Cold Case Squad (9 page)

His lunch curdled in his stomach. "But didn't I tell you a hundred
times? You have to keep the doors locked. Where's the WD-Forty?" He
foraged for the small, nearly empty can in the toolbox in the kitchen,
then squirted a few shots of oil into the balky lock. He snapped it
back and forth several times. It still felt stiff and out of line.

Exasperated, he ran his hand through his hair and glanced fitfully
at his grandmother, placidly rinsing dishes in the sink.

"Keep this locked at all times. Promise me, please, Gran. When I
come on Saturday I'll install a better lock, an inch-and-a-half dead
bolt. Promise me."

"Now, this is what a Florida house should look like," Nazario said.
The elevated Key West-style home, with spacious verandas and multiple
sets of French doors, was long and rambling. Pale yellow, with white
trim, it stood alone on several acres with a dramatic view of the wide
bay.

"Looks like the widow lives large," Burch said.

A big green landscaping truck and several cars were parked in the
driveway but no one was in sight. They climbed the wide front stairs
and rang several times before a uniformed maid came to the door. She
was in her thirties with dark hair tied back in a ponytail. Her rubber
gloves were yellow, her expression impatient.

She scrutinized Nazario's business card. The lady of the house was
home, she said in guarded, heavily accented English, but busy at the
moment.

"You can tell her we're here," he said politely.

"No me." She looked amused as she wagged her head.

He persisted until she replied in Cuban-accented Spanish that they
could tell her themselves and directed them to a cabana area behind the
house. She smirked as she closed the door.

They followed the wraparound veranda, past comfortable white wicker
porch furniture, to a wide back staircase descending to the waterfront
pool, cabanas, and dock area.

The
Natasha
, a graceful three-masted sailboat, was moored
at the dock.

No one was in sight.

The bay was magnificent, sea birds studding the sky where clouds and
water converged. A splendid day, despite a forecast of thunderstorms.

"Think she sent us back here on a wild-goose chase?"

"No, Sarge. Listen. You hear what I'm hearing?"

Burch paused, then slowly grinned. "Sounds like Stone beat us here."

The rhythmic unmistakable sounds of passionate sex in progress came
from behind the louvered doors of the largest of three cabanas.

Burch rapped loudly on the polished wooden door. "Police Department."

The rhythm stopped, replaced by scrambling sounds and angry mutters.

"We're looking for Mrs. Streeter," Burch called out loudly, and
rapped again.

"Been years since I did this," he said sotto voce to Nazario.

After several more moments, the door abruptly swung open.

"It's Ross now, Mrs. Milo Ross."

She stood on one impossibly high-heeled sandal. The other was in her
hand. Lush shiny black hair tumbled long around her sleek bare
shoulders. Her strapless bikini was a brilliant peacock blue. A sheer
wraparound skirt in the same peacock color was tied like a sarong
around the suit's minuscule bottom.

A thin gold chain glittered around her slender waist.

"You looking for me?" The green eyes were cool and inquisitive,
despite the scarlet flush coloring her chiseled cheekbones.

Embarrassment or passion? Nazario wondered.

"Please." She reached a crimson-tipped, well-manicured hand out to
Burch for support, though Nazario stood closer. Clinging to his arm for
balance, she attempted to slide the Manolo Blahnik sandal onto her
slim, bare foot.

Burch was impressed. She'd sized them up instantly, instinctively
sensing which man was in charge. She's good, he thought. Very good.

She slowly wriggled her polished toes into the strappy shoe,
exposing her tanned legs longer than necessary, then clung to his arm
for a few more beats.

"Ross?" Burch asked. "You've remarried."

"Is that a crime?" she asked lightly.

"In many cases it should be." He smiled back at her.

Nazario was focused on the man in the cabana. He was no Milo Ross.

The first clue was the name nelson stitched over the grass-stained
pocket of the landscaping company work shirt he was hastily buttoning
with thick, fumbling fingers.

Tall, dark, and shaggy haired, he was handsome in a savage way, his
current expression sullen.

"This is Nelson," Natasha Ross said, "and you are…"

The detectives introduced themselves.

