Marquez reached out his hand and she took it. "She was murdered, Alegria. These men are trying to discover who killed her."
She looked at the two of us. "They killed her. Of that you can be certain." She turned on her heel and left, angry tears already beginning to form in those dark eyes. Maybe for a day or two she would not smile quite as easily, quite as often. We were all silent for at least a full minute. I was trying to process it all when Marquez broke the silence.
"How does your most lovely companion fit in to such a distasteful business?"
"She was Nancy's friend in Cozumel." I told him about Sheila and her father arriving one after the other at the hostel to inquire about Nancy. And then I told him of Rosita's murder, how someone had come back to clean up the only loose end now that Nancy was dead: Caroline.
Marquez stared at some point over my shoulder for a good two minutes. Then he nodded.
"So, whoever killed your friend Nancy might have been trying to kill the charming Caroline this evening. Or they might have been trying to kill you in retribution for the loss of 2 million dollars. A message. You do not at this time know if the two are related, or even if this ugly, almost unspeakable business between Vargas and his daughters has any connection to the money or Nancy's murder, though it is safe to assume that one or both of these incidents do. Tell me how you came to know about the money."
As I told him, he began to change without moving a muscle. Something happened behind the eyes, a deadly stillness. He smiled, and that was deadly, too. "I have suspected for quite some time that Detective Sanchez was much too slick for his own good."
My heart began pounding in my chest. "Sanchez works for you?"
Marquez gave an almost imperceptible nod. "Yes, he and his partner are being paid to ignore an entirely different matter which I do not wish to discuss."
He didn't have to. He was funneling drugs from Mexico through Cozumel. From there it would enter the Keys, which had long been a safe haven for grass, cocaine, heroin, and every other narcotic. Then it was on to Miami where it got cut and dispersed to New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, where it would get cut over and over again until it finally hit the streets. It made sense because all the people coming and going in Cozumel made great cover.
Sonny asked, a bit worriedly, "That bread wasn't yours, was it?"
Marquez nodded his head from side to side this time. "No. Apparently Detective Snachez has committed an unforgivable act."
Working for Marquez's rival while taking Marquez's money.
"Do you know what Vargas is up to in Cozumel?"
His shoulders moved up and down perhaps an eighth of an inch. "Laundering money, perhaps, purchasing weapons. I can only say for certain that it is not narcotics."
Because Marquez had that all tied up.
He added, "I will know before you return to Cozumel, however."
I had the feeling Sanchez and Carillo weren't long for this world. I had an idea. "Can you hold off a bit?"
"Why would I wish to do this?"
"I might be able to use it as leverage. You're only making a point, anyway. It might help me take down Vargas completely, like Sonny mentioned."
He was considering it, weighing the scales. Carlos Vargas sickened him. He liked Caroline. Sonny and I had been responsible in a certain way for all he had now, even if it had been unintentional. If he could move in and take over all of Carlos Vargas's action as well, before anyone even knew Vargas was out of the picture, he could control much of the distribution for the entire country.
"You have 48 hours. After that, I will deal with Sanchez and Carillo." He stood and walked to the door he'd opened for Caroline and opened it again. We were finished.
Sixteen
Sonny kept Candida at a leisurely clip, and the ride back to Dinner Key was subdued. Before leaving the Marquez residence, Fernando -- every time I thought of the name I heard the old Abba song in my head -- gave Caroline the narrated tour of his flowers. She had been awed by some of the beautiful varieties and Marquez had been more than happy to explain each one to her. He even gave her a small potted bulb of some sort. It was in bloom; a gorgeous orange flower with traces of deep purple around the petal edges.
Mrs. Marquez made an appearance when she realized we were about to be on our way. She popped in to say how much she'd enjoyed meeting all of us and reiterated that we should not be strangers. It was difficult to reconcile this spectacular woman of class with her choice of husbands. Ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes, but I could not help but wonder if a woman of intelligence like Anna Marquez was as oblivious to her husband's character and activities as she feigned for the sake of propriety.
The moist breeze had that crisp April feel, even around the normally hot Keys. Caroline was excited, writing furiously on little notes some of the names of flowers and what they looked like. She did not want to forget. The flower she had would serve as a reminder.
Sonny and I had exchanged a few glances since leaving the Marquez house but neither of us had much to say. I knew he didn't like Marquez knowing about Escobar but there had been no other way as far as I could see. The rest of it was so sickening, what was there to say? I had known Nancy, had held her hand and sat on the deck and laughed. I knew how sweet she had been.
How had she discovered the horrifying secret shared by her sister and father? That she had discovered it, of that I was certain. Had she caught them together? Or had her father turned his attentions away from Sheila and onto her? Is that why she ran? Either-or could easily be the reason she had to die, but neither explained the cruel and merciless manner of her murder. I was in over my head and needed to talk to someone who might shed some light on such shameful and abhorrent behavior.
