Misgivings Read online

  “Did that turn out to be true?” Tripp said.

  “No,” Steinwitz admitted. “The food was quick enough, but when I asked the owner about the charity donation, he didn’t know what I was talking about. I was going to ask Amelia about it, but she never showed.”

  Not under that name, anyway, Wolfe thought. “We’re going to have to take a look at any and all correspondence you had with this woman,” he said.

  “You’re going to need a warrant,” she said coldly.

  “Then we’ll get one,” Wolfe said.

  “All birds, from canaries to eagles, can be carriers of parrot fever,” Alexx said. “When a psittacine species—like parakeets, parrots, or cockatoos—carry it, it’s called psittacosis. If it shows up in another avian species, it’s referred to as ornithosis. They’re both caused by the same bacterium, Chlamydia psittaci.” She reached up and opened a cubbyhole door, revealing boxes of latex gloves. She counted them silently, tapping a neatly manicured fingernail against each one, then wrote a number on the clipboard she held.

  “I can come back later if you’re busy,” Calleigh said, glancing around the autopsy room. There was no body currently on the table.

  “No, no, I can talk at the same time.” Alexx pulled out a box of gloves that was already opened and frowned. “Hmm.”

  “What about symptoms?”

  “Usually presents as the common flu: chills, fever, headache, muscle soreness, a dry cough. Hepatitis, endocarditis, and neurologic complications can show up, too. It’s usually not life-threatening, but a severe case can progress through to fatal pneumonia.” Alexx took the open box of gloves over to a digital scale, took one out, and laid it on the metal tray. “And then there’s exotic Newcastle disease. Nasty little bug, but it mainly affects poultry. The incubation period is from three to twenty-eight days, but carriers sometimes have no symptoms at all and can spread the virus for up to a year from their feces, feathers, blood—even their exhalations. Outside the host body, it can live for a long time in all sorts of environments: in lake water or damp soil, on insects or rodents. It’s resistant to many disinfectants, laughs at anything under fifty-six degrees C when it comes to sterilization, and can survive indefinitely when frozen. When it does kick in, its mortality rate is close to a hundred percent.”

  Alexx weighed the glove, made a notation, then replaced it on the scale with a full box.

  “You said mainly,” Calleigh said. “So it can be caught by humans, too?”

  “Oh, sure. Symptoms are usually malaise and some conjunctivitus—that’s about it. It’s a real killer when it comes to birds, but it’s not a threat to people.” Alexx weighed the full box, took it off the scale, and made another notation.

  “Don’t you have an intern or something that could do that for you?” Calleigh asked.

  Alexx rolled her eyes. “Sure, if I didn’t care about the results. I like to know what I have on hand, and I like to know exactly where it is. Anyone but me does the inventory, there’s no telling what they might miss. I like to keep my hand on the rudder, girl.”

  “Can’t argue with you there. Not when I can tell you exactly how many boxes of ammunition I have stored in the ballistics lab, and which kinds. But even I don’t weigh them.”

  “When you deal with as many biologicals as I do, you get used to weighing all sorts of things,” Alexx said. “I’m just trying to figure out how many gloves are left in this box . . .”

  “Well, I’m trying to figure out if Hector Villanova might have been involved in bird smuggling. Is it possible he was infected with psittacosis or END?”

  Alexx glanced at Calleigh sharply. “It’s possible,” she conceded. “Highly unlikely in the case of psittacosis, though; ninety percent of cases present with respiratory symptoms, and the X-ray I took of his chest was clear. A simple blood test would tell us, though, one way or the other.”

  “Great. I mean, I don’t want to interrupt your inventory—”

  Alexx gave her a look.

  “Right,” Calleigh said. “Just kidding.”

  Alexx put down the box of gloves. “Calleigh? No disrespect meant, but—I thought Delko was handling the Villanova case.”

  “He was,” Calleigh sighed. “But it got kicked to me. Delko’s working the Pathan kidnapping.”

  “But—”

  “It’s a long story, Alexx—I’d rather not get into it, okay?”

