“What? I’m in the middle of a date. I’m at the theater. What the heck is so important?”
“He done it again. Cuban woman. In Cocoplum.”
“Oh … fuck!” cried Paz, with his thumb over the phone mike. Cocoplum was a wealthy bayside development south of the Grove, favored by the Cuban upper crust. If the bastard wanted the absolute maximum in police attention he had made a good choice of victim.
“You still there, Jimmy?”
“Yeah. Look, are we sure it’s the same guy?”
“It’s a carbon copy of Deandra Wallace,” said Barlow. “No breakin. No struggle. The same cuts, the baby done the same. Bet you a bag of silver dollars they find the same drugs in her. Man came home and found his wife and baby like that? Jesus wept! Take down the address.”
Paz did. When he got back to Willa, they were flashing the lights and the lobby was draining of people.
“What?” she asked, seeing his face.
“That guy killed another pregnant woman. I got to go. You can watch the rest of this, if you want, or I can drive you home, but I’ll probably be tied up all night. If you want to stay, I can give you cab fare …”
“No, I want to come with you.”
Paz looked up at the ceiling, registering extreme disbelief. “Come on, babes, it’s police business. I can’t take a date to a murder scene.”
“I won’t be at a murder scene. I’ll stay on the good side of the yellow tape like the rest of the gawkers. Please, Jimmy?it’s our last night and I’ll never see you again until I’m a famous writer and I come to the Miami Book Fair and you come up to the table to get an autograph …”
Paz sighed dramatically. “It’ll be hours and hours. What in hell will you do?”
“I’ll absorb atmosphere. I’ll have conversations. I’m a writer. Puh-leeeeze …? “
So they drove down together, Paz having made her swear on the ghost of William Butler Yeats that she would keep out of trouble. In a little while they were at the crime scene, a more impressive showing than the one that had attended the death of Deandra Wallace. There were more than a dozen official cars in the cul-de-sac, radio cars and the big Ford sedans used by the brass, besides an ambulance, a crime-scene-unit van, a generator truck supplying power to the floodlights that illuminated what was clearly the victim’s home. This was a large, two-story, Spanish-style affair, with a tile roof and two wings, one of which enclosed a four-car garage, all set amid lavish plantings and irrigated lawns backing on Biscayne Bay. It looked like a stage set under the lights.
Paz parked a good distance away, reminded Willa to stay put, and walked toward the house, shoving his badge wallet onto his breast pocket to display the shield. There were little knots of neighbors at the head of the cul-de-sac, as well as three TV vans setting up to broadcast live, all under the supervision of a couple of uniforms. The neighbors looked stunned and worried. Good, thought Paz, unkindly, as he went by. He stopped by the crime- scene truck and picked up a steno pad, a set of plastic booties, and a pair of rubber gloves.
The suits were out in numbers in front of the house, among whom Paz spotted his homicide shift lieutenant, Romeo Posada, and the homicide unit commander, Captain Arnie Mendes. He did not care for either of them, but Mendes at least had a set of brains. He nodded to both of them as he stepped into the house and took in the scene. An oval entrance hall, high-ceilinged with a gilt chandelier hanging on chains, a tile floor, white, gold-flecked, underfoot, straight ahead a formal stairway, doors to the left and right. A crime-scene tech was dusting the French windows in the huge living room to the right. Paz asked him where the scene was. The guy pointed upward. “The master bedroom, hang a left at the head of the stairs. You want to bring a vomit bag, Jimmy. Fucker did a number on the poor bitch. You figure it’s the same guy from Overtown?”
“We’ll have to see,” said Paz, and headed up the staircase. The master bedroom was the size of a helipad, and done in shades of yellow?drapes, shag rug, the trim on the king-size four-poster. A cheerful color, which made the prevailing color of the bed and its occupant a particularly obscene contrast. Barlow was staring at the dead woman, motionless, his head down. A couple of CSU cops wandered around taking strobe photos and vacuuming every surface.
