by Dakan
That is our problem and, moreover, it is a problem that doesn't seem to have any easy resolution. Nor even a difficult resolution. It seems destined to remain ambiguous to us, as do so many things in this life."
"Uh huh," said Paul, trying to sort out all the double meanings, hidden warnings and obfuscations in Winston's speech. Was he telling them that they would never understand his motivation and should just let it go? Or was he just throwing up smoke to discourage them about the whole affair in hopes they would give up? Or was he Chapter 32
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just talking philosophy because he's Winston and that's what he likes to do? Paul suspected some combination of all three.
"So, let's agree that we don't know what we don't know or whatever it is you're saying," said Chloe. "We still have to do something don't we?"
"Of course," said Winston, although something in his tone seemed to suggest that he didn't actually agree.
"Don't we?" Chloe asked again, doubt creeping into her own voice.
"If there is something we can do, then we should do it," he said. "But what to do? I for one am at a bit of a loss."
"What about Isaiah and the rest of them?" asked Paul. "What about his whole plan?"
"As we discussed at the meeting this morning, Paul, it seems all but doomed, doesn't it? Which is a shame.
Isaiah's a brilliant, visionary man. But I don't see how it could work."
Chloe started to say something, but Winston kept on before she could get a word out. "But I don't see any reason why the three of us couldn't continue on and do something of our own in the same vein. There are a lot of merits to Isaiah's scheme, although I still think forming an actual legally recognized corporation produces too much exposure and creates power relationships and thought processes that are inherently unfair and unfree. But we three and our two Crews should be able to put our heads together and come up with a more democratic system that could achieve much of what Isaiah is aiming for."
"You mean, have our Crews cooperate?" asked Chloe. "Yours and mine?"
"And others that I know of," Winston said. "As has been pointed out, I've contacts with other groups all across the country and beyond. Organizing that power to some greater goal is a worthy endeavor and one I've avoided for far too long. I'm getting old now, and in the years I have left I want to do all I can to make a real difference. And with your youthful energy and creativity and ability leading the way, I think we can."
Paul sat in awe at the genius of Winston's surprise gambit. Whatever he'd been expecting the old man to say during this meeting, it wasn't that. Winston had just offered Chloe and Paul exactly the right thing, almost as if he'd been reading their minds. Chloe idolized Winston and had for years (and Paul admired him a great deal as well), but the old mentor had long kept her at arm's length, never letting her into his inner circle. Now he was proposing to do exactly that, which would let Chloe spread her wings and expand her activities beyond the shores of Key West, just as she dreamed. And for Paul he was offering a safer alternative. He was saying, get rid of all these murder investigations and Raff and Isaiah and Eddie, and get back to a world you know and love. Only work with someone you trust.
All they had to do was ignore the fact that he'd committed one little murder - a murder he hinted he might have had very good reasons to commit - and they could both have everything that they wanted. Paul didn't know what to do. Part of him wanted to just say, "Ok!" and be done with it. So did a second part. Even the third part, the doubting part, was doubting its own doubt. He looked over at Chloe and guessed that she was running through a similar set of mental gymnastics, but he couldn't tell for sure what she was going to do about it.
"That's..." Chloe started, then stopped. "That's... It's a very interesting point you bring up. Lots of interesting points. Lots to think about."
"No decisions need to be made right away," Winston assured them. "Think it over. In the meantime, you were Chapter 32
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absolutely correct when you said we needed to discuss our current plan of action. If we can find this killer, we should, just to be on the safe side."
"We're kind of with you about not being sure what to do next," said Paul. "We've been having some hiccups with our camera network that've made it pretty difficult to track anyone."
"But we do have the guy's pic out to our contacts around town," Chloe added. "One of them might spot him again, like Cassie did the other night."
"If he is even still on the island," Paul said. "After the beating Sandee gave him, he might've just made a run for it. We checked the hospital, and he didn't show up there." In fact they hadn't checked the hospital because they knew where he was, but they had to keep up the illusion that they were looking for him for their plan to work.
"It does seem probable that he has gone to ground," Winston said. "If he's merely a lackey for one of the other players like Eddie or Raff, then in all likelihood we'll never see him again."
"Well," said Chloe. "There's only one road out of town, and we're still tapped into the red-light camera there.
If he's driving out of town, then Bee's facial recognition software should pick him up." Paul knew this assertion was a total lie, although it would be nice if they could do something like that. "Of course," Chloe continued, "If he took a boat outta here, then we'd have no way of knowing."
"And you already know he's had access to the water," Winston pointed out.
"True, true. But the real issue is the damn camera situation," Chloe said. "Something seriously screwed up is happening to our network, and we're losing feeds from all over the city. Bee's doing her best, but it's not going well."
"Sounds like the work of an outside force," said Winston. "Someone trying to put you at a disadvantage."
"That's right," said Chloe. "And certainly Isaiah, Eddie and Raff are all capable of fucking with us like that.
So we were going to ask if you could help us out."
"What can I do?"
