“What else do you have in there?” I asked. “A knife?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Don’t tell me ladies can’t carry knives either?”
“I know you know the rules,” I said. “You fly all over the world.”
“Yeah, but most of the time they don’t even notice I’m carrying,” she said. “They let old people get away with all kinds of stuff. I saw a man in a wheelchair who was on oxygen board with a sawed-off shotgun once. I think old people make those TSA folks nervous.”
“You may be right,” I said. “But just for the sake of time, go ahead and take out all your weapons so we don’t get detained.”
Scarlet snapped her teeth together and then dumped her handbag on the floor of the van. Along with three knives in varying lengths, she had brass knuckles, a Chinese throwing star and a can of Mace.
I was curious about the brass knuckles and the throwing star, but I closed the sliding door of the van, hefted Scarlet’s bags, and then we followed Kate into the airport.
Nick and I had flown first class to Tahiti, and I’d quickly become accustomed to no-hassle travel.
“I’ve got lots of tricks to get you through the airport quick,” Scarlet said. “Y’all stick with me and we’ll be on that flight in no time. People are real scared of old ladies. Especially if you pretend like you’re about to die.”
“That would certainly scare me,” Kate said.
Thankfully, the airport wasn’t crowded. Scarlet stood in front of us and charged her way through oncoming crowds, sticking out a foot from time to time and throwing the occasional elbow. When a policeman came up, I was sure he’d seen her clothesline a woman more interested in her phone than her surroundings, but he offered to help get her through security and to our gate as quickly as possible.
By the time we got to our seats, I was out of breath and regretting packing so many pairs of shoes in my carry-on. Kate and I were seated together in the front row, and Scarlet was across the aisle from us, sizing up her seatmate. He was a nice-looking man in his sixties in Wranglers and a sport coat, and he stowed his Stetson in the overhead compartment, showing a thick mane of silver hair.
“Oh, Lord,” I said, nudging Kate.
She snickered. “That’s what you get for bringing her along.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” I said. “She blackmailed me.”
“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”
“I’m going to need a gin and tonic for me and my new friend here,” Scarlet said to the flight attendant. “And you’re going to want to keep them coming on account of I look a lot better after I’m blurry.”
The flight attendant nodded automatically, but I could tell by the look in her eyes there was a part of her brain that was blaring a warning signal. But she went off to start passing out drinks, and I figured at that point she had no one to blame but herself.
“So what’s going on with Vince?” Kate asked, once we’d taken off. “Find out anything new?”
I’d been reading the file I’d found in my dad’s shed while we’d been waiting for takeoff. “I’m not sure,” I said. “And I’m not sure what any of this has to do with Vince missing, or if it’s even related.” I showed her the key we found at the bottom of the file cabinet drawer.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Scarlet was snooping in my dad’s office and said she’d looked through the trash and the desk. She found the address for one of the storage lockers in Whiskey Bayou. I called and talked to the manager, and he said my dad has had an account with them for years. He said he paid outright for the space.”
“And this key opens the storage space?” Kate asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to try it when we get back home.”
“What’s the case file?”
“That’s the weird thing,” I said. “I don’t think this was an official case file. It’s my dad’s notes, but it’s not written like his other formal reports. Almost as if he were keeping track and making notes to himself.”
“That’s not unusual,” Kate said.
“Do you remember the de Salva case?” I asked. “We were kids when it went down. I don’t remember much. Just that Dad was gone more than usual, and there were a couple of times when cops did drive-bys to make sure we were okay.”
“I remember,” Kate said. “And then when I went through the police academy we studied the case. It was a joint task force operation with the FBI, DEA, and Savannah police department, and it was a RICO case involving Carmen de Salva and his whole operation.”
“Who’s Rico?” I asked.
“No, RICO,” she said. “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations.”
“Oh,” I said. “So Dad and Vince were working this case with the Feds?”
“Them and a couple of other guys,” Kate said. “It was a huge case. Carmen de Salva had a monopoly on most of southern Georgia. Construction companies, garbage services, the dry-cleaning industry—you name it—de Salva owned it. But that’s what made it difficult to track. He owned what looked like on paper were competing businesses, so if Bob’s construction company and Joe’s construction company competed for the same huge contracts, one of them would bid at an exorbitant price range, and the other would bid even higher, making the exorbitant price not look so bad after all. You’re talking millions and millions of dollars the city was paying to Carmen de Salva.”
“How’d he get caught?” I asked.
“When drugs and bodies started littering the streets,” Kate said. “De Salva owned Savannah and all of the surrounding small cities and islands. They were bringing cocaine in, and then using some of the dummy corporations as a holding zone. And then the DA was killed execution style, and his wife and kids were found
