Adler took a small notebook from his pocket and scribbled the names Bill gave him. “Porter and I will check these out.”
“I’m still thinking Branigan’s and Deirdre’s murders are connected,” I said, “but damned if I can figure out how.”
Sharon returned to the kitchen. “Jessica woke up and wanted to come out and play. I just got her back to sleep. Anyone want more coffee?”
“No thanks.” I stood and gave Bill a look. Adler and Sharon had precious little time together, and I didn’t want to infringe on it any longer. “We have to go.”
Adler showed us to the door. “Keep in touch.”
“You have plans?” I asked Bill as he pulled away from the curb.
“Yeah.” He flashed a wicked grin. “I’m hoping to get lucky. You wanna play?”
“Yes,” I said, “and Crest Lake Park has a playground.”
His grin faded. “Where Deirdre Fisk was murdered?”
I nodded. “Let’s snoop around. Some of the regulars may have seen something and might be more willing to talk to us than the cops.”
“It’s worth a try. But not half as much fun as what I had in mind.” He threaded his way through Adler’s subdivision to Highland Avenue and headed south into Clearwater. At Cleveland Street, he hung a left and drove the short distance to the park, a city block centered with a small lake surrounded by wide grassy spaces intersected by jogging trails. An attractive recreational area in daylight, once the sun went down, the park took on a sinister aspect and filled with unsavory creatures.
Bill parked and we both got out.
“I may have better luck talking to the working girls if I’m alone.” I pulled a hundred-dollar bill from my wallet and folded it so that Benjamin’s face was visible. “To grease the skids.”
“I’ll stay within sight of you. Holler if you need me.”
I struck out along the path. Toward the center of the park, I spotted a woman sitting on a bench that overlooked the lake. I sauntered past her, then sat on the other end of the bench. Farther back along the walkway where I’d come, Bill knelt as if tying his shoe.
In the faint glow of streetlights, I could observe the woman’s outrageous attire: hot pants so low on her hips and cut so high on her legs that her belt was almost as wide as her shorts, four-inch wedge-heeled shoes, and a sequin-spangled halter top that left her midriff, shoulders and cleavage bare. Even in the dim light, her black-rimmed eyes and thick false eyelashes were plainly visible beneath her huge pouf of teased blond hair.
“I’m working this park,” she warned. “This is my spot. Go find your own.” Between the thick layer of makeup and the poor lighting, I couldn’t see her skin that clearly, but her voice made her sound young, still in her teens.
I thought of my friend Karen Longwood, the psychologist from the weight-loss clinic, who was setting up a mentoring program for at-risk children. For the past few months, Karen had been whacking her way through bureaucratic red tape, while every day, more and more children without proper role models and supervision were falling through the cracks. I’d arrested too many of them in my days as a cop, and for a fleeting instant, I was glad I had no authority to arrest this one, a girl who should have been at home watching TV with her family or chatting on the phone with her friends, not turning tricks on a park bench.
I flashed my folded bill. “I’m paying, not working.”
“I don’t do women.”
“I’m looking for information, not sex.”
She appeared ready to run, but she wouldn’t get far in those shoes. “You a cop?”
“Private detective. Were you working here Monday night?”
“All the nights seem the same to me.” Unlike earlier, she now sounded old and tired.
“Were you here the night the woman was killed, just over there?” I pointed to where Adler had said Deirdre’s body was found.
“What if I was?”
“You see anything?”
“Nothing I’d testify to in court.”
“Anything that might help me find a killer?”
She shrugged, but I could tell she had her eye on the bill in my hand. I considered the probability that she’d lie for the money but decided to take that chance. I waited, watching the reflection of the cylindrical city water tower on the lake’s smooth surface.
Several yards away, Bill had left the path and wandered to the edge of the lake. He hadn’t looked my way, but I knew he was watching, aware of every movement. As long as he had my back, I was in no danger.
“I saw what happened,” she finally said.
I had to strain to hear, because her voice had dropped to barely above a whisper.
“Afterward?”
She shook her head. “I was over in the bushes there, taking a pee. The girl that was murdered was waiting on the bench near where the cops found her. She got up and waved when she saw the killer coming.”
“She knew her killer?”
“Looked like she’d been waiting for him.”
“What did he look like?”
“A tall man, wearing loose slacks and a jacket. And sneakers.”
“Did you see his face?”
“He wore a ball cap with the brim pulled down. And he had on sunglasses, even though it was night.”
“Could you tell anything else about him? His age? His race?”
“He was a white guy, but I dunno his age. He moved in long, easy steps, like an athlete, not an old man.”
I was beginning to think the working girl was jerking my chain—until she spoke again.
“So anyway, the girl on the bench sees this guy coming and waves and jumps up to meet him. The guy walks right up to her, pulls a gun from his pocket, sticks it under the girl’s chin and fires. It’s a good thing I’d just peed, or I’d have wet my pants.”
The hooker had described the killing almost exactly as Doc Cline and I had reconstructed it. “What happened next?”
