Heaven Is High (30 page)

Sokolosky was shifting his gaze back and forth between her and Nicholson. Abruptly he turned to approach the coatrack. “This raincoat? Is this yours, Dennis?”

Nicholson sat down again without replying.

Sokolosky reached into one of the pockets and came out empty-handed. He reached into the other one and this time brought out the same ID that Nicholson had shown Barbara. Nicholson was picking up his telephone.

“Put it down,” Sokolosky said. He showed the ID tag to Barbara. “Is this what he produced when you met him?”

“It is.”

“Can you explain yourself?” Sokolosky asked Nicholson.

“I'm calling my attorney,” Nicholson said with his hand still on the telephone.

“I wouldn't let him call anyone until after you hear the full story,” Barbara said quickly.

Sokolosky walked past her to the door and jerked it open. “You, what's your name?” he said.

“James Warrenton,” the marshal said.

“Get in here,” Sokolosky said. He stepped aside as the marshal entered, then he closed the door. “Stay with Mr. Linfield and don't let him use the telephone or let him leave. Come with me, Ms. Holloway.”

In the outer office he said to the secretary, “Ms. Womack, don't switch any calls to Mr. Linfield and don't interrupt us.” She looked pinched and frightened as she nodded.

He strode past her desk to a door on the far side of the office. “In here,” he said to Barbara. It was a small conference room, with a round table that could seat no more than six people. He pulled out a chair, indicated another one for her, and sat down. She sat across the table from him.

“Now just tell me what the hell is going on,” he said.

She nodded and opened her briefcase. “Mr. and Mrs. Owens came to me for advice,” she said, and she briefly described the situation to him. “She didn't know the name of the man Anaia Santos had married and since time was so short, I decided to go to Belize to find out, and to get proper identification for her. I found her mother, and found that the situation there was dire. There is a vast estate with extensive acres of marijuana being grown on it. Maybe thousands of acres. There is already a well-established shipping company owned by the Santos family. Julius Santos illegally seized the property after the murder of his brother and it appears that he and the man I know as Nicholson have conspired to prevent Mrs. Owens from being next in line to inherit the estate. I saw Nicholson there when I went to talk with Julius Santos.”

She handed him the birth certificate and Anaia's marriage license.

He put them both down after a careful examination. “Ms. Holloway, why has this surfaced now, at this particular time? Why didn't the mother and daughter make any attempt to locate each other? Why didn't Mrs. Owens come forward to establish her status before? This is highly irregular, and it doesn't alter the basic situation of illegal entry without any documentation.”

“I have Mrs. Thurston's written statement explaining herself,” she said, taking it from her briefcase. “As for my client, Mrs. Owens, she grew up unaware of her true birthright. She believed Shala Santos was her mother. Remember, she was an infant when the woman she considered to be her mother was kidnapped, enslaved, and forced into prostitution. She knew only what Ms. Santos told her.” She gave him the statement Anaia had written, and watched his face as he read it.

He was such a bony man, she thought distantly, watching him struggle with the story. Bony cheeks and chin, bony wrists and fingers. Strange for such a skeletal man to have such abundant thick hair. His hair was gray, but it would easily have been enough for two heads. He read the statement, then read it again. At last he put it down and said heavily, “What a goddamn mess. Has Mrs. Owens fled? Why didn't you bring her in with you?”

“I feared for her life,” Barbara said.

At that moment the door opened and Ms. Womack stepped in, closely followed by the marshal Warrenton. He was holding a bloody handkerchief to his head.

“Jesus Christ!” Sokolosky said. “What happened?”

“He said he was getting heart medicine from a drawer, and he fell over, out of his chair. I went around to render assistance and he slugged me,” Warrenton said. He was leaning against the doorjamb and he was pale, his hand holding the handkerchief shaking.

“He left,” Ms. Womack said tremulously. “He just walked out.”

“When? How long ago?”

“Ten minutes,” she said. She was shaking more than Warrenton.

Sokolosky looked at the marshal. “Are you all right? Do you need immediate medical attention?”

“No, sir.”

