Trevar's Team 1 Page 10

  With each breath she took, I was reminded how near she was to me. And there was the distance of propriety.

  I considered what it would look like if I lost control. What if I kissed her or tried to make love? I certainly wasn’t purity personified. My prior profession was one of releasing villains on the world. The only infraction Lilia had in her background was going over the convent wall. My world was a street world where I ran wild. Her world was enclosed. I had admittedly led a promiscuous life. Her world was chaste. She had shared love with one woman. Sadly, I’d shared sex with many.

  She stirred. My arms were as if cuffed, and my legs in leg irons. I clung to my side of the bed, barely daring to breathe. The warmth from her body reached me. Again, she moved. I turned to her. “Can’t you sleep?” I quizzed.

  “No. I hope that you will not misinterpret my request. I haven’t been held since Sylvia was alive. Will you please hold me? Just hold me.”

  I took her in my arms. Her silken gown glided next to my flesh. I shuddered as our breasts brushed. Hers swelled against my own. I counted her heartbeats. The touch of her skin made me yearn for her. Thoughts of being reeled into her gentle embrace were etched upon my mind. I savored her image as she slept. Each soft breath and each blink of her eyelids were being committed to my memory.

  Her arms curled around my waist and my heart nearly lifted from my ribcage. Within my grasp was her hair. It cascaded down across the pillow. We were near enough for me to kiss her face—her lips, and to share her warmth. Yet my carnal desires were shackled.

  After all, she trusted me. To betray that trust would be sadder than weeping sunshine.

  7

  WE HAD AWAKENED in one another’s arms. It was the most splendid morning my life had known. It was a belonging. It was finding my home. But I wondered if Lilia’s heart was discovering the same home. One thing was certain. Lilia Franco was the woman I was beginning to love.

  Over morning coffee and croissants, I learned her true biography. The background checks had not revealed the woman. It had not told me that she always carries a supply of lemon drops. Nor had her favorite beverage been stated on the reports. She enjoyed lemonade. Her favorite meal was paella, followed by a dish of fresh strawberries. Her favorite things were rainbows, sailboats, yellow roses, and her guitar. She played classical guitar, violin, and some piano. She read biographies and had a love for poetry. She played tennis, loved soccer, collected paintings by women artists, and had a sense of humor.

  Lilia referred to her life as paparazzi purgatory.

  No one would have guessed that she preferred wearing cutoffs and a t-shirt to being perfectly gowned in designer threads. Nor that she preferred going without makeup than to be meticulously coiffured and painted. She would rather walk in bare feet on the beaches than be on stage. She revealed her true self to me. Things she would never have told a TV interviewer or magazine reporter, she divulged.

  She had found great comfort in the convent. And she never performed without saying a rosary first. She cried when she told me that she missed her family—the family she’d left behind. She missed the flavors and textures of her homeland. And she told me she felt safe with me.

  All that she told me made me love her more.

  That morning my trip back to The Radclyffe was jammed full of the most extraordinary array of information. I’d gathered a treasure trove of data about a lovely woman.

  My partners had started their day’s work. I entered the office and sat at my desk. Rachel glanced up from her computer. First, she told me Summer had taken our directives. She went to the clinic to get checked out. The reports were she has no broken bones, and the scrapes, scratches, and bruising would go away.

  Rachel then expressed the opinion that since Summer spent last night with Debra, it must have been a curative love session for the two youngsters. I didn’t doubt that for an instant. The intimacy shared hadn’t done Summer any harm.

  “And your night?” Rachel inquired.

  “Innocent. Very lovely. Lilia likes yellow roses. I called an order into the florist before I’d even left the parking lot at Breakers.”

  She stopped tapping the keyboard. “Yellow roses? Innocent?”

  “And lovely.” I shuffled papers. “Anything to report on the case?”

  “I called the bank. The teller who was there when Sylvia found out about Deb siphoning funds gave me an earful. Sylvia had suspicions, and that day she was livid about the amount. Deb had been seriously tapping her mother’s accounts. She’d had accessed all the numbers of all the accounts to extract cash. The day before Sylvia’s murder, she’d frozen her account.”

