Assassins and Liars

by Charles Dougherty

  "I still have it. I took the SIM card out, though. I've heard that's better, to keep anybody from tracking it."

  "Yeah, but it's not foolproof. Even if you put another SIM card in it, the phone's got unique codes hard-wired in. Somebody that knows what they're doing can find it if it's powered on, even without a SIM."

  "What should I do with it, then? I kept it in case I wanted to eavesdrop on their texts again, but those guys know by now that the woman's dead. Should I toss it over the side?"

  "Yes, but first make a note of those names and phone numbers in the directory, would you? I'll take my laptop in when we go. While you're shopping, I'll see if I can find out anything about those people. O'Hanlon, too. Jot down whatever you've got on him along with the stuff from that phone."

  "I'll go do that now, okay?"

  "Sure. There's a little spiral-bound notebook in the chart table. Just rip out however much paper you need. We're probably an hour from dropping the hook, if you want to take a nap, but I figured we could crash for the rest of the day once we got anchored. Time enough for customs and immigration clearance in the morning."

  "Sounds good to me. I'll go make the notes while I'm thinking of it, though."

  She gave me a kiss on the cheek and picked up our empty coffee mugs on her way below.

  22

  Mary left me at the entrance to the marina restaurant the next morning. Our inbound clearance only took a few minutes; we were first in line when the customs and immigration office opened. The restaurant was only a few steps from there.

  I sat down at a secluded table and ordered an espresso. The waitress gave me the access code for the restaurant's Wi-Fi network, and I settled in to see what I could find out about Mary's parents and O'Hanlon.

  I struck out on the names from the cellphone Mary took from the woman she killed in Bequia before tackling Mary's family. The results of my search for Francis X. Dailey were overwhelming. I would never get through it all before Mary finished her shopping.

  I flagged down the waitress and ordered a second espresso. While I waited for it, I scrolled through the list of articles on the screen of my laptop, scanning them.

  I glanced at the time in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. Mary only left a few minutes ago. I offered to buy her a cup of coffee before she left, warning her the shops might not be open this early, but she'd been undaunted.

  "Then I'll just window-shop until they are," she said. "You said you had stuff to do online, so don't worry about me. I can amuse myself in a place like this for hours with no problem."

  "Well, okay. Why don't you pick up a phone, first thing? The places that sell phones might open before the clothing stores, anyway."

  "Good idea," she said. "I'll call you once I do that, so you'll have my number. Or better yet, I'll send you a text. That way I won't interrupt what you're doing. I'll try to stay out of your way until lunchtime, okay?"

  "If that suits you. It's no big deal; I just need to catch up on email and a little financial stuff. Maybe read the news from home. Whenever you get back will be fine. I'll be here."

  When the waitress brought my espresso, I did a second search on F. X. Dailey. This time, I included the word 'murder' to narrow the results.

  Time permitting, I might go back and pick through the articles in the society columns. Mary's parents were part of the South Florida social scene; my initial search filled the first page without a single article about the killings.

  This time, I still found an overwhelming number of articles, but these were all related to the Dailey's deaths. I scrolled through several pages and went back to one of the earlier ones dealing with the double murder.

  Dailey was a property developer; he cut a wide swath through Florida over a period of several years and apparently made a lot of money. He and his wife were killed in their 10,000-square-foot beachfront mansion.

  There were no pictures of the bodies, but the description of the crime scene by the housekeeper who found them didn't leave much to the imagination. As Mary said, they were butchered.

  The speculation in the first article I read was that the motive was robbery. Mrs. Dailey was known for her expensive jewelry, and it was all missing.

  The housekeeper said Mrs. Dailey kept it in a safe in the master bedroom suite where she found the bodies. The safe was open and empty. The obvious conclusion was that the Daileys were tortured to extract the combination.

  The article suggested that this pointed to someone who knew that Mrs. Dailey kept her jewelry at home. The police weren't saying much at that stage. They were canvassing the neighborhood and asking anyone who was in touch with either of the victims during the previous few days to call them.

  Time of death was not yet established, according to the article. Pending results of an autopsy, the medical examiner's comment was that the Daileys appeared to have been dead for at least a day before the bodies were found.

  The article went on to describe the neighborhood and other recent burglaries in the area. I skipped through the next several articles, skimming for new information and moving on.

  A couple of weeks after the discovery of the bodies, the articles decreased in frequency. There was a dearth of facts, at least as reported by the news sources. Given the prominence of the victims, that told me the trail was cold.

  To my surprise, there was no mention of a surviving daughter in any of the articles. The Dailey's son, Francis Xavier Dailey, Jr., who lived in the suburbs of Atlanta, declined to talk to the press. He was mentioned in several of the articles, but where was Mary?

  I flagged down the waitress and ordered another espresso. When it arrived, I closed the laptop and slugged down the rich, bitter coffee. That was one more reason I liked the French islands. As I savored the caffeine rush, I wondered who Mary was.

  Did she think I wouldn't discover the flaw in her story? I couldn't accept that; she was too smart to make that kind of mistake. She must have figured I would catch on eventually.

