Island Storms Read online

  “Which mayor and how is that our fault?”

  “The county mayor. He’s blaming us because it was caused by gawkers watching the filming of that new soft drink commercial.”

  Molly hadn’t expected sympathy from Vince. The man had the sensitivity of a coconut shell. She had accepted that within a week after taking the job with the Miami/Dade Film Commission. He had one agenda in life, his own. Unless she’d been personally murdered in her sleep, he didn’t think it should interfere with her work. It was pointless to belabor her own lousy morning.

  “The sexist ad with all the women in bikinis?” she asked dutifully.

  Vince glared at her. His own opinion of all the bouncing boobs was much more liberal. She was surprised he hadn’t been out there gawking himself. Then, again, the producer had left a copy of the storyboards with him so he could indulge his fantasies at his leisure.

  “That’s the one,” he confirmed. “I’m not sure if he was more upset about the slowdown on the causeway or because his view was blocked. On top of that Larry Milsap called. He needs the permits to shoot in Crandon Park no later than three. He’s running over budget and they want him to finish up by the weekend. I can’t find the damned things on your desk. I told him you’d run them over the minute you got in. I expected you hours ago,” he added accusingly.

  Molly lost patience. It rarely took longer than five minutes with Vince to accomplish that. “And I expected to be here hours ago. I was detained by a murder. I would have called, but they wouldn’t let me near a phone. I guess it’s only the accused who gets to make a phone call.” Okay, so she was stretching the truth a little. Without missing a beat, she added, “I sent those permits to Larry last week. He’s lost them again. I’ll get him a new set.”

  Vince’s irritated expression faltered. “Forget the permits for a minute. What’s all this about a murder? Run it by me again.”

  The only thing Vince loved more than seducing women was gossip and intrigue. For the next minute or two, she had him right where she wanted him. “Only if you’ll get me a very large cup of very strong coffee.”

  He didn’t waste time protesting that serving coffee was beneath him. He grabbed the mug from her desk and filled it from the pot sitting on the credenza at the back of the conference room. “Drink. Then talk. Fast. We don’t have all morning.”

  “Your concern is touching.”

  “Okay. Okay. I’m concerned. That goes without saying.”

  “Vince, almost every kind, compassionate thought you ever have, assuming you have any, goes without saying. Some of us would occasionally prefer to hear the words spoken aloud.”

  He blinked. “You’re upset.” He seemed startled by the concept. Since flashes of such insight were rare with him, she could understand why.

  “Bingo,” she confirmed.

  “At me?”

  “Among others.”

  “Why?”

  “Vince, I started my day by discovering that our condo president had been stabbed in the back.”

  “So what? I thought you said he was a pompous ass. Isn’t he the one who dug up all the rare tropical plants and replaced them with impatiens?”

  “Please don’t share what I thought of his gardening taste. At this point, it might be considered a motive.”

  “They don’t know who did it?”

  “They don’t know who. They don’t know why. The only thing they seem to know for sure is that I found the body and that he was killed with one of my knives.”

  “Holy shit!”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “You want to go home?”

  This time it was Molly’s turn to gape in astonishment. Vincent was not in the habit of doling out leave time. “No, thanks,” she said, wondering if she should have taken it just to establish a precedent.

  “Oh.” He hesitated. “Then I guess you might as well take care of those permits.”

  She sighed. “Right away. By the way, if you’d get Jeannette to do the filing she was hired to do, you’d be able to find the permits yourself.”

  “I refuse to tangle with that woman.”

  Molly barely suppressed a grin. The Haitian clerk absolutely adored muttering imprecations that could be interpreted as curses. Vincent was convinced if she aimed one at him it would forever limit his prowess as a stud. He hadn’t issued a direct order to Jeannette since her first week. When it suited him, he claimed it was Molly’s job to run the office. It did not suit him, however, to pay her accordingly. Therefore, it frequently didn’t suit her to run the office. Meanwhile the filing was stacking up.

  Molly found the permits for Larry Milsap’s Palm Productions and grabbed her purse. She stuck her head in Vince’s office. “I’m off to see Milsap. If he calls, tell him…”

  Guessing the snippy comment that was to come, Vince substituted his own more politically sound version. “I’ll tell him we’re absolutely thrilled to be of service. The man spends three hundred fifty thousand dollars a year on production in the county. Even if he wastes a small portion of our time, it’s worth it.”

  “Then let him waste your time.” She held out the permits.

  “I have meetings all afternoon.”

  “You mean you’re playing golf with some Hollywood producer again, hoping he’ll let you on his set to ogle his starlets.”

  “I don’t ogle.”

  “Like hell,” she muttered, turning away to grab the ringing phone. “Yes.”

  “Molly, what the hell’s going on?” her ex-husband demanded.

  Molly had to swallow a groan. The day had just gone from bad to worse. When Hal DeWitt had that tone in his voice, it meant nothing but trouble.

  “Could you be more specific?” she replied cautiously.

  “I just heard about the murder. It’s all over the goddamned radio. I told you moving there was a mistake, but would you listen? No, you had to prove yourself. Well, I’m telling you now, I want my son out of there.”

