“Did you see it?”
She shook her head. “I was outside—at Dr. Markel’s front door. It was open. And I was about to go in when I heard his wife scream.” Her eyelids closed tightly, reliving it. “I’ll never forget that scream.”
How did you ask a woman who had been through as much as Gabriela to sit on your couch and spill her guts while you nodded your head like you understood? I didn’t know. I never knew. As a former detective in Newport Beach, I was supposedly an expert at this sort of thing.
No one had trained me in Emotionally Wounded Mother Counseling. Not at the academy, not in school, and not on the job. And, as far as I knew, Armstrong didn’t have an expert on staff.
I put my hand on both of hers. Our fingers were a tangled ball of knuckles and nails. We were together.
“You’ll get past that,” I said. “You’re a strong woman, Gabriela—I can see that plain as day. Over the long run, a scream isn’t going to do you in.”
She turned her face to me. Tears streamed around the contours of her cheekbones and a weak smile flashed across her face, then vanished.
“Thank you.” She placed her thumbs on my knuckles. “I hope that’s true.”
Alicia came around the back of the couch. I perked up as soon as a tray clinked on the coffee table and I saw the carafe, the mugs, the sliced fruit, and coffee cakes.
“I didn’t know what to make but on a night like this you can’t go wrong with coffee and sugar, right?”
“Definitely not.” Gabriela wiped the tears from her eyes. I let her take a cup and a square of coffee cake first. “Thank you. And can I have a glass of water too?”
“Of course.” Alicia walked back to the kitchen.
I grabbed a cup off the tray and helped myself after Gabriela. Alicia came back with the glass of water. Gabriela chugged it down, then put it on the table next to her barely touched coffee, and nearly gone slice of coffee cake.
“Can I ask you a few more questions?” I said.
She nodded.
“Did you see the person who shot Dr. Markel and his wife?”
“He was a white guy,” she said. “He looked like—who was the guy who played that crazy banker in the 80s movie? He was Batman too.”
“American Psycho?” DJ said.
“That’s the movie,” she answered. “What was the actor’s name?”
DJ snapped his fingers a few times while he thought.
“Christian Bale!” my wife shouted out from behind me.
I turned around and looked at her.
Gabriela bounced upright and pointed at Alicia. “That’s him!”
“When have you seen those movies?” I asked her.
“You haven’t seen either of those flicks?” DJ asked me. “How in the hell does a guy your age not see either of those movies?”
“Most guys my age don’t have the responsibilities I do.”
“And that’s a damned, crying shame. More to the point, the guy you saw, Gabriela, had kinda slicked-back brown hair, right?” DJ asked.
“He did,” she said. “And he had a masculine jaw, and a well-proportioned nose.”
“Like he was a model or something?”
She nodded and shivered as a chill skittered down her shoulders.
“He threw a Molotov cocktail through the front window of the house. Right over my head, where I was hiding. After I got myself back together, I knew I had to get inside and see if Dr. Markel was still alive.”
“Was he?” I asked.
“He’d been shot through the belly. His wife was gone when I got there—I had to break through a glass door with a patio chair—but when I told him who I was, he told me to take this laptop. There is something on here he wanted me to see—something important.”
“But you can’t get into it,” I said. “And even if you could, it’s what—a drug formula? Are you a chemist?”
“There are people out there who might be able to make it for me.”
A stolen formula taken from a dead man’s home may as well have been nuclear for any legitimate chemist. Hildon wasn’t likely to let their intellectual property loose in the wild.
“Might be some folks Armstrong knows who can take care of that for her,” DJ said.
Armstrong wouldn’t want whatever was on the laptop; of that I was certain. It’d threaten the organization’s mission.
“Did you see the guy leave?” I asked. “The shooter.”
“I was only thinking about getting to Dr. Markel—I was thinking about my daughter.”
I nodded. “But you did see him. And after seeing him, how long was it until you saw me?”
“I don’t know…” Gabriela picked at one of her bandages. “Ten minutes? Maybe a little less?”
