Lola Morofsky sat in one of her oversized office chairs, her feet dangling well above the floor, her five-foot, hundred-pound body making her look like a small child who had stumbled into a giant’s living room. Lola adjusted her half-glasses on her long nose as she read the rap sheet Harry had just given her.
“Nasty fellow,” she said. She turned a page and raised disapproving eyes to Harry. “You realize, of course, that you have juvenile records here, as well as adult records-juvenile records that you are not supposed to have.”
Harry feigned surprise, without any attempt to be convincing. “Must have been a computer glitch.”
Lola looked at him over the half-glasses, her soft brown eyes incapable of anything more than a mild reproach. “Yes, I’m certain it was,” she said, her Brooklyn accent weighty with sarcasm. “What does your person of interest do for a living?”
“He’s come home to Jesus,” Harry said.
“What does that mean?”
“He’s a minister… ordained by his minister father. He works in Daddy’s evangelical church.”
“Quite a change for him,” Lola said as she went back to the rap sheet. “Let’s see, we had three instances of possession, along with several burglaries as a juvenile, which are charges that often go together. It seems that all were treated with in-house arrest and probation, except for one stint in a boot camp. Then, as an adult-he didn’t seem to learn anything in boot camp, which is often the case-we have several bad check charges, all dismissed after restitution was made.”
“Probably by Daddy,” Harry interjected.
Lola nodded. “Probably. It’s not uncommon for parents to open their wallets when young adults get into trouble. But it’s usually just a Band-Aid, not a solution, to the underlying problem.” She read on, nodding her head as she did so. “Next we have a possession charge which was dropped when he agreed to cooperate with a police investigation of his supplier. Then we have a conviction for fraud, where one Robert Joseph Waldo fleeced a retired couple out of ten thousand dollars in a phony home improvement scheme. This one Daddy couldn’t buy him out of and he was sentenced to a year. Since then nothing.”
“His jail record shows he had some trouble inside,” Harry said. “I don’t have anything in writing on this-it’s all verbal from people in corrections. But according to them Bobby Joe accused two inmates of sexual assault. Claimed they attacked him in a laundry room where they were all working. But the accusations never went anywhere. Three other inmates supposedly witnessed the attack, but claimed they didn’t see anything, so it became Bobby Joe’s word against the two men. Corrections, of course, took the easy way out. The two assailants got hit with some minor administrative punishments, loss of privileges, that sort of thing, and Bobby Joe got placed in an isolation unit. Down the road it was probably a factor in his early release-he got out after doing six months.” Harry offered up a shrug. “The sheriff doesn’t like news stories about inmates getting buggered in his jail, and the word going around is that he pushed to get Bobby Joe out early after he agreed to keep his mouth shut. The sheriff knows Bobby Joe’s father, although I’m not certain how well, beyond the fact that there’s a picture of them shaking hands on a wall in the minister’s office.”
“And, of course, you’re thinking that Darlene Beckett escaped more serious charges because the victim, after an agreement was reached with his parents, refused to testify against her.” Lola extended one palm up. “It’s an interesting coincidence, Harry. But as a motive for murder it is very, very thin.”
Harry nodded. “As thin as it gets, but I have to start somewhere. What do you think of Bobby Joe as a suspect?”
Lola gave him a noncommittal shrug. “His background certainly points toward him being a sociopath, but I’d need harder evidence to put that label to him. From what you’ve told me I suspect that his father is quite domineering. That could very well be the root of his psychological problems, but again that would require analysis, perhaps even long-term analysis.”
“So I’ve got nothing,” Harry said.
“You have a suspect, Harry. That’s always something.”
When Harry returned to the office he found Anita Molari, the exotic dancer known as Jasmine, going through driver’s license photographs of the men who had visited Darlene’s home. She was seated in the conference room next to Pete Rourke’s office, which now housed the additional members of the task force. One of the newly assigned uniformed deputies sat across from her.
Harry placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Go grab some coffee,” he said. “I’ll take over for a while.” When the deputy left Harry gathered up the photographs. “Let’s move out to my desk,” he suggested. “I’m expecting some phone calls I don’t want to miss.”
