Acoustic Shadows (20 page)

Dunham greeted the Calusa County deputy guarding the entrance to Coody’s room. He told the deputy who he was and what business he had there.

‘Trying to wrap up my end of this thing. Got it covered if you want to grab some coffee.’

The deputy allowed him into the room.

It was dark, other than a blue glow from a silent television in the room. When his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Dunham saw Coody lying there, staring at him. It made him uneasy, but he tried to remain professional as he approached him.

Coody’s face was swollen, his bright red hair combed back from his scalp giving him the appearance of an overripe tomato ready to burst. Some flowers were next to him on the nightstand and Dunham wondered who would be so concerned with a man who had gone into an elementary school with a cadre of guns and the intent to kill as many people as possible.

‘Good morning, Mr Coody,’ said Dunham, removing his flat-brimmed hat. ‘I’m Chief Dunham from the Sebring Police Department. Has anyone read you your rights?’

‘You mean Miranda rights?’ his eyes darting toward Dunham. ‘Am I being arrested?’

‘Yes, to both questions.’

‘No.’

Dunham put a small digital recorder on the nightstand near Coody and turned it on. Just to be on the safe side. He read him his rights before he began the interview, then opened with, ‘I’d like to ask you some questions about your involvement at the Travis Hanks Elementary School.’

‘My
involvement
?’ Coody said, his voice harsh, his face reddening with the exertion of talking. ‘I wasn’t just involved. It was
my
plan.’

‘So, you are admitting that you did, wilfully, gain access to the school and premeditatedly shot innocent people?’

‘Innocent? I don’t think so, but yes, I planned the event.’

‘The event?’

‘Yes, that’s how we talked about it when we discussed it.’

‘You and Frank Shadtz?’

‘Yeah. But, Frank was just a mule, really. He brought the guns in.’

‘I see,’ said Dunham, surprised at the young man’s willingness to talk so openly. He leaned over and pulled a cord to crack open the blinds. Slats of lights striped Coody’s face and caused him to blink.

‘Is this the part in the movies where the cop shines the light in the guy’s face to make him talk?’ Coody grinned, showing his yellow teeth. His sour breath created a fetid cloud around his head.

Dunham resisted the urge to spit in his face. ‘Were there any other people involved with the event?’ he asked.

‘Maybe,’ said Coody, coyly. ‘Some people I talked with online in chat rooms. People that encouraged me to act on my beliefs. You won’t find them, but believe me, there are a lot of people who think like I do, who applaud what I did. I’m not alone.’

Dunham heard the grandiosity that Coody was trying to lend his cowardly act and something occurred to him. ‘Do you take any medicines for your condition?’

‘What condition?’ Coody asked incredulously. ‘Fuck you, pig. You can’t ask me about my medical background.’

‘I can if it helped influence your crime. Hey, by the way, no one has called me a pig since I was handing out speeding tickets almost ten years ago. Thanks for the nostalgia.’

Coody said nothing.

Dunham stepped closer, trying not to inhale Coody’s odour. He looked at the tubes going in and out of his body, so much effort to keep him alive. The bed tipped side to side, one way, then the other, to keep his blood from coagulating, Dunham assumed.
What a waste of a human being,
he thought, then asked the question everyone wanted to ask.

‘Why did you do it?’

Coody blinked his eyes, his anger seeming to fade as he reflected.

‘I … It’s like, one day you think about it. Another day, you are buying some ammo, or a new gun, and you think about it again. Then you start to think about it every day. Like a kid wishing for Christmas to come. Video games don’t do it for you, anymore. Neither does shooting the neighbourhood dogs and cats. You drive by the school and watch these entitled kids with their shitty parents who spoil them and treat them like they’re something so, so
special.
And the dumb-ass teachers who drag themselves into their boring jobs and try to act like they care about these little fuckers. It’s all just one big fantasy land. People who really don’t like each other, acting like they do. I can’t stand the pseudo caring, the fake people who go through life acting as if they are living it, when they are all really dead already.’

