Highway Butcher – Chapter Thirteen

NOT EDITED

Chapter Thirteen

Friday: June 19, 2020

8:00 AM; LOS ANGELES PENITENTIARY, VISITING ROOM

Kathy Baker dropped into the chair across from Jensen at the cold metal table, one eyebrow raised. “Jensen.”

He offered a smile. She looked noticeably thinner than he remembered. Given the cancer diagnosis, he hadn’t quite known what to expect. But she didn’t look nearly as ill as he had prepared himself for. “Hey, Momma K. You look good.”

“I have cancer, Jensen.”

“I-I know. I just… You look better than I thought you would. Y-you don’t look, y’know…”

“Like I’m dying?”

“I, umm, I guess? I’m sorry.”

“Right. What are you doing here?”

“I just, umm, wanted to see you. It’s been a while.”

“Right,” she repeated, much slower this time “You didn’t visit Dallas, did you?”

“No. I-I wouldn’t do that without your permission.”

Finally, she smiled. “That’s my good boy.” She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “What’re you doing these days?”

“Looking for a job. I graduated police academy and—”

She laughed. “Why on Earth would you do that?”

“Look… for a job?”

“Police academy. Become a police officer.”

“I-I wanted to be like you.”

“You’re sweet. A little naive, but sweet.” She looked down at her hand, curling her fingers to run her thumb over her nails. “I heard you were actually working for Jamal.” Brown eyes shifted back to his face. “Are you?”

Jensen searched her face. David was right about one thing. Her eyes gave her away. The almost dangerous glint in them dared him to answer. Truthfully sure as hell wasn’t an option. “To try and persuade him to get you out of here. You don’t deserve to be here, Momma.”

She smiled again. But her eyes didn’t. “Always my good boy. I knew I could count on you. How has that been going?”

“He’s just been trying to convince me you’re a bad person. That my childhood memories of you are lies and that you aren’t really the savior I pretend you are.”

“Well, try to remember that Jamal is a conniving bastard who tortures and murders people for the mob in his free time.”

“Bad people.”

That judgmental eyebrow raised again. “Are you defending Jamal fucking Pitman to me? To me?”

Jensen shook his head so fast it made him dizzy. “No, ma’am. J-just repeating what he’s said to me.”

“Good. Jamal’s a liar. Always has been, always will be. He’d slit your throat the moment you no longer served him.” She laid a hand on her chest. “Just to get back at me. To take you from me.”

God, why were her eyes so… empty? Empty of the sadness the rest of her body was cosplaying. Had they always been that way? They couldn’t have been. Right? He would have noticed. Surely, he would’ve noticed. Prison had changed her eyes. It was just prison. Prison had to change you or you wouldn’t survive it. That was all.

“You… you saved me, Momma K, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did. Why would you ask me that? God, what has that monster done to my baby boy? He’s turning you against me too? Taking my very last child away, like he hasn’t done enough damage already?”

“N-no, it’s okay. I don’t believe him. I don’t believe any of it.”

“Good,” she whispered. “What has he told you?”

“I-it was suggested that you just took credit for it. Saving me, I mean.”

“Please. Jamal would’ve handed you right over to social services and thrown you into foster care if it hadn’t been for me. You would’ve been there until you aged out, and you would’ve been tossed onto the street the second the government stopped paying your foster parents for having you. I’m the only one who wanted you, Jensen. It was me.”

Had she always talked to him like that? Told him no one else would want him?

“Why do you hate Bo Austen?”

All traces of sadness vanished from her face. “Tell me you are not working with that fucker.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good. Why are you asking me about him?”

“Mister Pitman never… never stops talking about him.”

“Jamal thinks Bo is God’s gift to the LAPD. I think Bo made sure to ruin my life because he believes he should’ve gotten to play housewife to Dallas.”

“What?”

“Oh, did Jamal not tell you that in his never-ending speech about Bo’s amazing genius? He was in love with Dallas. Probably still is. Poor little guy.”

“Did you… know that before you started dating Mister Silver?”

The shocked sadness came back, a hand moving to cover her heart. “Who do you take me for? Of course I didn’t. I wouldn’t have stolen Dallas like that if I’d known. The love of your life talking to you about the love of his life all the time? I would never.”

