Tango Key (13 page)

Then his fingers move to the buttons on her blouse. Her hands jerk up, clenched, and slam into the underside of his jaw. The switchblade flies away. It strikes the floor, skitters, and he slaps her.

It hurts.

It hurts bad.

She gasps. She touches her hand to her cheek, feels the heat, the pain. "What d'you want from me, anyway? Money? Is that what you want? You want money?" She tears open her blouse. "You want my tits? Huh? Do you?" She shouts it. He stares at her breasts. He scoops up the switchblade, slaps the flat side of it against his thigh. The blade makes her nervous. A blade is not like a belt. This is not a prelude to sex. This man is not Doug. She learned to control Doug. She does not know how to control this man.

The knife darts out. The tip of the blade, the sharp, dangerous tip, slides lightly around her nipple. Then he draws it just as lightly down between her breasts, as if slicing her in two. "I'm the boss. What I say goes. Understand?"

"Yeah. Sure. I speak English."

She wonders if he heard the fear behind her bravado.

He moves around behind her. This makes her as uneasy as the blade. He slides his hand over her shoulder and slowly works her blouse off one shoulder, then the other, until he slides it off her. The heat in the room licks at her bare skin.

He is going to rape her.

Panic climbs into her throat, the old panic she felt when she was helpless on the floor. She swallows it back. Okay. Rape. Yes. It is preferable to death, and that is what she has to remember. "Put your hands over your head," he says.

She does.

And from his back pocket he pulls out a red blouse made of thin, flimsy fabric, the sort of stuff she used to wear for Doug sometimes. He slips one arm into a sleeve and then the other. He kneels in front of her and fastens the four buttons in front. Buttons shaped like pearls.

"Better, isn't it, babe? Now we just have to find you a clean skirt. But first . . ."

And he shifts slightly to the side and brings the knife up through the rope that binds her left ankle to the leg of the chair. Then he frees her right ankle. He rubs one foot, the other. His hands slide up her calf, pause at her knee. "You have pretty legs," he says.

His hands inch higher on her leg until they have vanished under her skirt and are cool and dry against her upper thigh.

She doesn't move, doesn't breathe, doesn't do anything except look at him. This is apparently the right thing to do, because he takes his hand away. "I mailed that little letter you wrote for me this morning," he says.

She frowns. "What letter?"

"Oh, you were a little out of it. You probably don't remember."

She reaches back for the memory but can't find it. "Dinner. I think we should have dinner, and then you can take a bath."

She wants to question him about the letter but doesn't. "There's running water in this dump?"

"I have supplies."

"Oh."

Supplies. He has supplies. She isn't sure what this means, except that he intends to stay here awhile. Intends to keep her here awhile.

"Can you stand?"

"I don't know."

He takes her by the arm and helps her to her feet. Blood rushes down through her legs, her calves, into her toes. He hooks her arm in his own. "C'mon. Try to walk. . . . That's right. Good, babe. Very good. You want to use the bathroom?"

"Yes."

"First stop, bathroom," he bellows. Then, his eyes feverish, glowing like hot coals, he laughs and laughs. The sound echoes in the emptiness of this place, and she knows it is the most terrifying sound she has ever heard, the sound of madness, unbridled, unleashed, impenetrable.

A
ccording to the articles Aline picked up at the library, the Lost City was built more than 1,400 years ago by a pre-Columbian tribe known as the Tairona Indians. At its height, the civilization included as many as three hundred urban settlements that covered much of the Sierra de Nevada de Santa Marta Mountains and housed a million inhabitants. Their cities were built on circular stone terraces in which urban clusters were linked by stone roads, intricate steps, canals, and drainage systems so perfect that they prevented erosion of the surrounding slopes.

The Taironas were excellent potters, accomplished stone craftsmen, and were especially known for their gold work. Their civilization lasted for a thousand years, until it was destroyed by the Spanish conquistadores who plundered the gold. It was discovered in 1975 by a professional treasure hunter, and in the years since, the area had been placed under the protection of the Colombian government. Anthropologists and archaeologists, who'd been excavating and studying the remains of the culture ever since, had determined that the Tairona civilization surpassed the Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas in terms of ecology and quality of life.

Although looters had been robbing the burial plots in the Lost City for years before its discovery, some gold had been found and was now in the gold Museum in Bogota. These were mostly smaller objects—earrings, a butterflyshaped nose ring, and a number of thin, pierced plates. It was speculated, however, that an enormous wealth in gold was yet to be discovered, because the Tairona were believed to have hidden much of it from the Spanish.

The government forbade the export of any archaeological materials found in the Lost City and confined excavation to that done only by Colombian scientists. The head Colombian archaeologist for the Lost City was a man named Juan Plano.

It was just the sort of information she needed before visiting Ted Cavello.

A
line's memories of the Cove Marina dated back almost thirty years, when there had just been an old dock here and half-a-dozen fishing boats. Sometimes on Saturdays her father would leave the bookstore in Key West for a few hours and the two of them would drive over here and sit on the end of the dock and fish. Her mother would join them later, arriving with her umbrella, her canvas chair, a book, and a picnic lunch. Later, when Aline was older, her parents bought a sloop and both of them learned to sail. The weekend fishing outings then became three- and four-day trips up through the Gulf. Eventually, when Aline was in high school, at least six weeks during the summer were reserved for an extended sailing excursion. Mexico. The Caicos. The Grand Tortugas. Puerto Rico. The dock here was always their first and last stop.

