James Grippando - When Darkness Falls

Jack felt a rush of panic. “It’s not-”

“Alicia Mendoza? No, no. If that were the mayor’s daughter, we’d have every media van in the tri-county area upon us by now. This is a much older woman, fiftysomething, maybe sixties. I suspect she’s another one of Miami’s homeless. Falcon probably found her all snug and warm in his favorite spot, freaked out, and let her have it.”

“You have a murder weapon?”

“We suspect it was the lead pipe found next to the car. Traces of blood and human hair on it. It would take something substantial like that to account for the blunt trauma. Your boy literally bashed her face in.”

“He’s not my boy,” said Jack.

“No, that’s true,” Barber said, smiling. Then he chuckled. “He’s just your client.”

“What’s so funny?” said Jack.

“No offense, counselor. But something deep inside my jaded cop existence takes perverse pleasure in the fact that a criminal defense lawyer called the cops to report a murder committed by his own client.” He was chuckling again. “Sorry. I just can’t help myself.”

Jack could already hear the Swyteck jokes coursing through the hallways of the Miami-Dade Criminal Justice Building. In these situations, there was only one comeback. “How do you know my client did it?”

The detective’s smile faded. “I think we can safely assume-”

Jack held up his hand, stopping him. “One erroneous assumption per crime scene, please.”

“Oh, come off it, Swyteck. In another two hours, we’ll have enough physical evidence against your client to fill an entire crime lab.”

“But you still may not have my client.”

“We’ll find him.”

Jack leaned closer, as if to make it clear that he wasn’t kidding around on this point. “When you do, be sure you remind him to call me.”

Suddenly, someone near the river was shouting at the top of his voice. Both Jack and the detective turned to check out the commotion. It was a combination of words and wailing, loud but utterly incomprehensible. The detective said, “Looks like we got a friend of the victim. Excuse me, Swyteck.”

Jack stayed put as the detective headed toward the river. He watched only long enough to make sure that the screamer wasn’t his client. It wasn’t. Jack turned away from the police tape and started back toward the footpath in search of Theo.

“Hey, mon. You Falcon’s lawyer?”

Jack turned at the sound of the Jamaican’s voice. He was dressed in blue jeans and an old hunting jacket, with thick smears of black grease amid the blotches of camouflage. The boots were in even worse condition, and they were both for the left foot. His tangled dreadlocks were tucked up into a bulging knit cap atop his head. It probably wouldn’t have looked quite so strange if he hadn’t wrapped it in aluminum foil.

“Who are you?”

“They call me the Bushman.”

“Do you know Falcon?”

The man’s eyes darted back and forth. He gestured frantically with both hands, telling Jack without words to keep his voice down. Whoever this guy was, he appeared to be even more paranoid than Falcon. “Falcon and me is friends,” he said, then stopped himself. He seemed eager to tell Jack more, but it was equally clear that he wanted to get away from the crowd. He jerked his head, a movement so quick that it bordered on spastic, but he was merely signaling Jack to follow him back toward the bridge. They walked until the Jamaican seemed comfortable with their distance from the crime scene.

“Do you know where Falcon is?” said Jack.

“He’s running.”

“Running from what?”

The Jamaican glanced back toward the cops, but he said nothing.

“Did Falcon kill that woman?” asked Jack.

The Bushman grimaced and stomped his foot, as if he’d just bitten into a sourball the size of a melon. “Shhhhhhhh,” he said, putting his finger to his lips.

Jack lowered his voice to a raspy whisper. “I’m his lawyer. You can tell me why he’s running.”

“He runs cuz he scared, mon.”

“Scared of the police?”

The Bushman scoffed so bitterly that he made a spitting sound. “He’s not scared of no police. He’s scared of her.”

“Who is she?”

He didn’t respond. Jack sensed that he knew the answer, but he just wasn’t ready to share it. Then Jack noticed the necklace around the Jamaican’s neck. It was identical to the one Falcon had worn-the one with the key to the safe deposit box on it. “Hey, that’s an interesting necklace you’re wearing. Where’d you get it?”

“Falcon gave it to me.”

“He gave it or-” Jack checked his words, not wanting to shut down the conversation by coming across as too accusatory. “Or did you borrow it?”

“I don’t borrow nothin’, mon. He gave it to me. For protection.”

“Protection from what?”

The Jamaican’s gaze drifted back toward the crime scene. “Dat’s what I’m trying to tell you. Falcon says we all need protection. From her, mon.”

“The dead woman? Who is she?”

The Bushman leaned closer, cupping his hand to his mouth as he whispered, “She the Mother.”

“Mother? You mean like a bad motha’?”

“No. She’s their mother.”

“Whose mother?”

His voice became so soft that Jack could barely hear him. “Of the Disappeared, mon.”

“She’s the mother of the disappeared?” said Jack, confused.

A look of horror came over the Jamaican’s face, as if he could scarcely believe that Jack had uttered the words aloud. Jack said, “What does that mean-she’s the mother of the disappeared?”

The Jamaican stepped away in obvious fright, balling his necklace tightly into his fist and clutching it against his chest. “No, you can’t have it! Get your own protection! Dis one is mine!”

Jack searched for something to say, something to calm him, but the words didn’t come fast enough. The Jamaican turned and sprinted toward the bridge, one arm pumping, the other held close to his body. He kept on running until he vanished somewhere in the twilight beyond the marina.

He was a troubled man, the conversation had been very odd, and Jack stood there in the waning moments of daylight as he pondered what seemed to be the strangest but most certain thing of all.

The Jamaican surely would have killed him before giving up his gift from Falcon, his protection-that necklace of metal beads.

A round nine p.m., Alicia met Detective Barber at the Joseph H.Davis Center for Forensic Pathology, a three-building complex on the perimeter of the University of Miami Medical Center campus and Jackson Memorial Hospital. The nearby cancer center, eye institute, and spinal project were top-notch, but when it came to medical science, Miami’s living had nothing on its dead. The Davis Center was a first-rate, modern facility, with some of the best forensic specialists in the world.

The body in Falcon’s car had put the City of Miami police on high alert. A down-on-his-luck homeless guy with his eye on the mayor’s daughter was one thing. A vicious killer was quite another. Investigators were covering every angle, so it seemed wise for Alicia to take a look at the victim before an autopsy made her unrecognizable. Fingerprint analysis having turned up nothing, the woman’s identity was still unknown. The face was battered beyond recognition, but perhaps Alicia would recognize something else about her. If there was some connection between the victim and Alicia, police wanted to know about it from the get-go.

An assistant medical examiner escorted Alicia and Detective Barber to examination room three. Barber was a familiar face around the Davis Center; he had worked homicides for several years. Alicia, however, was a newcomer. “Have you seen an autopsy before?” the assistant ME asked her.