“The killer leaned down, as if to make sure the girl was dead, then just walked back the way he’d come.”
“Did he get in a car? Take a cab?”
“I dunno. I was so scared, I ran the other way. Didn’t come back here for two whole nights.”
I remembered Deirdre Fisk’s empty wallet. “But you took the girl’s money first.”
“What if I did?” Her voice was cold, defiant. “She sure didn’t need it anymore. I did.” She nodded toward the bill in my hand. “That’s the only reason I’m talking to you now.”
“You’ve never been arrested, have you?”
She jerked her head up and stared at me. “I thought you weren’t a cop. You taking me in?”
I shook my head. “Your prints were on the wallet. They’re not in the system.” I softened my voice. “You don’t have a record yet, so it’s not too late. Find yourself another job. Clean up your act. This life will kill you, one way or another, and you’re too young to die.”
She turned away, but I could see the tears glistening in her eyes. “It’s not that easy.”
“Not easy, but possible. But if you decide to try, call me, and I’ll see what I can do to help.” I handed her the money and my card. “Thanks for the information. It’s more than we knew before.”
The hooker tucked the bill into her halter. “Could you leave now? You’re hurting business.”
Frustrated by the conviction that I’d never hear from her, I joined Bill at the water’s edge and told him what I’d learned.
We spent the next hour canvassing the night life in the area, but no one else had seen the guy the hooker had described in the park Monday night. They’d all been asleep, too stoned, too drunk or too leery of getting involved.
CHAPTER 12
My alarm sounded at seven-thirty the next morning, and I reluctantly dragged myself from bed. After dropping me off at the office to pick up my car, Bill had returned to my condo to study the cold case files with me, but, exhausted, he’d left before I went to bed, not that long ago.
Some t
rips down memory lane are pleasant. Last night’s wasn’t. We’d been up until four in the morning, guzzling too much coffee and reading the grisly details of crimes so horrible I wished I hadn’t encountered them the first time, much less revisited them. I had filled a few pages of a legal pad with notes and follow-up questions before finally conceding brain death, walking Bill to the door, kissing him good-night and turning in.
Not sure my brain had been resurrected by a mere three hours’ sleep, I hit the shower, then slathered on half a bottle of calamine lotion to soothe my raging hives before I dressed. Over coffee, I made a call to Doc Cline to tell her what Bill and I had run across in the files last night that might prove useful.
“You’re at work early,” I said.
“I have a whopper of a backlog. What’s up?”
“Did you run a DNA screen on Branigan?”
“Yeah, to check the hairs we found on his shirt, but according to the DNA, they belong to the vic.”
“I have a DNA report from my cold cases. Its source isn’t in any of the data banks, so there’s no one to connect it to. If I fax you the info, can you compare it with Branigan’s DNA?”
“Sure, but you know the drill, Maggie. Unless it’s related to a current investigation, it will have to go to the end of the line.”
“I have no problem waiting. After sixteen years, what’s a few more days? I have an errand to run this morning, so I’ll fax the report when I get back to my office.”
By eight-thirty I was in my car driving into Clearwater. Once I arrived downtown, I parked on the third level of a parking garage near the intersection of Cleveland and Fort Harrison and entered a mostly deserted office building. Downtown had been in decline for years, no longer the bustling center of commerce I remembered from my youth. All the action, with the exception of the Church of Scientology headquarters and classrooms, was either in outlying malls or on Clearwater Beach.
A dark hallway led from the garage to an office overlooking an alley. Facts, Inc., was owned by Archer Phillips, an old high-school classmate of mine, who ran a computer business, searching records of all kinds, primarily for insurance companies, personnel departments of large corporations and the occasional private detective who could afford Archer’s exorbitant fees.
While working on the diet-clinic murders last year, I’d called in a favor from Archer. His work had settled his debt with me, so any request I made this morning would go on my tab, and, since Bill and I were investigating the Fisk murder without a paying client, the fee would come from my pocket. But at this point, I was willing to mortgage my condo if it meant catching the monster who had killed those little girls years ago.
Archer’s mother, a tiny, dried-up little woman who ran Archer’s office, as well as every other aspect of his life, greeted me at the reception desk.
“Margaret Skerritt! What brings you here? I thought the Pelican Bay Police Department closed.”
“They did. I’m here to see Archer.”
Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “A social call?”
Poor Archer had never had a chance. Besides being awkward and unattractive, he’d had his mother running interference with every woman who’d ever shown an interest in him—except the woman in his clandestine love nest in a condo in Pelican Bay, whom his dear mama didn’t know existed. I, however, had stumbled across Archer’s secret during a stakeout years ago and had guarded his privacy in return for information he’d supplied on some murder suspects.
“No need to worry, Mrs. Phillips, this is strictly professional. I’m in business for myself now.”
She studied me with mistrust over the gold-wire frames of her thick glasses. “What kind of business?”
I handed her my card. “Pelican Bay Investigations.”
She took the card, but her gaze lighted on the ring on my left hand. “Is that what I think it is?”
