Misgivings

by Donn Cortez

  “Of course.” She sighed. “Poor Mister Villanova. So close to Christmas, too; it will be very sad news for his wife.”

  Maybe, Delko thought. But then again, maybe not . . .

  7

  LUNCHTIME FOUND WOLFE in the break room, eating an egg-salad sandwich. Alexx walked in with a file folder in her hand and sat down across from him. “Just finished the autopsy on Santa,” she said, then stopped herself with a frown. “Boy, there’s a cheery holiday greeting for you.”

  “I know, I know,” Wolfe said. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch another Christmas special without certain disturbing images coming to mind. Anyway, what stopped his clock?”

  “A stroke. Brought on by acute hypertension.”

  “High blood pressure,” Wolfe said, nodding. “Preexisting condition?”

  “I don’t think so. What was really interesting wasn’t the COD, though—it was the time of death. According to his liver temperature, around eleven p.m.”

  Wolfe stopped with his sandwich halfway to his mouth. “What? Alexx, I watched the ME’s wagon take the body away myself—just after ten.”

  “I know. And he was lying in a snowdrift, right?”

  “Right. Which should have sped up the body’s cooling rate.”

  “Exactly. But when I added that to my calculations, I came up with a time that was obviously wrong, because his liver temp was too high. He was experiencing hyperpyrexia—his body might have been as hot as a hundred and six degrees when he died.”

  Wolfe frowned. “The woman he had sex with said steam was coming off his body. But—he was in an ice rink for a while beforehand, and then lying mostly naked in a pile of snow. That should have cooled him off, at least a little.”

  “Yes, it should have. So I checked the tox screen. It showed traces of two antidepressants: imipramine and phenelzine. One’s a monoamine oxidase inhibitor; the other reacts with MAOIs. The range of symptoms produced by an MAOI overdose include vomiting, increased libido, hypertension, and hyperpyrexia—but the amounts I found weren’t high enough for that.”

  “If the drugs didn’t bring on the stroke, then what did?”

  “His diet. Doctors are very careful about prescribing MAO inhibitors, because of the way they react with other substances. MAO breaks down monoamines like epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine—and one called tyramine. Tyramine is present in high concentrations in certain kinds of foods, especially foods produced by an aging process.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like what I found in his stomach. Beer, pickled herring, pepperoni, sauerkraut, aged cheese— sometimes the effect is even called the cheese syndrome. A large intake of tyramine is thought to displace noradrenaline from neuronal storage vesicles, causing vasoconstriction and increasing systolic blood pressure.”

  “Enough to cause a stroke?”

  “Definitely. No doctor would prescribe these two drugs together—and if she did, she’d forbid her patient from ingesting any of these items, including alcohol. MAO inhibitors interact with central nervous system depressants, increasing their effect.”

  Wolfe eyed his half-eaten sandwich, then put it down. “So either our Santa was badly misinformed, extremely stupid—”

  “—or murdered,” Alexx said.

  When he learned John Doe’s name, Delko thought the hard part was over. He tracked down the man’s passport information through INS, found out he’d only been in the country two months, and got not only a picture but the address of the motel he’d been staying at. Maria Arrisca confirmed that yes, that was the man who’d come to the restaurant, and the motel manager agreed to let him look around Villanova’s room; the man had paid for the next month in advance, and his things were still there.

  But once he’d spent a few minutes poking around room 214, he was forced to change his mind.

  The room held nothing.

  No clothes, no suitcase, no toiletries. The bed was made, the garbage empty. He called the front desk to make sure they’d given him the right room, and the manager swore up and down they had.

  There was no evidence that Villanova—or anyone—had lived there. The room was as empty as an amnesiac’s memory.

  Someone had erased any trace of Villanova’s presence.

  Room 214 was on the second floor. Delko went back downstairs and knocked on the door to the manager’s office again. The manager, a corpulent woman with straggly white hair and a long-suffering expression, opened it and sighed, “What now?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but has anyone been in room 214 in the past week?”

