A Killing Rain (29 page)

Another face jumped out at him.

A woman on TV a week ago, that Friday he was waiting with Susan for Austin and Benjamin to come home from the ice cream place. The woman on TV had been found dead off Alligator Alley, a rape-murder.

He remembered being annoyed that the newscaster had called the woman black because it was obvious to him that she wasn’t black at all. She had looked Hawaiian
or Polynesian. She had looked a lot like this woman.

He turned and walked back to her. She watched him approach, pulling her plastic bag to her chest.

“Excuse me,” he said.

She backed deeper into the shelter.

Louis glanced around the parking lot. There were plenty of parked cars for the swing shift workers, but no one else waiting. And no bus in sight.

“Are you waiting for a shuttle?” Louis asked.

She nodded, still not looking at him.

“What time does the shuttle come?”

“I missed the six o’clock one,” she said. “Now I have to wait for the next one.”

“When is the next one?” Louis asked.

“Eleven,” she said.

Two hours from now. “Can I ask where you are from?” Louis asked gently.

Her eyes met his. They were brown, wary, but not really frightened. “I live here,” she said.

“No, I meant originally,” Louis said. “Where is your home?”

“Pohnpei,” she said.

“Where is that?” he asked.

“Micronesia,” she said.

Louis was stunned. The woman read his silent stare as threatening and started inching away.

“Wait, please,” Louis said. “I won’t hurt you, please.” When she looked up at him, her eyes were welling. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She pushed her long hair back from her face. “I don’t know. I’m just tired. I’m very tired.”

There was no bench, no place to sit. “Let me give you a ride home,” he said. He pointed to the Bronco. “That’s my car there.”

She looked at the Bronco.

“Please,” Louis said. “I won’t hurt you.”

Maybe it was his voice. Maybe it was just her exhaustion and the thought of standing two more hours in the cold rain. But she finally nodded. Louis led her to the Bronco.

They were out of the parking lot and into the blackness of the cane fields. She murmured some directions, telling him to stay on the service road, that she lived just a couple miles ahead. Then she was quiet, pressed against the passenger door, the 7-Eleven bag tight in her hands. In the reflected dashboard light Louis could see now that she wasn’t as young as he had first thought, and that there was a flatness in her eyes that didn’t come only from fatigue.

“What is your name?” Louis asked.

“Margareth Likiche.” The last name came out sounding like “le quiche.”

“What do you do here?” he asked.

She glanced at him.

“What work do you do here?”

“I clean the bathrooms.”

Louis looked back at the narrow road. He switched on the high beams
, and with each pass of the wipers he could see the undulating cane walls.

“Micronesia,” he said. “That’s a long ways away from here.”

She was silent.

“How did you get your job here?” Louis asked.

Still nothing.

“Did someone bring you here?”

She looked at him. “Why are you asking me these questions?”

Louis hesitated. “I’m an investigator.”

“Is this about the dead woman?”

Louis glanced at her but she was staring out the windshield now. “Yes,” he said.

“I heard things. They say she was sliced open with a cane machete. They say she was trying to get away so they killed her.”

“Who?” Louis asked.

“The men who brought her here.”

“The same men who brought you here?”

She didn’t answer.

Louis could see some lights ahead. He only had a few more minutes to talk to her. “How did you get here?” he asked. “How does it work?”

Louis heard her let out a breath and the rustle of the plastic bag in her lap.

“My family lived in
Uman and we were fishermen and farmers,” she said. “We were poor but we managed. I am the oldest child and I was in school and one day this man -- a recruiter -- told us about a program where we could go to the United States and they would pay for us
to go to college.”

Louis slowed the Bronco to buy time.

“Four of us signed up and went with him on a plane. He told us that we would learn to be nurses and make good money working in hospitals.” She shook her head slowly. “It was not what they promised.”

“In what way?” Louis
asked, when she didn’t go on.

“
We were crowded into a little apartment far away from everything,” she said. “We were sent to work in a nursing home. We emptied bedpans, lifted the old men into their beds, cleaned the old women when they dirtied the sheets. We did the work no one else would do.”

“You were paid?” Louis asked.

“Four dollars an hour,” she said. “But they took money out of our paychecks for our uniforms, food, electric, and the bus that took us to work. I tried to leave, but the recruiter told me I had signed a contract and couldn’t leave until I paid it back.”

“How did you come to work here?”

“After a year, they said we could make more money working at the sugar house.” She let out a tired breath. “Someone bought my contract and I came here. Now there are many Micronesians here. They work in the fields and the sugar house. There are new ones coming all the time.”

She was quiet for a moment then pointed. “That is it,” she said.

Louis pulled into the gravel lot. There were four low-slung green concrete buildings clustered around a dirt yard. Most of the small windows were bare, a few draped with sheets for privacy. The place had the despairing look of some of the public housing Louis had seen in Fort Myers, except for the towering walls of cane stalks that imprisoned the complex.

The woman was looking out the windshield at the weak lights coming from the windows.

“I want to go home,” she said softly.

“Can you?” Louis asked

Her eyes glistened in the dashboard lights. “I asked once. They told me I can buy out my contract. Six thousand dollars. Where does a person get six thousand dollars?”

