by Jack Hardin
The man replied in Spanish. “No. You’re getting a ride back with someone else.” He put the van in reverse and backed toward the shelving before changing gears and exiting out the way he had come in. The door shut behind him automatically.
A metal staircase hugged the interior wall and led up to a windowed office. The light was on. Cruz’s Tundra was parked near the base of the stairs, and next to it, spread out across the concrete, were two large, gray tarps. Felipe walked across the tarps and made his way to a heavy door in the center of the half wall. He opened it and peered inside the rear space. The mattresses were gone. There were a couple of folding chairs, a small table, and a toilet at the far end, where a yellow janitor’s bucket sat next to the wall. Felipe thought he smelled a faint hint of bleach. A steel mesh door was still bolted into the brick wall, covering the back door.
Felipe shut the door and waited. He was beginning to grow impatient. Cruz had a way of making him wait. He didn’t like it. He had just started toward the stairs when the office light went out and Cruz appeared above him, and his heavy footsteps created a thin echo as he descended. “Cruz,” Felipe said, letting his irritation fall away, “you’ve got the place looking good. I can hardly recognize it.”
Cruz stepped onto the tarps and stopped in the center. Felipe followed him, and, as Cruz turned to him, he noticed that the muscular man was wearing a scowl. “Felipe, what’s your role in this operation?”
The question surprised him. “I find the girls. I get them to trust me.”
“And what is my role?”
“What is this? I know what you do.”
Cruz suddenly smiled. But it was an irritated smile as though he were speaking with a toddler. “Yes. But I want you to remind me. What’s my role in this operation?
“You do a bunch of stuff. With me, you tell me when you’re ready for them and come help me get them.”
“When I brought you in on this, I did it because you and me, we go way back. You slung a lot of dope on the street, and I knew you were up for this job. And you’ve done good. Very good, in fact. But tell me, what else did I ask you to do?”
Felipe gave a weak shrug. “Nothing. That’s all.”
Cruz rubbed at his chin as he nodded. “See, I don’t think it is. Because it sounds to me like you’re also running your mouth, telling people what it is you do.”
“What? No, I don’t.”
“Benito Salazar’s brother says differently.”
An icy sensation, like a slowly melting snowball, worked its way down Felipe’s neck as he recalled his THC-induced confession to Benito the other day. A slip he knew he never should have made.
“And if that wasn’t bad enough, you decided to try and grab up not just one, but two girls. In the daylight. Without my authorization. The only reason there isn’t a warrant out for you is because my guy on the inside stopped the girls’ report from going anywhere.”
“Okay,” Felipe snapped. “I get it. I screwed up. It won’t hap—”
“Please tell me you weren’t about to tell me it won’t happen again. That would just be too...obvious.”
Felipe turned his hands up. “What do you want me to say? I’m sorry. Half the girls you’ve got is because of me. Just lay off.”
“Do you realize how many moving parts there are to our organization? If one piece slips out of line, it risks the exposure of everyone else. I vouched for you when I brought you on. If you screw up, Mr. Zedillo will hold me responsible.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you do know that. Very well, in fact. And that’s exactly why your actions concern me. On top of that, there’s a private investigator looking for one of the girls. Somehow he’s learned your real name.”
“What? That’s not possible.”
“And yet it is. People have been talking. It seems they have no allegiance to you.”
“Who? I’ll go shut them up myself.”
“No. Mr. Zedillo believes you have become a problem.”
“You told Zedillo? Why would you do that?”
“Because, Felipe. You’re a liability. A problem. And you of all people know what we do with problems.” Cruz reached behind him and tugged a revolver from the seam of his jeans. He thumbed back the exposed hammer and pointed it at Felipe.
And now Felipe was silently cursing Maury Povich; although he knew this wasn’t Maury’s fault. It was that damn Purple Hurricane or Purple Haze or whatever it was that Benito had given him. “Oh, come on.” He huffed boldly. “Intimidating me isn’t gonna work. I can fix this. Let me talk with Zedillo. Now get that gun out of my face before I—”
Cruz pressed the trigger, and Felipe’s right eye disappeared as his head swung back and hit the ground with a sickening crunch on the back end of the discharge’s echo. His body now lay sprawled unevenly across the tarp, and his right leg twitched as blood pooled around his head like a hellish halo.
Cruz shot him again.
Chapter Nineteen
Ellie retreated two steps and silently lowered the access hatch. Withdrawing her phone, she typed out a message to Jet, hit “send,” and waited.
She knew Jet kept a concealed carry wherever he went. The last thing she wanted was to frighten him and give him a reason to reach for it. The hatch door creaked above her and disappeared as it swung away. Jet’s face appeared in its place. He extended his hand and helped her the rest of the way up. When both her feet were on the roof, he spoke in a charged whisper. “What are you doing here?”
She indicated toward his camera. “What are you doing here? I’m scouting the place across the street.”
“What, the old fire station?”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
They stared quizzically at each other, their features shadowed in the moon’s muted light.
“That was you listening by the entrance a couple minutes ago?” Jet asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?” Jet asked.
