The Devil's Necktie (4 page)

7

The Miami sky was gunmetal gray. Billowing cumulus clouds threaded with black created the illusion of a mountain range towering over the Everglades. The humidity was as thick as the cloud cover, and the still air smelled of ozone. Rain wouldn't be too far behind.

Kenny Ortega had taken his usual long, cold morning shower after his daily five-mile run and regimen of push-ups and sit-ups. The shower had gone south on him in the amount of time it took to walk from his government-issue gray Ford Taurus through the automatic doors of the Federal Building.

He draped his gray sports jacket over the worn upholstered chair in front of his desk and pulled his blue pin-striped dress shirt away from his back, hoping it would dry before lunch. Was he thinking about lunch already?

Kenny didn't know when work had changed for him, but lately he spent more time thinking about fishing for grouper. Not that retirement was without its own perils. His father had retired after thirty years of teaching high school math and dropped dead of a massive coronary two weeks later.

But the DEA wasn't an agency where you could sleepwalk. It was a dangerous business. Lives were at stake, and Kenny knew he had to man up or get out.

His secretary, Claire, buzzed his intercom and announced that a Jack Bertolino was on line two. That elicited Ortega's first smile of the day. He picked up his phone, cradled it between his neck and his shoulder, and punched 2.

“Mi hermano!”
Kenny all but shouted. Ortega and Bertolino had worked well together. A fed and a cop. Worked hard, had some laughs, put some major drugs on the table, and sidelined some seriously bad dudes.

“How the fuck are you? I heard you moved to la-la land. You forget your old buddies?”

“Mia . . .” was all Jack could get out.

“Did you finally knock off that piece?”

But Kenny Ortega knew something was off. He clutched his phone and leaned forward to wait out the silence on the other end of the line.

“Someone did . . . Mia's dead.”

“In Miami? Why didn't I hear about it?”

“No, she flew into L.A. two nights ago. I saw her yesterday. She was alive when I left her, dead a half hour later. Looks good for a cartel hit, but the LAPD thinks I look good for it.”

“How's that?” Kenny asked.

“We spent some time.”

That didn't surprise Kenny. “What'd she want?”

“Protection.”

“How can I help?”

“Get a line on Alvarez. See if he's been running anything out of the pen, who's been on his guest list, who he's hanging with on the inside, the whole nine yards. And, Kenny, whatever you can dig up on Mia.”

Mia had been one of Ortega's best confidential informants. He had introduced her to Jack when they were working a case that overlapped. Manuel Alvarez had been importing cocaine into Miami from the Dominican Republic and then shipping the drugs to New York City. The DEA had Alvarez in their crosshairs and Bertolino had him on his hit list. Alvarez was one slick operator, and the only way to get close to the man and infiltrate his cell had been through Mia, the beautiful woman with ice water in her veins.

“It's been a few years, but she's gotta be somewhere in the system. How did they do her?”

“Devil's Necktie.”

“Shit.”

“Is right.”

“I'm on it, Jack. I'll buzz you back when I know anything. Oh, Jack?”

“Yeah, Kenny?”

Kenny Ortega chose his words very carefully.

“Don't beat yourself up. You were off the clock. You punched out two years ago.”

“Thanks, Kenny. That means a lot.”

“Later.”

—

Jack was on the run. He took a last swig of coffee, slid the ME's cleaned sweats and T-shirt into a brown grocery bag, snugged his Glock into his shoulder holster, and threw on a lightweight sports jacket to hide the nine millimeter. He was picking up his keys and heading out the door when he heard his land line ringing.

“Christ.”

He hurried across the concrete floor and grabbed for the phone before voice mail picked up.

“What?”

“Turn on your computer.”

And the line went dead.

It was his son. Jack immediately walked into the smaller of the two bedrooms that he used as an office and opened his MacBook Pro, which had been left on sleep mode. The screen was black for an instant and then light, a jerky image filling the Skype screen and then settling on his son's very serious face.

