Cut and Run (7 page)

Horatio was still thinking about the Breakwashes when he pulled his Hummer off the highway just outside Florida City, a small suburb of Miami with a primarily African-American population. Florida City was right on the edge of the 'Glades, and the aquaculture operation was located at the very border of the city. Horatio drove up to a chain-link gate, got out of his vehicle, and hit the button on the small intercom mounted beneath the security camera. A curt voice asked him who he was, and the gate opened without further comment when he produced his badge and held it up to the camera.

A short drive led to a concrete-block building abutting a large, corrugated-tin warehouse. Horatio parked and headed for the smaller structure.

Inside, a slight, sunburned girl with improbably white hair looked up from her desk beside the front door and asked him who he was here to see. Horatio smiled, told her, then waited patiently while she called her boss, taking in the office space. It was one large room, with the feel of a scrappy start-up rather than a corporate leviathan; the office furniture was mismatched, the carpet new but cheap, the computers on the desks a few years behind current. People behind the desks looked busy; there were about a dozen of them, talking on phones or tapping at keyboards or both.

A door opened to Horatio's right, and a man in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up stepped out. He was in his forties, handsome, with the broad shoulders and chest of a football player. His skin was deeply tanned, his hair a short, glossy brown that looked too perfect to be real. He strode up to Horatio and put out his hand.

“Sylvester Perrone,” he said as they shook. His voice was as deep as an empty barrel, with just a touch of Texas in it.

“Lieutenant Horatio Caine.”

“Come on into my office, Lieutenant. We can talk there.” He motioned Horatio inside.

Perrone's office was about what Horatio expected; his desk was a little bigger, his computer a little newer, but overall it gave the impression that Perrone worked just as hard as his employees. A gigantic mounted sailfish took up most of one wall, but other than that the only decorations were a clock on the wall and a company calendar.

Perrone sat behind his desk and Horatio took the only other chair. “Now, Lieutenant—”

“Horatio, please.”

“Okay, Horatio. How can I help you?”

“It's about someone who was doing some ecological consulting for you—Timothy Breakwash.”

Perrone nodded. “I heard about what happened to him. Never thought of ballooning as being that dangerous.”

“It's not. Mister Breakwash was shot.”

Perrone's eyebrows went up. “You mean someone
shot
him while he was up in the air? That wasn't on the news.”

“There are a number of unanswered questions about Mister Breakwash's death, Mister Perrone. I was hoping you could shed some light on the work he was doing for your company.”

Perrone settled back in his plush leather chair—the only nod to luxury Horatio could see. “Well, the work he was doing for us was pretty standard—evaluating levels of phosphorous and nitrogen in our runoff, making sure we're up to EPA standards.”

“I see. How about finding evidence of
Pfiesteria piscicida
?”

The statement had the desired effect. Perrone's eyes widened ever so slightly, there was a barely discernible pause, and his smile suddenly became even more friendly. Subtle signs, but to Horatio the man might just as well have put up a sign saying,
The next words out of my mouth will be a lie.
“The cell from hell? I've heard of it, sure, everybody in the fish business has, but it's not the kind of thing that we worry about. It's an algal bloom, happens in the wild under very specific conditions; we raise our stock in concrete tanks and control every aspect of their environment. It's like worrying about an outbreak of malaria on the space shuttle.”

Horatio smiled. “And you're not the worrying type, Mister Perrone?”

Perrone spread his hands in a universal “who, me?” expression. “Hey, I raise fish for a living. People fish to
forget
their worries, right?”

“Uh-huh. Perhaps you're simply not worrying about the right thing, Mister Perrone. Such as the consequences of lying to a police officer.” Horatio met the man's eyes, let him see what was in his own. After a second, Perrone looked away. “I have Timothy Breakwash's files, and I know what he was doing for you. So let's drop the
aw, shucks
act, shall we?”

“All right, all right.” Perrone's voice was much more subdued. “Tim was analyzing our runoff to make sure we weren't at risk. You have to understand, this is all about public relations—when a bloom hit Virginia last year, sales of fish from that state dove like a marlin trying to break a line. People hear the words ‘red tide' and all of a sudden anything with fins is poison. Even the rumor that our tanks might be contaminated would be enough to cripple business; I was trying to stay under the radar by going to an independent contractor instead of a big commercial lab. Tim told me he could do it himself and keep the results quiet no matter what they were.”

“And what were those results?”

Perrone shrugged. “You tell me—you said you have his files. I was waiting to hear from him when I heard about his death.”

“When was the last time you spoke to him?”

“Yesterday afternoon. I called him about the tests and he said he was waiting to hear back from his subcontractor.”

“Subcontractor?”

“Yeah. Identifying
Pfiesteria
takes an electron microscope, and they're not cheap. Tim said he had a friend with access to one, somebody he trusted.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Yeah—Lee Kwok. I think he was an old college buddy or something.”

Horatio nodded. “Tell me, Mister Perrone—how much would Timothy Breakwash's silence have been worth to you?”

Perrone sighed. “A lot. But if you're suggesting he would have blackmailed me, you didn't know Tim. He was—well, he wasn't a very practical guy. Head in the clouds, in a very literal sense. He'd devote every second of every day to some crazy idea that was going to make him rich, but stabbing a friend in the back just wasn't in him.”

“Maybe not,” said Horatio, getting to his feet, “but that doesn't mean it wasn't in someone else.”

