Flamingo Road

by Sasscer Hill

  He responded with a long, calculating look. “Why would I want to?”

  “We can pay. If it’s not too much.”

  Serpentino turned and gazed at the horse finishing its bath. The groom shut off the hose and began smoothing excess water from the horse with a plastic scraper. The young Latino glanced up at me and smiled. He didn’t look more than sixteen or seventeen. He had nice brown eyes and a gold horse head ring in one ear. I smiled back, picking up a fresh liniment smell that he must have added to the horse’s bathwater.

  “Hola,” I said, nodding at him. I felt Serpentino’s eyes on me and shifted my attention back.

  “Fifteen bucks a pop,” Serpentino said. “Cash.”

  Rosario probably wouldn’t agree to this, but I’d take it out of my own pocket if necessary. Last Call had a lot of ability. I wanted to set it loose.

  “It’s a deal. Thank you, Mr. Serpentino,” I said with respect I didn’t feel.

  He nodded curtly and glanced at a vet truck that was driving up to the barn. He walked toward it as the groom led the horse onto the shedrow to walk until his coat dried. When the vet truck stopped, Wendy Warner got out.

  Except for that quick glimpse of her at Pimlico, I hadn’t seen her for many years. She had aged over the years with lines on her face and pouches under her eyes I didn’t remember. When she’d met my dad Wendy had been divorced after one failed marriage. About five feet, seven inches tall, she had light brown hair and slightly bucked teeth, which gave her full lips and a nice smile. She still had broad hips and capable hands. I waited until Serpentino finished his conversation with her before hurrying over.

  “Wendy! Hi.” She looked at me like she was trying to place me. “It’s Fia,” I said. “Fia McKee.”

  “Oh, wow!” She rushed forward and hugged me. “I haven’t seen you in so long, not since—”

  “I know. Those were bad times.” I’d forgotten how large and pretty her eyes were. Still a pleasing shade of green.

  “You must really miss your dad. God, we all miss Mason. But you look great,” she said. “Love the blond hair.”

  I shrugged. “I needed a change.” To switch the subject from my dad, I said. “So, have you moved to Florida for good?” Why was she working for the likes of Serpentino?

  “Now that the Gulfstream meet runs for so long, I like to stay warm and work here during the winter. I’ll transfer up to Pimlico in the spring. By then, most of the big trainers and good horses have headed north anyway.”

  “I guess business is good here?” I asked, nodding at Serpentino’s shedrow.

  “You know how it is. You take what you can get.” She took in my riding clothes and lowered her voice. “You aren’t exercising horses for Serpentino, are you?”

  It sounded like she didn’t think much of him, either, and I was glad to hear it. “No. Rosario Jones. On the other side.”

  “Oh, great. He’s a good guy. But what happened? I heard you were a cop.”

  I shrugged. “Nah. It wasn’t right for me. Now I’m doing what I really love.” I glanced at my watch. “And I’d better get back to it before the break ends.”

  We said good-bye, and as I turned to leave, Serpentino stood in the doorway to his office, watching us. Flicking his tongue over his lips, he stared, his expression icy and without emotion. The guy made my skin crawl. I beat it for the good side of the barn.

  17

  When I arrived at Patrick’s house later that afternoon, the sun was radiating heat onto the paved drive. The sprinkler system fought back, spraying the grounds with water while the fresh scent of jasmine drifted to me from the purple flowers bordering the front of the house. Jilly met me at the door, her eyes bright with excitement.

  “Zanin just called,” she said. “He’s in the neighborhood and wants to talk. He asked if he could come by. I told him you’re usually home by now and to come on over.”

  I’d never connected with Zanin after that text message I’d received, and though I wanted to talk to him, I was tired and dirty and had planned on a shower and a nap. The sound of tires rolling up the drive told me that wasn’t going to happen. I glanced over my shoulder and saw his black Tahoe.

  The car stopped, and he climbed out, wearing jeans, work boots, and a sleeveless black tee. He carried a nine-by-twelve envelope.

