The Accused (13 page)

“Yes. Major Hanover got permission from the Mexican police for us to visit the scene of the shootout. They weren't real excited about it, but Major Hanover got some pressure applied through the American embassy and the State Department.”

“Speaking of the Mexicans, I used to have a contact—not in the Yucatán per se—but in Mexico City. I used him a couple of years ago on a case where I was tailing a husband who was cheating on his wife.
He'd married her in Las Vegas and then turned around and married somebody else shortly after that down in Mexico. Nice guy, huh?”

“Have you touched base with your contact about this case?” Will asked.

“We've been exchanging messages. I'm supposed to speak to him today. I've got your memo with the points you wanted to check out with the Mexican authorities—you know, very quietly—about a trap being set for the U.S. commandos, not only by the AAJ, but with the assistance of the Mexicans. I'm going to start checking that out with my guy down there. He's traveling down to Cancún to meet us when we arrive.”

As he hung up, Will was pleased that the trip with Tiny was a go. He wasn't sure what he would find—or even what to expect—when they surveyed the scene. But he did have an overwhelming sense of certainty that he needed to be there—in person—and walk the actual route that Marlowe and his men had taken, from the drop-off point near the Mayan ruins to the scene of the incident and back.

The attorney leaned back in his black leather chair and gazed out his office window at the church steeple across the street and the red brick buildings that surrounded it. The summer tourist season in Monroeville was over, and the streets were quiet now. This was the time when he enjoyed the historical charm of the city the most.

He got up and walked over to the window, leaning his arms on the sill, and gazing out at the eighteenth-century, cream-painted church spire.

For a moment he reflected back on the dramatic shift that his life had taken—from being a skeptical, cynical lawyer, a man whose life was quickly disintegrating into alcoholism and despair, to his present state as the husband of a beautiful gospel singer, whose faith and generosity of heart had inspired him to be a better man.

Just a few years ago he had sat on the carpet, right there in front of his desk—broken, amazed, yet certain that he must acknowledge and accept the reality of God—and the convincing proof and immutable truth that Jesus was both Lord and Savior.

In the time that had passed since that cataclysmic event—after that first awkward, groping prayer—Will had become keenly aware of the inward transformation.

He had been able to order his life from the inside out—from the core of spiritual peace he had been granted, out into his law practice, his friendships, and the externals of daily living.

Yet there were still challenges. One of them was to be the kind of man he felt Fiona deserved. Lately he had felt himself letting go of the past—not entirely—but slowly and progressively.

Over the last few days he had started to direct his mind away from the investigation into Audra's death. The last time he had really dug his fingers into that issue was when he had called Captain Jenkins, that Saturday at home with Fiona.

Will's reverie was interrupted when he recalled that he should check with Fiona on his trip to Mexico. Right now would be the time—she was at home handling a series of conference calls with her manager and some promoters, working on a schedule for her next concert tour.

The phone rang only twice.

“Hey, lover,” Will said brightly when Fiona picked up. “How are your conferences going?”

“You called me at a perfect time. I've got a couple minutes before my next call comes in.”

“Say—you remember I said I might have to travel down to Mexico this week, depending on whether I could hook up with Tiny?”

“Sure, I remember,” she said quietly.

“Well, I got ahold of him and we have tickets booked for tomorrow. I'm going to confirm with my travel agent that everything's a go.”

“I can't say I'm excited about being separated. But I know you've got to do what you've got to do in this case. You said you were going to be gone only a couple of days?”

“Yeah, we're coming back in four days. Two days of travel, and two days down there at the site.”

Just then they heard a click on the line.

“I'm sure that's the next conference call coming in,” Fiona said.

“Listen, there's something else I want to suggest. Keep me in the loop on this next concert tour. I'd like to travel with you for at least part of it.”

“Oh, wow!” she said, overjoyed. “I would absolutely love that. Thank you, darling. We're going to have so much fun!”

Will told her how much he loved her, and he hung up.

There was only one major challenge that Will had to overcome before the two of them could do some traveling together on the concert tour.

All he had to do, first, was exonerate a highly decorated marine colonel in a quadruple murder case whose secrets were—thus far—wrapped and hidden from view like a corpse in a shroud.

19

W
ILL AND
T
INY FLEW TOGETHER FROM
Reagan National Airport in Washington to Mexico. They landed at the Aeropuerto Internacional de Cancún. Will couldn't help but think of his honeymoon with Fiona at Isla Cozumel, just south of Cancún.

On the flight, the two men had strategized on their approach to the quick, two-day investigation. Tiny was going to rent a car and drive the short distance inland to San Rafael. There he was going to meet with his Mexican contact, who was to come down from Mexico City, and try to glean as much information as he could on the inside Mexican view of the shoot-out at Chacmool.

Tiny's contact, a shadowy character who went only by the name of Hermán, was engaged in an import–export business. Tiny knew he had regular contact with some of the drug gangs and Yucatán jungle bandits. He also had a good working relationship with the Mayan population—the dominant demographic group in the area—as well as with some high-ranking officials.

Will would take a taxi down Federal Highway 180 into the jungles of the Yucatán, where he would first stop off at Chichén Itzá and the spot where Marlowe and his commandos had been dropped off and had made their way through the jungle to the house on the outskirts of Chacmool.

Hermán had arranged for the taxicab driver to act as a guide for Will—and had assured Tiny he was reliable and knowledgeable. He did add, however, that Will should bring a pocketful of American dollars—not pesos, as that denomination was ever plummeting because of the unstable Mexican economy.

