Lassiter

25 Mood Swings

Kip was doing the talking; Amy and I, the listening. Granny stayed in the kitchen, sprinkling cinnamon on her famous sweet potato pie.

“Right after your sister went missing,” Kip said, looking at Amy, “the cops checked other departments for abandoned cars. Didn’t find anything.”

Amy clutched her left wrist with her right hand, her body rigid.

“It’s a lot easier to now,” Kip continued. “Recovered-car databases are all on the Internet, and that’s how I found it. Six years ago, during a drought, an airboat hit a chunk of metal in a canal. It was the roof of a car. Take a look, Uncle Jake.”

He handed over a thick document with the logo of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. “Consolidated Report: Abandoned Motor Vehicles, 2000–2005.” I thumbed through the pages until I came to an item Kip had underlined. The canal was in the Everglades about fifty miles due west of Miami, just before Tamiami Trail angles north into the Big Cypress National Preserve. Miccosukee Reservation land.

The canal ran along a dirt road that dead-ended at a levee. Anyone driving along there was either seriously lost or didn’t want to be found. The car was pulled from the water by Miccosukee police, who inventoried it. No bodies, no bones. No suitcases or personal effects. The license plate was missing, but the vehicle identification number was intact. It matched a 1988 Honda registered to Krista Larkin, which is how Kip had cross-referenced it.

It was one of a few thousand cars pulled from Florida waterways each year. Some people find it cheaper to dump a car than have it towed away. The Miccosukee police didn’t make a big deal about the Honda, which ended its life in a landfill after being dragged from the water.

Amy wrapped her arms around the boy and squeezed hard. Her body trembled, or maybe both their bodies did. She turned to me. “Krista’s car with no license plate. As if someone wanted to hide any trace of her.”

“That would be my guess,” I said, unable to muster anything positive. A young woman missing eighteen years, her car buried. The words “foul play” did not seem quite foul enough to describe what likely happened.

Now we had evidence of a possible homicide. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed a number. When Castiel answered, I said, “Alex, I think you’re gonna want to open a Grand Jury investigation.”

I told him what Kip had found and waited for his congratulations.

“So what do you want me to do?” he asked.

“Dredge the canal, for starters.”

“If it’s on Miccosukee land, I’ve got no jurisdiction.”

“But you can ask the Mics to do it. Call their chief of police.”

He paused a moment before speaking. “You have no skeleton, right?”

“That’s why I want you to dredge!”

“Any forensic evidence found in the car?”

“No, but they didn’t treat it as a crime scene. It was just another sunken car.”

“How long after Krista’s disappearance did the car go into the water?”

“No way to know.”

“Maybe Krista sold the car and the new owner dumped it there. Or a thief did it. Or a tow truck driver. Whatever, you’ve got no more tonight than you did yesterday.”

“Goddammit, Alex! Who you working for? The people or Charlie Ziegler?”

The phone clicked off. Amy must have read it in my face. Before I could say a word, her look changed. In a matter of moments, she had gone from mournful to hopeful to angry.

“Ziegler owns your friend.” She made it sound like my fault.

“So it would appear.” It had taken a lot for me to get to that point, but the evidence against Alex just kept piling up.

“And all your talk was just hot air.”

“My talk?”

“ ‘I have street savvy. Experience. Contacts.’ ” Her voice became even more sarcastic. “ ‘The State Attorney is a friend of mine.’ ”

“Okay, Alex didn’t pan out. But there’s another possibility.”

“I’ll bet.”

“If Castiel is corrupt, there’s a statewide agency that can help us. Investigating him could be the key to opening an inquiry into Krista’s disappearance.”

“Sounds like a long shot.”

“But I’d like to try. It’s the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. I’ll call tomorrow.”

“I suppose you have contacts there, too.”

As a practitioner of sarcasm, I hate when it’s used on me. “No, Amy, I don’t have contacts there.”

“So basically, you’re just throwing darts, hoping something will stick.”

“There’s also a statewide prosecutor in Tallahassee. He investigates public corruption.”

“You know the guy?”

“I’ve met him. We’ve talked.” Technically, that was true. I’d listened to him give a talk at a Miami Beach Bar luncheon, and afterward I’d said, “Nice job,” and he said, “Thanks.”

“You’ve got nothing. It’s all bullshit.”

Her tone turning cold again, just as it had been the day we met.

“C’mon, Amy. Hang with me on this.”

“I’m wasting my time with you.”

“Amy, I’m concerned about you,” I said, gently. “Your mood seems to …”

“What!”

“Swing. Up, down, then falls off a cliff.”

“Screw that! Are you my shrink?”

“You’re under a lot of stress.”

“Maybe you should have been a shrink. You’re not much of a lawyer.” Her voice as hard as a cinder block.

I decided to shut up and let her slug me with her words.

“As a matter of fact, you’re a really lousy lawyer, and I’m firing you.”

“You can’t stop me from investigating your sister’s disappearance. So let’s chill tonight, and maybe tomorrow you’ll see things differently. Maybe-”

“I can take care of Ziegler myself.”

“What does that mean? ‘Take care of.’ ”

“Just stay out of my way, okay, Lassiter?”

She hopped off the porch and circled the house to her car, never saying good-bye, good night, or sleep tight.