DEAD GONE a gripping crime thriller full of twists Page 10

  “Well, go to the hospital.” Tom pulled his eyes away. “Sell your shit, your giant car, I don’t know, sell the house, come up with the money. I gotta go.”

  “Tom . . .” Nick called, but Tom was already going down the stairs.

  Instead of walking out the front, though, he was drawn to the backyard again. He stepped out into the bright sunshine, relieved to be out of Nick’s dark house. He watched the water flowing past. Nick had been living in Port Royal for several years and had never bought a boat. “We’re land-lubbers,” he’d said once while they sat out together. It was true. They were kids who’d never spent any time on the water, and now they lived in a place where it surrounded them — oceans and creeks and bays and estuaries. As if they lived here, but still didn’t quite belong.

  Nick and his drug problems. Nick and his gambling problems. If it wasn’t one, it was the other. And now he had guys beating him up. Probably the juice was running, and that ten thousand was just going to get heavier by the day.

  The state bureau knew about the dog track, of course, and betting at the track was perfectly legal — pari-mutuel wagering on greyhound racing was allowed with a permit. But dog racing was a sport in serious decline. Owners had turned to other revenue streams. Poker was in a legal gray area.

  The poker businesses at the tracks, like the one in Bonita Springs, were highly profitable. And State of Florida law mandated that in order to keep the poker room open, the dogs had to keep running, even though the racing was losing two and a half million bucks a year.

  What it all meant was quasi-legal gambling, frustrated track owners, and crime taking root. Nick had probably lost at poker. Three-card poker or Pai Gow poker or Casino War — he’d lost, then cheated to make it back, and they’d given him a warning.

  Tom turned away from the river. He looked up at the second floor, expecting to see Nick in the window. But Nick wasn’t there. His older brother, who’d had a bright future in front of him, was getting his kneecaps cracked by gambling goons. It seemed Nick was doomed to a life of abuse.

  Tom heard the sound of an engine out front. He thought Nick had hopped in the Escalade and taken off, but it was still there. A different vehicle, the black truck, raced away down the street and turned the corner out of sight.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Tom stopped by the field office, an annex in the shadows of the County Courthouse. He needed to get Nick off his mind. But Nick had made him think of something.

  The field office was small, a main room with a kitchenette, a bathroom and a supply closet. Tom clicked on the closet light and rifled through boxes of supplies. He came up with various maps, found one he liked and tacked it to the wall beside his desk.

  Nick had given Tom the lowdown on Naples’ development more than once. Fifty years ago the city wasn’t much more than a couple streetlights and a pier. Development had followed the coast north. To the south was swampland. Now the whole area was developing at an incredible rate. It was a mixture of old and new.

  The Gulf Coast south of Port Royal was a series of islands and bays, Rookery the largest. The only road access was Shell Island Road. Otherwise the various creeks threaded from the bays toward residential areas.

  But the geography meant nothing without the right suspect.

  Bosco, the bouncer from Hush, still topped the list of potentials. Carrie’s ex-husband, Steve Hobson, was next. Sasha Clay, the stripper, went on it, too. As did the man in the ratty sweater. Tom wanted to know all the regulars from the club, anyone who came in and requested that Carrie — aka Amber — give them a private dance. He also wanted to check in with the tattoo parlor where she’d had the butterfly done, though that was further down the list.

  He called Machado this time. “How are things going with the list of Reserve volunteers?”

  “Almost done. So far, everyone is accounted for.” She paused. “How about you? How are you doing?”

  Tom almost wanted to say something about Blythe, how she’d reamed him out. Machado was nice, sympathetic. But he held his tongue.

  “I’m good.”

  “Good.”

  Tom thanked her and ended the call.

  It seemed more and more like Carrie hadn’t had anything to do with the Reserve, her body had just been dumped there, the killer needing a place to hide it.

