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“Of course you did well,” Mom said, her chin up. “You do well in everything you set your mind to.”
And that was mom’s way of saying she supported Lu, even if she didn’t agree with her decision.
Ten
Because of Luisa’s announcement about enlisting in the Marines, I didn’t get a chance to talk to Jack last night. We all sensed that Mom and Dad wanted us to leave, and Jack wanted to get Austin in bed by nine. So Wednesday I had my work cut out for me.
Jack wasn’t the only cop I knew, but I trusted him to be discreet. I texted him and asked if he was at his office—most detectives in Phoenix worked out of the main headquarters on Washington, but were often in the field.
Fortunately, Jack wasn’t downtown—he said he’d be at the Cactus Park precinct all morning conducting interviews on one of his cases. Cactus Park was a long, narrow corridor of Phoenix west of I-17 and where Jack had worked before making detective last summer.
When’s a good time? I texted. I’ll bring coffee.
I’ll be done with interviews around 11, I want lunch, not coffee, especially since you clearly want a favor.
I neither confirmed nor denied the favor, but texted a thumbs-up.
I bought him a large Italian hero from Tony’s Italian Deli, one of Jack’s favorite places—which was also convenient to my house.
When I arrived at the precinct, I was escorted into the bullpen where Jack sat at a very tidy desk in the middle of the room typing on a computer from his notes.
“Tony’s?” he said with a smile. Then he glared at me. “You must really want something.”
“Naw, just your brains for ten minutes.”
I put the sandwich on his desk. He immediately put it in the drawer. “If anyone sees this, they’ll steal it.”
“At a police station? I’m shocked.”
“Give me one sec,” he said and turned back to his computer, typing as fast as I could—which was pretty fast.
Jack was born to be a cop, and no one was surprised that he made detective early in his career. He’d had his fair share of scrapes and punishments growing up for doing—as he said—”stupid shit,” but he’d always been the guy to go to if you needed help, whether it was moving or fixing your car or getting an ex-boyfriend to leave you alone. In high school, Jack was voted Most Likely to Rescue a Family from a Burning Building, and it fit him to a T.
“Okay!” he said and pushed his keyboard under the monitor. “I’m all yours.”
Now I was nervous. Jack could read me better than most anyone, and lying to him would be difficult, if not impossible.
“I’m looking for a quick, down and dirty explainer of gangs in Sunnyslope,” I said, trying to sound casual.
“You want a week-long class in ten minutes? Why?”
“Fair.” How did I get the information I wanted without giving up Andy? “Did you hear about the shooting at the Cactus Stop off Camelback? Two Saturdays ago?”
“The one where the clerk was killed? Yeah. Not my case.”
“Was there any talk that it was gang related?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Yes, Jack was suspicious about my motives.
“I have a client. I can’t really tell you more than that, confidentiality and all, but it’s someone who thinks that the guy who confessed might have been pressured to do so.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Are you working for the defense? You’d do that to me, try to get me to talk about an arrest for a defense attorney?”
“No, I am not working for the defense.” And I couldn’t very well tell him I was working for the prosecutor. “I’m not looking to jam anyone up. Just that the shooter had some movements and mannerisms that seemed gang-like.” That sounded so flimsy.
Jack leaned back. “You’ve seen the recording? How?”
