Dead in Boca

by Miriam Auerbach

  A voice broke into my ruminations. Get a grip, girl. You’re not going to answer those questions. But you know what you need to do: go see Miss Lil.

  I lifted my head. Lana’s glossy black eyes stared at me. She rolled them back in exaggerated exasperation.

  “No, I don’t want to,” I said, sounding like a petulant child even to myself. I didn’t want to go back into that Boca Babe world again. It gave me the creeps, reminding me of my violent life with Bruce, yet seducing me back into its shiny-happy-people mirage. That’s why I chose to live out here with Lana, staying far away from the memories and the temptations.

  Lana kept a steady gaze on me. Man up, she seemed to be saying, her swamp slang for “quit your whining.”

  Dammit, she was right. I needed to do the right thing and see Miss Lil to give her my condolences. Junior may have been scum, but he was her son.

  “Thanks, Lana,” I grumbled, and rose. Lana flipped her tail and floated off.

  I gathered my gear and boarded my boat. I untied it, put on my earmuffs, and started the engine. I put the boat in gear and glided away along the water’s surface.

  Airboating in the Glades is an experience in optical illusion. It looks like you’re heading into an impenetrable wall of vegetation, but at the last moment the grass and reeds bend under and around your boat. Then they spring right back behind you. This River of Grass swallows you up; if you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll get absorbed along the way and never emerge. So, my habitat is like my Hog: hazardous. Survival requires mastery and constant vigilance. I wouldn’t feel alive any other way.

  I reached land in twenty minutes. I unloaded and mounted my Hog, and a half-hour later I was at the coast.

  Sergio, the valet, and Diaz, the concierge, were standing in the doorway of the Castle del Mar, engaged in a conversation punctuated by frantic hand gestures. No doubt the news of Junior’s demise had reached them, and they were speculating about what happened and what it meant for them. Just as I was.

  As I pulled up, they pulled apart. Sergio went to his valet station, and I parked the Hog beside him. Diaz held the front door for me.

  “Good morning, Ms. Horowitz,” he said as I entered the building. “You’re here to see Mrs. Castellano?”

  I nodded.

  “One moment, please.”

  He called up to the penthouse and announced my presence then hung up.

  “Mrs. Castellano will see you,” he said.

  He led me to the elevator and sent me on my way. At the top, the doors slid open. I found myself facing Mrs. Castellano. Not, however, Miss Lil. Rather, Brigitta, Junior’s new bride . . . and now, new widow. Her slim, six-foot-tall body was clad in an elegant teal silk blouse and royal blue miniskirt. Her long blond hair hung perfectly straight around her face. I noticed that the tragedy had not precluded her from applying her full makeup. Her Boca Babe priorities were in order.

  Her eyes swept up and down from my bare face and ponytail to my all-black tank, jeans, and boots. She bit her lip, clearly to restrain herself from snarling at my anti-Babe fashion statement.

  “Oh, Harrrriet!” she cried.

  Her elongated pronunciation set my teeth on edge, reminding me of the schoolyard bullies who’d taunted me about my old-lady name. But it was only her slight Scandinavian accent. She bent down to embrace me. I gave her an awkward pat on the back.

  “I’ve beeeen with the polees all morrrning,” she said. “I just got heerrre. Thank God you came. You must help us.”

  She took my hand and led me into the apartment. Miss Lil, dressed in black, was sunk in an armchair, holding a Kleenex in one hand and a mint julep in the other.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I told them.

  “Thank you, my dear,” Miss Lil said. “Please sit.”

  I sat on a sofa, and Brigitta joined me. I struggled for something to say. Junior was a wonderful man? Hardly. What a tragedy? Debatable. Do you want me to continue on the case? Tacky.

  “We want you to continue on the case,” Miss Lil said.

  “Yes, absolutely,” Brigitta agreed.

  Miss Lil took a sip of her julep.

  “You find that murdering son of a bitch and bring him to Mama,” she said.

