by Matt Lincoln
“Thought you could use a refill,” the bartender said with a nod at Holm’s close-to-empty glass. “Plus, I couldn’t help overhearing your mention of Cobra Jon. You clearly know who he is, so imagine my surprise when I heard you say you want to take him down.”
There was a reserved, cautious look in the bartender’s eyes beneath the friendly surface, and it didn’t take me long to figure out what that look meant. Without having heard the entire conversation, he thought we were headed for trouble of the stupid kind. Probably pegged us as either small-time criminals looking to make a name, or at best, gung-ho bounty hunters with no clue what we might be getting into. Either way, I read him as about half a step from calling the cops for our own safety.
Despite the fact that he’d misread the situation, I liked that about him.
“You can back off the panic button, buddy,” I said with a smirk as I pulled my badge out and showed it to the bartender. “I’m Special Agent Marston, and this is Special Agent Holm. Don’t worry, we’re off duty.”
There was relief in the bartender’s laugh as he leaned forward to read the ID. “MBLIS, huh?” he asked with a thoughtful look. “That’s… Military Border Liaison Investigative Services, right?”
“Wow, I’m impressed!” Holm grinned. “Nobody knows what that stands for.”
The man shrugged. “I’m a bartender. We know everything,” he said as he offered a hand to Holm, and then me. “Mike Birch. Pleased to meet you.”
“Would that be Mike of Mike’s Tropical Tango Hut?” I asked.
He laughed again. “One and the same. Yes, I am the mostly proud owner of this fine establishment. So why, you may ask, am I serving drinks?” He leaned forward, propped an arm on the bar, and continued in a loud, conspiratorial whisper. “Because overhearing people’s conversations is a hell of a lot more interesting than lying on a beach all day.”
“I hear you. Beaches are overrated,” I said with a chuckle.
“Exactly, and this is the most interesting conversation I’ve heard all week in here.” Mike pointed to Holm’s glass. “Ready for another boilermaker?”
Holm flashed a sheepish smile. “Maybe just a draft this time. I should probably lay off the whiskey since some people are making me look like a dumb frat boy,” he said with a pointed glance at my half-full tumbler.
“Yeah, and some people don’t need any help looking like a frat boy,” I shot back with a smirk. “Hell, I’d be on my third or fourth by now if I didn’t have something else to do after this.”
Holm nudged me. “Something, or someone?”
“I’m guessing that means you’re good without a refill, Special Agent Marston,” Mike said with amusement as he grabbed Holm’s mug. “Let me get your draft.”
“Thanks. And we’re not working right now, even though it sounds like it, so you can drop the special agent bit,” Holm said. “He’s Ethan, and I’m Robbie.”
“Got it. Back soon.”
The owner-slash-bartender started making his way toward the taps at the front of the bar, and Holm sat back with a grin. “See? I told you this place was worth checking out.”
“I guess it’s not half-bad,” I admitted.
“I mean, it’s a little… colorful, but I like it.” He panned a gaze over the crowds at the bar, around the tables, and in and out of the secondary room where they presumably kept the dart boards and pool tables. “I’m digging the female-to-male ratio, too. I’d say it’s, what, three to one?”
I nodded. “About that, yeah.” There were definitely plenty of unattached women in the place, moving around mostly in pairs or larger groups, drinking and laughing. More than a few were snapping pictures of the bar, the crowds, or their friends mugging it up and leaning all over each other in tangles of tanned limbs, bright smiles, and lofted drinks with little paper umbrellas stuck in them.
If one were so inclined, and I figured Holm was, the chances of getting friendly with someone were fairly high tonight.
“So, what do you think?” Holm leaned aside to look past me. “I need a list of likely candidates, somebody who needs cheering up. See anyone who looks lonely tonight?”
“Yeah,” I quipped. “You.”
“Ha-ha.” Holm’s smile didn’t dim. “Hey, here comes Mike. I bet he’s got an inside line on the ladies.”
“Ask him, then.”
Holm rolled his eyes. “I will. You’re useless.”
I didn’t argue. Normally I’d be just as into the game as my partner, ready to let loose and have some fun on a Saturday night, but tonight, I couldn’t quite manage to leave work at the office. There was more to this case than we’d uncovered, and Holm was right to be wary of Cobra Jon. Arresting Agay Benta wouldn’t be the end of this, even if we managed to get a conviction where other law enforcement agencies had failed.
If we wanted justice served and also wanted to be alive to see it, we’d have to stop Cobra Jon before he stopped us. Taking out the most powerful gang in the Bahamas was a big ask for what should’ve been a more-or-less straightforward murder case.
Somebody had to do it, though. If no one else was going to step up, then I would.
Mike reached us and set a fresh glass of beer on the bar counter in front of Holm. “You were going to ask me something?”
“Man, you’ve got good hearing,” Holm said with a laugh.
The owner-bartender smirked. “It pays to keep an ear to the ground in a job like this. Literally. You wouldn’t believe the tips I get thanks to a few well-placed observations.”
“So you own the place and you rake in the tips,” Holm said with an arched eyebrow. “You must be rolling in it.”
