by Tami Hoag
No one paid any attention to me as I went up to Lisbeth’s apartment. From the landing I could see a rider going down the driveway with three polo ponies tethered together on either side, taking them out for a jog. I was out of sight of the wash racks. In the other direction, a thick row of trees screened the stable area from the view from the big house.
I tapped on the glass in the door and waited. Tapped a little harder and waited. I tried the doorknob. Locked.
Through the glass and a sheer curtain, I could see the living area of the tiny apartment. A couch, a chair, a messy TV cabinet, a coffee table strewn with magazines. A breakfast bar dividing off the minuscule kitchen.
I tapped on the glass one last time, then pulled a couple of simple lock picks from my bag and invited myself in.
Chapter 38
“I have some news for you, Detective Landry,” Mercedes Gitan said as she stuck her head out the door of the autopsy suite.
“Good news?”
“Depends on your point of view,” she said. “Come on in. We just finished up a drowning victim.”
“Hell of a way to start your morning,” Landry said.
Gitan pulled her cap off, setting free a mop of curly black hair, and tossed the cap and her gloves in a laundry bin. “Sad. A young woman with her whole life ahead of her.”
“So was Irina Markova. What’s the word?”
“Toxicology came back.”
“Drugs?”
“Ecstasy. A lot of it.”
“That’s no big surprise, considering what kind of party she was at. A lot of X, a lot of sex.”
“She was an active participant. No date-rape drugs.”
“Anything under the fingernails?”
“Actually, yes. Her own skin,” she said. “She was probably trying to dig her fingers under whatever it was she was being choked with,” she said, pantomiming the action.
“Anything else?”
“Some tiny bits of leather fibers. I think she was strangled with a thin leather strap or cord. The fibers I removed from the neck wound also appear to be leather.”
“But nothing that might give us a clue to her killer.”
“Sorry, no. Are you desperate?”
“No. I’ve got a couple hot prospects, but my life would be a lot easier if I could say ‘You did it. And here’s the proof.”“
“My life would be easier if George Clooney would sweep me away to his villa in Italy,” Gitan said.
“Ha-ha. I’d better get out there and face the lions,” Landry said. “It’s going to be a long, bad day.”
“My office has taken a half dozen calls from the media already this morning and another half dozen from the powers that be telling me not to talk to the press. These hot prospects you have, I take it they’re not the usual suspects.”
“Not by a long stretch. Big bucks, social standing, pains in the ass.
“Oooh… an honest-to-goodness juicy Palm Beach scandal,” Gitan said, pretending excitement.
“Move over, William Kennedy Smith. You ain’t seen nothing yet.
“Well, here’s your bonus of scandalous dirt and motive: your vic was pregnant.”
“Shit,” Landry whispered. No need to decipher the bill from the Lundeen Clinic after all.
“Showed up in the blood tests,” Gitan said. “There was so much damage to her lower torso from the alligator, there was nothing for me to find in the exam.”
“Let’s keep that to ourselves for now,” Landry said. “I can still use the DNA threat.”
“My lips are sealed.”
Landry thanked her and walked out into the sunshine. It was hot. He unbuttoned his shirtsleeves and rolled them up as he walked back across the parking lot to the justice center.
From a distance he could see the news vans and reporters scattered in individual spots that gave good background. The shit had officially hit the fan. Someone had ferreted out or passed along the information as to who the suspects might be in Irina Markova’s murder. There was no other big case going on that would warrant this kind of attention.
Landry took a detour and went to his car, still far enough away that no one was paying any attention to him. He backed out of his spot and drove slowly down the row toward the building to get a closer look. As he sat there, a black sedan with a driver and a man sitting in the back rolled past. The license plate read: ESTES ESQ.
Edward Estes. Elena’s father.
The great man had arrived. Now the show would begin.
Landry’s phone rang.
“Landry.”
“Weiss. We’ve found Irina Markova’s car.”
The show would go on with one less in the audience, Landry thought as he turned left and headed out of the complex. He had more important things to do than watch Edward Estes shoot his mouth off—like proving Estes’s client was a killer.
“This guy’s a deputy,” Weiss explained as Landry got out of his car. “He works security here on the side. So he got the BOLO on the car, and here it is.”
“You called CSI?”
“They re on their way.”
Irina Markova’s car was a sporty little dark-blue Volkswagen Jetta. The windows were closed. It sat parked among a few hundred cars in the lot of the Wellington Green mall.
“Are there cameras out here?” Landry asked, looking up and around at light poles.
“No.”
“All right. Did you look inside the vehicle?”
“Through the windows,” Weiss said. “I didn’t touch anything. There are no visible signs of blood or anything. There’s sand and dirt on the floor mats. And a partial footprint. It’s faint, but it’s there.”
