The Cursed

He sure as hell wasn’t helping her any, but it rankled that she’d been talking easily with Liam when Dallas had arrived, and now she was just staring at him without saying a word.

Her brows hiked up as she finally considered her reply to his query.

She was taking too long to answer. The tension he was feeling increased.

He pursued his question even more impatiently. “Let me rephrase. Do you usually wake up bright and early and come out to the alley looking for bodies?”

Liam cleared his throat reprovingly, and Dallas winced inwardly. He’d let his temper get the best of him, making him rude and sarcastic. He wasn’t usually that way, but he was feeling a hell of a lot more tense than the blonde—than any of them, at the moment.

But, then, he’d known the dead man.

And he didn’t like the way the man had been found.

“Hannah called me immediately,” Liam said, frowning. “And, I assure you, it’s the first time she’s ever called me about a body.”

“Of course,” Dallas said. “Sorry. So, you knew he was here because—” he paused, looking at Liam “—because he was in your yard—and still alive—last night?” He realized the implication that she might have saved him was in his voice. He hadn’t meant it to be, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

He looked around and noticed that there was a lot of confusion at the scene. A couple of uniformed officers had been first on the scene, followed by Liam—and he’d been right behind. Now techs were dusting and setting out numbers by everything they found, and looking for evidence, and the medical examiner was with the body. She had touched the body, trying to see what she could do for him before realizing he was dead. If she’d been a screaming basket case, he would probably be having an easier time dealing with her. But though she was calm now, she had been screaming when she’d dialed 911. The uniformed officers had probably arrived within seconds—they were just down the street from Duval, because the department always patrolled the bar and club scene there, no matter how late—or early—that was.

“I never saw him in my yard. Two of my guests—former guests—saw him. But they didn’t realize he was real. They thought they were seeing a ghost.”

The young woman—Liam had introduced her as Hannah O’Brien—seemed to be growing aggravated with him. He didn’t really blame her. He was usually a lot better at a crime scene.

“They thought a real man—mortally injured and bleeding—was a ghost?” Dallas demanded.

“Yes.”

“How the hell...?” he muttered.

“I can’t read their minds,” she said sharply. There was something almost regal about her. Maybe that was what bugged him. It compelled him, and that irritated him. He took a breath and tried to regain a professional calm.

“All right. Can you start at the beginning for me?” he asked.

“I was sound asleep. I heard a scream and came running downstairs—they were in back of the house by the pool. I looked out and saw two of my guests. One of them was insisting she’d seen a ghost in my yard,” Hannah explained. “She—her name’s Shelly Nicholson—had been on my ghost tour. She and her boyfriend, Stuart Bell, were absolutely convinced they’d seen a homicidal ghost. But there was nothing there.

“I tried to calm them down. I told them...I told them that ghosts weren’t real, and even if they were, it wasn’t likely they’d be able to kill anyone. I got them to quit screaming and talk it through. Nothing budged them. They insisted they’d seen a bloody ghost holding a bowie knife. By then, everyone in the place was out there and freaking out. So I got everyone checked out and sent them down to the Westin, and then, when it was light, came back out to look around.” She hesitated for a long moment, glancing at Liam. “I don’t even know of any Key West ghosts that supposedly run around bleeding and carrying a bowie knife.” She stopped, struck by the thought that the man on the ground was now eligible to be a Key West ghost legend.

“A bowie knife?” Dallas demanded.

She nodded. “That’s what Stuart said. He was one of the people who saw the...ghost.”

“How did he know it was a bowie knife?” Dallas demanded.

“How do I know? Maybe he saw The Alamo a zillion times!” she snapped back, her irritation showing.

“He doesn’t have a knife now,” Dallas pointed out.

“No. He wasn’t holding it when I found him,” she said. “I looked around, and I didn’t see a knife anywhere. But if you looked at his hand...”

“Yes,” Dallas said. “It does look as if he’d been holding something. You touched the body. Are you sure you didn’t move his hand? Even by accident?”

“No, I definitely didn’t move his hand. I was kneeling on his other side, and I was still there when Officer Mann got here and told me to move away carefully so I didn’t contaminate the crime scene. I did not touch his hand.”

