“You’ve lost some valuable art,” Helen said. “Is your insurance company investigating that loss?”
“My Neimans weren’t insured.” Will saw Helen’s surprise. “Do you know what hurricane insurance costs? I live in an evacuation zone. I have a safe room to stash my art collection if there’s a storm, and I didn’t want to pay extra for a rider for my art and other valuables. This is a good neighborhood. I didn’t think...”
“It would happen here,” Helen finished his sentence. She’d heard variations on that theme way too many times.
“Well, it doesn’t! Except to me.” Will sounded resentful that he’d been selected by an uncaring fate. “The police have done nothing. I think they’ve been paid off.”
“I doubt it,” Phil said. “Helen and I will study your report and try to find Donna and her gang.”
“Gang?”
“You don’t think she emptied your house alone, do you? She had accomplices. Any security video?”
“She stole the whole system.”
“Doesn’t your security company have backup storage?” Helen said.
“It wasn’t a monitored system,” Will said. “And before you ask, there’s nothing on the neighbors’ security videos either. Mrs. Gercher described the movers as ‘big and sweaty’ but had no other details.”
“Any photos of Donna?” Helen asked.
“She was camera shy. She didn’t like selfies. The police got two stills off the video at the Perfect Manhattan, but her long dark hair hid her face.”
“What about the restaurants where you had dinner?”
“By the time the police checked, those dates had been recorded over. They didn’t have the newer systems with cloud storage.”
“Any distinguishing marks?”
“She has a dark brown heart on her right shoulder. I guess you’d call it a blemish, but it sure was sexy.” Will sounded like he was still half in love with Donna.
“When we find Donna, do you want us to recover your lost property and turn her over to the police?” Phil asked.
Will’s face changed in an instant. Now it was red with fury. He squeezed his hands together until the knuckles were white. “That bitch made a fool out of me. I want her dead. I’d like to strangle her with my bare hands.”
“Be careful making statements like that,” Phil said. “We’ll try to find her and turn her over to the cops. Understand?”
Will nodded.
“We’ll look for your art and furniture, but I wouldn’t be too hopeful. I’m betting that’s long gone.”
“What about the pawnshops?” Will asked.
“Too closely watched, and they wouldn’t have the furniture. My guess is everything in your house went on a container ship and it’s headed for a foreign country. Fort Lauderdale is a port city.”
“I’ll pay you a ten-thousand-dollar bonus if you find my stuff” Will said. He signed the paperwork on the granite kitchen island and used his cell phone to deposit the retainer in the Coronado Investigations’s bank account. Once the P.I. pair had the contract, they climbed into the Igloo, Helen’s white PT Cruiser, named for its frosty air-conditioning.
She pointed the Igloo toward Federal Highway US 1, the main artery through Fort Lauderdale. “What if Will is lying to us?” Helen asked.
“Why would he do that?” Phil asked.
“Because he lost more than half a million dollars,” Helen said, “the police haven’t found any of his things, and the insurance company hasn’t paid him a nickel. Our investigation would confirm his loss to the insurance company, and we’d look like fools if he started selling that stuff later.”
“It did seem weird he told us the price of everything he lost,” Phil said. “I’ll check online and see if he’s hurting for money. If he’s not, let’s watch him a couple of nights.”
Phil came back the next afternoon. “Will Drickens is rolling in dough,” he said. “Hell, he can dive into a swimming pool of cash, like Scrooge McDuck.”
“That means we’ll have to use your Jeep for surveillance,” Helen said. “My Igloo is too noticeable.”
“’Fraid so. Too bad the Jeep’s not air-conditioned.”
Watching Will was hot work. The first night he came home about eight o’clock. Phil and Helen sweated in the sultry south Florida evening. Helen felt like she’d been wrapped in hot compresses. Even more annoying, the mosquitoes stung her, but not Phil. The sweating, swatting, and surveillance went on for four nights. On Friday night, Will came home at eight and left about nine, dressed to, yes, the nines. Helen and Phil followed his Beemer to an industrial park off Powerline Road. Will parked at a garage, and Phil parked the Jeep behind a smelly Dumpster. They watched their client punch in a number code on a keypad, and the garage door slowly lifted.
“Look for his stolen goods,” Phil whispered.
When the door was fully open Helen whispered back, “Unless Donna took his socket wrenches, Will’s in the clear.” Inside was a red Ferrari and some tools on the walls. Will parked the Ferrari on the street and pulled the Beemer into the garage. “I’m surprised Will didn’t tell us the price of his other car,” Helen said.
“So much for that theory,” Phil said. “We’re back to square one.”
“If you ask me, that’s what Will gets for being gullible enough to pick up a hooker,” Helen said. “He should have used an escort service.”
“How do you know Donna is a hooker?”
“What else could she be?”
“A smart, pretty scammer out for a bigger score than a watch and a wallet.”
Helen considered Phil’s words. “Will said crooked cops are turning a blind eye to this crime.”
“Too easy,” Phil said. “If Donna and her crew are going after rich dudes like Will Drickens, the police are definitely being pressured to catch them. We’re a tourist town and the powers that be take threats to the city’s big business seriously.”
“Then why hasn’t Donna been caught?” Helen asked.
“I’m gonna use my head to find out,” Phil said. “First thing tomorrow, I’ll see someone who’ll know.”
“Our landlady, Margery?”
“My barber, Oscar. A man tells his barber things he’d never tell his wife. Want to come along?”
“I could use a manicure.”
The next morning, Phil made appointments for both of them. At eleven o’clock, he was weaving through the sun-crazed traffic toward the Galt Ocean Mile. The upscale condo canyon was a bit of New York transplanted on the beach. Oscar’s shop was light filled and cheerful. A round-faced, good-natured Turk with short dark hair and a warm smile, Oscar welcomed Phil and draped a styling cape over his shoulders.
“Just even it up a bit, Oscar, nothing drastic.”
While Oscar shaped Phil’s long, silvery hair with practiced snips, Helen presented her nails. The manicurist quickly divined her client’s mood: Helen didn’t want to talk. She deftly shaped Helen’s nails while Helen eavesdropped on Phil and Oscar.
“You get a wide range of clients, Oscar, locals and snowbirds,” Phil said. “Have you heard about anyone who picked up a hooker at a high-class bar? The lady drugged him, drove him home, spent the weekend with him, then she and her crew cleaned out his house.”
“I’ve heard some stories,” Oscar said. “But I don’t think these are hookers. Some women crooks like working in pairs now. One will pick up a single man in a high-priced bar. She’ll distract the guy while her partner slips something in his drink. Then, when the guy doesn’t feel so good, the woman is suddenly helpful. She and her partner get the woozy man home. One pays the bill, and then the two get the guy into his car. The one who picked him up drives his car to his house while her partner follows in her car.