Murder in the Magic City

by G. P. Sorrells

  “My thoughts exactly. This detective gets notified of the cremation incident, thinks it’s odd, and investigates how it might connect to the other recent murders in the area.

  “And missing persons. It may not have even mattered if I killed the other guy, they still might’ve found this.”

  “You’re right. We’d probably be talking about this a few days from now instead of today. The ironic thing about it all is that we could have avoided it if that gimp had just gotten arthritis meds instead of a knee replacement.”

  “Or if I didn’t toss him in the furnace,” Micah said, disappointed. He had long prided himself on his attention to detail. On never making the silly mistakes that had the chance to ruin lives. The blunders which risked tearing the veil off the otherwise carefully crafted façade he had spent years perfecting. He wanted to punch something, to release some frustration, but he kept his anger bottled.

  Castillo laughed. “Nah, amigo. I consider that a bit of poetic justice. Besides, though things may look grim, we aren’t without options.

  Micah’s head perked up like a puppy who just heard their cookie jar open.

  “All you need to do is take care of him. Make sure that he’s out of the picture, clean up your act going forward, and you’re free to work without constantly looking over your shoulder.”

  “He’s got to be expecting that. If I were that guy, I’d be on edge. Trusting no one.”

  “Perhaps, but I’ve got a way to get him to come right to us,” Castillo said. He pulled out his phone and fiddled with an application Micah didn’t recognize. A moment later he had the device to his ear and appeared to be waiting for it to ring. “Yes, Detective Osteen, is it? My name is Jimmy Castillo, I imagine you’ve heard of me. Good. I have some information that should prove useful to your investigation. Which one? Let’s just say I can help you tie up some loose ends on a few cases. See how the puzzle pieces fit together. Meet me at the junkyard on 49th street in Hialeah. Yes, that’s the one. I trust it’s unnecessary to tell you how imperative it is that you come alone. Excellent. I’ll see you soon, Detective.” He hung up the phone with a thin smile and placed it on the table.

  “That was unnerving.”

  “Your life is now in your hands,” Castillo said, studying the man before him. “A thank you would be nice.”

  Chapter 34

  Every single part about the current situation felt wrong to Osteen. He had just spoken on the phone with one of the most wanted men in the country, Jimmy Castillo, as though the two went way back. How Castillo had gotten his personal number was a concern for another day. Osteen now found himself on his way to a random junkyard to, allegedly, find out previously unknown information about the murders he had been looking into. The chance for vindication superseded the sense of apprehension that permeated throughout him.

  He sat at his desk, his body rigid, staring forward. The conversation replayed in his mind, but it lost clarity as the seconds ticked by. Eventually, the words existed as nothing more than an amalgamation of something vaguely resembling coherent thought. Logic told him it was a trap. That he needed to have some backup with him, even if from a distance. Curiosity pushed him closer toward action.

  Vivian approached Osteen’s desk and stared at him quizzically. He appeared lost in a near trance-like state. “You all right, Dan?” When he continued to stare straight ahead, oblivious to her question, as though the only thing in the world that mattered was getting a precise count of the little squares on the window into their shared office, she snapped her fingers. “Dan!”

  Osteen shook his head, looking up at Vivian, dumbfounded. “Sorry, Viv. Didn’t see you there.”

  “Yea, I, uh, kinda got the hint.”

  “Look, I’ve got to, uh, head out for a bit.”

  “Need some company? I’ve got nothing going now. Just tidying up some files later, but that won’t take long.”

  Osteen wanted to say yes, but there wasn’t much he could say without arousing suspicion. That and Vivian would lambast him for walking into a trap. “Thanks, but no. This is something I’ve got to take care of myself.”

  “Suit yourself,” Vivian said, shrugging. “Pick me up a coffee on your way back.”

