He made it to his car and grabbed his worn-out leather carrying case. Inside it, Pete had been collecting documents for his ad hoc research. Copies of the clippings Kathy had found, a few other printouts Pete had made the night before, and a legal pad with some scribbled notes. He sat in the driver’s seat and tried to focus. He’d settled back into the routine of a reporter with little rust or hesitation—research and all. He still found the library visits tedious, but even that was almost bearable.
Still, there was something about the information that wasn’t gelling, and something that Kathy had said that was buzzing around his brain—ever-present, but impossible to pin down. Why was she surprised about Pete not recognizing Rex’s MO? He pulled out one of the newspaper clippings, this one from 1984. The headline read “Boca girl, 13, still missing.” The subhead gave a bit more information above the Chaz Bentley byline: “Approached by white male driving nondescript van.” A van. Surely that wasn’t unique amongst killers, or anywhere, Pete thought. But the information stuck with him.
He felt the pieces begin to click into place in his brain. But instead of relief, his body was shrouded by a deep, creeping fear.
He bit in
to the small red apple. He chewed and watched as Fernandez pulled his car out of the St. Brendan’s church parking lot. Fernandez wasn’t a fool, Julian thought. He’d notice if he was being followed. He let it drop.
He hadn’t expected the remains of the first girl to wash up so soon. Bagging her like that had been a mistake. A subconscious ploy to get attention. He should have just buried her with the rest of them. But the only way to build toward the powerful moment he needed was with more. The clarity he gained through these ceremonies let him see what was next.
He waited a few more minutes and pulled his tiny Dodge Neon out of the parking lot and headed toward the expressway. This was his second vehicle. The “day-to-day” car. It stuck out less than the van. His hands itched under the leather gloves he was wearing. His eyes on the road, he slid his right hand into the grocery bag on the passenger side. He pulled out a cell phone.
“Hello?” the Messenger said. He sounded tired.
“I have a problem,” he said.
“What happened?”
“The detective’s son. He’s bothering me,” he said, both hands on the wheel, the flimsy temporary cell phone cradled on his shoulder.
“You have bigger things to worry about,” the Messenger said. “You were sloppy. You should have stuck to the plan.”
“There is no plan,” Julian said. “I honor the Voice, I don’t copy it. Now, tell me you’ll handle this new annoyance.”
“I’ll handle him,” the Messenger said after a few seconds. “Just lay low for a bit. We need more time.”
“Time is relative,” he said. “It’s only through actions like this that I can open my eyes and see what’s coming.”
“You need to slow down.”
“It is not an option. Fix the problem or I will,” he said, his terse, whispery tone the only signal that he was upset.
“Wait—”
Julian lowered the driver’s side window and tossed the phone out. He saw it rattle down the street and disappear under a car in the carpool lane. He looked up at the rearview mirror and smiled. The girl was still squirming, her body laid flat on the backseat, her eyes blindfolded and her hands and feet bound by twine. She whimpered. He held his breath. She’d pissed herself. He could hear her sobbing, unable to lift her face up.
“What a mess you’ve made.”
He lowered the window, letting the Miami breeze hit his face as he pulled onto the expressway.
Light flooded The
Bar as Pete shoved the door open. He walked up to the counter. The bar was dark and humid. The jukebox was playing Mission of Burma—the cascading guitar held down by the train-like drums. The music was turned low, probably under the control of the staff and a brief respite from the pop and dance music most late-night patrons were fond of. Pete fought the urge to scan the liquor bottles lining the area behind and above the bar register. The Bar was empty aside from Lisa. Her eyes met his and she nodded. She didn’t seem happy.
He sat down at the bar and pulled out the picture of Mike. The quick jolt of pain hit him. It happened each time he did this. It was becoming a weekly ritual. The jolt came first, then spread until it formed a general ache that he felt he’d never be rid of.
