Cut and Run (10 page)

“I still don't get it,” said Tripp. “You're an heiress. Aren't you worried about this affecting your inheritance?”

Marssai's grin faded. “Yeah, well…let's just say I
was
an heiress. My family isn't too thrilled with my lifestyle, and they laid down the law last year. No more partying, no more dating rock stars, no fun at
all.
So I said thanks, but no thanks.”

“They cut you off?” said Natalia.

“Like Britney with an electric shaver. So I decided to turn a negative into a positive.”

“Dragging your family's name through the gutter?” asked Tripp.

“It's
my
name,” said Marssai coldly. “And I'll do whatever I damn well please with it.”

It was Natalia's turn to sigh. “All right, Marssai—thanks for coming in. You're free to go.”

“Any time. Hey, if you want, you could even arrest me—I'd love a shot of me in handcuffs for the site.”

“Maybe later,” Tripp growled.

After Marssai had left, Natalia scowled at Frank and said, “Well, one down.”

“So to speak,” said Frank.

Natalia raised her eyebrows at him, but she couldn't keep a straight face for long.

 

“Take a look at this,” Delko said. Wolfe walked over to where Delko was sitting in front of a workstation. “Doctor Quinkley just sent over the parasite data from the necropsy.”

Wolfe leaned forward and studied the screen. “So according to this, the sunfish was pulled out of the water around seven hours before the boat crashed into the pier.”

“Yeah—which, according to the ship's log, was about three hours before the
Svetlana 2
initially left on its cruise.”

Wolfe frowned. “So it wasn't caught on the ship; it must have been transferred to the boat while it was docked or at sea. Which, I have to admit, gives some credence to your theory about the fish being significant.”

“Yeah. But we still don't know why.”

“H
ORATIO,” SAID
C
ALLEIGH
, falling into step beside her boss. “How'd it go talking to Breakwash's employer?”

“Well, according to Mister Perrone, Timothy Breakwash was checking samples from his fish farm for an organism called
Pfiesteria piscicida
—also known as ‘the cell from hell.'”

“Doesn't sound like something you'd want turning up in your tuna salad.”

“No, definitely not…but Mister Perrone claimed he didn't know what Breakwash's findings were.”

“Think Perrone was telling the truth?”

“I'm not sure. If Breakwash had found evidence of contamination and threatened to go to the authorities, it would have provided a strong motive for someone to shut him up.”

“Even if Breakwash's findings were negative,” Calleigh pointed out, “he could have lied or tampered with the results and tried to extort money from Perrone. Blackmail can lead to murder, too.”

“True—but Perrone claimed Breakwash wasn't the type. Said he had big dreams but little follow-through.”

“A dreamer, not a schemer?”

Horatio smiled. “Exactly. And after reviewing Mister Breakwash's files, I have to agree with that sentiment. It's possible he was using sensitive information to blackmail someone, but I don't think so. Still, maybe someone else was—Breakwash was subcontracting to a man named Lee Kwok, who works out of a University of Miami building downtown. I'm on my way to see him now.”

She stopped outside the door to the layout room. “Wish I was doing as well. So far, all the evidence I've gathered seems to indicate Breakwash was definitely alive and by himself in the balloon while it was aloft. I'm going to see if I can locate the gun.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks—I'll need it.”

 

The Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine was the University of Miami's medical campus, located in downtown Miami. The medical complex had received a massive donation in 2004 of a hundred million dollars, a bequest so enormous it had caused the school to rename itself in honor of its benefactor. Lee Kwok worked in a fifteen-story highrise called the Clinical Research Building, where—not surprisingly—he had access to an SEM, a scanning electron microscope.

Horatio tracked him down just outside the main entrance, leaning against the glass wall and smoking a cigarette. Kwok was a young Korean in a white lab coat over a blue shirt, with a shaved head and a short, scraggly goatee that looked out of place on his round face.

“Mister Kwok?” Horatio said. “I'm Lieutenant Horatio Caine, Miami-Dade PD. Do you have a minute?”

Kwok dropped his cigarette on the ground and stepped on it. “Sure, I guess so. What can I do for you?”

“It's about a colleague of yours—Timothy Breakwash.”

