I was there in minutes. A woman leatherized by way too much sun and wearing way too little swimsuit directed me to a sportfish cruiser on pier four.
Lines ticked masts as I walked out onto the dock. Or was it sheets? Sheets to the wind? My mind was really on a rip.
Daniels’s boat wasn’t one of the largest, maybe a thirty-five-footer. It had a pointy bow with a metal rail shooting to midship, a covered center console, a platform off the stern, and a cabin that looked like it could probably sleep four.
My eyes roved, taking in detail. Fighting chairs. Outriggers. Rod holders. Fish box. Bait station. Live well. The craft was definitely outfitted for fishing. But not today. Everything was secured and Daniels was nowhere to be seen.
Condo minimally a half million. Boat probably another three hundred thousand. How did he do it? The guy had to be dirty.
Sometimes it’s a sight, a smell, a spoken word. Sometimes there’s no trigger at all. Something just goes boing! and that cartoon strip bulb goes on.
My eyes fell on the boat’s name.
Boing!
37
THE HUNNEY CHILD.
Some great-great-grand-something picking up the tab.
My nephew’s living here now and he’s got a dandy of a boat.
Corey Reynolds Daniels.
Althea Hunneycut Youngblood. Honey.
Honey had married into the Reynolds family. She had a nephew who’d returned to Charleston. She had given that nephew her boat.
Honey lived on Dewees Island.
Willie Helms had been buried on Dewees Island.
Corey Daniels was Honey Youngblood’s nephew. He knew Dewees Island.
Was Marshall right? Had we really arrested the wrong man? Did Daniels have the ruthlessness and brainpower to be the main guy?
Call Gullet?
No. I needed more.
I needed to get to a different marina. Throwing myself behind the wheel, I headed to Isle of Palms.
The Aggie Gray took ten minutes to chug in. The crossing back to Dewees Island took another twenty. It seemed a lifetime.
Luck was with me. There was an unattended golf cart at the ferry dock. Jumping in, I sped toward the administrative center.
Miss Honey was in the nature museum, cleaning an aquarium at the sink. A box of fist-size shells rested at her elbow.
“Miss Honey, I’m so glad I caught you.”
“Caught me? Land’s sake, girl, where else on the Lord’s green earth might I be?”
“I—”
“Cleaning house for the hermit crabs.” Honey nodded toward the box. Here and there I could see a curled appendage cautiously testing the outside world.
“Miss Honey, you mentioned your nephew last time we spoke.”
The gnarled hands slowed, but continued scrubbing the tank. “Corey being mischievous again?” She gave the second of four syllables a very hard e.
“We’re looking into some patient care questions at the GMC clinics and how they are staffed and all, and I’m curious about Corey’s training.”
“Being a nurse doesn’t mean he”—the old woman hesitated—“isn’t right.”
“Of course not. Such stereotypes are absurd.”
Honey was scouring so hard her curls were bouncing.
“Corey was going to be a doctor. Followed his heart instead. Boys grow up. What can you do?”
“Corey trained in Texas?”
“He did.”
“Where?”
“University of Texas. He called it UTEP.” Pfft. “What kind of name is that for a school? Sounds like a spray for foot fungus.”
Honey ran water into the aquarium.
“What caused him to return to Charleston?” I asked.
“Got into trouble, lost his job, got hurt, got broke.”
The old woman looked up, and the pale eyes crimped into the tiniest of frowns.
“My nephew would have made a fine doctor.”
“I’m sure he would have. What were his nursing specialties?”
“ER at first, then neurology.” New-rology. “Before he came back he’d worked his way into the OR. Did surgical nursing for two years. Mite messy for my taste. But you can’t tell me slicing and sewing folks is an easy job. Yep. For my money, Corey turned out just fine.”
I was barely listening. Two more disparate facts had clicked into place.
I was now concerned that we really had arrested the wrong man. The killer was looking more like Daniels.
And Daniels was still out there.
I felt cold all over.
