STATE OF BETRAYAL: A Virgil Jones Mystery (Detective Virgil Jones Mystery Series Book 2) (9 page)

Ron came around the side of the
desk and gently took the ruined box from Virgil’s hands. “Hey, come on now,
Jonesy. I’m sorry, man. I really am. Look, why don’t you wait here and I’ll go
get another box. Just sit tight, okay? Will you do that?”

After Ron walked out, Virgil picked
up the photos and removed them from the damaged frames, slipped them into his
pocket and left the building.

__________

Virgil was due at the
bar but
instead
of going straight there he drove a few miles in the opposite direction and
stopped at a city park situated between the suburbs and downtown. He walked
across the grassy knolls and tree lined trails before sitting down on one of
the benches. Sunlight glimmered through the tree limbs and shadows danced
across the trail in the afternoon breeze.

Virgil heard a rustling noise
behind him and when he turned he saw a small child—a boy, no more than
four or five years of age. He held a packaged toy fishing pole in his hands,
the kind with a superhero screen-printed on the plastic spinner reel. The boy’s
hair was light and fair but more than anything it was the colors of his eyes that
caught Virgil off guard and left him momentarily unable to ask even the
simplest of questions, like why he was alone in a public park or where his
parents might be. His left eye was a deep crystal blue and his right was as
green as the ocean waters of Montego Bay. He wore a white T-shirt with an
American Flag across the front, blue dress shorts that hung to his knees and
white tennis shoes. The boy stared at Virgil for a few seconds, then smiled and
darted across the trail and up the hill. Virgil stood and shouted for him to
wait, but he ran up the hill without stopping or turning back.

Virgil began to climb the hill, conscious
of the fact that he was a middle-aged man chasing a young boy through a
deserted park. Nevertheless, this child was alone in a place where he shouldn’t
have been and no matter what anyone might have thought, Virgil felt it was his
responsibility to help the boy find his parents or guardian. He shouted to him
again. “Wait, let me help you. Where are your parents?”

At the mention of his parents, the boy
stopped and turned. Virgil had narrowed the gap between them and they stood
only a few yards apart, halfway up the hill. When Virgil asked him again about
his parents, he simply shrugged his shoulders, his smile still in place. Virgil
squatted down and kept his voice calm and peaceful. “My name is Virgil. What’s
yours?”

“Wyatt.”

Virgil smiled at him. “Hey that’s a
great name. We’d make a good team, wouldn’t we? Virgil and Wyatt.”

He gave a funny look and when he
did Virgil realized he was referencing something the boy would have no
knowledge of.

“What about your mommy? Is she
around here somewhere?”

He tilted his head to the side and
stared at Virgil’s face. Virgil had a scar that ran along his jawline, the
result of an injury he sustained when pulled from the rubble during the house
fire. It had faded over the years, but it remained visible, especially when he
smiled and his skin stretched tight. Wyatt reached out with his hand and ran
his fingers across the scar. His touch was soft and warm as the tips of his
tiny fingers traveled along the side of Virgil’s face.

“Say, that’s a pretty fancy fishing
pole you’ve got there,” Virgil said. “Did your daddy get that for you?”

Wyatt looked at the fishing pole in
his hand as if he were only just then aware of its presence. He nodded at
Virgil, then dropped the pole in the grass. “He was gonna teach me to fish.”

“Going to? You mean he didn’t?”

He shook his head. “No. He went
away.”

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know where it’s called.
Can’t ‘member.”

“What about your mommy?”

He didn’t answer and instead turned
and look up at the top of the hill.

Virgil wasn’t quite sure what to do.
He couldn’t leave this young boy alone in the park, yet at the same time, Wyatt
wasn’t being very helpful or forthcoming about his mother or father. Virgil was
about to suggest that he go with him back to the MCU. Once there, he’d be able
to leave him in the hands of one of the detectives who could locate his
parents. But what happened next defied almost anything Virgil had ever
witnessed. The air had suddenly gone still and the birds and other wildlife
went quiet as if they were suddenly nonexistent. The little boy leaned in close
and ran his hand along Virgil’s scar once again then looked him straight in the
eye and said, “Keep taking those pills and you’re going to die.”

