Vengeance: Mystery Writers of America Presents Page 5

  She smiled, remembering the nickname he’d conjured up for her when J.Lo first hit the cultural lexicon, a decade earlier.

  “I want to trust you, Jake, but I don’t believe for a second that this guy turned down the opportunity to get high.”

  “Hey, whatchu want me to say?”

  “That you just sold the man in this picture some dope.”

  “Then you send your man in there to frisk him down but he don’t find no rock. That would make me a liar, and you know I only speak the truth. I bathe in the light of honesty, girl. I might sell folks to the law, but only if they did the crime, you know? Hey, don’t get so upset, Light. I never seen you so down. It must be that diet. Get yourself some cheeseburgers and onion rings, you know what I’m saying?”

  “You’re positive it was the same guy?”

  Jake looked back toward the park, but she could tell he was just buying himself time to answer. “If it makes you feel better, I could tell he was craving it. Real tempted, you know? Like pondering and shit. But — I don’t know — maybe I made it seem too easy. I knew you wanted him, so I floated a half ball at a hundred. Price was too low; he probably figured I was po-po. Maybe try again in a few weeks? I’d do anything for DiLi.”

  A few weeks was too long. A man like Chance could break Kiley all over again in a few hours.

  “No, that’s all right. You want a ride back uptown?”

  “Nah, I’m good. Might hang down here for a bit.”

  “Dumb question, Jake, but any chance I can persuade you to get into another line of work?”

  “You cute, girl. And, seriously, you look good, Light. Maybe a little too light, if you get it. But good. Hang tough.”

  THE NEXT NIGHT, Chance showed up at home close to eleven o’clock. Diane watched Kiley hold his hand as they stepped from the bus onto McLoughlin Boulevard. From the university to the aunt’s house to here should not have taken him the nearly two hours it had. Chance was definitely up to something. Not to mention, what kind of father let a three-year-old stay up that late?

  She watched from her car as they walked together, hand in hand, to their apartment complex. She saw Kiley’s bedroom light turn on. Five minutes later, it turned off. She waited another twenty minutes before stepping from her car out into the darkness.

  The chill of the night was perfect. Her quilted black hat felt snug on her head. Her neoprene gloves provided just enough compression to make her fingers feel extra alive. She placed her hands in her coat pockets, felt the knife against her left hand, the brick-shaped wad of paper against her right.

  He opened the door for her. Of course he did.

  It was over fast. She knew it would be. He was a lifelong junkie with slow reflexes and no idea what was about to happen when he turned to get that glass of water she asked for. Blade into the carotid artery, the results of which she’d seen in so many autopsies. He never even touched her.

  The hardest part was waking Kiley, but she had no choice. She lifted the girl from her bed. Was it her imagination or was the child lighter than the last time she’d held her at Janice Miller’s house? Chance had probably been trading food stamps for drugs instead of feeding the poor thing.

  She held Kiley close to her chest and grabbed the stuffed raccoon from the bed. “Shhh,” she whispered. “It won’t be long, baby girl.”

  She set Kiley on the worn linoleum of the bloody kitchen floor and then started walking backward toward the living room, waving the stuffed toy in front of her as she moved. “Come here, sweetie. Come play with your Coo-Coo. Yeah, good girl. You’re such a good girl. Now you’re safe. No more bad things in the kitchen, okay?” Kiley followed her. Diane gave her the stuffed animal.

  She dialed 911 and let the receiver fall to the floor.

  “Don’t be afraid, Kiley. Someone will be here in just a few minutes. We’re going to be all right.” Diane tried not to cry as she looked one last time at Kiley, alone on the living room rug with nothing but a blood-smeared acrylic raccoon.

  “THE FINAL CASE on the docket, Your Honor. Kiley Chance.”

  Stone nodded as Diane reminded him of the court’s decision to reinstate custody of the child to her biological father, Kyle Chance.

  “Mr. Chance’s body was found in his apartment late Wednesday night.” Stone emitted multiple tsk noises as she outlined the facts. Fatally stabbed. A wad of paper found at the scene. Not money, but a twenty-dollar bill folded around strips of newspaper cut to resemble bills. The police believe it was likely a drug deal gone bad. Chance tried to bilk the seller. Got a knife in the neck in return. The perpetrator at least had the decency to dial 911 before leaving.

