Cane and Abe

by James Grippando

  “Abe, can you go shopping for me today? I got hardly nothin’ left to eat.”

  Yeah, that was right at the top of my list. Sounded like a great job for one of the many people who had asked if there was anything they could do to help.

  “J.T., I just went shopping for you on Friday.”

  “I think it was contaminated. I had to put most of it down the disposal.”

  Really? REALLY? I took a deep breath. Be grateful. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Can you go now?”

  “No, I can’t go now, J.T.”

  “I’m really hungry.”

  We ordered pizza. Yes, at seven in the morning. There was a place on South Beach that only delivered after 4:00 a.m. Living in a city where people partied in shifts had its advantages.

  I checked in with Rid. The search along the Tamiami Trail had been scaled back but was ongoing. It would wrap up by noon. They didn’t have the manpower to search beyond the one-mile bridge area. I called Angelina’s friend Sloane. By eight thirty she had forty volunteers to walk the Trail. We met at the parking lot east of the bridge. It was mostly women, lots of broad hats, water bottles, and sunscreen. Sloane played camp counselor.

  “I want two lines, single file,” she said to the group. “One line will walk the north shoulder, and the other walks the south. Don’t touch or pick up anything. If you see anything, I mean anything, dial my cell. Don’t play cop. Let the police check it out.”

  “How far are we walking?” someone asked.

  “As far as we can go.”

  Someone in the crowd pointed out that the Trail was 275 miles long, and I overheard one or two others muttering something to the effect that “she,” presumably Sloane, must be out of her fucking mind.

  “If you get tired, just let me know,” said Sloane. “We have a couple of volunteers with SUVs who will run a shuttle back to the staging area.”

  That drew a collective sigh of relief from the volunteers. Off they went. I didn’t. I flagged down Rid. We talked near the bridge, just outside the police tape.

  “Is Santos coming today?” I asked.

  “She’s in Palm Beach.”

  “Pardon the stupid question, but are they sure this latest homicide was Cutter?”

  “Yeah. Ash on the face. White woman with black boyfriend. Other indicators that—sorry, pal—I can’t share with you.”

  “I understand.”

  “The thing is,” said Rid, “this makes it even more unlikely that Angelina is one of Cutter’s victims. That’s not his pattern, two in one weekend. It’s not any serial killer’s pattern. Some of them sleep for days after a kill.”

  “That’s the typical profile,” I said, and I knew something about this. “Not that I’m hoping this Cutter has something to do with Angelina, but serial killers can become spree killers, especially at the end of their run.”

  “True. But spree killer ain’t where Santos’ head is at.”

  “Is she still looking at me?” My bet was fifty-fifty that he would answer.

  “She hasn’t ruled you out. That’s all I can say.”

  “I need more,” I said.

  Rid didn’t answer. But he didn’t shut me down, either. “I spoke to J.T.,” I said. “He told Santos that Angelina hits me.”

  “I know,” said Rid. “That’s not helpful. For you, I mean.”

  “There’s a good explanation. Basically, J.T. was talking shit. You know that, and I know that. I need your help to make Santos understand it, too.”

  Rid looked away, toward the line of volunteers streaming across the bridge like army ants. “Did he give her any specifics?”

  “No. He just said Angelina hits me. When Santos pressed for details, he told her that she needed to ask me about it.”

  “Did she ask you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you tell her?”

  “I told her it wasn’t true.”

  He looked right at me. “So you didn’t tell her that Angelina broke your nose?”

  I caught my breath. That was three years earlier. “I broke my nose playing basketball.”

  “No, you didn’t, Abe. That was your story. Nuke and you went up for a rebound and his elbow caught you square in the nose. That shit happens all the time in the Carver gym. Except I talked to Nuke. I know it didn’t happen.”

  I’d given Nuke a new pair of LeBron high-tops to tell that story. Apparently his memory did not extend beyond the life of the shoes. “That was a long time ago,” I said.

  “Not that long,” said Rid.

