My Favorite Suspects: Part 14
What did Luna want in all this? Was she really doing me a favor? Or was it something more?
We’re nearly done with Terry’s first mystery. I had to break up the end of this story into two separate posts because of word count. Don’t worry, the final chapter will be released very soon, as it only needs editing and another revision.
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Luna and I cleaned up the storage unit. We dumped the trash and the tarp in a Dumpster on site. She dropped me off at the bus stop where she'd picked me up earlier.
The city lights lit up the overcast sky. Smoke from western wildfires gave the clouds a yellow pallor. The humidity made the air cling to my skin. At least the night air was cooler. The schedule on my phone said that the next bus wouldn't arrive for another three hours.
I walked toward my place, Luna's question a few steps behind: Was I having second thoughts about Miller?
The plan was for me to clean up, rest a bit, and take the earliest bus to the supermarket. There, I would interrupt the shift change and confront both Miller and the day manager with the video evidence.
And then what?
If I'd learned anything by dealing with Miller, it was that I had to go in with evidence and a clearly defined outcome. Last time, I had no evidence. This time, I did. Last time, I hadn't thought of the outcome. This time… this time I was working on it, at least.
I imagined myself walking away. Moving on to something else. It was the easy option. No uncomfortable confrontation. Bygones passing in the night. But that would leave AJ carrying the blame for Miller's actions and I wasn't at a stage in my life where I could live with that.
I imagined myself pushing hard to have Miller put in jail. But did he really belong there? After all, the video showed that Soft was really the boss.
Now, accompanied by only the scrape of my sneakers against the sidewalk and the hum of air conditioners in windows, another idea joined me: an idea about Luna.
What did she want in all this? Was she really doing me a favor? Or was it something more?
Should I even be thinking about Miller? I knew all about him at this point. I had nothing more to worry about from him. Shouldn't I be thinking about the person who had mysterious motives and knowledge? Why hadn't I been thinking about her?
I stopped in the middle of the block.
I knew where Luna lived, but there was no way I could walk there and back to the supermarket in time. No buses ran now and no ride shares were available. Luna knew this and was probably counting on it. I could make it if I had a car. I didn't own one and Luna knew that.
I did, however, have a roommate, and he had a girlfriend, and she had an old, unregistered Vespa. She kept it off the street by parking it under a carport behind our building. I fixed its frequent electrical issues and she let me borrow it when she wasn't using it.
The black Vespa made hardly any noise and could easily be hidden behind a pair of garbage cans. I made it to Luna's place, did my thing, and buzzed back in time to clean up and catch the bus to the supermarket.
I needed to be out of the way until both Miller and the day manager were together, alone, on the dock, making their shift-change checks. I didn't bother going in the front entrance. Instead, I walked around the back and climbed up onto the loading dock. In summer, the night crew often left the bays open after the trucks had left.
I poked around. Didn't see any evidence of what had happened earlier that morning, when Soft tried to break Miller's wrist. The cardboard boxes had been broken down and neatly stacked, their contents added to the shelves hours ago. Luna's camera was where I'd placed it. I wondered if she were watching.
The rising sun tinted the overcast with a wash of blood orange. The heat rose, too. I found a sturdy price control cart in a corner, pulled it out, sat on the flat plywood top. I checked my phone. Luna had posted the video to a private YouTube channel and I needed to be able to access it for the plan to work. The video streamed perfectly out on the dock, where the wide open bays let in tons of signal. At least bandwidth wouldn't be a problem.
I heard the clack-clack of the day manager's pumps on the concrete. Roughly on time, Miller and the day manager entered the loading dock from the doorway that led to the break room. They were absorbed in conversation. The day manager looked fresh yet her humidity-curled hair gave her a frazzled appearance. Miller's tie was flipped over one shoulder and he didn't bother to tuck in the wrinkled tails of his dress shirt, as he normally would. The wrist that Soft had grabbed was crudely wrapped with white athletic tape and he cradled it in his other arm as they walked.
It took them a minute to realize I was there.
"Do you need help?" the day manager said, stopping awkwardly in mid-stride.
Miller tilted his head. "Is that you, bro? What's with the hair? Where are your glasses?" They both walked up to me. I stayed seated on the price control cart. "What're you even doing here?"
I started to answer when the day manager said to Miller, "I thought he'd packed everything up."
He held up his good hand and gave her a let me handle this look.
"You have to go, bro," he said to me. "I don't want to call the cops on you."
I had to make my choice right now. Should I spin the evidence completely against Miller? Should I simply play the video and let him hang there and try to rescue himself? Did I owe him anything?
In that moment, I went with my instinct.
"You should call the cops," I said, a bit quickly.
Miller looked confused.
"I mean," I said, getting my voice under control, "a crime's been committed. Why don't you call them?"
"What's he talking about?" the day manager said.
“This guy has been stealing from you,” I said. I held up my phone for both of them to see the video. The phone displayed a still image that featured Miller from the video.
Miller stared at himself in the image. His face turned pale, with dark circles under his eyes, resigned to whatever came next. A guy out of options. I’ll give him credit, though. He didn’t plead with me. His lips drew thin, eyes focused on something in the distance. His tie hung limply from his sweat-stained collar.
I pressed the play button.
Nothing happened.
"Oops. Let me try that again." Somehow, I'd clicked away from YouTube. "Stupid phones. Anyway. You’ll see there,” I said, “that big guy. He’s a local criminal. They call him Soft."
"Doesn't look soft," the day manager said to herself.
"That's exactly what I said. It's some kind of street thing. So. Check this out. Soft has been shaking down local businesses, OK? Watch this."
They watched the video, the whole thing: Miller arguing with Soft, the cigarette boxes, the goons. At the moment Soft attacked Miller, the day manager gasped and put her fingers to her lips in shock.
When it was over, she said to Miller, "You told me you'd sprained it on one of the pallet jacks. Why didn't you tell me the truth?"
He didn't answer.
"Soft," I said, "goes after people that he can intimidate or coerce into working with him. And Miller here, well, he's being forced by Soft to cooperate in a theft operation.”
I watched emotions play across Miller's face: first, confusion, followed by recognition, and a sense of relief, signaled by a slow blink, and a barely audible exhale. He couldn't bring himself to look me in the eyes.
The day manager snapped her fingers at Miller to get his attention. “Is this true? Has this guy, Soft, been doing this? Is that what's been happening to the cigarettes?"
Miller swallowed, hard, and nodded.
“Why didn’t you come to me about it?"
“You saw the video," Miller said. "He almost broke my wrist. He's been like that ever since the beginning. If I went to the cops, or to management, I thought I’d wind up dead. I didn't want anyone else involved. Not you. Not Terry. Sorry, guys. You have to believe me about this."
"What about AJ?" I said.
"I'm sorry about AJ, too."
The day manager patted Miller's shoulder sympathetically, but to her credit, stuck to her cynicism. "We'll have to go to the cops about this. Terry, can you send me a link to this video?"
"Already on the way."
"All right," she said, puffed out her cheeks, and let her breath out in hard stops. "Yeah. All right. Let's go call Corporate."
She led Miller back through the break room entrance.
They left me on the loading dock with the discarded boxes and bags of trash.
And Luna, of course, watching, always.
The image used in this post is from the collection, “Rochester After Dark,” by Onno Kluyt. Reused under the Creative Commons license.
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Use the Previous and Next buttons at the end of each post to navigate through all posts on My Favorite Suspects, or use the Story Guide for an overview of this book and list of all chapters.
Stay tuned for the next chapter!