Black Joint Point

35

‘We need to talk,’ Whit said. Lucy lay across Patch’s fat leather couch, a cool cloth on her forehead, a bottle of aspirin and an opened can of ginger ale on the floor.

‘Okay.’ She didn’t open her eyes.

‘About you and Stoney Vaughn.’

She didn’t open her eyes, but she folded her hands across her stomach.

‘Lucy, Jesus, look at me.’

She opened her eyes, turned her head.

‘You know him.’ He kept his voice steady.

‘Yeah.’

‘You knew Stoney was hiding at a fishing cottage.’

A long silence. ‘Did he turn himself in?’

‘No. Gooch has him.’

Now she sat up. ‘Has him?’

‘Stashed somewhere,’ he said. ‘Gooch grabbed him. He’s using him to get at the guy who killed Patch and Thuy. Gooch found him by following you.’

‘Shit,’ Lucy said.

‘This Alex guy. Do you know him, know his real name?’ She hesitated and Whit said quietly, ‘Answer me, Lucy, right now.’ Christ, who are you? he thought.

She raised her chin. ‘Don’t speak to me that way.’

‘You knew who killed Patch. And you said nothing.’

‘No, baby, I didn’t know. Not when it happened. I found out later.’

‘You sure know how to keep a secret,’ he said. ‘That’s a new one.’

‘I did it to protect you,’ she said. Now she tossed the washcloth on the floor.

‘Protect me. You’re one great shield, Lucy. You’ve just destroyed my career. Everything your cousin said about me in the paper today is going to be considered holy writ. You lied to me, to the police.’ Whit stopped, sat down. ‘Forget being a judge. I could care less. You’ve destroyed us. We’re done. That’s a thousand times worse.’

She reached for him; he moved away from her, as though her touch might scald. ‘I said nothing because I didn’t know for sure. And I knew if I came forward I’d lose you.’

‘You’ve lost me. Jesus, you thought I’d stay with you?’

‘So much for true love.’ Her jaw quivered but her eyes were dry. ‘I love you, Whit. That’s why I did this. Stoney came to me when Patch wouldn’t sell the land to him. Said he’d buy my land. I didn’t even know about the treasure he wanted to move. But before the dig, he told me. Wanted me to be sure Patch was out of town. I was scared he’d do something to me if I said anything.’

‘Right.’

‘I gave Thuy and Patch that trip to Port Aransas to get them gone. Baby, I didn’t know he’d changed his will. I swear. I swear, Whitman.’

‘This isn’t a courtroom.’

‘Yes, it is. It’s the court of Whit and you’re judge, jury, and executioner.’

‘Who killed them?’

She swallowed. ‘Stoney says Alex.’

‘Jimmy Bird?’

‘Alex, probably.’

‘The coins in Jimmy’s pocket?’

‘They’re not Patch’s. I guess they’re from the dig. I guess Jimmy swiped them and Alex didn’t know it.’

‘Where is Alex?’

‘Stoney… he told me where he was hiding. I went to the cottage with Patch’s gun. Ready to kill him for what he’d done. But I couldn’t just shoot him, not even him, in cold blood. He asked me to shoot Alex. Alex knows about you, was there when you came to Stoney’s house. I followed Alex to the Surfside Motel. He’s staying there, at least he was.’ She stared at him. ‘I thought of killing him. Make it look like a random shooting. I even knocked on his door in the night, just shoot him and run. Nothing to connect me with him. Because he might hurt you. But I chickened out. I’m… scared.’

He saw she was: rough, tough Lucy, breaking under the weight. He wanted to hold her, wanted to scream at her. His chest felt like it might explode. ‘Where is this gun?’

‘In my purse.’

He went to the purse, pulled out the gun with a tissue, checked the bullets, put on the safety, stuck it into the back of his pants.

‘You running around with a gun.’ He shook his head. ‘Is there anything else I should know, Lucy?’

‘I love you.’

He covered his eyes with his hands.

‘I love you, too. I did… why did you do this?’

‘I thought I was doing the right thing.’

‘For you. Screw Patch. Screw Thuy.’

‘If I turned on Stoney, I was afraid of what would happen to you.’ She crossed her arms. Tell me something, Whit, you being all high and mighty. You say Gooch grabbed Stoney. Have you called the police?’

‘No. I have reason to think Stoney went voluntarily with him.’

‘Reason to think.’ Her voice went low, angry, ‘Bullshit. Stoney wouldn’t. Don’t tell me that lunatic Gooch gets a free pass and I don’t?’

‘This isn’t a double standard.’

