by Matt Lincoln
I decided that the less I said, the better. I had reached Jozie and had crouched down and offered her my hand. “It’s alright now. Come on out.” She was hesitant, which I understood. “A friend of yours from that Community Center down the street asked me to help you. LaShawn? Tall black guy? He works overnight at the Edler Center. Ring a bell?”
Whether it did or not, she accepted my hand and the help out from under the machines. I held on to her hand, though, in case she got the idea to run again.
Cecily came over and introduced herself, then looked the machinery over. “This what I think it is?”
I nodded my head. “I would assume so.” I didn’t want to let on. It was better to let everyone else make the assumptions. But I was almost positive that this was at least one of the places that they were cooking up their drugs.
“Okay, well, get out of here,” Cecily stated in a flat tone, and at first, I thought that she was kidding around. But after I didn’t move, she started to insist. “I’m serious, get out of here, now. Before my backup arrives.”
“But I’ll need to give a statement. To help you explain this, right?” I wasn’t sure what she was getting at.
“No. Now go.” She nodded to the still open green back door.
“Why, what’s going on here?” I glanced around, trying to figure out what she was so worried about. Staying and explaining this was sure to only help them in their case.
“Because you’re carrying a Ruger.” She nodded one more time at my waist.
That’s when I got it. She was covering for me because no doubt those three dead bodies in the alley days ago still didn’t have a suspect connected to them. I took the hint and headed for the door. I was well out of the area before the MPD arrived to take charge of the scene. Now all I had to do was hope that Jozie would be safe in their custody and that, ultimately, this case was starting to come to an end.
21
LaShawn
Cecily had dropped by unannounced the next day, after yesterday’s craziness. We’d chatted last night, and she let me know a little of what had gone on. But she let me know that she had a lot of paperwork to do afterward and that she’d see me later. She did sound a little upset, or maybe just disturbed, but that was understandable. Finding what she and MPD did in that warehouse had to be a game-changer.
So, I took advantage of Cecily’s visit and put on a movie so that we could spend some quality time together. I also wanted her to feel comfortable here, with me. We cuddled on the sectional couch, and it felt really good to have my arms around her. She sure didn’t mind it either.
I had promised both myself and Jake that I wasn’t going to get super involved too early, but this lady made my resolve falter. She was just the kind of woman that made my knees weak when I looked at her. Cecily would listen to me, not judging but offering help when I needed it. We’d talk on the phone every night before I went to work, and she’d head off to bed. It was already such a comfortable thing between us that I worried how it could get better or if we’d already plateaued. I prayed the latter wasn’t the case.
As we were watching the film, I brought up something that had happened the night before, with Bryelle. She and her boyfriend were still having it out, and it wasn’t looking good for a reconciliation. Most of my job was to listen to what people were really saying, not just the fact that they were talking to me.
“Bryelle is like a lot of other people,” I recalled to Cecily. “She only wants her voice to account for something among the rest and to not be lost. After some time, I got her to accept that for that to happen, she should maybe change her message. Long story short, but Bryelle has decided to take up a month of self-improvement. I don’t know where it will lead her, but I offered to be her coach for the month. And we started tonight.”
“That is very sweet of you to do that,” Cecily replied. “The world needs more people like you, LaShawn.” She leaned up and kissed me on the cheek.
“You mean, ex-SEAL with cancer with an unhealthy sleep schedule?” I was joking. I’d learned to be honest about what I was, and that was one of the first things I’d told Cecily. Some people didn’t want to waste their time on a budding relationship with a critically ill guy, and I could understand that.
My last surgery had gone fairly well, but the cancer had already come back once, so I knew that the chance of recurrence for me was high. My doctor was cool like that. She told it like it was and didn’t sugar-coat anything. That’s what I needed at this stage in my life. That’s what I wanted from other people, too, when I could get it.
“Wait, you were a SEAL?” Cecily acted astonished. “I had no idea, I mean, wow… just, wow!” She rolled her eyes, so yeah, maybe I’d mentioned it once or twice before.
“Some chicks would be stoked about dating a SEAL, even an ex one,” I reminded her jokingly, playing it off as being offended. “I can’t tell you how often I’ve had to beat ladies off with a stick to keep from getting mobbed. This is a Prime A Cut right here.” I motioned to my body with a laugh. I wasn’t much to look at nowadays, but I still had a little going on.
Cecily laughed with me and snuggled closer. “I’m not complaining. I like hopeless cases. That's why I became a cop.”
That was something we’d never discussed. It was as good a time as any, I guessed. “So, why did you become a cop? You have the family lineage that your dad was an officer and his mother before him, or what?” We were at the point in this relationship, new though it was, that we started to need to know about each other’s pasts. I’d already bored her with a lot of my history.
“No, actually.” She grinned. “My dad’s in prison for killing my mom’s boyfriend.” She wasn’t smiling. And I didn’t know how to respond to what she’d just said. She shrugged her shoulders and sighed. Then she started speaking about it, slowly. “So yeah. My dad came home from work one day and found my mom and her man in bed together. I was at school, so I missed all of it, thankfully, but the investigation, and the trial, and the report all said that she told my dad to leave, and he did, but only to go get a knife from the kitchen.”
