Misgivings

by Donn Cortez

  Still, the tourists paid well for the privilege of tasting something exotic—though really, what they were getting was no more exotic than what they probably had in the local pond back home. It was all in the presentation, Chester supposed. That was what they’d taught him in cooking school, anyway.

  Tourists—the few that came out to the swamp after dark—were always amazed at how loud it was. The insects alone generated a constant background cacophony, punctuated by the occasional roar of a bull alligator or the cry of a chuck-will’s-widow. As his boat glided along, Chester’s ears were listening for something else: the basso croak of his prey.

  He turned his head methodically from left to right as he poled the boat along, looking for the golden flash that would mark the reflection of a frog’s eyes. Most people went gigging in groups of two or more—one to pole the boat, one to spotlight the frogs, and one to gig them—but Chester preferred to do it solo. He knew it was just ego, but he liked that he could tell people he’d caught and cooked them himself.

  The beam of his halogen winked off something floating in the water ahead. It wasn’t a frog’s eyes, though; it was more like a piece of metal. He poled closer.

  The metal was a length of shiny silver chain, the kind used for dog leashes. It was wrapped around the torso of a human body, though it took Chester a moment to recognize it for what it was; the head, lower legs, and hands were missing.

  Chester stared at the body for a moment, then sighed and looked for a nearby tree to mark. “So much for a good night’s hunting,” he muttered. “By the time I get through talking to the cops, the sun’ll be up. And this was such a good spot, too . . .”

  He studied the body, and shrugged. “Well, for some of us, anyway . . .”

  They used the rink’s bleachers to hold the Santas. The Santas had apparently decided to make the best of the situation; about half of them had jumped onto the ice and were now playing some sort of improvised game that involved kicking a stuffed toy reindeer from one end of the rink to the other. Wolfe thought he heard it referred to as “ho-hockey.”

  He and Tripp had commandeered the booths of the concession stand to hold interviews. Wolfe had done a dozen already, and all thoughts of Christmas-related humor had been banished from his head.

  A uniformed officer led the next interviewee over and sat him down. This one was a traditional Claus, except that his beard covered his entire face; only his bloodshot eyes were visible.

  “Name? And please don’t say—” Wolfe said.

  “Santa!”

  “Do you have any identification?”

  “Santa doesn’t need ID! Everybody knows who Santa is!” The Santa’s voice was cheerfully slurred.

  “Yeah, okay . . . look, a man died tonight. One of you guys. We’re just trying to find out what happened, all right?”

  The Santa blinked at him owlishly. “Poor Santa . . .”

  “Yeah, poor Santa. You know the deceased?”

  Santa shrugged. “If he was with us, he was Santa. What kind of Santa was he?”

  Wolfe resisted the urge to say, The naked, dead kind. “In appearance, he was a pretty standard Santa. Midthirties, Caucasian, around five foot eleven.” Wolfe slid over a picture he’d printed off his digital camera. “We think he may have been having sex out in the parking lot.”

  The Santa studied the picture. “Nope, doesn’t ring any sleigh bells. He was obviously a naughty Santa, but that narrows it down to . . . pretty much all of us. Who was Santa showing his North Pole to?”

  “We don’t know,” Wolfe said. “Any Mrs. Santas you think might be responsible?”

  “Sorry, Officer—Santa doesn’t kiss and tell.”

  “Right. Well, I’m also going to need samples of the fibers from your clothes and your beard, and I’m going to need your boots.”

  “My boots? But—Santa can’t spread holiday cheer in his socks.”

  “Sorry, Santa. But I don’t have the resources to take casts of a hundred pairs of boots here, so they’ll have to go with me back to the lab. If you want them back, you can give your real name to an officer. You’re going to have to eventually, anyway.”

  “Hey, does this concession stand sell beer? Santa needs a drink.”

  Wolfe sighed.

  The next Santa was dressed in a kilt trimmed in white fur, a jacket of red serge, and a tartan Santa hat. His bushy white beard appeared to be entirely natural, and he was, if anything, even more drunk than the last Claus.