As we approached Dinner Key I looked over to find Caroline stretched out, asleep. Clutched in her hand were some of her notes. I gently slid them from her fingers and placed them in her pocket. She stirred but did not wake. I stood over her, watching her breathe in and out. I felt love, and need, and responsibility. But mostly I felt pride. She was mine if I wanted her and I'd made it clear I did want her. That simple fact, arrived at so quickly, so illogically, had given her happiness. And her response had given me a peace I had not felt for longer than I could remember. I loved this girl and was always going to love her.
Sonny carefully eased Candida into her slip. Caroline was snoring now. I strapped on the Bren Ten that I'd left on the boat while pow-wowing with Marquez. I nodded to Sonny and we went on deck. The marina was peaceful and silent, the only sound water gently lapping against the hull every few seconds. In the early hours of morning everyone had battened down the hatches for the night. Even the party that had been going so strong earlier had shut down. In truth it had probably just moved below for different games, bedroom games where beach bunnies shed their bikinis and, a bit too sloshed to object, offered themselves in ways that would have made their mothers blush, and their fathers cringe. Most of their fathers, anyway. Not Nancy's father.
"Just let her sleep. They won't make another run tonight. I need to talk to someone." I was whispering so as not to disturb Caroline.
"Man, do you realize what time it is?"
"I know, but I want to get back to Cozumel in the morning so it has to be tonight."
"Meglio Stasera, then," replied Sonny. "I'll keep an eye on her. She seems pretty terrific. What's with the notes, though?"
I told him. When I finished, he said, "Damn."
"I love her." We looked at each other. I added, though I didn't have to, "The way you loved Maria."
His expression went blank, and then he said, "I can see why. You just want to hug her or something."
"Yeah, there's that."
"Go boogie then. I'll watch out for her. Like you say, bastards made their run earlier tonight. It'll be safe for now."
"Meglio Stasera?"
"You know, the old Mancini song, It Had Better Be Tonight." He shrugged. "What can I say? Listening to some of those Italian operas, I picked up a little bit
of the lingo. It's a lot like Spanish, really."
"If you say so."
"Hey, man, culture ain't for everybody," he said. "If it was, there wouldn't be anyone to look down our noses at."
I jumped down to the pier. "Vuelvo en cabrón."
He flipped me off with a smile and I walked down the long pier of Dinner Key to get the 'Cuda. I headed toward the bay the British had called Cape River and Dartmouth Sound when they occupied it, and Ponce de Leon had called Chequescha long before that. Now it is simply Biscayne Bay, a lagoon over thirty miles long just off the coast of South Florida.
Like most things of beauty, developers have been allowed to damn-near destroy it. And like most terrible ideas developers with dollar signs in their eyes have, the effects aren't always immediate enough to encourage formidable resistance. Man is for the most part a short-sighted species. Unless it affects him in the now, and he can see how it affects him in the now, he will happily look the other way for the sake of progress.
Over the past hundred years North Bay became a runoff for large urban areas; even raw sewage found its way into the waters. It's natural shoreline has been bulkheaded and dredged to death. The creation of artificial islands by developers itching to cash in and politicians anxious to back projects which traded temporary employment and a huge influx of dollars for the state and ignored the long-term impact had greatly restricted the flow of fresh water into the bay. Central Bay, the largest area of the bay, has been similarly affected, though not to the degree of North Bay. South Bay has perhaps been the least affected area but developers will find a way to remedy that one day.
The woman I was on my way to see lived on Star Island, a rather swanky neighborhood in South Beach at which you must first cross the MacArthur Causeway, then stop at the guard house, and finally have one of its residents okay your entry before you can drive in. You can walk or cycle in, but you have to remain on the road at all times. The Army Core of Engineers finished dredging sand in 1922 and a developer named Carl Fisher bought a bunch of the land which later became the Miami Beach we know today. I had no idea how Jeanette Miller had landed there and had never asked.
The guard got an earful for waking Jeanette in the middle of the night. He rolled his eyes and still had his ear to the phone when he nodded for me to go through, at my own peril. I knew Jeanette wasn't upset about being woken, she just didn't want me to see her when she wasn't at her best. Jeanette was in her mid-forties, almost pretty but not quite; the type often described as handsome because no other word quite fit. She was very self-conscious about her appearance, but it was more than mere vanity.
Jeanette was paraplegic and she hated that chair. She didn't hate being in it so much as she hated the way other people she met saw only the chair. She figured if she looked attractive enough, it might distract people from the chair and they'd treat her like they would anyone else.
Jeanette had been waterskiing about twenty-five years ago when a boat cut across her path and almost severed her spinal cord. She'd been a kid then, with her whole life ahead of her. Her high school counselor had been one of the good ones, a nice lady who proceeded over the next few years to drag Jeanette out of her pity and anger, and show her that a wonderful world still existed out there for her taking, if she had the courage. That anything but run-of-the-mill school counselor was most likely the reason Jeanette made it through, and was no doubt the impetus for her becoming a psychologist.