  “No. Mister Villanova liked his privacy. He’d let me come in to clean once a week, but that was it. I haven’t been in there yet this week.”

  “How about visitors?”

  The woman shook her head. “If he ever had any visitors, I never saw them. No women, no friends, no nothing.”

  “How about you? Did you ever talk to him?”

  “Only when he paid his rent. He never said much.”

  “So you have no idea what he did for a living?”

  The woman gave him a suspicious glare. “No. And don’t try to tell me he was involved in drugs—I don’t let that go on around here. You think I want the DEA kicking in my doors and confiscating my business? He didn’t have people knocking on his door at all hours, he paid using a credit card, and he didn’t drive a flashy car. What kind of drug dealer does that sound like?”

  “A very unusual one,” Delko admitted. “Look, I’m just trying to get some sense of who this guy was. So far, I’m drawing a blank.”

  “Then you got a good sense of who he was,” the manager said, and closed the door.

  The model’s real name was Zenira Tariq. Horatio tracked her down through her modeling agency, who told him she was on a shoot at Haulover Beach. Horatio drove over to talk to her.

  Haulover Beach was a popular gay spot, with its clothing-optional section on the north end. Horatio felt more than a little conspicuous trekking through the sand in his suit and dress shoes; the irony of being uncomfortable because he was the only one wearing clothes brought a wry smile to his face.

  The section of the beach being used for the shoot was blocked off by yellow caution tape and guarded by a man with an improbable blond Afro, gold-framed sunglasses, and a walkie-talkie. He was dressed in baggy shorts that came to his knees, sandals, and a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt covered in electric-blue flamingos. He held up his hand imperiously as Horatio approached—Horatio almost expected him to say, Halt! Who goes there?

  What he said, though, was “Hey. Sorry, man. Closed for a private function.”

  “Not to me, it isn’t,” Horatio said calmly. He displayed his badge discreetly; the man raised his eyebrows and waved him in.

  A hundred feet farther on, Zenira Tariq lay posed on a large, bright pink towel. The color of the towel contrasted sharply with the darkness of her skin, a rich brown that reminded Horatio of hazelnuts and chocolate. She wore nothing but a pair of oversize sunglasses with white plastic frames, and was balancing a large, pink-and-white-striped beach ball on the soles of her feet.

  The scene’s eroticism was significantly eroded by the half-dozen men and women clustered to one side with light diffusers, cameras, makeup kits, and sundry bags of equipment. The general attitude they projected was as clinical as if they were taking pictures of furniture.

  “That’s good. Lilly, lose the glare off her left breast. Too much oil.”

  “Move her legs apart, just slightly.”

  “I need a different filter—this one’s too blue.”

  He walked up to the person taking the photos, a man with a scruffy black beard and enormous, muscled arms. The camera looked like a toy in his oversize hands.

  “Excuse me.” Horatio showed his badge. “Lieutenant Horatio Caine, Miami-Dade Crime Lab. I need a few moments of your model’s time.”

  The photographer glared at him from beneath bushy eyebrows. “Can it wait? I’ve got clouds coming up and I’m
paying every one of these parasites by the second.”

  Horatio took off his sunglasses. “Then I’ll make sure I don’t keep her long,” he said levelly.

  The bearded man threw his hands up and said, “Goddammit! Okay, everybody, take five—and not one bloody eyeblink longer, either.” He threw Horatio a murderous look and turned away, fiddling with his camera and muttering under his breath.

  Horatio approached the model, who had dropped the beach ball and sat up. She stared at him curiously, leaning back on her hands with her legs straight out in front of her.

  “Zenira Tariq? I’m Horatio Caine, Miami-Dade police. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “About what?” She had no trace of an accent, except possibly a touch of Southern California.

  “I was wondering if you’d gotten any negative mail or phone calls concerning your recent appearance in Exotic Skin magazine.”

