“I see his name here,” I said, “but it says he lives in Florida.”
“It’s Myrtle Beach,” Weston said irritably, probably more upset with his own mistake than with my comment. “All those damn beach-town tourist-trap shitholes are the same to me.”
“Understandable. Have you heard anything from Mr. Hartwick recently?”
“No. I called and left a message with him about the funeral, because . . . well, because it just didn’t seem right to put Wayne in the ground without Randy there. I never heard back from him, though.” He said it carefully, like he was trying to keep any trace of bitterness from his voice, but he didn’t completely succeed.
“I see. Did Mr. Hartwick and your son remain close after their Marine days?”
“Very close. Wayne went on fishing trips with him every year. Wayne told me that—outside of family, of course—the only man alive he trusted completely was Randy Hartwick. He said he’d trust his life to that son of a bitch in a heartbeat, no hesitation, no regrets. That’s how it has to be in combat, you know. You have to have that loyalty.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, not anxious to hear another of John Weston’s loyalty speeches. He should have stayed in the military. He’d have made a hell of a general. “In the notebook, you wrote that Mr. Hartwick worked for a resort hotel. Do you know what he did there?”
“He had the security contract for one of those big hotels. You know, he installed alarms and cameras, provided guards, all that crap. It was one of those fancy resorts.”
“Do you remember the name?”
“Shit.” He grunted, and the line was silent for a while as he thought about it. “Golden Palms, maybe? No, that’s not it. Not the Palms. Dammit. What the hell was the name of it? Golden Beaches, Golden Palms. Something like that.”
“I’ll check it out and see if I can find anything close,” I said.
“Good.”
“Well, that’s all I had to ask you, sir. I’m going to try to track Mr. Hartwick down now. We’ll be in touch soon.”
“I hope so,” he said, the words barely audible, the typical gruffness and command absent from his voice. “I hope so.”
I hung up and looked at Joe. “I’ve got our Myrtle Beach connection.”
“Who is it?”
“Randy Hartwick,” I said. “He served in Wayne Weston’s Force Recon battalion. Apparently, they were together from boot camp at Twenty-nine Palms all the way through Recon training and then went into the same unit. That’s what it says in the notebook, at least. On the phone, John Weston told me Hartwick was the only man his son truly trusted. Said Wayne would have put his life in the man’s hands without hesitation.”
Joe listened with interest. “And Weston visited Hartwick just before he died,” he said.
“Possibly. We don’t know that for sure, but it’s likely. John Weston said Hartwick was the head of security for a resort in Myrtle Beach. He hasn’t heard anything from Hartwick, even though he called to tell him what had happened and to ask him to attend the funeral.”
“You think the guy in the Oldsmobile was Hartwick?”
“Could be.”
“So what’s he doing up here pretending to be a cop?”
“According to John Weston, there was some pretty fierce loyalty between his son and Randy Hartwick. Maybe Hartwick came up here to find out who killed his buddy, or maybe to find out what happened to the wife and daughter.”
“He comes up here to investigate that, but he doesn’t bother to contact John Weston while he’s in town? He doesn’t even show up for the funeral?”
I closed the notebook and tossed it onto the desk. “That bothered me, too.”
“Look for the hotel,” Joe said. “I want to move on this guy fast. If he’s the man who has been talking to the neighbors and watching the Russians, he might have a whole lot of answers.”
I returned my attention to the computer and did a few simple keyword searches for “Myrtle Beach,” “hotel,” and “Golden.” It didn’t take me more than five minutes to find a match. The Golden Breakers Resort in Myrtle Beach boasted a five-star rating, luxurious suites, a rooftop restaurant, hot tubs, pools, an exercise room, a sauna, and even a 422-foot “Lazy River” for children to float down. I located the phone number for the resort and called it.
“Hi,” I said when a friendly clerk answered, “I was just about to fax something to you, but I lost the number. Could you give it to me?”
She happily obliged, and as she read the number off I compared it to the one Sortigan had been given. A match. I thanked the clerk, hung up, and looked at Joe.