  “Ho, ho, ho!” he bellowed, sitting down with a thump. “And what do you want for Christmas, little boy?”

  “A new job,” Wolfe muttered.

  “’Scuse me,” the new Santa said politely, bent over, and threw up on the floor.

  “And a mop,” Wolfe said gloomily.

  2

  HORATIO PULLED THE HUMMER into the parking lot of the Miami-Dade Pre-Trial Detention Center, a tall, orange-red building that could house over seventeen hundred inmates. This was Miami’s main jail, where arrestees were taken after being charged. Horatio’s job was generally to make sure the right person ended up in one of those cells—but today, he was there in a more advisory capacity.

  He checked in at the front desk, went through the various security procedures, and eventually wound up in a small office on the second floor. The officer who stood up to greet him was in his forties, with short dark hair, a large, crooked nose, and a wide smile. His name was Calvin Selmo, and he and Horatio had known each other back when Horatio was on the bomb squad.

  “Horatio! Good to see you!” Calvin said, putting out his hand.

  Horatio shook it and smiled. “You, too, Calvin. How’s Rose and the kids?”

  “Fine, fine. Manny’s going through puberty and my life is a living hell. The usual.” He sat back down and Horatio pulled up a chair and joined him. “Anyway, I hate to bother you with what, I admit, is a relatively minor problem—not to mention a problem I should be able to solve myself— but I thought you might have a little insight to spare for an old friend.”

  “Absolutely,” Horatio said. “What’s the problem?”

  “Well, there’s this guy downstairs in holding. Brought in last night after he tore up a convenience store and attacked the owner. The owner fought back, got lucky, and conked the guy on the head with a bottle.”

  “I know,” Horatio said. “I was at the scene, afterward. Security camera caught the whole thing— seemed pretty straightforward to me.”

  “Well, once the arresting officers cleared up which was which, it should have been. But since both guys were out cold, they took both to the hospital to get checked out. The clerk is still in a coma, but the perp woke up in the ambulance. He’s fine—in a strictly medical sense, anyway.”

  “Oh?” Horatio cocked his head to the side, his blue eyes intent.

  “But when they got him down to processing, he balked. We got his mug shots done, no problem. Then he saw the fingerprint pad and refused. Made a fist—two of ’em, actually—and wouldn’t open up for anything.”

  Horatio started to reply, but Selmo cut him off. “I know, I know—every rookie knows those pressure points that’ll make him open those hands. Been tried. Either this guy’s central nervous system is wired up different, or he’s got a pain threshold somewhere around Jupiter. Now, I know we could get those prints eventually—it’s just an engineering problem, really—but I have never seen someone put up this much resistance. I mean, it took six guys to just hold him down to where we could even start to pry his hand open. I thought, ‘By the time we’re done we’re gonna wind up breaking a few of his fingers just by accident’—and you know what that’ll look like in the press.”

  “Uh-huh,” Horatio said. “Breaking a suspect’s fingers while printing him doesn’t really read as plausible, does it?”

  “Not remotely. But when it comes to implausible, my friend, you’re the expert.”

  Horatio smiled. “The forensics lab does encounter the occasional strange situation,” he admitted. “And we’
ve gotten our share of prints from unusual sources, too. Is that what you want—us to find something this guy has touched and lift a print?”

  “I’m hoping you’ll have better luck than us,” Selmo said. “See, the guy’s wearing gloves. Tight-fitting, expensive leather gloves. Wouldn’t take ’em off at the hospital, either. Which not only makes his fingers hard to get a grip on, and means we have to cut them off—which is a lot harder than it sounds—but also means he hasn’t left many fingerprints lying around.”

  Horatio nodded. “He must have put the gloves on at the hospital, too—I don’t remember seeing them in the security video. We have the magazine he handled, though; there’s a good chance we can lift a print from that. And if that doesn’t work— well, he’s got to sleep sometime.”