  “Okay, honey. I know you’ll do a great job.” Alexx paused. “And I know a live victim matters more than a dead one. But Hector—and the people that loved him—they deserve some justice, too. Don’t forget that.”

  “I won’t, Alexx. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  After Calleigh left, Alexx glanced over at the wall of steel drawers, where Hector Villanova’s remains still rested. “Sorry, baby,” she murmured. “Even the dead have to wait in line, sometimes . . .”

  One of the perks of working for the AV department of the Miami-Dade Crime Lab was not having to wear a lab coat. Tyler Jenson usually took full advantage of this, favoring short-sleeved shirts in eyecatching patterns, but today he was wearing a drab beige sweater. His usually cheerful face was pale and his nose was red. He sneezed just as Wolfe walked in the door.

  “Gesundheit,” Wolfe said.

  “Thank you,” Jenson said. “Man, I get sick every year, just before Christmas. I swear, most of my memories of the holidays are linked to the taste of cough syrup.”

  “I thought I saw Delko blowing his nose, earlier. But did you give it to him or did he give it to you?”

  “Who knows?” Jenson said. “A cold is like a fruitcake—it gets passed around so much nobody remembers who had it in the first place. You’re here about the Patrick computer, right?”

  “Right. Any luck?”

  “Sure. The guy wasn’t exactly a hacker—his password turned out to be Hamlet. I just ran a dictionary program through the log-in page. Anybody that uses a single word like that isn’t serious about security.”

  “Well, he wasn’t James Bond—though he might have wanted to play him,” Wolfe said. “What did you find?”

  Jenson held up a disc. “Here. I downloaded all his files onto this. Besides his email, there’s some scripts, some very pedestrian pornography, and what looks like an attempt at a novel.”

  Wolfe hesitated, then took the disc gingerly by one corner. “You know, the number one way germs are spread is through lack of hand-washing.”

  Jenson smiled and inhaled loudly through his nose, producing a noise like an elephant gargling. “Misery loves company,” he said. “You better go— I think I’m about to contaminate the entire room. Again.”

  Wolfe left.

  It didn’t take him long to scan the files. The scripts were all two or more years old and amateurish; he checked online, but none of them seemed to be in production, either. The novel was about a struggling actor in Miami, was only two chapters long, and was mostly devoted to long descriptions of casual sex punctuated by the angst of the misunderstood artist.

  The emails were more interesting, but only in a voyeuristic sort of way—Kingsley Patrick’s life, despite the sheen of glamour being an actor was supposed to supply, was mostly a series of part-time jobs, part-time relationships, and party-time whenever he could afford it. If he’d gotten a big break recently, he wasn’t talking about it online. He didn’t even have an agent—he’d been searching for new representation since he’d fired his old one nine months ago.

  And then Wolfe found the emails from Amelia C.

  She’d contacted him. She claimed to know his work from television and was a fan; while Wolfe thought that doubtful, Patrick seemed to have bought it. The emails were flirty in tone, and gradually led up to an invitation to join the Santas in their annual rampage.

  So she lured him to Santacon, Wolfe thought, and presumably to the mini-golf course and the deli. But why? Was she a crazed fan, an ex-girlfriend, or something else entirely?

  “Ms. Blitzen,�
� Wolfe said. “Feeling better?”

  “I am, thanks,” Valerie Blitzen said. She was dressed a little more provocatively than last time, in a tight-fitting top and a short skirt. Her complexion didn’t seem as pale, but it was hard to tell—she was wearing makeup.

  “You’re going to tell me I’m under arrest, aren’t you?” she said nervously. “Oh, God. I killed that guy by having sex with him, didn’t I?”

  Wolfe chuckled. “No, you didn’t. You’re in the clear as far as sexual homicide goes—the cause of death was something else. I just wanted to talk to you once you’d had a chance to recover yourself; sometimes, after a little reflection, certain things that were hazy clear up a bit.”

  She closed her eyes and let out a huge sigh. “Oh. Oh, man. That is such a big relief.”

  “I know you were kind of . . . distracted, but you spent more time with the victim than anyone else. Did he mention his own plans for Christmas, or Christmas Eve?”

