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WE WERE IN ALEX’S JEEP on our way out to Darcy Car Rental. Alex had just gotten off the phone with Detective Stone, hoping he’d share any news he had about Philip’s death, or if there were any leads.
“Did he agree it sounded like Philip was set up?” I said, looking at Alex from the passenger seat.
“Set up by who?”
“I don’t know. But none of this makes sense. One minute, Victoria’s making a call to Philip, tells him she’s been abducted, next she’s down in Sydney?” I looked out the passenger side. “I should’ve done more to protect him.”
“Protect him? You had no idea where he was.”
“But someone else obviously did.”
Alex had her eyes on the road but gave me a quick glance. “Frank?”
“Philip might’ve reached out to him. Frank must’ve told someone where to find Philip.”
Alex said, “You’re not eliminating Charles from any of this, are you? I have a hard time believing he’s as innocent as he’d like us to think.” She turned the Jeep into a parking space in front of Darcy Car Rental as a young man walked into the building
He looked up from behind the counter when we walked in. “Welcome to Darcy Car Rental,” he said. His hair slicked back with a glowing shine. He wore a tie and a sports coat, but he had a baby face, like he’d yet to have to shave. He seemed proud to be dressed up like a big boy, his sleeves a few inches long for his short arms. “How can I help you today?” he said.
I looked at his name tag. “Tyler,” I said.
He followed my eyes and also looked at the tag pinned to his sports coat. With a nod he said, “Yes, sir.”
“I’m hoping you can help me out. I don’t know how long you’ve been here, but I know about a tragedy you all experienced right in this building, not too long ago.”
His smile was gone from his face. He nodded. “I’ve been here for a few months. I was working here when it happened.”
“You were here?”
He shook his head. “Not the same day. I just meant...”
“That’s not actually why I’m here.” I pulled a piece of paper from my pocket and put it down on the counter in front of him. “This car was rented here a couple of weeks ago.” I pointed to the space where C. Weiss was written in pen. “Is it normal you don’t use a full name on a car rental?”
He picked up the paper and looked it up and down. He handed it back to me and shrugged. “Things are kind of laid back here. It’s how we do business...make it easy to rent a car without the hassle. Especially if you don’t have good credit or want to pay cash. Or if you need to rent for just a few hours.”
“A few hours?”
He nodded. “Sometimes.” He looked past me at Alex. “Cost a little more to do it that way, but people like the option.”
“What if someone pays cash but doesn’t return the car?”
Tyler shrugged. “Our insurance covers it.”
“Why bother with paperwork? Sounds like it’s a cash exchange and a handshake.”
“Paperwork’s required by the insurance company.”
“You pretty strict about ID’s?”
Tyler shook his head. “Not really.”
“So someone could come here, pay up the cash, give you a fake ID—or none at all—and be able to rent a car. I’m surprised they ever come back at all.”
“We tend to work with people in a...uh...network.”
“A network?”
He nodded.
The wall behind him—I hadn’t noticed the first time—had black and white, framed photos on the wall. One of Frank Sinatra. Another of The World Trade Center. There was a framed photo of Derek Jeter.
“You from New York?” I said with a nod toward the photos.
He turned and glanced at the wall. “No sir. The owner lives up there.”
“He doesn’t live in Florida?”
“He has a house here, but he spends a lot of time in New York. Goes back and forth, I guess.”
“His last name’s Darcy?”
“His name’s Nick DiGiacomo.” he said as he moved papers around behind the counter. He looked past me toward the door and seemed to be getting antsy with my questions. ”He hasn’t been in here in a few weeks.”
I pushed the paper in front of Tyler again and pointed to the name. “You know this name?”
“Weiss?”
“C. Weiss.”
Tyler turned, leaned over a computer and tapped the keyboard. He looked up at me. “Where’d you get this?”
“Does it matter?”
“It might,” he said. Tyler gave me a look like he wasn’t about to let me push him around.
“It was a young woman who helped me.”
“Emma?” He shook his head. “Emma didn’t give this to you. She wouldn’t.” His voice was getting a bit shaky.
I shrugged. “I don’t know then.”
Tyler’s eyes shifted to the phone on the counter. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“I’m not trying to cause you any problems, Tyler.”
“Officers from the Sheriff’s Office asked me to call them if anyone came around who seemed suspicious.”
I put my hands up, like I’d surrendered. “I’m a private investigator. I’m not here to cause trouble.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my card. “Here.” I placed it down on the counter.
Tyler picked it up, his head down for a moment. He looked up and said, “Look, that car rental...I remember the guy who rented it. Someone called in first, said the name was C. Weiss.”
“Male or female?”
“Female.”
“Did a woman pick up the car?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Just the one guy came, but I think there was someone else out in the car.”
“You get an ID or anything?”
Tyler shook his head. He started to open his mouth like he was going to say something, but stopped.
I looked up at the camera on the wall. “Does that camera film in here all day?”
He turned, looked behind him and shook his head. “No, that one doesn’t work.”
Alex said, “Are there any other cameras?”
“Just the one outside. It’s not a very good one. I don’t know if we even have it on.” Tyler took a deep swallow. “As far as I know, the Sheriff’s Office didn’t find anything on it.”
I turned back toward Alex. “Stone say anything about it?”
“About watching the footage?” She shook her head. “I’m not sure he’d tell me if he did.”
I turned back to Tyler. “Any chance you’d let us look through the video? I promise...we won’t take anything. If we can just take a quick look, Alex knows how to plow through this stuff, maybe see something the cops overlooked.”
Tyler looked past us toward the exit, scratching his head. “Make it fast though. My manager shows up, I’ll be—”
“Give us ten minutes and we’ll be out of your way.” I handed him a twenty dollar bill. He looked at my hand without taking the bribe. I pulled another twenty out of my pocket and handed him two bills.
He took the money and stuck it in his pants pocket. “There’s an office in back, around the corner. You’ll see the desk against the wall with the monitor.”
Alex walked behind the counter and into the back room.
I gave Tyler a nod and followed her into the back room. I looked down at the spot where I first saw the poor, young girl lying lifeless on the concrete floor. “We can’t take all day,” I said to Alex.
She walked into the small office and sat down at the desk with the computer. She tapped on the keyboard and clicked the mouse, moving around the screen.
I watched over her shoulder.
Within a few moments she had the footage from the day before Philip’s boat exploded. With her eyes on the monitor, she said, “What time does it say on that slip...when they came in for the rental?”
“Four-twenty.”
She typed on the keyboard and we watched the footage jump from one camera to the next, from interior to exterior, front to back. “There,” she said.
Two men stepped out of a black Lincoln Town Car. Neither was dressed for the beach, both wore black with long dress pants and short sleeves.
“You can barely make out their faces,” I said. “What about the driver? Can you see a face?”
“Hard to see,” Alex said. “If I had to guess, it looks like a female.”
“Yeah?” I leaned closer to the monitor. “Can you zoom in?”
Alex reached into her backpack and pulled out a small, metal box.
“What’s that?”
“Portable harddrive. I’m going to look at this at home...this monitor’s resolution is a joke.” She looked behind her, toward the door. “Make sure Tyler doesn’t come in here.”
“Can you fit everything on there?”
She nodded. “I’ll take as much as I can.” She plugged the hard drive into the computer and continued moving the computer’s mouse around the screen while the files were copied over. She zoomed in closer toward the front of the car in the parking lot, shaking her head. “I can’t make out the face. Not yet.”