The Serenity Murder (A Luca Mystery Book 3)

by Dan Petrosini

  What did he mean a long way?

  Then Gerey looked me in the eye and said, “I realize these situations are stressful for you, Gideon. However, you’re not going to help yourself by being overmedicated.”

  Chapter 37

  Luca

  On my way to interrogate Raul Sanchez, aka Sandez, I was beginning to feel like I’d never buy a home in Naples. Another bid, this time on a two-bedroom in Kensington, was rejected as too low again. The sellers didn’t even counter, which I didn’t get. Instead of getting emotional about it, they should just counter. The Kensington location was great, but the place needed a complete renovation. I didn’t have the stomach and probably the cash for a total gut job.

  How could sellers not see how much updating their twenty-five-year-old place needed? Probably because in other parts of the country the updating cycle was decades longer. People in New York will tolerate forty-year-old kitchens and bathrooms, but not down here. I had only a couple of months to find a house and close on it. Otherwise I’d have to find another place to rent, since my landlord’s sister was taking over my coach home.

  Vargas said that if I got into a jam I could stay in the cabana suite she had. With a separate entrance and its own bathroom, it was a perfect setup for short-term stays. But it’d be weird staying on her property, and though I didn’t cook much, it only had a sink and small fridge.

  My cell buzzed. Man, Vargas had a sixth sense.

  “Where are you, Frank?”

  “On my way, Mom.”

  “You’re late.”

  “I took a ride up to Bonita to see a couple of places.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “I didn’t get inside. Just wanted to see the communities and how far. That’s why I’m running behind. And the bad news is that they’re too far north to do each day. I’m starting to feel the pressure.”

  “The offer on the cabana is always there. It’s no big deal.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it, but I’d like to save myself another move, if you know what I mean?”

  “Trust me, I get it.”

  “How’s our jewel thief?”

  “It’s not him we got to worry about. His lawyer is getting restless, threatening to cancel the interview, said he has to be in court soon.”

  “I’m ten minutes away. Offer them something to drink. If they get crazy, start without me.”

  My pee alarm went off as I jogged down the hall to interrogation room three. Could I risk sitting on the toilet trying to coax number one out? It always took at least ten to fifteen minutes, time I didn’t have.

  I looked at the camera feed; Vargas was talking. I tucked my shirt and my urge in and entered. Raul Sanchez was mid-sentence.

  “They made a mistake, that’s all. My mother’s maiden name is Sanchez. My father, who I never met, had a last name like hers, Sandez. Check the birth records, you’ll see.”

  Vargas said, “Detective Luca has joined the interview.”

  I nodded at Raul and Joe Girona, a new kid from the public defender’s office. Vargas said, “You continued to use both names while in Mexico?”

  “Look, I was a kid and I didn’t know what to do.”

  His attorney said, “Mexican law requires the use of both your mother’s maiden name and the father’s last name. Raul’s official name in Mexico is Raul Sanchez Sandez.”

  Two last names? How could that be? I looked at Vargas. She responded, “I’m fully aware that due to the vast numbers of Hispanics with surnames such as Perez, Martinez, and the like, that Mexico requires both parents last names to separate identities.”

  Really? How come I never knew that?

  Vargas continued, “Perhaps your client can tell us why he had two Mexican driver licenses? One issued to Raul Sandez Sanchez, and the other to Raul Sanchez Sandez.”

  Raul spoke, “In Mexico, the fines get higher for each ticket. So, to avoid paying too much, I had two licenses.”

  “I see, it was all about parking tickets, then. Nothing to do about all the arrests you were piling up?”

  “My client has already responded to your question.”

  I said, “You were a member of the Latin Kings gang. That’s a rough crew.”

  “Is there a question in there, Detective?”

  I said, “You want to come clean? What happened at the Boggs home on Keewaydin?”

  “I told you, man. I was cleaning the shower drain and I saw all this jewelry. I know I shouldn’t have taken it, but I was behind on my rent. You see, my mom got sick and I needed money.”

  Once again, the old ‘my mom was sick’ excuse was rolled out. I said, “You know, Raul, your credibility would be a lot higher if you didn’t have this?” I picked up his Mexican rap sheet.

  “That was then. I don’t do that stuff anymore. That’s why I left Mexico, to start fresh, stay clean.”

  “But you fell back into your old criminal ways, didn’t you?”

  “My mother—”

  “I realize it’s no excuse, but his mother is, in fact, battling kidney cancer.”

  “You’re right, Counselor, it’s no excuse for killing Marilyn Boggs.”

  “I didn’t kill no one.”

  Vargas said, “Your rap sheet says that you were arrested for suspicion of murder.”

  Sanchez shook his head. “But that was almost ten years ago.”

  I said, “It establishes a pattern. Once you kill the first time, there’s no telling where it ends.”

  “My client has admitted to taking the jewelry. What we have here are charges of robbery, nothing more.”

  “Your client made his so-called admission after being caught lying. How can anyone trust what he says? You want to know what I think? I think Raul Sanchez Sandez realized how trusting the Boggs were, and when they gave him a job that had him in the privacy of the bedroom, he violated the trust he was given. He rummaged through their belongings and concocted a plan to return to steal her jewelry, and when he did, Marilyn Boggs confronted him and he stabbed her to death.”

