Lonesome Point: A Mystery

By Ian Vasquez

Different as they are, the Varela brothers are bound by a decades-old secret surrounding the events of one long-ago night during their childhood back home in their native Belize. Today Patrick is the Miami-Dade County commissioner and a probable candidate for mayor of Miami, while his brother, Leo, a sometime poet and mental health worker, spends more time getting high than anything else. Still, they've both been struggling for years to completely sever their ties to their father, his illegal businesses, and his secrets.

But those years quickly vanish the moment an old friend recently released from prison asks Leo to release a patient from the mental hospital where Leo works. He calls it a favor, but the threat is clear to Leo, Patrick, and---more dangerously---the men with a stake in Patrick's political career. The request sets off a chain of events destined to lay bare once and for all the truth about what happened that night, and maybe even to pit brother against brother in their efforts to finally set things right.

Moody, atmospheric, and evocative, Lonesome Point showcases the distinct and rhythmic voice that makes Ian Vasquez a unique talent among today's crime writers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Apr 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781429971041

Ian Vasquez

Ian Vasquez, whose first novel, In the Heat, won the Shamus Award, received his MFA while working on a psychiatric ward and counseling at-risk high school students. He is also the author of Mr. Hooligan and Lonesome Point. Raised in Belize and now a copy editor at the St. Petersburg Times, he lives with his family near Tampa Bay, Florida.

Book preview

THE

KILLING

BOOK I

1

Walking down a psych ward hallway in Miami, Leo Varela discovered the meaning of life, but by the time he reached the door leading out, he had forgotten what it was.

He recently started telling people this to watch their reaction, especially someone he didn’t know well. He’d say it usually at a bar, or a party whenever the conversation turned faintly philosophical, say it with a straight face. There’d be a pause, and then he’d smile to let them know he was only joking. But he relished that second of silence, the curiosity on their faces.

What Leo didn’t say: He worked the night shift on the third floor of Jefferson Memorial Hospital’s mental health annex, and several times a night he walked the floor doing rounds and a couple of times truly enlightening ideas had revealed themselves, but when he hit the door at the end of the long hall, he’d forgotten them. That’s what happens when you’re stoned.

Leo wasn’t stoned at the moment. Just a little buzzed. Three pulls on a roach at the start of the shift, nothing more than that. He felt mellow strolling the dark hallway, closing the room doors, telling the new patient in Room 307—checking his clipboard quickly—Turn off the lights, please, Mrs. Delgado, it’s time to go to sleep.

A fat, naked Haitian woman trudged out of the women’s bathroom, a towel wrapped around her head. She stopped to slurp water from the fountain.

Leo raised his voice down the hall, Hey, Adelia, put some clothes on, please. Or go to your room, whichever. You know you shouldn’t be walking ’round here like that.

Adelia looked up, bent down to slurp some more.

Leo walked past her, writing on the rounds board. When he turned around she was crossing to her room, and he was grateful the lights were out. No need to lose his appetite for a midnight snack. He visited the women’s bathroom, that and the men’s being the only patient areas lit at night. He picked towels off the floor, dumped them in the clothes hamper. Looked behind the curtains of the shower stalls. Nobody sleeping there.

He scanned the rounds board. Nineteen patients, nearly a full house. One in seclusion, the rest in their rooms, except for Adelia. He jotted H next to her name (hallway), A next to Mrs. Delgado’s name (awake), SR for Herman Massani (seclusion room), and for the sixteen others an S (for what he wished he was at home doing).

In the nurses’ station, Rose, the night nurse, asked him, What break do you want? I’m down for the first, if nobody minds.

Leo said, The second. He turned to Martin, the other mental health technician. Unless you want the second. . . .

I’ll take the last. I had a good rest today. Martin was at the desk preparing patients’ charts for the next day. Mindless work: filling the charts with paperwork, checking off boxes, signing your name, over and over. Martin was new on staff, so Leo happily gave him the practice.

Leo wheeled the geriatric chair from the TV room into the hallway, parked it a couple of feet from the nurses’ station and covered it with a sheet. He slipped his sweatshirt on. The floor was kept freezing at night under the belief that it encouraged patients to sleep. Leo cracked back the gerri chair; with feet up and his writing pad in hand he could relax and maintain a watch on both the men’s and the women’s sides of the floor. Oh, how rough the night shift could be.

He’d gotten nowhere with his latest poem. He stared at the line he’d written almost two days before and hadn’t the foggiest what would come next. Moments like this made him wonder if he was a phony, how a handful of published poems didn’t mean jack when you sat down to write again. You’re not a poet and you don’t know it. Or maybe he did know. He’d not published in almost two years, couldn’t even place a poem in one of those obscure literary journals that paid in free copies. At least he wasn’t writing about Belize anymore and the mistakes he’d made and all that mess he’d said farewell to years ago. At least he could count that as a success.

Time to look for some inspiration. He turned to the door. Hey, Martin, I’m heading out for a quick cigarette.

Martin came to take his place in the chair.

Leo headed down the hall to the women’s side, opened the door with a key and stepped out into the warm stairwell. He trotted up to the fifth floor, where a plastic chair waited by the window. The fifth-floor ward had closed down a couple of years back so there was nobody around to spy on him. Leo took a plastic baggie from his pocket, and from the baggie he removed a book of matches and a roach. He sparked it. Sucked deep and held that potent smoke in his lungs. Repeated the process, then blotted the stub against the window frame, smoke curling from his lips.

