Tango key, p.16
Tango Key, page 16
"But it had been in the water for at least an hour," Prentiss reminded her.
She sat forward, suddenly remembering something, and the quick burning in the center of her chest told her she was right. "Bill, at high tide there's no coral island. And when the tide recedes, there's a pool of water right in the center of it, where the coral dips. I think our man let Cooper's body soak in the pool for an hour or so, then hauled it by boat to the Cooper property. That way, too, he eliminated the problem of sharks getting the body before it made landfall."
"It fits," Kincaid said.
Prentiss nodded. "Yeah, it sure as hell does."
They had the how, she thought. Now all they had to do was figure out who and why.
Whitman's Bookstore was located in the dip of Route 2 as it swooped down into town from the bridge that connected Tango to Key West. It backed up to the boardwalk that paralleled the beach for four miles, and was flanked on one side by Tango Beachwear and on the other by Nana's Pastries.
At nine hundred square feet, it was only a third the size of the Key West Whitman's, the rent was twice as high, and it lacked the patina of legend her parents had so carefully nurtured in that store. But in the eight years since its inception, it had turned enough of a profit to allow Aline to hire a fulltime manager and two part-time employees. Until now, until Cooper's murder, she'd been putting in ten hours a week here on her days off. The price of living on Tango was two jobs and no free time.
She found Mark Finley, her manager, at the back of the store, at the top of a ladder, shelving new books. "Hey, up there."
He glanced around and grinned. "Hey, down there. You slumming or what?" He nudged his black frame glasses back on his nose and descended. Finley, as usual, was dressed to kill—pale blue Polo shirt with expensive gray slacks and shoes the color of mice. The only other man she knew who dressed with such panache was Dobbs, and neither of them could afford it.
"You got maybe an hour to spare?"
He set the books he'd been holding on the edge of a shelf and raked his fingers through his brown hair. "You have that Jesse James look in your eyes, Al."
She laughed. "Nothing as overt as a shoot-out. I need Todd, too."
"You may have to bribe him with a diet book. He's in one of his blue funks right now."
Todd McGuire, an artist and Finley's lover, was a compulsive dieter whose fasts were invariably followed by junk food binges which plunged him into creative slumps. "Fine. Whatever it takes. Has he read The Rotation Diet?"
Finley nodded.
"Scarsdale?"
Finley rolled his eyes.
"Rice? Carbohydrate?"
"Yup."
She snapped her fingers. "The Underburner 's Diet."
"Nope. I'll call him."
"Half an hour, my place."
"Am I dressed okay for this?"
"You're perfect. You and Todd are going to be looking for a boat."
"Al, how illegal is this?" He held up his hand and brought his thumb and index finger so close together that only a sliver of light showed through. "Itty bitty illegal?"
"A little more than that."
"This much?" The slit widened.
"Yeah, about like that."
"You should never have become a cop," he said, and walked off to call Todd McGuire.
Half an hour later, a black Mercedes pulled into Aline's driveway—a diesel that was probably fifteen years old and belonged to Todd McGuire's father. Aline hurried down the steps, dressed in white slacks and sandals, looking like a lah-de-dah lady who'd just stepped off a yacht bound for someplace exotic like Bora Bora. Not a knock-your-socks-off yacht, but a respectfully large yacht.
McGuire hopped out of the driver's side, his dark hair cut so close to his head it looked almost shaved. He wore a pair of diamond studs in his right ear and was appropriately casual in khaki slacks and a shirt the color of melon. He let out a soft, low whistle. "You playing Blanche Dubois, Aline?"
"I look like Blanche? How great."
He opened the back door for her, bowing like a chauffeur, and she slid inside. In the front seat, Finley turned around. "I'm fretting, Al. I want you to know just how much I'm fretting."
"Where to?" McGuire asked.
"The Cove Marina. And here's what you guys are going to do," she said, and explained.
When Aline saw Finley and McGuire leave the marina office with Ted Cavello, she checked the time and got out of the Mercedes. They said they would buy her fifteen minutes; she would try to do what she had to in ten.
