“No, you didn’t.”
“Well not us specifically. You’re right, Danielle and I were standing at the back. But the rest of the congregation.”
“No, I mean they didn’t either,” said Natalie. “The chairs for the dinner weren’t the same chairs used at the ceremony.”
Danielle sat forward. “They weren’t?”
“No, Deputy. Because of the tournament. We had set the hospitality tent up already for use as a private VIP dining area. We used dining chairs that we took from storage. The rest of the chairs, the ceremony ones, were basic fold-up chairs that we hired for the tournament, so we put them to use.”
I leaned back in my seat and looked at Danielle. She looked disappointed, like she’d missed a trick, and she’d done it in front of an FDLE agent.
“We should have asked that before.”
“No reason,” said Nixon. “Sounds like the health department should have been a little more specific. And it wasn’t like you could walk into the contaminated tent to figure it out.”
I wasn’t sure why Nixon was backing Danielle up, but she relaxed when he did. Maybe he was playing her. Maybe he liked her. He certainly didn’t appear to know we were an item. Or maybe he’d taken the long route on his own fair share of cases and had beaten himself up over it just like Danielle was.
Danielle picked it up. “So, Natalie. Can you confirm that Ernesto put the dining chairs out?”
“Yes, he did. He got them from storage, on his dolly. He set them out, and he cleaned them.”
“With bleach, is what you said before?”
“Yes, with bleach. We have a stock of it in the storeroom.”
“And he set up the chairs for the ceremony.”
“Yes. The same way. The rental people delivered them, and Ernesto and the delivery guy brought them around to the back.”
“You saw him do this?”
“Yes, I saw him. The delivery guy left them in a few piles, and Ernesto unfolded them and put them out and sprayed them with bleach.”
“Why spray them with bleach if they had just been delivered?” I asked. “Aren’t they cleaned?”
“You’d hope so, but Mr. Yarmouth wouldn’t like us to assume it.”
“Mr. Yarmouth? You mean Barry, the club treasurer?”
“Yes.”
“What has it got to do with him? Is he a germaphobe?”
“No, I don’t think so. But you saw what happens if things don’t get cleaned properly.”
I sat back. I did see what happened. It would stick with me to the end of my days.
“What has Mr. Yarmouth got to do with facilities?” asked Danielle.
“He sort of oversees it. The club isn’t that big, you know. And most of the facilities stuff has to do with hiring tents and chairs and stuff, which is all money the club pays out. And Mr. Yarmouth oversees all that as treasurer. So Ernesto has—had—to deal with that. So I guess it was more he had a lot to do with Mr. Yarmouth, rather than Mr. Yarmouth was his boss.”
“Who do you report to, Natalie?” I asked.
“Mr. Hamilton,” she said with a nod.
Danielle said, “So is there anything you can tell us about the day you prepared the rehearsal dinner? Anything unusual?”
Natalie thought and shook her head.
“And this bleach. Where is that kept?”
“In the storeroom.”
“Who has access to it?”
“Anyone with a key. Me, Ernesto. Chef Lex. And some of the board members, I guess.”
“Can you show us where it’s kept?”
“Sure.” She stood and led the three of us out of the dining room into the hallway between the dining room and the kitchen. We turned away from the entrance of the club and down a corridor. Natalie stopped by a door and unclipped a keyring and fumbled for a key, and then used it to open the door. She flicked the light on and walked in.
It was a utility cupboard. Not massive but big enough for the four of us to fit in. Rows of shelving lined both long walls, stacked with rolls of paper towels and fake candles and flashlights and washcloths. There were a couple of dry buckets at the end, with mops sitting in them. The room smelled like Pinesol. Natalie bent down to the lowest shelf. She had a good shape about her.
“Huh,” she said, and stood up. She looked at some other shelves and moved some rolls of paper towels out of the way. “That’s odd.”
“What’s odd,” asked Danielle.
“It’s not here.”
“The bleach?”
“No. I mean, yes, the bleach. It was there, on the bottom. It’s not there now.”
“Could someone else be using it?”
“Sure, they could be using it. But not eleven bottles of it.”
“Eleven bottles?”
“Yes. We order it from a big box store. It comes in a pack of twelve spray bottles. We got a full new pack delivered last week because of the tournament. A lot of people mean a lot of mess. Ernesto broke the pack open on Friday. I remember him doing it. He took the first bottle.”
“And the rest are gone?”
She looked around the storeroom once more. “Yes. Eleven bottles are missing.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Okay, Natalie, let’s take a step back,” said Danielle as we moved out of the storeroom. “I want you to walk us through what you saw and where. And I mean actually walk us there physically. It might jog your memory.”
“Sure, Deputy. So, I was in the kitchen when the deliveries came. There was stuff from the big box store, and stuff from the uniform place that does the caddies’ uniforms. I remember it because we got some new plastic containers. Chef Lex keeps herbs in them. I came out here and then I waited while Ernesto checked and signed for the delivery. He carried everything into the storeroom, and he handed me the package of containers. We were talking about something—I think he was unhappy about something. Yes, that was right—he wasn’t happy about not getting paid extra for the overtime he was working for the tournament.”