But her eyes said she would.

Jensen shifted in his seat. His worldview seemed to be held together with hot glue and duct tape, and the seams were starting to pull apart. What other lies had she told him? What other bullshit had she fed him that he’d swallowed without complaint? Had she even been at the apartment that day, when the police finally found him trapped inside with his mom?

“Mister Pitman says you hated Austen before all of this too.”

“Jamal is a liar,” she repeated. “I did nothing but put Bo on the same pedestal Jamal did. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t believe he needed it. He was a genius, and he did a damn fine job. If Jamal wanted him to be treated like a place of worship, so be it. I would have done anything for Jamal back then.”

But her eyes seethed with anger. Hatred. Something dark and a little dangerous, whatever it was.

“What job are you doing for Jamal?” Kathy asked.

“It’s classified.”

“Oh, please, you can’t even tell your momma about it?”

“N-no, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

“Mm.” Kathy leaned back, crossing her arms over her chest. Immediate distance. Closing herself off. Just because he wouldn’t spill Jamal’s secrets. “So you came here to interrogate your poor old mother for Jamal, but I’m not allowed to ask even one question about you because it might relate back to him?”

“Mister Pitman doesn’t know I’m here. I wanted to ask questions for me. Not him.”

She laughed. “Oh, baby. That pretty little head of yours isn’t much for critical thinking, is it?”

Ouch.

“Jamal always knows where you are, I promise you that.”

“He has no reason to believe I would do anything to warrant constant tracking. I’m the one doing the tracking for him.”

She shook her head, a little smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “It’s a damn good thing you’re handsome, Jensen. My God.” Another shake of her head. “He hired you to get back at me. Not because he likes you or trusts you or gives a shit about your future or ability to keep a roof over your head. He has every reason to believe you’re a failure, that you’re going to slip up, that you’re going to do something stupid. He has someone tailing you. There is no world in which Jamal Pitman is stupid enough to think you’re amazing at your job.”

“Ouch,” Jensen whispered.

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I don’t mean it like that. You just can’t be amazing at being one of Jamal’s little soldiers. You’re too good for that. You’re above it. Above him. And he knows it.”

Jesus, it was like constant whiplash. Surely she hadn’t always been this way. Not to him. He couldn’t have missed all of this, been won over by the occasional nice words and soft smiles. Right? Surely he wasn’t that stupid.

Or maybe she was right, and this ‘pretty little head’ of his wasn’t really used for thinking. Maybe he was just reading into it all too much because Jamal and David had gotten into his head. That had to be it. Kathy wasn’t evil. She had saved him. Given him a home. A place to be safe with the Taylors, protected from the dangers that would come from living with her or being attached to the Baker name. She had done that for him. To keep him safe from all the evils in the world.

“I’m bodyguarding for him,” Jensen finally offered.

Kathy raised a brow. “Did Frank finally kick the bucket?”

“No. I-is Frank dying?”

She shrugged. “Not that I know of. Just figured Jamal would’ve killed him by now, is all.” She cleared her throat. “So he’s not your client. You’re just one of his little soldiers to send out on missions.”

“No, I don’t do missions. Not a soldier. Bodyguard. I’m a hired bodyguard under Mister Pitman’s… team.”

“I didn’t know there was a team. Just Franklin and the soldiers in his twisted little army of ‘sir, yes, sir’s.”

“People hire bodyguards from Mister Pitman all the time.”

“And you’re one of them.”

“Yes.”

“Who are you bodyguarding?”
“That part, I can’t disclose.”

“Mm.” She leaned back in her seat again, resuming her closed off stance. “So you just wanted to ask me about Jamal’s lies and about Bo Austen? Just because?”

“Well, I-I came here to talk. To update you on my life a-and to see how you were doing. You brought up Mister Pitman.”

“Not that I recall.”

“You did. You said—”

“You brought him up. Because you’ve let him play around in your head and convince you that the only person in this world that gives a single shit about you has been a monster this whole time.”

“I-I didn’t say you were a monster. Just that—”

“I can’t believe you’ve let him toy with your head like this, Jensen. I thought I raised you better than this.”

