foreclose. No customers, no credit, no groceries, no future, a personal pandemic of economic ruin repeated all across the country.
There was a small warehouse on the other side of the saloon door, empty wooden produce crates scattered on the floor, a folding table and chairs butting up against a sloppy pyramid made of overturned cardboard boxes. A calendar hung on one wall advertising a different power tool each month, and a radio sat on a three-drawer file cabinet tuned to an oldies station, the volume low, music mixing with static.
Staley turned the radio off, settled into a chair, and folded his arms across his chest. He had a fighter’s face, his forehead layered with scar tissue, his nose crooked and squashed, the look of a man who’d given as good as he got, the split decision written in his washed-out eyes.
“I don’t know nothin’ about Jimmy’s trouble.”
“Which trouble?” I asked him.
“What d’ya mean?”
“Jimmy is in a lot of trouble. Which trouble are you talking about?”
“I heard he got busted for stealin’ some copper off a construction site. I don’t know nothin’ about that, and if he’s got his tit in the wringer some other way, I don’t know nothin’ about that neither.”
“But you do know Jimmy.”
“I know him.”
“How?”
He shrugged. “He’s from Northeast, I’m from Northeast. Both of us were in the Marines. You live here long enough, you know people. “
“You guys asshole buddies? Get drunk, chase women, play poker?”
He cocked his head, one corner of his mouth turned down and sour. “Shit. I know him, that’s all.”
“How about his wife, Peggy? You know her?”
He shifted in his chair, uneasy coming back to center. “Seen her around. Same as him.”
“You ever see Peggy when Jimmy wasn’t around?”
“What are sayin’?”
“She ever come into the store by herself?”
“Now and then. Most everybody in the neighborhood came through here one time or another. Or they did until everything went into the shitter. Now most of the stuff left on my shelves is past the sell-by date. Nobody’s got any money. I don’t know whose food people are puttin’ on their table, but it sure as hell isn’t mine.”
“Yeah. It’s tough all over. Peggy Martin, you get close to her?”
He laughed. “That’s what this is about? Jimmy tell you I was bangin’ his wife? Even if I was, what’s that got to do with him rippin’ off that construction site?”
“Were you banging his wife?”
He shook his head, smiling. “Not that I couldn’t have if I’d have wanted some of that. Peggy, she gets around. Least that’s what Jimmy said; why they split up.”
“Jimmy told you why they split up? I thought you and him didn’t hang out.”
“We might’ve had a couple of beers now and then. Run into each other at the Jigger, a bar over on Independence Avenue. Lot of the locals get pickled there on Friday nights.”
“When was the last time Jimmy and you talked about his wife?”
He pursed his lips, rubbed his chin. “Hell, I don’t know for sure; probably a month or so ago. What’s this about?”
“Jimmy tell you who he thought his wife was seeing?”
“Said he wasn’t for sure but someone was going to pay.”
“What do you think he meant by that?”
“Christ, who knows what a man means by anything he says when he’s drunk.”
“You say that everybody knows everybody around here. You hear any talk about who might have been Peggy’s boyfriend?”
He shrugged. “People talk a lot, mostly about stuff they don’t know nothin’ about.”
“We could use a name.”
“What’s that got to do with Jimmy gettin’ busted?”
“No one has seen Jimmy’s kids in three weeks. The police think he kidnapped them, maybe even killed them, to punish Peggy. If she has a boyfriend, we want to talk to him, find out if he knows anything about the kids.”
He sighed. “I heard about the kids. That’s tough, real tough. I wish I could help you. All I can tell you is that Peggy’s got a big appetite; you know what I’m sayin’. A woman like that will do most anything.”
“Jimmy’s sitting in jail instead being out on bail because he won’t answer any questions about his kids. You think he’d hurt them?”
“No way. Man loved his kids. Talked about them all the time. Told me he’d never let Peggy have them and that he was going all out for custody.”
I pointed at his belly. “What is that under your apron? A. 38?”
He smiled, patting the gun. “Nine-millimeter, man’s best friend.”
“We scare you that much?”
“These days, mister, getting out of bed in the morning scares me.”
Chapter Forty
“That must be a hard way to live,” Kate said.
He grunted. “I’ve had it worse.”
She leaned forward. “I can’t imagine how.”
“I did two tours in the first Gulf War, made sergeant. When I got out, I joined the Guard, figured to pick up a paycheck for one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer. Got sent back to Iraq after 9/11. Spent a year dodgin’ IEDs and snipers. Watched a lot of my men get blown apart.”
“Is that where you broke your nose?”
He rubbed it with the palm of his hand. “Nah. Did some boxin’, local Golden Gloves and when I was in the Marines.”
She smiled, knowing that most people can’t resist the impulse to reciprocate, the instinctive response building rapport and trust. She made it impossible, using her entire face, eyes lively, cheeks full and raised, mouth wide, framing her perfect gleaming teeth, adding a casual aren’t you something toss of her hair. His smile came in a flash with a soft blush-primal brain circuits picking up the subtle signal she intended loud and clear.
“You risk your life serving your country, come home, build a business, and then lose it because a bunch of greedy Wall Street speculators drive the economy off a cliff. I can see how that would make a fighter like you so angry he couldn’t see straight.”
He pulled himself up to the table. “You got that right, lady.”
“But I don’t understand how that would scare a man who’s survived two wars so badly he’d go around hiding a gun under his apron.” Staley started to rise, his eyes narrow, his jaw tight as she reached across the table and wrapped her hand around his wrist. “Tell us, maybe we can help.”
He pulled his wrist free, his voice a low growl. “We’re done here.”
“Almost,” I said, keeping my seat. “What’s Brett going to do now that you’re closing?” I asked him.
He stiffened. “How do you know Brett?”
“Met him yesterday at Roni Chase’s office.”
“Roni? What’s she got to do with Jimmy’s case?”
“Nothing, as far as I know. I’m helping her with something else. Where’s your son?”
“What do you want with my boy?”
“Did you know Frank Crenshaw?”
He nodded, dropping into his chair.
“Sure, I knew him.”
“What do you know about his murder?”
