A Twist of the Knife

by Becky Masterman

  “Derek!” I said.

  But it was Laura, with news.

  “They sent the cell phone records to Will’s office, Brigid. There weren’t that many.”

  Those days people didn’t spend all their time checking weather or Facebook, and I bet Creighton’s phone didn’t even have texting capability. “So tell me.”

  “It was easy. Shayna Murry testified that he called her and said ‘If anyone asks, tell them I was with you.’ There’s no call from Marcus to Shayna on that date. Okay, so maybe he used a different phone. But here’s the thing: There is a record of him calling his home number like he said he did. It’s linked to a cell tower in Sebastian. Incredibly lucky that they even had a cell tower in Sebastian then.”

  “So she lied,” I said. I took some pleasure in realizing that no one in the café knew who she was, except maybe someone who had lied. I wondered if she was leaning against the wall in the hallway that led to the bathrooms. Listening. Maybe now she would talk to me.

  “She lied,” Laura said. I got the feeling she would have liked to squeal but was keeping her voice controlled after my warning about her feelings showing.

  My heart thumped on Laura’s behalf with the excitement of that moment when you’ve followed a hunch and now you’re damn sure. I looked to my right at the shorter of the two scruffy men watching me as I said, “This is hopeful. I say we try to get this guy out.”

  Professional or not, I heard Laura whoop spontaneously. “Did you get the hair dryer from Evers?”

  I told her I was sorry I hadn’t yet accomplished my part of the job, but needed to get off the phone because I was sure a call was coming soon.

  I left the phone out on the table and put out my hand to each of the scruffy guys in turn. It seemed impolite to keep calling them that. “Hi, I’m Brigid,” I said, and waited for the polite return of names. Which did not come. “Who might you be?” I prodded gently, getting into cracker-speak.

  The taller of the two was leaning back in his chair, balancing on the two back legs while his hands held the table. He had lit a cigarette while I was on the phone with Laura and would keep one hand out for balance when he took a puff with the other. He put the cigarette in the ashtray on the table. “Erroll,” he said, after a time. “This here’s Sam.”

  “This your place, Sam?” I asked. I took an appreciative bite of my pie. The aroma of the peaches had under-notes of fried meat and menthol. “The pie’s terrific.”

  “It’s been better,” Sam said, trying to maintain what I guessed was a threatening demeanor while conflicted by the pride he took in his pie. He swiped his hand through the air, either in a gesture of disdain for my poor taste in pie, or trying to clear the air of Erroll’s smoke so as not to ruin my dining experience.

  Erroll said, “I’m here because I sell fish to Sam.”

  This reminded Sam of their argument. “Can’t put yahoo on the menu. Tourists don’t know what it is. They think it’s the Internet. Nobody’ll order it.”

  “Call it something else, then,” Erroll snapped, and then ignored him and said to me, “Which way you headed?”

  The words were southern good ol’ boy, but the tone was more like Get yer ass outta here. They were looking for the way to get the old broad gone without hurting her.

  “Nice place,” I said after taking another lip-smacking bite of pie. “This whole area is nice. I grew up in Southeast Florida, but I went to school in Tallahassee. I remember tubing down the Ichetucknee with a case of beer. Hell, I remember what it was like before Disney World. You?”

  Sam said, “I wouldn’t mind having the days back again when I could take a line down to the lagoon, catch a bigmouth bass, and cook it up right there on the bank with some swamp cabbage.”

  Erroll shifted irritably in his chair and let the front legs bang to the floor while I nodded my agreement.

  “I know,” I said. “Once Orlando took hold you got developers coming in, so the coast from Miami to Palm Beach is now creeping all the way to Jacksonville. Just in the past twenty, thirty years. Every little spit of land, every island—”

  I looked to Erroll to include him in the conversation, but he was looking at Sam like Sam was an idiot. I had to agree with Erroll, if any of us were going to make any progress, someone was going to have to be more direct. I asked, “Is Shayna coming back?”

  “Shayna,” Erroll said.