Anita Molari was a different person away from the Peek-a-Boo Lounge. The last time Harry had seen her she was wearing only a thong and a see-through beach robe that put her very shapely body on open display. Today she was dressed in an oversized T-shirt and loose-fitting shorts that made her seem small, almost frail. Her short, dark hair was damp, as though she had rushed straight from her shower, and the vivid blue eyes Harry remembered from the Peek-a-Boo Lounge simply looked tired. She reminded him of the saying: Rode hard and put up wet.
“Do any of the photographs look familiar?” he asked, as they seated themselves at his desk.
“Not yet.” She looked at him, head tilted to one side. “I don’t really understand why it’s important for me to look at these pictures if you already know these guys were at Darlene’s house.”
“I want to know if anyone who visited her home might also have followed her to other places.”
“You mean like a stalker?”
“That’s right. Anyone who might have been obsessed with her, or who might have been stalking her because of something she had done to them, or to someone else.”
“Like that kid they said she molested?”
“That’s right.”
Anita gave a small shake of her head. “I never understood that. I always wanted to ask her how she could do something like that, but we never got close enough where I felt I could.” She gave Harry a questioning look as though he might know the answer. “I mean she was beautiful, really beautiful. There aren’t many women who look like that. And the way men stared at her…” She shook her head again, then shrugged. “I get those looks when I’m up on the stage, practically naked. Darlene would have got them if she walked in wearing a burlap bag. And you know something? She wasn’t a bad person. I don’t know if she was a good person. I mean I talked to her and all, but not that much.”
“But enough to know she wasn’t a bad person,” Harry said.
“Yeah, that’s right. Somehow it just doesn’t make sense.”
“Many things don’t.” Harry opened his notebook to the last page he had used and started to turn to a fresh one.
Anita leaned forward suddenly and pointed at the notebook. “You’ve got the name of a church written there. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but see it… it just sort of jumped out at me.”
Harry looked at the notebook. The First Assembly of Jesus Christ the Lord was written in large capital letters and underlined. “What about it?” he asked.
“I know that church,” Anita said. “I mean from work.”
“How so?”
“One of their cars scratched mine in the parking lot.”
“The Peek-a-Boo Lounge lot?”
“Yeah.” She gave him a small shrug. “Whenever I park my car there, when I’m going to work, I write down the make, model, and license plate numbers of the cars on either side of me. I mean guys leave there pretty sloshed-hell, most of them get there pretty sloshed-and I want to be sure if somebody clips me I have a way to know who it was.”
“So you got clipped by a car belonging to the church?”
“I sure did.” She leaned forward. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I got a friend of mine who’s a cop to run the plate. And it comes up belonging to that church. So I called there and eventually got to talk to one of the ministers.”
Harry felt a rush of excitement. “You remember his name?” Anita screwed up her face. “It was a funny name, real Southern. You know what I mean?”
“Bobby Joe?” Harry asked in return.
“Yeah, that’s it. Bobby Joe Waldo, I remember now.” There was a big smile spread across her face, and Harry thought it made her look like a schoolgirl who had just gotten a difficult question right. “It was funny. He was real nervous when he got on the phone, and when I told him where the car was parked and that I was one of the dancers who worked there, he was even more nervous. He said the head minister at the church would be real upset if he found out, and that he’d like to handle it privately, no insurance companies or anything, just to tell him what it cost to fix the car and he’d get the money to me.”
“Did he send you a check?” Harry asked.
“No. It was only a small dent, and he told me to get an estimate on how much it would cost to fix it. I did and called him back the next day and he had the cash delivered to me the day after that.”
“Who delivered the money?”
“I dunno. Just some guy. I was working days that week and he met me in the parking lot of the club like we had arranged. I remember thinking that I’d seen him before someplace, maybe the club. But I couldn’t be sure. Unless a customer asks me for a private dance I don’t pay much attention to individual guys.”
“Can you describe him?”
Anita wrinkled her brow. “Sure, I guess I can. Let’s see, he was tall, not real tall, more like you. But real thin; there wasn’t any heft to him at all. The thing I remember most was his hair and eyes. His hair was down to his shoulders and real light, kind of a fake blond, like maybe a dye job. It was the same with his eyes. They were sort of a cold blue, not really natural. They kind of made me wonder if he was wearing those tinted contact lenses.”