Man, it was a warm night. Middle of February and the heat wouldn’t let up. But he was beginning to feel comfortable, all sweet inside. He turned a lazy gaze out the window to the parking lot below. He watched the gate rise and two cars pull out and head up Twelfth Avenue, probably evening-shift nurses going home. Where he wanted to be. In bed with Tessa. . . . He sat back, let his thoughts wander.

Something across the street caught his attention, somebody standing under the lamppost, a black guy in a suit, staring up at the building. Leo observed him awhile. The man glanced at his watch and glided on, until he was out of sight. Odd. Jefferson Memorial smack in a rough neighborhood like this and a guy in a suit strolling the streets so late?

The intercom crackled, and Leo thought, Shit, here we go.

Stat team to Crisis. Stat team to Crisis.

Leo sighed, gathered himself, popped a Dentyne into his mouth. Last thing he wanted to do right now was deal with some wacko the cops were bringing in fresh off the street.

Martin was already slipping on latex gloves when Leo reached the nurses’ station.

Leo said, You got this one?

Rose said, I’d prefer if you go with him. Since he’s new.

Leo said, You sure? Knowing hospital policy required at least two staff members on the floor at all times.

Rose nodded and said to Martin, For now just stand back and watch the other techs, okay? Only get involved if they need you. See how they do it first.

It’s highly complex, Leo said. One must employ keen observation.

Rose rolled her eyes and swiveled the chair back to the desk.

Going out the door, Leo told Martin, Every call from Crisis Intervention is considered a red code. Been on a red yet?

A couple blues only.

Expect anything on a red. Like they told you in training.

Out in the lobby they waited for the elevator. The door behind them had a small window with iron mesh inside the glass, and beside it was a red phone with no dial or buttons. Above it was a sign:

Visitors must pick up the telephone.

Wait for staff to open door.

Please watch for patients trying to elope.

Leo jabbed the down arrow two more times. Probably giving trouble again. We might have to take the stairs. Or so he hoped. Then the door slid open and he braced himself before they entered. The door closed, the elevator jerked and started down, and Leo’s mouth went dry.

For years he’d been working on his claustrophobia and just couldn’t beat it. He’d improved his ability to manage it, but the fear never went away completely. He stared at the floor. And this was the elevator that gave trouble, too. Martin asked him a question, but he couldn’t answer. Until he stepped out into the cold, sweet air of the ground-floor lobby.

No, I’ve never been hurt on a call. He swallowed, inhaled deeply. I mean, except for a sprained finger or a couple bruises, I haven’t been injured or anything. Guy on the fourth floor, day-shift nurse? Patient broke his jaw a few weeks back.

I heard about that. Hey, you okay?

They walked around the corner, past a few despondent-looking souls slumped in chairs. Yeah, why?

Martin shrugged. You look . . . kinda pale. You sure you’re okay?

Course I’m sure, an edge to his voice. He opened the door to Crisis Intervention. After you, leveling his tone. They went in, a few disheveled people watching the TV in a high corner, or gazing into space. Leo lowered his voice. People here, people outside, they’re waiting to see the triage nurse. He pointed to an empty Plexiglas booth set diagonally in one corner. That’s triage. The nurse is away from the desk right now but she’s the person who interviews them, sees if they require hospitalization. Now, this door here, we don’t have a key for it. We’ve got keys for all other entrances but not for Crisis. He hit a button on the wall, and a few seconds later a tech in green scrubs opened one side of the double doors.

At the end of the bright hallway two uniformed cops with empty holsters stood next to a bare-chested Hispanic man with hands cuffed behind him. Leo led Martin past the nurses’ station and conference rooms. Two techs from Crisis joined them and by the time they reached the cops, techs from other floors were streaming in, tugging on latex gloves.

The goon squad, one of the cops said, smiling at them.

Nobody smiled back. Pablo, the Crisis night-shift head nurse, asked him, So who do we have here?

This here is Reynaldo Rivera. Reynaldo was dashing across 1-95 traffic, no shoes, dressed like this. Said he was just waiting for a cab, isn’t that right, Reynaldo?

The bare-chested man grunted. His feet were filthy and he smelled

Reviews for Lonesome Point

[ctfrench · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Leo Valera works the night shift on a psychiatric ward but his real passion is poetry. Leo’s brother Patrick is commissioner for Miami-Dade County with plans to run for mayor in the upcoming election. The two brothers are polar opposites: Leo is lackadaisical and prefers to spend time smoking pot and composing poems while Patrick is aggressive and ambitious and will do anything to accomplish his goals. Leo’s girlfriend is pregnant and he knows he needs to do something more with his life but isn’t motivated. Patrick, married to Leo’s former girlfriend, is as content as Leo to keep their relationship at a distance. Both brothers share one thing in common: escaping the vile secrets from their past which will undo them if revealed. When Freddie Robinson, a friend from their childhood, shows up where Leo works and tries to coerce Leo into releasing one of the patients, Leo reaches out to his brother for help, not realizing this is the first step for the two brothers in a sequence of events leading them back to their past and the demons they have tried to elude.Ian Vasquez writes with an interesting style, drawing the reader in with his flowing cadence wrapped around a fast-paced plot filled with mystery and suspense. Character development is superb. Leo, the quintessential underachiever, is forced to take a serious look at his life and choose whether to remain uninvolved or become the man he should have been. Patrick’s true character is revealed when he is confronted with having to decide what matters most: family or career. Dialogue stands out, especially with the secondary characters, who add an extra dimension to this engaging thriller.