Now Dunham was really creeped out. He didn’t know what else to say or ask.
What do you say to someone who is so insane, anything they tell you will just be a crazy diatribe that makes sense solely to them?
He wasn’t a cruel man, but he felt his anger rising like a festering boil, so fevered it could lance itself. He cleared his throat. ‘I bet your daddy bought you your first gun, right?’ he asked, his tone bitter.

Coody’s eyes darted to the Police Chief’s face. ‘Yeah, he did. Gave me a Colt .45 western revolver when I was fourteen. We used to hunt together all the time. My stupid fucking mother didn’t like it. Hated guns. She was a whore. She left him for another guy, and my dad suffered for it. But, she got what was coming to her, too.’

Dunham nodded his head, his jaw muscles flexing. He used to hunt with his father, too. The commonalities with this sick kid ended there.
I’d like to take this bastard out of his misery,
he thought. Put his pistol against the fucker’s head and save the taxpayers the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would take to convict, then house, a homicidal quadriplegic. Instead, he reached over and turned off his recorder, and said:

‘Your father was shot last night when he tried to hunt down the woman who shot you. He’s lying over at the county coroner’s with a tag on his toe, along with that same stupid look you have on your face right now.’ He leaned over, closer, and whispered, ‘For every person you killed at that school, I hope they come back as an itch on your head. You think about that when you get one and wonder how you’re going to scratch it while you’re lying there like a carrot with your arms hanging by your sides like limp dicks.’

Coody’s eyes were wild with fright and frustration as Dunham turned and strode out of the room, resisting the urge to slam the door behind him.

Julio Esperanza’s phone rang and, distracted by the view out his penthouse window, he picked it up without looking at it. He regretted that for the rest of the day. It was his father.

‘Could you fuck this up any more than you already have?’ asked Emilio.

‘Papi—’ Julio tried.

‘Shut up. Just tell me you have the woman and the problem is taken care of.’

‘We are getting close.’

‘I’m coming down there.’

‘But, you are sick,’ Julio argued. ‘The trip will be rough on you, and you know the kind of trouble you could get into.’

‘I don’t care. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to kill that woman. I might kill you too, you useless
maricon
.’

Julio’s lip curled in anger as he tried to think what he wanted to say to his father, the man he had loved, hated, emulated, and feared his whole life. There was a knock on his hotel room door. He lowered the hand that held his cell, without breaking the connection. Julio went to the door and opened it. It was Moral. He was panting as if he’d run several miles, red-faced, his grey streaked hair stuck to his sticky pate. A dollop of sweat rolled off his nose.

‘She … she’s here,’ he managed.

Julio frowned at him. ‘Who?’

‘The woman. Erica, or Millie, whatever you want to call her. The Adkins woman. I just saw her in the lobby.’

Julio slowly brought the phone to his face. ‘Papa? Did you hear that?’

‘Yes. Who was that?’

‘Moral.’

‘Ok,’ he said, his icy voice coming through clinched teeth. ‘Try not to fuck this up. You get that woman. You hold onto her. I’m going to come there and personally kill her
and
that fuck-up, Moral. I’m bringing
El Monstruo
. Do you understand?’

For a moment Julio thought he might faint. Since the day
El Monstruo
had used his chainsaw on the men he had been forced to behead, Julio had feared him.
El Monstruo
knew it and so did Emilio. Even his father did not frighten him as much as this hulking man with ice for blood.

‘Ye … yes, Papa. Whatever you say.’ He hung up the phone and turned to Moral. ‘Are you positive it was the woman?’

‘Of course,’ said Moral. ‘She’s dyed her hair blonde, but it was her.’

‘Why would she come here, to this hotel?’

Moral frowned at Julio. ‘I … well, I have no idea. The local law enforcement’s put out an APB on her. Said she was driving a stolen rental the Lopez’s were using. Maybe she used it to find her way here. I dunno. Was that your father on the phone?’