“He wasn’t being paid?”
“Oh, he was being paid, but I think he wanted double time or something. He doesn’t get tips like the servers and kitchen staff, and I asked if he had taken it up with Mr. Yarmouth. He said he had, and Mr. Yarmouth told him there was no money, that the club might even take a loss on the tournament.”
“That’s a good treasurer,” I said. “Tighter than a drum.”
“So what happened then?” asked Danielle.
“Nothing. I mean I went back to the kitchen.”
“When did you see Ernesto again?”
“Outside. I went out to check on the hospitality tent.”
“Show us.”
Natalie led us out to the tent. It had been arranged into ten tables with a bar at one end, for the corporate VIPs.
“So I came out here. It wasn’t set up like this. It was one long table. And not these chairs. I don’t know where the other ones went.”
“The health department took them away to be decontaminated,” said Danielle. “So Ernesto was here?”
“Yes. He set it all up. And then went back to get the bleach.”
“Wait, you said he opened the package of bleach bottles when you were talking at the storeroom. Why did he need to go get it?”
Natalie looked confused. I could see she was trying to remember. I hoped she didn’t try too hard. The human mind was a wonderful thing, and it was more clever than it let us know. Our own brains kept things from us, told us little lies. Eyewitness testimony had been the benchmark of the legal system since the Magna Carta, and probably before. But it was faulty. People’s memories didn’t work the way they assumed they did. I covered it when I studied criminology. Research showed time and time again that our memories were prone to error, and worse still, were prone to simply making things up to fill in the gaps. Or to please cops when put under pressure in questioning.
“Yes, that’s right,” said Natalie. “I was here, making sure all the flower arrangements for t
he table were right, and Ernesto did a loop of the room. Looking around as if he had lost something. He looked confused. Then he walked out. I was coming out myself when he returned. He held the bottle up to me, as if it meant something. I didn’t think about it. But now we’re here, I think maybe he had forgotten it somewhere and he went back to get it, and he was showing me he had it.”
“So you left then? Where did you go?”
Natalie searched her memory. “I went upstairs. We were arranging the drinks for the dinner. I went to make sure the bar had everything ready.”
“You were serving drinks from upstairs?”
“No. We arranged to have wine and soda on ice here in the tent, and a beer keg.” Her eyes flashed open. “Yes, a beer keg.”
“What about the beer keg?”
“There was a problem with it. A line burst or something.”
“What did you do?” asked Danielle.
“Chip, he’s the bar guy, he said he needed help. He asked me to get Ernesto. So I ran back down here.”
“Where exactly?”
Natalie strode over to the door to the clubhouse, near where Danielle and I had stood for the wedding ceremony. “I was here. Ernesto was coming out of the tent.”
“Coming out? Why?” asked Danielle.
“I think he was done. He had the bleach and his cloth in his hands. He looked done, I guess.”
“Okay, and . . .”
“And I called to him. Said we need help.”
“And?”
“And we ran upstairs. To the bar.”
“Let’s do it,” said Danielle. Natalie led her inside and up the stairs to the bar. Nixon and I followed. The bar was almost empty. Most of the corporate guys had migrated to the hospitality village over on the executive course, and the caddies and players were getting themselves together for a delayed practice round.
“So what happened here?” Danielle prompted.
“We came up and Ernesto went over there to the bar. Chip was holding a keg closed, I think, to stop it bursting and flooding the bar with foam. He told Ernesto to close the line, which he did.”
“And then?”
Natalie shook her head. “Nothing. I mean they tapped the line, and Chip used a dolly to take the keg down to the hospitality tent.”
“What did Ernesto do?”
“He went downstairs with Chip. Yes, he carried some ice down. And then he connected the party lights in the tent. After that I’m pretty sure he left.”
“He left?”
“He was done. He doesn’t work service, so he left. He gave me a nod and said goodnight as I was coming through the dining room.”
We stood in silence for a moment, looking around the bar, and looking out the window at the top of the hospitality tent.
“If there’s nothing more, I need to get back to it,” Natalie said.
“Sure,” said Danielle. “Thanks for your help.”
“Not a problem. If you need me, I’ll be around.”
She turned to leave.
“Natalie,” I said. “Sorry, one more question. This bleach you use. It’s industrial-strength stuff?”
“You don’t want to drink it, if that’s what you mean.”
“No, it’s not. What I mean is, did Ernesto wear gloves when he was using it?”
Natalie nodded. “I don’t know how I forgot that. Yes, he did. Yellow ones. Regular rubber gloves. The ones you use in your kitchen.”
Not in my kitchen. “Was he wearing them when he cleaned the tent?”
“Yes, I think he was.”
“What about when he helped carry the ice? Can’t be easy to carry ice in rubber gloves.”
“I can’t say for sure, but no, I don’t think he was.”
“Okay, thanks, Natalie.”
“Sure. Happy to help.” She gave me the Florida smile again and I started to wonder if it was reserved just for me.
“So what happened to the gloves?” Nixon asked.
