Blackwater Sound (14 page)

The last of the SWAT guys climbed into the white van and the van pulled out of Thorn's drive. Alexandra Collins and a white-haired police lieutenant named Romano and another man who looked like a professional golfer were inside Thorn's house. They were talking quietly. They'd been in there for ten minutes now. The most company he'd had in years.

Sugarman was staring up at the tree limbs. Thorn sat across from him at the picnic table. Sugar had been quiet, poker-faced, since they'd finished interrogating him and let him come back outside. Humiliated, pissed off, Thorn couldn't tell.

“Sugar, why the hell didn't you let me know what was going on?”

Sugarman kept his eyes on the tree limbs.

“If you had a goddamn telephone, Thorn.”

“You're five minutes away, you could've driven over.”

“Look, they were showing the old guy's photo on the morning
news, I called in, told them what I knew, then I took a quick shower, gulped a bowl of Wheaties, got in the car, drove over, and bang, they were already here. I sure as hell didn't think they'd show up so fast. Or in such force.”

Thorn craned to the right and looked into the kitchen window. It looked like Alexandra was getting a lecture from Romano. She was staring up at Thorn's corkboard collection of bonefish flies with a defiant clench in her jaw. The other man, Wingo, was still prowling Thorn's living room, opening drawers, poking in the broom closet.

“Why send a SWAT team for an old guy like that? He wandered off, got lost. That the usual police response, eight hot dogs with automatic weapons?”

Sugarman fixed his gaze on the bay. It was a gloomy morning, low dismal clouds sneaking in from the northwest, like somebody up in Miami had set a mountain of rubber tires ablaze. The bay was a dull, tarnished silver, nothing moving out there, no birds, no boats, not even the riffle of wind.

“This isn't just a missing-person case. Lawton was in some kind of boating accident. Somebody died. Knocked overboard. Witness said Lawton might've been trying to throw these people off his boat. So we're talking possible homicide.”

“That old guy? No way.”

Sugarman shook his head. Out of answers.

“You tell them the stuff he said? The ray gun thing. Braswell.”

Sugarman shook his head.

“Why not?”

“They didn't ask the right questions.”

“So we're being dodgy with them?”

“I just answered what they asked. I'm biding my time, trying to see what's going on.”

“How come they don't want to interrogate me?”

“I don't think these guys are into irony. They pegged you as a smart-ass.”

“They're pretty perceptive, for cops.”

“That attitude isn't getting us anywhere, Thorn.”

“Hey, I thought I did pretty well, waking up with all that goddamn artillery in my face.”

“I think they'll be getting around to you. A minute or two.”

“How about the knife? You tell them he was wounded?”

“Yeah,” Sugar said. “It pissed the girl off even more than she already was. She wanted to know why we didn't take him to a hospital.”

“We should have.”

“I know, but he was freaking out, and the wound didn't look all that bad.”

“You told her that?”

He nodded.

“She didn't buy it, did she?”

“She asked me how long I've been practicing medicine.”

“She's a hard-ass.”

“Her father's missing. She's distraught.”

“Okay, she's a distraught hard-ass.”

Thorn looked back at the window and Alexandra was staring out at him through the screen. Four feet away, easy earshot. In that light the black hair framing her face looked like a nun's cowl. A hard-ass nun.

Wingo pushed the screen door open and stepped outside, followed by Romano. A moment later Lawton's daughter stepped out behind him.

“Apparently we owe you an apology, Mr. Thorn,” Wingo said. “We were under the impression you were holding Mr. Collins hostage. Obviously we were mistaken.”

“Don't worry,” Thorn said. “I'm not going to sue anybody.”

Wingo had on a blue button-down shirt and khaki pants and white tennis shoes. He had exotic good looks and was slim enough to be a catalogue model. Selling blue button-down shirts and khakis.

“Apology accepted,” said Thorn. “Now what about the explanation?”

Alexandra's mouth hardened and she turned away, staring into the house.

“Mr. Collins was involved in a boating incident yesterday,” Romano said. “There was a fatality.”

“But come on, Uzis and flak jackets? What's that about?”