“Yeah, I see it,” Landry said. “Let’s make sure they get a photograph of it before anyone touches the mat.”
“What do you suppose the odds are the guy left us any prints?” Weiss said.
“Slim and none if it was one of Brody’s crowd. Those guys are too smart not to have wiped it down. Maybe we’ll get a couple of head hairs. Better than nothing. Damn, I wish they had cameras out here.”
Chapter 39
Hooves pounded the turf as the two horses ran. Maintaining a distance of about ten yards apart, one would advance, then the other, as the ball was struck and chased, struck and chased.
Barbaro swung his mallet with a casual ease that belied the length behind it. The forehand shot went to Bennett Walker, who calculated his angle and distance. He yanked his horse back and twisted in the saddle to make an awkward offside tail shot. Barbaro had to circle back at a lope to pick up the ball, now traveling at half speed. Just for practice, he brought his mallet across his body to the left side, reached forward and beneath his horse’s neck, let the ball roll across his line, and tapped it back across to his friend.
Again Walker’s timing was wrong. The ball crossed his line five strides ahead of him. He swore loudly, spurred his horse unnecessarily, then hauled back on the reins with such force that the animal’s front feet came off the ground as her eyes rolled back and her mouth came open.
Barbaro rode over and jabbed him hard in the side with the head of his mallet.
Walker glared at him. “What the flick?!”
“It’s not the mare’s fault you can’t play for shit!” Barbaro shouted. “Don’t punish her for your mistakes!”
He called Walker a few choice names in Spanish and jabbed at him again.
Walker took a vicious swing at him, and Barbaro blocked him with a forearm to Walker’s wrist, driving Walker’s arm up and back.
“You want to fight with me?” Barbaro shouted. “I will kick your ass! I am not some little girl you can knock around!”
They were horse to horse, the polo ponies muscling against each other, ears pinned, the men knocking knee pad to knee pad.
They had this end of the field to themselves. The morning sun was bright and hot, horses and men all sweating, breathing hard. This was supposed to have been a practice, a lesson for Walker, a chance for Barbaro to hit some balls befo
re the afternoon match— the first round in a big-money tournament that would conclude on Sunday on the championship field in front of the grandstand with a thousand or more spectators.
Walker threw his mallet down, staring at his friend and teacher. He looked back down the field. At the far end, a bunch of little kids were milling around on their ponies, gathering for lesson time. There was no one within earshot. Still, he kept his voice low.
“Why don’t you just come out and say it, Juan? You think I killed her, no matter what I say. You think I just go around in the dead of night killing girls.”
Barbaro sat back. His horse settled but remained alert, sensing the tension. “Brody tells me this morning that I need an attorney, that he has hired one for me—Elena’s father.”
“Well, that should narrow down your chances of fucking her,” Walker said. “Too bad for you.”
“I told him no.”
“So you’ll get someone else.”
“No. I will not,” Barbaro said.
Walker digested that, looked down the field at the kids, looked back. “If the rest of us have attorneys and you don’t, that makes it look like we did something and you didn’t. The cops will think they can turn you against us.”
Barbaro said nothing.
“Can they?” Walker asked.
“I don’t want to be a part of this. It disgusts me.”
“Ha! Disgusts you? Like you haven’t done your share of partying. Jesus, you’ve screwed more women than most men ever see in their lifetime. You’ve snorted your share of blow. You never looked to me like anyone was twisting your arm.”
“No one ever died because of it,” Barbaro said.
“Look,” Walker said. “You’re a part of this. You think the cops are going to believe you’re a virgin? Take the damn lawyer. We stick together in this, everyone comes out fine.”
Barbaro rested his hands on the pommel of his saddle and sighed, looking down the field to the kids wearing helmets that seemed bigger than they were. Life was still shiny and new for them, filled with innocence and possibility.
“She was dead when I found her,” Walker said. “I don’t know what happened. I was passed out, remember?”
“You were the last man with her,” Barbaro said. “I remember that. I remember you were angry because of it. I remember Irina making fun of your pouting. I remember you didn’t take it well.”
“So that means I killed her?” Walker asked, offended but not quite able to meet Barbaro’s gaze. “She was a cunt. So what? She could suck the white off rice. That’s all I cared about. That’s all you cared about too.”
“I wasn’t with her,” Barbaro said. “You took her, and I left. Remember?”
Walker narrowed his eyes. “No. I don’t. You were there. I saw you. Everyone saw you. Do you have someone who can say you weren’t there?”
Barbaro let that one go. “Then who killed her? Everyone else had gone by then.”
“Hell if I know,” Walker said.
“Why can you not look me in the eye when you say that, friend?”
Walker didn’t answer.
