by T. J. Jones
Sam being with Frank Jeffries didn't add up. From what I could see from my vantage point at the restaurant, all three of the men had seemed to know each other. They appeared comfortable and friendly, chatting like old friends. The bald man and his female companion had climbed in the Escalade with Frank and his amour, and Sam and Dedra had driven off separately. A pleasure cruise on a bright sunny day, at whose expense?
After another long shower I was reasonably sure I didn't smell like a kennel and decided to walk down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. I was about to leave when Maggie called. I didn't want my tone to give anything away, so I joked.
"Yes dear, bread and milk on my way home?"
"Just checking in, Jaz says Hi, and get working on it, whatever that means."
"Who knows with her." I knew.
"I get the impression you two are conspiring against me but I'm at her mercy for the next week, so I'll roll with it. So, did my Dad kill Davey?"
"Nice segue for crying out loud. I don't know much more than I did. The one weird thing is that Sam and Dedra seem to know your Dad..."
"My Dad and who, you almost said and somebody."
"Sorry, but he was with a woman. Does that surprise you?"
"He's been with this girl for a while, unless he just traded her in for a younger model. He doesn't usually let them stick around very long. I was wondering if you'd see her, and if you'd tell me."
"Does Angela know?" I stopped myself that time.
"Yeah, and she bought him out of the house. I know that too Slater. Angela knows he's messing around, Mom too, but she likes to pretend she doesn't. What would be the point? She doesn't want anything to do with him but neither one of them will get a divorce. I feel more sorry for his girlfriends, than either one of them."
"No offense, but your family is messed up. What do you think about Sam being friends with your Dad?" I asked. "Coincidence?"
"Might be, stranger things have happened. If Sam's family has money, my Dad would be trying to get some of it. They wouldn't necessarily know that they both knew Davey."
"You don't really believe that, do you?"
"Unlikely as hell. But do you really think my Dad would traffic kids? Father of the year he's not, but I don't think he's capable of selling kids into slavery, or murder."
"I don't think so either, but it might be someone he knows. I'm going to talk to Rosalyn again, then I'm going to see Sam, ask him about their connection. I saw Susy's sister yesterday and the FBI has her house staked out. She claims she saw the guy that kidnapped her at Wal-Mart."
"That poor girl. Funny the FBI doing that, tight as the budgets are anymore. Just sounds like her imagination working overtime unless they looked at security footage or something. There must be some special circumstance for them to do that, don't you think?"
"I know, and I have my doubts that Susan Foster is telling us everything. You really are a natural at this Detective stuff."
"Stick with me, Partner, we'll bust this case wide open."
"Yeah, you just worry about not busting your stitches wide open. I'll stop over when I get back and give you an update."
"Don't get in any trouble down there, I don't want to have to send Jasmine down to bail you out of jail."
"No kidding, none of us wants that. I'll talk to you soon."
***
The timing was right, so I drove into Miami proper and wound my way through the side streets until I found Rosalyn Cabello's house. I knew Billy's didn't open until noon, and there was no need for a dishwasher before then. If I was lucky, Manny and his posse were somewhere else, if not, I had my new gun loaded and tucked into a shoulder holster. I didn't know if Manny was the one who had tried to run me over, but it seemed feasible, and I had no intention of taking a beating or worse.
I walked up to the broken screen door and rapped on it. Rosalyn opened the interior door and looked at me dourly. "Senor, no quiero hablar contigo. No Senor."
"Don't give me that no Ingles crap, you spoke perfect English the other day."
"Go away! If Manny sees you here you will not like what he does to you."
"I just need ten minutes, the faster you give that to me, the faster I'm out of here. Please."
"Alright, but hurry. He went to the store with his compadres. What is it?"
I slid onto a chair and she sat down across from me. There was no offer of a drink this time. "I need to talk to you about some of the details from when you were taken by the Diablo. I know it's painful, and I know you blame Davey for a lot of what happened, but can we talk about that time?"
"Like I said, Templeton was there when the smugglers brought me to this country. They raped me first, then it was Diablo's turn."
