Night Vision (41 page)

 

Together, we sprinted
toward the wooden structure, the heat from the burning RV so intense that we had to circle away before angling toward the door of the shack. As we ran, I took the Kahr semiautomatic from my pocket, already aware that Victorino was faster than I and he might decide to keep running.

That’s exactly what he had decided to do—until I stopped him by skipping two rounds near his feet.

“Goddamn it, man!” he yelled. “I’m not escaping, I’m trying to get to the back side of this place. I think there might be a window there.”

Victorino had long black hair. I grabbed a fistful, then used it like a leash to steer him, saying, “We check the door first. Get as close as you can and take a look.”

I gave the man a shove toward the opening as my brain scanned frantically for a better way to clear the building. For a moment, I considered the possibility of ramming one of the walls with Squires’s truck—but that might bring the blazing ceiling down on the girl, if she was still alive inside.

But Tula wasn’t alive. She couldn’t be. I knew it was impossible, as my eyes shifted from the truck to the building that was now a roaring conflagration of smoke and flames.

Twenty feet from the door, Victorino dropped to his belly because of the heat. He yelled, “There’s something you don’t know, man! This place”—he gestured toward the building—“it’s a cookshack for steroids. It’s got a bunch of propane tanks all lined up. Any second, they’re gonna start—”

There was no need for him to continue because that’s when the first propane canister exploded. Then three more followed in staccato succession, each shooting a fireworks tapestry of sparks into the night sky.

When Victorino got to his feet and tried to sprint to safety, I caught him by the hair again and yelled, “We check that window next. I’m not giving up until I’m sure.”

From the expression on the gang leader’s face, I knew there was no window. He had been lying. Even so, I herded him to the back of the building, where a small section of the wall had been blown outward. From a distance of thirty yards—that was as close as we could get—I could at least see inside the place.

I was positive then. No living thing could have survived that fire.

For several seconds, I stood there numbly, taking in the scene. Had I arrived a few minutes earlier, spent less time interrogating Dedos and Calavero, maybe I could have saved the girl. It wasn’t the first time my obsession for detail had thwarted a larger objective. But it was the first time an innocent person had died because I could not govern what secretly I have always known is a form of mania—or rage.

Obsession
is
rage, a Dinkin’s Bay neighbor had once told me—a man who also happens to be a Ph.D. expert on brain chemistry and human behavior.

The fact was, I was doing it now—obsessing—and I forced myself to concentrate. Later, I could wallow in the knowledge of my inadequacies. Tonight, I still had work to do.

There were a lot of unanswered questions. Unless I was willing to risk prison, I had to understand what had happened here. Obsessive or not, details are vital when manipulating a crime scene.

I asked Victorino, “Is Squires in there, too?” The wooden building, I meant.

I knew the man wasn’t telling me the whole truth when he replied, “I think so. Him and that woman, Frankie, they did some weird, kinky shit. But she got pissed off at him. That Frankie is crazy.”

I watched Victorino’s head swivel. “Where the hell that woman go? She’s the one you ought to be hammering on, man. Not me.”

When I told him the woman had been in the RV when it exploded, he did a poor job of hiding his reaction—a mix of relief and perverse satisfaction.

Victorino and Frankie had been sexually involved at one time, I guessed. Hatred is often catalyzed by the pain of previous intimacies—or infidelities.

I asked, “Were his hands tied? His feet? What about Squires?”

I was trying to assemble a better overview of who had done what to whom. Before crime scene police could understand who the bad guys were, I had to understand it myself.

Victorino replied, “Man, I had nothing to do with that shit.” When he saw my expression change, though, he added quickly, “But, yeah, I’m pretty sure Frankie had them both tied pretty good. She was getting ready to do a video deal, you know? So later she could have fun watching herself do shit to the girl, and her old boyfriend, too. A freak, man. I already told you.”

The truth of what had happened was becoming clearer in my mind despite Victorino’s dissembling. As the man continued talking, inventing details, I was studying the portion of wall that had been blown open. It was a narrow section of planking wide enough for me to see inside, if the angle was right, but not large in comparison with the rest of the structure.

