Wrongful Death (14 page)

“How long will it last?”

Ford shrugged. “The doctors don’t know. They said one day she might just decide to speak again, but I think it could be a while.”

“Why is that?” Sloane asked.

“Sometimes the child chooses not to speak until something happens or someone returns. In Althea’s case they think she’s saving her first words for when her daddy comes home, or at least when she can accept that he is not.” She turned her head and cleared her throat.

The hollow feeling in Sloane’s gut felt like a chasm.

Ford picked up a framed photograph from a side table and handed it to Sloane. “That’s James,” she said.

The man in the picture towered over Beverly Ford a good eight inches. He was bald, with a goatee and the same bright smile and big eyes as Althea. James had his arms wrapped around Beverly Ford’s waist, the three oldest children hung from him. Althea sat on his shoulders.

Ford put the picture back and nodded to the file in Sloane’s lap. “You’re here to return my file, aren’t you?” Sloane handed it to her. “I’m grateful that you took the time to consider it—” Beverly started.

Sloane interrupted her. “I had my secretary make a copy.” He opened the file and pulled out a retainer agreement authorizing him to represent Ford and her children. She looked up at him. Than she hugged him.

“We’re going to find out if everybody kept their end of the bargain, Beverly.”

THREE TREE POINT, WASHINGTON

DESPITE THE LATE
hour, when Sloane parked in the easement, light glowed through the blinds covering his second-story bedroom window. Another burned downstairs as he entered the house through the kitchen. Charles Jenkins sat in the living room. The butt of a handgun protruded between his thigh and the seat cushion.

“You all right?” Jenkins asked as Sloane walked in.

He’d pulled the blinds to cover every window in the house, even the large panes of glass facing Puget Sound, which were never drawn.

Sloane looked up the staircase.

“She hasn’t been down,” Jenkins said.

Sloane handed Jenkins back the Glock he had borrowed, walked up the stairs, and opened the door to their bedroom. Tina lay on top of the comforter. The television and stereo were off. She had no book in her lap. “You took the case, didn’t you?”

“It’s not personal. It’s not about what happened earlier tonight, on the beach.”

“Then what is it? You said you can’t win.”

He went to her side of the bed, sitting on the edge. “It isn’t about winning. It’s about what someone took from this man and from his family, from all the lives he might have touched.”

She waited in silence.

“Someone needs to be held accountable—to his wife and children, and all the students whose lives he could have changed. Someone has to stand up for this man, for all of them.”

A tear rolled down her cheek. “Is it always going to have to be you?”

“He gave up so much to go over there. He had so much to lose, but he did his duty. He did his job. This is my job. What would it say about me if I walked away? I need to stand up for this man. I need to find out who is responsible for his death. I need to find justice for his family.”

“Can you?”

It was a legitimate question. “I have to try. I’d like to know you support me.”

Tina lowered her gaze. “Don’t ask me to do that.” She got off the bed and walked past him, speaking with her back to him. “I’m afraid of losing
you.
I’m afraid of Jake’s losing you.”

He walked to her. “I’m not going anywhere, Tina. You’re not going to lose me.”

She turned and looked at him. “Can you promise me that? Can you promise that to an eleven-year-old boy who’s already had one father abandon him?”

FEDERAL WAY, WASHINGTON

T
he drive to Tacoma Saturday morning would take less than forty-five minutes. Sloane sat in the passenger seat of Jenkins’s Buick. Jenkins had found a combination GPS and listening device attached to the ignition switch of Sloane’s Jeep. Every time he started the engine, the device turned on, allowing whoever was listening to hear every conversation in the car, and to track their location. They chose not to remove it, deciding it was better to let Argus think they were unaware of the surveillance.

“Anybody?” Sloane asked.

Jenkins glanced at the rearview mirror. “With traffic this light, I’d know. You all right with this?”

Sloane nodded.

