Die Smiling

by Linda Ladd

  “Hey, girl, you back from Missouri yet? Call me as soon as you get in and I’ll give you the latest scoop.” No name, but maybe we could find that on Caller ID.

  Two different male voices left similar messages but no names. The fourth call was from her estranged boyfriend, a.k.a. the moron who attacked me. I recognized his slight accent, even though we hadn’t conversed much during our fisticuffs. He sounded like a Latin lover, all right. He fought like one, too. More flight than fight.

  Black and I locked eyes as his voice came through on a second call. “Okay, I give in. Please, Hilde. I want you back. Tell me what I have to do. I’ll do anything you say, just come back home.” There was a pause and Black and I stared at each other some more. “Please, Hil, I’m miserable without you. I’m sorry. I’ll straighten up and fly right. Just call and let me come out there. I’ll make everything up to you, I swear to God.”

  While the machine rewound, I clicked backward on the caller ID and wrote down names and numbers. Two of them were listed as unknown, one from a South Beach beauty salon. Carlos Vasquez had called from the Ocean Club, but I doubted he was holed up there at the moment, much too easy to find, especially for experienced hit men. We’d check it out later anyway. Not an official visit, just casually looking around, in case we ever wanted to join a fancy South Beach spa.

  I walked to the large bedroom and stood in the doorway. It now looked as if somebody’d had a knock-down drag-out inside. Yes, that would be me. My head still felt like a knock-down drag-out inside, too. I thought of Hilde and how her face looked without her lips and how much I wanted to nab her killer. Dead or alive, didn’t matter to me.

  I was violating Hilde’s privacy again by sifting through her personal belongings, but that secondary invasion of homicide victims was something I was used to. This room was ultrafeminine, more so than the rest of the house. Lots of lace, floral patterns, white wicker, even. I hate wicker, of course, white or any other color. There was an ornate wicker shelving unit, filled to overflowing with framed photographs and beauty pageant trophies and prize cups in every conceivable size and shape, all sitting on shiny mirrored shelves. I stood in front of the treasure trove and examined the pictures. Many were snapshots of Hilde and Brianna. I tried to figure which girl was the most beautiful, but they pretty much came out equal in my book. Every time I looked at Hilde’s face, I saw a butchered, bloody mouth, however, so I guess I had to give Brianna the edge. I wondered where the crazy psychopath was and what he was doing. Then I wished I hadn’t.

  On the bedside table sat a silver frame with Hilde and a man I recognized as Vasquez. He looked better in the photo than he did in person, tanned very dark, virile and handsome in a white evening jacket. Arrogant, even. He was more muscular in person, and I knew for a fact that he didn’t mind hitting a woman up the side of the head. I had a notion that he’d slap his own woman around if she didn’t please him, too, and say stuff like “Just do it, bitch” and “You’re lucky I even look at you.” A far cry from the sniveling guy on the telephone or my scaredy-cat runner out on the beach.

  In the photograph, he held Hilde on his lap, one fist caught in the back of her long blond hair, holding her head down against his shoulder, and I wondered why Hilde would want such a picture beside her bed. The guy was obviously manhandling her, unless she had been into a little hair pulling and S and M herself when caught in the throes of passion. Could that be it? He’d gotten a little too angry with her? A little too forceful in inflicting pain? That didn’t fit the crime scene, though, or the shearing off of the lips.

  Black walked into the room behind me and said, “Well, from the looks of things in here, you didn’t go down easy when Vasquez came at you.”

  “I rarely go down easy.” I noticed the book he was holding in his hands. “What’d you find?”

  “Scrapbooks, about a dozen of them inside her cabinet. This one’s the oldest and shows the place where Hilde and Brianna lived when they were little.”

  Black held up a letter. “And I found this from a law firm in Poplar Bluff. Bloodworth Law Office. They’re one of the best firms in the state, bar none. And I happen to know that because they’ve done some work for me. John Booker’s from that area and he put me on to them. The lawyers down there know their stuff.”

