Fire and Ice jpb-19

by J. A. Jance

  “Do you happen to remember the plate number?” I asked.

  Mason shook his head mournfully. “I’m dyslexic,” he said. “I’m no good at remembering numbers. I couldn’t even tell you the numbers on my own license plates. I have to keep them written down on a piece of paper in my wallet.”

  “Let’s go back to Marina for a moment,” Mel said. “You met her that morning in Denny’s. Then what happened?”

  “I paid for my breakfast and left. They fixed my car, and I went on my next trip, but as soon as I got back, the first thing I did was go to Denny’s for breakfast again. There she was, just as beautiful as ever, with long dark hair and brown eyes. So I say to her, “Hey, gorgeous. You still here?” She gives me that look of hers and says right back, ‘And are you still having the Grand Slam?’ I was already head over heels, but that sealed the deal for me. She remembered me; remembered what I ordered. That never happened to me before. Usually waitresses see me and couldn’t care less, even if I’ve seen ’em a dozen times before. But not Marina. Just that one time and she remembered.”

  Mel smiled and nodded. “So tell us about Marina,” she said. “Is she from Arizona originally then?” Her tone was conversational rather than confrontational. She looked interested, and her use of the present tense belied our suspicion that Marina Aguirre was dead. Poor Mason. He lunged for the bait like a starving fish. He had been waiting for months for someone to show an interest in his missing fiancee, and now the details came flooding out of him.

  “Yes,” he said. “From somewhere down there. When she wasn’t in her uniform from Denny’s, she liked to dress like a cowgirl, you know, in boots and jeans and stuff.”

  Yes, I thought, remembering the charred Tony Lama boot in the evidence bag.

  “She never told me exactly where in Arizona,” Mason continued. “She said the less I knew about it the better, because if her boyfriend came looking for her, he might come after me as well. I told her I could handle myself, but I don’t think she believed me.”

  “Did you ever meet any members of her family?”

  He shook his head. “Never. She told me she had a son, but that she had left him back home, that he was staying with relatives where she knew he’d be safe until she got on her feet again.”

  “The son’s name?”

  “Louis.”

  “Age?”

  “I don’t think she ever said exactly how old.”

  “What about friends here?” Mel asked. “Did you meet any of those?”

  “No.”

  “Doctors, dentists?”

  Mason shook his head. “If she was sick, she never mentioned it to me.”

  “Where did she live?”

  “In a mobile home court north of here, just this side of I-5, but I never went there until after she was gone. In fact, I didn’t find it until long after she disappeared. By then, it was too late.”

  “What do you mean, you found it?” I asked while Mel jotted down the address details.

  Mason gave me a pained look. “We always met somewhere else-at the mall or the movies or something. I thought she was ashamed to show me where she lived. I tried to tell her that didn’t matter, not to me. By the middle of December, when I could see the cops weren’t lifting a finger to find her, I hired a private detective. He’s the one who found out about the mobile home park. He talked to the lady who worked in the office there. She told him Marina’s rent was due on the fifteenth. When she didn’t come back or pay up by the first of December, the landlady sent in a crew to clean out her trailer. They bagged up everything in it and sent it to Goodwill or the landfill.”

  Skipping town when the rent’s about to come due is the oldest trick in the book. The local cops might have uncovered that detail themselves without bothering to pass it along to Mr. Waters. It would also go a long way toward explaining why they had determined Marina had left of her own free will.

  “When they cleaned out her place, did they find anything of value?” Mel asked.

  Mason shrugged. “If they did, I never heard anything about it, not from the cops and not from my PI, either.”

  “Did Marina wear any distinctive jewelry?”

  “The ring I gave her,” he said. “A pretty little diamond engagement ring that we bought from the Fred Meyer store in the mall. Picked it out together. We had just gotten it sized and on her finger when she disappeared. And that’s what the missing persons guy told me. He claimed the ring was all she was looking for, and that once she had what she wanted, she took off. But you’ve got to believe me. Marina wasn’t like that, not at all.”

