Acoustic Shadows (12 page)

On the way to the motel lobby, Thiery saw the perfectly chiselled and megawatt spot-lit face of Dave Gruber, along with his camera crew and a young blonde who chased Gruber around doing his make-up. Thiery avoided eye contact; he didn’t want to talk to this cat right then.

Thiery manoeuvred revolving doors to reach the front desk of the motel, showed his FDLE identification to a young lady with active chewing gum, and asked for Gloria Shadtz’s room number. Without hesitation, she pointed and replied, ‘Number Four.’

It was long after sunset, and the concrete walk outside was dimly lit. Cool air moved in, lending Thiery a chill as he rapped a knuckle against the door marked with a crooked ‘4’. He heard shuffling noises inside, a chain latch clanking open.

Gloria Shadtz opened the door, pillow creases in her face, her eyelids swollen.
Must’ve cried herself to sleep this afternoon
, thought Thiery. Even lousy husbands need to be mourned he supposed.

‘Hi, Mrs Shadtz. I’m Agent Thiery with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.’

Gloria nodded and yawned. ‘Oh, yeah. Chief Dunham said you might call on me.’

‘I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m investigating the shooting at the school yesterday, and I’d like to ask you a few questions about your husband.’

‘Ex-husband,’ she chided, fingering her hair back, trying to make it look right.

‘Okay.’

‘It’s nice out. You want to sit on the back patio? Maybe have a beer?’ she suggested, touching her upper lip with the tip of her tongue.

‘Out back is fine. I’ll hold off the beer for now, though.’

‘Suit yourself.’ Gloria held up a finger indicating a minute was needed. She rooted around in the room’s small refrigerator and came out with a six pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon. She closed and locked the door. Thiery kept up with her surprisingly energetic pace to the back of the motel where plastic chairs and tables sat around a pool whose surface was still and dark. Thiery sat in one of the chairs, instantly feeling its coldness seep through the thin fabric of his trousers.

Gloria opened an icy beer and took a quick swig. She pulled a cigarette from a pack of Camels and lit up. ‘I’d offer you one, but you don’t smoke, do you?’

‘No,’ said Thiery, smiling. ‘How can you tell?’

‘Your teeth are too white,’ she said, smiling back. ‘Frank smoked like a chimney.’

‘Yeah?’ said Thiery, watching her take another pull off the beer. He could see its amber colour, the drops of condensation running down the brown bottle like rivulets of sweat from a lover’s body. He was parched and tried to think of when last he drank anything. He could almost taste the malty beer, thought about changing his mind and accepting her offer, but decided against it. One often led to another, then another. He had too much work to do. ‘Tell me more about Frank,’ he asked.

‘What do you want to know?’ Her voice a low rumble of gravel after a few pulls on the cigarette.

‘Okay,’ he said, thinking,
twenty questions it is
. ‘Did he dislike kids?’

‘No’ she answered, exhaling a cloud of smoke. ‘In fact, he was a fuck-up for the most part, but one thing I can say is he was a good father. We have a boy. Danny. He has Down Syndrome. He can be a handful, and sometimes I just don’t have the patience. Frank always did. It was like they could communicate in a way I never could.’

‘I see,’ Thiery said as he took notes on his tablet. ‘So, why do you think Frank would move down here, befriend a guy like Coody, and attack an elementary school?’

Gloria pushed her chin up and blew out a plume of smoke aimed at the stars. She shrugged and shook her head.

‘Chief Dunham said Frank left you some money,’ Thiery continued. ‘Where do you think he got that?’

Gloria shot him a look of concern. ‘You’re not going to try to take the money, are you?’

Thiery thought about it. Maybe there were fingerprints. Maybe the serial numbers would yield clues. But, he said, ‘No.’ He could hear a sigh of relief in her next exhalation of smoke.

‘Frank was something else,’ she announced. ‘If you would’ve seen him when he was younger. God, the ladies loved him. It was like he put Spanish Fly, or cigarette ashes, in the girls’ drinks, you know, to make ’em horny? ’Cause they got hot in the pants real quick around him. I was one of them. Man, I fell for that guy. Put up with a lot of shit over the years, too. He wasn’t a bad man; he just couldn’t keep out of trouble.’

