Black Jack Point (23 page)

‘I don’t think Lucy’s very interesting as a suspect anymore,’ David said. He’d run into Whit at the Coke machine in the courthouse
hallway, Whit in the office to use the faster Internet connection than what he had at home, David doing whatever he did on
a Saturday he had duty.

‘You got a new mouse to play with?’ Whit could guess where this was going.

‘Jimmy Bird killed those old folks. No question. His tire tracks match the tracks found on the Gilbert land, same gun killed
him as killed Mrs Tran. I just made your inquest real easy.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Now. What’s interesting to me is your theory about how maybe Stoney Vaughn had a connection to old Jimmy.’

Whit fed quarters into the machine, selected root beer, waited for the can to drop. ‘Or, wow, even better if Ben Vaughn did.
Now wouldn’t that get your nipples hard?’

‘Be grateful for small mercies. I’m leaving your girlfriend alone.’ He handed Whit the Saturday edition of the
Port Leo Mariner,
the semiweekly local paper. ‘Nasty letter to the editor in there about you. You pissed off the other half of the Gilbert
family. Bring that back when you’re done, would you? I got a new puppy I’m training.’

Whit didn’t open the paper, wouldn’t give David the satisfaction.

David got a Coke from the machine. ‘Given what’s in that paper, you might have a crowd at your inquest. With a recall petition.’

‘David, may I give you a friendly word of advice?’

‘What?’

‘You’re never getting her back,’ Whit said. ‘Ever. And I don’t think it’d make you happy anyway. So you might as well get
over being mad at Claudia and all her friends you have to work with. You ever want to be sheriff? It’s never going to happen,
as long as you keep pissing on people.’ He turned and walked off. ‘I’ll bring your paper back when I’m done.’

Whit took the paper back to his office, shut the door. He’d been searching for information on the Devil’s Eye emerald and
Santa Barbara
on the Internet, impatient to wait on what Iris Dominguez and her colleagues might find. He’d found one site devoted to famous
lost jewels that included a description of the Devil’s Eye. There was no photo, of course, and the actual existence of the
Eye was questioned by the article. The emerald’s supposed weight – estimated by modern standards to be just shy of two kilograms
– was listed, its story told as part of the billions in mineral and gemological wealth mined from the New World and dispatched
to fill the Spanish treasury. Estimated value of the Devil’s Eye – named by a disapproving priest of the viceroy who claimed
the weak-willed stared at it, as though hypnotized – ranged from a million to four million US dollars. Having been lost for
so long, its legend and value had grown.

His phone rang. ‘Whit Mosley.’

‘It’s Iris. Listen, I talked with the gemologists in Mexico. You asked how you might sell an emerald like the Devil’s Eye.’

‘Not in a pawnshop, right?’

‘Don’t joke. My friends say there is an underground market for emeralds, and it’s controlled by emerald traders in Colombia.
You know Colombia suffers much violence and corruption. Prominent emerald traders there
have been accused of sponsoring right-wing paramilitary groups. These are dangerous men.’

‘And these men would be the buyers for the Devil’s Eye?’

‘If one wished to get the maximum amount of profit, yes. For a stone like the Devil’s Eye, there’d be much competition.’

‘So our seller has to have the balls to deal with rich Colombian extremists. How reassuring.’

‘I thought you should know. I’ll let you know what else I learn, as soon as I hear anything.’

He thanked her, hung up the phone. His stomach felt a little unsettled. He’d tried to imagine disposing of a treasure – how
exactly would you go about doing this? The coins could be melted down or sold in small batches to collectors. But the emerald,
if it was as grand as he thought it must be … Colombian right-wingers. How many guns, bombs, bribes could the Devil’s Eye
buy? That the case could move into international crime rings and violent politics made his throat go dry. He thought,
I bet Triple A and Stoney are gone. They got that emerald and took off to Bogotá and we’ll never get them.

He opened the newspaper to the letters to the editor. Suzanne Gilbert was a better painter than writer. But the letter still
stung. The rant was adverb heavy. Accused Judge Mosley of malfeasance in ignoring the beneficiary of Patch Gilbert’s death
and asked for an investigation into Judge Mosley’s inquest and finances, perhaps suggesting a bribe had been paid. He glanced
at his phone: the message light blinked, no doubt the outraged voters of Encina County calling for his head. Maybe. He clicked
the phone on: one hang-up, four messages from voters asking for an explanation about Suzanne’s letter, not angry, but now
curious.

