Die Smiling

by Linda Ladd

  There was a covered carport around back and some kind of big storage shed, but no garage, so I pulled underneath it and climbed out of the Lincoln. I left the car cooling in the shade and trudged through deep sand around to the front door, which faced the ocean. The sand was so warm, in fact, that it made me want to strip off my socks and Nikes and go barefoot. I resisted the urge. Business first, but later was a different story.

  The structure was not too large and covered with planked siding stained a pale melon color. The shutters were painted white and not battened down. Windows were the old-fashioned louvered kind, circa Florida in the 1950s. It was an older place, recently updated by the looks of it. There was a wood deck on the front, but no furniture. Hilde probably stored it inside the shed when she was away. And she had definitely gone away this time.

  I turned around and gazed up and down the beach at the other homes. There didn’t seem to be anybody out enjoying the weather, and I found that hard to understand. I wondered who the neighbors were, though, and if the Swensen sisters knew them well, and if any of them were insane stalkers. I turned back to the water and stared at the incoming waves for a couple of minutes, allowing the sea breezes to ruffle my hair around and listening to the stiff palm fronds rustling above my head. I liked that sound, too, I liked the smell of the sea, I liked the heat on my face. Man, do I ever like Florida, and everything about it. Maybe I would move down here someday.

  Truth was I’d buy this place for myself if I had a bank account like Black’s, but he already had some beach properties here and there around the world, so probably wouldn’t be interested in this little insignificant place. He’d probably buy it for me, if I asked him to, but I wouldn’t and never wanted to be that beholden to anybody, anyway—tempting though it was.

  It was a quiet stretch of beach, tranquil, just the way I liked it. No wonder poor Hilde hadn’t wanted to move to Missouri with her sister. It was a wonder that Brianna had given up and left this slice of Eden. I felt behind the front porch light as instructed until my fingertips hit the key. I slid it in the lock and opened the door.

  Inside, the house looked fairly neat, but very lived in and enjoyed, too. More so than did Brianna’s spotless abode in Roach, Missouri. I’d guessed right about the fifties thing, judging by the roll-out handles on the louvered windows alone. I liked older beach houses better than the fancy new ones with all their plate-glass windows and multilevel decks. The old-timers had more character, I guess. Seemed more permanent, too.

  The living room wasn’t particularly big, but comfy enough, longer than it was wide, with a couple of matching turquoise-and-yellow floral couches and white tables with four white lamps and whitewashed walls, pretty typical Florida decor. The kitchen adjoined; white, too, with white countertops and black-and-white geometric tiled floor. Very clean and orderly. All the appliances were new and shiny stainless steel.

  I didn’t touch anything—habit, I guess. But this wasn’t a crime scene and I had permission to be here. It seemed like I was trespassing, anyway. I moved down a short hall and passed a small bedroom being used as an office and then walked into a larger one that stretched the back width of the house. It looked as if two bedrooms might’ve been made into one with an added-on adjoining master bathroom. The drapes closed off the windows, and it smelled and felt stuffy, but the bed was neatly made. There were lots of photographs and envelopes strewn out over the burnt orange, blue, and sage striped bedspread. I bent and picked one up by the corner. It looked like a picture of Brianna and Hilde together, circa ages four and six, maybe. They were cute then, too.

  I glanced around and felt unable to breathe in the close, warm air. The scent of Hilde’s perfume lingered, barely perceptible, Fendi, I think. Then I remembered how it wafted up out of the shower curtain when Bud and I found her body and got a little sick nibble inside my gut. Deciding what I needed was some more of that sea-fresh air, I moved to the window and jerked back the white drapes.

  The man came barreling out of them at me so swiftly and unexpectedly that I couldn’t react fast enough. He charged head down into my shoulder and knocked me back onto the bed. I bounced back up fighting and sent the heel of my hand into his temple while I scratched frantically inside my shirt for my weapon. He hit me back, a hard punch to my left cheekbone, but not enough to stun me and not before I had my Glock out and jabbing hard against his groin.

