by Erik Carter
Jonah sighed.
Why, oh why had he done this? Whoever Brett was—charitable benefactor, private investigator hired by a charitable benefactor, OPD Internal Affairs officer, government investigator—this was stupid. Just stupid. And it was making Jonah think that Brett was nothing more than a crackpot.
“Weasel. You know him?”
A black man in a patchwork leather jacket and laceless hiking boots shook his head.
Brett moved on.
All right. Jonah had had enough. He hurried forward, catching up to Brett, tapped him on the back.
“Come on, man,” Jonah said. “I told you, this is a dead end. This must be another one of Amber’s volunteering things. Let’s head to the press conference.”
Brett ignored him, continued up the line.
“Weasel. You know—”
A voice from behind them. “I know him.”
An old guy, not standing in line but leaning against a lamppost. Stringy white hair dangling over a stringy face with a stringy beard. Tall. Jeans and an orange T-shirt, rotten with holes, bearing the logo and phone number of an out-of-state barbecue joint.
Brett stepped past Jonah, approached the man. Jonah followed.
“You’re looking for Weasel, huh?”
Brett nodded.
“Haven’t seen that guy in ten years. Shit, man, I ain’t even heard the name.”
Brett nodded again.
“Talk,” he said, prompting the man, kindly almost. It was amazing how much inflection Brett could get out of his demon growl.
“What’s to say? When I knew him, he wasn’t nothing but a strung-out junkie. Heroin. You can see it in the eyes, man. Tiny little pupils. And track marks on the arm.”
“Description,” Brett said.
The man narrowed his eyes and grinned at Brett. “Man, what the hell is wrong with your voice?”
Brett just stared at him.
The man shrugged. “Black guy, pretty big. But, you know, losing mass ’cause of the poison. Sunken cheeks. Skittish as all hell. Nervous.” He laughed. “Don’t know where he came from. Just showed up one day. Hadn’t never seen him around here before. They say…”
The man trailed off, scratched at his beard, narrowed his eyes at Brett, suddenly skeptical, as though a voice in his head had implored him to stop saying so much.
“They say what?” Brett said.
“You guys cops?”
Brett shook his head.
The man looked up and down the line of people, to the far end of the street. Paranoia. “You know what, I … I’ve said too much already.”
He turned.
Brett reached out, caught him by his thin bicep, brought him to a halt.
“Talk.”
The man took another glance at the surroundings, scratched his beard again, then looked from Jonah back to Brett. “They say he’d been a cop, kicked off the force.”
Jonah’s mind flashed on Amber’s investigation and her position as a dispatcher, a job she’d held for only two years.
Weasel had been a cop.
A junkie cop from ten years prior.
A decade ago—when this man claimed to have last seen Weasel—Amber would have only been about fifteen. Not yet a dispatcher. Just a child.
The daughter of a different cop.
One in District C11.
Brett gave Jonah a look, then faced the man again.
“Weasel was a regular here for a year or so,” the man continued. “Then, poof!, he was gone again. Ain’t seen him since.”
“Why remember him?” Brett said.
The man grinned. “Oh, it’s hard to forget ol’ Weasel. Because he didn’t just like the skag. He liked women. Liked ’em a whole lot. Too much. Know what I mean?” He shook his head, gave an exhalation of combined disgust and morbid humor. “Those gals were never the same after they met the Weasel.”
Chapter Seven
He could smell the losers from a block away. Literally.
Finley had the Accord’s windows sealed tight, engine running, a trickle of air-conditioning taking the edge off. But even in his protective bubble, even from his position parked on the opposite side of the road, a block away from the end of the line, the stink of the homeless queued up outside the Morrison Mission was apparent. Not constant, though. It hit him every few seconds, out of nowhere, pungent sneak attacks.
He was used to dealing with losers in his line of work, but those he encountered had some money, a place to live. They didn’t exist in their own filth.
He angled the vents down. Might help a bit.
Why the hell was he here?
Scratch that.
He knew why he was here. He was here because Jonah Lund and the tall man were here.
But why were they here?
The mystery guy must have been another private investigator. The constant surveillance Finley’s employer had put upon Lund had shown that he hadn’t been in contact with his last investigator in weeks. It had seemed that Lund had given up on his search, even if he hadn’t given up in the press. Why, then, had he suddenly hired a new investigator?
The first two PIs had been locals, easily recognizable to Finley. But this guy—Finley had never seen him before.
An hour ago, when Finley had arrived outside Lund’s apartment, there had been a brief period before the two of them left and went to his Fiero. Finley had seen a tall man in dark clothes—a dark gray pair of slacks, black sport coat, light gray shirt beneath. Dark, choppy hair. Angular face. Someone completely unknown to Finley.
And when the Fiero took off, Finley assumed he knew where it was going. He was wrong. He’d followed at a safe distance through progressively deteriorating environs until they ended up at the Morrison Mission.
Lund and his investigator were at the right kind of place, but nowhere near where they actually needed to be.
Interesting.
But quite confusing.
Finley would continue to follow. No need to call the boss yet. Not until this made more sense.
