As soon as Sonia left, Lara looked at Meg, frowning. “What’s bothering you about Dr. Treme?” she asked.
“He’s the doctor who signed Randy Nicholson’s death certificate.”
“Should we stop her?” Lara asked nervously.
“No. He’s probably not guilty of anything. The man flatlined, and an entire group of medical personnel thought he was dead.”
“But...?”
“I’ll call Matt and Brett,” Meg said.
“Perfect,” Lara said, jumping up.
“Where are you going?” Meg asked her.
“To stop Sonia. I’ll get her to postpone, tell her I could use her help thinking about next season’s gala,” Lara said. “Just to be safe.”
Meg nodded. “A conspiracy of the unwitting,” she murmured.
* * *
Diego, Matt and Brett stood in the offices of the Diaz-Douglas funeral home, along with the entire staff. They went over the events that had followed the arrival of Randy Nicholson’s body at the mortuary. Every employee seemed equal parts stunned, scared and mystified. They’d been there for thirty minutes, and all they’d ascertained so far was that yes, the body had arrived. Many of the employees had seen it, but since the family hadn’t wanted embalming or an open casket, there had been no need for anything beyond cleaning and dressing the body, then laying it in the silk-lined coffin his children had chosen. That meant, as Mr. Douglas had explained, most of them had no actual contact with it.
“All right,” Brett said. “Who prepared Mr. Nicholson for the coffin?”
Carl Sage lifted his hand. “I cleaned and dressed Mr. Nicholson,” he said. “I laid him in the coffin, and I sealed the coffin. And I can tell you, when I did so, Mr. Nicholson was in it. Two of our ushers, Mike Bitter and Victor Menendez, helped me set it in place for the service. We also saw that it was transported from the funeral home to the cemetery. I’m telling you, they did not take the body, and neither did I.”
“What about the night the body stayed at the mortuary?” Brett asked.
“I was here until quite late, as usual, but I locked up when I left,” Carl said.
“Anyone else? After closing, I mean,” Matt asked.
“We were all here for a while,” Carl said. “The ushers leave first, but Mr. Douglas and Mr. Diaz were here for a while. And Mrs. Diaz,” he added. “When they left, I locked up and then went to my office.”
“May I see your office?” Brett asked.
Carl looked at his bosses. Both men nodded grimly.
It was odd, Brett thought as Carl led him, with Diego and Matt, with Diaz and Douglas following, through the employees-only area, that while he’d attended many autopsies, he’d never been behind the scenes at a mortuary. They passed by the embalming room, where several bodies were in various stages of preparation.
Somehow, he found this place sadder even than autopsy. In an autopsy, doctors worked to discover cause of death. To speak for the dead.
While here...
The soul was gone, but every pretense was taken to pretend the dead weren’t really gone. A makeup set on a tray sat by a stainless-steel gurney holding the remains of an older woman.
No amount of makeup would change the fact that she would never look like herself again. The internal spark that had made her who she was had fled.
They moved past the embalming room and stood in the doorway of Carl’s office. The small room held a desk, a computer, filing cabinets—the usual accoutrements of any office, although this one also held a collection of books on embalming, and the reconstruction and cosmetic preparation of bodies. There was also a thick book of Florida statutes on proper and legal burial procedures.
But it wasn’t the office itself that interested Brett. It was the fact that the office was at the far end of the hall, near the funeral home’s receiving bay. But if the office door was closed, the bay doors could easily be opened and closed—and someone in the office would be none the wiser.
“Do you keep your door shut when you’re in here?” Brett asked Carl.
“Yeah. I turn on my music and do my paperwork,” Carl said. He seemed puzzled by their question.
Matt walked to the end of the hall and the receiving doors. Diego closed the office door.
“What’s going on?” Diaz demanded.
“There are only five people with keys?” Brett asked him.
“Yes, I told you. Myself, Jonathan, my wife, Carl and Jill,” Diaz said. “Why?”
