“Then there had to be something.”
“Afraid not, Frank. There wasn’t anything other than an alcohol level that, if I recall, was borderline legal.”
“It doesn’t make sense. I was sure they’d come up with something. They checked for all substances?”
“It’s standard practice, and keep in mind we also checked for prescription drugs, like opioids, barbiturates, and amphetamines.”
“So, it was a heart attack?”
“It appears to be.”
“Tell me, Doc, if this guy died naturally of a heart attack, like you’re saying, why would somebody try to hide the body or make it look like he disappeared?”
“Isn’t that your area of expertise, Detective?”
***
I didn’t get it. Why make it look like murder? What the hell was going on? A heart attack in a healthy male? Wait, there was that crazy case where that woman was put on trial for killing a guy with sex. She’d given the old bastard a heart attack. Gabelli certainly liked the girls. Could it be something like that? But why cover it up? If his heart gave out making whoopee it wasn’t a crime. Unless there was some facet to it that caused his heart to blow.
Could someone have hired a sex tigress to give him a heart attack, using one of the popper things that race your heart? After he collapsed they panicked, or, who knows, maybe they started arguing and wanted to get rid of the body? But what was there to gain? You kill someone out of jealousy, for love, for money, for revenge. What’s missing is a reasonable motive.
I punched in a number into my cell.
“Doc, it’s me again. Say, I’ve been thinking about Gabelli and his heart attack. Could it be that he was using or someone gave him a popper during sex?”
“You mean Amyl Nitrite?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Amyl Nitrite is a vasodilator; it causes the blood vessels to dilate. As a result, the user’s blood pressure drops quickly, while at the same time the drug causes the heart to race.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Like all drugs, it is.”
“Could it have caused Gabelli’s heart attack?”
“Difficult to say. There’ve been cases of cardiac arrest with its use. But usually it’s a habitual use thing that over time weakens the heart muscles.”
“Did you check for it in the toxicology workup?”
“No, it’s extremely difficult to pinpoint it as it dissipates very quickly. We could try running a test and see what comes back, but I didn’t see any evidence the victim was a user.”
“How could you tell if he was using?”
“Typically, small crusty, yellow lesions are found around the nose and mouth. The nasal cavities are also inflamed.”
“You said his nose was inflamed. Remember?”
“Yes, but it’s my opinion that Amyl Nitrite was not the cause. Like I said a moment ago, if it were, there would be signs of use.”
“Can you do me a favor? Run whatever report you need to see if you can find any traces of Amyl Nitrite.”
“If you insist, Frank. I’m heading to the Keys tonight for a week. I’ll do it when I get back.”
“Can’t you get to it before you head out?”
“I’ve got that six-month-old baby who died, that the parents say was sudden death syndrome, to autopsy, as well as an eighteen-year-old who overdosed. Therefore no, I can’t.”
“I hear you, Doc. Have a good time. Just promise me you’ll do it as soon as you get back.”
***
The more I thought about it the more frustrated I became. How did Gabelli really die? Was it just a heart attack? If that was it, what the fuck was he doing submerged at Clam Pass? If it was murder, then dumping the body is normal. But If it was a natural death, why was he dumped, and who was responsible for it?
***
As I headed into the office I knew the Gabelli riddle had to be put on hold at least until we got the advanced blood work back. Vargas and I had no other active case besides Gabelli, and we’d hit a wall. It’d take at least a week after the doctor ordered the extra toxicology workup to come in. We had two boring weeks ahead of us. If I hadn’t already used up all my time recovering, it would be a perfect time to take a vacation.
That made it time to do what I hated, going through cold cases. I know some detectives love the opportunity to uncover a fellow officer’s mistakes or omissions and solve a dusty case. But to me, and I know it sounds strange, I’d rather leave a sleeping bear alone. It was just more evidence of how flawed we are, and I certainly didn’t need any more reminders.
Knowing I would be putting in time on old cases was the only thing that made me hesitate taking the job down here. Reviewing cold cases was boring and time-consuming. Interviewing people years later, whose memories and recollections were muddied by time, took a great deal of patience, a trait I was currently low on.
I couldn’t understand why Kayla hadn’t called me back. I had called that night and left a message. Waiting for the callback was adding to my frustration. If she didn’t call me back in a day, I’d try one more time and then, well, let’s see what happens.
Chapter 39
Luca
Robin was really unnerved when I told her what was going on. She swore up and down it was a vicious lie. I wanted no part of the emotion, I just wanted an old photo of her husband. After six requests, she finally paused her venting and got me a picture. It was a good one, nice and sharp. I assured her I’d get the mess cleared up, keeping it out of the papers, and said goodbye. Getting into my car, a text alert from forensics said that the report on Blake’s boat was ready.
Putting the phone away, I held the pictures of Gabelli and Foster side by side. They had similar builds, but Gabelli was at least two inches taller, according to the DMV. Foster’s hair was also darker and a lot shorter than Gabelli’s was. It wasn’t the time between haircuts. If anything, Gabelli’s, though longer, appeared recently trimmed.
