When Darkness Falls

by James Grippando

  When Darkness Falls

  James Grippando

  Miami attorney Jack Swyteck is back in the lightning-paced thriller When Darkness Falls. This time Jack gets more than he bargained for when he defends a homeless man who calls himself Falcon.

  Falcon is full of contradictions. He lives in a car but he has access to a lot of cash. And he has an obsession with the Miami mayor’s daughter. First, Falcon threatens to jump from the top of the Bay of Biscayne bridge unless he can talk to Alina Mendoza. He ends up in jail, but surprisingly has the bail money and is on the street again in a few hours, earning Jack the enmity of the powerful and vindictive mayor.

  Then Falcon strikes again. Hours after his release, the body of a brutally murdered woman is found in the trunk of Falcon’s car. Then Falcon crashes Jack’s car into a motel and takes hostage the woman inside, plus Theo, in the process killing one policeman and injuring another. Now Jack’s in a pulse-pounding race to save Theo and the woman but what Jack doesn’t know is that the deadly scenario that’s unfolding is much bigger than Falcon, much bigger than he could possibly imagine.

  James Grippando

  When Darkness Falls

  The sixth book in the Jack Swyteck series

  For my father,

  James Vincent Grippando.

  Seeing is not believing. Believing is believing.

  chapter 1

  Sergeant Vincent Paulo couldn’t see the man who had climbed to the very top of the William Powell Bridge. Paulo couldn’t even see the damn bridge. He heard the desperation in the man’s voice, however, and he knew this one was a jumper. After seven years as a crisis negotiator with the City of Miami Police Department, there were some things you just knew, even if you were blind.

  Especially if you were blind.

  “Falcon,” he called out for the umpteenth time, his voice amplified by a police megaphone. “This is Vincent Paulo you’re talking to. We can work this out, all right?”

  The man was atop a lamppost-as high in the sky as he could possibly get-looking down from his roost. The views of Miami had to be spectacular from up there. Paulo, however, could only imagine the blue-green waters of the bay, the high-rise condominiums along the waterfront like so many dominoes ready to topple in a colossal chain reaction. Cruise ships, perhaps, were headed slowly out to sea, trails of white smoke puffing against a sky so blue that no cloud dared to disturb it. Traffic, they told him, was backed up for miles in each direction, west toward the mainland and east toward the island of Key Biscayne. There were squad cars, a SWAT van, teams of police officers, police boats in the bay, and a legion of media vans and reporters swarming the bridge. Paulo could hear the helicopters whirring all around, as local news broadcasted the entire episode live into South Florida living rooms.

  All this, for one of Miami’s homeless. He called himself Falcon, and the name was a perfect fit. He was straddling the lamppost, his legs intertwined with the metalwork so that he could stand erect without holding on to anything. He was a life-size imitation of an old-fashioned hood ornament, without the chrome finish-chin up, chest out, his body extended out over the water, arms outstretched like the wings of a bird. Like a falcon. Paulo had a uniformed officer at his side to describe the situation to him, but she was hardly needed. It wasn’t the first time Paulo had been called upon to stop one of Miami’s homeless from hurting himself. It wasn’t even his first encounter with Falcon. Twice in the past eighteen months, Falcon had climbed atop a bridge and assumed the same falcon-like pose. Each time, Paulo had talked him down. But this time was different.

  It was Vince’s first assignment since losing his eyesight.

  And for the first time, he was absolutely convinced that this one was going to jump.

  “Falcon, just come down and talk. It’s the best way for everyone.”

  “No more bullshit!” he shouted. “I want to talk to the mayor’s daughter. Get her here in fifteen minutes, or I’m doing a face plant onto the old bridge.”