She walked around to the back of the building, where a dock paralleled a canal. She opened the door at the rear. It fed into the food section of Cavello's shop—fruits and veggies, a cooler stocked with beer and soda, milk and juices. Just beyond this section was the door to Cavello's office, and a hail that led to the rest rooms.
Aline joined the flow of shoppers. If she'd stood a chance of getting a search warrant for Cavello's office, it would've been easier than this. But trying to get a search warrant from a judge in this district was tougher than crossing the Tango Bridge during a hurricane. As the prosecuting attorney had informed her during her second month on the job, No judge gives search warrants on the basis of a hunch, lady.
When she reached the entry to the hall, she darted into it. At the door of Cavello's office, she paused, glancing about anxiously to make sure no one was around. Then she hurried inside and plucked the four keys from the hook between the windows behind Cavello's desk. She left and hurried down the hall to the ladies' room.
It smelled of old fish. It wasn't air-conditioned, either, and the only ventilation came from a window that looked to be the size of a postage stamp about three quarters the way up the wall. It was a panel with hinges at the waist that swung outward.
She went into one of the stalls, removed a baggie of silly putty from her purse, and tore off a generous amount. She made an impression of each key and hoped one of them fit Cavello's office door. She was so nervous and the heat was so extreme that sweat trickled down the sides of her face and covered her hands. A key got away from her and plunked into the toilet. She stared at it, resting pretty as you please at the bottom of the bowl. "Disgusting." she muttered, and dropped her hand into the dirty water to retrieve it.
When she had the key back and her impressions were wrapped carefully inside the baggie again, she came out of the stall and climbed onto the sink with her tools. The window latch was secured only by a single rusted screw. She twisted the screw out, removed the latch, and got down.
Six minutes left.
Plenty of time.
But when she reached the door to Cavello's office, Juan Plano was sitting inside, paging through a magazine. He looked up and recognized her. "Señorita Davidson," he said, getting up, smiling. "We were going to meet for a drink. I called your number many times, but no one answered."
She worried for a moment that he had spoken to Cooper about the mysterious American from Panama and Cooper had told Plano who she really was and now he was putting her on, setting her up. But he seemed sincere enough, and that made her wonder why he hadn't mentioned her to Alan Cooper.
"Nice to see you, Señor Plano. What're you doing up here at the marina?"
"Business. And I was hoping to see you." He flashed that broad Latin smile again. "Tonight you would be free for a drink? You and your brother?"
"How about eleven tomorrow night? At the Flamingo Hotel?"
"I look forward to it."
Four minutes and counting and she was still holding the goddamn keys. She leaned against the filing cabinet just inside the door, pretending to fix her sandal as her left hand set the keys on top of the cabinet. "See you at eleven tomorrow, then."
She made it back to the car just as Finley and McGuire were strolling up from the docks with Cavello. Ninety seconds to spare. Not bad for an amateur, she thought, and settled back against the seat with a smile.
Chapter 12
"Nice of you to drop by, Al."
Aline glanced up from the computer terminal at her desk as Bernie padded into the office, her bones zipped into a tight pair of designer jeans. "Hey, I could've been having a nervous breakdown for all you know."
"Ha." Bernie plopped down in the chair and lifted her feet onto the edge of Aline's desk. "C 'mon, Al. You can tell me. You spent three days in the sack with Kincaid, didn't you."
"God, you're nosy."
She grinned. "I know. It's wicked, isn't it. Vicarious thrills." She dropped her feet to the floor. "But while you were screwing your brains out, I was busy busy busy." She hopped up, closed and locked the door, returned to the chair, and reached into her purse. She pulled out a cassette recorder, hooked up an electrical cord, and plugged it in. She wagged a tape. "This is illuminating, but it may be a little, uh, touchy for you, Al. It concerns Murphy."
"Murphy and Eve?"
"Yeah."
Aline's lunch skidded across the floor of her stomach. She had a feeling she wasn't going to like what was on the tape. "How'd you get it, Bernie?"
"Never mind how the hell I got it." She popped the tape into the recorder. "With some homicides, Al, anything is fair. Anything."
