The Last Witness boh-11 Read online

  “Those beautiful women who got off the plane?” he said. “Where did they go?”

  A busboy appeared at the table and whisked away the empty glasses. Immediately behind him was their waitress with fresh drinks.

  Garcia and Santos exchanged glances.

  “Interesting that you asked, Rapp,” Garcia said, and pulled out his cell phone. He started thumbing a text.

  “They went to join others at the hotel across the street,” Santos said. “They’re in the hospitality industry, usually working with the casinos and hotels. What’s called Guest Services.”

  I knew it! Badde thought smugly.

  The casino was why the plane stopped in New Orleans!

  “Bobby’s having a few who’ve been in town awhile come join us. Some are from the Ukraine, some from Belarus. They’re all in the States as seasonal workers.”

  “They came on those H-something visas?”

  “Yeah,” Santos lied.

  V

  [ONE]

  Slip F-18

  Little Palm Island, Florida

  Monday, November 17, 6:17 A.M.

  Matt Payne was in the galley of the Viking Sport Fisherman, sipping coffee while standing before his laptop computer that was on the black granite countertop. Within reach were the coffeepot and a large bowl of fresh fruit. The peels of two bananas were beside the computer. From his digital music player, he had the sound system speakers overhead cranking out island tunes from his Pirate Playlist.

  He yawned, then rubbed his eyes.

  Almost two hours earlier, in Cabana Two, the spacious palm-thatched seaside room Amanda had chosen, Matt had suddenly awakened from a sound sleep. He stared at the ceiling fan, his mind spinning faster than the fan blades as he tried to make a complete list of everything he had to do before they were to board Chad Nesbitt’s Learjet at Key West International around noon.

  He had yawned then, and when he checked his watch, he was not surprised that it showed it was four-thirty.

  I’m lucky I got that much sleep.

  It had been right at midnight, after he and Amanda and Chad finally had had dinner, that Matt had stripped to his boxer shorts and crawled into the king-sized bed.

  Amanda was taking her time in the bath. Considering how the evening had played out, especially with Amanda being upset, Matt decided that there was absolutely no chance in hell of there being anything resembling romance-not to mention carnal intimacy. He told himself that he would not be surprised if Amanda came to bed wearing worn-out sweatpants, a baggy wife-beater T-shirt, a towel wrapped around her hair, and her face, neck, and upper chest smeared with a thick therapeutic coating of eucalyptus-scented cream-plus maybe thick slices of cucumber to soothe her puffy eyelids.

  Accordingly, he had set the alarm on his cell phone for five-thirty, then turned onto his side at the edge of the bed and, yawning deeply as he closed his eyes, buried his head in the soft goose-down pillow.

  When some minutes later he felt behind him the bedsheet being raised, and then the weight of Amanda and her twenty gallons of face cream sinking in, he was surprised that she continued sliding across the big bed toward him, her gentle, wonderful fragrance torturing him.

  And then he was even more surprised when he felt on his back not only the warmth of her body as she began spooning with him-he always grinned when she said she liked to sometimes be the “big spoon”-but also the warm soft touch of her completely bare skin.

  Then, nuzzling her nose into his neck, she kissed him.

  What she began next had not stopped for a solid hour.

  It was amazingly passionate, he had thought, sitting up and admiring her peaceful form beside him beneath the sheet, as if she was afraid it might be the last time it ever happened.

  I should stick around and see what happens later.

  Should-but my mind won’t stop racing.

  Then, on the bedside table, his cell phone vibrated once but did not light up, which told him he had received an e-mail message.

  He knew it would be futile trying to drift back to sleep. Not wanting to awaken Amanda by lying there tossing and turning, he’d decided to go to the boat and bang out on his laptop the list of things to do, then start knocking them out, with catching up on e-mails at the top.

  He pulled on khaki shorts and a new T-shirt-an orange one that had stenciled in black: CONCH REPUBLIC CLUB FED, A GATED COMMUNITY, YOU MUST BE INDICTED TO BE INVITED-grabbed his phone and pistol, then, barefoot, slipped out of the cabana.