Nowadays Jeanette worked with a lot of Vets, but the majority of her patients were teenagers. The latter work invariably morphed into counseling for their parents. Most parents didn't have a clue how absolutely messed up little Janie was, or that she was being bullied and close to throwing herself off a bridge. Others just wanted Billy Bob to stop playing his godawful sounding rap music so loud and take out his nose-piercing when company came to call. They didn't realize the annoying little sod had an IQ off the charts; or in the worst cases, had become so desensitized to the world around him that he was only a trench coat purchase away from walking in to his school and letting the ammo fly like in his favorite video game.
Jeanette once told me that video games and mainstream entertainment were like marketing tools for the confused and disconnected youth of America. She believed society and its moral center, its sense of propriety and right and wrong, black and white, had become so corrupted on a basic level that one day all decent people would become overwhelmed and disconnect from society in Howard Hughes fashion. You had to worry when someone as smart and inherently decent as Jeanette Miller began talking like that.
Soft lighting of the pathway by sensor lights showed off the sprawling grounds of the estate. There were no small homes on Star Island, at least none that I'd ever seen.
Jeanette was waiting at the door for me. In the short time it had taken me to drive from the guard house to her massive home she had dressed, applied make-up, brushed her dark hair, and generally made it appear as if she were on her way out for the evening.
"Did it ever occur to you that I might have company this time of night? Or should we call it morning now?"
I hadn't, but I knew if she really did have that kind of company, she'd have been very discreet about letting me know.
"I'm sorry. Can't Eduardo just busy himself with a hundred push-ups while we talk?"
She laughed. "God, I wish there was an Eduardo. Unfortunately, the only thing that keeps me awake is Travis McGee or Hamish Macbeth."
Jeanette loved to read, and not any high-brow texts about the mind and all the funny gymnastics it can perform when you don't want it to, either. Poirot, McGee, Leaphorn and Chee, Bryant and May, and Koontz, whom she adored, lined her bookshelves. She loved the idea of Jack Reacher but found the short, choppy sentences annoying, and just couldn't read the books. She liked Marcia Muller but abhorred nearly every other female detective novelist. Except for Hamish Macbeth, she preferred her mysteries to be straight, and hated "funny" mysteries. Murder and mayhem weren't supposed to be funny, she had once told me. I couldn't disagree.
"Come in. We'll talk in the study."
I followed her down the hallway and into the room where she kept her books. It was sunken a few feet below the level of the other rooms. She rolled down the ramp. There were no steps. I had been in the room before, several times. It faced morning sun and during the day the big curtains were drawn to bathe the room in cheery tones. In late afternoon and evening, the tall cases along the walls filled with books -- some of them hard-to-find first editions -- took on a cozy feel. The room became a warm and inviting place to sit with adventure and mystery in the afternoon and evening. Books just waited for someone's fingertips to slide them from their place on the shelf so they could create another world.
"I know you don't drink coffee and it's too damn late to offer you anything, so I'll simply say how good it is to see you, which I really mean, and ask what you're doing here, Seth?"
"I need to ask you about incest."
She was rarely surprised, but her eyes told me I'd managed it.
"It isn't something I've run across a lot. It used to be the final taboo, but it has become less so in our time, just like everything else. What exactly is it you wish to know about the subject?"
"I'm not sure. Anything at all would help. I know there was incest in a family, but it's played out in a very unnatural way." I winced. "Poor choice of words."
She almost smiled. "As opposed to incest playing out naturally?"
"Touché. I mean, does the instigator ever become the preyed upon? And if they did, what would be the reaction of the original instigator?"
She frowned, staring at me. "I would have to know much more about the situation and personalities involved to even hazard a guess, and that is what it would be, Seth, a guess."
"I believe the instigator is a heavyweight drug dealer, very powerful. He may have murdered the mother of the girl when she was very young. She left and has never been found. He remarried, had another daughter and then the second wife also left him,
and also has not been found."
"Tell me what you actually know for certain, Seth."
Her focus was so intense while I spoke that it felt like we were the only two people left in the world. "I know the drug dealer began an incestuous relationship with the oldest daughter which has continued into her adulthood. I don't know whether it began before or after her mother left, and was most probably murdered. I know from eyewitness accounts that the daughter now enjoys the relationship, teases her father with it, and appears to be in control."
"That's very bad."
"Why?"
"Tell me more, then we'll kick it around."
"I met the younger daughter, Nancy. We got close, in a certain way. She was sweet, kind, but troubled. She was running from something. I believe it was the incest. I don't know whether she saw them together, or whether the father tried it on with her and she bolted. An eyewitness observed the tension between the father and his oldest daughter-slash-lover that hadn't been there before, and she believes that Nancy was at the center of it."
I took a deep breath. "That's about it, I guess."
"I think there's more, isn't there, Seth?"
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