by Andrew Mayne
When I get to the end of the pier, Captain Mercer is waiting for me.
I get ready for the billionth “Are you okay?” of the night.
Instead, he shakes his head and says, “What the hell?”
“You know what I know,” I reply.
“Are you sure?” He motions me over to the end of my dock. It’s being taped off as the other boats are searched.
Mercer aims his light at the wooden planks that run one hundred yards to the end of the pier. A long red smear stretches the entire distance, starting at my boat. Every few feet you can see partial footprints, as if someone were being half carried.
That’s a lot of blood.
“What’d he look like?” asks Mercer.
“Who?”
“The dead man.”
The dead man?
I get Mercer’s point. There’s no way someone could survive that much blood loss unless there was an ER at the end of the parking lot. Which there isn’t. And chances are, these men were not heading for the nearest hospital.
I got him good. Artery. Shit. Not the gunshot, I’m pretty sure. It was my little stab and twist that sealed his fate.
Mercer must see the look on my face. “Serves the asshole right. Good job.”
I know he’s trying to make me feel better, so I nod. He doesn’t have all the facts. Hell, I could have just stabbed Run in a domestic dispute and made up the whole story. That’d be dumb and fall apart in two seconds, but it’s not the point. He trusts me.
“Were they waiting for you?” asks Mercer.
“No . . . I don’t think so. I think they were looking for something.”
His eyes drift from the dock to me. “What was that?”
“I have no idea.”
“Then how do you know they were looking for something?”
I give him a cross look. “They sure as hell weren’t there to steal Jackie’s sticker album, were they?” I sigh and pull wet hair away from my eyes. “Sorry.”
“Easy, officer. I’m just trying to get some clarity.”
Unfortunately, that’s in short supply right now.
“When can I go back aboard?” I ask.
“Seriously? It’s a bloodbath in there. Easier to scrap it after we’re done.”
His face registers how much hearing this hurts me. Mercer’s used to talking to other cops about little-people problems behind their backs. His brain still didn’t fully comprehend that this happened in my home.
“Write down a list of what you need, and I’ll have someone get it for you. Okay? You have a place to stay?”
“I’m fine.”
“All right. Let’s let forensics have what you’re wearing and get you into something dry, then down to the station to make a statement.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
PORTSIDE
“Are you sure it wasn’t a misunderstanding?” asks the FBI agent sitting across the conference room table.
He’s in his late thirties with jet-black hair showing the first signs of gray at the temples. He has Hispanic or Mediterranean features but no trace of an accent, Miami or otherwise. He was introduced to me as Special Agent Maris by Detective Carbone, the Fort Lauderdale plainclothes in charge of the case—although calling it a case at this point may be wishful thinking on my part.
In the last hour, I’ve gone from certain death at the hands of two unknown assailants to convincing these idiots that it wasn’t a misunderstanding. Next thing you know, they’ll be questioning if it actually happened.
“Miss McPherson, other than the blood, we’re having trouble finding any forensic evidence,” says Carbone.
Spoke too soon.
I take a deep, long breath that probably sounds like a wheeze. I’m trying really hard not to let my temper get the best of me. I take another breath.
“Could we get you a glass of water?” asks Maris.
I give him a gaze that could freeze an ocean.
One more breath. “You mean no other forensic evidence besides the gallons of blood and the bullet holes?”
Carbone makes a little throat-clearing sound. “Well, yes. There are bullet holes in the hull of the boat. Forensics is pulling the slugs.”
“Yeah, that little detail. Of course, what do I know?”
“We’re not questioning your recollection of events,” says Maris, even though that’s exactly what he’s doing.
I’m still trying to figure out what the hell an FBI agent is doing here. Carbone would only say that he’d been working with him on cases. That seems unusual.
The only thing that makes sense is that I’m one of those cases and Maris thought he could get a chance to see me up close, overlooking the fact that I’d find that highly suspicious. Or maybe he doesn’t care.
It’s also apparent they don’t care all that much about what happened to me. While my friends at Fort Lauderdale went out of their way in responding, Carbone, the detective assigned to this, is no friend of mine—or of my contacts here.
This all feels wrong. Why are they acting as if this is all no big deal?
If this were some kind of conspiracy and these two clowns knew my assailants, that would make some sense, but they had no trouble sharing my descriptions of the assailants with other agencies. And as far as I know, the blood from my boat and the dock is on its way to a legit forensics lab to be ID’d.
That’s hardly how you cover up for someone. That plus the way Agent Maris keeps looking up at the camera in the corner, as if he has friends watching remotely.
I should have asked for a lawyer. Run’s family knows all kinds of fancy attorneys who’d be running circles around these jokers. But nope. Here I am. I thought I’d be talking to friendly faces, not trying to convince someone what happened, happened.
“Any other details, Miss McPherson?” asks Carbone—like he’s inquiring if I want breadsticks with my order.
“Officer,” I answer.