Thiery looked up from his tablet. ‘What kind of trouble?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ Gloria considered as she tapped ashes onto the cement pool deck between them, ‘he was a bouncer for the most part, so he was always getting into fights, even when he wasn’t at the bar. When he
was
at the bar, people were always asking him for drugs, so he got into selling grass and coke, and got busted a few times for that. Then he did some scut-work for some of the mob guys, leaning on people if they owed a loan shark, shit like that. I think you cops call it extortion. Hell, if you live in Chicago, sooner or later, you’re going to be rubbing up against some made guys.’

Thiery sat up now, his interest piqued. ‘Yeah? Do you think that scut-work would include a hit on someone?’

‘You mean take a contract, like to murder someone?’

‘Yes.’

Gloria thought about it for a few minutes, lighting another cigarette with the burning filter of the last one. ‘If you would’ve asked me that a year ago, I would’ve said no. Absolutely not. He was tough, but he wasn’t vicious. When he started getting sick, it was like I could see a fear in his eyes that wasn’t there before. People do crazy shit when they get scared. But, he never owned guns that I knew of. He was a straight barroom brawler, a bare knuckles guy. I just can’t see him as a hit man.’

‘But, what if he knew he was dying?’ Thiery asked. ‘Would he do something like that if he knew he didn’t have long to live? Maybe take a hit so he could leave you and Danny something?’

Gloria stared at Thiery as if she were in a darkened room and he’d come in and turned on the lights. ‘Could be,’ she answered. Then she considered the obvious. ‘But, who would call a hit on a bunch of school kids?’

Thiery leaned forward. ‘Gloria, I don’t know what you know about the shooting, but none of the kids were killed. One was shot in the arm, but I think it was a mistake. I don’t think Frank meant to shoot her.’

Gloria frowned. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Who would be the target then?’

‘I was hoping you could tell me.’

‘Like I said, I can’t see Frank doing a hit.’

‘But, what if he knew he was dying?’ he asked again ‘What if he thought it was the only way he could leave Randy something?’

Gloria drew deep on her cigarette and looked toward the horizon. A green glow, the last goodnight wave of the fading sun, held up the blackness of the rest of the sky. She wrapped her lips around the mouth of the bottle and chugged it back until it drained. The beer foam sliding down the neck of the bottle like dirty soap suds. She looked back at Thiery, her eyes wet. She nodded. ‘He might do that. Who got killed there?’

‘Mostly staff,’ he answered, ‘Mostly women. One man was killed, but he was an old Army veteran. I believe he might have tried to stop the shooters, playing soldier one last time.’

‘God bless, but that’s just crazy.’

Thiery looked at the ground. ‘Yeah. I know. But, something about this school shooting doesn’t make sense. These incidents are always tragic, but they seem to follow a pattern. A neglected, or bullied, teen isolates himself from society, then inundates his tiny world with violent video games and off-the-wall Internet exploration. They look for anarchists’ sites, people who have a beef with the government, and so on. Finds out where he can buy guns and how to make explosives. Accumulates his weaponry and puts together some sort of crazed manifesto. Then he snaps one day and acts out on it. Coody fits that bill, but Frank doesn’t.’

‘I just can’t understand why Frank would do something like this.’

‘Did he ever mention Coody to you?’

‘Never.’

‘How about some of those made men you talked about; do you remember any of their names?’

Gloria scrunched up her face as if trying to remember was a physically painful experience. ‘There was a family he worked for a couple times,’ she said. ‘They weren’t mafia, though. They were Mexicans. Big time drug kingpins that had interests in Chicago, as well as other places. Sometimes they sent him out of town. New York. Vegas, a couple times. Usually, he was a mule for them, you know, carrying dope. Sometimes, he would catch a flight to say, Houston, then drive back in a huge cargo truck, or a tractor trailer. Once, he came home in a camper. He’d usually drop it at a warehouse or leave it in a parking lot and walk away. It was easy money. Let’s see, what were their names? Es … Estero … Esquevero? No. Esperanza. That’s it: Esperanza.’

Thiery jotted down the name. Then, he stood up. ‘Thanks, Gloria. You’ve been a big help.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘If you say so.’ She lit another cigarette off the glowing butt of the last one.

‘I’ll make sure you get Frank’s, uh, remains, as soon as the coroner is done with his report.’

An hour passed as he went over his notes. He was restless and his empty belly began to groan, so he grabbed his iPad and notes, along with the car keys, and started driving north. He wasn’t sure why he’d headed in that direction, but he’d felt some comfort when he’d passed through Lake Wales the day before. Maybe he could think more clearly there than in the small rustic motel with a killer’s amorous ex-wife and a TV reporter practically next door.

