Harry Hunter Mystery Box Set Read online

  I rubbed my face, feeling sweaty from rushing to the police department downtown on my motorcycle. It was February, but Miami didn’t care. The air outside was heavy, and the sun scorched from the clear blue sky.

  “You can.”

  Fowler threw out his hands. “Name it.”

  “Who was on the case of the car that was pulled out of the harbor three weeks ago? Emilia García was the girl’s name. The mother died.”

  Fowler gave me a puzzled look.

  “I don’t have time to explain,” I said.

  He shrugged. “All right, it was Detective Ferdinand.”

  “Got it,” I said, then turned around and left, forgetting to shut the door behind me.

  “You’re welcome,” Fowler yelled behind me, but I barely heard him.

  I hurried down the hallway until I reached Ferdinand’s desk. I had known the guy for ten years and worked on several cases with him. He was known to be a good detective and one I trusted.

  “Hunter?” he asked and closed a drawer, looking up at me from behind his reading glasses. Ferdinand was pretty much my opposite. Small and chunky, and standing next to my six-feet-eight, he looked almost like a child. He had a handsome face behind the glasses and kind eyes. He was around ten years older than my thirty-six years and had been in the force for twenty-five years. From his computer screen, his wife and two adult children looked back at him, smiling on a beach somewhere. He liked to work weekends so he could take time off during the week instead when his wife had to work.

  “I thought this was your day off. You never work Sundays.”

  “It was. I need your help.”

  Ferdinand nodded toward the chair, signaling for me to sit down. I did, even though everything inside me screamed that I was running out of time.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “Emilia García.”

  “The girl we pulled out of the harbor?”

  “That’s her.”

  “What about her?”

  “I need the details of the case.”

  Ferdinand nodded. He turned around and opened a drawer behind him, then looked for a few seconds before he pulled out a file that he placed on the desk in front of me.

  “This is all there is on them as of now. It was pretty straightforward. The case was closed after three days.”

  Chapter 8

  “It was suicide,” Ferdinand said with an exhale. “They had been living on the streets for some time, sleeping in their car, and we figured the mom simply couldn’t take it anymore and decided to end it for both of them. We found sleeping pills in the car, and the toxicology report stated that the mother had taken enough of the pills to knock out a small horse. We concluded that she popped a couple of pills, then ran the car over the edge, taking the daughter with her. Such a tragedy.”

  I stared at the file, flipping through the pages. “And the dad?”

  Ferdinand bit his lip, then shook his head. “We never found him. They divorced two years ago, and he fell off the face of the earth.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Luis Martìnez, a fairly common name. Right after we identified the mother, we sent a patrol out to his last known address, but they said he didn’t live there anymore. They didn’t know where he moved to. He might have left the country.”

  I nodded while looking through the pictures taken of the inside of the car. I paused at a picture of the mother.

  “Have you looked for any other relatives? What about her parents?” I asked and tapped on the mother’s picture. “Do you know anything about the grandparents? If the dad is nowhere to be found, they’re the next of kin.”

  Ferdinand threw out his hands resignedly. “I know that she came down here from Dallas, Texas, so my guess is they’re up there. I’ve spoken to Dallas PD and asked them to try and look for them, but that’s all. I haven’t heard anything. To be honest, I haven’t had the time to dig deeper into it. You see this pile over here? All cases I have neglected over the past few months. I’m swamped here, Hunter. I simply don’t have the resources to go chase down a father or a set of grandparents who may not even live in this state. No matter how much I want to.”

  I lifted my eyes and met his.

  “Can I try?”

  Ferdinand furrowed his eyebrows.

  “Sure. I just don’t seem to understand why. Why would you? Don’t you have enough to do with the Four Seasons case?”

  The Four Seasons case was the story of five men being found dead in a hotel room at the Four Seasons Hotel six days ago. I had been put on the case and had been buried in it for days. So far, it looked mostly like a drug deal gone wrong, but I had a feeling there was more to it than that. I just hadn’t been able to break the case open yet. Everywhere I went, I was met with closed doors.

  Today was Sunday, and I always take Sunday off to go to church with my family and then rest. I had been looking forward to this day. It was supposed to be a relaxing day with my family, and now it was turning out to be the most hectic day ever, trying to save my daughter’s precious life.

  I nodded. “I do. But this is something else. I’m not reopening the case, just trying to find the relatives.”

  “Be my guest,” he said. “There was nothing I’d like more than to find the poor girl’s relatives and let them know what happened. It would give final closure to this entire affair.”

  I grabbed the file and rose to my feet, sending Ferdinand half a smile.

  “Thanks.”

  “If you succeed, then I’m the one thanking you,” Ferdinand yelled after me as I hurried out to my motorcycle.

  Seconds later, I was rushing across town toward the beach.

  Chapter 9

  “Hunter? On a Sunday? This gotta be serious.”

