“Around nine, according to witnesses.”
“Nine?” Chris brightened. “David was here all evening. With me.”
“You got anyone who can vouch for that?” MacClellan’s voice was a self-satisfied purr. “I hardly think your word will carry much weight. You all lie for each other.”
They hauled David to his feet. His robe fell open, revealing dark, muscular thighs.
MacClellan bent down and loud enough for Chris to hear said, “And this time we got the DNA to prove it.”
Ice filled Chris’s veins. “At least let him get dressed!”
They ignored Chris’s protest and dragged David to the door.
Chris darted after them, but a quelling look from MacClellan stopped him from doing anything foolish.
“Call Aidan,” David said as he was hauled out the door, nearly losing his balance on the door jamb. The brawny redhead yanked him back to his feet. David grunted in pain. “Call him, Chris.”
Chris scrambled to retrieve his BlackBerry. He dialed the number and hopped up and down nervously until it was picked up.
“Aidan! It’s Chris. The police just rearrested David. They said there was another murder. Jay, Joel’s oldest son. Well, besides David. They say he killed Jay. But he couldn’t have, he was here all night. And they said something about proving it with DNA.
How can they do that, since he was with me?”
“Calm down, Chris. What time did they leave with David?”
Chris glanced at the bedside clock. “Maybe five minutes ago.
I called as soon as they were out the door.”
“Good. You did the right thing. Now let me take care of it. I’ll call you back as soon as I find out anything.”
“Yes, please. God, this is a nightmare. Why do they think David is such a monster? They even took my laptop, claiming it had pornography on it. It doesn’t, I swear. Why are they doing
182 P.A. Brown
this?”
“I don’t know,” Aidan said. “But this has definitely gone beyond anything I’ve ever seen before. They have clearly overstepped their bounds. I don’t think I’ll have any trouble convincing a judge this is excessive. Not finding anything on your laptop will go a long way to helping our cause. Unless…
there’s no way they could download any is there? If they could plant some evidence…”
“No, I’ve got some pretty heavy password protection on it. They’d need a password just to get on the Internet. Most of my client files are encrypted.” He swore. “Will they find that suspicious?”
“I’m sure that will arouse their suspicions, but it shouldn’t be any problem proving their claims are invalid. Don’t worry about it.”
“Well excuse me if I can’t relax over this. Just help him, Aidan—Mr. Pitt.”
“I will, Chris.”
Chris couldn’t sleep. He paced the small room, but that did nothing to lessen his nervous energy. He glanced at his watch and realized so little time had passed since this nightmare began.
It wasn’t even midnight. He threw on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a denim jacket. He grabbed his wallet and his BlackBerry along with the apartment keys and trotted down the steps and up the driveway. There was no sign of the police. Of course not, they were in a real hurry to get David back into a cell and scour his laptop for lascivious images.
Before he could cross the Duke of York Street, he spotted a cab and waved it down. He climbed in behind the driver. “Court Street, Hamilton.”
The cabbie did a double take and turned to look at Chris. His eyebrows almost met his hair line. “Are you sure that’s where you want to go?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
BeRMudA heAt
183
The reluctant cabbie dropped him off about two blocks from the harbor. The area looked more rundown than any place Chris had seen yet in Bermuda.
Pulling his thin denim jacket tight around him, he walked north. There were no large signs, billboards or fast food outlets in Bermuda, but Court Street still managed to look cheap and vulgar. Rough-looking men crowded the sidewalks and raucous reggae and hip-hop music fought for dominance. He saw a few women, some dressed like the men, others he was sure were men, though he wasn’t positive. How likely could that be here? And there were hookers, looking exactly like what they were. Like the ones back on Sunset Boulevard. He heard jeers and cursing, but didn’t stop to see if it was directed at him. Now he understood why the cabbie had been loath to bring him here.
A buxom woman in six-inch fuchsia heels, fishnet stockings and hair extensions, stepped in front of him. “Have some fun, cutie?” she said in a deep, gravelly voice.
“I don’t do fun,” Chris said, sidestepping her. Then he stopped. “You know the guy who was killed here tonight? I think his name was Jay?”
“Sure I do, sugar.” She caressed his denim-clad arm with four inch nails that matched her shoes. “He a friend of yours?”
