Worth Killing For Read online

  Navarro loosened his death grip and looked over at Julia for confirmation.

  “Hold on a second,” Julia said. “Did Fish send you here? The chief photographer?”

  “I was told to get my ass down to Gilbo Avenue to shoot the crime scene before the other media showed up if I wanted to get paid,” the photographer answered.

  “That sounds like Robert Fishman. I’m sorry, Navarro. He must be a freelancer who doesn’t know the rules. Before you erase his memory card, let me talk to him first.”

  Julia ducked under the crime scene tape and crossed the street.

  The photographer stuck out his hand for Julia to shake, but she stood firm with her hands at her sides.

  “Don’t leave me hanging with everyone watching,” the man said. “My name is Phoenix, and you’re a legend.”

  “And you’re obviously new and just screwed up royally. It’s hard enough to get cops to trust you, but they’re never going to trust you now.”

  “I was just trying to get the shot.”

  “Of a bloodied-up dead man with vomit stuck to the side of his face?” Julia asked. “I have no problem with you doing whatever it takes to get the picture, but that’s not a picture the paper would run. Grab a couple of shots of the perimeter of the crime scene, the cops, Linderman, but no dead bodies. We’re not TMZ.”

  Phoenix gave Julia a charming but jaded smile. He grabbed Julia’s hand, and before she could pull away, he gave it a soft kiss.

  “It’s great to finally meet you,” Phoenix said. “I’ve seen your picture in the paper.”

  “Hey, pretty boy. You can kiss Julia’s hand, but don’t bother trying to kiss her ass,” Russell said. “She’ll likely cover for you if you’ve got an assignment with her paper, regardless of your low-life, scumbag move back there.”

  “I’ll tell you this just once, and after that I won’t have your back. But don’t pull stunts like this again. Find some better pictures if you don’t get kicked out first,” Julia said.

  “You snuck into the crime scene and saw the body. What’s the difference?” Phoenix asked.

  “I look at the body, and it makes me work harder to tell his story and find out what happened.”

  “The pure of heart. I heard that about you.”

  “There’s a press conference in a few hours. Every media outlet will be there. These things are staged, but check with Fish to see what he wants. I’d say take a few pictures there, but track down Angel’s family first, see if you can get some old photographs of him and take some pictures of the family if they let you. But don’t be a jerk about it. Grieving people are a lot more willing to share if you’re compassionate.”

  “Let me shadow you, and I’ll buy you lunch later. What do you say? I could use some tips from a pro,” Phoenix said. He inched closer to Julia, invading her personal space, and she backed away.

  “I’ve got somewhere to go right now. Give me your number. If I find out anything, I’ll give you a call.”

  “You’re not going to the press conference?” Phoenix asked.

  “I’m going to see if Virginia can put the city reporter on it.”

  “A big story like this and you’re not going to chase it down?” Phoenix asked.

  “Like I said, I’ve got something to take care of,” Julia answered.

  “I hope we’ll work together again. Can I walk you to your car?” he asked.

  “No, I’m good. Navarro, you got a second?”

  Navarro tossed the camera over to Russell.

  “You know the drill,” Navarro told his partner as he stared down Phoenix.

  “I swear. I won’t give the paper the pictures of the dead guy. Please, man, just give me my camera back. I’m sorry and it won’t happen again, I swear.”

  Russell looked over at Navarro, who shrugged, and Russell handed Phoenix his camera back.

  Navarro then escorted Julia back to her car, and the pair walked in a comfortable silence until they were out of earshot from anyone else.

  “Mr. Charming back there. Phoenix, last name unknown, the hand kisser. Next thing you know, he’ll be throwing his coat over a puddle so your feet won’t get wet. I love it when guys hit on you in front of me, and I can’t do anything about it,” Navarro said.

  “He wasn’t hitting on me. He was just trying to get in my good graces so you wouldn’t pulverize his camera.”

  “You’re living in denial, baby. You’re leaving pretty quick. Are you going to try and track down Angel Perez’s girlfriend? Her name is Sophie, and she shared an apartment with Angel over in Dearborn. Twelve weeks pregnant. You’ll likely not get much from her. The poor thing is a mess. But she’s at Sanchez’s house. The whole family is there. I’m sure he’s expecting you to at least call.”

