Forests of the Night (4 page)

“You lose.”

“Aw, come on. You think I'm going to the cops?”

“None of those,” Jacob said. “I'm just trying to stay alive.”

“What's that mean? This is for self-defense? Give me a break.”

“What's that thing in the pool?” Jacob nodded toward the water.

“What?”

“That fish.”

“It's not a fish, it's a mammal,” Shirlee said. “It's a goddamn dolphin. You never saw a dolphin before? Jesus, you
must
live in a mine shaft.”

“So that's a dolphin.”

“Yeah, yeah. Big brain. Smart as you and me, maybe smarter, that's what they say.”

“If it's so smart,” Jacob said, “what's it doing in your pool?”

 

At Miami International Airport, Jacob Panther found a bank of TV monitors and checked the arrival time of the US Airways flight from Charlotte. On time, arriving in forty-five minutes. He located a Burger King and bought a large Coke and got a plastic lid. At the first trash can, he dumped out the Coke and ice, then snapped the lid back into place. In the men's room he locked himself in a stall. He pricked the rubber membrane with the dart, and swished the fluid over the point. After a moment more, he withdrew the needle tip and slid the dart, point first, into the white tube. He drew a pipe cleaner from his pocket and poked the projectile down the barrel of the blowgun until a speck of the shiny tip was exposed and the fletching was secure. When he had it positioned correctly, Jacob inserted the white tube through the plastic lid of his empty Coke cup.

He flushed the pipe cleaner, then walked out of the bathroom to the head of Concourse H and eased in alongside the chauffeurs with their signs.

Jacob held the cup, and every few minutes he touched his lips to the white straw that poked through the lid and moved his cheeks as if he were swallowing. The arriving passengers streamed out of the concourse exit, some of them stopping to hug loved ones. Most in a hurry, on cell phones, jostling toward the waiting cabs.

Jacob watched the crowd and sucked on his straw that was not a straw.

Hundreds of people passed by before the man appeared.

Jacob saw his face through the swarm, on a route that would bring him only a few feet away from Jacob's position. Jacob gripped the mouthpiece of his blowgun and drew it a few inches from the cup. But just as his target entered killing range, he made a sudden cut behind a group of women and Jacob lost the shot.

The crowd swarmed, and the man passed by only two yards away, but shielded by women in bright dresses. He walked with his usual cocky strut, passing quickly with his long, even stride.

Jacob swung around, bumped a tall woman holding up a welcome sign. He apologized and slipped through the crowd.

At the head of the escalator, his target halted for an elderly lady who was balking, as if this were her first experience with moving stairs. A moment of providence.

Jacob headed down the fixed stairway that ran between the up and down escalators. He slowed his pace, watched in his side vision as the elderly woman glided past, then the tall man with the familiar face. Jacob timed his descent to stay even with the man. Two feet away.

Choosing the largest patch of exposed flesh, he used the move he'd rehearsed a hundred times. Drawing the straw smoothly from the cup, taking only a second to aim, then he puffed hard into the mouthpiece.

The dart lodged two inches below the man's left ear. In half a second, the blowgun was back in the plastic cover of the cup.

Grabbing at the sting in his neck, the man looked directly at his killer. Recognizing Jacob, his eyes flared with dark lightning. A second later the light drained away, and his mouth opened into a savage yawn, and he tumbled forward just as the old lady was stepping from the escalator.

Behind Jacob a woman shrieked. Two men in dark suits hustling down the escalator halted at the bottom and stared at the body sprawled on the linoleum before them. One of them glanced at his watch, spoke in Spanish to his friend, and they tiptoed around the dead man and hurried on.

Jacob pretended to take sips while he mingled with the crowd that gathered around the man. Edging backward little by little to the perimeter of
the throng until a security guard arrived, kneeled over the man, felt for a pulse, and began to bark into his radio.

Jacob walked out the exit and headed for the airport's Flamingo Garage, where he'd parked the red pickup. One more stop. Another man to deal with.

This one he'd been wanting to meet for a long, long time.