“How old?” Harry asked.
“Oh, maybe late twenties. At least that’s what I thought at the time.”
She had just described Bobby Joe Waldo, and it was a description that would be good enough for any jury. Harry kept that information to himself. He didn’t want to be accused later of prejudicing a witness.”
“Did he give you his name?”
Anita shook her head. “He just said Reverend Waldo had sent him and handed me an envelope with the money in it.”
Harry slowly nodded, digesting what she had told him. “I need you to hang around just a bit longer,” he said at length. “I want to put together a photo lineup-that’s just a handful of mug shots-so we can see if you can pick this guy out.”
Anita glanced at her wristwatch. “My kid doesn’t get out of kindergarten for another two hours, so I guess I’ve got time.”
Twenty minutes later Harry had eight photographs lined up on the conference room table-all men in their twenties, all with long, blond hair. Anita picked out Bobby Joe Waldo on her first try and Harry told her he might want to do a live lineup sometime in the near future. But not quite yet, he thought. First he would do some serious digging into Bobby Joe Waldo.
Pete Rourke pensively tapped the side of his nose as Harry gave him a rundown on Bobby Joe, his father, and the First Assembly of Jesus Christ the Lord Church. When he finished he warned the captain that down the road he might be asking a judge for a warrant to seize church records and to search Bobby Joe’s home, car, and personal effects.
Rourke leaned back in his chair and raised a warning finger. “Before you do that, you better be pretty damned certain what you’re gonna find. And I mean ninety-nine percent certain. This is still Florida, Harry, and asking a judge to sign a search warrant for a church or its minister is like saying you want him to piss in the holy water font.” Harry smiled at the image, making Rourke raise the cautioning finger again. “I mean it, Harry. Don’t take this lightly, or your ass will be in more trouble than you ever dreamed of.”
“I know, cap.” Harry conjured up Bobby Joe’s father sending forth a proverbial river of outrage.
There was a knock on the door, interrupting them. Vicky came right behind the knock, pushing the door open and stepping up to the desk. Jim Morgan followed her, seeming a bit nervous over the sudden intrusion.
“Sorry, cap, but you and Harry need to hear this right away,” Vicky said.
Rourke glared at her. When he spoke, his voice rose steadily in volume and ferocity with each word. “This better be damn good, detective. One of the joys of being a captain is having a private office that people cannot barge into when the goddamn door is closed and somebody is sitting in the goddamn visitor’s chair.”
Vicky was unfazed, Harry was grinning, and Morgan looked as though he wished he were somewhere else.
Vicky gave Rourke a little girl smile that almost broke Harry up. “Trust me, cap,” she said wide-eyed and innocent, “this is something you need to hear forthwith.”
Rourke narrowed his stare. “Speak,” he growled. “And make it good.”
Vicky extended a hand toward Morgan, who still looked like he wanted a place to hide. “Jim really deserves the credit on this,” she began. “Turns out he’s a wizard with computers.”
Rourke threw an unhappy eye at Morgan just to let him know that, wizard or not, he’d stepped in the same pile of shit that she had. Harry wondered if the eager young deputy saw his future in the detective division hanging on Vicky’s next words.
“Jim came up with the name of the person who signed out the cars that ended up in Darlene’s driveway,” she explained. “The records were altered so it looked like the sign outs were never recorded, but they were still in the hard drive and Jim was able to get them out.” She threw an admiring glance at Morgan. “I have no idea how.”
“The same person took both cars out?” Harry asked.
“You betcha,” Vicky said. “And hold on for this. It was one of the detectives working this case, Nick Benevuto.”
Rourke stared at her, then groaned out the words, “Oh, shit.”
Harry gave a small shake of his head, almost as if driving off some annoying insect. “When were the records altered?” he asked.
Vicky glanced at Morgan.
“The day the body was discovered,” he answered.
“Before or after the body was discovered?”
“After. It was done right after the end of shift,” Morgan said.
“So somebody changed the records the day after the murder and after the body was discovered,” Harry said, as he jotted the information in his notebook.
“That’s right.”
