Shrugging, Boyle scratched absently at one of the cowlicks. “That was the plan, but he doesn’t always come straight here.”
“Where else would he go?”
“He’s a grown-up, Mr. Crane. He goes where he pleases.”
“It’s Caine. He isn’t staying in your family home?”
“That’s where I live. He’d be welcome, of course, but Tom prefers a suite here at the hotel. What’s this about, anyway?”
Keeping his cards close, Caine said, “We need to talk to him about an ongoing investigation.”
“What the hell ‘ongoing investigation’ could there be? Tom hasn’t even been in Miami in…” Boyle’s voice trailed off. “This is about that supposed murder in Vegas, isn’t it? They’re not still trying to pin that Hardy thing on him, are they? Jesus!”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
The hotel manager gestured dismissively. “The judge threw that pile of lies out of court.”
“When was the last time you saw your stepfather?”
Boyle eyed him as if deciding how far he was going to let this go. “Two weeks ago. I spent the weekend with him and my mother at our new resort hotel. Why in God’s name are you still hassling him after the judge threw the case out?”
Ignoring the question, Caine asked, “How did you feel when your mother moved out to Vegas with him?”
That drew a nasty grin from Boyle. “You’re fishing now, Detective Caine.”
“Actually, it’s Lieutenant.”
“Lieutenant. Just out of civic-spiritedness—I’ll tell you anyway. I had no reason to be angry when my mother and Tom moved to Las Vegas. I was glad that she found happiness again, and when they left, this whole hotel fell right into my lap. Why exactly would I be un happy?”
Caine said nothing, but something just didn’t seem right.
“The truth is, Lieutenant Caine, I like my stepfather very much. Great guy. I’d even say, we’re very close.”
“He’s a little near your age to be a father figure, isn’t he?”
“We’re more like brothers.”
Except one of the brothers is sleeping with Mom, Caine thought. Nodding, the CSI said, “You just don’t know where he went after his plane landed last night?”
“No, and you’re right, I have been worried. My people called the airport and were told Tom’s plane landed around twelve-thirty, midnight and I have no idea where he went after that.”
“Where might he have gone?”
Boyle shrugged. “Tom’s been doing business down here for a long time—he has a lot of friends at the other hotels. Could have stayed at any one of a half dozen of ‘em last night.”
“But why would he do that?”
“You’ll have to ask Tom.”
“And he didn’t call and tell you of a change of plans?”
“No. Isn’t that obvious?”
Caine shrugged. “It’s just, you’d think he’d call you—close as you are—to keep you from worrying.”
“Well, he didn’t, and I don’t know that I’d have done differently in his place.”
Eyes narrowed, Caine said, “You were concerned enough to have the airport called.”
Boyle’s eyes widened in exasperation. “Try curious! Look, he landed safely in Miami, but he’s free to do what he wants. If he wanted to spend the night somewhere else, that’s his decision.”
Caine cast another line into the water. “Even if he spent it with a woman who wasn’t your mother?”
Boyle’s upper lip curled. “Tom worships my mother. He would never do that kind of thing.”
“It’s been well established that the woman he was accused of murdering, Mr. Boyle, was his mistress.”
“‘Mistress’?” Boyle snorted a laugh. “What an antiquated, moralistic word…but coming from a throw-back like you, Lieutenant Caine, I’m not surprised.” He thrust an arm, pointing toward the lobby. “You’ve worn out your welcome, Officer—get out of my hotel. Now.”
For several long moments, Caine kept his eyes on Boyle. Finally, he said, “All right, Mr. Boyle. I’ll leave your premises—that’s your call—until I come back with a search warrant.”
Boyle’s eyes and nostrils flared. “Jesus Christ! Tom is not here!”
Calmly, Caine said, “Your stepfather is wanted for murder, Mr. Boyle. Harboring him could be a serious criminal offense.”
“God damn!”
