06: The Good Samaritan Pt. 2

“Geez, Derrick, is this the danger you were referring to?” Victoria asked holding still in her position beside the door.

“Not quite. Shad, you wanna get that gun off my girl before you lose that arm?”

“My bad, D, I didn’t know it was you.” The man stepped from behind the curtain and in front of the two. Offering an apologetic smile and his hand, he shook Victoria’s courteously. “My humble apologies, Sweet Thang. You can never be too careful around here.” Victoria nodded and watched as he continued motioning with his weapon in hand. Careful, who is he kidding?

Turning toward the bar, he yelled over his shoulder for someone in the back, “Yo, Sketch! D’s out here!” He motioned the two forward and they moved behind the man, entering the kitchen in back through a rusted swinging door.

“Follow my lead,” Derrick quickly whispered in Victoria’s ear as his arm went around her waist. She jumped slightly in surprise and turned in time to catch that familiar grin on his lips. Shad led the two through a narrow corridor before stopping at a metal door on the far end of the kitchen.

He turned to take in their faces before knocking twice and entering into the small office. “Sketch, D’s…”

The man sat with his back to the door and lifted his hand at Shad in a silencing motion. “It looks like rain. A storm’s coming,” he spoke in a deep, raspy smoker’s voice. And like a scene out of The Godfather, he swiveled his chair around to face them and let out a puff of cigarette smoke. 

“Derrick Constantine. Man! I thought I’d never see you again. In fact, if I recall correctly the last thing I said to you was that if I ever saw your ugly mug around here again I’d feed my Pits out back.”

“Well to quote you accurately, you said if you saw me again you would have me feed your Pits. If taken literally it means that you wanted me to buy them dinner and it just so happens, I have this coupon for a buy one get $1 off of Kibbles ‘N’ Bits. Problem solved.” Derrick’s charm didn’t seem to work on the chubby man sitting behind the desk and Victoria took notice of Shad’s position in the room just in case.

“Haha yeah, that’s the Derrick I know!” he barked and stood from his chair. Circling around his desk, he gripped Derrick’s palm firmly in his own and shook it hard as the smoke from the freshly lit cigarette he had stuck between his plump fingers swirled above them. “Who’s the girl?”

“That’s his girl,” Shad offered up Derrick’s earlier description of the detective.

Derrick eyed Victoria as she stood beside him and noticed her hesitance. “Yes.” He responded again placing his arm around her waist, he tucked her into his chest. “Jennifer, she’s my good luck charm.” He snuck a kiss on her cheek and she breathed in to keep herself composed although her temper was flaring; he could feel it.

Derrick winced slightly as he felt her knee move up his leg toward his crotch and redistributed his weight on his feet to move away from her. Smiling politely in Sketch’s face, she slowly removed herself from Derrick’s grip as the two began speaking again. “What brings you back ‘round?”

“I came to get something Jake left for me. A year ago, before he died, he opened up a safety deposit box in my name and hid the key. From what I understand once the police were finished with his investigation, his girl dropped off all of his belongings at the club. Well, I need access to his things so I can get what belongs to me.”

“Jakey never said nothing about a safety deposit box. What the hell are you trying to pull, D? You and I both know he wasn’t one for banks and wouldn’t set foot in one long enough to open no account there. What are you really after?”

“It’s on the straight and narrow, Sketch, really. It surprised me too but it’s there, I just need access to it.”

“Sure, and you expect that I’ll what? Just hand it over to you without knowing what’s there? Jake died owing me a lot of money. Maybe he got something worth selling in this box.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d ask. I don’t know what's all in there but what I need…it’s a little embarrassing,” Derrick whispered and leaned toward the stout man. “I promised him I wouldn’t let anyone else see it.”

“Well, unfortunately for him, that’s a promise you ain’t keeping. If you want into his stuff, I want to know what this thing here is.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Sketch, why not.” Taking a step forward, Derrick ensured he was right at the man’s ear as he whispered the contents of the box to him.

“You’re shitting me!”

“Not in the least. If you’d like you can come with me and open it. It just holds some sentimental value. But other than that, it’s nothing special.”

“Fine, I think I will tag along. Shad and I will meet you at the bank with Jakey’s things say 3:30? Let’s see if what you say he willed to you is actually in that box!”

“3:30 it is, Sketch, we’ll see you there.”

“And, Derrick,” he stopped the two before they exited. “Don’t be late.”

Victoria was the first out the door and to the jeep. She unlocked the driver’s door and slid into her seat leaving the passenger side locked. Derrick tried the handle as he watched her buckle her seatbelt and smiled through the window at her. “Come on, Victoria, what do you want me to do? Walk back? It’s over twenty miles!”

“Well, you’re slick enough to figure it out, Derrick. Get your thumb working…or call Jennifer!”

“Ah! You’re angry with me. Why? Because of that little peck? Oh, come on! You’re not gonna act like you didn’t like that kiss. I felt your pulse rise.”

“Out of anger!”

“At least that’s your story huh? Would it make you feel better to know I did it to keep those guys from learning about you? Trust me, it’s better this way.” Victoria threw her hands up in the air and sighed in defeat. Unlocking the doors, Derrick slid in beside her. “I…” Victoria put a finger up cutting him off and each time he tried to talk she continued motioning for his silence. He laughed to himself as she pulled out of the lot and started toward the precinct.

