New Hope for the Dead (5 page)

“Jerry’s name won’t be released to the papers until they’ve checked with us that his next-of-kin’s been notified. The press is pretty decent about things like that. But I’ll call him if you want me to.” Hoke got to his feet. “Where does he live?”

“At the Mercury Club, in Hallandale. I’ll get his number for you.”

Harold Hickey, Hoke thought, must have a bundle. The Mercury Club was right on the ocean, with tight security, and had its own small marina. The Mercury Club was still restricted, too: no Jews, blacks, or Latins. When all of the civil rights legislation was considered, it cost a great deal of money to keep a private club restricted nowadays.

Hoke dialed the number Mrs. Hickey gave him. After two rings, a voice came on the line. The voice was deep and husky; each word was enunciated self-consciously.

“This is a recording. I am Harold Hickey, attorney at law. I am temporarily unable to answer the phone in person. In a moment or so, when I finish speaking, you will
hear a tone. At that time, if you are so inclined, you may leave your name, phone number, and message. I will return your call at my earliest convenience.”

Hoke waited for the tone, and said: “This is Detective-Sergeant Hoke Moseley, Homicide, Miami Police Department. Your son Gerald died this morning under peculiar circumstances. For additional information, call me after ten
P.M.
at my residence, the Eldorado Hotel, Miami Beach. Don’t give up too quickly.” Hoke gave the number, then added, “If you don’t call me at the hotel, you can reach me at Homicide, Miami police station, tomorrow after seven-thirty
A.M.
”

Hoke racked the phone and turned away. Loretta had an expression of dismay. “What was that all about? Were you talking to a recording?”

“He wasn’t there, so I gave the machine the information.”

“Jesus! You told the recording Jerry was dead? I could’ve done that myself. Except that I’d never tell a recording anyone was dead. That’ll be a shock to Harold when he plays it back. The reason I asked you to call him in the first place was I thought you could do it gently.”

“There isn’t any gentle way to tell someone that a member of his family’s dead. The direct method’s as good as any. Besides, if Mr. Hickey was sensitive, he wouldn’t have a recording answer his telephone for him. By the time he calls me back, he’ll have had time to digest the news.”

“You don’t know Harold.” She looked away, toward the bedrooms. “But at least he didn’t have to discover the body, the way I did.”

“I think the coffee may be ready.”

“Just a sec. I’ll see.”

When Loretta returned with the coffee and cups on a tray, Hoke handed her the envelope containing $1,070 and asked her to count it. He then asked her to sign a receipt.

“This money’s yours, or your ex-husband’s. Or you two can split it. But you’d better tell him about it.”

Loretta Hickey nodded. “Suppose those two men come back? They might say it’s theirs.”

“If they come back, call me.” Hoke put his card on the table. “Let me have your home and office number too.”

She gave him the numbers, and Hoke wrote them down in his notebook.

“Is this money evidence, Sergeant?”

“No. I’ve got a list of the serial numbers, and that’s all I’ll need. If I were you, I’d put the money into your night deposit at the bank.”

“I don’t think I want to leave the house tonight. Can’t you keep the money for now, and give it to me tomorrow at the shop?”

“I suppose.” Hoke put the receipt into the envelope with the money, and returned the envelope to his jacket pocket. “Where do you work?”

“I have my own shop, The Bouquetique, a flower and gift shop in the Gables, on Miracle Mile. Do you know where it is?”

“I can find it, but I don’t know exactly when I can get there. Did you make that name up all by yourself, or did you inherit it?”

“I made it up. It’s a combination of bouquet and boutique.”

“I suspected that. What do you sell besides flowers?”

“Smart things. Gifts. Vases, ceramics, turquoise jewelry from New Mexico. Little things like that.”

“All right. I might have some more questions for you. Try and make a list of Jerry’s friends—men and women—and I’ll see you then. If I can’t make it tomorrow, I’ll call you. When was the last time you saw Jerry?”

“This morning—but you mean before that, don’t you?”

Hoke nodded.

“About a month ago. He came by one night and got two shirts, but he only stayed for a few minutes. He was living in the Grove, but he didn’t tell me where, and I didn’t ask. Somebody drove him over and waited for him outside. He
was only here a few minutes. He just got the shirts and left.”

“Who brought him—a man or a woman?”