“Hardly.” Mike laughed. “Might not look much like it, but this joint is prime commercial property. My payments are astronomical.” He winked as he added, “Consider that a plug for a good tip.”
I was only half listening to their conversation when a minor commotion near the entrance caught my attention. People were rushing toward the front windows, jostling to see outside, pointing and talking excitedly. Whatever had grabbed their interest, it wasn’t fun. They seemed somber, worried.
As the noise level dropped slightly, I heard muffled sounds from outside. It sounded like screaming.
“Anyway, about that question,” Holm said, oblivious to the shifting mood of the crowd. “I was wondering if you could point out a few ladies who might be looking for company, since my partner here is being less than helpful.”
Just then, the front doors of the bar burst open and a woman rushed inside, disheveled and breathing hard as she pushed through the mini-mob gathered around the entrance. My gut flipped as I realized who it was.
I shot to my feet. “Her.”
“Huh? I thought you were tapping out of female-gazing tonight,” Holm said.
“No, I mean it’s her,” I half-growled over my shoulder, already moving toward the new arrival. “Tessa Bleu.”
The panicked woman who’d just stumbled into the bar looking like someone had unleashed the hounds of hell at her heels was my witness, who I’d definitely put in a taxi to go back to her nice, safe hotel where Metro could keep an eye on her.
So what the hell was she doing here?
12
It took me a good ten minutes to get Tessa calmed down enough to explain what was going on. Not long after her frantic entrance into the bar, sirens had sounded outside, and half the people in the place had transformed into looky-loos and wandered out of the bar trying to get a glimpse of whatever had taken place on the strip. The rest carried on drinking and partying.
At least they weren’t crowding Tessa. My threatening looks whenever a curious or concerned onlooker tried to approach probably had something to do with that.
Right now she was sitting on the bar stool I’d been occupying a few minutes ago, coming down from a serious case of the shakes with the help of a mint julep that Mike had mixed up for her, on the house. He’d told me, out of her earshot, that it was low on alcohol and high on mint to mask the
chamomile he’d added to help her relax. His special jittery-people blend, he’d called it.
I was really starting to like this guy.
Tessa sipped her drink and shuddered. “I’m sorry,” she said for about the tenth time. “I just can’t… I’m sorry.”
“Please stop apologizing,” I said as I shared a look with Holm, who’d resumed his seat on the stool next to her. The sudden, startling entrance of our witness had sobered him up fast. “Now, you said there was a shooting.”
She gulped and nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. “I was having dinner at Chez Rockport,” she whispered miserably. “The cab driver suggested it. And they just shot him. It all happened so fast.”
My brow furrowed. “The cab driver was shot?”
“No, the man who was following me.”
“Someone was following you in the cab?”
She shook her head almost violently, and her face crumpled. “I’m getting all mixed up,” she said as a sob escaped her.
“It’s okay.” I placed a comforting hand on her back, and she shivered briefly and settled. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”
For a moment she looked on the verge of breaking down. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Some of the visible tension left her on the exhale. “I guess it started when I left your office.”
“What?” I was instantly tense. “If something happened at the office, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think it was anything. At least, I talked myself out of it being something,” she said with a small sigh. “Maybe I shouldn’t have, but it seemed crazy to think somebody was following me.”
Dammit. If I had thought for a minute that she was going anywhere but back to the hotel, where I’d already arranged to have her watched, I would’ve made sure she took this more seriously. I sure as hell would going forward.
“Okay,” I said as I forced myself to stay calm. “What made you think you were being followed?”
She hesitated, her lips pinched. “There was a guy across the street who kept looking at me, I guess. Sitting on a bench, reading a newspaper. He was wearing a suit. I watched him after I got in the cab, and he didn’t even look up once I left,” she said. “Then I thought, at the restaurant…” She let out a breath. “I saw him again, but he was in different clothes and I figured I was being paranoid.”
Vague alarm bells started to go off in my mind. If it was one of Cobra Jon’s men following her, they wouldn’t have been subtle. They sure as hell wouldn’t have changed clothes to throw her off, and they probably would’ve just approached her the minute she was away from the agency and accessible.
“Can you describe the man at all?” I asked.
“Not the one from the beach,” she said. “White man, around forty, brown hair. I never really got a look at his eyes. He was probably about your height, and a little stocky.” She shivered again. “I saw him at the bar when I was leaving the restaurant. He came outside, and I decided to ask him who the hell he was and why he was following me, and… that’s when they shot him.”
Her throat worked briefly. “He died right in front of me. I’ve never seen anyone die,” she whispered.
As traumatic as this obviously was for her, none of this was making much sense in the context of my case. Not yet, anyway. I didn’t have enough to connect the dots.
“What happened after he was shot?” I asked. “What made you run, if the shooter had already taken the target out?”
“You mean besides the man dropping dead at my feet?” She flashed a dry, weary smile. “That would be the second bullet that almost hit me.”
“What the hell?” Holm said almost indignantly, managing to startle Tessa. “Sorry, Ms. Bleu. It’s just… this is crazy. You have some random guy following you, who apparently has nothing to do with anything, until a third party shoots him and then tries for you. None of that fits in with anything.”