‘The hell it’s not. You lecture me, you tell me that we’re done, that loving each other doesn’t make a fucking difference, but Gooch commits a kidnapping and you don’t turn his ass in?’

‘Fine. I’ll call the police right now.’ He picked up the phone. ‘I’ll tell them about you, too. This’ll make David Power’s day for the next year. Then I’ll resign and-’

She grabbed the phone from his hand. ‘Listen. I did this because I needed to make a lot of money, fast. I got debts, Whit, a lot of them. I didn’t want you to know-’

‘Just like David said.’

‘I didn’t want to beg for help, but I didn’t know all this would happen. I swear. Please.’ She put the phone back in its cradle; he let her. ‘Okay. Stoney might have gone with Gooch voluntarily. Stoney’s scared shitless of Alex. I don’t want Gooch in trouble just because you’re mad at me.’

‘Mad at you. The understatement of the year. Mad doesn’t quite cover what I feel.’

She swallowed, reached for him again. He stepped away and a hard, hurt light came into her eyes.

‘Where is this treasure, Lucy?’

‘Stoney had it, but he said Alex took it from him. Most of it is coins.’

‘Most of it?’

‘There’s a big emerald-’

‘The Devil’s Eye.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll make a deal with you-’

‘No deals.’

‘Let me finish my sentence, please.’ She sat down. ‘Let’s say Gooch goes after Alex. But Gooch doesn’t win. Maybe Alex comes after you or me. I don’t know if he knows about me or not.’

‘I’m thinking he doesn’t. Otherwise you would be dead.’

‘Okay,’ she said, a little shudder in her voice. ‘So Alex doesn’t know about me. I know where he’s at. We just call the police with an anonymous tip about Alex. Just say he killed Patch and Thuy and Jimmy. Give them the room number.’

‘And what, hope he’s got evidence hanging around?’

‘Maybe he does. Maybe he can be tied back to the crime scenes. But it takes him out. Stoney won’t say anything if Gooch has saved him from Alex. Then we’re home free.’

‘Home free. What about Patch and Thuy?’

‘Alex killed them,’ she said. ‘He’s the one who pays.’

‘It works until Alex points at Stoney, and Stoney points at you,’ Whit said. ‘I don’t care about free and clear. And pardon me if I don’t believe Stoney Vaughn. He could have killed them – you see that?’

‘He’s not lying.’

‘Because why, Lucy? You sense his aura?’ His voice rose.

‘That’s exactly why I wanted to sell the land,’ she said. ‘Because you sneer at me. You think running a psychic hotline is tacky, borderline dishonest. Even when I’m just trying to help people. I’m never quite good enough for you, am I?’

‘I loved you like no one else, Lucy, and it still wasn’t enough for you. Your self-esteem problem is in your head, not mine.’

Lucy opened and closed her mouth. She went and sat on the couch. ‘So go. Turn me in. I don’t care.’

He resisted the urge to hold her, to make her care again. His throat ached, his hands trembled. It couldn’t be over but it was. If you love her, truly, you forgive her, right? He steadied his voice. ‘Right now we need to find Stoney and Gooch.’

‘What about turning me in? Isn’t that at the top of your to-do list?’

‘I’m giving you a chance to cooperate, Lucy. Where is this cottage Stoney hid out at?’

‘Why?’

‘Because I want to see it. I want to see if there’s a sign of struggle. If Gooch really kidnapped him, then my path is clear. Will you show me?’

‘Yes,’ she said, and he saw the hope flash in her eyes.

It had taken guts to hang up, but Alex did it as soon as he heard Guchinski’s voice and figured out who other than Stoney would be calling him. Let Gooch wait.

He stayed in his car, parked a bit down the highway from the turnoff to Black Jack Point. The phone rang again. Alex clicked it on.

‘Do you want to deal or not, asshole?’ Gooch again.

‘I’m busy at the moment. Give me a number to call you back on.’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Then you call me back in ten minutes, Mr Guchinski.’ And clicked off. Let him sweat that Alex knew his name.

But deal? How the hell was he supposed to deal? The only leverage he had left was the treasure and maybe Gooch didn’t care about that. What the hell did Gooch want? The treasure? In exchange for Stoney? Fat chance.

Just go. Go get the stash, rent a truck, get the hell away from the coast, feel out your buyers, get the money, go get your dad. Go to that big blue sky in Costa Rica, sit on the beach, pretend he’s not dying for a while. Forget the emerald.

But no emerald – the biggest prize, the one worth millions in one fell swoop after he made carefully placed calls to Bogota – and all these loose ends. Helen. Guchinski. That judge. And Stoney, insufferable Stoney, getting the better of him. Claudia. Ben. And he’d spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder? No way. He rubbed his face and when he brought his hands down headlights flashed in his mirror, a car turning and heading south. Whit Mosley’s Explorer.

