She looked out back.
Nate had arrived.
He was standing on the little spit of beach to the far left of the dock.
She hit the lock and exited the house, hurrying over to him. She hesitated. He was standing there, hands in his pockets, shoulders slumped, just staring at the sand.
“Nate?”
He turned to her, the sun casting a strange glow over his features.
“There you are,” he said softly.
He walked to her, placing his hands on her shoulders. His eyes were curiously dry. “Kelsey,” he said.
He drew her to him.
His grip was hard.
And painful.
They had found her.
Dane had barely reached the gas station before Gary Hansen gave him the call. She had been found on the Gulf side by a couple of kids out fishing around the numerous little islets that were little more than a few mangroves grouped together.
Due to the condition of the body—and the tie around her neck—she had been brought to the Miami-Dade County morgue for autopsy. Since she’d been fished out of the water where she’d been caught among the roots of the trees, there wasn’t much the crime scene investigators could do, but they were out there working. Hector Hernandez had told Dane that he was welcome to meet him at the morgue; they were going to need a positive identification, and they weren’t sure Larry was going to be up to it.
Dane met Jorge long enough to tell him what had happened, then drove north as quickly as he could. He had given Jorge a picture of Andy Latham and asked him to go show it to Marisa and ask her if she recognized the man.
Hector was well acquainted with the morgue. At the desk, he was directed to what they called cell five. It was where she had been taken, awaiting autopsy.
When Dane entered, Hector had his notebook out as he spoke with Dr. Alfred Gray. Hector waved a hand to indicate to the medical examiner that it was all right to keep speaking with Dane in the room. Sheila had been in the water approximately seven to twelve days, but since she had last been seen a week ago Friday, he thought it likely that she had been killed soon after.
“You were the last one to see her, right?” Hector asked Dane.
“The last one to admit it,” Dane replied.
He had seen the dead before. Those who had died peacefully, and those who had died after the ravages of a long illness. He had seen people who had been shot, bombed and stabbed, the casualties of war.
He had never seen anything like Sheila.
What the water and its inhabitants had done to her once beautiful face and figure went beyond terrible. The crabs had chewed on her. Fish had nibbled fingers and flesh. And then, of course, there had been the death itself. Strangulation was not a pretty way to go.
And the tie. His tie. The pattern still visible, despite the ravages of water, fish and muck.
“It is Sheila Warren, though, right?” Hector asked him.
Dane nodded.
Hector was studying him gravely. He wanted to turn away. He felt Hector’s eyes, but kept studying Sheila’s face.
“We tried to contact her stepfather, but his boat isn’t docked and his car is nowhere to be found.”
Dane stared at Hector. “I’ve been looking for him myself, ever since Gary Hansen had to release him after he made bail. His boat and car were both gone yesterday, as well.”
The medical examiner covered Sheila’s face.
“Is there a place where Dane and I can talk for a minute?” Hector asked Dr. Gray.
“My office. Down the hall.”
Dane followed Hector out of cell five and down the hall. Gray’s door was closed but not locked.
The office was strange, though perhaps the eclectic decor within was to be expected. A skeleton hung from a metal stand. Dane knew it was human, not a copy. The skull on the desk, however, was an excellently crafted medical tool made of plastic. There was a stack of eight by ten photos on the desk. Morgue photos.
Hector sat in the doctor’s chair, indicating that Dane should take the chair in front of him. Dane sat, folded his hands in his lap and looked at Hector.
“You came to me about the Necktie Strangler when Sheila was just among the missing. I need to know why you thought we were going to find Sheila like this,” he told Dane.
“That’s not a great mystery,” Dane said, despite the fact that it seemed every one of his muscles was tightening like piano wire. “She was missing—missing women have been showing up in the canals lately.”
“And you’ve been looking for Andy Latham, who has disappeared, at least for the moment. Want to tell me why?”
“Because he’s a scumbag, and Sheila hated him,” Dane said. Staring at Hector, he still saw Sheila’s face. Sheila’s beautiful face…
Never to be beautiful again.
Sheila, who had said, “Dane, help me.”
He felt sick. He didn’t usually get queasy at the sight of death.
He didn’t usually see a woman he had known all his life, slept with, grown up with, dead, and not just dead…dead the way Sheila was…lying on a slab at the morgue. Sheila was beyond suffering now. And beyond help.
There was a tap at the door, and it opened. Dr. Gray didn’t enter, he just spoke briefly.
“Hector,” Dr. Gray said, “if you’re done…we’re going to get started on her right away. You’ll have my report the minute we’re finished.”
“Thank you,” Hector said gravely.
The door closed. Hector looked at Dane again. Dane realized his palms were sweating.
“Come on, Dane,” Hector said. “Talk to me.”
“Hey! Let’s go!”
It was Larry. He was on the dock.
Nate released Kelsey, staring down into her eyes. He shook his head in misery. “I didn’t mean to…I just started thinking…oh, God, Kels, I had a death grip on you there…I’m sorry, I just…I just…”
She nodded. “Let’s go.”