Alexandra turned to the table and lowered herself onto the bench, shoulder to shoulder with Sugarman. Staring across at Thorn.

“As for me,” she said, “I'm not feeling real apologetic.” She gave Thorn a dead-on look. “The second my dad showed up here, you clowns should've picked up the phone and called the authorities. But no, you treat it like it's a big goof. An old man wanders up, lost, confused, a knife in his back, and you have a few laughs with him and put him to bed. He had phone numbers in his wallet. There were a dozen things you could have done. But you chose to do nothing.”

“That's not how it was,” Thorn said.

“You're a big joker, aren't you, Mr. Thorn?”

“Calm down, Alex,” Romano said. “Take it easy.”

“Where's the knife, Thorn? The weapon you pulled out of my father.”

“Like I told you, I put it next to the kitchen sink.”

“It's not there.”

“Well, maybe he took it with him.”

Beyond the screen door, Thorn's ancient refrigerator rumbled to life.

Alexandra shook her head with sad contempt. “What's your form of employment, Mr. Thorn?”

“Is that relevant?”

“Your friend here says you tie fishing flies for a living. Is that true?”

“And a meager living it is.”

“Or maybe you have some other source of income.”

“What? Now I'm a drug dealer, a pimp, what?”

“I look around here,” she said, “what I see is some middle-aged beach bum. Mister march-to-the-beat-of-a-different-drummer, making
his cute jokes, not taking anything seriously. That's who I see, someone who had a chance to do the right thing by an old man who was in serious trouble but no, you decided instead to stick a Band-Aid on him, tuck him in bed. Then somehow you don't even manage to wake up when he starts his boat, big twin diesels, thirty, forty yards away from where you were sleeping. Or more likely stoned.”

“I heard the boat pull away, but I turned it into a dream.”

Alexandra kept boring in on him with those dark, unflinching eyes. Her mouth was twisted out of shape, working hard to hold back another spew of outrage.

Her hair was thick and loose. It hung just beyond her shoulder blades, with bangs that grazed the middle of her forehead. Her nose was a little crooked across the bridge and it was maybe a half millimeter longer than fashion allowed and her lips were thin. It was a wide, agile mouth, one that seemed to expose a lot more emotion than her eyes revealed. Her face was pale, but not the pasty stuff you saw on the potato people just arriving from Minnesota and Wisconsin. Hers had a healthy flush, a Florida girl with Celtic genes. Creamy skin passed down from generations of hardy folks who stalked the desolate moors where the sun was never more than a dull silver presence behind layers of fog.

She had the straight-ahead, no-nonsense bearing of a cop, but she wasn't armed, which, all in all, was probably a stroke of good luck for both of them.

“First, I don't sell drugs,” Thorn said. “If I did, I'd live in a nicer place than this. And second, there aren't any beaches in the Keys, not any real ones.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“You called me a beach bum.”

Romano cleared his throat, laid a hand on Alexandra's wrist.

“So why'd he come here?” Romano asked. “You have any idea?”

“He was confused,” Thorn said. “When we saw his wound, we tried to get him to go to the emergency room, but he was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” Alexandra's mouth clenched.

“He wouldn't say.”

“So who stabbed him?”

“He wouldn't talk about any of that.”

“Well, what the hell did you talk about?”

“So, Thorn.” Romano shot a cool-it look at Alexandra. “What about where he might be headed next? He happen to let anything slip about that?”

“The Bahamas,” Thorn said. “Great Abaco Island.”

Alexandra craned forward. “The Bahamas!”

Thorn was having trouble opening up, telling these people the whole story. It had something to do with waking up with all those guns in his face, and it also had something to do with the guy Wingo, sitting there silently, unmoving. He struck Thorn as a guy with a lot of high-priced, state-of-the-art training and a global view. Over the years Thorn had met a few guys like that, peacetime soldiers with too much time on their hands, out-of-work mercenaries who thought in big, sweeping terms. More often than not, guys like that didn't give a particular shit about individuals, their pain, their sacrifices, their deaths. If your ends were grand enough, you could justify almost any means. And Wingo fit the picture, staying aloof, staring down at the table, listening, taking that silent, internal dictation. Like a guy with perfect recall who could trip you up later with a half dozen inconsistencies in your story. Thorn kept looking at him but the guy wasn't giving off anything. No emotion, no body language, just that irritating, untouchable calm.