“Because I think someone opened that door and let somebody in, somebody who took Randy Nicholson’s body from the mortuary,” Brett said.
“That’s just not possible.” Douglas sounded genuinely indignant.
“I think it’s time we stopped cooperating and called our attorneys,” Diaz said.
* * *
The only way Lara could legitimately think of to stop Sonia from going to her appointment was to come up with something else for her to do, so she told her that Meg was crazy about her designs and really wanted to take her to lunch. It was a bit hard to persuade Sonia to agree, but in the end she agreed to reschedule her checkup for a second time. Given her semi-celebrity status, Dr. Treme’s office was more than happy to oblige.
Lara raced back to brief Meg on her “role,” and then they joined Sonia outside. Her chauffeur drove them over the causeway to South Beach.
The area had a character all its own, a faded elegance left over from the days of Sinatra and Al Capone, who had both spent time here. The hotels had weathered through the years, and the local kids had come in droves to ride waves that really weren’t there. High-class restaurants and nightclubs had been replaced by coffee shops and bagelries. Then a boom had hit. The old deco hotels had been recognized as the treasures they were, painted and spruced up, and high-end restaurants and clubs had made a comeback.
The problem with the beach now was parking, but they didn’t have to worry about that, since Sonia’s chauffeur would drop them off, then come back for them when Sonia called.
They opted to stroll along Lincoln Road Mall and choose a restaurant at random. Options were plentiful, along with shops, a movie theater, a bookstore—and dozens of dogs. The open-air mall was known for being pet friendly. All three of them were dog fans, and they stopped to compliment so many dogs that Lara was afraid she would be gone so long that she would miss a full afternoon of work.
Sonia finally chose a restaurant, and of course she knew the owners. They were shown to a special table and offered a select champagne. Lara and Meg demurred—they were working—but encouraged Sonia to enjoy.
Sonia, meanwhile, was delighted with the whole event. “Lunch with girlfriends! This is something I never get to do,” she told them.
As they ordered and ate, Lara thought she understood why. Sonia was approached several times by people who wanted their pictures taken with her.
Sonia explained that she always tried to be obliging when people recognized her. “I met Versace once when I was young. People loved him because he was always so available. He lived on the beach. He had breakfast at the News Café. He was a man of the people, and I want to be the same.”
Lara realized that she really liked Sonia. The woman was a bundle of sincere energy. Glancing at Meg, she knew that her friend was thinking the same. While Meg had always been hell-bent on her law enforcement career, Lara had intended to save the world through politics. Their friends hadn’t often been fashionistas.
It wasn’t until they were almost ready to leave that Lara noticed Ely Taggerly having lunch with three other men in a dark corner of the restaurant. Ely was nodding vehemently as he spoke, making some kind of point. He was clearly aggravated. Lara hadn’t seen him angry before, but then she’d only seen him at Sea Life, and the facility seemed to have a calming effect on everyone.
It wasn’
t until Ely shifted in his chair that Lara realized one of the men he was having lunch with was Sea Life’s own Nelson Amory. Amory, too, looked annoyed.
“Look who’s here!” Sonia said, noticing the men at that moment, and before anyone could stop her, she hurriedly swept through the restaurant to their table.
As Lara quickly rushed to get ahead of the temperamental woman, intent on averting a potentially disastrous encounter if she could, she saw that the other men at the table were two of their other benefactors, Grant Blackwood and Mason Martinez.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” Lara said breathlessly as Sonia came up behind her. “How nice to see you all together. Are you planning a new line of vitamins for dolphin health?” she teased.
“No, no, of course not,” Dr. Amory said, rising. Lara was certain that he was drawing out his answer because he was thinking up a lie.
“We’re all planning on being at your Sunday event,” Grant said. By then, all four men had risen.
“And in the meantime, I’m trying to squeeze more money out of them for research,” Dr. Amory said.