  Her eyebrows were long, dark, and plucked to form two subtle, inverted V-shapes; when she frowned, Horatio was reminded of twin ravens banking toward each other. “Maybe the magazine got some, but not me. I’m careful about who I give my digits to, you know?”

  “What about personally? Is there anyone you know who took exception—a boyfriend or a relative, maybe?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend, I have a girlfriend—and she’s cool with what I do. My mom isn’t crazy about it, but I don’t get along too well with her, anyway. My dad died when I was a little kid. Why?”

  Horatio paused. He didn’t want to worry her for no reason, but she deserved a warning. “An employee was assaulted in a store that carried that particular issue—in fact, it seems your picture is what triggered the attack.”

  “What do you mean? What were they fighting over?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Horatio said. “Do you know a man named Abdus Sattar Pathan?”

  “No, I’ve never heard of him.”

  “Have you heard from any organizations or individuals that might have a religious or political reason to be upset?”

  Now she started to look worried. “What, you mean like some kind of terrorist group? I don’t know anyone like that. I’m not even Muslim.”

  “Even so, you seem to have offended someone—though so far, there’s no evidence that person is Islamic. They could very well be on the other end of the political spectrum.”

  “Like some kind of right-wing fundamentalist crazies? Oh, boy.” She sat up straighter, bringing her knees up and hugging them. “This person who was attacked—is he all right?”

  “Yes, he’s fine. He suffered a mild concussion, but he’s already out of the hospital.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what to tell you, Lieutenant. It’s not like I have any control over what they shoot, you know? They tell me where to show up, what to wear, how to pose, what kind of look they want on my face. Stilettos and fishnets or a veil and a toe ring—it doesn’t make a lot of difference to me, you know? It’s not like I was trying to be controversial.”

  “You could always walk away,” Horatio said.

  “Walking away doesn’t pay the rent,” she said softly. “And honestly—this pays the rent and then some. And I’d rather be lying on my back on a beach than some motel room that charges by the hour. You know?”

  Horatio didn’t answer. Instead, he took a card from his pocket and handed it to her. “If you receive any threats, or if you feel someone is watching you—give me a call.”

  “People watching me? Yeah, like I’d even notice. . . . One question, though?”

  “Yes?”

  She held up the card with a mischievous grin. “Where do you expect me to put this?”

  Horatio slipped on his sunglasses with a smile of his own. “Some things, Ms. Tariq,” he said, “you have to figure out on your own . . .”

  “You’re kidding me,” Tripp said. He and Wolfe were in a PD-issue Crown Vic, with Tripp at the wheel. “Our guy was killed by deli food?”

  “Potentiating with the antidepressants and the alcohol in his system, yeah,” Wolfe said. “But that’s not the clincher. When I processed the flask we found under the windmill, I found a print that matches our vic on the outside—and traces of phenelzine and alcohol on the inside.”

  “And since phenelzine isn’t exactly a party drug, someone must have slipped it to him.”

  “Looks that way. But I didn’t find any sign of imipramine in the flask—which means it must have been given to him by some other means.”

  Tripp pulled over and parked at the curb. “Well, I’ve been doing a little investigating of my own. Been talking to cabdrivers that dropped Santas off at the initial meeting point—think I’ve backtrailed our vic to his residence.”

  They got out of the car in front of an apartment building that had seen better days. Its avocado-green exterior had faded in places and darkened in others, giving the impression the entire structure was long past its expiry date.

  Tripp checked the list of names beside the front door, found the manager’s suite, and buzzed it.

  “Yes?” A woman’s voice, high and wavery, sounding elderly and not quite sure of its footing.

  “Miami-Dade PD,” Tripp said. “Can you come to the front, please? I’ve got a few questions for you.”

  “What? I can’t just let you in . . . how do I know you’re the police?”

  “That’s why I want you to come to the door, ma’am,” Tripp said patiently. “So I can show you my ID. This won’t take long.”

  “Well, I’m watching my show . . . can you come back?”

  “Please, ma’am. It’s important.”

  “Oh, all right . . .”

