Suspicion of Vengeance (26 page)

"Is this what you expected to see?" Anthony asked.

"I don't know what I expected," Gail said.

They followed the uneven gravel tracks that appeared to end a couple of hundred yards further on. Gail picked her way carefully in her high heels. A three-quarter moon hung over the tree line to the east, and the sun lingered as a diffused orange glow. The temperature had dropped, and she crossed her arms.

"It's so weedy," she said. "Nothing's been done out here in years, you can tell."

"They can't continue without the permits." Anthony pivoted as he walked. "While you were enjoying your chat with Whit McGrath, I talked to a reporter from
The Stuart News.
McGrath's company—he and a few other big investors—began to purchase property in the mid-1980s. They acquired over two thousand acres. They wanted to build a planned city. Phase One was approved before the county Master Plan went into effect, but Phase Two was held up by newly elected county commissioners who wanted to hold the line against development. Most of the retirees and the wealthy along the coast support them, but younger families are moving in, and there's very little housing. For years, McGrath has been funding the campaigns of the opposition. Now they have a majority. It comes up for a vote next month. McGrath has the state agencies on his side. He's a friend of Governor Ward and one of his biggest donors in the last election. A coincidence, of course."

They had reached the middle of the field. Bird calls came from the woods.

"The reporter told me that JWM is deeply in debt. McGrath needs this vote to go in his favor."

"And he'll probably get it," Gail said.

"Probably." Anthony took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

His body heat was trapped inside, and Gail held it close. "Aren't you going to ask me if I think he killed Amber Dodson?"

"I know what you think."

"He was lying to me," she said. "I could smell it on him."

"Lying about what? His affair? That shouldn't surprise you. If you pursue this, you use up time that would be better spent preparing your case. The hearing is in less than two weeks. Sweetheart, what are we doing out here? Let's go back to the hotel."

With no more than a nod for reply, Gail looked around her at the torn landscape. "What did Amber know? Whatever Gary was doing for Whit McGrath, she must have known about it."

Anthony reminded her that Dodson had been fired seven months before his wife's murder. "That length of time," he said, "would seem to rule out a connection between the two events."

"You're just stuck on Gary as the bad guy," she said.

From her memory of the scale model and the position of the access road, Gail could see where the buildings would go. She pointed them out to Anthony. Over there, the cinema. Further on, the entrance to the town center. Gail wanted to soak in as much as she could. Soon it would be too dark to see, and they would have no choice but to leave.

They went around some pine trees and stopped at the rocky edge of a small lake about fifty feet in diameter, with a precipitous drop at the sides, as if the ground underneath had caved in.

"This is going to be the lake in front of the hotel," she said. "Ugly, isn't it? They'll Disney-fy it and top it off with that horribly ostentatious fountain."

Anthony tossed a rock. Silver ripples moved outward to the mildewed and weed-choked shoreline. "Ah. I meant to tell you. Hector's divers didn't find your ring."

"I figured that," she said.

"They will look again, but what will you do if it can't be found?"

"Me? Nothing. What can I do?"

"Do you want another one?" Anthony dusted his hands and turned to look at her. As Gail tried to think of what she felt about that, he walked over and took her by the lapels of the jacket, pulling her closer. He shook her gently. "Answer me."

"Another one?"

"A new one. If I can't find yours, may I buy you a new one?"

It wasn't a simple question. She slid her arms around his waist. "Anthony, please don't ask me that now." "You keep putting me off."

"Just let me get past this appeal. I already have too much on my mind."

"How hard is it to say one word? Yes? No?" He held her chin, forcing her to look at him. The weak light from the dying sun was behind him, and his eyes were black pools. "If you don't tell me, you can walk back to the beach. Yes or no."

"All right, then. No, I don't want a new one. I want the ring you threw away."

"Why? Why must you have that particular ring? They're all the same."

"Not to me." She kissed him. "You wore that diamond on your own hand, and I want it."

He laughed, but not happily.
"Tú eres imposible.
Let's get out of here." Gail felt his body suddenly tense. He was looking past her, frowning.

