Die Smiling (25 page)

Downtown, Calypso Mon led me through a crowded precinct station right out of
Miami Vice
reruns sans pastel T-shirts under white linen blazers with rolled-up sleeves, pushed me into an interrogation room, and handcuffed me to a hook welded onto a steel table. He took my badge and weapons and self-respect and left me sitting there alone to stew, which I did with a great deal of enthusiasm and internal nastiness and low-throated growling.

Almost an hour later, the giant jerk was back with his sheepish yet toothy Denzel smile.

“Okay, your story checked out. Your sheriff wants to talk to you. I warn you, he ain't so happy.”

I rubbed my sore wrists as he unhooked me. “Me, either. Where's the damn phone?”

“Right this way.”

He preceded me down the hall and through a large, spacious detective squad room. I looked around for all those built female forensic techs dressed like hookers with flowing blond hair and plunging necklines like on
CSI Miami
, but only saw a bunch of regular looking detectives having a good time staring mocking holes through me. They were smiling behind their hands, too, but I didn't get any verbal jeers or heckles. The phone was sitting on a desk beside some tinted windows that looked out over a wide, sunny street with lots of people in shorts and tank tops and sunglasses strolling around.

“Yeah, Sheriff?”

“What the hell do you think you're doing down there?”

I lowered my voice. “I was checking out Hilde's house when I was attacked by her ex-boyfriend, who was hiding inside. Vasquez took off, and when I gave chase, this asshole Miami police detective the size of Mount Everest tackled me and let the suspect get away.”

No answer. Momentary silence. “They told me you got hurt. How bad is it?”

“Just a little bump on the head and a couple of cuts and bruises, sir. But you should see the size of this Miami PD guy, Sheriff.”

“Get it doctored and get back to work. Now that they know you're legit, they said they'd fill you in and assist you in your investigation. Why the fuck didn't you check in with them like I told you to before you went looking for this guy? Dadgumit, you know procedure better than that.”

“It didn't happen that way, sir. I called in and said I'd come down here later and pick up an MPD guy before I went to Vasquez's place. How was I supposed to know Vasquez would jump me at Hilde's house?”

“Bullshit, you should've requested an officer to go with you in the first place, but I suspect you wanted to toss Hilde's residence before they could beat you to it. I know one thing, Detective, I'm sick and tired of you and Bud bending rules and making this department look like amateurs. That crap's gonna stop, you got that? I've got enough to deal with now that the press is hounding me to release details on the Swensen woman, and Bud hasn't turned up a damn thing on Costin, either. I want you to get a move on, wrap it up down there, and get the hell back here.”

“Yes, sir.”

I hung up and turned around, trying to appear as if I had not just gotten a royal reaming out. The detectives were all working diligently now. No smiles. No taunts. I still felt like a fool. I also felt like punching a certain one of them in the steely muscles of his solar plexus, if I could just reach that high.

I watched him saunter over, all smiley and floral. “Guess what, Detective? We're 'posed to sit down together and compare notes, jus' the two of us, too. Fun, fun. First, though, I guess we oughta fix that cut on your face.”

“Forget the cut on my face.”

“Yeah? And be brought up on assaulting a fellow police officer.” He grinned, Detective Friendly, all of a sudden. What was this comedian routine, anyway? The guy think he's Bernie Mac?

I glowered. “Okay, we've thrown each other to the ground and held our big weapons to each other's vital body parts. Now that that's out of the way, maybe we should get down to business.”

“Let me clean that cut and it's a deal.”

I sighed. Put upon. And I thought Black was bad about stitches and Band-Aids.

“Okay. Where can we talk? Someplace private.”

“Follow me.”

I followed him, and we walked together in gritty, unrelenting silence down a couple more gray carpeted corridors to a conference room furnished with a long white table surrounded by cushioned sea-green chairs and a couple of comfortable yellow-and-pink plaid couches lining the walls. Florida decor, and everything. I chose the nearest couch and sat down at one end and waited for the giant to fetch the departmental first-aid kit.

“Gee, you're really cool when you want to be,” I said. Snide, yes, ma'am.

“Yeah, I am. I'm not so sure about you.”

“Oh, no, now you've hurt my feelings and I'm just all torn up inside.”

Calypso Denzel dribbled some antiseptic solution on a cotton pad and said, “Maybe we ought to introduce ourselves.”

“That'd be polite. Why didn't I think of that when you were kicking my ass on the beach?”

He smiled, unperturbed, which perturbed me. “Detective Lieutenant Mario Ortega, goin' on twenty-two years here at Miami-Dade.”

Damn, he outranked me. “Detective Claire Morgan, Canton County Sheriff's Department.”

“You were at the LAPD before that, right? Highly decorated there, too, I hear.”

“Now that's a lucky guess.”

“I checked you out.”

I hated to think what else he'd found out. None of it would be good, I can tell you that. “Okay, enough with the
this-is-your-life
crap. I'd like to know why you were skulking behind the sand dunes and thought it necessary to take me down like some kind of Miami Dolphin linebacker.”

Mario dabbed a bunch of antiseptic on my open cut and waited for me to scream. It stung like hell, but I locked my lips and took it like a tough little lady. Probably disappointed I had a high threshold of pain, he said, “I was tailin' Vasquez. We were tipped that he's gotta contract hit out on him.”

“You telling me that hit man line you used on me was for real?”

Ortega nodded. “It's supposed to go down this week. We got the word off a fairly dependable source, and we don't want it to happen.”

“Why am I scared to ask why?”

“Because Vasquez's workin' an undercover sting for us, and we gotta protect him till it goes down. The hit rumor might mean he's been made. We're tryin' to find out.”

