Chapter SEVENTY-ONE
“This thing won’t be over until we find Mariah,” J.D. said over a drink at Tiny’s. It was late and we’d had a full day. Teams from the marshal’s office, the FBI, DEA, and Miami-Dade Police Department had swarmed over the little house full of death. They found five bodies burned in the scrub that had gone up with such speed and ferocity that the men hadn’t been able to escape. Their car was found on a street in the neighboring subdivision on the other side of the palmetto field.
We’d all given detailed statements to representatives of the various agencies, and the FBI plane flew us home. It was nearing ten in the evening and we were winding down at a corner high-top table in what the owner Susie Vaught called the best little bar in paradise.
“I’m sorry I had to shoot that young marshal. I know it was the right thing to do, but it’s going to stay with me for a while.”
“Probably forever,” said Jock. “And that’s what makes you one of the good guys.”
“I barbequed five guys this afternoon,” I said, “and I don’t feel any remorse whatsoever.”
“You will, podna,” said Jock. “I know you too well.”
“Yeah,” said J.D. “You still dream about enemy soldiers you killed.”
“How do we go about finding Mariah?” I asked.
“The same way we find any murderer,” said J.D. “We just keep on plugging.”
“Did you believe Fuentes when he said he didn’t know anything about the gangbangers?” I asked Jock.
“Yeah. I think he was telling the truth. Since Perez was the handler for the operation against J.D., and he didn’t know anything about the Guatemalans, I doubt that Fuentes did either.”
“Mariah must be the one behind the Guatemalans,” I said. “But I don’t get the connection to Gene.”
“Maybe,” J.D. said, “Mariah was protecting her mole in Jock’s agency.”
“I don’t think the Fuentes cartel is big enough to worry about that sort of thing,” Jock said.
“Suppose,” I said, “that Fuentes was moving in on some of the bigger guys. He’d sure have a leg up if he knew the inner workings of the big cartels. He could find out a lot from the agents who had infiltrated the major groups.”
“True,” Jock said, “but if Mariah was after information for Fuentes, why kill the agents?”
J.D. said, “Maybe Fuentes had inside information from the mole as to who these agents were and where they would be at a certain time. He could have had the agents kidnapped, tortured, and wrung dry of information, and then have them killed and dumped. Your agency would think they had been killed by the cartels they had infiltrated.”
“That’s a pretty good hypothesis,” said Jock.
“I don’t understand why Mariah hired Bert,” I said. “If she were going to have Perez killed, that’d make some sense. But Bert could have taken Perez out at any time after he got to the safe house.”
“Maybe,” said J.D., “Mariah had Bert as a safety valve of sorts. Let Fuentes exact his revenge on Perez, but have somebody in place in case Fuentes ran into trouble. She might not have trusted him to keep his mouth shut.”
“That has a certain twisted logic to it,” I said. “Perez seemed to be of the opinion that Mariah ran things and that Fuentes was just the figurehead. Maybe she always considered her husband expendable.”
“I’m not going to feel safe until we get all of this wrapped up,” said J.D. “I’d also like to find that cretin Flagler or Worthington or whatever his name is.”
“He’ll turn up somewhere,” Jock said.
“If we find him, that pistol could have put him on death row,” said J.D. “Now we’ll never be able to use it as evidence. Jock, did you even think about that when you turned it over to your people?”
“I thought about it,” said Jock. “But we were never going to be able to get a warrant to search that apartment on what we had. No warrant, no gun in evidence.”
J.D. sat quietly, chewing her bottom lip. “Okay,” she said finally. “You’ve got a good point. But we still can’t do anything without the pistol.”
“I can,” said Jock.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” said J.D. “I’m beat, guys. Time to turn in.”
We paid the tab, said goodnight to Susie, and went out into the night. We drove J.D. back to her condo, and Jock and I headed for my cottage and a good night’s sleep.