The Girl at the Deep End of the Lake

by Sam Lee Jackson

  “We all have big badges,” she said. “I ran your girl by Missing Persons. They don’t have anything on her.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Not unusual. A lot of the families of these street girls are happy they are grown up enough to go away.”

  “It takes a gang to raise a child.”

  “Yeah, something like that. I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  I thanked her and hung up. I lay the phone on the seat beside me and it began to vibrate again. I picked it up.

  “Hello.”

  “Frank Bavaro is a senior partner in a Phoenix law firm, Phelps, Gutierrez and Tamoso,” the Colonel said without preamble. “But I had already told you that. Office is in the Esplanade, 24th and Camelback. You will never find him there. If he owns property in Arizona it’s not in his name. Best I can find is that he only has one client, the Kamex Corporation out of Mexico City. It’s a multi-national company that has holdings in dozens of smaller companies, mostly in the Americas. Mostly construction. The dirty little secret that everyone knows is that it is a front for the Dos Hermanos drug cartel, but you would never be able to prove it. Dos Hermanos is one of the two largest cartels in the California and southwest area. They have been known to use MS13 as their hired guns. Bavaro is an untouchable, protected by layers of subordinates between him and the brothers.”

  “Who is the other cartel?”

  “It is run by the Valdez family. This is a real shadow outfit. Not much known about it.”

  “Is there any motive for him to ice the girl?”

  “Mr. Bavaro is married to east coast society and gets a lot of political protection because of it. But it appears it is mostly a marriage of convenience. If Bavaro wanted a girl he could snap his fingers.”

  “The wife’s name’s Romy Grandberry?”

  “I won’t ask how you know that. Grandberry’s old east coast. Ambassadors, senators, old money.”

  “Thanks for the info.”

  “Be careful,” he said and the phone disconnected.

  I laid the phone on the console and headed for the freeway. I stopped and shopped for groceries, and when I got to the marina I found the Moneypenny all buttoned up. I was stepping on board the Tiger Lily when I heard my name.

  “Hey Jackson!”

  I looked to the lake side of the boat and there was Captain Rand Crowe. Rand was a guide for hire and sometime Captain of the River Belle. The River Belle was a huge two-story boat that was owned and used by one of the large tech companies in town. When MicroSensor wasn’t using it, they rented it out for weddings and such.

  Rand was tall and lanky with parched and tanned skin that comes only from years in the sun. I guessed he was in his fifties, but he was sun dried and would probably look like this the rest of his life. He sat in his twenty foot runabout, the one he used for private guides. I met him a year ago when he came alongside me and demanded to know who I was and why was I following him. I told him who I was and I was following him because every time I fished where he fished I caught fish. He had thought I was a competitor. Next time I saw him I gave him a case of Dos Equis. We have been friends since and once in a while I’ll crew for him when his normal kid can’t make it.

  “Captain Rand. How you doing?”

  “Fair to middlin’. Hey, they just pulled a girl’s body out of the water across the lake.”

  I looked across the lake where he was indicating and could see the flashing red and blue lights of police cars by the shoreline. There was a Sheriff’s Lake Patrol boat sitting off in the water with its lights flashing.

  I felt like the bottom of my stomach had fallen.

  “I went over to see what was goin’ on and was talkin’ with one of the sheriff’s lake guys,” he continued. “And this lady cop came up and asked him if he knew anyone named Jackson that lived out here. Maybe I shouldn’t have opened my pie hole but I said I knew you and she asked me to come over and invite you to the party.”

  “Lady cop?”

  “Yeah, hope I didn’t cause you a problem. You gonna come?”

  “Sure. Give me a ride?”

  “Sure, hop in.”

  “Let me stick the milk in the frig.” A moment later I was on the stern.

  Rand maneuvered the skiff in close and I hopped down into it. Ignoring the no-wake zone, he put the throttle down, and in seconds we were skimming across the water. A minute later he roared past the no wake signs on the other side and came ripping into the shoreline. At the last second he cut the throttle and came gliding into the shore. Five feet out, he hit reverse and braked us to a gentle bump as we hit the ground.

