by Stuart Woods
Marina followed her out onto the front porch.
“Marina, I want to express my sympathy for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
“I lost my fiancé a little over a year ago, so I understand how you feel.”
Marina began to tear up, and Holly embraced her. The two women stood on the front porch, holding each other, for another minute before Holly left, tears in her own eyes.
28
Holly walked Daisy and fed her some of the dry food and water she kept in her car, thinking the whole time. So Carlos had come into money? He wouldn’t have been paid so much to bug her phones and jimmy her alarm system, but Carlos had other talents. For the wiretapping and for three murders, he’d be very well paid indeed. Of course, he’d missed Ed Shine, but he’d been very successful with the other two.
But why would the people who’d hired him murder him? Because they were finished with him, of course, and maybe because he’d failed with Ed Shine, and the property went to another buyer.
She wasn’t driving back to Orchid Beach tonight; she had two other stops to make in the area, and she began thinking about where to spend the night. There were a lot of motels in the area, but would they take dogs? Then she remembered something. The year before, when she had been working with the FBI on a case, they had put her up at the Delano, a jazzy and elegant hotel in South Beach. What the hell, she was a woman of means, Jackson had seen to that in his will, and she deserved a good night’s rest. She called the Delano and made a reservation, getting an okay on Daisy, then she started driving.
She spent half an hour at a mall buying some extra clothes, then headed south. Fifteen minutes from her destination she saw a sign with a familiar name, and she braked hard, nearly throwing Daisy off the seat. She whipped into a parking spot. “You stay here, baby,” she said to Daisy. “It’s time for your mama to have dinner.” Daisy was used to waiting in the car.
She walked into Pellegrino’s and looked around; she saw the man almost immediately, talking to customers at a nearby table. He left them and approached her.
“Good evening,” he said. “May I help you?”
He was as Marina had described him, sleek and well dressed, about fifty, she reckoned.
“I haven’t made a reservation,” she said. “Do you have room for one for dinner?”
“I’m very sorry,” he said with a regretful smile, “we’re fully booked, but you can have dinner at the bar, if you wish. The menu is the same.”
“Thank you, I’ll sit at the bar.” She offered him a smile of her own.
He led her to the bar, which was half full, and pulled out a seat at the less populated end. He snapped his fingers for the bartender, who came quickly. “Perhaps you’d be my guest for a drink while you’re looking at the menu,” he said.
“Thank you, I’d love one. A bourbon on the rocks?”
“Any special brand?”
“Do you have Knob Creek?”
“Of course.” He nodded at the bartender, who went to pour the drink, then he handed Holly a menu. “Would you like me to recommend something?”
“Why don’t you order for me?” Holly said, handing back the menu.
The man beamed. “Of course. How hungry are you?”
“Very.”
“In that case I will start you with our famous antipasti and continue with our specialty, the osso buco.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
“May I introduce myself? I’m Pio Pellegrino.”
“I’m Helen Benson,” she said. “You’re the owner, then?”
“It’s a family business,” he replied. “My father, over there, is still the owner, but we run it together.” He nodded at an elderly man sitting near the kitchen door, eating pasta. “He likes to sit there because it’s near the waiters’ station, and he wants to be sure they don’t steal the cutlery.”
Holly laughed. “A smart businessman.”
“You don’t know the half of it. Excuse me, I’ll order your dinner.”
Holly sipped her bourbon and looked around the place. It was handsomely designed, fairly large, and filling up fast—obviously a popular place.
Her antipasti arrived, and she had a bit of everything. Delicious. Then came the osso buco, and Pio, with half a bottle of red.
“I hope you’ll drink some wine,” he said. “With my personal compliments.”
“Thank you, yes.”
He poured the wine, a very good Chianti Classico, and she made appreciative noises. He left to seat other customers.
Holly loved the osso buco, and when Pio returned, she had finished it. “Thank you so much for ordering for me, and for the wine,” she said. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“Not in my own restaurant,” he said, “but I’d be delighted to have one with you.” He spoke to the bartender in Italian, and two glasses of a golden liquid appeared.
“What is it?”
He settled on a stool next to her. “Strega, an Italian apperitif.”
She liked it and told him so.
“So, are you from Miami?”
“No, from out of town.”
“How did you choose my restaurant?”
“Pure luck; I was driving past and saw the sign, and I was in the mood for Italian.”
His smile turned into a leer, but he didn’t rise to the line. “Where are you staying?”
“Over on South Beach.” She looked at her watch. “In fact, I’d better be going. I’m meeting my boyfriend at our hotel, and I’m late.”
His face fell. “I hope you’ll come back again,” he said. “And alone. I enjoy your company.”
“That’s very kind of you; I’ll keep it in mind. I’m here for a few more days. May I have a check?”
“There is no check,” he said grandly.
“My goodness,” Holly said, batting her eyes. “You’re even kinder than I thought.” She shook his hand, and he held on for a little too long, then she left and went back to the car, feeling that she had only just escaped his further intentions.
