The Watcher (A Miranda and Parker Mystery Book 4)

by Linsey Lanier

  It didn’t make sense.

  Valdinho pushed his glasses up on his long nose and went to the brandy cabinet to refill his drink. “What do you propose we do now, Detectives?”

  Miranda looked at Parker. That was his call.

  His face was stern. It was time to stop sugar-coating things. “We have only two choices,” he told them. “Either we sit here and wait for him to attack, or—”

  “We set a trap?” Valdinho’s lawyer’s mind was quick.

  Tia blinked at him. “What sort of a trap?”

  “Something that will bring him out in the open.”

  Tia took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders. “Me. I should be the bait.”

  Valdinho reached for her. “No, querida.”

  She shook him off. “I am the one he sent the letters to. I am the one he wants to kill. I am the most logical one to use as bait.”

  “We will do all in our power to keep her safe,” Holloway said.

  They would. They all would. Miranda could see Parker didn’t like the idea. It wasn’t his style to put his clients at risk. But right now, it was all they had.

  “I do not like it,” Valdinho said.

  “I could go for a walk in the woods,” Tia told him. “Perhaps he would come after me then. As he did that stranger whose body we found.”

  Valdinho shook his head. “I will not hear of it.”

  “We have involved the police. He is coming after me anyway, Valdinho.”

  Miranda put up a hand to calm the tempers. “Maybe you could arrange some sort of meeting. Do you have a way to contact him?”

  Tia sat up. “I do not know why I did not think of this before. He gave me his cell number long ago. I have never called him.”

  Elena said Rico told her he’d lost his phone and was using a prepaid. But that might have been a lie.

  “Try it,” Parker said.

  “What are you going to tell him?” Valdinho wanted to know.

  Tia turned to Parker.

  “Tell him you want to set up a meeting to talk. Tell him you’ll give him the details later.”

  After they figured out the best place to nab him.

  “Very well.” Tia took out her phone, scrolled to the number. With a deep breath she dialed.

  Miranda felt her heart stop while it rang. Could this really work? Could they nab this crazy bastard? Could they get a confession out of him? There was too little evidence to convict him if he didn’t talk.

  On the sixth ring, voice mail picked up and Rico’s slow seductive voice pierced the silence. “Olá. Rico aqui. Deixe um recado.” It beeped.

  Parker shook his head and Tia hung up.

  “What now?”

  “We’ll try again a little later.”

  Tia nodded then rose and went into hostess mode again. “In the meantime, let’s go into the dining room and have some dinner. We will all think better on full stomachs.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Miranda didn’t think their stomachs were getting very full. No one seemed to have much of an appetite.

  They picked at the sandwiches and a leftover black bean dish. But the strong black coffee was fortifying.

  Parker stirred his coffee, a deep frown on his face. “I’m so sorry this has gotten so out of hand, Tia. I’m sorry we had to involve the authorities.”

  She shook her head. “It was not you who killed that girl in Rio. Perhaps I should have told Gaspar right away. I have just been so frightened.”

  Valdinho took her hand. “We will stop him, querida. We will find him and stop him.”

  “Try calling him again,” Parker said.

  Tia pressed the redial on her cell. It rang and rang and once more Rico’s recorded message answered. She hung up, disgusted with the sound of it. “What if I cannot reach him?”

  The long day and the caffeine was getting to Miranda. Her mind buzzing, she tapped her fingers on the table. “Did Rico have any history of mental instability?”

  Tia set down her cup with a frown. “What do you mean?”

  “Any kind of a breakdown of some sort?”

  “No. He was always a strong man. Even when we were children together. He dominated his brothers and sisters.”

  Dominated, huh? “What about insomnia? Was he ever prescribed anything for that?”

  Parker cleared his throat. “You mean like Rohypnol?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  Tia’s frown deepened with concern. “Not that I know of. It would have to have been after we separated, I suppose.”