  “Angelina and I dated for almost three years, lived together for over half that time. It was hard on her when things broke off. When she found out I was leaving her for Samantha—”

  “A black chick.”

  He said it, not me. “She didn’t take it well.”

  “Didn’t take it well? Abe, she smashed your face in.”

  “It really wasn’t—”

  “Wasn’t her fault? Is that what you were going to say? What the shit, Abe? Now you sound like the battered women who go back home to a husband who’s so sorry for what he did, then end up getting carried out the front door in a body bag.”

  I knew those women. I’d prosecuted their husbands. That wasn’t Angelina and me. “There’s been nothing like that since we got married.”

  “What about the smashed beer bottle?”

  “There’s been nothing,” I said, more forceful.

  “Okay. Whatever.” He looked away again.

  “Hey,” I said, forcing him to make eye contact. “Santos doesn’t need to know about the nose.”

  It took a while, and for the longest time, I thought I might not have him. But finally I saw that look on his face, the one that told me we were friends, not just colleagues, and that we had an understanding.

  “Nosebleeds,” he said. “Part of fucking round ball.”

  “Thank you, man. I thank you very much.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Victoria wasn’t in Palm Beach. She was in Miami, meeting with the chief assistant to the US attorney, Matthew Lewis. In any organization, no one works longer hours than the chief assistant to the top banana, and the US attorney’s office was no exception. Lewis arrived early and stayed late, routinely working weekends and holidays, occasionally stepping out for a cigarette. They talked at a patio table in the courtyard outside the Federal Building, a handful of dead cigarettes in the ashtray between them. Smoking was not allowed in the building, and this was the chief assistant’s regular spot.

  “Got a sugar war brewing,” Victoria said.

  Lewis smiled and lit another cigarette. Early in his career, Lewis had been one of the hard-nosed government lawyers in a save-the-Everglades lawsuit against the state of Florida for failure to enforce clean-water regulations against Big Sugar. No one in Tallahassee would admit it, but Cortinas controlled the state officials who negotiated the settlement.

  “What’d the bastards do this time? Drown day-old kittens?”

  She smiled a little, then turned serious. “I’m not sure where this is headed, but the Ed Brumbel segment on the news this morning got me thinking.”

  Lewis took a drag on his cigarette. “Who?”

  “Farm Aid lawyer in Belle Glade. Spent the last twenty years of his career trying to nail Big Sugar for something. He’s a doofus, but we all know the story about the blind pig and the acorn. There actually may be a Big Sugar connection to my Cutter investigation.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Basically, we have five victims recovered from the sugarcane fields in Palm Beach County. No problem linking them all to one killer. Then we have two outliers in Miami-Dade. One is Tyla Tomkins, the lawyer from Belter, Benning and Lang. I’m almost one hundred percent sure that Cutter is not her killer.”

  “Copycat?”

  “Maybe. The other is Abe Beckham’s wife, still missing. Search is ongoing, and we have no body to examine, so I can’t be as sure about her. But my guess: not Cutter.”

/>   “Where does the sugar war fit in?”

  “Brian Belter was sleeping with Tyla Tomkins. I have no doubt about that. And we have a voice-mail message from Tyla Tomkins to Abe Beckham. It sounds like she was offering up incriminating information about the business activities of Cortinas Sugar. Tomkins, it turns out, did some of the most sensitive legal work, both for the companies and for the Cortinas family.”

  “So Tomkins was in a position to destroy Brian Belter’s marriage and do serious damage to his best client.”

  “You got it.”

  Lewis flicked the ash. “So your theory is what? Belter turned into Dexter?”

  “No, my theory is that Belter had a big problem that could be solved only by getting rid of Tyla Tomkins. Not only was Cutter in the news, but the bodies were turning up in his client’s sugarcane fields. Maybe it put an idea in his head. Kill Tyla and make it look like Cutter did it.”

  Lewis thought for a moment. “I’ve met Belter. He doesn’t strike me as a machete-swinging kind of guy.”

