That person had never been found, though, nor had he left any clues they could trace. The most logical conclusion had been that Miguel had been killed. After all, he certainly hadn’t come home after the fire.
It must have been that person who was killed, though how Miguel’s effects had come to be there was still a mystery. It would have been easy to misidentify the body, though, since there truly hadn’t been anything useful left for the medical examiner to work with.
And now Maria, too, was dead. Brett had liked her. She’d been a slim, fit, energetic woman in her late forties; there had been nothing plastic about her. Miguel had loved her with all his heart. He’d told Brett once that they’d met, dated about two weeks, then eloped. So quickly? Brett had asked. And Miguel had told him, “I knew—I just knew. And it didn’t matter how long we’d been together or what others thought. I knew that I would love her forever.”
Maria had been wonderful. She’d had warm brown eyes and a few wrinkles, no doubt the result of her quick smile, and a great heart. From the ladder, Brett observed her and made mental notes to help in his investigation. Her head was at an angle, and he had a feeling her neck was broken. One arm looked broken, as well.
There was nothing in her hands, as far as he could see. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup; it appeared she had been just about to go to bed when...
She looked so alive—except that she was dead, of course.
Instinct told him that she had seen her killer coming.
Her open, glazed eyes showed disbelief and pure terror, and he couldn’t help wondering just who she had seen before she died to put that look in her eyes.
“Anything?” Diego called to him.
“Looks as if she was tossed off the balcony like a rag doll. As if she died when she hit the tree,” Brett said.
“We’ll scrape beneath her nails,” Phil said. “If we’re lucky, she got a piece of her attacker.”
Brett climbed down from the ladder.
Diego set a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t take this on yourself, mi amigo,” he said. He had been born in Miami and grown up with English as his first language, but he liked to switch to Spanish when he thought the Spanish words sounded more “real” or appropriate. “Mi amigo,” he had once told Brett, was warmer than “my friend,” with more real meaning.
“I’m not,” Brett said, but he knew that he was lying. “Diego, her eyes—you should see the look in her eyes.”
“She was murdered, Brett, of course she has a look in her eyes.” Diego was quiet for a minute. “We’re lucky we got here before the birds,” he added softly.
Brett had to agree. He’d come across victims who had been hidden by nature before. Nature wasn’t gentle on a corpse.
“There’s just something disturbing about her,” Brett said.
“Yeah, she’s dead.”
Brett looked at Diego, trying not to show his aggravation at his partner’s callous comment, but then he saw that Diego was staring up at the tree, obviously upset by Maria’s death himself.
Diego looked at Brett. “So we’re going to be lead on this? Despite Bryant and his crew having been on the Barillo thing so long?”
“Bryant himself suggested to the powers that be that we take this on. I have to keep him advised, of course. He felt I deserved in on it. His team wouldn’t have had a lot of the information they used to bust a number of Barillo’s underlings if it hadn’t been for Miguel. They were all upset when he died, and not only because they lost a source, though I know that this will really affect Bryant and the team professionally, too. They were really hoping Miguel’s info could give them enough to arrest Barillo, or at least his immediate lieutenants.”
“We will find who did this,” Diego assured him.
Brett nodded. “Yes, we will. I’m going to speak with the agent who was watching the house.”
Diego nodded back. “I’m going to step out on the street, see if I can find anyone who saw anything odd, do a bit of canvassing.”
“Great. By the time we finish we can see if the forensic teams came up with anything.”
“I think we know who did this—the same people who murdered Miguel Gomez.”
Diego was probably right. But it was impossible to just go and arrest Barillo or his people. Barillo himself usually kept his hands clean. The man had been trained as a doctor in his native country, but he’d found crime far more profitable.
Brett followed Diego to the front of the beautiful old deco house. Some of the places around here were surrounded by big wood, stone or concrete walls. Not the Gomez home. The sides were fenced, as was the rear, but the front was open to the street.
Agent Bill Foley, who had been on duty in his car watching the house, was still by his car and staring up at the place. When he saw Brett coming toward him, his ruddy face grew even darker and he shook his head in self-disgust. He started speaking without even pausing to say hello.
“I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t on the phone, texting or even listening to music, Brett. I was watching that house. I don’t know how the hell anyone got inside. I tried to reach her on the phone for a prearranged check-in, but she didn’t answer. I went in and did a quick sweep and...no one. When I got upstairs and couldn’t find her I looked out, and I thought she’d jumped. She loved Miguel. She’d been depressed. Brett, I don’t know how the hell anyone got in there. If you don’t punch in the alarm code, a siren loud enough to wake the entire peninsula goes off.”
“Someone knew the password,” Brett said. “All we can do is theorize right now. Someone had the code—somehow. I don’t know. We’ll check into the alarm company, make sure they don’t have someone on the Barillo payroll. Someone could conceivably have come over the gate in the rear, lipped around through the foliage to the front door and then keyed in the entry code.”
“I don’t know how they got by me,” Bill told him.
“We’re canvassing the neighborhood,” Brett told him. “We’ll see if we can find anyone who saw anything unusual.”
