Murder in Havana (43 page)

Jessica Mumford joined Max Pauling on the deck.

“Who was that?” he asked, referring to a phone call she’d taken inside some ten minutes ago.

“Annabel.”

“How is she?”

“She and Mac are fine. She asked for you.”

“What did you tell her, that the fugitive is resting comfortably?”

She sat next to him and placed her hand on his arm. “You’re not a fugitive any longer, Max.”

“I wonder why. One minute the whole Cuban government is after me for killing McCullough, the next minute they’re crowing about having caught the real killer, some poor Cuban slob who’s taking the rap.”

He’d decided upon returning to New Mexico to tell Jessica everything, including his belief that Celia Sardiña had murdered McCullough. In his former incarnations with the CIA and State, he returned from assignments tight-lipped, offering nothing to any woman in his life of the moment, no details, just, “The assignment went okay. Glad it’s over.”

But he no longer felt the obligation to remain silent. And so he’d filled her in on every step of his adventure in Cuba. He began with the flight to Pittsburgh and time
spent with Doris and her new husband; the trip to Miami; meetings there with Vic Gosling; the twin-engine plane and his flight to Cuba via Colombia; Blondie and Grünewald; his arrest; the attack on him at the hotel; finding McCullough’s body; evading authorities; the visit to the part-time prostitute’s apartment; lucking out with the taxi driver, David; Nico and what he’d dug up for Signal Labs; the harrowing flight in the battered floatplane to Miami with Nico; and, of course, Celia.

“But you don’t know with certainty that Celia killed McCullough,” Jessica offered.

“You mean I didn’t watch her pull the trigger? She killed him, Jess. I don’t know who ordered the hit—CIA, anti-Castro groups in Miami—I don’t know that. But she acted on somebody’s orders and murdered him.”

“And tried to frame you.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I was there.”

“On her own? Or on someone’s order?”

He shrugged.

“She didn’t need to set someone up, did she?” Jessica asked.

“McCullough was shot in the apartment she was using, Jess. She probably promised sex to entice him there and killed him. The apartment’s an agency safe house, I’m sure. No record of tenants or owners. That’s the way they work. I think back on it and realize she didn’t seem to know anyone in her building or even the neighborhood. But they could have I.D.’d her. She knew I was a known entity with the Cuban police. Made sense to her, I suppose, to shine the light on someone else. I was an easy target.”

“You.”

“Yeah. Me. I just don’t know.”

He didn’t continue to share his musings with her. The possibility that someone at Langley had ordered Celia to arrange for Max Pauling to take the fall wasn’t farfetched. He’d seen that scenario before, when he was one of them, when an
individual
within the CIA—not the agency itself—had concocted a plan to frame him. That was the problem with the CIA, he knew, so many secretive cells with separate agendas, so many rogue characters operating in the shadows—to explain it to her would only create apprehension, even fear.

She sensed and respected his further silence on the subject, and changed it. “You were telling me about this young man Nico,” she said. “Was he—?” The ringing phone sent her inside again.

He’d managed to navigate the elderly Cessna Stationair to Miami despite a series of mechanical problems that promised to land them in the drink a half-dozen times, and put down at a private floatplane marina near Fort Lauderdale. Nico knew precisely where he was to go in Florida and wasted little time thanking his pilot for the flight and the money, and wishing him well. He handed over the briefcase, got in a cab, and was gone. Pauling had wanted to pump him about Celia, but the opportunity never materialized, not while having to virtually force the plane to remain in the air for the entire flight to Miami, and then experiencing Nico’s quick getaway once they’d arrived.

He had called a number given him by Gosling, which connected him with the Cell-One London office.

“I’m calling Victor Gosling. Please tell him that his pilot is back in Miami and that I’ll try him again.”

Aware that he was an accused murderer in the States, too, he took a taxi to the closest motel, checked in under an assumed name, and called Jessica.

