Ride Steady(148)

So Joker knew he wasn’t going to see ugly.

He was going to see ugly.

He looked to Tack. “Show me.”

Tack nodded and turned to Lee, but Luke Stark had already peeled off and was standing at the tape with Lee’s brother, Hank.

Tack and Joker moved that way, and after chin lifts, Hank pulled up the tape. Joker and Tack ducked under. Hank dropped the tape and started walking. Joker and Tack followed.

“Anonymous nine-one-one called her in,” Hank muttered. “Probably a junkie usin’ this alley for his fix or to hook up to buy.” He stopped and looked to Joker. “You good?”

No. He wasn’t. He couldn’t say he liked Heidi, but he could say he didn’t want whatever happened to her to happen to her.

“I’m good,” he answered.

Hank nodded and kept walking.

Cops were milling around, taking pictures, putting markers on the asphalt, writing crap down, huddling, and conversing.

They finally got to her.

She’d been covered.

“Do me a favor, yeah?” Hank called, and a uniform looked his way, got his message, and crouched by the body.

When he did, Joker noted the uniform was a good cop. He knew this with the way the man carefully peeled back the cover over Heidi. She was a dead woman in an alley who deserved respect. She wasn’t just a body on display, and he treated her that way.

Joker looked at her and froze solid.

This was not because he saw a lifeless Heidi.

It was because the word Chaos had been carved into her forehead.

“Ugly,” Tack said quietly beside him. “But, Joke, there’s more and it ain’t good either.”

“Show me,” Joker grunted.

The uniform looked to Hank and must have gotten the go-ahead because he pulled the cover further.

Her shirt was up.

And in her stomach, the word Joker was carved.

“Fuck me, f*ck me, f*ck me,” Joker clipped out.

The uniform dropped the cover.

“Tack says you boys knew her,” Hank noted, and Joker looked to him.

“Valenzuela’s stable, sent to work our patch,” Joker told him what he knew Tack would have already told him.

“She special to you?” Hank asked.

“We had a relationship,” Joker shared.

“You wanna share that with me?” Hank pushed.

“She got cash for info on Valenzuela,” Tack told him. “Gave you that already, Nightingale.”

“Tryin’ to understand why Valenzuela, if he did that shit, would carve one of your boy’s names in her stomach,” Hank returned.

“Like I told you already, she snitched and her handler was Joker,” Tack replied.

“And she was pregnant,” Joker put in, and Hank looked to him.

“It yours?”

“Nope,” Joker said. “Never touched her.”

“Valenzuela think differently?” Hank went on.

“Obviously,” Joker bit out.

“Could be a different message, brother. Just sayin’ he knew she was yours,” Tack told him.

“Could be, but it doesn’t f*ckin’ matter what that *’s message is, except the fact a woman and her baby are dead to give it,” Joker returned.

“Calm, Joke,” Tack warned, reading him easily.

“I’m calm,” he clipped, but he was not.

He still expended the effort to find it. He couldn’t grab hold, but he got enough of the edge not to lose his mind, turn on his boot, and find someone to hurt.

“Tack says she left Valenzuela’s stable ’cause she was pregnant, that right?” Hank asked.

Joker nodded and added, “She was gone, Hank. Be surprised she was still in town. Valenzuela did this, no doubt, but he tracked her down to do it.”

“Before this happened, Lee told me you were lookin’ for her because she shared she was up for findin’ a home for her baby,” Hank continued.

That was a nice way to put it.

“Yeah,” Joker confirmed.

Hank got close so Tack got close.

But Joker didn’t take his eyes from Hank.

“Pretty clear this isn’t Chaos, but it’s also clear shit that’s sticky just got stickier. I am not in the know with what you’re doin’ with Mitch and Slim. I don’t wanna be in the know. What I do know is you got two of my brothers in the know. They got blue blood. And they gotta keep their team clean. So I’ll need alibis for all of Chaos, and I don’t give a f*ck that gets your backs up. You do what you gotta do to keep that team clean.”