Dirk Mendini, the medical examiner down from the coroner’s office in Marathon, rose and walked over to them just then. He indicated his wish to speak with the detectives by angling his head.

“Excuse us, Hannah, will you?” Liam asked gently.

She nodded. “Okay if I go inside and clean up?” she asked.

She had the dead man’s blood on her, and Dallas found himself wondering if she was compassionate or just stupid. She’d heard the man had been wielding a bowie knife, but still she’d approached him before she was sure he was dead and not a threat.

He realized he was feeling bitter toward her, and he knew he was wrong. He wanted to blame her for the death, even though he knew he had no right to do so. He was frustrated and wanted to lash out, but he had to get himself under control.

Apparently he took too long to speak that time.

She stared at him and said, “I’ve already been photographed and swabbed for blood. Poked and prodded and questioned. The technician said he had everything he needed.”

Dallas nodded curtly. He looked beyond her. It was just after seven in the morning—ridiculously early for a Key West morning—but even so, a few onlookers had gathered in the narrow alley. He let his eyes sweep over them. A tall, bald man who looked as if he had been a prizefighter at one time seemed to be watching Hannah with concern. A young woman with the light coloring and facial features of one of the Eastern European immigrants who made up so much of the Key West workforce was watching the bald man. A slim older woman was staring past the crime tape. A bike messenger was gaping, wide-eyed.

Naturally, the local news had somehow heard all about it already. A Barbie doll of a blonde with a microphone was trying to get something—anything—from the stoic officers guarding the scene, a cameraman following her. When the police refused to cooperate she turned to the onlookers, but none of them seemed to want their fifteen minutes of fame. They replied to her with annoyance, as if she were a fly in the way of the television screen.

“Hang on, Dirk,” Dallas said to the M.E.

He walked over to the newswoman, who was trying to speak to the bald guy. “Miss, so far we have nothing but a dead man. Out of respect, perhaps you could hold off until there’s something to report? When the police have enough information to make a statement, they will.”

“And you are?”

“Not the police spokesman,” Dallas said. “I repeat. When they can give a statement, they will.”

“Wrap it up, Jake,” she told the cameraman. “They’re blocking the body, anyway. We’ll get footage of the house from the street, show the proximity to Duval....” She turned and glared at Dallas. “And we’ll make sure our viewers know that the police are being extremely unhelpful.”

Liam joined Dallas. “Sunny Smith, right?” he asked the blonde politely. When she nodded, he went on, “Look, Sunny, we don’t know anything yet. We found a body in an alley. That’s it.”

“Who found the body?” Sunny Smith demanded.

“We found a body,” Liam repeated firmly. “When there’s news, we’ll get it to you.”

“Who is the dead man?” Sunny asked.

“We don’t know yet,” Liam said.

“How was he killed?” Sunny demanded.

“I didn’t say that he was killed, Sunny,” Liam told her.

“Which one of these people found the body? The woman you were talking to?” Sunny demanded.

“Hey, Sunny, please, as soon as I have something, you’ll get it,” Liam promised.

“And right now you’re taking up our time and hindering an investigation,” Dallas said.

“We’ll question the pretty woman with the blood on her,” Sunny said, turning and speaking to her cameraman and then looking around for Hannah.

But Dallas was suddenly grateful to Hannah O’Brien, who had taken advantage of the reporter’s intrusion and disappeared.

Frustrated, Sunny went on to the bike messenger.

“You don’t want to let any info out, see if it pulls anyone out of the woodwork?” Liam asked him. “Because we’re going to have to make a statement soon. Too many people know this has happened and have seen the body.”

Dallas shook his head. “We can give a statement—just carefully. I’ll explain later.”

He turned and rejoined Dirk near the body, and Liam went with him.

“Dallas, what are you doing on a Key West murder?” Dirk asked immediately, then turned to Liam. “Is he taking the lead?”

“We’re not sure what’s up yet, Dirk,” Liam said, then shifted his attention to Dallas. “But I’m assuming this has something to do with a Federal case.”

Dallas shrugged. “Yes, well, a Federal lead on a combined case.”

He hadn’t been assigned to the Key West FBI unit long. It was a small office, just as the U.S. Marshals’ office was small here. His headquarters were on the mainland, in Miami.

