“Mrs. Santoro?” Ernesto said.
She turned, surprised. Mother of the two other women, Ernesto thought, no question about it. Same eyes, same mouth, bleached blonde hair trying to hide the gray, yes, but no doubt the mother. Same firm breasts, well they were somewhat heavy, true, but she had to be fifty, fifty-five, something like that, a bit thick in the waist, also, but good legs like the two daughters, she was the mother, no question.
“Miami Police Department,” he said, snapping open his wallet and flashing his driver’s license, and then snapping the wallet shut again. “We have some questions about your daughter.”
Annie heard an accent like a tortilla, words that came out as “Miami Polee Deparm, we ha’ some question abou’ you’ door,” but she supposed there were a lot of Hispanic cops in Dade County, and anyway he’d just shown her his ID card, hadn’t he?
“Yes, come in,” she said.
They went into the kitchen behind her.
She put her parcels down on the kitchen table and then led them into the living room. Venetian blinds closed, the room dim and cool, Florida in the summertime, up the street the sound of a lawn mower. You could smell mildew. Almost taste it.
“I just got back from there,” she said. “Miami.”
“Yes, we know,” Ernesto said.
“I went over to identify the body,” Annie said.
“Yes, that’s required,” he said.
The other one, the big one with the slick little mustache and the darting eyes, said nothing.
“It was horrible,” Annie said, and shook her head. “Have you ever been in a morgue? Well, of course you have,” she said.
“Yes,” Ernesto said.
“Horrible,” she said. “The smell in there.”
“Yes,” he said. “Mrs. Santoro, can you...?”
“Excuse me,” she said, “I didn’t get your names.”
“Oh, excuse me,” Ernesto said. “Detective Garcia.” His true surname was Moreno. “And my partner, Detective Rodriguez.” Domingo’s surname was Garzon. “I was wondering if you could tell us where we can locate your stepdaughter?”
“Jenny? Why do you want her?”
“Mrs. Santoro,” Ernesto said, “we want to make sure nothing happens to her like happened to your poor daughter in Miami Beach.”
“Was this drug-related?” Annie asked.
“Your daughter?”
“Yes. Did her death have something to do with drugs?”
“Perhaps,” Ernesto said.
“I thought so. But I don’t think Jenny’s into drugs. I mean, she’s into enough, believe me, but—”
She suddenly cut herself off.
“Yes?” Ernesto said.
“Nothing,” Annie said.
“We know she’s a prostitute,” Ernesto said.
“You do?”
“Yes. That’s not why we want to find her. We want to protect her, Mrs. Santoro.”
This all came out in Señor-Wences English.
“Thass nah why we wann to fine her. We wann to protec’ her, Meez Santoro” — well, the Santoro came out beautifully, of course, but everything else was dipped in guacamole. She thought Miami must be really overrun with them if they were hiring policemen who couldn’t even speak English.
“Who told you Jenny was a prostitute?” she asked.
Ernesto almost said “Alice,” forgetting for a moment that unless he had talked to the Miami daughter before she got killed, she couldn’t have told him anything. “Your daughter in Orlando,” he said, and then realized that was a mistake, too. The daughter in Orlando was also dead. The only difference was that Mrs. Santoro didn’t know about her yet. Chances were, not even the police knew about her yet. They would know about her when the body began stinking. Which in this heat should be very soon.
“I spoke to her yesterday,” Annie said. “She said she’d call back, about meeting me in Miami, but she never did. Well, Katie. Always unreliable,” she said, and made a dismissing gesture with her hand.
Ernesto knew they had spoken. That was why the daughter would soon be stinking up the neighborhood. “She was the one who gave us your address,” he said. Which was the truth. “Because she is concerned about your stepdaughter.” Which was a lie.
“Really?” Annie said. “That’s a surprise.”
Which is the bad thing about lying, Ernesto thought.
“Those two never got along,” Annie said. “Katie hates her, in fact. And you tell me she’s concerned about her? That’s hard to believe.”
“Well, people’s feelings sometimes change,” Ernesto said, and thought Lady, please don’t make this hard for us, okay? “Anyway, we’d like to know where she is,” he said. “Your stepdaughter Jenny.”
He said it “Henny.”
She almost laughed.
Instead, she said, “Last I heard, she was in Calusa.”
Good, Ernesto thought.
“Where in Calusa?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Annie said.
Ernesto looked at her. He glanced at Domingo. He was hoping she was not going to make this difficult for them. There had been enough blood.
“Why don’t you know?” he asked.
“Why don’t I know?” she said. “What do you mean, why don’t I know? If I don’t know, I don’t know.”
“You said she’s in Calusa...”
“Yes.”
“...but you don’t know where.”
“That’s right.”
“How can that be?”
“She called me when she got there. She hadn’t found a place yet, she was just calling to say she was okay. I haven’t heard from her since.”
“Ah,” Ernesto said. “When was this, please?”
“When she called me?”
“Yes, when she called you to say she was okay.”
“Early in April,” Annie said.
Ernesto nodded. He was thinking that was about right, she had disappeared around the end of March. She had probably gone straight to Calusa from Miami. While they were still trying to find her in all the hotel bars on the beach. So. Calusa. That was near Tampa, wasn’t it?
“Where’s Calusa?” he asked.
“Not far from here. Near Sarasota.”
“Tell me,” Ernesto said. “Does she still go by the name Jody Carmody?”
“Well, she uses a lot of names,” Annie said. “I never heard that one before, though, Jody Carmody. Why would she have used that, she hates her sisters, hates the Carmody name. I know she was using Angela West and Cheryl Blake, but Jody Carmody? That was my first husband’s name, Carmody. Not Jenny’s father, Jenny’s father was my second husband, he’s dead now, he died of a heart attack four years ago. I always thought it was him finding out about Jenny gave him the heart attack. That she was a prostitute, you know.”
Ernesto nodded impatiently. He did not want to hear this bullshit.
“Write down the names for me, please,” he said. “All the names she goes by.”