“Ms. Luz should try to eat, sir. It is no good to lose strength.”
“Yes, of course,” I said. The friend was older than Carmen and had a more distinctly Latin look. She was small, her hair was shot with gray, and her hands were those of a workwoman, coarse and wrinkled.
“There is a restaurant called the Bru’s Room down the way,” I said, fishing my car keys and some twenties out of my wallet. “Ask for Patti and tell her it is for Mr. Freeman. She knows me. Get whatever you think is best.”
The woman took the money, looking hesitant, but repeating the name of both the restaurant and Patti.
“I would go myself,” I said, feeling a need to explain. “But I can’t leave Ms. Carmen again.”
The woman nodded and moved off, again repeating the restaurant name and that of the bartender I knew there. After she’d gone, I pulled a patio chair closer to the door of the bungalow. Within a few minutes, Billy called me on the cell phone.
“Are you with Luz Carmen?” he said without any preamble, unusual for the almost painfully well-mannered Billy.
“Yeah, she’s right here. Her friend went for lunch,” I said, matching his curtness. “What’d you find out?”
“The dog was shot, Max, once in the head with a 147-grain round. My man who did the necropsy says the shooter put the muzzle of the gun right up to the animal’s head and fired.”
The cop at the fire scene hadn’t said anything about neighbors hearing a gunshot in the night, or anything other than the explosion that rocked them out of their beds.
“Silencer?” I said, thinking out loud.
“No way to know for sure,” Billy said. “He’s a veterinarian, not a ballistics guy. It was lucky he had a scale to weigh the slug.”
“It still ought to put the accidental fire theory on the shelf,” I said.
“Someone came after Andres and tried to make it look like an accident. Whoever it was didn’t know about the dog. It surprised him at some point, and he had to kill it so he could set the fire.”
“However it happened, it makes me even more concerned for Luz’s safety,” Billy said, showing a bit more emotion now. “The fed’s bureaucratic response is going to be slow, Max.”
“I’ll take her out to the shack. We should have done that to begin with,” I said, thinking of the brother. The only saving grace was that it a gas flash fire. They may have died quickly, maybe without ever awakening from their sleep. It was something, but not much.
“It’s not going to be a request this time,” I said. “I’m heading for the Glades now, Billy.”
“Let me know when you get settled. I’m taking the Carmen’s cause to a higher authority,” Billy said. “Maybe I can get some judicial pressure going.”
“Good luck,” I said, and punched off the cell.
I knocked lightly at the door of the bungalow and opened the door. Luz Carmen was on the couch, curled up like a child, her face in a pillow, her knees folded up, her feet tucked under her.
“Ms. Carmen, when your friend gets back, we’re going to have to move again,” I said, trying to keep my tone even, no urgency, but still strong enough for her to know there was no choice. “We’re going to a place where you’ll be safe. I’ll take you by your home to collect some things.”
The woman did not move and it scared me at first. I took a step closer.
“Ms. Carmen. Did you hear me?”
This time, I could see her dark head move slightly, nodding in assent.
“You’ll be OK,” I said. “Mr. Manchester will make sure you’ll be safe.”
“It does not matter,” she said, her voice muffled and scratchy from pain and from crying, but level in its acceptance. “I have killed my own brother.”
I took two more steps across the small tiled floor and sat only on the edge of the couch. I had no intention of touching her or trying to console. Hell, I wasn’t even sure of my motivation. She had to know I was there, but did not move.
“Every one of us is responsible for our own actions,” I said out into the empty room. I didn’t tack her name onto the end of the statement. Maybe I wasn’t speaking only to her; maybe she wasn’t the only one who needed to hear the words out loud. “Your brother made his choices; you couldn’t be his keeper forever.”
Piety usually brings silence, and this was no exception. The room was still quiet when the door opened and Carmen’s friend came in hold ing a large plastic bag. Her eyes went from me to Carmen, a quick assessment, and then back.
“Is she good?”
I only nodded and stood.
“Try to get her to eat, and then we’ll have to go.”
The woman looked confused.
“It’s not safe here. I’m taking her somewhere else. She and I will go in my car. You stay here for a few minutes after we leave, and then go home,” I said. “Did you notice anyone outside, anyone who looked suspicious? Someone watching you? Someone by my car?”
The woman shook her head.
“No,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
“A black man, walking,” she said. “He was alone. Another man, old, with a dog.”
I could tell I was scaring her into seeing danger in everyone.
“It’s OK. Eat,” I said, standing and crossing to the door. “I’ll be right out here.”
I figured I’d give them half an hour. It was already 1:00 P.M., and if we were going to get to Luz Carmen’s house so she could pack a few things, and then get out to the boat ramp at the park on my river, we’d be losing light fast. I didn’t mind canoeing out to the shack in the dark, but I didn’t want to freak out Carmen. The darkness and secluded wildness of the place can do that to the most adventurous soul, and I didn’t think the woman’s head was anywhere near that state.
Maybe she was still in shock over the loss of her brother. Maybe she was internalizing her remorse over bringing him into her decision to blow the whistle on the Medicare scam. But if I could quietly reassure her that I could keep her safe until the ring was broken, or until the feds took over by giving her protection, I’d be ahead of the game.
To that end, I decided not to tell her about Billy’s and my theory that the person who killed her brother was not part of the gangbanger crew who fired at us to scare her off, or the ones who tried to kill Andres on the road. We weren’t giving up on a connection; there were too many coincidences. But a guy who does a drive-by or a high-speed chase doesn’t go to the trouble of using a silenced kill shot on a dog, and then jury-rig a gas explosion to look like an accident. We were dealing with two completely different styles. I was more wary of the sneaky one, the planner. It was always harder to see his kind coming.
As I walked down the slate stone path to check out the parking lot hard on A1A, I kept the front of the bungalow in sight. On the street, a middle-aged woman jogged by. A tight group of bicyclists, all dressed in the same colors, went whizzing by. A family with a mom wearing a big straw hat and the kids wielding sand pails, were unloading from the van next to my Gran Fury. The father was lugging the beach chairs and the coolers-way too domestically harassed to be an assassin.
When I went back to the bungalow, the door came open a crack as I walked up.
“OK, she is ready,” Carmen’s friend said.
“Did she eat?”
“A little. I put the rest in the bag for you.”
Luz was standing with her head down, as if she were only moving at the direction of her friend, with no motivation or decision-making power of her own. Draped over her head was a shawl I had not seen before, which gave her the appearance of a villager or bag lady, the opposite of the confident, order-giving semi-professional I’d met a few days ago.
“OK,” I said, handing the friend another couple of twenties. “Wait at least fifteen minutes after we go, and then take a cab home. I don’t want you to be seen with us. You’re out of it, ma’am. Thank you for helping.”
The woman still seemed a bit mystified as I took Luz by the elbow and led her down the path. It would have been a long shot for someone to find this place. But even if someone was watching us, looking for an opportunity, I hoped their focus would be on my car, not on the bungalow.