“It’s cold,” she said. “Too cold for swimming. That’s not fair. I wanted to go swimming.” Her skin looked dark enough that I was sure she’d spent plenty of time in the sun the past few days. Julie’s was the same shade. I was trying not to pay too much attention to her skin, though. Once you started, it was damn hard to stop. Better never to get started.
“Don’t whine too much,” Julie said. “If you whine about the water being cold, Lincoln will probably get tired of you and throw you into the ocean.”
“He would not!” Betsy regarded me with wide eyes.
I shrugged. “No promises.”
“Mom!” she squealed. “Don’t let him throw me in the ocean.”
“He looks pretty strong,” Julie said in mock seriousness. “I don’t know if I could stop him.”
There were dozens of people lying on the beach on blankets or in lawn chairs, soaking up the sun and relaxing, but I knew it was nothing compared to what you’d see in the summer, when tourist season was at its peak. We walked north along the beach for maybe a mile. We passed nothing but hotels and saw nothing but more hotels stretching on before us in either direction. It was amazing. How many hotels did this town have?
After about a mile we turned and headed back. Betsy was still playing her game of dancing away from the waves, and she held her mother’s hand as they walked. They fit together so well, so naturally, mother and daughter, a little bit of one in the other. I wondered if Wayne Weston had fit in as well—if people sitting on the beach would have watched the three Westons stroll along and said, “Isn’t that a perfect little family.” Maybe I stood out to the people watching us as the puzzle piece that didn’t fit. Perhaps I could combat that by walking hand in hand with Julie.
“Well, Lincoln?” Julie said.
“Huh?”
“Weren’t you listening?”
“Sorry. Lost in thought.”
She smiled. “Betsy was talking to you.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeated, and looked down at the girl. “What did you say?”
“I said I knew you wouldn’t throw me in the water,” she announced. “And I was right. We’re back at the hotel and you didn’t throw me in.”
I snapped my fingers as if recalling a forgotten task. “I knew I had something to do before we went back inside.”
She shook her head. “Nuh-uh. You aren’t going to throw me in.”
“Says who?”
“Says me,” she said, and giggled.
I glanced at Julie, saw the smile on her face, and realized she was enjoying this silly exchange between her daughter and me. I stopped walking and slipped off my tennis shoes, the sunbaked sand warm against my bare feet.
“All right,” I said. “You’re going in now.”
“No!” Betsy yelled, trying to duck behind her mother, but I reached down and scooped her up under her arms, then ran toward the surf, holding her high above my head. She was unbelievably light. I’d lifted cats that felt heavier. She was half screaming, half laughing as I stormed into the water. She’d been right, too—it was cold. I ran in up to my knees, and then a wave hit me, soaking the lower half of my shorts. I held Betsy over my head—making sure my T-shirt didn’t ride up enough to expose my gun—and began counting.
“One . . . two . . . three . . .”I pretended to heave her toward the water, and she shrieked, but I didn’t release her. “Okay,” I said. “I’m feeling nicer than I thought. I guess I won’t toss you in until this afternoon.”
I carried her back out of the water, wondering if maybe my silly game had been a bad move, something that would irritate Julie. She was laughing as she waited for us, though, and seemed anything but irritated.
“You should have done it,” she said when I dropped Betsy onto the sand beside her. “You would have had my blessing.”
“I thought he was going to throw me in,” Betsy said, gasping for breath but still giggling.
Julie glanced at my dripping legs with a small smile. “Cold?” she said.
“Little bit,” I said, and she laughed again.
They wanted to go shopping, so we spent the next two hours wandering the strip. I saw more versions of T-shirts with the words myrtle beach than I’d thought possible, and some pretty bizarre creations made from seashells, but nothing that tempted me to take out my wallet. Julie and Betsy seemed to enjoy it, though. We ate lunch at a Subway and then walked back to the hotel. They went in the bedroom to relax, and I told Julie I was going to run back down to my room and make a phone call.
I called Joe.
“Seen the tape?” he asked as soon as I said hello.
“I’ve seen it. Someone definitely got whacked, but I don’t have any idea who. I know the shooter, though.”
“Who?”
“Krashakov.”
“The big blond asshole?”
“You got it.” I told him the details of the tape.
“You can’t tell where it was taken?”
“Not really, but my guess is it’s the back room at a bar somewhere—quite possibly The River Wild. That makes the most sense. You’ve already attached it to the Russians, and there’s a logical reason for Weston to be shooting tape there.”
“One thing’s bothering me.”
“Yeah?”
“Weston films this from a concealed camera, right? A wireless setup, you suggest. And, clearly, the Russians didn’t know it was there. Yet when Weston talked to his wife he said the Russians were going to be coming after him.”
“True.”
“So how’d they figure out he had this tape?”
“Found the camera before he had a chance to remove it, maybe.”
“And he’d taped a return address label to the thing? Carved his initials on the side? Those cameras are designed to be discreet. There aren’t a lot of them in circulation, but it would still be difficult to trace one back to the owner in most circumstances.”
“Good point.” I didn’t have an answer for that one, so I shifted gears. “You find out who the vic might be?”