  “Our son,” she reminded him furiously. “Brian is our son, though frankly, there are times when I regret your role in that more than I can tell you.”

  “I’m picking him up today.”

  “You do and I’ll slap you with a court order so fast it’ll make your head spin.” Her own head was pounding. There hadn’t been one conversation since she and Hal divorced that he hadn’t found some way to let her know how inept he thought she was, how unfit a mother. He’d threatened her with a custody battle so often, she should be used to it by now, but she wasn’t. Even though she knew rationally that he didn’t have a shred of evidence on his side and that the accusations were the unjustified slurs of a sick, pitiful man who thrived on demeaning her, it didn’t stop her from trembling with fear.

  “I have to go. We’ll discuss this sometime when you can be more rational about it,” she said. Her voice was calm and deliberate, but inside she quaked as she replaced the phone in its cradle.

  “You okay?” Vince asked.

  “Just fine,” she snapped, turning away and straight into the arms of Detective O’Hara. Again. She took a deep breath before meeting his eyes.

  “Running away?” he inquired.

  At the moment, the idea of fleeing held tremendous appeal. “No,” she said with a sigh. “Just doing my job.”

  “Which is?”

  “At the moment it’s delivering permits to an irresponsible producer.”

  “Mind if I tag along?”

  “I thought you had a murderer to catch.”

  “I do. I told you I’d be in touch.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you to show up quite this soon. I’m flattered that you’re willing to take time out of your busy investigation schedule to be with me. Wasn’t it just a couple of hours ago that you told me to stay far, far away from this case?”

  “Something’s come up. Could we do this
someplace private?” he suggested, apparently catching sight of the fascinated gleam in Vince’s eyes.

  “Your car or mine? I have to get these permits out to Crandon Park before Vince ruptures a blood vessel.”

  “Before we lose thousands of dollars in revenue in this county,” Vince corrected, not bothering to hide his eavesdropping.

  “You tell me where else Larry Milsap is likely to shoot a commercial on Miami tourist attractions,” she snapped back. “Never mind. Come on, Detective.”

  “I had someone drop me off. You drive,” he said. “Maybe I’ll catch you speeding.”

  “Don’t tell me homicide detectives give out tickets in their spare time.”

  “Don’t test me. Actually, I was thinking of it more as a test of your moral character.”

  Molly glared at him, but led the way to her prized white convertible, one of her rare indulgences. When she’d turned onto Miami Avenue, she asked, “Since when did my morals come into question?”

  “Since I found out that the knife used to kill Mr. Winecroft is covered with just one set of fingerprints. Since you admit owning the knife and bringing it last night, I think we can assume for the moment that they’re probably yours.”

  There was a sudden sinking sensation in the pit of Molly’s stomach. The implications were not heartening. “Just one set? You’re sure? Maybe the murderer’s are blurred.”

  “One set. We’re going to need yours to match them up in the lab, of course.”

  “But his wife used that knife to cut the cake last night.”

  “No prints, unless you’d washed that knife clean and carried it downstairs wrapped in a towel. Did you?”

  “Of course not. Dammit, I watched Drucilla cut that cake.”

  “Did she wear gloves?”

  “Look,” she said impatiently, “I know society types tend to dress up for all occasions, but I can assure you that little white gloves would have been out of place at the bridge table. Someone would have noticed. Besides, how would she have handled the cards?”

  “How about those clear plastic throwaway gloves used by kitchen help?”

  “I didn’t see any. You don’t seriously think I killed him, do you?” She was not proud of the little catch in her voice. She really did not want to be a serious suspect in this case—or any other, for that matter.

  “Let’s just say I’m confused. I have a theory I’d like to throw out.” He glanced at the speedometer as she approached the Rickenbacker toll booths. Molly automatically lifted her foot off the accelerator as she guided the car into the emblem lane that provided access for residents who paid an annual fee. Then she noted that she was going only five miles an hour anyway. He grinned. “Guilt is a fascinating emotion, don’t you think?”

  “I am not guilty, either of speeding or murder.” She crept through the lane to make her point.

  “Just listen to my theory. What if Mrs. Winecroft used the knife to cut the cake, then wiped it clean. Her prints would be gone.”

  “But so would mine.”

  “Not if you came back later and used the knife to stab her husband.”

  The words landed as if they’d been dropped from the top of a thirty-story high rise. Inane individually, together they packed quite a punch, the sort of punch that could send her to prison. She was still reeling as she pulled to the edge of the road and hit the brakes. She whirled on him furiously.

  “That’s a really crummy theory. Why the hell would I do that? I don’t have a motive. I even won the damned bridge game.”

  “That is a problem,” he admitted.

  “Why couldn’t she have wiped it clean and then used the knife?”

  “Why would she bother to wipe off your fingerprints and leave her own?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. You’re so great at coming up with theories, you figure it out.”

  “I’m working on a couple of ideas.”

  “How lovely. Would you care to share them with me?”

  “Not yet.”

  She scowled at him. “We are talking about my motives here, aren’t we? Don’t you think I have a right to hear your speculations on the subject?”