His words were like a slap in the
face, and Virgil grabbed him by the arms. “What did you just say?”

Wyatt slipped away and ran a few
steps up the incline and pointed at the top of the hill. “I said, keep walking
up the hill and you can touch the sky!” Before Virgil could process what had just
happened, Wyatt crested the hill and started down the far side.

By the time Virgil got to the top,
Wyatt was nowhere in sight.

__________

Virgil spent the next
half hour
looking for the little
boy named Wyatt, but never found him. When he returned to the spot on the hill
where they were before Wyatt ran off, Virgil noticed the toy fishing pole still
lying in the grass. He picked it up, carried it to his truck and drove back to
the MCU headquarters. He signed all the necessary forms for the state’s human
resources department, answered a few questions that seemed to constitute
something of an exit interview, then headed toward Ron’s office to offer an  apology.

He’d realize later that he should
have just gone home or to the bar.

Unfortunately, he did neither.

__________

When Virgil walked
into Ron’s
office
he found Miles wasn’t there, but Bradley Pearson was. He was talking on his
cell while looking through Virgil’s personal belongings Ron had re-boxed. When
Pearson realized someone was behind him he turned around. When he saw who it
was, he ended his cell phone conversation in mid-sentence by closing the phone
and slipping it into his pocket. His face lit up with a huge grin, something
that happened about as often as a solar eclipse.

“Jonesy,” he said, as he reached
out and offered his hand. Virgil shook his hand out of instinct, but what
happened next was not one of his better moments. “Did you get your new fishing
pole? I sent it via special delivery. I know it’s probably not as nice as the
one I broke at your house—” And that’s as far as he got. Virgil still had
Pearson’s hand in his own—they were only mid-shake—when he mistakenly
concluded that the boy in the park had been part of a cruel hoax initiated by
Pearson. Virgil slapped him full in the face, a humiliating blow that snapped Pearson’s
head sideways and caused his eyes to water. Then Virgil pushed him into one of
the chairs, picked up his box of personal belongings, dumped it in his lap and
smashed the open container bottom-down over his head. By the time he was
finished Pearson looked like a Jack-in-the-Box with a bad set of springs.
Virgil stared at him for a moment and then walked out the door.

__________

He was about to get in
his truck when he saw
Miles turn into the lot and get out of his rental car. He walked over and said,
“Hey, Ron. Listen…I was out of line. Everything seems to be happening sort of
all at once for me and well, I don’t know…I just lost my shit for a minute. I’m
sorry.”

Miles puffed out his cheeks.
“Forget about it. And I’m sorry too. I mean, your job, Jonesy. Jesus.”

“Ah, it’s not like I need the
money. I just liked doing what I do.” Virgil looked down at the rental car
sticker. “You having car trouble?”

“Something like that. Listen,
Jonesy, I’ve got to run. I’m late for a meeting with Pearson.”

“Yeah, he’s waiting for you in your
office.”

“Great. What’s he doing in there?”

“Oh, you know…he’s doing what he
does best.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s thinking inside the box. See
you around, Ron.”

__________

Thirty minutes later
when
Virgil
walked into the bar, Delroy
motioned him over. “Those two Red Stripes at the other end of da bar, mon, they
say they need to talk to you. What you do, you?”

Jamaicans use the term Red Stripe
for two things. One is their beer. The other is a slang term for police
officers. “Probably something I shouldn’t have.”

That earned Virgil a sideways look.
“Yeah, mon. There’s a lot of dat going around lately.”

Virgil glanced at the other end of
the bar. Two uniformed city police officers were sitting very still and
watching him through the mirror. The older of the two let out a heavy sigh
before they both got up and made their way over to where he stood with Delroy.
Virgil couldn’t recall the name of the older cop, but had seen him in the bar a
number of times. He’d never seen the younger one at all.

“We’d rather not cuff you up, if
you promise you won’t give us any grief,” the younger of the two said.

