Florida Getaway Page 5

  “I’m well aware I’m the police. Which part was a lie? All of it, or—”

  “No. I really don’t think he knows where Mr. Lessor is. People have been bustling around, wondering where Tom is, all day. I mean, Daniel lied regarding his, you know…”

  “No, I don’t know.”

  “…relationship with his stepfather.”

  Caine twitched a tiny smile. “I thought you were listening in on our conversation.”

  She didn’t even look embarrassed; smoke dragoned out her flared nostrils. “Cops talking to the guy that pays my check? Of course I did.”

  “What makes you think he was lying about his relationship with his stepfather?”

  “I don’t think he lied.”

  “You said—”

  “I know he lied. Oh, if you asked around the hotel, people would probably confirm his story. I mean, he brownnoses his stepfather. To the average eye, the two might seem close.”

  “And why is yours not the average eye, Ms. Chacon?”

  She blew a little smoke in his direction—not in his face, not that direct a comment. Then she said, “I work for them both. And I just know, okay? Daniel hates his stepfather.”

  “This is an instinct? An observation—?”

  “Daniel told me so.”

  Caine shifted in his chair. “Ms. Chacon, I observed the two of you, rehearsing. I was not getting a…warm and fuzzy vibe off either of you.”

  She smirked, tapping ash off her cigarette into her empty coffee cup. “You’re a detective.”

  “Why would Daniel Boyle tell you that he hated his stepfather when he was generally trying to indicate otherwise to the world at large?”

  She sighed smoke. “To let me know where I stood with him.”

  Caine frowned. “Which was where?”

  “Daniel Boyle doesn’t give a rat’s ass about me. He’s never even hit on me. He’s just interested in the lounge making money. He’s made it clear that it’s my job to make sure the coffers kept on filling up.”

  “What makes the lounge’s profit margin your concern?”

  She gestured at herself—specifically, at her chest. “Let’s just say Daniel made it clear to me which of my talents he thought would bring in the patrons.”

  “And he didn’t mean your voice.”

  “He didn’t mean my voice.”

  “For what it’s worth, I don’t happen to agree with him. But how do you derive his hating his stepfather?”

  “It was Tom who booked me into the lounge.”

  “Thomas Lessor.”

  “Yeah. Tom’s all right. Anyway, right after my first rehearsal, Daniel comes back to tell me he doesn’t think I’ve got the greatest voice in the world, but that I had other…assets. The implication was that I wasn’t really up to the standards of the venue. And he was wondering if I ‘did’ his stepfather to get the gig.”

  Caine frowned. “He asked you that?”

  “Point fuckin’ blank.”

  Caine just looked at her.

  She glared at him, then answered the unasked question: “No, I didn’t do Tom Lessor! You think I need to do that kind of thing to get a job?”

  “Of course not. I heard you sing, and I was impressed.”

  Her glare faded. “Thank you,” she said crisply.

  “And from this you’ve extrapolated that Daniel hates his stepfather…?”

  “I…got that feeling, yes. And then…Daniel spent a lot of time working with me, on the act—some of it was more useful than what you saw today. One evening, we sat and talked and drank, and he loosened up, you know, about how he felt about his stepfather. Really felt.”

  “Asking you if you’d slept with Lessor was a way of getting something on his stepfather, you think?”

  She nodded, smoke trailing out her nostrils again. “Oh, yeah—big time! Deborah Lessor could never believe he’d ever fool around on her.”

  “But Daniel could.”

  She nodded forcefully. “Daniel hired a detective to follow Tom—both here and out in Vegas—to see if he was cheating on Daniel’s mother.”

  “But came up with nothing?”

  “Nothing that I know of. But I’m on the sidelines of this, remember.”

  Caine frowned in thought. “Why is Daniel Boyle so eager to bring down his stepfather?”

  Maria rubbed her fingers against her thumb. “Money money money…. If his mama dies now, there’s someone between Daniel and two hotels worth of inheritance.”

  “No prenup?”

