“I did not mean that about you,” shesaid. “I did not know that…”
“You made an assumption,” Shelley said. “Iknow you don’t think I’m a bad person, so you must see already that yourassumption wasn’t totally correct. It’s not just criminals and idiots who gettattoos.”
Zoe nodded, measuring her wordscarefully. “I concede that a mark of respect and remembrance toward a lostloved one may also be a valid reason to commit to such a thing.”
“That’s progress, at least,” Shelleysaid. She was still smiling, and Zoe got the feeling that it was still at herexpense. But she had messed up and said something that might have been hurtful,so that seemed fair. “How’s your search going?”
Zoe took the unsubtle hint and returnedto her monitor, where Clay Jackson’s police records had finally loaded. Shegave a low whistle, shaking her head at the sheer length of the results thathad come up. “He has a record, all right. Looks as though he was affiliatedwith a local gang as we suspected.”
Now it was Shelley’s turn to come overand lean over Zoe’s shoulder. They read the results together. They didn’t tella pretty tale.
Clay Jackson had been a member of a gangin LA, a notorious street crew who were heavily involved in the trade ofillegal drugs, amongst other things. The kind of drugs that Callie had beenmessing around with. It wasn’t hard to see where she might have gotten hersupply.
Clay’s tattoos were just the start ofit. He was a key member of the gang, suspected of leading attacks on rival turfand of being the mastermind behind several deals that went down to connect thegang with suppliers and buyers. He had multiple cautions, for drug possessionand for possession of weapons, each of which was followed by an actual arrestand various punishments. He had spent some time in jail, in and out after a fewmonths each time, never quite getting caught badly enough to go down for good.
Until the moment it had all ended—gunneddown in an alleyway, his body left in a bloody heap to be discovered by thepolice after shots were reported by residents in the area. There was never anyreal evidence as to who did it, only circumstantial links and suspicions, whichwere easily visible in the pattern of interviews and arrests that followed thecrime.
“Look at this,” Zoe pointed out, tappingon her screen. “The only charge they managed to make stick during the entireinvestigation was possession of an illegal firearm. The guy they thought wasmost likely to have done it, only they could not prove it. This was all theycould get him for. He got five years.”
“Search him up,” Shelley said. “What’shis name? Cesar Diaz?”
“That is right,” Zoe replied, waitingfor the page to load again. “His gang had close links with Mexican smugglers.It seems they would have been fighting over territory. Who got the right tosell in that area.”
“It all fits. If Clay was a big shot inhis organization, getting new deals and closing new sales, then their rivalswould have wanted him taken out in particular. Make a big statement about whoowns what.”
Cesar Diaz’s information blinked up onthe screen.
They both read the latest update, thenpaused and looked at one another.
This was big.
“Cesar Diaz was paroled a few monthsago,” Shelley said, voicing it out loud.
“Cesar Diaz is out on the streets, andmaybe looking for revenge. It explains Callie. Erase the things Clay caredabout in order to make a noise about being back, show that he has not softened.That he is still in charge.”
“But what about John Dowling? That stilldoesn’t make sense to me.” Shelley frowned. “Is there any connection betweenJohn and Cesar?”
Zoe scanned his page, looking foranything that jumped out. Nothing seemed to. On a whim, she tapped the backpage in the system, returning to Clay Jackson’s profile.
Underneath his name and image, alongwith his vital statistics, were a few links that led to larger sections. One ofthese was known affiliations, and Zoe clicked on this to carry on scanning downthe text.
“Wait a second,” she said, noticingsomething that tugged at her memory. “Alicia Smith. It seems like a commonname, but…”
She got up, picking up John Dowling’sfile from where they had left it on the central table. She leafed through a fewpages before she finally found what she was looking for.
“What is it?” Shelley asked, watchingher anxiously, her fingers playing with the arrow pendant that hung around herneck.
“Alicia Smith. Interviewed a couple ofdays ago by uniformed officers as part of the investigation into John Dowling’sdeath.”
“What connection does she have?”
Zoe smiled, a little bit of victory. “AliciaSmith is John Dowling’s mother.”
“But what…” Shelley leaned forward,examining the screen again. “Wait. Alicia Smith is also Clay Jackson’s aunt, onhis mother’s side.”
“John Dowling is Clay Jackson’s cousin.That is how he is connected to Callie Everard.”
And just like that, all of the pieceswere falling into place.
Shelley jumped into action, typing ontoZoe’s screen and moving the mouse impatiently while the page loaded again. “I’vegot Cesar Diaz’s parole details. We’d better go pay him a visit.”
CHAPTER TEN
Zoe watched from the side of the room,where she had gone ostensibly to examine the certificates hanging on the wall. Fromthere she could see and listen, but did not have to take any part in theconversation itself until she was ready.
Craig Lopez didn’t look like your averageparole officer, at least not the kind that you pictured in your head when youheard the term. He was built strong, six foot four and around two hundredpounds of muscle. Not only that, but most of those muscles that were visiblearound the polo shirt he was wearing were heavily tattooed. Ranging fromscrawled doodles to elaborate pieces of art, he had clearly been collecting hisink for a very long time.
Then there was the ragged scar acrossthe side of his neck, where a bullet had once torn its way through his fleshwithout killing him.
Evidently, he had been hired because ofhis unique perspective. Having been a member of several gangs in his youth, hecould speak to those who were involved in them on their
