West Palm: The Complete Novel (7 page)

Faith abruptly rose to her feet like a cat that's heard a mouse nearby, and scurried into the house.

Matthew snuffed the candle, and they followed Faith in to see her opening the front door.

“There's no one there, Mother.”

He turned to Tara with a sigh. “You know how hospitable she is. A knock on the door and she welcomes anyone in. Fortunately, she hasn't yet invited in a slasher. A few nights ago I came home to find my DVD player gone. One wonders what they chatted about, Mother and the burglar. Luckily Santa frightened him off. He just took the DVD player and fled. Or was it Mother he found alarming?”

He swept the discarded scarf from the piano and began to dust the fragile glass objects. “Mother and I are the only ones allowed to clean them. She just loves to dust.”

“That happens to be a gift you're using for a dust rag.”

“Who would give you such a thing?”

“The private eye Zaratzian hired.”

“Private eyes rarely appreciate accessories.” He continued dusting, casting critical glances at her. “Did he do your hair too?”

She put her hand to her hair. “Something wrong with it?”

“Throat cut and bad haircut. You came to me in the nick of time.”

S
moker sat hunched at his computer, studying the surveillance videos Zaratzian had given him from
King Rat
.

Everything had conspired against the amazon that night. Everything but her own strength.

First strike against her: The friend Zaratzian had been visiting on Hypoluxo Island had no room for Zaratzian's yacht at his own dock because his own enormous boat filled the available space. So Zaratzian rented a mooring at Seafarers Landing across the Intracoastal Waterway and took a tender back and forth to his buddy's house. But a yacht as big as Zaratzian's could only tie up at the open end of the Seafarers piers, farthest from the condos, and from help.

There had been no witnesses. Though the condos' gym faced the water, the gym was deserted on Christmas Eve. As for the apartments with straight-on views, they cost the most, and when the bottom fell out of the market they fell into foreclosure. So nobody was looking out from those prime balconies.

The night staff consisted of a single security guard making his rounds on a golf cart. When the siren went off on Zaratzian's yacht, Edgar Garcia and his cart were leisurely spiraling up the levels of the parking garage in Building One, the building farthest from the Intracoastal.

Among its other defects, the screwed-up complex suffered from a faulty fire alarm system, which meant if someone carried a cigarette onto an elevator, a smoke alarm screeched in every room in every condo, and sleepy-eyed people converged in the courtyards with their hands over their ears. False fire alarms were so frequent, condo owners got into the habit of keeping earplugs by their beds, along with towels to wrap around the heads of whimpering pets. The only bright spot, Smoker learned, occurred the previous summer when a romance struck up between two dog owners in pajamas. The elderly couple joined forces, resulting in another vacant apartment. Meantime, everybody on the premises had grown immune to any siren under the most deafening decibel.

In any case, the yacht's security alarm hadn't been left on because people were expected back on board that night at different hours and in different stages of inebriation. But when Tara pressed the panic button, it signaled six cell phones, including Zaratzian's, the captain's, and the harbormaster's. There were multiple calls to 911. When help arrived, she was barely breathing.

The cameras had been running throughout, and Smoker played the digital recordings over and over, trying to find something to latch onto.

The intruder could be seen coming onto the boat, his fingers spread across his face. This awareness of security cameras suggested it wasn't the first time he'd invaded private space. A second camera caught him opening the door to the first mate's cabin, and then there was an awful lapse while he was inside attacking her.

Smoker ran the footage forward to the man bolting from the cabin, doubled up in pain; too bad it wasn't a bullet wound he was favoring, only a broken rib. Though he wasn't covering his face this time, there was no clear view of his features because he was bent over. Just a fleeting top shot of his shaven head. In the entire sequence, there were no identifying marks, no tattoos. The only distinctive elements were his bracelets and the string of Christmas lights that slipped from his back pocket during the attack and subsequently broke beneath everybody's feet. What kind of crazy clue was a string of Christmas lights?

The last thing Smoker watched was the footage from the bridge, of the amazon staggering across the floor with a bloody towel at her throat and blood streaming from lacerations on her naked body. Gruesome as the image was, her beauty rocked him. A magnificent woman, mutilated. Like hacking at the
Venus de Milo
with a sledgehammer.

Ashamed to linger on her pain, he ran the footage back to where the perp, bent double, was running down the stairs. He held him there, then let him go, out of the frame forever.

If only it were forever.

But if the amazon was right, he'd show up again.

On the theory that the guy may have been stalking her before he struck, Smoker had obtained the Seafarers Landing surveillance videos for the days leading up to Christmas. This had cost him $500, slipped to the head of Seafarers Security in exchange for remote access to their system. But what he got for his $500 was limited. Though the cameras cycled constantly, they didn't extend to the mooring where
King Rat
had been tied, or far out on either side. No one coming along the edges of the compound was visible.

He took a sip of cold coffee. A new idea was troubling his mind.

It wasn't often that attackers returned to the scene of the crime, and in this case the actual crime scene had disappeared in the direction of the Caribbean. But it wouldn't hurt to look at Seafarers' latest recordings.