  Al, alias Alvita, alias The Plague, opened the door and let me inside. I hurried past her, then put the file on her desk with the five monitors showing surveillance cameras from all over the world. I had never asked her what she used those for, or if it was even legal for her to be monitoring people in all those places. Some of them were obviously placed in people’s homes, and others were in workplaces. We had an understanding. She helped me out, and I didn’t ask any questions. Al was a former CIA hacker, and I had no idea how she made a living now. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to. I had once helped find her sister’s killer and earned myself a lifetime of services from her.

  “It is,” I said. “Josie is sick. I don’t have time to explain in more detail, but she needs a new heart asap.”

  Al looked at me from underneath her heavy dreadlocks. She was probably the shortest person I had ever known, but she still drew more attention to herself in a room than anyone I had ever met, even though she desperately didn’t want to.

  “And you think I have one?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “No. There’s a donor at the hospital, well maybe there is, but we need to find her relatives. She’s a young girl who has been declared brain dead, but her heart is fine. She’s a match, they say, but we can’t find her family.”

  Al nodded. “I see. And you want me to find them?”

  “Yes, please. I have the name of the dad.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “A name? That’s all?”

  I grimaced. “I’m afraid so. The mother and the girl were homeless, living in their car. The parents are divorced. I have the last known address on the father, but he doesn’t live there anymore.”

  Al nodded pensively while rubbing her dreadlocks that were pulled back into a thick ponytail. “All right, an address is good. We’re starting to get somewhere. What about the mother. Did she have a phone?”

  “She did, but it was destroyed in the water.”

  She looked at me, startled. “The water?”

  “The mother and daughter drove into the harbor three weeks ago. Suicide. The daughter survived but is brain dead; the mother died.”

  “And the phone wasn’t waterproof?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I asked down in forensics
, and they said it was completely destroyed. It was an old one.”

  Al’s face lit up. She grabbed the file and opened it. “But if there was a phone, there is a phone record with a provider somewhere. Let me see what I can do. There’s coffee in the pot in the kitchen. It’s bulletproof coffee, but you don’t mind, right?”

  “Any coffee will do,” I said, even though I wasn’t very fond of Al’s health keto power coffee since the fatty butter always threw me off a little. I had to admit, though, that it did give me extra energy from my first sip, and I needed just that. I sat on her red velvet couch that looked like something my grandmother would have in her living room, then tapped impatiently on the side of my cup as I drank, watching Al do her magic. I tried my best to pretend like I wasn’t counting the minutes anxiously.

  Chapter 10

  “Can I get you anything?”

  Jean looked at Josie in the bed. The girl looked so weak and pale; it was awful. Josie was usually such a strong girl, and Jean had never seen her like this.

  Josie smiled feebly. “How about a new heart?”

  Looking at her brought tears to Jean’s eyes. She tried to stifle them since she didn’t want the girl to see them.

  “Your dad is working on that one,” she said and took Josie’s hand in hers. Harry’s dad had been with her all afternoon but had just gone out for a coffee and a bite to eat. Jean felt worry in the pit of her stomach, gnawing at her insides. It tormented her to see Harry and Josie in this type of distress.

  It had been a month since Camille had woken up, and Jean had snuck out of the house to leave them alone for the reunion. It wasn’t without some pain that Jean had seen Camille come back to life. She was thrilled that she had; of course, she was. Camille had been her best friend. And it was what was best for Josie and Harry. But while Camille was sick, Jean had fallen in love with Harry. She had tried desperately not to and fought every urge, but it had happened anyway. And now, she had to push her feelings away every time she saw him, and that was painful. She had avoided him at all costs, taking extra shifts at the hospital to keep herself busy and away from the house. Yet, she still found herself standing in front of their house at night when coming home from her evening shift, staring at the porch, wondering what they had been up to that day, if they were getting proper food to eat, or if Josie needed help with her Spanish. She was simply missing being a part of their lives. While Camille was sick, she had been over there constantly when off from work. She had taken care of Camille, changing her feeding tube, her catheter, and making sure she didn’t get pressure sores. She had cooked for Harry and Josie and often Harry’s dad—who lived right down the street—too. She had plunged in headfirst and gotten herself too involved with them. And now it was all over. It was like she had lost her family. And the worst thing was that she wasn’t allowed to feel the way she did. She had to be happy for them; she had to be thrilled that their prayers had been answered. Heck, she had even prayed for Camille’s recovery herself on many occasions. She really shouldn’t be feeling this way, this deep pain.

  Yet, she was.

  And now they were all here again, in trouble, needing her assistance yet again, ripping open the old wounds.

  It didn’t feel fair.

  “I know,” Josie said hoarsely. She closed her eyes briefly and seemed to be dozing off, but then opened them again and looked at Jean, squeezing her hand.

  “I missed you,” she whispered.

  At first, Jean stared at her, startled, thinking she might have heard her wrong, but then the girl repeated it.

  “I missed you, and so did Dad. He just won’t admit it.”

  Jean swallowed hard, pressing back the tears. She sniffled and touched Josie’s cheek gently, fighting her tears.

  “You rest now, sweetie. You need it,” she said, her voice shivering. “You need it to keep you strong.”

  Chapter 11

  “Ha. That was a lot easier than I thought.”

