Dead Run (5 page)

“When my daughter was sick, he let me stay with her. He still pay me my full wage.”

“Go on.”

“He always say please. And thank-you.” She paused, eyes filling with tears. “He look at me when I speak. Most don't.”

Carla understood. The wealthy often treated their domestics like nonentities, wanting them to be seen but not heard, to take orders but not be acknowledged.

The housekeeper looked down at her hands, then back up at Carla, expression anguished. “Why would he do this thing?”

“That's what we're trying to figure out. But I need your help.” The woman nodded and Carla went on. “I understand he was divorced. When was that?”

“Last year, before Christmas.” The woman's expression puckered with disapproval. “That one, she was very young. Very spoiled.”

Carla cocked an eyebrow. “That one? There were other Mrs. Bernhardts?”

“Yes, a long time ago. The woman he had children with. The children, they are grown now.”

Carla made a note in the spiral. “How about a girlfriend? Was he dating anyone in particular?”

She shook her head. “He had parties. He invite many girls.”

Girls.
A bitter taste settled on Carla's tongue. It seemed the older and richer guys got, the younger the woman they dated became. To them, thirty was over the hill. “You were here for these parties?”

“No, but I— Never mind.”

Carla frowned. “What?”

The woman folded her hands in her lap; Carla saw that they trembled. “Twice I came to work, and the girls, they were still here. And once I saw…pictures.”

“Pictures?” Carla repeated, straightening. “Of the girls?”

The woman shifted her gaze. “I am ashamed… I shouldn't have… Mr. Bernhardt, he would be very angry—”

“Mr. Bernhardt is dead. And anything you can tell me will help me figure out why. Where did you see these photos?”

“I can show you.”

The woman led Carla back up to Bernhardt's bedroom and the highboy to the right of the bed. The evidence guys didn't even glance up. She opened the top drawer, reached inside and pushed aside the neatly arranged rows of folded handkerchiefs. “I found by accident,” she explained. “I was putting away his things and…there it was.”

“It” was a false-bottom drawer. And now its compartment was empty.

Carla frowned. “Did Mr. Bernhardt know you'd found this?”

“No…I was too ashamed and…what I saw—” Her face went red; she glanced at the officer kneeling beside
the bed, examining it. “I prayed for him. I ask the Lord to forgive him his sins.”

Carla could get little else out of her. Apparently, the girls in the photographs had been very young, naked and performing various sexual acts. The housekeeper had been unable to say if they had been underage. She had been unaware of any illegal activities occurring on the premises.

Some sins, Carla thought, glancing back at Bernhardt's home as she boarded the ferry back to the main island, even death couldn't erase.

Monday, November 5
10:15 a.m.

T
he Key West Police Department was located in Old Town on Angela Street. The pink, stuccoed building, the color so typical of south Florida, also housed City Hall. The unexceptional, aging two-story building, surrounded by a riot of trees, flowering shrubs and runaway weeds, hardly seemed a modern law enforcement hub.

But like everything else Liz had seen so far on this island, it possessed a casual, sometimes dilapidated, charm.

She had spent the weekend unpacking, planning and familiarizing herself with the key. She had done the latter on foot and with the motor scooter she had rented from a kiosk just up the block from her office.

It had been a difficult weekend. Everything she'd
seen had reminded her of Rachel. When her sister had first come to Key West, she had called Liz almost daily. She had described the island vividly, the people, her new church and congregation. She had described the local landscape with its wild profusion of flora in a palette of oranges, pinks and reds; its palms in so many varieties it boggled the mind—Chinese, sawtooth, coconut and windmill—and the island's architecture, with its Caribbean, Victorian and Latin influences.

Seeing the island through her own eyes had brought Rachel's conversations to life. In the moments Liz had been able to detach from her emotions, she had understood why her sister had fallen in love with this place.

Those moments had been punctuations in a narrative of pain. How could she see any beauty in the place that had taken her sister from her?

Liz turned her attention to the task before her: Lieutenant Lopez. Step number one in the plan she had put together over the weekend. She hoped to convince him to reopen his investigation into Rachel's disappearance. At the very least, she intended to put him on notice: she had loved her sister and wouldn't rest until she uncovered the truth about her whereabouts. She wanted a copy of her sister's case file and she wouldn't leave until he gave it to her.

