The Way We Die Now (21 page)

"Bumble Bee?"

"That's white tuna. That's what Sarah always calls it. When she sends me to the store for tuna, she always writes down 'Bumble Bee' so I don't get a different kind by mistake. Anyway, as I was saying, most people on the block, those that were home, came out to take a look at that stretch Lincoln. You could almost put my little Escort in the back seat."

"They didn't say where they were going?"

"It only took 'em a minute. They seemed to be in a big rush, although I thought your daughter, Sue Ellen, said something or other to me when she got into the car. I don't know what it was, but I can make a pretty good guess."

"That's all over with, Mr. Sussman. Sue Ellen apologized to you for the last time, and she told me she was sorry, too. I won't bother you again this evening, Mr. Sussman. I'll just hang on to these keys for now and bring 'em back to you tomorrow sometime."

"Suit yourself."

Hoke let himself in to the house and looked on the refrigerator door for a note from Ellita. There was no note under the pizza magnet or anywhere else in the house. His car and house keys were on top of his dresser, however, and that would have been a logical place to leave a message. But he couldn't find any notes, and he looked in the girls' room as well. Clothes were scattered about in Ellita's bedroom and the girls' room, but then, they always were--most ot the time anyway. Both of Ellita's suitcases, the big bag and her expensive camelskin airplane carry-on, were missing. Pepe's blue nylon diaper bag was missing, too, but Ellita would need that if she were going to be away for only a couple of hours. Still, it was past ten now, and if they had left at ten this morning, they had been gone for twelve hours!

Hoke called the Sanchez house, hoping he would get the old lady instead of Ellita's father. Her English was better than the old man's, and when she had lived with Hoke for a month right after Ellita came home from the hospital with the baby, the two of them had got along fairly well. She was a good cook, and Hoke had praised her meals. She had certainly been a big help to Ellita during her postpartum periods of depression. For a couple of weeks, when she first came home with Pepe, Ellita had cried a lot for no apparent reason, and Hoke didn't know what was the matter with her. "Don't worry," Mrs. Sanchez had said, raising her gray eyebrows. "We all do that. She'll quit after two or three more weeks. She'd cry even more if she'd had a girl."

On the fourth ring Mrs. Sanchez answered the phone.

"It's me, Hoke," Hoke said quickly. "Sergeant Moseley. Don't hang up."

"I didn't see you leave the party."

Hoke had already forgotten about the party. "I thought I said good-bye to you, Mrs. Sanchez. I had to go to work. An emergency. I know I said good-bye to Uncle Arnoldo. How is Tio Arnoldo, by the way?"

"He has cancer. There's a tumor in his bowels."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"He bleeds down there. He has to wear a pad. Like a woman."

"That's too bad."

"He's at Jackson now, but they're sending him home from the hospital to die in two days."

"Back to Cuba?"

"No, here, at my house. He will die here in America, a free man, as soon as we get the Medicaid papers signed."

"I'm sure you'll keep him comfortable, Mrs. Sanchez. Is Ellita there? At your house?"

"No. I haven't seen her since the party. If she doesn't want to talk to her mother, she should at least call her father."

"You don't know where she is then?"

"She hasn't called me since the party. If she doesn't want to talk to me, tell her to call her father. He is very sad about Tio Arnoldo."

"Of course. Tell Tio Arnoldo I'll come by and visit him after he gets home. I don't like to bother people when they're still in the hospital."

"I'll tell him. He will be pleased. And tell Ellita to call her father."

"I'll tell her."

After he put the phone down, Hoke undressed and went into the bathroom to shave and shower. He pulled off the Band-Aid preparatory to shaving, and found that the puncture wound in his chin was festering. He cleaned out the yellow pus with a Q-tip dipped in iodine and shaved carefully with a new Bic throwaway razor. He plastered another Band-Aid over the wound before he took his shower. He slipped into a pair of khaki slacks, a light blue sport shirt, clean white socks, and the Nikes he wore when he went to the gym to play handball. His black, high-topped shoes were dirty, and damp inside, so he put them outside the door to the girls' room so Aileen could clean and polish them when she came home. When she came home? Where in the hell would Aileen, Sue Ellen, and Ellita go with a creep like Donald Hutton? That is, if they'd gone willingly. Mr. Sussman said that Sue Ellen had said something or other he couldn't hear when she climbed into the limo. Were they being kidnapped? That seemed unlikely, but on the other hand, if Hutton had a weapon, they would do what he told them, including packing their bags. One way or another Hutton would get his revenge, and a good way to do it was by doing something evil to Ellita and the girls. But Hoke couldn't entertain this thought seriously. If Hutton were going to kidnap Ellita and the girls, he would do it surreptitiously, not in broad daylight with a chauffeured limo.