They were lying—she was sure of it—but why lie to her? Maybe one of them was trying to persuade Dr. Amory to leave Sea Life and work for him instead?
Maybe later she would walk down to the education building and ask Dr. Amory straight out.
“Well, keep squeezing,” she said cheerfully.
“He’s pretty good at it,” Ely told her, smiling benignly.
He always appeared to be the perfect gentleman, but Grady had told her once that even though they always saw him as kind and smiling, he was hell in a boardroom. He’d built his pharmaceutical company from nothing, and his scientists had done a lot of groundbreaking work with diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.
He’d made a small fortune on his drug patents, and he’d told her once that all drug companies changed things up just a little now and then to keep their patents in force. “After the money and effort we put into developing them? We don’t like to see the generic showing up two seconds later.”
As nice as he’d always been to her, though, she felt uneasy now, certain that she and Sonia—who was smiling and chatting, she noticed, completely oblivious to the undertone Lara had picked up on—had interrupted something they shouldn’t have.
“Who is that pretty young woman waiting for you?” Grant asked, slurring slightly. A glance at the table showed that it had probably been a three-martini lunch for him.
“My friend Meg,” Lara said. “She’s with the FBI, but she’s down here for a while.”
“Well, isn’t that too bad?” Blackwood said with a laugh. “Anyway, I think she’s getting impatient. You fillies oughta mosey along.”
“We’re not fillies, Grant,” Sonia said. “You show some respect.”
“Yes, ma’am!” he agreed, grinning.
Sonia rolled her eyes. “We’ll see you on Sunday—enjoy your lunch,” she said.
“See you Sunday,” Lara echoed. They rejoined Meg at the table, where she had waited.
“Meg, you didn’t join us,” Sonia said.
“I was afraid to make us any later. Lara has to be back at work,” Meg said, standing and tucking a receipt into her wallet, having apparently paid the check while they were talking to the men.
But Lara also knew exactly what her friend had really been doing.
Watching. She had realized that Lara felt disturbed.
“Just as well. Blackwood is a douche,” Sonia said, looking at Lara as if for confirmation.
“I’m not saying a word,” Lara said.
Sonia laughed. “Let’s go, then. I’ll call Henri and we’ll head back. This was delightful. I hope we can do it again.”
“That would be nice,” Lara assured her.
“Absolutely,” Meg agreed.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, back in Lara’s office, Meg closed the door and turned to her. “Okay, tell me about them—all of them.”
“You met Dr. Amory, and all the men he was with are big supporters of Sea Life. Grant Blackwood is a Texan pain in the ass who tries to pick up just about every woman he meets, even though he’s married. A lot of women are flattered and fall for his line, and they don’t care about his wife because he’s not just rich, he’s filthy rich. Ely Taggerly is the founder and CEO of Taggerly Pharmaceuticals. And the last guy was Mason Martinez, the health guru. You must have seen him on at least one of a dozen of his infomercials for vitamins or exercise equipment.”
“Yeah, I thought I recognized him. So they were with Amory because he was trying to hit them up for money?”
Lara shrugged. “So he claimed.”
“But you didn’t believe him?” Meg asked.
Lara shook her head. “He looked guilty. I think maybe one of them was trying to hire him away from Sea Life. He’s a brilliant man. He has doctorates in marine biology and veterinary medicine. He’s done all kinds of research. Before he came here he was with the military. They still use dolphins in some missions. The animal-rights activists aren’t happy about it, and I think maybe he came here precisely because we’re all about learning what the dolphins themselves need.” She frowned. “Why? Are you suspicious of him for some reason?”
“I’m always suspicious of everyone,” Meg said. “And pieces of Miguel Gomez’s body were found in this lagoon.”
“Dr. Amory would never be guilty of that. I can’t believe he could kill, and even if he was capable of murder, he wouldn’t want his dolphins in a lagoon that was contaminated in any way.”
