Cane and Abe

by James Grippando

  “You can get dressed now.”

  The examiner left with his assistant. It had been bad enough standing in the room naked with three other men, but alone with Rid was beyond awkward.

  “Let me check on the polygraph,” he said, and then he left, too.

  I gathered my clothes and got dressed. The bruise was a potential problem, given what J.T. had told Santos, but I wasn’t worried. I was convinced that the results of the polygraph examination would quickly put an end to this nonsense. I’d never taken one before, but I’d seen it administered to suspects many times. Santos had insisted that it be administered by an FBI examiner, so I didn’t know him, which was fine by me. All had gone as I’d expected. The examiner asked the usual control questions on irrelevant matters. Do you like ice cream? Is your hair purple? These were designed to give the examiner a baseline for my truth telling as measured by his instruments. Then he moved to the heart of the matter. Three questions—it was typically three—that would either rule me out or propel me to the top of the list of suspects.

  Have you ever seen your wife dead?

  Did you kill your wife?

  Did you have anything to do with your wife’s disappearance?

  My answers, of course, had been no, no, and no.

  There was a knock at the door. Rid entered and closed the door. I didn’t like the expression on his face, and the first question out of my mouth was a reflection of my mounting paranoia.

  “Don’t tell me I failed,” I said.

  “No, no. The FBI won’t share the results.”

  “Huh?”

  “Santos’ position is that you agreed to take a polygraph. She never agreed to share the results.”

  “What the fuck is that about?”

  “Sorry. I didn’t see that coming either. I guess that’s why she insisted that we use an FBI examiner.”

  “This is bullshit,” I said. “I passed, and now she doesn’t want me to be able to state publicly that I passed.”

  “I’ll straighten this out. But for now, forget that.”

  “Forget nothing—”

  “Abe, listen to me. I need you to go into Little Havana with me.”

  “What for?”

  “We’ve been checking all the pawnshops along Eighth Street leading to the Tamiami Trail. We found one in Little Havana that looks like it could have something for us. A guy who never came into the shop before showed up early Saturday morning selling a diamond engagement ring. No negotiation. He took whatever he could get for it, way less than what it was worth.”

  My heart sank.

  “Come on,” he said. “I need you to tell me if it’s Angelina’s.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  We didn’t talk in the car. Rid drove. I stared out the passenger-side window.

  Calle Ocho was once the heart of a community of Cuban exiles, a place where old men could be found in José Martí Park playing dominoes, smoking cigars, and talking béisbol. Many of the neighborhood tiendas were gone, either squeezed out by El Costco or simply a casualty of changing demographics. Pawnshops continued to flourish, resilient as ever, catering to Miami’s unending stream of new arrivals who lacked credit and needed fast cash, no questions asked.

  Pawn 24 was one of those shops that never closed, but the door was always locked. Iron security bars reinforced a storefront window where, a decade or two earlier, anything from lawn statues of the Virgin Mary to Cuban wedding cakes might have been on display. Rid and I went to the entrance and rang the bell. A twenty-something man came to the door. Tattoos covered his arms. A toothpick wagged from his mouth as he spoke from the other side of the glass.

  “What you want?”

  Rid showed his badge. The man checked it, unlocked the door, and let us in. He immediately relocked it.

  “Sunday afternoon is prime time for holdups,” he said. “My uncle says keep the door locked.”

  “Your uncle’s a smart man,” said Rid.

  His name was Manny. His uncle owned the shop, and Manny worked the late shift and on weekends. We shook hands—just one shake, a formality. Rid introduced me as a state prosecutor first, then as Angelina’s husband.

  “I saw you on the news,” he said. “Sorry about your wife.”

  “Thank you for that,” I said.

  “Not sure I can help, but when the cops were here this morning, they asked if anyone suspicious came in after midnight Friday. I told ’em everybody’s suspicious after midnight on Friday.”

  “Were you here alone when the guy came in to sell the diamond?” asked Rid.