I put the Gabelli photo on the dashboard and took a closer look at Foster. His beady eyes stared right back at me. This guy was creepy, but if they were both wearing those blue Boy Scout uniforms, could a kid mistake Gabelli for him?
It was tough for me to buy the mistaken identity thing. I could tell they were very different people, even though I’d never met Gabelli. Foster was mousy, and everything I learned about Gabelli classified him as an overconfident extrovert. My gut was telling me Foster was looking to pin a crime on a dead man. But I couldn’t discount it, much as I wanted to.
No matter who it was, though, there was a killer still out there. To focus the hunt for the murderer I’d need to know if it was an abuse-revenge thing or not.
I called Vargas, asking her to get behind the wheel of the backhoe and start digging immediately. I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning and wanted to get to the forensic lab before they closed.
***
It was raining so hard I waited in my car for more than ten minutes. As soon as it slowed, I jumped out and puddle hopped my way into work.
Speckled with wet spots, I fanned my shirt as Vargas finished up a call.
“Get anything on Foster?”
She frowned. “Good morning, Frank. How did your doctor visit go?”
I exhaled. “Morning, Vargas. Everything’s hunky-dory, okay? Can we talk shop?”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Mommy. I’m gonna be around awhile. You have anything?”
She nodded. “Foster moved down here sixteen years ago. He was born in Minnesota and taught in Hermantown, a suburb of Duluth, for close to a dozen years before resigning. I didn’t like the way the administrator said he resigned, and I remember my sister saying you usually need twelve years to be vested in a school pension. When I mentioned that it was strange he’d walk away so close, she agreed. It was the way she agreed; I knew she was holding back. So, I called the Hermantown PTA and tracked down the president during the time, a gu
y named Joe Saturn.”
“Get to it, Vargas. I’m dying of suspense.”
“Saturn said a parent had complained that Foster had acted inappropriately with their son. Something about being in a closet with the seven-year-old.”
“Scumbag. What happened?”
“He said it was never pursued further because the parents of the child didn’t want to have their kid stigmatized, and there were no other witnesses.”
“They let it go?”
“Afraid so, but SCU found a ton of child porn on his laptop, so Foster’s gonna be a guest of the State of Florida for a long time.”
“He should be hung.”
“Maybe. What about the boat?”
“Zippo. No blood or fibers. Nothing. Neighbors also verified that Blake was always going sailing in the middle of the night.”
“Blake is clean?”
“Seems to be.”
“We back to square one?”
I didn’t need the reminder. Every investigation has a ton of dead ends, but I was getting tired of chasing ghosts in this one.
I said, “I got to call Robin and tell her that her husband was just being used by that creep Foster.”
Chapter 40
Luca
Tired after another fitful night’s sleep, I slipped a disc in, put my elbows on the desk, and hit fast-forward. When I found the spot where Blake and his boat appeared I resumed normal viewing speed. The grayness rolled by, but there was nothing of note as the first of the beach walkers came into the lot. It made no sense to pay as close attention to the day visitors since it was now the second day he was missing. Even speeding the video up, it was taking a ton of time. Before I knew it, my pee alarm went off and I took a potty break.
The parking lot grayed with the onset of dusk and I eased the tape back to normal speed. At 8:09 a dark-colored Audi A6 came into the lot, catching my attention with its weaving. A drunk? It pulled close to the entrance and parked. Fifteen minutes passed and then the driver’s door opened. I had my eyes on the bald man who emerged when the passenger door swung open and a long-haired woman in slacks came out waving to her man. Baldy, who didn’t appear inebriated, walked over to her. They linked arms and disappeared down the boardwalk.
The couple came back from their walk at 9:23 and drove off. Shortly afterward, one of those tiny Fiats came in the lot. Sure enough, it was a young couple who got out and began necking. They retreated into their car and left the lot when a Lincoln SUV came into the lot at 10:37. I watched the Lincoln start to bounce gently at 11:05, and they had their fun until leaving at 12:21.
The parking lot was quiet until 2:08, when one of the ugliest cars ever made, a Nissan Cube, came into the lot. The white Cube drove slowly into the lot as I struggled to see if anyone other than the driver was in it. I paused the tape. It looked like it was a male wearing a baseball cap driving, but I still couldn’t tell if he was alone.
The Cube headed for the left corner of the lot and disappeared from the tape, out of the camera’s view. The time stamp on the video kept rolling, but there was nothing to see. I was begging for something to pop out of the grayness. Finally, at 2:41, the Cube came back into view and headed out the lot. I slowed the video as the passenger side came into view. It looked like someone or something could be in the passenger seat, but it was impossible to tell.
I rewound the video to get the license plate number as the Cube came in. The damn plate wasn’t readable. I stopped the tape and zoomed in. All I could get was the last three: 7KW. I jotted it down and moved on.
The herky-jerky video showed nothing until 4:28 a.m., when a white or maybe silver Ford Focus came in, parking close to the entrance. A guy I figured in his thirties got out, leaned on his car, and lit a cigarette. He took a couple of drags and flicked it into the brush. What’s the matter with people? I wanted to ring the moron’s neck as he drove off.
