The Claudia Hershey Mysteries - Box Set: Three Claudia Hershey Mysteries

by Laura Belgrave

  Traffic was never heavy in Indian Run. On a nondescript Tuesday night, it was practically nonexistent, so when Bonolo left the development and cruised south through town, Claudia gave him plenty of space. The whim that brought her to Willow Whisper had given way to resolve. Wherever he led, she would follow.

  * * *

  Bonolo surprised her. Given the hour, she figured his destination for a bar or a house, either of which might hint at his associations. Instead, he swung onto U.S. Alternate 27, only to abandon it ten minutes later for State Road 60. He headed east, and Claudia’s heart sank. You didn’t take 60 in search of the nearest bar. You took 60 for a journey. She glanced at her gas gauge. Better than half a tank. If she didn’t lose him in traffic it should keep her on him for a good long time.

  Bonolo drove fast, which on 60 meant he was doing nothing more than keeping up with traffic. She stayed with him, holding her breath every time they passed a truck where the highway narrowed to two lanes. By day, the road was picturesque, both sides of it lined with citrus groves and cattle ranches. At night, the same landscape brooded in shadow, rendering most of it indistinguishable. Claudia paid it no attention, her eyes locked on Bonolo’s tail lights. They’d driven just over forty miles when he surprised her again, this time turning onto the turnpike at Yeehaw Junction. She swore when he took the southbound ramp, because if State Road 60 was a journey, then the turnpike was a quest. Bonolo could be headed as far south as Homestead.

  She didn’t have time to think about it. She took a toll card at the booth, then merged onto the turnpike behind him and lit a cigarette, giving him a wider lead this time. He goosed his speed to seventy-five and stayed there. Claudia glanced at her instrument panel. Seventy-five on the turnpike wasn’t much of a risk for Bonolo’s truck, but it could be a ball-breaker for the Cavalier, rarely accustomed to pushing more than forty-five. She hoped the gods were with her.

  They whisked past exit after exit, Bonolo slowing only when lanes dropped off in occasional construction zones or when the speed limit fell to sixty in more densely populated areas. Fort Pierce, St. Lucie, Stuart, Jupiter, Palm Beach Gardens, West Palm Beach, Lake Worth . . . with every exit they passed, Claudia became increasingly aware of her bladder and hoped Bonolo would have to stop for the same reason. But except for a brief pause at the Lantana plaza to relinquish his toll card and pay up, he was of single-minded purpose. Before long, he’d led her out of Palm Beach County and into Broward. By the time he finally exited the turnpike at Sample Road, they’d traveled some one hundred-and twenty-four miles on the turnpike alone.

  Bonolo wasn’t finished driving. He took Sample east a few miles, then continued his southern route on I-95. They’d been on the road nearly three hours. Claudia would’ve bagged it if she hadn’t already come this far. She checked her gas. The gauge showed just under a quarter tank remaining. She laughed at her plight. Everyone knew the last quarter went a hell of a lot faster than the first quarter. No reason. It just did. The bastard better not be destined for Homestead.

  Traffic was never light on I-95, not this far south, but it moved steadily and for South Florida, it moved in an orderly fashion. They passed only one wreck, recent enough to jam up traffic for a few miles, but not so new that the Florida Highway Patrol wasn’t already on it. Claudia sped up, closing the distance between her and Bonolo. He’d taken to weaving around cars, making it harder to keep him in sight. She didn’t think he’d spotted her tailing him, but there was no way to know for sure. Maybe he just had to pee, too.

  Finally he exited, swinging east all the way to Biscayne Boulevard and then past it, across the Julia Tuttle Causeway and over the Intracoastal Waterway into Miami Beach. Claudia forgot about her bladder. She didn’t know the area and it took all her concentration to stay with Bonolo. They were on Arthur Godfrey Road and when he took two lights on caution, she was forced to follow through on red. Apparently that was the accepted practice on Miami Beach. On both occasions cars sprinted through after her.