  John Booker was an old Special Ops buddy of Black’s and currently Black’s own personal private investigator. One time he dug up a whole bunch of ugly stuff on me that I didn’t want known, but he ferreted it out anyway. But he was good. “Brianna never mentioned anything to us about living or working in that part of the state. What’s the letter say?”

  “The letter’s gone, but you might want to give them a call and see what they can tell us. Ask for Scott Dale. He’s Booker’s contact and a helluva lawyer, and he’ll help you, if he can.”

  “Yeah, I will.”

  We sat on the edge of the bed together, and I thumbed through the scrapbook. It had been put together a long time ago and had lots of newspaper clippings, old and yellowed, the pages crinkled and disintegrating on the outer edges.

  “She’s had this thing for years.”

  “It looks like they were in lots of kiddie pageants when they were little. No wonder they’re so obsessed with competing.”

  “Yeah. Way too many, by the looks of it.”

  I turned some more pages and found a picture of an old house, Cape Cod style with dormer windows. Another faded photograph was a family shot. It looked like Mom, Dad, with three children gathered around. I wondered which one was Brianna. The girls looked amazingly alike when they were children, too. The third child looked like a younger boy. More photographs showed the farm had an old barn and lots of gnarled old trees in the yard. Other pages showed the children fishing off a riverbank with cane poles. Another had them standing in frilly dresses at the center of other exploited pageant toddlers, big, fake smiles plastered across their faces. What a weird life for little girls. JonBenet Ramsay and her fate came to mind.

  “I’m going to take some of these books back to Brianna. I’ve got some questions to ask about her family and maybe these pictures will get her talking.”

  “You think Hilde’s murderer goes back that far with her family?”

  “Maybe. Who knows? It doesn’t look like either girl grew up under normal circumstances. I’m surprised Brianna’s got her head on as straight as she does.”

  “She probably won’t, not after this kind of thing happened to her.”

  I finished checking out the bedrooms and found that Black did know his way around investigative search techniques. Maybe if I could ever get him to give up his multiple crime lord associations, we could be a team.

  We were soon interrupted by Black’s chirping red cellular phone, and I had a bad feeling about who it might be. He spoke for a few minutes in cryptic tones, then flipped the phone shut.

  “Jose Rangos wants to meet you.”

  “Oh, no, no, no way. I know who he is, and I’m not going anywhere near him. I’m in enough trouble with the Miami PD.”

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to.”

  I was not pleased. I showed it in my face. “Oh, really, I have to, you say? Why is that?”

  “Because he wants to meet you.”

  “Too bad, so sad.”

  “I told him we were together now, and he insists on meeting you.”

  “Rangos is a crime boss, Black, and well you know it. I’m a police officer. The two don’t mix. Especially where I’m concerned.”

  “He’s a good friend to me and my family. Actually, I’m his favorite godson.”

  “Godson? Oh, please, Black, stop with this mafioso speak. I feel like I’m dating Tony Soprano.”

  “You know I’m clean. But Jose is determined to meet you. People around here don’t say no to Jose.”

  “I’m not from around here. I say no and I mean no.”

  Black gave me a long look. “No, Claire, I’m sorry, but you don’t say no to him, either. Besides, he’s got a gift for you.”
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  “Are you crazy? I can’t take anything from him. I don’t want anything from him.”

  “He says you’ll want this. Please, Claire, I know this goes against your grain, but do it for me. I don’t ask much from you, but this is important. We’ll just stay a few minutes, and nobody will ever know we’ve been there.”

  Black didn’t usually wax this serious, and he’d never before asked a favor from me. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same. Like flying down here on his Lear jet. I thought of Ortega’s warning. I thought of Charlie’s warning. I thought of all the warning bells going off in my head. I know better than to agree to something like this, but okay, I am a curious sort. A gift’s a gift. What people didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, et cetera, et cetera. Rationalizations, all, yes, I know. Black should not have put me in this predicament.

  We locked up the house nice and tight, and just before we got into the limo, Black leaned close, voice low, very clandestine and CIA-ish. “And try not to insult the driver. Felipe’s one of Jose’s personal bodyguards and takes care of people who are problematic to the family business, if you know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t know what you mean. Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Just don’t insult him, okay?”

