T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 03 - Southern Peril

by T. Lynn Ocean

  Soup blew out a sigh of displeasure. “You really need a happy pop. I thought you retired.”

  Soup was right. I probably could use a happy pop, although I don’t do drugs. I have my moody days, but overall, I think I’m pretty well-adjusted. Even as a kid, I rarely cried and never threw tantrums. When I learned of my father’s departure—I remember the day clearly—I shrugged at the injustice and went outside to play hopscotch. I figured he had a good reason for leaving, and my young brain assumed he’d be back. I’ve never been one to overreact. Not even the time I fell out of a tree and split my knee open and all the boys ran at the sight of gushing blood. I used my teeth to rip a sleeve from my shirt, made a tourniquet with the fabric and a stick, hobbled home, and passed out on the front porch.

  Things are what they are. As an adolescent, I always held out hope that my father would come back. Now, all these years later, I knew for a fact that Ox would be back. In a matter of weeks. But my upbeat, can-do attitude had faltered without him, and I wondered if it had something to do with our afternoon in bed together. I wasn’t sure I liked my mood at all—or the realization that I’d come to rely on Ox much more than might be healthy.

  “The retirement jokes are getting old,” I said to Soup, knowing how bitchy it had to sound. “I could also use a record of all the prescriptions the Divine Image Group has written over the past year or two. Is there a database for that?”

  “There’s a database for everything, if you know where to look,” he said, “and how to obtain access.”

  Luckily for me, Soup is one of the best hackers in the country. “Excellent,” I said. “How soon can you do it?”

  “This job pay anything?”

  “Free food at the Block,” I offered.

  “I already get that,” he reminded me.

  “Don’t you owe me a favor?”

  He laughed, once. “No.”

  “Then I’ll owe you a favor,” I said.

  “You already do. Two or three of them.”

  I had to think of something better. “A state supreme court judge, for whom I am doing this favor, will be much indebted to you.”

  “Which state?” Soup asked. Foolish, he’s not.

  “South Carolina.”

  “And that helps me how?”

  “Look, North Carolina and South Carolina are practically one and the same. You ever get in trouble, my judge friend can probably help you out. She has a lot of pull.”

  “I had more friends like you,” Soup grumbled, “I’d be so broke I couldn’t buy advice.”

  “So how soon do you think I can have that?” I asked, but he’d already hung up.

  CC’s Hair Boutique was a mod-looking joint done in stainless and white. Lots of white. White tile floor, white stucco walls, white furniture in the waiting area, white faux marble tables to hold the magazines.

  A guy—thankfully not wearing all white—greeted me and asked if I had an appointment.

  “No appointment, although I probably do need a trim,” I said. “I’m out of conditioner, and a friend of mine said that you sell the PureOlogy products.”

  “We carry PureOlogy,” he said, reaching out to feel my hair in a way that only a hairstylist could get away with. “Which conditioner do you use?”

  “I can’t remember what it’s called,” I said, deciding to go with my bubbly, girly, bimbette role. And I really did need conditioner. Spud had swiped mine to use on his mustache. “It’s pepperminty and makes your scalp kind of tingle?”

  He pulled a bottle off the shelf. “Here you go. It’s the one for color care.”

  I hadn’t realized the shampoo and conditioner I used was for color care, but my hair had seen the blond-to-brunette spectrum over the years. “Great, thanks.”

  “My next client doesn’t come in for forty-five minutes,” he said. “I have time to trim off those split ends and shape you up.”

  I had split ends? “Oh, that’s perfect. Shape away!”

  His name was Alex, and he led me to one of the hair-washing sinks. I’d left the Ruger and paddle holster in the corpse caddy, so I didn’t mind handing over my short-sleeved collared jacket. Lying back, I relaxed and enjoyed the warm water and scalp massage while Alex chatted about his previous client’s Persian kittens.

  Head wrapped in a towel, I moved to another chair, where Alex proceeded to comb out my wet hair and ask about my plans for the evening. I babbled on about partying with my friends at Level 5—it’s what came to me on short notice—and decided to toss out the name Theresa.

