Dead Is Dead (The Jack Bertolino Series Book 3) Read online

  “Oh God, Jack. I scared you right into the arms of your ex-wife.” Susan was grinning. “This is a new low, even for me.”

  Jack felt better about taking the high road. “Long story,” he said, adding humor to his own voice. “How about I come over and throw on a pot of sauce?”

  “Sounds like a plan. Well, come on. Let me meet your surprise guest.”

  Jack wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but he keyed the door. As he set the bag of food from Montenegro’s deli on the kitchen island, he could hear water running from the master bathroom. He tossed the potato salad, pepperoni, sausages, and cheese into the fridge, and when he tried to straighten to his full six-foot-two stature, his back screamed at him. Too many hours sitting behind the wheel.

  “Jeannine?” Jack called.

  Susan was studying the unmade bed. A confused expression creased her brow. And then Jeannine walked out of the bathroom wrapped in nothing but an oversized navy-blue bath towel.

  “Oh,” Jeannine said, surprised, but not put out.

  Susan, on the other hand, turned dark on the instant.

  Jack stifled his groan, and said simply, “Susan, this is my . . . ex . . . Jeannine.”

  “Hi, I don’t want to intrude,” Susan said with a tight smile, trying for pleasant but failing. “Enjoy your trip, Mrs. Bertolino.” She turned to Jack: “I think I’ll pass on dinner tonight. You seem to have your hands full.” And Susan flew out the door before Jack could mount a reasonable defense.

  Jack finally looked back at his towel-wrapped ex-wife. “Who is this woman standing in front of me? And what has she done with Jeannine?”

  And as if Jack had never spoken . . . “She looks older in person,” Jeannine said and walked promptly back into the bathroom.

  “Okay, there’s the woman I know,” Jack mumbled as his cell phone trilled.

  “Mr. Aprea,” he said and listened. The news galvanized him. “I’ll be there in five. I know where it is.”

  He slid his phone into his pocket, grabbed his sandwich and car keys. With a certain joy to be escaping with a good excuse, he called out, “Taking a boat ride. Coast Guard found a floater off Catalina missing an arm.” Jack was out the door before the bathroom door opened.

  Twenty

  United States Coast Guard Captain Deak Montrose, Captain Deak to his men, stood at the helm of the twenty-eight-foot, armor-plated gunboat. The boat was ripping through the rough chop at forty knots. Thirty-two, trim, with a square jaw, straight white teeth, sandy brush-cut hair, and lively, intelligent eyes, he was a man in his element.

  Jack stood by his side, hair pinned back, Ray-Bans firmly in place, a contented look on his face.

  Captain Deak, piloting this very vessel, had saved Jack’s life and the life of Jack’s client, Angelica Maria Cardona, in a boat-to-boat gun battle Jack waged in the waters off the Terranea Resort in Orange County. The captain had promised Jack a joy ride when things settled down, and this was his first opportunity to show off the Coast Guard’s newest toy, enlisted for the United States war on drugs.

  Nick was sitting on a padded bench in the stern of the boat, eyes trained intently on the horizon. From the grim look on his face, Jack knew he was fighting to keep bile from winning the tug-of-war being fought in the back of his throat.

  Catalina Island loomed over the starboard side of the craft, and the growing figure of a Coast Guard salvage barge appeared off the bow, surrounded by two large red buoys, a weathered green buoy off to one side, and a derrick poised to pluck something from the dark waters of the Pacific.

  Two men in underwater scuba gear surfaced from the waves and were instantly helped on board the barge by the young crew.

  As Captain Deak throttled back, the men could hear a diesel engine straining to winch a thick cable upward until a Scarab powerboat broke the surface. Seawater gushed from four gaping holes in the fiberglass stern. The crew on the barge made short work of tying the scuttled boat to the red buoys as they waited for Captain Deak to pull alongside and tie off on the barge.

  “I didn’t want to retrieve the first body until the medical examiner arrived,” the officer in charge said to Captain Deak.

  “You did the right thing. What’s their ETA?” he asked.

  “Running a little bit behind. Should be here within the hour. We’ll set up lights. They don’t have a slick ride like yours, Captain,” he said with a grin.