His cell phone beeped and he answered it, hoping it wasn’t another voter wanting a one-on-one explanation.

‘You’re not going to be happy with me,’ Gooch said.

‘I’m afraid to ask.’

‘Could you get me a legal definition of kidnapping? Because I don’t think I technically kidnapped Stoney Vaughn. I prefer
to think of it as protective custody.’

Whit’s mouth opened, then closed. ‘You asshole.’

‘That other guy, Triple A – although since I shot at him, I’m thinking we’re on a first-name basis – this Alex guy, he drives
a beige Chrysler van, by the way. I think he might have meant harm to poor Stoney here. I found Stoney at a fishing cottage
in Laurel Point. We’ve moved on.’

‘How did you know Stoney was at this fishing cottage?’

‘That will upset you.’

‘Like I’m not already upset.’

‘I followed Lucy.’

‘I absolutely do not understand.’

‘I. Followed. Lucy.’

Whit’s stomach lurched. ‘Why, Gooch?’

‘I’ve never trusted her. Sorry.’

‘Where are you?’

‘If I tell, you’re in trouble with the law, and I think I should keep you free and clear.’

‘I’m already an accessory to kidnapping if I don’t report you.’

‘Stoney went with me willingly. He’s sure willing now. Aren’t you, Stoney? Hey, Stoney!’ Calling to him, loud, an echo in
the room. ‘Yeah, he’s nodding big-time. He’s a happy guy.’

‘Gooch. Where are you?’

‘See, you can’t always take the direct approach, Judge. Stoney and I are going to have an extensive chat here shortly. We’re
going to find out who exactly Alex is, what
he knows, where he’s at, and then how Lucy’s involved in all this. Find out what he knows about poor Patch and Thuy. It’s
gonna be fun and educational.’

‘Gooch, don’t—’

‘Then I’ll call you and fill you in. I won’t say it’s me. Then you do what you think best. Consider it an extended anonymous
tip.’

‘Gooch, you asshole, don’t do this—’

‘Helen’s out boating with Duff and Trudy Smith, so she should be out of harm’s way. Take care of her, okay? She’s a good kid.
She can stay on my boat long as she wants. ‘Bye, Whitman. Don’t turn your back on Lucy.’ He hung up.

Whit dialed Gooch’s cell phone. No answer. He called the marina where Gooch docked
Don’t Ask.
The marina master said yeah, Gooch’s boat was there, just fine – did he want to leave a message?

At least Gooch wasn’t out on the water, conducting a floating inquisition.

He cursed Gooch. He cursed Stoney Vaughn. No idea where they could be … but there had been that brief echo when Gooch called
to Stoney. So a big space. Covered roof. A big space but private so Gooch could have his extended, perhaps violent chat with
Stoney.

Now where might that be?

Could be the old high school gym, awaiting a teardown in a month or so. There was a soundstage at an old television studio,
now empty and for sale, on the edge of town. Possibly. Or … there was a marina on the north edge of the county, past the Flats,
abandoned since being the part of the docks burned a year ago – but the big metal covering and high roof of the old marina
were still there. No one used it, and Gooch had talked about buying it from the uninterested, unmotivated owners in Houston.

Whit grabbed his car keys. He had to stop this, reason with Gooch. The thought was nearly alien.

The FBI had the Vaughn house, but the agents knew who Claudia was and let her in.

‘I’m getting the house ready for Ben to come home from the hospital,’ she said and the two agents nodded and went back to
their phones and laptops.

She searched carefully and as inconspicuously as she could, ignoring the nagging feeling that said she had no right to do
this. First Stoney’s bedroom. She found nothing of interest except a wad of a thousand dollars in cash, tucked in the back
of the underwear drawer. She left the cash alone. The bathroom produced nothing but a daunting cache of toilet paper, fourteen
different scents of high-dollar cologne, a nearly empty box of condoms, and expired cold medications.

She went to the top of the staircase and glanced downstairs; she could hear the drift of the agents’ voices from the kitchen,
talking on their phones, discussing the coordinated search for Stoney Vaughn. There had been a sighting in San Antonio, a
couple of hours away, of a man who looked like Stoney. The most promising lead thus far.