I had to phone Gullet. No. I had to speak to Gullet. Against all logic, I was coming to believe Marshall’s story that Daniels was setting him up. Persuading the sheriff to consider the idea would require face-to-face effort.
Friday afternoon traffic was bloated by weekenders pouring into the city. The drive to North Charleston took almost forty minutes.
Gullet was in his office. He looked as tense as I’d ever seen him.
“I want you to hear me out on something very important,” I said, positioning a chair directly opposite the sheriff’s desk.
Gullet checked his watch, then exhaled in resignation. The message was clear. This better be good. And short.
“Marshall claims he’s been set up by Daniels.”
Gullet studied me. “Everyone from the governor on down is using me for a dartboard. You telling me you think I’ve jailed the wrong man?”
“I’m telling you it’s a possibility.”
“We’ve got enough to fry Marshall three times and back.”
“Marshall says our evidence is all circumstantial.”
Gullet started to object. I forged ahead.
“To an extent, he’s right. The evidence collected so far proves that patients were murdered at that clinic. The wire noose could have been stashed by anyone. The shell could have been planted in Marshall’s desk. You know that’s what the defense will argue.”
“What they’ll argue and what a jury will believe may differ considerably.”
“You said yourself there’s a problem with the phone records,” I pressed on. “Someone called Noble Cruikshank from Marshall’s office on a night Marshall wasn’t even there.”
“Cruikshank was investigating. Someone could have been snitching.”
I could see Gullet didn’t want to believe. He’d arrested a man, a physician. He wanted his case to be airtight. I’d urged him to that conclusion. The DA had agreed. Now I was waffling.
“Daniels’s full name is Corey Reynolds Daniels, but I’m sure you already know that. What you may not know is that Daniels has an aunt living on Dewees Island. That aunt gave Daniels a boat.”
“Having a boat and knowing Dewees doesn’t make him a killer.”
“Following nursing school, Daniels was employed by a hospital for three years. He didn’t always work in a public service clinic.”
“Not enough.” The chair puffed as Gullet dropped back against the leather.
“He was a surgical nurse. For two years he scrubbed in, watched operations, had plenty of opportunity to learn procedure.”
“Handing out instruments is a long way from being a surgeon.”
“It wouldn’t have taken a surgeon on this end. There was no concern with keeping patients alive. All that was needed was a knowledge of how to remove organs so as to preserve them.
“Think about timing. Daniels arrived back in Charleston in 2000, started working at the clinic in 2001. Willie Helms disappeared in September of 2001.”
Seeing the first glimmer of doubt in Gullet’s eyes, I hammered home the last nail.
“Cruikshank was downloading articles on organ trafficking. I read quite a few when I was checking his hard drive, but didn’t realize the relevance of one in particular. Until now.
“Since 1993 almost four hundred women and girls are known to have been killed in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua, Mexico, another seventy have been reported missing. Students, store clerks, assembly plant work
ers, some as young as ten years. Bodies have been found buried in shallow graves in the desert, and at construction sites and railroad yards around the city.
“In 2003 the Mexican attorney general’s office took over several cases. Federal investigators said they had evidence some victims may have been killed by an international organ trafficking ring. One AP article Cruikshank found quoted an organized crime prosecutor as saying a witness had identified an American man as part of that ring.”
I drilled Gullet with a look.
“Daniels trained and worked in El Paso, Texas. Ciudad Juárez is directly across the border from El Paso.”
“You saying Daniels was involved?”
“I’m saying he could have been involved. Even if he wasn’t involved, he was in El Paso. He’d have heard about the killings. He might have made contacts. Or he might have taken the idea and come here to set up his own franchise.”
Gullet ran a hand over his jaw.
“Daniels lives on Seabrook and owns a very pricey boat.”
“You say he’s a Reynolds.”
“Which may or may not be relevant. I know, taken alone, none of these facts looks suspicious. Familiarity with Dewees Island. Owning a boat. Access to the GMC clinic and its patients. Surgical training. Presence in El Paso. Expensive lifestyle. Unexplained phone call from Marshall’s phone. But added up . . .” I left the inference unstated.
