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March 9, 2023, Siesta Key, Florida
Lili nudged Gil to prevent him from nodding off again. They were sitting on a couch in the Florida condo they had rented for the winter. Vera, one of their favorite shows, was playing on the Britbox channel. CRASH! Thump, thump! The sounds of running footsteps, shouting, and more crashing were coming from the unit above them. “Call 911!” said Lili. “I’m getting my gun. Tell them I’m armed.”
Lili was a semi-retired agent with the Massachusetts State Crime Lab, but she still traveled with her service weapon. She went into the bedroom closet and opened the little safe where she kept her pistol. She put on her flip flops and ran out the front door.
Gil heard more sounds of trouble from above while the dispatcher answered. “Sarasota County Emergency Services. What is your emergency?”
“It sounds like there’s a violent fight going on in the condo above mine. We need police to come to Unit 26 at Manatee Point, on Siesta Key.” Gil walked out to the parking lot, barefoot, while he was talking. A small crowd was gathering on the second-floor walkway.
“And what is your name, sir?”
“I’m Gil Novak. My girlfriend went up to that condo with her gun.”
Lili peered through the screen door into Martha’s condo. There was broken glass, an overturned side table, and a pistol on the hallway floor. She thought she saw a man on top of Martha at the far end of the living room. She entered quickly and saw a man strangling Martha with an electrical cord. “Police! Let her go, now!” The guy pulled tighter and just smiled at Lili, his gold front tooth shining in the light. Martha was turning blue and her eyes were bugging out.
“What is your girlfriend’s name, sir?”
“Her name is Lili D’Amico. She’s an agent with the Massachusetts State Police.”
“I have police on the way, three minutes out. I’ve told them about Agent D’Amico.”
BOOM! Fear struck Gil. “There was a gunshot! I’m going up there.”
“Do not go up there, Mr. Novak.”
Lili burst out of the front door onto the balcony and yelled, “Get EMTs out here! Get an ambulance!”
“We need EMTs and an ambulance!”
“Sir, can you find out what’s happening?”
“Lili, what’s going on?”
“Martha was strangled. She’s still alive, but just barely. Her attacker is dead. I shot him.” Lili went back in to help Martha.
Gil relayed the information to the dispatcher. His hands were shaking. He felt cold.
A Sheriff’s car pulled in, blue lights flashing. Two deputies got out and Gil waived them over. He quickly explained what happened and pointed to Unit 26. The deputies ran up the stairs and made their way past the onlookers into Unit 26. Another sheriff’s car and the EMTs from the Fire Department pulled in and Gil showed them where to go. A detective pulled up in an unmarked car and Gil pointed to Unit 26.
“Gil, get my badge!” yelled Lili. Gil got her badge and brought it to her at Martha’s door. Lili went right back in.
About ten minutes later, the EMTs brought Martha down the stairs on a stretcher. She looked alive to Gil, but she was unconscious. They loaded her into the ambulance and drove off, lights flashing. A few minutes later, Lili came out with the detective. The detective had her gun in an evidence bag.
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AT SEVEN A.M., GIL pulled into the hospital parking lot to pick up Lili. “You look pretty good, considering,” he said.
“Thanks, I think. The doctor thinks Martha’s going to survive. She has an injury to her larynx, and the EMTs had to put a tube in her neck so she could breathe. A crike, they called it. Today, assuming she remains stable, the surgeon will operate to fix her up.”
“So, you’ve been here all night?”
“No, I was at the sheriff’s office for a couple of hours, givng my statement. They were very nice. They treated me like one of their own. I asked them to use me as a liaison for Martha.”
“Are you hungry? Do you want to stop for breakfast?”
“Sure. I’ll sleep by the pool, later.”
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GIL SAT ON THE LOUNGE next to Lili, who was still sleeping. Most of the lounges by the pool were occupied and there were half a dozen people in the pool chatting. Most of the people there were from the upper Midwest or Toronto. There were enough puffy clouds going by that he didn’t think Lili would get a sunburn. He was reading a science-fiction novel about first contact with aliens.
Lili stretched. “How long was I out?”
“About an hour. How are you feeling?”
“Not bad, but I could use an iced coffee.”
When Gil returned with her coffee, he found Lili surrounded by “the girls,” being grilled about last night. “Yes, it’s the first time I’ve ever shot anyone, and no, it doesn’t bother me. If I didn’t shoot him, Martha would have been dead.”
“What did he look like?” asked Francine.
“I can’t really talk about the case because I’m an officer of the law. When I go over to the hospital later, I’ll find out when you can visit her.”
Beryl asked, “Was the detective good looking? Can you talk about that?” The girls laughed. Beryl was in her late seventies and she had been a widow for many years.
Ellen said, “Beryl, I think you’d go more for the bad guy, not the cop.” More laughing.
Frank wandered over. “Lili, are you going to be in any kind of trouble over the shooting?”
“I’m not worried about that, Frank. The shooting was justified. I really want to know why someone would want to hurt Martha. Any ideas?”
“Maybe she’s a drug lord!” offered Francine.
“Or a weapons dealer,” said Beryl.
“Maybe a human trafficker,” said Ellen.
“Oh brother,” said Gil.
Lili picked up her ringing phone, spoke for a few seconds and hung up. “That was another detective. He’s out front and wants to talk to me. I better put some clothes on.”
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“AGENT D’AMICO, I’M Agent Sammy Arias from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. If it’s okay, I’d like to go through the crime scene with you, and review what happened.”
“Sure. Please call me Lili.”
As they walked up the stairs, Sammy said, “So you’re Crime Scene?”
“Yes, for a long time. I just went part-time, semi-retirement.”
“Must be nice. Are you a scientist? Why do you carry a service weapon?”
“I started out as a uniform, then I made detective. It was early days for forensics back then, but I had a degree in chemistry and was given the opportunity to lead a forensics team. I stuck with it, but I maintained my weapons qual.”
They went into Unit 26. “So talk me through it.” Lili talked him through the whole thing, which didn’t take very long. He said, “It sounds like, if you weren’t here with your gun, Ms. Eames would be dead.”
“No question. He was going to finish the job, even though he knew I was going to shoot him. Do you know who he was?”
“We’re still working on that. No ID. Ms. Eames is quite a fighter, though. She disarmed her assailant. He resorted to strangling her with the wire from the lamp she hit him with. His gun’s a ghost, no numbers. His prints aren’t in AFIS. He’s got a lot of tats, though. We’re looking at that, and his DNA.”
“It’s amazing she survived. Martha’s in her mid-seventies, I think. I don’t know if she has any kids.”
“The emergency contact in her phone is her neighbor, Barbara LeClerc. Ms. LeClerc didn’t know of any relatives. She checked on Ms. Eames’s home in New Hampshire and didn’t see anything wrong.”
“Well, it looks like you’ve got a good mystery. Let me know if you need anything.”