Читать книгу The Apostle - J. Kerley A. - Страница 11

I awoke at eight twenty with the vague recollection of dreams made of flames and punctuated by screams. Breakfast was strong coffee and stale churros and I was at the department an hour later, hungry to track down the maniac who’d killed Kylie Sandoval. Roy was in his office, the muscular Miami skyline looming outside the windows of his twenty-third-floor office, Biscayne Bay visible to the east.

I gave him an anything happening? face, meaning Menendez.

He shook his head. “I figure this will be solved by snitches and shoe leather. It’ll come. Like Tom Petty said, the waiting is the hardest part.” He gave me a curious look. “I take it you haven’t been to your office yet.”

“No, why?”

He closed his eyes and began whistling “Rule Britannia”.

Wondering if my boss had gone around the bend, I headed down the hall to my office, finding the door ajar. I used to share space with Ziggy Gershwin, but Zigs had impressed Roy enough to get his own office and assignments last month, so I was the sole occupant, generally leaving it unlocked.

I pushed the door open quietly, seeing a light-skinned woman of African heritage sitting in the chair opposite my desk, her back to me. She was leafing through a book I had contributed to some years ago, The Inner Cultures of Sociopaths, more for academic than general audiences. She wore a taupe uniform and though only a small portion was visible, I recognized the shoulder patch of the Miami-Dade PD.

I cleared my throat and she jumped, the book skidding from her lap to the floor.

“Bloody hell,” she said, standing. “You scared the piss out of me.”

Her voice sounded closer to London than Miami. I scooped up the book from the floor and set it back on the shelf, then sat, head cocked. My visitor was a petite woman in her mid-to-later twenties, brunette hair tugged back in a ponytail. Full lips framed a small mouth that was now pursed tight. Her eyes were large and brown and watching me as intently as I was watching her. I had the feeling I was being weighed.

“And you would be?” I ventured.

“Holly Belafonte. I’m an officer with the MDPD.”

I didn’t point out that, as a detective, I’d already deduced it by the uniform, though the accent seemed misplaced. “Did I mis-park my car, Officer Belafonte?” I said, a shot at humor that went wide, judging by the narrowed eyes.

She nodded to the chair. “Can I sit?”

“I suspect you can, since you were sitting when I entered.”

The stare again. Humor didn’t seem her métier. “Please,” I sighed. “Sit. And tell me why you’re here.”

She sat tentatively, reached into her purse and pulled out an envelope.

“I’m told this will explain things.”

I opened the envelope and saw Vince’s card clipped to two sheets of paper, the top one in his jagged handwriting.

Hey Buddy – Meet H. Belafonte, your official departmental liaison on the Sandoval case. She’s all I could scratch up on short notice and I picked her because she knew the vic personally. I cleared this with the Chief – at least I shoved it under his nose while he was screaming at everyone. The head of Investigative signed off as well, so you’re clear to proceed and I’ll lend a hand whenever possible. This place has gone nuts.

The second sheet of paper was typed:

This document authorizes Of. H. Belafonte to serve as official contact between the Miami-Dade Police Department and the Florida Center of Law Enforcement in duties relative to Case 2015/6 –HD 1297-B.

Below that was a hastily scribbled signature, the line tailing off the paper, like the signer was running while signing. Even the top brass at MDPD were in sprint mode due to Menendez.

“You know what this stuff says?” I asked Belafonte. “The notes?”

A prim nod. “We’re to work together on the Kylie Sandoval murder.”

I stared at the face; handsome but expressionless. “How long have you been with the force, Officer Belafonte?”

A frown. “Long enough.”

“I’m talking about measured quantity, as in time.”

She stared evenly without speaking.

“Well?”

“You asked, so I’m thinking.” Five more mute seconds passed. “One hundred and sixty-seven days. I’m counting days on duty but not counting today yet. Tomorrow will of course make one hundred and—”

I held up a hand to cut her off, barely resisting banging my head on my desk. Instead of working with the typical seasoned investigator, I’d be dragging around a uniformed newbie a half-step above writing traffic citations.

“We’re done here,” I said, standing.

That put expression on the stone face. “You’re bloody dismissing me?” she said, eyes wide. “Just like that?”

“I’m dismissing nothing,” I said, giving her a come-hither jerk of my head. “We’re adjourning to the coffee shop in the atrium. I need a triple espresso. Or maybe a shot of whiskey.”

We reconvened below, where I ordered my coffee, Belafonte a tea, declining to allow me to pay for her tinted water.

“That’s not a typical Miami accent,” I noted. “At least not in MDPD.”

“My childhood was in Bermuda. It’s a British territory.”

“Oddly enough, I knew that.”

“I’ve met people who think it’s one of the fifty states, along with Puerto Rico and Nova Scotia.”

I started to laugh, then realized she wasn’t making a joke, just transferring data. “I lived in Hamilton,” she continued, “the capital, until I was twenty-one, when my father and I moved to Miami.”

“Why here?” I said. “Both to the US and Miami?”

“Shouldn’t we be discussing the Sandoval case?” she said.

So much for get-acquainted talk. “You knew her, I take it?”

“I work out of South Division and arrested Kylie twice for prostitution. And nearly a third time but, but …”

She paused with tea in mid-air and set it back on the table, her eyes serious, as if looking inside her head and not liking the pictures there. Belafonte swallowed hard and turned away. I realized I’d seen a glisten of tear in the expressionless eyes.

“Take your time,” I said.

“The third time I arrived as a john propositioned her, an obese businessman who stank of gin and sweat and had greasy hair and vomit on his lapels. When I told the arsehole to bugger off he gave me a big smirk like Big deal, copper, I’ll go find another one. I cuffed Kylie to a pipe, followed Mr Businesspuke around the corner. I let him get in his car and turn the key and busted him for drunken driving.”

“And then took Kylie to the lockup.”

“Actually, I took Kylie to an all-night diner and bought her a meal.” She paused. “My shift was over, of course.”

“I don’t care about your timecard, Belafonte. But why the kindness, may I ask?”

She looked out the window a long moment. “The john was a disgusting lump of ugliness, like some hideous disease taken human form. I then realized how these girls … don’t simply sell their bodies. They have to pretend to like these scumbags. I was new to that world and wanted to understand how they did it time and again, night after night.”

“Drugs,” I said. “It shows their power.”

Belafonte nodded. “At first Kylie played the hardcore working girl, every third word a curse. But subsequently, as I was driving her back to her cheap flat, I saw tears rolling down her cheeks. Kylie broke down like a, like a … little girl dressed in hooker clothes. I realized many of them are little girls in hooker clothes. Childhood doesn’t end when they go on the street, it gets packed away under layers of numbness. But sometimes it breaks out. And there’s nothing before you but a terrified little girl.”

It was beginning to seem Belafonte wasn’t quite the robot she’d initially appeared. “You befriended her, right?”

A sigh. “I tried to get her into therapy, but the free clinics are booked for months. I brought her home with me, told her to stay until she got herself together.”

“How long did it last?”

“Three days. Kylie had had something broken inside her, Detective. I don’t know what happened, but someone or something had torn everything from her, every bit of self-worth. Kylie lived with a horrific hurt buried inside her and I pray she didn’t die in pain.”

I fished the investigative reports from my briefcase and reluctantly handed them over. My day was about to reach its low point.