  “Not conclusive evidence, but it was a motive. I’ll call Sylvia’s attorney and find out if she had actually made an appointment to sign a codicil. I’m guessing not. It was probably only on the night in question that she’d threatened to change the will.”

  “By the way, I contacted our insurance company. They’ll take care of hauling Summer’s motorcycle. Also, issue a check. There was no denying it was totaled. The agent said they were just glad they weren’t making out a death benefits check.”

  “Summer used up one of her lives on that crash. What’s on your schedule for today?” I questioned.

  “I thought I’d talk with Grant’s maid again. Time jiggles memories. Then I’ll go back down to Homicide and ask Tom Powers why there’s a page missing from the medical examiner’s report.”

  “A missing page?”

  Rachel frowned, “I discovered it this morning. The way it jumped from one area of the autopsy to another wasn’t right. And the page numbers were absent. Something’s missing and I intend to find out what it is.”

  “If Powers doesn’t cooperate, maybe we can offer to broadcast the location of the murder.”

  Rachel chuckled. “You’re awful, Beryl. No wonder you were such a wonderful defense lawyer. You’re vicious.”

  “You know me, it’s vi et armis.” I laughed. At least Rachel was teasing me rather than blaming me for all the wrongs of society.

  “Force and arms,” she repeated. “That sums it up.”

  She was back to accusing me of single-handedly crippling the judicial system. Beryl Trevar had jammed the courts with retrials. With one redirect after the next redirect, I’d emptied the prisons. “Have you spoken with Helene today?”

  “A quick chat. Nothing pertinent. I do like to stay on top if it.” Rachel’s eyes narrowed. She appeared pensive. “You know, I actually do like her. In her own way, she’s a very interesting, alluring woman.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re falling for her?”

  “Not at all. She’s not my type. But as a person, or a friend with benefits, I do like her. She’s like no one I’ve ever known. We’re not romantic. Just sex-mates. There’s mellowness in her demeanor. But there aren’t feelings like you have for Lilia and Summer has for Debra. I think we’ve got more than our share of detective-client relationships.”

  In an attempt to muffle the subject, I spoke in my sanctimonious attorney voice. “In fairness, I’ve never fallen for a client before.”

  She shrugged. “Jeremy seems to be the only suspect we can agree on.”

  “And nobody wants to sleep with him.”

  “Right.” Rachel grinned. “So what are you doing with your day? Maybe we need a new slogan. Love ’em and litigate ’em. But, Beryl, we should all consider this. Unless it’s Jeremy, one of us is hanging out with a killer.”

  “Maybe I’ll sit here and dream up a new code system for us. Something more relevant to our new image of romance. You know, the old one is outdated now.” In tight spots, the trio often used nonsensical codes allowing us to communicate with one another. We use the code name ‘Agatha’ in honor of Agatha Christie. For example, we’d say ‘Poor Aunt Agatha will miss seeing you. She will arrive in ten days. Now you’ll be left out of the will.’ And translation, ‘we’ll move on the count of ten, and you take out the villain on your left.’

  Rachel joked, “Now i
t’s more on point to say, poor me, my lady did it.”

  I chuckled. “I don’t relish thinking about any one of us being let down. However, as board members of Trevar Investigators, we each have a signed contractual agreement to protect the lady I’m interested in. So let’s just hang on to the slogan we have, and hope we never have to use it on any of our ladies.”

  “Beryl, I don’t want to see you or Summer get hurt. Be careful.” She turned back to me. “Oh, I almost forgot. You might be interested in this. Anita Cruz owns a small warehouse in Little Havana. It’s rather a hike from Palm, but she might have planned it there to keep her pharmacy away from her selling turf.”

  “Maybe her headquarters is in Miami because her brother ran his operation out of there. I’d planned to call on Jeremy later, but I’m getting nowhere with that. I do need to talk with him about his telephone threats to Lilia. Not that I mind being her protector. I can call on him later. I’m never in any hurry to see him in his shorts. This Miami deal sounds much more promising. When Summer returns, we can stop by the motorcycle showroom where she can pick out a new bike. Then we can take it on a trip to Little Havana. We’ll do an inspection of Anita’s premises.”