  “Where are you going with this, Miranda?” Parker wanted to know.

  He was going on the assumption Rico got the date-rape drug on the street.

  “I’m not sure.” She felt restless. She needed to see everything lined up. “Do you have a whiteboard?”

  Tia looked at her puzzled. “I have a small office upstairs. There is one there. It sits on a stand. We could bring it down here.”

  Parker rose and gestured to Holloway. “Lend me a hand.”

  “Yessir.” Holloway popped up, eager to do anything to help.

  A few minutes later they’d dragged the board into the dining room near the window where everyone could see it.

  Miranda stood at the board, marker in hand. She drew three spaced-out lines in the center. “This is when Tia received those deaths threats. About two weeks apart.” She labeled them L1, L2, L3.

  “Correct,” Tia concurred.

  She drew a line to the left of L1. “And you said you got the first letter the day after you met with Valdinho about your divorce.”

  “Yes. We met at Boteco do Sabor, the resort’s restaurant. We had drinks on the veranda and I told him I was ready to make the move.”

  Valdinho took her hand and kissed it. “And I made mine. I told her I had always loved her and had been waiting for this day a long time.”

  Their eyes shone with tears as they gazed at one another. Miranda only hoped she and Parker could give the couple a lifetime together.

  She turned back to the board, paused a moment.

  “The first Cielo charges we found we’re at the time of the second letter,” Parker offered.

  “Yes,” Miranda made a mark under L2 and wrote “Nunes.” “The sporting goods store.” Where their suspect had bought the knife that might have killed Juli Torres.

  “And between L2 and L3,” Parker said, “There was a large cash withdrawal on the Cielo card in Rio de Janeiro.”

  Miranda drew another line and marked it “Cash in Rio.” “And then we show up when the third letter arrives. That’s the day we found the body on the mountain.” She wrote “Body” under L3. “He had to see us because then he goes after us.” She wrote “Brakes” and “Rohypnol” to the right of L3.

  “But sometime between those two events,” Parker continued, “he returns to Rio and murders Juli Torres.”

  “Right.” She wrote “Torres” to the left of “Rohypnol” and stood back to study the chart. “He’s been busy. Plus Elena at the modeling agency said he’s been calling there periodically.”

  “And sounding weird,” Holloway put in.

  “Right.”

  Everyone sat in silence studying the board.

  “If there’s a pattern,” Parker said slowly, “it’s erratic.”

  Holloway pointed to the lines as they got closer together. “Almost as if he’s getting more agitated…frenzied.”

  “That would be expected if he knew we suspected him.”

  Or if he were starting to crack. Miranda folded her arms and stared at the board.

  She thought of the ambitious young man who’d grown up a farm worker’s son on a sugarcane plantation. How he’d grown up to buy out the family his father had worked for. How he’d dominated his brothers and sisters, and how maybe that was a polite word for bullied. Had to be some resentment there. Some history. Some emotional baggage. And if a bully didn’t get his way…

  She was so lost in thought she barely heard Par
ker’s cell go off.

  “Excuse me,” he murmured as he rose from the table and stepped into the hall.

  Her throat tightened. Was that news from Inspector Keith? Had he found Rico in the city somewhere? Or at least someone who could positively identify him?

  It seemed an eternity before Parker returned but when he did, she felt her whole body go stiff. His face was pale and gaunt. She’d never seen him quite like that before.

  “What is it?”

  He reached for the back of a chair to steady himself. He took a few deep breaths then nodded at the board. “It seems we’ve all been far off-base with our theory.”

  Miranda felt the breath go out of her. “Why?”

  “What’s going on, Mr. Parker?” Holloway asked.

  “I just spoke to my associate Detective Dave Becker in Atlanta. We sent a sample of the body on the mountain to the Parker Agency lab for analysis. They’ve just finished testing it.”

  The floor seemed to move under Miranda’s feet. “And?”

  “The DNA on the hair from the skeleton matches the DNA in the hair found in the razor.”