  The sixty-one-foot Viking was essentially a floating mobile condominium, self-contained and self-supporting. It had four large staterooms, each with a queen-sized bed and its own private head that included a stand-up shower. Its heavy-duty generators ran everything from the vast array of electronics (TVs, microwave oven, communications equipment) to the hot water heaters and washer/dryer, the air conditioners, even the desalination machine that daily could turn a hundred gallons of raw salt water into drinkable charcoal-filtered freshwater.

  Matt had been impressed that the Viking also had its own Internet system, including Wi-Fi. Like the television signal, the Internet signal was provided by a satellite antenna. It was a separate, portable antenna about the size of one of the Travis McGee hardback novels he’d found onboard.

  But more like a science fiction novel, considering what all it does.

  Connected to a computer, the antenna hooked up from almost anywhere in the world with one of a dozen space-age birds that Inmarsat-for International Maritime Satellite-had in geostationary orbit twenty-two thousand miles above earth. Connection to the Internet usually took about three minutes. It was remarkably fast, though depending on various factors, such as weather, it could deteriorate to, at best, half the speed of a normal land-based connection.

  But when at sea or sitting at anchor in some remote island cove, Matt knew that it was a helluva lot better than nothing.

  Now tied up at the dock, the vessel had everything provided by shore lines. There were ones for electricity and for freshwater and for cable television and the Internet and more, leaving nothing to want.

  I think I really could live on this boat, Matt thought. Maybe take up salvage work like Travis, which would be an interesting twist to what I’m already doing.

  Wish I’d given the boat the really good shakedown cruise I wanted.

  But the sooner we find Maggie McCain, the sooner I can. .

  As the pot of coffee brewed, the first e-mail Payne read was the one that had come in right after he’d bolted awake. It was from Corporal Kerry Rapier, a twenty-five-year-old blue shirt in the department’s Science amp; Technology section, which included Information Systems, Forensic Sciences, and Communications divisions. While Rapier was small in physical stature-some said impossibly so, causing doubt that he was actually old enough to be an officer, let alone a four-year veteran-Rapier was a genuine wizard with high tech. Which explained why he had been given the reins of the multi-million-dollar war room-the Executive Command Center-on the third floor of the Roundhouse.

  The ECC could hold nearly a hundred law enforcement officers representing-depending on what quantity of proverbial fecal matter was hitting the fan at the time-the PPD, the State Police, the FBI and DHS and Secret Service, and Interpol. Its walls of large flat-screen TVs were linked to computer servers that accessed the department’s vast databases as well as tying into endless layers of real-time communication equipment, from the closed-circuit surveillance cameras mounted citywide to any digital device worldwide that could produce and send a video or audio signal.

  The pop-up window filling Matt’s laptop screen showed:

  From: ‹[email protected]›

  Date: 17NOV 0434

  To: SGT M.M. Payne ‹[email protected]›

  Subject: MCCAIN, Margaret

  Attachments: 4

  Good morning, Marshal. .

  I got the amended e-mail from Lieutenant Washington on who to patch in for the video conference call at 0700. Glad
to see your name added to the list. Was wondering where you were.

  Am sending you some backgrounder information on the case.

  There’s more, but it’s really just more of the same, and I can’t send it right now because there are technical problems with the ECC.

  Had to get here early — trying to make sure the bugs I’m working out stay out. I’ve learned the hard way that electronics do not like budget cuts.

  Anyway, be sure to link in via the department’s encrypted VPN Tier-1AA gateway. Maybe there’s enough money for the department to make the rent on that.

  Also, I got from Tony Harris that DOT non-driver ID you wanted run. The Cusick girl only had two hits, both fines for personal possession of less than 30 grams of marijuana. She paid $200 for the first bust last year, and $300 for the second a couple months ago.

