Joel Goldman - No way out

“The way that Eberto is laid out, it looks like he was shot in the back, probably while he was trying to get out of the store.”

“Coroner says Staley was killed during the night, an hour either side of midnight. Eberto was shot later, probably around dawn.”

“You think the shooter spent the night in the store and killed Eberto on his way out this morning?”

“The timing works, but why stick around after killing Staley?”

I thought of his son, imagined him on the run, coming back to the store for more money or to get even with his father for smacking him and for a lifetime of other slights. It was easy to picture them arguing, Nick reverting to form, belittling Brett, his son pulling a gun, Nick laughing, daring him to shoot, both of them astounded when he did. Brett could have been drunk, high, or both and passed out until Eberto woke him.

“Maybe he had no place else to go.”

“What killer wouldn’t have a better place to go than the murder scene?”

“Brett Staley,” I said, telling him that Nick had caught his son trying to rob the store and laying out my scenario.

Carter listened, interrupting with the right questions. “That’s as good a take as any. What were you talking to Nick Staley about in the first place?”

“You know the missing-kids case Adrienne Nardelli is handling, the Martin kids?”

“Yeah. She told me how you broke the case on that other missing kid, Timmy Montgomery. Makes me almost want to take back all the things I’ve said about you. How did you get from there to Staley’s Market?”

“Peggy Martin was cheating on Jimmy. She filed for divorce, got a restraining order against him so he couldn’t see his kids except with court supervision. The kids disappeared, and Jimmy refused to answer any questions about what happened to them. Peggy thinks he took the kids to punish her, but she wouldn’t give us the name of her boyfriend. I was trying to find out who he was.”

“You figured if she was cheating on Jimmy with his best friend, that would make him even angrier.”

“Right. And Jimmy told his lawyer the two of them were buddies. Nick acted like he hardly knew the guy, but I think Jimmy was telling the truth.”

“Only it turns out the wife was banging the neighbor kid, so it was a wasted trip.”

“Not entirely.”

I told him about seeing Eberto on the bus on Monday and outside the grocery yesterday along with Cesar Mendez.

“And you don’t think Mendez stopped by the grocery to pick up a carton of milk?”

“I think he was looking for Brett Staley.”

I explained Brett’s relationship with Frank Crenshaw and Mendez, and my theory that Brett had acted as the middleman on Crenshaw’s purchase of a gun from Mendez and that Mendez had forced Brett to kill Crenshaw so that Crenshaw’s lawyer wouldn’t offer Mendez in a trade for his client’s life.

“I worked gangs for a while. Mendez is smart enough not to get blood on his hands and cold enough to make sure someone else does. But I don’t think he’d take any chances on a white boy like Brett Staley. He’d get someone he trusts to pop him.”

“Someone like Eberto.”

We watched as paramedics rolled Eberto into a body bag, zipped it closed, and carted him away.

“You tell all that to Braylon Jennings?”

“Yeah.”

“What’d he say?”

“He’s real sensitive on the subject of Brett Staley. I think Staley was his CI.”

“Which puts Jennings’s balls on the chopping block if his CI has graduated to murder.”

“Jennings used his ATF clout to get the charges against Roni Chase dropped so he could use her as bait to draw Brett out, make it easy on Mendez.”

“Son of a bitch,” Carter said, biting off the words.

“No fun to get played, huh?”

“You talking about what I did with Roni and her gun? Tell me you would have done it different. You’ve forgotten what it means to be a cop. So has Jennings. Where’s Brett Staley now?”

“In the wind.”

“And Roni Chase, is she riding the breeze with him?”

“I don’t think so. Brett’s been off the grid since you cut him loose at the hospital Monday night. I stopped by her office this morning. She’d been there, but had stepped out, left it wide open with a warm cup of coffee on the table.”

“Maybe Brett called her, said come and get me. Love will make you forget about your cup of coffee.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think she’s in love with him. Besides, her mother had a stroke a while back, and she’s taking care of her. I don’t see her running off with Brett or anyone else.”

“Maybe he didn’t give her a choice.”

“You don’t know Roni. She makes her own choices.”

“And you don’t know Cesar Mendez. If he’s behind all this, I guarantee you he doesn’t give a shit what Roni Chase wants, or Brett Staley for that matter. All he cares about is making sure nothing lands on his doorstep.”

“Where can I find Mendez?”

“You can’t find him anywhere. Go home before he makes you a hood ornament.”

I called Ammara Iverson when we got back into Kate’s Chevy, using the clean cell phone Simon had given me.

“Sorry,” she said, “I haven’t had time to get back to you. Believe it or not, there are other crimes that require my attention.”

“None as much trouble as mine.”

“Amen.”

“Then give me what I need and I won’t darken your door again.”

“Until the next time,” she said.

“With any luck. What do you have on Cesar Mendez?”

“He has strong ties to Nuestra Familia in Mexico.”

“How strong?”

“Blood strong. His family is the Familia. They sent him here to run things. They trust him to sell their drugs and send them their money. Word is he’s also been sending them guns, all he can get.”

“How does he get the guns to Mexico?”

“Each shipment is passed from one collection point to the next until it gets to the border. The farther south the shipment gets, the more guns there are. It’s like a dirty snowball rolling downhill. It keeps getting bigger. Once the guns reach the border, they’re taken across in smaller lots.”

“Where does Kansas City fit into the distribution network?” I asked.

“Not surprisingly, it’s the halfway point on the north-to-south route.”

“Which means Mendez is stockpiling guns. Probably has them spread out so if we find one cache, he doesn’t take too big of a hit.”

“And that’s what happens from time to time. Nothing big, maybe a dozen pieces recovered in a raid on a drug house. Things like that.”

“What’s the organizational chart look like? Nuestra must have somebody in the States to make sure the trains run on time.”

“We assume they do, but nobody knows who that is. Immigration keeps close tabs on all the known gang members in Mexico who are high enough up in the food chain to handle something like that, and they stay pretty close to home,” she explained.

“Would they contract it out to someone not in the Familia?”

“Would you?”

“Depends on how much they trusted him. What else?”

“As gang leaders go, Mendez is not a nice man. When he came to Kansas City, the first thing he did was ice-pick his predecessor to death in front of his girlfriend before he raped and strangled her. One of his lieutenants got busted on an undercover drug buy and told us the story. Before we could put him in witness protection he backed out and refused to testify.”

“What happened?”

“Mendez sent him a message. He snatched the guy’s mother, cut off her ring finger, sent it to him, and promised to send the rest of her one piece at a time.”