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “I’m working on Worthington, not Junior’s ‘murder.’ We don’t even know if he was murdered. It could have been an accident.”

  “Bullshit,” Miss Lil said. “It’s obvious what happened. Thurman, that . . . that jackal, found out Junior had hired you and killed him. Or had someone do it for him.”

  I guess she’d picked up a few ideas in her lifetime as matriarch of the Castellano clan. Well, outsourcing murder might be a normal business practice in her world but not mine.

  “I don’t know, Miss Lil. That doesn’t quite add up. What would be the point?”

  “To get me to back off, of course.”

  “But if he wanted to stop the investigation, why kill Junior? Why not kill me instead?”

  Had that just come out of my mouth? Like it was no big freaking deal?

  Miss Lil cleared her throat.

  “Well, Harriet dear, don’t take this the wrong way, but the fact is you are, well, you are not indispensable. If you were taken out . . . that is, in the event of your untimely departure, Junior could hire another investigator.”

  Oh. So I was chopped liver. And there was a right way to take that?

  “Whereas,” Miss Lil went on, “Thurman figured that I’d be so distraught and terrified over Junior’s death that I would drop the case. Well, that bastard miscalculated. Junior would have wanted me to seek justice, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

  Junior and justice in the same sentence. Damn. I guess he’d be elevated to sainthood next.

  “Okay, Miss Lil, I see your point,” I said, “but if this is now a murder case, then it’s a matter for the police.”

  “No!” both Miss Lil and Brigitta cried.

  Brigitta put her hand on my knee. “Harriet, surely you understand the delicate nature of this situation. As you know, the reason Junior . . . ” she trailed off as a tear streamed down her cheek. She took a couple deep breaths and continued.

  “The reason my husband hired you instead of going to the police in the first place was that our family doesn’t want to have our private affairs exposed to public ridicule. Miss Lil absolutely does not want anyone to know of her relationship with Mr. Worthington.”

  “Right, but as I told Junior, I will turn Worthington over to the cops when I find him.”

  “Well, that would have been fine. But now that he’s a murderer, it’s not.”

  “Run that by me again?” I asked.

  “If this had remained merely a scam investigation,” Miss Lil said, “you would have unearthed that slug from whatever rock he was hiding under and turned him over to the police. Everything would be nice and quiet, and no one would be the wiser.”

  “But now,” Brigitta said, “with Junior’s death all over the news, if you hand Worthington over as the killer, the scam will come out big time. I’m sure you appreciate the necessity of sparing Miss Lil such sordid public humiliation. After all, Harriet, discretion is what ScamBusters is all about. Imagine what effect such public exposure would have on your business.”

  “But,” Miss Lil cut in, “if you turn that viper over to us, the official case will remain unsolved, my private affairs will remain private, and justice will be done.”

  Damned if there wasn’t some sick logic in this scenario.

  I heard a big slurp as I felt myself being sucked into these femme fatales’ crazy scheme. I struggled to remain afloat.

  “Besides, Harriet,” Miss Lil said, “perhaps you may recall how Junior treated you during your troubles with Bruce.”

  I stiffened. There
it was—the one thing I hadn’t acknowledged that was pulling me in. Junior had been an all-around sleaze, yet there had been times when, to me, he had been . . . dammit, decent. He’d said it himself yesterday—I should have done away with Bruce long before I did. Junior had had plenty of occasions to witness Bruce’s verbal abuse—though not the physical, which Bruce had always been careful to keep behind closed doors. Until that last time, at the fatal wedding reception, that is, when he’d raised his fists at me, and I’d shot him in the heart.

  Over the course of our long acquaintance, Junior had periodically told me I could do better than Bruce. One time he’d even offered me a job fetching coffee and such at Castellano & Son, so that I’d have the financial independence to leave Bruce. But I hadn’t been ready to admit I was abused—instead, I had defended my husband.

