Hot Stuff (28 page)

Em has this seventy-inch Samsung 3D television screen that is unbelievable for sports shows. We saw the Super Bowl on her TV last year, and it was almost as good as being there. Actually, I have no frame of reference.

“So you just waltzed in and took the CDs?”

We were sitting on her balcony, looking out at the lights from Star Island and farther to South Beach. The water in Biscayne Bay was inky black and the half moon cast a lazy, wavy pattern to the marina directly below.

James and I sipped our beers. Em had a white wine, something I'd never developed a taste for.

“James went on the Internet and found a video on how to pick a lock.”

“With paper clips,” James reminded me.

Em shook her head. “Paper clips?”

“Hey, I was skeptical too. The proof is right there.” I pointed at the five discs on the coffee table inside.

“Make a bomb, rob a bank, pick a lock—it's as easy as logging on, am I right?”

She was.

“Five discs. Are they labeled?”

I hadn't even looked. They appeared to be rewritable.

“They aren't labeled.”

“Why wouldn't they label them?”

“Because they can use them over again.”

“Ah.”

Em eased out of her chair, and we followed her into the condo. James and I sat down on the butter-soft leather sofa.

“So how do we know?” She slipped one of the discs into her player. The date immediately displayed on the lower left of the screen.

“Question answered.”

The date was two days before the murder.

“Try this one.”

I handed her the disc that had been two down in the stack.

“Perfect,” she said when the video started. “This is the night.”

The video started with a timer. Five p.m. Again, the numbers occupied a small section of the screen in the bottom left. The digits rapidly increased in fractions of a second. Thirty seconds later, with four different pictures on the display, nothing had happened.

“Man,” James was frustrated, “we could be here for five or six hours.”

Em turned her attention from the screen to the two of us sitting on her brown leather sofa.

“We don't know what we're looking for.”

“People walking in and out of the shots,” I suggested.

“People taking breaks outside,” Em said.

“Do we have a time of death?” James asked.

I looked into Em's eyes. “Did Ted share that with you?”

Scowling, she said, “Yes. As a matter of fact, he did.”

“Well, maybe we can fast-forward to five minutes before and see if there is any action that happened at that time.”

“Time of death was, within half an hour, eight to eight thirty.” We'd first seen her body closer to nine p.m., within ten minutes of discovery by the waiter.

“So,” Em walked to the player, “I'll set this for ten till eight. That gives us at least ten minutes ahead of the possible killing.”

Em fussed with the player, advancing the CD back and forth until we could see the on-screen timer as it registered 7:49.

I concentrated on the whole monitor. There were four separate grainy pictures on the screen grouped in a square, the numbers increasing at a dizzying pace in a small space on the bottom left of the television.

“This is going to be strange. Four cameras, four things happening at the same time. Hard to follow.”

Watching the top left video I would see anyone walking from the locker room, restrooms, and showers toward the walk-in cooler and Bouvier's office. There was no one. The top right picture was directed at the cooler entrance. Anyone walking in or out would be pictured. And they were. One of the Spanish-speaking cooks, Adelpho I believe, walked in, and almost immediately walked back out with a pan of what appeared to be chicken parts. The video was black and white, and blown up on Em's screen, it was pixelated. I'd sold security systems for my company that were a lot higher tech than L'Elfe's.

My eyes drifted to the lower right picture, where traffic headed from the kitchen down the hall could be seen. An employee walking toward Bouvier's office, the walk-in, or the locker room, restrooms, and showers would be picked up on this camera. Also, anyone walking from those areas to the kitchen would be visible. Adelpho was in that shot as well as he carried his pan of chicken to his cooking station.

Finally, on the bottom left, was a view of the outside. The camera was mounted above the door and seemed to show a fairly wide angle of the parking lot. However, the green Dumpster
was not visible and neither was the fire hydrant where they'd tied the yellow crime-scene tape the night of Amanda's murder. Without a picture of that specific area, there would be no view of the killing. It would have been the perfect shot, but I was somewhat relieved. That image was something I really didn't care to see.

A minute passed and still there was no activity.

“The outside camera,” Em pointed to the screen. “If Amanda exited through the kitchen door, we should be able to see her, right?”

As she spoke, almost on command, someone opened the heavy steel door and walked outside.

“Oh, my God. There.” Em stood up and moved closer for a better look.

The harsh glare from a mounted floodlight blurred the upper body and by the time the person could have been identified, they were off camera.

“Damn.” I frowned.

“Maybe this is why Conway said there was nothing conclusive on the CD,” James said. “I mean, this could be a futile exercise.”

“He also refused to let us see the CD,” she reminded him. “I'm not at all sure we should trust the detective.”

I much preferred her tone now to the times she called him Ted.

Em stopped the CD, reran the scene, but the upper torso was nothing but a blur of diffused light.

“You know, it's just like the security system on the kitchen door. That's a cheap version that could be bypassed in seconds. And whoever installed this video system used the cheapest thing they could find and did a piss-poor job.” I didn't understand kitchens or cooking, but I did know security systems. “They should have taken into consideration that light, and either—”

“Skip, look.”

The door opened a second time as another employee walked out. This person was a little shorter where the light didn't catch the head and shoulders. There was less glare, but it was still hard to identify the worker as the camera was focused on their back. We saw the person, black jacket and white pants take about five steps into the parking lot.

