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  “I hope so. We’d better get Hughes on that.”

  “Can he . . . code?” He strikes me more as the physical type.

  “Yes, ma’am,” says a voice behind me. “I mean, McPherson. I have a CS degree.”

  Hughes managed to rejoin us in a rather stealthy manner. I need to find out what exactly he did in the navy. I’d know if he was a SEAL, because he would have told me in the first two minutes. But the navy has other underwater covert-ops groups besides the SEALs.

  Marquez makes a vague statement, the air already sucked out of her balloon by George. It was a ballsy move on his part, but I suspect a necessary one. He’s not the limelight kind of guy, so there must be more scrutiny aimed at the UIU than I realized. By bringing down the judges, wealthy citizens, and politicians that we did, our fledgling organization already has its share of enemies who would love to see us fail.

  I’m not sure if those poor kids in the van are enough to keep that from happening.

  But there’s no way to know until we learn exactly how they ended up in the middle of Pond 65.

  CHAPTER SIX

  UNDERCOVER

  George Solar pretends to take a drink from his beer while I do my best to pretend I’m not watching the crowd of Nulty’s Oasis and hoping that nobody I know recognizes me. While we’re not exactly undercover, we’re definitely operating below the radar as we try to get information on the New River Bandits. The Oasis is a hotel bar near the Fort Lauderdale marina frequented by crews from the megayachts docked nearby.

  At any given time, you’ll hear Australian accents, Italian, Polish, and a dozen other languages as suntanned men and women in polos and shorts chat each other up. The crowd leans heavily male, and the women tend to be above average in attractiveness, but all have the steely nerve of Vegas cocktail waitresses accustomed to handling a stray hand on the ass.

  The dark secret about yachting culture is the number of people employed on yachts for the purposes of sex work. Yachts mean money. Money means horny men.

  The crews here mostly work on sport-fishing boats, which tend to be more about the fishing . . . mostly. But it’s not uncommon for those vessels to have “massage therapists” and no massage tables.

  We’re not here to look into that, and I pray to god the UIU never gets into that area of policing.

  And technically, since our jurisdiction is supposed to be what happens underwater, it seems unlikely. But who knows? We’re investigating this particular theft ring even though it’s outside our jurisdiction because one of the governor’s friends and donors is upset by the lack of response to his boat getting robbed.

  George argued with the governor’s chief of staff over the case, if only to make a show that we shouldn’t be disposed for political purposes, but he only put up a token fight because he knows how badly we need political allies. Having a Florida billionaire who donates across the aisle in your debt couldn’t hurt. It’s kind of sleazy but something we have to do.

  Right now, that means watching the crowd at the Oasis for anyone mingling with the crews who looks like they might be working them for information. The current theory is that the Bandits are scouting out what kind of gear’s on the yachts and what kind of security they have at night.

  When they robbed the Bountiful—the governor’s pal’s yacht—they managed to slip aboard and steal an entire satellite navigation console and radar mast while the crew slept belowdecks, somehow evading the ship’s alarm system.

  While the first suspects were the crew themselves, their stories checked out. A late-night fisherman spotted a small black boat leaving the harbor around the time the thieves would have been fleeing and said he saw three men aboard.

  A month ago, the Bandits were caught in the act of robbing a yacht. Florida Marine Patrol dispatched a boat to the scene and gave chase but lost them when the weather turned rough. So here we are, an underwater policing unit on dry land, picking up a case nobody else wanted because the crime scenes are spread across the state and no one can figure out if they should be looking on land or at sea.

  “What do you think?” asks George after he gives the bar a bored look.

  “This is bullshit. I’d rather be talking to the crew of the burglarized yachts,” I reply. “I’d say we should talk to whoever’s fencing the gear, but I bet it’s going overseas.” I leave out my other concern: that the fence could be someone my dad or uncle knows.

  “Yeah. It is bullshit. You don’t need to talk to these sea monkeys to know what’s onboard these boats. That idiot Cal Romero had twelve pages of glossy photos of his boat published the month before it got robbed. Same for that Saudi asshole.” George has little regard for ostentatious displays of wealth. “Anyone can pick up those magazines and see what’s onboard. You can even figure out where the safes are from the photos.”

  “Maybe we should be talking to the photographer . . . ,” I murmur.

  George puts down his untouched beer. “You’re an idiot, McPherson.”

  “I know. It was just a joke.”

  “No. I mean the other kind of idiot. The kind that’s actually smart but thinks she’s dumb. Why didn’t you mention the photographer angle before?”

  “Probably because I just thought of it?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t think anybody thought about going back that far. The photographer or whoever was doing the article would know a lot more than what’s in the articles. They’d probably be able to capture security codes and all that. Hell, they could make sure things don’t work. Next time I ask you for your theories, speak up.”

  “Sorry. I’m still getting used to the investigator thing. I kind of thought you’d handle the brain stuff and I’d be the one who jumps into the water.”

  “That’ll be Hughes’s job, if I have my way,” says George. “I need your mental powers now.”

  “God help us.” I look out the open window of the bar at the shimmering black water of the Intracoastal.

  “What is it?” he asks.

  “The van.”

