A Trace of Revenge

by Lyle Howard

  As Lauren walked ponderingly toward the vine-covered structure, she was absorbing everything her five senses could glean from the surrounding area. Most laymen would think a person needed to put on blinders, literally blocking out everything else to focus on the complexities of her task. In actuality, it was just the opposite for Lauren. She gave her awareness free reign, taking in every sight, every sound, and every odor that others might merely take for granted. She followed the blood trail toward the hangar, careful not to step anywhere but on untainted concrete. She listened beyond the background bantering of her fellow officers, hearing the drone of the insects and the screeching of the occasional osprey. She wouldn’t let her eyes focus on any single object. Instead, she took in the entire scene as a whole, imagining what it would have looked like without all of this commotion.

  Toby Bilston understood that not everyone was cut out to deal with dead bodies. Especially one as decomposed as this. It was the nasty part of the job, but not a part everyone got used to. He had. Lauren hadn’t. This was his area of expertise.

  Toby backed away from the body to where he had neatly set down his coat, opened his collection kit, and removed a pair of paper booties. With very little finesse and even less dexterity, he struggled to tie the protective covers over his street shoes. This was easier said than done for a man whose idea of doing exercise was getting up for more potato chips during commercials.

  Whatever slight breeze there was seemed to be blowing in from the east. At times the wind was enough to ruffle the tops of the sawgrass, but it was nowhere near the strength needed to rid the tarmac of the putrid stench wafting off the decomposing body. The closer Toby moved toward the remains, the worse the fetor became.

  Hundreds of flies buzzed around the body. Some of these had laid eggs on the corpse. Eggs to maggots, maggots into flies…circle of life…a quantifiable circle of life. Toby carefully stepped around the face-up body, letting his eyes be the first and most important tool in his investigation.

  Most of the flesh and muscle had already been stripped off the bones by the birds. Even parts of Beckworth’s suit had been torn in spots by the buzzards trying to pick clean the carcass. He could plainly see where the coat and trousers had been clawed away by the buzzards’ razor-sharp talons. Any internal organs that the carnivorous birds managed to harvest must have been yanked out through the ribs while the scavengers perched themselves on the Commissioner’s chest. This was a hideous image that Toby had to consciously banish from his thoughts.

  Beckworth’s arms were bent at the elbows, the bones of his hands clenched into fists. This was a standard defensive pose found in a lot of homicides. The legs were not splayed awkwardly, but instead, they appeared as though they had been working in unison at the time of death. Viewing the corpse while standing behind the feet, Toby could almost imagine the Commissioner trying to crawl away from his assailant on his hands and knees, much the same way an infantry soldier would shimmy along the ground during battle. Beckworth had spent the last seconds of his life struggling valiantly to escape his attacker, but ended up dying slowly and horribly.

  “Toby!”

  Lauren was calling to him from inside the hangar.

  Bilston glanced over his shoulder. His bones continued to crack in protest as he stood up. He pulled out his telephone and called her number directly. “I’m still working over here, and I need your help to roll the body over.”

  “But I think we’ve got more blood in here!”

  “First things first,” Toby replied. “I need you out here.”

  A minute later Bilston and King were turning the Commissioner’s body onto his stomach. Lauren struggled for breath when she saw the back of Beckworth’s head. “Oh sweet Lord,” she gasped, covering her mouth. “What could cause that kind of damage?”

  The entirety of the Commissioner’s skull had been caved inward, and just as he had suspected, the birds had already finished their feast. Toby lifted the Commissioner’s jacket as far up as it would go and commented that there were no entry wounds of any kind to be found. Beckworth had been neither shot nor knifed. He made that point to Lauren, who had turned her back but was still writing.

  “Reach into my kit and get me a pair of tweezers, will you please?” Toby asked. Lauren reached down and handed him the instrument without looking at the body.

  “Can you shine your penlight into the skull for me?”

  Lauren swallowed hard. “Say what?”