  The Hazzard address in Kensington blew up with all kinds of hits, though. Mostly drug-related. So I drove past it on the way home last night, and then the hits made sense. It’s a flophouse called New Hope. It was locked down for the night — the roll-up steel doors over the windows and front door closed so tight that a couple crackheads who’d shown up too late were sleeping on the stoop.

  I hate to think why a good-looking girl like that would have to be at a place like that.

  Anyway, I was going to go back by there today and look around, then let you know.

  KR

  Payne sipped at his coffee as he thought, Because, sad to say, she was probably a hooker.

  He then went to the attachments. He scrolled through them quickly at first, then went back and read them more carefully, hoping to find what he thought he had missed by scanning them.

  He didn’t.

  Mostly dead damn ends.

  And Kerry saying there’s just more of the same isn’t exactly encouraging.

  The crime-scene report was there. It detailed what he’d already learned, adding little. When he read Dr. Mitchell’s report on the autopsy of the Gonzalez girl, he was surprised to learn something new: that the medical examiner had determined the cause of death to be from two.22 rounds fired into her brain from behind her ear.

  That certainly means something-something beyond that she got whacked-but what exactly?

  There’s a rock under that rock to look under. . just hope under it isn’t another dead end. Have to see what, if anything, ballistics comes up with.

  And the files on the two missing female case workers at West Philadelphia Sanctuary were as thorough as possible-though the investigations offered no clear clue as to what could have possibly caused their disappearance.

  Short of the obvious: “I’m sick of dealing with a frustrating, thankless job-I’m never coming back.”

  They were just hardworking people putting in their time, hoping at the end of the day they made a difference in some kid’s life.

  And there really was no information on Maggie McCain, except for the blind text she sent saying she was fine. She really had left no trail to follow.

  These could easily turn into cold cases. .

  Shaking his head in frustration, he created a folder on his desktop, named it McCAIN.CASE, then dragged all the files into it. Then he transferred from his phone to his laptop the images that Jim Byrth had sent him, created another folder that he named BYRTH.LIQUID.MURDERS, and dragged them into it.

  He looked back at Kerry’s e-mail, copied the paragraph about what he had found out on the ID, then went to his personal e-mail and created a new e-mail:

  From: MP ‹[email protected]›

  Date: 17NOV 0434

  To: Tex ‹[email protected]›

  Subject: Update on CUSICK, Elizabeth

  Jim. .

  Below is what I got from Kerry Rapier on your mystery girl. Will send more when I get it.

  Matt then pasted in the e-mail the short text, put it in italics, then clicked on the button that was an icon of a carrier pigeon.

  Okay, on to what’s next on the to-do list: arranging for what happens with this boat and my new toy.

  As Matt was pouring more coffee not two minutes later, his cell phone rang.

  When he saw the caller ID, he wasn’t surprised.

  He muted the music from the overhead speakers and answered the phone: “And how are things this morning in the Wild West?”

  “Bigger in Texas and better than everywhere else,” Jim Byrth answered. “I was going to say something about how impressed I was that you were getting such an early start, but it just occurred to me that your time zone is an hour ahead.”

  “I’ve been up for two hours.”

  “Okay. Then that makes us even. I can’t speak for you, but first thing I did this morning was map out that Cusick girl’s address. It’s a shithole row house, almost identical to that condemned one we found El Gato holed up in-”

  With Amanda tied up. . but being a decent guy he’s not going to pick off that scab.

  “-which is not far away, the only apparent difference being this place on Hazzard is actually habitable.”

  “Depends on how you define ‘habitable.’ There’s easily sixty, seventy flophouses like that in Kensington alone. They’re moving up from Fishtown and NoLibs, pretty much following the outpatient drug clinics. ‘The Bottom’-Frankford, in the Fifteenth District-is getting hammered. Twenty-fourth District is overrun. Just hundreds of them.”

  “No shit? Tell me what a flophouse is in Philadelphia. I know what one is in Texas-an old hotel packed with vagrants.”

  “Sort of the same thing here. If someone running a flophouse could find a hotel in Philly to turn it into one, they’d probably fill, too. They are cash cows.”

  “How so? Vagrants tend to be broke.”

