Tango Key (12 page)

The inner sanctum behind the electronic door smelled of chemicals. Her sandals clicked across clay tile floors. She noted the various photos on the wall of what she presumed were digs. In the back room, sunlight streamed through windows, spilling over three long tables where there were perhaps four or five dozen artifacts. Each was encased in a glass or Plexiglas container and was labeled. The man standing over one particular artifact, examining it with a magnifying glass, was gray-haired, in his mid-forties, she guessed, about five foot eight, a little plump at the girth. Likes his beer, she thought. If there was one word to describe him, it was thick. His fingers were thick. Not fat—but thick, muscular, strong. He wore a medallion on a long chain around his neck, and it was only when she got closer that she realized it bore a medical insignia. Probably for some sort of health condition or an allergy.

"Mr. Waite?"

He looked up, peering at her over the rim of his glasses. Dark eyes. Hooded. He wasn't handsome, but he exuded a self-assurance that had been designed to intimidate with a glance. "Yeah, I'm Waite."

"I'd like to ask you a couple of questions about Doug Cooper."

He sniffled and brought a white, soiled hanky from his back pocket. He blew his nose. "And you're . . .?"

"Aline Scott. Detective Scott."

He tilted his glasses back onto the top of his head and smiled as if she'd said something funny. She knew the type, all right. Waite was a good old boy, one of those men whose prejudices ruled his life and colored his perceptions. He figured that female cops were hired to meet the state's equal opportunity standards. That meant that she, in his eyes, was clumsy with a gun, would pass out at the sight of blood, and was probably screwing someone at the top. If he said "fuck" in front of her, it would be preceded or followed by "Excuse my French."

"So what do you want to know, Detective? Did I know Doug? Sure. Were we friends? Yeah, of a sort. Do I know who would want to see him dead? No, not offhand, but he wasn't exactly the nicest guy going, so who knows?"

"Actually, Mr. Waite, I was more interested in hearing about the trip you and Doug took to the Lost City."

He didn't miss a beat. "What about it?"

"Was it one of your digs?"

"Nope. Just a place to visit in Colombia, near Santa Marta on the coast. Nothing special. We'd been at an archaeological site called San Agustin, which is south, and then went on to the Lost City."

Interesting, Aline thought. According to Lucy Meadows, the boys had flown Miami/Barranquilla, period. "Did you go on many of these digs with Doug?"

He leaned over one of his ceramic figures, brushing at it with a tiny instrument that looked like a miniature broom. "I went on some. Doug was only an amateur archaeologist, and he preferred having someone like myself along."

"I understand he owns quite a valuable collection of artifacts."

"Sure. He had the money to buy."

"And I suppose the foundation will be inheriting some of those items?"

He glanced up. "If you'll excuse my French, Detective, just what the fuck are you getting at?"

She had a difficult time suppressing a laugh. "What I'm getting at, Mr. Waite, is where you were the night of June 7 between oh, say five in the afternoon and nine at night."

"Here." He spread his arms wide. "Right here. And if you want a verification, you can ask my secretary. She was here, too."

"Which woman is your secretary?"

"The woman with freckles. At the front desk."

"She was here in the room with you?"

"Well, no. She was in her office. Up front."

Aline noticed two doors against the back wall. "Does one of those lead outside?"

He glanced around as if to show her he'd forgotten the doors were there. "Uh, yeah. One of them opens into the alley."

I rest my case, Your Honor
. "So it would've been possible for you to just step outside without your secretary knowing, isn't that right, Mr. Waite?"

"You got a warrant, Detective? If not, I really have to get back to work."

Anger burned an afferent pathway through her brain. She resisted the urge to lean across the table and pinch Waite's plump cheeks. Before she could say anything, though, Freckle Face appeared at his door. "Ed, could you take a look at this glitch on the computer screen?"

He glanced from Freckle Face to Aline. "I'll be right back," he said, and hurried up the hall after his secretary.

Aline immediately turned to the mess on Waite's desk: letters to various groups and individuals requesting donations to the foundation, brochures on the foundation and the project museum, boxes of labels, pens in every conceivable color, and an appointment book, open to today's date.
Breakfast at Cove Women's Club
. She flipped back, perusing entries for a dentist's appointment, a luncheon at the Flamingo Hotel, something about picking up brochures at the printer's. Then, on June 3, Aline ran across an entry that warranted pocketing the appointment book:
Santa Marta, dinner with Doug & Juan, Re: La Rana.

She slipped the appointment calendar into her purse, and a few moments later Waite returned. "Was there anything else, Detective Scott?"

"Yes. Don't leave Tango without checking with me personally."

When Aline was a block away from the foundation, she pulled to the side of the road and read through the entries from the end of May to two nights before Cooper's murder.

Who was Juan Plano? Who was Sanchez? What had these two men been paid for? Why would the topic of discussion at a dinner be a
rana
, or frog? Where was Plano's camp?

Aline drove to the nearest phone and called the Tango library and asked for the reference desk. She explained what she needed to know and the librarian put her on hold. Ten minutes later, the woman came back on the line.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, ma'am. I didn't find anything in the atlas or
The South American Handbook
on a Lost City near Santa Marta. But the
Guide to Periodical Literature
lists two articles—one from
The New York Times
and the other from
Fate
magazine. If you'd like, I can pull them and you can pick them up."

