The Last Witness

by W. E. B. Griffin

  Daphne Elizabeth Browne Nesbitt was Chad’s wife and the mother of Matt’s toddler goddaughter. The Nesbitts lived minutes away from Maggie in Society Hill, at Number 9 Stockton Place, one of three enormous (four thousand square feet) units built behind the facades of a dozen pre-Revolutionary brownstone buildings.

  What the hell is up with this? Matt thought.

  Everyone knows but me? Damn it!

  “Maggie?” Amanda immediately said. “Is she okay? What happened?”

  “A home invasion,” Chad explained. “At least that’s what we think it started as, but then her place caught on fire. Luckily the fire station is close by. I didn’t want to bring it up at dinner, but . . .”

  “Her house was invaded and burned? When?” Amanda said, then muttered, “How come I didn’t hear?”

  “Happened late last night. She wasn’t home, as far as anyone knows. But word from the neighbors is that a Crime Scene van was there long after the fire truck guys left.” He looked at Matt. “I’m surprised you don’t know anything about this.”

  No shit. Me, too, Matt thought.

  But now I know why Jason called. They must be treating this as a homicide.

  How exactly does Maggie fit in? Clearly she is missing. . . .

  “I don’t know about a lot of Killadelphia cases that are working,” Matt said. “Don’t forget that our City of Brotherly Love averages a murder a day.”

  He felt Amanda looking at him and met her eyes. He could see sadness in them—and that her mind was in high gear.

  Amanda then pulled out her cell phone and placed a call. A minute later, wordlessly, she hung up.

  “Maggie didn’t answer,” Amanda said matter-of-factly, looking at her phone as she thumbed the screen. “I got one of those canned mechanical messages saying that her voice-mail box is full. And then it hung up on me.”

  She slid the phone back in her purse.

  “I just texted her to call me. I wonder if Sarah has heard from her . . .” she said, pulling her phone back out to send another text.

  And that just answered part of the Black Buddha’s question.

  Why the hell is Jason keeping this so secretive?

  Well, she gave me my opening . . .

  “When did you last hear from her, Amanda?” Matt said.

  “Maybe a week ago, after Maggie got back from her sailing vacation in BVI. I forget which day.”

  “She was okay?”

  Amanda shrugged. “She seemed to be. Why wouldn’t she be? I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. But then I was pretty caught up in my own world, making plans to come here and all.”

  “Daphne,” Chad offered, “didn’t even know she was back from the islands.”

  “I wrote Maggie a letter of recommendation for when she applied to UC-Berkeley,” Amanda said suddenly, wistfully.

  “You mean Bezerkly?” Matt said derisively. “Home of Peace, Love, and Anarchists.”

  Amanda shook her head.

  “There are also normal people there, Matt. She was simply looking for a different environment. And boy did she find it. She’d followed a girl friend out for undergrad, then realized she really wasn’t a West Coast type. So she then decided, after two years, that it wasn’t for her. She said she came home to make a difference in Philly. And then I wrote another recommendation for when she went for her master’s degree at UP.”

  “No good deed goes unpunished,” Matt said. “She could have gone and made a difference anywhere.”

  “Yes, she could have. Someone else we know has similar resources and options.”

  Matt met her stare—she doesn’t have to say what those glistening eyes are screaming, “Stop playing cop . . .”—and after a moment raised his eyebrows.

  “Touché,” he said.

  She made a thin smile and nodded, then cocked her head and said, “What did you mean by that, Matt? ‘No good deed . . .’? You don’t know something bad has happened to her.”

  Well, I cannot tell her that Jason asked.

  But after she gets over the initial shock of this, she’s going to put two and two together. . . .

  He shrugged. “You’re right. I don’t know. Just a gut feeling.”

  Amanda nodded thoughtfully, then put her napkin beside her plate and said, “Excuse me. I’m going to get some air.”

  Matt immediately got to his feet and put his hand on her chair, sliding it back as she rose. Chad stood, too, absently wiping his hands on his napkin.

  I shouldn’t have said that, Matt thought, looking at her sad face.