  “Don’t move. You hear me, don’t you move a muscle.”

  He must’ve valued his private parts because he froze. I got up, panting, a little dizzy from the blow but not enough to let down my guard. I recognized him now, even with that scared-as-hell expression on his face. Carlos Vasquez himself. Looked like I didn’t have to go looking for him, after all.

  “Down on the floor, Vasquez. On your belly.” Unfortunately, I didn’t have my handcuffs with me. Great.

  He got down on his knees, back to me, then twisted around to look up at me. When he spoke, I detected a mild Hispanic accent. “Who the hell are you? You’re trespassing.”

  “Wrong. I’m here with permission from the owner, and you’re in deep shit because I’m turning you in to the Miami PD for breaking and entering, not to mention trespassing. You happen to know their number?”

  “Wait, no, listen, please, don’t do that. You don’t understand. Please, wait just a second. I’m just out here to find out where Hilde is. She’s supposed to be home by now, but hasn’t shown up and I can’t get ahold of her anywhere. I’ve been calling this condo up in Missouri where she’s supposed to be staying, but can’t get an answer. I called the hotel where they’re having the pageant and tried to get ahold of her sister, but nobody’s telling me anything. I’m worried out of my mind about her.”

  “Okay, just shut up a minute, and we’ll sort this out. Get up. Slowly.”

  He struggled to his feet, then suddenly dodged right and knocked up my gun arm. A shot went off, the slug hit the ceiling, and then he was out of there, darting down the hall and out through the open front door. I gave chase up the beach, firing a warning shot in the air, which he didn’t heed. I cursed and sprinted after him and was gaining ground when I heard heavy footfalls thudding on the packed sand behind me. I tried to turn, saw a huge black guy with long Jamaican dreadlocks, but before I could level my weapon on him, he tackled me around the waist. We went down hard together, him on top of me, and I wheezed for breath as the air was knocked out of my lungs. A second later I had my gun pressing into his cheekbone. Problem was, his .45 was pressed against my right breast. We stared into each other’s eyes, then said together, “Police officer. Drop the gun.”

  The same breathless growl, almost in tandem, too. Quite a team we were already. His face looked almost as surprised as mine did, I’m sure.

  “You first,” I suggested politely.

  “Don’t think so. Ladies, first,” he insisted. He spoke with some kind of accent, too, Jamaican maybe, had said don’t tink so in a singsongy way, like in calypso ballads. He had on a black linen shirt with bloodred orchids all over it, like the kind steel drum band members wear, and the scowl on his face was the same color as the orchids.

  “Take your left hand and slowly show me your badge, and maybe you could get the hell off me, too,” I suggested, not quite so politely this time.

  The guy kept me pinned in the sand with his chest while he pulled his badge case from the back pocket of his jeans and flipped it open right in front of my eyes. His gun didn’t waver and neither did the intensity in his caramel-tan eyes.

  “Okay, put the gun down, now,” he said.

  He pronounced that de gun, but since I was definitely at a disadvantage here, I put de gun down in the sand and felt for the badge hanging around my neck. I pulled it out of my T-shirt, and said, “Okay, I believe you. Here’s mine.” I held it up for him to see. He didn’t sheath his gun and barely took a glance at the badge. Instead, he tossed my weapon a few feet away into the sand and kept his gun aligned with my head.

  “Turn over, lady. I’m cuf
fin’ you, then I’m takin’ you in.”

  “I guess you didn’t notice this badge I’m holding in front of your eyes?”

  “Every pawnshop in Florida carries fake badges. Hit men make them look real au’tentic, too, just like yours.”

  “Hit men? Is that what you think?” I laughed, and yes, it was hale, hearty, and highly contemptuous. “Oh, that’s brilliant, Officer. And thanks a lot, you just let my murder suspect get away. Job well done.”

  “Shut up and turn over. Put your hands behind your back, mon, and don’t try anything stupid.”

  “Sorry, mon, but you’ve cornered the market on stupid, all by yourself. I can prove I’m a detective, down here from Missouri on a murder investigation. Check downtown, if you don’t believe me.”

