The Last Witness boh-11 Page 9

  Everything was going beyond his wildest expectations until, days shy of his eighteenth birthday, he was called into the managing editor’s office.

  The assistant city editor was there, and Mickey was convinced that this was the end of his run. But when he was shown the front page of the edition just off the presses-and the byline Michael J. O’Hara at the end of a very short article he’d researched and written-he found himself accepting a job offer as a very junior reporter.

  Then, twenty years later, looking at his proud mother seated at the front table in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, O’Hara found himself giving an acceptance speech after being awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

  He did not think life could get any better-he was being paid to do a job he loved, and one he did damn well, while helping those who couldn’t help themselves, such as the orphans and the abused stuck in the morass of Child Protective Services.

  Then, mere days after returning from New York, he was told in no uncertain terms: “Face it, Mickey, those bastards are screwing you.”

  The giant of a black man delivering this news-one Casimir J. Bolinski, Esquire-happened to serve as legal counsel and business agent to heavy-hitting professional athletes.

  Casimir “the Bull” Bolinski had also been Mickey’s coconspirator at West Catholic running Frankie the Gut’s numbers slips.

  If Mickey had given in to Dooley the Drooler, Casimir would have found himself also booted out of school-thus ending the Bull’s path to a Notre Dame scholarship and, more critically, his career playing for the Green Bay Packers. And without that high pay of pro ball, Casimir would not have been able to afford to study law in the off-seasons, then become a sports agent after retiring his helmet and shoulder pads.

  A highly successful agent, he represented the best of the best. He was ultimately earning far more off the field than he’d ever been paid to play.

  And for all that, the Bull said, “I can never adequately repay you, Mickey.”

  The Bull, however, did try-by taking him on as a client. And the post-Pulitzer Prize employment contract that Bolinski negotiated for O’Hara with “those bastards” at the Bulletin was far beyond anything Mickey thought possible. It included compensation consistent with, the Bull announced, what he found other winners of the Pulitzer were being paid, as well as a fat expense account, a new company vehicle, and more vacation days than Mickey thought he could ever use.

  The contract also included language for an exit clause-one that would prove critical.

  Roscoe Kennedy and Mickey O’Hara had been having what euphemistically could be described as “creative differences” over the treatment of Mickey’s exclusive that was about to be the Bulletin’s lead story. It was about Sergeant M. M. Payne having shot two robbers after they almost killed a couple in a restaurant parking lot. It was accompanied by a photograph O’Hara had taken of Payne-wearing a tuxedo, cell phone in one hand and.45 in the other-standing over a dead robber.

  Kennedy had written a snide “Wyatt Earp of the Main Line Shoot-Out” headline, defending it by saying that the photograph made Payne look like the bloodthirsty gunslinger he really was. O’Hara called him out for twisting the moniker Mickey had given Matt as a compliment, then for using the story in an attempt to publicly ridicule a cop who was doing his job.

  And then he punched Kennedy.

  Bolinski, who happened to witness the whole incident unfold, carried Mickey out as Kennedy yelled before the whole newsroom unflattering descriptions of O’Hara-and that he was fired.

  The contract, however, proved solid. It provided Mickey with a paid thirty-day break, one he decided to use by traveling to France. A fugitive from Philly-Fort Festung, who’d been found guilty in absentia for murdering his girlfriend and leaving her body to mummify in a trunk-was enjoying the French’s refusal to extradite anyone sentenced to death. O’Hara felt that the outrage warranted a book. He needed research, and dragged along Matt Payne, who after the shooting also found himself with time on his hands.

  When the Philly courts allowed Festung’s sentence to be reduced to life behind bars, France gave in to the extradition-and Mickey O’Hara got a picture of Sergeant M. M. Payne arresting the fugitive Festung.

  While Mickey wrote his book, the Bull found him new employment as the publisher and chief executive officer of an Internet start-up venture-CrimeFreePhilly.com-backed by very deep pockets. It not only allowed O’Hara to be in charge of doing what he did so well, it also gave him a platform and an audience far greater than anything the Bulletin ever could have. And it had allowed him to develop other news reporting properties.