A nervous laugh bubbled to her lips. Big bad Liz. Right. If any more butterflies landed in her stomach, she'd throw up.

Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and started up the police department's front steps. She hadn't made an appointment; she had wanted the element of surprise on her side. She imagined Detective Lopez would be anything but happy to see her.

She entered the building and crossed to the recep
tionist's station, located to her left. The woman behind the desk greeted her with a perky smile. Liz figured her to be in her mid-fifties although she dressed more like a teenager, complete with rhinestone-studded butterfly clips in her hair.

“How can I help you, hon?” she asked.

Liz forced a confident smile. “I need to see Lieutenant Lopez. Is he in?”

“Your name?”

“Elizabeth Ames.”

She drew her cotton-candy pink lips into a pucker. “Do you have an appointment?”

“No. But he'll know what this is in reference to.”

“Okay, doll.” She motioned the logbook on the counter. “Sign in. I'll see if he's available.”

Liz did as she requested, heart beginning to race.
This was it, the moment of truth.
She scrawled her name, turned and crossed to the seating area behind her, though she didn't sit. From behind her she heard the woman asking someone named Becky if Val was available. As she listened, she stared blankly at the worn vinyl seats, struggling to get a grip on her runaway nerves. She understood cops because professionally she had crossed paths with quite a number of them over the years. That tended to happen when counseling families in crisis and delinquent teens. She had even done a stint at the St. Charles County juvenile detention center. Those six months had been a trial by fire—and had convinced her to go into private practice.

What she had learned during those months, however, had been invaluable. Including the best way to deal with police officers. They were a proud breed, independent, sometimes arrogant, often stubborn. She had to play this just right. Lieutenant Lopez could make what she
had come to Key West to do easy for her…or extremely difficult.

“Lieutenant Lopez said you should come on up.” Liz turned to face the receptionist. “You know where his office is?”

“No, I—”

“It's a piece of cake. Take the stairs.” She pointed. “Top of the stairs, take a right. His is the one with the Dutch door. And don't worry, sugar. Unless you're one of the bad guys, Lieutenant Lopez is a real sweetheart.”

Unless she was one of the bad guys. Why didn't she find that comforting?

Liz followed the woman's directions. As promised, finding Valentine Lopez's office posed no difficulty. The upper half of his door was open and she tapped on the casing. “Lieutenant Lopez?” she asked.

Valentine Lopez looked up and smiled. Liz was struck by two things: how handsome he was, and the fact that his smile didn't reach his eyes.

The man stood and motioned her in. “Ms. Ames, this is a surprise.”

“I'm sure it is.” She crossed to him. They shook hands, then sat. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“What brings you to Key West?”

“That should be obvious.” She heard the angry edge in her voice and worked to quell it. “My sister, Lieutenant.”

He settled back in his chair. Its aging springs creaked with the movement. “How can I help?”

“I'd like you to reopen your investigation into her disappearance.”

“I can't do that. I'm sorry. Ask me something else.”

“She didn't suffer a mental breakdown and run off, Lieutenant. I'm positive she didn't.”

“How do you know?”

The wording of his question caught her off guard. His slightly confrontational tone didn't. “I know my sister, Lieutenant Lopez. She's not given to emotionalism or flights of fancy. In fact, she's the most stable person I've ever known.”

“That's an awfully confident claim.”

“It's true.”

“So, you believe her to be alive?”

“Pardon me?”

“You're referring to her in the present tense. But if she's alive and didn't run off, where is she?”

Liz felt his words like a blow to her gut. She went cold, then hot. Tears stung her eyes. “No, Lieutenant, I…I'm afraid she's…”

She cleared her throat, struggling to find her voice, to speak clearly and confidently. She had to convince him. “I'm afraid she was murdered, Lieutenant Lopez. I'm afraid she uncovered some sort of illegal activities on the island and was murdered because of it. I wish I didn't think this.”

