‘Wait.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Does that mean you found her? Or didn’t?’
‘It doesn’t matter, Claudia.’
‘You found her.’
‘Found and lost,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?’
‘What does that mean? She ran away from you again?’ Then she said, softly, ‘Did you kill Paul Bellini?’
‘No.’
‘You can tell me if you did, Whit. It’s okay…’
He crossed his arms, gave her a crooked smile. ‘And why is it okay if I killed Bellini? Because he was scum?’
‘I didn’t say it was okay if you killed him. I said it was okay if you told me.’
‘I absolutely didn’t kill him. Neither did Gooch.’
‘What really happened to Gooch?’
‘Gooch can tell you all about it,’ Whit said, ‘on that long drive home.’
‘And you’re doing what? Staying in Houston to play high noon with Bucks?’
‘Thanks for the coffee, but it’s visiting time.’ He stood up and walked away. If Gooch was conscious, now was the time to get their stories straight, whispering to each other under the hum of the medical equipment.
‘Jose Peron’s mother was killed two years ago,’ Vernetta Westbrook said. Claudia sat across from her in the hospital cafeteria, sipping coffee. ‘He was once on the fringes of the Miami drug trade, a guy who didn’t deal anything harder than pot, but after her murder he started taking on the dirty jobs no one else wanted and he accelerated up through the ranks.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Does Judge Mosley know Peron? His Honor like to snort a little coke?’
‘No. Tell me about the mother’s death. Was she dealing?’
‘It’s the kind of story the drug czar tells to boost budgets,’ Vernetta said. ‘Mrs Peron was a high-school drama teacher. Staged Shakespeare in the Projects with underprivileged kids, did volunteer work, well-loved in the community. She walked into a drug deal going down in the school lot. She told the boys to get the hell off school property. They shot her four times.’
‘They catch the guys?’
‘The suspects – two of them, both eighteen – were found floating two days later near the very busy Bahia Mar marina in Fort Lauderdale. Shot in the head.
Dumped rather publicly, the police thought, to make a statement.’
Claudia’s eyes widened. ‘Jose Peron killed them.’
‘He had an airtight alibi. But I talked with the Broward County DA’s office and they believe the guys were offed as a favor to Jose. Then Jose began his heavier involvement in the organization. It’s headed by a guy named Kiko Grace. We got an anonymous tip today that his body was ready and waiting for us, in a leased condo near downtown.’
‘So Peron’s boss is here and dies around the same time as Paul Bellini.’ Claudia felt cold. God, Whit, did you… No. She could not believe it of him.
‘Your judge isn’t saying much more than what you told us. That he hired Chyme to find his mother, that he hasn’t found his mother, and that his friend Guchinski had nothing to do with Paul Bellini’s death. He either is lying or he really doesn’t know. Which is it, Claudia?’
‘I’m not a mind reader. If he says he doesn’t know, I have to believe him.’
‘I don’t,’ Vernetta said. ‘I don’t have to believe him at all. We’ll invite him for a long leisurely chat for hours on end.’
‘You won’t convince one judge to sign a warrant to arrest a fellow judge without hard cause.’
Vernetta shook her head. ‘Mosley’s a rural JP, not even a lawyer. He’s nothing to the judges here.’
‘Why don’t you drag in Greg Buckman again? He was friends with Bellini, and Peron and Grace must’ve wanted Buckman dead if Peron came after him with guns blazing. Leave Whit alone. Buckman’s clearly in the middle of this.’
‘We’ve got tit for tat. Kiko Grace comes here, wants to move into Houston drug territory. He whacks Bellini. Bellini’s group whacks Grace. Or vice versa, it doesn’t matter who died first. They have a short little war and then it’s done. Peron shooting for Bucks is the next stage of the war. Let them kill each other. They’re a cancer.’
‘You have no problem with murder, Vernetta. Assuming innocent people don’t get hurt.’
‘That’s not so. And your pet judge isn’t innocent, Claudia. He knows more than he’s saying.’
‘If Grace is Miami-based, Jose Peron might head back to Florida and pull forces in here.’
‘I hope he goes home. Stays there and runs Grace’s ring. You wonder why a guy would get involved in the trade that killed his mother. Shortest line to revenge, I guess.’
‘Yes,’ Claudia said. But Vernetta had a point. It made her wonder. ‘None of your informants have skinny on Peron?’
‘He’s too new in town. Nothing yet.’
‘When Leonard Guchinski’s well enough to travel, and assuming he’s not charged with anything, I’m taking him back to Port Leo. It’s a long drive. He’s a friend, of sorts. I can hope he’ll talk.’ She stood.
‘Talk more than your precious judge, at least,’ Vernetta said. ‘But let me ask you a hard question. Guchinski talks, or Mosley talks to you, in confidence, tells you the truth of what’s happened between all these people, what do you do, Claudia? Rat on your friends if they’ve broken the law?’
‘I’ll worry about that when I cross that bridge.’
‘Girlfriend,’ Vernetta said, ‘you’re running out of road.’
41
Eve no longer knew if it was day or night. After killing Kiko, Jose had given her another painkiller, bound her, dumped her in the back of a black Suburban, tossed a cover over her, driven into the dark of Houston. She slipped into the emptiness, dreamed of gunfire, heard Jose jumping back in the car. Then driving, fast, short, lots of sharp turns that made her nauseated, then a long haul on the highway. She fell asleep.
She woke to a radio, tuned to jazz, played soft as a gentle whisper in the dark. Jose bound her to a narrow cot, then sat by her with a syringe in his hand, sliding the needle under her skin while she protested, pumped her full of chemical bliss that made her head hazy and cloudy and sweet. She was conscious of Jose coming in once, feeding her a chocolate shake and a package of lukewarm French fries. Then another shot. In the darkness once, cool water sponged on her face, her hands, a kindness, then medicine daubed the back of her mouth, where her teeth had been, across her busted lips. The taste of the medicine lingered a long while. When her thoughts became clearer she remembered Kiko, his face blown away. But mostly she thought of Whit.
Whit. Here and gone. Like the life she should have had. She wanted to cry but her face felt too numb to know whether or not she was weeping. An ache that defied the drugs settled in along her arms, her chest, her jaw, like years of unshed tears letting her know they waited for release. She slept. Awoke in the dark. Listened. Heard voices, a man and a woman.
Her purse lay on the floor, all its contents spilled across the carpet. Makeup, brush, a package of mints. Her gun was gone. And something else. She tried to remember what was in her purse that would matter so much. The room was small, carpet the color of clay, the ceiling old and worn. It had the impersonal dimensions of an office. Boards covered the one window.
She tried to reason it out. They knew she didn’t have the money. They found the money? Or had they had it all along? They didn’t need her. But they did. They’d kept her alive. Through the fog she remembered he had called her the key. Key to what?
She made a noise in her throat, tongued her numb, parched lips.
They were keeping her for bait.
The idea rose up, tumbled back into the mess of her drugged brain. If they wanted her alive, it was because they wanted Whit.
The door opened. Jose stood in the doorway, smoking a cigarette. He shut the door behind him, crossed to the bureau, extinguished the cigarette in a small plastic ashtray.
