Quarterback Trap (Carlos McCrary PI Book 3) Page 3
Three other elevators arrived and departed. Graciela sipped champagne. The couple in the blue tuxedo and blue cocktail dress entered the picture and waited near elevator one, arms wrapped around each other. The green light went on above elevator four. Blue Tuxedo took his date by the arm and steered her toward the elevator. Graciela peered into the elevator for a second, then followed them through the open doors.
“She made sure Black Tuxedo and Crooked Nose were in the car before she got in,” Snoop said. “The three of them planned that meeting.”
“That’s right,” I said, “and they went to an awful lot of trouble not to do it in a public place.”
I pushed the stop button and sank to one knee. “You’re too old to squat, aren’t you, Snoop?”
“I can do everything you can do, bud, just not as fast. But since you volunteered, be my guest.”
“Here’s the mark where she caught her heel in the elevator door.”
“Like in the security video.” Snoop released the stop button and followed me into the elevator lobby.
We examined the floor all around.
“She got off the elevator, suitcase in her left hand, and walked to that metal door with her right hand inside her purse. Maybe she was reaching for the key fob.” I mimicked the motion we had watched on the video. “She bumped the crash bar with her hip and twisted around to back through the door…” I bumped the door like Graciela had and backed through it into the parking garage. “…and vanished.”
Snoop followed me to the parking deck. “What kind of first-class hotel doesn’t have security cameras in the parking garage?”
“The Port City Palace kind. No sense complaining, Snoop. We work with what we have.”
I surveyed the parking deck. “I don’t know whether to hope her car is still here or whether it’s gone. What’s that?” I pointed at something on the concrete deck.
Snoop walked over and squatted in the driveway. “My squat’s not really broken.” He grinned at me and pulled on a rubber glove. “It’s a squashed key fob. Probably somebody drove over it. We can fingerprint it to test if it’s hers.” He picked up the fob. “This has a rental car company key ring on it. If I can make out…” He moved a few feet to hold the crushed plastic under an overhead light. “I can read the license number.” He showed it to me.
“Good work.” I glanced around. “There, the red Mustang convertible.” Walking over, I slipped a small Maglite from my pocket. When I shined it in the window, I noticed something unusual. “It’s unlocked.” Opening the door, I tried unsuccessfully to squeeze into the driver’s seat. “This seat is positioned where a five-foot-seven woman like Graciela would have it.” I moved the seat all the way back, sat down, and inhaled. “That’s the same perfume I smelled in Bob’s closet in their hotel suite.”
I found a button on the instrument panel and popped the trunk. “Check the trunk. I’ll examine the rental contract.”
Seconds later Snoop returned. “Trunk’s empty.”
I handed Snoop a thick cardboard folder. “We won’t need the fingerprints from the key fob. These rental papers were in the glove box. This is her car all right. You’ll just have to get another key fob at the car rental office.”
“I’ll head out to the airport. Maybe we’ll learn something from the GPS after I get the new fob.”
“I’ll pay another visit to the security office. Maybe I can find something useful from the garage cashier videos.”
A green Mercedes eased into the picture and rolled to a stop at the garage exit. The time indicator showed 03:33:45. The driver’s window slid down, and he reached his arm out to the exit console and swiped a keycard across the reader.
“Freeze that, Wally. Now zoom in. The driver’s wearing a tuxedo. Zoom in on the French cuffs. I want to examine the cufflink.”
Wally expanded the picture until the cufflink showed in blurry detail. “A lion’s head, maybe? You want a picture, Chuck?”
“Yeah. It looks like the cufflinks the guy in the tuxedo on the elevator was wearing. Save a jpeg copy on this.” I gave Wally a stick drive, which he inserted into the computer. “Now pan over to the windshield sticker and get me a print.”
Wally focused on the corner of the windshield. “That Mercedes is from Mango Island.”
“Yeah. Now switch to the camera at the rear. Zoom in on the license plate. Print and save that to the stick drive also, please.”
Wally clicked the keyboard. “Done…and done.” The picture moved again.
The yellow-striped gate rose and the Mercedes glided forward.
“Freeze that. Let’s have the front view. Zoom in on the men in the front seat. Can you enhance the picture?”
Wally moved his shoulders back and straightened in his chair. “I can make this computer do everything but brew coffee.” The screen transformed into close-ups of the two men. “Those are the same guys who were on the elevator with Graciela.”
“Yep. Let’s print and save that one too.”
“Right,” Wally said. The Mercedes moved out of the frame.
“Do those consoles at the entrances and exits record parking charges from the electronic coding on the hotel room keycards?”
“Yeah, sure. That’s how we charge guests for parking.”
“Which hotel room was the Mercedes registered in?”
Wally moved the mouse and glanced at a second monitor. “Room 3406.”
“Just like we thought.”
An ancient white Ford Aerostar van entered the picture and approached the garage exit.
“Freeze it there. Advance a couple more frames. There. Switch to the rear view and zoom in on the license plate.”
“Hey, those are New Jersey plates.”
“Lots of Jets fans in Jersey,” I said. “That’s where they actually play their home games. I need another picture.”