  “The woman Marcus Creighton killed his family for. I wanted to talk to her about him.”

  “She went home,” Sam said, back with the program. “She’s sick.”

  “Uh, yeah, we really want you to leave her alone about that Creighton,” Erroll said. “It’s bullshit.” His voice stayed neutral, but I could sense the muscles in his shoulders tensing. Mine tensed in response. I made my right hand into a fist and let it hang beside the chair. If he spreads his knees to stand up and come for me, I’ve got good leverage to bring my right fist up between his legs. Nothing fancy.

  “I just wanted to ask her a few questions,” I said.

  Erroll said, “But you know, we did that for years. After a while this whole town got real tired of news people, and those true crime television shows—”

  “But I’m not—”

  “I don’t give a shit what you are. It’s about time they fried that cocksucker who took advantage of our girl. You come to this town, you deal with everybody here. Understand?”

  Then my phone rang again. Sam jumped a little, and Erroll’s muscles got harder. I unballed my fist and flipped the phone open, but not without looking at the caller this time.

  I said, “Derek! You found it. Listen, I don’t want to get near it. I want you to follow proper chain of custody and send it to…” I got out my pad and gave him the address of the independent fingerprint examiner that Will had retained. “Repeat that back. What? Clothes, a shovel, what kind of crap is that? I don’t care about the other stuff, I want the fucking hair dryer. You don’t find it and I’m coming over there and starting a shitstorm the like of which hasn’t been seen since the great turd tornado of ’63. You’ll be sharing a cell at Raiford with someone who knows what you’ve done. I’ll make sure of it. You got that? Good.”

  I hung up my phone and looked up at the two men, who were looking at the old broad with different eyes now.

  I said, “What?”

  Eighteen

  I got out of Cracker’s Café without any information, but at least without starting a brawl, so I counted that as a plus. Headed home with thoughts shifting from Marcus to Dad and back again, like that Pong thing in the first Atari game. Full-on monkey brain without any more profit than I had in Vero. But the progress in the Creighton case was also a plus, right? Finding the cell phone records that showed Shayna Murry had perjured herself. Having an opposing interpretation on that incriminating fingerprint. Then I remembered what I’d told Laura, how it doesn’t matter what kind of logic or law you bring to bear, the appellate judge could just say no.

  Then back to what Will Hench had said, “but you try to see justice done anyway.” At least I had Derek Evers on the ropes; it would only be a matter of time before he came through with the hair dryer. Would be a good day if I found Dad feeling better, sitting up and taking some nourishment.

  The afternoon rain hit again, but I didn’t even slow down.

  It was still raining when I got off I-95 at the Commercial Boulevard exit. I found a Walgreens and purchased a cell phone to give to Mom. Also an umbrella.

  And arrived at the hospital around six. Despite what I had told myself about the level of involvement with my parents, the self-centered tedium of sitting in that room, I still approached it on hyperalert, ready for a monster to jump out at me. How odd, I thought, totally calm in that café not knowing what two grown men might do, but now my heart pounding harder and harder the closer I got to his room.

  With this in mind I nearly ran into the priest, dressed in black with a white stole around his collared neck. He carried a little black box in front of him.
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  “Oh my God!” I said, nearly shoving him aside in my frenzy to get to Dad’s bedside, but he was a large priest and couldn’t get out of the way fast enough even if he wanted to.

  He looked startled, then said, “It’s all right, my dear. I’m not here for last rites, I’ve just given Mr. Quinn his communion.”

  He stepped around and out of the room, leaving me to consider how my heart appeared to be looking for a way out of my chest. Wondering if it meant that I cared after all. When I’d calmed down some, I walked in and found Todd standing next to the bed.

  “There,” Todd said. “Happy now?”

  Dad was lying there, totally out of it, paler and bonier than ever. I stroked a skinny shoulder that protruded from his hospital gown and felt the joint. His hand had turned purple from the IV needle. Blood bruises marked his forearm. “He’s in a coma? I thought he just took communion.”

