A Dark and Lonely Place (2 page)

“No need, Mama. We’re together. Everything’s all right.” To cry in front of his mother would not be a manly thing to do.

Clouds drifted across the moon’s face, darkening the trail ahead. Joe Ashley constantly searched the shadowy road behind them, to see if anyone was following.

John regretted all the things he didn’t say to Laura. Too late now. With a ragged sigh he wrapped his arm around his little brother Bobby who was sitting up, sound asleep.

Is she asleep too? John wondered. Or awake and thinking of me? He knew he’d see her again. But how? And when?

PART ONE

Fate is the gunman all gunmen fear.

—Don Marquis

CHAPTER ONE

JULY 23, 2011, MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA

G
entle surf tumbled onto the sand beneath towering clouds adrift in a cobalt sky, a perfect day in paradise except for the crowded, noisy beach and the tinny radio that blared nearby.

Why am I here? John Ashley wondered. Why did I want to be here? What was I thinking?

He sat up to scowl at the radio’s owner but was distracted by a leggy model in the shade behind the seawall. She posed in a short, sheer skirt and a crimson whisper of a blouse. He instantly recognized her but couldn’t remember her name or where they met. The photographer snapped her from every angle, as a makeup man darted in between shots to blot and repowder her face and décolletage.

Two more models, a redhead and another dark-haired girl, appeared briefly in the doorway of a production trailer, its engine running, air conditioners blasting.

The girl beside him on the beach towel decided that he should lie facedown while she massaged his shoulders with coconut oil. Lulled by the scent and rhythm of the sea, he drifted into his recurring dream: dangerous times, violent men—and the woman. He couldn’t quite see her face but would never forget her body. They were young and naked beside the river. What river? he wondered. Their feverish bodies entwined, mouths pressed together, he could taste her youthful passion on his lips.

He tried, as always, to focus on her face. He nearly glimpsed it this time, but a menacing growl shattered the dream. The hair rose on his arms and the back of his neck. His adrenaline surged and his eyes flew
open as the predator’s roar grew into earsplitting thunder. This was no dream. A high-powered speedboat rocketed toward South Beach. He raised his head, willed it to veer away. But it kept coming. Too fast. John Ashley, tall and long-limbed, sprang to his feet.

The speeding boat did not change course.

“John?” murmured the girl beside him. Her diamond ring flashed as she whisked beach sand off silky, sun-kissed knees. “John . . . ?”

He sprinted toward the pastel lifeguard station.

“Police!” he shouted. “Incoming! Clear the beach! Do it now! Now!”

The lifeguard lifted his binoculars, blasted his high-pitched whistle, then bellowed a belated warning. “Leave the beach!”

“Look out! Get your kids out of here!” John warned sunbathers. “Move it! Up there! Back behind the seawall. Now!”

Slow to react at first, people panicked as the howl of the engines grew louder and the boat loomed larger, closer, faster, its wake a streaming rooster tail across blue water.

French tourists fumbled for bikini tops.

Half-naked, they scattered.

“He’s not slowing down!” John shouted. Was anyone at the helm? He and his girl, tanned and graceful in her white bikini, snatched up toddlers, hustled the elderly, and yanked to their feet those too slow to move. The lifeguard joined them.

“Run! Go, go, go!” they shouted, as the blue and white speedboat barreled ashore. Throttle jammed, it flew like an arrow across a narrow strip of eroded beach, splintered a wooden fence, skimmed a swimming pool, and slammed with a thunderous crash into the back lobby wall of a small oceanfront hotel.

A man ejected on impact soared high and free, limbs as limp as a rag doll’s. His flight ended with a sickening thud, his body grotesquely draped across a balcony railing.

John plucked a cell phone from the random possessions scattered like flotsam across the sand, summoned medics for the injured, cops for crowd control, and the medical examiner’s office for the dead. He had no need for a homicide sergeant. He was already there.

He checked the beach and pool deck for life-threatening injuries, while Lucy, his fiancée, dashed to the car for his badge, gun, shirt, and trousers. He pulled the clothes on over his swim trunks, then followed screams to the hotel’s second floor, trailed by a stunned assistant manager.

