Savage Truth

by Jack Hardin

  “How are you?” she asked as I sat down. “Did you get any sleep?”

  “A little. Did anything new surface overnight?”

  “Possibly. I just received yesterday’s GPS coordinates from Tony Fry’s phone.” She grabbed a sheet of paper off her desk and handed it to me. Over a half dozen locations were noted and marked on a map that covered Broward, Miami-Dade, and Monroe counties.

  “I marked off a few of the locations,” she said. “Two of them, of course, were Mike Reddick’s house and your marina. One was Fry’s home in Overtown, and another was a gas station in North Miami. The phone was only there long enough for him to fill up, but we’re waiting for any video footage to make sure it wasn't a meetup or dropoff. I expect to have the list of his most recent associates shortly. I’ll email it to you as soon as I get it.”

  I studied the map as Kathleen continued.

  “Mike Reddick was murdered sometime around 19:00. Fry and Burkes showed up at your marina at 21:35. In the two-and-a-half hours between, they disposed of Reddick’s stolen hardware, either by dropping it somewhere or handing it off to someone else. The map indicates two stops between leaving Mike’s and greeting you.”

  “What about Melvin Burkes?” I asked. “Anything on him?”

  “Nothing. He’s kept a low profile since getting out of prison. You’ll have to see what you can track down on Fry. Since we don’t know how or if the attempt on your life is connected to Mike Reddick’s murder, you’ll need to see if you can find those servers so we can see what’s on them.”

  “If they didn’t already destroy them,” I said. “What about Fry’s phone records?”

  “Already emailed to you. I’ll comb through them myself today and see if that might direct us on who commissioned the hit on you.”

  “Who would have had the guts to put out a hit on a federal agent?” I mused out loud.

  “You didn’t file your paperwork this week on the Lawson case. I was up here doing it for you last night. So for all you know, it might have been me.”

  I grimaced. “I meant to get that done.”

  “But the fish were calling, right?” She held my stare and lifted her brows.

  “Rich told you?” I guessed.

  “You know I don’t care if you leave early. But please, get your reports done first.”

  I nodded.

  “Now,” she said. “I know you don’t like to work with anyone but Brad, but seeing that he’s gone, I have to put someone on this case with you. Callahan isn’t working anything urgent right now.”

  I looked out of Kathleen’s interior window and across the floor. Ted Callahan was sitting back from his desk, the center drawer open. His thick glasses were perched on the tip of his nose, and even in the air conditioning, his face and hands were glistening with sweat. He was methodically picking through the drawer’s contents. Ted had a penchant for meticulous organization; even the staples had to be lined up a certain way. On more than one occasion, Brad had rearranged everything on Ted’s desk. The running joke in the office was that if Callahan spent half as much time connecting the dots in his cases as he did keeping the contents of his desk organized, he would be a top-notch agent.

  “You know me,” I said. “I’d rather be the lone gunslinger than bring that mule with me.”

  “Watch it...” she warned, clearly doing her best to keep back a smile.

  “But seriously,” I said. “Give me a couple of days and let’s see what I can turn up. If I need Ted’s help, I’ll tell you.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “Okay, I won’t. But if it’s not Brad beside me, then I work better alone. Callahan is too conservative. He plays it too safe. Come on… two days.”

  She clicked her fingernails over the desk. “Okay. Two days. But I want to know where you are at all times and why you’re there.”

  I stood up and turned to leave. “Yes, Mother.”

  “Ryan.”

  I stopped in the doorway and looked back.

  “Be careful.”

  Chapter Five

  Leaving the office, I turned my Silverado north onto the Overseas Highway and pulled up Spotify as I put Key Largo behind me and headed toward Miami. I cruised along with company from Randy Travis, Paul Simon, and Leonard Cohen, their music taking me back to simpler times and making me wish that I was back on a fishing boat or sitting on the porch of a mountain cabin, not trying to hunt down answers for why a couple of now-dead menaces had just entered my life.

