Night vision

CHAPTER 25

Charlie Riggs was eating Hershey's Kisses and reading the latest report on figuring time of death by calculating the age of maggot larvae in body cavities. Forensic entomology, he called it, thumbing pages, sucking his chocolate, smacking his lips, occasionally hm-hmming and making notes in the margin.

Alex Rodriguez was reading the Miami Journal, shaking his head. He looked up at me. "Your lousy paper got suckered on the so-called Cocaine Baby case. Everybody knows that's an old hoax perpetrated by bored customs agents. Never been a dead baby stuffed with cocaine come through the airport. Been stuffed turkeys, been stuffed yams, even been statues of the Virgin Mary stuffed with the white lady. But never been a dead baby."

Nick Fox wasn't reading anything. He paced in front of his desk, his face growing red, his right hand slicing the air as he cut off Rodriguez and made a point. "Jakie, Jakie, you got a classic case of the hind-tit syndrome. The guy who doesn't crack the case always thinks the guy who did got the wrong man. Am I right, Rod?"

" Verdad," Rodriguez responded, on cue.

"See." Fox gloated. They were beating me up like tag-team wrestlers. Nick Fox turned to Dr. Pamela Maxson, who sat quiet and saintly in a chair by the window. "There's probably even a fancy psychological term for it, right, Dr. Maxson?"

"The denial defense mechanism," Pam Maxson said.

Rodriguez chimed in, "It's like this, Jake. It hurts your pride to be wrong. Like getting kicked in your machismo."

Pamela Maxson smiled coyly. "Castration anxiety," she said.

I stared stupidly at her. "You're on their side, too?"

"With a dash of persecutory complex," she added for good measure.

Nick Fox stopped pacing and looked down at me, a bully asking if I'd had enough.

I hadn't. I get paid to argue. "Look, Prince knew you were tapping the Compu-Mate calls. I'd already shown him his Equus rantings. He's not stupid. Why would he kill someone he's just chatted with? He'd have to be crazy to-"

Sometimes I say too much. Nick Fox smiled his cat-to-the-canary smile. It shut me up. "Jakie, face it. Your nutty professor is the guy. I'll bet even Doc Riggs agrees."

I turned to Charlie. He was muttering to himself. "Never paid much attention to blowfly larvae. They lay their eggs in the mouth or the nostrils, you get live maggots in a few hours. How useful is that if you don't find the body for days?"

"Charlie!"

He looked up, a brown smear of chocolate across his mustache. "So many misconceptions about death. Jake. Do fingernails grow after death?"

"Yeah. I've heard that."

" Si," Rodriguez said. "I found a stiff dead two weeks, you could tell the nails had grown an inch."

" Deceptio visus," Charlie said. "The tips of the fingers and toes shrink, so the nails appear longer. Nothing more."

"You mean appearances are deceiving, don't you, Charlie?" I asked hopefully. With Doc Riggs, you have to read between the lines.

He smiled back at me.

I kept going. "You're saying Prince didn't do it."

Charlie shrugged. "What do we have so far? Circumstantial evidence. Prince appears to have chatted with three women shortly before each was killed. He admits speaking to two of them, denies the first, which is curious but not conclusive of anything. We have no matching latent prints at any of the scenes. The autopsy of Miss Diamond reveals rather modest bruising over the thyroid and a partially fractured hyoid bone, which is consistent with strangulation by moderate force."

"A limp-wristed English professor," Fox said, making his point with a dainty wave of the arm, "a wacko drunk pervert. What more you want, Jake?"

"On the other hand," Charlie said, "Ms. Rosedahl and Mrs. Fox suffered somewhat greater damage. Larynx snapped in two. Fractured hyoid, thyroid, and cricoid, the whole shebang."

Fox shrugged. "He got better at it, maybe sobered up. Doc, don't forget the blood typing."

"Prince tests for blood type A, as do the semen specimens from Miss Rosedahl and Mrs. Fox. Have you done the DNA testing?"

