Cross Justice (Alex Cross 23)

The sergeant said, “I looked, Detective. They taught you how to do that down in Dade, right?”

Chapter

49

An hour later, Drummond and Johnson were back in Belle Glade and parking in front of the Big O bar, w

hich, according to Deputy Holland, was where Francie Letourneau liked to party.

The Big O was a dive fallen on hard times. The cement floor was cracked and irregular. The blue paint was peeling and chipped. Most of the chairs, barstools, and tables had been carved on. The only part of the place that looked remotely cared for was behind the bar. Hundreds of photographs of happy anglers holding up largemouth bass looked down on the four patrons dressed for fishing and the bartender.

“Cecil,” the sergeant said.

The bartender, an older man with a big potbelly, started laughing. “Drummond. You want a drink?”

“I think you enjoy being my temptation.”

“Hell, yeah,” Cecil said, coming over to shake the sergeant’s hand. “Everyone’s got a job, right?”

“Amen, brother,” Drummond said. “Cecil Jones, meet my partner, Detective Richard Johnson. Miami boy.”

The bartender shook Johnson’s hand, said, “You coming up in the world.”

The young detective smiled, said, “I like to think so.”

Jones looked to Drummond and said, “You gonna set him straight?”

“I’m trying,” the sergeant said.

“I heard they found a body out on the island,” the bartender said.

“Why I’m here,” Drummond said. “Francie Letourneau.”

Jones’s face fell. “Shit. That right? Shit.”

“She’s a regular, then?”

“Not a full-time subscriber, but often enough.”

“She been in recently?”

“Sunday, around noon,” he said, glancing up at the clock. “Had herself an eye-opener, Bloody Mary, double vodka, and then another for courage.”

“Courage?”

“She was heading over to Palm,” Jones said. “Said she had an interview for a new job that was gonna pay her four times what her old one did. I asked her what she needed a job for after hitting the Lotto twice in a month.”

“That right?” Drummond asked.

“Five grand on a scratcher, seven on her weekly play,” Jones said.

“Twelve K’s a lot of money,” Johnson said.

“It is,” the bartender said. “But she said she still needed the work. She’d lost two or three of her regular clients recently. No fault of her own. One got electrocuted in her bathtub.”

Drummond said, “Let me guess: another was murdered.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Jones said. “Wife of that plastic surgeon you see advertising on television all the time. You know, the Boob King.”