“And we’re going to have officers watching this facility—if we see any sign of Mr. Lessor, they’ll move in.” From the corner of his eye, Caine saw the singer disappear into the wings. “So you might wish to spare yourself the embarrassment, and—”
“Get the hell out,” Boyle said, tugging a cell phone from his pocket. “I’ve got a business to run. I don’t have the luxury of hanging around on the taxpayer’s dollar.”
Caine flinched a non-smile. “Thank you for your help, sir.”
Leaving the seething hotel manager to make his call—to his stepfather? to a lawyer?—Caine and the two cops headed back up the aisle and into the hall that led back to the lobby.
They hadn’t gone far when a door on the right opened and a lushly black-maned head popped out—the singer, Maria Chacon.
The uniformed cop to Caine’s right was startled, but the CSI held out a calming hand.
The woman stepped out and glanced quickly up and down the hall, apparently to make sure they were alone. “I need to talk to you, Lieutenant.” Lieutenant—not “Officer” or “Detective”; she had been eavesdropping.
“Go right ahead, Ms. Chacon,” Caine said, planting himself, folding his arms.
“Ssshhh!” she said. “Not here—not now. Mr. Boyle could come out at any moment and see us!”
“All right,” Caine said. “How about the coffee shop at the Eden Roc, next door? In one hour?”
The dark-haired beauty considered that for a moment, then nodded. “One hour…. Just you. Not the blue boys.”
She meant the uniformed cops.
“Not the blue boys,” Caine said, quietly amused.
The two cops were exchanging glances—one confused, the other a little hurt.
“All right,” she said. “Be there—it’ll be worth your time, Lieutenant.”
“I won’t stand you up,” Caine said.
She smiled, just a little. “No man ever has.”
“I believe that.”
And then she was back inside the lounge.
As the three cops walked into the lobby, Caine already had his cell phone out, dialing Judge Balin to get a search warrant. Caine had called Balin, a long-time law-and-order jurist who believed in dispensing justice swiftly, because he could get fast service. If Lessor was on the premises, they would find him.
His second call was to dispatch, to arrange for officers to cover the entrances, and he was told, as usual, to make do with the group he had. No way could the three of them cover all the exits, but they would have to do the best they could. One went around back to the boardwalk that stretched most of the length of Miami Beach, while the other one kept his eyes on the front door. As for Caine, he waited impatiently for the warrant that would allow him to find out if Lessor was here.
A patrolman rolled up to Caine in the U-shaped driveway of the Conquistador in less than an hour. The officer came out of his car waving the document, then hustled over. The CSI supervisor had the officer radio the cop around back as Caine ordered the one out front to remain there while he and the patrolman went inside.
After Caine handed him the warrant, the desk clerk phoned Daniel Boyle and the manager appeared from somewhere down the hall, shaking his head as he walked up to the desk.
“What now?” he asked.
The clerk handed over the warrant.
“That’s my passkey to your hotel,” Caine said.
Bristling, Boyle said, “I don’t like your attitude.”
With a shrug, Caine said, “I get that, from time to time—don’t you?”
Boyle looked the warra
nt over. “This limits you to my stepfather’s suite.”
Caine nodded. “Would you like to accompany us?”
Reaching for his cell phone again, Boyle said, “Manuel, you go with the officer—I’ll watch the desk.”
Manuel’s face showed that he didn’t like the order much, but he said nothing and came around the counter with a key. “This way, sir.”
Leaving Officer Jacobs on watch in the lobby, Caine followed the desk clerk onto the elevator, standing silently while the clerk fidgeted nervously as they rode up the twenty floors to the penthouse.
“Your name is Manuel?” Caine asked conversationally.
“Yes, sir.”
“Ever see a TV show called Fawlty Towers?”
“No, sir.”
“Probably just as well.”
When the double doors opened, they came out into a short foyer with a large mahogany door in front of them. The CSI supervisor pulled on a pair of latex gloves.
Most of the rooms in the hotel used an electronic Ving key, but this one had a Yale lock. The desk clerk slipped his key in and swung the door open and got out of Caine’s way as the CSI entered, shutting the door behind him, leaving his host in the hall.
