Rolling Thunder

by Matt Lincoln

  “My job.”

  She gave a frustrated snarl. “Don’t even try that with me. You’re going after the bird in the bush when you’ve already got one in hand. Can’t you just focus on the case you’re working, for once?”

  I held back a sigh and paced a few steps away. “It’s all the same case, Diane,” I told her. “The bird in my hand is trying to shit all over it, and I want the whole damn flock.”

  “I know, but you’re still an officer of the law, and you can’t arrest people without evidence!”

  “I thought I made it clear that I’m not arresting him,” I said tersely. “I’m questioning him.”

  “No, you’re not.” Director Ramsey’s exasperation turned to reluctant sympathy. “I’m sorry, but you can’t hold Jon Calabar. You have nothing to hold him on. I’m ordering you to turn him over to Captain Laury’s custody.”

  I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t start shouting at her. “Yes, ma’am,” I said, not quite managing to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Far be it from me to disobey an order.”

  “Ethan—”

  “No, don’t. I know you have to.” That knowledge didn’t make it any easier to swallow. “Gotta go. I have work to do.”

  I ended the call before she could say anything else and then turned back to Laury and tossed his phone toward him. He startled and fumbled in the air, nearly missing the catch.

  “Looks like he’s all yours,” I said icily. “Does that mean you’re going to arrest him instead? I’ll let you borrow my cuffs.”

  The captain didn’t reply, but at least he’d stopped looking so damned triumphant.

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for Cobra Jon. When I opened the door and stood aside to let him climb out, his face was the picture of smarminess, the definitive cat-ate-the-canary expression. He turned away, and I unlocked the handcuffs and stuffed them in my pocket, glaring at him.

  “Mr. Calabar.” Captain Laury immediately rushed over to the gang leader, all solicitation and concern. “Are you injured? We can certainly press charges against these men for harassment.”

  Cobra Jon waved him off and caught my gaze, the promise of retribution glinting in his brown eyes. “That is not necessary, Captain.”

  Laury shot me a disgusted look. “You did not even allow him to dress before you dragged him from his home? You Americans!” He shook his head. “Come, Mr. Calabar. I will drive you home personally.”

  I waited until they were several paces ahead to walk around the squad car and join Holm on the other side. “So, what did we learn from this?”

  “Make sure I try harder to talk you out of crazy ideas?” he said.

  “Well, there is that. We also know that Cobra Jon has a direct tattle line to the Bahamas police, so we’ll have to factor that in when we make our move.” I stared after Laury and Calabar, sickened by the way the police captain fawned over the worst criminal in his jurisdiction. “He’s a whole lot cockier than I figured, too, and I already thought he was a brazen bastard,” I said thoughtfully. “We may have a chance to use that against him.”

  “Yeah,” Holm snorted. “If we ever manage to bring him in for questioning.” He glanced at the receding pair, and then looked at me. “How much trouble are we in with the director, anyway?”

  I shrugged. “Lots.”

  “That’s what I thought,” he breathed. “Okay, so what are we doing now?”

  I jingled the keys to the squad car. “We turn the keys in and take the boat home. We’re not done for the day, though. By the time we get back to the agency, I think Benta will be feeling a little more chatty.”

  If I couldn’t get Cobra Jon directly, I’d use his lackey to hit him when he wasn’t expecting it.

  One way or another, his ass was mine.

  Chapter 21

  Back at the office, Holm and I hit the lab first, where it turned out there was more good news. Bonnie and Clyde had pulled together enough pieces of the puzzle to firmly convict Benta of Sweeting’s murder. Provided we could find the weapon used in the second murder, the rooftop assassination, it would be that much easier to pin Gordon Traynor on Benta, too.

  “Here are the DNA test results from the material under the victim’s fingernails,” Bonnie said as she handed me a few stapled sheets of paper. “It’s a match to Agay Benta.”