Lisa set the pint of amber beer in front of Pete, not bothering to stop for small talk as she sometimes did. Pete was OK with that. The noise from the local news—it was close to six in the evening—filled the empty bar. It’d probably start to get crowded around seven, when the two-for-one happy hour made it worth anyone’s time. Otherwise, it was just another expensive, faux-authentic bar in the Gables, except without waitresses or live music. A few notches above the pub, but still a dive and seeming more out of place amongst the gourmet restaurants, wine bars, and cocktail lounges that were taking up more and more space.
Pete thought back to almost a year ago. The day the bomb went off and killed his best friend. He had just found Kathy, tied up and trapped by a madman in the Keys. They’d come to Fort Lauderdale to hole up at Mike’s apartment until they could figure out what to do next. Pete didn’t even stop to consider that by coming to Mike, he’d brought the danger along with him and put his best friend at risk. The bomb, which had been meant for Pete, destroyed Mike, his car, and any chance Pete had of returning to a normal life.
Pete stopped himself from reaching out to the glass and taking a sip; his instinct was still strong, but he had to resist. Old habits die hard, and coming here—tempting himself—didn’t help. But the torture of the act was a small fee, he thought, for the guilt he felt. He noticed Lisa watching him. She looked away, embarrassed.
“I knew you weren’t a cheerful guy, but this is straight up torture, dude.”
Pete turned around. Dave took the stool to Pete’s left, skipping pleasantries. He waved Lisa over and waited for her to come up to the bar.
Pete took a second to compose himself.
“Hey,” Pete said. “Sorry, this isn’t, it’s—”
“You haven’t touched that beer,” Dave said, “so I’m guessing you’re not going to. Am I supposed to think this is admirable somehow? This weird self-torture?”
“What do you mean?”
Dave motioned to the unsipped Bass ale.
“This,” Dave said. “This weird ritual. That’s your friend, right? Mike? The dead one?”
Pete grabbed Mike’s photo and slid it into his pocket.
“Yeah,” Pete said. “I was…I just took it out for second.”
Lisa approached the bar and leaned over to Dave.
“He does this every week,” she said, both annoyance and sympathy in her voice. “It’s weird. What are you having?”
“It is weird,” Dave said. “I’ll take a Boddingtons.” He turned to Pete. “So, seriously—this is what you do when you’re not at work or at home? You sit in a bar and feel bad for yourself?”
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself,” Pete said.
“Dude, I’ve worked with you for a few months now,” Dave said, grabbing the beer as Lisa placed it in front of him and taking a long pull. “You’re either at the store, reading for hours and not really doing the job I’m sort of paying you for, or you’re at home, living with your smoking hot ex, and not making a move on her. Then I find you here—a guy who doesn’t drink—sitting in a bar, looking at a photo of your dead friend with a fucking full pint in front of you. If you’re not feeling sorry for yourself, what are you doing? Because you definitely aren’t having fun. Look at you.”
Pete let out a quick laugh.
“You’re not responding because you’re either going to punch me, which I don’t suggest if you still want to hold on to your job, or because I’m right,” Dave said. “And I know I’m fucking right.” He downed his heavy British ale in a few large gulps. Still swallowing, he motioned for Pete to pass his own untouched beer over. Pete complied.
“Yeah,” Pete said. “You may be right.”
“Billy Joel,” Dave said, “is always the answer.”
Pete laughed.
“Why are you here? Did you follow me?”
Dave smirked. “Another one of your lesser, more unappealing traits is your belief that everything that happens around you happens because of you. No, I didn’t follow you here. Why would I follow you? I had to swing by my dad’s office and pick up some papers. It just so happens that this here bar, better known as
The
Bar, is one of my favorite shitholes. And one of the few I’ll humor with my presence in the Gables.” Dave shot a toothy smile to Lisa, who rolled her eyes and went back to counting the bills in the cash register.
“Say no more,” Pete said.
Dave wasn’t paying attention. Instead, his eyes were looking upward at the television screen mounted above the bar, still playing the early evening news. It was an NBC station, and a forty-something Cuban woman Pete recognized but couldn’t name was giving the top news item.
