Dirty Harriet

by Miriam Auerbach

  Oh. Well, no, that hadn’t occurred to me. Okay, just call me Ditzy Harriet.

  “Yeah, I guess you could be right,” I said. “I didn’t get a good look at the driver. But who could it be? If I’ve stumbled on to some major clue, damned if I know what it is.”

  “Don’t know, darlin’. But you’d better watch your back.”

  Sounded like good advice to me. We rode on in silence till we reached the swamp.

  “Thanks a lot, guys,” I said, getting out of the truck. “I owe you.”

  “No problem,” Chuck said. “Call you in the morning.”

  “It’s been my pleasure,” Enrique said. “Next time you’re up shit creek without a paddle, who you gonna call? Ha! See you later, alligator!”

  I piloted the airboat out to my cabin. I docked, walked in, poured myself some Hennessy, and took my seat on the porch. I felt pretty bruised and battered, down and out.

  Lana floated into sight off to the side of the cabin.

  “Hey,” I said. “I had a run-in with your cousin today. Tell the family to back off, will ya? What did I ever do to you guys?”

  She didn’t bat an eyelid. Of course, they never do. It’s a reptilian thing.

  I took a swallow of the cognac and felt it light a fire down my throat. I pulled in a deep breath and reflected on the day’s events, starting with that morning’s visit with the coroner.

  “So Gladys had a hysterectomy,” I told Lana. “And it must have been sometime in the year before her death, after she got her IUD. Because if it was before that, why would Farber have told me she had an IUD? So where did she get the hysterectomy? Not at the Isis Clinic, since Farber said she hadn’t been there in a year. I’ll have to ask Lupe where else she might have gotten health care.”

  Lana cast me a disapproving glance.

  “Yeah, I know—what’s this got to do with her murder, anyway? No connection, as far as I can see. And who the hell ran me off the road if it wasn’t an accident? It couldn’t be because of anything I found out this morning at the coroner’s. How could anyone get to me that fast?

  “Maybe Gladys was killed by some of those xenophobic bigot wing nuts who are out to rid Florida of foreigners and don’t want me on their case. But how would they be on to me? I haven’t come across anybody like that in my investigation. Except Jake Lamont, the crew boss, maybe. So, I’m back to the gunrunning angle. That seems more promising. Probably Gladys knew too much and had to be shut up.”

  Well, that brought me right back to where I’d been a couple days ago. And what about Eulalia’s plea for me to personally help her, and “us”? Whom was she referring to? Damn—I wasn’t making a hell of a lot of headway on the case. And I was getting a hell of a headache, besides.

  “I’m gonna sleep on it,” I told Lana. “Maybe I’ll be like that DNA dude who went to bed, dreamed of entwined snakes, and woke up knowing that the DNA structure was a double helix. Except I’ll wake up knowing the identity of the killer!”

  Lana rolled her eyes. Her meaning was clear: “In your dreams, sucka.”

  Chapter 14

  I TOSSED and turned most of the night, the facts of the case going around and around in my mind. I finally fell asleep only to dream about—of all people—Lior, my hard-body Krav Maga instructor. Specifically, it was his hard body I dreamed of. More specifically, his hard body next to mine, his legs intertwined with mine, his fingers intertwined with mine, his tongue intertwined with—

  I woke up in a hot sweat. Man, what was up with that? Like I’ve said before, I was not attracted to Lior. Was not, was not, was not! On the other hand, this dream sure beat the nightmares I’d had a few days ago.

  My inner debate was unceremoniously interrupted by the phone ringing.

  It was Chuck. “I reckon you’re ready to roll,” he said. “Bike dried out just fine. I replaced your spark plugs and checked all your electrical wiring. It started right up and purrs like a pussycat. Tell you what. Things are kinda slow around here this morning. What say I come meet you in about an hour?”

  “Cool,” I said. “You’re the man.”

  I took a quick shower, got dressed, made some coffee, and took it with me out onto the boat.

