Powder Burn - Carl Hiaasen [79]
Pincus stared at his partner.
“If you see him, tell him it’s OK to come up now. Tell him I’ve closed the investigation into Sosa’s death.”
“That’s the airport thing, right?” Arthur asked warily.
“Yep.”
“Why’d you quit on it?” Arthur said.
“Yeah, why?” Pincus echoed.
Nelson stifled him with a scorching glare and faced Arthur. “Look, all we got is a body in a car, some blood at the airport and no goddamn eyewitnesses. Nobody mourns Mono, nobody that I care about. I need Meadows’s help.”
“Shit!” Arthur Prim said.
“If you see him or talk to him, tell him I got his ass off the chopping block. Tell him he’s got my word,” Nelson said.
“I’m sure he’ll be overwhelmed with gratitude, Captain. Could you move your foot? You’re standing on a Neiman print, I believe.”
Once they were alone again, in Nelson’s car, Pincus practically exploded.
“What was all that nonsense about Sosa?”
“Just the truth.”
“You aren’t trying to trick Meadows into turning himself in?”
“No, Wilbur. I give him a little more credit than you do.” Nelson relighted his cigar.
“You can’t just give up on the case,” Pincus protested. “We had good leads, good evidence. Meadows did it.”
“Can you take it to court?”
“Not yet.”
“Wilbur, I can’t find the top of my fucking desk for the homicide files that are stacked up there. This one’s about number one hundred and eighty-three on my list. Sosa was a slug. And if Meadows killed him, like you say, the guy deserves an oak cluster, not an indictment.”
“But what—”
“And don’t ever tell me I can’t just give up on a case,” Nelson snapped. “I think Meadows can be useful. He is a most uncommon witness, in case you hadn’t noticed. He may even teach us something before it’s over, so if I choose to misplace the Sosa file for a few days or a few years, that’s too fucking bad.”
“I didn’t mean to start an argument. I’m just confused,” Pincus said. “I don’t think Meadows can help us one bit. But that’s only my opinion.”
“Opinions are like assholes,” Nelson said. “Everybody’s got one, and they all stink.”
Back at the office, while Pincus carefully typed out a vandalism report about the Meadows residence, Nelson tried Stella one more time.
“Mr. Meadows will be out of the office for several weeks,” she repeated loyally.
“This is a police emergency, ma’am. Where can I reach him? It’s very urgent,” Nelson said ominously.
“God, I don’t know, really.” Stella cartwheeled like a gull in a hurricane. “Maybe his parents…no, his girlfriend. Try the girlfriend, Officer.”
“What is her name?”
“I don’t remember.”
“It’s vital, miss!”
There was a pause. “It starts with a T or M. She’s a pilot of some kind.”
Nelson adopted the tone of a patient kindergarten teacher. “Do you have a phone number for the lady?”
“Yes, yes,” she said. “Sometimes Mr. Meadows stays at her place. Here it is.” She read off a number.
Nelson hung up and dialed, hung up again when a man in a Seventy-ninth Street massage parlor answered the phone. Stella had screwed up.
The detective scribbled variations of the original number, until he could think of no more. Using the cross-indexed city directory, Nelson matched numbers with names: G. Stein, Abraham Jones, Mark M. Flanigan, M. C. Betancourt…
Nelson studied the last name. Latin. The use of initials usually indicated a single woman, alone. The phone company was very diligent about discouraging obscene calls; genderless initials instead of a name was one sure way.
What grabbed Nelson’s eye was the parenthetical business identification: (Pres., CAN Airways). The number was almost the same, 724 instead of 742. Stella’s error was one of simple transposition, if this was the right woman.
The phone number belonged to a condominium on Key Biscayne. Nelson slipped away without a word to Pincus, who was still perched studiously over one of the secretary’s typewriters.
The building superintendent at Terry’s condo told Nelson he had not seen the busy pilot or her thin, quiet boyfriend for some time. When Nelson asked to inspect the apartment, the manager reluctantly accompanied him up the elevator and as far as