  She thought about it. “Uh . . . now that I think about it, he might have. I have this vague memory of him asking me if I wanted to go to a really big Christmas Eve party. He said it was in some swanky hotel, but he could get both of us in. I asked him if he worked there or something, and he just laughed.”

  “Do you remember the name of the hotel?”

  “No. I don’t think he told me what it was. Anyway, I told him I already had plans—Christmas Eve, you know? I’m going to spend it with family.”

  “Right. You mentioned that the victim had also been flirting with other Santas—do you remember any particular one standing out? Maybe one that was hanging around him a lot and then abruptly left?”

  She shook her head. “Not really, no. I hadn’t really noticed the guy at all until he started hitting on me—and by then I sort of had tunnel vision, you know?”

  Wolfe thanked her for coming in and told her to contact him if she remembered anything else. She promised to do so, and he watched her leave with the gloomy realization that he was running out of leads.

  He shook his head, trying to regain his focus. C’mon, Ryan, he thought. You’ve still got the mysterious Amelia Claus’s email to track down. Time to go bug Jenson again.

  This time, though, he’d bring some latex gloves with him.

  And some tissues.

  “What’s the good word, Wolfe?” Tripp looked at the deli samples spread around the lab and grinned. “Lunch, maybe?”

  “The good word,” Wolfe said, “is herring. Pickled herring, to be exact.”

  He pointed to a large jar filled with silvery, barrel-shaped rollmops. “I tested the brine they’re soaking in, and it came back positive for a very small amount of imipramine. I think she dosed one or two of the pieces and the drug leached into the surrounding liquid.”

  “How could she know he’d get the right ones?”

  “Maybe she brought them over to his table her-self—Santas are generous, remember? Imipramine is soluble in alcohol and water, so she might have just had a vial of the stuff in liquid form and dumped it over the top. A small amount would just diffuse throughout the jar and probably wouldn’t be harmful to anyone else.”

  “But whoever got the first helping would get a lot more,” Tripp said grimly. “And with all the confusion, no one would notice one of the Santas adding a little extra holiday cheer to a jar.”

  “I dusted the lid and the glass for prints, but didn’t get anything,” Wolfe said. “Not much of a surprise; a lot of the Santas wear gloves as part of their outfit. I expected to at least get some of the employees’ prints, but they must wipe everything down on a regular basis.”

  “So he was telling the truth about running a clean place. I’ll keep that in mind the next time I get a craving for Greek salad,” Tripp said. “Where does that leave us?”

  “Looking for Amelia Claus. I’ve got Jenson trying to locate her IP address from Patrick’s computer.”

  “Good. The warrant for Monica Steinwitz’s computer records just came through,” Tripp said, pulling a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Between hers and Patrick’s, maybe we can find this woman.”

  “Let’s go,” Wolfe said, shrugging out of his lab coat.

  Monica Steinwitz lived over a warehouse on Northwest Twenty-third Street. The warehouse itself was a gallery space, bare concrete floors underfoot and thick, squared-off ducts of gray galvanized tin overhead. The main room was two stories tall, big and echoey with the smell of oil-based paint sharp and heavy in the air. The banks of fluorescent tubes that had once provided lighting were just empty shells now, their function now performed by tiny halogen spots suspended by fishing line and angled to highlight the walls.

  Tripp studied the sculpture just to the right of the entryway, one fist propped under his chin, the other holding his elbow. The sculpture was a large piece of clear Lucite in the form of a teardrop; captured inside was a crumpled and charred metal container, the rectangular, gallon-sized kind used for white gas. Flecks of rust and ash were suspended around it, their edges as intricate and detailed as snowflakes.

  “Fuel Fossil,” Wolfe said, reading the label on the base. “I get it. Lucite is a form of plastic, which is derived from petroleum, which in turn is made from dinosaurs—it’s where we get the term fossil fuel.”

  “Yeah, that much is obvious,” Tripp said. “I was just trying to decide if it reminded me more of Jeff Koons’s stuff or Brian Jungen’s.”

  Wolfe stared at him. He blinked.

