They were still arguing, the voices louder now that I was closer. I stood in Mickey’s office, half listening and half curious about my surroundings. If Mickey was in money trouble, it didn’t show here. Leather couch, cherry-wood desk, Oriental rug on the floor over of the thick carpeting. The man had taste, even if he did run a sleazeball dirt track.
“You are being insubordinate!” Mickey thundered.
The brunette wasn’t fazed. “Well, I got a sister that works at the police department and she’ll tell you that I could have you arrested for verbal assault right now!”
That brought him up short. “I ain’t assaulting you! Now, look, this here’s a misunderstanding. Let’s just drop it. It’s late and past time for you to go anyhow.”
“Well, it’ll be no different tomorrow,” she huffed.
“Probably not,” he admitted. “What’s she do there?”
The voices were coming closer, as if they were out in the hallway. I looked around for a place to hide, my heart beating so loud it almost drowned out their voices. Louvered doors took up one entire side of the room.
“Please, God, be a giant closet,” I whispered and ran to duck inside.
“She works patrol,” I heard her say. “Third shift. She has to do it that way on account of nepotism.”
“Nepotism?” Mickey’s voice squeaked with anxiety.
“Yeah, our daddy’s the assistant chief.”
I heard a sigh, but the sigh was altogether too close to my left shoulder. It couldn’t have been Mickey who sighed. A thick hand wrapped itself around my mouth, while another one grabbed my waist, pinning my arms and pulling me down.
“Don’t move. Don’t do anything but breathe or I’ll have to hurt you,” the voice whispered. Meatloaf. His breath smelled of fried onions. He pulled me back against the wall of the pitch-black closet, and we slowly slid down until we were sitting on a metal case.
I must’ve started as my thighs connected with the cold metal, or maybe it was just that I was scared shitless, but he took that as a bad sign. Instantly his fingers pinched my nose shut while the other fingers covered my mouth. I couldn’t breathe.
“Struggle and you’ll pass out quicker,” he whispered. “Sit absolutely still and I’ll let you breathe.” I froze, my ears ringing, my lungs heaving for air. He took his fingers away from my nose and I sucked in stale closet air.
Mickey had walked into his office and from the sound of it was punching out numbers on the phone.
“Hey,” he said, “it’s me. No! No! I ain’t got the money. We’re going ahead anyway.” He paused, listening. “I don’t give a shit about that!” he said. “I’m on the verge of being wealthy. This is gonna be piss-ant chump change a month from now.” More silence. The man who held me tightened his grip as he listened. “This is the last of it tonight, you hear me?” Mickey said. “I don’t want to hear it! I got problems of my own. Just bring the shit and I’ll take care of it. I’m good for the money, you can take that to the bank.”
The phone slammed down and Mickey sighed. “Oh, God! ‘The assistant chief is my daddy,’” he mimicked. “Man, just when you think it’s your turn to ride, somebody goes and steals the pony!”
The closet was getting hotter by the second, as well as smelly with fried onions and the scent of dead ashes. I tried to hold it back, I really did. But between the tickle of the hand just under my nose and the smell, well, the sneeze came blowing out. It wasn’t loud, just a tiny snarf, actually, but it was enough.
Mickey quit talking to himself and a drawer slid open. It was impossible to hear him coming, but my captor knew it was happening. He pushed up, standing with me as a human shield. And when the closet door flung open, I was the Kevlar vest between Mickey’s huge cannon of a gun and the man behind me.
“Aw, I hate this,” Mickey said. He leveled the gun and pointed it straight at my heart.
I felt Meatloaf’s strong arm shove me aside with a force that sent me reeling and heard a grenade explode in the space of air where my head had been. I went sliding sideways as a force of nature blew past me and out of the closet. Meatloaf and Mickey went down in a tangle of black satin and blue jeans, rolling around on the floor like a World Federation Wrestling match.
I couldn’t tell what happened to Mickey’s gun. From the way the two men were brawling, it could’ve been anywhere. Meatloaf’s head was soaked in blood, and he seemed to be on the losing end of the battle, a surprise since he was a foot taller and probably eighty pounds heavier.