  Bonolo made a right on Collins Avenue, narrowly missing a pedestrian. A convertible blaring rap music snaked in front of her, but she could still see Bonolo’s truck without difficulty. And unless he intended to drive straight into the Atlantic Ocean, he had to be close to his destination. Claudia’s spirits hitched a notch. She couldn’t remember the last time she had to pee so bad and almost as appalling, she’d run out of cigarettes on the turnpike. But they’d driven more than two hundred miles in about three and a half hours and she’d never lost sight of him, she still had gas, and in moments she’d know more about him than she did before. She gave a small whoop of satisfaction, then slowed for yet another traffic signal, her mark stuck at the same light.

  While they idled, she gazed around. It was after midnight, but Miami Beach was impervious to the hour. Throngs of people gathered in front of bars that spilled music onto the street. Lovers threaded their way through traffic, crossing to the beach side. Claudia thought maybe she’d bring Robin here some time, not this late, of course, but not so early that she missed the magic of a city known for its night pulse. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel, picking up on a reggae beat from somewhere. Nice.

  The light changed and traffic began to inch forward. Bonolo moved. The convertible moved. Claudia rolled with them, and then . . . nothing. The car simply stopped. It didn’t sputter. It didn’t shake. It just pooped out. She swore, pushed at the pedal again, harder, but the car wasn’t going anywhere. Horns blared impatiently. Two or three vehicles lurched recklessly past her. She ignored them all and watched helplessly as the tail lights of Bonolo’s truck receded, taking with it the buoyant feeling she’d enjoyed just seconds earlier.

  There wasn’t time to brood. One way or another, traffic was making its way around her, and a trio of young revelers appeared at her window. A girl with an earring in her eyebrow leaned in. “Want a push?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Among other things,” Claudia muttered. But she was grateful for the gesture and in another minute the kids put their shoulders to the task and managed to bump the Cavalier onto the sidewalk, which was marginally more advantageous than the street. Claudia got out of the car, but before she could thank them they were already moving on. A minor hiccup on Miami Beach.

  She glared at the car, then rooted in her handbag for her cell phone. It wasn’t there. She closed her eyes against the headache that threatened, picturing the phone anchored to the recharge cradle on the kitchen counter.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  All around, people went about their business, which mostly involved wandering in and out of bars. Claudia hardly noticed. She slumped against the traitorous vehicle, furious at the whim that had brought her onto one of the most desirable streets in the continental United States under one of the most undesirable circumstances she could imagine.

  “Looks to me like you could use a lift.”

  The voice was familiar, but out of context. Claudia straightened and sought the source. And there stood Sydney.

  Chapter 13

  Reams had been written about identical twins. Scientists studied their gene structure. Psychologists studied their emotional makeup. Hollywood filmmakers and marketing moguls studied their money-making potential. And twins studied each other. They had their own annual conventions and festivals, one in Twinsburg, Ohio—so close to Cleveland that you’d think Claudia and Sydney would’ve attended at least once. They hadn’t. The duplicate chromosomes they shared intrigued Sydney for six months; Claudia for about five minutes. It’s not they went out of their way to distinguish their individuality. It’s just that neither much cared if on any given day their striking appearance made others do a double take. Nature versus nurture aside, they were sisters first, twins second. The bond was strong throughout their childhood and even after Sydney captured the drama of their parents’ death. There were any number of ways to explain that. But the book, that coffee table book still in Claudia’s closet—that was something else.

  Claudia’s mind flicke
red to the book at the same instant she registered Sydney’s face on crowded Collins Avenue. Except that Sydney was thinner, sun-tanned, and wore her hair short, she could’ve been looking in a mirror.

  “So?” said Sydney. “Do you want a lift or not?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “You know, for a second there I thought you might actually be happy to see me. My vehicle works. Yours doesn’t.”

  Sydney toted a heavy satchel with a multitude of bulging pockets, but slung it easily from one shoulder to the next. She wore a sleeveless denim shirt that revealed triceps hard as iron. She’d always been the more athletic of the two.

