Stiletto Justice Read online

  “You gave me the lowdown on the cute new customer in my station. Jesse,” she explained to Jayda and Kim. “Now that was a tip, my biggest and best by far. I always say if we get married, both she and my mother will give me away.”

  “How’s he doing?” Lisa’s voice lowered and was filled with concern.

  “He’s in prison,” Harley deadpanned. “So despite his attempts to convince me otherwise, he’s pretty fucked up.”

  “Of course. That was dumb. Sorry.”

  “No, it wasn’t. It was a perfectly legitimate question. But hearing some news about the man who helped put him there just put me in a really bad mood.”

  “Well, food always makes me feel better. So what can I get you ladies? It’s on the house. And don’t say salad. This is a steakhouse. We serve real food here.”

  “I’m fine,” Kim said.

  “This will do for me,” Jayda added, picking up a wing.

  Harley looked at Lisa. “I think we’re good.”

  “Got it.” Lisa dropped the order pad into her pocket. “Three porterhouses coming up.”

  Kim watched Lisa walk away, then looked at Harley. “I like her.”

  Harley crossed her arms as vibes of all kinds of pissed off transmitted from her person. “What are we going to do?”

  “About what?”

  “About Grey, the judge, the denied appeal, our guys rotting in prison, the fucked-up system, take your pick. We’ve got to do something, Kim! What?”

  “She’s tried everything, Harley,” Jayda said, with a calming touch on Harley’s arm. “Formed WHIP, organized our protests, kept this fight in the media, hired great lawyers. What else can she do? What else can any of us do?”

  Harley wouldn’t back down. “We’ve got to fight. I waited a lifetime for somebody like Jesse, and I’ll be damned if I let an A-hole like Grey ruin my happily ever after. And I’ll be double-damned if I sit back while Grey climbs the political ladder on my boyfriend’s back.”

  “Harley’s right, Jayda. We can’t quit.” Kim ran a weary hand through the new pixie haircut she’d had cut extra short and was still getting used to. “I don’t have the energy for it right now, but give me a few days, maybe a week. It didn’t work for Kendall, but I’ll talk to my attorneys about working on your guy’s appeals.”

  “Pro bono?” Harley asked. “We sure as hell can’t afford an attorney. Mom’s medical bills take every penny I have, and a few that I don’t.”

  “I don’t know if our family could afford them, either,” Jayda said. “Maybe we can write to one of those nonprofit groups, like the Innocence Project, or work with a public defender to get our guys a new trial.”

  “Fuck that,” Harley spat, throwing back a shot of Jack, or Mr. Daniels, as she sometimes called her liquor of choice.

  Jayda frowned. “But you just said—”

  “That we’ve got to keep fighting. I know. But not through the system. It’s broken. It doesn’t work. We’ve got to try something else.”

  Kim’s expression was a mixture of wariness and weariness. “Okay, Harley the Houdini. What do you suggest?”

  “I don’t know. But the three of us need to put our heads together and figure out how to whip, pun intended, Grey’s wannabe senator ass.”

  “But how?” Jayda echoed. “He’s got money, power, status, everything! What do we have?”

  “Each other,” Harley retorted.

  “The truth,” Kim added, renewed strength in her voice.

  “Determination,” Harley continued. “My mom says that where there’s a will, there is always a way.”

  Jayda’s eyes lit up. “My grandmother Alma changed the phrase ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,’ to ‘earth has no blessing like a woman born.’ ”

  Kim smiled at Jayda. “Your grandmother sounds like a wise woman.”

  “Yes, very wise. Wisdom we sure could use right about now.”

  “I say we toast to continuing our fight, getting justice for our men by any means necessary.” Harley held up her glass. “To justice for Jesse.”

  Jayda raised hers, too. “To justice for Nicky and Daniel.”

  “To justice for Kendall!” Kim lifted her glass. The women downed their drinks.

  When Kim had arrived at the restaurant, she felt the fight was over. Upon leaving she knew one thing for sure: it had only just begun.