  “Simple. There’s a serious shortage of places for the really poor to live. The so-called luckier ones can get in with the Philadelphia Housing Authority. But there’s easily fifty thousand people on the PHA waitlist. And you’d better be a married couple-or at least a single mom or grandmother-without so much as a parking ticket if you expect to be anywhere near the front of the line. For those who can’t and are in Al-Anon and Nar-Anon, the city’s Office of Addiction Services throws money at some licensed drug recovery houses. But those are few, and overflowing, too, leaving independent flophouses to fill the void.”

  “These flophouses actually offer Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings?”

  “They pretend to-so they can draw the addicts in with their welfare checks. The worst ones are basically no more than old row houses with a bunch of makeshift bunks-just nasty mattresses on frames of two-by-fours. They’re supposed to get boardinghouse permits from L amp;I-the city’s Licenses and Inspections Department-but most thumb their nose at that. They don’t want to be on L amp;I’s radar because they’re shady operators to start with. So at four, five hundred bucks a month, it’s a place to crash for those fighting a futile battle. . and to eventually crash and burn.”

  “What about hookers?”

  “Oh yeah. Ones who, if they’re not trying to kick their habit then they’re probably hiding from their pimps. Or all of the above. Hate to say it, but that’s what this Cusick girl is looking like. Not the first, and not the last.”

  Byrth grunted. “Lots of pretty girls out there making poor choices.”

  After a long moment, Payne said, in a lighter tone of voice, “Well, the silver lining to pretty girls making poor choices is you’ve got a chance at a date. I suggest you not be too picky.”

  “Great,” Byrth said, drawing out the word, his tone sharply sarcastic. “Girls are being boiled down in drums of acid and you’re a damn comedian.” He paused, then exhaled audibly. “But, you know, you’re right. All we can do is hunt down the bad guys, and try to find some humor somewhere.” He paused again, then added, “Tell you what, Marshal. .”

  “What?”

  “I think I’m going to make you my sexual adviser.”

  “Wait. Your what? That’s BS-”

  “No, really. You can be my sexual ad
viser-as in, when I want your fucking advice, I’ll ask for it.”

  Payne laughed out loud. “Deal.”

  “Anyway, how long are you going to be in the Keys?”

  “Unfortunately, we’re headed back to Philadelphia today. In a few hours. One of the main reasons I was up early was to work on the missing person case that I mentioned to you last night. Maggie McCain is her name.”

  “Why unfortunately?”

  “It’s not looking like there’s going to be a happy ending. Maggie runs a place for kids in Child Protective Services. I just found out two other women from another CPS place went missing last week. Anyway, if I can, I’ll go with Kerry this afternoon and check out the flophouse.”

  Byrth was quiet for a moment, then said, “I haven’t had one of those cheesesteak sandwiches in a while. I’ll meet you there.”

  [TWO]

  Over the Leeward Islands, Lesser Antilles

  Monday, November 17, 6:50 A.M.

  “Then Ricky, he showed up at the Sanctuary,” Krystal Gonzalez was saying as Maggie McCain watched her pacing the living room of Maggie’s Society Hill town house.

  She stopped and began crying again.

  “And then he grabbed Brandi, said she still owed him money, so that meant he owned her. Ms. Quan yelled for Ms. Spencer to call the cops. And Ricky, he said that that would be their last mistake ever.”

  The curvy, petite nineteen-year-old anxiously ran her fingers through her black hair. A very slender doe-eyed twenty-six-year-old woman of Asian descent, who stood about as tall as Krystal, appeared. She stroked Krystal’s head and said meekly, “Brandi begged us not to call.”

  A tall, sad-faced twenty-seven-year-old black woman walked up, nodding. “Said he’d kill us all. Burn down the Sanctuary.”

  “Lizzi and Brandi were afraid of the cops, that they’d arrest them, too,” Krystal said. She pointed across the room. “All they wanted was out.”

  Maggie looked to where Krystal pointed. The two attractive twenty-year-old blondes were standing there.