Silent City (13 page)

Pete ignored the question and pressed on. “It turns out Chaz never even called to say he thought she was missing,” Pete said. “There was no record of a report.” He polished off his drink and motioned to the bartender for another one. His need was quickly met.

“I don’t think she’s missing,” Javier said. Pete thought he sounded slightly agitated. “But good for you to double-check.”

“It’s just weird Chaz would tell me he called the cops when he didn’t, you know?” Pete said. “This whole thing is really strange.”

“Yeah, I don’t get it,” Javier said, sounding concerned. “I mean, Kathy does this all the time. We’ll talk, fight, then she’ll go away for a while. I’d start worrying if it’d been a few weeks, but it just seems like she’s off doing her thing. That’s kind of how we operate.”

“Yeah,” Pete said. “Everyone’s different. I just think I’m done with this whole thing. Whatever concerns Chaz had are in the police’s hands, not mine.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Javier said. “It’s not your problem. I mean, it’s great you’re concerned, man, it is. But Kathy’s a big girl.”

“Yeah,” Pete said. He took another long swig from his glass. He felt the initial light-headedness that comes with drinking hard liquor too quickly. He didn’t want the feeling to end.

“You there?”

Pete snapped out of his reverie.

“Yeah, yeah,” Pete said. “I was just thinking about what a shitty few days it’s been.”

Javier didn’t respond immediately.

“Sorry to hear that,” he said. “But hey, at least we got back in touch after so long. It’s good to talk to you, bro. Where the hell are you?”

Pete let out a dry laugh.

“In a bar.”

“Shit, this early? It’s barely lunchtime.”

“Yeah,” Pete said. “I dunno. I needed a drink.”

“Wow,” Javier said. “It has been a rough week, huh? I’d swing over and join you, but I’ve gotta head to work in a few minutes. Have a few for me, though.”

“You got it.”

“And thanks for keeping tabs on this,” Javier said. Pete noted the sincerity in his voice. A tone he hadn’t heard in a long time. “I realize Kathy’s nuts, but she doesn’t have many people looking out for her. I think she’d be touched in her own weird way if she knew you were.”

“Well, that’s good,” Pete said, his hand slowly turning his glass.

They said their goodbyes and hung up. Pete thought he should feel better, but didn’t. Without his job, he’d at least had this to keep him entertained and moving forward. With Kathy a police matter now, he had nothing. His eyes scanned the labels on the bottles watching him from across the bar. He nodded at them silently.

He had to deal with Chaz Bentley, he realized. Well, deal with him inasmuch as he had to tell him the matter was now in the hands of the authorities. Pete wasn’t looking forward to the discussion, but if he was going to pull himself together in some way, he had to clear the deck of things that were not his concern. Like Kathy. Chaz. Whoever the Silent Death was or is. He laughed to himself. What had made him think he could even help find someone? Someone who probably wasn’t even missing, he mused. He roughly rubbed his hand across his face. He felt like shit. He ordered another drink. The bar was now fully empty aside from Pete and the bartender. He looked out the dusty and greasy window and saw an empty street.

T
he sound of the flushing toilet echoed through Pete’s tiny apartment as he slowly made his way to his couch. His eyes were half-closed as he collapsed on the sofa. It was close to four in the morning. He’d only gotten home about 20 minutes prior and had made a beeline to empty what little food he’d had in his system. He was such a seasoned drinker that throwing up was a rarity. But tonight—this morning, rather—had been one of those exceptions. He smelled of cigarettes and vodka. His clothes felt sticky and his breath stank of liquored bile. He didn’t care. He noticed the cardboard box on his living room table, containing his father’s files and who knew what else. He only felt the urge to rummage through them when he was like this—drunk, alone, feeling sorry for himself. He pulled out his phone and checked his outgoing calls. No, not this time. He hadn’t made his usual mistake of calling Emily. He let out a quick sigh of relief and tossed the phone on the other end of the small couch.

“What would your father say if he saw you know?”

