Misgivings

by Donn Cortez

  “Extrapolating from faulty data is a waste of time,” Horatio said patiently. “The only data we’re collecting at the moment is what’s being fed to us—”

  “And you don’t like the taste? Too bad. You wanted to be involved in this case, you’re involved—but I’m in charge. Whatever information this investigation generates will be evaluated thoroughly, and I will make my decisions based on those evaluations. Am I clear?”

  “As crystal.”

  Horatio pulled the earpiece out and dropped it in the pool.

  Afterward, Horatio blamed himself for what happened.

  He’d left the club. He wasn’t sure where he was going to find answers, but it wasn’t sifting through a few thousand tons of sand.

  Sackheim knew as soon as Horatio walked out the door, of course; he’d been shadowed by FBI agents the entire time, just out of sight. When Horatio walked, Sackheim sent in a ringer, an agent named Hargood in a red wig that wouldn’t have fooled a blind man three blocks away. The agent also carried a metal detector, to do the job Horatio had figured out was pointless.

  A metal detector worked by generating a strong electromagnetic field, causing a current to flow through nearby metal objects and then measuring it. Such a field, unfortunately, was also easily detectable by other devices—such as the electronic fuse attached to the bomb buried in the sand, midway between the pool and the edge of the beach.

  Hargood died immediately. Seven other patrons of the club were injured by shrapnel, two of them badly. Three more died in the rush to leave the club, trampled to death in the crowd’s panic.

  Less than an hour later, Horatio stood in front of Afterpartylife once more, awash in the cycling red flash of emergency lights. The wail of approaching sirens sounded like a damning chorus to his ears.

  This time, Delko’s voice came from behind him. “It’s not your fault, H.”

  Horatio didn’t turn around. “Isn’t it? That bomb was meant for me. The only reason I’m not being carried out on a stretcher right now is because I walked away.”

  “It was the right call, Horatio. You know that.”

  “The only thing I know right now, Eric,” Horatio said, “is that four people are dead, and seven others in the hospital. That,” he said, turning around and meeting Delko’s eyes, “and the fact that I’m going to nail this son of a bitch . . .”

  15

  WOLFE HAD DECIDED that he was quitting Christmas. No more presents, no more carols, and especially no more Santa. From here on in, he’d just find a nice damp cave somewhere around the end of November and stay there until the first week in January. He announced this in the lab to Calleigh—in a committed, but ever-so-slightly-sad way that he thought was rather poignant—and got a muttered “Uh-huh” in return.

  “If your brow gets any more furrowed, you’ll be able to screw on your hat,” Wolfe said. “What’s up?”

  “It’s this damn Villanova case,” Calleigh said. “You know, I went all the way back to the original crime scene, took a ton of photos, went over the place with a fine-tooth comb, did everything but actually get in the water—and now I’m wondering why I bothered. There’s nothing new here, or at least nothing I can see.”

  “Well, you might not have to suffer much longer.”

  “Why? You going to put me out of my misery?”

  Wolfe shook his head. “No, but H might. He’s got Delko processing the nightclub bombing, but that leaves him shorthanded on the kidnapping case. Can’t see him leaving one of his top CSIs on the bench.”

  Calleigh frowned. “Then you don’t know Horatio very well.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’m not on the bench, Ryan. I’m working a case. And this case is just as important as any other—a man lost his life, and it’s our job to find out how and why. Horatio isn’t going to suddenly forget that. The bombing is just another facet of the kidnapping case, and unless things drastically change, Eric will work both.”

  “Right. I guess I should concentrate on my own case, then.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Except that I hate this case. Have I mentioned that?”

  “Several times.”

  “I mean, it’s got everything except exploding Christmas trees. Drunken, sex-crazed Santas, suspects named after reindeer, poisoned pickled herring, homicidal snowmen—”

  “Homicidal snowmen?’

  Wolfe gave a large, theatrical sigh. “Okay, I made that part up. But they’re waiting in the wings, armed with yttrium-powered lasers and razor-sharp icicles. You’ll see.”

