by Ralph Zeta
I closed the file and stared at Sammy. He was seated at the conference table, his long brown fingers steepled under his chin, his dark eyes on me.
“Recognize anyone?” Sammy asked.
“I do,” I said. “Jesse Jumper. A face I’ll never forget. He killed Lowry. And he tried to do the same with Mrs. Lowry.”
Sammy smiled. “These boys must fill Paula with so much joy.”
“I think she may beg to differ,” I said.
“Don’t forget, J.J., those two, they may be young but they ain’t boys anymore,” Sammy said. “Those two are hardened criminals.”
“No doubt,” I said as my eyes fell on the topo map. “Of the two, Jesse concerns me the most.” I tossed the files on the table. “I watched him go after Mrs. Lowry. The way he moved. He has killed before and I think he relishes it, the hunt. And he was a marine. Saw action in Afghanistan. High scores on marksmanship. He’s a trained killer, one with serious skills.”
“None of that matters. Maybe Jesse’s more dangerous than his brother, so be it. But at the end of the day, they’re scum. And they don’t belong on the streets.”
I nodded but said nothing.
Despite Sammy’s back-and-white, lock-’em-up-and-throw-the-key-in-a-coke-oven attitude toward career criminals, I knew he was someone who exercised great prudence when confronting dangerous criminals. Maybe his caution was the product of his long career in law enforcement. I didn’t know, but it was an area where we often agreed to disagree. Sammy believed in de-escalation as the optimal tactical choice. Me, I wasn’t so sure. There are situations—especially those that place the lives of innocent bystanders in imminent danger—that call for a quick, decisive response. And yet, despite those prudent dovish views, Sammy was always armed to the teeth. His SUV had been outfitted with a custom-built compartment that housed a bullpup twelve-gauge shotgun as well as an AR-4 and enough ammo for a full-scale skirmish. I rarely carried a weapon. I have nothing against guns. They’re useful under the right circumstances. But armed confrontations rarely lead to talking opportunities.
“Tell me about this cousin of Paula.”
“Jerome Aguilar,” Sammy said. “A distant cousin on her mother’s side.”
“And you learned of Mr. Aguilar through Paula’s phone records?”
“Yup,” Sammy said. “We pinged the burner cell number close enough to Aguilar’s address to make me take notice. The burner is either his or it belongs to one his neighbors.”
“So where do we find Mr. Aguilar?”
“You’re not going to like it,” Sammy said, and pointed at a spot on the map. “Right in the middle of nowhere.”
The location did not give me a warm feeling. It was a remote spot some thirty miles northwest of Lake Okeechobee. Nothing but brush, tall grasses, and acres of swampy terrain that promised plenty of snakes, a few gators and, with some luck, maybe a killer and his brother.
Twenty-Seven
The long county road ahead was empty, just as it had been for the past half hour. Straight and flat, it cut a gash through pristine grasslands thick with palmetto groves, splotches of loblolly pine, longleaf pines, and the occasional pond. The rare farmhouse or roadside billboard that had appeared along the way served as a reminder that despite the relative isolation that surrounded us, civilization wasn’t all that far away. I wondered how long before the Gabriela Lowrys of the world took notice and decided to carve the area into subdivisions of tract mansions.
Sammy’s eyes were searching for an unmarked trail entrance.
“Not much out here,” he said.
“There’s a break ahead,” I said, eyeing a sandy cut through the expanse of greenery some seventy yards ahead.
“That’s got to be it,” Sammy declared, and hit the brakes. The SUV slowed and veered off toward the trail head.
“How far does this go?”
“’Bout four miles,” Sammy said after peering at the navigation app on his phone.
Except for the double tire tracks and the fencing that ran along both sides of the trail, all was wild grasses, palmetto clumps, small stands of thin pines, and scattered oaks. It was wild Florida at its most pristine.
“This area seems untouched. There’s nothing out here.”