Virgil shook his head and fixed his
gaze on the veteran. “Who’s the boot?”

“What did you just call me?” the
young cop said.

“What dis about, now?” Delroy said.

The rookie turned and looked at
Delroy. “This is about baldheaded island jerk-waters like you knowing your place.
If that’s too complicated for you, let me put it this way: butt the fuck out.”

Delroy started to respond, but
Virgil beat him to it. “You’re in our place of business. You’ll show some
respect, or you’ll be shown to the door, badge or not. If you think I’m not
serious, say something else to him or me and see what happens.”

The rookie took a step forward and
the veteran cop drew his nightstick from the chrome loop on his belt. But instead
of using the stick on Virgil he laid the tip across the edge of the bar and
blocked the path of his trainee. “The man’s right. Show some respect. Do you
know who you’re talking to here?”

The rookie cop suddenly looked very
unsure of himself. “Isn’t this the guy we’re supposed to bring in? I thought
you said this was him.”

The veteran looked at Virgil and
then shook his head before he spoke to his partner. “Go wait out by the squad.
I’ll be out in a minute. Don’t touch any of the buttons on the radio.” Then to
Virgil and Delroy: “On behalf of the city of Indianapolis and the Indianapolis
City Police Department, I’d like to apologize for my trainee’s behavior. I
don’t know where they get these guys anymore. I really don’t. This kid’s a
perfect example. He’ll be fired, or he’ll quit, or he’ll be dead on the job inside
of a year. I guarantee it. No one knows how to do this work anymore.” Then,
almost as an afterthought he said, “Your old man knew how though.”

“He sure did,” Virgil said. “Did
they cut a warrant?”

The cop shook his head. “No. I don’t
think they will either.”

“Look, uh…” Virgil glanced at the cop’s
nameplate on his uniform. He still couldn’t remember his first name. “Officer
Nagy…”

“Jim.”

“Ah, that’s right. Jim. Sorry. So
let me ask you something, Jim. Pearson is the Governor’s Chief of Staff. Why
does he want city to roll on this instead of state?”

“Pearson? What are you talking
about? I have no idea. I got the call on my cell phone, straight from central
dispatch. It was Cora LaRue. She’s the one that wanted us to pick you up.”

Delroy looked at Virgil, then the
cop. “You say Bradley Pearson? Ha. Delroy almost forget.” He walked behind the
bar, bent down and then lifted a brand new cane pole from underneath and set it
gently in front of Virgil. “He had it sent special delivery. It arrived ‘bout
an hour ago, mon. Dat’s some nice pole, no?”

__________

“Look, Jim, I know we
don’t
know each other all that
well, but if I said that you have always known me to be an honest and
straightforward cop, or at the very least a man of my word, would you be
inclined to agree with that statement?”

Officer Nagy didn’t hesitate in the
slightest. “Absolutely.”

“Then I want you to know I mean you
and your department no insult or disrespect whatsoever when I say this: No
warrant, no ride downtown.”

Nagy thought about that for a half
beat, then took out his phone and made a call. “No dice,” was all he said to
the person on the other end before he closed the phone. He twirled his nightstick
between his fingers with the precision and dexterity of a gunslinger before he
slid the baton back into the chrome loop on his belt. Then he smiled at Delroy
and sat down at the bar. “I’ve never been to Jamaica, but every time I come in
here you make me feel like I’m right at home. Got any more of that chicken
cooking back there?”

“Yeah mon, you bet we do.” Delroy
turned to go get Nagy a plate of jerk chicken, but then he stopped and said
something that surprised Virgil. “Don’t you give up on dat rookie of yours.”

Nagy cocked his head to the side.
“Why’s that?”

“Because it the ones we don’t give
up on that make it in the end. Anyting less and you not only fail them, but
worse, you disrespect yourself, you.”

Just then Virgil’s cell phone rang.

The caller I.D. said WORK. It was
Cora.

__________

When Virgil answered
the phone
she was already
speaking. “You listen to me, Jonesy and you listen good. There is no excuse for
what you did today. Do you hear me? None.”