Gullet’s eyes locked onto mine. No one spoke.
The phone broke the silence. One ring. Four. Gullet ignored it.
Some moments indelibly imprint the memory, encrypting sensory input unnoticed in real time. That was such a moment.
I remember a tiny red square blinking on the phone. A voice in the corridor calling someone named Al. Dust particles dancing, sunlight slashing the blinds. A tic jumping the corner of Gullet’s right eye.
Seconds passed. A minute. A woman poked her head through the door, the same woman who’d sent Gullet to calm his in-laws, the battling Haeberles.
“Thought you might want to know. Marshall’s out. And he just held a press conference. Lawyer did the talking. Marshall worked on a nomination for best performance by a persecuted innocent in a nonspeaking role.”
Gullet gave a tight nod.
“Tybee thinks he might have something on a pilot.”
“Tell him I’ll be right there.”
I checked the time. Daniels could be leaving town, could be hundreds of miles from Charleston already. The thought of him slipping free sent a chill through my marrow.
“Would you consider picking Daniels up?” I asked.
“For what?”
“Beating his dog. Spitting on the sidewalk. Peeing off the bow of his boat. I don’t care. Get him downtown, get warrants, and do the same kind of premises search, auto search, and review of phone records you did on Marshall. You may hit on something.”
“Media’s on me like a wolf pack on spareribs. Herron’s livid over the publicity.” Gullet flapped a hand at the phone. “Spent my morning getting reamed by the mayor and the governor. Last thing I need is another shaky arrest.”
“At least get warrants to search his house and his boat.”
“Authorized on what basis? Suspicion there might be something we missed? I do that, the press will crucify me.”
“As a possible aider and abetter. A co-conspirator. Use all the same stuff you used to get the Marshall warrants. Look, I know it’s hard to think of Marshall as anything other than a greedy bastard who murdered sick, helpless people.”
“You surely did press that point. Now you’re defending the man?”
“I’m saying I’m not sure.” My throat felt dry. I swallowed. “In the interest of duty you should at least explore the possibility that the killer is Daniels. You should pick him up if you have even the slightest doubt.”
“I’m unfamiliar with the legal niceties where you ply your trade, Doc, but that’s not how it works here. I can’t arrest people over doubts. Besides, I don’t have doubts. You do. I think Marshall’s guilty as shit.” It was the first time I’d heard Gullet use profanity.
“If Daniels is out there he can kill again.” It came out more forcefully than I intended.
Gullet’s jaw muscles bulged, relaxed. “Kill who? There won’t be any more surgeries at that clinic.”
“I was thinking of Marshall. He’s free. If Daniels offs Marshall the investigation could end. People could assume a friend or relative of a victim took Marshall out, and Daniels walks.”
Never taking his eyes from me, Gullet finger-jabbed a phone button. A staticky voice came across the speakerphone.
“Zamzow.”
“Marshall left the courthouse?”
“About forty minutes ago.”
“What’s he doing?”
“He was with a suit. Stopped by an office on Broad, suit stayed behind, now Marshall’s heading south on seventeen.”
“Probably going home. Stay on him.”
“Discretion needed?”
“No. Let him know you’re there.”
Gullet punched the button and the line went dead.
“You really should get Daniels,” I pressed.
“You’re right about one thing. What’s pointing to Marshall is largely circumstantial. But what you’re giving me on Daniels isn’t any better.” Gullet stood. “Let’s see what Tybee’s got.”
Deputy Tybee was at one of two computers in a second-floor squad room, stacks of printouts spread around the keyboard.
“Whaddaya got?” Gullet asked as we entered the room.
Tybee turned to us, his face more hawklike under fluorescents than it had been outside.
“When the phone dumps on Marshall’s home and the clinic were going nowhere, I thought to myself, Where was this guy making contact? A pay phone? What pay phone?” Tybee tapped a finger to his temple. “I dumped the booth on Nassau, checked outgoing calls placed around DLC for the most recent MP.” Tybee was an acronym man. Date of last contact. Missing person.
