Dangerous Friends (A Carlos McCrary novel Book 4) Page 4

  “What about the explosion?”

  “The train came rolling down the track on the north side of the river. James and I raised the banner in plenty of time, just like we planned. Then…” She caught her breath. “Steven said, ‘Watch this.’ He held up an old-fashioned flip phone. I recognized the small screen glowing in the dark. I remember wondering about that. Steven has a smartphone like everybody else, and I’d never seen him with a flip phone.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “Anyway, he held the phone where I could see it and he tapped with his other hand.” She grabbed her braid and twirled it as the tears spilled down her cheeks. “The bridge—it just exploded. Boom. Just a bunch of twisted metal flying through the air. It was awful. The first few train cars fell into the river.” Now she was sobbing.

  “Did you know Steven intended to blow up the bridge?”

  “No, no, no. You gotta believe me.” She grabbed my arm. “He told me we would just hang the banner. That’s all. No one was supposed to get hurt.”

  “The bomb was in the boat?”

  “I didn’t know it at the time. The banner covered it. When we took the banner out of the boat, I saw a big canvas pulled down over something bulky. I asked Steven what it was for, and he said it was nothing. He said it was nothing.” She looked at me with pleading eyes. “Oh my God, what do I do now?”

  Great. I didn’t say what I was thinking. I didn’t tell her that her friends had embroiled her in a felony murder. That it was a federal crime to interfere with a train. That she was a principal to a terrorist act that carried a death sentence at both the state and federal level. I didn’t say that she was a naïve knucklehead whose dangerous friends had thrown her into a cesspool. That she was in way over her head. I didn’t say any of that; I’d promised—no lectures.

  Instead, I bit my tongue. “Let me see what I can do.”

  “Will you help me?”

  “You may be beyond help, Michelle. But I’ll do my best.”

  Chapter 10

  Michelle put a hand on my forearm. “Can I stay with you tonight?”

  I thought of being charged as accessory after the fact, harboring a fugitive, and a host of violations of the Patriot Act or some other law I’d never heard of.

  “You should go home.”

  “I can’t go there. Mom and Dad will kill me, I know it.” She twisted her braid again. “You’ve got to let me stay with you.”

  “Michelle, how long since you’ve eaten?”

  He eyes opened wide. “I… I… I had a pizza with the others last night, I think.”

  “Let’s go inside and get you some breakfast.”

  “But someone might see me.”

  “So what? You can’t hide under a rock until this goes away. Besides, nobody’s looking for you… yet.” I patted her on the shoulder. “And I’ll try to keep it that way. Come on, let’s get you some food.” I didn’t wait for her to agree. I popped my door and walked toward the diner.

  She followed and sat across from me in the booth. She placed her cellphone beside her napkin.

  “You’re expecting a call?” I asked.

  “What?” She glanced down at the phone as if she was surprised it was there. “I always put my phone there.”

  Veraleesa walked over with a coffee pot and two mugs. She set one before Michelle. “You want coffee, hon?”

  Michelle nodded, and Veraleesa filled the mug. She placed the other mug in front of me and poured without asking. She set the pot down and pulled out an order pad. “What’ll you have, hon?”

  Michelle asked, “What’s good?”

  “I like the huevos rancheros,” I said.

  She smiled at Veraleesa. “I’ll have the huevos rancheros and whole wheat toast.”

  Veraleesa said, “You want the toast in addition to the tortillas? Or instead of the tortillas?”

  “Bring both,” I interrupted. “I’ll eat what she doesn’t.”

  Veraleesa laughed. “You were born hungry, Chuck, and you been hungry ever since.” She walked away, laughing at her own joke.

  “Aren’t you eating?” Michelle asked.

  “I got here before you did. I already had breakfast.” I poured a little half-and-half in my coffee. “Michelle, let me explain why you need to go home.”

  I waited while she heaped two spoons of sugar and a healthy dollop of half-and-half in her coffee. “Your parents hired me to find you and make sure you were okay. I finished that assignment last night when I reported where you were and that you were there of your own free will. You with me so far?”

  She nodded, eyes wide.

  “Your folks had a problem: They didn’t know where you were. I solved that problem, and they paid me for that solution… Or they will when I send them the bill later today. That’s what I do for a living—I solve people’s problems. Your parents’ problem was pretty simple, and I solved it in a few hours.”

  She blew on her coffee and took a sip. “I see where you’re going with this.”

  “Where am I going with this?”

  “You won’t help me unless I pay you.” She studied the surface of her coffee.

  “That’s almost right. I would help you get home safely in any event, because it’s the right thing to do, even if your father wasn’t a client and your grandpa Hank wasn’t my friend. But you need a lot more than an escort home. You have a serious life-and-death problem that requires someone with serious life-and-death skills. Solving problems like that is what I do for a living.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I’ll help you get home safe regardless of anything else, so don’t worry about that. But to give you more help beyond that, I’ve got to get paid. I’d go broke if I worked for free.”

  She looked down at her lap and seemed to shrink into herself. “I don’t have any money.”

  “I know. That’s why you need to go home. Don’t worry, I’ll follow you there, and I’ll explain your situation enough so your folks will want to help.”