  “He did. Then he went back to sleep. Don’t wake him up.”

  I knew Todd was saying this for his own benefit rather than any healing power sleep might bring Dad. I wasn’t in the mood for arguing.

  At that point Mom emerged from the bathroom. So I wouldn’t forget, I got the cell phone out of my tote, plugged it into a wall outlet to charge it, and showed her how to use it. From phrases she used, like “new-fangled gizmos,” I’d say her ability to learn this was in doubt. Funny how you get used to doing something like tying your shoe and then wonder about it when you’re trying to show someone else how to do it.

  It took us a while, practicing from my phone to hers, what buttons to press to speed-dial me and how to make sure it was charged and why to keep it on. How to turn it back on in case she accidentally turned it off.

  Todd left while we were doing that. I stayed for several hours.

  * * *

  Finally heading to the hotel just after sunset, I called Carlo, who was three hours earlier than me. Wanting to keep the conversation from the battlefield light for the home front, I joked about Mom trying to learn how to use a cell phone, and the run-in with the good ol’ boys in Sebastian. I meant him to laugh, but he didn’t. Carlo expressed concern for my safety, which I pooh-poohed vigorously before I switched the topic to weather. Arizonans like talking about the weather because there is so little of it.

  “Did it rain there yet?” I asked. June mostly bakes, and the monsoon rain comes in July.

  “No, it’s just hot,” Carlo said with the terminally cranky fatigue of summer. “How about there?”

  “We’re getting the three P.M. thunderstorm pretty regular, but in between rains it’s so hot and humid my elbows are sweating. I’m never going to make cracks about dry heat again.”

  “This is too long. I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too, Perfesser.”

  He asked me how Dad was doing, then about Laura. I was uncustomarily distracted by all this and finally thought to check out the car behind me as I usually did when driving. It was dark, but I could make out a large upscale vehicle. I wondered how long it had been there.

  “Gotta go, honey.”

  “Is everything all right? Your voice sounds edgy all of a sudden.”

  Like I was going to say Oh shit, I think someone is following me when they probably weren’t? I adjusted my voice. No need to worry him about nothing. “Just worn out, and I shouldn’t be on the phone while I’m driving in the dark. Love you, talk tomorrow, ’kay?”

  I hung up and focused my eyes on my rearview mirror. The car continued to follow me east on Hillsboro Boulevard, light after light. Not too alarming; it was a well-traveled crosstown street. At the Hillsboro Bridge the raising light went on, and I got sandwiched between the car in front of me waiting at the drop bar and the car behind me.

  Not that there was anywhere I could go, but I didn’t switch off my ignition as I usually would.

  A tourist would watch the gigantic drawbridge go up and admire the several luxury yachts and a sailboat crossing through on the Intracoastal. A Floridian would curse at being stopped for six minutes and swear to get the timing better next time. Instead, I took the opportunity to lift just my eyes to my rearview mirror and study the vehicle behind me.

  Black Mercedes, late model, I’d guess E-Class from the grille. Made for comfort, not sex appeal. Pricier than some, but common as sand in this part of the world. Guy with very wide shoulders driving. Blazer, white shirt, and tie, which I could make out because the day-bright lights on the bridge made the shirt glow in contrast to the jacket and tie. A baseball cap. Not wrong, and not quite right either.

  The drawbridge finished its slow descent, the arm went up, and the line of cars that had grown since I stopped continued its progress across the bridge.

  Better safe than sorry, Mom said inside my brain. Rather than make the left turn on Ocean Boulevard that eased into A1A and the entrance to the hotel, I turned right instead. So did the Mercedes.

  I drove down the two-lane road hemmed by high-rise condos on the beach side, to my left, and quaint old fifties-style motels on the right, blue neon pelicans with VACANCY signs. I drove five miles under the speed limit to encourage the car to pass me, but it didn’t. Either the driver was a senior citizen who always drove this speed, or I was definitely being followed in a kind of slow-speed chase.

