Chapter Eighteen
Friday, April 14 ten-thirty a.m.
Peach stalked into the courtyard, her rigid arms ending in tight fists. A litany of curse words fell off her tongue, all perfectly describing the self-absorbed idiot. To think she worried that he was hungry. An extreme exercise in misjudgment on her part to give the bastard the number of orgasms she had. She didn’t want to be locked inside his stupid laboratory. Not when she could be out in a world that appreciated her. Ahead, Katie tugged Carolina across the courtyard. Peach swept her arm around Carolina and ushered her into the garage. “I’m driving. We need to take this,” Peach said, stopping by a vintage GTO. “This is the car for angels.” She was going to have a good day, she decided, no matter what she had to do.
A scant three hours later, three glasses of clear liquid—two Grey Goose, one water—were raised in a toast. “To Carolina Walker, the interview diva!” Katie’s voice rang out loud and proud, filling the empty space of Steel Strings. Donny, the owner and now Butch and Katie’s partner, worked behind the bar, drying off freshly washed glasses, as he watched over the one man sitting at the bar. It was only in this bar, with the oversize pictures of Butch McCormick on the wall, that Peach put it all together.
“Oh my God,” Carolina said as she set the empty glass down. “I did it. I really did it. And I was good. Wasn’t I good?”
“You kicked ass,” Peach said then threw down her vodka.
“Can’t wait to hear it,” Donny said. “Where can I get one of your books?” A bell dinged. Donny collected three plates of barbecue and set them with sets of real silverware.
Carolina beamed at the weathered bar man as she accepted the plate. “I’ll bring you one. Signed by author. This looks delicious.”
Peach slammed her glass to the table. “Did you see that producer’s eyes when you said you’d been in a bar fight? That was respect.”
“That was awesome.” Carolina’s blue eyes danced with joy. “I’ve never been a badass before.”
Katie leaned over her belly and gave her sister-of-the-heart a hug. “I’m so proud of you,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “Ignore the crying. It’s just hormones. That and I haven’t had sex for two months.”
“Yikes.” It escaped before Peach realized the thought was out loud. “That’s a long time. You know you don’t have to wait for a man to make the move. You can make it. I’m surprised that you haven’t already.”
More tears fell. Bigger ones. “If he finds me disgusting—”
Carolina squeezed Katie’s hand. “He doesn’t think you’re disgusting. Your husband is a good man, and he’s going to be a great father. But right now, he’s over educated. Over informed. There’s only one cure for that.”
“Screw his brains out,” Peach said, straight a pin, sharp as tack. “It’s the only known cure. You have to fuck him stupid.”
Katie bit her non-existent fingernails and measured the serious look of the two women. A fiendish little grin grew on her face. “He’s my husband. It’s my duty to take one for the team.”
“Ladies,” said a deep bass that was as rich and low as a lion growl.
Peach lifted her gaze to the man moseying from the bar. She had never appreciated the nuance of the word until this man. He was six-foot-five with a chiseled jaw that still wore yesterday’s shadow. His light brown eyes shined from under a weathered, tan cowboy hat, and his Levis were painted on.
By Michel-freaking-angelo.
Carolina cleared her throat. “Can we help you?”
He took off his hat. “I’d like to buy y’all a drink, maybe sit a while. Ya see, I’m a man who appreciates beauty in this world. And since I walked in that door, I have not been able to take my eyes off your table.” The man looked at Katie.
Carolina smiled. “We really appreciate the offer, mister…?”
“Solomon Davis. Friends call me Sol.”
“Well, Sol, we do appreciate the offer, but we’re married, and well, I’m sure you wouldn’t appreciate your wife keeping company with another man.”
Sol bowed slightly, his eyes on Katie again. “Of course. Say no more. But you will accept a drink on me?”
Carolina looked at Katie and then at Peach, who answered. “We will. Thank you.”
Sol put the hat back on his head and walked with a swagger back to the bar, where he paid Donny for the order. He tipped his hat as he kept swaggering right out the door.
Katie picked up her napkin and started fanning herself. “Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but that was hot.”
