Dangerous Ends Page 3

  The grandfather clock in the living room announced the seconds, each one dribbling out like drops of water from a broken faucet. The seconds became a minute. Diego let out an exhausted sigh and started to stand up.

  That was when the bullets came.

  The gunfire tore into his coat and splintered the front door, knocking the coatrack onto the floor. Diego stayed down. On his belly now, he crawled further into the house, his hands clawing into the carpet as he dragged himself away from the doorway. He felt his nails bending back and breaking. A bullet whizzed by his head.

  The hardwood floor signaled that he was out of the front foyer and in the living room—which was open and not any more secure. The gunfire had stalled once the coatrack fell. Maybe they thought he was dead? Diego waited, praying he would hear the peel of tires as his assassins sped off.

  Instead, he heard voices—and they were getting louder. Closer.

  He got up and ran. He could hear the footsteps. He wasn’t sure how many there were, but they were coming fast.

  He cut through the kitchen, which was long and spacious. Diego hated his house now. He hated the cluttered dining room and he hated the eat-in kitchen that had too many chairs. He heard the men behind him—they were in the house now. He heard a bullet being fired into his ceiling.

  The back door of the house was to the left of the kitchen and opened up to the backyard and the main driveway. He saw right away that his car would be useless—the rims of the wheels were touching the pavement, the tires slashed and flat. He could keep running, but that would only give him a minute or two at best.

  The car horn came in a quick burst, the kind of noise you’d shrug off if you heard it on the street any day, like a gust of wind rustling the trees. Diego looked up to see a dark blue Chevy cruising down his street. Pepe Cardenas, his friend and neighbor, was driving. Diego looked back at his front door and saw it was still open. He couldn’t hear the men anymore, but that didn’t mean they weren’t behind him.

  “What the fuck are you waiting for, cabron?” Pepe said, his hand motioning for Diego to cut through the driveway and get in.

  Diego ran around the car to the passenger side, slamming the door behind him.

  “You are in serious trouble, Diego—” Pepe started to say as his body lurched forward. Diego saw Pepe’s skull burst open from a gunshot, blood and brains and bone spreading onto the steering wheel and windshield like a spilled plate of beef stew. The car continued to move forward. Diego let out a pained scream. He tried to duck down, tried to avoid the second and third shot that shattered the back and side windows. He could feel the wetness in his eyes as he positioned himself on top of his dead friend, Pepe’s head resting on his shoulder, what was left of it dripping and sliding over Diego’s white dress shirt. He tried to get solid footing but he couldn’t, trying to stay low and evade the killers but also keep the car moving.

  “Fuck, Pepe, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Diego said. He couldn’t think.

  He slammed his right foot down onto the gas, feeling Pepe’s own foot under his. It sent the car hurtling forward. The gunshots continued, but seemed farther away. Diego didn’t dare look back. He positioned himself on top of Pepe, sitting on his lap, his hands on the steering wheel, sticky with blood and brain matter. The radio was still on. Elena Burke’s smoky, soft voice sang about loves of loves, blood of her soul, and sharing a breath with someone she cared for. Diego tried to keep his eyes open, tried to look through the blood and tears, and focus on the darkened streets of Havana—and making a path toward freedom.

  PETE LEANED back in his chair and felt the sugar-heavy, caffeine-loaded cafecito kick in. It’d been two days since their visit to Varela—and Pete was feeling anxious. He had been pestering Kathy to meet up and discuss the case, but she was mired in freelance writing for the Times.

  Pete, on the other hand, had lots of free time. His other cases had dried up. His work as a private detective was rarely consistent. The money he scraped together during the busy spells was rarely enough to pay the rent and the other bills that came with adulthood.

  Pete’s office was a cramped, closet-like space in the back of the Book Bin. It was also free, a detail not lost on Pete. When things got tight, as they often did, Pete made a few extra bucks riding the register at the bookstore. Most of the time, that entailed just sitting around and looking at old books.

