Derek turned away from Rachel. Started walking in the direction of his car. She caught back up to him, quietly walked next to him for a minute or two.
“I have to tell you, as an officer of the law…”
“I already know what you have to say. Consider it said and understood.”
Rachel nodded.
“What questions do you have for me?”
Derek asked four questions as they walked. Rachel answered each one, as best she could.
When they arrived at his car—a second rental car booked from the Tampa airport—Rachel again grabbed Derek by the arm. Stopped him from slipping into the driver’s seat.
“You already know who killed Nikkie, don’t you?”
“I do,” he said.
“Same person who killed Sam Gracers?”
“That’s right.”
“Why don’t you tell me? Let us, let my department handle this. You could end up like Nikkie, do you know that?” There were more tears in the Detective’s eyes. Tears caused more by fear than of sorrow.
“Because time is up.”
Chapter 37
He arrived on Anna Maria Island shortly before five. The dashboard of his car pegged the temperature at seventy-three degrees. Weatherman on the radio he was only half-listening to promised severe storms arriving by mid-morning. Noon at the latest. Derek parked his rental on North Bay Boulevard, right in front of another tiny library where people loaned and borrowed books.
“Must be an island thing,” he said as the climbed out of his car.
He walked the quarter of a mile till the road ended and a well-traveled path began. Took the sinuous path till it reached a wooden bridge with a steep incline. When he reached the summit of the bridge, the view should have been breathtaking. Should have stopped him in his tracks, made him look around at the incredible vista the modest height awarded.
Straight ahead of him, spread out like a ruffled bed cover: Still but promising potential. To his right, was The Sunshine Skyway Bridge, faint in the distance but unmistakable as it stretched from Terr Ceia to St. Petersburg. The bay beneath and around the bridge was calm and deeply blue. To his left, Derek saw the stretch of the seashell-strewn beach, carving an end to the sea and marking the start of the land.
He walked down the slope of the walk-bridge, through the narrow path cut through the tall grass framing the sandy beach. Turned to his left and began walking towards the western most part of Ann Maria Island.
Derek stuck close to the American dune grass, finding walking close to where the sand gave way to more solid ground easier. Faster. On his left were million dollar homes with multi-million dollar views.
He couldn’t care less about any of those homes. He was only interested in one.
Derek walked a few hundred yards until the beach seemed to flatten out. Beneath his feet—on nearly every step—were hundreds of spent shells. Signs of death and decay reported their final screams of death beneath each of his footfalls. A crushing, grinding sound. The shells were all bleached white by the relentless Florida sun and the heavily salted water. Derek had walked on beaches like this before. Side-by-side with Lucy, hand-in-hand. He remembered his growing admiration, coupled with frustration as their walking progress was continually interrupted as Lucy would stop in her tracks, bend at her waist and inspect a fetch of gathered shells.
“We’re never going to get to wherever we’re going if you keep stopping to look for shells,” he said, half amused with his wife’s childlike enthusiasm and half annoyed by their lack of progress.
“And where,” she had said, still bent over, still scanning the cornucopia of shells spread out around her feet, “are you in such a hurry to get to?”
“Don’t know,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Nowhere, really. Just thought we were going for a beach walk. Not a ‘take ten steps, stop, look for shells, take another ten steps, and repeat’ type of walk.”
“Sometimes,” she said after having picked up a sand dollar in near perfect condition, “a journey is filled with destinations.” She held the bleached-white sand dollar up for his inspection. “See? We’re even making money on our little walk.”
It was her smile that always set him back. Always her smile. He missed that smile, more than he would miss breathing when his final day arrived. For each breath he took was a silent reminder that he still lived and would never again see that smile.
He had never taken such a walk with Nikkie. Had never felt his soul imprisoned by her smile, her laugh or the sound of her voice. But still she had commanded a part of him. A part he was determined to never be owned by another. And with her death, the balance of what was left of his soul began to tip. To slide towards a point of impossible return.
He walked on towards the point where the beach extended a small stretch into the sea, marking the very point where the Atlantic stopped and the Bay began.
Towards the first of his day’s destinations.
He dropped the cast of his eyes to the beach in front of him. Noticing thousands upon thousands of shells of all shapes and sizes. When a sand dollar, broken in two, one half partially buried in the sand, the other lost to time and the elements, came into his view, he stopped. He thought about bending to retrieve the broken and spent remains of a once-lived life, but paused, his arms only a few inches into a reach.
“I miss you, Lucy,” he whispered to the deathly reminder caught in his gaze. “I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.”
His first destination was fifty yards away.
Maryanne heard the knocking, the repeated chimes of her doorbell, yet she could not make the noise stop. Feeling Iron Lou’s approach the night before, she had placed her cell and home phones on the bed beside her; not in expectation of being called but just in case. She had also, rather begrudgingly, slipped on an adult diaper. She hated the idea of needing one almost as much as she hated her actual and eventual need for their use. It was bulky and foreign to her as she crawled into bed, and now, lying in bed, wishing she could answer the door and stop the constant knocking calls from outside her front door, the foreign bulk beneath her sleep clothes was a damp, growing bulk. The odor, trapped for the most part in the diaper’s design, was spilling forth. She had heard odors elicit the most powerful memories. But this odor, this almost palpable stink surrounding her, did not elicit memories but instead offered her promises of things to come. “Someday,” she thought, “this same smell will remind me of this day. The day Iron Lou made his intentions clear.”