Peach picked up another napkin and fanned the both of them. “How is there a wrong way to take that? It was hot. He was hot. And I’m single. He could have kept me company.”
Katie and Carolina exchanged glances. “Everyone knows it’s you and Tom, and by everyone…we’re including the fire department,” Katie said.
Carolina covered Peach’s hand. “You don’t really think it’s a secret? Do you think you’ll get married in the courtyard? We rented the big vases, but we can buy them if you like them. They’ll give us a good price.”
Sound was sucked out of the room like water down the drain. Carolina’s lips were moving, but all Peach heard was static noise. Her brain was on the fritz. She slapped her palm to her temple when Katie grinned and nodded like a bobble-head. Were they planning her wedding? This was Tennessee; maybe they did things different here. Crap. What if they had a shotgun wedding? Well, if Katie was holding the gun, she’d have a chance of escape. With her luck, it’d be dead-eye Carolina.
This confirmed it. She’d hung around too long. It was Tom’s fault. If he wasn’t so good in bed, she’d have been gone. Hell, she never would have come. Come. Yeah, he made sure she did that.
A woman approached the table. She was as tall as Carolina with a wild, matted mass of orangy hair that was not a color found in nature. She had the blue eyes, full, pouty lips, and a pair of torpedoes stuffed into her bra that could bring down a submarine. All in all, she had a package that got noticed.
Katie’s hand wrapped around the fork until her knuckles were white. Peach laid a hand over it and demanded her hearing work again. With a whoosh, sound was restored.
“Well, well, well. If it isn’t Kate McCormick. Killed anyone lately? Oh, wait. Your husband is out of ex-wives.” Stacked red heels detailed with Swarovski Crystals tapped an open toe on the scarred oak floor.
Katie lifted her head and bore her teeth. “Abbey McNeil. I would have thought the daylight would have kept you in the sewers. What made you crawl out this time of day?”
A cold, sinister grin grew across Abbey’s face and was quickly wiped away, replaced with a wry, quirky smile. “Just checking out what the wanna-be-cool kids do for fun.”
“Bullshit. You know Butch and I bought in to this place.”
Peach put McNeil in late-twenties and dressed like she cashed over a hundred grand a year. Peach wondered if she was doing it on her mother’s or her sugar daddy’s credit card.
“Oh,” McNeil cooed. “Is this the place? I had heard something about that.” She looked around, appraising the bar. “This place is very…you.”
Donny came out from behind the bar. “You’re not welcome here. Leave or I’ll call the police.” He wore a curled smile that said he hoped she didn’t go quietly.
“I make and break people in his town. I’m not someone you want as an enemy.”
“I made this town before you existed.” He picked up the phone. “I’m not someone you want as an enemy.”
She spat threats left and right as she backed herself out the door.
“I’m sorry about that, Donny,” Katie said resignedly.
“Never have liked reporters,” Donny said, winking at Katie. “Too damn nosey.”
“Okay,” Peach said, using her hands to call time out. “What the hell was that all about?”
Carolina patted Katie’s hand. “Abbey McNeil is a reporter for a local tabloid, The News and Views. The news is thin and shady. The views are warped and tasteless. She seems to be of the opinion that if Butch McCormick is going to be with a blue-eyed redhead, it should be her.”
Peach came to her feet, her palms flat against the table. “You just let her get away with treating you like that?”
“Butch doesn’t want a scene made.” Katie said it like she was fighting to keep a pit bull leashed.
Decision time. Let it ride or take a drive.
Tom defiantly stayed bent over his computer, refusing to acknowledge the mess on his spit-shined floor. He was making progress with the photos, with the simulations. He induced the failure in the program where it knew it should happen. The tower still fell toward the job site. In fact, if his calculations were correct, it would have landed across the trailers where the offices were. Reluctantly, he loaded the video. He wasn’t fast enough, and her voice rang out. Happy and full of life. Very different than it had been with her parting words. Asshole.
“Clyde, you got woman troubles.”
He jumped. He hadn’t heard Jeb enter. “What do you know?”
He grinned. “I know that you got egg on your shirt, egg on your floor, and despite the night I know you had, egg on your face.”
He dropped a heavy fist on the desk. “Did you want something, or are you just here to annoy me?”