“Yes, I heard about that. Tragic.”

“I understand you and Timothy were working together on a project?”

Kwok hesitated. “I was helping him out with some samples, yes. I wouldn't say it was anything as formal as a project.”

“No, of course not. That would require more documentation than you could obtain, wouldn't it…”

Kwok frowned. “I don't know what you mean by that.”

“What I mean, Mister Kwok, is that you were using the university's SEM to look for evidence of the
Pfiesteria
organism in samples provided by Timothy Breakwash—and you were doing so without the university's knowledge or consent.”

“How did you—oh. You talked to my department head.”

“Just a few preliminary questions. He doesn't know what you've been doing—yet.”

“Look, it was harmless—just a favor for an old friend. I slipped them in as part of a research project I'm involved with.”

Horatio studied him carefully. “And what did you find, Mister Kwok?”

“The samples he gave me weren't contaminated—not the ones from the fish farm, anyway.”

“There were others?”

“He supplied me with some
Pfiesteria
cultures for comparison and practice. You have to strip off the outer coating to tell whether you have a genuine example of the organism or just a look-alike.”

“Tell me, Mister Kwok—did any of the samples he gave you come from the Everglades?”

Kwok shook his head. “No.
Pfiesteria
usually shows up in river estuaries, not swamplands—it likes the combination of shallow water and high fish population you find there. I've never heard of it turning up in the 'Glades.”

Horatio nodded. “You mentioned the fish farm. Timothy told you where the samples came from?”

“Sure, he explained the whole thing to me. He's a good guy; I thought I'd help him out.”

“Very generous of you, Mister Kwok. Did you ever meet the man who hired Timothy?”

“No. Why would I?”

Horatio looked away, took his sunglasses out of his pocket. “That, Mister Kwok,” he said, slipping them on, “is the question, isn't it…”

 

“Okay,” said Calleigh. “Now, you understand we're not going up that high, right?”

She stood in the same field Timothy Breakwash had launched his final voyage from, talking to the owner of the bright yellow balloon that now towered above her. Liam Fellows was a tall, cheerful-looking man with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail.

“Not afraid of heights, are you?” he asked her.

“Oh, no. I just want to duplicate the flight path Timothy Breakwash took as closely as possible, and he never topped a few hundred feet.”

“Well, I can't promise you we'll duplicate it—we're more or less at the mercy of the wind. But it's blowing in the same direction it was yesterday, and I'll keep it low.”

Calleigh nodded. The balloon she'd rented was the same size as Breakwash's, holding a hundred thousand cubic feet of air and able to lift up to four people; she'd watched them inflate it, using a large, generator-driven fan to blow cold air into it first, then switching to a propane heater once the bag was almost full but lying on its side. It was early morning, the sun having just risen; it was the closest Calleigh could come to copying the conditions of Breakwash's flight.

“All aboard,” said Fellows. She climbed into the basket, and a moment later they were off.

It wasn't quite what she imagined. The ascent was so smooth and gradual it didn't feel like they were going up at all; more like the Earth was dropping away. “How exactly do you control this thing?” asked Calleigh. They were approaching the edge of the 'Glades, but she still had a moment or two before she had to get to work.

“Look up.”

She did, looking past the huge propane burner that perched over them like a giant Zippo, into the throat of the balloon itself. “What am I looking for?”

“See that little circle on the inside, at the very top? That's the parachute vent. I pull on this line here, and it pulls open. Hot air escapes, and we go down. I let go, and the outrushing air pushes the vent back in place.”

“It's so—
basic,”
said Calleigh. “Call me old-fashioned, but I'm used to having a whole aviation industry backing me up when I'm flying.”

“That's what I love about ballooning—it's simple. No engines, no computers, no complicated flight protocols…just a gasbag, a basket, a big blue flame, and the sky.”

She had to admit he had a point. Other than the occasional throaty hiss of the burner—it sounded to her like a giant, fire-breathing cat—it was eerily quiet. Since they were moving at the speed of the wind, even the air seemed still. Below them, the brilliant green edge of the Everglades was rapidly getting closer.