  She volunteered Dailey's name; she must have thought I would check on the murder. And if she wasn't Dailey's daughter, how did she fit into this whole puzzle?

  My musing was interrupted by a ping from my iPhone. I glanced down at the screen to see a text message from a number with a Martinique country code. The next three digits, 696, marked it as a mobile number. I pressed my index finger to the home button, unlocking the phone and bringing up the messaging app.

  "Hi, Finn. Got a phone. Lots of interesting shops. A couple open already. See you around noon."

  I responded, "Glad you got a phone. Thanks for the update. Good hunting. I'll be here when you're done."

  I waited 30 seconds, and when there was no response, I put the phone down. Using the satellite phone, I could have fired off an encrypted text to one of my support contacts and asked for background on Mary. But I left it on the boat. With the info from her O'Brien passport, they could find things most people wouldn't believe. If she was in the system anywhere, they would find her.

  Then it crossed my mind that they might already have done that. The contact I used for the passport owed me a personal favor; I called it in when I asked for a fresh identity for a new lady friend.

  That didn't mean he wouldn't have checked her out while he was at it. That was the way these things worked. I didn't worry about that possibility at the time; I didn't have any reason not to trust what she told me.

  I debated going back to the boat for the satellite phone, but I decided not to do that just yet. Whoever she was, Mary was no threat to me. Asking them to do a background check on her could open a whole different can of worms. If they already ran background on her and found something I should know about, they would have told me by now. I would wait and see what she was up to. I could always send that text later if necessary.

  I opened the laptop again. Mary wasn't due back for two hours, at least.

  A search for Rory O'Hanlon turned up over a hundred thousand hits in half a second. I clicked through the first half-dozen
pages, but none of the results looked relevant. There were lots of Rory O'Hanlons. The people on the first few pages were in the public eye for various reasons: actors, musicians, writers, and so forth. None of them looked promising.

  I scanned a few more pages. Then I started seeing ads for online services that offered to search public records, telephone directories, and voter rolls for a fee. They claimed to tell you everything you wanted to know about all the Rory O'Hanlons all over the U.S. I skipped that option.

  I wasn't surprised that I didn't find the guy. The name was a common one, and successful mob bosses were good at avoiding publicity. The O'Hanlon I was looking for could be buried in the search results, but I didn't know enough about him to narrow the field.

  I could ask my contacts to check out Rory O'Hanlon, but I wasn't in a hurry to do that. I already ran a small risk by getting a new identity for Mary. A background check on her wouldn't be too hard to explain.

  I pictured the people sitting in a secure facility somewhere saying something like, "Well, old Finn's robbing the cradle, but at least she's good looking." They'd blow my fling off as some midlife crisis. They’d get a chuckle out of it. They might even tease me about it at some point, but nothing bad would come of it.

  If I made a personal request for background on a mob boss, though, innocent explanations wouldn't be the first ones they would come up with. They would be more likely to think I was contemplating a freelance hit, or trying to settle a personal score.

  People in my line of work have been known to do things like that. It wasn't taken lightly. Disciplinary action might follow, depending on O'Hanlon's situation. And there was only one type of disciplinary action that applied to people like me. It was terminal.

  I was retired, but that didn't mean the same thing for people like me that it meant for ordinary government employees. They couldn't order me to carry out missions any more. I could decline assignments as long as I did it before I knew the target.

  And that was about it as far as my being retired. I still got paid, plus a special bonus when I accepted a job.

  Checking out a new love interest was one thing. It might be pushing the limits, but they would overlook that. Given all the secrets in my battered old head, they would think it was a prudent thing for me to do — and for them to help me with. Nobody wanted me to fall in with the wrong crowd. Going into business for myself with the government's resources was a different matter.

  I closed the laptop. There was another option to learn about O'Hanlon. I could ask Mary. For that matter, I could ask her about the other stuff, too, but that might put her off. Asking her about O'Hanlon was different.

  I already volunteered to help her deal with him, and while she didn't embrace the idea, she didn't reject it, either. She wouldn't think my asking about him was strange. I would just have to be careful about how much faith I put in her answers.

  I looked around for the waitress, thinking another espresso would be nice. Then I saw Mary come through the door. I glanced at the time, surprised at how quickly the morning passed.

  Mary was dazzling. I almost didn't recognize her. She wore a simple dress, a sleeveless white sheath, with a Creole madras scarf tied around her waist. It set off her tan to a stunning degree. She spotted me gawking at her and laughed, walking toward the table with several shopping bags swinging from her left hand.

  "Hi, sailor," she said, bending down to kiss my cheek. "Buy a hungry girl lunch?"

  "Yes, ma'am! Sure thing." I got to my feet and pulled out a chair for her.

  "Close your mouth, Finn." She giggled. "You'll attract flies." She sat down and shoved her bags under the table.

  "You look beautiful. I almost didn't rec — "

  She put her index finger over my lips. "Stop! You're about to mess up, silly."

  "What?" My confusion must have overcome my normal poker face, because she giggled again.

  "I know what you were about to say; you were going to spoil it."

  "How? Spoil what?"

  "I could tell by the look on your face."

