Chapter 12
Twelve
We took Mendoza’s car. He insisted. I don’t know whether he was afraid of having me drive, or whether he just thought it was more appropriate to take the official car, but there it was.
The first place we went was the alley behind the discount tobacco store. There was a couple of them on Thompson Lane, but Mendoza must know the address, because he drove straight to it.
It wasn’t anything to look at. Just a paved stretch of blacktop lined by brick buildings on one side and bordered by a chain link fence on the other.
On the far side of the fence was a field that at one time must have been host to some sort of building.
Part of the foundation still stuck up between the tufts of dry grass and straw.
The alley itself sported the usual array of trash cans and stacks of empty boxes. Behind one of the stores, a swarthy man with large ears was smoking. His eyes followed the path of the car as we rolled past, and I fought back a shiver.
Mendoza glanced over. “Problem?”
I figured, if I told him a random guy with a cigarette had given me a chill, he’d take that as proof that he shouldn’t have let me come. So I smiled brightly. “No.”
Mendoza grunted and pulled the car to a stop. I opened my door and got out.
There wasn’t much to see. The store was a low-slung one story, with a strong steel door on the back, and no windows, most likely to discourage anyone from trying to break in. Tobacco and beer are popular items.
Mendoza nodded when I said so. “Safe spot to dump a body. Even if somebody’d been inside, they wouldn’t have been able to see anything.”
No. I glanced around. “I don’t suppose there are cameras?”
“Not in this part of town,” Mendoza said. And added, “I wish.”
I wished, too. A camera might have shown us who left Zachary here.
“You said this is a safe spot to dump a body.” Not that Zachary was a body. Although he had one. “Do you think the beating happened somewhere else?”
“Most likely,” Mendoza said. He was looking around the alley with his hands on his hips. The gorgeous designer suit and polished shoes were in sharp contrast to our less than stellar surroundings. “Not enough blood for it to have happened here.”
I suppressed another shiver. “You’d know.”
He shot me a quick look. “It’s my job.”
“That’s what I meant,” I said. “Although usually your victims are dead. Zachary isn’t.”
He shook his head. “They weren’t trying to kill him. If they were, they’d have made sure he was dead before they dumped him.”
“Bar brawl gone wrong?”
“Not likely,” Mendoza said. “People who brawl in bars don’t generally cover each other’s heads with sacks before they whale in.”
Perhaps not. I haven’t been in enough bar brawls to know. “What, then?”
He shrugged. “They clearly wanted to make sure he couldn’t describe them. It looks more like punishment. Or maybe interrogation.”
“What would anyone interrogate Zachary over?”
“No idea,” Mendoza said. “The Russian girl?”
Anastasia? Maybe. That’s the reason he’d been down here, in this part of town.
I took a couple of steps back and looked up and down the alley. The guy with the cigarette was still there, and watching us. “Is there anywhere around here where he might have been? Before he ended up in the alley?”
“Any number of places, I imagine,” Mendoza said.
“Let me rephrase my question. When he left last night, it was to see whether he could find a place where the girl, Anastasia, might have worked. We talked about strip clubs, but I suppose there are other possibilities, too. Is there anything like that around here?”
“Nothing I know of,” Mendoza said, “but I don’t work vice.”
“Different department?”
“Special investigations,” Mendoza said. “Narcotics, gangs, gambling, and organized prostitution. In criminal investigations, we mostly deal with homicides and missing persons.”
“Like Steven.”
“More like missing persons we don’t assume are in bed with someone other than their spouses.”
Right. “What about kidnapping and ransom notes? Who handles that?”
“In this case,” Mendoza said, “me. Usually, that’s a federal crime. The FBI takes over. But since it’s connected to the homicide I’m working on, it’s mine.”
Lucky him. “And Zachary?”
“Is mine, too,” Mendoza said, “by virtue of being connected to the homicide I’m working on.”
“So for you, does it all come back to Mrs. Grimshaw?”
He hesitated. “Not necessarily. I have a feeling it’ll turn out to come back to the girl. But I can’t be sure.”
“Did Araminta Tucker give you the impression that she’d be capable of driving to Crieve Hall to shoot her sister-in-law?”
Mendoza’s lips quirked, and a dimple made a quick appearance in one cheek. My stomach swooped. “Araminta Tucker gave me the impression that she’d be capable of pretty much anything. She propositioned me.”
