Текст книги "Fry Another Day"

Автор книги: J. J. Cook

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

THIRTY-ONE

I gave Cole the address of Miguel’s office. I figured Miguel might still be there trying to get caught up with his work. Or with Tina.

Traffic wasn’t too bad getting across town. It seemed to go even faster when I suddenly got cold feet.

“What am I going to say to him?” I asked Cole after filling him in on what had happened. “If he doesn’t want to be with me, he doesn’t want to be with me.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes you have to hear it from the horse’s mouth, I guess.”

“I feel stupid. I should probably just go home.”

But that didn’t sit well, either. I had a powerful need to see Miguel’s face and look into his eyes as he told me that he loved Tina. I had a sense about these things, or at least I always thought I did. That sense was telling me that Miguel had been genuine with me while we’d been gone.

Or were my emotions clouding my judgment?

We got to Miguel’s legal office, which was located in a run-down building in a bad part of town. The lights were still on inside. I sighed as I looked up at the building.

“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

“You’ll never know if you don’t go in,” he said. “You’ll wonder about this moment the rest of your life. Want me to come with you?”

I smiled at Cole’s words of wisdom, and his offer of help. How could I turn away now? I had to go through with it.

“Thanks. Will you wait for me here?”

“I got nowhere else to be, Zoe. You take your time.”

I thought about the old days when knights and soldiers put on their armor and went off to war. That’s how I felt. I wished there were some magical armor that could protect my poor heart, but it was only me and my silly desire to make Miguel tell me to my face that he didn’t want to be with me.

I went inside. Miguel’s office was on the second floor. I took a deep breath and went up the stairs to give myself time to decide what I’d say to him. Even by the time I got there, I wasn’t sure. I hoped to be inspired when I saw his face.

The office door was open. I walked in, but there was no sign of Miguel. There were only two rooms in the office. He was gone, but his cell phone was on his desk. All the lights were on. The desk phone was off the hook. A weird voice kept telling me what to do if I wanted to make a call.

Nothing looked out of place besides that. Maybe he’d gone home.

I was about to leave when I noticed a small amount of blood on the carpet near the front of the desk. Examining it closely, I could see the blood was fresh. It was still pooling on top of the carpet fibers—still time to clean it without staining.

There was something under the desk, too. I used a pen from Miguel’s desk to pull it out. It was an empty pack of Marlboro cigarettes.

Marsh! Detective Marsh had been there.

Why had he been there?

A terrible thought crossed my mind.

Was it Marsh from the beginning? Was he the one who’d killed McSwain because he’d asked questions about Alex’s partner in crime? Had he been the one who’d killed Alex, too?

I took out my cell phone and used it to speed dial Patti Latoure. I was shaking with fear and hoping nothing horrible had happened to Miguel.

Patti finally answered after a few tries. “Zoe. We were just talking about you.”

“We?” My heart was pounding, hoping Miguel was with her.

“Detective Macey Helms came down from Birmingham. She has some interesting information.”

“Can it wait a few minutes?” I kind of cut her off. “Miguel Alexander may be missing. I think Detective Marsh from Charlotte might be responsible for the things that went on during the food truck race.”

Patti chuckled. “Funny you should say that. Macey was telling me her story about her partner shooting her right after she saw him kissing Tina Gerard.”

“Kissing Tina? She’s involved in this, too?”

“It seems that way. Where are you?”

I skimmed over the reason I’d come to look for Miguel and told her what I’d found at his office. “Could you look up Miguel’s home address and meet me there? Maybe you could put out an APB, or whatever you call it, for his Mercedes. I don’t think it’s here. Tina and Marsh may have hurt Miguel.”

“Take it easy, Zoe. Calm down. I’ll look up Miguel’s home address—although I would’ve thought it was something you already had. It’s possible nothing has happened to him. He might not even know those two are the real culprits.”

I waited impatiently for her to find his address. My fingernails tapped on the backside of my phone. I had a bad feeling about this.

“Here’s his address. It’s only a few blocks from where you are,” she said. “But don’t meet me there. You stay where you are. I’ll let you know if anything is going on over there.”