Charlotte Monroe didn't recognize the red pickup truck parked in her front drive. It didn't belong there, that was for sure. In fact, it was illegal. One of the nitpicky rules of the city of Coral Gables was that no pickups were permitted to be parked in residential driveways overnight anywhere within the city limits. Workmen were okay in daylight hours, as long as they returned to their own shabby neighborhoods before nightfall. Charlotte had never written a ticket for a pickup truck parked overnight, and she didn't know anybody on the Coral Gables PD who had. But still, the law was there and at least once a week a good citizen called 911 to turn in a violator. City Beautiful. This was her beat. Protecting people who spent way too much time spying on their neighbors. Her beat and also her home.

Her patrol car was in the motor pool for its sixty-thousand-mile service and there were four officers waiting ahead of her for spare cruisers, so when she saw Jesus Romero pulling out of the parking lot, she flagged him down. Her old partner, back in the early days.

Now as Jesus stared at the ornate wrought iron gates blocking the drive, he grunted as if marveling at an attractive woman crossing his path.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Charlotte said. “Go on, give me some shit.”

Charlotte drew the remote from her purse and aimed it through the windshield and, as the heavy gates rolled back, Jesus chuckled.

“Say it,” she said. “Why the hell do I keep slogging along in the sewers when I could stay home all day and boss around a dozen maids?”

When the gate was open, Jesus pulled into the brick drive and eased up to the front door. But Charlotte sat there for a moment looking at the red pickup truck in the headlights.

“If I could afford a place on the Gables waterway, I sure as hell wouldn't buckle on my piece one more day. I'd be trolling for sailfish from dawn to dusk, perfecting my margarita recipe.”

“I live here, Jesus. It's a house, not a way of life.”

He waved his hand at the Mediterranean villa.

“I see you every day, but I always forget you come from this.”

“I don't
come
from this. I
live
in this.”

“It's just weird, that's all. Being a cop, for you it's like some volunteer thing. The Peace Corps, missionary work. You don't need it.”

“Screw that,” she said. “I need it all right.”

He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. Jesus was one of the very few who knew her story and understood where her need was rooted.

High school, her senior-year spring break, she'd ridden to Florida with Teddy Miles in his rusty Olds Cutlass. Him to get drunk and ogle bikini babes, Charlotte to escape Murfreesboro and for the tan. All the way to Lauderdale, Teddy bummed gas and food money from her, so she knew he was flat broke and pissed off about it, but she didn't know exactly what he intended to do about it until their first hour in South Florida.

Teddy pulled into a Qwik Mart for more beer, Charlotte looking for crackers, sandwich meat, anything cheap and filling. When she wasn't paying attention, Teddy drew a handgun on the clerk, a black woman in a dashiki and tons of jewelry. Down the cracker aisle, Charlotte screamed at him to put it away, but he ignored her. Grabbed the cash, yelled for Charlotte, then noticed the surveillance camera on the way out, firing at it but missing. By then the cashier was howling like a wounded dog. Teddy turned and shot her twice, just to keep her quiet, he said later. First slug kicked her against the cigarette case, the second one killed her.

Thirty minutes later the two of them were in jail. Next day Charlotte
was assigned a young public defender named Parker Monroe. In the deposition, she gave him her complete hard-luck story back to the beginning of time, went on to describe her total shock that Teddy Miles would commit robbery and murder. She didn't even know the jerk had a gun. Parker listened, nodding. Then he told her quietly about the get-tough policy of the current DA, a woman running for reelection. Usual sentence for accessory in felony murder was twenty-five to life. The new sentencing guidelines made no distinction between the shooter and his accomplices. Everyone was charged the same. And given the current politics, the DA might press for the death penalty. But he'd give it a shot, see what he could do. Saying it all in his gentle, measured voice. Reassuring, but no guarantees.

Three days passed before he showed up again. By then Charlotte had cried herself dry. He sat down across from her at the stark metal table and smiled. Parker had done his magic in judge's chambers. The surveillance tape backed her up. He gave himself no credit, but Charlotte was forever convinced her freedom was due to Parker Monroe's gift, his utter faith in his client's innocence, and his plainspoken style. Teddy got thirty to life. Charlotte's record was expunged. An innocent party to another's vicious impulse.

