Hilary's blue eyes turned cold. Cab figured that Lake Michigan was probably cold, but it would have felt as balmy as the Gulf compared to this woman's eyes.
'Do you think I'm stupid, Detective?'
'I'm sorry?'
'I know you're not here because we happen to have a room that overlooks the beach. I don't imagine the lead detective on a murder investigation does the grunt work of interviewing hundreds of potential witnesses.'
Cab smiled. 'There's a lot more grunt work than you might imagine.'
'Someone already told me that the dead girl is Glory Fischer, and someone obviously told
'Yes, your husband's name did come up.'
'Mark had nothing to do with this.'
'Maybe not, but you can understand my concern, given his relationship with the Fischers. Particularly the dead girl's sister.'
'There was no relationship,' Hilary insisted. 'The accusations against him were false.'
'I don't really care,' Cab told her. it raises suspicions about him cither way.'
'My husband didn't kill Glory Fischer.'
'Except we've already established that you were sleeping, Mrs Bradley, so you really don't know what he was doing.'
'I know Mark.'
'Nobody knows anybody,' Cab said.
'Maybe you don't, but I do. I'm not going to see my husband subjected to another witch-hunt, Detective.'
'I don't do witch-hunts. I don't believe what anyone tells me, good or bad, until I can prove it one way or another. So right now, what I'd really like is for your husband to stop hiding behind the bathroom door pretending he's in the shower, and instead have him come out and talk to me.'
'I'll let him know you stopped by,' Hilary said.
'If your husband has nothing to hide, let him answer a few questions.'
'You've already lied about your reasons for coming here, Detective,' she snapped. 'So spare me the 'nothing to hide' speech. Mark and I don't trust people any more than you do. We've learned that we can only trust each other.'
'I've seen a lot of wives who think that,' Cab told her. 'Most of them wind up disappointed.'
'Do I look like a naive twenty-five year old to you?'
'No, you don't,' he said.
'Then don't treat me like one.'
Cab dug in his pocket. 'Your husband is going to have to answer questions sooner or later. Here's my card. Have him call me. Don't bother leaving town today, because you'll just have to fly back here again.'
'Are you finished?'
'No, if your husband won't answer questions, then I'll ask you. Did you know Glory Fischer and her sister were here at this hotel?'
'I've said all I plan to say for now,' Hilary told him.
'You're painting a target on your husband's back. You're both acting guilty.'
'You've already said you won't believe me, so why should I say anything at all?'
Before he could answer, Cab heard his phone ringing in the inner pocket of his suit coat. It was Lala on the other end of the line. He listened to her, and he knew that the Cuban cop's voice was loud enough to be heard throughout the room. He didn't care. When he hung up, he noticed the changed expression in Hilary Bradley's eyes. She'd followed the thread of his conversation, and she was uncomfortable now. And worried.
'I don't think you were sleeping, Mrs Bradley,' he told her. 'I think you woke up, and your husband was gone.'
'Goodbye, Detective.'
'That was one of my investigators on the phone. You heard what she said. We have a witness. A hotel employee who saw Glory Fischer going out to the beach. The question is, what else did he see?'
Hilary said nothing.
Cab rapped his foot against one of the suitcases on the floor, which had been open when he first arrived. 'I saw the yellow tank top. Is that what your husband was wearing? That's hard to miss, even at night.'
She folded her arms again and was quiet. Her face grew flushed.
Cab walked past her toward the hotel room door. As he passed the closed door to the bathroom, he pounded on it loudly. 'Don't think you can hide behind your wife forever, Mr Bradley. The sooner you talk to me, the easier this will be.'
When there was no answer, he left the room.
Mark waited until he heard the hotel room door slam shut. He emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed, and found his wife sitting on the end of the bed. Her face was tired and stressed. He'd seen that look for weeks last year, as they'd both faced his accusers at the school.
'You heard?' she asked.
Mark nodded. His frustration bubbled over, and he felt like punching the wall. 'He's right. I should have come out and talked to him. I don't like to hide, Hil. That's not me.'
She shook her head. 'He was just pushing your buttons. He was trying to goad us into saying something stupid. Look, I'll call my father and get the name of a defense attorney here in Naples. There are probably Chicago snowbirds all over the place down here. We'll talk to him and then decide what to do next.'
'Guilty people hire lawyers.'
'No, smart people do,' she told him. 'This is about protecting ourselves.'
Mark glanced at the suitcases on the floor. 'We can't leave.'
'I'll call the desk and see if we can stay another night.'
'Does he really have a witness? Or was that just a mind game?'
'I don't know. I heard the person on the phone say that someone at the hotel saw Glory, but they could have staged the call.' if someone saw me with her…' Mark's voice trailed off. if someone saw you with her, maybe they saw you leave, too. Maybe they saw who really did this.'
Chapter Six
Lala Mosqueda had added black sunglasses to her all-black outfit as the sun got higher over the resort. Her skin had a glistening sheen of sweat. It was Florida, and there was nothing you could do to escape the humidity. Cab had assumed he would get used to it over time, but in two years, he never had. By the time he was done shaving every morning, his skin was already damp. Every surface he touched felt moist and swollen. When he left his high-rise, beachfront condo, his clothes stuck to his body, and he felt the thick air draining his energy. The only creatures that thrived in the damp climate were the cockroaches and spiders, which grew like mutants.
Lala leaned against the trunk of a palm tree near a wide, tiled walkway that led toward the water. The sky overhead was postcard blue. On the hotel terrace, Cab saw a goateed hotel employee with greased black hair sitting alone at a patio table, nervously pushing around the floral centerpiece and swigging water from a plastic Aquafina bottle. The man shifted and crossed his legs uncomfortably in the deckchair. White cuffs jutted out from the sleeves of his red hotel jacket, and he wore black slacks. He was in his early twenties.
Cab met Lala, who was texting on her phone. 'That our witness?' he asked.
'Yeah, his name's Ronnie Trask. He's a bartender at the pool bar.'