  Toby twisted an object close to his eyes. “It looks like a splinter of wood.”

  Lauren was confused. They were in the middle of a swamp and forest. “Is that supposed to tell us something? It’s a splinter, big deal. You can’t spit without hitting tree bark out here.”

  Toby smiled. “It’s time for a refresher course in Dendrology.”

  “Dendrology?”

  Toby continued to study the splinter up close. “Dendrology is the study of woody trees—unlike its cousin Botany, which is the study of plants in general.”

  “You’re a font of knowledge,” Lauren quipped.

  “Listen carefully and learn wisely from the great guardian of the forest, my young apprentice. This wood looks to be ash.”

  “So what about it,” Lauren asked. “It’s ash, a common enough wood. Does that matter?”

  “Ash doesn’t grow anywhere around here. So how do you suppose this little sliver found itself embedded inside Arthur Beckworth’s skull?”

  Lauren thought for a second and then realized what Toby was proposing. “The killer brought the murder weapon with him?”

  “Did you see any sort of tools in the hangar?”

  “No, the place is barren, but I did find a small amount of blood evidence that I want you to look at.”

  Toby was trying to time travel. “I’ll bet the confrontation started in the hangar, and the Commissioner, who is strong enough not to be overpowered easily, might have gotten in a few licks of his own. Good for him.”

  “So what was the assassin doing here in the hangar? How did he get here?”

  Toby thought for a second. “If we were to just assume for the moment that Beckworth was taken against his will from the dinner, then the killer was most likely already waiting for him on the helicopter, or could have been the one who actually kidnapped him.”

  Lauren paused her note taking. “And then our killer pulls out a stick made of ash and starts beating the Commissioner to a pulp as he tries to flee?”

  “Not just any stick made of ash.”

  Lauren looked at him with astonishment. “Toby, don’t tell me you figured out what the murder weapon was from a splinter.”

  “Just another theory, but the majority of baseball bats used in the United States are made from ash or metal alloy. Maple, hickory and even bamboo is used to make them too, but not nearly in the same quantities. So now that I’m certain that the Commissioner was bludgeoned to death, blunt force trauma will be my official cause of death,” he announced, as he slowly rose to his feet.

  “That’s a great start,” Lauren congratulated him.

  “Aside from the official cause of death, everything else is still all speculation, but you know that striking someone repeatedly with that much force shows some deep-seated rage. This was the most brutal, primal form of assault. Whoever did this continued to pound away until long after Arthur Beckworth had stopped breathing. The fragment I found was lodged in the front of the skull which tells me that it splintered when the weapon contacted the concrete. Only when he hit the tarmac did the executioner stop swinging. Then he rolled the body over, perhaps to stare into Beckworth’s dead eyes one last time.”

  “You said ‘he.’ Male?”

  Toby nodded. “No offense, but this bloodbath was not committed by a woman unless it was Wonder Woman.”

  Lauren scrunched her nose at the grisly description. “You should really write greeting cards.” />
  Toby smiled as he slipped the splinter into an evidence bag. “Benjamin Franklin once said, ‘Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.’ I think I’ll do the latter, thank you very much.”

  Toby walked with Lauren over to where the Commissioner’s blood trail started. On the horizon, the sky was turning pink and amber as the sun began to set.

  “We’re gonna need to light this place up,” Toby said.

  Lauren pulled out her phone. “I’ll get it done.”

  20

  Set on five acres of oceanfront property, with a secluded entry from Ponte Vedra Blvd, Nicky Coltello’s distinctively modern beach house had become a landmark for pilots, boaters, and beach walkers. The main house—with its five bedrooms—and the guest house opened out to a spacious pool courtyard. It was no surprise the Architectural Record named it “House of the Year” in 2006.

  The sun had been up for two hours now as Coltello sat out at his pool and dug a spoon into half a grapefruit. His hair was still wet and hung down like a soggy mop. His monogrammed robe was barely cinched at the waist, revealing a chest that was bald from frequent waxing. A naked woman was swimming laps in the pool. Her name was Bianca, or maybe Miranda; Coltello couldn’t remember, and it didn’t really matter anyway.