Her house phone rang. With weak, shaky hands, she reached the phone, answered the call and propped the phone between her ear and a pillow.
“Maryanne Jenkins, this is the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department. We have two deputies at your home right now. Are you inside the home?”
“I am,” she said in a voice Derek would mistake for one from some Caribbean Island.
“Is there a reason you are not answering your front door? Is someone in the home with you, preventing you from answering the door?”
Maryanne sighed heavily. Felt tears welling in her eyes.
“I can’t answer the door. I can’t move.”
The truth was she wasn’t sure if she could span the distance between her bed and the front door. She knew she could move. Probably could stand and take a few steps. Iron Lou hadn’t won that battle, yet. But she had no confidence the steps she could manage would be enough to reach her front door. She imagined herself falling, cracking her head on an end table, the hard-tiled floor or against any number of hard, bone cracking surfaces.
“Is someone in the house with you? Just say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.”
“There’s no one in my house but me,” she replied, her voice echoing the resigning emotions clouding her mind. “I’m sick. They need to break the door down.”
Jessica Gracers walked back down her staircase. She paused for a moment, looking back up the stairs as if she had either forgotten something in her room or was waiting for someone to follow her down. She
smiled, then walked through her living room and into the kitchen. She glanced down at the tiles still stained with a pinkish glow. She passed the spot where her husband had died, making a mental reminder to have the stained tiles pulled up and replaced.
“Not going to sell this house with blood-stained tiles,” she said as she flipped the coffee maker on.
She leaned against the marble countertop, taking a mental inventory of her day’s to-do list. It was Thursday, a day she had usually spent sleeping late as she lay beside her husband. Early in their marriage, Jessica had accepted that Sam needed to work seven days a week. While, for most, weekends meant days to relax at home, they only meant less traffic during Sam’s drives to his office, to client meetings or to meet with business partners. He agreed—for the sake of his marriage—to devote one morning each week to doing nothing more, or less, than to spend it with Jessica.
On most Thursdays, she and Sam would go for a long walk. Probably stop at the Starbucks a couple miles from their home, drink a Grande sized coffee. Maybe share a muffin.
Those Thursdays would never be repeated. Never again would she spend a Thursday morning strolling through her neighborhood, sharing comments about how dreadful a particular neighbor’s landscaping looked or sharing the most recent bit of “town gossip” with Sam. She knew Sam didn’t care about gossip or how anyone decided to prune their palm trees or which color mulch someone decided to use. He couldn’t care less, but he always listened to his wife’s admonitions of other’s tastes or practices. But still he listened, occasionally voiced his agreement with his wife’s assessment, but always he would listen.
As the coffee maker began to filter water through the freshly ground beans, Jessica Gracers realized there was no one left in the world who would listen to her as Sam had. No one would just let her talk; let her say whatever she wanted about whatever was pressing in her mind. No one left to go for walks on Thursday mornings with, to share overpriced coffee and an overly sugared muffin with. She had friends, but they were friends only because of her being married to a successful businessman. The type of friends who decide who their friends will be based not on character but on the level of influence they wielded.
She had no real friends, as evidenced by no one having called her, stopped to visit her or even sent off an email, since Sam was murdered. She couldn’t blame them. After all, she was arrested for his murder. Accused of the horrible crime. No wonder everyone was giving her a wide berth. The widest possible, it seemed.
The coffee maker squealed and groaned behind her, marking its completion. She pulled a mug from the cupboard, filled it with strong, black coffee, then made her way into the living room. She sat in a soft cushioned lounge chair. Tucked her feet underneath her body. Took a few small sips of the still too hot coffee, then waited for her phone to ring.
Chapter 38
A guy like FJ DeNuzzio doesn’t do much alone. Based on what Rachel had told him earlier that same day, based on the off the records mini-investigation she had done and from what Jessica mentioned about him, Derek figured FJ probably was seldom completely alone. And though he had never met FJ DeNuzzio and knew very little about him, he knew others like him. Worked cases for people like FJ. Investigated guys like him, too. He had a good idea the type of guy someone like FJ would hire. Probably a guy with a serious resumé of martial arts training in his past. Maybe ex-military. Maybe even an ex-MP like Cole. Having seen more than his fair share of bodyguards, Derek knew what to look for. A guy, probably around six feet tall, muscular build but not overly bulky. Not dressed for the weather or the location. The morning was steamy, and the location was the beach. He’d be trying hard to blend in. Easy to spot, once you knew what to look for.
What made spotting the hired thug even easier was how vacant the beach area was at six-twenty in the morning. Derek counted maybe eight people scattered about the long stretch of beach. He figured the vacation season wouldn’t start for another month or two, meaning the eight or so people sharing the beach with him this morning probably knew, or at least had familiarity with, everyone they might pass on their morning walk. This guy, FJ’s guy, wouldn’t be milling about on the beach. Wouldn’t be tossing pebbles into the ocean, acting like he was waiting around for someone to join him for a morning stroll.