Like that was going to happen.

I wrote down Miguel’s address. The minute I was off the phone with Patti, I ran out of the office and into the street.

“What’s going on?” Cole asked as I got back in the taxi.

“I’ll tell you on the way,” I answered as I dialed Uncle Saul’s cell phone number.

Cole raced to the address I gave him. Miguel lived in a small apartment building that was mostly covered by hanging moss from a few large live oaks. Huge, old azalea bushes obscured the front windows.

The Mercedes wasn’t there, either. There were no lights on inside.

Cole got out with me this time, grabbing a baseball bat he kept under his seat. We searched the mail slots. There were four apartments. Miguel’s was on the second floor.

I tried the buzzer over and over again. Either he wasn’t there or couldn’t answer. Both answers were bad in my mind.

“We should try to get someone else down here to open the door,” Cole said.

I reasoned with a man on the first floor who answered his buzzer. I told him that we thought Miguel could be in danger. The man, dressed only in his underwear, finally came and opened the door for us. I could hear sirens in the distance. Patti wasn’t far behind us.

We ran up to the second floor. The building was a little shabby, but you could see this had been a nice place at one time. I wondered if Miguel had lived here with Caroline, or if they’d had a house that he’d sold.

Thousands of crazy thoughts raced through my mind as we reached the door to Miguel’s apartment.

“I can knock it down with my bat,” Cole enthusiastically volunteered.

“You might break your arm before you break it in.” I held him back.

“So what do we do?”

Patti was coming up the stairs with two uniformed officers. “Zoe, didn’t I tell you to stay where you were? What part of that didn’t you understand?”

I ran and hugged her, tears in my eyes. “I’m so glad to see you. I think they did something with Miguel. I don’t think he’s here, either.”

She hugged me back, a little stiffly, but I didn’t care. I was really happy to see her.

“You’re determined to get into trouble, aren’t you? You have to leave the police work to the police. Let’s get someone to open this door for us.”

She roused the building manager. By that time, Macey Helms was up there, too. She was moving very slowly, painfully, to join us.

“Hello, Zoe.” Her arm was in a sling, and she was very pale. “I hope Miguel is all right. I understand we both came to the same conclusion about Tina and my partner.”

“I guess so,” I answered. “It occurred to me on the way home from Birmingham that Tina could’ve been setting up everything to cover Alex’s murder. She had a lot to gain.”

She nodded and winced. “I don’t think she realized that paying Miguel that money and meeting with him would throw her onto our radar. On the other hand, when Miguel looked innocent of any wrongdoing, so did she. What can I tell you? Bad guys do stupid things sometimes. I’m glad it works that way for our sake.”

“How did she and Detective Marsh get involved?”

“I don’t know yet. Right now, we’re working on the assumption that Marsh probably killed McSwain because McSwain started looking too close. He may have killed your friend, Reggie, as a decoy for what he was about to do to Alex.”

The more she talked about what Tina and Marsh were willing to do to kill Alex, the more anxious I became about Miguel.

The apartment was small. The officers who were searching it came back only a few minutes later. Miguel wasn’t there. There was no sign of a struggle.

Patti sent them over to take a look at the office. “I don’t want to make a big deal out of Miguel’s disappearance and find out he was out all night with a client and hasn’t thought about anything else.”

Helms agreed with her. “We definitely don’t want to lose Marsh and Tina.”

“I have everyone looking for the Mercedes, but if they took Miguel’s vehicle, the chances are they’ve ditched it. They could already be out of Mobile.”

“Can’t you call the FBI or something?” I asked.

“It doesn’t work like that, Zoe,” Patti said. “We have to take care of this one step at a time. We’ll find Marsh and Gerard, and we’ll figure out where Miguel is. Just take a deep breath and go on home. We’ll call if we hear anything.”

I thanked her again for her help. Ollie, Delia, and Uncle Saul were there, waiting downstairs with Cole. One of the old churches nearby was chiming midnight. The air was hot and sultry with a little hint of rain that might have been coming from Mobile Bay.

“Now what?” Cole put away his baseball bat.

“It’s Zoe’s call.” Uncle Saul hugged me. “I have a feeling we’re not going home yet.”