“If you don’t know who killed her,” Barbaro said, “maybe it is because you don’t remember what you did. You were the last man with her, then she was dead. Maybe you don’t know you didn’t do it. Maybe you think you did. Maybe you did.”
Bennett Walker still wouldn’t look at him.
“Did you choke her during sex?” Barbaro asked. “That is a dangerous game I know you like to play. You were angry. You are always angry with women. You like to get rough—”
“So did she—”
“How do you know you didn’t kill her?”
The seconds seemed to tick past in slow motion.
Finally Walker looked at him. His eyes were flat and cold, like a shark’s.
“What difference does it make?” he said. “The girl is dead. I can’t change that. And I’m not going to prison for it.”
He turned his horse and left the field, leaving Barbaro to stand alone.
Chapter 40
I slipped inside Lisbeth’s apartment and quietly closed the door behind me. “Lisbeth?”
Nothing. Which meant I was free to violate her privacy. I didn’t go looking for anything in particular. I had learned as cop that narrowing my focus too much caused me to ignore things it might prove important later on. That was especially important as a Narcotics detective—the ability to absorb every detail around me, to be aware of everything, no matter how insignificant at a glance. That skill had saved my life more than once and saved a case many times.
Lisbeth owned the usual fashion rags, plus a couple of polo magazines—Barbaro on the cover of Sidelines—and a selection of tabloids. She drank a lot of Diet Coke, had a bowlful of hard-boiled eggs, ate a lot of tuna—solid white albacore packed in spring water. There was a bottle of Stoli in the freezer. She didn’t strike me as a vodka drinker. I pictured Lisbeth drinking a pina colada, a margarita, a drink with a cutesy name that was sweet and colorful.
Irina had been her friend, though. Irina could pound down vodka like a Russian stevedore. Maybe it was for her.
Like so many people, Lisbeth kept a collection of snapshots taped to the refrigerator door. Many looked the same as what had been on Irina’s computer and in her digital camera. Photos from parties, from polo matches, from clubs. Girlfriends, polo players— several of Barbaro, social players—Brody’s crowd.
Only a few photos of Lisbeth herself. One in shorts and T-shirt, a candid of her holding on to a polo pony by a tangle of reins. One of her in a little black dress and Dior sunglasses, looking very glam.
There was the same photo of Lisbeth and Irina sitting side by side on the poolside chaise as had been in Irina’s camera. And another of the two of them at a tailgating party.
There were several of Irina only. Irina in profile, speaking to someone out of the frame. Irina sitting at a bistro table, having a glass of wine. Irina sitting on the lap of a man whose face had been overlapped by another photo. I turned the corner up. Bennett Walker. I put the corner back down.
I stood there for another moment, thinking: Just as Irina had a few too many photographs of Bennett, Lisbeth had a few too many photographs of Irina.
“Girl crush,” Kayne Jackson had said. Hero worship. Irina had been everything Lisbeth was not—sophisticated, exotic, worldly, bold, adventurous. My eyes went from the photos of Irina to a photo of Lisbeth with Paul Kenner and Sebastian Foster, a photo of Barbaro and a couple of other players, back to the photos of Irina.
I moved on from the kitchen, down a short hall. The small bathroom was littered with wet towels. A wadded wet T-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts had been shoved into the wastebasket. They smelled of swamp and vomit.
The bedroom was a comfortable size, the walls painted lavender. The bed was a tangle of sheets. The wastebasket was full of discarded crumpled tissues. From crying, I thought. Lisbeth had lost her best friend, felt lost herself. A good bet: She was scared. She knew more than she was telling anyone. That was a big load to carry for a little girl from Nowhere, Michigan.
Along the far wall of the room stood a portable clothes rack hung with a condensed version of Irina’s designer wardrobe. Her purse sat on the dresser. Inside: her wallet, her cell phone.
Where would she have gone without her wallet? What girl her age didn’t have her cell phone Velcroed to the side of her head?
A sense of unease filled me and trickled down my spine like water. I turned to face the door.
The closet door stood slightly ajar. I pulled it open to reveal more clothes hanging on the rod and piled in a heap on the floor. And staring out at me from the corner, obscured by long hanging garments and covered by a blanket, a pair of blood-red eyes.
I jumped back with an expletive, then caught myself and tried no refocus.
“Lisbeth? Oh, my God, what happened to you?”
I shoved the hanging clothes out of the way and squatted down to meet her at eye level. She look
ed like something from a horror movie. The whites of her eyes were filled with blood, making the cornflower blue of the irises seem to glow. Her hair was matted in an insane tangle, studded with dead grass and dried leaf fragments. Her face was so swollen, she was all but unrecognizable.
“Lisbeth,” I said again. “Can you hear me?”
I reached out toward her, wondering if she was dead. But she flinched as I pulled the blanket away.