When Darkness Falls (17 page)

J ack walked across the parking lot from the mobile command center to the fast-food restaurant. He was in search of caffeine. He found mostly testosterone.

Law enforcement had taken over the entire restaurant and surrounding property, and the SWAT members were in the dining area, waiting for the green light. Jack had bumped up against plenty of machismo before, as few Miami courtrooms were large enough to hold the average trial lawyer’s ego. But there was simply nothing quite like the collective bravado of a tactical team in full gear. It was a bizarre thought-and one that seemed unnerving to no one in the room but Jack-but in a matter of minutes, one of these guys might be pumping hollow-point ammunition into a man’s skull. The outcome depended entirely on the words Jack chose, the nuances of his tone of voice, the way he steered his next telephone conversation with Falcon. His job suddenly seemed even more overwhelming.

Jack passed by the coffee machine and went straight to the restroom. He stood at the sink, splashed cold water onto his face, and then took a good look at the man staring back at him from the mirror. He needed a shave, for sure. He removed the bandage, and there was some purple swelling around the cut at his right temple, where Falcon had said hello with the butt of his pistol. There wasn’t much other color to his skin. The worry lines appeared to be carved in wax, the stress written all over his face. It reminded him of the time his father had signed Theo’s death warrant and Jack went running into the bathroom to throw up. “Damn, you look worse than I do,” Theo had told him when he arrived at the penitentiary. It was no joke. When it came to matters of life and death, Theo seemed to have a leg up on everybody. Jack hoped that was still the case.

“Hang in there, buddy.” Jack was speaking aloud, but in his mind, he heard Theo talking.

Jack dried his hands and started toward the door. It opened before he got there, and a plainclothes officer entered. Jack recognized him as Detective Barber from the night they’d found a woman’s body in the trunk of Falcon’s car. Jack said a quick hello, then excused himself and tried to pass. Barber closed the door and leaned back against it, blocking Jack’s way.

“You used to work with Gerry Chafetz, didn’t you?” said Barber.

It seemed like an odd time for small talk, but Jack went along. “He was my supervisor at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, back when I was a prosecutor.”

“Chafetz and I rode together when he was on the force. I called him after you and I talked the other night. He speaks highly of you.”

“That’s nice to hear.”

They stood in silence, each sizing up the other. Jack knew that this had to be about more than his old boss. “Is there something you and I need to talk about, detective?”

“Chafetz tells me that you can be trusted.”

“I like to think that’s true.”

Barber narrowed his eyes, as if to press his point. “I had a private conversation with Paulo this morning. Did he mention it to you?”

“No.”

“I need some information from Falcon, but Paulo tells me that you’re the one doing most of the talking.”

“It’s not my choice, but that seems to be the way Falcon wants it.”

Barber nodded slowly, as if Jack’s version were consistent with what Paulo had told him.

Jack said, “What are you trying to find out?”

Barber hesitated, seeming to weigh in his mind whether it was enough that Jack’s former boss had vouched for his integrity. Either it was, or Barber had run out of options. “I need to know why the mayor’s bodyguard was snooping around Falcon’s car on Thursday night.”

“You mean the night the woman was murdered?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“What does the mayor have to say about that?”

“Haven’t discussed it with him yet.”

“Why not?”

“Couple reasons. Can’t really share them with you. Except for one, which you may have already figured out.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard by now how upset the mayor is that Vincent Paulo is heading up this hostage negotiation. How afraid he is that Paulo is going to get his daughter involved.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Jack. “This morning I got a police escort straight to the mayor’s car. He made it absolutely clear that Paulo is not his first choice.”

“See, that’s so very interesting to me.”

“How do you mean?”

“Because I know for a fact that it was a phone call from Mayor Mendoza to Chief Renfro that got Vince Paulo assigned to this case in the first place.”

Jack needed a few seconds to process that one. “How do you know that?”

“I’m a detective, okay?” That seemed to be all the explanation that Barber cared to offer.

Jack said, “Why would the mayor pretend that he doesn’t want Paulo in charge if he was the driving force behind the assignment?”

Barber gave a slow, exaggerated shrug, as if to say “Good question.” “Figure out a way to make your client tell us what the mayor’s bodyguard was doing down by the river the other night. Maybe we’ll get the answer.”

Jack considered it, then checked his tired expression in the mirror one last time. “Yeah,” he said quietly, “maybe.”