If you don’t have leverage, grab it and take it. Alex shifted into gear and tore out after them.

The cottage was dark, no lights spilling along the beach or along the small private road. The sun retreated below the horizon. Whit kept his headlights pointed at the cottage’s small door. It was closed.

‘Not hanging off its hinges,’ Lucy said. ‘That’s a good sign.’

Whit said nothing.

‘So I’m getting the silent treatment?’

‘No. I just have nothing to say. Stay here.’ He got out of the car, she followed. He tried the door. It opened. He flicked on the lights.

The room was a mess.

‘Not good,’ she said.

‘No. It’s not from a fight. It’s been searched. Or robbed.’

‘Isn’t this trespassing? Oops, you broke a law.’

‘Lucy, shut up.’

‘Do you think I don’t have guilt that’s eating me alive? But I didn’t kill them. I tried to protect them.’

‘I’m not blaming you for their deaths. Although it seems to me you could have warned Patch about them stealing the treasure off his land.’

She shook her head. ‘I hope to God you’re never afraid.’

‘Danny Laffite. Is he dead? Did Stoney or this Alex kill him?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘He blamed Stoney for a murder and for stealing an antique journal from him. Do you know where that’s at?’

‘No.’

‘I just can’t figure… Stoney didn’t know his brother and Claudia were going to be kidnapped. And that he would need to go hide himself. That old journal’s the key to everything, if he wanted to rebury the treasure, right? It validates that Jean Laffite was involved, makes the treasure more valuable for Stoney’s purposes.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So he has to pick a place to hide. Quickly. Why not where he had already hidden what was of great value to him? Alex doesn’t give a crap about the journal. Stoney has access and no one would suspect him putting it here. His house, yeah, maybe a safe-deposit box. But not a client’s house. Maybe the journal is what someone was looking for.’ Alex? Maybe, to close a loose end. Gooch? No. Or Danny Laffite? How?

‘Or maybe Alex was looking for the Eye. That’s what Alex wants.’ She straightened a couch cushion. ‘It’s not here, though. I hid it well, Whit. You’d be proud of me.’

He turned to stare at her. ‘You have the emerald?’

‘Stoney gave it to me for safekeeping.’ Her tone went defiant.

‘Tell me where it is.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It was on Patch’s private property. They stole it. Now it’s mine again. According to his will it and the rest of the treasure should have been mine all along. Stoney was never quite smart enough to look at it from that angle.’ She gave him a smile, but not a warm one. ‘So the Eye’s my property and I don’t have to tell you a goddamned thing about it.’

‘I swear I don’t know you.’ He shook his head.

‘But you don’t want to know me, Whit. We’re finished. You don’t love me, so why shouldn’t I say whatever crosses my mind? Do you want to look for this journal or do you want to call the police and turn in Gooch?’

‘Let’s look for the journal.’

‘You and your double standard.’

He didn’t argue with her and they began to comb through the house. The cottage was small but elaborate and Whit went upstairs to look through the two bedrooms. They were small but had been searched thoroughly and he decided this was pointless. If anything was to have been found, it had been taken already.

He had just opened a closet door when he heard Lucy cry out, ‘No-’

‘Lucy?’ he called.

No answer for a moment, then a crash and she screamed, ‘Whit!’ Another crash. Silence.

Whit moved quietly, down the stairs, pulling Patch’s old gun he’d taken from Lucy’s purse, cocking it, stopping just above the corner where the stairs met the kitchen.

‘Judge Mosley?’ A man’s voice called. Gentle, calm. ‘You need to step down with your hands up.’

‘I’m armed,’ Whit called. ‘And if you hurt her, I’ll kill you.’

The answer was a single shot.

Whit froze.

‘She’s unconscious,’ the voice called, ‘So she didn’t feel that. But I just shot off a couple of fingers on her left hand. You have five seconds to come out. Moving the gun to her forehead now-’

‘No!’ Whit stepped out of the stairwell, hands up, gun held between forefinger and thumb.

A man knelt by Lucy, a 9mm Glock in his hand, aimed squarely at Whit. He was rangy, tall, hair dyed cheap blond, round wire-rim glasses. He looked like a professor turned punk rocker.

‘Drop it,’ the man said.

Whit did.

‘On your knees, hands on your head.’

Whit obeyed. He could see Lucy’s hand… all five fingers, there, not shot.

‘I lied,’ Alex Black said. ‘I really hate messes.’