There was plenty of food in the refrigerator. Hoke made a tomato and cream cheese sandwich on white bread and drank an Old Style with it. He had to make his report to Major Brownley, and he couldn't decide how much or how little to tell him. Brownley still had his badge, weapon, and teeth. Despite the hour, Hoke decided to drive to the major's house instead of phoning.

He threw the.38 pistol he had taken from Bock's house into the bottom drawer of his dresser and covered it with T-shirts. It might be useful as a throw-down weapon someday. He drove the unmarked police car he had checked out instead of taking his Pontiac. Brownley lived in the middleclass section of Liberty City, but to get there, Hoke had to drive through some mean black streets where kids often threw rocks at cars with white drivers. If rocks were thrown, let them throw at a department car instead of his Le Mans.

Hoke hadn't been to the major's house in more than two years. He had forgotten the address but knew where it was and how to get there. On Hoke's last visit Brownley, when he had been promoted to major, had thrown a backyard barbecue for all the off-duty detectives in the Homicide Division. Only five of them, including Hoke and Bill Henderson, had shown up. Ellita had been there, too, but the other detectives hadn't brought their wives. Mrs. Henderson came along, of course, because Bill made her. It would have looked bad for him as the executive officer if he hadn't brought his wife. There was a full keg of draft beer and enough pork barbecue and baked beans for at least forty people. Brownley's three sons wore white shirts, red bow ties, and white pants, and his two daughters wore white party dresses with red sashes. It had been an embarrassing evening for the Brownleys, and Hoke thought at the time those kids would be eating barbecue for a week afterward. After that the major hadn't given any more parties for the detectives in his division.

Brownley had a four-bedroom ranch-style house, and it was surrounded by an eight-foot unpainted board fence. There was a kidney-shaped pool in the backyard. Three cars were parked on the circular asphalt driveway in front of the house. Hoke parked in the street and pushed through the gate, ignoring the Bad Dog sign. Brownley's dog, a fifteenyear-old poodle bitch named Mary, was half blind and too feeble to bark.

One of Brownley's sons, a boy of fifteen or so, let Hoke into the house and asked him to sit in the living room. This was a room rarely used, except for company, and it smelled strongly of Lemon Pledge. Hoke could hear talking and the sounds of the television coming from the Florida room in the back of the house. Willie Brownley, wearing plaid Bermudas, slippers, and a striped Saint Laurent shaving robe, joined Hoke within minutes. Hoke stood up. Brownley waved him back down and sat in a tapestry-cushioned straight chair across from him.

"I know it's late--" Hoke said.

"When did you get back?"

"This evening. I rode the bus from Bonita and checked a car out of the motor pool at the station."

"Mel's pretty upset, Hoke. He's called me twice now, both times with new information. He's sorry as hell now, he said, that he asked me for help, and he's afraid I'll tell somebody. Apparently he's up for a big civil service promotion, and he doesn't want any word of your investigation to get out."

"There's no investigation to talk about, Willie. Mel told me to tell you that you were 'kits' now--I guess he meant 'quits'--but all I can tell you is what I told him. I went out there all right, but when I saw the house and barn on fire, I took off in a hurry."

"Did you see any Haitians out there?"

"I didn't see anyone, and no one saw me. The farm's almost a mile from the highway, and I couldn't see the fire till I walked down the gravel road to the farm. I could see smoke, but I thought at first they were just burning a field. There's a heavily wooded hammock between the highway and the farm, and the highway along there's bordered by palmettos."

"The sheriff found two dead bodies, Hoke. Mr. Bock was inside the house, and his foreman was in the barn. Bock's chest cavity was filled with shotgun pellets, and the Mexican's skull had been crushed with a blunt instrument."