  “’Course I was alone. What do you think this is, Walmart? Basically it’s either me or my uncle running the place.”

  “What did the guy look like?” asked Rid.

  “Homeless, if you ask me. Maybe six feet tall, dark hair. But that’s not the suspicious part. The cops asked if anyone came by looking to get quick cash for a woman’s personal effects. Diamond ring, earrings, necklace, a designer handbag, expensive shoes, that sort of thing. That’s when I mentioned the ring.”

  “Why didn’t you show it to them?”

  “Because my uncle would kick my ass if he knew I had a bunch of cops snooping around the shop inspecting his merchandise, okay? If the ring belongs to this man’s wife, he can tell me, and then you guys can follow up with my uncle. If it doesn’t belong to her, then we’re done. My uncle doesn’t even need to know you were here.”

  “I’m pretty anxious to see it,” I said.

  “It’s back in the vault,” said Manny. “I’ll get it.”

  “We’ll go with you,” said Rid.

  “No need.”

  “I want to minimize the amount of handling,” said Rid.

  “If you’re hoping to lift fingerprints, forget it. It’s like I told the cops this morning. I cleaned that baby good, soaked it in solution all day yesterday, polished it up.”

  “Got it,” said Rid. “But it’s still better if we keep the handling to a minimum.”

  Manny’s voice tightened. “I need you to back off, all right? I didn’t have to be a good citizen here. I could have just kept my mouth shut and let my uncle sell the ring. Unless you have a warrant, you’re not going into the storeroom. Period.”

  “No need to get your back up,” said Rid.

  “No need for me to lose my job, either. You’re making me sorry I even got involved. I put the ring in a little jewel box, so I don’t even have to touch it to bring it out here. Do you want to see it or don’t you?”

  Not all pawnshops were fencers, but my bet was on a load of stolen merchandise in the back of this one. I didn’t give a hoot about his uncle’s stash.

  “Get the ring, Manny. We’ll wait.”

  “But don’t touch it,” said Rid.

  He turned and went. Rid and I waited at the counter. Pawn 24 was not the kind of place to keep fine jewelry on display. Most of the items on the shelves sold in the range of seventy-five to two hundred bucks. Power tools were apparently hot items. Musical instruments were not far behind. Handguns were the biggest seller of all. The sign at the cash register read, “No credit cards excepted,” which, semantically speaking, was the opposite of what was meant.

  “Here we go,” said Manny. He laid the case on the counter. Most of the blue velvet on the outside had worn away.

  “Open it, please,” said Rid.

  He lifted the cover on the old case. The diamond caught the light and sparkled in my eye. I froze.

  “A real beauty,” said Manny. “About a karat and a half.”

  Yes, it was. Exactly. Marquis cut. Platinum band. I couldn’t look away, but I felt the weight of Rid’s stare—on me. It was as if he knew something was up before I even opened my mouth.

  “It’s not Angelina’s,” I said.

  “Say what?”

  I knew it was going to sound crazy, and I wasn’t sure Rid would believe me. I could hardly believe it myself.

  “The ring is not Angelina’s,” I said again. “It was Samantha’s.” />
  Chapter Forty

  For seven hundred dollars I bought back Samantha’s ring from the pawnshop, which was less than 10 percent of retail, but a couple hundred bucks more than Manny had paid for it.

  At first, Manny’s uncle had flat-out refused to give up the ring. We could have gone to court to force the issue, but there was little doubt in my mind that the ring would be “lost” by then. After telling me how much he hoped my wife was okay, Uncle Asshole tried to tack on an additional fifty-dollar fee for paying by check. Luckily, Rid was there to prevent another homicide. Crime scene investigators collected the ring as evidence and took it to the lab. The ring still smelled of the strong ammonia-based solution Manny had used to clean it, so there was little hope of lifting fingerprints, but it was worth a shot.

  A Miami-Dade detective took Manny to the station to review mug shots of recent arrests in the area. Two other officers canvassed the neighborhood, talking to homeless people, since that was Manny’s description of the man who sold the ring.