Rourke pulled a folder from his desk and opened it. “Benevuto was off duty the day Darlene was killed.”
Harry stared into space. “It doesn’t make sense,” he said at length.
“What doesn’t?” Rourke asked.
“Benevuto altering department records,” Harry said. “First, he couldn’t have known that we had a witness who took down one of our tag numbers until the second day after the murder, because that’s when we knew, that’s when our witness told Morgan that there was one plate number that he didn’t turn over to me. So what would prompt Nick to alter the records a day before there was even a hint that we might tumble to the fact that he’d been to Darlene’s apartment? Unless…”
“Unless he killed her and was covering up the fact that he knew her,” Vicky said.
Harry nodded slowly. “That’s right. And if he was the murderer why wait to cover it up until after the body was discovered? Why take the chance that someone would come across those records before he could change them?” Harry shook his head. “I just don’t see it. And I don’t see Nick as a realistic suspect.”
“Why not?” Vicky asked.
There was an edge to her voice that Harry picked up on. “Look, I can see Nick running into Darlene Beckett and deciding he wanted to try to get into her knickers. I can even see him taking the initiative and seeking her out for the same reason. Hell, there aren’t many women who Nick Benevuto would take a pass on and certainly not one as sexually appealing as Darlene.”
“But?” Vicky pressed.
“But while Nick may be many things, stupid isn’t one of them.”
“I’m not getting your drift,” Rourke said.
“My drift is simple, cap. Nick’s been a detective for a long time, and he’s pretty well known in the police community. Darlene was supposed to be on a short leash and she was being watched not only by the probation department, but by the prosecutor’s office and certainly by the media. If one prosecutor, one reporter, one anybody saw her with Nick, they’d be all over it.”
“Like flies on shit,” Rourke added.
“And Nick would know that. So I can’t see him getting heavily involved. A quick toss in the hay, sure, but nothing more. And for him to be the murderer, it would have to have been a lot more.”
“How so?” Vicky asked. The edge in her voice had become defensive now.
Harry softened his own voice. “If we’re thinking of Nick as a legitimate suspect, the only logical motive I can come up with is that he became seriously involved with Darlene; that he followed her from the Peek-a-Boo Lounge, caught her having it off with another guy, and killed them both in a jealous rage. And that just doesn’t make sense to me.” Vicky started to object but Harry raised a hand, stopping her. “I can see him altering records to hide the fact that he was seeing her, but I even have some trouble with that because of the time line.”
“So who altered the records?” Morgan asked. “Who else would have a reason to alter them?”
“Good question.” Harry shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense for anyone but Nick to have altered them. So we’ll ask him. One thing for sure, I don’t want him on the team anymore.”
“That’s a given,” Rourke said. “I’ll put him on restricted duty-duty unrelated to this case-until this computer records business is resolved. As of right now, the whole matter is in the hands of Internal Affairs.”
Harry winced. “I wish you’d hold off on IAD. I don’t need them climbing all over this investigation.”
“No can do, Harry,” Rourke said. “Whether you like it or not, IAD will be part of it until we know what happened to those records.”
Nick Benevuto looked more curious than concerned when he entered Pete Rourke’s office. Harry studied him closely, looking for a tell. As far as Harry could see, Nick had no idea what was coming.
Rourke laid it out slowly and deliberately, and with each sentence Benevuto’s face moved from mild embarrassment, to concern, to outright anger. But beneath it all Harry could detect fear as well.
“So I spent some time with her,” he said when Rourke finished. “Where’s the fucking crime?” He glared in turn at Rourke, Harry, Vicky, and Morgan. “It was purely business, and as far as anyone in this room is concerned, and for the record, I never laid a hand on her. If you’re looking at me as a suspect in her murder, you’re either desperate or you’re out of your fucking minds.” He turned his attention to Morgan and sneered. “And as far as your big theory goes that I altered department records, you listen up, junior. I wouldn’t know how to alter a fucking computer record. I know how to turn it on and type up a fucking report and that’s it. You don’t believe me, you ask my partner. We need anything done on a computer, he has to do it.”
“Just calm down, Nick,” Harry said. His voice was soft and steady.
