Cane and Abe

by James Grippando

  Victoria’s gaze remained fixed, cast out toward the Everglades. She said nothing.

  “Abe is a stand-up guy,” Reyes continued. “I’ve worked with him. He’s highly respected.”

  “He’s also a liar,” said Victoria. “He had an affair with Tyla Tomkins. He lied to his wife about it. He lied to his boss about it with me in the room.”

  “We don’t even know for sure that he was having an affair.”

  “‘For sure,’ as in one hundred percent certain? No. And Tyla is dead, so we may never know.”

  “Even if he was having an affair, that doesn’t make him a murderer.”

  “No, but it explains a lot. Angelina gets the photos of Abe with Tyla. She calls her mom down from New York. She comes home from dinner only to hear that while she and her mother were trying to figure out how to save her marriage, Abe went to his lover’s memorial service. She tells him to get out, the marriage is over. They argue. A beer bottle sails across the room. One thing leads to another, and when it’s over, Abe has a dead body on his hands. He tosses Angelina’s cell phone on the Tamiami Trail to make us think Cutter did it. God only knows where he dumped Angelina’s body.”

  “Lots of suppositions in there.”

  “Be honest,” said Victoria. “Many a model husband has jumped to the top of your list of suspects based on far less than this.”

  “I would be more in your camp if we had a history of domestic violence.”

  “Two nights ago I found a broken wineglass on their cocktail table.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Nothing I heard from Angelina’s mother even raised the possibility of an abusive relationship.”

  “Mom lives in New York. She knows what her daughter wanted her to know. We need to focus on local witnesses.”

  “Angelina’s girlfriends?”

  “They’re on the list. But I’m going to break the mold here. Start where Abe wouldn’t expect me to start.”

  “Where’s that?”

  Victoria checked her watch. Only nine. Still early, time enough to follow another lead. “A twofer,” she said. “The only person with a front-row seat in both of Abe’s marriages.”

  Reyes thought for a moment. “You don’t mean his brother-in-law, do you?”

  Victoria’s expression turned very serious. “That’s exactly who I mean.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  From behind the yellow police tape, I watched Agent Santos and her new sidekick from the domestic violence section. They were pretending not to notice me. I was pretending that it didn’t bother me.

  A cold shoulder from Detective Reyes was especially hard for me to swallow.

  Many career prosecutors in our office, myself included, did a stint in domestic violence somewhere along the line. Some of my best work had been with Reyes, the whole gamut of cases—battery, sexual assault, violation of injunctions, stalking. The head of domestic crime had been one of my biggest supporters for promotion to homicide, where I went on to prosecute four cases of uxoricide. All involved infidelity. Two were cheaters whose wives had promised to take everything in the divorce. One couldn’t handle it when his wife said she was leaving him for another man. A fourth was just bizarre, a guy who liked to masturbate while watching his wife engage in rough sex, and who did nothing to stop a ’roided-up weight lifter from strangling her to death. Aside from cases involving a confession, they were among the easiest convictions I’d ever won. They all got the death penalty.

  I tried not to seem angry as Rid walked in my direction. He stopped at the tape. He looked exhausted, as if he’d just gone ten rounds with the heavyweight champion of the world.

  “Santos wants to see my press release.”

  The champion had just landed another blow, and this time it was on me. I was the author of that release.

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That it was in the car.”

  “Are you going to show it to her?”

  He glanced across the road, in the direction of Santos, then back. “I can’t really say no. Santos is the task force coordinator for the Cutter investigation.”

  I’d been dealing with the fears and realities all day long, but it still chilled me to hear him speak of a serial killer in such matter-of-fact terms. “Is that where you’re coming out?” I asked. “Angelina belongs in the Cutter investigation?”

  “No, no, Abe. We’re not there yet. We may never get there. Don’t give up hope. God forbid it’s a homicide, but if things move in that direction, for certain people the only two possibilities seem to be Cutter or—”

  “Or me.”