Soon the lot was awash in daylight and a parade of walkers and sun worshippers began streaming in with their paraphernalia. The lot emptied as I fast-forwarded to a 5:00 p.m. time stamp and paused it to go to the bathroom.
I made another call to Kayla but was greeted by her answering machine. After leaving a message, I grabbed a coffee and bagel from the kitchen and sat back at my desk. At ten, the lovers started to drip into Clam Pass. Some took walks, and others, well, who knew what was going on inside those cars? There were always two cars in the lot until 1:09, when it emptied. At 2:31 one of those Chrysler PT Cruisers came in.
It didn’t pull in head-on but instead parked across a couple of spots near the entrance. Two guys got out and opened its hatchback. I inched toward the screen as they dragged out what looked like a large black plastic bag. The men carried the bag, which appeared heavy, and headed down the boardwalk.
What the hell was in that bag? What was the color of the wrapping they found Gabelli in?
I rewound the tape and made a note of the license plate, which was visible as they came in, and grabbed the case file. Thumbing through, I confirmed Gabelli had been wrapped in black plastic. What threw me off was that there were two men. Usually, when more than one person is involved in a killing it involves organized crime or gangs. We’d seen no evidence Gabelli’s bookies had anything to do with his disappearance, but had we cleared them too quickly? Was this another one of my slipups?
Chapter 41
Luca
Sipping a coffee, I headed to my office feeling like warmed-over dog doo. It was four days running I’d slept like shit. The nightmares had returned after an unusually long hiatus that I’d been grateful for. I’d been dogged by nightmares involving the Barrow kid, but they came never more than once every couple of weeks and never on consecutive days. Why the sudden ramp-up? Getting cancer, peeing like a girl, and having to take Viagra ain’t enough?
Making things even spookier was a disturbing new twist. Now the unsettling visions starred me in the third person.
In the past, almost every Barrow nightmare I suffered through featured the Barrow kid hanging from all sorts of places. Most often he was suspended in his jail cell, but he also showed up in my closet, the garage, the refrigerator, even my office. It had always been the same: Barrow twisting ever so slightly, feet pointed due south, chin on chest, shoulders slumped with his eyes wide open, boring holes in me.
The new iteration that kept me from sleeping had two versions. In the first one I was lying in a hospital bed with the drapes drawn. A pair of doctors came in and told me my cancer had come back and that I had just days left to live. When I tried to ask questions, they opened the drapes, revealing a giant-sized Barrow hanging from exposed pipes. The oversized Barrow was shrieking that he’d finally gotten his revenge on me.
Even scarier was the one I’d had the last two nights. In those nightmares, I went to my oncologist’s office for an urgent visit but I couldn’t get in because the waiting room was filled with dozens of Barrows hanging from the ceiling. Frightened I’d miss my appointment, I began banging into the bodies, snaking my way through the hanging corpses into a stark examination room. There was nowhere to sit or be examined and I started to panic. I tried to leave but the door disappeared when I grabbed the doorknob. When I slumped to the ground, a doctor appeared, telling me the cancer had spread. When I asked the doctor what could be done, he shook his head and pointed. A door materialized. The doctor ushered me through it, into a room filled with empty coffins. When he asked which one I would like, each of the coffins had me laid out naked in them.
I had to find a way to shake these, I thought, as I nodded at Vargas and sat.
“You look terrible, Frank.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t tell me nothing. What’s going on?”
“Having trouble sleeping, that’s all.”
“Too much on your mind?”
“Just having some crazy dreams.”
“Tell me. My grandmothe
r was Greek. She taught me quite a bit about how to interpret a dream.”
“They don’t mean anything. It’s just random things being crunched together.”
She shook her head. “Couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“Come on, Vargas, that’s hocus-pocus. Tell me why, then, say you see someone in passing that you hadn’t seen in a while, but you get distracted and forget about them. Sure enough, they’re in your dream that night.”
“There’s two different types of dreams. Everybody has that happen. What you’re experiencing, the repeated, disturbing nightmares, is totally different. Something’s triggering them.”
Was she right? “So, you’re a shrink now?”
“I'm just trying to help you get some sleep, that’s all. Why don’t we go through it?”
I stared silently and took a sip of java.
“Come on, what do you say, Frank? It can’t hurt.”
She should only know. The Barrow stuff did hurt. I didn’t know what to do. She was a good listener, but she was also into silly things like horoscopes. Besides JJ, I never said anything to anybody. JJ and I were buds. We shared things guys wouldn’t, and not a drop ever leaked out.
But Vargas knew how to keep her mouth shut. She’d proven that, and she really gave a damn about me. I considered her a true friend. I know it’s twisted, but the fact is most guys ain’t friends with women. They’re generally looking to hop in the sack with them. At times, Vargas was attractive physically, but the more I knew her, the more I appreciated what a good person she was.
When I got hit with the cancer. Vargas was genuine in her concern and didn’t dish out the macho crap most cops do when a fellow officer is in trouble.
“Hey, Frank, you in there?”
“Uh, sorry, was just thinking.”
Vargas rolled her chair over to my desk.
I said, “Not now, Mary Ann.”
Vanished: A Luca Mystery - Book 2 Page 13