Diego, he saw, was down the street, speaking with an elderly man who was walking a small mixed-breed dog. Diego motioned to him and he excused himself to Bill to join his partner.
Diego looked at Brett with a grim smile. “This is Mr. Claude Derby,” he said.
Brett nodded. “Special Agent Brett Cody, Mr. Derby. Thank you for speaking with us.”
“Of course,” the elderly man said.
Diego cleared his throat. “Mr. Derby says that he saw Miguel Gomez.”
Derby strenuously nodded. “It was right around dusk last night. I was out walking Rocko here. I saw him and said, ‘Miguel! Thank God—we all thought you were dead.’”
“Are you sure it was Miguel?” Brett asked.
“Of course I’m sure!” Derby said indignantly. “I’m old, but I’m not senile, at least not yet! And my eyesight is probably as good as yours, especially when I was standing as close to him as I am to you.”
“I’m sorry,” Brett said. “What did he say?”
“Well, he didn’t,” Derby told him. “I’ve never seen anyone act so strangely in my life. He just stood there, as if he was completely unaware of me. Like...like a zombie.”
“Like a zombie,” Diego repeated.
“Did he shuffle when he walked? Was his flesh rotting off?” Brett asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Derby said indignantly. “I’m not a fool, and you’ve seen too many movies. He just wasn’t right. It was as if he didn’t even know I was there, that I was talking to him. I’d say he totally ignored me, but I don’t think he really even saw me. It was weird. I figured maybe he was heading home, except he didn’t head for the front door. I thought maybe he was going around to the side door, that he wasn’t dead and the papers had had it all wrong. I figured he could be on some kind of medication that was
making him spacey. Anyway, I figured he’d get home and his wife could deal with him. Rocko and I, we just kept walking.”
“Thank you, Mr. Derby, thank you very much,” Brett said, but some of his skepticism must have been evident.
Derby wagged a finger at him. “Listen, Mr. Whatever Special Agent, I’m telling you God’s truth. I’m as sane as you are, and I’m not in the habit of seeing zombies around every corner. I saw Miguel Gomez, and he was not himself, not to mention the fact that someone who was supposedly burned to ashes would have a hard time coming back as a zombie.”
“I agree with you completely, sir,” Brett assured him. “And I thank you for your help. I would like to ask you, though, not to speak with the media.”
“Not a problem,” Derby said. “Well, not for me, but I did tell my wife when she was headed to bingo, so I’m not sure who else knows that I saw Miguel by now. If you have any more questions, I live catty-corner across the street.”
Brett thanked him again and looked at Diego.
“Miguel Gomez is alive after all,” Diego said.
“And he killed his wife?” Brett said, puzzled. “I just can’t believe that Miguel Gomez would have killed the woman he loved so much.”
“Zombies kill anyone,” Diego said lightly.
Brett looked at his partner.
“Sorry,” Diego said. “But you know it’s going to hit the news. By now everyone at bingo knows that one way or another, Miguel came back from the dead, and if they don’t know by now that his wife’s been killed, they will soon. I’ll go try a few more houses, find out if anyone else saw Miguel.”
* * *
Being in the water with Cocoa was an incredible high. Lara couldn’t remember when she’d felt quite so exhilarated. She’d done “flipper shakes,” dancing, dorsal pulls, splashing and more. Now they were playing with toys.
First she threw balls and rings. Then Rick told her that Cocoa was great at diving and finding things by sight, so they often sent her down to find anything someone had accidentally dropped.
“Guests use their phones and iPads as cameras on the docks and sometimes even on the platforms,” he told her. “But whatever they drop, Cocoa will find it. Not that your average cell phone still works after a dip in the lagoon, but Cocoa will bring them back up. Here, I’ll show you how good she is.”
“You going to sacrifice your cell phone?” she asked skeptically.
“No,” he assured her. “I have some little boxes that sink, same general size as a phone or a small camera. Cocoa has picked up lots of cameras, and a purse or two, as well. Here, I’ll show you. Take the box. Drop it, and then twirl your hand like this—” he demonstrated “—and say, ‘Cocoa, will you get that for me, please?’”
Lara did as Rick instructed. Cocoa was great, chattering her pleasure each time she made a retrieval.
“Shouldn’t I be giving her a fish?” Lara asked. “She’s done all her tricks, so doesn’t she get a reward?”
“Do you give a dog a treat every time you see it? Or do you let it know how much you care by petting it?”
“So I should just stroke her?”
“Yes, give her a nice stroke along the back, and then, when we’re finished, we’ll give her some fish.”
Lara tossed the boxes, first one, and then another. Rick told her to give specific vocal commands, asking Cocoa to get the big box or the little one.
It was amazing the way the dolphin responded.
“She’s brilliant!” Lara told him.
“I agree. She’s my girl, but she sure likes you.”
So I actually have a real friend in Miami, Lara thought wryly.
She happily tossed boxes and asked Cocoa to bring them up, and Cocoa kept complying.
Then she went down and came up with something else. It was on the tip of her nose, and she nudged it toward Lara.
“Not a box,” Lara murmured. “Cocoa, what did you find down there?”