“How did it go?” Mike asked watching his partner head up to her desk.

“I’m not sure yet,” she replied and dropped a few coins into the vending machine. “We have to meet some guy at the bank in two hours. I don’t…I don’t know. Is Mason mad at me about something? Have I pissed him off in some way that I’m unaware of?” 

Mike shrugged and leaned against the counter sipping from his coffee mug as he listened. “I mean why else would he have me babysit some friend of the mayor on what is amounting to a huge wild goose chase when there are actual cases that need solving?” She pulled her bag of chips from the dispenser and started for her desk with Mike right behind her.

“Well, this is leading toward the person responsible for an unsolved right?”

“Supposedly. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all just a big fluff.”

“Aww, Victoria, you have no faith?” She rolled her eyes at the sound of Derrick’s voice but didn’t turn to face him. He looked at Mike as he took a seat behind his desk and sighed. “I don’t think your partner likes me very much.”

“That’s because she has good taste.”

“Well now I see why the two of you are paired together; same biting wit.” He dropped beside Victoria and watched as she powered on her computer again to check her email. 

Victoria made several attempts to ignore his looks but the sigh broke her. “What?” she finally asked of his tapping foot beside her desk.

“I was curious about something. What caused the case to be declared opened and unsolved?”

“There were a few factors involved. Many of which being the fact that none of the evidence was leading anywhere and all of the witnesses of previous reports concerning threats suddenly developed amnesia.”

“Ah an epidemic. Funny how that happens.” 

“Do you have another explanation or something to offer?”

“Well, the fact that evidence came up missing would point to an inside job right? Think, Detective, was there anything unusual about this case that may have placed a bigger dent in the investigation?”

“If you’re referring to the fact that Jake Foyers’ body went missing then this would be the part when I ask you how you know about that.”

“You’d be surprised what I know. Like for instance, what became of the man once he disappeared.”

“He was dead, e was Derrick, it’s not as if he got up and walked out on his own. The only thing I could think that would have happened is someone buried him someplace hidden to keep the coroner from performing an autopsy and learning about the real circumstances behind his death.”

“That’s one theory.”

Victoria eyed him suspiciously. “That scene with Sketch earlier and this lockbox that Foyers left behind, are the contents of his safety deposit going to lead us anywhere or are you just wasting my time?”

“I wouldn’t dream of wasting your time, trust me. This is something that’s very important to me. I promise you, what we find in that box is the key to everything.”

Another hour passed and Victoria and Derrick drove out to Avondale Credit Union to meet with Shad and Sketch. The two were waiting on them at the front door when they arrived and Sketch dropped a black bag at Derrick’s feet. “It’s all there; the key to the box is in the front zipper pocket.” He tossed his cigarette to the ground and followed as Derrick entered inside the bank.

Victoria waited with the two near the door as Derrick approached a teller. Moments later he waved them forward and the group was escorted into a back room with other lockboxes near the vault. “If you need anything, Mr. Constantine, please let me know,” the teller smiled and exited the room leaving the four of them standing in front of a large lockbox.

“Moment of truth,” Shad blew out a breath and watched as Derrick removed the lid from the box and withdrew a series of random household items.

Sketch looked on in disappointment but Victoria noticed that he didn’t seem surprised by the contents at all. Perhaps it was what Derrick had whispered to the man earlier, he already knew what to expect. Removing a large brown envelope from the very bottom specifically with his name on it, Derrick poured the item to the table and smiled. “Here it is!”

“A rubber ducky?!” Victoria caught herself before yelling at the man standing a few feet away but glancing at the item sitting on top of the box again didn’t help. “We went through all of this for some bathtub toy? You are seriously disturbed!”

“Welcome to my world. I guess Jakey got the last quack after all,” Sketch cracked and turned with his associate to exit the bank leaving Victoria and Derrick alone in the vault room.

“Are you kidding me right now? Do you have any idea how much time I’ve wasted with you today? Murderers are roaming free and evidence is washing away while I’m sitting around watching you play with a…a…argh!” she slammed her hand against the table hard, grabbed her key from her pocket and started for the door.

Before she could grip the handle and give it a tug, Derrick had her against the wall, pinned and unable to move. “Victoria, wait. I asked you to trust me remember? I promised you that we would have the key to everything once we got into this box and I wasn’t lying to you.” Shaking the ducky around in his hands she heard the distinct rattling of an object lodged within its belly and he felt her muscles relax beneath his grip. “I couldn’t show this to Sketch because I know him, he’d have made sure none of this surfaced and Jake’s case would continue on as an unsolved homicide.”

“Wait, are you telling me it was Sketch that had Foyers killed?”

“Yes. And the only way to prove that is to find what Jake left behind. He had evidence against him that would have put him behind bars for the rest of his life. When Sketch realized that Jake had been informing on him to the Feds, he had him wasted but not before Jake told me about this.” Derrick ripped open the duck revealing a thumb drive wrapped in a small slip of paper. “On here you’ll find all the evidence you’ll need to put Sketch behind bars where he belongs.”

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