Lund and his companion had walked down the line, questioning several of the slobs, finally landing a talker who’d been standing by a lamppost. The conversation concluded, and the bum walked off. Lund and the tall man went back to the Fiero, which was parked across the street, and got in. Brake lights. It moved.
Finley put the Accord into gear and followed.
Chapter Eight
Silence had thought they would be alone, but it turned out he wasn’t the only one with the idea of watching the press conference from the top of the three-story parking garage. The city of Orlando was even more transfixed by the ongoing story of Amber Lund’s disappearance than he’d thought.
A small crowd had gathered along the garage’s north-side parapet, looking down upon the larger crowd at the Orlando Police Headquarters below—a semi-circle of maybe a hundred people, reporters and photographers in the front and citizens behind, who filled a plaza in front of the main tower. They were spread around a podium loaded with microphones.
Vehicles occupied all the spaces on the top floor of the garage, but the rubber parking blocks sat about a yard off the parapet, giving plenty of room for the crowd to form. Beside Silence, Jonah had covered his head with the hood of his Baja jacket, concealing as much of his face as possible. Under the hood, he’d also thrown on a baseball cap and a pair of Ray-Bans for good measure. His hands were in the jacket’s front pocket-pouch, and he stole quick, furtive glances at the people on either side of them. So far, no one seemed to have recognized him.
The sun was already breaking through the gray cover that had recently formed, little streaks of bright blue here and there. A faint drizzle didn’t so much fall from the sky but drifted down. Speeding traffic hissed by on Interstate 4, which was adjacent to the police complex and the parking garage, elevated on mammoth concrete columns.
The sprawling OPD complex comprised several massive buildings, stately yet plain, the cautiously planned beauty of twentieth-century bureaucracy.
A tower rose above the other buildings, one that Jonah had said once served as a jail as well. You could see inmates looking down at you from the windows, he’d said. The landscaping that flowed through the complex was less self-conscious than the buildings, all bushes and flowers and palm trees and luscious green lawns.
A few uniformed cops kept the crowd at a distance from the podium, behind which were three men and a woman, all in business wear, several feet back.
One of the men approached the podium. Silence remembered him from the photos he’d seen that morning, before taking the private jet the Watchers had arranged for him to Orlando. Carlton Stokes. Earlier Silence had noted that Stokes looked like a cranky police lieutenant character from a TV show or a 1980s cop movie. Now, in flesh-and-blood, his features seemed softer, and he evoked a classic sitcom dad.
“That’s Carlton,” Jonah said, unaware of Silence’s familiarity.
Behind Carlton, another man went to the microphone as well but stopped a few feet short, hands going behind his back, head lowered respectfully. He was a bit younger than Carlton, though his beard was mostly white. Aside from a slight gut, he was in good shape. Silence could sense the sadness in his eyes, his lowered face.
“Who’s that?” Silence said, pointing.
Jonah stole another cautious look around them, inched closer to Silence. “Gavin Stokes. Carlton’s brother, Amber’s uncle. Moved away eight years ago. Lost touch with Amber, but not by choice.”
Silence cocked his head.
“See, Carlton never liked Gavin’s influence. Amber and Gavin had been close while she grew up, but Carlton thought he was a loser who was dragging Amber down. When Gavin moved to Texas for a teaching gig, Amber was about sixteen, seventeen, getting close to college age, leave-the-house-and-take-on-life age, so Carlton took the opportunity to tell his brother to stop contacting Amber.”
Silence studied Gavin Stokes. The wind tussled his auburn hair, white at the temples. His face remained down-turned, wan with melancholy. He shifted in place, hands plunged into the pockets of a short pea jacket. Gavin Stokes didn’t strike Silence as the bad influence type. More of a warm avuncular type, which was evidently exactly what he had been to Amber.
Silence felt eyes upon him. Turned.
A figure. By the parapet but standing back, far enough out of line with the other individuals that it caught Silence’s attention. And as soon as he turned, the figured disappeared back into the crowd.
He thought of the Honda Accord.
Twenty minutes earlier when he and Jonah had crossed the parking lot of the luxury apartment complex, there had been a silver Accord, idling, at the back corner of the lot nestled among a few other cars as inconspicuously as possible. But idling vehicles always grabbed Silence’s attention.
Especially when they end up tailing you.
The Accord had followed Jonah’s Fiero here to the press conference. The driver had done a damn good job—hovering a suitable distance back, keeping several cars between them—but not good enough. Silence had monitored the Accord in the passenger mirror for the entire journey.
Below, Carlton Stokes spoke.
“Thank you all for joining us here today. As you know, this is an incredibly difficult time for the Stokes family.”
His amplified voice boomed off the surrounding walls, off the gray columns holding I-4 in the air.
“My daughter, Amber, has been missing now for two months. Whatever was going through her head in that early morning on State Road 50, we can only guess. What I do know is that her car was found near a bus station, tickets were purchased that evening in cash, and she had just married a man everyone felt was beneath her, a man who violated her trust. And it’s this very man who’s keeping the story in the press.”
Silence sensed Jonah tense beside him. From his peripheral, he saw the younger man pull in tighter under his jacket.
