“And Holden?”
“I already interviewed him.” I checked my mirrors before changing lanes. I was also performing a habitual scope for the blue Mustang. So far, I didn’t see it.
“TJ, too?” Jennifer said.
“Actually, no. He’s next.”
“Have you met him? TJ?”
“Not yet.”
Jennifer sighed and paused, looking again out the window. “I wonder what he’s like,” she said lazily to herself.
So do I, I thought.
“Where was he today?” she said.
“Dunno. Maybe he was sick.”
“Maybe.” She continued looking out the window, basking in the day’s experience but coloring it with a thin coat of regret for not having met TJ, too. She was quiet for the rest of the drive home.
I pulled into my apartment parking lot and got out to walk her up.
“That’s all right,” she said. “I’ve got my key.”
“Okay.” I stopped on the sidewalk. I would’ve preferred to walk her up. I was still a little concerned about the blue Mustang and the creep in the elevator. But we appeared to be alone and I understood her need for her adolescent space.
She took a half step toward the stairs, I thought, then threw her arms around me and laid an ear against my chest.
“This was the best day of my life.” Ordinarily, I would’ve characterized a statement like that as a childhood exaggeration. But I knew it was true. There would be other days for her that would be more significant and more joyous. But for now, today, this was truly the best day of her life. It was a memory that she would carry with her always, to be pulled out and reviewed fondly from time to time.
And I felt grateful that I had been able to give her this gift that would last the rest of her life.
“Thanks, Dad.” She held on just a little too tight and a beat too long. Enough for me to wonder if this moment had more to do with my cancer. Then she let go, quickly wiping a cheek.
“You gonna be okay for lunch?” I asked.
“Please.” She rolled her eyes.
“What about work? You got a ride?”
“I’m off today.”
“Oh. I’ll try to call when I know when I’ll be home.”
“Sure. Whatever. I’m cool. Would you drop off the film while you’re out? Do the one-hour and get, like, quadruple prints. I’m gonna show everybody.”
“Um, yeah, okay.”
“I’ve gotta call Gwen.”
I watched her—half girl, half woman—bound up the stairs. I got back in my truck and sat for a moment, taking deep, measured breaths. The sharp sting of tears seeped into my eyes and I was afraid I might actually sob, something I hadn’t done since I was a kid.
Since being diagnosed with cancer, I had gone emotionally numb. Hell, who was I kidding? I had gone emotionally numb years ago, probably shortly after Becky and I got married. Maybe even before Jennifer was born. But now here I sat in my truck, on the verge of a genuine outburst. Orlando’s June heat saved me as the cab quickly turned into a convection oven.
I turned over the ignition, cranked up the AC, and pulled out into the street. For the first time in a long time, I flipped the radio on and found an old Eagles tune.
Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?…
I reached over and turned up the volume.
CHAPTER 12
The uniform at the Isleworth guard shack was waiting for me, clipboard in hand.
“Hi,” he said cheerily. “Who are you here to see?”
“Arlene Sommerset.” The guard asked my name and I gave it.
“Is she expecting you?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.” I’d tried calling Arlene from my cell phone on the ride over, but I only got her machine.
The guard popped back into the shack and punched some keys on a computer. A few seconds later the gate swung up and the guard poked his head out.
“Okay, Mr. Garrity. You’re on the list. You know where you’re going?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“Have a nice day.”
“Thanks.” I nodded and pulled through the barrier. The list? I figured that getting through the gate was a hopeless mission. But Arlene Sommerset had put my name on her permanent admittance list.
That was a definite surprise.
As I drove through the Mediterranean-styled mansions and putting-green manicured lawns, I pulled out my cell phone. I took a fortifying breath and punched in a familiar number. A moment later, I heard Big Jim’s baritone voice through the receiver.
“This’s Dupree.”
“Big Jim.”
A pause. “G. This’s gettin’ to be a habit. You might as well come back and sit at your desk, as much as we seem to be talkin’ lately.”
“I have another favor. Can you run a check of the hospitals and morgue? New arrivals.”