She turned. A hundred yards away, on the access road where they had left his car, another vehicle had come alongside it. Headlights, higher than those on the Cadillac, shone directly into the field. It was a truck, but at this distance it was hard to discern anything more than the shape.

Then the lights moved down the incline, and she saw it clearly: a black pickup truck with a high suspension and knobby tires.

Anthony muttered, "He's probably going to tell us we're trespassing."

"I think it's Rusty Beck." When Anthony looked at her, Gail said, "The cowboy at the ranch, remember? Showing off with the bullwhip?"

"How do you know his truck?"

"I saw him in it yesterday. He might have been following me."

Anthony was about to reply, but the headlights, steady until now, began to bob up and down. The truck had picked up speed, bouncing over the ruts in the ground. The pitch of the engine rose. The lights grew brighter, picking up the disbelief on Anthony's face.

"¿Qué está haciendo ese tipo?"

He grabbed Gail's arm and pulled her off the gravel tracks. The truck flew by them, swerved, and slid sideways, raising a cloud of dust. The rear wheels spun, then caught, and the truck circled back. The dust caught the beams of light. Rocks clattered in the wheel wells.

The engine roared, and the truck hurtled toward them again. It fishtailed across the ground, sending rocks flying. Gail cried out from a sudden pain in her thigh and protected her face with her arms.

"Get behind there!" Anthony pointed at a rotting pile of tree trunks and branches. In the gathering darkness Gail didn't see the hole. She stumbled into it and lost one of her shoes. His jacket slid off her shoulders.

The black truck cut off their escape and went into a tight turn. Anthony yelled, "I'm going to make him come after me. When I do, get into the trees!"

"No!" Coughing on dust, she held on to his arm.

"Suéltame.
Let go!" He jerked free of her.

The headlights lit his face, then swung away. The truck was circling again. Anthony picked up a jagged white rock a foot in diameter. The wheels locked. The truck slid to a stop, driver's side toward them, and dust boiled from the undercarriage. A spotlight came on. Gail shielded her eyes.

The engine had quieted to a steady growl. A man's voice called out, "This is private property. You got no business here."

Anthony shouted, "I know your name. Russell Beck."

A laugh came from behind the spotlight. "I know yours too, slick."

"Why don't you get out of that piece of shit truck and talk to me like a man?" Anthony threw the heavy rock aside and strode forward, one hand raised in front of his eyes. The beam of light swung, then went dark, but for a quick moment Rusty Beck had been visible, reaching for the gun rack.

"Anthony!"

The barrel of a shotgun slid through the open window, and Anthony froze. The low rumble of the truck didn't hide the metallic sound of a shell being racked into the chamber. "Come on. You want a piece of this?"

Gail yelled at him, "Garlan Bryce is my uncle! I'll have you arrested."

"I'm scared now." The shotgun jerked toward the road. "Get on out. I see you again, no telling what might happen."

Anthony's chest was moving quickly with his breathing. He spun around and came back to Gail. "Are you all right?" She could only nod. "Where is your shoe?"

"I don't know. Never mind." One foot of her panty hose was shredded.

He found her shoe, and Gail held on to his arm to put it on. Her hand was shaking so badly she kept dropping it. Her fingers wouldn't work.

Rusty Beck said, "Hot damn. You got some legs. Bend over again, let me see your panties."

Gail murmured, "Anthony, don't say anything. Don't. Please don't."

"Put your shoe on."

"I'm trying to!"

He did it himself, roughly, but she knew that his anger wasn't for her.

"I dropped your jacket." Gail pointed, and he went to pick it up. The imprint of a tire ran across the back and sleeve. He balled it up and threw it.

They walked in the beams of the headlights. Their shadows stretched out ahead of them. Rusty Beck turned on his radio to a country station. He gunned the engine, then put on the brakes, again and again, urging them on. Gail held tightly on to Anthony's arm and kept her eyes on the Cadillac. They walked up the slope and through the gate.

Rusty Beck's shotgun was out the window again, and the spotlight created a bright pool of light.

Anthony took out his car keys and aimed the automatic door release. He walked Gail to her side of the car and opened her door. He went around and got in. Closed his door. Stuck the keys in the ignition. Not rushing, not one tremor in his movements.