  A seagull was perched on one of the chairs at the table. He had become a regular morning guest. Coltello had nicknamed him “Slick,” and the bird, like the owner of the house was confident and unafraid. He sat on the top of the chair and waited patiently for Nicky to throw him a scrap of muffin or whatever other starch was on the morning’s menu. Occasionally, another bird would try to encroach on Slick’s territory and the bird would scream and flap his wings in a show of defiant ownership. Nicky loved that about the bird, and he would toss him an extra treat whenever he protected his position.

  The sliding glass doors opened to one side, and Jimmy Diaz stepped out into the warm morning air. He was dressed in casual attire this morning: a pair of jeans and a long sleeve shirt with the cuffs rolled up just below the elbows. On his feet, he wore white rubber-soled running shoes, because his boss hated black scuff marks on the imported Italian tile. He adjusted the sunglasses on the bridge of his nose as he pulled the glass doors shut behind him. Walking up to the table, he grabbed a small vine of red grapes off a fruit platter and stared at the woman who continued her swim. Slick ignored Diaz and just picked fiercely at one of his wings.

  “Nice,” Diaz commented.

  Coltello never looked up from his grapefruit. “If you say so.”

  “Nicky, she’s gorgeous. Look at that body!”

  Coltello glanced up and then continued to dig out pulp. “Feed her then send her packing.”

  Diaz popped a few grapes into his mouth as he watched the swimmer do a professional turn at the deep end of the pool. “You don’t even know her name, do you?”

  Coltello set down his spoon and paused. “Does it matter, J.D.? I told you to feed her and kick her to the curb. Call her an Uber if you need to, but I want her gone by the time I shower and shave.”

  Diaz pulled out a chair and took a seat. Slick still didn’t move. The water on Ponte Vedra beach was unusually calm this morning. Usually, there was a light chop with whitecaps foaming a few hundred yards from the beach, but today the water looked as still as an oil painting. Occasionally a few beach joggers would run past the house and wave as if they expected some gesture of familiarity in return. They would continue past the house unfulfilled.

  The woman finished her swim and began to climb the stone steps in the shallow end of the pool. She pulled herself out of the water in standard time, but it looked slow motion to Jimmy Diaz. Her body was flawless; she had all the curves that God had intended, and they were natural. Diaz held his breath as she bent over to retrieve a towel from one of the chaise lounges and began to dry her hair. Anyone on the beach would have seen her in her naked glory, but it was apparent she couldn’t have cared less. With her hair draped in one towel, she wrapped a second one around her torso and tucked it in to cover her perfect breasts.

  She waved at Diaz who wiggled his fingers in return. Coltello was too busy trying to hand feed Slick to pay her any attention.

  “Is it okay if I take a shower, Nicky?”

  Coltello held out a wedge of wheat toast, and Slick cautiously nipped away at the offering. He never answered her, so Diaz spoke up. “Use the one in the guest house. When you’re done, just leave the towels in there. Are you going to need a ride?”

  She bent her head forward and let her dark hair cascade out of the towel. “I’ll just call a taxi.”

  Diaz smiled warmly at her. “I’ll have a ride waiting for you at the front door in twenty minutes. Is that okay?”

  The woman looked at Coltello who acted as though she were invisible. She wasn’t sure whether she should feel offended or honored. “That will be perfect, thank you,” she said, walking toward the adjacent guest house, “Thanks for the nice night, Nicky.”

  Coltello was too busy chuckling at Slick’s antics to show her any interest.

  “Damn,” Diaz observed. “That’s ice cold, Nick. Not even a parting meal?”

  Coltello leaned back in his chair. “The food is sitting here if she wanted some. I didn’t tell her not to eat.”

  “But you didn’t exactly make her feel welcome at the table.”

