ZERO HERO (The Kate Huntington Mystery series) (31 page)

            “At least it’s not dangerous anymore,” she said. “Now that Frederico and his thugs are off the streets.”

            Skip snorted. “It won’t take long for another scumbag to fill the gap.”

~~~~~~~~

            The Canfields’ Saturday did not pan out as they’d anticipated. As Kate and the kids were getting ready to leave for Edie’s horseback riding lesson, the house phone rang.

            Kate stepped back into the kitchen to answer it.

            “He’s gone again,” Manny said.

            Kate stifled a curse. “What happened?”

            “He’s been antsy for a couple days now. We went to a meeting yesterday and he seemed to be better. Then he had a nightmare last night. I got up and we talked for awhile. He seemed okay earlier this morning. I laid down to take a nap and when I got up, he was gone.”

            Kate ran a hand through her curls. She needed time to think what to do, and two pairs of curious eyes staring up at her weren’t helping. “Hang on a second... Maria, could you take the kids to Edie’s lesson?”

            “
Si
, no problem.” Maria took a last swipe at the already spotless counter top, then started herding the children toward the front door. “Come,
mis niños
.”

            Edie was resisting being herded. “But Mommy, you were gonna talk to Miss Linda.”

            A stab of maternal guilt. “I know, sweetie. I’ll call her later this afternoon. I’m sorry but I’ve got a situation with a client that I need to deal with.”

            Edie gave her a dirty look but she let herself be led out the door.

            “Sorry, Manny. I’m back. You got any clue where he might have gone?”

            “He said something yesterday about some stuff he had in a storage unit in the basement of his old building. That he’d forgotten to tell Rob about it, and now it was probably gone.”

            “Did he say what was there?”

            “No, but I got the impression some of it had sentimental value.”

            “As good a place as any to start looking for him.”

            A pause on the line. “Uh, as you said before, he’s a grown man.”

            Kate thought about that for a moment. Her logical brain was saying let him go. Then Rob’s depressed face swam into her mind’s eye. She blew out air.

           
Dear Lord, get me through this case with a positive outcome and I promise I’ll never ignore my limitations again.

            “It’s a bit more complicated than that,” she said into the phone. “Rob and I promised both a judge and Detective Anderson that we’d be responsible for him.”

            More silence on the line.

            “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Kate echoed Skip’s line from the other evening.

            Manny chuckled. “Okay, I’ll meet you at Pete’s old place.”

~~~~~~~~

            Skip was feeling more than a little off kilter. He’d thought he had his fear under control, but the idea of going down to The Block again, which was exactly where they were headed, had his stomach in total rebellion.

            He wasn’t happy about working
pro bono
on a Saturday anyway, and especially on a case he was no longer all that committed to. And he most definitely was not looking forward to interviewing smelly, brash prostitutes... for whom he should feel sorry when he really wanted nothing to do with them.

            And to add insult to injury, his damned rental wouldn’t start this morning.

            “This is a mess,” he muttered.

            “What?” Dolph asked from the driver’s seat.

            “I said, this is a mess. We’ve spent I don’t know how many man-hours on this case, for which we’re not getting paid. The client’s an addict who’s hanging on by a thread. We’ve been shot at, cussed out, driven off the road.”

           
Exposed to unwanted lap dances!

            “What the hell are we doing here, Dolph?”

            The older man glanced over at him. “Following up a lead,” he said in an infuriatingly matter-of-fact tone.

            “Yeah, well, I don’t give a rat’s ass anymore. Turn around.”

            Dolph kept driving toward downtown. “We’re almost there.”

            “I said, turn around!”

            Dolph’s eyes never left the road. “This has been a tough case. But my gut says we’re close to a break-through. We need to stay the course, son.”