  “I’m going to write up what I have from Linderman and then hand the story off for now.”

  “You’ve never passed on a story, especially a big one.”

  “I’ll come back to it. I have something I have to take care of this afternoon, and I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Anything,” Navarro promised, his deep-set hazel eyes stayed on Julia and she knew he meant it.

  “I know you’re wrapped up in the Angel Perez case, but if you get a break, I need you to run a name for me.”

  “Is this for a story?”

  “No. It’s personal.”

  “Who am I tracking?”

  “Benjamin Gooden Sr. He used to go by Duke.”

  “Your dad? You never wanted me to help you look for your parents before.”

  “I know, but I’m sure I just saw him at a gas station. He’s older now, but I know it was him. I haven’t seen him in thirty years, but I’ll never forget his face. The bastard looked right at me, and I could tell he knew who I was. And then he took off like a bat out of hell.”

  “Listen, if the guy you just saw was your father, don’t let him get to you. A man abandons his kids and never looks back, especially after his son goes missing, he’s not worth looking for. Your sister, Sarah, and your dad, those aren’t people you want in your life. We’re happy, Julia. I’ve finally got you back. I’ll stick by you no matter what you decide, but I know what this does to you. You get down deep in a dark rabbit hole when you start digging around about your past, and sometimes I’m afraid you’re not going to come back out.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “I’ll be sure you are. But if that was your dad, he just rejected you again by pretending he didn’t know you.”

  “I don’t want anything from him. I just want to know. Seeing him made it real.”

  “Okay. If you want me to run the trace, you know I’ll do it.”

  Navarro opened the door of Julia’s SUV and she slid into the driver seat.

  “Where are you going?” Navarro asked.

  “To Sparrow.”

  “There’s nothing but bad memories for you there.”

  “I haven’t been to Sparrow in a long time. I can’t tell you why, but I feel like I need to go back there now.”

  “I’ll run Duke’s name and call you later. I’d kiss you goodbye if I could.”

  Instead, Navarro discreetly rapped his fist against his heart. As he walked away, Julia put the SUV into drive and took one last look at the crime scene. A new batch of police officers and a TV news van had arrived. Phoenix snapped a frame of Julia’s car as she drove by and then he flashed her a thumbs-up sign.

  Julia thought about what she had lost in Sparrow when she was seven years old, making her too distracted to notice the beige car parked three blocks away pull out from the curb and hang back far enough so Julia wouldn’t notice she was being followed.

  * * *

  Jameson, the tail for Duke Gooden’s youngest kid, waited in his Band-Aid–colored sedan on the corner of Mt. Olivet Street and Gilbo Avenue and crushed out his cigarette when his target, Julia Gooden, unexpectedly walked away from the crime scene with a big cop. Jameson didn’t mind the stakeouts too much. He liked watching the swish of the pais
ley fabric from Julia’s dress seal against her hips when she walked, but he preferred his women with more meat on their bones. A grade-A ass was something you could hold on to in bed, not something you could barely find when you’re reaching down to get a firm hold of the thing you were riding.

  Jameson was parked one street over from Gilbo, on the other side of a large playground that gave him a perfect view of Julia and her SUV. After his new boss got a recent and solid tip that Duke Gooden was actually alive and hadn’t died in the fire the big Indian set thirty years earlier, Jameson was assigned to watch Duke’s youngest daughter. Jameson had his doubts, but he wasn’t paid to give his opinions, so he kept his mouth shut when his new boss said he had intelligence that Duke Gooden was back on his old home turf of Detroit. Jameson’s job was to keep a tail on Julia in the event that she could lead them to Duke, but more important, to what Duke Gooden stole three decades earlier.

  Jameson counted to thirty and spun out a perfect trail of smoke rings from his mouth as he watched Julia get in her car and drive away from the big cop. Jameson gave her just enough time to get a small lead so she wouldn’t notice him drop in line a few cars behind her.

