by J. A. Kerley
Nautilus patted his hair, a one-inch natural with a sprinkling of gray, licked an index finger and smoothed his bulldozer-blade mustache, took a deep breath and walked to the front door. The knocker was a cast-iron version of the three crosses of Golgotha – currently unoccupied – hinged to slam the base. Nautilus gingerly lifted a thief’s cross and let it drop.
A harsh metallic clank. Nautilus stood back as the door opened to reveal one of the most impressive stacks of hair he’d seen in years, a cascade of blonde-bright ringlets that bounced atop the shoulders of a slender, and apparently confused woman in her early forties. Her make-up was old-school-thick, early Dolly Parton, but her face was model-perfect, with high cheekbones, a pert nose and lips like pink cushions. With her dress, white and embroidered with creamy flowers, she looked part porcelain angel, part country singer from the seventies. Nautilus immediately recognized her from the Willy Prince Show, the woman organizing the bused-in audience.
“Mrs Owsley, I’m Harry Nautilus. You’re expecting me, I’m told. Or hope.”
The woman stared, as if Nautilus was a unicorn. “Mrs Owsley?” Nautilus said, resisting the impulse to wave his hand before her wide, blue-shadowed eyes. “Did your husband tell you I’d be by today?”
“You’re black,” she said, just shy of a gasp.
“Since birth. Is something wrong?”
A brief pause and the woman’s startled expression flowed effortlessly into a glittering smile, teeth shining like marquee lights. “Goodness, no,” she said, reaching to touch Harry’s sleeve and tug him over the threshold. “It’s just such a surprise. All my other drivers were, well … do you folks prefer the term white or Caucasian?”
“It doesn’t really matter, ma’am. It’s more what you prefer to call yourselves.”
She canted her head in thought, followed with a tinkly laugh. “Of course. Come inside, Mr Nautilus, please.”
She led Nautilus through the wide entranceway and into an expansive living area, the walls a soft peach, the French Provincial furniture having matching cushions and looking delicate and expensive. The room was vaulted, twenty-feet tall, a pair of ceiling fans whisking high above. One wall held family photos, one the front windows. The third held a cross of dark and rough-hewn beams, a dozen feet tall, eight wide. It had been thickly coated in shellac or varnish and gleamed in the in-streaming sun.
Nautilus said, “You have a beautiful home, Mrs Owsley.”
“God gave it to us,” she said, looking to Nautilus as if expecting an amen.
He said, “Indeed and fer-sure, ma’am,” and found his voice failing. “Might I trouble you for a drink of water? I seem a bit dry.”
“Right this way.”
The kitchen was straight from Architectural Digest: beaten copper sinks, twin refrigerator-freezers, an island with a maple chopping block. The countertops were richly textured marble. Above, an eight-foot rack was hung with cooking implements.
“There’s water, of course,” Celeste Owsley said. “I also have sweet tea.”
“Tea then, please.”
A crystal vase of tea was produced from a refrigerator seemingly sized to hold sides of beef. Celeste Owsley poured a glass and handed it to Nautilus. He sipped and studied the vast kitchen.
“You must truly like to cook, ma’am.”
The woman frowned at the rack festooned with pots, pans, colanders, whisks. “They all do something, but I’ve no idea what. Thankfully, our cook likes to cook. You’ll meet Felicia, I expect. She’s a precious little Mexican girl.”
“Girl?” Nautilus asked. “How old is she?”
Ms Owsley canted her head sideways, perplexed. Somehow the huge beehive ’do remained centered. “I never asked,” she said, a scarlet talon tapping a plump lower lip. “Forty? Fifty?”
Girl, Nautilus thought, holding back the sigh as Celeste Owsley gestured him toward the wide staircase. “Now let’s meet our daughter and see how she is today.”
Owsley clicked the high heels across the floor to the foot of the broad staircase and clapped her hands as if summoning a pet poodle. Seconds passed and Nautilus heard a door opening upstairs, looked up to a teenage girl staring down, her brown hair shoulder length and a pouty look on an otherwise sweet face.
