Culbert’s sneer became even more lopsided. “Agent Rezvani, I don’t know how you do things in D.C., but down here, these aren’t the kind of details we leave as loose ends. Did you see those wounds? Whoosh! Right through flesh and bone and sealed right up like a surgeon. What kind of weapon does tha—”
“Leave it alone, Field Agent,” Rez warned, deepening her voice. “Mr. Spector is above your pay grade.”
Culbert bristled. “What the heck does that mean? What is he, a spook?”
Rez looked both ways as if to make sure no one else was listening in. “CIA, NSA are dark right?” she asked. He nodded. “Okay, so Spector belongs to something darker. Leave it alone or expect a visit from the guys in black suits and sunglasses.”
“Crap,” Culbert muttered. “But we’re supposed to be the guys in dark suits and sunglasses!”
Rez shook her head. “You have no idea.” Then she walked away, leaving Culbert in stupefied silence.
They were loading one of the La Compañía gunmen into an ambulance and he yelled to Culbert, “I’m tellin’ ju, mannn, he’s like a freakin’ Jedi Knight, yo. Arrest that dude…‘fore he cut off somebody’s head with dat lightsaber!”
Culbert didn’t even look at the Cuban. “Save it for your lawyer.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“You want to get breakfast?” Rez asked, turning into the strip mall parking lot where I’d parked the dead hitman’s car. “The sun’ll be up in an hour.”
“Thanks, no,” I replied. “I need to get some sleep, or…at least rest while I think about things.”
She took my silver case from her backseat and handed it to me. Then she handed me something else. “Take it,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Duh, it’s a cell phone. You’re the only guy I know who doesn’t have one. It’s prepaid for a year. My number’s preprogrammed in there. Call me if you need to.”
I smiled. “You mean, it’s so you can call me when you want to.”
“That too.”
I pocketed the little black electronic candy bar and said goodbye. I drove to the nearest hotel outside of Panama City Beach proper, a local place called The White Sands Inn. It wasn’t a Motel 6, unfortunately, but it was clean…and cheap. I paid $42 in cash and fell into the bed in my new room. The mattress was hard, but it didn’t matter…not really. Sleep would elude me until my mind quieted down. And that didn’t look to happen for some time. My thoughts raced…running laps around the same maddening reality:
Smiling Jack and his accomplice were still out there. And our best lead had come up empty.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
I woke with a start to a blaring, loud rendition of I Feel Pretty from West Side Story. Whoever the last occupant of the room was, I guess they liked to wake up with a heart attack. I feel pretty, oh so pretty…
I hit the snooze button on the alarm a little too hard. The brick-sized alarm skidded off the bedside table and dropped to the floor with a crash. But the dreaded music wouldn’t stop. I rolled out of bed and fell to all fours, scrambling for the alarm. I found it, but I wasn’t familiar with this alarm at all, and there were a lot of buttons and switches. I tried flicking every switch in rapid-fire combinations, but still the music played on. If anything it was even louder now, seemingly right in my ear.
I feel charming, oh so charming, it’s alarming just how charming I feel!
I didn’t know how much more of this I could take, so I pulled the little alarm clock’s plug.
But the music didn’t stop. What in the…? Then I realized: battery backup.
Such a pretty face. Such a pretty dress.
I was half tempted to get the PNP from my silver case and blast the thing. But I found the battery compartment, flicked out the two double A, Duracells, and started to grin at the sudden peace—
But the music didn’t stop.
I feel stunning and entrancing, feel like running and dancing for joy!
At last, it dawned on me that the music wasn’t coming from the alarm clock at all. The phone. It was coming from the phone Rez gave me. I dug into the pocket of my new sports coat, grabbed the little black phone, and hit the glowing green button.
“What took you so long to pick up?” Rez growled.
