Heat Wave, page 10
Looking crisply professional in navy slacks, a white blouse, and her CSI windbreaker, she sat in the cramped office of swimming coach Phil Cunnick, in his second year of heading the program. The odor of chlorine from the nearby pool permeated the cubbyhole—the coach probably no longer noticed it, but a guest like Calleigh found her eyes burning. Resting on the floor next to her was the duffel bag holding the AK-47, which she’d already tested for prints.
Tall and leanly muscular, Cunnick—in his team T-shirt and gym trunks—seemed young for a college coach, probably still in his late twenties. He wore his blond hair long, unusually so for a swimmer; but at this point in his career, he probably only competed in Olympic-caliber events.
She had never met Phil Cunnick before this morning, but she had seen him swimming on TV in the last Olympics. He had an easygoing charisma, not hurt by a vague resemblance to Brad Pitt. His green eyes were warm and friendly, and his grin was as wide and white as it was easy.
“Uh, is this some kind of joke?” Cunnick asked. “What am I, being punk’d?”
“Uh, no. You saw my credentials. Your department chair did call and pave the way?”
“Yeah, but…you really can’t expect me to let you shoot up my state-of-the-art, Olympic-quality swimming pool…?”
She smiled reassuringly and kept her tone light, while her words weren’t. “Miami-Dade has a good relationship with the university—we would never compromise that.”
“I’m gonna have to say no.”
Her smile never dimmed. “Honestly, I won’t hurt it at all.”
“You can’t be serious.”
She handed him the paperwork.
Cunnick scanned the succinct note from his department head over and over. Then he looked at her firmly. “Listen—department head or no department head, this pool, this entire building, is my responsibility.”
“I understand. I feel that way about my lab.”
“And you have a nice smile, Ms. Duquesne, and a commendable professional manner. But I’m not going to okay this.”
She sat forward. “I promise you, Mr. Cunnick—it won’t hurt your pool.”
He sighed. “Riiight. Firing an AK-47 into it won’t hurt my pool.”
“The water will dissipate the energy of the bullets—they’ll be harmless by the time they get to the bottom.”
With a frown, he said, “On TV, you ballistics people are always firing guns into trash barrels and like that.”
Her smile still in place, Calleigh replied, “First, we’re not ‘ballistics people’—that’s a television term. We’re firearms and toolmark examiners, and secondly, though we do have a tank we use for firing off rounds, that procedure works best with one or two shots. I’m going to let go a seventy-five-round magazine. You do that in the tank, and the water will get so churned up, it’ll distort the test.”
He looked at her as if she’d fallen right out of the sky, through the ceiling, and into the chair across from him. “Well…I can see how you sold my department head…. Can you promise me the MDPD will pay for any damages if you’re wrong?”
“I don’t have the authority to do that.”
“Oh, but you—”
“That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have any recourse if there were an accident. I’m not asking you to sign off on anything. And, remember, I’ve cleared it with the university.”
“You’re positive I’m not bein’ punk’d?”
“Quite positive.”
“And you can’t tell me what this is about?”
“Sorry, no—it’s part of an ongoing investigation.”
“Well…this kind of assault weapon…I’ve seen the papers and the news on the tube. It’s this gang war, right?”
Obviously unable to answer that, Calleigh decided to take a different tack. “Mr. Cunnick—”
“Phil.”
“Phil. And I like Calleigh better than Ms. Duquesne. Let me ask you, Phil—who on this campus knows more about swimming than you?”
He gave her a cocky grin, his self-confidence stronger than the misgivings he’d been caught up in. “Not a soul, Calleigh.”
She gave him her sweetest smile. “Now…who do you suppose knows more about firearms than me?”
The words seemed to cold-cock Cunnick for a few moments; then he began to chuckle. “All right, we’ll try it. But so much as one tile is chipped—I’m suing the city.”
“That would be your right,” she said cheerfully.
When they came out of Cunnick’s office, several swimmers and divers were clustered around the pool, their bodies pearled with water, hair matted down and dripping.