Rusty Beck gunned his engine. Tires screaming, the truck swerved around them, kicking up gravel. Its tail-lights receded on the long, straight road. The last remaining light of day allowed Gail to see Anthony's expression. He was still looking after the truck, and his eyes could have vaporized stone.

She let her head fall against the headrest. "Should we call the police?"

Anthony's lips thinned against his teeth.
"La próxima vez, tendré más que una roca"
He swept the keys from the ignition, found one he wanted, and reached across Gail to open the glove compartment. He threw aside a map and took out a black leather pouch.

She knew what was in it: a nine-millimeter pistol with seventeen rounds in the magazine. Lurching forward, she fell on his arm. "Don't! Anthony, my God!" She hung on, wrestling him for the gun.

"Gail! Stop it." He ripped it away from her. She crawled across the seat, going for his hand. Her shoulder hit the horn.

Laughter burst from her throat. "Don't go after him. Oh, my God. Anthony." She hiccuped a laugh and tried to catch her breath. "I'm defending a man on death row, and you're going to shoot someone for chasing us in his truck! I can't stand it. Please don't kill him. Don't!"

Anthony tossed his gun pouch into the backseat, then took Gail by the shoulders and shook her. "In case he came back! He has a shotgun. I wasn't going to follow him."

She started to cry. "You're not going to kill him?"

"Niñita. ¿Qué piensas?"
He drew her into his arms, holding her closely, murmuring to her that he was thinking no such thing.

"You wouldn't. Would you?"

"No, sweetheart. Never." He kissed her lips and smoothed her hair back from her face, then kissed her again. "Baby, are you all right? Are you sure?"

"He ruined my ten-dollar panty hose." She laughed, then blew her nose on the handkerchief he gave her. "I'm sorry for dropping your jacket."

"It wasn't your fault." He held her face. "I love you."

"You scare me more than Rusty Beck does. Promise me you won't do anything stupid."

"Of course I won't."

"Promise me!"

He traced an
X
over his heart.
"Telo prometo.
AH right?"

The moon had set when the wood-hulled fishing boat came out of the channel into the Atlantic. The engine throbbed steadily, and small red and green running lights were the only indicator of its position. A mile offshore the boat began slowly to rise and fall in the swells of deeper water.

Three of the men on board wore ski masks. Hector did not. He wanted Vernon Byrd to see his face. Before they had knocked him unconscious, Vernon had said
brother,
but Hector was not a brother. Afro-Cuban, yes, but not black. A Cuban would not let himself be called by a ridiculous street name. Peanut. Where was his dignity?

Vernon Byrd was conscious now. Aware of his situation. The ropes around his body were attached to a wire, which ran through a pulley, then to the drum of an electric motor. The pulley hung from the end of a davit that could swing out over the water and back. The equipment was for picking up heavy fish. Not as heavy as Vernon, and the electric motor had made a funny smell lifting so much weight. Another rope ran from Vernon's ankles to a concrete block, which Hector had set on the flat wooden gunwale. Hector had fold Vernon that if he moved his feet, the block might fall in, and the combined weight could be too much for the welds that held the davit together.

Leaning against the gunwale, Hector talked to Vernon Byrd, whose bare feet dipped in and out of the sea as the boat rocked. Vernon Byrd only listened; duct tape had been wrapped around his mouth and head. Hector told the man what they knew about him. His family. His failed career as a boxer. His time in prison. The woman he kept that his wife didn't know about. What they would do to her. It was better not to say too much. Let his mind work.

The starlight let him see Vernon's face.

"Don't cry, Peanut. We aren't bad guys. We give you a choice." Hector took some money out of his coat pocket and focused the beam of a small flashlight on it. "Look, Peanut. You see this? A thousand dollars. It's for you. What do you choose? This? Or you want to go swimming? Which one? This?"

A nod.

"Very good. This lady I told you about, you go to her office, you sign the affidavit. If she says go to the court and testify to the judge, you go. It's easy. You say, your honor, there was no confession. I wanted to make a deal with the police, maybe they recommend parole, let me out early. That's the truth, isn't it, Peanut?"

He nodded.