  We got inside, and Black gave an address to Señor Felipe, he who was not to be insulted. Felipe looked over his shoulder at me, and I tried to memorize his features for future Florida wanted dead or alive posters. He was middle aged, small and slender, balding on top with a neatly trimmed mustache and goatee and little black foxy eyes that watched people without doing much blinking. Jose’s very favorite hit man, no doubt, who’d whack me if I refused to join his master for tacos. He grinned and showed me a couple of rows of sharp, foxlike teeth, so my analogy still held.

  We rode in dead silence all the way there, which was fine by me. I was an officer of the law, remember? Visiting crime lords at their homes, not to mention accepting gifts from them, was a no-no, even frowned upon in cop circles. On the other hand, maybe I would find out something helpful to my case, or to Ortega’s case. I doubted it, but stranger things had happened.

  Fifteen

  The Big Kahuna lived in the old and affluent community of Coconut Grove. Hey, why wasn’t I surprised? The house was not as elaborate as I had expected, certainly not as much so as Black’s godfather brother’s estate way down yonder in New Orleans. And it was pastel pink, which I, understandably, felt was hard to stomach.

  As we got out of the limo, I glanced around for a flock of flamingos flapping around. Didn’t see a single one. Didn’t see Sonny Crockett, either. Did see a swarthy looking thug dressed all in black holding a small but effective automatic machine gun. Jeez, Black and his friends, what’s a girl to do?

  “Well, tell me, Black, is he our welcoming committee? And I sure wish I’d remembered to wear my Kevlar vest.”

  “He’s a welcoming committee, all right, but not ours.”

  “Okay. Now I feel better. Especially since Ortega gave me back my gun and badge.”

  “I’m armed, too. Not that we’ll need weapons with Jose’s men.”

  “Black, I declare, you’re gonna get me in trouble one of these days.”

  “This gun is registered down here. Perfectly legal.”

  “Yeah, but who to?”

  “To me.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “I told you, Jose’s my godfather, the real one, who stood at my christening. He likes me to stay here when I visit Miami and provides me with whatever I need. I don’t get to see him much, so it’s nice I got to come along with you on this trip.”

  “Yeah? Let’s just hope Charlie and my new friends downtown don’t hear about who we’re hanging out with.”

  “They won’t. Let’s go. Jose’s waiting.”

  Inside, the house revealed big cavernous rooms, mostly done in aqua and gold and tan. Very south Florida with rotating ceiling fans with blades shaped like palm fronds, and everything. Air-conditioned, too, which I didn’t mind.

  Jose Rangos was sitting on a large flagstone terrace near the lighted backyard pool. It was surrounded by a screened-in pavilion and a bunch of flaming torches. He was dressed all in white, loose silk shirt and trousers, belt and deck shoes, big bushy white hair held back in a ponytail, probably impersonating an angel for my benefit. He looked more like Albert Einstein to me. He was smoking a thick cigar, which was not white and sort of ruined the illusion, not to mention the air quality. But there was a nice night breeze that warmed the skin and took the tobacco stench off to the next-door neighbor’s house. No ocean in sight.

  “So this is your famous detective that I’ve been hearing so much about.”

  I gave Black my best I’ll-get-you-for-this-if-it-takes-forever glare, one that made him avert his eyes apologetically. Then I made nice.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Rangos.” I almost said señor because of all the Mexican decor hanging around, but stopped myself in time.

  “And very nice to make your acquaintance, chica.”

  Chica? Where was I, anyway? Vera Cruz? I smiled as if I were having a good time. After all, he bought me a present. Maybe it was a new gun with the ID number filed off, something I could always use. Especially here and now.

  “Nicky said you’re down here working a case. Have you had any luck on it?”

  I nodded, not about to fill him in on the details. I do draw the line sometimes.

  “I think maybe I can help you, but first let me remember my manners. Would you care for a drink? A piña colada, perhaps?”