She pulled up the collar of her raincoat and looked over at Louis. “Thank you for giving me a ride,” she said.

Before Louis could answer, she got out, shutting the door. Louis watched her cross the path of his headlights, crouched against the wind. He watched her until she disappeared.

He sat there, peering out
the windshield, watching the ugly green building blur and reappear with each swipe of the wipers. The instincts that had kicked in when he first saw her standing at the bus stop had mutated into anger.

Margareth
Likiche was no better than a slave, kidnapped from her home with no way to get back. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, just like her working in shitty jobs no one else wanted to do. And there was a dead woman just like her lying in the Broward County morgue.

It had all started with that dead woman.

Wallace Sorrell and the secretary in Little Havana. The pizza delivery kid. The old people. The cop. They were all dead. And Ben was still missing.

All b
ecause of Austin.

Louis jerked the Bronco in reverse, the tires spitting gravel.

The living room was quiet and dark, except for the flickering orange glow of a fire in the fireplace. The house smelled of lavender air freshener, the odor of sweat and stale coffee banished.

The cops were banished, too, standing their watch out in the cold rain. Susan wasn’t letting anyone in now, into her home where they could drink her coffee, eat her food, intrude deeper into her life and her pain.

Louis looked toward her closed bedroom door. No light
. He looked at Ben’s door and saw a sliver of light under the door.

The long drive back to
Sereno Key had given him enough time to cool off, he wasn’t going to bust in and beat the truth out of Austin while Susan was asleep in the next room. He would tell him quietly to come to the Florida room or outside.

Louis took a breath and pushed open
the bedroom door.

Austin was standing at Ben’s bed, a new suitcase open on the lower bunk, stacked with folded clothes. He looked up as Louis came in.

Louis’s eyes flicked to the dresser. The black Vuitton purse lay open, stuffed with bills, a dark blue passport nearby.

“You
sonofabitch,” Louis hissed. “You’re walking out on her.”

Austin looked at the bed, then the window, anywhere but at Louis.

“Does she know? Or are you just going to sneak out while she’s asleep?” Louis asked.

“You’re not supposed to be in this house,” Austin said.
“I’m going to get one of the cops —-”

Austin started for the hall but Louis put up an arm, blocking
the door. “I have some questions.”

Austin knocked his arm aside. “Fuck your questions.”

Louis shoved him in the shoulder. Austin shoved back, a flat two-handed push to the chest. Louis winced but came back with both hands, gripping Austin by the shirt and forcing him back against the top bunk.

“What started all this?” Louis
asked.

Austin struggled to get free, but Louis jerked hard on the shirt, swinging him around and slamming him into the dresser. Austin’s head bou
nced backward and the mirror behind him splintered into a spider web of glass. Ben’s London bus, plastic transformers, and painted Styrofoam planets crashed to the floor.

“What did you do to
piss these guys off?” Louis demanded.

“I told you I don’t know!”

“There’s a dead Micronesian woman in the Broward County morgue with her throat slashed.”

“So what?” Austin said, pushing at Louis’s fists.

“You brought her here,” Louis said. “You brought her here and you know who killed her.”

“I don’t know!
”

Louis smacked him. “Maybe you killed her. Or maybe you arranged to have Vargas do it and now Vargas wants you dead.”

“Who?”

“Vargas! Adam Vargas.”

“I don’t know anyone named Vargas!”

“Byron Ellis?”

“No!”

“What about Leo Ryker. Know him?”

Austin stopped struggling, his eyes widening. He recognized that name.

“No,” Austin said. “I don’t know him either.”

Louis punched him, and Austin stumbled sideways, falling into a telescope and landing on the floor. He stayed there, wiping at his lip.

“You lying bastard,” Louis said. “Tell me what’s going on or I’ll beat you to a fucking pulp.”

Austin’s eyes moved to the hallway. Louis turned.

Susan was standing in the doorway, hands in the pockets of her white robe, her hair a wild spray of black. Slowly, she pulled her nickel-plated revolver from
her pocket and pointed it at Austin.

“
Tell him what he wants to know,” she said.

“Baby,” Austin whispered.

‘Tell him!”

Austin dropped his head back against the wall.
“Blackbirds,” he said softly. “We call them blackbirds.”

“Who?” Louis asked. “What are you talking about?”

“That’s what they used to call them in Australia,” Austin said quietly. “It started a long time ago when the farmers couldn’t get anyone to work in the cotton and sugar fields so they would go to Fiji or the Solomon Islands and kidnap the natives.”

Austin looked away. “They brought them back as in
dentured servants. Blackbirds.”

“What about now? What about the people you bring?” Louis asked.

“Same thing. No one wants to work in the fields or lousy jobs here either, so we bring them from Micronesia.”

“On false promises,” Louis said.

Austin shook his head. “You don’t understand. They’re hired into good jobs.”

“They’re enslaved.”

“They got it good. Half of them don’t want to work anyway.”

Louis took a step toward him but stopped, uncurling his fist. “Who was the woman on Alligator Alley? Did you bring her here?”

“Yeah. Her and two others.”

“Who were they for?”