“Not yet. I called a few of our old friends at homicide, and they said they’d get back to me.”
“Okay. I was thinking of calling Amy, putting her on it.”
“Be careful what you tell her.”
“We can trust Amy, Joe.”
“I know we can trust her, but I don’t want us getting her in more trouble. Just because you’re in love with her doesn’t mean we have to call her at the first excuse.”
“I’m not in love with her.”
“Uh-huh.” He grunted. “Speaking of love, how’s the widow Weston look in person?”
“Homely,” I said. “The camera does wonders for that woman. In person she looks much more like my great-aunt Nedra.”
“I bet.”
“Where’s Kinkaid?”
“Sitting right in front of me.”
“You two playing checkers?”
“Quiet, son. We’re getting ready to break this case wide open.”
“Hard to do that sitting on your ass.”
“I know it is. That’s why we’re on our way out the door. I’d like to check on our Russian pals again, see where they are and what they’re up to.”
“Watch your back, Joseph.”
“Always, son. Always. I’ll give you a call on your cell phone tonight when I hear from homicide.”
I hung up with Joe and called Amy’s office number. She picked up on the first ring, which was a rarity, and she was in a shitty mood, which wasn’t as rare.
“Do you miss me?” I said when she answered.
“No, I don’t miss you. You’re one of them.”
“Them?”
“A male,” she snapped. “You know, those folks with penises? You do have one of those, right?”
“What’s your problem?”
“Men.”
“Uh-oh,” I said. “Surely it can’t be a problem with Mr. Terry.”
“Mr. Terry can kiss my beautiful ass,” she said. “My fr
iend Rochelle saw him in a restaurant holding hands with some bimbo and drinking wine last night. Rochelle said it was expensive wine, too. He only buys the cheap stuff for me. Bastard.”
“I’m sorry, Amy,” I said genuinely. I was no fan of Jacob Terry, but I liked Amy too much to enjoy seeing her hurt.
“Ah, screw him,” she said. “I couldn’t be with a man who used that much hair gel, anyhow. It was doomed from the start.”
“I tried to tell you that.”
“Yeah, yeah, you and your advice. I’ve never taken it before, and I’m not going to start. Just because you were right about Terry doesn’t mean you’re not an idiot. Now what the hell do you want?”
I hadn’t planned on telling Amy all the details, but I realized she was going to pester me with questions, so I decided to go ahead and give her something to think about other than her hatred for my gender.
“I’m in South Carolina,” I said.
“Really? What the hell are you doing down there? And, hey, didn’t I hear about you being a witness to some guy who got shot near your building the other day? I called you, but you weren’t home. Come to think of it, wasn’t he from South Carolina?”
“Amy,” I said, breaking in on her tangent, “do you want to hear my news or not?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve got Julie and Betsy Weston.”
For a long time, I could hear nothing but the faint murmur of background voices in the newsroom around her. When she spoke again, her voice was soft and serious. “You better not be playing with me, Lincoln. I’m not in the mood.”
“I’m not playing with you,” I said. “They’re in South Carolina, and they have been since Weston was killed. But no one—and I mean no one—can know about this yet. There’s too much uncertainty right now. Some big-league killers are looking for this woman, and they might have sources within the police.”
“What are they doing there?” she whispered. “Do they not realize the FBI is looking for them?”
“Julie realizes,” I said. “The little girl is blissfully ignorant. And they’re here because Wayne Weston pissed off the Russian mob. He shot a videotape of a hit, and somehow they found out about it.”
“So the Russians did kill him.”
“Julie doesn’t think so. She thinks Hubbard did it, or had someone do it.”
“This is real big, isn’t it, Lincoln?”
“Bigger than you can imagine,” I said, thinking about Hubbard, Cody, and the Russians. It was big, all right. And deadly.
“I’m not going to breathe a word of this to anyone,” Amy said, “but you’ve got to keep me updated.”
“I will. Now, can you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Like I said, Weston videotaped some poor bastard getting killed by the Russians. We don’t know who the guy is. I watched the tape and didn’t recognize him. Some short, strong-looking guy with curly dark hair and a silver chain around his neck. I need you to check it out and see if you can figure out who some potential candidates might be. He’s got to be connected to Belov and the rest of them somehow.”
“I’m on it.”
“Thanks. I’ll call you later this afternoon and we can reconnoiter.”
She laughed.
“What?” I said.
“Reconnoiter. That word just amuses me—it sounds so ridiculous. It seems strange, too, that you can only reconnoiter. Wouldn’t it seem you should connoiter to begin with and then reconnoiter? Of course, that sounds kind of dirty. You know, like, ‘the police caught the teens connoitering in the backseat of the car—’ ”
“Goodbye, Amy.” I hung up and sighed. My friends. What can you say?
I went back upstairs and knocked on Julie’s door. She answered a minute later with a bright smile. “Good news,” she said. “Betsy has decided what she wants to do with the afternoon.”
“What’s that?”
“Play miniature golf,” Betsy said. She was sitting on the couch with her feet sticking out in the air because they were too short to reach the floor. I suppose this is the type of thing parents never really pause to think about, but if you’re not around children much, it looks pretty comical.