“Calm down, shit, Harry! You know me. You think I killed her?”
Harry ignored the question. “How did you meet her?” he asked instead.
Nick studied his shoes for a moment. “I was interviewing a dancer at that club, the Peek-a-Boo Lounge. I thought she might have witnessed a murder when she was working in a joint in our jurisdiction. It was the Bruder case, Jeffrey Bruder. Happened late last January and this dancer disappeared right after I started my investigation. I finally caught up with her in early March. The case is still open. You can read my daily reports and cross check ’em in my notebook.”
“So where does Darlene Beckett come in?” Rourke asked.
Benevuto shook his head and let out a breath. “She was at the bar. I saw her and recognized her, and when I was finished with my witness I struck up a conversation.” He shook his head again. “Her case had just finished up in court and it wasn’t very hard to recognize her. Hell, she was all over TV and the papers. And I knew she had gotten probation with some pretty heavy restrictions, so I asked her if she was supposed to be there.”
“Just being a good cop, right?” Vicky threw in.
Benevuto looked at her as though he wanted to grab her throat and hang on for at least a week. “That’s right, lady. ” The final word was spoken with pure venom.
“Alright, knock it off, both of you,” Rourke snapped.
“What happened then?” Harry asked, throwing a look at Vicky.
“Well, she tells me there are no restrictions on her going to a bar, or restaurant, or anything like that. She says she’s just restricted about where she can live-like not close to a school, or playground, or anything like that. And she can’t hang out in places where kids hang or teach anymore.” He shrugged. “It was bullshit, of course, bars are always a no-no.”
“So you just kept chatting her up,” Vicky said, ignoring Harry’s silent admonition. He threw her another hard look.
Nick glared at her. “That’s right. And I even got her phone number and address, and told her I’d give her a call sometime. She seemed interested in the idea.”
“And it never registered with you that she was on probation and not a suitable social contact for a cop?” Rourke asked.
Nick looked him straight in the eye. “I wasn’t imagining her as a social contact. You think I was gonna start diddling some broad who fucks kids? I wanted her as a snitch.”
“Oh, Christ,” Vicky said.
Nick rounded on her. “Fuck you, lady.”
“Knock it off,” Rourke roared. “This is the last warning for both of you.”
Harry held up a hand. “So you called and dropped by her place,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“How many times?”
“Three, four, I’m not really sure.”
“We have you for two, both times in department cars,” Rourke said.
“It was more than that. Your neighbor missed one or two.”
“Was she wearing an ankle monitor the three or four times you saw her?” Harry asked.
Nick looked off as if trying to remember, then slowly shook his head. “I don’t know. I think she was wearing slacks each time I saw her.”
Harry held his gaze. This time the tell had been there and he wanted Nick to know he had seen it.
“So did she agree to be your snitch?” It was Rourke this time, skepticism dripping from every word.
Benevuto either didn’t hear it, or chose to ignore it. “Yeah, after a fashion,” he said. “The second time we met-that was the first time I went to her apartment-that’s when I hit her with the idea of working as a confidential informant. She wasn’t hot for the idea, but when I pressed her, told her I might be able to do her some good with her probation officer if she ever got jammed up, she said she’d keep her ears open and call me if she heard anything. I let it go at that, for the time being. Later I pushed her to see what she could find out from this dancer I interviewed at the Peek-a-Boo. The one I thought knew something about the Bruder murder.”
“Did Darlene agree to do it?” Harry asked.
Nick nodded slowly. “Yeah, she did, but not with a lot of enthusiasm. She said she didn’t want to get the dancer into any trouble. You all know what it’s like. Snitches’ll tell you stuff they hear, but they can think up all kinds of reasons not to go in and ask questions. They know doing something like that is risky. Usually you can only get junkies to do it, and only when they need some fast cash to score.” He shrugged. “Anyway, Darlene probably got iced before she ever had a chance to talk to this dancer.”
“But you’re not sure of that,” Harry suggested.
“Well, no. I can’t be sure of it, but I don’t think she did.”
“What are you thinking, Harry?” Rourke asked.
“Another possibility we have to pursue. Right now it’s just a what if.”