Broche’s words rang in Pete’s head. A constant drone merging with the throbbing hangover that was sure to consume him in a few hours. His self pity had dissolved into a drunken anger with each new sip of alcohol, and by now, Pete was not only lucky to be home, but lucky he hadn’t been kicked out of the last bar he’d visited, a tiny beer venue on the beach called Zeke’s. Pete remembered a heated conversation—with the bartender? The driver of the cab the bartender had forced him to take? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t care. He kicked out angrily from the couch, aiming for the table, a gift from Emily while they were dating. Instead, his foot connected with his father’s box, the missed connection causing him to slide off the couch and onto the floor, sending the box and its contents splayed across the budget brown carpet. Pete half-crawled to the area next to the table where most of the papers had accumulated. He felt pathetic. Here he was, close to dawn, crawling across his carpet after puking his guts out, picking up what little remained of his father’s memory because he’d drunkenly kicked it over.

“Jesus, stop feeling sorry for yourself,” he said aloud, grabbing piles of papers and stacking them on the table. “Get it together, man.”

It was all stuff he’d seen before. Copies of police reports his father probably wasn’t supposed to have, the incomplete Silent Death file and a few errant Post-it notes. But as he moved another stack of papers into the box, a manila envelope slipped loose from between two of the standard case files, landing awkwardly on the floor. Pete dropped the papers in his hands into the box and grabbed the envelope. In rough, block handwriting—not his father’s, Pete noted—someone had written “FERNANDEZ MISC.” on the outside. Pete carefully removed the tape lining the opening and undid the metal latch. Inside were a few more forms—police reports. Alongside them was a small, leather-bound beige book. Pete emptied the contents of the envelope on the couch and sat down next to the new discovery to investigate.

The police reports were a strange collection, Pete thought. None were filled out by his father, and they were all clearly copies of reports his father had pulled from other files. But that wasn’t what caught Pete’s eye. It was the names of the suspects. One, from about 10 years prior, was an arrest record for Charles “Chaz” Bentley—drunk and disorderly. Chaz had been arrested outside the Clevelander—a ritzy bar on Ocean Drive that Pete had trouble even picturing Chaz at. According to the report, Chaz had been kicked out of the bar after he threatened one of the bar’s patrons, who was not identified. Chaz was described as a “noted newspaper writer for the Miami Times. Rumored to also be in great debt to certain criminal elements. No hard evidence to support this yet.” Pete reread the information. His headache had kicked in, but he refused to make the same mistake he made the last time he perused his father’s papers. Something was happening. There were strands of information dangling around him, Pete thought, and he just needed to look at them all before deciding which ones to pull on. He pushed the alcoholic drowsiness away. Curiosity was winning this fight.

The beige notebook was definitely his father’s, and seemed like something close to a diary. Dated entries—none longer than a few lines or pages, went as far back as a decade. Pete skimmed over the book’s worn pages until his eyes fell on one date. September 19, 1996. Just a few days after the incident with Pete and Javier at the convenience store. Pete felt his shoulders sag, but he continued to read.

Pete continued to stare at the page long after he’d finished reading it. He felt his eyes welling up. Not from sadness. No, from some pride he’d denied himself for too long. He carefully put the journal down on the table, next to the box for further reading.

He sat on the couch and looked toward his window. Dawn was near. Bits of light would be creeping into the house soon. He had nowhere to be tomorrow. He had nothing to do. Reading his father’s written words—something unfamiliar yet comfortable—had left Pete with a strange, nostalgic feeling. What would his father think? He wasn’t sure yet.

“There’s still time,” he said, under his breath, turning to the remaining papers on the couch. He’d finish these today. Now.

Another report seemed fairly nondescript, aside from the name. Jose Contreras. Owner of Casa Pepe’s. It was dated about five years previous. Contreras was under investigation after a former employee complained about mistreatment at Casa Pepe’s, claiming Contreras favored certain employees, and was verbally and physically abusive towards others. The report was long, from what Pete could tell, at least in comparison to some of the others in the box. This one was written by a name Pete didn’t recognize—Bill Sheffield. He walked over to the tiny desk in his bedroom and rummaged for a notebook. He found one of his old reporter’s notepads and grabbed a pen before returning to the couch. He began jotting down quick notes. Chaz. Clevelander. Contreras—abusive to certain employees? He kept reading—according to the final update on the file, no charges had been filed as there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Contreras with a crime, but the ancillary text, summing up the employee’s complaints, made for interesting reading nonetheless.