  It was Detective Boyce. There were several crime scene people there, plus the coroner’s office and Lake Patrol. Various spectators were sprinkled along the shoreline. She was standing next to an ambulance gurney that had a covered body on it. She watched us come into the shoreline, then walked over when I jumped from the boat onto the shore. She wore a tailored suit that almost hid the pistol on her hip. She was wearing her great big badge on her belt where it gleamed as she walked. She had on aviator sunglasses and you couldn’t see her eyes, just the reflection of yourself.

  “Detective Boyce,” I said.

  “Seems like you are known around here.”

  “Looks like a big lake but it’s not.” I indicated the gurney, “Is that my girl?”

  “Take a look,” she said. I followed her over.

  I put my hand out to pull the cover back. “It’s not pretty,” she said. “Been in the water a while.”

  I hesitated a brief second, then pulled the cover back.

  It wasn’t Lucinda.

  For just a second I thought it was Melinda, the young mother at Safehouse. Small like her, the facial features pretty well gone. This one had been in the water a while. There were marks where the turtles had worked on her. Her hair was plastered against the small skull and one of her ears was missing.

  “You know her?” Boyce asked.

  I shook my head, “Should I?”

  “I’ve been a cop a long time,” she said. “Too long to believe in coincidences. Two girls in the same lake in the same week. I tried to call you.”

  I pulled my phone out and it showed a missed call. I showed her the number. “That you?”

  She took it and looked at it, nodded and handed it back to me.

  “Sorry, I didn’t hear it. You mind if I take a picture?”

  “Fine,” she said. “You got any idea about these girls?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Who is the picture for?”

  “Do you know Father Correa at Safehouse?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Good guy.” She studied me for a moment then said, “Don’t get in the way.” She turned and walked over to some of the other policemen and started talking with them. I took some pictures with the phone then waited for a couple minutes. I could see Captain Rand was getting antsy.

  When she looked at me again I said, “Anything else?”

  She shook her head. “Stay in touch,” she said.

  17

  It was two in the morning and Blackhawk, Nacho, the singer Elena and I sat in the main bar of El Patron. We were drinking coffee. Elena was sipping a tiny glass of Grand Marnier. Her sips were so genteel I wasn’t sure the stuff actually touched her lips.

  The place was closed. I had stopped at the storage locker I rented, located just a short distance from the marina, and retrieved a Mossberg 500 shotgun, a Remington model 870 shotgun and an automatic weapon, a Spikes tactical compressor SBR-300, An AK styled weapon with sound suppression. When it is fired it sounds like someone spitting. They were on the bar along with ammunition. Like every weapon I had, they were untraceable.

  “Looks like you have everything except your white horse,” Blackhawk said.

  “You don’t have oats,” I said.

  “White horse? You have a white horse?” Elena asked.

  Blackhawk laughed. “He thinks he’s a Knight of the Round Table. Sir Gawain, or Lancelot.” />
  Elena looked puzzled, “Who?”

  “King Arthur,” Nacho said. “You know, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  Nacho snorted, “You never heard of King Arthur? Where the hell have you been?”

  “In Mexico asshole. You ever heard of Octavio Paz?”

  Blackhawk laughed again.

  Nacho shook his head, “He a fighter?”

  “Nacho, you need to let it go. You’re in over your head,” Blackhawk said. He turned to me, “When we going in?”

  I looked at my watch. “In an hour, sound right?”

  “I don’t know if I like this,” Elena said.

  “If someone asked you who you were? What makes you tick, what would you say?” Blackhawk asked.

  “I’m a singer,” she said. “It’s what I do.”

  “This is what we do,” he said.

  “What do I do?” Nacho asked.

  “You are Sancho Panza,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “Never mind,” Blackhawk said and drank some more coffee.