  “Cortinas still uses cane cutters outside the States. It wouldn’t take much to fly one over, have him do the deed, and pay him enough pesos to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Some of these cutters are of questionable background. One they hired in Brazil was an ex-con on parole. Put his girlfriend in a coma for five days when he hit her over the head with the flat side of his cane knife. A little turn of his wrist, and she would have been dead.”

  “Could he be your serial killer?”

  “He’s back in jail. But there are tens of thousands of cane cutters in Central America, South America, the Caribbean. All Belter needed to find was one who was willing to whack Tyla Tomkins.”

  “What have you done on this so far?”

  “One of your AUSAs helped with a subpoena. We want access to Tyla’s computers and e-mails at BB&L.”

  “That will be a dogfight.”

  “Yeah. Maggie Green is running major interference.”

  “I’ll look into that. But how do you connect Belter to the disappearance of Beckham’s wife? Why would Belter have anything to do with her?”

  “He wouldn’t.”

  “So who are you looking at there?”

  “Abe Beckham.”

  “Ah, the husband. The twenty-first-century Colonel Mustard.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry. I played too much Clue as a kid. My question is, other than the fact that he’s the husband, why would you think he did it?”

  “I’m pretty sure he was having an affair. With Tyla Tomkins.”

  Lewis shook his head. “So a woman puts her career at risk to call him with a crime tip, and he can’t keep his wick dry. He always was an arrogant son of a bitch.”

  “Do you know Beckham?”

  “Can’t stand him. Typical state prosecutor with the my-dick’s-bigger-than-your-dick mentality. Thinks all feds are white-collar pansies and the only real prosecutors are the ones doing murder, rape, robbery.”

  “He didn’t really strike me that way.”

  “Probably because you’ve got him by the balls. Are you looking at Beckham for both Tyla Tomkins and his wife?”

  “Looking at him. Yes.”

  “So that gives you two possibles in the murder of Tyla Tomkins: Belter and Beckham.”

  “Three, really. Can’t rule out a copycat.”

  “Okay, three. But only one has an obvious connection to both Tyla and Angelina.”

  “That’s true.”

  “So if I were you, I’d keep the Brian Belter angle alive. But in the short term, blaze down the path of least resistance. See where it leads.”

  “Meaning Beckham. I totally agree. But I don’t have the time, the budget, or the stomach for a witch hunt. Whatever Beckham’s role in this may be, I have a serial killer to catch. That’s why I’ve been doing my best to keep any suspicion about Beckham off the record. A media circus about another husband killing his pretty wife will only hurt the search for Cutter. I need your help.”

  “Name it.”

  “I want Beckham to sit for a polygraph. If he passes, I turn the page.”

  “Did you ask him to sit for one?”

  “Yeah. He refused.”

  Lewis took another long drag, smoke billowing into the air. “I can’t get a court order that requires anyone to sit for a polygraph.”

  “I know. But here’s how I want to play it: ‘Mr. Beckham, you can refuse to take a polygraph, but that won’t make me happy. In fact, it could make me so unhappy that I might say screw it. Let’s arrest you on a lesser charge, something far less serious than murder. If we arrest you, we’d have to lock you up for the night, and if we have to lock you up, even for a misdemeanor, and even for just one night, we can strip-search you. So says the Supreme Court.’”

  “You’re right on the law. But what lesser charge are you talking about?”

  “Old Reliable. One-zero-zero-one,” she said, meaning section 1001 of the US criminal code.

  “Ah, the Martha Stewart strategy. If you can’t make the real crime stick, put them in prison for making a false statement to an FBI agent.”

  “It sounds lame, I know, but this is just posturing. Beckham’s wife is missing. The last thing he needs is for us to haul him downtown for lying to an FBI agent, strip-search him, and stick him in the slammer overnight. People hear ‘lying’ and ‘strip search,’ and they think ‘This guy’s guilty and dangerous.’ He’d be on the fast track for conviction by millions of TV jurors who can’t get enough of this shit. It’s all horse trading: ‘Look, Mr. Beckham. Let’s spare you the stigma and embarrassment of an arrest and a strip search. Just sit for a polygraph, and no charges will be brought.’”

