I HAD TO push the Zavala case aside for a while. The editor of Sarasota City Magazine had been hounding me about the fixes to my copy. She said they were getting ready to go to print and needed this wrapped up yesterday. The changes I had sent her helped, but they didn’t go far enough.
I sat at the computer and began to rework the article. More adjectives, more adverbs, and more details about the marble floor in the bathroom, what kind of marble, what kind of fixtures. Was it a Whirlpool tub? Did they have his and hers closets?
It was amazing to see the kind of shit people cared about. A faucet was a faucet. The only bad faucet was the one that leaked. But I couldn’t say that, so I closed my eyes and tried to remember the fucking opulent and over-the-top fixtures in the master bathroom. Gold. They were tacky gold-plated faucets. But now I had to spin that into pretty talk for the readers of the seven-dollar magazine that was like a long real estate ad.
I wrote: The master bathroom was a jewel in itself. The silk smooth Greek marble invited the soul to indulge in the finest Italian handmade, gold-plated faucets that reflected every sparkle from the vanity lights and made you wonder if you were in the presence of the gods. Beauty is too small a word for what the designers have accomplished with this unique and opulent space. This house was designed with the most luxurious details for the ultimate pampering of its owners.
There. Good enough to make me puke. I was on a roll. But then I was interrupted by Maya. It just crashed against my brain like a dream you forgot you had. A déjà vu—Holly. When we talked this morning, she asked me if I had found Maya. How did she know her name? I thought back to all our conversations. I was pretty damn sure I’d never mentioned Maya. Someone else could have mentioned her name. But who?
I made a mental list: Nick Zavala, the hippies, Boseman, Petrillo, Frey, Brian Farinas. No one else knew unless del Pino knew something I didn’t know. He could have told Holly. Maybe that was it. So the motherfucker did talk about his clients, and he must have mentioned Zavala’s will to Holly. And maybe that business was who gets the inheritance: Maya.
I had to confront Holly. There had to be a connection. She was a good lawyer. She helped poor people. I must have missed something. Maybe it slipped my lips, which was possible. I could have said something when I was still swimming in the haze of my post-layoff binge. Or del Pino. Del-fucking-Pino. It had to be him.
I needed to think about that. But for now I had to push it aside. Focus on my home and real estate stories for the magazine. I put on Coltrane’s Live at the Village Vanguard. Cranked it loud, and typed away like a secretary in love.
When I finished, I e-mailed the story to the editor and drove out to Bird Key where del Pino lived. Where Holly lived—until recently.
There were no cars in front of the house. I sat in my car, windows open, salty breeze passing through, filling my lungs, energizing me and clearing my mind of clutter. Del Pino. That motherfucker was deep in it. Something had always been fishy with that guy and his Justice for All slogan. He had managed Zavala’s will. And maybe his nonprofit was something he’d done to clear his conscience for it. Crap. But how would he know about Zavala abusing young girls? He would have gone to the cops. He couldn’t be that fucked up.
Or maybe he was.
Sonofabitch. All this time I had been focusing on Boseman when it was probably del Pino.
I wasn’t sitting there more than twenty minutes when I realized this was ridiculous. It was Thursday afternoon. Del Pino was at work. He wouldn’t be back until evening.
I drove out to Zavala’s house. There was no activity. Nothing. I parked at the end of the block and looked back at the house through my rearview mirror. I don’t know what I could get out of that place if I could even get in. Still, I waited. Maybe deep down I was thinking of Tiffany. If I was, I didn’t know it then. I just sat in my car looking back at that sleek white house with the small rectangular windows and the neat wooden door.
Fuck. How some people lived. How the lucky, the corrupt, the sick, the cheaters, and the liars made their way in this world baffled me. How did good, honest people ever make money? And I mean above and beyond that upper-middle-class place people refer to as the American dream.
To hell with it.
I drove away. What was the point of staying there? I took Bay Shore, drove along the waterfront looking at all the houses, the mansions on the water all the way to the Ringling Museum. Was everyone who lived there a cheat, a criminal?
I made my way back through the North Trail, thinking about Tiffany. She had never been the answer to the mystery. She was just a poor girl who for some reason ran away from home and was picked up by Zavala. I couldn’t imagine that old fuck having sex with her, with Maya, with kids. How many had there been, and where were they now?
And was it just sex, or was it more? His house was a museum of sexual artifacts. My imagination ran wild with images of what might have gone on behind those walls. I thought of Zoe. My hands clenched the steering wheel, my knuckles white with anger. It wasn’t the children’s fault—not Tiffany, not Maya. Would they ever learn to love without condition, without suspicion? The scars of abuse live forever. You don’t recover from shit like that.