She went to the study at the end of the hallway. Books lined the shelves. Stoney had not struck her as a book person, and
many of the books looked too pristine to have been read – lots of recent hardcover bestsellers, crime fiction, investing,
and finance. Biographies of business leaders. But one whole wall on the history of piracy, on archaeology and nautical salvage,
on Jean Laffite and Texas history.

She browsed through them but decided as a hiding place it was too obvious. He wouldn’t hide the journal here. Maybe a safe-deposit
box – see if the FBI had access to that. Or Ben, if he could be convinced.

There was a PC on Stoney’s desk, shoved to one side. The desk was in disarray – she suspected the FBI had sat down and copied
the hard disk to see if there were any clues as to who had Stoney or where he might have gone. Easier than going through the
rigmarole of getting actual custody of the hard drive.

Claudia sat down, powered up the PC, and opened Stoney’s e-mail application.

‘What are you doing?’ Ben said from the doorway.

‘What are you doing out of the hospital?’ she said.

‘I couldn’t stay there. Not with my brother missing. I checked myself out. I’m okay." He leaned against the doorway. ‘What
are you doing on Stoney’s computer?’

She took her hands off the keyboard.

‘Sending an e-mail,’ she said coolly, with a smile. ‘Is that okay?’ She had wanted to see if there had been an e-mail from
Danny Laffite, or other Laffite Leaguers, or Patch Gilbert or anyone connected to the case. Maybe Stoney made on-line reservations
to go somewhere, maybe his browser had a history suggesting travel sites he’d visited.

‘Sending an e-mail from here?’

‘I just remembered something from when I was on Danny’s boat,’ she said. ‘It’s better to get it down in writing than give
a statement.’ She stood, turning off the system as if sending the e-mail was no big deal.

‘Claudia. You were spying.’

‘No. It’s not my case. I don’t have a warrant. I really was just logging on.’
Okay, the first lie to him. How does it taste in your mouth?

He turned and walked away. She followed him to his bedroom, watched him lie down on the bed, put his arm over his eyes.

‘I’m sorry, Ben.’

‘It’s in your nature to pry.’

‘
Pry
is an ugly word. I’m trying to help you and I’m trying to find your brother.’

‘Please don’t get involved in this.’

‘You know where he’s at.’

‘Not with certainty,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You think they’ve bugged my room?’

‘Of course not, Ben.’

‘So I’m supposed to tell you and betray my brother?’

‘He betrayed you.’

‘Innocent till proven guilty.’

‘The authorities find that Stoney’s involved in any crime, and they think you’re protecting him, they’re going to come after
you whole-hog. Your life could be ruined, babe.’

He closed his eyes, opened them. ‘If I think I know where he’s at … and I tell you, you’ll tell them.’

She made the decision. ‘No. I won’t.’

‘Right, Claudia. You’re a cop. You have to.’

‘Why’s he hiding?’

‘I think he’s ashamed of not paying. Maybe he doesn’t have the five million to pay. So he’s humiliated and he ran.’

‘Then he didn’t commit a crime. So this is a private matter between the two of you. I’ll take you to him, Ben, if you know
where he’s at. You can work it out. Then he can come forward.’

‘Would you let a guy who wouldn’t pay his brother’s ransom handle your finances, Claudia? That’s what he’s afraid of. The
public response. His clients will dump him. He’ll be ruined. He’ll lose this house, everything.’

‘It’s not the public’s business.’

‘He sabotaged his own computer systems to keep his money safe,’ Ben said. ‘It’ll get out. He’ll be ruined because he panicked.’

‘Ben, finding him is the only way to help him. He can’t hide for ever. Where do you think he is?’

‘Let me sleep on it,’ he said. ‘I’ll give him another day.’

‘So you’ve given up this he-was-kidnapped thing.’

‘We would have heard a ransom demand by now,’ Ben said. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘As a kidnapper goes, you’re okay,’ Stoney said. ‘Jesus, at least the food’s tasty.’ He had his nerve back once he saw that
Gooch wasn’t going to take a pair of pliers or a blowtorch to his feet or his balls. Right now they were eating Chinese takeout,
sitting at a metal desk in the back of the warehouse.

After they had driven out of Port Leo, the truck ambling along, Stoney still crouched on the floorboards, Gooch had said,
‘Your choices are two. You either help me, or you end up dead in the Gulf.’