            Skip’s stomach churned. Dolph’s words echoed in his head, reminiscent of his daddy’s voice.
Ya finish what ya start, son.

~~~~~~~~

            Manny was waiting on the sidewalk when Kate pulled up in front of the apartment building.

            “Talked to the manager,” he said. “He’s already re-rented the apartment. He gave the storage unit key to the new tenant. I knocked on the guy’s door. He said he hadn’t gotten around to cleaning out Pete’s stuff yet.” Manny held up a small padlock key.

            “I take it the new tenant hadn’t seen any signs of him today,” Kate said.

            “Nope.”

            They went into the building and down the stairwell to the basement. The door to a large laundry room was propped open with a brick. Several washers and dryers were chugging away at their duties, but no one was in the laundry area. Beyond it were the storage units, floor-to-ceiling wire cages with padlocks on the doors.

            They found the one that corresponded with Pete’s apartment number. It was half full of boxes and exercise equipment.

            They rummaged through the stuff for a few minutes but found nothing informative.

            “Now what?” Manny asked.

            Kate was thinking she had no clue when she heard the words, “Let’s go down to Jimmy Matthews’ old place,” come out of her mouth.
Where the hell’d that come from?

            Manny shrugged.

            Thirty minutes later they were standing outside the door of what had been Matthews’ apartment. It too had been rented to a new tenant.

            Manny banged on the door. No response. He banged again.

            “Go away,” came faintly from the other side.

            He banged a third time.

            The door opened a crack, a night chain in place. Half a pale face stared out, stringy black hair hanging down a stubbled cheek. “What daya want?”

            “Jimmy Matthews used to live here,” Manny said. “Did you know him?”

            “Nah.” The owner of the pale face tried to close the door but Manny had his foot wedged against it.

            “What da hell is this? Yer the second sonavabitch today to ask ’bout that asshole.”

            “Who was the first son of a bitch?” Manny asked, his foot still firmly in place.

            “Dunno. Kept sayin’ I had to let him in so’s he could look for evidence of somethin’. Tole him to take a hike.”

            “Did he have sandy hair?” Kate asked.

            Pale Face seemed to notice her for the first time. A creepy smile spread across his face. Ignoring her question, he said, “Hey there, mama. Ya wanna rock an’ roll?”

            Kate suppressed a shudder.

            “Seriously, man, you need to get some new material.” Manny took her elbow. “Let’s get the hell outta here.”

            On the next landing, she stopped. “Wait, let me think.” The elusive thought in the back of her brain finally stepped forward into the light. “Pete had storage units on his mind. Let’s check the basement.”

            Manny looked resistant.

            “Come on. He’s not looking for drugs. He’s trying to solve the case.” She headed down the stairs.

            Manny followed.

            The basement of this building was much more chaotic. There was no door on the laundry/storage room, only hinges hanging where a door had once been. Two ancient washers and an even older dryer lined one wall. None were currently in operation. Kate wondered if they even worked. The area was lit by a single lightbulb hanging from a wire in the middle of the ceiling.

            The smell was almost unbearable. Kate held her nose.

            There were storage units, more or less. The wire partitions were rusty and many were doorless. Boxes with layers of dust inches thick were scattered about. It seemed the more recent tenants of the building were not particularly concerned with storing their more precious belongings.

            Kate ventured forward into the storage area. There was one compartment ahead of them that had an open lock looped through a shiny new hasp on the rusty door.

            In the dim light, she saw a second bulb dangling down, cobwebs hanging from its grimy string. Manny reached past her and pulled on it. The dusty bulb came on but did little to improve the poor lighting.

            A rat scuttled past Kate’s foot. She stifled a scream.

            “Kate, maybe–”

            They both froze. Just beyond the open compartment, a sneakered foot was sticking out from between some boxes.

            Manny pushed her aside and drew his gun. He eased forward and around the stack of boxes blocking their view of the shoe’s owner.

            “Aw, shit. Man, what’ve ya done?”

            Heart in her throat, Kate raced over and peered around the boxes. Pete’s still body was stretched out on the floor. She dropped to her knees, almost landing on the syringe next to his hand.

            “Careful, Kate!” Manny kicked at the drug paraphernalia near the body. The syringe skittered across the floor.

            “Call 911!”

            Manny already had his cell phone in his hand. “Damn! No signal. I gotta go outside. You gonna be okay?”

            Kate nodded even though it was a lie. Between the fear and the stench, she was in serious danger of losing her breakfast. She swallowed hard and reminded herself to breathe through her mouth.

            She felt for and found a faint pulse in his neck. Her fingers came away sticky with blood. Probing gently, she found a knot on his skull, just behind his ear.

            He must have hit his head when he passed out.

            Her mind belatedly registered that his skin was clammy.

           
Shock!
She frantically looked around for something to cover him with.
Your jacket, dummy!

            She stood up and yanked it off, then tucked it around him. Looking around again, she spotted a rolled up tarp or tent, covered in dust. She dragged it over and gently lifted his feet onto it.

            She looked down at his pale, still face, and the rest of the drug paraphernalia scattered around him–a metal spoon, disposable lighter and a small vial.

           
Please God! I can’t help him anymore. He’s in Your hands.
A mental pause, then she added,
Get me the hell out of this! Please!

            A huge dark shadow fell over her and Pete. Kate jumped and twisted around. A large form, too tall to be Manny, was blocking the light as it lumbered around the pile of boxes.

            She screamed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

            The form jumped. “It’s me.”

            Kate squinted. She was just barely able to make out the features of the broad face in the dim light. “What are you doing here?”

            Rob stepped closer, looking down at Pete. “My God, what happened?”

            “It looks like he’s overdosed.”

            Rob scowled. “Damn it! We’ve been killing ourselves trying to help him and he’s using again.”

            Again, something was flitting around the edges of Kate’s brain. Her instincts were trying to tell her something, but the turmoil of emotions was getting in the way.

            They heard a clatter out in the laundry area and Manny’s voice calling, “EMTs are here.”

            They stepped back so the EMTs could go to work on Pete. Clutching Rob’s big hand in both of her own, Kate’s mind flitted back and forth between praying and trying to grab the phantom idea floating just out of reach. She looked around the cluttered storage area.

           
The shovel?

            It had just barely registered during the previous sweeps of the room. Its handle was splintered in several places, black strings hanging from one of the rough sections. And it was clean!

            She stared at it. The blade was rusty but it wasn’t coated in dust like everything else.

            Looking around yet again, she saw that some of the boxes had the dust knocked off of them while others didn’t. A few were sitting open. She examined the floor. It was swept clean. Not far from the shovel, a ratty broom also leaned against the wall.

            She turned to Rob “What brought you down here anyway?”

            “Pete called. He was talking fast, not totally making sense. I couldn’t tell if he was excited or scared or what. Now I know he was high.” His tone was disgusted.

            “Hang on. What did he say?”

            “He told me he was down here, that he’d found something that could be evidence, a box of something. He wanted to know if he should bring it to me or call the police. Then I heard a weird noise and the phone went dead.”

            Kate’s eyes swept across the floor. “Do you see a phone?”

            Rob looked around. “No, but–”

            “Let’s go outside. I need to make a call.”

            Out on the sidewalk, Kate spotted a rusty red splotch, several inches in diameter, a few feet from the door. She gestured to Manny who had followed them out.

            “Do me a favor and stand over that.” She pointed to the sidewalk. “When the EMTs come out, tell them it’s evidence and to try not to step there.”

            Manny looked down at the spot and nodded. Rob tilted his head at Kate, his eyebrows raised.

            “I’ll explain in a minute. I need to call Tyrell and get this area processed as a crime scene.” Rob followed as she walked away from the building to place the call.