Maya might disappear forever, but she would never recover. What she suffered was not right. It wasn’t fair to be young and exist only to please the whims of a man who manipulates, abuses, and tortures. I kept thinking of what Zavala had said about his sex shops. How it was the normal people in the suburbs who were his best customers. I passed the fancy houses along the wealthy Sapphire Shores neighborhood and wondered what kind of abuse might be happening behind the façade of the American dream.
Soon I found myself stuck on the south bridge to Siesta Key. It had opened for a huge sailboat. I sat in the traffic watching yet another rich motherfucker enjoying his wealth. Who needed a boat that size?
I drove down to Point of Rocks and parked under the sea grape tree. There was no activity in or outside the house. It was just as I had seen it the day before and before that.
Then a tow truck drove past real slow. It passed the house and kept going. It turned up ahead and came back and pulled up in front of the house. The driver got out, checked some papers, and walked to the front door and knocked.
He was a big guy. Bald. Had a smirk on his face like he knew more than the rest of us. And he probably did.
I watched him pace back and forth. He tried peeking into one of the shuttered windows. Then he scratched the back of his thick neck. He came back, checked the garage door, and looked around.
I got out of my car and crossed the street. “Can I help you?” I said.
He looked me up and down. “I’m looking for a Michael—” He glanced at the clipboard in his hand—“Boseman. Michael Boseman.”
I nodded at the large house behind him. “That’s his place.”
“He around?”
I shrugged. “Haven’t seen him in weeks.”
He looked back at the house, at me, and scratched the side of his neck. “Who’re you?”
I smiled. “I might ask you the same question.”
He frowned. Looked pissed. Then he grinned. “You’re not him, are you?”
I shook my head. “But I’m looking for him.”
He laughed and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “You don’t know where he’s keeping his Jag, do you?”
“The car?”
He nodded and held up the clipboard for me to see. “I got a repossession request from Sunfare Financing.”
“No shit.”
He smiled the way an accomplice might smile during a heist. I nodded in the direction of the house. “You check the garage?”
He looked back at the house and nodded. “I’ll be back.”
I can’t say it didn’t make me feel good to know Boseman was getting his eighty-five-thousand-dollar car repossessed. But it also set off an alarm: Boseman was broke. It hadn’t occurred to me because of the house on the beach, the Jag. But the veil was torn off. If they were here for the car, maybe the house was next. Maybe it explained the empty house. The house, the car, it was just for appearances.
I sped home, thinking of what Petrillo had said about motive: money and love. Money. And. Love.
I went into my computer and tried to find information on Boseman’s house. There was nothing under the County Appraiser’s website—at least not under Boseman’s name. But when I checked with Zillow I got a hit. The address was marked with a blue dot. Boseman’s house was in pre-foreclosure.
I called Petrillo. “I have the motive. Boseman’s broke.”
“So what?”
“So, he was after Zavala’s money.”
“No one stole anything, Dexter. Nothing was missing from the house. Unless he’s set up to inherit Zavala’s millions, money doesn’t figure into the equation.”
My theory crumbled before my eyes. “Unless he was in on it with Maya. She’s getting two million from the insurance. If those two are in it together, which is very likely …”
“It’s a possibility,” he said.
“And Joaquin del Pino is the executor of the official will.”
“So I heard. We’re getting warm.”
“Yeah, but we still don’t know who’s inheriting the loot. Maybe you could have a word with him.”
“Frey’s on his way to meet him now.”
I hung up and paced all over the house. My adrenaline was pumping. I needed a drink, something hard and cool. But I wanted to stay sober. I could see it all coming together. I hated to think that Maya was involved, but it made sense. It actually made me feel good that she had gotten some kind of revenge for what Zavala had done to her. But there was a small problem: If she and Boseman were in this together, who hired the goons that attacked me that night in Mexico?
* * *
About seven thirty that night I got a text from Petrillo: meet at O’Leary’s in half an hour.
O’Leary’s was the little Tiki bar and restaurant on the bay at the end of downtown. It was one of the best and only real tropical spots in Sarasota. The only drag was the food sucked. But the location made up for it.
It took me ten minutes to get there. I ordered a Red Stripe from the bar and sat on one of the tables looking out at the dark of the bay. The city lights gave off a red glow over the moored sailboats tilting from side to side with the tide, their rigging like tiny distant bells. The smell of salt and shitty fried food and coconut suntan lotion was all over the place. In the outdoor dining area, a man played guitar and sang a Bob Marley tune.
