“We’re out of here,” I said over my shoulder. “Thanks for the digs.”
“Jesus loves you.”
Only because he never met me.
I sat on a park bench, downed the last bite of a ’guana taco, hot sauce running down my wrist. I wiped my mouth with a napkin then set it flat on my lap and rubbed my wrist across it. Some of the simplest shit was such a pain in the ass.
The park was busy for so late: dice rollers and card players, flasks and bottles. People jawed, and loud music swirled in O smoke.
I was alone now. Completely, utterly alone. Didn’t see that coming when Paul died. Didn’t realize he was just the first to leave me. Niki. My crew. Maggie.
I balled the napkin and tossed it at an overflowing trash can. I sucked on a can of soda, bubbles making my overheated tongue sting. The leaky bag sat by my feet, my shoes in a growing puddle of water. I called to the woman behind the fryer, the one who had prepared my taco. “Got ice?”
She nodded, then stood and opened the cooler she’d been using as a chair.
I untied my bag, brought it over, and held it open so she could dump ice in, held it high so she wouldn’t look inside. Finished, I tied it back up and returned to the bench.
I pulled out Deluski’s chip from my pocket, pushed it against my temple; photos were picked up by my optic nerve, imagery going straight into my brain.
Bronson Carew as a baby, as a young boy. Always posing alone. A forced smile on his face.
Frustrated, I pulled away the chip. This shit was worthless. A manhunt like this required manpower. Rusedski had a task force. I had me.
Maggie should be helping. Her ass was on the line same as mine. But she was chained to her desk until Carew was caught. Truth was I wasn’t sure she would help even if she could. I’d pushed her too far. She had a good heart, and the goodhearted couldn’t associate with me, not if they wanted to stay that way.
I’d have to pull our asses out of the fire myself. Plenty fair considering I was the one who struck the match.
I put the chip back to my temple and called up his mother’s picture. Silver hair. Brown skin rutted like a sun-baked terra-cotta rooftop. She seemed too old to have given birth to a nineteen-year-old. Lagartan women weren’t prone to gestate their babies in tanks like offworlders. Didn’t have the money.
I pulled up a pic of his two older sisters when they were his age. Locked arms and broad smiles.
I pulled away the chip, the sisters’ image fading with it. I recognized her. The sister on the right.
Miss Paulina.
New possibilities blew into my mind, a ripple effect of connections and deductions. Sudden understanding gusted at gale force.
Riding a high of explosive comprehension, I stood and grabbed my plastic bag, tossed it over my shoulder, and let the ice chill my back as I walked, a glimmer of imaginary sunlight marking my path.
Twenty-eight
April 28, 2789
The car I’d been following pulled into a reserved space next to a glass-enclosed office building. I handed a thousand pesos to the cabdriver and climbed out onto the curb.
She was out of her car now, heading toward the building entrance, long legs taking short strides inside an ankle-length tapered skirt.
I did my best to ignore the kink in my back-last night’s rooftop hop still exacted a toll-and hustled to catch up. She stepped toward the door, hips wagging, straight black hair moving to and fro. I closed the distance, the bag of ice swinging from my hand.
She heard my approach and glanced over her shoulder.
“Mrs. Samusaka.”
She stopped, her hand on the door handle, her face as icy as the diamond studs in her ears. “Are you following me?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“You’ll need to make an appointment.” She pulled open the door.
“I need to talk to you now. Walk with me.”
“I’ll do nothing of the sort.” She stepped through and let go of the handle.
I shoved my words through the closing gap, getting the whole sentence out just before the door shut. “I know who killed your son.”
She slowly turned around and faced me through the thick glass. Reflections from the neon signs atop the bank across the street sparkled in the glass, her blank canvas of a face painted with flashing reds and blues.
She cracked the door. “He wasn’t murdered.”
“He was.”
“The police said-”
“The police lied.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because your husband paid them to.”
She didn’t know what to believe, her face pressed into the slivered door, her eyes swirling pools of confusion. “That’s not true. You’re a damn liar.” Her tone didn’t match her words; instead, the accusation limped from her mouth.
“Please, walk with me. You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t at least listen to what I have to say.”
She took a look around, like she had to remind herself where she was. Then she came out and with a little more coaxing fell in step alongside my clipped wing.
“What do you know?”
The street was late-morning lackadaisical, light traffic and strolling pedestrians. I took weighty steps knowing the revelations I was about to unload.
“Your stepson killed your son.”
“I don’t have a stepson.”
“That’s because your husband never told you. His name is Bronson Carew.”
She grabbed my arm, nails digging like claws. “Carew? That’s Paulina’s name.”
“Your housekeeper. Yes. Your husband got her pregnant, but he couldn’t allow her to raise the child in your house or you’d eventually find out. You’d catch him playing with the boy. Or you’d see the resemblance in the boy’s face. One way or another you’d find out, so she sent him to be raised by his grandmother.”
She let go of my arm. “She could’ve quit to raise him.”
“But she didn’t. Maybe she loved your husband. Or maybe she couldn’t face going back to life on the south-side docks. Whatever the reason, she chose to stay in your home and sent her son to be with her mother. She probably convinced herself that the best thing she could do for her son was to keep earning a regular paycheck.”
We turned left, this street too narrow for cars, traffic noise fading, the rocking sound of slushing ice taking its place.
“But I don’t ever remember her being pregnant.”
“Did she ever take a leave of absence?”
“She left us for a few months once. She had to care for her sick father.”
“Nineteen years ago?”
Her last objection dashed, Crystal Samusaka stopped in her tracks. “That son of a bitch.”
I faced her profile, her lips pinched so tight I could barely see her lipstick. “Has he been unfaithful before?”
She stared straight ahead. “My husband is a selfish man. But he never had a bastard before.”
“Why did you stay with him?”
She took a large, overreaching step but the tapered skirt held her back. “I wasn’t born rich, Mr. Mozambe.” She hiked up her dress to her knees and stormed forward, short strides no longer satisfactory.
I stayed with her. “Your husband paid the police to report your son’s death as an overdose. I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t want the police to find his son’s murderer until I realized he was protecting another son.”
“My God, Paulina brought a young boy to the house sometimes. She said he was her nephew. Brownie was his name.”
“Could be a nickname for Bronson.”
“He was such a strange boy.”
“Did he play with your sons?”
“Sometimes, but mostly they picked on him. He couldn’t have been more than nine or ten when she stopped bringing him. But I saw him years later when Franz brought him around. Franz said he’d run into Brownie somewhere, and now they were palling around.”
I stopped, put the bag down, and pulled Deluski’s chip from my pocket, held it to her temple. “That him?”
She jerked her head away. “That’s him.” Tears came, twin raindrops rolling down her cheeks, her mouth caught in a silent, misshapen cry. She let her skirt fall back down, hands moved to her eyes.