For a long moment he said nothing. When he finally spoke, his tone was patient. “If she had uncovered illegal activities on the island, why didn't she call me?”

“I don't know. Perhaps she called one of the other detectives?”

“She didn't.” He softened his tone. “The most grounded of people can suffer a mental breakdown, it happens all the time. One can be precipitated by extreme stress, uncertainty, even physical conditions such as—”

“I'm a social worker,” she snapped. “I'm well aware of the kind of influences that can bring about a mental breakdown.”

“But you're Rachel's sister. Often it's the people closest to us we see with the least clarity.”

She ignored the truth of that. “I'm her only family. More than three months have passed. If she's alive, why hasn't she contacted me?”

“I can't answer that with any certainty, Ms. Ames. Perhaps she's operating under some sort of paranoid delusions. Her behavior certainly suggested something of that sort. As did the claims she made on your answering machine. Or perhaps she's physically unable to contact you.”

Liz balled her hands into fists. “Are you suggesting she's developed amnesia? That phenomenon is extremely rare, much more so than murder, I'm sorry to say.”

He tossed his pen on the table, expression frustrated. “I'm suggesting nothing, Ms. Ames. I'm offering you possibilities.”

“Sorry, Lieutenant, but in my opinion, they don't hold water.”

“Really.” He cocked an eyebrow. “How about this one? Perhaps she doesn't wish to contact you. By your own account, you two argued the last time you spoke.”

Heat flew to Liz's cheeks. Guilty heat. “Yes, we argued,” she retorted, tone defensive. “But not so bitterly that—”

“If she was murdered, where's the blood? The signs of a struggle? The body?” He leaned forward, gaze locked with hers. “We found nothing to indicate your sister met with a violent end. That should be a relief for you to hear, Ms. Ames. I'm a little surprised it isn't.”

She ignored the comment, though it hit its mark. Why
wasn't
she eager to believe her sister alive? What was wrong with her? “I want you to reopen the case.”

“I'm sorry, but there's no evidence to justify my doing so.” He stood, signaling an end to their conversation.

Reluctantly, Liz followed him to his feet. “I'd like a copy of the police report.”

“Sorry, can't help you.” He glanced at his watch. “If there's nothing else, I have another appointment.”

She had blown it, she knew. She had marched in here, all demands and accusations. Rachel had always admonished her for being a hothead. “
Liz, sweetie, try a little honey next time.”

Liz swallowed her anger and held a hand out. “Please, Lieutenant Lopez. By your own account, the investigation is closed. Perhaps I'll see something in the file you overlooked, something—”

“You won't.” He met her gaze evenly. “Make no mistake, Ms. Ames, I'm extremely thorough. This is my town, my little slice of heaven on earth, and I take every infraction of the law seriously. I don't look the other way and I don't take the easy way. If I had found one
shred
of evidence indicating your sister was murdered, I would have aggressively pursued the investigation.”

“And if I find evidence, Lieutenant? Will you reopen and aggressively pursue the investigation?”

“Yes, dammit. Of course I will.”

“Consider yourself on notice, then. Because I intend to discover what happened to my sister. In fact, I've put my life on hold to do it. And I don't care how long it takes.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out one of the business cards she'd had printed at the Speedy-print over the weekend.

He glanced at it, then back at her, one corner of his mouth lifting. “I admire your determination. I think it's
misplaced, but hey, I've only been a lawman for eleven years. May I ask what your first step is going to be?”

She shot him what she hoped was a winning smile. “Your report, of course.”

He stared at her a moment, then tipped back his head and laughed. “All right, you win.” He held up a hand, stopping her thanks. “But you can't take it from the building or make a copy. And before you try hitting me with the Freedom of Information Act, that act applies most specifically to cases that have already been tried. Since you've just told me that I'll be reopening this case, I guess I better make certain the information isn't contaminated. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“I'll get you set up in one of the interrogation rooms.”

She smiled again, relieved. “Thanks, Lieutenant Lopez. I—”

He cut her off. “A word of warning, Ms. Ames. Key Westers are fiercely loyal to their own. Fiercely…protective. I suggest you tread carefully. Try not to step on too many toes. You won't like what happens.”