Cut and Run (17 page)

Horatio's cell phone rang as he was getting into the Hummer. Fredo Bolivar had been picked up in a bar in Miami Beach, and was on his way to a holding cell.

 

Timothy Breakwash's garage was set up as a combination lab and office. Calleigh had already been there twice—first to pick up Breakwash's computer and printer, then to try to find Fredo Bolivar's DNA or fingerprints.

It had been in considerably better shape the last time. Now papers and books were scattered over the floor, drawers had been ripped out of filing cabinets and upended, the few pieces of equipment Breakwash had owned taken apart. An acrid, rotten-fish odor hung in the air; it looked as though the searcher had gone as far as dumping containers of chemicals down the stainless-steel sink.

“Lucky you didn't cause an explosion,” Calleigh murmured to herself. “Or maybe it wasn't luck at all…” She examined the empty containers beside the sink, then looked around and spotted a large green plastic bucket in one corner, half full of a pale blue liquid. A quick sniff confirmed her suspicions: hydrogen peroxide.

She went back out to her Hummer and got a hazardous materials mask, came back and finished processing the garage, then did the vehicle. When she was done, she loaded up everything she'd collected and headed back to the lab.

 

“Hello, Fredo,” said Horatio. “You look a little tired. Busy night?”

Fredo Bolivar was dressed the same way he'd been the last time he and Horatio had talked. His attitude hadn't changed, either; he still looked at Horatio with a combination of arrogance and uncaring.

“You know,” he said. “Same old same old. Just chilling with some friends.”

“Uh-huh. And I suppose those friends would be willing to verify your presence?”

“Every one.”

“And where did this get-together take place?”

“Nice little house on Key Largo. Got a big-screen TV, pool table, hot tub—all the necessities of life. No reason to go anyplace else, you know?”

“So you weren't anywhere near the Breakwash residence in the last eight hours?”

“I told you, man—I don't even know where that is.”

“Right. Of course. And you've never met Randilyn Breakwash, either.”

“Name doesn't ring a bell.”

Horatio studied him for a moment. He got to his feet and walked around the table to where Bolivar sat. Bolivar watched him approach, flicking his eyes to the side but refusing to turn his head. Horatio leaned in close, inches away from his ear.

“Listen to me, Fredo. There's a woman in the hospital right now, with injuries that are going to scar her for life. She's lost her husband and any sense of safety she might have had.
She's not going to lose anything else.”

Fredo stared straight ahead. “You sure about that, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, Fredo. I'm sure. Because I'm going to find the human garbage that did that to her, and I'm going to put them someplace where they can't ever hurt her again. That's a promise.”

Now Fredo turned his head, met Horatio's eyes. “Me, I don't believe in promises,” he said softly. “They break too easy.”

“That depends,” said Horatio, “on who makes them.”

 

Calleigh ran into Wolfe in the elevator. “Oh, hey, Ryan. How's your case going?”

Wolfe shook his head. “Don't ask. We made an arrest on piracy charges, but there's a hole in the evidence the size of a fish. An extremely big fish.”

“You mean that huge thing in Alexx's autopsy room? Did you misplace it or something?”

The elevator doors opened on the foyer and they both got out, continuing their conversation as they walked down the hall. “No, it's still there. That's the problem—we don't know
why
it's there. A guy with ties to the Russian mob went to a great deal of time and trouble to obtain this thing, which appears to have virtually no value except as an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records. That, and accidently poisoning supermarket executives.” He told her about Stanley Wolchkowski.

Calleigh smiled. “So what's next? Are you going to grill your prime suspect—maybe with a little tartar sauce on the side?”

Wolfe smiled back. “That's good. Mind if I pass it along?”

“It's all yours.”

“How about you? I hear the balloon case turned ugly.”

Calleigh's smile faded. “Yeah. Randilyn Breakwash is in the hospital with burns over thirty percent of her body. I just got back from processing the scene.”

“Find anything?”

“Too early to tell. Have to see what AFIS and CODIS tell me—but I did find one interesting thing in Breakwash's lab.”

“What's that?”

“Nothing blown up,” said Calleigh. They reached the Trace lab and she waved good-bye as she went in. Wolfe grinned and kept going.

 

Calleigh fumed the chainsaw for fingerprints, lifted some epithelials from the ropes used to bind Randilyn, ran the blood from the hallway. She examined every set of prints she'd lifted, checked them against Fredo Bolivar's. If he'd been in the house, he had to have left
something
behind; she'd even taken off the pipe traps in the bathroom, kitchen, and lab, in the hopes they might contain something useful.

The results were frustrating. None of the prints matched Bolivar. The epithelials belonged to one donor, the woman they'd been used to tie up. The blood was canine.

There was one thing she hadn't taken a close look at yet, and there was a good reason for that. She'd found a clear glass specimen flask with a murky fluid inside and a biohazard decal, labeled
Pfiest. Pisc.
She was studying it when Horatio walked in.

“Any luck?” he asked.

“Not so far. If Fredo Bolivar was in that house, he was careful.”

“According to Randilyn Breakwash, her attacker wore a surgical mask, a painter's suit and possibly some kind of protection on his feet. The physical description she gave is a rough match to Bolivar, but hardly conclusive.”

“What else did she say?”

Horatio put his hands on his hips. “Well, we're on the right track with the McCulver theory. Randilyn confirmed that her husband was looking for the treasure, supposedly the cargo of a downed plane. Her attacker thought Tim had found it and had passed that information along to his wife.”