  “Any other jewelry that you remember?” Mel asked.

  I thought he’d mention the toe ring. Instead, Mason Waters heaved himself out of the recliner and then left the room for a moment. He returned carrying a small square box which he handed over to Mel before dropping back into the recliner. “When we were looking for the ring, I saw she was looking at this and that she liked it. I was planning on giving it to her for Christmas.”

  Mel opened the box, glanced at the contents, and then wordlessly handed the box over to me. Inside was a lady’s watch-a Seiko with a gold band.

  “The one she had was an old Timex. This new one is so much prettier that I could hardly wait to give it to her. In fact,” Mason added, “I probably wouldn’t have held out all the way to Christmas. I’m a sucker that way. I mean, if you want to give someone a present, why wait?”

  Hearing the word Timex along with the cowgirl stuff pretty well sealed the deal for me. Mason’s beloved Marina wasn’t ever going to wear that watch. But I wasn’t ready to tell him that straight out and neither was Mel, not until we had actual proof about the identity of those charred remains in the morgue at Ellensburg. All the same, our physical presence in Mason Waters’s humble Federal Way living room was a warning shot across his bow. It told him something was up, and it gave him a chance to prepare himself for what was coming. Truth be told, I think he already knew.

  “Can you think of anything else?”

  Mason shook his head. Mel closed her notebook and put it away, then she and I both stood up. Mason stayed where he was. “You’ll let me know?” he said. “If you find out anything, I mean.”

  “Yes,” Mel said. “If we learn anything at all, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “How’s your nose?” I asked as we crossed the porch and started down the walkway.

  She touched her nose. “Why? Is something the matter with it?”

  “Any minute now, it’s going to start to grow,” I told her. “Just like Pinocchio’s.”

  CHAPTER 8

  When we got back in the car, the clock on the dash said 3:30 P.M. With rush-hour traffic already settling in, I was ready to call it a day. While I fastened my seat belt, however, Mel went to work programming an address into the GPS. Clearly she didn’t need to do that if we were headed straight home.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I thought we could just as well stop by Marina’s trailer court,” Mel said. “It’s already rush hour. Even if we leave right now, we’ll still be stuck in traffic. Let’s work a little longer and wait it out.”

  That made sense, and traffic was already bad enough that it took us the better part of an hour to make our way north to the Silver Pines Mobile Home Park. I confess that while we drove I formed a pretty bleak mental picture of what we’d most likely find there. I expected to see a few run-down moldering mobile homes, weeds, dead cars, stray garbage cans, and plenty of stray dogs and cats as well. What we actually found was quite a bit different.

  For one thing, Silver Pines was much larger than I had expected. For another, there was a remotely operated entry gate with a phone and a sign that said, GATE CLOSES AT 10:00 P.M. CALL MANAGER FOR ADMITTANCE. NO EXCEPTIONS. At that time of day, however, the gate stood open.

  Inside the park we found what I estimated at first glance to be seventy-five to a hundred mobile homes parked next to a winding but smoothly paved street. Some of the mobiles were
clearly older models, but they all seemed to be in decent repair. A few of them boasted awnings and many of them had patio furniture stationed on the concrete slabs outside their doors. The only visible vehicles appeared to be in running order. What grass there was showed signs of having been recently mowed.

  Mel stopped outside the trailer marked MANAGER with a NO VACANCY sign posted just below that. As soon as we opened the car door, however, our ears were assaulted with the roar of traffic from the freeway just a few hundred feet away. The noise alone probably made the property less attractive and explained why, in the midst of a real estate boom, this mobile home park hadn’t been bought up and turned into tract housing.

  We entered a tiny, dingy office that was bisected by a Formica-covered counter. Beyond the counter sat a woman with her eyes glued on a television soap opera. Without rising to greet us, she pointed to the NO VACANCY sign.