  Rid and I went back to my house, which was still a secure crime scene. Agent Santos met us there. I still had a bone to pick with her over the polygraph results, but at the moment, the ring was more important. We talked in the driveway, standing beside Rid’s car.

  “Where did you keep the ring?” asked Santos.

  I’d already gone over this with Rid. “There’s a strongbox in the closet.”

  “Ever heard of a safe deposit box?” asked Santos.

  “I had one,” I said.

  I’d put Samantha’s wedding set in there after the funeral. I continued to wear my ring for many months afterward, until Angelina and I started dating. When I decided to remarry, it had been my plan to put my old wedding ring in the box with Samantha’s. I got all the way to the bank and opened the box. Samantha’s rings were there. I held them exactly as I had held them when I’d slipped them on her finger. When I felt ready, I put them back. I removed my ring, took a breath, and tried to lay it beside those bejeweled expressions of love for Samantha. Then I read the inscription that Samantha had engraved inside my ring. It wasn’t the usual initials, date, and romantic sentiment. “Put me back on,” it read. Samantha’s love and sense of humor came flooding over me. My heart ached. At that moment, it was simply no longer possible for me to drop my ring in a cold metal box in a bank vault and walk away. I couldn’t leave hers behind either. I brought her rings and mine back to the house and placed them in a locked strongbox, fully intending to take them back to the bank when I was ready.

  “I guess I never got around to using it,” I told Santos.

  “Let’s have a look inside,” she said. “There’s no strongbox on the inventory list, but let’s see if it’s here and the investigators just missed it.”

  Rid unlocked the door and opened it.

  “Freezing in here,” said Rid.

  So cold, in fact, that the windows were sweating with condensation. It was hard to keep an active crime scene cool with investigators coming and going, the doors opening and closing constantly. Someone on the team had turned down the AC to sixty degrees and had forgotten to dial up the temperature before leaving.

  Rid and Santos followed me down the hall to the master bedroom. I went to the walk-in closet. The chair I sat on every morning when tying my shoes was where it always was. I moved it to the back of the closet, directly in front of the built-in set of shelves, cabinets, and open storage cubicles that covered the entire wall. I climbed up on the chair so that I could reach the small cabinet all the way at the top. I opened it. An empty feeling washed over me, as empty as the space I was staring into.

  “It’s gone,” I said.

  I stared into the cabinet for a moment longer, then climbed down from the chair. We stepped out of the closet and into the bedroom.

  “Other than her wedding set, what else was in the box?” asked Santos.

  “A pair of diamond earrings I bought her for our first anniversary. And a watch that Luther bought for her. I have other mementos, but they’re not really valuable to anyone but me.”

  “Abe and I already covered this,” said Rid. “Metro-Dade police are checking other pawnshops to see if those other items were hocked, too.”

  “Good,” said Santos. “This changes the analysis.”

  I knew it did, but I wanted to know her thinking. “How so?”

  “It’s not unusual for serial killers to take keepsakes from their victims. Rings, pendants, that sort of thing. But Samantha’s rings are not a trophy. This is more like a robbery.”

  “A robbery and an abduction?” I asked.

  “Possibly,” said Rid. “Except there’s no sign that anyone went rummaging through drawers and closets looking for valuables.”

  “Could have been a home invasion,” I said. “I know of two of them in our area in the last year or so. The homeowner answers the door, and as soon as it opens, the guy forces himself inside, pulls a gun, and demands to be led to whatever money or jewelry there is in the house. There’s no sign of struggle because there is no struggle. It’s the element of surprise.”

  “Did Angelina know about the rings?” asked Riddel.

  “I never mentioned them to her,” I said. “But obviously she couldn’t have led a home invader to the box if she didn’t know about it. Maybe she found it on her own. It’s not like I had it hidden in the attic.”

  “But there’s another problem,” said Santos.

  “What?”