“Then get on the phone and call your superior. I want some marshals, at least three, as fast as they can get here.” He looked at Barbara. “You stick around. We'll finish later.”

“I have a private investigator in the building,” she said. “He can provide information for the marshals.”

“Get him in here,” Sokolosky said.

She picked up the papers on the table and returned them to her briefcase and withdrew the envelope with the pictures of the five stakeout men, then went to the other office and the door to the lobby. She didn't have to go out. Bailey was standing near the rack of tax information. She motioned to him and he ambled over.

“What's up?” he said when he saw the marshal using the phone on Ms. Womack's desk.

“Plenty,” Barbara said. “Nicholson was here and he slugged him and got away.” Sokolosky had come to her side and she introduced Bailey. “Did you get the license plate numbers on the cars you saw earlier? And do you still have Nicholson's license plate number?” She hoped he got her meaning. Just supply the number and let the feds make the drug connection. “You might explain the photographs while you're at it.” She handed the envelope to him.

“Sure,” he said with a slight nod.

“In there,” Sokolosky said, pointing to the conference room. “When the marshals come, send them in,” he ordered Ms. Womack. “And when you're through you come in, too,” he added to the marshal.

“What the fuck are you up to?” Sokolosky yelled at Barbara as soon as they were in the conference room with the door closed. “And no more dribs and drabs. Why did you say you were afraid for the safety of your client? What photographs? What license plate numbers? Tell the whole goddamn story this time.”

Calmly she said, “I told you I was suspicious of Nicholson when he asked me to relay the message to Martin Owens, asking him to be an informer for the DEA. It wasn't clear how he had known they had come to me for advice, unless he had been spying on them. Bailey found a bug, a voice-activated listening device, in the restaurant, and I instantly told the Owens to go into hiding, which they did. Nicholson returned to my house asking how he could get in touch with Martin Owens directly to make his appeal in person.” She stopped when the door opened and Warrenton staggered into the room.

Sokolosky took him by the arm and seated him at the table. The marshal looked dazed and was pale down to his lips. “Just sit still. I'm sending you to the hospital as soon as your people get here,” Sokolosky said.

“Handgun,” the marshal mumbled. “No medicine. Handgun.”

He cradled his head in both hands for a second, then put one arm on the table and rested his head on it.

Sokolosky stood by his chair helplessly. “Go on,” he said to Barbara.

“Yes. Bailey saw the car Nicholson was driving when he came back to my house and he made a note of the license plate number. I left for Belize,” she said, turning her gaze away from the marshal, who looked as if he had passed out. She hoped he wouldn't tumble from the chair. “In Belize I found the situation I already told you about. On my return, Bailey informed me that there were stakeouts at the restaurant, the Owens's house and my house, six men in all. Today he spotted four of those men, two here in the building, two others in cars parked nearby. Those pictures are of five of those men. He has the license plate number for Nicholson's car, and numbers for the two parked cars in the area. And that's all I know about it.”

“I bet,” Sokolosky said bitterly.

There was a tap on the door, followed without a pause by its opening and three men entering. One was in a gray suit, two in casual clothes, jeans and sweater for one of them, khakis for the other, and a windbreaker over his arm. The suited man handed Sokolosky his ID and nodded to Barbara and Bailey.

“One of your men should get this man to the hospital,” Sokolosky said after identifying himself. “The man known as Dennis Linfield assaulted him with a handgun, and he's on the loose, as of about fifteen or twenty minutes ago. Armed and dangerous. The secretary can give you a description. This is Bailey Novell, and he'll explain the pictures. Two of those men are in the building, two others in nearby cars. Round them all up and for God's sake keep it quiet. There's a mob in the lobby and we don't want to start a panic. And no press.”

“Those four guys are probably armed,” Bailey said.

The man in the suit gave him a cold look of disdain. “We've dealt with armed men before,” he snapped.

“Let's go to the other office,” Sokolosky said to Barbara. “They can get on with it.”

She looked at Bailey and said, “When you're finished in here, I want a word with you.”

He nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

When Barbara and Sokolosky passed Ms. Womack again, she looked even more frightened than she had before, and her eyes appeared to have grown larger. Think of it as something to tell hubby and friends all about, Barbara thought at her and preceded Sokolosky into the other office.

Sokolosky went to stand by the window where he had been when she first entered the office. She sat down in a chair near the desk and waited for him to start. He had his back turned, and again she was struck by how big his head appeared on top of his thin frame.

Finally he turned to her. “Now, exactly what did you mean by saying you feared for her safety? What do you think Linfield and those others were planning?”

She shrugged. “You know as much as I do about their intentions. But I was to be detained, we both know that much. And I had the documentation your office required. If she had shown up, doubtful in my opinion, she would have been helpless. But I don't think she would have been allowed to get as far as this office. Either a marshal would have seized her, sequestered her, and sent her to a processing center for instant deportation, or as instantly as possible. Or, possibly even more likely, those hired guns would have seized her, or shot her on sight. Take your choice. Mr. Sokolosky, I have no idea how much a thousand acres of prime marijuana is worth, but I suspect the answer is very, very high. They call it Belize Breeze, some of the finest marijuana to be had, premium pot, premium price. Julius Santos was, is, determined to control it and both Mrs. Thurston and Mrs. Owens were in his way.”

“You think that somehow he got to Dennis Linfield, enlisted his help,” Sokolosky said after a moment.

She made a rude snorting sound and no other response.

“Mrs. Owens has to appear,” he said after a moment. “There is a routine to be followed, as you must know.”

She shook her head. “No, Mr. Sokolosky. My client will not appear. There are at least six armed men, plus one you call Linfield and I know as Nicholson, also armed, who would not allow her to leave this building alive unless it's in custody for deportation to Haiti, where she would face the same hellish situation she saw Shala Santos endure. I will not produce her.”

“Then you're breaking the law as much as she is,” he said harshly.

“So be it,” she said, in an equally harsh voice. “Mr. Sokolosky, I don't know how far Nicholson's corruption extends, who else might be involved who are fully aware of the situation I've described, and with as much vested interest in seeing to it that Santos has his way.”

He took a step closer to her and said, “My God, what are you implying?”

“I imply nothing,” she said coldly. “I stated a fact.”

He glared at her, then turned back to the window when there was a tap on the door.

Ms. Womack opened the door a little and said, “Ms. Holloway, that man, Mr. Novell said you wanted to speak to him before he left. He's out here.”

“Thanks,” Barbara said, rising. She took her briefcase with her as she went to the door. “I won't be more than a minute,” she said to Sokolosky. Walking around Ms. Womack on her way out, she realized how tired she was getting of the rabbity woman and her tremulous voice, her big eyes. Bailey was at the door to the lobby.

“Out there,” she said, and they went out together.

“They're waiting for the FBI,” he said in disgust, jerking his finger toward the conference room.

“Let them,” she said. “I want Alan to get Binnie back to Turner's Point as fast as he can manage. Is he good enough to make sure no one follows?”

Bailey gave her the same kind of disgusted look he had used for the marshals. “Yeah,” he said. “What about Martin?”

“After you know she's on her way, and after they pick up the goon watching him, which I hope to hell they manage to do, tell him to go somewhere, I don't care where, and that we'll join him later and get him back out to the Gresham house. And tell them both it's fixed for Binnie, nothing to worry about and nothing they need to do from now on.”

“You fixed it?”

“About to,” she said. “Hang out where I can spot you after you play messenger boy, and be sure you know where Martin's going.”

“Okeydokey,” he said. “Maybe I'll get in line and see what deductions I've been missing all these years. See ya.” He saluted and ambled off, and she returned to the office to start fixing things.

27

When Barbara entered the inner office again Sokolosky was seated behind the desk. He was taking charge, the authority now. She had a vivid memory of a time when as a girl, sixteen, maybe just fifteen, she had been in Frank's spacious office with its rich paneling, many glass-fronted shelves of books, a leather-covered sofa, and easy chairs grouped at a large coffee table. There were two comfortable chairs in front of Frank's desk, and his own big chair behind it.