"Remember those two homicides I talked about last time?" Cynthia asked. "The one at Coconut Grove and - "
Jensen said edgily, "Of course I do. You were going to find out more."
"Well, I have."
It was the third week of June, two weeks after their liaison at Boca Raton. They had needed to get together again, though Cynthia's work schedule made a meeting in the Caymans or Bahamas impractical. Instead she chose Homestead, a small-town gateway to the Everglades, thirty-five miles south of Miami. They drove there separately, then met at Potlikkers restaurant.
The drive had left Jensen feeling tired; he had not slept well the night before, or for a succession of nights before that, either. And there had been nightmares the details vague, except they left him drenched with sweat, and in the hazy no-man's-land before waking, he recalled a wheelchair half-immersed and Virgilio's menacing face inches from his own.
Potlikkers' decor was rustic, and Jensen and Cynthia were seated on benches at a knotty pine table away from other diners. She had brought a small leather attache case and now set it beside her. She looked across at him. "Something wrong?"
"For Christ's sake! Is anything right?" He almost laughed, and considered saying, No, nothing's wrong. We're just meeting here to plot two murders for which we both have motives, in case you hadn't noticed, and some of the best brains in the detective business will be trying to solve them... They may even do it, and who knows? Maybe we'll be electrocuted side by side. . . But, no!. . . Apart from that, there's nothing wrong at all.
"Keep your voice down," Cynthia said. "And don't lose your nerve. There's no need, because everything is going to work remember, I'm in a position to judge that. Have you heard from your man, the guy you talked about? And don't use a name."
Jensen nodded. "Three days ago."
The long-distance call had come fifteen days after the wheelchair murder. There was no indication of where the call was coming from, and Patrick hadn't asked, but guessed it was Colombia.
"You know who I am, but do not say." The voice was clearly Virgilio's.
"Yes, I know."
"I come soon. You still want?"
"Yes." Obviously, Virgilio was using the fewest words possible. Jensen did the same.
"One week, maybe two. Okay?"
"Okay."
And that was the total exchange. After Jensen had described it, Cynthia asked, "You're sure your instinct's right? He understands what we want?"
"I'm sure. You don't arrange to meet his kind for lightweight jobs, and he knows it. So tell me about those other murders. The odd features isn't that what you called them?"
"Yes." A pause. "At Coconut Grove, four dead cats were left beside the victims."
"Four cats?" Jensen's voice was unbelieving.
"Don't ask me why because I don't know nor does anyone else. In Homicide they're still guessing."
"You said there was a similar case in Fort Lauderdale. What about that?"
"It's more complicated. The man's feet were burned, and no one knows why, except for a belief that both things were symbols in some killer's crazy mind."
"So what are you suggesting?"
"Copy the first one. Tell your man to take a dead animal and leave it."
"Not four cats, I hope."
Cynthia shook her head. "It should be the same but different, and one will do maybe a rabbit. It's just another symbol. Besides, there are other things."
"Such as?"
She described how, in both the Frost and Hennenfeld cases, the victims were found gagged and bound and facing each other. "And the murder weapon both times was a bowie knife. You know what that is?"
Jensen nodded. "I used it once in a story. Not hard to get. Next."
"Again at both murders a radio was playing loud. Hard rock."
"No sweat." Jensen was concentrating, memorizing; he would write none of this down, either now or later.
"Every bit of money that's there should be taken," Cynthia said. "My father always carries plenty and leaves it beside his bed. But my mother's jewelry must not be touched. That's how it was with those other scenes. Make that very clear."
"Shouldn't be difficult. Jewelry's identifiable and can be traced; I guess the other guy knew it, too."
"Now about the house," Cynthia said. "You may need this."
She passed a folded real-estate brochure across the table. It featured the Bay Point community, and as Jensen opened it, he saw a page displaying the layout of streets and lots. On one of them a house site was marked with an X.
"This is the . . . ?"
"Yes," Cynthia said, "and something else you should know is that there's a staff of three a butler and his wife, the Palacios; she also works and they both live in. A day maid comes in early and leaves at about four in the afternoon."
"So at night there are four people in the house?"
"Except on Thursdays. That's when the Palacios always go to West Palm Beach to visit Mrs. Palacio's sister. They leave by late afternoon and are never back before midnight, sometimes later."
Jensen's memory was loaded. "I might forget that. Let me get it right." He reached for the brochure and fumbled in his pocket for a pencil.
Cynthia clucked impatiently. "Give that to me." On the brochure she wrote:
D.maid - in early, leaves 4p.
P's - Thurs out late afternoon, back midnite
Pocketing the brochure, Jensen asked, "Anything else I should know about those other killings?"
"Yeah, they were messy." Cynthia grimaced as she described the knife slashes and body mutilations accompanying the Frost and Hennenfeld killings information she had obtained from Miami Homicide's files.
* * *
A few days earlier, during a weekday evening, Cynthia had walked from her own department to the Homicide offices. Senior of fleers from other departments often dropped into Homicide to chat and pick up stories about important cases; also, the coffee there was always good. Cynthia, as a former Homicide detective, frequently came and went, sometimes on Community Relations business.
She had chosen a time when the offices were quiet. Only two detectives were at their desks, along with Sergeant Pablo Greene, the senior officer present. After friendly greetings she told him, "I'd like to look at a file."
"Be my guest, Major." Greene waved airily to the file room. "You know where everything is, but call if you need help."
"I will," Cynthia said.
Alone inside the file room, she worked swiftly. Knowing where to look, she located the files for the Frost and Hennenfeld murders and took them to a table. The first file was large, but Cynthia quickly extracted two sets of notes, one by Bernard Quinn, who had been lead investigator, the other by Malcolm Ainslie as supervisor. Skimming both, she paused at usable information and transferred it to her own small notebook. Within minutes she closed the Frosts' file and opened the other. This was slim because it was not a Miami case, but had resulted from the visit of Sheriff-Detective Benito Montes of Fort Lauderdale. He had, however, supplied a copy of the original Offenseincident Report and supplementary notes that gave details.
After replacing both files, she returned to the main of lice and bid a friendly good night to Sergeant Greene and the other two detectives. Checking her watch, she saw she had been in Homicide barely twelve minutes, and no one knew which files she had reviewed.
Back in her own office, she studied and memorized the notes she had made, then tore out the notebook pages and flushed them down a toilet.
* * *
In the Homestead restaurant, while hearing of the brutality of the two double murders at Coconut Grove and Fort Lauderdale, Jensen decided that Virgilio would have no difficulty fulfilling that demand. The same applied to binding and gagging the victims and leaving them facing each other, which Cynthia specified as essential.