Burners - A Jack Daniels/Alex Chapa Mystery Read online

  Jury duty is not how newspaper reporter Alex Chapa (Killing Red, Mourn the Living) wants to spend his day. But when he learns Chicago Homicide cop Jacqueline Daniels (Whiskey Sour, Shaken) will play a key role in the trial, his curiosity gets the better of him—with potentially lethal results.

  Part whodunnit mystery, part courtroom thriller, Burners is the second team-up between Chapa and Daniels (after Floaters). Loaded with suspense, humor, and twists, Burners is a perfect introduction to two bestselling authors, while also a treat for longtime fans.

  Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 | Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 | Chapter 18 | Chapter 19 | Chapter 20 | Chapter 21 | Chapter 22 | Epilogue

  Also by JA Konrath | Also by Henry Perez

  Copyright

  I went through the whole routine again.

  First I looked up at the clock perched above the door that led to the rest of the building, then down to my watch—no clue why I felt compelled to check one against the other—then a quick glance at the door to the courtroom, followed by yet another survey of the other folks in the room.

  Only thirteen of us were left, many more open seats now than people to fill them. It hadn’t been that way when this process began more than four hours ago. I had managed to drop into the last chair available. I edged out some guy who looked like a college professor circa 1975, complete with tweed sports jacket and patches on the elbows. He’d frowned when I beat him to the seat, like I gave a damn what he thought. But when his name was part of the next group called, the professor gave me a self-satisfied smirk.

  There were around seventy potential jurors at the beginning. The questionnaire that we each filled out was most likely the reason a group of more than two dozen had been immediately sent back to their lives without being called into the courtroom. I had felt certain that a couple of my written answers would have led to a quick dismissal. But no such luck.

  We’d been told to turn off our cell phones, so the room was quiet, had been most of the morning except for the occasional yawn and the sound of magazine pages being turned. From time to time one stranger would try to strike up a conversation with another, but that, thankfully, never lasted very long.

  I went through my mental checklist of responses, the ones I’d been working on for more than a week. Each was designed to anticipate a likely question. As a whole, they were intended to deliver only one possible conclusion to this unwelcome experience—I would be thanked for taking the time to do my civic duty, then shown the door.

  The court officer reappeared. He was a squat, heavyset man who looked like he hadn’t had an interesting moment in his entire life.

  He called out the next name, not a group this time, from a clipboard he was holding.

  “Martin Gustafson.”

  A man with narrow shoulders and a strong chin got up from his seat in the far corner. He took off the dark green cap he’d been wearing, the way he probably did when walking into church for a mid-week trip to the confessional, and held it against his chest. His shirt was old, collar frayed along the bottom edge, but it had been neatly pressed. Martin may not have had much luck in life, but on this day he was trying his best.

  I watched him disappear through the door, hoping he’d be the last one called, then returned to prepping my responses.

  I’ve been a journalist for fifteen years—That was true.

  In my work, I’ve covered a great many trials, most of which have ended in a conviction—Also true.

  I believe that the police get it right nearly all of the time, and that anyone charged with a major crime is always there for a reason—Umm, sort of, a little true. Sometimes.

  My experiences as a journalist make it impossible for me to be objective where accused criminals are concerned—A complete lie. Objectivity is the core of good reporting, and I happen to be a damn good reporter.

  I was hoping it would not get that far, but if I had to… I’d killed a lot of long hours sitting in courtrooms as part of my job. But there was no way I was going to sacrifice weeks, perhaps months, to jury duty.

  What I was not willing to do, however, was go down the racist road. Could not do it. Besides, with a last name like Chapa, and a birth certificate from Havana, Cuba, claiming a deep-seeded hatred of Latinos would never wash. And I had a pretty good idea which trial this jury selection was for. If I was right, the accused was a young male named Tony Beniquez, who, if convicted, would be gone for a very long time.

  “Have you ever done this before?”

  She was an attractive blonde, mid-thirties. Her high-impact makeup job looked professional.

  “You mean sit in a room with a bunch of strangers who don’t want to be there anymore than I do? Probably. Give me a minute and I’ll come up with an example.”

  That made her smile. It was a nice, expensive smile.

  “I meant jury duty.” She smiled again.

  “No. I was summoned once before, but I managed to avoid it.”

  “How’d you do that?”

  “By using my extraordinary guile and cunning.”

  Another smile.

  Actually, it was eight years earlier, and I’d been lost for several days in the woods on an assignment with what I came to believe was the worst militia group in the northern Midwest. And while I did get a good story out of my experience with The Wisconsin Free Rangers—the ill-conceived name was, as far as I know, not meant as an homage to the popular breed of chickens—I also concluded that those guys couldn’t intimidate a grade school PTA, let alone overthrow a government. During my time with the Free Rangers I did learn how to disarm a man, how to stalk imaginary targets, and the value of a good compass, or at least the dangers of forgetting to bring one into the deep forest.

  We were roaming the wilds of Wisconsin trying to find our way back to the place where we’d parked the SUVs as my jury date came and went. I cashed in a favor with a friend at the county and my name vanished from their records. Unfortunately, in the time since, I’d pissed off more than a few of the connections that might’ve kept me out of this room today.

