The Dark of Day (23 page)

Carlos heard the
thwop-thwop-thwop
of rotor blades and looked at the sky. Channel Six had arrived, the others sure to follow.

Libi stepped down to the sidewalk and grabbed his arm. “They just called from the station. CNN wants the story for their ten o'clock news hour! Carlos, I'm going national!”

“Will CNN use it, though?”

“Fuckin' A, they will!” She heard the helicopters—two of them now—and looked up. “Oh, shit. Come on, let's go.” Holding her microphone in one hand, her reporter pad in the other, she went through the opening in the long, curving white wall. A light breeze rattled the palm trees. Carlos hugged his camera close to his chest as he plowed through the sand.

“We're the first ones here! Can you believe the luck?” Libi was practically skipping with happiness. “What should I lead with? The mysterious disappearance of a beautiful young woman has finally been solved with the shocking discovery of a dismembered body in the surf on Fort Lauderdale Beach.”

“That's fine for
Court TV,
” he said.

“You're right. How about this? The body of a young woman drifted ashore tonight on Fort Lauderdale Beach, putting an end to a week of speculation, and so forth.”

“Better, but how do you know it's Alana Martin?”

“Who else could it be?”

“But you aren't sure it's Alana, and you shouldn't say she's been dismembered. The medical examiner hasn't had a chance to look at the body yet.”

“Carlos, they haven't found the head, and the legs are missing below the knees. One of her arms is gone, and they found the other down the beach. Someone obviously cut her up.”

“Not necessarily.” He was getting short of breath. “If you're in the ocean a week, it can do things to you. A shark could have come along.”

“Sharks do not eat dead flesh.” Libi was an expert on everything.

Carlos could deal with bombs going off around him, but he didn't like filming death scenes, the exposed bone and the blood. In this case, there
wouldn't be any blood left, and the body would be covered by now. Just after dark, the Taylors, a young couple from Ohio, had been walking barefoot in the surf and had noticed something at the edge of the water. The only light had come from the street, so they couldn't see clearly. The woman thought it was a sea turtle, because turtles nested this time of year, but as they walked closer they saw it was too pale, and it wasn't moving. The man noticed long, gray tendrils that floated around the thing as the waves went in and out. He leaned over it, and as the next wave went out he saw shoulders and ragged white flesh where the head should have been. His wife screamed, and they ran to call 911. Later the police explained to Libi that the tendrils had been strands of silver duct tape, floating free.

There was not one station on Planet Earth that would show it, even if the police let them tape it, which was highly doubtful. Carlos planned to shoot at a distance, put a sense of desolation into the frame. But Libi Rodriguez would be chattering in the background.

She was doing it now. “Our chopper is on the way. After we finish and give the tape to Manny, let's see if we can catch a ride back to Miami. We'll get the car later. I want to interview the parents before anyone else gets there. They know me. They trust me. I want their reaction.”

“But we aren't sure it's her,” Carlos said, “and even if it is, we shouldn't be the ones to break it to the family.”

“Don't be so squeamish. Everyone has heard by now. It's been on every station.”

Someone passed him, falling into step with Libi, a short man in a ball cap with a folded tripod on his shoulder and two cameras with long lenses, the straps making a black X across his back. “Ms. Rodriguez? Nash Pettigrew from Los Angeles, freelance photographer. I admire your work.” He looked around at Carlos and gave him a quick nod.

Libi picked up the pace. If he had been a TV reporter she would probably have tripped him. “We're on a deadline,” she said.

“I was hoping we could work out a trade,” he said. “Some footage of the tourist couple for some shots of the dead girl. I got inside a sixth-floor apartment, great view. I have a good one of the waves breaking over the body, before they pulled it farther onshore and covered it up.”

Libi finally looked at the man. “What's she wearing? The girl on the beach. Did you see any clothes?”

“It looked like a little black dress. She was wrapped in duct tape, and I guess that kept the dress from coming off her.”

“Ah-ha.” Libi looked around at Carlos. “It's definitely her, then. Alana Martin was wearing a black dress the night she disappeared.”

Pettigrew said, “Are you interested in a trade?”

“Why should I be?”

“We're not in competition. You're video, I'm print.” He grinned up at Libi as he trudged beside her. “I've been told you have footage of the lawyer, C.J. Dunn, coming out of Alana's apartment today. I have shots of her at China Moon, talking to Alana's employer. I also have her talking to Alana's boyfriend, Jason Wright, two hours ago. Same party you were at.”

Libi didn't stop but she slowed down. “Why are you interested in C.J. Dunn?”

“She's all over this case. Follow her, you find who the cops are looking at. See, I know her from L.A. She doesn't get into a case unless it has high publicity value, and usually the person she represents is guilty as all get-out. She's been hired by someone you'd never think was connected to Alana Martin.”

“Who?”

“Not yet.” Pettigrew wagged a finger.

Libi walked along a few more paces before she said, “If you had something on C.J. Dunn I could use, I might be interested. I mean something personal.”

Pettigrew's front teeth had gaps between them. He passed his tongue over his lips. “Okay, this is for free. She's not from L.A. She's a redneck from a podunk town in North Florida. Her father died in prison. Her real name's Charlotte Josephine Bryan. Oh, there's more, but we share it, see? What about a deal?”

Libi stopped walking. “Go back there to the Channel Eight truck and wait for me.”

“Okey-doke.”

As Pettigrew turned toward the street, Carlos said, “I wouldn't get involved with a man like that.”

“Well, Carlos, that's why God made you a cameraman and me a reporter.” She headed again toward the lights, double time.