  “Be careful. Your brand of investigation is becoming a contact sport.”

  My fingers glided over my throbbing cheek before I said, “I’ll try to be careful. Pain seems to be the least of my troubles. I’m worried we’ll find conclusive evidence that Deb’s pals are involved in the murder. I’m also concerned about Summer hanging out with Debra.”

  Rachel’s eyebrows lifted. “Are you more frightened of her getting harmed or of falling back into her old lifestyle of drugs?”

  I paused. “Summer now lectures against the evils of drugs. Debra lives in a drugstore. The odds might be even. However, I believe in Summer. She’s now into building her body instead of allowing drugs to demolish it.”

  Grinning, Rachel surmised, “Summer would probably insist on Deb smoking only filter-tip marijuana. And only shoot up vitamin E and snort rosehip and dolomite.”

  “Time will tell,” I responded. “In the meanwhile, Summer and I shall fill our day with a Miami reconnaissance.”

  As the day progressed, things didn’t go as planned. Summer selected an updated version of her beloved motorcycle. The rub was that it needed to be serviced and wasn’t going to be ready until later in the afternoon. When I still insisted on going to Miami’s Little Havana, Summer said she would ride along with me. She didn’t want me to run into Cruz and Hammer alone. And, she stressed, they might be there. They had not returned to the Grant Mansion.

  It was a fairly quiet trip to Miami. By the time we arrived, Summer and I were both famished. We went to our favorite little restaurant in Little Havana. I sipped a mango flavored batida milkshake and feasted on Palo Milla steak, rice, and black beans. Strong Cuban coffee and churros topped off the meal.

  Conversation was sparse. Both Summer and I realized there were extenuating circumstances concerning our romantic interests. We also realized that if the murder were solved, the tension between us would ease. That made us impatient to solve it—and impatient to get to Cruz’s warehouse.

  We circled the block where the disheveled warehouse was located to survey the area. There were no signs of the vehicles that we knew belonged to any of the gang. After parking a block away, we strolled past the vacant warehouse.

  “This stakeout is a waste of time,” Summer muttered. “Dull surveillance!”

  “We’re going in. Is that enough excitement for you?”

  “Is breaking and entering an abandoned warehouse exciting? You tell me.”

  I gave a hearty pound on the door. Nothing. With my ear pressed to the door, I concluded, “Vacant. But there’s been movement. Not a speck of dust on the door handle.”

  “If they’ve come and gone, we’re too late. If we get caught going in, we’ll have a B&E on our records.”

  “Naw. I’ll plead the necessity defense. We’re breaking because there may be an emergency. We need to avert greater harm. Higher law demands take over. A technicality.”

  “You’ll spring us?”

  “Sure. There’s even a thing called jury nullification. It’s where the jury goes against the law and goes by their own conscience. Ain’t law great?”

  “Most criminals haven’t got a clue those laws are on the books.”

  “If they’d paid my enormous fees, I would have told them.” I took out my small leather case of selected implements. Guiding the lock pick slowly into the chamber, I jiggled it until I felt a release. “Don’t you just love gadgetry,” I exclaimed as the door swung open with a grating creak.

  “Hope to hell Cruz has heard of the necessity defense.”

  We walked cautiously into the dank, dark warehouse. Summer sniffed. “Smells like a compost heap gone wrong. Whew. The chems just hit me. Their litter box needs changing.”

  “That means someone needs to change it. And when they do, they might just talk about the crime.” I reached into my shoulder bag for a small flashlight. We inspected the premises. The flooring was dilapidated and each footstep squeaked. Between rotted wood and the stench of chemicals, stale air hung like a vapor cloud. I whistled through my teeth when we spied a table holding all the properties to manufacture most of the drugs of choice. “Cooking up a bonanza!”

  “I tally big bucks.”

  “Let’s check to see where those stairs lead.”

  “If Cruz returns and catches us here…”

  “Summer, we’re armed.” The weight of my nine-millimeter pistol was a constant reminder. Beretta justice at its best. We climbed the rickety wooden stairway to see if they stashed the money in an empty loft area. “A perfect vantage point.”

