Spiral, page 7
part #13 of John F Cuddy Series
The fog around us hung thick, shrouding everything but your hand in front of you. A nautical bell tolled nearby, and I somehow knew it was a lighthouse.
Suddenly, through a narrow rift in the fog, I could see Nancy, right by the side of our boat. She was at the surface, her head bobbing some in the chop. I leaned over the rubber gunwale, reaching out and calling for her to take my hand. But Nancy just smiled at me—a wry little smile—and then she began to sink, her black hair billowing up behind her head like seaweed in a current. I screamed her name now, the bell tolling louder and—
I sat bolt upright, the bedsheet, heavy from sweat, peeling off and falling into my lap. When I picked up the telephone, the electronic voice told me it was my requested wake-up call and to be sure to have a nice day, now.
Before showering that Wednesday morning, I ordered break-fest from room service. Shaving while I waited for the knock at the door, I thought about my dream. Or nightmare.
I hadn’t had any during the whole time in Boston after flight #133 went down, despite all the nights I’d passed out from the booze. So why now? Maybe it was the reduced alcohol intake the last few days, coupled with sleeping in a strange bed after a long day of flying and dealing with the Skipper’s problem.
I hoped that was all it was.
Breakfast arrived as I wiped my face free of residual shaving cream. When I opened my door, the bellman was tugging a local paper called the Sun-Sentinel—packaged in a plastic bag—off the outside knob. After I finished eating and read the first section of what appeared to be a pretty good daily, there was still half an hour until Justo or Pepe was to meet me, so I decided to rent a car while I waited. ^
Before leaving the room, though, I walked over to my bureau and touched the photo I’d unpacked. The one of Nancy and me, her mugging for the camera.
”I remember how you like the old-fashion guns, maybe you like old-fashion cars, too.”
Pepe had been sitting on a lobby chair near the rent-a-car counter when I walked up to it. As he came over to me, I said, ”You could have called me in my room rather than wait here.”
A head shake. ”Mr. Vega, he say to me, ‘Let the man sleep after his hard trip.’” Pepe gave me a different look. ”How you feeling, Mr. Whatever?”
”Better,” I said automatically, then realized—despite the nightmare—that I really did.
A nod before Pepe glanced at the woman behind the counter. ”What I say before about the old cars is true. In Havana, we have them, but no gas, like I told you yesterday. Here, we got the old cars, but with the gas, too. You want a sixty-four Caddy convertible, I got this friend—”
”Pepe, thanks, but I think something less conspicuous might be better.”
”Less con-spic-u-ous, huh? So, like some little shitbox, four doors and no performance package.”
”Like that, yes.”
”Okay. You see the nice lady behind the counter, I wait on the chair, then drive you to the police station.”
”I’ll have my own car, Pepe. Can’t you just lead me in yours?”
”Mr. Vega, he tell me to drive you this morning so he can meet you there. I don’t argue with Mr. Vega, you don’t argue with me, okay?”
”Okay.”
”This Fort Lauderdale, she’s a pretty nice town, you don’t mind the murders now and then.”
We’d left my Chevy Cavalier—four doors of teal-blue anonymity—in the garage beyond the hotel’s pool. With the air temperature hovering around eighty again and a cloud-patched sky smothering us in humidity, I’d shrugged out of my suit jacket before getting into Pepe’s Ford Escort. When we turned onto West Broward Boulevard, he set the air conditioner on high, its motor or fan ratding a little. ”Thanks,” I said.
”I figure, you still on Boston weather, Mr. Whatever, you need it. But you better get used to this Florida stuff, you gonna be down here a while.”
I turned sideways in my passenger seat. ”Pepe, a question?”
”Sure, man.”
‘You know any of the people at the birthday party for Colonel Helides well enough to give me your take on them?”
”‘My ‘take’? You mean like, do I think they maybe not right, somehow?”
”We can start there.”
Pepe thought a moment. ”I see a few of them, but the onliest one I talk to is Berto —Umberto Reyes, the security guy? He is cubano, too, so I think he okay.”