“The Golden Breakers,” I said. “Sortigan faxed the information to Weston at that number. I’m fairly certain we’ll find the resort is also Randy Hartwick’s employer.”
“Call back and ask for Hartwick,” Joe instructed.
I did so.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Hartwick is out of town,” the clerk informed me after putting me on hold briefly.
“Out of town?” I repeated, and Joe looked over and gave me a thumbs-up sign. “Do you know where he went, or when he’ll be back?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Damn,” I said, feigning heavy disappointment. “I really need to speak with him today. I’m afraid a very close friend of Randy’s passed away, and I know he’ll want to be notified as soon as possible. Is there any way you could help me get in touch with him?”
“Oh, that’s awful,” she said with sympathy that sounded so genuine I felt bad. “Mr. Hartwick has a cell phone. I don’t know the number, but if you give me ten minutes I could probably find out.”
“That would be great.” I gave her the office number, and she promised to call back.
I had hung up and turned to Joe, ready to explain the phone call, when someone knocked on the door. We both looked at it, then nodded at each other, expecting to see Swanders and Kraus, or possibly Cody.
“Come in,” Joe said.
The man who entered wasn’t Swanders, Kraus, or Cody, but Joe seemed to recognize him. I’d never seen him before.
“What brings you here, Mr. Kinkaid?” Joe said, getting to his feet and offering his hand. “This is my partner, Lincoln Perry. Lincoln, this is Aaron Kinkaid. He used to work with Wayne Weston.”
I shook hands with the visitor. Kinkaid was a tall guy, at least six-four, with a slender build and dark red hair. A few freckles spotted the bridge of his nose, drawing attention to the stark contrast of his red hair and green eyes. He had enormous hands, hands that could palm a basketball the way most people could hold a softball. His tall, rangy build, red hair, and freckles made me think of a farm boy, but he had to be nearing forty.
“Nice to meet you,” he said. His voice had a slight drawl to it, a languid delivery that enhanced the farm-boy image. He sat down and clasped his big hands together, then frowned and stared at his shoes.
“I’m afraid I have something to say that you’re probably not going to like, Mr. Pritchard,” he said. Joe raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything. “You see,” Kinkaid continued, “I wasn’t completely honest with you when you came over to Sandusky to talk with me. But I’d like to make it up to both of you. What I mean is, well, if you’d be willing, I’d like to work with you.”
“Work with us?” Joe said.
Kinkaid nodded. “Yes, sir. Work with you on the Weston case, I mean. I think I can help, and I want to help.”
“Why?” I asked, and he looked up for the first time. “Why did you go from lying to Joe to wanting to help us on the case?”
He met my eyes for a moment and then looked back at his shoes. “Because,” he said, “I’m in love with Wayne Weston’s wife.”
CHAPTER 10
WE ALL sat in silence for a minute after that, and then Aaron Kinkaid told us his story. He’d lied to Joe, he said, only when he’d explained the circumstances of his separation from Wayne Weston. He’d told Joe that Weston had been closemouthed and ended his partnership with Kinkaid for unknown reaso
ns. In reality, Weston had an excellent reason to break off the partnership—Kinkaid had approached Julie Weston with feelings he said had been building for months.
“I know she had feelings for me, too,” he told us. “She admitted that much to me. But there was her daughter to consider. Julie told me not to pursue it, and for a few weeks everything was calm. Then she became uncomfortable and talked to Wayne about it.”
I glanced at Joe and noticed he was looking at Kinkaid with undisguised scorn, clearly unimpressed with anyone who would pursue his partner’s wife. Joe’s own wife, Ruth, had been dead for several years, and I think marriage seemed even more sacred to him now than before. He kept quiet, though.
Kinkaid told us an enraged Wayne Weston had confronted him about his advances toward Julie. Kinkaid hadn’t denied his attraction to his partner’s wife, and Weston demanded he leave the firm. Kinkaid resisted at first.