“You still lookin’ for your skip?”
“Yeah.”
“Thought you said I didn’t have to worry ’bout no toe tags on this deal.”
“Just covering all my bases. I have a hunch he may not be in the best frame of mind and may try to hurt himself.”
I imagined that I actually heard Jim shaking his head. “I don’t like what I’m hearin’ here, G. It’s makin’ the back of my neck itch. That ain’t good, bro.”
“Just let me know what you find. Especially John Does who fit the physical.”
“I’m scratchin’ my neck right now, bro. Can you hear that? I’m gettin’ a bad, itchy feelin’ ’bout this case that George Neuheisel pawned off on you. Maybe you should just walk away.”
“Too late, Jimbo. I’m already in—what the hell?” As I turned the corner onto Arlene Sommerset’s street, I saw a low-slung, red Mazda MX-6 in her driveway. A male figure was peeking through one of the house’s side widows.
“Say again, G?”
“Gotta go, Jimbo. I’ll talk to you later.” I pressed off the phone and parked the car two houses down, where I still had a view of the figure. Although I was still too far away for a really good look, I could see enough to observe that the figure was not TJ. The hair was lighter and there was at least thirty pounds more on the body. But he was young, probably close to TJ’s age, wearing a dark blue sweat suit and high-top sneakers. I watched for a few minutes as the kid looked in another window, knocked on it, then looked again.
He worked his way to the front door and rapped it with his knuckles. Then rang the bell and knocked once more. He peeked through the sidelight windows next to the door. He looked like he was getting increasingly frustrated.
The kid stepped past the door and crept his way around the other side of the house, out of my view. I reached under my seat, found my nine-millimeter Glock, and shoved it under my shirt into the back of my jeans. I hopped out of the car and strode quickly to Arlene’s house.
I went around the opposite side of the home, moving deliberately through the thick St. Augustine grass. It crunched softly under my feet as I stepped. I glanced into each window as I went past and saw no indication that anyone was home.
I reached the back of the house, where a huge screened swimming pool sat, complete with a whirlpool spa and bubbling waterfall. I peeked around the corner. Through the screen I saw the kid in the sweat suit coming around the other side. He stepped through the deep grass, squinting into the lanai.
“Hey!” he called in a nasal voice. “Hey! Anybody home?” He tried the screen door but it was locked. He pounded the doorframe with the bottom of his fist, and the aluminum clanged loudly, echoing across the pool.
If this kid was a burglar, he was the world’s worst. I slipped back around the corner and traversed the landscaping to the front yard, where I crossed the street and slid quietly into my truck.
Okay … so who was this kid? My guess was that he knew the Sommersets, Arlene or TJ or both. He called out like he expected them to know who he was. Plus, he was inside the gate. With celebrity neighbors all around, one did not easily sneak thro
ugh the security gate at Isleworth. If he was merely a garden-variety Boyz Klub fan, he would have been stopped and pounced on long before he made it to the house. Was he a neighbor? A close friend? If he didn’t live here, was he also on the Sommersets’ permanent-access list?
Which might make him who? A boyfriend? Arlene’s? TJ’s? He seemed way too young, and tacky, for Arlene, and TJ had just gotten out of a serious relationship with Miguel. Both seemed unlikely scenarios.
Wait a sec—George mentioned a cousin. I hadn’t found time to follow up on the cousin yet. This kid might be him. So what to do about it? I immediately decided against a direct approach.
As a cop, when I was in the midst of an investigation, especially a major one for the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation, it was always a difficult call knowing when to meet an issue head-on and when to sneak up on it from the side. There were advantages to both. In this case, I felt the sneaking-up option to be the most prudent. This cousin might know where TJ was and confronting him might make him clam up. Following him, on the other hand, might yield pay dirt. I jotted down the Mazda’s tag number.
It took a few minutes for the kid to come back around the house. He continued to check every window and to beat on the front door. I slumped down in my seat and flashed back to a thousand other stakeouts I had sat vigil on. They were boring, uncomfortable propositions, but, despite that, I had felt alive, purposeful. Especially at the beginning of my career. I was truly doing good in the world, removing some very bad guys from decent society.