”Would you bet your life on it?”
Another moment of thought. ”No, but I would bet the life of a very good friend.” Pepe grinned at me.
He eased the Escort over to the center lane, then turned left into a parking lot that ran the length of a sprawling, multilevel building. Light gray exterior walls sported powder-blue trim and awnings while palm trees swayed above tended beds of brightly colored flowers.
I said, ”This is the police station?”
”You got it.” s
”Looks more like a resort hotel.” I opened my door, but Pepe stayed put. ”You’re not coming in?”
”Uh-unh,” he said, gazing out the windshield at the traffic on Broward. ”Police places remind me too much of Presidente Castro’s Courtesy Inns. Mr. Vega meet you on the second floor, though. You got to go first up to the counter, then they buzz you in the doors.” j
”Pepe?”
”Yeah?”
”You don’t like being in police stations, how come you know so much about the layout of this one?”
He turned toward me this time. ”Mr. Vega tell me.” Turning back and glancing in his outside mirror, Pepe said, ”And remember, in this country, the policeman is your friend.”
The interior of the building didn’t look like a resort hotel.
In a lobby of gray cylindrical pillars and gray formed chairs, one wall was hung with glass cases bearing yearbook-like photos and captions such as police employee of the month. Another wall had a different array of more candid photos marked please help—missing children.
I walked to the information counter on the left as a uniformed officer in a chocolate-brown shirt and gray pants with brown piping passed me, the small radio on his epaulet squawking. Two women were behind the counter, enclosed in thick—and probably bulletproof—glass. One of them got me through two security doors, the second of which led to a staircase.
I climbed the flight and wound up in a smaller reception area with a beige metal door and a window covered by the kind of roll-down grating you’d see over a pawnshop. The window was closed most of the way down to its ledge, an elderly woman sitting sidesaddle behind it and an equally old sign saying something about ”It’s freezing in here.”
Justo Vega rose from one of the chairs in the reception area. ”John, you slept well?”
”Pretty much.”
A grave nod. Reaching into his suit coat, he came out with a folded paper. ”This is the list of all who attended the Skipper’s birthday party, with addresses and telephone numbers.”
I took it from him. ”Thanks, Justo. Are we ready to go in?”
”The detectives will see you, but only if I am not present.”
”Wait a minute. They’ll see me but not you?”
”For several reasons, I think, though they mentioned none to me. First, I am a lawyer, and they are sick to death of lawyers on this case. Second, I believe if I were in charge of the investigation, I would want any ‘discrepancies’ in recollection from your interview to be a verdict of two against one.”
Made sense from their standpoint. ”How do we proceed, then?”
Justo tilted his head toward the counter behind him. ‘We give your name to the nice lady, she buzzes you in, and the detectives spend as much time with you as they like. I will wait for you out here.”
”Okay. What are these people’s names?”
The squad room at the end of the corridor measured maybe thirty-by-thirty, with lots of old wooden desks and black swivel chairs dragged toward modernity by a couple of computers. High, clerestory windows let in surprisingly little of the Florida sunshine, the air smelling of moldy documents, possibly in the light brown folders or dark brown accordion files. The parts of the walls not playing host to bookshelves were the same beige as the metal security door, and the overall impression I drew from the room was one of dreary routine.
Sergeant Lourdes Pintana sat behind a desk covered by papers the way snow covers an alley in Boston. Her complexion was the color of honey, her hair two shades darker and pulled straight back but long enough to brush her shoulders. She wore gold-framed half glasses partway down her nose, watching me over the tops of the concave lenses. Her suit jacket shaded toward light green, and I thought from the texture it might be linen. The desk hid whether Pintana was wearing skirt or slacks, but her torso was slim, and the hollows under high cheekbones gave the woman a fashion-model look well into her thirties.