The screams came from the honeymoon suite. John suggested that the pudgy bride and skinny groom get dressed and pack up to change rooms, then stepped carefully onto the balcony. He glanced back at the photo shoot and stared. The dark-haired model kicked off her high heels and sprinted into the street to flag down an oncoming fire rescue van. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Look at that girl run! She always was fast.

She led paramedics to an elderly couple knocked to the ground during the mass exodus from the beach. He focused on the girl, the way she moved, her familiar gestures. She now wore tight, white jeans that exposed her navel. Who the hell is she?

He tore himself away to check the victim. He smelled the urine, the shattered bone, but where was his blood? Uh-oh. The flattened face looked familiar. So did the gold Presidential Rolex on the dead man’s left wrist. It still worked perfectly, but time had run out for the man who wore it.

The soaring eagle tattoo on a fractured forearm confirmed John’s suspicion. The speedboat’s raw power made sense, now.

He made another call. “It’s a homicide.

High-profile,” he told homicide captain Armando Politano.

“How high?”

“Very.”

“Who? You have a positive ID?”

“The Indian, Ron Jon Eagle.”

“Crap. You shitting me?”

“Do I ever? You may want to give the chief a heads-up. He’ll probably want to make some calls.” Eagle, a high-profile lawyer, volatile litigator, dedicated playboy, and politically connected lobbyist for the tribe and its gambling casinos, had a long history of feuds, deals, and disputes with politicians, and police. John had stepped into one as a rookie and stayed clear ever since.

“You sure it’s no accident?”

“Looks like bullet wounds to the back of the head.”

One that exited the Indian’s face had taken his left eye with it. John felt a painful throb in his own eye when he saw it. He never reacted physically to such sights. Too much sun and too little sleep, along with the trouble ahead must have triggered a headache.

“Oh, Lord.” The captain groaned. “Another media event. Tell me you have a subject in custody.”

“Nope.”

“A suspect’s name? Or description?”

“Nothing.” Trouble clearly lay ahead.

The victim lived large, and big bucks complicate both life and death. When a man of moderate means is slain, good detectives usually know within hours who did it and why, then have to prove it. But the richer the victim, the more suspects there are. A writer once said the rich are different from you and me. John agreed. So many more people want them dead.

“The son of a bitch lived fast,” the captain said, envy in his voice, “loved speed, kept the pedal to the metal.”

“He’s learned a lesson,” John said.

“Which is?”

“Nothing’s faster than a speeding bullet.”

The captain snorted. “Too bad you can only learn that one once. Don’t release his ID. Keep the press at bay till we get a handle on it.” The last thing the department needed during the dog days of summer was a sensational homicide involving sex, scandal, and corruption in high places.

Eagle was no stranger to headlines and controversy. Winning was his lifestyle and he played as competitively as he worked. A champion powerboat racer, he lived the fast life on blue water with high rollers, grit, glitz, and danger. He raced Italian sports cars, piloted his own jet helicopter. The man had it all—fast boats, fast horses, and faster women. But today, John thought, boom, boom, bye-bye, all gone.

“I’ll try,” he told the captain, as he stared at the beach below. “But a TV sound truck with a satellite dish is rolling onto the sand right now. Looks like Channel Seven.”

The captain cursed again. “I’ll send PIO on a three-signal. What else you need?”

“My partner. Get J. J. out to Eagle’s place, ASAP. On Star Island, I think. See who’s there, who saw him last, where he was headed, and why. And advise the Coast Guard and Marine Patrol to appeal for information on their emergency channel and stop boaters in the general vicinity to find out what they saw.”

“Any idea how many boats are out on a day like this?” the captain protested.

“Lots,” John said. “Sound carries over water. On a day like today you can see and hear forever. They’ve all got binoculars, cell phones and cameras. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Have choppers do a search for evidence and more victims in the water. Maybe the Indian wasn’t alone.”

The captain protested, “You know we’re over budget with a freeze on overtime.”

“Now or never,” John warned. “Once this hits the headlines, how many witnesses you think will step forward? See if you can get the new recruit class to help.”

The captain sighed. “Gotcha.”

