Granny Apples 05 - Ghost in the Guacamole (22 page)

“Oh well,” Emma said, infusing her voice with defeat. “Can't say I didn't try.”

“Don't worry, honey,” Nancy said, trying to be encouraging. “I'm sure your girl will find someone just as nice as my Peter, especially with such a concerned mother supporting her.”

When Emma ended the call, Phil said to her with a deadpan face, “You're going straight to hell for that stunt.”

“Does that mean I'll be going alone?”

He laughed and kissed her. “Not on your life.”

“Here I am working my backside off and you two are spooning.” Granny popped up in the back. Instead of answering, Emma kissed Phil back. “If neither of you are interested in my big breakthrough,” groused the ghost, “then I guess I'll have to find Jeremiah.”

Emma laughed and turned to Granny. “I just learned that the Peter you heard was Isabel's boyfriend is the same Peter who owns the tour bus company.”

“I can top that,” replied Granny with a gleam in her eye. “I know where Carlos is hanging out.”

Emma turned back to Phil. “She says she knows where Carlos is.”

Phil looked in the back. “Great job, Granny. So where is he?”

“Wherever that Fiesta company is,” the ghost answered proudly.

“You mean the offices of Fiesta Time?” asked Emma with surprise. “That's where Carlos is right now?”

“Are you sure, Granny?” asked Phil.

“The boy isn't quite inside the company,” the ghost explained. “He's still sitting at the fast-food place, but I got curious about why he's doing that. It's looking a lot like a stakeout to me, especially since he keeps looking over at something.”

Emma passed along the information to Phil, then asked Granny, “Could you tell what he was watching?”

“That's the thing,” Granny answered. “It looked like just a parking lot to me. There's a chain link fence between it and the food place and Carlos is right next to the fence keeping an eye on something. One of the cars, I think. So I wandered over there to see what I could see.” She paused.

“And?” prodded Emma.

“I still didn't get it,” said Granny, scratching her head, “then I saw the sign on the building. It said,
Fiesta Time
.”

Once Phil was brought up to speed, he asked, “Did anyone come out and meet with Carlos?”

“Not while I was there,” answered Granny. “Of course, I wasn't there the entire time. Sometimes I was with you or looking for Felix, but you'd think if Carlos had already had his meeting, he still wouldn't be there, wouldn't you?”

“Good point, Granny,” Emma said before relaying the comment on to Phil.

Phil studied Emma, then said. “I guess our next stop is Montebello.”

“Is that where Fiesta Time is?” Emma asked.

Phil started backing the SUV out of the space. “As I recall. Why don't you look up the exact address on your phone?”

“Should I go tell Jeremiah?” asked Granny.

Emma went to work searching on her smart phone for the address of Fiesta Time. She glanced back at Granny. “No, Granny, don't tell Jeremiah just yet. He's busy on a hot lead. We can handle this. Besides, I have a feeling Jeremiah already knows where he can find Carlos.”

“You do?” asked Granny.

“You know how Jeremiah said he has an associate watching Steve Bullock today? I think Carlos Fuentes is that watchdog.”

L
IKE
Roble Foods, Fiesta Time was housed in a beige concrete office building with manufacturing and warehouse facilities in the back. The only difference was it was on a smaller scale and didn't have a guard at a gate. The entrance to its parking lot was secured by an automated gate.

“There's the food place,” Emma said, pointing to a small structure next to the fence that secured Fiesta Time's property. As they suspected, it wasn't a chain fast-food restaurant but a small mom-and-pop take-out place painted dark red with all of its seating outside at tables and benches. The sign above it said,
Maria's Place
. As they passed by, Emma could see Carlos, his head down, seated at a table next to the fence just as Granny had said.

“Looks like you might get lunch after all,” Emma said to Phil.

“Sounds good to me,” he said with a grin. “Usually, these small places have the best and most authentic food.”

“I said ‘might,'” she reminded him. “Depends on whether Carlos takes off or not when he sees us.” She paused, then added. “And I hope he doesn't because I'm hungry, too.”

Phil made a U-turn and brought the SUV back around. When they reached Maria's, he turned in to their small parking lot, which was on the other side from where Carlos sat. In the lot was a motorcycle and a beat-up Honda Accord. “Didn't Granny say Carlos rode a motorcycle?”

“Yes,” Emma confirmed. “I'm glad it's after the bulk of the normal lunch hour so there won't be many others around.” She pointed to a nearby trash can that was nearly full. “It looks like this place could be popular.”

They parked and walked around to the front of the tiny structure. A man was at the window ordering food. He was dressed in business attire. At the curb, Emma noted a new-model sedan illegally parked with its engine running, the driver waiting behind the wheel. The passenger's side door was ajar. This was what passed as a drive-thru at Maria's Place.