She walked along beside the coach, lugging the duffel at her side. The catcalls and wolf whistles started almost immediately. She took no offense—they were just kids, and it was hardly the first time Calleigh Duquesne had been whistled at.
Anyway, she figured most of them had her pegged for the coach’s girlfriend and just wanted to give him a hard time.
“Pipe down,” Cunnick said as they approached the team. “You’d think you nincompoops never saw a lady before.”
“Not like her,” one of them in the back said, rather breathlessly.
Smiling inwardly—she had liked the coach’s choice of words, nincompoop being a term her father used to use, such a wonderful, evocative, oldtimey insult—Calleigh unzipped her windbreaker. As she did a couple of whoops rang out…
…only to catch in young throats when the swimmers saw the gun and badge.
Now a gentle lapping of water was the only sound in the chamber.
She smiled at them politely. “I need you boys,” she said, emphasizing the B word, “to give me a hand.”
Grins blossomed, and clumsily suggestive offers of help tumbled out, echoing off dreamily reflective walls.
“Quiet, idiots,” their coach said. “Listen to CSI Duquesne.”
Murmurs among them—“She’s a CSI.” “Jeez, a real-life crime scene cop!”—indicated the young men were suddenly impressed with Calleigh in a whole new way.
“First,” Calleigh said, raising a finger, “I need you to step outside for a few minutes while I do my work. While you’re out there, the coach will explain what you’ll be doing when you come back in.”
“All right, guys,” Cunnick said. “In one minute, I want you into your sweats and out the door!”
They responded quickly, trained to obey their coach, though as they pulled on their sweats, they threw questions both at him and their guest, but neither the coach nor Calleigh was telling them anything. Soon the group of guys was about to go out the door, glancing back at this unusual visitor.
Their timing was excellent, because they got to see Calleigh unzipping the duffel bag and pulling out the AK-47. Wonderstruck murmurs—“Awesome!” “Cool!”—preceded the coach’s herding the wide-eyed, drop-jawed bunch out with a final slam of the door.
Then—blessed silence, and she was alone.
Outside, Cunnick was being inundated with questions from his swimmers.
“Coach, who’s the dish?” Rick Britton, the back-stroker, asked.
“Hey!” the coach said, glaring at the kid. “Respect.”
Ben Jackson, butterfly swimmer, asked, “What’s she doing here? A CSI!”
“You dating her?” Ron Murray, one of the divers, wanted to know.
“He wishes!” Yoshi Tamura said.
Embarrassed, and overwhelmed by his boys’ joshing him, Cunnick had his hands up, just ready to get tough, when Calleigh inadvertently helped him out…
…because when the shooting started, all his big, brave jocks dove for cover, even though she was inside and they were out here.
Calleigh had attached the magazine filled with her numbered bullets, slipped on safety glasses and her protective earmuffs, then walked to the end of the low diving board. She had selected this over a high dive—a three-meter board just to her right—as there was no need to go up so far merely to fire off some rounds.
Besides, from that height, the arc of ejected casings would be longer, and she wanted this to be as easy for the swim team as possible, despite their good-natured, immature harassment.
Perched on the end of the low board, she looked down into the deep blue of the pool, AK-47 at the ready. Due to the high-ceilinged mercury-vapor lighting, she couldn’t see her reflection in the water, but if she looked carefully through the gently rolling waves left behind by the swim team’s recent exercises, she could see a dark spot at the bottom of the deep end, which she figured for the drain.
Standing carefully, feet planted about shoulder-width apart so the recoil of the gun wouldn’t knock her off the board and into the water, Calleigh made sure she was at an angle as perpendicular to the surface as possible. That way the casings would eject into the pool.
Then she took aim at the underwater drain, released the safety, breathed in deeply through her nose, let the breath out through her mouth, and squeezed the trigger.