  “My friend who told me to come to CC’s to buy conditioner?” I began. “She said there used to be a stylist here named Theresa, who was really good. Is Theresa still around?”

  It may have been the placebo effect, but I thought I detected Alex’s attitude go defensive. “You’re a local, right? Who’s your stylist now?”

  There are a lot of hair salons in Wilmington. I threw out a name and made up a story about Shawna, my current stylist, suddenly quitting because she landed a role in an independent film to be produced in Wilmington. “Nobody from the salon even bothered to call her customers to let them know!” I said. “So I thought, To heck with them. I’ll have to find a new place.”

  Alex pulled a strip of wet hair straight up from my head. “I hope she’s a better actress than she is a stylist.” Wilmington is, after all, an East Coast hotbed of television and movie production. It was a good story. He bought it. And he answered my question about Theresa. She used to cut hair at CC’s but just recently left. Not only that, Alex confided, but she’d worked at the salon for only a couple of months.

  “Was she trying to be an actress, too?” I think I made the question sound believable.

  “I don’t think that boyfriend of hers would let her hang out on a set all day.” Snip, snip. “Besides, Theresa wasn’t the actress type.”

  “Men can be such jerks,” I said, watching pieces of my hair fall to the ground. “Was he, like, real controlling or something?”

  Alex spun my chair so I faced the mirror. He snipped and shaped. “All I know is her boyfriend was scary. Looked plain mean. Stopped by here one afternoon—supposedly to take Theresa to lunch—and that’s the last we saw of her. She called a few days later to tell us she quit.”

  “That’s weird,” I said. “What was his name?”

  “We never knew. But he had a mangled ear on one side,” Alex said.

  TWENTY

  The Divine Image Group partners sat in their conference room, a spread of freshly delivered deli sandwiches and bottles of flavored teas in front of them. They didn’t normally eat lunch in the office and they rarely ate lunch together, but today was an exception. Two of the men were worried about the third. They knew that a tripod couldn’t stand on two legs. Their strength had always been a foundation of three, and their practice could be in danger of collapsing if Jonathan didn’t get his act together. Not only that, but Leo had some interesting news to share. He wanted to blurt out the discovery but held back. They needed to get a take on Jonathan’s emotional state before giving him something else to worry about.

  Michael poured dressing over his blackened tuna salad, and Leo dug into a grilled pastrami. “Gotta love the three-month-cycle patients, like Leona Atkins,” he said. “I saw her again this morning. She’s a walking annuity. Gets her Botox, alternates site injections with Restylane, does IPL on her chest, and loads up with product on her way out the door. Writes us a check and schedules the next appointment before she leaves.”

  “Yeah, but life would be dull without surgeries.” Michael ate a forkful of salad. “Transforming somebody’s figure—now that’s a satisfying day at the office. One-and two-week follow-ups, they look like crap and they still hurt. By the four-week follow-up, I’m their newest favorite person on earth.”

  Jonathan rummaged through a container, found a dill pickle spear, took a small bite. Usually, he’d jump in with a funny tale or an update about one of his patients. His partners waited, but he had nothing to
contribute to the conversation today.

  “You’re losing weight, buddy,” Leo told John. “Better eat something. If you don’t start taking better care of yourself, you’re not going to be in any shape to take care of your patients.”

  “You should consider taking a vacation,” Michael added. “You aren’t having fun anymore, John. You used to enjoy coming to work. You used to play golf and go antiquing and compete in trap-shooting tournaments. What can we do to help you start having fun again, John?”

  Jonathan tossed the half-eaten pickle back into a Styrofoam container. “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Michael ate a chunk of tuna. “Do what?”

  Jonathan reclined in the leather executive chair and stared at the ceiling. His arms went out. “This. Pretending to have a psychiatric practice when my life—our lives, are being controlled by some gangster as though we’re puppets on strings. We don’t even know who this asshole is, yet he’s ruining our lives. Some idiot who goes by D-man—what stupid kind of a nickname is that, anyway—some idiot whose name is a letter is running our lives.”