“Annoying you is gravy. Made some calls like you asked. Boys will be here around seven-thirty to take your money.”
He forgot he’d asked them to set up a poker game. He had thought Peach might enjoy playing. That was before he and Poppy talked. She could play, didn’t mean he had to. “Wait. Here? I thought it was Doc’s turn?”
“It is,” Jeb said, making himself comfortable in a guest chair. “But Doc’s wife’s quilting bee is at his house tonight. Oil and water, being what they are, I agreed playing here was a better idea. Timmy and Jimmy were visiting when I called, so they’re coming too.”
“Fine.” Still didn’t mean he had to play. “Anything else?”
“Hawthorne and his family made it safely to Miami last night. Ramos is working on a video link. Expect we’ll be running in another fifteen minutes and start a second interview. You want in?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I would. I’m missing something, Jeb. Something compromised that crane. I’m sure of it, but I can’t nail it down.”
“Can’t testify in court to the cause but does it really matter? You know that the crane was compromised, sabotaged. This wasn’t an accident.”
“Yeah, but…” He stood and started to pace, stepping over the splattered eggs and broken plate. “It’s just driving me crazy. It’s like it’s right in front of me, but when I reach for it, poof. It’s gone.”
Jeb rubbed his chin. “I think something has gone poof all right…and it’s not the stick up your butt.”
He scowled, resenting the dumbass remark. “I do not have a stick up my butt.”
“Sure you do. It’s not a bad thing. A lot of good things have come from you having a stick up your butt.” Jeb got to his feet. “This will come, too.”
He exhaled as his brother-in-law stepped over the mess and walked toward the door. “Jeb. She’s going to leave.”
“Yep. She’s one to meet life head on.” Jeb stopped at the door, turning back. “You want her to stay, you’re going to have to give her a reason.”
Easy. Just like that. Like it was nothing. He ran both hands through his hair. “What if…if I don’t have one to give her?”
“Clyde, you’re making this harder than it is.” The door closed silently, leaving the space behind it and the man in it empty.
Tom returned to his computer, saving the files for later. He sorted the pictures, saving some to a special folder. Last, he closed the video, the mouse hovering over the close button. He didn’t know he’d gotten so close to Peach until she felt a mile away.
It was a unique and disturbing feeling for him.
He didn’t have an answer. He left it behind, closing the door firmly as he went to Jeb’s conference room. There, a small room decked out in floral patterns filled the big screen mounted on the wall. The voice coming over the speaker was soft for a man but no nonsense. The screen flickered once, twice, and then the image of a slightly built man with the lines of a prizefighter appeared. “We have you on screen now, Ramos.”
Without the name, Tom wouldn’t have recognized one of Jeb’s top employees. The man known simply as Ramos was a master of disguise, a bold and daring thief, and no one he wanted to face in a dark alley.
Ramos sat in front of the screen. His mouth curled at one end. “Good to see you, Jeb. It’s been a while.”
“Six months,” Jeb said, turning the thick ring on his finger.
Ramos nodded. “Business is good in Florida. You should visit more often.”
“Maybe.” Jeb pursed his lips. “Probably.”
Tom sat in front of the big screen. He turned to look back at Jeb and kicked the leg of the table. Thunder rolled through the room. “Son of a bitch,” he mumbled, pulling his foot to rest on his knee. “Jeb, can we get on with this?”
“Where’s all that patience you’re always so proud of?” Jeb laughed softly and shook his head. “Where’s Hawthorne? We might as well get this started before my friend here pops a gasket.”
“Hagerman went to the main house to get him. I set up out here in the pool house.”
“Jesus. Some secure location,” Tom muttered.
Ramos shrugged and stepped out of the scene. “It’s southern Florida. You can’t buy a house without a pool. Here he comes.” The camera was adjusted as Hagerman steered Hawthorne into the chair Ramos vacated. The man looked a hundred percent better now being clean and shaven, having fed and slept and being in a safe location with his wife and boys. Those purple bags were now just shadows under brown eyes that were eager, determined.
“Mr. Hawthorne,” Jeb started.
