by Sasscer Hill
Shyra and the guy with the ball cap helped the grooms unload the horses. When they got the animals safely down the ramp and into the barn, Shyra walked to the cab and spoke to the driver.
I’d forgotten how wide her shoulders were. She had done her hair in cornrows again. Her almond-shaped eyes showed less wariness and more strength than I’d seen in Maryland. When she finished talking to the driver, he nodded, and she headed for a nearby block building that housed showers and toilets for backstretch help.
The driver climbed from his cab, and he and the ball cap guy raised the ramp, locking it into place. Shyra entered the restroom, and the door slammed shut behind her.
The two men climbed back into the cab, and the rig ground into gear, rolling forward and blocking my view of the restrooms. Were they leaving without Shyra? Surely she’d hop in at the last minute.
I left the shelter of the Dumpster and ran alongside the moving trailer until I could scoot past its departing bumper. I made a beeline for the block building, opened the door, and before even checking the shower and toilet stalls, I knew the place was empty. Damn it. Shyra had eluded me again.
I ran to Rosario’s barn, and breathing hard, I thrust the lukewarm burrito and Coke at Julio. “Sorry. I’ll be back in a minute.” I took off for the stable gate, certain I would get there before the van. I did, and when it pulled up at the guardhouse, I ran to the cab, climbed to the ledge outside the driver’s door, and stuck my head in his open window. The cab smelled like Cheez Doodles and peanuts. The driver’s belly suggested he had a fondness for both.
Plastering on my best how-ya-doing smile, I said, “Hey, my friend Shyra told me she’d be on this van and I was supposed to meet her. Did I miss her?” I looked at him expectantly.
“Shyra? She came down with us from Baltimore, but she was scheduled to get off here.”
“Darn,” I said, grimacing, letting my frustration show. “I can’t find her cell number. Do you have any way I can get in touch?”
“Sorry, I don’t. You could call the office. They’ll be able to help you. I think she might have a place here in Hallandale.” He glanced at the guy in the ball cap and dark glasses. “She tell you anything?”
“Nah,” he said. “She don’t say much.”
“Okay, thanks.” I realized the gate guard had moved closer, impatiently shifting from foot to foot, doing a lot of exaggerated sighing. Hopping off the ledge, I gave him a nod, and headed for my barn. I found a number by Googling Coastal Transport on my phone, and called.
When I reached the woman who handled groom scheduling, she listened to my spiel. There was a brief pause, then, “I can’t give out information about our employees.”
Telling her my name was Fia McKee and that I worked for the TRPB wasn’t a viable option.
“But she’s my friend,” I said, letting a little whine into my voice. “I promised her I’d meet her this afternoon.”
“I guess you’ll just have to wait for her to call you, won’t you?”
The woman hung up, and I stared at the phone. I felt like biting it. Instead, I called Brian at the Fair Hill office. I’d sic him on her. He answered on the second ring, and I told him I needed info on Shyra Darnell. That she was wanted for questioning regarding a death in Baltimore, and that she’d just shown up at Gulfstream.
“I’m on it,” he said. “I know someone at Coastal.”
We disconnected, and I headed to my barn, where I checked with Rosario to see if he needed me to do anything before I left for the day.
“No. We’re good, but look at your filly.”
Last Call wasn’t visible in her V, so I hurried to her stall and peered inside. She was stretched flat out, sound asleep on her bed of straw. I could feel my lips curl in a smile. Rosario joined me and we both watched the filly a moment.
“That’s the first time,” he said, “I’ve seen her lay down to rest.”
“She didn’t need to before. She wasn’t doing anything.”
My phone chimed, and easing away from Rosario, I answered.
“Fia, I got an address for you on Shyra Darnell. Coastal has her in a rental in Hollywood.”
Hollywood was less than fifteen minutes from Hallandale. I made a mental note of the address. “How long has she worked for Coastal?”
“Only about three weeks,” Brian said.
“That fits. Thanks, Brian.” I ended the call and headed for my Mini. After phoning Shyra’s address to OnStar, I took off, curious to see Florida’s version of Hollywood.
