Murder, She Wrote: Prescription For Murder

by Jessica Fletcher

  “Tell you why I was going to call,” he said. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that we’re treating Dr. Vasquez’s death as a possible homicide.”

  “Oh?”

  “Looks like the victim wasn’t struck by lightning after all, according to the ME.”

  Neither Seth nor I said anything. I knew that Seth was thinking what I was—that it might not go over well for the lead detective on the case to know that the medical examiner had told us that Vasquez wasn’t hit by lightning before he’d been informed.

  “Then what did kill him?” Seth finally asked.

  Machado shrugged his large shoulders and rolled his fingertips on the table. “They’re doing the toxicological studies as we speak. Of course, it could end up that he had a heart attack or a stroke, only the ME says he doesn’t think that’s the case. He told me that he had a conversation with you, Dr. Hazlitt.”

  “Ayuh, that’s right, we did have a chat.”

  “Sometimes the ME and us here in law enforcement don’t always connect the way we should. What’d he tell you?”

  Seth was on the spot, and I wondered how he’d handle it.

  “He didn’t have too much to say,” was Seth’s reply. “We sorta had a medical conversation, you know, doctor to doctor.” He smiled.

  Machado did not. “I thought that because you were close to the victim, witnessed when he died, and are a physician, that Dr. San Martín might have told you things that he hasn’t passed along to us yet.”

  I said, “Excuse me for injecting myself, Detective, but why would your medical examiner keep things from the police? That strikes me as highly unusual.”

  Machado, who wasn’t a man for whom smiling came easily, managed one and said, “Doc San Martín sometimes gets his back up when it comes to passing on information. Doesn’t like to be rushed. Plus, like any PD, we occasionally have somebody leak something to the press that shouldn’t be leaked. The doc has raised holy hell about it more than once. For me, I think he’s wrong to take it on himself to decide what to give us when and what to keep under his hat, but there’s not a lot I can do about it.” Seth started to respond, but Machado added, “And I’ll tell you another thing. The PD isn’t the only source of leaks. The ME’s office has had its share, too.” Machado’s voice mirrored the fatigue on his round face. He sounded very much like a man under siege, someone in need of a vacation. I knew how he felt.

  “This is all very interesting,” Seth said, “but you said you intended to contact us about it. Why?”

  “A couple of reasons. First off, Dr. Hazlitt, I’m told that you and the deceased were pretty chummy.”

  “Friends? Yes, we were,” said Seth.

  “Good enough that you made multiple trips to spend time with him.”

  “I don’t know that I would call four trips over several years ‘multiple.’ I was simply visitin’ a friend.”

  “Pretty expensive flying back and forth—to visit a friend.”

  “Not terribly expensive,” Seth said. “Wouldn’t you spend some money to enjoy time with a good friend?”

  “Oh, sure, and don’t get me wrong. I’m not accusing you of anything. It’s just that because you and the victim were close, he might have told you things that would help me with my investigation.”

  It was the perfect time to bring up the letter that Vasquez had left for Seth, or at least to mention Vasquez’s fear for his life. Seth picked up on the cue.

  “Matter of fact, there is something you might find helpful.”

  Machado came forward in his chair and picked up a pen from his desk. “Shoot,” he said.

  “Al—Dr. Vasquez feared for his life.”

  “Whoa,” Machado said. “When did he tell you that?”

  “He, ah—well, to be honest with you, Detective, he wrote it to me in a letter.”

  I smiled at Seth. I was relieved that he’d decided to be completely honest and to not try to slant the story.

  “When did he write you this letter?”

  “A few days ago.”

  “And you knew about it the day he died and didn’t come forward with it?”

  “He wrote it a few days ago, but I didn’t receive it until this morning.”

  Machado wrote something on a lined yellow pad before asking, “He mailed it to you here in Tampa? Where? Your hotel?”

  “No, I—”

  Obviously Seth didn’t want to admit that he’d taken it from Vasquez’s home office without permission, but he answered the question. “He left it for me at his house. Mrs. Fletcher and I were there this morning.”

  “Wait a minute,” Machado said. “He dies a couple of days ago but leaves a letter for you at the house?”

  “That’s correct. He said that he intended to give it to me the night he died, after the party Mrs. Fletcher and I attended. Unfortunately he didn’t live long enough to follow through.”

  “Okay,” said the detective, “I think I understand. Where is the letter?”

  “I have it right here,” Seth said as he fished it from his inside jacket pocket and handed it across the desk.

  Machado opened the envelope, placed a pair of half-glasses on the bridge of his nose, and read. When he was finished, he said, “He doesn’t say who he thought might kill him. Did he give you any names?”

  “No,” Seth said. “This was the first I learned of his concern.”

  Machado said to me, “Where do you fit into all of this, Mrs. Fletcher?”

  “I really don’t fit in at all,” I said, “aside from being Dr. Hazlitt’s friend.”

  “You’re more than that,” Machado said.

  “Meaning?”

  “I Googled you. From what I read, you not only write big bestselling murder mysteries; you’ve been involved in more than a few real ones yourself—at least according to newspaper reports I got off the Internet, lots of stories about some of those cases.”

