Rebel Island (Tres Navarre #7)(43)

Another letter from Rachel to her father. Judging from the date, Rachel would’ve been about twenty-two. She promised to visit over Thanksgiving. She gently chastised her dad for asking about who she might be dating. Nothing serious, Dad! He would have to be as good as you, right? Guys like that are scarce!!!

The oldest clipping was about Rachel’s swim team in high school. Nothing earlier than that. Nothing from her childhood. No pictures of Rachel with her parents.

I flipped back to the most recent photograph of Rachel. Even without knowing her background, I would’ve guessed she was married with kids. The humor in her eyes was tinged with a kind of weary satisfaction—the look of a new mother who had a family counting on her.

“Finding what you want?”

Benjamin Lindy was standing in the doorway.

“Your daughter,” I said.

Lindy walked to the bed. He sat down stiffly, then folded his hands. “Yes.”

“Rachel and your two granddaughters were killed in that explosion. I’m sorry.”

In the dim glow of my flashlight, Lindy’s eyes glittered. “I’m done with sympathy, son.”

“You were friends with Jesse Longoria.”

“I told you, I asked his advice once. After that, we saw each other professionally a few times. I wouldn’t call him a friend. Then his supervisor Berry started communicating with that evil man.”

“Calavera wanted to make a deal.”

“He wanted to trade information for a new identity. Berry was helping negotiate his surrender. When Marshal Longoria found out, he did not approve.”

“Longoria tipped you off to what was happening.”

“On the contrary. I notified him what his boss was up to.”

“How did you find out?”

“Chris Stowall.”

“You knew Stowall?”

“No. I had never heard of Mr. Stowall until he called. He told me he knew who killed my daughter. He told me the killer was trying to make a deal with the Marshals Service to escape justice. I was incredulous. I contacted Longoria, and he was able to confirm the negotiations. Between us, we decided we could not let that happen.”

“How did Chris know to contact you? Why wouldn’t he just tell the police if he knew something?”

“Greed, sir,” Lindy answered. “Mr. Stowall wanted money for his information.”

“And he knew you wouldn’t go to the police? How?”

Lindy hesitated. “This whole area is a close-knit community, Mr. Navarre. Most people have heard of me. Rachel’s death was in all the media. I made no secret of my desire for revenge when she and her girls were murdered. I was quite vocal about the police’s failure to apprehend Calavera. I assume Chris Stowall knew all this.”

“How much did he want?”

“Fifty thousand dollars. Nothing, really.”

“You’d already paid him twenty thousand?”

“You mean the money you found in the duffel bag.” Lindy shook his head. “I don’t know where Stowall got that money. I had not paid him a dime. I did not intend to until we had found Calavera.”

I thought about the entries in Chris Stowall’s journal—the cryptic references to how much he needed money, and the suggestion that Lane had been encouraging him to leave behind his past shady dealings. Apparently, Stowall had other moneymaking schemes besides providing revenge opportunities to bitter old men.

“Chris promised Calavera would be here this weekend,” I said. “He sent Longoria a business card with the date, June fifth.”

“Yes,” Lindy said.

“Somehow he found an email from Calavera to the Marshals Service. Did Chris tell you anything else? Anything that hinted who Calavera was? Hotel employee? Guest?”

“Very little, Mr. Navarre. He brought us here. He promised irrefutable proof. He said…”

“Yes?”

Lindy tapped a finger thoughtfully on the top of his ammunition box. “He assumed I knew Rebel Island. He said I should have reason to hate this place.”

“Do you?”

He hesitated a little too long. “No. Perhaps he simply meant this is where I would find my daughter’s killer. That’s why I should hate the place.”

I looked down at the scrapbook, the picture of Rachel Brazos. She looked happy with her family and her life. She’d had every reason to expect many more years with her husband, watching their two daughters grow up.

“Mr. Lindy, once you find Calavera, what do you intend to do?”

The old man looked gaunt and hungry. Despite his formal clothes, his clipped gray hair, his grandfatherly manner, he reminded me suddenly of he**in addicts I’d known—polite, friendly, until you withheld what they wanted.

“Son, I know what happens in the legal system. You do too. My daughter’s death will go unpunished, because that’s a lesser evil when weighed against catching Calavera’s employers. I can’t allow that.”

“You can’t just kill him.”

“How many has Calavera killed?”

“Give me your gun,” I told him.

He shook his head.

“Give it to me,” I repeated. “Or I’ll take it away.”

His face flushed, but I held his eyes. I could take the gun. I had no doubt. And I let him see that.