  Calleigh smiled. “What I see is someone almost as stumped as I am. The lead I got you didn’t pan out?”

  “No. We found what we were looking for, but we can’t tie her to the vic—”

  His cell phone rang. “CSI Wolfe.”

  “Mister Wolfe? This is Valerie Blitzen. I just remembered something Santa Shaky said to me, and thought you should know.”

  “What is it?”

  “The name of the hotel he said he was going to for that big Christmas Eve party. It was the Byzantia.”

  He thanked her and hung up. “Well, well, well,” he said. “The reindeer just gave me a tip.”

  “Better tell her to be careful, then.”

  “Why?”

  “Because killer snowmen,” Calleigh said sweetly, “hate informers.”

  “It was a land mine,” Delko told Horatio. He had the recovered fragments of the device laid out on the light table in front of him. “The type that used to be called a bouncing betty.”

  Horatio nodded. “Uses a small charge to propel itself out of the ground and into the air before detonating, thereby doing maximum damage to the enemy.”

  “Yeah. This one went off about waist height— cut Hargood in half.”

  “Can you identify the make?”

  “At first I thought it was an Italian model, something called a Valsella Valmara 69. But after closer examination, I can safely say it wasn’t—it was a copy. A lot of countries will simply imitate a successful design rather than come up with one of their own, and that’s what this was. I can tell you where it’s from, too.”

  “Let me guess. Somewhere in the Middle East?”

  “Iraq.”

  “Which suggests that our kidnapping is political in nature,” Horatio said. “The problem is, too many suggestions have already been made. . . . Eric, we need to stop playing this guy’s game and start playing our own. I’m tired of the scavenger hunt.”

  “What’d you have in mind, H?”

  “Something we’re very good at, Eric. A little old-fashioned kick the can . . . and it’s his can we’re going to kick.”

  “That’s commendable,” Agent Sackheim said, striding through the doorway with four agents in tow. “One of my men is dead and you’re comparing this to a child’s pastime.”

  “Agent Sackheim, I deeply regret—” Horatio began, but Sackheim cut him off.

  “Save it, Caine. I made a mistake letting you and your people get involved in this investigation in the first place, and now it’s cost me one of mine. That’s over.” He nodded to his agents, and they began to pack the fragments on the table into evidence boxes.

  “Hold it!” Delko said. “You can’t just confiscate—”

  “I can and I am,” Sackheim said. “Everything you have is being shipped to Quantico, where competent technicians will examine it. Since Lieutenant Caine seems to have lost interest in acting as a go-between, your services are no longer required. Send everything you have on file to me in the next hour, or I swear I’ll see you up on federal obstruction charges.”

  Delko caught the eye of Caldwell, the agent he’d talked to at the Pathan house. Caldwell gave him an almost imperceptible shrug and widening of his eyes, as if to say, What do you expect?

  “Yeah,” Delko said coldly. “Sure. We’ll do that.”

  “And when you’ve got what you came for,” Horatio said, putting his hands on his hips, “I want you and your people out of my
lab . . .”

  Wolfe wasn’t that familiar with the Byzantia Hotel. He knew it had been around for a while, was one of Miami’s art deco buildings, and was considered pricey but not in the same league as one of the überhotels on Ocean Drive. It was decorated for Christmas with strings of lights around the trunks of the palm trees outside, but nothing too overblown.

  The lobby was cavernous, with vaulted, white ceilings and an old-style crystal chandelier. Wolfe glanced around, noted the smallish Christmas tree beside the front desk, and felt unaccountably relieved.

  He studied the glass-encased black signboard on the wall, where they posted events taking place at the hotel. On Christmas Eve, the Alexander Ballroom was hosting something called the Christmas Carnival.

  He followed engraved brass signs down hallways and through foyers until he reached a set of double doors, twelve feet high and carved of oak, with ALEXANDER BALLROOM on a large gold plaque to one side.

  They weren’t locked. He pulled one open and stepped inside.

  “Ohhhhh . . . boy,” he said faintly.