He typed in the $500 password, was connected, and reviewed the security footage for the last few days. Within fifteen minutes of speeding through the video he was stopped cold. A familiar rush told him he'd struck gold.

A man and woman were sitting on a golf cart, and there was something seriously strange about the man. It wasn't just that he fit Tara's description—Florida was filled with muscular guys who shaved their heads—but his rigid posture and expression were archaic, otherworldly, like a saint struck dumb by a vision of the Virgin.

Smoker zoomed in on him, then called Tara on her cell. “Go to your computer. I want you to see this on a big screen.”

A moment later she reported that an e-mail was arriving.

Silence followed.

Then her hoarse voice in a whisper: “How did you get a photo of him?”

“You're not going to like this. It's a security recording from Seafarers Landing taken two days ago.”

“What does that mean?”

“I'm going there right now to find out.”

Before he went, he e-mailed a close-up of the perp to the violent crimes detective in charge of the case so that the face could be digitally compared with criminals in the database.

S
tepping out of his car at Seafarers Landing, Smoker noticed that the management still hadn't removed the lettering from the window of the defunct nail salon. If the absent Min was inhaling fingernail epoxy at a cheaper address, she hadn't posted a sign saying so, which either meant she'd folded up completely or was working for somebody else. But who would hire her in this economy? According to his wife, who knew about such things, even Walmart's nail salon was deserted nowadays.

He opened the door of the realty manager's office.

The woman from the surveillance video was the office's sole occupant: an overtanned broad whose slanting bones gave her the cunning look of a fox. She rose to her feet and came forward to greet him. Despite the height given to her by stiletto heels, she was the sawed-off-shotgun type. “I can see you on the sixth floor facing the water, am I right?” she asked in a nasal New York accent.

“Miss Borkowski? I'm Tim Smoker. We spoke on the phone.” He showed his ID and his badge, which by law was not allowed to be shaped like a five-pointed star or have the state seal on it or be confused with a police or sheriff's badge at twenty feet.

“Call me Courtney,” she suggested. “And while I'm answering your questions, let me give you a tour. It might help put things in perspective. May I ask if you're content with your present domicile?”

“It might be better if I asked the questions.”

“An opportunity at these prices comes once every hundred years. You've heard people say,
I wish I was there then
. You are here, and now is then.”

He handed her the photo he'd printed, of her sitting in her golf cart with the perp. “Remember him?”

“Fifth floor, straight-on view, three bedrooms.”

“That's the condo. What about the man? If you showed him around, his particulars must be in your computer.”

“You'd think so, wouldn't you?”

“He's not in your computer?”

“He was so anxious to see the most expensive unit in the place, I didn't waste time with paperwork. And afterward, he didn't come back to the office.”

“But he told you his name.”

“John? I think that's what he said. Or maybe it was Dave.”

“You didn't ask for his name?”

She shrugged as if it were none of her business.

“Did he say what he does for a living?”

“Nope.”

“But he wanted to see the most expensive unit. Did you get the impression he was a drug dealer wanting to launder money?”

“If only,” she said sincerely.

“Then you figure he has a legitimate job?”

“For all I know, he could be an astronaut. He didn't say bupkes, and I'm not a mind reader. Maybe if I show you around, following the same route I followed with him, it'll jog my memory.”

He knew she was trying to sell him, but he couldn't do worse than he'd done with her so far.

“Actually,” she said, leading him outside, “I'd like to show you the unit above the one I showed him. It's a penthouse, priced so low I'm tempted to buy it myself. The owner's a horse whisperer out in Wellington. She's so eager to unload the apartment she tried to donate it to the Humane Society. I can't think why they didn't accept it.”

Possibly, thought Smoker, because they knew they couldn't unload it and would be paying maintenance fees until the building fell down.

“She'll take any reasonable offer. And I mean
any
.”

Smoker found himself seated on the golf cart beside Courtney, in the same position as the perp. And like Zach, Smoker contemplated living at Seafarers Landing, with its frontage on the Intracoastal, its sparkling fountains, its flowering trees, and its towers of peach, pistachio, strawberry, and vanilla.

He remembered how fast the place had gone up and how every possible corner had been cut, probably including the rebar holding it together, but if the horse whisperer from Wellington was willing to give her waterfront penthouse to the Humane Society for nothing, maybe she'd sell it to him for next to nothing.

“I live here myself,” confided Courtney. “Olympic pool, state-of-the-art gym, everything you could want. When the economy turns around, and it will, these condos are going to go through the roof. And I'm going to be rich.”

He supposed she needed to believe it because she was already dangling from her own balcony. But did he have to listen? “I'd appreciate anything at all you can recall about the guy.”

She was steering the golf cart into the main cobbled courtyard. “You haven't told me why you want to know.”

Smoker repeated the cliché, “He's a person of interest in an investigation I'm conducting.”

“He's a person of interest to me too. He might think twice about the three bedrooms I showed him and come back.”

