Terminal Justice: Mystery and Suspense Crime Thriller

by Lyle Howard

  “Wahoo! What a ride!” Washington howled as he wiped the water from his face.

  Shayla wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic. “Stop this boat right now!”

  Washington throttled back and the cigarette fell still in the water, its twin engines smoking from the burden. “Oh my God! Did you see that? Did you see the way this baby hooked around that turn?”

  As the raging wave roared on past the mouth of the canal, Shayla bent over the side of the boat and proceeded to retch up her dinner of poached salmon and wild rice. After a full five minutes of repeating this ordeal and green to the gills, she wiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “Are we still alive?” she asked between throaty coughs.

  Washington was hopping around with frenetic energy. “Yeah, mama. We’re still here. Alive and kickin’. I ain’t seen nothing like that shit before! Whoo-hoo!”

  Shayla sat herself down and leaned forward, letting her head hang down between her legs. “That was very quick thinking on your part, Damon,” she groaned. “I owe you one.”

  Washington set the throttles onto idle speed and turned the bow back toward the Intracoastal. “It’ll be okay now. I think we can head back.”

  Shayla put her hand on his arm. “I don’t think we should go back. They’ll be too many reporters asking questions of anyone who was on the water tonight. Let’s just find somewhere to torch the boat, and we’ll hoof it to the nearest road.”

  Washington grinned. “I guess you’re pretty tired of being on the water anyway.”

  “Are you kidding?” she said, rising shakily to her feet. “It may be months before I even step into a bath.”

  Washington snickered as he pointed to a decrepit pier coming along the port side. “That looks like good a place as any to tie up.”

  Shayla felt the bandage on her face. It was moist from sweat and smelled of bile. She tore off the soiled gauze and tape, wadded it up, and threw it into the water. She watched it float away on the current, and, like the bastard who had given it to her, it sank to a watery grave.

  Washington drew in a deep breath. “Now what’s bothering you? You should be dancing on cloud nine now that this one is over.”

  Shayla pulled off her baseball cap and shook her head, letting the cool breeze dry her hair. “The son-of-a bitch took the easy way out.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly say getting blown to smithereens is taking the easy way out, Shayla,” Washington said with a grimace. “The important thing is: everything was a success, and now we can move on.”

  As the cigarette boat bumped into the rickety wooden dock, she ran her finger along the stitches on her face. The jagged scar was still tender to her touch. “I would have given my eye teeth for the chance…”

  Washington shut off the engines and moved toward the stern storage compartment where he pulled out the spare five-gallon container of fuel and began pouring it over the deck. When he was through, he hoisted himself up onto the pier and held out a hand for Shayla. “Forget about him, Shayla. It’s all over. He’s nothing but fish food.”

  Shayla took a step back as Washington lit a match and tossed it into the boat. “Yeah,” she repeated with a dissatisfied scowl, “nothing but fish food.”

  33

  Fifteenth Floor

  Tower of the Americas

  The office was oppressively dark, illuminated only by the flickering glow from the wall of television monitors. “I’m watching it as we speak,” August Bock said into the speaker phone, as news reports of the same evening’s volatile events filled the 15 screens in front of him. He was dressed in casual attire—a bright crimson blazer accompanied by an open collared black silk shirt. At the far end of his desk, a silver serving tray waited with the leftovers of a steak dinner that had been delivered as a special favor by the owner of one of the finest restaurants in the city.

  “You should have seen it, August. I can’t begin to describe it,” Washington’s amplified voice said, excitedly.

  Almost every local and national news channel had helicopters circling over the devastated section of waterway, pointing their floodlights and cameras down on the oily patch of water where Mystique had simply vaporized. Police boats and Coast Guard cruisers glided back and forth between the spots of light that illuminated the river. Marine officers skimmed the water with handheld nets, trying to sift for any evidence of debris that might lead them to a reason for this cataclysmic tragedy.