  The judge said, “I guess we’ll have to chalk this up to a lesson about the fragility of recovery from addiction.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” As if she hadn’t warned him.

  “And what do you need from me today, Miss Light?”

  “Nothing imminent. I thought you deserved the earliest possible update on the case status. The child is back in the group home where she resided prior to placement with her father, and the State is trying to secure a foster home for her.”

  “Sad stuff. All right, we’re done here?”

  She had expected Stone to at least ask about the chances of a foster placement before calling it a day.

  “It won’t be easy to find a home for this girl. The prenatal drug exposure, the sexual abuse, and now having apparently witnessed the murder of her father — she was covered in his blood — well, the deck is stacked against her.”

  I’m so sorry, Kiley. I’m so sorry for waking you. For putting you through that. For the blood. But I couldn’t take a chance. According to dispatch, it was only six minutes before police arrived. Six minutes I hope you can’t remember. Six minutes that were nothing compared to what your parents put you through.

  “I thought there was an aunt or something?”

  “The father’s sister. Even she won’t take her. Potential parents assume she’s damaged goods.”

  “What about that offer you made, Miss Light? I don’t suppose that door is still open?”

  Stone laughed, mocking what he still considered her overly dramatic objection to his initial ruling. She joined him with an awkward giggle.

  “Actually, Your Honor, I suppose I should put my money where my mouth is. Yes, I guess if it’s acceptable to you, I am willing to take her home. Just temporarily. The child does know me, after all. Maybe something else will come through in a week or two. And if worst comes to worst, once she starts making progress with speech therapy, it will be easier to find another placement for her.”

  “Well, I’d say that’s very generous of you, Miss Light. You’re sure about this?”

  “Sure, Your Honor. Why not?” Not one of the million little goose bumps she felt beneath her sleeves revealed itself in her voice.

  THAT AFTERNOON, DIANE’S cell pinged as she strapped on her seat belt. She pulled it from her purse and saw a new message on the screen. From Mark again. He couldn’t call or even e-mail like a regular adult. He was like a teenager with the texting. Mindy in Seattle so I’m mister mom this week. Any chance you’re willing to meet Nicole? Know it’s a lot to ask. Trying to find a way to be friends.

  Nicole. At least Mark and Mindy hadn’t named their kid some stupid matching M-name.

  She hit Delete and looked at herself in the rearview mirror. Behind her she saw last night’s purchases: a child safety seat and the biggest, best stuffed raccoon she could find. Maybe they’d call him Coo-Coo Two.

  She was careful as she backed out of the parking space. She was in a hurry but would need to be a more cautious driver now. She was picking up her daughter.

  “WHAT COLOR IS this one?”

  “Red!”

  “How about this one?”

  “Yellow!”

  “And this?”

  “Ahnje!”

  “That’s right. Orange. And all of these flowers are called tulips. Isn’t that a funny name? Tulips.”

&nb
sp; Kiley smiled and pointed at Diane’s mouth. “Two lips.”

  She and Kiley had been together nearly six months. The adoption wasn’t quite finalized, but Diane had nevertheless succumbed to the calls from her old downtown colleagues to bring her daughter for a visit. It was a rare dry day in April, so after leaving the office, they’d gone over to enjoy the bloom of tulips on the Portland Park Blocks. The area’s potpourri of college students and homeless people shared the lush green grass and an occasional park bench.

  She reached into the brown sack in her purse. “What’s this, Kiley?”

  “Coo-kie.”

  Maybe someday her daughter would talk her ears numb, but for now, Diane cherished every word. In light of Kiley’s progress, her speech and cognition therapists said she might even be ready to start kindergarten with her own age group.

  Diane broke off an especially chocolaty piece of cookie for Kiley and kissed her on the forehead. “That’s right. And you are my little cookie monster.” She allowed herself a bite as well. She wasn’t worried about the few extra pounds. It was normal to gain weight with a child around.

  She heard her cell phone beep in her purse. She recognized the office extension on the display screen.

  “Light.”