  As I passed through Homestead, my phone rang, interrupting James Taylor as he sang about seeing sunny days that he thought would never end. It was Brad. I answered it and my oldest friend’s deep voice resonated through my truck’s speakers.

  “Dude. What the hell? Callahan just texted me about last night. Why didn’t you call me?”

  “You’re on vacation. You deal with this kind of thing all the time. I’m not going to interject it into your time off.”

  “I’m coming back,” he said resolutely. “The ship is porting in Barcelona tonight. Lisa and I will catch a flight back to Miami as soon as we dock.”

  “No,” I said. “You won’t. You still have half your cruise in front of you. I can handle this.”

  “I’m not going to keep sipping daiquiris while you’re chasing down some maniac that wants you dead.”

  “Sipping daiquiris? Man, Lisa’s really got your balls in a vice, doesn’t she? What do you do with the drink umbrellas?”

  “Shut it, Ryan. I’m on a cruise. Standard rules do not apply.” Returning to the current situation, he said, “Do you think it’s Isaac Cross? He wasn’t too happy that you kept him from torching the NAS.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But either way, stay where you are. You even try to come back and I swear, I’ll get Kathleen to take your badge for a few days.”

  “You’re mean.”

  “And you need to relax and enjoy your time with Lisa.”

  Brad had spent years as a Marine Raider. The desire to stand with a brother on the front lines never leaves a man like that. It would be with him until the day he died. I was glad he wanted to come back and work this with me, but I wasn’t about to let a personal matter interfere with him getting a much-needed break away.

  He sighed, conceding defeat. “So what happened?”

  I filled him in on last night’s events, starting with Darren’s unexpected showing and finishing with the information Kathleen had just given me. “I’m on my way to Miami right now. First order of business is to find out if what was on those servers and the hit placed on me are even connected.”

  “I don’t like this,” Brad said. “Where did you stay last night?”

  “Your place.”

  “Good. Listen, watch your back, and don’t do anything stupid.”

  “And you take it easy on those girly drinks.”

  “Those girly drinks are legit,” he said.

  We hung up, and as downtown Miami grew larger in my windshield, I had half a mind to call Callahan and read him the riot act for texting Brad. I knew Brad well enough to know that he wouldn’t be able to shake off what he just heard when he should be relaxing with his girlfriend in one of the nicest regions of the world.

  Entering the city, I headed east on State Highway 836, passing through Flagami and Little Havana before entering Overtown. The neighborhood was predominantly African American, with a scattering of Hispanics. Although the last couple of decades had seen substantial efforts to clean up the neighborhood in the way of community gardens and revitalization efforts, Overtown was still considered one of the roughest parts of the city. Known as a den of crackheads and hookers, and possessing the highest crime rate in the city, Overtown’s cracked sidewalks were punctuated with tattered tents belonging to the homeless and tricked out cars intending to give the impression that their owners were better off than their neighbors.

  My first stop was Fry’s house. It was small, covered in light blue paint and, like all the other homes on the street, hedged in b
y a waist-high chain link fence, half rusted and sagging. Three dead palm trees stood clustered together on the south corner, one of them leaning heavily toward the driveway. Shingles were missing from the roof.

  I parked on the opposite side of the street and crossed on foot. The front gate was unlocked. I stepped through and navigated around an upended tricycle on my way to the front steps.

  Two houses down, a group of black men wearing oversized T-shirts, doo rags, and ball caps was huddled near a car, eyeing me suspiciously.

  Paint was flaking off the front door and behind it, I could hear a methodic hip hop beat.

  I knocked loudly and took a step back.

  The security chain rattled as the door opened, and a young black lady peered through the gap. She looked me up and down. “What you want?”

  “This is Tony Fry’s house?”

  “Well, it ain’t his house. I pay the rent. But yeah, he lives here. Why?” The suspicion in her eyes grew deeper.

  “Are you related to him?”

  “I’m his wife. You gonna tell me what you want or not? I ain’t got time to mess with his problems.”