  Whoever coined the term winter wonderland was clearly thinking about this place. And whoever thought of this place had more than sugarplums dancing in their head.

  Dazzlingly white fake snow—made of something the consistency of Styrofoam—covered the floor and rose in sloping drifts a good six feet up the walls, creating the illusion he was in a sunken, arctic valley. Little paths were carved through the snow, leading to islands of seasonal cheer: dozens of themed kiosks, made of toys or Christmas trees or gingerbread. Full-size animatronic reindeer swiveled their heads to look at him from behind a candy-cane corral, while dozens of inflatable snowmen drifted slowly through the air like grinning zeppelins, propelled by tiny electric motors; every now and then one would bump into a wall or another of its kind and reverse direction until it hit something else.

  And in the center, Santa’s workshop.

  More like Santa’s coliseum, Wolfe thought. It was built of something that resembled white marble but was probably Styrofoam, with more silver trim than an old Chevy. Four thick columns supported an elaborate, multigabled roof that reached to the ceiling of the ballroom; beneath was a sort of red-velvet ziggurat with an elaborate, plush throne at its apex. From the huge, neon S worked into the fabric, Wolfe surmised it belonged to Santa—either that, or Superman.

  None of the ballroom lights were on, but there was plenty of illumination—strings of colored lights were wound around the columns, the throne, the kiosks, practically every available surface.

  Abruptly, one of the snowmen ran into the spire at the very top of Santa’s edifice. It deflated with a discouraged whooshing noise, and a voice called out, “Hold it! Hold it, everyone! Lights!”

  The overhead fluorescents came on, changing the rich, multihued light into the flat, white glare of a supermarket. Wolfe noticed for the first time a large white screen at the far end of the ballroom, taking up most of the wall, with a raised stage in front of it. Floor-to-ceiling black curtains flanked the screen, and a man and a woman now emerged from behind each, walking across the stage to meet in the middle. The man’s words carried clearly to Wolfe’s ears as he approached them.

  “My God, my God, my God!” the man said. He had a narrow face, accented by a thin black mustache and slicked-back, dark hair. He plucked nervously at the sleeve of his lime-green silk shirt as he paced. “Chandra, why didn’t we see this coming? I mean, it should have been obvious, right? I mean, hello, the Hindenburg?”

  Chandra was an attractive, brown-skinned woman in jeans and a yellow belly shirt, with something green glinting in her navel and just above her upper lip. She had a remote control in her hands, big enough for two joysticks side by side.

  “Calm down, Wiggy,” she said. “The snowmen are filled with helium, not hydrogen—they’re not going to explode. And we’ll just stick an ornament or something on top of the spire, it’ll be fine.”

  “Excuse me,” Wolfe said. “I was wondering if I could talk to someone in charge.”

  The man turned and gave him an evaluating glance. Apparently he didn’t like what he saw, because he let out an immediate moan. “Ohhh, no. It’s the flowers, isn’t it? I knew trying to bring in that many snowdrops at this time of year was a mistake. We should have just gone with the poinsettias—”

  “It’s not about flowers. My name is Ryan Wolfe. I’m from the Miami-Dade Crime Lab.”

  “Crime Lab?” the man said. “I have no response to that.”

  “What can we do for you, Mister Wolfe?” Chandra said. “Is there some sort of problem?”

  “That’s kind of hard to answer. I mean, there is a problem, but it’s mine, not yours. I was hoping you could help me with it.”

  The man rolled his eyes so far up into his head for a second Wolfe thought he was fainting. “Look, I’m all for doing my civic duty, but you have no idea how busy we are right now. Do you?”

  “This’ll only take a minute—”

  “A minute. A minute. This has already taken a minute, sixty precious seconds that I will never, ever get back, sixty seconds that I should have been using to fix the umptillion problems that need fixing before this entire ghastly mess collapses around my ears . . .” He paused, then deflated as abruptly as the snowman had. “Oh, what the hell,” he sighed. “Go ahead. But you have to promise to shoot me afterward.”

  “Ludwig—take five, will you?” Chandra said gently but firmly. “Go have a cup of chamomile. I’ll talk to Mister Wolfe, and then we’ll get back to work. All right?”

