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“Did McGraw know about the taxi driver?” he asked.
“Don’t know how much anyone other than Adam was really in the loop.”
Though he was rereading the report, Tal’s mind remained on Maya. “You’ve got guys on her, right?”
Drake jabbed his computer keyboard. “She’s safe. I didn’t send rookies to guard her. I’m sorry, but I can’t spare you for protection detail. Besides, you’re the one who told me she wouldn’t want a cop camping out in her living room.”
She wouldn’t want to stop living her life, either, and that, Tal reflected, was where the real problem resided.
“She a good doctor?” Drake asked.
Tal half smiled. “Top of her class.”
“Florida State?”
“With a premed at Yale.”
“Impressive.” Drake leaned back in his chair. “Is she as pretty as I’ve heard?”
“Depends what you’ve heard.”
“The word stunning has come up. Knockout. Killer body.” At Tal’s slanted look, he let out a heavy breath. “I know, we’ve got an unholy mess on our hands with the deputy chief, with Tyler, with Perine.”
“We’ve also got two victims we didn’t know about until last night.”
“Those homicides occurred outside our jurisdiction. Outside fraud’s as well, but we’ll assume they had some kind of deal going there.”
Tal drained the coffee he’d poured earlier. For the moment, he had no choice. He had to trust the men Drake had put on Maya. She lived in a secure condominium complex. Good alarm, decent neighbors, solid cops. She’d be safe. He hoped.
His cell phone beeped as he was going through the report for a third time. He regarded the screen, smiled faintly at the name.
“Hey, Nate. What’s up?”
The older cop’s voice sounded more gravelly than usual. “Heard you boys have a problem.”
“You could say that.”
“You back in Miami for good?”
“Until the investigation’s done.”
In the background, Drake made a rough sound. “Tell Hammond to haul his ass down to central and see what he can shake loose from his old comrades. My gut says they’re still withholding.”
“Heard that,” Nate remarked. “My advice would be to lean on McGraw. Let him think he’s got a shot at moving up to homicide.”
“Way ahead of you there.” Tal started for the door. “McGraw’s on his way over. Means I’m out of here. Anything useful for us in terms of Perine?”
“For the moment, only a keen ear and a full thermos. Come on over when you get a chance. We’ll compare notes. Off the record, of course.”
Another beep on Tal’s cell phone indicated a second incoming call. This one from Maya.
“Hang on, Nate.” He switched lines. “Thought you’d be sleeping, Doc.”
“I was. It came to me at the end of a dream.”
“What did?”
“The guy’s face.”
Tal angled away from the surrounding noise. “The one who jumped you?”
“No. He was wearing a balaclava. The man I’m talking about was with Adam. I think. He disappeared so fast, I almost didn’t notice him. Look, can you come over? I’d come to you, except I seem to have left my car in the hospital parking lot.”
The wall clock read 6:30 p.m. “Give me twenty minutes,” he said. “I’ll use the siren.”
“Boys with toys. I’ll do a sketch while I wait. Uh, Tal, should I feed the dynamic duo in the bushes outside?”
“They’re fine. Keep your doors locked, Maya.”
“Yes, Mommy.”
He switched back to Nate as he shouldered the fire door open. “Gotta go, Nate. We’ll unload that thermos another time when I’m off duty.”
“You’re too pure, Lieutenant.”
“Only when it counts.”
“Hang on, Tal. I didn’t call to find myself a drinking partner. I was around that department for a lot of years. I saw stuff that’d make Drake’s fringe of hair knot up. Perine’s got people inside. That’s how he does it. Forget the deputy chief connection for now. I’m talking long-term, longtime snitches, on Perine’s payroll as well as the city’s.”
The suggestion didn’t surprise Tal so much as the whip of contempt in Nate’s voice.
“I take it you never found any specific evidence.”
“Got within an inch some days, but no, I never could pin the greaseball turncoats down. Like Perine, they always managed to ooze through the cracks at the last second. Look for those cracks, Tal. Get to them before the ooze does. Do that, and you’ll have your blue line to Perine. Won’t be a straight one, but crooked’s no problem for you.”
Tal shoved through the outer door and put on his sunglasses to cut the low glare. He tossed his jacket inside his truck. “How many do you figure and what divisions?”
“No idea. Fraud for sure, probably homicide. Vice? Hard to say. Internal affairs? Unlikely, but you never know. I’d count on a handful of uniforms, maybe more.”
Tal revved the engine, switched on the flashing lights. “I’m using the siren, Nate. It’s gonna get loud. Have you talked to Drake about this?”
“Talked to Tyler a couple times, and his captain once, but Drake, no.”
“Why?”
Nate made a rusty sound. “Don’t get me wrong. I like the guy. We squared off a time or two as captains, but that’s how it is. I trusted him when it mattered, and he came through.”
With a look in both directions and the siren blaring, Tal maneuvered through an intersection. “You might want to get to the point here.”
“Captains make decent money, but yours has five kids, and one of ’em’s autistic.”