That didn’t even surprise me. And not only because it was Araminta Tucker. “That probably happens to you a lot. Doesn’t it? The blonde news reporter yesterday…”
“Not in old folks’ homes,” Mendoza said. “Can we get this conversation back on track?”
I wasn’t aware that it had left the track, but if he wanted to talk about Zachary, I’d talk about Zachary. “I think we should talk to the guy down there, with the cigarette.”
“Why?” Mendoza said.
“Because he’s been watching us since we drove into this alley. And because he’s a couple doors down from where the… from where Zachary was dumped. He might know something.”
“Knock yourself out,” Mendoza said.
“Me?” He wanted me to go talk to the guy? When I’d said that I thought we should talk to him, I’d really meant that I thought Mendoza should.
“You’re the one who said that people might not want to talk to a cop,” Mendoza said. “And you’re the one with the PI license. If you’re going to investigate crimes, you’re going to have to get used to talking to people.”
“I wasn’t planning to investigate crimes,” I said. “I was planning to investigate cheating spouses.”
“Surprise,” Mendoza answered.
Right. I glanced down the alley and took a breath. “Wish me luck.”
He didn’t, but he nodded. I could feel his eyes at my back as I headed down the alley toward the rear of the store where the guy was hanging out, smoking.
He watched me approach with dark, expressionless eyes. I smiled brightly. “Good afternoon.”
He didn’t answer. “My name is… um… Nancy.” Probably better not to give him my real name, come to think of it. “Do you work here?”
He sat just to the left of a steel door.
There was no sign on or above the door to indicate what kind of business it was.
The only ornamentation was a small buzzer next to the door.
I guess if you were back here, and you pushed the button, it was because you knew what kind of establishment you wanted to get into.
I also deduced that it probably wasn’t the kind of business that took deliveries of any kind. If they did, the back door would have been more clearly marked. The discount tobacco store proclaimed, in big letters, what it was, even here in the rear.
The man didn’t answer. He just kept looking at me with unblinking, dark eyes.
“I’m looking for information about what happened last night,” I said. “My son,” the lie came more smoothly this time, “was beaten up and left outside the back of the tobacco store.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Were you here last night?”
He shook his head. So at least he understood what I was saying. I guess that was something. “What about this morning?”
He shook his head.
“You’re here now.”
He stared at me. I gave up. “Thanks for your time.” I turned on my heel. Thanks for nothing.
He watched me trudge back up the alley. Unlike Mendoza, I was pretty sure this guy was looking at my butt.
The detective was waiting where I’d left him. He arched his brows at me. “Anything?”
“No. I don’t know whether he can’t speak, or just didn’t want to speak to me. But he said—or I asked and he shook his head—that he wasn’t here last night. Or this morning.”
Mendoza glanced down the alley. “So he knows nothing.”
“Or won’t share what he knows.” If he did know anything. “I told him Zachary’s my son. So if you decide to go talk to him, or you come across him again, keep that in mind.”
“If he wouldn’t talk to you,” Mendoza said, “he isn’t going to talk to me. Let’s go.” He headed for the car. I followed.
We drove down the rest of the alley, and around to the front of the building.
In case I haven’t mentioned it, it was a strip mall.
A long row of stores stuck together. The discount tobacco store was toward one end.
The storefront the guy had been sitting outside turned out to belong to a dry cleaner.
There was also a Radio Shack, a Chinese restaurant, and the ubiquitous Great Clips hairdresser.
“Did you say there’s a Russian grocery around here?” Mendoza asked.
I nodded. “That’s what Zachary said.”
“Any idea where?”
I didn’t. “But if you’ll hold on a few seconds, I’ll look it up.”
Mendoza held on while I accessed Google on my phone. “A quarter of a mile that way.” I pointed right. Mendoza turned the car in that direction.
Two minutes later, we pulled to a stop outside the Russian market. Mendoza cut the car engine. “Let’s go.”
“You’re coming in?”
“I’m going to talk to whoever’s here,” Mendoza said, “and ask whether they were open late enough last night that Zachary might have stopped by. And if he did, if he said anything. You can look around. You probably think more like he does.”
I wouldn’t be too sure about that. I was twenty years older than Zach, and female. Mendoza was only thirteen or fourteen years older, and male. Chances were that he thought more like Zach.
But he was the detective, and he had the badge and gun. I had neither. So when we walked into the store, he headed for the cashier and I started wandering, trying to see the store through Zachary’s eyes.