Lost(13)

“Isn’t that an insult?”

“Yes and no. The local residents wouldn’t give me a street name unless they knew me and trusted me. I like to be called Anti by people in Liberty City. It means I made some kind of impact.”

Joseph said, “Should we call you Anti?”

“Not unless you want me to make up a mean nickname for you.”





CHAPTER 15





WE MADE IT back to my house in Coral Springs late in the afternoon. Lila met me at the door and said, “Tough day.”

That meant my mom wasn’t herself. Or, more accurately, that she was herself at a different time and place.

I followed the piano music, which was always great no matter what kind of day my mother was having. When I stepped into the small parlor, she looked up and said, “Hey, Chuck.”

Ugh. Chuck was my dad. He’d divorced my mom sixteen years ago, and that was where she’d flashed back to when she’d checked out for the day. I suppose that was a time when everything seemed to be going well. I had given up trying to understand this goddamned disease a long time ago. I just wanted my mom to be happy. I didn’t care what the doctors called the disorder; whether it was dementia or Alzheimer’s, she was just as lost to me. I felt like one of the pillars of my life was gone.

I pulled Lila into the kitchen and told her about my pending trip to Amsterdam with the kids. My sister poured her heart into working with special-needs children every day, and she still managed to deal with my mom without complaint. I felt guilty piling more on her.

She said, “I can probably take care of Mom on my own, but it’s a scary prospect. I thought the reason you went with the Miami Police Department instead of a federal agency was so that you could help me.”

“You’re right. If you really think I need to stay, I’ll work it out.”

She thought about it for a moment, then said, “I can handle it. I think it’s great you want to take these kids home personally.”

“I’m glad somebody thinks it’s great.”

Lila cocked her head and said, “I’ve never heard Mom play Beethoven before. She’s more of a show-tune-and-pop-music kind of gal.”

We walked back into the parlor and I was surprised to see Joseph sitting next to my mother on the bench playing Beethoven’s Piano Sonata no. 4. It was the first time my college music-appreciation class had come in handy. It was haunting.

All of the kids stood around the piano, and my mother looked positively thrilled.

And that made me positively happy.





CHAPTER 16





I WAS GROGGY the next morning as I pulled over by the park in Hallandale Beach, right next to the county line. It was so early that the presence of police cars and a crime scene still hadn’t attracted many onlookers.

Hallandale’s South City Beach Park used to be referred to as “Needle Junction” and “Body Drop Park.” It had been cleaned up a lot since then, but there was still room to do shit without anyone seeing you.

The phone call from Anthony Chilleo at 5:15 that morning had startled me out of a sound sleep. I’d raced over here from my house, twenty-five miles to the northwest.

I held up my badge to the young patrol officer who was maintaining security around the perimeter of the crime scene. She seemed like a kid to me even though she was probably in her midtwenties. That’s what six years of police work in Miami can do to you.

I followed her directions and carefully walked along the path marked by tiny flags. Crime scene people were busy combing the area on both sides of the path, and I could see Chill talking with a Broward County Sheriff’s Office homicide detective.

Chill made the introductions, and the homicide detective reminded me that we’d met once in a class on money laundering.

After the small talk, I asked, “So did you think I needed to come down to the beach so early?” I said it with a smile, even though I was confused.

Chill said, “I told you about the rumors of Roman Rostoff being involved in everything, including human trafficking.”

“I remember.”

“I think he’s showing his displeasure with how we interrupted his shipment of kids being smuggled into Miami International.” He pointed to a set of screens hiding something that a crime scene technician was photographing.

I stepped over to the screens and looked behind them. I knew there was going to be a body. There wouldn’t be this much commotion over cocaine that washed up on the beach or some recovered stolen property. But the image shocked me, and I knew it would haunt me for a long time.

The young woman, a teenager, lay sprawled on the sand, naked. She had blond hair and a beautiful girl-next-door face. Her blue eyes were still open and staring straight up at the sky.

There was a neat slit in her throat with dried blood on both sides leading to the sandy ground. I squatted down to make it look like I was getting a better view, but in fact the scene disturbed me. I needed to wrap my head around this nasty business. She reminded me of some of the girls I’d rescued from the Miami airport.

Chill squatted down next to me and held up a plastic evidence bag.

I struggled to see past the spatters of blood on the inside of the bag. “What am I looking at, Chill?”

“Someone stuck her Florida driver’s license as well as her ID from Serbia into the wound on her throat. We’ve already done some quick background on her. She was a dancer at one of Roman Rostoff’s clubs. The two IDs and a talk with a coworker indicate that she was smuggled into the United States. Rostoff wants us to know that if we screw with his business, someone is going to get hurt.”