“Obviously, we're not going to have much luck,” James said.

Then, while the shorter body was still in frame, the door opened again. This time no one walked out, but the body still on screen turned around as if to say something.

The three of us stared intently at the monitor, concentrating on the grainy, somewhat blurred face.

Blurred as it was, there was no doubt of the identity. It was Chef Jean Bouvier.

“So we're not quite forty minutes before the latest time of the knifing and we've got somebody and Bouvier outside. Means nothing,” James said.

Em nodded, making notes on a yellow legal pad. “There may be more of an exodus. We've got a lot of time left, guys.”

“And,” I reminded her, “the killer could be someone who was never inside the restaurant. Someone who came off the street.”

We watched in silence, as if we were sadistic voyeurs waiting for a grisly killing. Actually, we were.

“It's like a really bad reality show.” James watched too much TV.

There was a gentle breeze off the water, drifting through the open door, and outside we could hear the sound of a speedboat, running across the bay in the pitch black. I could hear soft conversation on the patio next door, and hoped they didn't hear us. Commenting on property that we'd stolen.

“Em, we've got another suspect.” I needed to bring her up to speed.

“Where?”

“Not on the screen. Somebody we uncovered today.”

Turning to me with a surprised look she said, “You waited until now to tell me this? What's that all about?”

“Look, this only happened this evening. Frankly, breaking and entering and stealing the CDs sort of overwhelmed me.”

“So? Who is it?”

“Kelly Fields.”

“The baker?” I could tell she was more than surprised. The Fields girl had never been on the radar. “The one you had a date with?”

“It wasn't a date.”

“After work, a beer—”

So maybe I wasn't the only one who had a jealous streak.

“Anyway, she came up to me tonight and said she was getting back with her husband. She asked me not to mention our little rendezvous to anyone.”

“Which you'd already done.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Go on.”

“Mikey Pollerno, the setup guy, told me why the Fields separated.”

“Oh?”

“Kelly thought that Amanda was hitting on her husband.”

“Hitting on her husband? You know, you guys have been making Amanda out to be a pretty awful person. She wasn't perfect, but she wasn't that bad. Damn it, she was a friend and I—”

James spoke up. “We haven't been making her out to be anything. We're hearing it from the inside, Em. It's not like we're making this shit up.”

“Here comes someone.”

The lower right corner had movement. Someone was walking toward the locker room.

“Sophia Bouvier,” I said. The short, squat, waddling woman was moving down the hall.

We watched as she stopped halfway down to the locker room and opened the office door. The same office door that James had unlocked with paper clips. The door that had the jammed handle on the inside.

“Not locked.” James studied her as she disappeared into the office.

“Not locked?” I shook my head. “Would have been a whole lot easier if we'd lifted the CDs during regular hours.”

“And there's someone leaving out the back door,” Em said.

Again it was impossible to tell who it was. The bright floodlight mounted on the building was creating an almost halo effect on the person from their shoulders on up.

“Damn, we lose many more, there will be no one else running the kitchen,” James quipped. “Everyone is headed outside.”

A minute later, give or take one hundredth of a second, Sophia exited the office and walked back toward the kitchen.

“Her husband left, and how much do you want to bet she's the next one out?”

James called it. The outside door opened and the short woman stepped into the parking lot. We assumed it was her. She was far too short for the floodlight to halo her head, and she didn't wear the black-and-white cooking garb.

“You two didn't tell me there were parties going on outside. Does this happen every night?”

“Someone's coming back in.” I pointed to the screen.

As the figure got closer to the camera, I could barely make him out. It was Joaquin Vanderfield. Em scribbled something on her tablet.

“So, was he the first person out the door? And now he's done smoking his joint or using the cell phone?” James was watching
intently, a brown bottle still in his hand but the contents a distant memory.

“Or was he busy banging one of the waitresses up against the Dumpster?” Em had that sarcastic tone in her voice.

“Or did he even show up for work until now? Maybe,” I said, “he just walked in.”

Em looked at me, throwing up her hands in frustration. “In order to find out, we'd have to watch the tape from zero.”

“We'll be up half the night.” James stood up and walked to Em's kitchen. “You mind if I have another beer?”

“Would it matter?”

He brought two Yuenglings out for himself and me and we continued to watch the screen.

“Here's what we have so far, boys.” Em referred to her notes. “An unidentified person walks outside. The light and the rear view make it difficult to decide the identity of said person.”

“Said person?” James mocked her.

Ignoring him, she continued, “Chef Jean Bouvier walks out.”

“So far, so good,” I said.

“Unidentified person walks out, followed shortly by Sophia Bouvier.”

“We've lost four people,” James commented.

“Joaquin Vanderfield walks in. Could have been unidentified number one or two or could be that he walked in off the street.”

“This is confusing as hell,” I said.

“That's why we're making the big bucks, Tonto. If it was easy, anyone could be doing it.”

It's why I was washing dishes and getting damned tired of it.

“Someone heading toward the walk-in.”

Vanderfield, wiping his brow, came walking down the hall. He glanced at the camera with a look of hesitation on his face. It
was as if he didn't want to be recognized, but could see no way to avoid it. James could have told him about the hoodies.