Tonight I Said Goodbye (St. Martin's Minotaur Mystery)

by Michael Koryta

She looked away. "I don't know. Randy told me to wait here, and that's what I was doing. But I know we're not safe here anymore. You proved that by finding us."

  For a while we sat in silence. Then I said, "So that's the story? I know everything I should know now?"

  "Yes," she said. "Well, almost. There is one other thing you should know."

  "What's that?"

  "Remember the videotape Wayne shot of the murder?" she said.

  "Yes."

  "I have it."

  CHAPTER 15

  WE STAYED on the balcony for another hour, but I could tell she was fatigued, so around midnight I told her I would leave so she could sleep. She stopped me at the door, though, and asked me to sleep on the couch.

  "I can stay," I said, surprised by the request but not unhappy. I'd had a slight fear I might wake up in the morning to find they'd checked out of the hotel and disappeared. Then I'd get the pleasure of calling Joe. Yeah, good news, Pritchard. I found Julie and Betsy Weston. Where are they? Well, um, that's a good question. You see, they kind of slipped away while I was asleep.

  I told Julie I'd be right back, and then I went down to my own room. It was nice to have a moment alone. It had been only a few hours since I'd left, but it seemed as if it had been days. I closed the door to the balcony and then found my bag. The Glock was inside with a full clip and one spare. I checked the load in the gun and put it back in the bag. It was a Glock 26, known as a "Baby Glock" because of its short barrel, but still outfitted with a ten-shot clip. The gun was small enough to conceal easily in a spine holster and powerful enough to do some serious damage in a short amount of time. It was the first handgun I'd ever bought. An old friend now. I had no reason to believe I was going to need a weapon, but I still felt better knowing it was there. The last man who had tried to help Julie Weston was Randy Hartwick, and I'd watched him die in front of me. Before that, someone had killed her husband. I had no desire to repeat the pattern.

  Before going back upstairs, I used my cell phone to call Joe again. This time, I called him at home, knowing he would be there, likely asleep. Joe didn't have an answering machine, and the phone rang eight times without being picked up. I let it keep going, though, trusting he'd be pissed off enough to get it eventually.

  "Hello?" He finally answered, and he definitely sounded unhappy.

  "Greetings from the beautiful beaches of South Carolina," I said. "Are we having an enjoyable evening, Mr. Pritchard?"

  "What the hell do you want?" Testy.

  "I found Julie and Betsy Weston. They're here in the hotel where Hartwick worked. I just spent the last two hours talking to Julie." I could hear him take in his breath sharply, but he didn't speak.

  I summarized everything Julie had told me, but I didn't mention she had the murder tape. When he spoke again, he was wide awake and all the irritation was gone from his voice.

  "When did he shoot the tape of the murder?"

  "I don't know."

  "Does she?"

  "Maybe. I didn't ask."

  "Ask."

  "All right."

  He exhaled loudly. "Nice work, Lincoln. I guess the case is closed, eh?"

  "I guess so," I said slowly. "How do we handle it from here on out, though?"

  "How does she want it to be handled?"

  "She's not sure. She said Hartwick went to Cleveland to 'sort things out.' She doesn't know what this meant, but she thinks he was probably planning to leave some bodies behind. She said she can't let the media think Wayne killed her and the girl, but she's also afraid to enter witness protection."

  "Afraid they won't keep her safe from the Russians? Why would the Russians bother coming after her if Weston is dead?"

  "A couple of reasons," I said. "First of all, like Cody said, they're crazy. Second, they surely assume her husband told her things that could hurt them, and they know she'll be asked to testify. Third, they might suspect she has the tape of the murder."

  "Why would they think that?"

  "Because she does have it."

  "You've got to be kidding."

  "Nope."

  "Have you seen it?"

  "Not yet. I hope to tomorrow."

  "So she produces the tape, testifies if she needs to, and they go to jail," he said. "End of story. Except that's not how it works with the mob. She testifies, they go to jail, and their buddies hunt her down and kill her just to make a statement." He sighed again. I'd really spoiled his night with this call.