  “Sure. Later, after I’ve tested them on a few other people and we have those fingerprints ID’d positively as yours.”

  Molly glanced at the stunningly blue water on either side of the causeway and tried to grasp some of the serenity the sight always brought her. Instead, this gnawing sensation seemed to be eating a hole in the pit of her stomach. “You really know how to ruin a perfectly beautiful day, don’t you?”

  “Most people would have considered the day ruined the minute they found the body. Unless, of course, you were glad to see the man dead.” He fixed her with a penetrating gaze that could have drawn a confession from the most professional criminal. She wasn’t even amateur. It rattled the dickens out of her.

  “How did you feel about Mr. Winecroft?” he asked.

  Molly recalled her very recent conversation with Vince and decided Michael O’Hara would not have to use thumbscrews to get her boss to share her views. “I was not overly fond of some of his decisions,” she said cautiously.

  “Such as?”

  “I hated the impatiens.”

  “The what?”

  “All those little pink and white flowers.”

  His lips twitched. Apparently he didn’t view that as a motive for murder any more than she did. “And?” he prodded.

  “You don’t think those crummy little flowers provide a powerful motive? They wilt in the heat. They look thoroughly bedraggled by noon.”

  “I’m sure that’s distressing, but there must be something more.”

  “Okay, there are the assessments. They keep going up. I know the cost of living is going up, too, but there’s been a lot of talk of mismanagement. The owners will end up paying, no matter who’s at fault. That’s tough for the people on fixed incomes.”

  “Even if they’re fixed in the millionaire range?”

  “Not everyone in that building is filthy rich. Just as an example, if I hadn’t sold my house, in which I had a fair amount of equity, I couldn’t have made enough of a down payment to whittle the mortgage down to a size I can manage.”

  “So if the assessments go up, your apartment’s at risk?”

  Oh, hell. Nice work, Molly. She had just provided herself with a motive. “I really shouldn’t have said that, right?”

  He grinned. “An attorney would have advised against it. However, the fact that you did suggests to me that you’re not a hardened killer.”

  “And the person who did this is?”

  “A killer has to be pretty motivated, either by anger or a long-standing and deep-seated grudge to stab someone. It’s not a clean method of killing. Women generally prefer poison or even a dainty but deadly shot.”

  “So I’m off the hook?”

  He grinned. “Not entirely. I wouldn’t leave town, if I were you.”

  “You will let me know when you’re convinced, I’m sure.”

  “Absolutely. Until then I think you can expect to be seeing a lot of me.”

  If almost any other drop-dead-gorgeous man had said that to her, she might have been thrilled. Knowing that this man considered her capable of murder more or less took the edge off her anticipation.

  CHAPTER 4

  Molly DeWitt, onetime debutante, a murder suspect? All her life she had fought against being categorized as some frivolous airhead just because her parents had insisted on putting her through the tortures of a debutante ball. Compared to being a murder suspect, however, those days had been heavenly.

  Reluctantly, she tried the suspect label on for size. It was ludicrous, but there was no denying that the evidence could be interpreted that way if another candidate didn’t turn up. Even though Michael O’Hara seemed competent and she’d been taught
—naively, perhaps—that the police were friends of the innocent, she wasn’t about to take any chances. She’d better find the real murderer herself. The alternatives, including turning her son over to Hal DeWitt to raise while she went to jail, were unacceptable.

  Highly motivated by the time she dropped Detective O’Hara at the Key Biscayne police station and undaunted by his repeated warnings to stay out of it, she planned her own informal investigation. She would interrogate every one of those present last night, starting this afternoon.

  She made a U-turn on Crandon, heading toward home. With the car phone tucked on her shoulder, she punched in Vince’s beeper number. She reached him on the third green at the Biltmore golf course. Obviously he wasn’t worried about things back at the office. He figured carrying his cellular phone in his golf bag constituted working.

  “What is it? I’m about to birdie this hole, Molly. Make it fast.”

  “I need to take the rest of the day off after all.”

  “Sure. Whatever,” he muttered distractedly. He was probably on his knees sighting the curve of the green.

  Molly started to hang up, when her words apparently registered.

  “Hey, wait a second. Molly!”

  She took her time responding, while he bellowed her name a few more times. “What?” she said finally.

  “You’ll be in tomorrow, though, right? We have that meeting at ten with the producer from Paramount. You have all the details.”

  She always had all the details. Vince’s idea of being prepared consisted of putting the appointments on her calendar. “I could bring you up to speed just in case I can’t make it,” she suggested generously. “It wouldn’t take more than a half hour or so.” She enjoyed envisioning the ashen hue beneath Vince’s tan as he measured the distance from ball to cup and saw the chance to play it out evaporating.

  “No, no, I want you there. Gotta go, Molly.” He hung up quickly, obviously afraid she might start briefing him right then and there.

  As she turned into the palm-lined Ocean Manor entrance, she saw that police cars still filled the circular driveway in front of the gleaming white-and-glass building. Architecturally undistinctive, it was typical of dozens of beachfront condos along the Florida coast. Clean lines, light colors, classy if unimaginative decor.