“Someone told me that—” Ellie was interrupted by the distinct sound of a gunshot coming from across the street. She and Jet exchanged knowing, concerned glances, and she followed him back to the parapet, where they peered across the street as another shot pulsed through the air. Then the night was silent again.
“Stay up here,” she said. “You have the camera. I’m going down there.” She returned to the hatch.
“No, Ellie. Just let me—”
But she was already gone.
As soon as her feet left the stairs and touched the concrete, Ellie ran across the dusty floor and exited the same door she had entered through just minutes earlier. She turned north and ran down the sidewalk, pulling up as she neared the corner. She peered around to get a glimpse of the fire station. The roller door was still down, and there were no windows to offer the possibility of a peek inside.
She crossed the street and took the sidewalk down the length of the old brick building, hurrying around to the rear. She cut down the narrow alley and found a freshly painted metal door set into the brickwork. When she set her hand on the doorknob and tried it, she wasn’t surprised to find it locked. Ellie returned to the front corner and looked up to the roofline of the factory where Jet’s camera lens winked against the moonlight.
Under normal circumstances, Ellie would have already called in the shots. But this was not an ordinary circumstance. She was looking for who killed her friend. She didn’t know which of Jet’s cases had led him here, and she was anxious to find out, but she wanted answers of her own before she went out and blew the whistle to the authorities.
Someone was still inside the building. A gun didn’t go off by itself. Certainly not twice. To Ellie’s trained ear, the report sounded like a revolver. At some point, whoever was inside would have to leave.
Her truck was parked a quarter mile away, in an empty dirt lot on Staley Avenue. She left her spot on the corner and jogged to it with a hundred questions pulsing through her mind. She arrived at her truck, got in, and a
s she started it up, her phone rang. It was Jet, still whispering. “Where did you go?”
“To get my truck.”
His next words charged her with adrenaline. “Someone just left. A black Tundra.”
Ellie accelerated into the street and floored the pedal. “Which direction?”
“Ellie, I need to call in those shots. Someone could be hurt.”
“Did you get a picture of the license plate?”
“No. I couldn’t get a good angle on the rear of the car.”
“Which direction?” she repeated.
“East down McCallister.”
Ellie eased off the gas and took her next left. “Give me a window before you call it in,” she said. Her fingers gripped the phone tightly while she waited for his reply.
When he spoke again, a heavy reluctance filled his voice. “All right. Just be careful.”
Ellie found the red glow of the Tundra’s taillights just before it turned left at a green light and disappeared from view once again. She followed it onto Franklin Street and kept her Silverado trailing behind at a speed that wouldn’t attract attention. Over the next few minutes, the ragged commercial buildings thinned out and disappeared altogether as they put the city further behind them and continued into the rural darkness of east Fort Myers. Ellie trailed behind at a steady distance of a hundred yards and watched as the car turned north, taking Orange River Boulevard until it became Louise Street just beyond the overpass of Florida State Highway 80. Another half a mile and Louise Street became Maynard Street at a sharp bend, and the Tundra’s taillights disappeared once again, this time around a thick cluster of towering oaks.
The Orange River was one of the Caloosahatchee River’s many tributaries, and the road snaked unevenly as it traced the river’s banks before once again straightening out and transitioning from asphalt to hard-packed dirt. River reeds and oaks lined the road, and campsites opened on the left, nearly all of them vacant. Ellie observed as the Tundra turned into a campsite. She maintained the posted speed limit of fifteen miles-per-hour, driving past the other truck and fighting off the urge to turn and look out her window.
She parked five campsites further down and got out. The air was cooler here by the river, and a lingering breeze stirred the reeds and grasses near the river bank. Each campsite was an open clearing and separated by its neighbor by several yards of natural undergrowth. Ellie quietly slipped past the campsites. The third one she came to was occupied, but, with it being near to midnight, it appeared that everyone had already turned in for the night. A late-model Suburban was parked on the edge of the lot, and dying coals issued a weak and fading glow in the center of the fire ring. Nearer to the water, a large gray tent was zipped up.
Ellie passed on, finally coming to the edge of the campsite where the Tundra had turned in a minute earlier. Her cover was a thick copse of sword fern, coonie, and river reeds, and she looked on as the truck, still on, sat idle. The driver still had their foot on the brake, and the lights illuminated the front curtain of Ellie’s cover, basking it in a soft red glow.
Five minutes slipped by. Ellie was starting to hope they wouldn’t just drive off again when the familiar sound of an outboard engine caught her ear. Squatting, she peered through the stalks of reeds and saw the white hull of a boat ghost through the darkness and slip up the river bank like a beached whale. The Tundra’s engine shut down, and the brake lights went out when the front door opened. The driver stepped out and shut the door before walking around to the side facing the bank. The truck was a crew cab, and when he opened the rear door, the dim light from the interior escaped into the night and touched his face, giving Ellie her first glimpse of him.