“Actually, it’s detective,” he replies.
“No. I’m Officer McPherson. Not Miss McPherson.”
Maris looks up at the camera and makes a little smirk.
“I understand,” I say instead of answering his question. My petty display served its purpose.
“What do you understand?” asks Carbone.
“Why you think this is bullshit. Why you’re not taking what happened seriously.”
“Of course we take you seriously,” says Maris.
“There you go,” I reply, “with your clever wordplay.” I point to the camera. “The show you’re putting on for whoever’s watching.” I turn to the camera. “You think I made this up?”
“Why would you think that?” Maris asks in a condescending tone.
“Because you think I know more about the dead woman I found than I do. Because you think I’m somehow at the center of this whole lost-drug-money thing.”
“What drug money?” Maris responds unconvincingly.
“Right. Right.” I sigh. “So, the way I look at it, you’re already convinced that I’m implicated in all this. But when I call the cops claiming I was attacked by people looking for something, it didn’t exactly fit your presumed-guilty theory . . . unless I made the whole thing up in the hopes of making myself look like a victim. Right? Because why else would a crooked cop at the center of a drug investigation bring even more attention to herself? Unless it’s just some dumb, desperate attempt to divert the attention from something else.”
A good five seconds of silence follows, which I take as a sign that I put my finger on it. Maris checks a message on his phone. Probably his friends on the other end texting him a question.
“Did you just call yourself crooked?”
“Unbelievable.” I stand and head for the exit.
“We didn’t say you could leave,” says Detective Carbone.
It’s the kind of cop power move you try on an idiot. I was never under arrest. I can leave any time I want.
I step through the door, take two steps into the hallway, and notice there�
��s another conference room right across from us. I wonder who’s in there.
Don’t do it, Sloan . . .
I do it.
I open the door and see five men and a woman sitting around a table with a television at the far end showing the conference room I just left.
They’re in the middle of a heated discussion. I only recognize one man from Fort Lauderdale.
They all turn to look at me, faces frozen in surprise.
“Hello. I’m Officer Sloan McPherson. If you have any questions you’d like to ask me, please let me know. Of course, you’ll have to go through my attorney from now on, but I’m happy to assist your investigation in any way I can to get its head out of its ass.”
I turn around and feel their eyes burning through the back of my head as I walk away.
As I walk down the hallway, I hear someone shouting after me. “McPherson!”
I ignore him and keep going, too afraid to find out what’ll happen if I stop.
He catches up with me and touches my arm. I jerk it away and spin around to face him.
He’s shorter than me, bald, and wearing a suit. He doesn’t look like a cop.
“I’m with the district attorney’s office. My name is L Ferguson.”
“L?”
“Long story. Anyway, I want to apologize for what happened back there. I told them to take you seriously, but . . .”
“They already made up their minds.”
He makes a pinched face. “Um, yeah. Sort of. You know how cops are, and their gut instincts.”
“Right. Well, while they’re following their gut, Stacey Miller’s killer is still out there. Nothing’s stopped. Nothing’s changed. And they’re worried about me?”
“We’d love to be able to formally talk to you. Maybe clear some things up.”
“Now you’re telling me this? Are you for real? Two men just tried to murder me, and I have to go through that clown show? Talk to my attorney.” I start down the hall.
“Who’s your attorney?” asks Ferguson.
I don’t have one. I’m tempted to fire off a sarcastic remark, but instead I reply, “I’ll let you know.”
I walk through the double doors, into the lobby, and leave the station.
I sure showed them, I think to myself as I realize I’m in downtown Fort Lauderdale with no wallet, no phone charger, no ride, and people out there that want to kill me.
Ace move, Sloan.
I stand on the sidewalk, trying to decide if I want to walk to the marina or swallow my pride and go back inside and ask to use a phone—and pray that I can remember an actual phone number.
I feel a tingle on my neck as I realize a man in a pickup truck is watching me from across the parking lot. It’s dark out, and all I can see is his shadow, but he’s definitely staring at me.
The truck’s engine roars to life, and the vehicle creeps toward me slowly. I take a step back toward the station, suddenly deciding it’d be much safer inside.
The truck does a loop, bringing the driver’s side closest to me. The window rolls down, and a voice calls out, “Need a ride?”
My heart does a backflip when I realize who it is.
George frickin’ Solar.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SANDBAR
In my family, George Solar falls somewhere between Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson. He’s the crooked cop who took my uncle down while managing to avoid going to prison for his own misdeeds.
And what exactly were those misdeeds? I ask myself as I stare at the open window and the man inside.
Rumors. Lots of rumors. There were stories that he’d taken kickbacks but avoided jail time by ratting out his fellow officers. Some said that rival drug dealers gave Solar tips on their competition, and he looked the other way in exchange.
Of course, stories and rumors are far more abundant than the truth around here. Like the new one about the niece of a convicted drug dealer in the middle of a big narco conspiracy faking an attack on herself . . .