Julio stared at Moral, his face still flushed from the heated conversation with his father. His eyes shone wet, like a child who has been scolded.

‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘He’s coming here unless we kill the woman first. He’s bringing … a man. One who has lived in my nightmares … forever. He’s not a man you’d want to meet.’

Moral felt panic creeping up his spine like some parasite that had found itself into his body and was eating its way toward his heart. ‘That’s not a good idea,’ he pleaded. ‘There’s too much media attention now, too much at stake. He’ll stand out here like fucking Madonna. If he’s seen at all, the least he’ll get is violation of probation. They’ll lock him up until his trial. You have to stop him.’

Esperanza shook his head. ‘I cannot tell my father what to do. The only way I can stop him, stop
them
, is if we kill the woman now.’

Moral swallowed, his Adam’s apple riding up his long neck like a bubble rising through a viscous fluid. He knew if Emilio Esperanza came there, it would mean they had not completed the task he had given them and that would mean he had been worthless to them. If you were worthless to Emilio, you were already dead.

‘Then, let’s do it. Once and for all, let’s kill this bitch.’

Moral’s tone gave Julio some slight comfort. Perhaps he was right. Maybe he could get this thing turned around. Maybe he could make his father proud of him, perhaps for the first time. Maybe, he could even save himself, because he was sure, if his father did come to Florida, he would kill him, too.

He called Davies.

‘
Oui, monsieur
?’ Davies replied.

‘Quick, De De. Find Drakoslava. The Adkins woman is here, in the hotel. We have to find her and end this today.
Now
. Come to my room, and we will spread out and look for her.’

Something suddenly occurred to him as he hung up the phone. He thought he knew why the Adkins woman was there.
She had come there to kill him
. The thought lifted his heart for some reason. It was funny in some perverse way, and he smiled as his confidence grew.
It was like a mouse hunting a panther,
he thought to himself.

She was giving him one last chance.

‘Miss Weisz, where are you now? Are you safe?’ Thiery asked. He pushed the speakerphone button on his cell so Logan could hear the conversation.

‘I’m at the Gaylord Palms Hotel in Kissimmee, just outside Orlando.’ She sounded out of breath. ‘No, I am not safe.’

‘Okay. Is there security nearby—?’

‘Please, just listen. My real name is Millie Adkins. I am a witness in the WITSEC programme.’

Thiery glanced at Logan and winked. Logan returned the gesture with a thumbs-up and pushed the Porsche up to one hundred-twenty. It flew like a hovercraft.

Erica continued. ‘My controller is a US Marshal named Robert Moral. I have reasons to believe Moral exposed me to the people I’ve testified against.’

‘Who are those people?’ asked Thiery.

‘Emilio Esperanza. He is a drug lord from Mexico. I was his nurse for eight years. It’s a long story, but you and the FBI agent, what was her name? Logan?’

‘I’m here,’ said Logan.

‘You two can check it out. The US Marshals will not tell you anything unless you convince them I’m in danger.’

Thiery was jotting down notes with a stylus on his iPad. ‘Okay, Millie,’ said Thiery. ‘We will be at the hotel in five minutes. Can you stay hidden until we get there?’

‘I … I’ll try… ’

Thiery could hear a knock on the door in the background. The woman on the phone held her breath.

‘Millie,’ said Thiery. ‘Do not answer that door. Move into a safe place, bathroom or closet, and whisper which room you are in.’

He heard her breathing again. Then, a man’s voice.

‘Erica?
Millie
. Are you in there?’ A man’s voice. Edgy, desperate … A pause. Then, a fist banging on the door. ‘Millie! It’s Robert. I heard you in there. You need to come out now, if you want to live. The Esperanzas are in this hotel. I tracked them here. I can protect you from them, but you must come out, now.’

‘I’m in 527,’ she whispered.

‘’K,’ said Thiery. ‘Don’t answer that door. We’re pulling in now.’