She walked over to Larry, who looked like hell. His eyes were swollen, the rims nearly crimson.
“It—it may not be her,” Kelsey said.
Neither of them answered her as they walked to the car. She knew that, in their hearts, all three of them knew that the woman in the morgue was going to be Sheila Warren.
Nate had trouble opening his car door.
“Are you all right to drive?” she asked him.
He stared at her. “I’m fine. Honestly. Come up, we’ve got to get up to Miami.”
Larry got into the back seat. Kelsey took the front. They drove in silence.
“Kelsey Cunningham, an old friend, showed up here a few days ago because she was supposed to meet Sheila.”
“I know who she is,” Hector acknowledged.
“Kelsey was extremely concerned right away. She didn’t believe Sheila would have gone off without telling her, not when they had arranged to get together. She came to me—and then she went out to Andy Latham’s. Another friend called to tell me that she was out there, so I went after her and got her. Not because I knew anything, but because, like I said, Latham is a sleazebag. Always has been. We—Sheila’s friends—believe she was probably molested by him as a child. Then Latham showed up at my house when we were having a barbecue. He dumped off a pile of rotting fish. Accused us—or me—of having dropped them on his property.”
“Did you?”
“Come on, Hector, what do you think? Of course I didn’t.”
“Go on.”
“Last night Kelsey thought someone was out in the yard at the duplex. She’s staying at Sheila’s place. They called Gary Hansen, so the cops came out.”
“Are you sure it was Latham?”
“Sheila’s ex-husband, Larry, and Nate Curry were both there, and they thought they saw Latham’s truck drive away.”
“They thought.”
Dane lifted his hands. “Hector, I wasn’t there at the time. I’m telling you what they told me. But they called Gary Hansen.”
“And?”
r /> “By the time Gary came out, they’d all tramped all over the yard.”
“Did anyone dust for prints?”
“No. But…”
“But what?”
“I think he wears gloves. Some kind of gloves, most of the time. Diving gloves, fishing gloves. You know yourself, the Necktie Strangler is no fool.”
“Is there anything else?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Yesterday they all went fishing. When I heard that Latham had been released, I set out to find them. And I did. They were spearfishing. I found Kelsey, and while we were down there, a couple of spears came shooting by—far too close.”
“Who was shooting? Did you find Latham down there?”
“No. I didn’t find anyone.”
“And did you do anything?”
“Hell, yes, we called the Coast Guard.”
Hector eased back in his chair. “You’re a private investigator, and you didn’t find out who was shooting at her?”
“I went down…but Kelsey wouldn’t go back to the damn boat without me. I didn’t get to search long, because I was too afraid someone was going to find his mark.”
“But you think Latham might have been out there?”
Dane shrugged.
Hector leaned forward. “All right. If Latham is the Necktie Strangler and he was determined to kill his own stepdaughter, he’d have known, once the deed was done, that she was dead. Why would he be staking out the duplex?”
Dane exhaled a sharp breath. “To kill Kelsey,” he said. And he straightened. “She’s out at my place now. Alone. And no one knows where the hell Latham is.”
Hector shook his head. “She’s not alone,” he said.
“But—”
The door to the office opened, and a man, apparently a plainclothes officer, stepped in.
“The ex-husband and his friends have made it?” Hector asked.
The man nodded. “The M.E. took the morgue photo out to the ex and his friends just a minute ago,” he told Hector. “They gave us another positive ID. They’re out there now.”
The ex-husband and his friends…
“Fine, I’ll go speak with them right now,” Hector said. “Come with me,” he told Dane.
They left the office and headed out to the reception area. “I dislike sounding clichéd, Dane, but you’re not planning any vacations or anything, are you?” Hector asked.
“Am I planning on leaving town? Definitely not. But I sure as hell hope you’re looking for Andy Latham, not wasting time suspecting me.”
“We are. And I assume you’ll be doing the same. In town, of course.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going to need a lot more against Andy Latham to hold him, much less to get the D.A.’s office to put together a sound case. So far…well, I hope you can give me more than the fact that you don’t like him and his stepdaughter hated him. And that he dumped dead fish on your property, and people think they saw him sneaking around.”
“He may have been hanging around the strip club where one of the other girls who was killed worked. Where she was working the night before she disappeared.”
Hector stopped in the hallway, staring at him again. “And you have found this out…how?”
“One of the girls thinks she may have seen him.”
Hector was still staring at him. “I spent days at that strip club.”
“You had nothing to give the girls. I brought in pictures. And you know as well as I do that girls practicing prostitution on the side aren’t going to talk to the police.”
As they were standing there in the hallway, Dane’s cell phone began to ring. He ignored it for a moment, staring at Hector.
“Answer it.”
He did. It was Jorge, and he was excited.
“Marisa says she has definitely seen Andy Latham at the club.”
Hector was still watching him, and Dane was pretty sure he had been able to hear Jorge’s words.
“Thanks, Jorge.”
“What now?” Jorge asked.
He winced. “Marisa may be asked to testify.”