My directions took me to Hollywood Boulevard, a wide street divided by a paved median strip studded with flowering trees and bushes. Butterflies and bees darted around their blossoms. Outside the street’s storefronts, palms sprouted tall and green in the warm, humid air. The one- or two-story buildings were made of cinder block or concrete, their walls spread with smooth stucco in shades of pink, turquoise, or cream.
The aroma of garlic, fried fish, and the ever-present scent of ocean water rode the breeze. The strip featured billiard halls, pawnshops, pottery stores, restaurants, and boutiques filled with tacky beach clothes. A lot of the stuff looked more like hooker wear than street wear. Welcome to Hollywood.
Following directions, I swung off the boulevard onto a side street, cruising for about a mile as the view became progressively seedier. One-story rentals with names like the Roosevelt were cut into six or eight units, boasting two small windows, a narrow front door, and a rusty through-the-wall air-conditioning unit. Chain-link fences and sparse vegetation surrounded these concrete buildings.
OnStar’s female voice announced, “Your destination is one hundred yards ahead on the right.” As I drew closer, the location turned out to be an abandoned lot.
“You have arrived at your destination,” the voice said with happy authority.
I stared at the empty lot and its broken pavement, strewn with trash and scraps of rusted metal. “Brilliant,” I said.
“Thank you for using OnStar!”
I made a rude gesture at the speaker, then drove down the street a block before pulling a U-turn and parking against the curb. As a Baltimore cop I’d learned fake addresses were often familiar to the person who issued them. Sometimes the location is even close to home. I would wait a while, just in case.
An hour later, the sun’s heat was roasting my Mini and my cold Diet Coke was a desperate memory. My longing for a toilet was about to win out over surveillance when Shyra strolled past the abandoned lot toting a small bag of groceries.
I didn’t want her to recognize me and rabbit again, so I opened the Mini’s console and grabbed my hat-with-hair, an excellent disguise I’d ordered. Brown bangs and a short bob were neatly attached to a ball cap, far more comfortable in the heat than a wig. I shoved the ensemble over my cropped hair and watched Shyra as she headed my way across the street.
When she hooked a right at the next corner, I grabbed a newspaper from the backseat, left the Mini, and jogged after her, slowing as soon as I had her in sight. Staying on the opposite side of the street, I watched her step up a broken walk to a squat, concrete building cut into little units. A sign indicated she’d arrived at the Ocean Arms. When she paused to fiddle with her keys, I stopped and pretended to study the paper like maybe I was looking for a rental.
Shyra’s block featured a Laundromat across the street from her building. I stopped outside this pink concrete building, breaking into a sweat as the hot exhaust from dryers engulfed me. Inside, trade was brisk, with customers stuffing machines with dollar bills and dirty laundry or folding clean shirts, pants, and towels.
Shyra went into her residence and shut the door. I jogged around the block and down the alley that ran behind the building. There were no rear exits and the windows were tiny. Maybe I had her this time. I stuffed the paper and the hair hat into my tote, hurried back to her door, and rang her buzzer. She didn’t answer, so I shoved my thumb against the buzzer and held it.
“Open up, Shyra, I know you’re in there.”
> The door wrenched open. Shyra’s eyes blazed with anger and her large hands held a baseball bat level with my head.
“Whoa, whoa,” I said scrambling backward. “There’s no reason for that.”
“Why are you hounding me like this? You got no right!”
“I’m not a cop anymore. I got fired because I killed that man. I’m galloping horses in the morning at Gulfstream. I saw you, and…”
Her expression had become more wary than angry. Slowly, she lowered the bat to her side. “What do you want?”
“I lost my job because of that man. I told you. I never killed anyone before. It’s eating at me. I want to know who he was, and why he was trying to kill you.”
My plea was so genuine, it seemed to halfway convince her. She stepped back from the door.
“You best come in. You running up my AC bill.”