  “We’re all booked up,” she said. “Can’t you read? The sign says ‘No Vacancy’ plain as day.”

  I’m used to being dissed by clerks and receptionists everywhere I go. It’s the story of my life. Mel is not used to it at all. She’s usually able to get around people by being both good-looking and gracious-a killer combination. The woman behind the counter had a hard edge to her-the kind of edge that comes with years of living on the streets and usually includes a natural aversion to cops of all kinds. In this case, the woman’s hard edge struck Mel’s hard edge the wrong way. The resulting clash sent sparks flying in all directions.

  “We’re homicide investigators,” Mel said, slapping her ID badge down on the chipped gray counter. “With the Washington State Attorney General’s Office.”

  “So?” the woman returned. She was still far more interested in what was happening on the screen than in the ID packet Mel had placed within her reach.

  “We’re here to speak to whoever was working this desk last fall-September, October, November,” I added helpfully.

  Mel seemed to regard my intervention as unwarranted. She turned her blue eyes on me and gave me a glacial stare that would have brought a lesser man to his knees. Then she turned back to the clerk. Between us, Mel and I had finally managed to get the woman’s attention. She stood up and took a long careful look at Mel’s badge. Then, blanching visibly, she flopped back down into her chair.

  “It says homicide,” the clerk managed. “Does that mean someone’s dead?”

  Homicide usually means murder, so it was clear the woman wasn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.

  “Yes,” Mel said. “Someone is dead, and it’s our job to investigate it. Now what about last fall? Were you working here then or not?”

  Instead of answering, the woman reached for the phone and began to dial. “I’m not allowed to talk to anyone without talking to Mama first,” she said.

  Mel pushed down the button on the desk-based phone and ended the call before anyone could pick up. “It seems to me you could answer a few questions without having to consult with your mother,” she said.

  “I have no idea who was working the desk back then because I wasn’t here,” the clerk said pointedly. “And Mama Rose Brotsky is definitely not my mother,” she added. “She’s my boss. She’s the owner. And she most especially doesn’t like anyone from here talking to cops.”

  For some reason that name, Mama Rose Brotsky, rang a bell, but right then, standing in front of the counter of that grim little office, I couldn’t make the connection.

  “What’s Ms. Brotsky’s number?” I asked. Passing my own ID across the counter, I stepped into the middle of the melee, notebook in hand. “And where can we find her?” I added.

  “She lives somewhere over by Black Diamond,” the clerk said. “Her number’s unlisted. I’m not allowed to give it out.”

  Mel reached across the counter, picked up the telephone receiver, and punched the redial button. A moment later she read off a number while I copied it down. “That’s the right one, isn’t it?” Mel asked. “Mama Rose’s number?”

  Nodding, the clerk glared at Mel. “Yes, it is,” she said. “But she isn’t going to like it if you call.”

  “Too bad,” Mel returned. “If you happen to talk to her in the next little while, you might pass along our names and let her know we’ll be dropping by, if not later today, then certainly tomorrow.”

  There was, of course, no “if” about that phone call being made. Mel and I both knew that the clerk would be dialing Mama Rose’s number the moment our backs were turned. And by the time we showed up at her place, she’d probably have an attorney or two in attendance. I had a suspicion that despite the fact that Silver Pines looked squeaky clean, some of the residents maybe weren’t exactly upstanding citizens, and that probably meant Mama Rose wasn’t one, either. Birds of a feather and all that jazz.

  “Does the name Marina Aguirre ring a bell?” I asked.

  “No,” the clerk said. “Should it? Is that the person who’s dead?”

  “When did you move in?”

  “January,” she answered.

  “And your name?”

  “Donita,” she answered. “Donita Mack, but I don’t have any warrants. I swear.”