  Leo and Michael exchanged looks. They had to get their partner under control. Michael put down his fork. “Look, John. It’s not that bad. He just wants his money. That’s all. We’re almost there, and when we’ve paid everything back, this will all go away.”

  “I agree,” Leo said, thinking back to that night when the three of them were still in school and he took the duffel bag from the car. Back then, everyone called him Will, short for his middle name, William. “I don’t like being blackmailed any more than the next person, but this guy just wants what he figures he’s entitled to, right? So think of it as a business deal. We don’t like it, but we do it anyway. We stick together and ride it out. Besides, I have some news. I know who he is.”

  Michael dropped the pile of lettuce he was about to stuff in his mouth. “What? You know who’s been extorting money and prescriptions from us? Who?”

  “Ray Donnell Castello.”

  “It can’t be,” Michael said after a beat. “He’s in jail. He went to jail for life.”

  There had been no witnesses to the shootings except for the three of them, Michael remembered, thinking back to that life-changing night. They were students in med school. It was pitch black and raining. There weren’t even any nearby houses or other cars on the road, except for the single car coming at them. They’d spotted its faint headlights in the distance and had taken off in their own car before the vehicle got close enough to see them.

  Later, when the incident was merely a fading nightmare, the boys learned the identity of the person in that car, or at least the person they assumed was the driver. A man named Castello. As kids, they never bothered to read the local daily newspaper. They barely had time to read all their textbook assignments. After the crash, though, they’d scanned the news every day. The very first day after it happened, they saw a brief blurb about two unidentified men being found in a wrecked car. Both were dead, the journalist reported, but the article didn’t give details, other than to say gunshots were involved and a suspect was in custody. Two days later, the suspect was identified: Ray Donnell Castello. The cops termed him a “career criminal” who had several outstanding warrants for his arrest. The boys debated as to whether or not they should come forward and tell police that Castello didn’t kill the two men in the car. It would be the right thing to do. And they could always do it without mentioning the money. But ultimately, they justified their silence by knowing that Castello would go to prison regardless. His past record would see to that. He was a wanted man.

  Days later, another newspaper story caught their attention. Police still didn’t know the identity of the dead men. But Ray Donnell Castello, the lead suspect, had been jailed for a prior armed robbery offense. He had been serving time in a New York prison when he escaped during an inmate riot, the article said. Not only that, but a stack of charges were pending against him from other states, including a homicide. Castello was going back to jail for life, the lead prosecutor said.

  The boys convinced themselves that they’d made the right decision to not get involved. Castello would be off the streets forever. Besides, they’d taken the money from two dead men. Not Castello. They didn’t owe Castello a thing. They forgot about the local news and quit buying the daily paper. Will, John, and Mike got back to the business of being medical students. And of course, planning how they would hide—and later use—the money.

  “He did go to jail for life,” Leo told his partners. “When this asshole appeared out of nowhere demanding money, it never occurred to any of us that it could be Castello. But last week, on a hunch, I checked it out.”

  “And?” Michael prompted.

  “And he apparently worked some sort of a plea deal a few months into his original sentence. I guess he had information that the prosecutor’s office wanted. He snitched. So all this time, we’re assuming he’s in for life, when really he was just serving twenty years,” Leo said. “In any event, he’s out. I don’t know for sure that Castello is D-man, but it makes sense.”

  “It does make sense. It’s the only answer that makes sense.” Michael’s eyes were wide. “The two men in that car thought we were sent by some man named Denny. They thought we ran them off the road on purpose. Before he accidentally shot himself, the driver told you to tell Denny to go to hell. Remember, Leo?”

  “Of course I remember,” Leo said. “Those headlights we saw coming? That must’ve been Denny, chasing the two guys in the car. That’s why they were going so fast—they were running from him. That’s why they lost control when they swerved to miss us.”

  “Right,” Michael agreed. “But none of our theories mattered after we knew Castello was in for life. He couldn’t bother us. So nothing about that night mattered at all.”