  “Okay, Matty, I’ll give you the journalist’s Who, What, Where, When, and Why. Here’s the lead of my story tonight: ‘Margaret McCain, the twenty-five-year-old scion of one of Philadelphia’s founding families, remains missing tonight following what Philadelphia Police are calling a home invasion that left her Society Hill town house engulfed in flames late last night.’”

  “That’s pretty straightforward.”

  “Wait. There’s more. Last sentence of lead: ‘Police are withholding comment as to whose body was secreted from the scene after the medical examiner’s van was parked in the closed garage of the McCain residence.’”

  “Really? I hadn’t heard that detail either. That’s curious.”

  “Yeah. Curious. My source did say it was a female.”

  “Okay, look, Mickey, that reinforces something I thought. Which is (a) I agree with you that if Jason is on the case, it’s being treated as a homicide-if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, et cetera, et cetera-and (b) because Jason wants to know if we hear from Maggie-and is being quiet about it-then he’s saying that she didn’t die in her home. Other than that, I have nothing.”

  There was a long moment’s silence, then O’Hara said, “Okay. Thanks.” There was another pause, and he added, “Then who do you think it is the ME bagged and tagged?”

  “I have no idea, Mickey. I wish I did. I could call Dr. Mitchell-he has to have finished the autopsy by now. Or even Javier, his tech. They might tell me. But then that’d probably get me in hot water with Jason. He specifically told me no questions.”

  “When the hell did you start caring about getting in hot water, Matty?”

  “Hold one. I’ve got a call coming in. It may be Amanda.”

  O’Hara listened to silence as Payne checked his phone screen, then heard him say, “When it rains it pours.” O’Hara then saw movement across the street. When he looked he saw Detective Anthony Harris leaving a town house. Mickey knew Tony well, including that he’d worked in the Homicide Unit years longer than Matt’s total time with the police department.

  Bingo! Mickey thought.

  Then he heard Matt back on the phone: “Okay, Mickey, where were we?”

  “More proof it has to be a homicide,” O’Hara announced. “Harris just appeared down the street, coming out of a residence.”

  O’Hara started walking in that direction.

  “Tony!” he called out, then said into the phone, “I’ll call you back, Matty.”

  No sooner had O’Hara ended the call and slid the phone into his pocket than he saw a glow from the phone in Harris’s hand, and then Harris putting it to his head.

  O’Hara heard him say, “Hey, Matt. What’s up?”

  I’ll be damned, O’Hara thought.

  Harris made eye contact with O’Hara as he said, “That puts me in a tough position, Matt. Jason said everything goes through him. Everything. Period.”

  [THREE]

  Little Palm Island, Florida

  Sunday, November 16, 9:12 P.M.

  Matt Payne looked at the phone number of the call that had just rolled into his voice mail. It was from area code 713. He tried to place it as the voice-mail message began to play.

  “Howdy, Marshal. .”

  Jim!

  “. . If you can break free from that beautiful better half of yours, I’d appreciate you calling me. I’m following a
lead in the Miami area right now, then another up your way.” He paused, and there came an overwhelming whine, what sounded like a jet aircraft passing nearby. He then went on: “I’m giving you a heads-up, Matt. It’s gotten worse-beyond CATFU. Call me.”

  Beyond Completely And Totally Fucked Up? Payne thought.

  What the hell could that be?

  About two months earlier, Texas Rangers Sergeant James O. Byrth had come to Philadelphia-with his huge white Stetson that Payne had dubbed The Hat-hunting a vicious drug-cartel member who was trafficking in young girls, guns, and illicit drugs. Deputy Police Commissioner Coughlin had assigned Payne to work with Byrth.

  Juan Paulo “El Gato” Delgado and his ring had left a trail of dead bodies from Texas to Philadelphia-and there kidnapped Dr. Amanda Law, not knowing she was in any way connected to Payne-before a shoot-out that found Delgado dead and Amanda rescued.

  Payne regularly recalled one of the last things that Byrth had said when Payne dropped him at Philadelphia International Airport: “Come visit us in Texas, Marshal. We’ve got plenty more bad guys like Delgado. And it’s only going to get worse.”

  Payne pushed the key on-screen that read CALL BACK.

  Jim Byrth answered on the first ring.