  The International Café was a small restaurant down the street from the Book Bin. It was a tiny, home-style Cuban joint—big portions, no frills. The ropa vieja was flavorful, the staff was friendly, and the music took him back to the days he’d sit in his father’s kitchen and watch him prepare a homemade meal of vaca frita, arroz con pollo, or bistec empanizado.

  The slow week had allowed Pete to spend most of his days reading whatever he could find on Varela. The case had spawned a number of trashy, cash-grab “true crime” books after the verdict came down—but none of them did more than scratch the surface, taking the obvious route and portraying Varela as a philandering, druggie psychotic waiting for the right moment to go postal on his wife.

  Maybe it was that simple, Pete thought as he closed the casefile he’d been reading and slipped it into his backpack, slung over his chair. He motioned to the waitress for his check.

  Pete didn’t pay any mind to the jingle of the door chimes. The International Café was always busy.

  “Don’t you have work to do?”

  Pete looked up. An older man in a worn suit and tie stood before him. He was pushing sixty but looked fit, if a little tired.

  “Don’t you?” Pete said, smiling. The man sat down across from him and extended his hand. Pete shook it.

  “Robert Harras,” Pete said. “What the hell have you been up to?”

  “Trying to enjoy my enforced retirement,” Harras said. He looked around until he found a waitress and, with a nod, let her know he wanted a menu.

  “I don’t get out here enough,” he said. “Might as well eat something. Though my doctor is gonna kill me if she finds out.”

  Robert Harras had been an FBI agent for twenty years. Harras and Pete had been on opposing sides of the same investigation a year ago—hunting down a serial killer named Julian Finch. Harras and his partner, Raul Aguilera, were running the official side of things while Pete ran his own, independent case. When Pete and Kathy discovered Harras’s partner was actually working in tandem with the killer, their two lanes came crashing together—and ended with Finch and Aguilera dead and Harras severely wounded.

  Pete and Harras had spent most of that investigation at odds—the grizzled agent trying to fend off the pesky, wannabe private detective and his reporter friend. Pete’s relationship with Harras was not what one would consider low key.

  Harras placed his elbows on the table and scratched at his gray beard. “We need to talk.”

  “Okay, let’s talk.”

  “You’re working for Varela, right?” Harras said.

  “Is this when you warn me that I might be getting into something dangerous?” Pete said. “We’ve been through this before.”

  Harras smirked. “It’s not like that,” he said. “I’m working for him too. In fact, we’re partners on this.”

  “What?”

  “It’s not what I wanted exactly either,” he said. “But Varela and I go back. Our cases overlapped a lot years ago. We had to run traffic between the Bureau and Miami PD pretty often. When he heard his daughter had hired you two, he wanted someone with a…more seasoned touch on the team.”

  “You’re kidding,” Pete said.

  “I’m not kidding,” Harras said. “Look, I get this is your thing. You and Kathy are the point people on this. But Varela brought me on as a consultant to help the investigation. I have a lot I can contribute to this if you’ll let me. I have contacts. I have years of experience. I may be retired, but I’m not completely out of the loop. I hear things.”

  Harras raised his hands in mock surrender. “You don’t have to listen to anything I say here,” he said
. “But I had to find you and say it.”

  “Well, you found me,” Pete said. “We just met with Varela and he didn’t mention anything about this. And I’m not keen on going back to where we were last time—with you treating me like a pain in your ass while I end up solving your case for you.”

  Disappointment flickered across Harras’s face.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “This case you’re on—Varela. It’s not as simple as he probably wants you to believe.”

  “I don’t really know what he wants me to believe,” Pete said. “Do you?”

  “It’s not just about what he did or didn’t do,” Harras said. “There are layers.”

  “Layers, huh?” Pete said.

