by Jack Hardin
Qualifications were high for joining the new investigative ensemble. Members were required to have at least a decade of previous experience with state or federal law enforcement and had to be approved by a board which included the state commissioner, state attorney general, and a handful of local police chiefs. Jet had received unanimous approval and a notice just last week that all authorizations had been established and that he was now clear to begin working. He would have access to case files and state databases that would allow him to conduct research and background information. Alternatively, any cases he worked outside of this purview would not give him access to state databases. For those, he was on his own. Any violation of this was forbidden and could lead to legal consequences.
Jet’s new office was located in a modest, three-room suite at Pine Island Center, at the main intersection as you entered or left the island. The back room held the copier, office supplies, and a small floor safe for housing sensitive information. The additional office sat ready in the event he brought in an associate, and he hoped Ellie would be that person. His desk sat in front of the far wall from the entrance with an oak bookcase and a potted palm behind it. Most of Jet’s time would be spent out of the office knocking on doors and pulling loose strings of inquiry, seeing where they led. But the office provided a stress-free environment where he could meet new clients, work through paperwork, and conduct research.
The suite’s front glass door opened, and Jet’s ten o’clock appointment stepped into the room. A middle-aged man with olive-brown skin who looked to be in his late thirties. His black hair was long, pulled into a ponytail behind his head.
Jet stood and came out from behind his desk. “Alex,” he said, extending his hand.
“Mr. Jahner, good to meet you in person.”
The men shook hands before Jet motioned toward one of the two leather chairs in front of his desk. “Please, have a seat. And call me Jet.” He returned to his chair and folded his hands.
“I see you received the email I sent you,” Alex said. He motioned toward the picture Jet had set down a few minutes earlier.
“A pretty girl,” Jet said. “Missing for three months now?”
Alex nodded. “It will be twelve weeks tomorrow. She willingly got into a van that was supposedly going to take her to a job of some kind.”
“And her brother? He saw the van?”
“Yes, he was watching from a vacant motel room window. He could only give the police a generic description of a man who got into the passenger seat. He couldn’t remember any specifics about the van except that it was a dark color. No make or model.”
Jet took out a yellow legal pad from his desk. “What’s her brother’s name?” he asked.
“Junior. Juanita told him she would be back in two weeks. When she didn’t show a few days after that, he came to me.”
“You’ve known them for a while?”
“About four months before she disappeared. Some coyotes brought them and their mother across the Texas border a couple of years ago, if I remember correctly. The three of them ended up in Miami, living with the mother’s sister who is a heroin addict. Their mother died of cancer last summer.”
Jet scribbled across the paper. “Your email said something about a guy named Jesse?”
“Yes. Junior said a man by that name had been coming around as if he was interested in his sister. Like a boyfriend, I guess. He would bring McDonald’s over to their house and take them to the movies. He’s the one who got her this supposed job.”
“Any idea what kind of work was proposed?” Jet asked.
“Not really,” Alex said. “All she told her brother was that it was field work.”
Jet took a sip from his coffee mug and nearly winced from the cold liquid. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Can I get you something to drink?”
Alex held up a hand. “I’m fine. Thank you. I grabbed a coffee on my way up here.”
Jet set his mug to the side. “Is there any chance she lied to her brother and had no intentions of coming back?”
Alex huffed in response. “Not a chance. She loved Junior very much.”
“What did the case detective uncover?”
“Nothing,” Alex said. “That is why I’m here. Their best guess was that she was sold. You know, human trafficking. They asked around for a few days and went through her things at her aunt’s place. They even got some prints from a DVD case that this Jesse guy let them borrow. But the prints didn’t return anything.”
Jet noted the anxiety in the man’s face. “This has been hard on you,” he noted.
Alex tried to shrug it off with a half-hearted smile. “Yes,” he admitted. “I started the shelter to help prevent things like this. Had someone told me that Juanita was spending time with a man, I would have made it my business to know something about him.”
Jet was well aware that in cases like this there was a slim chance the victim would ever be found, assuming Juanita was still alive. Human trafficking was no longer a problem that simply occurred “over there.” It didn’t just happen in Thailand, or Brazil, or Singapore. The United States had seen a dramatic rise in human trafficking over the last decade. It was the new slavery, and Juanita fit the profile on all counts: an undocumented immigrant, in a poor area of town, with no parents. Unless a detective had cause for an emotional attachment to this case, after the initial inquiry, it would sit among a stack of files, unresolved and unpursued. Another uncleared case.
“Tell me more about your shelter,” Jet asked. “Hope House? Is that right?”
“Yes. Hope House. We’re coming up on our three year anniversary,” he said proudly.
“Have you always been in non-profit work?”
Alex smiled and shook his head “No. Not at all. I am an immigrant myself. When I was a teenager, my family escaped Cuba during the Maleconazo.”