  “Howdy, Matt. Thanks for getting back so quick. You must be sitting around bored to tears. How are things in Philly?”

  “Hey, Jim. On the contrary, I wish I was bored. Look, I may have to break off this conversation, but I wanted to at least return your call. What’s going on?”

  “I just walked out of a titty bar-”

  “Lucky you. Congratulations,” Payne interrupted, sharply sarcastic. “You called to tell me that?”

  Byrth was quiet a moment, then said, “What’s crawled up your ass, Marshal?”

  “Sorry. I am a little pissed right now.”

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  “Not right now. I have to get back to dinner. You go.”

  “Okay, I’ll make this quick. Can you run some Philly names and addresses through your system for me?”

  “Sure. What’s it in regard to?”

  “I reckon it’d be a long shot if I asked you if you knew what Pozole was,” Byrth said, and before Payne could reply, he added, “It’s a Mexican stew.”

  Payne grunted. “So you called to talk about food?”

  “You remember your buddy El Gato?” Byrth said, ignoring that.

  The Cat.

  Payne’s memory flashed with an image of a defiant Delgado, his hands and feet taped to a chair in a hellhole of a Philly row house.

  Having just found Amanda captive there and cut her free, Matt had put the muzzle of his.45 between Delgado’s eyes. He wrestled with the impulse of blowing Delgado away, if not as payback for kidnapping Amanda, then to honor all the young Hispanic girls he had raped and tortured-including cutting off the head of one teenaged Honduran. In the end, Payne had decided against “shooting them all and letting the Lord sort them out,” and allowed the Cat what turned out to be at least his ninth life.

  “Where’s this going?” Payne said. “The bastard’s dead. You saw to that.”

  You tossed a black bean at Delgado’s bound feet-then turned a blind eye when our informant put a bullet in his head.

  Not that the sonofabitch didn’t deserve what he got. Especially considering what he no doubt was going to do with Amanda, whether or not he got a ransom for her.

  You’re probably tumbling another bean across your knuckles as we speak.

  Is it white-or black?

  Byrth had told Payne, also on their way to the airport for Byrth’s flight back to Texas, about the Mier Expedition, led by Texas Ranger John Coffee Hays in the 1840s.

  Hays and Big Foot Wallace had pulled together a group to invade Mexico. South of the border, however, they found that they’d severely underestimated their target.

  They were captured.

  “The order came down to execute every tenth man,” Byrth explained.

  Black and white beans were put in a pot to determine who lived and who died. A man drawing a black bean was shot. Those who drew the white beans lived to carry the tale back to Texas.

  Byrth had then explained why he had no remorse for the informant’s “self-defense” killing of Delgado. Beyond the unspoken fact that it had been what Payne considered payback for all those whom the brutal Delgado had harmed, it also eliminated paying for courts and prisons.

  “El Gato getting himself killed saved taxpayers at least a million bucks.”

  “Los Zetas,” Byrth now explained, “makes El Gato’s little gang look like choirboys. And I may have just found evidence here in North Texas of their handiwork that I’ve witnessed in Mexico.”

  “Zetas? The former enforcers of the Gulf Cartel?”

  “Yeah. Now on their own and worse than ever. If it’s Zetas or someone copying them, it gives new meaning to ‘Don’t go digging up more snakes than you can kill.’ Ergo, CATFU.”

  “What’s worse?”

  “Liquefying young strippers-slash-hookers.”

  “What? How the hell does that happen?”

  Byrth began, “In the woods by a lake we have found a ratty camp with more than a half dozen fifty-five-gallon drums of sulfuric acid. . ”

  “And,” Byrth finished five minutes later, “Sheriff Pabody, a really good guy, showed me this titty bar’s business card he found in the trailer. It’s got a girl’s handwriting that says when quote April unquote would be working and her phone number. I’ll send you a shot of it and forward the shot that Pabody sent me of her DOT ID.”

  “That’ll work,” Matt said. “So, you went to the strip club and-”

  “Yeah. The card said she was supposed to work there just these last three nights.”

  “And let me guess-nobody knew nothing.”