“I thought the ringtone was the alarm. I didn’t—”
“Never mind. I need to you to get to Fort Pickens National Park in Pensacola. There’s a body here, and Ghost…I think it’s one of Jack’s.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
I pushed the sports car past the speed limit on US Route 98 and stopped only once, filling up with gas at a little middle-of-nowhere station called Isaiah’s Gas-n-Go. Fifty-nine dollars later, I was back on the road to Pensacola Beach.
Two and a half hours later, the sun was already climbing, humidity hugged the coast like a wet wool blanket, and I was staring down at the lifeless body of a young woman.
Fort Pickens was built between 1829 and 1834 and was the largest of four forts built to defend the naval yard at Pensacola Bay. It was a pentagonal structure with strongholds at each angle and ten concrete gun batteries spread along its perimeter walls. It had served with distinction becoming one of only four forts in the South never to be occupied by Confederate forces during the Civil War. But after World War II, weapons technology had made the fort obsolete, and the Army abandoned it.
The U.S. Park Service occupied the fort now and apparently took some professional pride in posting historical fact signs like the ones I’d read as I walked the two hundred yards from the parking lot to the fort interior. The Park Service also ran tours of Fort Pickens’ narrow stone halls and cramped bunkers, no doubt recounting the few historical details not emblazoned upon the signs.
The young woman’s body had been left at the end of one of those narrow halls, the one at the pentagon’s point just a few hundred yards from the glistening Gulf of Mexico. Fortunately, an early-bird park ranger by the name of Slemner found the body prior to any tour group full of grandparents and impressionable grandchildren. The scene would have haunted young memories and nightmares for many years, as they would mine…if I let them.
The woman was a young brunette who, in life, must have had very little exposure to sun. Her skin was ivory white and flawless but for the wounds that had killed her. She wore a white camisole similar to the one worn by the red headed victim from the camera I’d found. The cami was stained bright red as were the sheer white shorts she wore. She lay on her side, very much in the fetal position, but her head was turned to stare at the ceiling. Her throat had been cut fiercely, deep enough to reveal bone.
Rage surged up within me. The killers had kept this poor young woman kenneled like a dog and then slaughtered her. And they had been out on the Gulf last night, after all. We’d found a boat, the very one I’d seen the morning I received the camera. We’d stopped a crime, and for that I was grateful. But Smiling Jack and his accomplice were still free…still alive.
Finding whatever ship the killers used out on the open Gulf at night would have been a needle in a haystack. But none of the excuses mattered. I had not stopped the killers in time, and another young girl was dead.
“What’s he doing here?” Culbert poked me in the shoulder. I saw him wince and discreetly shake his hand behind his leg. I think he felt a little too close to me in the narrow stone hallway because he backed up quickly.
Agent Rezvani again came to my rescue. “I called him. Mr. Spector has been working the same case. I’ve invited him as a consultant.”
“Consultant, huh?” Culbert said, his sneer lifting into a ridiculous smile. “What exactly do you do, Mr. Spector?”
“I consult.” I stared at him hard, and eventually he got the hint and backed down.
Other agents and local law scurried in and out of the tunnel. Rez took me around a corner and led me to a dimly lit stone alcove. I could easily imagine old cannons and barrels of black powder stored there.
“This changes things,” she sa
id.
“I understand.”
“I’m not sure you do.” She exhaled as if what she was about to explain annoyed her but maybe there was nothing she could do about it. “The body changes things. She’s one of Jack’s. She was in the last batch of photos to hit the web. I’m sure of it. Her body will bring a cloudburst of Federal intervention. Remember, we spent millions on this case the first go round. There are dozens of higher ups still cleaning the bird crap off their shoulders. They’ll be itching to put this to bed so they can report to John Q. Public and claim the win.”
“I don’t want credit,” I said. “I want the killers.”
“I know that. But my superiors won’t be scared off like Culbert. Unless you flex a little muscle from your agency, you’re going to be left out.”
I said, “I don’t think so.” Rez put her hands on her hips and sighed. I decided to change the direction. “The body also means new leads.”