DJ grumbled. He crossed his arms a little tighter and knitted his brow. “He was on the Cigarette boat we let get away.”
I didn’t say anything. He was sore about having to leave his chase to come pick us up from the dock, but I wouldn’t apologize for trying to save Gabriela’s life.
“I’m sorry for the trouble I caused you all.” A plump tear let go of Gabriela’s chin.
“It’ll be all right.” Alicia rubbed her back and whispered to her. “It’ll be okay.”
“Do you think I can get back to my daughter tonight?” Gabriela cupped her face in her hands, then lifted her eyes and looked at me. “She’s back home in San Juan—her day nurse agreed to stay late with her, but I didn’t tell her to plan on sticking around this late.”
“Of course,” Alicia said.
“Sure,” I agreed. “We’ll bring her back here. We’ve got an extra bedroom the two of you can stay in while everything gets sorted out.”
“Stay here?” Gabriela asked.
The idea seemed to unnerve her. I was a stranger, after all. A man who had come from nowhere and saved her life, but a stranger.
“I think it’s smart to play it safe. At least for a few days, while you recover.”
Her mouth tensed as she thought about it, then she nodded.
“Jerry.” DJ jerked his head toward the deck door. “We need to chat a minute.”
I stood up as he opened the sliding door, then went out.
The night was clear, with a million stars raining light onto St. Thomas, and the air caressing the back of my neck was welcome. I didn’t realize how humid the inside of the house had been. I paused, taking a second to tug up the back of my shirt and wipe my neck clean.
DJ leaned on the railing overlooking the trees and the hill that ran down to the beach below. I slid the door shut, then pulled up a deck chair, rested my ankle on my knee, and waited for him to start.
“We just stomped our collective foot down on a real big pile of shit,” he said, in the gravest tone I’d ever heard him use. “Our first priority has got to be moving on without flinging it all over ourselves. Right?”
“Not the metaphor I would’ve used, but, in principle, I agree.”
“We gotta smoke out that Christian Bale-looking fella.”
“After we go back to PR, sure. But before we do anything, we have to make sure Gabriela and her daughter are safe.”
“All right, so take your boat and pick her up.”
“You have to take us in Reel Fun.”
He stiffened up. His lips went thin under the whiskers of his mustache. “I have to take you?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself. Besides, what else are you going to do now? We both agreed that the other guy took off in that Cigarette boat. So how are you gonna find him, genius?”
“I got his boat’s name. That’s all Armstrong needs to find out where it’s docked. Hell, they might even be able to tell me everywhere it’s been since it touched water. That man already killed two people that we know of—and it don’t take a genius to see there’s some kinda link to Luc Baptiste. If we catch the murderer, we can beat some new answers out of him.”
Blood was in the water, and DJ caught a taste of it. We were headed toward another unprofessional
disaster.
DJ probably wouldn’t see it my way, but I knew the only way we’d catch this guy and get information out of him would require deliberate actions, the smart approach; something DJ wasn’t familiar with. “No, we’re not doing that,” I said. “We’re doing this the right way—after we make sure Gabriela and her daughter are safe.”
DJ grunted. He didn’t agree. I didn’t care.
“Do I have to remind you that we’re only on this whole thing on account of Detective Collat? You think he’d appreciate you knocking this guy’s brains across the deck?”
“Oh, right,” DJ said, throwing his hands up. “That’s why Collat put us on this. So we can have our murdering friend booked, tried, and convicted by a jury of his peers. Well, I got an APB for ya, Deputy Snyder. Whoever did this ain’t got no peers. If this fella had something to do with Luc Baptiste’s murder, he’s outside the place where Justice’s fingers can take hold of him, because the cops don’t wanna look into it.”
I knew he wouldn’t see it my way.
“No one is above the—”
“Open your damned eyes, Jerry!” DJ shouted over me. “Collat didn’t hand this to us because he thought we needed to stay sharp. He did it because the cops are crooked. You think this is about some retiring detective who couldn’t be bothered about another murder? Even you ain’t that stupid!”