"I know it can't be just you and Lily here in town, right?" said Chloe. Winston smiled and nodded, acknowledging the point. "What would really help us out would be if you could put some of your people on watching our principals - the three other crews. Well, we don't know where Raff is. So Eddie and Isaiah, anyway."
"Of course," said Winston. "It will take me some time to get them in place. But not too much time I think."
"Perfect," said Chloe. "And if you could have them all coordinate with Bee? She's still got the best seat in the house, even with a bunch of our cameras on the fritz. She can coordinate reports from the field and then pass the information on to the rest of us."
Winston paused for just a moment and Paul suspected that he didn't like the idea of revealing so many of his assets to them. But he relented with a smile. "That sounds like a good idea. Just give me the number and I'll start making the calls."
Chloe pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Winston. "That's her cell number and an e-mail address too.
If they could report in one way or the other every fifteen minutes or so, that'd be perfect."
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"All right," said Winston. "How long do you think we should run this level of surveillance? If Eddie or Isaiah spot us watching them, it will only make them more angry. And I'm sure Paul told you how volatile Eddie became this morning."
"Yeah," said Chloe. "I don't want to start a gang war or whatever. But I think just for the next twenty-four hours or so should be fine."
"I think everything will be sorted out by then," Paul added. "At that point if we haven't found the damn guy, we probably never will and Isaiah will have to cancel the whole plan. Then we can talk about other options."
"It sounds like you've thought of everything," Winston said, standing up. "I'll go call my people."
"Great," said Chloe. "I'm glad you could step up and help out on this."
"Always, Chloe. For you, anything."
"I'm going to call Bee and tell her to get everyt
hing ready," Paul said, pulling out one of the two phones he was carrying. "Although knowing her, she's already finished."
Paul stepped into the kitchen for a bit of privacy, leaving Chloe and Winston chatting in the other room about how to organize the surveillance teams. He dialed Bee's number, and she picked up on the first ring.
"Hey, Bee," he said. "Listen. Winston's people are going to help us..."
"Hold on," Bee said. "Listen, we just got a call in from one of our contacts. She's staying in one of our condos, right? Jill's her name."
"Sure, I know her," said Paul. "The park ranger."
"Well, she recognized the guy. The killer guy? And she says she knows where he's staying. Saw him this morning she says, with some other people."
"Shit, really?"
"Yeah. She's working out in the salt marshes by the airport. You know, that nature path back there? If you want to go talk to her, that's where she'll be."
"Absolutely," said Paul. "We'll just finish up here and then go back by the house and get the car and then head out there. Should take us half an hour. An hour maybe."
"She said she'd be there all day," Bee said. "Only park ranger out there so it shouldn't be hard to find her."
"Great. Oh, and hey, Bee, some people of Winston's will be calling you soon. They're going to set up surveillance on Eddie and the others. You're going to coordinate, ok?"
"No problem," said Bee. "I've got everything set up already."
"I knew it," laughed Paul. "Ok, we'll see you in a few." He hung up the phone and headed back into the living room. He didn't want to tell Chloe about the tip in front of Winston. Despite his generous new offer, he still didn't trust him.
"Bee's all set up," he said to them both. "We should get going."
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"Right," said Chloe. She turned and gave Winston a hug. "We'll be in touch throughout the day and meet again tonight at 8:00?"
"Sounds good," he replied.
"Thanks again, Winston," Paul said as he opened the door for Chloe. "Talk to you soon."
The two of them were out the door, Paul wondering what exactly Chloe was thinking about Winston's offer.
She gave nothing away as they mounted the scooter and zipped back toward their house. They had to assume they were being watched.
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Chapter 33
THEY talked to Winston a lot sooner than Chloe had anticipated. They got home in just over five minutes, and Chloe's phone chimed as soon as she walked through the door. She answered and heard Winston's voice say, "Hello, Chloe. I spoke with some of my people, and they're having some trouble finding Eddie right now.
Do you have any idea where he is from your cameras?"
"No, we've got no idea," Chloe said, annoyed with her mentor's gall. He was the one taking down their camera network and here he is asking her to use it to help him! She knew that it was just a delaying tactic, trying to keep her and Paul occupied with some meaningless task while he made his next move - whatever that was.
But Chloe had other things she had to do. "Right now our cameras are all fucked up. We'll be here at the house for another hour at least trying to get it sorted out. If you could just give me a call when you find him, that'd be great." She hung up before he could say anything else. The more she let him talk, the more likely she was to give something away.
Bee came down the stairs with a laptop in her hand, which she handed to Paul, who was waiting for it. "This is set up to read right off our feed in the park department security cameras," Bee explained. "You need to get over within a couple hundred yards of the hub, which is at the back of that apartment complex over there, Sandy Gables. Just park by the rear dumpsters and you should be fine."
"Sounds lovely," said Paul. "And we can watch our ranger friend with this?"
"The cameras there have pretty good coverage, so yeah, it shouldn't be a problem."
Paul tucked the laptop under his arm and turned to flash Chloe a smile. "You ready to sit in the car and stare at a laptop screen for a while?" he asked.