  The attorney checked his watch. “My client denies any involvement in the death of Marilyn Boggs.”

  I said, “Raul, as Detective Vargas stated, you were arrested and are being held on suspicion of murder. I find it interesting that according to the Mexican Federal Police, the victim was killed with a knife.”

  “I got nothing to say. Those charges were dropped.”

  “Dropped? Not quite. You plead guilty to harboring a fugitive, a punk from your gang.”

  “I don’t see the relevancy of an old case Mexican case.”

  “Really, Counselor? Your client was charged in a murder down in Mexico, and the woman whose jewelry he admits to stealing is dead. Both were stabbed to death. That’s damn relevant to me.”

  “It appears to me that you’re fishing, Detective. If you have anything that proves your allegations, let’s hear it.” He stood. “I’ve got to be in court in twenty minutes.”

  This young lawyer was tough. I hoped he’d leave the public defender’s office to earn real money, otherwise I could see him haunting me until I retired.

  Chapter 38

  Luca

  “Mr. Pena, thank you for coming in to talk with us.”

  “Whatever I can do to help catch the person who did this to Mrs. Boggs, I’ll do.”

  I checked my notes, and his leathery face fit the sixty-two it said he was. Eduardo Pena was sturdily built, not particularly muscular, but rock-solid and not much older looking than forty-five.

  “You’ve worked for the Boggs a long time.”

  “Yes, almost twenty years now.”

  He never looked me in the eyes for more than a second or two. Normally, that’d make me suspicious, but with Pena I knew it was a way for him to be deferential.

  “You hired Raul Sanchez?”

  He frowned. “Yes, but he was recommended by Frank Perez, a contractor I’ve known for a long time. Perez feels almost as
bad as I do about all of this.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up, Eduardo, Sanchez didn’t have a record, in the States anyway.”

  “You mean he had a record in Mexico?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “But he said he came here about ten years ago.”

  “Eight, actually, and either he kept his nose clean or just never got caught.”

  Pena wagged his head. “He fooled me. I should have known better.”

  “Sanchez didn’t give you any reason to be concerned? No hints he was up to no good?”

  “No, he did his job and kept quiet. I’m pretty sure even Mrs. Boggs liked him. I saw her talking to him a couple of days before she, she was murdered.”

  “Really? Was that something he did regularly, talking to her?”

  “No. I always tell my guys to stay out of the way, to be invisible.”

  “Any idea what they may have been talking about?”

  He shook his head. “It could’ve been about anything.”

  I handed him my card. “Do me a favor and ask the rest of your crew if they knew why he was talking to Mrs. Boggs. If you find out anything, let me—”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Did you know any of his friends? Did he bring anyone onto the island?”

  “No. It’s not permitted to have anyone not invited by the family on the island.”

  “Do you know anything about Sanchez’s family?”

  “Just that his mother was pretty sick. I think something with the kidneys.”

  “Can you think of anything unusual, out of the ordinary, no matter how small, involving Raul Sanchez?”

  “I wish there was something, but I can’t think of anything.”

  “If something comes to mind, anything, let me know.”

  “Okay. Say, you don’t think he had anything to do with her murder, do you?”

  “Sorry, Eduardo, but I can’t comment on that.”

  ***

  Vargas and I finished taking statements from the staff at Paradise Granite. A slab of gray stone had fallen onto a worker, nearly severing his lower leg. Though the driver of the forklift stated the piece had slipped off, two other laborers supported the injured man’s claim that it was an intentional act.

  Viewing the footage from a camera that was too far from the scene and in a warehouse that was poorly lit, didn’t help us determine who was right. We took the video, confident the lab would be able to tell us whether we had an attempted murder on our hands, and left.

  Driving along Shirley Street in our black Crown Victoria, the conversation quickly moved from the workplace incident to the Marilyn Boggs murder.

  “What’s your gut telling you, Vargas? I don’t like this Sanchez guy one bit, but the husband clearly had motive and was planning to off her.”

  “If we hadn’t uncovered the Mexican gang involvement, I’d say Sanchez was just a thief. Now, I’m not so sure.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  Stopped for a red light at the corner of Pine Ridge, Vargas said, “Like you say, though, most murders are committed by someone close to the victim. The marriage was in shambles, and the husband, no matter what he says, was humiliated, made to look like a fool.”

  “He confronted them the day she was killed.”

  “And he looked for ways to kill her.”

  I said, “And the good old trust was packed with twenty-million reasons to do it.”

  “We need something that ties him to the stabbing. A break of some kind.”

  “How many times have we said that in the last couple of years? Every case hits a wall. I don’t care which one, they all do. We do what we always do, stay on it and we’ll make our own break.”

  “Is that false bravado I hear?”

  She was right, but sometimes you got to fake it to make it. “No, I really believe it.”

  We drove silently for five minutes when I said, “Getting back to Sanchez, one thing that bothers me is why didn’t he steal a whole bunch of jewelry, not to mention, what, fifty K sitting in the bedroom?”