  “Not from the way Daniel acts, doesn’t look like it. Seems to me, he’d like to get Tom out of the way, which’d put Danny boy right back at the top of the list, should Mama meet misfortune.”

  Caine took another sip of his coffee, but he was also ingesting, and digesting, this information. After a moment he asked, “Why seek me out like this? Why tell me, a cop?”

  She made an open-palmed gesture. “I don’t know. Tom’s a decent enough guy, I guess.”

  Some people might give her an argument, Caine thought, but he said only, “And you prefer Tom to Daniel.”

  Her lovely face wrinkled up as if she’d smelled something foul. “Well, it pisses me off that Daniel, silver spoon and all, is such a two-faced little weasel.”

  “I see.”

  “Plus, when you see blue uniforms, and a detective like you is asking missing-persons-type questions, well…you start having weird thoughts.”

  “So, you think Daniel would be capable of something…more than just a lousy attitude?”

  “If there’s foul play involved?”

  “That’s the way cops put it. Little surprised to hear it come from you.”

  “Whatever. I can’t say that Daniel is or isn’t capable of something, I don’t know—bad, really bad. Is Tom missing?”

  “Not officially. I’m just looking to connect with him. For a friend.”

  “Not police business?”

  Caine stood, ignoring the question. “Thank you for sharing this information, Ms. Chacon.”

  “Funny, him going missing right when you need to look him up,” Maria said.

  “Hilarious,” Caine answered dryly. He paid for both coffees, and walked Maria Chacon out through the lobby, chatting with her about her work schedule, how many shows a night, just conversation growing out of a detective’s innate nosiness. Then they went their separate ways, she catching a cab, he slipping on his sunglasses and walking back up the street to the parking lot and his crime scene.

  Thomas Lessor would have to go on the back burner until they were further along with the chauffeur in the trunk. He made a mental note to call Vegas and bring Catherine up to speed on what little he’d learned, in his thus far unsuccessful attempt to arrest Lessor.

  Crime scene tape was a flame that drew moths, but the small crowd that had been milling around earlier had pretty much dissipated by the time Caine returned, no doubt disappointed by the surface tedium of crime scene activity. The trunk lid was open, the EMTs having just removed the body and placed it on a gurney. Caine watched as they loaded it into the ambulance for the unhurried, siren-off ride to the morgue.

  Eric Delko was kneeling next to the open rear driver’s-side door, the young CSI using the UV light to look for something in the carpeting. Tim Speedle stood off to one side talking with Detective Adele Sevilla and jotting in a small notebook.

  Barely over the Miami-Dade PD height minimum, Sevilla wore her black hair long, over her shoulders, and let it blow free much of the time. Her skin was a rich caramel, but a narrow, high-cheekboned face conspired with dark eyes to make her appear somber even when she was happy. She looked more like a business exec than a plainclothes detective, as she spoke quietly but intensely to the vaguely disheveled Speedle.

  The young man looked up now, saw Caine, and nodded a businesslike hello. He turned back and said something to Sevilla, then broke off that conversation and headed over to talk to his boss, slapping the notebook against his blue-jeaned thigh.

 
“Hey, H.”

  “Hey, Speed. Find out anything about Mr. Ortega?”

  “Yeah,” Speedle said. “Worked for his uncle—Acelino’s All-American Livery.”

  “Eric told me that. Did you arrange for a detective to go over and deliver the bad news?”

  Looking sheepish, Speedle said, “We didn’t know they were family at the time, and so I sort of…told ’em on the phone….” Speedle made a grimace of a smile—oops.

  “How did that happen?”

  “They had different last names, who knew? It caught them by surprise. Hit them pretty hard.”

  “I guess,” Caine said, both eyebrows up.

  Speedle sped on. “But the owner, Acelino Lopez, said they were worried when Felipe was gone all night. That was when we found out they were uncle and nephew.”

  “Damn,” Caine said, shaking his head, hands on his hips. “This sucks. Really truly sucks.”

  Speedle, stunned by his boss’s uncharacteristic if quiet outburst of profanity, nervously added, “Anyway, I called Calleigh, and she went over to do a more thorough interview.”