My, my. This is a switch. "Really? When did you decide that? I was always under the impression you played everything by the book."
"Al, I don't always tell you everything, okay? Now do you want to hear this or not?"
Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know. "Does it take place in a bedroom?"
"No. On Eve's sloop."
"With Murphy."
"Yes."
"If you were me, would you want to hear it?"
"If I were you, I wouldn't have put up with Murphy's bullshit for three years to begin with. That's why questions like that are bad, Al."
"What bullshit?" She leaned forward.
"The boats, the poker games, the excuses about not seeing you, all this moaning and groaning he does inside himself about Monica. Don't get me wrong. I love Murphy, really. He's a good cop, and he's a terrific human being unless you're involved with him romantically. He—"
"Sorry I asked," Aline interrupted. "Just play the stupid tape, will you?"
Bernie started the recorder, and Aline slumped down in her chair, resting her head against the back of the chair, eyes closed. For the first few seconds, the only sounds were of the sea slapping the sides of a boat and the restless prowl of the wind. Then, footsteps and a voice, muttering. Eve's voice. "Goddamn sails got minds of their own." Louder: "Murphy, you want a beer? There's a couple cold bottles in the cooler."
"Yeah, bring a couple up here, babe."
Now it sounded like Eve was digging around in a cooler of ice. In her mind's eye, Aline could see her in the sloop's cabin, kneeling in front of the cooler in her bikini, her shoulders pink with sunburn, her lovely, ring-laden hands lost to the wrists in ice. She was probably wearing a floppy straw hat and sunglasses, and spicules of sweat glistened from her forehead, her upper lip.
Eve suddenly yelped: "Hey, that's cold, Murphy. Jesus. Get it out."
Murphy, laughing: "With pleasure."
He put ice down her suit. I know he did. That's an old Murphy trick. He put ice down the bottom of her bikini, and now he's reaching inside the band, fishing for it, caressing her.
"Hmm. You can keep doing that," Eve said softly.
Slow moans now, the sound of wet suits being stripped off, then Murphy whispering: "Feel good?"
"Yes. God, yes."
"Back like this . . ."
"Wait. The towel. Spread out the towel." Giggles, a sharp peal of laughter, a long, contented sigh. "Hmm. Okay. Oh God, that feels good, Murphy."
"Jesus, you're beautiful. Here . . . there . . . in here . . ." Eve gasped, and Aline slammed her finger against the OFF button. "I've heard enough, Bernie." She could barely speak.
"You'd rather stick your head in the sand?"
"Yeah, maybe. Maybe I would've liked to have had a choice." Her voice slid upward, angry now.
"Like you didn't already know. Tell me you didn't know, AL"
Aline covered her face with her hands and began to cry, softly, her shoulders shuddering, hating herself because, really, what was the point? Bernie was right. She had known. She'd known ever since the night Murphy had walked into the Cooper living room. She'd known it was inevitable. Hell, she could even predict what would happen from here on in.
If Murphy got away with this without losing his job, and if Eve wasn't arrested for the murder of her husband, then six months or a year from now Murphy would quit the force and he and Eve would get married and maybe they would even live happily ever after. Eve was Murphy's second chance. It was that simple and that complex.
But God, there were so many ifs.
Bernie squeezed her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Al, you're right, I shouldn't have."
"No. I'm glad you did." Her hands dropped away from her face. She yanked open her bottom desk drawer, pulled out a wad of Kleenex, blew her nose. "Let's hear the rest of this goddamn thing."
"I'll fast-forward through the X-rated stuff."
"No. I want to hear all of it."
"You do?"
"Absolutely."
"You got more guts than me, Al," she said, and hit the button.
Aline had known Murphy so well and so long that it wasn't difficult to create mental scenes to accompany the sound effects. It wasn't a particularly pleasant experience, but it wasn't as bad as she'd expected, either. She understood that her function in Murphy's life had been to help him over the hump of Monica's death. He had loved her in his way, but in the end, it would never have been the way she had loved him. The way he would love Eve. Perhaps loved her already.
