TWENTY-SEVEN

“Ashford and Fotopolus,” Punt said.

“Thought it was Fotopolus and Ashford,” I hissed, grinning and poking him.

He put his hand over the phone and winked. “Only when Nikko’s in town.”

“Jeff here, Punt. Sorry it’s taken me so long to get that info you wanted.”

“Thanks for the effort, Jeff. I know dealing with the department can be time consuming.”

“According to their rap sheets, only one of the five divers you mentioned had a past burglary conviction.”

“Gonna tell me which one, or do I have to guess?” Punt, pushed a button, setting the phone for conference call. “Keely Moreno’s here listening in.”

“Fine with me,” Jeff said. “A jury found Slone Pierce guilty of burglary in December of 1979. He broke into the Boog Powell Marina, made off with lots of cash and diving gear that the police later found hidden at his home. He did some jail time, served a large part of his sentence as an orderly, and then, due to his continued good behavior both as a prisoner and an orderly, the court released him on parole. He’s had no more run-ins with the law since that time.”

“Good work, Jeff,” Punt said. “This information may be a lot of help to us. A big thanks to you.”

“Glad to be of use, pal, and sorry it took me so long to get back to you. If there’s anything else I can do, give me a call and I’ll give it my best shot.”

Punt broke the phone connection and started making notes on a yellow pad. “So, I’ll cancel all my negative thoughts about Jeff and his getting back to me. For a while I thought he wasn’t going to make it.”

“So Slone Pierce may be the guy who threatened me and Maxine.” The back of my neck tightened as I remembered his smoldering eyes, his sleek heavy body. “He may be the guy who murdered Dyanne Darby.”

“He may be. May is the important word here. The information I read said that a significant percentage of people convicted for murder also had a past conviction for burglary. Slone Pierce’s burglary conviction in no way tells us for sure that he’s the one who murdered the Darby woman.”

“Maybe not, but in my mind it raises him to the top of our suspect list. A few days ago I read about a study that showed that four people out of every hundred are sociopaths—people born without a conscience, people who can murder with no guilty feelings. Slone Pierce could be one of those. There’s something about that cold look in his eyes that chills me. If he were innocent, why wouldn’t he give us a DNA specimen? Why did he make us go to the trouble of tricking him into leaving his saliva on the flap of an envelope?”

“I’m asking myself those questions, too, but at the same time I’m reminding myself that Ace Grovello has a cold look about him, too. Ace also refused to let us have any DNA. Just because Ace has no burglary conviction on his rap sheet doesn’t remove him from suspicion. And Gus Helmer used to turn you off, too, until you began working with him as a client.”

“Okay. I won’t say a negative word about any of Randy’s suspects again. So what do we do now?”

“Let’s call Hubble. We can offer her the DNA we’ve collected even though we have none from Ace Grovello. We can let her check on Slone’s past burglary conviction—can’t let her know Jeff dug up that info for us. But if Jeff found it, Shelley can find it in the same way.”

“All right,” I agreed. “Maybe she’ll agree to talk to us about this case, about the possibility of helping Randy again.”

“Maybe she’d even be willing to talk to us tonight. It’s still early.”

Punt keyed in Shelley’s number, leaving the phone on conference call. The phone rang five times before a man’s voice spoke.

“Attorney Hubble is unable to take your call at this time. Please leave a message, your name, and your phone number at the sound of the beep, and Ms. Hubble will get back to you as soon as possible.”

Punt replaced the receiver before the beep sounded.

“Damn! I wish we could have talked to her right now.”

“Maybe we should have left a message. She might be listening and breaking in to talk to the callers whom she finds of special interest. Sometimes I do that.”

“Or if she looks at her caller ID, she may recognize my name and return my call. Let’s wait around a bit.”

Punt brought us small bottles of sparkling lemonade from Nikko’s refrigerator and found a bag of chips in his bottom desk drawer. For a few minutes we munched and sipped without talking, but the phone remained silent. If Attorney Hubble knew Punt had telephoned, she obviously thought returning his call could wait until tomorrow.

“Maybe in the morning,” Punt said, sighing.

I was staring at my drink when a follow-up idea struck me. Why hadn’t I thought of it sooner? I leaned forward, tapping the bottle with my fingernail and organizing my thoughts.

“What’s wrong, Keely? Need another soda?”

“I just remembered something. Our talk about Ace leaving fingerprints in my office and about my booking another appointment for him brought it to mind. Maybe it’s something important. Or maybe not.” I jumped up and started toward the door. “But when I finished Ace’s treatment last week, I offered him a glass of lemonade. Not a bottled drink, but homemade juice from fresh fruit. I do that for all my clients. It was nothing special I did just for Ace.”

“And he drank it?”

“Yes. He drank it and set the glass on the bookcase near my desk while he reached for his billfold to pay me. My phone rang, distracting me. That’s when Ace paid and left my office without rebooking. Punt! That empty lemonade glass may be on the bookcase where he set it. It may have his fingerprints on it.”

“What day was that?”

“Last Thursday morning.”

Punt reached for his desk calendar and began checking dates. “Almost a week ago. This is Wednesday. Last Thursday would be a week ago tomorrow. You say Maxine cleans for you. When does she do that? What day of the week? And how thorough is she?”

“She cleans on Saturdays. Saturday afternoon, and usually she’s very thorough. But I’ve asked her to skip cleaning my office. She only does my living quarters.”