  And so much for the oysters—nice job, Romeo.

  If I knew it wouldn’t upset her more, I’d tell Jason I’d help.

  Damn it . . .

  [FOUR]

  As they watched Amanda walk toward the entrance to the restaurant, three men—one fit and tanned who looked to be in his thirties and two middle-aged and sunburned—entered. Young blonde women, in tight dresses and high heels, were on their arms.

  Amanda, seemingly oblivious to the group, squeezed past and went out the door.

  The blonde with the younger man, who evidently was leading the group, giggled and grinned as she leaned into him. She was trim and tall and tanned, with a beautiful face featuring bright emerald eyes that seemed to miss nothing.

  The younger man scanned the restaurant. He and Chad made eye contact, and Chad nodded once. Then he turned to the group and gestured for them to go into the bar.

  Matt studied the guy as they left, and did not like what he saw.

  “Who was that?” Matt said as he and Chad settled back in their chairs.

  “Nick Antonov’s guy. He’s local, out of South Beach.”

  “Looks like an ABC.”

  “SoBe?”

  “Okay, a SoBe ABC. South Beach American-born Cuban.”

  Chad nodded. “Right. Forgot that one. Well, Little Havana is right next door to South Beach. Anyway, I met him yesterday at Key West International. The FBO put Nick’s small jet next to my Lear. Something Perez, I think.”

  “‘Small jet’?”

  “It’s a Citation. His bigger one is a Gulfstream, a G-four, I think.”

  “You mean Tikhonov’s G-four,” Matt said.

  Yuri Tikhonov, forty-eight, had significant investments in Philadelphia, as well as other cities in the U.S., in Europe, and in his homeland of Russia. He was worth billions, having made his first thousand million dollars shortly after the age of thirty-five. Many of the skills that made him a highly successful businessman, it was said, he had honed in the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, Russia’s agency for external spying and intelligence gathering.

  Others suggested that it had more to do with his close relationship with high-ranking politicians in the Kremlin—men he had served under in the SVR, once known as the KGB.

  “Okay, I take your point,” Chad said. “The planes are the casino’s. And since Nick works for the casino, and it’s Tikhonov who owns a huge chunk of the casino, they’re his. I just never see him on them.”

  Matt speared two oysters from their shells as he said, “I don’t have to guess why those Florida hotties are hanging with older guys.”

  “That’s the curious thing. They’re not from Florida. The girls are Russian. They work at the casino. Casinos plural—I heard that they rotate the girls. That one on Nick’s arm, Star, she’s a twenty-one-year-old Ukraine.”

  “What about those older guys?”

  “I dunno. Maybe Nick’s clients from Philly or Jersey?”

  Matt was quiet for a long moment, clearly lost in thought. Then he made a face and drained his single malt. Putting down the glass, he looked at Chad.

  “How tight are you with Antonov and his crowd?” Matt suddenly said, somewhat sharply.

  “What do you mean?” Chad shot back, his tone indignant. “I don’t
fuck around with those girls—or any girls—if that’s what you’re implying. The mother of your goddaughter would have my nuts served to me on the tip of the dull rusty knife she used for the castration.”

  “And the girls on your boat?”

  “Screw you, Matt! They’re hired by the PR firm. They’re legit.”

  “No shit?” Matt said, pushing his chair back to stand. “How can you be sure?”

  “I’m sure, damn it,” Chad said, working to keep his voice low. “Why are you even suggesting otherwise? What’s gotten into you?”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time you got conned into some shady deal.”

  Chad tossed his fork and knife onto his plate and crossed his arms.

  “You’re not going to let that thing with Skipper go, are you?”

  Matt shrugged. “‘That thing’? I’ve told you that I don’t begin to blame you at all for his death—the dipshit was going to get himself killed one way or another all on his own. I’ve been told that I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but it’s one thing that he ruined his life—and it’s something entirely worse that he almost got Becca killed. As I’ve said, my point is that you didn’t walk away from Skipper when you could have.”