  “Good work,” Captain Deak said as he strode across the barge with Jack and Nick to do a visual inspection of the floater and the destroyed Scarab.

  The sun loomed large over the horizon, casting an attractive orange glow on the proceedings, and reflected off the oil slick created by the downed craft. No one saw the beauty as they took in the one-armed floater whose swollen body had been ensnared in the weeds and chains of the permanent green buoy.

  A second dead body, a male, revealed itself as seawater drained from the wreck. It appeared to be the boat’s pilot, whose crumpled shape looked to have lodged up beneath the dashboard of the luxury craft by the pressure of the water as the boat sank. His head hung at an unnatural angle, his cheek ripped from his septum to his jaw. A flap of pale skin pulled back revealed a mangled mess of shattered teeth, blackened gums, and exposed jawbone, giving the macabre impression of a tortured smile. He’d also taken several bullets to the neck. This man’s body would also remain in place until the ME had made an appearance.

  “It was a blood bath,” were the first words out of Nick’s mouth since their arrival. Some of his natural color had returned to his cheeks, or maybe that came from the pastel glint of the setting sun.

  “There’s going to be hell to pay,” Jack said.

  Nick nodded in sage agreement. “Sinaloa boys don’t take kindly to being dissed like this.”

  “And you’re sure that’s your man?” Captain Deak asked, referring to the floater.

  “Be a hell of a coincidence if there were another one-armed cartel douchebag gone missing,” Nick said. “I guess it could happen, but I’m doubling down on that being one Dominic Cabrera.”

  The three men looked over at the green buoy and the bloated body of Cabrera bobbing in the water.

  Nick went on to explain, “D.C. was engraved on his pinky ring, and his prints were in the system. A Colombian national, he was the midlevel exec who ran the cartel’s stateside distribution chain. Whoever was the perpetrator of our crime scene stepped into some deep shit.”

  “Gotta be a few shooters,” Jack said. “Look at the size of the holes in the stern. Looks to be shotgun blasts. But the windshield spiders, the holes could be 9mm, .38’s, whatever. Smaller-caliber rounds. And look at how the seats and the instrument panel are torn up. Different angles, different trajectories. Speaks to a substantial vessel blocking their egress or more than one boat.”

  “It was a blood bath,” Nick reiterated.

  No one argued the point. The three grim men turned as a Coast Guard Boston Whaler’s roar grew in intensity. It was carrying the medical examiner, who Jack recognized as Malloy, toward his next appointed duty.

  * * *

  It was unusually hot. The scent of honeysuckle vine hung as thick as five-and-dime perfume. The shrill sound of cicadas enveloped the night air like high-tension wires. Two o’clock in Venice, California, and all but the incredibly high, or incredibly depressed, were tucked in bed until daybreak.

  Sweat trickled down Toby’s neck from under the watch cap he wore. Dressed entirely in black again, he moved silently from shadow to protective shadow, listening for any sound that might alert the unsuspecting to what was in store.

  He strode across the street like a Navy Seal carrying two bundles, past the green Chevy Biscayne, quickly down a cracked concrete path that fronted a grouping of four decrepit Spanish bungalows. Ramirez and his girlfriend lived in the last one-bedroom unit on the left. The houses were dark.

 
Toby, lowering himself to his stomach, pulled out the garden trowel he’d brought along for the job and eased open a shallow trench in the soil beneath the kitchen window. His beloved .22 had been wrapped in a plastic dropcloth, all fingerprints scrubbed clean with bleach. He said a silent prayer of gratitude to a trusted friend as he carefully laid the .22 in the trench, covered the rifle with loose dirt, and continued his work.

  The cartel’s drugs demanded a deeper hole but ended up lightly buried underground in the rucksack he had purchased for cash at the Big Five earlier that day. He pulled some overgrown ivy over the recognizable lump and declared the job done.

  Toby froze at a sound, making his blood pressure spike, but it was merely a clucking mockingbird.

  He duckwalked back up the pathway, crossed the street, hid behind the protective comfort of a hedge with a view of the four bungalows, and exhaled, stilling his heart.

