Black Jack Point (2 page)

Four o’clock Tuesday afternoon, court done, justice dispensed, and the Honorable Whit Mosley wanted nothing more than to swim
twenty hard minutes with his girlfriend in the warm Gulf off Port Leo Beach, eat a big steak at the Shell Inn, cuddle with
Lucy on the couch, watch the Astros raise his hopes again, make love at the end of the game, right there on the couch like
they’d done night before last while the postgame show droned. Lucy liked baseball as much as he did. But now Lucy was standing
in his office door, frowning, not looking in the mood for a steak or a swim or a ninth-inning delight.

‘I think Uncle Patch is missing,’ Lucy said.

Whit shrugged out of his judge’s robe, let the black silk fall to the floor, glad to be just in his regular Hawaiian shirt
and old khakis and Birkenstocks again. The air conditioner in the courtroom sputtered with signs of age, and this July in
Port Leo had been blister-hot, everyone in traffic court cranky, and his robe smelled a little stale. He’d have to wash it
tonight. Judicial laundry. Not listed in the job description.

‘He’s not down here at the jail,’ Whit said. ‘No senior citizen discount.’

‘Don’t joke, Whit,’ Lucy said. ‘He’s not at his house. His car is there – he’s not.’

‘I thought he and Thuy went to Port A.’

‘I called the B and B I booked for them and they checked out last night. Didn’t even stay a few hours.’

‘Maybe they went to another hotel.’

‘But his car is
here,
Whit.’

‘What about his fishing boat?’

‘Still here. His doors were unlocked. And there’s wineglasses out on the table. Two of them, one with wine still in it.’

‘So they came home and didn’t clean up. Maybe he’s just out with Thuy in her car.’

‘I called Thuy’s daughter. They haven’t spoken to her today either, which is unusual. They said she calls them every day.
Whit, really, I’m worried. They’re old.’

‘They sure don’t need chaperons.’

‘You’re not listening,’ Lucy said. ‘I have a bad vibe about this.’ She fingered the little amber crystal around her throat.
‘Something has happened to them. Call your friends at the sheriff’s department, or help me go look for them.’

‘The police won’t do much of anything for twenty-four hours,’ he said, not thinking, and she burst into tears.

He had never seen Lucy cry before. He took her in his arms, let her rest her face against his shoulder. ‘Okay, Lucy, okay.
I’ll call the sheriff’s office, all right? And we’ll start making phone calls. We’ll find them. But when Patch finds out you’ve
made all this fuss, you got to take the blame for it.’

She sniffled. ‘I will. Okay, thanks, baby. My aura’s feeling calmer already.’

‘Sure, Lucy.’ He didn’t pay much heed to her talk of auras and vibes, but it was part and parcel of Lucy and part of loving
her. He kissed her forehead, wiped away her tears with the ball of his thumb.

He dialed the Encina County sheriffs office, figuring that within an hour or so Patch and Thuy would be found but fishing
along a stretch of Black Jack Point, and all would be good and fine.

It didn’t happen.

The sheriff’s office, once called, found a broken window
at the back of Patch Gilbert’s house. Lucy noticed certain items missing: a silver candelabra, a cookie jar in which Patch
kept ample cash, a jewelry box that was a family heirloom. The search began.

Patch Gilbert owned over two hundred acres on Black Jack Point, and on late Wednesday morning, the searchers found the turned
earth along the edge of his property. The disturbed soil was a hundred yards up from the beach, a rectangle of torn loam hidden
among the thick fingers of the oaks, broken grasses draped over the ground like a shroud.

The deputies and volunteers started digging and Whit made Lucy wait up at Patch’s house.

‘Wait here with me,’ she said. ‘Please.’ She was shaking, her freckled arms folded over each other, her hair a mess from having
dragged her fingers through it nervously.

‘I can’t, sweetie. I got to be down there.’ He was justice of the peace, and because Encina County didn’t have its own medical
examiner, he also served as coroner. If there were bodies he’d order the autopsies, rule on cause of death, conduct the inquest
if it was needed. His chest felt sucked dry at the thought of Patch and Thuy murdered and buried. But he didn’t like the vacant,
broken look in Lucy’s eyes.

