by T. J. Jones
"There are still things I don't know Edith, but it was bad." She shrugged and nodded, so I continued. "Davey got mixed up in something, and I think he was controlled somehow. I'm not even sure if he knew how bad it was. He was lining up people at the Talent Agency for jobs, and a lot of them were kids. I think he thought it was for legitimate work at first, talent opportunities, but that isn't what it turned into. A lot of these kids were refugees, some of them homeless, some runaways. I'm sorry, but I said I would tell you, good or bad. It amounted to child prostitution."
"Kids, how old?"
"I don't know for sure, I know of one girl that was fourteen. I think the talent agency he worked for was trafficking these kids, Edith. Kids as young as thirteen, maybe younger. I don't know how much he knew, or for sure when he realized what was going on, but I know of one time when he was personally involved. It was slave trading, moving children to different countries and selling them into brothels. These people took young girls, maybe boys too, sent them overseas to be sex slaves. They may have brought some of them into this country for the same reason."
"Dear God. And Davey knew?"
"I'm not sure he knew the details, or when he became involved. He may have been forced into it in some way, or manipulated by someone, maybe blackmailed."
"Is that what you really think, or is that just what you're telling me to spare my feelings?"
"There is good news. Starting a few years ago he turned it around. I don't think he could stop the people doing it, but he started helping some of the victims, getting them out of those situations and helping them get their lives back on track. That's what all the money in his account was for. His roommate was helping fund things, they even used his corporate jet. I think that's what got Davey killed. Someone discovered what he was doing and it became a liability for them. They didn't want these kids back in the US telling their stories. Samath Chopra, Davey's roommate was murdered yesterday."
"Oh God. You think they came here looking for something of Davey's? There wasn't much, and you kept some of it, right?"
"Yeah, they came to my place looking too. They got some of Davey's stuff, but I had the one thing they wanted in my back pocket the night they broke in. It was the night Angela went to the hospital. When I went home they were in my house and I surprised them."
"Glad we were in church today. I wasn't going to go but Claire guilted me into it."
"Yeah, lucky." I agreed hesitantly, but she could see what I was thinking. She answered my question before I asked it.
"I called her that day, right before I picked up Rita. I was afraid Rita would say something about all those years ago when I was with Frank, and I needed morale support, so I called Claire, told her you were on the way to the hospital."
"I know you're close, and I can't imagine she would want either of us hurt. Maybe it was just a coincidence or someone knew some other way."
"I'll talk to her in the morning, but I would literally trust her with my life Eric. Why would she want someone to trash my house looking for something? She cleans the place, she could look everywhere, anytime she wants."
"True, probably just a coincidence. Maybe just be a little more careful what you say to her going forward. These people are serious Edith. Maybe I should stay the night."
"Eddy is coming home. Maggie talked me into calling him. I don't know what's going to happen between us, but he said he could sleep here, just in case. He'll be here in an hour or so."
"Alright. I can help you clean up until he gets here, then I have to check in with Maggie."
***
It was after nine before I made the short drive across Point Road to the Jeffries house. Most of the lights were off, but the main living room was lit up and Maggie opened the door before I rang the bell.
"Mom and Angela are already in bed. Angela drinks herself to sleep pretty early, but at least she isn't popping pills."
I sat down on the couch and watched her sweep a loose strand of hair from her eyes as she winced a little. She started pacing around the room in front of me, limping slightly. "What are you thinking Slater?"
"I'm thinking you need to take a breather. You should rest that leg, you can't be on it all the time and think it's going to heal."
"Movement is the best thing for it now. It can heal while I sleep. I've been trying to locate Dedra, just to give her my sympathies, but still nothing, nobody knows where she is. I tried Susan Foster again and she doesn't have a clue."
"Well, that's probably not quite true, I'd guess she has an idea."
"Yeah? Why's that, what do you know Slater?"
"I know that Susy's job at the Talent Agency is temporary, and totally not real. She works for some Federal agency and she and Davey were working together trying to stop all this."
"Yes! I told you there was more to it. Davey got roped into something, but he was a good person at the end."
"Don't gloat, it's unattractive. Yes, Davey turned it around and that's what got him killed. It probably got Sam killed too. Honestly, I'm worried about you being here by yourselves. And so help me, don't even tell me that's sexist! I'm scared. This has gotten really dangerous and whoever this is will kill anyone to get that list. They may be bugging my cell phone, all our phones. They seem to know things they couldn't unless they have us hacked somehow.
The girls on Davey's list were all raped and beaten by someone, one man I think, that thought they would never see freedom. Then Davey started bringing them back to the States. Now this guy wants them all dead because of what they might have seen, because they might be able to identify him. What kind of a person rapes a child, and then is willing to kill her, just on the off chance that she saw his face?"
"The kind of a person that we have to lock up, Slater. We can get them and get whoever killed Davey. We have to keep trying." Maggie stated.
"You didn't see Sam gutted like a fish, and you didn't hear Dedra screaming. I'm sorry Maggie, but there is no we, at least not for a while. What if they come after you? I couldn't live with that." My voice broke.