"I'll be there in a jiffy. Thanks. Thanks very much."

July 5, 6:45 P.M.

E
ve sees his shoes, the cuffs of his jeans. The shoes shuffle toward her. She can't bring herself to raise her eyes beyond his ankles. She is holding her breath, waiting for a blow to her head that will knock her into next week, or something more subtle, like the blade of a knife sliding hard enough down the sole of her foot to draw blood.

"Bet you're thirsty, aren't you, babe."

She doesn't make a sound. She doesn't want him to know just how thirsty she is because he will use it against her. Then she will dream of water. Tubs of water, an ocean of water, water that will cool her, soothe her, water that will pour over her, water that she can float in, drown in.

He comes closer. He leans over, looking at her like she's a museum curiosity, an interesting virus under a microscope. "You're not thirsty, babe?" He holds a sweating glass of water so close to her face she can see herself in it. If not for the gag, she could've licked the water from the sides of the glass. Yes, it is that close to her.

"Mmmm," she grunts.

"Well, let's just get your little ole chair off the floor." He pulls it upright so fast it makes her dizzy. His strength scares her. The skin and muscles and tendons on her right side sing with pain from the sudden release of pressure. He sets the glass of water at the edge of the platform where the mattress rests. Gently, almost tenderly, he unties the blindfold that still covers her left eye. His hand lingers on her hair, stroking it. She can't help it, but it feels good, this stroking. She wants to close her eyes and purr.

Now he moves around in front of her again. He sniffs the air like a dog. "Little accident, huh, babe. Well, no problem, we can fix that right up. What I'm going to do right now is take off the gag, babe. You can scream if you want to, but it won't do any good. There's no one around this place for miles. The windows are all closed. But I'll tell you what, if you don't scream, if you're a good girl, you'll get to wash your face and I'll give you some more water, and then we'll have dinner and maybe I'll even let you take a bath." He smiles. It is, in its way, a beautiful smile. "I know how you ladies from the Cove like your scented baths, hmm?"

Her head bobs. She will agree to anything for a glass of water. For a bath. She will kiss his feet. Lick his knees. Suck him off. It doesn't matter.

He pats her head. "Good girl." He unties the gag.

Her mouth is so dry, she wouldn't have been able to scream even if she wanted to. Her tongue slides toward the abrasions at the corner of her mouth, trying to ease the pain, but she has no saliva. She draws in a deep breath of the hot, sticky air.

He reaches for the water, touches the edge of the glass to her lips. "Tip your head back."

She does. The water trickles over her chin, runs down the front of her blouse. She doesn't care. It's cold. It's wonderful. She gulps at it, wanting more. If only he will give her a little more.

But the glass is empty.

"Oops, all gone, babe." He sets the glass down again and runs his fingers through her hair. "You're a mess, you know that? I wish you'd take better care of yourself."

"More water."

"Please."

"Please."

"Say, 'Please, may I have another glass of water?'"

"Please, may I have another glass of water?"

He flashes that smile again, touches the back of his hand to her right cheek, brushing away motes of dust from the floor. "That's good. Very good. I'll get you more water now."

He reminds her of someone from a long time ago—the kid whose father owned the bar where her old man drank. Nick Someone. Yeah, that was it. Nick. When she was fourteen, she and Nick went out to the railroad shack one night with a bottle of gin, got blasted, and did it on the tracks. She remembers how she could feel the vibrations of the oncoming train, which was maybe three miles away then, and how the vibrations leaped into the small of her back and down through her thighs as Nick pumped away inside her.

"Can you untie my hands?" she asks as he picks up the glass. "The rope has cut the skin."

He reaches into his pocket and brings out a switchblade. Nick owned a switchblade.

Nick carved a tiny "N" into her ass after they did it on the tracks.

He flicks the blade open. It is thin, sharp, lethal. He touches the flat side of it to her face. The metal cools her burning cheek. "I hope you've got the sense not to try anything, babe, if I cut your hands free."

"My wrists hurt. I'm thirsty. I'm hungry. What the fuck can I possibly do to you?"

He slaps the flat of the blade against her cheek—not hard, but hard enough to make his point. Like Doug used to do with the belt. "Ladies shouldn't use that word."

"Fuckfuckfuck. "She smiles, daring him to hit her harder. Instead, he frowns like he can't quite figure out what's going on, then he throws his head back and laughs and laughs.

He shuffles around behind her as he's still laughing and cuts her wrists free. Her arms fall limply to her sides. Her muscles refuse to work. He kneels in front of her, rubbing her left hand between his, then her right, getting the blood moving. Then he presses his cool, damp lips to the rope burns, as if to suck away the pain.

"Nasty, huh, babe? I told you this morning you shouldn't fight the ropes. 1 warned you what would happen if you tried to get the blindfold off, didn't I? It makes me angry when you don't listen to me."

He presses the tip of the knife to the rope burn on her left wrist. The cool metal is silver against the ugly red welts. He nicks the flesh, nicks it so fast there's no pain, just the bright red blossoming of blood. Her blood. He sucks it away, his eyes locked on hers.