  Before Harras could respond, the waitress approached their table. She set down some utensils and a water in front of the retired detective. In fluent—if a bit stilted—Spanish, Harras ordered a side of black beans and rice and an avocado salad.

  “That’s pretty healthy,” Pete said.

  “Tell me about it,” Harras said. He tapped his heart. “Gotta keep this thing going for as long as I can.”

  Harras looked around, checking to see who was seated nearby. Satisfied, he leaned in toward Pete.

  “I knew one of the first cops to respond to the Varela scene—guy named Tino Vigil,” he said. “And I know on good authority it was a mess.”

  “How so?” Pete said. “And where’s this Vigil guy? Can I—we talk to him?”

  “Ate his gun a few years back,” Harras said. “Sad case. He was part of a crew with Varela and his partner, Posada, and another kid, Graydon Smith—young guns of the Miami PD narcotics squad. Look at them now, huh? Smith was also one of the first officers to arrive at the Varela home. It was chaos.

  “The scene wasn’t just a mess as in blood everywhere—it was completely contaminated,” Harras said. “Things were not the way they should be if what they said happened really did happen.”

  He took a long sip of water.

  “From what Vigil told me, he had just made it to detective, so he wasn’t the lead on the case. And he got there late. Guessing you’ve heard about the Ledesma lady?”

  “The lady in the orange dress?”

  “Yeah, her,” he said. “Vigil was the cop who saw her first. According to him, he reported it to his supervisor on the scene. They didn’t do much.”

  “Why not?” Pete said. “I don’t understand—why are you coming into this now? Were you investigating the case before?”

  “Not officially, but I was poking around. I’m not like regular people. I don’t have hobbies. I don’t take vacations. I don’t have a family. So when a big story breaks around here, I tend to get curious. And the Varela case made me very curious. Now, back then, Varela thought he had a handle on it. He didn’t need my help. He had a hotshot young attorney and everything was going to be fine. Not so much, as you already know.

  “So here I am, sitting around my condo, going through my old case notes—it gets the gears turning. Then I hear you and Kathy are working on this. Next thing I know, I’m getting a reluctant call from Varela’s daughter, asking me to join the team. I figured it’d be better to touch base with you directly instead of both of you being blindsided the next time you talk to your boss. Our boss. I also figured you may want some historical perspective from an old law enforcement guy who has a few decades more experience than you in general, and at least a few years more hands-on knowledge of this case in particular.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Pete said. He was trying to hold back his anger. He wasn’t sure if he was more upset at not being told Harras was coming aboard or the fact that, deep down, he agreed with the move. “So you talked to this Vigil guy before he offed himself? What happened?”

  “I interviewed him a few times, informally,” Harras said. “He seemed scared to report anything and had bigger problems to deal with. I took some notes down and filed them away until recently.

  “One thing he did tell me was that the crime scene was a shitshow, like I told you. This guy, Varela, he was a gold-star kind of cop. Not a blemish on his record. The entire department was caught with their dicks in their hands. They came across like amateurs. Varela had a lot of friends. You’ve probably met a few already.”

  “Nope,” Pete said.

  “You’ve read the discovery files, right?” Harras asked.

  Pete didn’t respond. He was playing his cards close to the vest. But the truth was, he hadn’t even gotten to the files yet. He felt amateurish, dueling with the older agent.

  “Okay, I get it,” Harras said. “I can’t blame you. It’s been months and I show up again, sniffing around your case. But you know me. Things are different than when we first dealt with each other. I’m retired. The only horse I have in this race is my own. Varela brought me into this to be me, not to be competition for you and your pal, Bentley. I don’t have the energy to chase this down alone. But I can help you.

  “I knew Vigil. I knew Varela, Posada, Smith—everyone. I worked my cases down here while they worked theirs. And I know you’re getting into something more complicated than interviewing old witnesses. I’m not just crashing your party to make your life more difficult.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. That’s all I can do at this point,” Pete said. “But yeah, let’s talk then. Why’d Vigil eat his gun?”