  “I’m impressed. I didn’t think you could go an hour without talking about it.” He checks his watch. “Whoops. Never mind. Almost. What about it? Forensics will have their formal report tomorrow. But we know the teeth are a match for the missing kids. The press already figured that out. I was going to wait until it’s official to say it, but job well done, McPherson. Their families will finally have peace of mind.”

  “Will they?” I ask. “If, god forbid, Jackie went missing, the best thing I could hope for thirty years later would be that she was out there alive and well, just clinging to a grudge against me. But to be told she’s dead?”

  “They know their kids are dead, Sloan. They’ve known for a long time. They didn’t have any hope. This just gives them closure. Something to bury.”

  “Does it give them closure?” I reply. “We don’t know how the van got out there.”

  “Four dysfunctional kids with substance issues end up inside a canal after leaving a rock concert. It’s not hard to figure out.”

  “I guess. I’m not the expert on that. Still, why so far away?”

  “They got lost, maybe on purpose to get high. I don’t know. Call me harsh, but I don’t care all that much. You want to worry about unsolved cases, dig into the files. I’ve got missing children’s cases with patterns nobody else picked up on. As far as our jurisdiction goes, we know somebody’s been dumping bodies in the Everglades, and nobody has a clue as to why. There’re a lot more immediate things that need our attention.”

  “But shouldn’t we be addressing what’s in front of us?”

  “Should I bust the bartender for dealing coke? I’ve watched him make three transactions in the last hour. The guy in the maroon hoodie at the table at the far end? He looks like he’s buying for the owners of a boat. The two women on the other side of the bar trying to take the perfect selfie? They walked up to two different crew members, probably trying to see if the owners were looking for yacht girls. So, no, McPherson. We don’
t always address what’s right in front of us. We worry about the living and don’t get into other people’s business unless our superiors tell us to. Unless . . .” He trails off.

  “Unless what?” I ask.

  “Unless your nose is telling you there’s something more to the van. Is it?”

  “My nose doesn’t even tell me if I have a nose.”

  “Sooner or later you’re going to have to find out if you got instincts for this.” He gets up from the table. “Let’s go talk to the bartender.”

  “You think he knows something about the Bandits?”

  “No. But I’m sure he knows something about something. I’m bored. Let’s see what he has to say.”

  While George Solar isn’t exactly the old-school movie cop who’d drive his vehicle up on the sidewalk to hassle a pimp for information, he has no qualms about starting shit just to see what people say.

  There’s a lot to learn from him, good and bad. The hard part is telling them apart. I’m not sure if his outward indifference is a strength or a weakness, but I do know that my nose is telling me something about the van.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FINAL REPORT

  While George and I were chasing down false leads in the New River Bandits case, Marquez and the FDLE were working overtime, more than making up for us hijacking their press conference. They’ve assembled an impressive presentation in the forensic warehouse lab in Miami. The van is center stage, up on blocks, while tables and signs surround it with the evidence gathered from its interior, along with maps, photos of the victims, and a timeline printed on poster boards.

  The moment George, Hughes, and I walked into the lab, we knew the investigation was effectively over. While FDLE was limited to forensic assistance, they’ve pretty much closed the case, as far as the public is concerned.

  While we wait for the head of the lab, Dr. Felix Aguilló, to present his results, I lean over to George and whisper, “What the hell? Why all this?”

  George shakes his head. “I don’t think they’ve ever gone to this much effort for a vehicle recovered with bodies.”

  It could simply be a big PR push for the FDLE. For all we know, they’re about to ask for a budget boost and want to make sure there’s good coverage in the press. As it stands, most Floridians don’t even realize the agency exists.

  Aguilló, a tall, thin man with gray hair and a deep tan, walks over to us in his lab coat. “There she is!” He holds out his hand to me. “Great work.” He looks to George. “Is it ‘Detective’? I’m not sure what your employees are called.”

  “‘Detective’ is fine,” says George.

  “Or Sloan,” I reply, trying to be as cordial as possible.

  Aguilló nods to Hughes. “Thank you as well. I have to tell you that this has been an amazing opportunity. We don’t get a time capsule like this very often.”

  “Especially one with bodies,” I reply, a little miffed at his glee regarding four tragic deaths.

  He switches to a somber voice. “Yes, yes. Of course, very tragic.” He says it with the believability of someone on a heart transplant list who just found out a motorcyclist with their blood type had a fatal accident. He checks his watch. “Let me go over what we found before the press conference begins.”

  Press conference? I’m about to blurt the words, but I see George displaying restraint. I try to follow his lead. But what the hell? This was my case. How is the FDLE having a press conference without my input?

  Mind your temper, Sloan, and don’t get territorial.

  I remind myself that it’s about the kids—whose faces are in front of me now as Aguilló leads us to four poster boards displaying their blown-up yearbook photos.

  “Tim Kelly, seventeen; Grace Sandalin, seventeen; Caitlin Barrow, eighteen; and Dylan Udal, nineteen, were all students or former students at North Plantation High School. On February 18, 1989, they went to a concert in Udal’s van. Caitlin Barrow was the last to be picked up. She’d told her father that she was going to go see a movie, while the others had told their parents they were going to a rock concert sponsored by a local radio station. The last confirmed sighting of the four teens was by Barrow’s father.”