“Dexter.” Petrillo came walking quickly. He placed his hand on my shoulder and sighed. “No dice.”
Every ounce of energy escaped my veins. Petrillo ambled over to the bar, got himself a Corona, and came back to the table. “Del Pino says Zavala willed everything he owned to a number of charities for abused children and victims of sexual trafficking.”
“All of it?”
“Every dime.”
“Wait a minute. Del Pino has a charity for abused children. He’s gonna make a killing out of the deal.”
Petrillo drained half his beer in a single sip. He shook his head and pointed at me with the bottle. “No. That’s why it took so long to figure out Zavala’s will. Too many lawyers and too many nonprofits were involved. Everything had to be clear before they could announce it. Turns out Zavala didn’t include del Pino’s charity in the will at del Pino’s own request. And he’s donating his own fee to BRAVO.”
“You’re fucking kidding me.”
“You think he’s telling the truth?”
He laughed. “I’m a cop. He’s a lawyer.”
“Well, shit.” I drank my beer. I went to the bar and got us another round. Then I got a text from Rachel: where u?
I answered: O’Leary’s. I’m buying.
She texted back: K
I set the beers on the table and looked at the line of condos, their lights sparkling like diamonds. The Sarasota of the rich. The city of the Bosemans and the Zavalas.
Petrillo shoved me with his elbow. “Lighten up. You’re taking it too personal.”
I lowered my head, looked down at the table, the grain of the wood, the tracks the beer and food had left behind. “The thing is, I know there’s something going on. I know there is.” I glanced at Petrillo. “I can’t say Boseman killed the guy for sure. But he’s so fucking crooked. Why do they always get away with it?”
“They don’t always. But sometimes, you just have to move on. You win some, you lose some.”
I didn’t want to believe him. But it was more than that. So long as the case remained open, I remained a suspect. I couldn’t live with that shit.
I thought of Flor. I hoped to God she would find an axolotl. I needed something good to happen to restore my faith in humanity, in the system. In all of us. I bought another round at the bar. As I came back to the table, I saw Rachel walking quickly toward us. She didn’t wait for me to put the beers down. She just hugged me, arms fully around my neck, hands pressing hard on my back, her face against the side of my neck.
I froze, feeling the heat and sweat coming off her body and pressing into mine.
“About what?”
She sobbed, but I knew she wasn’t crying. “I am so sorry, Dex.”
“Rachel …”
“Holly.”
“What about her?” And then, just as she said her name again, it came to me in a flash with the two tiny syllables in her name: Hol-ly—the red lipstick on the glass in Boseman’s poolside table, the butterfly sunglasses—the red VW beetle speeding out of Point of Rocks.
“Holly.” She said it again. “I was parked across the street watching the house like you asked me. Then Holly drove up. She parked a little ahead of the house. She looked around. Got the mail and went inside. She was in there for about thirty minutes. Then she came back out, got into her car, and that was it.”
“You sure?” I didn’t want to believe it. Yet I knew it was true. Very fucking true. I had been an idiot for not seeing it before. She was breaking up with del Pino—because of Boseman?
She must have been with him the day I went to Boseman’s house. She and Boseman had shaken up my place. They had taken my computer. They were after … Maya?
My knees weakened. Rachel held me, helped me to the table where Petrillo was looking at the boats, his knee bouncing to the rhythm of the guitar player in the dining area who was now belting out a mediocre rendition of “Margaritaville.”
In those few seconds, everything about Holly, all my recent memories of her, raced past me like an old film. It had all been a setup: she appeared at Caragiulos when I was already looking for Maya. She showed up at my house immediately after it had been ransacked. She appeared after Petrillo and Frey did a number on me. She was there after I came back from Mexico. She wanted information. She wanted to know where I was with my investigation, to know how safe she and Boseman were, to know what the cops knew.
“Motherfuckers.”
Rachel rubbed my back. “Easy, Dex.”
Petrillo took one of the beers I put on the table. “What’s up?”
Rachel told him. She explained everything while I stared at the sailboats bobbing in the water, getting seasick. My stomach cramped with jealousy and anger and betrayal—all hope doused with diesel and set on fire.
I downed my beer and slammed the bottle on the table.
Petrillo grabbed my wrist. “Easy, Vega.”
I tore away from his grip. “It’s all yours now, right?”
Rachel took my arm. “Dex.”
I backed away from Petrillo. “You know what to do, right?”
I turned away. Rachel and I went to the bar. I ordered tequila. I took them in shots like a frat boy at a rush party. I wanted to get the fuck out of my mind.