“Information she didn't have.”

“Correct. If she had, she would have talked and saved herself a lot of suffering…but she couldn't give him what she didn't possess.”

Calleigh frowned. “So either Timothy Breakwash didn't find the plane, or he found it and kept it a secret from Randilyn.”

“It looks that way. I just finished talking to Fredo Bolivar.”

“And?”

“He has an alibi, but not the kind I put any faith in. Friends claim he spent the night with them, in a private home.”

“How cozy. I'm guessing those friends have some experience in providing this kind of alibi.”

“That's not a guess, it's a fact…is this the so-called ‘cell from hell'?” Horatio indicated the flask.

“I think so. Found it in Breakwash's lab—he must have kept some samples around, even though he didn't have the equipment to test them. What was even more interesting, though, was what I found in the sink.” She told him about the emptied containers and the bucket of hydrogen peroxide. “I tested samples from the trap. The rotten-fish odor told me they were probably volatile amines, and I was right. One of the chemicals was aniline.”

“Used in making dye, correct?”

“Among other things. But mixing it with a strong oxidizer like hydrogen peroxide could likely lead to an explosion or fire—and apparently, that's something our intruder knew.”

“So he's educated, maybe has a scientific background. At the very least, he knows enough to not mix certain classes of chemicals…”

“What are you thinking, H?”

“I'm thinking,” said Horatio, “that considering the amount of stress she was under and the fact that she only saw his eyes, Randilyn Breakwash could have mistaken Asian features for Hispanic.”

 

“Mister Kwok,” said Horatio. “Please, have a seat.”

Lee Kwok sat down across from Horatio. He glanced around the interview room. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Let's start with where you were last night, between the hours of ten
P.M.
and eight
A.M.
”

“I was working late at the lab.”

“Pulling an all-nighter? I thought only under-grads did that sort of thing.”

“I had a grant proposal to finish. Deadline was this morning.”

“I understand. Was there anybody with you?”

“No.”

“Night watchman, maybe a janitor? Anyone that could vouch for your presence?”

“It was just me. But I guess the security cameras would have me on them when I arrived and left—I ducked out for a bite to eat around three.”

Horatio nodded. “We'll check that. Mister Kwok—did you know Timothy Breakwash's wife?”

“Randilyn? Sure, I met her a few times. Tim had me over for dinner once, took me up in the balloon another time. We didn't hang out on a regular basis, but I guess I saw him more often once I was running those samples for him. I think he felt like he owed me.”

“Is that what you think, Mister Kwok? That he owed you?”

“For doing a little side work on the university's dime? No. I was happy to do it.”

“Really? Even though it could cost you your job? From what I understand, research positions aren't that easy to come by. And academia is a close-knit world; get fired from one institution and all the others hear about it. That could seriously upset the career track of an ambitious man.”

Kwok shook his head and leaned forward, his face intent. “Look, what is this all about? I don't understand why the Miami police are so concerned about me doing a little off-the-books research for a friend. You're acting like I'm some kind of bioterrorist.”

“That's because somebody was terrorized, Mister Kwok. Randilyn Breakwash was assaulted in her own home, and the person who did it was after some very specific information. Information he was willing to use torture to get.”

Kwok's eyes widened. “Torture? Is she—is she all right?”

“Traumatized but still breathing. Her attacker didn't get what he came for, but not for lack of trying…tell me, Mister Kwok, did Tim ever talk to you about someone named Rodriguo?”

“No, I don't think so—is that who's responsible? What did they want?”

Horatio studied the man carefully before answering. Lee Kwok appeared genuinely shocked, but that could be an act. “What they were after, Mister Kwok, was the location of a downed plane filled with extremely valuable artifacts. Timothy Breakwash was also looking for this plane…and someone, at least, believes he found it.”

“A plane?” Kwok frowned while he processed this. “So this—this doesn't have anything to do with his research.”

“What it has to do with, Mister Kwok, is who else knew what Timothy had found. The person that attacked Mrs. Breakwash also ransacked her home, including her husband's lab. The intruder even emptied containers of volatile chemicals into a sink, in case something had been hidden inside them…but he knew enough about chemistry to not mix incompatible compounds with one another.”

“Oh, hey, hang on. If you think I had anything to do with this, you're wrong. Tim told me about a few of his moneymaking ideas, but he never mentioned anything about searching for a plane. Besides, like I said, I was in the lab all night—just check the security cameras.”

Horatio met the man's eyes. “We'll do that, Mister Kwok. We'll do that…”

 

Calleigh caught Horatio just as he was walking out the front door of the lab building. “Bad news, H,” said Calleigh. “I just looked over the security footage from the university. Lee Kwok was telling the truth—he was there all night, except for about an hour between three and four. No way he could have been the one that attacked Randilyn Breakwash.”

Horatio nodded. “Cut him loose. I've been doing a little checking on some of our other suspects, looking for a possible background in chemistry. Sylvester Perrone has an MBA, but nothing science-related. One of our other players, though, took three years of chemistry before dropping out.”

“Who?”

“Our old friend, Fredo Bolivar.”

“So you think it was him, after all?”

“I do. Right now, our best chance is to break his alibi—and that means breaking one of his friends.”

“That's where you're heading right now?”

“I am. Care to accompany me?”