  But, had it been hidden? Not exactly. It was right on the route of Susan Libby’s sunrise tour. Stopper Creek. That could mean a couple of things. It could mean that the killer hadn’t known any better, he’d thought it was a reasonable place to hide a body. The Reserve was, after all, a hundred thousand acres. Or the killer might’ve thought the body would be found eventually by one of the conservation officers who patrolled the site, or Susan Libby herself.

  In the latter scenario, the killer was a type of narcissist, hoping his work would be discovered. Maybe he had some vendetta against Libby, maybe against the Reserve. Could be someone who was anti-environmental. Or even someone who’d been hurt by the new regulations which restricted businesses and development around Rookery Bay.

  But that was a stretch — a killer making an environmental statement by dumping a stripper from Tampa in the estuary? Long shot.

  Tom stared at the map.

  The dump site was over two hours from Tampa, and that remained significant. A person didn’t kill someone and then risk the time and exposure by disposing of the body that far away. It was more likely Carrie Hobson was murdered in the vicinity. So the real, primary crime scene had yet to be discovered, where there might be blood from her head wound. Somewhere there might be other personal effects — maybe a bag or purse she’d had with her.

  He leaned closer to the map, his eyes roving, taking in as much as he could.

  The press conference later that afternoon would issue the number for a hotline. If anyone in Naples knew Carrie Hobson, they would hopefully ring in. Maybe she had friends down here.

  He went to the kitchenette and put on a pot of coffee. Then he walked to the window, wondering how Alicia was doing.

  * * *

  Before returning to the condo he visited the Everglades County Prosecutor’s Office and spoke with a prosecutor named Ginny Staithe in the domestic violence unit. Staithe agreed to look at the hospital records on Alicia.

  When he got home, the landscapers were out, the big van parked near Tom’s unit: VillaGomez Landscaping and Lawn Service. It made him think of Josh McDermott’s Four Palms Landscaping. One of the crew had the leaf-blower going, the rest were out of sight. Probably hurrying to get the job done before an afternoon storm broke. But Tom checked the sky — a gathering darkness had dissipated. It was too bad because the region needed rain — there had been a bit of a drought that spring.

  Alicia’s car was gone. Tom opened the garage and parked the Jeep.

  “Hello?”

  No answer. Vance wasn’t there, the mother and daughter were gone. He found a note on the counter in the kitchen.

  Tom, thanks for everything. Sorry to have caused you any trouble.

  Good luck with your new job!

  It was signed by Alicia, the dots of the “i”s big and round.

  The dishes were done, the couch-bed had been dismantled and the blankets put away. He suddenly felt bad, a mixture of guilt and sadness. Like he hadn’t given Alicia the attention he should have.

  Alicia and Gwen lived on the other side of St. Andrews Boulevard, in an area called Naples Manor, which sounded swanky, but was a working-class part of the city, mostly Latino. He thought Alicia had some Latina heritage in her — she had dark eyes and dark hair, an olive touch to her skin.

  He remembered now how Charlene knew her: not as a neighbor, but because Alicia bartended at the Rivergate Hotel. Charlene’s husband, Roger, had worked night security there before he took ill.

  His phone rang. Ginny Staithe was on the line.

  “Ms. Staithe, thanks for calling me back so quickly.”

  “My pleasure, Agent Lange. So, we’ve got an unwilling victim?�
�� She was referring to Alicia.

  “Looks that way. I’m still hoping to turn her around. But she’s scared.”

  “I’ve seen the pictures. That would scare me, too, guy like that around. Well, you know how this goes. If she stays unwilling, it can get ugly if you want to keep pushing. We could threaten her with hindering prosecution. I mean, we’ve got the physical evidence on record, but these battery cases, we’ve bumped these up to felonies. We could try to proceed without her sworn statement, but I think you know what’s going to happen. It will get held over for grand jury action to see if there’s a true bill.”

  He appreciated that Staithe was a straight shooter and he knew she was right. Unfortunately it all amounted to either Alicia proceeding with the charges willingly, or Tom turning into the bad guy when, because of him, the County subpoenaed Alicia to sit through a preliminary hearing only to have the defense argue against allowing her testimony. He didn’t know if he wanted to force Alicia into that tug-of-war.