  An hour later, with Nacho driving and Blackhawk in the front passenger seat and me in the back, we parked Nacho’s Jeep a block away from the Diablo’s warehouse in the shadows of an alley behind an old machine shop. We all wore dark hazmat one piece coveralls, rubber soled shoes with cloth booties and we had rubber surgical gloves on. We each had a dark blue stocking cap which we could pull down to a ski mask. We were watching the line of the roof top of the warehouse. The streets were empty and deserted. There was enough residual glow from the streetlights to illuminate the top of the warehouse. There was no movement.

  Nacho and I had the shotguns, Blackhawk the SBR-300. Nacho and I pumped a round into the chamber, then we moved quietly along the fence line of the machine shop yard. As we got closer to the warehouse I could see a dark SUV parked across the street from the warehouse.

  “Empty,” Blackhawk said softly. We stood for several minutes in the shadows watching the vehicle. Finally Blackhawk was satisfied and he moved toward the shadows of the building. We followed. He led us around to the back. There was a landing with a door. There was an overhead light but there was no bulb in it. Blackhawk pulled a small cylindrical combat light from his pocket and held it cupped in his hand so that just a thin sliver of light escaped. He put the light on the lock.

  Nacho was staring at the lighted lock and Blackhawk whispered, “Don’t look at the light. You’ll be night blind. You watch behind us.” Nacho turned. I pulled a small pick kit from my pocket. The lock was an old standard Yale dead bolt. I had it open in less than fifteen seconds. I pushed the door open and followed it moving to my left, shotgun ready. Blackhawk came in and moved to the other side. The door had opened to a large echoing room. Blackhawk shined the light around. It was completely empty. The only things in the room were old cigarette butts and dirt. Thirty feet across was a doorway with no door. Blackhawk’s light showed a staircase landing.

  I looked back out the door and Nacho was still standing, watching the way we had come. I whistled softly and he turned. I touched the cheap walkie-talkie I had clipped to my belt. We all had one.

  “You on channel eight?” I asked softly.

  He nodded.

  “If someone comes, click the talk button twice, then wait five seconds and do it again. One of us will click back.” I looked around. “Stay over there up against the wall in the shadows.” He nodded and moved off. I went back in. Blackhawk was across the room in the stairway. I moved up beside him.

  The warehouse was only three stories high, so the first set of stairs led to a landing, then turned and went up to the next landing.

  “You cover,” I said. Blackhawk squatted down against the wall and covered the top of the stairs. I went up two at a time, then covered while he came up behind me. At the top of the next set of stairs was a door. I started to move up when…

  BAM BAM, then BAM BAM again! Gunfire exploded behind the closed door at the top. Instinctively Blackhawk and I dropped to a crouch, covering the top of the stairs. It sounded like just one weapon. Whoever it was, they weren’t shooting at us. Suddenly the door at the top flew open, slapping against the wall, and with a high keening sound, a slight figure fell through the lighted doorway. Blackhawk had the light lined up with his weapon and it was a girl. She tried to make the stairs but couldn’t do it and tumbled down. I tried to catch her. She landed at my feet. Blackhawk put the light on her. She had been shot in the head. Her hair was matted with blood. She was gone. I had never seen her before. There was a sound behind us and Blackhawk almost shot Nacho as he came up the stairs behind us.

  “Shit, man!” Blackhawk exploded. “I told you to cover our backs.”

  “I thought you were in trouble,” Nacho said.

  “Go back and cover us. Me and Jackson got this.” Nacho headed back down the stairs.

  I laid the girl’s body down, her blood slick on my rubber gloves. I wiped what blood I could on my coveralls so my hands wouldn’t slip on the shotgun. Blackhawk had the light and his weapon on the doorway and I went up, moving rapidly, flat against the wall. While I covered the door, Blackhawk came up. The room was lit and I went across the doorway to the other side. I could see bodies on the floor. With Blackhawk in place, I squatted low and looked into the room for a target. Someone watching the door would be watching head high. Being low gives you another half second of reaction time. Nothing moved. When I didn’t react to anything, Blackhawk peered around the door jamb, then looked at me and shook his head.