"Alright, calm down Slater." She sat down beside me, put her arms around my neck and pulled my head down onto her shoulder. "I'm the one being sexist now. I should have realized you couldn't see Sam like that without it tearing you apart."
"If I hadn't started digging into this, maybe they wouldn't have known about the list and Sam might still be alive."
"And everything would have went back to the way it was. How many kids' lives might be saved if we can stop even some of this? Davey knew that and so did Sam. They made their choice, that isn't your fault. And it's not your fault there are people like Diablo Blanco in the world. But we, and I do mean we, have to try and stop them."
I couldn't hold it in, the image of Dedra screaming while Sam laid there covered in blood was too much. Maggie held me for a minute while I let it out.
Finally, I sat back. "You need to improve your security. If someone from the Point is involved, they would know how close Davey and Angela were and they might come here."
"We have some, but we could sure make it better. I'll get someone over here tomorrow, put in motion lights and cameras, whatever it takes. I can throw Angela's checkbook at them."
"Sooner the better, and keep that gun handy."
"Do you want to stay tonight?" She asked. My eyes widened. "Not in my room, dummy! I can make up Dad's bed and you can sleep in there."
I smiled, feeling better. "Seems like a waste of blankets."
She laughed as she stood up. "Just don't let me catch you sneaking into Angela's room."
"Never crossed my mind." For once, it hadn't.
Chapter Eighteen
I wasn't surprised the next morning to discover that my house had been ransacked while I was gone. I had planned to look for bugs, but that seemed pointless now. The notebook was right where I'd left it, tucked into the plastic bag that was adhered to my water heater, right behind the owner's manual. Sometimes it's the things that are in plain sight that you don't see.
I thought about that as I started to clean up the mess. Had I missed the signs? At some point in time Gary Jeffries had developed an unnatural hold over Davey, a twisted domineering parental relationship. I was sure it hadn't been anything sexual. From my memories of the stories Gary told it was clear that he only liked women. It seemed to me that it was more about Davey, desperately in need of a father.
At his best Eddy Templeton was a cold man. When I first started hanging around with Davey he had been openly hostile to me. Looking back, I'm sure he thought Davey and I were more than friends. It took the addition of Angie Jeffries and my transparent crush on her for Eddy to accept the fact that I was straight. He never accepted the fact that Davey wasn't, and he went out of his way to show it.
Unaccepting was an understatement. Cold and occasionally cruel would be closer to describing the way he acted. I remember thinking at the time that I was better off. Better to have a father that was gone, to not have a father at all, than to have one like Eddy Templeton. In hindsight, I wasn't sure if he acted that way because he knew Davey wasn't his biological son or because he was gay, but neither was excusable. Whatever the reason, I knew his indifference and hostility hurt Davey on a daily basis. He needed a father, and he needed a father who could accept him for what he was. At eleven, I had watched him cry more than once because of it, and as we grew older, I watched it make him angry.
Somewhere along the line, between plane rides and flying lessons, Gary Jeffries must have recognized that need, that anger, and used it to take Davey down a dark path. Some people seem to have the innate ability to spot those individuals that can be manipulated into doing things that they might never do otherwise. Hitler and Charlie Manson both come to mind. Gary Jeffries was neither, but he must have intuitively started Davey's training back during those airplane rides and strengthened it in the years after high school.
Gary was my most likely suspect and I was pretty sure he was staying at the house in Fort Lauderdale that Frank Jeffries called home. I would have to confront him at some point soon, without the help of Susy Foster and her friends from the FBI, and without the help of my partner. I didn't know what to think about Frank Jeffries. Was it possible that Frank still didn't know that Davey was his son?
The intruders had dumped out every box and drawer in my house, and it took the best part of the day to put it back together. I far as I could tell, nothing was missing. Even the cash I had stashed was left in the pile of papers in my bedroom. Maybe they were just leaving a message, you keep digging, so will we.
Just after noon Edith Templeton called. "Claire finally admitted that she talked to Eddy the night you went to the hospital. Eddy wants to find out who did this, same as us. He'd prefer the more direct approach when it comes to justice, just shoot the bastards. He admitted he had thought about trying to find out what you knew, but he swears on a stack of bibles he didn't go to your house that night."
"Someone was here when I was out of town and went through everything. By now I would hope that they're tired of digging through my underwear drawer."
"I don't think it was him, but I wouldn't swear to it. He's so eaten up by guilt because he wasn't a better father to Davey, I don't know. He's not rational right now."
"Are you and Claire speaking?"
"She loved Davey almost as much as I did, she just wants to know what happened."
"We all do, but tell them to let me handle it. It's hard enough to figure out what's going on without more people in the mix."
Luis came by at four o'clock and we drove to the small duplex we were going to start renovating. I planned to let Luis run his crew and just show up to help when I could. It would be a good way to stay busy for a few days, and I didn't want to go back to Miami until I knew the Jeffries house had been secured. The security people were working on lights and all kinds of alarms, but the work wasn't complete. Angela had agreed that I could stay in her Dad's bedroom until the work was done, just in case. Rita wasn't thrilled, but nothing I had done lately thrilled Rita. Jasmine thought the arrangement was hilarious.
