by Owen Parr
Immediately, Father Dom smiled.
“Look, it seems these guys have been flying back and forth.”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“Okay, Melnick’s name was put on the last flight plan. But, we found out it was Silver who filed it. I think he was trying to throw everyone off, making it look Melnick was out of town. Then, Melnick was wearing his coral earing. So, the other earing, the one we found, I think belongs to Silver.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“We’ve searched all their homes; Melnick’s, Silver’s and Edwards’. There’s a photo at Silver’s home with him and Melnick. Both wore a coral earing on their left ear. The two of them actually look alike, same height, weight, balding. The only difference is that Melnick had a man-bun and Silver has a long dirty-blond ponytail.”
“How very cute of them.” I said. “So, you think Silver killed Melnick?”
“Looks that way. We’ll know more when the ME finishes her autopsy. I’ll call you. You guys fishing yet?”
“Just getting started,” I replied, clicking off the call.
Dom asked, “Why not tell him?”
“Soon, brother. Soon.”
“Does he have new information?” Patrick asked.
I nodded, pointing with my eyes to Joseph.
“Got it,” Patrick said.
I didn’t know how this was going to play out. I did know that I wanted to interrogate both Rob Silver and John Edwards before turning them over to the local police and transfer them back to the Miami-Dade PD.
“Joseph,” I called out, “I want you to take my brother back to the dock and hotel. Once you do that, we’re done for the evening.”
“Sure, boss, but what about you and Big Red?”
“This sailboat we’re tied to, you said is not occupied, right?” I asked.
“That’s right. These folks are from Atlanta. They don’t rent it out, but they come three, or four times a year. Some of my buddies keep the boat clean for them.”
“Great. In that case, my cousin and I are going to stay on the deck of the boat a while longer. I want to get a feel for the harbor at night, to appreciate the ambiance. For the book, you know.”
Joseph looked a bit puzzled. “I can pick up you guys later, mon. You’re not going to stay all night, are you?”
“No need for that. We’re only going to hang out for a bit. Give me the number of the water taxi, and we’ll call them when we’re done.”
“Okay. But, remember my motto; anything, anytime, anywhere. You can always call me back, and I’ll come get you.”
Father Dom turned to me and asked, “What are you going to do?”
“I’m having Joseph—”
“I heard what you said to Joseph, what I want to know—”
I put my hand out, motioning him to stop. In a hushed voice, I said, “Brother, we’re just going to hang here. I don’t want you involved. It’s for the best. We’ll be over in a couple of hours. Trust me, we’re not going to do anything stupid.”
His facial expression displayed the concern on his part, and I understood what he was thinking. I was sure he knew that there was no stopping this plan of mine. “Okay, call me if you need me,” he said.
“Thanks, brother. I’ll see you in a bit.” I patted Patrick on the back and said, “Big Red, climb onto this sailboat.”
Joseph maneuvered the Lucky Strike through the harbor, on their way back to the dock.
“I’m afraid to ask, but, is there a plan in place?” Patrick inquired once we made ourselves comfortable.
“There’s always a plan, Mr. Pat. But, like Mike Tyson said, ‘Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.’”
“I wish those ladies weren’t there,” Patrick added.
“We may have to wait until the activities onboard settle down. With as much rum as they’re drinking and shit they’re smoking, these guys will never know what hit them. By the way, did you bring the fake FBI ID Agnes made for us?”
“Yeah. But, a ten-year-old can tell these are funny IDs.”
“Like I said, these four are out of it. They won’t know a dog from a cat. Plus, how many people have ever seen a real FBI ID?”
“I assume you want to question them?”
“We’re going to get rid of the ladies. Then follow my lead with the guys. I think Silver is the boss, so I want to quiz Edwards first. You still remember how to do a choke hold and put the person out for a while?”
“Can do.”
“By the way, I just found out from A. Rod, that Silver likely killed Melnick.”
Patrick’s eyes opened wide. “These guys aren’t fucking around, are they?”
“As soon as the lights go out, we’ll take this raft over to their boat,” I said, pointing to a two-man raft over the Bimini top on the boat’s deck.”
“Did you get your shoes from Joseph’s boat?” he asked, holding his up with one hand.
“Shit, no. I forgot.”
We waited a little over an hour as the star-filled sky looked like a black canopy with lights over us. El Mar was now quiet and dark.
I could hear the small water taxi that I called for making its way to the El Mar. We placed the raft in the water and paddled our way to the other sailboat. Tying the raft to the back of the boat, we boarded quietly.
Entering the saloon area of the boat, we found a young lady and Edwards, sound asleep, naked and cuddled together. Before waking the young lady up, I tapped Edwards on the shoulder. As he tried to open his eyes, my right fist contacted his face, and what little lights he was focusing on went totally dark for him after I made direct contact with his jaw. He was out. I then tapped the young lady, and at the same time, covered her mouth with my left hand. She was momentarily confused. I placed my right index finger over my mouth, motioning her to be quiet, while I flashed the fake FBI creds. Her eyes opened wide, and she began shaking her head.
Patrick gave her a blanket, and holding his faked FBI creds to her face, took her by the shoulders and walked her out of the saloon area to the small deck.