"Now listen to this," Bernie said at one point, sitting forward.
Eve, her breath a ragged rasp, groaned, "Hurt me, Murphy, please hurt me."
Slaps rang out.
"Harder," Eve moaned.
Something whistled through the air. Aline winced as it struck flesh once, twice, and Eve cried out, and Murphy, his voice a hiss, said, "More? Do you want more?"
"Yes," she moaned.
"Where?"
"Anywhere."
A third slap, a fourth, and Eve's sobs fluctuated between low and broken to high and sharp. "Now, Murphy," she cried. "Now. Please."
"Where?"
"It doesn't matter."
"Where?" he shouted. "Your ass? Your pussy? Where?"
"Ass. My ass."
Bernie hit the FAST FORWARD button, stopped the recorder, then looked at Aline. "This is going to sound a little personal, Al, but . . ."
"C'mon, Bernie."
"I had to ask."
"I'm not into pain, for God's sakes."
"What about Monica? Was she?"
"If you'd asked me that question an hour ago, I would've said no. Now I don't know. Maybe she was. Maybe she was having an affair, like her brother thought, and this is Murphy getting even with her through Eve." She ran her hands over her face, feeling dirty, soiled. "Look, I don't think we should play the rest of that tape here."
"There're two tapes. This is just the first one."
"Is there still a bug on the boat?"
Bernie shook her head. "I removed it early this morning."
"You going to give those tapes to the chief?"
"I'm not a snitch, Aline. I don't want Murphy to lose his job. But maybe you should talk to him. Tell him you know what's going on between him and Eve. Make him understand that if you know, it's only a matter of time before everyone else on the island knows it, too."
"Me? You think I should talk to him?" She laughed. "Oh, yeah, sure. And you know how it'll sound to him, Bernie? Like I'm jealous. Like I'm just trying to drive him away from Eve. No, thanks. Murphy's a grown man. He got himself into this mess, and he can get himself out with no help from me. You talk to him. Tell Dobbs to talk to him."
A knock at the door interrupted her. Bernie, lightning quick, yanked the cord from the wall, wound it around the recorder, and dumped it in her purse. Aline walked over to the door and unlocked it. Dobbs said, "Secret powwow?"
"Woman talk, Jack."
"Mind if I come in, Al?"
"Oh." She hadn't realized she'd been blocking the door. She walked back to her desk, Dobbs following.
"Hi, Bernie."
"Lo and behold. It's our man of the hour in his chino pants and Calvin Klein shirt, our boy Jackie Dobbs. Hi, cutie."
"Man, who wound you up, Bernelli?"
"I'm always like this, Jack. You just never noticed. So what's what on the surveillance front?"
"All's quiet in the Cove. No stalkers, no peepers, no perverts."
He sank into the other chair and locked his hands behind his head. Your new friend Kincaid seems like a nice enough guy, Al. Who's he working for, anyway?"
"Cooper's attorney."
"You got any idea what this Colombian's connection is to all this stuff?"
"Nope," she lied. "Not yet."
Dobbs looked from Aline to Bernie, who was busily filing her nails, and back to Aline again. "How come I get the feeling I interrupted a lot more than woman talk?"
"Guilty conscience," Bernie said with a smile. "That must be your problem, Jackie boy."
"Women," Dobbs muttered, and left.
Aline and Bernie looked at each other and burst out laughing. Bernie shook her finger at Aline. "You do know about the Colombian. Come clean, Al."
"You first."
"Not here."
"Come over to my place for dinner, then. Bring Danny. He and Wolfe can keep each other company. And bring me copies of those tapes."
"What time?"
"Six?"
"Make it eight."
"Can't, Bernie. I've got an appointment at nine."
"With Kincaid?"
Aline smiled. "With Ted Cavello's office."
The Saab's speedometer needle brushed eighty, but the car didn't so much as shudder. It negotiated the hills with ease, rising through them, whiter than an albino whale. Moonlight suffused the windshield and spilled into Aline's lap, where she'd hooked a key ring with four keys on it over her index finger.
"You afraid you're going to misplace those or something?" Kincaid asked.