  “On three,” I said in a low voice. “One, two” and we moved simultaneously into the room. There was some kind of hip hop music coming out of a speaker in the back. There was a very large screen TV, a pool table, a foosball table, several couches, and a mini-kitchen with stove, microwave, refrigerator and a long table with metal chairs.

  There were three bodies. One of a girl sprawled in front of the couch and two men on the floor by the TV. The girl wasn’t Lucinda. The girl had been shot center chest. Both men in the head. One of the men had a handgun lying beside him. The other had a nine in his pants. I looked at their faces. Not Roland. Not the two guys that dumped Lucinda in the lake.

  We moved carefully to the three doors that opened up from this room. All the doors were open and all the bedrooms were empty. A hallway led back to a utility room that opened into a back stairs. There was no door and we listened for a long time. There was no sound. We went back into the main room.

  Blackhawk looked at me, “Four shots,” he said.

  “Four shots,” I agreed.

  “Shooter was good. Four targets not close together. Three head shots and a center chest.”

  I nodded. The shooter was good.

  Blackhawk was looking closely at the head wound of one of the men. He gently lifted his head and looked at the back. He gently returned the man’s head to the original position.

  “Most likely a .22 caliber. Probably a long. Might have been a target pistol.”

  “Unusual for a gangbanger.”

  Blackhawk nodded, “Guy was good.”

  “Or girl,” I said.

  He smiled at me, “Or girl.”

  I stood very quietly and studied the room, letting everything in. Trying to absorb every detail. I had been trained for it and I had a knack for it. Dirty dishes, filled ashtrays, beer cans and pizza cartons tossed in a corner. Smells of cigarettes and dope. Marijuana and crack. A regular playground.

  Blackhawk took the walkie-talkie off his belt. “Nacho,” he said into it.

  There was a crackling sound, then Nacho’s tinny voice, “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk in these things.”

  Blackhawk ignored him, “Where are you at?”

  “Where you told me,” Nacho said.

  “Go to the corner and look in the street at that SUV that was parked there. Is it still there?”

  There was a moment, then Nacho’s voice. “It’s gone,” he said.

&n
bsp; Blackhawk looked at me, “You get the license number?”

  “YLT something.”

  “1410,” he finished. “You outta shape?”

  “Probably,” I said.

  That’s when I saw it. I walked around the kitchen table and picked up the book of matches from the floor. Pleasant Harbor on the cover.

  Blackhawk was watching me. “Still bored, Kemo Sabe?”

  18

  It was after five by the time we had returned to El Patron, dumped my gear and weapons, and I drove the Mustang back to the warehouse. The streets were just coming alive with the early morning shift. It was still pitch black. This time of year it didn’t get light until closer to 7. I parked in a conspicuous place in front and made my way to the back. I went up the stairs silently and on edge. Someone might have come back in the thirty minutes I’d been gone.

  I passed the dead girl on the stairs and carefully entered the room. Nothing had changed. The room had taken on an old familiar odor of drying blood. I read somewhere that it smelled like freshly sheared copper. How they knew that I wouldn’t know. Smelled like drying blood to me and I had smelled a lot of that.

  I carefully looked around. Satisfied, I took out my new cell phone and redialed Boyce’s number. She answered on the third ring.

  “Hello,” she said, her voice full of sleep.

  “Detective Boyce,” I said. “It’s Jackson. I’m sorry to call so early.”

  “That’s okay,” she said. “I had to get up to answer the fucking phone anyway.”

  “I’m at the Diablo’s warehouse. It’s full of dead people.”

  There was a short silence on the other end, then, “What? Wait, hold on.” I could hear a rustling over the phone. “Okay, I’m awake now. What the hell did you just say?”

  “The warehouse where the Playboy Diablos hang out. I came looking for Lucinda and what I found was a bunch of dead bodies.”

  There was a deep silence on the other end, then, “You think this is funny?”

  “Not a joke. Two girls and two guys. Each’s been shot. Not Lucinda, I just found them.”

  “Okay, okay,” her voice was urgent now. “What you do is nothing. Nothing. Don’t move, don’t touch anything, don’t move anything, just stand still, you hear me?”