  “Yeah. You.”

  “Why?” I asked, but it was almost rhetorical. “How could Santos think I would kill my wife?”

  He didn’t answer right away, but I could see from his expression that Rid had been wondering the same thing. “You want my honest opinion?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “I’ve dealt with these FBI types before—the rising stars who make it all way to the Behavioral Analysis Unit and do one serial killer investigation after another. The burnout rate in my job is ridiculous, but compared to those guys, it’s nothing. They have the worst rate in law enforcement. There comes a point in time when you’ve finally crawled inside the head of one too many psychopaths, looked into the eyes of too many lifeless victims of the worst of the worst. Santos hasn’t told me this, but I’m guessing that’s why she got reassigned to Miami. The bureau is hoping that a little time in the field will breathe some life back into her.”

  “So what are you saying? She got demoted, and she’s taking it out on me?”

  “No, you’re completely missing my point. I think Santos has written so many profiles of sexually sadistic serial killers that her brain is preprogrammed. Something about Angelina doesn’t fit in that program.”

  I gave it some consideration before responding. The hum of the generators was the only sound around us. “I guess if you flip it around, look at the positive side, I should take some comfort in this.”

  “Comfort?”

  “Yeah. It’s actually a good thing, right? One of the best-trained minds in the country seems convinced that my wife was not the victim of a serial killer.”

  “That is a positive,” said Rid.

  “But it raises a question, right? If it wasn’t Cutter, and it wasn’t me . . . then where is she?”

  “I promise you this, Abe. I won’t stop looking until I have an answer.”

  One of the generators roared, sending a surge of industrial light across the highway and down the embankment, toward the search and rescue team trolling for another body in the Everglades.

  An answer.

  “Let’s hope it’s one I can live with,” I said.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Brian Belter was with his best client, at his favorite restaurant, in his most beloved place in all of the Dominican Republic. And he was miserable.

  Belter was one of eight at a dinner hosted by Alberto Cortinas and his wife at La Piazzetta, a gourmet Italian restaurant in Altos de Chavón, an ambitious re-creation of a sixteenth-century Mediterranean village that sits high on a bluff in La Romana. The pumpkin risotto and fillet of hake were memorable, but truly unforgettable were the views of the river valley far below. A torchlit table beneath the stars out on the stone terrace was highly coveted, especially on a Saturday night, but the privileged guests in the Cortinas party had the entire terrace to themselves.

  “Más vino, Señor Belter?”

  His wineglass was empty, but he was at his limit. “No, gracias.”

  The drinking had started on the golf course at noon. One Cuba Libre led to another. Belter was a scratch golfer and had birdied the first two holes, but it was downhill from there. Teeth of the Dog was the premier course in the Caribbean, a challenge even for sober professionals. It was built on a bed of coral, which made for unforgiving hazards, all created by Dominican work crews whose only tools were sledgehammers, pickaxes, and chisels. By the eighth hole
, Belter needed a pickax to find his tee shot. He’d been drinking rum and Cokes like Kool-Aid, and no one had warned him that it was Bacardi 151. The pressure behind his eyes was almost unbearable. He was starting to feel nauseous. Maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe it was the altitude.

  Maybe it was Tyla Tomkins.

  “Agua, por favor,” he told the waiter.

  Alberto Cortinas was seated at the head of a rectangular table, holding court for the six most influential Dominican lawmakers, all men. With growing opposition to sugar growers in the Everglades, Cortinas was planning to expand production in the DR. The goal was to convince the Dominican senate to approve a proposed tax on fructose corn syrup. Big Sugar hated competition. All lawmakers could be persuaded. It would take much more than a round of golf, a pricey restaurant, and a penthouse suite at a world-class resort, even if the room did come with a pair of Latina hookers who could command five thousand a night in New York City. El hombre con los regalos verde—the man with the green gifts—would visit each of the lawmakers in the morning. Money talked. But not when Alberto Cortinas was anywhere nearby.