As I watched, the gun reemerged in Mickey’s hand. He was going to kill Meatloaf.
“No! No! No!” I reached in my pants pocket and pulled out the Spyderco, flicking it open on the first try. Neither man heard me, but Mickey felt me as I jumped on his back, grabbing for a hunk of hair.
I was moving fast, so when Mickey’s toupee came off in my hand, I had to wonder if maybe I’d scalped him by accident. Then I pressed the cold steel tip of the blade against his cheek and grabbed the collar of his racing jacket.
“Drop it or I cut your fucking jugular!” I screamed.
The gun fell to the ground beside him, only to have Meatloaf roll over and grab it.
“Don’t start with me,” I demanded, “or I’ll cut this bastard and come after you!”
To add to the general pandemonium, there was a loud buzzing noise that filled the room and set the building to vibrating. The door to the front office slammed back against the wall of the reception room, and the hallway was filled with black-booted, camouflaged SWAT team members, with Detective Wheeling standing right in front. The buzzing noise was so loud now I could hardly hear him yell. “Freeze! Drop your weapons! Now!”
Meatloaf and I just stared at him. “You mean me?” we both said.
For a brief second, it was a standoff. The buzzing noise stopped, and from overhead a I could hear footsteps running across the roof.
“Did you call them?” Wheeling asked Meatloaf.
“No, did you?” he answered, dropping his arm to his side.
I still held my knife up to Mickey’s throat. The pieces were in place for me. I glanced back at the closet for a second, just to make sure.
“Oh, shit,” Wheeling said, sighing. “I bet Terrance did.”
There was the clatter of more feet running down the hallway and a woman, dressed in dark navy-blue pants and a navy-blue windbreaker with a huge DEA logo, pushed her way into the room, a black gun in her hand and the same little sneer she always wore covering her face. Carla Terrance.
“I’ll take over here,” she said.
“The fuck you will,” Wheeling answered, his gun still trained on Mickey Rhodes.
“Over my very dead ass,” I added.
“My pleasure,” she said.
Meatloaf was the only one who seemed not to have a vested interest in who got Mickey. He walked away, positioning himself next to Wheeling.
“DEA had jurisdiction over this loser,” she said. “He’s part of one of our operations. Drug dealing and money laundering.”
Wheeling didn’t say anything.
“Yeah, well, him and me,” I said, nodding toward Wheeling, “want him for murder.”
Wheeling’s eyebrow went up slightly and his mustache twitched. The asshole thought I was being cute.
“See that burnt-up safe in the closet?” I said to Wheeling. “It’s from Wannamaker Lewis’s house, I guarantee. I bet his will’s in it.” Mickey moaned. “He killed Wannamaker and he killed Ruby. Ruby was his sister, wasn’t she, asshole, or should we be calling you Michael?” That’s when the knife slipped a little and nicked Mickey’s neck. Nobody moved.
“Wannamaker was your father, huh?” I said, the knife caressing Mickey’s cheek, leaving a thin red line of blood.
“Somebody stop her!” he screamed.
“I was thinking you might answer her question, smart ass,” said Wheeling. “Then we might address your problem.”
“Yes,” he groaned. “I did it!”
There was a mom
ent there where I knew what it felt like to decide to take a life, but my Catholic training took over. Sister Mary Magdaline would’ve been disappointed.
“You want me to cuff him, boss?” Meatloaf said.
Wheeling smiled. “Sure, bud.”
“Wait,” I cried, “you can’t let him do that! How do you know he’s not in with him? He’s got a criminal record a mile long!”
Meatloaf and Wheeling exchanged a look, and Meatloaf chuckled.
“Ain’t computers great?” he said.
“Sierra,” Wheeling said softly, “he works for us, kind of part-time. He’s a narc.”
Meatloaf gingerly stepped up to where I stood with the knife still clutched in my hand, still touching Mickey’s cheek. He smiled at me. “Can I have him, Sierra?”