O n his way out of the restaurant, Jack stopped at the doughnut bar. He was hungry, and there was plenty to choose from. In Miami, doughnuts were to doughnut bars what sea turtles were to turtle soup. There were pastelitos, warm and flaky Cuban pastries with guava and other fillings that Sara Lee never dreamed of. Some had ham or ground beef inside, and the sweet crust with salty meat produced a surprisingly tasty combination. There were capuchinos, which were not misspelled cups of coffee but delicate sponge-cake cones drenched in sweet syrup. The empanadas and croquetas smelled pretty amazing, too, though not nearly as good as the ones Jack’s abuela made. The bottom line was, not a plain old doughnut to be had. Perhaps it was a trend. Jack had read in the New York Times or somewhere that cupcakes were now all the rage in New York precincts. Those guys still had a long way to come.

Jack grabbed a coconut pastelito and stepped outside to make a call. Talking things out always helped him think. His abuela told him that he got that from his mother. Even though Jack had never known his mother-she’d died in childbirth-he was quite confident that Ana Maria Fuentes Swyteck’s favorite sounding board had been nothing like Theo Knight. With Theo held hostage, however, Jack turned to his father to help him brainstorm. Jack wasn’t sure if the former governor could help, but Falcon had told Jack to call him. If nothing else, it might help Jack lie more convincingly if he could at least say, truthfully, that he had indeed spoken to Harry Swyteck.

“You know me,” said Jack. “I’ve never been a good liar.”

“Then you should give up defense work and go back to being a prosecutor.”

What else could he expect from a former police officer? “That’s a real belly-buster, Dad.”

“Sorry. I can hear the tightness in your voice. My bad attempt to loosen you up a little for your own good.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Have you spoken to your grandmother?” asked Harry.

“No.”

“You should try to take a minute and do that. Your name is all over the television. She’s going to be worried sick about you.”

“I’ll try. Can you call her for me, tell her I’m doing all right?”

“Are you?”

“What?”

“Doing all right?” said Harry.

Jack didn’t answer right away. “I’m doing better than Theo. Right now, that’s the test.”

“Well, it must seem absurd to hear me say this, but your friend Theo is definitely a survivor.”

He was right. It seemed beyond absurd, coming from the man who’d signed Theo’s death warrant. But Jack didn’t want to rehash that history. “I need your help.”

“Sure. What can I do?”

“I’m trying to figure out what the hell is going on inside the City of Miami Police Department.”

“How do you mean?”

Through the plate-glass window, Jack caught a glimpse of the television that was playing inside the restaurant. The SWAT members were gathered around it. “Dad, turn on channel seven. I’ll call you right back.”

“What’s going on?”

“Mayor Mendoza is speaking live on television. I need to hear this. I want you to hear it, too.” Jack switched off his phone and ran inside. He found a spot in back, behind the crowd of SWAT members in tactical fatigues, where he had a clear line of sight to the television. The volume was set at the max, making the tinny speaker rattle with each voice inflection.

On screen, Mayor Mendoza was standing in front of Miami’s city hall, having completed his prepared statement, poised to take questions from the media. He was dressed in the same dark suit that he’d worn for his conversation with Jack in the backseat of his limo, but he had changed neckties. It was how publicists earned their keep, Jack presumed, assuring the Mayor Mendozas of the world that a pink tie was all wrong and that the red one conveyed the necessary firmness and resolve.

“Has the gunman demanded to speak to your daughter again?” a reporter asked.

“Not to my knowledge,” said the mayor.

“Will she speak to him if he does make that demand?”

“Absolutely not,” he said.

“Has your daughter told you that directly?”

“Both Sergeant Paulo and Chief Renfro have given me that assurance.”

Another reporter jumped in, an old muckraker who used to pester Jack all the time, back when Harry Swyteck was governor and Jack was the young and rebellious thorn in his father’s side. His name was Eddy Malone. “Mr. Mayor, can you assure the families of these hostages that you’re doing all you can to secure the release of their loved ones?”

“That is our unfailing commitment.”

“But how can you give that assurance if you won’t even entertain the possibility of letting your daughter-who is a trained police officer-speak to this Falcon character?”

“The best way to answer your question is to point out that I’m not the one drawing the line here,” said the mayor. “Sergeant Paulo has handled many of these crisis situations, and it’s his very firm view that you don’t feed a stalker’s sickness by giving in and letting him talk to the very woman he is obsessed with. I’m following his advice on this point.”

Jack’s mouth dropped open, ready to release an involuntary “What?”

The mayor kept talking. “I simply want to add that I have the utmost confidence in Vince Paulo.”