  Nicky looked at his manager with sincere perplexity. Proper etiquette seemed to elude the mob boss. “What? I needed to send her an engraved invitation?”

  Diaz shook his head as he took his phone and scheduled a Lyft driver to arrive in fifteen minutes. He would have to buzz him through the gate when the ride reached the outer gate.

  Nicky pulled his wet hair into a ponytail and secured it with a rubber band from the pocket of his robe. He leaned his head back so that the early sun would bake his face and help dry his hair. “So what brings you to my house on this fine summer morning?”

  Diaz laid the empty grapevine onto a paper napkin. “I want to talk about Arthur Beckworth.”

  Coltello’s eyes were closed as he listened to the soothing sounds of the relentless surf sweeping up and down the beach. “Beckworth is dead. End of conversation.”

  Diaz leaned forward so that he didn’t have to compete with the pounding waves. “No. I think it warrants a bit more discussion, Nicky.”

  Coltello wiped a fleck of sand off his cheek as he drew in a deep breath. “We paid him to sway the vote. The vote never took place because he died. Now the vote is delayed for another five months. Mission accomplished. What more is there to talk about?”

  Diaz pulled off his sunglasses and placed them carefully on the table. “What did you do, Nicky?”

  Coltello leaned his head to the right so that he could look directly at Diaz. “What makes you think I did something?”

  “He was the Senior Commissioner on the City Council, Nicky. They’re not going to let it slide. There’s going to be a full-blown investigation into this. His carcass was nearly picked clean by wildlife, for Christ’s sake!”

  Coltello chuckled at the image. “I guess someone was trying to make a point.”

  “Someone?”

  Coltello pushed his chair away from the table. “Good riddance, I say. The man was a fucking money pit. All we ever did was feed him cash and never got shit in return. I’m not worried about any damned investigation. The ends justified the means as far as I’m concerned. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

  Jimmy Diaz rubbed his temples as his boss stood up. He could feel a headache creeping up the back of his skull. “We’ve got to talk about this, Nicky. This wasn’t just some barebone that you go after with the business end of a hammer.”

  Coltello shook his head. “Don’t try to speak Italian, Jimmy. It fits you like a K Mart suit. I know he wasn’t just some bum. Don’t ever lecture me on how to run my business,�
� he chastised his manager, as he loosened the knot on his robe. “The man was a cancerous tumor that’s been eradicated from our lives. There is nothing more to say. Please don’t bring this subject up in my presence again.”

  Diaz fell silent as his boss turned to enter the house.

  “I’m going to take a shower and shave, and then we’ll head downtown,” Coltello announced, pulling open the glass doors and disappearing inside.

  Jimmy Diaz sat quietly in the salty morning air. Slick remained on the chair across from him still scuffling with something beneath his wing. Diaz let out a sigh and slipped his sunglasses back onto his face. Slick decided it was finally time to leave as Diaz stood up to go inside. As he slid open the door, Diaz looked over his shoulder one last time at the enormity of the ocean behind him. He just couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that nothing good awaited him over the horizon.

  21

  Gerald Banks sat behind his desk on the eighteenth floor and tried to keep his mind occupied with the tasks at hand. A tall stack of folders was piled high to his left, and it didn’t seem to be shrinking. His severe lack of concentration was a definite factor in why very little work was getting done. Every few seconds he would spin in his chair to look down below at the One Eleven Club. At this time of day, the building was nondescript: no blinking lights, no bumper to bumper valet parking line, no procession of customers pressed up against the wall, waiting for their turns to get in.

  The events of two nights ago were still haunting him like a bad dream. What he had uncovered was far worse than his brother-in-law’s offshore accounts or bribery money having to be laundered. This wasn’t while-collar minimum security with tennis courts and hot tubs, this was federal penitentiary stuff. The getting banged up the butt by your cellmate kind of stuff. Was it any wonder the same spreadsheet had sat on his desk for nearly three hours?