Tango Key (22 page)

They found Prentiss in the autopsy lab, at the computer terminal. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was ruffled, his clothes looked like he'd napped in them. He said,"Hi," without looking up. He tapped a couple more keys, then sat back and raised a mug of coffee to his mouth, glancing from Aline to Kincaid.

"I'll be goddamned. Ryan." He got up, grinning, and shook Kincaid's hand. "I heard you were globe-trotting."

"By the end of the summer, for sure. How've you been, Bill?"

Aline looked from one man to the other. "Hey, how do you two know each other?"

"Long story," Prentiss laughed. "How about some coffee?"

Once they were settled in with coffee, Prentiss didn't waste any time getting to the point. "I couldn't do anything with Cooper's head until last night because the thing was frozen solid. I wanted it to thaw naturally to minimize damage to the tissues and brain."

"You mean it'd been on ice since he was killed?" Kincaid asked.

"That's exactly what I mean. In someone's freezer. And then in the cooler, packed in ice, for, oh, maybe five hours."

"That means it would've been put in there around four that morning."

"The cooler was on the porch the night of the murder," Aline said. "I remember seeing it there."

Prentiss nodded. "Which concurs with what Eve said. She'd used it on one of her treks to the beach and had just left it out on the porch."

"It sounds like you don't think she killed Cooper," Kincaid remarked.

Prentiss sat back, shaking his head, rubbing his unshaven jaw. "You're right. I don't. I admit I did in the beginning, but I don't now. But let's just say, for a minute, that she did it, okay? Let's say she killed Doug and kept the head in her freezer. Then, when she knows she's going to have an official witness—Aline—she manipulates the situation so it looks like she just 'found' the head, thereby implying that the killer left it there to terrorize her, maybe to frame her."

"But she didn't know I was going to drop by," Aline said.

"Exactly."

"And I was the one who mentioned bringing in the stuff from the porch."

"That's what I mean."

Kincaid said, "I think we're overlooking something here. It's possible that Eve and Alan planned Doug's murder together, figuring that once Doug was dead and they had their money, they could move off Tango. With that much money, they could leave the planet. But Alan actually saw this as a way to even the score not only with his old man, but with Eve as well—by terrorizing her or by trying to frame her for the murder. Or it's just as likely that he acted alone, in which case the same vendetta applies."

Prentiss conceded that he might have a point. "But let's back off from suspects for a second. I found more of that pink sand in Cooper's mouth and nasal cavities. So he was either killed on that coral reef or the killer wants us to think that's where he was killed. I'm assuming he was also tortured, since his ear was cut off."

"Or the killer took the ear as a memento and it's going to show up someplace, just like the head."

"Maybe. But I don't think so."

"I, uh, did some checking on tides for that night," Kincaid said, "which I think supports your premise, Bill, that he was killed on the coral island. The tides on June seventh were moving at about six knots—roughly seven miles an hour. The Cooper home is five miles downstream from the coral island, so it would've taken about an hour to make landfall. Considering the way the Cooper property juts out and that it was low tide, the killer knew the odds were good that the body would end up on the Cooper property."

Aline sipped at her coffee and closed her eyes, trying to visualize what Kincaid was saying. It didn't feel quite right. "Even good odds leave too much to chance, and I don't think this guy leaves much of anything to chance. The current at low tide still could've carried the body past the Cooper property. I think he dumped the body close to the property."

"But it had been in the water for at least an hour," Prentiss reminded her.

She sat forward, suddenly remembering something, and the quick burning in the center of her chest told her she was right. "Bill, at high tide there's no coral island. And when the tide recedes, there's a pool of water right in the center of it, where the coral dips. I think our man let Cooper's body soak in the pool for an hour or so, then hauled it by boat to the Cooper property. That way, too, he eliminated the problem of sharks getting the body before it made landfall."

"It fits," Kincaid said.

Prentiss nodded. "Yeah, it sure as hell does."

They had the
how
, she thought. Now all they had to do was figure out
who
and
why
.

W
hitman's Bookstore was located in the dip of Route 2 as it swooped down into town from the bridge that connected Tango to Key West. It backed up to the boardwalk that paralleled the beach for four miles, and was flanked on one side by Tango Beachwear and on the other by Nana's Pastries.

At nine hundred square feet, it was only a third the size of the Key West Whitman's, the rent was twice as high, and it lacked the patina of legend her parents had so carefully nurtured in that store. But in the eight years since its inception, it had turned enough of a profit to allow Aline to hire a fulltime manager and two part-time employees. Until now, until Cooper's murder, she'd been putting in ten hours a week here on her days off. The price of living on Tango was two jobs and no free time.

She found Mark Finley, her manager, at the back of the store, at the top of a ladder, shelving new books. "Hey, up there."

He glanced around and grinned. "Hey, down there. You slumming or what?" He nudged his black frame glasses back on his nose and descended. Finley, as usual, was dressed to kill—pale blue Polo shirt with expensive gray slacks and shoes the color of mice. The only other man she knew who dressed with such panache was Dobbs, and neither of them could afford it.

"You got maybe an hour to spare?"

He set the books he'd been holding on the edge of a shelf and raked his fingers through his brown hair. "You have that Jesse James look in your eyes, Al."

She laughed. "Nothing as overt as a shoot-out. I need Todd, too."

"You may have to bribe him with a diet book. He's in one of his blue funks right now."

Todd McGuire, an artist and Finley's lover, was a compulsive dieter whose fasts were invariably followed by junk food binges which plunged him into creative slumps. "Fine. Whatever it takes. Has he read
The Rotation Diet
?"