“I have a feeling he's not in the market for a condo.”

“In this economy, no one's in the market for a condo. But they should be.”

They entered the building and rode up in the elevator. Dark polished wood, shiny brass. The contractor may have cut every corner, but it still looked good. Smoker wondered how much the horse whisperer from Wellington would be willing to accept.

“He said he had a boat,” said Courtney suddenly.

“Did he tell you what kind of boat? Or where he kept it?”

She shook her head. “We mainly talked about the advantages of living at Seafarers Landing.”

“That's what
you
talked about. What did he talk about?”

“I told you, he wasn't the chatty type.”

They were marching along the carpeted corridor, past one foreclosed apartment after another.

She unlocked the door to the penthouse rejected by the Humane Society.

“Let's try another way,” said Smoker. “What kind of vibe did he give off?”

In answer she stepped back to usher him in, bowing as if presenting him to royalty. “Is this a dream apartment?”

“What I mean is, would you want him living next door to you?”

“Absolutely. I've got condos for sale on both sides of mine. He wouldn't have the view you have here”—she was opening the shutters on a glorious view—“but I think either one would suit him.”

“That's the condo speaking again. I want to know what
you
felt about the guy.”

“He was, you know, the kind of guy who doesn't look you in the eye.”

She led Smoker toward the granite-countered kitchen, pulled open cupboard drawers, and brought out a bunch of decorative brass rings. “I wonder what these are.”

“Napkin rings.”

“You want them?” she asked. “You can have them.”

“I don't use napkin rings.”

“Okay, I'll use them.” She dropped them in her handbag.

He returned to the front windows for one last look at the view that wasn't going to be his . . . I could be mooring my boat right there. If I had a boat to moor, he thought.

Strains of music coming from an amplified guitar rose up on the breeze. “It's a promotion for the marina,” she explained. “After we looked at the condo, he went over for the free wine. You should go and have some wine yourself.”

“I think I will.”

But as he started for the door, she said, “I haven't shown you the shared amenities yet.”

“Did you show them to him?”

“Of course I did.”

So he let her take him downstairs to the billiard room, the sauna, the state-of-the-art gym. “I work out here.” She indicated a treadmill with a TV screen hanging in front of it.

Smoker noticed that somebody had left 300 pounds of weights on a barbell. He couldn't resist. He knew it wasn't part of the investigation, but he never saw a weight he didn't want to lift. He lay down on the bench and started slowly doing reps.

“You're already fitting in,” said Courtney.

As he held the barbell in the air, his sleeve fell back and she noticed his metal watchband sliding down. “He said he was anointed.”

Smoker let the weights come down with a resounding clang on the uprights. “Anointed?”

“I commented on his bracelets, and that's what he said.”

“Did you ask him what he meant?”

“You think I'm going to ask a prospective buyer who anointed him?”

Smoker got to his feet. “Too much to hope.”

“He had such intensity,” she reflected. “I really thought I had a sale. I felt so disappointed when he went off to get the free wine.”

“Maybe you wouldn't feel so disappointed if I told you he was the guy who attacked the girl on the boat on Christmas Eve.”

She stared at him. “You aren't clowning around?” She saw he wasn't, and her voice rose like a security alarm. “You think he might come back?”

“I doubt it, but if he does . . .” Smoker handed her his card. “More important, call security immediately.”

“You know what security is in this place?”

“Call nine-one-one. If he comes into your office, run out as fast as you can to where people can see you.”

She looked down at her high-heeled sandals.

“Kick them off,” he said. “You'll be four inches shorter, but you'll be alive.”

“Jesus. That's what his intensity was all about.”

“Think you'll know the difference in future?”

“I'm not sure. Real estate fantasies are very intense.”

“The odds of a real estate agent getting more than one slasher in her career is slim. And you've had yours. But just to be on the safe side, maybe you should wear jogging shoes.”

“With this dress? Never.”

How could he argue with that? He thanked her for her cooperation and made his way toward the amplified whine of yet another out-of-tune folksinger.

Courtney, left alone, looked down at her scalped fingernail. It was beginning to look good to her, a sign that all she'd had sliced off was a fingernail. Maybe she should always keep one nail different from the others to remind her. And maybe she should get her landline back.

Smoker approached the harbormaster, who was giving his pitch to a silver-haired gentleman wearing leather Top-Siders without socks, a sign that possibly he had the money for a boat that needed a place to live.

While waiting for the harbormaster to finish his spiel, Smoker approached two young men who were washing down the rental boats. He showed his ID, badge, and then the photo.

“Yeah, he was here,” said the smaller of the two. “Right?”

“That's the guy,” agreed the other.

“What did he want?” asked Smoker.

“In the end, nothing.”

“In the beginning?”

“He started to talk about boats, but we saw he didn't know jack shit about them.”

“So you blew him off?”

“No, he stuck around.”

Smoker came away from the interview with one troubling fact, that the young men had dropped Tara's name, or at least her first name, and where she'd been stationed in the Coast Guard.

In no way had she been overreacting. The creep was on her trail.