  Tripp scowled. “What, I’m not allowed to know about anything other than football and beer? Miami has a lot of great art.”

  “Yeah, but—you’re from Texas.”

  Tripp snorted. “So? Guess you’ve never been to Austin, huh?”

  “Well—”

  “C’mon. Let’s go grab Ms. Steinwitz’s computer before she turns it into a planter or something.”

  The curator directed them up a flight of wooden stairs; Steinwitz’s apartment had apparently been converted from the warehouse’s office space. Loud music could be heard from inside—something that sounded like a Russian military band staging a frontal assault on a techno dance club. Tripp paused on the landing and pounded loudly on the dented metal of the door.

  “Miami-Dade police!” he shouted. “Please open the—”

  The music abruptly shut off. A bolt slid back and the door opened, revealing Monica Steinwitz in a pair of flannel pajama pants, an oversize T-shirt covered with paint stains, and bare feet. “All right, all right. What do you want now?”

  Tripp held up the warrant. “Your computer, Ms. Steinwitz.”

  She glowered at him. “Well, I guess I can’t stop you. But if you damage a single cable, I’ll see you in court.”

  “You may, anyway,” Wolfe said as he walked in. “Depending on what we find . . .”

  Steinwitz’s place was large, but crowded; art in various mediums and stages of completion covered tables, counters, walls, and floors. A dominant theme seemed to be figures with exaggerated proportions, either skeletal, grossly inflated, or some combination of the two.

  The computer sat on a desk in a cubbyhole space beneath a bed on an elevated platform. Wolfe made sure it was unplugged, then started disconnecting cables.

  “I can’t believe you’d invade my privacy like this,” Steinwitz fumed. “I told you, I’ve never met this Amelia in person and I don’t have any idea who she is. All my computer is going to give you is her email address, and she could have an anonymous account set up anywhere.”

  “Let us worry about that,” Tripp said.

  Wolfe straightened up, almost hitting his head on the underside of the bed. “Uh, I hate to impose further, but I had a lot of coffee today—you think I could use your bathroom?”

  She glared at him. “You know what? No, you can’t. I don’t have to give you access to anything other than what’s specified in the warrant, and my bathroom is not on the list.”

  She stomped over to the kitchen sink—her apartment, other than the bathroom, was just one b
ig room—and turned on the water. “I hope this doesn’t bother you,” she said acidly.

  “Wolfe?” Tripp asked.

  “Uh, I’ll be fine. Actually, I guess it wasn’t as urgent as I thought. We’ll be out of your way shortly.”

  He went back to work.

  And smiled.

  Calleigh found Marco Boraba at home. He lived in one of the stylish, art deco apartment buildings Miami Beach was well-known for, but when he came to the door he didn’t look as if he was in any shape to appreciate his surroundings. Both his eyes were red and swollen, and his posture and expression suggested that he wanted nothing more than to go back to bed. He was dressed as impeccably as he had been last time, though, in a dark gray suit with a purple silk tie.

  “Miss Duquesne,” he said. “A pleasure to see you again. Have you found out what happened to Hector?”

  “That’s what I’d like to talk to you about. May I come in?”

  “Certainly.”

  He ushered her inside and into a living area decorated in colorful South American wall hangings and rugs, counterpointed by a couch and several low-slung chairs upholstered in spotless white leather. Boraba lowered himself carefully into one of the chairs, and Calleigh perched on an end of the couch.

  “You seem to be moving a little slowly today, Mister Boraba. Not feeling well?”

  “Just a touch of the flu. It’s the season for it, I suppose.” He rubbed the corner of one bloodshot eye wearily.

  “It’s the season for many things, actually. For instance, the hatching season for wild birds starts in early January and goes through until mid-May. Busiest time of year for the illegal bird trade.”

  The look on his face didn’t change, but he blinked several times before answering. “Is it? I didn’t know that.”

  “I want to thank you for the background you gave me on that dog toy. You had no way of knowing, but I have a certain affinity for weapons. I’ve never investigated a murder by atlatl, but, hey, maybe someday. In the meantime, the one I bought from your store will have to stay in the evidence locker.”