  “I’ll ask you again. What are you doing here, Sydney?”

  “Same old Claudia.”

  “That’s right. Now why?”

  “You’re not good at returning calls.”

  “I’m not—so . . . what? You followed me?”

  “You should check your rearview mirror now and then.”

  Claudia blew out a pocket of air, too spent to summon fury.

  “It wasn’t my original intent, okay? I was just pulling up to your house when you were leaving. I followed on a whim. When you—”

  “You followed on a whim.”

  “You telling me you never acted on impulse?”

  “I . . . never mind.”

  “When you went into that development, I almost bagged it because I couldn’t get past the gates. I idled for a minute or two, thinking, being pissed off, but then you surprised me and came right back out. Picked you up again and . . . well, here we are.”

  “How resourceful.”

  “Expedient, Claudia. That’s all. Apparently, you’d let my hair go gray before you’d ever call me back. Of course, I might’ve opted for that if I knew you were on a marathon.”

  A man in a red bow tie passed by, hawking flowers. He sized up Claudia and Sydney, then moved onto friendlier prospects.

  “A quest,” Claudia said tiredly. “Not a marathon.”

  “You mean the big hairy guy?”

  Claudia looked up, surprised.

  Sydney shrugged and pulled a camera from her satchel. “You were following his truck. It didn’t dawn on me until we were exiting I-95. Then I couldn’t figure out why it took me so long. Anyway”—she patted the camera—“I got the guy on film. After your car died I took out a few pedestrians to get past you, and then I stayed with him. He didn’t go much farther up Collins. Went into a beachside condo. I bailed then. What he is? Bad guy? Ex-lover?”

  “So following me wasn’t good enough. You had to play cop, too.”

  “Just trying to suck up a little, see if I can dent your armor.”

  Claudia didn’t smile.

  “Look, don’t make more of this than is there. He seemed important to you, so I followed him. That’s all. It’s late. You want that lift or not?”

  The whole night had turned into a Salvador Dali painting. Claudia met her sister’s eyes. Sydney held them. Neither looked away, not even when someone called out, “Hey, look! Twins! You guys are twins, right?” Sydney offered a one-finger reply, but her eyes never wavered from her sister’s face.

  Claudia gave it up. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a cell phone.”

  “Why? So you can call a taxi?”

  “No.”

  “In that case, I have one.”

  “Oh, man. You really are a—”

  “I know.”

  Another second went by. “I’ll need to use it,” Claudia said levelly. “Then I need a bathroom. A cigarette. Aspirin. A tow truck.” She shook her head. “And . . . yeah. A lift home.”

  “Good call.”

  “Like there’s a choice involved.”

  “There are always choices.”

  “Something you’d know about.”

  “Something we both know about.”

  * * *

  They got back to Indian Run before dawn, but not much before. On the way there they made the polite noise of strangers, sharing an occasional cigarette and sipping from bottles of water, knowing that whatever needed to be said dare not be said until they were free of exhaustion. Sydney glossed over her reasons for being in Indian Run, saying only that she was working on a new coffee table book depicting small towns battling for survival. Indian Run qualified. Claudia didn’t buy it, but she let the challenge die on her lips and both of them lapsed into silence.

  For miles, the only sound was the hum of tires on the road and the occasional swoosh of another vehicle passing them. There weren’t many of those. Sydney drove like a fleeing felon, her red Jeep turned into a muscle car. Under other circumstances Claudia would’ve pulled her over. She said nothing, though, so consuming was her need to be home. When they finally arrived, she pointed her sister to Robin’s vacant room, then set her alarm to go off in two hours and collapsed on her own unmade bed. She couldn’t afford to be as tired as she was, but she couldn’t shut down her mind long enough for sleep to claim her fully.