 

“What the
hell,”
Alexx said, looking down at the huge fish Delko and Wolfe had just wheeled in, “do you expect me to do with
that
?”

“I was going to suggest a nice beer batter, maybe some fries on the side,” said Wolfe, “but Eric tells me they're not really good eating.”

“Take it easy, Alexx,” said Delko. “I've got a guy from Fish and Game coming down to do a necropsy. I just need someplace cool to store it until he gets here.”

Alexx raised her eyebrows. “Let me get this straight—you think someone
murdered
this fish?”

Wolfe's grin got even wider. “That's right. We've got a BOLO out on a guy with a wooden leg. He may be armed with a harpoon.”

“Oh, you two are hilarious,” said Alexx. “You should take your act on the road, maybe do the cruise ship circuit.”

“Don't have the time,” said Wolfe. “I have witnesses to interview.” He glanced at Delko. “None of which can breathe underwater.”

“Go,” said Delko. “At least the fish jokes will stop.”

“Only until I get back,” said Wolfe. “Then it starts aaaall over again…”

Wolfe left the autopsy theater and headed for the interview rooms. He'd asked that the survivors of the attack meet with him there individually after giving their initial statements; he wanted to test each of their stories separately, see how consistent they were.

First up was Jillian Kastel, one of the working girls who was trapped in the freezer. She was a tall woman, with sharp Slavic features and dark hair with violet highlights. She had regained some of her poise since the last time Wolfe had seen her, and now regarded him with a mixture of icy politeness and slight amusement, her back straight as a lamppost.

“Ms. Kastel,” said Wolfe, sitting down across from her. “I was wondering if I could just ask you a few more questions to clear up some details.”

“I'll tell you what I told the other officer,” said Kastel. Her voice was deep and rich, with just a hint of Eastern Europe in it. “I didn't see a thing. I was with Mister Dragoslav in his cabin when the shooting started. He told me to follow him and we ran into the galley, then hid in the meat locker. We heard more shooting, then it stopped.”

Wolfe glanced down at his notes. “Right. And you were in there for how long?”

“About half an hour. Then there was a big impact and we were all thrown to the floor. I thought we'd been rammed.”

“Weren't you worried the boat might sink?”

She gave him a cool, appraising look before answering. “I was, yes. But Mister Dragoslav calmed us down, assured us that if that were the case he would be able to tell.”

“You must have a lot of faith in him.”

“He is a…persuasive man.”

“And a generous one?”

Her eyes became noticeably colder. “Very.”

“So, after half an hour you're still in the freezer. You're not sinking, so you must know you've run aground. You still don't come out, even after the boat is searched by police officers—why?”

“It was Mister Dragoslav's decision. He said he thought the pirates—”

“—might be trying to trick you, right. That doesn't really hold up. I mean, waiting a half hour, sure, that I could see. But after you've run aground? Dragoslav must have known you were safe at that point.”

“I don't know. He wanted to wait. We didn't start calling for help until we tried the door and found out the crash had jammed it.”

Wolfe nodded. He thought he understood—Dragoslav's plan had been to slip ashore without alerting the police, if at all possible. “So, I understand how you and Dragoslav wound up in there. How about everyone else?”

“Mrs. Faustino was in the galley with the chef—they followed us in. The other girls were with me and Mister Dragoslav.”

Wolfe raised his eyebrows. “All four of you?”

She gave him a tolerant smile. “As I said—he's
very
generous.”

“So this isn't the first time you've…
entertained
Mister Dragoslav.”

“I don't see how that's relevant.”

“Just trying to establish the nature of your relationship, Ms. Kastel.”

“Is there anything else? I've told you everything I know.”

“Oh, I doubt it.” Wolfe gave her a smile as cold as her own. “But I'm used to that. And you know what? I wind up finding things out, anyway.”

The next woman he talked to was a blonde named Tammy Butcher. She was considerably less composed than Jillian Kastel, and burst into tears at the very start of the interview.
Post-traumatic stress,
Wolfe thought, and told her he'd take her statement later. Tammy thanked him while blowing her nose and trying not to sob.

That left two, Devon Masters and Ivy Shen. Devon was an African-American woman with hair so short it looked painted on, and she was about as much help as Jillian Kastel had been. The last one, Ivy Shen, was a Vietnamese immigrant in the process of becoming a citizen; she acted bored, but Wolfe could see the nervousness she was trying to hide.

“Ms. Shen,” said Wolfe. “I'd like to hear your version of the events.”

“What's to tell?” she said. Her English was flawless. “I was stuck in a freezer for an hour.”

“An hour? Really? One of the other girls said it was only half an hour.”

She shrugged. “I wasn't wearing a watch, I don't know. Seemed like an hour.”

“Must have been frightening.”

“I guess.”

“Mister Dragoslav seem scared?”

The question wasn't one she'd been expecting. “What? No, I've never seen him scared.”

“So you've known him for a while.”

“I—yeah, I've met him before. Never been on the boat before, though.”

Wolfe nodded. “He probably brings you around on special occasions, right? When he's celebrating something?”

She smiled, but it was automatic reflex, as devoid of real emotion as an infomercial. “He likes to have a good time. I don't ask why.”

“No, but I can see you're intelligent—you must have some idea what he was celebrating.”

“It was some sort of business deal, I think. I don't know any details.”

“What kind of business is Mister Dragoslav in, exactly?”