The Devil's Deep

by Michael Wallace

  “Pura vida,” Becca said.

  Wes dropped to his knees to get the jack in place before the ground turned to mud. His mind worked just as quickly. That speech by Uncle Bill at Northrock, about building roads, the Roman Empire, and all that crap. And what was Uncle Davis doing with Grandpa Carter’s company? Getting sidetracked with this alternative energy stuff, according to Aunt Charlotte. And Davis had told Javier Lopez he planned to hook up every house on the Osa Peninsula with solar power.

  The rain came down harder, but Becca stood by his side, holding the nuts and then bolting the flat tire to the back door while Wes put on the spare. They returned to the car a few minutes later, anxious to cross the rivers before the rising water cut them off. Thankfully, the spare had been an actual tire, and not the donut they foisted onto rental cars in the United States.

  “So my uncle tried to kill his brother. Or maybe it was an accident. But he didn’t die here and let’s say for a minute he survived once they got him to the United States. My mom knew, because she was down here, but maybe they kept it hidden from my Aunt Charlotte. Just thinking aloud here.”

  “Go on.”

  “My Uncle Bill gives Charlotte some ashes. Must have paid people off down here besides the Solorios—that doctor, for one—to pull it off. The thing that doesn’t make sense is this. If Uncle Davis is still alive, then where is he?”

  “He was shot in the back of the head with a spear gun,” she said. “Sounds like a brain injury to me. Might have even lost oxygen for awhile.”

  “That’s what happened to Eric when he was born. Got the cord wrapped around his neck and turned out brain damaged. Well, you’ve probably read my brother’s history.”

  “Yes, I have,” Becca answered with a nod. “And that’s exactly what I’m thinking. Your uncle was in a coma somewhere. Maybe he still is. He’s not dead, but they told everyone he is, and there’s no way he can contradict them.”

  It made sense. “Only I don’t understand where…” And then he did understand. It explained Rosa, his mother, why he’d seen Uncle Bill at Riverwood. He turned to Becca, blinking, even as she pointed for him to keep his attention on the dark, muddy road. “Becca. Don’t you see? He’s at Riverwood. My uncle is one of the retarded people on Team Smile.”

  “Jesus.” A pause. “It’s got to be Chad Lett. He’s the only one of the three men who would be the right age.”

  Had to be. Wes hadn’t recognized his uncle, but the man in the bed was rigid and aged by his brain damage. And diminished in height and muscle. The spark was gone from his eyes, since there was no intelligence in there anymore. But now that Wes knew, he could see it. Yes.

  “We’ve got to get my uncle out of there. We can take him to my Aunt Charlotte.”

  “Didn’t you say she’s engaged to marry someone else?”

  “We’ll deal with that. Whatever happens, she’ll help us with Davis and with the police. But we’ve got to get to him before my uncle finds out we escaped that dive and comes for Davis himself. And that means we’ve got to get back to Vermont, now. We’ll call the airline in the morning and pay whatever it takes to get on tomorrow’s flight.”

  #

  Dr. Pardo held his telephone with trembling hands. A roaring sounded in his ears, and a confusion, like he’d suffered a blow to the head. “What did you say?”

  “I said that David is dead,” James Pardo repeated. The voice was distant, one of those long-distance connections that you didn’t hear much anymore, but the landlines on the Osa Peninsula left much to be desired.

  Dr. Pardo sat in his office with a plastic bottle on the desk in front of him, filled with green fluid. Digoxin. In low doses it would regulate the heart’s rhythm, in high doses, stop it dead.

  “But it can’t be. There were two of you. You were armed.”

  “I’m telling you, David’s dead. We went after this Pilson guy. Stupid cabrón was stronger than we thought, and a good swimmer. Nobody told us that.”

  He filled in details. The two brothers had entered the water together, but David had not stayed with James as he’d been instructed. Impulsive, anxious to find Wesley and Becca on his own. James was alone when he met Wesley and by the time David joined, their target had regrouped and moved to the offensive. As James had fled to the surface, slashed hoses spurting air, he’d seen his brother trapped in an underwater cave, blood clouding around his head. No air came from his regulator.

