Deep Blue Trouble

by Steph Broadribb

  Red nodded, then rubbed his chin, thinking. The frown lines between his eyes deepened. ‘Why’d they want you on this? No disrespect, you’re damn good at what you do, but the man’s a fugitive from the law, a cop killer not a bail skipper.’

  ‘It’s a little complicated.’

  ‘Always is.’ Red gestured for me to sit. He opened the cooler beside one of the deck seats and handed me a soda. As he opened his, he said, ‘Why don’t you enlighten me?’

  So I told him the bones of the thing – that things went bad on my last job and some folks ended up dead. That JT was taking the rap for it, but it wasn’t his mess, so I’d taken a deal with the FBI to bring Gibson Fletcher back on the promise they’d make sure JT never got put on death row. I didn’t mention JT was Dakota’s father. Red was a smart guy, I knew he’d figure out what the spaces between my words meant.

  He looked real thoughtful. Drained the last of his soda before speaking. ‘I get your motivation, but I’m still wondering on theirs. Why bring you into it? Why not fetch him themselves?’

  ‘There’s the rub. The agent in charge, he’s got something else going on with Fletcher. Need-to-know, he says. Means he wants a gap between Fletcher getting caught and arriving back at supermax.’

  ‘You don’t want to be involved in some dick-waving federal bullshit, Miss Lori. No good can come of that.’

  ‘Yep, for sure, but if I don’t, I’m leaving JT to rot … or worse.’

  ‘You say JT told you not to take the deal.’ Red held my gaze. ‘You ever think it was good advice?’

  I looked away.

  ‘It’s not what you wanted to hear, I get that, but it seems the man was trying to look out for you is all.’

  I didn’t want to talk about JT. I stared out across the water, to the far horizon, where the ocean met the sky. I tried to keep my tone even as I said, ‘I came to ask you about Fletcher. We going to talk about him, or should I be leaving?’

  Red let out a long whistle. ‘Well, damn, if you aren’t still quite the firecracker.’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that a yes?’

  He laughed. ‘Sure, why not, but when this whole FBI thing comes back and bites you on your ass, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  ‘Duly noted.’ I smiled. ‘So, what I need to figure out is, what’s in San Diego that made Fletcher go there rather than straight to Mexico?’

  ‘Good question.’ Red thought for a moment. Took a fresh soda from the cooler and took a swig. ‘As far as I remember, his folks are from around here, his brother, too. No cause to trek out to California for them.’

  I remembered Fletcher’s parents from when I was hunting him before. They were cold people – hard faces, unkind eyes; and not just towards me because I was looking for their son. Their dog, some kind of terrier, had cowered every time Fletcher senior had moved his right hand.

  ‘His brother Donald’s close by, isn’t he?’ I said.

  ‘Yup. He’s still in that place just out of town.’

  The brother had been more helpful. Not friendly as such, but less openly hostile. ‘I’ll pay him a visit on my way out to the airport.’

  ‘Good thinking.’

  ‘Fletcher has a wife, doesn’t he? Where’s she at these days?’

  Red shook his head. ‘Don’t know, although from the way that marriage was heading I’d put money on her filing for divorce as soon as he was put away. It’s an angle needs looking at for sure. You want me to help on that?’

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘Wouldn’t offer if I couldn’t.’

  ‘Then yes, look into the wife, and also any link you can find to San Diego, I appreciate it.’ I glanced at the other boats moored up along the jetty. ‘Do you know if Fletcher still owns that boat?’

  ‘I saw it listed for sale after he was convicted. Sold pretty damn fast. It was a nice little vessel too.’

  I nodded. ‘Look, if you’re going to help me on this you should know I’m being followed. Don’t know by who.’

  ‘Given what you’ve told me about what’s been going on, I’d say you’ve pissed off a fair few people recently. You got a dash cam?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I reckon you should. Stick one on the dash, and another out the rear window. Record what they’re up to. Might help you work out who they are.’

  ‘Good thinking.’ I scribbled my cell number – my personal one not the burner from Monroe – onto a scrap of paper and handed it to Red. ‘Look, I’m heading out to California in a couple of hours. Call me if you find anything?’