  Tia’s hand went to her throat. “The razor I gave you? The one that belonged to Rico?”

  Parker nodded.

  “What does that mean? What are you saying?” There was panic in Tia’s voice.

  Miranda’s heart pounded a mile a minute.

  Parker scanned the terrified faces before him. “It means the body we found in the woods was Rico Dominguez.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Miranda sank into a chair at the dining table, the sound of Tia’s shrieks ringing in her ears. She put her head in her hands. It was spinning. She didn’t know what to do, what to think.

  Was she dreaming? Was she having another nightmare? How could that dead, decaying body in the woods have been Rico? He was the killer. The stalker. The one they were after.

  She looked up at her husband who was still white and clinging to the back of the chair.

  “Becker’s got to be wrong, Parker.”

  He shook his head. “They ran the test three times. He’s not working alone. The whole team came to the same conclusion.”

  And their testing methods were impeccable. Parker had used them dozens of times in court.

  Tia rose and began clearing the dishes. “I do not know what to think. I cannot believe this.”

  “Put those things down, querida.” Valdinho touched her arm.

  Tia set the dishes on the table and sank back into a chair. She put her hands to her face and began to cry. “It is all my fault. Didi was right. I neglected him.”

  Valdinho’s expression turned sour as he put his arms around her and drew her to him. “You did no such thing. No such thing at all.”

  “Yes I did. I did.” She rocked back and forth in his embrace. “How can this be?”

  The front door opened and Pipia floated into the room with Wesson at her side.

  The young woman was all smiles. “Oh, mamãe. Rehearsal went so well. Arturo thinks my solo will be the highlight of the concert.” She stopped cold when she saw her mother’s face. “What is wrong?”

  Tia looked up at her, her face streaked with tears. “Your father is dead.”

  Pipia’s smile fell away. “What? What?”

  Tia rose and reached for her daughter’s hand to squeeze it. “Oh, my darling. My darling. We must tell your sister.”

  Wesson shot Miranda a what-the-hell’s-going-on? look, but she moved to the stairs. “I’ll get her.”

  A few moments later the two sisters were seated at the table while Parker explained the body on the mountain that they’d found a few days ago had been their father.

  Didi looked as if she might fall apart. She kept shaking her head, denial ravaging her. “I do not understand. He was so full of life.”

  “The police are conducting further investigations of the body. They may have some information later.”

  Parker’s voice was that steady calm Miranda always wondered how he pulled off. Now she realized he must be in some form of denial himself. She certainly was.

  Pipia wept openly into a handkerchief Valdinho had supplied. “If only I could have said goodbye to him.”

  “We will never see him again.” Didi’s voice was distant, detached, but it wasn’t full of the anger she’d had before. It was as if she’d come to terms with the inevitable fact that she had already lost her father.

  Tia lifted her head with a determined look. “We must have a memorial for him.”

  Miranda tensed. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  Didi ignored her. “Yes, we must. When, mother?”

  “Soon. As soon as possible.”

  Pipia’s large moist eyes went wide. “The concert. It is tomorrow night.”

  Tia took both of her hands in her own. “Anjinho. It is so important to you. You must play.”

  “How can I play now?”

  “You must. You must be strong. You must find a way. Your father would have wanted you to. He was so proud of your playing. He wanted you to go to Juilliard.”

  The poor girl shook her head. “I do not know. I cannot think.”

  Tia’s expression turned to annoyance. She seemed furious at her now deceased husband for getting killed when Pipia’s important event was taking place.

  Miranda’s heart went out to Tia, to the girls, to all of them. But they were forgetting something.

  She looked at Parker and saw he was staring at the whiteboard. She turned her head to study it once again and couldn’t help uttering the words out loud. “If Rico has been dead all this time, someone else is—”

  Parker finished her thought. “Impersonating him.”

  Miranda heard Tia suck in her breath. “Querido Deus.”

