[Deborah Jones 02.0] Dark Waters Read online

  ‘You sure this is where you want to go, lady?’

  ‘No, I’m not.’

  The driver turned round. ‘So, you getting out here or not? I’ve got a wife and two kids to feed, you understand?’

  Deborah checked the meter and handed him fifty dollars, opening her door.

  ‘You want me to hang around?’ the driver asked. ‘It’ll cost you another fifty, though. And the same again to get you back into Manhattan.’

  ‘How much to JFK?’

  “That’ll be fifty dollars as well.’

  ‘That’s fine. Wait here.’

  ‘Look, you sure this is the right address? Doesn’t look like anyone’s home.’

  ‘I won’t be long.’ Deborah’s stomach knotted as she stepped out of the cab. A metal sign for the building company carrying out the renovations rattled against the scaffolding.

  The warehouse door was partially concealed by the black netting. She pushed it open, edging her way into the pitch darkness. The netting caught in her hair like a thick spider’s web and she had to shake herself clear.

  Leaving the door ajar to let light in from the street, Deborah waited for her eyes to adjust to the blackness. The place smelled of damp wood and piss.

  ‘I’m looking for Richard Turner!’ she shouted, feeling faintly ridiculous. Her voice echoed around the old stone walls and the wooden beams.

  Pale moonlight seeped in through the windows. On the ground, a couple of yards away to her right, she spotted what looked like a used condom and a blood-smeared syringe. Against her better judgment she walked in, treading very carefully on the old wooden floors, glad that she was wearing a sturdy pair of Timberlands.

  Up ahead she could just make out some dusty wooden stairs and she headed slowly towards them.

  Red eyes were staring at her.

  Deborah froze. It was a rat. She stamped her foot and the rodent scurried off into the darkness. To her right, through the shattered panes of the windows, the cold night air blasted in. She could make out the Statue of Liberty and the reassuring Manhattan skyline, its warm lights twinkling in the distance. That’s where I should be, she thought, snuggled up in a nice hotel, not scouring some run-down old squat for a washed-out hippie.

  It was crazy. Her heart was racing as she looked up at the huge dark space at the top of the stairs.

  Was he up there?

  Deborah took the first step. And then the second. Higher and higher, climbing up to the first floor of the old warehouse, guided only by the faint light.

  At the top of the stairs she stopped as she spotted something on the ground. It was the tail end of a reefer.

  An archway led through to another cavernous room, even darker, its window space boarded up. She walked a few steps and stopped, her nose wrinkling at the stench of urine and excrement.

  Why on earth would Richard Turner use such a place when he had a basement apartment in the East Village?

  There was a noise from upstairs. Deborah stopped dead and listened. It was rock music, playing low. Resisting the inner voice that was telling her to get out of there, she advanced up the next flight of stairs.

  She recognized the song. ‘Keep on Chooglin” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. She remembered it from seeing John Fogerty in concert in San Francisco with Brett, in her first year at Berkeley.

  There was a whiff of old cigarettes and stale beer. Deborah detected the distinctive sickly-sweet smell of hash.

  ‘Richard?’ she said querulously, eyes screwed up in the gloom. She could vaguely make out what looked like an old mattress and a couple of beer cans.

  Her leg banged against something on the ground and she tripped and fell over, banging her head painfully on the floor. ‘Goddamn!’ she muttered as her hand went up to touch where it hurt. She felt warm blood.

  Deborah wiped her hands on her jeans.

  There was a silvery glint on the floor beside her. It was a metallic lighter, with ‘RT’ inscribed on it. She flicked it on and the light revealed a cavernous space.

  John Fogerty’s rasping vocals and twangy guitar filled the fetid air. In the flickering glow of the lighter she could see a man’s body, hanging by a thick brown leather belt. A red bandana covered his eyes.

  17

  The sun streamed through the blinds of the conference room when Sam walked in just before eight, drinking a coffee and holding that morning’s Herald. He felt emotionally drained through worry and lack of sleep.

  Harry Donovan, the paper’s Executive Editor, was already there, sitting grim-faced at one end of the huge polished table. Papers and documents were spread out.