  He took the paper and tucked it into his shirt pocket. ‘I’ll call you anyways.’

  I smiled. Shook my head. He always was the charmer.

  7

  The mosquitos were out in force. The minute I stepped out of the car I could feel them getting to work on me. Still I dawdled. Even in the blistering heat and bright sunlight there was something about Fletcher’s brother’s house that gave me the chills.

  I glanced around. The neighbourhood seemed quiet. Little traffic noise, the afternoon siesta time punctuated only by a lone dog barking somewhere in the distance. No sign of the black SUV or the silver sedan.

  The houses were older here, their structures less uniform than the new builds springing up in the neighbourhood around them. Two-storeys stood shoulder to shoulder with one-storeys, stucco beside wood, modern beside traditional. The nature of the place seemed more organic, more natural – unfenced yards, a feeling of community. Welcoming. Not Fletcher’s brother’s property, though. That was altogether different.

  It was a square two-storey, stucco finish, painted mid-brown with high, narrow windows and a second-level sundeck. On paper that would sound just fine, but in reality it seemed too tall for the plot it occupied. The shadow it created blocked out the sunlight to the neighbour on its right, and a six-foot-high wire-mesh fence blocked people from entering. As I walked to the front gate I spotted it was secured with an automated lock and monitored via a video intercom. I wondered why Donald Fletcher needed such a high level of security.

  As I pressed the intercom button, I spotted a red light appear underneath the camera; I was being recorded. I stared into the lens and waited for someone to answer. It didn’t take long.

  ‘What do you want?’ The voice was male, hostile.

  ‘Donald Fletcher? I’m Lori Anderson. I’m looking for your brother, Gibson. Can we talk?’

  ‘You got the wrong place. There’s no Gibson here.’

  In my business folks tell you you’ve gotten it wrong eight out of ten times, but that isn’t often the truth. ‘Sure, but you know him. And you know me. Check your camera feed – we met before, remember? When your brother skipped bail? I was the person who picked him up.’ I smiled into the camera, gave a little wave. ‘I won’t take much of your time.’

  I waited a long moment, then I heard a clunk as the automatic bolt on the gate unlocked, and the man said, ‘You’ve got five minutes, that’s all. Make sure you close the gate behind you.’

  I did as he asked and walked up the white concrete path to the front door. It was only as I got closer that I realised the door was made of metal. I wondered again what made Gibson’s brother so security conscious. He lived in a good enough neighbourhood; I doubted the crime rate warranted all this.

  As I stepped up onto the stoop I heard a vehicle out front. I turned and saw the back end of a silver sedan disappear around the corner and out of sight. My heart rate spiked. Were they watching me or had it just been a random drive-by? I clenched my fists. If they’d been tailing me they’d been smarter than before; I’d been careful on my drive over, checked the mirror regularly, looking for a shadow. It worried me I might have missed them this time.

  The scrape of bolts being pulled back pulled my attention back to the reason I was here. The door inched open. A man stood in the doorway. I recognised him, but only just. He was about five feet ten, which I’d expected, but he’d lost a lot of weight since the last time we’d met. I remembered D
onald Fletcher as a larger guy, not especially fat, just untoned – unlike his brother, who carried his extra weight in muscle. The man in front of me now was slim verging on gaunt. His clothes hung off him, emphasising the fact. His cheeks were hollow, his skin pale and waxy. I noticed far more greys in his black hair, and reckoned his hairline had receded at least a couple of inches. It seemed odd; he couldn’t have been more than forty-five years old. I wondered what had aged him so fast. Had he gotten sick?

  He didn’t speak, just opened the door wider and stepped aside so I could enter, his eyes focused behind me, darting back and forth along the street the whole time.

  Inside the house it was cool, the air-conditioning unit cranked up high to combat the afternoon heat. As I followed him through to the living space I was surprised at how stylish the place was: wooden floors, bright couches, large modern-art paintings with splodges and dashes hanging on the white-painted walls.

  He gestured for me to sit. ‘I’m not offering you a drink. You’re not staying long.’