Carlos noticed them before they got close. He sat up straight and squared his jaw as if expecting trouble. Dressed in jeans and a light gray T-shirt with a band logo on the front, he looked stronger and older than he had at the restaurant. The tattoos on his arms were also more obvious.

“About time you got here,” Granny said to them.

“Hi, Carlos,” began Emma, ignoring the ghost. “Do you remember me?”

He nodded, but said nothing for a couple of heartbeats. “You're that lady from the restaurant. The one who met with Rikki a couple of times about all that ghost BS.”

Granny stomped her foot. “It's not . . . what you said.”

“We'd like to ask you a couple of questions,” Emma told Carlos. “It's very important.”

“I didn't do anything wrong,” he said with defiance.

“We don't think you did either, but aren't the police looking for you for questioning?” asked Phil.

“Let 'em look,” Carlos said with confidence, spreading out his arms in a grand gesture. “I'm not walking into no police station, but I'm not hiding either. If they come to me, I'll tell them what I know.”

“Like how you took money from Steve Bullock for a job of some sort that involved T.J., a man now lying in the hospital shot through the chest?” Emma didn't take her eyes off Carlos.

The young man's face turned dark and brooding. “I'd never hurt T.J. and I never did what Bullock wanted. I never intended to do it. I . . . I just took the money.” Almost as soon as the words were out, his mouth fell open. “Hey, how do you know about that anyway?” Before they could answer, Carlos said, “Only two other people knew about that going down—T.J. and . . . another guy.”

Everyone looked surprised, including Granny, who hovered next to Carlos. “T.J. knew about the payoff?” The ghost looked up at Emma. “That doesn't sound right. Do you think he's really involved and got shot because he knew too much?”

“Is the other guy Jeremiah Jones, by any chance?” Phil asked. “Aren't you working for Jeremiah?” Carlos didn't answer. He just watched them with the wary eyes of an animal not sure if he's met friend or foe. “Aren't you keeping tabs on Steve Bullock for Jeremiah as we speak?” Phil continued. He waved an arm in the direction of the Fiesta Time parking lot. “I'll bet if we checked, we'd discover that one of the cars in plain sight from this table is his, and that the money he gave you wasn't for watching his car.”

“What do you want from me?” Carlos asked.

Phil looked at Emma. Granny looked at Emma. Emma realized they were waiting for her to make the next move in the interrogation. She sat down at the table and addressed the young man. “Listen, Carlos, we just left a meeting with Rikki Ricardo. She asked us to help her get to the bottom of what happened.” She spoke calmly, laying out the facts that they knew so far. “We know that the Ricardo family has been good to you and that you wouldn't do anything to hurt them. We know that T.J. has been good to you and you wouldn't want to hurt him either. We're not thinking that you had anything to do with the shooting, but we need to know what happened.” She glanced at Phil, then back to Carlos. “We saw you with Steve Bullock that day by the parking lot. We were leaving to go home and saw you accept an envelope from Steve. What was that all about? Did Steve Bullock pay you to hurt T.J.?”

After careful thought, Carlos took a deep breath, blowing out the air hard enough to stir the stack of paper napkins on the table. Instead of answering, he picked up his phone and made a call. “Hey, man,” he said into the phone, “that ghost lady and her friend are here asking me questions. I don't know how they found me, but they did.” He paused, then put the phone on speaker.

“Phil, Emma, what a surprise.” It was Jeremiah. “I underestimated you.”

Phil was leaning down close to Emma. She could feel him tense at Jeremiah's words. “Don't play with us, Jeremiah,” Phil said into the phone. “This is serious business.”

“I'm well aware of that, Phil. I just wanted to buy some time before telling you the whole story.”

“Now would be a good time to begin,” said Emma into the phone. “Start with the handoff of cash. You said you were hired by T.J. to follow Bullock. Is that true?”

“Yes, but Carlos here is who caused T.J. to hire me. Tell them, son. Tell these good people what started it all. They're cool.”

“That handoff you saw was a setup,” Carlos began after taking a drink from the straw stuck in his jumbo soda. The cup must have been close to empty, because his sucking resulted in a wet, empty sound.

“No,” interrupted Jeremiah. “Start from the beginning when Bullock first contacted you.”

Carlos shook the soda cup. The only sound it made was that of lonely ice, and not much of that. “I gotta get another drink first. It's hot out here.”

“I'll get it,” Phil said. “You keep talking. What kind?”

“A Coke.”

“You want some food, too?”

“No, man. I had lunch.” After Phil left, Carlos began. “It all started about two weeks ago. Bullock approached me at this gym I go to. He asked if I wanted to make some real money. I thought he meant something like drugs, so I told him to get lost.”

Phil came back with Carlos's soda and iced teas for Emma and himself. “I've ordered us some lunch,” he told Emma and left for the front window again.

“Keep going,” Granny encouraged him, even though he couldn't hear her.