“I don’t know. I was working on some accounts here at the dining table, and didn’t go outside with him when he left.”

“It doesn’t matter. If you’re pressed for money, I can leave you some of this thousand.”

“I’m not pressed for money, Sergeant. What makes you think that?”

“I didn’t say I thought so.” Hoke smiled. “I’m always pressed for money, so I guess I usually assume everybody else is, too. Meanwhile, if you think of anything else about your conversation with those two men, or if they pester you again, call me at the Eldorado Hotel in Miami Beach. I wrote the number on the back of my card.”

“The Eldorado? That’s in South Beach, isn’t it?”

“Right. Just off Alton Road, next to the condemned Vizcaya Hotel, on the bay side.”

“How can you possibly live in such a terrible place? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“When I got my divorce, my wife got the house, the car, the furniture, the children, the weed-eater, my tankful of guppies—the same old story.”

“You’re not married now, then?”

“No.” And you’ve got a very nice house, Hoke thought.

“Perhaps you can come over for dinner one night? I’ve still got all this food.”

“Why not?” Hoke finished his coffee and got to his feet. “There’ll be a postmortem on Jerry, but we’ll let you know when you can recover the body.”

“That’s all right. Harold’ll take care of all that. So tell him, not me. I don’t think he’ll want a funeral, but he’ll probably call me about that.” She walked Hoke to the front door. “How come, Sergeant Moseley, you live in Miami Beach, anyway? I thought it said in the paper that all the Miami police had to live in the city.”

“That’s a long story, Mrs. Hickey. I’ll save it for another time. I don’t think those men will come back, but keep the bolt on the door anyway, and if they do come back, don’t let them in. Just call me instead. All right?”

“I will. Good night, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow. And thanks for the tuna salad.”

The rain had stopped, and the dark clouds had moved west over the Everglades. Hoke drove cautiously on the still-slick streets. At eight-thirty there was enough light left to drive by without his headlights, because of Daylight Saving Time. But when he reached the MacArthur Causeway, Hoke turned on his lights anyway. Some people drove like maniacs across this narrow link to Miami Beach.

Hoke hadn’t been laid in four months, and Loretta Hickey, all fresh and sweet-smelling from her shower, had made him horny. If he had stayed much longer, he might have made a move on her. But the timing wasn’t right. Her emotions had been drained that morning. She had discussed Jerry as if he were a stranger. She had been coming on to him toward the end of their conversation, though. She knew how sexy she was in that thin floor-length robe. It was funny how some women were sexy and others were not. Ellita Sanchez, despite her ample bosom and good legs, didn’t do it for him. But underneath, she probably smouldered. She was thirty-two, and still lived with her mother and father. He doubted if she had ever been laid. On the other hand, her bed was Cuba: The right man could fry an egg on her G-spot. Living at home that way, and saving her money, she would have one hell of a dowry for some macho Cuban to squander on a sexy mistress some day. At thirty-two, however, her chances of getting married in the Cuban community were negligible. Most of those Cuban girls were married by the time they were eighteen or nineteen. Ellita was no longer an old maid of twenty-five; officially, after thirty, she was a spinster.

Hoke parked in his marked slot in front of the hotel and
glanced up at the electric sign. The neon spluttered, but it still spelled
ELDORADO
in misty rose letters. The shabby lobby was occupied by a half-circle of old ladies watching the flickering television, bolted and chained to the wall, and by four male Cuban residents playing dominoes at an old card table. By tacit consent, the live-in residents of the hotel kept to their own sides of the lobby. The only time the Cubans watched TV was when President Reagan, their hero, was on the tube. The noise at the card table stopped when Hoke crossed the lobby to the desk to check his mail. Eddie Cohen, the ancient desk clerk, was not behind the desk, and there was no mail in Hoke’s box.

Hoke’s thoughts kept returning to Loretta Hickey as he made his routine, if perfunctory, security check on each floor on his way up to his suite. After he made out his report for Mr. Bennett, which he would leave on the manager’s desk in the morning, Hoke undressed and took a tepid shower in his tiny bathroom. Thinking of Loretta Hickey again, and about how she must look under her robe, Hoke masturbated gloomily in the shower. Christ, he thought unhappily, I’m getting too old to jerk off this way. I’ve got to get out of this hole and find a place where I won’t be ashamed to bring a woman.