  “Yeah, but the longer this takes, the worse I look. And this guy’s already called a lawyer—for all I know, he’s setting us up for some kind of civil suit. I keep expecting news crews to suddenly appear on my doorstep.”

  “Wait a minute—how did he call a lawyer when you didn’t even get him through processing?”

  “Not sure—we think he got hold of a cell phone in the hospital. In any case, the lawyer’s down there now, talking to him. I was hoping maybe you’d be next.”

  “Oh? Let me guess—you want some of his DNA.”

  “If that’s what it takes. But first, I thought you might try some of the famous Caine charm.”

  Horatio chuckled. “I’m not a professional negotiator, Calvin.”

  “Maybe you don’t have a piece of paper that says so, H, but you’re still the most persuasive cop I know. Anybody that can keep their cool while making small talk to a maniac with two dozen sticks of dynamite strapped to their belly is my go-to guy in a negotiation. Y’know?”

  Horatio studied Calvin for a moment before replying. Selmo had been the kind of cop who sometimes took chances when he shouldn’t—that was one of the reasons he was now helping process traffic offenders instead of defusing high explosives. Horatio, when asked to evaluate Selmo by a superior, had been honest; there was very little margin of error on the bomb squad, and no room at all for hurt feelings. A bad evaluation would hurt Selmo’s career, but a bad decision on the job would end it— as well as Calvin’s life, and who knew how many others.

  Apparently Calvin had learned a little about caution since then. Calling Horatio in was a smart move; since the objective was to ID a suspect, it technically fell within the crime lab’s purview, and any political fallout—such as a civil suit—could be directed at his department instead of Selmo’s.

  Calvin’s smile was open and guileless, but Horatio could detect just a touch of smugness as well. Still, he couldn’t hold it against the man; Horatio had helped put him behind that desk, after all. He’d never felt he owed Calvin an apology—but he did owe him something.

  “I’ll do my best,” Horatio said quietly.

  3

  DELKO SNEEZED.

  “Bless you, honey,” Doctor Alexx Woods said. “You coming down with something, Eric?” She walked briskly over to the wall of stainless steel drawers that held her clientele and consulted the clipboard in her hands.

  Delko shook his head. “I hope not. Man, Christmas colds are the worst.” He followed Alexx over, but made sure he stood well out of the way of the sliding drawer as she pulled it open.

  “You think it’s bad here, you should try it when it’s twenty below,” Alexx said. “And anyway, at least you’re still in one piece—which is more than I can say for our John Doe.”

  “Yeah, he’s in pretty rough shape. A Miccosukee found him in the ’Glades last night. Unfortunately, not being familiar with CSI protocol, he just pulled the vic into his boat and brought the body out himself. I processed what I could there—including the chains wrapped around the body—but I’m going out today to take a look at the actual spot where the DB was found. Just thought I’d drop by and get your opinion first.”

  “Well, opinion is about all I’m prepared to give at the moment,” Alexx said. “And you know I don’t like doing that, right?”

  Delko held up his hands in defense. “I know, I know—you haven’t got a chance to even look at him, yet. But if I’m going to be diving in a swamp, I’d like to know what I’m looking for.”

  “Hmmph. Well, I can’t tell you that, but I can tell you what you probably won’t find—his head.”

  “Why’s that?”

  She pointed at the stump of the neck. “See how the bone is fractured? No tool marks, but plenty of charring and torn flesh on the shoulders. This guy’s head was blown off—literally. You might find fragments, but that’s about it.”

  “What about his hands and legs? Same thing?”

  She inspected both sites carefully before replying. “No, they’re both different. I can see teeth marks on the flesh of the lower legs—looks like predation, probably by alligators. And the hands . . . the hands are something completely different.” She picked up one of the corpse’s forearms gently and examined the stump of its wrist. “These look like chemical burns to me.”

  “Getting a positive ID is gonna be hard. No prints, no dental, no wallet—if his DNA isn’t in the system, we’re at a dead end.”