  Pardo tried to speak, but his throat was tight. He’d sent his sons to Costa Rica, thinking their Spanish would give them an advantage. But Pilson had spent so much time in Costa Rica that he spoke Spanish fluently, Bill had said, and now it appeared he was a good swimmer, too.

  “And Pilson,” Dr. Pardo said. “Is he dead too? You said he took off his tank underwater. Was it deep?” He didn’t know as much about diving as did his two sons, but he knew enough.

  “Fifty feet, maybe sixty. I don’t know,” James said. “The girl was with him. I didn’t see her swim away. She might have buddy-breathed with him or given him her octopus.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means he’d have made it to the surface. Alive.”

  “Goddamn it.”

  James said, “David waved a gun at the fishermen before we went down. Once I drove off in our boat, the Americans would have found themselves in the open ocean with nobody to take them back.”

  “Come on, you said it was near the island. So they swam ashore.”

  “There were rocks. It wouldn’t have been easy.”

  “You think that matters? This kid took care of both of you. You said he was a strong swimmer. Assume he’s alive. Okay?”

  “Okay.” A pause. Static on the line. “What should I do?”

  Dr. Pardo put his hands to his temples. His son dead, and for what? The whole plan was unraveling, and he hadn’t yet taken the digoxin to Chad Lett’s room to finish the job and get on with extracting the money from Bill Carter. Carter’s nephew had been a nuisance. No more. Every minute he was still alive was too long.

  “I want him dead. I don’t care anymore if you make it look like an accident or a random mugging, or whatever. Go to the beach house and kill them. And if they’re not there, you’ve got their rental car information. Wait until they drop off the car day after tomorrow and then shoot them.”

  “Sounds risky. There’s a caretaker and his family living next door. And there’s only one way out of Matapalo. If they see me or hear the gun, or come running and see the bodies, then they can radio Puerto Jiménez. The police will have, what? Thirty, forty minutes to set their cars in the middle of the road and wait for me.”

  “So kill the caretakers, too. I don’t care what you do, I want Pilson dead. I want them both dead. You owe it to David. Don’t call me until it’s finished.”

  Pardo hung up the phone, and sat shaking. Time to finish the Carter family business. Should have been done a long time ago if Bill hadn’t been so weak, so afraid to grab what was his. Then again, if he wasn’t so weak, Pardo would have never dared this doublecross with Bill’s sister. It was how he would get his land back. It would be bittersweet now, with only one son to help him rebuild the finca. He scooped up the bottle of digoxin and rose to his feet.

  Anne Wistrom would be going on her smoke break in a few minutes. He’d go down to the nurse station, pull some files, and go over patients’ prescriptions as if looking for negative interactions. He was past due with a couple of the teams. Wistrom would go for her break, Pardo would call in that temp who was working the grave HT position and send her to the far wing on some errand or other. He’d enter Chad’s room, take care of business, then be back in the nurse station by the time the HT and Wistrom returned. After that, he’d work another hour or so and go home. Chad Lett would die in his sleep.

  Pardo reached the door just as someone knocked. He froze, then dropped the bottle in the pocket of his lab coat and opened the door. It was Carolina, the Peruvian. What was she doing here? He’d checked; she wasn’t
working tonight. And she didn’t have a car, anyway, so how did she even get here from Montpelier since the bus wasn’t running this time of night?

  “Alan,” she said.

  “Dr. Pardo,” he reminded with a glance down the hall. Not that he expected anyone to be working in the admin wing at 8:00 at night. The afternoon QMRP usually left by seven, the social worker didn’t work on Fridays, and that idiot, Saul Cage, would be long gone. “What are you doing here?”

  “I need to talk to you, Alan. Right now. It’s very important.” She spoke Spanish with that rural Peruvian accent that bugged the hell out of him. Maleducada.

  “Call me tomorrow. I’m busy.”