Wally did something and the image expanded. “Shazam.” He ran the video again. “Those rear windows are tinted so dark I can’t see inside.”
“Yeah. The back could be full of people and you couldn’t tell at night with the reflections of the lights.”
The van stopped at the exit console and the window rolled down. An arm in a dark T-shirt swiped a keycard and the gate opened.
I tapped the screen. “There’s one man in the front seat. What keycard did he use?”
Wally consulted the other monitor. “Room 3405.”
“Crooked Nose and the man in the tuxedo were in the Mercedes. Obviously, they had other men working this. Let’s have a close-up of the driver.”
Wally leaned toward the screen. “That’s useless.” The driver wore a New York Jets hat that obscured his face.
“Not quite. Get me a picture of his Jets T-shirt.”
“Right.” Wally ran the videos for the next fifteen minutes, but no other vehicle left the garage.
“What time did the van enter the garage?”
Wally consulted his computer. “It didn’t enter on that keycard. The driver must have taken a parking ticket like a non-guest.” He scanned more video files. “Here it is. It entered at 1:26 a.m. and the driver took a paper ticket.”
“Yeah, but it used a hotel keycard, room 3405, to exit. That means the driver met with Crooked Nose.”
“Let’s get a better view of the driver when he entered.”
Wally leaned back in his chair. “Would you look at that? Two men in the front seat, both in black Jets T-shirts and hats.”
“Neither of those two guys drove the van out. The driver who exited wore a different Jets shirt. The two guys in the front must have been in the back when the van left.”
I knew now that Graciela had been in the back with them. But why?
THREE
Bob Martinez gazed up from a table for two in the back corner of the hotel steakhouse and stood. “Thanks for coming, Eighty-Eight. Have a seat.”
I shook hands and slid out a chair. I nodded to the server who had shown me to the table. “I’ll have what he’s having.” I glanced at Bob’s food. “But one steak, not two.”
Bob waited for the server to leave. “What have you learned so far?”
“Plenty.” I handed the Jets quarterback the pictures one at a time and briefed him on each one.
Bob held one picture up. “Who are these guys in the elevator?”
“I hoped you might recognize them.”
“Never saw them before. What about that XVVP corporation that rented their hotel rooms?”
“XPVV,” I corrected. “Don’t know yet. Snoop is tracing the corporation. It doesn’t show up on the Florida Secretary of State’s website, so it’s out of state. Snoop will search until he finds something, but there are lots of states to research. He’ll begin with New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. Lots of corporations are chartered in Delaware, even those that do business elsewhere. We should have info tomorrow.”
“Can’t he research those websites tonight?”
“Snoop went to the airport to get a new key fob for Gracie’s car,” I said. “It’s after hours on a Sunday, so it won’t be easy, and he’s gotta sleep sometime. Tell you what: I’ve got another operative—a computer geek who’s the best in the business. He specializes in rush jobs and sleeps at odd hours, but he’s expensive. You want me to sic him on the XPVV Corporation tonight?”
“Gracie is missing; the money doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t want you to be surprised when this case gets real expensive, real fast. I need a retainer.”
Bob pulled out his wallet. “Of course. This has morphed into a bigger project than we thought. You don’t need to carry me on the cuff. Would ten thousand be enough for right now?”
I lowered my voice. “Don’t tell me you carry that much money around with you.”
Bob laughed. “Of course not. Mamacita didn’t raise no stupid children. I carry a couple of blank checks for emergencies.”
“Then make it for twenty thousand.”
Bob filled out the check and pushed it across the table.
I stuck it in my pocket. “Thanks. I’ll let you know if I need more. If I don’t use it all, I’ll refund the rest.”
Bob swallowed a bite of steak. “Amigo, I would trust you with my life, so I trust you with my money. You don’t need to explain. Do whatever it takes to find Gracie.”
“Right. The video showed Gracie reaching for her key fob when she got to the parking garage, which means she intended to drive somewhere.” I fished one picture from the stack in front of him. “She carried this suitcase.”
Bob frowned at the picture. “That’s one of her matching bags. She uses that one to carry extra clothes to a photo shoot. That must be the one that wasn’t in the suite.”
“You have any idea where she was going?”
Bob shook his head. “Did you find anything in her car?”
“No, but without the key fob, we couldn’t start it. Snoop should have the new key fob later tonight. Maybe the GPS will tell us something—if she used it.”
“Gracie loves gadgets. I guarantee you she used it. I know she visited her mom and dad.”
“She must know the way to her parents’ house.”
“Yeah, but it’s over thirty miles to Little Havana. She would have used the GPS to tell her the best way to get there in case there was a traffic delay on I-95.”
“You know any place else she would have gone?”
“She had an appointment with a lawyer about our prenuptial agreement, and she shops anytime we travel together.” He made a weird face. “Boy, does she ever love to shop.”
“She dropped the key fob and it got run over. Look at this picture.” I thumbed through the stack of prints. “Something surprised her to make her drop it. She had already unlocked the car with the fob. Maybe somebody ambushed her and pushed her into that old Aerostar. The Aerostar followed the green Mercedes out of the garage. Remember, there were at least three men in that van.”
“You got an ID on the van yet?”