"We can continue to discuss the new plantings next time," she said,
briskly dismissing Nelson as he emerged, blinking, into the fierce
sunlight.

She cocked her head at the detectives. "We're planning a more
elaborate garden on the north side. Big beds full of color. What do you
think?" She led them toward the house, leaving Nelson to wander off
back to his truck.

"Color. Color is good." How uncool am I? Nazario thought,
embarrassed by his own words as he spoke them.

She showed them into the cool, air-conditioned entry, through a
great room with two huge fireplaces, and past a life-size marble statue
of a half-naked woman reclining on a chaise longue.

"Paolina Borghese," Natasha said, running a polished finger along
the woman's cold, stone arm as she passed. "Napoleon's sister. Italian,
eighteenth century."

"I'll have Norma bring you some coffee," she said, ushering them
into a bright yellow and white sunroom. "It's so hot out there," she
said, excusing herself. "I need to get out of these sticky clothes."

"No surprise they're sticky," Burch muttered, as her heels clicked
away on the marble floor. They watched her pause for brief words with
Norma, the maid who had answered the door.

The latest stock market quotes from New York, London, and Hong Kong
scrolled continuously on a large plasma television screen. The room was
full of potted palms and color. Bowls of bright fresh flowers were on
every table, and oil paintings, landscapes, still lifes, and seascapes,
in ornate gold-leaf frames, hung on the walls.

"No dogs playing poker?" Burch said in mock disappointment.

"Personally, I'm partial to Elvis on black velvet," Nazario said.
"And panthers. Big jungle cats stalking their prey."

"I think we just met one."

They were still speculating on the value of the room's artwork when,
in a surprisingly brief period of time, she rejoined them. Her white
wraparound dress accentuated her deep tan and her thick hair was piled
loosely atop her head in a style similar to Napoleon's sister, still
guarding the entrance to the great room.

Norma wheeled in a coffee service and poured.

Natasha settled in an upholstered wing chair with clawed feet and
armrests hand-carved into the heads of eagles.

As Burch explained the reason for their visit, her eyes changed. Her
lips parted.

"Charles Terrell." She repeated the name slowly, with a hint of
wonder, as though trying to recall where she had heard it before.
"You're here about Charles Terrell?" Her lashes swept down, masking her
expression.

Burch caught only a glimpse. Relief? She thought they were there for
another reason.

"Why would you come to me to discuss him?" Her eyes wandered to the
scrolling stock quotes.

"We're checking out his accident," Nazario said easily.

She seemed skeptical. "But that was a hundred years ago," she
murmured.

"We're still interested," Burch said. "How did you and Charles
Terrell meet?"

She sighed deeply, then leaned back and crossed her legs, as though
resigned to humoring them.

"I applied for a job at his drugstore," she said, her lush,
protuberant lips in a perpetual pout. "Fresh off the bus from Iowa. A
farm girl, if you can imagine that."

"Hard to believe," Burch said mildly. "Your parents still live
there?"

Something flickered in her eyes for a moment, then disappeared. "I'm
not sure," she said easily. "We're not a close family. I felt like a
displaced person, born at the wrong longitude and latitude. Didn't like
that life. I didn't belong in Iowa, so I left as soon as I was old
enough. Off to seek my future. My fortune." White teeth flashed, her
smile radiant. "The moment I saw it, I knew that Miami was the place.
There's something about it."

"You're so right," Burch agreed.

"I needed a job. I walked into a store not far from the Greyhound
bus station. Charles was the owner. I got the job. The first time we
saw each other…" She shrugged.

"Wasn't he married then?" Nazario asked.

Her unnaturally vivid green eyes met his. "His marriage was
apparently in trouble."

"Eventually he divorced and we married but, I must admit, it was
rocky." She smiled slightly, cautiously reminiscing from a safe
distance.

"After I had our son, Brandon, Charles began to stay out late. He
left me stuck with an infant. Said he was busy working, but he was
never there when I called the store." She arched an expressive eyebrow.
"I knew he had other business dealings, including a chain of
weight-loss clinics with a partner, but he became distant." She sipped
her coffee. "They say the wife is always the last to know. Not true.
Never. Any woman who doesn't know doesn't want to know. He was
unfaithful to his first wife, so I assumed he was being unfaithful to
me. I was trying to figure out what was going on."