  "I guess it's not our problem," I said. I didn't want to hand Julie and Betsy Weston over to the FBI, but it seemed the logical way to handle the situation.

  "You're thinking we turn them over to the police?"

  "We have to," I said, "don't you think?"

  "I'm a little hesitant to do that now, and here's why: While you were lounging poolside today, Kinkaid and I were doing some damn fine work. We spent the day wearing out shoe leather and interviewing anyone who might know anything about our Soviet acquaintances. Guess what we found out?"

  "No idea."

  "Turns out Dainius Belov is a silent partner in a number of local businesses. You know, fronts that he can use to launder cash. And one of these said 'businesses' is located in the Flats. It's a charming little establishment called The River Wild."

  "You mean the strip club Hubbard's trying to buy out?"

  "The very one."

  I stared out at the dark ocean and thought about that. If Wayne Weston had been shooting film for extortion purposes and pissed off the Russians, it could likely have been at The River Wild. The timing was perfect, since Hubbard was actively pursuing the property.

  "What are you thinking?" Joe said.

  "Just that it makes sense. Heard of any murders at The River Wild lately?"

  "No, but that doesn't mean anything. I'll check it out."

  "Do that." I switched the phone to my left hand and leaned against the wall, watching the white crests of the waves glitter on top of the black water as the moonlight hit them. "A minute ago you said you were hesitant to hand the Westons over to the police. I'm not arguing with you, but I don't understand your reasoning."

  "That's because I didn't get a chance to finish. Like I said, Kinkaid and I had a productive day. Finding out Belov owns a stake in The River Wild was just a small portion of that productivity. I also decided to check out our man Cody, since I never had a good feeling about him. I didn't like the way he had us misled initially, and I also didn't like the way he blew off our tip about Hubbard."

  "Right."

  "Well, we ran a pretty thorough background check on him. Turns out Mr. Cody is ten years out of law school."

  "Okay." That didn't surprise me; many FBI agents are law school graduates. The best way to get into the Bureau without a police background is to have a degree in either law or accounting.

  "While he was in law school, Cody held a summer internship in Cleveland. I'll bet you can't guess where he did his internship."

  "Hubbard's real estate company?"

  "Nope, but close. I'll give you a hint; you called him Dicky D."

  My smart-ass comment in Hubbard's office when he'd referred us to his attorney.

  "Cody worked for Richard Douglass?"

  "Uh-huh. He worked three summers in a row for Mr. Douglass and his associates. Then, when he graduated from law school, he came back and worked another year and a half with the firm before he was accepted into the FBI Academy."

  "Holy shit," I said. "You're saying Hubbard's pulling the strings in this investigation?"

  "I'm not saying that yet," he said. "But knowing what we know about Hubbard and Weston, and knowing what we know about Cody, do you really want to call him and tell him where the wife and daughter are?"

  "No."

  "Exactly."

  I ran my hand through my hair and squeezed my eyes shut. What had started out a relaxing evening was now anything but that. "What the hell should we do, then, Joe? We can't just pack them on a plane for Belize or wherever it is they were going
and let everyone think they're dead. We owe John Weston more than that, if no one else."

  "We'll work something out," Joe said. "For now, the most important thing is keeping them safe. That job's in your hands."

  Great. I was the appointed guardian of a woman who attracted corpses almost as fast as she attracted stares from men.

  "So I stay here? I just sit in the hotel with them, keep them safe? And then what? Eventually we've got to take some sort of action."

  "I know that. Give me a day to sort things out."

  Sort things out. That's what Julie had said Randy Hartwick intended to do. It hadn't worked out well for him.

  "What are you planning on?" I asked.

  "We need to know more about this murder. Once we have an idea of what went on with that, we can talk about our options. Tomorrow, you watch that tape. See what you can learn from it; see if any familiar faces are on it, whatever. In the meantime, Kinkaid and I will be doing the same thing on our end. Give me a call tomorrow afternoon and we'll see what we have."

  "Okay."

  "And LP?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Try to keep those two alive until then, all right?"

  He hung up before I could answer. I set the phone down, pulled the drapes shut in front of the balcony door, picked up my bag, locked the room, and went back upstairs. Julie pulled the door open at my knock.