  “Trev, are you nuts?”

  “Quit being dainty.”

  We sat on the splintery planks. “I’ll have enough wood in my backseat to float to Casablanca.”

  “Be patient, Summer. This may be the break we need.”

  “I got some jokes,” Summer offered.

  I refused to answer to acknowledge her stash of incessant attorney jokes and she sulked.

  When we heard a noise, we were both suddenly silent. There was a slam when the door flapped completely open. A thin spine of light came from the door as it fanned. We heard muffled voices. I recognized Debra’s first. Then Anita spoke. I hoped Hammer was odd woman out. I peered over the loft’s edge to confirm that there were only two. A dull light bulb had been turned on. The women walked to a table of chemicals. I put two fingers up to let Summer know they were sans Hammer.

  Without warning, the board beneath us snapped and the ledge gave way. We plunged down eight feet to the ground amid a spray of rotted lumber. The air was thick with dust.

  Summer bounced to her feet. “We were in the area and thought we’d stop by,” she uttered.

  Cruz had pulled a snub-nosed revolver. She pointed it directly at Summer’s head. “Not funny,” Cruz announced.

  “I nearly forgot,” I said through spurts of coughing from the dust, “you have no sense of humor at all.” I stood, brushing the dust from my legs.

  “You’re trespassing. I should shoot you both,” Cruz threatened.

  Debra neared the light. She was sporting a black and blue eye. “Why didn’t you stay away?” she asked.

  “She hit you?” Summer angrily asked.

  “It was an accident,” Debra replied. She was lying and everyone knew it.

  “Hey,” I said as casually as I could under the circumstances, “we don’t want trouble. Our partner is listening. I’m wired and this is being transmitted and going on to tape. Rachel will call the cops. They’ll raid this place. Arrest you for drugs and murder. You won’t get out of the bucket until you’re ready for Social Security. Surely you don’t think we’re stupid enough to come in here with no backup?”

  Summer grimaced in my direction. “No one is that flipping stupid,” she commented.

  “You two bullshitting me?” Cruz asked.r />
  “No. I’ll prove it.” Cautiously I opened my shoulder bag. “Don’t get nervous, Cruz. I’m just getting the microphone out. If we lose contact with Rachel, you’ll experience an immediate badge stampede.” I pulled out a dead mic that I’d been meaning to get fixed for weeks. I figured Cruz wouldn’t recognize an inactive bug. I held it up for her to inspect. “We don’t want trouble. Drop your gun. We’ll go amicably. When we’re out of here, we’ll tell Rachel not to call in the cops. She doesn’t hear from us and you’re throwing a cop party.”

  “How do I know you won’t call the cops?”

  “We’re trespassing. We don’t want our private investigator’s licenses revoked. And we sure as hell don’t want to end up sharing a cell with you or Junie Mae.”

  “She’s telling the truth,” Summer backed me up. “Neither of us dig wrestling.”

  “That ain’t funny,” Cruz said. She then lowered her gun in compliance.

  When it hit the ground, Summer passed by her. Their glares at one another were raw heat. Suddenly, Summer’s fists became weapons. She smashed Cruz’s jaw. Cruz crumbled. Summer yanked her to her feet. In a fit of fury, Summer then threw her against the table. Both Cruz and the table overturned.

  Summer yelled, “That’s for Priscilla.” She then dumped over a tank of chemicals. “That’s for Florida.” She kicked an adjoining table, spilling drugs across the room. A large plastic drum continued to roll for many moments. “And that’s for the hell of it.” Her eyes blazed.

  “Who’s Priscilla?” a bewildered Cruz asked.

  When Summer started back toward her, I hooked her arm. “Leave it.” I lifted the gun I’d retrieved. “I’ve got her revolver.”

  Anita Cruz scrunched when Summer passed her. She looked up at me as I filed by. “Is that your fuckin’ idea of amicable?”

  “Under the circumstances, it’s as friendly as she gets.” After emptying bullets from the cylinder, I tucked the gun in my bag. I could pitch it into the Atlantic drink’s wilderness on our drive home. “From here on, it’s lollipops at ten paces.”