"The smugglers raped you?"
"I was young and very pretty Senor, alone with three men for several days, of course they forced me. I could not help it, I could not tell, or I would have been sent home and it would have all been for nothing. If I say the truth, I think David paid extra for me so they would not keep me for their pleasure. Perhaps I owe him for that. But the Diablo, what he did was worse, much worse." She took a shaky breath. "He forced me, every way a man can force a woman, he didn't do it for his pleasure, he did it for my pain." She spat the last words out, staring at me with her eyes empty, looking right through me, back to that moment.
"And David, you said he tried to stop him?"
"He was like a child against the Diablo. The Diablo, he was older, but tall, tall as you or more, and he weighed, who knows? Maybe one hundred and twenty kilos, maybe more, maybe three hundred pounds. Templeton tried, but he slapped him and kicked him until he could not stand. He tried maybe, maybe he tried. But when Diablo said watch, he watched."
"I'm sorry, Rosalyn, really. What about the other man? Was he there every time?"
"No, twice only."
"And David, he held your head while they both forced you?"
She stared through me again, and seemed to be questioning her memory. "He held my head, he held my head the one time, I think it was when the Diablo was there. The other man, I can't be sure, they had given me the drugs so I wouldn't cry out. Maybe, the times when the other man was there, David was not. I have tried so long to forget, now it is hard to remember. I'm not sure. Once David was there, twice the other man. Always Diablo Blanco."
"Did you see the other man at all?"
"A glimpse, perhaps. Perhaps it was in my mind, because of the drugs."
"Could this be the man?" I slid a picture of Frank Jeffries across the table.
"No, he was not a white man, he was dark skinned. Skin darker than mine, perhaps a black man." She buried her head in her hands. "I am sorry, I cannot be sure."
"Is there a chance, perhaps that it was the other man all along? Because of the drugs, is it possible that it wasn't Davey with you in that room? Could it always have been the other man?"
She smiled sadly at me. "I know what you want me to say, so that you can have the memory of your friend back. I cannot say it, it would not be true. David Templeton was the man who took me to the Diablo. He did not join in, but he helped, he held me when I fought too hard. I don't know why he would do such a thing, I will pray for his eternal soul. But it was him, at least the one time, I swear it to you."
"Alright, I really appreciate you talking to me. Nothing I can say to you will ever make this alright. I think the person who did that to you also killed Davey. If I can find him, I will do everything I can to make him pay, for you and for Davey."
"I hope he does not kill you too, Senor Slater. You must go now, Manny will be back soon."
I walked out to my truck and unlocked it, then dropped my keys and bent down to pick them up. From the corner of my eye I saw a black Cadillac turn the corner and drive slowly down the street. I waited until he was even with me then stood quickly and looked at the driver. It was the man from Frank's boat. He spun his head away from me before I could get a good look and stepped on the accelerator. He was wearing his dark glasses and hat
so I wouldn't have been able to identify him, but the front of his shirt hung open and I had just enough time to see a flash of color. A plain bright gold necklace with a bright pendant hanging from it. I knew it well, I had delivered a few during my time as a Master Sergeant. The pendant hanging from the driver's neck was a purple heart, like the one Gary Jeffries had refused to ever remove from his neck. But Gary Jeffries had died in the Everglades years ago. Hadn't he?
***
The details of the crash had been sketchy, and the body had never been found. When we were kids, we used to joke about people who disappeared into the 'Glades, never to be seen again. We called them alligator bait in the cruel, macabre way kids talk when it's not their body parts being ripped into gator sized bites. More than a few bodies had disappeared into the Everglades, and after a few days, when no bones or jewelry were discovered, the unfortunate individual was presumed dead, the life insurance paid. The alligators were good at disposing of evidence, or in this case, the lack of it.