  Caine sighed. “Good save, Speed,” he said, meaning it.

  Calleigh Duquesne was a woman of many virtues, among them speaking fluent Spanish. She would hopefully present a nonthreatening presence to the Lopez-Ortega family, her easygoing people skills counteracting the mistake of the phone call.

  “So,” Caine said, “what have you found out?”

  Consulting his notebook, Speedle said, “Felipe Ortega—twenty-four, limo driver with six years of experience—seemed to be having a pretty normal night. On time for work at four P.M., after which he had two clients that he delivered on time. Took him about three and a half hours before his lunch break.”

  “Out of town trips?”

  Speedle shook his head. “Lots of stops, though…and Ortega checked in at each one.”

  “Go on.”

  “Short dinner break. He was on a roll—four more customers between eight and midnight.”

  “And everything was cool.”

  “Cool as could be. Then he was scheduled to pick up one last client at MIA at around twelve-thirty.”

  Caine’s eyes tightened. “When?”

  Speedle double-checked his notes. “Twelve-thirty midnight, H. Then he called into dispatch that he’d arrived at the airport, and no one heard another word from him.”

  “So this happened either at the airport or after he left the airport. Rest of the night seems accounted for.”

  “Roger that.”

  “So. Did he meet the client? Did he make a pickup and then a delivery?”

  Speedle shrugged. “That we don’t know for sure yet.”

  “Did you get the name of the client?”

  “Yeah.” The notebook came up but Caine knew.

  “Thomas Lessor,” he said.

  “What are you, psychic now, H?”

  Caine shook his head. “Pieces just fit together, that’s all. I have a missing guy who was supposed to be picked up at the airport. And we have a hijacked limo scheduled for the same time as my missing guy’s pickup.”

  “Missing guy?”

  As they moved closer to the limo, Caine explained what he knew about Thomas Lessor. Delko crawled out of the limo and joined the pair.

  “Got some hair,” he said, holding up a small plastic bag.

  Caine quickly shared the story with him as well.

  “Do we have a kidnapping?” Eric asked. “Or a murder?”

  “Yes,” Caine said.

  “How do you want to play this?” Speedle asked.

  Looking toward the big black Cadillac, Caine said, “Eric, stick with the car. Any little thing will be Christmas, okay?”

  “On it, H.”

  “Speed, we’re going to rent some videos and we’re not going to Blockbuster.”

  Speedle was nodding. “Airport security tapes.”

  “Bingo. Then find Felipe Ortega on those tapes and see if he made the Thomas Lessor pickup or not.”

  “You got it,” Speedle said, turning to walk away.

  “Speed! The parking garage tapes, too.”

  “All over it, H.”

  As Speed took off, Caine’s hand slipped into his pocket and came out with his cell phone. This was not going to be a pleasant call.

  She picked up on the second ring. “Catherine Willows.”

  “It’s Miami, Catherine.”

  “Tell me you have him.”

  “…I wish I could.”

  “Damn. Has he slipped from the country? Lessor’s made several trips to Brazil in the past couple of—”

  “Catherine, I don’t think this is a flight situation. We don’t have him and what we do have is a dead limo driver—who was supposed to be picking your man up at the airport.”

  He filled her in and she did not interrupt.

  When he’d finished, she said, “Lessor could be using this as a cover to head south—very south.”

  “Could be.”

  “You’re about to look at airport security tapes, and parking garage tapes, right?”

  “Great minds think alike, Catherine.”

  “And if you see Lessor being abducted, what will you do?”

  “We’ll check both theories, Catherine, but we won’t know either answer, for a while. Have you entered Lessor into CODIS?”

  CODIS—combined DNA index system, the national computer database for DNA.

  “Long since done,” she said.

  The weariness in her voice saddened Caine, who didn’t like being the bearer of bad tidings to a fellow cop; but there were not a lot of other avenues open to him at this moment.

  “Catherine, we’re working the car. We’ll see what we come up with.”

  “Keep me apprised?”

  “You know I will. First you’ll know, then God.”