Oddly, though, despite the small size of the office—or perhaps because of it—his was in an interesting position. Agents here worked closely with the Coast Guard, the city police, the county sheriff’s office and the U.S. Marshals Service—all because of Key West’s location, accessibility and...unique nature, its strange atmosphere. It was a crazy place to call home, but it was his crazy place. The island had a long and checkered history. It had provided a stop for pirates, a haven for wreckers, a hard passage for Confederate blockade runners and now it offered access for smugglers bringing everything from illegal drugs to refugees into the country.

He’d grown up here—grown up most of the way, anyway. In his heart, it had always been home.

And now he was back.

“I’m taking on just about anything, Dirk,” Dallas said. He glanced over at Liam. He was here now, and so quickly, thanks to Liam. When they’d been kids here on the island, they’d been best friends. Then Dallas’s father had been offered a civilian position with the FBI, and Dallas had only been back for a few nostalgic vacations now and then since those long-ago years.

But, he decided, for a pair of kids who had spent a few evil days torturing tourists on ghost tours and stealing beers from the unwary in a multitude of local bars, they’d turned out okay. And they were still friends who respected and trusted each other, something that was all-important right now.

“We may have the best liaison system going just about anywhere,” Liam said to Dirk. “We have to. The island’s so small that every agency is understaffed, so we’ve got to work with each other. No other choice,” he said.

“If you ask me, the Key West cops do a damned good job,” Dirk said.

“They do,” Dallas agreed. “But sometimes cases overlap.”

“Sure. I get it,” Dirk said, nodding. “The murder happened in Key West, but the victim could be from another state. He might have been smuggling drugs, or...hell, the U.S. Marshals Service might have had a warrant out on him.”

Or, Dallas thought—because he knew—he might have been an officer of the law. Either way, I intend to get his murderer.

He didn’t say so, though. Not yet. “So, are we looking at the obvious cause of death?” he asked.

“Throat slit. But the killer only nicked the major bleeder,” Dirk told them. “That’s why he didn’t bleed out immediately. I’m thinking that since he made an appearance in a yard at about 3:00 a.m. he must have been attacked a few minutes earlier. Body temp and rigor mortis agree with that timing. The blood loss would have disoriented him. I have tissue and blood samples out now for toxicology tests, so I’ll be able to tell you more.”

“Damn idiot. Why was he stumbling around in that yard?” Dallas asked, speaking to himself as much as to Liam and the M.E. “If he’d gotten help...”

He immediately regretted the passion he’d allowed to enter his voice. The M.E. looked at him strangely, as if aware there was more here than met the eye.

“I don’t think he could have been saved unless the damage had been done right smack in the middle of an emergency room,” Dirk told him, setting a hand on his shoulder. For an M.E., he seemed to have a decent sense about the living. He asked quietly, “You know him? The local boys were really good about protecting the crime scene, and they checked for identification first thing but came up empty. We’ll take fingerprints, of course, and run them through the system. If he’s got a sheet of any kind, anywhere, we’ll find him.”

“You’ll match them,” Dallas said, looking over at the body. The dead man was Jose Miguel Rodriguez. Dallas had met him briefly once or twice; he’d been an extraordinary agent. Working undercover, he’d done a great deal to stop drug traffic into the South Florida area. Dallas had been due to meet up with Rodriguez the next day on the beach by Fort Zachary Taylor. “But not because of a rap sheet. And when you do ID him, make sure to keep his name and affiliation confidential among law enforcement agencies—the truth can’t leak to the news. This man was an agent working undercover—Jose Rodriguez. You can’t release anything I’m telling you now—and nothing can get out at all except that an unidentified body was found in an alley, with all other information pending the medical examiner’s report. Some things the public can’t get for a while, all right, Dirk?”

“Gotcha,” Dirk said.

“So he’s one of ours?” Liam asked, frowning.

“FBI,” Dallas said. “He was working the Los Lobos case.”

“The wolves,” Dirk said.

Dallas nodded. “We’re all working it, Dirk. I’m not divulging any secrets—you’ve obviously heard about the Los Lobos gang, and everyone from the cops to the military has been alerted to keep an eye out for the members and their activities.”