Malone said, “So, you’re not at all concerned that Sergeant Paulo might not be ready for this crisis, given his recent leave of absence?”

“If by ‘leave of absence’ you mean his blindness, the answer to your question is an unqualified ‘no.’ He wouldn’t be in this position if he weren’t the best man for the job. Period. That’s all the time I have now for questions. It’s time to let the police do their work. Thank you all.” He gave a simple wave, turned, and went back inside City Hall.

Jack didn’t stick around to listen to the newscaster’s recap. He grabbed his phone, ready to dial his father back, then thought better of it. He knew the cops were tweaking his cell calls to keep the press and other eavesdroppers from picking up his conversations with Falcon. At the moment, there were probably enough technological gadgets crammed into the surrounding city block to turn his cell phone into a virtual party line. He hurried outside and dialed from the pay phone on the wall.

“Did you see that?” said Jack.

Harry seemed puzzled by the urgency in Jack’s voice. “Yeah, but I can’t say that I heard anything that surprised me. The mayor obviously doesn’t want his daughter talking to that lunatic any more than I want you talking to him.”

“Believe me, the mayor’s feelings are much stronger than yours. Too strong for his own good, perhaps.”

“What do you mean?”

Jack told him about the phone conversation in the back of the mayor’s limo and the surprise visit from Detective Barber in the bathroom. Then he said, “The medical examiner says that the woman I found in the trunk of Falcon’s car was beaten to death on Thursday night.”

“Okay. What of it?”

Jack checked over his shoulder, making sure no one was around. He waited for two patrol officers to disappear inside the restaurant before continuing. “What would you say if I told you that the mayor’s bodyguard was seen down by the river, near Falcon’s car, right about that same time?”

“I’d probably want to ask the guy what he was doing down there.”

“Let’s assume he’s not talking. And neither is the mayor. Then who do you ask?”

“Crazy as he might be, I suppose you would ask Falcon.”

“Yeah,” said Jack. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless they take Falcon out of that hotel room feet first.”

Harry paused, seeming to process what his son was implying. “That’s a very serious accusation, if you’re making it.”

“Yeah,” said Jack. “It is.”

“So…are you making it?”

“Do you think it sounds crazy?”

Again, there was silence. Jack thought he was about to get the patented Harry Swyteck lecture again-how the whole world thought there was a “conspiracy” out there. Finally, Harry said, “Let me do some checking. Call me in a couple hours.”

“No, don’t do that.”

“I want to help you.”

“You already have. Just the fact that you’re willing to check into it tells me that I’m onto something. It’s best if I follow up from the inside. Maybe through Paulo. Or maybe even Barber.”

“I think you should pick one or the other.”

“I agree.”

“So which one is it going to be?” asked Harry.

“I don’t know yet. I’ll see how it plays out over the next couple of hours and just go with my instincts.”

“Okay. But son?”

“Yeah?”

“Be very careful with this.”

“I will,” he said, then hung up the pay phone.

V ince could smell the rain approaching.

He was standing outside the mobile command center, getting some fresh air. A northwesterly breeze caressed his face and ran through his hair. Rain was on the way, no doubt about it. His nose picked it up with ease, and it had nothing to do with any souped-up olfactory senses that came with blindness. The smells that warned of rain in Miami were as portentous as the sight of thunderclouds over the Everglades. With eyes closed, even those with perfect vision could sense a coming storm.

Rain was Vince’s new best friend. The bond had formed on his first rainy day without sight, just moments after he’d stepped out the front door and onto his porch. His mind was gearing up for the usual mental exercise, the memorized flower-beds, shrubbery, and footpaths that defined his morning walk. But the rain changed all that. More precisely, it was the sound of falling rain that brought the outdoors and all of its shapes, textures, and contours back into his world. Where there was once only blackness, suddenly there was water sloshing down a drainpipe. The patter of raindrops on the broad, thick leaves of the almond tree. The hiss of automobiles on wet streets. Even the grass emitted its own peculiar expression of gratitude as it drank up the morning shower. A sighted person would have heard nothing more than rainfall in its most generic sense, a white noise of sorts. To Vince, it was a symphony, and he reveled in his newly discovered power to appreciate the beautiful nuances of each and every instrument. Nature and his old neighborhood were working together, calling out to him, telling him that everything was still there for his enjoyment. He heard the drumlike beating on his mailbox, the gentle splashing on concrete sidewalks, and even the ping of dripping water on an iron fence that separated his yard from his neighbor’s. Rain, wonderful rain. It made him smile to find this new friend.

