Tango Key (29 page)

Some days, Bernie or Kincaid accompanied her, which broke up the monotony of the long hours of waiting, or watching. But most of the time, Bernie was tailing either Waite or Cavello, and Kincaid was keeping an eye on Alan Cooper and trying to track down the mysterious Lilly the Mentalist. The woman's Tango Key post office box had been paid for in cash, a year in advance. The Flamingo Hotel had no address for her, and neither did the Fontainebleau. Southern Bell had nothing on her. Neither did the power company. Aline had begun to believe that Lilly's flyer had just gotten stuck in the wrong folder. Kincaid disagreed. He contended that men like Cavello didn't make mistakes like that. If her flyer was clipped to the photograph of the frog, then there was a reason for it. They just hadn't figured it out yet.

When Eve wasn't with Murphy or running errands or reading on her deserted beach, she was on her sloop—washing it down, fixing the sails, working inside the cabin. During those long hot afternoons, Aline would sit in her Honda, which she parked under the deep folds of a banyan, and swelter as she spied on Eve with a pair of lightweight binoculars Kincaid had bought her. One afternoon she spotted Cavello strolling along the dock toward the sloop. Eve was on deck, crouched over something, her shoulders tanned and gleaming with lotion, and she glanced up when Cavello stopped. The binoculars were powerful enough to pick up a zit on Cavello's chin, the movement of his mouth, but unfortunately Aline didn't lip-read.

She saw Eve stand, clutching a yellow bucket in one hand and a sponge in the other, and then she turned abruptly and slipped into the sloop's cabin. Aline swung the binoculars back to Cavello. He remained there a second, hands in his pockets, glanced around, then climbed onto the boat. Aline waited a full minute before she got out of the car. That weird heat had spread through her chest like a brushfire, and she hurried through the bright, cruel light, her sunglasses sliding forward on her nose.

She boarded the sloop quietly, her hand never too far from the edge of her purse where it could dive for her weapon. The cabin door was closed, but the windows were open, and Cavello's voice traveled through the still air: "I just wanted to congratulate you, Eve, that's all."

"Get out of here, Ted. Before I start screaming."

"Oh, c'mon now, Eve, honey. We're old friends. You can tell me how you've managed to pull things off. I always told Doug you were a very clever woman, that behind that Eliza Doolittle routine was a real shrewd bitch. I guess none of us realized just how shrewd, though, Eve. I mean, I've got to hand it to you. Really. You didn't get off with nearly the amount of money you thought you would, but what the hell, right? The Mercedes is probably worth fifty or sixty grand, the sloop maybe as much. Then there's your jewelry. And the frog. I'd sure be interested in how you got your mitts on the frog, Eve."

"I'm gonna say it once more, Ted. Get the fuck off my boat."

"You're beautiful when you're mad, you know that? Now c'mon, honey, why don't you pass around some of the goodies that Alan got, hmm? And that cop. You think people don't know about you two? Think they don't know how he's gotten between those pretty legs of yours? That was clever, too, Eve. So I'm just going to take a little of what some of the others have gotten and—"

Eve screamed, but it was cut short. Aline threw open the cabin door and saw Cavello holding Eve against the galley table, trying to kiss her. Then Eve brought her knee up into Cavello's groin and he hissed, "Jesus," as he doubled over.
She doesn't need my help,
Aline thought, and shouted, "Okay, Cavello, get your hands up. Up, c'mon."

He spun, saw the .38, and threw up his hands, patting the air, trying to smile, saying, "Okay, lady, it's okay, nothing's going on here, nothing is—"

"Turn around. Hands on top of your head. Spread your legs and keep your mouth shut."

His pepper eyes narrowed, his mouth twitched, he winced as he moved. Then he slowly brought his arms up and laced his fingers together on top of his head. Aline glanced over at Eve. She was tugging at her red halter top. "You all right?"

"Yes.''

"You want to press charges for assault?"

She glared at Cavello. "Yes."