“Where’re your cuffs?” I asked, not willing to give him up without security, even though Mickey would’ve had to go through over ten armed DEA and SWAT team members to leave.
Meatloaf dangled them in front of me. “Police auxiliary,” he said. “Always prepared.”
I took the knife away slowly, folded it, and put it in my pocket.
“Are you just going to let her do that?” Carla screeched.
“Absolutely,” Wheeling smiled. “She’s police auxiliary, too.”
“No, she’s not!” Carla wasn’t having any of it, but then, neither was Wheeling.
“Try me,” he said. “You may have my partner’s balls in a sling, but you’re nothing to me. I don’t owe you a thing.”
“I’ll have him in my custody before the day’s out,” she huffed, watching one of Wheeling’s men lead Mickey away.
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not.”
Then he looked over at me, the mustache twitching to beat the band, his face held as stiff as ever, but just barely.
“Let’s go see about my partner,” he said, crooking his elbow.
We left Carla sputtering and walked out onto the fire escape. Detective Wheeling looked over at me, his eyebrow raised speculatively.
“Okay,” he said, “the DEA’s been camped out on Rhodes’s doorstep for months, watching his money-laundering operation. I’ve been here investigating a murder. How come you, a”—he struggled for a moment—“an amateur, could figure out that Rhodes killed your friend and her father?”
I leaned against the railing and watched the action on the ground below. Mickey was being searched, a small crowd of drivers and mechanics gathering to watch, incredulous looks on all their faces.
“I wasn’t sure,” I said. “But I knew that Ruby and Wannamaker were killed for a reason, and the only link was the missing brother, Michael. After Wannamaker was killed, I knew money was the motive. The killer had to be somebody who needed or wanted money badly enough to kill for it. I nosed around until I figured out who it was. Mickey was at both murder scenes. Looking back on it, he was at the club the night I got beat up.” Wheeling looked surprised. “I didn’t tell you about that one,” I said. “Mickey owed everybody money. Hearing him say on the phone that he’d be coming into money confirmed it for me. Tripping over his safe, now, that was a giveaway.”
Detective Wheeling’s mustache jerked. He shook his head and led me down the steps.
“Mind if I catch a ride with you?” he asked. “It isn’t everyday I ride with a good-looking detective. Most of the time, I gotta ride with ugly cusses, like your boyfriend.”
We drove back toward Panama City. Ahead of us was the squad car carrying Michael, a.k.a, Mickey Rhodes. Behind my Camaro were five Panama City police cars, lights flashing and sirens wailing. Not because they needed them, but simply because they could. That’s Panama City. We may be small, but we’re living large.
Thirty-one
We pulled up onto my parking pad and I cut the engine. The sun was beginning to set, and the early evening sky washed the silver trailers with color.
“I guess you got a lot to take up with him, huh?” I said. “But just so you know, he’s not feeling too well.”
Detective Wheeling looked over at me. “You don’t have to worry. I think I know why he did it, and I’m not going to bust his chops about it.”
“Why, then?”
Wheeling looked down at his lap, his hands twitching a little as he debated what to say.
“Sierra, I’m thinking you might be around for a while,” he said. “I’m thinking you might be trustworthy with this, but God knows, I don’t want this getting out.” He took a deep breath and looked away. “Awhile back, I had an affair with a patrol officer. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it happens. I could tell you it was the hours or the work, but that would just be crap. I had an affair. It almost cost me my family, and if anyone in the department had known, it would’ve cost me my job. Still could.”
I reached over and put my hand on his arm, but I don’t think he was even aware.
“When I saw her sister coming out of the racetrack office a while back, I knew. John didn’t want to risk me getting involved. And I hate to say it but I’m pretty sure Carla knew about it, too. The police department’s a small place, and back when I was seeing Suzi, Carla was working third.”
“You think she’d hold that over John’s head?” The woman was lower than I thought.
