“How long were you together?” Kathy asked.
“It was a slow relationship,” Ana said, her voice thoughtful and methodical. “I had just lost my husband. I wasn’t in a hurry to meet anyone. But he wore me down. You know how men can be. After a year or so, he moved into my house, but kept his apartment. So, overall, we were together for over ten years, until he was…well, captured. Until the police found him.”
“Did you ever have any inkling about what he was doing?” Pete asked, trying to dance around the macabre reality of who Rex Whitehurst was. “Did you ever think he was acting strangely?”
“No, not really,” Ana said, a dry smile on her face, as if she realized how silly she sounded. “I mean, he was always distant and aloof, but I just thought that’s how men were. He spent a few days a week at his old place and he traveled a lot for work, but I didn’t leap from that to think he was killing children.”
“So, you were surprised when the cops arrested him?” Pete asked.
“I was,” Ana said. She didn’t sound convincing, Pete thought.
“Did you ever talk to him after he was arrested?” Pete continued.
“No, no, not at all,” Ana said. “He wasn’t the man I thought he was. He was a monster.”
“Did you write?” Kathy asked.
“Write? Letters? Oh, no,” Ana said, letting her voice trail off.
“Now, Ms. Gallegos, we need you to be fully honest with us,” Pete said. “Are you sure you had no contact with Rex Whitehurst after his arrest?”
“No, I never spoke to Rex again,” she said, uttering the killer’s name slowly, as if savoring a word she hadn’t used in a long time. Her eyes scanned the floor. She began to rub her hands together. “But I knew how he was doing.”
“How?” Pete asked.
He felt Kathy’s fingers jabbing at his side. She wanted him to cut it out. Pete couldn’t. He knew this was going somewhere.
“Rex—and this sounds terrible—had a way with children,” Ana said, her voice hesitant. “And the more I think about this, the more insane it sounds, but I never thought he would hurt him, even after all those terrible things about Rex came up.”
Pieces started to click together in Pete’s head. Just enough to put him on alert.
“Hurt who, Ana? Who wouldn’t Rex hurt?” Pete said.
Kathy had stopped distracting Pete. Her hand was now on his arm as they watched the older woman wipe tears from her eyes. She was still looking at the floor.
“My son, my little boy,” Ana said, her voice low and hollow. “He loved my little boy, from my first marriage. I let him keep in touch with Rex. I explained everything to him. He was happy to have a father figure of any kind. He’s very smart. He knew Rex had done bad things, but he still cared for him.”
“Your son?” Kathy said.
“How long did your son keep in touch with Rex?” Pete said, his voice clear and forceful.
“Until they killed him,” Ana said. “They wrote letters back and forth for almost a decade.”
“Where’s your son now?” Pete asked. He could feel Kathy inching closer to him. She was scared.
“My son is a good boy,” Ana said. Her eyes were glazed over. She realized this had been a sham, but she couldn’t stop talking anymore. “He just loved Rex.”
“Where is he?” Pete asked again.
She didn’t answer. Her head was in her hands. She was sobbing now. Kathy gave Pete a confused look.
Pete’s mind was buzzing. They were close to something. He ran over Ana’s words. What was he missing?
“Is Gallegos your maiden name?” Pete asked. It was a gut reaction question. She brought her head up. Her eyes were suddenly clear. Her mouth slightly agape.
“What?”
“Gallegos. Is that your maiden name?”
“Yes.”
Pete felt Kathy’s nails digging into his arm.
“What’s your son’s name, Ms. Gallegos?” Pete asked. He felt his stomach turn. He hoped the answer would be something other than the name he already knew was coming.
“Raul…Raul Aguilera,” she said. “My little boy. Raulito.”
Pete could barely hear Kathy’s sharp intake of breath over the ringing in his ears.
“We need to meet,” Pete said to Harras over the phone, his voice more of a hiss than anything else. They were speeding down 836, heading west. Pete watched as Kathy navigated the crowded expressway. They’d left Dave’s car parked on the street near Ana’s condo, thinking it’d be better to ride together. Soon the traffic would become unbearable; they couldn’t risk being stuck or separated. Pete tried to concentrate on the road and Harras, ignoring the phone’s vibrations—signaling another obscenity-laden text from Dave complaining about the status of his vehicle.
“Where? What’s going on?”
“We know the killer,” Pete said. “That’s all I can say on the phone. Where are you? Can you meet us somewhere? Where’s your partner?”
“I’m at home,” Harras said, sounding annoyed. “Not sure where Aguilera is. Probably on break, too. They’ve got some uniforms stationed at the hospital. Look, this better not be bullshit, Fernandez. I don’t have time for it. Not now. Meet me at La Carretta on Eighth Street, off Le Jeune. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“See you there,” Pete said, then hung up. Kathy looked at him.
“He’s game to meet,” he said. “La Carretta.”
“Why do we always meet cops at Cuban places?”
“You’re complaining?”
“Well,” Kathy said. “I guess not. But still.”
Pete allowed a smile to crack. They’d done it. They had figured it out. The killer had been under their noses all this time, and now they had the ammo to take him down.
“Wow,” Kathy said. “Aguilera’s the last person I would have thought of for the killer, you know?”
“Well, you wouldn’t usually suspect the person investigating the crime,” Pete said, looking out the passenger side window as Kathy took the Le Jeune exit. “But it fits. He was close to Rex, probably admired him, and now has some weird fixation on paying homage to him. Emily also had a meltdown when he went into her room—once she heard his voice, she went nuts.”
“Is it that easy, though?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” Kathy said. “Well, I don’t know. Let’s hope it’s him. It just seems very neat. Although it would explain Emily flipping out when Aguilera came into her room.”
“Exactly. More evidence. Some things have to work out for us, don’t they?”