“I hate to break it to you, J.J.,” Sammy said. “But you’re gonna be disappointed. There’s an abandoned airstrip out this way. Also a large junkyard. Nothing pristine about them.”
“Swell,” I said. “Nothing like a garden of rusting steel and crumbling rubber to bring you back down to reality.”
“You know how it is. Out of sight, out of mind.”
According to the navigation app, we had traveled two miles since leaving the main road. Other than the wire fence and the string of utility poles crisscrossing the trail, there were no other signs of civilization.
We came to a fork. Sammy bore left.
“You sure this is the way?” I asked.
“Markings on the power poles say so,”
Sammy said. “Electric company tags each pole with a unique number. That way, the crews can easily identify the location in case of a problem. That’s how I tracked Mr. Aguilar down. He may not have property registered in his name or a car, but he has an electric meter in his name.”
“You sure this guy’s connected to Paula’s boys? I mean, this is a long way to go to come back empty-handed.”
“Not this time,” Sammy said with a wry smile. “You see, in keeping with family tradition, Mr. Aguilar, too, has an impressive rap sheet. Although, you gotta give the man some credit. He’s managed to keep his nose clean for a while. But you know how it is.”
“Once a felon, always a felon,” I said, finishing the sentence for Sammy.
“Besides, from what I was able to piece together, it seems Paula’s boys spent time with Aguilar as kids. He worked for a small marina on Lake O back then. My bet is, the boys stayed close to the uncle.”
I smiled approvingly at Sammy. This was indeed something.
“What’s at end of the trail?”
“County records show six deeded trailer homes down there. All owned by the junkyard operator. It appears Aguilar lives in one of them.”
We passed the abandoned airstrip. Other than a long-overgrown strip of land with a pair of tattered and derelict hangars rising in the distance, and the boxy skeleton of what was probably once an office, tilted precariously between the hangars, little else remained. The rusting metal frame of what I surmised, at some point, had been a tower rose a distance beyond the hangars. A quarter mile later, following a bend in the trail, the fringes of the junkyard emerged from the tall grass. A maze of rows of shipping containers in various stages of decay stacked four high scarred the land as far as the eye could see. Beyond, a yellow crane rose in the waning sunlight. Tractor-trailer rigs in progressive degrees of disassembly waited in a line that ended at the crusher, hulking lifeless near the center of the yard.
“The mobile homes, are they given to yard employees?”
“It appears so,” said Sammy.
“And this dirt track is the only way in and out?”
“Far as I know. Why?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just getting a feel for the lay of the land.”
“That would be a tactical feel, I take it.”
I laughed and waved dismissively. Sammy knew me too well.
At the center of the small trailer park, a large doublewide sat in the shade of an ancient live oak. Like the others, it rested on short stacks of cinder blocks mostly hidden by tall weeds. Its sun-beaten wooden porch looked onto a wide sandy area occupied by a scattering of dingy pickup trucks. A soccer goal sans net sat at one end of the parking area, a basketball hoop canted slightly sideways, at the other. Half a dozen men holding beer cans or cigarettes were gathered by the steps of the double wide. Two of them melted out of sight between the homes as our SUV approached.
We parked on an empty spot by the pickup trucks and slid out into the muggy heat of early evening. A country sta
tion was playing in the hot breeze. As we approached, the remaining men grew eerily quiet. I did a head count. There were seven: the five I could see plus the two who slipped away.
They were dark, wide bodied, with the sinewy muscle that came from years of hard labor. All but one were middle-aged. They stood silent, watching us with wary, hard stares.
The message was clear. We weren’t welcomed.
“This is private property,” announced the older man, taking a long drag on his cigarette.
He was maybe sixty-five, tall, with a barrel chest, dark leathery skin, and a thick helmet of silvery hair over a dark and weathered face. He wore denim overalls and a torn T-shirt. His dark eyes regarded us with defiance and disdain.
“Good evening,” Sammy said with a polite smile.