  “I’ve got more,” Clyde called from a side counter, raising a hand to gesture us over. “Finally got that phone that was found in the tide pool dried out and cleaned up.” He picked up the clunky device from the surface where it was plugged into a charger and powered it on. “Like I figured, it’s a disposable, and the number isn’t registered. But the last number he called from it was. Bonnie?”

  Taking her cue, Bonnie headed to the computer and started typing. “Sweeting placed a call at 11:04 P.M. the night before his body was found which places it at about thirty to sixty minutes before the estimated time of death,” she said, and an image flashed onto the screen of a driver’s license with a familiar face. “The number he called is registered to Agay Benta’s phone.”

  “I don’t know,” Holm said slowly. “Thirty to sixty minutes? That’s a tight time frame to get here from the Bahamas, even if you’ve got a lead foot like Ethan does.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Boats don’t have gas pedals, Robbie.”

  “Fine. A lead throttle, then.”

  “Anyway,” Bonnie said as she swallowed a laugh, “it doesn’t matter, because Benta wasn’t in the Bahamas when Sweeting called him.” She started typing again, and this time pulled up a map of southern Florida marked with a red dot at the southeastern shore around the bluffs where we’d found the body, and a green dot that was maybe fifteen miles away, in South Miami. “I tracked the call location here, to the Blue Lagoo Hotel. That’s where Benta was when he took the call.

  Holm’s forehead creased. “The Blue Lagoo?”

  “Guess they couldn’t afford that last N,” I said. “So, Benta was already in town and presumably checked into a hotel when Sweeting got here?”

  “Yup. I can’t tell you which room he was in, though. Cell phone signals aren’t that specific,” Bonnie said as she closed her map and handed me a piece of paper with the hotel’s address and phone number on it. “You just connected something in your head. I can tell. Spill it.”

  “Just expanding on my theory,” I said absently as I stared at the scribbled address.

  Holm nudged me. “Care to expand out loud?”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I lifted a shoulder and tucked the paper in my pocket. “Okay, let’s say I’m right that Sweeting was piloting a boat filled with treasure or at least what passes for treasure according to Cobra Jon. Money, weapons, drugs, or any combination of those.” I paced a few steps. “He’s heading to the coast, and Benta’s already here with a location established, waiting on the shipment.”

  “Except Sweeting has an accident on the way,” Holm said as he warmed to the narrative. “He wrecks the boat, makes it to shore, and contacts Benta. Wait, if the phone’s soaked, how does he make the call?”

  That put a wrench in the idea until Clyde came up with a way around it. “The phone isn’t soaked when Sweeting washes up,” he said. “It was found in the tide pool at the scene, but there was also a water-tight case with the victim’s clothing and effects. He must’ve kept it in there until he made the call.”

  “Right. You travel by boat, you protect your phone from moisture,” I said, thinking of the waterproof pouches we used on MBLIS watercraft. Except, admittedly, I kept forgetting to drop my phone into one when we shipped out. I’d have to pay more attention to that.

  Holm gave a thoughtful nod. “Yeah, that’s plausible. So he calls Benta, tells him the boat’s gone down, and he’s stranded.”

  “Sweeting thinks he’s waiting on a rescue,” I added, “except when Benta arrives, he decides to take the smaller loss of manpower and protect the location of the merchandise by killing the only other person who knows where it is, and leaving the body where he thinks no
one will find it until it’s too late.”

  “Plus making it look like the Congo Kings did it to misdirect, in case someone did find it,” Holm said.

  Bonnie clapped her hands. “Great theory. Think you can prove it?”

  “Yeah, I do,” I said as I looked toward the door to the lab. “Or at least I think I can get someone else to prove it. Time to have another little chat with our friend Benta.”

  After I thanked Bonnie and Clyde, we headed for interrogation. I didn’t need props this time. Benta had all but confessed to Sweeting’s murder, and even if he didn’t, we had plenty of evidence to convict. I just needed him to confirm the why, even though I was practically convinced I had it right.