As Caine expected, this was not your typical hotel room—no functional carpeting, rather a hardwood floor accented by two area rugs, one in the middle of the living room and a long narrow one that disappeared down a hall to the left. To Caine’s right, a white sofa piled with cushions hugged the wall, facing a coffee table and two highback chairs that matched the sofa. A big-screen TV sat at an angle to the right of the sofa, in front of floor-to-ceiling windows—curtains open—overlooking Atlantic beachfront twenty floors below. The wall to Caine’s left was dominated by a fireplace, the mantel arrayed with photos of Thomas and, presumably, Deborah Lessor, as well as one of a blonde Deborah and a younger Daniel Boyle. A doorway on that wall led to the kitchen.
Despite the breathtaking view, the expensive furnishings, even the family photographs, the suite had a sterile, unlived-in, showroom feel. Not only was there no sign that Lessor was here now, it was hard to imagine that he or anyone other than cleaning staff ever had been.
Still, Caine had a job to do.
He began in the living room, finding not so much as a fingerprint. His next stop was the high-tech kitchen, where a stainless-steel refrigerator, stove, and dishwasher were interspersed between sections of black countertop. A black table with service for six sat in the middle of the oversized room. He opened the refrigerator and found several untouched oversized bottles of Evian, two bottles of wine, and a six-pack of imported beer, but no real food.
The bathroom was next, and although it had larger-size toiletries than a normal hotel bathroom, the soap, shampoo, and other products were untouched. The only toothbrush in the medicine chest was still in its blister pack.
Shaking his head, Caine moved on to the bedroom. The king-size bed sat immediately to his right, the same floor-to-ceiling windows as the living room beyond that. The mattress was hard—he could have bounced a quarter off it—and although he found clothes in some of the drawers of the large armoire on the north wall, they all looked brand new, the socks still on those little plastic hangers, the handkerchiefs next to them still in their packaging.
Nothing in this apartment gave Caine any sense of the man—no magazines, no books, nothing significant about the decoration; his wife stayed here, too, from time to time, but no evidence indicated a female’s presence—not even clothes or toiletries.
Caine had the distinct feeling that this suite was a fraud—that not only had Lessor spent no time here in the past twenty-four hours, but the man perhaps kept some other, secret quarters in town.
Another thought was nagging Caine. Had Lessor simply landed in one plane and caught another for some country with no extradition agreement with the United States? While they would be combing Southern Florida looking for him, Lessor would be combing some beach in Rio. Caine considered calling Catherine in Vegas and sharing these thoughts, then decided to instead wait until after he met with Maria Chacon.
The search warrant coming up empty would have disappointed him a lot more if he’d actually expected to find something here. Of course, he was pretty sure it hadn’t been a completely wasted trip. He’d confirmed to his satisfaction that Thomas Lessor hadn’t set foot within this apartment within the last twenty-four hours. Hell, the last six months.
But Thomas Lessor had to be somewhere, and Caine was sure this place could be taken off the list of Miami possibilities. He needed more information to come up with any other options. He checked his watch.
In about ten minutes, Maria Chacon would be at the Eden Roc, and he didn’t want to keep the singer waiting. She had something on her mind, something to share about Daniel Boyle and perhaps Thomas Lessor.
And whatever she had to give him, it was more than he had right now.
3
Lessor Is More
THE HIGH SUN ricocheted off Horatio Caine’s sunglasses as he walked from the Conquistador, south on Collins Avenue. He glanced across the six lanes of traffic, past the yachts in Indian Creek, to the far side and the expensive homes that lined the bank.
Lots of money over there on the island.
A gated community of luxurious homes, only the richest of the rich gained entry. Passing Indian Beach Park and nearing the parking lot that was their crime scene, he wondered if the late chauffeur had picked up someone from that side of the creek. At the edge of the lot, he paused, then shook his head—no point overthinking it. Let the evidence tell him the story.