She ran with it. “From her, we’ll get prints, dental records, blood type…maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll get some physical evidence from the killers. If not that, at least we’ll get next of kin, maybe someone who knew her.”
I nodded. “I’ll need that information, Rez. Will you give it to me? Or will you cut me out too?”
She laughed. She actually laughed out loud at me. Then she slugged me in the shoulder, some kind of martial arts punch full of force and plenty of angst. It hurt a little, but I didn’t flinch.
“Why did you do that?” I asked.
She looked like she was considering a second punch. “Y’know, for a smart guy, you seem to miss a lot. What kind of ungrateful hack do you think I am? You gave me my first real leads in this case and believed when everybody else told me to go fly a kite. Oh, and you saved my life. That counts for something in my book.” She leaned in close. “But once my superiors show up, you’ll have to disappear.”
“I’m pretty good at that.”
“I’m sure you are,” she said. “Just keep the phone I gave you handy.”
“About the phone…the ringtone?”
She stared at me, and I got the feeling that if we weren’t at a crime scene, she would have burst out laughing.
“I guess you didn’t care too much for that one. Give it here.”
I handed her the phone. She tip-tapped buttons and slid the touch screen this way and that. Then she gave it back.
“That should do the trick.”
I smiled and put the phone in my cargo shorts pocket. “Thank you.”
Rez motioned for me to follow. “ME said he was almost finished.”
We went back to the body, and the ME was just leaving.
Rez stepped into his path. “What did you get?”
The medical examiner was a short, roundish fellow who reminded me of a dark-skinned version of the Penguin villain from the Batman comics. But instead of a monocle, he wore wireframe specs with rounded rectangle lenses. Behind the glass, his sharp green eyes scanned Rez up and down, not ogling. More like assessing…analyzing. “Sorry, Special Agent Rezvani,” he said. “Can’t say ‘til I get d’body back to d’lab.”
There was a hint of the islands in his speech, Aruba, maybe. West Indies for sure.
“Off the record?” Rez pressed. “We’ve been working this case for some time. Cause of death? Time?”
“Off d’record, dee cause of death be exsanguination, but not ‘ere. D’er eese not enough blood ‘ere.”
“From a cut throat?” Rez asked, incredulous.
“Mebbe,” he replied. “But d’ere eese also dis wound in d’vaginal canal, and so I cannot rule out ‘til I get back to d’lab.”
Rez swore, not at the ME, but at the news. “What about the time?”
“From d’flesh temperature, I estimade d’time of death to be ‘bout ten hours ago. Tree in d’marnin’…’bout.”
Her eyes darted at the man’s plastic encased ID. “Dr. Abbott, is there anything else you can tell us?”
“No’ting more, now if you’ll pardon me, I ‘ave much wark to do.”
She handed him her card. “I’ll call you,” she said, “but if you get anything else before, please call me right away.”
The ME nodded and walked away. Dr. Abbott, the West Indian Penguin. He even had a slight waddle to his gait.
“What now?” I asked.
“We hit the beach,” she said. “She wasn’t killed here. If they did this out on the Gulf and then brought the body here. There should be some sign on shore. Sand is pretty good for keeping footprints.”
“Unless the tide washes them away,” I said.
Rez gave me a fretful stare. I wondered if she was thinking the same thing I was.
We might be closer to finding the killers than we’d ever been. But would we get them fast enough to keep them from killing again?
Chapter 20
We were on the beach for an hour, talking to the agents who were scrutinizing a twelve-foot wide path staked off from the waterline to the fort. As the waxing afternoon sun raged down upon us, we learned pretty much what we expected to learn. The killers had likely anchored in deeper water and come to shore in a Zodiac or some other small craft. Two sets of footprints led from the water. There were spots of blood along their path and occasional depressions where they might have rested the body. The scene technicians had taken impressions on the prints. We’d likely get a definitive identification of whatever footwear the killers had been wearing.