  2

  Kim, Harley, and Jayda left the restaurant with full stomachs but with no real plan to do what the courts had not: get justice for all. However, the next day Kim read about a Saturday rally planned for Grey in Edgefield, Kansas, his hometown. A few phone calls, text messages, and several emails later a protest had been thrown together to coincide with the event. That morning Jayda, her mother Anna, aunt Lucy, sister Teresa. and sister-in-law Crystal headed to the community center where every second Saturday of the month WHIP meetings were held. Though they’d eaten breakfast, she carried a container of mini gorditas de buevos, masa cakes stuffed with chili-spiced eggs. Abuela had insisted.

  “We’re only going to Kansas City, Grandma,” Jayda laughingly told her. “Not El Paso.”

  To which her grandmother responded, “A hungry stomach will growl in either place.”

  “Ha! So true, Grandma. Te amo.”

  The women piled into Lucy’s roomy Ford Expedition and headed toward Interstate 35 and the State Line Community Center, just over the state line from Kansas into Missouri. They all wore bright yellow cotton t-shirts with the WHIP acronym across the organization’s logo, a whip breaking open handcuffs on the front, and the spelled-out acronym on the back—Women Helping Innocent Prisoners. The group had voted on yellow as their color based on an old long-lost love classic from the seventies by Tony Orlando and Dawn.

  “What are we going to be doing exactly?”

  Aunt Lucy’s stereo was programmed to her favorite Tejano music but when Lucy’s sister, Anna, asked the question, she turned it down.

  Even though the music was low, Jayda leaned forward so the two up front could hear her clearly, pushing thick locks of shiny black hair away from her heart-shaped face as she perched on the seat’s edge. “Making protest signs for the rally.”

  “How many do you think will show up?” Crystal, Jayda’s sister-in-law, asked the question while scrolling through her cell phone.

  Jayda shrugged. “Hard to say. There’s over a hundred members in the group, but we only average around twenty or thirty at the monthly meetings. Some members are like you guys, depending on someone who goes regularly to keep you informed.”

  “I work most Saturdays,” Lucy said in defense.

  “I’m usually helping Rick,” Crystal said. “Or visiting Daniel.”

  “I know, guys. Just kidding.”

  Jayda knew how hard her family worked. Lucy and Anna’s company, Great Housekeeping, had allowed for the purchase of homes and put kids through school. Crystal had been a stay-at-home mom, babysitting Jayda’s daughter Alejandra while taking care of her three, until her husband, Daniel, and Jayda’s boyfriend, Nicky, had gotten locked up. Without them, her husband’s successful auto detailing business floundered. Crystal was forced into the workforce; began working part-time for her older brother, an ex-Marine with a private catering business, who had honed his skills while serving in Iraq.

  “Crystal, are you working with Rick full-time, now? His business is really taking off.”

  “Not officially, but yes, lately I’ve been working a lot. Guess word on his strong work ethic and skills as a chef is getting around. He catered a dinner party fund-raiser a few months ago, for a city council member. Since then he’s gotten several calls from political figures and organizations wanting him to cater their events. He wants me to go full-time, but I don’t want to burden Alma with all of the kids.”

  Alma, the seventy-five-year old Sanchez family matriarch, was the undisputed boss and resident babysitter-in-a-pinch.

  “Mama raised seven kids by herself,” Anna responded. “I’m sure she can handle yours.”

  “Maybe, but right now I want to stay part-time. So he’s looking for another part-timer to pick up the slack.”

  “To answer your question, Aunt Lucy, I don’t know how many will be protesting with us today. I’m expecting a good crowd, though. Most of the time we feel so helpless, with our hands tied and nothing we can do. So even holding a sign in protest feels good, because at least we’re doing something.”

  “Mi Dios,” Jayda’s mom, Anna, whispered as she peered out the window at the graying sky. “I hope it doesn’t rain.”

  “Pray to the patron Saint Medard for good weather,” Lucy replied. “There’s a rosary in the glove compartment.”

  “Gosh, Aunt Lucy,” Jayda exclaimed. “You know a patron saint for everything.”

  “Almost,” was Lucy’s quiet reply.

  Yes, almost. Jayda knew exactly what her aunt meant and imagined the others did, too. In the months leading up to the trial of her boyfriend and brother, everyone in the family had prayed. It hadn’t helped Daniel and Nicky.