“I don’t know,” Austin said.

“Don’t lie,” Susan said.

Louis glanced at her. She was holding the gun steady.

“Christ, I swear I don’t know,” Austin said. “I started getting phone calls back in November. Some guy wanting to know if I’d make a special delivery of three young women. Cash only. No paperwork. No questions.”

“And you agreed to this?” Louis asked.

“He kept calling and he kept offering more money,” Austin said “I finally said yes. I found three girls who didn’t have big families, didn’t have any relatives over here, three I figured he’d like.”

“Three he’d like?” Louis asked.

Austin looked at the floor, drawing a ragged breath. “Hell, I figured he was looking for prostitutes or sex slaves or something like that.”

“You bastard,” Susan whispered.

Louis looked at her, wondering if he should take the gun away from her. He decided not to.

“Who called you?” Louis asked.

“I don’t know,” Austin said. “It could’ve been any one of fifty guys we’ve worked with over the last few years. He could’ve been an independent who heard about me.”

“Could it have been Leo Ryker?” Louis asked.

Austin glanced at him then looked away. “Maybe. We’ve worked with Cane Corp before, but I never met the guy so I couldn’t tell you for sure.”

“Who did you deliver the girls to?”

“I was told to meet a man on Alligator Alley. He was supposed to give me the money, and I was supposed to give him the girls.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was...” Austin leaned an arm on the upper bunk. “He was the same guy that came in here dressed as a cop.”

“Adam Vargas.”

Austin shrugged. “I didn’t know his name. But when the sketch was done I recognized him as the guy who...”

“Who what?”

“Killed the first girl,” Austin said. “He killed her right in front of me, had her
lying
over the front of the car when he cut her throat.”

Susan let out a small gasp, and
slumped against the door frame, lowering the gun.

“What did you do then?” Louis asked.

“I got the hell out of there,” Austin said. “Left the other two girls with the guy and bailed.”

Louis could only stare at him.

“Well, what would you have done?” Austin asked, looking from Louis to Susan. “He would’ve killed me next. I saw him do it.”

The bedroom fell silent. Susan was staring at the floor, the gun limp in her hands. Louis reached over and took it away from her, sticking it
in his belt. He looked back at Austin.

“Why didn’t you tell us all this when they first took Benjamin?” he demanded.

Austin shook his head and his words came out in a whisper. “Because I never believed Ben was alive...not after the first night. Not after what I saw that guy do out on Alligator Alley.”

Louis stepped closer to him. “You were wrong. He was alive two nights later and I think he’s still alive.”

Austin looked up at Louis, tears in his eyes. “I don’t.”

“Is that why you’re leaving?” Susan
asked.

“There’s nothing else I can do here,” Austin said.

“My God, what’s wrong with you?” Susan said. “Even if our son is dead, they will find him. Don’t you want to be here when they do bring him home?”

Austin went to touch her but she pulled away and he dropped his arms. “I don’t know if I can face them bringing him home.”

Susan shook her head slowly. “You’re right. You were never there for him when he was alive. Why be there for him when he’s dead?”

“That isn’t what you can’t face,” Louis said.

“Stay out of this,” Austin snapped. “This is between my wife and me.”

Louis reached for the passport. Austin tried to take it from him, but Louis jerked it away.

“You’re afraid they’re going to charge you with something,” Louis said. “You’re afraid of going to jail.”

Austin glared at him. No tears now. “Give me my passport
.”

Louis
jabbed a finger in Austin’s chest. “Let’s name a few possibilities. Accessory to murder, conspiracy to commit murder, obstruction of justice. Kidnapping? Slavery? Smuggling? Transporting of illegal immigrants?”

“Bringing those people into this country is legal. I can’t control what happens to them after that.”

“The cops won’t see it that way.”

Austin held out his hand. “Give me my damn passport.”

Louis held the passport out to Susan. “Your choice, Susan. Let him go or make him stay.”

For a moment, she didn’t move. Then she put out her hand and Louis gave her the passport. She curled it tight in her fist and picked up the Vuitton purse off the dresser.

“Baby, c’mon, don’t do this to me,” Austin said.

She turned and left the bedroom.

Austin started after her but Louis stepped in front of him.

“No.”

Austin’s eyes dropped to Susan’s revolver in Louis’s belt.

“Try it,” Louis said

Austin spun away from him and leaned against the bed with both arms, head down.

Louis left the bedroom, closing the door behind him. Susan was standing in front of the fireplace.
As he came up behind her, she turned to face him, holding out the passport and Vuitton purse.

“Take these,” she said
. “I don’t want him to find a way to get them back.”

Louis took the bag, stuffed the passport inside, and zipped it. He looked back at her. She was silhouetted against the dying flames, the glow giving her whole body a soft orange aura. He couldn’t see her face clearly.

“Please thank Detective Frye for me,” she said.

“
What for?”

“She called me this morning,” Susan said “She told me about...
the timing of something Ben must’ve said after a TV newscast...that Ben must’ve been alive the drop, and that...”

“Hush,” Louis whispered
.

“She didn’t want me to think
that you...”

He pulled her to him, and she laid her head on his shoulder.