  Matt and Chad had grown up with J. Warren “Skipper” Olde, whose history of booze and drug abuse had begun when they all attended Episcopal Academy prep school. His father made a fortune building McMansion subdivisions across the country. While the twenty-seven-year-old Skipper had a few legitimate—if questionably successful—real estate projects in development in Philadelphia, it turned out that he supplemented his cash flow by being actively involved in the manufacture and sale of methamphetamine.

  Skipper, on September ninth, had been in a seedy motel room at the Philly Inn, one of the properties owned by the company that Chad Nesbitt had invested in. It was on Frankford Avenue, which had come to be known as the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. They had planned, when the timing—and tax break—was right, to demolish and replace the two-story motel with upscale condominiums. At about two o’clock that September morning, with Becca Benjamin, Skipper’s twenty-five-year-old girlfriend, waiting right outside the room in her Mercedes SUV, the meth lab in the room exploded.

  The motel became consumed by the chemical-fueled inferno. Two illegal aliens who had been cooking the methamphetamine were killed. Skipper was critically burned. Becca suffered burns and a severe head injury.

  Ambulances rushed Skipper and Becca to the advanced Burn Center at Temple University Hospital. There, Matt met the head of the burn unit, Amanda Law, MD, FACS, FCCM.

  The bodily injuries had been bad enough. But the next day one Jesús Jiménez, sent to permanently settle an ongoing disagreement over drug money, snuck into the Intensive Care Unit and pumped thirteen rounds of 9mm into Skipper.

  Amanda had confided to Matt that it was her brutally cold professional assessment that Jiménez had done Skipper a favor. There was no question that if he was not going to die from his burns, he would’ve suffered a long and painful recovery from them and never been the same again.

  Meantime, Becca, recovering from her injuries, battled with Survivor Guilt, and Amanda had arranged for her to be treated by Dr. Amelia Payne, who had been her suitemate at the University of Pennsylvania. The surname was no coincidence—Amy was Matt’s sister, and had long held the same opinion as Amanda vis-à-vis the Wyatt Earp of the Main Line hanging up his gun belt.

  —

  Chad looked out the dining room windows at the Atlantic, then turned back to Matt and said, “I thought I was doing the right thing investing in Skipper’s project. And when it all blew up, so to speak, especially after learning about the damn meth, I admitted I’d made a mistake—a huge mistake, okay?—one that I’ve been lucky has not caused any fallout with Nesfoods. As you just said, ‘No good deed goes unpunished.’” He paused, then added, “So, that said, I am not making any damn mistake with Antonov and whatever he and his South Beach Cuban are up to.”

  Matt met Chad’s eyes for a long moment, nodded, then exhaled audibly.

  “Okay. Sorry,” Matt said, not sounding completely apologetic. “It’s just that something about that SoBe Cuban rubbed the cop in me really wrong. It triggered my Don’t Believe Anyone mode. That, and I’m suddenly ten kinds of really pissed off. I brought Amanda down here to have a pleasant time away from Philly—and we’re not here forty-eight hours and the shit has followed us. Now she’s upset . . .”

  Chad nodded. “I understand, man. No apology.”

  “Thanks,” Matt said, and looked over his shoulder. “If Amanda returns, tell her I’ll be right back.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To hit the head. Mother nature calls.”

  And to make a call so maybe we can get this shit behind us and get back to having a good time.

  Right. Dream on, Matty.

  Unless we find out that Maggie has suddenly popped up safe somewhere, her missing is going to keep weighing on Amanda. . . .

  —

  Matt crossed the dining room and entered the gentlemen’s facility that was between the dining room and the bar. When he exited, he turned in the direction of the bar. He expected to see the men with the young women as he entered, was surprised they weren’t there, then went through the bar and outside. He followed the path lined with flickering tiki torches down toward the immaculately groomed beach, pulling out his cell phone as he went.

  When he looked at the screen, he saw that Mickey O’Hara had texted three times and, in the last hour, called twice and left voice-mail messages.

  What the hell is up with him?

  Well, first things first . . .

  He speed-dialed Jason Washington.

  “Good evening, Matthew,” Jason answered on the first ring.

  “Sorry to have taken so long. It’s been a very interesting day since you called.”