"He spent time with his kids, which meant seeing his ex-wife. I
suspected she might be the one. She poisoned his mind against me every
chance she got. I knew she hated me. Or perhaps he'd hired a
replacement, some other pretty girl at the store. He laughed and denied
it. I was so young and vulnerable."

Burch nodded sympathetically. Had he ever met a woman less
vulnerable?

"Who knows if we would have worked out?" she said. "At the very end,
I thought it might. That last night, I was asleep when he came home
really late again, with no explanation. But he was in a great mood. He
woke me up, in fact. I'd wanted him to take me out to dinner earlier
that night. The baby had screamed all day and Charles refused to have a
live-in nanny. He had a thing about strangers in the house. He'd even
locked the garage door. Charles could be so anal. He'd taken his
Thunderbird apart, he said, and had his tools and the schematics all
laid out. He didn't want anybody in there until he finished what he was
doing. I had tried to get in there that afternoon, looking for a can of
mosquito spray. I was pissed off."

"But that night…" She sighed. "The man was amazing. He opened a
bottle of champagne, a really good vintage he'd been saving, and
brought it to bed. Unusual for him. It was like the first time. We made
love all night."

Nazario blinked, surprised that she spoke so freely about her sex
life, yet seemed so evasive.

"I wanted to sleep the next morning, but the baby was up, and so was
Charles, obsessed about working on that damn car. Wish I'd never seen
that stupid piece of junk. That Thunderbird was older than I was."

"I didn't like my Jaguar, either." Her pout grew darker. "I wanted
burgundy, but he bought me the blue because he liked it better. I was
so furious I was going to run it into a tree. But that morning he
promised me a Mercedes, the convertible I wanted. I left to pick up a
few things at Dadeland and then grocery-shop. But did he let me leave
the baby with him? No. He said he'd be too busy working on the car."
She fumed.

"In case you've never noticed, babies don't travel light. They're
hell to take shopping. He stuck me with that baby all the time. Never
again. Maybe," she mused, "it all did work out for the best."

"Not for Charles," Burch said.

"Well, of course." She patted her lips with a cloth napkin. "I
wouldn't wish that on anyone. But I believe in destiny. Some things are
meant to be."

"It must have been a difficult time for you," Nazario said
sympathetically.

Surprised for a moment, she agreed. "Yes, it was." Her pout became
self-pitying.

"So?" Burch asked. "Your second husband, Asher, was there to take up
the slack?"

"Martin was so comforting," she said. "A partner with Charles in the
weight-reduction clinics, which, of course, failed. But luckily Martin
had other business interests."

Before they divorced, she'd had a second child, then a third with
Daniel Streeter, husband number three.

"I love being a mom," she said primly.

Nazario had never seen anyone look less like a mom. His own mother's
anguished face appeared in a sudden familiar flashback. At the airport
in Havana, her palms pressed against the thick glass between them. He
never saw her again.

"Where are your kids?" Burch glanced around the room as though
moppets might suddenly spring up from behind the furniture. Nothing in
or outside of the house hinted at the presence of children.

"Brandon's in military school, in Tennessee, I think. Isabella is at
some sort of music camp in the Adirondacks or somewhere and…" Eyes
narrowing, she bit her moist lower lip as though trying to recall.
"Daniel Jr. is touring Europe with his dad this summer."

Burch thought wistfully of his own children, regretting the times
he'd complained about the sounds of their happy chaos because he had to
sleep during the day.

"And you're married again?" Nazario said.

"Milo and I met in Hawaii. A whirlwind courtship. We were married in
Vegas last spring."

The reason Stone found no local record of the marriage, Nazario
thought. "He at the office today?"

"A doctor's appointment," she said. "He's the retired CEO of Baldwin
Petroleum."

"Took early retirement, huh?" Burch said.

"No, my husband retired some time ago. This all does sound like a
soap opera, I suppose." She checked her gold watch. "Now, what is the
purpose of this trip down Memory Lane?"