by Alex Segura
“I like this new Harras model,” Kathy said. “It’s like we’re part of a power trio, if a bit weak on the harmonies.”
“I’m not a cop anymore, so you can do whatever you want,” he said. “Just don’t use my name or get me implicated in this bullshit. Consider all this a favor.”
Harras’s jaw clenched and he opened the car door.
“Whether you meant to or not, you saved my life when that psycho put a bullet in my stomach,” he said, sliding out of the seat. “I owe you for the years I’ve got left. Doesn’t mean I’ll be nice. Doesn’t mean I’ll be a cheerleader while you and Veronica Mars here break the law and make things harder for the real police. But I will help you if I can do it with a clean conscience. We work well together. So far, so good.”
He didn’t wait for their response. He got out and walked down the street.
BEFORE HIS recent demise, Calvin Whitelaw had lived in a large, six-bedroom house in Weston, an affluent city in western Broward. The suburban community was loaded with gated complexes that were nicer, shinier, and boasted more golf courses than their Miami counterparts. On top of that, most of the brand-name food spots and clothing stores were well within reach. It was a whiter, less diverse version of Kendall.
The drive from West Perrine to the address Harras had gifted them had been long—thanks to morning commute traffic and lack of sleep. Wired after their chat with Harras, Kathy and Pete had talked into the wee hours—strategy, fears, and next steps. It was all they could do to not lose their minds, a way of exerting control over a chaotic situation with no clear solution. Their every movement, especially those taken outside of the supposed safety of their secret lair, was loaded with fear and anxiety. A drive like this one, which would have previously just been an annoyance due to the time it took, now featured deadlier stakes for them to contend with. Even mundane Miami traffic felt like a deadly obstacle course: A sudden bout of traffic. A car that stayed behind him for a minute too long. An unexpected lane change. It all seemed far from trivial now. Pete was in their sights every second he spent outside. But this was an important meeting, and, if successful, might help them reach a point where they weren’t running for their lives.
The houses got bigger the further into Weston they drove, until they reached the Whitelaw compound. The first gates led them to a security anteroom, where they signed in and Mrs. Whitelaw was alerted to their presence. Then they drove down a narrow path, past trees and ornate lawn furniture and fountains, until they arrived at the front driveway, which wove around a large swath of bright flowers and small trees. Kathy parked the car in front of the main door, only to be met by a previously unseen butler, who offered to take her keys and valet the car. She agreed, but not without some hesitation. A minute later they were standing at the front door, notebooks in hand.
They’d hashed out their plan the night before, over coffee and cigarettes. Get a sense of Whitelaw as a person and his life after the Varela trial. Try to suss out who might want him dead and hope Mrs. Whitelaw was willing to part with any strand of evidence or information that hadn’t yet made it to the public. Any kind of head start on the person gunning for them could save lives. Including theirs.
“I’m starting to think it’s too easy for Varela to have done this,” Pete said.
“That sounds familiar. Almost as if I said the same thing before we came back. But to play devil’s advocate, maybe he’s crossing people off his shit list,” Kathy said as she pushed the doorbell. They heard a loud, gonglike chime come from inside the house and exchanged glances. “First you, then Whitelaw. Not sure who’s next.”
“Maybe, but—” Pete didn’t get to finish. A thin, birdlike man with a trim white moustache greeted them on the other side of the door.
“Mrs. Whitelaw will see you now,” he said. His jacket—also a crisp white, like his slacks, tie, and shirt—featured a fancy nametag befitting his fancy name: Rutherford.
“If you’ll follow me,” Rutherford said, motioning to them with his left hand.
He walked them into a large, hangar-like living room adorned with an almost wall-size portrait of Whitelaw. It reminded Pete of something you’d see in a museum, though it lacked a powdered wig. Pete and Kathy sat on the lengthy white leather couch and waited. After a few minutes, a woman—early forties, slim, dressed in a sharp dark blouse and long red skirt—entered. She made a beeline for them, hand outstretched. Pete shook it first.