“Jack. Call me Jack. I can’t thank you for getting my wife and the boys out of there.”
“Did you have any trouble getting away?”
“No. We followed your instructions and met your man. Terry was a bundle of nerves until we were on the plane.”
“And your boys?”
Hawthorne grinned, looking ten years younger. “They thought it was an adventure.”
Tom cleared his throat, glaring at Jeb. Jeb kicked Tom’s calf and finished the small talk. “Boys. You gotta love that age.”
Hawthorne’s grin grew. “You have kids?”
“Not yet,” Jeb said, holding up his hand. “Just tied the knot a few days ago. But we will, soon. I’m going to need to keep that woman busy.”
Hawthorne laughed then took in a deep breath and let it out. Small talk was over. “You want to know what happened on Saturday.”
Jeb nodded. “In your own words. Take your time. Tom shared the story you told on the boat, but I want you to start from the beginning.”
Tom sat up straight, a yellow pad of paper on his knee and pen in hand. “Walk us through the minutes before the accident. Tell me anything you can remember. What you heard, what you felt. Who you saw. What you saw.”
Hawthorne rubbed his palms on his khaki pants. “I was in my office until ten, working on invoices and pay applications. I was going up in the basket to supervise a heavy lift. Those sections were some of the hardest to place I’ve ever dealt with. Every time we did one, I wanted to be close. We had zero margin for error. Anyway, I shut my laptop down and put it away. I…I had a hiding place.”
“We found it,” Jeb said. “We have your laptop here with us.”
“Oh, thank God. There are some files you’re going to want to look at. I went back to get it but couldn’t get on the site without somebody knowing I was alive. So I went out across the yard. Carter was standing out in the open, watching the iron workers. I asked him about invoices from some suppliers that didn’t look right to me. He gave me some dumb shit response.”
“You don’t like the guy?” Jeb asked.
Jack rubbed a hand through his hair. “You can like someone and dislike working with them. As a person, Joe was an okay kid. He had a girlfriend that he was always going on about. Liked to party but who doesn’t at that age? The thing about Joe was he wanted it all now. He knew jack shit about running a construction site, but every other day he was up in Junior’s office with another great idea about running the project.”
“Junior?” Jeb said. “Michael Fabrini?”
“Sorry. Yeah, I meant Mike.”
“So you spoke with Carter,” Tom said, getting the conversation back on track.
“He said he was planning to go up in the basket, and did I mind? Kid surprised me. Usually, I have to order him to get involved with the work. I told him to have at it. I walked away but didn’t get too far before he chased me down. Morales’s radio was fading in and out. He asked if I would take a radio up to him so he could go in the basket.”
“You worked with the crew before?”
“Sure. Everyone but Rico. He’d been on the job since the day the crane arrived. No complaints. He got on well enough with everyone and was easily one of the top five operators I’ve ever worked with. Although, well, that morning I was annoyed with him. He was late. Something about an accident on the highway. Yeah, he was scrambling that morning, and we ended up thirty minutes behind where I wanted to be.”
Tom closed his eyes against the question he did not want to ask. “Do you think, in his hurry, he could have overlooked something? Some safety check? Yesterday you mentioned something about melted paint. Could that have been more than superficial?”
Hawthorne shook his head sadly. “Did Rico overlook something? I want to say no, absolutely not, but anything can happen. Morales was only fifteen minutes late, not enough to cause a real problem. I saw him standing out at the crane with his vest and hard hat on, going through the checklist on a clipboard. I can’t say he didn’t rush it, but he didn’t skip it. Rico was a master. He didn’t cut corners. I don’t know if the damaged paint was new or old. If Rico noticed it, it should have been logged on his checklists.”
Tom made a note to review the inspection files. “Okay. So you climbed the tower crane.”
Hawthorne nodded. “I don’t know if you remember, but I started out as an operator. After I met Terry, I switched into the office, but I always loved the cranes. I would have volunteered to go up if Joe hadn’t asked me.”
“Tell me about the accident itself. Details are important.”
Hawthorne began to sweat, the color leaching from his face. His big, weathered hands ran over his head.
“Jack?”