  Her lower lip trembled. “But what if they won’t hire you?”

  I put my hand on hers. “Michelle, your folks love you more than life itself. They’ll move heaven and earth to help you, believe me.”

  She looked into the distance and smiled.

  I asked, “What are you remembering?”

  “When I was sixteen, two girlfriends and I decided it would be cool to stay out all night and skip school the next day. We turned off our cellphones and went to an all-night movie theater.” She looked back at me. “The next day around noon, we realized that our parents would be so mad that we’d be grounded for the rest of eternity. Then I was afraid to go home and face the music.” She looked up when Veraleesa came over.

  Veraleesa set Michelle’s order down. She gave the toast to Michelle and put the tortillas near me, along with a glass of ice water. “I’ll get you the salsa. You want ice water, hon?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Veraleesa left and Michelle continued. “I finally decided to go home, let myself in, and wait for them to come home from work.” She forked a bite of huevos into her mouth. “Boy, these are good. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

  “Food always helps,” I said.

  Veraleesa brought the salsa and ice water and left.

  I spooned salsa on a tortilla. “So what happened when your folks got home?”

  “That’s just it—they were already home. They never left to go to work. They spent the night on the phone calling hospitals, the police, all my friends’ parents. Everything they could think of. They thought I’d been abducted or something. They were so happy to see me that they cried.” She nibbled a bite of toast. “Dad said ‘Someday when you have children, you’ll understand.’ They only grounded me for a week.”

  She smiled at the thought. “Yeah, they’ll hire you.”

  I finished off the first tortilla and pulled a notepad from my jacket. “Then let’s get to work.”

  Chapter 11

  “Where did you get the boat?” I asked. />
  “It was tied up at the dock at McKinley Park, a mile up the river from the bridge.”

  I wrote that down. “Was the bomb already in it, or did you stop somewhere to load the bomb?”

  “No, we went straight from the park to the bridge.”

  “Close your eyes.” I waited until she did. “Now look at the boat in your mind. Is the tarpaulin there?”

  “No. But the banner is there. It’s folded over once and laid in the center of the boat. Yeah and there’s some kind of heap or lump of something bulky under it.” She opened her eyes. “I had to step around it to get to my seat.”

  “Good. We’re making progress.” I noted bomb already in boat. “How did the boat get to the park?”

  Michelle shook her head. “I don’t know. It was already at the dock, like I said.”

  “How many of you were in on this?”

  “Four, counting me.”

  “What are their names?”

  She frowned. “All our environmental defense actions are confidential. We made an oath not to discuss them outside the group.” She attacked the eggs again.

  I wanted to shake her ’til her teeth rattled. Instead, I looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath. Michelle was an eighteen-year-old woman. Legally an adult, yeah. She looked like a full-grown woman wearing that braless tee-shirt, but she’d never bumped up against the real world until now. Since birth, the toughest decisions she’d made were which expensive prom dress her parents would buy and which college to attend. Her wealthy parents had swaddled her in an ivory tower of privilege, as they should. Then she left for the different ivory tower world of UAC. Any resemblance to the real world of crime and punishment was purely coincidental.

  I waited until she looked at me. “Michelle. Read. My. Lips. The U.S. Attorney will say that the oath the four of you made was evidence of criminal intent. That you knew that what you were doing was wrong, and the four of you took steps to hide your criminal activity.”

  She pressed her lips together and crossed her arms under her breasts. I focused my eyes rigidly on her face. “Michelle, you think these people are your friends, but they are not your friends anymore. They lied to you—or at least the guy who detonated the bomb did. They involved you in a federal crime that carries the death penalty. Just ask that idiot who bombed the Boston Marathon a few years ago.”

  She caught her breath and raised her hand to her mouth. “I remember that. It was all over the news.”

  Finally, I’d gotten her attention. “The FBI and Homeland Security will be after all four of you like a pack of dogs chasing a squirrel. If you want me to help you, you’ll tell me everything.”

  “No one was supposed to get hurt.” She glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “They promised. It was only a plastic banner. That wouldn’t hurt anyone. We only wanted television coverage.”

  “Did any of your friends video the…” I searched for a word. “…protest.”

  “James was supposed to. He was supposed to upload it to YouTube and email the link to the television stations.” She scooped up a forkful of food.

  I wrote myself a note: Check YouTube for other protests. “That would be the guy who attacked me last night? James Ponder?”

  “Yeah. Him.” She stuffed the rest of the toast in her mouth.

  “Who is this Steven guy you mentioned?” I figured it was the college professor Michelle had telephoned several times, but I wanted to see if she would level with me.

  “Steven Wallace. Doctor Wallace. He teaches environmental studies at UAC.”

  I already knew that, but I wrote it down for Michelle’s benefit. It was important that she know she was helping me. If nothing else, it made her feel more in control of her situation. “You mentioned a Katherine…”

  “Katherine Shamanski. She’s a senior in environmental studies. We belong to the same student club.”

  “What’s the club’s name?”

  “Defenders of the Earth.”

  “You mean like the kid’s cartoon show?”

  Her lips curved up a little. “We figured it was ironic.”

