“You met the suspect,” Conlin said. “What did you think?”
“I didn’t believe him. Man accused of murder but can’t remember anything. A little too convenient, don’t you think?”
“I felt the same way,” Conlin said, talking one cop to another now. “This guy Klaus was so relaxed when I questioned him, I thought he was falling asleep.”
“What I don’t understand,” Cuffee said, “this man come from Stuttgart, had a German passport, right? Went through customs in Detroit. But he don’t speak the language?”
“Said he couldn’t remember,” Conlin said.
Cuffee said. “Keep me posted, uh? I got a personal interest in this one.”
Conlin had been at the crime scene since the Costa Rican maid found Lynn Risdon and called the police. The room smelled of perfume and feces, like somebody took a dump and splashed it with Chanel No. 5. That was the only perfume name he could think of.
Lynn Risdon was on her back fully clothed, lying in her own waste. Face frozen. Eyes open. There was rope binding her wrists and ankles. According to the medical examiner the probable cause of death was asphyxiation. The phone line had been pulled out of the wall, but there was no sign of a struggle.
They found grey stubble on a razor in the bathroom, and grey hair webbed on a brush and on the bottom of the tub. Looked like whoever killed her had showered and shaved. May have had a snack too. There was an empty milk glass and two plates in the sink. Forensics had been able to lift a couple prints and were checking to see if they matched the prints Conlin had taken of Klaus in the Bahamian hospital.
The deceased was wearing a two-carat diamond ring and a Rolex. Her cash and credit cards were still in her wallet. So apparently robbery wasn’t a motive. Conlin dumped the contents of her purse on the kitchen table: brush, comb, makeup, condoms, lipstick and wallet. He opened the wallet, took out the driver’s license. Lynn Risdon was forty-one, five six, 130 pounds, dark hair parted down the middle. There was a registration for a 1969 Ford Mustang, but the car wasn’t on the property or out front on the street. Maybe she met the killer somewhere and he brought her here in his car. As he was putting her things back in the purse he noticed a receipt from a bar/restaurant on Gulfstream Road.
According to a neighbor Lynn Risdon was divorced and collecting $3,200 a month in alimony. Her relationship with her ex was acrimonious. He didn’t know the exact definition of the word, but he knew it wasn’t good. Looking for a motive, Conlin thought? There it was.
The bartender was a big guy with a gut, looked like a former athlete. He was busy behind the bar, getting ready for the happy-hour rush. Conlin walked in, got his attention and held up his shield.
The bartender grinned and said, “I’m innocent.” Thinking he was funny.
Conlin let it go and said, “I need to ask you some questions.”
“I’m kinda busy. The boozehounds are on their way, be here any time.”
“You can work while we talk.”
The bar was empty except for a couple of old dudes in golf shirts down to his right, drinking martinis. He could hear “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night coming from speakers somewhere in the room. Conlin held up a snapshot of Lynn Risdon he’d found in a desk drawer at her house. “You know her?”
The bartender looked up and nodded. “She’s a regular. Comes in has a few and leaves. Saw her last night.” He was slicing lemons and limes on a plastic cutting board.
“Was she with someone?” Conlin sat on a barstool, elbows on the bar top like a customer, thinking how good a beer would taste.
“Guy next to her, ordered a single malt, they started talking.”
“What’d he look like?”
“Salt ’n’ pepper hair, late forties, fifty, little shorter than you, little heavier. What happened?”
He slid the cut slices off the cutting board into a white plastic bucket.
“This guy she was talking to, they know each other?”
“I don’t think so.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m a bartender,” he said, like being a bartender was an elite profession — right up there with neurosurgeons.
“What were they talking about?”
He looked up from the cutting board and shrugged.
“I thought you were a bartender.”
“He was telling her he was a producer, made porno flicks. I don’t know if he was making it up or not, but she was into it.”
“They leave together?”
“She had four martinis, could barely walk. He helped her out, practically carried her.”
“He drive her home?”
“How do I know? Ask Joey, the valet.”
“This look like him?” Conlin said, showing him the artist sketch of Gerd Klaus.
“Yeah.”
Joey looked like a valet, skinny dark-haired kid with a goatee, wearing skintight black Levis, black tee shirt and a red vest. Joey, Conlin noticed, had a ring on every finger. He was setting up his booth near the door when Conlin walked out of the restaurant at 5:12 p.m. After introductions, Conlin said, “What’s with the rings?”
“Each one represents a special memory.”
“A special memory, huh?” Conlin said, thinking this guy had to be a fruit. He showed him the picture of Lynn Risdon. “Know her?”
“She’s here a lot. Drives a white ’69 Mustang.”
“See her last night?”
“Uh-huh. Pulled in at six thirty. Left at around quarter to ten. She was wasted, couldn’t walk, some guy was helping her to her car.”
Joey had a heavy Boston accent. Conlin had to really listen to understand him. “He drive her home?”
“I don’t know, but he drove her somewhere.”
“What about his car?”
“Don’t think he had one. I saw him walk in from Gulfstream Road at about seven fifteen.” He paused. “I was here till closing, never saw him again.”
“Ever seen him before?”
“I don’t think so.”
Conlin showed him the artist sketch. “This look like him?”
“Definitely.”
Conlin got to Sunset Realty at about twenty to seven, parked on Worth, went in, flashed his shield and told the bleached blonde receptionist with silver hairpins holding up the front of her hair he was looking for Joyce Cantor.
“You just missed her. Went out the door a couple of minutes ago. She’s walking home. Lives at the Winthrop House. Know where that’s at, don’t you?”
Conlin nodded, thanked her and walked outside, looked east, trying to spot Joyce on the congested sidewalk. Didn’t see her. He got in his car. Worth Avenue was one-way so he drove to Cocoanut Row, went right and right again on Peruvian and took it all the way to the beach road, ocean straight ahead, took another right and pulled over in a no-parking zone in front of the Winthrop House. On the way he got a call from headquarters saying a patrolman had found Lynn Risdon’s car parked on Worth Avenue, first block.
Conlin had taken Joyce Cantor’s statement two weeks earlier in connection with the homicide of a security guard killed on the estate where Joyce was staying. Said she hadn’t heard a gunshot and had never met a German manufacturer’s rep named Gerd Klaus whose rental vehicle was discovered near the scene of the crime. Joyce’s story was corroborated by Harry Levin, and by a colored guy named Cordell Sims, who were also staying at the estate owned by some rich guy named Frankel from New York. Talk about a clusterfuck.
Conlin knew they were bullshitting him, but he couldn’t prove anything and had to let them go, all except for Sims who had an outstanding warrant against him — felony firearm — and ended up spending a day in county lockup until his legal problems were miraculously resolved. Now the German was back and he had a feeling Joyce would be interested to know about it.