  I’m not involved, Brian.

  A headache of this magnitude made it nearly impossible for Belter to keep up with the lively conversation in Spanish at the other end of the table. His mind needed a break. He excused himself, walked across the stone terrace, and went inside to the restroom. He checked for messages while taking care of business, then went to the home page for the Miami Tribune. The headline grabbed him—to the point that he nearly dropped his phone in the urinal.

  Ho-lee shit.

  He was so engrossed in the article that he forgot to tip the bathroom attendant after washing his hands. He quickly returned to the terrace, went straight to the head of the table, and politely interrupted his client.

  Cortinas did not look pleased. He was in the middle of one of his favorite stories, the one about the insider at the US Department of Agriculture who would tip off Alberto whenever the secretary was at his desk getting a blow job. It was the only time Alberto ever called him, because he knew the secretary had no choice but to take his call.

  “What is it?” Alberto asked in English.

  “I need your attention for just a minute,” said Belter. “In private.”

  Alberto rose reluctantly and excused himself. Belter led him away from the dining table, across the terrace, out of sight of the guests. They found a quiet place around the stone pillars that marked the entrance to the restaurant. It was a setting out of Shakespeare, two men of power whispering in the dark, standing across from little shops and artist dens on a narrow cobblestone street lined with lanterns, wrought-iron balconies, and other markings of a Renaissance village.

  “Abe Beckham’s wife has gone missing,” said Belter. “There’s an all-out search about a mile or so from where they found Tyla’s body.”

  Cortinas pulled a cigar from the pocket of his guayabera and snipped off the tip. “That’s very sad.”

  Belter watched him light up, waiting for him to say more. But Cortinas’ only concern seemed to be an even burn on his cigar.

  “Is that all you have to say?” asked Belter. “Very sad?”

  Cortinas took a long drag, the ashes glowing in the night. “This is not something that demands my immediate attention.”

  “Don’t you see the obvious problem here?”

  “The only problem I see is a table full of guests wondering what the hell is so damned important that you pull me away in the middle of a story.”

  Belter moved closer, lowering his voice. “Tyla Tomkins was murdered. Now Abe Beckham’s wife is missing. The media will go nuts on this.”

  “So what? Let them.”

  “You’re being way too cavalier.”

  “You make it sound like this is our fault.”

  “It’s always our fault!” Belter said, keeping his voice low but speaking with greater urgency. “Big Sugar is Florida’s all-time favorite whipping boy. Like it or not, we are connected to this circus through Tyla Tomkins.”

  “We’ve got this covered, Brian. Everything is being taken care of. Some very high-priced techies are at work on Tyla’s computer files and e-mails as we speak.”

  “Dodging one subpoena from the US attorney is not the entire ball game. This is shaping up to be the infotainment story of the century. It will put my law firm and your companies under the microscope. That’s no place to be. You didn’t often agree with your old man, but he was dead right about one thing: Big Sugar does better with a low profile.”

  “What do you want me to do, Brian? Turn back the hands of time and make it all go away?”

  “No, but—damn it, Alberto! This isn’t just business we’re talking about. This is my family, my life. Agent Santos and that smartass detective who came to my office last week know about me and Tyla. Jenny will leave me if that comes out. What am I supposed to tell her? What am I going to tell my kids?”

  “That’s really up to you, Brian. But there are a couple of choices.” Cortinas took another long drag on his cigar, a cloud of smoke pouring across his lips and into Belter’s face as he spoke. “One, you could tell them that when Tyla called you on her prepaid cell phone, you should have had a prepaid phone of your own, which would have made the numbers untraceable on both ends. But you were too stupid to figure that one out. Unlike me.”

  Belter froze, silent.

  “Or,” said Cortinas, “you can simply tell them it’s been a really lousy week for women who like to fuck Abe Beckham.”