“Nate…”
“Sneak a peek in his garage, Tal. Drive out to his place and take a good long look at Don Drake’s brand-new, fully loaded flatbed truck.”
Chapter Four
The sky over the ocean was on fire. Maya wanted to soak up the last of the summer rays, but there was little chance of that, with Jamie badgering her at full volume.
After five nonstop minutes, she simply reached out and set a hand across her friend’s mouth. “Enough, okay? I appreciate the gesture, Jamie, but Tal’s on his way over. That’ll make three cops in the immediate area.”
Jamie yanked Maya’s hand away. “We’re sitting on your balcony, facing a courtyard so much like the one in that movie about the photographer with the broken leg that it gives me the heebie-jeebies. How can you be flip?”
“I’m not being flip. And it was Rear Window.”
“Do I care about titles?” Jamie spread her fingers. “I see a flock of weirdos down there and a window directly across from yours, with the shades drawn.”
“That’s Mr. Ruiz’s place. He’s—”
“Busy hacking up his wife’s body? Phoning his female coconspirator? Polishing up his escape plan?”
Maya shot her an exasperated look. “Have you been stealing medication from the hospital? Mr. Ruiz is a night watchman at a large office complex. He sleeps during the day. See that big orange ball over there?” She pointed with her pencil. “That’s the sun. Work all night, sleep all day.”
“Maya, you were attacked early this morning in a public parking lot.”
“I know. I was there. Do you want a glass of lemonade?”
“I’d rather have rum.”
“Are you driving?”
“Knock-knock. I brought your car back. I’ll cab it home.”
Maya sat back. If there was a mental picture she didn’t need to draw right then, it involved taxis and their drivers. In this case, a female driver, murdered because she’d stopped to help a not-quite-dead man who’d pissed off his boss in a big and apparently fatal way.
Setting her sketchbook aside, she went to stand at the balcony rail.
“There were no palm trees in Rear Window,” she said over her shoulder. “It was also set in New York.”
Jamie huffed out a breath. “I get your point. This isn’t a movie. It’s real life. I still think you could give me a hint about what’s going on.”
“Are you kidding? A hint’s all I’ve been given so far.”
“Sex him.”
A laugh bubbled up. “Excuse me?”
“Use your body, Maya, your wiles, your brain if you have to, but get answers.”
“All very complimentary in its own warped way, but I’m a doctor, and Tal’s a cop. We’re not john and under-cover hooker here.”
“So you’re not curious?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but…Oh, crap, I give up. You’ll tell me what you want to when you want to. Just please tell me you’re still good to go for the game tomorrow. You’re the best setter I’ve got.”
Turning, Maya bumped a hip against the iron railing. “I’ll be there, Coach Hazell. Might be bringing a few official friends, but I won’t let you down.”
“I’ll settle for that.” Jamie craned her neck sideways. “Whose face are you drawing? It looks like your hot lieutenant’s.”
“You have a good memory to go with your nursing skills.” Maya lifted her own face to the setting sun. “Tal will be here any minute.”
“My cue to exit stage right. Look, don’t limit yourself, okay? You’ve got the bod. Use it. Knowledge is power. You can’t trust other people to keep you safe. The best protection comes from within. Not that there are any real guarantees…about anything or anyone.”
Maya heard the zip of Jamie’s shoulder bag, saw something glint in her peripheral vision. When she looked back, her friend was smiling. Over the top of the gun she’d just removed from her bag.
TAL’S POLICE RADIO GAVE a static-filled squawk. He reached down to engage.
“Busy here, Carlisle.”
“Aware of that, Talbot.” The female dispatcher matched his irritable tone. “Captain thought you’d like to know that a patrol found Tyler’s Mustang outside a waterfront warehouse. The Ricolini Brothers warehouse, to be exact. It’s on its way to be impounded.”
“Tell the tow guys that if they scratch it, they’ll want to avoid me for a few months.”
“It’s only a car, for Chrissake.”
“A classic car. Anything in the warehouse?”
“Yeah. Blood.”
“Adam’s?”
“That’s the consensus. We’ll know soon enough. I’ve got you en route to Dr. Maya Santino’s. Captain wants you to escort her to the station ASAP.”
“When I can.”
He switched off, worked his way through a clogged intersection.
He kept seeing Maya’s face, couldn’t get it out of his head. Should he feel guilty about that? Probably not. Should he worry about it? Absolutely.
Because any objection he raised was merely a front for the real reason he’d kept his distance all these years.
In the few hours of sleep he’d managed to catch earlier today, that reason had come back in an all-too-familiar rush of twisted images and distorted memories. Of his mother and his father, of shouting matches and tears, of objects being hurled, of doors being slammed.
Near the end, the doors gave a metallic clang, and the shouts gave way to a squeal of tires on rain-soaked pavement.
It was the same nightmare, always the same. Windshield wipers slapping louder and louder. His mother’s voice rising from a whisper to a cry as she reminded him that he’d only gotten half his genes from her. As she dragged him into the light and showed him the bruises…