“Miranda Gomez-Whitelaw,” she said. “You’re Pete Fernandez and Kathy Bentley.”
She sat down on the love seat across from the couch and crossed her legs, her back straight, her hands resting in her lap. All business. The use of her full name jolted Pete’s brain, and explained how a prosecutor like Whitelaw, successful or not, had been living the high life. The Gomez clan was old Florida money, high-rolling Cuban investors who owned a stake in most major Miami land deals brokered after 1975. Only Dave’s parents came close, and they were a distant second. Maybe Weston wasn’t so white after all.
She continued before Pete could interject. “Save your condolences, please,” she said, no sign of emotion on her face. “I loved my husband. He didn’t deserve to die so painfully in his final years with us. But I know he had enemies. What I don’t know, to be quite honest, is why you’re both here.”
“Well, Mrs. Whitelaw,” Kathy started.
“Call me Miranda.”
“Miranda,” Kathy said. “We’re working on a case that may be connected to the death of your husband.”
“So, you’re not here to offer your services?” she asked. “To figure out who did this, I mean.”
“No, not exactly,” Pete said. “We don’t want to interfere with an existing police investigation.”
“Well, that’d be a first,” Miranda said.
Pete stammered for a second before Miranda spoke again.
“Did you think I would just take a meeting with anyone the day after my husband was stabbed to death?” she said. “I know who you are, both of you. I know about the Silent Death, I know about Julian Finch, and I know about the case with that poor child. I know your rep. I talked to friends. I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure why you’d be here, but I was hoping it was because you wanted to take on my husband’s case. Lord knows the Miami police aren’t up to the task.”
Pete took a second to compose himself before responding.
“Well, both cases are connected, we think,” Pete said, avoiding Kathy’s eyes as he veered off course. “It’s true, your husband had enemies—any successful prosecutor is going to incur the wrath of the people he’s tossed in jail. But we wanted to get a sense of who his enemies were, and see if they overlap with our existing case.”
“The Varela case?” she asked.
“Wow, you’ve got us all covered,” Kathy said, her sarcasm percolating under each word. “Yes, Varela. We’re trying to reinvestigate the murder of his wife.”
“Snippy suits you.” Miranda seemed unmoved by Kathy’s tone. “I am probably not the first person to wonder aloud why you’d ever think investigating that murder was a good idea. Especially now.”
“I’m starting to think he’s innocent,” Pete said. He avoided looking at Kathy.
“Do tell, Pete,” Kathy said. “I must have missed that tidbit at our morning strategy session.”
“Yes, this meeting has suddenly gotten a lot more interesting,” Miranda said, folding her hands over her knee.
“I said I’m starting to think, not that I’m convinced,” Pete said. “And it’s more a gut feeling than anything else. I mean, this guy has been in prison for years, helping his only daughter build a case for his innocence. Why not cop a plea? Why continually insist you’re innocent if you’re not?”
“With that rationale, our prisons would be empty,” Miranda said. “Also, the man broke out of his cell. If I had to rank signs of guilt, that would be pretty high up there.”
“Fair enough,” Pete said. “But suddenly we’re supposed to believe Varela has ties to Lo
s Enfermos? And he’s out to get me for investigating his wife’s murder? That doesn’t fly—we spoke to the man. He was on board.”
Miranda stood up. She smoothed her skirt down before walking toward the living room’s main doorway. She turned to them. “Follow me.”
UNLIKE THE rest of the house—or at least what they’d seen on the way in—Calvin Whitelaw’s home office was cramped, disorganized, dusty, and lacking an iota of style or personality. It was closer to a dad’s garage than a working space—file cabinets stacked together, a desk covered in papers, accordion files, legal pads, and folders. It smelled musty—of old paper and printer ink.
Miranda held the door open for them and nodded toward the office.
