come on. Did you see that guy?”
SIX
There were lots of hits for Amanda Porgett on Google. She was a journalist and had uncovered the Shoreston Aquarium’s criminal neglect of Giggles, a dolphin that had died. Her story made national headlines, and was the largest scandal that Shoreston had seen in years. They’d said it was cancer, but she’d found no evidence of any treatment for cancer, and no record of any autopsy being done. She also had an informant inside the Aquarium who had documented Giggle’s sad decline. The Aquarium’s executive director and veterinarian both did time for cruelty to animals and criminal negligence.
There was a picture of her at an awards dinner in Cleveland, where she’d received a glass obelisk for her work on the story. She was wearing an ill-fitting black dress with rhinestones, and her brown hair was pulled up into a loose bun with two chopsticks sticking out of it awkwardly. There were also two articles about her murder, and a long obituary in the paper she wrote for, The Shoreston Crier. I printed it all out at ten cents a page for a total cost of two dollars and twenty cents.
I’d been home from the library for an hour or so when Jessie called. “They shot him.” She said. “He’s dead.”
“What?”
“David. They got him outside of Reno sometime early this morning.” She said. “They thought he had a gun so the cops shot him.”
“Are you sure? Where’d you hear that?”
“My mom saw it on the America’s Most Wanted web site. Leave it to my mom to be the bearer of bad news. What’d they have to kill him for? He’s just a big dope. That fucking rich asshole is going to get away with murder now, David can’t defend himself. He’s dead.” I could tell she was crying.
“I can’t believe it-”
“I gotta go,” she said, “some people just came in.” I hung up and flipped on the TV, thinking the news channels might be reporting it, but it didn’t even make the crawl. I watched all the way through a cycle and when they started repeating stories, I turned it off. I rested my head on the arm of the couch and put my feet up. My friend was dead and I had a sink full of dirty dishes.
My sleep was interrupted by the telephone a while later. I looked at it, thinking it was probably Jessie, but I didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID so I let the machine pick up. Whoever it was didn’t leave a message. I felt uneasy from a dream I couldn’t quite remember, so I decided to stay awake. I watched TV for awhile and went to the supermarket and got dinner before going to pick up Jessie from work.
After we ate I showed her the papers I’d printed at the library. “Maybe it had something to do with Giggles the dolphin.” She said after studying a couple of pages.
“How so?” I asked.
“I dunno, maybe there’s some connection between the aquarium’s executive director and Junior Pierson. Amanda Porgett might’ve been on to some shady deal between them. He might’ve killed her to keep her quiet.”
“Yeah, but there’s no money in mistreating a dolphin. It’s just cruelty.”
“Did you look up Junior Pierson too?” She asked. “I don’t see any papers about him.”
“You told me to look up Amanda Porgett, not Junior Pierson.” I said. “I did exactly what you asked me to do.”
“I wanted you to see if there was a connection between them. How would you do that just looking up one of them?”
“You wanted a connection between her and David. And what difference does it make? David’s dead.” I was going to continue but the phone was ringing. I picked it up and hit the button without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?”
“Man, am I glad you picked up.”
It took a second for the voice to register in my head. “David? Is that you?” I asked. Jessie rushed over, putting her head near the phone so she could hear. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“No it was Rico. It was Rico in the car.” David said.
“Baby Rico?” I asked. “How?”
“I gave him the car. I owed him some money, and I knew he’d take the car and try to go see his girl in Oakland, I figured it would draw the cops offa me and get rid of the car you know? I thought it was a win win.”
“Fuck.” I said.
“I know. I figured the worst that could happen was he’d get thrown in jail for a couple of days till they figured out who he was. At most he’d get what? Receiving stolen property? That wouldn’t have been a big deal.” David said.
“They still think it was you.” I said.
“I know, and I hope they go on thinking that, it gives me time.” He said.
“Time for what?”
“To figure a way out of this.” He said. “I’m one of America’s Most Wanted now. I’m fuckin’ meat. This whole shit is a set up, I didn’t do none of it.”
“Okay, so what happened?” I asked. “You stole the guy’s car, you have to admit that. And you had that other lady’s camera in your room.”
