When Darkness Falls

chapter 65

I t was after midnight before Jack and Theo reached the Coconut Grove Marina. A gentle breeze blew in from the bay, and Jack’s ears tingled from the steady ping of halyards slapping against the tall, barren masts of countless sailboats. Motorboats and yachts of every size and description slept silently in their slips, though a few figurative snorers gurgled from their bilge pumps. Somewhere in the distance, a diesel engine rumbled toward home, and the lonely sound in the darkness only added to the moonlit marina’s eerie aura. Felipe spoke not a word as he escorted Jack and Theo to the end of the long, floating pier, where they boarded a forty-six-foot Hatteras Convertible.

For a career politician, Mayor Mendoza did not lack for the finer things in life. His house, though not a mansion, was loaded with Old Spanish character; his yacht, though more than two decades old, was still a floating lap of luxury. It was technically a fishing boat, but the mayor had rigged the salon for entertainment, complete with club chairs, a wet bar, handcrafted teak cabinetry, and even a flat-screen television. The mayor invited his guests to take a seat at the old wooden wheel of a ship that had been turned into a round, glass-top table-floating proof that money doesn’t buy taste. Felipe stepped aside, removing himself from the main circle of conversation, but he remained in the salon.

“Something to drink, gentlemen?” said the mayor, standing at the bar. He made the offer with a smile, but it seemed strained to Jack. The bags under his eyes had almost doubled in size since Jack had first spoken to him in the privacy of his limo. His skin had taken on an unhealthy, ashen hue. Had Jack been forced to guess, he would have said that the mayor hadn’t slept in at least three days.

“Nothing for me, thanks,” said Jack.

“You got any smoothies?” said Theo.

Jack tried not to roll his eyes.

“Uh, no,” said the mayor.

Theo looked around and said, “I ever trade in my little open fisherman for one of these babies, it’s go

Jack resisted the urge to strangle him.

“Papaya, carambola, kumquat-”

“Theo, we get it, all right?” said Jack. “The man doesn’t have any smoothies.”

“Fu

The mayor filled his glass with ice and scotch. “I can’t even imagine.”

“We talked about money.”

Jack detected a rise of concern in the mayor’s eyes. “Is that so?” said the mayor.

“Yeah,” said Theo. “But I guess you already knew that. Alicia must have told you about our phone conversation.”

The mayor used his finger to stir the ice around in his scotch.

Jack said, “Alicia didn’t tell her father anything.”

“She had to tell him,” said Theo. “Why else would Felipe show up at my bar in her place?”

Jack glanced at Felipe and said, “Because somebody tapped her phone.”

“That’s a lie,” said Felipe.

Jack was bluffing, but Felipe’s quick denial was as good as an admission. Over the past five days, he’d heard and seen enough to formulate his own theories. The old Argentine woman with her DNA files-the work of modern-day scientists trying to solve the crimes of the Dirty War-had confirmed his darkest suspicions. “Alicia doesn’t want to know the truth. That’s why she didn’t show up tonight. That’s why she didn’t dare tell her father anything about her conversation with Theo. She simply doesn’t want to know that her dad is Sikes.”

Felipe stepped closer, his tone threatening. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s okay,” the mayor told his bodyguard, “I want to hear what he has to say. Go ahead, Mr. Swyteck. I’m finding this very interesting.”

“Interesting,” said Theo, scoffing. “One of those great fudge words. Sex is interesting. The Holocaust is interesting.”

“So is blackmail,” said Jack.

“Meaning?” said the mayor.

“That’s what it was, right? Two hundred thousand dollars cash deposited in a Bahamian safe deposit box. You make the drop under a fictitious name. Falcon agrees never to tell anyone that you took a baby from one of his disappeared prisoners. It’s blackmail, with a little twist at the end. Falcon doesn’t keep the money for himself. He apologizes to the daughter of the woman he murdered, and he gives the money to the grandmother, who has spent over a quarter-century searching for her.”

“Justice from the Dirty War,” said Theo.

“Dirty Justice,” said Jack.

“Is this the best you morons can come up with?” said Felipe, his anger rising. “You come up with this totally bogus story to get a little blackmail of your own going?”

“We’re not here for money,” said Jack.

“That’s a shame,” said the mayor. He laid a briefcase on the table and popped it open. “Because that’s all I can offer you.”

Jack did a double take. Stacks of crisp hundred-dollar bills were laid out before him.

“How much is that?” said Theo.

“A hundred thousand dollars,” said the mayor. “That’ll buy a lot of smoothies.”

“We don’t want your money.”

Theo said, “The boat, maybe, but not your-”

Jack kicked him under the table.

“Look here,” said the mayor. “If it’s simply a matter of negotiation, we can work something out.”

“It’s not negotiable. We came here for the truth, and you gave it to us the minute you opened that briefcase.”

“So what do you want to do now, ruin me?”

“I think that’s up to Alicia and her grandmother. Her biological grandmother.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing. Nothing positive can come of this. You’re just destroying a happy, loving family. Until Falcon called and asked me for two hundred thousand dollars in hush money, I didn’t have the slightest clue that Alicia had been stolen from her birth mother.”

“That’s another lie,” said Jack.

“How would you know?”

“Because you adopted a two-week-old baby with a birth certificate that said she was two years old. And you did that for one reason only: to make it harder for her blood relatives to find her.”

The mayor fell silent, but his expression spoke volumes. Suddenly, his complicity in the most horrible crime imaginable was as plain to see as the briefcase full of money on the table.

Felipe said, “Mayor, you don’t have to listen to these insults.”

The mayor had gone pale. “You really should take the money, Mr. Swyteck.”

“We don’t want your money.”

“Please,” said the mayor. “Take the money.”

“We’re leaving,” said Jack, rising.

“No you’re not,” said Felipe. He was pointing a pistol at Jack. “Now sit back down.”

“Felipe,” the mayor said in a shaky voice, “this is not the answer.”

“It worked fine when you sent me down the river to get Falcon to back away from Alicia. It worked just as well when you sent me over to Nassau to talk some sense into Riley about where all that money came from.”

“I never told you to threaten anyone’s life. Put the gun away.”

“I’m just protecting both of us, Mayor. It’s best if you went back to shore now.”

“Listen to your boss,” said Jack. “Put the gun away.”

“Shut up! You’re nothing but trouble, Swyteck, starting with the way you tried to make me into a bad guy for going down the river and telling your client to stay away from the mayor’s daughter. You had the cops thinking it was me who killed that homeless woman in the trunk of the car.”

“That went nowhere,” said Jack. “We know it was Falcon who killed her. So just put away the gun before you end up facing a real murder charge.”

“Just shut your trap! If you didn’t go sticking your nose where it didn’t belong, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”