  He gave her a long-suffering look. “You’re humoring me. I hate it when you humor me.”

  “I know. That’s why I do it.”

  “I’ll make you a cup, too. Don’t take too long.” He disappeared behind the black curtain.

  Chandra hopped off the stage, the control tucked under one arm, and landed in front of Wolfe. “So—what’s your problem?”

  “My problem is murder,” he said. “Literally. I have a corpse and a case that’s getting colder by the minute, and the best lead I have is this place.”

  She looked intrigued. “How so?”

  “The Christmas Carnival. It’s the only big event happening at the hotel Christmas Eve, right?”

  “Yes. We’re taking over all their function space and most of their rooms. It’s kind of a big Christmas-themed convention—most of the people coming are connected to the Christmas industry in one way or another.”

  “The Christmas industry? I know it’s gotten awfully commercial, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it called that.”

  She started walking, and he fell in step beside her. “This is a little more specialized—ornament manufacturers, specialty retail stores, places like that. And this year there’s the television show, too.”

  “What televison show?”

  She stopped in front of a booth decorated entirely with different types of tinsel and tucked a dangling length of glittery red behind a pole. “It’s called Sudden Success. It’s a reality show where they take some random, ordinary person and let them live like they were a billionaire. Private jets, hanging out with celebrities, living in a mansion in Beverly Hills. They’re shooting a segment here—the Carnival is going to be the backdrop for a really lavish party Christmas Eve. I’ve even heard rumors U2 is supposed to drop by, but what do I know? I’m just the party planner.”

  “Does the name Kingsley Patrick mean anything to you?”

  She thought about it for a second, then shook her head. “No. Should it?”

  “He claimed he was attending this party.”

  She walked over to the reindeer corral and looked them over critically. “I guess it’s possible. The name doesn’t sound familiar, but he could be on the guest list.”

  “Can I get a copy of that? I’d also like to see a list of people who are going to be working the event.”

  “I guess I can do that—for our people, anyway. You’ll have to talk to the hotel about their employees. Exactly what
are you looking for?”

  “I’m . . . not really sure,” he admitted. “But when in doubt, follow the money. This seems to be the only big thing my victim was connected to, though I’m still not sure how. It might have just been a party he was going to.”

  “Then he must have had some impressive connections.” She vaulted easily over the candy-cane fence and took a closer look at one of the reindeer that wasn’t moving. She popped open a panel in its side—a sight Wolfe found oddly disturbing— and fiddled with something inside. “This party is gonna be extremely exclusive, even for Miami.” After a second, the reindeer’s nose lit up with a red glow, and its head started to nod up and down. She shut the panel with a satisfied smile on her face.

  “Well, he was an actor, so I suppose he might have those types of connections,” Wolfe mused. “But that still doesn’t tell me why someone would want to kill him . . .”

  “If Wiggy were here, he’d say, ‘To put him out of his misery.’ And then he’d pretend he was going to commit suicide with a plastic icicle.”

  “Yeah, he seems a little—high-strung,” Wolfe said. “Opening-night jitters?”

  “More or less. He’s always pretty wound up before a show, but he’s the best man in Miami when it comes to set dec. In the five years we’ve been working together, I’ve never actually seen him reach critical mass; he just gets up to a roiling boil and stays there until he runs out of steam. Then he starts drinking wine and everybody’s his best friend.”

  “Sounds like an interesting relationship.”

  “Well, when you work with genius, you have to make allowances for personality quirks.”

  “I know what you mean,” Wolfe said.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe they just hijacked our investigation,” Delko said. He leaned against the break-room table with both arms, gripping the edge with his hands as if he wanted to flip the thing end for end.

  Horatio leaned forward in his chair and said quietly, “It doesn’t matter, Eric. We have copies of all the documents, all the photos. The only thing we don’t have anymore is the physical evidence, but I think we’ve already learned all we could from that. If not—well, the boys at Quantico are welcome to take a swing. They know what they’re doing.”