  “What do you have for me?”

  “I’ll tell you about the other later. To answer your question about Maggie McCain, Amanda said she has not spoken with her in about a week. She doesn’t recall exactly which day. But it’s been since Maggie came back from a trip to the Caribbean.”

  “We’re aware of the trip. Did she say if she understood it to be business or pleasure?”

  “We”? Matt thought. That certainly sounds official.

  “‘Vacation’ was the word she used. Amanda has spent the last half hour trying to call and text her, since learning about her house catching fire—”

  “How did she hear that?” Washington interrupted.

  “Not from me, obviously,” Matt said. “Chad Nesbitt told us just now at dinner. Said it started as a home invasion. Any truth to that?”

  “Your friend whose family owns Nesfoods?” Jason asked, but it was more of a statement and effectively evaded Matt’s question.

  “Yeah. He’s down here on business. Actually, it seems like half of Philly is down here.”

  “Did he say how he knew? Did he have any other information about her?”

  “No, not really anything else. Only that his wife had driven past and seen the damage and crime-scene tape—and said that she hadn’t known Maggie was back from her trip.”

  There was a moment’s silence before Washington said, “Okay, got it. Thank you.”

  “What the hell is going on, Jason?”

  “Let me know if Amanda hears from her. I will get back to you, Matthew,” he said, dodging the question as he broke the connection.

  Matt stared at the glowing screen.

  If she hears from her?

  Then if someone did die in Maggie’s house, it wasn’t her.

  She’s simply missing.

  He shook his head, then speed-dialed Mickey O’Hara.

  III

  [ONE]

  Hacienda Gentlemen’s Club

  Northwest Hi
ghway near Lemmon Avenue, Dallas

  Sunday, November 16, 7:45 P.M. Texas Standard Time

  The two-year-old dark gray Chevrolet Tahoe, coated in road grime and with mud caked to its wheels and fenders, sat in the parking lot of Juanita’s Tex-Mex Cantina. The lot was adjacent to the Hacienda strip club, the building of which in a former life had served as a Sears & Roebuck home appliance store. The restaurant, despite its garish colors and Spanish-language signage, still somewhat resembled the Burger King that it originally had been.

  The Tahoe wasn’t the only vehicle in the parking lots lining Northwest Highway that looked as if it could have just driven in from the sticks. There were plenty of dirty cars and trucks, some of them farm and ranch pickups, but most advertising some type of service—plumbers, electricians, welders.

  Odds were heavy, however, that the Tahoe was without question the only one with red-and-blue emergency lights behind the grille, a fully automatic Heckler & Koch UMP .45 ACP submachine gun in a concealed lockbox in back, and, in a rack mounted in the headliner, a Remington 870 Tactical twelve-gauge shotgun.

  Sergeant James O. Byrth, of the Texas Rangers, sat behind the wheel, his right elbow on the armrest as he held a cell phone to his ear. In his left hand, at the knuckles, he repeatedly tumbled a small white pinto bean from pinkie finger to thumb, then back again.

  Byrth was thirty-one years old, six feet tall, a lithely muscled 170 pounds. His thick dark hair was neat and short. He had on gray slacks—the cuffs breaking over a pair of highly polished black ostrich-skin Western boots—a white cotton dress shirt with a striped necktie, and a navy blue blazer, single-breasted with gold buttons. Pinned just above the shirt pocket was his sterling silver badge, a five-point star within a circle engraved with DEPT. OF PUBLIC SAFETY—TEXAS RANGERS—SERGEANT. A white Stetson rested brim-up on the passenger seat.

  As he listened, Byrth’s dark, intelligent eyes stared out the wiper-smeared windshield, intently watching the traffic at the Hacienda’s front door. The façade of the strip club had been painted a bright canary yellow and had posters of half-naked girls in suggestive poses stapled to it. Above the black door, which was swung completely open, a red neon sign flashed ENTRADA. A bouncer, a swarthy rough-looking Hispanic, sat on a backless stool in front of the door, his arms crossed as he eyed the cars circling the parking lot and the approaching customers.