  Holm headed for observation, and I went into the interrogation room. Benta was still in the chair where I’d left him hours ago, only this time he was secured with prison chains attached to a ring bolt in the floor. He looked a hell of a lot less comfortable than the first time we’d talked.

  He opened his mouth when I walked into the room, but I spoke first. “If I hear the word ‘lawyer’ from you, Benta, I guarantee there’s going to be a serious camera malfunction in your immediate future. When the camera’s off, so are these kid gloves I’m wearing right now. Understand?”

  Wisely, the man closed his mouth.

  I took a seat in the chair across from him, leaned forward, and folded my hands on the table. “Just talked to your boss.”

  Some of the color drained from his face.

  “Now, you can deny it all you want, but he knows you missed your mark,” I went on. “I’ll be honest with you here. When law enforcement personnel screws up, sometimes we lose privileges, have our pay docked, maybe get suspended. At worst, we get fired and have to find another job. When people like you screw up, though…” I let the words hang in the air a minute. “Like I said, I honestly don’t know, but I can guess that if you got fired, that firing would come from a gun, and you’d be on the wrong end of it.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” Benta said.

  I frowned at him. “Well, at least you didn’t say ‘lawyer.’ That’s an improvement.”

  He let his head fall back and huffed at the ceiling. “Go to hell.”

  “Don’t worry. I will, once your lawyer shows up,” I said dryly. “I’m telling you now, though, you’re going to beat me there unless you cooperate with me.”

  “Cooperate!” Benta barked a laugh and raised his head slowly. “You’ve arrested me for murder. How much cooperation do you expect?”

  “More than this, if you want to live long enough to make it to your new federal home behind bars.”

  He had nothing to say to that.

  I gave him a few minutes, and then leaned back and arranged my hands in my lap. “Let’s try something else. I’m going to tell you a story, a true story. About you. Stop me if anything’s wrong with it.”

  With that, I launched into my theory, starting with him checking into the Blue Lagoo. His expression shifted gradually from stoic disinterest to something that bordered on alarm by the time I reached the end.

  He didn’t stop me.

  I gave him a few minutes, but he failed to comment. “So, how’d I do?” I asked him.

  He stared at me, blinked, and shook himself. “You’re guessing.”

  “Maybe… but from the look on your face, I’d say it’s a pretty good guess.”

  Benta looked away and held his body rigid. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t it?” I looked hard at him. “Whatever was on that boat must’ve been worth a lot to Cobra Jon. Enough that he didn’t mind having you execute one of your own to keep anyone else from finding it, so what was it? Something expensive, I’m guessing.”

  He gave a half-hearted sneer. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

  “Is it weapons? Cash? Drugs?”

  He flinched a bit at the last word.

  “Okay, so it’s drugs,” I said. “He’ll want them recovered. Where did the boat go down, and when is he going after it?”

  This time Benta faced me with a chilling stare.

  “I don’t like you,” he said flatly. “So if I knew that, I would tell you, just to make sure he kills you.”

  The implied threat was easy enough to ignore. Cobra Jon was already gunning for me after my little trip to his house today.

  “Maybe you don’t know when, but you know damned well where. You must have told him,” I said. “So how about you tell me, if you want me dead so badly?”

  His upper lip curled. “As I said before, Special Agent Marston… go to hell.”

  It struck me then that I’d never bothered introducing myself to him by name. I also remembered that he’d somehow known Gordon Traynor was associated with Tessa, and I still had no idea why he’d killed the private security guard.

  “Are you psychic, Mr. Benta?” I asked.

  He frowned. “What?”

  “You know my name. I never gave it.”

  He smiled for the first time since I’d entered the room. “Ethan Marston, former Navy SEAL. Robert Holm, also ex-Navy. Tessa Bleu, photographer and journalist for National EcoStar magazine. I know many things, Agent Marston.”

  I practically broke my arm patting myself on the back for not lunging across the table at him and rearranging his teeth.

  “Care to tell me how?” I asked with forced calm.