  He looked good, and I wished I’d had time for that shower.

  After we exchanged greetings, Zanin waved the envelope at me. “I brought some photos of Valera’s place. I can’t make a whole lot of sense out of them. Thought you might want to take a look.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s go inside.”

  We went to Rebecca’s Dreamsicle kitchen and sat at the orange-tiled table. Jilly offered to get us glasses of iced Cokes, and when Zanin’s phone pinged, he studied the screen, apparently reading an incoming text.

  As Jilly busied herself at the refrigerator, I wondered how often she talked to her mother. Should I call Rebecca and see what her plans were for Jilly now that she’d apparently left her husband and daughter for another man? Was that a role I wanted or would even be allowed?

  Weird, the way history had repeated itself for my brother. I hoped that for Jilly’s sake, Patrick could remain on the same good terms with Rebecca that he had managed to maintain with our mother. Personally, I felt like smacking Rebecca, who could get in line behind my mother, but then I didn’t know Rebecca’s side of the story.

  Jilly set a glass of Coke in front of Zanin, and stared at the unopened envelope on the table, intense interest shining in her eyes. I was grateful Zanin had provided an outlet for her grief over Cody, and a way to channel the pain into positive action, but I wanted to make sure the action remained positive. She didn’t need any more altercations with Santeria thugs.

  Zanin set his phone down and picked up the envelope.

  “I snuck out to Valera’s the other night with a Canon that shoots pretty well in the dark. Fia, take a look at these,” he said, spreading four photos on the table and sliding them toward me. Jilly hurried around the table and stared over my shoulder.

  The photos showed what looked like a tree nursery, planted outside three sides of a long building. “What is this?” I asked. “Is he growing something like marijuana?”

  “I don’t know,” Zanin said, “but he’s taken over more empty land and fenced it in with electric fence. He’s up to about fifty acres on his place now. There used to be a shack with some squatters living in it where those trees are. God knows what happened to them.”

  I pointed at the photo with the clearest shot of the plants. “Can you identify the tree?”

  “Not really.”

  “What would trees have to do with killing horses?” Jilly asked.

  “Good question,” I said. “Are there many horses or other animals on the property?”

  Zanin pressed his lips together and glanced at Jilly. “There’s a small herd of horses there now, but they have grass and water, so there’s nothing illegal or inhumane going on.”

  “Until he kills them!”

  The shrillness of Jilly’s words startled me. I twisted in my chair to where she stood behind me. “Easy, Jilly. We’ll stop them if we can. You wanna be a cop, you gotta learn to keep a cool head. Right?”

  She rolled her eyes and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Guess nothing,” Zanin said. “There’s been times if I’d gone off half-cocked, I’d be dead. What animals do you think I could help then?”

  If God had spoken, I didn’t think Jilly would have paid more rapt attention than she did to Zanin’s words. No eye roll. Instead she straightened her spine and said, “You’re right.”

  I stared at one of the pictures where Zanin had zoomed in on the trees. I pointed at what looked like a spiderweb hanging along the outside of the plants. A tall chain-link fence appeared to support it. “Is that some sort of netting? Is he raising birds or insects on those trees?”

  “Good. You see it, too,” Zanin said. “We need more light for clar
ification, but going out at night is risky enough. Trespassing on his place in daylight…”

  “You might disappear forever,” I said. This was crazy. The local police wouldn’t go to Valera’s. We needed a Navy SEAL team for God’s sake.

  “Don’t they make night cameras that show body heat and stuff?” Jilly asked.

  “They do,” Zanin said, “except I can’t afford a good thermal imaging camera. But I could rent one for a night. It would help to know if there is any kind of heat inside that netting. And its shape.”

  “Suppose they’re raising something cold-blooded like cobras for poison?” Jilly asked. “I read they give cobra venom to racehorses so they don’t feel pain. Thermal imaging couldn’t see them, right?”

  No flies on Jilly.

  “It depends,” Zanin said. “If a snake was basking in the sun and the nighttime temperature dropped faster than the snake’s body temperature, you could see them.”