  I met Chuck at the dock, and he unloaded my Hog from the tow truck. He headed back to the Greasy Rider, and I headed to ScamBusters—two working stiffs off for another hard day at the salt mines.

  My restless night had convinced me that I was only going in circles with my current line of investigation. I needed to go in a fresh direction.

  I decided to find out what else had been going down in town around the time of Gladys’s murder. Maybe I could find some connection among events that might give me a lead. Yeah, I know it was a long shot, but I was going nowhere fast on the track I was on, so why not?

  I got to the office and turned on my computer. I logged on to the Internet and accessed the archives of the Palm Beach Post. I decided to skim the news from a month before to a month after Gladys’s death.

  Amid the usual scams and scandals, the first item of interest was that a rebel insurgency had occurred in Guatemala about three weeks before Gladys’s death. After quelling the uprising, the Guatemalan government had uncovered a cache of U.S.-manufactured weapons stored in the baggage compartment of a tour bus that shuttled American tourists from their luxury hotels to the ancient Mayan ruins.

  The paper had several follow-up articles to the story in subsequent days. I learned that Guatemalan officials were appealing to the U.S. government for help in finding and extraditing presumed arms smugglers operating within U.S. borders.

  Okay. So right around the time of Gladys’s murder, the heat was on to crack down on arms smuggling. This strengthened my theory about Gladys being killed by the Indigenous People’s Liberation Front. If the feds were closing in, Gladys, the recently legalized member of the group, would have been seen as their weakest link. Okay, so I had a strong theory, but how was I going to prove it?

  Deciding I needed to keep an open mind to all possibilities, I kept skimming the paper. Well, here was something else of interest. A few days before Gladys disappeared, a truck loaded with Mayan field laborers had crashed in dense early-morning fog out on Highway 441. The American driver, who had been wearing his seat belt, survived, but the sixteen Mayan workers who had been standing in the bed of the truck were all killed.

  The usual band of county, state, and federal politicians trotted out to express their horror at the tragedy, extend their sympathies to the families of the deceased, and blame Mother Nature. A group of protesters led by Lupe demonstrated in downtown West Palm, demanding reparations for the dead workers’ families and safe working conditions for all tomato pickers in the future.

  Big Tomato sent out its public relations spin doctors to disavow any responsibility for the tragedy, saying the laborers’ transportation was provided by contractors, so if Mother Nature wasn’t at fault, the middlemen were. This flurry of activity went on for a few days, but the newspaper and the public soon lost interest since the story didn’t involve either their tax dollars or their elected representatives’ sex lives.

  So here was another possibility. Had Gladys known something about this accident? Was there more to this story than there appeared to be? Was Big Tomato engaged in some kind of cover-up of its liability in this disastrous loss of human life? Was Gladys about to expose the truth? It wouldn’t be the first time Corporate America had knocked off an informant, would it? I had to admit, however, that this theory wasn’t as strong as the gunrunning one. It was speculation, mostly.

  I kept on surfing through the Post’s archived Web pages. Having decided to take this approach, I felt compelled to do it thoroughly, taking at least a cursory glance at every single news item, be it sports, obits, or whatever.

  I clicked on the society page for the week before Gladys’s death. There were the u
sual articles about fund-raising events for this and that cause—enslaved Mayan laborers not being among them—accompanied by photos of the affluent so valiantly helping the afflicted by wearing ball gowns and sipping champagne.

  One of the photos was of Tricia Weinstein and Mark Cohen. It had been taken at the Boca Heart Association benefit on Valentine’s Day, the night before Gladys’s disappearance. They were standing in front of some kind of huge red heart decoration, and they were perfectly matched—Tricia in a black satin gown with red trim, Mark in a black suit with red tie. I remembered how Tricia had insisted Mark match his outfit to hers that day I had been at their house. Jeez, what a way to live—always having to blend yourself into somebody’s perfect picture. Oh, yeah, I guess I do know something about that kind of life.