Insulting me on the back porch of my house while my wife and a guest were only separated from us by a pane of glass was something I could barely tolerate.
He deserved to get socked, but I didn’t want to punch a cripple.
“Only way this gets done correctly is if we do it by our own hands,” DJ said. “We don’t leave this up to the law, or Collat, or Armstrong, or anybody else. Get me?”
I glared at him.
He came off the railing, hobbled a couple steps toward me, and leaned his head forward.
“You get what I’m saying, right, Jerry? To do this the right way, you and me got to be together. And we got to be together all the way.”
“All the way?” I rolled my eyes, then got up from my chair, turning my back to him. “You’re talking about trying to kill this man.”
“It’s what he deserves.”
DJ was right to assume our guy had protection from the police, or someone above them. The cops were likely at Dr. Markel’s house now, doing an investigation. Soon, they’d run the plates on Gabriela’s wrecked car. They’d identify her. And it wouldn’t surprise me at all if our murderer magically appeared at her front door moments before the police.
My hand clenched the wooden rail of our deck. The wood posts groaned and squeaked near their bases. I wiggled the railing and listened. Given enough opportunity, I could shake this whole thing loose with my bare hands. No matter how strong the wood, or how many nails and bolts were used—no matter how well put together anything was, eventually something would come and break it apart.
I turned around to face DJ. “A man like you needs to take it easy. There’ll be a fight you can’t win. Maybe not this one. Maybe not the next one. But there will be one, sooner or later.”
He laughed. “All right, Jerry. Thanks for being my babysitter.”
DJ turned around, then knocked on the glass back doors. Alicia’s eyes swung off Gabriela and to him. He smiled and waved, then walked down the steps.
When I went back into my house. Alicia looked up at me from the couch, puzzled.
“Is DJ coming back?”
My eyes met Gabriela’s. “How close can we get to your house by boat?”
“There’s a public marina not far from my apartment.”
“Good.”
“Who’s taking us?” Alicia asked. “DJ just left—is there someone else at Armstrong coming to pick us up?”
“There probably is,” I said. “But there’s no telling who, or how far away they might be. We don’t have time to wait. We’re taking ourselves.”
“But you still haven’t had your lessons with that captain you talked to—you don’t know how to steer that boat at night.”
“I’ll have to figure it out,” I said.
Squatting in a patch of hand leaf bushes near the shore, Patrick Edwards watched through the viewfinder of his DSLR camera as Jerry Snyder and DJ Martin had their lovers’ quarrel. Edwards pointed the directional mic mounted on his camera at the back porch of Snyder’s house, but he couldn’t hear a damned thing over chirping insects and a clutch of coquis whistling from the trees. Patrick shifted his weight, trying to find a dead zone for his mic, when something grabbed hold of his shirt. A stupid catch and keep plant hooked into the fabric of his sleeve. He bit back the curse bubbling in his throat, then peeled the vine’s thorns away a few at a time.
Beneath the sleeve, Patrick’s skin was hot and dry as old tar paper. He’d have to go to a clinic and get antibiotics after he finished his job tonight. Just as well. Medical expenses were covered under his contract, and he could get that rash on the back of his knee checked out at the same time.
Jerry Snyder was a cheap bastard. He had the money to get the weeds pulled from his property—hell, if Patrick had half of what Snyder was worth, he would’ve turned the whole property into a private grotto with topless chicks and enough rum to keep half of St. Thomas wasted around the clock.
On the deck, a brusque gesture grabbed Patrick’s attention. DJ Martin puffed up and grabbed the ends of his long goatee, furiously combing his fingers through it. Snyder didn’t notice. Most people wouldn’t have. Took a trained eye to see Snyder and Martin were miles apart.
And Patrick Edwards had a trained eye—his whole livelihood depended on it.
Patrick grabbed his camera and snapped a couple dozen pictures of Martin turning his back on Snyder, rapping on the glass door, and waving bye-bye to Snyder’s wife and the woman on the couch.