"Oh God yes!" Chloe said in mock excitement. "That sounds awesome! And maybe later we can come back here and look at screens on a desktop while eating nails."
"I don't eat nails!" Bee protested.
"You're missing out," Paul said. "Yummy, yummy nails. Full of metally goodness." Bee seemed to realize they weren't making fun of her and laughed along with their joke.
"Ok," said Chloe, "Let's get going."
They used the car instead of the scooter because it provided more cover and the laptop could plug right into the cigarette lighter (Bee always kept a spare car battery in the trunk just in case they killed the one under the hood). It was also kind of a long drive to the salt marshes, or at least what passed for a long drive on Key West. Out by the airport, the whole area was supposed to be protected wetlands, shielded from development.
But real estate ruled in Florida, particularly on small islands like Key West, and several large apartment complexes had managed to somehow circumvent or just ignore regulations and built out into the swamp.
Not that the real estate tycoons were the first to use the marshes for something other than their intended legal purposes, although Chloe had a lot more sympathy for the region's first cadre of lawbreakers. Ever since the park service cut some paths and laid some bridges through the thick mangroves, the spot had been a favorite spot for cruisers. Men looking for an anonymous midnight rendezvous with other like-minded gents frequented the paths, which also became haunts for prostitutes, drug users and the homeless. Although "out of sight, out of mind" was a truism in Key West as it was elsewhere, at some point the sexual shenanigans became too popular for the local authorities to ignore. And when periodic police raids and undercover stings weren't enough, they fell back upon the last refuge of the frustrated police state: cameras.
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The city had set up cameras all along the nature paths, clamped right onto the sides of trees and the occasional lamp post. Bee had spliced her way into the feed several months ago, but the park was too far away from the rest of their wireless camera grid in old town, so it wasn't part of the main network. She had plans to some day put some boosters out there to piggyback the signal so it was in range, but the truth was, they'd never seen much need in having access to these camera feeds. The party gave them more than enough voyeuristic opportunities if that's what they wanted, and not much else went on out here worth looking at.
Chloe parked the car in the back of the Sandy Gables parking lot, right next to the dumpster as instructed. It did indeed smell as bad as she had feared. The Sandy Gables developers had been one of those companies which had stuck its concrete in the swamp and piled up crappy, cookie-cutter condos. One result was that this position was within range of the wireless transmitter Bee had attached to the city's camera network, so they could pick up the feeds from the comfort of their car.
She watched as Paul browsed through the twenty different camera views, each displayed in groups of four.
The park was empty, despite the fact that tourist season was raging around them. Hardly anyone knew about the paths, and the habitual users waited until night (when the cameras were largely ineffective because they had no night-vision capability). It took Paul less than a minute to find the young ranger, standing in a clearing, smoking a cigarette, back to the camera but in plain view.
"Shouldn't be too hard to find," said Paul.
"Nope," agreed Chloe. "Especially with that cigarette stinking up the place."
They sat and watched for twenty minutes as the ranger wandered idly around the clearing, occasionally pushing some dirt and leaves around with a rake. Paul cycled through the camera feeds every minute or so, watching for anyone else entering the park. And soon enough, their patience was rewarded. A beat-up old pickup truck pulled into one of the small parking areas, and a man slowly levered himself out of the cab. His right hand was bandaged and
he walked with a limp. In his left hand he held a flashlight. It was the killer.
Winston's friend.
"There!" said Paul. "He's coming in from the West entrance."
Chloe thumbed a speed dial button on her phone and said, "We see him, coming in from the west."
"Well, that pretty much proves that, doesn't it?" Paul said, his voice grim.
"Yeah," said Chloe through clenched teeth. There was no doubting it now. Winston was not only in league with the killer, he was still providing the man with targets. In this case, an innocent park ranger.
She had backed into the parking space, making a quick getaway all the easier. She screeched out of the lot and zigzagged through the complex's labyrinthine parking lot on her way to Flagler Road. Although the killer was entering from a location less than a quarter of a mile from where they were parked, it was all swamp and water between the two points. Chloe had to circle all the way back around on South Roosevelt to get to where the killer had parked, which was almost a mile. It should take the killer a little while to find his prey on the winding, wooded trails, whereas they knew exactly where they were going. With a little luck they should beat him there.
They didn't have a little luck though. As she turned onto Roosevelt she found herself right behind a police car.
No speeding, no passing. It ended up taking them ten minutes to get into position. At least the cop hadn't decided to check out the salt marshes on top of everything else. They parked right next to the killer's pickup and raced through the woods toward where the killer had gone. Chloe had her stun gun in hand, charged and ready for whatever lay up ahead. She skidded to a halt as she entered the clearing, and Paul plowed right into Chapter 33
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her back, sending them both sprawling to the ground. Sandee found this very amusing indeed.
"Some cavalry you guys are," he said once he'd stopped laughing. Dressed in a park ranger's khakis with a broad-brimmed hat and shades, Sandee was standing in the middle of the clearing, his left foot resting comfortably on top of the killer's body. He was bound and gagged, pink-furry handcuffs clasping his hands behind his back and a bright red ball-gag strapped to his mouth.