  “I like the way you think, Horatio,” she said, and was gone.

  The rest of the day the crew spent on their various assignments. Calleigh interviewed the various members of the livery service and Ortega’s family. Delko worked the car and the scene immediately around it while Speedle and Caine split the videotapes from the airport and searched for their victim in the footage. At the end of the shift, they met in the layout room.

  The room was dominated by a lit-from-below, Lexan-covered, billiards-size table. Right now, the table held very little: the strips of duct tape used to bind Ortega’s hands and feet; photos of some tire tracks Delko had taken at the crime scene; and several stills rendered from the videotapes that he and Speedle had been working on. Nothing else in the way of evidence.

  “Calleigh,” Caine said, “you first.”

  She looked over at Speedle. “First of all, Tim,” she said, in her soothing near drawl, “they weren’t really upset with you contactin’ them by phone. They’d been mad with worry and didn’t know what to think ’til you called.”

  Speedle just shook his head, still embarrassed.

  Calleigh went on, now directing her words to the whole assembly. “Felipe’s Uncle Acelino told me basically what I assume he told Tim about Felipe’s evening in the car.”

  “Just another routine night,” Caine said.

  “Except for the getting abducted and choking to death on your own vomit part,” Speedle said.

  The remark did not make Calleigh flinch; she had a cast-iron stomach and a steely attitude they all might envy. She only nodded.

  “His cousin, Elena Lopez,” she said, “told me that Felipe never did drugs, didn’t run with a gang, that the only thing he ever did that you might consider—and she used the word ‘naughty,’ which I have to say I found charmin’—was chase girls.”

  “Does that move the motive onto Felipe?” Caine asked. “Did he anger someone’s boyfriend?”

  “I don’t really think so,” she said thoughtfully. “Accordin’ to Elena, Felipe was in love. For a month or so, he’d been a one-woman man.”

  “A whole month,” Speedle said.

  Call
eigh ignored that. “Felipe had a new girl—Carolina Hernandez.”

  Caine’s brow furrowed. “Did we talk to her?”

  “Yes,” Calleigh said, and her eyes tightened just a little. “Afraid she took the news hard. She worked until eleven at the Leslie, where she’s a hostess, then she drove home to her apartment in Little Havana.”

  Caine turned to Delko. “Amaze me, Eric.”

  The demand did not faze the CSI, who said, “The hair I retrieved from the limo was blond, same color as this Thomas Lessor who’s disappeared, and when I ran the skin tab through CODIS, H, I got a match with the sample of Lessor’s DNA your CSI contact in Vegas put in.”

  “Thomas Lessor was in that car last night,” Caine said. “And where is our missing hotel magnate now?”

  Delko shook his head. “No idea. And no other sign of him in the car—certainly not blood.”

  “How about luggage?”

  “None in the backseat, and you saw the trunk, H.”

  Almost to himself, Caine said, “Catherine Willows, the Las Vegas CSI, said there was luggage.”

  “Then the killer or killers took it,” Delko said. “Even took the driver’s log. Somebody wasn’t taking any chances.”

  “Fingerprints?”

  “Wiped clean.”

  “Trunk lid too?”

  “Dusted the trunk lid too. Wiped clean.”

  “Good work, Eric,” Caine said. “What about tires?”

  “I got plenty, but—”

  “It’s a parking lot,” Caine said with a shrug.

  “It’s a parking lot. And as for any tracks that can help us, too early to say.”

  “Well, Speed and I have been watching television,” Caine told them. “And we had some luck.”

  Speedle stepped forward and gestured toward the TV on the cart. “We got this from the airport security cameras. One frustrating thing: no camera at the exit, the tollbooth? Maybe we’ll get lucky and the attendant’ll remember ‘em. Anyway, I made a dub splicing together everything that we thought was germane.”

  The quartet quietly watched the silent movie unfold before them.

  The first shot was Ortega’s limo passing into the parking garage. From a camera mounted high in a corner, they saw Felipe pull into a parking place and, after a moment, climb out of the car carrying a cardboard sign.