"It's at the lab," Rodriguez said. He put down the newspaper, glommed a chocolate Kiss from Charlie, unwrapped the foil, and popped it into his mouth.

"Well," Charlie said. "No use speculating now. When they line up the alleles for each polymorphic locus, there'll be no mistaking it. Either it's Prince's semen or not."

"So what if it matches," I jumped in. "That doesn't exclude the possibility that he had sex with each woman, then after he left, the killer arrived."

Fox laughed. "Oh, gimme a break, Jake! What is this guy to you, some Mr. Chips character?"

I didn't answer, but Charlie did. "If there's a DNA match, it means Prince is lying. He says he never met any of the women, much less…"

"And if he's lying," Nick said, scooping up the ball and heading for the end zone, "he's the killer. Admit it, Jake."

"It'd be enough to sustain an indictment," I conceded glumly.

"Enough to pull the switch at Raiford," Nick Fox concluded.

I looked at Pam Maxson. She placidly watched them take shots at me. Maybe she liked it. I'd been surprised when she told me to book three seats to Miami. Wanted to fulfill some speaking engagements, she said, help with my investigation, too. Surprised me again when she accepted my invitation for room, board, and affection at the little coral-rock house between Kumquat and Poinciana, rather than a fancy, oceanfront, phone-in-the-bathroom, twenty-four-hour-room-service hotel. We had shared my bed under the paddle fan on the second floor, the pungent aroma of neighborhood mango trees wafting through the open windows on the sticky nighttime breeze. We had listened to distant police sirens and each other's heartbeats. We had curled around each other, and I said sweet things into her neck, all of which I meant at the time.

I always think there's a band, kid. Professor Gerald Prince, master plagiarist, said that. So did Professor Harold Hill, knavish music man. And Jacob Lassiter, bloomin' pettifogger. Fakers all.

Rodriguez had given me the manila folder with the printout from Priscilla Fox's computer. I looked at it for the third time.

DO YOU LIKE TO PAMPER A WOMAN, PASSION KING? PRINCE. JUST A PRINCE, LIKE YOUNG HAMLET. PAMPERING? IS THAT WHAT YOU NEED? DON'T KNOW. NEVER HAD IT. MIGHT BE NICE FOR A CHANGE. IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE COLDNESS OF MY SORT OF LIFE, GO BACK TO THE GUTTER. THE GUTTER! LISTEN HERE, PASSION PRICK. I'VE BEEN A WIFE AND A MOTHER AND HAD DINNER WITH THE GOVERNOR AND DROVE CAR POOL, AND I'M A LADY ALL DAY, AND AT NIGHT, I DO WHAT THE HELL I WANT. NO. NO. NO. TRY THIS. "I'M A GOOD GIRL, I AM" WHAT? TRY IT. "I'M A GOOD GIRL, I AM. AND I KNOW THE LIKES OF YOU, I DO." WAIT!!! THATS FROM A PLAY. BY JOVE, SHE'S GOT IT. I THINK SHE'S GOT IT. SURE. MY FAIR LADY. YOU WERE DOING THE REX HARRISON PART, RIGHT? I PREFER TO THINK OF THE PLAY AS PYGMALION, AND I WAS DOING HENRY HIGGINS AS WRITTEN BY SHAW. I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT TRY A FEW OF ELIZA'S LINES. OH PRINCE. YOU'RE VERY LITERARY. I LIKE THAT. MY HUSBAND NEVER HAD ANY TIME FOR PLAYS. FOOTBALL, BUT NOT PLAYS. AND TRY TO GET HIM TO THE BALLET. HE CALLED IT FAIRIES' BASEBALL. WELL THEN, PERHAPS WE COULD GET TOGETHER. LOVE TO. CALL ME AGAIN. BUT GOT TO GET CLEANED UP, CHANGE CLOTHES NOW. HEY. I MEAN IT. CALL ME TOMORROW.