Drugs. Prostitution rings. Gambling. I had been a lead investigator on a case that had resulted in the arrest and conviction of Juan “the Don” Alomar, a local mob crew chief and boss of the major bookmaking operation in Central Florida, run from the back office of a used-car lot on East Colonial Drive. Used cars were a cash business and it was easy to launder money through that front.
I had been thinking more about this case since George had mentioned it during our first meeting in his office. It was a big deal at the time. Newspaper articles. An interview on CNN. And, of course, the reenactment on a Discovery Channel investigations program. I had endured more than the usual amount of ribbing in the office, but, in retrospect, it was probably the pinnacle of my career. Everything from that point on was a process of slow decay, my attitude and passion for the job wearing way like a stone under a continual drip. At the time, though, the Alomar case represented all the reasons I’d first entered law enforcement.
Alomar was a San Juan transplant, known in Puerto Rico for gambling and providing a safe haven for the mob’s drug-smuggling mules headed for the mainland. He was run out of Puerto Rico when one of the mules got busted and things became too hot. He, like so many from that Caribbean U.S. territory, found his way to Central Florida and reestablished operations. Alomar’s was a branch office of the Angelino crime family of Paramus, New Jersey, and my evidence had cranked up at least a half dozen FBI investigations of some serious wiseguys up North. It was a big collar, probably my biggest, and put the squeeze on illegal gambling from Daytona to Tampa. It even sent a popular legal gambling ship from Port Canaveral into dry dock.
Nailing guys like Alomar had made me feel that I was making a difference. But somewhere along the line, that fire burned out. I’d arrest a guy only to see him right back on the street again in a few weeks. I busted one pusher twelve times for the same thing. Too much time spent with the very worst society had to offer. Being a cop is a job where no one’s ever happy to see you coming. It skews your life perspective. Makes you cynical and jaded. I’m sure it didn’t help my marriages. My gut grew cold and the job became a grind of routine and repetition. I stayed in for a long time after that, even after I realized I had burned out, mostly because I didn’t know how to do anything else.
My marriages had failed. My parenthood had failed. I defined myself by my career. My work had given me purpose when the rest of my life was crumbling around me. So, if I wasn’t a cop, who was I? Even though I had grown to hate the job, if I quit, I might cease to exist. And then Bob showed up with a brand-new identity for me.
Cancer Guy.
Sitting here now, I tasted the dormant but familiar flavor of investigation. It was a sensory memory, the scent of professional mission. I hadn’t felt it in a long time.
The kid opened the Mazda’s driver’s door and dropped into the seat. He fired up the engine and squealed out of the driveway. I put the truck in gear and was right behind him.
There was scant traffic on the Isleworth roads, but, with so many landscapers and plumbers and exterminators continually working in the neighborhood, the sight of a pickup truck was hardly suspicious. I followed the red Mazda back through the neighborhood and emerged right behind it on the other side of the security gate.
The Mazda turned right onto Conroy Road, so I did, too. I let a little separation grow between our vehicles to avoid obvious detection. From the edge of my vision, I saw a flash of blue.
My eyes darted up to the rearview mirror and there was the goddamn blue Mustang bearing down on me like a locomotive. I hadn’t seen it when I’d pulled out of Isleworth. I was busy watching the Mazda.
I instinctively pushed down on the gas to avoid being rear-ended, but the Mustang kept coming. In front of me the Mazda suddenly leapt forward, the kid in the sweat suit accelerating away like I had Ebola. My eyes jumped back to the rearview where the Mustang was about to crash my bumper and send me fishtailing into a retention canal. At the last possible moment, the Mustang veered left, swerving out into oncoming traffic.
A loaded dump truck appeared from around a bend, heading straight for the Mustang. I gripped the steering wheel and stood both feet on the brake, the antilocks shuddering, fighting to maintain control. The Mustang squealed and jerked back in front of me, spraying road pebbles across my windshield as the dump truck thundered past us on our left.