  And then he had a start. What had brought her tonight, anyway? He thought about Rosa. First pregnant, then discovering Chad Lett’s secret.

  No, not Carolina. He’d been careful not to repeat the first mistake, and the girl was too dumb to reach the same conclusions as had Rosa. Then what?

  Meanwhile, Carolina blinked hard and scrunched her face as if she was about to cry. He forced himself to speak softly as he pulled her inside and shut the door. “I’m sorry. I am really busy.” He looked pointedly at his watch. “I thought I’d be gone by now and I’ve still got a good hour of work.”

  “Alan,” she said. “I feel…very bad. About what we’re doing. You know, having relations.”

  He leaned back against the desk, feeling a great deal of relief. Was that all? That Catholic upbringing. If Carolina hadn’t been having sex outside of marriage, she’d have found something else to make her twitch and scratch at herself.

  “This isn’t Peru,” he said. He was again anxious to get rid of her. “Those sort of things aren’t that important here. Nobody will care whether or not you’re a virgin. Besides, it’s just between the two of us, right? Nobody else knows. Do they?”

  “No. I mean, not yet.”

  “Let’s keep it that way. What’s the problem?” He rested a hand against her neck, then let it slide beneath her scrub and her bra to rub his finger against her nipple.

  She closed her eyes, shivered. But then she pulled away. “I thought maybe we could…I mean, I could call my family and tell them…you know, they are very conservative. Especially my father. He would want me to be, you know, married. Don’t you think we could…”

  “Carolina,” he said, keeping his voice softer than he felt. He took her face tenderly in his hands and gave her a gentle smile. “Mi vida. It’s just not the right time.”

  “But, why not?”

  Because you’re nothing but a cunt to fuck, he thought. And too stupid to know it. God, he’d have taken Rosa Solorio a thousand times over this campesina. But when Rosa had whispered her discovery to Pardo and he’d confirmed that yes, Davis Carter was still alive inside that broken body, he’d known what to do. Don’t push me, Carolina.

  “Listen to me,” Pardo told her. “I don’t know what fantasies you’re spinning in your mind. But we’re not getting married. You’re a campesina. Our children—” The word sounded preposterous in his mouth. “—would be campesinos, too. It’s not going to happen. Now, or ever.

  “I’m going to give you some money,” he continued. “More than you’re worth, believe me. I want you to get the hell out of here. Find another job, I don’t care.” He fished in his pocket for his wallet without waiting for her answer. “I don’t want to see you—”

  He pulled out the wallet, but something dropped to the ground. Carolina bent and picked it up and it took Pardo a split second too long to see what she held. Long enough for her to read the label on the bottle of green liquid. He snatched it back, too roughly, dropping his wallet and scattering money on the ground as he shoved the bottle back into his pocket.

  “What’s digoxin?” she asked.

  Dr. Pardo had lots of tools. He could plead, he could make false promises. He could deny. He could bring her to orgasm and hope she forgot. But she’d seen the bottle, she might remember it. Might even mention it to someone, who’d mention it to someone else. Someone like Anne Wistrom. And if the nurse found out, on a day when Chad Lett died in his sleep…

  He grabbed Carolina and threw her over the desk. His hands found her neck. Carolina tried to scream, but he pressed his thumbs into her windpipe and squeezed. She scratched at his face.

  “You stupid little bitch,” he said. He leaned out of reach of her hands which first clutched at the air in front of his face and then pried at his fingers. “You couldn’t leave it alone, could you? You want to know what happened to Rosa? That’s right, I know you’ve been looking for her. I fucked her. And when I was done fucking her, I killed her. Because I don’t have any use for campesina putas.”

  Carolina’s eyes widened. Her arm knocked the computer mouse off the desk and grabbed at the monitor, as if somehow she’d pick it up in one hand and hit him with it. But already she was weakening, and a good thing, too. The effort to choke her was more than Pardo had counted on. At last, it was done. She slumped to the floor, first to her knees, then landing hard on her face.