“I haven’t. And you did. I swear. I love you. I don’t believe anything he says about you. I just needed… needed to make sure. Needed to hear it from you.” Jensen reached for her hand, but she pulled it away and dropped it to her lap. “Momma, come on. I love you. You saved me. I know you saved me. Mister Pitman is a liar. I know he is. I won’t let him turn me against you, Momma. I promise.”

“Jamal doesn’t care about you, Jensen. He’s turning you against me, trying to cut you off from the one person who loves you. There is no one else out there waiting for you, Jensen. Just me. He wants to cut you off, isolate you, like any abuser would.”

Jensen nodded. “I know, Momma. I won’t let him cut you off.”

Kathy smiled, but her eyes still screamed danger. Whatever emotion was mixed in there with it, Jensen couldn’t identify. “That’s my good boy.”

8:27 AM; DAVID QUINN’S APARTMENT, LIVING ROOM

Despite Bo’s protests the night before, David had managed to convince him to spend the night in his room instead of the living room, and David had taken the couch. Of course, no longer doped up on whatever the hospital had given him, sleep hadn’t exactly come easily to Bo, so after David had fallen asleep, Bo had snuck out to the living room for his laptop before creeping back to David’s room. He had started the night with drawing up the rest of the algorithm to search the traffic cam footage for similar faces, and ended with finding out the work schedules of the second victim’s friend so David would know the best time to bring her in to identify the woman and question her about any dangerous people in her life.

When he heard David get up for a shower, Bo tucked his laptop away and pretended to be sound asleep. Once the shower started up, Bo had gotten his laptop and headed into the living room. Once David was done, he’d be able to pretend he had gotten a great night of sleep and felt energized for a round of internet sleuthing and hacking into things he admittedly shouldn’t. The nice thing about not working for the LAPD was that he could essentially pry his way into whatever he wanted without having to put it into a report for the lieutenant and Jamal to read.

David walked into the living room, his dress pants on, his white shirt over his shoulders but still unbuttoned, and his suit jacket thrown over his forearm as he used his free hand to finish scrubbing at his wet hair with a towel. “Morning. Sleep okay?”

“Yes. Did you?”

“Mmhmm.” David gestured to the couch. “I made sure that thing was comfortable to lay on when I got it for a reason.”

Bo raised a brow. “In case I got shanked and had to have my spleen removed?”

“Obviously.”

“A big brother who can predict the future? My dream.” Bo nodded toward his laptop. “Any chance you can put your powers to use and find this killer?”

“Ah, no can do, I’m afraid. That’s a little brother’s job.”

“Damn. Worth a shot.”

David smiled. The smile meant Bo was masking well enough to skate by for now. That was good. “Speaking of, I heard you click clacking away over there. What’re you working on?”

“I wanted to finish up my algorithm for the traffic cam footage, and I tracked down the work schedule of the second victim’s friend. She’s off at noon today. We could hang out at the coffee shop around then and catch her when she’s off, ask if she can have a look at a photo for us.”

“We?” David asked after a moment.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to assume. Only if you’re okay with it, obviously. I understand if you don’t want to work with me on this. Or have me come around with you on it, I should say. And if you think Jamal would be okay with it.”

“I always want to work with you and have you ride around with me and tag along for interviews and interrogations. Always. I just… don’t know that it’s the best thing for you right now.”

“I’m okay, David. I promise.”

“And I’m glad to hear that. I am. But I don’t just mean your mental health. I mean your physical health, like that incision site that probably doesn’t want you walking around all day.”

“We can sit at the coffee shop. Sitting is fine. And so is standing and walking. I’m supposed to be walking a little every day, just not past the point of fatigue and pain.”

David nodded before clearing his throat. “And the… the Jamal thing. Nothing would make him happier. He wanted me to tell you that you did a damn fine job yesterday. Attaboy, and all that.”

“He did?”

“He did. He wanted to tell you himself, but he was worried about, y’know, dropping in uninvited.”

“Because it might break me.”

“He just doesn’t want to be the reason you’re upset or anything like that. But he was very onboard with you helping.”

“So… it’s settled then?”

David watched him for a moment. “If you let me help you wash your hair before we go.”

“Deal.”

David smiled. “Great. Let’s go get you degreased.”

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