I hadn't seen all of his face, not in the car, but I was sure it was the same man that had climbed out of Frank Jeffries boat. The gait was right, the height and the build, all the little things that fell into place when the purple ribbon triggered my memory. His hair, the last time I'd seen him had been light, not snow white like Roslyn described, but the years might have made it so, or he might have dyed it. It seemed impossible, yet not, that the Diablo Blanco, the person Sandy Foster called Whitey, the person who had done unspeakable acts to so many people; that it might be Gary Jeffries come back to life.
I sat in my truck, dumbfounded. The consequences of that fact, Davey's murder, the twisted relationship between them, it all crashed down onto my chest until I felt buried by it and sat there fighting to catch my breath. Davey had learned of his true parentage when he was about thirty-two years old. He may have told Gary at that point, he may not have. Shortly after that, Gary had faked his own death and disappeared, probably resurfacing in California to eventually kidnap Sandy Foster. The question I had was, did Davey know that Gary wasn't really dead? If so, why keep the secret? Then it came to me, Angela.
Davey hadn't told anyone. He had carried that around with him because of Angela. He had to have thought that the twisted tale of kidnapping and child abuse that he and her uncle, his uncle as well, had perpetrated would have unhinged her permanently should she find out. She was never close to Gary and had a tumultuous relationship with her father, but Davey was the one man she loved and needed most in the world. Knowing what he had done, even in spite of his redemption might have broken her. She had always clung to Davey; as that sixteen-year old girl screaming as the tide tore at her, and as the woman she now was, fighting the demons in her head. Was that what he finally told her that last trip home when they cried on each other's shoulder? And did she suspect as I did, that her uncle might be the person responsible for Davey's death? Perhaps even her own father?
I mapped it all out in my head. Davey had finally sickened of the hold Gary had over him, perhaps threatened to turn him in. Maybe that was the reason Gary had faked his death and left for California. Then Davey had turned his life around and started trying to help some of the people he had wronged. But something had changed and Gary came back, changed his appearance somewhat and hid out in his brother's guest house. Was it about money? Was it too hard to get away with kidnap and rape in California, forcing him to return to spiriting helpless immigrant children into the hands of the monsters that were his clients?
I was too involved with my thoughts to notice that Manny and his small posse had surrounded my vehicle. Maybe the look on my face spoke to him, because they didn't try to drag me out of the truck and beat me half to death. Instead he held up his hand and approached my window. I dropped the glass and he just stared at me. Undoubtedly, I was as white as the ghost I thought I had just seen.
"Manny, listen very closely. I am almost positive that I just saw the man we are both after. I thought he was dead many years ago, but I'm sure that I saw the man that Rosie calls Diablo Blanco. His head is shaved and he looks different, but I know it was him and he just drove down this street. Never, ever leave Rosie alone again, alright? Promise me! If he drove by here it's because he wants her dead. Carry a gun, and never leave her alone. When we catch him, I will call her and tell her it's safe."
"Si, Mr. Slater. If that Diablo comes for her, I will send you his skin."
"I kind of hope you do."
I almost turned around right then and just drove home. I could have gone straight to the Jeffries, had some sweet tea and spent some time being harassed by Maggie and her new best friend. That would have been a lot easier, and I wouldn't have ended up in jail.
***
I got back on the highway and drove across Biscayne Bay. Miami Beach is a very different place than the backstreets where Manny and Rosalyn lived. Their broken storm door and the screen with holes in it were a far cry from the fifteenth floor with the electric blinds and the window overlooking the beach where Samath Chopra and his girlfriend, Dedra lived. Yet Rosie and Dedra were linked somehow, seemingly tied together by a haunted past of abduction and unspeakable horror at the hands of a man who had once taught me to fly. And the list.
From what I had been able to learn, the list of girls spirited away into a life of slavery and degradation was considerably longer than the seven names in the back of Davey's notebook. Sandy Foster had seen the man she thought was her abductor just days before, the man I now believed was Gary Jeffries. Now he had shown himself in front of Rosalyn Cabello's. Was Sam's girlfriend next? I pushed the gas pedal down and started passing cars. It had to be about the list, but what separated those seven girls from the countless others that had been abducted? Perhaps Dedra could tell me that.
