by JJ Pike
With a round of drinks slopping onto his teetering tray, Arthur headed straight for Bill. He made a show of delivering the drinks to the table and encouraging everyone to help themselves. He clapped Bill on the back, with an exclamation that made the table roar with laughter. The only word Bill understood was, “Niño.” Sounded like Arthur had called him an iguana. That couldn’t be right.
Bill smiled. He had no choice. He had to play along.
Arthur pulled him in tight, whispering low. “I told them you are my friend and that friends are like children, they trust.”
Arthur turned back to the table, rattling off several sentences that held everyone’s attention. Bill prayed that Arthur wouldn’t repeat their earlier ruse, that he was looking for Mateo in order to deliver an inheritance. That would be idiotic in the extreme.
The waitress hovered the other side of the bar, talking quietly to the bartender, then took her drink and retired to a table the far side of the establishment where Bill couldn’t see her. Slowly, the volume at his own table rose. Not to the levels it had been before she entered, but to a respectable hum. Without saying a word they’d agreed, collectively, that they were going to pretend she wasn’t there. After all, there were strangers in town which meant everyone got to polish their best stories and deliver them as if they’d never been heard before.
Spanish-speaking Arthur—loud, rambunctious, in-your-face Arthur—was embarrassing, but he took the heat off Bill. He was no longer the center of attention. He was freed up to sit back and watch, though he couldn’t hazard a guess what they were talking about. Their physical cues weren’t the same as back home. Arthur was leading, that much was clear, but what they were talking about was anyone’s guess. He’d latched onto Andreas, who threw the odd word of English into their conversation.
“Accent…” said Andreas. “How you say?” He searched on his phone. “Yes, yes. Not accent. Accent is still good for a boy from the poor part of Antigua…” He and Arthur fell about laughing. “Not accent has changed, but ‘cadence’ is different. It’s wrong.” He used his hand to map out a sentence. “It should be like so…but you speak like so.” The example was in Spanish and Bill remained on the outside of the conversation.
Andreas pointed at Bill and schooled Arthur. Arthur spun around as if he’d forgotten his non-Spanish speaking friend was there. “They can tell I’ve been out of the country,” he said. “It’s the rhythm of my speech. I sound like an American now.” Arthur squeezed Bill and kissed him on the cheek. Not something he’d do back home. Was it even appropriate here? “Trust me,” he said. “Like a child.” He turned back to his new friends, lobbing some insight or insult about Americans into the mix and continued in Spanish. Bill was just going to have to wait it out.
Arthur was spending cash like it was going out of fashion, buying round after round and plying the table with cocktails. Bill took his beer and headed for the bathroom. The men were engrossed. No one gave him a second glance. He nodded at the waitress on his way past but didn’t stop to chat. He emptied the remaining two thirds of the beer into the toilet bowl, waited a respectable four minutes, then flushed. He couldn’t walk out there with an empty bottle. He balanced it by the window over the sink. There was barely a breeze from outside, but at least it allowed some of the bathroom odors to dissipate. He moseyed back out to the bar and ordered up another beer, but insisted on buying it himself.
The tone at the table had shifted in his short absence. They were serious, speaking low, not waving each other down and talking over one another. Whatever story they told was handed around like a torch at a campfire, each man adding his two cents while his comrades nodded and agreed. Arthur locked eyes with Bill for a second. For a drunk, he was pretty slick. If Bill hadn’t seen him throwing them back, he’d have sworn Arthur was stone cold sober.
Bill sat at the edge of the crowded table. There was a weight to their conversation, a gravity. Only one man didn’t speak. Mateo Hernandez held his council, sipping and listening and offering the occasional grunt of approval.
“They speak of war,” said Arthur. “They want to know if you have killed a man?”
Bill nodded. He hadn’t, but he knew that was the wrong answer.
“And that man deserved to die?”
“Of course.” Bill kept his eyes trained on Arthur.
Mateo held up his hand. The entire bar fell silent. His words were few, but drew applause.
“What did he say?” Bill had to know.
Arthur didn’t translate. Instead he concentrated on his drink.
“He quotes Cassius, from the play. You know it? Julius Caesar.” Andreas had drunk his bodyweight in rum, but seemed none the worse for wear.
Bill nodded.
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
The rage boiled in Bill’s gut.
“You know the meaning?” Andreas looked between Bill and Mateo.
Bill managed to eke out a “yes.”
“If we are weak,” said Andreas, “we deserve what is coming to us.”
Bill knew Mateo was watching him, just as all the men were, but if he looked into those eyes, he might reach into his ankle holster and end the man now.
Chapter Eighteen
Jo pulled up to her house, cut the lights, and trudged up the stairs. For once she was glad Reggie wasn’t there to greet her. His ebullience would have been her undoing. Now was a time for cold calculation, not puppy-dog approval and loving. That would have to wait.