"Slater, I said work on it, I didn't say move in." I found myself on the porch alone with her shortly before turning in.
"I'm just sleeping here for a few nights, you're the one that moved in."
"Couple more nights, then Maggie will be able to fend for herself."
"She already can, you just don't want to go home."
"That's pretty much true. She's the sister I never had, it's like one big slumber party."
"That would make Angela the other sister you never had."
"That woman hates me. She keeps staring at my head."
"I see you're letting your hair grow out. Your head, do what you want, but you did look kind of lopsided."
"Just a thing. I can change my hair, I'm not sure Angela can change her personality."
"Don't be mean. She's jealous of you because you don't have to try with Maggie. Angie's always loved her a lot, but she never was good at showing it. They can't talk for more than five minutes without fighting."
"Maggie thinks you still have a thing for Angela."
"Are you spying for her now?"
"She thinks Angela has a thing for you too."
"She'd be wrong on both counts. You can tell her I said that, okay?"
"I tell her everything, isn't that what sisters do?"
"Some sisters." It reminded me that I still wasn't sure if Angie knew about Davey being their brother. It wasn't really my business, but I cared about them both and I thought they both deserved to know. I suspected Davey had told Angie at some point in the last few years but that she hadn't shared it with Maggie yet. Maggie hadn't told me that they both knew about their Dad's girlfriend until it had slipped out that I'd seen her, but then she didn't know the details of my visit to his compound or how deeply I suspected he was involved in Davey's death. But finding out that Davey had been her brother, I was sure she would have mentioned that.
It made me wonder, did the Private Investigator's code say that partners should tell each other everything? If that was the case, I would probably get tossed out of the union, because there was a lot I hadn't told Maggie. I was very sure she wasn't going to be happy about it, if she found out.
I was certain that the person in Frank's boathouse was his brother Gary, and I was nearly as certain that he was Diablo Blanco. But before I told my partner or Susy Foster and the FBI what I knew, I wanted to look him in the eye and make him tell me everything. I needed to know how I had failed Davey Templeton, how he had become the man doing the bidding of Diablo Blanco. And I needed to know if Gary had killed Davey. And if I could make him tell me that? I wasn't sure what I would do then.
***
I had come up with a plan of sorts, but I put things on hold for a few days. Luis was doing a great job and the crew would have done fine without me, but doing physical labor took my mind off things. Sometimes that worked. It was like the name of the guy in that movie you couldn't remember. When you stopped thinking about it, it came to you suddenly. Rational or not I felt a degree of responsibility for Gary's control over Davey. And always in the back of my mind there was the scene of Samath Chopra, lying dead and bloody on his leather couch.
Neither of the Jeffries brothers struck me as the kind of people that would hire a killer. No matter how narcissistic they might be, it was impossible to believe they could have had supper with Sam one night and then have him butchered the next. It had to be someone else, probably the same man who was determined to find the list and eliminate the girls on it.
I wasn't sure how Gary had managed to fake his own death or why he had done so. He had fled to California for a couple of years, then apparently moved into the boathouse at Frank Jeffries' compound. He had changed his appearance, but it wasn't like he was unrecognizable. I had realized it was him, but that had a lot to do with the fact that I spotted his brother's purple heart. I couldn't help wondering what the war hero, Clarence Jeffries, would think of his brothers.
/> I spent the week playing carpenter during the day and sleeping at the Jeffries nights, still worried about intruders. Jasmine decided to go home to Maryanne and the angry mare that was waiting for her. She said she was scared of horses and I told her I didn't think she was scared of anything. She promised to try riding if I would keep working on it. Maggie said she still didn't get it.
Rita loosened up and seemed able to tolerate my presence, even invited me to supper on my last night there. Rosa had to leave early, so after giving Maggie instructions she went home. I helped carry the food out and we sat down with Rita. Angie appeared after a couple of minutes, stumbling slightly and slurring her words.
Maggie started in on her right away. "Nice Angela. Six thirty, another couple of drinks and you can go pass out in your room."
"I helps me sleep." She giggled. "Would you rather I take something?"
"Maybe if you did what the doctor told you and quit drinking so much you would sleep like a normal person."
"I'm not a normal person. Normal is boring. Do you like boring Eric?" She reached out and laid a hand on my forearm and laughed again.
"I guess there's a sweet spot somewhere between boring and crazy, that's what I shoot for." I tried.
"We all know the sweet spot you're shooting at." She threw an exaggerated wink at Maggie and tipped her glass up. In all my years of being around that household I'd never seen Rita try to discipline her daughter or even offer an opinion about her behavior. That's why it was so shocking to all of us when she did.
She reached out and snatched the glass from Angela's grasp and set it on the table. When Angela reached for it, Rita grabbed it again and tossed it in the general direction of the fireplace, ignoring the noise as it shattered.
