NOT MUCH HAD CHANGED in the six hours plus since Gunner had last seen Zina at the hospital. She’d spent most of the day drifting in and out of sleep, her grandfather said when Gunner called to check in, and she’d done little in the way of talking to anyone, especially to Detectives Luckman and Yee of the LAPD, who had paid her a second visit upon learning from her doctors that she’d regained consciousness.
“Did she tell them what she told us? That her mother did all the shooting?” Gunner asked.
“Yes. But they didn’t believe her any more than we did.”
“Of course they didn’t. It’s a lie, Uncle. It’s impossible.”
“The girl’s still heavily sedated. She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. What reason does she give Noelle for shooting both her and Del? Even if they didn’t believe her, the police would have asked her for a motive.”
“She said her mother was angry, that’s all. That Noelle was a—I won’t use the word she used—an evil so-and-so who hated her and wanted her dead.”
“And Del?”
“He got shot trying to stop her from shooting Zina.”
“It’s bullshit. All of it. She’s either trying to protect herself or somebody else.”
“Yes, but who?”
“Did she say anything else? Has she asked for anyone by name?”
“No. She asked for her cell phone once and got up set when we told her the police have it. We asked who she wanted to call, but she wouldn’t say. Who do you think she’s trying to protect, Aaron?”
Gunner knew he was asking for trouble, putting this bug in his uncle’s ear, but he couldn’t see his way around it. “Glenn Hopp. Del’s old assistant. Zina’s the reason he lost his job.”
“Zina? I don’t—” But then he did. “You don’t mean he was seeing my granddaughter?”
“Apparently so. Noelle learned about it before Del did, but once he found out, Del fired him immediately.”
“And that’s why he killed my son? Because he got fired?”
“Hold on, Uncle. You’re jumping the gun again.”
“I’m doing nothing of the kind!”
“Having a motive to kill Del doesn’t magically place Hopp in Zina’s house Monday morning. Nor does it explain why he would want to kill Zina and Noelle, as well.”
“That’s for the police to decide. Have you told them about this man yet?”
Here it was: the headache he’d brought upon himself. “No. Not yet.”
“Why in God’s name not?”
“Because there’s somebody I want to talk to first. Somebody who might be able to give Hopp an alibi for the time of the shooting. There’s no point dragging him into this if his involvement was a physical impossibility.”
“Who is this person you’re referring to? I want a name.”
“I’ll give you her name after I’ve spoken to her. And if she can’t prove Hopp was elsewhere when Del and Noelle died, I’ll turn Hopp over to the police myself. Personally.” In the space of his uncle’s hesitation, he sealed the deal: “You have my word.”
Another moment of silence. “The funeral will be held Monday,” Daniel Curry finally said. “Holy Cross Cemetery at 11 a.m. Corinne will want your help with the invite list.”
“Of course. Anything I can do.”
Johnny Rivera’s first question was the one people always asked Gunner, under similar circumstances: “How’d you get this number?” Like that wasn’t how private investigators spent half their time, figuring out how to reach people who didn’t particularly want to be reached.
Rivera had sounded annoyed. Gunner told him he’d gotten the number from Rivera’s new employer, Samuel Evans. “If it makes you feel any better, I had to ask more than once.”
It didn’t make Rivera feel any better at all. Over the last three hours, Gunner had called his cell twice and sent him a garbled, all-thumbs text, and Rivera had every right to assume the barrage would continue until he broke down and hit Gunner back. Having Gunner insist on a face-to-face, rather than simply ask his questions over the phone, only nudged Rivera’s petulance closer to the edge.
“This can’t wait until tomorrow at the shop?”
“It could, but I’d rather it didn’t.”
“All right. But you’re gonna have to come to me. Wife’s got the car right now.”
Gunner drove out to his home, a little two-bedroom cottage in Highland Park that sat behind a low cobblestone wall, at the crest of a tall berm of well-tended grass. Night had fallen as he drove and he took the winding steps up to the front door with care, nothing but a single light in one front window to show him the way. The porch was dark and inhospitable. Gunner pushed the doorbell button once, twice, and heard only silence on the other side of the door each time. He knocked instead.
“Yeah?”
It sounded like Rivera, but Gunner couldn’t be sure. He gave his name and the deadbolt was tripped, the door pulled open.
“Come on in,” Rivera said. He had slippers on his stockinged feet and a can of Coors in his hand.
He led Gunner back to the source of the only light on in the house, a ceiling lamp hanging over a dining room table strewn with playing cards and cash. Two other middle-aged Latinos sat at the table, cards in hand and beers at the ready, watching Gunner enter the room like something that had slithered in on its belly. They were different physical types—the bald one was built like a lifelong gym rat, and the man with the goatee cast the same rotund shadow as a snowman—but either could have made a good living playing members of the Mexican Mafia in the movies. Perhaps, Gunner thought, because that was exactly what they were.
“I didn’t know I was interrupting poker night,” Gunner said.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Rivera said. “We were just fucking around. Hector, Joe, this is the guy I was telling you about. The detective who’s working for Harper.”
Hector and Joe mumbled equally apathetic greetings.
“You want a beer?” Rivera asked.
“No, thanks. Look, if this is a bad time—”
“You said it was important. That it couldn’t wait until tomorrow.” Rivera retook his own seat at the head of the table. “So let’s hear it.”
“It might be better if we spoke in private.” He addressed Rivera’s friends. “No offense.”