  “It looks like there’s nothing left of her,” Bock said as he lifted a glass of cognac to his lips. “Very clean. Very well done.”

  “Did they say anything about that damned wave?” Washington asked. “It nearly killed us both.”

  Bock swiveled in his wheelchair so he could see out into Biscayne Bay. The body of water that separated Miami from Miami Beach was also the southernmost outlet for the Intracoastal Waterway. The water looked perfectly peaceful. The red and green lights from the channel markers sparkled off the water like strings of Christmas lights, and, in the distance, the colorful pastel lights of South Beach cast the foundation of the night sky in a soft rosy glow. It was hard for Bock to imagine from Damon’s incredible description that one of those harmlessly rolling waves might have been such a savage marauder not so long ago. “They never caught anything on tape,” Bock said as he took a long puff from his Cohiba cigar, self-satisfied at another completed mission of his righteous campaign, “but it looks like it did quite a number out there.”

  “It was crazy!”

  “Collateral damage. It happens all the time when you’re fighting a war.”

  “I’ve never been so scared.”

  “Are you trying to hit me up for extra combat pay?” Bock joked.

  “If anyone ever deserved it…”

  Bock rolled his chair closer to the television screens as the cameras panned closer to the water. “How’s Shayla doing?”

  “You know her … she’s a stone-cold bitch, although I don’t think she’ll be going near the water again anytime soon. We decided to catch separate cabs.”

  “Did she behave herself?”

  There was a nervous pause. “Uh … we’ll have to discuss that later on.”

  Bock drummed his fingers intolerantly on his desk. “Tell me now, before I hear about it on the television.”

  Washington’s lowered his voice to a whisper so the cabbie couldn’t hear, even though he doubted that the Pakistani driver understood more than a dozen words of English anyway. “Scratch one Marine Patrol…”

  Bock knew what was coming next. “Why?”

  “It all happened so fast.”

  “Was he trouble?”

  “Hell, August, I don’t know; we barely got past the introductions. It was all a blur. One minute he’s standing there talking to me, the next second not. That was the first time I ever saw someone … up close and personal…”

  Bock gnawed on his lower lip. “Well, that’s what we pay her for. Kill first and ask questions later.”

  “I’m telling you, he just looked at her the wrong way, and bang, the dude never knew what hit him.”

  “If she didn’t think he was a threat, he’d still be ticketing boating violations.”

  “Anyway, I think we lucked out this time.”

  Bock took another swig from his drink. “How so?”

  “I can’t be certain, but I’d be willing to bet that wave took care of any incriminating evidence there might have been. It was flinging boats left and right like they were kids’ toys. It destroyed anything that got in its way. Nothing to worry about.”

  Bock watched the smoke curl away from the end of his cigar. “I’ll keep an ear to the media just in case. As long as The Department of Homeland Security continues playing the blame game with international terror cells, they’ll be chasing their tails for years. God bless America.”

  “Just wanted to give you a heads up. I’m sure you’ll eventually hear something when all the bodies start floating to the surface. Meanwhile, I’m going home and taking a nice warm shower. I need to
wash the stench of death and seawater off of me, and then I’ll come in. Shayla’s doing the same. We said we’d meet up around 11 o’clock. Is that okay with you?”

  “That’s fine. I’ll be glad to finally close the file on this one so we can start discussing California.”

  There was another long pause on the line. “Damn, August.”

  “What’s the matter now?”

  “Don’t you ever take a night off? It’s Saturday night, man, and I’ve just been to hell and back. Can’t California wait a few hours?”

  “We’ll see,” Bock said, as he tapped the ashes from his cigar into an ivory ashtray on his desk.

  Bock pressed the lit button on the phone and disconnected the line. Reaching across his desk, he pointed his remote control unit at one of the screens. A familiar female reporter’s skittish face filled the monitor. She had the collar of her tweed coat turned up to battle the cold wind blowing off the water. Unlike any of the rehearsed reports she was accustomed to doing, she looked confused, looking around nervously to make sure she wasn’t in any danger herself. Behind her, fire crews were working feverishly to quench a demonic blaze still burning out of control in the Port.

