Worth Killing For Read online

  “Here with me. I took Will to the zoo, and we picked up Logan from his morning camp and came home. They’re safe, but with the police coming by here again, it worries the children, especially Logan.”

  “Today was just a precaution. I ran into a situation, and I reached out to Navarro. I needed to make sure you and the boys were okay. Everything is fine, though.”

  “Fine, right. The police show up here just to eat my cake. I don’t think so. I’m not a foolish old woman. You tell me what happened,” Helen insisted.

  “Someone wanted to find a man I used to know. But he’s gone now, so everyone is fine.”

  “You like this word ‘fine.’ You keep saying it so you’ll believe it. Who is this man you speak of?”

  “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”

  “You keep chasing life like it’s a mystery, then that’s what it becomes.”

  “At least I’ve got you to keep me sane.”

  Julia hung up with Helen and thought about the pale man in the suit whom Duke had killed. Whoever Jameson was, he obviously wanted Julia to lead him to Duke. But Julia wondered why someone would want to use her as a bargaining chip to get to her dad, who was no more than a ghost of a painful memory in her life.

  Being a reporter for fifteen years, Julia considered herself fairly skilled at tracking people, but she had never once tried to find her parents after they abandoned her and Sarah. When it came to Duke and Marjorie Gooden, Julia had long ago given up any thoughts of justice or vindication. All she wanted from her parents was for them to be gone for good.

  As Julia pulled into her driveway, she noticed two things: the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office cruiser was parked on the street out front; and the FOR SALE sign that had been a fixture on her front lawn for the past few months was missing.

  Julia made her way inside, never happier to be home, dropped her bag by the front door, and beat a quick path to her kitchen.

  Two sheriff deputies sat on stools next to the kitchen island. One was broad and middle-aged, with salt-and-pepper hair. His partner looked to be early twenties, with a lean build and a buzz cut, probably trying to look tough to make up for his inexperience. Both had plates of homemade honey cake, courtesy of Helen, who was wearing a bright red apron and topping off their coffee cups.

  “You smell like cigarettes,” Helen said to Julia. “Smoking can kill you.”

  “The cigarettes weren’t mine, and the person who was smoking them doesn’t have to worry about that anymore,” Julia answered.

  The older deputy stood up quickly from his stool, and Julia read his name tag, SCARBOROUGH.

  “I appreciate you coming over,” Julia said.

  “We’ve been parked outside your house for the past half hour, and we didn’t see anything suspicious. My partner talked to your neighbors. They said they hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary going on. But we can stay awhile longer if you need us to,” Scarborough said. “I wasn’t one hundred percent clear on the situation. Detective Navarro didn’t give specifics when he requested a unit over here.”

  Julia let the not-quite-asked question hang in the air. Duke Gooden was one of the last people on earth she was going to trust, but when someone warned her she could die if she told anyone what just went down in Sparrow, she took notice.

  “Thank you for the offer to stay, but we’re good. I appreciate you coming by,” Julia said.

  “Can I take a piece of this cake to go?” the younger deputy asked. “This is, like, the greatest thing I’ve ever eaten.”

  “It’s Polish, that is why,” Helen answered, and began to cut two more slices of cake for the deputies.

  “Well, Julia Gooden. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’ve been reading your stories for years,” Scarborough said.

  The younger deputy got up from his stool and looked at Julia for the first time with interest.

  “Julia Gooden. No kidding. Now I know why your name sounded familiar. You were married to that D.A. guy, David something,” the younger deputy said.

  “Tanner. That’s correct.”

  “Right. That story was all over the news.”

  Julia felt an uncomfortable prickle run through her, not wanting to rehash a dark and painful time for her and her boys, especially in what should be the sanctuary of her own home. Julia turned her back on the rookie and reached her hand out to the senior officer. “Deputy Scarborough, thank you for coming by, but we’re fine here.”

  Helen glowered at the younger officer, handed Scarborough his container of cake, and shoved the other one into the refrigerator.