  The Powell Bridge is like a big arc over Biscayne Bay. Cyclists call it “Miami Mountain,” though as suicides go, it is no match for the Golden Gate in San Francisco or the George Washington in New York. The crest is only seventy-eight feet above mean tide. Even with the added thirty vertical feet of the lamppost, it was debatable whether Falcon’s plunge into the bay would be fatal. The old causeway runs parallel to the new bridge, however, and it is still used as a fishing pier. A hundred-foot swan dive onto solid concrete wouldn’t be pretty-especially on live television.

  “You ready to punt yet, Paulo?” The voice came from over Vince’s left shoulder, and he recognized the speaker as Juan Chavez, SWAT team coordinator.

  Vince cut off his megaphone. “Let’s talk to the chief.”

  The walk back to the police van was clear of obstacles, and Vince had memorized the way. His long white walking stick was almost unnecessary. He and Chavez entered the van through the side door and sat across from one another in the rear captains’ chairs. An officer outside the van slid the door closed as Chavez dialed headquarters on an encrypted telephone. The call went directly to Miami’s chief of police, who was watching the standoff on television. Her first words weren’t exactly the vote of confidence Vince needed.

  “It’s been over two hours now, Paulo. I’m not seeing much progress.”

  “It took me almost twice that long to talk him down from the Golden Glades flyover last winter.”

  “I understand that,” said the chief. “I guess what I’m asking is, are you comfortable doing this?”

  “Now that I’m blind, you mean?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you decided to stay with the force and teach at the academy. I called you back into the field because you have a history with this guy, but the last thing I want to do is to put you in a situation that you don’t think you can handle.”

  “I can handle it fine, Chief.”

  “Great, but time is a factor. I shouldn’t have to remind you that no one in Miami keeps gloves in the glove compartment. If this sucker doesn’t climb down soon, one of those stranded motorists is going to reach for his revolver and take him out for us.”

  “I say we move in now,” said Chavez.

  Vince said, “Don’t you think a three-oh-eight-caliber, custom-built thunderstick is a bit of overkill against a homeless guy perched on a lamppost?”

  “No one’s talking about a sniper shot. I just want to move our team closer into position, make them more visible. We need to send a message that our patience is wearing thin.”

  “If he thinks SWAT is coming up there after him, he’ll jump.”

  “The same tactic worked just fine the last time.”

  “This time is different.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I can tell.”

  “What, going blind made you psychic?”

  That made Vince blink, but dark sunglasses hid plenty of pain. “Shove it, Chavez.”

  “All right, fellas, knock it off,” said the chief.

  “I’m serious,” said Chavez. “This isn’t the first time we’ve had to deal with a homeless guy threatening to hurt himself. Nine times out of ten, they just want a little attention. I’d like to know what makes Paulo think this is the real deal.”

  “That seems like a fair question,” said the chief.

  “All right,” said Vince. “For one, it may be his third time up on a bridge, but it’s the first time that Falcon has made a specific demand. And it’s a fairly rational one at that. It’s not as if he wants us to make the bubble people stop stealing his thoughts. Just as important, he’s set a time limit. A short one-fifteen minutes. You factor in the stress in his voice, and you’ve got a man on the edge.”

  “Wait a minu
te,” said Chavez. “Because he shows some signs of clear-headed thinking, that makes him more of a danger to himself?”

  “In some ways, yes. The only way Falcon climbs down from that lamppost is if he gives up on his demand to talk to the mayor’s daughter. Because he still shows some signs of rational thought, he will very likely feel overwhelming humiliation when the television world sees him fail. If we send the SWAT team up that pole before he’s ready to accept his public failure, you might as well push him off the bridge yourself.”

  “How about soaking him with a fire hose?” said the chief. “Or maybe a stun gun.”

  “There again, we’re on live television,” said Vince. “You knock him off that lamppost and we’ll have two dozen personal-injury lawyers handing him business cards before he hits the ground.”

  There was silence, each officer thinking it through. Finally, the chief said, “I suppose we could promise to give him what he wants.”

  “You mean let him talk to the mayor’s daughter?” said Vince.

  “No, I said promise it. That’s his only demand, right?”