She hadn’t used her wetsuit for three years. Three years, six months, and four days to be exact. It hung by the mud room door, right next to her husband’s old suit, an accusation in neoprene. She grabbed both suits and handed Cory’s to Michael. Her hand stung when she handed it over and she had to tamp down the urge to snatch it back and tell Michael to beat it, get out of her house, out of her life. But she couldn’t. The mission did not allow for walking away when the going got tough. She had to suck it up and let him wear Cory’s wetsuit. It wasn’t like Cory had been wearing it on that day. This was his civilian suit. It had only happy memories attached; diving off the reefs of Palau, studying the WWII boat graveyard in Chuuk Lagoon, their honeymoon in the Great Barrier Reef. She shut the door on the blue skies and even bluer water. She was in Upstate New York with a suspect. Concentrate on that.
“You can change in here,” she said. “Leave your clothes by the washer. We’ll take care of them when we get back.”
“We’re going to drive out to the quarry in wetsuits?”
This time he was right. It would look weird if anyone saw them. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.”
She padded to the bedroom. Best keep your head in the game. Work your way through the pain. Don’t think about things you cannot change. The past, for example. Done and gone. Sort of. If there were just a way to stop it living in her heart.
She opened Cory’s closet. Talk about skeletons. The two of them had enough to fill a graveyard ten times over. She ran her hand along his shirts, imagining his arm crooked in invitation, asking her to loop hers through his and take a stroll. His clothes still smelled of him: a complex blend of hard work, zany humor, and a daredevil streak that had pushed them both to their limits. She leaned into his shirt, the one he’d been wearing that day. She hadn’t washed it in hopes it would retain a piece of him, and even though three years had passed, she could catch just the faintest whiff of the man she’d loved. The tears jammed in her throat. She’d avoided going through his clothes for just this reason. She knew she’d be a wreck. He wasn’t coming back and it was her fault.
She pushed the “still has his smell” along with the “that was his favorite” and “we went to Aspen for our 10th anniversary and he was wearing that at dinner” clothes to one side and found some laundered sweat pants and a new t-shirt. Nothing with any sentimental value. She could bear to look at Michael Rayton in those.
She delivered her husband’s clothes to Rayton then backed the
Jeep up to the garage door so they could load the oxygen tanks without having to lug them across the driveway.
Michael’s approach was silent. One minute she was on her own, the next he was at her side. Jo knew how to mask surprise. Her training was so deep it was practically part of her DNA. That didn’t mean she didn’t feel the jolt of adrenaline. It only meant that shock didn’t show on her face. Aggie was right, the man was a creeper. But did that make him a criminal? She couldn’t make him out. He was biddable one minute, stealthy the next. He knew how to handle himself in a medical crisis but had lied about his training. If she didn’t have this damned car situation to take care of, she could have sat him down and battered him with questions.
“Cool heads lead to even cooler outcomes.” It was her psych professor talking her down off the ledge. He was right. She needed to hold off a little longer. She pointed at the oxygen tanks. See how he handled the car situation. We give ourselves away by our actions. Let him strut his stuff (or not) and she’d tabulate the data later.
She strolled back to the house.
“Where are you going?” He was petulant. That was good. She was still in the driver’s seat. She didn’t answer. Don’t do what they expect you to. Keep them off balance.
She bagged his clothes and stashed them in a trunk under her bed. The lock went in her jewelry box and her jewelry box key went in a dish in the kitchen.
The moon had risen, but it was little more than a sliver on the horizon. They were good on that score. She checked that Rayton had loaded all their equipment, saw that he’d gone a step further and prepped them for a dive, then joined him in the cab.
“You do this often?” he said.
She waited. Never fill the gap. Let them come to you. He could be talking about anything, rather than the 500-pound gorilla in the room.
“Bury bodies? Destroy evidence?”
She winced. He’d hit her where she lived: right on the nose. She’d set her moral compass to neutral, but that didn’t mean it was an easy choice. Burying a man without due process went against the grain.
“This is a special case. Aggie’s fifteen, so she’s right on the cusp. We don’t know that she’d be tried as a minor if it went to trial. Ordinarily, I’d have gone to the police, but things aren’t ordinary. We’re about to see some serious mayhem. We need to stay under the radar, not draw attention to ourselves, hunker down and let the crazies pass us by whenever possible.” She didn’t add details about her own mandate. That was unrelated. Although pattern recognition had taught her that the two problems—Manhattanites kicking off and taking the Northeast into a full-fledged panic, and the guys she had under surveillance—would intersect at some point. It was inevitable.
She’d chosen the quarry because of its isolation, but she still killed the lights as they reached the beach. Rayton’s truck was there, sticking out of the water, taunting them with its wheels. If memory served, most of the lake wall was sheer and dropped 50 feet to the bed. They’d caught an unlucky break. It wasn’t the end of the world. They could handle this.
Rayton clambered out and slammed the car door. The sound of metal on metal reverberated off the quarry walls.
“This is your first and final warning,” she said. “Cut the noise.”
Rayton shot her a look. Give it a rest, buddy, I’m saving your ass. She didn’t say it, of course. Neither did she let her eyes do the talking. Neutral all the way. Stay in control of the situation.