  Images from her past fused with events of the week in a nocturnal fog, as if she were drugged. One minute, there would be Sydney’s face at the age of twelve; the next, Hemmer’s body leaking blood on white tile. The kaleidoscope would turn. She’d see herself breathing in Robin’s faint baby hair the first time she held her, the memory inexplicably dissolving into a vision of the cold interview notes she wrote at Jennifer Parrish’s house the day before. She saw her first car, then the abandoned Cavalier; her mother shaping meat loaf, then the mayor’s face, splotchy with anger.

  Claudia kicked off her covers and vaulted out of bed. She showered, dressed, made coffee, and called for a patrol officer to pick her up. While she waited, she flipped through her dictionary for a definition of crinkum-crankum. Big surprise; it wasn’t there. She paced idly, wishing it wasn’t too early to call Robin at camp. Once, she peeked in on Sydney. Her sister slept without moving. She watched for a minute, struck again by the sameness of their features, even these many years later. Then she quietly closed the bedroom door. On her way outside she put a spare house key on the kitchen counter and scribbled a note: “Food in the fridge. Coffee in the pot. Follow me again and I’ll kick your ass.”

  Chapter 14

  Claudia didn’t think anything could blow the sand out of her eyes sufficiently enough to jolt her into wakefulness, but the sight of the chief’s nephew pacing in the police station’s multipurpose room did the job. It wasn’t that she had forgotten he would be there. They’d made plans to meet the day before and Booey set his watch by the U.S. Naval Observatory. Of course he would be there, and of course he wouldn’t be late.

  What she didn’t expect was that he could possibly look any more dramatic than he ordinarily did. In his natural state, his hair was the color of a red hibiscus flower in glorious bloom under full sun. It announced him and defined him and permanently etched him into the memory bank of anyone who met him, and even if it didn’t, the energy field that clung to him like a second skin did. The last time Claudia saw him, just over a month earlier, he’d hated all of that about himself. But the gangly man-child she saw before her now apparently had dispensed with those issues. In fact, he’d embraced what previously embarrassed him and added his own little spin to it. His hair was still red enough to give off sparks, but now it sported an uneven streak of silver the shade of aluminum foil. Worse, though his hair had grown some in the last month, it hadn’t grown enough to justify the ponytail he’d created from it. It stood from the back of his head like an abscess.

  Claudia wondered why his new appearance surprised her. Booey had never subscribed to the theory of “less is more.” His new look just offered more evidence. Still, she hoped he wouldn’t ask what she thought, which of course he did the moment he spotted her.

  “Lieutenant!” he said, his smile so broad that it shuffled the freckles on his face. He bounded over. “Long time no see. What do you think of my makeover?”

  Roll call for the morning shift had just finished, but two uniformed officers lingered i
n the multipurpose room, facing away, making like they were busy. Booey’s infatuation with Claudia had become legend. One of them sniggered.

  She took in the changeling before her. “It’s . . . distinctive.”

  Booey beamed. “I knew you’d like it.”

  “I need some coffee.”

  “Partly it’s about image, my new look. I’ve definitely decided to become a filmmaker. This could work for me, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know much about what goes into the movie business, Booey.”

  “It’s a cutthroat industry.”

  “Ah.”

  He stayed in her shadow, chattering about coming to grips with his insecurities, giving her full credit for awakening his newfound sense of self. Claudia rued the day she’d rescued him from a tree. If she could, she’d put him back up one right now. But that was another story, and not one she cared to rehash now or ever.

  “Let’s talk about computers, Booey,” she said while she filled her coffee cup. Sgt. Peters had retrieved Hemmer’s three PCs from the sheriff’s office. They were crammed together on a long folding table that sagged under their weight. She led Booey toward them, briefing him on the broad elements of the Hemmer case. “I need to know what’s in those computers, and if anything’s been deleted, I need to know what. Is that doable?”

  “It depends on a lot of things,” he said, eyeing the computers one at a time.

  Claudia knew slightly more than zip about how computers worked and her brain numbed when anyone tried to enlighten her. But she tried to show interest when Booey launched into an animated monologue about the not-so-hidden nature of deleted files. Deleting a file didn’t actually deep-six it from the computer hard drive. It only erased the information that pointed to the file’s location.