  We were wasting time. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” I said. “The tracks test for cobra venom and frog juice. There’s no point in cultivating those drugs.”

  “Frog juice?” Jilly’s face took on a puzzled look. “What’s that?”

  If she wanted to be a cop, she might as well know how low humans were willing to sink to make a buck.

  “There’s a South American tree frog that secretes a substance called dermorphin. It can be as much as a hundred times stronger than morphine,” I said. “Crooked trainers had a great run with it at Remington Park in Oklahoma until a lab in Colorado developed a test for it.”

  Jilly’s eyes took on that zealot gleam I’d seen before. “That’s disgusting! You’re saying they, like, milk snakes and frogs? Give it to racehorses so they won’t feel their injuries, and then they run them?”

  “That about sums it up,” I said. “Except frog juice is even ‘better’ because it gives a sense of exhilaration and euphoria.”

  “Man, I could use some of that,” Zanin said.

  “Don’t joke. People use it.”

  They both looked at me like I was crazy. “People ingest frog juice?” Zanin asked. When I nodded, he said, “Damn. I hadn’t heard that.”

  Jilly sat up straighter in her seat. “Please, Zanin, if you go into Valera’s with that thermal thing, I want to go with you.”

  Zanin and I exchanged a glance. “Let’s see how this plays out,” he said. “If I need help, I’ll let you know.”

  Jilly knew a refusal when she heard it, but instead of sulking, she looked at the pictures some more. “What do you think he uses the building for?”

  “Well, Warrior Princess, that’s what I intend to find out.”

  From the glow on Jilly’s face, it appeared she liked Zanin’s use of the nickname. He glanced at me. “Fia, keep the pictures. Maybe with your police connections you can get wind of something new on the drug scene.”

  “Except,” Jilly said, “Fia’s working at the track now, not for the cops.”

  Zanin stared at me. “You left the Baltimore PD?”

  “Think of it as a leave of absence. But I still have connections and ways to find out things.”

  With raised brows, he gazed at me before drawing out the word, “Oh-kay.” He shrugged. “I’ll find a way to get into Valera’s during daylight. Beyond learning what he’s doing with this nursery, I need pictures of the horses on the property.”

  Jilly’s face darkened with pain. “God, they could be somebody’s horse—like Cody.”

  Then something else occurred to me. “Don’t they have missing horse Web sites?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Facebook pages, too.”

  “Couldn’t you post pictures?”

  “If I can get them,” Zanin said, “I’ll post on every site I can find. If someone could ID even one horse, we could get the police in there.”

  No flies on Zanin, either. I hoped his words hadn’t fired Jilly’s imagination too much.

  “Cool,” she said.

  Zanin stood. “I should get going.” He paused a beat. “Fia, walk me out?”

  Jilly scowled when I said, “Sure,” and stood up to follow him out of the kitchen. I remembered how exclusion by my elders infuriated me when I was a teen, but I welcomed an opportunity to talk to Zanin without feeling the need to tread carefully around young ears.

  After we crossed the living room, Zanin stopped in the cool, tiled foyer by the front door.

  “You’re not in any trouble, are you?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “With your job?” When I just stared at him, he said, “It just seems weird you’d go from working for the Baltimore PD to the racetrack. It’s none of my business, but I thought maybe there might be something I could do to help.”

  “I’m not in trouble. I used to work at the track,” I said, and filled him in with half-truths, telling him about my life with my dad, the murder, and that I’d decided to take a break.

  “Sometimes I feel like I only got into law enforcement as a way to go after the bad guys, maybe seek some sort of revenge. I’m reconsidering some things now, you know?”

  “I do,” he said. “I used to be in real estate.”

  “No way.”

  “Yep. I was after the big bucks. But I’ve always loved animals and did volunteer work for the SPCA when I could. When the economy burned up after 2008, the Florida real estate market crashed with it. I spent more and more time at the SPCA. One day they invited me along on a rescue mission.”