  Evidently, Junior had told Miss Lil all about it. And at the time, I thought I’d done so well at keeping my abuse a secret from Boca society. Maybe Boca society had just been enabling me to maintain that illusion.

  Okay, so maybe I had a slight soft spot for that slight soft side of Junior. Still, I couldn’t let that override my judgment.

  “Ladies,” I said, “if this is a murder and you have knowledge of the killer’s identity and fail to share it with the police, you will be guilty of withholding evidence and obstructing justice.”

  They merely looked at me.

  “Harriet,” Miss Lil finally said, “you of all people should understand the difference between legal justice and real justice.”

  Goddammit. She was right, of course. The legal system had failed to protect me from my violent husband, forcing me to finally take matters into my own hands. Having walked on the dark side myself, how could I deny that option to others?

  But all that was at stake here was Miss Lil’s honor. I wasn’t going to cross the line for that.

  “Let’s be reasonable, ladies,” I said. “Why go to the trouble of an honor killing when good old graft will suffice? Once I find Worthington and turn him in, all you have to do is spread a little cash around to a few cops, reporters, and maybe a judge to keep the scam story out of the media.”

  Miss Lil and Brigitta exchanged a look that lasted maybe half a second.

  “We’re good with that,” Brigitta said. I knew the concept would not be unfamiliar to them, given their association with Castellano & Son Development & Construction. After all, in Florida, growth and graft are synonymous.

  But what was I doing in this underworld? I was supposed to be battling such mobster mores, not going to bat for them.

  The trouble was, the Castellanos had my number from the very beginning, ever since Junior had walked into my office less than twenty-four hours earlier. They’d reached into my very core and grabbed hold of my Inner Vigilante, hauling it to the surface. I knew Junior was a dirtbag, yet I—or rather, my Inner Vigilante—took the case. Now Junior’s mother and widow were not only preying on my vulnerable soft spot, they were leveraging that Inner Vigilante, letting me know that its future was endangered. They were right. If this scam became public because of my actions, my clientele would dwindle, and my Inner Vigilante would soon be unemployed. Then where would Boca be without its Seeker of Truth and Justice?

  So really, all I was doing was choosing the lesser of two evils . . . right? Okay, I know, I know. I was treading through murky waters. Nothing had been morally clear about this case from the start. The question was, in the end, would I escape the suction that was pulling me in, or would I sink into the depths?

  Chapter 5

  I GLANCED FROM Miss Lil to Gitta and back. “I’ll need to talk with each of you separately,” I said.

  “Yes, we understand,” Brigitta said. “We just went through the same thing with the police.”

  “Let’s begin with you, Miss Lil,” I said. “How about if we go out on the balcony?”

  “That’s fine,” she said, rising and leading the way, another mint julep in hand. Outside, I closed the glass door behind us, and we sat.

  “I suppose you want to know about my interactions with Junior yesterday before he disappeared. Whether he mentioned anything unusual, acted strangely, that kind of thing. That’s what the police asked about. I told them everything except the part about Thurman and your investigation.”

  Right. Just minor details.

  “Yes, I need to know about the same things you told the police,” I said.

  “Junior called me around three o’clock yesterday. He said he had talked with you and that you were on your way over here. After you left, I called him back to let him know we’d met. We only talked for a minute. He said he was in a meeting. That’s it. I didn’t speak to him again. Then this morning Gi . . . Gitta called. She was hysterical. I couldn’t understand what she was saying. Then a policewoman came on the line and said that . . . that Junior was dead.”

  Miss Lil broke down in sobs. “My baby,” she wailed. “My baby. He didn’t deserve this. When I think of him buried alive under a pile of rocks . . . at his own construction site, no less . . . it’s just unbearable.”

  To me it seemed like a bit of poetic justice. But I didn’t tell Miss Lil that.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. She took a sip of julep, and her sobs faded.

  “Buried alive—is that what the police told you?” I asked.