The techs gave us what they could so far. One of the killers had larger feet and was heavier than the other. The techs estimated one in the 180-240 range; the other 150-175. Not a lot to go on. But it was more than we had before and likely all I was going to get from the FBI for a while.
“Rez!” came a voice like an avalanche. “Culbert told me you got some hotshot consultant?” A sweaty hot older man in a way-too-dark for Florida suit charged across the sand. He had a jaw like a wedge of granite and proceeded to spew a list of invectives that would have sent an Army drill sergeant to therapy.
“Oh, crap,” Rez hissed. “What’s he doing here?”
“Who is he?”
“Deputy Director Barnes,” she whispered. “I had no idea he’d come himself.”
“Is that bad?”
She nodded. “It shows you how important this case is to the Bureau. And I don’t think he’s going to like you very much.”
“Should I leave?”
“Too late,” she said.
“This the guy?” demanded the blocky, muscular Deputy Director of the FBI.
I held out my hand. He ignored it. “John Spector.”
“Never heard of you,” Barnes said. “But if you know anything about law enforcement, you’ve heard of me. Ulysses M. Barnes, Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Can you or Agent Rezvani please explain to me why you are present at a crime scene?”
I started to speak, but Rez cut me off. “Deputy Director, Sir, he’s here because I invited him.”
“Invited him, what in the—”
She cut him off too. “Mr. Spector was the one who sent us the photos from the camera he found, remember, Sir? He’s also the one who broke the Cuban mafia’s sex-trafficking ring. He’s proved an invaluable ally and consultant in all my efforts investigating Smiling Jack. He’s the only help I’ve had, Sir, since I’m working during my vacation.”
“Touché,” Barnes replied. He glanced down. “What’s with the silver suitcase?”
“Tools,” I said.
“Uh, huh.” Barnes looked like I’d just spat a glob into his bowl of cereal. “He needs to leave.”
“But, Sir, he’s—”
Barnes held up a hand. “My final word.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Mortified and angry, Rez had offered a variety of apologies and promised to call and keep me in the loop. I tried to reassure her. Honestly, I preferred to work from the outside. Teaming up with Rez was one thing, but working in concert with dozens and dozens of FBI agents and hig
her-ups, well…that wasn’t a very good idea. The fewer people who knew anything about me the better.
I drove back to Panama City. While waiting for any new leads the FBI’s best and brightest could find, I wasn’t about to sit still. The condition of the body, the wounds…they led to questions, questions that maybe Doc Shepherd could help answer. In fact, Doc Shepherd suddenly seemed like an underutilized asset. I’d turned over a stone, but not dug down deep enough to find what I was looking for.
The killers had been sending a message all along. Only now, they were sending the message louder. And somehow, I still wasn’t getting it.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The sun was setting beautifully over the western corner of the Gulf, soaking the towering pillars of clouds billowing to the far north. Maybe my awe of creation was why I didn’t pick up the tail until just a few blocks from Panama City Beach Hospital Center. It was a black SUV, but I wasn’t sure of the make. One of those Hummer wannabes, for sure. Blocky military body, wide axles, and tinted glass.
I guess the FBI couldn’t just let me walk away. I shrugged and pulled into the hospital’s visitor lot. The pseudo-Hummer drove right on by. They’d turn a block down, circle back, and park just in time to watch me disappear through the revolving door. They’d be waiting for me when I left, and I made a mental note to spot them quick. I’d also need to get my car out of sight so I could check it over for tracers or bugs. Of course, maybe the agents would be so bold as to run a check on the car. If so, they’d likely mistake me for a hitman. The irony was not lost on me.
But still, I could not afford the time or the hassle an arrest would cost me right now. I entered the hospital, strode beneath the atrium’s moronic cherubim, and boarded an elevator. No one stopped me. No one asked me for a badge. Perhaps it was the expression on my face. I’d been told on one occasion that my “angry and determined face” could break a mirror…and the wall behind it.