"No shit?"

"That's right. What do you suppose happened?"

Hoke shrugged. "What about the workers?"

"He had some Haitians working out there, but no one seems to know how many there were. But they've all disappeared, and his truck's gone, too."

Hoke nodded reflectively and touched his sore chin.

"What happened to your chin?"

"Cut it shaving, and it's infected, I think. Maybe his workers revolted, killed Bock and the foreman, and then took off. Perhaps they got word or found out that he's been killing Haitians instead of paying them, so they beat him to the punch."

"I don't think so. Haitians are a pretty docile lot, and the illegals are afraid of getting picked up and deported back to Haiti. They're the most law-abiding noncitizens we have in Miami."

"Ordinarily, yes. But maybe Bock threatened to turn them in to the INS. Besides, Haitians aren't all that docile. Their ancesters were warriors back in Africa, and they beat the French Army to get their independence."

"I know a few things about Haiti, Hoke. We studied some about Haiti in my black history courses. They fought the French in the early eighteen-hundreds, but since then they've been kept down by one tyrant after another. Haitians don't have much fight left in them by now."

"That's a generality, Willie. A few men, afraid for their lives, might act differently."

A skinny black girl, about twelve or thirteen, with her hair in tight cornrows and wearing jeans, sneakers, and a Miami Dolphins T-shirt, brought in a tray holding two frosted stems of beer. She offered one to Hoke before taking the other to her father.

"Thanks," Hoke said. "What's your name?"

"Lily."

"Her name's Lillith," Brownley said, "but we call her Lily for short."

"That's a nice name, Lily," Hoke said, taking a sip of beer.

The girl looked at her father. He tilted his head, and she left the room.

"What did you tell Ellita about me? To explain my absence?"

"Well..." Brownley took a long swig of beer, swallowed. "I didn't talk to her personally, Hoke. I had a patrolman drive your car over to your house, and I told him to tell Elitta you'd be out of town on a special assignment for a few days. Because of the nature of the assignment, you couldn't contact her, and she shouldn't try to get in touch with you. I left it at that. I figured if she got worried after a couple of days and called me, I'd make up something else to tell her. But she never called."

"And she swallowed all that? Without any questions?"

"Why wouldn't she? She used to be a police officer, and it isn't unusual for a detective to go undercover. But you're holding something back, Hoke. What really happened over there?"

"Nothing. I've been on a vacation for a few days, that's all. I was on unofficial business, private business, and I didn't have my badge, weapon, or even my teeth. So whatever happened over there is none of your fucking business!"

"There's no need to--"

"That's right. There's no need for you to know anything. What you don't know can't hurt you. As you told me in the first place, if I got into any trouble, you couldn't back me up.

"Mel said the two pit dogs were killed, too. Shot."

"That couldn't have been me, Willie. You had my pistol. When I saw the fire, I also thought about the dogs. A fire like that can make dogs crazy, so they're another reason I left in a hurry. I know you told me how to catch 'em by the front legs and break them off, but without any practice I didn't want to try it. So I left before they could sniff me out."

"Okay, let's forget about it. I'll get your stuff."

Hoke finished his beer. He looked around but couldn't see a place to put down the stein without leaving a ring on the polished tables. He took the empty mug into the foyer and put it on the floor. Brownley returned and handed Hoke a brown grocery sack. Hoke shoved his holstered weapon beneath his belt at the back and pocketed his badge case and wallet. He looked at the floor for a moment.

"Ellita and the girls aren't home, Willie. Do you know where they are?"

"What d'you mean, aren't home? They might be at a movie."

Hoke shook his head. "I stopped at the house before driving over here, Willie. They're gone, and they left with packed bags. According to my next-door neighbor, they left in a stretch Lincoln with Donald Hutton. There was no note, but if you told Ellita not to contact me, that explains why she didn't leave one. That is, if she was able to write one. I can't think of anyplace Ellita and the girls would go with Donald Hutton. But my neighbor said they left the house at ten this morning."

"That's strange, but I don't know anything about it. She didn't call me."

"Hutton promised he'd get revenge on me, Willie. So if Ellita told him I'd be away for a few days, maybe he decided to kidnap them."