There was no doubt in my mind that I wasn’t waiting at home for news. I pieced together a plan that I thought might work and told them what I thought we should do.

“Uncle Saul, you have a lot of friends around the city that you could call. Ollie, let’s go back to the shelter and see if we can find anyone who will help us search. Mobile is our home. Marsh and Tina don’t know it like we do. Let’s find Miguel.”

THIRTY-TWO

Uncle Saul called all of his old buddies and gave them a description of Miguel and the Mercedes. When I told Chef Art what had happened, he volunteered all of his security guards to help us search as well. They had SUVs, which was good since none of the rest of us had cars. I didn’t want to drive the Biscuit Bowl all over town searching for Miguel if I didn’t have to.

“This is developing into a large search party,” Uncle Saul said. “Maybe the four of us should split up and go with each of the teams. We actually know what Miguel and his car look like. It might save a lot of wrong guesses.”

“That’s a good idea,” I agreed.

“Yeah!” Ollie seconded me. “I’ve always wanted to ride in a big black SUV with a bunch of security guards. Do I get a gun?”

“We’re only looking for someone,” Delia reminded him, her hand on his chest. “We’re not shooting anyone—at least not yet.”

He pouted but went along with the plan.

I stayed with Cole in the taxi. I had the feeling that he’d know Mobile better than the security people Chef Art had employed. He’d know the areas where someone might be liable to dump a car or a person. The security guards basically knew the area Chef Art needed them to know.

At least those were my thoughts at the time.

Cole had a cell phone to keep in contact, so I gave my cell phone to Ollie, who didn’t have one. Delia and Uncle Saul had their own phones. The security guards probably had phones, and radios, too, but I wanted to stay in touch with my team, not them.

“Where are we going first, Zoe?” Cole asked as everyone got into their vehicles and started their engines.

“I think we should check down by the docks. What do you think?”

He nodded. “I’m with you. Lots of places to hide bodies down there.”

I let out a little squeal even thinking that Miguel might be a “body.”

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean just bodies. Did I say that? No, people hide all sorts of stuff down that way.” He shook his head and started the taxi. “Never mind. I’ve never been good with words.”

We drove slowly through the dark city. There were some bars and nightclubs still open, but mostly Mobile wasn’t a party town—except during carnival. There weren’t a lot of people on the street. Traffic was light.

I wished we had a big searchlight mounted on the side of the taxi. Some of the areas were too dark to see into the nooks and crannies. Waiting until morning might have been better. But there was no guarantee that we’d be able to find Miguel alive if we waited.

I got a call from Patti, relayed by Ollie to Cole’s phone. A police officer had stopped at a convenience store for a soda. He thought he might have recognized Tina and Marsh.

“He said they were driving an old blue Mustang. He had the license number. The police are following up on that,” Patti told me.

“Any word on Miguel or the Mercedes?” Not to be ungrateful for the update, but I was a lot more concerned about Miguel than what happened to Tina and Marsh.

“I have dozens of officers checking the city,” she replied. “We’ll find him, Zoe.”

“Thanks.”

“Why is Ollie answering your phone?”

“He didn’t have one. I tried to spread the phones out so everyone had one. Chef Art’s men had their own.”

“Chef Art Arrington? What does he have to do with this?”

I quickly explained that we thought we’d stand a better chance with Chef Art’s security team if each group had someone who could recognize Miguel.

I thought she might be annoyed that we’d set out on our own. Instead she laughed. “Probably a good idea. But this conversation never happened, understand?”

I agreed and thanked Cole for the use of his phone. We were driving very slowly through some terrible neighborhoods once we got close to the docks.

During the day, these areas were populated with snack food vendors and antique dealers trying to make a quick buck from the cruise ship passengers getting on and off the big ships.

I had brought the Biscuit Bowl down here a few times, but the money wasn’t as good here as it was by police headquarters, the courthouse, and other areas farther into the business district of the city.

“It’s dark as blackstrap molasses down here.” Cole squinted into the blackness. He had his window open as we cruised slowly by the warehouses and port offices.