It bothered me for some reason. What I was seeing didn’t mesh with my knowledge of explosives and the complex dynamics involved. At that instant, as if to illustrate, another propane canister exploded, and we both ducked instinctively, watching a column of red sparks shoot skyward.

Victorino was telling me, “My boys and me, we sold them grass, coke, whatever. Sometimes moved some of the muscle juice shit they made—strictly business, you understand. That’s the only reason we come out here tonight. Then this shit happened.”

What bothered me about the hole in the wall, I realized, was that the boards had shattered geometrically, yet it was a random displacement of matter in an otherwise solid wall.

What I was seeing made no sense. An explosive force creates a rapidly expanding wave of pressure slightly larger than the volume of the explosive. It expands with predictable symmetry—a three-dimensional sphere capped by a matrix of superheated gases and particles. The matrix created by the exploding propane takes was rocketing upward. Why had this small space been blown
outward
?

But then I decided that the anomaly could be explained in many ways. A weakness in the structure, an absence of bracing because the hole had once been a window or a door. The shack looked homemade, sturdy but inconsistent. What I was doing, I realized, was fishing for hope—hope that the girl and Squires had managed to crash their way through the wall and escape.

The fire had started so suddenly, though, the heat and flames so intense that the pair would have had very little time to knock a hole in what had been a very solid wall. And they had both been tied, hands and legs.

“The bitch
invited
us,” Victorino told me. “She told me they had a new batch of muscle juice. Only reason my boys and me were here tonight. And we got certain security procedures we follow. Two guards at the gate, two of my best men with me riding shotgun. A dude they don’t know shows up, they’re trained to take certain steps. It was nothing personal. You understand.”

I waited, watching Victorino’s eyes move from the fire to the shattered windows of the Dodge pickup, aware that at least two of his men were dead inside. The truck appearing animated in the oscillating light. I wondered if the man would have the nerve to ask what he was aching to know. He finally tried.

“Maybe you know something about the steroid trade yourself?” I watched Victorino grin, showing his gold teeth. He wasn’t a badlooking guy, actually. He had a good chin, a strong Aztec nose and cheeks. Had the man made different decisions—or been born in a different setting—he might have succeeded in a legitimate business.

Staring into the fire, I said, “Her name was Tula Choimha—the surname dates back to the time of the Maya. She was thirteen years old, two thousand miles from home, and the girl had no one to protect her from scum like you. That’s why I’m here.”

Victorino chose not to respond.

Slowly, I backed away from the heat. Victorino backed away, too, but he was gradually creating more distance between us, I noticed, until I hollered at him to stop. I used the pistol to wave him closer, before telling him, “Let’s get in the truck and get the hell out of here. You drive.”

It surprised the man. He replied, “Both of us you mean?” unsure if he had less to fear or more to fear.

“A plane or a helicopter’s going to spot the flames,” I told him. “Cops and firefighters will be coming soon. Maybe park rangers—we’re close enough to the Everglades. I don’t want to be here when they show up. How about you?”

I had taken off the night vision headgear, and Victorino jerked his head away when he realized I was going to remove the ski mask, too.

Mask up—but not off—my face pouring sweat, I told the man, “It’s okay. You can look.”

Victorino was three steps ahead of me, facing the truck. I could see his mind working, wondering what was going on.

The man stood frozen for what seemed like several seconds. Perhaps because I began to whisper to myself, repeating a private liturgy, he finally turned to look at me.

When he did, I asked, “Where’s the money? Sixty thousand dollars cash.” I didn’t know if the drunken woman was telling the truth, but I was thinking about Tula Choimha’s determination to lead her family home to Guatemala. They would need money.

Victorino’s eyes revealed the money’s location, but I waited until he lied to me, replying, “Money? What money?” the staged look of confusion still on the man’s face when I shot him in the chest. A few seconds later, I shot him at close range in the back of the head.

His partner’s .44 Smith & Wesson made a thud when it landed on the ground beside Victorino’s body.

