“ During your inquiries, did anyone see her get on a boat with any of these boyfriends-before she disappeared, I mean?”
“ Nothing like that surfaced. You think she was killed on a boat?”
“ I’m beginning to think so, yes. Why don’t you and your partner-what’s his name? — Samer…”
“ Samernow-Sam, I call ‘im.”
“ Why don’t you revisit the boatyard, ask around about any recent flame, someone who might’ve brought a boat in for repair or had recently purchased a boat and was hitting on her.”
“ What kind of boat?”
“ Anybody’s guess at this point.”
“ I hear you.”
If nothing else, this line of investigation might get Quincey off her back, she thought when she saw in a flashing light that reflected off the darkened windshield that the detective was grimacing. “That is, if you think it’s worth the effort. Quince,” she qualified her request to make it more palatable to the male of the species.
“ No, no, that’s no problem.”
“ What is it, then?”
“ Sorry, but I’m afraid the smell of the morgue has attached itself to you, Doctor. Sorry I’m so crude.”
“ I’m sorry. I would’ve showered at the lab, but I was a little uncomfortable doing so with certain live stiffs around.”
Quincey laughed appreciatively, knowing that she was referring to Dr. Coudriet. “Then you met Doc C? He never was one for bashfulness, and he has a keen eye for the ladies.”
“ Yes, I made his acquaintance, and we’d best leave it at that, Quince.”
“ He likes the ladies,” continued Quince. “But in your case, it’s probably purely professional, Dr. Coran, although I could understand why… I mean, how…”
“ Quince, let me suggest that we leave this subject alone.”
“ You got it, Doctor.” She was never so glad to see her room before, to shut out the world. Once behind closed doors, she freshened up, scrubbing away the smell of the morgue, she prayed.
Jessica met Santiva in the Blue Piano Room, a restaurant fashioned around a baby blue grand piano. A talented pianist was playing some Yanni as if it were his own, the melody hauntingly filtering its way through Jessica’s entire being and somehow relaxing her. The entire atmosphere was perfect-a fitting place for Jessica Coran to remove herself from her professional life, she mused.
She spied Eriq at the bar, throwing back a shot of what appeared to be either bourbon or brandy. She guessed it to be bourbon, and she guessed from the look of him that Eriq had spent as frustrating and dismal a day in Miami as she had, that he had not seen any of the renowned sugar-white beaches or any girls in bikinis, but rather only the inside of an institutional-gray or — green room, swapping leftover information with Quincey and his reluctant partner. He could probably match her item for item on distressing moments, despite the fact that she’d spent her day with a revolting corpse and a peculiarly male bastion of doctors whose leader was a kind of modern-day failing Genghis Khan. No doubt Eriq had spent his day with a revolting pack of local politicos and press harpies calling for someone’s head.
She waved across the room when he looked up in search of her. He returned the salutation and came across the floor to greet her, commenting on how different she appeared tonight.
“ Different? What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“ I don’t know, so Cosmo and beautiful. It must be that stunning dress.”
The way the compliment was phrased, she wasn’t sure whether to thank him or slap him, but she chalked it up to male stupidity and let it go at that.
After showering and splashing herself down with jasmine, she had slipped into her best dress, a sleeveless, strapless black affair, only because Eriq had booked them into the most prestigious hotel in the city, the Fontaine-bleau. Santiva obviously liked his accommodations first- class.
“ This place is a palace,” she said to him, thinking the prices were going to be astronomically high. “Paul Zanek would’ve blown his stack if I’d ever dared put in a voucher for this.”
“ As it is, the accountants’re going to be screaming,” he agreed, hefting a half-empty glass.
“ But since you are the boss…”
“ Quit worrying,” he advised. “We may as well be de- cadently comfortable. After all. our days are filled with so much…”
“ Shit. Say it, Eriq, but tell me, which is it to be? Decadent or comfortable? I think that’s what we call an oxymoron. The two don’t go hand in hand. Comfortable is Holiday Inn, comfortable is Best Western, comfortable is-’’ “This business we’re getting ourselves into is going to become more and more horrendous as we go on. But of course, we both knew that going in, didn’t we?” From the tone of his voice, she’d been absolutely right about the bourbon and his day. Eriq had his own monkey on his back.
He located a table, a waiter and menus, all in one fell swoop. Seated now, enjoying the lovely music and delightful atmosphere, Jessica tried to forget for the moment the reason they were in the tropical city of golden sunsets- the Gold Coast, it was called, nestled as it was on an enormous blindingly white-and-yellow sand bay where cruise ships formed a large part of the skyline.
“ So, how’d it go in your sector today?” Santiva’s question felt like a tentative probe, and no doubt he both needed and wanted answers; his tone also conveyed the tenor of his day, and it didn’t sound upbeat.
She shrugged, saying, “Ahh, all right… Got my feet wet with the boys.”
“ Three against one, huh? Some odds. Can’t say that I fared much better.”
“ Well, Coudriet found some excuse to be away for most of the time I was there, but I later found him eavesdropping, if you can believe it. But mostly I just had the two assistants, Thorn and Powers, to deal with until the last twenty or thirty minutes. Coudriet’s gotten rather colorful since the last time I saw him speak.”
“ That makes him better or worse?”
“ Different.” She used Coudriet’s word against him.
“ Hmmmmm.” Eriq didn’t know quite what to make of the assessment, so he asked another question altogether.
“ His staying out of your way, how’s that? Good or bad for our case, I mean.”
“ Better would be my guess.” She glanced about the room, allowing the live music to continue its path over her mind, to soothe her frayed nerves. She was still wondering about Coudriet when she asked Eriq, “How about you? You get your feet as wet as your throat?”
“ Drenched, actually. Damned fools. Near as I can tell, they’ve been dragging their asses on this for some time, letting this SOB work freely up and down the coast from here to the Keys without once putting it together.”
“ That’s not atypical of local jurisdictions,” she said while glancing about, people-watching.
“ Too many little jurisdictions all along the seaboard and damned little in the way of cooperation or coordination of effort. You’d think Miami could get it together, but-”
“ But somebody obviously did put it together,” she interrupted. “Coudriet, actually, the M.E.”
“ Really?” She was both curious and impressed with Dr. Coudriet all over again.
“ Seems he was on vacation, a fishing trip down in the Keys-Sugarloaf Key, about a hundred twenty miles south of here, when a floater came ashore in the same condition as two others he’d seen earlier. He put two and three together, put out a call to all PDs along the coastal cities, asked for any information on similar cases, placed all the information in his Hewlett-Packard and voila!”
“ The similarities were, as they say, too close for comfort… too close to ignore.” Her tone made it clear she didn’t question it in the least. “So Andrew Coudriet next contacted all the pathologists and detectives along the waterways.”
“ He already tell you all this himself, did he?”
She shook her head firmly. “No, he didn’t. Quite self- effacing of him. He didn’t tell me any of this. Maybe he’s more modest than I’d given him credit for. I don’t quite know what to make of him.”