The Forgotten (35 page)

“Unless it was someone working at the hotel who killed them,” Carson pointed out.

“Right,” said Puller. “Then we’ll need to print all of them.”

Bullock said, “We’ll get right on that.” He nodded at Landry, who walked out to get it done.

Puller swept his gaze around the room. “Anything else?” asked Carson.

“Not forensically. I think we’ll know more when we find out about the dead guys’ backgrounds.” He looked at Bullock. “These aren’t street bangers. But you have drug problems here, right?”

“What city doesn’t have drug problems?” he said stiffly.

“Any other issues here we should know about?”

Carson looked at Puller and then at Bullock.

The police chief stared back at the CID agent. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you. You know this town better than I do.”

“There’s nothing special about Paradise in the crime department. In fact, before this last wave of violence we were pretty clean.”

Puller glanced at Carson.

Bullock caught his look and said, “You know something I don’t?”

“People disappear here?” asked Puller.

“Disappear? What the hell do you mean? Spontaneous combustion?”

“Do they live here one day and then they’re gone the next?”

“Missing persons? No. We don’t get much of that.”

“How many folks here are undocumented illegals?” asked Carson.

“This is a beach town on the Gulf. Unprotected border. Tourist destination. Cheap labor is important.”

“Meaning you have a lot of undocumented,” said Puller.

“I wouldn’t say a lot.”

“But if they went missing you wouldn’t necessarily hear about it. I mean, folks might not report it.”

“I guess they might not. But what are you getting at?”

“When I find out I’ll let you know.”

Landry said, “I’ll fill you in, Chief. Some kids are missing. We have an APB out on them.”

Before Bullock could react to this, Puller hefted his duffel over his shoulder and looked at Carson. “You ready?”

“Let’s go.”

“You just gonna leave it at that?” said Bullock.

“I came down here to find out why my aunt died. I intend to finish that mission.”

“And all the other stuff that’s going on?”

“If it’s connected to what happened to my aunt, then that too.” He motioned with his hand to the bed. “You might want to get them out of here. The smell is only going to get more unpleasant, especially in this heat.”

Carson followed him out as Bullock stood in the middle of the room looking at the dead men.

Puller loaded his duffel into the Tahoe and climbed into the driver’s side while Carson got in the passenger seat. Landry hurried up to them.

“Are you heading out?” she asked.

“For now, yeah. You getting the elimination prints done?”

“Organizing it right now.”

“Let me know when you find out anything about the two stiffs. They weren’t down here for a vacation.”

“I will.”

Landry glanced at Carson and then back at Puller. “You have time to get together later?”

Puller licked his lips and felt the heat rise to his face. “That’s a possibility. I’ll give you a call.”

Landry looked like she’d been slapped and she glanced once more at Carson. “Are you at the Gull Coast?”

At first Puller thought she was asking him, but then it became clear she wasn’t.

Carson said, “Yes. Just checked in.”

“I assume you’re down here on vacation.”

“I am.”

“Then you might want to try a place closer to the beach. The Gull is a long walk. And you don’t want to miss any rays.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“You’re welcome,” she said curtly and then turned and stalked off.

Carson said, “Am I interrupting something?”

Puller put the Tahoe in gear and backed out of the space. “No,” he said.

“Okay. Where are we going?”

“You want to hit the beach?”

“Is that what you want to do?” she asked, looking surprised.

“No. But I’m here working. You’re not.”

“I’m not a sun worshipper. And I’m here because you’re here, so let’s get to work.”

“All right.”

“So where to?”

“Where it all started. My aunt’s house.”

“
W
HAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR
?”

Carson was staring at Puller, who was searching through his aunt’s closet.

“Things that aren’t here.”

He went back outside, dug through his duffel, and pulled out the stapled pieces of paper, rifling through them. He counted down the items on the list and nodded his head.

“Breakthrough?” asked Carson.

“You could say that.”

Puller slid the papers into his pocket and stared over at Cookie’s house. Yellow police tape was still up, but there was no police cruiser parked out front. They were probably over at the new crime scene at the Plaza.

“John, what’s going on?”

“Just trying to piece something together.”

“About the murders?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

She followed as he walked over to Cookie’s house and through the gate into the backyard.

The house was dark.

The door was locked.

Ten seconds later the door was no longer locked.

“Army teach you that?” whispered Carson over his shoulder as he eased the door open.

“Army taught me a lot of things. Most of them useful.”

She followed him inside.

“While I’m here I might as well get some stuff for the dog,” he commented.

He opened some cabinets in the kitchen, found the doggie supplies, and piled them in a plastic bag he pulled from the recycling bin next to the pantry door.

“So you just came for the dog stuff?” asked Carson.

Puller didn’t answer. He went over to the cabinet housing Cookie’s watch collection. He counted off again.

“This is getting to be a little tiresome, Puller,” Carson said, a bite in her tone.

“Just trying to add up the pieces before arriving at a course of action.”

She looked at the watches. “And those figure in all this somehow?”

