“Listen to her, Harry.” Holly hung up. She thought for a minute, then called information and got the number for the Miami office of the General Services Administration and dialed it. Shortly, she had Willard Smith on the line.
“My name is Holly Barker, Mr. Smith. I’m chief of police in Orchid Beach, Florida, up the coast.”
“What can I do for you, Chief?” He sounded in a hurry.
“It appears that the death of Howard Singleton might be related to a case I’m working on up here.”
“And what case would that be?”
“Perhaps you’ll recall that there were two murders and another attempt that were related to your office’s auction of the Palmetto Gardens property?”
“I know about that. Listen, I’ve already talked to the FBI about that.”
“I know; I’ve just talked to Harry Crisp.”
“Then your question must be the same as his?”
“Yes. Is there anything at all you’re working on that sounds like the Palmetto Gardens deal?”
“Nothing.”
“You mean you have no confiscated properties for sale?”
“All the time, Chief, but not like that one. In that case, we appeared to have lowball bidders who had been killing off the competition, but when they failed to kill Mr. Shine and the sale to him went through, they had no further reason to kill people.”
“But what I’m asking is, is there another sale pending which might attract the same sorts of bidders?”
“You mean a criminal element?”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not. I’ve been through every sale on Howard’s desk-and incidentally, I was the one who put those sales on his desk-and neither Howard nor I has spotted anything remotely similar to the Palmetto Gardens case. I’ve been reviewing the files again this morning, just to be sure, and there’s nothing. Now, if you’ll forgive me, I have a great deal of work to do today.”
“Will you call me if something similar comes up?”
“I will certainly do that, Chief,” he said, then hung up.
And he didn’t even take my number, Holly thought.
Her phone rang; it was the medical examiner.
“Morning,” she said. “I hope you’ve done the autopsy on our shooter of last evening.”
“I have, and he died of two gunshot wounds to the chest, both from your weapon.”
“Anything else?”
“He had amalgam dental fillings, just like the other one.”
“So he’s Cuban?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not, if the fillings are the same?”
“Well, he’s blond and blue-eyed, for one thing.”
“Aren’t there any blond and blue-eyed Cubans?”
“I’ve never encountered one. And there’s something else.”
“What?”
“He had a tattoo on his left bicep that looks military to me.”
“American military? Like a regimental symbol?”
“Like that, but not American. There was a legend underneath that was in letters of the Cyrillic alphabet.”
“You mean, like Russian?”
“Yes.”
“There were a lot of Russians in Cuba at one time, weren’t there?”
“Yes, military advisors. I believe they were advising on how to assemble medium-range ballistic missiles. But that was back in the sixties, and this guy is in his early to mid thirties.”
“Could it be a Cuban outfit?”
“Then the legend would be in Spanish, wouldn’t it?”
“You have a point,” she admitted.
“The tattoo is of crossed daggers, and I had the legend translated. It says, ‘Blood and Loyalty.’ ”
“Send me a photo of the tattoo, will you?”
“It’s already on the way.”
“Anything else about the guy that was unusual?”
“I think he might have been a boxer-or at least someone who has taken a beating on more than one occasion. He had a broken nose-twice, according to the X-rays-and some broken ribs that had healed, too. I’ve sent his prints along with the photo.”
“Thanks, Doc.” She hung up and tried to figure out why a Russian might be involved in this.
43
Holly drove to Grant’s house after work, an unmarked car following her. She had arranged for around-the-clock cops to be parked outside.
She entered the house to wonderful smells of cooking. “Hello there,” she called.
“Dinner’s in half an hour,” Grant called back.
“Mmmm,” she said, sniffing the air and kissing him. “Did you ever do an undercover job as a chef?”
“Short-order cook once, for a week. The worst work I’ve ever had to do; it nearly put me off food.”
She fed and walked Daisy, and came back to the house. “I’m going to grab a shower while you’re finishing dinner,” she said.
When she came back downstairs, dinner was on the table-a risotto with shrimp and asparagus, and a lovely chardonnay.
“So, how was your day?” Grant asked.
“Not bad. The ME called, said the dead pizza guy was Russian.”
“How could they tell? Was he carrying a passport?”
“No ID at all, but he had amalgam fillings, which you don’t find in this country anymore, and he had a Russian military tattoo.” She described it to him.
Grant shook his head. “Blood and loyalty. I’ve never heard of anything like that. Crossed daggers doesn’t sound military, either; crossed swords, maybe.”
“I saw a photograph; it’s definitely daggers.”
“Send it to Harry; he can run it against the Bureau’s files.”
“Good idea.”
“You run the guy’s prints?”
“Yes, but we came up with nothing.”
“If he’s an immigrant on a visa, his prints should be on file with INS. Tomorrow, run them against their files. They may not have gotten passed on to the Bureau yet.”
“Thanks for the suggestion.”
Grant started clearing the table, and Holly helped. Then her cellphone rang.
“Hello?”
“Miss Barker?” The voice was female and quavering.
“Yes, who’s this?”
“It’s Marina Santos.”
“Is something wrong, Marina?”
“I went to the grocery store, and when I came back…” Her voice broke, and she seemed unable to go on.
“Marina, what is it? Tell me.”
“My mother and my aunt are dead.”
“Oh, God.”
“There was blood all over the kitchen; they were shot.”
“Marina, where are you now?”
“I’m on my cellphone in my car, parked on the street outside my aunt’s house.”
“What’s the address?”
Marina gave it to her, and Holly wrote it down. “All right, Marina, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to start your car and drive away-don’t hang up. When you drive away, check your rearview mirror to see if anyone is following you. Now, go ahead.”
“All right.”
Holly heard the car start.
“I’m driving down the street, and no one is behind me.”
“All right, give me your cellphone number.” Holly wrote it down. “Now, I want you to go to a public place, very well lighted, like a supermarket parking lot, and park right in front of a big store. I’m going to call the police, and then I’ll call you back with further instructions.”
“All right,” Marina said.
Holly hung up and called Ham’s house.
“Yo,” Ham said.
“It’s me,” Holly said. “Is Ginny there?”
“You don’t want to talk to your old man?”
“Not right now, old man; let me talk to Ginny.”
Ginny came on. “Hi, Holly, what’s up?”
“Ginny, can you fly me to Sarasota?”
“Sure, when?”
“Right this minute; it’s urgent.”
“All right.”
“Tell me the name of the closest airport; we’re going to pick up a passenger.”
“It’s called Sarasota-Bradenton, and it’s near the north-south interstate, north of Sarasota. You can tell your passenger we’ll meet him at Dolphin Aviation.”
Holly heard Ham speak up in the background. “Tell her I’m coming, too.”