  Toby pulled out his Ruger .38 special, sucked in a breath, and sprinted down the road, rapid-firing the pistol.

  It was like the fourth of July. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam!

  His rounds penetrated the metal skin of the burnished green Chevy Biscayne. The passenger-side window exploded, the rear whitewall tire sagged. Toby got to the end of the block and turned the corner before any lights winked on.

  He jumped into his Jeep and powered away from the curb. He was three blocks away before he snapped on the headlights. The 911 operator picked up his cell call: “There’s been a shooting at 2748 Trumble Avenue,” he croaked, his tone throaty to mask his voice. “One man down. Lenox Road banger. Name’s Ramirez. No! Place is full of drugs and weapons,” he said, elongating the words drugs and weapons like he was talking to a six-year-old. “Last house on the left . . . because that’s where he tried to rip me off. No, no fucking way. I want to live to see the sunrise.”

  Toby clicked off and headed west, pleased with the surge of adrenaline he felt. Time to relax and enjoy a little R&R, he thought. Spend some quality time with Eva. Maybe surprise her with a well-deserved vacation.

  He pulled the Jeep into the lot next to the Venice pier and walked calmly out to the farthest point—hidden from view by the structure at the end of the pier—and tossed his safe phone, Ruger, and nine boxes of ammunition into the black waters of the Pacific.

  Now the Sinaloa cartel had a target for their anger.

  * * *

  At three thirty in the morning, Jack bolted upright at the sound of his cell phone trilling. A cop was never happy when the phone rang in the middle of the night because it was invariably bad news.

  “Nick, what the fuck?” Jack croaked, and then he listened. And then he swung his legs off the pullout sofa. “I’ll be there in ten.”

  * * *

  Jack found Nick standing in the courtyard in front of a rundown bungalow. “The responding officer tried to calm Ramirez down,” Nick said. “He was pissed off someone shot up his car. Not as pissed off as he is now, being under arrest and what-not.”

  “So, what’s the story?” Jack asked, trying to keep the conversation on track.

  Nick wasn’t done yet, though. “So, his old lady jumped on the uniform’s back and that slippery fucker Ramirez jackrabbits. He didn’t get too far. Sustained a few bruises in the scuffle.”

  “Never make a cop run in the middle of the night,” Jack said.

  A tight grin from Nick. “Yeah, it’s a real shame. But the upshot is . . . we found two midnight specials and uh, a rifle. A .22. Buried in one of the dead flowerbeds,” Nick said, teasing Jack with the pertinent information like a runway stripper.

  “Any drugs on scene?” Jack asked, his blood circulating a bit faster.

  “Yeah, about fifteen pounds of high-class weed. Buried near the gun. Ramirez’s eyes bugged out when we confronted him. Started losing it. Thought he was gonna have a heart attack. Shouting that he never hid drugs at his crib, how stupid did we think he was, and then he called me a pendejo. I ignored the slur and explained that everything he said could be used against him in a court of law, and he had just admitted to being a drug dealer.”

  “So you’re thinking you’ve got the murder weapon?”

  “If I was a betting man, I’d bet the farm.”

  “If you were a farmer . . .”

  “Right, whatever. We should have our answer by midmorning. Check the rifling in the barrel against the marks on the slug they pulled out of the girl and Vegas’s heart. I’ll keep you in the loop.”

  “Where’s Gallina?”

  “Picking up Tompkins and on his way over. Woke him out of a dead sleep. Never heard the guy so happy. I had to talk him down from phoning the mayor. He saw the wisdom of waiting until it was a done deal.” Nick clasped him on the shoulder. “This goes to you, Jack. You brought Ramirez into play. Good for you, my friend.”

  “Hmmmm,” was all Jack could say.

  Somehow it all seemed too convenient. The gun buried next to the house, along with the drugs. Why bury a small quantity of marijuana? And who was the guy who shot up the car?

  * * *

  Jack keyed the lock and stepped quietly into the loft. He all but collapsed onto the pullout sofa in his office, fully clothed, trying not to wake Jeannine. A wave of fatigue washed over him.

  “Did you get your man, Jack?” Jeannine called out from the other room.