I put the file down and thought about it. Charlie went back to his maggots, Rod to his paper, and Nick Fox sat down at his desk beneath the wall of commendations and merit badges. Pam Maxson studied me from across the office. It was the professor, all right, sliding in and out of an old role. According to the printout, they signed off at 10:05 P.M. Priscilla said she had to get cleaned up, change clothes. Not get cleaned up, go to bed. She was going out. Or someone was coming over. Late. And not the Passion Prince. Someone she already knew. But who?

Nick Fox, maybe.

Or Alex Rodriguez, her pal.

Now, those were thoughts best kept to yourself. I opened the file again. When they found Priscilla Fox, wearing a silk negligee, strangled in the foyer near the front door, there was a faint light from the corner of what had been Nick's study. A steady hum came from the IBM compatible on the desk. On the screen, white on black, a message from hell.

MAN IS THE HUNTER; WOMAN IS HIS GAME; THE SLEEK AND SHINING CREATURES OF THE CHASE, WE HUNT THEM FOR THE BEAUTY OF THEIR SKINS.

Tennyson again, they told me. I didn't know the poem, but I can read English. Regardless of the poet's meaning, there was no mistaking the intent here. Someone was collecting the sleek, shiny pelts of the female of the species and bragging about it.

Got to get cleaned up, change clothes now. Who was it? Some sick creature out of the swamps who looks just like you or me? Or Nick Fox or Alex Rodriguez? There it was again, the thought hanging on like a summer cold.

I told everybody I was going to put the top down and take a little ride just to clear my head. No one seemed to care. As I stood up, Nick Fox said, "Jake, let me give you some advice. You've got to look out for your reputation. This case could make you look like a bozo."

"Meaning what?"

"Don't get defensive. I'm trying to help you out. Look, I know stories about you when you just started practicing. A lot of people thought you played ball too long without a helmet."

"I made some mistakes," I admitted.

Nick turned toward Rodriguez, his one-man fan club. "One day when Jake was just out of the PD's office, he went to federal court. Remember, Jakie, the story was all over town. The judge had assigned the motion to a magistrate. Jakie had never appeared before a magistrate before and didn't know how to address him. So when he's asked whether the plaintiff is ready, Jakie here says-"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Rodriguez snickered. Pam smiled politely. Charlie kept reading.

"It seemed right at the time," I said.

"I checked up on you, Jakie," Fox said. "At Harman and Fox, your first deposition in a big civil case, one of the senior partners tells you it's a formal proceeding. So you show up-"

"In a tuxedo," I said.

Even Charlie laughed at that, and he's my best friend.

"So the point is, Jakie, like I told you before, keep your ass down, it won't get shot off."

I took the expressway west past the Orange Bowl, pale and faded now that the Dolphins had moved uptown to a new amphitheater with massive replay screens and sky boxes for the heavy hitters. I turned south on the Palmetto, past Flagler Street and Calle Ocho, past Coral Way, and exited at Bird Road. I was sandwiched between two semis, and I inhaled equal portions of carbon monoxide and diesel fuel. I headed west again, past the same car dealers and gas stations, gun shops and XXX videos, beauty parlors and rental furniture stores. Plastic signs proclaimed the lowest prices, the largest selections, the newest models, and the biggest, bestest, beautifulest products money can buy.

The afternoon sun still hung above the horizon, the day soggy and sweltering, the shadows long. My white shirt stuck to my back, my striped tie was at half-mast. The house was buttoned up tight and wrapped in yellow tape courtesy of Metro police. I rooted around in the trunk of the 442 until I found an old pair of windsurfing gloves. They were nylon and fastened at the wrist with Velcro straps. I looked like a burglar who didn't want to leave prints. Appearances are not always deceiving, Charlie old buddy.

The garage door handle was rusty. I hoped it would hold. I bent at the knees and, keeping my back straight, grasped the handle with two hands. I slowly straightened my legs, pulling up. Everybody has different talents. Some can hit high C, others can paint landscapes on bleached bones. I can lift deadweight. Lots of it.