  Pardo stared at the body, breathing hard. What now? His hand found the bottle of digoxin in his pocket. No, he had to get rid of Carolina’s body first. Now was the time to do it, when he could drag her through the exit on the admin side of the building with nobody else down here. He’d prop her against the side of the building and bring his car around, then load her into the trunk. Risky. Very risky. But he couldn’t leave her here.

  Footsteps sounded outside his door and he froze. Who the hell else would be down here this time of night? And then he remembered his earlier question. How had Carolina come? She didn’t have a car and it was too late to take the bus.

  A knock.

  “Who is it?”

  “Where’s Carolina?” English with a heavy Spanish accent. It was Yamila, Carolina’s Mexican friend. She had a car, didn’t she?

  “Hold on, we’re just finishing up.” He blocked the door with his foot, then shot a look over his shoulder at the body.

  Yamila spoke in Spanish from the other side of the door, “Carolina? Everything okay in there? Carolina?”

  Without thinking, Pardo opened the door and grabbed the startled Yamila by the blouse and dragged her into the room. She was bigger than Carolina, stronger. She fought back like a stray cat cornered by a dog, biting, scratching, hitting, and yowling, too. He pummeled her with his fists. He found the ceramic mug on his desk and bashed it against her face, then got to his feet and started kicking, before falling on her with his fists again.

  In the end, he had two dead bodies. One lay almost peacefully on her stomach, as if she’d just fallen asleep in the middle of the floor. The other, battered, bloody, clumps of hair everywhere, bits of her skin under Pardo’s fingernails. And there was blood on his coat, too, including, quite possibly, some of his own. Green liquid seeped through his lab coat pocket, which was crunchy with broken glass from the dropper. The digoxin must have burst open during the struggle with Yamila.

  Didn’t matter anymore. He wouldn’t make it to Team Smile’s room tonight anyway. Right now he had two bodies to dispose of.

  Chapter Twenty-One:

  Fragrant plumeria trees surrounded La Brisa and the soft glow of solar lamps lit the outdoor bar and garden. Even at midnight, there were more than a dozen people drinking, listening to music, talking in loud voices outside the bar or sitting in hammocks beneath the trees. A cool breeze blew off the ocean, waving the palms that marked the edge of the beach.

  Wes and Becca parked the car and went to the bar. It was a mixed group, maybe half foreigners, half Costa Ricans, and half women, half men. Becca studied the men to see if anyone paid them particular attention. Nobody looked suspicious.

  They’d dropped the rest of the dive gear at Tropical Adventures with a note for Bernd, then drove to Matapalo with the windows down. They saw a single truck coming from the opposite direction but nobody once they passed the last of the farms and reached the rain forest. The rivers ran high, but remained passable
.

  “What time do you close?” Becca asked the bartender as he poured their drinks.

  “One-thirty.”

  They took their drinks into the shadows beyond the solar lamps and then groped their way through the coconut trees to the beach. There was just enough moonlight to help them avoid the largest rocks. The music faded into the background as they followed the beach south. It disappeared entirely as the beach curved to the left, replaced by the sound of the surf piling onto shore. The rain forest formed a black wall to their right.

  Becca’s anxiety increased moment by moment. She recognized a dip in the trees just as Wes pointed into the darkness. They were here.

  “Wes,” she whispered, taking hold of his arm.

  “Don’t second guess yourself,” he said. “You were right. It’s dark and there’s so much noise from animals and the wind that they’ll never hear us.”

  They picked their way to the house, and Becca could see at once that they’d done right to approach from the ocean, instead of the road. A light burned in the kitchen and the shutters were open on that side. Becca could remember shutting up the kitchen and Wes had gone through the house to check lights. They crouched behind a bush to study the house.

  “I don’t get it,” Wes said in a low voice.

  “There’s someone inside.”

  “Yeah, but why open the shutters and leave on the light? It tells the whole world you’re in there. Maybe it’s just Javier.”

  “At midnight?” she asked.

  “That doesn’t make sense, does it? But I don’t see a car. Why would they hide a car, but leave the lights on? Maybe they came, looked for us, and left.”