  “Bad move,” said Vince. “A negotiator never promises anything he can’t deliver. Or that he has no intention of delivering.”

  “For once I agree with Paulo,” said Chavez. “But I think-”

  Vince waited for him to finish, but Chavez seemed to have lost his train of thought. “You think what?” said Vince.

  “I think it doesn’t matter what we think. The mayor’s daughter is here.”

  “What?”

  “I can see her through the windshield right now.”

  Vince picked up the sound of approaching footsteps outside the van. The side door slid open, and he could feel her presence. “Hello, Vince,” she said.

  Alicia Mendoza was not merely the mayor’s beautiful twenty-seven-year-old daughter. She was a cop, too, so it was no surprise that she had gotten through the police barricade. Still, the sound of her voice hit Vince like a five iron. Instinctively, he began searching for the memory of her visage-the dark, almond-shaped eyes, the full lips, the flawless olive skin-but he didn’t want to go there. “What are you doing here, Alicia?”

  “I hear Falcon wants to talk to me,” she said. “So I came.”

  Vince’s sense of hearing was just fine, but his brain was suddenly incapable of decoding her words. That familiar, soft voice triggered only raw emotion. Many months had passed since he’d last heard her speak. It was sometime after he became a hero, after the doctors removed the bandages-following the horrific realization that he would never again see her smile, never look into those eyes as her heart pounded against his chest, never see the expression on her face when she was happy or sad or just plain bored. The last thing he’d heard her say was, “You’re wrong, Vince, you’re so wrong.” That was the same day he’d told her it would be best to stop seeing each other, and the unintended pun had made them both cry.

  “I want to help,” she said as she gently touched Vince on the wrist.

  Then go away, he thought. I’m so much better now. If you really want to help, Alicia, then please-just go away.

  chapter 2

  M iami criminal defense lawyer Jack Swyteck wasn’t looking for a new client, at least not one who was homeless. Granted, many of his past clients hailed from an address that even the pushiest real estate agent would have to admit was undesirable-death row, to be specific. Jack’s first job out of law school was with the Freedom Institute, a ragtag group of idealists who defended “the worst of the worst,” which was a nice euphemism for some very scary and guilty-as-hell sons of bitches. Only one had actually been innocent, but one was enough to keep Jack going. He spent four years at the institute. Nearly a decade had passed since his last capital case, however, and it had been just as long since he’d defended the likes of a Falcon.

  “So, your real name is what?” said Jack. His client was seated on the opposite side of the table, dressed in the familiar orange prison garb. The fluorescent light overhead cast a sickly yellow pall over his weathered skin. His hair was a thinning, tangled mess of salt and pepper, and his scraggly beard was mostly gray. An open sore festered on the back of his left hand, and two larger ones were on his forehead, just above the bushy right eyebrow. His eyes were black, hollow pools. Jack was reminded of those photographs of Saddam Hussein after he crawled out of his hole in the ground.

  “My name’s Falcon,” he said, mumbling.

  “Falcon what?”

  The man rubbed his nose with the palm of his hand. It was a big, fleshy nose. “Just Falcon.”

  “What, like Cher or Madonna?”

  “No. Like Falcon, fuckhead.”

  Jack wrote “Falcon Fuckhead” in his notes. He knew the man’s real name, of course. It was in the case file: Pablo Garcia. He was just trying to start a dialogue with his new client.

  Jack was a trial lawyer who specialized in criminal defense work, though he was open to just about anything if it interested him. By the same token, he turned away cases that he didn’t find interesting, the upshot being that he liked what he did but didn’t make a ton of money doing it. Profit had never been his goal, which was precisely the reason that Neil Goderich, his old boss at the Freedom Institute, referred Falcon’s case to him. Neil was now the Miami-Dade public defender. Falcon flatly refused to be represented by a PD-anyone on the government’s payroll was part of “the conspiracy”-but he desperately needed a lawyer. The dramatic live news coverage on the bridge, coupled with Falcon’s apparent fascination with the mayor’s daughter, gave the case a high profile. Falcon took a swing at the first PD assigned to the case, so Neil pitched it to Jack. Falcon was happy, if only because it could be fun to mess with the son of Florida’s former governor. Jack had been happy, too. He made it a practice to do two or three freebies a year for people who couldn’t pay, and he was reasonably confident that his old buddy Neil wouldn’t toss him a lemon.