“That’s my uncle Freddie man, he fucked me.” David said. “He’s behind the whole thing. He gave me her credit card too. I guess he thought I’d be stupid enough to go out and use it without doing any research. I always google the names on the credit cards for this very reason. I wasn’t going to use it after I found out she’d been shot in the head. I tried to be cool about it and ask Freddie where the card come from, and he says a guy named Steve Stetson got it for him. Right then I knew he was trying to set me up. He gives me the guy’s first and last name.”
“It’s a fake sounding name too.” I pointed out.
“Yeah imagine me in a police questioning room saying the card came from Steve Stetson. Sounds fake as hell. Freddie’s a fucking lowlife man, my own uncle, trying to set me up for a murder.”
“So you chopped off his finger?”
“It wasn’t revenge.” He said. “I had to know who really killed her man, that information could’ve kept me out of jail. I finally convinced him to tell me the truth.”
“You can be real convincing.”
“Yeah but they reconnected that shit. I guess I shoulda threw it in the lake. He told me it was Junior Pierson. I shoulda went to the cops, but the guy’s rich so I thought I could get paid. I called the dickhead and told him that not only was I not going to be his punk, but that I’d go to the police and the media with what I knew if he didn’t pay me. I told him that for starters I was gong to take his car. That fuckin’ guy was getting off easy.”
“So what happened? How’d his wife end up dead?” I asked.
“How should I know? I never saw her. First I heard of it was when you told me. Now I’m set up for two murders instead of one. Thank god you called me when you did or I’d be in jail right now.”
“Did you shoot Junior?” I asked.
“Hell no. I didn’t even see any fucking gun while I was there, and I don’t carry one, even when I’m working. My uncle must’ve shot him. Or else he shot himself, I don’t know. You gotta help me man, I’m fucked.” He said. “You believe me right?”
“Yeah. I believe you,” I said, “and Jessie didn’t buy any of it from the get-go.”“She’s a cool girl Ben, you should hang onto that one. I don’t know how much longer I can stay out of sight. Can you do something for me?”
“What did you have in mind?” I asked.
“I need something against my uncle or that Junior fuck. It has to be solid too. I didn’t do anything, but right now I have no way to prove it, it’s just my word against theirs.”
“Why would your uncle do this to you?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe he thought I knew too much about his business.” He said.
“Hotels?”
“Oh man, come on.” He said. “It’s a money laundering operation. He takes a tiny little percentage, which actually winds up being a lot with all the money that goes through there.”
“Where’s the money come from?” I asked.
“Drugs.” He said. “I mean I think it’s drugs. The amount of cash that comes in, it has to be. I can’t imagine wha
t else.”
“You don’t know for sure?”
“No, I was just basically a bodyguard. I sat in the car with my uncle while he drove money around. That’s it.”
“Where’d he pick up the money?” I asked.
“Safe deposit box at the bank on Fourth Street, -PG Financial.”
“You ever hear of Amanda Porgett or Junior Pierson before all this?” I asked.
“No.” He said. “And now I’m supposed to have killed the both of ‘em, and for what? A little money? A camera? A car? I don’t need to kill someone to get a car. But all those arrows are pointing to me. And the cops are out to kill my ass, look what they did to Baby Rico.” There was a strange gurgling sound on the other end.
“What’s the matter?”
“I got my little cousin killed man.” He was taking ragged breaths and sniffing. “I fucking deserve to go to jail for that shit. I should just turn myself in.”
“No.” Jessie said taking the phone from me. “It’s not your fault David, we’re gonna figure this out. It’s not the end of the world okay?”
“Yeah.” He said barely audibly. “Thanks Jess.”
“David,” I took the phone back from her, “just stay hidden alright? We’ll see what we can do.”
“I’m at the-”
“Don’t tell me where you are.” I interrupted. “I don’t want to know. Just call back in a couple of days. And don’t forget that it’s not just the cops after you. I hope you’re not somewhere your uncle knows about.”
“You think I’m stupid?” He said. “I’m invisible here, don’t worry.”
“Alright, just stay that