  “This is Carmen Ochoa, coming to you live from Port Everglades, where less than an hour ago, Ex-Miami Beach Mayor Nathan Waxman’s luxury yacht, the Mystique, inexplicably exploded less than half a mile from where I’m now standing. There is no doubt that Mayor Waxman was killed in the blast.” She was holding her earpiece firmly against her ear. Through it, Bock imagined her producer was filling her in on the latest developments. “It has been speculated that there might have been a fuel leak in the engine compartment, but none of that can be confirmed until divers are able to salvage what remains of the boat from the bottom of the Intracoastal.”

  Bock pressed a button on the remote control and the audio portion of the broadcast went silent. He took another swig of his drink, and maneuvered his wheelchair to face the sparkling lights of the city. Staring out into the void, his mind couldn’t shake loose a single line of haunting prose—a powerful string of words that had been the driving force in his life for the past six years. Repeating it to himself always seemed to relieve any pangs of guilt or remorse he might have been feeling at a time like this. It was a quote he had memorized from Edmund Burke, an Irish-born writer from the eighteenth century.

  It went simply like this:

  “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing.”

  34

  The sky was an ethereal blue—so pure in its splendor, that it would make one gasp just to gaze upon it. Birds, too far away to distinguish their species, flecked the sky like a shake of pepper. There was a wooden fence in the distance that stretched in both directions to the limits of the horizon. It was clearly not a fence to keep people out, but perhaps the boundary of a country road or two lane highway.

  The field in which the antique quilt had been placed was filled with wild flowers, yellow, blue, white, green and purple—all swaying to the gentle harmony of the breeze. There was giggling and happy noises rising from the colorful meadow. Casey and Kimmie Mitchell were in hot pursuit of a butterfly that seemed to be toying with them, flitting just beyond their outstretched hands. They were romping joyously together, not a care in the world, their entire lives a mystery yet to be unraveled in their own time.

  “What a glorious day,” Renee announced as she sat up on the blanket. “Not too warm, nor too windy.”

  Gabe was lying prone on one elbow, unable to take his eyes off his wife. Her dress was as white as daisy petals, and her soft blond hair glistened like spun gold under the bright afternoon sun. “It’s absolutely perfect. This is what life is all about, isn’t it?”

  Renee didn’t answer him, as she began to pull food out of a straw picnic basket by her feet. “All of your favorites,” she said. “You name it, we’ve got it.”

  Gabe knew his wife better than she knew herself. He could tell when something was troubling her. She had this way of keeping it to herself that was more revealing than if she had told him outright. “What is it?” he asked, sitting up and putting his hand softly on her back. “You can talk to me. Didn’t I always say that I’d be here for you?”

  A plastic plate clattered back into the wicker basket as she hung her head and began to sob. “You always promised me you would be, but you weren’t.”

  Gabe put his hand on her shoulder and turned her towards him. “When? When wasn’t I ever there for you?” He took his fingers and blotted the tears from her face. When he pulled them away, the clear, salty fluid had somehow changed its consistency. It was thick and sticky … and red. The more he tried to wipe his hands, the more saturated they became. It was blood, and it was on his hands, and he couldn’t get rid of it. He tried wiping his hands clean on the leg of his pants, but it did little to absolve the stain. “What is this?” he screamed, holding up his opened palms for her to see.

  His wife once again turned her back to face the wooden fence on the horizon. “You promised me, but you lied.”

