“Won’t do no good, ‘cause I hate everybody,” he said with obvious pride. “Now, where was I?”
“The prints! What else besides the prints?”
“Oh, I almost forgot. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, the lab says the brown paint from your client’s cabinet matches exactly a speck on the tip of the crowbar, plus some oxidized fragments from the bar turn up in the scratches on the cabinet. You like the story now?”
“Love it. Good work, what’s next?” The son of a bitch had been stringing him along.
“Getting the little fucker to tell us where the coupons are.”
“What! The kid doesn’t have them. He wouldn’t be breaking into a Coke machine if he knocked off one-point- six million the night before.”
“He might if he didn’t know what he had. I’m not buying the shit about getting the crowbar in the alley, little guy in a camouflage outfit, come on.”
“Carraway, I don’t believe you. Rodriguez is a lead to the burglar, not the burglar. The guy who broke in had help from inside, a taped-over latch. The Rodriguez kid would’ve busted a window.”
“Not if he had help from somebody who knew what was there.”
“Like who?”
“How should I know? Maybe you and the blonde with the big maracas gave him a new skateboard for bringing out the old man’s coupons, so he still has to steal quarters.”
“You’ve lost it, Carraway. They should’ve put you out to pasture years ago.”
“Don’t worry. I ain’t writing you two up. Too much work. Far as I’m concerned, the kid broke in on his own. By the way, I asked him about the photo, swore on his virgin sister he never saw it. I figure he picked it up in the old man’s office, was gonna jerk off later, maybe he did in the alley. You didn’t see any pecker tracks out there, didja?”
“Carraway, you’re a disgrace. You’re shutting down the investigation.”
“Not so. Just shifting it. When the kid gets a public defender appointed, we’ll offer a deal. Return the coupons, he can plead to trespass, get ten days in Youth Hall, spends more time there than home anyway.”
Lassiter gritted his teeth. “There can’t be a deal! The kid doesn’t have the bonds, anybody can see that. He probably saw the burglar come out of the theater, maybe toss the crowbar into a dumpster. We have to find the guy he saw. And what about Violet Belfrey? You should put her under surveillance. Who does she hang out with? Does she have a rap sheet? I’ll bet you never even checked her record…”
“Wrong. Couple liquor code violations when she tended bar in North Carolina. Soliciting for prostitution fifteen years ago in Jax, same thing in Daytona Beach and Fort Pierce — musta worked her way down the coast on her back — all penny-ante stuff. Not a felony charge in the bunch, no break-ins, no grand larceny. Just an over-the-hill piece who’s got your client seeing stars. With his money you’d think he could do better.”
The sergeant laughed and hung up. It was useless. Carraway just didn’t want to work it. I should talk to the kid, Lassiter thought, get a better description of the guy with the crowbar. Maybe hire Tubby Tubberville to tail Violet Belfrey. Wonder if a bearded 260 pounder on a Harley can be inconspicuous. Could go over Carraway’s head in the department, but it takes time… and Cindy buzzing again.
“Now what?” he asked.
“A very important message, which I have taken the liberty of putting into my own words.”
“People have been arrested for using some of your words. Shoot.”
” If you don’t get your two-hundred-fifty-dollar-an-hour ass to the bank, pronto, they’ll find a lawyer who will.’”
“Okay, I get it, Thad called.”
“Actually, I toned it down. He wasn’t as polite.”
Lassiter dialed Whitney’s direct number. Just as the bank counsel answered with a gruff “Yeah,” Cindy popped in the door, looking frazzled. “Another gendarme, line deux.”
“Miami Beach?”
“No, mon patron, Metro.”
Lassiter frowned and disconnected Whitney, a violation of the managing partner’s Ten Commandments concerning the care and stroking of clients.
“Lassiter, this is Officer Joaquin Morales. We’d like you to come down to Matheson Hammock, you know where that is?” A faint Hispanic accent, a very polite tone, one of the new breed of county cops trained in human relations and interpersonal communication.
“Sure, the last bit of nature not paved over or built on. What’s up, Officer?”
“A body, sir.”
“A dead body?”
“That’s the usual kind,” the officer said, without a hint of humor. “We need to talk to you.”
“Why me? Whose body?”
“The subject is not identified, or rather, I am not to identify the subject to you, sir.”
The subject. Damn police lingo.
“Can you come right away?” Morales asked, pleasantly but firmly.
“Sure, but I still don’t get it. What am I supposed to know?”
“Sorry, sir, not supposed to say anything else. You could bring a lawyer if you want.”
“You know any good ones, Officer?”
“No, sir. They’re all sleazebags, sir.”
CHAPTER 16
There were brown shirts everywhere, the uniform of Metro deputies, county cops standing ankle deep in swampy mangroves that haven’t changed since Ponce de Leon landed on Florida’s shores. Officer Joaquin Morales led Lassiter under the orange rope that cordoned off the side road into the hammock. The cop was young, muscular, and handsome, a recruiting poster.
“Watch your step through here,” Morales said.
It was as if the trees had been yanked up by a celestial gardener, propped three feet out of the ground. The roots were hundreds of reptiles entwined, grabbing at Lassiter’s ankles, trying to spill him into the black, malevolent water. The trees were mostly red and black mangroves, some lignum vitaes, close together, blocking out the sun.
Tiny gnats — no-see-ums, the locals called them — buzzed around Lassiter’s ears. There were patches of dry ground, black dirt pocked with holes the size of a man’s fist, where land crabs dug their homes. Small black mangrove roots stuck out of the ground, hundreds of them a few inches apart, sharp and deadly.
Maybe all life started in a place like this, Lassiter thought, different organic matters fermenting over millions of years until some protoplasm oozed out of the swamp. Maybe, but what a crummy place to die.
By the time they reached a dry spot where a cluster of cops huddled, sweat was splotching his blue oxford cloth shirt. Somewhere over the canopy of tangled trees, the midday sun shone, but in the bowels of the marshy hammock, it was gray and damp.
Lassiter expected to see a body under a white sheet, neat and clean, ready to be hauled away. But there in a tree, his feet dangling just above the brackish water, Humberto Hernandez-Zaldivar hung from a thick mangrove branch by a gold chain the diameter of a thumb. The chain dug deep into the soft flesh of his neck, and his head flopped to one side. A storm of gnats buzzed in his open mouth. Tiny parasites had already hollowed out one eye, and blowfly eggs were deposited in the corner of the other eye.
Jake Lassiter wasn’t ready. He took an involuntary step backward, then braced himself against one of the ugly trees, the skeletons of the swamp. “Berto,” he whispered. “Why?”
The cops watched him. Then one came over. Tired eyes, neatly trimmed hair, a face that could have been thirty or forty and had forgotten how to smile. He was dressed in jeans and muddy running shoes. “Farrell, Metro Homicide. Whadaya know?”