Rourke finished the thought for him: “What if she did ask the dancer some questions and the dancer went back and told somebody else.”
“Like the person who iced Bruder,” Benevuto said, grasping the offered straw.
“Oh, come on,” Vicky said. “That’s just a touch sketchy.”
“Yeah, it is,” Harry said. “But I don’t want to ignore it and then find out later we walked right by Darlene’s killer.”
“John and I can check it out,” Nick offered.
“No, you can’t,” Rourke said. “As of right now you’re off the case and on administrative duty. That means you’ll be riding a desk until this is cleared up. I need your reports and your notebook on the Bruder murder and I need Weathers in here to tell us about your computer skills. In the meantime I want your gun. You get everything back after Harry and IAD clear you.”
“IAD? This is bullshit.” Nick tossed his head toward Morgan. “Just because computer boy comes up with some bullshit theory that I altered department records, I get put on the rubber gun squad and my ass gets thrown to the fucking wolves.”
“It’s the way it has to be, Nick,” Harry said. “You know that. I promise you we’ll clear up our end as fast as we can. But as far as IAD goes, it would be the same story for any one of us. Cap’s hands are tied.”
“Bullshit,” Benevuto barked. He placed his gun on Rourke’s desk and glared at each of them in turn. “You’ll have the reports and notebooks before I leave today.” He spun around and headed out of the office.
“Tell John I need him in here immediately,” Rourke said to his back.
After John Weathers had confirmed that his partner’s computer skills began and ended with the power button and the keyboard, they left Rourke’s office and returned to the conference room.
“So where does that leave us?” Harry asked when they were seated around the table.
“I think it leaves us with Nick as a prime suspect,” Vicky said.
Harry looked at Morgan. “And what do you think, Jim?”
Morgan paused, taking time to study the top of the conference table. “All I know is that altering those records wasn’t a big deal,” he said, looking up. “Even if Nick didn’t know any more about computers than he said, if he had come to me I could have walked him through it in five minutes. Look, I hate this crap. I hate dropping a dime on a brother cop. I just didn’t think I could sit on the information when I came across it.”
He had spoken the words with passion, but Harry didn’t believe a word of it. Morgan was an ambitious young cop and Harry had little doubt he’d take whatever came his way if it gave him a leg up on a detective’s shield. “So you’re saying that Nick could have gone to any computer whiz and gotten it written down step by step,” Harry said.
Morgan looked pained by the question. “That’s about it,” he said.
“Well, it’s bullshit.” It was Weathers, his eyes ice now. He turned them on Vicky. “I don’t know what your problem is with Nick. Yeah, sure, sometimes he’s an asshole and he comes on a little strong. And maybe he even did that with you. But I’ve worked with him for three years and he’s a good cop, and there’s no fucking way he’d ice some broad because she turned him down. Hell, if that was the case half the women in the county would be dead by now.”
Vicky held his eyes. “What if he really fell for her, John, and then found out she was picking up guys in bars? And what if he followed her one night and found her getting it off on a beach?”
“That’s a load of crap,” Weathers snapped. “Nick never falls for any woman. All he ever wants is what they have between their legs. I don’t think he even likes women. He told me once that if they didn’t have pussies we’d hunt them like deer.”
“Alright, let’s leave it there,” Harry said, holding up a hand. “Right now we don’t have any choice. Nick’s a suspect until we clear him. I personally think we will, but even then we’ll have IAD to deal with before he’s back working the case. In the meantime, John, you team up with one of the uniforms-you pick who you want-and keep working the case just like you were with Nick. You’re probably going to lose a lot of time talking to IAD, but that can’t be helped. I’ll keep on with the church angle.”
“You still think that’s the strongest lead?” Vicky asked.
“Yeah, I do. At least for now.”
“You want Jim and me to keep investigating Nick?”
Harry noted the skepticism in her voice. “That’s right. And come to me whenever you develop anything new. No matter which way it goes, pro or con. IAD is going to want to look over your shoulders. How much you work with them is up to you, but do not let them impede this investigation.”
“Are you going to work with them?” Weathers asked. His eyes were hard on Harry now.
“I’m going to avoid them like the plague,” Harry said. “If they want me they’re going to have to find me.”