“So did your dad like, break in or…?” I was trying to be considerate in asking, but it was kind of hard not to want to know all the salacious details.
“Oh, no. They were still married. We were all living in the house. Mom was just having an affair with her sister’s ex-husband.” She shrugged it off again. “Then once dad came back into the room, mom started to throw things at him, and so he attacked them both. Raoul got caught in the neck when my dad tripped over his shoes and really, truly, accidentally killed him. He bled out right there in the bed.”
Cecily recalled this with no emotion on her face, almost robotically. She must have had to explain it dozens of times before. I felt kind of bad that I was asking her to relive it again.
“Hey,” I grabbed her hand and squeezed it, “you don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to. It’s alright.”
“No, it's okay. I’ve made my peace with it, and it goes to why I chose to become a police officer. Especially a Detective.” She smiled at me. I guess to show me that she was fine with continuing her story. “When I came home, there were cops everywhere, going all through our stuff, and I saw my dad crying. He was sitting in the back of an MPD vehicle and just bawling his eyes out.” That must have been terrible, but I had nothing to compare it to.
“My mom, she was just yelling at him, even though he couldn’t hear her in the car, and she was screaming at the officers and the EMTs, and well, I guess at everyone. Then she saw me, and…” The words caught in Cecily’s throat, and I tightened my hold on her hand for extra support.
She smiled at me and nodded. “My mom started to yell at me for… whatever, and I just shrank into the background, you know, as kids do. I mean, I was sixteen, but I was still a kid.” I completely understood that. “And um, this officer comes and stands in front of me, to protect me. As a buffer. And my mom starts to beat on him, and then she gets arrested for assaulting an officer, and the whole
thing just goes down the tube.”
She looked up to see if I was still listening or if I’d been shocked into silence at this point. It was going to take a lot more than this to bother me. This kind of story was a Tuesday night warm-up where I worked.
She continued. “So, through all the… crap that followed, this one officer kept in touch and really tried to make sure that I didn’t get lost in the shuffle.”
There was a lot to deal with there, and I wanted to be supportive. “Then, it was like you lost your dad and your mom… your whole family in one day?” That was some serious stuff, and I felt compelled to just wrap Cecily in my arms and hold her tight. She didn’t resist. “What happened to you? Where did you wind up after all of that?”
She settled into me and wrapped her arms around mine. “Foster care until I aged out of the system. Then I flipped burgers for a while until I could pass the entrance exams for the academy.” She lost the hard edge to her voice that she’d honed while telling me about that part of her life.
Now, she used a different tone and a much more authentic one. “Of all the things I remember about that day, it’s always that officer standing between my mother and me and guarding me. All the rest… is like background noise, you know?”
I did. I understood what she was talking about entirely. “What was his name? The officer?”
“Eustace Nory. He was shot in the line of duty right before I graduated from the academy. I’d invited him to the ceremony. But I kept his seat reserved.” She wiped away a few tears at this, and I just held her. There wasn’t too much to say to that. I didn’t know if I could without breaking into tears myself.
Luckily, the moment was shaken by a text from Jake, stating that it was urgent and that we both needed to meet him at his marina. He texted the address, and Cecily and I headed for Jake’s newly obtained enterprise at a top and yet responsible speed.
22
Jake
I was not prepared to find two DEA agents waiting for me in the office when I got to the marina that morning. The thing was, I recognized them both. The man was Agent Keim, and he’d apparently been in a fight or scuffle recently as he had a fresh cut right between his eyes and above the brow. He had dressed in a dark tan suit with the coat unbuttoned so that everyone could see his firearm and badge.
His hair was thick and wavy. Seeing him up close now, he had a well-groomed light beard and medium brown eyes. He was tall, about my height, and carried himself with a little too much self-importance. His partner, by contrast, was holding herself off alone and blending into the scenery.
This was Agent Castiglioni, and it looked to me like her sunburn was really giving her hell. Her skin was still peeling, especially on her forehead. She had dyed her hair since I’d seen her on the seized ship days ago. It was a plain chestnut brown, and all traces of the red had gone. She had it down today.
Now I could see that she had pretty blue-green eyes and freckles. She had on black slacks and a pale green button-down shirt. At her waist was her sidearm and badge, also clearly visible for all to see. But as she stood there, she looked uncomfortable and maybe even a little nervous. I was interested to know why.
I walked into my now furnished office after sending a very quick set of texts and shook both of the agent’s hands. I offered the agents seats on my turquoise blue overstuffed chairs. I’d gotten three of them for guests and clients. There was a small mahogany end table between two of the chairs in the corner with a selection of Miami recreational sites in pamphlet form. I’d seen the same kind of brochure in every hotel I’d ever been in.
I had kept the desk after all but sanded and painted it to look new. I found a very comfortable desk chair that sort of looked like it belonged to it. There were new and lockable filing cabinets behind the desk, and I’d even sprung for a new mini-fridge and a latte machine. Xavier had been instrumental in that decision, for good or ill.
So, after we were all settled into the chairs, I got ready for whatever was coming. “So, how may I help you, agents? You’ll have to forgive me, but I really don’t have any clue as to what your visit is about.” But I did have some ideas.