Paz stood next to his partner and studied the woman’s face. The eyes were slightly open, but otherwise she looked like she was sleeping. Early twenties, Paz estimated, tanned body, thick blond hair in a shag cut, a little plump in the cheeks, but nice even features.
“Where’s the baby?” Paz asked after several heavy swallows that tasted unpleasantly of semidigested grilled pompano with mango confit.
“Bathroom,” said Barlow.
Paz took a look in the adjoining bathroom, which was huge also, and brightly lit, yellow like the bedroom, and equipped with a shower stall, a Jacuzzi bath, two sinks, and a vanity table of the type used by movie stars, with the lightbulbs all around the mirror. The little gray corpse was lying half on this table and half in the sink, with its severed umbilicus hanging down like an appliance cord. There was a CSU man in the shower stall, clanking tools.
Paz pulled his eyes away from the never-born baby. “Anything good?”
“I’ll know when I get the trap up,” the CSU guy said. “He used the shower after, we know that. There’s blood marks behind the grab bar. Maybe we’ll get some hairs.” More clanking, a muffled curse. “We found one thing, near the baby. I gave it to Cletis already.”
“What?”
“Probably nothing. Looks like a sliver of black plastic or glass. Doesn’t match anything I could see in the room.”
Paz went back to the bedroom. Barlow had not moved.
“So what do you think, Cletis?”
“Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils.”
“Besides that, Cletis. Do we have anything?”
“Well, she’s fresher than Deandra. Look, the blood’s just about done setting up. He couldn’t have finished more than half an hour before Vargas got home. He says he was at a Marlins game with some clients, which I guess we’ll check out just to dot the i’s. This here’s his wife, Teresa, age twenty-four. There’s a housekeeper, too, who you need to talk to. Her English ain’t that hot. Amelia Ferrer, we’re keeping her in her room downstairs. You also need to talk to the people in the other two houses on this strip, maybe they saw or heard something.”
“Obviously Amelia didn’t or she would’ve called the cops.”
“You’ll find out. Let me handle the scene and you go talk the language to these people.”
“What about this piece of glass CSU found?”
Barlow took an evidence bag from his pocket and held it up to the light. In it was a fragment a little larger than a fingernail clipping, and with nearly the same crescent shape.
“That’s not as good as a rare nut, is it?”
Barlow said nothing and put the bag back in his pocket. Paz said, “Well, I got to admit you called it right. We’re deep in it now. The bosses are all over this already. Did Posada or Mendes have anything to say?”
“Oh, yeah. The department called the Feebs already. Guy’s flying down from Quantico, the expert on serial killers. It’s butt-covering time. Meeting Monday morning in the chief’s office.”
“Mendes’s?”
“No, the chief. Of police. Horton. This is going to be high-level right down the line. The big boys’ll be looking over our shoulders from inside of our suit jackets from now on. You better go talk to them people now.”
Barlow returned to his silent contemplation of the eviscerated Teresa, or maybe he was praying for guidance. Paz went out of the death-stinking room, down the stairs to the maid’s room near the kitchen, and found the housekeeper, a stocky, thirtyish woman a shade or two darker than Paz, wearing a tan uniform and apron. A policewoman was keeping an eye on her. Amelia Ferrer had been crying and dabbed at her reddened eyes with a wad of paper towel while he conducted the interview. She had last seen her employer alive at just before eight that evening. Mrs. Vargas had been watching television in her bedroom and Mrs. Ferrer had gone up as she usually did to see if anything was wanted before she herself settled down to watch her favorite program (Wheel of Fortune) in her own room. She had not left her room until she heard Mr. Vargas’s horrified shriek at shortly after ten, while E.R. was playing. Yes, her door had been slightly ajar, as always. Yes, she had heard Mr. Vargas enter the house. No, she had not heard anyone else come in, but she recalled dozing off for a few minutes. No, the elaborate alarm system had not been turned on; they did not turn it on, usually, until the family was ready for bed.
Mr. Vargas was in his living room, with a stiff drink. He wanted someone to blame, and it was Paz. After