“I can’t get it out of my head, Tom. Over and over, awake or asleep, it’s all I see. Why is it so fucking hard to say it out loud?”
“You nearly died,” Jeb said. The sincerity in his voice made it easy to believe he spoke from experience. “In fact, how did you survive?”
“No idea. No idea why me and why not Rico.”
“Did you check the wind?” Tom asked.
“Of course. We checked the wind, the forecast, and did the calcs. I’d spoken with Rico before he went up. We still had cushion. Rico had the final call. I said yes, but if he said no, it was no. He said it was a beautiful day for flying.” Hawthorne’s voice broke, then his remorse-filled eyes met Tom. “It shouldn’t have happened.”
“No, it shouldn’t have.” The math didn’t lie. It shouldn’t have happened. “Rico was confident?”
“There wasn’t a shadow of doubt in his mind.”
“When did you know there was a problem?”
Hawthorne shook his head slowly, his gaze somewhere off screen, a few states north on an unforgiving great lake. “There was a pop. The super-sized sound of metal snapping. It was a noisy day. The frame groaned as it lifted from the ground. The guys in the basket were talking. The wind whitewashed everything. Then there was a pop.”
“Just one?”
“One started it, maybe two? You know, it wasn’t what I was paying attention to. I was watching the frame. I think I knew there was a problem when it dropped a foot. It was moving smoothly up and to our left. It dropped and swung sideways. I’m not explaining this well.” He used his finger and traced a smooth arc through the air. “That’s the way Rico lifted the others.” He used the same finger, started on the same arc, then dropped it straight down and swung it toward his body. “That’s what it actually did.”
“You need some water, Mr. Hawthorne?” Ramos asked off camera.
“Yeah. I could use something cold.”
Both rooms were silent. On the screen, Hawthorne displayed the symptoms of a man pulled back to the edge. His hands were restless, going again and again to his face and hair. Short strokes that didn’t soothe, didn’t wipe it all away. He was sweating now, the lines in his face getting deeper with each passing minute. A bottle of water was handed in from stage left. Hawthorne fumbled opening it, then got the lid off. He drank and then looked directly into the camera, his resolve back in place.
Jeb nodded and continued. “How could someone know the crane would fall that day, at that time?”
“Tom can tell you, you don’t do lifts like the one we were doing without planning weeks in advance. We were always battling the weather. The project had been delayed more than once, putting our start in winter. Anyone familiar with the project would have known we would have made that lift on that day if the weather was remotely cooperative.”
“When would the crane tower have been damaged? The night before?”
“Not necessarily,” Hawthorne said. “The other lifts that week had been small for a crane of that size. They might not have pushed the limit, so to speak.”
Tom nodded as his thoughts flowed along with Hawthorne’s. “The biggest thing against the damage being done early was the risk of it being noticed. I think we need to start with the assumption that it was tampered with very close to the day of the accident.”
“Thursday sleeted, rained and snowed at the same damn time. I shut the job down at mid-day. It would have been a good opportunity for someone who knew what they were doing.”
“The event, then, was a perfect storm of wind, weight, and deadly intent?” Jeb scribbled notes. “Why do you think it was targeted at you? Why not Rico? Why not the project itself?”
“About two weeks ago, someone broke into my house. I was out of town when they broke the window in my office and tried to take my home computer. Terry heard the noise and let the dogs out. They were in the bedroom with her. When the police arrived, the office was a mess and the computer was on the floor. There were other things, too, smaller. Someone had been in my office, messing with my files. My truck was broken into.”
“No threats?” Jeb asked.
“No. Nothing that overt. Until my house was broken into, I thought I might have been being paranoid.”
“Anything else about the event stand out in your mind?”
He laughed with an edge of crazy in his voice. “Everything has stood out. Every word spoken to me, every glance. Being alone for those days had me thinking everyone on the site was out to get me.”
“Anyone more than others?”
“Joe. He…he was just watching. The crane. He had this look on his face. He wasn’t surprised. He was…shit…he was entertained or something. Until he realized the crane was falling toward him. I saw his eyes when he realized what was coming,” Hawthorne said, fading softly into silence.
“How did you survive?” Jeb asked again and then clarified. “After the fall.”