Not in the mood for niceties, I remained silent and returned the hard stares coming at us. They didn’t want us there anymore than we wanted to be there. But it was likely one or more of them, and maybe all of them, had been harboring the killers we were after.
There was no response from the group.
“Maybe you can help us,” Sammy said.
“You lost or something?” asked another man.
“Not lost,” Sammy said. “We’d like a word with Jerome Aguilar.”
The men said nothing. We weren’t getting anywhere.
“Anyone familiar with the name Bull Lowry?” I asked, settling for the direct approach.
Again, nothing.
“I’m an attorney. I worked for his son, Milton Lowry.”
One of the men spat creating a small puff of dust.
“Milton Lowry is dead,” I said. “Murdered.”
That created a stir among them. They exchanged knowing glances.
“Look,” Sammy said. “We’re not cops. We’re here to talk with Mr. Aguilar. Ask a few questions. And we’re gone.”
Another silent pause.
“You a lawyer?” the older man asked. His voice was low and guttural as if he had a damaged voice box.
I nodded.
“Got something to back that up?”
I took a business card from my wallet and offered it to him. The man studied the card for a moment.
“Jason Justice. Attorney at Law. West Palm Beach,” he said, and handed back the card.
I took the card.
“A lawyer named Justice. Now, ain’t that something?” he said, then broke into a wheezing chuckle. The men around him joined in. I looked at Sammy. He shrugged. I normally don’t take kindly to jokes about my name, but in this case, I decided to let it slide. Anything to break the ice.
“Junior,” the man said. “He dead, you say?”
I nodded.
“How?”
“Murdered,” I explained. “In his farmhouse.”
“You know who kilt him?” he asked.
“Not really.” It was a lie. I hadn’t seen Milton’s killer’s face, but I got a good look in Miami. I knew who I was after.
“What you want with Aguilar?” the older man said.
“You all know Milton Lowry was rich. But what you probably don’t know is, he left some of his fortune to his extended family.”
“You talking money for ol’ Bull’s bastard young-’uns?” he said.
“I am,” I said. “Unfortunately, Lowry’s body is missing. We need to find him. Otherwise, all the money he left for them will just sit in the bank. That doesn’t help anyone. And people like Paula Jumper will continue to struggle to make ends meet when they don’t have to.”
The older man stepped forward and cut the distance between us in half, his eyes boring into mine. He was tall and strong like an ox, perhaps six-two and 280 pounds of gristle and brawn. He crossed his thick arms across his chest, scowling. “Paula know you?”
I smiled. “We’ve met.”
He considered that for a moment, then said, “So what you want with Aguilar? Jerome knows who his daddy was and it wadn’ no Bull Lowry.”
The other men snickered.
Comedians were everywhere.
Sammy and I exchanged a look.
“Aguilar and Paula Jumper are kin,” Sammy said. “We were hoping to talk with Aguilar about Paula’s boys.”
The old man’s face darkened. “So that’d be it. Jesse and Samuel—that’s what you after.”
“You’re Jerome Aguilar,” I said.
“That’s right,” he said.
The buzzing sound of a dirt bike engine echoed in the distance.
Jerome Aguilar looked distracted for a moment, then suddenly turned and walked up the weather-beaten steps to the porch. Before opening the door to the trailer, he paused and said, “We talk inside.”
The home was modestly furnished with overstuffed furniture that was well past its prime. A grizzled old mutt lay curled up on a recliner that at some point had been the color of mustard and was now covered with a colorful Mexican serape. The dog glanced at Aguilar, wagged its ratty tail once, and slumped back down. The trailer had the stale musk of sweat, dog, and mildew of constantly recirculated air-conditioning. With a wave of the hand, he invited us to sit. Sammy opted for one of two wooden chairs at the chrome-and-Formica dinette. I was left with unappealing choices: share the love seat with Aguilar or sit with the dog.
“The dawg,” Aguilar said, noticing my hesitation. “She don’t hear so well. You wanna sit, kick her off the damn chair.”