“Then I realized it was hopeless,” he said. “We’d never have been able to work together again. Wayne couldn’t trust me, and I understood that, and I didn’t blame him for it. If you can’t trust your partner, you need to move on. So we moved on.” He ran one of his big, bony hands through his hair. “You need to understand that I really care about Julie, though. I see the way you’re looking at me, and I know what you’re thinking—that I’m a first-class prick, a guy who wants his partner’s wife just because she’s off-limits, or maybe just because of her beauty. That wasn’t it, though. Julie’s an amazing woman.”
He looked at me, as if I might understand what Joe could not. “She’s truly one of a kind. Yeah, she’s gorgeous, but after a few months I was hardly even aware of her looks. She’s unlike any other woman I’ve ever known. She has this depth, this quality of intelligence and compassion, man . . .” He shook his head. “It’s like she figures you out, understands you better than you understand yourself. I tried not to think about her. I tried to stay away from her, even. It didn’t help. Nothing could help. I know you look at me and all you can see is an asshole who tried to steal his partner’s wife, but I tell you, I loved her like I’ve never loved anyone before. And I know I’ll never love anyone like that again.”
Joe and I didn’t say a word. We’re good at that, sometimes. If there’s anything better than our tag-team wit, it’s our tag-team stony silence.
“Listen,” Kinkaid said eventually, “I heard about Wayne’s death, and Julie and Betsy being missing, and I didn’t want to have any part of it. I didn’t want to allow myself to even think about it, because I knew if I did, I’d stop feeling sorry for my dead partner and start wishing I could see his wife again. You know what kind of a bastard that made me feel like? But I’m not worrying about it anymore. I’ve got to know where that woman is, and where that little girl is. That’s all I care about. If I can learn what happened to them, I’ll walk away and be done with it. But I’ve got to know. I’ve got to know.”
Joe cleared his throat. “That’s great, Kinkaid. I respect your desire to help, but I’m afraid that’s not how we work. Lincoln and I work alone. Exclusively. We don’t posse up on anything, all right? You want to help so badly, I’ll give you the number of the detectives in charge of the case. Maybe they’ll appreciate the assistance more than we do.”
“I understand that reaction,” Kinkaid said, squeezing his big hands together and nodding his head. “But I remind you I’m not a stranger to this business. I know what I’m doing. In fact, I’ve got more experience working in the private sector than either of you. Yeah, you were cops, but it’s a different world out there if you don’t have a badge. I know how to work in that world, and I know how to do it quickly.”
“We’re stumbling along all right on our own, thanks,” I said.
Joe nodded. “I have to hold his hand a lot of the time, but we’ve managed to get by so far. I think we’ll continue to manage.”
Kinkaid got to his feet, his broad frame towering over Joe’s desk. “Fine,” he said. “I’m not going to beg you. But it’s your mistake. I know Wayne Weston better than anyone. I know his history, I know his mind, I know his habits. And I’m going to find out what the hell happened in that house. You can take that to the bank, gentlemen.”
The phone rang. I ignored it at first, thinking I’d let it go to voice mail, but then I remembered the clerk at the Golden Breakers who was supposed to call back, and I reached over and answered it.
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is Rebecca with the Golden Breakers Resort in Myrtle Beach,” a young female voice announced brightly. “I believe I spoke with you earlier about Randy Hartwick, our chief of security?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ve located Mr. Hartwick’s cell phone number.” She read the number off while Kinkaid stood at the door, his hand on the knob. I thanked the clerk and hung up, wishing her voice hadn’t been so loud. I hoped Kinkaid hadn’t heard Hartwick’s name.
He had.
“Randy Hartwick, eh?” he said, his back to us. I looked at Joe, and he shrugged, leaving the response up to me.
“What do you know about him?” I asked.
Kinkaid turned back to us, keeping his hand on the doorknob. “Randy Hartwick,” he said, “is possibly the most dangerous man I’ve ever known.” He hesitated, looking from Joe to me. “You’d be well advised to watch yourselves with him. It’s too bad you don’t posse up,” he said, echoing Joe’s phrase. “Because if you take a run at Hartwick, you’ll need all the help you can get.”