“Yeah,” Chris said. “A good friend. It was tragic. So, what happened?”
“He down here looking to score, sugar, what else. Someone didn’t like him being here and—” She made a hanging gesture, fat tongue between her blood red lips, her eyes bugging out.
Chris grimaced. “Bloody mess if you ask me.” The incongruity of her faint British accent seemed surreal.
“Did you see who did it?” Chris leaned forward, trying to ignore her rancid breath. She had a tweaker mouth, broken teeth weakened by acid and continual grinding, just like so many meth heads did.
“Yah, I seen him.” She smirked, showing even more decaying teeth, some no more than rotten stumps. This girl was long gone.
184 P.A. Brown
“I was kinda busy, you know what I mean? But I seen him before down here. Both of them.” She smirked. “That one you looking for like it rough, but he pays real good. He real kinky with a silk tie.”
Chris tried not to think about it. The images were disturbing.
“Know anyone else who might have seen it?”
“Why you looking for this guy? He’s bad news. Mess your pretty face up good. I know, I seen him do it. He’s a mean fucker, when he goes off.”
“I need to find him. You got a name for him?”
Out of the corner of his eye Chris saw a cop car cruise by, slowing to a crawl to take a closer look at them. The woman ignored the vehicle and Chris tried to disappear. The cop moved on.
Chris sighed in relief and turned to find the woman watching him.
“Maybe you need to talk to Josie,” she said. “He was there.
He be around here earlier tonight. Ask him about Mosby.”
“Mosby? That the killer? Where can I find this Josie?”
“Try the bar Outer Bank, backatawn near Dundonald.”
Chris slipped her a twenty and kept heading north. Dundonald was about two blocks up; the Outer Bank was on the east side. A half a dozen men stood outside smoking and taking surreptitious sips from brown bag bottles. Loud calypso music drowned out their equally loud voices. An alcohol fueled argument broke out and fists flew.
Taking a deep breath, he slid his sunglasses out and put them on. They made him feel less conspicuous. He lowered his head and ducked past the growing melee, hoping no one would drag him into it. Music assaulted his ears. He paused inside the door to let his shaded eyes adjust to the darkness. A scarred bar lay along one side, and opposite it a few rickety tables and chairs that had seen better days were scattered. The bar was crowded and most of the tables were occupied. It stank of beer, rotgut whiskey, and BeRMudA heAt
185
sweat. Chris approached an open space at the bar and waited for the bartender to notice him.
Finally a pot-bellied man in his fifties, with heavily tattooed arms and a face that looked like it had met the wrong end of a knife, stepped up to him. His eyes were a startling blue, oddly alive in a face that looked half-dead. His gaze brushed Chris, taking in the shades and a face that was too white despite his newly acquired tan. Chris was all too aware he was one of few Anglos in the bar. The bartender wasn’t the only one staring.
He ordered a beer, figuring if it came out of a bottle it would be safe. He knew better than to order a glass. The brew was tepid and tasted like bitter water. He handed over a twenty.
“Josie around?”
“Who wants to know?”
“What about Mosby?”
“You a friend of his?”
“Nah, he’s just someone I want to talk to. Know anything about the guy who got hit tonight?”
The bartender eyed him up and down and clearly found him wanting. “You a cop?”
“Shit, no.” Chris tried to sound tough, though he knew it didn’t come off well with his looks. He knew what he looked like, an American faggot trying to be hip in the wrong part of town.
He just hoped no one was feeling the need to test their
cojones
this early in the night. He knew he was way out of his league here, but what choice did he have? David’s freedom, if not his life, was at stake. “I’m no cop. I just want some information, is all.”
“You a Yankee?”
“Yeah,” Chris said, hoping it would win him some brownie points. “L.A.”
The bartender brightened. “No kidding. I crossed de pawn to L.A. when I was nineteen. Got a couple of bit parts in some movies.” He leaned over as though confiding something secret.
His breath smelled of tobacco and beer. Chris resisted the urge
186 P.A. Brown
to wave his hand in front of his face. “Cool stuff.”
Another tinsel town wannabe. Chris nodded as though the ins-and-outs of making movies were second nature to him.