He spotted his mark twenty seconds after he began looking for him.
The area where the beach flattened out, the Atlantic on one side, the bay on the other, ran out a couple hundred yards from the dunes. Though there were houses spread out with only a hundred feet between them along the whole stretch of the beach, there was only the tall grass of the dunes across the point of the beach, which protruded out like a finger pointing west. Derek spotted him sitting in the dune grass. Braced up by both arms, gaze fixed to his right. To the guy’s right is the direction FJ would soon be approaching.
Short dark hair, sunglasses, long-sleeved grey shirt. Probably wearing tactical-style pants but Derek could only see the top of the guy’s knees sticking up above the grass. Height of his knees compared to the height of the grass put the hired gun at around six-three. Bigger than Derek thought he’d be. Bigger than Derek. Certainly better trained and with more recent experience as well. That was for damn sure.
Derek didn’t try to conceal his approach. Didn’t try to walk past the guy, circle back around one of the oceanside homes, sneak up from behind and do what he needed to do. He walked a direct path to the guy. Got within twenty feet before the guy stood up. Took his sunglasses off and gave Derek a long, thousand yard stare.
“Looking for something?” the guy said.
Derek kept walking right towards him.
“This isn’t a shortcut to the road. Gotta walk back the way you came. Take the trail through the woods. This is private property.”
“You the owner?” Derek asked, now knee deep in the dune grass.
“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.”
“If you’re not, then what the hell do you care if I cut through?”
“Maybe I’m paid to keep assholes like you from cutting through.”
“Maybe you are, maybe you’re not.”
Derek wasn’t what anyone would call a gun-freak. He saw guns as necessary tools of his trade. He owned two semi-automatic guns. One was the one he used when he put a bullet through the left side of his face. That one was a Glock 19 model. 9 MM. Tried a true. The second gun he owned was a Smith and Wesson M&P Shield, chambered for .40 caliber. That was the one he was carrying in his concealed holster.
When he was in the Army, Derek was expected to fire at least one hundred rounds every two weeks. Twenty-five rounds from one hundred yards. Twenty-five from fifty. Twenty-five from twenty-five and twenty-five from ten to fifteen feet. The last distance, ten to fifteen feet, were really the only ones that mattered. Ninety percent of handgun battles are fought from within that “up close and personal” distance. So while he was expected to fire twenty-five from ten to fifteen feet from a target, Derek regularly fired three times that number. Kept the same discipline when he joined the Columbus Police Department, too. Was still firing off seventy-five to one hundred rounds from ten to fifteen feet from his target at least once a month.
But as good as Derek Cole was firing a gun and drilling the center of his target from ten feet away, his aim was nothing as impressive as was his speed to draw. Most amateurs take four-seconds to pull their gun out of an inner-waistband holster, line up the shot and pull the trigger. Well-trained shooters look to get their time from pull to fire around two seconds. Derek could draw and fire off two to three rounds in those same two seconds. Important when split seconds mattered.
Before FJ’s hired gun could get his pistol free from his holster, Derek had his pointed dead-aim to his chest.
“Hands up, fingers clasped behind your head.”
The guy, clearly impressed as well as pissed off, did as he was told. Even went down to his knees, assuming that would be the next order from the quick-drawing son of a bitch standing in front of him.
“You work for DeNuzzio?” Derek asked.
“You’re in the business,” the man said, smiling a little. “You know the rules.”
“Not in the business, but I know the rules. Don’t offer any information about the guy who signs your paycheck. Right?”
“You know the rules.”
“Close your eyes,” Derek growled.
The man squinted his eyes, gave Derek a quizzical look.
“You gonna shoot me? Here? You know the attention that would bring you?”
“Not planning on shooting you,” Derek said. “But may have to if you don’t close your eyes. I’ll deal with whatever attention I attract.”
“You don’t know who you’re messing with, buddy.”
“Neither does your boss.”
The thug closed his eyes. Derek figured he’d snap them open the second he heard Derek move an inch. So, to test his theory, Derek shuffled his feet an inch or two in the grass. Sure enough, the hired gun’s eyes flew open.
“Keep them closed. You’ll live to tell your buddies about what a shitty day you had today. Open them again, and they’ll all be wondering who got the jump on you as they sit in the back of the funeral home at your wake. Close your eyes.”
“My name is Arnold,” the man said as he closed his eyes.
“Goodnight, Arnold.”
Like Arnold, Derek wasn’t dressed for a hike on the beach. It wasn’t his long pants that didn’t fit the weather or the location; it was his black, steel-toed boots that served as his fashion faux pas. They would have been fine if he had been walking on a rocky trail someplace, or in an area where poisonous snakes were known to have a taste for human ankles. But the boots weren’t right for a walk on the beaches of Anna Maria Island.
Deathly Reminders: a Derek Cole Thriller (Derek Cole Suspense Thrillers Book 6) Page 23