John returned to the chaos down on the beach. He had hotel employees use a catering tent and privacy screens to shield the name,
Screaming Eagle,
and the registration number of the splintered powerboat from the press. The photo crew were loading their trailer, the photographer packing his equipment into a padded, metal-sided suitcase.

“Finished for the day?” John asked.

“Just when the light’s nearly perfect, all hell breaks loose,” he griped. “That’s Miami for you.”

“Catch any of the action?”

“Not my bag.” He smirked. “I’m high fashion only, no bleeding bodies or burning buildings. Been there, done that. My next shoot’s in Barbados, then on to the Virgin Islands.” He smiled smugly.

The dark-haired model emerged from the trailer. She’d changed into blue jeans and a T-shirt.

John caught his breath. The sunlight in her hair made him want to touch her. She looked as though she recognized him.

“Hey,” he said.

She studied his face with bright blue eyes fringed by thick, dark lashes, as though trying to remember his name. She smiled, until her eyes dropped to the badge clipped to his waistband, then abruptly turned away.

For many women the badge is power and the gun a phallic symbol; for others, not so much.

“Wait . . . ,” he said. But she slipped back into the trailer and firmly closed the metal door.

“Who is she?” he asked.

“Who?” The photographer looked up and frowned.

“That girl.”

“Just a model. Forget it.” The photog slammed the lid on a huge case of lighting equipment. “Listen. Girls like her shoot down a dozen guys a day. Even studs like you.”

“I know her from somewhere.”

“That’s what they all say,” said the makeup artist, who wore shiny black nail polish.

“The dark-haired girl. Who is she?” he asked the photographer again.

The man didn’t even look up.

“Okay.” John flashed his badge. “You have a city permit for this shoot?”

“Of course,” the man said indignantly.

“I’d like to see it now. I doubt it includes permission to park a trailer on county property. You may have a city permit, but this is a county park. When was this vehicle last inspected for illegal emissions? The engine ran all day, polluting a county park. Who is it registered to? What’s with that out-of-state inspection sticker? May I see your driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance?”

John paused to sniff the air. “Is that weed I smell? Are you holding? Is that a Baggie in your pocket? Do you mind if I—”

“Summer,” the photographer said. “Her name’s Summer Smith.”

That rang no bell.

Lucy trotted up at the wrong moment, hair tied back, now in jeans, sneakers, and an MPD T-shirt. Fire rescue and lifeguards were treating two apparent heart attacks, she said, a woman in premature labor, and more than a dozen injuries, none life-threatening.

By the time she filled him in, the photographer’s trailer had lumbered out of the park and merged into congested southbound traffic on Ocean Drive. Summer Smith was gone with it. How will I find her? he wondered.

Uniforms kept the public and unruly press at bay on the far side of the street. The growing crowd bristled with cameras. News photographers and paparazzi focused through zoom lenses. Tourists clicked away with cell phones, with digital and disposable cameras. Small children
rode above the crowd, hoisted high on the shoulders of adults for better views of the carnage. What’s wrong with them? John wondered. Would this become a cherished childhood memory, along with the circus, the carnival, and the county fair? People never used to do that. Or did they? he wondered. His head throbbed. How did he let her get away?

Miami homicide detective J. J. Rivers trudged unhappily across hot sand an hour later. He looked as pale as a prison inmate or an aging cop who’d worked the midnight shift too long, which he had. “The hell we doing here, John?” he demanded. “What are you? Volunteer of the year? You coulda rolled up your blanket and crept to your car, nobody the wiser. You don’t like the damn beach. You’re no tourist! You hate crowds! What the hell were you doing here and what did you get us into?” He responded to angry cries from the press, confined by crime scene tape across the street, with a sullen stare.

“Don’t agitate ’em,” John warned. “You know how they get.”

“They think my attitude stinks, they should smell my underwear,” J. J. said.

John sighed. “Anything at Eagle’s house?”

“Ha! Should see it. Gloria Estefan’s a neighbor. Housekeeper speaks a few words of English. The victim entertained several young ladies yesterday. One, two, or more spent the night in his room. The girls were up and out before the housekeeper came downstairs at six a.m. Eagle ate breakfast and left alone, about ten, on the
Screaming Eagle.