  "But I said you were beautiful," I said, wrinkling my brow.

  "And that was fine. Thank you. But you were about to say you almost didn't recognize me."

  "Oh."

  "Yes. Oh, indeed. You're supposed to let me think I'm always beautiful. Saying you didn't recognize a girl because she was beautiful for a change could hurt her feelings."

  "I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting you yet, and I… "

  "Nice try at recovery, Finn. Can we get a quick lunch and go back to the boat? I'm tired. Besides, I want to model the rest of my clothes for you. That stunned look on your face was a serious boost to my ego. I could stand to see that again."

  "But I blew it."

  "I'm just messing with you. You didn't blow it. You were cute. What's good here?"

  "Ever'sing here is ver' good, madame," the waitress said, walking up and handing us menus. "You like a carafe of zee house wine? Is a ver' nize sauvignon blanc."

  I looked at Mary and she nodded, smiling.

  "Yes, please," I said.

  "I bring while you look at the menu, then."

  23

  "You like my new things?" Mary asked, after she'd modeled her purchases for me. We were back aboard the boat, sitting on the starboard settee with our legs stretched across the narrow cabin, our feet resting on the edge of the port settee. Mary was snuggled against me, her head on my shoulder, my right arm around her. I didn't know about her, but I was still exhausted from our sail.

  "I do. I like them all," I said, "but the dress is my favorite. It makes you look like you stepped right off the cover of a fashion magazine."

  "Aw, you're sweet, Finn. It was a pure impulse buy. That whole outfit was in the window of one of the touristy shops. I'm not sure what possessed me to buy it."

  "It changes your whole look."

  "Careful," she said, giving me a gentle elbow in the ribs. "I let you off the hook once already."

  "You're always beautiful, but the dress was such a dramatic change," I said. "That's what I was trying to say when you cut me off in the restaurant."

  "I knew what you meant, Finn. I just like to mess with you. Don't let me get to you."

  "I wasn't expecting you to show up for lunch dressed like that. You'd said you were looking for basic stuff. I figured shorts and polo shirts you know. Like the rest of the things you got. Practical."

  "Yeah," she said. "Me too. I'm not usually a girly girl, especially not when I'm living on a boat. But I saw the dress and thought it would be fun to wear it for you. Surprise you, like."

  "It was fun for me," I said. "I hope my reaction was suitable."

  "I could tell you liked it. The look on your face when you recognized me made my whole day."

  She turned her face up and kissed my cheek. "Are you as tired as I am?"

  "I'm beat," I said. "Ready for a nap."

  "So am I. I forgot to ask, though. Did you get your business taken care of online?"

  "Yeah, I did. Nothing big; just catching up."

  "There's something I meant to tell you before we went ashore. Between the excitement of landfall and the exhaustion from our overnight trip, I just didn't get to it."

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "About me. I was going to tell you when I came clean about my not really crewing on Sisyphus and the other stuff, but I got sidetracked."

  "Tell me now?"

  She nodded and scrunched her face into a frown. "Well, I told you the Daileys were my parents."

  "You did, yes." Poker face in place, I kept my tone even.

  "They were, in a way. But they weren't my biological parents."

  I raised my eyebrows. "Not your biological parents? You were adopted?" I was curious to see what she'd do with that opening.

  "No, not adopted. I met them not long after I started college. I grew up dirt-poor. My mother was a single parent, and she was a… " Mary shook her head. A few seconds passed.

  "Anyway, I worked hard
in high school; I figured an education would let me break free from my past. I got a partial scholarship to college, but I stopped and worked every other quarter to make ends meet. I was majoring in business, and I got a job as a paid intern in the Dailey's development company."

  She looked at me, and I nodded. "I see."

  "Their legitimate business," she said. "They were successful developers — condos, golf courses, retirement communities, you name it. Both of them were involved in it. I started with them right after the first quarter of my freshman year. I worked my ass off to make myself indispensable, and they sort of took me in. They helped me pay for college; they wanted me to keep working with them when I finished, and I liked that idea. It worked out. I finished my degree and went to work with them full-time. The whole thing was like a dream come true.

  "Their business was an ideal setup for laundering money. I figured out what was going on pretty quickly. Lots of cash flow, to and from all kinds of off-the-wall people and businesses. They kept me out of that, but it was a pretty small operation, given their volume of business. I could see what they were up to, but I kept my mouth shut. No way was I going to screw up a good thing. I knew what the other kind of life was like."

  "Okay," I said. "Thanks for telling me."

  "I don't want to keep secrets from you, Finn. You're the only person who's ever given me any help, except the Daileys."

  "What about the brother, then?"

  "I was an only child, and my mother died when I was in my senior year of high school. But the Daileys did have a son. He lives in Atlanta. He really was estranged from them. I met him once, not long after I started with them, but that's about it."

  "Is he a veteran?"

  "Yes. And he's into mixed martial arts. He tracked me down when I took off after I found their bodies, like I told you. But we didn't hit it off. He knew about me, knew I wasn't mixed up in their off-the-books businesses. He told me that O'Hanlon was probably behind his parents' murders, and that I should be careful.