‘Tough call. I’ll help you,’ Stoney said from the floorboard of the car.

‘I expect complete honesty. I don’t get it, you’re dead. You understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘First chance for honesty. Did you kill Patch Gilbert and Thuy Tran?’

‘No. I didn’t.’ Thank God, he could say that and be honest.

‘Do you know who did?’

‘Yeah. Alex.’ A pause. ‘No one could have stopped him.’

‘A person of conscience would have stopped him, but we won’t judge you on your obvious deficiencies,’ Gooch said.

‘You’re right. I didn’t. But it wasn’t planned. They weren’t supposed to be there.’
Give a little ground,
he thought. Dealing with Gooch was a negotiation, not so different from the deals he’d cut when he worked in venture capital.
He thought suddenly that, yes, he could handle this.

‘How comforting. How deep in is Lucy Gilbert?’

‘She knew we were getting the treasure off Patch’s land because he refused to sell to me. I offered him too much for his land;
he checked on me, found out I was into treasure hunting and he started wondering if maybe there was something valuable hidden
on his land, what with me offering a price I thought he’d never say no to. He made the connection about Laffite, although
he didn’t have any proof. It just dug his heels in that he wouldn’t sell. We’d used metal detectors to find the cache on his
land. But there was no dealing with him, so I found out Lucy Gilbert needed money, approached her. She was going to sell her
acreage to us and let us rebury it on her land.’

‘Alex wanted to rebury it?’

‘Not anymore. Maybe he never did. He gets a cut. I get the rest.’

‘You,’ said Gooch, ‘are a fucking piece of work, man.’

‘It seemed like a good idea at the time. Everyone would have been happy, no one hurt.’

‘Yeah, if Patch got his hundred thou together and conducted a legitimate dig, you or Alex would have had to kill him anyway,
right?’

‘No,’ Stoney said quietly. ‘No.’

‘Jimmy Bird?’

‘He helped us. Alex shut him up.’ He prayed Gooch wouldn’t ask if he’d killed Danny Laffite. Maybe he would just assume Alex
did.

‘You need a new hobby,’ Gooch said. ‘Where’s a place you and me can go and not be bothered?’

‘What, I get to pick my place of execution?’

‘I’m not killing you. I want a place where you and I can go and call Alex, set up a negotiation with him so I can kill him.’

‘You’re going to kill him?’

‘The chances are fairly good,’ Gooch said. ‘I don’t like him.’

‘Why don’t you just call the police?’

‘They like courtrooms. Those take time. I’m taking a simple, blunt approach to a complicated situation. It’s a public service.’

Stoney took a deep breath. Maybe this would work. Get Gooch to lure in Alex someplace private. Gooch could kill Alex. Then
he could cut a deal with Gooch. Or maybe get rid of Gooch. He was afraid of Gooch but there was a bit too much cockiness in
the big guy, and maybe he underestimated Stoney.

He thought of blowing off Danny’s head and his confidence returned.

‘You afraid of this Alex?’ Gooch asked.

Stoney was silent.

‘You say he’s got the treasure.’

‘He says he does. Or he’s lied and it’s still in the storage unit over in Laurel Point. But knowing Alex, he’s definitely
moved it. So he and I are at a stalemate.’

‘Where’s the Devil’s Eye?’

Stoney took a deep breath. Now he needed to lie; he was going to lie because that emerald wasn’t up for negotiation; it was
his. ‘I hid it on my property. Buried it deep in a flower bed, where the earth was already turned. It’s safe. Alex wants it
bad.’

‘We’ll use that as our bait then.’

‘If you want a good place to talk to him,’ Stoney said, ‘I got one. I own a couple of warehouses down at the port in Corpus
Christi. It’s quiet down there. Alex could meet us there.’

‘Stoney?’

‘Yeah?’

‘No tricks. It’s a death sentence.’

‘So what happens to me after you kill Alex?’

‘How much are you worth, Stoney?’ Gooch said.

Finally. Money. The universal language. Gooch could be bought; this was a sudden, warm comfort. ‘About two million, I guess.’

‘I can think of any number of local charities who need about a two-million-dollar donation.’

His gut tightened. ‘That’s extortion.’

‘Fund-raising. You can rebuild your fortune. But you let people die. There’s a price to pay for that. You can pick: prison,
poverty, or pine.’