The driver, a middle-aged Mexican with missing teeth and a broad smile, went only by the name Pancho. He greeted Will at the airport
with a smile and a two-handed handshake, quickly grabbing his bags and tossing them into his taxi.

The cab itself was a vintage Cadillac convertible of uncertain color—ranging somewhere between silver-gray, black, and purple, with an attempted repaint job that appeared not to have taken. The vehicle had no doors, which, Pancho assured Will, aided in good ventilation.

As the attorney started out on the several-hour trip, his guide offered to sell him a bottle of Coke, which he conveniently kept in a styrofoam cooler in the backseat.

“Five dollar—one bottle—American dollar only,” Pancho said with a smile, showing the gap in his teeth.

Settling himself into the front seat next to his driver, Will snorted and shook his head.
Five dollars for a bottle of soda—this guy must think I'm stupid,
he mused to himself.

They quickly left the beautiful beaches and international hotels of the Cancún beach area and entered the jungle.

After less than an hour they were driving on a poorly maintained two-lane road and were surrounded by all-but-impenetrable green forest that rose up in tangled trunks of tan-and-beige jungle trees and undergrowth. As they drove, the jungle seemed to grow closer, encompassing the highway and blocking the fierce sun.

Pancho was chain-smoking, breaking the silence occasionally only to point out a small village here, or perhaps a dilapidated gas station there…one belonging to a friend of a relative of a friend.

It wasn't very long before Will's lightweight Hawaiian shirt was drenched in sweat, his hair damp, and droplets of sweat were falling from his nose and eyebrows. Soon he was reaching into his wallet with disgust and pulling out five-dollar bills, which Pancho stuffed merrily in his top pocket as he invited his passenger to retrieve the bottles of Coke from the cooler himself.

Will figured he should have known that Pancho had a soda racket when he first entered the car and noticed a bottle opener permanently screwed to the dashboard.

“Tell me something, Pancho,” he addressed the other man. “Are you Mayan?”

Pancho shook his head.

“No—but I've got a lot of friends who are Mayans. We call them Indians down here.”

“We're going to Chichén Itzá first, right?”

The Mexican smiled and nodded. “You're not
turista,
are you?” he asked. “You're a lawyer—down here on a law case, huh?”

“Yes—after that we're going to Chacmool, right?”

Pancho nodded again.

“Now, after Chichén Itzá,” Will continued, “we're going to walk through the jungle together. On a path I'm going to show you from some notes I've got. It leads to a house on the outskirts of Chacmool—okay?”

Pancho stopped smiling, and he flipped his cigarette out of the car and gave Will a quizzical look.

“Walk through the jungle? Don't think that's a good idea. We've got the car—we'll drive there.”

Will shook his head violently.

“No—you and I have to take a path through the jungle, exactly as I instruct us. You need to go along with me in case there are some Mexican police who ask what we're doing.”

“That's going to cost you extra—fifty American dollars.”

Apparently, Hermán's advice to Tiny had been no exaggeration. Will was glad he had brought a huge pile of American bills in his pocket.

He tried to glance at his file on the way to the Mayan ruins, but the wind blowing through the side openings where doors used to be threatened to rip the pages from his hands.

When they got to the town of Valladolid, Pancho pulled into a gas station, bragging that Valladolid was one of the biggest cities in the area. But Will found it a sleepy provincial Mexican town. There was a market at its center, and a sixteenth-century—according to his tourist book—Spanish church dominated the central square. Several skinny, brown-skinned boys—Mayans, perhaps—were playing baseball behind the gas station, and a little girl in a dirty dress stared at him as he stepped out of the Cadillac and stretched. He smiled at her, but her wide eyes remained unblinking, and she played with her dress nervously and then ran away.

“There are good hotels—clean rooms, very beautiful—if you want to stay here for the night,” Pancho said, climbing back in and starting the car. “Only twenty-five miles or so now. We soon get to the ruins.”

“How do the Mayans get along with the Mexicans?” Will asked.

The driver shrugged. After a few moments he answered.

“Still problems—the Indians still have a few uprisings—fights with the police. They don't think the government takes care of them. They think the government…” he thought for a minute for the right word. “…That the government pushes them down—steps on them,” he continued.

Slowing down, Pancho pulled off the main highway onto a side road that led toward the ruins. They stopped at a tourist gate with a booth, where a guard let them through.

After they parked the car, Will grabbed the diagram he'd made from his briefcase and asked Pancho to lock the case in the trunk. He stuffed the diagram in his pocket, and they trudged off toward the ruins.

The attorney glanced at his watch. Time was short. But by retracing Marlowe's steps right up to the site of the killing, he hoped to dislodge some hidden piece of evidence—anything.

What he really wanted to do was to climb inside Marlowe's head to learn what he had known that night. Barring that, a walk through the hot Mexican jungle would have to suffice.

20

“T
HERE'S WHERE
I
WANT TO START,”
Will said, pointing to the towering El Castillo, the same Mayan pyramid that Marlowe and his men had approached in their helicopter, and from which the top of the jungle canopy could be viewed. Beyond El Castillo was the clearing where the U.S. team had been dropped, a spot where, at night, there would have been no observers.

“So we're going to walk through the jungle to Chacmool?” Pancho asked with a smile.

Will nodded, and then caught his companion's drift as he beckoned with his right hand and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. The lawyer handed him a fifty-dollar bill and then tightened the laces of his rubber-soled hiking boots.