Bill had given me the yellow gold band set with three aquamarines, my birthstone, for Christmas as a symbol of our engagement. “I’m getting married next year,” I said, “to my business partner.”
“Best wishes, dear.” She exhaled with obvious relief, and the tension left her bony shoulders. “I’ll tell Archer you’re here.”
She rose from her desk, stepped inside the room behind her for a moment, then returned and motioned me into Archer’s office.
Archer stood when I entered and waved me to a chair in front of his desk. “Thanks, Mama. I’ll call if I need you.”
Mrs. Phillips’s skepticism had returned, and with a warning glance at me over her shoulder, she closed the door. Why she believed every woman on earth was out to seduce her son, I had no idea. With his thick lips, small eyes, pear-shaped body, tiny feet, and a wardrobe that consisted solely of polyester slacks, pastel guayaberas and sandals, he was almost a caricature of a man, and without the benefit of an endearing personality to offset his liabilities.
He’d begun to sweat as soon as I entered the room, and he waved my card his mother had given him. “Still a dick, eh, Margaret?”
“No need to worry, Archer, your secret’s safe with me.”
His thick lips turned downward. “I don’t have a secret anymore. She left me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” And I was. Archer’s mother had obviously made his life hell, and he’d deserved his little bit of happiness on the side. “I’m not here to blackmail you. This time I brought my checkbook.”
At the mention of money, his expression brightened. “What have you got, another murder suspect?”
I nodded. “Carlton Branigan.”
“The senator?” His beady eyes widened in surprise. “He’s dead.”
“And he took all his secrets with him. I’m hoping you can unearth a few for me.”
Archer frowned. “Will this be confidential? The Branigans have a lot of clout in this town. I don’t want my business ruined.”
“Most of what I’m looking for is available in public documents. I just need you to find it. Whatever turns up will never be attributed to you.”
I filled him in on the Tampa cold cases and Deirdre Fisk’s recent murder.
“And you think Branigan was involved?” Archer looked disbelieving.
“I know he didn’t kill Deirdre. He was in Tallahassee at the time of her death. But if he’s connected to the murders of those young girls, I may have a better handle on who shot Deirdre. And who might have killed Branigan and why.”
He hesitated, as if considering his options, then, with his eye on my checkbook, asked, “What kind of info are you looking for?”
I handed him a list of dates and questions Bill and I had compiled last night while studying the old files. “These are the dates the girls were murdered. I need you to cross-reference them to Branigan. He was a public figure even back then, so his comings and goings and the meetings he attended were chronicled in the news and public records. I want to know where he was when those girls died. And also what kind of car he was driving.”
“Some of that info won’t be online.”
“If not, it should be on microfiche at the courthouse and library or the newspaper offices.”
“You’re an ex-librarian. Why can’t you handle this?”
Because I was supposed to be solving Branigan’s murder for his wife and retrieving a kidnapped dog for Jolene Jernigan. And yesterday Bill had picked up several workmen’s comp claims for us to investigate for an insurance company. “You don’t want the job?”
“Sure, but it’ll cost you.”
“I’ll give you a check for five hundred. Once you’ve used that up, you can bill me another five hundred, but let me know what you’ve found before continuing past that amount.” I wrote the check and handed it to him. “Can you make this a priority?”
He shrugged his sloping shoulders. “If what you’re looking for isn’t online, finding it could take time.”
“I’m looking for a killer, one who could strike again, so the sooner you get started, the better.”
He slid the check
into the top drawer of his desk. “I’ll put you at the top of the list.”
“Don’t get up,” I said. “I’ll show myself out.”
Mrs. Phillips eyed me as I passed her desk. “Margaret, this is for you.”
She passed me a pink business card as if it were the key to the DaVinci Code.
“What’s this?” I asked.
She pointed to my calamine-streaked face. “It’s the name and number of my Mary Kay rep. You really have to do something about your makeup, dear. I don’t see how you caught a man, but you won’t keep him, looking like that.”
I wanted to talk with Stella Branigan about her husband’s murder, so I turned south out of the parking garage and drove the few short miles to Harbor Oaks. A caterer’s van was parked in the circular driveway in front of the Branigan house, and I pulled in behind it.
Madison, looking as if every piece of clothing, from his well-cut navy suit and tie to his white shirt with French cuffs, had too much starch, answered my ring at the front door and looked down his nose at me. “Mrs. Branigan is busy.”
“I’ll wait. In fact, I’d like to talk with you.”
He shook his head. “I’ve told the police everything I know.”
“But I’m not with the police. Mrs. Branigan hired me to investigate her husband’s murder. Shall I tell her you refuse to cooperate?”
Looking cornered and unhappy, he conceded. “What do you want to know?”
“Where were you Monday night?”
“Monday is my night off.”
“Do you live on the premises?”
“Yes, but what has Monday got to do with anything? Mr. Branigan died Wednesday morning.”
“Humor me. Where were you Monday night?”
“I wasn’t here. I had a…meeting with a friend.”
Spring Break Page 10