“I’ve got nothing to hide and these are my boys. Whatever you want to ask me, ask.”
Gunner didn’t like it, but the man who owned the house made the rules. “I saw Harper today. He says there was a gun in Darlene’s office and that you knew about it.”
Rivera tossed a bill into the kitty, picking up the game as if he’d never left it. “Raise.” To Gunner: “Is that right?”
“He said you threatened a man with it once. Pete Burdzecki.”
The game went on, cards and money crossing the table in their turn, Rivera and his boys mumbling their plays. It was as if Gunner had never come to the front door. “Pete? Why would I want to threaten Pete?”
“That’s a good question, but not the one I came here to ask. What I want to know is, why did you lie about the gun?”
Rivera didn’t flinch but Hector and Joe both looked at him at once, each conveying the same unequivocal message: Gunner had crossed the line. Which of course had been his intent. There was nothing else to call a liar but a “liar,” and he couldn’t do his job and worry about Rivera’s honor at the same time.
“Look here, home—” the fat man with the goatee started to say.
“Joe. Go get some more chips for the table,” Rivera said, cutting him off. “And bring me another brew.” Joe didn’t move, so Rivera added, “Do it.”
The fat man finally went, disappearing into the kitchen, but not until he’d held his glare on Gunner as long as he could without walking into a wall.
Rivera put his cards down flat on the table. “That was very rude, Mr. Gunner. Come into a man’s house and insult him in front of his friends. You could get hurt doing that kind of shit.”
“My apologies. But I’m not getting paid to show off my people skills. I’m getting paid to keep Harper out of prison, possibly for the rest of his life. If there was a gun in Darlene’s office before she was murdered and you flashed it once at Burdzecki, I owe it to Harper to ask why you played dumb when I asked you about it yesterday.”
“Maybe I played dumb because I didn’t want you jumping to any false conclusions. Like, if Johnny knew about the gun and liked to wave it around at people, he must’ve been the one who shot Darlene with it.”
“You saying that’s a reach?”
“I’m saying it’s bullshit. I had no reason to hurt Darlene. Harper’s the one who threatened to kill her, not me.”
Gunner was beginning to wonder what was taking Rivera’s large friend Joe so long to get chips and beer from the kitchen.
“So if you had no reason to kill her, why bother to lie to me about the gun? What the hell do you care what I think?”
Rivera didn’t have a ready answer. He and the man named Hector just sat there, trying to see who could glare a hole between Gunner’s eyes first. And there was still no sign of Joe.
“It wasn’t Darlene’s gun,” Gunner said, because no other explanation would come to mind. Rivera’s silence held.
“Admitting you handled the gun that killed Darlene would have been one thing. But copping to it being yours would have been something else entirely.”
“Okay, so the piece is mine. What does that prove? Darlene was getting jammed up by some crazy fuck in the shop every day, so I brought something in for her to defend herself with. Fuck me. I risked getting violated to help the lady out, and this is the thanks I get. Chingado!”
Rivera and Hector addressed each other in a rapid burst of Spanish. What little Gunner could understand was clear enough: What should we do with this black motherfucker?
He tried to remember the last time he’d seen a full kitchen with only one way in or out and came up empty. If Joe eased up behind him now to put a knife to this throat, having slipped out the kitchen by an unseen door, Gunner wouldn’t spend the last moments of his life being surprised.
“You didn’t have to admit the gun was yours. All you had to do was tell the police Darlene kept it in the office. They’ve been trying to pin its ownership on Harper from the get-go and it would’ve done wonders for his case for them to know it wasn’t his.”
“Fuck Harper’s case. I did what I had to do. I tell the cops the truth about the gun, I become suspect number one, and everything I’ve worked for for the last nine years goes to shit.”
“Not necessarily.”
Rivera jumped to his feet, kicked his chair to one side. “Bullshit!”
Gunner watched Rivera’s ese Hector to see how far south things were about to go. If the bald man with all the muscles followed Rivera’s lead and got to his feet, the Ruger pressing against the small of Gunner’s back would have to come out. He usually fought the urge to carry the weapon, but tonight he’d gone with it, still feeling the aftereffects of his unnerving encounter with Zina Curry’s neighbor Gordito the day before. What would happen now, if he had to flash the Ruger for these two men to see, would be anyone’s guess.
Hector remained seated at the table but there was still no sign of Joe. Gunner wasn’t going to wait any longer for him to show. He started to reach for the Ruger…
…and heard a distant toilet flush. He left the gun where it was.
“I think I’ll ask one or two more questions and then go, before somebody loses their head,” he said.
“That would be a good idea,” Rivera agreed. “Ask your questions and get the fuck out of here.”
“Burdzecki. Why did you draw down on him that day at the store?”
The fat man named Joe finally reappeared, entering the dining room the same way he’d left it, a beer bottle in one hand and a bag of potato chips in the other. Rivera paid him no mind. “Because he’s crazy as fuck, that’s why. And I don’t like him doing business in my store. He can do whatever he likes out in the lot, but not inside. I’m a parolee, I can’t be around that bullshit.”
“What kind of bullshit?”
“Drugs, man. What do you think? Pete’s a fuckin’ dope peddler. He’s been slinging shit out of Darlene’s shop for years.” He saw the look of surprise come over Gunner’s face but put it to rest before it could lead to anything: “Happy now? You asked your question and I answered it. Now get the hell out of my house.”
He sat back down at the table and picked up his hand. “Joe, where the fuck is my beer?”