  “It’s nothing I brag about,” I said.

  “Hey,” he said, “I’m impressed. If you ever quit writing for a living, maybe you could become a cop.”

  “I think it’s a little late for a change in career, Detective Machado.”

  “No offense,” he said. “Look. If the ME is correct, that Dr. Vasquez might have been done in by someone else, I’ve got a real hot potato of a case on my hands. Vasquez was well-known in Tampa and controversial, too. My boss, Major Stacks, is already getting pressure from local Cuban American groups.”

  “Why?” I asked. “As far as the public knows, Dr. Vasquez was killed by a lightning strike.”

  “Tampa’s no different from anyplace else,” Machado said. “We’ve got our share of conspiracy buffs. Word gets around that some people think that maybe Vasquez wasn’t killed by lightning and their paranoia shifts into high gear. Our liaison officers who work with the Cuban community tell us that some people are convinced that Vasquez was killed by our government to get his research and keep it out of Castro’s hands. We’ve also got pressure from the feds.”

  “The FBI?”

  “Right. So my boss tells me in no uncertain terms to wrap this up.”

  “Why would the FBI be interested in a local death?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t sounding too naïve.

  “Because of who the victim was, Mrs. Fletcher. Vasquez defected from Cuba. It made all the papers. He supposedly was sitting on some medical breakthrough that the Cubans would want back, and the feds obviously want to make sure that that doesn’t happen.”

  “I certainly understand,” Seth said. “That’s why we stopped by, to let you know about the letter.”

  Machado glanced at the sheet of paper again. “So Vasquez tells you that he left you copies of his research. Did you go to this self-storage place?”

  “Yes.” Seth pulled the three original thumb drives from his jacket and handed them to the detective.

>   “It’s all on these?” Machado asked.

  Seth nodded. “As far as I know.”

  “You haven’t looked at them?”

  Seth shook his head, and I knew he was relieved to be telling the truth.

  “What else is in that storage place?”

  “Nothing,” I answered, “just a small table and the box in which these were housed.”

  “You take the box and table from there?”

  “No,” Seth said. “We left them.”

  Machado exhaled a long, poignant stream of air and stood. “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “The storage place.”

  “Is it really necessary for us to go with you?” I asked.

  “Can’t make you, but I’d appreciate it.”

  A half hour later we were walking down the hallway toward space number sixty-one, whose door was wide-open.

  “You locked it when you left?” Machado asked.

  “Ayuh, I’m sure I did,” Seth said.

  We stepped inside. The smoked plastic box was gone; only the table remained.

  Machado abruptly turned and left the room, with us following. We went to the lobby, where Machado flashed his TPD badge to a young woman at the desk. “I need to speak with the manager,” the detective said. A few minutes later, a man appeared and introduced himself, checked Machado’s badge, and said, “Not again.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Machado asked.

  “You’re the second cop—law enforcement officer—who’s been here this afternoon.”

  “Who was the other one?”

  “FBI.”

  “FBI? You’re sure?”

  “He had his credentials. He wanted us to open one of the lockers.”

  “Number sixty-one,” I said.

  “That’s right. He said that the renter was deceased—Dr. Vasquez. I’d read that the doctor had died, hit by lightning, so I opened the locker and this FBI agent took what was in there, not much, just a table and a box on it. He took the box.”

  The manager accompanied us back to the open storage space, and Machado looked around. There was nothing to see aside from the table, which he dismissed with a cursory running of his hand over it. He thanked the manager and we retreated to Machado’s unmarked car.

  “Looks like you were right about the FBI being interested,” Seth said as we drove back to police headquarters.

  “The agent must have been after what Dr. Vasquez wanted Seth to have, the thumb drives he gave you,” I said.

  Machado grunted and drove the last few blocks in silence.

  “Appreciate you coming in,” he said to us as we prepared to get into our yellow rental car.

  “What will you do with those thumb drives we gave you?” I asked. “They contain what could be very valuable information about Dr. Vasquez’s medical research.”

  “We have experts to check them. I want to know whether he names names or says anything about fearing for his life. There’s probably nothing, but then again . . . Anyway, thanks again for your cooperation. You can still be reached at the hotel?”

  “Ayuh,” Seth responded.

  “How long do you plan on staying in Tampa?”

  “Hard to say,” Seth said.

  “I’ll stay in touch,” Machado said, and walked away.

  When we’d gotten in the car I said, “Either someone other than Dr. Vasquez knew that he’d rented that storage space, or—”

  “Or what, Jessica?”

  “Or someone followed us there, and that someone is involved with the government.”

  We drove a little farther before I asked, “Just how long do you plan on staying, Seth?”

  He ran his tongue over his lips before answering. “As long as it takes to find out what really did happen to Al.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Seth was eager to get back to the hotel to read what was on the thumb drives, but I suggested that we first stop at Carlos Cespedes’s cigar shop and factory. “He said that he wanted to discuss something about Dr. Vasquez’s death,” I said. “As long as you’re committed to getting to the bottom of it, we should follow up on every possible source of information.”