“He was planning on going to the Bahamas,” said Romano. “How? In Peretti's boat?”

“He didn't say. In a boat like that, if you knew what you were doing, you could leave at dawn, be there for an early lunch.”

“Why the Bahamas?” Wingo said. But there was no curiosity in his voice. Almost a yawn.

Thorn leaned his way. “And who pays your salary?”

Alexandra looked off at the dense stand of hardwoods. Romano closed his mouth and smoothed his palm across his inflamed cheek. Wingo just kept staring at a dot about five feet up in the air.

“He's with the NTSB,” Sugarman said. “I've seen him on TV at the news briefings this week. He's the vice chairman, lead investigator for the American 570 crash.”

Thorn turned his head and looked at the shoreline, watching an egret poke in the shallows along the rocks, while twenty yards south a heron stood at rigid attention, head cocked back, eyes riveted on activity only it could see.

“Does this have something to do with a ray gun?”

Thorn looked back at the cop and Alexandra and the government man. He'd hit a funny bone with all three. The air trembled.

“Talk to us, Thorn,” Romano said, his red face glowing. “We're all ears.”

“No, it's your turn. I'm shutting up unless there's some fair exchange.”

“Maybe we should run him in, Dan. Put him in a room, give him time to consider his civic duty.”

“Hey, you're Miami PD, right?”

“That's correct,” Romano said.

“Aren't you a little beyond your jurisdiction? They haven't expanded the city limits this far yet, have they?”

“We're here with the full knowledge and cooperation of the sheriff of Monroe County.”

“Well, good. I'd hate to think you violated my rights in any way.”

“Talk to us, Mr. Thorn,” Wingo said. “Let's hear about this ray gun.”

“Way I see it,” Thorn said, “you talk a little, then I talk a little. I mean, I don't expect you to tell me the whole truth. I know you guys never do that. I just want to get a glimpse of what's going on here. That's all, just a peek.”

Sugar said, “Thorn promised Lawton he'd help. They kind of forged a bond.”

Alexandra lifted her eyes and settled them on Thorn's face. They were still burning, but the heat had backed off a few degrees.

“Help him how?” she said.

“Whatever he wanted me to do. I said I'd go along.”

“How do you know about this ray gun?” Wingo said.

“Lawton mentioned it in passing, that's all.”

“What did he want in the Bahamas?”

“To see somebody, some guy he thought might have some information.”

“He thinks he's still a detective,” Alexandra said. “He's investigating a crime, the death of his friend.”

“Who'd he want to see in the Bahamas?” Romano said.

“No, it's your turn,” Thorn said. “We're at that place, I've given you a couple of fairly significant things, but you're still sitting there with your assholes sewn shut. Now let's start playing fair.”

“Did he have something with him, a large box?” Wingo's voice was still disengaged, but his poker face was starting to crumble. A little eagerness showing, that flare of nostril, widening of pupil, like some damn bloodhound getting the first grain of scent.

“Oh, the box,” Thorn said. “You mean where he kept the ray gun.”

Wingo straightened. “He had it with him? You saw it?”

“Hell, no. He didn't have any box. You see any box, Sugar?”

“No box, no.”

Wingo looked at Thorn for several seconds, then blew out a breath.

“Hey, guys, if you won't answer my questions,” Thorn said, “we'll keep dancing around, playing these stupid games. I try to trick something out of you, you do the same with me. You want that?”

“What do you want to know?” Romano said.

“Here's a question,” Sugarman said, turning to Wingo. “You're investigating the 570 crash, so what's the deal? You think that old man is involved? Like a terrorist or something?”

Alexandra said, “That's what he thinks, yeah.”

Sugarman gave his head a small shake as if his ears were ringing.

“Look, I mean no offense, Mr. Wingo, and hey, I'm not a big-time government investigator or anything, but I'd have to say that's pretty much a crock of shit. And no offense to you either, Ms. Collins, but your dad didn't strike me as having the mental acuity for a fast game of darts, much less a terrorist plot.”