  "That was a long time," she said. "I was starting to get scared." She was wearing an oversize T-shirt now, and her legs were bare and her breasts uninhibited by a bra. I tried not to stare. It was dark inside the room, but she was standing very close to me.

  "Sorry," I said, "I called my partner."

  She took a half step back, frowning. "Does he know where we are?"

  "Julie," I said gently, "if you're trusting me, you're trusting my partner. We're a package deal, all right? And I promise you, there's no more reliable man in the world than Joe Pritchard. The last thing he said to me before he hung up was to be sure I kept the two of you safe."

  She watched me thoughtfully and then nodded. "Okay," she said. "Okay. I guess you're right. Well, I'm going to go to sleep now."

  "Goodnight," I said, setting my bag on the floor and stepping toward the couch.

  "Goodnight," she said. She started into the bedroom, then hesitated and turned on her heel. She took three quick steps over to me and squeezed my forearm gently with her hand. "I'm glad you're here," she whispered, and then she disappeared into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

  As I stood staring at the closed door, my arm seeming to tingle and burn where her fingers had touched it, I was glad I was there, too. Maybe a little too glad.

  CHAPTER 16

  AN INCREDIBLY beautiful woman was standing just a few steps from me with a knife in her hand.

  This was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes the next morning. It took a few seconds for my conscious mind to shed the fog of sleep and dreams and recall how and why I'd found myself in this situation. The woman was Julie Weston, and in the hand that wasn't holding the knife was a plate of bagels. Julie looked down at me and gave me the same shy smile I'd seen the night before in the whirlpool.

  "Good morning," she said. "I'm making breakfast."

  "Great," I said. "Thank you."

  I picked my watch up from where I had left it on the floor and looked at the time. Almost nine. Surprisingly, I'd slept well. I stretched and got to my feet, feeling the twinges and aches left from a night of sleeping on a short couch that had both my feet and my head at a higher elevation than the rest of my body. Julie turned away quickly and went to put the bagels in the toaster, and I remembered I wasn't wearing a shirt. I'd expected to wake up ahead of the rest of them. Oh, well, some women would be pleased to find a shirtless young man on the couch in the morning. No sense feeling guilty about it.

  I went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. When the cold water turned warm I climbed in and let the spray hammer me in the face, driving away the last vestiges of sleep. My body still ached from the uncomfortable sleeping position, but at least I was awake. I got out of the shower, dried off, and dressed. When I stepped out of the bathroom I nearly trampled Betsy Weston. She was standing directly in front of the door, wearing pink pajamas with kittens on them and gigantic pink slippers. Her long dark hair stuck out from her head, fuzzy with the static from the pillowcase. She stared at me with sleepy eyes, but she didn't look startled, so I assumed her mother had alerted her to my presence. I wondered what Julie had told her, though, or who I was supposed to be when the little girl was within earshot. Probably not the detective who was trying to find out who killed Daddy.

  "Mommy says you're here to keep us company," she said, putting an end to that question. She stuck out her hand. "I'm Elizabeth. You can call me Betsy if you wanna."

  I knelt down to put myself closer to her height and grasped her tiny hand in mine. She shook it gravely.

  "Nice to meet you, Betsy," I said. "I'm Lincoln."

  "Like the president?" She pronounced it "prezdent."

  "Like that, yes." I'd been named after someone, but not Abraham Lincoln. It was Percy Lincoln, a soldier who'd saved my father's life in Vietnam. Seeking to honor the man but unable to force his son to go through life tagged Percy Perry, my father had picked the other name.

  "I'm gonna go eat," Betsy announced, and then she walked around the corner and into the kitchen. I remained kneeling on the floor. A little girl. Interesting. Children weren't exactly my specialty. It wasn't that I disliked them; I just wasn't around them often enough to feel comfortable dealing with them. I found myself incapable of talking to them in the happy, high-pitched cartoon voices so many adults used for small children, so I generally talked to them as I would anyone else, only with less profanity. It seemed the best solution.

