Again, Jack fell silent. He’d expected to hear about an intruder, and instead he’d been whacked between the eyes with a sex scandal.
The colonel said, “Thank you, Private Castillo. That will be all for now.”
“I have a few more questions,” said Jack.
“That will be all for now,” the colonel said, speaking as much to Jack as to the soldier.
The private rose and left the room. As the door closed, the colonel looked at Jack and said, “Surprised?”
Jack nodded, as if nothing came as a surprise any longer. “What do you expect me to do with this information from Private Castillo?”
“That’s what I’m here to discuss. First, do you like what he had to say, or do you not like it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Jack.
“It is one of those two-edged swords, isn’t it? You have the lieutenant headed over to the Pintado residence right around the time of the murder. Or at least the time of the murder as established in the NCIS report, which I’ve seen, by the way.”
“Naturally.”
“So, you have the lieutenant at the Pintado house at the time of the murder. But you also have him involved in an affair with the victim’s wife. They both have motive. They both have opportunity.”
“You talk like a lawyer,” said Jack.
“I watch a lot of Law and Order. American television is my one capitalist indulgence.”
The opulent surroundings offered Jack plenty of opportunity to argue about the extent of the colonel’s “capitalist indulgences,” but he let it drop. Jack said, “Are you still offering to make Private Castillo available to testify at Lindsey Hart’s trial in Miami?”
“That depends,” said Colonel Jiménez. “If you like what he has to say, then yes: I am offering to make him available to you.”
“No strings attached?”
“No strings.”
Jack narrowed his eyes. “Why don’t I believe you?”
The colonel took a cigar from the humidor on his desk, rolled it between his thumb and index finger. “I said it before, and I say it again. You are such a skeptic, Mr. Swyteck.”
“I told you the last time we met: I’m not cutting any deals with the Cuban government.”
“We are not after any deals.”
“Then what’s in this for you?”
“We have decided that it is delightful enough for us to show the world that Alejandro Pintado’s son was married to a slut and was murdered by his best friend.”
“And what if I decide to deny you that pleasure?”
“Meaning what?”
“What if I simply decline to call your soldier as a witness?”
“I suggest you think very hard about that. Or it’s Lindsey Hart who suffers.”
“Maybe Lindsey is willing to take that chance.”
“Maybe. But perhaps there are others who do not have the luxury of choice.” He reached into his drawer and removed an eight-by-ten photograph. He laid it on the desktop.
Jack examined it. A group of people were standing on the sidewalk, watching as men in dark green uniforms hauled their belongings into the street. Clothes were strewn in the gutter. Furniture had been busted into pieces. “What is this?” Jack asked.
“Look closely,” said the colonel.
Jack tightened his gaze, and then he recognized it. Standing off to one side was Felicia Méndez, the Bejucal woman to whom Jack had spoken about his mother. She was sobbing into her husband’s shoulder. Others in the photograph were crying, too, including two young girls, perhaps six and eight.
“This is Casa Méndez,” said Jack.
The colonel sniffed his cigar, savoring the rich tobacco. “Yes. I’m sorry to report that they lost their leasehold. Just happened yesterday. Thirteen people, no place to live now. Such a shame.”
“You took their home away?”
“It’s not like they can’t get it back. Or should I say, it’s not like you can’t give it back to them.”
“You son of a bitch. Is that what your boy in Miami meant when he said you’d treat my family like gusanos?”
“Indirectly, yes. Of course, we know that the Méndez family is not your family. But this is a good starting point.”
“Are you implying that you have designs on actual blood relatives I may have here in Cuba?”
He nearly smiled, then his expression ran cold. “It wouldn’t be much of an implication if I were to come right out and admit it. Would it, Mr. Swyteck?”
Jack didn’t answer.
The colonel rose and pushed a button near his telephone. The double doors immediately opened, and the two soldiers posted outside his library entered.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Swyteck. I’ll give you a few days to consider your response.”
“Colonel, I-”
Colonel Jiménez cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Talk to the dead captain’s wife.” He chuckled to himself and said, “Aye, would I love to be the fly on the wall for those conversations?”
Jack wanted to slug him, but he held his tongue. The more he kept talking, the more likely he was to say something about Jack’s half sibling, and despite all the threats, it wasn’t clear that the colonel knew anything about that. Jack didn’t want to be the one to tell him.
“You’ll hear from me. One way or another.” Jack left the colonel’s residence in the company of the two soldiers, saying not another word all the way to the airport.
27
Jack had five hours to kill at Havana Airport. The first leg of his circuitous Miami-via-Cancun journey wasn’t scheduled to leave until dinnertime, so he found a seat at the restaurant and grabbed a demitasse of espresso, which made him only more restless. One more cup of this stuff, and he probably could swim home.
“More coffee?” the waitress asked.
“You don’t happen to have decaffeinated, do you?”
She laughed and walked away. Coffee without caffeine? That was apparently the Cuban equivalent of stopping in the middle of sex to do the laundry.
Stimulants or not, Jack’s anxiety level was up. Although Private Castillo had seemed truthful, Jack knew better than to accept at face value anything the Cuban government had to offer. His only shot at the whole truth was Lindsey herself. Was she having an affair with Lieutenant Johnson? Had they been together the night her husband was shot? It was up to Jack to get some straight answers out of his client. Or not. He’d defended plenty of accused murderers who had never told him the whole story. As a criminal defense lawyer, you dealt with it. The problem here, however, was that he wasn’t only a criminal defense lawyer. He was Brian’s biological father. And Jack wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of his own flesh and blood being raised by the woman who had murdered the boy’s adoptive father. As his friend Theo Knight had so aptly put it on day one, he was caught in his own zipper. Jack had to get the truth.
But first, he had to kill five hours.
He walked around the terminal, checked out the vending machines, and then found a bank of pay phones. In Cuba it was true that you never knew who was listening, but the risk of someone making any sense of Jack’s voicemail messages by eavesdropping on a pay phone seemed remote. Even so, he didn’t call his office. He checked only his personal messages at home, which usually consisted of Theo bitching about some bogus call the ref had made in last night’s Heat game or Abuela telling him about the nice Cuban checkout girl she’d met at Publix.
“You have one new message,” announced the robotic voice on the answering machine.
Jack got a pen and a scrap of paper to jot it down, then relaxed at the sound of Abuela’s recorded voice.
“Hola, mi vida.”
There was a long pause, but Jack was relieved to hear her start with a term of endearment. Before leaving Miami, he’d called and told her he was headed for Cuba, just so someone would know where he was. Of course, he couldn’t tell her why he was going to Cuba, which had only set her off all over again. She was sure that Jack was going back to Bejucal to stir up more scandal about his mother. She’d actually hung up on him.