  Mark didn’t appear to be bothered in the photo, though. He had on a big smile and had one arm around Tricia, his suit coat hanging open to reveal his fit torso. I noticed a speck on the end of his tie. Determined to find some imperfection in this picture-perfect duo, I clicked to zoom in on the image. Maybe his tie had dipped into the cheese dip or something. On the other hand, I guess cheese dip was too plebeian for an event like this. Oh, for God’s sake, what was I babbling on to myself about? Get a grip.

  But now I was obsessed and had to see what it was. I kept enlarging the photo till the speck was clearly visible. It was just some letters embroidered onto the tie: YSL, the designer logo of Yves Saint Laurent. Big deal. But wait a minute. Hadn’t I heard something about a red Yves Saint Laurent tie before? That’s right. When I’d been at Mark and Tricia’s house, he’d asked if she’d seen that tie.

  So, he had the tie on the night before Gladys’s disappearance, and now it was missing. And wait another minute. Hadn’t the coroner said there was a red silk thread embedded in Gladys’s neck? Wouldn’t a tie make a great strangulation device? Was this a little too coincidental or what?

  It was time for me to have a little heart-to-heart with Mark Cohen about the night of the Boca Heart Association ball.

  Chapter 15

  THE POLICE FILE on Gladys indicated that Mark was employed at Cohen & Cohen Financial Planners in downtown Boca. I decided a surprise visit would be the optimal strategy so that he wouldn’t have time to develop some elaborate explanation about his missing tie.

  So, after a lunch of bagels and lox from Saul’s Deli down the street, I rode over to Mark’s office. It was located a few blocks from the beach in a medium-rise office building. Boca doesn’t do high-rise; it’s part of the aesthetic code. I rode the elevator to the third floor and proceeded to Suite 315.

  I won’t bother describing the receptionist, since you already know what’s up with that. She buzzed Mark on the speaker phone.

  “A Ms. Harriet Horowitz is here to see you.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s about Gladys Gutierrez,” I said. She relayed the message.

  “Who?” he asked again. Yeah, I guess he was as absentminded as Tricia had said.

  “His former housekeeper,” I told the receptionist, and she again relayed the information.

  “Oh,” he said. “Okay, send her in, please.” Apparently, he wasn’t nearly as busy as his wife.

  The receptionist showed me into a private office that opened off the entry area. Mark rose to greet me from behind his desk. Today he had on a light gray suit, a matching fleur-de-lis tie, and a smile.

  “Nice to see you again, Ms. Horowitz,” he said, shaking my hand. “But I’m a little surprised. What can I do for you?’

  “I just wanted to follow up on something regarding Gladys’s murder,” I said.

  “Sure, but if Tricia couldn’t help you, I don’t know how I can,” he said.

  “Well, I think this may have more to do with you. Would you mind telling me about your relationship with Gladys?”

  “What relationship? I didn’t have anything to do with her. Tricia takes care of all the household matters.”

  Okay, the subtle lead-in wasn’t getting me anywhere. He could just keep up the denial all day. I decided to go for the full-frontal assault.

  “When I was at your house a few days ago,” I said, “you happened to mention a missing red tie. Guess what? Today I ran across this on the Web.” I handed him the photo that I’d printed on my supercool, recently acquired laser color printer.

  He looked at the picture and frowned. “So? Yeah, that’s the tie, but what’s the tie-in to Gladys, pardon my pun?”

  “This photo was taken the night before Gladys disappeared,” I said.

  “I still don’t get your point.”

  “Do you recall that night?”

  “Not really. Wait, was that Valentine’s Day?”

  I nodded.

  “Yeah, some kind of fund-raiser, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Horowitz. We go to so many of those things. They all run together after a while. Nothing stands out about that night from any other.”

  “So you don’t remember what might have happened to your tie?”

  “My tie? No, I don’t know what you’re getting at.” Not too swift, was he? Guess he was missing a chip or two in his central processing unit.

  “Wait a minute!” Some circuits finally seemed to have connected. “Are you implying that I strangled Gladys with my tie? You can’t be serious.” He stared at me incredulously.