Hawthorne took a few seconds to collect himself. He closed his eyes and inhaled; he looked to the ceiling and exhaled. “I’ve been swimming my whole life. I grew up in the water, around boats. I was on my high school and college swim teams. I still do triathlons.” Hawthorne paused again, twisting his hands. “The water was cold. God, it was cold. It took a few seconds to get oriented. I was upside down. I had to swim deeper to get out of the cabin. So I did. I ran into something and grabbed on to it. It was Rico.”
“Was he dead?” Tom asked, holding his breath for the answer.
“Yeah but I didn’t know that right then. I pushed him toward the surface and swam. I broke through choppy waves and faced the long horizon. Something bobbed close to me. It was Carter. I turned him over, but it was pretty obvious he was gone.”
“You didn’t leave them—Rico and Carter?”
“Something just kicked in, and I had to get away from the construction site. I towed the two bodies around the rocky line of the break water and dragged them into the brush. There was a hidden cove; it was a homeless guy’s place. I pulled the bodies in with me and just sat there, shivering. I didn’t know what to do. The guy came back. I don’t know who was more afraid, but he helped me. He got me warm and kept me hidden when the search party came by. Once it was dark, I climbed out and called Terry, my wife. She came. We put them in the back of the SUV and drove to the dock, where you found me.”
Tom cursed under his breath. Peach had been close, so close to her uncle. But he knew that by the time Hawthorne was pulling her uncle’s body into his truck, Peach was outside the restaurant, stalking him and Fabrini. “Why did you take Morales?” His voice was a whisper. “His family has been suffering, afraid to hold out hope he was alive.”
Hawthorne hung his head. “Terry and I fought over it. I…I was convinced someone had just tried to kill me. I thought if I was the only one missing, it would lead to too many questions. When I pulled them to shore, they were dead. I needed them to be missing, too.”
Jeb looked at Tom. “Any more questions about how?”
The testimony answered a lot of questions but not the one nagging at his mind. “Not now. I need to go back and look at the evidence.”
“Okay, then let’s move on to the why. Someone is embezzling from F&F,” Jeb said.
“Yes,” Hawthorne hissed. “Quotes and invoices were padded. I’m certain of that. I don’t know how they actually got the money or everybody who is involved.”
“But you have suspicions.”
Hawthorne nodded. “Carter. I’m nearly positive he was the one who padded the quotes. I worked three jobs with him. I went back and checked the records. Two had padding on some accounts.”
“How did he do it?”
“His job was to get the quotes. They come in through email. It was easy enough for him to set up the paperwork with a few extra grand added in. If I didn’t see the original email, I would never know the purchase order or invoice wasn’t for the correct amount.”
“So how did you find it?”
“It started with a tip from a long-time colleague. I went back and checked all the purchase orders, called the suppliers. I found about twelve thousand in added charges.” Hawthorne looked right into Jeb’s eyes. “Somebody in accounting had to be in on it, though. Otherwise, the suppliers would have gotten the extra cash.”
“What do you think of Michael Fabrini?”
“Nothing good. If his daddy didn’t own the company, he’d be heading up the unemployment line.”
“Did you know he deals drugs?”
Hawthorne chewed his lip. “No, but it doesn’t surprise me. Maybe it even explains some of the erratic behavior. Do you think he was mixed up with the skimming?”
“Don’t know yet,” Jeb said. “Tell me about the files.” It took another hour to run through the conspiracy theories and details. At the end, Hawthorne looked like a man used and abused. “I think we’re done.”
Hawthorne nodded. “I need to see my wife.”
“You do that. We’ll call you if we have something.”
Hawthorne nodded, his head hanging heavily from sagging shoulders. “Thanks. I owe you. Both of you.”
Jeb shut the system down. “I’ll tell ya. You picked a hell of a case to cut your teeth on.”
Tom looked at the notes he scratched over the paper. He had told himself the work was about the numbers and solving the puzzle. Disconnecting from the human side was easy, so he had thought. But answers were for the living. He needed to bring this to a close, which would help many that he’d met move on, including Peach. The pencil scribbled jagged lines as his hand trembled.