  Sam took off his jacket and sat down, placing his coffee and the newspaper on the table. ‘You manage to get in touch with our esteemed publisher yet?’ He was referring to Juan Garcia who was still trekking in the Andes.

  Harry nodded and put on his glasses. ‘What’s the latest on Deborah?’

  ‘Fine. She was a little shaken up, as you can imagine, but she’s okay. We’ve got a lawyer with her.’

  ‘Is she still in New York?’

  ‘She was just over an hour ago. She’s hoping to fly back this afternoon.’

  Harry cleared his throat. ‘Sam, firstly I’d like to say I’m glad Deborah is safe and well. Must’ve been a helluva shock.’

  Sam smiled.

  ‘But I am, to put it mildly, mighty pissed off that I was kept in the dark about this.’

  ‘It was very last-minute.’

  ‘Listen to me, Sam, and listen good. I have got a right to know what is happening on this paper, any developments on any story, any time, day or night. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Of course. But things can happen‌—‌you know the drill.’

  ‘Don’t fuck with me, Sam. I mean, what the hell was Deborah doing in Brooklyn in the middle of the night?’

  ‘Chasing down a lead. That’s what we do.’

  Harry leaned back in his seat. ‘I don’t like to be made to look a fool. This happens again and we’re going to be having some serious words. You hear what I’m saying?’

  ‘Loud and clear.’

  ‘Okay. In future, even if it’s only an e-mail I want to know what is going on with our journalists. At all times. You understand?’

  Sam nodded but said nothing.

  Harry sighed. ‘And yeah, I managed to get hold of Juan.’

  ‘What did he have to say for himself?’

  ‘Would it surprise you to hear that he already knew? Apparently he received a call to his cellphone around five a.m. Eastern Time, from Hablo.’ He was referring to the editor of El Nuevo, the Herald’s Spanish-language paper on the sixth floor.

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘Now, I know you and Hablo don’t see eye to eye on many things,’ Harry said. ‘But hear me out. Hablo was the initial contact. He was woken by a long-time source around half past four this morning, to do with some big story about pro-Castro spies operating in Little Havana. But then this source goes on to mention how a Miami Herald journalist had just found a body in Brooklyn.’

  ‘Did he reveal the name of this source, or do we have to take it on trust?’

  ‘If you let me finish, Sam. Juan spoke to the source himself. And he turns out to be one of the most powerful men in the intelligence community. It looks as though Deborah may have inadvertently jeopardized a major investigation they were working on. National security—

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, but who is this guy?’

  ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘Juan didn’t confide in the Executive Editor of the Miami Herald the identity of this source? Come on, Harry.’

  ‘Basically, we are being asked to halt Deborah’s inquiries until their own investigation is concluded.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to Juan and we both feel that it would be best for all if—’

  ‘So what happened to our reputation for fearless journalism?’

  ‘We’ve got responsibilities as well.’

&n
bsp; ‘You’re not buying that crock of shit, are you?’

  ‘For the time being‌—‌yes. Look, Sam, I give you absolute freedom, and Juan gives me free rein as well. Now, I have backed you on every story we’ve printed, no matter the flak‌—‌am I right?’

  Sam nodded but stayed quiet.

  ‘The way I see it, we have a college kid‌—‌whose father is a friend of yours‌—‌who winds up dead. It’s tragic, but would it be too much to surmise that he might’ve taken an airboat for a midnight jaunt across the Everglades and it all went horribly wrong? Secondly, we have some old Sixties hippie, who may or may not be a hacker, who looks like he’s hanged himself.’

  ‘Who could be involved—’

  ‘Sam, whilst I’m very sad for the loss of your friend’s son—’

  ‘How long has Juan been with us? Six, seven months? All he knows is provincial newspapers. He’s out of his depth.’

  ‘He was headhunted quite specifically.’

  ‘He’s a fucking accountant. He doesn’t know news from shit.’

  ‘Juan Garcia is one of the top publishers in America.’

  Sam could feel his blood boiling. ‘Hablo has never forgiven me for outing his ties with the CIA, has he? That’s what all this comes down to, isn’t it?’