  “Hey, Diane. It’s Sam Kincaid.” Kincaid was the major-crimes attorney who’d inherited Diane’s caseload last year. “I hope you don’t mind my calling your cell, but I hear you and your sweetie were doing the rounds on your old stomping grounds.”

  “Yeah, we just headed out.” Kincaid was a good lawyer but a little high maintenance for Diane’s taste. They’d never been close.

  “Shoot. I was hoping to catch you. Do you remember your case against Kyle and Rachel Chance? It was a rape one, compelling prostitution, bunch of other charges involving their two-year-old daughter?”

  Twenty-two months.

  Diane had told her friends she’d adopted a daughter but hadn’t mentioned Kiley’s connection to the earlier criminal trial.

  “Not the kind of case you forget.”

  “I didn’t think so. You flipped one of the men — Trevor Williams. He was the father’s former cellmate?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “You ever doubt him?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sorry. I mean, obviously, you wouldn’t have put him on the stand if you doubted his testimony. I guess I’m just digging around here for more information about him. He’s serving the seventy-two months he got as part of his deal with you and is trying to whittle it down by handing us his current cellmate. Williams says the guy confessed to a home invasion last year, but the cellmate doesn’t match the vic’s description. Looks like the story might be bogus.”

  “Well, it wasn’t bogus in my case. Williams’s DNA was found on Kiley Chance’s clothing. That’s why he’s doing six years.”

  “Yeah, I saw that. But he would’ve been looking at nine, minimum, if it weren’t for the plea. As I understand it, the mom said she was the one who made the agreement with Williams after seeing him at a bar and recognizing him from her visits to the prison. Wasn’t Williams the only person to say that both the mom and dad knew what was going on?”

  Rachel Chance had confessed but steadfastly refused to turn on her husband. If only Diane had found another witness. If only someone other than Williams could have placed the parents together during that time window — she would have had a second witness to contradict the Chances’ fabricated story about separation.

  “The mom’s a piece of shit. So’s the dad. And so is Williams. Maybe he’s lying now, but he wasn’t then.”

  “All right. I was all set to cut him loose. Wouldn’t be the first time a jailhouse snitch lied to me. I’ll take a closer look at the cellmate, just in case. Thanks for the info.”

  As she zipped her purse, Diane caught sight of a familiar face near Market Street. She was too far away to hear his words, but after eighteen years as a prosecutor, she could spot hand-to-hand drug transactions across a football field.

  Once the customer had left, she waved in Jake’s direction. Kiley turned to look, then held on to Diane’s leg. Her sweet little brown eyebrows were furrowed.

  “That’s just a friend of your mommy.” She’d have to ask Kiley’s psychologist whether a lingering fear of men was to be expected.

  Jake nodded, but then turned away to walk farther south. She supposed the presence of a deputy district attorney wasn’t good for a drug dealer’s business.

  “You want some more cookie? Can you say cookie?”

  Kiley was still clinging to her leg, but the worry in her eyes had transformed to panic. Her breath quickened, and Diane recognized all the signs of a serious meltdown.

  “What’s wrong, sweetie? Is Mommy’s cookie monster all full? Is it nap time?”

  Her daughter’s gaze moved south, and her grasp tightened. “Jake.”

  “What did you say?”

  Kiley’s lower lip trembled, but her next words were unmistakable. She pointed to a spot between her legs. “Jake. Snake.”

  “How do you know —”

  Snippets of images replayed in Diane’s visual cortex. A pair of Kiley’s soiled pants in a Ziploc bag, the source of the bodily fluids still unidentified. Jake’s frantic banter when she’d approached him about the Chance case. His utter certainty when he’d finally said, “Sorry, DiLi, never seen either one of these ugly crack-heads.” Fourteen pops, no convictions. No convictions meant no blood sample for the DNA data bank.

  She tasted bile and chocolate at the back of her throat. What else had she been wrong about?

  She pictured Trevor Williams on the stand, promising to tell the whole truth. Rachel Chance’s insistence of full responsibility: I’m so ashamed, but I can’t blame this on Kyle. I fell apart when he left me. Kyle Chance hugging his lawyer when Stone allowed him back in Kiley’s life. The lawyer for once appearing pleased to have helped a client.