“Hey, Dad. Holy shit, you look like hell.”

“Thanks, Son. Just what I needed,” he said, trying to downplay it. “Listen, I'd love to talk, but can we do this later?”

“I really need to talk.”

His son was the most important person in his life, and he'd already let him down too many times in the past when police work had taken precedence. Life experiences he could never get back. First steps, ball games, choir recitals, and just plain time in. Since his retirement, he'd vowed never to let that happen again, and he'd been trying very hard not to backpedal.

Jack settled into his chair. He could see his son was worried and instantly shared his concern. “What is it, Chris?”

“I'm thinking about quitting the team.”

Wow, Jack thought. Out of all the possible turmoil his son might have been facing in his first semester at Stanford University, quitting baseball would not even have made it onto Jack's long list.

His son had played ball since the time he was tall enough to hit one off a tee. He was the captain of his high school team and had been scouted by a few organizations. But his son still wanted an education; he was one smart kid.

Young Chris's dream had always been to play hard, win a scholarship, and then if all things were equal, take a shot at the big leagues. Jack had never pushed, or tried not to, but had always been supportive. And now he'd try, damn hard, to think before opening his mouth and saying the wrong thing.

“Really?” was the best he could come up with.

“I'm just not happy.”

“Who is?”

“Dad . . .”

“Right. It's just that, well, you've only been practicing for two months now. Don't you think it might be a little early to make such a drastic decision?”

His son's image jerked around in disconnected blurs on the computer screen. They had decided that Skype would allow them to keep in closer contact. Jack had been all for it.

“I haven't totally made up my mind yet. I just wanted to run it by you.” His son's mouth had taken on a petulant stamp Jack knew very well. “I'm not really getting along with Coach Fredricks. It doesn't look like I'm going to be in the starting lineup, and I know that I've got the skills. I think it's personal.”

Jack's heart swelled with pride. How had he gotten so lucky? Even with the contentious divorce, his son had weathered the storm. The boy was so intelligent and thoughtful. Maybe he had gotten it from his mother, because he didn't think it came from his gene pool.

“You know what, Chris? Wear him down. Don't take no for an answer. You never have before. And you've never given up before. It's not in your DNA.”

“But I've been working my ass off.”

“Christopher.” Jack only called his son Christopher when he was being very serious.

“Dad,” Chris returned with mock sarcasm.

“Love you, Son. I'll stand by you whatever you finally decide, but let's give this a little more time, huh?”

Chris stared at his father for what seemed like an eternity and then said, “Later.”

He clicked off—just like that—leaving Jack Bertolino staring at an empty screen. Teenagers, that wonderful age.

—

Jack pulled his Mustang left onto Vista Haven, and when 3468 was just a few houses farther up, he made a hard right turn onto Lisa Place. The ME's wagon was still out front, and a single black-and-white was snugged up behind it, guarding the crime scene. Both vehicles sat empty. The parade of reporters and vans had disappeared earlier in the day, eager to find the next tragedy to feed the voracious news beast.

Jack unlimbered his gun and locked it in the trunk of his car in case he had a run-in with the uniformed cop. He walked back up the street and made a right toward the murder scene. As he turned the corner, he could now see the neighbor who lived across the street. He was standing on his front patio, holding a hose and watering his azaleas. The man's lot was uphill from the crime scene, affording him a bird's-eye view of 3468 and the yellow police tape strung across the entrance to the driveway.

“Afternoon,” Jack said.

“What?” the man shouted.

Jack could see the man had buds in his ear and a thin set of wires leading into his lime green iPod. The man turned down whatever he was listening to and pulled out one of the buds.

“Sorry, what?”

Jack repeated, “Afternoon.”

“You here for the murder?” he asked, still too loud.

“Beg your pardon?”

“Name's Mayor.” Better, Jack thought.

The slight man walked down his flagstone steps toward Jack and reached out a hand. It was a firm, dry handshake. The man was small, couldn't have been more than five foot four. Thinning close-cropped brown hair and intelligent, lively eyes.