  I looked up from my coffee cup. I had been staring into the black glistening substance for a few minutes, dreaming myself away while thinking about Josie and then—guiltily admitted—Jean. Seeing her again today had made my heart jump, even though I felt ashamed about it. I missed her terribly and was so glad she could be with us at a time like this when we needed her the most. I felt terrible for what I had done to her, for turning my back on her just when we were about to be more than just friends and neighbors. I had broken her heart, and now my excuses were no good. But what could I have done differently? My wife had woken up after three years in a vegetative state. I couldn’t very well turn my back on her now. What kind of a person would that make me? It didn’t matter what my feelings were for Jean. I was a husband and a father before anything.

  “You found something?” I asked and stood to my feet.

  “Not just something. I found him, the dad.”

  I hurried to her desk. “Really?”

  “Don’t look so surprised,” Al said. “I am actually quite good at what I do.”

  “I know you are…it was just really fast.”

  “I went through the phone records and internet browsing on her phone, which the phone company registers, even though they’ll tell you they don’t. Here, I found out that the mother had an old Facebook account. There are a lot of Jennifer Garcías out there, so finding the right one was a lot easier this way. She didn’t use her profile much and hadn’t posted for years, but she did post pictures of her husband and daughter three years ago before they were divorced. And bam, here he is.”

  She clicked and showed me a picture of a man holding a child of about seven or eight years old.

  “This is Luis Martìnez?” I asked and pointed at his face.

  “Bingo. So, now that we know what he looks like, we just need to find him. I ran a face recognition program, and ba-da-bing, look what came up.”

  Al scrolled on her computer and then stopped. “He changed his name one year ago, about the same time he moved from the address we have. If your little detective friend had thought about looking into it, maybe digging a little deeper, he’d have easily found the court documents. His name is now David Smith, one of the most common American names you can find. Probably had a hard time finding work and changed his name to make it easier. Or he got himself in some trouble and needed to hide.”

  “David Smith?” I asked.

  “And there’s more,” she said.

  “I hoped you’d say that.”

  “He lives right here beachside. Here’s his address. Now, just like there are a lot of Garcías and Martìnezes around here, there are also a lot of David Smiths, so finding him wasn’t straightforward. I found pictures of him from surveillance cameras downtown, places he seems to frequent, based on how many times he appears on them, especially on the one from an ATM at his local bank. That way, I could narrow it all down to a radius, then I searched for David Smith in that area, and I found him. Here’s his address.”

  I stared at Al. I could have kissed her at this moment. Instead, I gave her a big hug, even though I knew she wasn’t someone who enjoyed physical contact much.

  “Thank you, thank you, Al.”

  “No problem,” she said and pulled away as I let her go. “Now, go find him and save Josie.”

  “Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you in return,” I said.

  “Something might be coming up,” she said. “But not now. Go!”

  Chapter 12

  The address led me to a small unit on top of a Cuban restaurant. A woman of Spanish heritage opened the door, and I asked for David Smith. She gave me a suspicious glare before she stepped aside and let me in. I followed her down a small hallway with rooms on both sides. All of them had people sitting or standing in them and voices speaking, some yelling loudly. There was a TV on somewhere and kids playing. The condo was no more than two bedrooms, but there seemed to be three or four families living there.

  “David?” the woman said as we walked into what would have been a kitchen, but
with all the mattresses on the floor, looked more like a shelter.

  A man looked up from the back of the room, and all eyes were on me now. I recognized the face from Al’s computer screen, where I had seen him holding his daughter tightly. He seemed ten years older than in that picture.

  The woman nodded in my direction, and David stared at me, his eyes loaded with suspicion. I knew most of these people could tell I was a cop from far away, and David sure looked like he smelled it on me.

  “I’m here about your daughter,” I said, trying to soften him up. “Emilia?”

  It worked. His eyes grew tender, and his shoulders came down. He approached me quickly.

  “Is there a place we can talk privately?” I asked.

  He nodded and showed me out on the balcony, where he lit a cigarette and blew out smoke. By the way he looked at me, I could tell he knew I wasn’t bearing good news.

  He puffed his cigarette. “How do you know my daughter? You a cop?”

  I nodded and leaned on the railing, looking down on the street. Music rose from the Cuban restaurant below.

  “I am sorry…”

  He stopped me, raising his hand and turning his head away. “Please, don’t…”

  “But I have to,” I said. “We’ve been looking all over for you. It happened three weeks ago, and no one has been able to find…”

  He turned to look at me. “Three weeks ago?”

  “Yes, the police have been searching for you to tell you…”

  He shook his head, then slammed his hand into the railing. He bit back tears and took a deep inhale of his cigarette.

  “How…how did it happen?”

  “It was suicide,” I said. “She drove the car into the harbor with them both in it. She took pills first. Jennifer didn’t survive, and…”

  He held his breath. “And Emilia? She’s alive?”

  I swallowed. This was beyond hard. I tried not to put myself in his situation, but that was even more difficult because it could be me in a short while. The thought brought tears to my eyes.