***
Rob sat back in his chair as he flicked his finger across the screen, seeing the photographs John and McKenzie had taken. His face was drawn and forehead wrinkled in something between betrayal and sadness. He put the pictures in a stack on the coffee table and shook his head, his eyes scanning the papers and documents in front of him.
“That boy’s eyes always haunted me,” Rob mumbled as he sat back.
“Whose?” McKenzie watched him carefully, knowing that Rob rarely made a scene about anything.
“Lorenzo Mendez. I can finally put a name to the face that stared at me from the back of a white SUV. He watched me kill his dad, watched as we pinged bullets off the side of the vehicle trying to hit the tires. They drove away and got past the roadblocks and whatever chase vehicles were sent. Word was the child was Marcello’s son and he’d been sent back to Cuba.” Rob’s jaw worked up and down as he chewed his gum.
“How do you keep that crap from stickin’ to your dentures?” McKenzie narrowed his eyes at Rob.
“Easy, I still have real teeth. You may call us the old farts, but you are the oldest of all of us, Cap’n.” Rob gave him a halfhearted smile and salute as he sat up. “So Bobby’s got himself involved in a shit storm, and unknowingly, I am probably the reason for half the downpour. I knew he was into something, though, drugs or something. He looked like a disaster the last few times I saw him.”
“I assume you want to keep the police clear, still?” John turned to a clean sheet in his notebook.
“Of course. Bobby may still end up hurt or arrested by the time this is over, but I know how these guys work. They smell the boys in blue and my grandkids will be fed to sharks, and then I end up in jail for killing the bastards myself.”
“What about the ex?” McKenzie sighed.
“Yeah, she’s gonna be a problem, probably, though I don’t blame her. I’ll see what I can do, but short of lying to her and it being used against me later when everything does go to shit, I don’t know what I can really do but play stupid.”
“In the meantime, I guess John and I will go revisit Marissa and try to refrain from commenting on her impeccable housekeeping skills. Tilt our hand a little, see if she’ll talk. If not, then we get to go to stalker status while we see what the lil’ lady is up to. Especially after we have our sit down with her.”
John’s mouth twitched downward as he glanced at McKenzie’s leg. McKenzie ignored him and gathered up their papers. Rob shook his head as he kept chewing away at his gum, which was beginning to annoy McKenzie as it always had. John put everything in the laptop bag and stood, as McKenzie searched for something comforting to say to Rob.
“If we find your boy before you do, I’ll kick his ass for you so all you will have to do is the final whack of your cane to his head.” John closed his eyes and sighed, shaking his head at McKenzie as he turned to leave.
“Thanks, Cap’n, but I would rather the entire beating come from my cane. And if I don’t get my grandkids back soon, it’ll become evidence of my homicidal tendencies.” Rob’s voice was flat as he stared off, deep in thought.
McKenzie nodded and followed John out to their truck. John groaned as McKenzie headed back toward Bobby’s house.
“I swear if you get us killed, I will haunt you in the afterlife.”
“Well, missy there was obviously concerned enough to call someone with money as soon as I left last time. If she knows that we have more info, I doubt she’ll hesitate to at least feed us some bullshit to throw off the trail.”
“If her fancy friends don’t show up while we’re there. Or she decides to answer the door with her cereal box gun.”
“You know, when I was younger, cereal boxes had cheap, crap toys. Why couldn’t mine have had something that cool.”
“Because cereal companies aren’t evil and giving every child who eats a certain type of cereal the ability to kill one another was a bad idea. And your parents weren’t connected to a crazy cartel.”
“You really love to blow the steam out of all my happy thoughts, don’t you?”
“Only when they’re ridiculous.” John watched out the window as McKenzie glanced over at him, smirking at his cohort’s serious expression.
Once again the driveway was empty. McKenzie pulled all the way in and shut the truck off.
“I don’t know if it will be better for you to wait at the truck or go in with me. Two people would be more intimidating than one, but if trouble starts, it’d probably be better to have someone with the truck.”
“Well, since you’re carrying and I’m not ‘cuz I left my gun in my bag, I think I’ll stick with you,” as John glanced nervously at the house.
McKenzie nodded briefly before getting out of the truck and heading up to the door, John following behind him. Once again he stood on the stop, knocking on the wobbly screen door frame. He could hear footsteps going to the window, but she didn’t answer the door. McKenzie knocked again and then stepped back to look at the window. The curtain twitched and then the front door opened.
“What do you want, now?” She opened the door enough to poke her head out and seemed taken back with John’s presence.
“Marissa Mendez? I think we need to have a conversation about your boyfriend and his children, and their mother callin’ the police by tonight.”
McKenzie saw the hesitation on her face as her eyes twitched back and forth between the two of them. Two old white guys must not have registered much of a threat as she sighed and stepped back, opening the door and motioning them in.