  “What about the concert?” I ask.

  “We have no reason to doubt that they went there,” Aguilló replies. “Nor evidence that they did.”

  George gives me a small look, not exactly telling me to shut up, but warning me not to push Aguilló too far.

  Aguilló points to a map that shows all the homes for the kids and the likely route that Udal took to pick them up and then drive to the concert north of where they lived. “Either after picking them up or after the concert, they headed farther north and ended up in Pond 65 off Northlake Boulevard, where you found the van. We believe that Udal was under the influence and probably became disoriented, traveling north and ultimately losing control of the vehicle. The search area’s widest zone ended ten miles to the south because investigators had no reason to suspect they went any farther.”

  Aguilló takes us over to a poster showing several X-rays. “Udal’s neck fracture implies he was behind the wheel. The other three show consistent injuries to suggest that they were in the back of the vehicle, possibly sleeping or under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, when the van plunged into the canal. We can reasonably assume it was a peaceful death.”

  “Peaceful?” asks Hughes.

  Aguilló directs his attention to Hughes. “There was no sign of any kind of struggling. The ceiling liners, seats, and placements of the victims suggest that they didn’t try to escape the van, and Udal would have gone instantly. Like I said, peaceful. Or as close to it as possible under these circumstances.”

  He says this with a doctor’s calm demeanor, but I’m pretty sure no physician has ever walked into a waiting room and told the family that their loved one died screaming in agony, begging for life.

  Aguilló is smart; that’s clear to me. But whenever I deal with forensic experts who have their salaries paid by the same people making the arrests, I have to wonder if what they’re telling me is what they really think or what I need to hear to find the most expedient path to a conviction. In my schoolwork, I’ve studied a lot of fractures and broken bones and seen the signs of violent injury, but never anything like a car crash. There weren’t a lot of minivans and SUVs roaming around when my archaeological subjects died. I have to take him at face value that what he’s telling me is what’s really there.

  I walk over to a map of the lake. There’s an outline of the van where it was found. I point to the actual van. “How did this get all the way out there?”

  “We estimate Udal was going at least seventy miles an hour when he went off the road. The embankment probably had a sharper incline back then, acting as a ramp.” He points to the rocky outcropping.

  “Like Evel Knievel,” I reply.

  “Yes, I guess so.”

  Hughes stares at the map and says what I’m thinking. “It’s almost like he aimed for it.”

  “We have no reason to believe that,” says Aguilló.

  George speaks up. “Translation: Who wants to tell the families that the kid may have intentionally gone in?”

  “Like I said,” says Aguilló, “we have no reason to believe that it was intentional.”

  “Unless you have evidence to the contrary,” says the voice of Marquez from the entrance to the lab. She walks over and stands between us and the van, using it as a backdrop. “What do you think?” she asks George.

  “Best fifth-grade science-fair exhibit I’ve ever seen,” he replies.

  She blinks, not sure how to take the comment, then brushes it off. “Well, we’re only here to provide the forensic side of things. But I think science tells the whole story. Don’t you?”

  “We’ll see,” I reply for George, lacking a better comeback.

  Hughes has wandered over to a table and is examining items in plastic bags. “Is this from inside the van?”

  “Yes,” says Aguilló. He
picks up a bag with a dented beer can. “Beer bong, cassette tapes, clothing—the things you’d expect to find in a van driven by a teenager.”

  I pick up a bag holding a plastic casing. It looks a lot like an old Polaroid camera film cartridge. “Any photos?”

  “No,” replies Aguilló. “No camera. Just one more bit of debris that was inside. We found a disc camera in Caitlin Barrow’s purse, but there was no film in it. A shame she didn’t have it loaded. I would be curious to see more information about their last night.”

  “So now what?” George asks Marquez.

  “Well . . . I was thinking we do a press briefing about what we found. And unless there’s anything you think we’re overlooking, we close the case.”

  “Aren’t you missing something?” says George. “Shouldn’t we speak to the families before we talk to the press?”

  “Actually, I just did that. I got off the phone with the parents right before I came here.”

  “You did what?” George glances at Hughes, then starts to walk between Marquez and the van. He’s not normally a pacer when he’s angry.

  I think he’s about to yell at her for doing it over the phone. Instead, he thrusts a finger in my direction. “Didn’t you think maybe you should have included McPherson on that? She is after all the one who found the bodies.”

  “Technically, our people found the bodies,” she replies.

  “Are you goddamn kidding me?” George snaps. “We find the van, pull it from the lake, and just because your lab monkeys pry open the doors, you decide you found the bodies?”

  I’d tell George to let it go, but I’m too pissed to say anything. Marquez just steamrolled right over us. The FDLE’s going to get the credit for this one. The worst thing is, it’s not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. It’ll do little for them. What it’s really about is denying the UIU credit when we need it most. She stepped on us because she could.

  “You’re more than welcome to make a statement at our three o’clock press conference,” says Marquez.

  “No, thanks,” says George. “We have more important things to get to.”