I picked up the mini outfit she wore when she boarded, and I handed it to Patrick.
I heard Patrick tell her in a hushed voice, that the water taxi was coming to pick up her and her friend. They were to go back to the dock and leave the area to avoid arrest.
Proceeding to the bow cabin, I hoped that I could replay what had just happened in the saloon area. Instead, I found Ponytail getting up from his queen-size bed on the way to the head. He smiled as he turned, surely thinking it was either Edwards or his date.
“What the fuck!” he cried, trying to focus on me. His fear showed on his face, and sobriety took momentary hold of him as he reached for a revolver on his night table. I stepped onto the bed and lurched at him, crashing my left shoulder into his lower torso just before he reached the gun.
The girl screamed frantically as she awoke from the commotion, as Patrick entered the room. Out of fear, the young lady began hitting Patrick uncontrollably. Patrick put his large arms around her waist and carried her out of the cabin.
Rob Silver and I were entangled on the floor in a tiny sliver of space between the bed and the entrance to the head. I put my left hand on his neck and squeezed slightly while my right fist found his nose. He too, was out.
I was sitting on the bed, dazed from having hit the night table with my forehead. Blood poured from my right eyebrow, as a flashback from my days as an amateur boxer suddenly came rushing back.
Patrick stuck his head in the cabin and said, “I need the young lady’s clothes. The water taxi is here.” His eyes locked on my forehead. “Are you all right, Joey?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Look around for her shit. I can’t see much right now.”
“I’ve got the other fellow tied-down,” Patrick said.
Applying pressure on my fresh opened cut, I walked over Silver and into the head looking for something to stop the bleeding. I found the last clean tow
el, I hoped, and placed it over my right eye.
“Let me move this guy out into the saloon and tie his hands up,” said Patrick, as he walked in with some rope.
“Tie his hands and legs, but leave him here. I don’t want these two together. We need to play one against the other. The ladies gone?”
“On the way to the dock. They’ll have something to talk about, I’m sure.”
“Here, I’ll help you with this guy. Let’s tie his hands to the back of the bed. Spread his legs and tie those to the bottom of the bed.”
I took a pillowcase and covered Silver’s head with it, placing a small used towel in his mouth. I walked out to the saloon area with Silver’s gun inside another pillowcase.
Patrick was standing next to naked John Edwards, who was tied to a captain’s chair in the middle of the saloon. His legs were tied to the chair’s legs, his hands behind his back.
Edwards looked at me for a second, and his eyes revealed the terror he felt when he recognized who I was.
I lasered my gaze into his eyes. “Now, Mr. Edwards, we have a few questions for you.”
27
“What the hell do you want?” Edwards asked.
John Edwards was a nondescript skinny little bastard. Unshaven for about four days, long dirty-brown hair, brown eyes, and long sideburns in the style of the Elvis Presley era. “Here’s the thing, Johnny,” I began.
“My name is John. Only my mother calls me Johnny,” he uttered.
“Yeah? Well, fuck you, Johnny. I can see you know who I am, right?” I asked, I removed the towel I was holding over my eye.
“I don’t know anything,” he mumbled. “I think you broke my jaw, asshole.”
“Like I said, we have some questions. Ready?”
As Edwards thought how to answer, Patrick applied two Band-Aids he found in a first-aid kit, over my cut. My new corner-man. I thanked Mr. Pat.
Edwards finally replied, “You’re not a freaking cop. I don’t have to answer anything.”
“Really, Johnny? That’s the good news. The bad news, my boy, is that since we’re not cops, we don’t have any rules in how we ask questions. Let me bring you up to speed. Since you’ve been here getting stoned every day, Miami-Dade police have the bullets from your .40 caliber. The one you used to shoot at us. I’m sure we’ll find the gun here somewhere,” I said, noticing his eyes drift toward some drawers by the front of the saloon.
Patrick saw his eyes stupidly directing us to the location of his gun. He opened a set of drawers. “I found the gun,” he said.
I didn’t have to look. “Let me guess, a Glock 22. Is there a silencer with it?”
Edwards opened his eyes wide and looked at Patrick, who was holding the Glock and a silencer with a rag.
“I’ve got both here,” Patrick said.
I knew perfectly well that he couldn’t have killed Alexa Gould since he took the shots at us about the same time she was shot in the forehead. But, I went ahead anyway, “That’s probably the gun that killed Alexa. Make sure you hold it as evidence.”
“I didn’t kill Alexa!”
“Maybe. You did try to kill us.”
“I wasn’t trying to kill you. Just scare you. I didn’t kill anyone!”
“Okay. So, you admit shooting at us. That’s a good start. Now, let me continue with the breaking news. There’s an arrest warrant for you and your buddy Rob—for murder and attempted murder. So, you can help yourself right here, right now, by coming clean with us, or your naked buddy in the bow cabin will roll right over you and blame you for everything.”
“Can I have some water?” Edwards asked. He squirmed in the captain’s chair.
Patrick asked, “Where do you keep it?”
Johnny moved his head gently, pointing with his eyes “In the small fridge, there.”
Patrick removed the cap from a bottle of water and held it for our boy to take a sip.