I sympathized with his frustration, but I was better at controlling it. “The important thing is that you’re safe,” I said to her. “I want to talk more with you about this, but first I need to go out there and have a chat with Metro while they’re still processing the scene. If this is related to the beach murder, I’m going to need their full cooperation. Robbie, can you keep an eye on her for a few minutes?”
He gave me a grim smile. “I’ll keep both eyes on her.”
“Thanks. I won’t be long.”
I gave Tessa’s cool hand a sympathetic squeeze, and then headed outside.
The half-block between the bar and the snarl of emergency vehicles in front of Chez Rockport grew progressively less populated by spectators as the uniformed cops worked crowd control. Still, no one tried to stop me until I neared the yellow crime scene tape across the sidewalk, where a stone-faced officer on the other side of the tape barely glanced at me as he said, “You’ll have to turn back, sir. Police investigation.”
“Yeah, I know.” I pulled out my badge and opened it toward him. “Special Agent Ethan Marston, MBLIS. I’ve got an investigation of my own, and I think this one’s crossing it.”
The officer turned to look, and his features relaxed slightly as he lifted the tape. “Good. Hope you’ve got more of a clue than we do,” he said. “This one’s a real head-scratcher so far.”
“Tell me about it.” At least I didn’t have to waste time explaining the agency to him. Most of the Metro cops who worked this area were familiar enough with MBLIS to avoid the credentials dance. “Who’s in charge up here?”
“Detective Peterson.” The officer nodded to a blond-haired man in jeans and a brown jacket near the cordoned walkway leading to the restaurant, who was nodding and scribbling in a notebook as an elderly couple in formal clothing talked excitedly at him. “I’ll tell him you’re coming,” he said as he grabbed a CB unit from his belt.
I smirked. “Good idea. The detective looks like he could use a break.”
“Yeah, he’s working through the whole panicked witnesses who don’t know anything, but he still has to take statements stage,” the officer laughed.
“I hear that. Thank you.”
As I approached the detective, I watched him grab his CB and speak into it. He tried to hide his look of relief as he excused himself from the elderly couple, turning them over to a nearby officer before he came toward me.
“You’re with MBLIS?” he called out.
I nodded and introduced myself, then said, “Detective Peterson, right?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” The detective blew out a breath and raked fingers through his hair. “So, what do you know about my lovely crime scene?”
“Not much,” I admitted, and proceeded to give him a capsule version of the beach murder, the possible witness who really hadn’t seen anything, and the apparently unrelated man following her who’d ended up his victim. “My witness says there was a second shot fired, and that it was meant for her,” I finished up.
Detective Peterson tilted his gaze skyward for a moment. “Well, shit,” he said under his breath. “We did find a bullet in the sidewalk, but we thought it was a miss and the shooter took out his target with the second one. You’re saying the first bullet was the kill shot?”
“Apparently, according to Ms. Bleu,” I said. “She’s pretty shaken up, but I believe her. What have you got for witness statements so far?”
The detective grunted. “Not as much as I’d like, and of course, they’re all conflicting.” He pulled a face. “We’ve got the usual knee-jerk ‘a black guy did it’ and ‘a Hispanic guy did it’ crowd, a few claiming they saw ‘guys in sunglasses’ and it must’ve been the FBI or the CIA. Somebody didn’t see anything but heard a guy whistling ‘something creepy’ before the shots were fired. There’s a homeless dude around here claiming God shot the victim for his crappy haircut.” He paused. “Oh, and one woman says she saw a lady with brown hair and green eyes shoot the guy, and that she was standing right in front of him when she did it.”
Brown ha
ir and green eyes. That could’ve been Tessa. She certainly wasn’t the only brown-haired, green-eyed woman in the world, and probably not the only one in this part of Miami tonight, but she had been right in front of the victim when he was shot. “She might mean my witness, but Ms. Bleu didn’t kill him,” I said. “She only went to confront him, like an idiot.”
“Civilians, right?” Detective Peterson said with a crooked smile. “Yeah, we know it wasn’t her. We already found where the shots came from. Up there.” He pointed toward an adjacent building, a two-story brick place with no signage and several boarded windows on the second floor. “Found the brass on the roof. Looks like .308 Lapua casings, though of course we can’t be sure until the lab processes them.” He shrugged. “Unfortunately, we do still have to talk to your witness.”
I nodded. “Long as you’re not going to charge her with fleeing the scene or anything.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. She’s a victim in this too, whatever the hell this is.”
“It’s something, that’s for sure.” I thought about mentioning my newly forming suspicion that the shooter had been Agay “Sniper” Benta. Lapua bullets were a common choice for snipers, and Benta had been known to use the less powerful .308, just because he was so damned cocky.
But I’d hold off until I gathered a bit more evidence, or at least made a little more sense of the situation.
“Listen, I’d appreciate it if you’d send me copies of your reports and evidence results from this, as soon as possible,” I said as I produced a business card and handed it to the detective. “I promise I won’t try to take point on the investigation. I’d just like to be in the loop, but this one’s all yours.”
“Gee, thanks.” Detective Peterson took the card, then dug in a pocket and handed me one of his. “Same here? If you can keep me in the loop…”
“You got it.”