  “I’m not sure,” Harras said, his voice lower. “I knew he was going through some stuff, but it was still a surprise. He’d seemed fine—well, fine enough—the last time I’d seen him. Few weeks before.”

  “Who should I have met with already?” Pete said.

  The waitress brought Harras his food and he leaned back as she placed the plates in front of him.

  Harras took a few quick bites of his salad. He used his fork like a spear, yanking the food into his mouth. He talked between bites of lettuce and avocado.

  “We need to start with Posada,” Harras said. “Like I told you, he’s been buddies with Varela since they were rookies. They were partners for a long time, in narcotics. Varela was the golden boy and Posada was his sidekick. Not as golden, but not as corrupt as some of the cops on the force back then. The other amigo, Smith, is a guy you want to talk to as well. Posada’s protégé, boot-licker.”

  “Weren’t they all corrupt?” Pete blurted out.

  “Everyone except your dad, right?”

  Pete bristled at the comment, but understood where Harras was coming from. Though his father had spent decades as a cop and was seen by many as a shining example of the best the department could offer, Pete had experienced the corruption and dirty dealings of the Miami Police Department firsthand—even from his father’s old partner.

  “What else?” Pete said.

  Harras took a big forkful of rice and beans. A bit of black bean sauce trickled down the side of his chin for a second before he caught it with his napkin.

  “I’m done talking,” Harras said. “Now we’re going to enter the show-and-tell part of my presentation, partner.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Got anywhere you need to be today?”

  “I’ve got plans in the evening,” Pete said.

  “This won’t take long,” Harras said. “Want to check out the crime scene?”

  “What?” Pete said. “How would we get access?”

  Harras pulled out a pair of silver keys from his jacket pocket and jingled them.

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “Consider this your first day of class. Finish your café and let’s go.”

  HARRAS HAD offered to drive, but Pete decided to follow in his own car. He needed some time to himself, to mull over what had just happened. He thought about calling Kathy, but decided to wait until he learned as much as he could from the older detective. He wasn’t averse to working with the man, but while they’d ended up as allies during their last case together, it hadn’t been an easy road. Harras was no-frills, old school, and results-oriented. He’d made it clear he wasn’t inte
rested in Pete’s instinctual and sometimes impulse-driven method of detection. In a way, Harras reminded Pete of his father, minus a few layers of polish. If he could swallow his pride long enough and keep Kathy’s temper in check, they might learn a few things from the guy.

  Harras’s black Escalade cruised down Bird Road, past the dilapidated Bird Bowl and a few Cuban chain groceries—Sedano’s, Varadero—before making a left on 107th Avenue. After about ten minutes, Harras took a right on Sunset Drive. The houses they passed became bigger, newer, and cleaner. The further west they drove, the more cookie cutter the scenery became. Targets. Best Buys. Walgreens and Wal-Marts surrounded by TGI Fridays and Olive Gardens. Miami was a growing city—more like a hive of smaller, more distinct cities than one large metropolis—that didn’t stop expanding. Even West Kendall, the area Pete now found himself driving through, wasn’t the fringe anymore. No, that came further south, past Homestead and further west, where the Redlands kept growing, expanding and gentrifying too. The thing about Miami was, no matter how bad things got downtown or in the city’s poorest or most concentrated areas, there’d always be people willing to move there—to enjoy the weather, the food, and the culture. Even if it meant a longer drive and less time spent in the actual “city.” A tropical paradise spread over the bottom of the state.

  They drove past 127th Avenue and Harras made a quick right onto 127th Place—a small, curving street that led them into a collection of identical brown and beige townhouses. Harras pulled into the third one, taking up half the driveway. Pete pulled in next to him.

  The house seemed well kept. The lawn was mowed, the small garden near the walkway that led to the front door looked tended to. Pete doubted they’d learn anything from the crime scene—too much time had passed.