Then the Mustang lurched away, screaming after the Mazda. I mashed my foot down on the accelerator and took off after them both.
My old truck groaned and protested, but managed to maintain the distance between me and the Mustang. The Mazda swerved recklessly, careening between and around cars in a frantic attempt to escape the Mustang. But the Mustang kept gaining.
Ahead of us I saw a traffic light turn yellow. The Mazda blew under it just as it flipped red. The Mustang was right behind, flying through the intersection at close to eighty miles an hour. A crossing white minivan squealed to a crooked stop to avoid being smashed.
I leaned on the brake and heaved to a stop. Ahead of me, through the crossing cars, I saw the Mustang and Mazda changing lanes, darting back and forth in their dangerous chase. If I didn’t get through this busy suburban intersection in the next few seconds, I would lose them.
I nosed out into the intersection and heard a few angry horns blaring. After a moment, the oncoming cars instinctively slowed, seeing my truck halfway in their lane. It was the opening I needed and I floored the accelerator.
More furious horns sounded as cars in the farther lanes squealed to a stop. I pulled the wheel hard left to avoid a gold Camry and bounced over the raised concrete curb of the median on the far side of the intersection. I thumped back into the street and leaned heavily on the gas to make up the distance to the Mustang.
We barreled through the streets of West Orlando’s Dr. Phillips area. It was only a matter of time before the cops joined our game of tag.
The Mazda raced past the entrance to Universal Studios and for a moment I thought he might turn into the parking garage. But the Mazda kept going, seeing the line of cars snaking out from the admission gate. I guessed that the kid didn’t want to get boxed in where he’d be vulnerable.
We all turned onto Sand Lake Road, luckily catching the traffic light on green, and zigzagged our way under I-4. Next we were on International Drive, a tourist-heavy part of town populated with myriad hotels, shops, restaurants, and the gargantuan Orange County Convention Center. Traffic would likely be too heavy on I-Drive for this
chase to continue. Something bad would happen.
Unfortunately, I was right. Up ahead, I saw a row of red taillights waiting for a traffic light. The Mazda screeched hard to the right, skidding into the parking lot of a souvenir shop. He quickly accelerated, trying to regain control of his car, but it was too late. He plowed into a row of parked rental cars like a bowling ball into a fresh set of pins.
The cars slammed into each other with the same sound as a dump truck pushed over a cliff. The front of the Mazda disintegrated, compressing into itself.
The Mustang squealed to a halt next to the carnage. A familiar, hulking guy with a thick shock of black hair leapt from the Mustang and ripped open the Mazda driver’s door, no easy feat considering the door was now an entirely new shape.
I swerved into the parking lot just as the big man was yanking the kid out from the Mazda. He picked the kid up with both paws and threw him against the back of the car. I saw a thin line of blood trickling from the kid’s nose.
I shoved my truck in park, gripped my nine-millimeter, and was out the door.
CHAPTER 13
My neon-golf-shirt-wearing buddy from the elevator had a hand around the kid’s neck now, squeezing so hard the kid’s face was turning purple. He was saying something to the kid, something clearly unpleasant, but I couldn’t catch what it was. I raised the Glock and pointed it in their basic direction.
“Hey!” I said in my former cop voice. “Playtime’s over.”
Not removing a finger from the kid’s throat, the elevator goon turned his head slowly toward me. His lipless mouth was an expressionless fissure between his nose and flat chin.
“Fuck off,” he said in his nasal voice.
“Let go of junior there,” I said.
He didn’t move. I focused my aim at his big square head.
“Let him go, sport. And keep your hands where I can see ’em.”
Except for turning his head at me, the big guy hadn’t moved since I’d arrived. His eyes were as hot as cigar ashes. Still motionless everywhere else, I saw his fingers slowly release the kid’s neck. The kid flopped over onto his hands and knees, coughing and sputtering, a drop of blood plopping from his nose onto the parking lot asphalt.
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