  “I’ll keep talking to her, Ms. Staithe. Really, thanks for getting back to me so soon.”

  “Best thing you can do, you know, assure her that the path of least resistance is her sworn statement. With her written testimony and the photographed, physical evidence, they might plea out.”

  “That’s what I told her.”

  “She’d still need to be at the preliminary hearing, though.”

  “Yeah . . .” He thought of Alicia making excuses about missing work, finding somewhere for Gwen to go. No one liked to be in open court.

  “And, if worse comes to worse, you can see if she’ll seek an injunction.”

  “Thanks again.”

  Tom stood in the middle of the living room suddenly feeling like he was fucking everything up. It just hit him, all at once, the idea that since yesterday morning he’d done one wrong thing after another. Was he supposed to pressure Alicia to file charges? Or just let her live her life? Should he help Nick, or was that enabling?

  He wondered if Dr. Camden’s number was still the same. It had been three years, at least, since they’d spoken. They’d kept up contact by phone (Camden didn’t like email). Tom had called every once in a while, mostly to put Camden’s mind at ease, to assure him how good everything was going. The psychiatrist had been a big part of Tom and Nick’s life after their parents had died.

  He tossed the phone onto the couch and headed upstairs. Maybe he’d call Camden later. As he walked into his bedroom an awful smell stopped him in his tracks. He opened his bedroom closet and identified the source — his clothes in the hamper, the suit he’d been wearing yesterday. It needed to be dry-cleaned — no, it needed to be burned. The stench of the morgue filled the small space.

  And he had to go back to the morgue today.

  He stripped out of his clothes and turned on the shower. The irony of showering before returning to the morgue wasn’t lost on him — but he’d been up all night, the day had been hot, he needed to re-set before continuing. He remembered something he’d heard once, that there were two kinds of work — the kind you showered before, and the kind you showered after. His work required both.

  * * *

  Ward made the Y-incision in Carrie Hobson’s chest. The blood flowed into the gutters on either side of the inclined table and went down the collection drain with a sucking sound.

  At least they were in the main autopsy suite today.

  Tom looked at Carrie’s breasts, small pink nipples, and he thought of the many men who’d ogled those same breasts at Hush.

  He watched as Ward worked the scalpel, slicing through flesh easily. The whole thing was surreal: taking out her organs, weighing them on the scale, then setting them into special pans. Andrea, Ward’s ubiquitous assistant, wrote everything down — how many grams the organs weighed, the coloring, any distension. Every detail. The process was painstaking, and Tom’s mind wandered.

  He wanted to get back to the club, question the employees and certain customers. But Blythe was meeting with Turnbull and the new prosecutor, Bob Mandi. Since the case now involved Tampa, an entirely different district and jurisdiction, bigger guns were required. Once they had the warrant from Judge Tapper they would return to Tampa, search the apartment and talk to the ex-husband. And they would return to Hush. For now, Blythe considered the body the priority, and she was probably right. So far it was Carrie Hobson’s body that had given them the tattoo helping to identify her and the head wound which indicated homicide. What was inside of her could reveal even more.

  Tom watched Ward for a while. The pathologist moved with a kind of elegant dexterity, somewhere between a master chef and a professional athlete. He had one speed. Blythe had called him meticulous, but Tom thought she’d meant “methodical.” Ward never wavered in what he was doing.

  Tom needed to walk around, circle around the room, stretch his legs. He glanced at his phone. Nick had left three messages. But there was no call from Judge Tapper yet confirming the warrant for Carrie’s apartment.

  Ward snapped off his gloves and ushered Tom into the breezeway. Grateful to be outside, Tom sucked in the fresh air. He glanced up and saw stars in the night sky. The internal had so far taken four hours.

  “We’ve extracted the essential proteins from the liquid stomach pulp,” Ward said. “So far everything looks consistent with the estimated time of death. I’m not seeing anything unusual, nothing to indicate internal poisoning. I was informed that your crime lab found trace amounts of alcohol in the blood. But no other intoxicants?”

