Manny Gutierrez had one of those properties that straddle the road, house on the ocean side, tennis court and boat dock on the Intracoastal side. With a white marble box of a house, and a sad angel presiding over a fountain in the middle of the circular drive, it looked something like a mausoleum.
We parked the car in the drive between the angel fountain and the front door. As we approached the house, I spotted surveillance cameras hidden under the second-story balconies, and motion-activated spotlights trained on optimum points around the yard.
One of those chimey doorbells echoed through the interior when Laura pressed it.
No one came to the door. I waved at the surveillance camera as the intercom attached at the side of the door fuzzed on.
“Gutierrez residence,” a deep goon voice said.
“Would you please tell him Brigid Quinn is here?”
“I am so sorry,” said the goon. “But Mr. Gutierrez is incapacitated and is not entertaining visitors.”
“That’s a fine long sentence you memorized there,” I said. “But would you please give it a try? We just want to take a look at him.”
“Mr. Gutierrez is not available for viewing.”
The fuzz sound went dead.
Laura was trembling with fury over our dismissal as we walked back to the car.
“Relax,” I said. “Not everything is a battle, Coleman. I figured he wouldn’t let us in. Mostly I just wanted to let him know I was in town. Throw out a little bait and see if the fish takes it. Now it’s his move.”
Laura ignored me. “I investigated so many bastards like him when I was doing financial crime. Insurance fraud, collecting Social Security and Medicare off dead people. And they get away with it because we’re only able to track down a small percentage. Manuel Gutierrez. Am I right, or am I right?”
Even though I’d been prepared to be disrespected, I wasn’t liking it much either, so my response may have been harsher than intended. “Oh, grow a set, would you?” I said, forgetting my intention to keep my trap shut. “Not everyone gets punished for what they’ve done.”
Laura said, “Can’t help wishing they did.”
“I hear you. But this is the real deal out here. If you want justice, go watch old episodes of Law & Order.”
Okay, okay, I know sometimes I lose patience and open my mouth and crap like that comes out. I dropped Coleman back at her place, parting with her on slightly less than the best of terms.
* * *
It’s about six. I brought two turkey sandwiches and ate mine an hour ago. Now I’m considering eating Mom’s, only because she doesn’t want it and I don’t have anything else to do. Dad’s sleeping, his ragged breath the only sound in the room, countered by unnecessarily loud voices out in the hall, punctuated by that squeechy sound of rubber-soled shoes that reminds me of the guard’s step on death row.
Mom is staring impassively at Dad from a chair at the foot of the bed. I wonder if she’s thinking anything or if she goes blank. I’m in another chair by the side of the bed with my feet up on the lower part of the metal sidebar, staring out the window, having given up on conversation. I’ve been running the day through my head and wondering why Marcus Creighton was so sure his children were alive. If they weren’t killed that night, what happened? Could they be saved even now? You think he’s innocent, don’t you, Quinn? They put away an innocent man. No. Wait for the corroborating evidence before you go Full-On Coleman. But we’ve only got five days to get that stay of execution.
I will not look at my watch. That would be indelicate.
I called the hospitalist, Dr. Jason McGee, twice. He hasn’t returned my calls. I left a written message at the nurses’ station, too. This is pissing me off.
What has been easier than this? That time I happened to be near ground zero of a bomb blast. I wasn’t hurt myself, but I was able to assist the paramedics. I look at Dad. If he had a sucking chest wound I might actually be of use here. Otherwise, I just sit and wait.
I’m not good at sitting and waiting. It’s not my thing, my forte, my strong suit. I don’t hate my parents; they never hurt me. But how do people do this, year after year of dealing with illness? Listen to yourself, it’s only been two days. Three?
Suck it up, Brigid Quinn, you ungrateful little shit. This is not about you.
No wonder Todd doesn’t want to be here. He did this with his sick wife, with Marylin. I don’t give a fuck if he had enough. He needs to visit Dad. I’ll tell him that to his face when I see him in the morning.
I feel bad, wanting to look at my watch.
I really don’t want my father to die, but would you say that’s because I love these people? If I do, why am I feeling so hateful?
* * *
Thinking about my father dying makes me think of Creighton. Creighton. I need to keep Creighton alive, at least until we know the truth.
The truth makes me think about Derek Evers. Contrary to what I told Laura, we had a history, Derek and me. Here’s what you need to know, and forgive me if I don’t use names.
There was this guy I worked with some, a detective in the Tequesta County Sheriff’s Office. He was such a good man. Good family man, with two daughters.
One day the detective called me. Said he had no one else to call and would I meet him. We met at that Denny’s on Commercial Boulevard that I mentioned. We both ordered pie. Cherry. He didn’t eat his, just let it sit in front of him. I didn’t eat mine either, once I started listening to him.
He’d been working a case of child sexual abuse. The father. Mother in denial. The child had told her teacher, and the kid was taken out of the home and put in custody. The kid was in the second grade, so they called in a specialist to interview her. What my friend didn’t know was that the specialist had a bad track record. During the grand jury it was brought out that in two cases the specialist had bent the rules a little, fudged the interviews. It called into question the eight-year-old’s testimony, which was all they had. For once the grand jury, which will usually indict a dead dog, failed to do so. The child was given back to the parents.
“You were certain?” I asked.
“I swear to God I was certain,” he said.
“That’s good enough for me,” I said.
“It’s not good enough for that kid,” he said. He tried to eat a forkful of his pie but dropped the fork and stared at it. This was the case that would break him. “God doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle,” he said to the pie.
Given what I had seen God dishing out to people, I had grown disenchanted with that line long before then, and blurted, “Then why do people commit suicide?”
Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could take this back. Two days later I found out my friend had eaten his gun.
I swore I’d get revenge on the man who had abused his daughter and caused the death of a good cop.
First, I managed to get the scumbag who had started this whole thing to meet me alone at the same Denny’s where I’d met the detective who failed to put him away. The man was arrogant despite my telling him I was going to watch him for the rest of my life and take him down. How are you going to do that? he asked. You’ll see, I said.
He scoffed, made some comment about double jeopardy, and left me with the bill.
Criminals always assume they’re the only ones who don’t play fair. Laugh out loud. I put on a pair of latex gloves and took a fresh roll of tape out of my tote bag. I pressed it against the things on the table I’d noticed him touching, and stuck the tape to a five-by-seven-inch piece of acetate.
I took the tape to Derek Evers along with some really bad pictures and told him to hang on to it all. You see, I’d known for a long time that Derek liked to take a little off the top here and there, money, cocaine, small things that wouldn’t be noticed. I’d been keeping this intel to myself for a while, thinking to use it when I needed to. Evers knew I knew about him, and could prove it. He agreed to cooperate.
Then I waited. It took a couple of years, and the daughter was ten by the time I acted, but I made sure everything was set up just right and then nailed the guy on charges of distribution of child pornography across state lines using the postal system. In so doing I transferred the prints to the photos, and Derek entered them into the evidence log on my say-so. At trial Derek testified to the chain of custody.
Sentences weren’t as stiff in the nineties for that kind of thing, and the guy would have gotten out of jail in another two years if he hadn’t been murdered. I’m sure you’ve already heard what happens to child molesters in prison.
So I know what you can do with fingerprints to convict a guy.
That’s me, and that deed I did once was not lawful, but it was righteous. I bet you would have done it, too. Right?
PS: I followed the life of the daughter, and she’s okay. She’s okay.