  “If anything else happens, feel free to give the substation a call and we’ll send someone by,” Scarborough said.

  Julia walked the deputies to the door, and when she returned, Helen was pulling a plate of stuffed cabbage rolls out of the oven.

  “That young cop eats my cake and then has the nerve to bring up hurts from your past. He’s lucky I didn’t dump this pan of Golabki in his lap,” Helen said. “He tries to come back for the cake, and I will do it, I swear.”

  “I’ve got a pretty thick skin, Helen. But thanks for having my back.”

  Julia reached out and patted Helen’s hand as a pair of fast-moving feet tore down the hallway. Julia looked in the direction of the sound to see her youngest son, Will, pounding toward her, full throttle. Julia almost lost her balance when Will threw his arms around her legs in his trademark fierce hug delivered with the force of a mini linebacker.

  “You’re stronger than a superhero,” Julia said.

  Julia picked Will up in her arms, realizing she needed his comfort probably more right now than he needed hers. Julia swung Will around in the air until he squealed for her to stop, and when she did, he squealed for her to do it again. Julia let herself get lost in the simple moment where everything was small, unburdened, and perfect. She buried her nose against the soft skin of her little boy’s neck, making him laugh even harder, and felt the tight knot that had settled in her chest start to loosen just slightly.

  “You, little sir, give the best hugs. It’s just what your mom needed.”

  “The police came,” Will said.

  “I know. They were just checking on you while I was gone. That’s all. Police officers are good guys.”

  “Helen took me to the zoo!” Will said, clearly more excited about the zoo than the police. “Show Mom. Show her the picture.”

  “That child is getting so big, and he refused to go in the stroller. I had to carry him back to the car because he was too tired to walk. Soon he will be carrying me around in a papoose,” Helen said. She lifted a postcard from a bag with the Detroit Zoo logo on the front and handed it to Will, who grabbed it greedily and presented it to his mother like it was as wondrous to him as the keys to Disneyland.

  “Is that a fox?” Julia asked.

  “No. Red banda. Can I be him forever?” Will asked.

  “He means ‘red panda,’” Helen corrected.

  “Can I be him forever?” Will asked again.

  “Yes, forever,” Julia said, and turned her attention to Helen. “Where’s Logan?”

  “He’s been in his room since he got home from camp. He came out once to drill the police on why they were here. That child was relentless. Then he made Will go back into his room with him. The boy tries to protect his little brother.”

  “Damn it. Okay. Let me go talk to him.”

  Helen raised her eyebrows and tilted her head in Will’s direction, making Julia wonder who really was the head of the house these days.

  “Sorry, Will. Mom said a word she shouldn’t have.”

  Julia handed Will off to Helen and felt a pang of guilt as she approached Logan’s room. She didn’t want the police to cause him any more anxiety, but she needed, first and foremost, to be sure her family was safe.

  Logan’s door was closed tight, and Julia knocked while she opened it.

  Logan was sitting cross-legged on his floor, drawing Poké-mon characters, with his baseball bat from
Little League next to him.

  “Anyone home?” Julia asked. She took a quick pan of the room and noticed Logan’s closet door was ajar, and the missing FOR SALE sign was poking out of it.

  “I’m guessing that bat isn’t for practice,” Julia said, and sat down next to her son on the wooden floor.

  “The police were here. The police only show up if something bad is happening.”

  “The police came by to talk to me about a story I’m working on,” Julia said, her lie feeling like a sharp pin caught in her throat. “Nothing bad is going to happen. Not to you, not to your brother, not to Helen or anyone else close to us. Got it? I won’t let it. I promise.”

  “Cross your heart, right?” Logan asked.

  Julia drew an X over her heart with her index finger.

  “How about we put the bat back in your closet. Do you have something in there you want to tell me about?” Julia asked.

  A shot of red blossomed up Logan’s neck as his head darted in the direction of the closet door and he realized his mistake.

  “Nice job trying to hide the sign, but we journalists tend to pick up on things. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t want anyone else living here. This is our house. If someone buys it, then I’ll have to switch schools.”