“Miniature golf,” I said. The glamorous work of the private detective never ceases.
“That’s right. I told her we’d need to relax for about an hour, though.” She winked at me. “I figured you’d need at least that long to prepare yourself for a whole afternoon of us.”
I sat on the couch next to Betsy and watched cartoons with her for the next twenty minutes. Then my cell phone rang, and I took it out on the balcony to talk.
“Hello?”
“You’re in big trouble this time, pal.” Amy.
“I thought I was going to call you,” I said. “Couldn’t wait to hear my sexy voice again, eh?”
“No, I just couldn’t wait to tell you what kind of mess you’ve gotten yourself tangled up in.”
I had a fair idea what kind of mess it was, but I waited for her to elaborate.
“I think I know who the murder victim was,” she said. “You called him a short, muscular guy with curly dark hair, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, that’s a perfect description of the guy whose picture I’m looking at right now. In fact, he’s even wearing a silver chain. He hasn’t turned up dead yet, but he’s been missing for three weeks, and he unquestionably has ties to the Russians.”
“Who is it?”
“Yuri Belov,” she said. “Dainius Belov’s son.”
CHAPTER 18
“HIS SON,” I said numbly. All the energy had drained from my body, and the small of my back felt very cold despite the sun beating against it. I was staring in the glass doors to the hotel room without really seeing anything, but eventually I noticed Betsy waving at me. I forced a smile and lifted a hand in response, then turned my back to the room and looked out at the sea.
“What are you going to do, Lincoln?” Amy asked.
“I don’t know. This definitely explains some things, though. Maybe it makes things a little easier. Maybe it makes them harder.”
“How would it make them easier?”
“If the Russians took out Yuri Belov, the hit surely wasn’t authorized by his father. It was more likely the result of an internal problem, some feud or bad blood between Belov’s soldiers and his son. That means Julie and Betsy may not need to fear the Russian mob as a whole, but only a select few.”
“I guess,” she said doubtfully, “but those select few seem pretty deadly.”
Assuming they were responsible for the murder of not only Yuri Belov but also Wayne Weston and Randy Hartwick, yes, they were very deadly. And then there was Jeremiah Hubbard to fear. Julie Weston’s testimony could be tremendously damaging to him, as well. And, if Julie’s guess that Hubbard was responsible for her husband’s murder was correct, he had already proved he was willing to kill to protect himself.
“There are quite a few unsolved murders tied together with this,” I said. “Nasty things are happening in the shadows, and this woman knows enough to make sense of it. Some powerful people are going to do whatever it takes to keep those things in the shadows. If that means adding a few more murders to the list, they won’t lose sleep over it.”
“You know the best way to bring something scary out of the shadows, Lincoln? Shine a light on it.”
I frowned. “Clarify, Ace.”
“I mean, let me write this story.”
“Amy,” I began, irritated that she was thinking of herself, but she cut me off.
“I’m serious, Lincoln, so listen to me. I’m not thinking just about the story, although I’ll admit I’d love to write it. I’m thinking about the woman and her daughter. People are willing to kill them because Julie Weston has damaging knowledge and a damaging videotape, right? Well, if the knowledge and tape are made public, then killing Julie Weston and her daughter serves no purpose except revenge. And, if the case has been pushed into the public eye, any a
ttempt for revenge is just going to make things much worse.”
“The Russians don’t care about that, Amy,” I said. “They won’t hesitate to kill for revenge, regardless of the consequences.” But it was an interesting idea. It could possibly be the best way of keeping Hubbard at bay, if nothing else. “I’m not dismissing it entirely,” I said, giving some ground. “I’ll talk to Julie tonight and see what she thinks.”
“Okay, Lincoln. But remember something—you have much of the same knowledge that led to Wayne Weston’s murder and probably this Hartwick guy’s. That makes you just as much of a threat to everyone involved as Julie Weston.”
Encouraging. I hung up with Amy and walked back inside. Julie had taken my seat on the couch beside Betsy, and the cartoons were still on. She glanced up at me as I stepped into the room and frowned.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” I said, surprised she had read my face so easily. “My cell phone signal is bad on the balcony, that’s all. Frustrating.”
“Oh,” she said, but I could tell she wasn’t buying it. “Do you need to go downstairs to make another call?”
“No, I’m done with the phone for now.” I put the cell phone back in my pocket and slid my hand up my spine, touching the butt of the gun under my shirt. It was still there, comforting if not comfortable.
“I thought we were going to play miniature golf,” I said, trying to force some good humor into my voice. I could spend the rest of the afternoon dwelling on Amy’s news, but that wouldn’t accomplish anything, and it would probably stress Julie out. If I could make the afternoon fun for her and the kid, then I’d sit her down for a serious conversation after Betsy went to sleep.
“Let’s go play!” Betsy said, leaping off the couch. “I’m gonna win.”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “I’m going to win.”
“I’ll bet you an ice cream I win,” the little girl said confidently. I accepted the bet with a laugh, and as I did so I saw a shadow of sadness pass over Julie’s face. It was only momentary, and then the smile was back. I thought about the bet we’d made, and I realized it was probably something the girl had picked up from her father.
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