Dirk nodded. “Who hasn’t? When they started up, I had a few corpses up for autopsy at the morgue in Marathon. Seems they’re run by some big shot out of Colombia—supposedly an American expat. The members come in all colors and nationalities—the one thing is they have to swear absolute loyalty. The smallest betrayal means death—execution style.”

“That’s why they’re doing so well,” Dallas said grimly. “No one knows who they are, and they’re all too scared to turn on the others. They know the islands. They slip in and out at night, moving from the Caribbean to the Keys.”

“But from what I understand, they’re not drug dealers, they’re smugglers, right?” Dirk asked.

Dallas nodded. “Museum pieces, looted artifacts. They’ve gotten into and out of a number of places here in the Keys, as well as in South America, Cuba, Jamaica—they’ve pilfered Mayan artifacts from Mexico. They also smuggle people in and out of the country. Anyway,” he added quietly, “Jose had infiltrated them, he was the first man on the inside ever. He was just getting in deep with the ‘field workers,’ who are at the beck and call of the headman. The thing about this gang is that many of them aren’t what you’d expect. They aren’t tattooed, and they don’t wear motorcycle jackets or lounge around like barflies. A lot of them look like upright and ordinary citizens—businessmen, churchgoers, even cops and politicians.”

“They work like veins and arteries from a heart,” Liam said. “A very peculiar pyramid scheme.” He glanced at Dallas. “How many people do they think are involved all across the country?”

“Our best intelligence officers—CIA, FBI, Homeland Security—estimate about a hundred and fifty scattered across the United States.”

Dirk nodded, taking in their words. He was silent for a moment and then said, “Odd.”

“What’s odd?” Dallas asked.

“Los Lobos...the bodies I’ve had that the county officers think were members were done in true execution style—bullet to the back of the head. This is different,” Dirk said. “I’m not an investigator, of course. I can only tell you what...what the dead can tell. But it’s something to think about, right?”

Yes, it was.

Dallas hesitated before speaking. “Different crimes call for different punishments.” He hunkered down by the dead man. “Look at his hand, Dirk. He was holding something, right? Something somebody pried out of his hand.”

“So it appears,” Dirk agreed.

“Like a knife,” Dallas murmured.

“Hard to tell. I’ll have more for you after the autopsy. Traffic is going to be bad, so it’ll be an hour or so before we even have him on a table.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry, Dallas.”

“I didn’t know him well. I just know that he was one of the good guys,” Dallas said. At least Dirk had done Rodriguez the mercy of closing his eyes.

Dallas set his fingers lightly on the dead man’s shoulders as he studied him. For a moment he felt the fierce grip of pain and sorrow.

This scene was too familiar. Not that long ago they’d lost another agent. Not that long ago he’d come upon a dead woman—that same agent—in the same position, lying in the street on her back. He had been close to what was going on...close to finding the truth, to rounding up a bunch of greedy bastards who didn’t care who they killed in their quest to amass more and more wealth.

They had made arrests. But he had suspected then, and he suspected now, that the real killer—the man giving the orders—had eluded him.

Jose Rodriguez had died on his back. His left hand was still curved and slightly twisted. His right hand lay in a puddle of blood.

Frowning, Dallas studied the puddle.

Jose had been trying to write something in his own blood.

Dallas took a moment to envision the scene and figure out how Rodriguez had managed to write something while lying on his back. Only one scenario made sense.

Jose had fallen forward, dying. He’d started to write something, but the killer had come up behind him before he finished, and wrenched him around so that he had landed on his back—his hand still in the pool of blood he had been using as ink.

Dallas looked over at Liam. “Can you make that out?”

“Make what out? It’s a pool of blood—oh! I see what you’re saying.”

They both bent closer, trying to read the dead man’s message. “That first letter’s a C,” Liam murmured.

“Yeah. I think you’re right. Then...a U?” Dallas asked.

“Yeah, C-U-R,” Liam agreed. “Cur? Like a dog?”

“I don’t think so. Can you get one of the photographers over here?” Dallas asked.

Liam rose and motioned for a crime scene tech. The man hurried over, took pictures as Dallas indicated, and then moved back to the fence where he’d been working.

