“Silas Davis, Juan Gomez, and Hector Ortega come from another planet. These are labor contractors who traffic in human beings. Worried? Nah, you can handle them.”
“I believe Dan and I can handle the arrest, but we’ll take back-up.” She paused, slightly tracing the tip of her spoon around the ice cream. “Dan’s not a fan of Slater’s, either. Slater’s been watching me like a hawk. I was trained to work in forensic crime scene investigations, not to keep looking over my shoulder for a bad cop.”
“That turns your job into a covert mission.”
She smiled. “We’ll question Davis tomorrow and see if we can get him to talk.”
“Davis is big and cunning. Not a dumb guy. He abuses the workers because the system allows him to. He actually works for Juan Gomez and Hector Ortega. And they’re as indifferent to farm workers as Davis, maybe more so. They speak the language, bring in the workers from other countries, slap false debt on them, and hold them. I believe Gomez, Ortega, and Davis are all involved in the killings in some capacity. Davis might have killed the girl I found, and the other victim, but I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean?”
“He doesn’t fit the profile for the kind of killings, at least on the surface he doesn’t. He’s no scout leader. Mean as they come, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense for him to kill these women. Also, don’t see many black serial killers.”
“Maybe the victims were going to the police.”
“That’s possible, but doubtful. They don’t trust a system that allows this to happen. Davis is a vile guy, a criminal, but even though we got an exact DNA match, that doesn’t make him the killer. That tells me she scratched him. Could have occurred the day of the murder. Maybe sometime before it happened. Whoever is killing these women, and it may be Davis, is a psychopath of the worst kind. He can’t feel guilt because he can’t feel love.”
“Can he feel hate?”
“His type can’t form intimate relationships. He might not hate in the vengeful kind of way that most people understand. There is a banality to his killing. Which makes this guy the most frightening kind. You can’t see him coming until he’s there.”
“And you believe these last two girls are not the first of his victims?”
“He’s killed before. Could be responsible for the nine unsolved that fit the MO and profile. And I bet there are more that we don’t know exists.”
She was silent, her thoughts somewhere else, and then she looked up at me, a smile as tender as the night.
“I really should be going,” I heard myself say.
“Why?”
“I don’t have a good answer, only an honest one, but not a good one.”
“Then stay the night,” she said again, reaching across the table and touching my hand.
FORTY-THREE
Leslie said, “I have some Grand Marnier a friend gave me, but I haven’t had a reason to have an after-dinner drink. Now I do, because you’re here. One nightcap?”
“Just one,” I said.
She poured the Grand Marnier and raised her glass. “To the night, may this one be the first of many.”
We toasted and sipped the liqueur. She set her glass down on the counter and touched my cheek with the tips of her fingers. She was trembling slightly, her eyes probing mine. She stepped closer, pressing her body gently against me. I could feel her warmth, the scent of her hair, and a lingering perfume somewhere on her long neck.
“I don’t think…” I heard myself say. Her lips seemed to move to mine with no measurement in space and time. They were just there.
The kiss was like a feather at first, gentle, searching. Her mouth was soft, tasting of the Grand Marnier, lipstick and vanilla. In less than a half minute, the kiss became one of a buried passion erupting. She was sensuous and receptive. I could feel a strong arousal, a heat building in my loins. I wanted to pick her up and take her into the bedroom, but I pulled back a moment, then kissed one of her closed eyes.
“I can’t stay the night,” I whispered.
“Then stay as long as you can,” she said, rising to kiss me again.
In the bedroom, we undressed each other, eyes locking on eyes, hands discovering. I held her close, backing her onto the bed. The light from the patio broke through the partially opened blinds, illuminating Leslie’s beauty. Her body was sculpted from good genes and exercise. I touched her hair and face. Our bodies moved in a rhythmic motion of discovery, and then moved as one. Our fingers locked, and I held her arms beside her head, soft brown hair cascading on the pillow, her eyes searching, finding me. Within a few minutes, we both were climaxing, in long powerful couplings.
I leaned back, but Leslie’s right hand stayed laced in mine, holding me, refusing to let me lean too far up. She reached and entwined her fingers in my other hand.
“Sean…just breathe…say nothing. You’re here now. Nowhere else.”
It was after 3:00 A.M. when I got back to Jupiter. The cockpit door showed no sign of entry. I unlocked it, got a beer from the galley, climbed up into the fly bridge and sank into the captain’s chair. A breeze stirred across the river and lagoon, bringing with it the damp smell of rain. It was the darkness before dawn. Fog drifted through glowing orbs of light cast from security lights down by the charter boats and at the end of the five long docks lined with boats.
The marina was eerily quiet, only an occasional strain from Jupiter’s bowline, the tide moving silently between the boats and pilings. I sipped the beer and turned my collar up in the cool of the morning. I was exhausted, but my thoughts bounced from Leslie to Sherri and then to the dead girl. But Sherri was dead. DEAD. As a former homicide detective, death was my shift. The eternal night shift. I had clocked in again.
I watched the gray daybreak rise over the boats in a cloak of diffused light, enveloping the marina with an ethereal tint of an aged photograph. The dawn arrived unannounced, like the ghost of the ancient mariner. It was a black and white world, devoid of warmth and colors. A light rain began to fall as soft as a whisper. Its gentle rhythm was the last thing I heard as my eyes closed. I wanted to dream in warm colors, to turn away the cold edge of shadows.
FORTY-FOUR
It was two days before I called Leslie. There was a pleasant smile in her voice, but more businesslike than I wanted. But then what did I want? I wanted to take her to lunch, to be with her, to meet, and dine with her near the water. The way the sun comes through a bent Venetian blind, her light broke through the tiny slants in my armor even though I tried to shield her from my darkest corners.
Leslie met me at the Lighthouse Restaurant, a block from the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse and fifty feet from the Halifax River. A life-sized pirate, made from stone and painted in primary colors, stood next to a rusted galleon anchor in the parking lot. The restaurant was a blend of cracker Florida inlaid with Key West T-shirt tackiness.
Outside, a wooden deck was built around a large live oak tree. There were a dozen tables and chairs scattered across the deck. Some of the lunch crowd sat in a replica of a shrimp boat docked and attached to the deck.
Leslie and I took a table in a far corner of the deck with a nice view of the river. I watched a sailboat motor toward the pass. One man at the helm. I could see him opening the jib, a gust of wind pulling the bow in the direction of the sea.
Leslie said, “Nice spot. Do you bring guests here often?”
“Guests?”
“I thought I’d hear from you the next day. Then, when I didn’t, I thought it was something I said.”
“No, Leslie. It’s not you. It’s me. I have had a lot of closed curtains opened suddenly. It’s just that this light pouring in has caught my house in sort of a mess.”