Dirty Harriet
Page 18
“Help me get her out, you moron!” I yelled at Mark.
Just as Lana snapped at Tricia’s foot, Mark and I reached into the swamp, grabbed hold of each of Tricia’s arms, and hauled her out.
Epilogue
AS MARK TENDED to Tricia, I pulled out my gun and aimed it at them. Then I got out my cell phone with my free hand and dialed 911. I asked to be switched to the cop from earlier that evening. I figured they’d still be on the job, doing the paperwork on Farber. I was right. When he got on the phone, I quickly gave him the story, gave him my location in GPS coordinates, and asked him to send reinforcements. They arrived about an hour later in a patrol airboat.
Ultimately, Tricia confessed to Gladys’s murder. In the process, she filled in the missing pieces of the story.
After overhearing Gladys’s and Farber’s discussion at the Isis Clinic, Tricia had bribed the receptionist, a Boca Babe wannabe, into revealing Gladys’s identity in exchange for Tricia’s Prada bag. Then, knowing that the uterus donors were Mayan women, and knowing, as everyone in Boca did, that the Rescue Mission served the Mayans, Tricia hired Gladys through the Mission’s employment service so that she could kill her in her own home. The morning of the murder, Tricia intended to strangle Gladys in the kitchen with the dog leash that hung by her front door. But the dog walker came early that day, taking the leash before Tricia could use it. So Tricia grabbed the nearest available replacement, Mark’s tie. It was lying on the kitchen counter, where he’d left it the night before, slob that he was. After strangling Gladys, Tricia tossed the tie into a canal and dumped Gladys’s body in the tomato field.
After I got on Tricia’s trail, she tried to kill me by running me off the road on my Hog. Then, after I questioned Mark about his red tie, he figured out that Tricia had killed Gladys. So then he came after me, sabotaging my bike. And finally, when they saw the news of Farber’s arrest, they joined forces to get me together.
A FEW DAYS after their arrest, Tricia gave birth to a healthy baby boy. She is now serving a life sentence, and the baby is being raised by Mark, who was indicted for my attempted murder but pled guilty to a lesser charge and is serving house arrest.
Twenty-eight Mayan women from the tomato fields were found to have had hysterectomies, and all are being provided aftercare by the public health clinic. The Isis Clinic was shut down, and Farber and his staff are awaiting trial on the illegal organ transplant charges. Meanwhile, he’s out on bail and basking in the limelight of his notoriety. Stories on him appeared on all the major news channels, and a TV movie-of-the-week is in the works.
The Feds vowed to zealously prosecute the Indigenous People’s Liberation Front for arms dealing, to deport all the Mayan men involved, and crack down on future illegal immigrant trafficking. Shortly after these pronouncements, Big Tomato made some hefty campaign contributions to numerous political candidates of both parties, and the subject never came up again.
Eulalia Lopez was buried next to Gladys Gutierrez in the county cemetery. The contessa paid me generously for my work, so I used part of the payment to buy a headstone for Gladys’s and Eulalia’s graves.
On a cool, foggy morning in March, the contessa, Lupe, Chuck, Enrique, and I rode out to the graveyard. Lupe and I were on my Hog. Chuck had hooked up a sidecar to his. He and Enrique rode on the bike, and the contessa, with Coco in her lap, sat regally in the sidecar, decked out for the occasion in a leather helmet, goggles and a long scarf that flowed in the breeze behind her as our procession made its way through Boca.
We arrived at our destination. The five of us gathered around and watched in silence as the engraved headstone was installed.
Gladys Gutierrez 198?-2005
Eulalia Lopez 198?-2006
Good night, sweet princesses.
May flights of angels sing you to your rest.
On the personal front, this case taught me something about myself. I now understand what the contessa knew all along: Gladys and I did have some common ground. In fact, in the final analysis, Boca Babes weren’t so different from the Mayan women: they were all slaves to something, commodities to be bought and sold. Whether it was tomatoes or Tiffany’s, these women were owned by corporations. And whether the basic trade involved wombs for weapons or blow jobs for bling-bling, it was the men who controlled it.
So here’s what I learned: none of us are free until all of us are free. Working on my own recovery meant working for the recovery of others. So I’d keep fighting for truth and justice for the Mayans and for oppressed women everywhere—my own survival depended on it.
And on a lighter note, spring has brought love, lust, and dangerous liaisons into the air. Leonard Goldblatt is displacing his Cold War obsession by dropping love bombs on Mom. Lior is still popping up, so to speak, in my dreams, so I’ve decided to take the plunge. We’re meeting next week at the shooting range. Just don’t call it a date. And Chuck and Enrique decided to tie the knot and have asked me to serve as their best woman. The ceremony is set for April, shortly after Daytona Bike Week. You won’t find me at the rally, but if you see a lone lady knight on a shining Hog cruising down the highway, it just might be this Boca-turned-Biker Babe.
(Please continue reading for more information.)
Please visit these websites for more information about
Miriam Auerbach
Author’s Webpage
Facebook
Experience Miriam’s other titles from Bell Bridge Books
Dirty Harriet Rides Again
Kindle * Kobo * Barnes and Noble
Google Play * Apple iBooks
Dead In Boca
Kindle * Kobo * Barnes and Noble
Google Play * Apple iBooks
Boca Undercover
Kindle * Kobo * Barnes and Noble
Google Play * Apple iBooks
Sign up for email updates about
Miriam Auerbach
(Please continue reading for more information about the author)
In Loving Memory
Pavel Potocky/Ruben Auerbach
1924—2003
“Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”
—William Shakespeare, The Tempest IV, i
About Miriam Auerbach
Miriam Auerbach is the author of a satirical mystery series set in Boca Raton, Florida and featuring Harley-riding, wisecracking female private eye Harriet Horowitz. Her debut novel, Dirty Harriet, won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First Series Romance. Miriam can only assume that this is because the heroine kills her husband on page one. In a parallel universe, Miriam is known as Miriam Potocky, professor of social work at Florida International University in Miami. She lives in South Florida with her husband and their multicultural canines, a Welsh Corgi and a Brussels Griffon.