  “Is that what you’d have people do if you were writing this as a novel?” he asked.

  “Yes, I suppose I would,” I said.

  “Makes sense,” he said.

  I retrieved Cespedes’s business card and read off the address to him, then consulted the street map that came with the rental car and gave directions.

  Cespedes Fine Cigars was located in downtown Ybor City. The owner’s business card billed it as a cigar factory and shop, although from the looks of it the use of the term “factory” was a misnomer. In reality, it was no more than a storefront with two small tables and a few chairs on the sidewalk in front. A sign next to the door offered coffee, cold drinks, and “Authentic Cuban Pastries.” An older woman and a younger man occupied one of the tables. Both had large white mugs in front of them, and both were drawing on cigars.

  We found a parking space in a lot across the street. As we got out and waited for traffic to clear before crossing, a family of four, mother, father, and two youngsters, emerged from Cespedes’s shop, each carrying a small plastic shopping bag.

  “You don’t figure they bought cigars for the kids, do you?” Seth mused.

  “Only chocolate ones, I hope,” I said as we took advantage of a break in traffic and walked across.

  The door to the shop was open, and we entered. A long counter to the left held a cash register and clear plastic boxes containing an assortment of cigars. Stacks of colorful cigar boxes filled shelves mounted on the wall. A young woman sat on a stool browsing through a magazine.

  “Buenos días,” she said.

  “Buenos días,” I replied. “Is Mr. Cespedes in?”

  She pointed to the rear of the shop and went back to reading.

  Our view of the back of the shop was obscured by a row of large barrels in which tropical plants bloomed. Once we reached them, we could see beyond to where two older men sat at wooden tables rolling cigars. They looked up for a moment before returning to their tasks, and I recognized one as Adelmo, who had been making cigars at Alvaro Vasquez’s party. I was about to ask for Mr. Cespedes when he appeared through a slit in a red curtain.

  “Ah,” he said, smiling and coming to us, his hand outstretched, “you came, you came. I am so pleased.”

  “Thank you for the invitation,” Seth said. “So this is your cigar shop.”

  I judged Cespedes to be in his late sixties or early seventies. A short, balding man with a sizable paunch, he wore a red-and-white checkered shirt and tan slacks and had a malleable face on which he adopted a hangdog look. “It used to be much more, I am afraid. I once owned a whole building here in Ybor City, a real factory. I even had lectors.”

  My puzzled expression prompted him to explain.

  “Lectors,” he said. “Readers. While my tabaqueros and tabaqueras, the cigar rollers, do their work, the readers sit high above them and read aloud from the newspapers, or short stories. It is a very Cuban thing, very educational, yes?”

  “I saw and heard the lectors when I was in Havana,” Seth said.

  “Ah, Havana,” Cespedes sighed. “I miss it.”

  “You never go back?” I asked.

  “Once—no, twice—many years ago. It is very different now that the imbécil Castro is there. I would go shoot him myself if I could.”

  My attention drifted to what the men were doing at their tables.

  “Ah,” Cespedes said, “too much from me about Castro, huh? You’re interested in how my cigars are made.”

  One of the rollers, or tabaqueros, as I now knew, picked up a small rounded knife and banged it on his table. Adelmo did likewise.

  Cespedes
laughed. “They welcome you with their banging, a Cuban custom.”

  I remembered that Adelmo had rapped his knife on the table when I’d said hello at the party. At the time, I hadn’t realized he was responding to my greeting.

  “That is the chaveta,” Cespedes continued, “the knife used to smooth and cut the tobacco leaves, smooth the filler tobacco, cut the tips. They say they circumcise the tips, like a baby. See? He rolls the tobacco into a tube that goes into the wooden mold. Then he takes the solid cylinder—we call it the ‘bunch’—and lays it on the wrapper and uses a tiny bit of vegetable glue to secure the second wrapper. Then he glues the cap into place and trims any excess tobacco.”

  “How many can he roll in a day?” I asked.

  “For those medium-sized cigars, maybe one hundred, maybe a little more. For the bigger, fatter cigars, not so many.” He gave out a plaintive sigh. “Everything is so different now in Ybor City. Once there were a hundred and fifty factories rolling a quarter of a million cigars every year. Now, for me, there is only this.” He took in his shop with a wave of his hand. “It is a shame that you weren’t here last month for the cigar festival. A team rolled the world’s longest cigar, a hundred feet long. You can check it in that Guinness book.”

  I laughed as I envisioned a hundred-foot-long cigar.

  Seth broke in with, “You said that you wanted to talk to us about Al Vasquez’s death, Mr. Cespedes.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  A family of tourists came through the front door.

  “Please, come with me,” Cespedes said as he parted the red curtains. “We can talk better in here.”

  Behind the curtains was a small office. Large posters of famous cigar labels of the past dominated the walls. A calculator surrounded by piles of papers sat on a desk. Family photographs in silver frames were lined up on a table behind the desk.

  “You were Alvaro’s good friend,” he said as Seth and I sat in director’s chairs with floral-patterned canvas seats and backs, while he perched on a stool.

  “That’s right,” Seth said. “I assume that you were a close friend, too.”