  Jameson reached for his phone and speed-dialed the last number that called him.

  “The funeral just ended. What do you got?”

  “She’s moving,” Jameson answered. “You said she’d be at the crime scene for a while, but it’s only been, like, twenty minutes. What do you want me to do?”

  “What do you think? Follow her.”

  “You think Duke’s really alive?” Jameson asked.

  “I bugged the phones. I’m sure he’s the guy who called Chip Haskell.”

  “The Gooden chick just got on the highway going north.”

  “She’s going to Sparrow. I knew it. She’s probably going to meet Duke there. Now listen. If Duke shows up, keep him alive until I get there. Don’t kill him. We need to find out where he hid it.”

  “What about the daughter?”

  “You need me to draw you a map? If she doesn’t lead you to Duke, bring her here. If Julia doesn’t give up where Duke is, then we kill her.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Julia finished writing her part of the Angel Perez story from her car and e-mailed it to her city editor, letting Virginia know she would need to get the city beat reporter to cover Edgar Sanchez’s press conference, and she’d pick the story up after that. Two minutes after hitting the send button, Julia ignored two back-to-back calls from Virginia, obviously wanting a better explanation on why Julia wouldn’t be there to cover it herself.

  Julia sat in her SUV, which was now parked across from her childhood home in Sparrow, the town that had taken so much from her, and she wondered why the memory of a bad man and the sins done in his prime had prompted her to return.

  “I’m not a kid anymore,” Julia whispered as she took in her childhood home, one of the many that she had lived in after Duke had gotten the Gooden family evicted a half-dozen times for not being able to pay the rent. But this was the last place where they were all together, and the last place she had seen her brother.

  The house was much smaller than Julia had remembered, but it still looked shabby. The home from her childhood was an old, run-down ranch, with peeling blue paint and an unkempt yard now thick with weeds, meaning it was likely unoccupied, or whoever lived there was as careless and neglectful as Duke and Marjorie Gooden had been.

  The Gooden family had moved to the house in Sparrow’s Limetown neighborhood, the poor part of town, four months before Ben’s abduction. But Julia and Ben had thought the dumpy little house was a palace, because they had spent the previous weeks living in Duke’s Chrysler after getting evicted from a cramped one-bedroom apartment.

  Julia tried to get herself to start the car so she could get the hell out of there, the flight instinct kicking in as she realized she needed to leave Sparrow immediately. But she couldn’t. As she slipped down the dark rabbit hole of memories that Navarro had warned her about, Julia knew Ben wouldn’t be there to pick up the pieces this time.

  “Come on, kid. Get up. I made something for you.”

  Julia shot up from the thin mattress of her cot and looked up to see Ben holding a small brown paper bag that he had decorated with crescent moons and stars with a purple crayon. Purple was her favorite color.

  “Happy seventh birthday, Julia. It’s not much, but I hope you’ll like it.”

  Julia tore the tape away from the top of the bag and dug her hand inside, pulling out an incredible stash of loot for a Gooden: a pack of Bubble Yum bubble gum, a Little Debbie Cinnamon Streusel Cake, and a silver dime-store bracelet with a charm of a little boy and girl holding hands.

  “Oh, my gosh, Ben. Thank you!” Julia cried, and threw her arms around Ben’s neck.

  “You don’t think the bracelet is corny?”

  “No, I love it!”

  “They have other bracelets you might like better. I got it at Peterson’s. Mr. Cole gave me ten dollars after I weeded his backyard. I told him I was going to buy you a birthday present with the money, and he drove me to Peterson’s to pick it up. The other bracelets, they had flowers and hearts for charms. Girl stuff you might like better. But Mr. Peterson said if I was going to use all the money I earned on a present for my sister, then the charm with the boy and girl would be better because it would remind you that you’ve got a brother who puts you first. You sure you like it?”

  “Yes. It’s perfect. I love it,” Julia said. She held the bracelet in her hand and stared down at the charm in wonder. Birthday surprises were rare in the Gooden family, and Julia squeezed her eyes tight, wishing this moment would never end.