He put an arm around her and turned to Deputy David Power. ‘Maybe I should wait with Lucy.’

David made a dismissive noise. ‘You’re supposed to be down there,’ he said, as though comforting relatives of the dead was
second-class duty compared to forensic investigation.

‘You don’t need me until you find bodies,’ he said, and he felt Lucy’s skin prickle under his fingertips.

‘Sure, Judge, whatever.’ David Power turned and headed down toward the thick copse of oaks.

Lucy watched him leave. ‘Well, he’s an asshole. Lots of negativity.’

‘He doesn’t like me,’ Whit said. ‘I’m friends with his ex-wife.’

‘Maybe you should go down there,’ she said. ‘I’ll be okay.’

‘I’ll stay here as long as I can.’

He and Lucy sat in Patch’s den, a dark room covered with thick brown paneling in turn covered with fishing trophies and a
fake muscled marlin. He held her hand and watched
All My Children
to avoid thinking about what the shovels might be unearthing.

Lucy stared at the screen. ‘I cooked dinner for the two of them last week. Meatloaf. I burned it a little ’cause we got to
talking and I was drinking too much beer. It tasted like a shingle. They didn’t complain, ate it with a smile.’

Whit squeezed her hand.

‘I should call Suzanne,’ she said. Her cousin, her only family other than Patch.

‘Let’s just wait and see.’

They watched a commercial offering tarot card readings for a call-per-minute charge while an energetic woman with a doubtful
Caribbean accent proclaimed the future to amazed callers.

‘That approach is so misleading,’ Lucy said. ‘Look at her. She’s hardly listening to that caller – she’s just slapping those
cards down.’ Her voice was flat as she pretended the searchers weren’t tearing up her uncle’s land.

‘I’m sure your psychics do a better job, sweetie.’ Lucy owned the Coastal Psychics Network, which, as she put it, served the
needy and the bored across Texas.

‘At two bucks ninety-nine a minute, that is robbery.’ She fingered the amber crystal on her necklace. ‘I at least run a clean
ship. Maybe I ought to advertise more. I’m cheaper than Madam Not-Reading-the-Cards-Right.’

He hugged her a little closer, gave her a tissue for her nose. ‘Need to tell you something about Patch.’

‘What?’

‘He was the one suggested I call you for a date.’

She laughed but it was half tears. ‘Did he now?’

‘Called me up after you were in my court. Said I had given you too heavy a sentence for those unpaid tickets.’

‘Not unpaid. Ignored on principle.’ Same argument she’d used in court. A little more effective with him now. Patch had settled
her five hundred dollars’ worth of fines. She’d done her community service, Whit checking on her a little more than needed.

‘He said I ought to even it out by taking you to dinner.’

‘Old men playing matchmaker is a bad idea.’ Lucy wiped at her eyes. ‘Because they won the war they think they know everything.’

A deputy – young, sunburned, blond buzz cut bright with sweat – appeared in the doorway. ‘Judge Mosley? Could I speak with
you?’ His mouth barely moved as he spoke.

‘Are they dead?’ Lucy asked. ‘Is it them?’

‘Yes, ma’am. It looks like it’s them. I’m real sorry.’

Lucy put her face in her palms. ‘Well, shit. It
was
a bad vibe,’ she finally said from between her hands.

Claudia Salazar let the sun warm her closed eyes. She had dozed on the pool lounge chair, the water evaporating off her skin,
thinking, I
could get to like this.

Claudia’s past few days had been a bitch: finally closing out a series of burglaries on Port Leo’s south side, aimed squarely
at the tourist condos, by arresting a repeat offender who sadly had three kids and was bound back to jail; covering two extra
late shifts for a patrol officer friend who was down with a bad summer cold, because the whole Port Leo police department
was short-handed; and then the terrible Gilbert/Tran murders, which were beyond Port Leo’s jurisdiction but the sheriffs office
and the police department helped each other with high-profile cases. David Power, her ex-husband, had politely declined the
police department’s help and her thought had been:
Pride goeth before a fall.
It was the most biblical thing she had thought in years. She wondered, without ego, if he was too irritated with her to want
the department’s help.