  “I don’t drink, but thank you just the same.”

  “Nicky?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Well, then, sit down, por favor. Let us get to know one another.”

  We sat. He smoked. Nobody said anything. Some getting to know one another.

  Rangos blew out a cloud of noxious smoke and studied me as if I was a rare specimen in the law enforcement phylum. “I understand, my dear, you were accosted by one of our people today.”

  Uh-oh. “What makes you think that, Mr. Rangos?”

  He gazed at me, then focused undue attention on my Band-Aid and then threw back his hoary, leonine head and laughed uproariously, which made me a bit skittish, I must say.

  “We keep an eye on all things that happen around here. And that bandage on your face and swollen eye verifies my information, no?”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m down here on a case and really can’t divulge details to anyone.” Despite my words to the contrary, I did sound rude, I know, so for Black’s sake, I added the following, with a great big smile. “But I do appreciate your concern about my well-being. My headache’s almost gone, too.”

  “I have a nice surprise for you.”

  Double uh-ohs. I had a couple of visions of my feet sunk into buckets of concrete and the roar of a speedboat heading to mid–Bermuda Triangle. “That’s very thoughtful of you.”

  “I feel responsible about what happened to you today.”

  “You really shouldn’t concern yourself.” I glanced at Black for help. He sure had gotten quiet, all of a sudden. He smiled at me and took my hand. I frowned and took it back. I liked him a lot but I wasn’t going to play lovers’ lane with him to impress his “real” godfather.

  “Come, I’ll show you.”

  We all got up and Jose leaned heavily on a white cane with a silver head shaped like a lion, whose mane closely resembled Jose’s own coiffure. We walked around the pool and out into a lush flower garden filled with geraniums and impatiens, with spicy scents galore, and Jose gave me a scientific overview of all his elephant ears and bougainvillea plants along the artistically lit pathways. He was a horticulturist in his spare time, he informed me, and I guess that meant when he wasn’t offing people. Black appeared incredibly interested in gardening all of a sudden, and I wondered how many other crime lords he knew, up close and personal like. Maybe such associations were contained to southern climes, only tropical crime boss
es appealing to him.

  We strolled along for about five minutes on winding paths through lush vegetation that smelled good and tinkling fountains, our feet crunching on white shells. Along the way, I couldn’t help but notice the seven-foot high stucco wall, pink, of course, with some kind of sharp spikes and coiled barbed wire on top, not to mention the seven Great Danes growling in their chain-link pen. I wondered how many unfortunate people had made this walk and if they were standing up on the bottom of the ocean with their hair waving in the Gulf Stream. Black was still smiling, so I guess we weren’t on the hit list, or maybe he was smiling because he wasn’t.

  After a while I began to wonder if we were going to end up crossing a bridge into Key West territory, but then a stucco guesthouse loomed up from where it was hidden by lots of palm trees and more lush vines and manicured flowery vegetation. The lights inside the house were on, and once we had entered the front door, we were hit with very cool air and a very nice, beautifully decorated little bungalow that I assumed was reserved for Jose’s special guests, a.k.a. godsons and their policewoman girlfriends. Maybe he was going to cede it over to me for future Florida investigations.

  Jose finally turned to me and said, “I wish Nicky would have done me the honor of staying here at my home. I would have been honored to have you both as my guests.”

  “Thank you very much,” I said. No thank you very much, I thought.

  Then we moved down a short hallway that led to a large attached garage. “Inside here is my gift to you. Please accept it with my compliments.” Jose beamed as he stood back, leaning on his cane, ever the gentleman, and allowed me to precede him into said garage.

  Carlos Vasquez sat in a chair in the middle of the concrete floor. He had a gag in his mouth and blood running down his temple from a deep cut on his scalp and eyes that were bulging out of their sockets in a way that suggested terror. Two heavy hoods with guns and cheerful floral shirts were standing behind him. I had a feeling their knuckles were bruised up and bloody. All that working out and his sculpted six-pack abs hadn’t done Vasquez much good when confronted by a couple of overweight, beer-and-tamale-swilling bad guys.