Keim was leaning forward on his chair, and he reminded me of the other DEA agent, Nace. They seemed to be cut from the same bolt of cloth. I chanced a glance at Castiglioni, but she was keeping her head down, and her eyes fixed on her partner.
He spoke with a very defined tone and speech pattern. His voice was even-toned but would get noticed in a crowded room or conversation.
“My partner,” he nodded at Castiglioni, “and I recently took over a case about a drug cartel trying to establish a foothold here in Miami. Your name was in the reports of the prior agents, and so we’re just following up and trying to find our own take on things.”
“A cartel? That sounds a little out of my league.” I laughed it off. “I actively avoid dealing with drug cartels, Agent Keim, is it?” I pretended to glance at his badge. “Yes, good, I got that right. But I am more than willing to help in any way that I can if I can.”
“That’s good to hear, Mr. Header.” He smiled and nodded at me but didn’t relax. This was going to be an intense interview all the way through on his part. “So, I understand that you’ve recently relocated to Miami from Puerto Rico. May I ask what brought that about?”
“Sure. I’ve owned a condo here for a few years, using it for, you know, weekend getaways, that sort of thing. But a couple of friends of mine are moving on and up, and I just thought that a change of pace would be good for me, too.” That was a nice, noncommittal response. It was the truth. “And since I already own the place…”
Keim nodded and looked around the office. “And this business is a new thing for you too, I understand? You’re doing some remodeling, building it up? That’s great. Miami needs more small business owners with a heart for the local communities.” That wasn’t condescending at all.
I nodded back at him. “Yes, to answer your question, I’ve just invested in this place.” I had a feeling that I knew where this was going now.
“This is a big investment. And you own a condo on Biscayne Bay? That’s not exactly a reasonably priced location within the city. I mean, it doesn’t look like you’re hurting for money.” He let that one hang in the air and linger. His smile grew at the corners of his mouth as he watched me.
“I do own a condo there, yes. As I said, I have for a while.” There weren’t any other questions to answer, and I was not going to be offering any extra information to him.
“Well, then, how is it that you have all of this disposable income, Mr. Header? You have no listed employment, and we all know that money doesn’t grow on trees.” The smile kind of shifted into a sneer. “So I’m interested, Mr. Header, as to how you have the financial capability to purchase an entire marina with cash when, forgive me if this is incorrect, but when you never seem to work?”
Castiglioni was watching me now. I could see this out of the corner of my eye. I made sure that I maintained my breathing form and body language and remained as calm as I felt.
“I do work, Agent Keim. You can check my tax returns, but I assume that you already have?” It was clear that this was not only an interrogation but that they’d done more than the typical background checks on me.
Keim sighed and rolled his shoulders as if he were only just now getting ready to get down to business. “You do see how it looks a little suspicious that a man that never works and doesn’t hold down a job can afford to live the kind of life that you do. And because your name came up in relation to a drug cartel, naturally, we have to make sure that none of the dots can connect. You understand, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course, I understand,” I replied curtly. “But I’m not involved with any drug cartel in any manner on any day.” I could smell the trap he was trying to set, and I wanted to laugh. I settled on simply smiling at him and changing the tone. “Would either of you like something to drink?” I rolled my desk chair over and leaned down to open the mini-fridge. “
I have bottled water and,” I prolonged it just to annoy Keim, “orange juice. Sorry, I guess I need to add some more variety there.”
“I would take juice, thanks.” These were the first words Castiglioni had uttered since they got here. Her voice was small and flat, but that might have been on purpose and worked out before the agents got here. It was their version of good cop, bad cop, only instead, intense agent and background, unassuming agent. It worked for her.
I stood and handed the bottle to her. As I moved, I could see LaShawn and Detective Musik headed for the office. I smiled to myself. They had great timing.
“Ah, excuse me, but I’m about to have some more guests.” There was no harm in warning them, and besides, I wanted to see the reactions.
Castiglioni and Keim both looked out the windows, now without the obstructing film on them, and he stood up. I took their distraction as a chance to check my phone to see what was keeping Xavier. He should have been here by now.
“Clients or friends, Mr. Header?” Keim asked.
“Well, I’m just getting to know Detective Musik, but I’ve known LaShawn for years. So, I guess that makes them the latter.” It would be interesting to see how the DEA Agent reacted with a real victim like LaShawn. After all, it was Agent Keim that had personally gotten Caris released into his DEA custody. And then it was Caris that had shot and injured LaShawn. Then, to top it off, Caris was now dead and part of a suspected cartel. This could be an interesting ordeal.
I wasn’t trying to force a confrontation, but I did want Keim to know that there were other people who were watching the case as well. He wasn’t going to be allowed to pull this intimidation stunt after today. And maybe, I also wanted him to know that I was going to keep a closer eye on him from here on out.
Cecily came in first, as LaShawn opened the door for her. She had dressed in light sweatpants and a tee, and that may not have set the mood I was really hoping for. Oh, well. But she got one look at Agent Keim, and her whole demeanor shifted into officer mode. She ignored Castiglioni and faced off against Keim.