She accepted the pale sticklike thing Cocoa gave her. She looked at it, confused for several seconds.
Then she screamed and it flew from her hand.
Back into the water.
She’d realized what it was.
A human finger.
2
Brett stood glumly listening to Dr. Phil Kinny explain that Maria had died sometime between ten and twelve the previous night. She’d died quickly, at least; her neck had been cleanly snapped on impact with the old banyan tree.
“Didn’t it take a lot of strength for someone to toss her that far?” Brett asked.
Kinny shrugged. “Yeah. But I’ve seen people do amazing things under certain circumstances. Adrenaline is something we have yet to fully explain. I’ve seen a tiny woman lift a three-hundred-pound man once. It was a kidnapping attempt. He was lying on top of her baby.”
“But did a zombie do it?” Diego asked. Brett glared at him, and Diego shrugged. “Hey, I’m friends with the cops who were first on-site the night of the latest ‘zombie’ attack. They told me the guy had bullets in his head and kept moving. That’s pretty incredible.”
“Incredible, yes—but he did go down,” Brett said. “Miguel is not a zombie. Someone died in that fire. We assumed it was Miguel, but apparently it wasn’t. Because if you try to tell me that ash can reconstitute itself into a zombie, I’ll tell you that you’re full of crap.”
“Maybe Miguel’s ghost is walking around,” Kinny said.
“Do you really believe that?” Brett asked.
“No. Besides, to the best of my knowledge, ghosts don’t kill anyone. They’re ethereal, ectoplasm or whatever.”
“You’re a scientist and a doctor—and you believe in ghosts?” Brett asked him.
Kinny brushed back his hair, watching as his assistants carefully removed Maria Gomez’s body from the banyan tree. “It’s because I’m a scientist—a doctor—that I said what I said. Energy never dies. Where it goes, we don’t know. I’m a skeptic with an open mind, how’s that? Also, I’ve been in rooms with the dead when I’ve felt something. Call me a hopeful believer. But in this case I’m with you, Brett. Miguel Gomez may well be alive. There wasn’t enough left to get DNA. That warehouse burned hotter than hell itself. Everything we have is essentially circumstantial, so who knows?”
Brett’s phone was vibrating in his jacket pocket. He quickly answered it to discover that it was his supervisor, Special Agent in Charge Marshall. “We’ve gotten a curious call. I know you’re at the Gomez house, but I thought you two might want in on this. A human finger was found at the Sea Life Center. One of the dolphins picked it up.”
“A finger?” Brett said. The population in South Florida had exploded in the past several decades, and with the higher population came a higher crime rate. That meant that far too often bodies—and body parts—were found in unexpected places.
He wasn’t sure why he and Diego were being called to investigate a finger. Not that a finger was a good thing to find.
“You want us to check out a finger?” he asked.
“Yeah, check it out. With Miguel and now Maria dead, I think the Barillo family is sending out lots of warnings. I want you to find out who that finger belonged to, and I want to know if there are more parts to go with it. You’re scuba certified, so I want you in the water. I’ll get dive equipment out to you. You and Diego are on this now, too, and I want you taking lead.”
Brett was silent.
He’d wanted in on Miguel’s case before. He’d felt he’d owed the man because he’d brought him to the Bureau, and now Maria was dead, too. Now he owed them both.
But his boss wasn’t taking him off the case, he reminded himself. He could still help find them justice. He was just taking on another case, too.
He wasn’t sure about how a finger in the water was connected with Barill
o, Miguel and the dead woman in the banyan tree, but he was going to find out. He had worked with dive units before, so he supposed it was a good call.
“Dr. Kinny, we’ll see your full report later,” he told the ME. “Right now we need to go.”
Diego arched a brow at him.
“We’re going diving, my friend,” Brett said.
Diego looked surprised, but he only shrugged and said, “Where you lead, I follow. Only ’cause I’m paid to, of course.”
“Hey, when you’re lead, I follow,” Brett reminded him.
“And you make a very good follower, too,” Diego said with a grin. “Now lead on. I’ll follow.”
* * *
“It’s a big city,” Meg told Lara over the phone. “Miami is a major metropolis, and that means there are murders. It’s terrible and, I admit, pretty weird that a dolphin gave you a human finger, but sad to say, things like that happen.”
Lara had called Meg as soon as she could. She was amazed by how quickly after her first hysterical reaction everything had changed. She had calmed down in just a couple of minutes and managed quite well, she thought.
Rick had figured out that the object was indeed a human finger at the same time she did. To her relief, she had actually thought to ask Cocoa to go back for the finger before Rick did. Once Cocoa had retrieved it again they’d called the police. Now there were police divers in the lagoon and more cops all over the place.
The finger itself was already on its way to a lab. Sea Life had been closed for the day, and the conversations she’d overheard earlier had been surreal. Some of the officers were speculating that the finger was all there was to find, that its removal had been a punishment, a lesson to do better next time, and that the owner was out there somewhere, alive and well, but minus the forefinger of his right hand.
Others were speculating about where the rest of the pieces of the body might be.