  “‘Nada,’ as it’s said in ol’ Ess-pan-yole. It took me some time to get anyone to even admit they could speak English. Finally I was handed a napkin with a phone number written on it. When I called, sounded like a white guy who answered. Identified himself as Todd Lincoln and said that he was the owner of the club. And he of course offered to cooperate completely. He might have some local Dallas cops bought to look the other direction but knows that I can really bring in the heat.”

  “And?”

  “And what else? I got the usual BS runaround. Anyone can get ahold of those cards and write whatever they want on them. He said he would ask his managers about any girls named April. ‘But it’s probably a stage name, if she exists at all.’”

  “And since you don’t know what she looks like. .”

  Byrth’s mind flashed with what was left of the face of the girl in the barrel.

  “Not unless she’s the one pictured on the ID. Even showing everyone in the titty bar that image blown up on my phone I came up with zilch.”

  Matt felt his phone vibrate once.

  “Well,” he said quickly, clearly trying to wind up the conversation, “send those to me, and I’ll get them right up to Philly.”

  “‘Up to Philly’? Where are you?”

  “In the Keys with Amanda. But some shit’s just hit the fan, so I don’t know what’s next.”

  “Is she okay?”

  Matt could hear genuine concern in the Texan’s deep voice.

  “Thanks, man. She’s fine. Someone we know is missing after her house was firebombed last night.”

  “Damn. I’m sorry. I won’t hold you up any longer. Get back to me when you can.”

  “Will do.”

  “Good luck, Marshal.”

  “You, too, Jim.”

  Matt broke off the call, then checked the screen:

  AMANDA 9:22 PM

  WHERE ARE YOU? WE NEED TO TALK.

  Oh shit, he thought as he typed: “Meet in bar?”

  Is this good or bad?

  Either way, I’ll need a drink.

  Then maybe we can get back to dinner. . and everything else.

  He hit SEND, and another mes
sage box popped on-screen:

  BYRTH 9:23 PM

  GOOD HEARING YOUR VOICE. IMAGES FOLLOW.

  GIVE AMANDA A KISS FOR ME. TAKE CARE OF HER. . LADIES LIKE THAT ARE RARE INDEED.

  As Matt smiled and nodded appreciatively, his phone vibrated twice. Each of the messages contained only an image. He studied the Hacienda business card, then the girl’s Department of Transportation ID.

  Beautiful girl. .

  Hazzard Street? That’s in Kensington.

  He hit the FORWARD key, found Tony Harris’s phone number, and typed: “Our brother-in-arms the Texas Ranger needs whatever we can find out about this girl. Can you have someone run it ASAP? Maybe Kerry Rapier can crack it open beyond the obvious. Thanks.”

  The girl’s bright eyes seemed to stare out at him as his finger touched the SEND key and the image went away.

  He then looked out past the palm trees and the groomed white sand beach to the Atlantic Ocean, and the majestic moon and blanket of stars above it. The wind was picking up. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the cleansing feel of the salty air, then exhaled and shook his head.

  So much beauty in this world. And so much hell.

  You never know what’s coming next.

  As Amanda’s friend Carl Crantz said just before his lungs gave out: “Live every day like it’s your last.”

  He turned and started to walk up the tiki-torch-lined path toward the bar. Another message came in with an image.

  A third?

  He read it:

  BYRTH 9:23 PM

  MATT, THIS IS IT FOR NOW. FIGURED YOU NEEDED TO SEE WHAT WE’RE DEALING WITH. GOT THIS FROM THE SCENE.

  FWD: GLENN PABODY 8:03 PM

  JIM. . HERE’S THE LAST IMAGE.

  And then he tapped the image.

  “Oh shit!” he blurted.

  He stopped and stared at the photograph of the acid-burned teenage girl’s face looking up from inside a blue barrel.

  [FOUR]

  Love Field Airport, Dallas

  Sunday, November 16, 8:55 P.M. Texas Standard Time

  The manager of Lone Star Aviation Services-a tall man in his late thirties, with almost a military buzz haircut and dressed in slacks, well-shined brown loafers, knit shirt, and a brown leather A-2 flight jacket-walked with purpose over to the medium-dark-skinned man who stood stiffly, hands on his hips, staring out the bank of windows that overlooked the busy airfield.