  I hadn’t asked about warrants. In my experience, people who spontaneously swear they don’t have them usually do. But Donita Mack wasn’t our problem. Marina Aguirre was, and since she had disappeared in early November, if she really was our victim, Donita’s arrival in January was two months too late for our purposes.

  Looking across the counter, I noticed for the first time that something was missing. The only pieces of electronic equipment in the office were the telephone and the droning television set. There was no computer in attendance. Zero. None.

  I had already estimated that the trailer park contained a hundred or so mobile homes. At probably a low-ball rental figure of seven hundred and fifty to a thousand dollars a month, that meant someone was collecting a whole lot of money-close to a hundred thousand a month. It also meant that Donita Mack wasn’t the one doing the collecting.

  “What’s your job here exactly?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I answer the phone and sign for packages. I let repairmen in and out of mobiles. When there are vacancies, I show people what’s available and give them the application forms. It doesn’t pay much, but I don’t have to type and that’s a good thing because I don’t know how.”

  “How much does it pay?” I asked.

  “Some,” she said. “But Mama Rose takes it off my rent. I’m not the only one. She does the same thing for some of the other girls as well. That way the office is covered around the clock.”

  “Is she the one who collects the rent?” I asked.

  Donita nodded. “Cash only. Twice a month, on the first and the fifteenth. Some people only pay for two weeks at a time. Mama Rose’s driver brings her down and waits while people bring her their envelopes.”

  Cash only? Mel and I exchanged glances as both of us arrived at a similar conclusion. That meant a great deal of cash, and it opened the door to a lot of other things as well, none of them good.

  “Tell me about her driver,” I suggested.

  “Maybe he’s more than a driver,” Donita allowed.

  “So you’re saying the driver is actually her bodyguard?” Mel asked.

  Donita nodded again. “That and maybe her boyfriend. I don’t think they’re married, but he carries a gun, and he acts like he knows how to use it. I think he used to be a cop,” she added, “but I don’t know where.”

  I didn’t ask how she knew that. In the wild, crooks recognize cops. Cops recognize crooks. It’s part of the natural order of things-a variation on a theme of survival of the fittest.

  “Does the driver have a name?” Mel asked.

  Donita shrugged. “Tommy something or other. I don’t think I’ve ever heard his last name, and I don’t pay that much attention to him. After all, I’ve only seen him a few times when they’ve come by to pick up the rent.”

  “How many residents live her
e?”Mel asked.

  “One hundred and ten,” Donita answered.

  “Are all the units occupied?”

  “Yes. Like I said before. No vacancy.”

  “How do you keep track of that many people?”

  Donita reached in a drawer and pulled out a clipboard. On it was a computer-generated printout several pages long, with names and unit numbers. Once again my distant-reading skills gave me a distinct advantage. From the far side of the counter I could read the printout plain as day. Every name was followed by two numbers. The one on the left, running in consecutive order, was evidently the unit number. The second number was far more random. It didn’t take long to guess that one would turn out to be an abbreviated form of the tenant’s arrival date. One was 20305. Another was 20406.

  The computer printout told us something else as well. Mama Rose might be dealing in cash, but somewhere there was a computer that was keeping careful records of all moneys coming in and going out. Once we talked to the person behind the computer, we’d be able to find out exactly when Marina had moved in and when she had disappeared. We’d also be able to track down some of her near neighbors to see if they had seen anything out of the ordinary-any loud arguments or stray people coming and going at odd hours.

  “Anything else you can think of?” I asked Mel.

  When she shook her head, Donita looked enormously relieved.

  “We’d better head out then,” I suggested. “It’s starting to get dark, and I don’t know my way around Black Diamond very well.” This was not entirely true on two counts. For one thing, I had spent some time in Black Diamond years earlier. For another, the GPS navigation system knows its way around, regardless of whether it happens to be day or night.

  Mel gave me an exasperated look, but she restrained herself from giving me the full verbal blast until we were safely inside the Cayman and well out of Donita Mack’s earshot.