  “Will do,” Osteen replied. He felt hollow in agreeing with such a simple request. A feint sense of dread welled up in the pit of his stomach. Part of him assumed he wouldn’t be coming back. Made him want to tell her to get her own coffee. It would be quicker. But a larger part chided him for being silly, worrying about something that likely wouldn’t come to pass.

  Osteen stood up awkwardly, using the edge of the desk for support as though his bones had suddenly become too weak to hold his weight. He took a deep breath in, exhaled, and walked out of the office.

  “See you soon, Dan,” Vivian said to his shadow.

  Chapter 35

  Castillo sat on a faux leather chair at Henderson’s Storage Facility, biding his time as he waited for Osteen to arrive. The hind legs of the chair supported the bulk of his weight as he propped it against the small shack that served as an office building. Above him was a sign with a poorly drawn cartoon mechanic informing prospective customers that ‘if they could pull it, they could buy it.’ Castillo wondered how people could be swayed by so simple a sales pitch. Wouldn’t it be better to just have the part delivered without the headache?

  The lot was empty, though that was by design. Like many of the forgotten souls across the streets of Miami and its surrounding neighborhoods, the owner of Henderson was willing to do whatever he needed to in order to get by in life. When Castillo offered him a few stacks to close shop for a day, he didn’t hesitate. The guns brandished by the men proposing the shutdown showed just how necessary the move was. Henderson didn’t have the foggiest idea why they needed his lot specifically, but he valued his life too much to ask more than the basics. The stacks of cash didn’t hurt either.

  “Where the hell is this guy?” Castillo asked himself as he checked his watch.

  As if on cue, he heard an engine in the distance, drawing closer. He stood up and walked over to the front gate, watching as an unmarked police cruiser rolled to a stop on the other side. Castillo scanned the surrounding area, looking for signs of suspicious vehicles. Confident that Osteen had done as he was told and arrived alone, Castillo turned around and motioned something with his hands before pulling the gate open. Its wheels squeaked at a level so shrill it would’ve made a dog whine.

  Osteen walked through the gate a moment later, glancing up from his phone as he shoved it into his pocket. “Interesting choice for a meeting spot, Castillo.”

  “Please, call me Jimmy.”

  “How about we cut the pleasantries and get down to why you called me down here?”

  “While I appreciate your desire to get to the important items on the docket, Detective, I must suggest we sit down. There’s quite a lot to discuss, and much of it may not be easy to hear.”

  “I’d prefer to stand, thanks.”

  “Suit yourself,” Castillo said, walking away from the gate. He stopped next to a stripped-down Camaro and turned to face Osteen. “I understand you’ve been looking into a few murders lately. Someone out for a midnight jog. A hotshot local news anchor. Maybe even the Ruskie who crawled into a furnace, or the lab tech down at the Seaquarium. The list goes on and on. They don’t seem connected, yet you find yourself not entirely convinced that they’re just one-off cases.”

  Osteen looked at Castillo, stunned. He had long assumed an unseen connection existed between the apparent murders of Dirk Cagney and Edgar Jennings. But the other two homicides? Those hadn’t even been bubbled up to him. From the vague bit of information he had to go on, he wondered if the department had approached them both as accidents. He had to have missed something. It could have been minor, or in front of his face the entire time. Either way, it had eluded him and led him straight into Castillo’s trap. “How could you possibly know that?”

  “That’
s not the right question. A better question would be, ‘how are these murders connected?’ You were smart to trust your gut. I trust you’ll be equally sensible in acknowledging that you need help in understanding the mystery of how it all ties together. Sometimes it’s more important to accept an olive branch from a foe than to wonder how they came into possession of the knowledge that most piques your curiosity. I’m willing to extend this offer of peace. Are you willing to accept it?”

  “That all depends on the validity of the information involved. And the cost of doing business with you.”

  “I think you’ll find my rates are more than fair.”

  “How about you dispense with the information first? If I determine that it’s worth my time to move forward, we can discuss terms.”