  He shook his head. “What an eye-opener. So many abused animals at this place out in the C-Nine. But it was this horse someone had left tied up to a tree that got to me. He was starving, almost dead. I was able to save him and the feeling that gave me is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. So, yeah, I know all about reassessing.”

  When Zanin made time-to-go noises, I said I’d follow him outside. Though the sun’s heat on the terrace had eased as the day grew late, I headed for the shade of a date palm away from the house.

  “So what’s on your mind?” he asked.

  “I didn’t want to say this in front of Jilly, but someone juiced a horse up pretty bad at Gulfstream in the fifth race yesterday. He won. Then he collapsed and died in the winner’s circle.”

  “Oh, God.”

  I wanted to talk about it more, but caught myself. I shouldn’t appear to be overly knowledgeable about drug problems at the track. This conversation should be saved for Gunny.

  “It was awful,” I said. “I’m having trouble getting it out of my mind. But there’s something else I wanted to mention.”

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Jilly. I remember how I was at her age, and I see the hero worship in her eyes when she looks at you.”

  He stiffened. “I would never hurt her!”

  “I know, I know. It’s just that she’s too much like me. The way she lit up when you talked about getting into Valera’s and taking pictures of his herd. I’m afraid she might try something like that on her own.”

  His eyes widened. “She wouldn’t, would she?” He thought for about a half second. “Yeah, I can see her doing that. No way I want that to happen.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “She’s lost her horse, school will be letting out for the holidays, and—”

  “She needs to be kept busy.”

  I nodded. “I’m going to see if I can get her work as a groom during the school break, or find her a new horse, or something.”

  “You really care about her, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I guess I do. Which is funny because before I came to Florida I never even thought about her.”

  He grinned. “Well, she’s branded you now.”

  “Yeah,” I said, suddenly swept with raw emotion. “I’d do anything for her.”

  Zanin hesitated like he wanted to say something more, then straightened and took a step back. “Okay, Fia. You stay safe. Let’s keep in touch about this stuff.”

  He climbed into his Tahoe and drove away. His brake lights f
lashed red before the curve in the drive, and his SUV disappeared into the landscaped jungle.

  I hurried inside, anxious to call Gunny and figure out what I could do to bring down that bastard Serpentino.

  18

  In the sanctuary of my room, the lure of a hot shower quickly beat out my resolve to sleuth. I succumbed to the delicious pleasures of lavender soapsuds and steaming water jets that drummed on my back and eased tense muscles. After changing into clean clothes, I booted up my laptop, where I found a message from Gunny saying, “Call me.”

  Beneath it was an e-mail from Brian, sent about the time I’d been talking to Serpentino and Wendy Warner.

  Fia, preliminary necropsy results due in tomorrow. Sounds like you were in the right place at the right time. Stay safe, Brian.

  I’d known it was too soon for toxicology results on Primal, but still, I felt frustrated. Grabbing my cell from the desk, I called Gunny, who answered on the first ring.

  “Fia,” he said, “that was an interesting report you sent last night. I appreciate your thoroughness, but I want you to back off Morales. Serpentino is your target. Even with him, keep a distance.” He paused a beat. “You should never have been in the winner’s circle with those people.” His tone sharpened with impatience. “Now they have your picture, for Christ’s sake.”

  Struggling to keep the frustration and hurt from my voice, I said, “Sir, I went in undercover as Kate O’Brien. I’ve used her before. She’s solid. I spoke to Serpentino earlier today, and he did not recognize me.” Damn it, I wasn’t a novice. I took a quick breath. “Mr. Jamieson, I still believe the opportunity was too good to pass up.”

  “Your instructions were to watch Serpentino, not his connections.”

  “But—”

  “Do you remember me telling you to watch him, listen, but not to do anything?”

  “Yes, sir.” I heard a rattling sound and pictured his hand reaching for his plastic bottle of Pepcid tablets. But how the hell was I supposed to get info on Serpentino without getting close to his associates? I rose from the desk chair and paced the room with the cell phone crushed to my ear.