‘Pine?’

‘As in box, buddy.’

‘I would pick poverty, then,’ Stoney said carefully.

And so they had crossed the high Harbor Bridge in Corpus, the port to their right, the retired aircraft carrier USS
Lexington
docked to their left, grabbed takeout Chinese in downtown Corpus. The warehouse, in the heart of the port of Corpus Christi,
was quiet on a Saturday, the streets deserted, the businesses mostly closed. Stoney unlocked the door with an electronic code.
The warehouse was big but cluttered, a maze of tall boxes and crates and wrapped pallets. And now they sat, finishing the
Chinese at a metal desk.

‘What do you keep here?’ Gooch asked around a mouthful of garlic chicken.

‘One of my companies buys up furniture and equipment from failed businesses, sells it at discount.’ Stoney shoveled in moo
shu pork; he wasn’t sure when he’d get to eat again.

‘You’re just a full-time vulture, aren’t you?’

‘I am sorry about your friends. I am.’

‘Don’t worry. You will be.’

Stoney ignored him. Eating the last of his moo shu, he searched his memory for any weapons that might be in the warehouse.
He couldn’t remember whether the old
foreman kept a gun in the desk. He slid the metal drawer open a bit; the drawer was loose, came out too quick. No gun, just
pencils and Post-it notes and a thin little flask of Crown Royal. He pushed the drawer back but it didn’t quite want to go.

That drawer would come right out in your hands,
Stoney thought.
Heavy. Metal. What do you know? He
nudged the drawer back into place.

Gooch stood a ways off, talking on a cell phone, calling to Stoney if he were happy.
Yeah, ‘I’m delirious with joy,
he wanted to answer but he played along, said he was happy, nodded. The room echoed slightly with their voices.

Gooch said, ‘Let’s discuss how we get your friend Alex.’

A freaking useless wild-goose chase,
Alex thought.

He had been following the Honorable Whit Mosley from the courthouse square. Alex earlier ditched the beige van in the Port
Leo Wal-Mart parking lot, and walked along the rows of cars until he saw keys dangling in a Ford Taurus, windows slightly
lowered to dissipate the midday heat. A bumper sticker announced
CARPENTERS HAVE BETTER WOOD
. He drove the Taurus to a quiet apartment complex, quickly but calmly switched license plates with a lonely little red Hyundai
at the back of the lot, tore off the offending bumper sticker, and drove to a Dairy Queen for a soda and a burger. There he
found Whit’s address in a local phone book and headed straight for the big Victorian house, thinking,
I’ll just take him here. His buddy took Stoney. I’ll take him.

The woman who answered the door was blond and pretty in a melt-your-knees way and Alex thought,
Or I’ll just take you, honey.

‘Hi, I’m looking for Judge Mosley.’

‘His place is out back. The guest house,’ the woman said. She looked to be a little younger than Whit, blue eyes wide enough
to drown in, and her noticeable accent sounded funny. Russian, maybe. ‘But he’s not here right now. I’m his stepmother, Irina.
May I help you?’

Stepmother? Jesus.
He wished his dad had bothered to remarry. ‘Well, um, ma’am, I had information for him on a case. It’s kind of private.’

‘Ah. He was here but went to the courthouse. His office is on the first floor. If the building’s not open you could knock
on his window. Fifth window on the left from the entrance. If he’s not there he’s probably with his girlfriend.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Alex let Irina Mosley live and headed for the courthouse. He waited for forty minutes, running the AC
in the Taurus until he saw Whit Mosley come out of the courthouse, run – in this heat, running – to a white Ford Explorer
and get in and roar off. He pulled out after him, staying two cars back, blending in with the busy summer weekend traffic.

The judge had driven past the old marina, an old, for-sale television studio, the high school auditorium. Like he was checking
out real estate to buy. Following him was becoming more difficult if not impossible. He was looking for something and he wasn’t
getting out of his car where Alex could grab him and run. He was hanging so far back he was not always keeping Whit Mosley
in sight, worried he would be noticed, and finally the judge turned around and drove through Port Leo and north toward Black
Jack Point. Alex followed.

Next to him on the car seat, his cell phone rang. Alex kept his eye on Whit’s car. ‘Hello?’

‘Hello, asshole,’ Gooch said. ‘Want to deal?’