“When do they ever work out like this?” Kathy said.
***
Pete knew something was wrong the moment they turned left on Calle Ocho. The parking lot to La Carretta, which was usually bustling at this hour of the day, was strangely quiet. He couldn’t spot Harras’s car, a late model Mazda Miata, anywhere in the lot, and the usual crowd of aging Cuban
viejitos
was nowhere to be found. He put his hand on Kathy’s arm.
“Turn around,” he said.
“What? Why?”
“Something’s weird,” he said. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“Well, you haven’t even eaten yet,” she tried to joke.
“Think about it,” he said. “Who’s Aguilera’s mom going to call the second we leave? And what power does he still have?”
“You think she called him?”
“We’re walking into a trap.”
She slammed on the brakes and made a U-turn in a few quick, smooth motions. Pete gripped his door handle to keep from slamming into the dashboard. He felt the car accelerate in the opposite direction of the restaurant. He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until the car turned back toward the expressway. Kathy’s eyes were focused on the road. Pete looked back and didn’t notice anyone following them—so far.
“Where to now?” she asked, her eyes still on the road.
“I don’t know,” Pete said. As he finished the sentence, he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He looked at the display. Kathy turned to him for a second.
“Who is it?”
“Harras,” Pete said.
“Pick up.”
“This is Pete,” he said, his voice straining to sound casual.
“Where are you guys? You call me in a panic and now you’re dragging ass?”
“We should be there soon,” Pete lied. “We got caught in some traffic.”
There was a pause before Harras answered. “Lay low,” Harras said, his voice a quick whisper. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but they’re after you.”
“What?”
“There’s an APB on you and your girlfriend,” Harras said. Pete could tell he was conflicted. Betraying the confidence of his fellow officers went against his very nature. “Something’s not right about this. I can feel it. Lay low and let me figure it out. But they’re on your trail.”
Pete hung up the phone without responding. He lowered his window and tossed the cellular out.
“What happened?” Kathy said, confused. “Why the hell did you just do that? You could have just tossed the sim card, you psycho.”
“They’re looking for us,” Pete said. “The police think we’re involved somehow.”
“How do you figure that? Another premonition?”
“Harras just told me,” Pete said, trying to think. “We need to go somewhere they won’t find us.”
“Call Dave,” Kathy said, handing Pete her phone.
***
Dusk had settled into night as Kathy pulled into the grassy parking lot across from Churchill’s Hideaway in Little Haiti, a formerly poor part of town that was known more for its crime rate than anything else. But Little Haiti was now squarely in the sights of investors looking to gobble up land as close to the trendy parts of town as possible. While still far from flush and home to a large part of Miami’s Haitian community, the area was gentrifying at an alarming rate—with bodegas and creole restaurants replaced by pop-up stores and nightclubs. The streets were going from dark and seedy to bright and artsy—with Churchill’s as a fossil of an edgier, more dangerous era.
Inside, the bar was a dive’s dive: loud music, grizzled drunks, and grimy glasses. Outside, torn flyers, stickers, and graffiti covered every bit of wall space, and Pete’s mind instantly went back to his younger days, when a night wasn’t complete without hitting Churchill’s for a show or a nightcap pint of Boddingtons. They got out of the car and Pete paused for a second to take in the landmark of his youth.
“Leave your keys in the car,” Pete said.
“What? Are you high?”
“Just do it,” Pete said. “One of Dave’s friends is going to drive it somewhere and leave it. We have to throw them off our trail. If they find your car here, we’re caught.”
“If they’re here, we’re caught,” Kathy said. Still, she did as Pete requested. “What sort of master plan does your trust-fund-thug friend have, anyway?”
“We’ll see,” Pete said as he held the door open for her.
They were greeted by the loud, jagged chords of a local power punk band, Corky. They’d been playing around the bars and clubs of Miami since Pete was in college. He had seen them play more than a few times—blurred memories that were now almost gone with time. The crowd was sparse, but the music reverberated around the two-room bar. The main area, with two pool tables and soccer on the big-screen TVs, was empty. The showroom, with the band playing, a busy bar, and a few tables, was more crowded. Pete nodded at the bartender—a big, burly Dominican named Escala, his arms decorated with what looked like prison tattoos—who pointed toward the back with his chin. Pete and Kathy headed past the stage and through a narrow hallway that would have probably dissuaded anyone who wasn’t familiar with the venue.
“The fuck was that?” Kathy whispered.
“Dave’s here,” Pete said.
“Well, I would hope so,” Kathy said. “I mean, what was that little knowing look you got from Tony Montana over there? This is a whole different side to you. You hang out with these guys?”
Pete turned around, his hand on the door to the outside patio.
“I used to,” he said, his expression flat. “Dave still does.”
Pete opened the door and they found themselves in a dark, dank garden area. The music from inside the bar could still be heard through the thin walls, but it did little to mask the humid, uneasy feeling that hovered over the empty garden. A few pieces of dirty lawn furniture were all the decoration Pete could see. Dave appeared suddenly, as if cutting through the darkness itself. He seemed totally at ease, his belly visible under his too-tight Def Leppard shirt. He had some kind of crumbs in his beard. He was also wearing large sunglasses.
“You guys are in some deep shit,” he said, skipping pleasantries.
“Are we?” Pete asked.
“Yeah, dude. You’re all over the news,” Dave said. “They’re saying you’re ‘persons of interest’ in this serial killer shit.”
Pete and Kathy exchanged glances.
“I need your help,” Pete said.
“You don’t even have to ask,” Dave said, almost offended. “What’s the deal?”
“We think Aguilera is the killer,” Pete said, looking around to make sure there was no one else around.
“The FBI agent? Holy fuck,” Dave said.
“Yeah,” Kathy interjected. “Crazy, right?”