“I had a call from Bennett,” he said. “Just before dawn.”
“He needed an alibi?”
“Yes.”
I remembered that call myself. Not a phone call, a personal call. Twenty years ago. Four in the morning. I had been sound asleep.
Bennett had let himself into my condo. The sound of the shower in the guest bath woke me-and confused me. Why would he shower in the guest bath? When I went to ask him, the door was closed and locked.
Still feeling unsettled, I had gone back to bed. Some time later, he slipped under the covers next to me, warm and naked, and when I stirred, he told me he had been there for hours.
“No, you haven’t, ” I whispered, a strange apprehension stirring inside me.
“But you’ll say that for me, won’t you, baby? You’ll say that for me…
I felt sick at the memory.
“Later he told me Irina was dead,” Barbaro said. “That she was dead when he found her in his pool. He said she must have drowned.”
“And you believed him,” I said.
“I wanted to believe him. He’s my friend. I couldn’t imagine it hadn’t been an accident.”
“If it was an accident, why didn’t he call 911?”
“She was dead,” he rationalized. “He was afraid of the scandal, he’s a very visible, wealthy man, from an influential family. His wife is a fragile person-”
“I wonder if he ever thought of that while he was busy fucking twenty-year-old girls,” I said. “And so, because Irina was already dead, and out of his touching concern for his invalid wife, he- and you-thought it was a perfectly acceptable idea to dump her body in a canal so aquatic organisms could feed on her eyes and her lips, and an alligator could stick her corpse under a sunken log to rot until it was just right for dinner.”
Barbaro squeezed his eyes closed, as if that would stop him from seeing the image I had just painted for him. His voice trembled a little when he said, “I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know what he did with her until I heard on Monday.”
“And would it have made any difference to you if you had, Juan?” I asked. I shook my head and held my hands up to prevent an answer. “Don’t answer. Don’t bother.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment. Barbaro stared off in one direction, thinking I don’t know what. I stared off in another direction, thinking about the vibrant, promising young woman Irina might have been if not for a couple of twisted priorities and a half dozen men who believed the rules of decent society didn’t apply to them.
She had made a couple of stupid, careless choices. It was nothing short of tragic that she had paid for them with her life.
“Did Irina think Bennett would marry her?” I asked.
Barbaro looked at me, confused. “Why would she think that? She knew he’s married.”
“I think she might have been pregnant. She had set her sights on him… All things considered, I don’t think it would have occurred to her that his wife would be an obstacle.”
She was young, beautiful, vibrant, exciting, sexy. Unfortunately, she didn’t realize those are qualities a wealthy man looks for in a mistress, not a wife. And the two things she was lacking were the only things that counted to a man like Bennett Walker: money and connections.
“I never thought anything like this would happen,” Barbaro said softly.
“Yeah,” I answered in kind. “It’s all fun and games-until somebody loses their life.”
“What happens now?” he asked.
“You talk to Landry.”
I took my cell phone out of my bag but hesitated before hitting Landry’s number.
“You could have called him yourself,” I said. “Why did you want to talk to me first?”
“I’m doing this because of you, Elena,” he said, the big brown eyes earnestly on me. “Because of the things you said to me last night. That’s not the kind of man I want to be.”
What a pretty line, I thought. But I didn’t believe him. And I didn’t trust him.
“I’m flattered,” I said without sincerity, then opened my phone and called Landry.
Chapter 48
“What the hell do you mean we have to call his attorney before we execute the search warrant?” Landry was incredulous at the suggestion. “That’s un-fucking-believable!”
“It’s a courtesy,” Dugan said, the way he might say, It’s ulcerative colitis.
“A courtesy?! Since when is courtesy our job?”
Dugan shot a glance at the three-piece suit standing beside his desk. Who the hell wore three-piece suits anymore? Landry thought.
“Assistant State’s Attorney Paulson here can fill you in,” Dugan said.
Landry glared at Paulson, a soft, doughy guy with pretentious little round glasses. “How many search warrants of murder suspects’ homes have you executed?”
“Well, I-”
“I’ll tell you how many,” Landry said. “None. Not one. So I’ll fill you in, Paulson. We don’t send out engraved invitations. We tip our hand, the suspect has time to hide things, get rid of things- like evidence.”
“This isn’t just any murder suspect,” Paulson said. “The Walker family is very prominent in Florida, as are Mr. Walker’s in-laws.”
Landry stared at Paulson, stared at Dugan. “Can you believe this guy? Can you believe this bullshit? Bennett Walker looks good for murdering a girl and throwing her body to the alligators. He probably assaulted the other girl to shut her up. I don’t give a rat’s ass who he is, or who his family is-”
“The governor does,” Paulson said.
Landry was so angry he couldn’t speak. He walked out of Dugan’s office to his desk, grabbed two photographs from the stack of paperwork accumulating regarding Irina Markova’s murder, and marched back into Dugan’s office. He held up the photos from the autopsy and advanced on Paulson.
“This is what you’re protecting,” he said. “The man who did his.”
Paulson took a step back, recoiling from the sight of the mutilated face.
“We’re not protecting him,” he argued. “We’re taking precautions. No one is saying to turn the other way because of who Bennett Walker is-”
Landry rolled his eyes. “Right-”
“Look at it this way, James,” Dugan said. “If Edward Estes is standing right there, he can’t accuse you of planting evidence.”
“Why not?” Landry said. “The man is a known liar who sold out his own daughter to get Walker off before.”
“Videotape everything,” Dugan said. “Including Estes himself.”
“So now we have to wait for a camera crew,” Landry combined. “Do you want Steven Spielberg to direct? I can make some calls. Or, hell, maybe the Walkers know him. Maybe we could ask our suspect.”
Dugan scowled at him. “Can it. Do we know where Walker is right now?”
Landry gave an elaborate shrug. “How would I know? You wouldn’t let me put a unit on him.”
“Put a unit on the house,” Dugan said. “Get everything in place. We’ll call Estes at the last second.”
“I’ll go with you to serve the warrant,” Paulson said.
“Serve coffee while you’re at it,” Landry said. “I’ll have mine black with two sugars. Or maybe an espresso. It’s going to be a long night. Maybe the Walkers could call Starbucks and have it catered.”
He left the room before Dugan could order him out and went back to his desk. After all his big talk to Walker at the 7th Chukker about hauling his ass in, throwing him in jail, nobody caring who he was, etc., etc., he felt like an asshole. Of course it mattered who Bennett Walker was and who he knew.
The world played a different ball game with guys like Walker- a rigged game.
Reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, he checked his e-mail to try to get his focus back. Nothing