  “I thought you wanted to switch schools.”

  “I did when I got in trouble, but I’m okay now.”

  “You sure?” Julia asked, remembering the call she got a few months earlier from the principal’s office telling her that Logan had gotten into a fight with another boy at school.

  “What happened, it wasn’t my fault. That Luke kid said something really bad about Dad. I couldn’t let him get away with it.”

  “What Luke did wasn’t right. But if something like that happens again, use your smarts and your words, instead of your fists, or you tell a teacher. You don’t get in a fight.”

  Four sharp knocks sounded on the door and Helen barged in without waiting to get official permission to enter.

  “Your phone keeps ringing in your purse,” Helen said.

  “We’ll talk more about this later,” Julia said to Logan.

  She gave Logan a quick kiss on the top of his head, dashed to her bag, which was still lying on the entryway table by the front door, and saw that she had missed calls from Navarro. Julia made her way outside to her front porch, away from inquisitive ears, and hit the call-back button.

  “What did you find out?” Julia said when Navarro answered. No “hello” required.

  “You guys all okay?” Navarro asked.

  “Everybody is fine. The sheriff deputies just left.”

  “I would’ve preferred they stuck around until I got through my shift. The guy who tried to grab you, whoever he was working for could be coming back. Someone must have tailed you and thought you’d lead them to your father.”

  “Knowing Duke, he’s long gone, and I can’t help whoever is after him.”

  “They don’t know that.”

  “Did you get any more on Jameson?” Julia asked.

  “I just got off the phone with the Sparrow cops. They went to your old house and couldn’t find a thing, not even a speck of blood.”

  “That’s not possible. That Jameson person, his blood was all over the windshield of his car after my dad shot him. The car was a tan sedan and it was parked out front of the house. And there was a dead man inside the trunk. Duke referred to him as Chip.”

  “There wasn’t a tan sedan anywhere near the property. The cops said they got to the house ten minutes after you called me.”

  “Then whoever Jameson was working for had a skilled cleanup crew on the ready. My dad took Jameson’s body. He dragged it around the back of the house.”

  “Strange souvenir. Your dad either got rid of the car with the other dead guy in it or someone else did,” Navarro said. “I did a trace on your dad. Here’s the thing, and it doesn’t make sense. There are zero public records on the guy in the past thirty years. No driver’s license renewals, IRS records, job history, arrest records, nothing. The only hits I got happened before your brother was abducted. Duke had a couple of misdemeanors for writing bad checks and one for embezzlement. He had a grand-theft one too, but that got dropped. I’m not sure if you knew this already, but your dad served some time.”

  “I know. I was five. Ben told me Duke was on a business trip so I wouldn’t be upset. But one of the kids on our school bus, his dad was a prison guard and knew that my dad was locked up. The kid told everybody on the bus ride home one day about my dad being a convict, and Ben punched him in the nose. We had to walk home the rest of the way because the bus driver kicked Ben off, and I wasn’t going to stay on there without him.”

  “There’s a note in your dad’s file that he was affiliated with a man named Peter Jonti, a hood who served time at the same prison with Duke. Jonti was younger than your dad, but it looks like he was connected. I did a check, and Jonti got popped again recently, but he’s out now and working at a sushi joint downtown on Fourteen Mile in Madison Heights.”

  Julia jotted the name of her father’s former associate down in pen on the palm of her hand.

  “I’ll check him out,” Julia said. “There’s one thing that keeps coming back to me about what went down in Sparrow. Before Jameson died, he said Duke took something that didn’t belong to him, and when that happened, things got taken from him. He could’ve meant Ben. I’m sure of it.”

  “Don’t go looking for this Jonti guy until I finish my shift, and I’ll come with you. Your father has been leaving a hell of a wake in his trail since he resurfaced in the last three hours, so I’d prefer you stay close.”

  “How are things going with the Angel Perez case?”