  A short time later they arrived at the center. The parking lot was fuller than usual. For Jayda, this was a good sign. The larger the crowd of protestors, the better the impact. They walked into a room filled with excitement and smelling like coffee and freshly baked pastries. Two long, rectangular tables were set flush against a wall on the right side of the room. They held materials for sign-making: cardboard, paper, markers, industrial staplers, strips of plywood, and hammers and nails. White pieces of paper with slogan ideas were taped above them. Below the table were stacks of t-shirts in cardboard boxes. On the left side of the room another rectangular table held two coffee machines, boxes of donuts, and a tray filled with condiments and an assortment of teas. That’s where Kim stood, sipping from a yellow cup emblazoned with the WHIP logo as she talked to Faith Brockman, one of the group’s earliest members, especially passionate for the mentally ill who, like her son, found themselves behind bars. Jayda ushered her family over to meet them.

  “Let’s get you guys started,” Kim said, after Jayda had reintroduced the family, whom Kim had met at one of the earlier meetings but hadn’t seen since. “Why don’t each of you join a group at a different table? That way, you can meet someone new and socialize while you work.”

  After thirty minutes, Kim interrupted the group’s focused creativity.

  “Everyone, may I have your attention? I hope you all have completed your signs. We’ll roll out in about five minutes. There are slips of paper by the door with the rally address along with our code of conduct. We don’t want anyone getting arrested while protesting about people in jail. We also have about twenty umbrellas bearing our logo. Feel free to grab one. Hopefully the rain forecasted won’t come until later. But those who choose to can be prepared if it does.”

  Several of the cars formed an unofficial caravan from Kansas City to Edgefield. Once inside the city limits, “Vote Grey” signs and ten-foot-tall cardboard brooms were seen everywhere, along with his campaign slogan, “Clean Up Kansas The Grey Way!” Jayda didn’t see any for Myers, his opponent, and wondered if anybody in town besides WHIP and the inmates housed in Edgefield wanted Grey to lose. Edgefield. Home to her husband and brother for more than a year. Just being close to the facility gave Jayda chills. Or was it being this close to Hammond Grey for the first time in almost two years, since shooting daggers with her eyes in his back at the Jones County courthouse? She didn’t ask Lucy, but Jayda silently wondered what saint could help a face-to-face encounter with the devil.

  The size of the crowd surprised them. Jayda guessed it to be at least a thousand, easy. Once the protestors parked and gathered the group, they walked in a loose formation, two abreast, one message on their t-shirts, a second on their signs. The gray skies actually worked to their advantage. The yellow shirts stood out, were eye-catching, even among the dense throng. A mixture of expressions followed their progress from the sidewalk to their target destination, as close to the main stage as possible. Many were simply curious. Others, after reading their t-shirts, signage, or both would voice the displeasure that showed on their faces. It was impossible to get in front of the makeshift stage, but the women managed to get about ten yards away, close enough, they hoped, to be seen by Grey.

  If he was at all aware of their presence, the crowd couldn’t tell. His demeanor was as relaxed and easy as the jeans he wore, as though assuring a thousand old friends that he’d bring back the security felt in the good old days and make the state great again.

  “A few short years ago I vowed to take on the gangs, illegal immigrants, and others determined to turn America the beautiful into a lawless, godless nation. I promised to take criminals off the street, your streets, and make our neighborhoods safe once again. I vowed that with your help, and that of law enforcement and the justice system, I’d get things back to how they used to be in the good ol’ days of the Sunflower State. How they were when I was a young boy growing up right here in Edgefield. Where we slept with our doors unlocked and left car keys in the ignition. In this small, God-fearing town, not much has changed. Well, after this speech, you might want to grab those keys.”

  He waited as the audience chuckled, and he flashed his killer-watt smile. “During my time as district attorney, the crime rate dropped by over twenty percent. My office imposed some of the toughest penalties and longest sentences in the history of this state. We decreased crime and built state-of-the-art facilities to put these thugs in and at the same time increased the job market and this area’s economy with job opportunities at these prisons for law-abiding citizens like you!”

  A few boos were sprinkled between the cheers. From some of the WHIP members, Jayda supposed. One with differing views from that diatribe could be quiet for only so long.