  “Oh, yeah? Long way from home, huh? Funny thing, nobody downtown told me you was droppin’ by to visit. Sorry, you’re just shit outta luck wit’ that lame a story.”

  “Believe it, you asshole. And get the hell off me.”

  He moved slightly off me, until I could breathe again, then he said. “Turn over or I’ll do it for you.”

  “Don’t be stupid, I’m a cop.” Yes, I am now repeating myself because I have run out of words any more descriptive than stupid. I started to turn over, mainly because of the weapon jammed into my face and the fact I wasn’t in a position to get a good knee into his groin, but Jamaican Americans were impatient, I guess. He grabbed the front of my shirt and roughly jerked me up, then flipped me facedown. I groaned when his knee dug into my back and ground me roughly into the sand while he snapped cuffs on my wrists. So much for professional courtesy.

  He jerked me up and onto my back again, frisked me, quickly and efficiently and in an ungentlemanly fashion, at which time he came across the .38 strapped to my ankle.

  “Guess you have a coupla hand grenades in your bra, too,” he muttered, tossing the second weapon toward the first. Satisfied that I was truly disarmed at last, he got to his feet slowly and glared down at me. I expected him to plant a hobnailed boot on my stomach and pose for pictures like some kind of safari hunter over a dead rhino, except that he had on size-nineteen leather sandals. He’d probably ride me around on the hood of his car, too, with a hey-look-what-I-got-me-everybody-a-trussed-up-detective sign. Instead, he stared down at me in unfriendly fashion, while he sheathed his weapon in a holster hidden underneath his loose, and yes, garish, tropical print shirt. He retrieved my two weapons and thrust them into the waistband of his black jeans. “Looks like Vasquez got in a few punches before he took off runnin’.”

  “We exchanged fists, yes.”

  I was truly hacked off, yes sir, I was. I knew because I was trying to talk while my teeth were clenched tighter than a oyster shell protecting its pearl. I inquired, “Where the hell did you come from? You’re making one big mistake letting that guy get away.”

  “Yeah, sure, you can tell me all about it on the way downtown.”

  So he was a wise ass, too. I probably would’ve loved him any other time. Jeez, the guy had to be at least six-nine and two hundred fifty pounds, and he jerked me up like a rag doll and dragged me along, one fist caught in the back of my shirt like I was some recalcitrant kid held by the scruff of his neck all the way to detention hall. Humiliated and still spitting sand out of my teeth, I got my feet going in the deep sand and trudged beside him, up a grassy dune, then down the other side, where a red Jeep Cherokee was waiting. It sure as hell didn’t have any police markings. I said, “Want to tell me why you’re out here watching Vasquez on the sly?”

  “Nope.”

  The giant idiot opened the passenger’s door, thrust me inside, then rounded the front and got in the other side. He was so big and broad, his shoulders barely fit into the seat. He was built a lot like an NBA player, Shaq’s younger brother, maybe. The Heat should’ve recruited him, believe you me. But he looked more like a larger, more ripped Denzel Washington, which I and most other women would agree wasn’t exactly a bad thing. He turned the key and fired up the ignition, then glanced sidelong at me. His lilting singsong just sounded pissed now.

  “You jus’ screwed up an important surveillance, lady, and my boss ain’t gonna like it one bit.”

  “Back at you, big time, mon.”

  He suddenly smiled and showed me some very big white teeth. “You think you’re a tough little lady, don’t you?”

  Oh, God, please, not a macho man, that would be the last straw. “Yeah, I’m tough. That’s why I carry all these weapons. A little lady I’m not.”

  “I’ll give you that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Your face is bleedin’.”

  “Thanks again, for your concern. Not to mention the big bruise on my back in the shape of your bony kneecap.”