“Whoever he was,” Dallas told the dead man quietly, “we’ll find him.”

Two of Dirk’s assistants came for the body, and another tech walked up to Liam. “Sir? Anything specific you want us to look for?” he asked.

“Inspect the alley and all the nearby streets, and the yard, too. Our vic was seen with a knife—a big knife, like a bowie knife. Try to find it. Search everywhere our victim could have been.”

“Do we need a permit for the yard?” the tech asked.

“Hannah is a friend. We have her blessing for anything that’s necessary. Do your jobs, but don’t be careless. Try not to leave the place looking like a war zone,” Liam said.

The tech nodded and moved away.

Dallas shook his head, looking from the yard to the house. “How the hell could anyone think that a dying man was a ghost?” he demanded.

“The power of suggestion, probably,” Liam said. “People love ghost tours. They go on them all the time. They want to be scared. They don’t want real danger, but they want to be scared. Hell, Dallas, nothing’s changed since we were kids. This place survives on tourism. Tourists like stories. We’re full of them.”

“But this guy was stumbling around your friend’s yard and she didn’t wake up until some tourist screamed, and then she was all, ‘Wow, you saw a bloody ghost in my yard? Okay.’”

“Hannah is a good kid, Dallas. Lay off. She was dealing with screaming tourists who told her they saw a ghost, not a man.”

Dallas nodded. “Yeah, all right.”

“Come in and talk to her. Talk. Don’t yell.”

“I was never yelling.”

“You basically accused her of causing his death.”

“The hell I did. I merely suggested that an intelligent and rational human being might have thought from the get-go that there was something more than a ghost in her yard.”

Liam lowered his head, a slight grin on his face. “I’m going in for coffee. If you can be nice for a few minutes, you’re invited, too.” He looked up at Dallas, and his smile faded. “You heard the doc. He couldn’t have been saved unless he’d been in an emergency room when it happened. It’s not Hannah’s fault your man is dead.”

“I know. I just...I just feel like something is escaping me and that I should be able to grasp it, and I can’t. I’ll be pleasant. I promise.”

“No sarcasm?”

“No sarcasm.”

They took the path from the gate past the pool, where the techs were busy stringing tape to try to salvage what they could of the victim’s route from the yard to his death.

There were no blood trails to the yard, which seemed impossible, but unless the techs could find something with their equipment that neither Liam nor Dallas had seen, Jose Rodriguez might as well have appeared in the yard like the ghost those kids had thought he was, because there was no sign of where he had been before he showed up by the pool.

How could that be? He must have been bleeding steadily by that point.

There was a crime scene marker at every spot where Hannah O’Brien had seen blood as she’d followed the trail through her yard to the alley.

Dallas couldn’t help himself. He paused, looking at the lawn chairs beside the pool. He imagined the couple lying there....

Opening their eyes.

Seeing Rodriguez bleeding, holding a knife, then screaming in terror at what they thought was a ghost.

They had still been out there freaking out when Hannah came out to see what was going on, so why hadn’t Rodriguez stayed there with them and asked for help?

The pool was surrounded by attractive tile work, which gave way to lawn. It appeared that Rodriguez had stumbled past the chairs, then across the grass, past the bushes edging the yard and through the gate into the alley. It hadn’t rained recently, so the foliage was dry and brittle. He had to assume there would be evidence if Rodriguez had gone through it. Since there wasn’t, he had to assume Rodriguez had taken almost a straight line out to the alley.

Had the gate already been open?

He closed his eyes and tried to picture what had happened.

Sliced, bleeding, dying...but he hadn’t headed to the house?

Why?

There could be only one reason.

Rodriguez had come from the alley, trying to escape through the yard, and the killer had been behind him. But he’d seen the kids by the pool and hadn’t wanted anyone else to die, so he’d sacrificed his own life and turned around, back toward danger.

So where was the killer now?

And where was the knife the couple had seen Rodriguez waving?

The answer was obvious.

The killer had followed him until he had fallen, then wrested the knife—which might well have been dripping with the killer’s blood—from Rodriguez’s dying grasp.

2

Hannah had hurried past the pool area and inside without looking back. Once there, she leaned against the door, just breathing.