The Last Witness

[THREE]

Little Palm Island, Florida

Monday, November 17, 7:10 A.M.

“Okay, it looks like we’re finally all here again in one piece,” Matt Payne said, looking at the laptop screen and everyone’s images that were no longer pixelated.

Payne’s screen was divided into quarters, four big boxes with individual images, all live feeds, of Jason Washington, Tony Harris, Kerry Rapier, and Matt.

“Sorry for that electronic burp, gentlemen,” Corporal Kerry Rapier said, from his bottom left corner box.

Matt’s image was in the bottom right box. He carefully had adjusted the laptop so that the pinhole camera centered in the upper lip of the screen captured him from the chest-just above the CONCH REPUBLIC CLUB FED stencil-up over his head. Behind him was nothing but black.

Twenty minutes earlier, right after getting off the telephone with Jim Byrth, Matt had had what he considered one of his better ideas of the already long morning.

He had gone down to the master stateroom and grabbed one of the black pillowcases off the big bed. He hung it from the ceiling of the galley so that it would mask anything behind him. That way there would be no distractions in the background-sunrise causing glare, for example, or someone walking past on the dock-to interrupt their videoconference.

Perhaps more importantly, it would also have the added benefit of saving Matt from getting his chops busted about what a tough life it must be yachting in paradise.

What they don’t know, or see, won’t hurt them. . or me.

The top left box with the image of Jason Washington showed him wearing a crisp white dress shirt with a nice blue necktie. Behind him on the wall were framed photographs of Washington with his wife and ones with other police officers, clearly indicating to everyone that he was sitting at his desk in his office in Homicide.

Tony Harris also had on a shirt and tie and navy blazer-all somewhat rumpled. He, too, was in his Homicide office, and holding a heavy china coffee mug just to the side of his head.

Matt had immediately recognized the mug. After tiring of trying to find who was swiping his personal plain coffee mugs in the office, he recently had had a dozen cheap ones custom printed with a representation of his Philadelphia Police Department Badge 471 on one side and, opposite that, also in gold, the words STOLEN FROM THE DESK OF HOMICIDE SGT M.M. PAYNE.

He had been convinced that that would stop his cup from disappearing.

He had been wrong.

Kerry Rapier, wearing his police uniform blue shirt with its three blue chevrons on the sleeves, was at the command console in the Executive Command Center. He also held what he called “a Wyatt Earp of the Main Line Collectible,” which when word of that got around only had served to accelerate the cups’ disappearance.

And they’re holding them up now to quietly taunt me.

“Jason,” Payne said, mock-serious, “when we’re finished here, be aware that I intend to be filing charges of petty theft.”

Washington, who of course had the same images of everyone on his screen, in his sonorous voice intoned, “To what might you be referring, Matthew?”

Then he raised to his lips a “collectible” and took a sip.

Tony and Kerry chuckled.

Matt shook his head and snorted. But he was smiling.

Washington then said, his tone unmistakably serious, “I understand that Kerry had the foresight earlier to send you the files?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve gone over them. A couple times.”

“That then makes you our set of fresh eyes. Anything in them jump out at you?”

Matt shook his head.

“Only that it’s remarkable how little there is. Except for the Gonzalez girl being executed in an unusual fashion, there’s next to nothing right now to go on.”

“Unfortunately that appears to be the case,” Washington said, nodding. “Tony, would you share what else we have?”

Harris grunted. “There’s not a helluva lot to add, Matt. We were able to trace the anonymous text that Maggie sent back to the IP address of the computer she used. It was in an Internet cafe outside of Washington, D.C.”

“So, assuming she sent it, she’s no longer in Philadelphia,” Payne said.

“It seemed a hot lead,” Tony went on, “but when I interviewed the manager he said I was describing half the women who came in there. He did say he never noticed any female customer being there with someone who may have been holding her against her will.”

“And there’s no sense in hunting prints on the computer,” Payne said.

Matt saw Jason nodding as Tony said, “Right. Even if we were able to find hers among-what? dozens? hundreds? — of others who used the keyboard, we’re not going to find Maggie herself.”

Matt watched Tony take a sip of coffee from his cup as Tony glanced at a notepad.

“I’m just going to rattle these off,” Harris said. “Stop me if you want.”

“Rattle away,” Matt said, making a sweeping hand gesture at his laptop camera.

“One, we did get some prints lifted,” Tony went on, “partials taken off the one Molotov cocktail bottle that did not break. Not great, but they’re being run now. Two, Maggie has a current permit for concealed carry of a pistol. Three, the residue on that dollar bill rolled up in the Gonzalez girl’s pocket tested positive for coke. Four, the Gonzalez go-phone went live again last night-”

“Stop,” Payne interrupted. “When and where? At Westpark?”

Tony looked up from the paper. “No, not the apartments in West Philly. It was in the area of NoLibs and Fishtown. Just after midnight last night. Whoever had the phone redialed the last number-”

“Maggie’s work cell phone,” Payne said, remembering the report stating that. “Which was found broken in the alley. And the go-phone then dialed it three times in a row at noon yesterday.”

Washington sat stone-faced, quietly impressed again with Matt’s natural ability to absorb vast amounts of information and effortlessly produce it on the spot. But Washington wasn’t at all surprised. That was more or less expected of those who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania summa cum laude and those who finished first on the department’s exam for promotion-both of which Payne had done, the latter earning him the right to his choice of assignment, the Homicide Unit.