  It suddenly occurred to me that she may not have been notified of Tony’s death yet. It was nearing ten in the morning. Apparently, the good people at Miami PD weren’t in a big hurry to crawl out here and notify her that her husband was dead.

  My badge was hanging from a chain beneath my shirt. I tugged it up and flashed it before letting it drop again. “My name is Ryan Savage. I’m an investigator with Homeland Security. Have the police come by in the last twelve hours?”

  “No. Why?”

  “May I come in?”

  “No. You can’t come in.”

  I wasn’t in the mood to play hardball. I decided to just put it out there. “Ma’am. I’m sorry to tell you that Tony was killed last night. He’s dead.”

  She blinked and then stared down toward my feet. After half a minute, the door slammed shut again. The chain rattled, and the door swung back. The lady walked away and disappeared around a corner.

  I took it as a gesture to enter. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. The place smelled of bacon, cigarette smoke, and mildew. The back of the house was trembling to the beat of Missy Elliot singing “Work It.”

  A young boy no older than three sat on a worn leather couch against the far wall. He wore only a diaper. He glanced up at me as I walked past the living room. His small eyes were dreamy and glassy, although he was entranced in a world that kept his mind far away from the neglect and destitute conditions of his current reality.

  I turned into the kitchen, where the lady was leaning back against the counter with a fresh cigarette between her fingers. She took a long drag and exhaled slowly. “What happened?”

  “He came to my house with plans to kill me.”

  “Why would he wanna do that?”

  She was pretty—mid-twenties—and wore cotton shorts and a sleeveless white T-shirt with no bra underneath. Her dark hair was shiny and smooth, pulled back in a loose ponytail.

  “He said someone put a price on my head and he was there to carry it out,” I replied. “Did he tell you where he was going yesterday? Anything about his plans?”

  “Tony didn't tell me nothin’.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Mia.”

  “Mia, I’m sorry to be the one to give you the news,” I said.

  She huffed and smiled sarcastically, the darkness in her eyes making it clear that years of her poor relational choices were consolidating in her thoughts. “It don’t matter. Junior in there gonna grow up without a father, but it’s prob’ly better than having Tony as one.”

  “Melvin Burkes was with Tony. He’s dead, too. Did you know him?”

  Her mouth fell open. “Melvin?” She bit down hard on her bottom lip and shook her head. She cursed. “I told him to stop goin’ around with Tony. Who killed them? You do it?”

  “A friend of mine killed Tony, who had the barrel of his gun in front of my face. I shot Melvin, yes.”

  She shook her head again and then looked away.

  “Has Tony done cleanup work like that in the past?” I asked.

  “Like I said, I don’t know. Maybe. Who knows?”

  I heard the front door open and a man’s voice call out.

  “In here!” Mia said.

  Heavy footsteps sounded across the floor, and I stepped farther into the kitchen and turned so I could have a clear view of whoever was coming in. A bulky black man filled the doorway. He glanced at Mia and then, without taking his eyes off mine, asked, “This man bothering you?”

  “No, Dwayne. He’s not botherin’ me. He’s the cops. He ax’ing about Tony.”

  His eye twitched upon hearing I was a cop. His bravado vanished. “Yeah?” He broke with my stare and turned nervously toward Mia. “And what about Tony?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “What?” A furrow creased his brow.

  “He went down to Key Largo and tried to kill this Homeland agent. What’d you think was gonna happen? And Melvin, he got capped, too. He’s dead,” Mia said.

  “Melvin? Dead?” I watched as Dwayne’s face twisted in a mass of confusion. “Nah, man…”

  Mia looked at me and nodded toward Dwayne. “Melvin is his brother.”

  Dwayne’s hands curled into fists at his side. Moisture gathered into confused eyes. He was clearly taking the loss of his brother harder than Mia was losing her husband.

  “He tried to kill me last night,” I said. “You wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Dwayne?”