“This is where Calvin actually worked,” she said. “His office downtown was for show, a last vestige of a career spent in the spotlight. He’d put in a few hours during the week to maintain appearances. If he had an actual case to work on, it’d happen here.”
“Do the cops know that?” Pete asked.
“I may have forgotten to mention it,” Miranda said, frowning. “I imagine you can find your way out? I’ll just assume you got lost on your way to the bathroom and ended up in here. You know, client confidentiality and all that boring stuff. There should be a copier under some papers in there.”
“Got it,” Kathy said as they entered the crowded workspace.
The afternoon dragged into the early evening. They split the space—Pete took the files on the left side of the office while Kathy took the right.
After a few hours they’d discovered very little beyond realizing that Calvin Whitelaw, renowned prosecutor and community leader, was a serious packrat. They found multiple versions of the same files, dinner receipts from the mid-’90s, and legal pads packed with Whitelaw’s vague notes to himself. They worked in silence—the house providing an eerie, quiet backdrop to their paper shuffling. Their only contact with Miranda had been through Rutherford, when the butler came in with a platter of sandwiches and water, his feet padding down the long, dark hallway that led to the office.
“I’ve hit a wall,” Pete said, sitting cross-legged on the floor, piles of papers surrounding him.
“You look like you’re about to cast a spell to the gods of paper clips and staples,” Kathy said, glancing over her shoulder as she continued to rummage through a last cabinet on the other side of the room. “I’m amazed we even got in here.”
“She doesn’t seem to be a fan of the police,” Pete said.
“She didn’t seem to be a fan of ours,” Kathy said. She pulled out a fat folder and scanned the first document inside.
“This could be something,” she said, walking over to Pete’s mini-shrine. He stood up and leaned in to see what Kathy had.
The tab on the folder was more vague than ominous: Collected. It appeared to be printed-out emails and records of payment sent to Whitelaw’s personal account from [email protected].
“Samael? Is that the dude’s name?” Kathy said. “Like, Samuel but not, right?”
“No, it’s a Hebrew reference,” Pete said. “Samael was an evil archangel.”
Kathy gave Pete a look.
“Well, and here I thought you were a good Catholic boy,” she said.
“Hey, I went to school, okay?” Pete said. “Let’s see what Whitelaw said to Mr. Samael.”
The exchanges between Whitelaw and “Samael” covered a period of years, with the two exchanging emails every few weeks. The tone from Whitelaw was veiled and threatening. He referenced “what happened” and “when things shake out.” He knew something that Samael wanted kept under wraps.
The last email Whitelaw had printed out was dated the previous year.
My dear friend,
You’ll find your bath water is getting a bit warmer these days. See what I did there? I’m not the only one hot on your trail. The reporter and her sidekick are sniffing around—she even came by the office tonight. Nice trick trying to scare her off. If I dare to hazard a guess, I think you did—for now.
But what happens when smarter—richer—people do the same and offer me more in return for what I know? Or, even better, for what I have? That’ll be problematic for you, I’d wager.
Yours,
Calvin
“Seems Mr. Whitelaw knew something—or had something—this Samael person didn’t want others to know, and was making a nice chunk of change from it,” Pete said, taking the email from Kathy and reading it again. “But what?”
“What’s also disturbing is that he knew who attacked me that night,” Kathy said. “But what did Calvin Whitelaw have?”
“And was it enough to get him killed?”
ASIDE FROM the emails, Whitelaw’s folder held a few other gems—including a receipt for a storage space in Broward under the names Samael and Arturo Pelegrin. Pete took note of the address. Collected at the bottom of the file were newspaper clippings dating back to the early to mid-’80s. Crime reports, mostly, or local Miami Times stories discussing gang-related activities, including those involving violence against anti-Castro groups in Miami. Whitelaw, in his own weird way, was building a case against Los Enfermos. But why?
“CYA,” Kathy said. “He was covering for himself. In case whatever he had that Los Enfermos or this Samael guy wanted wasn’t enough to keep him alive.”