“I need to munch on something,” Johnny said.
I chuckled. “Of course, you do. How about some fresh lobster?”
“Cookies, cookies, will do. Over there, on the counter,” he said, trying to point with his broken jaw.
Patrick pulled out a chocolate-chip cookie from a bag. Holding one close to Edwards’s mouth, he said sternly, “Listen asshole, I’m not playing butler here. Answer our fucking questions, or your jaw is just the first of a few broken bones you’re going to have.”
Without making eye contact with Patrick, Edwards moved his head forward and grabbed the cookie. “I was told to shoot your tires out. We were just trying to scare you away. That’s all. I don’t know anything else.”
“Who told you to take a shot at us?” I asked.
Edwards hesitated. “Can I have more water?”
Patrick’s face turned as red as his beard. Taking the bottle of water, he poured it over Edwards’s head. “That’s all you get. Answer the fucking questions. Now!”
“They’ll kill me” Edwards replied, trying to drink the water dripping over his face.
“Here’s the thing, Johnny, we’re going to tell everyone you called us in Miami and told us your location here. I mean, shit, they’re going to wonder how we found you guys, right?”
“It was Rob. After you guys showed up at the airport, he told me to scare you. He told me to shoot at your car. That’s all I know, I swear.”
“Who does Rob take orders from?” I asked.
Edwards looked over at the bow cabin’s door. He thought but didn’t reply.
Patrick slapped our boy on his face with the back of his right hand.
“Fuck!” Edwards said as his body turned sideways on the chair. “Why the hell did you do that?”
“Who does Rob report to?” I asked again.
Lowering his gaze to the floor, he whispered, “Some Arab guy. Ahmad Senturk.”
I exchanged glances with Patrick. “Who is this guy?” I asked, like we didn’t know who he was.
Edwards began shaking his head. “Oh shit, oh shit, they’re going to kill me.”
“We’ll make sure you’re protected. Who is Senturk?”
“He owns Meso Trading. We do business with them. That’s all I know, man. Please, I don’t know anything else.”
“Patrick, give John more water please,” I asked. “Now John, you’re doing good. Tell me, who kidnapped Gavi Drucker?”
“We did.”
“Did this Senturk guy order that too?”
“I think so.”
“Did you hold her here, on the boat?”
“Yes.”
“What about her boyfriend, Carlos Alvarez? Did he help you?”
“Rob paid him to bring her to us at the airport.”
“Where is he now?”
Edwards’s face went pale. I thought he was going to throw up. After a moment, he replied, “Rob threw him off the plane.”
“What?” I wasn’t expecting that.
“After we collected the ransom and we let the girl go, we pretended to take Carlos back to Miami. That’s when Rob threw him out of the plane.”
“Where?”
“In the middle of the ocean. I don’t know exactly where. I told Rob not to do it. He told me we had to clean up. Plus, we kept the money for ourselves.”
“How much did you collect?” I knew the answer, but I wanted him to confirm it.
“We split two million dollars.”
“Was the plan to collect ransom? Is that why you kidnapped her?”
“No. We weren’t supposed to collect any ransom. I don’t know why we kidnapped the girl.”
“So, why did you?”
“Like I said before, the whole thing got fucked up after you showed up at the airport. Rob panicked and decided to kill Alexa, collect the money, and get the hell lost.”
“Why not kill Gavi? She saw you both, no?”
“We kept her drugged all the time. Plus, we were told from the get-go not to touch her.”
“By Senturk?”
“I guess.”
&nbs
p; “What about Troy Melnick?”
“What about him?”
“Is he part of this?”
“Yeah, he works with us.”
“Why did you kill him?”
“I didn’t kill anyone.”
“He’s dead. Two shots to the chest.”
He looked puzzled. “It must have been Rob. He flew back to Miami by himself.”
“What do you know about Syrian and Iranian antiquities and, black-market smuggling?”
Edwards looked perplexed again “Antiques? Smuggling? I know nothing about that, man.”
I believed him. This part of the operation was beyond this asshole’s pay grade. The thought that our investigation may have caused Alexa and Carlos their lives made me sick. I could never share with Marcy. Alexa’s death was enough pain and sorrow for her to deal with. There was no need to add Carlos to the mix too.
“What happens now?” Edwards asked.
Muffled noises were coming from the cabin. Patrick went in to check on Rob Silver.
“Now, John, you’re going to Miami to answer more questions.”
“You said you were going to protect me,” he said.
“We will. Let me ask you, did your partner here kill Alexa?”
“He told me he did.”
I picked up the pillow case, which contained Silver’s revolver. I showed it to Edwards. “Was this the murder weapon?”
He looked at the pillow case, “Is that the gun that was next to him on the night stand?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the murder weapon.”
Patrick came back from the cabin. “This guy was choking on a little towel. He almost swallowed the fucking thing.”
“He ain’t going to tell you shit,” Edwards advised us.
“Why is that, John?”
“He’s afraid for his mother back in Miami. They threatened him with her life. That’s why we stayed here. We were trying to figure out a way to get her out of Miami.”
“And you? No family?”
“None that I give a shit about,” he replied.