Rain, however, was no amigo to a negotiator. It made everything that much more complicated, especially with a hostage-taker wrapped in explosives. If things went south and they were forced to neutralize him, it would have to be a head shot. Snipers worked in a world of zero margin for error. A precision shot from atop a building, a hundred yards away, through a hotel window, was tricky but doable. Even to the skilled marksman, ambient conditions mattered. Nobody liked rain-except Vince, who knew better than any sighted person that sometimes the only opportunity to see things clearly was in the midst of the storm, that you might never find answers if you hide away in a shelter until after the rain.

Vince heard footsteps, then Alicia’s voice. “I need to speak to you,” she said. “Inside.”

They retreated into the mobile command center, and before Vince could ask what this was about, Alicia said, “Did you see the TV broadcast?”

A month earlier, he would have corrected her and said, no, he’d only listened to it. He was maturing as a blind person, he supposed. “Yeah,” he said.

“Then you caught what my father said. About the assurances he received from you that I would not under any circumstances talk to Falcon.”

“I was hanging on his every syllable.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Nope. Never told Chief Renfro that, either.”

He heard her sigh and take a seat. “Now if I have to talk to him, everyone on the force is going to assume that you broke your word to Chief Renfro and the mayor. Why is he tying your hands like that?”

Vince could tell that she was upset, and he was absolutely certain that his answer to her question would only upset her more. It might even insult her. He tried a less direct approach. “Did I tell you about the dream I had after you called to invite me to the jazz festival?”

She hesitated long enough for Vince to know that she was shooting him an incredulous look. “Vince, can we focus on what I’m talking about?”

“No, this is important. I need to tell you this.”

She breathed out a little noise that Vince took for reluctant acquiescence. “Okay,” she said. “Tell me about your dream.”

“I’ve actually had it a couple of times, twice in the same night. It’s kind of weird because it’s one of the few dreams I’ve had where I’m blind. I’m married to you.”

He stopped right there. He hadn’t intended to create such a dramatic pause, but he suddenly wasn’t sure if sharing this dream was such a great idea, after all.

“We’re married?” she said.

“Yeah. And we take our daughter to the park. She’s maybe four years old. Kids are playing all around us. I can hear them all happy and squealing with delight on the monkey bars. Little pockets of conversation surrounding me. Music is playing from the band shell in the distance. I’m tired and have to sit down on a bench. Then all of a sudden, a child comes and sits in my lap. I’m pretty sure it’s a girl, because of the length of her hair, but she doesn’t say a word. She just slides into my lap and nuzzles up against me. I wait for her to say something, but she’s completely silent. I don’t know what to do. I think it’s our daughter, but without the sound of her voice, I can’t be sure. Of course, I’m afraid to come right out and ask if it’s her. What would that make her think, if her own father can’t even recognize her when she’s sitting right in his lap? And so we just sit there, this child in my lap, and me in the dark, not knowing who she is or what to do.”

Silence. Insufferable silence. He’d thought that telling her about it would loosen the emotional knot in his stomach, but it was only worse to have it out there with no reaction at all. Now, more than ever, it was driving Vince crazy that he couldn’t see Alicia’s face.

Finally, she said, “That child will speak to you, but only if you let her.”

“In my dream I want her to speak.”

“No. She’s just going to sit there and be quiet, until you’re ready. Until you decide what you want to do. About us.”

More silence, and then he heard the approaching footfalls. He could almost feel her standing right before him, looking into his face. He wanted to reach out to her, but he wasn’t sure what she wanted, and something inside him wouldn’t let him take the risk. Then her arms went around his shoulders, and instinctively his hands found their way around the curve of her back, locking the two of them in a tight embrace. It wasn’t the reaction he’d expected, and it was beyond even what he had hoped for. It felt so good.

“Vince, I’m glad you’re sharing this with me.” She was trying to control it, but there was real emotion in her whisper as she released him and took a step back.

He smiled a little, trying to put her at ease. “Hey, I didn’t bring this up so that we get all sloppy on each other.”

“Your timing is kind of weird,” she said.

“I actually have a point.”

“What is it?”

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that my feelings for you haven’t changed, but-pardon the pun-that doesn’t make me blind.”

“I don’t follow you.”

All traces of a smile ran away from his face, and he summoned up his most serious expression. “Don’t be offended by what I’m about to tell you. And please don’t say that I’m losing my mind.”

“Tell me,” she said, concerned.

“I think I’m only beginning to understand why I’ve been put in charge in here.”