  I figured my five minutes had already started so I got straight to business. ‘Gibson killed three guards and escaped from hospital a few days ago. Have you seen him?’

  ‘Why should I have?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t you?

  Donald sighed. ‘Look, I get that you’re just doing your job, but I don’t talk about Gibson these days. None of us do.’ He grimaced. ‘All he’s brought is shame and embarrassment. I live my life, I pay my bills, and I try not to remember I have a brother.’

  The discomfort on Donald’s face looked genuine. Got me to wondering if all the security was to keep Gibson out.

  ‘Then I’m guessing you want him found quickly, too?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. Before he does another stupid thing.’

  Stupid seemed an odd way to describe multiple homicide. ‘More stupid than murdering two citizens and three prison guards?’

  Donald exhaled hard. ‘Much more stupid than that.’

  Something was going on here. I needed to know more. ‘Like what?’

  Donald looked away, shaking his head. ‘You know my folks were destroyed over this? Friends they’ve had thirty years won’t look them in the eye these days. They got cast out of their community. It’s not right. What did they ever do?’

  I remembered how Fletcher Senior’s terrier had flinched every time he moved his hand, and figured Gibson and Donald’s parents weren’t so innocent. But I needed to get Donald on my side, so I tried real hard to look sympathetic. ‘That’s a tough deal. I get that it’s difficult to talk about him, but to help me find him and get him back to jail, I need to know if you’ve seen him.’

  Donald gave a bitter laugh. ‘I’d be the last person he’d come to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’d rest easy even if he was on fire in front of me and I was using the flames to toast marshmallows.’

  ‘Why?’

  Donald frowned. ‘Long story.’

  I checked my watch – quarter after two. I had another half-hour before I’d need to leave for the airport. ‘I’ve got time.’

  Donald looked like he was weighing things up, although what things I didn’t rightly know. Nodded. ‘Alright. The problem with Gibson is he’s impulsive. He does things without thinking of the consequences. And he’s never been good with money. However much he gets, it’s never enough.’

  ‘Same for most folks,’ I said. Sure as hell felt that way to me.

  ‘Yeah, I guess. But he’s more extreme.’

  ‘Does he have a gambling problem?’ I was no stranger to that particular addiction. My husband had been a compulsive gambler, I knew the fallout from a losing streak could be dramatic; I’d experienced the bruises first hand.

  Donald shook his head. ‘Not gambling, no.’

  ‘Women?’

  Donald sighed. ‘Yes. But not in the way you’re thinking.’

  I glanced at my watch. I needed Donald to get to the point. ‘Tell me then.’

  He rubbed his forehead, as if just thinking about it made his brain ache. ‘So you know Gibson was married, right, with a couple of kids, in their teens now?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Well, there’s another woman. A woman with a husband and a son.’

  ‘A long-term thing?’

  ‘Kind of, but it was complicated.’

  I leaned forward. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The other woman is married to an influential guy. An important guy in a tough world. Not the sort of man you want pissed at you, you know?’

  ‘Can you give me a name?’

  Donald looked away. Scratched at a spot on his forearm over a faded tattoo of a red heart. The name ‘Jamie’ was tattooed beneath it. ‘You don’t want to go poking around this; it’ll only lead to trouble.’

  No doubt. But it was a new angle to the situation with Gibson Fletcher. I couldn’t let it drop. ‘Perhaps, but I need a name anyways.’

  ‘Marco Searle.’

  ‘And Searle’s wife and Gibson were seeing each other right up to Gibson going to jail?’

  ‘Yep, as far as I know. It’s been going on a long time. The Searles must have been married near on fifteen years. Their boy’s eleven now, but Gibson and Searle’s wife started way before that, when we were in our twenties. Gibson and me were boxers of note back then, locally famous, you know what I mean? Searle, he was our manager. That was when it all started. Searle found out and some shit went down. Searle thought it had ended, but they never stopped, they just got better at hiding.’

  ‘And the woman’s name?’

  ‘Mia.’ He spat out her name like it was poison.

  I went with a hunch. ‘And you fell out with your brother over her?’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Damn, you ask a lot of questions.’

  I didn’t reply. Waited for him to answer.