  I walked into the kitchen, and Julie handed me a paper plate with a raisin bagel on it. "It's all I had for breakfast food," she said. "There's a continental breakfast downstairs, but it ends at nine, so I'm afraid we missed it."

  "Thank you."

  "I'm making coffee, and there's apple juice in the refrigerator," she told me as she spread margarine on another bagel and handed it to Betsy. Today Julie was wearing olive shorts and a close-fitting white cotton shirt. She looked no less ravishing than she had in the swimsuit, but I tried to ignore that. Professional bodyguard Lincoln Perry at your service. No emotional attachment to his clients, and certainly no attraction for them. Can't have it.

  "Coffee will be fine, thanks," I said. She handed me a ceramic mug with a palm tree and the resort's name emblazoned on the side. I left the coffee black and took a small sip, then looked at Julie, impressed.

  "This can't be hotel coffee."

  She laughed and shook her head. "No way. I can't drink that stuff. I found a deli down the street that sells gourmet coffee. I had them grind some for me."

  Damn. It was going to be hard enough to ignore her physical beauty. Now she had to make good coffee, too. It got worse and worse.

  I leaned against the counter and sipped the coffee, watching the mother and daughter. It was a hell of a situation I'd gotten myself into.

  "What do we have planned for the day?" I asked. I wasn't sure if they felt safe leaving the hotel during the day, but I couldn't imagine spending twelve hours in the confined space, even if it was much nicer than your average hotel room.

  "What do we have planned?" Julie echoed. "Well, I don't know. Do you think it's safe . . ." She looked down at her daughter and selected a new sentence. "Would it be all right if we went for a walk down the beach?"

  "Have you done that before?"

  She nodded, dropping her eyes to the floor and looking ashamed, afraid I might view this as a cataclysmic breach of safety protocol. "Yes, we have. We wear sunglasses and baseball caps and don't stay out very long." She glanced at her daughter again, but Betsy was oblivious, munching away on the bagel. "It's hard to spend the whole day in the room," she added.

  "I understand. I jus
t wasn't sure how you felt about it."

  "So you think it's okay to go out, then?"

  I nodded. "Why not? I'd stick to the hat-and-sunglasses routine, but this is a pretty busy place. There are thousands of unfamiliar faces around, and no one is paying attention to all of them." I wasn't sure how true that was, but I didn't like the idea of remaining in the hotel all day any more than she did.

  "Great," she said, relieved. "Well, as soon as Betsy gets dressed we can go for a walk on the beach. Does that sound good, honey?"

  The little girl smiled, crumbs stuck to her lips. "Grrrreat," she growled, a la Tony the Tiger.

  "One other thing," I said, and Julie looked back at me. "I'd like to watch the video we talked about last night."

  "The video."

  "Yes. You told me you had it, correct?"

  She dropped her eyes. "Yes, I do, but I haven't watched it. I'd prefer not to watch it, honestly."

  "That's fine. I need to see it."

  "I'll bring it out, and you can watch it while Betsy and I straighten up the bedroom."

  She went into the bedroom, and the little girl tagged along. A minute later Julie returned with a VHS tape in hand. "Here it is," she said, offering the tape to me uneasily, extending it as far from her body as possible, the way you might hand someone a sleeping scorpion.

  "Thank you." There was a VCR built into the television, of course--the Golden Breakers didn't rate five stars for nothing. Julie turned to go back to the bedroom, but I caught her arm gently.

  "I thought of a few things I need to know."

  "Okay."

  "First of all, do you have any idea when this tape was made? What day, what week, what month?"

  She bit her lower lip and shook her head. "I don't think so. No, I'm sure Wayne never told me. I assume it was fairly recently, though. It didn't seem like the type of situation that had weeks to develop."

  "I see. And one other thing . . ." I dropped my voice a little lower and leaned down, putting my face close to hers. "Does your daughter know her father is dead?"

  She met my eyes, and I saw a shimmer of moisture on hers. "No," she said in a hoarse whisper. "I can't tell her here. I can't. I don't know what's going to happen to us, and . . . and until I do, I have to keep her happy. It's hard enough to handle this when she's happy, but if she wasn't . . . "She shook her head again. "I just couldn't take it."