“Forget the gloves, think about the bleach. He came up with it in a hurry, and then he helped stop a beer flood. Then he wandered downstairs. Where’s the bottle?”
Nixon looked around the bar, canvasing each nook and cranny. I nodded Danielle toward the bar. She frowned, and then looked. And then she got it.
Danielle strode over to the bar. The bartender, Chip, looked at her uniform and smiled.
“Cleaning supplies?”
Chip nodded at a cupboard at the end of the bar. He leaned over and pulled the cupboard open.
“What do you need?” he said.
“I need you to stand back.”
Nixon and I looked over her shoulder. Danielle took a drink stirrer and used it to push a bottle of Windex out of the way. Behind the Windex sat a bottle of bleach, with a pair of yellow rubber kitchen gloves casually tossed over the top of it.
“Not bad,” said Nixon.
Danielle used a pair of food service gloves to put the bottle into a white trash bag. She dropped the gloves in as well, and then used the bag to remove the food service gloves, letting them fall inside.
“I need to call Connie Persil.”
Danielle took the bag and went downstairs to make her call. Nixon and I watched her go.
“She’s pretty good,” Nixon said.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
He turned to me. “She have a boyfriend?”
“She does.”
“Is it serious?”
“Pretty serious.”
Nixon and I stood in silence for moment. Then I left. Small talk is not my strong point.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The practice round went off without incident, which was some kind of relief to everyone, but mostly to Keith. I felt bad about bursting his happy bubble, but I had things I needed to know. He was standing near the clubhouse in his club blazer, a picture of golfing fashion. He was watching Heath McAllen putting on the final green under the eye of his trusty English bagman.
“How’s it going, Keith?”
“You might have saved us, Miami. That alligator idea. Genius.”
“Actually I stole it from Nate Donaldson.”
Keith scrunched up his face. “You know Nathaniel Donaldson?”
“Sure, we’re like old college roommates.”
“But he’s got to be thirty years older than you.”
“Well, perhaps not that close. But I’m glad to help. I do have a question, though.”
“What is it?”
The small gallery watching McAllen’s practice round clapped softly as he sunk his par putt. I didn’t know how his round had gone, but he was smiling.
I said, “We’ve been checking up property ownership around the course.”
“Why?”
“It’s a working theory. If a developer is trying to hurt the club, he would probably buy up the surrounding property to force a deal.”
“That’s your theory?”
“It’s a working theory. And guess what we found? The single largest landowner around the perimeter of the course? It’s you.”
He frowned deeper. “Me? You really need to check your sources, Mr. Jones.”
“No, I don’t think so. The old power substation out the back of the course. FP&L sold it recently to a consortium based in Antigua. With a local address at your law firm, care of you.”
Keith looked at me. He wasn’t giving much away. “What is it you think you know, Mr. Jones?”
“Mr. Jones was my dad, Keith. And what I know is that you withheld information about a landholding adjacent to the course. A holding that gives you motive for closing your own club.”
Now his poker face gave way. But the face that replaced it wasn’t angry or petulant or even guilty. It was sad.
“You think me capable of that, Miami? My own club?”
“I think anyone capable of anything, under the right circumstances.”
“I’d rather open a vein than hurt this club.”
“In which case there must be an easy ex
planation.”
He shook his head and cast his eye at the next group walking onto the eighteenth green.
“Nothing is easy, Miami. You should know that. Even in law, life is not black and white.”
“I agree. But you’re stalling.”
“I own just a share of the substation property, Miami. I don’t have the kind of money needed to buy it all. If I did, I assure you I would have. But not for the reasons you think.”
“I don’t think anything. Yet.”
Keith sighed. “I got wind of the imminent sale by FP&L. They haven’t used the site in years. And with the economy recovering, the time was right. But I found out that a property developer with designs on our club did indeed want it. So I did all I could. I put a consortium together to buy it from under the developer. To stop them linking it to a closure of our club.”
“Who was the developer? Nate Donaldson, right?”
He shook his head as the gallery clapped another putt. “No, Miami. The developer was Antonio Coligio.”
“Coligio wanted to develop this club?”
“Why not? That’s what he does.”
“That doesn’t make sense. I spoke with him. I don’t buy the idea that he poisoned his own wife at the wedding.”
“You’re assuming those two events are connected. But I don’t think you know Mr. Coligio the way you think you do.”
That was true. I didn’t know him at all. But I know people. I used to be able to stare down a batter and know whether he was sweating on a hit to save his career or if he was on a hot streak. There are tells. And I had seen Mr. Coligio’s reaction to his wife getting sick at the wedding. His first instinct was shock. Granted, it could have been because he hadn’t expected her to get ill even when everyone else did. Maybe her chair wasn’t supposed to get contaminated. But the next reaction—and it was instantaneous in my mind—was to go to the aid of his wife. I can forgive a second of hesitation when confronted with a loved one vomiting. It isn’t a pleasant thing. In the end you help, but it isn’t pleasant. But Coligio didn’t hesitate. He went straight to her aid. I couldn’t see a guy who reacted like that even considering putting his wife in harm’s way. It didn’t figure.
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