“God, I was so worried about you,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Florida. I just got here. I need some sleep. I’ll fly back first thing in the morning.”

“You’re all right?”

“Yeah, I’m all right.”

“They’re still saying you’re wanted for Senator McCullough’s murder,” she said, lowering her voice as though that might keep anyone from hearing it over the line.

“I know,” he said. “I’ll be careful. I didn’t kill him, Jess. You know that.”

“Of course I know that. I love you, Max.”

“You’re probably the only person in the world who does right now,” he said.

He lifted off in his Cessna 182S before daybreak and set a course directly for New Mexico, stopping only to refuel at small airports where the authorities weren’t likely to be waiting. As he neared the airstrip where he taught flying, he decided to forego it and use a field thirty miles away, reasoning that those who knew him at his home base nearest the condo would have been contacted by the FBI. He called Jessica from the alternate airport, gave her the location of a pay phone from which to call him back in the event their home phone had been tapped, told her his location on the second call, and she picked him up there. The FBI and local police had indeed visited the condo, but seemed to be operating on the belief that he was still in Cuba. In a sense, the Cuban broadcasts about him had perpetuated that faulty assumption on the part of U.S. law enforcement.

“You didn’t have to divert to this field, Max,” she said the minute he got in the car. “You’re cleared. No one is after you. The Cubans announced they’ve caught Senator
McCullough’s killer. He’s a Cuban, a fugitive from Castro’s cops for other crimes.”

Just like that, he thought. Another patsy, this one Cuban, a deal struck somewhere, with someone. He didn’t even try to understand the forces at play. He was just glad to be home.

Jessica had received many phone calls while Max was flying from Miami to New Mexico. Victor Gosling phoned and left a number where he could be reached, day or night. Tom Hoctor called and asked that Max return his call. And there had been dozens of messages from media wanting an interview regarding McCullough’s murder. Mainly, the reporters wanted to know how he’d ended up being accused of assassination and forced to flee Fidel Castro. Once at home, Max ignored the media calls. But, after a slow drink, he did phone Gosling. They agreed that Gosling would fly to Albuquerque, and that Max would meet his flight. Gosling had suggested that he visit the condo to pick up the briefcase, but Pauling declined. “I’ll meet you at the airport, Vic,” he’d said, “and give you the bag. Then you take the next flight out of here, to anywhere.”

Gosling arrived the next day on a flight from Washington, D.C., and was met by Pauling. He handed over the briefcase.

“The documents aren’t that important now that McCullough is dead,” Gosling said, “but we’d still like to have them in case his successor decides to resurrect things. You gave me quite a scare, being accused of killing him and all that. I’m glad you’re home safe. Nice job, Max. The balance of the money is on its way to your bank.”

“Do you know why McCullough was killed?” Pauling asked as they stood at the arrival gate. “Who ordered it?”

Gosling feigned being offended. His hand went to his
heart and his brow was deeply creased. “How would I know something like that, Max?”

“Who gave Celia Sardiña the order?”

Gosling’s sigh was equally disingenuous. “Max, I suggest you check in at some posh spa and get some rest.”

Pauling ignored the comment. “Celia killed McCullough, Vic. She was working for you, and for Langley.”

“Then it must have been our former employer, Max. As we both know, you simply can’t trust anything they say or do. Are you sure I can’t spend a few hours with you and your lovely lady friend? I almost feel as though you’re angry with me. Don’t be. We’ve shared too many experiences for that to happen.”

“Do you know why she tried to set me up for the murder, Vic?”

“She must have been angry with you, Max.” Gosling smiled.

The Brit’s flippancy came close to earning him a fist in the face. There were many things Pauling wanted to say, few of them complimentary. He settled for, “So long.”

His phone conversation with Hoctor was equally brief.

“I should be furious with you, Max,” Hoctor said, his small, nasal voice penetrating Pauling’s ear. “You sullied my reputation with our Interests Section in Havana. I convinced them to let me come get you myself. I told them we went back a long way, and that you’d happily leave with me.”