  Jack found Jeannine’s voice oddly comforting. A throwback to the old days when he was a rookie undercover narcotics detective working a case. It didn’t matter what time of day or night he returned home. Jeannine always asked if he’d gotten his man.

  “We took down a bad guy,” he said. “The jury’s still out whether he’s the main man.”

  Jack rolled over onto his back, the only way he could sleep without pain. He lay there listening to the white noise rising off the occasional vehicle passing below, his troubled eyes opened wide.

  Twenty-one

  Day Six

  “There’s no winning in this kind of situation. No high-fives,” the mayor said with seemingly genuine respect. He stood rigidly at a makeshift podium that had been erected in front of the Sanchez house. The shrine’s candles had been replenished and lit to honor young Maria Sanchez. He was flanked by the chief of police, Lieutenant Gallina, and Detective Tompkins, who looked uncomfortable in front of the camera. “But I’m here to announce the apprehension and arrest of a suspect, one Joey Ramirez, who is now in custody, charged with the shooting death of Tomas Vegas and Maria Sanchez.

  “Young Maria Sanchez, a six-year-old innocent”—the mayor glanced over at the framed photograph of the girl to good effect—“who was gunned down playing in what was believed to be the safety of her own living room.

  “I would like to thank Lieutenant Gallina and Detective Tompkins for their uncompromising investigation, and the team of talented police officers who worked around the clock to bring this criminal to justice.”

  The mayor went on, using the airtime to cement his bid for reelection. He wisely gave more praise than he appropriated for himself, a smooth, studied politician.

  “You don’t get to be the mayor of the second-largest city in the country without political acumen,” Jack shouted toward the bathroom as he drained his coffee mug and poured a second cup.

  Jack looked back toward the flat screen just as one of the mayor’s aids stepped up to the mayor, whispered in his ear, and quickly departed.

  “We’ve just received news that the weapon found buried at the suspect’s home was the same weapon used to gun down both of our victims. The weapon was recovered along with fifteen pounds of high-grade marijuana.”

  The reporters started peppering the mayor with questions as Jack poured coffee into a second cup and handed it to Jeannine, who was wearing an exotic, semitranslucent floral bathrobe, hopefully not on his behalf. He was having enough trouble with a movie starlet.

  “I guess congratulations are in
order,” she said, taking the proffered mug. She blew over the scalding liquid, taking a careful sip. “Strong,” she said. She knew Jack wasn’t pleased with the outcome of the press conference.

  “Nick Aprea told me a 911 call came in reporting shots fired, giving a name, an address, the particular location of the house, and the possible whereabouts of drugs and weapons on the property. Pretty fucking neat,” he said with understated sarcasm. “And as far as I know, no one has come forward to claim the fifty-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer.”

  Jeannine reached over to pat Jack’s forearm, common enough during their years of marriage. But he found himself bracing and fought the instinct to pull away. The awkward moment was cut short by a loud banging on the front door. Jack put down his coffee, strode to the door, and yanked it open.

  Jeremy stood there, with wild hair, bloodshot eyes—in need of a shave and an attitude adjustment. He glared at Jack as he rushed past, shot daggers at Jeannine in her provocative bathrobe, discovered the unmade bed, and started to shake uncontrollably.

  And then, totally out of character, Jeremy threw a wild roundhouse punch in the general direction of Jack’s face.

  Jack stepped to the side, grabbed Jeremy’s wrist, and spun him around, twisting his arm behind his back, and subduing his wife’s heartbroken lover.

  “Really, Jeremy?” Jack asked incredulously.

  “Owww. I have tendonitis, Jack.”

  “Jack, you’re hurting him,” Jeannine screamed. “Stop!”

  “Are you going to calm down?” Jack asked, his words measured.

  “Me calm down?” Jeremy cried, his voice quavering. “Can’t a man get into a fight with the woman he loves without you trying to horn in?” And with that said, Jeremy’s aggression left the building. Jack lowered the man’s arm and went for his coffee cup, wondering what else the gods had in store for him today.

  Jeannine, tears in her eyes, walked toward her shaken boyfriend. “You said you loved me.”