Jo did a three-point turn and backed the Jeep to the water’s edge. The more she thought about the operation, the less it seemed like a good idea, but needs must. She couldn’t take responsibility for his actions. Even though he’d just helped her bury a body, he needed to affirmatively sign off on the destruction of evidence. She cut the engine and wound down her window. “We’re going to push your truck until both vehicles go over the ledge and sink. Are you square with that?”
Rayton looked longingly at his truck. “Sure.”
“Stand back,” she said.
“I should do that.” He stepped up to the driver’s side door.
“I’m fine.”
“I got us into this mess, I should get us out.”
Jo’s adrenaline went into overdrive. It was too spooky. Cory had said almost exactly the same words three years ago. She couldn’t let that happen again.
Michael was at her door, opening it, waving her out of the front seat.
Her therapist—the one she’d seen for the mandatory sessions after the “accident”—had said the healing would only begin when she faced her fears head on. She had to open herself up, allow other people to take the reins, trust that not everything ended in complete disaster if she wasn’t in control.
She climbed down from the cab and let Michael take the damned steering wheel. “Slow and steady. What we want to avoid is getting the Jeep’s bumper latched on yours.”
Michael nodded.
Jo’s heart was in her mouth. When Cory had gone into the water, she’d had no such fears. He was a pro. He knew his way around. Their intelligence had led them to a weapons stash off the coast of El Salvador. Sinking weaponry for future pickup, rather than delivering the goods in open water, was the newest way to get contraband from point A to point B. They’d uncovered several tons of munitions in four dump sites in less than six months, but the traffickers were always three steps ahead of them. Intelligence indicated there was a pick up scheduled. It was exactly the kind of dangerous operation that made Cory light up. She was a Marine, he was with the Green Berets, they had guys from the CIA’s Special Operations Group. They were highly skilled, deeply proficient. It was no Mickey Mouse shit. But she’d paused when she shouldn’t have, thought when she should have acted, let the team down in the most godawful way imaginable. It was her fault he’d died.
Michael revved the engine and backed up towards his truck. Jo did what she could to shake off the terrible memories.
No deaths today, please. No deaths today.
The splash of the vehicles going under was followed by a massive air bubble and Jo’s own muffled scream. It had happened so fast. One minute, Michael was backing the Jeep towards his Ram truck, the next, both cars were skidding backwards into the water. How had she not heard the bumpers lock together? She’d been listening for it. His face, though. He’d gone down with the car in a state of panic. Did he know how to get himself out? Would he wait until the cars landed, then swim? There was no point trying to eject yourself when there was that much metal pulling you down in such a heaving vortex of suckage.
It really did suck, as the youngsters would say, to the nth degree. He hadn’t surfaced. She couldn’t wait much longer. She ripped off her jacket and plunged into the inky waters, praying she’d find him in time.
Pitch black, no moonlight from that fingernail moon, middle of August, the water was still shockingly cold. Jo took a deep breath and dove. She was a strong swimmer, sure and fast. She could get to the bottom of the lake and back with a fully-clothed man in tow. No question.
Visibility was at zero. She was swimming on instinct. She followed the wall, both hands flat in front of her after each stroke, looking for the ledge Arthur’s SUV had been sitting on not three minutes earlier. She didn’t feel it. She’d either passed it or miscalculated her point of entry. Her lungs pressed against her ribs. She let out a tiny bubble of air. The trick was to exhale slowly rather than blowing everything out in one go. She’d trained for this. She could stay underwater for far longer than your average swimmer.
The dark was unyielding. There was nothing to see. No wall, no ledge, no cars, no lake bottom. She pushed hard, willing Michael to be on the way up, but she was out of time. She needed to resurface and return.
She broke the surface and gasped, taking in three full lungs of sweet, cool air, then closed her mouth, shifted a few feet to her right and dove again. This time, faster. She had to get to him in time. Had he put his seat belt on? Had he hit his head? Was he unconscious and taking in water? At least there were n
o arms traffickers waiting down there for him. No, don’t think about that. Focus, focus, focus, Jo.
She pulled hard, streaking through the water. There was nothing to see for an eternity, then there was the Jeep. He was inside. Crooked. Not right. Not moving. Damn, he’d left the window up. Why did no one know to roll the windows down as soon as you hit the water? She yanked on the door. It was jammed. The car must have buckled when it hit the bottom. She’d go in through the back.
She swam to the rear of the Jeep. Shoot, could she make it or was she going to run out of air? At least the back of the Jeep was clear of the Ram and 4Runner. They must have uncoupled themselves on impact. Did she have time to get inside the back of the Jeep, pull him over the seats, get back out, and swim to the surface? She had to. Another run and he’d be dead.
She pushed herself over to him, pressed on the seatbelt lock, which thankfully gave way, and grabbed Michael’s shirt. Too flimsy. It would ease up and off him, rather than pulling him out of his seat. She reached down and grabbed the elasticated waistband around his sweatpants. He was so much bigger than Betsy. It was a fight to get him out from under the steering column.