but I was at this point inclined to think that this Zee character really did exist outside of Aaron’s imagination.

I considered calling Detective Montgomery and telling him what I’d pieced together so far. He’d investigate, for sure. But he’d want to find out how I knew this stuff and what my involvement was. I wasn’t sure how much I could tell him without getting in trouble myself.

Maybe I should just remove the temptation. Go see if I could find the oxys myself and let Aaron know there was no reason for him or anyone else to go looking for them.

Finally I gave up trying to read and turned out the light. Tomorrow I’d go scout out Mr. Coleman’s garage. Early, when there would be less of a chance of someone noticing me.

I was up before daybreak and put on the heavy sweater under my hoodie. It was cold, and I wished I could wear my jacket, but I wasn’t taking any chances on someone seeing it and describing it to the cops.