 

 

I wasn’t going to invest
much time searching for the money—if it existed. What I had told Victorino was true. The hunting camp was in one of the most remote regions in Florida, yet a fire of that magnitude might still attract attention.

I found the cash in a canvas gym bag on the floor of Squires’s truck, along with a .357 Ruger Blackhawk revolver. The temptation was to get behind the wheel of the truck, and drive as fast as I could back to the main road. But then I remembered that the Dodge blocked the exit. Bulldozing the thing out of the way would take time and would make a lot of noise. It would also prove that at least one of the shooters had escaped.

It was safer, cleaner, if I returned on foot.

To add further confusion to the scene, I tossed the Blackhawk under the truck, then took off, jogging toward the darkness, gym bag over my shoulder, as I repositioned the night vision monocular over my left eye.

I had learned my lesson. Until I was close enough to my truck to risk stepping into the open, I would stay in the shadows. To me, darkness—and open water—have always represented safety.

I am a stubborn man, though. Because the anomalous hole in the wall still bothered me and because it would be the driest route back to my truck, I chose to run past the burning shack before turning into the woods. There, the topography was upland pine. Plenty of cover but lots of open ground, unlike the swamp to my right. It would be a hell of a lot easier to parallel the hunting camp road before angling to the gate where my truck was hidden.

There was a third reason: I also believed that if Squires and the girl had managed to escape, they would have had to travel a similar path to safety. It was unlikely that they had survived, but it would satisfy my mania for thoroughness while also providing an ironic last hope that my obssessiveness hadn’t cost a young girl her life.

It happened.

Fifty yards into the woods, north of where the shack was still burning, I heard a mewing sound. It was soft, rhythmic, a noise so similar to the sound of wind in the pine canopy that I would have dismissed it as a feral cat had I not been wearing night vision.

After only a few more steps, I could discern the source of the noise. It was Tula Choimha. She was kneeling over a massive shape that I soon realized was the body of Harris Squires.

I had been moving so quietly, the girl hadn’t heard me. I didn’t want to frighten her, but I also realized that I couldn’t allow her to see my face. I lowered the ski mask, readjusted the monocular, then knelt before calling to her softly, “Tomlinson sent me. Don’t be afraid. Your friend Tomlinson wants me to help you.”

It was as if I had spoken a secret password. Instead of being startled, the girl jumped to her feet and ran to me, sobbing, then threw herself into my arms. Only when she noticed my strange headgear did she recoil, but I patted her between the shoulders as I held her and spoke into her ear, saying, “I’m taking you home. Please don’t ask me any questions. Okay? But it’s true, I’m taking you home.”

Through the lens, the girl’s face was as radiant as phosphorus, but I could also see that her nose was swollen, her face bruised. She stared at me for a moment, and I sensed she knew exactly who I was, although she had only seen me briefly after the alligator attack at Red Citrus.

“You’re Tomlinson’s friend?” she asked, but there was a complexity to her intonation that signaled she was asking far more than that simple question.

“I’m taking you home,” I repeated. “That’s all I can tell you. But first I need to know how badly you’re hurt. Someone hit you in the face, I can see that. But were you burned? It’s important that you tell me the truth.”

My mind was already scanning our options. If Tula needed emergency attention, the decision was easy. I would call 911 and risk the fallout—claim to have found her wandering in the woods, which was true. If she was okay, I would park in the shadows at Red Citrus and not let her out of my truck until Tomlinson had arrived and found her “officially.”

But the girl replied, “I have a headache, that’s all. Some of my hair got singed. The only reason I’m not hurt is because”—her head pivoted toward Squires—“because the giant saved me. I have never met a man so strong—stronger than Hercules, even. We were in a building, there was a fire, so he picked me up like a bear, then we both crashed through a wall.”

Carrying the girl in my arms, I walked toward Squires. What I saw was unexpected. The man appeared to be badly burned on his shoulders, yes, but he had also been peppered with a shotgun and castrated. It caused me to remember what Victorino had said about the woman I had seen running from the RV, batting at imaginary flames.