  I wondered why they were having so much trouble seating twelve jurors. Wondered how many challenges each side had carried into the courtroom. What the hell was going on in room 4B of the Birch Grove courthouse?

  “I’m Marcia.” The lady next to me was determined to have a conversation.

  I smiled. “Were your parents big fans of the Brady Bunch?”

  “No. I’ve been asked that before. It’s my mom’s name. Though, when I was a kid, I definitely got teased about it, but I didn’t care. I think it’s a pretty name.”

  “It is a pretty name.”

  Marcia kept talking the way some people nervously do when they’re in an uncomfortable situation or are trying to connect with a complete stranger. I let her talk. She was attractive and pleasant, and though I was certain I would never see or speak to Marcia after today, listening to her story beat checking the clock every five minutes.

  “Alex Chapa?”

  The voice bounced off the walls and landed in the middle of Marcia’s story about her high school field trip to Washington, D.C.

  “I’m Alex Chapa.”

  “Didn’t you hear me the first time?”

  Mr. Excitement was standing in the open doorway, clipboard in hand.

  “I did. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t mean some other Alex Chapa.”

  “You mean there’s more than one of you,” he said, craning his neck to see if anyone else in the room was responding.
/>   “Let’s hope not.” I got up, said goodbye to Marcia, and walked toward the agitated man waiting for me by the door.

  I was determined to walk out of that courtroom a free man, just as soon as I could convince one or both of the attorneys that I was as unfit as any potential juror they had ever met.

  “Die! Die! Come on! Die you son of a—”

  The last Space Invader got me. I frowned at the screen of my cell phone, then shut it off and tucked it back into my purse, wondering why I bothered playing a game where you were always destined to lose, no matter how good you were.

  Oh yeah. I remember now. Because Space Invaders came free with the phone.

  I sighed. Hollywood glamorized the lives of cops. Shootouts and car chases and saving the victim at the last possible second before the bomb went off. Stuff like that.

  In reality, the majority of my time was spent doing paperwork, talking to unhelpful people who didn’t want to talk to me, following leads that went nowhere, and going to court.

  Of all that, I hated going to court most. Especially since this wasn’t even one of my cases.

  I smoothed out my black Anne Klein slacks and noticed a smudge on my Jean-Michel Cazabat penny suede wedge heels. They were the only thing about my outfit that didn’t qualify as 100% professionally conservative, but I secretly loved wedges in the 70s and was happy to see them make a comeback. Besides, the jurors wouldn’t see my feet when I took the stand, so they couldn’t judge my testimony by my shoes.

  I licked my thumb, bent down in the uncomfortable wooden chair, and brushed the dust mark off my toe. I was alone in one of the conference rooms across from the court, waiting for the jury to get selected. The D.A. promised I’d be the first witness, and I’d hoped to get my testimony done today. Unfortunately, it was moving up on one o’clock, and they hadn’t finished selecting the jury yet. Irritation crept up my back and made my shoulders bunch. I stood up, shaking out the knots, stretching my legs.

  Earlier, I’d checked into the same bed and breakfast I’d stayed at during my last visit to Birch Grove. It had been a pleasant trip, an extended weekend with my boyfriend, with good food and great sex. If it hadn’t also included my becoming an eyewitness in a murder trial, I might have come back on my own, rather than by subpoena.

  The door opened, and I turned and watched Simon Lebanon, the District Attorney, enter. He was about ten years my junior, wearing scuffed penny loafers and a jacket that had marks on the shoulders courtesy of a wire coat hanger. The cowlick in his brown hair reminded me of Dagwood from the old comic strip. He had a look on his face like he realized he was always late for something.

  ”Ms. Daniels…”

  “Lieutenant Daniels,” I corrected. “Are we starting?”

  “Huh? Oh, not yet. Need one more juror. Judge Malvo called a quick recess so he could go to the bathroom. He’s trying to pass a kidney stone.”

  It was that down-home country charm that made me never want to visit rural Illinois again.

  “I was really hoping to get this over with today.”

  “We’re going as fast as we can. This is a front page murder trial. No one wants to make any mistakes.”

  I appreciated how important that was to him, and to this town, but I’d been involved with too many front page murder trials to even remember them all.

  “Can’t you just use my deposition from discovery?”

  He smoothed his palm across his cowlick, and it popped right back out. “The deposition is what I wanted to talk to you about. How sure are you of what you saw?”

  “Very sure. Which is why I gave you a deposition, and why I’m here with you right now rather than someplace I’d rather be, such as anywhere else.”

  ”Your reputation precedes you, Ms., uh, Lieutenant. But I’m sure you know how unreliable eyewitness testimony can be. I wouldn’t want you to get tripped up in the cross-examination.”

  I made a face. “You read my deposition, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “It is, at most, five sentences long. How could I get tripped up?”