  Abruptly, the door buzzed. Tripp shrugged and pulled it open. Wolfe followed him in, carrying his CSI kit at his side.

  “Great security here,” Wolfe said. “Guess she didn’t want to miss any important plot points on her favorite soap.”

  “Hey, it’s probably the high point of her day. You want to be a public servant in Miami, you better get used to dealing with senior citizens. If we’re lucky, her memory won’t be too bad.”

  They found the suite listed as the manager’s just off the front hall and knocked on the door. They could hear the sounds of daytime television inside, canned laughter from some old sitcom.

  When the door opened, the woman who stood there was almost exactly as Wolfe had pictured her: little-old-lady eyeglasses, gray hair in a bun, a tatty yellow sweater over a faded flower-print dress, and fuzzy pink bedroom slippers.

  What he hadn’t foreseen, though, was the large-caliber handgun she currently had pointed at both of them.

  Hector Villanova’s stated reason for coming to America, according to INS, was purely a pleasure trip. He had made very little impact during his stay, it seemed; his credit card records were as frustratingly opaque as the man himself. He’d spent money on groceries, the occasional restaurant meal, some clothes, and a bus pass.

  A bus pass, Delko thought. How many hardened international criminals buy a bus pass?

  He sighed and leaned back in his chair, staring at the monitor in front of him. Villanova could have been leading a secret life, of course, paying cash for all sorts of illicit activities—but if so, what were they? What had he done to wind up in a swamp with his head blown off, and who was responsible?

  Delko had gone back to the motel room with his kit and gone over every surface carefully. He’d gotten a few latent prints and found some hair on a pillow—the DNA matched the body currently occupying one of Alexx’s storage bays, but he had nothing to compare the prints to. He thought he knew how to get around that, but it meant making a call he wasn’t looking forward to.

  Still, it was part of his job. He picked up the phone and punched up the number on the screen.

  “Olá,” he said. “Solana Villanova, se faz favor.”

  Wolfe froze. Tripp sighed.

  “Don’t think I won’t use this,” the woman said. Her voice had the same high, querulous tone they’d hea
rd over the intercom, but the hand holding the gun seemed firm enough.

  “For pete’s sake, lady,” Tripp growled. “We’re with the police. If you’ll put that bazooka down long enough for me to show you my badge—”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” the woman said nervously. “I know the law. I can shoot people now, you know. Are you with the Mafia?”

  Wolfe rolled his eyes. In 2005, Florida had enacted a law that allowed people to use lethal force to protect themselves in their home or car without fear of legal reprisals. “Terrific,” he muttered. “Abreast of current events but not on speaking terms with reality.”

  “Look, just let me show you . . .” Tripp tried again.

  “Not so fast!”

  Tripp froze, his hand reaching for his pocket. The moment stretched out.

  “Okay, go ahead,” the woman said at last. “But don’t move so fast this time.”

  Tripp started reaching again.

  “Slower!” she shrieked.

  Tripp’s hand edged toward his lapel at a glacial pace. Wolfe had the sudden absurd feeling they were all trapped in the slow-motion part of some bad action movie.

  The badge finally made its appearance a few decades later. The woman peered at it. “I can’t see without my glasses.”

  “You’re wearing your glasses,” Wolfe said.

  She peered at him suspiciously. “How do you know these are mine?” she snapped.

  Wolfe had to admit she had a point.

  “Grandma?” rose a voice behind her. “Grandma, who are you talking to?”

  A woman appeared behind their captor. When she saw what was going on, she groaned. “Oh, Grandma. Not again.”

  “Darlene? These boys say they’re the police. Do you know them?”

  The woman, a busty redhead in her thirties wearing a white track suit, reached out and took the gun out of her grandmother’s hands. “No, Grandma. I don’t know any police. But that badge looks pretty real to me.” She gave Wolfe and Tripp an apologetic look. “The gun isn’t loaded.”

  “Don’t tell them that! We may as well just give them the good silver!”