  His head was thumping … thumping…

  Thump … Thump … Thump … Thump…

  Gabe’s eyes fluttered open. The deafening sound echoed inside the decrepit framework of the old school bus like thunder in a tin can. Light poured in through the buses’ shattered windows, illuminating the tattered benches that had long since torn free of their rusted bolts. Gabe was lying on the cold metal floor, his back propped up against the rear door and soaked to the skin. He tried to move, but his legs were paralyzed. An anemic-looking gray rat, who scampered out of a hole in the floor, stared curiously at the intruder, his beady red eyes glowing like dying embers in the meager light.

  Thump … Thump … Thump … Thump … Thump…

  The rat stood up on his hind legs, gazing up at the roof of the bus, his nose and whiskers twitching nervously. Frightened by the noise, it took one last look at Gabe and darted back into his hole in the floor.

  Outside, a police helicopter hovered over the junkyard, shining its floodlight over the jumble of old clunkers and disassembled engine parts strewn all over the two-acre junk lot. Damage here was impossible to assess since the place always seemed to look like it had been hit by a tidal wave. The two Doberman guard dogs were reported missing by the proprietor, but there was a good chance they had been swept out into the river by the receding water. Only a makeshift wooden fence protected the junkyard from the river, and an entire section of it had been washed away. Quite a few homeowners’ family pets left to roam in their backyards had drowned the same way that night.

  The light crossed over Gabe’s face again and he had to protect his eyes from the glare. Slowly, the noise faded out, replaced by the echoes of his own heavy breathing. He tried to shift his position, but his legs wouldn’t answer the call. He pressed his hands against the corrugated metal flooring for support, but his lower body still wouldn’t budge. With no strength left for a second attempt, he leaned back and let his body rest. His memory was an impenetrable maze, filled with winding passageways and congested intersections. No two thoughts could be linked together to make a single cohesive image. What couldn’t he remember? How did he come to be in this place?

  Behind closed eyes, the recollections rushed by like an out of focus movie. He watched them whiz by, unable to differentiate between reality and those impressions concocted by his energy starved brain. Yachts and fences. Handguns and picnic baskets. Belts and flowers. Truth and fiction.

  The air inside the decaying bus smelled of grease and mildew, but there was another scent stinging Gabe’s nostrils. He tilted his head back and drew in a deep breath … salt air. The bus creaked beneath him, settling into the well-saturated earth.

  Salt air … just concentrate on that.

  He let his mind lock onto that aroma and it homed in on it like a trained pigeon. Think…

  Okay, there were lights, lots of colored lights, looming in the distance. His eyes narrowed, as his face showed th
e strain of his focus. You were on the water. Your footing was unsteady, as it swayed beneath your feet. As what swayed? A boat? No, bigger … there was a lot of deck space. Gabe closed his fist and rapped it against his forehead in frustration. His hand came away drenched in red; he was bleeding from a large gash above his right eye. He wiped his hand on the leg of his pants, but the stain was persistent. Don’t worry about that now, the thoughts are starting to clear…

  There was a figure standing there … no, well yes, standing, but talking on the phone. Sirens pierced the stagnant air inside the bus. Gabe put his fingers up against the side of his head to block out the distraction.

  You’re talking to him, and then you reach for your … belt!

  Gabe reached down to his waist. His belt was gone.

  Okay, it’s all coming back to me now…

  He was detached, watching it all happen in the third person as though he were omnipotent, floating above it all. He saw himself removing his belt and scampering up the ladder to the yacht’s flying bridge. Once up there, he watched as he took the belt and wrapped it around one of the flexible radio antennas. Carefully, he had let go of the antenna, letting it spring back to its original 20-foot height.

  Innocence. I remember thinking he didn’t do it…

  The yacht was on automatic control and approaching the entrance to Port Everglades. It was plain to see from all the activity on the docks that the port was in the midst of another bustling Saturday night. To the east, a few small cruise ships were docked at one of the terminals preparing to set sail. He had no time for a second opinion.

  This was insane; what was I thinking?

  Nathan Waxman remained cornered in the bow, afraid to go anywhere near the lunatic on the bridge.

  Nathan Waxman? Yes, of course … I remember him now.