“So the glass may still be where Ace left it.”

“It may be. I’m too busy to keep count of every glass in my place of business or in my apartment either, for that matter. But if the glass’s still there and if what you say about DNA is true, then that glass may have Ace’s DNA on it—either fingerprints or dried saliva around the rim. Maybe both.”

“Let’s go take a look.”

As we left Punt’s office, he turned out the light, closed the door and locked it. Then he reopened it, snapped a light back on, and relocked.

“Your worries are beginning to rub off on me, Keely. It’s early evening, but a light left on could be a deterrent to an intruder later.”

Dusk darkened the street outside Punt’s office, and an onshore breeze reminded us that the sea surrounded our island. We drove through bumper-to-bumper traffic toward Duval Street. If New York is the city that never sleeps, then Duval must be the street that never sleeps. Teenage boys scooped the loop in conch cruisers that looked even gaudier than ours. Three tourists on mopeds rode adjacent to each other, fanning across two lanes of pavement and slowing traffic to a crawl. To Punt’s credit, he didn’t honk at them. Maybe he refrained because so many other horns blared and a police siren wailed from a distance.

“Tonight’s cops are too busy with the mopeders to notice this car.” Punt parked in the tow-away zone in front of Gram’s shop and we hurried into my office, snapping on lights as we went.

“There it is!” I almost tripped over a chair in my hurry to reach the bookcase. Punt grabbed my hand in the split second before I would have grabbed the glass.

“Wait! Don’t touch! Where can I find tongs, a plastic bag—a big one?”

“Some detective I’d make! I might have smudged my prints over any prints Ace left last week.”

Although my hands shook, I found a pair of tongs and a Ziploc bag. While I held the Ziploc open, Punt dropped the glass inside.

“So now we may have DNA from all five of Randy’s suspects,” I said. “Surely Shelley Hubble will listen once she hears our story and relates it to Randy’s plight.”

We were about to return to the cruiser when Gram rapped on my door then stepped inside.

“Gram!” I hurried toward her. “Are you all right? Can we help you?”

“I be fine. But hear news on radio few minutes ago—news you may need.”

“What news? Give.”

“Radio man say Nicole Pierce recants, that be the word he used, recants her words before judge, before jury people, words about Randy Jackson.”

“What else, Gram?” Punt and I both stepped closer to her. “What else?”

“That’s all I hear. Police sirens too loud. You want to know about this, yes?”

“Yes, Gram. Thanks for stopping by to tell us. We’ll learn more about it tomorrow. Or maybe on the late TV news.”

I saw Gram to her apartment, told her good night, and when I returned, Punt stood talking on the phone to someone at the radio station—and scowling.

“Guy hung up on me. Says to read about the recant in the Citizen tomorrow.”

“This could be a break for Randy!” I hurried with Punt back to the cruiser which hadn’t been towed away at the owner’s expense. We drove to his office, speculating about the news break Gram had heard. It could mean a lot of things. Maybe Nicole had remembered who she saw leaving Dyanne’s apartment on that long-ago night. Maybe this. Maybe that.

The inside light still gleamed, and when we entered Punt’s office, everything stood as we’d left it. Punt opened the safe, added the latest DNA fingerprint to our collection, and relocked the safe.

We were about to begin congratulating ourselves on our success due to my sketchy housekeeping when we noticed the red light blinking on the telephone.

“How did we overlook that?” Punt asked, reaching for the phone.

“Maybe Shelley Hubble decided we’re worth her attention after all.” We both sighed when Nikko’s voice flowed from Punt’s answer box.

“Nikko here, Punt. Calling from Orlando. I know you’ve barely had time to get home from Miami, but I need your help again. This time in Fort Lauderdale. Come as soon as you can and then phone Pete Branson. He’ll be expecting your call and he’ll put you up for a day or so at his condo. Try to get here before eleven if you can.”

Nikko gave his phone number along with Pete Branson’s and that was that. It was a three-hour drive to Miami and maybe another hour on to Lauderdale. Punt could never make it before eleven.

“Wish I’d been here to talk to him,” Punt said.

I wished that too, but I didn’t say so. I hated the idea of Punt being off island again so soon. I wondered how long he’d be away. Nikko’s “a day or so” sounded vague. Maybe ominous. I straightened up both physically and mentally, vowing never to allow myself to fall into the habit of being dependent on a man for my sense of personal worth and well-being.

“Drat!” Punt pounded on his desk. “As the junior partner, I’ve no choice but to go.”

“Anything I can do while you’re away? I mean I don’t want to approach Shelley Hubble alone. That’s a job for both of us. But is there anything else I could do? Pick up mail or something?”

“I’m not expecting anything important in the mail, and I’ll be in easy touch with Nikko. If Ace should call for a reflexology treatment while I’m away, you might want to put him off until I return.”

“No way.” I sounded braver than I felt. “Ace might have been the killer Nicole saw leaving the Darby apartment. I can take care of myself. Gram will play watchdog. Consuela’s the one who bothers me. What if she comes around insisting on helping us? She may ask about her contribution to the DNA box. She may even come up with another contribution—from Ace.”

“Just tell her we don’t need her help.” Punt grabbed my hand. “Keely, before I leave for Lauderdale, I want to drive to Nicole Pierce’s place—talk to her. Maybe ask her if she recanted because she’s remembered something important.”