  I didn’t say anything, waiting for him to hang himself with his own rope, so to speak. He kept looking at me for several seconds. Then a smug smile broke out on his face.

  “Oh, I get it,” he said proudly, like he’d just solved some mind-bending puzzle. “You think I was banging Gladys, and she threatened to tell my wife, so I killed her. Yeah, I can see how you might think that. Here I am, a regular nice guy, not the sharpest knife in the drawer—I’m well aware of that—with a ballbusting wife who obviously runs the show. Your typical henpecked husband. I must be getting some on the side, right?

  “Well, you couldn’t be more wrong, lady. Let me tell you something—my wife is the most intelligent, most organized, most together person I know. And that’s exactly how I like it. Why should I feel threatened by her success? I have absolutely no problem with it. Whatever I can do to help her with her goals, you’d better believe I’ll do it. As far as I’m concerned, two hotshots in one marriage is just a setup for failure, and I’m happy to take the back seat.”

  Well, how about that—a post-Neanderthal husband. A pretty rare sighting, in my experience.

  He continued, “Not only that, but my wife is the sexiest woman on the planet. Our love life is fantastic. So I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the Cohen-Weinstein marriage is doing just great. And it only gets better with time.”

  “That’s great,” I said.

  “Now that you’ve reminded me about that night, I remember it well. When we got home from that party, Tricia had a surprise for me. In honor of Valentine’s Day, she’d gotten a heart-shaped bikini wax at Marushka’s.”

  He was referring to Marushka’s Day Spa, a renowned Boca establishment whose eponymous proprietress was known to the cognoscenti as the “Edwardina Scissorhands” of the bikini area.

  “So,” Mark went on, “as you can imagine, we had some pretty hot action going that night.”

  Please. I’d rather not imagine. Who did this guy think he was kidding? Everyone knows one of life’s basic truisms: the more someone talks about his sex life, the less of it he actually has.

  “Well, thanks for setting me straight on that,” I said with as straight a face as I could muster. “So you have no idea what happened to that tie?”

  “As a matter of fact, since you’ve reminded me of that night,” he repeated, “now I remember exactly what happened. At our little private après-party party, I spilled some red wine on it. A merlot, I believe. I didn’t
notice till the next morning, and of course by then it was ruined. So I had to toss it.”

  “All right,” I said. “I appreciate your help.” I rose to go.

  “Yeah, like I said, sorry to disappoint you,” he said. “But I wish you luck on the case. Even though I didn’t really know Gladys too well, of course, as a human being it bothers me that this heinous crime has gone unsolved.”

  He walked me to the door.

  “By the way,” he said, “if you or any of your family or friends ever need investment advice, give me a call.” He handed me his card.

  Oh, here we go yet again. Was everybody in Boca on the make? Yeah, I know, stupid question.

  “Sure, I’ll do that,” I said. As if.

  When I got back to the office, I called the contessa and filled her in.

  “I have to admit,” I said, “that Mark was probably telling the truth. If he really had strangled Gladys with that tie, why would he be asking Tricia about it, in front of me, a year later?”

  “Yes,” she agreed, “it seems like this red tie has turned into a red herring.”

  “So, it looks like I’m back to square one. But there is an avenue of investigation that I haven’t followed up yet—talking to the other members of Tricia and Mark’s household staff who worked there at the same time as Gladys.”

  “Very well, proceed,” the contessa said, and hung up.

  I got out the list of names and numbers that Tricia had given me. I was able to get hold of Crystal Collins, the cook, and Jean Petit-Jean, the gardener. I have to admit that cell phones have made the P.I.’s job a little easier. Everybody has them, even the poorest of the poor, so you can pretty much get hold of anybody, anytime. I just wish the asshole drivers would hang the hell up while on the road and the yakkers wouldn’t announce their business to everyone within a half-mile radius. I really don’t want to hear about some old geezer’s prostate problems while waiting in the checkout line at Publix.