“He was trying to build a case that Los Enfermos were behind these murders,” Pete said. “It doesn’t look like he finished doing it, though.”
“Death tends to interrupt things, yes,” Kathy said, standing up and dusting off her skirt. “I think it’s time to go. Don’t you?”
Pete nodded and followed her out of the room, carrying the copied file with him and closing the door behind them. Kathy started toward the long hallway, but Pete grabbed her by the elbow.
“Wait,” he said.
“Yes?” she said, yanking her arm away. “Did you leave your wallet or something?”
“Let’s see what else we find here,” Pete said, turning around, going in the opposite direction from the one they’d originally come from.
“I like this,” Kathy said, whispering. “What’s more fun than wandering around rich people’s houses?”
There wasn’t much to see, as the hallway ended a few doors down. One of the rooms was a small linen closet, another a bathroom, and there was a larger room that seemed to be a screening area of sorts—with a couch, big-screen TV, and more DVDs than Pete thought possible. That left one door, at the tail end of the hall, for them to try.
It wasn’t locked. Pete stepped in first, expecting a small library area or work shed. Instead, he found himself yanked into a museum of sorts. It was dark, even with the handful of lights that spotlighted certain areas of the space. The room was a celebration of Miami and Florida, but not the beaches, celebrities, and sights. It was an exhibit dedicated to the city’s dark underbelly. Memorable photos lined the walls: Ted Bundy, Arthur Teele, Versace, the McDuffie Riots, the Dadeland Mall massacre, Elian, the Mariel boatlift. There were even pictures of Javier Reyes, the Silent Death, and serial killer Julian Finch. Pete wasn’t sure whether to feel honored or disturbed.
But the room wasn’t limited to photos. There were glass cases that housed an array of handguns, knives, and assorted weaponry—some of them fairly old. It would take a few hours to go through it all, Pete guessed.
“This is fucking weird,” Kathy said. “But also makes sense, I suppose? Guess he was a true crime maniac, in addition to putting people in jail.”
“We all have our hobbies,” Pete said, wading deeper into the room, which didn’t seem to end, perhaps due to the dimmed lighting.
Near the far wall, past the more current photos and memorabilia, next to photos of American gangsters partying and living it up in pre-Castro Cuba, was an ornate glass case taking up a central spot. It was wide and long with a small nameplate under it.
“Guess he never got to hang his special phallic pistol,” Kathy said from behind Pete. He felt her breath on his neck a
s he stepped closer, trying to catch the light to read the inscription on the thin gold label under the space where something should have been.
When he was able to read it, he felt a cold jolt hit him and spread over his body, like jumping into a pool of frigid water, headfirst.
WWII Cattaraugus USA Folding Pilot’s Bolo Machete Knife
“Holy shit,” Kathy said.
“DID YOU lose your way?”
Pete and Kathy wheeled around with a start and saw Miranda Whitelaw standing at the other end of the room, leaning on the doorframe. She didn’t seem surprised, as if she’d wanted them to find the space on their own, and was pleased that the lab rats she’d allowed in the maze were pushing the boundaries of the experiment.
“What is this room?” Pete asked.
“It was my husband’s testosterone chamber, I guess,” Miranda said as she walked in slowly. “He liked collecting junk. Especially junk that had something to do with famous trials or crimes. You’d think he would just leave this shit at the office, right? It became a bit of an obsession once he retired.”
“Where did this machete go?” Pete asked, pointing to the empty case.
“How should I know?” Miranda said. “My husband liked rearranging his little museum. He would often take things down and bring them back later.”
“It’s the only empty case here,” Pete said. “And it just happens to be the same kind of weapon as the one that killed Carmen Varela.”
“And your husband,” Kathy said.
Miranda raised an eyebrow, but her expression remained unchanged. She was processing, pondering next steps.
“My husband collected a number of things, one of them being weapons,” she said. “Just because he owns a machete and Varela’s wife was killed by one is coincidental.”
“It’s a hell of a coincidence,” Kathy said.