  He grunted and started the engine, and then the ride downtown was pretty much along horrendously uncomfortable lines. I sat hunched in the seat, my arms bound behind me, my hands aching in too-tight cuffs, my previously wounded shoulder screaming, and blood oozing out of a cut on my left cheekbone. He didn’t even put the seat belt on me. Needless to say, there wasn’t much sociable chitchat going on. About three minutes into the drive, he switched on a blaring station straight out of the Bahamas, if I was any judge. Unfortunately he sang along with the calypso music like he was Harry Belafonte on a banana boat but without the mellow voice. I sat livid, listening to a helluva lot of off-key day-os, imagining ways to kill the Goliath Mon and counting all the horrible things I was going to do to this creep the minute he took off the cuffs.

  Sisterly Love

  Kelly, their hit-and-run victim and Sissy’s competitor, did not die, but her spine was injured so badly that she had to use a wheelchair. The older one was sick about it, but Sissy was ecstatic because the boy said he wouldn’t let his sisters enter so Sissy could win the next pageant. The boy’s dad had decided to do some plastic surgery on Sissy’s scars, some kind of new technique done with a laser beam. Soon the scars were invisible, and Sissy was beautiful again and she did win! But the older one felt sad, and she didn’t like the way the boy was treating the others. He was calling them his slaves and minions now and telling them daily they’d do whatever he wanted or he’d show the murder video to the police.

  Once, the older one searched and tried to find the incriminating tapes so she could burn them, but he’d hidden them too well. Every time she got angry and stood up to him, he would sweet-talk her and reach up under her blouse and then kiss her breasts until she could not think clearly. She loved him so much, and she couldn’t stop, no matter how hard she tried.

  Life went on in the boy’s house for a long time. They all were growing up and getting big, but the boy’s quests continued and so did his threats. But then a catastrophe happened, one that no one had expected. The woman from the Child Protective Services showed up at the front door one morning and said that she’d found the older one’s real father. That he lived in Florida and that he wanted custody of his daughter. The older one could only stare in disbelief, and the boy’s parents said no and that they wanted to adopt her, adopt all three of the kids, but the social worker shook her head and said that was wonderful for Sissy and Bubby, but now impossible for the older one. She said that she was taking the older one in the morning and that she needed to pack what she wanted to carry on the plane and that the rest could be mailed.

  That night the older one lay in the boy’s arms and wept hard against his chest.

  “But he hates me. Momma said he hates me and didn’t ever want to see me again. I don’t want to go.”

  “Ssh, sweetie, it’s okay. I’ll kill him and then you can come back to live with us.”

  The older one shook her head against his chest, but realized that maybe that was the only thing to do, after all. She didn’t like the killing quests, but this was different. He was taking her away from the boy and all the people she loved. She was even fond of Sissy now, too.

  They talked through the night, and the boy told her that he would tell his p
arents he’d changed his mind about Vanderbilt University and wanted to go to school in Miami. They had a beach house down there, anyway, he told her, one his grandparents had owned and he could live in it and so could she, after he’d killed her father and she was in college. It sounded good, but she cried when the boy’s mom and dad hugged her good-bye and told her they’d come visit her often with the other children.

  The social worker took her on a plane to Miami International, and the older one was terrified to meet her real dad. She had only seen a picture of him, that was all, but her Momma had told her terrible tales of his awful temper and drunken rages. She felt her hands shaking and her stomach quivering when she and the social worker left the plane tunnel and walked onto the concourse. Then she saw him. He looked a lot like she did, and he was standing with a blond-haired woman and little boy around eight years old. The little boy held a sign that read, WELCOME HOME. WE LOVE YOU. There was a rainbow and lots of smiley faces painted on it.

  The man came forward and looked down at her. He smiled and said, “I’ve waited so many years for this moment. I’m so glad you’re here.”

  The older one only stared at him, not sure what to say or what to think. “Thank you, I guess.”

  The man laughed, and then he introduced his wife and son. The social worker sat down and spoke to them a long time about the procedures, but she had to catch a flight back in one hour so she bid the older one good-bye. “You’re going to be fine. I know you’re probably scared to death, but we’ve checked them out completely and they’ll both be good to you. But here’s my card and cell phone number if you should ever need help or just want to talk. Are you going to be all right?”