Sunset Beach(40)

“You can feel empathy without wasting their time, and ours,” her father said. “I told you before, Zee spent way more time looking at that case than he should have. I feel badly for the grandmother, and the child, which is why I cut my fee. But it comes down to the fact that we just didn’t have a case. That one was a money loser. And I can’t afford to lose money if I’m going to stay in business. I’ve got a staff to pay—including you—overhead, benefits and a pension to fund. If you stay with the firm, and I hope you will, you’ll learn that every day cases are coming across the transom. Some are winners and some are losers. Jazmin Mayes, unfortunately, was a loser.”

He drummed his fingertips on the tabletop. “I know you don’t believe me, but we did all we could for Yvonne and Aliyah.”

Drue sipped her wine. “What if I could prove Jazmin wasn’t on the clock at Gulf Vista when she was killed? Would you take another look at the case?”

“That girl was savagely murdered—strangled and beaten,” Brice said sharply. “Her killer is still at large. You’re not a trained investigator. So you stay the hell away from Gulf Vista. You hear me?”

“Okay, sure. I’ll be a good little cube rat and answer the phone and do what I’m told,” Drue said. “Because you’re the one who signs my paycheck.”

“Let’s go,” Brice said abruptly. He was looking around for the waiter and their check.

“Where are you parked?” he asked.

“At the cottage.” She dreaded asking, but also dreaded the long bus ride back out to the beach. “Think you could give me a ride home? OJ’s still on the fritz.”

“On one condition,” he said. “No more shoptalk.”





18


December 1975

The green and white patrol car pulled into the Dreamland motel on Thirty-fourth Street North at 10:45 P.M.

The Dreamland was one of the thousands of motels, built during the post–World War II tourist boom in Florida, that had seen better days. Half the letters on the neon sign out front were burned out, and the colorful neon pixie who’d once sprinkled dream dust among stars and a crescent moon was barely recognizable due to peeling paint and broken tubing. The palm trees lining the curb were dead or dying.

Officer Brice Campbell parked his car outside Unit 12 and waited. The dispatch code had come in first as a noise complaint, and then as a “family disturbance.” Two minutes later another patrol car pulled alongside Campbell’s. The officer, Jimmy Zilowicz, was Brice’s beat partner. He opened the passenger door and slid inside.

“What have we got?” Zee asked.

“Some kind of argument going on. Glass breaking. A woman crying. The folks in the room next door called the front office to complain. The manager knocked on the door to tell them to quiet down and a male inside told him to get lost.”

Zee was older than Brice Campbell, in his mid-thirties. He wore his dark hair as long as department code would allow, and his compact, stocky frame was a testament to the time he spent in the weight room.

“Which is where we come in,” Brice added. He looked around at the single-story stretch of rooms. “You been here before?”

“You mean on business?” Zee asked, his grin sly.

“You keep that shit up, Frannie is going to leave your ass,” Brice said. “Yeah, I mean business. I’ve had two calls over here in the last six months. One domestic, one auto breaking and entering.”

“Place is kind of sad, but it’s not as bad as some of these other fleabags I’ve been to,” Zee said. “You ready?”

The officers got out of the car, jamming their nightsticks into their belt loops, each letting their fingertips graze the handles of their holstered Smith & Wessons.

“Hang on,” Zee said. He fetched the heavy Maglite flash he’d stowed under the seat of his cruiser.

As they approached the door of Unit 12 they heard the sound of a woman’s hysterical sobs.

They stood to the side of the door and Brice knocked. “Police!” he called loudly.

Nothing.

Zee banged at the door with the Maglite. “Come on in there, open up.”

The door opened an inch, the chain lock engaged. A man, early-thirties with thinning brown hair and a pink flushed face, glared out at them. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned to the waist. “What do you want?”

“Somebody called in about a disturbance coming from this room,” Brice said.

“We didn’t call the cops. Must be a mistake.”

“Sir?” Brice said, trying to sound firm. “We just heard a woman crying when we arrived here. Your neighbors in the next room seem to think there’s been some kind of a fight.”

“They need to mind their own fuckin’ business,” the man said, shouting now, as he looked toward the right and the left. “We don’t need the cops. There’s no disturbance. So leave us alone.”

“We need to come into this room and talk to that woman,” Zee said. “Now.”

The man turned away from the door. “Tell these cops you’re fine.”

The woman continued to sob.

“Goddamnit, Colleen, cut it out.”

“I’m sorry,” the woman cried. “I’m okay. You can go.”