The disgruntled employee—also benefiting from the work release program Javier would eventually become a part of—claimed Contreras did little actual work, and instead spent most of his time meeting with out-of-town contacts in a back room of the restaurant. He mentioned seeing Contreras often leave with a new bag or suitcase, which led him to believe that an exchange of some kind was going on. Pete saw random notes scribbled on the photocopied police report. This handwriting he recognized—his father’s. But why was his father collecting police reports about other cases? Cases that weren’t even murders? Pete wasn’t sure, until he reached the last page of the Contreras report, where he saw the restaurant owner’s name circled, with a quick note written in the margin next to it. Pete felt his temperature drop, as if a cold breeze had made its way into his small, cramped apartment:

Silent Death?

P
ete awoke to a familiar sound—this time in stereo. His cat and his new roommate were crying at Pete’s feet, each louder than the last. Pete let out a groan as he realized where he was. On the couch. In the clothes he’d worn for most of the day yesterday. He looked at his watch. It was close to noon. He’d slept away the morning. He bolted up and wandered to the kitchen, the two cats not far behind. He felt slow and ragged—fallout from the night’s drinking. But his wheels were turning. Before he’d passed out on his couch in the minutes before dawn, the pieces had seemed to fit together. He kicked himself for not writing his conclusions down. His father thought Jose Contreras, the owner of Casa Pepe’s, might be the Silent Death. Detective Pedro Fernandez had also thought Chaz Bentley of interest enough to pull an old police report involving Chaz’s drunk and disorderly conduct for reference. Pete opened a few cans of food for the cats and set them on the floor, barely paying attention as the two tiny animals gorged themselves. His mind was elsewhere. For whatever reason, Chaz wanted Pete to look for Kathy—not the police. Chaz also got extremely agitated when Pete mentioned going to Casa Pepe’s and interacting with Contreras. Why hadn’t Chaz reported Kathy missing? What was it about Contreras that scared Chaz? And why did his father think Chaz was someone worth checking out in relation to the Silent Death? Pete had none of those answers. But he did have questions—some that even the good cops, like Carlos Broche, might not have considered yet. All this bounced around Pete’s head as he tossed his shirt and then the rest of his clothes into the growing pile of laundry in his bedroom and headed for the shower. He had to talk to Broche again, even if the idea of interacting with the person that had dressed him down so severely less than a day ago seemed like anathema. But first, he was going to confront Chaz Bentley. Pete felt the hot water slap his face and body as he stepped into the shower, the bathroom slowly filling with steam. He felt awake. He had something to do.

• • •

The drive to Chaz’s house had been smooth sailing until Pete reached the “city” of North Lauderdale—a tiny municipality in western Broward that was closer to a town. He hadn’t bothered to check for directions online before he left his apartment, instead foolishly relying on his own memory—he had worked around the area as a reporting intern during college—to guide him to Chaz’s apartment. Now he was lost. He called Chaz for the third time. No answer. Was he asleep? Not there? Pete turned down the volume of his car stereo, which was now on the second play-through of Neko Case’s “Blacklisted” album. He needed to concentrate. He turned into a strip mall—featuring a 7-Eleven, a Payless shoe store, and a small laundromat—and parked. He looked at the crumpled business card he’d had in his pocket. “Charles Bentley—Columnist.” On the back, in Chaz’s drunken scrawl from a few nights before, was his address and cell phone. Pete noticed another car entering the strip mall through his rearview. It was a black Nissan Sentra. It drove past where Pete was parked and out the other exit. Odd, Pete thought. The exit led to a complex of apartments, nothing more. Maybe it was a shortcut? Pete shrugged and stared at the card for another second before he heard his phone ring. He pulled it out of his pocket, expecting it to be Chaz. Instead, it was the last person he really wanted to talk to.