  As if Chance were standing before her, Diane remembered the clarity on his face when he’d opened the apartment door that night. She saw her daughter on that worn kitchen floor, gazing up with sleepy eyes, oblivious to her father’s blood beginning to soak into the bottom of her flowered flannel pajamas.

  The grass and the tulips shimmered in the sunlight and went out of focus, as though the laws of gravity had been set in abeyance and would not be restored anytime soon.

  BLIND JUSTICE

  BY JIM FUSILLI

  Angie and Turnip were best friends for as long as either could remember, beginning when Angie came to Turnip’s aid, grabbing Weber by his pale hair, bloodying his nose with a roundhouse right, then dribbling his skull on the sidewalk. Bobby Weber was in the first grade, Angie and Turnip in kindergarten at St. Francis of Assisi in downtown Narrows Gate.

  That was twenty years ago, the winter of 1953, and since then nobody picked on Turnip twice.

  Though they were unemployed, neither Angie nor Turnip lacked: Their widowed mothers, both of whom were born in the Apulia region of southern Italy, received pension checks from Jerusalem Steel as well as Social Security. They gave the boys what they wanted and then some, provided they spoke not of the source, figuring if anyone knew they received so much for doing nothing, the flow would be tapped. Whatever extra Angie and Turnip had, the neighborhood figured it came from those little jobs they did on the side.

  Entering Muzzie’s one afternoon, Angie and Turnip were surprised to find, lounging on a platform above the round bar, a woman wearing only a purple boa and shoes that seemed made of glass. Last time they were here, they had seafood with a marinara sauce so spicy Angie knew Big Muzz was hiding two-day-old scungilli.

  “Muzz,” said Turnip as he mounted the three-legged stool, “what happened to the scungilli?”

  “There’s the scungilli,” Little Muzz said, nodding up at the stripper. He was checking pilsner glasses for cracks.

  Propped on an elbow, the droopy blonde filed her nails.

  Turnip held up a finger. “Yeah, but
what’s she do?” he asked the bartender.

  A Ping-Pong ball shot from her fica, just missing his head.

  “That,” Little Muzz said.

  “Who says?” Turnip asked.

  Inching away, Angie already knew the answer.

  “Who?” Little Muzz replied with a dark shrug. “Like you don’t know who.”

  Big Muzz’s voice rumbled from where the kitchen used to be. “Turnip,” he bellowed. “Soldato wants you. Now.”

  Turnip frowned as he faced the red-velvet curtain.

  “Muzz? Now? I ain’t here for three months,” he said. “What’s ‘now’?”

  Little Muzz spoke soft. “Maybe he seen the car.”

  Turnip drove a ’69 canary-yellow Super Yenko Camaro 427 with a V8, an M-22 four-speed manual transmission, and custom-made spoilers front and back. Zero to sixty in 3.7 seconds on the ramp to the turnpike. Now it was parked in the bus stop on the sunny side of Polk Street.

  “Soldato wants me?” Turnip whispered. Without thinking, he tapped the .45 in his jacket pocket.

  “Apparently,” Angie replied, knowing full well the car had nothing to do with it. Big Muzz made a call. Which meant Soldato had an eye out for Turnip. For what, who knows?

  TURNIP GOT HIS handle when some roly-poly ice cream man translated his surname to impress the other kids on line. That evening over dinner, he asked his father why the wiseass threw him a new hook. His father, who knew damned well rapa was Italian for “turnip,” said, “Because you look like a fuckin’ turnip, that big fat ass you got.”

  Later, Angie told Turnip his old man must’ve been thinking of a butternut squash or an eggplant, a turnip being more or less round. Either way, Turnip was displeased and he took to weight lifting to change his body shape. It worked, even if the name stuck, and now he looked like he didn’t need Angie knocking the Webers of the world off his back.

  At about the same time, Angie realized that he wasn’t going to be much bigger than his old man, who went about five and a half feet in work boots. Also, he’d have to wear eyeglasses. But by then, he’d been discovered to have an IQ of 154 and was in a class for the advanced. Soon, it was common knowledge that Angie, the toughest kid in Narrows Gate, was also the smartest.