"You heard the lady, Cavello." Aline whipped a pair of cuffs from her back pocket, told Cavello to put his hands behind his back, and snapped the cuffs over them. She read him his rights.

"I can explain," he stammered when she'd finished.

"Yeah, I bet you can. Sit down. There." She gestured with the gun toward the booths on either side of the galley. He slid into one. "Is there a phone on board, Eve?"

"Yes." She opened a drawer and brought out a celery green Princess phone. Aline called the station and asked Roxie to dispatch a cruiser to the marina. Then she told Eve to wait on deck, and when she left, Aline slipped into the booth across from Cavello.

"This is how it is, Cavello. I think that Doug Cooper outbid you on that gold frog and you're such a sore loser you killed him and took the little old frog. And then, because you were still real pissed off about things, you killed Juan Plano for accepting Cooper's bid."

His head was bowed, and she could see the place where he combed his thinning blond hair over a bald spot. "I don't have to tell you shit. Besides, my alibi for that night checked out." He looked up. His eyes gloated, his eyes were saying,
Gotcha on that one, bitch.
"I was at the inn having dinner and drinks with some friends, and if I'm not mistaken, Detective Scott, you talked to three of them. But then, I don't know why I should think that'd make any difference. The police department on Tango has a collective I.Q. that's not even borderline. You people haven't found clue one on who broke into my office."

"We're not talking about your office, Cavello, and just for the record, you don't have any neat alibi for the night of Cooper's death. You were the last person to see him alive. So how about telling me where the frog is?"

"Listen, you wanna know where the goddamn frog is, you ask that whore out there on the deck. Like I told you before, she killed Doug, and I'm still bettin' she's in this with Alan. Or, hey, maybe she's in cahoots with that cop, that Detective Murphy. Ever thought of that?"

She had, but not in the way he meant it. "What's Lilly got to do with this, Cavello?"

The name elicited a reaction. He suddenly dropped his eyes. Shifted in his seat.

"Either you tell me or she's going to."

"She's just a crazy psychic, man, that's all. She works the hotels during the season."

"Uh-huh. And where is she now?"

"I don't know."

"Right. She one of the ladies you beat up on, Cavello?"

Silence.

"All right, Mr. Cavello. Let's put it this way. I've got it from a very good source that the IRS would be quite interested in your, uh, creative bookkeeping. Now either you tell me what I want to know or I'll just have to tell my contact to pass on those accounting books missing from your office to the Feds. And then, pal, you're going to have a lot more to contend with than just the local yokels like me."

His head snapped up. "You," he hissed. "You were behind it."

She smiled. "Let me put it this way. You play fair with me and I'll play fair with you. Tell me what I want to know and I'll see to it that you get your bogus ledger back. Fair enough?"

"How do I know you've even got them?"

"You'll just have to trust me. Considering the position you're in at the moment, you really don't have much choice."

He thought about it, but not for long. "Lilly's done a couple of readings for me, that's it."

"For you and who else?"

He rubbed his chin against his shoulder. "Plano. She did some readings for Plano, too."

"Concerning what?"

"How the hell should I know? Ask her."

"I would, if I could find her."

He hesitated, then said, "She'll be at a private party in the Cove Saturday night, which means she should be checking into the Flamingo on Friday."

"What else?"

"Lilly knows a hell of a lot more about Plano and the frog and all the rest of it than I do. Hell, she's supposed to be psychic, right? Ask her who killed Doug and Juan." He laughed, and she felt like slugging him. "And then, while you're at it, ask fat Ed Waite about the consulting fee Doug paid him to toodle down to Colombia with him. Ask him about that."

"For a man who claims he doesn't know anything, you seem to know quite a bit."

