Fatal Greed (24 page)

As the morning sun cracked through the opening in the faded violet drapes, I awoke, spooning Marisa like she was my baby cub. She clasped my arm to her bosom as if I was her security blanket. It had to be the best night of sleep for both of us in days.

I remained still, not wanting to disturb her peaceful rest. With my emotions more under control, I thought through Marisa’s astonishing story and how it connected to Tiffany’s murder. The only link was Tony, but I couldn’t understand how an incident eighteen years ago had anything to do with Tiffany’s life. Tiffany had been coerced into seducing Karina, but now that Reinaldo claims he did not kill Tiffany, who had motive? Karina possibly, but there had to be others. Other men Tiffany seduced, people at Omaha Gas if they knew she was turning on them.

It hit me then—Marisa knows where Tony lives. We need to get the police over there. This guy harmed Marisa and threatened me. He’s got to have more information on Tiffany’s murder. If not, the police could at least charge him for assaulting Marisa. The more I thought about her experience, the more my blood boiled.
That son of a bitch
.

I heard steps outside our door. I sprung to my feet, disrupting Marisa’s sleep.

“Michael, what’s wrong?” she asked, running her hands through her hair.

I looked around for anything I could use as a weapon and reached for the doorknob, pausing just inches before touching it. Then, a copy of today’s
Times Herald
slid under our door. I let out a sigh.

The main header spanned the entire width of the paper:
“I Didn’t Kill Tiffany”

The
subheader
read:
Defendant Silva Mum on Details, but Claims He Didn’t Murder Secretary

The second story header was more sensational:
Murdered Girl Sent by Omaha Gas to Seduce Men

Followed by another
subheader
:
Intimidation Used on Those Involved in Case
, which focused on the message left on my car windshield.

I showed the splashy headlines to Marisa. Proud of the partnership I’d forged with Arthur and Stu, I felt empowered, knowing the influence and muscle of our once ineffectual hometown paper had proven to be mightier than the threats, deception, and violent acts.

But Tiffany’s killer could still be lurking, so I had to assume we were in danger. I put in a call to Carl Pearson, lead investigator for Tiffany’s murder. With so many details still unconnected, and others possibly unknown, I decided to keep it simple, focusing on
Tony’s
role

“Despite what it says in the paper, we believe, the DA believes, we have a strong case against Reinaldo Silva,” Pearson said. “All this other stuff you’re telling me about, I don’t know. If your story’s actually true, it probably doesn’t have anything to do with this murder investigation. Might be more of a domestic issue.”

“Carl, I hope you’re not calling Marisa a liar. Neither she nor I have done anything wrong during this entire ordeal. All I’m asking is for you to meet us at
Tony’s
apartment. Ask him some questions, look around, then take him away once you get Marisa’s statement. At the very least, he assaulted her. At worst, he could be involved in Tiffany’s murder.”

Carl paused and let out a grumble, as if my call was keeping him away from a round of golf.

“Okay, Smith and I will be there in thirty minutes, but I want you to stay in control, Michael. You seem pretty riled up by all of this.”

Without taking the time to shower, we threw on our clothes and drove to
Tony’s
apartment, located downtown above the pub where he’d met with Marisa, about a block from the former J&W building. We parked and an unmarked silver Ford pulled up beside us. Carl and his partner, Roger Smith, had just arrived.

The four of us walked up the single flight of stairs to reach apartment number 205. Marisa’s face turned pale.

“This will end soon,” I said, wrapping my arm around her. She looked at me but didn’t reply.

Carl knocked three times on the door then identified himself. No answer. He asked us to back away from the door. He knocked again. No answer. He raised his bass voice to ensure anyone inside or any of the neighbors could hear him. Still, no response.

“You trying to disturb the entire building?” An elderly male voice approached us in the hallway. “I’m the property manager here. Who are you?” The chubby man with his pants pulled higher than necessary wore a gray sweater with holes in it. He also had a missing front tooth.

Carl and Roger flashed their badges.