There was an abrupt sound of the door being kicked once, twice, and the crack of the doorjamb splintering. Then, the sound of gunfire.

Bullock sat across from his friend Ron Sales, the Associate Director of the US Marshal’s Service, at the Lincoln Waffle House on 10th Street in DC. They had been friends for years, having met in the police academy two long careers ago. Bullock had stayed in Florida while Sales had gone on to take a job with the Feds. They’d vacationed with each other’s families when their kids were young, but the responsibilities of their careers had curtailed visits until they only saw each other now and then, more often at law enforcement conferences than in the comfort of a friend’s home.

Now, Bullock found himself losing his patience as he tried to extract information from Sales. He found him to be cagey, speaking generally rather than providing the specifics Bullock – and Thiery – needed. He held up his hand, stopping his friend mid-sentence, the rattle of the diners’ forks and coffee cups on flowered, white ceramic plates lending their conversation some privacy.

‘Look, Ron,’ Bullock said. ‘I know you have to maintain a level of confidentiality, but I’ve got my best man working on this school shooting and the investigation that has come out of that. I’m concerned about him and this woman he is trying to find. I’m going to be blunt.
I
don’t believe we had a random shooting by some pissed-off kids in black trench coats whose mommies didn’t hug them enough. From what Thiery has found, the evidence seems to point back to your department.’

Sales looked across the table at his old friend, a quick flash of anger in his eyes.

‘I … understand, Jim, but just as you have obligations to your department, I have commitments to my organization and the people we protect.’

Bullock leaned forward, trying to keep his voice down, his nose twitching as if he were trying to keep his glasses on the bridge, an involuntary thing that happened to him when he was losing his cool. ‘If this woman is one of your witnesses, you guys are doing a shit shoveller’s job of protecting her.’ He continued in a harsh whisper. ‘She’s already been shot. She leaves the hospital because she doesn’t feel safe there and goes to another one of your so-called safe houses and almost gets killed
there
by a bunch of gun-toting rednecks and some Mexican hitmen.’

Sales stared at him for a moment and sipped his coffee. Both men quit eating. ‘How do you know it was a safe house?’

‘C’mon, Ron,’ said Bullock. ‘We’re cops, too. The Lake Wales house was owned by the same bank that owned the house that was the last address for Weisz in DC, and the same one that held the title on her current address in Frosthaven. We looked them up, and she hadn’t leased, or purchased, those houses.
Your
department did.’ He watched Sales’ face turn red.

‘Okay,’ Sales said with resignation. ‘Okay.’ He rubbed his forehead with his fingers, kneading it like dough, unable to look into his lifelong friend’s eyes. ‘Jim, it’s our job as US Marshals to underscore the importance of our witness protection programme, and for the public to see us and WITSEC as infallible. We have to have people trust us implicitly or we would never get people to testify against organized crime. You get that, don’t you?’

Bullock looked at Sales warily. ‘I understand what you’re saying. I understand the significance of the programme. But, as any person with common sense could discern, there is no way your organization could go all these years without a fuck-up. Some fly in the ointment. C’mon, Ron. Law enforcement officers gossip as much as anyone. I’ve heard stories … ’

‘Maybe you have, but there’s never been anything in the media. There’s never been any … proof. To the public, we’re still golden. And, we have to stay that way. Do we understand each other?’

Bullock scowled at Sales but nodded an affirmative. There was a television installed in the corner of the restaurant. THN was running the footage of Thiery and Logan talking to Gruber outside the Sun Beam Motel. Bullock had already caught it in his room before leaving to meet Sales. He glanced at it over Sales’ shoulder, but said nothing.

‘First, you need to know that yes, Weisz is one of ours. Has been for years. I can’t disclose her real name, so please don’t ask. She was part of the Magician Programme I talked to you about briefly yesterday. She’s testified already against a significant and very dangerous drug lord, a kingpin from Mexico. So, you’re probably right about the hitmen. But, I just can’t believe the shooting at the school would be due to a compromise by one of our agents. Especially the marshal assigned to her.’