He captured more of Snyder’s wife flashing a smile that’d kill a man with a weak heart, then returning Martin’s wave before the camera’s viewfinder fogged up.
Reluctantly, Patrick lowered the camera and wiped it with his shirt. Christ almighty, Snyder’s wife was really something. Patrick always loved the jobs with fringe benefits. He brought it back up just as Martin zipped down the steps.
Patrick put down the camera, carefully avoiding a catch and keep branch. Then he reached into his pocket and took out his phone.
He dialed his old buddy from the Coast Guard, Mike Scheetz, who’d been a reliable contact when Patrick needed to identify a random. Mike had a cushy job at Customs and Border Patrol in San Juan harbor, and a gambling problem that needed more to eat than his government paycheck supplied.
The phone rang once.
“What are you doing calling me in the middle of the night?” Mike grumbled.
“Offering to pay you five hundred bucks for five minutes of work,” Patrick answered quietly.
He heard Mike’s chair creak. Already in his office, perfect for a quick turnaround.
“You’re gonna get me thrown in the can, you know that, right? Hell, they might drag my ass to Guantanamo.”
“If you don’t want the job, don’t take it,” Patrick said.
“I want the money, is what I want.”
“Jesus. Always about the money. Is there any point where you don’t bend me over a barrel every time I ask you to do honest work? Don’t they pay you enough to scratch your balls all day?”
He laughed. “It’s a seller’s market, brother.”
The point wasn’t lost on Patrick. His client had plenty of money, anyway, so it wasn’t the overhead creating problems, it was the haggling.
“One thousand, final offer.”
Mike whistled. “That’s the most you ever said right off the bat. You’re hot for an answer, ain’t ya?”
“Fifteen hundred, prick. Triple the going rate for something you can do in thirty seconds if you knew how to use a keyboard the right way.”
“Sold. And I’ll look the other way on that disrespect of my personal style.”
&nbs
p; Through Mike’s end of the call, keyboard keys clicked one by one as he hunted and pecked, probably logging into the DHS database used for facial recognition software. He might be stupid and slow and an asshole, but Mike Scheetz was Patrick’s ace in the hole, as much as he didn’t want Mike to know it.
None of the other PIs working the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico had access to DHS’s database. Patrick needed an edge to set him apart in a competitive industry.
“I’m logged in. Send me a picture.”
“Have it to you in ten seconds. Do your work quickly. I’ve got a big fish on the line.”
“Aye, Captain.” Mike hung up.
Patrick turned on the screen on the back of his camera, scrolled to the clearest photo of the Snyders’ mystery guest, then pointed his phone at it and snapped a picture. He texted it to Mike.
While he waited for Mike to ID the woman, he pulled out a second phone. A burner. Patrick kept a drawer full of them back in his office, and on each job, he took one for himself, and gave one to his client. Best way to ensure operational security.
There was a single number in his burner’s contacts. It belonged to the other phone he’d given to his client—a person he codenamed Condor. Patrick wrote him a text message.
Jane Doe at Snyder’s. Working on ID. Martin likely returned to vessel Reel Fun. Can have employee keep tabs on Reel Fun. Yes/no?
While he waited for Condor’s answer, Patrick lifted his camera back to his eyes. He wasn’t going to let Snyder wander off. A year’s worth of mortgage payments rode on this job.
Snyder paced the back deck, rubbing his forehead while he alternated his gaze between his feet and the sky. Then, after a few laps back and forth, he slid open the back door and went inside.
Patrick’s burner buzzed in his hand.
He brought it low to the ground again and checked the text from Condor.
Leave Martin, it read, only concern is Snyder. Who is Jane Doe?
Understood, Patrick texted back.
Through the binoculars, he watched Snyder open the sliding door and say something to his wife and the guest on the couch. She had the dark, tightly coiled hair of a Dominican. Whatever Snyder said, all three of them leapt into action. They moved like the place was burning down—even the Dominican woman with her arms all bandaged up.
Wayward Sons Page 18