He wondered if the Bok Tower still played carillon music at night. He’d heard of an unusual, quirky-but-Zagat-rated restaurant near there called Chalet Suzanne. It was only about twenty minutes away. The drive would do him good.

Only five minutes later, he decided to call Jim Bullock.

‘I didn’t wake you, did I, boss?’ Thiery asked when the man answered.

‘Hey, Justin. Nah, you didn’t wake me. I’m glad you called. The governor’s been at me all day. Says he’s pretty pissed at you.’

‘I know. I’m sorry, Jim, but he’s an asshole, and we just don’t mix.’

‘I should’ve known. I just thought I might be throwing you a bone. Maybe set you up to take my position.’

‘I know that, too, but I’ve been putting some thought into it. To be honest, I’m not sure how long I’ll stick around after you leave.’

‘C’mon man, you’re too young to retire.’

‘I’m sure I could find something else,’ he said, knowing full well he’d do no such thing. ‘But, hey, that’s not why I called.’

‘Oh, okay. What’s up?’

‘Well, I thought I might take advantage of you being in Washington and ask you a favour. Actually two favours.’

‘Sure, man. Go ahead.’

‘This woman, the one that shot the school intruders, got wounded, and has now disappeared— ’

‘I’ve been following it on TV as well as getting personal and snarky updates from Croll.’

‘I bet. Anyway, I’ve got an idea. It’s just a theory, but there is something definitely hinky going on here. First, I can find no reason why she’d want to run or hide out unless something, or someone, was chasing her. There’s a bunch of rednecks down here who want to put pressure on her for having a gun in school, but that’s just fodder for the media.’

‘So what do you think is up with her?’

‘You’re probably going to think I’m crazy, but I think she might be in WITSEC, you know, the Witness Protection Programme.’

‘What? That’s crazy. What are the odds of that?’

‘Yeah, right? Here are some things that keep bringing me back to that idea: first, she just moved down here a few weeks ago. Hardly enough time to apply and get a job unless it was arranged for her. I’ve been going through her employment records from the school board, and it shows her date of hire, but no application or pre-employment physical, background check, or anything. So, I’m thinking it was arranged. I’d like to confirm with the principal, but she’s dead.

‘A few weeks after she arrives,’ he continued, ‘so does Frank Shadtz, one of the two shooters. He used to move dope for Mexican drug lords. I can’t believe that was coincidence. Also, her name, Erica Weisz, that’s a take-off on Eric Weisz, which was Harry Houdini’s real name. When I tried to find out where Weisz came from, I came up with an address in Washington, but the name associated with that address was Harriet Blackstone, another nod to a famous magician, and there’s no trace of her, either. Now, I know the US Marshals use various safe havens for their witnesses, and they set them up there until, and even after, they testify against whomever they’re testifying against. Are you following me?’

‘So far, yeah.’

‘Okay, it could also explain why she had a gun with her at the school. I think it’s still safe to say most school teachers do not carry guns to work. Maybe she has one because she
has
to have one to protect herself. It could also explain why she ran away from the hospital. If she is in the programme, at the very least she’d be worrying about the media attention exposing and compromising her. And, I think the Washington address was one of those safe havens when she was Harriet Blackstone. Something must have happened, and they had to move her down here.’

‘So you want me to try to find this Washington address and check it out?’

‘Yes. That’s number one. Number two, don’t you have a friend that works in the US Marshal’s Office?’

‘I sure do. A good friend named Ron Sales. He’s pretty high up on the food chain, now, but we still get together now and then. You do know they have a policy precluding them from discussing any case, especially if it’s active?’

Thiery knew. He also knew this fact could only hamper his investigation if what he was thinking was true.

His boss continued. ‘They won’t even talk to other law enforcement, state or federal, unless they need something from those agencies, and even
then
they are pretty cagey. We’ve dealt with this before. You remember the time that Cuban grocer down in Miami had his confidentiality compromised somehow? It was about seven or eight years ago. The marshals had us go in and pick up the guy, keep him in a hotel for a couple days until they could make other arrangements, but they never told us squat about the guy; where he went, what he’d done, or who was after him. I found out later but it cost me an expensive stone crab dinner at Joe’s.’