After a year of steady dating she moved in with Parker, and three years after that, when she graduated from the local university, they eloped to Vegas. Giddy in love. This handsome Harvard boy rescued her from prison and an equally tawdry future back in Tennessee. She had to love him. No choice. Two parts gratitude, an equal measure of love and attraction all churning in her gut. Now, almost two decades later, she was still doing penance for her sins, serving and protecting, and still feeling indebted to this man who'd won her freedom. It nagged at her sometimes, Charlotte unsure what portion of her love for Parker was based on thankfulness. And why the hell a man like him had married down, plucking her from the lower classes, anointing her. What had she done to deserve any of it? Most of the time she managed to let it go. Knowing how goddamn lucky she'd been to draw Parker Monroe that day, not one of the harried public defenders she'd met since.

In a quieter voice, all the macho drained away, Jesus said, “Fact is, I'd get bored with fishing. A week or two, I'd be begging for my shield back.”

Max walked into the flare of headlights and rubbed his back against the rear tire of the pickup. The red truck had Volusia County plates—Daytona Beach area. None of their friends drove pickups.

Romero's radio crackled and they grew quiet and listened. Suspicious character sighted in front of a jewelry store at Merrick Place—the hoity-toity shopping center in the heart of Coral Gables.

“Suspicious character,” Charlotte said. “At Merrick Place that would be anyone not wearing Manolo Blahniks.”

“Manolowhat?”

“Shoes. Expensive shoes.”

Jesus nodded, tried to smile.

It was their longest conversation since her rookie days, when Jesus was her mentor. In the years since, Charlotte had passed up promotions, choosing to stay on patrol while Jesus worked his way up to major-crimes detective. Bully for him. He had five kids, needed the extra pay, and had no problem with the dismal crime scenes, investigations going cold, getting filed away. Charlotte preferred the tang of the street. Eight edgy hours, no two days alike. People in need, panicked, confused, jacked up on fury. Drunks, heart attacks, family violence, robberies in progress. Volatile situations, brief windows when it was still possible to make a difference.

“You hear what your husband did today?”

She grimaced and nodded. She'd caught a glimpse of Parker on the waiting room TV on her way out. Lead story on the five o'clock news.

“I don't get it.” Jesus thumped his knuckles against the steering wheel. “Kid shoots his coach in the face and doesn't even get thirty days. No probation, nothing. Little turdball struts out of the courthouse smiling.”

“Parker's good at what he does.”

“Too good, you ask me.”

“There's always two sides.”

“You starting to lose your way, Charlotte? I'm talking about a nine-millimeter slug in the face. In through the nose, blows off the back of his head. Kid's sixteen, he knows from right and wrong. Coach reprimands him for some bullshit thing, kid goes home, gets his Glock. Runs back. Don't be dissing me, old man. Bang, bang.”

“I believe it was his uncle's Glock. Left unlocked in a dresser drawer.”

“Oh, come on. Right and wrong, Charlotte. Justice, injustice.”

“Can't blame Parker. It was a bad Miranda. Some Metro rookie, stopped halfway through his rights, answers a personal call on his cell, never finished reading the card. His partner testified. Talking to some girl he'd just met instead of doing his business.”

“Technicality.”

“Chain of evidence was spotty, conflicting eyewitnesses. Other kids in the locker room were all over the goddamn place. Shooter was just trying to scare the coach, never meant to fire the pistol. Coach went for the gun, there was a struggle, gun fired accidentally. Guys who were there, watching the whole thing, even they couldn't agree what happened.”

“Some of them were lying. Protecting their buddy.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Either way, it blows the case.”

“Your old man's got you brainwashed. He's whispering to you in your sleep, converting you to his brand of Satan worship. Goddamn trial lawyers.”

“We do our jobs right, Parker's got nothing to work with. We screw up like the yahoo stopping halfway through the Miranda, the bad guys walk.”

“Did the kid shoot the coach?”

“You know there's more to it than that.”

“Not for me there isn't.”