The water hissed and spat as the hot bullets plunged in; even with the muffs, she could hear their thunder resonating in the big tiled room. The recoil was considerable, but she was used to the effect and easily kept her balance.
As she’d assured the coach, the speed of the slugs dissipated rapidly, and they dropped harmlessly to the bottom of the pool. The water above, however, churned over white as Calleigh continued to spray the surface with bullets.
Had she used the tank at work, she would have found, due to the weight and the clumsy flight path of the 7.62 mm projectiles, the bullets not at the far end (as most non-gun people might suppose), but at the near—since AK rounds had a tendency to nose-dive when they hit the water.
Amateurs, on the other hand, figured the bigger the gun, the farther the shell would fly. Not always, Calleigh knew, not always.
Firing off the weapon, Calleigh Duquesne was in her element. She had loved guns since childhood, and she made no apologies for her interest, nor did she suffer any fools who made stupid sexual assumptions about her passion for pistols. The only way sex figured in was that she’d always been pretty and petite, and firearms were a great leveler.
But she also savored their power, the simple poetry of their mechanics, and the skills one needed to develop to use them safely, accurately, and responsibly.
As she squeezed off the last of the rounds, she figured that outside the swim team had run for the hills by now, and the thought of these big bad boys cowering gave her a tiny grin. With the seventy-five-round magazine exhausted, the acrid smell of cordite hung in the air. The gun felt hot and heavy in her hands, even though it was seventy-five rounds lighter; and as the water finally started to calm, she stepped back off the diving board, basking in the inner glow that came with ripping off a mag that big.
Taking off her earmuffs, she could still hear the reverberation of the shots in the chamber. AK-47 in hand, its snout down, she walked over to the door, opened it, and waved at Coach Cunnick to bring his team back in. The swimmers stared at the gun as they walked past her toward the pool.
“Do they know what to do?” Calleigh asked.
Cunnick grinned. “I was just about to tell them when you opened fire. Some of these guys moved faster out there than they ever have in the pool. Had to round half of ’em up out of the shower stall.”
The team appeared embarrassed; with their wet, matted-down hair, they were like damp puppies somebody had unsuccessfully tried to drown.
“So, Calleigh,” the coach said. “Did you hurt my pool?”
With a madonna’s smile, Calleigh said, “Judge for yourself, Phil.”
As Cunnick peered over the edge into the water, she could tell that everything looked fine to him from up here; but she knew that the bottom was what mattered to the coach. Well, if he went in with the team, he’d find out soon enough.
“Okay, guys,” Calleigh said to the team. “There’s seventy-five bullets and their casings at the bottom of the pool…and I need them. Who wants to go treasure diving?”
None of them said anything, but the sudden rash of splashes and the fact that in three seconds only she and Cunnick remained standing at the pool’s edge spoke volumes about their willingness to help the little lady with the big gun.
Peeling off his team T-shirt and slipping off his gym trunks to reveal a Speedo, Cunnick told her, “While my fellas fetch your bullets, I’m gonna check on the condition of my pool, if you don’t mind.”
“Be my guest.” She was quietly admiring his sinewy frame; she was human. “When you come up, you do plan to apologize for doubting me, right?”
His only response was to flash her a grin; she flashed one back, and he dove into the pool, swimming underwater to stroke along its sloping floor.
Shortly, swimmers started coming up to the edge of the pool and depositing bullets in a small plastic bucket Calleigh provided; another such bucket was for casings. And in less than ten minutes she had all seventy-five slugs and shells.
Cunnick would periodically appear at the surface to grab some air, then disappear beneath the water again. Once he even dropped a casing in the container before going down again, but not on any of his short breaks did he say a word to Calleigh.
When all the other swimmers were out of the pool and she was packing her stuff up, the coach finally dragged himself up and out, grabbed a towel, and started drying off.
“Thank you, Coach Cunnick,” Calleigh said as she slung her duffel bag back over her shoulder.
“Oh—it’s ‘Coach Cunnick’ now,” he teased, “after you’ve had your way with my pool.”