  Alexx looked down at the body and shook her head. “Not as dead as his,” she said, and shut the drawer softly.

  The guard standing beside the door of the interview room, a tall black man wearing steel-framed glasses, shook his head and grinned. “You ain’t gonna believe this, Sarge,” he said to Selmo.

  Selmo snorted. “Wait, lemme guess—you finally got the gloves off and it turns out the guy’s an alien, right?”

  “Well, you got it half-right. He’s taken the gloves off himself. Says he’s ready to cooperate— but I wouldn’t call that an accurate description of his attitude.”

  “Oh?” Horatio said. “He’s still being difficult?”

  “Hell, no. He’s gone past cooperating to being downright helpful. His lawyer just left—I don’t know what the guy told him, but whatever it was, it spun his whole outlook a hundred and eighty degrees. I mean, he’s gone from Mister Hyde to Doctor Jekyll.”

  “He give a statement yet?” Selmo asked.

  “No, just his name and address. We figured you’d want to hear his story yourself.”

  “Well, looks like I wasted your time, Horatio,” Selmo said.

  “If you don’t mind, Calvin, I’d like to sit in,” Horatio said. “I’m curious as to what exactly our gloved friend is going to say.”

  Selmo shrugged. “Sure, I don’t mind. I dragged you all the way down here, after all.” He nodded to the guard, who unlocked the door.

  The man manacled to the interview table sat with his back erect, staring straight ahead. His skin was a light brown, his eyebrows dark and thick, his nose prominent. He was clean-shaven, with a small scar at the point of his chin. He was still wearing the clothes he was arrested in, a long black coat over a nondescript gray sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. The gloves were gone.

  Selmo took the chair across from him, while Horatio remained standing. “So,” Selmo began, “I understand you’ve had a change of heart, Mister—?”

  The man smiled, showing a mouthful of brilliant white teeth. “Pathan. Abdus Sattar Pathan, at your service. I would shake your hand, but . . .”

  “An hour ago, you wouldn’t even open your hand,” Selmo snapped. “What gives?”

  Pathan’s smile instantly faded into embarrassed self-effacement. “I do apologize for that.” His voice was cultured, with just a trace of a British accent. “I believe I may have suffered a mild concussion.”

  “You seem all right to me,” Selmo said. “Why didn’t you want us to take your prints?”

  “Arab-Americans must be careful these days. I know it must seem absurdly paranoid to you, but I was convinced you were trying to frame me for some sort of crime. I’m not a doctor, but I believe a concussion can sometimes produce such neurological symptoms.”

  “We don’t have t
o frame you for anything, Abdus. We’ve got you dead to rights—video surveillance, blood on your clothing, and pretty soon your prints. That’s not paranoia, that’s reality.”

  Pathan frowned. “I don’t understand. I went into a convenience store, saw a man lying in a pool of blood, and rushed over; then everything went blank. I woke up in the back of an ambulance with a lump on my head.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Selmo growled. “That’s your explanation? You didn’t do it? You just happened along and it’s all just a big misunderstanding?”

  “I’m afraid that’s the truth. The real attacker must have hit me over the head and run away.”

  “And I suppose,” Horatio said, speaking for the first time, “that you and he just happened to be wearing the same scarf, too.”

  Pathan gave Horatio an apologetic smile. “That does stretch credibility, doesn’t it? No, I imagine he placed his own scarf around my neck after he knocked me out. That doesn’t contradict the evidence, does it?”

  “Technically, no,” Horatio said. “However, we do have video of the attacker holding a certain item. You say you rushed right over to the clerk once you entered the store?”

  Pathan didn’t hesitate. “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “Then you didn’t have time to handle anything in the store, did you?”

  Pathan shook his head. “I assure you, Officer . . . ?”

  “Lieutenant Caine.”

  “I assure you, Lieutenant Caine, I have never been in that store before. You will not find my prints on anything.”