“That’s why my family is tormented at a time when we’re already suffering enough.”
Stokes’ voice grew louder, cracking in an echo throughout the parking garage.
“That’s why I’ve gathered you here for this press conference, here among the people who have been so good to the Stokes family for so many years.”
With a broad swing of his arm, he gestured to the grand campus of buildings surrounding him, the power and venerability of the police department poured in concrete, chiseled from stone.
“What Mr. Lund implies is that the sordid past of District C11, the district I used to work for as a police officer, is somehow a factor in Amber’s disappearance, that the enemies of the district have somehow taken their revenge, done something horrible to my daughter. Can you imagine? At a time like this, he’s not only implying that something has happened to Amber, his wife, but also tarnishing my honorable service record.”
He paused, and the microphones picked up his deep breath, slow release.
“My daughter is a bride who waited two weeks too long to run away from the altar. My daughter is alive. Amber, if you’re listening … if you’re listening, sweetheart, there are people who love you. We don’t know why you’ve stayed away so long. Everyone just wants to know you’re safe. Come home to us.”
Another pause.
“My daughter is alive. Thank you for your time.”
Stokes stepped back, head lowering, hand going to his eyes. His brother went to him, put his arm around him. The lawyers, too, approached, and the group headed for the tower behind them. The reporters erupted with questions and camera flashes, but the uniformed officers kept them at a distance. The citizens dispersed, heading away from the headquarters, crossing the street.
At the doors of the tower, Gavin Stokes said a few final words to his brother, then turned and headed toward the garage, head lowered, hands in his pockets.
This could be an opportunity.
Silence got Jonah’s attention, pointed over the parapet at Gavin. “We find him. You make introduction.”
The crowd on the top floor parking garage, too, was disbanding, most funneling toward the bulkhead, some finding their vehicles.
And as Silence turned around, he saw the figure, just a shadowy silhouette in the bulkhead’s doorway, looking in his direction before quickly turning and disappearing into the crowd.
On the first floor, people were getting into their cars, engines firing up, a line of traffic slowly snaking to the exit.
A few feet away was Gavin, getting into a dark green Jeep Grand Cherokee. Closer to him, Silence noted more details—thick hair on a mature hairline, very much full of its youthful color—medium brown, almost reddish—until about halfway down his head, at which point it rapidly whitened, especially in the sideburns where it met with the white of his beard.
Jonah called out to him. “Gavin!”
Gavin stopped, looked, keys in hand. His mouth opened when he spotted Jonah.
“What are you doing here?” he hissed, looking at the people around them getting into their cars as Silence and Jonah stopped beside him.
Jonah motioned toward Silence. “My, um … associate, Brett, here is helping me.”
Gavin looked at Silence with his sad eyes.
“Nice to meet ya,” he said halfheartedly.
Silence nodded. “Pleasure.”
Gavin gave the standard shocked reaction to Silence’s grotesque voice, followed by the standard attempt at covering up his rudeness. He cleared his throat. “Are you a private dick?”
“Of a sort.”
Usually he would have answered that question with a shake of the head. This time, though, ambiguity seemed fitting of the situation.
“Me too,” Gavin said. “Part-time, anyway.”
“Weasel. You know him?”
Silence heard Jonah sigh.
Gavin cocked his head. “Beg your pardon?”
Silence took his PenPal notebook from his pocket. PenPals’ plastic covers came in a variety of bold colors. This one was red. He flipped it open, removed Amber’s sticky note, and handed the note to G
avin, who gave it a puzzled twist of the lips.
“What is this?”
“It’s Amber’s,” Silence said.
Now that he realized what he was holding, Gavin held the note like a fragile artifact, a religious relic. His mouth fell open. “Where did you get it?”
“Our apartment,” Jonah said. “Cops overlooked it.”
Gavin nodded slowly, staring at the note. “Yeah, I know the Weasel.”
An endorphin rush of potential fluttered through Silence.
Gavin finally looked up from the note, to Jonah. “Ray Beasley.”
Jonah’s eyes widened.
Gavin turned to Silence. “He was a cop, in C11 with Carlton. Got kicked off the force for heroin use. But before that, when Amber was a kid, he was a big part of her life. A surrogate uncle. She called me and Ray her ‘two uncles.’” He paused. “And then she lost both of us. Within a few years of each other. Ray went nuts with drugs, and Carlton excommunicated me from her life.”
He looked back through the open side of the parking garage toward the headquarters complex. Silence let him be, allowed the moment to breathe.
Gavin turned back around, and Silence held out his hand for the sticky note.
Jonah stepped toward Gavin, took the VHS tape from the front pocket of his jacket, handed it to him.
Gavin looked it over, raised an eyebrow.
“A video for me. From Amber,” Jonah said. “I … can’t watch it. Hold on to it for me?”
Gavin nodded, looked deep into Jonah, his jaw set. “You think her disappearance is related to C11, don’t you? Some shit my brother got involved in, someone he pissed off getting revenge, taking it out on his daughter.”
“You know I do.”
They looked at each other.
Gavin set his jaw. “And you think she’s dead. I can see it in your eyes.”
A pause from Jonah.
“Yes, I do.”
