Crunch Time

this time of year to see her widowed mother. Parker gave us the hygienist’s name and contact information.”

“If he fired his secretary, who’s he using as a receptionist, typist, cashier, and so on?”

Tom sighed. “He said he’s been using a temp service when he needs it, but he couldn’t remember what it was called. He did recall the name of the last temporary receptionist, which was Zelda. Apparently, she misfiled everything and charged patients either too much or too little, depending on her mood.”

I said, “Did she have her own key?”

“He can’t remember whether she did or not. Time change to Hawaii, you know. Plus, our guy thinks Parker had had too many mai tais.”

“So, is he hard on secretaries, or is he hard to work for?”

“Don’t know. But somebody used the phone in Parker’s office to change Ernest’s appointment. There’s no record of the appointment in the computer, but we dumped the numbers from Ernest’s home, and there was a call from Parker’s office on Thursday.” Tom lapsed into thought. Finally he said, “There’s more. The department got a call from Ernest McLeod’s lawyer, Jason Allred. He saw the news about Ernest on television.” Tom took a deep breath. “Ernest McLeod went to him last week.”

“Because?”

“Ernest changed his will. We originally thought all the files in Ernest’s house were destroyed. But it turns out our guys did get a single box of files. In it was the file with his will, which our guys read. When Allred called us, he said yes, the document we have is indeed Ernest McLeod’s last will and testament.” Tom paused. “Ernest left ten thousand dollars to the Sheriff’s Department Widows and Orphans Fund. He left the rest of his money, plus his house, to Yolanda.”

“He did what?”

Tom went on. “So now we don’t know for sure if Yolanda knew about the weed, and we don’t know if she was aware she was inheriting Ernest’s house. Yolanda broke up with Kris while you were working at the spa. That’s what, three, four weeks ago? She moved back into her rental and it burned down after a week. So she and Ferdinanda had been staying with Ernest for less than two weeks. And yet he’d changed his will to give her almost everything. It’s very strange.”

“Yes,” I agreed. After a moment, I said, “What was that she was saying about the gold and gems? Do you know about that?”

“Yup. You ever heard of the Norman Juarez family?”

“The Norman Juarez family? No. Do they live up here?”

“Norm owns a bar and restaurant near the department. He and his wife have a house next door. When Ernest and John were partners, one of the most challenging cases they worked concerned this family.”

“The Juarez family,” I repeated, for clarification.

“Right. Norm, who originally had a Hispanic name and changed it, claims that before the Juarez family left Cuba, they gave a box of gold, gems, and a valuable necklace to Roberto Captain, who promised to keep them safe until the family could leave Cuba and come to America.”

“Where did they get gold and gems in Cuba?” I asked. “It’s not like they’re natural resources on the island.”

“Miss G.,” Tom said patiently, “I don’t know. Last time I looked, what they have in Cuba is nickel that they mine, cane that they cut to make sugar, and tobacco they grow for cigars. Anyway, according to Norman, five years or so after giving Roberto the box with the goods, the Juarez family tried to cross the gulf with someone else piloting the boat. The vessel was torn apart in a storm. There was only one survivor, a teenage boy who knew that if something happened to his loved ones, he was supposed to get in touch with Roberto Captain.”

“And did he?”

“The son, Norman Juarez, made it to Miami by clinging to a piece of wreckage and kicking as hard as he could. But he couldn’t get in touch with Roberto Captain, because El Capitan had died of a heart attack the year before. Cancer took his widow soon after, and their child, Humberto Captain, who was about twenty at the time, was nowhere to be found.”

“Oh, Lord.”

“Norman got a job as a dishwasher, then a server, and eventually, a restaurant manager. He kept looking for anybody who could tell him where Humberto Captain was, because he, Norman, wanted his family’s necklace and the other stuff.”

“These were the gold and gems Yolanda mentioned?”

“Apparently. What we do know is that Norman Juarez finally tracked down Humberto Captain in Aspen Meadow, which is not that big a town. Still, it took Norman thirty, count ’em, thirty years to find Humberto, who might have thought he was smart to move far away from Miami, but he’s a risk-taker, a crazy-ass big spender, and a guy who thinks he’s never going to get caught—at anything. Anyway, no matter how arrogant Humberto is, it’s not because of his intelligence, because he wasn’t smart enough to change his name. With the advent of Google, Norman was able to find Humberto Captain, no sweat. Norman moved out here with his wife. He found Humberto and confronted him about his family’s assets. According to Norman, Humberto said he didn’t know what Norman was talking about.”

“But if Humberto has money he can’t prove he earned—”

Tom sighed. “Financial crimes are hard to prove, Miss G. Humberto has a little export-import business on the Internet, which is all he needs to cover his tracks. Norman Juarez came to us, asking for help. Ernest and his then partner, John Bertram, worked on the case when they had time, but they didn’t get anywhere. Couldn’t get a search warrant, couldn’t get Humberto to cooperate, the usual. Then Ernest retired. Case closed, or so we thought. But then, this morning? After we found Ernest, and before anything was on the news? Norman Juarez called us and asked if we’d heard from Ernest McLeod.”

“So,” I said, “Norman had hired Ernest, and that’s why he was investigating Humberto.”

“You jumped to that one, Miss G. Norman was indeed one of Ernest’s clients. When Ernest became a private investigator, he called Norman to see if he was interested in a non-cop looking for his stuff. Norman hired him.”

I inhaled. I almost didn’t want to hear what Tom would say.

Tom went on. “This morning Norman was anxious, because he couldn’t reach Ernest. Norman said that Ernest had called him, all excited, Friday morning, as in two and a half days ago. Ernest said he had retrieved some of the Juarez family goods. But then Norman didn’t hear back from him. According to the coroner’s preliminary guess, Ernest was shot some time on Saturday. I wish the canvass had turned up something, but up to this point, nothing.”

“And the gold and gems?”

“So far, we can’t figure out what was going on in Ernest’s search for the assets. But here’s the significant part. We suspect Yolanda was spying on Ernest in exchange for cash from Humberto Captain. She already admitted she got the money from Humberto, and she told us that she knew Ernest was investigating Humberto regarding assets. But there’s a lot she hasn’t told us, such as whether she knew Ernest had left her the house.”

“She’s been through hell,” I said gently, and then brushed my hand over his chest. “Her ex hit her with a broom and gave her a sexually transmitted disease. She’s traumatized.”

“Uh-huh. And Ernest leaving her the house?”

“Tom, of course she didn’t know about that. She would have told me.” But suddenly, then, or maybe not so suddenly—perhaps this had been building throughout the day—a seed of doubt planted itself in my brain. Did I believe Yolanda?

Understandably, she had not told me about contracting a venereal disease from Kris. But less comprehensibly, she had not told me that he’d hit her, with a broomstick, no less. I felt suddenly cold and pulled up the bedcovers. Had I heard something outside, or was it just the unfamiliar sounds of Yolanda and Ferdinanda being in the house?

“Miss G.? You going to sleep? I think I hear someone moving around in the kitchen. Yolanda, do you suppose?”

“I don’t know.”

Tom eased out of our bed and pulled on his robe. “I’m going to go see what’s going on.”

While he was gone, I tried to regain my thought process. Okay, Yolanda had not told me about her rental burning down. Yesterday, the day before, and the day before that, when we’d been talking about the high school