West pulled plastic gloves out of her back pocket.
She worked them on, so consumed by what she was doing, that she was unaware of anyone around her or the tow truck that was slowly rolling up to haul the Lincoln to the police department for processing. West had not worked crime scenes in years, but she had been good at it once. She was meticulous, tireless, and intuitive, and right now she was getting a weird feeling as she looked at the clutter left by the killer. She lifted a US Air ticket by a corner, opening it on the car seat, touching as little of it as possible as her misgivings grew.
Mauney had flown to Charlotte from Asheville today, arriving at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport at five-thirty p. m. The return, for tomorrow afternoon, was not back to Asheville, but to Miami, and from there Mauney was flying to Grand Cayman, in the West Indies. West carefully flipped through more tickets, her heart picking up, adrenalin coursing. He was scheduled to fly out of Grand Cayman on Wednesday, and stop over in Miami for six hours. Then he would return to Charlotte, and, finally, to Asheville. There were more disturbing signs that were likely unrelated to Maundy's murder, but pointed to other crime possibly surrounding his life.
This was always the bitter irony in such cases, she couldn't help but think. Death ratted on people who were closet drug abusers, drunks, or having affairs with one and/or the other sex, or those who liked to whip or be whipped, or to string themselves up by pulleys and nooses and masturbate. Human creativity was endless, and West had seen it all. She had gotten out a ballpoint pen and was using it to turn pages of other paperwork. Though her forte was not cash and equivalents, treasury and agency securities, derivatives, investment banking, commercial and corporate banking, West knew enough to get a sense of what Mauney might have been intending on his travels.
In the first place, he had an alias, Jack Morgan, whose picture IDs on passport and driver's license showed Mauney's face. There were a total of eight credit cards and two checkbooks in the names of Mauney and Morgan. Both men seemed to have a keen interest in real estate, specifically a number of hotels along Miami Beach. It appeared to West that Mauney was prepared to invest some one hundred million dollars in these old pastel dumps. Why? Who the hell went to Miami Beach these days? West flipped through more paperwork, perspiring in the humid heat. Why was Mauney planning to drop by Grand Cayman, the money-laundering capital of the world?
"My God," West muttered, realizing that Grand Cayman was three syllables.
She stood up, staring at the bright skyline, at the mighty US Bank Corporate Center rising above all, its red light slowly blinking a warning to helicopters and low flying planes. She stared at this symbol of economic achievement, of greatness and hard work on the part of many, and she got angry. West, like a lot of citizens, had checking and savings accounts at US Bank She had financed her Ford through it.
Tellers were always pleasant and hard-working. They went home at the end of the day and did their best to make ends meet like most folks.
Then some carpetbagger comes along and decides to cheat, steal, hoodwink, make out like a bandit, and give an innocent business and its people a bad name. West turned her attention to Hammer and motioned to her.
"Take a look," West said quietly to her chief.
Hammer squatted by the open car door and examined documents without touching them. She had been making investments and saving money most of her life. She knew creative banking when she saw it, and was shocked at first, then disgusted as truth began to whisper. As best she could tell, and of course none of it could be proven at this precise moment, it appeared Blair Mauney III was behind hundreds of millions of dollars loaned to Domin ion Tobacco that seemed to be linked to a real-estate development group called Southman Corporation, in Grand Cayman. Associated with this were multiple bank account numbers not linked by identification numbers. Several of the same Miami telephone numbers showed up repeatedly, with no description other than initials that made no sense. There were references to something called US Choice
"What do you think?" West whispered to Hammer.
"Fraud, for starters. We'll get all this to the FBI, to Squad Four, see what they make of it."
The news helicopter circled low. The cocooned body was loaded into the ambulance.
"What about Cahoon?" West asked.
Hammer took a deep breath, feeling sorry for him. How much bad news did anybody need in one night?
"I'll call him, tell him what we suspect," she grimly said.
"Do we release Mauney's ID tonight?"
"I'd rather hold out until morning." Hammer was staring beyond bright lights and crime-scene tape.
"I believe you have a visitor," she said to West.
Brazil was at the perimeter taking notes. He was not in uniform this night, and his face was hard as his eyes met West's and held. She walked toward him, and they moved some distance away from others, and stood on different sides of crime-scene tape.
"We're not releasing any information tonight," she said to him.
"I'll just do my usual," he said, lifting the tape to duck under.
"No." She blocked him.
"We can't let anybody in. Not on this one."
"Why not?" he said, stung.
"There are a lot of complications."
"There always are." His eyes flashed.
"I'm sorry," she told him.
"I've been inside before," he protested.
"How come now I can't?"
"You've been inside when you've been with me." West began to back away.
"When I've…?" Brazil's pain was almost uncontain- able.
"I am with you!"
West looked around and wished he would lower his voice. She could not tell him what she had found inside the victim's car, and what it quite likely implied about the not-so-innocent victim Blair Mauney III. She glanced back at Hammer. The chief was still leaning inside the Lincoln, looking through more paperwork, perhaps grateful for the distraction from her own private tragedies. West thought of Brazil's behavior at her house while Raines was watching the videotape. This was a mess, and it could not go on. She made the right decision and could feel the change inside her, the curtain dropping. The end.
"You can't do this to me!" Brazil furiously went on.
"I haven't done anything wrong!"
"Please don't make a scene or I'm going to have to ask you to leave," West, the deputy chief, stated.
Enraged and hurt, Brazil realized the truth.
"You're not going to let me ride with you anymore."
West hesitated, trying to ease him into this.
"Andy," she said, 'it couldn't go on forever. You've always known that. Jesus Christ. " She blew out in frustration.
"I'm old enough to… I'm… "
Brazil backed up, staring at her, the traitor, the fiend, the hard-hearted tyrant, the worst villain ever to touch his life. She didn't care about him. She never had.
"I don't need you," he cruelly said.
Brazil wheeled around and ran. He ran as fast as he could, back to his BMW.
"Oh for God's sake," West exclaimed as Hammer suddenly was at her side.
"Problem?" Hammer stared after Brazil, her hands in her pockets.
"More of the same." West wanted to kill him.
"He's going to do something."
"Good deduction." Hammer's eyes were sad and tired, but she was full of courage and support for the living.
"I'd better go after him." West started walking.
Hammer stood where she was, strobing lights washing over her face as she watched West duck reporters and trot off to her car. Hammer thought about new love, about people crazy about each other and not knowing it as they fought and ran off and chased. The ambulance beeped as it backed up, carrying away what was left of a person who Hammer, in truth, did not feel especially sorry for at this point. She would never have wished such horrendous violence upon him, but what a piece of shit he was, stealing, hurting, and more than likely perpetuating the drug trade. Hammer was going to take this investigation into her own hands, and, if need be, make an example of Blair Mauney III, who had planned to screw the bank and a hooker during the same trip.
"People die the way they lived," she commented to Detective Brewster, patting his back.
"Chief Hammer." He was loading new film in his camera.
"I'm sorry about your husband."
"So am I. In more ways than you'll ever know." She ducked under the tape.
to Brazil must have been speeding again, or perhaps he was hiding in another alleyway. West cruised West Trade street, looking for his old BMW. She checked her mirrors, seeing no sign of him, the scanner a staccato of more problems in the city. She picked up the portable phone and dialed the number for Brazil's desk at the Observer. After three rings, it rolled over to another desk, and West hung up. She fumbled for a cigarette, and turned onto Fifth Street, checking cars driven by men checking the late night market. West whelped her siren and flashed her lights, messing with those up to no good. She watched hookers and shims scatter as potential clients sped away.