  Belter looked at him, confused. When it came to insanely arrogant remarks, even he had difficulty telling when Cortinas was serious, half serious, or just kidding around.

  Finally Cortinas smiled, clenching the big cigar in his teeth. “Come, my friend. It’s time to return to our guests.”

  Belter walked with him, but he wanted to pull his client aside, look him in the eye, and find out if he was serious about the prepaid cell phone. If something had been going on between him and Tyla, it was news to Belter. Disturbing news. It wasn’t just ego and idle curiosity pulling at him.

  Once upon a time, Belter had thought he was the only one.

  He was about to ask, and a simple follow-up question would have been the most natural thing in the world between two men who’d known each other nearly their entire adult lives. But he followed his instincts, just as he had in so many other dealings with Alberto Cortinas.

  Better not to know.

  The two men returned to the dinner party on the terrace, where Belter laughed with the others about “Cortinas interruptus” and the US secretary of agriculture.

  Chapter Thirty

  It was almost nine in the evening when Victoria knocked on J.T.’s door. Detective Reyes was with her on the front porch. The chain lock was engaged, and J.T. spoke to them with his face wedged between the door and the frame.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m Agent—”

  “I know who you are,” he said. “You came to my house with Detective Riddel to take my answering machine. Who’s she?”

  Reyes introduced herself and showed her badge.

  “We’d like to talk to you about Angelina,” said Victoria.

  “I can’t talk to you now. I’m watching a movie.”

  The television was blasting in the background. It sounded like a total guy movie, something high on special effects, perhaps Transformers or Iron Man. “You do know that Angelina has gone missing, right?”

  “Yeah. Abe told me.”

  “And you can’t make five minutes to talk to us?”

  He made a face like a teenager caught playing video games after midnight. “Oh, all right. I’ll pause it.”

  His face disappeared, the chain rattled, and the door opened. J.T. was wearing only a pair of baggy basketball shorts that reached all the way to his knees, no shirt, and no shoes. The ankle bracelet was in place, Victoria noted. He led them into the TV room and paused the movie. Victoria’s guess had been right on: Iron Man 2.


  “Have a seat,” said J.T.

  The women took the couch. J.T. fell into a bright orange beanbag chair. The rest of the room was tastefully decorated with a woman’s touch, and Victoria would have bet that the orange beanbag was the one piece of furniture that had not been of his late sister’s choosing. Victoria used it as a starting point.

  “Nice apartment, J.T. Did your sister pick out all these beautiful things?”

  “Yup. Except the beanbag.”

  Two for two. “Is that your contribution, or was that Abe’s touch?”

  “Beanbag’s mine. Two bucks at a garage sale. Abe never woulda brung a piece of shit like this into Samantha’s house. He went with whatever she wanted.”

  The conversation was moving in exactly the right direction. “They got along well?”

  “Oh, hell yeah. Made for each other, if you ask me.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  He cast a suspicious look. “Nothing makes me say it. What’s that supposed to mean, anyway? You think I’m on drugs or something?”

  “No, I wasn’t suggesting—”

  “You asked what makes me say that. I say it because I think it. Not because something made me say it. That’s all there is to it. I don’t do drugs. You cool with that?”

  “Yes, we’re cool. I was just trying to understand what you were saying. Abe and Samantha were made for each other. So I guess they never argued?”

  He took a deep breath, and his sudden anger seemed to pass. “Argued? Not really. Not that I saw.”

  “What about Abe and Angelina?”

  “What about them?”

  “You ever see them argue?”

  He hesitated, then answered. “Yeah. They argued.”

  “Argued? Or argue?”

  “Is that a trick question?”

  “No,” she said. “‘Argued’ just puts Angelina in the past. ‘Argue,’ on the other hand—”

  “So it is a trick question,” he said sharply. “You’re trying to trip me up.”

  “Forget I asked that.”