Her setup was better than the Pimlico hovel. Two closed doors in the back probably led to a bedroom and bathroom. A couch, a small table with two chairs, and a fake wood cabinet filled the front area along with a tiny kitchenette in one corner.
She turned to set her baseball bat on the floor and lock her front door, and I stared at the same bronze figure of Christ I’d seen in her room at Pimlico. The savior was still mounted on a dagger, only this time Shyra had stuck the blade into a flower vase and added fresh white flowers on either side. The familiar porcelain figures of saints, draped with strings of beads, stood next to the vase.
The altar meant enough to her that she’d brought it with her. I stepped closer to the chest and zeroed in on the beads. Some were orange, like the one left in my apartment.
I shifted back to her. She stared at me with an expression that was cold and hard. I gestured at the icons. “Your figurines are pretty. Are they Catholic saints?”
“You didn’t come here to ask me about my religion. It’s none of your business, anyway.”
“Shyra, cut me some slack here. Maybe I just want to know more about the person I killed a man for.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Now you just tryin’ to make me feel guilty.”
“Have you ever heard the saying that if you save someone’s life, you are responsible for them?”
“What if I have?”
Could this be the reason I’d been so anxious to find this woman? “In an odd way,” I continued, “I do feel responsible for you.” My words rang with surprising truth and Shyra seemed to hear it.
She dropped her arms, pulled out a chair at the little table and sat. She waved at the other chair, so I sat, too.
She stared at her porcelain saints and shrugged. “My family follows the Santeria religion. That’s the kind of altar most of our people have in their homes.”
I forced my mouth to close, my mind to chill. “I think I’ve heard something about that religion. Doesn’t it come from Africa?”
“It does. But came by way of Cuba and Puerto Rico before Florida.”
Florida? Was she from Florida? If I hadn’t just put my cop face in place, I’d be scraping my jaw off the table.
She nodded. “Lots of us Santerias down here. It’s a good faith. We practice herbal and spiritual healing. What you call a holistic approach.”
I nodded, wondering if she’d hand me a Santeria brochure before I left.
“We believe in the connection between the heart, mind, and the body.”
I didn’t ask her about animal sacrifices. “That sounds pretty cool. So, are you from Florida?”
“Grew up over near Hialeah.”
The closest town to the C-9 Basin. “Are you safe now, Shyra? I mean, that man is gone. Nobody else wants to harm you, do they?”
She stared at her strong hands that lay flat on the table, raised her eyes to mine, then dropped her gaze back to her hands. “No. I’m all right now. I was just real scared at the time and didn’t want to talk to nobody.”
“That was a scary night,” I said. “But when I saw you at Pimlico and offered my help, you said nobody could help you. That I didn’t know him. So, who is ‘him’?”
“Woman, you like a dog with a bone. I still know this bad man, but he ain’t blaming me no more, so we don’t need to talk about that.”
I felt like I’d hit a wall and wanted a way to blast through it. “Does this bad man know the guy who tried to kill you?”
The fear I’d seen before momentarily shadowed her eyes. She shook her head. “I appreciate what you did for me, but it’s better I don’t talk about this anymore.”
“Please, Shyra. At least tell me about the dead man. He can’t hurt you now.”
Her shoulders dropped and she sighed. “His name was Emilio. He was stealing from … someone, so I told on him, and he tried to kill me.”
“Does Emilio have a last name?” If I had his full name, I could find out the rest.
She shook her head. “You don’t need to know that. But I’m telling you, the man you killed was a very bad man. He did something terrible, so don’t go feeling guilty about him.”
Sounded like she knew a lot of bad men. I suddenly wanted to know that she had work and would be safe. “So are you working for Coastal now?”
She stood. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. But we ain’t friends, and I don’t want to see you again. You understand?”
“Sure,” I said and though I rose to leave, I had one last question for her.
She unlocked her door, pulled it open, and stood back to let me out. I stepped into the doorway, then turned back to her. “Shyra, someone broke into my apartment in Baltimore. They left an orange bead behind. Like those.” I pointed at the ones on her dresser. “Was it you?”