Most likely this killing wasn’t anything more than a carjacking gone bad. There’d been quite a few of those lately, if not in quite so high profile a neighborhood. The closest had been in the park just off Rickenbacker Parkway headed into Key Biscayne. Maybe the carjackers were moving up in the world.
Caine glanced over at Speedle and Delko processing the limo—hard at work, doing fine; though tempted, he decided not to bother them. Better to leave the process to them while he went on to interview the Conquistador’s eager-to-talk lounge singer.
As he entered the lobby of the Eden Roc, Caine’s sunglasses came off again and he draped them around his neck. The differences between here and the Conquistador, just up the street, were subtle but important.
Where the Conquistador tried hard to present itself as elegant, the Eden Roc managed to accomplish that with little effort. The rich brown carpet was deeper, more plush, the paneling classy, distinctive and well maintained, and the six wooden columns that were the lobby’s centerpiece gave off an air of Old World craftsmanship. Where the Conquistador struggled with swank, the Eden Roc provided easy opulence.
Crossing the lobby, Caine figured Maria Chacon would be waiting for him in the Aquatica, the fashionable glass-enclosed restaurant that overlooked both the pool area and the beach. Harry’s Grille, the hotel’s other restaurant, was a more austere, formal dining room and Caine doubted that the place was even open at this hour.
So, he passed that and strode into the Aquatica. Near the back, in the smoking section, Maria Chacon sat in a corner booth, nervously working on a cigarette. He told the hostess that he’d just be having coffee and found his own way over.
Maria Chacon was no longer wearing the silver-sequined mini-dress—even in Miami, that would’ve attracted attention. Instead, she wore sleek black shorts and a zebra-printed silk tank top, her mane of black hair in a loose ponytail under a black Florida Marlins baseball cap. When she saw him approaching, she stubbed out the cigarette and began to rise.
Caine waved for Maria to keep her seat, which she did, immediately fishing another cigarette out of a pack of Doral Menthol 100’s. She already had her coffee, and a waitress magically provided Caine with his before he’d barely sat down.
Maria had her back to the east wall windows; past her, Caine could see the roughhewn wood of the boardwalk and its rails, the green scrub beyond and the white beach past that, and finally—s
tretching just past infinity—the Atlantic Ocean. Outside the southern windows to his right, a few tourists lounged around the Olympic-sized pool. One couple had even braved the chilly water, but most wouldn’t tackle it till afternoon, this time of year.
When he looked back at Maria Chacon, she seemed a lot less confident than she had on stage. Most of the makeup was washed away and eyes that had seemed radiant had dimmed considerably.
“Hope you haven’t been waiting long,” Caine said. “I’m in the middle of processing a crime scene.”
Just to remind her he was a cop.
She glanced down at the cup of coffee in front of her, thought about something a moment, then raised her eyes back to his. His gaze met hers and then she looked away, smoking anxiously, eyes moving in thought.
Suddenly she didn’t seem so eager to talk. He would have to prime the pump.
“Something I’ve never understood,” Caine said.
She frowned up at him, exhaling smoke.
He shrugged a little. “Always surprised me how many singers smoke.”
She returned his shrug with a more elaborate one. “Most of us are trying not to…. It’s the nature of the life. Stress. Uncertainty. It’s a habit I really don’t make a, uh…”
“Habit of?” he said with a smile.
She flashed a dazzling white smile. “When I’m nervous, I do burn through my share.”
“Now what would a successful, talented performer like you have to be nervous about?”
“Nothing, really. I guess it’s really more…frustration. Agitation?”
“And you’re agitated now? Frustrated?”
Just when he thought he’d finally got her talking, she began to concentrate on her smoking, her eyes moving with thought again.
“I don’t mean to be rude, Ms. Chacon,” Caine said, with a flinch of a smile. “But I’m on the clock. If you don’t have anything for me, then—”
“He lied,” she blurted.
Caine raised an eyebrow. “Who did?”
Maria’s eyes darted around the restaurant, to confirm no one was watching them. Then she leaned forward: “Daniel—Mr. Boyle. He lied through his teeth, and you’re the police.”
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