“To lead me to one of those cars parked at the corner,” Pauling said.

“I suppose you’re feeling pretty good about yourself, getting out of Cuba on your own, and being cleared by Castro of the murder.”

“I always feel good about myself, Tom. That’s why I’m such good company.”

He almost asked Hoctor the same questions he’d asked Gosling about McCullough’s murder, who’d ordered it, and why he’d been framed, but knew it would be wasted breath.

“I have to get off, Tom. This is a busy day for me. I have to nap.”

“Yes, I’m sure it is. By the way, in case you’ve been worrying about whether your lady friend’s door was left open after you ran out the back, I closed it.”

Pauling said, smiling, “I appreciate that, Tom. You’re a hell of a guy.”

“Keep in touch, Max. You never know when we’ll need each other again. To close a door—or open one.”

“Who was that?” Pauling asked when Jessica rejoined him on the deck.

“Roberta. From my bird-watching group. She wondered whether I’d like to go on a watch next weekend.”

“And?”

“I said no. I want to spend all my time watching you.”

“Go ahead,” he said. “I know how much you love it.”

“Not as much as I love this bigger-than-life character named Max Pauling. You’ve taken years off my life—but made it sweeter.” She wondered what he was thinking but didn’t intrude. He’d been so open after arriving home, more than she’d ever experienced with him before. But once he’d spun his tale about having been in Cuba and everything that had ensued, he’d fallen silent again, not sullen, never unpleasant, but closed, guarded, insular.

“Sure you wouldn’t mind if I go with Roberta?”

“Not at all, sweetheart.”

What he’d been thinking at that moment was what he’d been thinking ever since leaving Cuba.
Celia Sardiña
. Would he ever have that chance to sit with her and learn the truth? He doubted it. All he knew was that
she would enter his thoughts every day, at odd moments, and probably for the rest of his life. He wondered where she was, what she was doing, and who she was doing it to. Would she affect other men as she did him? Of course. He hadn’t the slightest doubt that she’d murdered Price McCullough, and had set him up to take the fall.

Would she be willing to kill again for the Cuban cause? Or for some other cause?

Could she live comfortably with herself for the rest of
her
life as someone who killed strangers for causes, looked them in the eye and pulled the trigger, a smile on her lovely lips, a hot temperament but blood so cold that ice wouldn’t melt in her mouth?

He knew the answer. Chances are she would marry, have children, and assign the murderous portion of her life to that segment of the brain in which youthful indiscretions, faddish teen behavior, and hurtful lies are relegated.

Like himself.

“How did you feel when you killed him?”

“How did I
feel
?”

“Yes.”

“I—I didn’t especially feel anything.”

“Nothing? Not a moment of doubt? Of guilt?”

“No.”

“Did you know him?”

“I knew of him.”

“Meaning?”

“I knew who he was. I knew
what
he was.”

“What was his reaction?”

A bemused raised eyebrow preceded, “He didn’t have time to react. It’s the best way.”

“I see.” He added to notes he’d been making. “How do you feel now?”

“Fine.”

“Trouble sleeping? Nightmares?”

“Of course not.”

The sound of a window air conditioner gently bridged the lull.

“You’ll be gone for two months,” he said. “On leave.”

“Yes.”

“Where will you go?” he asked, knowing it was a question that would not be answered. His was not a need-to-know.

Silence.

He made another note and closed the black leather portfolio resting on his lap. “Thank you for coming in.”

After watching her departing figure, great legs and all, he opened the portfolio and stared for a moment at the name on the file. Celia Sardiña. He wrote
CLEARED
, which reflected his psychiatric judgment, closed it, went to a safe in a corner of the austere room, opened it, placed the folio inside, closed the door, spun the wheel, checked the door, then returned to his desk and dialed a number.