“We’re here on official business. Does a person by the name of Tony live in this apartment?” Carl asked, keeping one eye on the door.

“Tony? I don’t have any renters named Tony,” the manager said. “You’re wasting your time. I haven’t had anyone in that apartment for at least three months.”

Marisa’s face quickly turned red. “That’s not possible. I was here yesterday afternoon.”

“Look, lady,” he said, “I’m not the type who takes sides in a he-said, she-said situation, but that apartment’s empty. Want me to show it to you?”

He pushed the door open and led all of us in. I was hit with an immediate odor, an odd combination of sour, dirty laundry and lasagna. But the place was bare, aside from the decades-old carpet and water-stained ceiling. I looked at Marisa, who shook her head.

“Baby, are you sure you have the apartment number right?”

“Hell yes, I have it right.”

“You certain about that?” Carl followed up. “What about the address?”

“I know it’s right because I couldn’t believe how close it was to J&W. I’m not stupid.”

Carl and Roger searched the entire apartment in less than two minutes.

 
“Hey, Michael,” Carl said to me in a muted voice, “I don’t know what’s going on, but don’t get us involved in any more games, okay? We’re busy trying to get our jobs done.”

That set me off.
“You’re
creating
evidence to convict an innocent person. You’re too busy
ignoring
all of this mounting proof that
should
change the direction of your investigation.”

Carl glared at me, then turned to leave the apartment. “Roger, let’s get out of here.”

Marisa and I paced the apartment for the next minute, neither saying a word. I scratched my chin, then stopped in my tracks. I grabbed Marisa’s hand and rushed downstairs to our car.

“I know you’re telling the truth, but I can’t explain what’s going on here,” I said, realizing evidence pointed to the contrary.

Marisa’s face lost some of its tension.

“I have a gut feeling. I’m not certain it will lead us anywhere, but I should have thought about this a while back.”

“I need to speak to Jeanne. Now,” I said to the newest temp greeting people at Greenberg & Associates.

I looked outside and waved back at Marisa, who sat in the car, engine running.

“Yes, Michael, how are you?” Jeanne noted my disheveled look as she entered the foyer.

“Hey, Jeanne. I’m good. How are you?” After the initial small talk, I provided her a quick debriefing on the progress we’d made on finding Tiffany’s killer. She said she’d seen the articles in the newspaper this week, but was surprised to hear of my involvement. I also told her about the threats against me and the assault on Marisa.

“Is there anyone in your office who might have a key to Tiffany’s old place?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t balk at my request.

She held up a finger and walked away. Two minutes later, she returned.

“You’re lucky. We still had the key the authorities gave us to look through her apartment for work-related items. You might want to knock, just in case the place has been rented out.” I grabbed the key and ran out the door.

Five minutes later, we pulled up to Tiffany’s building. I recognized the structure from a photo in the paper six months earlier. It was once an abandoned textile factory that came within days of being made into a parking lot, until a developer unloaded some cash and refurbished the building into a number of high-end condominiums. The lobby’s modern décor was clean but not overstated—lots of slick lines, polished chrome, accents of black and white, and a swath of red. The payment on one of these loft condos would certainly cost more than an administrative assistant’s salary.

We knocked on the door of number 117. No answer, so we tried the key.

“Clean as a whistle,” I said as we meandered through the expansive condominium. No evidence of Tiffany, or anyone named Tony. I searched through the natural wood cabinets and drawers in the kitchen.

“Do you think the police actually looked in this closet?” Marisa rattled the locked doorknob.

I left a cabinet door open, then walked back to the locked closet and tried the apartment door key. No luck.

“I know when I was a kid, my Mom used to put the spare key to our bedroom doors just above the door frame.” I stretched my arm above the closet. “Women must think alike. Look what we have here.”

I tried the new key, but it still didn’t work.

“Wait. Let me take a look at that.” Marisa examined the small brass key. “This looks like a key to a safety deposit box at the bank.”

“You’re kidding me.” I stared at the key. Would it unlock the door to free Tiffany’s spirit?

We sprinted out of the room with the key, not wasting time to shut the door behind us.