  “Maybe he was trying to keep his job, just take a few items, not turn it into a blowout.”

  “If that was the case, it wouldn’t have lasted. His greed would’ve pushed him to up the stakes.”

  “I don’t know, Frank. Maybe he was doing a lot of low-key crimes the whole time he’s been in the States.”

  “Well, he’d be the first guy to keep his greed under control so he wouldn’t get busted.”

  “But he didn’t, he got caught.”

  “Something has been bothering me. The fifty thousand in cash. I know these people are in a different league, but I read somewhere Warren Buffet doesn’t even carry a wallet around with him. Why would anybody in today’s world of ATMs, PayPal, and wire transfers need that much cash?”

  “Maybe as a hedge against a catastrophe?”

  “I don’t buy it. They wouldn’t be alone in a disaster; the family office probably has several well-stocked bunkers laid out in the event of a disaster.”

  “You can’t say they’re not thorough.”

  I pulled into a turning lane and she said, “What are you doing?”

  “I just thought of something. We need to talk with Sanchez.”

  “You going to clue me in, Frank?”

  Chapter 39

  Luca

  Staring at the whiteboard we kept with all the players of the case, I kept coming back to the affair. Octopus-like, it had several tentacles that could have led to murder. Did Gideon kill her out of jealousy, or to make sure he’d get twenty million from the trust? Did Marilyn want a divorce but didn’t want to take the hit the trust would take, leading her to try to kill Gideon and he retaliated? Was it a lover’s quarrel with Barnet that got out of hand?

  I read through my notes. Reviewing the Marilyn Boggs and John Barnet relationship raised a question about its trajectory. Patty Clermont thought it had slowed down and even said Marilyn had grown quiet about the affair.

  Asking her some pointed questions would clear up the timeline, but I didn’t want to get in front of her like I should. She wasn’t my type, but I had learned not to risk it; there was only so much willpower left in this forty-two-year-old. Using the phone to do an interview wasn’t only not protocol but left me without any body language to read. And her body was Pulitzer Prize-reading material.

  I punched her number in before I changed my mind.

  “Miss Clermont? It’s Detective Luca.”

  “Oh, what a pleasant surprise. How’s my Clooney clone?”

  That was clever. I’d never heard it put that way. “I’d like to ask you a question.”

  “Yes, I’m free tomorrow night.”

  They call aggressive woman cougars, but this Clermont was in a league of her own.

  “I wanted to ask about Marilyn and John Barnet. When we met, you said you thought the relationship was cooling off. Do you remember?”

  “I never forget a handsome man, especially when he shows up at my door.”

  It was uncomfortable but mildly reassuring that I had pinned her within minutes of meeting her.

  “It’s important that I understand the timeline, the arc of their relationship. Can you do that for me?”

  “Anything, Detective, believe me, anything you want.”

  The sound of a leaf blower came through the phone. “Good. You said that Marilyn was like a schoolgirl when she started the affair with Barnet. Is that accurate?”

  “Marilyn was head over heels. It was refreshing to see someone unabashedly enjoying herself.”

  “Did she ever mention getting divorced from her husband?”

  “Not really. It wasn’t about Gideon. You men never seem to understand; it was about her.”

  Was Clermont another woman whose divorce transformed them into a feminist? “Can you clear up ‘not really’? Did she discuss it or not?”

  “I took any talk of divorce, which w
as kinda general, as Marilyn venting. Not a plan, just like a release for her.”

  “I get it. Would you find it surprising that Gideon claims she had told him she wanted a divorce?”

  “I like to think the two of us were close, so I can’t really imagine her not telling me about something like that. But, in reality, nothing would surprise me, Detective, unless you came over.”

  “You mentioned the episode where Barnet allegedly filmed them having sex.”

  “It wasn’t allegedly, he did it.”

  “Previously, you said you thought it was to spice up their sex life. You thought Barnet was getting bored.”

  “It could have been. Marilyn, after she got over being filmed, was concerned about it.”

  “After the filming episode, did the relationship begin to fade?”

  “Marilyn was angry about being filmed, and for about a week, things were in a funk. But Marilyn, she couldn’t stay mad long. It was one of the things I loved and frankly admired about her. She was a special girl.”

  If you were as wealthy as the Boggs, I’m willing to bet you’d also have a hard time staying mad.

  “The relationship got back on track?”

  “Yeah. Things seemed to be going good for them again.”

  “How long did this good period last?”

  “A week or two.”

  “Then you said something about her was different.”

  “She changed, got real quiet and wouldn’t talk about Barnet. Something was bothering her, and it had to do with him. I’m sure about that.”

  Chapter 40

  Gideon Brighthouse

  I tipped my empty bottle over and shook the last drops into my mouth as soon as Gerey got out of the SUV. Just what did he mean by ‘long way to go’?

  By the time we were back on 41, the mirage Crowley had created dissipated. I was in trouble. As soon as I got to the island I would have to destroy the mushrooms. Burning them would be the best way; nothing but ashes I could mix into the gulf. I’d have to be careful not to breathe any fumes in; it could fatal. What a twist that would make.