The interviews with the patrons and dancers proved useless. All the men sitting at the tables and the bar insisted they had not been there the previous evening, and while several acknowledged having seen Darlene on earlier occasions, none remembered seeing her with any one particular individual. The dancers also provided little information, although most said they had talked with Darlene over the past few months, with several commenting that Darlene clearly had her eye out for good-looking men. Harry was certain some of the men had lied to him about being there the previous night, but there was little he could do about that. He took down names and addresses in case any further interviews proved necessary. He also planned to run criminal record checks on everyone present. Any hits would be followed up with a more intense interrogation.
“Well, it wasn’t a complete loss,” Vicky said as they returned to the parking lot. “We know where she was last night; we have a description of a man she may have left with; and we found her car. That’s a lot of pluses.”
“It’s a start,” Harry said as they headed toward Darlene’s 2004 green Taurus, which was now cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape and bathed in portable high-intensity light.
They stopped outside the tape and watched Martin LeBaron dust the passenger’s-side door. When he saw them he beckoned them inside the tape. “We finished with everything around the car,” he said. “In fact, when I finish with this door, we’ll have done everything we can here. I’ll be towing it back to the garage to finish up there.”
“You find anything?” Vicky asked.
“Nothing that jumps out at me,” LeBaron said. “Plenty of prints inside and out, just as you’d expect. We’ll have to run them; see what comes up.”
Vicky turned to Harry. “What now?”
“Now we go back to the office, write up what we found, and get our murder book started. I also want to go back to DMV and have them send us copies of the driver’s licenses of all the people whose cars we ran earlier. I want to see if any of them match up to the description of the guy Jasmine told us about. If any of the photos fit that description we’ll show them to Jasmine tomorrow, see if she can ID him.”
We gonna see everybody on that list?”
“That’s the drill.” He gave her an amused half smile. “You thought homicide was going to be all glamour, huh?”
Vicky shook her head. “No, I’ve been a cop too long to think that.”
It was three a.m. when Harry slipped his key in the front door of his two-bedroom beach house off Mandalay Avenue on Clearwater Beach. He had bought the house ten years earlier, well before Clearwater Beach property had gone through the roof. He had put himself in hock to the tune of $200,000, and now found himself the owner of a “beach shack” worth five or six times that. It wasn’t the house of course; it was the property, sitting as it did directly behind a small dune with a clear view of the Gulf of Mexico. For the past five years he had fended off realtors with ever-escalating offers-each one representing a buyer who wanted to tear down his beach shack and build some glass-and-stucco monstrosity like all the others that now lined the beach. Harry told them all that he planned to wait for the hurricane that would eventually level the house, and then decide whether to rebuild or sell the land and the pile of sticks that sat on it. He was certain the realtors left hoping the next hurricane season would get him.
The house was a simple one-story wood-frame dwelling with a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bath. It had a screened lanai off the living room facing the gulf, and a deck off the master bedroom that also overlooked the water. If he left the bedroom’s sliding glass doors open he could go to sleep each night to the sound of the waves rolling up on the beach. The house was his private bit of heaven, the one thing that kept him sane.
He had been thinking about Darlene Beckett’s mutilated face when he found the annual letter from his mother waiting in the mailbox. Just one more bit of EVIL to end his day with, he thought, as he collected it and tossed it, unopened, on a small side table just inside the front door. He kicked off his shoes, also leaving them near the front door as he always did, just under the longboard and helmet that hung on a rack behind the door. He used the board-a longer, more elegant version of a skateboard-as a form of exercise, racing along the sidewalks and streets early in the morning, or late at night, testing the tolerance of pedestrians whose comments often followed him down the street. He loved the board, loved the exercise it gave him, loved how it brought back memories of riding alongside his brother Jimmy, on the battered skateboards they had as kids, always together back then.
Harry cut three oranges in half, squeezed a glass of juice, and went out on the lanai. It was high tide and a light breeze coming in off the gulf sent a steady line of waves against the shore. He took a deep breath to let the ugliness of the day drain away. He knew it wouldn’t work, not today. Darlene Beckett was too fixed in his mind, the image of her lifeless body with its catlike Mardi Gras mask, the seedy strip club she had visited so regularly, all relentlessly coming back at him, all unreasonably mixed together with the letter that waited in the living room.
“Hi, Harry.”
He looked toward the screen door of the lanai and found Jeanie Walsh standing there.
“What are you doing up so late, or early, or whatever?” he asked.
“Couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk on the beach.”
“Dangerous,” he said. “I’ve told you that before.”
“I know. Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
Jeanie entered and took a seat next to him, facing the water. She was a few years younger than Harry, five-five and slightly underweight, but in a pleasing sort of way, with short, curly blond hair and very soft, very gentle brown eyes. He had met her early one morning while he was terrorizing the neighborhood on his longboard. He had come around a corner far too fast, startling her and causing her to drop a container of coffee she had just purchased. He had apologized, walked her back to the coffee shop and bought her another. Within fifteen minutes they had become friends.
Jeanie lived in the blot-out-the-sun condo next to Harry’s house. She was a stockbroker, financially secure, recently separated, and lonely. Within a week they had become casual lovers, a matter of comfort and convenience for each of them-Harry who wanted no emotional commitment in his life, and Jeanie who was still in love with her long gone husband, even though he was addicted to sweet young things and had cheated on her repeatedly while they were together.
“So why the solo beach walk? Just trying to tempt the homeless psychos who sleep there at night?”
Jeanie leaned her head back, turned her face toward him, and smiled. Harry thought it was a beautiful smile.
“Just brooding about my soon-to-be ex-husband.” The smile faded and she looked back toward the water. “It’s like I told you when we first met. I’m just a born sucker.”
“So stop,” Harry said. “Look, maybe you’ll get lucky, or unlucky, or whatever, and that clown will wake up some morning and realize what a great lady you are. Maybe he never will. But in the meantime you’re still a great lady. Enjoy being one. You’re part of a rare and exclusive breed.”
“Not so rare, Harry. You just don’t trust women.”
“I don’t trust men either. Kids, well, they’re so, so.”
Jeanie laughed. “If people ever find out what a softie you really are, you’re going to have a hard time selling yourself as a big, bad detective.”
“So don’t tell anybody.”
“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.”
They sat quietly for several minutes; then Jeanie reached out and took his hand. “Can I stay here with you, Harry? I don’t want to be alone for the rest of the night. I don’t want anything. I really couldn’t handle anything. I just want to climb into your bed and lie next to you.”