“Thanks, I’ll stand,” I said. There was no way I was going to park myself on that chair.
“Suit yourself,” Aguilar said. Turning to Sammy, he asked, “So if he a lawyer, you what?”
“Private investigator,” Sammy admitted.
“Well, whaddya know?” he said with a
crooked smile of yellow teeth. “I got me a visit from the dick and the damned lawyer.”
“Can you help us or not?” I said. It was late and getting darker by the minute, and I wasn’t interested in spending any more time than absolutely necessary surrounded by tough, unwelcoming folk so far removed from civilization.
“Jesse and Samuel—you think they done Junior?”
“We don’t know that,” I said.
“Them boys,” Aguilar said. “Don’t know where they’d be.”
“Heard from them recently?”
He shook his massive head. “It’s been a while.”
“When was the last time you spoke with Paula?”
“Can’t say.”
“You have a phone you use, don’t you?”
“Got me a landline in the yard office. Cell phones don’t work so good out this way.”
“You work for the junkyard?” Sammy asked.
He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“We know you talked to Paula recently,” I said, watching him closely. He glared at me with utter contempt. And right then I knew. We had come to the right place.
Aguilar leaned back against the couch and downed the rest of his Miller High Life tallboy then noisily crushed the can in his meaty hand. “Don’t know what game you’re playing, Mister . . .”
“Justice,” I said and returned the stare.
A silence followed that was thicker than the musty air in the trailer.
“Listen, Mr. Aguilar, we’re here to talk,” Sammy said. “That’s all. We’re not the law. Our interest is in finding Milton Lowry. We thought maybe Paula’s sons can help us.”
Aguilar’s went from grim reluctance to uncloaked hostility. We had used up our welcome.
“Let me tell you something. I was born at night,” he said. “But it wadn’t last night. Been dealing with your kind all my life. With your fancy clothes and perfect smiles. You say what you think I wanna hear. Nothing but damned lies, is all. You wanna know how I know you’re lying?” He waved a thick finger at Sammy. “’Cause if them boys know where Junior’s dead body be, then they guilty of murder. And that ain’t good for nobody. I don’t know who done Junior, and I don’t give damn. But them boys, they done hard time. Try and cage ’em again, you best be ready to spill
some blood. ’Casue them boys, they be dead before they’d be put back in the cage.”
Aguilar stood abruptly. He had nothing else to say. The visit was over. He watched us leave his trailer.
An eerie silence greeted us outside. Night had pretty much taken hold of the land. A warm, humid breeze stirred the oak leaves above us. The cicadas thrummed and the crickets chirred. Lights were on in Aguilar’s trailer; the other five were dark and lifeless. The pickup trucks we had seen upon arrival were gone. It was as if the entire community had been evacuated. Whatever the reason, I was sure it didn’t bode well for us.
“I don’t like it, J.J.,” Sammy said as he unlocked the driver’s-side door, his eyes sweeping the shadows.
“You armed?” I asked as I slid into the passenger seat.
“Even in the shower.”
We buckled in, and Sammy swung the big SUV around and headed back out the dirt track we came in on. In the darkness, the grassland on both sides of the trail looked like an empty void, which I knew wasn’t the case. Like most of Florida, the area teemed with life. Night critters such as raccoons, possum, badgers, bobcats, and snakes and, closer to bodies of water, alligators, were out there foraging for a meal.
About five minutes into the drive, Sammy slowed down and eased the big SUV around the bend in the road. I lowered my tinted window halfway to get a better view of the terrain. Angry hot air rushed in, carrying the acrid smell of burnt engine oil and decaying rubber. Windblown debris against the fence confirmed we were passing the junkyard.
“The airport’s next,” Sammy said, veering around a pair of glistening mud puddles. “After that, we don’t have far to go.”
“Hum,” I said but kept my focus ahead, watching the dim void beyond the bright cone of the headlights. I didn’t know what I expected to see, but the hairs on my neck had started tingling the moment we left Aguilar’s trailer.