Finley nodded.

"Scarsdale?"

Finley rolled his eyes.

"Rice? Carbohydrate?"

"Yup."

She snapped her fingers. "
The Underburner 's Diet
."

"Nope. I'll call him."

"Half an hour, my place."

"Am I dressed okay for this?"

"You're perfect. You and Todd are going to be looking for a boat."

"Al, how illegal is this?" He held up his hand and brought his thumb and index finger so close together that only a sliver of light showed through. "Itty bitty illegal?"

 
"A little more than that."

"This much?" The slit widened.

"Yeah, about like that."

"You should never have become a cop," he said, and walked off to call Todd McGuire.

H
alf an hour later, a black Mercedes pulled into Aline's driveway—a diesel that was probably fifteen years old and belonged to Todd McGuire's father. Aline hurried down the steps, dressed in white slacks and sandals, looking like a lah-de-dah lady who'd just stepped off a yacht bound for someplace exotic like Bora Bora. Not a knock-your-socks-off yacht, but a respectfully large yacht.

McGuire hopped out of the driver's side, his dark hair cut so close to his head it looked almost shaved. He wore a pair of diamond studs in his right ear and was appropriately casual in khaki slacks and a shirt the color of melon. He let out a soft, low whistle. "You playing Blanche Dubois, Aline?"

"I look like Blanche? How great."

He opened the back door for her, bowing like a chauffeur, and she slid inside. In the front seat, Finley turned around. "I'm fretting, Al. I want you to know just how much I'm fretting."

"Where to?" McGuire asked.

"The Cove Marina. And here's what you guys are going to do," she said, and explained.

W
hen Aline saw Finley and McGuire leave the marina office with Ted Cavello, she checked the time and got out of the Mercedes. They said they would buy her fifteen minutes; she would try to do what she had to in ten.

She walked around to the back of the building, where a dock paralleled a canal. She opened the door at the rear. It fed into the food section of Cavello's shop—fruits and veggies, a cooler stocked with beer and soda, milk and juices. Just beyond this section was the door to Cavello's office, and a hail that led to the rest rooms.

Aline joined the flow of shoppers. If she'd stood a chance of getting a search warrant for Cavello's office, it would've been easier than this. But trying to get a search warrant from a judge in this district was tougher than crossing the Tango Bridge during a hurricane. As the prosecuting attorney had informed her during her second month on the job, No judge gives search warrants on the basis of a hunch, lady.

When she reached the entry to the hall, she darted into it. At the door of Cavello's office, she paused, glancing about anxiously to make sure no one was around. Then she hurried inside and plucked the four keys from the hook between the windows behind Cavello's desk. She left and hurried down the hall to the ladies' room.

It smelled of old fish. It wasn't air-conditioned, either, and the only ventilation came from a window that looked to be the size of a postage stamp about three quarters the way up the wall. It was a panel with hinges at the waist that swung outward.

She went into one of the stalls, removed a baggie of silly putty from her purse, and tore off a generous amount. She made an impression of each key and hoped one of them fit Cavello's office door. She was so nervous and the heat was so extreme that sweat trickled down the sides of her face and covered her hands. A key got away from her and plunked into the toilet. She stared at it, resting pretty as you please at the bottom of the bowl. "Disgusting." she muttered, and dropped her hand into the dirty water to retrieve it.

When she had the key back and her impressions were wrapped carefully inside the baggie again, she came out of the stall and climbed onto the sink with her tools. The window latch was secured only by a single rusted screw. She twisted the screw out, removed the latch, and got down.

Six minutes left.

Plenty of time.

But when she reached the door to Cavello's office, Juan Plano was sitting inside, paging through a magazine. He looked up and recognized her. "Señorita Davidson," he said, getting up, smiling. "We were going to meet for a drink. I called your number many times, but no one answered."

She worried for a moment that he had spoken to Cooper about the mysterious American from Panama and Cooper had told Plano who she really was and now he was putting her on, setting her up. But he seemed sincere enough, and that made her wonder why he hadn't mentioned her to Alan Cooper.

"Nice to see you, Señor Plano. What're you doing up here at the marina?"

"Business. And I was hoping to see you." He flashed that broad Latin smile again. "Tonight you would be free for a drink? You and your brother?"

"How about eleven tomorrow night? At the Flamingo Hotel?"

"I look forward to it."

Four minutes and counting and she was still holding the goddamn keys. She leaned against the filing cabinet just inside the door, pretending to fix her sandal as her left hand set the keys on top of the cabinet. "See you at eleven tomorrow, then."

She made it back to the car just as Finley and McGuire were strolling up from the docks with Cavello. Ninety seconds to spare. Not bad for an amateur, she thought, and settled back against the seat with a smile.

"N
ice of you to drop by, Al."

Aline glanced up from the computer terminal at her desk as Bernie padded into the office, her bones zipped into a tight pair of designer jeans. "Hey, I could've been having a nervous breakdown for all you know."

"Ha." Bernie plopped down in the chair and lifted her feet onto the edge of Aline's desk. "C 'mon, Al. You can tell me. You spent three days in the sack with Kincaid, didn't you."

"God, you're nosy."

She grinned. "I know. It's wicked, isn't it. Vicarious thrills." She dropped her feet to the floor. "But while you were screwing your brains out, I was busy busy busy." She hopped up, closed and locked the door, returned to the chair, and reached into her purse. She pulled out a cassette recorder, hooked up an electrical cord, and plugged it in. She wagged a tape. "This is illuminating, but it may be a little, uh, touchy for you, Al. It concerns Murphy."