As usual, Hoke awoke without the aid of a ringing alarm at 6
A.M.
It was a habit held over from his three years in the army. He invariably awakened at six, regardless of the hour he went to bed.

After his one year of junior college in Palm Beach, Hoke had enlisted for three years as a Regular rather than wait to be drafted. An R.A. man had an advantage over the draftees, and the Vietnam War had had little effect on Hoke, except that he probably wouldn’t have enlisted in the army if it hadn’t been for the war. He had spent three uneventful, but not unpleasant, years as an M.P. at Fort Hood, Texas. Most of that time had been spent at the front gate, saluting and waving cars on and off post. He had also pulled his share of guard duty, wandering around unlighted warehouses, but on the whole his had been a safe war. He had gone home twice to Riviera Beach, Florida, on leave, but spent his other furloughs in El Paso and Juarez, where he had some great times with his bunky, Burnley Johnson.

Hoke had never attended any of the army’s special schools, which could have led to a promotion, nor had he applied for any. He made PFC when he completed basic training, and he was discharged as a PFC. He then went home to Riviera Beach, worked in his father’s hardware and chandlery store for two years, and married Patsy, a girl he had dated at Palm Beach High School.

He finally quit at the hardware store when he realized that his father would never relinquish the management to him for as long as he lived. Hoke’s salary was no larger than any of the other clerks’, and Hoke’s father, who had become wealthy from his real-estate investments on Singer Island (having bought up island property during the 1930s), refused to give Hoke a larger salary because he said it would smack of favoritism. The old man was tight, there was no question about that, but he had married an attractive well-to-do widow after Hoke’s mother had died, and the two of them lived very well in a large house on the inland waterway.

Frank Moseley was seventy now, and he still went to the store every day. He had never given Hoke a share of the profits, nor did Hoke expect to get anything when he died. Hoke suspected that the bulk of the estate would go to the
widow and to Hoke’s two daughters, Sue Ellen and Aileen. The old man doted on his granddaughters, and Patsy was wise enough to drive down from Vero Beach often enough to maintain the old man’s interest, yet not often enough to become a nuisance. Hoke had not seen his girls since Patsy divorced him and moved to Vero Beach. Patsy thought it would be better that way. The most recent photographs he had of the girls were from four years ago. He had never paid much attention to the children when they had lived together, Patsy said, and she didn’t want their new lives upset by occasional, so-called duty visits.

Patsy was unfair in this regard, Hoke felt, but there was enough truth in what she said to discourage him from pursuing the matter legally.

Thanks to Hoke’s M.P. background, limited though it was, he had no trouble getting into the Riviera Beach Police Department, and he and Patsy were happy enough during the three years he spent on the force as a patrolman. As a hometown boy—and a “Conch”—Hoke got along well with people, and Riviera Beach, before the 1970s boom and the unforeseen development of condominiums on Singer Island, was relatively crime-free. Patsy kept busy with the children all day, and Hoke drove a patrol car, alternating between day and night shifts. During his off-duty time, he either fished or went to the beach at Singer Island, the widest and nicest beach on Florida’s east coast.

One night Hoke stopped a speeding Caddy. The driver dismounted with a gun in his hand when Hoke approached the car, and Hoke shot the man without even thinking about it. There were three kilos of cocaine in the trunk of the Caddy. The driver had been killed instantly; Hoke was cleared almost immediately and received a commendation from the chief. The rest of his police work at Riviera Beach was routine.

A few months later, after three years on the Riviera Beach force, Hoke applied for and was accepted by the Miami Police Department. It had been pleasant living in
Riviera Beach, and Patsy had some family there, too, but with the girls growing up, Hoke needed the larger salary he could earn as a Miami policeman.

It was difficult at first. Hoke made more money, but it cost more to live in Miami. To earn extra money, Hoke volunteered for overtime, and he always worked the football games on Saturdays and Sundays in the Orange Bowl during his off-duty time. He neglected Patsy and the girls, but after she started to nag him and make his life unpleasant at home, he spent even fewer hours there. He met Bambi, began an intense affair, and studied for the sergeant’s exam in the downtown public library. The girls were noisy at home, and he couldn’t concentrate. Then Patsy joined a neighborhood “consciousness-raising” group, found out about Bambi, and their marriage was over.