  “Oh . . . no, not exactly. They said he . . . he was found under a mound of rubble that had been bulldozed over him.” She sobbed again. “I guess I just assumed that . . .”

  “Right. Okay.” An autopsy would show the cause of death. “How would Worthington have access to the bulldozer?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. Junior liked to operate the heavy equipment himself sometimes, for fun. He said it reminded him of when he was little and his daddy would take him to the construction sites and let him sit on his lap and pretend he was working the machines. So I suppose Junior may have been operating the bulldozer and somehow Thurman got control.”

  I suppose. “But doesn’t it take some skill to operate one of those things?”

  “Yes, of course . . . well, how should I know whether Thurman, that ratfink, had those skills?” she snapped. “Obviously I didn’t know much about him, as it turns out. All I know is he killed my boy, and I want you to get him.”

  “Yeah. So when you last talked to Junior yesterday, that would have been around five o’clock?”

  “Yes, right after you left.”

  “Did he sound concerned or upset?”

  “No. He sounded rushed. But that was normal. He was always in a meeting or going to or from one. Just like his daddy. That’s the key to success in business—networking.”

  Networking. Right. I guess that covered bribing, bullying, and bilking.

  “Did he say who he was meeting with?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Miss Lil, when did you first tell Junior about Worthington’s disappearance?”

  “Right away when I found out that my money was gone and Thurman along with it.”

  “And that was . . . ?”

  “Oh, let’s see . . . about a week ago.”

  “Yet Junior didn’t come to me until yesterday.”

  “Yes. I don’t know why. He just told me he would handle it. And of course I trusted that he would. So I didn’t get into how he would handle it. As I told you yesterday, his people straightened out the theft of my identity. I suppose Junior figured Thurman would show up in town soon enough, but when he didn’t, Junior went to you to find him.”

  So word could have gotten to Worthington down in Latin America that Junior was on his trail. He probably had a mole in Boca to let him know when it was safe to return. And that could be one of Junior’s own people.

  “Do you know who Junior had straighten out your financial issues?” I asked.

  “No. As I sai
d, I didn’t ask him for details.”

  “All right, Miss Lil. I’ll talk with Gitta now.”

  “I’ll go get her.” She rose and went inside, schlepping the empty julep glass with her.

  Brigitta came out, closed the glass door behind her and took the seat Miss Lil had vacated. Her eyes were watery, and her nostrils were red. I knew that wasn’t just from crying. I’d seen the signs plenty of times. My late husband had a flourishing coke habit. So did half of Boca. Brigitta had just snuck a snort.

  “Oh Harriet,” she said, sniffling. “What will I do? How can I go on without Junior?”

  Oh, for Pete’s sake. She had asked me the same thing not more than two months ago, after her prior rich old man had croaked. Obviously, she had managed.

  “You’ll manage,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I heard that Mabel Matthews is in hospice.”

  “Really?” Her eyes brightened. Mabel was the wife of 76-year-old Marvin Matthews, owner of Sewage Solutions, South Florida’s biggest waste management contractor. “Oh, that’s terrif . . . terrible. Terrible. I must go see the poor dear.”

  That, of course, referred to Marvin not Mabel. Now, lest you think I’m a macabre matchmaker, let me point out that my purposes were pure. First of all, I cheered her right up, didn’t I? And second, I was merely applying the power of paradox. In round one, she’d run right to Junior following husband No. 1’s demise, despite my sage counsel to the contrary. So this time around, although she might pay Marvin a condolence call, ultimately she’d leave him be. Just to defy me, if nothing else. Just as I intended.

  “So, tell me about your day with Junior yesterday,” I said.

  She wiped her nose with a Kleenex. “Yes, okay. He left home early, as usual, around seven. I didn’t hear from him all day. I went to Bloomingdale’s and bought one of those new Juicy Couture bags. They’re so cute, you know, with those little terrier logos. And then I had my hair blown out at Salon Salaam, then I had lunch with—”