“Are you here to murder me?” I ask casually.
“That wasn’t on my calendar.”
“Well, if you’re hoping to find out where all that drug money is, I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t,” he replies.
“What makes you so sure?”
“Because you wouldn’t be anywhere near here right now. You’d be off on your little dinghy or whatever, sailing into the sunset.”
“Huh. What if I knew something but not how to get to it?”
“You wouldn’t call the police when someone else came looking for it.”
“All right. So why the hell are you here? You know I really don’t have any idea where the money is.”
“If I was after money, I would have done a lot of things differently in life. For better or worse, I chose my own path.”
“Right.”
He nods. “So you’ve heard the rumors about me.”
“A few. I also remember sitting in court watching you give testimony that sent my uncle away.”
“And do you remember me saying anything you knew not to be true?”
“I was a kid. I don’t know what I knew.”
“But your uncle told you I was crooked.”
“Are you?”
“I’d like to say I have a clean conscience, but that wouldn’t be true. I maybe came down hard on some people that I didn’t need to be so hard on.”
“Like my uncle.”
Solar laughs. “Definitely not your uncle. Do you know how much coke he got past us before we stumbled onto his routine?”
“How much?”
Solar hesitates—he didn’t expect me to take him up on his rhetorical question. “Um, I don’t have the exact number . . . but a lot. A whole hell of a lot. We were kicking ourselves that we only got to convict him for a fraction.”
I suspected as much, but Solar’s not winning any points with me. Yeah, I get it, my uncle’s a scumbag, but that doesn’t lessen the pain, including that of associating with you now.
“Is there something you need?” I ask.
“Me? I’m here about you.” He nods to the police station. “How’d that go? What did they think of your story?”
My alarm bells start to ring. “What do you know?”
What could he? The incident only happened a little more than an hour ago.
“I talk to people. They tell me things. That was quite a mess back in the marina. Is that where you’re headed now?”
There’s no way they’ll let me back on the boat, not that I should stay there if I want to stay alive. I was hoping to get some clothes from the storage closet in the marina office and decide what to do next then.
I’d go stay with Mom or Dad, but that would put them in danger. The other problem is what to do about Jackie. I still have to figure out how to keep her safe. It’s beyond frustrating to accept that being in the same place as her is no way to protect my baby.
I’m going to have to fill Run in on the details and see to it that he has someone keeping an eye on her.
And for how long?
How long will my life be turned upside down like this?
“How about we go get a cup of coffee and compare notes?” offers Solar.
“What’s your part in all this?” I ask.
“Just an interested observer.” His green eyes seem calm and sincere.
“That doesn’t sound suspicious at all.” I glance down at my dead phone. “My friend is on his way to pick me up. Maybe another time.”
I say that with all the insincerity I can muster.
“Right,” says Solar. “Just one more question before I go. You armed? Or did they take your gun away from you for evidence?”
This makes my gut twist. I glance around to remind myself we’re still in front of a police station.
Solar opens his glove box.
I think about diving back to the doors of the station, but I’m frozen.
Solar pulls out a pistol and sticks it out the window, b
utt first.
I stare at the Glock for a moment, trying to understand what just took place.
“Hold on to this until you get yours back.”
I take the gun from him robotically. Is this a trick? Was this a murder weapon in some other crime, and I’m being framed? What the hell is Solar’s game?
He sees my hesitation. “You have to make up your own mind about me. In the meantime, I don’t want to see you get killed. I know not all McPhersons are crooks.”
“Thanks,” I say weakly, tucking the gun into the waistband of my still-drying jeans.
“The offer for coffee is still open. Let me know.”
I watch Solar drive off, still trying figure his angle in all this.
Everything he said and did seemed sincere. But he’s a smart man. Acting sincere and building my trust is exactly the smartest approach to get to me.
He’s supposed to be retired. He has no official business in this as far as I know—which only leaves unofficial business. And right now, the primary unofficial business I’m aware of is finding the missing cartel money.
Solar doesn’t seem like that kind of person, but a few hundred million dollars can bring about drastic personality changes.
I’m just realizing how much that affected my uncle—or was he always that way?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SEASIDE
I can’t fall asleep on the marina office couch, so I text Run a redacted update and decide to get an early start . . . on what? I know what I’m after: whoever killed Stacey Miller. But what do you call it when an off-duty police officer starts investigating a case in which she’s a suspect?
Suspicious.
Whatever. It’s clear to me that the powers that be are not acting in my best interests. You could easily make the case for the opposite. Rather than wait for the next couple of prowlers to climb aboard my boat in search of a treasure map or whatever—or, worse, threaten Jackie—the sooner I can resolve this, the better.
At first, I worried that meddling would make me look suspicious. Well, dollface, too late for that. Now I’m afraid not meddling could make me dead.
So, despite the best advice from everyone around me, I’m going to stick my nose wherever I can think to stick it. Trouble is going to find me either way. There’s no doubt about that.