Without any family obligations, except for endorsing and mailing every other check to Patsy, Hoke had prospered in the department. He had enjoyed his earlier work in Traffic and liked being a detective even better, especially after he was promoted to sergeant. But the life had taken a toll on his face.

Without his false teeth, Hoke looked much older than forty-two, and this morning, when he looked into the mirror, still thinking about Loretta Hickey, he wondered if she would ever be interested in him as a lover. She could hardly be interested, he thought, if she saw him without his teeth. His eyes were his best feature. They were chocolate brown, a brown so richly dark it was difficult to see his pupils. During his years in the Miami Police Department, this genetic gift had been useful to him on many occasions. Hoke could stare at people for a long time before they realized he was looking at them. By any aesthetic standard, Hoke’s eyes were beautiful. But the rest of his face, if not ordinary, was unremarkable. He had lost most of his sandy hair in front, and his high balding dome gave his longish face a mournful expression. His tanned cheeks were sunken and striated, and there were dark, deep lines from the wings of his prominent nose to the corners of his mouth.

Hoke took his dentures out of the plastic glass where they had been soaking overnight in Polident, rinsed them under the faucet, and set them in place with a few dabs of Stik-Gum. He looked a little better, he thought, with the blue-gray teeth, and he always put his dentures in before shaving. One thing he knew for certain, he looked much trimmer and felt much better at 182 pounds than he had at 205.

The window air conditioner labored away while he dressed (today he wore the yellow leisure suit), and then he made a final check of the room to see if he had forgotten anything. Today was Friday, and his sheets wouldn’t be changed until Saturday morning. The sitting room was a mess, and there was a pile of dirty laundry in the corner of the bedroom. The Peruvian maid would pick up his laundry when she changed the sheets and bring it back on Saturday evening. There was a sour, locker-room smell in both rooms.

Hoke checked his .38 Chief’s Special, slipped it into his holster, and clipped the holster into his belt at the back. He would be reading most of the day, so he left his handcuffs and leather sap on the dresser before going down to the lobby.

As Hoke took his daily report into Mr. Bennett’s office, Eddie Cohen, the desk clerk, called to him from the desk.

“Sergeant Moseley,” the old man said, “you had a call about three
A.M.
, but I told the lady I couldn’t wake you up unless it was an emergency. She said it wasn’t an emergency, and she didn’t give her name. But I wouldn’t wake nobody at three o’clock in the morning for nothing.”

“Thanks, Eddie. What did she sound like? The caller, I mean?”

“Like a woman. It was a woman’s voice, that’s all.”

“Okay. If she happens to call back today, try and get her name and number. The plug on my air conditioner was pulled out again when I got to my room last night. I’ve told you before not to pull it out. The room was like a damned oven with the burners on high when I came home.”

“Mr. Bennett sends me around to pull out the plugs when nobody’s home. If no one’s in the room, it just wastes energy, he said.”

“I understand your position, Eddie, but that rule doesn’t apply to me. It takes about two hours for that beat-up air conditioner to cool off the suite. Also, tell Emilio to set some rat traps around the dumpster again. I spotted two Norways in the back corridor last night.”

“It ain’t the dumpster they’re after.” Eddie shook his head. “These old ladies put their garbage in the hallways instead of taking it down to the dumpster.”

“Never mind. Have Emilio set the traps. I put it in my report to Mr. Bennett. He can pay off the inspectors, but if one of these old ladies ever gets bitten by a Norway, they’ll come down on us again.”

Hoke got into his car, wondering why he should be concerned. Within a week, he’d have to get out of the hotel anyway. He didn’t know where he would be, but he would be somewhere else. With all of the money he owed, a suspension without pay would be a disaster. And any time his check to Patsy was more than a day late, he got a threatening call from her bitchy lawyer.

When Hoke got to the station at seven-thirty, he learned that Ellita was already there and had moved all of the cold case files down to the interrogation room. He sent her down to the cafeteria to get coffee and a jelly doughnut. He hadn’t felt like poaching eggs, and boiling two more, on his hot plate this morning; now his stomach rumbled with hunger. He divided the huge pile into three more or less even stacks without counting them. He also got some legal pads and Bic ballpoints from his office. Sanchez returned with three coffees and Hoke’s doughnut.