Minutes later, before I had time to put the car in park, Marisa darted into her bank.

I caught up just as Marisa barged into Greg’s office, interrupting a discussion with a coworker. She asked her colleague to leave us alone with her boss.

“Greg, I need your permission to open a safety deposit box with the key we’ve found,” she said.

Greg seemed to recognize our strain and haste.

“We wondered where you ran off to today, Marisa. Obviously, there’s something serious going on. Give me some background, so I can feel comfortable giving you access to someone else’s box.”

“Let me fill you in, Greg.” I ran through a summary of the murder investigation, the new information I’d uncovered, and the resulting threats.

“Wow. Marisa, thank God you’re okay. Come on. I’ll go with you and make sure we get the right safety deposit box.” Greg exited his office, the two of us one step behind him.

Once we found the match, we moved into the secured lockbox room. We used the key to open its corresponding safety deposit box and pulled it out.

“Look at all of this.” Notebooks and a small cell phone tumbled out. “This may take a while.”

Marisa went to the vending machine for caffeine drinks, while I called Stu, who I knew would want to dig through this evidence with us.

For two hours, Marisa, Stu, and I sifted through the plethora of data sitting on the table. It became apparent the notebooks were Tiffany’s diary, some revealing her personal feelings and the rest relating critical facts.

“It appears the last date in her diary was one week before she was murdered,” I said. “Listen to this last entry:
My body and my soul are exhausted from being used like a piece of meat. I’ve sacrificed everything so I can expose these horrible men. I hope someday I can share all of the information I’ve found on Omaha Gas. I pray Tony will rot in hell. Right now, I can only dream of that day. But, I need money to take care of Mom and take us, including Karina, far away from this painful place.”

The three of us sat in silence, knowing we had just heard a heartbreaking, significant message from the dead. Tiffany had not only just told us she was the victim, but confirmed that Karina was mixed up in this as well, which backed up
Reinaldo’s
story.

We read more of the diary entries covering most of the last year, some messages written daily, others weekly.

“Here’s another entry dated about four months before the murder,” I said.
“‘I screwed this city official again last night. I hate trying to break up a marriage, but that’s why they pay me the big bucks, so I can take care of Mom. I had to add all kinds of kinky stuff into my act. That’s what Tony said I needed to do to hook these poor guys. If they only knew, I’d rather be with any woman than be with the sexiest man.’”

For a moment, it felt like we were invading the secret thoughts of a woman who wasn’t around to protect herself or her image. I wondered if she felt safe when she wrote this, or if by documenting the information, she knew if something happened to her, evidence existed to throw her corporate pimps under the bus.

I booted up the phone, and noticed a charge of sixteen percent. The audio recording app was still open, and I found twenty-four files. We listened to a few segments. At first, they appeared to be nothing more than sex tapes, with muffled sounds and voices, some of which we didn’t recognize. On one recording, we could hear Karina saying,
“Please Tiffany, the kids will be home soon, and Reinaldo could surprise us. I want you with every fiber of my body, but we just can’t do this. Not here, not now.”

I glanced at Stu, who pursed his lips. “I’m having a tough time hearing this about Karina, my boss, a friend.”

I nodded, but we kept digging.

We found another one that made me sick to hear it.

“I love it when you talk dirty to me,”
Tiffany said.

“That’s how little sluts like you want it,”
a man’s voice said.

“That’s him.” Marisa put her hands over her face. “That’s Tony.”

The audio diary was disconcerting. We heard thrashing noises for at least a minute, with Tiffany screaming intermittently.

Marisa wiped a single tear and turned away. She slid back her metal-rimmed chair and walked around the room, then sat back down next to me as the tape continued.

 
“You know you like it this way, you little whore.”
Tony sounded like he was on the giving end of some type of sadistic act.

Knowing a similar act of violence had taken Tiffany’s life, the graphic sounds would haunt me. Tony had to be involved in her death, but I wondered how we could prove it. And we still couldn’t leave Karina out of the suspect pool.
Was she and Tony connected?