“They figure in something. But we’ve got one more place to check.” He looked at his watch. “It’s still too early yet. We’ve got some time to kill. Let’s take a drive.”

“Where?”

“Not where, really. More like how far. Five miles.”

They left Cookie’s house and climbed back into the Tahoe. Puller checked the rearview.

“See the two guys anywhere?”

“No, but I didn’t expect to, really.” He looked at his odometer. “Okay, five miles out, five miles back. We’re going to head east. At least that seems to be the direction based on what Jane Ryon told me.”

They left Orion Street and then the community of Sunset by the Sea. Three miles out they left any semblance of civilization behind. Four miles out it was only them, the sand, and the ocean.

Five miles out Puller stopped the truck and looked around. They were on the main street. To the north looked busier, with some buildings visible in the distance. To the south was a row of palm trees.

“The ocean has to be on the other side of those trees,” said Puller.

“Provides a natural screen from the road,” observed Carson.

They pulled down a side road and quickly found that beyond the trees was a section of thick brush, more trees, and some surface roads running through them.

And then the sand.

And then the ocean.

Puller swung the Tahoe to a stop on an asphalt park-off and they climbed out. He looked in all directions except toward the ocean.

“Pretty isolated here,” he said. “No people.”

“I wonder why?” asked Carson. “The beach looks pretty enough.”

They walked toward it and quickly found out why the beach was not very popular. The sand was gritty, the beach was covered with sharp rocks, and then there was the smell.

Carson covered her nose. “Sulfur.”

“Must be some geological quirk around here that makes this stretch of beach the way it is. And then there’s that.” He pointed at the large sign erected on a dune.

It read,
Warning. Strong riptide. No swimming allowed.

“So not all of Paradise is a paradise,” said Carson.

“I think we might have left Paradise about a half mile ago. Not sure what this place is called. Maybe it’s nothing.”

“It’s a wonder that sulfur smell doesn’t foul up the other beaches.”

“Wind probably doesn’t carry it that far,” said Puller. “Or there might be some sort of meteorological reason. I didn’t smell the sulfur until we got near the beach.”

“Me either, come to think of it. But why in the world would your aunt come here?”

“I don’t know. She was old, disabled. Used a walker.”

“So walking on a beach like this would be problematic. I’ve almost fallen twice.”

They stopped and looked around.

Puller fixed his gaze directly out at the ocean. “Any shipping channels out there?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It’s the Gulf of Mexico. I would imagine there are lots of ships coming and going. And then there’s all the oil drilling platforms.”

“Right. Like the one that popped and kept spewing oil for a long time.”

“I remember when the BP well burst open. J2 was tracking it for security reasons. And we did some background on the area. There
are thousands of oil platforms out there. Most of them are concentrated off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. But some extend over into the Panhandle.”

“Oil is king.”

“At least for now, yeah.” Carson bent down, picked up a chunk of rock, and tossed it into the waves. “Can we go? I’m about to puke with this smell. And I’ll need a shower to get the stink off.”

“A lot of smells more gross than this in the military,” said Puller dryly.

“True. But that doesn’t mean I have to endure them when I’m on vacation.”

They walked back to the Tahoe. Before they got in Puller stopped and knelt down.

Carson said, “What is it?”

“The king.”

“Excuse me?”

She walked around to join him.

He ran his finger over the asphalt and it turned black. He lifted his finger to his nose and looked up at her.

“Oil. Not from a platform. From a vehicle.”

M
ECHO WALKED THE LAWNMOWER
up the ramp of the truck and positioned it next to two other pieces of motorized equipment. He turned and stared back out across the Lampert estate. He didn’t know how much the man spent on landscaping, but it must be a lot. They had come every day and worked all day. When one part was done it was time to move on to another. When the cycle was complete it started over again.

When he had asked the foreman about it the man had just shaken his head and muttered, “He spends more on grass than I’ll make in my entire life. What’s fair about that?”

“Life is not meant to be fair,” Mecho had told him.

“You got that right,” the man said. “Life is meant to suck. Unless you’re rich.”

“There are things other than money,” Mecho said. “To bring happiness.”

The foreman smirked. “Keep telling yourself that. You might actually start believing it.”

“I do believe it,” Mecho had said after the man walked off.

Mecho climbed down and washed the back of his neck with cold water from a bucket carried on the truck. He glanced toward the yacht. Lampert had never come back off it. He had been on there most of the day. But then again, when you had a yacht like that why would you get off?

Then Mecho wondered if he were there by himself. He doubted it.

He knew that Chrissy Murdoch was not there. He had seen her go into the house.

The maid Beatriz had not gone out there either.

But there were other women here. And one could have arrived directly at the yacht from the waterside via a tender and Mecho would not have been able to see it. The yacht blocked the water view along its full length.

Mecho looked back over at the guesthouse and then at the remains of the Bentley. The police had finally left, apparently having exhausted the evidence remaining at the crime scene.

Actually, they would not find any, because he had not left any. If they were looking for a bomb signature they would not find one. He had gone totally generic on that. It would provide them with a thousand possible paths to go down with nary a viable prosecution case at the end of any of them.