“Yeah, I can see it. You’d be a natural alongside Vin Diesel or Eastwood. So,” he said. “This guy, you see what went down?”
“I didn’t see it, but my ace boy did. Mosby was mad-dog rabid. Took a knife to my boy and cut him good.”
“He see who got Jay?”
“Yeah. Terrible thing, what with his father being jonesed by some crazy ex-pat.”
At least they didn’t know David’s name. “Who’s your ace boy?” Chris asked. “He here tonight?”
“Why you want to know? Why you asking after Josie?”
“Josie’s your ace boy? I need to talk to him.”
“Ain’t here. He split home. Mother fucker scared shitless,”
The bartender laughed. “Can’t say I blame him. No one wants to see that kind of shit go down.”
“What about the police? Why aren’t they down here trying to find this mad dog?”
“Cops don’t come in this part of town much,” the bartender scoffed. “Too pansy-assed for that. They let a couple of drive-bys scare them off. We need some of your bad ass L.A. cops.
SWAT’d take care of them real good.”
Chris didn’t tell the guy David was LAPD. Instead he asked,
“Where can I find your ace boy? This Josie? I really need to talk to him.”
“He live out on de pint.”
“The what?”
“The pint, Spanish Point.”
“He got a full name?” Chris went back to his wallet and held up another bill to sweeten the pot.
The bartender eyed the money before he scooped it up BeRMudA heAt
187
and made it disappear. He kept glancing at the other twenty, pretending to wipe a glass down. “Josie,” he said. “Josie Curson.”
The hooker had mentioned Josie, too. Chris thanked the guy and hurried out of the bar. He walked as fast as he could toward Front Street hoping someone in the bar hadn’t spotted the exchange of cash. Finally, he spotted a cab and flagged it down. Once inside the safety of the cab, he called Aidan, who answered so fast Chris thought he might be sitting by the phone.
Chris pocketed his shades.
Chris told him what he’d found out. Aidan was not amused.
“You went down to Court Street? Do you have any idea what that area’s like?”
“Yeah, I kind of found out.” He tried to make a joke of it.
“Reminds me of home.”
“You could have been seriously hurt, or worse. Jay isn’t the only one who’s been killed on that street. And your bartender friend’s right, the cops don’t like the area. A lot of turf wars down there. There have even been drive-bys. Would you walk in a gang area in Los Angeles?”
“No,” he muttered. “But you weren’t listening. I found out two names you should check up on. One is Mosby, no idea if that’s his real name. I think he’s the one who strangled Jay. Met a…” he was going to say hooker, then said, “prostitute, who said he was a customer and he liked his sex rough. Used a silk tie to play asphyxiation games with her. The other one is a Josie Curson. He lives in a place called—”
“What did you say?”
“He liked rough sex—”
“No, no, about the tie. You said it was silk?”
“That’s what she said. Why?”
“David said the muggers only took his silk tie, they didn’t touch his money. He said it felt like they were collecting trophies.”
All too familiar with the trophy seeking habits of psychopaths, Chris felt the blood leave his face. “You think this has something
188 P.A. Brown
to do with Joel and Jay?”
Aidan seemed unwilling to commit himself. Instead he asked,
“You mentioned a Josie Curson. Where does he live?”
“Place called Spanish Point. If you can find either one of them, then maybe you’ll find the witness the cops seem to think doesn’t exist.”
“I’ll get on it, but you have to promise me, Chris. No more stunts like this one. I don’t want to have to be the one who tells David you got hurt.”
“I’ll stay out of it,” Chris lied. He wasn’t going to leave David’s safety in anyone’s hands, not when he saw how easy it was to snatch it away. “I’ll keep my nose clean.”
“See you do that.”
Back at Aunt Nea’s, Chris tossed his funky clothes in the hamper. He reached for his laptop, only to remember the police had confiscated it. Swearing, he flipped on the TV and settled down to watch the news. He was in luck, as another crime on Court Street had drawn the press and camera crew down there.
Another rape, the media making much of the fact that a serial rapist was on the loose. A white-haired, perfectly coifed cop Chris didn’t recognize smoothly denounced the serial label. “There’s no reason at this point to believe this is the actions of the same man. Our lab will analyze the DNA and make a determination.”