John followed McKenzie inside. She let the screen door close, but left the front door open, which was preferable to McKenzie. He stood next to John as she walked past, glancing at him with narrowed eyes. Coming to the couch, she leaned back against it, crossing her arms.
“So start conversating.”
“That’s not a word…” John trailed off as he caught McKenzie’s shake of his head. Marissa glared at him as he lowered his head, feeling flustered.
“Marissa, we know who you are, we know Bobby lives here, we know the kids were here before they went missing, and we know either you or Bobby or both are mixed up with drugs. Bobby’s father is an investigator as well and is also on the case. Bobby’s ex is pretty pissed she can’t call her kids and that they are, in fact, missin’ in the legal way.”
Shrugging and rolling her eyes, she said nothing in response.
“You do realize this is the first house the cops will come to. With the evidence that has been found, they know the kids were here last and they will search the house and they will take you in for questioning. Do you understand that?” McKenzie squinted at the woman, waiting for a response.
“Honestly, I don’t really believe you, and even if you are telling the truth, I don’t know why I should be worried. There’s nothing in here for them to find.”
“No cocaine, guns, ammunition? No meet-up notes or proof you’re connected to a cartel?” McKenzie had begun to raise his voice, mostly surprised at how unfazed she seemed.
With those words, though, she became completely still, her eyes locking onto McKenzie’s.
“What do you mean? I’m not connected to any cartel and I don’t have no cocaine in this house.”
“Uh, yes you do, and it’s poorly hidden. As for the cartel, your brother and your father are well known names around the Narc units here.”
“My father’s dead.”
“Yes, I know, but your brother’s not and the word on the street is he’s tryin’ to follow daddy’s footsteps, although he’s seemed to have strayed into more of the punk-thug-drug thing.”
“You don’t speak about my family.” She stood, her hands fisted at her sides. “Get out of my house.”
“I’m tellin’ you, right now, Marissa, if you don’t help us, you will go to jail and the cops will be lookin’ at you and your brother a lot closer. Not to mention the fact of two grandkids of a prominent investigator are missin’ and you as one of the last people to see them. If
you do not help, you will end up at Lowell Correctional Institution for women at Ocala. And that is not only the largest, but the absolute worst women’s joint in the country. Think about it.”
Her eyes flicked toward the kitchen and the toward the screen door, McKenzie couldn’t tell if she was planning an escape route or just finding her nerve.
“Tell us about the kids, when you saw them last, where they went, everything.” John spoke up, keeping his voice soft and friendly.
“How do I know you won’t let the cops arrest me anyways?”
“We can’t promise they won’t come here, but now you have time to clear out the boxes and cans in your kitchen and clean up the baggies around the house. They can’t arrest you without evidence.” McKenzie motioned toward the kitchen as he spoke, watching her eyes grow wide. “We’ve already checked the place out, we have pictures, and I’m a licensed private investigator.”
“You tricked me?”
“No, we warned you and we are tryin’ to help you so that we can do our job, which is to find the kids. I don’t care about, although I don’t respect, the drugs. I just want to find the kids.” McKenzie nodded as he spoke, trying to look at her with sympathy to get his point across. He worried about the time it was taking and whether or not she had made any phone calls before they came in.
“Okay, I got that. Then I have some house cleaning to do, so you need to go.”
“No, you see, I can do a citizen’s arrest and call the cops and have them look over your filthy home. Or you can tell me what I want to hear and then get your cleaning done before the ex calls them in.”
“That’s bullshit, loco.” She sighed, shaking her bent head as she leaned back against the couch. “The last time I saw them kids was with Bobby. He left with them and when he came back, they weren’t with him. I figured he got tired of them bitching and moaning about everything and took them home.”
“They weren’t struggling or anything when they left?” John questioned.
“No, he told them they were gonna go eat out at some place and so they went.”
“What about Bobby, was he acting strangely?” McKenzie was beginning to realize this could still lead to nothing.
“How stupid are you? I’m not the one who does the coke. He’s always acting strangely. Either he’s itching for a fix or he’s high.”
“So which was he doing that night?”
“Lately, he’s always high.”
McKenzie nodded, deciding he wouldn’t get much more from her.
“Alright, well, that’s enough for them to focus on Bobby, and maybe they’ll leave you alone.” McKenzie nodded and headed for the door.
Marissa stood up, unsure of what to do as they walked out. McKenzie reached for the door handle of the truck when he glanced up and saw her standing at the door watching them.
“Hey! I hope you find the kids. I don’t like people doing shit to kids, and even though they’re some privileged little fucks, they don’t deserve the bad shit that’s out there.”
“Thank you.” McKenzie nodded at her before ducking back into the truck, and to John’s relief, they drove off.