James Swain - Bad News Travels

“Carrie refused to cut a deal because she’s afraid the Russians will kill her while she’s in jail,” Jon said. “That means she knows things about the Russians’ operation that are worth having her killed over. Make sense?”

“I’m with you so far.”

“Carrie has leverage over the Russians. When she’s in jail, she’ll have her lawyer send them a message. In return for her silence, she’ll ask them to carry out her threat.”

“Do you really think she’s capable of that?”

“I killed her son. She’s capable of anything.”

“How is she going to rip our hearts out?”

“I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

Daniels considered what Jon was saying. Carrie looked like a doting old woman, but she was just as guilty as Dalton, and probably just as ruthless. To underestimate her would have been a mistake.

Bennett came back on the line.

“Hey, there,” the founder of Callyo said. “I just got off the line with one of my account managers. The Palatka operation is his. Sorry I didn’t recognize it, but we’ve got over a hundred jobs around the country we’re running right now.”

They had hit so many dead ends. Now, finally, they were going to break the investigation open, and get to the truth. If there was a greater feeling, she didn’t know what it was. She glanced at Jon. He was thinking the same thing, his eyes dancing.

“Did your account manager tell you who the client is?” Daniels asked.

“Yes, he did,” Bennett said. “Our client is the Saint Augustine Police Department.”

Daniels sat up straight in her chair.

“Bastards,” Jon swore under his breath.

“Are you sure?” she said into the cell phone.

“Positive,” Bennett said. “My account manager emailed me the contract, which I’m looking at right now. Twelve months ago, the Saint Augustine Police Department hired us to supply tracking devices hidden in burner phones for an investigation that is still ongoing. Is that a problem?”

“We met with the Saint Augustine police a few days ago, and the operation was never mentioned,” she said. “Who in the department are you working with?”

“Let me look. The name should be on the contract.”

The line went mute. Daniels shook her head angrily. She would have bet her paycheck on who it was, but still needed Bennett to confirm.

“It has to be him,” she whispered.

“Must be,” Jon whispered back.

“Found it,” Bennett said. “The point person for this job is Detective Gaylord Sykes. Do you know him?”

It was all Daniels could do not to scream.

“We sure do,” she said.

Sykes watched the spinning carousel while sipping from his flask.

The carousel had appeared right around the time he’d joined the police department. It had been owned by a member of the Ringling Brothers Circus, who’d paid a small fortune for it in the early part of the last century. It had been moved around the country, and had eventually found a home here in Saint Augustine.

His daughter, Regina, had loved the carousel. On weekends, he’d brought her to the park to play. For a handful of change, she’d ride on a painted horse while the calliope piped out music that could be heard for miles. Sometimes, she chose instead to ride the camel that was part of the carousel’s menagerie. The camel wasn’t pretty to look at, and hardly any of the kids ever rode it, except Regina. He often wondered why the owners hadn’t replaced it with a horse. But they hadn’t, and it was still there.

He took another sip of whiskey, and felt it burn going down. It was a bad way to start the morning. But it took the edge off, and like the pills his coworkers took for high blood pressure and hypertension, he liked to think it was doing him some good.

The radio on the dashboard barked.

“Sykes? Are you at Davenport Park? Please pick up.”

One of the minuses of working for a small-town police department was that everyone knew where you were, all the time. He pulled the radio off the clip on the dashboard and pushed the button.

“Good morning, Tiffany. Yes, I’m at the park. What’s up?” he said.

“We just got a 911 call. A body was found at the Old Jail. Can you handle?”

Sykes could see the Old Jail from where he was parked. It was one of the stops on the trolley tour of the city and was now a museum. A long time ago, a rich man named Henry Flagler paid for the jail to be built north of downtown. So as not to strike fear in the hearts of the public, Flagler had decided to disguise it, and built it to resemble a posh hotel. Few tourists ventured out of the historic downtown these days. If not for the trolley tours, he had to believe the Old Jail would have been shuttered a long time ago.

“I can handle it,” he said. “Does it look like foul play?”

“Gunshot,” the operator said.

“Self-inflicted?”

“They didn’t say.”

Sykes hadn’t dealt with a homicide in a while. Most of the deaths were suicides of patients from the local VA hospital who seemed to lose hope the older they got.

“Tell them I’ll be right there.”

He took another pull of whiskey before backing out. In the theater of his mind, he saw Regina flash by, waving to him as she galloped past on her wooden horse.

It was all he could do not to wave back.

Mannequins dressed like a chain gang lined the road in front of the Old Jail. It hearkened back to a time that most people in the city would have liked to forget. Sykes wished they’d take it down, but no one had ever listened to what he had to say.

The museum didn’t open for another hour, and he had his pick of parking spaces. He swished mouthwash and spit it on the ground as he got out.

A fake sheriff greeted him at the door, packing a six-shooter. Local actors served as tour guides, and often got carried away, locking mouthy kids in cells or sticking them in the “Bird Cage” jail cell behind the building. Sykes had lectured the guides several times, and knew most of them by name. The fellow at the door was new.

“Who are you?” Sykes asked.

“My name’s Gamble. I started last week,” the fake sheriff said.

“I’ve never seen you before. Where are you from?”

“Gainesville.”

“College boy, huh. What did you study?”

“Acting and drama.”

“What brings you here?”

“I answered a job posting online. I needed the work.”

The story rang true. But Sykes wanted more. “Is that pea shooter loaded?”

“No, sir. It’s just for show.”

Sykes drew back his sports jacket to reveal the gun strapped to his side. “Mine isn’t. Am I making myself clear? Leave that thing in its holster at all times.”

“Yes, sir,” the fake sheriff said.

“Glad we’re on the same page. Now where’s this body?”

“In the back by the gallows. Follow me.”

Gamble led him down a hallway to the back of the building. The jail had been built by the Pauly Jail Building Company, the same people responsible for constructing Alcatraz in San Francisco, and it was designed like a small fortress, with concrete walls and steel ceilings. During the jail’s more than sixty years in operation, no prisoner had ever managed to escape.

The gallows was another sore point. It evoked the days of public executions, and lynchings. Men needed to die with dignity, even bad men, and he wanted to see it removed. He stepped into the backyard and was blinded by the sunlight. As his eyes adjusted, he discovered that a small gathering awaited him. Special Agent Daniels, that sneaky bastard Lancaster, and four FBI agents with badges pinned to their lapels. He didn’t see anyone from the police department, and wondered why that was.