  ‘This isn’t personal, Sam. And don’t for one minute think it is.’

  But Sam knew that it was. Several years earlier the Miami Herald had revealed that three El Nuevo journalists‌—‌two staffers and a freelancer‌—‌were being paid by the American government to air anti-Castro propaganda. The journalists had been fired, but after a backlash from the Cuban community they were reinstated. It transpired later that the journalists had in fact been given the go-ahead by a former editor of El Nuevo, Ramon Munoz, to work for TV Marti and Radio Marti which had been founded by the American government as part of the US war of attrition against Castro. Sam had been outraged and had not hidden the fact.

  ‘So are you telling me to tell Deborah that her investigation is over?’

  ‘You got it in one, Sam.’

  Sam stormed out of the conference room and straight up to the sixth floor. Hablo was sitting in his office reading his paper, his feet on his desk.

  ‘You mind telling me why you didn’t feel the need to speak to me first?’ Sam snapped.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About this so-called intelligence source asking us to get Deborah to lay off.’

  Hablo gave a tight smile. ‘He wanted to speak to Juan confidentially.’

  ‘So who is this source of yours? I’d like to speak to him.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Sam, you know that’s not possible.’

  ‘You haven’t heard the last of this,’ Sam said and slammed the door behind him as he stormed out.

  He mulled things over for the next hour. Then he headed out to the airport to pickup Deborah. She looked tired and drawn.

  Sam hugged her tight and quickly relayed the conversation with Donovan. ‘Here’s the plan,’ he said. ‘I want the investigation to continue. Work from home. But not even Harry Donovan gets to know about this. Do you understand?’

  18

  It was dark when Harry Donovan sped across the Rickenbacker causeway and back to his sprawling waterfront home on South Mashta Drive, Key Biscayne. He poured himself a large Scotch and switched on CNN on the huge plasma TV. But he wasn’t in the mood for apocalyptic stories about famines and floods and bombings.

  He switched the set off and stared out of the floor-to-ceiling windows across the bay towards the dazzling skyline of Miami. It had been a hell of a day.

  Harry couldn’t concentrate on his work. He felt sick at the prospect of his comfortable existence being turned upside down. A twenty-year marriage to his pushy and fabulously wealthy real-estate heiress wife Jacqueline Simpson, his millionaire lifestyle and their great homes, would all be jeopardized. As would his job at the Herald‌—‌Jacqueline’s family’s large shareholding in the paper’s parent company would see to that. Only the unexpected intervention of Juan Garcia was in his favor.

  The phone rang and he jumped.

  ‘Listen to this, Harry,’ his wife said breathlessly. ‘You are not going to believe who’s staying in the next suite to me at the Carlyle!’

  ‘I don’t know…George Clooney?’

  ‘The British Foreign Secretary. He’s asked me to join him for dinner this evening.’

  ‘That’s terrific, honey,’ Harry said, feigning interest.

  ‘So, what kind of day have you had, Harry?’

  ‘Hectic.’

  • • •

  ‘Have you eaten yet?’

  ‘I can fix myself a sandwich later. I managed lunch with the mayor, so I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Oh.’ Jacqueline was a world-class networker. ‘How is he? Hope you apologized for the canapés we served last time? The caviar wasn’t even beluga. What’s he going to think?’

  ‘Diaz took it all in his stride as he always does. He wouldn’t know beluga from Belgium.’

  ‘Did you tell him I fired the caterer?’

  ‘Sure. Look, darling, I’ve got a stack of paperwork to finish‌—‌do you mind if I call you tomorrow morning?’

  ‘You can catch me at the hotel until noon if you need me, then I’ll be off to the airport. See you tomorrow night. Love you.’

  ‘Love you too, honey.’

  Harry hung up and finished his drink. He paced up and down, his footsteps on the marble floor echoing around the huge cathedral ceilings. He felt as if he was going out of his mind. He needed to talk to Rebecca. He phoned her. But it was his son who answered.

  ‘Hey, Andrew, how was school today?’

  ‘Gimme a break, Dad. Calculus.’