  Tom nodded. “We’re working on the full toxicology report.”

  Tom noticed the way Ward pressed his wrists against his lower back, pale fingers dangling against his blood-spattered apron. He thought of Jack Vance talking about Cutthroat Kitchen. The analogy was disturbing.

  “If the metabolic capacity of the liver for a given drug is great, bioavailability is substantially decreased,” Ward said.

  “What now?”

  Ward gave Tom a condescending look. “It’s called the ‘first pass effect.’ There are many factors that modify absorption. The victim’s metabolism, the type of drug, the site of administration . . .”

  “You mean you can’t tell if there were any drugs in her system.”

  “. . . molecular size and shape of the drug, solubility at the site of absorption, chemical characteristics, manner of administration, these all affect drug transfer. How long did they give you for the toxicology report?”

  “They said a week, maybe.”

  Something flashed in Ward’s eyes and he folded his hands in front of the bloody apron. “There you have it. People expect everything now, now, now.”

  “Are you saying there are drugs in her system, or aren’t there? What about rape?”

  “I’m saying I can’t make that assessment, Agent Lange. Not clinically. For the reason I just explained. Blood and DNA take time. You want to know about rape. Determining signs of sexual abuse is considerably more difficult because of the superimposition of post-mortem modifications. Tissue modifications that can be mistaken for traumatic lesions.”

  Ward had kept telling Tom what he couldn’t say for sure, and why. The doctor didn’t want to commit to anything. He wanted to spout off medical terms and criticize society. Normally there might be lawyers present at an autopsy like this. But the police had no suspect, had made no arrests. There was no one to defend. The Office of the State Attorney had entrusted them with overseeing the autopsy. Tom was alone to handle it.

  “Okay, thank you, Doctor. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Ward gave Tom another snide look and went inside, leaving Tom pacing the breezeway. Drugs, no drugs, Ward couldn’t say. Head trauma as cause of death, he couldn’t say. Tom thought the pathologist would spend another month cutting and probing if he could. Poking and prodding, sending things up to the ROC, just to prove to everyone what a head-scratcher it all was.

  “Fuck!” Tom muttered. He was holding his goggles and he threw them in the ferns. He wanted to
hit something, anything. The sudden frustration was on him so intensely he felt like a wild animal. His brother, Alicia, the painstaking autopsy — all he could do was keep pacing. Then he stopped and pressed his palms against the cool stucco wall. He stared at the ground between his feet. “Fuck,” he said again, just a breath.

  He fished his goggles out of the ferns and decided to go for a walk.

  * * *

  Machado called after he left. The driving abstract on Carrie, based on her license plate, had come through. Her maiden name was Gallo. She was Carrie Anne Gallo to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

  “She has a Facebook page, but it’s been inactive for over two years. Lots of pictures of her dancing at what look like big shows. She’s like an extra dancer, whatever you call it, sort of off to the side. And pictures of her sisters, I think, and her mother — you can see the family resemblance. Two sisters, is what I found. I’ll send it all over to you. But, like I said, not active for more than a couple years. No Twitter account or Instagram or anything else I found except for a Match.com profile.”

  “Match.com? Do people still use that? I thought it was Tinder now, or something.”

  “Like you don’t know,” Machado joked.

  “Haha. I don’t.”

  “Uh-huh. Alright, I’ll send that to you also.”

  “Thank you.”

  Machado had cheered him up, and he had another piece of the puzzle. He realized he’d walked a fair distance from the Medical Examiner’s Office and didn’t quite know where he was. Somewhere between Goodlette-Frank and 10th Street. Small, simple houses. Lots of rhododendron, ficus trees, bougainvillea shrubs. A little girl rode her bike up the street, giving him a look. He was a white man who’d wandered into one of Naples’ only African-American neighborhoods.

  He found his way back to the morgue. The internal autopsy wouldn’t be done, but the press conference would begin at six o’clock, broadcast live on the evening news. Murders were rare in Naples and the case was drawing attention.