“Sergeant Henderson’s still out there in the bullpen talking to Lieutenant Slater and Teddy Gonzalez,” she said, “but I brought coffee for him, too. Are you going to brief Teddy on what we’ve been doing?”

“Gonzalez’ll be busy enough as it is. For now, we’ll hang
onto our own cases. There’s only the one child-abuse case and a suicide. We can complete them and handle the cold cases, too.”

“But Major Brownley said—”

“I know what he said. But there’s no hurry on our pending cases. After we get the
P.M.
, we can close out the Hickey overdose case, too. I talked to Mrs. Hickey last night and found out that the kid was in over his head. Two guys came around yesterday afternoon and told her that Hickey had ripped them off for twenty-five thousand bucks.”

“There was only a thousand in his room.”

“I know. I’m giving it to her today. What I figure, Hickey stashed the money somewhere, and then was so excited by the idea that he gave himself a stronger fix than he thought he was getting.”

Ellita nodded. “It could’ve happened that way. But Mrs. Hickey could’ve also taken the extra twenty-four thousand and left the thousand on top of the dresser.”

“No.” Hoke shook his head. “She wouldn’t do that.”

“You told me yesterday that an amateur never takes it all, and that only pros take everything.”

“That’s true as a general rule, but it doesn’t apply to Mrs. Hickey. I talked to her for a long time, and she isn’t the kind of woman who’d steal from her stepson.”

“Jerry isn’t her son?”

“No, she inherited him from her ex-husband, along with the house, when they got divorced.”

“It’s a possibility, just the same.”

“No way. She’s a successful businesswoman, with her own flower shop in the Gables. Forget about it. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Sanchez watched him and sipped her coffee.

Hoke took off his jacket and draped it over the back of the folding chair. He had been wearing the same short-sleeved flowered sports shirt for three days, and there were three concentric white rings of dried sweat under the armpits.
He wouldn’t have a clean shirt until Saturday evening. The windowless room was cool enough, with plenty of cold air coming through the ducts, but he realized that if he could smell the dried perspiration on his shirt, Ellita could, too. So what? He could smell her overdose of Shalimar perfume, with an extra overlay of added musk. Like most Cuban women, she used too much perfume.

“Just take a stack,” Hoke said, “and read them all. When I get through my stack we’ll exchange. After we’ve read all the cases, we’ll each vote on the three most likely cases to work on. Then we’ll see what we’ve got. Take your time, Ellita. My idea’s to discover the ten most likely cases. If we all come up with the same ten, we’ll have a consensus. But we won’t look at each other’s choices till we’ve each gone through all fifty of them. I don’t want to prejudice you or Bill by telling you my choices as we go along.”

“You won’t. But we won’t get through all these cases today.”

Hoke shrugged. “We’ve got two months. But the ones we do agree on, even if it takes us a week, will save us a lot of useless running around later.”

They went to work, not speaking, and taking occasional notes. Bill Henderson joined them at nine-thirty. Hoke briefed him on the plan, and Henderson moved his stack down to the far end of the table.

“That extra cup of coffee’s yours, Bill,” Hoke said.

“Thanks, Ellita,” Henderson said, removing the plastic lid. He sipped the coffee and made a face. “Christ, it’s stone cold. I’ll go down for some more. Anybody else ready for more coffee?”

“I’ll get it,” Ellita said, getting up. “I didn’t think you’d be out there so long with Slater and Gonzalez.”

When she was gone, Henderson got up and sat on the table next to Hoke. “I was already late this morning in the first place, and then I had to argue with Slater. He wanted me to go over tomorrow afternoon to Miami Beach and guard wedding gifts at a reception. There’s fifty bucks in it,
less Slater’s ten percent for giving you the job, but you have to wear your uniform. That isn’t bad, Hoke, fifty bucks for drinking champagne for three hours while you just stand around. But I couldn’t take it because I promised Marie I’d take her and the kids to the Metrozoo. Now if you can use fifty bucks, Hoke, you could get the job if you asked Slater.”

“My uniform’s too loose on me now, Bill. But I wouldn’t take it anyway. When I made sergeant, I promised myself I wouldn’t do any more moonlighting. I’m not uptight about it, and I could use the dough, but I resent Slater’s ten percent rake-off. I’ve told him so, and that’s why he never asks me to take any moonlighting jobs. So if I asked him for this one, he’d think I’d changed my mind.”