Jet remembered the Cuban uprising well. In 1994, due to the recent dissolution of the Soviet Union and old embargoes imposed by the United States, the Cuban economy had fallen into chaos. Thousands took to Havana’s streets to protest the ham-fisted leadership. In the end, over 35,000 refugees fled the island, leading President Clinton to enact the Wet Feet Dry Feet Policy as a response to the massive exodus. The policy stated that any Cuban found on the waters between the U.S. and Cuba—with “wet feet”—would summarily be sent home. Anyone who made it to U.S. shores—with “dry feet”—would be given a chance to remain in the United States, later qualifying for legal resident status.
Jet nodded. “Of course. So your family became citizens?”
“Yes. But it was hard on my parents, leaving their country. Especially difficult for my father, who had been a dentist back home. Here in America, his degree was not accepted, and he struggled to find good work. When he died of a heart attack a couple of years later, I coped by joining a gang in South Miami. I was very angry about the death of my father and rose quickly in the leadership. Late one night I held up a couple coming out of a local restaurant.” Alex’s eyes darkened as he recalled the event. “The lady, she got very angry that her husband was handing over his wallet. She tried to slap my gun away by swinging her purse. So I shot her. Three times. They gave me twenty years for it.”
“That’s hard,” Jet said.
Alex tossed his hands out. “We all make our choices. I made mine. Ten years in, I realized that I could stay angry or take responsibility for both my past and my future.”
“That’s something most people never learn,” Jet noted. He thought of all the drug dealers and pushers he had arrested over the years. All of them would recite perfectly good excuses for doing what was wrong. It was a rare occurrence when one would choose to accept the responsibility and the blame for where they had ended up. But that, as any prison psychologist would preach, was where change began. That was where the crooked paths became straight.
“You are right,” Alex said. “I can honestly say now that prison made me a better person. But you asked about Hope House.” He swung a leg over
a knee and resettled into the seat. “A few years before I was up for parole, I decided I wanted to find a way to give back to the community I had wounded so many years ago. West Hialeah is an amazing place. It’s less than ten miles from downtown Miami and has a vibrant Latino culture. Many wonderful people live there. But as all lower class neighborhoods, there are some areas that can also be very dangerous. Poverty seems to breed all forms of crime, and the gangs have started to increase their memberships again. When I was still on the inside, some good people heard about my vision and helped me get the right connections and funding for Hope House. The shelter gives them a safe place to be and keeps them off the streets. I bring mentors in too, who help to teach them what they are having trouble learning in school and for those who just won’t go.”
Jet set the pencil down and sat back in his chair. His gaze returned to the picture. He could feel something a little like anger growing inside his chest. “My oldest granddaughter is Juanita’s age,” he said, and looked back to Alex. “I’ll find her.”
Chapter Seven
His fingers shook as he stared at the computer screen.
He didn’t want to do this. People had already gotten hurt. One, at least that he knew of, had been killed because of it all. And he wasn’t even sure what “it all” was.
Doing this would endanger others, he knew. It would put them in the path of those who had already killed to cover up their secret. Whatever that secret was.
He stood up, walked to the window, and looked down at the marsh below. A ring-billed gull dove toward the surface of the water and disappeared behind the thick grasses. A moment later, the bird rose triumphant, a small fish in its beak, then it coasted to the dock and drew up, landing its small talons on the old boards. It started in on its meal, pinching and tearing at the fish’s flesh with its beak.
That’s about right, he thought. And people were no different.
The anger, simmering deep in his chest, once again began to boil within him, and for the moment overrode his fear.
He returned to the desk and sat down. What he was about to do would put good people in harm’s way.
But doing nothing was no longer an option.
He took a deep breath, set his fingers on the keyboard, and began to type.
Ellie pulled a couple of fishing rods away from the wall and selected a tackle box from the top of the stack. Using her foot, she pushed open the storage room door and stepped out into the large, open space of the covered dry dock. Walking to the front from the rear of the building, she turned down an aisle that cut between steel racks laden with boats. She stepped into the sunlight through a side door and worked her way past a dozen boat slips before heading across the wide boardwalk to where it joined up with the pier. The Norma Jean pier was the southernmost structure on Pine Island and jutted eighty yards into the wind-blown waters of Pine Island Sound.
A father and his young daughter were bent over the wooden railing, looking down at the water. The girl brushed a strand of hair from her face and saw Ellie arriving with their fishing gear. “Look!” she said excitedly. “There’s a manatee down there!”
Ellie stepped to the rail and looked over. Fifteen feet below, a sea cow was nestled up against a barnacle-covered piling, bobbing lazily in the water.
“We’re visiting from Maine,” said the father. “We don’t get manatees up there.”
“You’re lucky to see him,” Ellie said. “The water temperature is unusually warm for this time of year. They don’t do well in cold water and by now are usually further south.” A loud hiss came from below, and the young girl laughed as the manatee snorted. The father leaned back up and took the rods and the tackle from Ellie.
“You can turn them in at the bar when you’re finished,” she said. “And we have live bait if you’re not bringing up enough with the lures.”
The girl scrunched her face. “I don’t like slimy bait,” she said, and looked up at her father. “Can we just use the fake stuff?”
