Brothers for Freedom office was a little box at one of the end hangars that barely had enough room for a desk and two chairs. The man inside escorted them toward the tarmac. A flock of hungry seagulls followed them. Just three feet above sea level, Key West International was notorious for its birds, many of which met the aeronautical version of the Veg-O-Matic with the constant coming and going of prop planes. Jack and Theo passed several rows of private aircraft, everything from seaplanes to Learjets. Finally they spotted Alejandro Pintado tending to his reliable old Cessna. Jack probably could have found the plane without any help at all, as it seemed to be held together by bumper stickers that proclaimed such telling messages as FREE CUBA, NO CASTRO, NO PROBLEM, and I DON’T BELIEVE THE MIAMI TRIBUNE-the latter being a swipe at the “liberal media,” which sometimes criticized the tactics of exiles when it came to fighting Castro.
“Mr. Pintado?” said Jack.
A portly man with silver hair dropped his cleaning rag in the bucket, then emerged from beneath the wing. “You must be Jack Swyteck.”
“That’s right.”
“Who’s your friend here? Barry Bonds on steroids?”
“This is-”
“Mikhail Baryshnikov,” said Theo, shaking hands.
“My investigator, Theo Knight.”
Alejandro did his best to get his chest out, but the belly was still more prominent. “I hear you want to defend my daughter-in-law.”
“I’m considering it,” said Jack. “Can we sit down and talk?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary. This isn’t going to take long.”
Jack rocked on his heels. More hostile than he’d hoped. “First of all, I want to say that I’m very sorry about your son.”
“Then why do you want to represent the woman who killed him?”
“Mainly because I haven’t come to the conclusion that she did it.”
“That pretty much makes you the only one.”
“Is there something you can tell me, maybe enlighten me a little?”
Pintado glanced suspiciously at Theo, then back at Jack. “I’m not going to tell you two jokers anything. You aren’t here to help me. All you want to do is get her off.”
“Mr. Pintado, I’m not going to lie to you. I’ve represented some guilty people before. But this is an unusual case for me. I’m being completely honest when I say that I have no interest in representing Lindsey Hart if she’s guilty.”
“Good. Then you should fold your tent right now and go home.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve met Lindsey. She’s raised some serious questions in my mind. Lindsey says she’s being framed. She thinks the NCIS report is a cover-up.”
“She’s been saying that for weeks. What else can she say?”
“So, you don’t buy into the theory that your son may have been murdered by someone with a hidden agenda?”
“What are you implying?”
“Nothing. I’m just asking a question.”
“I am sick and tired of people suggesting that my son was murdered because of the life of resistance I’ve led. It is not my fault that my son was killed.”
Jack was taken aback by the defensiveness. “Look, I didn’t come here to lay blame on anyone.”
“I think you did. So let me clear this up right now. I know why Lindsey killed my son.”
A commercial jet cruised overhead, the deafening screech of its engines seeming to punctuate the man’s words. Finally, the noise subsided, and they could talk again.
“You want to tell me why she did it?” said Jack.
“It’s pretty obvious, really, once you know something about me, my family. I came to this country in a rowboat, not a penny to my name. My first job was washing dishes at the Biscayne Cafeteria. Twenty years later I was a millionaire, owner of thirty-seven restaurants. You’ve heard of them, no? Los Platos de Pintado.”
“I’ve eaten there,” said Jack. He knew the Pintado success story, too. It was printed on the back of the menu, including the quaint explanation of how the chain bore a tongue-in-cheek name that harkened back to his humble beginnings as a dishwasher: Los Platos de Pintado meant “Pintado’s dishes.”
Theo said, “Your restaurants are great, dude. But what’s that got to do with your son’s death?”
“It’s not the restaurants. It’s the money. We may not show it, but I’ve made a lot of it. Each of my children has a trust fund. I don’t want to get into specifics, but the principal is seven figures.”
“That’s big bucks,” said Jack.
“More money than most people can handle, if you ask me. So my children earn interest only starting at age twenty-one. The principal is theirs to keep when they turn thirty-five.”
“So your son was a millionaire?” said Jack.
“Yes. For almost three years.” He lowered his eyes and said, “He would have been thirty-eight next month.”
“So, you think Lindsey killed him because…”
“Because they didn’t live like millionaires. Oscar was a lot like me. Money wasn’t that important. He wanted to serve his country. Six months ago, he signed on for another stint at Guantanamo.”
“Interesting,” said Jack. “Lindsey was married to a millionaire who lived the simple life of a soldier on a military base.”
“That’s correct. So long as he was alive.”
“And if he was dead?”
“She could live anywhere she wanted, with enough money in the bank to live any way she wanted to live.”
Jack stood silent for a moment, thinking.
Pintado’s eyes narrowed as he said, “And I guess she can afford to go hire herself a pretty fancy lawyer, too.”
Jack said, “I’m not in this case for the money.”
“Yeah, right.”
Jack heard the crank of an engine. Another private plane slowly emerged from the hangar, its whirling propellers practically invisible.
Pintado grabbed his flight bag, threw it over his shoulder. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got another flight plan to chart out.”
“One more thing,” said Jack.
“Enough,” he said, waving him off. “I’ve already told you more than I should.”
“I was just wondering about your grandson.”
That got his attention. “What about him?”
“Since you’re so convinced of Lindsey’s guilt, how do you feel about Brian staying with her?”
Pintado’s eyes closed, then opened, as if he needed to blink back his anger. “You can’t imagine how that makes me feel.”
Jack studied the old man’s pained expression, then looked off toward the runway. “You might be surprised,” he said quietly. “Thanks again for your time, sir.”
8
That night, Jack went bowling. He hadn’t bowled in about five hundred years, but anytime he got together with his father, they seemed to end up doing something that made Harry Swyteck shake his head and say, “You don’t get out much, do you, son?” Last time it was golf, and Jack was thankful that this time at least there were gutters to keep his balls from hitting the other players.