  From what I understood about the case, it was a slam dunk. Dumb teenager with an extensive history of run-ins with law enforcement torches a print shop and when the fire department arrives they find a dead body inside. Smoke inhalation. Maybe he was a fire bug, or could be it was just a stupid prank gone wrong. Probably didn’t know someone was still inside. An unintended victim, but tough break, kid. You shouldn’t have set the fire in the first place.

  The cops on the scene, and the owner of the establishment across the street, saw the suspect committing the arson. My two minutes’ worth of testimony would be used to establish the accused was in the area moments prior to the crime. So I had no idea why Lebanon seemed so uptight.

  Lebanon stared at me and began to drum his fingers across the tabletop. “Yeah. Well. Uh, hopefully, we’ll be ready for you soon. Remember, the important thing is you saw the defendant, with his duffle bag, just prior to the incident.”

  “And just after. When two of Birch Grove’s finest tackled him.” I added, “With perhaps a bit more force than necessary.”

  Lebanon’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t say that in the deposition.”

  “Because that is opinion, not fact.”

  “Yes, well, a man died in that fire the defendant started.”

  “Allegedly,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “He hasn’t been convicted yet. So he allegedly started the fire.”

  Scowling, Lebanon put his hands on the table and leaned toward me, an intimidation move that I bet he practiced in the mirror. “I trust you’ll just stick to the facts and keep your opinion out of your testimony, Lieutenant. That goes for the attitude as well.”

  Though I bridled at the insult, I still managed to smile. Until he turned and started to leave. I followed him across the hall and into the courtroom.

  “I’ll answer any question asked of me,” I said, lowering my voice so as to not interrupt the proceedings. The last thing I wanted to do was slow things down ever more. “But it sure would be nice if we could start sooner rather than later.”

  “I said, we will do our best to accommodate you,” Lebanon hissed, his cowlick standing at attention.

  So much for finishing today.

  The courtroom smelled of fresh paint and new wood. Eleven jurors had already been selected. That meant they needed just one more, plus a couple of alternates, probably. The seven men and four women sitting in the jury box were feigning various levels of interest. Three were African American, one was Hispanic. Three had gray hair, one looked like the sort who sported a tattoo on her backside.

  I recognized Martin Gustafson from the waiting room, and another guy named Bob who had been one of the first to be called and was genuinely thrilled for the opportunity. I guess he got his wish.

  But beyond that cursory accounting of the jury in progress, I refused to invest any serious thought in the surroundings or my circumstances.

  I just wanted to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible

  I had been ushered into the room, past the jury box, and over to the witness stand. The slender man who administered the oath was in his late thirties, with a hunch in his shoulders that would likely become a serious problem sometime in his sixties. It was the usual oath, not unlike the ones in the movies or on any of the two dozen different versions of Law and Order.

  Then I climbed into the stand and waited. And waited.

  The attorneys were also waiting. Two sets of them. For the defense, a middle-aged guy who was a bit too tall and much too broad in the shoulders for his brown sport coat, and another man, smaller, a little younger, who wore thick-rimmed glasses and the respectable hairstyle his father had always insisted on.

  “He should only be another minute or so,” the elderly bailiff said to Anna Lipscomb, whom I recognized as a lead prosecutor for the county.

  Lipscomb nodded, then resumed a whispered conversation with Simon Lebanon, Oa
kton County’s chronically disheveled D.A, who had entered the courtroom a minute earlier.

  My mind wandered beyond the beige walls of that courtroom and into another. In ten days I was scheduled to appear at the latest of what was now a four-year series of custody hearings. Carla, my ex, would be trying to further limit my opportunity to see my daughter, Nikki. Her attorneys—she had more than one while I could barely afford a paralegal—would do everything in their considerable power to erode my already tattered ability to parent my eight-year-old.

  It has been this way since Carla left home and took Nikki with her three years earlier. Got worse when she remarried some wealth. I had drained my savings—such as they were—missed work time, and months of sleep. I was just about at the end of it. I’d done all I could think of to ease the transition for Nikki, until that responsibility was ripped away from me. And now I wondered how much more I could do. For the first time since the split, I was thinking about conceding everything.

  The honorable Ezra D. Malvo finally entered the courtroom—slowly, very slowly. He had his left hand pressed against his abdomen, the right one reaching around his back to complete the vise. His face was as white as the thin strands of hair clinging to his liver-spotted head.

  “Let’s get this thing rolling,” the judge said in a voice thick as concrete. “We got ourselves a jury yet?”

  The attorneys for both sides looked at one another before the D.A. brushed back his unruly hair, a gesture that made it worse, not better, and spoke.

  “Um, no, no Your Honor. We’re still two short.”

  “Well let’s get on with it then,” Judge Malvo carefully turned to face me. “This gentleman been sworn in yet?”

  The bailiff responded with a slow nod.

  “This guy looks like a viable juror,” the judge said, then gave me the once over. “More or less.”

  “Your name is Alex Chapa?” Prosecutor Lipscomb asked as she stood, eyes locked on the notes in her hand.

  I rifled through a mental list of possible wise-ass responses, determined that my favorite was, That’s what the much better looking guy in the waiting room paid me to say, but figured that under the circumstances it was best to play it straight.