  “But don’t put down those brooms just yet,” Grey continued. “With your help and support, we’ve made Kansas a safer state in three short years. But we’re just getting started. There are forty-nine states to go. We have a safer Kansas. Now, let’s work on a safer America in all fifty of these United States!”

  One of Grey’s staffers, a tall, handsome blonde standing close to the candidate, raised his broom and led a chant. “Clean up Kansas. The Grey way!”

  The crowd enthusiastically joined him, waving their brooms. The WHIP protestors tried to counter with a mantra of their own. “No witnesses! No evidence! Grey locks up the innocent!” A couple dozen voices were no match for a thousand equally boisterous ones. The WHIP members were quickly drowned out, and almost as quickly ignored and forgotten.

  Kim turned to Jayda. “That’s an hour we’ll never get back,” she said, observing the crowd. “I guess we should have thought twice about fighting a bully in his own backyard.”

  Jayda saw a reporter making his way toward them, a photographer in tow. “Not so fast,” she mumbled discreetly. “It looks like a photo op is headed our way.”

  Kim turned to see a middle-aged, harried-looking reporter coming toward them. She returned the smile he offered and held out her hand.

  “Mark Carson, Olathe Republic,” he said upon shaking it. “What group is this?”

  Before she could answer, a commotion ensued behind them. Kim’s head jerked around in time to see a WHIP member being pushed. The scene had trouble written all over it. Like a mama bear protecting a cub—eyes blazing, hands outstretched—she rushed toward the fray. “Stop!”

  Another cameraman on her opposite side snapped several pics and landed a mouth-wide-open money shot. The reporter rushed to meet his paper’s Sunday deadline. The girls didn’t know it yet, but they and the WHIP organization were about to be headline news.

  * * *

  Jayda saw it first. Awakened by Alejandra before five a.m., she’d gotten her daughter back to sleep, crawled back into her own bed, and seeing her message icon lit, lazily reached over for her cell phone. She clicked on to her email host’s website. A familiar face—eyes glaring, mouth wide—jumped off the screen.

  WTH?

  Rubbing sleep and disbelief out of her eyes, Jayda scooted into a seated position and leaned against the headboard. She tapped the screen and read the heading:

  Angry Protestors Disrupt Peaceful Rally

  “No way!” Jayda scrolled down and continued reading, a look of incredulity spreading across her face. Halfway through the short piece she tapped the phone icon, then after noticing the time on the phone’s face, tapped out a message instead.

  You’re not going to believe what I saw online. Call me ASAP.

  Jayda reread the brief piece, then whipped back the covers and got out of bed. The blatant misrepresentation of the facts gave her unexpected, eerie chills. It was early, but any chance of more sweet dreams had just been dashed by a nightmare happening with her eyes wide open.

  3

  Harley had planned to attend the WHIP protest rally. But after arriving home from work at two-thirty in the morning and getting forty winks of sleep, she awoke to a battle that was totally different than the ones the girls had faced. Even now, hours later and on her way to work once again, she was oblivious to the WHIP brouhaha. Which was probably a good thing.

  She pulled into the parking lot across the street from a large, nondescript five-story building where she had begun working after Jesse’s arrest, when the steakhouse check was no longer enough to cover her mom Shannon’s rising medical costs and household luxuries like electricity and gas. Though it was only one o’clock in the afternoon, the lot was three-quarters full. An award-winning chef was the reason why. The membership included unlimited access to a beautifully appointed dining room and impressive menu, from noon to two a.m. For the dining shift, Harley worked as part of the skimpily clad dining room waitstaff. Not as lucrative as dancing or “cocktails and conversation,” as private shows were called, but it was less stressful and always a lot of fun.

  Harley exited the car, gathered her outfits from the trunk for back-to-back shifts, and hurried across the street. Tiny drops of rain mingled with the tendrils whipping against her flawless porcelain face. She grabbed the heavy brass handle and pulled open the door. A gush of cool air enveloped her as she entered the lobby, empty save for a security guard at the front desk and Bobby, a police officer who patrolled the area and protected the girls, chatting with him. With mere minutes to spare before her shift began, she waved a quick hello to them as she bypassed the sometimes slow elevator and took the stairs two at a time up to the second floor.