Kwik Krimes by Otto Penzle

Author:Otto Penzle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781612183008
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
Published: 2013-08-20T04:00:00+00:00

Carolina Garcia-Aguilera

“You want me to find out what, exactly, you did on Halloween night?” I was slightly hungover—my longtime boyfriend, Miami homicide detective Oliver Gutierrez, and I had partied a bit too much the night before, and the two Cokes and four Advils I’d had for breakfast had not kicked in yet. “This past Halloween, on Monday, two nights ago?”

The man sitting across from me kept shifting around in the worn brown leather chair where my clients sat. I normally only took referrals, but business was slow, real slow, so I agreed to meet with him. Over the phone he had said he had found me on Google when searching for a private investigator in Miami. Although he was casually dressed in jeans, short-sleeved cotton shirt, and sneakers, his short haircut and erect bearing told me he either was or had been in the military.

“Well, you’re a private investigator, right? On your website, Marisol Martinez Investigations, you list all the services you provide, and one of them is that you conduct discreet investigations. I need discretion—lots of it.” He looked me straight in the eyes as he spoke, almost as if he was challenging me, sending a slight shiver down my back.

When he had called to make the appointment, he had given his name as Tom Smith, but I would have bet one of the three twenty-dollar bills that I had in my wallet that that was not it. Well, at least he hadn’t chosen John Smith, as others had done before him in the fifteen years that I’d worked as a private investigator.

“It’s kind of embarrassing, really.” Tom looked down at his lap, then, a minute later, began speaking slowly, the words coming out as if it pained him to get them out. I was used to that, since individuals never came to see me for happy reasons. “I’m not from here—I live in Tampa—but one of my buddies, Scott, who moved down here a couple of years ago—we were in the marines together, served in Iraq—invited me down for the weekend, and Monday being Halloween, he convinced me to stay over, that Halloween on South Beach was wild and crazy, and I couldn’t miss seeing it.”

“Yes, Halloween on South Beach is crazy,” I agreed.

“Well, my friend insisted that we had to wear costumes; it would be more fun that way. The plan was that two women, ones he had met here recently, would be joining us.” Tom took a deep breath. “Scott got us costumes—he went as Dracula, and I was a pirate. The costumes were pretty good. I even had a real knife, too, very sharp, so sharp that I had to be careful holding it. The girls—Tanya and Maria were their names—went dressed as baby sheep. They looked really cute—I remember that. We met at a bar on Lincoln Road and started drinking right away. It was very crowded.”

Having myself celebrated Halloween on Lincoln Road several times, I could easily picture the scene. Tom looked so miserable that I felt the need to help him a bit.

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