He opened the door and stepped halfway into the hall, then paused, giving us a last chance. Joe looked at me and then sighed.
“Get your ass back in here and sit down,” he said.
Kinkaid grinned, shut the door, and returned to his seat. “All right,” he said. “Now let’s get to work.”
Kinkaid’s knowledge of Randy Hartwick dated to his early days with Wayne Weston. Hartwick had visited occasionally, and Weston introduced the two men.
“He’s an old Marine buddy of Wayne’s,” Kinkaid said, “and Wayne stayed close to him since those Marine days, even though it was a bad idea.”
“Why a bad idea?” I asked.
Kinkaid smiled tightly. “Those two were in Force Recon together. The baddest of the bad, right? They were the guys who fought the secret wars, did the dirty deeds, and kept their mouths shut about it. Covert operations were what they lived for, and Hartwick—well, he never really stopped living for them. He was addicted to the rush of it, the danger, and the adrenaline. Wayne had the bug, too, but it wasn’t as bad. He used to talk about it with me after Randy would leave, and his eyes would kind of light up. He’d just float off in his own world for a minute. Then he’d look at a picture of Julie and his daughter and come back down to earth.
“Hartwick mustered out of the Corps two years after Wayne did. He tried to go into private security work, but it didn’t hold his interest for long.”
“It’s what he’s doing now,” I said, and Kinkaid smiled at me like you might smile at someone who thought all his tax dollars were put to good use.
“It’s a front,” he said. “Where is he now? Doing a security guard detail for some country club? A private airport, maybe?” When I gave him a slight nod to indicate he was at least close to the truth, his smile widened. “Yeah, that’s what I figured. It’s a job he can manage easily without having to be on scene all the time. It leaves him plenty of free time to pursue his other interests.”
“And what are those?”
“Weapons smuggling,” he said. “And he’s damn good at it.”
I wanted to look at Joe, but I kept my eyes on Kinkaid, trying not to show any reaction. Cody had said the Russians were moving illegal weapons. Now Kinkaid said Weston’s closest friend had been as well.
“Who’s he moving them with?” Joe asked. “Or maybe I should ask, who’s he moving them for?”
Kinkaid frowned. “I can’t tell you that. Hartwick never exactly confided in me, you know, and Wayne, well, it’s been years since Wayne and I tal
ked about all this. I don’t know any names, I just know that some Soviets were involved. Retired Spetznatz guys, the Soviet answer to Force Recon.”
I had to look at Joe after that one. He gazed right back at me, and I knew what he was thinking: Maybe stopping Kinkaid at the door had been a good move after all.
Kinkaid followed my eyes. “What?” he said. When no one answered, he said, “Why’d you look at him like that? What have you heard?”
Joe shifted in his chair and leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head. “Weston was checking into some of Cleveland’s very own Russian thugs shortly before his death. We started checking into them as well, and yesterday an FBI agent and some Cleveland cops stopped by to tell us not to.”
“They give a reason?”
Joe nodded. “Said they think a group of Russians working under Dainius Belov killed Wayne Weston. Apparently, Weston’s name came up in some conversation they pulled off a wiretap. They don’t know what his involvement with them was—well, they said they don’t know, at least. But they did mention the Russians are involved in weapons trafficking.”
Kinkaid spread his long legs out in front of him and cocked his head to the side. “They didn’t say anything about Hartwick?”
“Not a word.”
He frowned. “So why are you interested in Hartwick today?”
Joe told him about the green Oldsmobile and the stolen South Carolina license plate and then explained how I had traced Hartwick to the Myrtle Beach hotel. Kinkaid listened with interest, his green eyes intense.
“When you came down to see me in Sandusky, you asked about Jeremiah Hubbard,” he said. “Where does he fit into all this?”
“Good question,” I said. “That’s one we’re hoping to answer.” I told him about our conversation with Hubbard, as well as our visit to Dan Beckley earlier that morning. He nodded his head slightly as I talked, and he looked sad but not surprised.
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