  “Personally, I prefer a bit of give and take,” Castillo said. He rubbed his chin between his thumb and index finger, as if in deep thought. “The murders you’ve been most interested in, Ross Sterling, Dirk Cagney and his Mistress, Marco Fedorov, Oliver Christensen, they are all connected. Every single one. They may not seem so as their paths likely never crossed while they walked this earth, but the same person delivered each one of them to their eventual fate.”

  Fedorov and Christensen? He hadn’t heard those names outside of the evening news but kept a straight face. “And you know this how?”

  “Because I ordered the hits.”

  Osteen looked at Castillo, mouth agape. Though this may have been close to his perceived reality of the situation, he couldn’t believe the gall of Castillo to admit it with such a nonchalant attitude. “Come again?”

  “Each murder—and they were all murders, Detective, no suicide—each one was carried out by the same person through my direction.”

  “I should arrest you right here and now,” Osteen seethed. He reached back for his cuffs, eager to wrap them around the bloodthirsty man in front of him. But something kept him at bay. A tug from his subconscious that he needed to see this through, if only to catch the sonofabitch who decided Death’s sickle was his to wield.

  “But you won’t.” Castillo smiled. “Not if you want more specifics. My price doesn’t involve money. Not in the traditional sense, at least. No, all I value is my freedom. I’ll give you everything you want to know in exchange for immunity.”

  “That’s not something I can do. Hell, I don’t even know if my supervising officer has the pull for that. Your track record isn’t exactly squeaky clean.”

  “Well, I’ll let you think about it. Just go back to your hole and ask yourself how bad you want to put an end to all the senseless violence.”

  “This is only an answer to some of it. Giving you immunity won’t result in an end to the bodies flowing through to the morgue.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. But these bodies are only indirectly related to me. And they won’t be the last if you cannot hold up your end of the bargain. I can promise you that. In my line of work, there’s always someone gunning for the top. Someone who wants the spoils without waiting for their time to shine. But me? I like where I’m at. I’d prefer not to have to fill the streets of our city with blood. I’d like it to keep the magic. Sadly, I am but one man. And this work requires the efforts of more than just a single person.”

  Osteen stood stoically, staring hard into Castillo’s face. His gaze was met with a look of shocking indifference. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, walking back to the front of the junkyard. On his way to the gate, he took out his phone and sent a text.

  In the years since he had first embraced communicating via text message, he had inexplicably developed a habit of texting his thoughts as they came to him. No wall of text. He would send everything over one line at a time. He considered it to be a stream of thought via SMS message. It annoyed some people but converted others. Osteen told himself that it was better to send ten messages and get everything across than one enormous block of a message, followed shortly afterward by a significantly smaller message, looking like he hadn’t thought everything through the first time around. Of course, he often reasoned, he could always just call. But that was a can of worms for another day.

  “Just met with JC,” the first text read.

  “No cross.”

  “Told me something interesting about these bodies.”

  “Even mentioned some new ones.”

  “Something about the CCCP in a crematorium and that tech at the Seaquarium.”

  “I’m heading back now.”

  “Will discuss.”

  Osteen stared at his phone as the three dots appeared to inform him of a message being prepared for delivery back to him. The process took longer than he would’ve liked, but he couldn’t expect everyone to approach texting the way he did. He pocketed his phone and continued walking toward the cruiser.

  The interaction had gone better than Castillo could have imagined. Valuable muscle could end up lost, but the chance of immunity was too great to pass up. Besides, both he and the detective knew the bloodshed would never end completely. It would simply subside for a time. His eyes glossed over with the thought of what all the newfound freedom could mean. Success doesn’t come without making tough choices along the way.

  A dull pop off to his left interrupted Castillo’s thoughts of a grand life, free of the long arm of the law. An eerie sound, one he thought sounded manufactured. Until he saw the body drop. Micah was standing over Osteen’s body, a wisp of smoke trailing from the barrel of his pistol. He appeared to look at the detective with contempt, as though the man had wronged him in the past. Or was someone he knew. But, so far as Castillo was aware, this would’ve been the first time either man saw the other.