Gradually, as more people from the mainland started buying up property in the Cove and building weekend homes, people with money, a group of developers pooled their resources and built a marina. There were now more than eighty slips, a supply shop, a grocery and drug store, a scuba-diving shop, charter boat rentals, the gamut. Although the marina was still a far cry from the concrete monstrosities that marred the rest of the South Florida coastline, Aline gave it five years to catch up. Especially if people like Ted Cavello, who managed the marina and owned the supply shop, kept pushing for expansion.

His office was tidy, not particularly large, and decorated with photos of boats—sloops and ketches, catamarans and yachts, and a Cigarette boat with Cavello standing proudly at the front of it, holding up last year's first-place trophy in the Tango Key Challenge Cup. Cavello even had one of those old-fashioned ships in a bottle on the bookcase behind his desk. Next to the bottle, on a brass hook that had been screwed into the wooden edging of the window, were four keys, with a typed label over it that said "Office Keys." Not a bad way to keep track of your keys, Aline decided, although he didn't look like the kind of man who lost anything, much less keys.

Cavello was lanky, deeply tanned, with crow's-feet at the corners of his pepper gray eyes. He combed his thinning blond hair to cover a bald spot on his crown as round as an eye. She pegged him as an aging hippie who was now a proud yuppie. He wasn't her idea of the sort of man who got off on beating up women, but then, Kincaid didn't seem like a womanizer either, so what'd she know?

He invited her to sit down, which was more than Ed Waite had done, and asked if she'd like a cup of coffee. "Sure, thanks," she said.

"How do you take it?"

"Just with cream."

He picked up the phone, hit a button, said, "Marcella, could you bring in two coffees? One with cream, one black. Thanks." He hung up and smiled again, folding his hands on top of the desk. "So what would you like to know about Doug?"

"What was your relationship with him?"

"He did legal work for me from time to time, and we were also good friends."

"What kind of legal work?"

"Connected with the marina and my shop here."

"The night he was killed, you had dinner at the inn here in the Cove, right?"

"Yes. We ate up there a lot, usually for the Early Bird Special, because they've got such a terrific buffet, and we liked to sit out on the water."

"Was this a business dinner?"

"Not really."
       

"What time did you leave the restaurant?"

"Around five-thirty, six, I guess it was. I offered to give Doug a ride home, because he'd walked down to the inn from the house, but he wanted to walk back." He paused. "That was the last time I saw him, walking up the hill as I drove past."

A young, attractive woman strolled in with two mugs of coffee, set them down, and started out of the office. But Cavello snapped, "Hey, I said one
cream
and one
black
, doll. Can't you even get a coffee order right?"

Marcella, flustered, apologized profusely and snatched up Cavello's mug. Coffee splashed over the sides, into Cavello's lap. He leaped up, brushing at his white slacks. "Amazing grace. Christ. Just leave the damn mug here."

She flew out of the office, slamming the door behind her, and Cavello sat down, still wiping at his slacks.
Short fuse
, thought Aline.

"Can't find a decent secretary on this island," he muttered. "Now where were we? Oh. Anyway, that was the last I saw him."

"And what'd you do for the rest of the evening?"

"Came back here and worked for a while, then went home."

"About what time did you get home?"

"Nine, thereabouts."

"Is there anyone who can confirm that, Mr. Cavello?"

"That I was here?" He shook his head. "No. My staff had left for the day. Oh. Wait a minute, I know. I did go next door to the grocery store for a soda. Would that count?"

"All that proves is that you went next door for a soda. It doesn't necessarily mean you were here in your office from the time you left the inn."

He sat forward in his chair, smiling patiently, as though she were a child who'd made a silly remark. "Look, Detective. I'd known Doug for a lotta years. We were friends. Why the hell would I want to kill him?"

"No one's saying you killed him. I'm just trying to establish alibis, that's all. From what I've heard, he wasn't exactly a prince of a fellow."

"I suppose that came from Eve, huh."

"They didn't get along?"

He pulled a cigar out of his desk drawer, tapped it against the back of his hand, lit it. A flume of putrid smoke curled from it. "How can you get along with someone you know married you for your money?"

"Oh, Mrs. Cooper told you that's why she married Doug?"

He laughed. "Detective, Eve wouldn't give me the time of day. All you had to do was see the two of them together for ten minutes and it was pretty obvious why she married him. He was her ticket to something a lot better."

"What about her relationship with Alan?"

The arch of his brows said he was surprised she knew. "You'll have to ask her, Detective. Or Alan."

"Were you on any of Doug's digs, Mr. Cavello?"

"Nope." He drew his thumb and index finger the length of his cigar, as if caressing it. "My passion is boats, not archaeology."

"What's the Lost City?"

He shook his head and shrugged. "I don't know."

"The name Juan Plano ring a bell, Mr. Cavello?"

She caught the faint flicker of recognition in his eyes, but wasn't surprised when he gave his head another shake and said, "No, should it?"

"Wasn't Doug your attorney on a battery charge filed against you by a woman here on Tango?"

For the first time since she'd sat down, Cavello's easy composure began to fissure. She saw it in the twitch under his eye, and in the beads of sweat that erupted on his forehead, as if his body possessed some unpleasant excrescence that had leaked. "I've never had a battery charge filed against me, Detective."

"Oh, I must be mistaken about the charge having been filed. But Doug did pay the woman off to keep her mouth shut, didn't he, Mr. Cavello?"

He sat up straighter, defensive now. "What's this got to do with Doug's murder?"