  “You would be surprised what money can buy, including information,” he said as a smug tone crept into his voice. “All you need is a willing source. For example, a former Marine who has just joined a private security company and feels that he is… how do you say it? Not getting paid enough for this shit.”

  A chill shot down my spine. “You bought Traynor,” I said. “And then you killed him so he wouldn’t talk.”

  His smile widened. “She is a pretty thing, isn’t she? All of my friends in town agreed when I showed them her picture.”

  Tessa.

  I was already up and headed for the door.

  Chapter 22

  Tessa couldn’t decide what to wear to dinner tonight, and it was driving her crazy. The choice shouldn’t be that hard. It wasn’t like this was a real date, anyway, since Ethan had pretty much said he was just going so he could protect her.

  Still, she wanted to look good. Maybe that way, she could get him to see her as more than a job, even if it was only for while she was in town.

  She’d taken all of her clothes out of her suitcase and the hotel closet and then put them all back in frustration, at least three times by now. She had to make a decision soon, or she’d still be wearing this robe when Ethan got here. Mindful of the potential danger out there, and the fact that there were police officers standing guard at her door, she’d stayed in the suite all day, alternately researching and relaxing while she indulged in room service and pay-per-view movies.

  It was a pleasant break, considering the circumstances, but she had to get back to real life now.

  Finally, she decided to go flirty-casual with a short, green flared-skirt sundress that matched her eyes and a lightweight white sweater in case it got chilly later. Did it even get cold in Florida? If this was New York, she could count on the temperature dropping at least ten degrees when the sun went down, but the weather patterns were different here.

  Maybe she’d leave the sweater. It wasn’t likely to be cold, and if the temperature did slip, Ethan might offer her his jacket.

  She laid the outfit on the bed, slipped the robe off, and wiggled into the dress, smoothing the fabric down to her waist. Now she just had to decide which shoes to wear with this. Probably the white strappy sandals she’d picked up impulsively in the gift shop at the airport when her flight had arrived in Miami, and she’d ended up having to wait an hour until they found her luggage. Where did those end up, anyway?

  As she looked around the bedroom for the plastic gift shop bag which she was pretty sure she’d left the shoes in, there was a muffled buzzing sound from somewhere near the bed. Frowning, s
he moved toward it and tried to banish the insane idea that someone had slipped a bomb into her room, and it was about to go off. She didn’t even know what a bomb sounded like.

  Her face flushed slightly when she finally recognized the sound as her phone. Being involved with multiple murders was really doing a number on her brain, it was making her paranoid.

  Probably with good reason, she told herself. Better paranoid than dead.

  She hunted around while the phone kept buzzing and finally found it on the floor between the bed and the nightstand. It must’ve fallen down there after she turned off her alarm this morning, and she’d been so busy forcefully relaxing that she hadn’t given it another thought.

  The caller showing on the screen was Donald, and she winced a bit at the number next to his name. This was his fifth unanswered call today. He was going to be worried, not just as her boss, but as practically family.

  She pressed the answer button hurriedly and brought the phone to her ear. “Hi, Donald,” she said in a rush. “Sorry I missed you earlier.”

  “You missed me? Tessa, I’ve been trying to call you all day.” His voice was thick with concern. “What happened?”

  The question was almost a demand, and she frowned. He seemed a little overly upset for a bunch of missed calls.

  “Well, I had the phone on vibrate, and it must’ve fallen behind the nightstand this morning,” she said. “I haven’t gone anywhere yet, so I didn’t realize it was missing.”

  “I’m not asking about your phone, Tessa.” Donald let out a long, ragged breath. “I’m asking about the murder.”

  Crap. She hadn’t wanted him to find out about that. He could be a little overprotective, and he might insist on pulling her assignment and having her come home. That was the last thing she wanted… and not just because she was excited about the piece on tidal pools.

  There was a certain special agent she really wanted to spend more time with.

  “I’m fine, Donald,” she told him. “Really, I’ve got police protection and the shooter didn’t even come close to hitting me—”