“What?”
“Well, come on down.”
The girl sighed dramatically and headed down the steps. Nautilus knew she was sixteen – research again – and her name was Rebecca. Owsley’s face lit to a zillion watts as she pointed to Nautilus like he was door number three on a game show.
“This is Mr Nautilus, hon. He’s our new driver.”
The girl scowled. “But he’s bl—”
“He’s your Papa’s choice,” Owsley interrupted, “and that means he’s the best there can be.”
The girl stared at Nautilus. A smile quivered at the edge of her bright lips.
“Fuck,” she said.
“Becca!” Owsley snapped.
“Fuck fuck fuck,” the girl said, looking pleased. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck …”
“Get upstairs! Now!”
The girl slowly climbed the stairs, repeating her mantra until it ended with the slamming of a door. Owsley sighed and turned to Nautilus.
“I’m sorry. It’s a stage. I can’t wait for it to be over.”
The meeting seemed to have reached a conclusion, Owsley leading Nautilus back to the front door. Her hand was on the knob when she turned, her eyes searching into Nautilus’s eyes.
“You have been saved, of course, Mr Nautilus.”
The same question had been asked by Reverend Owsley, early in their meeting, as if, answered improperly, the interview would be over. Ten years back he and Carson had been chasing a trio of murderous dope dealers through a dilapidated warehouse, their leader a psychotic named Randy Collins. Nautilus had been following Collins down a rotting flight of stairs when they collapsed, Nautilus tumbling ten feet to concrete, gun spinning from his hand as the maniac spun and lifted his weapon, the nine-millimeter muzzle staring straight into Nautilus’s chest as a tattooed finger tightened on the trigger.
Until the front of Collins’ face disappeared, Carson firing from forty feet away, a perfect shot in the shadowed warehouse.
“Yes, ma’am,” Nautilus replied, just as he’d done with the mister. “I was saved years ago. It was a beautiful day.”
Nautilus returned to his vehicle thinking about his interview, the written part and subsequent face-to-face sessions with Owsley. A good third of the questions had – in veiled fashion, mostly – been about his discretion, the ability to handle secrets. He’d answered truthfully, meaning that he didn’t disburse private information. There would have been other vetting, he now realized – probably a private-investigation firm – but even his enemies would have said something akin to, “Harry Nautilus doesn’t carry tales.”
Twenty bills an hour, he told himself as he buckled into his car. Drive ’em around, stay uninvolved, cash the checks. The gig is worth it, right?
6
I awoke at eight twenty with the vague recollection of dreams made of flames and punctuated by screams. Breakfast was strong coffee and stale churros and I was at the department an hour later, hungry to track down the maniac who’d killed Kylie Sandoval. Roy was in his office, the muscular Miami skyline looming outside the windows of his twenty-third-floor office, Biscayne Bay visible to the east.
I gave him an anything happening? face, meaning Menendez.
He shook his head. “I figure this will be solved by snitches and shoe leather. It’ll come. Like Tom Petty said, the waiting is the hardest part.” He gave me a curious look. “I take it you haven’t been to your office yet.”
“No, why?”
He closed his eyes and began whistling “Rule Britannia”.
Wondering if my boss had gone around the bend, I headed down the hall to my office, finding the door ajar. I used to share space with Ziggy Gershwin, but Zigs had impressed Roy enough to get his own office and
assignments last month, so I was the sole occupant, generally leaving it unlocked.
I pushed the door open quietly, seeing a light-skinned woman of African heritage sitting in the chair opposite my desk, her back to me. She was leafing through a book I had contributed to some years ago, The Inner Cultures of Sociopaths, more for academic than general audiences. She wore a taupe uniform and though only a small portion was visible, I recognized the shoulder patch of the Miami-Dade PD.
I cleared my throat and she jumped, the book skidding from her lap to the floor.
“Bloody hell,” she said, standing. “You scared the piss out of me.”