Detective Kyle Cascadden, on the other hand, looked as though he swung from tree to tree via strong vines. Standing to Pintana’s left against one of the bookshelves, he had a craggy brow under sandy hair that was short on top but tumbling over the back of his collar. The fish-pattern tie was tugged down almost to the second button on his shirt, a short-sleeved Kmart special that showed tattoos on each forearm including the eagle-and-anchor of the Marine Corps. At the right side of his belt I could see a badge and some kind of magnum revolver. His nose had led the charge more than once, a scar line running through the left eyebrow as well.
From the visitor chair in front of the desk, I gave them my best smile. ”A pleasure to meet you both.”
”Pity we cannot say the same,” said Pintana, an icing of Spanish on her words.
”I’m glad to see we’re off to such a good start.” Cascadden pushed his butt away from the shelf. ”I throw you through one of those windows up there, just how far you think you’d bounce?”
Southern country accent. ”Probably from here to the nearest federal courthouse, where civil-rights suits eat civil-service pensions.”
Cascadden showed me some teeth, rottweiler fashion, but Pintana raised her hand in a ”Down, boy” gesture. ”Mr. Cuddy, we are meeting here instead of my office because it is more comfortable.”
”Doesn’t give me much hope for your office.”
Pintana lowered her hand. ”Do you know why we are meeting with you at all?”
”Because somebody you respect was told by somebody you don’t that this was to be a command performance.”
”A what?” said Cascadden.
Pintana canted her head at me but spoke to her partner. Like when Elton John plays for the Queen, Kyle.”
He showed me more teeth. ”Yeah, well, nobody fucking commands’ me to do anything. We don’t just have this Held killing. There’s a whore got herself slashed to death in a hot-sheet joint, maybe because she wouldn’t do some John’s ‘joint.’ Then there’s a vehicular over on Federal Highway, hit-and-run of this tourist from — ”
I said, ”No offense intended, Detective. I was military Police for a while, and I know how it can be in a department.”
”How far did you get?” asked Pintana.
”In terms of rank or geography?”
Just the barest twitch of a smile. ”I had a brother went to Vietnam, and you’re the right age, so how about just rank.”
”Lieutenant mostly, captain for a while.”
Cascadden said, ”And that’s supposed to make you some kind of expert?”
I leaned forward in my chair, elbows on knees, hands spread. ”Look, we can spar, and probably you can win this round. But that means I go back with thin soup for a report, and you’ll get told to entertain me all over again, only with a little more enthusiasm. So, why don’t we just get to it, save everybody another sit-down?”
Cascadden glared at me. Pintana picked up a pencil and began tapping its eraser against gleaming, even teeth. She said, ”Let’s see your identification.”
I passed the Boston version across the desk, Cascadden leaning over her left shoulder to read it. I could see his lips moving as Pintana said, ”We were told you’d have Florida papers.”
”My guess is that Justo Vega will be able to produce them for you by the end of the day.”
Cascadden shook his head, the hair at his collar picking up dull light from the windows. ”I say we throw this bozo out till he comes up with righteous ID.”
”We could, Kyle,” Pintana rising partway to hand my identification holder back to me. She had carefully manicured nails, short enough so that computer keyboards and gun trigger guards wouldn’t present a problem. ”But as Mr. Cuddy said, it would only postpone the inevitable. I say we talk with him and be rid of it.”
Cascadden didn’t reply for a moment. Then, ”You’re the one passed the sergeant’s exam.”
Pintana nodded to me. ”What do you want to know?”
”Might save all of us time if I got to see your file on this.”
”Not while I’m in this chair,” said Pintana.
”All right, then how about your view on what happened.”
She folded her hands on top of the desk. Or, more accurately, on top of one of the papers covering it. ”Held, Veronica Janis, white female, was killed by drowning in the pool at her grandfather’s home. There were bruises on the ankles suggesting someone held her down there and forced her head under the water.”
”Prints?”
”Not thanks to the water. And the chlorine in it.” Cascadden said, ”Plus that houseboy fucked the crime scene all to hell.”