“We’re working on it, but the New Jersey DMV records can’t be searched online and their office won’t open until tomorrow morning. We may not have it until noon, maybe later. You know how DMVs can be.”
Bob grunted.
“We might get the DMV to move faster if I asked one of my Port City cop buddies to run it.”
“No cops. No FBI. No nobody other than you and your people. Keep this on the down low.”
“Suit yourself.”
Why was Bob so averse to using the cops? I had already found enough evidence to convince the PCPD to open a missing person case. And the fact that the Aerostar had New Jersey plates made this an interstate crime, so the FBI could easily take jurisdiction, even if it hadn’t been a kidnapping.
My meal arrived. I waited until the server left. “Gracie took an envelope from one of the guys in the elevator, and her body language indicated she knew them, or at least the guy in the tuxedo. The two men left the garage in the Mercedes right before the van did. I traced the Mercedes license number. It belongs to XPVV Corporation. It has a Mango Island resident sticker on the windshield.” I showed him the picture.
“That’s great. Call Mango Island and ask them whose car it is.”
“It’s not that simple, Bob. The address on the car registration is a Port City post office box. I’m not a cop anymore. People don’t talk to me unless they feel like it, and Mango Island—the entire island—is a private club. I know from experience that they won’t share any information without a warrant. Liability issues and such. This is not a police missing person investigation—at your request. I can play the sympathy card, but that’s the only influence I have. You won’t let me tell anyone she’s missing.”
“Don’t tell anybody yet, Eighty-Eight. You’ve made progress, and it’s not even twenty-four hours. Keep this on the down low for now, okay? If you hit a dead-end, we’ll think again about the missing person option.”
I stabbed a bite of steak. “You’re the client. It’s your money and your fiancée, but, amigo, you’re making me play with one arm tied behind my back.”
I punched the start button and the red Mustang’s instrument panel lit up.
“The rental contract says the car had 7,826 miles at the time Gracie rented it. The odometer shows 8,004 now, so she drove…178 miles.”
I tapped the GPS screen. “Here’s the recently found list. Judging from the distances of these addresses from here, I’d guess these last five are Gracie’s, maybe the sixth one too. The seventh one is Disney World. That’s over two hundred miles away, and she drove only 178 miles, so that would be from the previous driver.”
I scrolled up. “Write those addresses down, Snoop. I’ll check the last one first—oh wait, that’s this hotel. She must have entered it to find her way here from the previous address.”
After I entered the previous address on my cellphone, a map popped up on the screen. “That’s a rough part of town. Bob was afraid Graciela was doing drugs again. She could score some in that neighborhood.”
“If she did, then what did the mook in the black tuxedo pass her in the elevator?”
“Don’t know yet. Cash, maybe?”
I entered the next address and studied the map on the screen. “This is a residential neighborhood in Miami’s Little Havana.”
“Maybe she has family there.”
“Her parents. She was born in Miami.” I keyed the next address. “That’s Vicky Ramirez’s office building. At dinner a couple of hours ago, Bob said that Gracie had an appointment with her lawyer. Could it be Vicky?”
“Vicky’s firm does family law and prenuptial agreements,” Snoop said.
“Of course, it’s a big building. Vicky’s firm isn’t the only law firm in that building.”
“What’s the fourth destination?”
“It’s in Naples.” I punched the address into my phone. “It’s a hotel. Naples is over 100 miles from here. Gracie drove only 178, so she didn’t drive there.”
“Why would she enter the address if she wasn’t going there?”
“Lots of reasons. She may have wanted to know how far it was, or she was thinking of going there but changed her mind.” I shrugged. “Read the address before that and you’ll spot something strange.”
Snoop examined the GPS screen. “175 Beachline Causeway. That doesn’t make sense, there’s nothing on the Beachline. It just runs across Seeti Bay from downtown to Port City Beach.”
“I don’t recognize the address either. We’ll follow her GPS log backwards and research them all.”
I slipped the Mustang into reverse and backed from the parking spot.
“You don’t have the hotel keycard for this car.”
“I’ll use the paper ticket I took for our car when we came in. We’ll get another ticket when we bring this car back.”
We exited and I stopped at the curb by a fire hydrant. I selected the trip log from the GPS screen and zoomed in until the display showed individual streets.
“All those blue lines loop back to the Port City Palace. How you gonna tell which way she drove?”
“I find the last place she went on the GPS map.” I swiped the map screen, following the blue line.
I cruised the block at idle speed. “Notice anything suspicious, Snoop?”
My old buddy scoffed. “I don’t notice anything that isn’t suspicious. Check out that guy in the hunting vest. He must carry his inventory in his pockets.”
A young black man wearing a Port City Pilots baseball hat and three-hundred-dollar sneakers stood under a streetlight near the entrance to the alley, thumbs hooked in his yellow hunting vest. His pants hung below his buttocks, revealing dark grey underwear. His eyes widened in recognition of the red convertible we drove. A gold tooth gleamed in his smile.
I slowed to a stop and pressed the button to lower the passenger window.
Pilots Fan sidled over to the curb. He leaned down to peer through the window. “You lookin’ to do some business, my man?” he said to Snoop.