“It’s the right decision,” Jenkins said. “Better to have them out of harm’s way. Alex will take care of them.”

Sloane didn’t doubt it, but he remained unable to forget the look on Jake’s face that morning when they explained that Sloane would not be going to Cabo. He knew the boy had heard similar excuses and broken promises from his biological father. Though
obviously disappointed, Jake tried to remain upbeat, telling Sloane he’d bring him a fish so big it would dwarf the salmon. It only made Sloane feel more guilty.

Tina had not tried to be upbeat about the decision, and he hated having the issue unresolved between them. Sloane didn’t want to dwell on it and changed the subject.

“You think I’m giving this woman false hope?”

“What’s that?” Jenkins asked.

He explained how Beverly Ford had hugged him when he told her that he intended to take her case.

“By taking her case, do you think I’m giving her false hope?”

Jenkins thought for a moment. “You ever see
Cool Hand Luke
with Paul Newman?”

Sloane knew that Jenkins often equated life to classic movies.

“Newman plays a convict named Lucas Jackson. He’s not a bad guy; he just doesn’t know his purpose in life. One night he gets drunk, commits a petty crime, and finds himself on a chain gang in the South. Every chance Luke gets he runs. And each time the warden catches him, brings him back, and tries to break Luke’s spirit. He doesn’t understand that Luke never really expects to get away.”

“Then why does he run?”

“Initially, he just likes the challenge. Sound like anyone you know?”

Sloane couldn’t argue.

“But then Luke starts to realize that each time he runs, the entire chain gang is running with him, rooting for him to actually get away. Do you know why?”

Sloane looked over.

“Because he’s their only hope of getting out. And it scares him because he knows it’s a false hope. He knows he can’t actually escape.”

“What happens?”

“He runs again, but this time he finds himself cornered in a church. So he gets down on his knees and he asks God, ‘What’s my purpose?’”

“Does God answer him?”

“Big George Kennedy, another convict who ran with him, comes in the church and tells Luke that if he just gives up ‘peaceful-like,’ the warden has promised everything will be okay. Only Luke knows he’s embarrassed the warden one time too many.”

“So what does he do?” Sloane asked.

“Luke steps to the window, mocks the warden, and the boss man shoots him dead.”

Sloane waited for Jenkins to continue. When he didn’t, he said, “Hey, thanks for that. I feel better already.”

Jenkins put up a finger. “That’s not the end.”

“Sounds like the end to me.”

“No. First Big George rushes the boss man and knocks off his glasses and they’re crushed by a car tire.”

“A symbol of injustice.”

“Exactly. Then, at the end, the chain gang is sitting around Big George, and one of the men asks how Luke looked when he died. And George says, ‘He was smiling. He was smiling that Cool Hand Luke smile.’ And all the men smile too.” Jenkins looked over at Sloane. “That was Luke’s answer. His purpose was to make those men smile, even after he was dead. Luke didn’t realize that it never was about him actually getting away for them either. It was about having hope, because sometimes even false hope is better than no hope.”

Sloane turned and looked out the windshield. “One big difference.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“I don’t plan on getting killed.”

SEA-TAC AIRPORT
WASHINGTON

ALEX LED TINA
and Jake through the Seattle-Tacoma Airport. The wheels of their suitcases hummed behind them. She and Charlie had been up late trying to persuade David, and then Tina, that Tina and Jake should go with Alex to Cabo, that it would be safer for them. Alex had dual citizenship and was fluent in the language and the customs of Mexico. Her training would also help her to leave behind no leads. Once David and Tina agreed, Alex called a former colleague in the documents section at Langley. Getting herself on a plane without any record of the transaction would not be difficult. During her four years working counterterrorism in Mexico and South America, she had accumulated multiple identifications. Tina and Jake were more problematic, especially on short notice. Her friend had put her in touch with a local FBI agent who had run a task force to catch “coyotes,” men who smuggle Mexican aliens across the border. He in turn advised her of a contact who trafficked in false identity documents. Expediting the new IDs had cost a premium.

