Lana rolled onto her side to expose her pale belly to the sun. I guessed that was a sign of approval.
I WENT INSIDE and showered, shampooed, and shaved. That’s the extent of my daily upkeep—a far cry from the Boca Babe beauty rituals of blowouts, manis, pedis, exfoliations, waxings, shapings, smoothings, etc. The hours I once spent on personal maintenance are now devoted to motorcycle maintenance. I’ve swapped indulgence for independence.
I got dressed, boarded my airboat, and glided toward land. The swamp was alive with its usual sights. No waterfowl gathering, no river creatures heading for higher ground. Apparently the storm was still too far away for them to pick up. Or maybe it wasn’t coming this way at all. Yeah, right. That’s what every South Floridian was hoping.
As I neared land, my phone rang. Enrique.
“Hi,” I said.
“Girl, this is so not cool.”
“What?”
“Your man has made complete asses out of all of us. He has the perfect alibi.”
“Oh yeah?”
“He was right here at my hotel at the time of the killing.” Although Enrique didn’t own the Hilton, as Chief of Security he had strong possessive feelings toward the place.
“That’s the story he gave the cops this morning,” he continued. “Reilly called me an hour ago and asked me to look at my security disks for that evening. No problem. I keep all my disks for a year. Anyway, sure enough, Loverboy comes into my establishment at 8:16 p.m. Then my poolside cameras track him for the next five hours, catching the Rollers show with an older, well-kept woman. Obviously sucking up to her. He leaves with Mrs. Moneybags at 1:03.”
“Are you sure it was him?”
“Totally—it’s as obvious as the roots in Honey du Mellon’s bouffant. And there is no way he could have slipped out to commit the murder and then come back. Not without my cameras catching him. You know I’ve got every egress covered. Reilly is on his way over now for the disks. Man, have we got egg on our faces.”
“Okay, so we look like fools. It’s not the first time.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Okay. Jeez, I’m sorry to have caused you embarrassment.”
“Oh, don’t apologize. At least we got him. So he didn’t off Junior, but he probably won’t be conning any more old ladies for a while.”
“Yeah, I’m sure they’ll have enough evidence from Miss Lil to charge him with theft. And a judge will probably set his bond pretty high since he’s a flight risk.”
“So case closed for you.”
“Um, not quite.” I filled him in on my thought process. “This new information just confirms my hunch. The killer is still out there. And you know I can’t just let it go like that.”
“No, Harriet, I know you can’t. Let me know how I can help.”
“You bet. Thanks.”
I’d reached the dock. I tied up the boat, offloaded my Hog, and took off to see Brigitta.
I found her in her waterfront mansion in The Sanctuary, Boca’s most exclusive Intracoastal community. I’d been there many times in my past Boca Babe life. Gitta had kept the place after her first husband’s death, and Junior had moved in following their marriage. Now she had it all to herself again. Was she living there in loneliness—or bliss?
She’d allowed me entry after I’d announced myself at the community guardhouse. Now, I pulled up to the front steps of the gigantic white stucco cubist structure. The front door was flanked by huge marble urns overflowing with flowers. Through the glass double doors I could see across an expanse of marble flooring to the back deck, situated on the sparkling waters of the Intracoastal, where a small yacht was docked off to one side. No doubt about it, money was nice. But freedom was nicer.
I rang the doorbell, and Gitta answered, wearing white Bermudas and a blue-and-white horizontal striped halter top. The kind of thing you could look good in only if you were six feet tall and cocaine-thin, like her.
“Hi sweetie,” she said. “Come in. The kids and I were just watching a movie. I’m trying to keep their minds off the tragedy. It’s been an awful time for them, what with their daddy dying and now Junior so soon after. Come meet them.”
Me? Meet teenagers? I’ve never been a kid person. Give me an ax murderer over an adolescent any day.
“Uh, wait,” I said. “Aren’t they in school or something?”
“It’s summer. School’s out.”
Darn.
I was about to protest that introductions really weren’t necessary, since I had actually met the kids before. So what if that was over five years ago? But before I had a chance to say anything further, Gitta had led me into a family room dominated by a humongous flat screen TV mounted on one wall. A trio of blond mini-humans sat on a leopard print sofa.
“Kids, say hi to my friend, Ms. Horowitz,” Gitta said. At that, the oldest, a boy, paused the movie with the remote, and all three kids stood up. Hmmm. Nice manners. Maybe Gitta had some redeeming qualities after all.
“This is Lars, my fifteen-year-old,” she said, “Margitta, my thirteen-year-old, and my baby, Sabrina, is ten.” All three reached out and shook my hand in turn.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. Then I ran out of conversational material.
“Ms. Horowitz and I will be out on the patio,” Gitta said. “Come get me if you need anything.”
“Okay, Mom,” Lars replied.
Gitta and I proceeded to the deck, where we sat in a couple lounge chairs by the infinity pool, so called because its far edge gave the optical illusion that the water blended right into the Intracoastal.
Gitta pulled her long, straight blond hair into a ponytail to keep the breeze from blowing it into her face.
“Detective Reilly called this morning and said they had caught Worthington and taken him into custody,” she said. “Do you know any more?”