“They call me the Mayor because I'm always around, retired, but my first name really is Mayor,” he shared with pride.

“Good to know.” Jack smiled. “Jack Bertolino. Listen, I wonder if I might ask you a few questions?”

“Wouldn't be the first of the day,” Mayor said as he turned the spray of water onto the ivy that covered the front hillside. “You're not a reporter, are you? You don't look like one. You look more like a cop.”

“I was a cop, retired now.”

Mayor nodded his head. “Go ahead, shoot.”

“Did you see a police car parked in that driveway around five forty-five yesterday evening?”

“Police asked me the same question.”

“And?”

“I saw twenty if I saw one, and then the helicopters and the emergency vehicles. I couldn't get out of my driveway to get to the movie theater. We had six-thirty reserved seats for
Another Earth
.”

Jack had a hard time empathizing with the loss of movie tickets when a woman had been brutally butchered a hundred yards away, and his emotion wasn't lost on Mayor.

“Oh, I must sound terrible. The poor woman. I apologize. I'm just not used to the . . . to the violence. It's got me and Marilyn shaken up.”

That was more than Jack expected.

“Understood. Did Marilyn see or hear anything?”

“She was playing bridge with the girls and the plan was to meet at the theater.”

“And nothing before that? A single car? A sound? Anything out of the ordinary?”

“I saw a gray Mustang in the driveway, and then the noise from that damn party forced me into the house. Had to close the windows. College kids. Their family owns five cars, and they never park in front of their own house, so we have the joy of looking at their kids' vehicles.”

Jack shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and Mayor finally understood that he was going on for too long about something off the point.

“What's your interest here?”

Jack leveled his gaze and stared straight into Mayor's eyes. “The cops think I did it.”

Mayor reflexively took a step back before recovering. “Oh, you're the one they led out in handcuffs. I can see it now. It was dark, and I was looking down, I couldn't see your face.” He scrutinized Jack's face. “You don't look like a killer.”

“Good to know,” Jack said.

“I'm a good judge of character, and I don't think you'd be standing here asking these questions if you'd done it. Doesn't track.”

Jack nodded his head in agreement, trying to develop a rapport.

“So what are your plans?” Mayor asked.

“I'd like to take a look around the property when the police finish up. See if they missed anything.”

Mayor shot a furtive glance toward the county vehicles and gave the request some serious thought. He turned the sprinkler nozzle to stop the flow and set the hose down on the walkway.

Jack prayed he hadn't made a mistake confiding in him. The last thing Jack needed was for Mayor to call the police if he detected movement in the house without knowing who it was.

“I won't stop you,” Mayor said, adding, “I'm supposed to lock up after they leave. No hurry now. The owner won't be back for two weeks. He's in Greece, on a cruise.” Mayor lowered his voice conspiratorially, and Jack stepped in closer. “Michael, the owner of the house, is a real estate agent. Very nice man, good neighbor. I called him on his cell. Anyway, they had a mutual friend in Miami, the dead woman and Michael did. It's how they met.”

Mayor tilted his head in the direction of 3468. “I guess they got along because when he heard the woman was headed to L.A., he offered her the use of his house until she got on her feet. He's got an extra room set up for guests and loves company. Big heart, that Michael. Didn't work out very well for the woman. Michael was devastated. I think he said her name was Mia.”

“It was,” Jack said. Using the past tense made him angry. “Did Michael mention the name of his friend in Miami?”

“Just a first name, Greg. He's with Michael on the ship and I think they work for the same real estate organization.”

Jack was about to ask a question when Mayor all but read his mind.

“If you wait a second, I'll jot down Michael's cell number. I don't think he'll mind one bit. Just keep the number to yourself.”

“Did you give the police this number?”

“They already had it,” Mayor said as he walked into his carport and opened the door to his white Lexus. He pulled out a pen and pad and in seconds handed Jack his first real lead.

“Thank you, Mayor.”