Her eyes widened and she looked over my shoulder, not meeting my gaze. “Are you crazy? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“I think you do.”
“I don’t. Now get out!” She shoved me with those big hands and I stumbled through the doorway onto her stoop and caught myself on the railing.
The door slammed, and I heard her lock click into place. She was lying. What the hell had she wanted in my apartment?
21
When I returned to Patrick’s after my Hollywood adventure, I checked Kate O’Brien’s e-mail account and felt a nervous tingle to see a message from Antonio Morales.
In addition to this account, I had Kate O’Brien business cards displaying the e-mail address and listing her as a resident of Philadelphia. Three days earlier at Christine Lee’s, Morales had asked how to reach me, and I had given him one of the cards.
I clicked his message open.
Kate, enjoyed meeting you and am eager to invite you into the BetBig partnership! This is a terrific opportunity for you, and we would love to have you join our family. Be assured that what happened to Primal was a freak accident, something that has never happened to our stables before. I will be at Christine Lee’s on December 22 for the whole racing card. Let me know if you can join me and we can discuss you becoming a valued partner of BetBig. Yours, Tony
It was clear as daylight the guy was after my money. He seemed the type that would steal my diamonds and anything else he could get his hands on.
Thinking about his offer, I turned away from the computer, and looked through the open sliding door as the day slipped toward dusk. Patrick’s Polaris robot motored about the pool, gurgling and bumping as it kept the blue water crystal clear. Too bad the Polaris company didn’t make an electronic fly I could stick on a wall at Gulfstream. I’d love to spy on some of the thugs I’d been meeting.
Morales wanted to see me the next day, but before I met with him, I needed permission from Gunny. I called him and got his voice mail. Out of the office until December 26 and in case of an emergency, I should call his secretary, Gracie. Holidays could be such a pain.
Standing up, I paced the room. Meeting with Morales was a way to get closer to Serpentino. Couldn’t I avoid cameras and stay just long enough to confirm my association with BetBig? I needed to find out more about the operation and it
s trainer, Serpentino. Of course, this could be done over the phone, but I wanted to see Morales’s eyes when I asked my questions.
But remembering how angry Gunny had been the last time, I decided I’d better call Gracie. She picked up, and I relayed my thoughts about Morales. I also mentioned that I wanted to get Jilly a temporary job with Rosario during Christmas break.
“So,” I said, “what do you think?”
It was cold up there in Maryland, and I could hear the heater by her desk kick on followed by the blowing of hot air.
“Let’s take the last part first,” she said. “I’m sure Gunny will have no problem with your niece working there for a few days, but meeting with this man Morales I’m not so sure about.”
“Gunny wants me to track Serpentino, Gracie. What better way to learn about him than coming in as owner Kate O’Brien? As Fia, I can watch him on the backstretch, and owner Kate can meet him in the clubhouse. Creates a nice two-pronged attack, don’t you think?”
Gracie paused a few beats. “It sounds like something Gunny would go for.” Another hesitation, then, “I’m not going to call him. The man really needs a few days off, and I don’t think this qualifies as an emergency.” Her voice sharpened. “But just the meeting at Christine Lee’s, okay? Do not go anywhere with this man, or make more plans until you’ve had a chance to talk to Gunny. You understand this?”
“Absolutely. Thanks, Gracie.”
“I mean it, Fia. Promise me you’ll be very careful.”
“I promise. Gracie, you’re a peach.”
“You won’t think so if you piss me off!” But she sounded amused as she hung up.
Turning back to my keyboard, I sent an e-mail to Morales saying I was looking forward to seeing him the next day. I hoped that Brian could get me Primal’s preliminary necropsy results from the TRPB before I met with Morales.
After looking through my closet for something Kate could wear, I grabbed a short leopard print skirt and a black top and added them to Kate’s bag of disguises for the next day. Gathering my dirty clothes and Kate’s dirty clothes, I carried them to the laundry alcove off the kitchen. A double life has its drawbacks.