“Yep.” I filled her in on what Enrique had told me.
“Oh,” she said. “My goodness. So Junior’s killer is still out there.”
Right here, maybe.
“I imagine Junior left you well taken care of,” I remarked.
She smiled knowingly. “No, sweetie. My first husband is the one who left me well off. I know what you’re thinking. The police asked me the same thing right away. I understand. Naturally I would be the first suspect. But the fact is I had nothing to gain by his death.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“We signed a prenup saying each of us would keep the assets we brought into the marriage, which were equal. If we divorced, we would equally split the assets acquired during the marriage.”
“And in the event of death?”
“Each of our wills leaves our marital estate to the spouse and our individual estate to our respective children.”
I vaguely remembered that Junior had two grown sons from his previous marriage. If Gitta was telling the truth, then she had no financial motive for killing him.
“And if I didn’t like being married to Junior,” she went on, “I could have just divorced him without losing anything. Actually, the longer I stayed married to him, the better off I’d be since he earned money, and I don’t. Anyway, I showed the prenup and Junior’s will to the police, and they were satisfied.”
“Could I take a look?” I asked.
I wasn’t about to take her word for anything. The police could be satisfied or not. They could also be paid off or not. Although when it came to homicide, a cover-up seemed far less likely than it would for a mere scam or corruption scandal. An unsolved murder of a prominent citizen would take a bite out of tourism, Boca’s major industry. Vacationers tended to be a tad persnickety about such things. It seemed to me the Chamber of Commerce and the cops would want the case closed ASAP.
“No problem,” Gitta said, rising from her chair. “I’ll be right back.”
She walked to the house, leaving me alone.
Normally in a situation like this, I would do what any normal person would: snoop. But what was I going to snoop into out here on the deck? I doubted any secrets were stashed in the pool, the lounge chairs, or the planters. Maybe in the yacht, but I hardly had the time for that.
So I leaned back, closed my eyes, and indulged in the sunshine and the breeze. The weather was perfectly tranquil; you’d never know a hurricane was bearing down.
The warm rays and the faint chlorine smell from the pool took my mind back to my own former poolside days at the McMansion I had shared with Bruce.
I’m in the water in my brand-new hot bikini. Bruce is sitting on a chaise, drinking some killer concoction of vodka and who knows what, reading some legal briefs. I splash some water at him. “Come in here. Wanna ‘pool’ around?”
“Godammit,” he yells, shaking droplets of water off his papers. “Don’t mess with me. Can’t you see I’m working? You think all this shit around here pays for itself?” He sweeps his hand around the expanse of the backyard. The liquid sloshes out of the glass he’s holding.
“Now you made me spill my drink.” He flings the glass at me. It crashes into the side of the pool, sending glass fragments into the water.
I turn around, retreat to the deep end, and submerge myself up to my neck so he won’t see the sobs shaking my shoulders.
“Harriet?”
I opened my eyes. Gitta stood above me, holding a lime green folder.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. Fine.” I took a deep breath, reached for the documents, and read through them.
I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t play one on TV, but I was married to one of the weasels for a decade. I figured that gave me sufficient background to grasp the gist of the legalities. And what I grasped was exactly what Gitta had said. The papers, which were drawn up by the top family law firm in town, looked authentic, although there was no immediate way to know for sure.
Nonetheless, it did appear that Gitta was better off with Junior alive than dead at this stage of their marriage. Furthermore, if there was anything positive that could be said about her, it was that she seemed to be a good mom. I couldn’t really see her traumatizing her kids by killing their stepfather so soon after the loss of their own father.
Of course, that didn’t rule out murder as a crime of passion if she had found out he was banging another Boca Babe. However, I knew that Gitta was far more practical than passionate.
I gave her back the papers.
“Happy?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Still got an unsolved murder.”
“Yes. But at least you found that pig who broke poor Miss Lil’s heart. I’m thankful for that, Harriet. You’ve done a wonderful job for us.”
“I’m not done yet,” I said.
“But . . .”
I filled her in on my philosophy of vigilantism: the job’s not done until justice is served.
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear that, Harriet.” She paused for a while. “You know, I didn’t exactly marry Junior for love. My kids needed a father, and I needed a man. The right kind of man, you understand.”
Yep. I sure did. Regardless of a woman’s own beauty or bucks, a rich husband, no matter how revolting, was the price of admission into the Boca Babe club.
“So maybe Junior and I weren’t soulmates, but regardless, he deserves to rest in peace. I really do want his killer found. I know the police are doing all they can. But an extra head can’t hurt, can it? Plus, you used to be one of us . . .”
Gee, thanks for reminding me.
“. . . so you might see things differently from the police and uncover something they don’t.”
“You should know that the police aren’t going to be happy about my butting in,” I said.
“Oh, I’m sure I can convince Detective Reilly to see eye-to-eye with me so he won’t give you any trouble.”
Right. Eye-to-chest was more like it.
“Okay then,” I said. “Why don’t we begin with a list of people who might have wanted Junior dead?”
She sighed. “I’d better go make us some coffee, sweetie. This is going to take a while.”