I looked over. ”I don’t think Duy Tranh is a houseboy.” Going back to Pintana, I asked, ”Any trace evidence?”
”Pool, pool area, and filter checked carefully for fibers and hair. We found a catalog of them, which isn’t surprising, since just about everybody at the party or the house in general used the pool in the preceding twenty-four hours.”
First no evidence, now too much. ”I understand the girl was sexually assaulted.”
Pintana gave a sidelong look at Cascadden, but apparently her partner had learned at least something about sensitivity, because he didn’t say anything. She came back to me with, ”Sí. Evidence of violent penetration, no semen or other fluids.”
”Because of the pool water again?”
”Possibly, but the Medical Examiner did find traces of latex in the vagina, torn though it was.”
”A condom?”
”That is my belief. When I joined the unit as a detective, we were still responsible for child molestation and sexual battery as well as homicide.”
”Anything further from the autopsy?”
”Given lung and vaginal tissue, the M.E. feels the penetration probably occurred while the girl was struggling underwater.”
The Skipper had said that, but it was still troubling, ”She was raped while the killer was drowning her?”
Cascadden laughed. ”Or the fucking perp’ was getting his jollies, and he never noticed the kid wasn’t breathing real good.”
I looked at Cascadden again. Police work, and especially homicide investigation, can harden you. But this ex-Marine seemed more amused than callous.
He said, ”What’re you looking at, Beantown?”
”Nobody there calls it that.”
”Huh?”
”Nobody in Boston calls it ‘Beantown,’ any more than I’d call somebody down here a ‘redneck.’”
Cascadden clenched his fists. ‘That what you’re calling me?”
”Kyle,” from Pintana.
”Huh, boy?” coming forward a step with the fists still clenched but not yet up. ”You calling me—”
”Kyle,” from Pintana, but with a little more juice behind it. ”Enough, okay?”
Cascadden glanced at her, but kept his eyes mostly on mine, to make sure I knew he could still handle me if his partner weren’t around. Then he stepped back, shoulders against the wall, arms folded across his chest so that the eagle tatt’ was eyeing me, too.
I said to Pintana, ‘You were first on the scene?”
”No. Road patrol responded to the nine-one-one. I got called out.”
”Meaning you were off duty?”
”In my apartment.”
Not just ”at home.”
”How about your partner here?”
Cascadden grunted. ”Sergeant’s not my partner.”
I looked at her. ”You’re not?”
”No, Mr. Cuddy. I run the unit.”
”In Boston, that’d be a lieutenant’s slot.”
”In Lauderdale, we don’t have that rank. It’s sergeant or captain, and I’m years away from a promotion.”
”Maybe not after this case.”
Pintana watched me. ”The Held murder was so high-profile from the get-go that I’ve been riding with Kyle on it since he wasn’t partnered up at the time.”
That came as no surprise. To Cascadden, I said, ”So, you were here at the station?”
”What difference does it fucking make?”
‘You won’t let me see the logs and files, I’d like to have some idea how long people in the house would have had before the police in general and Homicide in particular got things under control.”
Cascadden started to say something, but Pintana spoke over him. ”That makes sense. Road patrol was there within five minutes after the nine-one-one.”
”And how long after the girl was found did somebody think to call it in?”
Given the confusion at the scene—family, the band members, everybody milling around—hard to say for sure, hut Mr. Tranh said he ‘ran’ for the phone.”
Same thing he’d told me. ”So say it takes him one or two minutes to get her out of the pool and dial for help. How long after the girl was killed does the M.E. estimate she was found by Mr. Tranh?”
Pintana gave me an appraising look. ”Given the temperature of the pool water, that’s pretty hazy. But most of the guests say she left the party about an hour before the body was found.”
So, adding in even the rapid police response, the killer had plenty of time to hide any evidence of condom—or even gloves to hold her.... ”Were there any latex tracings on the girl’s ankles?”
Cascadden glanced at Pintana, but she watched me with the appraising look. ”Lab says yes, in some of the cracks in the skin caused by her thrashing around.”