  I didn’t want to let him know where I was staying, of course, so I looked at my options. No left turns possible, but if the car followed me down any one of these dinky side roads to the right, it would be too coincidental. The roads were dark, and he had more of a chance of getting aggressive without being seen, but that was my only choice.

  At the last second I whipped to the right without braking, and because I was only going thirty miles an hour I managed to mostly stay on the road, just snagging the small plot of grass in front of the Flamingo Harbor Motel.

  In my rearview mirror I saw the car jam on its brakes, its taillights stopped midway through the intersection. A horn honked, some driver who didn’t appreciate almost rear-ending him. I sped up and kept going, and made the third right before he could back up and follow. The driver behind him helped delay that move.

  After a few blocks heading north, I turned left and then turned right again like a fox leaving a confusing trail for the hounds, watching for that Mercedes along the way. I kept expecting to see his headlights behind me at every turn, with a feeling that I was playing a large-scale game of Pac-Man. But oddly, and this made me more suspicious than if I had seen him, there was no sign of him ready to gobble me up. If that was the case, he’d given up too easy.

  Still watching every side street, I finally made my circuitous way to the hotel. I would have valeted, but couldn’t see anyone on duty and didn’t want to leave my vehicle parked for long under the well-lighted portico where anyone driving by could see it. So I pulled around the building and into the underground garage. I wanted a space close to the elevator, but so did everyone else, apparently. I finally found one about six aisles away.

  Parking garages at night. What a cliché, huh? There’s a reason for that.

  There was more shadow than light down there, and no one else around, so I pulled my weapon out of my tote bag and held it dangling against my thigh as I walked toward the elevator. The gassy smell. The dampness. The now-familiar squeech of my sneakers that had become theme music behind the whole Florida visit echoed against the dank concrete walls. I disapproved of the sound because it made it harder to hear more important sounds.

  I heard the catch of a car door that wasn’t slammed shut but gently closed. I wasn’t sure where the sound came from because of the acoustics down here. I ducked down between two cars—not SUVs, in which case I wouldn’t have had to duck. Where’s an SUV when you’re not trying to get out of a parking space? I looked out around the back fender of a Honda and saw my man leaning up against the concrete wall next to the elevator. Same dressed up below the neck, same baseball cap above. He was looking around, a little too curious for a parking garage, like what’s to see? Yet too relaxed and in the open to
be an assailant. Still, the man was like a Miami Dolphins defensive end who was just a little past his sell-by date. Good two twenty-five, two fifty, and at least six two.

  I tried to assess the situation, figure out my options, deal with this bum. I didn’t know what his own objective was. Rape or similar assault, robbery, or sent specifically after me by someone who knew me when I worked this area, someone with an old grudge? With his body mass about three times mine, I preferred not to deal with him hand to hand unless I had to. I could still kill him, but after the day I’d had I wasn’t in the mood.

  I eased out from behind the car, gun drawn. I said, “Put your hands by your side.”

  He did. “There’s noth—”

  “Shut up,” I said. “Step away from the elevator.”

  For a regular Joe he seemed a little too comfortable with this kind of scenario, standing in front of the muzzle of a weapon in a parking garage. He pushed off the wall slowly with his foot and took one slow step after another. “If you’d—”

  By this time he was within about ten feet of me, angled with his right side forward, likely disguising something under his jacket on the left. “Jacket off,” I said. “Very slowly.”

  He did that, revealing a side holster with a Glock. He smiled, almost apologetically, when I saw it. He started to drape the jacket over his arm.

  “Drop it,” I said.

  This was his first protest to my instructions. “But I’m—”

  “Drop it,” I said. “And one more word and you’re dead.”

  He dropped it, on the oil-and-tire-tread floor of the garage. “It’s a nice jacket,” he said, with more regret for the jacket than concern for his life.

  “Oil stains will come out easier than dick matter from your pants. Now I want you to use your index finger to release the strap on your holster. That’s good. Now your index finger and thumb to remove your weapon. Slowly. I’m watching, and I’m feeling strangely alert.”