  “Good angle,” said Lewis. “But only if he made a false statement.”

  “He lied to the state attorney, to a Miami-Dade homicide detective, and to an FBI agent—namely, me.”

  “Seriously? When?”

  “Monday morning. We were sitting in Carmen Jimenez’s office. Beckham told us that he hadn’t seen Tyla Tomkins in ten years. We have photos of him having dinner with her last September.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit,” said Victoria, her eyes narrowing. “So I’m asking for your help. I want to look Abe Beckham in the eye and tell him that if he doesn’t sit for a polygraph, the chief assistant to the US attorney is prepared to go before a grand jury and indict him for lying to an FBI agent.”

  Lewis crushed out his cigarette and smiled wryly. “Nice work, Agent Santos. You may have enough for a strip search and a polygraph.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I was naked. Completely naked. And not enjoying it in the least.

  “Turn around, please,” the cop said.

  I turned. The wind from the AC vent rushed between my thighs. The penlight roamed my privates. This was not the typical strip search that police do for concealed contraband or weapons that could present a danger to prison guards or other inmates. This was a full-body examination for bruises, scratches, or any other physical evidence of an altercation between Angelina and me. According to the Miami-Dade Police Department form that I’d signed, the examination was being done with my “full and knowing consent.” Sort of. Agent Santos had been quite persuasive: “I want a polygraph and a complete physical examination. Or we literally make a federal case out of the lie you told me about Tyla Tomkins.”

  Had I not been a prosecutor, it would have sounded like bullshit. But I knew that lying to a cop or an FBI agent in the course of a criminal investigation was a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, even if the statement wasn’t made under oath. I wasn’t convinced that Santos would act on the threat, but I was in no position to call her bluff. So I took the polygraph. And then I got naked.

  “Raise your arms,” said the examiner.

  I complied. We were in a small, windowless room. The walls were yellow-painted cinder blocks. Bright fluorescent lighting assaulted my eyes. The examiner
had clearly done this before, and I was coming around to the view that the pooper scooper who trailed behind the elephants in the Ringling Brothers parade did not have the un-greatest job on earth after all. Not many people had familiarized themselves with the obscure ligament that separated my testicles from my rectum, but he found it. The examiner narrated his findings into a recorder, and his assistant took notes. Left groin, clear; right groin, clear. Rid stood in the corner, averting his eyes the way men did when standing at the urinals in a public restroom, where the singular goal was never to get caught looking. Rid wasn’t there just for moral support. He was one of the lead detectives in the search for Angelina.

  “Let’s get a photograph of that,” said the examiner.

  My arms were up over my head. The examiner was aiming his penlight at the inside of my left tricep. “A photograph of what?” I asked.

  “The consent form includes photographs,” he said.

  “I know. I just want to know what you’re photographing.”

  Rid spoke up from the corner. “It’s a bruise, Abe.”

  I craned my neck, trying to see a part of my tricep muscle that wasn’t in my normal line of sight. “I wasn’t even aware it was there.”

  “No yellowing,” said the examiner. “Probably less than two days old.”

  The assistant wrote that down.

  “I can’t think of anything in the last couple of days,” I said.

  “Maybe you got it playing basketball,” said Rid.

  I caught Rid’s eye. He looked away, but I could read his mind: Just like the broken nose.

  The assistant snapped the photograph, several of them actually, the flash blinking machine-gun style. I suddenly remembered my fall in J.T.’s bedroom.

  “Oh, now I know how that happened. Last night with J.T. there was a minor crisis, I guess you’d call it. I tripped on the edge of the bed and—”

  “Abe,” said Rid, giving me a subtle “cut” sign. My explanation sounded like bullshit, and in his mind he was doing me a favor by telling me to put a sock in it. Maybe he was. I zipped it.

  If the examiner found other bruises, he didn’t tell me about them. The entire examination took less than twenty minutes.