The handle bit into the meat of my palms, even through the gloves. Cords and strings in my back snapped and screeched curses at me and the lactic acid pooled in my triceps until they nearly cramped. I kept pulling. Hey, if Atlas could hold up the world, a guy with decent lats and traps ought to be able to…

Crack. An old pin snapped in two and the door rumbled up under my chin. I ducked inside, pulled the door down, and found the way to the kitchen. Inside, the air-conditioning was pumping away, all those kilowatts keeping the emptiness cool.

I walked into the living room where Priscilla Fox had fed me bland and healthy tidbits and asked me to rub her feet. I went to the study that had been Nick's, where Priscilla spent her evenings, gabbing the boredom away. The computer was still there, turned off now, the message from the screen preserved on hard copy.

Whoever wrote it, I thought, knew a little something about computers. You can't just turn them on. You have to get into the word-processing directory. You have to type. And you have to know some poetry by heart, I figured, unless the killer totes his Tennyson with him. I saw the dust layered among the keys, the lab boys scouring the keyboard for prints. But the killer had either worn gloves or wiped the place clean.

What else? He had to be calm. He'd just strangled a woman and he sits to type his little message, and does it with no typos, no sweat. Freaky.

I looked around the study, opening drawers, alert for notes or letters, hoping to find it laid out for me: See you Sunday night at 10:30, your place. Signed, Joe Jones, the hunter. With an address and phone number attached. But there was nothing. If there had been, Metro would have found it.

So what was I doing here? Trying to prove Nick Fox wrong. He had put me down good. Right in front of the crusty ex-coroner and the beautiful lady who were my little team. Why? And what are you going to do about it, Jakie? Run home crying to Granny Lassiter? Hey, you're a big boy. You can bench-press large buildings in a single bound. Or something like that.

I tossed a few ideas around and dropped a couple on my toes. If Nick Fox thinks you're such a loser, why does he appoint you to head a murder investigation? Because he thinks you're such a loser, that's why, dummy! Which means what? That Nick Fox is afraid a smart guy would find things out that are not good for the health and welfare of Nicholas G. Fox.

Okay. So time to get smart.

I walked into the foyer, the chalk outline of Priscilla's body still on the floor. I wandered back to the master bedroom and looked through a closet, then walked into little Nicky's room and finally the guest room.

The guest room.

Marsha Diamond had stayed there overnight. Pajama party. It was barely ten by ten, an oak floor, grass-cloth wallpaper. On the wall was a still-life watercolor-a bowl of fruit and a bottle of wine. Jalousie windows overlooked a small backyard. A dresser was stuffed with women's clothes that hadn't been worn in some time. There was a double bed with a fluffy beige comforter. I looked under the bed for nothing in particular and found just that. I lay down in the bed and stared straight up. No bright ideas were written on the ceiling.

I stood and opened the folding door to the closet. Old clothes, a couple of suitcases. With a hand, I pulled out some women's dresses and looked into the darkness. On the floor something green. Army green. I reached down and pulled it out by a canvas strap. An old duffel bag stuffed to the drawstrings.

I loosened the strings and yanked out some fatigues, a pair of boots, a vicious sawtooth knife, and a Colt. 45 pistol. There was more. There were socks and shirts and a little velvet case lined with medals and ribbons. There was the smell of age and mustiness. I turned the bag upside down and shook it. A pair of dog tags clattered to the floor. Nothing else. I fondled the old duffel bag and tried to feel the vibrations. No magic. I tossed it aside and it landed with a slap. Not a canvas-on-wood sound. I picked up the bag and turned it over. Under a flap, a zippered pouch. Zip. I reached inside and pulled at something. It slipped from my hand and hit the floor. I had a case of fumble-itis. It lay there on the floor next to the dog tags and boots and green undershirts.

A small book just staring at me. Underneath a plastic cover, neatly printed so long ago, so far away: Officers Log, Lt. Nicholas G. Fox.

I picked it up and turned to page one. "Now, Nick," I said. "Talk to me now."