‘What’s his name?’

Sales shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Jim. I can’t tell you that. It could compromise everything.’

Bullock had to loosen his collar; he felt his blood pressure rising. ‘Wouldn’t you say this witness has been compromised? Whether it was your agency’s fault or not, this girl is out in the open now. If your guy had his shit together, he’d have gotten her down into a hole already.’

‘He’s trying. It’s just— ’

‘Just what? Maybe it’s just that she doesn’t trust him anymore. Maybe she shouldn’t. If she’s had to move so many times, it’s obvious someone is dropping the ball, at the very least. Worse case scenario, your guy has compromised himself— ’

‘No,’ said Sales, shaking his head vigorously. ‘That doesn’t happen to our people.’

‘Oh, really?’ said Bullock, exasperated. ‘You’re all popes and preachers, huh? Well, let me tell you, Ron. Popes and preachers do bad things all the time. Now, you sit here and look me in the eye, and tell me your man is golden. You tell me this cat never gave you any reason to doubt his character, his motivations. You tell me that right now, and I’m outta here. I won’t say another word. But, if you can’t tell me that, we need a different game plan. And quick.’

Sales chewed on one of his knuckles as he considered his next words carefully. His eyes blinked rapidly, and he drew a deep breath. ‘There was an incident about ten years ago,’ he began. ‘And yes, it gave us some doubt about the man. He was the lead marshal providing protection for an inside man named Eric Gazmend, connected to the Albanian Mafia in New York. He was supposed to testify against one of the head honchos, a mobster named Andre Kadriovski. We couldn’t get him on racketeering, so we thought we’d go for the old standby, tax evasion.’

‘I’ve heard of Kadriovski,’ said Bullock. ‘He’s still in operation, so I think I know how this story goes.’

Sales nodded. He seemed weary and rubbed at his eyes. ‘Anyway, we had his accountant, Gazmend, and we had him in a corner. We do what we have to do to get these guys to come over to our side, and some of it isn’t pretty. We knew he had a girlfriend. The mistress was an old flame Gazmend couldn’t let go of. He didn’t seem to care if his wife found out about her, but the mistress was married, too, and she didn’t want her husband to find out about him. So we used that to leverage his testimony against Kadriovski. Our man was assigned to his case and was handling it well, point by point, no mistakes. Then, the bean counter goes to dinner with his woman friend to a tiny, little, presumably very private, Albanian restaurant in New York. The owner kept it open after hours just for Gazmend, so they had the place to themselves, you see?’

Bullock listened, but said nothing.

‘They … didn’t make it. We had three guys covering Gazmend. Everything had been quiet and we had other people doing twenty-four hour surveillance on Kadriovski and his key players.’

‘But, there was still a hit?’

Sales nodded. ‘Yep. Took out Gazmend and his lady friend and two of our guys. But, one of our men survived.’

‘Without a scratch?’

Sales nodded. ‘He fired back, the restaurant owner confirmed that, but the shooters were all wearing masks and no one was ID’d. We had doubts about the deputy, but his story held up. We assigned him to desk for a year or so, had internal take a look at him. But, after a year, our HR department came around and told us he’d made some complaints that we hadn’t charged him with anything, so we put him back on the streets. As far as I know, he’s had a good, long, and at times, distinguished career.’

‘What was the name of the woman killed in the restaurant?’

Sales smiled, the Cheshire cat returned. ‘We weren’t sure. She had an assumed name, also Albanian, we thought. The newspapers reported that she was killed at a restaurant shoot-out, and printed the name we had, which was something like Magnolia, or Mangola. First name, Andrea, or something like that. Truth is she wasn’t identifiable; took a shotgun blast to the face.’

‘You guys didn’t notify her family, or anything?’