“If you were going to dump a car”—I swallowed hard on the word dump—“where would you do it?”

He thought about it a few minutes before answering. “I’d take it down near the cruise ship berths. People work down there twenty-four-seven now with the ships going in and out all the time. Who’d notice another car?”

“And a dead body?” My voice trembled as I asked.

He shrugged. “The bay. That’s always been the best place to get rid of someone.”

I pulled myself together and assured myself that Miguel wasn’t dead. We needed to find his car, and that would lead us to him.

“Okay. Let’s check out those parking areas.”

Cole was right about a lot of cars being parked down there. It was impossible to simply scan the parking lots and decide if a black Mercedes was there. We had to drive slowly between the rows of vehicles and check each one.

It was taking forever, and I was getting impatient. It had already been an hour since we’d split up. Anything could happen in an hour.

At least there were streetlights. Their weird orange glow made everything look like something out of a horror movie. At each turn, I looked for zombies or some other supernatural creatures.

I could tell Cole was uncomfortable, too, despite his nonchalant demeanor. He slowly closed his window and peered out from behind its meager protection.

“Look there!” I pointed to a black Mercedes. “I think that could be Miguel’s car!”

Cole pulled over close to it, slowly and carefully. I compared the license plate—there were no other distinguishing marks—and knew that it was the right one.

“We should call everyone,” he said. “We shouldn’t try to do this alone, Zoe.”

“But what if he needs us before everyone else can get here?” I was already getting out of the car.

“Okay. I’ll call Saul. He can call everyone else. At least wait for me.”

I ran toward the Mercedes.

The car was locked. I wasn’t sure how we were going to get inside it. I looked at the trunk. How many times had I seen dead bodies stuffed in trunks in the movies and on TV?

“Do you think the tire iron can open the trunk?” I asked Cole when he finally caught up.

He was glancing around the parking lot with a baleful eye. “Probably. Yes. But your Miguel won’t like it if we pry it open. Best to wait for the cops.”

“Give me the tire iron. I’ll open it.”

He argued with me for a few minutes, but it was halfhearted. He didn’t want to use the tire iron on the trunk, but he really didn’t care if I did it. He finally handed it to me and stood back.

Before I could use it, Cole’s cell phone rang. He answered it in a low tone and then handed it to me.

It was Ollie. “If you find the car, I saw Miguel take a key out of a magnetic case once when he was representing me. It’s next to the front driver’s side, under the car.”

I gave the tire iron, and the phone, back to Cole. I felt a little out of the loop—I didn’t know Miguel’s home address or that he kept a key under his car.

I had to remind myself that we were just starting our relationship. I’d learn these things as we went along. He knew so much more about me than I knew about him. It was the basic difference in our personalities. If you knew me for five minutes, you knew everything about me. Miguel was harder to know.

All these stupid things raced through my mind as I used my hand to search for the key under the car. The orange lights above us made me feel like I was in a bad science fiction movie.

The parking lot was gritty and wet under my knees. The smell of the bay was strong, mixed with the smell of the fuel they used for the ships. I was weirdly cold, even though the night was hot and humid.

Cole and I walked back to the trunk. I was reluctant to use the key I’d found, even though I’d been willing to pry it open only a few minutes before. Part of me hoped Miguel was there. The other part of me said this could be a very bad thing.

Two black SUVs pulled up, along with a Mobile police car. The siren wasn’t on, but the blue lights on top were flashing.

“Open it,” Cole urged me. “If he’s still alive, he might need help right away.”

I nodded and popped open the trunk, holding my breath.

I could see it wasn’t empty. There was a dim trunk light that faintly illuminated the space. Something was in there, wrapped in a tarp.

I reached my hand down and rolled it over. Please don’t be dead!

It was Miguel—and Tina. Their hands and feet were duct-taped together, and there was tape on their mouths.

My heart stopped beating. I could barely breathe. I put my hand on Miguel’s chest. He was alive—unconscious, but alive.

“Get me an ambulance out here!” Patti shot back to one of her uniformed officers.

I hadn’t even noticed she was there.

“Step aside, Zoe. Let us get them out.”