  Harry groaned.

  ‘It wasn’t so bad. Mr Laursen took us kayaking out on the bay this afternoon.’

  ‘Andrew, can you put your mother on?’

  ‘Sure, Dad. See you at the weekend.’

  A few moments later, his former PA came on the line. ‘Harry, what a lovely surprise.’

  ‘Rebecca, we need to talk.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Right now Face to face.’

  ‘Are you okay, Harry?’

  ‘Fifteen minutes‌—‌okay?’

  ‘I’ll put the coffee on.’

  Rebecca was wearing that great perfume again when he arrived at the nearby third-floor two-bedroom condo on Ocean Park Drive that he’d found for them. She pecked him on the cheek and drew him quickly inside. Andrew gave him a high five and they made small talk about his school for a few minutes before Harry was shown into the kitchen.

  ‘So,’ Rebecca said, handing him a mug of strong coffee, ‘what’s the big hurry? You decided to leave your wife at long last?’

  Harry felt his cheeks flush. ‘Not quite. Something a bit more…delicate.’

  Rebecca shrugged.

  Reaching into his pocket, Harry brought out the pictures taken on Crandon Beach.

  Rebecca shut the kitchen door for privacy ‘What the hell is going on?’

  ‘I’m being blackmailed to stop a bona fide investigation into suspicious deaths. We need to go to the cops. I just wanted you to know where we stand before I make the call.’

  Rebecca bit her lower lip. ‘Hang on a minute, Harry If you go to the cops you risk everything. Jacqueline will freak out. Then she’ll divorce you, and probably enforce the pre-nup.’

  ‘I’m not interested in her money.’

  ‘I don’t have that luxury. We’ve got to think of Andrew. My salary at the Ritz-Carlton might be okay, but it’s not enough to pay for this place.’

  ‘I can take care of everything.’

  ‘Harry we both know that it’s her money that really pays for this condo, her money that pays for Andrew’s school fees, her money that allows us to take nice vacations.’

  ‘Look, as it stands, I’ve managed to get the investigation put on hold. But we can’t allow this creep to get away with this.’

 
‘Wouldn’t it be smarter to let this blow over?’

  ‘Rebecca, I can’t believe what you’re saying. We need to bite the bullet here.’

  ‘So you’ll lose your job, you’ll be thrown out of that fancy waterfront house, we might lose this place. Do you really want to risk all that? You might not find another job for months, maybe more. What do we do in the meantime? Pray?’

  ‘I have savings. Investments.’

  ‘Gimme a break. Harry, the investigation’s over. You said so yourself. What have you got to worry about?’

  ‘My conscience.’

  ‘Just think for a moment. How do you think the kids at school are going to react when our story is plastered all over the papers? Reporters will be camped outside the gatehouse. I don’t want that. Do you? The police will call all their favorite crime reporters with the full gory details.’

  ‘I know some people. Not cops, but people that could help us.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Feds, amongst others. If I speak to them, hopefully they’ll agree to handle this discreetly.’

  Rebecca ran a hand through her long luscious chestnut-brown hair. ‘And if they don’t?’

  ‘I think we need to be strong. I think it’s time to call this guy’s bluff.’

  ‘Call his bluff? You cannot be serious! You’d destroy everything we have.’

  ‘So what do you suggest in the meantime?’

  ‘Trust me. It’ll blow over. You’ll see.’

  19

  The following night, under the harsh floodlights of Palmer Park, Deborah and the rest of the girls from the Overtown Women’s Soccer Team were running energy-sapping laps on the rock-hard ground. The team, made up mostly of former vice girls, junkies and other hard-luck stories who hailed from Miami’s impoverished black inner city, had acted as a focal point for the women concerned since the club had been formed five years earlier.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a sad-looking group of fat-assed women in all my goddamn life,’ Faith shouted from the sidelines. ‘What the hell is the matter with you? Pick it up, girls, and show old Faith that you ain’t just killing time. I want you to suck up all the pain‌—‌and that includes you, Deborah Jones. Don’t think I don’t notice you slacking. Come on, now‌—‌let’s get it going.’