At the Delano, Holly checked in, with only a shopping bag for luggage, settled into her room, then called her office and told them where she was. “Don’t give out that information, though,” she said. “Just take a message.”
Then she called Ham. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“I’m in Miami for a couple of nights on business,” she said. “I didn’t want you to worry.”
“Me, worry? You don’t need my permission for a dirty weekend.”
“It’s not a weekend, and it’s not dirty,” she replied. “It’s just a couple of days’ work on a case.”
“Whatever you say.”
“Oh, shut up, Ham. I’ll see you later in the week.” She hung up.
Daisy hopped onto the bed and put her head in Holly’s lap.
“Your grandfather has a dirty mind,” she said. She thought about Grant and wished it was a dirty weekend.
29
Holly slept late and had a good breakfast. She dressed in her new clothes, the first she had bought since Jackson’s death, and took Daisy for a walk, then got into her car. She had nothing to do until evening, so she decided to have another go at Pedro Alvarez.
When she got to his shop, he was with a customer, and she waited, looking carefully at the displays of locks and burglar alarms. She was not surprised that two of the examples on display were identical to the equipment in her house.
Pedro said goodbye to the customer, then approached Holly. “What do you want now?” he asked, his tone unfriendly.
“I want to see Carlos’s guns,” she said.
“Do you have a warrant?” he asked.
“Oh, I can get a warrant, and very quickly,” she replied. “But let me tell you what happens if I get a warrant. I’ll bring a team in here, and we will dismantle this shop and take anything we like away with us, including all the guns we find. Then, if any of them has been used in a crime, or if we find any other violation of the law, I’ll have your l
ocksmith’s license yanked. Now, how do you want to do this?”
“I’ll show you the gun,” he said.
“There’s more than one, Pedro.”
“Carlos had two, a nine-millimeter and a forty-caliber. One of them is missing.” He led her to a large safe in the back room and began opening it.
So Carlos had been carrying, and he might well have been shot with his own gun.
“Here is Carlos’s nine-millimeter,” he said, handing her a Beretta.
It was loaded. She popped out the magazine and ejected one from the breech. “Do you have a paper bag?” she asked.
“I didn’t say you could take it with you.”
“So you want me to get the warrant? I can phone it in, and we can wait together for the team to arrive.”
“All right, all right,” he said. He handed her a sheepskin-lined leather pouch, and she zipped the gun inside it, putting the cartridges in a pocket inside. She wrote a receipt on the back of her card and handed it to him.
“When will you return it?” he asked.
“When I’ve finished processing it. If it turns out to have been used in a crime, you won’t get it back.”
Pedro nodded.
“You must have been aware that Carlos was into something he shouldn’t have been.”
Pedro shook his head.
“Come on, Pedro. If you want us to find out who killed your cousin, you’re going to have to help us. Now we know that Carlos suddenly came into money. Where was he getting it?”
Pedro shook his head again. “I don’t know. When I asked Carlos about it, he told me that it was none of my affair, that, in fact, it would help our business.”
“Help your business how?”
“He said he was developing new contacts for alarm-system installations.”
“Business or residential?”
“There were going to be a number of new houses, he said.”
“In what town?”
“I don’t know. Not in our immediate area, though; he was talking about opening another shop.”
“Where?”
“He said he couldn’t tell me yet.”
“Did he indicate to you that his new work might be dangerous?”
“Just the reverse; he said it was a piece of cake.”
“Did Carlos mention any names to you?”
“No.”
“A nickname, maybe?”
“No, nothing.”
“What else did he tell you, Pedro?”
“I swear, that’s all he told me.”
“Did you tell this to the FBI agents who came to see you?”
“No, I didn’t tell them anything.”
“Did Carlos own a rifle?”
“No, but . . .” Pedro was staring into the middle distance, as if he remembered something. “Once I saw a leather rifle case in the van he borrowed.”
“What was his explanation?”
“I didn’t ask him about it; he had already told me that his outside work was none of my business.”
“How big a case? How long?”
“Just a standard zipper case, like one that would hold a hunting rifle or a shotgun.”
“How long ago?”
“I’m not sure; two or three weeks, maybe. I thought maybe he was taking it to the range, since it was his regular day to go.”
“Miami Bullseye?”
He looked at her in surprise. “Yes. He fired there every week.”
Holly nodded. “I’ll see you again, Pedro.” She left the shop and stowed the weapon in the lockable bin that held the spare tire in her SUV. Then she went back to the mall and went shopping again. It was lovely to be doing something so normal again, she thought as she shopped for shoes.
At her third stop in the mall, she became aware of a woman she had seen the morning before. She was thirtyish, dressed in a business suit, with fairly short brown hair. Holly felt she was beginning to see too much of her. As she continued through the mall, she kept seeing the woman, and when she came out of the Ralph Lauren store, her tail was sitting on a bench in the middle of the mall, pretending to read a magazine.
Holly went and sat down next to her. “Good morning,” she said.