“Another few weeks and another dead girl has been found,” the newscaster, Sara Guzman, said as her name popped on the screen. “The body of seventeen-year-old Erica Morales was found by authorities mere hours ago in an abandoned field in rural Homestead. WTVJ reporter Hansel Vela has the latest. Hansel?”
The screen cut to grainy footage of the scene. Vela, a fit and gruff-looking man in his late thirties, was off to the right. In the background, Pete could see officers roaming around the desolate field, overgrown with weeds and littered with junk.
“Sara, it’s a sad day for the Morales family, as their daughter, Erica, who had been reported missing weeks ago, was found,” Vela began. “After days of frantic searching and an unprecedented outpouring of support from the community, it was off-duty police officer Christian Orr who found her when he decided to cut through this vacant Homestead lot, discovering Erica brutally stabbed to death, her body tied to the front of an abandoned car. Police declined comment when asked about the state of Morales’s body and have yet to confirm any link between the death of Morales and the earlier murder of Alice Cline, but we will keep you posted. Back to you, Sara.”
Morales’s photo was on the screen for a few moments before the TV flickered off. Pete looked down and saw Lisa, the remote in her hand. Pete saw something in the photo. He’d seen Erica before, he thought. Once. He wasn’t sure where.
Lisa let out a loud hissing sound. “Disgusting,” she said. “There’s a sicko out there and all people can do is sit back and watch.”
She tossed the remote on the bar and went back to the register. Pete kept his eyes on her, unable to process. She caught him staring.
“What?”
He snapped out of his trance and shook his head. “No, nothing.”
“What do you think?” It was Dave, sipping his new beer, not as quickly as the last, a pensive look on his face.
“I don’t know enough to have an opinion,” Pete said. “The murders could be related.”
“If they’re related, we have a problem,” Dave said.
“We?”
“Well, Miami. The world. Society.” He shrugged.
“I think we’d have that problem anyway,” Pete said. “But if the murders are connected—and my gut tells me they are—then it means a few things. One: Rick didn’t kill Alice Cline, which I suspected, no thanks to his attitude and being an ass. Two,” Pete continued, counting the points off on his right hand as he spoke, “we may have a serial murderer on our hands, or at the very least a spree killer of some kind. Three, someone should have seen this coming a while ago.”
“Pretty insightful for someone who doesn’t do PI work.”
Pete ignored the comment and continued. “There’s a pattern,” Pete said. “Girl goes missing, time passes, girl turns up dead and posed in an obscene way. It’s almost ritualistic. It’s only two bodies, sure, but that just means two have been found.”
“OK, cool,” Dave said, no sense of urgency in his voice. “Then what?”
“Then nothing,” Pete said, forcing himself to fight the temptation to signal Lisa for a beer. “We have a psycho on the loose and who knows how many bodies are out there, or how many he’ll take before he’s caught.”
Pete left D
ave after a few more minutes. He walked the few doors down to Randazzo’s, a decent Italian restaurant in a town that didn’t have much good Italian food. The early evening provided a break from the weather, adding a cooling wind to the sludge-like heat of earlier. He tugged at his shirt, which was sticking to his body, hoping the fabricated breeze would cool him off a bit. The streets were empty and quiet, aside from the sounds of passing traffic and piano music coming from the restaurant. It was still on the early side—before the Gables nightlife kicked into high gear. A lull between the happy hour brigade and the late dinner crowd.
Pete stood outside and checked his phone. He was a little early. He slid his phone into his front pocket and peeked into the restaurant’s main window. It was empty aside from the wait staff and a few tables. For years, the place had been in the regular rotation for him. He’d had a birthday party here, about four years back. He and Emily had been in town visiting from New Jersey. They’d just gotten engaged. His father was alive. They’d toasted to the future. It seemed so long ago. Pete could almost taste the bottle of pinot noir they’d split and smell the garlic bread on the table.