  “And he had to be good enough to fool Elena at the modeling agency.”

  “And Juli Torres.” Parker took out his phone again and studied the photo from the surveillance tape.

  Tia kept shaking her head back and forth. “If only Rico had not been so foolish and wild. Why was he in the woods? Why did he not let us know he was here?”

  “Who might have been with him?” Parker asked.

  Tia lifted her hands in despair. “I have no idea. I did not know him anymore.”

  Miranda looked at the left side of the board. The part she’d marked L1 and noted Tia’s meeting with Valdinho. There was something missing.

  The groundskeeper. And Nelito.

  A chime sounded and everyone jumped.

  “It is only the doorbell,” Tia said, looking embarrassed. “I will get it.”

  Parker held out a hand. “Stay here. I’ll go.”

  He left the room and Miranda followed him, leaving Wesson and Holloway to guard the family.

  Her heart pounding she watched Parker peek out the window in the living room. “It’s the police.”

  He opened the door and she saw the big frame of Inspector Gaspar dressed in his good Italian suit. He was missing his sidekick, Agent Franco.

  Gaspar ran a hand over his thin, styled hair. “So sorry to bother you this time of night.”

  “No bother at all, Inspector,” Parker told him. “What do you have for us?”

  “We followed up on the lead you gave us when your rental vehicle was sabotaged. We found Geninho Fernandes at a pub in Vilaverde.”

  “Vilaverde?”

  “A town about fifteen kilometers to the east. He was drunk as a jaritataca, as you might say. He is in custody, sobering up. I thought you would like to speak to him as soon as possible.”

  Damn straight we do, Miranda wanted to say.

  Parker was cooler. “We’ll be with you in a moment, Inspector.”

  And after they’d informed everyone what was going on and assured themselves no one would leave the house, they headed off to the police department in Gaspar’s unmarked car.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  For some reason the Campos do Flores station was in better shape than Inspector Keith’s office
back in Rio, Miranda thought, as she followed Gaspar down a well lit hall. Maybe to keep up appearances for the tourists who found themselves here after a night of carousing in the town.

  The interrogation room wasn’t too bad either. But it was stark and cold.

  Plain walls, large fluorescent lights overhead, metal table painted a cheery blue, stiff back chairs, the smell of antiseptic, as if it had been cleansed after the last round of questioning. Still it gave Miranda the willies, as all interrogation rooms did.

  But she settled down in a chair next to Parker and waited for an officer to bring in the fired groundskeeper.

  The big man lumbered into the room and sat in the chair the officer pointed to, head down. He was dressed in an old flannel shirt and jeans that seemed to need laundering. His dark blond hair was a long, matted mess on his head. And his lined face had the look of an old, sick bloodhound.

  Definitely couldn’t pass for Rico Dominguez. Not in a million years.

  Gaspar, whose large frame competed with the groundskeeper’s gestured to his two guests. “This is Wade Parker and Miranda Steele from the Parker Agency in Atlanta, Georgia. They want to ask you a few questions.”

  Geninho lifted his head and a thick, unkempt brow along with it. “You brought in gringos? To talk to me?” His voice was low, his accent heavy.

  “Respect, Geninho,” Gaspar warned. “They are private investigators.”

  He spread his large hands. “I did not steal the ale I consumed tonight. I paid for it out of my own pocket.”

  Parker leaned forward. “Mr. Fernandes—”

  “Call me Geninho. We go by first names here.”

  Parker smiled, hiding his annoyance. “I’m aware of the custom. Geninho, we understand you were let go from a local establishment a few weeks ago.”

  Geninho recoiled, his face turning sullen. “I was fired. So what?”

  “We’d like to hear your side of the story.”

  “My side?” The big man let out a surly laugh. “The vaca I worked for fired me. That is that.”

  Miranda suspected “vaca” meant something like “bitch.”

  Calling on his infinite store of patience Parker feigned ignorance. “And where was it you worked again?”