He caught up and asked, “Why do you want something on C.J. Dunn?”

Libi was smiling. “Did you know that C.J. Dunn is up for a job on CNN? Hosting a show on homicide by the rich and famous. She's too aloof for that gig. People don't like that. And I'm younger and hotter, anyway.”

“It doesn't sound like an entertainment show,” Carlos said.

“Of course it is. It's all entertainment. Even this.” The glare of the lights cut across her face. She clamped her microphone and reporter pad under her arm long enough to take a compact out of her jacket pocket and check her lipstick. “Okay, let's do it. Get the police activity first, then swing over to me. Wait. I want to stand so my hair isn't against the sky. Let's have some backlighting. How's this?”

“Good.” As Carlos panned over the scene, Libi pushed her hair behind her ears and straightened her collar, opening her shirt to show some chest. He turned on his camera light and put her in the right side of the frame.

Her image said, “I can guess what Nash Pettigrew will tell me. Want to hear it?”

“Sure.”

“Congressman Paul Shelby is the one who hired C.J. Dunn. Why else would he blow off my request for an interview? I happen to know that homicide detectives have been questioning his chauffeur. I can't remember his name, but I wrote it down. Don't you think that's interesting, Carlos?”

“Not really. They're questioning a lot of people.”

Libi said, “A mere chauffeur wouldn't be able to pay her exorbitant fees, but Shelby would. I saw her with Shelby tonight. They went outside to talk. I'll bet it was about this case.”

The viewfinder framed the circle of lights blazing on the beach, the yellow crime-scene tape, and two men approaching with a stretcher. Carlos said, “They're going to take the body away.”

Libi looked around. “We got here just in time. Are you taping it? I want that.”

They carried a stretcher with metal rails and a heavy black bag in the center, neatly folded. Someone ought to be calling the family, maybe bring a priest to the house.

“Carlos!” Libi looked into the lens. “I'm going to give you a couple of openings. They can use whichever fits. Ready?” She had a slight frown on her face, which was appropriate, he guessed, for a pickup of a death scene by the major networks. “This is Libi Rodriguez for CNN, reporting from Fort Lauderdale Beach.” She paused, then said, “This is Libi Rodriguez for Channel Eight News.”

Gesturing toward the activity behind her, she went on, “Speculation over the disappearance a week ago of a beautiful young Miami woman, a model and budding actress, seems to have ended tonight when an Ohio couple, taking a romantic walk on the beach, stumbled upon a grisly sight.”

For the small thrill it gave him, Carlos let his finger touch the button that would turn off the sound. He wondered how soon he could get to his phone to call Rick Slater.

in her bedroom, C.J. turned on the television and scrolled through the local channels for the gruesome scenes of a body washing ashore. Or worse: parts of a body. She saw game shows and sitcoms. She hit the mute button and left the picture on. One of the stations, probably all of them, would break in at the top of the hour.

What chilled her to the core was the thought that the girl on the beach wasn't Alana Martin at all, but Kylie Willis. Highly improbable, but all the same she felt anxious, and the muscles of her chest quivered when she took a deep breath.

“What an
idiot
you are,” she told an absent Kylie as she flung her dress over a chair and jerked open drawers for shorts and a sleeveless top. “Friends like that. Alana and her bunch. Sex, fake ID's, drugs, alcohol. The road to ruin, my little darling.” C.J. slid the top over her head and shook her hair free. Tomorrow, she decided, she would call Fran and admit that Kylie had run away. “I hope you have some magic formula for getting her home, because I sure as hell don't.”

Then guilt settled down on her, heavy and gray, and she heard a woman's voice.
You've been a disappointment to me from the day you were born.
C.J. slammed the drawer shut with her knee. She hadn't spoken to her mother for ten years, and a hundred wouldn't be long enough.

When C.J. turned around, she saw Taffy on her bed, licking his paws. He had limped into the yard last winter, bleeding, and, nine hundred dollars later, the vet said he'd make it. Useless old cat. She walked over and scratched the pale orange fur on his belly, and he hissed at her, his love song.

Her cell phone chimed, and she dug it out of her purse and saw Billy's name on the screen. She let it ring twice more before she answered it. “Hey, sailor. Where are you? Still at Monty's?” There were noises in the background, conversation, a laugh.

“Great dinner,” he said. “Sorry you missed it. We're about to get back on the boat. Dennis Murphy just called. He said you and Slater were at my house wandering around the backyard. How did you hook up with him again? And what, may I ask, were you doing?”

“Picking up my car, and then I wanted to look at the place where my client was supposedly seen with Alana Martin. Dennis pointed your shotgun at us. Did he tell you that?”

“Did he? I'm sorry. He thought you were burglars. He was cleaning out the garage. He should've left already. He said you and Slater were pretty chummy. What's going on?”

“Nothing is going on. Mr. Slater is my client. Are you jealous, Billy?”

“Not of him, unless your standards have slipped. But you'd like me to be jealous, wouldn't you?”

“You sound a little drunk,” she said.

“I am, a little. C.J., don't be mean. Come over tonight. I miss you. My friends are tedious, you are absolutely right, but you shouldn't have walked out on me. It was hell to explain.”

She sat on the edge of her bed and petted the cat. Taffy grabbed her hand and gummed her fingers. He was nearly toothless. “Have you heard the news? A body washed ashore on Fort Lauderdale Beach. They think it's Alana Martin.”

“What did you say? A body?”

“Pieces of a body, to be exact. I don't have any details. I thought you might have heard—”

“
Coño carajo.
We've been sitting here having dinner. I haven't heard a thing. Pieces of her body?”