Alex passed the ticket counter.

“Where are we going?” Tina asked.

“I need to get some money changed,” Alex said, pointing to a currency exchange booth beside a coffee stand outside the security entrance.

“Everything in Mexico takes American dollars,” Tina said, bewildered.

“Why don’t you take Jake and get something to eat for the plane ride. I don’t think a bag of peanuts will pacify him. I’ll meet you by that display.”

At the currency exchange Alex handed the woman behind the counter a hundred-dollar bill. The woman scanned the bill beneath
an anti-counterfeit machine and counted out colorful Mexican bank notes. All the while, Alex subtly watched Tina and Jake, first in line at the coffee stand, then sitting at a table. She collected the money and took a seat at a table. When they stood and walked to the display of South American pottery and jewelry, she could detect no one following them, or looking overly interested. She got up and approached, though she continued to use the reflection of the glass to watch the people behind her.

“All set?” she asked.

Jake held up a bag of food.

In line for the ticket counter, Alex handed Tina a Canadian passport and driver’s license, and a separate Canadian passport for Jake. “Just hand it over like always,” she said as they neared the front of the line.

At the counter Tina did as instructed.

“Cabo San Lucas,” the ticket agent said. “Can I fit in your suitcase?”

Tina smiled. “Not with all the clothes I packed.”

The agent looked out from behind the counter. “Two bags, Ms. Simonetti?”

“Just two,” Tina responded.

Jake looked like he was about to open his mouth, but Alex jumped in. “Help your mother with the suitcases, Jake.”

The boy hefted the suitcases onto the weight scale beside the ticket counter.

They had all discussed that this would be a delicate balancing act with Jake. Tina and David didn’t want to alarm him, but the precautions Alex would need to take to ensure their safety would alert Jake that things were not normal. She couldn’t have him asking questions at inopportune moments.

“And for the boy?” the agent asked.

Tina handed the agent a ticket and passport for Jake Duprey. Alex
wanted as many different last names as possible. The further she could distance them from two women traveling with a boy, the better.

“His father and I are divorced,” Tina said.

Alex caught Tina’s eye and slightly shook her head. Less information was better.

Nonplussed, the ticket agent sighed, “I know that routine.”

CABO SAN LUCAS, MEXICO

WITH THE LAYOVER
in Los Angeles and the time change between Seattle and Cabo San Lucas, their flight landed late that afternoon. Alex had sat a dozen rows behind them on the plane, and spent much of the flight considering the other passengers. No one gave her reason to be suspicious.

After deplaning, she told Tina and Jake to retrieve their luggage while she went to rent a car. It gave her another opportunity to watch them. Again she did not detect anyone following them. She used a different name to rent the car, and minutes later they had loaded their bags and were driving southeast, away from Cabo. Alex then proceeded north along the Sea of Cortez until she saw what she was looking for—a nondescript motel. She made a sudden, sharp U-turn, and doubled back.

“Whoa, that was cool,” Jake said, lifting his head from his video game.

Alex passed the motel again, made a second U-turn, and pulled into the parking lot.

By now Jake was leaning forward. “Where are we? This isn’t the hotel you showed me on the Internet. Where’s the pool and waterslide?”

“Remember how David and I said that you’d have to be flexible on this vacation?” Tina asked.

“Yeah,” he said, reluctant.

“Well, this is one of those moments.”

Alex paid cash for a room and signed the register using a third different name. They settled into a room with two beds and little extra space. Then she and Tina stepped outside, leaving Jake disappointed and shell-shocked inside.

“Keep the door locked and stay inside. Call me if you see anything suspicious, or anyone comes to the room, anything at all,” Alex said. Tina appeared anxious, so Alex added, “I haven’t noticed anyone following us. I just want to be sure.”