“Right,” Harris said, “and then, for the first time since Maggie went missing, it dialed her personal cell phone, which was, and is, still turned off. Then the go-phone signal went dark again.”

Payne sighed. “Well, that’s something. At least we know the go-phone’s still in play. We just need to find it.”

“Yeah, and with luck, by the time you get here we should have more forensics on the data we took off her work phone.”

“What about the other two dozen phone numbers and texts that her go-phone made between the time of the murder and when it went dark after you tried to trick whoever had it at Westpark?”

“Not a single one answered when we called. Not even out of curiosity. Which is odd.”

“Maybe they were told to ditch their phones and get new ones?” Payne said, and thought, They buy the damn things like they do drugs, in bulk.

“That is entirely possible,” Washington said. “Disposable cell phones being a cost of doing business. We’re now waiting for the phone company to trace ownership of those numbers. I have a feeling Matt’s right about the ditch-your-phones order, though, and that’s likely to become a cold trail, too.”

Payne nodded thoughtfully. “Makes you wonder why hers hasn’t been ditched.” He paused, then said, “What else you got on your list, Tony?”

“Just one last thing. All the neighbors I spoke with last night couldn’t say enough nice things about Maggie. Said she was an extraordinary neighbor, nice and friendly, always taking care of her place. If she saw litter on the sidewalk, she picked it up. They were sick about the home invasion.”

Matt looked away from the screen in thought.

“I can smell the gears burning all the way from here,” Washington said. “What are you thinking, Matthew?”

Payne, rubbing his chin with his thumb and index finger, turned back to the screen.

“Nothing really. It’s just that the go-phone went live in the NoLibs-Fishtown area.”

“And?” Harris said.

“And that’s where the casinos are.”

“So?”

“I’m afraid that I’m not following you either, Matthew.”

Matt shrugged and made a face. “That’s because there’s nothing to follow. Nick Antonov’s name came up at dinner last night. Some SoBe ABC-”

“Now you’re talking in tongues, buddy,” Harris said.

“South Beach American-born Cuban, Tony. A guy named Jorge Perez. He was running Antonov’s boat, the casino’s boat, and entertaining a couple of middle-aged goombahs who looked like they could’ve just fallen off the pasta truck in South Philly or South Orange. Or, considering Perez, maybe closer to Havana on the Hudson. Just didn’t smell right. And apparently it’s still bugging my subconscious.”

“You’ve really lost me, Matt. How does Union, New Jersey. .?”

“Like I said, Tony, there’s nothing to follow. That go-phone could have been anywhere. Including the Hops Haus condo high-rise. And I’m not about to implicate Amanda any more than anyone else.”

“All right, then,” Harris said. “That’s all we have for now. We should have more details in by the time you come back this afternoon.”

Payne nodded, then said, “Speaking of this afternoon, Jim Byrth is headed to Philly, too.”

That caused Washington to change his facial expression.

His eyebrows went up as he said: “Jim’s always welcome, as I told him. What’s the purpose of his visit this time?”

Matt repeated the description of the camp by the lake in northeast Texas and all that was found there.

When he had finished, Jason Washington said, “I’ve heard about those sulfuric acid baths. But the cartels aren’t the first to liquefy their enemies. The head of the Sicilian mob, Filippo Marchese, used lye and called it Lupara bianca. White shotgun.”

Matt clicked on a file, and the photograph of him in the right bottom corner was replaced with the Cusick ID.

“This is the ID that the sheriff found in the RV trailer.”

“Pretty girl,” Harris said.

Matt went to click it to close the image but instead managed to open the file next to it. The image of the girl in the blue barrel popped up in its place.

In the upper right window of his screen, Matt watched as Tony Harris’s eyes went wide and coffee sloshed from his cup. He slowly said, “Damn!”

“Sorry. Hope everyone’s had their breakfast,” Payne said, and clicked to make it go away.

“As horrific as that is-and it genuinely is-your priority is the McCain case, Matthew.”

“Understood. Trust me, I have Amanda reminding me of that by the minute.”

And I’m well aware that the sooner Maggie comes home, the sooner I can come back down here.

The three images of Washington, Harris, and Rapier started to become pixelated again. Then that snow of tiny multicolored dots turned completely black.

All that was left on Matt’s screen was his own live image.

“Are you still there, Matthew?” Washington’s deep voice came through Payne’s laptop speaker. “We lost your picture again.”

“And I lost all of yours,” Matt said. “Damn it! Why won’t this work?”

“It’s the ECC’s fault, Marshal,” Kerry’s voice then announced. “It’s why, I think, it took so long for you to get patched in, then that other pixelated burp. I really thought I had the bugs out.”

“Well, we’re finished for now anyway,” Harris’s voice said.

Matt glanced at the corner of his screen, saw it read MON 8:01 AM, and said, “Okay. If there’s nothing else, time for me to go pack up.”

“Kerry, log us out,” Washington said, from the darkness of his box.

Payne stood, felt the black pillowcase brush his head, then yanked it from the ceiling.

“Yes, sir,” Rapier’s voice said, then added, “Hey, here’s an error message.”

Payne looked back at the screen. The images of all three men had returned.

“Nice boat, Marshal!” Rapier blurted.

Jason and Tony grinned as Kerry placed his head close to the camera. His eyeball now filled his on-screen box, and he rolled it around, pretending to be looking around the Viking.

Jason chuckled deeply as Tony said, “So you’re doing hard time at Club Fed? Looks rough, buddy.”