The doorman gave me a dour look and tried to reach Sam's apartment without success. "I know he's busy and doesn't want to be bothered. The I.T. guy from his father's firm is up there."
"I need to talk to him and it's urgent. Can't you override something, or just let me go up? You know I was just here the other day for Christ's sakes."
My annoyance didn't sway him, and we stood there looking at each other. I was seconds away from pulling my gun when suddenly the exterior door opened and Sam's girlfriend walked in with a large paper grocery bag in her arms. She recognized me immediately.
"It's alright Jerry, I know this man."
"Are you sure? The I.T. guy from his father's company is up there."
I interrupted. "Doesn't really matter, it's you I need to talk to Dedra."
"Oh? Let's go on up. I went and picked up some sandwich stuff for lunch so you can have a bite with us. Sam is so fussy I got three different kinds of everything. We can talk while Sam and the computer guy are working. Something about the feed from his father's company computer I guess."
As we rode the elevator up I explained briefly what I was hoping she could tell me; why she was on a list of seven women that Davey had hidden in his childhood room. "I can't imagine anything I went through that the other girls didn't. Maybe Sam has some ideas, and I can think better with a full stomach."
She laughed a little and pushed against the door, then pulled her keys out and shifted the groceries onto her left arm. All that bread and salami saved her life.
As the door swung open, I stepped up behind her, following closely as she walked into the dim room. The blinds had been closed and she bumped the light switch. Sam Chopra stared at us from his huge leather sofa with eyes that would never see again. He was stripped to the waist, eviscerated, and covered in blood and skin fragments. Dedra saw him and drew a breath, a scream rising to her throat. I didn't think, just instinctively reached for my gun.
There was short wall that divided the kitchen from the rest of the room and a shadowy figure burst forward suddenly, slamming into Dedra. She turned her shoulder as he raised his arm and tried to plunge the knife he held into her neck. Luck was on her side, and he inadvertently drove the blade into a tall salami that extended above
the grocery bag. She stumbled and threw herself back against the wall as he raised the knife to continue the attack. I don't know if he was ever aware that I was there, he was too focused on his intended victim to even see me.
My first bullet knocked him back against the kitchen wall, but it didn't stop him. Possibly he was stunned and didn't realize that he had been shot, or possibly he was just that determined. Dedra was close, and I had to hesitate just a fraction of a second to be sure I didn't hit her, but when he lunged again, I put two shots into his chest. The force drove him back into the kitchen where he fell to the floor. I stepped on his hand quickly and kicked the knife away. The nine-millimeter had done its job, he was stone dead.
Sam was equally dead, and Dedra stood staring at him, screaming over and over. I pushed her into the hall and sat her down on the floor, then went back inside. I needed just a moment to look at the would-be assassin. He was middle-eastern, that was all I was sure of. He had no phone, no passport, no wallet; just a plastic name tag that identified him as a technician from the Chopra business firm that had been ripped almost in two by one of my bullets. By the looks of Sam, he hadn't said what the assassin wanted to hear. He had not died quickly, cut apart piece by piece for information he probably didn't have.
I put my gun on the floor and stepped back into the small lobby, crouching in front of Dedra. She had a small cut on her forearm but was unscathed otherwise. Physically at least. The neighbor pulled his door open a crack and looked out fearfully. "Did you call the cops?" I asked. He nodded and pushed the door shut. I heard the chain lock drop into place.
Five minutes later five cops, two from the elevator, three from the stairs, burst in wearing riot gear and shouting orders. They pulled Dedra from my arms, slammed me to the floor and handcuffed me. It didn't help that Dedra pleaded with them, or that I explained what had happened. Another ten minutes, six more cops, and I was in the back of a police van on my way to a holding cell.
I expected to be questioned and released, knowing that Dedra would explain the circumstances. If nothing else I was sure the Stand Your Ground rule would apply. The man did have a knife and it was pretty clear he was trying to kill us. But hours passed and I still sat in the cell without any idea if I was being charged or not.