Rubio scratched his chin and grinned. “Well, for you, I might work for free. I’d prefer not to, but I might.”
“I’ll take care of you.”
“What I gotta do?”
“I want you to stay with this lady friend of mine.” He quickly explained what had happened. “She’s a little shook up. I just want her to know there’s somebody watching her back.”
“She good lookin’?”
Harry shot him a look. Rubio grinned back at him.
“Hey, I was only wonderin’.”
When Harry arrived two Clearwater patrol units were parked in front of his house, along with Jocko’s ancient MGB, a car he loved almost as much as he loved Harry’s adoptive mother, Maria.
When he entered the house he found Maria seated on the sofa, holding Jeanie’s hand as the police questioned her. She had just met Jeanie and she was already mothering her.
“What took you so long,” Maria demanded as he approached them. It was typical of her. He had been ten miles farther away than she had, but she had expected him to get there ahead of her.
“Traffic,” he said.
Maria was a heavyset woman with warm, brown eyes that now offered up a disbelieving stare. “I came with your father; we had traffic too. You have a siren,” she added, “and flashing lights. Maybe you could use them.”
He nodded agreement, it was the only way around the verbal on-slaught. He squatted down in front of Jeanie, taking her other hand. “How are you?” he asked.
“I’ve just got a lump on my head.”
“It’s a bad lump,” Maria interjected. “I don’t know why you live in this crazy beach house. It’s not safe.”
Jocko sat next to his wife. “Maria, hush,” he said.
“Don’t hush me,” she snapped. “What I say is true.”
Harry smiled at Jeanie. “She thinks the only place that’s safe for me is in her house on the other side of the intracoastal.”
Jeanie held back her own smile. “You should listen to your mother.”
“See?” Maria agreed.
“Tell me what happened,” Harry said, ignoring her.
“I woke…” She glanced at Maria. “I was in the other room and I heard noise out here, and when I came out this man was going through your things… your police things… from the folder you keep here.”
Jocko caught Harry’s eye. Taking evidence home was against police procedure.
“It was mostly duplicates so I could work at home in the evenings,” he explained.
“Mostly?” Jocko asked.
“And some stuff I was still checking out; stuff that hadn’t become evidence yet.” Harry knew he was talking about a fine line, but bending procedure was something that had never been a problem for him. He stood and turned to the two Clearwater cops. “Let me look through what’s here and figure out what, if anything, this clown took. If you leave me a number I can call it in later for your report.” Harry glanced around the room, and then stepped into his small kitchen. “All the appliances seem to be here, so it doesn’t look like he got anything. Jeanie must have scared him off.”
“Yeah, well, the lady said he was wearing latex gloves, so I doubt we’re gonna find any prints,” the taller of the two cops said.
“It looks like it might be related to a case I’m working on, so if I want prints taken I’ll have my people do it,” Harry said.
“Good enough for us,” the Clearwater cop said. He handed Harry a card. “Just call in and let us know what’s missing… for our report. And when the lady feels up to it, you can arrange a time for her to look at our perp book, see if she can ID this guy.”
“You got it,” Harry said.
“Oh, by the way, the guy got in through your lanai. Cut the screen and came in through the sliding glass doors to the house. It doesn’t look like he had to force them.”
“Sometimes I forget to lock them,” Harry said.
“Bad idea,” the cop said. “Your mother’s right about this neighborhood. There’s a lot of creeps on the beach early in the morning. Some of them sleep out there at night.”
When the two officers left, Harry knelt back down in front of Jeanie. “You sure you feel okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Okay, tell me what this guy looked like.”
Jeanie thought about the question, something Harry always liked to see a witness do. “Well, he was tall, maybe an inch shorter than you, or maybe an inch taller. It was hard to tell.”
“But approximately my height.
“Yes.”
“What about weight?”
“He was slim, but strong looking; muscular, rather than flabby, you know what I mean?”
“Maybe a hundred and seventy-five, a hundred and eighty pounds?”
“I’m not good about weight with men, but that sounds about right.”
“Hair?”
“That was hard to tell. He had a bandana over his nose and mouth and a baseball hat pulled low over his eyes, but I feel like his hair was a light color, blond or sandy brown, something like that. But I couldn’t swear to it. I spent most of my time staring at his gun. It was a big, square one, just like the one you have.”
Harry nodded. “No facial features at all?”
Jeanie shook her head. “Just his eyes. They were blue, and I only remember that because they were very hard, very scary eyes, like he was maybe a little crazy or something. It seemed like he was outraged that I was here, that I was interrupting him. I know it sounds crazy, but it made me feel that he knew I didn’t belong here.” She glanced at Maria with a look of nervous regret.
Maria just patted her hand.
“The Clearwater cops said he was wearing latex gloves.”
“Yes. Just like the ones you have around here. Maybe he just took some of yours when he saw them.”
Harry nodded, his thoughts drifting to Bobby Joe Waldo, and then to Nick Benevuto. “Are you sure the guy was thin?” he asked.
“Yes.”
The door opened behind him and Rubio strutted in. He was dressed in an oversized Magic basketball shirt, baggy jeans falling off his butt that he held up with one hand, and a cockeyed Tampa Bay Rays baseball cap. Harry had told him to wait in his car until the Clearwater cops cleared the scene and left.
“Who the hell are you?” Jocko said.
Harry smiled at the boy. “This is Rubio. I hired him to be Jeanie’s bodyguard.”
“What?” Jeanie said.
“He’s good,” Harry said. “And I trust him. I want him to hang with you for a couple of days, or until I catch this clown.”
“You think this guy might come back looking for me?” Jeanie asked.
“No, I don’t,” Harry said honestly. “But I don’t want to take the chance.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Rubio, come here.”
Rubio swaggered toward them. “Wassup?”
Harry spent the next half hour going through the duplicate files he had at home. Nothing he could think of seemed to be missing, although he had a nagging feeling that something was. If so, he knew it would come to him later.
He left Jeanie and Rubio in the care of his mother, who had decided to take both of them home with her, “where it’s safe,” and “where I can make them a nice lunch.” She promptly ordered Jocko to take his MGB home and get their “real car,” so they all could fit inside.
Before leaving Jocko threw a glance a Rubio and offered to stay at the house with Harry.
“No, I’ll be fine,” Harry assured him. “This clown won’t risk coming back.”
“You got any idea who it was?” Jocko asked.
“Yeah, I do,” Harry said.
It was well past noon when Harry got back to the squad room, half the day wasted. Rourke called him into his office as soon as he noticed he was back.
“We got a problem,” he said, even before Harry had taken a seat. “But first, tell me how everything turned out at your house.”
Harry told him, assuring him there was no evidence at the house that shouldn’t have been there.
“You have any idea who did it?”
“Nothing solid right now,” Harry said, “just a hunch. What’s the problem?”
“The sheriff had a call from a lawyer named Walter Middlebrooks. I guess you know him. He represents that church you’re looking into.”