  Jack, however, was beginning to have second thoughts.

  “How old are you, Falcon?”

  “It’s in the file.”

  “I’m sure it is. But talk to me, okay?”

  “How old do I look?”

  Jack studied his face. “A hundred and fifty-seven. Give or take a decade.”

  “I’m fifty-two.”

  “That makes you a little old for the mayor’s daughter, don’t you think?”

  “I need a lawyer, not a smartass.”

  “You get what you pay for.” Sometimes a little wisecracking loosened these guys up, or at least allowed you to keep your own sanity. Falcon was stone-faced. It must be decades since this one cracked a smile. “You’re Latin, right?”

  “What of it?”

  “Where you from originally?”

  “None of your damn business.”

  Jack checked the file. “Says here you became a U.S. citizen in nineteen eighty-two. Born in Cuba. My mother was from Cuba.”

  “Yeah. She was great, but I ain’t your daddy.”

  Jack let it go. “How did you get here?”

  “A leaky raft and a boatload of luck. How’d you get here?”

  “Just luck, I was born here. Where do you live now?”

  “Miami.”

  “Where in Miami?”

  “It’s a little place along the Miami River. Right before the Twelfth Avenue Bridge.”

  “Is it a house or an apartment?”

  “It’s actually a car.”

  “You live in a car?”

  “Yeah. I mean, it used to be a car. It’s been stripped a hundred times over. Doesn’t run or anything. No tires, no engine. But it’s a roof over my head.”

  “Who owns the property?”

  “Hell if I know. There’s this old Puerto Rican guy named Manny who comes around every so often. I guess he owns the place. I don’t bother him, he don’t bother me. Know what I mean?”

  “Sure. My dad and I had the same arrangement when I was in high school. So, let me ask you this: How long have you been homeless?�
�

  “I ain’t homeless. I told you, I live in the car.”

  “Okay. How long have you lived in this car?”

  “Few years, I guess. I moved in sometime while Clinton was still president.”

  “What did you do before then?”

  “I was the ambassador to France. What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  Jack laid his notepad on the table. “Tell me something, Falcon. How is it that you’ve lived on the street all these years, and the only time you seem to get into trouble is when you climb up on a bridge and threaten to kill yourself?”

  “I’m a smart guy. Keep my nose clean.”

  “You ever had any contact with the outreach people from Citrus Health Network, or any of the folks over at the mental health clinic at Jackson?”

  “There’s this woman named Shirley who used to come visit me. Kept trying to get me to come with her back to the hospital and get some meds.”

  “Did you go?”

  “No.”

  “Did Shirley ever tell you what kind of a condition you might have?”

  “In her opinion I showed signs of paranoia, but she thought I was well compensated.”

  “What did you say to that?”

  “I said thank you very much, it sure sucks to be crazy, but it’s nice to have a big dick.”

  Jack ignored it. “Have the police ever come to take you by force to a crisis center for a few hours, or maybe even a day or two? Has anything like that ever happened to you?”

  “You mean have I ever been Baker-Acted?”

  It didn’t surprise Jack that he knew the terminology. He was definitely well compensated, psychologically speaking. “Yeah, that’s what I’m asking.”

  “If I was crazy, they’d have me over in the A Wing.”

  The A Wing at Miami-Dade county jail was for psychiatric patients. “No one’s saying you’re crazy,” said Jack.

  “You people are the crazies. You’re the ones who walk around pretending that guys like me are invisible.”