Her voice sounded closer to London than Miami. I scooped up the book from the floor and set it back on the shelf, then sat, head cocked. My visitor was a petite woman in her mid-to-later twenties, brunette hair tugged back in a ponytail. Full lips framed a small mouth that was now pursed tight. Her eyes were large and brown and watching me as intently as I was watching her. I had the feeling I was being weighed.
“And you would be?” I ventured.
“Holly Belafonte. I’m an officer with the MDPD.”
I didn’t point out that, as a detective, I’d already deduced it by the uniform, though the accent seemed misplaced. “Did I mis-park my car, Officer Belafonte?” I said, a shot at humor that went wide, judging by the narrowed eyes.
She nodded to the chair. “Can I sit?”
“I suspect you can, since you were sitting when I entered.”
The stare again. Humor didn’t seem her métier. “Please,” I sighed. “Sit. And tell me why you’re here.”
She sat tentatively, reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope.
“I’m told this will explain things.”
I opened the envelope and saw Vince’s card clipped to two sheets of paper, the top one in his jagged handwriting.
Hey Buddy – Meet H. Belafonte, your official departmental liaison on the Sandoval case. She’s all I could scratch up on short notice and I picked her because she knew the vic personally. I cleared this with the Chief – at least I shoved it under his nose while he was screaming at everyone. The head of Investigative signed off as well, so you’re clear to proceed and I’ll lend a hand whenever possible. This place has gone nuts.
The second sheet of paper was typed:
This document authorizes Of. H. Belafonte to serve as official contact between the Miami-Dade Police Department and the Florida Center of Law Enforcement in duties relative to Case 2015/6 –HD 1297-B.
Below that was a hastily scribbled signature, the line tailing off the paper, like the signer was running while signing. Even the top brass at MDPD were in sprint mode due to Menendez.
“You know what this stuff says?” I asked Belafonte. “The notes?”
A prim nod. “We’re to work together on the Kylie Sandoval murder.”
I stared at the face; handsome but expressionless. “How long have you been with the force, Officer Belafonte?”
A frown. “Long enough.”
“I’m talking about measured quantity, as in time.”
She stared evenly without speaking.
“Well?”
“You asked, so I’m thinking.” Five more mute seconds passed. “One hundred and sixty-seven days. I’m counting days on duty but not counting today yet. Tomorrow will of course make one hundred and—”
I held up a hand to cut her off, barely resisting banging my head on my desk. Instead of working with the typical seasoned investigator, I’d be dragging around a uniformed newbie a half-step above writing traffic citations.
“We’re done here,” I said, standing.
That put expression on the stone face. “You’re bloody dismissing me?” she said, eyes wide. “Just like that?”
“I’m dismissing nothing,” I said, giving her a come-hither jerk of my head. “We’re adjourning to the coffee shop in the atrium. I need a triple espresso. Or maybe a shot of whiskey.”
We reconvened below, where I ordered my coffee, Belafonte a tea, declining to allow me to pay for her tinted water.
“That’s not a typical Miami accent,” I noted. “At least not in MDPD.”
“My childhood was in Bermuda. It’s a British territory.”
“Oddly enough, I knew that.”
“I’ve met people who think it’s one of the fifty states, along with Puerto Rico and Nova Scotia.”
I started to laugh, then realized she wasn’t making a joke, just transferring data. “I lived in Hamilton,” she continued, “the capital, until I was twenty-one, when my father and I moved to Miami.”
“Why here?” I said. “Both to the US and Miami?”
“Shouldn’t we be discussing the Sandoval case?” she said.
So much for get-acquainted talk. “You knew her, I take it?”
“I work out of South Division and arrested Kylie twice for prostitution. And nearly a third time but, but …”
She paused with tea in mid-air and set it back on the table, her eyes serious, as if looking inside her head and not liking the pictures there. Belafonte swallowed hard and turned away. I realized I’d seen a glisten of tear in the expressionless eyes.
“Take your time,” I said.