She decided not to care. As of today, she was officially on vacation.

She opened her eyes, sat up on the lounge chair, watched Ben standing by a table between the pool and the French doors, fiddling
with a stubborn cork on a wine bottle.

‘What a rotten guest I am,’ she said. ‘I fell asleep.’

Ben Vaughn pried the cork out and grinned. ‘You’re exhausted. Don’t worry about it.’

She smiled. If she’d gone swimming with David, drunk wine in the early afternoon, then dozed, he would have
used it as a basis for analysis:
Did I bore you? What’s wrong with me?
Ben just let her be, and she was grateful for that.

Claudia stood, feeling self-conscious in a new purple bikini a bit too adventurous for her, pulled a long T-shirt over her
head, and smoothed it out along her hips. 'No more wine. Two glasses is my limit.’

‘You’re on vacation,’ Ben said. ‘I made lunch. Hope that’s okay.’

‘I’ll find it in my heart to forgive you. So what can I do to help?’

‘Just sit. You’re my guest.’ Ben disappeared back into the house.

The deck for the pool ran along the edge of St Leo Bay, and in the summer heat the bay water looked green as old glass, the
waves like white lips rising to the surface for a kiss, then vanishing. She put on her sunglasses. Vacation. Well, a few days
off and then back to the grind. But sitting on a multilevel deck, with a private dock, backed by the house that had to be
approaching seven thousand square feet … well, it was better than eating takeout and watching old movies on video, which was
how she’d spent her last vacation.

Ben returned, carrying a tray. Two huge shrimp salads, the shrimp firm and pink, perfect crescent-morsels, slices of avocado,
a small crystal pitcher filled with a homemade dressing, rolls steaming. He set the lunch down in front of her.

‘Where’s the chocolate?’

‘Ingrate.’ He poured them each wine again, held his glass aloft in a toast. ‘To a great vacation for you. And to old friends.’

‘To old friends,’ she said, clinking her glass against his.
Friends. Funny word,
she thought.
It could cover too much ground.
They’d been lovers long ago but she
couldn’t look at him and think
ex-lover.
He was too different now from the shy, gangly boy she’d known.

‘And we didn’t even have to catch the shrimp,’ Ben said.

‘Sometimes I’m relieved by that. Other times I think it’s a shame. My dad’s the last Salazar who’s still shrimping.’ The smile
dimmed slightly on Ben’s face and she set down her fork. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up an unpleasant memory …’

Ben smiled again. She liked his smile, warm and happy, with a front tooth slightly crooked. ‘It’s okay. My folks have been
gone a long time, Claudia. I miss them but you keep going on.’ His parents had been lost in a sudden storm on the bay’s edge,
their shrimp boat swamped. Ben had been sixteen at the time, his brother, Stoney, just starting college. ‘I might have made
a good shrimper.’

‘You would have gotten bored.’

‘But you’re your own boss.’ Ben took a small sip of white wine. ‘Out on the water, out in the sun. Now Stoney, he would have
sucked at shrimping.’

Claudia glanced around the deck, the private dock, the too-big-for-her-taste house. ‘It wouldn’t have paid the mortgage on
this place.’ She liked the pool, the lunch, being with Ben, but felt an awkward consciousness of being in his brother’s house,
as though she were trespassing. She had kept glancing at Ben, trim in his modest swimsuit, with his nice hands and his smile,
and wanting to kiss him, but she wouldn’t. Not here. If she kissed him she might not stop and his brother might walk in at
any moment. ‘What exactly does your brother do? You said investments?’

‘I can never quite figure it out. He did venture capital work out in California for a while, got a little singed in the dot-com
meltdown, decided he wanted to come home. He does a lot of consulting for financial services
firms in Dallas and Houston. He’s trying to get me into his business.’ He shook his head. ‘stoney used to steal my allowance,
set up a lemonade stand with our money, give me a cut. We’d make more than our allowances put together. I think he’s still
following that business model.’