Emma smiled at the eagerness in the ghost's voice. Even Jeremiah laughed, but Carlos only looked puzzled. “Go ahead, Carlos,” Emma said. “Keep going.”

Carlos unwrapped his fresh straw and stuck it through the hole in the lid on the top of the soda. “He didn't leave but told me he knew I worked for the Ricardos and that he had a job he needed done. He said that Felix had died holding something that belonged to his uncle Ramon, and the Santiagos wanted it back.” He took a drink of his fresh soda. “I told him I wasn't a thief and turned away, but then he offered me ten thousand dollars and handed me his card. Told me to think about it.”

Phil returned with their food. A burrito for himself and grilled shrimp tacos for Emma. “Bullock offered Carlos ten thousand dollars to steal something from the Ricardos,” she told Phil.

“Seems like you're always catching that man up,” quipped Granny. Instead of answering, Emma indicated for Carlos to continue. Then she picked up her taco and took a bite and nearly swooned. “These are delicious,” she gushed, interrupting Carlos just as he got started again. Phil had his mouth wrapped around the burrito and grunted in agreement. Grabbing a napkin, Emma wiped her mouth and apologized, “I'm sorry, Carlos. Please continue.”

“You two are acting like a couple of pigs at a trough,” Granny said in disgust. Again Jeremiah laughed.

“Well, ten grand is a lot of money for a kid like me,” Carlos said.

“For anyone,” said Phil. He took a drink of his iced tea. “Had to be tempting.”

“You don't know, man,” Carlos told him. “My family needed that money bad. My mother's a single mom and she's been sick. My little brother and sister are too young to help out. Yesterday when I called in sick, I wasn't. I had to look after the kids while my mother went to some appointments. Usually my aunt does it, but she couldn't yesterday. Ten grand seemed like a gift from God.” He spread out his arms. “Like it fell from heaven. So I asked him what he wanted. I was just supposed to sneak around until I found this agreement, then take it. That's all Bullock wanted.”

“Guys,” came Jeremiah's voice from the phone. “I already know all this and I have some people I need to talk to. Carlos, tell these people anything and everything they want to know. I trust them. I'll catch up with all of you later. And, Carlos, you can leave when you're done. Thanks for sitting there all day.”

“Okay, man,” Carlos said to Jeremiah. He ended the call and looked back at Phil and Emma, clearly uncomfortable about spilling his guts to them. He wiped the back of one hand across his mouth and continued, “For a day or two, even though I hadn't given my answer to Bullock yet, I did look for that agreement whenever I got the chance, but I felt like crap sneaking around like that. I need the job. I make good tips and they work around my school schedule. Sometimes I even pick up extra money working the food trucks when they need it.” He shrugged. “Yeah, sometimes Rikki can be too strict with rules, but so was her old man, and everyone loved him. Rikki's a nice lady. She treats everyone good, with respect, no matter what your job there.” He took another drink of soda. “I owe those people, and money or not, they deserve better from me.”

Granny leaned over to Emma. “Fill me in later,” she said to Emma. “I want to see what Jeremiah's up to. That okay by you?” Emma gave her a tiny nod. It was exactly what she wanted Granny to do.

“That's a very mature attitude,” Phil told Carlos, “especially in the face of all that cash.”

Carlos shrugged off the compliment. “I had to do the right thing, man. So I called up T.J. and told him I needed to see him in private. When we met, I told him about Bullock, the money, and what I was supposed to steal.”

“Did T.J. seem surprised by the existence of the document,” Emma asked, “or do you think he already knew about it?”

“He seemed totally surprised and determined to find out what was in it. All I knew to tell him was that it was a loan agreement and Bullock believed it to be at the restaurant.” Carlos rotated his neck, loosening the tension settling in it. Every now and then he would glance over at the parking lot, continuing his surveillance. “I asked Bullock why the restaurant and not in a safe-deposit box. I mean, that's where I would keep such an important document.”

“What did he say?” asked Emma. She'd finished her lunch, deposited her plate in a nearby trash can, and sat down again.

“He said the family didn't find it among Felix's personal things when he died. I found that weird.”

“How so?” asked Phil after swallowing the food in his mouth.

“I wasn't sure if he meant the Ricardos or the Santiagos didn't find it. T.J. told me that Lucy and Bullock had become tight, so I just thought Lucy knew about it and wanted to find it before Rikki found out.”

“What did T.J. do after you told him?” asked Phil. He took another drink of his tea and waited, totally absorbed in the tale. Emma was, too. Both listened with complete attention.

“I could tell he was angry after I told him, but he kept his cool. The next day he and I met again after I got off work. This time Jeremiah was with T.J. Together we planned the setup. I would tell Bullock that I was in and set up the meeting for him to pay me half up front, the rest upon handing over the agreement. Jeremiah was to film and record the meeting. I even wore a wire.”

“When I stumbled on the meeting,” Phil said, “I overheard you say something about T.J. What was it?”