“She will have to go to court?” Jorge sounded alarmed.
“She’s legal, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then there’s no problem, Jorge.”
“I pray that you are right.”
Jorge hung up. His last words sounded as if he felt he had somehow been betrayed. Unfortunately there was no way for Dane to call him back and reassure him.
“You heard?” Dane asked Hector.
Hector nodded.
“Gary Hansen put out an APB on Latham last night.”
Hector arched a brow. “That’s good. But now the APB will have to be amended. He’ll be wanted on suspicion of murder.”
They walked out to the reception room. Larry, Nate and Kelsey were there. Kelsey’s red, tearstained eyes widened at the sight of him. Larry was ashen. His eyes were red-rimmed as well.
“It’s Sheila,” Larry said. “Oh, God. It’s really Sheila. I had hoped…knowing Sheila…I just kept believing that she’d walk back in, irritated that we were so worried. That she would say she had just gone off to Paris or Rome…or, hell, Tampa. But it’s Sheila….”
He was going to break down again. Kelsey put an arm around him.
Larry covered his face with his hands.
Hector stood by him, his features both sympathetic and resolute. He was a homicide detective, a man who had been the bearer of such news before.
“Thank you very much for coming down. You were called in as the closest to kin we could find. I’m sorry, very sorry. And I assure you, we are doing everything we can to catch the killer.”
Larry nodded, getting a grip on himself.
“We’re free to go?” Nate asked.
“Of course. I’ll know where to find you when I need to ask more questions.”
“We all have cell phones,” Nate said.
Hector stared at Dane. “We’ll catch him.”
“You need to find Latham.”
“Oh, we will.” Hector was still staring at him. He turned and walked back toward the autopsy rooms.
“Let’s get back,” Nate told him.
“I need a drink,” Larry murmured.
“We’ll get Cindy…break it to her and go to the Sea Shanty. We’ll be together.”
The three of them rose.
“Kelsey,” Dane said, “drive with me.”
She looked at the other two, worried.
“Drive with me,” Dane repeated.
“Go with him,” Nate told her. “Larry and I are all right. We’ll pick up Cindy and meet you at the Sea Shanty.”
“All right,” Kelsey murmured.
As they stepped out to the parking lot, the sky was overcast. “Looks like we’re in for some weather,” Nate said.
But none of them cared about the weather anymore, even when it started to spit and sprinkle as they parted, walking to their cars.
“We’ll be right there,” Kelsey called as the two men walked off. “They look like a pair of lost puppies,” she said to Dane.
“And you…you’re all right?”
She gazed at him ruefully. “No. But I’m not going to fall apart. I’m too busy being angry at myself right now.”
“Trust me,” he said. “Everyone has regrets.”
Help me, Dane.
As they drove, silent tears trickled down Kelsey’s cheeks. She wiped them away angrily. “There are people who will say she was asking for it. They’ll never know what a horrible childhood she had, that she was always running. She was always trying to escape, always trying to get somewhere.”
“Yes,” Dane said softly.
She stared at him suddenly. “My God! You don’t know.”
He almost veered off the road. “Know what?”
“About Cindy.”
“What about Cindy?”
“They’re picking her up from the hospital. They thought they heard someone in
the yard again last night, and all started running around. From what Nate told me, she ran right into one of the storm shutters and knocked herself out.”
“They thought they heard someone and started running around outside again?” he said with distress.
“I guess Nate went out one way, and Larry and Cindy went out the other, trying to catch whoever it was.”
“They should have kept still and called Gary Hansen,” Dane said, dismayed. “They might have caught him.”
“So you think someone really was out there—even though the police had been by already?”
“I don’t just think it was someone, I think it was Andy Latham,” he told her.
“But if it’s Andy…Sheila is dead.”
“Hector just made the same point.”
“So…?”
“Dammit, Kelsey, don’t you see? You’re in danger.”
“Why me?”
“Who the hell knows?” he asked her. “Because you went after him. Because you were her friend. Because he’s psychotic. Perhaps because he thinks she might have said something to you. I don’t know.” He paused and looked at her. “I don’t know, but you’re staying with me and close to me. All right?”
She didn’t look his way. She was staring out the window. She had to be afraid.
She had seen Sheila’s morgue photo.
“Kelsey?”
“Yes, of course, I’ll stay with you.”
“We have a bit of a detour to make. It will only take a few minutes.”
She glanced at him at last.
He reached in his pocket and handed her his cell phone. “Call Jorge. Tell him we’re on our way to the gas station to meet him. I need to see Marisa.”
She frowned but did as he asked.
They arrived at the Sea Shanty later than the others because of the “detour” they had taken. They had met Jorge, who was upset about Sheila but understood Dane’s need to see Marisa.
They had driven to the neat little house on the outskirts of town, and she had met the young Latina stripper, who was strangely shy, incredibly sweet, and stalwart despite her fear of the authorities when Dane explained that it was imperative for her to contact Hector Hernandez and explain to him that she had seen Andy Latham at the club.