After leaving the motel, Alex drove back toward Cabo with the windows down, letting the warm ocean air blow through the car. After contacting her former colleague at Langley, she had called a field officer with whom she had worked at the Counterterrorism Center. He had been promoted to the Mexico City office as the second-in-command and deputy to the station chief. At one time they had dated. Alex hoped he didn’t hold a grudge. She needed a weapon.

She exited Highway 1 and followed the directions to the Puerto Paraiso Mall, circling until she saw the outdoor grill with the colorful red-and-yellow umbrella. The Mexican man stood hard at work cooking pork, chicken, and steak on a grill.

“Me dijeron que usted hace los mejores burritos en todo Cabo,”
she said, flattering the man as having the best burritos in Cabo.

The man smiled.
“Los burritos estan buenos, señorita, pero los chiles estan de chuparse los dedos,”
he replied, telling her that while the burritos were good, the chiles were to die for.

“I’ll take three of each,” she replied, and handed him the money.

Back inside the car, she put the two brown bags on the passenger seat and pulled out the foil-wrapped food. At the bottom of each bag she found two other foil-wrapped purchases, a .40-caliber Glock and an extra magazine. Apparently the field officer had gotten over her after all.

TACOMA, WASHINGTON

SLOANE AND JENKINS
drove past the Tacoma Dome, which looked like the top half of a golf ball sticking out of the ground. Jenkins took the City Center exit. Paper manufacturing and pulp mills on the industrial flats had at one time emitted a distinctive acrid odor people in the Northwest dubbed the “Aroma of Tacoma,” though much of that odor had been eliminated by air-quality controls implemented in the 1990s.

Sloane asked, “Do we know how he died?”

“Article in the paper said he was shot, but gave few details, which means the killing remains unsolved and the detectives are playing everything close to the vest. Like I said, we’ll talk to them after we talk to the sister. I doubt they’ll say much, but we might get someone interested in the fact that three of the five men in Ford’s squad are now dead.”

“What did his sister say?”

“Don’t know. People can hang up the phone easier than they can close a door.”

On Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, Sloane noted cameras on the telephone poles and the conspicuous construction of a police precinct amidst the one-story businesses and residences. The Hilltop was mostly concrete, with little foliage. The houses, like the cars in the driveways, were a mix from decent to run-down, with bleak, postage-stamp-size yards. At eleven in the morning, the sidewalks remained deserted. Jenkins explained that meant most of the residents worked evenings. He slowed and parked across the street from a rambler the color of key lime pie with a yard of dandelions enclosed by a chain link fence.

The edge of Sloane’s door scraped the curb when he opened it; otherwise the area was eerily quiet. When he stepped from the car, he noticed two men sitting on a porch drinking beer from cans
and watching Sloane and Jenkins as if they were the new movie in town. Jenkins nodded to them. One of the men responded with an equally subtle gesture, a silent understanding of some sort.

As they met at the front of the car Sloane said, “You look like Shaft,” referring to the actor who had played the black police detective who always wore a long black coat.

“Exactly.”

Though the sun was out, Sloane felt a chill as they crossed the street toward the rambler. Crossing the sidewalk, he reached for the latch to the gate of the chain link fence.

“Don’t,” Jenkins said.

No sooner had he spoken than a very big and very loud Rottweiler sprinted around the corner of the house barking and growling. The dog left its feet as it approached the fence, and for one terrifying moment Sloane thought the animal would clear it. He stumbled backward, tripped over a raised crack in the sidewalk, and landed on his ass in the street. The dog’s front paws, the size of baseball mitts, rested atop the fence, its snout lunging at them, snarling and barking, its pinch-collar rattling against the metal.

The two men on the porch cackled so hard one had doubled over and looked like he might roll down the steps. Apparently Sloane and Jenkins
were
the show for the day.

Sloane brushed off his pants as he stood. “Terrific. The demon from hell. I told you we should have called ahead.”