  “I’m just leaving his apartment. I talked to the pregnant girlfriend who just came back here after leaving Councilman Sanchez’s place. Poor kid. She said Angel was trying to scare up some day laborer work to pay for an upcoming doctor’s appointment for her. Angel didn’t tell her where he planned to go this morning to pick up work, but she clued us in on some usual spots he’d go when they were desperate for cash. The problem is, she wasn’t big on specifics. She said he went to Lowe’s, Home Depot, and Menards at locations in the suburbs when he couldn’t find work where they lived in Dearborn. We’ve got some ground to cover. But at least he was wearing a distinctive piece of clothing.”

  “The Run-DMC shirt.”

  “Someone should remember him.”

  “Keep me posted. I’ve got to head down to the paper, and we’ll catch up later.”

  “Be careful. And call me if you need anything. I’d feel better staying at your house until things settle down. I don’t like the idea of you and your kids alone right now with what happened today.”

  “Thanks. Let me think about it, though. Logan is having a rough patch.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me sneaking into your bedroom in the middle of the night. I can keep my hands to myself if I have to.”

  “I might be the one with the weaker flesh.”

  “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with your flesh. Trust me on that. I love you, beautiful.” Navarro hung up, not waiting for Julia to say it back. She’d often told Navarro she loved him, when they were first together, when she was twenty-five. She felt the same way now, and she was certain Navarro knew how she felt, but she hadn’t been able to say it back to him just yet. It wasn’t a matter of self-preservation or having the upper hand in the relationship. She just had far more than herself to worry about this time around.

  Julia stared at the name she’d written down on her palm, did a quick Google search for an address, and headed out to track down Peter Jonti. Thirty years of never being able to find out what happened to her brother, if there was even a remote possibility Duke was involved—something the Sparrow cops had ruled out early on, since Duke had an airtight alibi—Julia wasn’t going to wait another second to find out. And if Ben had been some kind of payback in lieu of Duke’s personal poun
d of flesh for a long-ago transgression, Julia swore to herself that she’d make sure her dad would pay for what he’d done.

  * * *

  Sushi Z, where Peter Jonti worked, was located in a depressing, faux-brick strip mall. It was located between a bail bondsman’s office and an adult-entertainment shop advertising some sort of LIQUIDATION SALE, EVERYTHING MUST GO.

  A tiny bell sounded as Julia entered the sushi place, and four waving maneki-neko cat statues, which needed a good dusting, greeted her as she made her way to the hostess stand. A lone sushi chef behind the bar eyeballed Julia and then barked something to a dark-haired woman in a midnight-blue satin dress. Julia took a seat at the far end of the bar and ignored the only other patron, a biker-looking man, who appeared to have taken on the full-time job of staring at her.

  The waitress came around the bar and handed Julia a menu, which had dried stains of what looked like soy sauce on the vinyl cover.

  “You here for a late lunch?” the waitress asked in a sulky tone. “My shift ends in five minutes, so you need to order.”

  “No, I’m here to see Peter Jonti.”

  The waitress’s impatient demeanor softened as she realized she could probably go home soon, after all. “I’ll see if he’s around. What’s your name?”

  “Julia Gooden. Tell Mr. Jonti he knew my father, Duke.”

  The waitress disappeared behind a door with an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign posted on its front. Julia watched a fly pick its way across a plastic California roll on display as the door to the back room opened back up in a hurry. A solidly built man in his fifties came out. He had dark, greased-back hair, which curled at his shoulders, and a gold chain around his neck. Peter wore a short-sleeved, white T-shirt that exposed a tattoo on his left upper arm of a ghoulish-looking, bald-headed figure that had its mouth wide open and its hands clasped to either side of its wan cheeks.

  Peter gave Julia a friendly smile as he approached her. With every step, his cologne got stronger and stronger until Julia had to stop herself from wincing.

  “Mr. Jonti. I believe you knew my father, Benjamin ‘Duke’ Gooden,” Julia said, and eyed the tattoo again. “That image on your arm there. It’s from the painting The Scream, right?”