‘It seems to be working.’

‘He has expensive hobbies. Cars. Boats. Treasure hunts.’

‘Treasure hunts?’

‘He’s financed some treasure dives in the Florida Keys – you know, galleons that wrecked in shallow water, got buried by the
sands on the bottom. Takes a team to recover them. It’s his obsession. Crazy-ass way to risk your money. You got to make the
big bucks to play that game.’ His tone went wry.

‘And you’re not interested in the big bucks?’

Ben grinned again. ‘me in finance? I’d be doomed. The clients would be doomed.’ He shook his head. ‘I like teaching, but the
pay sucks, and too many of the kids are unmotivated and the parents care even less. I’m starting to think you seriously got
to have a call to teach, like being a priest.’

‘Or a cop,’ she said.

‘Or a cop,’ he agreed. ‘You ever think of giving it up?’

‘Last year, briefly. But no, not seriously.’

‘Living here with my brother – well, Stoney’s spoiled me.’ Ben speared the last fat shrimp in his salad, pushed it through
the little pool of dressing in his bowl. ‘But I don’t have a talent for making money.’

‘Money’s not everything.’

‘It can sure buy a whole lot of it.’

‘Still.’

‘You’re right. And God knows Stoney’s not what you’d call happy. He’s nervous. Jumpy. I don’t want to think what he was like
when he worked in a high-stress job.’

‘Let’s talk about something other than your brother,’ Claudia said. The three glasses of wine and lazing in the summer sun
made her suddenly feel a little playful. That was a delicious lunch. Thank you. I didn’t know you could cook.’

‘I knew you’d had a hard week,’ Ben said. ‘Least I could do. Citizens should support their officers in blue every way they
can.’

A tease colored his tone and she skimmed her toetips along the muscle of his calf, just to flirt back a little. She stopped
as the French doors opened. A man came out, tall and brown haired like Ben, but a little thicker in the shoulders and the
stomach, dressed in a summer khaki business suit, but no tie, the shirt buttoned to the throat. His hair was gelled, combed
to Ken-doll perfection, and he didn’t smile until Ben turned toward him.

‘Hi, bro,’ Ben said. ‘Come on out.’

‘Don’t want to interrupt,’ the man said.

‘It’s your house,’ Ben said. ‘You can’t interrupt. Claudia, this is my brother, Stoney. Stoney, Claudia Salazar.’

Stoney Vaughn offered Claudia a hand with nails manicured as smooth as pearl. His grip was firm but the flesh of his palm
was soft. ‘Claudia. I remember you from school. I was a few years ahead of you. Nice to see you again.’ His gaze went quickly
down her, to her breasts, her hips, back to her face, quicker than a blink but she saw it and was glad she had on the T-shirt.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You have a lovely home.’

‘It’s comfortable.’

His modesty was so false she almost laughed. Instead she said, ‘Will you join us?’

‘I can’t today. I’ve got to do some work up in my office. But you two enjoy yourselves.’

‘Claudia’s taking some time off from work,’ Ben said. ‘She’s an investigator with the Port Leo police.’

Two beats of silence. ‘Really. That must be fascinating work,’ Stoney said.

‘If you find burglaries riveting.’

‘Claudia likes to fish,’ Ben said. ‘Maybe tomorrow morning we could take the
Jupiter
out into the Gulf, have some fun. Why don’t you take the day off, come along? Bring one of your girlfriends. Who’s on the
A list this week?’

‘None of them. I’m in the doghouse. I’ve been too busy to call. Work’s just been a bitch lately. Y’all go, though.’

‘No, do come,’ Claudia said.

‘Yeah,’ Ben agreed.

‘Sure,’ Stoney said. ‘That sounds great. Claudia, lovely to meet you. Enjoy the pool. Have fun.’

They shook hands and Claudia watched him hurry back in. She had the oddest feeling he wished her and Ben gone, out of his
sight, out of his house.