  ‘Yeah, I guess. In a roundabout way.’

  ‘Why?’

  He exhaled hard. ‘Back then, when Searle found out what they were up to, he went after Gibson one night after a match. Gibson, he was pumped back then, lethal, could have taken out Searle with one punch, but when Searle went at him he just stood there and let the guy pummel him. He didn’t even try to block the blows.’ Donald exhaled hard. ‘So, like a damn fool, I stepped in to defend him. I hadn’t been fighting that night, but I had been drinking. Landed a punch wrong. Fractured my hand and screwed my boxing career. I never fought again.’

  ‘And you blame Gibson?’

  He frowned. ‘It fucked my career. I had to start over. I’d been aiming for the big fights. Vegas. Championship stuff. In one punch, my future was gone. So, yeah, I blamed him alright. Wouldn’t you?’

  ‘And Searle never knew Mia and Gibson carried on seeing each other?’

  Donald shrugged. ‘He must have had an idea, but I’d say he definitely found out about them before Gibson got put inside. There was some kind of bust-up. Searle moved Mia and the boy out of state real fast.’

  ‘Can’t have been pretty when the guy found out Gibson and his wife had been seeing each other all those years.’

  Donald looked away, started rearranging the magazines on the glass coffee table. ‘There were a lot of accusations and threats made, but nothing came of it.’

  A man like that sounded the sort to make good on a threat for sure. That he hadn’t didn’t ring true for me. ‘How so?’

  ‘Gibson was caught thieving that same week. Got bailed. You know the rest.’ Donald shook his head. ‘I guess once he’d been banged up for life Searle decided there wasn’t any point pursuing it. Gibson was out of the picture.’

  I wondered if that was true. A proud-sounding man like Searle – a guy willing to punch out his own cash-cow boxing star over a woman – didn’t sound like the sort of man to let a thing like that go. A man like him, who knows what he’d do to get even? In my experience, anger and pride were never a peaceful pairing.

  ‘Where did Searle move to?’

  ‘Chicago initially. Then he moved again
pretty quickly. Mia went with him. I think the boy’s in a boarding school somewhere upstate.’

  ‘Where’d they end up?’

  Donald glanced at his watch and I guessed my five minutes were done. Standing up, he took a step towards the door. ‘As far as I know, some place out in California. San Diego.’

  I’d figured as much.

  Good job I was heading there next.

  8

  People do stupid things for love. If Gibson Fletcher’s trip to California was down to issues of the heart, he was doing a very stupid thing, taking a massive risk. The safer option would have been for him to go direct to Mexico. Still, that he’d gone to San Diego gave me an advantage. I just hoped he’d stay there a little while, saying his goodbyes and whatnot. It’d be a damn sight easier catching him stateside, that was for sure.

  Before I boarded the plane I messaged Red. Filled him in on what Donald Fletcher had told me about his brother and about the other woman, Mia, and her husband and son. Asked him to look into it, try and find me some background details on her and this Searle character, and to search me out an address.

  Red hadn’t gotten back to me. Didn’t surprise me though. He didn’t do internet messaging – WhatsApp or whatever. The fact that he even used SMS’s was new. So even though the plane’s wi-fi was pretty good, I still felt cut off from the search. To stop myself constantly checking, I switched off my cell phone. Figured I’d conserve its energy and my own. I had a feeling things were going to get real hectic once I got onto the tarmac.

  Cramped up in my seat, wedged between a large guy in a suit and the window, my legs felt jittery and restless. I needed to move, take action. Instead I ate a cream-cheese bagel and a pack of mint Oreos, and tried not to think on why JT had pushed me away again. Instead the question of who’d been tailing me bounced around my mind. The six hours and fifteen minutes from Tampa to San Diego felt like a lifetime. By the time the doors were being reset to manual I was clawing to get gone.

  I cleared the airport terminal in just shy of two hours. It took a whole lot longer than I’d expected due to a delay in the checked bags being hauled to the carousel. That’s the downside of checking a bag rather than only having carry-on, but there wasn’t much to be done about it. It was a necessity: the only way I could fly with my Taser.