He chuckled. “Sure, sweetie.”
Ellie winked at the girl. “I don’t like slimy bait either.”
“What’s biting right now?” he asked.
“You can hit redfish and sheepshead pretty consistently right now. And if you drop at the end of the pier and have a little patience, you might bring up a tripletail. There’s a guide in the tackle box that will help you pair lures with the fish you’re going for.”
They thanked Ellie and started making their way down the pier as she returned to the bar. The Salty Mangrove was the island’s favorite restaurant and watering hole and had been owned by Ellie’s uncle for the last nineteen years. It was a small wood-lapped building with a kitchen squeezed in between a tiki hut and an indoor seating area for the restaurant that was encircled by a wooden railing. Rolled patio curtains could be lowered when it rained.
It was late January, and that meant the busy season was in full swing. Sun-famished refugees from up north had completed their annual treks to Southwest Florida, fleeing the harsh winds and cold snows that inhibited golf, pickleball, and fishing.
Ellie had just opened the bar and noted how quiet it was. Fu and Gloria Wang, the only liveaboards at this end of the island, had left on a month-long cruise around the Caribbean and wouldn’t be back for another couple weeks. Otherwise, they were permanent fixtures at the bar, sometimes arriving before it opened and always shutting the place down. Their absence had been felt as if someone had stolen a couple bar stools that had yet to be replaced. With Gloria around, there was rarely a quiet moment. She had a simple, but lively mind, and was prone to share whatever she might be thinking the instant it came to her. Fu’s presence assured that someone was always around with a ready smile. He smiled with his eyes, and you couldn’t look at him without wanting to smile yourself, like a yawn that was catching. One of the great oddities of the modern era was that Fu did not speak English, that somewhere along the line Gloria had undertaken to learn Mandarin. If Gloria wasn’t around, there was just no talking to Fu. The Wangs were good people, and Ellie was beginning to miss them.
She squatted down and started to check the keg levels beneath the bar. Above her, she heard the distinctive sound of a hammer tapping a nail. She stood up. Major was in between a couple of bar stools, setting a nail into one of the pilings that formed the bar’s support. The piling was wrapped in decorative rope, and he was introducing the nail a foot above the bar top.
“What’s the nail for?” she asked.
He set the hammer down. “Come take a look.” Ellie’s uncle, standing at just under six feet, was average in height, and his broad shoulders and thick forearms gave him a stocky appearance. His face was square, eyes set back under low brows, and he kept his graying auburn hair buzzed close to the scalp. His face held the deep, weathered lines that years near and on the water carved into a man. He wore cargo shorts and a blue, short-sleeved, button-down shirt and double-banded Birkenstocks. Without debate, he was a cornerstone in the structure of the local community. Major, whose given name was Warren Hall, chaired the Rotary Club, sponsored Little League teams, and contributed both time and money to Big Brothers Big Sisters and Meals on Wheels. More than once, he’d been nudged to take a run at the mayor’s chair, but he valued simplicity too much to give it serious thought. He was a businessman and a small-time philanthropist, he would counter, not a politician.
Ellie stepped out from behind the bar and brushed past a string of year-round Christmas lights as she came around to the front of the tiki hut. Major placed a small picture frame on the nail and leaned back.
An ache surged through Ellie’s chest as she looked at a photo of Nick. It was taken here at the bar. His face was turned to the side, and he was smiling as he spoke with someone off-camera while clutching a sweating bottle of Shiner, his favorite beer.
Ellie had driven to the Barlows’ house early this morning and watched Kayla for Tiffany while she went to the crematorium to pick up her husband’s ashes. Ellie had offered to accompany her, but
Tiffany said it would be better if she did it alone. On her way back home, the detective in Miami had called Tiffany with an update. He was still waiting on the toxicology report. They processed the room for prints and were still working through what came back, comparing any results with previous guests associated with the room rental and anyone who may have been connected to Nick in any way. Video footage from nearby security cameras or camera phones from those passing by or living in the penthouses across the street had yet to reveal a shot of Nick’s balcony at the time of his fall. When pressed, the detective conceded that, unless something unusual turned up, they had no reason to think that foul play was a factor. Nick had not fallen far enough away from the building to suggest a hard push. It was, however, too early in the investigation to form a conclusion.
“Nick may have only lived down here a few months,” Major said, “but anyone who met him loved him. He was the real deal.”
Ellie turned to her uncle. Other than her father, she couldn’t think of a better man. “That’s kind,” she said. “Where did you get the picture?”
“I was going through photos on my phone last night. Chloe, it seems, had swiped it when I wasn’t looking and took a batch of random shots. Mostly goofy close-ups of herself.”
“Chloe took that?” Chloe was her sister’s six-year-old daughter.
“She did. Might be the next Leibovitz if she stays with it.” He picked the hammer back up. “I’m off to get the Contender ready. Carlos and I are heading to a cut I found off Cayo Costa. There’s some big tarpon hiding in there that seem to think they’re safe from me.”