  “No!” he bit back. “He told me last that he and Tony were headin’ out to get some things done.” He raised his hands. “That’s all I know.” Dwyane rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers. When his hand came down, he was crying. “Damn, man.”

  “Dwayne, did your brother have a phone number?” I asked.

  “Phone number? Nah, man. He laid low.” Then he left without another word, looking like a truck had just hit him.

  I didn’t think I was going to get anything else out of Dwayne, so I let him go. “Mia, did Tony have a regular crew that he hung with or someone he did jobs for? He killed someone else in Fort Lauderdale last night and stole some important things.”

  Mia took another drag off her cigarette. “Look, me and Tony didn’t talk much no more. He would wake up ‘round dinnertime and stay out all night. I work as a waitress down at the waterfront. What he was up to or who he was up to it with...I don’t know.”

  I tugged a business card from my wallet and set it on the counter. “If you hear of anything or remember something, please call me.”

  She nodded absently and turned to look out the grimy window above the kitchen sink. I escorted myself back to the front door. The child was asleep now, his thumb in his mouth, the glare from the iPad casting his tiny face in a vacant glow.

  I could only hope that some man far better than Tony might finally come around for him and Mia. The world burns when men fail to step up, to love their kids like they deserve and to love their wives more than they love themselves.

  I stepped onto the front porch and quietly shut the door behind me. As I left out the front gate, I looked to my left. The cluster of men was still huddled in the driveway two yards down. When I had arrived, Dwayne had been among them. He wasn’t now.

  The tallest of them didn’t take his eyes off me. He lifted his chin at me as if to let his friends know that he wasn’t threatened by me being on his turf. I ignored him, got into my truck, and pulled away from the curb.

  My phone rang. It was Kathleen. “Fry’s house was a bust,” I answered. “You can tell Miami PD that his wife has been notified of her husband’s death.”

  “They hadn’t told her yet?”

  “I can’t say I blame them. This area is the pits. What’s up?”

  “I just got back something that should help you move the ball down the road.”

  “Fire away,” I said.

&n
bsp; “Fry’s phone records are pretty slim. His wife’s name is Mia?”

  “Correct.”

  “There are a handful of calls to her over the last few days. And other than a call to a local Wingstop two days ago and one to an auto parts store the day before that, there is nothing else. It looks like whoever wants you dead, they mobilized Fry and Burkes to that end in person, or through pigeon carrier.”

  “Great,” I said. I was far more anxious to find out who put a hit on me than I was in finding the sensitive information that got Mike Reddick killed.

  “However,” Kathleen continued, “in regard to the stop that they made at the gas station yesterday, the security camera shows them meeting another car, a red Camaro, and handing off a large box. You can see the top corner of a server poking out.”

  “Who is the other car registered to?”

  “Navi Molina. And the station camera got a clear shot of him. I think you’ll remember that his older brother was Jordi Molina.” She let the last name hang in the air, knowing full well what associations it would conjure up.

  Jordi Molina had been a high-level thug in the Zombie Boyz, a Miami-based street gang that my Homeland sub-agency, the Federal Intelligence Directorate, in partnership with ICE, had successfully disbanded last year. We had gotten involved on a federal level when it became clear that the Zombie Boyz were running brothels supplied by women who had been kidnapped from islands throughout the Caribbean. During the raid on Jordi’s Venetian Islands’ mansion, he had managed to escape across several neighboring backyards before jumping onto a speedboat and running it south. I was coming in on an ICE speedboat when I saw Jordi cutting out across Biscayne Bay. After slowly gaining on him and chasing him around the mangroves of Virginia Key, a gunfight ensued over the water. The gangster ended up with one of my .45’s rounds just above his right eye. I ended up at a downtown bar celebrating our win.

  “I don’t think we should eliminate Navi as being the one who wants you dead,” Kathleen said. “But you took down his brother well over a year ago. I can’t see him waiting that long to seek any revenge. Plus, looking at his file, that doesn’t seem like his M.O.”