“Jimmie Ray Teal?” I asked.
“Yeah. Teal’s DLC was May eighth. Started working the list, checking numbers against names. Fortunately, Nassau isn’t the most popular booth in the city. Halfway through, I hit on something.
“May sixth, nine thirty-seven A.M. Someone dialed a cell phone belonging to Jasper Donald Shorter. Call lasted four minutes. The same number was dialed on May ninth at four oh six P.M. Lasted thirty-seven seconds.”
“Two days before and one day after Teal’s DLC,” Gullet said. “You run a check on Shorter?”
“You’re going to love this.” Tybee shuffled through the printouts. “Shorter has a sheet. Did six years in the air force, was dismissed from service after drugs were found in a package he was shipping to the States from Da Nang. Dismissal of an officer is equivalent to a dishonorable discharge for an enlisted man. Makes future employment a real bear.”
Tybee held out a paper.
Gullet and I scanned the contents. The document was a photocopy of Shorter’s military record.
Jasper Donald Shorter had been a pilot in Vietnam.
38
“SHORTER WAS A FLYBOY,” GULLET SAID.
“Still is.” Tybee dug out another paper. “Owns a Cessna 207, tail number N3378Z.”
“Drug-runner favorite,” Gullet said.
“Yes, sir,” Tybee agreed. “Single-engine. Can fly low and land in a field. But the 207’s a poor choice for long-haul stealth flights. Can’t go from here to Puerto Vallarta without refueling. And there’s another problem. Every plane that flies in the United States has to be registered, and Shorter’s tail number would be traceable straight to him. But drug runners often steal planes or purchase them from prior owners, paint over the tail numbers, then stencil on bogus ones.”
“Find the plane. If you spot Shorter, stay with him and call me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Gullet turned to go. I had one last question for Tybee.
“Where does Shorter live?”
> “Seabrook.”
I felt a buzz of excitement. “Where on Seabrook?”
Tybee typed a few keystrokes and a list came up on the screen.
“Pelican Grove Villas.”
The buzz became a rush. I whipped around to Gullet.
“Daniels lives at Pelican Grove Villas.”
Gullet stopped, hand on the doorknob.
“Same complex?”
“Yes! Yes! That can’t be coincidence. Marshall must be on the level. It’s got to be Daniels!”
Something shifted in Gullet’s expression. He gave a tight nod. “I’ll bring him in.”
“I want to go with you,” I said.
Gullet regarded me, stone-jawed. “I’ll let you know when we’ve got him.”
With that he was gone.
* * *
There was nothing to do but go home. And wait.
After walking Boyd, I zapped a frozen dinner and turned on the news. An appropriately concerned anchorwoman was reporting on a fire in a public housing block. Her air became subtly but fittingly shocked when she launched into coverage of the Marshall story. Footage showed the clinic, a younger Marshall, a clip of Herron leading a stadium in prayer, Marshall and Tuckerman leaving the courthouse.
I hardly heard. I kept going over every fact I knew. Kept checking my watch. Each time only minutes had passed.
Was it Daniels? It had to be Daniels. Had Gullet found him? What was taking so long?
I watered Anne’s cactus collection. Collected a load of wash. Emptied the dishwasher.
My thoughts were in collision, but there was no one with whom to discuss my doubts, weigh the probability of Daniels versus Marshall. I needed to talk to Ryan, to get his perspective. I thought of calling, decided he should be free to focus on Lily. Birdie was occupied with a catnip frog. Though keenly interested, Boyd was a lousy conversationalist.
Pete called around six thirty, bored and cranky. I told him I’d come by and fill him in on the events of the past four days.
Pete was reading Friday’s Post and Courier when I arrived. Crumpling the paper, he complained about the food, itchy dressings, his first physical therapy session.
“Aren’t we a black hole of need,” I said, kissing the top of Pete’s head.