  Micah grabbed Osteen’s legs. “You going to help me with this?”

  “Yea, sure,” Castillo replied meekly. His voice and willingness to agree to Micah’s request betrayed the rage that churned throughout his body. True freedom was within his grasp, but it had been ripped away due, in part, to his own negligence. That he would’ve betrayed the man beside him was of no consequence. Simply collateral damage on the steps toward greatness.

  The men carried Osteen’s body over to an older Oldsmobile sedan. It had been sitting inside of a larger structure, with what looked like a crane overhead. They placed Osteen’s body inside, across the front bench seat. As they walked away, Micah flipped a glass casing open and pressed a red button. Horns blared as a large, hydraulically powered plate descended slowly onto the sedan.

  At first, the only sound was a screech of metal bending in ways it hadn’t designed to bend. The sound that makes your hair stand on end just thinking about it. Like nails on a chalkboard. As the plate pushed ever closer to its base, the squeal became a crunching sound, and blood seeped out of the holes which appeared as the once rigid frame became one with the ground. To Micah, it looked like a metallic pancake with strawberry jam. The windows shattered, propelling bits of glass outward, and the tires exploded, causing Castillo to jump. At the end, it had reduced the sedan to a mere two feet tall amalgamation of metal and cloth.

  “So, how was she?”

  Micah tried to play dumb, averting his gaze. “She, who?”

  “Don’t fuck with me. The girl you left that pub with,” Castillo prodded. “The one who was still at your place when you left to meet up with me at the spot.”

  “Oh yea, I forgot, Mr. Peeping Tom over here,” Micah joked.

  “Hey, tough guy, don’t be surprised that I’ve got eyes across the city. I’d be a fool not to keep tabs on my people. One can never be too careful.”

  “Her name’s Valerie,” Micah said, a childish grin on his face. “She’s a hell of a woman. Great personality, smart, beautiful. The total package.”

  “Listen to you. One date and you’re already off the deep end in love with her.”

  Micah laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know what love is, man.”

  “What does she do for work?”

  “Owns a few hair salons. Mostly in some high
er profile neighborhoods in the city.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with it. She’s just Rey Fernandez’s kid sister.”

  “Get out of town,” Micah said, genuinely surprised. “Can’t believe I didn’t make the connection when I saw her.”

  “Well, she’s easier on the eyes than Reynaldo,” Castillo said, chuckling. “I’m serious, though, don’t worry about it. He might even let it slide since it’s you and not some douche bag from their old neighborhood.”

  “That’s reassuring.”

  They were walking toward the entrance of the junkyard when the sound of distant sirens filled the air. They stopped dead in their tracks. It wasn’t an immediate threat, but the sound was getting closer. If they stood around much longer, this would become a problem.

  “Micah, get out of here,” Castillo said. He huffed it over to his car and opened the door, pausing before sitting inside. “I’ll reach out soon.”

  Both men were long gone before the calvary rolled up.

  Chapter 36

  “Now, son, I know that wasn’t easy,” Hurst said. Attempting to console a troubled mind was not something he felt all that comfortable doing. But it was necessary. The groundwork necessary to get his agent into the field had only begun. “Believe me, we thought the target would be alone.”

  “Then why didn’t you pull me out? Send me back another day. I could’ve held off until the time was right.” Sheridan wanted to cry. He had just killed three people in cold blood. And the same government sworn to protect them would pay him for it. The walls felt like they were closing in on him, as though they may suffocate him within their steel grasp. In that moment, it would’ve been a fitting end.

  “That’s just the thing, Ross. Tough as it may be to come to terms with, the time to do what needs doing is rarely right. Life just doesn’t work that way.”

  “Doesn’t mean we can’t try.”