“The third time I arrived as a john propositioned her, an obese businessman who stank of gin and sweat and had greasy hair and vomit on his lapels. When I told the arsehole to bugger off he gave me a big smirk like Big deal, copper, I’ll go find another one. I cuffed Kylie to a pipe, followed Mr Businesspuke around the corner. I let him get in his car and turn the key and busted him for drunken driving.”
“And then took Kylie to the lockup.”
“Actually, I took Kylie to an all-night diner and bought her a meal.” She paused. “My shift was over, of course.”
“I don’t care about your timecard, Belafonte. But why the kindness, may I ask?”
She looked out the window a long moment. “The john was a disgusting lump of ugliness, like some hideous disease taken human form. I then realized how these girls … don’t simply sell their bodies. They have to pretend to like these scumbags. I was new to that world and wanted to understand how they did it time and again, night after night.”
“Drugs,” I said. “It shows their power.”
Belafonte nodded. “At first Kylie played the hardcore working girl, every third word a curse. But subsequently, as I was driving her back to her cheap flat, I saw tears rolling down her cheeks. Kylie broke down like a, like a … little girl dressed in hooker clothes. I realized many of them are little girls in hooker clothes. Childhood doesn’t end when they go on the street, it gets packed away under layers of numbness. But sometimes it breaks out. And there’s nothing before you but a terrified little girl.”
It was beginning to seem Belafonte wasn’t quite the robot she’d initially appeared. “You befriended her, right?”
A sigh. “I tried to get her into therapy, but the free clinics are booked for months. I brought her home with me, told her to stay until she got herself together.”
“How long did it last?”
“Three days. Kylie had had something broken inside her, Detective. I don’t know what happened, but someone or something had torn everything from her, every bit of self-worth. Kylie lived with a horrific hurt buried inside her and I pray she didn’t die in pain.”
I fished the investigative reports from my briefcase and reluctantly handed them over. My day was about to reach its low point.
7
Teresa Mailey opened her eyes. Or had she? The dark with her eyes open was darker than the dark behind her eyelids. Her head ached and she felt her stomach tumble and pushed herself up from what felt like a hard dirt floor, a wave of dizziness too much for her stomach to handle and she vomited between her hands.
What happened?
Pictures began to return to her head: Working until four and walking out to her car. As she departed the lot she noticed the road seemed darker on the right. She stopped and discovered a shattered headla
mp, a thoughtless shopper had backed into her car. She’d headed to her mother’s trailer court to pick up Bobby, winding down the road from the main highway, darker than usual, like the streetlights had all burned out at once. She’d reached the final turn to find a tree branch in the center of the road and crept to the ragged limb, sighing. Teresa had gotten out, road dust blowing into the beams of her headlamps and dragged it to the side of the road. Until … until …
Footsteps somewhere in the dark.
“Hello?” she had called in the enveloping darkness. “Is someone there?”
Until hands like steel covered her mouth and tape covered her screams and a cloth bag fell over her head.
And now she was here, wherever here was, stinking with a smell of burned meat and motor oil, lightless, as black as death. She could feel flies lighting on her bare arms.
“Please … who’s there?” Teresa called out, her mouth so dry the words came out as a rasp. “What do you want?”
“Sinner …” The words a hiss. “Jezebel …”
The sound of footsteps again. Her head jerked to the sound, but all Teresa saw was black. “I have a baby,” she pleaded. “He needs me to take care of him.”
The footsteps again. Hands held before her, Teresa walked until stopped by a wall, rough and wooden and she felt her way along its surface, trying to hold her breath and keep her feet from making sounds. Get out! her mind screamed. Find a way out.
The footsteps again.
“HELP!” Teresa shrieked into the darkness. “SOMEONE HELP ME!”
The whispering voice moved closer, the words becoming a growled sentence. “For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer …”
Heart pounding, like a hammer, sweat pouring down her covered face, Teresa retreated down the wall until her flailing hands found the shape of a window, but wood where glass should be. A shuttered window? Her fists pounded the wood like a drum.
‘’SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!”
Bam. The wood answered back with a single staccato sound. Had someone heard her?
“I’M IN HERE,” Teresa yelled. “HELP ME!”