Chapter 11
“JUNIOR ALWAYS HAD enemies in his business,” Gitta said, leaning back in the lounge chair on her deck and sipping iced coffee. “You know how it is with men like ours.”
I knew she was referring to Bruce. I wished she’d stop bringing up my past. I didn’t need any more mental intrusions like the one I’d just experienced. That life was so over. My Boca Babe incarnation was as dead as Bruce was.
Gitta went on. “Highly successful men will always have their detractors. Junior was used to that. Someone was always protesting his developments for one reason or another. It didn’t matter if it was residential, commercial, roads, bridges, whatever, someone always had a problem. But he was in business for over forty years. If somebody was mad enough to kill him, it seems like they would have done it before now. So if I were you, I’d start with his personal life. Like his ex-wife, Martha, that bitch.”
The trophy wife trashing the ex. How refreshingly original. Not that I disagreed with her assessment, based on my own encounters with Martha in the past life I was trying to forget.
“Why do you say that?” I asked, censoring my commentary.
“She’s a bitter old hag,” Gitta said, her voice rising in pitch. “She despised Junior for leaving her. She dragged the divorce out for years to make him as miserable as possible. Then she was calling him every month to nag him about sending her alimony payments, even though he always sent them on time. He just took out a restraining order to stop her from calling. That could have pushed her over the edge. The woman is a nut case.” Gitta circled a finger at her temple.
Okay, I’d be following up on Martha. I took a sip of coffee. Ahhh. It was just as I like it—hardcore. Hot and black. Cream, sugar, ice—all that stuff is for sissies.
“Who else might have had it in for Junior?” I asked.
“Natasha,” Gitta said.
“And that would be?”
“That’s the slut Junior left Martha for. When he told her he was leaving her for me, she went ballistic. What can I say?”
“He chose class over crass?”
“Exactly. Anyway, she attacked him, then she called the cops and told them he attacked her and had him arrested. Can you believe it?”
Actually, what I couldn’t believe was how Junior, that sleazeball, had a legion of women fighting over him. It was so Jerry Springer. Don’t you just want to shake some sense into those deluded women on that show who are scratching each other’s eyes out over some greasy-haired, skinny-assed, unemployed loser?
On the other hand, although Junior had indeed been greasy-haired, he’d had a shitload of money, so I guess the catfighting should have been expected.
“What happened after the cops arrested Junior?” I asked.
“He pleaded not guilty, of course. The case was coming up for trial next month.”
“Were you worried?”
“No, of course not. Junior was innocent.”
Or so he’d told her, anyway.
We paused for a moment to watch a couple boats packed with minimally-clad, sun-seeking beer drinkers float by on the Intracoastal.
“Where do I find this Natasha?” I asked when the vessels had passed, leaving foamy white waves in their wake.
“At Raquel’s.”
A “gentlemen’s club” on the outskirts of town where Boca Babe wannabes—women with the boobs but without the bucks—displayed their wares for potential buyers. Guess I’d be dropping by there.
“Okay, any other people that might have wanted to harm Junior?” I asked.
“His sons. They’ve been est
ranged from Junior for years. They never had any interest in the business, much to Junior’s disappointment. Even so, he wanted them taken care of. That’s the kind of man he was.”
Right. A dirty-dealing, palm-greasing goon who’d left his wife for a stripper and was estranged from his kids. A real prince, that one.
“So you think they might have killed him to speed up their inheritance?” I asked.
“They didn’t kill him. They’ve been off partying in Cancun or someplace. But they could have hired someone to do it.”
Yeah, that seemed to be the family way.
“Anyway, they’re coming back for the funeral tomorrow. Are you coming?”
“Oh. I didn’t know it was tomorrow. Actually, I think my time would be better spent investigating.” I didn’t buy into the popular theory that murderers routinely popped up at their victims’ funerals and conveniently let slip some crucial clue to their culpability. Besides, I knew Junior wasn’t widely loved and admired. I wasn’t about to join the masses shedding crocodile tears at his graveside. That would be an insult to Lana.
“Yes, all right,” Gitta said. The salt-tinged breeze blew a strand of her hair onto her face, where it became stuck in her shiny berry lip gloss. She pulled it back with a manicured fingertip.
“So who else is on the list?” I asked.
“As I said, there’s the whole business side. But I really don’t know anything about that. You’d have to ask the people in the company.”
“Okay then. I’ll get going. Could I take a copy of that will with me?”
“Of course, sweetie. Here you go.” She handed me the folder. “I’ve got another one.”
We rose and walked to the house, carrying our coffee containers.
“By the way,” she said, “I went to see Marvin Matthews.”
Who? Oh yeah, the trash titan whose wife was dying.
“Oh, good,” I said. “I bet you two hit it off.”
“Actually, you know what, sweetie? It just made me so exhausted. Acting like the concerned friend. Playing this game, trying to figure out what a man wants and then making myself into whatever it is. That’s been my whole life since I was thirteen, when I started in the beauty pageants in Denmark. I don’t think I want to do that anymore. Do you think a guy could ever like me just for being me?”
Dead in Boca Page 9