“You don’t know her,” Wheeling said, “she’s got a one-track mind for the job. She’d use whatever leverage she had to pull John into the investigation, even if it meant threatening his partner or forcing him to lie to his chief. Loyalty doesn’t matter to her. She wanted to crack that money-laundering operation. It didn’t matter what it took to do it. The job is everything. That’s what broke her and John up.” He looked at me. “So that’s that, all right? Stays between you and me, okay?”
“Deal,” I said. “Let’s go see your partner.”
* * *
The trailer was rocking when we stepped inside. Ma, Al, Arlen, Raydean, and Vincent Gambuzzo all sat around the kitchen table, the remains of lunch scattered across the countertops. A ferocious card game was in progress, and Pa’s gallon jug of Chianti was almost empty. Even Al was smiling, a large pile of poker chips sitting next to his empty tumbler.
“Youse gonna ante up, or what?” he demanded of his tablemates.
Raydean threw in a red chip and cried, “Hit me, big man! One card!”
Arlen hooted and folded his cards. Ma sighed and threw in a blue chip.
“Give me four,” she said.
It was gonna be a long night.
Raydean spotted me first, about the same time Fluffy came prancing in from the back.
“He must be better, huh?” I asked, hoping they hadn’t forgotten their patient.
“Get out them track shoes, girlie,” Raydean cried. “The fever broke and he’s asking for food!”
“Yeah,” Al said, “but these two loaded him up on the vino as an extra precaution. The guy’s probably floating on the ceiling by now!”
I looked over at Fluff for a report. “He doing better?” I asked.
Fluffy yapped once and went over to the game. She hopped up in Al’s lap, never one to go for the underdog, and appeared to be reading his cards.
“You go on,” Wheeling said. “I’ll wait.”
I wanted to go, worse than anything, but he’d been right, he had the longer relationship, and right now that needed attention.
“At the end of the hall,” I said, giving him a push. “You go. I’ll wait.”
“Thanks, Sierra.” He walked off and I watched him for a moment, his back stiff, his hands at his side.
I stepped out onto the back stoop, the card players oblivious to my leaving, all except for Fluffy, who followed and curled up in my lap when I sat down on the top step.
“Hey,” I said softly, looking up at the clouds, “I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can, I want you to know I made it square for you. I got him.”
There was no answer, just a soft breeze blowing across the grass and the first firefly of the evening dancing above my gardenia bush.
Fluffy settled a little closer into my lap. “I don’t know what it’s like, dancing with the angels,” I whispered, “but I gotta believe you’re teaching ’em a trick or two.” A tear slid down my cheek and I buried my face in Fluffy’s soft hide.
The door creaked open and John Nailor stood framed in the doorway. Wheeling was supporting him, but not by much.
“Is the seat next to you taken?” he asked. He made his way to the railing and slowly sank down beside me. Wheeling vanished back inside, the door closing softly but firmly behind him.
“Hey,” he whispered. “You lied to me. You left for that track like I told you not to do.”
I shrugged, tears running down my cheeks.
“Well, I had to call Wheeling to back you up. I figured you might get in over your head.”
“I was doing all right,” I muttered.
“Yeah, you and that knife.” He laughed softly, then let his hand rest softly on my thigh. “You’re thinking about Ruby, huh?”
I nodded, the tears closing off my throat.
“Come here.” With his good arm he pulled me close, wrapping his arm around my shoulder. “Put your head down, right there.”
We sat for a few minutes, with no sound but the crickets whining in the heat. Then he began to sing, very softly at first, and then loudly enough for me to recognize the tune and join in.
“I’ll fly away, oh Glory, I’ll fly away. When I die, Hallelujah, by and by. I’ll fly away…”
We sat there singing, my head on his shoulder and his arm around me, tears sliding down my cheeks until the song was finished and the sky had turned to darkness. Then I heard his voice, speaking this time.
“I’ll keep an eye on her down here,” he said.
And then he pulled me toward him. “Let’s go in there and show ’em what a couple of real card players can do,” he said.
I took one last look up at the sky and saw the first star of the night pop out.
“Yeah,” I said, “this oughta be something to see. You beating the house with one hand tied behind your back.”
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