Calleigh dug into the satchel she'd brought with her and pulled out two bright orange plastic bricks. They were transponders, each one emitting a radio signal that she could track with a handheld unit. Her plan was to throw one to either side of the balloon at periodic intervals, giving her a broad trail that would, she hoped, provide the ground-based equivalent of Breakwash's flight path. The transponders were encased in tough, impact-resistant plastic—unless they fell directly onto a boulder, they should survive the fall.

She'd already placed two at the boundary of the field and the Everglades. She waited until they'd gone fifty or so feet past that point, then launched the first one over the edge.

“Bombs away!”

She was fortunate in that most of the terrain she was drifting over wasn't underwater; while there were many pools and streams, gleaming in the early-morning light, it was mostly mangroves and cypress below her. Of course, if the gun had gotten stuck in a tree she might never notice it…

She sighed, and kept chucking transponders over the edge at regular intervals.

The flight was over far too soon. They'd managed to stay more or less on course, though, touching down mere feet from the side of the road where Breakwash had ended up.

“Thanks for the lift,” said Calleigh, climbing out of the basket. She could see her Hummer, right where she'd parked it earlier.

“You accomplish what you wanted?” Fellows asked.

“Oh, that was just preparation. Now comes the
real
work—and it's going to take me all day.”

Two Miami-Dade Range Rovers pulled up, discharging groups of yawning police cadets clutching duffel bags and paper cups of coffee. “Fortunately,” said Calleigh, “I'll have help.”

 

Calleigh used one handheld unit, a cadet named Rosemary Montoyez another. Both of them had rolls of thin, bright pink plastic tape; one end was attached to a stake at its starting point, and the tape was paid out until they reached the first of the transponders. The transponder was picked up, the tape tied to a stake where it was found, and the process started all over again as they headed for the next signal. The other cadets walked behind them, spread out between the two bright pink lines, each sweeping a metal detector in a slow arc.

It wasn't a perfect system, Calleigh knew. The gun could easily lie to either side of her estimation of the balloon's footprint, or have gotten stuck in underbrush; the cadets were under instructions to pay close attention to such possibilities, but even so she was counting a great deal on luck.

Calleigh hated relying on luck. It made her irritable , and the rising heat of the day and the insect population—which seemed to treat her and her team as an all-you-can-eat buffet specially catered for their benefit—didn't help matters. Every inch of ground they covered made things worse; instead of feeling like they were accomplishing something, all Calleigh could think about was the fact that they might have already missed what they were searching for and were now getting farther away from it with every step. Her normally cheerful demeanor rapidly eroded to a simmering, intense silence that the cadets quickly learned to not disturb unless absolutely necessary.

And then, Calleigh abruptly found herself face-to-face with an armed man.

He stepped out of the brush directly in front of her, holding a shotgun in both hands. He was Hispanic, in his early twenties, and dressed in camouflage pants and a black hooded sweatshirt. The look on his face said he hadn't been expecting her any more than she'd been expecting him.

Calleigh's hand automatically went to the pistol on her hip. “Sir? I'm a Miami-Dade police officer. Please lower your weapon.”

For a second she thought he was going to do the opposite, bring the gun to bear on her before she could clear her holster, but the moment passed. He made a visible effort to relax, pointing the barrel of the gun at the ground and raising his other hand in greeting.

“Hola,”
he said. “Caught me by surprise—thought I was all alone out here.” At that moment a large bloodhound came crashing out of the brush, running up to stop at the man's legs. “Except for Hugo, here.”

Calleigh didn't draw her weapon, but she kept her hand on the grip. “And you are?”

“Uh, Bolivar. Fredo Bolivar.”

Calleigh could hear the cadets approaching behind her, and relaxed a little. “What are you doing out here, Mister Bolivar?”

“Just a little duck hunting. I've got a license.”

“Can I see it, please?”

He dug in the pocket of his pants and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She took it from him and looked it over quickly. “This seems to be in order, Mister Bolivar.” She handed it back. “Any luck?”

“Uh, no. Not my day, I guess. What's the deal with the tape?”

“We're trying to recover a piece of evidence in an investigation—a gun. You haven't run across one, have you?”

“What kind of gun?”

“Small-caliber—a twenty-two. Probably a handgun.”

“Well, I haven't seen anything like that, but I'll keep my eyes open.”