The woman glanced at her, nodded, and went back to her magazine.
“How’s Harry Crisp these days?”
The woman looked at her. “I beg your pardon?”
“How’s old Harry? Your boss?”
“I’m afraid you have me confused with someone else,” the woman said.
“I’m afraid you have me confused with someone who can’t spot a tail,” Holly replied.
“I’m sorry?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as that, but you’re not very good. You were outside the church at the Alvarez funeral, weren’t you? You followed Pedro home after the burial.”
The woman was becoming flustered now. “I would appreciate it if you would leave me alone,” she said.
“Sure, I will,” Holly replied, “and I’ll give you a choice. You can vanish, then call Harry and tell him you lost me, or I’ll call him myself and tell him what a lousy job you’re doing.”
“Goodbye,” the woman said, getting up. She walked quickly away, toward an exit to the parking lot.
Holly resumed her shopping, but she kept an eye out for the woman’s partner, if she had one.
30
Holly, unable to think of anything else to do, took in a movie at the mall, then after getting the address from the telephone information operator, drove to North Miami and Miami Bullseye. She figured Carlos’s shooting group would arrive early evening, after work and supper, so she had a burger at a fast-food joint across the street. When she felt the time was right, she retrieved Carlos’s Beretta from her car, shouldered her handbag, and walked into the shooting range.
It was pretty much what she had expected—a long, low building made of concrete blocks, divided into narrow alleys and shooting booths. She stopped at a window and told the woman behind the glass that she’d like to fire for an hour. The woman took her money and signed her in. “Can I buy some cartridges?” she asked.
“What do you need?”
“A box each of nine-millimeter and seven sixty-fives.”
The woman went to a steel cabinet behind her, unlocked it, took out two boxes, relocked the cabinet, and returned to the window. Holly paid her, and she took down the serial numbers of both weapons.
“Take position ten,” the woman said, pointing.
There were twenty positions, putting Holly right in the middle. She set down her bag, unzipped the pistol pouch, and removed the Beretta. Then she had a thought and returned to the window. “Do you have a tank?” she asked. “I’d like to get a sample.”
“Just a minute.” The woman picked up a telephone, dialed a three-digit extension, and spoke into the phone. A moment later a man entered the booth and motioned Holly toward a door next to it. He met her and let her in.
“Hi, I’m Jimmy,” he said. “This is my place.”
“Hi, I’m Helen.” They shook hands.
“You want to fire it yourself, or you want me to do it?”
“I’ll fire.”
Jimmy led her across what appeared to be a storeroom and pointed at the tank, a container a few feet long filled with water.
Holly shoved the magazine into the Beretta, worked the action, flipped off the safety, and fired two rounds into the tank.
“Just a minute,” Jimmy said. He went to the other end, opened a flap and, using a flashlight and a pair of tongs, retrieved the two slugs. “Here you go,” he said, handing them to her.
“Thanks,” she said, dropping them into her purse.
He nodded and let her out of the room.
She went back to her station and flipped a switch that moved her target back to fifty feet. She put on ear protectors, took up a combat stance—knees bent, pistol held out before her with two hands—and emptied the magazine into the target. Then she removed her Walther from her handbag and emptied anot
her magazine into the target. She flipped the switch and brought the target back to her.
“Nice grouping,” a voice said from behind her.
She turned to find Jimmy standing there. “Thanks.”
“That’s a really good grouping with the Walther.”
She examined the target. The 9mm shots formed a tight group at the bull’s-eye, while the .765 shots were a little more dispersed. “I haven’t shot for a while,” she said. “At that range, I ought to be able to fire just as tight with the Walther as with the Beretta.”
He put another target up for her, and she moved it to 100 feet and fired both pistols. When the target came back, the groupings were looser, but still good.
“Where’d you learn to shoot?” Jimmy asked.
“My father taught me when I was a kid—he’s a lot better shot than I am—then I was in the military. I did the twenty.”
“Me too,” he said.
“Nice little business you’ve got here.”
“Thanks.” He put another target up for her, and she moved it to 150 feet. The groupings were wider, but the man-shaped target had taken all the slugs in the chest.
“I’m impressed,” Jimmy said.
“Think I’ll take a break, then see if I can improve my groupings,” she said. “Can I buy you a beer?”
“We don’t sell it here, but I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.” He indicated for her to follow him. A moment later, she was seated in his office and he was pouring her a cup of coffee.
“Thanks,” she said, accepting the cup.
“You live around here?”
“No, up the coast.”
“What brings you to my place?”
Holly decided to play it straight with him; she figured she had a chance of learning more. “I’m chief of police in a little town called Orchid Beach,” she said, laying her ID on his desk.
He picked it up and examined it. “Holly, not Helen.”
“Sorry, I was being too careful.”
He tossed back her wallet. “So, like I said, what brings you to my place?”
“A customer of yours took one in the back of the head up in my jurisdiction.”
“That would be Carlos Alvarez, unless I’ve lost another customer I don’t know about.”