Sales shook his head. ‘I know it sounds shitty, but she wasn’t important to us. We knew she was a side fling for our accountant, but that’s all she was. NYPD was the lead on the homicide investigation and they didn’t take it anywhere. With our witness dead, we lost the sure conviction we thought we had. Essentially, he got away from us. Without Gazmend, without eyewitnesses who could ID the shooters, we couldn’t prosecute. We tailed Kadriovski for months, waiting for him to slip up, but he never did. After that, he vanished.’

Bullock sipped at his coffee. It was cold. ‘So, that’s that?’

‘I know,’ said Sales. ‘You wanted more, but I don’t have it. I’m so far up the ladder now, so removed from the field; I only know most of this, because you asked me to look. You knew I would eventually tell you what I knew, out of our friendship, but what I’ve told you is all I can share. The mission of our department demands we fly under the radar with some of these cases so we don’t expose other witnesses to the bad guys. You
know
that. Not to be disrespectful, Jim, but I can’t believe someone in our organization would be corrupt and last as long as this man has.’

‘
Can’t
believe, or
won’t
, Ron?’

‘C’mon, Jim. I didn’t have to share any of this with you.’

Bullock squinted at his old friend, noticing for the first time in years how much he’d changed. ‘Yeah, you did. You knew I’d really stink up the place if you didn’t.’ He let Sales chew on that for a moment. ‘Can you at least send another marshal down to keep an eye on your man? If nothing else, maybe he could shadow him and assure things are on the up and up?’

Sales breathed out heavily and looked out the window. It was bright but cold and a wind whistled down the street like a sigh. He looked back at Bullock. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Bullock, standing to leave.

Sales stood up as well and reached for his wallet.

‘I got it,’ said Bullock, trying to remember if he’d taken his blood pressure medicine that morning …

Sales looked at his watch. ‘Oh, man, I’m late. Jim, it was good seeing you. Wish it was under better circumstances, but this
will
work out. You just watch. It’ll all be fine.’

Bullock nodded, shook his friend’s hand, and said nothing. As soon as Sales was out the door of the restaurant, Bullock called his secretary, an efficient woman who had been with him for some twelve years.

‘Good morning, sir,’ she answered. ‘How is Washington?’

‘It’s cold, Dawn,’ he said abruptly. ‘Listen, I need a favour. Get some people in our research department to look into something for me.’

‘Go ahead, sir,’ she said, a pad and pen poised at the ready.

‘Have them find out everything they can about an Albanian mobster named Kadriovski, and his accountant, a guy named Gazmend, who was hit in a restaurant in New York about ten years ago.’ He took the time to spell the names for her, then went on. ‘There were some US Marshals killed at the scene, and a woman. See if they can confirm the woman’s name: possibly Mangola, Andrea, and that could be an alias. There was a US Marshal that survived the hit, too. See if they can find out who he is. Have our guys work with the FBI on it. The Feds like to play in their own sandbox but aren’t necessarily bed buddies with the US Marshals. Tell them it’s connected to an active case in which one of their agents, Special Agent Sara Logan, is working with one of ours. This is urgent. Priority is Number One. You got all that?’

‘I sure do,’ said Dawn, her tone never less than melodic, as if she were scribing a grocery list Bullock was reciting. ‘Just trying to work out that “bed buddies” statement for our investigative team, but I’m sure I can find the right phrase.’

Bullock thought for a moment before giving her one more piece of information. He felt guilty as he cleared his throat and said, ‘Have them look into Ron Sales, too.’

‘Ron Sales, from the US Marshal’s Office?’

‘Yeah.’

‘O … kay. But, don’t you know him personally, sir?’

Bullock hesitated before answering. ‘I thought I did.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said, diplomatically. ‘Probably prudent to make calls rather than send emails.’

‘Thanks, Dawn,’ said Bullock, recalling why she was so valuable to him and the department. ‘One more favour, too.’

‘Go ahead, sir.’

‘Book me a flight out of here as soon as you can get me on the next one. I’m not staying here.’

‘Too cold, sir?’

‘Nope. I just can’t take the politics anymore.’