"Okay, sure. I made a bid on the frog. I'd been hearing about it for months from Doug, and I figured, hey, he can do it, why can't I? And yeah, he outbid me. But so what. There are games you win and games you lose. I lost this one. That isn't enough to kill a man for. But I'll tell you something else I know, miss lady detective, just so you know I didn't kill anyone. There was another guy in Doug's smuggling operation. Because that's what it was, you know. All those artifacts in that safety-deposit box—how the hell do you think those got into the country? Not because the Colombian government let them go. And not because some schmuck customs official down there got paid off. It's because there was someone up here helping Doug get the stuff in."

"Who?"

"All I know is that the guy went by the code name of 'Cracker.' Maybe it was Waite. Maybe it was that spic attorney of Doug's. Maybe someone else. I don't know."

Aline heard voices outside, peered through the window, and saw Dobbs coining on board. "I think your ride's here, Cavello. Thanks for the tips."

"Hey, what about my ledger?"

"We'll talk about it when you're out on bail."

She walked out onto the deck. Dobbs and Eve were at the bow of the boat; he was taking her statement. She stood there in her tight, very short shorts, one hand glued to a hip, which was thrust out, the other hand shading her eyes. The emerald, diamond, and sapphire rings on her fingers sparkled brilliantly in the sunlight. Her sable hair shone. Her long tan legs were cover-girl legs. Her curves were perfect. Her halter top set off her tan, slick shoulders, and even those were flawless. No freckles. No blemishes. Eve at the local high school sock hop had probably created a minor sensation. Gorgeous. Yeah, let's hear it for gorgeous, she thought.

"Your boy's inside, Jack."

"Bring him out, will you?"

He didn't look at her when he said it. The authoritarian ring to his voice was the same she'd heard that night at the station, when he'd walked in on her and Eve and told Aline to knock it off. It annoyed her. "He's your charge now, Jack. I've got to shove off."

Everything about his body language as he strode toward the cabin doorway said he was irritated. He stopped in front of her. Slid his sunglasses back into his khaki hair. The sun struck his eyes, washing the blue from them until they seemed as faded as an old work shirt. "You called in, Al. Technically, he's your arrest."

"I don't care for your attitude, Jack. I haven't cared for it since the night you interrupted Eve and me. The only thing you have on me is seniority. And unless they've changed the rules, that doesn't give you the right to order me around. Now if you don't want to bring him in, fine. Don't. I will."

In the subsequent silence, the sun heated up the right side of her face. The briny odor of the water seemed to inspissate in the air until it devoured the smell of diesel, of fish. She heard the whistle of a tug, chugging into shore, and closer, the soft lapping of the current at the sides of the boat as it rocked gently, almost unobtrusively, at its moorings. The silence couldn't have lasted more than ten seconds at the most, but it seemed longer than that before Dobbs flashed a smile and squeezed her shoulder.

"Goddamn, listen to us. I'm sorry, Allie. I didn't mean—"

"I know. Forget it. Everyone's just real uptight these days."

"You talked to Murphy?" He lowered his voice to a near whisper.

"No. You?"

"Nope. I thought I'd swing by the boatyard sometime later. See how he's doing."

Aline glanced toward Eve. "I think, Jack, that he wouldn't know he was doing bad even if things got worse."

Then, as if Dobbs needed to assure her there were no hard feelings by connecting with something they both were interested in, he said: "Oh, hey, when you see Mark Finley, tell him that
Welcome, Chaos
book by Kate Wilhelm he recommended is really tops. Catch you later."

Welcome, Chaos
: yeah.

A
line spotted Kincaid's white Saab baking in the sun as she pulled into the parking lot of the Flamingo. He wasn't in it, however, so she walked inside, checking the bar and then the restaurant. She found him sitting alone at a table next to the window, but the place to his right held the remains of someone else's lunch.

"My favorite guy," she said, coming up behind him. He tipped his head back so she could almost see the underside of his beard. It was full now, the deep hue of honey, speckled with gray. He smiled. She caught the faint scent of his skin, a scent that was specifically Kincaid's, of soap and wind and the sea.

"I conjured you," he said.

She laughed. "God, how neat." She moved to the chair on his left and sat down. "How'd you do it? Telepathy? Mind control? What?"