She huffed and shook her head. Acting more put out than she was. But this is how she managed it. Took Parker's side. Repeated his set phrases. Tried damned hard to see it his way. And usually nobody called her on it, or got in her face like Jesus was doing.

She'd been doing it for years, whenever one of his cases made news. Another bad guy let loose. She trotted out the speeches. Parker's arguments were valid, of course, and she believed them to a point. Even scum were entitled to counsel. Crafty lawyering made for smarter police work. Yeah, yeah. Still it wore on her to mouth the words. Frayed the strands of her self-respect. Marriage vows in direct conflict with her other sacred vow—to serve and protect. Ride the bad guys to their bloody knees and haul their asses in.

“There he was on TV while I was eating my black beans and rice, standing out on the courthouse steps, taking questions from that blond babe on
Channel Six. All humble, no smiling, no high fives or any of that garbage. Came off pretty well, considering he'd just given the justice system a good reaming.”

“Look, he's a decent guy. More than half his cases are pro bono.”

“Like this guilty fuck today.”

“That's not fair and you know it.”

“Half are pro bono, the other half are rich-ass swindlers and drug lords. Nothing personal, but your husband's playing on the wrong team.”

“Goofy as it sounds, Parker believes everybody who walks through his door is innocent.”

“You're shitting me.”

“Every single one of them.”

“I knew he was some kind of bleeding-heart lunatic, but man. Everybody's innocent? What kind of outer-space bullshit is that?”

“One night soon, come over to dinner, bring Maria. I'll make that lasagna you like so much. You can talk to Parker, hear his side, call his bluff. Then afterward feel free to badmouth him all you want.”

“Christ, I have dreams about your damn lasagna. Been years since I had it last, but some nights I wake up, I'm salivating.”

“So we'll do it then. Get together.”

“Hell, if I got in the same room with that guy, he'd work his voodoo on me, next thing you know I'd be down at the jail throwing open the cells.”

Charlotte smiled and looked over at the house. She could see shadows through the gold curtains. Two tall men walking through the dining room, heading for the patio. A shorter shadow tagging along. Gracey.

Jesus tapped out a
café cubano
rhythm on the steering wheel.

“I heard Gracey was having trouble. How's she doing?”

“Depends on the meds. She skips a few, it can get rowdy.”

“She still into oil painting?”

“It's acting now. She goes to the fine-arts magnet downtown. Got a teacher who thinks she's a genius, Mr. Underwood.”

“So what's wrong with that?”

“You ever seen
Double Indemnity?
Fred MacMurray and a beautiful blonde murder the blonde's husband?”

“Sure, Barbara Stanwyck. Tight sweaters and an ankle bracelet. I've seen it maybe twenty times.”

“Well, Gracey's been consulting with Barbara on acting matters.”

“What? She watches her movies, studies technique?”

“More than that. The two of them have heart-to-hearts. Sometimes it's Joan Crawford.”

“She could've picked better actresses.”

“It's from the class she's taking. Film Noir. So my daughter's learning how to wear a mask. That deadpan, shell-shocked look they all used back then, the Humphrey Bogart thing, hide your feelings, cover it all up.”

Jesus shifted, looking uncomfortable.

“So she talks to Barbara Stanwyck? How does that work?”

“She hears a voice in her head. Barbara Stanwyck's got a hotline to my daughter, sending her inspiration.”

“She's got an artistic temperament. Hell, one of my girls acted pretty weird for a couple of years, making all these creepy-sounding voices. Role-playing or whatever. Just a phase, part of that teenage hormone thing.”

Charlotte shook her head.

“Now you sound like Parker.”

“Well, what is it then? It have a name?”

Charlotte hated the word. She could count the number of times she'd spoken it aloud.

“Schizophrenia,” she said. “That's what I'm told.”

“Oh, Christ. I didn't realize.”

“One percent of the population worldwide.”

“Yeah, that's the one percent that keeps us busy.”

Jesus winced when he realized what he'd said.

“It's okay,” Charlotte said. “She's not that bad yet. It could happen, but there's drugs, therapy. She may turn out to have the high-functioning variety.”