“Still, it’s an interesting situation,” Meg said. “I think I should find out a little more about Dr. Amory and your sponsors.”
“I know Dr. Amory well, and the others I’m getting to know, and I don’t think any of them would—”
Meg cut her off. “I believe you. But remember what Brett said about an unwitting conspiracy.”
“But there’s no reason whatsoever to suspect anyone at Sea Life,” Lara protested. “Those body parts don’t mean anything. The ocean is huge!”
“Precisely,” Meg said.
10
Arnold Wilhelm’s cause of death was no mystery. Three teens had seen him thrown in front of an oncoming train, which had knocked him to the ground below like a rag doll. As to Miguel Gomez, Dr. Phil Kinny was still inspecting slides and studying lab reports. He wasn’t quite sure what some of the chemical combinations he’d discovered were, but the end result was that while the cognitive section of the brain had been destroyed, the part that controlled rudimentary memory movement had apparently been fully functioning for some time between his first “death” in the warehouse and his actual death.
“If I only had another specimen to compare him to,” Kinny told Brett, before quickly apologizing. “I’m sorry. Miguel Gomez was a human being, and I’m not trying to take that away from him. I am trying to help solve his murder. To that end, if we were just able to find out what’s happened to Randy Nicholson, I believe I could make further strides. In the meantime, I have our best neuro experts conferring with me on this.”
Brett couldn’t help but feel as if he had burst into a twisted version of The Princess Bride. A man could be mostly dead but not completely dead. Then The Princess Bride segued into a horror version of The Wizard of Oz.
If I only had another brain...
He and Diego had spent the day at the funeral home with Matt, and then the three of them had gone to the cemetery. Brett was growing more and more certain that Randy Nicholson’s body had disappeared from the funeral parlor, and not on the way to the cemetery or after its arrival. They’d found too many witnesses to attest to the coffin being sealed before being encased in cement. Diaz and Douglas had lawyered up, but under the circumstances, until they found direct evidence rather than plausible theory, there w
ere no charges they could bring against the mortuary anyway.
The only thing in their favor right now was the power of social media. Randy Nicholson’s family was more than happy to vent their grievances online, and it was bound to have an effect, which might force Diaz and Douglas to be more forthcoming. After all, who wanted to bury a loved one out of a funeral home that didn’t actually get the dead into the ground?
By the end of the afternoon he’d traipsed over more ground and spoken with more people than he could count, and that was even with dividing the question-and-answer sessions with Matt and Diego. And none of it had turned up anything useful. He was convinced that someone at the Diaz-Douglas Mortuary Chapel knew more than they were saying; however, unless someone cracked under the pressure and gave him a clue, there was nothing he could do except keep investigating.
At six o’clock Matt suggested that they call it quits, at least for dinner and a breather. Just as Brett was about to agree, he got a call from Lara.
“Brett, Papa Joe just called me. He wants to meet—with me, I mean, and I told him about you, so he wants you there, too. And Meg, of course. He asked us to meet him at a little place called La Petite Bar. He doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it, so he’s going to come with a selection of jewelry to make it look as if he’s trying to sell something to us.”
“Papa Joe, who owns the voodoo store?” Brett asked.
“Yes. He says he may have some pertinent information.”
Brett was thoughtful for a moment. “I’ll come get you and Meg, and I’ll ask Diego and Matt to follow at a distance, then pull surveillance from outside or even inside, whatever they think will work. Where are you? At Sea Life?”
“No, we’re at my house.”
“Okay, I’m on my way.”
He filled the others in as they headed for their cars.
“This guy obviously feels he’s taking a chance,” Brett said quietly. “I don’t want to put a spotlight on him.”
“He could be guilty of something,” Diego commented.
“I don’t think so,” Brett told him. “He called Lara more or less out of the blue. We have absolutely nothing on the man, no reason to connect him to this case or anything else. I think he’s just trying to do the right thing.”