She laughed once and said, “Well—does the pool pass inspection?”
“Not a scratch,” he said with the hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “I didn’t think it was possible. I guess I do owe you an apology.”
She shook her head. “No need. You and your team were a big help.”
“Sorry they misbehaved a little.”
“Boys will be boys. Actually, they were very sweet after we all got to know each other a little.”
He frowned in thought. “But you still can’t say what this is about?”
“Sorry—not while the investigation is still ongoing.”
“It’s the gang thing, isn’t it?”
“Sorry.”
“How about later? When the investigation isn’t ongoing?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I’d love to hear what this was about. Over…dinner sometime? If I’m not out of line.”
“You have my card. You can call me at work. We can talk about it.”
He stood with hands on hips, grinning half a grin. “You know, Calleigh—I hope I do know as much about swimming as you do ballistics.”
“Firearms,” she said, and winked.
Then, duffel bag over her shoulder, she walked briskly out.
The last two days represented everything Andrew Chevalier had been working to avoid.
A heavyset man of ample appetites, Chevalier had skin the color of burnished mahogany, black dreadlocks swept back and tied with a black silk ribbon, and a concrete block of a head, with a face showing scars from knife fights dating back to young days on the island.
Right now, business was good for his Faucones, and the last thing Chevalier and his crew needed was a gang war. But after Mendoza’s hit on Wallace, followed by the ill-advised attack on that DEA prick Burnett, all hell had broken loose.
Like most of the gangs, though, Chevalier’s Faucones had a mouse in the cop house…and that tiny voice had whispered that the investigation’s focus was shifting from Mendoza to that Mitus pig, Manny Calisto.
So far, of the local gang honchos, only Trench leader Peter Shakespeare and Chevalier himself had avoided being blamed for the murders. His own gut told him that Mendoza, and not Calisto, was behind the drive-bys; but who the hell knew?
Mendoza had certainly been hit by Burnett often enough to want to see the fed dead; and the hot-headed Culebras leader was capable of doing something as crazy as hitting a DEA agent.
With his own people dying now and his lieutenants screaming for revenge, Chevalier knew what the other gang leaders were going through. That damn Florida governor had already talked about doing to Miami what his brother had done to Iraq. Chevalier knew that if the National Guard came rolling in, they’d all be screwed.
No telling how long the guard would stay in south Florida, and the longer they stayed, the more money it would cost all the gangs—business would be damn near frozen.
On one hand, what Chevalier planned to do today was designed to save his own gang and their high-stakes enterprise; but on the other hand, his plan would save his competitors, too. Even though they hated each other and were trying to drive each other out of business, truth was, if the factions could keep their mouths shut and their hands off each other’s throats, they might all survive to enjoy a local pie that had plenty of slices to go ’round.
The first call Chevalier made was to Calisto.
The cell phone number he had for the Colombian drug dealer was, of course, no good, having been changed due to the crisis; but Chevalier was successful in reaching one of Calisto’s lieutenants, who passed along the message to another lieutenant and probably another one after that.
Finally, an hour and a half later, sitting in the back of his chauffeured maroon Hummer, Chevalier answered his cell phone.
The voice that came out of the phone was deep and speaking heavily accented English. “Is it you, Chevalier?”
“Oui.”
“What the goddamn hell you doing calling me for? You think you can taunt me at will? I will see your skull hung from a spike!”
Definitely Manny Calisto.
This response might have been the gang leader’s answering machine message. The “head on a spike” line was a threat he made to all his enemies, but it was a pretty hollow one—Chevalier had only heard of Calisto actually accomplishing the feat once, and that had been a traitor within his own organization.
Still, Chevalier felt his anger rising as Calisto’s diatribe continued. Instead of firing back about how Calisto’s troops had been the ones to first open fire on Chevalier’s, the Faucones leader forced himself to keep his voice calm as he interrupted the Colombian drug dealer. “Manny, you’ve made your point. Now listen to me.”