  “It matters now, Mike.” Leo pushed away his plastic container and threw a used napkin over it. “It matters now because the animal is out of the cage.”

  Michael was done eating, too. He found a roll of Tums in his pants pocket and chewed a handful. “So Denny was a nickname for Donnell. And so is D-man, the name he goes by now.”

  Jonathan had a wad of napkin back to his nose again. “He must’ve found my student ID at the crash scene before the cops got him. And then, when he pleaded out to twenty years, he decided to come up with a revenge plan while he counted off the days. He knew he’d be getting out.”

  “For that matter,” Michael said, “he could have been keeping track of us from prison. They get all sorts of privileges, I think. Television, magazines, Internet.”

  “While we’re speculating”—Leo finished his tea—“tell me this. How did the police just happen to pick up Castello right after the wreck? Maybe none of this would have happened if Castello found Jonathan’s ID and came after us at school. I mean, we were kids. We could have claimed we didn’t know any better. We would have just apologized and given him the money and that would have been the end of it.” Leo eyed his partners and spoke slowly, emphasizing each word. “So how did the police get to the scene fast enough to nab Castello? There was nobody around to see or hear the car crash or the shootings, except Castello himself, who was chasing the two guys in his car.”

  “I called them.” Michael’s voice was flat. “I called the police.”

  Leo’s head snapped around. “What?”

  “John passed out on the sofa. You headed straight to the shower to get the blood off you. And none of us had even looked in the duffel bag yet. We didn’t know what we had. Anyway, I went to the pay phone across the street from our apartment and called the police station to tell them about the wreck. That’s all I said. I told them that we were driving home and passed an overturned car, but that we didn’t see any people.”

  Leo’s face went red. “Why, for God’s sake?”

  “I couldn’t go to sleep with the thought of two dead men sitting in that car all night long. What if some innocent kid riding his bicycle the next morning came across that awful sce
ne? Would you have wanted your little brother to see that?”

  Leo let loose with a string of cusswords, directing the last few vulgar sentences personally at Michael. No longer concerned about avoiding a feud, Michael met Leo’s furious look dead-on.

  “Like Jonathan said earlier, I’m not the genius who took the duffel bag.”

  The men sat rigid in the thick silence, nobody eating or drinking, for several long minutes. Eventually, Jonathan leaned forward and pressed a folded napkin below his nostrils. Drops of bright red dotted the white paper when he removed it.

  Michael sighed. “That was uncalled for, and I’m sorry, Leo. We all equally shared in the money that was in that duffel bag. What’s important here is not whose fault this is, but the fact that we’ve been best friends since college.” A partnership was like a marriage, Michael figured. You take the good and the bad and make it work. Well, maybe that’s not the best example, he realized. The group had seen their share of divorces. He thought of a different analogy. “When you are partners, you share in the good times and help each other through the bad ones. And at least now, thanks to you, Leo, we know the identity of this jerk.”

  Jonathan sniffed several times to control the blood trickling from his nostrils. “You’re naive, the both of you.”

  “And you’ve got to get yourself together, dammit.” Leo’s eyes narrowed. “You drink too much. You prescribe meds for yourself. And now you’re getting nosebleeds? Have you been snorting your troubles away?”

  Jonathan held a fresh napkin beneath his nose before looking at it to see if the blood had stopped. “If you still want to place blame, Leo, fine. I’ll take the blame. Everything is my fault. It was me who caused this whole mess. If I hadn’t gotten so drunk at that frat party, I wouldn’t have been vomiting and I wouldn’t have lost my ID.” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “If I’d ever been able to make any of my personal relationships work, I’d be happily married. I wouldn’t have pursued Rosemary. And if I hadn’t given her the drugs… if she hadn’t become addicted… if I hadn’t confided to her about this big pile of shit we stepped in, she’d still be alive today.” His head moved back and forth like a kid throwing a tantrum: No, no, no! “This isn’t going away. Rosemary is dead. And I don’t care if we do know his name. Blackmailers don’t ever stop once they’ve gotten their talons into you. Don’t you people watch TV?”