Not sure what to think, I watched him assiduously take the paper backings off a Band-Aid with fingers the size of ballpark franks. “Well, Ortega, I really hate to break this to you, but Vasquez is a primary suspect in my murder case. That's why I'm down here, to interview him and check out his alibi.”

“You always hold a weapon on your suspect when you interview him?”

“I do if he jumps out from behind the curtains and slugs me in the face. You?”

Long, slow, white grin. “Okay, that's understandable enough. Why'd he jump you?”

“Maybe you should ask him. He's your snitch.”

“There's more to it.”

“Well, hit me with it.”

“Carlos Vasquez is involved wit' the crime family that runs things down here. The Rangos family, ever heard of them?”

“Great. And, no, I haven't heard of them. Why would I?”

“The Rangos thinks Carlos is a street punk, but they got him doin' some money launderin' for them through his place called the Ocean Club.”

“He's dirty into drugs, I take it.”

Ortega nodded and lounged down in a chair and swiveled it around to face me. “That's how we got him to cooperate.”

“What about his girlfriend, Hilde Swensen? She involved in any of this mess?”

“No. He's been tryin' to find her. Said he can't get hold of her and it's drivin' him crazy.”

“He can't get hold of her because she's dead. Somebody murdered her, mutilation style. Cut off her lips, then strangled her.”

Ortega sat straighter, frowned at me. “Did you say your perp cut off her lips?”

“That's right. Snipped them off with manicure scissors and left her all dolled up in the regalia she'd won in a beauty pageant. You have something similar?”

“A case a few years back had a similar MO.”

I perked up considerably. “Same thing with the mouth?”

“Yep.”

“When?”

“Two, three years back. Found the body over in the Everglades. Part of the face was bit off.”

“Bit off?”

“That's what the medical examiner thought. The gators got him before we did so she didn't have much to work wit'. And guess who it turned out to be. One of Jose Rangos's own nephews. Young guy, not long outta Mexico. Name was Esteban Rangos. They claimed the body, had a private funeral, and didn't cooperate with us, in fact, they didn't seem to care if we found the perpetrator, or not, so it went cold.”

“So they could get the guy themselves, I take it?”

“Exactly. And when they find him, whew, watch out. The Rangos don't mess around when they're after blood vengeance. Leave their own little personal calling card.”

“I hate to ask.”

“They cut off both earlobes and let them bleed down onto the chest, something to do with a Mayan symbol for bloodletting, I think.”

“Nice little decorative touch. Kinda like that Sicilian dead fish thing?”

“Yep. Or the Colombian necktie. We see some of that, too, now and again.”

“How about a vic named Reesie Verdad? That name ring a bell? A friend of our vic mentioned her.”

“Yeah, I remember that one. A real young kid, Cuban, I think, pretty but a cokehead. Perp confessed. Turned out it was drug related. Jealous ex-boyfriend. He's doing life.”

“Okay. I can mark her off, but the guy in the swamp sounds like the same perp.”

“Wanna take a peek at the Esteban Rangos murder file?”

“You bet I do.”

“Okay, let's go.”

I took the time to swallow down a couple of the Excedrins he'd shaken out into my palm, then followed him outside and down into the basement where they kept the most recent cold cases. We checked in with the duty officer, then sat down at a table to wait while he meandered down the appropriate row looking for the right cardboard box among the hundreds stacked on metal shelves. I hated cold case storage. Every box meant a victim without justice, and that ate at me. Maybe someday I'd have my own personal crusade against unavenged victims. Nothing I'd like better than to snap handcuffs on some deviant who thought he'd gotten away with murder for years. It'd be like Christmas every day.

The young guy in charge had dark hair and an immaculate uniform. He looked fit and healthy with a natural blush in his cheeks and an apparent penchant for weightlifting. His short sleeves fit tight around some impressive biceps. They couldn't compete with Ortega's, though, but who could, other than Arnold Schwarzenegger in his
Conan the Barbarian
days. He walked back to us, carrying the box we'd requested, and I judged him to be a new recruit, biding his time here in the dusty dungeon until he could join the fun at gruesome murder scenes. It probably wouldn't take him long to wish he was back down here without blood spatter and bloated corpses and blowflies. He said, “Here, you go, Mario. Good luck.”

The officer nodded an acknowledgment in my direction, but didn't question my credentials. I guess he trusted Mario's judgment about letting me take a look-see. Ortega lifted the lid off the box and took out everything inside. I picked up the autopsy pictures first, then wished I hadn't.

“Good God.”

“Yep. The ME thinks he was mutilated and murdered first, then a gator got him after he got dumped in the swamp.”

I spread out the pictures on the table and studied each one, looking for similarities. The man looked like he might have been young, strong, even features, long dark hair, what was left of it. I picked up a close-up of the man's mouth. The same jagged cut marks that I'd seen on Hilde. No finesse, just hacked off indiscriminately. I remembered the blood running down Hilde's throat and into her roses, which meant she'd been alive and suffered horribly when he'd severed her mouth. Chances were this one had suffered the same agony as Hilde had. I wondered if he'd still been alive when the alligator dragged him under.

Another picture showed the entire head. Part had been bitten off, including the left ear and one side of the throat. A full body shot revealed that the right leg was gone below the knee and the left foot was missing. Rough-edged gouges in the torso indicated there might have been more than one alligator tearing at the body. There was lots of decomposition.

“My gut's still telling me it's the same perp.”

“Your vic dumped in water?” Ortega asked.

“No. She was decked out in beauty pageant crown and roses. Propped up in the shower stall. He was sending a message to us, or to somebody. He cleaned up the scene with bleach. What does that tell you?” I looked at Ortega.