  She walked to the dresser where Angelina’s jewelry box lay in plain view. Santos opened it. “Angelina’s engagement ring is still here.”

  I walked over. The diamond ring was right where Angelina placed it every night before going to sleep. Rid looked at me, and I at him, both searching for an explanation.

  “That’s a puzzler, ain’t it?” said Rid.

  “Yeah,” said Santos, looking at me. “Got an answer for that?”

  I stared at Angelina’s ring, thinking. “No. I really don’t.”

  Santos told Rid to follow up with the investigators. “Make sure they covered the cabinet area thoroughly,” she added.

  Rid and I followed her out of the bedroom and back to the living room. I adjusted the thermostat to a normal level, one that wouldn’t bankrupt me. Rid got a phone call and stepped into the kitchen. I had a moment alone with Santos.

  “I want the polygraph results,” I said.

  “You can’t have them. I never promised—”

  “I know, I know. Riddel told me. You never promised to share the results. That’s bullshit. The right to the results is part of any agreement to take a polygraph.”

  “It wasn’t part of our agreement.”

  “That’s just sleazy,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You have this awesome reputation as a stellar FBI agent. But I don’t see it. I’ve dealt with criminal defense lawyers so slimy that I want to wear a wetsuit whenever I’m in the same room with them. Even they wouldn’t pull a stunt like this one.”

  “You need to be careful here, Mr. Beckham.”

  “Why? Because you might turn against me? You convicted me a long time ago, before you even saw the evidence.”

  “That is not true.”

  “It is true.” I was building up steam, and probably should have stopped, but I couldn’t. “You had it all figured out. A pretty wife, an old fling with Tyla Tomkins, and a broken beer bottle all add up to a guilty husband. And then what happens? Guilty husband sits for a polygraph. And guess what? Husband passes.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You won’t share the results because I passed. That doesn’t fit very well with your theory of the case, does it? I passed, but you don’t want me to be able to tell anyone that I passed. That is the shittiest thing I’ve ever seen a law enforcement officer do, and you suck for doing it. You suck, and I’m telling you to your face.”

  I shouldn’t have said it, but it felt good. For the first time in a long time, someth
ing felt good. I didn’t care that Santos was so steaming mad that I almost needed to turn the AC back down to sixty.

  She took a step closer, her eyes like embers. “I was doing you a favor.”

  I stared back at her, confused.

  “Until now, you could honestly say that you were willing to take a polygraph, that you took a polygraph, and that the FBI refused to share the results. Now you have to tell the truth, Mr. Beckham.”

  I felt it coming, but I didn’t want to believe it. Then the hammer dropped.

  “You failed,” she said.

  I suddenly lost all ability to speak. Santos walked away, leaving me alone in the room where I had last seen my wife.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Rid drove me to the Find Angelina Beckham command center. It was news to me that one existed. I had Angelina’s friend Sloane to thank.

  Sloane had convinced the manager of a motor lodge on busy US 1, right across from the University of Miami, to donate a ballroom for the next two weeks. About a hundred civilian volunteers were inside when Rid and I arrived. People were lining up to distribute flyers, leaflets, and posters with Angelina’s picture on them. A group of women at another table were busily tying yellow ribbons into bows. A dozen others were tapping away on their laptops, tablets, and other devices, spreading the word in the virtual world of social media. It was an impressive operation, but they had enough coffee, fruit, and snacks spread across three tables to serve at least double the turnout. It was like Samantha’s funeral: anyone who didn’t know what to do brought food.

  The door was open, but I stopped at the entrance. Across the ballroom, on the wall behind the tables of food, a much-larger-than-life-size head shot of Angelina was staring at me. Of course I’d been dealing with the crisis and was painfully aware of what I was up against, but the word MISSING in bold black letters beneath her face still hit me like a mule kick.

  Angelina’s sister came to me. She and her husband had just arrived from Jacksonville. I introduced Rid, but he quickly excused himself to check out the food and give us time alone.