  “Didn’t the show’s producers complain about you infringing on their copyright or trademark?”

  She shrugged. “They don’t know we exist.”

  “How many in the club?”

  She thought for a moment. “Maybe twenty or twenty-five. About fifteen regulars. We have our own Facebook page.”

  “Any of them or anybody else at the railroad tracks?”

  “No. The three others are sort of the club leaders.”

  “Why did they include you in this, uh, project?”

  “James was trying to recruit me into an inner circle. He said they were making me the fourth musketeer.”

  “Wallace is a professor. How can he belong to a student club?”

  “He’s not a member; he’s the faculty advisor. When we met this weekend, they said the Three Musketeers were now the Four Musketeers. They made me the fourth musketeer last week.” Tears spilled from her eyes again.

  “What about the planning? Anybody other than the four of you involved in planning the protest?”

  “I wasn’t involved in the planning. I learned about it a few days ago before Spring Break.”

  “Any of the other club members know you were going to do it?”

  “We didn’t tell anyone.” She stopped. “That’s strange… Usually Steven or Katherine suggests projects at club meetings, and we discuss them with the whole club and ask for volunteers.”

  “But not this time?”

  She shook her head. “In fact, this time Steven met with the three of us at this place above a pizza parlor. He specifically told us not to discuss it with anyone outside that room.”

  “Where was the pizza parlor?”

  “I don’t remember. James drove. It was some crummy little hole in the wall in Uptown. Not a good neighborhood. If James hadn’t been with me, I wouldn’t have gone there.” The ivory tower again.

  “You remember the pizza parlor’s name?”

  “Something Italian. I can’t remember.” Her eyes were moist. “But it’s important isn’t it? I can’t remember…” Tears rolled down her cheeks again. She wiped them with her hands. “Wait, the building had a pawn shop too. Does that help?”

  “Maybe.” I wrote Above pizza parlor, something Italian in Uptown. Pawn shop. “Who piloted the boat?”

  “James.” Her eyes widened. “And he told us where to sit to balance the weight in the boat.”

  “How did you get to McKinley Park?”

  She sipped her coffee. “We drove in separate cars, parked on nearby streets, and met at the boat ramp. That way we could split up after the protest.”

  “Whose idea was that?”

  “Katherine’s, I guess. She’s the one who told us where to park when she phoned James and me at his house.” She looked down at the table. “I don’t remember some of this stuff.” The tears welled in her eyes again. “I didn’t realize that all this detail would be important.”

  I patted her on the hand and waited while she calmed down. “So all of you parked near McKinley Park?”

  She spread strawberry jam on the second slice of toast. “Yeah, a block away in different directions.” She took a giant bite.

  “How did you get back to your car with your boat destroyed?”

  “I ran down the tracks away from the river,” she answered. “The tracks cross a street a quarter of mile south of the bridge.”

  “I know the place.”

  “From there I walked.”

  “Were the others’ cars still near McKinley Park when you got there?” I asked.

  She clinched her fists. “Chuck, this is hard. I was so shook up that I didn’t notice anything. I never saw where the others parked when I got there. And afterward, when I found my car, I must’ve been sort of dazed. I drove to the beach and parked while I thought about what to do.” She finished the toast, wiped her fingers on a napkin. “Can’t you just call the cops a
nd explain that I was there under false pretenses?” Her voice began to get higher. “Explain that I thought it was going to be a peaceful protest.”

  I motioned her to keep her voice down. “Michelle, you don’t realize the depth of the trouble you’re in. We are talking a federal crime here. Even if your protest had gone off the way you thought it would, you violated several laws.” I patted her hand, waited for her to calm down again. “You trespassed on a railroad right of way; that’s a crime. Even tying a boat to the fender under a bridge is illegal. There’s a sign that prohibits docking there. If you had succeeded with the banner, that would have been a federal crime of interfering with interstate transportation.” I glanced around the room. No one paid any attention to us but Veraleesa, and she was out of earshot scanning all her customers in the diner. “You are guilty of felony murder.”

  “Murder? I didn’t kill anyone. And I certainly didn’t intend to kill anyone.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” I said. “The law says that if a death occurs during the commission of a felony, the persons who conspired to commit the felony are guilty of murder—all of them, even if they didn’t pull the trigger or, in this case, push the button. It doesn’t matter whether you intended to kill anyone. It doesn’t matter if the person killed was one of the perpetrators. It only matters that you were committing a felony and there was a death.”

  She leaned back in the bench. “Holy crap.”

  “Yeah. Holy crap. Did you call me from the park?”

  Before Michelle answered, Veraleesa returned. She refilled my mug. “You hungry for a piece of pie, Chuck? My shift is over in a few minutes, but we made fresh pecan pie. It’s set up and cooled, but a scoop of butter pecan ice cream would cool it off more.”

  “You know me too well, Veraleesa. And bring a piece for Michelle.”

  Michelle smiled at the tall black woman. “Oh, I couldn’t hold another bite.”

  Veraleesa returned her smile and refilled her cup. “Don’t you worry about that, hon. Chuck’ll eat it if you don’t.” She walked off, cackling.

  I turned to Michelle. “Where were you when you called me?”