A strong chin and flat cheekbones went nearly unnoticed beneath a bulbous and twisted nose that, in some strange way, resembled a broken light bulb. His dark hair was cut back behind his ears, and his t-shirt was filled out by a large stomach and protruding muscles. The boat engine was silenced, and its operator jumped down to the muddy grass and approached the truck. The men greeted each other, spoke a few words Ellie couldn’t make out, and the truck’s driver reached into the back seat, grabbed something with both hands, and heaved it toward himself. He backed up as he repeated the action and the side of a large white ice chest appeared. The other man reached into the cab, presumably to grab the chest’s other handle, and with a final, laborious tug, the chest slipped out of the truck and was lowered to the ground with a heavy thud. The man with the odd nose opened the front passenger door and rifled through the contents of the glove box while the other bent over the ice chest and lifted the lid.
“Ai yai yai,” he exclaimed. “Felipe, man. Sorry, bro.” The truck’s driver slammed the glove box, stood up, then shut the passenger door. “What’d he do, Cruz?” the other man asked.
“He got sloppy. Now help me with him.” The lid of the chest thumped shut, and he leaned over and grabbed the handle closest to him. His associate heaved up on the other end, and they walked the ice chest down to the riverbank like a couple of committed party-goers. Once on the boat, the Tundra beeped, and its lights flashed as it received instruction from the key fob. Ellie continued to watch, and one of the men pushed the boat off the grassy embankment and backed it into the water before treading in and slipping back on board. The engine started up, and the boat and its passengers were quickly absorbed by the darkness as it ran up river with whatever was left of Felipe.
Ellie came out of hiding and checked the Tundra’s doors for good measure. They were locked and the men gone, which meant that unless she wanted to wake the folks a couple of campsites away and borrow some marshmallows for roasting, there was no more to be done here.
But that didn’t mean there was nothing left to do.
For Ellie, the night was just getting started.
Chapter Twenty
There was a twenty-four-hour Walgreens on the corner of State Road 80 and State Road 31. Ellie went in and selected items from cosmetics, body care, and a small shelf containing popular cooking ingredients. She took her purchases to the counter, paid, and called Jet as soon as she was back on the road. His voice came through her truck’s speakers via a Bluetooth connection.
“Ellie, where are you?” he asked.
“On my way back.”
“Where did the car end up?”
“An empty lot off Orange River. Someone was waiting for him.” Ellie relayed what she had seen: the cooler, its transfer to the boat, and both men disappearing down the river.
“Did you get a good look at the driver?”
“Enough of one to recognize him if I saw him again. The other guy called him Cruz. I did get the license plate number. You want to write it down?”
He told her to wait, and when he gave her the go-ahead, she recited it before repeating it back once more. She asked him if he was going to call it in.
“Ellie, I was at that location tonight trying to find Juanita, the girl who went missing in Miami. For all I know those shots could have been for her. It could have been her in that cooler.”
“It wasn’t her.”
“How do you know?”
“When the other guy opened the lid, he called the guy in the cooler ‘Felipe.’’’ When Jet did not reply and the call stayed silent, she gave a verbal prod. “Jet?”
“I’m here. Felipe was my lead. You’re telling me he’s dead?”
“Unless they had a dog in that cooler with the same name, then yes. I guess they killed him tonight. Right under our noses.” She exited the highway and turned left at the stop sign. “I need to know if you plan on calling it in,” she said again. “It would be a big help to me if you waited.” What concerned Ellie the most was that the email had been clear that going to the police was not safe. It could have been a ruse, or there could be something to it. She just didn’t know yet.
Jet was a PI, which meant that he held such a license from the state of Florida. It also meant that he had to play by the rules.
Ellie, however, did not.
> “Why?” he asked.
“I’m looking into something. Let me call you when I’m done if it’s not too late. Then we can compare notes.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“I need to go this alone.”
“Ellie?”
“Yes?”
“I trust you,” he said. “I’m not calling it in.”
She knew he made the decision on the fringes of his conscience. “Thanks, Jet.”
“Just call me when you’re done. I’ll be up.”
Five minutes later, she found herself in the same parking space on Staley Avenue she’d left less than an hour before. She grabbed the Walgreens bag and stepped out into the deserted silence. The bed of her truck contained a crossover toolbox, and she flipped the latch and opened the lid. After selecting a couple of tools and pulling out a canvas backpack, she shut the toolbox and went around to the back of the truck. She lowered the tailgate and set everything down before dumping out the contents of the shopping bag. Above her, a tired sodium light was perched high on a creosote-covered telephone pole that was leaning at a disconcerting angle. Its light was meager and dim, but it was enough for Ellie to work in.
She slipped a bobby pin from its cardboard sleeve and used a pair of wire cutters to remove the rubber tip on the straight end and then set a crimp at the tip. She tucked it into a pocket and grabbed another bobby pin, then pinched it an inch below the center loop, and bent it into a ninety-degree angle. She tucked that one in her pocket, too, and stuffed the remaining items into the backpack before shouldering it, shutting the tailgate, and retracing her path back to the old fire station.
She arrived three minutes later beneath an eerie darkness brought on suddenly by thick, portentous clouds that shrouded the back alley in a darkness near that of an abandoned coal mine. Not wanting to risk the betraying beam of her flashlight, she felt along the doorway like a blind vagrant seeking shelter. When the lock finally settled beneath her fingertips, she plucked the bent bobby pin from her pocket and crouched before the door.