– – – – – – –

They pulled Miguel and Tina carefully out of the trunk and untaped them. Neither one of them was moving. The paramedics examined them, slowly removing the tape from their mouths.

“Looks like someone hit him on the head,” the lead paramedic said. “He’s out of it, but he’ll probably be fine. They’ll want to do some tests on him at the hospital to be sure.”

“But he’ll wake up, right?” I asked.

“He should. It’s a good thing you found him out here. The heat tomorrow could’ve finished him off.”

Tina was alive, too. She’d been strangled. There were terrible bruises on her throat.

They took Miguel away on a stretcher and put him in the back of the ambulance. I watched the vehicle speed away out of the parking lot and up the street until I couldn’t see it anymore.

A second ambulance was pulling into the lot for Tina.

“Thank God!” Uncle Saul wrapped his arms around me. “What kind of person leaves someone in a trunk to die?”

“The kind that already murdered at least three other people,” Patti said. “Marsh must’ve run out of bullets or we’d probably be calling the coroner now.”

“Have you heard anything else about the Marsh sighting?” I asked her.

“No. I’ve been too busy fielding calls from dozens of people across the city who thought they’d found Miguel. I don’t know whose network that was, but I’d appreciate it if they’d call them off now.”

Delia and Uncle Saul both got on their phones right away. Ollie high-fived a small group of his friends from the homeless shelter who were in the parking lot with him.

“It’s four A.M.” Uncle Saul glanced at his watch. “I don’t think there’s much point in going to bed now. We’ll have to be up in another hour or so.”

I agreed with him, even though I yawned as I did it. “I’d like to go to the hospital until we either hear something about Miguel or we have to get the Biscuit Bowl for the race.”

Ollie and Uncle Saul agreed. Delia decided to go back with Chef Art’s security team and take a shower before she had to work.

“Don’t worry, Zoe.” Detective Helms looked exhausted in the orange light. “We’re gonna find Marsh. He’ll pay for what he’s done.”

Truly, that thought hadn’t crossed my mind. I suppose it should have, but all I could think about was being there when Miguel woke up.

Uncle Saul and Ollie jumped in the taxi with me, and Cole took off. The police would be sending a crime scene crew out to gather evidence from the Mercedes. I’d given the key to Patti so they could work on it. I wasn’t sure what they hoped to find. It was obvious what had happened. But I didn’t want to keep her from doing her job.

We got to the hospital in record time. It looked like a slow night for them. Orderlies jumped up when they saw us come through the emergency entrance and then sat back down when there was nothing to do.

I asked about Miguel at the window.

A surprisingly nice nurse told us they were still examining him. “I’ll send someone out to talk to you when they’re finished. Take a seat and have some coffee. We have some donuts, too. One of the local bakeries donates them to us.”

I couldn’t eat, but the coffee was good. The waiting room was empty except for the four of us. The seats were upholstered and comfortable. I could almost forget I was in a hospital, except for the smell of antiseptic.

I think I’d gone to sleep for a few moments, leaning my head against Uncle Saul’s shoulder, when a doctor finally came out and talked to us.

“Mr. Alexander is going to be fine. No lasting injuries from his ordeal. He’s a little dehydrated but conscious now. If you’d like to see him for a few minutes, that would be fine. Follow me.”

Cole stayed behind, even though we’d encouraged him to come, too. “I don’t know Miguel. You go. I can shake his hand later when he gets out of here.” He helped himself to another donut and sat down to watch TV.

Uncle Saul, Ollie, and I followed the doctor in blue scrubs down the hallway. He opened the door to a room, and we awkwardly went in.

There was Miguel—pale and wearing a hospital gown, his black hair mussed. There were dark circles under his eyes and a cut by his mouth. But he was smiling at us.

“I don’t know how to thank you for what you’ve done.” I had decided I would be cool. I wouldn’t get overemotional. Then his voice cracked as he was thanking us. That was it. I ran and threw myself at him, crying all over his hospital gown.

“It’s okay, Zoe.” He held my hand and smiled at me. “I’m going to be fine.”

“You didn’t look very fine in that trunk.” I sobbed. “Don’t ever do that again.”