  Ben then eased a ten-dollar bill out of his pocket and gave Julia a wink.

  “I got it from my paper route,” he said.

  “Ten dollars. Can I touch it?” Julia asked.

  Ben let out a deep belly laugh. “Tell you what. You can hold on to it for me. Come on, let’s go get breakfast. I got a big day planned for us.”

  Julia followed her brother out to the kitchen with the bracelet still safely in the palm of one hand and the ten-dollar bill tucked tightly in her other. She smiled to herself as she realized it was going to be a great birthday, probably the best one she’d ever had.

  Duke stood in the center of the kitchen, wearing a long-sleeved, button-down, light blue dress shirt that just covered the bottom of his white underwear, as he worked an iron carefully over a pair of dark blue dress pants.

  “Damn it. I’ve got a spot on these. Marjorie, didn’t you take my pants to the Laundromat, like I asked? You know I have a big meeting today in Detroit.”

  Julia waited for a response, but when there was none, she figured her mother must still be sleeping.

  “I swear, I’ve got to do everything in this house,” Duke muttered, and began to run a hand towel under the cold tap of the sink. “Good thing it’s going to stop.”

  “Dad, it’s Julia’s birthday,” Ben said.

  “Oh right. Happy birthday, my little delight,” Duke said. He gave Julia a quick smile and then turned back to the ironing board as he scrubbed the wet cloth over the stain in his trousers. “Listen, son, do you have a couple of dollars you could lend your old man from your paper route? I need enough gas money to make it to Detroit. You lend me ten bucks, I’ll pay you twenty when I get back. This meeting I have is going to be huge. It’s going to be Easy Street from here on out for the Gooden family. The man I’m meeting with is going to change our lives.”

  “Sorry. But I don’t have any money,” Ben lied.

  Duke pulled his pants on and tucked the shirttails inside.

  “What do you say, birthday girl? How does your old man look?” Duke asked.

  Julia couldn’t help but smile at her father, who reminded her of the grown-up actor Paul Newman. Duke had taken Julia and Ben to see his movie The Sting at a place that showed old movies. Julia had sat on Duke’s lap, not understanding the movie at all, and had buried her fac
e against her dad’s shoulder during the violent scenes. After the show let out, Duke proclaimed it was, without a doubt, “the finest cinema I have ever seen.”

  “You look handsome, Daddy. Like a movie star.”

  Duke smiled his dazzling smile and bent down so he was at eye level with Julia.

  “Tell you what. I’m going to take you out for a big dinner tonight when I get home. But your daddy needs enough money to get to a very big meeting with a very important man. Could you do your daddy a big favor?”

  “Sure,” Julia promised.

  “You’re friends with that family next door. What’s that girl’s name?”

  “Melinda?”

  “Right, that kid. Go next door and ask her if she’d loan you ten dollars. Tell her you need it to buy your mom a present, and you’ll pay her back.”

  “That’s a lie,” Julia said.

  Duke flashed Julia another big smile and reached for her hand, but Julia snatched it back and hid both her hands behind her back.

  “What you got there that you’re trying so hard to hide from me?”

  Julia opened her mouth to answer, when the sound of her mother retching in the bathroom stopped her cold.

  Duke’s mouth turned into a disappointed line. “Your mother overindulged again. That kind of behavior could make a man want to stay away for good.”

  “I’ll go help her,” Ben said, and launched into his usual routine. He grabbed a Styrofoam cup and filled it with water from the tap and shook out three Bayer aspirins from a jumbo bottle and headed down the hall.

  “Is she all right?” Julia asked.

  “Fine. She’s just under a lot of stress, but our money situation is getting ready to change. Have you ever dreamed of being rich?” Duke asked.

  “I don’t really know. I’d just like to have enough money so we can stay in one place for a while.”

  “Never settle, young lady. Money is the key to happiness. You can have love, but if you don’t have money to go along with it, then you’ll never really be happy.”

  Julia’s fourteen-year-old sister, Sarah, came into the kitchen, holding her nose. “Something’s wrong with Mom. I just walked by the bathroom and it smells like something died in there when Ben cracked the door open.”